My Role in the Game

December 17, 2007 10:38 A.M.

         I awoke to the sound of Mindy’s frantic pleas for me to get out of bed, “Vinnie, wake up, the trailer park’s under attack,” she yelled.
         I sat up straight in the reclining chair. I was in my living room. I must have fallen asleep watching TV the night before. But the TV wasn’t on. In fact, no lights were on either. Power was out.
         “What’s going on?” was my immediate question.
         She stammered out an answer, “There are these…things...outside. They’re attacking people.”
         I listened and heard gunfire.
         “Oh, it’s probably just one of our drunk neighbors arguing with his obese wife.”          
A moment later I heard a woman screaming.
         “See?”
         “Vinnie, how can you joke at a time like this? We need your help. You have to get us out of here.”
         She was right. Why did I make that joke? I had at least three options of what I could have said. I could have replied with, “What things?...Mindy, what’s going on,” or “Is anyone hurt. I’ll help however I can.” But both of those just seemed too dramatic. I had every intention of getting up and helping with whatever was going on, but I didn’t see a need to be uptight about it. So, I elected to lighted the mood with a joke. That’s all I was trying to do. And yet, I felt as if I had just shifted on some cosmic scale of alignment between light and dark. Oh well, I thought.
         “I’ll need my sword,” I said as I jumped out of the chair, “If things are half as bad out there as they sound, this could get ugly. Mindy, stay here and wait for me to come back for you.”
         “No, I can help you. I’m coming along.”
         I attempted to persuade Mindy to stay, but every time I chose something to say, she curiously just repeated back the same answer: “No, I can help you. I’m coming along.”
         Mindy had been added to my party.
         Allowing the horrible screams and strange grunting sounds coming from outside to suspend my disbelief at Mindy’s odd behavior, I made my way down the hall to my room and grabbed my sword. I suddenly felt the urge to lift it up over my head in excitement. When I did so I hummed a little tune that sounded like something from a Disney movie about knights and dragons. “Dun duh dun, dada da dada dun…” It went something like that.
         Just then, one of the walls exploded inward. Mindy and I looked away, shielding ourselves from the debris. When we looked back to see the cause of the wall’s destruction, there stood a giant lizard creature, standing on two legs. Mindy leaped into action and grabbed my naginata (it’s like a short spear, but with a curved blade like a katana). She threw the sheath off and slashed the creature down it’s chest. This all occurred to my most sincere amazement as Mindy had had no prior martial arts training to my knowledge. Even more amazing was the fact that the creature was not dead. Mindy paused and just stared at it, waiting for it to attack her. It did and she fell back to the floor. I lunged in and slashed at the creature with my sword. It let out a shrill yell and exploded into bluish green light.
         I looked over to see Mindy, to my surprise, unscathed and standing up. She grasped at her side however.
         “Mindy! Are you ok?! That thing hit you right in the face!”
         “I’m fine,” She replied in her usual tone, despite the fact that she stood hunched over and still clutching her side. “I’m just a little low on stamina.”
         “Low on stamina? Why are you holding your side? It looked like that thing hit your head, did you hurt your side when you fell?” I was becoming thoroughly perplexed at this point.
         “I just need some rest. Would you like to spar? I’m sure that’ll make me feel better.”
         “What?!”
         Mindy then went on to face me in terrifying one on one combat with live weapons that surprisingly could not kill us in one swing. I was always under the impression that a stab wound from a katana would end a person’s life. But by my count, Mindy and I sustained ten or more fatal blows each and walked away feeling great. Imagine my surprise. The only thing that annoyed me was how she kept calling out advice for how to use my sword and instructing me to hit her with various attacks in order to “learn” them when I already knew them.
         After her little lesson, she informed me that there were three people around the trailer park that I needed to save. She said they were children who had run off and hid when the monsters first showed up. No one else seemed to be alive in the park, despite the fact that I continued to hear the distant cries of people in the background noise.
         I tracked down each one of these children, following a series of clues and killing many more of these giant lizard things along the way. Every time I’d rescue a child, he or she would claim that they know of a safe place to go and then just ran off unprotected. Also, every time I found one of the children, an even larger red lizard that could breathe fire would appear and announce, “At long last I’ve found you two. Now you will come with me,” to the child and I. They seemed disinterested in Mindy. In fact, no one seemed to speak with or notice Mindy. Only me. Also, despite the fact that she knew what the children looked like and seemed to understand what was going on better than I did, she let me lead for some reason. I didn’t like this day at all. But hey, at least I found out that I was fire resistant while fighting those stupid red lizards.
         Upon defeating my final red lizard, I felt a surge of energy run through me and felt myself become slightly stronger. While invigorating, it was quite an odd sensation, and didn’t make a lot of sense. Why should I feel stronger after getting the crap kicked out of me? Also, at this time Mindy gave me the journal that I am currently logging this information in. She told me it was important to “save my data” as often as possible by writing it down in this notebook. Peculiar.
         

