“Rebecca!” you’ll cry across the football pitch. She’ll shuffle from side to side in her bear suit as if she doesn’t hear you but you won’t be fooled. You’ll push through the crowd of dozens watching semi-professional soccer towards what you understand is called a “pitch.” When you get to the end of the bleachers she won’t be able to pretend anymore.
Her antics will cease and the bear’s head will be trained on you, impassive, immeasurable. You’ll wish you were inside that bear head, scent of sweat and whiskey stinging your nose, just so you could know her expression. You’ll also kind of like the idea of having your face uncomfortably close to hers inside the costume. You’re not sure how big the costume is, but your loose grasp of physics has instilled in you a belief that love can make anything spatially possible.
“I love you!” you’ll shout down at her, just blurting out whatever’s on your mind as usual. She’ll remove the costume’s head and smile up at you, tears welling in her eyes. You’ve seen enough movies to know what to do at this point.
When you drop down and start running across the field the soccer fans will start cheering wildly. Not because they want to see a white dude in his late 20s “win” the girl he’s been wooing over, but because they think they’re going to see you get decked by police. But this is American semi-pro soccer, and there’s none of that here.
Instead the players will stop playing briefly and watch as the much more interesting spectacle of your romance unfolds. They’ll watch as you clear the field with more vitesse than any of them have mustered throughout the game.
As they watch you take her massive cartoon bear hands in your own they’ll wonder if the passion you bring to your romance is something they could apply to sport. As you lean in to kiss her they’ll cheer as loud as the crowd did when they thought you were going to get brutalized. They’ll have seen a heartfelt and remarkable performance.
Underneath their cheers you’ll lean your head in close to hers.
“I’m so sorry I erased Top Model from the Tivo. It’ll never happen again.”
You’ll look up into her beaming face as she sweeps you off your feet and takes you back to the women’s locker room where you’ll be disabused of many notions you had about both women’s locker rooms and sex therein.
Congratulations on Getting In Her Pants!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Game Night - Love In the Borderlands Part 2!
I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with the ammo shops in Borderlands. On the one hand, it’s nice to be able to conveniently buy ammo at bargain prices. On the other hand, there’s no “fill me up with this kind of ammo” option. Moreover, the cost of ammo makes purchasing it less a decision pertinent to resource management and more of an inconvenience you have to deal with every once in a while.
But what really gets my goat about ammo shops is that they demonstrate a serious problem with Borderland’s loot system – the ammo drops are erratic and all too often unhelpful. If the loot system in Borderlands functioned as one might expect there’d be no need for ammunition stores. Instead you’d receive plenty of ammo for the weapons you use. But no, the ground is littered with repeater rounds and shotgun shells, absurd heaps of them that no one has any room in their inventory for. In this post-Half Life 2 world responsive random loot systems aren’t an unreasonable expectation, especially in a game like Borderlands where you don’t want to be running back to the shops every five minutes.
Why, you might ask, would you not want to make these shop runs aside from the obvious inconvenience of moving across a huge map again and again? Because Borderlands tends to respawn its enemies fairly quickly. I suppose if it didn’t do so I’d complain about Borderlands seeming barren. After all, it is set in a desert and its inhabitants are jam packed with personality, but it can be problematic to run into hordes of screaming enemies on your way back to sell the loot from a particularly difficult fight.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The only redeeming quality of the ammo shops is the nice feeling of fullness they give you when they’ve let you fill up your personal stores to the brim. The ammo upgrades are nice, too, but the real appeal of ammo shops is that feeling that your hunger for bullets has been sated. That’s how I felt after I’d finished stocking up mid-quest. Like I was ready for anything.
As it turns out I was mostly right. After a little bit of yammering we moved back towards Moe’s last known location. This time I’m not the first one on the scene. Instead of seeing Moe and getting a good warning, I find out from Alex.
“Found him,” he says. “Mother fucker.”
I’m about to ask what’s wrong, but before I have the chance Alex runs into view, firing as he walks backwards like some sort of militant, less talented Michael Jackson. Bounding behind him is Moe, electricity crackling from his skin as he charges and shakes his head.
We don’t talk much at this point. Borderlands has taken its toll on our psyche, and we all know what we need to do. We pour ammunition into Moe’s gaping mouth. Each time he spits lightning or charges at us we briefly scatter, then reform and redouble our efforts to attack him. Before long he falls to the ground mid charge, showering me with loot. Alex and Dan rush up and we grab whatever we can. Well, I do at least.
“What the fuck Grove?” Alex interjects as I pick up a shiny new submachine gun, a vast improvement over my current one.
“What? I’m the SMG guy.”
“So you just take it?”
Alex has a good point. Loot in Borderlands varies from crucial to useless, and it depends entirely on the luck of the draw and your personal preferences. But showing each other gear and trading it is difficult. In fact the only way to do so is through the same methods the first Diablo used. You need to drop the item and then let your friend pick it up. Even if you just want to show a friend an item it has to leave your inventory.
This is the point where a nice person would apologize and then explain his case. Instead I shrugged and equipped the new gun.
“Whatever.”
“God you’re greedy.”
It’s a valid point, but greed pays in Borderlands. Why give your friends firearms if you could use them instead? After all, I’m the SMG guy. I should get the SMGs. I let him have most of the sniper rifles, except the ones I want to use or sell. I don’t get what he’s all bent out of shape about it. I decide to change the subject.
“Let’s just drop off the quest and decide what we want to do next.”
“Whatever.”
It’s hard to begrudge Dan his silence at times like this. If I’d followed his example the issue of the submachine gun would’ve fallen out of collective memory in a few seconds. What’s a single piece of loot in a game where you receive a new, potentially better, one every five minutes? But now the argument and my greed are the subject more than the gun itself. This is the power of multiplayer games – the ability to make seemingly trivial decisions about resource management into larger issues about social interactions emerging through play.
Our trip back to the bounty board, much like our trip from the ammo store to Moe, is filled with trash mobs. The snap at us and taunt us and die quickly and easily without giving us much in the way of reward. The loot we do find is largely worthless, and by now this is the fourth time we’ve passed through this area and fought these enemies. It’s unpleasant, it’s irritating, and it’s unnecessarily repetitive. The only upside is that it’s frustrating enough that it distracts Alex from my greed.
“Fuck. Why are they still here?” he asks. I hear the clink of glass as he takes another shot. I follow suit; I assume Dan already has.
“It’s the game,” I choke out through the whiskey’s burn. “It fucking hates us.”
“It’s annoying,” Dan says, putting a combat rifle round through the head of the same bandit bruiser we’ve killed three times already. If I were given a survey and asked about this I would check “strongly agree,” but we’ve become quite good at clearing out the bandit camp and the scags “hive” by this point so it doesn’t take us long to clear the last hurdle and rush back towards Fyrestone.
The return trip from the Arid Hills is much like the original trip. Dan leaps into the driver’s seat and takes us far past the entrance to Fyrestone, forcing me to leap from the moving vehicle and be launched several feet when he backs up over my legs and most of my torso. When I finally do get back to the bounty board I mash enter until there are no more green quests left on our docket.
“Let’s go into the cave next,” I suggest. Alex grumbles something that approximates a response while Dan continues to drive in circles outside town. It is decided, then.
I could describe the trip into the cave in detail, but it’s much the same as our adventure with Moe and Marley. We rush off to the diamond highlighted entrance to the cave. We enter. We kill several new enemies, and the interest they present rapidly gives way to boredom as we realize we’re going to be fighting identical copies in the same spot in five minutes when it’s time for us to leave this place. We fighting some creatures and take turns dying. I yell at Dan for failing at the simple task of resurrecting me while he’s taking fire from multiple bandits. We rescue a claptrap and get a little inventory boost. It’s a heartwarming celebration of a set of jobs very similar to the ones we just did.
By the time we’re finished I can’t disagree with Alex’s next sentiment.
“Fuck I’m sick of this game. Let’s go play Sins.”
“Let’s turn in the quests first.”
Alex sighs. “Fine.”
I couldn’t agree with him more, but I don’t like leaving quests half finished in this game, especially when we spend most of our time playing it as a group. Borderlands is pretty unforgiving in how it allows you to deal with the completion of scripted quests and I’d rather not take a chance.
But he’s right to be bored of the game by now, and I am too. Borderlands is repetitive. Really repetitive. It’s like Diablo with guns, plain and simple. You point your gun at enemies and fire down the sights until they go down. Sometimes you might change your tactics up but you’re going to be running into the same handful of enemy types for most of the game, again and again. There’s not a lot of variety when you come right down to it, and that can be frustrating.
So when the “host has left the game” message flashes across the screen I lose no time n leaving Borderlands behind and leaping in to Sins of a Solar Empire’s waiting arms. Because as fun and conceptually fascinating as Borderlands is, it’s taken in small doses, and we’ve certainly had enough of it for one night.
But what really gets my goat about ammo shops is that they demonstrate a serious problem with Borderland’s loot system – the ammo drops are erratic and all too often unhelpful. If the loot system in Borderlands functioned as one might expect there’d be no need for ammunition stores. Instead you’d receive plenty of ammo for the weapons you use. But no, the ground is littered with repeater rounds and shotgun shells, absurd heaps of them that no one has any room in their inventory for. In this post-Half Life 2 world responsive random loot systems aren’t an unreasonable expectation, especially in a game like Borderlands where you don’t want to be running back to the shops every five minutes.
Why, you might ask, would you not want to make these shop runs aside from the obvious inconvenience of moving across a huge map again and again? Because Borderlands tends to respawn its enemies fairly quickly. I suppose if it didn’t do so I’d complain about Borderlands seeming barren. After all, it is set in a desert and its inhabitants are jam packed with personality, but it can be problematic to run into hordes of screaming enemies on your way back to sell the loot from a particularly difficult fight.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The only redeeming quality of the ammo shops is the nice feeling of fullness they give you when they’ve let you fill up your personal stores to the brim. The ammo upgrades are nice, too, but the real appeal of ammo shops is that feeling that your hunger for bullets has been sated. That’s how I felt after I’d finished stocking up mid-quest. Like I was ready for anything.
As it turns out I was mostly right. After a little bit of yammering we moved back towards Moe’s last known location. This time I’m not the first one on the scene. Instead of seeing Moe and getting a good warning, I find out from Alex.
“Found him,” he says. “Mother fucker.”
I’m about to ask what’s wrong, but before I have the chance Alex runs into view, firing as he walks backwards like some sort of militant, less talented Michael Jackson. Bounding behind him is Moe, electricity crackling from his skin as he charges and shakes his head.
We don’t talk much at this point. Borderlands has taken its toll on our psyche, and we all know what we need to do. We pour ammunition into Moe’s gaping mouth. Each time he spits lightning or charges at us we briefly scatter, then reform and redouble our efforts to attack him. Before long he falls to the ground mid charge, showering me with loot. Alex and Dan rush up and we grab whatever we can. Well, I do at least.
“What the fuck Grove?” Alex interjects as I pick up a shiny new submachine gun, a vast improvement over my current one.
“What? I’m the SMG guy.”
“So you just take it?”
Alex has a good point. Loot in Borderlands varies from crucial to useless, and it depends entirely on the luck of the draw and your personal preferences. But showing each other gear and trading it is difficult. In fact the only way to do so is through the same methods the first Diablo used. You need to drop the item and then let your friend pick it up. Even if you just want to show a friend an item it has to leave your inventory.
This is the point where a nice person would apologize and then explain his case. Instead I shrugged and equipped the new gun.
“Whatever.”
“God you’re greedy.”
It’s a valid point, but greed pays in Borderlands. Why give your friends firearms if you could use them instead? After all, I’m the SMG guy. I should get the SMGs. I let him have most of the sniper rifles, except the ones I want to use or sell. I don’t get what he’s all bent out of shape about it. I decide to change the subject.
“Let’s just drop off the quest and decide what we want to do next.”
“Whatever.”
It’s hard to begrudge Dan his silence at times like this. If I’d followed his example the issue of the submachine gun would’ve fallen out of collective memory in a few seconds. What’s a single piece of loot in a game where you receive a new, potentially better, one every five minutes? But now the argument and my greed are the subject more than the gun itself. This is the power of multiplayer games – the ability to make seemingly trivial decisions about resource management into larger issues about social interactions emerging through play.
Our trip back to the bounty board, much like our trip from the ammo store to Moe, is filled with trash mobs. The snap at us and taunt us and die quickly and easily without giving us much in the way of reward. The loot we do find is largely worthless, and by now this is the fourth time we’ve passed through this area and fought these enemies. It’s unpleasant, it’s irritating, and it’s unnecessarily repetitive. The only upside is that it’s frustrating enough that it distracts Alex from my greed.
“Fuck. Why are they still here?” he asks. I hear the clink of glass as he takes another shot. I follow suit; I assume Dan already has.
“It’s the game,” I choke out through the whiskey’s burn. “It fucking hates us.”
“It’s annoying,” Dan says, putting a combat rifle round through the head of the same bandit bruiser we’ve killed three times already. If I were given a survey and asked about this I would check “strongly agree,” but we’ve become quite good at clearing out the bandit camp and the scags “hive” by this point so it doesn’t take us long to clear the last hurdle and rush back towards Fyrestone.
The return trip from the Arid Hills is much like the original trip. Dan leaps into the driver’s seat and takes us far past the entrance to Fyrestone, forcing me to leap from the moving vehicle and be launched several feet when he backs up over my legs and most of my torso. When I finally do get back to the bounty board I mash enter until there are no more green quests left on our docket.
“Let’s go into the cave next,” I suggest. Alex grumbles something that approximates a response while Dan continues to drive in circles outside town. It is decided, then.
I could describe the trip into the cave in detail, but it’s much the same as our adventure with Moe and Marley. We rush off to the diamond highlighted entrance to the cave. We enter. We kill several new enemies, and the interest they present rapidly gives way to boredom as we realize we’re going to be fighting identical copies in the same spot in five minutes when it’s time for us to leave this place. We fighting some creatures and take turns dying. I yell at Dan for failing at the simple task of resurrecting me while he’s taking fire from multiple bandits. We rescue a claptrap and get a little inventory boost. It’s a heartwarming celebration of a set of jobs very similar to the ones we just did.
By the time we’re finished I can’t disagree with Alex’s next sentiment.
“Fuck I’m sick of this game. Let’s go play Sins.”
“Let’s turn in the quests first.”
Alex sighs. “Fine.”
I couldn’t agree with him more, but I don’t like leaving quests half finished in this game, especially when we spend most of our time playing it as a group. Borderlands is pretty unforgiving in how it allows you to deal with the completion of scripted quests and I’d rather not take a chance.
But he’s right to be bored of the game by now, and I am too. Borderlands is repetitive. Really repetitive. It’s like Diablo with guns, plain and simple. You point your gun at enemies and fire down the sights until they go down. Sometimes you might change your tactics up but you’re going to be running into the same handful of enemy types for most of the game, again and again. There’s not a lot of variety when you come right down to it, and that can be frustrating.
So when the “host has left the game” message flashes across the screen I lose no time n leaving Borderlands behind and leaping in to Sins of a Solar Empire’s waiting arms. Because as fun and conceptually fascinating as Borderlands is, it’s taken in small doses, and we’ve certainly had enough of it for one night.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Congratulations on Being Elected Mayor!
The last head will come off like the first, the shovel singing through the air and finding little resistance. You’ll have gotten good at sharpening it by now.
When you realize your work is over you’ll take a swig from your flask and let loose a long sigh. It’ll have been quite the month in Tillotson Mill. You’re not sure what you hate more, the vampires or the locals, but you’ve learned a lot about both of them, and a little about yourself.
Turns out you can survive without drinking for a while, but that you’ll do almost anything for the chance to do it again. Also it turns out that you’ll kill a man to keep him from telling anyone that you sucked his dick for a fifth of bourbon. Also, you’re a violent sociopath who has no sense of the value of life.
None of this was too surprising, but being forced to confront it has made you a better person. And so when you emerge from that last basement covered in blood and ichor and the cheers of the townspeople greet you you’ll nod your affirmation instead of telling them to fuck off.
