Harry Potter and the LEGO videogame logjam

Let’s start with a quote from one wise and mysterious Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore:

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

We’re there, evidently. The dark and difficult times in particular. That not-so-sweet spot in every LEGO videogame where one must grin and bear it to collect everything that remains because OCD demands it, as well as the fact that a straightforward playthrough unlocks a minimal amount of the game’s actual content. For LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7, we’re talking about red bricks, gold bricks, unlocked characters, Hogwarts house crest pieces, and students in peril.

Since completing the main part of the game earlier this month, Tara and I have been diving back into the world of magic and magical mayhem to chip away at the tower that is a 100% completion rank. It’s a slow process. Unimaginably slow. Like Dumbledore falling off the Astronomy Tower slow. Thankfully, we finally unlocked enough red bricks to turn on numerous stud multipliers and rack up the LEGO-based cash, quickly earning this zinger:

Knuts and Vaults (50G): Collect 1 billion studs (Single Player only)

So, we’re rich. Just like Harry Potter was in the beginning of his school career. Which is great, as now purchasing all the characters we’ve unlocked isn’t even a concern. But the problem is mainly finding the characters to unlock. Let me tell you this–there is nothing more tiring and/or disappointing than replaying a level via the free play format and then complete it without finding all the hidden secrets in it. Your mind immediately brings the hard truth to the front: you will have to play this level again. Possibly a fourth time if you are not diligent enough or paying attention to the level design, because sometimes building a specific LEGO piece completes the level, and you might not have been ready to do that yet. Whoops.

But we’ll keep on keeping on. Two more red bricks to go, about 35 gold bricks, and maybe 60ish more characters/character variants left to find. Oh boy.

The LEGO logjam has also been heavily present in LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. For a long, long time. I only have three Achievements left to unlock for that game, but they also require me finding everything. Which I’ve tried time and time again. But like I previously wrote, there is nothing more fun-sucking than replaying a level to not find everything and then knowing you’ll have to do all that again. Ugh.

At some point, I’m going to have to play these levels with a step-by-step guide open next to me on my laptop. And really, that isn’t how it should be done. But it’s the best guarantee at breaking down this dam.

Remember to be a conscientious driver in Mafia II

It’s a nice afternoon. The sky is blue and clear of clouds, the radio is rocking a head-bopping tune of ol’, and Empire Bay is doing its post-WWII thing. Vito Scalleta and his best friend Joey Barbaro are out for a relaxing drive through the suburbs. Well, relaxing for them. In truth, they are heading to a house, and when they get there, they find a man outside watering his grass with a hose, looking all non-threatening. As quiet as can be, the two of them sneak up behind the man, toss out a cliche saying like, “Blah-blah-blah sends his regards!” and then shoot the life out of him.

The dynamic duo speeds away from the pursuing cops, and as they do, Vito runs a red light–at 70 or 80 mph, mind you. Joe, in all seriousness, berates him for this: “Did you not see that light was red?”

Sadly, Vito doesn’t come back with, “Did you not see we just obliterated a man’s body with bullets and now need to get away so we don’t get locked up or shot to death ourselves by the blue meanies and don’t really have time to obey traffic laws?” Instead, Joe’s line hung in the air, awkward and out-of-place, a piece of dialogue added to the game to instill realism, but working completely against that when context is not considered.

Also, this is going to be my last post about Mafia II. I swears it.

Open-world games thrive on minutiae. From idle chatter to signs in store windows to people carrying umbrellas when it starts to rain, it’s the little things that make the big thing whole. This is probably unfair, but I’m going to compare Mafia II to L.A. Noire, mostly because I view the games as quite similar, but far from each other’s levels. For most of the time, you go on missions with a partner in Mafia II, meaning you always have someone to talk to in the car. Conversely, someone’s always there to comment about your lackluster driving skills. This was the same way things went down in L.A. Noire, but when Cole Phelps would get yelled at for running a red light or hitting another car, it was never because it was Cole being an idiot. It had to do with reminding us that Cole was a man of the law and should set good standards for those watching from the sidewalks; it was there to remind us that we were occasionally driving someone else’s car, and he didn’t like to see it get dinged and danged up. It made sense there and then.