December 17, 2007 12:19 P.M.

         After resting back at the trailer and feeling fully rejuvenated, we decided to leave the park and see how far this monster attack had spread. Unfortunately, my car had been damaged during the fighting. It was missing three main components: a sparkplug cable, a catalytic converter, and a flux capacitor.
         “I remember seeing those parts at various locations around the trailer park while we were rescuing those children,” Mindy told me.
         “Well, why the hell not?” I said. “I mean, I have no idea how you even know what these parts are let alone are able to recognize them while we are in the middle of combat against giant lizards, but hey, lets go get them!”
         What followed was a near repeat of the episode where I had to rescue the children. Only this time these strange rat creatures in blue robes kept attacking us. They also seemed to be fighting with the lizards. Unlike the lizards, they didn’t use their hands and feet to fight, but instead used laser guns and various other advanced forms of technology. Upon finding each car piece, I was force to not only do battle with a red lizard, but also a specially black robed rat creature who was able to freeze Mindy or myself for about 5 seconds.
         Finally, we assembled all the pieces we needed, but when we got back to our car, there was a lizard creature waiting for us there. He was different from the others though. He wore clothes and appeared more human like.
         “Hello, I am Zanru, Prince of the Azkulu.” He greeted us.
         This guy had some long ass story about his background and his father being corrupt and what this attack might be about, but not really because he kind of danced around that. I don’t really know what he was trying to say, and I didn’t really care. I tried to hurry the scene up as much as possible, because I sensed a big fight coming up and I wanted to get to it. And as I predicted, right after Zanru declared himself my newest party member, a big freaking lizard creature emerged from the ground. This one was black, but was glowing red on his hands and feet and inside his mouth. After a lengthy battle of this mega lizard against Mindy, Zanru, and myself it finally blew it’s last fiery blast and exploded into an eruption that should have killed us all. Strangely, we were fine.


December 17, 2007 3:50 P.M.

         After getting in my car, we traveled to Justin’s house. He was already aware of the situation. The whole world was. Massive attacks were occurring like this all over the planet. The rat creatures seemed to be aliens, possessing spaceships and superior technology. They were fighting the lizard creatures who seemed to come from beneath the earth’s crust. But for some reason, both creatures were randomly attacking humans also.
         Zanru filled us in on some extra details. Like how his people had once lived on the Earth’s crust back when it was covered in volcanoes and such. They moved inward to the warmer core as the Earth cooled, though they can survive on the crust. His father, the Lizard King (or Jim Morison as he shall now be referred to) was planning on taking the Earth’s crust back and enslaving humanity. Apparently, the rat people where aliens who had been monitoring this situation for some time, and finally came down to earth to stop Jim Morison’s conquest. But why they were randomly attacking human’s was still a mystery.

         Finally, after what seemed like an hour of talking, Justin declared that we could use his house as a base while we tried to figure out what’s going on. I then finally regained control of my life and immediately saved.


December 17, 2007 4:20 P.M.

         I just went around asking everybody what they thought should be done next. I found Mindy in Justin’s sister’s room, standing quietly in the corner, still holding her weapon.
         “What can I do for you?” She asked.
         I seemed to have the option of talking to her about our relationship or our current situation. Feeling more task oriented, I selected the current situation question.
         “I can’t help but wonder about Donald.” She said, staring off into space and making repetitive gestures with her hands, “If this thing’s spread so far, then could it have gotten to him too? Didn’t he say his family would be out of town this week. Poor Donald, he’s all alone.”
         Now, notice that this didn’t really answer my question, but I got what she was trying to say. She obviously felt we should try to help Donald.
         “Is there anything else you needed?” She asked.
         I selected the “No” option and left her to her blank staring and occasional head scratching.
         Justin was tinkering with something at his father’s workbench in the garage.
         “Just a little tweak here, and a little tweak there and…done. At long last I’ve finished my greatest invention yet.”
         “You’re an inventor?” I asked, and once again I felt my cosmic alignment make a dark side shift despite the fact that I didn’t mean anything bad by what I said.
         “You don’t need to ask like that,” was Justin’s offended response, “Of course I’m an inventor, and this is my greatest invention yet, the gunblade.”
         Justin held up a ridiculous looking cross between a gun and a sword that I had seen once before in Final Fantasy VIII. And that’s when I started to notice something wasn’t right.
         “What do you think of our current situation?” I asked, ignoring his silly weapon.
         “Well, I find myself worried about Donald”—the real Justin would never say that—“I just can’t help but feel that he should be with us right now.”
         Again, a party member hints but does not outright say that we should go to Donald’s.
         After leaving Justin to his tinkering, I found Zanru staring out a window. He basically said the same thing the others had said, so it was settled: we needed to go rescue Donald. I returned to Mindy to select the option “Ready the ship, we’re leaving” but I noticed that “Let’s talk about you and me” option and picked that instead. After some light flirting our romantic arch to the story had begun. And that’s when it all hit me.
         I ran back through the house, finding each of my party members in the exact same position, doing the exact same movements they had been before. I ran tiny laps around Zanru and he didn’t even flinch. I repeatedly walked into Justin only to have myself repelled by some invisible bubble around our character models. And that brings me to you right now, as I write this to you hence “saving my data.” It’s finally happened. I’m trapped inside and RPG game.


