Author: paintscribe

For a few months, I got completely lost in Left 4 Dead versus mode. I mean completely lost. I was up until 4:00 AM playing the game, sleeping for a few hours, then going right back in for more. I got good. Really good. I had the maps memorized. I knew the perfect ambush spots. I could snipe a Smoker at 400 meters. I could kite Tanks. And I carried Gnome Chomsky all the way through that damn carnival more times than I can remember, helping other people gain that pesky achievement.

And that’s one of the reasons I loved L4D. The game was about sticking together, helping each other, and never leaving anyone behind. Ever.

One time, we were just a few hundred feet from the Safe House, each of us in the red, one of us seeing black and white, when our Nick got caught by a Smoker and downed. I managed to snipe the Smoker, but he was still down. One of us was incapacitated and the rest of us were in the Safe House. While the other players waited for him to die so the round could end, I healed up, grabbed the grenade launcher, a pipe bomb, an adrenaline shot and a health pack, and started for the door. Everyone—including our Nick—told me to stay inside. “Don’t you come out to get me johnjwick!” he shouted in my head set. “You stay the @#$% inside!”

I ran out. Hit the adrenaline. Rushed to our Nick and started picking him up. “GET THE @#$% BACK INSIDE THE SAFE HOUSE!” he shouted at me. But then, he was up. And I used the health pack to heal him. And we ran back to the Safe House. The whole way he was shouting “HOLY @#$%! HOLY @#$%!” And when we got back in the Safe House, he shouted, “YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JOHNJWICK! YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!”

It was one of those moments that the immediacy of video games provides. A great, epic, exciting moment. And the kind of moment that only Left 4 Dead could provide. At the time.

Since then, there have been a lot of 4 player co-op games that came close to replicating the L4D experience. Limited equipment, overwhelming odds, and situations where you can do nothing if nobody else helps you. You aren’t Master Chief. You aren’t a Vault Hunter. You’re just an ordinary Joe who needs other people to get through this horrific mess.

And then, there was no Left 4 Dead. The game died. I still played it from time to time, but the experience wasn’t the same. People didn’t work together. They all thought they were Spartans with Mjolnir armor, running ahead and getting killed. I lamented the end of a wonderful game. Because the game is so much different when you’re playing with others. Sure, you can run through the campaign by yourself, but it just isn’t the same.

And now here comes Back 4 Blood.

Thank you, Turtle Rock Studios. Thank you.

They’ve taken the basic concept of L4D and added some beautiful innovations while keeping everything that makes the game work in the first place.

There’s four of you. That’s it. Your goal is to get from Point A to Point B. And there are a metric @#$%ton of infected (“ridden”) in your way. You’re low on ammo, low on supplies, and you just have to run. Your backpack can only fit a few items. And the choices you make have a profound impact on what you can do during the level.

There are zombies—sorry. Ridden. There are ridden who can immobilize you. If someone else doesn’t help you, you’re screwed. They have to stop whatever they’re doing and spend time holding a button down (different button depending on your system) to free you. If they don’t, you get left behind.

If all that sounds like Left 4 Dead, you’d be correct in that assessment. It is exactly like L4D. The four characters feel like real people. Their banter, dialogue and monologues make me laugh. The gallows humor hits me just right. And there are moments when the exact opposite happens.

My favorite character right now is “Mom.” That’s her name. That’s what everyone calls her. (Reminds me of my Soccer Mom script from The Shotgun Diaries and I wonder if there was some inspiration there. I hope so. I hope I was a small part of the inspiration for a character as cool as Mom.) I’m playing through the solo campaign with her, and so far, she has not let me down. I adore her.

The game is performing magic: making me care about people who do not exist.

As for the changes and additions: there are a whole bunch of new special inf—I mean ridden. The Exploder feels like the Bloater and the Spitter merged into one awful, gross mess. (Also, all the survivors shout “‘ploder!” when he comes by, which sounds like… yeah, you get the point.) The Tallboy feels like someone looked at the Charger and said, “We can make that better.” You can sneak by Snitchers (who are Screamers from State of Decay who were actually originally in L4D, but never made it out of the development phase), and a whole host of really creepy, awful others waiting for you and me.

I haven’t run into a Witch yet. I’ve heard there’s something called “The Hag,” but I don’t want to look up spoilers. I want to be surprised as I go.

Having played through half the solo campaign, I can’t think of anything I don’t like about the choices the designers made for mechanics. I like the new commerce system they have going on for multiple reasons. First, it provides more choices for players while making those choices significant. You use “coppers” to buy equipment, which means you have to be careful about what you choose. Also, putting all the medical equipment—bandages, first aid kits, and pain meds—in the same slot means you have to consider what you’re carrying.

