Why I Can't Shut My Mouth About Video Games

If you talk to me for longer than ten minutes, it becomes painfully obvious that I am really interested in video games. I kind of always have been. There are plenty of reasons for this, among them the fact that I have no depth perception, meaning sports are pretty much out of the question, and when you're growing up in Ohio in the nineties and early 2000's, that rules out a lot of other options.

At least, that was the excuse I used for a long time. But then I thought about it and realized that could only account for a part of it. There are plenty of people who follow sports but have little to no athletic ability, and I'm not one of them, either. I can't say for sure what initially attracted me to video games, but I knew that from my earliest exposure to them (watching someone play Doom, renting an N64 from Blockbuster), I was hooked. I found them fun, and still do, but I think there's still more to it, because that alone doesn't explain why I list them as an interest as opposed to just something I do in my leisure time.

One of the earliest things I realized about video games is that they let the player take on the role of the protagonist, rather than just watching events unfold. You get to be the guy who defuses the bomb with 2 seconds to spare or scores the winning touchdown. When you think about why video games were widely considered toys or children's games when they first emerged, it's not hard to see why so many of the plots (for the games that had them) boiled down to "kill all the bad guys and/or save the princess."

But video games have matured, or at least they're trying to. They're trying to tell stories that resonate more deeply, with more complex themes. What's more, they're also trying to tell these stories in a completely new way, one unique to the format. In the past decade, video games have started to assert themselves as not just a multimillion dollar entertainment industry, but also a new artistic medium.

For instance, consider this. That moment comes in the middle of Call of Duty 4, an excellent shooter that before that point had nothing deeper to say than "Bad guys pew pew pew!" (But done very well, of course.) Then, out of nowhere, that happens. Even though you've saved the pilot with seconds to spare, the nuke went off and you were in the radius. And then it teases you, saying "Look, you aren't dead! You survived the crash!" And earlier in the game you survived a downed chopper, so hey, it's not that far-fetched right? In fact, the first time I played this level, I moved towards the highway ramp right behind the chopper wreck, because I figured there was no point in moving towards the mushroom cloud. If I was gonna get help, I'd have to move away from ground zero.

But then I died. And you die no matter what you do, whereas previously if you got killed in a firefight, the screen would go blurry, you'd get a quote from some prominent figure, and then be thrust right back into the action. An inconvenience of at most ten seconds. But this moment tells you that actually, when you die in war, you stay dead, and it can be for really stupid reasons and it doesn't matter if you're the main character. That right there was the moment I realized that not only could video games have something meaningful to offer, but that could do it in a thoroughly unique manner. And let's just not talk about how Michael Bay apparently took the helm of the Modern Warfare franchise after the multiplayer made the game way more successful than anyone anticipated.

The point is, video games are a very new, innovative field, most especially where story is concerned. Giving control to the player not only intensifies their emotional investment, it can also be used to shape the outcome of the story. Some games have only the barest semblance of a plot and are basically excuses for you to explore and interact with a huge, fabricated world. My dream game, the one I'd want to make, would be one where everything in the plot is up to the player. The first level is the only thing set in stone, and all the choices you make after that are valid. They advance the plot, and they don't do so in terms of some sort of hackneyed "Jesus/Satan" moral choice system, but would instead lead to completely different character interactions, plot developments, and locales. It would all be set in the same world, but the story would be completely different each time.

The reason I can't shut up about video games and why I spend so much time on them is because they're still in a fairly early stage of development, and they offer a quite unique experience. They tell stories in a way no one has before, and it really works for someone like me who's been brought up in the emerging era of user-generated content, where the audience is a participant and not just a consumer.

...Okay, and they're also ridiculously fun and awesome.

My Favorite Movie

It's Children of Men.

...Okay, okay, I'll elaborate. GEEZ.

