Congratulations Wolverine Tamer!

You’ll be struggling to pick up your glass with your stumps when she comes up behind you and lifts it for you, bringing it to your lips. You’ll sip deeply from it and then nod at her as she brings it back down to the bar top for you.

“Thanks,” you’ll say.

She’ll wink at you and smile. “Looks like you’ve got a few stories,” she’ll say, pointing at your stumps. You’ll shrug and smirk.

“Wolverine tamer. Comes with the work.”

She’ll learn over the bar at you, cleavage glaring down at you. You’ll suddenly realize, just as you do every time you’re in this situation, that this is the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Her tongue will dart out from behind her pearly whites and lick around her lips before eventually lolling back down into her drink. After she takes a swig, a long powerful one, she’ll exhale and speak.

“My daddy was a wolverine tamer,” she’ll murmur. “Always liked the kind.”

You’ll raise your stump to show that you want the check and then have the bartender sign your name for you. Then you’ll rush the little lady out of the bar and into the parking lot, where the two of you will enter the car you own that uses your eye movement to help you drive (you get into a lot of accidents). Then you’ll drive fast as you can back to your apartment, where she’ll strap in and ride on your giant, wolverine scratched cock for the rest of the night.

Sometimes it’s good to be a wolverine tamer who attracts emotionally damaged women. Sometimes.

Congratulations Wolverine Tamer!

Congratulations African Queen!

Boats sometimes grow consciousnesses. Everyone knows it but not everyone likes to talk about it. That’s why we name boats, so they’ll have a sense of who they are when they come to life and, as a result, won’t murder everyone on board them with their fucking boat magic. But there’s a downside: sometimes people name boats wrong and those boats attain consciousness and they’re furious.

Today this is going to happen to you.

You’re a stately little steam powered river cruiser named The African Queen in reference to the boat from the classic film that you strongly resemble. But you have self-esteem issues (you think you look too heavy, even though everyone else thinks you look just right and they’re totally correct) and you don’t like being named after a boat, however venerable that you see as fat as well.

In retaliation to your owners, roughly twenty minutes after attaining sentience you’re going to lose your shit and totally make your boiler explode, beginning a cascade of explosions that will wreck the hull and kill most of the crew on board at the time. The survivors will flee into the river, where crocodiles will devour them.

All this just goes to show: self esteem issues hurt more than just the person who has them, it hurts everyone that relies on that person and, in the case of boats, can also prove damaging to the environment!

Congratulations African Queen!

Congratulations on Burrowing Into Her Brain!

You know what? Chicks are great! That’s why we love getting laid so much, right bro? But everyone has to develop their own technique, because everyone’s got something different to work with. Hot people, for example, can just talk to someone briefly and not say anything interesting and they’ll get pussy like you wouldn’t believe. Nice, unattractive people can talk to people for a long time and maybe, if they prove themselves funny enough and if the person has finished having sex with enough vapid attractive people, they can get themselves some of that puss. Ugly people who aren’t nice have to pretend to be interesting, and so on and so forth.

But you’ve got a unique situation. You’re a brain parasite who falls in love with beautiful human women and you’re not ashamed of it. But the ladies don’t go for you. What’s a brain parasite to do?

We’ll tell you what. Today you’re gonna slip your way inside a lovely lady’s drink and wait for her to sip it down. Then you’ll use your parasite pincers to latch on to the roof of her mouth (you’re roughly the size of a shrimp, which is kind of huge for a brain parasite, but as we established earlier you’re extremely weird). Once you’re in place you’ll start secreting a powerful narcotic compound, which will distract her as you burrow into the roof of her mouth and into her brain.

Once you reach the base of her brain stem you’ll lash your weird little tendrils around it and start sending her nerve impulses that make her feel super horny and make her want to go home right away. She’ll slam her drink down and shout her goodbyes to her friends then drive home at unsafe speeds. Once she gets there you’ll send a chemical signal to her brain telling her that she should take a very long, very deep nap.

At this point she’ll pass out.

Once she’s unconscious you’ll crawl out of the hole you made in the roof of her mouth and down to her crotch, where you’ll fiddle with her belt for a few minutes before you get it off, unbutton her pants and crawl right up inside her vagina.

You’ll settle in there, feeling the texture of the walls of her pussy, the slippery, pleasant sensation of touching them. Then you’ll start masturbating furiously.

You’ll finish in a little under a minute. Then you’ll crawl out and leave her there unsatisfied, essentially date raped with a hole leading into her brain, making every man on earth look incredibly good by comparison.

Congratulations on Burrowing Into Her Brain!

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The World of Skyrim!

After a trip back to my parents house, wherein my gaming was more or less replaced by some light hacking (with dramatically varied levels of success) for the span of my Thanksgiving break, I realized I had to write a Super Nerd Sunday. And while there are a lot of things I’d like to write about right now I don’t really feel comfortable doing so for a number of reasons. But since NDAs are legally binding and not having finished Skyrim isn’t I think I’m going to talk about the latter.

I still don’t want to assess Skyrim as a finished product – I’d feel uncomfortable doing that. Despite putting in almost seventy hours I still don’t think I’m anywhere clear the end game, and there are still corners of the world map I’ve barely touched. But the sections I’ve visited and the quests I’ve navigated have been incredible experiences for me. Every creature I fight, from wolf to giant, has been a joy. So I’d like to list off, just randomly, a few of my choicest Skyrim experiences.

- Robbing a museum filled with deadly traps
- Fleeing said museum by tricking some guards with an arrow and jumping into a waterfall to land safely at its base
- Becoming a werewolf (Of course)
- Helping someone else stop being a werewolf
- Going on a bender with the god of liquor and merriment
- Getting my own woman in exchange for slaying a dragon, who I leave in my house for her own safety
- Buying a house, then renovating it with absolutely no help from my house-lady
- Making armor from the skin and bones of my enemies
- Meeting the stripper god of stealing shit and making a good first impression
- Fencing a gemstone the size of a statue’s eye
- Jumping on a dragon’s head and driving a sword into its skull repeatedly
- Cinematically stabbing a guard through the chest after bungling the job on the first try, then letting her body slide off my blade into the still waters of a smuggler’s cove
- Piecing together my bender with the aforementioned god of merriment
- Getting locked in a cage
- Getting a pet robot spider
- Killing a pet robot spider
- Killing a ghost
- Taking back a marriage proposal
- Breaking into dozens of safes
- Downed a dragon with the sound of my voice
- Broke a Viking out of Elf Gitmo
- Made some stew

That is, at Skyrim’s heart, the sort of game it aspires to be. It’s a game rife with cool shit in a world where you can really appreciate the scope of your shit and how cool it really is. It’s one thing to provide players with a sandbox, as so many do, but Skyrim takes it one step farther: it makes the world more than just a sandbox. It makes it a place where you can have an impact.

It’s nothing new, really, for this team or their allies: Bethesda and Obsidian have been doing this for decades. But the way they’ve done it in Skyrim, along with the changes to the interface and the underlying systems of the game, really makes the whole thing feel tighter than it ever has before. It’s one thing to populate a world with interesting people, it’s another altogether to write stories tying them together and parcel them out as perfect as Skyrim has.

And the stripped down character development system forwards this end: instead of letting characters micromanage each of the ten stats you make very skill-specific bonus choices and add to one of your three previously derived stats in other Elder Scrolls games (health, magicka and stamina). There are certainly ways that the whole system could’ve worked better, for example the addition of racially specific trees with character bonuses that consumed skill points could’ve added personality to the races that the alteration of the skill system sort of removed. But as it stands it’s a nice, tight little system that seems to give characters an excellent sense of customization without distracting them from the real star here: the world of Skyrim itself.

