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Great question. If I only had one video I could play it would be this.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Issue : Games : Pugilist




Punch Club is a game about min/max-ing.

The main character chose to be a fighter, so everyday is about fighting. Everyday is about getting stronger, faster, or tougher. The option to get smarter isn't available.

To get stronger, faster, or tougher you have to train. This means going to the gym. Going to the gym means exerting energy. Energy loss means eating to regain. Food costs money. This means working. Work costs time. Which means time away from what you started out to do.

And when you do finally choose a direction, find a cadence, and step into the ring, the reward is getting your ass kicked, because everyone you face is on varying degrees of the same Catherine wheel.

The game is elegant in it's presentation of what it takes to become a person that fights for anything. It's incredibly easy to spend a couple of days in the game, look up, and realize you are doing exactly what the player character is doing at that exact time in "real life," only with different end goals. When did fight sims get so existential?

There's more to Punch Club, I'm sure I didn't do it justice, and I'm sure I'm reading way to much into it. It's probably just about punching things. Play it and find out.

I hope information goes to the Oscars, comes back, and explains to my why anyone should give a fuck about any of it. So another secret cabal is doing something shady, and it's been up to it for a really long time. What kind of facts are those? I'm more interested in this Frank's Red Hot situation. If Jack in The Box stops providing Red Hot it will be the single worst catastrophe of the modern age. Also JERBZ.  

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