Yesterday I came across this video. I've only seen the movie twice, and I was only able to pick up

on probably a fourth of the stuff in that video. The various ads, TV screens, and computers in the movie are never on screen for more than a few seconds, and they're pretty much never brought front and center. There are only a few instances where the frame is devoted entirely to some of these ads or news reports. For the most part, the various posters, ads, and so forth are all just glimpsed for a second. Watching them by themselves, it's crazy to note how much detail is actually put into them. They are all produced like real commercials and look like it, not some half-assed thing just to get a concept or image across.

The question, then, is why bother? Why devote so much time and energy to making these ancillary bits that most people won't be able to view for more than a second as they take in most of the scene, if they even notice them at all?

For pretty much the entire movie, we follow the main character Theo, as portrayed by Clive Owen in a badass overcoat. The camera sticks on him, and pretty much never cuts away to show what other characters are doing or other plot developments taking place. The reason we see so little of these ads and all this amazing technology that's been developed in the next twenty years is because Theo just doesn't give a shit. The first scene is a perfect example of this. The movie opens with a news report that the youngest person in the world, the 18-year-old "Baby Diego", has died. In a world where everyone is infertile and humanity is officially terminal, this is a very big deal. But after a few seconds of the news report, we cut to Theo in a coffeeshop packed with people watching the news and looking suitably horrified. Not Theo. He couldn't care less. While we hear the news reporter talking more about what this means for humanity and the next youngest person on Earth, Theo just pushes his way past the throng, not even really bothering to glance at the TV, because he wants his coffee, dammit.

Most of the first part of the movie just has Theo walking around, and it's very clear the Britain he inhabits is not the one we know today. It's essentially a police state, with numerous cities turned into refugee camps for the numerous illegal immigrants fleeing the anarchy that's supposedly broken out in the rest of the world and suicide pills marketed as a comforting alternative to an untimely, unpredictable demise. It's also got technology that, while certainly feasible today, is clearly from a world 20 years ahead of ours where progress suddenly got stunted. Cars have heads-up-displays on the windshield to warn about oncoming hazards and video ads cover pretty much every surface. The director Alfonso Cuarón has called it "science fiction with the wires exposed."

And throughout all of this, Theo maintains pretty much the same attitude as he did in the first scene. He only really cares about politics and the refugee situation when he becomes directly involved, and characters never stop to comment on the amazing new technology around them or when it was invented. In addition, the camera almost never cuts away to focus specifically on some new technological marvel, and instead favors a lot of long, single takes. This helps to keep the action tense, especially during chase scenes, and it also helps to connect the audience with Theo, but that's not what I love so much about this movie.

What propels Children of Men, for me, to great movie status is the fact that this style of editing and camerawork, along with Clive Owen's performance, perfectly captures the way we interact with technology every day. Everyday, I walk around with an iPhone, which is not only a portable phone, but it carries pretty much every song I've ever heard, and can also be used as a map, to tell me the weather, and whatever else I want it to if I feel like buying an app for it. I can also access the internet with it wherever I get a cell signal, which is more places than you'd think.

Now picture going back in time fifteen years, or even ten, and telling yourself about this. Patton Oswalt has a great bit where he talks about this, as does Louis C.K. A lot of people are walking around now with phones that are more sophisticated than many of the computers we'd send up in the space shuttle. And at first, of course, everyone freaked out about it. "Holy crap, this is amazing! I just use my finger to swipe and it's awesome!" I was the same way with mine, but only for the first week or so. After that, everyone was just like, "Yeah, whatever," or griping about how slow it works.

Children of Men works the same way. It's a world radically different from our own in so many ways, and Theo just doesn't care. Like us, he's just become totally inured to everything. The performances help sell this, but the fact that the camerawork also adopts this perspective, of not particularly calling attention to all the crazy stuff going on, is what makes it such a great movie for me. It drives home a second moral, one about the way people can so quickly become accustomed and bored to the crazy world we live in, without cramming it down our throats or talking at us for ten minutes. It's a purely filmic way of doing it (still don't believe "filmic" is a word, but spellcheck isn't calling me on it, so whatever).