I’ll write more about that soon, more about how new systems like dual wielding and a revamped spellcasting system have changed the way this plays as an Elder Scrolls game. But for now I’d like to just leave it at the wonderful world of Skyrim itself and the crazy shit that happens there. Because I’ve never enjoyed crazy shit quite so much or in such wonderful variety as I have in Skyrim.

Congratulations Worst X-Man Ever!

After X-Men First Class we didn’t think there could be any shittier collection of heroes. But holy shit, were we ever wrong, and are you ever going to prove that to us today when you are accepted into the X-Men for having the power of being able to make people feel irrationally bad about shit they’ve done.

You’ll be called The Jewess, which is weird because you’re actually an agnostic who was raised by Episcopalian parents, but everyone will call you by the name and you’ll be weirdly sexualized for it as well. You’ll only go on missions where the villains are doing things that are kind of dickish but not really violent in an immediate or threatening way.

You’ll spend most of your time watching TV, occasionally working out and learning how to cook from books that other people in the mansion will buy. You will very rarely venture out into world and buy groceries, but your powers will often make total strangers feel terrible about themselves in public so, for the good of the world, you’ll do your best not to expose them to your presence.

We’d offer you these congratulations directly, but we know you’d use your super guilt powers to make us feel bad for pointing out something you’re good at. So celebrate this, the day of your inauguration to what used to be one of the most prestigious super-hero groups in North America before you came along!

Congratulations Worst X-Man Ever!

Congratulations on Eating All the Suet You Like!

Times are tough in this economy. We even came up with a little saying to drive it home: ITE. See, wasn’t that clever? Well, we think it was, and that’s what really counts. Anyhow, people have to find a way to survive. Which is why you’ve taken to eating things people normally don’t eat.

You’ve done lots of stuff on this front so far: you’ve eaten cat food, dog food, lizard food. You even sprinkled some fish food into water and then drank it to see if it would keep you from blacking out (it didn’t). But these various measures still cost money, money you don’t have if you want to maintain your lavish penthouse lifestyle. So today you’re going to try something new, something cheaper.

Turns out suet, that fatty tissue normally taken from cows or sheep, is dirt cheap. And you know who loves that? Birds! No one’s ever heard of an unhealthy bird, either. So you know what you’re going to do, right? That’s right! You’re going to buy a bunch of suet at the grocery store, take it home and eat it up.

“You must really like birds,” the cashier will say. You’ll nod at him tersely. Then you’ll run out the door, suit flapping in the wind, back to your apartment where you’ll tear into the suet with your teeth.

You’ll feel like a wild beast devouring a fresh kill, a very cold fresh kill, which will make you feel very masculine and help you get through the truly, truly awful taste of suet. After eating your fill (which will take less than a minute) you’ll retch into the sink for around fifteen minutes, but luckily nothing will come up.

“I can make this work,” you’ll tell your garbage disposal, which stubbornly won’t respond: it really wanted you to vomit into it.

Congratulations on Eating All the Suet You Like!

Congratulations Sentient Tree!

There are plenty of great trees in human history who have done lots of amazing shit. Shel Silvertstein’s Giving Tree, for example, did amazing shit for all the people who asked it for things. And Yggdrasyl was pretty awesome, we’re pretty sure it gave us some stuff (like the substance of the universe for example). But there’s never been a sentient tree quite like you.

You’re a tree who likes to grow his branches into people’s bedrooms and steal their underwear.

Normally you do it while people are away at work, which means they just notice some shit missing from their dressers when they get back. But every once in a while you fuck up and break into an occupied room and have to get out fast. You’ve never been caught before, but today you will be.

An unemployed 24 year old who used to work in customer service will be napping in her room, wearing a pair of Mickie Mouse underpants clearly made for an adult by some sort of ironically kitchy underwear company. You’ll notice that the young woman isn’t just a pile of clothes but is, in fact, a very sad person as you reach in her window and graze her bottom, trying to grab her underwear.

She’ll rouse instantly, throwing off the covers and she’ll see a tree branch poking in through the window and she’ll let off a scream that will make your bark crawl. You’ll try to grab her as quickly as you can, but she’ll be out the door before you have a chance to catch her and either explain things to her or kill her (despite being a tree and incredibly long lived you’re not a very good planner) and she’ll call the DPW for her town from the hallway, sobbing.

They’ll show up almost immediately and remove the, as she’ll call it “rape tree,” with extreme prejudice, chopping off your limbs and ripping your trunk from the ground. In a few hours you’ll be on a pile of wood, screaming your last which, since you’re a tree, will be very, very quiet.

Congratulations Sentient Tree!

Congratulations on Finding Out What Sounds Sound Like!

You’re a deaf person and like all deaf people you’ve always been curious what sounds sound like. But medicine hasn’t advanced far enough to really give you a good idea of what that’s all about, so you’ve spent most of your life just wondering and waiting for time to give you a chance to hear. You’ve spent months and months sitting in your one bedroom apartment, lamenting the lack of music in your life.

“What cruel fate!” you think you’re saying, “That has so severely barred me from this experience!”

Really you’re kind of just mumbling like “WHA CRA FA! SA SO BARRO MATO EXPARA!”

It sounds pretty cool, kind of like some ancient, mystical language, but it isn’t what you’re going for and you don’t know any better because you can’t hear yourself. You’re deaf, all you know about speech is that when people move their lips shit comes out.

But today is your lucky today. Today a crazy scientist is going to finally get clearance to perform one of his crazier experiments and he’s going to take the ears from a convicted murderer and transplant them on to you.

It won’t just be the outside of the ears, either. It’ll be all the working parts, the ear guts and everything. After the murderer is executed they’ll rush the ears over to you in a cooler (a pair of coolers, really, to make sure the ear guts don’t get tangled up) and they’ll get you in there and cut open your skull and ram the murderer’s ears into the space your ruined listening pipes once sat.

Today you’re going to wake up from the operation and, for the first time ever, you’re going to hear stuff. The first thing you hear will be the door opening, which will be amazing. Then you’ll hear the doctor walking up to you. Then he’ll open his mouth and ask how you’re doing. You’ll know this is what he’s asking because his lips will form those words and you’ll be quite good at reading lips at this point.

But you’ll hear him say “HAIL SATAN, KILL THE BREEDERS!” instead.

You’ll open your mouth to tell him that something is wrong but you’ll suddenly realize that you have no idea how to speak, so instead you’ll sign at him.

I think there’s something wrong with these ears?

What do you mean, his lips will say.

His voice will echo “FUCKING WHORES GOTTA DIE!”

You’ll sign at him. I think I’m just hearing what a murderer hears that makes him kill, which is so much worse than being deaf.

These last few signs will be kind of complex, so he won’t really know what’s going on. He’ll leave the room to go find a speech therapist who knows enough sign language to effectively translate and you’ll put on the TV to pass the time. The only sound that comes out of it will be the sound of dogs barking which, compared to the weird satanic voices you’ve been hearing, will actually be quite nice. So nice you won’t even put on the closed captions, you’ll be so pleased to just let the dogs talk at one another.

Congratulations on Finding Out What Sounds Sound Like!

Congratulations Really Smart Parakeet!

Yesterday you became super-intelligent after three years living in a cage, shitting on newspapers and generally feeling angry at the world for reasons you couldn’t articulate. But yesterday you gained the ability to comment on the things that piss you off, and today you’re going to gain the courage to use them. You’ll start with the biggest issue.

“Look,” you’ll tell the human who elevated you to super-intelligence. “We know you’re lonely, but you should know we all understand what you’re doing when you masturbate.” He’ll start to turn red, but you’ll put your wing out as if to say don’t worry. “It’s cool, we’re not that concerned with it, but I figured you should know. Just in case you wanted to start doing it behind closed doors.”

