And Now: Limericks

So in my spare time I've been writing Limericks. I "stumbledupon", as I so often do, and found a page of clever limericks. It was inspiring. I mean, I enjoyed a good haiku now and again, but I had never ventured into the world of limericks. So I figured it was time. Of course, I adapted my limericks so they had something to do with video games so that I may share. A little taste here, and more after the jump.

The armor may look like there's burl,
But from her helmet her hair did unfurl,
They all went erect,
In glaring respect,
When they found out their hero's a girl.



In Rapture he went on a date,
And got the girl home very late,
On her Welcome Rug,
He ripped out her slug,
Now her daddy will reciprocate.

While blankly chainsawing a locust,
A COG soldier seemed out of focus,
At night gears did grind,
And he was starting to find,
That liking just ladies was bogus.

Over countless test subjects she towers
A program with remarkable powers,
But alas, she must pout,
After much “in and out”
Not one of them thought to bring flowers.

As I gladly collected my loot,
I espied a terrible brute,
When over he lumbered,
I was over encumbered,
I died there for precious nirnroot.

There once was a space Engineer
Whose main objective was quite clear,
A glowing blue light,
Showed which way was right,
Of course the right way leads to fear.

Have you seen that comic by that guy?
It was so funny I thought I would cry.
The concept, though fun,
Is way overdone,
In the end it turns out its a spy.

Commander Shepherd, space soldier Elite,
With reputation that cannot be beat,
Though I know that I should,
Do my best to be good,
I just punch everyone that I meet.

Two Paper Pink Pigs feeling randy,
Thought maybe a dance would be handy,
It was awfully gruesome,
As the Posey Pink Twosome,
Made a baby, then took all its candy.

A boy lived under DC,
When his dad left without a decree,
He then fled the vault,
Though it wasn't his fault,
To follow a man he can't see.

And on that note, I must away. The Fallout 3 intro movie has played at least 10 times while I organized this and I really need to get up in there.

Continue?

My First hours in the Wasteland

I’ve finished the game at this point (so have Evan and Ben, those fuckers finished the main quest before me), and I plan to post more about it soon but this is a start. If you have played the first hours of the game and read this, you will be able to see just how different everyone experience is going to be from one another when they complete it. I did not know how to start talking about such a long and involved experience. I thought of writing a review like piece, but that would not explain properly why Fallout 3 is “of the hook” as you kids say. Just discussing the game over the weekend made me realize just how much more I can still do. And I think the best part is, I didn't have to.

Though there are rewards for completing more quests for more people, I found the most appealing aspect to be exploration of the Wastleland. The stories you will learn, and manipulation of the characters in the game (if your speech level is high enough OH WAIT mine is, my speech talk Tenpenny into letting ghouls stay at his tower; your speech got you a golden shower). Plus I still need Dogmeat. Well anyway here is my first hour or so, my father was very proud…

After cheating on my G.O.A.T, saving that asshole's mother from those puny radroaches, and killing my childhood crush’s father in cool blood just because he wouldn't let me out of that shithole, I was on my way to discovering the reason my father had left the fault and destroyed our simple lives. As my digital eyes got their first ever look at the digital sun, I realized that I was truly at home. Here I could be king and the world, (or at least what was left of it) and it was my playground. Now in the wasteland, even the nicest of people are not really nice in the traditional, 50’s sitcom way. They are picks; they hate their lives and as well they should. As I walked to the near by town of megaton, I experienced this first hand. I disliked everyone in this town.

The sheriff, who was the first person I confronted in the vault was nice, but because of all the shit he had been through he became more of shithead as I kept talking to him. The doctor who I had just meet told me to stop bitching about my wounds. If only there was a dialogue choose that said, “I’m paying you asshole so why don’t you shut the fuck up and do your job.” Don’t get me started about the religious fanatic, I barely talked to them and I doubt I will ever again.

Then some hotshot in this hellhole, told me that he had seen my father. I was thinking, finally, normal people in this wasteland, and what does that bastard do? He says he will tell me what I want to know if I give him 100 caps. 100 fucking bottle caps! So I told him to eat a dick and I wandered Megaton aimlessly looking for anyone who knew where my dear papa had gone. But I could not find anyone who could give me anything to go off of. I was stumped. So I went back to the man with the my head down and 100 caps that I had collected in my pocket. I guess what that fucker did, he told me that because I did not except his first offer that the price for that information that now the price for my dad’s location was 500 caps. At this point I was about to kill this fucker, when I noticed that I just got a new speech option because my speech level is so high. Fortunately it let me lower the price back to 100 caps. So I cut my losses, got the info I needed and never talked to that fucker again. Seems I may have a reason to blow up this shit hole after all.

Out of the four people I have talked to who are lucky enough to have Fallout 3, no one had the same experience in their first few hours then I did. One love, vote Obama…well I guess you already did that... he’s already elected. Continue?

Bargain Bin Bonanza: The Hellish Hopping

I went to the store the other day with the morbid desire to play a game I could purchase for less than the price of Crunchwrap Supreme (meal). I passed on the hundred various sports games of yesteryear which were selling for a dollar a piece and looked for something more colorful. I meant that literally though, its not like I wanted to find something violent or racist, but I wish I did . Eventually, I came across Zapper: One Wicked Cricket for the Gamecube by Infogrames (This is not to be confused with Tapper: One Cricket Wicket). When you see box art that has a sassy cricket on it being all like “What”, you have to learn to recognize. Game in bag, I headed home to see what this was all about.

I'll tell you what it was all about. Making me angry. That's what it was about. First of all, I don't have a memory card, so I couldn't save. The horrors I had to endure until the bitter end...the horrors! Normally I would just throw down the controller in frustration and walk away, but no! Not being able to save forced me to keep on keeping on. Second of all...you're a cricket. An ugly, electricity shooting cricket. The bad guy is a female Magpie that's apparently laying eggs all over the place, which is a problem (littering? population control?), she also snatched up your brother or something. What do I know? There was no dialog, just some bastardized Simlish that made me want to punch someone, or cover my ears. So in each level you need to destroy six of the eggs all whilst collecting as many fireflies as you can find. The first level is supposed to be your neighborhood, but everyone is trying to kill you. It's like you're the one neighbor that doesn't mow his lawn or goes out to get the paper with their robe wide open, flapping in the breeze. The environments for the first few levels are appropriately cricket sized, and were kind of cute. They were like an average garden, full of things that want you dead. So, like most gardens. There are picketing squirrels in the level that can kill you (their signs just have a nut on them), there are snails that can kill you, there are slugs that apparently have a full skeletal system that can kill you and there are also golden statues with swords that can kill you (a must for every garden). In addition to that, there are a myriad of things that you can fall off of and die. This is every level. Constantly falling to your death. There are some platforms where you could just move from one to another, and others where you needed jump over and I was constantly overestimating my character's ability to jump and falling to my doom. Excuse me for thinking a cricket, who does nothing all day but jump, and nothing all night but jump and keep me awake could easily jump across a small gap. Excuse me.

