Cheers, love! The cavalry's here!

By my records (and by my I do mean the internet's) it's been more then 2 weeks since I posted here. Is that abnormal? If feels like it's been ages. I'm not going to try and fill you in on everything that has happened, because I barely remember what was two weeks ago. I guess I'll just skip to now.

I feel very, very normal this morning. That may sound odd, but it's one of the nicest things, and one of the nicest mornings, I have had since I moved to Oxford. It is a cool and quiet and wet morning, cloudy enough to block the harsh sun - as a note of advice: do your best to avoid having a window that faces east or a bed that faces a window. - and full of bird song. I had a rather odd but very pleasant night. I slept, it would seem, straight from 8pm-5am, without even bothering to take my belt and shorts off or to close my window or curtains. I woke feeling more refreshed than just about ever. I think the open window, and the cool spring and lack of blinding light, helped immensely with that.

Obviously I had not laid down with the intent to sleep - I actually texted Hannah "I'm going to lay down for a bit, but not sleep, it's too late for that". Meaning of course that it was too late for a nap. I had not imagined that I would fall asleep and sleep the whole night. But I did and it was beautiful. I woke, refreshed, to the dull light of 5 in the morning, spoke briefly to a few friends who were just about to go to bed themselves (in America), and actually read two chapters of a book my neighbor Simon lent me - for FUN - this is one of the first times I've read a book for fun (aka not for school) since I moved here. (Not that I haven't any other recreational and fictional pursuits - we'll get to that.) It was really nice.

Over all the strangest thing is how I would describe and have described how I feel on this very odd morning. I feel normal. Shockingly normal. I don't know why that't the word for it. I don't feel elated, I don't feel worried, I don't feel stressed. I guess the word is more peaceful. Human. Like life is life and there are things to do and things that may be done, and time for each. It's not as if I'm suddenly on topf of my papers, I'm definitely not, but... you know what no. I'm not pursuing this line of thought. I am not going to talk myself out of this mood and into stress.

The past few days have been gorgeous. Simply beautiful days. But, alas, that which has taken over my life has not been the sun. Overwatch, I am sure you've heard me mention, has been hosting an open Beta this weekend, and I have given just about every spare minute - and some not-so-spare - to playing it. I could talk about this game for ages - and I have. I am in far, far too deep and I don't even own it yet! I'm trying to convince myself that it would be better to wait - after the beta closes to just wait a bit and get it later. After all it's term time, and my birthday is coming up, and after that is summer, when I likely won't have my gaming laptop much. (we can discuss summer plans later. once I have some). But the long and short of it is: I love this game. I was already in love with the design and the characters and the associated short films before the beta opened, but I wasn't sure I would love the game. It is a PvP after all, the game play looked very much like TF2 (which while fun is not fantastic) and if it was anything more serious I would be just as turned off from it as I am by games of the Call of Duty type (I've never actually played those, this isn't a critique as much as an I'm-just-not-interested.) But this game - Overwatch - is just a work of art. There isn't a plot, there aren't cut scenes, and that worried me - the promos seem to have some sort of plot, or at least bad guys and good guys. I like games with plot. Interactive stories. But the game doesn't have a plot in the straightforward sense. Any character can fight alongside or against any other character. The missions are simple capture and escort, without any pretense of what or why. But somehow it doesn't even matter.

This game has, above all else, personality. It's built in. The game doesn't need story and plot to give it personality. It's first person too, you don't even SEE the character you're controlling or the most part. How could each of these very personality-filled characters (I LOVE the character design, I'll get to that) come across well if we can't even see them? The answer is that their personality is built into the mechanics. THIS is what games, and only games, can do well. When you play as Tracer you play differently than when you play as Pharah. You have to. It's built in. But not in a constraining way, in a freeing way - a way that lets you BE that character in a more real sense. Playing as Tracer makes you act like Tracer, maker you feel like Tracer. The voice acting really helps this along, I think. And it's not just her of course - Reinhardt feels like Reinhardt and Mercy like Mercy etc. This is the kind of thing I would love to actually study, but really just love to play. I'll admit that I've actually only played as a small handful of the 21 characters - mainly Tracer, Zarya, Reinhardt, Pharah, Mercy, and Widowmaker. Oh and D.Va. But half of the reason for that is that I really love being those characters, and right now I don't really care to be the others (not that they're bad! Just not... me.)

Anyway like I said I could gush all day. I'll add a few more comments and then try to leave it. 1.) Drama: The drama level in Overwatch is perfect. What I mean by that is that the events of Overwatch feels somehow momentous enough that it feels really honestly heroic to win, but at the same time relaxed enough that it doesn't feel crushing to lose. Its a game that makes you cheer but never rage-quit. It feels great to win, and if you lose you can say "good game" in honesty. I really, REALLY hope that the community helps in keeping this up. Because if anything could damage that balance, it's the players. Right now the pacing, the music, everything seems good for it. Something else that helps keep this is 2.) Gore. Or, more precisely, a complete lack of it. I didn't even notice it at first until I tried comparing Overwatch to TF2. But there Is. No. Blood. in Overwatch. And that is actually really refreshing. When a character dies they fall to the ground - they often cry out. It does feel a bit painful. Or, if you're the one eliminating them (note that the game does you the word "eliminate" not "kill") it feels satisfying. But there is no blood. There aren't even lasting bodies - during the cool down time of re-spawn the player watches a replay of what just happened, (it's well done, keeps you from feeling like you're waiting for waiting's sake) and on the feild they are represented by a glowing golden flame where they were - just in case Mercy is around to revive them during that 5 second delay. This is a game about fighting - a game where everyone even Mercy the healer carries a gun - and yes somehow it is, I would say, honestly kid-friendly. In a way that even TF2 (which overcomes constant character deaths in the opposite way - overdone, comic explosions, nothing like real life but bloody and humorous) isn't. And you wouldn't think it would effect the game that much, but I think it does. It helps the fiction too - calling it "elimination" somehow helps the fantasy that these are the same characters each time, they never actually die. It also helps I think limit frustration. This wouldn't work for every game but it works VERY well for Overwatch.

I swear I'm almost done. 3.) Visual design, of both location and character, is very VERY well done. The maps are complex and varied, well thought out and beautiful. There are enough to not be boring and few enough that you can learn them in a weekend. And the characters? There are several things I love but the most notable is the variety, and variety of female character especially. You'll note that all of the player characters in TF2 (except MAYBE Pyro) are male. That's not horrible, but it is a choice. Overwatch has about half-and-half on gender (it's hard to count because there are some robots which may seem male-ish but do robots really have gender?) which is great but more than they they have variety. They have soldiers (Pharah), healers (Mercy), scouts (Tracer), tanks (Zarya), engineers (D.Va), scientists (Mei), agents (Widowmaker), the whole lot. They have skinny characters and larger characters, tall and short, and - note - NOT all of them are super sexualized!! I could go on about this point in particular a good bit. For now just know that I absolutely love the design of Zarya in particular, and I think it's because she's closest to my body type, and I don't see that a lot.

OK thats enough for now. Seriously. I'm going to go shower and see what this day brings. I've got a workshop thing later and I think I'm making soup tonight. Class tomorrow, and hopefully I can get more reading done and possibly even find a topic. For now I just hope and pray that this nice feeling lats. Peaceful, that's what I'd call it.

Thanks for reading, as always. I have more thoughts to share but many of them are worrisome, so I'll post them later when I am worried.

The world could always use more heroes!
R

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below, praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.