Also, the way you gain coppers is by exploring the map. To get them, you have to run down dead ends, open security doors, and do other stupid things you would never do in Left 4 Dead. You need coppers for equipment, and to get coppers, you can’t just race through the map from Safe House to Safe House. You actually have to explore. You could just race through at top speed, ignoring coppers, but if you do, you slowly run out of options as you get closer to the end of the campaign. Smart. Very smart.

Right now, I love Back 4 Blood. I’ve only played a few hours, but the few hours I have played have been delightful. I’m smiling, laughing, and catching my breath.

After I’ve learned the game a little more, I’ll be jumping into versus mode.

And then, my life will be over.

See you at 4:00 AM!

This year, at North America’s biggest gaming convention, I had the unique opportunity to grab a couple members of Chaosium (the makers of Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, and Pendragon, as well as 7^th Sea) and walk around the dealer’s room, showing them the booths where little games were on display. I told them, “This is where real innovation happens.” That’s because small game companies have nothing to lose. They aren’t like Hasbro with Dungeons & Dragons who make an announcement like “Not all orks are evil,” and have to suddenly duck behind blast shields because the fan base may explode after having heard such a “dangerous idea” and ride out a shit storm of fan outrage—real or imagined—because the ideas in D&D have been around so long, making even a single innovation to the game, bringing it up to 21^st century standards, could be considered “dangerous.”

And if you’re wondering what this has to do with James Bond, just remember when the Bond fans almost had spontaneous brain aneurisms because Daniel Craig was—wait for it—blonde. Forget that, in the canonical books, the world’s most famous secret agent was English and they cast a man from Scotland in Dr No, and if you don’t see a problem with that, you’ve clearly never visited Scotland. (And yes, Bond’s creator, Ian Flemming, later changed Bond’s back story to change 007’s heritage but that was because he was so impressed with Sean Connery’s portrayal of Bond, but make no mistake, when this whole franchise started, Bond was English and since then has been played by an Irishman and a Welshman, and again, if you don’t see a problem with that, well… you shouldn’t because it’s a stupid distinction. Almost as stupid as saying James Bond can’t be played by Indris Elba because… ah, you know what, I’m not going to take this any further, but I hope you get my point.)

Anyway, as characters grow older—and I’m talking in real chronological years—they should become more elastic. Writers have been reinterpreting “mythic” characters like Bond for thousands of years, but there’s always the hold outs who insist on keeping the character “pure” to the source. And these are the hold outs who prevent characters from evolving, literally speaking to past generations rather than the present or future ones. One of the amazing things that Marvel has been doing is taking classic characters like Iron Man, Thor, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, dusting them off, and giving them new voices. Look at the newest Spider-Man movies. That is not 1960’s Peter Parker. It isn’t even 1970’s, ‘80’s, or ‘00s (see what I did there?) Spider-Man. That’s a Spider-Man for the 2020’s, speaking to a younger generation of fans with their language. Actually addressing that Queens is not full of beautiful, blonde, white teenagers, but a hodgepodge of cultures and peoples that actually better represent the old cliché of the American melting pot. This is a Spider-Man for today, not yesterday, and that’s just one of the reasons why the movies feel like so much fun. Yes, he’s still in love with the seemingly unreachable Mary Jane, still has a single Aunt May, still has to balance high school with being a super hero, but does all the classic Spider-Man things in completely new ways.

And that’s because characters should be elastic. As writers, we have a responsibility to take classic characters and update them to a new audience. The myth has to be reshaped for new generations. If you don’t, then you get what happens to myth when it doesn’t adapt and change: it turns in to religion, full of dogma, sacred cows and untouchable traditions.

And with all that in mind, let’s talk about the new James Bond flick, No Time to Die.

Before saying anything else, I should say this: Daniel Craig is my favorite James Bond. Yes, that means I like him more than Connery. Frankly, re-watching the old Bond films, the misogynistic swagger is just too much for me, and that isn’t a new thing. I didn’t like it all that much back when I was a kid watching the movies on VHS tapes when my dad used to record them on network television when they played on the Friday Night Movie on CBS. Yes, I’m that old. I’m not some punk kid screaming “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!” at the screen. And I grew up not only watching Bond on TV and on the movie screen, but reading his adventures, too. I’m a huge fan. But as fans we should also be aware of the faults of 007’s portrayals in the past. And frankly, while some of those faults make Bond interesting, there are others that make him a serious problem.