There isn't much to the levels, most of the game play comes from trying to collect all of the fireflies by killing all the enemies and finding secret areas. I was going to do that, but then I remembered I don't give a shit. So I just plowed through the levels. Less than halfway through I decided invincibility would be a good idea, as well as infinite lives considering I merely wanted to see what they had to offer in level design. Boy did they have something to offer! After the first world was complete, the rest of the game had no cohesive theme. I went from a Voodoo themed cave, to a saw mill, to a western ghost town, to an evil train (one of the cars was a grill with burgers on it for some reason). The Magpie's final level was a huge industrial tower with the Magpie overseeing my actions as I ascended, laughing at me every time I died...which is many times. It's laughter cut through me like a thousand knives. I wanted nothing more than to see it utterly and completely destroyed. This is not true of real life Magpies which are very cute, but they also don't laugh at your failure.

Onward to the final boss fight! The Magpie sits atop a pile of gold (because apparently laying eggs all over the place is a profitable and successful business venture) and tries to kill you by making more holes to fall into, shooting eggs at you (gross) and dive bombing you. It was an epic battle; hopping around in circles, falling into holes, coming back, repeat, sometimes actually hitting the Magpie, and finally...

As a testament to how truly awful this game was: it froze as I dealt the final hit. I just kind of pursed my lips and nodded my head at it. It was like the game knew that not only was it purchased for a paltry two dollars, but that it would be played by a person with malice in their heart and a strong contempt for games starring sassy insects. Touché game, touché. Continue?

Getting Down to the Tough Issues

This piece of work is coming to you from John Everson, a long time friend of the family who has an incredible knack for coming up with ridiculously complex, well thought out, and often hilarious comments. John and video games go way way back. I recall playing a game on my Commodore 64 that he made when he was very young. It involved killer bees, I believe. John's day job now involves getting games to work on technology that should by no means run games. Someone has got to cater to the frazzled housewife longing to play Bejeweled on her Kitchen Aide.

I'll keep this short as not to detract from the dialog. The following came up while we were discussing the Presidential debate. I wasn't watching it, but from what John has told me, he only changed a few key words. Enjoy.



Moderator: What would you do to solve the financial crisis as president?

McCain: I'll put on a spending freeze.

Obama: But I want a program that educates young children. Senator McCain wants to freeze young children?!!!

McCain: If you freeze them, you can shatter them with one hit.

Obama: Senator McCain, our financial difficulties are not metroids.

~

Obama: I need to make one point, Senator, the republican party is mired in the gaming policies of the 1980's. Bionic Commando Rearmed still doesn't have a jump button and the American people need one in this time of crisis.

McCain: Everyone knows I've never been voted Ms. Congeniality, but the American People know me well that I have also played games from the 90's, like 7th guest and Myst. If America has learned a lesson, it is that the policies of full motion video should not be ignored.

~

Moderator: What do you think of the lessons of the latest round of games for the Wii?

Obama: We have spent over 6 billion dollars so far, almost a trillion, on games like Dogz, Catz, and the Bee Movie game. Many of these are played once and never touched again. Others are still in their wrapper. And all of this costs American people money.

I think the lesson that needs to be drawn is to look to the free flash games, like desktop tower defense, or the one with the dolphins. These games are free, fun, and don't impact the American Wallet.

McCain: I disagree. I don't have the latest version of Flash, so I can't play most of those games.

McCain: Also, if you turn the Wiimote sideways, you can play Donkey Kong Math for 500 wii points



~


McCain: Two fourth of Julys ago, I was in Baghdad, staying with some of the troops. I was honored to be there and to speak with the troops. And I sat down with them for quite some time, and I was amazed that they are still playing Syphon Filter 3 on the PS2. This is a travesty for the greatest military in the world. These troops need our funding, they need our support, and they need 360s, to do their job, and to show the American people they can play Halo 3 as well as the Koreans or the Canadians.

~

Moderator: In 2007, President Bush ordered a voteban of xXPwnOfTheDeadXx from a counter-strike server. Senator McCain voted for that ban. You did not, explain why.

Obama: We have a 20th century mindset that says that if we are getting sniped repeatedly, we should punish those who are responsible.

McCain: I don't think senator Obama understands that xXPwnOfTheDeadXx was clearly clipping. I supported the ban, but I did not support having Pwn sent to Guantanamo Bay. I think banning his Steam account would've sufficed.

~

John: It makes you wonder if fata1ity needs to give his two cents.
Continue?

DS is the Best in the Business P.S. We got Dicks like Jesus

I watched them. I watched them as they did their sweet, loving, sensual dance of passion. At least it appeared passionate considering the fact that I forced the two of them to fornicate and conceive a bastard child. Oh, but I wasn’t done with them yet, oh no. That child, the perfect little child, I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I offered him his own mother so they too could conceive just for me. The father on the other hand, I made an example out of him. I laid him at the mercy of the birds and let them pick him apart until he exploded into little pieces.

Ok, now those little pieces may have been candy, but that is still some fucked up shit. On my recent trip to NYC, we stopped at a virgin megastore to look at the new game, movie, and music releases. As my lady-friend perused the DS section, she informed me that Viva Piñata was now out on the portable system. Now I had my reservations, immediately thinking of it as the retard version or one that has nothing to do with the original IP it was based on. But now that I have played it I can tell you once and for all that this shit is for real, son.

At first I was a little put off. The tutorial for this game was a good 10 minutes, but surprisingly it is well-needed. The game holds your hand as it teaches you the very basics of Viva with the new touch screen interface. You can do everything you can on its 360 counterpart. So it teaches you how to plant your seeds, water them, grow your grass (this is starting to sound very much like hashish) and con them cute little bastards into living the rest of their short meaningless lives in the hell hole that is my garden where I will likilly hit them with my shovel and sell them to the highest bidder. Now, I loved my share of Viva on the 360, but I never really got close to “catchin’ them all”, but with the DS version I can easily play a little bit here and there. For instance, I can romance two Squazzils while I'm defecating all by my lonesome. I can put up some statues to attract Flutterscotches while playing flip cup. I can even plant a blueberry tree while gorilla masking a good friend.

However, not all my time in this world has been fun. Sometimes Jeff has to beat bitches to death with a shovel because they just eat the Mousemallow that I was about to force into having intercourse. Sometimes your piñatas think that eating the food with the purple, zigzagging, rotting lines over them is a good idea and then they get sick. And since this game is apparently in the US or some other place with no free health care, I have to pay for a Doctor if I am to revive them. Because the price is so high, I make the executive decision to beat them to death and let the other piñatas feast on their remains.

I’m only about 20% through the game so I do not know for sure how long it's going to stick. Plus, I'm also playing MegaMan 9, which I should post about soon. I’m likely going to grab the Duke on live and FUCKING WIPEOUT HD COMES OUT ON THURSDAY. Cheers hoping that I get some sort of food poisoning so I have many more Piñata filled trips to the can.
Continue?

Do Chulips Feel Numb?

I've recently become acquainted with an absolute gem of a game called Chulip. Originally produced by Punchline and released in Japan in 2002 for the Playstation 2, it was distributed in America by Natsume in 2007. It was a Game Stop exclusive release, but it's not like they made a big deal out of it here. I bought the game on a whim, as it was produced by Natsume and my hunger for cutesy life simulators that incorporate mild fantasy elements must be sated (Harvest Moon has been delayed until the end of the month). Also, according to the box, the central gameplay revolves around kissing. “Smooches!?”, I exclaimed, then giggled and payed 10 dollars for my treasure.

