Blog, right...

Yeah, I never use this thing anymore.

I'm playing Final Fantasy VIII. I had the idea a while back to have a Throwback Month - that I would play nothing but old games for a month. My cut-off is 2000. The problem is that I love RPGs, so I'm on hour 43 of FF8, mixed in with my multiplayer games of Madden 2010 and Dominions 3 on QT3.

I really need to do a more comprehensive post about something on here, but this is just to get back in the swing of things. Hence why it's so short and uninteresting.

Whee.

This is Matt, trying to at least do something.

When we last left our intrepid heroes...

I'm running a tabletop RPG again -- specifically, I'm running Final Fantasy Omega, the RPG I created for my friends Nathan and Taylor when we moved to Kansas City in 2003. It eventually expanded to include Nute and Meg (my then-girlfriend, now-wife), and then fell apart in 2007 for a number of reasons. After sitting on it for a year and a half, I decided to start it up again, where we left off, and last Sunday was the first combat session with the new system, a hybrid of D&D 3.5E and 4E. Most everything was created by me -- well, the extras. The core design is a mix of Dungeons and Dragons and Final Fantasy, but the numbers for all the FF abilities and the structure of the classes themselves are mine.

I really enjoy creating things, more than any other creative aspect of my life. I think this is why I have a hard time finishing up my stories, because I'm not creating anything there, I'm just putting down what I already have. When I run a session, it's instant gratification and the execution there is putting my plans into motion. It's incredibly satisfying.

The idea right now is to run every other week, which in theory will let me keep working on Popular Anarcy. In reality, though, I think I'm going to be very focused on Omega until its completion, only paying lip service to writing my book.

I'm not as upset about this as I feel like I should be, and honestly as I need to be.

This is Matt, who has written 43 Google Docs for his gaming campaign, most of them recaps and short stories.

Blood of Elves

My first introduction to Andrzej Sapkowski's work was the video game "The Witcher," by CD Projekt. I read about it in Games For Windows: The Official Magazine, and then I followed talk of it in a very positive thread on Quarter to Three. It sounded excellent -- an action-RPG with real consequences to choices and a mature dark fantasy, even though their "mature" included pin-up cards for women Geralt bedded. Fortunately, the game was excellent, especially the storytelling.

I've picked up both of the books about Geralt of Rivia that have been released on American shores, The Last Wish and Blood of Elves. The Last Wish is a collection of short stories starring Geralt, mostly unconnected to each other. I really enjoyed The Last Wish. Blood of Elves is a full novel. I didn't like it too much. I'm hardly a book reviewer, so this will be very short.

My main problem with Blood of Elves is that nothing ever happened. 90% of the book felt like setup, and we had very few conflicts or big scenes. Most of the book was Ciri's training, with two very brief fights by Geralt and one group combat largely missed because our focal character, Ciri, was out of sorts during that battle. It seemed odd to focus so heavily on a side character with Geralt, the main character of the series (to my knowledge), being so ancillary to the plot.

One thing I've learned in my writing is that every scene needs a point. If I write something and it serves no purpose, it goes on the cutting room floor. I feel like a lot of Blood of Elves should have been cut.

So, while I would recommend The Last Wish to fantasy readers, I would not recommend Blood of Elves.

Thus ends what is hopefully my most boring post ever.

This is Matt, trying to read more.

On Marriage

Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a column for The Atlantic on June 22nd, 2009, titled "On Marriage: Let's Call The Whole Thing Off." The subtitle, as it appeared on MSNBC.com, was "Author Sandra Tsing Loh is ending her marriage. Is it time you did, too?"

No, Ms. Loh, it is not. Honestly, you shouldn't have either. Or, and this is more likely, you never should have gotten married in the first place.

In Ms. Loh's article, she explores the reasons behind the split. The catalyst, the straw that broke the camel's back, was Ms. Loh's affair, though she couches it in far more flowery language.

I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book. Cataclysmically changed, I disclosed everything. We cried, we bewailed the fate of our children.