“Sorry,” he’ll begin, but you’ll again hold your wing up (you’re an expert on body language, probably because birds use a lot of body language to talk in general) to show him it’s okay and that he can just shut his craw.

“We don’t judge,” you’ll inform him. “But you might judge yourself.”

He’ll nod and make you some lunch, which will consist of a bagel with plain cream cheese on it. You’ll peck at it lazily and the two of you will sit across from each other. You’ll both be imagining how much this is like being a married couple who are watching their relationship dissolve, and you’ll suddenly realize why your owner, who is so brilliant, is so alone: he is beyond awful. He’ll always be alone, simply by merit of being a shitty, shitty human being. Which is kind of a shame, because he’s so bright, but also kind of great because his awful genes won’t pass on.

When he finally breaks the silence to ask you “So what do you want to do?” it’ll take all your strength not to snap at him for giving you all this desire to express yourself and such a limited capacity to do so, all your power not to scream at him that he’ll be alone for the rest of his life and for you to instead do a little birdy shrug and ask him:

“What do you have on DVD here?” praying for something even remotely watch-able like Planet Earth or something. You’ll know as soon as you ask that you’ll be disappointed, though.

Congratulations Really Smart Parakeet!

Congratulations Lonely Parakeet Owner!

It’s a big, scary world and people have all sorts of ways of dealing with that. Some folk, they try to make art. Some people try to find someone to hold on to and they just cling to that person with all they’ve got. Some people try to get as much stuff as possible, nice stuff if they can manage it. And then there’s you.

You’ve been collecting pets.

It’s kind of rational: most animals that end up as pets can’t take care of themselves, and you’re kind of doing good in the world by finding them, giving them a good home and making them feel loved. But there’s a problem: pets can’t talk to you, and there’s only so much love you can extract from the constant nuzzling of cats against your body.

Which is why you’ve been researching a formula to make an animal super smart, so smart it’ll be able to figure out how to love you back and talk to you about your day. And today is testing day. But you’re worried.

You’ve seen enough science fiction movies to know that this could go all sorts of wrong if you let it, so you don’t want to imbue an animal that could do a lot of harm to you with superior intelligence. So even though you really want to make a cat so smart it can talk, you know better than to try that right off the bat: what if making an animal super smart makes it evil too? So you’ll test your formula on one of the most innocuous animals in your coiterie: the humble parakeet.

You’ll inject half a dose of your super intelligence serum into the parakeet right under its wing in what you hope is the least painful place for parakeets to have things injected into them. Then you’ll wait to see what happens.

You’ll sit there for forty minutes while the parakeet moves around erratically, as if it is for the first time understanding that it has a body, a body capable of flight contained within a cage. At minute forty-one the parakeet’s head will perk up and it will open its beak and craw.

“Holy shit.”

You’ll leap up from your chair.

“Hi!” you’ll shout at it

“Oh thank god,” the bird will chirp. “What’s going on? Why am I in a cage filled with my own shit?”

You’ll be so excited that you’ll throw all caution to the wind and open the parakeet’s cage door.

“Sorry about that, until this morning you were too stupid to live in this apartment without killing yourself.” You’ll regret saying it as soon as the words are out of your mouth. The bird will sit inside of its cage and cock its head at you to the side.

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing to say,” the bird will chirp at you as it hops out of its cage, thus beginning a new era in your life and a new relationship with your tiniest roommate ever.

Congratulations Lonely Parakeet Owner!

Super Nerd Sundays Presents: A Variety of Zombies!

I want to write about Skyrim and how wonderful its been. But things I can’t talk about have kept me from investing as much time in that amazing little sandbox as I’d like, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so right now. So instead of writing another premature love letter to a big, sprawling game I’m about halfway through I’m going to write about the three very different zombie experiences I’ve been alternating between over the last month.

See, I’ve been working in my private life on a larger piece of zombie fiction and I’ve been thinking about how zombies work as a mirror for ourselves, how they serve as objects in stories and how they operate as potent symbols for various aspects of human nature as we utilize them. And since I’m a huge nerd and the other huge nerds who make up the community I orbit have been working on a lot of games with zombies in them I’ve had a lot to ponder in gaming of late. Let me begin with the example I haven’t mentioned previously on this blog, a little indie game from the maker of Flotilla called “Zombie Atom Smasher.”

Zombie Atom Smasher

Like all Blendo games, this one is cute, smart, punishing and tremendously rewarding in its play. It’s also centered around the concept of failure – it’s extremely hard to win a round of this game, even on normal difficulty. With modifiers in place you can make your experience more manageable, but as a default this isn’t a product about winning the game so much as it is about holding out as long as you can. See, the zombies will never stop coming. Ever. They’ll always be scratching at your door, always attempting to devour your tasty, tasty brains. And there are a lot of them, an insurmountable number. With your randomly assigned resources, many of which do little more than block off a street, there isn’t a lot you can do to win.

And so we see the zombie in Zombie Atom Smasher as part of an insurmountable tide, a force of social change which threatens to eradicate our very way of life. As we play out their game in the environments we cling to, the childish cityscapes of Neuvos Ares, we see this tide swell and overtake the institutions we feebly attempt to defend. There will always be more zombies – this is the lesson of Zombie Atom Smasher. And there will never be enough time or bullets to kill them all and save all the civilians.

You’re playing a game of numbers against the numbers, doing your best to save as many as you can, hold out as long as you can against the tide, long enough to use weapons of desperation to strike back against the force crashing against your gates and pulling down your walls. These are Romertian zombies – alone, not a threat at all, en masse, a force which threatens to overwhelm society.

Dead Island

You knew this one was coming, didn’t you? Dead Island’s zombies are kind of perfect action movie zombies, and a great way to consider zombies in a number of different lights. They symbolize a fearsome other, a force capable of transforming both human life and the human body so that we become not only shambling shells of what we once were, but also twisted weapons that are turned against those we held dear. They symbolize the feral nature of man, the middle finger response to colonialism that whitey has had coming for centuries. They symbolize, in various turns, the threats that we must face – slothful zombies in large numbers that make us run, quick zombies that force us to consider our movements, “special” zombies that make us solve the puzzle of just how to defeat them with the resources we have on hand.

But what’s most interesting about Dead Island’s zombies is that they’re always surmountable – there’s never an occasion aside from the introduction where you absolutely cannot beat the zombies bearing down on you. There’s always a weapon, always a way. Zombies in Dead Island are a piece of a puzzle, a hurdle to be overcome. Unlike the sweeping social change zombies of Zombie Atom Smasher and Romero fame they don’t represent a threat that cannot be weathered, cannot be stopped. Instead they represent a challenge to be overcome, a challenge which either forces people together or destroys them.

They’ve got less in common with classic zombies than they do with the Danny Boyle zombies of 28 Days Later. Even one can be a potent threat, and against a horde running is almost always the best choice, but they’re dying out in droves. When we set up defenses they’re never crashing through the gates, when the threat invades our makeshift homes it does so from within, through the infected loved one, through the vanity of our institutions, our blind faith in them. The zombies of Dead Island want to upset society, but they’re not going to overwhelm us – a solid piece of wood and a good supply of canned food will keep them as bay as long as need be. But if you wander out into the world at large, if you embark on an adventure and try to make the world any better, you’ll be undone.

Space Pirates and Zombies

And finally we come to Space Pirates and Zombies, where there are relatively few zombies all things considered. And the zombies in SPAZ are kind of weird in terms of how they function, because they’re not destroying society. The institutions that make up society are destroying it. The zombies are sort of just there, in the middle of the mix, fucking shit up and making it a little more interesting.