You’ll find a radio and let your captain know that the situation has been resolved and he’ll tell you you’re fired because you’ve missed all your shifts for the last month and “fighting vampires” is not a legitimate excuse for that sort of shenanigans. So you’ll be stuck in Tillotson Mill, surrounded by people you can’t stand with a massive moral burden to carry.
So when they ask you to become their new mayor, the old mayor having perished in the previous episode of Sexy Results, you’ll graciously accept and settle in to a brief economically disastrous, alcoholically blurry reign as mayor of the shittiest little burg in Vermont.
Congratulations on Being Elected Mayor!
When you realize your work is over you’ll take a swig from your flask and let loose a long sigh. It’ll have been quite the month in Tillotson Mill. You’re not sure what you hate more, the vampires or the locals, but you’ve learned a lot about both of them, and a little about yourself.
Turns out you can survive without drinking for a while, but that you’ll do almost anything for the chance to do it again. Also it turns out that you’ll kill a man to keep him from telling anyone that you sucked his dick for a fifth of bourbon. Also, you’re a violent sociopath who has no sense of the value of life.
None of this was too surprising, but being forced to confront it has made you a better person. And so when you emerge from that last basement covered in blood and ichor and the cheers of the townspeople greet you you’ll nod your affirmation instead of telling them to fuck off.
You’ll find a radio and let your captain know that the situation has been resolved and he’ll tell you you’re fired because you’ve missed all your shifts for the last month and “fighting vampires” is not a legitimate excuse for that sort of shenanigans. So you’ll be stuck in Tillotson Mill, surrounded by people you can’t stand with a massive moral burden to carry.
So when they ask you to become their new mayor, the old mayor having perished in the previous episode of Sexy Results, you’ll graciously accept and settle in to a brief economically disastrous, alcoholically blurry reign as mayor of the shittiest little burg in Vermont.
Congratulations on Being Elected Mayor!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Congratulations on Surviving the Onslaught!
On the first night only one vampire will come. You’ll dispatch him easily by shooting him in the head and destroying his brain, a feat accomplished mostly because you sleep with a loaded gun under your pillow, safety off so there’s a faint hope it might go off and end your miserable existence.
Most people would assume that’s that. Just another failed B & E involving a meth head and a cop with nothing left to lose. But you saw 30 Days of Night. You know better. You’ll head out to your cruiser and take your shotgun and the excessive amount of ammo you decided to bring with you and stockpile it in the your motel bathtub. Then you’ll assemble a small, diverse group of potential survivors using your authority as a police officer and do your best to keep them alive.
Everybody who’s anybody will be there. The mayor, the hottest co-ed in town, the sluttiest co-ed in town and several other people. One of them probably knows about computers, which probably won’t help but could be handy, so you’ll keep him around just in case.
They’ll start to get picked off one by one as they leave your motel room to respond to poorly faked cries for help and smoke cigarettes. That’s how the geology professor will go (altruism doesn’t pay) and how the hottest co-ed will go (smoking doesn’t make you cool). Then the vampires will give you a break for around an hour or so before they assault your room.
You’ll use the shotgun and various household objects to reasonable effect, but body shots won’t do anything and you’ll be low on ammo after less than an hour. Even after you turn away the first attack you’ll have lost a lot of okay people. The mayor and his dog will both be gone, along with the computer guy and the Russian bride.
Only the football coach, the crazy old man and the sluttiest co-ed will be left. But as it turns out the sluttiest co-ed will also be the smartest co-ed (she’s got a scholarship) and she’ll know enough vampire folklore to tell you how to kill every last one of those fuckers.
She’ll hand out some shovels that were just laying around the room for some reason (maybe the mayor really liked digging?) and inform all of you that a combination of blunt trauma and decapitation are your best weapons against the undead.
She’ll be totally right, but the final wave will take its toll. The coach and the crazy old man will both die while shouting crazy shit, and you and the co-ed will survive. The two of you will have victory sex and then sleep in a little bit. But it won’t be long before the booze pangs take over and you leave the comfort of her embrace to find some more liquor and take the fight to the vampires, wherever they are within the city limits of Tillotson Mill.
Congratulations on Surviving the Onslaught!
Most people would assume that’s that. Just another failed B & E involving a meth head and a cop with nothing left to lose. But you saw 30 Days of Night. You know better. You’ll head out to your cruiser and take your shotgun and the excessive amount of ammo you decided to bring with you and stockpile it in the your motel bathtub. Then you’ll assemble a small, diverse group of potential survivors using your authority as a police officer and do your best to keep them alive.
Everybody who’s anybody will be there. The mayor, the hottest co-ed in town, the sluttiest co-ed in town and several other people. One of them probably knows about computers, which probably won’t help but could be handy, so you’ll keep him around just in case.
They’ll start to get picked off one by one as they leave your motel room to respond to poorly faked cries for help and smoke cigarettes. That’s how the geology professor will go (altruism doesn’t pay) and how the hottest co-ed will go (smoking doesn’t make you cool). Then the vampires will give you a break for around an hour or so before they assault your room.
You’ll use the shotgun and various household objects to reasonable effect, but body shots won’t do anything and you’ll be low on ammo after less than an hour. Even after you turn away the first attack you’ll have lost a lot of okay people. The mayor and his dog will both be gone, along with the computer guy and the Russian bride.
Only the football coach, the crazy old man and the sluttiest co-ed will be left. But as it turns out the sluttiest co-ed will also be the smartest co-ed (she’s got a scholarship) and she’ll know enough vampire folklore to tell you how to kill every last one of those fuckers.
She’ll hand out some shovels that were just laying around the room for some reason (maybe the mayor really liked digging?) and inform all of you that a combination of blunt trauma and decapitation are your best weapons against the undead.
She’ll be totally right, but the final wave will take its toll. The coach and the crazy old man will both die while shouting crazy shit, and you and the co-ed will survive. The two of you will have victory sex and then sleep in a little bit. But it won’t be long before the booze pangs take over and you leave the comfort of her embrace to find some more liquor and take the fight to the vampires, wherever they are within the city limits of Tillotson Mill.
Congratulations on Surviving the Onslaught!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Congratulations on Eliminating Two of the Suspects!
You’re not a very good cop. You drink a lot, dislike people and pretty much just took the job so you could have a firearm. If you were in any state other than Vermont you wouldn’t be a state trooper. You wouldn’t have a job, period, actually. But right now you’re a small Vermont town’s only hope.
Five of the five police officers in Tillotson Mill have been murder over the course of the last week, and thanks to the town’s relative unimportance you’re the only person who has been sent to solve the cime. Your superiors think that its probably a small smuggling ring, nothing that you can’t take care of with your violent type A personality, a little gumption and a total lack of oversight giving you carte blanche to kill members of Tillotson Mill’s incredibly small unsavory element.
When you come to town you’ll shoot your lead suspect in the face within seconds of apprehending him in order to both eliminate him as a potential and show the townspeople you mean business. Then you’ll set to asking questions.
Turns out some of the uneducated hicks who call Tillotson Mill have also gone missing recently. And several of the weed smugglers, upon whom the town relies for a full third of their income (the rest accounted for by a combination of surliness and beards) have been found drained of all blood.
You’ll track down the last remaining smuggler and kill him amidst the townspeople’s protests, hoping that’ll stop the murders. But after only one night in the town’s only motel you’ll be awoken by the cries of townspeople. They’ll have found Old Man McGullicutty, the town’s oldest citizen at the age of 37, murdered in his bed. The crime scene will be quite grisly, but there won’t be any clues as to “who-done-it.”
When you ask around you’ll discover that thanks in part to your efforts the entire criminal element of Tillotson Mill has been eliminated. That means you have no more suspects and nothing to do except wait for more clues to come your way, which will happen tonight when vampires attack your motel room.
Congratulations on Eliminating Two of the Suspects!
Five of the five police officers in Tillotson Mill have been murder over the course of the last week, and thanks to the town’s relative unimportance you’re the only person who has been sent to solve the cime. Your superiors think that its probably a small smuggling ring, nothing that you can’t take care of with your violent type A personality, a little gumption and a total lack of oversight giving you carte blanche to kill members of Tillotson Mill’s incredibly small unsavory element.
When you come to town you’ll shoot your lead suspect in the face within seconds of apprehending him in order to both eliminate him as a potential and show the townspeople you mean business. Then you’ll set to asking questions.
Turns out some of the uneducated hicks who call Tillotson Mill have also gone missing recently. And several of the weed smugglers, upon whom the town relies for a full third of their income (the rest accounted for by a combination of surliness and beards) have been found drained of all blood.
You’ll track down the last remaining smuggler and kill him amidst the townspeople’s protests, hoping that’ll stop the murders. But after only one night in the town’s only motel you’ll be awoken by the cries of townspeople. They’ll have found Old Man McGullicutty, the town’s oldest citizen at the age of 37, murdered in his bed. The crime scene will be quite grisly, but there won’t be any clues as to “who-done-it.”
When you ask around you’ll discover that thanks in part to your efforts the entire criminal element of Tillotson Mill has been eliminated. That means you have no more suspects and nothing to do except wait for more clues to come your way, which will happen tonight when vampires attack your motel room.
Congratulations on Eliminating Two of the Suspects!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Congratulations on Attending an Anime Convention!
You lack any serious social disorders. You read books. You watch mass released, domestically produced films. You even date real people who exist in a medium other than celluloid or, more recently, digital video. As such it’s no surprise that you’ve never attended an anime con.
Anime cons are cultural exchanges where people without social skills come together in order to further alienate themselves for society at large. There’s no reason for you to actually visit one on your own, but lately you’ve been dating an adorable girl with blue hair who grew up on Japanese animation and Japanese culture and you’ve been convinced to attend one of these conferences as a caveat to her. We’d tell you not to but she’s astoundingly hot. You’d be a fool not to meet her halfway on this one.
The moment the two of you show up you’ll be mobbed by asocial fucktardss who have dreamed of one day seeing a girl like her in the real world and have never heard of the city of Portland. You’ll suddenly realize just why she wanted to bring you here: to make sure you knew just how lucky you were to have her and how fast she could dump you for any number of men who have no idea of how to satisfy her.
She’ll also be basking in the attention, which is nice to see because it means you’ll get a little time away from her needy ass.
You’ll wander around the convention hall, taking in the various be-costumed freaks attending the show. Every once in a while you’ll see a girl, much like your girlfriend, with heavily dyed hair and an outfit which seems just a little bit off, but suggestive enough that no one would complain about it being inappropriate, but for the most part it’ll be dudes with skin problems shuffling around, some in costumes, some in t-shirts, staring at said women.
After around forty minutes of this shit you’ll stumble outside, desperate for interaction with a human being who can talk about something other than “Naruto” and you’ll find a small collection of similar looking men to yourself who are gathered in a circle, smoking and complaining that their girlfriends dragged them here.
You’ll shuffle up to them and immediately be offered a light by a man with graying hair.
“First time?” he’ll ask. You’ll nod.
“Get used to it,” he’ll say, snapping his Zippo closed after lighting your cigarette. It will be engraved with a strange looking wolf-boy with a shock of white hair. You’ll know where he got it right away.
“How long have you been here?” you’ll ask after taking a deep, cleansing breath of nicotine and toxins, killing off whatever foulness dwelled within your lungs from the air in that place.
“Too long,” he’ll say, holding up a wedding ring. Several other men in the circle will nod to one another, harumphing, but a few will just stand silent, fearing the fate that has come upon these men. You’ll be curious, though.
“Have you ever asked if it’s alright for you to stay at home during these little outings?” The man will look shocked.
“Are you kidding? My wife would probably leave me in a heartbeat for one of those losers inside.” Most of the rest of the crowd will nod and harumph some more in agreement, but one young man will step forward and speak.
“What if we’re the real losers here? We lose a weekend a month doing something we hate because we don’t trust our astoundingly hot girlfriends around some of the most non-threatening men in the world. What does that say about us?”
The circle will sit quiet for a moment as you all smoke your cigarettes. Then, one by one, they’ll each crush their smokes out and head back inside to find their significant others and make sure they haven’t been gangbanged by Love Hina fans yet.
Congratulations on Attending an Anime Convention!
Anime cons are cultural exchanges where people without social skills come together in order to further alienate themselves for society at large. There’s no reason for you to actually visit one on your own, but lately you’ve been dating an adorable girl with blue hair who grew up on Japanese animation and Japanese culture and you’ve been convinced to attend one of these conferences as a caveat to her. We’d tell you not to but she’s astoundingly hot. You’d be a fool not to meet her halfway on this one.
The moment the two of you show up you’ll be mobbed by asocial fucktardss who have dreamed of one day seeing a girl like her in the real world and have never heard of the city of Portland. You’ll suddenly realize just why she wanted to bring you here: to make sure you knew just how lucky you were to have her and how fast she could dump you for any number of men who have no idea of how to satisfy her.
She’ll also be basking in the attention, which is nice to see because it means you’ll get a little time away from her needy ass.
You’ll wander around the convention hall, taking in the various be-costumed freaks attending the show. Every once in a while you’ll see a girl, much like your girlfriend, with heavily dyed hair and an outfit which seems just a little bit off, but suggestive enough that no one would complain about it being inappropriate, but for the most part it’ll be dudes with skin problems shuffling around, some in costumes, some in t-shirts, staring at said women.
After around forty minutes of this shit you’ll stumble outside, desperate for interaction with a human being who can talk about something other than “Naruto” and you’ll find a small collection of similar looking men to yourself who are gathered in a circle, smoking and complaining that their girlfriends dragged them here.
You’ll shuffle up to them and immediately be offered a light by a man with graying hair.
“First time?” he’ll ask. You’ll nod.
“Get used to it,” he’ll say, snapping his Zippo closed after lighting your cigarette. It will be engraved with a strange looking wolf-boy with a shock of white hair. You’ll know where he got it right away.
“How long have you been here?” you’ll ask after taking a deep, cleansing breath of nicotine and toxins, killing off whatever foulness dwelled within your lungs from the air in that place.
“Too long,” he’ll say, holding up a wedding ring. Several other men in the circle will nod to one another, harumphing, but a few will just stand silent, fearing the fate that has come upon these men. You’ll be curious, though.
“Have you ever asked if it’s alright for you to stay at home during these little outings?” The man will look shocked.
“Are you kidding? My wife would probably leave me in a heartbeat for one of those losers inside.” Most of the rest of the crowd will nod and harumph some more in agreement, but one young man will step forward and speak.
“What if we’re the real losers here? We lose a weekend a month doing something we hate because we don’t trust our astoundingly hot girlfriends around some of the most non-threatening men in the world. What does that say about us?”
The circle will sit quiet for a moment as you all smoke your cigarettes. Then, one by one, they’ll each crush their smokes out and head back inside to find their significant others and make sure they haven’t been gangbanged by Love Hina fans yet.
Congratulations on Attending an Anime Convention!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Congratulations on Looking Fine!
You’re going to roll out of bed this morning looking way better than usual. It’s going to be pretty clear to you when your wife, who you haven’t slept with in months, jumps on you and pins you and your dick to the bed, barely pausing to ram a phone into your hand to call in late to work. She won’t even stifle her grunts of passion while you’re talking to your supervisor.
When she finally lets you out of the house, after she’s rendered herself incapable of movement for a while, it’ll be like one of those Axe body spray commercials. Heterosexual women and gay men will mob you like mad. Watch out, though. Homosexual women and straight men will want to punch you right in the jaw. Exceptions may exist for str8 men.
Congratulations on Looking Fine!
When she finally lets you out of the house, after she’s rendered herself incapable of movement for a while, it’ll be like one of those Axe body spray commercials. Heterosexual women and gay men will mob you like mad. Watch out, though. Homosexual women and straight men will want to punch you right in the jaw. Exceptions may exist for str8 men.
Congratulations on Looking Fine!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Congratulations on Renewing Our Faith In the Stock Market!
You’re an investment banker. Not a big one. God no, you’re about as small as they get. You help elderly people invest their stocks and bonds so they can purchase candy for their grandparents. You’d be absolutely adorable if not for your super secret leather fetish.
After today, however, that fetish is no longer going to be your defining characteristic. Tomorrow you’re going to reaffirm the faith of the American public in the stock market.