December 17, 2007 4:51 P.M.

         Ok, I just spoke with Justin and Mindy and managed to make them realize what’s going on. Convincing Justin was easy because all I had to do was appeal to his deep hatred for Japanese cartoons and he was able to see how stupid his gunblade was.
         “My dad is going to kill me for doing this to his revolver!” he exclaimed.
         It’s a good thing it was easy too, because I actually had to do it twice. I did it once and then went outside for a smoke and was killed by a red lizard, so I had to start back at my last save. The second time around I decided not to take a smoke break and just went right to Mindy. She was a little harder to convince but I finally got her when I pointed out that we’ve dated on and off for years and that our relationship is far more complicated then the flirtatious beginnings of a storybook love. Zanru, is unable to be convinced unfortunately. Perhaps that’s because he is part of the RPG itself. He’s not a real person trapped inside. He’s just an invention of the game. Stupid Zanru, you may have been good to play with at the beginning, but now you suck.


December 17, 2007 6:46 P.M.

         Unable to fit more than three people comfortably in my car (nice justification, game), Justin, Mindy, and I left Zanru at the base and headed to Donald’s. We had to abandon the ship…er, car a few blocks away due to roadblocks and raging fires. We battled our way through hoards and hoards of creatures to reach Donald’s house. We tried using Justin’s dad’s guns to fight but long range weapons suck in RPGs, so we had to stick with melee combat. Me with my sword, Mindy with my naginata, and Justin with his oversized and humorously heavy Calvary saber. *sigh* He’s got pretty high attack but he’s just too slow. Oh well, I can fix that the next time he levels up.
         Upon reaching Donald’s house, we found the most horrifying scene yet. Apparently, Donald decided that today was going to be his day of sitting on his ass and watching movies while eating Cheetos. He was still in the clothes he slept in, was completely oblivious to what was happening outside, and what’s worse, he had cheesy finger tips.
         “He guys, what’s up?” He said as he tried to lick the cheese from his fingers only to fail and merely moisten them leaving them coated in orange goo.
         “Donald, don’t you find it a little peculiar that we just barged into your house without knocking?” I demanded, trying to see if he was affected by the RPG hell we were living in.
         “Put away your weapon friend, there’s no danger here,” Donald’s friend, Michael Braber said as he came from another room.
         Mindy lunged at him and cleaved her blade into his head, killing him instantly.
         “You are no good killer!” Donald announced as he stood up and picked up his katana, conveniently sitting right next to him.
         What ensued was an annoying boss fight that could have been avoided if one of my party members hadn’t run off to attack someone that I didn’t tell them to. Donald and I used to spend a lot of time together. We practiced in martial arts for years with each other, and despite the fact that I’ve been in it much longer than him and have always been better, the game felt he was the best candidate to be my mirror match. I mean, he has the same weapon after all…right…so it makes sense…hehe…fuck.
         So after, magically stunning Justin and Mindy so that they couldn’t help me, I was forced into a strange competition where Donald was able to match my every move. When I would swing at him, he’d swing the same exact way, knocking my blade away and leaving me open for his attack. My only hope was to do the exact same thing to him. The fight had one good result though. In the process, we accidentally destroyed Donald’s refrigerator and out popped some Ovaltine. It floated above the ground and spun. Apparently, in this game, health packs are cans of Ovaltine.
         After a few hits, Donald’s health bar was reduced to about one quarter and he gave up, snapping out of his violent rage and releasing Justin and Mindy from his stupid spell that he won’t be able to cast again when he becomes a party member of mine.
         “Now, if I tried to give up, you would have just killed me,” I protested. “Why is it that I can die but you can’t?”
         Donald looked at me hard and long from hearing this. Finally, his face contorted into a grimace. He was fighting it! He was fighting the game! We leaped to his side to help him.
         “Donald!” I shouted while grabbing his arm, “It doesn’t make any sense that your fridge exploded when all I did was hit it with a sword.”
         Justin spoke up. “Why were you able to fight so well when you were an enemy, but now that you’re a friend again you can feel yourself reverting back to being a normal character with mediocre stats?”
         “Look at yourself Donald!” I spoke again. “You’re videogame confused. Just like earlier when Mindy was videogame hurt and she just held her side and limped around. You’re bent over holding your hands to your head and shaking back and forth!”
         “It’s like it’s screaming inside my head!” Donald responded.
         But just then; just after hearing himself spout that poorly acted line, he stood up straight with a stern look on his face.
         “No.”
         Donald stared off, focused on the air in front of him, chasing away whatever remnant of the videogame that was still infecting his mind. And then he was Donald again.
         Donald turned to me. “What the hell is that? WHAT IS THAT!?” He wasn’t looking at me, but rather behind me. I turned around to see a floating skeletal head covered in flames. Donald lunged at the monster. He hacked and slashed at it with his sword, yelling complaints with every swing. “STUPID…FREAKING…HEAD-THING…MAKES…NO…SENSE.”
         The head-thing seemed to be immune to melee attacks. Justin pulled out his gun and fired at it only to have the bullets consumed by the fire around it. It then bit Donald who erupted in flames. I swear I saw wording appear above his head that read “Immolated.” Donald flailed around fearing for his life. I ran to his side to calm him.
         “Relax man, being lit on fire isn’t enough to kill you here. You need to sustain at least two more regular attacks and a power strike to die, and even then you’ll just stand back up if one of us beats it.”
         Meanwhile, Justin frantically searched the room for something to defeat the monster.
         “Wait a minute,” he said, “We missed an item. I’ll be right back.” He then fled the house back to the streets.
         While Justin was gone, I distracted the monster by tuck-and-rolling around the room while it tried to shoot fire at me. Luckily, it seemed to be locked onto me and left Mindy and Donald alone. This was good for Donald, because even though he was no longer on fire, he had sustained a “burned” status effect from the attack. Every five seconds he would jolt in pain, glow red, and lose some of his stamina. Finally, Justin came back through the door with fire in his eyes and a giant leaf in his hands. I had remembered seeing a strange plant with giant leaves that I didn’t remember growing in Donald’s neighborhood about a block away. We didn’t think much of it at the time. Thankfully, Justin figured out what needed to be done.
         Justin stepped between me and the head-thing and lifted the leaf high over his head. With an exaggerated motion, he heaved forward with the leaf in both hands, forcing a gust of wind that blew the head-thing’s fire out.
         “It’s vulnerable now! Kill it!” Justin yelled.
         Collectively we all destroyed no less than half of Donald’s magically exploding living room furniture trying to kill the creature before it had a chance to reignite its fire. Finally, with one powerful stroke of my sword, the monster exploded into blue light and left a burn potion behind. Donald used this to cure his status effect. A few cans of Ovaltine later and he was perfectly healthy.