That is, until we enter the final act of the game. Then all bets are suddenly off – the laughable zombies we occasionally fight, the ones that make us accidentally shoot our allies while spraying to knock off zombie drones, become our primary entity, representative of a primal, universal force attempting to undo man. The most relevant parallel I can think of is that of HP Lovecraft – the zombies aren’t necessarily going to beat us back into the Stone Age, but they are certainly hell-bent on beating us down as a species and reminding us that to many in the universe we are no more than food, zombie fuel for their twisted warships.

Of course, the downside of that is that they sort of lack punch by merit of the space setting – we have spaceships, we’re invested enough in the universe that we can take on the zombies and their runty children. I’m sure there will be a challenging boss fight late in the game, a game so long I’ve barely even begun to approach its ending, but right now the zombies are just a bunch of chaff that I rip through with my auto cannons firing, smearing them into red splotches in space.

These games don’t have a lot in common – they’re all different gameplay models, all different themes and artistic styles and mechanics combining to show the diversity of zombies as a device in gaming and indeed in storytelling. So next time you hear someone mention zombies, don’t roll your eyes and call them played out. Ask them what kind, and you might just get an interesting answer.

Congratulations on Showing Those Birds Who's Boss!

You know what birds? FUCK YOU! You’re flying around, shitting all over everything all the time like you think you’re better than us. You act like you’re all great, but guess what? You’re not! And the only reason we haven’t been showing you that is because we didn’t want to lower ourselves to your level. Okay, we’re done talking to birds. Now we’re addressing you, the witless fucktard who is reading this.

Today you’re going to lower yourself to their level, and we’re going to celebrate you for it. Today, after exiting the dentist’s office to discover that your car is totally caked in bird shit you’re going to climb up a tree adjacent to the dentist’s office, find a bird’s nest in that tree and take a shit in it. At first we’ll have tremendous respect for you and your bravery in finally showing those birds what happens to people who fuck with mankind. Then the way your life normally goes will take over.

You’ll land a nice solid dump right in the nest, coating the bird’s eggs with in an unpleasant mass of human feces, and then you’ll fall out of the tree onto your car, knocking the shit filled nest on top of yourself. You’ll land covered in shit, eggs sticking out of the fecal mixture surrounding you. Birds will fly overhead, cackling at you, swooping in to try and recover their eggs from you. You’ll struggle to get your keys out as they peck you, thoroughly unmanned, but for a furtive moment you’ll have shown those birds who’s boss, and shown us as a race that you aren’t a total fucking waste of space.

Congratulations on Showing Those Birds Who’s Boss!

Congratulations on Discovering How Much You Love Being Poked With Thousands of Needles!

You’ve been poked and prodded in an almost inconceivable number of ways, stretching back to your first sexual experience way back in high school. And after half a decade of banging your way through a veritable lacrosse team of partners you finally found the one for you: a young man with a big heart and a dick to match that you decided to settle down into common law marriage with one drizzly evening two years ago.

But lately sex hasn’t been doing it for you the way it used to: something about the absence of filthy, dirty anonymous sex is making you feel like you’re kind of a failure in life and you don’t like it. Your common-law husband recommended that the two of you start swinging or engaging in poly-play, but both those things sound growth, so you talked to your mom about it and she had a way, way better idea: sexual acupuncture.

Here’s how it’s going to happen: you’re going to go to an acupuncturist tomorrow. You’re going to sit down and ask her if it’s okay to have your common law husband fuck you while you get pins rammed into your skin. She’ll nod, but with a few caveats.

“You need to sign a waiver, and I can’t do any points on your face. I’d also strongly recommend that you use a condom.”

“Why?”

She’ll shrug. “The barrier method is pretty effective at stopping pregnancy, and I’d rather you not end up pregnant. I think you’d both be terrible parents.”

You’ll nod in agreement and sign the waiver. Then the next day you’ll show up, condom in hand, with your man and lay down on the table. As the pins enter your back and your ass you’ll feel more relaxed than you ever have before.

“Good?” the acupuncturist will ask intermittently. You’ll moan in response. After around ten minutes of that she’ll leave the room and your husband will enter you without a condom on. He’ll fuck you so hard that your muscles will start to clench around a few of the more delicately placed pins, causing your relaxation to shift to pain, a spectrum of sensation that feeds back into itself, delivering ceaseless agony to you in rotation with profound relaxation.

When he finally comes inside you, though, your entire body will suddenly stop feeling any tension, any anxiety. Instead you’ll have the strangest and most purifying orgasm in your entire life. Your body will all but shut down, breathing slowing, eyes batting idly, world coming into focus for the first time, maybe the only real time in your entire life.

You’ll also be pregnant.

Surprise!

Congratulations on Discovering How Much You Love Being Poked With Thousands of Needles!

Congratulations Needlessly Aggressive Midget!

When you’re short it’s easy to look at the world and see it arrayed against you. Objects on high shelves, a disturbing lack of midget on midget porn, Starbucks naming their smallest size a tall. It’s all a bunch of fucking bullshit, and it’s fine to think that and even say it. But you don’t need to go around trying to start fights about it all the time.

At first it was kind of endearing: it was your thing, and damned if anyone was going to take it away from you. But as time progressed it became less a charming idiosyncracy and more a violent, anti-social tendency that made people not want to invite you to parties. Every time you showed up if anyone said hi to your or asked your name you’d get into a fight with them about their use of the word “name.”

That by itself would be bad enough, but you’ve also lost every fight you’ve ever been in, and you carry it around on your shoulder all the time. All those people who invite you to their parties that you then get into fights at will invite you to coffee the next day to try to talk to you about what went down and make sure you’re okay and you’ll then freak out and try to fight them which, in turn, you’ll lose. It’s a vicious cycle.

But today it’s going to crack wide open because today you’re going to pick a fight with a toy poodle and really just beat the shit out of it. It’ll be tied up on a light post on the way to Crown Heights and it’ll look at you like it thinks it’s better than you. So you’ll grab your house keys and punch it as hard as you can in the face. That’ll knock the toy poodle to the ground and cut a nasty looking gash across its snout.

You’ll continue walking down the street, not wanting to wait for the owner to show up and ask why you just beat up his or her dog, but the feeling of power will be unlike anything else you’ve ever experienced. It’ll be how you image tall people feel all the time.

Congratulations Needlessly Aggressive Midget!

Congratulations Mathemagician!

Math is pretty cool, we’re not gonna lie. Whenever a fly ass honey shows us equations on a board we’re like “daaaamn” and then we all try to fuck her because we all know on a Freudian level that sleeping with a woman destroys her a little and gives the man fucking her some of her strength. But as cool as that math is it is nothing compared to the kind of math you’re going to showcase for us this evening.

Tonight you’re going to bust out with some math that would make Hawking’s head spin. You’re going to do more than just solve equations: you’re going to create equations that will change the very fabric of the world.

It’ll start as it always does in a classroom, in front of a blackboard. A group of puzzled students will look up at you like they’ve never seen a teacher dressed in wizard robes before.

“Sup with the robes?” they’ll collectively ask. You’ll ignore them, picking up your chalk and making a line, the most basic of symbols on the board.

Suddenly the room will explode in color and sound: the introduction of the most basic component of maths, the number one, will shiver throughout the classroom and your students will be knocked flat on their asses.

“Hold on you little shits,” you’ll mutter at them as you continue to scribble various numbers and letters and occasionally reference a proof on the board. You’ll work intently for fifteen minutes before all is done, before you place that final X at the end of your equation and the dragon materializes before you and your students.

He’ll be small for a dragon, only twenty feet long, but he’ll be pretty awesome looking with rainbow scales and smoke curling from his nostrils. You’ll leap upon his back, robes billowing out as you do so, and pat him on the neck.

“MATH, BITCHES!” you’ll shout as the dragon exhales a fireball into the wall and it shatters outward, opening your way forward and allowing you out into the world.

Congratulations Mathemagician!

