The Wall of Tears: Ralphie 2.0 Part 1

Chapter 29:

It’s A Bizarre Thing, But We Like That Around Here

Chapter 30:

Ooo, You’re In Trouble Now!

In darkness she waits

In darkness she hates

In ages long past

Endures, she lasts

Patient and brooding

Time always feuding

Her day, soon to come

We fall, all undone

Prophecy of Malden

Goddess of Death and Renewal

From Jest to Best

The Wall of Tears - 10/10

Jeremiah Gould,

Game Madness Magazine

Four years ago, at the world famous E3 Expo, Robin Collard and Stephen Jericho stood before thousands of onlookers and announced a video game. With nothing but grandiose overtures and flamboyant hand gestures, they described their proposed ideas to the crowds who could only shake their collective heads. The veteran gamers and novices alike had all heard these kinds of promises before. Without so much as a piece of artwork on an easel, the claims of smarter AI, innovative game play and the most realistic graphics that had ever been attempted, sounded like the fantasies of children and nothing more. When the intended game’s creators finished shining the apple as to the sheer magnitude of their endeavor, the crowd (which had dwindled down to a collection of folks walking toward the bathrooms) let out a shared sigh. I overheard one onlooker remark, Who let these jokers on stage?

The duo had proposed everything from character control on an unprecedented scale, to an open world environment that spanned over 1,000 miles (in game) and NPC’s (that’s ‘Non Player Characters’ to you NOOBS) so intelligent you could have an actual conversation with them (if you had purchased the proper equipment, of course). Yes, it seemed to everyone present, including myself, that such a game was nothing more than a promise from a pair of salesmen who hoped their words might be enough to sell copies.

Yet, two shockingly short years later, I watched as the pair took the same stage and, without so much as a nod to each other, pressed ‘play’ on a lone laptop at the center podium. The crowd watched in dumbfounded silence, as the extent of the developers’ vision began to unfold to all those present, in the first-ever trailer for their game, The Wall of Tears. It seemed that they had not only lived up to their lofty words, but they had somehow managed to do so in an unprecedented amount of time.

The game was an international sensation before it was even in the beta phase. With millions of orders pouring in from all over the globe, the wholly unheard of Phalanx™ Studios quickly became one of the titans of the gaming world, before their first release had even hit shelves.

Today, six months after the game’s initial release, the remarkable Cinderella story continues as The Wall of Tears shatters barrier after barrier, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. Unlike its kindred spirit predecessors, which were notorious for leaving gamers feeling bugged out, recycled and wholly unsatisfied, The Wall of Tears manages to create a world that is shockingly immersive.

While games like Tyco’s Run, Dragonkin, and Salt Island all had their own hours of relative entertainment, it was never too long before you tripped some unseen glitch and a dolphin would suspend itself a hundred feet in the air, or your character would be arrested for assisting the Empire’s Guard against raiders, several of whom fell through the floor but still registered on your heads up display. (Not that I’m bitter about that last one or anything.)

Perhaps standing on the bones of their ancestors was the key to the infant Phalanx™ Studio’s success— or perhaps it was the chair-breaking, drink-spitting, and forehead-slapping $750 million dollar development price tag that really got the ball rolling.

Even though the fledgling company shipped an unheard of 25 million copies to stores for its March 12 release date, customers were still brokenhearted to learn that every single copy of The Wall of Tears was sold out that very night. With preorders alone, Phalanx chalked up well over 1 billion dollars in sales. Yes, that was billion with a ‘B’.

With the brief history lesson over, let’s get down to the review. I’ll start with the NPC’s. I’ve had less intelligent conversations with real people over a copy of the Wall St Journal than I had with these NPCs! I asked one NPC what he thought of President Gibson running for a second term, and he replied, I don’t know President Gibson. What is he president of anyway?

Unlike other role-playing games which start you off with a scripted bang, The Wall of Tears has over twenty different game openings which are completely dependent on how you’ve created your character. For example, after two hours of painstakingly selecting the tiniest nuances of my Dormdraval male, my story began with a tearful goodbye from my mother and my father, who gave me the family donkey before setting out on my quest to become the greatest hero in the kingdom of Thorngale.

