When you cruise through life, you will inevitably hit a patch of obsession. Capricious whim takes over, and your whole life begins to revolve around a single thing. It could be a show, a video game, a book, an activity, anything. Our modern world doesn't lack for distractions, and it's just a roll of the dice that we find ourselves enraptured by something.
Over the summer, I plowed through Breaking Bad, one of the best--if not--the best show on television. Before that, I found myself unable to quench my thirst for anime. The pattern is the same. We get into "something" that possesses us for a brief moment of time and then we move on. Its impact on us may be minimal or profound, depending on the individual.
At the current moment, I find myself watching a walkthrough series of Corpse Party, an adventure game on the PSP. The word "corpse" conjures up images of dead bodies and a certain enemy from Gears of War to me (the corpser). I've heard of the game from NeoGAF, or more accurately, saw a screenshot of it in a series of images from one of the weirdest moments in the game, a dialogue between two heroines.
Rather strange indeed. I didn't think much of it. Just an example of translators taking liberties with the localization.
Then the lunar new year came around (or Chinese New Years), and my little cousin, Nick, starts messing around with my computer. He sees the icon for Amnesia (a very scary game), asks me what it is, and I tell him, "the scariest game ever."
He decides on Modern Warfare 3 and starts engaging in acts of military violence without batting an eyelash, and this guy's like 13 years old. As if that wasn't enough to sate his bloodlust, he plays an even more violent game in Bulletstorm (heavily underrated).
All of that to set up the conversation in the following day, where we sit next to each other at a New Years dinner for my parent's old village from Vietnam. He's eager to talk about games (what kid doesn't?) and reveals that his gaming console of choice is a PSP (because his mom doesn't want him playing anything else). As far as scary games go, his metric is Corpse Party.
A week later, I'm trying to catch up on my manga when I see that they made a Corpse Party manga, which I presume is based on the game. Considering that I'm in a particularly anxious mood from reading so much creepypasta lately (the internet-equivalent of urban legends), and from writing a couple of short stories just like it, I decide to read Corpse Party for some inspiration.
I read through all the existing chapters but the story isn't complete. So how can I finish the story?
Just watch the game.
I actually have the game sitting on my PC. It isn't a particularly complex game in its mechanics, and its driven mainly by story. If that's the case, I'd rather just watch it to completion. When it comes to YouTube videos, I simply watch them on my phone while I'm laying in bed. It's my new late night routine.
At least until something else catches my fancy.