When you strip out the five-dollar words and the Ivy League-educated writing, what she is saying is that she broke her marriage vows. This happens in many relationships, more than it should, but many couples are able to get past it and continue growing. Would Ms. Loh be one of those?

No, she would not.

…I realized … no. Heart-shattering as this moment was — a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history — I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to “work on” falling in love again in my marriage. And as Laura Kipnis railed in “Against Love,” and as everyone knows, good relationships take work.

Ms. Loh quits instead.

She goes on to say that she would continue to do the tasks she had always been doing, "like so many working/co-parenting/married mothers" do, and she lists out a number of acts most parents will recognize; picking up her daughters from school, taking them to doctor appointments, and the like. But in this passage, she strays down a few tangents, like "I can earn my half -- sometimes more -- of the money," and "I can drive my husband to the airport; in his absence, I can sort his mail," and "I can make dinner conversation with any family member."

Ms. Loh, you will please excuse me if I do not submit your name to President Obama for a medal of honor. What I see in that paragraph is a sense of entitlement and haughtiness about your place in the relationship. Why do you emphasize that you are making more money? Why do you stress that you are able to "sort his mail," as if this is some tremendous hardship but you, God bless you, will push through and manage? Why do you feel that making dinner conversation is some remarkable achievement? This is nothing to be lauded. This is basic human existence.

But please, Ms. Loh, do go on.

Which is to say I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.

Oh come now.

Now, Ms. Loh, I will admit that I cannot understand all of the particulars of your situation. I am only 27 years old, after all, and I have been married merely nine months. But I don't need to be in your age demographic or your position in life to deconstruct your statements. Your tone gives your opinions away, even as your words attempt to obfuscate your meaning -- you don't care and you don't intend to care. The dismissive phrase of "Oprah fluffery," the wording of the "messy house," and the emphasis placed on your "staggering working mother's to-do list." In your opening paragraph you stated that you cheated -- not in so many words -- and yet here you have already retreated behind your sandbags of workload and age groups, hardening your defenses against any blame.

So no, Ms. Loh, I do not see your point. There are many couples that do get through this period just fine, working together and relying on each other. But I'm interrupting you, I'm sure you have a point you're working toward. Please, continue.

Sobered by this failure as a mother — which is to say, my failure as a wife — I’ve since begun a journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage? Sure, it made sense to agrarian families before 1900, when to farm the land, one needed two spouses, grandparents, and a raft of children. But now that we have white-collar work and washing machines, and our life expectancy has shot from 47 to 77, isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?

It's generally considered improper to write out laughter. Use your imagination.

Again, Ms. Loh, you hide behind your excuses. You say you failed as a wife, but you sneak that out behind a primary failure as a mother. And your journey towards enlightenment is nothing more than a poorly-disguised attempt at self-vindication. Your marriage has failed, so it's not your fault, it's marriage's fault! How did I miss that? You cheated and your marriage fell apart, and the reason you decided to quit on it was because you saw the light. Remarkable.

I will gloss over the next few points. Ms. Loh proceeds to blame failing marriages on the United States of America, religion, and the lack of nannies. Americans attend more church than anyone else in the western world, and agree with the statement "Marriage is an outdated institution" less than anywhere else in the western world, yet Americans have the highest divorce rate. I find this a little strange, because when I think about those statistics, I wonder why people who think that marriage is outdated have much better success with it than Americans do.

I admit I don't really understand the nanny bit. She states: "My domestic evenings have typically revolved around five o’clock mac and cheese under bright lighting and then a slow melt into dishes and SpongeBob … because yet another of my marital failings was that I was never able to commit to a nanny." This seems to be primarily more misdirection, blame placed on society because she felt it would be seen as exploitative.

Ms. Loh now has Girls' Night dinners with her friends, in her divorced person's "oddly relaxed" schedule. In setting this scene, she labels a number of marriages, the Romantic Marriage ("Think of those affectionate 80-somethings in convalescent homes, still holding hands."), the Rescue Marriage ("…partners who fit each other like lost puzzle pieces, healing each other from mutual childhood traumas."), the Traditional Marriage, where the man works and the woman runs the home, and the Companionate Marriage, where both husband and wife have a career and they handle all the tasks together. She asks what type of marriages we have now, in the 21st century, and then introduces us to her friend Rachel. Or, more correctly, Rachel's house and her husband's cooking.

