Rookie of the Year: Road To Rule

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.

It’s no secret: Chuck Moran is a more accomplished gamer than I am. 

My Unwinnable compatriot, fellow Unlistenable podcaster, Portal 2 co-op partner – and notorious booth babe magnet – is a hardened pro, an expert who would in all likelihood smoke me in just about any game you could name.

Any game, that is, except Fable III.

That’s right, readers. Much to my delight, Fable III, which I recently began playing after finishing the fantastic Fable II, not only keeps track of your in-game stats, but compares them to your friends on Xbox Live – and I’m happy to report to you that I, your humble Rookie of the Year, have already left Charles Francis Moran, senior Unwinnable editor, Big Man on Campus, in the dust.

Who has staved off the most wolves?

Me.

Who has defeated the most Hollow Men?

Me.

Who has more spell kills, more melee kills, more ranged kills, more mercenaries killed?

I’ll give you one guess.

It doesn’t end there. I’ve also surpassed Chuck in categories like Money Spent, Chests Opened and Total Treasure Value – and even though I still trail in the enigmatic Attacks Made By Dog, I have him well beat in Furthest Handhold, Distance Traveled (Yards) and Relationship Quests.

I don’t care a hoot if I happened to overtake Chuck in overall playing time after just two hours, 47 minutes. Quitting is no excuse, Chuck, nor does it take away any of the satisfaction I felt as our names flip-flopped on the screen when I passed you in yet another category.

Unlocking achievements on my Xbox has always done little for me. Sure, there’s a nice sense of accomplishment when the shiny graphic pops up on the bottom of the screen, but there’s little comfort to be found in the reality of a gamer score that has me so far behind I’ll almost certainly never catch up.

But that’s not the case with Fable III, which flashes real-time leaderboards as you battle foes, and displays them on the title screen as you wait for the next village to load.

And unlike a gamer score that would take years just to become respectable, my Fable III stats quickly soared past the meager figures amassed by Chuck – whose achievements in the game, to put it mildly, don’t exactly live up to his stature.

An embarrassing fact that, reading this, has got to kill him.

Sure, Chuck’s an in-your-face type of guy, with his crazy glasses and fishnet baseball cap, but like Ken Lucas, I’m in his head. He talks about me on the podcast when I’m not there, taking me to task for criticizing him in my columns as Ken reads from them and vows revenge.

And now I have an edge on him on his very own playing field. I’ve set up shop in his virtual backyard and I’m not just limply taunting him about chaotic Unwinnable game nights anymore, but actually outplaying him.

In other words, with every achievement, every record-breaking Fable III feat, I’m finally putting my money squarely where my mouth is.

Which is especially easy, since I know for a fact that I have 3,259 gold pieces.

And Chuck has 516.

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Matt Marrone is dead even with Chuck Moran in the actual Fable III categories of STDs and Group Sex Partners. Dead even, shamefully, at zero. You can follow the Rookie of the Year on Twitter @thebigm