So.... six months since my last blog post. I can recall doing this once or twice before. I get real into Destructoid, so much that I write blog after blog like I'm getting paid for it. I make tons of comments. Read all the news stories and blogs. I spend every waking hour in front of the computer browsing Destructoid. And then...... I crash.

I stop blogging. Stop commenting. Stop visiting the site altogether. Usually this is accompanied by a lack of interest in any games. I only started playing games a few weeks ago after six months. That is probably the reason I am here. It would seem I lose interest in Destructoid when I burn out on games.

It seems like a vicious cycle. I go strong for maybe a month, sometimes a couple, then I have a long period of dormancy. Is this usual for people who have been here for years or am I just a weirdo? It would seem to me that the site is lacking quite a few regulars I remember, has tons of new people and features (that need to be explained to me... leaderboards anyone?), and that poor soul Ron Workman has been reduced to banality on some backwater quasi-blog.



Workman: A man or a myth?


So..... can there be such a thing as too much of Destructoid?

Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were all found guilty of promoting the copyright infringement of others, and sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine of over 3.5 million U.S. dollars.



Trouble started in 2006 with a police raid. The raid effectively shut down Pirate Bay.... for three whole days. Obviously feeling invincible the websites founders have continued on; supporting piracy and file sharing. It has now bit them in the ass. The website itself has felt no ill effects; Pirate Bay is one of the largest BitTorrent operations in the world and has not even been scratched while its founders appeal the verdict. This may be subject to change but for now you can still download torrents off of Pirate Bay.

(Read here for more info)

I'm not too fond of games that travel the well worn and tested routes, the games where you rescue the princess and live happily ever after (well... only until the sequel of course). These videogames are a dime a dozen. Regardless, you still get to spend sixty dollars every time you purchase one of these games.

No, what I am looking for is the games that take the standard formula and shove it up your ass. Games that rip out your eyeballs and make you plead for more. You don't want the game to end. Except you don't have any choice; the main character is dead!

These games aren't your average Oblivion. You can't wander around aimlessly spending most of your time taking virtual shits; feeding your wizard with the enchanted eggplants that you wasted thirty real life hours growing in your magical twat garden. These games end when they end. This is no happy Jesus story; they sacrifice more than a long weekend in order to save the auxiliary characters ass.




What an end they have; better to go out with a boom than with a whimper.


Now don't take this at face value. Fallout 3 had a terrible ending. No noble suicide can recover all the potential fun you have punching rabid dogs to death and blasting the limbs off of some poor bastard. Who can resist killing the sheriff with the awesome hat? That hat was meant for us to wear!

It's true that most games that have you die are very lame. Games where you get the "bad" ending like True Crime: Streets of LA or Max Payne. Even when you get the "good" ending you can end up dying in a very unsatisfactory way; take Bioshock for example.




Jade Empire had one of the worst suicidal endings. Luckily, two other mediocre options were available.


But what about the games done right? Games like Shadow of the Colossus. While you may have been reincarnated into some demonic infant you were definitely stricken dead for at least a moment or two. That was a game done right, start to finish. Each colossi you kill changes you more and more into a devilish beast. Eventually your skin pales, your eyes grow dark, small horns grow on your forehead. For the grand finale you are forced to sacrifice yourself to save the mysterious women you love. Lord Emon and his troop of warriors ring you through and send the spirit Dormin from whence he came. The colossi dead, the protagonist dead, and Dormin absent leaving the young maiden you protected revived from her deathly slumber almost alone. With her is a baby, seemingly a part of you left behind. But you yourself, you are dead.

Another good example is Call of Duty 4. While the character was never really fleshed out it was still a depressing experience to feel his heart beat in your hand. You could feel the beats slow as you controlled him through debris strewn wreckage. After a minute of crawling, of feeling death creep ever near, his heart stops beating and you know that a main character just died. Granted, he was never very important (exacerbated by the fact not one of you will know his name offhand) but it was still a unique experience. Novelty is a sweet thing.





Nathan Hale played an absolutely integral part in Resistance: Fall of Man and its sequel. As the series moved on Hale found himself overwhelmed by the very thing that had until that point saved his life. After much hardship, spending years fighting the nigh invincible Chimera Nathan drew his last breaths making the most out of the final hours of his life, fighting the Chimera nearly to the end. It finally murdered his humanity and killed the character we spent all of our time with throughout two whole games.


The hardest games to see your characters die in are the games where you spent hours upon hours of your life customizing them. Never once will someone ignore the death of a beloved party member (no doubt wearing irreplaceable equipment). These digital men and women have stayed with you through the course of the game and now they are gone. A real feeling of loss rises inside of you. This is much more pronounce in games where you tailor your little people for weeks at a time. The Sims is a great example. Raising a polygonal person from babyhood to old age is a gratifying experience. Spending time building their house, their skills; running their careers and building their families. And then suddenly you are left with only good memories of the deceased. Thus is the tragedy of spending a large chunk of your life bonding with your Sim.

It's games like these that freshen up a tired, old experience. The injection of life in a cliche ridden genre. The death of a main character, a heroes sacrifice, can be done right. Perhaps we should be thankfully that it rarely ever is; one day this idea too will be worn out. But not yet.

How is it that a final boss can die at the end of a game if he was never once alive? Will Smith destroyed a contingent of plastic bullies in "I, Robot" but he did not technically ever kill a single one of those angry mannequin gadgets. They had no life to take.

So be it. Let our shallow understand of what is life dictate to us if our favorite villains have died. Did Mechagodzilla die? Sure he did; I fucked him up, he fell to pieces, good enough. But what about us few who want to fully explore underlying themes in our favorite games, us few who manage to find meaning in petty games where there is no meaning? We brave few delve into the dark annals of videogame history to see if our foes ever did die. Once we deeply examine our games we find it is simply not so easy.


Misunderstood genius or greedy computer mastermind?

Dr. Ivo Robotnik is one such example. Hidden in the not-so-subtle nuances of his name we find that he may indeed be of robotic origin. A product of centuries of human innovation. Does he still walk among us, rebuilt and better than before? Is he dead? Was he ever really killed? Whatever the answer we will strive boldly where no man has gone before breaking into secrets and conspiracies of international proportions. This is one hedgehog's nightmare.

What of the bird and the bear? They have faced menaces of metal, gigantic steel hulks, Weldar and witches.



I am of course speaking of Banjo and Kazooie. They have fought enemies like Robo-Gruntilda in her massive drilling machine to visually impaired welding torches.



The epic saga of good versus evil, of noble animal versus insidious magician will never end. Grunty is a fine example of one who cannot be killed. She lingers on; her bones held together by money grubbing corporations looking to milk just a couple more dollars out of her. Gruntilda is a victim of her own success, never once allowed to lay peacefully buried in the ground.... under a boulder.

And so we somehow manage to get to the screaming question; can Mr. Destructoid be killed? Is he truly a robot? Is he simply a man in disguise? For all we know this cast-iron crusader could be here with us now, never alive, never dead, impossible to destroy.

Vin Diesel is queued to star in the upcoming "Shadow of the Colossus" movie based off of the 2005 blockbuster videogame of the same name. Diesel has yet to comment, but his agent has mentioned the stony faced actors performance will definitely be more devoid of emotion and hard hitting than box office flop "The Pacifier" and the entire "Fast and Furious" series combined.

Destructoid turns three. Watch how he changes over the years. Enjoy.