Clinging to life as your hair begins to gray can't compare to the constant pressure of avoiding death in games. Video games are designed to reward the player and are meant to be beaten, to be sure, but that hasn't stopped them from catapulting coffee tables at our shins thus far. Applaud every living person you see and you'll wind up in a cushy white room with extremely sore palms, but you'd be well within your rights to do the same for the stalwart Undead trudging through From Software's Souls series, an unscathed Hayabusa dodging kunai in Ninja Gaiden, or the unwitting victim trapped in Outlast. It's no easy thing to take cover from a barrage of enemy fire, deftly negotiate teetering platforms, and fend off all manner of monsters, you know. The daunting "Game Over" message has been replaced with the much less offending option to load your most recent save, but the threat is there all the same. Fortunately, even the doom of "insert 25 to continue" has vanished from modern gaming. Is there something about gaming you find impressive that becomes mediocre when done elsewhere? Something only noteworthy when done in-game?
A freelance games writer, you say? Typically battling his current RPG addiction and ceaseless perfectionism? A fan of horror but too big a sissy to play for more than a couple of hours? Spends far too much time on JRPGs and gets way too angry with card games?
Well that doesn't sound anything like me.