In Mafia II, you are a horrible human being. You kill for money, and that is all you see before your Italian face each and every new day you wake up. And so it just sounds bizarre to hear fellow murderers getting all up at arms over misconduct on the road. Especially during missions where you are trying to chase down another car. Of course you are going to run red lights then. That’s how you chase something, Joe. You can’t do both, commit murder and be a safe driver. This was just one of the more jarring moments in the game, coupled with the fact that the law will shoot first and ask questions later. Imagine a world where if you ran a red light you were popped in the face at close range by a trio of officers. Seems understandable, right?

Okay, that’s it for Mafia II. I’m out.

The missing videogames from E3 2012

Well, E3 2012 has come and gone, and the general reception to it as a whole has been…pretty lackluster. That no one company “won” or really brought out the big guns or even seemed to understand what to focus on. It all felt like padding and skirting around what’s to come and that there’s still no reason anyone should purchase a Nintendo Wii U or feel excited about Internet Explorer becoming available on Xbox 360 for all your non-gaming browsing needs.

A few new games got announced or shown off more, and that’s all good. Truly, many of them look like a whole bag of fun. I’m really interested in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Assassin’s Creed III, LEGO City Undercover, The Last of Us, Dishonored, and Watch Dogs. Now, of course, I probably won’t get all of these games when they come out, especially considering some are for the PS3 or next-gen consoles, but they have at least got me thinking about them. Mostly the ones from Nintendo.

However, some games did not appear in any capacity, and that’s a little saddening. Maddening, too, considering a few are–to me, mind you–crazy big properties that could really have had an impact on an audience the size that E3 2012 draws.

Here’s what got no love this year…

Animal Crossing 3DS

Breaks my animal-loving heart, this one. It’s coming out this fall in Japan, which leads me to believe it’ll arrive in the United States by spring 2013, but man. This should have been a launch title. This should have be a post-launch window title. This should have been more than something kept in the shadows, let out occasionally to eat and breath. It’s a game designed around using your 3DS every single day. Think about that. It’s probably being held back to align with the Wii U–whatever, Nintendo.

Fantasy Life

I am really worried about Fantasy Life. It first surfaced in August 2009 with a really charming art style and the promise of living a typical life in a typical fantasy realm. Baker, merchant, priest…your call. Looking back at it now, I see Professor Layton’s London Life in a lot of those screens; unfortunately, that style was not to last, as the game got reskinned for the 3DS, looking different but still touting great gameplay. Nothing new has been reported on it for a long, long time, and so it might be dead and done. Boo.

Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 3/Rocket Slime 3DS

Boats. Boooooats! I’ve not yet completed my copy of Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime for the Nintendo DS, but the time I spent with it was a great. Light-hearted Zelda-like action full of puns and crazy tense tank battles. It’s a quirky game that truly deserves a sequel like this. Japan is getting it. Will the United States though? The silence is kinda telling…

The Legend of Zelda Wii U

Nintendo showed some demo-like stuff last year for a new Zelda game on the Wii U. You’d think that some 365 days later they’d have more to show or solidify with that project. Um…nope. New consoles from Nintendo live and thrive on new experiences from their constant standbys Mario and Link, and it just doesn’t seem like that’s happening this time around. Which is, obviously, quite worrying.

The Last Guardian

Guess the devs are still working on that pivotal cinematic scene where your birdy companion dies in a tragic way and somber music plays for two minutes while you use up every tissue within arm’s length.

—

So, yeah. Hopefully more info on these games will pop up in other places this year. It’s just a shame we didn’t get much on ’em from the people working on them at E3 2012.

What were you hoping to see this year that didn’t make an appearance?

Crash Bandicoot is the ruiner of all relationships in Felicity

Videogames are just the evilest. At least that’s what TV shows want to say, as every now and then an episode pops up to remind us all that these digital universes are gateways through Satan’s butthole and that they consume human life just as swiftly as someone falling into a woodchipper. I remember Full House doing it. CSI: New York did it with little intelligence or Googling. South Park did it with great jest when World of Warcraft was infecting fans left and right. And now, as of this weekend, I learned that Felicity–yeah, that show from 1998 to 2002 about a hairy girl going to college and finding herself–also partook in educating viewers on the damaging voodoo magic of controller-powered entertainment.

The episode “Crash” from Felicity‘s second season is described as so:

When Julie suggests that dating B-list people is a good way to get over her breakup with Ben, Felicity agrees to Prof. Sherman’s request to try dating her son David (Henri Lubatti). Meanwhile, Ben and Maggie (Teri Polo) shift to a more intimate relationship despite her concerns over their age gap; and Noel and Elena become obsessed with a video game.