You’ll do so by explaining it in a down to earth, folksey manner, using lots of stories about crawfish and pollywogs where you give woodland creatures human personalities and mannerisms and let them loose on the psyche of the American public for their betterment.
People will immediately think that not all investment bankers are sons of bitches. President Obama will shake your hand at a photo opportunity, and Sarah Palin will refer to you like you’re the second coming of christ whenever anyone lets her open her retarded fucking mouth. Chris Mathews will even lower his voice when speaking your name.
You’ll be a hero for a month.
That is, until your fetish comes to light and you become the single biggest pariah in the United States. Until then Congratulations on Renewing Our Faith in the Stock Market!
After today, however, that fetish is no longer going to be your defining characteristic. Tomorrow you’re going to reaffirm the faith of the American public in the stock market.
You’ll do so by explaining it in a down to earth, folksey manner, using lots of stories about crawfish and pollywogs where you give woodland creatures human personalities and mannerisms and let them loose on the psyche of the American public for their betterment.
People will immediately think that not all investment bankers are sons of bitches. President Obama will shake your hand at a photo opportunity, and Sarah Palin will refer to you like you’re the second coming of christ whenever anyone lets her open her retarded fucking mouth. Chris Mathews will even lower his voice when speaking your name.
You’ll be a hero for a month.
That is, until your fetish comes to light and you become the single biggest pariah in the United States. Until then Congratulations on Renewing Our Faith in the Stock Market!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Game Night - Love In the Borderlands!
It’s Wednesday night. That means one thing, and one thing only. Guys Night In. I boot up Skype and open my bottle of Seagrams VO. A quarter of it remains from our previous week’s “outing,” a battered soldier bravely awaiting his fate. Skype is similarly barren – Alex hasn’t arrived yet. Only Dan’s name is decorated with a green circle, announcing his presence. I tap the call button and listen to Skype's skull-splitting ring for only a few seconds before cancelling the call in frustration and booting up Dragon Age.
But lo and behold, I haven’t taken a single sip of Seagrams before Dan’s call cuts through the din of Alistair’s witticism and the screams of Logain’s men. I alt tab, grimacing at the wait I’ve set myself up for, and pick up.
“Hey,” I say. He’s silent. My microphone, a damaged $10 mic/headset combination from Best Buy, tends to fail, so I'm a bit worried. “You there?” I ask, urgently. After a few moments Dan’s laconic voice sounds off.
“Yeah,” he replies. He sounds distracted, but that’s not unusual for Dan. If he was enthusiastic and focused I’d be worried. That would mean he’s been drinking for a while now.
“Cool,” I respond, tabbing back into Ferelden. I take another sip and we settle in to our mutual games of Dragon Age, waiting for Alex to arrive. The conversation is scintilating.
“How far are you now?”
“I just got Shale.”
“Oh.”
It seems an hour passes this way before Dan drops out of the call without explanation. I tab to check his status, but nothing has changed. Shrugging, I tab back in to Dragon Age and carry on. Less than a minute passes before Skype’s telltale squawk infoms me that I am being contacted for a conference call by Alex. Sighing, I tab out and accept.
“Yo.”
Alex, as always, is in a hurry. “What’s up?”
I shrug. “Playing Dragon Age.”
“What? Why?” He’s upset. Bordering on hurt.
“Waiting for you.”
“Well, quit already. Let’s get started.”
Sighing, I navigate through the four menus which Dragon Age has decided to build their game around in lieu of a “quit to desktop” button from days of yore. When I arrive at Skype’s menu again Alex and Dan haven’t said much.
“I’m out. What are we playing?”
“I don’t know,” Alex verbally shrugs.
“What would you like to play?” Dan asks. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or genuine. His voice doesn't modulate; it could go either way.
“Borderlands?”
“’Kay.”
We endure the unskippable cavalcade of splash screens proceeding Borderlands together, and I find myself wondering why skippable splash screens went the way of the “quit to desktop” button. Don’t these people realize we’re in a hurry?
After a brief debate about who gets to host, a lengthier session where Alex and Dan race to reset port exceptions, watching Claptrap run through all of his amusing animations at least a dozen times and discussing playing something else, someone finally hosts a working game and we jump through the portal of blue light into the blasted deserts of Pandora. We’re long past the awkward “getting to know you” bus ride now, 14 whole levels into the game. There are some tricks we haven’t learned yet, but not many.
“Your character is hot.” Alex’s character is jumping up and down next to mine, squatting to take in all of my cel-shaded glory. I chose the Siren to balance out the party tactically and aesthetically. I know, I should've seen it coming.
“Thanks. That’s a little gay though. Just FYI.”
“Whatever. You’re the one who picked the girl, homo. What quest do you want to do?” Alex asks. Because of Borderland’s host-centric multiplayer he has to select the quest that will be highlighted on all of our screens. Since I’ve played the game much farther than either of them on my own my opinion on which quest to follow holds a decent amount of weight.
“Let’s build the sniper rifle.”
“Alright.”
I hear some frustrated breathing, then the diamond indicating the location of our next objective shifts position. Alex and I take off running for the go-kart creation-station, hoping to avert disaster, but we’re too late. Dan gets there first, and before the lunar rover has finished materializing he’s already sitting in the driver’s seat and I’m cursing our luck. Motherfucker, I mutter, in my head because the microphone is right next to my mouth and he’d totally hear it.
I sigh and climb in the turret. As bad as Dan is at driving, it’ll still be faster than walking.
“Alriiight!” he coos. I can tell he’s a little bit ahead of me, drinking-wise, because he sounds excited. We speed off and get around twenty feet before he slams into a telephone pole, literally the only item in the vast desert surrounding us. At first I think he’s just being a dick, but his voice returns. “Oops. I think they changed the driving system. A and D aren’t doing anything. It’s just following the mouse.”
They haven’t, but Borderlands driving is frustratingly clunky. I'd say it's worse than anything else I’ve ever played, including Halo, in terms of how the driving controls. Manipulating that car is an art unto itself. “They haven’t,” I tell him. “But the system sucks, so no worries.” I’m trying to be encouraging tonight.
After a few more crashes and an “incident” where I am almost gang raped by scags we arrive at the zone entrance for the Arid Hills.
We breeze through the bandits protecting the various bits of the sniper rifle. From previous experiences I know exactly where the harder to find pieces are, and I leap about with wild abandon grabbing them off rooftops, falling short distances and grabbing whatever items I find on the ground. This is the way of Borderlands – it’s all about taking whatever you can as quickly as you can. Before long we’re surrounded by bandit corpses and we’ve got all the little odds and ends that make up the sniper rifle in our invisible backpacks.
“What now?” Alex asks. I can tell he sort of wants to turn in the sniper rifle quest and get his new Hunter toy, but I also know he wants to get as much done here as he can before we turn in the quest. Backtracking in this game is infuriating, to say the least.
“Marley and Moe. It should be in this area.”
“No it’s... Oh.” Alex flips the switch and suddenly we’re off, hunting down a loveable pair of scags with the ammo we have left over from our brave bandit assault. I burn through it on these nights much faster than I do in single player, by merit of being a lot less accurate than I usually am. It’s part lag and part character. My sniper rifle rounds fall far afield with the Siren, and even my submachine gun rounds don’t seem to go where I want them to. It’s a very different experience, but I’ve found ways to compensate for my ammo dependence.
When we finally reach Marley and Moe it’s immediately apparent that this is a tougher quest than the sniper rifle. We take down some of the outlying scags without issues, but when I spot Marley and fire I immediately realize my mistake in suggesting this quest. The round visibly bounces off his thick carapace. A mocking “12” pops up over his head, the game’s way of letting me know just how great I am at using a sniper rifle.
“Uh oh,” I say, taking another swig off my bottle.
“What?” Alex asks. He knows I don’t rattle easily. In a video game context, I mean.
“I woke up the baby.”
Marley charges at me as Dan and Alex pour bullets into him. He doesn’t even seem to notice. I pop a few melee attacks off at him and do a quick phase step, but it doesn’t really work. He bats me around like a paper doll and hurls me off of a fairly short cliff.
“Fuck,” I say. “He’s tougher than I remember.”
Dan and Alex don’t respond. They’re distracted, pouring ammo into Marley as he beelines for me. I try to make his trip shorter, hopping up to the clifftop fast as I can. I do my best to kite Marley, but he’s a lot faster than me, and he doesn’t have to contend with lag. In a few seconds I’m on the ground, being mauled by a dog with a serious skin condition.
“RES ME! RES ME!” I shout.
Alex and Dan are busy knocking hit points off of Marley with limited success. I hear Alex laughing.
“It totally looks like he’s raping you, dude.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, it does,” Dan chimes in. I sigh and keep tapping v, hoping to slow him down a little with my daze effect before I respawn.
The blue tunnel takes me into its arms like an old lover, guiding me back to the respawn point at the base of the cliff. It takes me a second to run back up there, and I immediately wonder why I came back. I cycle through my empty weapons and watch, biting my lip, as Marley breaks through the turret and savages Dan’s Soldier.
“Ow,” Dan interjects. I imagine he’s taking a shot now, watching Marley’s gaping maw roar in his face. I pop what little ammo I have left and switch my disastrously inaccurate shotgun, which happens to do massive damage whenever it hits. I fire it wildly, hoping to whittle down Marley’s remaining hit points, but before long even my shotgun is running low on ammo.
Dan, respawned, is on his way back up and Alex and I are kiting Marley around the rocks near the side of the cliff. I bite my lip and press f, charging towards Marley. I exit phase step right next to the beast and let loose a flurry of melee attacks. It isn’t long before Marley turns his attention on me, but my daze effect has slowed him down enough that I can effectively kite him now. Alex and Dan both still have enough ammo that they can damage him at range and as I dart in and out as Marley’s attention shifts between us the last few millimeters of his health tick off infinitesimally. When he finally dies I’m not sure who got the final blow, but I’m confident it wasn’t me.
“Let’s go get ammo,” Alex suggests. No one argues, although Dan does ignore him and continue fighting bandits in the surrounding area while Alex and I run as fast as we can to the zone entrance, where we can restock ammo. I watch Dan’s health dwindle, then refill as he respawns. Meanwhile Alex yells at us to help, having restocked his ammo and rushed back into battle before Dan and I have had a chance to sell our trash.
“It’s fucking Moe! Help!” He sounds pretty upset, so I rush over to resurrect him with half a load of SMG ammo. The scag, who he thought was Moe, was just a badass corrosive scag. Child’s play for me, my newly refilled SMG and my dazing melee attacks. Once Alex has been saved and the pipe leading to the ammo shops is secured I go back and finish my with purchases, ignoring Alex’s cries to press forward. After Dan’s done the same we grit our teeth and return to the hunting grounds. The quest is only half over.
Next week: Moe in the Desert of Good and Evil.
But lo and behold, I haven’t taken a single sip of Seagrams before Dan’s call cuts through the din of Alistair’s witticism and the screams of Logain’s men. I alt tab, grimacing at the wait I’ve set myself up for, and pick up.
“Hey,” I say. He’s silent. My microphone, a damaged $10 mic/headset combination from Best Buy, tends to fail, so I'm a bit worried. “You there?” I ask, urgently. After a few moments Dan’s laconic voice sounds off.
“Yeah,” he replies. He sounds distracted, but that’s not unusual for Dan. If he was enthusiastic and focused I’d be worried. That would mean he’s been drinking for a while now.
“Cool,” I respond, tabbing back into Ferelden. I take another sip and we settle in to our mutual games of Dragon Age, waiting for Alex to arrive. The conversation is scintilating.
“How far are you now?”
“I just got Shale.”
“Oh.”
It seems an hour passes this way before Dan drops out of the call without explanation. I tab to check his status, but nothing has changed. Shrugging, I tab back in to Dragon Age and carry on. Less than a minute passes before Skype’s telltale squawk infoms me that I am being contacted for a conference call by Alex. Sighing, I tab out and accept.
“Yo.”
Alex, as always, is in a hurry. “What’s up?”
I shrug. “Playing Dragon Age.”
“What? Why?” He’s upset. Bordering on hurt.
“Waiting for you.”
“Well, quit already. Let’s get started.”
Sighing, I navigate through the four menus which Dragon Age has decided to build their game around in lieu of a “quit to desktop” button from days of yore. When I arrive at Skype’s menu again Alex and Dan haven’t said much.
“I’m out. What are we playing?”
“I don’t know,” Alex verbally shrugs.
“What would you like to play?” Dan asks. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or genuine. His voice doesn't modulate; it could go either way.
“Borderlands?”
“’Kay.”
We endure the unskippable cavalcade of splash screens proceeding Borderlands together, and I find myself wondering why skippable splash screens went the way of the “quit to desktop” button. Don’t these people realize we’re in a hurry?
After a brief debate about who gets to host, a lengthier session where Alex and Dan race to reset port exceptions, watching Claptrap run through all of his amusing animations at least a dozen times and discussing playing something else, someone finally hosts a working game and we jump through the portal of blue light into the blasted deserts of Pandora. We’re long past the awkward “getting to know you” bus ride now, 14 whole levels into the game. There are some tricks we haven’t learned yet, but not many.
“Your character is hot.” Alex’s character is jumping up and down next to mine, squatting to take in all of my cel-shaded glory. I chose the Siren to balance out the party tactically and aesthetically. I know, I should've seen it coming.
“Thanks. That’s a little gay though. Just FYI.”
“Whatever. You’re the one who picked the girl, homo. What quest do you want to do?” Alex asks. Because of Borderland’s host-centric multiplayer he has to select the quest that will be highlighted on all of our screens. Since I’ve played the game much farther than either of them on my own my opinion on which quest to follow holds a decent amount of weight.
“Let’s build the sniper rifle.”
“Alright.”
I hear some frustrated breathing, then the diamond indicating the location of our next objective shifts position. Alex and I take off running for the go-kart creation-station, hoping to avert disaster, but we’re too late. Dan gets there first, and before the lunar rover has finished materializing he’s already sitting in the driver’s seat and I’m cursing our luck. Motherfucker, I mutter, in my head because the microphone is right next to my mouth and he’d totally hear it.
I sigh and climb in the turret. As bad as Dan is at driving, it’ll still be faster than walking.
“Alriiight!” he coos. I can tell he’s a little bit ahead of me, drinking-wise, because he sounds excited. We speed off and get around twenty feet before he slams into a telephone pole, literally the only item in the vast desert surrounding us. At first I think he’s just being a dick, but his voice returns. “Oops. I think they changed the driving system. A and D aren’t doing anything. It’s just following the mouse.”
They haven’t, but Borderlands driving is frustratingly clunky. I'd say it's worse than anything else I’ve ever played, including Halo, in terms of how the driving controls. Manipulating that car is an art unto itself. “They haven’t,” I tell him. “But the system sucks, so no worries.” I’m trying to be encouraging tonight.
After a few more crashes and an “incident” where I am almost gang raped by scags we arrive at the zone entrance for the Arid Hills.
We breeze through the bandits protecting the various bits of the sniper rifle. From previous experiences I know exactly where the harder to find pieces are, and I leap about with wild abandon grabbing them off rooftops, falling short distances and grabbing whatever items I find on the ground. This is the way of Borderlands – it’s all about taking whatever you can as quickly as you can. Before long we’re surrounded by bandit corpses and we’ve got all the little odds and ends that make up the sniper rifle in our invisible backpacks.
“What now?” Alex asks. I can tell he sort of wants to turn in the sniper rifle quest and get his new Hunter toy, but I also know he wants to get as much done here as he can before we turn in the quest. Backtracking in this game is infuriating, to say the least.
“Marley and Moe. It should be in this area.”
“No it’s... Oh.” Alex flips the switch and suddenly we’re off, hunting down a loveable pair of scags with the ammo we have left over from our brave bandit assault. I burn through it on these nights much faster than I do in single player, by merit of being a lot less accurate than I usually am. It’s part lag and part character. My sniper rifle rounds fall far afield with the Siren, and even my submachine gun rounds don’t seem to go where I want them to. It’s a very different experience, but I’ve found ways to compensate for my ammo dependence.
