Short Story- Shadowrun: Desecration

    It all started two months ago. I'd met a mage by the name of Arkadi Lev. He seemed like a nice enough guy, for a runner, that is. Maybe in his thirties, clean shaven, short black hair worn in a simple, attention-defering style, thin, pale. The perfect counterpart to me, an eight-foot-two troll street samurai. I get the attention, he takes advantage of not having it. Or so I thought.

    I've learned my lesson about running with newbies. If they ace their first five missions, be wary. And never mess with a dragon. Sure, Saeder-Krupp's a huge megacorp, and we were only going after one of their smaller warehouses, and only testing the security, but for some reason their security was out in force last night.

    We made it to about fifty meters of the warehouse, then the trouble began. When I went to take a look, Arkadi pushed me. So there I was, in front of ten or so armed guards, stumbling with an assault rifle in each hand.

    What did I do? The same thing us runners always do. I called in backup. See, I thought Arkadi was in with S-K, so I made sure that I had Flare to back me up. Flare's a decker-rigger, an Elf, and a wonderful cook. She's always competent when behind the wheel of one of those combat-drones, so I had her tag along, using a UAV to trace the area. So while I was emptying some Ares-sponsored firepower into the S-K goons, Flare was launching a flare up Arkadi's armor vest. Yeah, it's ruthless, but it didn't kill the kid, so we decided he'd learned his lesson and moved on to the rest of the fraggers shooting at me. That's when I remembered I forgot the rest of my assault rifle ammo. Nothing frags up a run like being out of bullets. So, naturally, I used the next best weapon. The Ares Predator I bought Arkadi happened to be that. He always wondered why I bought him a smartlink gun when getting a smartlink would drain his essence. Heh, I just told him I got it from a cooling street-sam a couple of runs before he joined. It was really for me.

    Flare moved her drone over out of cover, and the S-K fraggers started shooting the drek out of it. They stopped after they noticed their head count was literally decreasing. One nice thing about smartlinks are that they make aiming easy. Anyways, we decided that the poor cooling guards were out there for a reason, so it was the best idea to go inside and check the place out. One thing about us runners, we sure as heck don't take clues very well. Fortunately, my mage friend Trent was in the neighborhood, so I had him do an astral scan of the warehouse. The place was protected by a mage, as well as a couple of hellhounds. We decided to use Arkadi as bait. After all, he pushes me out into the open, I return the favor. Hellhounds just love human flesh, but they hate manablasts. Poor Arkadi. If he was still alive, he didn't last very long.

    I put a charge on the doorstep. Sure enough, the mage came out to assess the situation, and then the bomb went off. Poor fragger. At least we had access to the warehouse now. And you'll never guess what we found.

    Dragons, such as Lofwyr, who owns Saeder-Krupp, are notorious for stockpiling lots of loot. Particularly loot from ancient ages, or other magic or rare stuff. Lofwyr had lots of gold in his warehouse, apparently. He also happened to be storing BMW cars and GIAT weapons. Flare especially liked the handful of ATT equipment we got her. Me?  I was just happy for the nuyen.

    NOTE: I may make this one into a serial, or at least re-use the characters.

    Microsoft to "Delist" Xbox Live Arcade Games?

    Now, many of you know I use a 360 for gaming, but I just read something very disturbing on Gaming Today. I read that Xbox Live Arcade Games could be delisted. Now, I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but I've been needing a good reason to switch to PS3 for a long time, and if they remove my games and I don't get back what I paid for them and extra for the inflicted agony they've inflicted (there are some of those games I enjoy) on us alternative gamers who like games nobody else does, I'll switch all my buying over to saving and acquiring a PS3. Sure I don't play XBLA games that much, but there are many I enjoy that I would be mad at Microsoft if they cut. It needs a Metacritic average of under 65, and a conversion rate of under six percent, but why bother? How much does it cost you, Microsoft, to keep my arcade games available to those who would want to buy them and (if I could afford your freakin' multiplayer plan anyways) play them with me?

    Why Sixty Dollars for That Crap?

    Now, this goes mainly to the game development industry, but also to anyone listening. Why can you charge sixty dollars for that crap? Don't cite poor sales, if it were worth the price it would be bought more often. I have no objection to shelling out 90 bucks for a copy of Oblivion with all its DLC, but I won't buy a movie game for $60. I already know the plot, and odds are it won't hold me for as long as it took me to earn the money. I'm fine with paying $60 for a game, but it has to be a good game, not reheated crap. It's like paying $4 for a hamburger. You'd only do it for a good hamburger, or you'd feel ripped off. Granted, if you only paid $4 for a steak, you'd feel like you were getting a good deal. See what I'm talking about? Minimal efforts recieve minimal returns, so if you make a poor game, don't charge max market price for it, charge only as much as people would enjoy.