The Devil Made Me Do It, by Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs is the creator of the popular blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. She was a founding member of Friends of Lulu, an organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as readers and creators. She is married to inker Robin Riggs, with whom she shares two cats, and has odd love/hate relationship with Hillary Clinton.

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5 Responses

  1. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    It's not even the shopping, it's the customization that makes these games so infuriatingly addictive nowadays. The lists of customizable weapons often outweigh the walkthroughs of the games in many cases. For the truly anal-retentive, it renders the replay factor through the roof. There's always one item that there's only ONE of, and you can use it to make two or more different weapons. You want the other weapon, you gotta re-play the game, or find some poor mad fool willing to trade the item with you. And if you think that only happens in RPG games, let me tell you about Evee in Pokemon, who has at last count EIGHT different eveloved forms. I swear, that animal's DNA strands must look like a macrame belt…I hit the Blizzard site looking for account help on WoW last week, and the Diablo III trailer ran. I literally whooped for joy. Diablo has been the unassailable master of dungeon crawl games since the first one came out. Just as everyone tried to come out with a "DOOM-Killer" to knock that game off the top of the mountain, so too have they tried to build a crawler that matched the perfect majesty of Diablo. Dungeon Siege came damn close, but none of them had the one thing that makes Blizzard games perfection – the rich backstory. One of the more powerful club weapons early in Diablo 2 is known as Wirt's Leg. It's a pegleg from a character seen in the original Diablo. It's stuff like that which makes Diablo so much fun to play.I await Diablo III with bated breath I look forward to hear more of the legacy of Deckard Cain.

    • Elayne Riggs says:

      Oh, I forgot to mention Wirt's Leg! If you use that and a Tome of Town Portal you go to the Secret Cow Level, which Rob tried once before we realized we could build up our attributes if we played on 8-player level instead of 1-player. The cows slaughtered Rob's character. I'm still haunted by "moo…. moo moo moo… moo moo… moooo"

  2. Russ Rogers says:

    I'm missing out. Video games tend to tickle the over developed Obsessive Compulsive ganglion in my reptilian hind-brain. My family and my personal hygiene tend to suffer when I'm in the thralls of a new addiction. Also, my sad and tired pony of a computer is about six years old. Diablo II would tire it's withers. Diablo III will surely give it seizures and shatter it's ankles.The links Elayne drops in her columns are like plot coupons that must be collected or bread crumbs that might guide us back home through the forest. I followed the plot coupon link back and then back again to Nick Lowe's "Well-Tempered Plot Device," whose bitter skewering of Fantasy Literature is "cruel to be kind in the right measure." And hilarious.Nick Lowe makes reference to two well worn DC comics plot devices. Red Kryptonite, with which I was familiar, and the Idol Head of DIABOLU, which I had never read about (not knowing much about the Martian Manhunter). Is "Diabolu" coincidence or synchronicity? Wow! J'onn J'onzz is dead, eh? That's very sad. Is the Idol Head long forgotten too? Every full moon a box of mystery releases a new, crimson, evil monstrosity. Talk about Freudian Imagery! Yikes! That's not even trying to be subtle.The Martian Manhunter crushed the Idol Head at the end of House of Mystery #158. Idol Keeper, Frank Lee Delano points out: Editorial had a final statement: "Is this really the end of the Idol-Head of Diabolu? It seems so– but you, the readers, can bring it back, if enough of you wish hard enough! Write and let us know!"Which can give us all hope that if we wish hard enough…sigh. And just thinking about the Idol-Head makes my wishing harder … that is my WISHING that's getting hard.And that has me wanting to once again plug the petition to Bring back Ch'p – The Green Lantern Corps Squirrel. Oh, cruel DC Death, you have made too finite this crisis which should remain infinite for Ch'p! He was only run down by a yellow truck. How many times has this happened to Wiley Coyote? Let Ch'p hobble back into frame with a black eye, a bandage on his head and a makeshift crutch. Please? It's not too late. And I'm wishing SO hard!

  3. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    I would have to say that Elayne's interpretation of plot coupon is closer to mine (and Diablo's) than Neil's is. Neil describes the plot coupon as the object you must go and GET in the story; in games like Diablo, I see the coupon as the object you FIND that STARTS the quest. You'll find a ring that seems unassuming, but the local soothsayer will recognize it as the Shattered Sapphire of Snogg, which once belonged to Lady Taffington who now lives in a ramshackle abode on the other side of the cemetery. "You must return it to her, noble warrior!". And when you get there, there's a 50/50 shot that she'll either shower with gold (or at least a mess of XP) or use the ring to turn into a demoness which you have to kill and THEN get showered with gold and experience.

  4. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    "Nick Lowe's "Well-Tempered Plot Device," whose bitter skewering of Fantasy Literature is 'cruel to be kind in the right measure.' " Rather a nice way to refer to both Nick Lowes (Nicks Lowe?) in the same breath…