December 17, 2007 7:20 P.M.

         Zanru entered the room after we defeated the head-thing. We have no idea how he got there but he initiated another long ass cut scene full of talking. He told us that he had learned that our government may be behind the reason that the rat people are attacking humans. But in order to get into the White House we need to find four Instruments of Power, scattered throughout the land, that would then only give us the ability to face the Guardian in battle. Then and only then may we get into the White House. Meanwhile, we will continue to use Justin’s house as a base in between missions, and my car as a “ship” to go out on them.


December 19 2007 5:45 P.M.

         We retrieved the first Instrument of Power: the Guitar of Slash. After tracking down the legendary guitarist of Guns and Roses, we found that he was running a secret operation that involved kidnapping humans and replacing them with lizard people. He himself was a lizard person, a particularly large one. I’d estimate about five stories tall. After climbing all over him and stabbing him in key places, and avoiding his fiery pores and distorted guitar sound attacks, he disintegrated into a pile of dust and his guitar was ours.
         Along the way, we met a beautiful woman named Lila, who always wears a bikini and always has her legs cleanly shaven. She said she was trying to track down the right hand man of Jim Morison (the Lizard King, remember) because he had killed her father. She sported a ridiculously large mallet that I’m certain weighed twice as much as her.


December 24 2007 4:17 A.M.

         Man, these long hours are killing me. On top of that it’s Christmas Eve. It’s fucking Christmas Eve and I’m still doing this shit. Playing videogames until ungodly hours on holidays is one thing, but living them out is a killer. We just tracked down the Piano of Mozart. Before this mission, we had to raid a rat-people camp and were able to steal one of their spaceships. This is our new ship and it allowed us to fly to Europe to do battle with the ghost of one of the most famous musicians in history. Don’t ask me how we carried the piano to the ship because the answer will be the same as how I’m able to carry twenty different weapons and fifty cans of Ovaltine on me.
         Anyway, being a ghost, Mozart could not be hurt by melee or long ranged attacks. So, we had to resort to using magic—that’s right we can use magic now. Donald and I would take turns freezing him and then Justin would be able to attack him with his sword. Why is a ghost able to be attacked physically when he’s frozen? We don’t know. All we know is it got us our second Instrument of Power.
         Also, I found out that I can follow a gay love story side quest with Donald.


December 28 2007 9:19 P.M.