See that last part? Yeeeeeah. The videogame in question is none other than Crash Bandicoot, the mascot that never came to be for the Sony PlayStation. It starts innocently enough and almost feels like a blatant advertisement for the game, with Noel gushingly playing solo, eyes wide and unblinking, remarking about how great these graphics are and how fun the game is and how much he ate up Super Mario Bros. one summer. Immediately, there are problems, with the constant habit of having gamers move erratically while being filmed, as if they themselves are dodging bullets or rolling boulders. Plus, the sneering from Elena is unfortunate.

Anyways, the other plots of the show move along with little interference. At some point, while Noel is on the phone, Elena picks up the controller and begins to play. When Noel sees this, he ejects, “You’re ruin my lives!” Which makes no sense as a videogame-related phrase and something a girl he is interested in overhears on the phone. Then he begins shouting at Elena to “repause” the game. “Repause!” he cries. “REPAUSE!”

Um…what? How about just “pause”? Sigh. And it gets worse.

After a really bad blind date, Felicity swings by Noel and Elena’s apartment only to discover them engrossed in the glow of the TV screen. Apparently, there were original plans to all go out, but now the two of them can barely mumble a response and Felicity leaves, but not before making a smarmy remark about “going outside” to her gaming friends. Eventually, the two of them get stuck on the final boss of Crash Bandicoot; Elena mentions she “knows a guy” who can help get them past it and grabs to the phone. The tips don’t help, and Noel ends up calling the guy a moron, which brings up tears and the revelation that the guy is no guy, but a seven-year-old kid, commenting again on the fact that videogames are just for younglings.

In horror, they turn the PlayStation off, and in the morning, Noel tells Felicity that he’s “too mature” for those things and regrets what it did to him and Elena. Sunlight warms their collective skins. Everyone’s diseases are cured. The horrible beast has been flayed. Cue happy song–something by Sarah McLachlan. The end.

Yeah. This was an infuriating episode to watch, to listen to. The way Noel talked about Crash Bandicoot was not even borderline close to how a normal college kid would talk about games. I would know. I did it all the time, with Final Fantasy X and Jak and Daxter and more being discussed amongst friends. You talk about them like you would a movie or a book or a class or a person or anything really. There’s no need to throw hundred dollar terms around or speak about processing chips. They are experiences, good or bad, and they can be shared without a feeling of shame, without rolling up excuses as to why I spent my Saturday night collecting the last Power Cell or whatever.

Ugh. I don’t watch much TV these days so I don’t know if the treatment of videogames has gotten any better. But in 1999, with Felicity, it was just the worst. Still not as bad as when she chopped her hair off though…

Ser Ilyn, bring me the head of the cover for Game of Thrones

Alternative title for this blog post: In the Game of Thrones cover design, you win or you die

Well, I was trying to enjoy my strawberry Poptarts and a cup of coffee this morning, but was rudely cover farted on by Game of Thrones: The Game, a new RPG based on a TV show based on a series of amazingly captivating books, dropping next month from Cyanide Studio. Let’s just cut to it then. Look at how dreadfully boring this looks:

Sigh.

This cover makes me think someone literally pitched “game” of “throne”, and no one said mum against it.

I was worried before about some of the odd changes and unnecessary additions being dumped into Game of Thrones: The Game, and I certainly wouldn’t be more interested in picking up a copy based on the cover art above. I understand that HBO is immensely proud of the throne they actually built for the set, often bringing it around to conventions for fans to sit in and briefly feel kingly, but an empty chair shrouded by pepper-black smoke does not say “roleplay in George R.R. Martin’s massive Westeros.” It says that no one tried, and that’s a real downer, given that there is countless material to pull from to present an exciting and enticing image; if anything, a map of Westeros would’ve been a better choice or a shot of a Night’s Watch member looking down from the Wall or–and I’m a wee reluctant to say this–some dragons despite the fact that they are not around at the given time of this videogame. I mean, dragons do sell, which is why they are on a lot of fantasy book covers whether integral to the plot or not.

That said, I’m still getting this game, if only to tell y’all about how terrible it is likely to be. I will try my hardest not to go into it totally biased by all of this, but that could be nigh impossible. We got the televised show that A Song of Ice and Fire deserves, but it’s looking unlikely we’ll get the same kind of treatment in the realm of videogames.

