December 2022: Virtual Reality

I'm back from a nice vacation where I got to try out a couple of VR tech things - firstly the Oculus, which is a headset and a controller for each hand that has a variety of buttons and joystick thingies, was really interesting. Pressing button combinations let you pick up, throw, point, push, holster (or back holster) many digital things and you can "cast" what the player is seeing on a TV monitor if you want an audience.

For a simple game like Beatsaber, where you just hold two light sabers and have to hit incoming boxes in the correct direction, it was fine. That game is really more like repetitive exercise since your memory is what will win you the stages.

For more complicated ones like Walking Dead all those hand things are far more important as you'll not only be picking up, crafting or healing yourself (by getting bandages and virtually wrapping them around your arm) - you'll also need to be stabbing walkers. Velocity is a thing so light hits won't kill the zombies  and the system is smart enough to know if you are doing a two handed strike, or holding the walkers head before you strike etc.

My main problem with the Oculus might just be a "me" thing: for the Walking Dead I got super dizzy because while your arms are functional, you move using the thumb controlled joysticks... it just felt super unnatural.

Then we also tried Far Cry VR at a Zero Latency arcade - its basically a large room you book for 30 minutes or so and pay per head. Again you get a headset but this time your controller is a rifle - and that's it! Six of us went in this cooperative game to play against Vaas and his goons (though it can go up to eight) and it splits you into two teams for most of the match. Expect to be moving a fair bit to take cover and don't worry about what you look like in real! :P

For safety if you move towards a wall or another player in the real world bit red caution shields appear to warn you of the fact. That wasn't a problem for us though, and no one ran into any walls or each other. Super fun experience that I highly recommend and want to do again. Oculus? Not so much.

Any who, that's all for now - hope you've all had a good Christmas and are having a Happy New Year! :) 

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Farcry 3: Hard Earned Riches

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Finally it looked like we were near the Captain's base, but right from the outset it was going to be a challenging task reaching him as the foes were once again the very accurate mercenaries. Getting through their outposts to the entrance of a mine was pretty tough, but then having to hold the mine entrance while a noisy pump drained it of water (hmm dejavu dead island) proved quite the challenge until I decided to be the bait in the central building while my brothers camped far away with their sniper rifles.

Turns out the mercs are pretty slow when it comes to sharp turn reflexes as I managed to head shot many who ventured in the door while those that cautiously stayed outside were sniped down. Once drained the mines led us to a nearby ancient temple, again crawling with enemies in what was perhaps the hardest part of this mission as they wouldn't stop spawning until we reached the temple heart (through use of flanking drive and draw tactics) to collect an explosive there that we used to explode a beaver dam type thing blocking the river.

Pass the C4, it's the only way through!

Only there was then another beaver dam further down, and it was time for a competitive challenge to collect the random bombs laying around in the river to explode that too. Why we couldn't have just walked, or bypassed the temple since there were all these bombs laying around in the first place I don't know. Anyway, the river led us to the Captain's fort where the mercenaries put up a decent enough defense but in the scope of things was easier than what we had previously traversed.

After exploding the final door we found the Captain, dying of his wounds (from the same explosion) and all the stolen money which we quickly nabbed and began our escape to the docks. Ofcourse Seto was captured again, and after taking the dock yard we needed to hold our position for what seemed to be forever against waves of mercs and knife pirates (of whom I out knifed three!) before the sea gate finally opened. With that we hopped on the boat and escaped with our hard earned riches!

... Or did we? There are still two more missions in the listing after this one. O_O

Farcry 3: Drug Worship

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Looks like our boat guy, Seto, has sent us on another tangent mission and we find ourselves in the vicinity of a pirate controlled village. The scum supposedly have a whole bunch of malaria medicine (something the protagonist in Farcry 2 needed regularly) in their meth lab, a repurposed old style church. First we need to find keys to the doors though, which is not such a difficult challenge since we're back to the red-shirt pirates instead of the more dangerous gold mercenary dudes.

Stabbing and shooting our way forward we find that our objective is indeed within the church, and our next task is to help Seto (now in a truck) get across a nearby bridge which is rigged to explode! This was perhaps the most difficult and tense part, thanks to the near endless swarm of bad dudes and a very visible count down timer. On paper we just needed to forge ahead along the river, using the big rocks scattered about as cover.