Bond is a chain-smoking, alcoholic, misogynistic, jingoistic (some may say fascistic) killing machine. (Something Alan Moore uses to brilliant effect when he makes Bond a villain in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics. I mean, seriously. Can you think of a more dangerous villain than Sean Connery’s Bond?)

But that also means we get scenes like the one in Goldfinger—universally recognized as the classic Bond episode and possibly the best Bond movie for over 40 years—where he literally rapes a lesbian into enjoying sex with a “real man.” Yeah. That’s Pussy Galore. Go back and watch it with that in mind and tell me how much fun that Judo-in-the-barn scene is now that you’ve got that in your mind.

Again, Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and Skyfall is my favorite Bond film. I love the directing, the acting, the action, but what I like most is how it takes big risks with the character and his world. Yes, it’s still got the worn-out cliché of a Bond villain, and yes, it blatantly steals the plot and characters from The Dark Knight right down to the “We’re not so different you and I” cliché that—

—you know what? I need to make this clear. Please. Please. Please. Hollywood. Stop using this. We’ve seen it so many times, it’s no longer cliché. It’s passe. We expect it. We yawn when we see it. You’ve used it enough. Just… please, just stop. Stop. Please.

Okay, back to Skyfall. The director (and writers) were allowed to do things nobody had ever done before in a Bond film. We saw characters who we never expected to change or die actually change or die. And there’s a line that made our audience laugh out loud so hard, we missed following dialogue.

And why did that line work so well? Because it makes sense for Bond to say it, even if he never said it before. It’s a new addition to Bond’s character that expands the possibilities of who Bond is while, at the same time, fitting his character perfectly.

(If you want to see the scene for the first time or remember it, I’ve included a link below.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxQ4xdz0QY

Yes, Skyfall does some new, fun things, but it is also loaded with clichés that just need to die. We’ve seen them. We’ve seen them so many times, they actually work as ballast, bringing the film down rather than lifting it up.

No Time to Die feels a lot like Skyfall. It takes a bunch of risks with Bond and his universe, but at the same time, is so desperate to play it safe, clinging to tired canards. Yes, there’s a new 007 (because in the previous film, Bond retired) who is played by a wonderful black actress named Lashana Lynch, but she really never gets an opportunity to shine. There’s great banter and chemistry between her and Craig, but again, she feels like a toy the owners of the franchise are too afraid to take out of the box. I want to see more of her, but more on that later.

Then, there’s the return of Léa Seydoux as Madeleine, and she gives Bond a fantastic foil. She’s not your typical Bond Girl (or Bond Woman, or whatever you prefer). She’s dangerous, she’s good at keeping secrets, she is, in many ways, everything that Vesper Lynd could have been if the producers didn’t kill her off at the end of Casino Royale. Of course Bond falls in love with her, and of course there’s a dark secret in her past that will show up to threaten that love. And this time, there’s a twist that’s new, that gives Bond an angle on his character that makes you think, “How is this going to change him?” And, in fact, it does change him, even if it’s just for the last fifteen minutes of the film.

And speaking of fifteen minutes, there’s an incredible cameo from Ana de Armis that proves she can hold her own in Bond’s world. She shows up just long enough to make you fall in love, then you never see her again. And yes, that’s another Bond cliché, but at least she doesn’t end up in a refrigerator. I got to spend enough time with her to want to see her again as a replacement for Felix Leiter. More on that later.

The plot is so redundant, there’s no point in explaining it. The film never does, so I don’t see a reason why I should. Thanos blah blah half the population blah blah. Look, this is actually the least interesting part of the movie, which makes the villain the least interesting part of the movie, and that’s a damn shame because Rami Malek’s character could have been a great Bond villain if only he had a motivation that hasn’t been done to death already.

As for the action, I loved every time Hans Zimmer’s score revved up. The director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, has serious chops. This is no surprise. And there’s another cliché—the one-shot hallway fight—that Fukunaga has a great take on. My mind went, “Oh, here’s the one-shot hallway fight,” but ten seconds in, I was in. I just wish he had more meat to work with.

Finally, there’s the ending. And yeah, I was a little surprised. I’m not going to say anything more, but I’m now seriously curious what the next chapter in the Bond franchise will be.

But I have a suggestion. (Yes, this is where the “more on that later” is leading.)

I want to see a double-oh Netflix series. I want to see 001, 002, and all the rest of them in season long stories that are actually real political espionage thrillers. And I want to see Ana de Armis and Lashana Lynch as a reoccurring characters. What’s more, I want the other double-oh’s complaining about Bond. He’s a screw up. He never returns equipment. He sleeps with everything. He fails more than he succeeds. He’s got to kick in the door with a gun in both hands (and both feet, sometimes), killing everything in sight when he could just slip a radioactive pellet in the target’s tea.