Picture a stunning two-story Craftsman — exposed wood, Batchelder tile fireplace, caramel-warm beams, Tiffany lamps on Mission tables — nestled in the historic enclave in Pasadena dubbed Bungalow Heaven. Rachel, 49, an environmental lawyer, is married to Ian, 48, a documentary-film editor. They have two sons, 9 and 11, whom Ian — in every way the model dad — has whisked off this evening to junior soccer camp (or drum lessons or similar; the boys’ impressive whirl of activities is hard to keep track of). Rachel is cooking dinner for three of us: Ellen (a writer, married with children), Renata (violinist, single, lithe, and prowling at 45), and me. Rachel is, more accurately, reheating dinner; the dish is something wonderfully subtle yet complex, like a saffron-infused porcini risotto, that Ian made over the weekend and froze for us, in Tupperware neatly labeled with a Sharpie, because this is the sort of thoughtful thing he does. Ian subscribes to Cook’s Illustrated online and a bevy of other technically advanced gourmet publications — he’s always perfecting some polenta or bouillabaisse. If someone requests a cheeseburger, he will fire back with an über-cheeseburger, a fluffy creation of marbled Angus beef, Stilton, and homemade ketchup. Picture him in bike shorts (he’s a cyclist), hovering over a mandala of pots that are always simmering, quietly simmering. To Ian’s culinary adventurousness, Rachel attributes the boys’ sophisticated taste buds — they eagerly eat everything: curry, paella, seaweed, soba noodles. My own girls are strictly mac-and-cheese-centric (but I’ve been told in therapy not to keep beating myself up over the small things).

Never have I seen a more blatant attempt to meet a word-count limit.

Ms. Loh's friends commiserate about their marriages. Rachel, the one referenced above, says that she is now considering divorce because she never has sex anymore, along with some other reasons.

“Ian won’t have sex with me,” Rachel says flatly. “He has not touched my body in two years. He says it’s because I’ve gained weight.” Again, we stoutly protest, but she goes on. “And he thinks I’m a bad mother — he says I’m sloppy and inattentive.”

The list of violations unfurls. Last week, Rachel mistakenly gave the wrong medication to the dog, a mistake Ian would never make. She also forgot to deglaze the saucepan and missed the window to book the family’s Seattle flights on Expedia, whose chiming bargains Ian meticulously tracks.

Rachel sees herself as a failed mother, and is depressed and chronically overworked at her $120,000-a-year job (which she must cling to for the benefits because Ian freelances). At night, horny and sleepless, she paces the exquisite kitchen, gobbling mini Dove bars. The main breadwinner, Rachel is really the Traditional Dad, but instead of being handed her pipe and slippers at six, she appears to be marooned in a sexless remodeling project with a passive-aggressive Competitive Wife.

I would agree here that Rachel's husband appears to be a jerk from this telling, but I don't see anything here that screams out "Divorce him!" Has anyone heard of marriage counseling in their elite subdivision?

But enough about that, let's go here.

Of the four of us, Renata has the fastest-thrumming engine, as evidenced by her rabid in-the-moment sex-tryst texting (“omg he flyz in 2nite on red i @ 2 am!!!”). One imagines a string of men toppled behind her in ditches like crashed race cars. “My problem is, I’m a dopamine freak!” She waggles her hands in the air. “Dopamine!”

“Helen Fisher!” Ellen exclaims, pointing at her.

Ms. Loh, your friends are idiots.

Ms. Loh goes on to explain that Helen Fisher wrote a book explaining hormones that lump people in to four categories; The Negotiator, the Builder, the Director, and the Explorer, who is tied to the dopamine that gets Renata all foolish, as seen above. Explorers are attracted to Explorers, and Builders to Builders, but Negotiators are attracted to Directors, and vice versa. One of Ms. Loh's friends slaps the book and exclaims that her problem is that she's an Explorer married to a Builder.

