Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: 85
The most difficult challenge I ever had was when I was told that in order to play the role of Maui I had to fight off at least two dozen sad dogs which were the size of a small duck. At first I thought this would be easy, but each dog was fitted with a small grenade launcher. They don’t tell you that beforehand. I got up to seven dozen before one of them finally got me.
-Interview with People Magazine, 2018
Robert DeNiro: 16
Most of my life has been devoted to figuring out whether I could defeat the largest dog on the planet, which I think is a Great Dane. Don’t tell me if I’m wrong. I think I could defeat about 15 dogs that were each 1/16th the size of a Great Dane, but the 16th would get me. When I can get the 16th too, I will be able to beat a Great Dane and then I’ll take my rake back from Al Pacino.
-Interview with Entertainment Tonight, 1999
Charlize Theron: 419 and counting
George Miller wants me to do another Mad Max movie and he keeps me in fighting shape by sending dogs the size of small ducks to kill me. So far I have defeated 419 of them. The next one could strike without warning.
-Twitter, 2023
Al Pacino: Endless
Robert DeNiro is lying. I do not have his rake.
-Unprompted, 2003
Zendaya: Zero
I want to read and answer What Are You Playing on Massively Overpowered, but whenever I try a very mean and sad dog the size of a small duck comes at me. It’s extremely upsetting. Please rectify this.
-Tips line, 2021
Bonus question: Do you prefer sound or silence as you’re heading to sleep?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Even though I’ve been playing the new Pokemon Violet DLC (I have thoughts on Ogre Ousting…), I may pop into F-Zero 99 and/or Super Bomberman R 2, especially the latter for co-op fun. Splatoon 3 will probably get some minimal play, while the exercise games will get fired up to make sure I’m not on my butt too much.
I have sleep issues, so it really varies. When things are fine, silence is better. If I’m having trouble, background music gives me something to focus on so my mind wanders less.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I’m waiting on my group so we can finish up a few last Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure story bits, and then I am done! At that point, I’m probably going to head back to Lord of the Rings Online and scope out the new stuff.
I prefer silence, but the snoring from the other side of my bed ensures I run a sound machine all night. One of these days, I will figure out who the responsible party is.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): My family and I have fallen hard into Void Crew, so I expect we will be doing a fair bit of that. I also am going to just slowly rake in the tomestones in Final Fantasy XIV and probably do a bit more casual leveling in Motor Town; I’m this close to being able to own my own truck!
Silence is golden when it comes to sleep, but I have fallen asleep pretty easily to noise and lights before. I tend to turn off entirely when I hit the sack.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): There’s some FFXIV nonsense to get up to, as always, along with some Transformers I need to arrange and some single-player stuff to play. It’s been a bad week emotionally, to be honest, so I’m just kind of in need of a recharge.
I don’t mind a little white noise, but more than that usually makes it harder to sleep. I used to keep a radio on, but I can’t do that any more.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): Probably no huge surprise but I’ll be in Harry Potter Magic Awakened on and off. The quidditch seasonal events haven’t really caught me like the previous dueling season did but there’s still plenty to do. In offline gaming I started playing Stars of Akarios. It’s a big campaign boardgame in the vein of Gloomhaven except in space. It’s themed kind of like an action Star Trek which is cool.
Bonus: Growing up it was always silence for me but post kiddos I’d go with noise. Although it could also be due to going to too many concerts and this dang tinnitus… bzz.
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!