As your little male character kisses more and more “people” (I put people in quotes because I'm unsure what some were), your father speaks with the “Lover's Tree” at night about your progress in the ways of love. The “Lover's Tree” is a tree with a human face, one of several odd characters which are objects with human faces. Anyway, the tree “strengthens your heart” based on how many people you have kissed. A strong heart is one step toward finally kissing the girl of your dreams. I'm level six, which apparently equates to being a Ladykiller, despite the fact the majority of people I've kissed were men. Actually most of the people you kiss are “Underground Residents”, creatures that come out on the surface once a day and are constantly angry. What's scary is that that is an accurate description of myself.

I enjoy the game very much, as it includes some adventure gaming aspects. Each of the many oh-so- kissable characters in the game has a prerequisite to their kiss, whether it be returning something they've lost, hurting yourself in some terrible way, or stealing, just like in real life. If you attempt to kiss anyone before they are ready, they will put your ass in your place so fast, it's not even funny. You have a life meter, which is your heart slowly breaking. The character you play takes everything to heart though. He fell on a slide, his heart broke. He finds fecal matter in the trash (“Poopie”), his heart breaks. It's all very tragic. The only way to restore the love in his heart is with the unconditional positive regard your father provides you as you sleep. It's either that or you wash your hands. You know what they say, "Cleanliness is close to fatherlylovelyness". I just love the fact that nothing can be done within the game without kissing. You can't progress in the story line without laying it on someone and the game ends when you kiss the girl of your dreams. Well shit lady, who needs you? I've kissed everyone in town, plus a bunch of mole people and now you want me? Damn.

I do have problems with the game, though I tolerate most of them. The first being that your character can't run. He just walks everywhere like he doesn't have everyone to kiss. The only way to run is to kiss an Underground Resident named “The Hasty Wizard” who then gives you a fruit called the “Speedupple” that you eat and it gives you the ability to run. Which brings me to my next point; the game is really very unforgiving. The guide book that came with the game just tells you what to do. The game is so aware of the fact that you will have no idea what to do otherwise, they go ahead and hold your hand through the game. How am I supposed to know that in order to get the Zombie to kiss you, you need to first kiss the Voodoo Doll and then give Lavender and a wilted flower to a talking stone lion who runs a bath house? I didn't even make that up. Is that common knowledge?

Honestly though, play Chulip. My life feels a little richer from having played it. I learned that you need to give love to everyone you meet (the most famous groupies share this mentality as they give love equally to both rock stars and roadies alike) and in that way, every kiss will feel like the first... with fireworks and serene music while floating in space.

The part of me that is deeply saddened by games that lack an achievements system, has generated some achievements for use with Chulip. Whether or not they are possible is beyond me, but here they are none the less.






-Be accused of rape 5 times.


-Kiss the Lover's Tree.


-Kiss 10 children


-Drink your troubles away.


-Inanimate objects are laughing at and/or with you.


-Contract Oral herpes.


Continue?

Introducing Feral Concepts to the Domesticated Gameworld

As with my last post, this one will concern itself with issues, thoughts, and parallels raised by Roger Caillois’s Man, Play, Games. Early into the book Caillois outlines his classification of games. He places all games into four main categories: Agon (competition), Alea (chance), Mimicry (simulation), and Ilinx (vertigo).

The only objection I had to any of his assertions was with his description of alea, or games of chance. He posits that children are not interested in games of chance because of the way a child “approximates an animal” and does not yet have a fully developed perception of the abstract and inanimate powers of destiny and subsequently, the attraction of ceding one's fate to it. I would have to disagree with this notion. Although he doesn’t completely reject the possibility of a child’s participation with games of chance, he certainly downgrades it almost to the point of non-existence. I can remember in my childhood playing numerous games of chance.

My second grade class was given a stern lecture by our principal about the dangers and poisonous effects of gambling after a week of playing a loose, if not completely incorrect version of poker with candy cigarettes serving as betting chips. I guess Caillois would argue that such behavior would fall under the umbrella of mimicry, namely mimicking adults, but I think that is entirely debatable. I can also recall many a fond afternoon of playing Pooh sticks with a neighborhood guide who wore a belt of throwing knives and who seemed far too old and smoked far too many cigarettes to be an expert on such a juvenile game. Sitting atop a rusted jungle gym that rested above a forest stream, we proceeded to select sticks and drop them into different parts of the stream and see whose stick reached a predetermined finish line first. Agon does enter into Pooh sticks (which parts of the stream have the strongest current, the quality and streamlined composition of the stick, etc.), but it has a very minimal presence and not to someone who has never played or to the more carefree of kids. It was a pure fascination with chance, cause and effect, trial and error, and a general curiosity with seeing the behavior of natural forces that we were interested in. Aside from this aspect of the child and their limited relation to and involvement with alea, I think Caillois’s examination of core play styles is sound.

Despite this one particular inaccuracy, Caillois does a thorough and admirable job of detailing most dominant styles of play and the rules, either implicit or explicit, that come with them. However, in every game described, the player knows the rules before engaging with that game. Be it the correct procedure for stepping onto a merry-go-round and mounting a plastic horse or playing football, the tenets of the activity are known to the participant prior to playing.

One thing I don’t think Caillois mentioned was the phenomenon of a participant playing a game when they weren’t entirely sure of the rules. This isn’t it’s own division of game style since the rules are independent of this, but this blind approach to confronting a game is something I find interesting. In the case of Warioware, I felt that this method of supplying the player with limited information, or no information at all, with regard to the game’s rules was a detriment to the game. The difficulty of the game is making sense of the nonsensical, interpreting foreign, single-serving mechanics that you are being bombarded with. After some exposure to these games (or fool’s errands) as they repeat, you learn what is required of you to succeed. For a majority of Warioware’s games, it is simply the process of discovering just what in the hell you’re supposed to do and not the actions themselves that are challenging and fleetingly fun. Once this discovery is over, the game becomes stagnant.

On the other hand, a game like flOw practices this similar idea of limited user information, but does it in a way that adds another component to the game and adds a fruitful afterlife to the gameplay rather than a premature death. The act of discovering relationships between your single-cell self and other creatures, other organic life (of the nutritional, caloric variety), and other players in the cooperative mode (or in some cases, uncooperative) adds an element of investigation, careful observation, and player interpretation to the game. Sharing thoughts about the attributes and effects of certain digestible matter with other players is also very fascinating insofar as you see how others interpreted the mechanics. This dialogue exposes little aspects of how someone interprets an unknown quantity and adds their own meaning to it through speculation. Different people can perceive the same in-game item as an aid or a hindrance, both not entirely sure of what it does. Some people think a certain action, attack, or state had more of an influence over the space and AI than others. These differences offer little insights into how people think.

But over time, these assumptions begin to break down and the dynamics between the player, the other species, and the resources in the game become apparent. Unlike Warioware, the enjoyment of the game does not cease after this period of discovery because it does not chiefly consist of repeating tasks that only have one proper solution. This is where non-linearity enters in. Once the rules are known to the player, the game goes on to be a remarkable meditative journey, a microscopic fugue that explores relationships between pacifism and antagonism, the will-to-power and all forms of life, consumption and depletion of resources, nourishment and gluttony, primal instinct and rational thought, outward appearances and intimidation, allies and enemies, and so on. Not to mention that it's also the only game that I couldn't comfortably eat snack foods while playing. I became self-aware, stared contemplatively at the finger paintings of potato chip grease that covered my controller and thought about consumption while comparing my eating habits to those of my single-cell self. I think that is quite an accomplishment. To get back to the point, cooperation and competition are both equally supported in single and multiplayer.

