Sunday, May 31, 2015

Best train ride ever

Next month I have a wedding to attend in Alaska. As part of that trip, I will be taking a train to Denali National Park, where the wedding is to be held. While looking online at train schedules and trying to decide which ticket to purchase, my mind was taken back to the best train ride in video games, which is found in Uncharted 2. For those who have never played Uncharted 2, the train sequence has the lead character Nathan Drake leaping onto a moving train and then slowly working his way from the back of the train to the front in an effort to rescue one of the other characters. While Drake slowly makes his way forward, fighting baddies along the way, the train rambles through the valleys of Nepal, passes through a long tunnel, and then emerges up in the high mountains of the Himalayas. It’s the sort of thing you would expect out of summer Hollywood blockbuster and quite satisfying to play through. Hopefully my train ride in Alaska is nothing like it.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Testing the Waters of Mobile Gaming


A bit over two weeks ago, while sitting in the Hartford, Connecticut, airport, I made my first foray into the world of mobile gaming. Even though I’ve had a smartphone for a while now, I had never actually played a game on my phone up until that point. It’s not that I’m one of those PC or console elitists who view mobile gaming as trash, but whenever I’m in a situation where it would make sense to get the phone out and play, I usually prefer to read a book, get caught up on the current week’s edition of The Economist, or browse online articles. This time, however, I decided it was finally time to give mobile gaming a try. The specific game I would play would be Mass Effect Infiltrator, referred to hereafter as just Infiltrator. I had gotten a code for a free download of Infiltrator earlier in the year and had been meaning to play it for some time, and with my flight delayed due to a fuel leak on the tarmac (the first time that’s ever happened to me) I wasn’t going to be getting on my plane any time soon. And so, with the opportunity right in front of me, I got the phone out, launched the game and played for the next hour and a half.  Over the following days I put in a few more short sessions and at this point I feel ready to supply a few thoughts on it.

As a game, Infiltrator is ok but not great. It is a cover-based, third person shooter in which you blast your way from area to area, earning credits along the way which you can use to unlock and upgrade weapons and abilities. The touchscreen controls work just well enough but are nowhere nearly as accurate or precise as an actual controller or a mouse and keyboard. Consequently, there were a number of times where the game misinterpreted what I was trying to do and I ended up dying when I felt I shouldn’t have. On the plus side, the sound and visuals of Infiltrator are quite good. Granted, this is my first mobile game, so I don’t have a personal point of comparison, but it’s certainly better looking than other mobile games I’ve seen people playing. Sadly, Infiltrator’s storyline is razor thin, which is disappointing because the mainline Mass Effect games have such a heavy emphasis on story and character development. You learn next to nothing about the character you play as and nothing that happens feels particularly meaningful. When I stopped playing Infiltrator I had overall enjoyed my time with it, but I wasn’t eager to play it again.

At this point I suppose the question is whether or not I’ll being doing any more mobile gaming in the future. The answer is yes, but in very small portions. Having games on my phone would certainly be a fun diversion, but I do enough console gaming that I don’t really need additional video game entertainment in my life. Times like the one I had at the airport are also among the ones that I am able to get serious reading done and in the grand scheme of things I think I’m better off sticking with that rather than playing games on my phone. I can see the appeal of mobile gaming and I have nothing against it, but committing to it just doesn’t make sense for me at this time.
 

Monday, May 25, 2015

The Bolder Boulder


Today, May 25, is Memorial Day. It’s also the day of the annual Bolder Boulder, a 10k running race that I’ve participated in the last few years. I’m not a runner, or really anything that could be construed as an athlete, but each year I hit the pavement and run the race.

The first year I participated in the Bolder Boulder was my senior year of college. One of the projects for one of my classes was to do something that I would normally never do, and seeing as how I hate running, the Bolder Boulder seemed like a good fit. I also had a few friends who had run the race over the previous years and from talking to them I knew the Bolder Boulder could be done casually, so there was no need feel bad about being a slow runner. Over a period of about two months prior to the race I trained my unwilling body as much as it would allow me to, and on the day of the race I finished with a time of 75 minutes, which is nothing to brag about, but for me I was just pleased that I finished the race without stopping to walk.

With the class project completed and my distaste for running still intact, it would be reasonable to expect that my first Bolder Boulder would also be my last, but it wasn’t. Having run it once, I knew there was something undeniably special about the race. As the nation’s largest Memorial Day event, you’re running along with tens of thousands of other people as what feels like the entire city is cheering you on. Bands are scattered along the racecourse, people set up slip-n-slides on their yards and the usual Boulder wackiness is on display. One year I got a cupcake from a guy who was handing out cupcakes to passing runners. As it turns out, it is very hard to eat a cupcake while running. Silly stuff like that and all the positive energy surrounding the race are much of what keeps me participating year after year. I also need the exercise.

The Bolder Boulder is now an annual tradition for me. I’m still not a runner, and my body has made it clear that I never will be, but you’ll see me coursing through the city this year and each coming year that I’m able to.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The Countdown Clock


Within the next few days, I will be announcing my resignation from the company that I currently work for. The decision to leave the company was made many months ago, but it’s always felt so far away, until now, that is. Over those months I have felt like there was big countdown clock on the wall, slowly ticking down to both this announcement and my last day of work. Now the clock has finally reached the point where each passing day feels like a big step closer to my departure. Each day I walk around the office, knowing what’s coming but having to keep it a secret.  I’ve been sitting on this bombshell for a while, but now the nervous anticipation is really building. It’s close, so very close.

Wait, what am I talking about? Here I am, writing about a routine job departure as if it is some cataclysmic event. There’s really nothing special here. This isn’t my first time leaving a job and it won’t be the last either. There is no clock on the wall and my company will be just fine without me. Any yet, it feels momentous, it feels like something big is about to happen. The world will not notice or care, but to me it is as if everything is building to this moment. And so I take another look at the wall, and there it is again, the countdown clock, steadily counting down to the end. It’s close, so very close.