What Was Sliced Bread the Greatest Thing Since?

I don't generally like to play computer games. Online games, RPGs, strategy games, I don't have the aptitude for them. Whenever I do play, I notice they tend to take up areas of my head. Blocks fall, giant heads devour dots or little men run and jump behind my eyelids as I go to sleep. Mostly I'd lose, even when playing with my mind.

A few weeks ago, I was pointing out the many similarities between Circus Charlie and Diablo, and Marlon, for some obscure reason known only to himself, was furiously disputing the point. He ended up offering to teach me how to play the game just to prove his argument. Knowing how much he enjoys giving out instructions, I humored him, and he seemed delighted to find himself in a situation where he is able to deploy an entire battalion of instructions hitherto off-limits: "Stab! One more time! Now run! Run! RUN! Okay now SHOOT!!!" etcetera.

So this game, remember that novel where a monster escapes Dr. Frankenstein's lab only to be pursued by torch-bearing villagers with zero tolerance for dead bodies revived in creative new formats? Well, this game is scary like that. There's skeletons, flayed pig-like characters, evil archbishops, and droves of naked succubi that moan like they're having the mother of all orgasms when you shoot at them and die with their butts staring you right at the face (okay that… that last part is just… disturbing). Mostly, what happens is you shoot at the enemy and poof! they magically transform into a pile of gold coins, which I found to be utterly amazing but which also puzzled me a little bit. When I asked Marlon about it, he managed an expression which, in babies, always indicates that they are in need of a good burping and explained to me how the skeleton guys don't "magically transform" into piles of gold coins, but that actually, they drop the gold coins they're carrying around. (Oh. Well that's not very magical.)

After a few hours, of playing I'm so overstimulated, my hands are shaking and I can't sit still or even think straight. It's sort of a transcendental experience in that I actually achieve a lower consciousness. I begin imagining that the ghosts of Mario and Luigi must be throwing fits somewhere, struggling to work up enough ectoplasm to produce a credible apparition and insist on having at least two or three mushrooms with smiley faces included in the game.

So tonight I'm intending to go after the title character, Diablo himself. I've already dispensed with all his lower minions through several levels over the course of a couple of weeks and I have to admit, I'm really caring about how this particular face off is gonna turn out. I'm wondering if this particular specimen, Diablo, happens to be ambitious, if it always gives that extra ten percent, like the hero of some demented children's book-The Little Demon that Could - because then I'm screwed. Either way, I'm a convert. So try Diablo boys and girls! It won't improve your love-life, grow hair on your bald spot, or add five years to your natural life span, but one thing's for sure, it's nothing like Circus Charlie.