Cargo: The Quest for Gravity (Insanity)

So the Steam sale was this past week and I picked up quite a few games on the cheap, as it's a great time to do so. Well, one gem that I found was called:

I've not completed it yet, and have merely played a few hours, but I'm ready to declare it the strangest game in my Steam library. It's a game that could have been developed by Picasso having a fever dream while having dropped acid. I've tried to think of other words that could accurately describe this, but really the only fitting thing here is the meme

Yeah, that is a true statement in terms of this game. Essentially the earth has been destroyed, but not totally, just enough that most of it got blown off into the atmosphere in decent sized chunks. Apparently gravity has mostly disappeared as well. This seems to be the work of three giant robot heads who all call themselves Manipu: Deus Ex Machina. They travel around an island dangled from a conveyor belt and talk to you about how much humans suck and break things. But just mostly, its you and the Buddies...oh, that's right, I haven't talked about the Buddies. Have you read Hyperion by Dan Simmons? No. Fix that. If you have, then the Buddies remind me of the Bikura, only if the Bikura were all midgets, spoke in rhyme, and were infinite supplies of fun. I apologize profusely for the next image, but I have to share the crazy. It's the only way to keep myself sane.

It's a Buddy chain! Wooo! So yeah, FUN is the currency in Cargo, and you get FUN by doing stuff with Buddies. Don't worry, your mind going to the bad place just now...that doesn't happen, I hope. Anyway, you get FUN from Buddies by kicking them (they enjoy flying and will eventually float into the air and explode, giving you lots of FUN) or taking them on boat rides (which also makes them explode) or racing them (you got it, explode) and I'm sure numerous other things as the game progresses. You then use your FUN to buy parts to build things like boats or cars. The system here is very Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, where you get to decide where to put various pieces of the vehicle. Kind of cool.

I mean, overall, the game is oddly fun, a lot of the time because you're just going on this near nightmare fuel adventure to see where it takes you next. Controls aren't the tightest thing in the world and take some getting used to. Oh, there is also this thing with music, where you collect notes and set up little music areas for the Buddies to dance to. The more Buddies dancing, the more FUN you get.

It's just...bizarre. It's $10 right now, and I still kind of recommend it at that price. It has a sandbox mode as well, where I assume you just get the parts and blueprints to build whatever. I'm definitely going to keep playing, but the Captain did just inform me that he has a plan to capture some buddies and breed them. Uhhhh...remember how I said earlier not to worry? And did I mention you get your tutorials in-game from the Buddy Band?

Yup.

Live from WWE RAW 1000

Wooooooooo! I'm currently in St Louis with my son for WWE's 1000th episode of RAW. It's his first live show.

We're fairly high up, but visibility from where we are is great. Should be a great show!

Video Game Worlds are SCARY

So I was watching Felicia Day's latest Flog here and eventually she gets to the user submitted question of the week. The question seemed harmless enough, merely asking, "If you were to live in a video game world, which world would it be?" Since she had a Q&A panel at Vidcon, she posited that question to people there.

Answers were what most people would expect. Hyrule, Azeroth, the world of Portal. Though early on, someone mentioned Fallout. I laughed a bit at that, but then it made me start to think about the question. Does it assume that we'd be heroes or heroines in this world once we were transported into it? Or would we be our current selves, transported there? Because, well...If it's the latter, well, screw living in video game worlds.

Why? Think about just how scary each of those propositions above is.

• Hyrule - Evil constantly trying to take over the world. Also, punk kid kicking my chickens or breaking my jars.
• Azeroth - Deathwing, nuff said.
• The world of Portal - Well, its Earth...a dystopian future version of Earth, it seems. Even then, indicating you wanted to live in that world would suggest you wanted to be a test subject.
• Fallout - Again, our world, but drinking radiated water does not sound like my idea of a good time.

I started running through other worlds in my mind, and not many of them seem particularly pleasant. Even Animal Crossing is terrible, because we'd end up owing Tom Nook for the rest of our lives. My wife's suggestion of Mineral Town from Harvest Moon doesn't sound particularly bad, but it also isn't somewhere I'd necessarily want to live. 

All in all, a majority of video game worlds are very scary for the people that live in them. That is why the players are there. They are there to fend off the evil or serve to make the world even worse. Either way, unless I'm able to go in as a whoever the player character is, then my answer is none.