From the Brow of Zeus

Curses!

2009-11-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

My bad. The project turned out taking a lot longer than I thought it would, hence the lack of Halloween treats. It might wind up taking a couple more weeks, but you guys will get your loot.

Halloween Specials

2009-10-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Children of the Night! Or in this post-Twilight world, whatever Zombie, Werewolf, or Gill Man greeting you prefer.

I just updated my Favorite Spooky Videogame Lookalikes.

Also, there's a big surprise for you all on Halloween. Huge. Let me put it this way: it's not just going to fill your candy bags, it's going to rip the seams. So pull yourself out of the apple basin long enough check back here on October 31st, or you'll be sadder than a Trick-or-Treater with a bag full of pennies stuck to bran muffin.

A master what now?

2009-10-25T01:21:00.001-07:00

Either I'm up too late, or this description makes absolutely no sense:

"FBI Agent Peter Burke teams up with a most unlikely partner to catch him: a master criminal."

An FBI agent teams up with a master criminal to catch himself?

I don't get it.

Maybe someone can watch the White Collar pilot and tell me what the hell it's about. I mean other than some made-for-television Silence of the Lambs ripoff.

Edit: While digging around for that link, I came across this:

When the trail of elusive criminal "The Dutchman" deadends, FBI Agent Peter Burke teams up with a most unlikely partner to catch him; the imprisoned Neal Caffrey: master criminal, con man extraordinaire and Peter's most accomplished collar.

Okay, so that actually makes sense. It's just the first description that's horribly truncated beyond any meaning.

You too can be a writer for Hulu! Just drop random words until you're left with six or seven that might get people to watch the show. For instance, this:

When the trail of elusive criminal "The Dutchman" deadends, FBI Agent Peter Burke teams up with a most unlikely partner to catch him; the imprisoned Neal Caffrey: master criminal, con man extraordinaire and Peter's most accomplished collar.

Becomes this:

Dutchman deadends with a catch; imprisoned con man's accomplished collar.

It's that easy!

Zombieland Controversy

2009-10-20T22:30:00.001-07:00

I really liked Zombieland, the zomedy starring Woody Harrelson and that kid who can't stop making movies set in a carnival. I don't want to say too much about it, other than it was thoroughly enjoyable.

One thing I'll spoil is the title sequence, a slow motion sideshow chronicling the zombie outbreak, set to Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." It perfectly sets the tone of the movie: funny and gruesome. But not everyone liked it.

See, there's a topless zombie stripper, chasing after a guy with a handful of twenties. This IMDB commenter was not a fan.

The camera zooms in on her in "slow motion" as her breasts move dramatically up and down? jeez, how pathetic and objectifying is that? do people really think all the female viewers like this? obviously the men do I'm guessing. but its just pathetic. its like... a horror movie..."OH! wait, we gotta throw in the naked woman scene" gotta see some tits or its just not a movie. short scene but just over the top objectifying and insulting. why dont they throw in a man running and then zoom in slow motion on his meat and 2 veg as it "dramatically flops up and down"...? fair is fair right? or can we just not get through any movie without seeing a set of jiggling hooters....I love how american films have such high standards and respect NOT

Yeesh, where to begin?

I'll never understand why people compare a woman's breasts to a man's penis. They're two totally different things. Besides, it misses the obvious: Men have boobs! They're just late bloomers. And Hollywood movies are full of manboobs. They might belong to a big fat guy -- the man running from the stripper has a bigger chest than she does -- or a bodybuilder with bloated, well-oiled pectorials. Either way, there's a hell of a lot more shirtless men in Hollywood movies these days than shirtless women.

Just ask Matthew McConaughey, who likes to flash his C-cups in PG-rated movies.

Zombieland is a movie where people take huge bleeding bites out of each other and women are bashed in the head with toilet lids, but yeah, I guess there was this one zombie who forgot to put on her shirt, so: outrage!

Let's take a look at that last line again:

I love how american films have such high standards and respect NOT

I don't get it. It's like she just trails off at the end without finishing her thought. She loves our high standards and respect, but what was she going to say after "NOT"?

Dear God... what if she was attacked by a zombie?

