Going back through my articles I realized that I never made the obligatory introduction post. I was too excited to start sharing my experiences in faulty bear conquering and dust phobia. Two things I stand behind.

TR:DR
I’m a dork, I write about gaming with my sister, and I work in tabletopstuff.

Why I’m here, the rambling version

My younger sister made a declaration that she was going to college for writing, get a job at Game Informer, and then have regular article feature about my hijinks in gaming. The conversation went something like this:

“I want to get a job at Game Informer and have a regular article called “Sh*t My Sister games”. I’ll write about how amusing you are.”
“I’m not amusing.”
“You’re afraid of dust and bears in games.”
“Po-o-oint... You’ve been mentioning this for a while, why don’t you do this in a blog?”
“I’m working on it.”
“You've said this for a while.”
“Yeah....”
“What if I did it before you? That would push you to get it done! Plus, I should pre-mock myself to lessen your blows.”

In true sisterly fashion I did somthing before my sibling. It’s okay, one day we’ll write a book on our contradictory POV of me failing to play Halo. It may not sell well but being published will make us feel that all the fail gaming and watching of fail gaming was worth it.

My History

My interests in gaming started with tabletop RPs. I grew up regularly watching my father and his friends play D&D and other games, but being a toddler I couldn’t join. Eventually we got a personal computer, an Amiga. It was my first introduction into electronic gaming and I spent many hours honing my skills with Marble Madness. I later became absorbed in DDR and Tomb Raider games, studies and expenses later delayed getting further into other games or using consoles besides a Frankensteined PC . Now I can often be found shouting at zombies as well as attempting to rescue princesses.

Places you can find me posting stuff:

Website
Twitter
Facebook

During one of my recent jaunts in the game Bioshock I was, yet again, mocked by my far more hardcore-gamer sister. The reason for my torment? While navigating a hallway I froze in terror due to dust falling out of a dark hole in the ceiling.

My logic was sound; something had to move to make the dust fall, most of the time something moving is something trying to kill you, something trying to kill you = reason to be scared.

My sister and I then participated in a heated discussion about this as I stayed still in the game, debating how best to move forward.

"Why are you so afraid?"
"There was dust."
"What?"
"Dust! There was dust falling out of the big hole in the ceiling!"
"So what!"
"Something made it fall! And that something is probably waiting to attack me!"
"It could just be falling dust."
"No something made it happen, and it’s something that’s going to kill me!"
"You have guns!"
"Then you agree something is going to kill me!"
"No! But you have guns if something does! Just shoot it!"
"Why aren’t you afraid of things that make dust fall!?"
"Because I know I have guns and will just plow through it!"
"That doesn’t always work for me!!!"

Eventually I moved forward and something came around a corner to kill me instead of the hole in the ceiling. IT WAS A TRAP. Luckily I was already on edge from the dust and quickly disposed of the surprise attack. +1 for me.

While some will make fun of me for my cowardice I can say this, my sister and I got about 10 minutes of fun and laughter out of falling dust. When was the last time you got such enjoyment out of something so simple? I have no intentions to hold back my overly startled reactions anytime soon, it’s more bang for my buck :)

Friend: “Hey, how you doing with Link’s Awakening?”

Me: “NOT WELL!”

Friend: “What?”

Me: “I can’t get into level 3!”

Friend: “Why?”

Me: “I had to get into the castle! But I didn’t know how, I tried everything until I had to look it up! And you know what it told me?! ‘Just give the bananas to the monkey and it will get its friends to form a monkey bridge to get into to castle’ but I had no bananas!”

Friend: “What bananas?”

Me: “The ones I was apparently supposed to get in level one through an elaborate trade chain that had nothing to do with completing level one! So I didn’t do it!”

Friend: “I didn’t know you could skip that part.”

Me: “IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH LEVEL ONE, so of course I skipped it!”

Friend: “Of course you would!”

Me: [i]“Yeah! Why would I go get a doll, to trade for a bow, to trade for a can of dog food, to trade for bananas if it had nothing to do with getting into the cave!?”
[/i]
Friend: “Makes sense.”

Me: “So I had to go back and track down all the trades so I could get my monkey bridge.”

Shortly after getting myself a Wii, the first non-obsolete console my finances had ever been able to afford, I picked up a copy of Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Despite my tenacity, I had never excelled at previous Tomb Raider games and was convinced that this revisit to an old gaming friend would result in great tomb raiding glory!
I raced through training at Croft Manor to get to actual game play where the levels all blurred together in my excitement. I quickly smashed buttons to get to the next level while ignoring a lot of details. I had no want for details! This was Tomb Raider not Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (which I kicked ass at BTW).

Somewhere in Peru I met my match at the foot of an ancient temple’s staircase.

Paraphrasing my sister’s version of events:

From upstairs she heard a loud crash, followed by terrified screaming and curses. She quickly ran downstairs assuming I had tripped and injured myself in one of my frequent bouts of clumsiness or had encountered a spider. What she found was me on the floor next to a tipped over footrest, screaming at the TV and frantically waving a Wii-mote. When she asked what was wrong I screamed incoherently about bear attacks, the TV then showing I had died and asked if I wanted to reload a save point.

My version of the epic events of epicness:

I navigated the ruins, fought wolves, and swam underwater looking for hidden passages. You know, just a regular day for Lara. Eventually I came to a large chamber and did some stuff, details are unimportant. As I stood and surveyed the site trying to determine how best to open the large door at the end of the chamber I was struck.
Attacked from behind! A bear! THREATDOWN!
I manipulated Lara to attack like a spider monkey. Running, shooting, dive rolls, and other dramatic action sequences followed my button mashing as I fought the bear. Being as this was on a Wii my movements in game were enhanced by intense controller flailing, regardless of whether or not that’s how the controller actually worked. It was all very impressive, until I stood up and tripped over the footrest in front of me. This momentary lapse in my attack allowed the bear to corner me, I had found some area of the level from which there was no way out. As I tried to escape the bear I found the only way to avoid damage was to continuously dive-roll in place, I had found some fluke of the game by chance that as long as I did this the bear’s swipes at me yielded no effect.
At this point my sister had entered the room, this distraction causing me to cease my dive-roll defense and give in to the bear. Bested, I reloaded from the save point.

And that is how Tomb Raider taught me the best defense against bears was a dive-roll.