It's the first weeks of school and I am a stressed 2nd year teacher. I'm doing way better than last year, but there is still much to do and too little time. And I love video games. I want to keep playing games when at home and not doing work I could be doing (there is no end to teaching work--there are only chosen breaks). Right now, I should be grading.

Usually, I play games to experience them. Honestly, while I choose games I think will interest me, I want to go on a journey I cannot predict. I want a game to take me somewhere and tell me something and give me an experience I may not have anticipated. I generally make it about the games.

Intellectually, that's exhausting. It means that I play games thoughtfully and dig into them as I play--sometimes I think like a designer, sometimes like a critic, sometimes like my ethical self, but rarely do I lay back and let it just be. I like delving and exploring. It gives me joy.

It also is a lot of hard work. It's stimulating, but not relaxing. Having played through nearly the entire Bioshock story (possible blog to come?) with just the final episode of Burial at Sea left, I feel like I've learned and thought a lot, but I did not chill out while playing it.

Right now, I don't need a game to make me think. Free Metro 2033 is hanging out on my PS3, but that's not a good idea right now. Right now, I need a game to help me relax and escape.

Hi Diablo 3!

Thinky me is very critical of this game--the characters are wooden, the story is silly and has some bad tropes, why the fuck is my demon hunter wearing fuck me pumps regardless of armor set, this is about shiny objects in order to become more powerful to have more shiny objects--all of that.

But man is it perfect right now. On expert for my first run through, it's not boring because named dudes and minions can still fuck me up, but it's not stressful because there's no penalty for death (which seems crazy?) and things explode good. The sounds, the visuals, the legendary pretty crown I found--it's a great way to spend three hours.

And I guess the point of all this is that I'm proud of myself. While I could have chosen a less addictive game, I actively chose entertainment that would fit into my current life and reduce my stress rather than something to add to it. Now I'll grade. Kill Skeleton King tonight.

Ignore the story, skip all of it. All of it is bad.

Maybe watch the prerendered cutscenes just because they look cool.

So when I get my paper back and it has like a single word underlined with "w.c" under it and then a lazily scribbled grade I'll know why.

:D

Ps. the grade is still an A

Pps. word to Diablo III

Ppps. Thinky you should not be thinking at all about Diablo III's story. May as well meditate on Yoshi's motivations for helping Mario.

@geraltitude: Heh, nah, I'm too perfectionistic to half ass stuff. Will turn off story motors best I can.

It's REALLY not worth the time. Just turn on the option to skip all cut scenes and skip through all the dialogue.

Diablo 3 is Gauntlet with loot. Gauntlet didn't have a story, and Diablo 3 has an obligatory story that they didn't care about. It's the same mindless fun that was popular in arcades 30 years ago, but with modern trimmings (and of course way easier.)

P.S. There is a death penalty. 10% damage to your equipment that needs to be repaired. Repairs are relatively cheap so it's really quite a minor penalty, but remember to repair when you are in town. Of course you can go to town pretty much whenever you want so...

@kierkegaard: Man, what do you teach? I'm a teacher as well and I have plenty of time for gaming. I don't have kids yet, and getting off work at 3:30 gives me a decent bit of time. I plan once a week for the whole week, and I laid out a lot of general benchmarks to hit on my calendar before the year started. I definitely know of other teachers who are in the same boat as you and seem to dedicate 60 hours a week to it. My wife is a teacher, as well, and she has time during the week to watch Netflix, read, and relax.

@bigsocrates: You know, I hear this. But it's weird that there are, like, lots of conversation options with the characters and tons of audio diaries to pick up. I mean, I can ignore it, but there was effort there. It seems like it's a bit disingenuous to say that there is just as much story as Gauntlet. Blizzard clearly tried, pretty hard at points even. Maybe it's crap, but you can't say it meant to be crap.

High school English. It's my second year so I'm still figuring it out. It's definitely easier this year. Feel free to PM if you wanna talk more about it!

I do have some time, but something like Diablo is perfect for my current level of stress.

@kierkegaard: Weird, my wife teaches high school English. I teach math, so sometimes she's jealous because she has to read essays and long answers when grading. But any good math teachers has to read through work too!

Hope you sort it out, there's definitely a learning curve!

@kierkegaard: It's not meant to be crap per se, it's just obligatory and they didn't spend a lot of time with it. Heck the structure is crazy from a narrative perspective, and totally in service of the gameplay. It's meant to give you some sort of context for your actions, which is why it's all lore and no particularly interesting characters (even two of the followers are lore focused). To tell a compelling story they may have had to change up the gameplay, alter the pacing etc...

Old games would do the same thing. They'd have lore context in their instruction booklet or whatever intended to give some context to what you were doing. This is the 2012 version of that, but with many more trimmings. It's not intentionally bad but it's intentionally structured the way it is, and that structure is part of why it's bad.

@bigsocrates: Okay, that gives me some structural understanding. I'm in Act 2 now and it is clearly based around the big war stuff and the particular players are less developed. I like that Leah's mom was not actually fridged as motivation for Cain and Leah. The Enchantress looks ripe for a midriff-based disemboweling, though. Also, shiny things and I love the sentry and raining arrows and gattling gun R2 attack for the demon hunter.

@mbradley1992: Thank you! Essays will always be harder than anything in math ever.