When we were talking about writing comics, we ended up talking about the things enemies are always saying. They're always saying things, but the difference between a six to eight hour campaign and the nineteen hours I currently have in The Division means I have heard them for - at minimum - ten more hours. And I'm gonna play another three hours tonight. So, more. Here's a DLC I will pay for: one that makes every enemy speak a single part of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. This guy is the oboe or whatever. Consider it: you could remix the score in real time with your M249.
There are games that get around this, but beneath these techniques lie a dark truth. And yes, that is indeed Gabe's sketchbook.
I've tried to come back in to this Division shit a couple times, but the weight of the changes and additions reminded me of the times I endeavored to return to Azeroth. I had a pally over there, and the class got rebuilt fairly often, abilities altered or oftentimes removed entirely, so that my action bar had the novel spacing of a child's grin.
I had a bag full of arcane obligations, also. Extractors of various kinds. Teeth. Straps. I had everything required to invent a kind of eldritch dentistry. I bounced off the game on these attempts, and I should have done then what I did here: start over from scratch. Stop fetishizing the old play, and the old time, which apparently didn't stick around anyway. If the game is actually fun, or even comforting - in the way highly structured rituals can partition time and grant purpose - it will still retain value.
Now that I'm creeping toward max level on PC, I can load it up on my max level character on Xbox and it all makes sense again. It might be that Gabriel does not have to suffer in the Eternal Dark.
(CW)TB out.