This unconventional hybrid of play styles is not something Callois really touches on, but doesn’t rule out either. He does stress that agon games are largely competitive exhibitions to display one’s superiority over obstacles and others. This can be the attitude one would choose to adopt when playing flOw, but it is certainly not the only one. flOw is a rare species. In an industry permeated by classical, agon-centered games, flOw illustrates that we can marry together mechanics from unlikely genres in intelligent and invigorating ways.

I believe that once games start resembling our reality more and more, we’re going to see a dramatic rise in this approach to organic, implied game rules detailed above. Eventually designers won’t need to bother wasting their time and the player’s time on implementing tutorials and gameplay mandates, not to mention the inseparable disruption of player immersion and dramatic investment that follows these in-game irritations, because the rules of the game will already be intimately known to the player through life experience. Obviously this won’t apply to every game, but graphical fidelity, dynamic gameplay-monitoring systems, and improved AI will be instrumental in subtly conveying gameplay opportunities to players in even the more unrealistic of games. At least I hope this is the trend we will see. I suppose that if this paradigm shift is to occur, we first need courage on the part of more designers, publishers, and players to encourage this biotic exchange of experimental game design, to administer this much-needed transfusion of new blood into the pallid skin of mainstream games. Though courage is a rare commodity in the industry these days, games like flOw foster hope for this fascinating possibility. Continue?

Of Master Chief and Men

For a videogame production class I’m currently taking, I’ve been reading the book Man, Play, Games by Roger Caillois. The book was written in 1961, but it is still incredibly, if not disturbingly relevant to modern athletic games and videogames. It’s an anthropological look at the games of men and a categorical classification of them all, while also being a smaller study of some of the similarities between the games of men and animals that emerge within nature.

When Reading Callois’s opinions on the important role of social dynamics in games, certain modern multiplayer conventions bear a striking resemblance to those of antiquity, such as Eskimos being the cosplayers of yore. In Caillois’s description of mimicry games, he says, “ [The disguise] serves to change the wearer’s appearance and to inspire fear in others.” He also adds, “ Acts of mimicry tend to cross the border between childhood and adulthood. They cover to the same degree any distraction, mask, or travesty, in which one participates, and which stresses the very fact that the play is masked or otherwise disguised, and such consequences ensue.” This observation certainly holds foreboding echoes of what is now the most popular, present-day disguise that can be used to intimidate (or at least attempt to) and obscure the act of play to the point of either borderline or imagined legitimacy; the avatar and all of its anonymity.

Play does in fact “lack something when it is reduced to a mere solitary exercise." I know this all too well. Some of my darkest, loneliest, most forlorn moments have been while playing Mario Party with me, myself, and a platter of cream cheese and pepperoni sandwiches I made. As we crawl out of the doldrums of self-imposed digital purgatories, we venture out into the wide social world of online gaming. But as Caillois posits, the social agon (competitive) game is more of a rivalry-motivated, glory-reaping exhibition than a brotherly communion. I told myself that playing Halo 3 online would strengthen long-distance friendships and maybe forge new ones. The game fulfilled this desire to an extent, but the beast quickly took over.

Suddenly, you start to see your rank go up. Your melee elbow becomes battle-hardened. You see and hear the cruel face of interactive war; teenage kids accommodating every fresh corpse with a post-mortem teabagging and guys with ‘DJ’ somewhere in their gamertag rap battling their way to victory (forfeits where the degree of annoyance was too great for our team and resident rapper, Jeff, to endure). You see your service decorations get shinier, bigger, more ornate. You enter games and see guys in the pre-game lobby that have all sorts of crazy emblems. “ A silver phoenix? A golden spatula? I don’t know what the fuck rank that spatula represents, but I’ve never seen it before and I’ll probably never want to see it again after this match,” you tell yourself.

A little bit longer and you’re thirsting for victory and that fearsome, intimidating veneer, that golden spatula to call your own. It’s fun when you’re sober as well as blood-drunk, but karma quickly comes back to you for every white, nameless, cross-shaped data archive you helped erect in the vast graveyard known as the Bungie.net stat server. With the sour taste of defeat still in your mouth, you start playing as a ‘lone wolf’ because you think your team is bringing you down. Once that adrenaline-fueled war high starts to wane, post-traumatic stress takes hold. You come full circle, become reformed, start playing by yourself again and looking for meaning, purpose, and God in the serene fields of Hyrule. But every now and then that trigger finger becomes itchy, you start hearing things, the sound of your maiden whispering into your ear. “ Say my name,” she demands. “ PWNage,” you respond… “sweet, sweet PWNage.” Continue?

Fuck Kevin Petrasceni, Fuck Him in His Fucking Face

After the revolting and horrible news about Fallout 3 now being censored in all territories, I was a bit pissed off. Lets just say I may have had one end of my dvi to hdmi cable tied to my neck and the other end to the ceiling fan, with an old plastic picnic table chair underneath me. Luckily in what might have been my last moments, I saw the post on gamevideos of Ken Levine’s PAX keynote. I slowly loosened my fate from my neck, cleared my keyboard of the last remnants of my volcano taco from my taco bell big box meal, grabbed a small amount of hand lotion, moved the box of Kleenexes over to the monitor and began loading the Levine Keynote.

As I readied a turkey sandwich, (because nothing goes better with Ken then a good ol’ American sam-itch) I began to ponder what he would discuss during the keynote. Smearing the mayonnaise on the top of the bun, I remembered that I had read that he did not even talk about the development of Bioshock or any of his other games for that matter during the keynote. I’m back at the computer now, I take a bite, I feel the lettuce crunch, put my right hand on the mouse, left hand in my pants and click play.

Ken whispered sweet nothings into my ear for a full half-hour. He talked about growing up in the seventies, reading comics and fearing for his life. The more he spoke it reminded me of an episode of the wonder years if the wonder years sucked shit. I was shocked to think that Ken was an outcast for most of his life. Some fuck named Kevin PetraWEENIE (see what I did there?) used to punch him in the arm everyday on the bus. He used to read comics he hid inside his textbooks during his lunch period. He was as he said “a closet nerd”.

Mattel’s Closet Nerd Ken TM showed me a very surprising side of himself that may be hard to picture because of the tone of his games: his sense of humor. Ken Levine is a funny and clever son of a bitch. He spoke about his secret love for Magneto's daughter, the Scarlet Witch, described talking about D&D at the front of a bus full of Jocks and Freaks as being similar to singing in Hebrew in Nazi-occupied France, and when he proclaimed “when the dark lord of the sith offers you five, you give him five.” He described his childhood stutter so vividly that you would think he was baffling you with his speech impediment at twelve years old right next to you.