Weird Idle Hands DVD Art

2009-10-18T18:56:00.001-07:00

Idle Hands is one of my all time favorite horror films. More than that, it's one of my favorites to watch on Halloween. There's a trick to selecting a good Halloween flick, one I may reveal if I have the time, but for now, Idle Hands:

Idle Hands' DVD art is the same as the VHS art, which I always think is a good thing. As much as I appreciate the new Monster Edition of The Gate, its DVD art makes it look like a kids film (VHS cover here). And kids, I speak with first hand experience: Don't !@#$ing watch The Gate! It will mess you up so bad.

For some reason, bad art on DVD re-releases is pretty common, especially when it comes to horror. See Night of the Creeps (original VHS art here). The Blu-ray art is even worse. Sure, the original looks a little cheesy. Almost like some kind of zombie prom movie... maybe because that's what this movie was about. The VHS art is from the most memorable scene in the movie, when Tom Atkins utters the immortal quote:

"I got good news and bad news girls. Good news is your date's are here."

"And what's the bad news?"

"They're dead."

While poking around Amazon, I also came across a Region 2 copy of Idle Hands, titled Die Killerhand.

I like the whole "Monster Squad" vibe, with the heroes doing their cool-guy walk, but did you notice how they just photoshopped the hand to make it look like a zombie? It's so cheesy. The hand never looked anything like that in the movie, it was either normal-evil or burned-to-a-crisp-evil. Never zombie-evil.

And check out La Main qui tue! This time most of the art is normal, but what did they do to the hand? It looks like the goofy claymation cartoon the evil hand watched as a gag. Look how they have "Seth Green (Austin Powers)" right there on the cover. Now that guy is Scotty-evil. And Scotty Evil fans won't be disappointed, he's a hilarious presence through most of the movie.

So yeah, if you haven't seen Idle Hands yet, for goodness sake, rent it.

Speaking of idle hands, mine have been anything but. I finished three stories since the last time I talked about my upcoming book. Tell ya more about it real soon.

Tetsuya Nomura: Inside the Mind of a Genius

2009-10-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hope I don't get belted for this one.

Brothers

2009-09-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

There's a new sitcom aimed at black audiences called -- get this -- Brothers. It's like a bad Family Guy joke.

"Coming this fall on ABC... Jive Turkeys."

Okay, so it sounds awful. Could it get any worse? Yes. According to Bitten & Bound, a sleazy-sounding news site, Kim Kardashian is going to guest star on Brothers. That's right, Kim Kardashian of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. And I'm not putting that in italics because it's the title of a show, I'm doing it to emphasize the fact that you must run, run as far as you can, and for the love of God, don't look back.

Maybe they should just farm shows with tightly focused demographics out to Channel 4, who were able come up with a sitcom about IT Professionals and managed to make it enjoyable for couch potatoes and people who rarely leave their computers (or COM-puters as our British friends say).

Movie Review: Surrogates (2009)

2009-09-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

I just saw Surrogates (2009), the new Bruce Willis Sci-Fi movie about a future where most people live their lives vicariously through android "surrogates." The virtual-reality sim-chairs had me set for a throwback to 80s Cyberpunk. Unfortunately, as far as killer android murder mysteries go, this was far more I, Robot than Blade Runner.

Bruce Willis stars as Greer, an FBI agent sent to investigate the mysterious destruction of two partying surrogates. Both "surries" were found in a back alley with their eyes burnt out. One of the victims was the son of Dr. Canter, the co-inventor of the androids, who was forced out of the company, sort of a next-gen Steve Wozniak. Greer tracks the other surrogate, a sexy blonde girl, back to her apartment, and is shocked to discover that, 1) The human operator is also dead, and 2) she was really a big fat guy.

Bruce Willis in: VR5, the Movie.

Surrogates are supposed to be 100% safe -- that's the whole point. Operators send them hurtling out of planes, getting all EXTREME! without risking any bodily harm to themselves. But the supposed safety is just one of the reason Surrogates are so cool.

In the opening credits, the story is set up through fake news clips, each more unbelievable than the last. First they announce that within eight years -- the film takes place in 2017 --- 98% of the world's population will use surrogates. Really? 98%? Do 98% of the world's population even use computers? How about cars? I can buy that sort of deep consumer saturation with America or Japan, but the entire world? It gets worse from there: The almost universal use of surrogates supposedly stamped out social disease (makes sense), violence (er...), murder (wait a minute!) and -- get this -- racism. Are you kidding me? Racism? How's that supposed to work? Everyone hops in a surrogate and suddenly Hebroids are hugging on Neo-Botzis?