When we finally reach Marley and Moe it’s immediately apparent that this is a tougher quest than the sniper rifle. We take down some of the outlying scags without issues, but when I spot Marley and fire I immediately realize my mistake in suggesting this quest. The round visibly bounces off his thick carapace. A mocking “12” pops up over his head, the game’s way of letting me know just how great I am at using a sniper rifle.
“Uh oh,” I say, taking another swig off my bottle.
“What?” Alex asks. He knows I don’t rattle easily. In a video game context, I mean.
“I woke up the baby.”
Marley charges at me as Dan and Alex pour bullets into him. He doesn’t even seem to notice. I pop a few melee attacks off at him and do a quick phase step, but it doesn’t really work. He bats me around like a paper doll and hurls me off of a fairly short cliff.
“Fuck,” I say. “He’s tougher than I remember.”
Dan and Alex don’t respond. They’re distracted, pouring ammo into Marley as he beelines for me. I try to make his trip shorter, hopping up to the clifftop fast as I can. I do my best to kite Marley, but he’s a lot faster than me, and he doesn’t have to contend with lag. In a few seconds I’m on the ground, being mauled by a dog with a serious skin condition.
“RES ME! RES ME!” I shout.
Alex and Dan are busy knocking hit points off of Marley with limited success. I hear Alex laughing.
“It totally looks like he’s raping you, dude.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, it does,” Dan chimes in. I sigh and keep tapping v, hoping to slow him down a little with my daze effect before I respawn.
The blue tunnel takes me into its arms like an old lover, guiding me back to the respawn point at the base of the cliff. It takes me a second to run back up there, and I immediately wonder why I came back. I cycle through my empty weapons and watch, biting my lip, as Marley breaks through the turret and savages Dan’s Soldier.
“Ow,” Dan interjects. I imagine he’s taking a shot now, watching Marley’s gaping maw roar in his face. I pop what little ammo I have left and switch my disastrously inaccurate shotgun, which happens to do massive damage whenever it hits. I fire it wildly, hoping to whittle down Marley’s remaining hit points, but before long even my shotgun is running low on ammo.
Dan, respawned, is on his way back up and Alex and I are kiting Marley around the rocks near the side of the cliff. I bite my lip and press f, charging towards Marley. I exit phase step right next to the beast and let loose a flurry of melee attacks. It isn’t long before Marley turns his attention on me, but my daze effect has slowed him down enough that I can effectively kite him now. Alex and Dan both still have enough ammo that they can damage him at range and as I dart in and out as Marley’s attention shifts between us the last few millimeters of his health tick off infinitesimally. When he finally dies I’m not sure who got the final blow, but I’m confident it wasn’t me.
“Let’s go get ammo,” Alex suggests. No one argues, although Dan does ignore him and continue fighting bandits in the surrounding area while Alex and I run as fast as we can to the zone entrance, where we can restock ammo. I watch Dan’s health dwindle, then refill as he respawns. Meanwhile Alex yells at us to help, having restocked his ammo and rushed back into battle before Dan and I have had a chance to sell our trash.
“It’s fucking Moe! Help!” He sounds pretty upset, so I rush over to resurrect him with half a load of SMG ammo. The scag, who he thought was Moe, was just a badass corrosive scag. Child’s play for me, my newly refilled SMG and my dazing melee attacks. Once Alex has been saved and the pipe leading to the ammo shops is secured I go back and finish my with purchases, ignoring Alex’s cries to press forward. After Dan’s done the same we grit our teeth and return to the hunting grounds. The quest is only half over.
Next week: Moe in the Desert of Good and Evil.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Congratulations on Incorrectly Wiring the Explosives!
Your Doomsday Cult is big, but it isn’t very good at attracting tech savvy individuals. By proscribing a strict anti-technology policy you alienate the sort of people who might know how to use the simpler machines that your people end up relying on on a daily basis. That’s part of what makes you so valuable to your cult leader, James, and why he hasn’t tried to sleep with you yet.
And today is a big day for you guys. It’s the last day before the local sheriff and his SWAT buddies come in and raid your stronghold in order to allow you and the other maladjusted social retards that have taken up with James get back to whatever you had that passed for a life beforehand. James isn’t too psyched about that.
That’s why he’s had you rig explosives throughout The Facility, as he calls it, so that he, his followers and the intruding sheriff will be incinerated. The explosives are made out of human waste and household cleaners, but they’ll get the job done. James knows, he’s used the same sort of explosives to destroy government buildings in the past. The only thing he doesn’t know is how to wire the damn things to a remote detonator. But you, ever the eager beaver, helped him out and showed him just how handy you can be with some copper wire.
In exchange James took sexual advantage of you. He wasn’t gentle, but he told you that you needed to be “sanctified by his love” in order to pass on to the next world. And so today, as you stand by his side largely because you can’t sit down, James will hold your detonator and wait in silence for the sheriff’s men to enter the kill zone.
When they do so in their black suits, with their semi-lethal weapons and tear gas and desire to rescue as many innocent idiots as is humanly possible, he’s going to push the button on the detonator. When nothing happens he’ll push it again and again. Then he’ll turn and look at you. You’ll give him a comic shrug, the best one you can muster after your violent rape the previous evening.
He’ll walk towards you like he’s going to hit you, but then Margaret, the hot cultist, will throw up her arms.
“The Lord has spared us! Bless him!” She’ll fall to her knees and start speaking in tongues, just as James taught you all to do when you didn’t want to explain what you’d just said in greater detail. James will turn his attention from you to her, but his violence will be curtailed when everyone in The Facility drops to the ground and starts rolling around and doing their thing.
When the sheriff and his men arrive on you and James will still be standing. James will have his hands in little angry fists, and you’ll have yours in the air. You’ll look horrified. The sheriff and his men will drop James with a tiny bean bag fired from a shotgun and take you back to your old life, where you’ll resume your job doing tech support for Fortune 500 companies.
Congratulations on Incorrectly Wiring the Explosives!
And today is a big day for you guys. It’s the last day before the local sheriff and his SWAT buddies come in and raid your stronghold in order to allow you and the other maladjusted social retards that have taken up with James get back to whatever you had that passed for a life beforehand. James isn’t too psyched about that.
That’s why he’s had you rig explosives throughout The Facility, as he calls it, so that he, his followers and the intruding sheriff will be incinerated. The explosives are made out of human waste and household cleaners, but they’ll get the job done. James knows, he’s used the same sort of explosives to destroy government buildings in the past. The only thing he doesn’t know is how to wire the damn things to a remote detonator. But you, ever the eager beaver, helped him out and showed him just how handy you can be with some copper wire.
In exchange James took sexual advantage of you. He wasn’t gentle, but he told you that you needed to be “sanctified by his love” in order to pass on to the next world. And so today, as you stand by his side largely because you can’t sit down, James will hold your detonator and wait in silence for the sheriff’s men to enter the kill zone.
When they do so in their black suits, with their semi-lethal weapons and tear gas and desire to rescue as many innocent idiots as is humanly possible, he’s going to push the button on the detonator. When nothing happens he’ll push it again and again. Then he’ll turn and look at you. You’ll give him a comic shrug, the best one you can muster after your violent rape the previous evening.
He’ll walk towards you like he’s going to hit you, but then Margaret, the hot cultist, will throw up her arms.
“The Lord has spared us! Bless him!” She’ll fall to her knees and start speaking in tongues, just as James taught you all to do when you didn’t want to explain what you’d just said in greater detail. James will turn his attention from you to her, but his violence will be curtailed when everyone in The Facility drops to the ground and starts rolling around and doing their thing.
When the sheriff and his men arrive on you and James will still be standing. James will have his hands in little angry fists, and you’ll have yours in the air. You’ll look horrified. The sheriff and his men will drop James with a tiny bean bag fired from a shotgun and take you back to your old life, where you’ll resume your job doing tech support for Fortune 500 companies.
Congratulations on Incorrectly Wiring the Explosives!
Friday, November 20, 2009
Congratulations Sex Addict!
Today you’re going to wake up craving sex like you’ve never known before. You’ll roll out of bed and say to yourself, out loud “Man, I got to get me some of that.”
When you roll downstairs and grab your sack lunch from your mom you’ll give her a little pat on the tush so she knows you mean business.
“What was that?” she’ll ask, genuinely and deeply confused by your actions.
“Ain’t no thang, shawty,” you’ll tell her, making an affectation you believe a pimp would use which is actually closer to a homosexual flick of the wrist.
This will simply serve to confuse her further, so she’ll reiterate her question. “What?” she’ll say, crimson lips wrapped around the syllable like its the most precious thing in the world. Your heart, and pants, will be all aflutter when you step up close and whisper in her ear to make all the confusion go away.
“I’m a sex addict,” you’ll say. Then you’ll cop a feel.
Twenty minutes later you’ll have a black eye and your mom will be on the cell phone to your school. Turns out you won’t be able to go to school that day because you’ve got to have an emergency therapy session. That means just one thing: you’re going to be a virgin and a sex addict for one more day.
Congratulations Sex Addict!
When you roll downstairs and grab your sack lunch from your mom you’ll give her a little pat on the tush so she knows you mean business.
“What was that?” she’ll ask, genuinely and deeply confused by your actions.
“Ain’t no thang, shawty,” you’ll tell her, making an affectation you believe a pimp would use which is actually closer to a homosexual flick of the wrist.
This will simply serve to confuse her further, so she’ll reiterate her question. “What?” she’ll say, crimson lips wrapped around the syllable like its the most precious thing in the world. Your heart, and pants, will be all aflutter when you step up close and whisper in her ear to make all the confusion go away.
“I’m a sex addict,” you’ll say. Then you’ll cop a feel.
Twenty minutes later you’ll have a black eye and your mom will be on the cell phone to your school. Turns out you won’t be able to go to school that day because you’ve got to have an emergency therapy session. That means just one thing: you’re going to be a virgin and a sex addict for one more day.
Congratulations Sex Addict!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Congratulations on Losing the Arms Race!
You and that bitch Kelly McCanowitz have been in an arms race since third grade. It started with a spitball and it’s been snowballing ever since. Today you’re going to make the biggest mistake imaginable in an arms race: you’re going to lose.
But you should already be able to see it coming at this point. After your disastrous attempt last week to unleash dogs on Kelly’s law office you knew she was going to retaliate. And as she saw you as being in a weakened state, given how terribly wrong your dog attack went, she was going to retaliate with a decisive blow, something that would break you for certain.
To this end she’s enlisted your ex-wife. Instead of making a big to do about ruining you she’s just going to have that life ruining bitch show up at your house one morning and tell you off. After that devastating assault she’ll fire a small, modestly priced anti-tank weapon at your car and a piece of shrapnel will tear out your heart, doing moderately more damage than your ex-wife had previously done.
After that you’ll bleed out in a matter of seconds, happy to be spared the burden of continued interaction with your ex-wife.
Congratulations on Losing the Arms Race!
But you should already be able to see it coming at this point. After your disastrous attempt last week to unleash dogs on Kelly’s law office you knew she was going to retaliate. And as she saw you as being in a weakened state, given how terribly wrong your dog attack went, she was going to retaliate with a decisive blow, something that would break you for certain.
To this end she’s enlisted your ex-wife. Instead of making a big to do about ruining you she’s just going to have that life ruining bitch show up at your house one morning and tell you off. After that devastating assault she’ll fire a small, modestly priced anti-tank weapon at your car and a piece of shrapnel will tear out your heart, doing moderately more damage than your ex-wife had previously done.
After that you’ll bleed out in a matter of seconds, happy to be spared the burden of continued interaction with your ex-wife.
Congratulations on Losing the Arms Race!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Congratulations on Convincing Her to Play Tetherball!
High school is tough for the best of us. Even the most socially adept person is truly miserable during high school, and all of their “acting cool” and “teen sex” is all cover for the misery that their body is telling them that the way they’ve looked at the world is wrong and that they’re not ready for reality yet.
You’re a particularly difficult case, however. Despite your “non-traditional good looks” and wiki-pedic knowledge of the world you can’t seem to fit in no matter how hard you try. A big part of that is your enthusiasm for and participation in the “sport” of competitive tetherball.
Tetherball player has long been shorthand for loser. It is a well documented fact that no one has ever had sex while playing tetherball. Additionally, no one who has ever been elected to the office of President of the United States of America, with the somewhat woeful exception of James Garfield, had ever played tetherball prior to their time in office. Additionally, those who played tetherball while in office were later assassinated.
Go on, look it up, we can wait.
See?
So here’s the thing. You’re actually not a bad person underneath it all. If you got out of high school you might even have a group of friends who don’t just shit on one another all the time. But you’re in high school and you seem to get it from all angles. The only thing that makes your life even remotely bearable is the thought that Kristin Wrigley might one day touch your thing.
You’ve heard she only touches the things of nice boys, boys who manage to touch her heart first. But she’s a bit difficult for you to approach since her friends all flick lit matches at you when you come near her. She talks to you during class, laughs at all your jokes and looks at you like she’s considering touching your thing, but she’s never said anything explicit.
Today’s the day you up your game.
Today you’re going to run up and punch Kristin’s bitchiest friend right in the jaw. She’ll go down like a bony sack of shit and her companions will quietly put away their matchbooks. Kristin will look up at you from her reclining position near one of your school’s many columns with a perplexed expression.
“Why’d you punch Kim?” she’ll ask. Apparently that girl’s name was Kim. You always just referred to her as “the bitchiest one.”
“She was a bitch and I wanted to talk to you,” you’ll respond, frankly.
“’Kay,” she’ll say around her gum, prompting a nod from you. You’ll take a deep breath and steel yourself for the rejection to come before you utter the six hardest words you’ve ever had to say.
“Will you play tetherball with me?” She’ll look at you like she’s really lost now and those flowering social skills will come into to play. “I mean, not in a competitive way. Just in a ‘getting to know you’ way. I really like you, and I’d like to know you better in a situation where I’m comfortable being me, because you always seem to comfortable being you.”
She’ll consider your request, head cocked for a moment, before she snaps her gum. “Sure,” she’ll say.
“Awesome!” you’ll exclaim, pumping your fist in the air and hurrying off to class. You’ll be halfway there before you realize you didn’t set a date, but don’t worry. She’ll be out there by the tetherball pole every afternoon until you show up.
Congratulations on Convincing Her to Play Tetherball!
You’re a particularly difficult case, however. Despite your “non-traditional good looks” and wiki-pedic knowledge of the world you can’t seem to fit in no matter how hard you try. A big part of that is your enthusiasm for and participation in the “sport” of competitive tetherball.
Tetherball player has long been shorthand for loser. It is a well documented fact that no one has ever had sex while playing tetherball. Additionally, no one who has ever been elected to the office of President of the United States of America, with the somewhat woeful exception of James Garfield, had ever played tetherball prior to their time in office. Additionally, those who played tetherball while in office were later assassinated.
Go on, look it up, we can wait.
See?
So here’s the thing. You’re actually not a bad person underneath it all. If you got out of high school you might even have a group of friends who don’t just shit on one another all the time. But you’re in high school and you seem to get it from all angles. The only thing that makes your life even remotely bearable is the thought that Kristin Wrigley might one day touch your thing.
You’ve heard she only touches the things of nice boys, boys who manage to touch her heart first. But she’s a bit difficult for you to approach since her friends all flick lit matches at you when you come near her. She talks to you during class, laughs at all your jokes and looks at you like she’s considering touching your thing, but she’s never said anything explicit.
Today’s the day you up your game.
Today you’re going to run up and punch Kristin’s bitchiest friend right in the jaw. She’ll go down like a bony sack of shit and her companions will quietly put away their matchbooks. Kristin will look up at you from her reclining position near one of your school’s many columns with a perplexed expression.
“Why’d you punch Kim?” she’ll ask. Apparently that girl’s name was Kim. You always just referred to her as “the bitchiest one.”
“She was a bitch and I wanted to talk to you,” you’ll respond, frankly.
“’Kay,” she’ll say around her gum, prompting a nod from you. You’ll take a deep breath and steel yourself for the rejection to come before you utter the six hardest words you’ve ever had to say.
“Will you play tetherball with me?” She’ll look at you like she’s really lost now and those flowering social skills will come into to play. “I mean, not in a competitive way. Just in a ‘getting to know you’ way. I really like you, and I’d like to know you better in a situation where I’m comfortable being me, because you always seem to comfortable being you.”