That’s what I want to see next for the Bond franchise.

I liked No Time to Die. I think it brought a lot of new things to Bond, but on the other hand, still relied on tired tropes from not only its own world, but from other franchises as well. I had fun saying goodbye to my favorite Bond, but I’m hoping the next one will give me enough reasons to make him my favorite.

Or maybe even her.

On my birthday, I perform a “spelling” for my friends. It’s a magical performance. Like, literal magic. Stuff happens. Freya showed up one time, I summoned fire from my fingers, Kachiko and Mr. Finger have made appearances.

I called this particular spelling, “Demons, Daemons and Balloons.” It was a depression exorcism. At the end of it, balloons appeared, falling on the audience. Everyone took their balloon home. A year later, people sent me pictures of their balloon: still full.

The spelling concluded with “Balloon #3”, performed by The Candle Thieves. I’ve provided a link below.

* * *

Listen closely now. I’m going to tell you a secret. The great secret of the world.

Things can mean more than just one thing at a time.

I remember going to Disneyworld when I was small. My parents bought me a balloon. I remember asking my dad why it floated in the air the way it did. He explained, “Because helium is lighter than oxygen.”

I asked him, “Why?”

He started into a long, engineer answer about molecules and weight and… I didn’t care.

It floated. In my hand. Lifting up toward the sky. And I knew if I let it go, it would fly away. I never wanted it to fly away. As far as I was concerned, it was magic. Helium, oxygen. Those were magic words. My balloon was magic.

And I knew that if I got enough balloons, I could lift up off the ground and fly away.

I held on to that balloon all day long. Even when we went on the fast rides, I held on, ducking down and putting my body over it so it couldn’t fly away. And at the end of the day, I took it home with me.

There’s a picture my mother has of me asleep in the hotel bed, Mickey Mouse ears on my head, holding on to the balloon. Snuggling it like a teddy bear. I even gave it a name. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it was.

Of course, the next day, it didn’t lift as high as it did the day before. And the next day, it lifted up a little less. My balloon was dying just a little bit every day. And I got a little sadder every day.

Some people learn about grief from a pet. I learned about it from my balloon. Ask anyone who knows me: I anthropomorphize everything. Dolls. Sandwiches. Those little gummy bears. And yes, balloons.

My balloon slowly lost all its helium. Finally, it was empty and flat. Didn’t matter. I put it in a drawer and kept it. For months. Until one day, my mother was going through my drawers and decided to throw it away.

I cried all night.

I cried because of the simple joy it gave me. Joy and wonder. I didn’t know how it defied gravity, it just did. And I knew if I got curious, I could find out why. But it didn’t matter to me right then. I was just fascinated by the magic of it. The simple and profound wonder of five-year old me.

Pick a card, any card…

Once upon a time…

When we’re young, the whole world is magic. Because Clarke’s Law hasn’t caught up with us yet.

My balloon could fly. And if I had enough of them… so could I.

Demon

Exorcism. The word comes from the Greek exorkismos, which means “to bind by oath.”

Two thousand years ago—a blink of an eye in the scope of human history—men and women who heard whispers were seen as a witch, a shaman or possessed. And depending on which part of the world you lived, it was a death sentence.

Two thousand years later—a blink of an eye—I know why I hear those whispers. It’s a chemical imbalance in my brain. An imbalance of the stuff that makes my neurotransmiters fire, dopamine, glutamate, benzopiazepines and all kinds of other Latin words that I can’t pronounce. My brain isn’t like other brains. Look at it with a CAT scan and you can see the differences.

Two thousand years ago, I was possessed by demons. Two thousand years later… Clarke’s Law at work again.

I’m sick. Just like having a cold, catching the measles, getting the mumps, contracting chicken pox… it’s an illness, just like any other. And I can take medications to stifle the symptoms. When I see movie trailers for romantic comedies and I start to cry… I know I need to visit the doctor. My brain chemistry is out of whack and I need help putting it back.

And that’s the hard part. Admitting I need help. That I can’t do it on my own. Our western heroes wouldn’t understand. A sky scraper full of terrorists? I’ll do it myself. Face the Emperor and my evil Sith father? I’ll do it myself. A town run by two groups of outlaws? I’ll do it myself.

That’s how I grew up. A man handles his problems on his own without anyone else’s help. Because asking for help means you’re admitting your weak.

Asking a doctor for pills when you could just kick yourself in the ass and get over it! Because that’s what a man does!