Here's the problem with this idea; it's too neat and simple. Dropping people into four categories and claiming that it breaks down how attraction works is no less stupid than lumping them into twelve categories based off the Zodiac and claiming that it breaks down how attraction works. It allows you to look at someone as a preconceived label, not as a person. It's too easy to then dismiss any problems as that elusive "incompatibility" instead of actually working through a problem and solving the issue.

A running theme in this article is the avoidance of any kind of "work" on a relationship. Upon being asked if he wanted a divorce Rachel's husband said no, saying they must show discipline and work at the marriage. At that, Ms. Loh adds the parenthetical comment "again with the work!"

Ms. Loh posits that "it's clear females are dissatisfied," saying that more and more divorces are being initiated by women. She then paints a remarkable picture, and I would be doing it a grave disservice to not present it in its original form.

If marriage is the Old World and what lies beyond is the New World, it’s the apparently stable men (comfortable alone in their postfeminist den with their Cook’s Illustrated and their porn) who are Old Worlders, and the Girls’ Night Out, questionnaire-completing women who are the questing New Worlders.

Ms. Loh continues to state that women get a bum deal, being told to "work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones that schedule 'date night,' only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, ignored." She presents a few modest proposals, the first of which states that high-revving, sexually-frustrated women could have two men, the "postfemininst" male doing all the work in the house, and the fun-loving boy toy on the side to play around with. This is due to the fact that rekindling the romance is "biologically unnatural." The children should be raised in a tribal society, from 1-5 years of age, by the woman and her female kin, with men coming by every now and then to provide sex or put up shelves. Then, once that is done, push the children off on the father, or the "superdad," so the Type A woman can then work and presumably run around with her aforementioned boy toy.

In closing, she states:

In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage — or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.

Ms. Loh, I will not follow your advice, because I must consider the source of the advice. In this case, the advice is coming from a biased, self-righteous, sanctimonious fool.

From the beginning of your article straight through to its conclusion, you dodge, duck, sidestep, and avoid the true issue; according to your own writing, you are the reason this marriage failed. It was not society, it was not latent feminism, it was not America, it was not God. It was not a roaring fireplace or a screaming child. It was not macaroni noodles and a talking sponge. It was not level shelves and a travel schedule. You, Ms. Loh, are the reason. You failed. And here I am not pointing to the affair, because couples can and often do work through that kind of transgression.

You failed, Ms. Loh, because you quit. You gave up. You took a look at your marriage, shattered primarily by your own actions, and you decided that to fix it would have been too hard. Yes, you disguised this as well, claiming biology, society, and other excuses that have no bearing on this. You failed and you gave in. You betrayed your husband's trust, and decided that because of this, you would not try to restore the marriage.

And what have you taken away from this? A horrible sense of entitlement. You refuse to take responsibility for anything that has happened. You are so full of yourself, so overflowing with confidence, that you believe that it is the world that is wrong, and you, you and your little nest of harpies, you are the ones that are correct. And what's more, you drag down all women with you. You claim it is the woman's right, that because you are women you can take this stand. Men are the stodgy idiots blundering about the Old World, while the intrepid explorers, pushing boundaries, exploring new lands, filling out questionnaires -- filling out questionnaires! -- are the New World. Your audacity astounds me, Ms. Loh.

In closing, Ms. Loh:

Your marriage is over, and despite your best efforts, you have only yourself to blame. You are a failure, a quitter, a coward, a fool, and an embarrassment.

It's a shame your ego will never let you see it.

-Matt Bowyer

(The link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31452178/ns/today_relationships/ )

Sicily Part 2

The First Italian War began when Milan blockaded multiple Sicilian ports in an attempt to reduce the wealth of the rapidly growing Italian state. King Roger raised armies quickly and ventured north towards Florence, but met with considerable resistance. When the city finally fell, Roger had to hold his troops back in the city to recover, as well as hold Florence from any counterattacks from the numerically superior Milanese forces coming down from the capital.