I think the thing that made me cum the most about his keynote was the level of appreciation he had for his “tribe”, one tribal brother being his friend and co-worker that did not make him feel ashamed for being himself. I don't think I ever had it even close to as tough socially as Ken did, because I had always had a “tribe”. Once all the kids moved up to middle school they got tired of playing fake gun games, but my friends and I bought airsoft guns as soon as we were allowed to and just kept the dream alive. My “tribe” would gather in a dark, dank, dingy basement and put in the latest Resident Evil or Silent Hill game. We would often take turns playing them together in complete silence while one of us traversed this horrific world until they could handle it no longer and had to pass the journey on to another. My fondest memory of this was deep into our first playthough of Silent Hill 3 when we entered a room with a giant wall-sized mirror. Suddenly the side beyond the mirror began to be covered by this living tissue. Then the tissue covered our side of the mirror. We froze…we literally turned off the game and watched infomercials for a half-hour because neither of us could continue. We still game together. Alex and I played the last boss of Gears of War for almost two hours trying to figure out the trick to him and why we kept dying. Turns out we just had to shoot him a lot. My friend Chris and I played (or mostly watched) Metal Gear Solid 4 for twenty-two hours straight until we beat it. I still play with my “tribe” now, but my new “tribe” usually involves beer and other illegal means and ends with me getting into a rap battle victory over Xbox live during some inebriated rounds of Halo.

The point is if I did not have my tribe when I was playing games, I may have tried to find some other social outlet. But my “tribe” has only encouraged and influenced my current love of games. Sorry for all this sentimental posting, but Ken reminded me again why I love games. But I still hate everyone from Australia for renaming my real drugs in Fallout, you Aussie rating board fucks. Continue?

Big Trouble in Little China

I have convinced myself that these ramblings are vaguely relevant enough to post. The summer games may not have been games of the video variety, but they were games nonetheless, and that’s enough of a viable excuse for me.

I don’t wish to speak too much about the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics because I’m still scared shitless. It appears that China is assembling an army worthy of Mordor. It really seemed to me while watching it that this event would be in history books if (and by if I really mean when) China becomes the next dominant world superpower. This would be the event that kids would learn marked the beginning of the end (or long decline, depending on your degree of pessimism or optimism). First it starts with beating ancient drums that have been tricked out, presumably by Xzibit and everyone at Far East Coast Customs, then it becomes invading countries, but don’t worry… they will come smiling and smeared in face paint.

In all seriousness, it’s not that I think someday China will bring about the end of the free world as we know it, but I am uneasy watching this. Noam Chomsky has said that China’s global dominance will be inevitable. And just seeing how China treats the individual, exploits their tireless dedication, loyalty, and spirit to favor the whole (and by whole I mean the exceptional individual: government figures, celebrities, and glowing beauties who gracefully dance on the backs of the hundreds lifting her and her platform up) is troubling. Every nation does this to an extent, but the scale on which China operates seems completely foreign, well maybe apart from the hive mind mentality of domestic honey bees.

I will, however, speak about certain adjustments and new practices I think the Olympic Committee should adopt to add a bit of honesty and pizazz to this wearisome, tradition-steeped event.

1. The silver and bronze medals should be replaced by clumps of human shit. Silver will now be Shit 1, and the neck ornament formerly known as bronze shall become Shit 2. Shit 1 is sun-dried and solid. Shit 2 is wet, bloody, and at the rate it drips, it wouldn’t even last you the whole day. Elderly men would definitely have to be the primary donors. Just think about the potentially awe-inspiring spectacle of watching thousands of elderly Chinese men defecating into LED light-laden, ceremonial bedpans while smiling widely. If only that could have been included in the opening ceremonies for Beijing.
2. Coaches who slap gymnasts’ asses deserve a medal themselves. Those gluts are like concrete for fuck’s sake. Similar to a pommel horse routine, this is a risky procedure that requires courage and years of practice.
3. Interpretive dance should be added as an event and judged mercilessly on a numerical scale.
4. Most athletes it seems are just genetically more ideal for success in certain events than others (Phelps and his large fin-like hands and feet, tall guys in basketball, volleyball, and running, etc). For the most part, it seems like we are just rewarding athletes for their arbitrary genetic identities coupled with an absurd amount of years spent mastering one task. I propose that in the future, when the necessary technologies emerge, we should just make purebred athletes spawned from medal-winning fathers and mothers. The Olympics will then consist of running a gamut of tests on these babies (blood tests, cardiovascular tests, genetic tests), entering all of that data into a computer which will then determine through accurate simulation, which of these babies would have won their assigned event at a future Olympics. They will then either be given gold teddy bears or pacifiers made out of shit.
5. The next-gen Olympics aren’t going to be interesting if the Olympic committee preserves this stance of theirs on doping. When nanotechnology becomes commonplace and little kids are hitting baseballs out of townships and men are enjoying a leisurely 4 hours at the bottom of their pools before surfacing, how are the “true” athletes going to compete against this new shift in human abilities without the aid of technologies that the average person has? I suggest a merger between Rapture and the Olympics, the NanOlympics©. The committee can still keep their beloved element of chance and suspense, but in the form of syringe injections and which athlete can manage them the best during a given event… that is until a new nanobot emerges that exponentially increases proficiency with syringe injection management.

During one gymnastics routine I was watching, a Chinese gymnast launched himself off of a vault, whirled through the air and spun down toward a blue mat beneath him like a beautiful, dancing leaf falling from a tree branch above a serene vernal pool. As he landed on the mat, he made the supreme mistake of losing his balance temporarily and wavering before finding his center of gravity once again. After raising his “I’m done now” arms into the air, he walked off of the mat and gave an embarrassed smile. A commentator then said something to the effect of “ I don’t like that. I don’t like when gymnasts laugh after making such a crucial error.” I concur. How dare he! How could he possibly not take doing flips and revolutions through the air while wearing spandex seriously? The nerve of some people. How beautiful is a leaf if it doesn’t stick its landing in that natural body of water? Not very fucking beautiful at all. Then it’s just a rogue leaf, a smartass leaf that chooses to succumb to external forces and other variables by just simply landing anywhere it, or the wind, pleases. Only the supernatural, the exceptional, truly beautiful ones land in the pool in front of you. They become miniature boats that sail you away to the realm of fantastical daydreams and relaxation. The ones that land on a bed of their rotting peers are just ordinary organic material, not worthy of note. This fucking gymnast, he should sulk, languish, brood, mope, self-mutilate, self-immolate, beat himself up and squirm till the end of his days with the knowledge that he failed himself, his sport, his dead ancestors, his dead cat, but most importantly… his country.

It seems the idea of country is most of what this comes down to, a prestige contest (or dick size competition) between nations with athletes serving as their playthings. As if it was America that made Phelps such a fast swimmer. America isn’t the only place that has water to swim laps in, although I could see how some might get that impression in light of some of these commercials. But perhaps it is the only place that has pH-controlled freedom water that seeped into his skin and gave him that motivational shot of the American dream. No, lots of fucking, a few people who gave them guidance (not Lady Liberty), how much of one’s life and soul are surrendered to the cause, and in the case of long-distance running, a healthy whiff of smelling salts have more to do with an athlete’s success than nationality. But try telling the majority of Americans that. It’s no surprise that Michael Phelps got that early, fake copy of CoD: World At War, he’s the greatest soldier we have.

Aside from this ridiculous notion of national pride, the display of man’s conquest over obstacles and essentially, nature, or his will to power, seems to be the other big draw of the Olympic games. We can be dolphins, we can be eagles, we can be cheetahs, we can be… whirling dervishes, we can overcome the limitations of our bodies and take out our frustrations on water, land, and shot put balls. We arose, quite literally, out of a defiance to nature. Some biologists have argued that one of the only logical reasons why our species at some point decided to walk on hind legs, neglecting bad balance and becoming visible to predators above tall grass, was out of this cultivated and now inherent spirit of defiance. The Olympics are not the only home to the exhibition of the will to power. It can also be argued that art and technology are also similar conquests, but at least they aren’t solely conquests... for the most part.