If you think that's hard to swallow, wait until you hear what happened to the 2% who don't use surries: Called Dreads and herded into "reservations" throughout the US, they're lead by a cult leader named The Prophet, played by Ving Rhames... in a fake-looking beard and dreadlocks.

Yes, the Dreads are lead by a guy who has dreadlocks.

It's that kind of movie.

Willis tracks the assassin to the outskirts of a Dread reservation. As five cops close in on him, the assassin busts out a hand-held proton pack and fries both them and their human operators, Black Ice-style, but Willis narrowly escapes by jacking out just in time. I loved bits like this, the more TekWar the better. Bruce Willis (or at least his blond haired, prettyboy surrogate, whose skin is smoothed with CGI) chases the assassin into one of The Prophet's "Dread Zones," a reservation made up mostly of rubble, dust and empty shipping containers. This is easily the highlight of the movie, as Bruce Willis leaps twenty feet in the air and navigates the blocky terrain, it reminded me of a Mario 64 level, Wacky Wacky Robots or something.

Unfortunately cops aren't allowed on reservations, and an angry mob gathers 'round to shotgun the "abomination." With the weapon now in the hands of the Dreads, the surrogate companies denying that such a weapon is possible, and his damaged surrogate confiscated by the police, Bruce Willis is forced to crawl into the real world, bald-headed and scruffy as hell, in order to solve the crime, save the world, and maybe patch up his marriage.

"I'm a cop with a dark past, troubled marriage, and I've been forced to hand in my badge. BUT, I'm also a robot."

Surrogates is a fairly entertaining movie. I was rarely bored, unless Willis was getting all dramatic with his Cop Wife (Maggie, why are cop wives always named Maggie?), moping about their Dark Cop Past. At least it leads to the scene where Willis returns home to find his surrogate wife and some sleazy friends using a bong-like electronic drug to get "juiced." Engraged that his wife is too busy stealing jokes from Futurama to come out of her stim-chair and mourn the loss of their son, Bruce "Meatbag" Willis goes ape spit like Toki on one of the sleazy surries and beats the guy's face until the synthetic skin peels away. The surrogates find this hysterical, especially the guy getting punched, and all Bruce has to show for it is a hand full of bloody knuckles.

It's too bad this is a movie that seems to do its best not to let you actually enjoy it. The setup is far too moronic for this to be an "intelligent" science fiction movie like Gattica, and yet there are only two action scenes in the entire film -- the rest is slow paced investigation and the aforementioned Mopey Cop Backstory. Who exactly is this movie for? People who don't like a lot of action or good storylines?

For those worried about spoilers, consider this the end of the review. If you don't give a crap, read on for my main problem with this movie:

SPOILERS AHOY!

Surrogates has one of the biggest Sci-Fi cliches in recent history, an annoying trope I first noticed with Minority Report that has popped up in countless movies since. In the opening credits, they briefly show the good Dr. who invented surrogates, played by the farmer from Babe. The clip was labeled "15 years Ago" and I breathed a sigh of relief. He's old; he's got to be dead by 2017, right? Hopefully it meant that, unlike Minority Report and too many recent Sci-Fi movies to name, the villain won't turn out to be the oldest male on the cast, inventor of the technology and all around bad guy. You can imagine my pain when I saw ol' Babe Farmer alive, healthy, sobbing over his son's death, and in my mind, 100% guaranteed to be the film's bad guy. Sure enough, by the end of the movie, he's about to kill all but 2% of the world and Willis is trying to talk him out of it. Seriously, this cliche has got to stop. Any time there's a Sci-Fi mystery, it's simply a matter of finding the oldest science dude on the cast and pointing a finger at him.

Why spoil the end of a movie in the trailer? In the words of Fry: "Because clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected things make them feel scared."

Of course, the people advertising this movie did a lot better job spoiling it than me, showing Bruce Willis walking through a dead world of deactivated Surrogates in the freaking preview trailers months ago. A scene that takes place roughly two seconds before the end credits. Luckily, the movie so thoroughly annoyed me on so many levels that by the end, I'd totally forgotten about it.

Top Ten: The New Gaming Cliches

2009-09-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

Joystick Division has a list of New Gaming Cliches.

Hmm, now where have I seen that Bald Space Marine collage before? Funny thing is, they didn't even catch that one of the "space marines" was actually Jack from Lost. Poor Matthew Fox, he's so devoid of personality people easily mistake him for a modern FPS hero.