Congratulations Susan Boyle's Lover!

Everyone knows that Susan Boyle dreamed a dream that love would never die and it was kind of weird for all of us because she was, to be fair, quite homely, and we as a culture are used to homely people having dreams that not only could but should die. But hers didn’t and she went from being ugly church lady to cultural icon, went from belting out songs in front of the pews to doing it on national television. And with that transformation some shit happened.

Most prominent among this shifting tide of shit was the explosion of her sexual appetite: Susan Boyle’s sex partner count suddenly spiked from zero to like four, and sex became a sort of drug for her, a holy experience she could use to ground herself, to find her center as a human being and communicate her art.

Soon she found herself unable to sing without getting a little bit of hm-hm in her hoo-haa at least once a month, maybe more if the mood struck her. But who, who were the brave cadre of men who stood upon the brink and leapt face first into the cavernous maw and hunger of her loins? The first round are a band of heroes we shall never know. The second round consisted of a group of bold young men from Bristol county who won a radio contest and never spoke of it again. And the third round consisted of you and you alone: the only person who ever loved her truly.

Today we’d like to celebrate you, because today she’s going to take off those ridiculous panties, adorned with tiny crosses and a little bit of talcum powder and lay on a bed before you and for the first time in your long life as a male prostitute you’re going to feel not disgust for the beast you’ve been paid to fuck but love and sympathy for a woman who society forgot. You’re going to get on your knees and work your tongue upon her sex and bring her to the most screaming, rocking orgasm of her life. And as you lay there looking up at her as she pants breathlessly afterwards you’ll feel you’ve done something useful for the first time in your long, uneventful life as a handsome man who sleeps with women for money.

It’ll be a good feeling.

Congratulations Susan Boyle’s Lover!

Congratulations Croissant King!

The croissant stalls you see in every city from Berlin to New York? They’re not disorganized little shit factories run by cold heartlessly slum lords who calmly disabuse the dreams of their employees by forcing them to serve croissants day in day out to people who would literally spit on their graves given a chance. No, they’re actually all members of an agent and obscure organization structured under a hereditary king who they believe has within his blood the capacity to make all croissants holy. You are this king and you live in a sewer.

Today is going to be a particularly difficult day in your court. One of your salesmen wants to start selling chocolate croissants, but he’s only licensed to sell savory croissants. The sweet croissant business is cornered by another croissant cart five blocks away. The sweet croissantman won’t want to let this young turk horn in on his business.

You’ll listen to both their stories and then order that they both be cut in half and sewn together so that everyone may sell every kind of croissant and get to know each other a little better at the same time. Then you’ll laugh like a crazy person because holy shit, are you ever crazy. Everyone will clap because they’ll be horrified of being murdered by you, and you’ll giggle and play with yourself because you’re a crazy inbred pastry king and you don’t know any better than to do that in public.

Congratulations Croissant King!

Super Nerd Sunday Presents: Leaving Dead Island!

So two weeks ago I wrote about Dead Island, flush with joy over playing a new game with new zombies and lots of new mechanics in it. I was excited to see what would come of it, how the game would take shape and how the end game might carry through the amazing shifts that I’d seen in the portions I’d already played through. I’d stumbled through much of Moresby at that point, but there was a lot of game to come. More than I’d expected, really. And not all of it was great.

See Dead Island loses much of its panache when it enters the jungle and prison settings, essentially the third and fourth acts of the game. But it’s not helpful just to tell you that: let me try to explain just what my problem with each of these places was. Because my issue was not with the mechanics of Dead Island, nor was it that the system of resource management at play in the resort and Moresby suddenly dissipated. My issue was that the way that these areas were structured started to work against Dead Island, started to make it feel drawn out rather than short, punchy and exciting.

Take the jungle, for example. Initially it’s actually pretty interesting – a sparse, almost resourceless environ filled with big empty spaces and small, densely populated spaces filled with hordes of enemies, enemies that will run you down without a second thought. But then you’re taken out of that jungle’s village environment and brought into a laboratory setting, a laboratory setting where you are sent on a series of “fetch quests” that would’ve been grating if there’d been half as many of them. As it stands, by the end of the lab portion I was ready for the game to be over: a cast of characters is introduced and annihilated, imbued with unearned qualities and shoved to the side the moment it becomes narratively convenient to do so. The dense, tense, exploratory gameplay that I’d loved was shaped into an infuriatingly dull “quest and return” model that would’ve been at home in an MMO, where I ran outside of a lab structure and ran back in as convenient. By the time I reached the prison, which utilized the same sort of level structure, I was ready for the game to be over.

It’s not that repetition is necessarily a bad thing. Odd as it might sound, repetition with a purpose can be great. Well utilized and well thought out repetition can actually make a game. Just look at Halo, Modern Warfare, and Starcraft. These games all play on making a short, enjoyable piece of repetitive action the core of their game. Dead Island inverts the structure by making tedium the focus towards the end of the game: it removes us from the frenetic, objective oriented play we have grown accustomed to, the desperate scrabble for supplies that we spend much of our time pursuing that dominates our time early in the game, and replaces it with a structure where we are literally running errands for scientists who turn out to be stealth racists and incredibly annoying prison inmates who, let’s face it, after you kill the first horde of zombies besetting them, should probably catch on to the fact that you’re a lot tougher than they are and shut their fucking pie holes.

But perhaps these ills could be forgiven if the payoff was high enough, if the ending was profound enough. But it isn’t. It’s difficult to form a challenging climax in a zombie game that doesn’t draw heavily from Left 4 Dead’s Finale mode, and if you skew from this model of sudden, overwhelming odds you risk making a game that it is either too easy or frustratingly hard. Dead Island goes the second route, forcing you to fight in an enclosed space with a superzombie who combines all the worst qualities of all the most annoying zombies in the game. He charges at you, incredibly quickly, cannot be knocked down and takes way too many bullets to finish off. And he emerges from a non-sense plot point, one so central to the story of the game and so simultaneously ridiculous that it nearly undid all of the goodwill that I’d arrayed towards Dead Island after its stunningly well constructed first two chapters.

Much of this can be blamed on the writing: the first few chapters are character light. Aside from Sinamoi, Jin and a very serious nun who does not fly, not even a once, there really aren’t many prominent characters. But the latter portion of the game rapidly expands the cast of “core characters” to include a rogues gallery of characters who, while initially somewhat complex, rapidly spiral into plot-device-nonsense territory. Most of them are killed off screen by the end of the game, a crime in zombie fiction where the kill is a kind of payoff, but understandable given how the pacing of the game begins to lag towards the end. If we actually saw each character die, if we had to kill their zombified form (as you know you want to, even if you love a character) then the game would easily stretch for another five to ten hours. It’s already too long as it stands, and this is a game meant to be replayed – making it overlong feels almost criminal to me already.

But I’d be lying if I said all the joy was gone. Killing zombies never actually gets old, and there’s a constant flow of new toys that doesn’t let up. Even at the end of the game you’re being given new tools to eradicate the zombie menace – arguably too many, since you’re trying to learn to use them while fighting off waves of infected that charge at you. And you get to bring these toys with you when you restart the game, which you’ll almost certainly do. How could you not? Those beautiful Banoi beaches, those harsh Moresby streets – how can you not love those moments? How can you not want to relive them with the fancy toys you find at the day’s edge? How can you walk away from machete play like this?

So in the end, I still think Dead Island is a great game – I might even call it a flawed masterpiece. While I can imagine someone doing a first person zombie RPG better, I can’t imagine anyone making a more visceral, sensible or informed one than Dead Island. And, honestly, I cannot imagine that theoretical first person zombie game ever being made. So if you’re still on the fence about Dead Island, check it out. It’s not perfect, sure. But you’ll get a lot of fun out of it and, worst case scenario, you can get a few friends together for the later portion of the game and maybe, if you’re lucky, breeze through the more boring quests a little quicker with their help.