Suikoden III is forever “now loading”

I…I think I have some bad news. I say it like that because I don’t want to admit to myself that any of this is true, as I am a man that holds on and hopes, even as everything around me crumbles, but things do look a little dire. My PlayStation 2 disc for Suikoden III, a game I have been searching for high and low over a number of years and only finally just acquired last year, is busted. Has to be. If you’ll recall, I ran into a nasty loading problem during the first hour of the game, wherein the disc spun unremittingly while the words NOW LOADING flashed at me with malice. Well, it happened again, different spot. And once again after that.

Currently, I’m in this weird place. I spent a week or two burning through all four Blackwell point-and-click games with Tara and then proceeded to kick Mass Effect 2‘s ass to the curb and then systemically achieved 30,000 Gamerscore on the nose. And then…well, I haven’t really known what to do with myself when a moment of spare time opens up. I’ve dabbled a bit more in Rage, played some more Cave Story on my 3DS, and watched maybe too many episodes of Felicity at once. Eh, let me take that back; I could watch Felicity all day long, but only up until the episode when she chops all her delicious hair off.

And so, the other night, I decided to hop back into Suikoden III and see what was happening; I had played beyond the first hour for maybe another forty-five minutes, stopping at an impasse where my party had to wait a little bit before they could meet with the higher-ups of Vinay del Zexay. Turns out, we just needed to stay at the inn two or three more times, which is kind of annoying as the inn–seeing as it has no competition in town–charges a hefty 300 suikobucks each time. After your party has rested enough, Sergeant Joe suggests heading back to the town hall to see if we can deliver our message. And we can. Hugo and friends are invited inside, there’s some small talk, and then the screen goes dark to–I assume–load an important cutscene. Only, the game goes nowhere–it just sits on that loading screen, and I sit staring at it until I realized I’ve sat for probably too long. I don’t immediately think it’s locked up, as Secret Agent Clank taught me that some PS2 games take forever and then some.

Disappointed, I shut off the PS2, examined the game’s disc, and then turned the system back on. That kind of worked the last time. I stayed at the inn two more times again, went back to the town hall again, chatted again, and watched as the NOW LOADING screen mocked me again. Well, boo to that. I have to suspect that the discoloration on the disc is problematic for loading cutscenes. That said, I’m not giving up yet. I’ll keep trying to play for as long it lets me play, and whether that means going off on one of the other main characters’ adventures, then so be it. Maybe Hugo and I weren’t meant to be. Maybe I’ll run into the same problems elsewhere. Maybe, maybe.

It might just be worse to have an unusable copy of Suikoden III in my collection.

Game of Thrones: The Game has got me worried

I am not a trusted scholar and saucebox of all things A Song of Ice and Fire. Sure, I love the books immensely, am a big fan of HBO’s take on blood and dragons and heraldy and fine-ass beards, and am a dude that’s attempting to draw just about every character ever named by George R.R. Martin–but I don’t know everything. However, I do know that there’s no place called Riverspring in Westeros. Except, thanks to the forthcoming Game of Thrones: The Game (ugh, what a name), now there is. Here’s how the developers describe it:

Bordering the Riverlands, the interests of this town and surrounding countryside are held in the name of Sarwyck as bannermen to the Lannisters. From their family keep, they have presided over their people for generations, but now unrest begins to grow in wake of the death of the reigning Lord Raynard Sarwyck.

All right. That’s believable enough, given just how many houses, big and small, there are, and the Lannisters do have a lot of support. And Sarwyck is a fine, Martin-esque name, but I got problems with Riverspring. Here’s why. In Fallout: New Vegas, upon emerging from a premature shallow grave, you discover the town of Goodsprings. In Rage, the first true city you come to call home is Wellspring. EverQuest fans might remember a halfling city called Rivervale. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, after stepping out of a cave, so long as you follow the path, the first settlement you unearth is called Riverwood. And in…y’know, I’m just going to list all of these forgettable names in bullet format to really drive home the point:

• Goodsprings
• Wellspring
• Rivervale
• Riverwood
• Riverspring

The videogames market is currently inundated with spring places, and yes, pun freakin’ intended. Also, don’t forget about Riverrun, the ancestral stronghold of House Tully. The place that actually matters. But yeah, I get that the devs wanted to A) create a new location to do with whatever they wanted and B) keep it in line with Martin’s naming schematics, but seven hells, they picked the most generic thing ever. I think if I ever make a robust RPG set in a typical fantasy land, the first town I name will be called Good Riverwater Springs. You heard it here first, people.

