Cruise Elroy

Hit Self-Destruct was probably the best video games blog I’ve ever read. A unique mix of fiction, biography, history, and analysis, it put the rest of us to shame with its depth, breadth, and well-crafted prose. To call it ahead of its time would be an enormous understatement.

The most astounding thing about Hit Self-Destruct, though, is the tense I now need to use to describe it. “Hit Self-Destruct was always something that would end eventually,” author Duncan Fyfe wrote earlier this month, “and this is the ending.” The last post went out this morning.

Blogs, of course, are not typically things that end. Yes, they are forgotten, or replaced, or they peter out with increasingly apologetic posts about how busy the author has become. A premeditated conclusion at the peak of one’s popularity, though, is virtually unheard of. Bill Watterson would be proud.

Some games feel like places: you visit and revisit them, you play and explore and loiter, and in time they come to feel familiar. Others are tightly authored experiences that hook you, direct you along a path, provide a narrative thrust — and eventually, suddenly, end. Then you have to reload your save from the last corridor, or else start anew.