Congratulations Bicuspid Barry!

You’re a guy named Barry with giant teeth.

“HEY LADIES!” you’ll shout at some ladies because you have huge teeth which force you to shout in order to say anything.

“Hi Barry,” one of them will respond, waving at you as you walk down the street.

“HAVE A GOOD DAY!” you’ll shout at them as they leave.

None of them will respond, but they’ll have a great day anyway because you’re Bicuspid Barry and that crazy swamp-witch cursed you with the power to grant anyone but yourself good luck. We hope you find a way to translate that into wealth or at least some interesting sex for yourself soon, by the way.

Congratulations Bicuspid Barry!

Congratulations Biscuit Slut!

People sleep with other people for lots of reasons: loneliness, daddy issues, money. Sometimes they even engage in the terrible act of sex for money. But you, you’re unique. You’re a whore for biscuits, and today you’re going to have sex with a short order cook for all the biscuits at the Pancake House in the town you live in.

Your town will have recently been hit by a blizzard and you’ll be extremely worried about your biscuit supply holding up. You eat biscuits, and only biscuits, and while you usually trade sexual favors for them over a long period of time the storm will have made you super, super worried. So instead of just giving the cook a handjob during his smoke break the way you normally do you’re going to show up in a puffy coat and a miniskirt and let him fuck you in the ass, which he’ll lube with bacon grease in one of the most disgusting and inventive sex acts we’ve predicted in recent memory, for around thirty minutes and then come on your lower back tattoo.

When all is said and done he’ll hand you two trash bags filled with biscuits and a five gallon container filled with sausage gravy. Then you’ll leave without a word. The storm won’t snow you in, won’t hit at all, and you won’t speak to him for another month, when you run out of biscuits and have to renegotiate the terms of your agreement.

Congratulations Biscuit Slut!

Congratulations on Getting Her Out of That Sex Swing!

You love your wife. A lot. That’s why you let her sleep with other men: if you didn’t care about her you’d tell her to just find a new place to live and wallow in whiskey, but you love her so god damn much that you can deal with her fucking around as long as she comes home to you happy.

There’s only one rule, one critical rule, that you ask her to abide by: that she never fuck anyone with herpes. That means she usually has to vet her sex partners pretty carefully. But she’s been itching to get fucked by a guy with a sex swing for a good long time now and when she finally finds someone on OkayCups who has one set up and digs her weird asexual mermaid tattoo (it’s a fish with a fish’s head and a fish’s body but a person’s emotions as illustrated by a word bubble with the Seinfeld logo in it) she’ll beg you to accelerate the process and just let a phone interview pass muster. You’ll get into a fight about it and compromise by having angry sex and arranging to have his STD test results rush mailed to your house.

Those results will arrive today which, by a convenient narrative twist, will be the first day that your wife has arranged to sleep with her new gentleman caller. They’ll arrive in a manila envelope from the “totally legitimate STD test result agency” labeled as “Boner Speckle Test Results” and they’ll actually just be a form letter with a portion that lists off the STDs that the testee tested positive for.

You’ll have read more than your fair share of these letters over time so you’ll rush past the filler text to the good part: the list of diseases that your wife’s new toy has on offer. On the top of the list, in big bright red letters, will be the sum of all your fears: herpes.

When you see that word your heart will drop down from your chest into your stomach. You won’t even bother to put on your shoes you’ll be out the door so fast, letter and keys in one hand, cellphone clutched in the other. You’ll dial her with one hand, your Prius’ motor humming as loudly as it hums (not very loud) as you race to the apartment she arranged to have this latest stranger meet her at. Each ring of the phone will echo in your head as you calculate in your head the time it will take her to finish her customary glass of wine, to undress herself and then get in the swing. She won’t pick up.

You’ll be cutting it close – too close for comfort – when you pull up to the address she gave you you’ll leap out of the car, your feet pounding pavement, soles burning as you rush up to the door bearing the number she told you and slam your shoulder into it. It’ll give out after the second hit, caving before your weight and sending you careening into the room where your wife will sit, spread eagled in a sex swing, staring expectantly at you.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she’ll ask. Her eyes will dart from your face to the paper clutched in your hand, then back to your face.

“Test results came in,” you’ll pant.

Horror will creep across her face. Her lover will turn around, a look of shock on his face as he struggles to pull up his pants from his ankles. He won’t manage to get them halfway up before your cross the space of his apartment and plant your bony little fist right in his eye. He’ll go down with a soft little whine and roll up on the floor, leaving you to hold your hand out to your wife, ever the gentleman.

She’ll take your hand and delicately disentangle herself from the sex swing. She’ll dress calmly, double check to make sure she has her things and leave without speaking to the man she was about to sleep with. On her way out of the room she’ll kiss you on the cheek and whisper in your ear.

“Thanks.”

Congratulations on Getting Her Out of That Sex Swing!

Congratulations on Illustrating the Rules of Hacky Sack!

Hacky sack is a big cultural phenomenon. Huge! But there’s something that’s been missing from hacky sack culture since its inception: a solid set of rules that people can readily refer to (also black people). Today you’re going to correct that error.

Today you’re going to sit down with a loaded bong, take a monster rip off it and start writing down the rules to hacky sack starting with the first and most important rule: don’t harsh the vibe. But even as you finish your guide with the all important don’t be a dick rule you’ll know that something is missing. Traditionally hacky sack players aren’t big readers, and your guide book will be all words. Way harsh, bro!

So you’ll load up the bong anew and sit down again and draw a picture to accompany each set of lame, bullshit words that try to describe the recipe for majesty that is hacky sack. When you’re done you’ll have a crudely drawn comic strip that effectively communicates how to be an annoying douche playing a sport that no one cares about anymore. Your day will be done and you’ll return to bed promptly at 6 PM. It’ll be the fullest day you’ve had in quite a while!

Congratulations on Illustrating the Rules of Hacky Sack!

Congratulations on Finally Getting Your Weed Dealer to Leave!

You buy weed from a really nice young man named Gerald, Jerry for short, and you get along with him pretty well. But there’s a problem with Jerry: he doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

He comes over right away on his bike and sells you whatever he wants, but he’ll sit in your apartment for hours upon hours watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and asking you about food. At first it was endearing, but now you have to weigh how much you want weed against how much you want to hear Jerry talk about Occupy Wall Street without breathing for forty minutes.

Normally you’d just snap and tell him to go fuck himself, but Jerry is actually pretty nice and his prices are really reasonable. But he just doesn’t respond to your various cues that it’s time to let you have some me time, and you’re about to hit a breaking point if you don’t come up with a solution soon.

Well today is your lucky day. Today you’re going to stumble upon a combination of words that will let you make Jerry leave your apartment whenever you want. Today you’re going to accidentally find his Achilles heel, and it’s going to make your life so much better.

Today, while Jerry is dropping off his latest supply you’re going to be flipping through the channels and you’ll stumble upon Joy Behar talking to someone, you’re not sure who, about something, you won’t be sure what.

“Huh,” you’ll say to yourself as much to him. You’ve always had a thing for Italian moms, and Joy is nothing is not an IMILF. You’ll turn to Jerry, nod to the TV and make a suggestion.

“Let’s watch this The View shit.”

Jerry will back up as you suggest it, all but dropping his backpack on his way out the door.

“Gotta go,” he’ll mumble.

Turns out his mom, who he no longer speaks to, used to watch The View a lot and the show is a huge emotional trigger for him. And as long as you don’t know that you can use The View to get him out of your apartment without having to feel guilty about it. So as long as you don’t read this post your life should improve dramatically.

Congratulations on Finally Getting Your Weed Dealer to Leave!