Transmetropolitan, my favorite comic book, does the same thing. Technology and the world can change in any number of ways, but at the end of the day, people are still going to be people. It's my firm belief that we're basically living in a work of science fiction at this point (See: unmanned aerial drones, chocolate-chip cookie dough pop-tarts), and if that really is the case, Children of Men is one of the best movies depicting that situation. It's my favorite type of science fiction, one that isn't all about the fantastic setting and technology, but rather uses those to tell a personal, tightly woven and really interesting story.

Far Cry 2: PERMANENT DEATH End Thoughts

So apparently I wasn't able to transfer my save data from home to college, so I will have to end

this little experiment here. It's probably for the best, given that I've (naturally) been pretty busy ever since school started, so playing video games while writing about them would probably be nowhere near as fun as I need my vidja games to be right now.

Rather than just abruptly say, "Well that's it" and declare this Let's Play (if you want to call it that) over, I thought I'd offer by way of closing a brief summation of why I think Far Cry 2 might be one of my favorite shooters. Like, ever.

Like I said at the beginning, Far Cry 2 is a game about war that not many other shooters and action games are nowadays. It explores the nature of conflict and what prolonged exposure to it can do to people. By the end of the game (SPOILERS DUH SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU CARE) you've machinated a hilarious succession of assassinations and counter-assassinations that leave the mercs previously employed by the APR and UFLL in charge of these militias, which are now working to round up and suppress the civilian population. The Jackal is having none of this, and enlists you in his plan to get every civilian in the country, something like two million people (but I might be exaggerating) across the border. Yes, all of them. You go along with it because you're a mute protagonist so it doesn't matter if you think otherwise, as there's no way in hell to voice your disagreement. Your merc "buddies" all betray you for a case of diamonds, and one way or another you end up killing yourself, as does the Jackal (maybe, they never found a body). As he puts it, "You and I are both terminal cases. But this time we can actually do something about it". The country descends into madness as the remaining leaderless members of the APR and UFLL perpetuate their bloodbath, and that reporter Ruben takes a picture of the refugees.

But this is all really secondary. The plot only intrudes on the game at the end of the first and second halves. And that is the right word, because otherwise you're aware of the enmity between the two factions, but it doesn't make itself that evident, especially because they're both trying to kill you anyway. Far Cry 2 succeeds in setting up its central question through gameplay and setting, not by dumping hours and hours of text, expositional and otherwise, on you as some other big name titles might (COUGH COUGH FINAL FANTASY AND METAL GEAR SOLID COUGH COUGH). This is a much more insidious way of doing it, because it conditions you in ways you aren't really aware of, or at least ones that might make you stop at points to consider exactly what it is you're doing.

Take melee kills. In Call of Duty games, using the knife simply requires pressing one of the control sticks, which your thumb is usually perched over anyway. The motion is quick and impact on any point of the body is instantly fatal. This is carried to its logical conclusion in Black Ops multiplayer with the Ballistic Knife, letting you shoot knives at your opponents. It's tricky to wield, but even if you hit someone in the foot, they're dead. Using the knife in Call of Duty becomes a reflexive action, a quick swipe or stab that allows you to resume running and gunning in seconds.

In Far Cry 2, it's very different. First, you have to select your machete, a very deliberate gesture that's especially tricky to undertake when there's an angry mercenary 3 feet away from you yelling in Afrikaans and trying his damnedest to put a bullet or two or fifteen in your face. Then you've got to hit him with it, and this requires even more deliberate actions. It'll take more than one swipe to bring him down, and the first one will take him to the ground. Finishing your foe off starts a new animation sequence where your character lunges and shoves the machete straight down into his chest cavity. The first couple times you do this, it'll be more than a little disturbing. It's a very visceral motion, and a lot of times the enemy might be limping away or pulling out a pistol, gasping desperately and maybe pleading for help from their comrades. Making melee kills such an involved process keeps it from being just a quicker way of racking up points, especially since those don't exist in this game. But that isn't even the most disturbing part.

