Pixelation: I Go Homicidal For Achievement Points. Sort of Really.

[pixelation | weekly gaming & life column every wednesday or uh thursday]

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Evan King never stood a chance, that poor son of a bitch. The tragic part was as he lay vaporized in a pile of his own mush-guts, was that it was all for nothing. I stood over him, rummaging through his belongings looking for his motherfucking house key.

Fuggin’ nothing. Inconsequential bullshit to the point where I don’t even remember what was in those shitty wasteland pants. But it wasn’t his fucking house key, that’s for sure.

One self-particlized stupid son of a bitch, a town cowering in fear, and my karmic meter droppin’ like woah.

Shit had gone downhill quickly.

Let me fill you in.

Recently I began the asinine quest of completing all the minutiae I had skimped on in Fallout 3. Killing all of those fucking Super Mutant Behemoths. The ludicrous Nuka Nuka Challenge. And unfortunately for Evan Sludge-Face King, also attempting to get all the Bobble Heads.

So I scavenged and scavenged. Generally becoming more and more jittery in my undertakings. The Diet Mountain Dew Cans-Bottles-Satchels accumulating on my computer desk. My eyes bulging, my soul tweaking.

At some point in the caffeinated haze, I rolled up to Evan King’s house. You see, therein laid a fucking bobble head. I don’t remember which one, but god dammit it was in there. Happy to be nearing the end of my search, I went to pick the lock on his door.

The lock was broken. Oh fuck me, the lock was broken. Now, I don’t remember when I broke that lock, perhaps in a different but equally murky caffeine bubble from nights gone by.

But all I knew is that the lock was broken, and I couldn’t get to the bobble head that was in there. In describing to you the actual, real life panic that swept over me, you’ll come to realize why I take anti-psychotics to function, and how obsessed I can be when it comes to video games.

Fuck. Fuck me!, I thought. Oh Jesus Christ, what the fuck am I going to do?! My heart was literally racing as I faced the I’m Fucked-itude. God only knew how many hours ago in Save Files I had broken that dumb fucking lock. I counted in my head. The total was something around Way Too Fucking Long Ago. Prior to the bobble head hunt, which had begun far, far, far too long ago for my taste.

My sanity was racing away on a consciousness slicked to an unhealthy gleam on aspartame and caffeine. I was panicking. All the hours of work I had put into the search, it was unraveling now. Quickly and without merit. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew one thing was for certain: I could not, would not, abandon the bobble head quest. So help me Christ.

And that’s when I saw him.

Dumb fucking, poor fucking, Evan King.

Dude was just strutting around town like he owned the motherfucking place. Strutting with his shitty survival gear and his crappy AK-47 that was clearly no match for my Alien Disintegrator. Seeing Evan King, knowing what stood between me and a completed quest, everything slowed down and became obvious.

I had to kill that fucking idiot, and steal his house key.

Now you have to understand that this is a big shift in how I usually play video games. I’m always the White Knight, the Proper Douchebag. I help everyone and smile while I do it. It echoes my real life status as a Bleeding Heart Severely Decent Dude. I’m the guy who, despite knowing that he would have way sicker and more ballin’ powers as a Dark Jedi, sticks to lame ass powers of persuasion and gentle shoves as a Jedi Knight.

I can’t help it. I can’t handle even hurting the feelings of non-existent begins.

But somewhere in my psychosis, something changed. A switch was flipped. Fucking Evan King and his shitty house. Fucking Evan King, who probably didn’t have a fucking thing worth keeping in there anyways! Son of a bitch! He was ruining my everything!

He had to die. He had that fucking key, he stood in my way.

The first blast of my Alien Disintegrator ripped off without me even feeling it. Sliding through time greased on panic and adrendaline, I hadn’t even registered into dropping into V.A.T.S and targeting Senor Dickface’s skull-piece.

A smash and a thud.

Evan King, no longer happily walking around the desolate remains that he called his town was now mortally mounded. He turned to me and drew his shitty gun. Probably filled with dust, as his fingers were filled with futility.

I ripped off a second blast and Evan King dropped like a sack of seared idiot-flesh.

Phew! I was relieved. Then I caught a bullet. And another. What the fuck was going on?! The villagers, you idiot! I didn’t even stop to ask myself what the dumb fucking villagers would think.

Somehow I hadn’t calculated how they’d react to their Sheriff Guy getting vaporized before their eyes. Stop, I cried out! You don’t understand! I’m not a bad…I’m not a bad guy! I just need his key, don’t you see? Don’t you see?!

They didn’t see.

Slowly circumstances changed, and I was no longer Apprehensively Shooting Evan, I was Murdering The Entire Town. You don’t understand, I said! But no one could hear me through the cackle I didn’t realize I had, and the sizzle of particle beams. Bodies were splayed everywhere. Vaporized. Mutilated. How the fuck had I gone from trying to break into a house, to laying waste to an entire village?

Shit had gone downhill quickly.

Huffing, I drew up to Evan King’s husk, his mortal coil having been decidedly shed. Still not registering the ferocity I had just unleashed, quivering in anticipation, I looted his pockets. It wasn’t there. There was no key.

Evan King was the only glitched piece of shit in the wasteland who didn’t carry a fucking key with him for his house. The only glitched piece of shit in the wasteland whose lack of a key prevented me from getting into his house, so I could steal what I deserved and he didn’t cherish.

Now everyone in his fucking town was dead, I had blood and regret on my hands, and Evan King was a mush of squishy former-organs and all for nothing. I couldn’t salvage my bobble head quest.

Not that way at least.

Shit had gone downhill quickly.