Once we pulled off the dynamite from the bridge it became an escort and protect task, with Seto happily driving along - often ahead of us like an idiot. Fortunately with the bad guys distracted it was pretty simple to get the truck to the church then load up the medicines. Ofcourse we couldn't just leave it like that. As Seto drove off we rigged the whole place to explode to send it back to God. I'm sure anyone down wind of the resulting smoke would have had an... interesting day.

Farcry 3: Bunker Down

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Our next target was a bunker that held information on the whereabouts of the captain, which mostly made for close quarters combat. The major difference here was that our opponents were no longer the red shirt wearing pirates but the armor wearing mercenaries who could really take a few more hits before going down. Fortunately we also got reinforcements (in the form of Juris) and an extra gun hand made quite the difference.

Compared to the last mission this one was more of a humorous cakewalk, including the part where we were just lobbing infinite grenades down on swarms of the mercs (the competitive section) until we got to the end. The last section involved carrying three explosives to various sections of the base while the mercs literally deployed armies of scum on the field to stop us at each point. Though I was downed just prior to the second objective being destroyed, the rest of the team did manage to secure victory regardless and they managed to drag me out of there as everything went kaboom. An interesting feat considering I was in an elevator with a ticking time bomb when I went down.

While recovering I decided to make use of one of the pilfered laptops they took from the location, and began decoding the encrypted files to help us in our goal (using Farcryoutpost.com grid puzzle). I never realized that hacking was quite this fun.

A bit of a brain tease too!

Farcry 3: Gear Check

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Our "helpful"(?) boatman required a better engine on his rickety craft so it was up to us to go grab one from a nearby pirate scrapyard. By "nearby" he actually meant through around three pirate fortifications, one of which being a massive shipwreck, and having to sink a pirate destroyer sitting in the bay. The presence of multiple heavies wasn't really the problem on this map, it was more the multiple sections of endless scum (mostly shotgunners) pouring forth from the jungle in the take and hold parts.

"Hey dudes, get me a motor. Muahahahaha!"

Exploding that destroyer took a LOT of effort (for something that only needed 3 missiles to sink), and for the first time required our gear loadouts and strategy to be up to scratch. Moving together to take the rocket at the high fort using the bunker cover provided worked best. Getting the other missile on the beach was more problematic, until we found that the old stealth system prevalent in the single player game was still valid here. This meant that while my companions made a lot of noise at a fortified spot to attract the endlessly respawning pirate horde, I could sneak down the beach (while avoiding shelling) and collect the missile dumped there to sneak back.

Defending a noisy car motor to winch the boat engine objective at the "scrapyard" village was also quite problematic as the hordes were aided by magical heavies who appeared in the midst of our defenses. Fortunately well placed proximity mines took care of them early, and having the snag of refuelling the motor mid-combat more plausible. All in all this was an overly long and very difficult mission. The only bright side was the competitive section which involved heavy machine gunning our way down a river while on a raft.

Farcry 3: The Long Way Around

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

We next found ourselves having to delay a diamond trade that was going down at a nearby village, just to mess with the Captain's plans. This first involved moving a small train out of the way since it was blocking our only path forward (the tunnel it was parked in) which called a small army of pirate scum bearing down on us. Once they were out of the way we had a small sniping competition, followed by another bridge explosion task. Carrying those heavy bombs really relies on team work since the carrier really is quite helpless.

The next big challenge was traversing a cave that happened to have another pirate army camped within. Seriously, how many of the freaks are there and where are they coming from? I thought I already killed most of the population on this island earlier... oh well. Clearing that took a bit of doing, and only once we got out the other side did we reach the village where the exchange was going to take place.

If only we had... ANY of these!
After knifing the guards we took up position to ambush the convoy which involved having to rocket a number of jeeps, while avoiding a pack of dogs and a large group of shotgun wielding maniacs. Turned out that they had the right idea. The difficulty seemed to ease a lot when I began using their own guns against them. In the end, the village was just filled with dead bodies... and a pile of diamonds, which we buried for safekeeping ofcourse. Not letting those go to waste!

Farcry 3: A New Target

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Single-player was just training. Coop mode is where the bad guys really bring the pain! >_<

After a few weeks of hunting the "new" pirate scum, I joined up with two other mercenaries who were equally interested in putting these criminals into the ground - specifically their new captain who we all refer to as "The Captain". We almost caught him at a nearby fishing outpost where we knifed, shot and exploded our way through all opposition but our prey was always one step ahead and ultimately escaped without us ever seeing him in person.

