I hate rain.

Jakarta is pouring like hell. Luckily it’s not raining lava or blood, or that would scare the outta me.

With the BraneStation box in my hand, I jollily walk up the stairs into my room. I can hear mom calling me from downstairs, but who cares anyway. I got business to do.

“Robert, why do you never listen?”

That’s my line, mom.

I pulled out my keys from my left pocket and pried the box seals open. It left an ugly dent on the box. But who cares, it’s just a box. What’s inside matters.

Manuals, EULA, Getting Started, I don’t give a damn. Lots of paperwork, which I will never read. I know for sure nobody reads these stuff. Why do they keep putting them in anyway? Why do they keep printing them? It’s just a waste of money and earth resources. They could just write something like “by using our product, you agree to blah-blah-blah which can be found ONLINE!” Just do Earth a favor and just put them online, for God’s sake, it’s 2017.

I took out the BraneStation.

Now I can finally get out of this misery.

I locked the door to my room and looked at the stash full of Indomie, Oreos, a dozen of 1.5 liter Aqua Bottles, powdered milk and Koko Krunch, then proceeded to change into my pajamas and lay on my bed.

Here I come, New Sands.

***

A war torn country split into little patches of whatever. That’s the back story of the game. For some reason I think the creators of the game took inspiration from when China got broken into many small kingdoms, and they fought with each other to “Reunite China”.

I have watched the intro sequence on YouTube, so I kinda know what’s gonna happen already, but I still decided to re-experience it. In game terms, it’s good, but not the best. Good, because this is the first game where we could fully dive into the game with our consciousness, rather than feeling our way around our room and bumping into stuffs all around us when you play the older VR games. The air, the clothing, the weapons, they all feel real. No wonder this game is rated .

That was enough to hype me up.

I came across an abandoned house in the middle of a desert. With a sharp pain on my leg, and only a Glock with 2 magazines, I guess it’s best for me to camp out for the moment.

I entered through the nearly detached front door, and sat myself down on the simple wooden chair beside the door. From my experience playing many types of other games, I think the best course of action is to find medical supplies first. I can’t limp forever!

I stood up and started scavenging. Found some pieces of wood lying around, which I believe came from the broken walls. Found a piece of cloth and a couple of near empty whisky bottles.

I hope the game developers took inspiration from action movie cliches too.

I pulled up the part of my torn pants covering my left leg, revealing red bruises and some bleeding. I then poured the rest of the whisky on my wound, and DAMN does it hurt! They could have made the game less realistic, in my opinion.

***

Five minutes have passed, seems like my injuries are fully healed. I went exploring the house more, and found a broken hunting rifle and five bullets on the second floor.

Gunshots.

It sounded like it’s very close.

I crouched beside a window on the side of the house where I believe I heard the gunshots from, carefully listening to whatever is happening outside.