Newly adopted general Tizrano di Calpizato got the call to go forth and continue the offensive, but he was turned back by the superior forces at Milan itself and was forced to retreat. His battered and bloodied army barely made it to the Po River when Milan's general Catalano Rossi caught up to him. This battle was a great opportunity for Milan; wiping out Calpizato's army would mean both of Sicily's offenses had been turned back, and they could begin retaking their holdings in Italy.

General Calpizato surveyed his forces. Two groups of sergeant spearmen, four divisions of Muslim archers, a hastily-mustered regiment of militia crossbowmen, his personal bodyguard, and the leftover artillery from the failed siege of Milan, three trebuchets and two mangonels. His spies reported that Rossi's army held some 2500 men, far more than roughly 600 fighting men Calpizato had. Arguably worse than that, Rossi's army was made up primarily of swordsman and spearmen, which would assault the weakness of his own army, melee shock power.

Under normal circumstances, this battle would have been unwinnable. However, Calpizato knew the terrain well, and picked the one place he felt he could defend his frail troops and equipment; the bridge over the Po river. He set his archers and crossbowmen on either side of the bridge, with the spearmen clustered at the end to hold the line and present a wall of spearpoints to any attackers. Behind this front stood the siege weapons, and Calpizato himself rode back and forth behind his men, rallying them with a tremendous and fiery speech.

Rossi aligned the Milanese forces in a simple column, and charged across the bridge, counting on sheer weight of numbers to win the day. A sound strategy, if a potentially costly one. Rossi, however, underestimated Sicilian ingenuity.

King Roger had made it a priority to build as many siege workshops as possible, and promoted the pursuit of technological superiority. Nowhere was this better reflected than the mangonel, a wooden device designed to launch fire pots, vessels designed to create a fireball on impact. Calpizato was trained extensively in their use both as an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon, and the two he brought with him to the Po river would serve him well on this day.

As the Milanese troops marched across the bridge, they were beset with arrows, crossbow bolts, rocks fired from the trebuchets, and explosive barrels of combustible fire pots. By the time the first ranks reached the spearmen, their morale and ranks both were shattered, and they were easily turned back by the spears. Calpizato urged his men on, constantly instructing the archers and mangonels to adjust their firing arcs, watching from the top of a nearby hill to better see the layout of the battle.

Sheer numbers began to take their toll. The first few ranks of the spearmen succumbed, and the Milanese forces were getting inside the trebuchets' firing arc. Milan had also led with their spearmen, leaving their more powerful shock troops to battle the increasingly exhausted Sicilian spearmen. Calpizato weighed his options, and knew he had no choice.

Calpizato led a charge into the front of the Milanese forces, battering through his own spearmen in a spirited and gutsy strike. Seeing their own general's bravery in the face of utter defeat rejuvenated the Sicilian forces, and they began to fight with a righteous fervor. The advance of the Milanese troops stopped, and for a time they were pushed backwards.

Cavalry cannot stand up to a protracted melee, however, and Calpizato's bodyguard was being cut down around him. One full group of spearmen lay dead, and the other fought at less than 50% strength. The Milanese army was decimated, yet they still fought on. Rossi knew that if they could just break through this final line, they could wipe out the rest of Calpizato's forces and turn the tide of the war.

As the last of the spearmen fell, one group of Muslim archers threw down their bows, drew their short swords, and bravely charged into battle. Their light padded armor could not stand up to the swords of the Milanese troops, and they knew this charge would be to their deaths, yet still they rushed forward to protect Calpizato and the artillery, hoping that if their deaths could buy another minute, maybe two, perhaps the battle could still be won.

Their sacrifice would not be in vain. A barrel from the mangonel landed in the midst of the Milanese forces, incinerating nearly a hundred men in a single shot, among them General Catalano Rossi. The blow to morale was the final straw, and the Milanese army broke, retreating from the battle, with some of the few remaining falling to arrows that fell down into their exposed flanks.

When the dust settled, the Milanese army was thoroughly devastated. Over 2000 men fell during the battle, their bodies piled high on the bridge. The Sicilian army was also ravaged, having lost both ranks of spearmen, most of the brave archers who charged forth to hold the line, and every member of Calpizato's bodyguard save the general himself. Battle estimates credit the mangonels with almost 50% of the Milanese casualties.