She’ll consider your request, head cocked for a moment, before she snaps her gum. “Sure,” she’ll say.
“Awesome!” you’ll exclaim, pumping your fist in the air and hurrying off to class. You’ll be halfway there before you realize you didn’t set a date, but don’t worry. She’ll be out there by the tetherball pole every afternoon until you show up.
Congratulations on Convincing Her to Play Tetherball!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Congratulations on Being Alexandre Aja for a Day!
Today we’ve got a magical body switching prophecy for y’all. Why, you ask? We have no idea. We don’t decide these things, we just report them. Maybe the two of you have the same birthday down to the second or some shit. That sounds appropriately contrived. Regardless you’re going to be transported into the body of French horror director Alexandre Aja at atround 3:45 AM this morning.
It’ll be unsettling, in large part because you’ll be masturbating as the switch occurs and your hand will suddenly no longer be wrapped around your own dick. Instead it’ll be limply curled in a loose fit as you lay in bed, too frightened by your own thoughts to sleep.
You won’t grasp what’s going on at first. You’ll think you were having a particularly vivid, boring dream about pleasuring yourself. You’ll turn over and drift off to sleep, nary a thought in your head of poor Alexander who is now trapped in your body, hand caked in lube, fist still tight around your dick.
When you wake up and you’re in a luxurious apartment instead of your shitty studio you’ll know something is terribly wrong.
“Mr. Buttons?” you’ll coo, attempting to call out your nine year old tabby. You’ll be shocked when the incredibly gorgeous Laila Marrakchi instead enters the room wearing an incredibly revealing robe.
“Ques’que c’est?” she’ll ask, words flowing out of her mouth like water from a lion’s head. You won’t understand her at first, but then you’ll realize. French. She’s speaking French.
“I don’t speak French,” you’ll say, baffled by the strange voice speaking your words, clumsy and accented. You’d feel even more confused but you have been with a woman in so long that Laila’s gorgeous breasts will lock your eyes for several minutes.
Since she’s one of those free-spirited Muslim chicks she’ll just smirk and say “Pas de problem” before dropping her robe and jumping on top of you and riding you until you’re limp (ten minutes, thirteen seconds – a personal best). You’ll think you’re still dreaming. It won’t be until she takes you to the kitchen and makes you orange juice that you begin to grasp what’s going on.
As you explain it to her she’ll have a puzzled little smile, like she isn’t very surprised by any of this and just tell you that it probably won’t take long to fix itself. You’ll be shaken, but having a woman around you will make you feel better about yourself. She’ll prohibit you from talking on the phone and, for the day, treat you as a stranger in her husband’s body, taking great care to make sure you leave better than you came into her life.
Meanwhile, Alex is going to wake up in your body and moan. This isn’t the first time this has happened to him, and while your life certainly isn’t the shittiest he’s been trapped in it’s pretty down there. Sighing, he’ll go about your daily chores and flip through the various bills that have arrived. He’ll do his best to make sure shit doesn’t get any worse for you and clean some of the more disgusting areas of your apartment. He’ll also have a brief conversation with your ex over the course of the day which will lead to her considering a reconciliation with you. He’ll leave a detailed note on your fridge.
When the day is over you’ll be back in your body with plenty of spank material thanks to Alexadre Aja’s hot wife. Your life will still be kinda shitty, but at least you got some action. And with Alexandre Aja’s help, you might get some more.
Meanwhile, in the Aja household they’ll have a brief cuddle and Alexandre will start writing a torture porn script about being trapped in the horrible world of your life. It will be a box office smash.
Congratulations on Being Alexandre Aja for a Day!
It’ll be unsettling, in large part because you’ll be masturbating as the switch occurs and your hand will suddenly no longer be wrapped around your own dick. Instead it’ll be limply curled in a loose fit as you lay in bed, too frightened by your own thoughts to sleep.
You won’t grasp what’s going on at first. You’ll think you were having a particularly vivid, boring dream about pleasuring yourself. You’ll turn over and drift off to sleep, nary a thought in your head of poor Alexander who is now trapped in your body, hand caked in lube, fist still tight around your dick.
When you wake up and you’re in a luxurious apartment instead of your shitty studio you’ll know something is terribly wrong.
“Mr. Buttons?” you’ll coo, attempting to call out your nine year old tabby. You’ll be shocked when the incredibly gorgeous Laila Marrakchi instead enters the room wearing an incredibly revealing robe.
“Ques’que c’est?” she’ll ask, words flowing out of her mouth like water from a lion’s head. You won’t understand her at first, but then you’ll realize. French. She’s speaking French.
“I don’t speak French,” you’ll say, baffled by the strange voice speaking your words, clumsy and accented. You’d feel even more confused but you have been with a woman in so long that Laila’s gorgeous breasts will lock your eyes for several minutes.
Since she’s one of those free-spirited Muslim chicks she’ll just smirk and say “Pas de problem” before dropping her robe and jumping on top of you and riding you until you’re limp (ten minutes, thirteen seconds – a personal best). You’ll think you’re still dreaming. It won’t be until she takes you to the kitchen and makes you orange juice that you begin to grasp what’s going on.
As you explain it to her she’ll have a puzzled little smile, like she isn’t very surprised by any of this and just tell you that it probably won’t take long to fix itself. You’ll be shaken, but having a woman around you will make you feel better about yourself. She’ll prohibit you from talking on the phone and, for the day, treat you as a stranger in her husband’s body, taking great care to make sure you leave better than you came into her life.
Meanwhile, Alex is going to wake up in your body and moan. This isn’t the first time this has happened to him, and while your life certainly isn’t the shittiest he’s been trapped in it’s pretty down there. Sighing, he’ll go about your daily chores and flip through the various bills that have arrived. He’ll do his best to make sure shit doesn’t get any worse for you and clean some of the more disgusting areas of your apartment. He’ll also have a brief conversation with your ex over the course of the day which will lead to her considering a reconciliation with you. He’ll leave a detailed note on your fridge.
When the day is over you’ll be back in your body with plenty of spank material thanks to Alexadre Aja’s hot wife. Your life will still be kinda shitty, but at least you got some action. And with Alexandre Aja’s help, you might get some more.
Meanwhile, in the Aja household they’ll have a brief cuddle and Alexandre will start writing a torture porn script about being trapped in the horrible world of your life. It will be a box office smash.
Congratulations on Being Alexandre Aja for a Day!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Congratulations on Entering a Realm of Rich Fantasy!
Tonight you’re going to get rid of your “Mondays” by taking LSD. But unlike most people, for whom LSD provides a vivid halucinatory experience, you were born with a unique genetic abnormality that causes your body to metabolize acid in such a fashion as to open up a gateway portal to another dimension and pull your body through it in an incredibly painful and super freaky quantum event.
When you awake you’ll be sore all over in a wide open field, the only person around for miles. This isn’t the first time this has happened. You’ll know better by now than to panic but tendrils of worry will still creep up your brainstem when you realize you aren’t hung over. When a group of tiny people with wings emerge from the forest you’ll know that something is seriously wrong.
They’ll introduce themselves as the aelfeen, which you’ll think sounds extremely Tolkien-esque. You’ll also think it’s incredibly strange that when they speak they speak in perfect English with delicate British accents.
They’ll hail you as the “giant one,” fated to free their land from the evil oppressor Montelbaun. You’ll recognize that name vaguely, but you won’t know where from.
Regardless, since your options are limited you’ll agree to help them with their vague, generic fantasy problems in exchange for food, shelter and unfettered access to whatever they have in the way of sex workers. They’ll cheer your acceptance and take you to their village, where you’ll have the most intensely awkward sexual experience of your life, even worse than when you lost your virginity.
The next day you’ll awake, this time legitimately hung over on fairy wine, to the cheers of various fairies as they force you to make good on your promise to them. After accidentally killing one by swatting it with a lazy backhand you’ll feel super guilty and acquiesce. A brief memorial service for Jenkins the Fat will mark your inauspicious departure.
Your journey will take you across four of the seven lands, where you’ll meet many fantastic peoples and sample their sex workers. You’ll have awkward sexual intercourse with a variety of creatures, ranging from centaurs with six legs to people who are 65% insect. We won’t tell you which 65%. We don’t want to spoil the surprise.
The quest will culminate when you reach Dr. Montelbaum’s fortress, and impenetrable structure made out of the strongest cardboard boxes in the realm. You’ll call out the evil Doctor (or wizards – the fairies will be almost purposefully vague on this point) and after a brief period of loud activity within the box-structure celebrated comedic actor Romany Malco will emerge.
You’ll be starstruck at first, but after you establish his identity and get the fucking fairies to shut the fuck up for five fucking minutes the two of you will discover that you came here in a similar fashion. You’ll discover that he was aware of his condition, since he has insurance and can actually see a doctor, but that he just wanted to see what this other world was like. He had no idea it would be so irritating and will simply want to return home.
And with your assistance he’ll be able to do just that. He’ll take your hands in his and chant the secret chant that his HMO has prohibited us from reproducing here and return the two of you to L.A., where you’ll realize that maybe living in a fortress of cardboard boxes surrounded by nattering faires and freaks of nature wasn’t so bad.
And just imagine, all of this could’ve been avoided if you hadn’t waited until the age of 29 to experiment with acid. Ah well!
Congratulations on Entering a Realm of Rich Fantasy!
When you awake you’ll be sore all over in a wide open field, the only person around for miles. This isn’t the first time this has happened. You’ll know better by now than to panic but tendrils of worry will still creep up your brainstem when you realize you aren’t hung over. When a group of tiny people with wings emerge from the forest you’ll know that something is seriously wrong.
They’ll introduce themselves as the aelfeen, which you’ll think sounds extremely Tolkien-esque. You’ll also think it’s incredibly strange that when they speak they speak in perfect English with delicate British accents.
They’ll hail you as the “giant one,” fated to free their land from the evil oppressor Montelbaun. You’ll recognize that name vaguely, but you won’t know where from.
Regardless, since your options are limited you’ll agree to help them with their vague, generic fantasy problems in exchange for food, shelter and unfettered access to whatever they have in the way of sex workers. They’ll cheer your acceptance and take you to their village, where you’ll have the most intensely awkward sexual experience of your life, even worse than when you lost your virginity.
The next day you’ll awake, this time legitimately hung over on fairy wine, to the cheers of various fairies as they force you to make good on your promise to them. After accidentally killing one by swatting it with a lazy backhand you’ll feel super guilty and acquiesce. A brief memorial service for Jenkins the Fat will mark your inauspicious departure.
Your journey will take you across four of the seven lands, where you’ll meet many fantastic peoples and sample their sex workers. You’ll have awkward sexual intercourse with a variety of creatures, ranging from centaurs with six legs to people who are 65% insect. We won’t tell you which 65%. We don’t want to spoil the surprise.
The quest will culminate when you reach Dr. Montelbaum’s fortress, and impenetrable structure made out of the strongest cardboard boxes in the realm. You’ll call out the evil Doctor (or wizards – the fairies will be almost purposefully vague on this point) and after a brief period of loud activity within the box-structure celebrated comedic actor Romany Malco will emerge.
You’ll be starstruck at first, but after you establish his identity and get the fucking fairies to shut the fuck up for five fucking minutes the two of you will discover that you came here in a similar fashion. You’ll discover that he was aware of his condition, since he has insurance and can actually see a doctor, but that he just wanted to see what this other world was like. He had no idea it would be so irritating and will simply want to return home.
And with your assistance he’ll be able to do just that. He’ll take your hands in his and chant the secret chant that his HMO has prohibited us from reproducing here and return the two of you to L.A., where you’ll realize that maybe living in a fortress of cardboard boxes surrounded by nattering faires and freaks of nature wasn’t so bad.
And just imagine, all of this could’ve been avoided if you hadn’t waited until the age of 29 to experiment with acid. Ah well!
Congratulations on Entering a Realm of Rich Fantasy!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: A Super Spoiler Sunday With Modern Warfare 2 and Why It's a Terrible Game By Terrible People!
I just wanted to reiterate the spoiler alert above. This essay contains some details about Call of Duty 6 you might not want to know on your first playthrough. The game is structured with a lot of “oh snap” moments (in fact the number eventually became a bit annoying for me, personally) and if you’re enthusiastic about experiencing the story of Call of Duty 6 you might just want to buy a copy and give it a quick playthrough. It took me six and a half hours on “hard” or whatever they fucking call it, and I think I spent an hour of that time paused and writing overall. It’s well worth the investment of time, although $10 an hour is a bit steep if you aren’t invested in the multiplayer.
Call of Duty 6 is, at its core, a game about making you do unpleasant things. In that respect it is a game about being a soldier, about participating in wars, sure. But most games about these things sort of glorify them. They never really discuss your character following orders that he doesn’t want to. There hasn’t been a game yet that makes you usher people back into holding areas in Dachau because you don’t have the proper infrastructure to feed and clothe them. There hasn’t been a mission about abandoning civilians to certain death because taking them with you would jeopardize your safety and compromise your operation.
These are real issues you’ll have to deal with during a military operation, however. They’re heartbreaking moments of human drama and they’re times when doing the right thing means wronging every part involved. They suck, and Call of Duty 6 or Modern Warfare 2 or whatever isn’t about making you experience sucky elements of war.
Well, until it is.
The game opens up much as you’d expect. There’s a quick showcase of the new technology and the new gun models. Picadilly rails are rendered in exacting detail, so gun nerds can rejoice on that front. And a mustached general tells me that He Wants Me to be in his Super Secret Special Forces Unit which operates from a Deus Ex Machina Sub. Apologies for the capitalization there, but I just wanted to let loose an aside on how generic the operation logos and unit names are. After playing through the game only a few hours earlier I can’t recall what the specific Ranger outfit was that my second faceless, voiceless marine was a member of. It might’ve just been The Rangers.
But I digress. Modern Warfare 2 opens on war-torn Afghanistan substituting for Iraq. There’s a sequence ripped from Generation Kill where you’re manning the minigun on top of a humvee (standing in for the M-240 SAW which I want to say would be there in reality). Then there’s a brief Black Hawk Down moment where your humvee is destroyed and you have to run like mad to accomplish a dubious goal and reach the aforementioned mustachioed general. The game then goes on to re-imagine the film Cliffhanger in a way that somehow makes it interesting. Then it drops you into an airport and makes you murder civilians.
I’m going to write that sentence again for effect. After running you through generic action movie sections Modern Warfare 2 puts you in control of a civilian massacre at an airport. It’s painstakingly scripted and paced so that you can’t help but watch what’s unfolding, but for all the gravity it tries to impart at times it can’t help from being glib about the whole fucking thing. No sooner do you watch a terrorist gun down huddled masses like cattle on a killing floor than you walk by the same area to see the flight tickers flip from “on time” to “delayed.” Really, Call of Duty? Are you fucking serious? You’re going to crack a shitty joke after you just made me kill hundreds of unarmed civilians? Do you even want me to buy Call of Duty 8: The Other Cold War?
After that the game offered up another “oh snap” moment where your previous ally shoots you in the chest, revealing he knew you were a plant all along. It’s pretty hard-hitting but it doesn’t save the segment and, trust me, it won’t last. It’s going to happen another six times during the game. Someone you thought you could trust is going to render you helpless or disable you or shoot you. The only question is, is someone going to save you at the last minute?
But the impact of the massacre stays with you for a while. Even after I’d returned to Russia I still felt sore about it. They made me kill all those people, for nothing. The plot twist accompanying it was almost inexplicable. Other terrorists died during the assault, and they were plainly Russian. Wouldn’t they discount any theories about this being a plot by the US to attack Russia? What was the tactical significance of attacking this airport? Why shouldn’t I just kill Makarov outright? And it was hard to feel that bad for myself for firing off .556 into civilian crowds when my only real choice was a menu bar asking me if I was a bad enough dude to play this mission, a question I’ve been conditioned to answer “yes” to without thought since the early ninties. It was upsetting, and not in the intended way. I didn’t feel like the villain had forced me to participate in a senseless act of abhorrent violence. I felt like the game had told its story poorly. Instead of being angry at Makarov I was angry at the developer.
