A Gaming To-Do List before Ubi's candy shop opens in November + What Tirra hopes to study this coming school year

As a potential SPRINT-WRITE* student and recently self-discovered video game enthusiast, I took it upon myself to broaden my gaming horizons, because let's face it, a grand total of one film-based game and one franchise topped with one or two MMORPGs at which I sucked is nothing impressive. For the sake of order (and because I forget lists easily) here's what I have or want to lay my hands on before the two games I'm awaiting impatiently enough to have dreams with the protagonists come out. They are more-or-less in order according to how much I want to play them or, in Hitman's case, how easy access to them I have. 

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution | currently playing
• Hitman (1, 2, Contracts, Blood Money) | obtained
• Devil May Cry (4 and any of the earlier if I can get them) | in spe
• Bioshock Infinite (and 1 if possible) | in spe
• Dragon Age (??? whichever I find first) | in spe
• Mass Effect 3 | promised
• Witcher | promised

The list is going to expand, shrink, or alter as I go. The games I'm waiting for you can guess easily enough. If the post title and one of my previous entries to this blog weren't an obvious clue, I am talking Assassin's Creed 4 and Watch Dogs (and boy am I anxious to try and save for one of the extended editions of either... or both?).

  *SPRINT stands in Polish for Studies of Interactive Entertainment Design, the -WRITE part is pretty self-explanatory. It's combined with English language studies, thus encompassing my main interests: lingual studies, writing, films and games. From what I gather, I'll be learning the usual spiel of other philologies: translation, language, culture and history of the English-speaking countries with focus on USA and UK, but with the addition of courses on various aspects of modern culture, virtual environments, ethnology and sociology, game studies, leisure studies, and gender studies, and that's not even a quarter of what the programme comprises of. 

  No shit, right now I am literally reading through the programme overview and hyperventilating with excitement. These three years are going to be hard work, big words, and - hopefully - endless enthusiasm. There'll be lectures on Star Trek and Star Wars, Tolkien, writing a scenario for different media, creating characters, designing HUDs and GUIs, preparing storyboards, directing and scenography; I am about two sentences away from keysmashing in glee, borne from the fact that these things will be taught to me and in three years' time I'll possess the skills to work in game and/or film industry while writing a SF novel on my days off. 

  I never really had a clear image of what I want to be when I grow up. Even as a kid, my dream wasn't to become an actress or singer, or doctor, or mother, or whatever; I can't recall making any plans that weren't changed or dismissed before the week was over. I knew I liked books, and I knew I wanted to write one someday, but I don't think there was a time I thought that would be how I'd earn my living. Later I discovered I liked films, too, and as years passed I developed a lukewarm enthusiasm for games, never growing hotter because I was convinced I just wasn't a gamer material (and I never had the hardware to play on; not that I do now - my laptop gives a passable gameplay, but with painstakingly low fps, especially on cutscenes). These things never changed, and I kept growing up with the knowledge that unless I write a bestseller, I'll never be able to tie my career to the things I love. Then I actually started playing and saw how impossibly long end credits after games are, and found out about the SPRINT. And I thought, for fuck's sake, there's gona be flocks of people educated to be lawyers and translators and doctors and accoutants; if I study THAT, I'll surely find myself a place on a game developer's payroll and crawl my way up until I'll be making the next Marvel movie and Assassin's Creed game. And someone finally has to replace Bowden, for the greater good of game fans worldwide! That's also when I realized that there are options beyond the obvious and that there actually are ways to get paid for fangirling (and earning fangirls and fanboys in the long run) if only I take a look around and try. 

  Now, here's to hoping I qualify for these studies; if I don't get to study it, I sure as hell will be trying next year, no matter if I get recruited for a different course.

a noob's excitement

  With more time on my hands than I know what to do with, I am easily lured anywhere on the Web, oft directed by one of my friends. Recently this was how I learned of Ubisoft's newest production, coming out shortly after AC4: Black Flag (which in and of itself makes me giddy every time I as much as think of it - come on, it's ninja pirates! And a new ass in the family!). It was my precious soul sister who introduced me to this seemingly brilliant piece of sandbox brought to a new level: Watch_Dogs. From what I gather from several videos, including a gameplay (with the graphic quality of a cinematic trailer that could be released no more than some three years back, which blows my mind and will surely blow my current gpu to smithereens), the city becomes my playground - literally. Aiden can hack practically anything with a swipe of finger on his smartphone - beating BBC Sherlock's Moriarty by several leagues. Far from a typical hero-protagonist, he is a more interesting, morally questionable character with fantastic mocap, creepy habits and mad skills from the on-the-go hacking, through combat and freerunning to driving not unlike in GTA. Even if I grow to dislike him during gameplay, well - I'll only be breathing on his neck most of the time, and it is my choice whether to drop him off a building or not in retribution for a dick move in the plot, no? c: Another advantage games have over films.

   Another thing are the collector's editions, particularly Vigilante and Dedesec - one with Aiden's cap and mask (asdfghjkl;!) as the cherry on the cake, the other with a 23cm figurine, which doesn't entice me as much - it's cool, but serves no purpose other than gathering dust - but is also packed with an artbook, a map of Chicago, steel casing for the disc and some space-fillers like pins and augmented reality cards (or something). It's the artbook that sings a siren song to me, because concept arts are something I could ogle for hours, then proceed to whine how I'll never draw this good and try anyways, and they occasionally contain some extra trivia about the world, characters, or design itself. However, graphics - and sometimes even artbook scans - can be found online, while donning the original headdress of Pearce and going out to the streets is something I'd rather not pass up; not to mention it's two items less to fabricate if I ever try cosplay. Still, the price is mind-numbing and the perks beside the cap and the mask aren't that fabulous; also, unless I'm mistaken, it costs the same as the dedsec_edition, which is considerably better equipped, both in physical and digital goods.

  #First world problems. Yeah.

  I'm but an aspiring gamer; my entire gaming experience so far is with all the Assassin's Creed games for PC, Tron: Evolution which had more potential than it made use of, and one or two free MMOGs that I quit because the main activity after reaching a certain level was PvP or quests requiring teamwork, which is not exactly my thing. And the "free to play" thing became "free to suck at without shop items". There's a post-it on my wall, however, listing all the games I want to play sometime soon, with AC4 and Watch Dogs on the very top and an unorganized assortment of Dragon Age, Devil May Cry, Witcher, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect and Journey below. Fun fact? The ones I'm most obsessed about I have to wait for. Insert a "best things are worth waiting for" quote and I'll punch a wall; waiting for premieres - be it books, films or games - is all I'm doing, apparently. Aside from complaining how I never have the money for everything I want, but let that be kept outside this blog. (: