Callie and I sat together in complete silence. I felt like we had been moving in different directions for quite some time now, but I did not know how to tell her. She couldn’t stand to look at me; her eyes too glued to the screen. We sat two feet from each other and yet I felt miles apart. Why did she stop talking to me? Didn’t she know it was all falling apart?

I stared into the digital abyss in search of answers, finding none. Maybe this was the end. I should have known. Callie clearly had moved on, which was weird because I thought I was playing as Cho. Didn’t I have some say in where we were going? I winded up a punch and lunged, hitting nothing. I expected her to make some snide remark on how that was an allegory for this whole relationship. How I just charged ahead, over-extended and got us both killed. Callie was right; I was kind of a brute.

“Tell me when you send the Rune Bomb, I think I have to detonate it,” she said.

“Ok,” I replied. “Sending one now.”

The ball rolled toward an enemy Hero, and just as I thought it would miss, the detonation blasted the Hero away from the battle.

“Look,” said Callie. “I can nudge you.”

I looked at my screen and watched as the combined force that is Cho’Gall moved slightly to the right. “Useful for dodging,” I said. “In case I don’t see something coming.”

I then noticed that Gall, the magic-heavy Assassin half to my Warrior Cho, had been throwing Dread Orbs at the enemies. Callie was helping this whole time. Why had I been so blind to it?

Maybe I was the silent one. Maybe I was afraid of communication. I was afraid that even as I played as Cho, the legs of Heroes of The Storm’s newest addition, I would have no say in where we were headed.

We lost the match. Callie apologized, citing she had only the chance to play as Cho’Gall once before.

“That’s ok,” I said. “My first time too.”

Cho’Gall is a fascinating addition to the Nexus. Where so many matches can boil down to a blame game, Cho’Gall forces two players to accept responsibilities for each other’s actions. It opens a door for communication and cooperation, something that can be lacking in both the Nexus and the real world. Cho’Gall is a marriage that can end one of two ways: In happiness, till network errors do you part, or in a rage-quit so extreme you’ll end up having to share every other holiday per court order.

When I was seventeen I snuck into E3.

I had a too-big dress shirt and a wrist band given to me by my mom's boyfriend as a disguise. This was no Ocean's 11; this was betting against the capabilities of a locally hired security team. When I walked in I don't even think he checked the wrist band.

It was exhilarating. It was a rush. It was the year Enter The Matrix came out for PlayStation 2 so it was a really boring year to sneak into E3. I bring this up because last year I pulled what felt like a similar stunt. Last year I snuck into Blizzcon.

Sort of. I was registered as a member of the press having no experience with video game journalism, so I had a moment where I wasn't sure if it was a James Bond or a Jason Bourne analogy to write about. It felt that cool to be in the press room, one of them, enjoying free food and snacks and making casual chit-chat with YouTube personalities from Australia. I had priority seating to panels. I saw Metallica up close and thought about how old they looked. It was exhilarating. It was a rush, and it was a great year to go.

Now I write this in a motel named after the five motels that came before it. The kind of place where the sound of the nearby 5 freeway is like nature's white noise. I write on the eve of Blizzcon, getting ready to once again attend as a member of the press. Legitimately this time. I'm starting to earn my stripes and learn the ways of the press. This time, thankfully, I don't need the wristband.

I've spent some time the last few days with the Witcher 3, and while I have never finished any of the previous games, it's safe to say I will follow this one to completion. Below is a list of things I love, and a few things I despise, about Geralt's latest adventure.

(side note: I started writing this before the latest Giant Bombcast, and was both excited and dismayed to hear a lot of the same points brought up.)

Things I love:

- You're Not Trying To Save The World Witcher 3's plot (thus far) isn't about saving the world from some unknown, mysterious destruction. It's more like Game of Thrones, complete with endless regions and kingdoms you'll need a glossary to remember (and thank goodness, there's one of those too). You're hired to look for a woman, bring back that woman, and slay monsters along the way. Simple where it needs to be, but more importantly, it's personal. Even better, this removes some of the inherent pressure of having to finish the main quest because, you know, world is ending, bro.