That would be the fact that as you keep playing, you'll stop noticing how disturbing it is. When I'm showing the game to friends who haven't played as much as I have and I perform a melee kill, I'll always get a reaction along the lines of a grimace or "Oh, nasty!" Which is pretty much what I did, even if only internally, the first time I did it. But now, having experienced a world where literally everyone on the road is an enemy, I've come to think nothing of it. If they were in my position, they'd understand. You've got no friends out there and ammo is scarce, so you do what you have to. But really, all I'm doing is being paid to kill some other dude who's probably just out here for a paycheck, and did I really have to use the rusty blade that I haven't cleaned once since I've picked it up? It was seeing my friend's reactions after I'd become desensitized to the process that really drove home how effective it was to make the game mechanic function like this.

And that's kind of what happens with war, right? In his aptly titled book, War, Sebastian Jurgen wrote that one of the biggest problems the soldiers he was embedded with in Afghanistan had on their return back to the states was "not necessarily that they come back traumatized-which some do-but that they miss it." The experience of being under fire produces a rush that can't be rivaled, which I think Winston Churchill commented on in similar words. There are elements of brotherhood and camarederie at work too, but Junger devotes a significant portion as well to the addiction these guys develop to the thrill of combat, something that no one can understand unless they've experienced it. But to any outside observer and rational mind, this phenomenon is almost inconceivable. If a firefight were to break out as I was walking down the street, I'd probably hide and crap my pants, and not necessarily in that order. But this trend does exist, and it's not their fault. War can make those who participate in it love war more than anything else.

FC2: PERMADEATH Chapter Fifteen: Poison Ivy

For some reason, now the UFLL are the only ones offering me any work. They must care about as much as I do who I shoot. As I enter the office, I overhear Gakumba and some South African lieutenant arguing. Gakumba launches into an "Africa for Africans" type spiel while the South African reminds him he's more focused on fighting the APR than actually helping anyone. I head into the room, and I'm informed, after the South African's called me "china" a few times, that the APR have been getting free food from some agribusiness because they've been protecting one of their farms. If I take out the irrigation system there, the company will apparently be convinced that the APR can't protect them and will stop giving them kickbacks. The South African calls me "china" a couple more times for good measure, and I accept the contract.

Michele calls once more and tells me to meet her near Pala, again really far away from my actual objective. I've decided that once I've completed this mission and gotten the last upgrade for my safehouse from her, I'm going to betray her as quickly as possible. She's proved herself too much of a liability, and is clearly also at least a little bit crazy. When I meet her, she says she wants a defoliant from a nearby chemical dump, so she can spray it over the farm I'm attacking and deprive the soldiers of their ground cover, because "the more of them that die, the happier I am." Seriously, who does that? She isn't doing this for any sort of compensation, either. Killing plants so I can wipe out a bunch of guards at a farm is how she gets her jollies. Very dangerous.

Sleep for a few hours, then head upriver to Mike's, clearing a checkpoint on the way. I buy the M-79 grenade launcher, which replaces my sidearm, and both upgrades for it. I store an AK, a pistol, and a flamethrower in my weapons crates so they'll be available at all of my safehouses, then set out with an AK, a flamethrower, and a grenade launcher. I head back downriver and manage to land quite close to the chemical dump.

It's dark now, and I decide to be at least a little subtle and avoid the main road. I follow the train tracks from the south, then as I unpause the game after taking some notes, I accidentally bump the grenade button. It's like I'm subconsciously TRYING to sabotage myself.

It actually ends up being a pretty good strategy, as it draws most of the guards out into the field, allowing me to flank around the boxcars on the train tracks leading to the dump and use that as cover while I engage them. I climb into the boxcar as I start to run out of ammo, but then I notice an ammo dump behind the building right in front of me. After I do so, a guard runs out in front of me and starts shooting. I kill him with the last four rounds in my gun, then sprint forward and replenish my ammo. I clear out the rest of the guards and take the defoliant.

