One thing that has always struck me about our customers is the sheer volume of liars amongst them. Let’s take one particular case study – A Mr. Welsh. As per usual, Mr. Welsh shall take red, while I take on green.
My router has just stopped working, I need a replacement.
Alright Mr. Welsh, so how has it stopped working? What’s wrong with it?
It’s just broken. Just send out a replacement.
Well we do need to log these Mr. Welsh, could you give me a description of what’s wrong with it? Are any lights turning on? Have you tried another power outlet? Do you know how it could have been broken?
Look, it’s just broken, and I need another one.
I smell a rat.
And I’d love to send you one Mr. Welsh, but these models are inspected upon return – if we find the damage to the damage is outside of warrantee, or is infact not damaged at all, you can be charged for both the router and delivery.
..They are?
Yes Mr. Welsh, if you could please tell me as much as you can about the router, I can sort this out for you straight away. Do you know how it was broken?
Well…er.. I erm, I put my fist through it.
…what.
Lying is so common in today’s world – it’s almost natural. Hell, I lied just to find out what happened to the router.
If it weren’t for lies, I honestly believe the world economy would fall down on top of itself. For example; walking through gamestop the other day, I noticed a boy walking towards the counter with “Clive Barker’s Jericho”. Would the kid have actually bought the game if the cover had read “Oh my God you’re actually buying this, I can’t believe you’re buying this”?
Moving on from that remark, let’s take a look at what the world would look like if video game covers actually took on a tone of honesty.
I’ll start off with what I would honestly call my worst Photoshop out of the lot. But moving away from critiquing myself, let’s focus on Bioshock for a moment. To anyone who has played System Shock 2, or even has even paid much attention to Yahtzee over at Zero Punctuation, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Now don’t get me wrong, Bioshock is one hell of a game and I enjoyed it from start to finish, but a lot of its praise comes from its originality. 2K have even stated that this is the ’spiritual’ successor to System Shock 2. And then, a lot of people have even stated that Bioshock’s main drawing point is its non-linear style of play. Wait, what? The entire story behind the game is that it IS linear, for reasons which are explained towards the end. Bioshock deserves the praise it’s received, but not for terms of originality or non-linear gameplay. Let’s go for the big fuckoff guns, and an epic story. Oh, and murdering little girls.
Enter my childhood, summer of 2001. Sonic Adventure in my honest opinion, was a pretty solid game. With one core camera problem. So surely this has all been sorted since two years ago, right? Wrong. More “I JUST FUCKED SONIC OVER A CLIFF WHILE MY CAMERA WAS FIXED ON A WALL” bollockery. And why in the name of Christ was the most boring excerpt from the original outing – the master emerald hunting, thrown back into the mix? And made about FIVE TIMES HARDER? I bloody hate rap music too. So for about half an hour I got to listen to a black rapper while a giant red echidna and big-titted bat ran around finding shinies. No thanks.
I was going to put a spoiler tag on this, but that would defeat the entire purpose. You more than likely already know that Aeris died. You were also fairly likely to have known this before you bought FF7, or had reached that part of the game. Myself, I had it ruined by a friend – on the goddamn day of release. How he had done this I have absolutely no idea, but he did. Dick.
Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular games of all time – and its all about being a total asshole. Really, has anyone ever driven after playing this game for too long? Not safe. GTA proves that deep down, we all want to be big buff black men shooting the shit out of everything in sight. But unfortunately, some people take this far too literally. GTA has come under constant pressure from useless mothers and desperate lawyers, because apparently it encourages violence in today’s society. Carjacking, shooting, and driving a helicopter into the face of your friends are things that most sane people would more than likely not consider doing. That sort of stuff is meant to be kept in video games. And its damn well not going to be removed by some bitch who wasn’t brave enough to smack her child before he became a drugged up murderer.
Seriously. Fucking hell this game was colourful. Eternal Sonata is set in what can only be described as a fantasy classical time period, in a land where everyone is beautiful, even the evil bastards. Unfortunately, the game gets even more trippy as it all of a sudden goes from classical-themed to ripping a hole in time and space, travelling to the land of the dead and fighting off giant robots while teleporting around the map. There is infact a fifteen minute portion of the game where all the characters tell you how you should fight on through life and not kill yourself – leaving a complete cliff-hanger story arc hanging in the balance. With this, there is quite a bit of inconsistency across the board – at one point you take a ship half way around the world but then have to go through an ice-lava mountain of death to get back to where you originally were. But apart from all that, its a very fun game to play – if you can draw yourself away from the superb eye candy.
This game STOLE MY LIFE. And I never even bothered with the main storyline – spending most of my time as a leopard (Khajiit for all you nerds) who stole wine bottles from every house in town. I then proceeded to become head of the thieves’ guild, and then became hellbent on becoming the greatest alchemist the world had ever seen. Unfortunately, it was at this point that work rang me and were wondering why I was legally declared dead.
As a college assignment this year, I was asked to write up an essay on why Reality TV shows such as Big Brother were leading the way in the entertainment industry. My opening statement was “Big Brother is quite like the Sims – except I can’t pick up Jade Goody and plant her in a 4×4 room with wicker baskets, and start setting off fireworks”. I ended on “Really, the only thing more boring than playing The Sims is watching someone else play The Sims, and the same goes for real life. But let’s be honest for a moment – who here hasn’t played The Sims? The Sims 1 & 2 have sold almost 30 million copies – and thats not including any expansion packs. Personally, I’m not a fan. I’ve got my own life to be worrying about. But damn, congrats to Maxis on one hell of a money-maker.
‘Nuff said.
And that concludes this weeks update. Until next time folks, I’m overdue some rest.
For more Callcenter related tales, click here.
For more Photoshop fun, click here to see an insane Jon Arbuckle.
Oh,and this is the 50th post on CallOfTheDay. Cheers!
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