The following level didn’t help. The Brazilian slum mission was unpleasant in a different way. Endless spawns can work if you’re in a wide open area where you’re fending off or evading attackers, but it’s not a great idea in a labyrinthine set of passages and overpasses where you’re going to be constantly getting potshots and being flanked. It was frustrating, and the only reason I didn’t turn off the game right then and there is because I enjoyed Call of Duty 4 so god damn much I wanted to give this game a fair shake. Even though it did nothing but deign to insult me, I wanted to give it a chance, because I trust Infinity Ward’s creative vision so much.
Cue the Red Dawn reenactment, resplendent with the same bizarre hypothetical logic that made Red Dawn such a though provoking film. Less than an hour after slaughtering civvies in an airport I was defending the roof of a Benegans that had a senator in its meat locker or something. It’s all very unclear and very generic, and that’s the point. The firefights became mildly more pleasant from here on out, but the bad taste stayed in my mouth for a while. In fact it stayed in my mouth until I reached the oil rig.
I think part of this unpleasantness stems from the level design. It feels less deliberate than in previous Call of Duty titles. Perhaps they’re showcasing some sort of improved AI, but to me it simply feels like I’m left more vulnerable and given fewer options. There seem to be more endless spawns requiring I run past point x in order to survive, and the way that the spawns function and attempt to shape my movement always felt more frustrating than challenging. I felt like I was being shot from an angle I wasn’t watching, one I wouldn’t know to watch unless I’d played through the level before. And I’d feel this way a lot. Perhaps that’s why Veteran is an unlockable difficulty – it’s less about skill at that point and more about memorizing the patterns the game wants you to take. It’s like a director in the traditional filmic sense, a complete counter to the programatic director of Left 4 Dead.
Exacerbating these issues are puzzling design choices, many of them truncations of previous standard Call of Duty features. I can’t lean, but the enemies can blind fire from cover, and cover can still be penetrated. There’s a larger inventory of guns, but aside from the ACR none of them feel very new. They feel like different skins of the same gun. And why, praytell, did you decide to strap shotguns on to the bottom of various assault rifles? Did someone just see Aliens or something and think it was a cool idea?
Modern Warfare 2 feels like a sophomore effort through and through, which is frustrating considering its the fourth entry from Infinity Ward in the series. Perhaps it’s the senior slump, then? Whatever you want to call it, it’s Call of Duty in decline. Where the first Modern Warfare illustrated what it’s like to be a disposable human weapon in a world populated by massive weapons designed specifically to kill people like you, where it illustrated the devaluation of human life and human emotion and the feeling of helplessness and the painful knowledge of the surety of your own death, Call of Duty 6 gives us a story about how real men fight wars and evil men start them. It gives us long, largely irrelevant philosophical tirades punctuated by actions scenes that feel exploitative in their own context. And it seems to be largely unaware that it’s doing so. Each time Soap rolls over to me in slow motion I want to giggle. I don’t feel exhilerated. I feel like I’m subject to a steamy homosexual romance between two men, forbidden by the laws of military conduct in the 141.
But for all its flaws, as I said in the disclaimer, I’d still recommend it. Part of that is that the play that makes Call of Duty great is still intact. It’s still just as fun to double tap terrorists in the head or get that last second knife and drop into cover before someone notices you. Call of Duty has been the gold standard by which all other multiplayer shooters are measured for a while now. Its emulation is evidence enough, and while Modern Warfare 2 does little to innovate the alchemy of persistence and action remains intact.
The Special Ops modes are also incredibly fun. I haven’t had the chance to enjoy them with another person yet, but the concepts are just so enjoyable and varied, it feels like I get to play through my favorite poetic firefights from the game without any of that emotionally exploitative bullshit in between. I look forward to exploring Special Ops nearly as much as I look forward to exploring the multiplayer.
But the biggest caveat I’d like to make is that Call of Duty 6’s story gets better. It gets better for me during the Russian safehouse mission, after Ghost drags me to the chopper. Sure, there are still plot holes. Why is it that the marines have no trouble destroying the Russian horde behind me? Was it really that important for me to arrive before Shepard shoots me? Couldn’t he just search my body? It’s not like he did a very thorough interrogation. But that moment was earned. That betrayal made the entire plot fall together and changed the way I looked at the game. It isn’t a game about life and death the way that Call of Duty 4 was. It’s a game about being forced to do shit by people who want to see you die and doing all you can to break their rules in order to survive. It’s a game about being a gamer in an entirely different context.
The following scenes, where you fight your way to Shepard through his hordes of dubiously allied troops are actually kind of enjoyable, simply because Call of Duty rarely has a pair of opposing sides fighting while you try to slip by. It’s also a fresh twist to be fighting Americans in any way, shape, or form in the normally chest thumpingly patriotic Call of Duty games. Call of Duty 6 seems to recognize that in reality the soldier’s enemy is war itself, that to survive they have to find a way to abandon war, often by enduring it during the worst of times.
And even though those last scenes have some super unpleasant moments, like a terrible boat chase and a lengthy scene where you’re stabbed in the chest and left helpless which ends with a series of actions that made me shout loud enough to upset the cat, they still saved the game for me. Because it stopped being about blind patriotism after the dropped Army Ranger plotline vanished inexplicably from the game. It stopped being about how your country is above reproach, about how patriotism is the most important thing in the world. Instead it became a story about two men trying to survive against the impossible forces arrayed against them. It became the sort of story I enjoy, even if it wasn’t as well but together as previous entries, and that’s a great thing. It’s too bad they diluted it in every way and wore out their later shocks by forcing so many upon us early in the game, but nothing really beat watching my hand feebly twitch when I pressed f and realizing what I had to do to stop Shepard. At that moment I truly felt for Soap. I’ve inhabited him for a while, and some terrible things have happened to him while I was behind his eyes, but that was by far the worst. I hope he finds a nice cabin in the Alps with Captain Price. He’s certainly earned it.
Call of Duty 6 is, at its core, a game about making you do unpleasant things. In that respect it is a game about being a soldier, about participating in wars, sure. But most games about these things sort of glorify them. They never really discuss your character following orders that he doesn’t want to. There hasn’t been a game yet that makes you usher people back into holding areas in Dachau because you don’t have the proper infrastructure to feed and clothe them. There hasn’t been a mission about abandoning civilians to certain death because taking them with you would jeopardize your safety and compromise your operation.
These are real issues you’ll have to deal with during a military operation, however. They’re heartbreaking moments of human drama and they’re times when doing the right thing means wronging every part involved. They suck, and Call of Duty 6 or Modern Warfare 2 or whatever isn’t about making you experience sucky elements of war.
Well, until it is.
The game opens up much as you’d expect. There’s a quick showcase of the new technology and the new gun models. Picadilly rails are rendered in exacting detail, so gun nerds can rejoice on that front. And a mustached general tells me that He Wants Me to be in his Super Secret Special Forces Unit which operates from a Deus Ex Machina Sub. Apologies for the capitalization there, but I just wanted to let loose an aside on how generic the operation logos and unit names are. After playing through the game only a few hours earlier I can’t recall what the specific Ranger outfit was that my second faceless, voiceless marine was a member of. It might’ve just been The Rangers.
But I digress. Modern Warfare 2 opens on war-torn Afghanistan substituting for Iraq. There’s a sequence ripped from Generation Kill where you’re manning the minigun on top of a humvee (standing in for the M-240 SAW which I want to say would be there in reality). Then there’s a brief Black Hawk Down moment where your humvee is destroyed and you have to run like mad to accomplish a dubious goal and reach the aforementioned mustachioed general. The game then goes on to re-imagine the film Cliffhanger in a way that somehow makes it interesting. Then it drops you into an airport and makes you murder civilians.
I’m going to write that sentence again for effect. After running you through generic action movie sections Modern Warfare 2 puts you in control of a civilian massacre at an airport. It’s painstakingly scripted and paced so that you can’t help but watch what’s unfolding, but for all the gravity it tries to impart at times it can’t help from being glib about the whole fucking thing. No sooner do you watch a terrorist gun down huddled masses like cattle on a killing floor than you walk by the same area to see the flight tickers flip from “on time” to “delayed.” Really, Call of Duty? Are you fucking serious? You’re going to crack a shitty joke after you just made me kill hundreds of unarmed civilians? Do you even want me to buy Call of Duty 8: The Other Cold War?
After that the game offered up another “oh snap” moment where your previous ally shoots you in the chest, revealing he knew you were a plant all along. It’s pretty hard-hitting but it doesn’t save the segment and, trust me, it won’t last. It’s going to happen another six times during the game. Someone you thought you could trust is going to render you helpless or disable you or shoot you. The only question is, is someone going to save you at the last minute?
But the impact of the massacre stays with you for a while. Even after I’d returned to Russia I still felt sore about it. They made me kill all those people, for nothing. The plot twist accompanying it was almost inexplicable. Other terrorists died during the assault, and they were plainly Russian. Wouldn’t they discount any theories about this being a plot by the US to attack Russia? What was the tactical significance of attacking this airport? Why shouldn’t I just kill Makarov outright? And it was hard to feel that bad for myself for firing off .556 into civilian crowds when my only real choice was a menu bar asking me if I was a bad enough dude to play this mission, a question I’ve been conditioned to answer “yes” to without thought since the early ninties. It was upsetting, and not in the intended way. I didn’t feel like the villain had forced me to participate in a senseless act of abhorrent violence. I felt like the game had told its story poorly. Instead of being angry at Makarov I was angry at the developer.
The following level didn’t help. The Brazilian slum mission was unpleasant in a different way. Endless spawns can work if you’re in a wide open area where you’re fending off or evading attackers, but it’s not a great idea in a labyrinthine set of passages and overpasses where you’re going to be constantly getting potshots and being flanked. It was frustrating, and the only reason I didn’t turn off the game right then and there is because I enjoyed Call of Duty 4 so god damn much I wanted to give this game a fair shake. Even though it did nothing but deign to insult me, I wanted to give it a chance, because I trust Infinity Ward’s creative vision so much.
Cue the Red Dawn reenactment, resplendent with the same bizarre hypothetical logic that made Red Dawn such a though provoking film. Less than an hour after slaughtering civvies in an airport I was defending the roof of a Benegans that had a senator in its meat locker or something. It’s all very unclear and very generic, and that’s the point. The firefights became mildly more pleasant from here on out, but the bad taste stayed in my mouth for a while. In fact it stayed in my mouth until I reached the oil rig.
I think part of this unpleasantness stems from the level design. It feels less deliberate than in previous Call of Duty titles. Perhaps they’re showcasing some sort of improved AI, but to me it simply feels like I’m left more vulnerable and given fewer options. There seem to be more endless spawns requiring I run past point x in order to survive, and the way that the spawns function and attempt to shape my movement always felt more frustrating than challenging. I felt like I was being shot from an angle I wasn’t watching, one I wouldn’t know to watch unless I’d played through the level before. And I’d feel this way a lot. Perhaps that’s why Veteran is an unlockable difficulty – it’s less about skill at that point and more about memorizing the patterns the game wants you to take. It’s like a director in the traditional filmic sense, a complete counter to the programatic director of Left 4 Dead.
Exacerbating these issues are puzzling design choices, many of them truncations of previous standard Call of Duty features. I can’t lean, but the enemies can blind fire from cover, and cover can still be penetrated. There’s a larger inventory of guns, but aside from the ACR none of them feel very new. They feel like different skins of the same gun. And why, praytell, did you decide to strap shotguns on to the bottom of various assault rifles? Did someone just see Aliens or something and think it was a cool idea?
Modern Warfare 2 feels like a sophomore effort through and through, which is frustrating considering its the fourth entry from Infinity Ward in the series. Perhaps it’s the senior slump, then? Whatever you want to call it, it’s Call of Duty in decline. Where the first Modern Warfare illustrated what it’s like to be a disposable human weapon in a world populated by massive weapons designed specifically to kill people like you, where it illustrated the devaluation of human life and human emotion and the feeling of helplessness and the painful knowledge of the surety of your own death, Call of Duty 6 gives us a story about how real men fight wars and evil men start them. It gives us long, largely irrelevant philosophical tirades punctuated by actions scenes that feel exploitative in their own context. And it seems to be largely unaware that it’s doing so. Each time Soap rolls over to me in slow motion I want to giggle. I don’t feel exhilerated. I feel like I’m subject to a steamy homosexual romance between two men, forbidden by the laws of military conduct in the 141.
But for all its flaws, as I said in the disclaimer, I’d still recommend it. Part of that is that the play that makes Call of Duty great is still intact. It’s still just as fun to double tap terrorists in the head or get that last second knife and drop into cover before someone notices you. Call of Duty has been the gold standard by which all other multiplayer shooters are measured for a while now. Its emulation is evidence enough, and while Modern Warfare 2 does little to innovate the alchemy of persistence and action remains intact.
The Special Ops modes are also incredibly fun. I haven’t had the chance to enjoy them with another person yet, but the concepts are just so enjoyable and varied, it feels like I get to play through my favorite poetic firefights from the game without any of that emotionally exploitative bullshit in between. I look forward to exploring Special Ops nearly as much as I look forward to exploring the multiplayer.
But the biggest caveat I’d like to make is that Call of Duty 6’s story gets better. It gets better for me during the Russian safehouse mission, after Ghost drags me to the chopper. Sure, there are still plot holes. Why is it that the marines have no trouble destroying the Russian horde behind me? Was it really that important for me to arrive before Shepard shoots me? Couldn’t he just search my body? It’s not like he did a very thorough interrogation. But that moment was earned. That betrayal made the entire plot fall together and changed the way I looked at the game. It isn’t a game about life and death the way that Call of Duty 4 was. It’s a game about being forced to do shit by people who want to see you die and doing all you can to break their rules in order to survive. It’s a game about being a gamer in an entirely different context.
The following scenes, where you fight your way to Shepard through his hordes of dubiously allied troops are actually kind of enjoyable, simply because Call of Duty rarely has a pair of opposing sides fighting while you try to slip by. It’s also a fresh twist to be fighting Americans in any way, shape, or form in the normally chest thumpingly patriotic Call of Duty games. Call of Duty 6 seems to recognize that in reality the soldier’s enemy is war itself, that to survive they have to find a way to abandon war, often by enduring it during the worst of times.
And even though those last scenes have some super unpleasant moments, like a terrible boat chase and a lengthy scene where you’re stabbed in the chest and left helpless which ends with a series of actions that made me shout loud enough to upset the cat, they still saved the game for me. Because it stopped being about blind patriotism after the dropped Army Ranger plotline vanished inexplicably from the game. It stopped being about how your country is above reproach, about how patriotism is the most important thing in the world. Instead it became a story about two men trying to survive against the impossible forces arrayed against them. It became the sort of story I enjoy, even if it wasn’t as well but together as previous entries, and that’s a great thing. It’s too bad they diluted it in every way and wore out their later shocks by forcing so many upon us early in the game, but nothing really beat watching my hand feebly twitch when I pressed f and realizing what I had to do to stop Shepard. At that moment I truly felt for Soap. I’ve inhabited him for a while, and some terrible things have happened to him while I was behind his eyes, but that was by far the worst. I hope he finds a nice cabin in the Alps with Captain Price. He’s certainly earned it.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Congratulations on Being Published!
As an aspiring writer there’s been only one goal in your mind for the last few years, aside from a shallow grave: publication! For many people it’s simply a matter of sending out their flowery, wondrous manuscript about growing up Puerto Rican in Alaska and watching the cash fly in, but you’re a white dude from New Jersey so it’s been a tougher journey for you.
No one would buy that “from the streets” crap, since you’re a skinny guy from Hoboken. You’re slightly less physically intimidating than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and can’t go through a conversation without referencing your favorite pretentious books, most of them Russian translations.
That left documenting your struggle and your triumph with an invented drug problem, but then that Frey cunt had to ruin that one by beating you two it. You thought about making an even edgier “memoir” about rehab, but it eventually devolved into a novelization of the film Saw as you considered various ways that people could be tortured into no longer doing heroin.
No one accepted the manuscript.
That left an “edgy” crime drama about vampires having sex with teens while solving murders and a three hundred page diatribe about modern politics centering around a small town in upstate New York and its slow descent into collective madness. You decided to write the crime drama and Putnam ate it up.