Michele's waiting at the airfield for me to deliver it, so I set off. I get surprised by another unmarked guardpost, but I manage to avoid the guards there and lose the jeep that starts pursuing me by making it crash into some rocks. I make it to the airfield and deliver the tank of toxic brew to Michele. Time to hit the greenhouse.

It's REALLY far away from the airfield, about half the map. I have the choice of either dealing with a couple of checkpoints on the route or barreling through Mokuba, so I settle on the former. On my way I stop in at a gunshop and realize I have enough diamonds to buy the dart rifle. It's basically a silenced sniper rifle and a one hit kill. I jump at the opportunity and buy a reliability upgrade for it too. It replaces my flamethrower rather than my AK for some reason, so now I'm ready for pretty much anything.

As I approach the greenhouse and debate which of the two perimeter checkpoints guarding it to engage, I notice an approach from the river up north with practically no defenses. I backtrack to a bus station and take it to the northeast stop so I can hop on the river, easier than having to sneak past the villa I've already had to deal with twice now. But to get onto the river, I have to deal with the same trio of checkpoints where I had my first near death experience. I take out the guards at the first shack, steal their boat, then deal with the guards on the outcropping next to the inlet before leaving the checkpoint behind.

By now it's light so I head to a safehouse near the farm to sleep until it's nighttime again, and in the process accidentally blunder onto the approach I want to use. It's totally undefended, meaning it'll be perfect for a stealth approach later tonight. I arrive at the safehouse that I'm certain I've already secured to find a lone guard standing around the side, and after I dispose of him a pair of patrol boats attack from the river. They aren't too big of a problem, but it's still a little disturbing given that I was under the impression I had this place locked up tight.

I sleep the day away so I can put my new dart rifle to good use. I beach the boat at the farm and sneak up to the perimeter. I only have five rounds, so I have to use them wisely. It's weird, because when you kill a guy with the gun they still cry out, but it counts as a "stealth" kill. I guess it makes sense, because they're drawn to the dead guy rather than the report of your gun. I put this to good use, and five shots become five dead guys. I fight my way through the rows of crops to the greenhouse and clear the area easily enough, then destroy the irrigation system with a round from my M-79. Michele's plane flies overhead and drops the defoliant, but there's really no point for that now that I've killed everyone here. There are some bangs in the distance and Michele calls, saying "I've been shot down, where the fuck are you?" And she's really indignant, pissed that I wasn't running after her plane that just flew overhead so I could help in case this sort of thing happened. HER FATE IS SEALED.

She turns out to be pretty heavily engaged, as I watch from my perch on a rock, neglecting to do anything about it. Then a couple of the guys attacking her spot me, and I take them down, since now that she's injured her capacity for acting as a bullet sponge is limited at best. I take down the rest of the attackers, and the mission is complete, with the last upgrade for my safehouses in this area unlocked while Michele lies on the ground bleeding out. I take no chances with her. I approach her and contemplate whether I really want to do this. Then I check my journal and see Marty has moved up to first buddy status, while Paul is listed as rescue-ready. Yeah, I do want to. I pull out my sidearm, prompting Michele to say "Do it. It's the only way." I avert my gaze. The deed is done.

FC2: PERMADEATH Chapter Fourteen: Yet More Errands

I head to the gun shop at Mike's, because I just recently got an idea and I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before. I take the job to hit a convoy, and this one's driving around by the tracks up north, but just to the west of the one I hit there last time. I take a bus in that direction and clear out a checkpoint on the route.

Then I set not one, not two, but three charges in the bus's route. This way if I miss with one, one of the others will probably get it, or if I'm lucky I can hit one of the escorts too. In addition, I can observe all this from behind a machine gun emplacement set up in a boxcar, meaning I can hide pretty easily, hit the detonator, then hop on the gun to deal with the tagalongs. It's pretty much the perfect ambush.