It took me less than two minutes, bouncing around awkwardly (and hilariously) on the back of the donkey to run into my first NPC. She was wandering around an open field singing, Von Trapp style, with her arms raised to the heavens. I proceeded to talk to this NPC for over an hour! We talked at length about politics, the current state of affairs around the countryside, what she was doing out there, and then I even asked if she liked me. She replied, and I quote, Well, I’ve never been with a Dormdraval before… but I do like your cute little ass!

When the NPC finally slapped my character after he — not me, I swear — suggested they take their conversation someplace more private, I was left standing in a staggeringly realistic field. I don’t mind saying that I admired the way the wind blew the flowers, which matched perfectly with the flowing of my grubby looking clothing, for a whole five minutes before carrying on.

One of the major selling points that Phalanx™ Studios has delivered is the complete overhaul of the seemingly agreed upon combat system for RPGs. For established gamers, you can still set the controller to be used in the traditional sense, but if you feel like shelling out an additional $150 dollars, you can get the Tear-Eye. The motion-activated device sits on a flat surface and watches you play the game. When a particularly difficult fight is about to happen, players can jump up from their seats and the Tear-Eye system seamlessly leaps into action, allowing the player to personally fight hand-to-hand with their enemies.

This is no new idea, of course, but in the past, systems like this have been unresponsive and often lacked any sort of actual usability due primarily to reliability or more specifically – the total lack of it. The Tear-Eye on the other hand is so effective that I quickly found myself breaking a sweat as I fended off hordes of evil nasties!

Gone are the days of the skill tree! I don’t know about you, but whenever I got a skill point in any RPG, I couldn’t help but have a micro anxiety attack trying to decide how to spend my one and only point. The Wall of Tears has taken the pressure off, by auto leveling your character based on your day-to-day activities. So, a thief will naturally become better at theft and a warrior will naturally become better at… er, warring. While you may learn a skill through naturally performing a related task, you will also lose skills that you hardly or never use. So, if you learn to sneak really well, you might forget to learn how to use heavy plated armor later.

To complete the immersion effect, your character must eat, sleep, drink and survive the elements. The NPC actually adapt to your fighting style, so the longer you face off against the same opponent the more likely it becomes that they will figure out a way to beat you!

In conclusion: The Wall of Tears is not a game you should own, it is a game you need to own. Phalanx™ Studios has managed to set the bar so high that the Gods of Uuri themselves will have trouble passing it!

Chapter 1: Introducing, In This Corner, Sir Ralphie Clayton of Bel Air! (Applause)

Ralphie Clayton’s jowls flushed with fury as he watched Vorand’s decapitated body crash onto the polished black floor. The sixteen-year-old sat forward on the broken-down leather couch, bathed in the pale blue light of his television screen and wheezed to a shallow rhythm. A familiar spurt of red gore splashed onto the screen and dissolved into a patronizing line of slanted text.

You have failed! You are not the Chosen One!

Reload?

Find your Courage: X

Whimper and Withdraw: O

What the crap was that? Ralphie whined at his TV. He heaved the gaming console’s wireless controller across the dingy basement. That’s not even a little fair!

Sighing heavily, he worked his glasses through his pudgy temples, tossed them onto the couch cushion and rubbed the pink indentations on the side of his nose. He had been at it for hours with nothing but sore thumbs to remind him of his time invested. Was the dungeon worth all this trouble?

Ralphie pushed his glasses back into place with artificial cheese-covered fingers and wiped his nose on the bright red hair that obscured most of the back of his forearm. He stared at the game controller, five feet from the couch, frowned and grabbed the spare controller from its charging station on the nearby end table.

He smashed a greasy thumb into the X button and the taunting message disappeared, replaced with a growing progress bar. The console hummed to life as it began to reload the quick-save data that Ralphie had taken the liberty of securing, right before he had faced off with the Master Vampire Clodrode.

Vorand has been saved. Vorand has left the creepy dungeon filled with vampires.

Ralphie chuckled with a snort. He shoved another handful of cheese puffs into his mouth and choked as the artificial dust peppered the back of his throat. Kicking his feet up onto the dilapidated coffee table sent several nearly empty cans of soda rolling off and into an old cardboard box filled with useless items that he kept meaning to throw out.