- Side Quests Are Not Fetch Quests In my 20 + hours thus far, I don't think I've encountered a single quest that has tasked me with finding X number of items, or defeating X number of enemies. The structure of each quest is organic and plausible. If you are fetching any items, such as collecting plants for special potions/oils, it's optional.

- Even Side Quests Have Plot Twists Bioware who? The side quests are like playable folk tales, complete with fable-like moral quandaries and nightmarish creatures just outside the realm of reality. Every story I've encountered so far has been highly entertaining, and the outcomes are more often than not a surprise. It's games like the Witcher that makes me wish there was a game where the world is already saved, and you just play side quests.

- Potions In Combat! For Witcher fans, this is a huge plus (though I am sure that the faithful will cry foul over this "consolification" of their beloved PC franchise). You still have a toxicity meter, and you can only carry three of one type of potion into battle, but this definitely makes the combat easier to Swallow (get it?).

- There Are No Wrong Choices, Only Choices My biggest gripe with Bioware games (and more recently, Telltale games) is the transparency of choice. In Mass Effect, as morally gray as the characters were, my Shepard had only two choices: be a hero, or be a dick. If I wasn't sure, the game color-coded it for me. While this serves as a convenience for those who wish to play all Paragon or all Renegade, the actual thrill of choice is gone. Witcher gives you choice, but doesn't spell it out for you, meaning you won't know the consequences of your action until it's too late. You know, like in real life. It gives you a sense of ownership to your choices, a feature that many games fail to recognize is the most important part of choice in the first place.

Things I despise:

- A Mess of A Menu Innovative as the Witcher is, the in-game menus are a blast from the PC past. Items are barely organized, notes and books are stored as actual items with no categorization (or even a separate tab for lore that doesn't take up inventory space? Come on.) Playing with a controller, choosing items to dismantle or repair can be needlessly tedious. At least the potion making has been simplified.

- Mixed Signals A Witcher can perform magic, did you know that? Because I keep forgetting that when I have seven Drowners on my ass. More often than not, my fights become a hack and slash, because with so much going on, you can forget about Igni or Quen or Axii. What does Axii do? I forget because the names all look the same. To be fair, Igni makes fire, and that does make sense. That being said, I'm started to see the usefulness of a spell like Axii (which mind controls/stuns an opponent) for larger creatures.

Stuck In The Middle With:

-Combat Let me just say, you don't play Witcher for the combat. While games like the Batman Arkham series and last year's Shadow of Mordor are starting to redefine and streamline the combat-with-multiple-foes genre, The Witcher plays catch-up to 2011. Combat is simple, until you realize it isn't. Enemies have to be researched for weaknesses to oils or spells, as mashing the attack button will only get you so far. That being said, mashing the attack button gets you pretty far most of the time. When you take on Witcher contracts, researching the beast you will be fighting on is not only crucial, it helps bring you into the world. A lot of games present this information to you with a click, but The Witcher asks you to do the work and is better for it. Except, sometimes you encounter a group of Drowners and just want to hack their heads off because good gravy, are they annoying.

Also, the lock-on function. Broken at best, Geralt's stubborn tendency to "stick" to one enemy at a time makes navigating multiple-foe skirmishes unnecessarily difficult, and because the game demands that each frame of animation be complete, you have to be well aware of the enemy attacking you if you wish to block in time. Once you find the rhythm of the game's combat, this becomes less of an issue, but an issue nonetheless.

-Witcher 3: The Wild Wind First time I started exploring White Orchard, I looked up and saw storm clouds. The trees bent heavily as the wind blasted through the landscape. I thought, wow, there's gonna be a hurricane coming! Nope, that's just how wind works in the Witcher. With great exaggeration. While it is neat at first to see a living, breathing world, the exaggerated tree physics can look like they're trying to get your attention.

Overall, play the game. Play it now, as it's a glimmer of hope in this increasingly dire gaming landscape.