Oww! There's a Splinter In My Cell!!!

Anyone who also reads my wife’s blog will know she had surgery on her wrist yesterday.

Well, she’s doing fine, and enjoying the license her new cast gives her to do bugger all around the house.

Well, unfortunately for me, she has to take some pretty damn powerful painkillers for the next few days. (The type that give you a conversation with the pink elephant while bitch-slapping Aspirin and Tylenol for being sissies). Well, anyway, the downside is she’s off in sleepy la la land within minutes of taking them.

Result? She’s sleeping like she’s taken an extra large dose of ‘Super Sleepy Nighttime Sleepy Snoozy Snooze’, while I sit on the couch, bored, and unable to watch TV or anything in case I wake her.

(I know, I know…poor baby! His wife had to have surgery, and now he’s bored! What a trooper!)

Anyway, desperately in need of entertainment, I checked my wallet and found that I had an extra $10. My brain ticked for a few moments, and I thought that I might be able to find something in the pre-played section at EB Games. Maybe, just maybe, I could find something that my ancient Pentium II would run. (It can just about run ‘The Sims’.)

Well, anyway, we had chores to day today anyway, so after running our errands, we arrived at EB Games.

“Pre-Owned Nintendo Gamecubes - $60!!!” The sign said.

It also happened to be a happy coincidence that today is payday, and a few days ago, my wife got her vacation paycheck. We had some money to spare!

Of course, I didn’t say anything outright. Just dropped a few hints along the lines of “Wow! That’s really cheap!”

In the end, I just had to say one word. ‘Zelda’…The game my wife got hooked on, on her old N64.

Long story short, we’re now the proud owners of a shiny new(ish) Nintendo Gamecube.

Now before the gamers out there start ragging me about it. Yes, I know it’s not the most powerful console out there. No, it’s not the newest, fastest or shiniest console on the block. However, it works, and can run games that were made after 1992.

All I know, is after a 14 month Hiatus, I have a current gen console. (Yes, monsieur Gamer, I know that some next gen consoles are coming out this year…I don’t care…once I get working, I’m buying a gaming PC, and ALL consoles can suck my balls).

So basically, I spent all afternoon playing Splinter Cell.

Let’s just say after being stuck playing Bejewelled and Tetris for over a year, it was great. Like a 100 pack a day smoker, who’s spent a terrible year giving up, then finds out that they’ve invented ‘cancer frees’, and are selling them for 2 cents a pack.

In short. WOO HOOOO!!!!

Now, Splinter Cell was one of those games that I’d heard about, but never played until today. I’m not usually into ‘stealth’ based games.

However, I had to say I was really impressed. I’ve played it, and pronounced it ‘stealth-tastic’, ‘Sam Fisher-iffic’, and ‘Night Vision-licious’.

However, as I’m a nitpicking bar-steward, I had to find everything wrong with it that I could.

So in that spirit, I give you:

If Life Were Like Splinter Cell:

1) Your Night Vision Goggles would glow vividly in the dark, while making a high pitched whistle. However, any enemies would completely miss three glowing circles in the dark, and would not hear the whistle.
2) A mission that cost millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to plan would instantly be cancelled if an alarm went off…Regardless if the mission could still be carried out.
3) People would be instantly be knocked out by a blow to the head if caught by surprise. However, the exact same blow would have almost no effect if they saw it coming.
4) You could grab someone and put them in a headlock, and they would make no noise. Despite the fact that help is literally feet away.
5) Crouching in a shadow would make you invisible, even if your enemy was a foot away, and looking for you.
6) Security guards would not find it strange that security cameras would fail inexplicably, in sequence, at the same interval of time it would take someone to sneak between them. Apparently, it’s not unusual for every security camera in the building to fail, one after another.
7) Guards would find a trail of smashed light bulbs, when no-one was meant to be in the building, and not find this suspicious in any way. This is true, even if a light bulb is shot out directly in front of them.
8) A man would be able to jump up between two, closely spaced walls, do the splits to hold himself up in the air, and hold that position indefinitely. He would not get groin strain, or even groan slightly after landing back on the floor.
9) If a security guard sees an intruder, who then runs away, they will look for the intruder for about a minute and a half, before going back to their normal beat, completely unconcerned.
10) All computers could be hacked in less than 5 seconds, using only one hand.

So there you have it.

Of course, I understand computer games aren’t meant to be 100% realistic, and have to sacrifice a little realism for the sake of fun. I mean, imagine if life was exactly like video games!

People born in the 80’s (the Pacman Era) would spend all their time in dark rooms, munching pills, while listening to repetitive music!

Errrrrr…