Unfortunately, it's being executed by a guy who totally sucks. One of the jeeps spots me as they drive through the checkpoint, and the truck stops at the other side of the checkpoint while his escorts engage me. I resolve the situation with liberal application of flamethrower-to-face. I head over to the truck to place another IED on it to find it once more empty. This must be some kind of hazing thing. I bet he has crateloads of grenade launchers hidden in the back, but he "won't have them available" until I've taken out some guy who's been banging his girlfriend. Whatever. It does give me an excuse to blow things up, which I gladly take.

I decide to take another assassination mission so I can afford the grenade launcher I've just unlocked for purchase. There's a cell tower nearby, but the target is on the exact opposite side of the map, by the southern edge. I take a bus, clear out a checkpoint, take a malaria pill, and drive on. I nearly run over a zebra, but stop before I can hit it. They do deal more damage to the vehicle than people, after all.

The target's holed up at the airfield, and as I approach I notice a sniper in a tower covering the main approach. I try to avoid him by going wide, but I'm spotted, so I instead use the time-honored and tested tactic of sprinting directly at him. This works better than you'd think it would. I take him down and borrow his rifle. No one at the airfield noticed our little scuffle, so I decide to shake things up. I shoot one of the sentries as he sits and chats with some other guy, and this leaves him wounded and in the open. Instead of dealing the killing blow, I decide to use him as bait. Sure enough, just seconds later another sentry moves out and hefts his wounded comrade onto his back. I reload and take him down.

I try to take the other guys who are cautiously advancing on my position, but this sniping business is harder than it looks. This rifle probably isn't top of the line either. I do manage to shoot the propane tank by the fuel dump next to the hangar, starting a pretty big fire. Soon afterwards a jeep barrels towards me from the airfield down the main road, but miraculously I manage to shoot and kill the gunner in back while he's in motion. The driver promptly stops, pulls a u-turn, and scurries back to the airfield.

These guys are staying pretty firmly put. They aren't that stupid, I'll give them credit. I pick my AK back up and set out towards the airfield. I take out the sentries then use my flamethrower for clearing out the hangar. The target's dead, and most of the compound is now on fire. I leave, but I'm still a diamond short for that grenade launcher.

FC2: PERMADEATH Chapter Thirteen: EXPLOSIONS

I make my way back into town, whistling and loudly wondering what all the commotion's about, followed by claims about how I certainly had nothing to do with it. The APR's the only one offering me work now, and according to Kouassi, they are now "the shit". They want me to blow up air compressors the UFLL have at a motor pool in a scrapyard. As Kouassi puts it, "Today you are being paid to blow things up. Tell me you do not love your job!"

Michele calls again and tells me to meet her up north, uncharacteristically far away from my main objective. The things I do for better gear. I catch a bus up to the northwest and set off. Along the way another jeep on the road starts to pursue me, and after I take down the gunner with my machine gun, the other guy hops out and actually does start taunting me. Which is good, because I wasn't sure if he was alive or not. I made sure soon afterwards about his state.

Michele wants me to go to a nearby chemical depot and steal a shipping manifest that outlines the routes of a bunch of trucks carrying petrol. She wants to ambush one of these trucks, not to steal the fuel but just to blow it up. While I do admire the zeal she has for explosions for explosion's sake, I can't help but wondering if pairing up with the hyper-deadly, definitely unhinged French lady is going to come back and bite me in the ass later. I'll do it anyway, I mean I'm already all the way out here.

I sleep and then approach the depot in the dead of night. I survey it from across the field to find it looks pretty lightly defended, so I make my approach, managing to breach the perimeter undetected. As I make my way onto the porch of the main office, a guard walks out, and the shooting starts. I grab the manifest off a desk inside and take cover, but as I do so Michele calls. Even though she only has maybe ten words to say to me, it's enough time for a shotgun wielding soldier to storm into the office and pump me full of lead.

Marty comes to my rescue again, dragging me back so I'm just outside the camp. I heal myself, then proceed to clear out the depot purely out of spite. I decide not to trust Michele anymore.