So tomorrow you’ll be sitting at the release party when George Saunders arrives. You’ll leap out of your seat to shake his hand but before you reach him he’ll have his fist in a ball and you’ll be laid out on your ass. He’ll then depart your book release in his traditional mix of style and poise and return home to write some more books of actual value.
His actions will generate a whirlwind of press around your title and lead to record breaking sales. Since your book is terrible this isn’t a good thing, and after an overwhelmingly negative critical response you’ll publish a second, considerably less successful book before becoming the pariah of the creative community.
Congratulations on Being Published!
No one would buy that “from the streets” crap, since you’re a skinny guy from Hoboken. You’re slightly less physically intimidating than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and can’t go through a conversation without referencing your favorite pretentious books, most of them Russian translations.
That left documenting your struggle and your triumph with an invented drug problem, but then that Frey cunt had to ruin that one by beating you two it. You thought about making an even edgier “memoir” about rehab, but it eventually devolved into a novelization of the film Saw as you considered various ways that people could be tortured into no longer doing heroin.
No one accepted the manuscript.
That left an “edgy” crime drama about vampires having sex with teens while solving murders and a three hundred page diatribe about modern politics centering around a small town in upstate New York and its slow descent into collective madness. You decided to write the crime drama and Putnam ate it up.
So tomorrow you’ll be sitting at the release party when George Saunders arrives. You’ll leap out of your seat to shake his hand but before you reach him he’ll have his fist in a ball and you’ll be laid out on your ass. He’ll then depart your book release in his traditional mix of style and poise and return home to write some more books of actual value.
His actions will generate a whirlwind of press around your title and lead to record breaking sales. Since your book is terrible this isn’t a good thing, and after an overwhelmingly negative critical response you’ll publish a second, considerably less successful book before becoming the pariah of the creative community.
Congratulations on Being Published!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Congratulations on Choosing the Wrong Horse!
After you steal the priceless gem from around the neck of Countess Quintessa Montressa you won’t have a lot of time to think. You’ll be running with that shitty imitation gold chain in hand, besashed bodyguards pursuing you through the Old West style theme park, wondering how you could possibly escape.
You’ll consider a bold gunfight, but that’ll go right out the window. You’ve never fired a gun in your life, and you doubt that the sheriffs of this little burg are carrying live firearms. You’d try to escape through the sewers if you thought you could get a moment of privacy, but those royal guards are in good shape so you don’t think you’ll have the opportunity. You’ll consider turning around and shouting just kidding, but that’ll seem too simple to work. Then you’ll see the hitched horses and all your problems will go right out the window.
They’ll be just outside a local “saloon” where tourists can purchase various knick knacks and bottles of liquor. That’s where you bought Quintessa that cowboy themed bear on your first date together, and it seems only fitting that it should give you your means of escape as well.
You’ll leap atop one of the horses and take off galloping. The shocked royal guard will hesitate before mounting the other horse and giving chase, his sash flapping with each kick. You’ll have a decent lead on him and everything will seem fine. That is, until your horse’s leg snaps as you approach the inappropriately named “Ye Olde Gorge.”
You’ll be hurled forward violently and spared death only because you land in a cactus. Quintessa’s guard won’t be so lucky. He’ll follow you over the cliff, assuming that this is all part of a very clever plan on your part. He’ll be wrong, and his horse will land on top of him. Ironically, the horse will survive the fall.
You and the horse will lay there dying until some First Nations People come along and decide to help you out. The two of you will form a bond as you go through traction together and when you leave the First Nations People after establishing a community college with the money from fencing the necklace you’ll ride out on the back of your new horse friend, headed into the unknown together.
Congratulations on Choosing the Wrong Horse!
You’ll consider a bold gunfight, but that’ll go right out the window. You’ve never fired a gun in your life, and you doubt that the sheriffs of this little burg are carrying live firearms. You’d try to escape through the sewers if you thought you could get a moment of privacy, but those royal guards are in good shape so you don’t think you’ll have the opportunity. You’ll consider turning around and shouting just kidding, but that’ll seem too simple to work. Then you’ll see the hitched horses and all your problems will go right out the window.
They’ll be just outside a local “saloon” where tourists can purchase various knick knacks and bottles of liquor. That’s where you bought Quintessa that cowboy themed bear on your first date together, and it seems only fitting that it should give you your means of escape as well.
You’ll leap atop one of the horses and take off galloping. The shocked royal guard will hesitate before mounting the other horse and giving chase, his sash flapping with each kick. You’ll have a decent lead on him and everything will seem fine. That is, until your horse’s leg snaps as you approach the inappropriately named “Ye Olde Gorge.”
You’ll be hurled forward violently and spared death only because you land in a cactus. Quintessa’s guard won’t be so lucky. He’ll follow you over the cliff, assuming that this is all part of a very clever plan on your part. He’ll be wrong, and his horse will land on top of him. Ironically, the horse will survive the fall.
You and the horse will lay there dying until some First Nations People come along and decide to help you out. The two of you will form a bond as you go through traction together and when you leave the First Nations People after establishing a community college with the money from fencing the necklace you’ll ride out on the back of your new horse friend, headed into the unknown together.
Congratulations on Choosing the Wrong Horse!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Congratulations on Buying the Can of Barbasol from Jurassic Park!
As the world’s fifth most eccentric billionaire, and the only one of the top ten who doesn’t presently live in seclusion, you’ve got a reputation to maintain. You’ve got to keep the public guessing so every once in a while you’ll move up on a grocery store, buy all the toilet paper and run around outside with your bodyguards, pelting people with rolls of Charmin. That’s just an example, you also pull plenty of pranks that aren’t totally lame.
But this Thursday, a week after your tremendously successful “pay all the cops in a small town in Iowa to act British” prank, you’ll feel as if you’ve outgrown the high concept prank phase of your eccentric billionaire-hood. You’ll make a final blog post explaining that you want a change of pace and then head into the west wing of your mansion/Bat Cave to ponder.
While lounging in a sex swing which has never been used for its intended purpose you’ll run through the various “done” aspects of zany wealth. You could purchase music rights, but that would be perceived as mercenary. You could go in for charity work, but then it would seem like you were trying to hide something. Investing in pharmaceutical research is so blah, and it would put you adds with the universal healthcare agenda which as an off-beat billionaire you naturally support.
You’ll spend nearly an hour and a half laying there, swinging back and forth awkwardly, listening to the creak of the carabineer in the eyebolt before inspiration strikes you and you phone your secretary’s assistant to make an appointment at an auction house selling pointlessly expensive worthless memorabilia.
Within 36 hours you’ll have flown to Vienna, Austria, idle rich capital of the world, and seated yourself in a luxuriously appointed 14th century palace which has been converted to serve an auction house for the rich and bored.
Most of the items will be uninteresting. Catholic reliquaries, celebrity semen and ovum and Angelina Jolie’s first strap-on will all be paraded across stage without eliciting even the tiniest bit of excitement from you. When lot 26B comes along, though, all that will change.
You’ll leap out of your chair, shouting “ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!” the way you always wanted to. The auctioneer will inform you that there’s no need to shout and that bidding starts at a paltry two-hundred thousand dollars, but you’ll tell your man to strike him in the face and shout your offer again at the top of your lungs.
After a brief fine and the most exciting check-writing you’ll have experienced in a while you’ll leave the auction house with your purchase, content in the knowledge that you’ll appear briefly on a few news stations tonight and give a few people bemused smiles with your antics.
When you get home you’ll check to see if the can of shaving cream from Jurassic Park opens the way it did in the movie. You’ll be overjoyed when it not only does but also contains tiny nodules containing what you assume to be a representation of “dino-DNA.” You’ll share the news with a bored Megan Fox, who will inform you that she never saw that movie because “dinosaurs are for nerds.”
You’ll give her a quick “eat shit” look before retiring to your Egyptian-style antechamber where you’ll be fellated by a woman who looks just like a young Ally Sheedy. After she finishes the two of you will talk about Jurassic Park at length and years from now, long after the two of you have married and raised your children, you’ll recount this meet-cute story for your first son’s in-laws to be as they shift uncomfortably, surrounded by your army of cloned dinosaurs.
Congratulations on Buying the Can of Barbasol from Jurassic Park!
But this Thursday, a week after your tremendously successful “pay all the cops in a small town in Iowa to act British” prank, you’ll feel as if you’ve outgrown the high concept prank phase of your eccentric billionaire-hood. You’ll make a final blog post explaining that you want a change of pace and then head into the west wing of your mansion/Bat Cave to ponder.
While lounging in a sex swing which has never been used for its intended purpose you’ll run through the various “done” aspects of zany wealth. You could purchase music rights, but that would be perceived as mercenary. You could go in for charity work, but then it would seem like you were trying to hide something. Investing in pharmaceutical research is so blah, and it would put you adds with the universal healthcare agenda which as an off-beat billionaire you naturally support.
You’ll spend nearly an hour and a half laying there, swinging back and forth awkwardly, listening to the creak of the carabineer in the eyebolt before inspiration strikes you and you phone your secretary’s assistant to make an appointment at an auction house selling pointlessly expensive worthless memorabilia.
Within 36 hours you’ll have flown to Vienna, Austria, idle rich capital of the world, and seated yourself in a luxuriously appointed 14th century palace which has been converted to serve an auction house for the rich and bored.
Most of the items will be uninteresting. Catholic reliquaries, celebrity semen and ovum and Angelina Jolie’s first strap-on will all be paraded across stage without eliciting even the tiniest bit of excitement from you. When lot 26B comes along, though, all that will change.
You’ll leap out of your chair, shouting “ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!” the way you always wanted to. The auctioneer will inform you that there’s no need to shout and that bidding starts at a paltry two-hundred thousand dollars, but you’ll tell your man to strike him in the face and shout your offer again at the top of your lungs.
After a brief fine and the most exciting check-writing you’ll have experienced in a while you’ll leave the auction house with your purchase, content in the knowledge that you’ll appear briefly on a few news stations tonight and give a few people bemused smiles with your antics.
When you get home you’ll check to see if the can of shaving cream from Jurassic Park opens the way it did in the movie. You’ll be overjoyed when it not only does but also contains tiny nodules containing what you assume to be a representation of “dino-DNA.” You’ll share the news with a bored Megan Fox, who will inform you that she never saw that movie because “dinosaurs are for nerds.”
You’ll give her a quick “eat shit” look before retiring to your Egyptian-style antechamber where you’ll be fellated by a woman who looks just like a young Ally Sheedy. After she finishes the two of you will talk about Jurassic Park at length and years from now, long after the two of you have married and raised your children, you’ll recount this meet-cute story for your first son’s in-laws to be as they shift uncomfortably, surrounded by your army of cloned dinosaurs.
Congratulations on Buying the Can of Barbasol from Jurassic Park!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Congratulations Horny Astronaut!
You’re an astronaut and you just can’t keep it in your pants.
On planet Earth that translates to you being kind of a dick and sleeping around. It irks your wife to no end, but she knows she’s your emotional rock and acknowledges that as an astronaut you have certain privledges and do bring in a lot of sweet sweet cash money so she puts up with it. She also knows you have a tiny penis, so she can laugh at you and the slough of embarrassed women you work your way through.
But in space it’s a totally different story. Up there in the big black yonder there are no coeds with low self-esteem, no prostitutes whose patience is yet to be exhausted. In fact there usually aren’t that many women at all, and your tiny penis makes you a poor match for straight female astronauts and gay male astronauts alike.
So today, on your twelfth day on the international space station, you’re going to get super horny. You won’t have beat off since you arrived, since privacy is in short supply up there, and exposing yourself to anyone would result in peals of laughter that would haunt you for the rest of your month long stay.
That’s why you’re going to engage in an ill-advised form of discrete masturbation using a tiny airlock and a bag. In your head it was going to “suck you off” literally, and the cold was going to stimulate your dick something amazing. But in reality it’s going to all but rip your penis off.
The resident physician will save your pound of flesh, but you’ll be disfigured, cursed from now on with a measure of self-control and a normally sized penis. You’ll want to phone your wife immediately, but phone calls from the international space station are super expensive so you won’t get the chance for a few more months.
Odds are nothing terrible will happen before then, though, so kudos on fixing most of your major life problems while in orbit!
Congratulations Horny Astronaut!
On planet Earth that translates to you being kind of a dick and sleeping around. It irks your wife to no end, but she knows she’s your emotional rock and acknowledges that as an astronaut you have certain privledges and do bring in a lot of sweet sweet cash money so she puts up with it. She also knows you have a tiny penis, so she can laugh at you and the slough of embarrassed women you work your way through.
But in space it’s a totally different story. Up there in the big black yonder there are no coeds with low self-esteem, no prostitutes whose patience is yet to be exhausted. In fact there usually aren’t that many women at all, and your tiny penis makes you a poor match for straight female astronauts and gay male astronauts alike.
So today, on your twelfth day on the international space station, you’re going to get super horny. You won’t have beat off since you arrived, since privacy is in short supply up there, and exposing yourself to anyone would result in peals of laughter that would haunt you for the rest of your month long stay.
That’s why you’re going to engage in an ill-advised form of discrete masturbation using a tiny airlock and a bag. In your head it was going to “suck you off” literally, and the cold was going to stimulate your dick something amazing. But in reality it’s going to all but rip your penis off.
The resident physician will save your pound of flesh, but you’ll be disfigured, cursed from now on with a measure of self-control and a normally sized penis. You’ll want to phone your wife immediately, but phone calls from the international space station are super expensive so you won’t get the chance for a few more months.
Odds are nothing terrible will happen before then, though, so kudos on fixing most of your major life problems while in orbit!
Congratulations Horny Astronaut!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Congratulations on Flying Into Another Plane!
Today’s the day! You’ve been begging your parents to let you do this for months, nay, years, and today it all comes together! On today, the day of your sixteenth birthday, you’ll finally have your first flight lesson.
Your mother will drive you to the airfield along winding roads with all the sanctimony she brought to the trips to your Tae Kwan Do lessons. She’ll have the window down, juggling a lit cigarette with the Escape’s steering wheel. The two of you will be silent, though you’ll squirm in your seat a good deal more than usual.
Your mom will do her all to pretend you’re not there. If you could see inside her head you imagine you’d catch her thinking of herself as a chauffer. In your adolescent, sexually repressed brain the idea of a female chauffer will be slightly sexy, and you’ll do your best to force the thought out as quickly as it enters.
The appearance of the airfield will help, its long black land strip stretching out to the horizon. Your mother will park the car and open your door to let you out, running to the building which houses the flight prep class.
After a brief safety seminar you’ll be told that normally they don’t allow new students to fly on their first day, but because it’s your birthday they’ll be letting you take out a Cesna. You’ll leap up from your seat and cheer for joy, causing the one other girl in the class to roll her eyes. To her credit, you will look a little faggy doing it.
Then the instructor will take you out to a specially rigged Cesna, which is supposed to have its two sets of controls rigged so that the “pilot’s” set doesn’t work and the co-pilot’s does. But your mom picked a flight school with an alcoholic mechanic to save a few dollars and you’re going to board a plane where there’s been a mixup and the opposite is true.
As such when you take off, your despondent potential lesbian crush seated behind you and your needlessly creepy flight instructor by your side, you’ll have full control of the plane. By the time the flight instructor realizes that you, with your natural piloting skills, have successfully taken off and are carrying out the maneuver he wanted “you to do” instead of him it’ll be too late. You’ll collide into the one other plane in the air space around the airfield, piloted by another birthday girl who was undone by a drunken mechanic.
Congratulations on Flying Into Another Plane!
Your mother will drive you to the airfield along winding roads with all the sanctimony she brought to the trips to your Tae Kwan Do lessons. She’ll have the window down, juggling a lit cigarette with the Escape’s steering wheel. The two of you will be silent, though you’ll squirm in your seat a good deal more than usual.
Your mom will do her all to pretend you’re not there. If you could see inside her head you imagine you’d catch her thinking of herself as a chauffer. In your adolescent, sexually repressed brain the idea of a female chauffer will be slightly sexy, and you’ll do your best to force the thought out as quickly as it enters.