Hopefully it's not -this- captain.

The most memorable parts of the exercise for me were rescuing a captured boatman who became our transport ally, being freaked out by the pirate attack dogs (who are by far the worst enemies since you are helpless if they get up to you), blowing up a bridge to prevent pirate reinforcements from flanking us (because they can't swim across the rather shallow river apparently) and participating in a quad bike competitive race to see who could put the most explosives at a landslide that was blocking our way. Who says we can't have fun on the job?

MMOs: Why We Hunt

[Part of my MMO Design Folder]
 
Why do you do quests and venture into deep dungeons in MMOs? Because some NPC told you to?

Quest lines usually have story behind them so that's some pretty good motivation but outside those - what of the "Kill Ten Rats", "Harvest Cyclops Eyes" and "Fetch my hamster from yonder shore" tasks? I asked this of myself and the two usual responses were "experience" and "loot". Experience, even with the removal of levels, is ok - maybe it will increase my skill in doing something like, stomping, or scooping, or swimming for the examples above.

Loot is alright too when used in moderation, but often times it is the PRIME motivator for people to go do something, especially during end-game segments of MMOs. Need a better gear score right? Worse still is that the most desired loot is often a randomized drop, so technically you are gambling that by doing the same activity you have already been doing - you will get a different and more favourable result. Kinda sounds like the definition of insanity but that's ok, some people like that sort of thing.

Shut up, Vaas.

What most MMO's are missing though is perhaps the best reason to hunt: Need. And I'm not talking about in a loot/treasure/greed sense. I'd love to see a game where if you leave bandits unchecked the shops in the nearby towns begin to sell less and less gear with dropping quality and higher prices. Or if an unrewarding troll encounter if left alone blocks a particular fast travel route. Or if a particular plant grows too wild it continually saps the life of anyone wandering through the forest. Or if a cultist den is not raided that magic in the zone becomes a dangerous risk, as casting spells can cause mages to self destruct instantly. Or that rampaging enemy brigade to actually over run the town and occupy it.

Too often it's the carrot used as the lure for adventure. I want to see more of the stick. I want to see a world with fewer treasure hunters. I want to see a world with more heroes.

Farcry 3: Killing is Winning

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

When we arrived at the temple, Riley was immediately taken away from me by the guards and Citra did a quick hello by blowing who knows what sparkly drug powder in my face. I found myself walking a fiery path until finally I came across the ancient knife once more. It was at Liza's throat, and Citra wanted me to sacrifice her to join the Rakyat tribe.

Stupid bitch. I went through all this trouble to rescue them, and to ask this of me now was idiotic. I set her and my other comrades free. In a rage Dennis tried to stab me for my insolence but stabbed Citra instead, taking that pleasure away from me. While they were in shock at the death of their leader I took advantage to do what I do best. I killed them ALL, starting with that ass hat Dennis. After all, with the "take what you want" mentality that whole tribe really was no better than the pirates they fought against.

Finally we got back to the now repaired boat to escape the island... only now my comrades looked at me with distrust for the amount of blood I had on my hands. They left me there on that shore with the rest of the murderers as they escaped into the sunset. I was a little annoyed at first, but then realized there were still plenty of Rakyat scum to eliminate and so I turned my back to the sea, reloaded my guns and headed back into the jungle to purge the world of these backward tribesmen who didn't deserve to exist in the first place.

Best and worst vacation ever.

Farcry 3: This Little Piggy

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

After dealing with the traitorous mercs Sam and I were invited to a poker game with Hoyt - the perfect opportunity to kill him, but complicated by the fact that my last comrade Riley was actually still alive and imprisoned in the cells below. To this end Sam had other plans before the poker night involving an assault on Hoyt's main satellite relay as well as his fuel depot. When the two of those were well and truly exploded we both turned up to his compound with our best poker faces on but he saw through it immediately and knifed Sam in the neck. Maybe attacking all those locations gave us away? I wonder.

Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

What happened next is a blur. One second we were playing poker with his armed guards pointing their guns my way, the next they were all dead and I was knife fighting with Hoyt who actually was a pretty skilled opponent, slicing off one of my fingers in the melee before I pinned him down shoved a few blades through his face. Guess that explains why I only have nine fingers.

