- crossing a street in New York City by Dark Souls dodge rolling through all of the cars only to reach the other side, make a “praise the sun” gesture, then pull out a spear and start attacking a streetlight
- running into the post office to sing as many maudlin songs by Cat Stevens out-of-key as possible before you run out of songs and just start grabbing at whatever you know, resulting in your kazoo rendition of The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald including the lyric, “GET YOUR [BLEEP]ING HANDS OFF ME, PIGS!”
- going out for cigarettes and then driving all the way to Scotsdale, AZ despite living in Missouri, not because you were abandoning your family, but just because you insist Scotsdale cigarettes taste better
- lying to a cop about stealing someone’s car while standing in front of the car after the cop witnessed you stealing it, driving it four feet, crashing it, and wearing a sweatshirt saying I LOVE STEALING CARS on the front and ALSO I LOVE LYING TO THE POLICE on the back
- throwing whale bones at the neighborhood dogs with the aid of a trebuchet
- answering What Are You Playing solely in the beautiful but incomprehensible language of M’tana-Niki, the strange ethereal monkey god of candy and severed toenails who you contacted after a four-day bender of peyote, energy drinks, and Jim Beam
- buying replicas of the Titanic, setting them out to float on a lake, and then pelting them with ice cubes
Bonus question: Who’s a movie director that you know is controversial or potentially even just bad but you personally like as a director?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Oh man, what game doesn’t have something going on? I’ve been struggling to make time for Splatoon 3’s Splatfest and do Team Dark Chocolate any justice, so I’ll be hitting that the hardest, outside of my exercise games (you think I do food Splatfests without the actual food?!). I’ll probably also hit Pokemon Violet for Greninja raids, but very few since the community is better prepped for it and, again, for more Splatfest time.
I know others will say it, but Rian Johnson. While The Last Jedi isn’t my favorite Star Wars film (Expanded Universe non-Skywalker stories got more sci-fi and were what hooked me on the series), it gave me the most hope to making Star Wars mythical again. His other movies (like Looper and both Knives Out films) are a lot of fun and do get you thinking a bit too, though I’d probably never know who he was if it wasn’t for angry nerds who never grew up or questioned their fandom.
Andy McAdams: No gaming for me this weekend, tied up with lots of meatspace stuff.
Uhm, I’m just going to list a director I love – Luc Besson – and we’ll call it a day. Well, I love some of his work – not all of it. But the crazy, over-the-top sci-fi worlds are my jam.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I have been working on non-gaming projects, but hopefully I can get in this weekend to Lord of the Rings Online and maybe some Star Wars Galaxies Legends.
There is no good way to answer this question that won’t turn WRUP into a list of the worst humans, so instead, rainbows, cupcakes, pop with real sugar, a new pack of markers, and a fresh empty drawing pad, go.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): I am actually enjoying an alt on Final Fantasy XIV enough that I think I want to get him through Endwalker, so that might begin this weekend. Speaking of alts, there are a couple of good ones I have in City of Heroes, and I’ll slowly be setting up more VR gaming since my PC can now pass muster on that front.
I honestly don’t follow Hollywood close enough to know or care about directors, but I suppose Stanley Kubrick rises to my mind as someone who was apparently awful to people but turned out some of cinema’s most iconic movies.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): Is it review time? Of course it’s review time. It’s also FFXIV time. It might also be Play Some Of My Birthday Gifts I’ve Barely Played So Far time. That last one would be nice.
So I’m actually going to go for a wild card here and nominate M. Night Shyamalan, because… well, the man is frequently a director of terrible films. It feels like every time he gets a budget and a big push, he produces something that’s hot garbage. Heck, I’m even of the mind that The Sixth Sense is pretty overrated. But he also does have a weird imagination and some wild ideas about how to structure scenes, character arcs, and emotional payoff. I mean, if you forget what you actually know about him and just looked at his work, would you believe that the same person was behind The Village, Unbreakable, The Visit, Lady in the Water, Signs, and Knock at the Cabin? He’s often terrible, wildly inconsistent, and he has an ego large enough you need to tear down a supporting wall to let into a building… but he’s never boring.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I’m working my way through 12 days of Ill Omens in Lord of the Rings Online with that sweet, sweet portent waiting at the end. Apart from that, I’m easing my way back into Guild Wars 2 for some casual and comfy MMO gaming.
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): I have a busy weekend ahead, but I hope to drop back into EverQuest II at some point. That’s probably going to be it for gaming.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I’m mostly playing Gwent, the Witcher card game. I kind of don’t like it but I’ll stick with it a little longer to see if my thoughts change as I get more experience. I’ve still logged into Mortal Online 2 a couple of times. I’m trying to decide if it’s all just wasted effort or if I’ll make something of it. I’m undecided.
Bonus: I’m pretty worthless on the director front. I’m just not one to pay much attention. I’ll go with the Angry Video Game Nerd James Rolfe. He technically is a director since he made his AVGN movie. I really like just about everything he does though. Lots of people only know him for the AVGN but he is actually a really intelligent and hard working person. His whole Monster Madness series is an amazing annual tradition that anyone who likes Halloween should spend some time watching.
Tyler Edwards (blog): I’ve been trying to grind out the new cards in Eternal, so probably more of that. Maybe some New World? Unsure.
Bonus question: I don’t really pay a lot of attention to movie directors, so I tend to have no strong feelings on any of them, but The Last Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie (fight me), so maybe Rian Johnson I guess?
Alexander Metcalf, patron: Thanks to a quirk in my work schedule I powered through the story of GW2 (two thumbs up) so… now I can finally play the game!! Looking forward to taking my warrior on a few hero point trains so I can get him skilled up to try out WvW with a build/gear specifically designed for it. Either that or I start to let the burnout takeover and I migrate to one of the other games on my hard drive that I have yet to play…
Bonus: Easy answer: Quentin Tarantino. I despise the way he treated Uma Thurman on the set of Kill Bill, and his penchant for having white characters use the n-word in his early movies is not awesome…but the man has legit masterpieces in his catalogue. Pulp Fiction will forever be the movie that made younger me go, “Oh, so that’s what a great movie looks like!”
Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, our roundup of what MMORPGs and other games we’re hoping to play this weekend (with a bonus question or two for our amusement). Tell us what you’re up to! Go off-topic! And don’t forget to have fun!