Okay, fine. I have problems with Riverspring and just how little it adds to a world brimming with detail and construction. Moving on, thanks to Greg Noe, a new trailer has hit the Interwebz:

Wow. Look, no one–and I do mean no one–is playing Game of Thrones: The Game for its story. You just can’t outdo or even come close to the story-telling power of GRRM, so don’t bother trying. Instead, give us the goods on the videogaming side. Make it fun to play, fun to swing a sword or dabble in seedy politics or create some kind of unique dialogue tree system, but don’t pretend to be all high and mighty. This trailer tries to sound exciting, but even the narrator sounds bored–and rightly so. I’d rather see how the game will play, whether it will be more like Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age II, as that difference is vital. Certainly it won’t be anything original, but if it is closer to DA:O then I’m in. If it’s DAII…well, I’m probably still in as I am a huge fanboy of the source material, but man, it’s just going to be one letdown after the other. Granted, there still seems to be a second storyline to follow based around the Wall and the Night’s Watch. Maybe that tale will be more inspiring.

A release date of May 2012 is being tossed around. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more details before I take the black. Ugh. Between this, that RTS flop from Cyanide Studio, and an upcoming MMORPG, it just doesn’t seem like A Song of Ice and Fire can get the videogame treatment it truly deserves. At this point, I’d be down for something like this.

That http://deckers.die glitch where the final boss simply disappears

At this point, I’m pretty sick of bugs and glitches ruining games I am playing. Of late, I’ve groaned about that weird door situation in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and that switch that wouldn’t work in Half-Life 2. Plus, all those strange happenings in Bethesda’s games–such as an Alpha Male Deathclaw randomly spawning outside a small town every now and then–but to be honest, those don’t bug me so much as I feel like they are part of their open worlds’ charm, and for the most part, those kind of glitches don’t actively stop me from playing. But the former ones did, or almost did, and it seems like my newest glitch find also wants me to stop playing Saints Row: The Third.

So, I’m on the http://deckers.die mission–yes, that’s what it is called–and it’s pretty whacky. You’re a toilet, you’re a sex doll, you’re a Tron-like wireframe silhouette, and you’re shooting down virtual reality bad guys like there’s no tomorrow. Also, at some point, you will play a text-based adventure game starring a unicorn, as well as an over-the-head tank simulator. Unlike any mission I’ve ever played before. Too bad I can’t complete it.

At the end of the mission, you come VR face to VR face with Matt Miller; he’s dressed like a reject from Final Fantasy VII and wants to do you much harm. You shoot him a few times and then there’s a quick time event to rip his angelic wings off his borrowed body–only, for me, there’s no QTE. My character says, “Oh shit!” and then Matt Miller leaps into the digital sky to completely vanish. I ran around shooting everything I could for ten minutes before I determined that, no, this was not how it was supposed to go down. Quit mission and restarted at my last checkpoint, but the same thing happened. Tried quitting the entire mission and playing it all over again, but alas, nope, same thing happened. Also, I’m not the only one suffering.

Seems like the only trick I haven’t tried yet is making a manual save during the mission, quitting out of the game, and then reloading said save from my crib. While that might sound ridiculous, I don’t have many other choices. I want to keep progressing in Saints Row: The Third, and there’s only so many side activities and collectibles left. Not sure if THQ is aware of the bug or not, but maybe a patch could help. It also seems like GPS is wonky too, only showing a short bit of green line instead of it fully with guiding arrows and such. Sigh. The life and times of big ol’ videogames.

And yeah, I’m aware of the irony that there are homemade glitches within the Deckers’ virtual reality setting, such as lag and reversed controls, and that this is just one more on the pile. However, it’s not a fun one. Wish me luck that the next time I take on Matt Miller and say “Oh shit!” it’s because I’m ripping his dumb-ass wings off.

Switch glitch in Nova Prospekt level brings Half-Life 2 to a halt

I keep running into these horrible glitches, but this one’s the worst. Mostly because I can’t seem to find a way around it save for starting Half-Life 2 over entirely, something I’m not interested in at all. Especially considering how long it took me to get to the Nova Prospekt level, which I’d estimate is about three-fourths of the way through it all. Let me explain the problem though.

