You ever turn a video game on, grab your D-pad, ready the trigger finger, then a loading screen prompts and the game is now playing you? Well, I gotta frustrate! So, lock ya harnesses. We goin' for a ride.

I happen to own a Nintendo Switch, and I was told that the game to GIT during this quarantine was Animal Crossing. You can get a house, plant trees, get golden coins, do some fishing, grill wit da homies, ya know - the American Dream.

So, I picked it up, and was already on my way to pimpin' my padfull of toys whilst stocking for my turnip game. And I asked my friend, Beazy, how to play and get what I need. Yet she spoiled the game's deepest secret… and I had to thank her.

I am an arachnophobe. I hate spiders. And that's what she spilled. Not only are there three bastard arachnids in this kids game, one of them is a tarantula, and it plays a knockout game worse than the junior high kids from Chi-Town South on an old man's mouth!

It gets worse.

Apparently these cheesy brats who prestiged on the older titles like farming these hairy freaks due to the 8000 bell price tag they carry at the shop. Christmas all the time, huh? So, Nintendo thought it cool to put random islands to farm for the home base - and one of them is known as Tarantula Island.

… I'm sorry - WHAT!?

Tarantula Island! A Gladiator-style arena where you chase or be chased by a Chief Keef gang of them punks!

Well, I had to cry! I just paid top dollar, not bell, for the latest and greatest hibernation tool, and now I wanna call Nintendo Direct and channel my inner Karen for a full refund!

Why do games play this bait and Switch on me!? I swear it gets like playing IRL minesweeper in your local Gamestop. You can find slicker titles which only feature one spider in it, that only shows up to help you out, like Monster Hunter World. Or you can get a demon monster such as Quelaag, the Witch of Izalith, from Dark Souls, that has a human head, arms and torso on top of an arachnid body; a character so ESSENTIAL to the lore that she does the surgery, the bandages and the turndown service.

Or, you can role snake eyes… more like DOUBLE SIXES - and pick up Zelda Twilight Princess and spend your days raising a BTS front man to save the damsel in distress, only to be dumped on by Armogohma. Armor plated, 80 feet tall, and enters with a bass boost. More like, "Armogohma WHOOP THAT ASS!"

And then the cheapest fools just creep up on you while you shop! Mortal Kombat X has a Crypt Mode just to see the collectables, and you can randomly get a few webby jumpscares right to the dome! Did Scott Cawthon do the consulting work for this game or something?

I can't fault a game that wants to show off that it wants to make you sick. Make you feel some kinda way. But most of these lead game brains just wanna hype up their fear factor for sales and five-star review bait, IMHO. You can put the 8 legs in any work of art and justify its usage, just like anything sensitive in gaming. But I would think these producers prudent enough to pay attention to that still, small voice - or respond to their emails from their marketing leads - which tell them to not put the most lurch-inducing thing in their games at the last minute!

In a BPS Research Digest article done last year, Chrisian Jarrett writes about how "psychologists have identified the creatures we find most scary and revolting." And in the requisite study, they found that "spiders were unique in being both intensely fear and disgust inducing in equal measure." This study is irrespective of arachnophobia. It gauges general DISGUST and fear of real life danger and its relative possibility in their everyday life. You don't want people to leap from the game and the world you create to instead make them afraid of their own house, and the outside, and the park, and every waking moment by themselves in the dark! You want sales. You want to make people love your titles - even if they jump out of their seat.

Shock value can be derived from many different elements. Whether it's an elongated millipede or its castmates from Nat'l Geographic in the 'space' game Earth Defense Force, or the stick-figure humping of the fully clothed ragdolls in a biker game called Ride to Hell: 1% Retribution, or the initiation into a religious sect that may have your weird uncle in it in Farcry 5. There must have been a lot of focus groups that warned the developers of these games that their approach is not welcome; and they should make their story more relevant to the gaming public. Seems like it takes a certain 'something' to get the ear of the directors of these titles, and not BEING HIRED TO TEST THE GAME!

