There are so many actions done on a daily basis which, I believe, are designed to teach humility.
Took off the upstairs toilet a while back, opened up the bathtub drain, snaked and cleaned a few drain lines, got rather filthy, and otherwise occupied my time in ways that made me seriously disappointed I didn't catch whatever small kids toy was likely swallowed up in a whirlwind of flushed water. As far as I know, there is no such thing as action-figure proof commodes, and were I a different, more industrious type, I'm sure I could utilize the market potential there.
I'm not opposed to having to get dirty or do disgusting things. I got my hands gory as an EMT in the back of an ambulance, I've worked with (cleaned up) MR adults at group homes for a living, and would come home with new and interesting substances clinging to my skin after my industrial instrumentation college training. For crying out loud, if nothing else, having three kids under five means getting mucky is in the job description.
This puts me at odds with my nature; I'm no grease monkey. I don't like oily things touching my skin. If the sun were in the process of going supernova, I would still prefer igniting spontaneously to the use of sunscreen. But one has to do what one has to do when one has to do it, and loosing the use of one bathroom in my household means Jes the Slackur has to take care of 'business.'
The purpose of this lovely introduction is partially an explanation as to what has preoccupied my time lately (house projects), as well as segue into some random thoughts about how much, er, crap we gamers put up with in order to simply enjoy our gaming experiences.
I love
Battlefield 3.
Love it. Now I'm a
Halo guy insomuch as I like the feel of said series, the gameplay's speed and rhythm seem closest to matching my personal flow, although I haven't escaped the middle of endgame rankings since the original. The
Call of Duty series are, to me, above average and well produced, but even though I understand many of the reasons COD MP is the hottest thing right now, it is not at all my personal preference. (My K/D is rarely in the positive, although I'm very much a fan of BLOPS Zombies.)
But back to
Battlefield 3. Here's a game that doesn't strictly punish me for not mastering the head shot with three different guns. It understands that sometimes I just want to chase a tank around with a blowtorch for half an hour. And the game rewards me for it! The constant addictive progression of steady unlocks and tweaking customization that is the modern gaming de rigueur is at its best here. This is largely because the game is designed to parse out what you are trying to accomplish and then scan a huge digital scroll, Santa-style, until it determines how many points you get for firing every bullet in a SCAR at the general vicinity of the enemy. (I will now be officially disappointed at every FPS that does not employ a suppression mechanic.)
There is but a single albatross around the neck of this experience for me thus far, and it has nothing to do with bugs, exploits, server issues, weapon nerfing, or ejecting from a jet moments before impact in order to sail across the map. No, it comes down to a personal preference, but a big one: language.
?Que? Well, even before I traded off my gaming time for toddlers, I wasn't a fan of coarse words. I've have the same constant exposure to it as any modern American, and while I've enjoyed Kevin Smith movies and the occasional
South Park episode, it doesn't negate my personal preference to not hear constant swearing if given the choice. And although I don't intend on placing v-chip headphones on my little tykes' ears, I do try to monitor their exposure to things I don't want in my own home as reasonably as I feel appropriate.
I'm one of those weirdos that leave the gore on but enable the language filter on the
Gears of War games, a wonderful feature that has played its own small part of keeping the series heavy on my rotation.
Battlefield 3, in an attempt to capture that all important 'realism immersion' element, lets the f-bomb and other choice grandma-wincing words fly as common comm chatter. These canned phrases are wrapped around maintaining field and objective awareness, such as position and objective changes, so they can be somewhat important to hear, especially in a game where mics are as rare as people who care about foul language.
There's no filter options for it in the audio, (and yes, I know it takes a bit of extra effort to include such a feature for so few who use it. Yer telling Mr. Southpaw this?) and no way to volume adjust the voice-overs, just global levels. And so, as I enjoy playing on our 360 LAN and this multiplies the frequency of hearing said audio, BF3 gaming became nights of intense fun punctuated by extreme annoyance.
I get it. I know this is how people, especially in extreme situations, and doubly so in the military, speak. I know some people are drawn into the game's amazing audio even more because it comes across as a more realistic representation of the virtual scenario. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, or 'get over' it. I play games for fun; if, during the game, something happens that bothers me, and it persists on bothering me as long as I play, I'm naturally going to lose interest at some point. I have to subject myself to all manner of 'crap' (see intro) during the course of any given day, and the last thing I want during my downtime is to be expected to put up with something I don't like just to enjoy an entertainment product.
Mind you, this is coming from a guy who loves playing
Super Meat Boy,
Demon/Dark Souls, and
Trials HD. Its not that I'm easily annoyed so much as I have a few things I don't desire to lower my personal standards on, and while I have no ability or intention to force those expectations on others, when it comes to personal time I feel I'm entitled to be picky about what I put up with to enjoy something. As much fun as I was having with it, BF3 was coming close to crossing that line.
Then I discovered it had a Spanish setting.
Now, instead of being yelled at to "Get to the F-ing Line!!" I hear something I equate to gargling followed by "Rapido! Rapido! Rapido!"
My high school year's worth of Spanish I took a decade and a half ago has yet to completely kick in, but I'm getting the gist of what's going on. And re-learning another language! Had I realized watching old episodes of
Red Vs Blue could have used a roundabout way to give me a solution, I would have done that long ago.
Oh, but watch out. That series is classic, but it cusses quite a bit.