I feel like a map maker who invents a fake town to catch people stealing his maps.

Update: The swank article has been updated by "Anton" who credited and linked to my website.

Trollspotting

2009-09-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

I like IMDb. Being able to discuss a movie, no matter how obscure, is always fun. Normally, it's a great place to be (well, compared to Gamefaqs' forums). But now and then, you realize you've wandered into Troll Country:

Concerning a Korean film, one guy -- we'll call him L.A. -- said:

I'm not familiar with which awards are major and which aren't. But I think Asian awards aren't that major.

To which another fellow, we'll call him L.N. replied:

It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, which is quite a major honor. As for your "Asian awards aren't that major" comment, it not only smacks of ignorance, it also comes off as you being an "ugly American" who only thinks the U.S. is of importance in the world. But if you don't like the film due to the ending, that's your right. My point was that you are very much in the minority.

An ugly American? Zooks!

L.A. quickly set the record straight:

Easy mate. Don't need to go on an attack. Besides, you're laughable. I'm not American and I can honestly say I'm not a fan of studio pictures either - except if they were of Scorsese's.

At which point I had to chime in:

He's not familiar with Asian movie awards so you instantly assume he's an "ugly American"?

Mmm, positively smacks of ignorance.

Ignorance smacks are ALMOST as good as Honey Smacks.

At this point, L.N. pretty much pulls off the human mask and reveals the snarling troll beneath:

No, you need to learn better reading comprehension skills. The guy said Asian awards aren't THAT major, which is a declarative statement. He's not saying he's not familiar with Asian movie awards, he's saying they are of little significance. Guess what, that CAN be taken as being an "ugly American" since he is American in the first place.

Emphasis added. Here's what I had to say:

Oh my god, you're the funniest troll I met all day.

Better comprehension skills? Sounds like something you need to look into, since L.A. clearly said, "I'm not American."

Here, I'll put it in bold for you:

"I'm not American."
- L.A.

In Summary, you ignorantly assume someone is an "ugly American" and accuse them of "ignorance." When they correct you and say they aren't American, you somehow fail to comprehend and then try to make fun of my comprehension skills.

Can someone actually be this thick?

What will happen next? Stay tuned next week!

The #1 Cure for Fanboy Rage

2009-08-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

The #1 cure for fanboy rage is precedent.

Whenever there's a sequel, remake or spinoff of a beloved series, fanboys will inevitably spot some element they feel is completely foreign to the series and loudly complain. It could be a character personality trait, costume design or weird backstory which they feel simply does not fit in with their beloved series.

The funny thing is, more often than not, this foreign concept has been there since the beginning.

Dissing Dissidia: Final Fantasy

When I caught sight of Kefka in the new Final Fantasy fighting game, I was pretty disgusted. Now, Kefka's always rivaled The Joker for the "Clown Prince of Chaos," but never quite so literally as this. He didn't look anything like the maniacally laughing in-game version of himself. (Pixel Kefka had regular flesh tones and wore mostly green and red.)

Hell, this new design was even more outrageous than the FMV they made for the Final Fantasy VI re-release. For cryin' out loud, he looks like a walking, anthropomorphic version of Stewie's hat.

Where the hell did they get this godawful design from?

Amano's original concept art, apparantly.

Diablo 3's Monk Class

The recently announced Monk class in Diablo 3 is a perfect example of misdirected fanboy rage. I've heard complaints that an Asian style monk simply does not belong in a Diablo game and that that the monk is "only there to appease World of Warcraft fans."

The only problem is that Monks have been around since Hellfire, the Diablo 1 expansion released way back in 1997. That's right, they're bringing back a class that predates World of Warcraft by 7 years... just to appease the WoW fans.

Now, I've never played World of Warcraft. So for all I know, their Monks are huge bearded fellows with bald heads, big clubs and bad combat animations. But here's a description the Hellfire monk:

The Monk is extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and is a master of the staff,
which he can use to strike many opponents with a single blow. However, he is not
well trained with bladed or projectile weapons, and is not used to wearing heavy armor. - Diablo: Hellfire Tomb of Knowledge

Sound like anyone we know?

Hellfire was developed for Sierra by Synergistic Software. It's not Blizzard's baby, more like their chubby little niece with weird eyes we're not supposed to talk about. But whether or not Hellfire was released in the Diablo Battle chest (it wasn't), someone at Blizzard obviously liked the Monk character class enough to bring it back.

