Love Poems for the Games of 2020

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I am here Isabelle,
I am her ‘neath your room.
All wrapped are your furniture
By Tom Nook, oh how I swoon.

With my shovel and net close to me,
And my pockets full of room,
My fishing rod and my neighbors
Shine out from the rain and gloom.

Do you sleep? With K.K.’s songs?
Let the smell of fruit trees turn you awake.
If the old man Tortimer should stumble here,
Then my slingshot I’ll take.

These soft silken clothes
In your growing house lie.
Why collect, why buy or sell or create —
Is a visitor or merchant nearby?

(Originally by Alexander Pushkin)

Resident Evil 3

Raccoon City, I think of you
As the wooden panels board the window pane,
The zombies claw their way to my heart
The contortions of their arms, the shuffled steps they take, lurching toward,
The curves along Nemesis’ head, his fucked up nose, his stitches and staples.
For all of this, each hand, each finger, each eyeball and intestine,
Each lip, each breath, each sigh, each screech and scream and herb,
Each word and sound of voice or tongue,
I would require an entire playthrough to contemplate.
But for your heart your mind your thoughts, all these,
To love them all I need at least a Jill sandwich.

Sometimes I think
Our heads might be squished by a trap,
Closer together upon Ada Wong’s space,
And how into the dark deeps of your eyes
I’d look and think of S.T.A.R.S. Then your breath
And all the aura of your corpse’s breathing
Intoxicatedly would overwhelm me
And I would die. For it is too much
That such a thing should be and I should live.
Surely the thought is greater than reality,
The sum of you, the single player and the multiplayer project no one will play, which I tried at Comic-Con and thought was a waste of time.

(Originally by Shakespeare)

Half-Life: Alyx

There once was a man named Gabe
Who made sure nothing at Valve could be played
But then VR broke through
And his profits then grew
So the new Half-Life stars Alyx, who’s a babe

(A Jared Russo original)

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Is Ori a cat or a bunny or a squirrel
What a quarrel;
And his big bird friend dude died in the last one
Very sad.
Metroidvania’s are a dime a dozen
After Hollow Knight,
But this one looks so colorful and special
And bright.
If this game were to be delayed again.
I think it would be a disgrace
For Phil Spencer’s sake.
Ori has some terrific locomotion,
Ori is smaller than I,
And not half so spry.
I’ll not deny it’s no Cuphead DLC
For my excitement levels are off the charts;
Talents differ; savepoints are swell and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back for Ori,
Neither can I start 2020 on the right foot.

(Originally by Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Halo Infinite

There was a time when Bungie was sad,
343 was elated: feelings needed neither
defending, warding off, nor explanation.
Today we know it’s all down to the Xbox Series X.
This console’s why you feel this way today
about a Spartan you’ve known all this while.
Let’s face it, nothing else has changed. The way
the game plays, the maps, the art. Master Chief’s armor,
his stoic look, his voice of pure masculinity,
the jukes, gestures, crouching, jumping,
the classical score — all more or less
the same. What power the future has!
It can all change with Infinite. The open world, and yet,
what we thought was love could dissolve in the rain, like tears.

Will I still wait around for you, Halo? Of course.
Just now I wrote: “Love for Halo is a passive thing.”
Love cannot be contained. Resort to force,
it vanishes, sucked inwards to its source;
dodges, watching and wary; or takes wing,
soars out of reach. Once I tried arguing
with it — and won — then choked on thick remorse.
In love you seem to glide, like a Hornet. Remember those?
Find airy pathways no-one else has tried by Banshee,
while both your feet stay firmly on the ground. No jetpacks.
In love you’re flesh and blood and yet your eyes,
the movements of your head, tell otherwise. Boom, headshot.
That’s why I can — must — write poems about a game we’ve seen no gameplay of.

(Originally by James Turner)

Nioh 2

Dark Souls combat clone
Character creator now
Give it to me please

(A Jared Russo original)

Doom Eternal

Long have I swome against the rivers of bloode,
But now constrained by a lothsome life stuck in a suit of armour:
I greedilie doe seeke the hellish grave,
To make an end of all these stormes and strife.
Sweete death give end to my tormenting woes,
And let my super shotgun pellets penetrate thy demon’s breast:
Suffer my heart which doth such nightmares inclose
By timelie fates injoie Doom Eternal rest.
Let me not dwell in dole Mars, thou power-ups ease me,
Let me not languish in such endless platforming:
One happie stroke of thy sad chainsaw blade will please me,
Please me good death, it is thy procurance.
To end my harts griefe (respawning shee did abhorre thee)
O hast thee gentle death I linger for thee. Thee, and a jetpack. And that grappling hook too, that’s real good. Fuck yeah, Doom is back, y’all.

(Originally by Thomas Watson)

The Last of Us Part II

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
and for Naughty Dog’s sake.
Do not say, ‘I love Ellie for her smile, her look, her way
Her murderous rampage and quips
That falls in well with mine, and Joel brought
A sense of pleasant ease and sweet revenge on such a day’.
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A clicker might forget to weep who bore.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth of the stealth action gameplay
I love thee to the level design, the sound design,
the environmental storytelling and the griping melodrama of it all.
I love thee freely, as men strive for survival in this apocalypse;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise and ludonarrative dissonance.
I love thee with the passion put to use
of that for a giraffe, or an ice cream truck.
I shall but love thee better after death. Ellie better not die like her girlfriend.

(Originally by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Cyberpunk 2077

Come! O come, my life’s delight! The NET!
Let me netrun as a Deckjockey!
Love to acquire CredChips; thy Night City,
The more depraved, the more divine!
O come, and take DataKrash from me
The pain of being deprived of thee! That virus!

Thou all sweetness dost enclose like a Hotdogger!
Like a little world of bliss or a Joyboy:
The Hosho Kaisha protects thy Prepack.
In them, Pinapples and SCOPs
Come then! and make thy flight in my Ay-Vee
As swift as Bakuto, as heavenly as Bonebrain Buffalo!

Shall I come, sweet Chromer! to thee,
When the evening Zonedances are set?
Shall I not excluded be a Wetwork or a Weefle?
Will the Sanddevistans find no feigned Ronins?
Let me not, for pity, more,
Tell a Rin Tin Tin how to do the work of a Ripperdoc!

Who can tell what thief or foe or LiveMetal,
In the covert of Night City,
For his prey, will work my Juice and Juvie;
Or through wicked, foul Eddies.
So may I die unredrest,
Ere my long love be possest by Johnny Silverhand.

But to let such dangers pass,
Which a Gonk’s thoughts disdain:
’Tis enough in such a place,
To attend love’s joy’s and Apogee in vain.
Do not mock me as Ranyon in thy bed!
Waiting for this game, the cold nights freeze me dead.

(Originally by T. Campion)