I head out, clearing out a checkpoint then making my way to a nearby gun store. I buy a crate for my special weapons as well as an upgrade for my flamethrower, rendering me broke once again. I set off, running off a guy who's standing in the middle of the road, not close to anything noteworthy really. I don't know how this trend of hanging out in the middle of country roads during the nighttime caught on, but it's proving to be a very bad idea for these guys.

I take out a perimeter checkpoint by approaching from the river, then approach the scrapyard. I manage to enter through a fortuitous hole in the fence. The terrain here is very uneven, with a lot of hills and dips, not to mention all the rusting metal hulks all over the place. I can use this to my advantage. I look up to see someone has connected the roofs of a few boxcars with some perfectly nice walkways, and decide to take advantage of them. I make my way to the perimeter and manage to get the drop on a sentry. I don't have any silenced weapons, so I decide to take him down with my machete then go crazy on the rest of the guards.

I kill him then move along the boxcars to the top of a hill equal parts dirt and tires that gives me a commanding view of the area while affording me pretty decent cover. The soldiers I've drawn out all approach me down very exposed walkways, and I make short work of most of them. At one point I hit a red barrel placed next to a jeep, resulting in a pretty awesome explosion. When my AK starts running dry, I pull out my flamethrower.

It's ridiculously effective. I just sprint straight up to dudes and light them on fire. It also proves very handy for clearing out the building with the compressor. After the area's pretty secure, I place a charge on the compressor, then move outside and hit the button. Michele calls to say she's hitting the convoy, and it turns out to be just to the north of the scrapyard, closer than usual. As I make my way in that direction, a massive plume of flame rises into the night sky. I get there to finish off a couple guys, and the mission is complete.

FC2: PERMADEATH Chapter Twelve: More Bitch Work

Both factions are offering me work again, but I decide to keep working for the APR. The guy at the door says there's nothing available for me, but he did hear about some foreigner the UFLL's got locked up in a slaughterhouse nearby. These missions kinda suck, because you get no compensation for them outside of a new buddy you can run bullshit errands for.

I start driving over there, getting sidetracked a bit by an unmarked guardpost on the way consisting of two guys and a machine gun emplacement. I crouch on a ridge and perform a little bit of recon, then decide it's time to go to work. It's actually over really fast, so I make my way into the small building and unlock the door to meet Warren Clyde, who apparently is the rootinest, tootinest cowpoke this side of the Missisip, at least if his voice acting is anything to go by.

That wrapped up pretty quickly, so I decide to head to the nearest cell phone tower and get an assassination job. I don't want to be compensated for my efforts with some bullshit camarederie, I want the only currency that matters: actual currency. And diamonds.

I locate another diamond case behind another waterfall, then go to secure a safehouse. While there a patrol boat from a nearby river pulls over to investigate and I take down the gunner. The driver takes this development pretty well, not budging from his seat but refusing to move the boat either. I watch him a bit, then dispose of him. I could see him calling me out with his eyes, thinking I wouldn't be man enough to do it, but I showed him.

I clear out a couple more guard posts then get to the cell tower on the plains. The target's in Pala again. This should be fine. I make my way back there to find the target is wandering around the small sheds behind the church, where there are absolutely no guards and a hole in the fence leading right to him. I head to Mike's and pick up my silenced pistol, returning by boat to Pala just as the sun sets and docking on the southern shore.

I duck through the fence to find he's still wandering around out of sight of the guards and in the easiest place in the whole area to evade them. Also, he pays no mind to the old Albanian dude following right behind him and clutching a silenced pistol. It's like this guy wants to get assassinated or something.

I take him down with just one shot to the back of the head, and I'm rewarded with 10 diamonds and a message telling me to get the hell out of town before I get ventilated. I go back through the fence, and though the guards fire at me, there's no real danger as I make my way back to the boat and flee to Mike's. If these guys really want a cease-fire in town, they've gotta step up their game, or I'm just going to keep doing this. It's simple, guys. Really.