And you never know when that little voice will show up. The dark, venomous twin of Socrates’ daimonion. One, the voice that gently suggests you do the right thing. And the other… that voice gently suggesting you do… anything but.

Staring at a page of words… it whispers, “You’re a hack.”

When you say the wrong thing and make someone you care about cry… it whispers, “You’re an idiot.”

Even years later, after the mistake is long gone and everyone’s forgotten it… that little voice hasn’t. And it makes sure you don’t forget it, either. It kicks you. Right in the teeth. “Remember when you did that stupid thing?”

“Idiot.”

“Loser.”

“Hack.”

“Worthless.”

“Helpless.”

“All you ever do is hurt people.”

“All you ever do is screw things up even worse.”

“Why don’t you kill yourself?”

“Go on. Do it. Nobody will miss you. And you’ll stop hurting all the people you love. Because you’re stupid. And selfish. You never think about anyone but yourself. What have you ever accomplished? You wrote a game? Big deal. You worked so hard to be a writer? What do you write? Games that maybe a hundred people read? Gaiman’s a writer. King’s a writer. You’re a hack. What are you? Almost fifty? And what have you done? NOTHING. How many people have you hurt? The single common factor in all your failed relationships is YOU.”

Shut up.

“Why are you starting another one? You’re only going to end up hurting them just like you hurt everyone else.”

Shut up.

“Best to be alone. That way, you can’t hurt anyone.”

Shut up.

“Or you can just go into your room and swallow a bottle of pills like you did before. Only this time, you aren’t living with your parents so they won’t find you and…”

SHUT UP!!!!

It’s still there. It’s always there. Just, sometimes, it’s asleep. And when it wakes up, it hovers over my shoulder and whispers into my ear.

How can I get rid of it? Be rid of it?

Two thousand years ago, I could find a holy man, a shaman, a magician, to cast it out. A magic ritual. A holy ritual. A ceremony. An invocation.

A spell.

I have my magic tools. My sword. My book. My bell.

And I know… I know… I’m not the only one here who could use a little ritual. Am I right? I said, “Am I right?”

Can I get an “Amen?”

Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

TESTIFY!

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

The part that always got me about that story was that last line. “Why did you doubt?” Because for me, Jesus wasn’t asking, “Why did you doubt me?” He’s asking, “Why did you doubt yourself.”

Peter was walking on the water. He was performing the miracle. Jesus told him he could walk on the water and Peter doubted that he could. That’s why he begins to sink.

Don’t Let Go

When I was a boy in Minnesota, I wanted to be a priest. They looked so awesome in their black suits and white robes. And in Catholic school, all the girls thought the priest was so handsome. He wore awesome clothes, he had magic powers, all the girls loved him.

Being a priest was like being a wizard. Or a magician.

And then, I moved to Georgia. And I changed my mind. I didn’t want to be a priest. I wanted to be a minister. It comes from the Old French. “One who serves.” Has the same root as the word “minus.” Think on that for a minute or two.

I also grew up wanting to be a con man. Saw The Sting with my father—greatest movie ever made—and walked out of it thinking, “I want to be that when I grow up.”

Priest. Minister. Magician. Con man. Game Master.

Convincing people to believe in things they know aren’t real.

But they’re true.

Here’s the truth. As we come back from our long walk through Yesod, coming back to Malkuth, the realm of shapes and forms. Waving goodbye to our imaginary friends. Hoping to see them again. (And we will.)

Coming back to Phoenix, Arizona. December 5, 2015. Ten, five, twenty, fifteen. A lot of fives in there. Hail Eris. And not a single one of them a coincidence. Hail Discordia. We’ve walked into the otherworld on Saturn’s Day. God of the Underworld. A good day for a magical ritual.

But we’re back here. Home again. Our feet firmly on the ground. Safe.

And before we part for good, I have one more spell to cast. One more transformation. One more bit of alchemy. Transforming something mundane into something sublime.

Things can mean more than one thing at a time.

Do you remember my balloon? The one my mother threw away?

It’s still with me. I never let go of it.

It’s how I keep the joy and wonder of little five-year-old me around wherever I go. Because I never let go of that balloon.

I never let go of my wonder. Never let go of my joy.

And when I hear that voice whispering in my ear.

I look up.

And there he is. Still tight in my hand. Still made of helium and plastic and magic.

And if you look very closely… squint if you have to…

… you can see yours, too.

And when you feel like you have to be the western hero, taking on the whole world by yourself… you can look up… and know this.

You aren’t alone. You don’t need to be alone.

If you hold on to your balloon.