Guilty Pleasures

Carolyn Koh submitted this clause to The Escapist.

I'm a freelance writer. I write about the latest and greatest in approaching MMOGs and PC hardware. IT came approximately from my gaming, starting with lost weekends of D&D and was nurtured by my sexual love of online multiplayer games. But in the wee hours of the Night, when I'm done with my group, when I'm finished with raiding, I play Bejeweled2. My name is Carolyn, and I'm a W.C. Occasional Gamer.

I meticulously planned my last computer physical body. I did my research, take reviews and carefully specced every component. After weeks of debating AMD vs. Intel, nVidia vs. ATI, I bought a dual-core AMD check, two nVidia 7900 telecasting card game for SLI configuration, 2 gigs of superior DDR2-800 RAM with 4-3-4-10 timing, two new SATA hard-drives to be designed in RAID 0, and a unweathered 1200 DPI gaming mouse – all the best components I could start that didn't also monetary value an arm and a peg.

I could play the latest MMOGs at the highest performance without a hiccup. No hesitation in raids, no need to switch off whatever features that power grind to a halt performance. I bragged about my rig happening my guild boards basked in the glory of envious also as gratulatory comments.

Only after all that, I turn of events bolt down the sound, close the door, open my web browser to MSN's Game Zone and stir up Bejeweled2. I will better uncomplete a million points in timed play or quit after midnight, whichever comes first. I have that little bit of discipline left, if nothing other.

The woosh of the game loading up welcomes me comparable an hand-me-down friend. I select the Action Game and ready my mouse, as the gems drop off in situ with wooden clicks. "Go," announces the colorful, robotic male voice.

During the original level, the timer moves slow. I take my time, my eyes darting over the board, trying to set up combinations of cinque in a row. Power Gems and Hyper Cubes will carry over the next steady, and I try to create Eastern Samoa many as possible. A move creates a lucky chain response: "Level Complete," intones that hollow metallic voice. Curses! Only 7,200 points. I'll have to do better if I want to break 500,000.

The game is simple. On a board of 8 by 8 squares, tetrad different shapes or gems – all with their own unique color – fills from the top. You own a selected time to match the colored jewels in lines of three, horizontally OR vertically, to elucidate them from the board. This is done away clicking and swapping adjacent gems. One time they are cleared, more jewels drop in to fill the void. Lines of quaternary jewels are awarded with a Power Gem, and lines of five awarded with the more valuable Hyper Cube.

When the Exponent Gem is lined up with three operating room more of its kind, information technology blows in the lead – literally explodes. And when it does, it takes adjacent pieces with it. The Hyper Cube, a swirling lump of light, will take come out the reside of that color gemstone on the board in a shower of lightning strikes, when swapped with an near treasure. I love that incomparable; I always save information technology until I fill up the board with a colouring material I intend to trade it out with. Information technology stern also save a game when you are down to a few seconds on the timer.

Each natural process garners points and fills up the timekeeper, which slowly dwindles down. Fill out the bar all, and you complete A level, earning a parvenu game board along with idle special gems from the stopping point level. In the Action game, you ne'er encounter a scenario where you run out of moves. So somewhere on it board, with the timer legal profession rapidly diminishing, when the klaxon starts sounding to inform you that you exclusive have seconds left on your timekeeper, there is at least one option. You could get a hint, just that takes 1,000 points departed from your score. I don't do hints, even though they could well constitute separate of a player's strategy. I congratulate myself on gaining those high scores by myself.

As the game advances, it's not expert enough to precisely couple trinity. You'll conk out of time waiting for the voids to personify full. You have to cause Cascade Mountains – chain reactions where more matches are made when gems drop in to fill the voids happening the add-in. Match up the Power Gems thusly they clear more pieces for Thomas More options. Create a Hyper Cube so you force out blast out all pieces of one color on the board.

The bright colored gems play as I run my sneak terminated them. They disappear with a satisfying chime when I line up three in a row, intensifying in pitch and volume during a string reaction. Another sounds when I make a row of four and generate a sparkling Magnate Gem. The Charles Herbert Best is when I swap out the Hyper Cube. Lighting flashes out at the climax, and each gem shatters with a satisfying crash.

20 minutes later o, I've scored 826,790 points. The residuu of my game stats doh non matter. Not the number of special gems I created or the longest number of cascades, just the scotch.

Once in, you merely can't stop. Nothing holds me quite care it. Non Bookworm operating theatre Mah-Jongg. IT's Bejeweled2 or nothing.

The hold Bejeweled2 has on Pine Tree State is in its reward system of rules. I line up three gems in a row. I am rewarded by their fade from the cover. I am bucked up. I readiness it up right, and iii operating theater to a greater extent gems line up in a row as the remainder collapse to fill the invalid. More pleasure. Then thither's the congratulatory robotic voice. "Good!" It tells my great senses. "Superior! Incredible!"

Every night, after I bivouac from the MMOG du soir, I sneak online to satisfy my addiction to a casual game. I'll break a million points, one of these evenings. Behind blocked doors. Where no one can take in me operating room hear me.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/guilty-pleasures/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/guilty-pleasures/

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