He leaned forward slightly and scoffed as the cola leaked out onto several straight ‘A’ report cards, an unopened bottle of astringent that his mother had bought for him and his golf trophy from last year. He narrowed his eyes at a framed picture of himself surrounded by the golf team, wearing a grin from ear to ear and weighing a good eighty pounds less. He looked down at his rotund belly and frowned.

Ralphie pulled back the collar of his enormous Hawaiian shirt and began snapping several of the pimples that adorned his chest and shoulders while he waited for the progress bar to finish its arduous march. When the load screen finally faded to black, he licked his lips with excitement and sat forward. According to his friend, Warren, Clodrode was supposed to have a very powerful amulet on him, not to mention about five thousand padas worth of loot to sweeten the pot. Ralphie had been saving up for about a week to buy a house in the capitol city and that five thousand would put him over the edge.

Alright, Clodrode, Ralphie growled in an attempt to sound menacing. He might have achieved it except for a poorly-timed crack in his voice. Try this on for size!

His forefinger hovered over the left shoulder button as he waited impatiently for the cinematic scene to end. As soon as the fight began, Ralphie flicked the shoulder button and activated another, much shorter, cut scene.

He started giggling as his character began to disfigure and transform on the screen. Vorand’s arms and legs cracked and doubled in length, and his back and head grew thick, shimmering black fur. His knees snapped backward and his padded feet pawed threateningly at the ground. The bones of his face fractured and erupted forward as the teeth in his mouth crowded and lengthened. When the transformation was complete, the werewolf on the screen let out a deafening roar. The game suddenly switched to an alternative story line and Ralphie nearly choked on another handful of cheese puffs as Clodrode began to try to recruit Vorand as a partner. A message scrawled across the screen in beautiful looping letters.

Join Clodrode ‘O’

or

Kill Him ‘X’?

Ralphie gleefully mashed the ‘X’ button and the fight began.

With Were-Vorand’s heightened speed, strength and reach, Ralphie charged straight into Clodrode, knocking the frail-looking old man to the ground. Each fervent tap of the attack button sent intoxicating feedback vibrations into his hands as the brutal combination moves tossed Clodrode around the room like a rag doll. Ralphie laughed wickedly, quickly circumventing a speech Clodrode was about to launch into, with a flurry of kicks to the vampire’s chest.

The enemy rebounded and was on Were-Vorand, dealing out some damage of his own. Ralphie stuck his tongue out distractedly as he commanded the Were-Vorand to throw the vampire off and press his advantage. He sprinted forward with an uppercut combo, and, in a gratuitously graphic showing of high definition carnage, Clodrode was ripped clean in half by the howling monster.

The Monster Under The Mountain: Complete

The words hovered in mid-air above the werewolf’s head as Ralphie snickered and began the cathartic process of looting the corpses in the room. With that done, he hoisted himself off the couch and wobbled on sleepy legs over to the nearby mini-fridge.

Fire in the hole. Ralphie croaked, farting loudly as he cracked open a fresh soda.

He fell back into the large indent in the sofa cushion that had become his usual spot and let out a contented sigh. Seven months ago, the couch had been used maybe once or twice per year, usually by visiting relatives or for the odd weekend nap. Seven months later, things had changed, ever since the release of The Wall of Tears.

Ralphie had already, and proudly, logged hundreds of hours glued to his spot in the stuffy basement. He hadn’t been willing or, more truthfully, hadn’t wanted to drag himself away. It had been seven full months since he’d done anything else, or seen anyone else, except for his family and two best friends, of course. Like the rest of his social network, they would have been on the chopping block as well, if it wasn’t for the hours they spent on their respective couches, playing their own copies of The Wall of Tears with him.

Without the battle drums that highlighted the tension of a fight, the faint rumble of a heated argument upstairs became audible as the sound floated down the wooden basement steps. Ralphie sneered at the crossbeams above his head. Parents.

He refocused on his game, hoping that maybe he could get through this night without another fight. Not likely. Not after his parents were called into school for a parent-teacher conference. Those were never good.

Chapter 2: You Know, Volume Doesn’t Make You Right, Right?

I swear to God, I’m going to rip that stupid game out of the wall and smash it to pieces with a bat! Jeff barked. And what are you even wiping right now? The kitchen’s spotless.

