The Unity

I tend to avoid computer games. I don't know why; I've enjoyed them in the past. I loved Starcraft, as I've mentioned before, and Diablo I & II were awesome games. I take another crack at slaying the Lord of Terror every now and then, for old times' sake. Age of Empires was good fun, too. Back in the days when everyone had a dial-up modem, I would dial my friend up, he'd turn on the modem, and we'd play a huge bout. Awesome use of a PA day.

But those games have something in common. They're mouse-based, almost entirely. There's some keystrokes here and there, but you can get by with hardly ever touching the thing. I find keyboards awkward to wield when playing something. FPS's are really awkward for me, usually because my hand twists into a malformed claw within an hour or so. I have the same problem with Metroid Prime 3, truth be told. The whole strafe thing always confuses me. I suck at that style of game, I admit. (The GC Prime games, though, I'm fine with. Strafe is an option, not mandatorily mapped to the joystick. I have a much easier time of it.)

Those ZBoards tempt me, however. I would outfit a powerful rig just for the sheer geeky joy of having a ZBoard with a couple of keysets. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is my largest succubus looming on the horizon. Damn you, epic sword-and-sorcery storylines! Damn you, any-Conan-merchandise-ever-created! (Except for Robert Jordan's miserable fucking excuse for Conan novels. Conan is not a nimble thief modeled after Fabio. He does not crush nubile young princesses to his manly bosom, ravishing them repeatedly in a romantic way. Conan is a slayer of men. He trods the thrones of men beneath his jeweled sandals, grinding the bones of his foes into powder. Goddamn you to hell, Robert Jordan. You son. Of. A bitch.)

So imagine my glee this past weekend. I discover the old RPG milestone of Fallout is entirely mouse-based. I torrent the shit out of it, and have some fun killing radscorpions. I clear out a raider camp (to absolutely no gain, I should add. Shady Sands is a cheapass motherfuckin' town, I tell you what.), and realize I have just under two months left to save my Vault from an uncomfortable thirst. So I follow up on the clues I have, discover Vault-12 is buried beneath Zombie Town, aaaaand I've apparently skipped almost half the goddamn game.

What the fuck, man? What kind of asshole builds into the game the ability for the player, at level 3, to bypass the main quest completely and wind up knee deep in the final quest? Jesus. Thank God I have old save files.