having to yank myself out of one make-believe life just to go work and pay those pain-in-the-arse bills, but yanking out of two? My brain can’t seem to cope. When I go to work or bed or to a friend’s house for pizza, my obsessed mind is still in my fictional world.
‘Good morning, Shelley speaking, how may I help?’ my mouth is saying, while my brain is thinking those three Velen sidequests should be enough to level up enough to get Geralt passed the Crones of Crookback Bog.
One of these days my mouth will accidentally say ‘Good morning, Geralt speaking, how may I slice you in half?’ Or maybe I’ll walk into Boots for a box of Tampax, five sprigs of buckthorn and a superior saddle. Swapping between two lives is jarring enough. I can’t cope with three. Unfortunately, the Batman release day rolled around and I sadly ejected The Witcher from my PS4 and laid him gently in his box with a kiss and a promise to return soon. Okay, I’ve romanticised that a bit. What I actually did was mutter, eject it, shove it in its box and fling it on my desk in a sulk. It felt like I was forcing myself to leave a perfectly good holiday so I could go on another holiday that I wasn’t quite ready for, and a rainy dismal holiday at that. Gotham just doesn’t have the views.
So I began my new life as the Bat. One of the things I hate most about swapping from a long game into another is forcing my fingers to unlearn everything they know. Muscle memory. I don’t need to think about how perform a fast attack, a strong attack or how to switch gear mid fight. My fingers automatically do all the thinking for me. Now suddenly there’s a different button to run, a different button to look at the map and no matter how hard I try I can’t sleep with anyone. I had been playing The Witcher for so long, these actions were ingrained and it felt as though my controller was set up for that game only. What I ended up with was something I like to call Controller Mystification Disorder. R1, R2, touchpad, D-pad up-down-left, touchpad, R1 aaaannnnd … help? I can’t remember which button I need. I start to forget which buttons I used to need. I start to remember the button I needed six months ago when I was playing Minecraft. All I want to do is equip the Batclaw and pull down a simple Riddler trophy but instead my fingers are doing a hillbilly barn dance. I remember having a similar problem when I played Arkham Origins. I forget what the hell I’d been playing before but every time I crept up behind I goon, instead of performing a perfect silent takedown, I boinked him on the back of the head with a batarang. Not good when your goon has his hands on a high-powered bullet dispenser.
Batman: Arkham Knight is a damn good game. It’s very difficult to criticise it without sounding picky. I am happy to admit I didn’t like the Batmobile or the tank combat, despite the mechanics being very sound, but the story was good, gameplay was smooth and the sidequests all tied in nicely. And yet, when I finished the main story and the credits rolled, I felt relieved. I felt as though I’d been grinding when actually I hadn’t. I felt bored when really the game had such variety. I felt impatient and glad it was over. These were not the feelings I was left with after any of the previous games including Arkham Origins. So what was the problem? Geralt was the problem. I had unfinished business in Skellige. I should have swapped back to The Witcher the moment my craving demanded it, but I couldn’t.
I was the Batman and I couldn’t stop until Gotham was safe. What kind of hero abandons his people so he can go off Honeysuckle picking? My OCD trapped me in Gotham and I rushed it and resented it.
I often see complaints about not enough games coming out. There’s no decent Christmas line-up blah blah, but how much time do you people have?! One AAA a month is more than enough surely if you’re also playing indies. Last year the October swarm nearly killed me. This October with the Uncharted Collection set to hit, it looks like I’m well on the way to a nervous breakdown. Can I complete them all plus Disgaea and Assassin’s Creed before November and Fallout 4 hits like a nuclear party popper?
Stopping a game when you’re not finished is like turning off a film before the end credits roll. Stopping halfway through, watching a third of a new film and then swapping back would be absolute madness. Games are so much more immersive than films so I don’t know how you can do it and stay sane. All I know is that this autumn I’m going to become a schizophrenic wise-cracking, rope-climbing, sardine-obsessed demonic assassin with a cute German Shepherd. Wish me luck and break me out of the loony bin afterwards.
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