It was during this summer games haze that I started to notice that as much as I criticized athletes for foolishly trying to challenge boundaries, limitations, and nature for no particular reason, I myself am responsible for my own vendettas against nature; the gamer’s will to power.

I used to be a 360 achievement whore. I’m reformed now, clean. At the peak of my habit, I would have done anything to get another fix, to see just one more cheaply-designed binary bauble come up on the screen and tell me reassuringly that I had accomplished something in this world. I felt like a depraved boy scout who lived and died by the promise of getting that Eagle Scout status. I would have sold skooma to children, if there were children in Oblivion, if it meant being handsomely compensated for it. I would have swabbed 50 q-tips worth of crime scene semen in Condemned, had a restraining order issued against me in Sneak King, I would have done anything short of signing up for the Battlefield newsletter, pre-ordering Bad Company, naming my first-born ChallengeEverything©, or whatever other absurd and inane marketing tie-in hoops you needed to jump through in order to unlock new weapons in BF: Bad Company.

But, like I said, those days are well behind me… that was until a patch was released for Super Stardust HD that supported trophies. Then, I relapsed. I bought the $5 expansion in this whirlwind hysteria of trophy collecting I was in, thinking that was more than enough money to unlock all the meteor-blasting content and frustration there was to be had. Then I discovered that the co-op trophy can only be unlocked by buying yet ANOTHER $5 add-on. What’s next? Only after buying the chrome ship color add-on can you then unlock the ‘admired your cool new ship color for 20 seconds’ trophy? This was where I drew the line and what prompted me to sober up again.

It’s during these moments of clarity that you realize how outlandish and hollow your actions were that received an empty symbol of recognition, not unlike Olympic competition. Kicking gnomes to gain potions or simply riding the ‘Cockatrice’, shooting unsuspecting pigeons, collecting yarn, Cyrodillic brandy, vampire dust, skeletal remains, COG tags, getting 50 headshots, killing two enemies with one Spartan laser blast, killing 1,000 enemies during one game and head biting 50, killing enemies with a curb stomp, an airborne toilet, and road flares is just some of the behavior I have regretfully participated in to gain decorations for my service. It could be worse I suppose. I could be touting how my PC can run Crysis and posting videos of it as evidence. It seems like we’re almost at the point where people are going to be demanding recognition, accolades, and trophies just for wasting enough money to get a sub-par game running properly.

Oftentimes, conquest takes president over all other gameplay mechanics. And the ridiculousness of what you’re doing is neglected in favor of this spirited conquest. It’s not that there will never be a place for mindless games on my shelf, it’s that the achievement, trophy, what have you, knows what I can’t resist, knows my own inner circuitry better than I do, and exploits these innate desires to give a game an unearned, unnecessarily long, and fruitless arfterlife.

Sober, I watched the ending ceremony to the Olympics with my mother and father. The upper rim of the Bird’s Nest crackled and spew out fireworks into the night sky. Call it withdrawal paranoia or trophy-induced mistrust, but for a minute I thought these so-called fireworks were actually disguised inter-continental missiles hurdling toward various international cities. No amount of “oohing” and “aahing” could change our fate. I tried to get my family to go into the basement, but they were hypnotized by the dazzling display. That’s the desired response the Chinese wanted I told them. I began to prepare for impact. What wishes had gone ungranted? What aspirations had been left unfulfilled? What should I accomplish before the end? … Earning the coveted platinum trophy. Continue?

Hoes Before Bros: Building Meaningful Relationships in Harvest Moon

In Mid September, myself and many other farming simulation fans will be picking up the first installment of the Harvest Moon series to come out for the Nintendo Wii system. If you pre-ordered the game, you will also be receiving a stuffed cow, an offer which is too good to pass up (he's smiling!). Stuffed cows aside, playing Harvest Moon is much more than just toil and hard work...planting little seeds and watching them grow into beautiful plants, showing the whole goddamn town what you're made of and proving to your father that you can make it on your own, it's so much more. At the heart of every Harvest Moon game is the village you now live in, filled with people you will grow to love. You can get the guys in the town to confide in you regarding girl troubles, and then use that information to romance the girls for yourself.

This is always where I had the most fun in Harvest Moon games. My femininity allows me to be excited about this, but playing as a male character changed the dynamic a bit. When I played the N64 version of the game I found myself becoming the biggest sleaze ball ever. Was it enough to have one girl fall in love with me? No, certainly not. I wanted all of them to fawn over me. Even after my character was married, I continued to give the other ladies gifts daily, while my wife stayed at home ( My real-life gameplay audio excerpt: “...In the kitchen, where she belongs! It took alaaaaata lumber to build that kitchen, doll-face.”) In the Wii installment you can choose to play as either a male or female. I will be forgoing the privilege to play as my own gender in this game. Even in the wonderful world of Harvest Moon, the double standard still applies: If you have a lot of guys as a girl, you are a harlot. If you have a lot of girls as a guy, “eeeeeeeeey!”.

Eventually you will have to pick one of these ladies to be your wife, and I intend to help you make that choice. Let's take a look at what good 'ole Waffle Town has to offer.




Anissa: The gentle female farmer. She will most likely be the most useful on the farm. She'll also stick by you even after you come home from the milk bar high on beef Endorphins and beat her with a fresh turnip in a tube sock.



Kathy: The local bar-maid. She's tough and resilient. She answers to no man. Be the first to break her fiery spirit!



Candace: Only you will know whether the quiet weird girl is into the freaky stuff... like cross breeding watermelons and bananas.



Leena: She loves animals. She loves them so much, she'll hardly mind sleeping in the barn when you have your buddies over for poker nights.



Mai: She loves food more than anything! Make sure to constantly remind her where those cupcakes are going (the thighs).



Phoebe: She's an inventor. After you get married, you can force her to work many sleepless nights on complex Rube Goldberg machines that complete pointless tasks that would normally require minimal effort.



Roomi: She's eight (going on 30)!



Shiela: Her hips are like "BLAM"!



Juli: This is a DUDE! DO NOT HIT ON!


Now that I have given you an overview of the ladies you have to choose from, go forth and be fruitful. And don't forget to put whatever you want to sell in the bin before 5pm, that's when the buyer comes. But not on holidays.
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The Dramatic Conclusion of 'LittleBigTrouble In Paradise'

(click to enlarge)

The mild irony of this epilogue (not to imply it was justifiably episodic) is the sheer anguish that went into its conception. The initial notion of copulation between Evan and I's efforts into what you see above you was nearly innocent at my end... if he was aware of the harrowing consequences of those 2 minutes in which we mutually consented (to a comic), the gestation may never have occurred.

What I mean is, I never in my wildest brooding expected the light hearted vengeance to blossom into something so evil, the very attempt at describing its foundations would bring about untold misery to its architect. I couldn't say who is to blame for it, it may be me, it could (probably) be photoshop, but in the end, are we not all doomed to make the same old mistakes in new ways?