Escaping the compound involved a full scale gun fight again while I went to rescue Riley. In the chaos we liberated an empty helicopter and flew off, but not before making one pass of the entire compound while I drilled everything with the 50 cal. Once we had no more pursuers we flew directly to the safety cave only to find a dying Dr. Earnhardt saying he couldn't protect my friends from the jungle people. What the hell? It was time to pay Citra a visit.

Farcry 3: Crazy Monkeys

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Once I was free and clear Sam suggested I go take care of some thieving traitors to put myself in Hoyt's good books, but that could wait. Now that I had the disguise it made it so much easier to annihilate all the mercenary outposts since they let me fully recon their bases first each time. Some put up more of a fight than the others but in the end they all fell, just like their tower jammers.

I also took the opportunity to finish off collecting the relics and odd jobs in the region. Some of the hunting ones were getting absurd though - such as killing leopards with a flame thrower and killing bears with your knife. On top of that I earned the highest rank in all the Rakyat weapon trials scattered around the island and collected all the correspondence from the dead japs, finding Hurk's epic quest against the grenade-pin pulling monkey he called Gilbert most amusing.

At least they weren't trained to use rifles!

Eventually I got a call from Sam again to help him defend a drug plantation from a roving band of pirates who placed time bombs within. I'm not quite sure why the pirates wanted to explode all the plants as that sounds... not financially beneficial, but it was a good bonding experience for the German and I as we charged in there and killed all of them. He's such a happy guy.

As a side note: Here's Belghast's review of the game which highlights some valid points of why it can be annoying at times. Anatoli's Game room has one too! :)

Farcry 3: The South Island

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Since Hoyt was actually based on the next island I arranged with Willis to take a ride on his "private" aircraft (a single propeller thingy) as he was high tailing it out to Russia on another mission. After protecting him from an attack by the now leaderless pirates we took to the skies and he gave me my most favourite form of transportation on the island - a wing suit! Jumping out of a plane was meant to be scary, but it was actually very fun!

Upon landing I made my way to Thurston to meet Willis' agent there named Sam. This was a bit scary since instead of pirates, this entire place was full of mercenaries. Fortunately none of them recognized me so I was free to look around. I found Sam at the local poker game and was surprised that he is actually a german (as a side note, Farcry 3 is a great way to learn the basics of texas hold em poker)!

Iz gud to meet you, ja?

After finding a quiet spot to plot and plan he suggested that I go and "enlist" with the mercenaries. By that he meant go to where the rookies are, kill one and wear his uniform which would cover not just the tattoo but my face as well. This was the most tense mission yet since I couldn't risk detection OR killing any of the guards. Fortunately I can be quite sneaky when I want to be, and with enough patience and good timing I was soon undercover and attending the welcoming speech with the other recruits from Hoyt himself. Too bad killing him right there was akin to commiting suicide.

Farcry 3: Trippin Balls

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Getting "healed" by Citra involved drinking a strong poison that sent me into a dreamlike state where I fought a black giant and some shadow men, followed immediately after by what looked to be the cowgirl position with a topless Citra riding me in front of her tribe. Drugs really do whacked out things to you, huh? When I eventually regained my senses I was staring down at Vaas' island fortress. Bastard would never see me coming.

Or so I thought, for once I snuck into the side building all the TV's within put his face on, laughing as he said he expected me. Did I mention the building was on fire? There was no option left but for a full out attack against his remaining men - I did have some assistance from a trapped tiger though. Once I got into the final building Vaas got the drop on me again, stabbing me with a knife - or hallucinogens, or ... a hallucinogenic knife?

That's a leopard, not a tiger!

Suddenly Vaas was everywhere, I was shooting him - knifing him, running at me from every angle. Somewhere in the mayhem the blade finally found it's mark as I shoved the knife into his gut and twisted it - finally ending the madman's life. I was kind of sad at that because I was beginning to like the guy. His sister Citra on the other hand was pleased, but she wanted his employer Hoyt to be next. Since we were in agreement there I made one last visit to my rescued buddies - telling them to depart on the boat without me as I still had unfinished business on the island. They weren't that happy with the decision but could do nothing to stop me.

Farcry 3: Peekaboo! Guess who?

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

The convoy we were ambushing was not one of pirates, but of well armed mercenaries. For a change I was glad to have fodder... ahem... I mean allies to assist in the battle. The APC we were trying to halt eventually got past the roadblock though, so it was up to me to chase it down - kill its guards and like a real hero open the door to free the captives. Only, there were no captives. Just one psycho who promptly knocked me out.