That doesn't mean gamers hate social issues. We may even advocate for some of them. And games that honestly cover these topics with deference to the issue are most loved. Horizon Zero Dawn gave us a lead female protagonist people actually love, gameplay smoother than your wine cooler, and LITERALLY no one noticing color, due to the population of the world being formed by master AI subroutines. It made sense to create that world with the diversity it had. It wasn't your local high school play. It was a real and RELATABLE story that gave us the best look at an apocalyptic future devoid of the current climate and its politics. Any developer that earns the trust of the audience can make their game about anything. You just have to make the product you sell on the front of the box; and not cheat, putting small text in the back.

There are new reports of Naughty Dog's Vice President - and Director of The Last of Us Two - Neil Druckmann being outed on social media for making changes to the storyline of his games. I don't care. I have no interest in divulging what a game should be about or not. It's not my game. Yet people are pissed at recent leaks, saying the game has added politics in it that ruin the core of the storyline. But that rumor seems to be a repeat of older controversies. Alan Tudyk bailed on Uncharted 4 because the game had some "weird changes" to the script. Quote:

"I left because they decided to go a different way with it, and so when they did that, when they changed leadership, it made my contract null and void and I was able to take that opportunity to walk away, which was great because I got the experience of doing it. …Todd Stashwick was in that as well... and he did the same thing I did, which was, 'Yeah, we're gonna leave now. Y'all are making some weird changes, we're gonna leave.'"

And, apart from Amy Hennig being the first one to bail, once The Last of Us Two started to get legs, Bruce Straley - the other co-creator of the franchise - decided to take a year sabbatical; followed by him handing the office his resignation months later.

But why would people be so quick to bail? Especially once they got a sweetheart gig at one of the world's most premier gaming studios? 70% of the lead designers at Naughty Dog who worked on Uncharted 4 are gone! Why? Is it because of the reports and interviews where Druckmann is interviewed by Chris Suellentrop of Glixel, where he says:

"When I’m introducing and describing a new character to our lead character concept artist, constantly she will ask, 'What if it was a girl?' And I’m like, 'Oh, I didn’t think about that. Let me think, does that affect or change anything? No? Cool, that’s different. Yeah, let’s do it.'"

Guess who the 'she' is that Neil quotes. It's Anita Sarkeesian.

Holy hell. He is SIMPING for an active third-wave feminist who is only doing consulting because she abandoned her Feminist Frequency channel without finishing the slate of videos she promised her backers. She only gets into projects for the money; and has no love for science fiction media - and especially hates gaming! That is who has the ear of the Vice President of Naughty Dog, one of the few money-making platforms of Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

What a shame.

That is the worst part about all of this. How are we gonna trust you to make interesting characters with heart and soul - what you parade as your writing pastiche - when you left your heart and soul in the briefcase with the bonus money you stashed in the safe? How you drag your team through hell just to add in a sick burn or a bleeding edge or a political ideal? I am not even talking the recent leaked footage! I'm talking about changing your story MID-PRODUCTION to fit the ideas of a random hack who wants to turn your female characters into walking T-1000s!

That's why we don't buy your silly slapstick acts. We don't like when you trick us into copping a game that hates us. And we don't like working for a slave driver that steals credibility from us. And we don't like to live in a world that judges us. Kinda why we play video games to begin with - to escape this cruel world.

It sucks that we have to deal with developers actin like mad scientists - trying to sew random parts to a man to create the perfect body, then ending up with a Frankenstein of a creature… then pass it off as perfection and gaslight their fans on Twitter. We ain't paying 70 dollars for a DISGUSTING creature! We don't want to be disgusted. We want to be entertained.

If you want to make the most thought-provoking sermon or a TED talk of shame, put that on the marquis! Quit beating around the bush! Tell us what we are buying before we throw our money down - or else we will call customer service and demand that hot refund! We aren't your social experiment. We ain't risking our quarantine on your horrible take on politics. No one wants to be your Animal on the Cross.

Speaking of, I gotta work up a lil' courage just to see if my money tree is grown. Would be all sorts of wrong if a creepy crawler decided to sign a lease on my property… eh … oof.