         Christmas came and went and so has another wild adventure. This time we retrieved the Saxophone of Kenny G. He, it turns out, is a rat person, who had stolen this Instrument of Power from a lizard person. He accused me of serving Jim Morison and told me that me and my “turned” girlfriend would never succeed. “Turned” is a term used for humans who are willfully aiding the lizard people by the way. Anyhow, this fucker needed to die. And let me tell you, I beat the shit out of him.
         Kenny was one of those bosses who doesn’t attack directly too much, but instead calls down something in the environment to do so. So, besides the occasional blast from his saxophone, most of his attacks were calling down flying saucers to help him. This knocked Donald and Mindy out almost right away, but lucky for me, I found a pair of gloves in a cave earlier than make me immune to laser damage. And since my attack and defense are up high enough, I was able to defeat Kenny quite easily by myself.


December 29 2007 12:10 P.M.

         We were captured! Right after we left Kenny G’s base, we were overrun by rat people. Even though I am certain that we could have taken them all, we were forced into a cut scene and taken on board their ship. What ensued was a grueling interrogation method that involved bright lights that were supposed to represent electricity. After interrogating me for a bit, one of them commented, “I don’t believe this…he doesn’t know.”
         They then returned me to my cell, isolated from the others. I tried everything to find a way to escape. There was no way out. Really, I didn’t have to do anything because it was just a matter of time until my way out presented itself. I could have just sat there. In fact, once I realized that I didn’t have to do anything and that help was on the way, I fucked with the guard by tapping on the wall a lot and hiding under my bed. He seemed amused. Finally, a ninja freed me. He was blind but handled a sword like I’ve never seen. He killed all the guards and when he opened my cell he disappeared.
         I found all my gear crammed into a little locker in the next room over. After suiting up, I’m ready to kick some ass.


December 29 2007 12:15
         
         It didn’t take me long to brutalize my way through the guards down the cell block and free my friends. At this point we are all so powerful that anyone of us can take on twenty enemies at once, me in particular.
         It was at this point that the ninja reappeared and introduced himself as Onimaru Hyabuki-san. He claims he was sent by the government to help me escape, but he’s not sure why. He told me that he also is on a mission to learn as much as he can about the rat people and their plans. This, unfortunately means that we will have to go to the bridge of the ship and face the leader there instead of simply escaping. What’s more is that for some stupid reason my entire party can’t come with me. Still only three. Even worse is that Onimaru has to be one of the people I bring with me, so I can’t use my usual Donald and Justin line-up.


December 29 2007 1:20 P.M.

         So after picking Donald for his regenerative abilities over Justin’s heavy attack, the three of us made our way to the bridge while Justin lead Mindy, Zanru, and Lila back to the ship. After fighting our way through dozens of blue and black robed rat people with the occasional red robed one that threw grenades, we finally made it to the bridge where we faced Yulon, the head of the rat people army. He tried to tell us that we were making a big mistake and that we should return to our cells and trust the greater judgment of the rat people council, only of course he didn’t call it the “rat people council.” The real name of their species is Trutseeka. Anyway, we would have none of it, and instead, we killed him and all his guards. His dying words were this, “When the truth is revealed, remember…you cannot change what you are…but you can…change…what you do…”
         Cryptic messages or not were finished with that ship. Leaving it with no one at the helm, we escaped in our much smaller ship instead of commandeering that one for reasons I no longer understand. There was one problem though. Mindy didn’t come. The others said that she had got cut off from them when she ran through a doorway to hold off some rat people, but the door closed and locked. We didn’t have time to worry or grieve. We had to assume that she could fend for herself and move on with our mission.


December 31 2007 3:12 P.M

         This is just getting redundant now, and is quite easy. We tracked down Conan O’Brian. Along the way we hit a snag and had to do a side quest that earned us a new teammate named Dominique (he’s a vampire who can regain health automatically). This side quest and our new companion opened the path to Conan who we then battled our way to through hoards of his minions, defeating mini-bosses Labamba and Andy Richter along the way. We then face Conan himself in combat, learning that he is in reality a lizard person. After, what is by now, an all too easy fight, Conan exploded into blinding white light, leaving us our fourth and final Instrument of Power: the Guitar of Conan O’brian.


December 31 2007 6:39 P.M.

         After defeating Conan, we wasted no time going to Washington to face the President. With our piano, saxophone, and two guitars we were able to open the gates to the White House lawn. There we found the Guardian, or Dick Cheany as you may know him. I had to select only one of my party members to face him in combat. Feeling risky and that she needed the exercise, I selected Lila. Cheany then transformed into a giant mole and burrowed into the ground. After an intense game of wack-a-mole, Lila’s giant mallet proved victorious. It has occurred to me that Cheany will change his fighting style depending on who I selected to face him.


December 31 2007 6:37 P.M.