The whole, "Asian monks don't belong in Diablo" thing reminds me of a scene from Gamers: Dorkness Rising.

Player: "I'm playing a monk."
Dungeon Master: "What's he going to do, copy manuscripts?"
Player: "Think Kung Fu monk, Grasshopper."
DM: "No. I based my world on a fantasied Western medieval period. There are no Kung Fu monks in Western Europe."
Player: "I'm asking to play a basic character class and you're blocking me!"
DM: "Fine. You can play a monk. But he's got to fit the world. He's got to be a Western monk. Bzzt! [Motions like he's shaving the back of his head.] Occidental."

And naturally, the player jumps out looking like this:

The only difference is, here it's the game master arguing against Monks, while in Diablo 3, we've got the players complaining that Monks "don't fit" the world.

The Antidote

The next time some fanboy complains that Sulu wields a sword in the new Star Trek movie (like he did in the original series) or that Indiana Jones survives an unbelievable fall in an inflatable raft in Crystal Skull (like he did back in Temple of Doom), just tell them to look it up. Chances are, it's anything but unprecedented.

Level Up on Hiatus

2009-08-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Due to reasons entirely beyond my control, I'll no longer be able to do Level Up RPG Podcast anymore. For the record, this has NOTHING to do with Jake or any of the Level Up guest hosts -- they're all champs. I'd like to work with them again in the future, though it will have to be a different medium.

I have no idea where things will go from here, but will let you know as soon as I find out.

I'm sorry, guys.

Zeupdate

2009-07-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

I'm alive, working on my book, and quite well. For those of you tracking me through the internet, as opposed to the bushes outside my house, here's what I've been up to:

Writing a story about monsters. Hopefully I'll capture the cold-sweat terrors of my childhood, when horror films kept me up half the night on watch for miniature homunculi.
Playing Total Extreme Wrestling 2005. It's a "Bidness thimulation," as Dusty Rhodes would say. The player is tasked with running a pro-wrestling federation.
Watching Cinematic Titanic's "Legacy of Blood," a movie so vile and visibly smelly it easily rivals Manos: The Hands of Fate in terms of sleaze. Bonus points: A henchman named Igor.
Reading "Beyond the Moons", an old D&D novel by Dave Cook. It opens with a Spelljammer ship crashing into a simple Dragonlance farmer's home. Star Wars ensues.
Typing this -- right now! And now I'm hitting publish!

New Level Up RPG Podcast!

2009-07-05T14:10:00.001-07:00

Episode 07 - Bethesda Softworks

Good stuff. Me and Jake basically gab about how much sweeter Oblivion is than Fallout 3. Well, that's not how he puts it, exactly, but we agree that Oblivion's "hands off" approach to the main mission is preferable to Fallout 3's "find your Daddy" plot. It's Shenmue syndrome all over again.

But then again, I haven't even played Fallout 3 yet. First I have to beat Oblivion, then ride the train over to Bioware town and play Mass Effect.

Anyone notice how all the Xbox 360 RPGs are from major American companies? Bethesda, Bioware, Square Enix (okay, they're Japanese, but still HUGE), Microsoft. Until Final Fantasy VI, roleplaying games were never about having the best graphics. But these days, unless your hat is made of money, you can forget about making a next-gen RPG.

Free Ghostbusters Game Sound Effects

2009-06-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

To promote the new Ghostbusters game, they're giving away free Ghostbusters sound effects .wav files. There's a proton pack blast, a PKE meter, and two Marshmallow Man roars. Reminds me of 90s-era IRC, when everyone played their favorite/sound clips. I even had a Babylon 5 computer voice rigged up to my FTP program: "Transfer of data complete."

Oh man, I am such a nerd.

2009-06-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

There's a new Level Up - Video Game RPG Podcast online. This time it's about a subject dear to me: RPG Sidekicks. Yes, we cover all the delightful weirdos that have nothing better to do than find a brave young knight and his lady fair and then glom onto them for the rest of the game.