Congratulations on Hittin' Da Club!

You rarely leave your house because of a generalized series of disorders we like to call “elephant man disease,” and when you do it’s always kind of a crazy experience. So tonight, when you “hit da club” it’s not just going to be a matter of dinner dancing with champagne flutes and bitches and hoes and something else. It’s going to be crazy.

First off you look like the Elephant Man, as we mentioned before, which makes going out in public a weird and alienating experience for both you and all the people around you. Second off, you talk an incredibly high pitched whine so everything you say is annoying, even when it’s profound. And third off, you have a giant dick which gets hard for like, no reason, which means women are alternately offended by your penis and incredibly excited to see you because they want to jump your freakish, malformed bones.

So when you arrive at the club in your finest hood clutching a cane of ivory taken from the tusk of the mightiest elephant you could catch and kill at the San Diego Zoo you’ll shrilly announce your presence.

“Good evening, ladies,” your reedy voice will trill through the night air. The music will stop for a moment as the entire population of the club takes in your presence, an awkward experience that will be that much more awkward for the fact that you’ll find it incredibly arousing.

It’ll make you sprout a boner so thick and hard that it’ll even be visible the bartender struggling to sift through the mumbled orders of a dozen unruly, unpleasant under-aged patrons.

“Mommy like,” she’ll mouth at you. You’ll nod back, your hood rustling in the silence. The rustling will only serve to arouse you further, making your penis even more engorged, and when the music starts up again women will cluster around you, grinding on your giant, misshapen dick.

“It has begun,” you’ll nasally intone as women get “all up on” you. You’ll lazily roll your hips with each of them, but your eyes will never leave the bartender, not that she’ll be able to notice thanks to the hood. She’ll keep glancing at you intermittently throughout the night, pausing every once in a while to lick her lips and make blowjob-ish gestures at you.

The two of you will end up having angry sex later on that night, which will be great until she tears your hood off and exposes your face. After that she won’t be able to stop screaming.

Congratulations on Hittin’ Da Club!

Super Nerd Sunday Presents: My First 1205 Words on Tribes: Ascend!

This isn’t a complete review – I haven’t had nearly enough time with the beta of Tribes: Ascend to write one up. This is just a reflection on the product as I’ve seen it. My love of Tribes is old news for anyone who’s been reading this blog since its inception, but just in case any new readers hopped along: Tribes was one of the seminal games in my development as a gamer. Without Tribes I simply wouldn’t be the gamer I am today. I love Tribes like a hooker loves blow, like a cop loves doughnuts, like a teenager loves masturbating.

So I went into Tribes: Ascend with some pretty high expectations. I’d played nearly every version of Tribes to emerge since the first game decided it no longer wanted to be a game oh so long ago, and I’ve been encouraged and disappointed by bits and pieces within each of them. I thought Tribes: Vengeance nearly had the formula of Tribes back down, but poor map design and serious network problems killed that game for me. Tribes 2 lost the core of what made the first Tribes great, and effectively shot itself in the foot. That browser based version of Tribes remained so indistinct for me that I honestly cannot recall its name, never a good sign. It’s been a rough time to be a Tribes fan, to constantly see your hopes rise only to be dashed again and again.

And I’d like to say it’s over. Certainly, Ascend is looking quite good. But I cannot honestly say that I think it represents a full return to form of the original Tribes. It has a lot of the great elements that made up Tribes, don’t get me wrong. You’re still skiing with a spinfusor out, and that midair hit, when you get it, is a high unlike anything else in the world. There are a pair of flags, and you’re capping them, or not if you want to cost your team the game, charlatan. There are light, medium and heavy armors, and there are packs you can use to change the way your character plays.

And this is where the issue begins. Tribes was all about taking a small number of components and mixing and matching them together so that they made a unique collective whole. There were a lot of builds that dominated play to be sure (the spinfusor, grenade launcher and chaingun with an energy pack, for example) but you could pick any set of weapons, any pack and hop off into battle. You could even pick up weapons and packs on the battlefield if you wanted to make a quick change up on the fly – sometimes you’d have to drop your energy pack to fix that generator, or grab an enemy’s shield pack to pull off a quick last minute survival move when a mortar landed next to you. It was a game about customizing your class, and not just going into battle but during it.

Tribes: Ascend doesn’t have any of that. In Tribes: Ascend you choose your loadout from a group of around eight preset loadouts before you go into battle. These loadouts all have different gear and names that vaguely imply what they should be doing, but it’s still not easy to figure out just what the fuck is going on with each of these classes. It’s complicated by the fact that no two classes have the same piece of gear: even spinfusors aren’t spinfusors between classes, they’ve got shorthand acronyms and the word “light” or “heavy” in front of them to make them seem different. As a result there’s no way to know just what a class’ gear really is until you sit down and play them. I’m still not sure how a bolt thrower is that different from a spinfusor myself, aside from the fact that it’s assigned to the unfortunately named “jumper.” You can’t customize your loadouts, you can’t mix and match elements of them and you can’t test them out before you buy them.

That’s right, I said buy them. Tribes: Ascend uses the micro-transaction business model wherein you give them money and they give you fake money to spend within their game, fake money which is actually equivalent to your time as a player. Even if you purchase the game you’ll only get enough space money to buy around half of the available classes, and your only hint to what each class does is a two-hundred word tooltip and an animation of that class looking vaguely badass. Sometimes it’s just a picture of a Blood Eagle soldier holding a submachine gun. It’s problematic that they’re choosing to sell elements of gameplay this crucial, and that they’re doing so in such a manner that keeps people who have theoretically purchased the full product from actually owning the content they bought.

That’s my biggest issue right now. They’ve only released four maps to date, and they’re also a little problematic (something just seems slightly off about their design, like they attempt to make Snowblind more Snowblind and make Broadside more Broadside and just didn’t pull it off) but all in all it’s a noble effort to resurrect a game that, frankly, should still be being played by people all the time. Tribes is possibly one of the greatest games of all time, one of the most revolutionary and unique experiences available to FPS gamers, and it’s inspiring to see Tribes: Ascension emerging on the eve of one of the industry’s biggest and most marketed mill-design releases ever (Modern Warfare 3). Ascend preserves the core of the original Tribes – once I finish this writeup and post it I’m going to hop on and play some more of it. I’m excited to polish up my skills with a spinfusor and try to Stella my way back into being a competent Tribesman again.

I think most of the things I find troublesome will be corrected by the time the game is released. There’s no way they’re going to release the game with only four maps. And I cannot believe that the original map designs are going to have these issues: I think the problems I have with maps at present stems from knowing their progenitors too well. I just feel that something is wrong as I play them at the edge of my mind. These are places I spent countless hours of my youth in, and to see them re-created in ways that are just strange enough to catch my attention is a bit frustrating. But the progression model of the game, the model wherein you must purchase content and where you cannot customize your class, is unnerving in the extreme for me. I’m hoping class customization will be a part of the finished product, but I can’t see how that will work with the business model that Hi-Rez has constructed for their game.

I’ll be watching Ascend carefully, don’t get me wrong. The simple act of attempting to make a game like this is enough to get me excited. But until some of these issues are addressed, my excitement will remain tempered by concern and my joy as my spinfusors twist through the air will remain bittersweet.

Congratulations on Upsetting Mindy Kaling!

Mindy Kaling is a pretty cool lady. She wrote the Office, she invented a character for the series out of nothing and she made us realize that Indian bitches can be just as crazy as crazy bitches of every other race. She’s also genuinely dedicated to her craft in a way that few truly are. She even shows up at Comicon still, we think. We aren’t nerds and we can’t be bothered to stalk that poor woman to figure out what the fuck her appearance schedule is going to be over the next few months, alright?

