Rookie of the Year: Five New Year’s Videogame Resolutions
You feel compelled to support great writing…
The following is the latest in a series of journal entries chronicling the author’s descent into next-gen gaming degeneracy – from getting his first television in years to trying to figure out why the @$@”$)@ you need two goddamn directional pads just to walk down a fucking hallway.
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Since this is my first column of the new year, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share my videogame resolutions, as a way of looking back at the past 12 months, providing some long-overdue updates to a few recent columns and, in the process, pledging to you, my beloved readers, that I will become a fitter, happier, more productive Rookie of the Year in 2012.
In the new year, I resolve to:
1. Finally kill a goddamn mammoth in Skyrim
As you know, hunting mammoths has lately become an obsession for me (if you didn’t know, check out the link above), and I actually leveled up enough to slaughter one – but just as the mammoth was beginning to crumple to the ground, at last yielding to the crippling force of my fine Ebony Warhammer, I was killed by an onrushing giant.
So it doesn’t really count.
Ever since, I have been biding my time, slowly plotting my revenge while, in a brilliant bit of misdirection, strategically honing my mammoth-slaying skills by joining the Bard’s College and buying a fancy-pants manor in Solitude.
I will prevail.
2. Beat my friend Hannah in Tekken 6
I bought a used copy of Tekken 6, mostly for my friend Hannah, and became transfixed by the unlikely story of Bob’s rise to portly power.
But now – Bob or no Bob – I can’t, at least on a regular basis, beat that evil little bitch. But I can call Hannah an “evil little bitch” on the Internet, which I guess provides some measure of revenge.
Meanwhile, in another brilliant bit of misdirection, I have been strategically honing my Hannah-slaying skills by joining the Bard’s College and buying a fancy-pants manor in Solitude.
Yup, that’s how far from my goal – a total of 128 pounds in four years – that I am now after finding unlikely inspiration from Fable II and a little iPhone app called Lose It!.
While I’ve been eating at Subway quite a bit, I like to see myself instead as the Jared of the gaming world. A steady diet of Xbox has actually helped me – if for no other reason than I get so engrossed in the games I’m playing I forget to eat.
Or simply light my stove on fire.
Either way, I pledge to continue proving that videogames are the best way to battle childhood obesity.
This has nothing to do with videogames – far from it, most likely – but I plan to make my videogame wives, Ysolda of Skyrim and Zooey the Barmaid of Fable II, very jealous indeed in the coming months.
I’m sorry, ladies, but I plan to leave you, Ysolda, sitting all alone in that new fancy-pants manor in Solitude (irony?), and you, Zooey the Barmaid, walking back and forth in a perpetual loop between our cottage and The Sandgoose.
If not, I can always find a third wife in another game.
You know, just to keep my love life fresh.
I mean this literally – I only turned on my Nintendo twice in 2011, and experienced my only run-in with readers when I trashed the system for its lack of games and for looking, for a lack of a better term, like ass.
However, I plan to delve deeply into Skyward Sword … as soon as I’m done with Skyrim.
On second thought, maybe this should be one of my resolutions for 2013.
Bonus Resolution: Retire as champion
This goes without saying – and actually dates back to a pre-Rookie piece I wrote in 2010.
But since the Rookie of the Year is a column dedicated to failure – and I don’t think the Sophomore Jinx is nearly as catchy a title – I’ll probably keep stumbling and bumbling though videogames, just as I do in real life.
So, until we meet again – Happy New Year!
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Matt Marrone can only hope 2012 is half as good as 2011. You can follow him all year long on Twitter @thebigm.