The appearance of the airfield will help, its long black land strip stretching out to the horizon. Your mother will park the car and open your door to let you out, running to the building which houses the flight prep class.
After a brief safety seminar you’ll be told that normally they don’t allow new students to fly on their first day, but because it’s your birthday they’ll be letting you take out a Cesna. You’ll leap up from your seat and cheer for joy, causing the one other girl in the class to roll her eyes. To her credit, you will look a little faggy doing it.
Then the instructor will take you out to a specially rigged Cesna, which is supposed to have its two sets of controls rigged so that the “pilot’s” set doesn’t work and the co-pilot’s does. But your mom picked a flight school with an alcoholic mechanic to save a few dollars and you’re going to board a plane where there’s been a mixup and the opposite is true.
As such when you take off, your despondent potential lesbian crush seated behind you and your needlessly creepy flight instructor by your side, you’ll have full control of the plane. By the time the flight instructor realizes that you, with your natural piloting skills, have successfully taken off and are carrying out the maneuver he wanted “you to do” instead of him it’ll be too late. You’ll collide into the one other plane in the air space around the airfield, piloted by another birthday girl who was undone by a drunken mechanic.
Congratulations on Flying Into Another Plane!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Congratulations on...Oh Shit! Bats!!!
We had some awesome investment advice brewing for you, a real solid counter to that get rich quick scheme you got off that other, inferior future predicting website run by a certain fake Jamaican (Famaican?) who will remain nameless. But when we tried to clarify just what stocks and/or bonds you needed to purchase today we were assaulted by visions of bats swarming all over you.
The vision was so overwhelming and freaky that no one here in the office wanted to investigate it more closely. As a result we can’t tell you just where or how it will happen. But our advice to you is to go caving today, because if you’re not caving when you’re assaulted by bats then it’s probably going to take place in your home. And if the bats are in your home they’re probably going to be rabid or sick or something. At the very least they’ll be part of a local gang and they’ll probably take all of your shit.
Just visit Carlsbad with your girl. Even if it’s kind of freaky it’s better than being robbed by bats.
Congratulations on...Oh Shit! Bats!!!
The vision was so overwhelming and freaky that no one here in the office wanted to investigate it more closely. As a result we can’t tell you just where or how it will happen. But our advice to you is to go caving today, because if you’re not caving when you’re assaulted by bats then it’s probably going to take place in your home. And if the bats are in your home they’re probably going to be rabid or sick or something. At the very least they’ll be part of a local gang and they’ll probably take all of your shit.
Just visit Carlsbad with your girl. Even if it’s kind of freaky it’s better than being robbed by bats.
Congratulations on...Oh Shit! Bats!!!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: To Live and Die in a Brutal Land!
Brutal Legend is quite possibly the best game I’ve played this year. It’s certainly the game I’ve enjoyed playing most this year, although like any great game it’s riddled with flaws. And I’m ashamed to say it’s a game I very nearly didn’t play. While I’d heard great things from publications I trusted I found it to be a hard sell. Money is tight and time is short at this time of year. Was it really in my best interest to drop $60 on a game that I had at best a vague understanding of?
A game which, while made by a designer I trust more than my mother, hadn’t really announced its attentions first hand, which had instead relied on third parties to dribble out little bits and pieces about just what kind of game it is, stepping in only to make cryptic statements such as “it’s not an RTS” when clearly it is. A game where the developer hardly mentioned the meticulously constructed multiplayer portion for which the single player game is a sort of incredibly elaborate and fun tutorial. EA’s marketing machine has done a great job of letting us know what the atmosphere of the game is like without letting us know what kind of a game it will be, and bully on them for it. Atmosphere is a big part of what makes Brutal Legend great. But in a medium where people still buy games based on their generic classification it’s a bit mystifying, and it makes it hard for consumers to make a choice when so many known entities they’re already excited about are coming out.
Which is an absolute shame, because Brutal Legend is an incredible game. It’s what gaming needs more of, and if it wasn’t for Toys’R’Us’ wonderful buy-two-get-one-free sale I never would’ve purchased it. Thanks for having my back for the last twenty five years of my life, TRU. Here’s hoping you outlast the reprehensible people at Game Stop and become a socially acceptable place to buy video games for nerds in the years to come.
Brutal Legend, from the moment you insert the disc, makes no apologies for what it is. The opening scene is a totally genuine portrayal of the people who made the game, the sort of people who take delight in the act of just walking through a record store and poouring surreptitiously at the wondrous items we have no intention to buy. It lets you know who the game is for, who the game is really about, before you’ve even open up the album jacket and peruse the awesome start menu.
Brutal Legend wears its heart on its sleeve in every sense of the world. It is unabashed in its affection for both its subject matter and its characters, but it remains willing to laugh at them. It treats both metal and its enthusiasts with the aplomb and humor they deserve. It’s like a version of Metalocalypse where the characters are real, relatable people instead of hilarious caricatures. It’s nothing like looking into a mirror, but it is like reading a book or watching a movie in that, in a strange twist, a cast of video game characters are up to snuff.
But we’d expect little else from Tim Schafer, and indeed this has been a cornerstone of the marketing campaign surrounding Brutal Legend. As mentioned earlier the characters of the game seem to be used as selling points more than the game itself, with Jack Black appearing in character at press conferences and vamping as Eddie Riggs on Metalocalypse. From Monkey Island to Brutal Legend this has always been a strength of the titles Schafer has worked on and as much a reason to purchase them as the games these characters inhabit.
Unfortunately in the case of Brutal Legend the game itself is kind of a mess. Yahtzee’s hyperbolic review goes a bit far on this front, as expected, but there are some serious issues with the game’s mechanics and controls. As a brawler it lacks significant depth and character advancement is tied to world exploration, a dangerous if ambitious choice. As an open world exploration game the driving controls are frustratingly sloppy and far too many areas can only be accessed by a single route for plot purposes, even if you disregard the various “invisible walls” the game condescends to inform you of with a flow breaking game notification. And there’s no representation on your map for the various areas you’ve explored and most of the collectibles you’ve found, with Metal Forges constituting the sole exception to the rule. Along with the inability to play a waypoint at any location that isn’t a “plot event” and the total absence of any sort of useful map during the completely-but-apparently-not-RTS sequences it seems like the game has a serious problem with maps in general.
As for the RTS game itself, it’s overwhelmingly new and different, with demands that players of traditional RTSes have rarely had cause to consider. Your character becomes a resource himself, and how you spend your time with him is critical. Will you fly around and see what your enemy is getting up to? Take the fight to the other stage and drop a zeppelin on them for good measure? Or will you snatch up all the resource points you can and hope for the best? The way you manage your avatar is as important as the way you manage your fans and units. It’s almost as if the RTS’ golden standard of “actions per minute” as a means of measuring player skill has been represented mechanically. And since RTS games are, to be fair, incredibly hard, it isn’t tough to see why many reviewers who stepped into the game expecting God of War were baffled by the entire thing when they found Sacrifice staring back at them.
But I’d still literally recommend Brutal Legend to anyone, and I mean anyone. I’d recommend it to people who don’t even traditionally play games, and only partially because I want Tim Schafer to have the sort of financial clout to be able to do whatever the fuck he wants. It’s a great introduction to what it means to be a gamer, to put yourself into the shoes of another individual and simultaneously laugh at and cry with that character. It’s pretty easy, although along with the aforementioned difficulties it is also hurt by a general lack of documentation and explanation. Melee a Bride to death to see what I mean.
But it captures what it means to inhabit a new world and a new space perfectly. The world of Brutal Legend is the most vibrant one I’ve experienced this year. Go fuck yourself, Grand Theft Auto 4’s rendition of New York. Brutal Legend takes all the energy you put into making a giant generic cityscape as based on New York as Law and Order is based on actual events and turns it into a world which is, as Schafer promises, ripped from album covers and lyrics. The result is something amazingly immersive which, despite being littered by celebrities, is never overwhelmed by them. Lemmy from Motorhead cracking a joke about drinking a lot and generally being himself seems perfectly natural in Brutal Legend. Ozzy Osbourne’s Guardian of Metal, as well his smaller, more humorously referential character, are both spot on, and feel less like attempts to shoehorn Ozzy into the game and more like categorizations of him within the hierarchy of metal. To continue would be to list off the many talented musicians who lent their voice to the game so I’ll stay my hand. But not before mentioning that many comedy greats make appearances, with Brian Posehn representing my personal favorite in The Hunter. If you’re a fan of The Comedians of Comedy you’ll find a lot to love here.
And with that reference I should make an admission: I’m not much of a metal fan. I liked metal well enough during my youth, but that sentence should betray my ignorance of both the culture and the subject matter. This game made me love metal a lot more. As I said before its genuine affection for the culture and its willingness to display both the breadth of the music, its adherents and the art and culture tangential to the music can easily serve as a primer on what to follow within metal as a genre. Even if your exposure is solely that of the pop culture wallflower you’ll leave this game air guitaring with your controller. You’ll consider the appropriateness of various metal classics in relation to your daily life and you’ll realize just how important Lord of the Rings was the metal as a culture.
To go any deeper into the game would be to issue forth spoilers, and I really don’t want to do that. The sense of discovery that Brutal Legend conveys is one of its greatest strengths, and it’s the rare sort of exploratory game that actually has me sitting down and exploring the world in my sweet ass car. Each time you find a new dragon statue or one of the “legends” which fills you in on the history of the Brutal Land it’s a satisfying and enriching feeling which adds more than just texture to the world. So I’ll leave you with a plea: come play Brutal Legend, not because it’s the cleanest experience, but because it’s likely the most worthwhile way to spent $60 and ten to fourteen hours on your life which has come out this year. See you at the Sea of Black Tears.
A game which, while made by a designer I trust more than my mother, hadn’t really announced its attentions first hand, which had instead relied on third parties to dribble out little bits and pieces about just what kind of game it is, stepping in only to make cryptic statements such as “it’s not an RTS” when clearly it is. A game where the developer hardly mentioned the meticulously constructed multiplayer portion for which the single player game is a sort of incredibly elaborate and fun tutorial. EA’s marketing machine has done a great job of letting us know what the atmosphere of the game is like without letting us know what kind of a game it will be, and bully on them for it. Atmosphere is a big part of what makes Brutal Legend great. But in a medium where people still buy games based on their generic classification it’s a bit mystifying, and it makes it hard for consumers to make a choice when so many known entities they’re already excited about are coming out.
Which is an absolute shame, because Brutal Legend is an incredible game. It’s what gaming needs more of, and if it wasn’t for Toys’R’Us’ wonderful buy-two-get-one-free sale I never would’ve purchased it. Thanks for having my back for the last twenty five years of my life, TRU. Here’s hoping you outlast the reprehensible people at Game Stop and become a socially acceptable place to buy video games for nerds in the years to come.
Brutal Legend, from the moment you insert the disc, makes no apologies for what it is. The opening scene is a totally genuine portrayal of the people who made the game, the sort of people who take delight in the act of just walking through a record store and poouring surreptitiously at the wondrous items we have no intention to buy. It lets you know who the game is for, who the game is really about, before you’ve even open up the album jacket and peruse the awesome start menu.
Brutal Legend wears its heart on its sleeve in every sense of the world. It is unabashed in its affection for both its subject matter and its characters, but it remains willing to laugh at them. It treats both metal and its enthusiasts with the aplomb and humor they deserve. It’s like a version of Metalocalypse where the characters are real, relatable people instead of hilarious caricatures. It’s nothing like looking into a mirror, but it is like reading a book or watching a movie in that, in a strange twist, a cast of video game characters are up to snuff.
But we’d expect little else from Tim Schafer, and indeed this has been a cornerstone of the marketing campaign surrounding Brutal Legend. As mentioned earlier the characters of the game seem to be used as selling points more than the game itself, with Jack Black appearing in character at press conferences and vamping as Eddie Riggs on Metalocalypse. From Monkey Island to Brutal Legend this has always been a strength of the titles Schafer has worked on and as much a reason to purchase them as the games these characters inhabit.
Unfortunately in the case of Brutal Legend the game itself is kind of a mess. Yahtzee’s hyperbolic review goes a bit far on this front, as expected, but there are some serious issues with the game’s mechanics and controls. As a brawler it lacks significant depth and character advancement is tied to world exploration, a dangerous if ambitious choice. As an open world exploration game the driving controls are frustratingly sloppy and far too many areas can only be accessed by a single route for plot purposes, even if you disregard the various “invisible walls” the game condescends to inform you of with a flow breaking game notification. And there’s no representation on your map for the various areas you’ve explored and most of the collectibles you’ve found, with Metal Forges constituting the sole exception to the rule. Along with the inability to play a waypoint at any location that isn’t a “plot event” and the total absence of any sort of useful map during the completely-but-apparently-not-RTS sequences it seems like the game has a serious problem with maps in general.
As for the RTS game itself, it’s overwhelmingly new and different, with demands that players of traditional RTSes have rarely had cause to consider. Your character becomes a resource himself, and how you spend your time with him is critical. Will you fly around and see what your enemy is getting up to? Take the fight to the other stage and drop a zeppelin on them for good measure? Or will you snatch up all the resource points you can and hope for the best? The way you manage your avatar is as important as the way you manage your fans and units. It’s almost as if the RTS’ golden standard of “actions per minute” as a means of measuring player skill has been represented mechanically. And since RTS games are, to be fair, incredibly hard, it isn’t tough to see why many reviewers who stepped into the game expecting God of War were baffled by the entire thing when they found Sacrifice staring back at them.
But I’d still literally recommend Brutal Legend to anyone, and I mean anyone. I’d recommend it to people who don’t even traditionally play games, and only partially because I want Tim Schafer to have the sort of financial clout to be able to do whatever the fuck he wants. It’s a great introduction to what it means to be a gamer, to put yourself into the shoes of another individual and simultaneously laugh at and cry with that character. It’s pretty easy, although along with the aforementioned difficulties it is also hurt by a general lack of documentation and explanation. Melee a Bride to death to see what I mean.
But it captures what it means to inhabit a new world and a new space perfectly. The world of Brutal Legend is the most vibrant one I’ve experienced this year. Go fuck yourself, Grand Theft Auto 4’s rendition of New York. Brutal Legend takes all the energy you put into making a giant generic cityscape as based on New York as Law and Order is based on actual events and turns it into a world which is, as Schafer promises, ripped from album covers and lyrics. The result is something amazingly immersive which, despite being littered by celebrities, is never overwhelmed by them. Lemmy from Motorhead cracking a joke about drinking a lot and generally being himself seems perfectly natural in Brutal Legend. Ozzy Osbourne’s Guardian of Metal, as well his smaller, more humorously referential character, are both spot on, and feel less like attempts to shoehorn Ozzy into the game and more like categorizations of him within the hierarchy of metal. To continue would be to list off the many talented musicians who lent their voice to the game so I’ll stay my hand. But not before mentioning that many comedy greats make appearances, with Brian Posehn representing my personal favorite in The Hunter. If you’re a fan of The Comedians of Comedy you’ll find a lot to love here.
And with that reference I should make an admission: I’m not much of a metal fan. I liked metal well enough during my youth, but that sentence should betray my ignorance of both the culture and the subject matter. This game made me love metal a lot more. As I said before its genuine affection for the culture and its willingness to display both the breadth of the music, its adherents and the art and culture tangential to the music can easily serve as a primer on what to follow within metal as a genre. Even if your exposure is solely that of the pop culture wallflower you’ll leave this game air guitaring with your controller. You’ll consider the appropriateness of various metal classics in relation to your daily life and you’ll realize just how important Lord of the Rings was the metal as a culture.
To go any deeper into the game would be to issue forth spoilers, and I really don’t want to do that. The sense of discovery that Brutal Legend conveys is one of its greatest strengths, and it’s the rare sort of exploratory game that actually has me sitting down and exploring the world in my sweet ass car. Each time you find a new dragon statue or one of the “legends” which fills you in on the history of the Brutal Land it’s a satisfying and enriching feeling which adds more than just texture to the world. So I’ll leave you with a plea: come play Brutal Legend, not because it’s the cleanest experience, but because it’s likely the most worthwhile way to spent $60 and ten to fourteen hours on your life which has come out this year. See you at the Sea of Black Tears.
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