         I loaded an earlier game so that I could fight Cheany as myself. I was actually able to beat him faster than Lila had, hence the log saying it is an earlier time than the previous entry. This time, Cheany pulled out a sword and engaged me in another mirror match fight. Having been through this once with Donald, I was able to best the Vice President quite easily.


December 31 2007 6:37 P.M.

         Loaded it again and played as Donald. Cheany turns into another head-thing and pissed Donald off immensely. It was quite funny.


December 31 2007 6:39 P.M.

         Cheany fights Justin as a small flying insect creature. Justin’s slow swings have trouble keeping up with Cheany’s quick, erratic movements.


December 31 2007 6:40 P.M.

To Zanru, Cheany is an ice dragon.


December 31 2007 6:38 P.M.

To Onimaru, Cheany is a powerful samurai.

December 31 2007 6:40 P.M.

To Dominique, Cheany is a wooden stake throwing man made of silver with a giant sunlight ray built into his chest.


December 31 2007 7:59 P.M.

         So after fighting Cheany again and again for fun, we made our way into the White House. After cutting our way through the Secret Service—who suck by the way—we finally made it to the Oval Office. There we found George Bush sitting and facing away from his desk, out the window. Mindy was there too, sitting in a chair near by.
         “So ya’ll made it here at last,” Bush spoke in his southern draw as he turned in his chair to face us.
         “We want answers and you’re going to give them to us, Mr. President,” I demanded.
         “No!” he shot back. “Not president, not anymore. You may call me your king.”
         I selected a funny response next: “Fine, King, whatever…it won’t matter because you won’t be around long enough to enjoy your reign.”
         As soon as I finished I felt that damn dark side shift happen again.
         “You don’t know who I am do you?” Bush asked. “Al Gore tried to warn y’all. First, he opposed me when I ran for president. Then he tried to warn you about the dangers of global warming…now he’s dead.”
         Bush reached behind his desk and with one arm lifted up the lifeless and battered body of Al Gore.
         Donald dropped to his knees in horror.
         “NOOOOOOOOO!”
         “That’s right,” Bush continued calmly as he stood up. “What is it that global warming will allow? Will it kill off the animals of this world? Will it endanger the rainforest? No, those were just lies Gore told you because he knew you couldn’t handle the truth. The truth is that global warming will allow my people to walk the Earth’s crust once again. I came first, because mine is a hardy bloodline. I can stand the chilling temperatures of your world. But soon, once the war is over and I’ve stolen all of Iraq’s oil, I can burn it all, forcing this world into a greenhouse from which it will never leave. And then my children will come, comfortably to the surface. And you’re people,” he pointed to Donald and Justin, “Your people will be slaves.”
         “I will never let you turn humanity into your slaves!” I cried. “We too are a hardy people and we will fight you to the bitter end!”
         “You are right to claim that you are a hardy people. You…Vincent Spiezio and your kind. But you are wrong to say that humanity is going to be my slaves…for they will be our slaves. You…and me…and the rest of our people.”
         “What are you talking about?” I demanded.
         Mindy stood up to answer my question, “Did you not wonder why the rat people, who wage war against the lizard people also attack human’s at random?”
         I suddenly flashed back to Slash’s kidnapping warehouse. Hundreds of humans taken at a time and killed only to be seamlessly replaced with lizard people.
         Bush spoke this time, “Did you not wonder…why you were the only one who was able to defeat our kind so easily?”
          I flashed back now to the rat people’s general on the bridge of his ship, “When the truth is revealed, remember…you cannot change what you are…”
         Mindy spoke again, “But you are not like the others. You were not a replacement for some human, you are our finest creation. A perfect genetic rendering of our DNA spliced with a humans, put into a female human’s womb, and then raised among them. I was sent to look after you in the years preceding this current conflict to ensure that all the parameters necessary were in place…”
         “In place for what?” I asked.
         Bush answered, “For this.” He then shot a beam of energy at me. Donald and Justin were blown backward out the door, which caved in leaving them cut off from me. I could feel myself…changing. Inside, my organs thrashed around. Outside, my skin turned green and fragmented into scales. Not just my body, but my mind changed as well. I could feel a hatred for all of humanity plume in my mind like an explosion of thousands of years of genetic memory and instinct erupting at once. But then, in the back of it all, I heard the rest of the words that Yulon had uttered before he died: “When the truth is revealed, remember…you cannot change what you are…but you can…change…what you do…”
         When the process was completed, and I stood there, a lizard person, with Bush and Mindy smiling back at me, ready to take me into their world and use me as a weapon for their cause. But I felt nothing but contempt for them. I would remain a part of humanity, even if I was not truly human.
         “You can give a message to your Lizard King for me…” I said looking Bush right in the eyes. “You can tell him that his experiment has failed.”
         At this Bush said nothing. His face wore an expression of sheer distain. His eyes flickered into reptilian vertical slants and then back to normal. Suddenly, he exploded in fire, shedding his human shell.
         Still glowing white with the heat of his transformation he looked at me and said, “I am the Lizard King!”
         The light faded and revealing him in his true form. There, shirtless with long wavy hair, stood…Jim Morison.
         “Come on baby light my…FIRE!” He clenched his fists together and the room burst into pyrokinetic flame. I dropped to the ground and looked up to see him grab Mindy by the throat. “You failed me!” With a wince of his brow she too burst into flame.
         “NOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed at the ancient rock star.
         Even though she had lied to and betrayed me, I still felt attachment to her.
         Jim Morison looked over to me, “I will take from you everything you love. Meet me at the Reading Pagoda, that way you can watch me burn that city to the ground and slowly work my way east, crushing everything you know and hold dear.”
         And with that, he flew away, bursting through the ceiling.
         I looked down at my body. Even though I had refused to succumb to my reptilian genes, I was still not fit to be around humans. A natural, seething hatred was still burning in the back of my mind. Even more pressing was the fact that my party members would not recognize or trust me as I looked like a monster. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing down. Breath by breath I could feel a calm washing over me, until finally I opened my eyes. I looked down at myself to see the rubbery yellowish-pink flesh that was all too familiar to me. I was human again, but with the added ability of being able to go lizard anytime I wanted!!!