The defeat at the Po river, along with the fall of the islands Corsica and Sardinia, led Milan to beg for peace one year after this battle. King Roger accepted with little hesitation, and later ordered forts be built at each river crossing so Calpizato's strategy could be used in standard defenses.

Calpizato returned to Naples for a medal ceremony, and later led another regiment during the Second Italian War against Venice, where he fell honorably in battle outside of Zagreb in eastern Europe.

And now, some rambling.

I don't mind admitting to a bit of a journalistic man-crush on Jeff Green. I'm a dork, I know that, and I have no trouble with that fact. I had a subscription to Computer Gaming World and Games For Windows for about five years, coming over from PC Gamer. I thought CGW had the best features in Tom Vs. Bruce and Scorched Earth, later Greenspeak, and the best editors in Jeff Green, Darren Gladstone, Sean Molloy, Shawn Elliott, and Ryan Scott. Not long after the GFW transition I discovered GFW Radio, the weekly podcast, and I listened to it weekly.

I remember firing an email off to my then-girlfriend, now-wife when they announced that the magazine was closing. I was heartbroken. Honestly -- I looked forward to getting GFW in the mail each month, and I read it cover to cover. After listening to the podcast for so long, I was to the point where I could recognize each writer's style without hitting the byline (except for Ryan, since his reviews were more than 45 minutes of silence and two "What the hell?" sentences). Losing that magazine, that actual physical product, was very depressing. I was not surprised to see Jeff leave for EA, Shawn for 2K Boston, and Sean for Blizzard very quickly. 1up's great purge got rid of Ryan, thus completing the removal of all five editors, with Darren having left some months prior.

I'm listening to the old GFW Radios and reading the old magazines lately, and there's a bittersweet quality to it. It's as great as it ever was, but it's looking back at a time that won't exist again. But that's not so much about GFW as it is about me.

The year that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out, I got one of the first-run printings, with the gold cartridge and the t-shirt and everything. But it was a Christmas present, and the game came out in September, so I couldn't play it until Christmas. In my family, we opened our presents on Christmas morning, but we could do two on Christmas Eve. My mother knew which present I wanted to get that night, as I'd been going nuts about it for weeks, so she wrapped everything in those shirt-size boxes and padded them with tissue paper. I selected my first present and got a sweater, I think, I can't recall, it wasn't important. Now that I had a box, the experiment could begin. I went back into my room and got WCW/NWO World Tour out of my N64, grabbed the game box for it, and came back into the living room. I put it in the shirt box, packed tissue paper around it, and began a careful process of lifting my presents, judging weight, listening for the sound shaking it made, gauging the differences when they were moved, and so on. This took about ten minutes before I was satisfied with my decision, and I opened the present to find Ocarina of Time. My mother thought I was nuts. I played the game until three in the morning.

In 1997, the summer after my freshman year, I spent the night at a friend's house, though that would have implied sleep at some point. Instead, Joey and I played his brand new PC game for about 40 straight hours, Heroes of Might and Magic III. He played as the Order, or whoever it was that had the naga and the genies and the titans, with Fafnir as his hero. I was Sandro of the necromancers. I went out and bought it the next day, and played it more than any other turn-based strategy game I've ever had. Later, in the same game, my neighbor and I sat down with pencil, paper, calculator, and pause button to thoroughly analyze Ruby Weapon and how to beat it, in the days before GameFAQs.

After I got Final Fantasy VII, I played it obsessively, including the first week without saving because I didn't have a memory card or access to a car for that week in the summer. Staunton didn't have any video game stores, and I'd have to wait for the weekend to go to Harrisonburg. I played all the way through Midgar with no way to save, knowing that any game over would be the end of DAYS of work. The battle with Rufus at the top of the Shin-Ra building was the most stressful battle in a game I think I've ever had.

