On the morning of August 30th I noticed that my IM client was having trouble logging in to Windows Messenger. Seems the login credentials were wrong. So I went to the Windows Live site and tried to log in there. Hmmm. Maybe I had forgotten the password. So I reset it. When I checked my email for the confirmation message, I noticed a ton of receipts from XBox Live. Either I had sleepwalked and ordered up about $260 worth of Microsoft Points or somehow my account had been compromised.

I felt some panic at first, mostly for my XBox Live account. Was someone out there pretending to be me and hassling my online friends? Maybe they were dressing my avatar in sports clothes! I couldn’t log in to my account via my XBox. So I called up tech support and explained the situation. The guy immediately went into triage mode, calm but urgent. The patient had a few bullet holes, but this was nothing he hadn’t seen before.

It took about 15-20 minutes to give all the details. Fortunately the idiot hacker had left his email address behind. Even so, the guy told me that there was a backlog of investigations and it could be a month before I heard anything. During that time I couldn’t use my Xbox Live gamertag or my Windows Live ID. Fine. I had enough to keep me occupied on other consoles.

A month goes by and I don’t hear a word. Not even an automated email telling me that I had a case open with Microsoft. So I call them back up to see what is going on. Turns out my case was “not escalated properly” and nothing had been done at all. My case had just sat in a file, ignored. The tech told me we’d have to start over from the beginning. I tried not to completely lose my shit on this guy, which I managed to do. Although I did make it clear that I was disappointed with their performance. The tech told me he would add a note to fast track my case as it had been neglected for so long.

Fortunately, that worked. About a week later I received a call that I would receive an email within a week detailing the results of the investigation. Another week later I received a series of emails explaining how to get back online with my XBox Live Gamertag. I was also notified that I would receive a full refund for the charges made on my account. Additionally, Microsoft was giving me two free months of XBox Live. I was able to get back online with my original gamertag and found nothing amiss other than all my friends were gone. I’ll have to add them all back again.

So, other than the massive delay in processing the case, Microsoft set things right in a professional manner and I am pleased with the results.

I’ve discovered a new niche of video games which I shall call “Art Games Featuring Lost Boys Which Make Me Cry.” The past few years have each yielded quite a few passion projects, independent games which come in from the edge of the map without a blockbuster agenda. Call them hoity toity or highbrow, but I love when anyone produces something unexpected, thoughtful and unapologetic. Long after I tire of space marines blowing up aliens, I will still be engrossed in the journey of a young boy across a fantastical landscape.

Braid, Limbo and Bastion all come from a place of perfection in terms of art design, story and game mechanics. I have nothing ill to say about any of these games. Each one drew me in with its own particular style. But what I really want to talk about is the emotional payload of each. I’m going to spoil the ending of each game, so stop reading if you care about what happens.

Braid’s opening scene sets up the classic video game tale: your girl has been captured by the villain and you must rescue her. As the game unfolds, you are presented with a series of interior monologues filled with longing for a girl, presumably a real person the designer was pursuing. They seem to have little to do with the game until the end. The main game mechanic in Braid is the ability to alter the flow of time, moving it backwards and forwards to solve the puzzles. So, at the very end, when you think you are about to rescue the princess, you are instead treated to a shocking revelation: The opening scene of the game was playing in reverse. Now it plays again, in the correct direction, and you see that the girl wasn’t captured by the villain. She is in fact running away from you into the arms of the knight who will protect her, the one she really wants to be with. You spend the entire game so self-assured and self-absorbed that you never consider that the princess doesn’t want you to rescue her. Masterfully done.

Limbo had a similar twist, although a more ambiguous one. In Limbo, you are trying to find your sister and perhaps rescue her. It is never really clear how the two of you came to be in Limbo. The game leaves a lot up to interpretation. You encounter your sister on two occasions. Each time she is sitting in a sun-dappled glade, blissful and in no apparent danger. On the final occasion, the last moment of the game, she hears you approach. She turns and gasps. That gasp was an ice dagger in my heart as I realized that she was probably never in Limbo and now she sees the ghostly apparition of her brother looming towards her.

I finished Bastion a several days ago and it still sticks with me. I want to hear that narrator all the time, telling the story of my daily life. And the music! I bought the soundtrack the day it was released so I could listen to those gorgeous songs again. There are two big decision points in the game. The first one just seems like a Voight-Kampff test to determine if you were human. You can either hold on to this devastatingly overpowered weapon that annihilates your enemies, or you could set it down and pick up the broken form of Zulf, your enemy (who had every right to want revenge), rescuing him. I picked up Zulf and moved, slowly, without any defense or means of fighting, out into a battlefield full of enemies. But they all stopped attacking and stood in silence as I carried Zulf past them and to the exit. It was such a moving scene. The second decision you have to make is to either reset the world so that the Calamity did not occur or to move the Bastion and fly into an unknown future. I chose to reset the world, and, of course, the Calamity happened again and I began back at the beginning.

I think I’m drawn to these games because there is romance in having a singular purpose driving you forward from the left side of the screen to right. And while having a goal is great, sometimes you realize in the end that your goal is not what you expected or wanted. And, of course, appreciate the journey instead of the destination. Once you reach the destination, it’s over.