In any case, I hope my demoralized compatriot can be coaxed (or tricked) into something similarly nefarious again. Until such the time, enjoy the tips (there were some suggestions for the devs in the toolkit and you inquisitive individuals), and my high hat is off to you Evan.

-BH Continue?

You Can Point-And-Click Me Anytime, Babe.

I have a laptop I use this laptop for various things. I got it for school. I edit things on this laptop and type papers. I do not want this laptop to have too many things on it. The first thing I did when I connected my laptop to the internet is download Audiosurf. That's a lie. The first thing I did when I connected my laptop to the internet was do a Google search, then I downloaded Audiosurf. (The Google search was for “boobs”. This was to insure everything was right on the internet). I vowed Audiosurf would be the only game I got for it. Alas, it was a vow that was to be broken. There was another gaming mistress waiting for me there on the internet... not your World of Warcraft or your new fangled, dime a dozen (free-a-dozen) flash games, but something older, somthing much more special.

Her name is SCUMM, and I loved her before I knew her name.
What does a 5 year old know of engines/programming languages? All I knew was that there was a something beautiful placed upon a platter in front of me, and boy, did it glisten. Let's go back to that sentence. When I say “platter”, I really mean “computer running Windows 3.1”, and when I say “glisten”, I mean “blow my goddamn mind”. I downloaded ScummVM soon after I made my vow so that I could once again play my beloved adventure games. Lucas Arts Adventure Games were really the first games I ever got into. My cousin was more of a Sierra person. She played King's Quest and I respected that (no I didn't), but who wants to worry about dying when there are puzzles to be solved*? This was long before my household had the internet so we were very much on our own when it came to playing these games. If we got stuck, you better as hell believe we would move our character through every possible place using every item with everything until we found a way. I believe I was keener then, before reality TV would dull my mind and game guides would hand me forbidden secrets. I was very young, but I understood the wonderful feeling of achievement when Indiana Jones finally told me that he can use these things together (Kerosene and a wall carving).

So now I can play these games again; I can re-dig, The Dig, time travel in Day of the Tentacle and punch Nazi's in the face and steal their belongings...in real life. I'm content to play them on my laptop, but I long for something more. I have seen the future, and it is good. I'm of course talking about those tech savvy modders who are able to port these games onto the DS or Wii. I want that too. Why can't I have that? Is it because I can't figure out how to do it? Well, yeah that's precisely why, but I still want it. Luckily, Tell Tale Games games has decided to release Season 1 of their Sam & Max series on the Wii. I can literally point and click. Literally. It bothers me that it has taken even this long to utilize so obvious a function as POINT and CLICK. Are there not enough people longing to play Adventure games anymore?

There is nothing I want more than for new life to be breathed into the genre, and I remain extremely optimistic in light of a few games. The popular Homestar Runner web series, paired with Tell Tale released their venture into Episodic Adventures onto the computer and Wii Ware, and I trust it will do well. Tell Tale is really carrying the torch here, keeping it safe and dry away from the rising tide of apathy and the falling rain of indolence (Someone should kill me now). I give them snaps for supporting the genre, although I would love to see a whole game produced at once rather then this episode business. I end up just waiting until all of them are released at once. It takes about an hour for the gears to really start turning when I play an adventure game, and I would hate for the present adventure to be over before I really get to use them. I can't really complain though, they are making really top notch games. I must say though, I am very excited about Daedalic Entertainment's upcoming “The Whispered World”, which looks like its going to be gorgeous in the very least. They recently announced that they are looking to port the game on the Wii and DS, also promising a few more adventure games are in the works . This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like simultaneously hugging a puppy and a kitten while being fed a cupcake by a Cappucin monkey wearing a frilly dress.

It is my fondest wish that more and more people will want to play adventure games. There is something so charming about them, something that no other genre can replicate. Not only do they reward you with feelings of accomplishment, but they also offer you amazing stories that you more or less get to play out on your own. I used to wonder how much work went into writing all the possibilities on their dialog trees and responses. It's a whole lot. Those Lucas Arts adventure games were packed with so many witticisms it was mind boggling. We are all very fortunate that you can still find them floating around the internet and can still play them with help of ScummVM. Of course I've long since memorized what to do in every game, so I need some new challenges. I have yet to complete Beneath a Steel Sky, which is free on the ScummVM site (with voice acting! I turned it off because the robot Joey's condescending tone was getting to me). My adult mind fails to see the simple solutions a younger me would have been all over. The game is wonderful though, I would pay to play it if I had to. Other than that, I've been playing the (also free) games that famous game cynic Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw has created. They're worth a look for the price (free).


I'm going to close by telling you to go play a point-and-click adventure game. Go do it right now. I need people to be excited with. If its not your “thing” for whatever reason, at least play Professor Layton, or Braid. These will also make you feel like an intellectual giant, in different ways of course.

It's important to not give up when playing these games. Even if you really want to, don't. There is a solution. You're brain may begin to leak out of your ears as your stare at the screen, confused This is normal. Put it back in and try something else, ass.




*This is not to say playing King's Quest reminded you of your mortality, but rather that you could die in the game, which made it a lot less fun (for me at least). The ability to die wasn't included in majority of the Lucas Arts games, and if it was it didn't make you want to kill everybody. Okay, maybe it did a little.
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Hook Me Up With A Puzzle Piece, Son: A Braid Tale

I think the moment was when I was perched upon a chandelier, with only one horn left upon the beast’s head resembling a creature from the adult noir novella "Where the Wild Things Are." I cut the rope and took the mighty creature down knowing I was close to saving the princess, who was no doubt, achin’ for some firey man meat. I was only a few levels away from her, and I had to tap that ass while the getting was still good.

Jonathan Blow’s Braid was created by a star-infested threesome. Mario and the Prince of Persia were already tangled in a web of love and let’s just say Banjo arrived in the nick of time for the facial finale.

The main mechanics of this platformer are straight out of the first Super Mario titles. The jumping ginger truly wishes he was an overweight Italian stereotype with a mustache even Tom Selleck would envy. Braid even has its own take on the classic Goomba. In an impeccable comparison, Sir Evan Griffin so vividly describes their appearance as: “a disgruntled piece of cauliflower that won a Danny McBride look-a-like contest.” Hell, even at the end of the level it says: “Sorry, the princess is in another castle.”

The goal of the game is to collect puzzle pieces to complete portraits, which, in turn, unlocks the final stage where you save the princess. Most of the time, collect-a-thons resulted in me killing everyone’s first born, (permitting that there was no lamb blood on the door.) But Blow blew me the right way. A welcome change to the tradition of Nintendo 64 Rare titles like Jet Force Gemini, Donkey Kong 64, or any other fucking game that did not allow you to progress to the damn final boss of the game until countless hours are spent collecting every last fucking gizmo and gadget this side of go fuck yourself, In Braid, collecting is what’s fun about the game. Think of them more as stars from Mario 64 rather than those goddamn Jingos from Banjo-Kazooie. There are twelve pieces of the portraits in each level, but you can complete the tasks to get them in any order that you want. Surprisingly, the game’s progression reminds me of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The puzzles are similar in the way that there is usually a trick to them rather than the straightforward answer you think you see at first glance; where you are welcome to pass on most of the puzzles in the game and figure them out at a later time, a welcome change to the foreboding sodomy of Dr. Quandry.