December 31 2007, 11:17 P.M.

         So the final showdown has begun. After flying back to Reading Pennsylvania, we immediately spotted trouble at the Pagoda: monster’s roving around tearing the place apart and chasing off couples trying to make out. The Pagoda sat atop Mount Penn, and due to what our ship’s computer would only say was “harsh conditions,” we were unable to land up there and were instead forced to land at the base of the mountain and make the rest of the journey on foot. This way we squeezed in another level before the final fight.
         Before landing, I made the choice to return to Justin’s house, that way I could talk to each of my party members one more time. Upon reentering his home, Justin fought the urge to return to his workbench and continue tinkering with things on endless loop. He instead sat down uncomfortably in the living room chair, still distracted by the overwhelming desire. Donald laid out across Justin’s couch, eating potato chips and flipping through the same five channels on the T.V.
         “Donald! You’re letting the game control your actions. Be careful.” I warned.
         “No I’m not,” he replied. “The game wants me to stand in the corner and talk to you about how I’m worried if my family is safe. This is just what I feel like doing.”
         A commercial ended and Donald noticed that one of the stations he was flipping through was showing Independence Day. He stayed there.
         I found Zanru in the kitchen. He was in a perpetual state of looking through Justin’s refrigerator and as he would say “examining our human food.” Man is he going to run up Justin’s dad’s electric bill. I pressed “A” at him. That’s how you greet people in videogames by the way. Don’t ask me how it works exactly, it feels kind of like saying “hey” to someone but with no other options of how to start up a conversation. It’s kind of annoying. Anytime I want to talk with someone about a particular subject, I can’t just bring it up. Instead, I have to press “A” at them, then ask seemingly unrelated questions until the target subject comes up again. It’s quite frustrating. Anyway, Zanru went into some solemn speech about how the end is drawing nigh and that I must make sure I am fully prepared before facing his father, Jim Morison, and blah blah blah…I hate Zanru.
         Lila was casually holding her giant mallet in the back room. After circling around her a few times to see how well the game had rendered her good bits, I pressed “A” at her. Now, I had talked to Lila maybe a total of three times this whole journey, so as you can imagine, she had much to say. After hearing her entire life story and all about how she wanted to catch the one who killed her father I then learned that Dick Cheany was the one who did it and that we already killed him. I kind of wished I had talked to her more. Then, not only would this backlog of conversations have been avoided, but I would have felt a more emotional charge when I picked her first to fight Cheany.
         Dominique was sleeping in his casket in the garage. I had forgotten about him entirely because he came so late in the game. He had some cool philosophical stuff to say about my condition as the lizard people’s secret weapon and what exactly it is we are fighting for. It’s a shame he didn’t enter our party earlier, he could have really helped us all cope with the situation. Of course, when I asked him about what he thinks about the fact that we’re stuck in a video game, he didn’t understand what I was saying. It’s also a shame that he is just part of the game. Oh, well.
         Onimaru was practicing his swordplay on a dummy in the back yard. He spoke in Japanese poems that might as well be riddles. I don’t think that he even knows what they mean.
         After declining a chance to spar with Onimaru, I headed up to Justin’s sister’s room where Mindy used to stand scratching her head. I don’t know what I expected to find up there. I just wanted a little closure. It seems that the game wants you to return to base before facing the final boss because I found a power up with a note attached to it. The note read as follows:
         
         “Together we can defeat him, Vinnie. I know that you won’t bend to his will, but          I never told him that his little project would be a failure. He will probably kill me,          blinded by his anger. Use this opportunity to strike. Hit him while he’s blinded          with rage. The power-up I’ve left you is all I can do for you now…I’m sorry,          Vinnie.”

