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What’s better: Going on the roof, or one in the chamber?Vote now!
Vote now!
Image credit:Ubisoft
Image credit:Ubisoft
Last time, you decided thatbreech-loading grenade launchers are better than creating construction blueprints. Ruination over creation. Mayhem over order. Destruction over structure. This week, I ask you to choose between joyous trespass and canny preparation. What’s better: going on the roof, or one in the chamber?
Going on the roof
Wait, I’m not sure either of us is supposed to be up here
Video games are a hotbed of trespass. From secret government facilities to our neighbours' homes, we’ll go anywhere we’re not invited if the game lets us. Often it’s not just allowed, not just encouraged, it’s mandatory. Either you trespass on this nuclear missile base or I guess you can close the game and imagine the world ended. And these dramatic forbidden places pale in comparison to going on the roof. You could get in trouble if you go on the roof!
If video games are power fantasies, one of my fantasies is being able to go on the roof without getting told off. I enjoy running and fighting across them, and I enjoy those precious moments where games let me sit with a pal and soak in the sights.
One in the chamber
Likedrafting/slipstreaming, having an extra round chambered in a gun is a thing which feels made-up for video games even though it’s quite real. It’s simple: if you don’t blast through all your loaded ammo, in many games you’ll have an extra bullet in your gun after reloading, a leftover from the previous mag. This is how many real guns work. In games, it feels like a treat.
I know that the developers intentionally created this behaviour and balanced the game with it in mind, yet I feel I’m cheating a little, squeezing out a cheeky advantage. I cannot think of a single specific time this extra bullet has made the difference between life and death, yet every time it makes me feel I’m extra-prepared. Hell, I compulsively reload at all times so I rarely even reach that bonus bullet, yet I’m glad to know I have it. How clever of me. How careful of me. How deadly of me.
But which is better?
Even though the lyric “Sixteen in the clip and one in hole, Nate Dogg is about to make some bodies turn cold” looped through my head as I wrote this, I must go for going on the roof. Who’s going to stop me! But what do you think, reader dear?
