So there's a passage in biographical novel The Moon & Sixpence where art connoisseur Dirk Stroeve spends months helping painter Charles Strickland recover from a life-threatening illness. Once well, Strickland returns the favour by promptly nicking Dirk's wife Blanche. Strickland eventually leaves her, Blanche gargles acid and dies, and a hangdog Dirk returns to the apartment to find Strickland's nude painting of Blanche, mocking his heartbreak. Manic and inconsolable, Dirk grabs a paint scraper and flings himself at the painting ready to destroy it, but can't. He's overcome by an appreciation for the work; in awe of the object that mocks him.
I get it, really I do. I'm standing before horrible strategy game Anoxia Station, with my paint scraper, ready to gouge a hole in it for making me feel like shit. Stressed. Anxious. Irritated. Exhausted. When Anoxia Station wants to tell you that temperature has dropped to dangerous levels, it shoves a steamy, cracked-ice overlay on screen that's so opaque it makes interacting with the game a chore. I should be furious.