In the Nova Prospekt level, Gordon Freeman has a bunch of antlions on his side, which make fighting off armed soldiers a lot easier. You just toss this weird, alien ball at a group of them, and the antlions pounce like it’s feeding time. Well, for them, I guess it really is. We’re indoors, at what looks like a security prison of sorts. You eventually stumble across an alien that was tortured to death, and a switch upstairs that opens the main gate, which I assume leads to the level’s exit. I assume because I don’t know. The switch won’t switch on. It just stays red. When it’s on, it should turn green and open some doors. But it does nothing. I even tried throwing a computer keyboard at it.

The worst is that the game autosaves a millisecond before approaching the switch. And unlike Fallout: New Vegas and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I do not make a thousand and seven saves. I figured my journey through a linear shooter wouldn’t need it. So, I have a hard save from the beginning of Nova Prospekt and an autosave moments before the switch is to be flipped; reloading neither worked. The switch will not turn on, and after looking around online, I found some other Half-Life 2 players frustrated with the same problem. Sigh…

So, I did something I hate to do: I skipped ahead. Without knowing how Half-Life 2 concludes, I quit to the main menu and started up Half-Life 2: Episode One, and boy was I confused. I guess, in some manner, I know how the previous game ends, but the opening cutscene with the aliens, um, making sexual gestures with Alyx was particularly disturbing. Also, looks like the world has gone to rubble. And dark clouds. And crazy electric storms. Gordon and Alyx, now armed with some vital computer data, have to make it out alive. Episode One plays just like Half-Life 2, but–to my happy surprise–is much more focused and direct, with little room to get lost. Just runnin’ and gunnin’, with no more driving sequences (so far).

Popped a couple of Achievements that I liked, too:

Watch Your Head! (5G): Make it to the bottom of the Citadel’s main elevator shaft in one piece.

Grave Robber (5G): Steal a Zombine’s grenade.

I think this came up shortly after Alyx’s Zombine joke, which was adorable.

Attica! (5G): Destroy the gunship in the hospital attic.

There’s more, but I’ll save ’em for the next edition of Achievements of the Week. Looks like I’m actually on the last level of Episode One, trying to safely get some citizens on a train, which is a little shocking, seeing as I’ve only logged about three hours of gameplay, but probably a good thing. Small chunks of Half-Life 2 are okay with me, especially when I can get through them sans glitches. Think I’ll move on to Episode Two next, and then spend some time reading the Internet on what I missed at the end of Half-Life 2. Because I’m not going back and playing that thing over again; you couldn’t pay me money to drive that horrible airboat or take down that hunter-chopper again. Well, wait. That depends, I guess. It’d have to be a lot of money. Throw down your best offer.

Ridiculous door glitch in Deus Ex: Human Revolution is ridiculous

For about twenty minutes last night, I had lost all hope. I had resigned myself to believing that all my progress, all my hard work and suffering of bad boss battles and frustrating level design and tiny text in Deus Ex: Human Revolution was all for naught. The game kept freezing, seven times in total, all at the same spot, which is in front of a door on the last level called “Tipping Point.” After each freeze, I popped the game’s disc out and checked for scratches, but there were none–of course there were none, having never dropped the disc or mishandled it in any way possible. So, how was I going to get through this blasted door then?

The Internet told me not to worry, that it was a glitch. Others had come across it on the Xbox 360. I was not alone in my pain. But many were just as confused and confounded over it; some tried walking backwards to the door, which worked, but the moment they looked at it, the game froze. Others suggested turning invisible or sprinting, but nothing was working. Until…I read a post with what sounded like a totally ridiculous solution, but, at the end of my rope, decided to try. I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. And lo and behold, the trick worked. For my fellow glitch prisoners, here’s how to get through those doors:

Before heading up the stairs leading to the double doors, crouch. Then position yourself so that you are looking at the ground below your feet, but at a forward enough angle to still move forward when pushing the controls to do so. Go forward until you hit the door; you should be able to see a sliver of it, and if you’re lucky enough, the prompt to “press X to open” should still be available. Open that door and walk through, still looking down at the ground. Keep going down the stairs until halfway. You should now be able to stand and save your progress. Do not turn around to look at that door or go anywhere near it ever again. That door and you are done.

How ridiculous is all of that?

A. Extremely
B. Incalculably
C. Unequivocally
D. Immeasurably
E. All of the above

Please show your work.