The vein in his head pulsated dangerously as he seethed, more to the refrigerator than at his wife. He ripped the stainless steel door open, grabbed a cold bottle of water and tried to ignore Michelle squirming in the corner of his eye.

You’re yelling again, Michelle said softly.

She smoothed down the stray hairs on her otherwise flawlessly sculpted shoulder length pageboy. She wore a comforting smile on her lips, though her eyes betrayed the smile with thin lines of sadness. A nervous tic overwhelmed her better judgment and pinched the edges of her left eye and mouth against her porcelain skin. She tried to cover the involuntary motion by suddenly needing to adjust her tasteful sundress.

Honey, please. I know it’s frustrating right now, but we have to break him of the temptation, not just take it away from him. There is a life lesson he can learn here and taking the system away from him will only make him resent us. Michelle said as she drew out a small bottle of hand sanitizer from the folds of her polka dot apron, crinkled her nose as the antiseptic smell wafted upward, and held her hands out as far away from herself as possible.

Jeff scoffed loudly at the pearl of pop-psychology that had obviously been plucked from a checkout magazine. Listen, if I wanted Oprah’s opinion, I would just ask her myself. I have her number on speed dial. This is fu… He cut himself off as their ten-year-old daughter breezed serenely into the kitchen without a single word.

Her lips curled into a slow smile as she walked over to the refrigerator and took out a carton of orange juice. Jeff began to perform some kind of Lamaze breathing exercise in a desperate attempt to rein his temper back in, and Michelle tried to place a gentle, calming hand on his arm. He could feel her wince when he ripped his arm free and looked down at the kitchen table, in the hopes that his quivering shoulders would tell less of the story than his face. In his peripheral vision, he noticed that Michelle seemed to have forgotten what to do with her hands and opted to fold her wrists. She smiled her most plastic smile, the one she usually saved for PTA meetings and any time the neighbors invited the family over for dinner. It was a transparent attempt to save face in front of their daughter.

Jeff watched as Joanna closed the refrigerator door gently, walked to the kitchen’s island and pulled out one of the handcrafted bar stools. She then proceeded to drag the stool loudly across the perfectly finished hardwood floors and used it like a stepladder to retrieve a tall glass from the expensive Spanish pine cabinet. She slammed the door vehemently. Michelle squeaked at the shock and began gnawing on her manicured nails.

Joanna, either oblivious to her mother’s impending anxiety attack or enjoying it, quietly jumped down and smiled innocently, keeping steady eye contact with Michelle as she deliberately dragged the stool back into place at the island. Michelle began to do a strange dance, which appeared to be a mixture of a rain dance and a drunk with a mouse in his pants. Jeff silently wrapped a comforting arm around his wife and vainly tried to turn her head away while Joanna contentedly poured a tall glass of ice-cold juice.

Joanna took a long slow draught, placed the glass down on the expensive counter top and folded her little hands together with her unblinking eyes still locked onto her parents. The complacent smile that lit up her face disappeared in an instant, replaced by a grimace.

Please don't stop yelling on my account. Unless you think it’s less damaging to for me to hear my parents screaming at each other from my bedroom.

Jeff glared back and momentarily raised a finger in order to give his daughter a piece of his mind, but then decided to attempt to take the high road. He was determined not to let his work stress carry over to his family, even if it cost him an aneurism in the process, but Michelle beat them both to the punch.

We’re not yelling honey, we’re not. We’re just talking.

Joanna’s oversized eyes suddenly became even wider. She wrapped her arms around her chest as if she were carrying a teddy bear. Really, mother dearest? Because from upstairs, in my room, it sounded like you and daddy were yelling about Ralphie-Bear! Joanna pouted in an obviously overdramatic baby voice.

Michelle sighed and looked to her husband for help, but he could only cover his whole face with both hands. He was far too angry and far too stubborn to let his youngest know that he actually found her antics quite funny.

Jojo, honey, please go to your room, Jeff said, trying to force the edges of his lips back down.

Joanna jumped down off the bar stool and chugged the rest of the orange juice like a sailor at last call on the way to the dishwasher.

"A: My name is Joanna. I’m ten for crying out loud. And B: why go to my room when I can hear you just as clearly up there anyway? You know sound carries much better in a house with no carpets, right? Speaking of which, Mom, we should invest in some carpets. Area rugs, entryway, maybe even