The only downside to this structure is that you always leave the hardest puzzles for last. This is the same problem with many platformers. For instance, the last 2-4 hours of Super Mario Galaxy was essentially the equivalent of attempting a Rubik's cube with a lobotomy. At one point, I was at the last puzzle of stage 5 and I was literally staring confounded at the television for a half hour. I decided that haphazardly guessing and checking the solutions was the best course of action. However, this flaw came with its perks. When I finally completed this seemingly impossible task, it felt as if I had just found the lord and savior Jesus Christ, and he told me and only me, that I was his chosen child, a perfect being... or at least that’s what I imagine it would feel like. This game is another among the few and the proud that makes you “think with portals.”

What Portal accomplishes with the controls of the first person shooter; Braid accomplishes with the premise of a 2-D side-scrolling platformer. You play these games like no other. They teach you their basic rules and you push them to their limits. In Braid, each world has an individual set of rules that you need to follow. This keeps the game consistently fresh, unlike most of the overpriced $60 green packaged pieces of shit that have come out for the Xbox 360 this summer. It really starts Jonathan Blowing your mind (sorry, had to) when you get to world 4; all the creatures in the level respond in time with you. If you move forward, so do the enemies, even the music goes to your redheaded lad’s speed.

The only aspects that were disappointing within Braid were the boss variety and the length. There were only three bosses in this game, which is only a problem because the bosses are awesome. One of them you had to fight twice which is a bit of a lame cop-out and the other was more of a final level that felt like a legitimate boss fight. If every level had a boss that was as well designed as the others, this could have been my favorite game of the year. Secondly, I wish it had followed in Mario’s footsteps and had a total of eight worlds. I wanted a wee bit more from the lad. I was fine with the fact that I completed it within a day (I played it in two sittings), but it was so uniquely presented and illustrated it left me hankering for more. It was not quite like in Portal, where I felt the length was perfect, due to the manageable pace and level design, despite being short for conventional gaming standards.

In the final will and testament of my previously stated buffoonery, or if you are one of those shit eaters that only reads the first and last paragraph of an article and then posts as if they know what the fuck they are talking about, Braid was well worth the $15 (1200 points in Xbox annoying peso pounds). For those delinquents who think $15 is too much of mommy’s money for a live arcade game, go play your copies of Dark Sector and Turok, leading the industry to continuously regurgitate such “original” and “well designed” characters as Master Chief and Lara Croft, rather than investing in intriguing, innovative pieces like Portal and Braid.

Goddammit.
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The Shameless Art of Marketing Seduction: Part 1

Over the past couple years I’ve grown very fond of tech demos. I can’t recall why, but one day during my daily three hour long interweb trolling stint, I decided it would be a good idea to watch a demonstration of Boom Blox (at the time it was just called Blocks). Neil Young presided and spoke of Wii play dates between Steven Spielberg and Shigeru Miyamoto and how Spielberg’s next game, with all of its impactful images of dead birds and solemn characters wearing hoodies, will have an epic story and apparently bring tears to the collective dry eye of the gaming community. But the meat of the demo came when he showed off Blocks. With each Jenga skyscraper demolished and every “character” bombed (rectangular cows that waddle around absentmindedly apparently qualify for character status these days), he let out an artificial whimper of awe, even producing a guttural squeal (similar to what one might hear when veal is being made) during the collapse of a small, short-lived block city. Oh, anonymous block city… we hardly knew ye.

This video has kept me amused for some time, and now it will hopefully titillate all of you… if there really are any of you out there. I’ve made my own little trailer for Boom Blox. Check it out below.



A special thanks to Gametrailers for turning all of their videos into digital bouncers through code, and apparently Final Cut Pro is NOT on the list. I spent about 3 hours figuring out how to thwart this absurd safeguard. For anyone who also wants to figure out how to do this, all you have to do is download a video converter, I recommend Vilisoft, and convert it to something else so you can them import into FCP. AVI worked for me. So, you guys at Gametrailers own the work that other people put into making the presentation you filmed? You own the playthrough your shitty testers had with a game demo? I think basically what this comes down to is you own the super fuckin’ sweet, super fuckin’ loud, super fuckin’ obnoxious motion graphic at the beginning of all your videos, the hard drives that store the direct feed footage, or the cameras that filmed the demo. God forbid I should import one of your videos into an editing program for the sole purpose of vandalizing your sweetass motion graphic, like cleverly changing ‘Gametrailers’ to ‘GAYtrailers’. Who do you think I am?

The next video features MGS creator, Hideo Kojima speaking English. I have to warn you, it is rather disturbing. It’s not that I find this video funny because of Kojima’s broken English. It’s not like “look at the little, funny, elflike Japanese man trying to speak the only language that matters!” It’s his forced, manufactured inflection, overly exuberant and strangely reminiscent of Scooby-Doo. I’m not sure whether this was Mr. Kojima’s idea (possibly inspired by a Scooby-Doo episode he saw earlier that day) or if some Konami rep shot him full of uppers beforehand, but little did the rep know, his suppressed stomach acids made it possible for Kojima to swallow balloons filled with helium. As with most Kojima-related things, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt… but it’s becoming a weary, apprehensive habit by now. We may never know the answers to these questions, but they’re fun to ponder while watching.


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Shoot First, Have Children Later

I fondly recall frosty mornings in the winter of last year, getting up at 5 am, hopping in a friend's car and then driving off to the local "Everything -You- Could- Ever -Want" store to wait with three other schmucks in a dark parking lot for a Wii. My diligence and persistence were paid off with nothing, nothing, a claim ticket for a PS3, and finally a Wii. How joyful that day was. My whole family played a game of Wii Sports Bowling that night. "Look at us," I thought "Just like the commercial, minus the old people and multiculturalism". What a wonderful night that was. I believe it goes without saying that night would never be repeated. We would never get everyone together like that to play. My mother was not swayed by the Wii's cutsey allure and my father ... well actually my father loves it. Even after I grew tired of the spastic flailing, he continued to play at least one game of bowling a day. It would be cheating him to say he got better. He practiced and became great. The funny thing is he manage to boil down the movement needed to throw the ball into one quick wrist-flick, ignoring the full form throw idealized in the commercials. He did stand up whilst playing though, and that has got to count for something.

Wii Bowling was a breach of my father's normal gaming protocol. He has grown very fond of first person shooters and after he bowled a 300 game, he proclaimed "It was only going to go downhill from there" and took a hiatus. I convinced him to go in halves with me on an Xbox 360 a little down the line and he agreed after I showed him some trailers for upcoming FPS, mainly Bioshock. My Father is not the type of guy who cares about plot. He would opt to skip through cut-scenes in even the most emotional of stories and get to the killing. He is impatient and easily annoyed. He hated Portal purely based on GLaDOS' voice, getting up and leaving the room after Test Chamber 2. I don't expect to hear him start a conversation with me about a game unless it's to ask me what to do next. We have talked, albeit briefly about Half Life 2's virtues, but at the end of the day he would prefer games like Black. That's why his reaction to Bioshock came as a surprise to me. He, to this day has not defeated the final boss. This is not because he can't, but rather because he won't. He says it's because he doesn't care when you ask him, but I don't believe him. There was one time we were driving home and I asked him why he never finished, and he said in the most sincere tone I've heard, "You don't understand. I love Rapture." and I swear, it brought a tear to my eye.
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