This is not a place to report the game-destroying bug… I’ve visited those dark and lonely corners. The would-be hope of the desperate gamers struck me as a solemn reminder of the intrinsic futility of hope itself. This was my entertainment to indulge in, and distract myself, from poverty, inflation, war and the general worries of the world. But now it is no more, and I must move on. We must move on.
So… there’s cold decaf coffee in the corner for anyone who desires the taste of dissatisfaction.
You have cold decaf coffee? You’re lucky! 
Where there was once coffee there is now just the smoking remnants of artificially and unnecessarily abused beans.
…It helps if you read it in Werner Herzog’s voice.
I once dared to dream of a luxury cardboard freezer box to sleep in. That dream and an empty cup in whose stains the smell of burned beans lingers, would help to get my GZ-spirits up.
The first replacement entertainment was the eleventh installment of the tired Mortal Kombat series. The would be enthusiasm intended by its creators left me with a hollow sense that I’d been playing their game on a black and white screen—my skin sweating profusely under harsh fluorescent bulbs, as I reached for water that was never there—all the while my blood relatives berating me for my inadequacies and lack of ambition.
I’M GONNA PLAY!!! I’M GONNA PLAY WITH THOSE STUPID EXPLOSIONS EVERY THREE SECONDS!!! YOU WANT TO GET NUTS!?!? LET’S GET NUTS!
Herzog:
It was then that the fan was seized by their fanaticism. The 9mm submachine guns, the wonderful howling of the robots, the gentle breeze whilst contemplating the nature of an AI takeover was all lost in the player’s psychosis—their delusion that the grandiose and philosophical adventure that they’d hoped for was the one that they would experience.
The true warrior never complains about the unnerving curveballs the fight throws in the path they are supposed to follow, they adapt and overcome all things that wants to make them quit and look for easier fights. So “Flack It” is the right warcry while riding the steel horse to discover that grandiose adventure after all. Dead to the Machines!
Much like an assembly worker overwhelmed by their duties yet resigning their very soul to the process—the shattered gamer played. The cold winter air that emanated from an open window went unacknowledged. Soon their glossy eyes began to flicker near the lonely monitor lights. The repetitions of explosions faded into the ether as the gamer proceeded. It wasn’t deafness, but rather the acceptance that the explosions themselves, and the intrinsic misery accompanying them, were of a deeper order. Perhaps the unacknowledged truth lurking just beneath the surface of the entire endeavor was that the nature of fun itself was a wishful charade. The true purpose of the game, and perhaps of all games, was to reach such a state of purgatorial repetition where the nature of life itself could be honestly examined. Sisyphus pushed the rock once more.
What is the true meaning of gaming? It is not rolling a stone endlessly and aimlessly up a hill. Gaming is a trivial act that should never be allowed to take away a person’s sanity. Unlike Sisyphus you are not condemned to keep on rolling. Just pull back from this world that brings so much dark sorrow. Look around, there are a myriad of trivial endeavours to enjoy.
Endlessly isn’t aimless in such an experience at least as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps I was born to be a prisoner of the struggle. The aim is the repetition for the joy of repetition’s sake as it is an acknowledgement of the true self… Then again that could be the excuse to find solace as I’ve started a new world.
On a serious note, it does need to get fixed though. In the meantime I’ve found that multiplayer is way too easy and offers way too much loot. Guerilla is a good setting and experience solo. I would like one higher difficultly setting where if a given machine finds you, it never stops searching for you.
Thank you. I’d become quite self-conscious and was secretly hoping someone would come along to remove unnecessary adjectives and improve upon my word choice.