A conversation halfway up a 4500 foot mountain in northern New Hampshire on what we referred to as the "fat kid peak".

Harvard student 1: Hi, guys.
Harvard student 2: Where did you guys come from?

Me: The bottom.

Rest in peace, sweet, sweet prince.

Recently I've had some severe insomnia that has been plaguing me to the point where I've had to rely on NyQuil in conjunction with alcohol and sleeping medication to fall asleep before the sun rises. I realize that this is extremely dangerous so for your sake don't try it.

Insomnia is never without cause. Some have it brought on by a change in living conditions, worrying too much, large work load, or even stress. In my case, the latter is the predominant reason for greeting each sunrise with anger and dismay; whether it be the stress of not being able to find work, despite dozens of applications, whether it be where I will be living now that I've graduated from college, whether or not I'll be able to see my girlfriend now that I'm forced to live at home, or whether it be the fact that I was diagnosed with kidney disease about a year ago- a diagnosis that was objectively hilarious, though a story for another time- which is improving but could always change for the worse. The point is, I'm scared about the future and what it holds for me.

Games have always been a means of escapism for me. Final Fantasy: Tactics Advanced was pretty blatant when it told you at the end that video games aren't healthy for social people and that's always struck me as somewhat ironic that a game that takes so much time to complete had an ending where it told you to get a life and stop playing video games.

Games have been there to comfort me in bad times, too. When my parents called my sister and I into our living room nearly 15 years ago to tell the two of us they were getting a divorce I was only worried for the duration of time it took me to get back to my theme park on Roller Coaster Tycoon (approximately 45 seconds to walk across the kitchen, down the stairs, and across the basement to our computer). When my first girlfriend left me for a friend (the first time) I turned to Team Fortress 2 as a form of social stress reliever and as it turned out I was pretty good at it, leading to me getting a position in one of the top competitive video game leagues in the world as the person in charge of TF2. Games have made me friends, killed useless hours of airport waiting, and introduced me to people I'd never dreamed I could ever meet: Randy Pitchford of Gearbox, the crew at Demiurge Studios, and this one guy who was such a big fan of the Alien movies that he built his own SMART gun and space marine body armor. Games have been a huge part of my life.

Recently, my girlfriend commented something along the lines of "Dan, you'rereally into games."

That made me feel self-conscious, almost guilty, about the amount of time I've spent gaming. I've logged about 1700 hours of Team Fortress 2, 500 hours of the STALKER series, hundreds of hours on the Half-Life series and all of its various mods, literally thousands of hours on the Pokemon series. Games really do have a huge part of my life and, frankly, I'm OK with it.

There's something about gaming that just releases something inside of a person, whether it be the glee felt when someone gets nailed by your red shell in Mario Kart, the rush you feel when you get a streak in Battlefield, or the adrenaline rush you get while fleeing a hoard of zombies in Resident Evil, narrowly escaping a fate worse than death. Games have always been more than a game to me, they've been an experience.

I've always preferred single-player games to their counterpart, including the horrible cooperative games because let's just face it, Resident Evil 5 was awful. Stop denying it, it was awful. Left 4 Dead was a waste of time with one person, the AI of modern games is just embarrassing so cooperative play simply isn't viable in today's gaming environment.

Single-player games don't have multi-player. The developers get to spend their time making an enjoyable and unique gaming experience without the need to address things like people griefing other players. Call of Duty will never be more than multi-player shooting with a pathetic story and a budget spent on graphics. Games are more than the gameplay, they're about thestory and theimmersion.

I never play games for, like, 5 minutes, I just don't. I don't want to just jump into a server for 15 minutes while I'm waiting for my dinner to cook, I want to cook my dinner and sit for 5 hours while I become Daniel from Amnesia, Isaac Clark, Altair, or Francis York Morgan. I feel for the characters. When Daniel learns of his crimes, I got shivers down my spine; I felt like someone had revealed to me my horrible past- my palms got sweaty, my skin grew pale, and an audible "oh my God" made my friend question what the hell was going on with me. When York was being chased by the Raincoat Killer I was short of breath and held my own breath hiding in the locker of the abandoned sawmill in Greenvale.

You're probably wondering what the hell this has to do with anything at this point. Me, too, frankly. Gaming has been a huge time comittment for me, and I'm so happy that I was able to enjoy what I could while I could, would, I guess, be the point I'm trying to make.

Recently, I was given a gift from a long-time gaming friend who I had the pleasure of meeting in Boston for the 2012 PAX East convention. I'd tell you his name but he frequently changes his aliases to the point where I'm sure you've met him but you just don't know it yet. We'd always been pretty similar when it comes to gaming and if you're one of the people who follow my awful YouTube videos, he's the topic of my Left 4 Dead videos. He, as a gift for graduating college, gave me Alan Wake (get it? A. Wake?), which had been on sale on Steam that week. When I chatted with him later he mentioned that he knew that I loved "Lynchian" horror stories (i.e. Deadly Premonition, Twin Peaks).

Let me be blunt, Alan Wake is ****ing awesome for someone like me. I've logged 12 hours into it so far, a feat that couldn't be accomplished by most of today's single-player campaigns outside of (beating a dead horse) Valve games and few others. I take the role of famed novelist Alan Wake on a Lynchian journey to find my wife, taken by a darkness in a friendly, albeit remote, section of the American Pacific Northwest, Using light as a weapon against the darkness I have become totally engrossed in the experience of taking this role on. The first night with the game I logged 5 hours, alone in the dark, the silence of my mostly-Asian dorm (they go to bed early), I was able to become completely immersed in the experience. My thoughts are only about finding Alice, something my girlfriend does not take kindly to, and I can't rest until I find her (figuratively, not literally). I have been able to escape my stress for a few hours a day while I "relax" playing through the game.

If what I've said rings true to you; if you want to be engrossed in your gaming experience, you are like me. We are a dying breed and are the last of our kind. I highly recommend you pick up Alan Wake, a game that is so much more than a game.

Metalocalypse Season 4. **** Yeah.

Also this:http://technorati.com/entertainment/article/brendon-smalls-galaktikon-exclusive-full-album/

PAX East 2012 Photos

I'm balls-tired right now so I'll make this brief. As with last year I am going to do an in-depth review of all the games I got to see this year at PAX East, complete with photos and my usual $tyle of writing about a quarter of the speed that I'm thinking up the words.

NOTE: I didn't play Borderlands 2 for two reasons, 1. I'm not really interested in BLANDS2 and 2. the line went 'til next Tuesday.

Schedule:
Sunday: Sleep
Monday: Photos of everything (swag, panels, the convention)
Tuesday: AAA Titles ("mainstream games")
Wednesday: Indie/Snazzy Games
Thursday: Any loose ends

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Sunday. Good night.

Crap...it's April 1st...which means that practical jokes are abound...be on your guards, friends...

This year I'll be returning toPAX Eastas I did last year. This time there hasn't been anything announced that I'm especially excited about so that means that I get a lot of time to wander around. I wanted to see if there are any games you all wanted me to check out as I plan on writing another comprehensive review of what I get to check out. Give me a holler if you want a game checked out.

Made a quick video for a buddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mDW4iZJtBo

IT'S OUT! BUY IT! ONLY 800 POINTS ON XBOX LIVE!
BEST. GAME. EVER. (If you crave instant gratification)