We can be bothered to tell you that you’re a shitty person and that you’re going to make her cry today, though. That’s right, you’re going to make Mindy Kaling cry when, during a meeting with the writers of The Office, you refer to her not once, not twice, but five times as Kelly. Upon the fifth utterance tears will well up in her eyes and just cascade out.

“What is wrong with you? My name is right in front of me!” she’ll shout, pointing to her name plate.

It’ll seem very odd to you, because you actually came there to upset her for her ex boyfriend and you expected her to just rip the shit out of you in front of her writers. But it turns out breaking up with her pill popping boyfriend was really hard for her, and being insulted by someone pretending to be an executive for NBC is pretty rough for an emotionally vulnerable writer.

So today we’d like to collectively give you the middle finger for getting a nice young lady to cry in front of her co-workers. In exchange you’ll get fifty bucks, a night of free drinks at some lame ass hipster bar and our eternal burning hatred. And since Jerry is a voodoo priest, watch out. Otherwise your belt will probably catch fire and you’ll die while you try to take it off in the next few weeks.

Congratulations on Upsetting Mindy Kaling!

Congratulations on Recovering Your Data!

As a spy you’ve done some pretty crazy shit. You’ve killed men for learning too much, you’ve been tortured for information you didn’t have, you’ve gone to Six Flags alone to meet a contact (easily the most uncomfortable thing you’ve ever done). You ever had sex with a Russian chick one time. Or Polish, you weren’t entirely sure.

But today you’re going to do something crazy even by your standards.

You’ll come upon the French mercenary you’ve been tracking in the Savannah, somewhere inside Kruger. There won’t be another soul for miles and miles – you’ll have gone offroad almost a week ago and never looked back. He’ll be laying there on his back, staked out in the sun, both knees bent at odd angles, one hand shattered.

“It’ll end one way or another,” you’ll tell him. “It’ll just end faster if you work with me.”

He’ll grimace and spit at you.

“Real mature,” you’ll say, shaking your head. You’ll take the tack hammer to his right hand, splintering the bones in the fingers, the hands, the wrist. The limb will go slack under your efforts - he’ll thrash uselessly in place, arms and legs ignoring his commands.

“FED IT!” he’ll gasp.

“Pardon?” you’ll say, crooking your ear towards him. He’ll let out a long, low moan and you’ll pull out your pistol.

“Elephant shit,” he’ll gasp at you. Then he’ll start laughing, a coarse and vile rasp erupting from his throat. “Fucki-“ he’ll coo, but your gun will finish the sentence for him, the shot echoing across the savannah. You’ll run your hand through your hair and sigh as you get the gasoline out of your truck and slosh it over his corpse. You’ll light the match and walk back to your truck, considering absently where the nearest herd of elephants would be. There will only be one watering hole within a reasonable distance, so you’ll surmise that he must’ve found some way to get one of the elephants who waters there to eat the drive. And since he’s a clever fucker he will have made sure that the elephant would pass the drive near the watering hole, so he’d be sure to be able to find it.

You’ll wait there for the better part of a day before a small herd of elephants, including one very, very big bull, saunters up to the watering hole. You’ll watch them as they drink. They’ll occasionally turn cautiously towards you, questioning your intent, before shaking their ears and turning back to their business. They’ll each shit, a heaping, steaming pile that you know will harden as soon as night falls. If you don’t get the drive before that happens you’ll have to crack open each pile of shit and risk damaging the drive. Better to do it while it’s still warm.

You’ll luck out, and the elephants will leave long before their shit starts to cool. You’ll be able to snap on a latex glove and rummage through each pile – it’ll be buried in the largest of the piles, the one from the bull, a tremendous heap that’ll make you wish you never flunked out of college, joined the army and tested positive for sociopathic tendencies during the service exam. But you’ll have the drive and you’ll be able to go home, and that’s something, isn’t it?

Congratulations on Recovering Your Data!

Congratulations on Learning About Gun Safety!

There are lots of gun safety rules that you should remember if you’re around guns often. Always have the safety on unless you plan to fire a gun. Never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot. If you don’t know for certain, assume a gun is loaded. And, of course, never look in the barrel of a gun to find out if there’s a bullet in there.

Today you’re going to learn a new lesson: never give you cousin Cheryl a gun. Because she’ll shoot you in the leg “just to see what it’s like.” She’s a sociopath, and you should make sure she never gets her hands on a gun. You might even want to make sure she ends up in jail, or some sort of treatment. I mean, really, who just shoots someone in the leg?

What a dick.

Congratulations on Learning About Gun Safety!

Congratulations on Growing a Handlebar Moustache!

Moustaches are never planned. They just happen sometimes.

Today one is going to happen to you.

You’ll awake with a carefully crafted and coiffed handlebar moustache on your upper lip where previously no moustache had been. It’ll be unnerving in the extreme, not just because it will have spontaneously and unceremoniously developed on your upper lip. You’ll also suddenly feel really, really racist.

“I don’t have a good reason for it, but I suddenly distrust black people,” you’ll announce to your wife.

“God that’s a terrible moustache,” she’ll murmur at you, pushing you out of bed onto the floor where you’ll lay for a few seconds wondering why you suddenly want to call the Irish an ill-formed and foul race of fiends.

“I hate this moustache as much as, if not slightly more than, Mexicans,” you’ll announce from the floor.

“Maybe you should shave that thing,” your wife will recommend. But her suggestion will seem as absurd to you as an Inuit who contributes to society.

“We’ll see,” you’ll reply. “We’ll see.”

Congratulations on Growing a Handlebar Moustache!

Congratulations Creepy Con-Goer!

Final Fantasy 7 was a big deal for a lot of people – it introduced a lot of people to the idea of video games in general, to characters they cared about and to storytelling in a digital age. It also, for some people (including you) constituted their introduction to masturbation. Tifa’s heaving bosom pushing out after a successful battle remains a vivid image in your mind, one you return to between four and sixteen times a week, depending on how busy you are at work.

Now some people would just fap off and leave it at that. But you always feel a little unhappy whenever you finish jerking off: you feel like the fantasy is gone and like it’ll never really be fulfilled, a tragic and isolating sensation. The only solution you can come up with is to try and make your fantasy a reality: to find a woman who is willing to dress up as Tifa and make her into your life mate.

This limits your dating pool pretty severely. There aren’t that many women who are willing to dress up as video game characters in general, and women who are willing to dress up as video game characters whose tits are straining against a battered tanktop are even more of a rare find.

But you’ve come up with a solution: you travel from Con to Con in America, searching for women who are dressed as Tifa. When you find them you aggressively hit on them until they acquiesce and let you date them. You dress up as Vincent from Final Fantasy 7 as well to make the entire process, in your words, “less weird.”

But it’s still really weird, and your aggression doesn’t serve you well. You’re just not hot enough to pick up women that way, and when you try it doesn’t make you seem confident so much as “rape inclined.”

But today, at some weird obscure Con in Baltimore, something amazing is going to happen. A young woman in a Tifa costume is going to spot you from across the hall and stomp over. She’s going to tap you on the shoulder and then, when you turn around, she’s going to kiss you as hard as she can. Then she’s going to whisper in your ear.

“I’ve always wanted to get fucked by a guy in a Vincent outfit while I’m dressed as Tifa,” she’ll murmur. “You up to it?”

You’ll nod emphatically and she’ll take you into a bathroom where you’ll have the most transcendent five minutes of your life. After you’re finished you’ll cradle each other on top of the toilet seat, glowing. The world will seem totally at peace for the two of you. You’ll beam out at the universe and wonder if this sensation of wonder will ever end.

It’ll keep on lasting right up until she starts complaining about her husband, and how hard he’s going to make it to keep this thing going. He’s a private detective, you see.

Congratulations Creepy Con-Goer!