In my senior year of high school, I played a six-man game of Heroes of Might and Magic II in the physics room during lunch for three months. I played as the necromancers, and would chase people around the map with my 1500-skeleton, 65-bone dragon army chanting "Bonedragonbonedragonbonedragon" in a low voice. Billy and I would trash talk each other all day, leading up to our actual matches.

The first time I played through Planescape: Torment, I got to the Sensate HQ and went up to the spheres, where you find out how one of the Nameless One's incarnations -really- felt about Deionarra. I was staring at a 13-inch screen reading words scrolling by, gripped tighter than any movie ever had me.

In northern Virginia, my roommate Nute and I would play through multiple seasons of Madden 2003 in a single sitting, choosing two divisional opponents, playing each other twice, and simming the rest of the games. I beat him more often than not through judicious use of the quick slant right into his free safety, or "hospital ball." This would take ten hours.

After moving to Kansas City, I spent most every Sunday playing Starcraft with Nathan, starting at 10 AM and stopping sometime after 10 PM. We even set up a test one day to see what would win, 200 psi of Zerglings or Zealots. We grabbed the BGH map, built up our bases with multiple hatcheries/nexuses (nexii?), and let it run for thirty minutes while we played Soul Calibur, then spent 45 minutes carefully arranging them to attack. Then we ran THE SAME TEST with them fully upgraded. Zerglings won each time.

Somewhere along the way, though, I lost something. I don't know if it came out of my interest in the industry, reading all the behind-the-scenes info and learning more about the process. I don't know if I just became more critical as I got older. I don't know if I subconsciously have started to want more "mature" things as I've gotten older, but I doubt that one. I don't know if it's me or if it's the games, but I don't enjoy it like I used to.

I find more things that break World of Warcraft for me, the homogenizing of the classes, the removal of the fun flavor of the professions, the things that don't make it so perfectly balanced all the time. I hardly noticed the lore in the Storm Peaks, which is absolutely not how I want to play the game -- I'd been saving that zone for last on purpose. I'm one of those nerds griping about the portrayal of Illidan, Kael'thas, and Arthas.

I've gotten more games that have fallen flat for me in the last year than I think I ever have before. Lost Odyssey, Persona 4, Empire: Total War, NFL Head Coach 2009, Madden 2009, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights 2, Warhammer 40K: Soulstorm... I have Universe At War, Bioshock, Final Fantasy IV, Daxter, and Dominions 3 that I've never played. Somewhere along the way I lost that silly, stupid joy that I used to have, that let me play the same game for hours and hours and hours. Every now and then I find a gem that rekindles it briefly, like The World Ends With You or Valkyria Chronicles, but it's fleeting, and then I'm back to being stuck, drifting from game to game, trying to recapture the feelings of my youth.

Listening to the old podcasts, reading the old magazines, they remind me of when I approached this hobby with that same passion, that same zeal. Now I know that I won't read another new GFW, or experience another new podcast with Jeff, Sean, Shawn, and Ryan. And I wonder if I'm going to get that same feeling back with gaming, or have I somehow ruined it for myself by breaking down the wall separating developer and gamer.

Medieval 2: Total War - Sicily

"Long live King Roger, Sicilian monarch and the greatest ruler of all Italy! Long live King Roger!"

Late 1100s Italy is an area on the edge of madness. Four countries vie for dominance; the cowardly, money-loving Venetians, the opportunistic, treacherous Milanese, the frothing power-mad Holy Roman Empire, and the proud and righteous defenders of the faith, Sicily. In between them all, Pope Gregory reigns, and those who would disparage the faith claim that he, too, has designs on controlling Italy. Of these four lands, only one has the Pope's blessing, and that is King Roger of Sicily.

The beginning of his rule sees the island of Malta brought under Sicilian rule, and the opening of hostilities with the Almohads, the Moors. Prince Simon, heir to the throne, easily devastates the castle of Tunis, taking the land in a manner most horrifying for the infidels; the holy fires of God raining down on the enemy general through the use of mangonels.