Did you miss me?

When I awoke it was to the sound of his smug voice as he told me the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over. In this case, killing me. With that he kicked the cement block my feet were tied to down into a deep well where he hoped I would share the same fate as his other victims rotting in the water down there. It was not to be though, for I freed myself and stabbed my way out using a stolen knife to his nearby camp - hijacked his helicopter and ... got shot down by an RPG.

Still in a haze I crawled out of the burning wreckage to find the maniac grinning down at me again. "Have I told you the definition of insanity?" he asked once more, just before pointing his pistol at me and pulling the trigger. The world went black. And then smelly. Once again I had escaped death in a manner of speaking, but I still ended up in a mass grave. After crawling my way out of there and retrieving my gear (don't know why since it was easily replaceable), Dennis told me to go back to the temple for healing.

Farcry 3: That's not a Knife

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Who're you gonna call, mate?

 

After barely escaping the sinking ship (of course it had to blow up while I was on it) I woke up on the beach with Buck standing over me. Did he give me mouth to mouth? Ew. He's obviously wanted his knife but it wasn't on board. Instead I found a glowy magical compass which supposedly pointed to the knife. He let me go on my merry way to find the blade while he went to play with his hostage a bit - ewww. Anyway the compass led me to an old submarine bay, then some mines and finally some dudes tomb. The first two stops were just to get more pieces of the compass and it was ultimately used as a key to open the tomb.

Strange that every location was swarming with pirates though. Were they looking for the knife too? Some of them had begun getting wise and wearing body armor over those singlets, forcing me to be a little more accurate with my shooting and totally out-dating my bow and arrows. Silenced sniper rifle works wonders. Regardless, I got the knife in the end - and when I went to trade it with Buck he tried to shaft me in the back with it. Good thing I've got a high reaction time because it was him that got gutted in the end.

After taking my friend who (I'll call "Bitch", because that's how he acts) to the cave, he told me that the my last comrade Riley was dead. He saw them shoot him. In a fit of rage I stormed out to get vengeance, leaving Liza, Bitch, Pot Head, and Independent Princess to handle the final boat repairs while I met up with a group of Rakyat for another rescue mission, this time for their people instead of my own. It's the least I could have done for them... you know, other than single handedly taking every pirate outpost on the island but I already did that.

Farcry 3: Deals and Devils

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

In an appropriately named village called "Bad Town" I met Agent Willis who gave me the scoop about Vaas' employer, a Mr. Hoyt Volker - slave trader, and drug manufacturer. In exchange for getting info about the rest of my allies Willis first sends me to torch one of Hoyt's main drug fields with a flamethrower. After that trippy experience in which for once the pirates had an excuse for not being able to shoot straight, Willis then sent me to defend a different village from a pirate attack.

Yippee ki yay?

Well, not the entire village - just his informant Rongo who not only I had to protect from execution, but all the way uphill through the village to his house to find the coded documents he stole. In the end only Rongo and I were left standing, and I left him there in his burning house and burning town to try rescue another of my allies nearby, the pot smoking party animal who was being transferred via convoy. After intercepting it with explosions and making a quick get away by boat (during which I had to shoot down a chopper among many other pursuers) I finally got him to the cave where I kept my other rescue victims.

Three out of five meant two to go. After checking back in with Willis he said he had a lead on my next buddy who was sold to some boy lover named Buck (Australian from the accent). Conveniently I found Buck at the nearby tavern and he suggested a trade - my friend for some really ancient Chinese dagger which he claimed is on a boat somewhere. Since I had no option to... I dunno, torture him, or follow him, or do anything remotely intelligent I accepted the deal and headed down to the beach where I saw the medium sized cruiser just off shore. Good thing there was a jet ski nearby because I'd be damned if I had to swim through the sharks to get there.

Farcry 3: I've got the Stones

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

One of the things Dennis told me was to mold the jungle to the things I needed. By that he actually meant harvesting various flora for a variety of syringes and carving up every type of animal on the island to fashion into bags, pouches, wallets and pants. While I was at it I figured I'd do the same to all the pirates I came across, liberating the entire Western part of the island from both their outposts and radio tower jammers.