Episode 006: RPG Sidekicks
Warning: this is a we-hate-Yuffie zone. Yuffie fans, prepare your tear drop anime emoticons. ;_;

New Level Up RPG Podcast - MMORPGs Part 2: The Quickening

2009-06-13T12:51:00.001-07:00

Level Up - The Weekly Video Game RPG Podcast has been updated. We discuss our favorite MMORPG moments (Googleshng loses his pants, while I was lured into the woods by a creepy foreigner), recommend MMORPGs for beginners, and talk about the games we would, in no way, recommend for anyone other than ironic consumers and digital masochists. (Not that they aren't all in Second Life, anyway.) Plus, Silkenray totally spoils Forumwarz, and it's all good. All that and more more more, in! Episode 004 – MMORPGs Part 2.

The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull (or, There's No Such Thing As Bad Publicity)

2009-06-13T12:36:00.001-07:00

eMusic trials are fun. 50 mp3s, plus an audiobook? I'm there, dude.

The dirty trick is to hand pick singles or find albums with really low track counts. I love They Might Be Giants, but I'm not going to blow half my downloads on a single 23 song album.

So, there's this album called The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull. I previewed a track and immediately liked what I heard. Slow, heavy, southwestern rock, with no lyrics.

Let me put it this way: When you walk into a room, and everyone turns to see who's standing in the doorway, this is the kind of music you want playing.

Just out of curiosity, I checked out Amazon's reader reviews. Skimming down, the lowest review (3/5) I could find caught my eye:

"Sounds like a score to a post-apocalyptic western"

It just goes to show that however ambivalent or negative a review may be, it can still -- sometimes accidentally -- help people decide to buy the product. That "average" review sold me on it more than the five-star gushers. Any time I play this album for my friends, I'm introducing it as "post-apocolyptic western music."

Level Up - The Video Game RPG Podcast

2009-05-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hey, me and Googleshng started a video game RPG podcast when I wasn't even looking. In all the excitement, guess I forgot to mention it here.

Well, here I am, mentioning it:

Level Up - The Video Game RPG Podcast

Episode 001 is about the elements essential to RPGs. Any name for the topic is open to misinterpretation, from "Defining RPGs" (which could be taken as, yo dawg, we're DEFINING this shizzit) to "What is an RPG?" (which sounds like a question posted in alt.fan.final.fantasy around the launch of FF7), but we went with the latter.

And released just today, Episode 002 - PC vs. Console. It's not as controversial as some would like: There's no bareknuckle boxing, accusations of payola or insulting the other's ancestors. But I think, over all, we pretty much get it covered.

P.S. And yes, it is hard to get "Roleplaying game" and "Video game" in the title without sounding all redundant, but "Video Roleplaying Game" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Dane Cook & Louis CK: Preemptive Stand-up

2009-05-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

Dane Cook has been accused of ripping off jokes from fellow stand-up comedian Lewis CK (who you may remember from the Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy rant on Conan O'Brien).

Mr. Cook went so far as to tell my favorite Louis CK joke, the one about seeing a guy on a bike who's about to get into an accident and not having enough time to yell out a proper warning. (More details can be found in my upcoming docu-drama, The Cook, The Thief, His Jokes, Her Laughter.)

Well, I just caught Louis CK's latest act, and it's genius. The entire thing is about what a big pathetic out of shape slob he is. Every joke is about his wretched body, inability to pass up a cinnamon roll, weighing as much as two people, etc.

When I pointed out that he was coming up with jokes Dane Cook couldn't possibly steal, my brother's face lit up and he said, "It's like Dane Cook is playing the, 'I'm going to copy you' game, and Lewis CK is saying, 'I'm an idiot! I'm dumb!'"

Trent Reznor on GTA: "Help me, I'm old and confused."

2009-05-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

Poor Trent Reznor. Seems like just yesterday he was nailing monkeys to crucifixes. Now his cataracts are so thick he's resorting to things like Twitter and random Grand Theft Auto accusations.

Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency - because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any "indecent" material for sale - but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film "Scarface" completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes.

Yes, and if you play NIN backwards, you hear the devil.

Look, I'm not saying there's no monetary gain for beating up prostitutes in GTA, but just like in 1950s crime movies, no bad deed goes unpunished. If you get caught robbing a hooker of her hard earned GP, every cop in the area will be after you. It's not like some 360 achievement or PS3 trophy is unlocked.

In real life, if you beat up a prostitute, she might have some money on her. Is this a reward? God's way of telling you to kill prostitutes? Or is it just a fact of life, sort of like vengeful pimps and assault and robbery charges?

Crime in GTA has its risks and its rewards, and going around saying that GTA rewards you for beating up prostitutes is about as accurate as chanting, "Crime doesn't pay" or "Winners don't use drugs."