         As I felt the power-up activate and bolster all my stats, my mind whirled with more emotions then I could handle. Regret, sorrow, pity, anger, joy…through the tornado of feelings only one thought remained: Jim Morison must die. I will defeat him.


December 31 2007 11:47 P.M.

         After selecting my a-team of Donald and Justin, I headed for Mount Penn. We landed at the base of the mountain and kicked ass on foot the whole way up. The enemies were a bit tougher and in greater numbers, but nothing we couldn’t handle. A mini-boss was waiting for us outside the Pagoda. I’m not sure if it was part of the game, or if Donald and Justin were breaking the rules, but they leaped at the giant lizard creature and beat it back out of my way. I ran past to the Pagoda but stopped to look back.
         Donald noticed my hesitance. “Go! We’ll take care of this!”
         He looked back to Justin.
         “Let’s do this,” were Justin’s only words before the two of them lifted their sword’s high above their heads and ran at the beast.
         I looked away as the lizard reared up to bring its claws down on them. The door closed behind me just as all three attacked, leaving me alone in the multi-leveled building, with my foe at the very top.
         “Hehe, ‘Let’s do this.’ Justin’s been trying to find the right time to use that line since fourth grade.” And I was off.
         I charged up each staircase, slaughtering dozens of monsters on each floor. I didn’t save this time. Saving made things too unreal. No, I needed motivation to get me up that Pagoda. I needed a reason not to die. But…I’m up here now. And the boss is in just the next room. So I’m saving because well…I might need motivation, but I’m not an idiot.


December 31 2007 11:55 P.M.

         I did it! I beat him! Mindy was right. Attack while he’s enraged. No time to explain, the Pagoda’s collapsing! I have to get out!


January 1 2008 12:09 A.M.

         Well, that’s it. After I got out of the Pagoda, I found Justin and Donald had defeated the creature that they were holding off for me. I turned back and we watched as the Pagoda collapsed. Level by level…it just kind of sunk into itself. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense really. Like, it behaved like it was retractable. Each level just sinking down into the one below it, not factoring in that there should be stuff in the lower level that stops the upper one from entering it. Nope, there it went. With no regard for the laws of physics, the Pagoda’s floors all sunk into each other and then into the ground…all occupying the same space at the same time.
         But then, something entirely original and in no way expected happened! Jim Morison burst out of the ruble, with a fire in his eyes. He grew into a twenty-foot tall lizard person, with red glowing eyes and a tail as sharp as a sword. This time I got to fight him with my entire party, but he was unlike any boss we’d encountered so far. He was only vulnerable on the soles of his feet, so we had to wait for him to do a stopping attack and time our strike perfectly, lest we get hit with his attack. (Which takes away a third of your health bar by the way!)
         Well, he’s dead now. During the credits, while Donald was off taking a leak, Justin mentioned something interesting to me. He commented on the fact that I had a mostly Dark Side alignment, and yet I obviously didn’t select the Dark Side ending.
         “But what if there’s more?” he questioned. “What if there aren’t just two endings? I mean, didn’t you say that there was a possible love story arch between you and Mindy. Why would the game have that if she’s definitely going to die?”
         “My God, you’re right.”
         I was shocked. I hadn’t even thought about this as I had haphazardly been shifting to the dark side alignment the whole game…I mean journey.
         “What if I were to have been Light Side instead?” I thought aloud. “What if I could have prevented her death?”
         “Well, what was the first time you made a Dark Side shift in your alignment?”
         “Um,” I though back to the beginning of my adventure. “I’m afraid it was back on the first day.”
         Justin looked at me with supportive eyes.
         “Well, how much replay value would you say this Christmas break has. I mean, surely it’s enough to save a friend’s life.
         Donald returned from the wooden area nearby.
         “So what do we do now, guys?”
         “We go back,” I responded. “But this time, we know what’s going on and we know what we need to do.”
         “Muh,” Donald shrugged. “Okay.”
         And so, here I am. Saving my game before I start a new one. I’ll probably only play through that one to get through it as fast as possible and save Mindy. Or possibly try and free her mind from the games hold and take her with me to this one. Either way, I’ll continue using this file to keep traveling around the world finding all the items and secrets. Items like a college degree and secrets like how to make a woman happy. Man, for years I’ve wanted nothing to do with a life outside of videogames. And now that I’m trapped in one, leaving is all I desire. I just have a bit of advice to any hardcore gamer out there: find something else that’s meaningful to you out in the real world. That, and if you shoot all the balloons during the log flume ride in Conan O’Brian’s castle you get a special wallet that can hold 500 dollars! Okay, I’m off to replay this thing immediately. Bye bye!