For extra cash I was also taking odd jobs of hunting critters (usually with bows) or knifing bad men for justice. Most of the money I spent right away on maps to the numerous "whispering" relics (yes satan?) scattered in each region, making it easier to track them down and absorb their power. Truly, finding these small carvings did more for my combat intuition than actually going into combat. It's magic.

Eventually I found myself standing before a large stone temple in the jungle, inside which I met Citra - the "spiritual" leader of the Rakyat tribe, who also happens to be Vaas' sister. She doesn't really think much of my combat skills, despite being able to single handedly do what her tribe can't seem to handle. Seriously, these pirates with automatic rifles are losing to komodo dragons and wild dogs. It's not like defeating them is difficult, so what does that say about the Rakyat?

Your tribe sucks.

Anyway, she made me drink something that made me totally trip balls as a sort of test, concluding with telling me to find what has been lost. Not sure I'll be able to find her mind, but in the meantime I decide to cleanse the rest of the island of the pirate infestation, clearing out relics, old correspondence from japanese skeletons, and odd jobs while I was at it - like sniping some sharks. Another particular highlight was to eliminate a pack of rabid dogs... with an RPG. That was awesome.

Farcry 3: Independent Princess

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

Turns out the "princess" I was trying to rescue managed to get out all by herself and found refuge with a creepy, constantly stoned old doctor by the name of Earnhardt who thought she was his wife... or daughter. Either way, she was fine. She even located an old boat beneath the doc's mansion which she began to repair for our island escape. Now there's an independent girl if ever I saw one.

Perhaps she later becomes known as Samus?

Dennis soon radioed about another of my friends who wasn't as independent, and I soon found myself hoofing it over to a prison camp to try pull off a valiant rescue. I murderized all the guards on the way in but was caught off guard by Vaas himself! When I awoke, my friend Liza and I were left tied to our chairs as Vaas torched the old wooden house we were being held in - leaving us to burn alive.

Somehow I still managed to break free, rescue the girl and perform an incredibly dangerous escape via jeep. Not dangerous because of the pirates chasing and shooting at us - I had a gun for that. Dangerous because Liza was driving. We escaped from their clutches and soon I put Liza in the boat cave with the other, hotter girl named Daisy who had the boat repairs well underway. Our reunion was interrupted when Dennis radioed in again, telling me to speak to their leader who lives in a temple somewhere in the jungle.

Farcry 3: The Warrior's Path

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

I was pulled from the river by a mechanic named Dennis who moonlighted as a tattoo artist and a soldier of the Rakyat tribe. He brought me to his village and when I awoke he was already beginning to paint my arm with strange symbols of the heron, shark and spider which he said would make me a better warrior. To prove his point he gave me a knife and a pistol then asked me to climb a radio tower to disable some jammer the pirates had put there. Fortunately the dilapidated structure was only guarded by a snake, which still managed to bite me and slither off.

Regardless, the task was done and soon I found myself advancing with Dennis and two of his Amanaki warriors to an outpost where supposedly one of my friends was being held hostage. The feeling of the gun and blade in my hands felt natural, as did shooting the first pirate I saw in the face then flanking their encampment. While they focused fire on Dennis and his pals I snuck around and shoved my knife into the backs of as many pirates as I could. Soon enough they were all dead and the outpost was ours, however my friend was nowhere to be found.

"Your Princess is in another castle my friend."

Farcry 3: Memories of the Fall

[Part of the Diary of a Marked One]

The arena bouts were quite challenging and for the most part nothing I couldn't handle, so much so that my hostess "Mad" Moxxi began taking a liking to her new champion. After a particularly gruelling round I found her waiting for me at the infirmary where she began asking about my past, and how I got that tattoo on my arm. The surprising thing was... I could remember! Maybe I've just had my head cracked over so many times that it fixed my amnesia from before? Regardless, I've decided to write it down in my diary in case I forget once more where I came from.

In my youth, before the arrival of the Zone, I was just another everyday teen that wanted to see the world - and have crazy fun while doing so. To that end my comrades and I decided to go skydiving out to some remote island away from the busy hubs of tourists. It was all going well until we got captured by the local pirates led by this crazy man named Vaas. He even has clips on youtube.

They separated us and planned to sell us back to whoever would pay. Fortunately my brother in arms who was with me managed to break our bonds and initiate a speedy escape from the prison camp. I got away by jumping down a waterfall while evading a barrage of bullets, he on the other hand was not so lucky.

Looks like you didn't make it, hermano.