Scary stories and other things

2009-04-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

With Herculean effort, I put the finishing touches on a story that took way too long to edit. I feel like that guy at the end of "The Raft", who swam to shore, looked back at the lake monster and screamed, "I beat you! I beat you!"

Granted, that was right before the flesh eating blob jumped out of the water and swallowed him whole. But for a second there, he was pretty dang happy.

Right now I'm editing a short story I originally wrote back in 2003. It's about a man who wakes up to a world that is somehow horribly changed. His girlfriend looks the same, and children still play in the streets -- albeit not quite as nicely as before. But now there's nothing reassuring about their smiles, and everyone around him has gone inexplicably hollow.

It's a fun story, short and scary, just the way Rita Perlman likes 'em.

"This is so bad it's almost good. "
"This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again."
- Ghost World.

As a confessed ironic consumer, I buy things that no one in their right mind would actually want. Today I picked up something that will no doubt send your heart fluttering, provided you're a teenage girl from 1987.

Kirk Cameron: Dream Guy. Tagline? "The Real Story of America's #1 Heartthrob!"

The look of surprise, then horror, and finally sorrow on people's faces when I show them the book is totally worth it.

I'll be back later with KIRK'S VITAL STATISTICS and, if you're nice, KIRK TRIVIA. But if you want KIRK'S WORDS OF WISDOM, you'll have to buy the damn book yourself.

Okay, I quit.

2009-04-22T07:49:00.001-07:00

Not much happening in the Rue Morgue

2009-04-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Rock, Paper Shotgun has a fun rant about locked doors in video games:

Locked door, I hate you.

I hate the way you are resistant to knives, to guns, to sledgehammers, to rocket-propelled grenades, to weapons that rewrite the very laws of physics, to dark unearthly magic, to punches that can knock a man’s head clean off.

...

I hate the way I’m expected to give up trying to open you when I see the words “this door has been locked from the other side” or “this door opens elsewhere”, as though they’re a command from God himself.
...
I hate the way you so often lead to nowhere, how you are nothing more than decoration for a wall.

Locked doors that are only for decoration always remind me of this one episode of Murder She Wrote. Angela Lansbury was hired as a consultant for a new virtual reality video game (it’s the 90s, yo!) and she chided the developers for lining a hallway with useless locked doors.

"People will always assume that locked doors lead to something special. You can’t just fill your world with locked doors and then not put anything behind them!"

Modern developers could learn a lot from Angela Lansbury.

Epic Fail: Top 10 Games to Play When You're Bored

2009-04-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Gamer's Discord just ran an article called Top 10 Games to Play When You're Bored.

Boredom. It can strike even the most hardcore gamer. It happens to the best of us - sitting on the couch, staring at the consoles and gaming pc, pondering which game to play. Shooter? Racing? MMO? Strategy? Whatever the choice, it’s got to be a good one, promising hours of entertainment and replay value.

It's an awkward premise -- games to play when you're bored, as opposed to, you know, when you're actively involved in something. But I think I get what he's saying. Sure-bet games that might have flown under the radar, solid titles that don't spring instantly into the mind of the average gamer.

Maybe I'll find some undiscovered gem I haven't heard about, that's been keeping other gamers entertained for years now. Right?

...wrong.

Left 4 Dead
Halo 3
Empire: Total War
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Killzone 2
World of Warcraft
Gears of War 2
Fallout 3
Warhawk
Burnout Paradise

Woah, really? World of Warcraft? I haven't heard of that one. Halo 3? What's that? Hey, Killzone 2, is that a game to play when I am bored?

Yes, they all have good replay value, but they're also completely mainstream. These are the games people are already playing. Where are the puzzle games? Like classic arcade titles, puzzle games are perfect for drop-in-and-out gameplay. They pass the time without getting you involved in a winding narrative. There's rarely a save system, so you don't worry about "making progress." Like a mugger dressed like a clown who just won the lotto, they're fun and they demand nothing from you.

Why isn't Tetris on the list? Tetris is cool. Show me a gamer who doesn't like the occasional game of Tetris and I'll show you a dirty android who just failed the Voigt-Kampff test.

It seems like he just took a list of the the best selling games or most popular games right now and ran with it. The only remote surprise is Warhawk, a PS3 release game that slipped under the radar due to janky Six-Axis controls.

He might as well have called this article, "Top 10 Games."