Milan shows its true colors and blockades Sicily's ports right after the conclusion of the Pope's work. The traitorous dog that rules Milan has no respect for the Pope's wishes, disregarding the Pope's alliance with noble Sicily, and King Roger is forced to respond. Prince Simon and his younger brother Giovanni land on Sardinia and wrest it from the hands of the betrayers. Milan rushes a captain down to counter, and lays siege to the city, meaning to take it back.

Pope Gregory sends an emissary to both Milan and Sicily, telling them to cease all hostilities. King Roger agrees, and sends no further ships or men to Milanese lands. Milan claims to accede to the Pope's request, but they keep their siege on Sardinia. Simon pens a letter to the Pope and sends a lone ship carrying it to Rome. It is unknown what is said in this letter, but the Pope looks the other way when Simon rides out to lift the siege.

At least 2000 men, all spearmen and light infantry, stand against Simon and Giovanni's 1100 men. But Simon has both diversity and ingenuity on his side. His men consisted of Muslim Archers, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, three units of Sergeant Spearmen, and the true might of his army, his siege equipment, a unit of mangonels and a unit of trebuchets. This force could not stand up to the massed infantry in a close fight, so it would take a great tactician to turn this disadvantage to a victory for Sicily.

Simon orders his archers to take to the walls, and his spearmen to stay in front of the western gate. The siege equipment is positioned just behind them. Simon and Giovanni lead the heavy cavalry out of the northern gate, while the light cavalry regiment rides through the southern.

At Simon's signal, the archers begin to rain arrows down upon the gathered Milanese forces, sending them scurrying back away from their ladders and towers. The light cavalry rides towards the spearmen, closes to within a stone's throw, and then retreats. Three units, buoyed by numerical superiority and impetuous with the lack of a true Milanese general, give chase, and are cut down nearly to the man by the archers, their long-shafted arrows cutting into the undefended flanks of the enemy. The trebuchet begins firing, stones landing in the midst of the spearmen and sending men flying up into the air from the shockwave. But the rest of the Milanese army did not charge, content to stay back and let the archers loose their arrows on the front line, confident that the arrows would run out far before they were in true trouble.

Simon's archers are his best asset in this battle -- the trebuchet did wonders against the enemy walls, and the morale effect could not be underestimated, but he needs to get more of the enemy in range of his archers. He holds an emergency meeting outside of the walls with his cavalry, and over the protests of his younger brother Giovanni, he goes ahead with his new strategy.

Simon rallies his unit and charges the spearmen. Unprepared for this direct assault, the spearmen are momentarily bloodied before recovering and bringing their spears to bear on the vulnerable cavalry. A few of Simon's bodyguards fall, but already he has pulled back, riding back for the walls. Undaunted, the spearmen give chase.

Directly into the whizzing arrows. With the entire army now in range of the archers, all 400 men on the walls let their arrows fill the evening sky. The Milanese army tries to pull back out of range, only to find five regiments of cavalry bearing down on their flank; Giovanni has led both light and heavy cavalry around in a wheel formation, slicing into the undefended flank of the spearmen. Yet just as quickly as they strike, they retreat, rearing about and falling back before the spearmen can begin their attack on the horsemen. Now the Muslim archers have the advantage once more, firing into the backs of the confused Milanese army.

Prince Simon blows a ram's horn, and a burning barrel arcs over the wall, smoke trailing behind, and explodes just above the besieging army. Death rains down on Milan in a torrent of fire, as the fiery rounds of the mangonel incinerate all they touch. The trebuchet continues firing, and with the entire army in a disorganized clump, no shot misses. Agonized screams and anguished cries fill the air, many cut off as the arrows find their way home to vulnerable spots in the lightly armored troops. The mangonel stops firing long enough for another dual hammer-wheel attack from the cavalry, and the Milanese army routs. Simon rides them down, capturing as many as he kills, with Giovanni joining in his brother's victory.

At the conclusion of the battle, over 90% of the opposing force has either been killed or captured, compared to a minimal 31 troops lost for Sicily. Milan refuses to pay the ransom for their captured soldiers, forcing Simon to put the prisoners to the sword. It is a heroic victory for Prince Simon, and a momentary break in the Italian hostilities.