NRDLNGR

750: And You Can Count...

2011-11-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

So, when I mentioned that rocket-sled yesterday, I meant it.

Free-writing is a jet-fueled, crudely directed disastermobile, and I can think of no better way to force myself into a regular position of rapid fire ridiculousness than to just let the keyboard work its magic. What you are about to ignore is yet another column idea, spawned from that wonderful beehive of aimless ambition that is the core of NRDLNGR. You want content? You want to read something so damn bad, you don’t care what it is? No? Well... I don’t know what to tell you. Go back to pounding refresh on Facebook.

For those of you still here, welcome to what I am calling 750. Someone much more organized and disciplined than I suggested each person should write 750 words each day to better themselves. I liked the idea, and it is something I have tried to incorporate into my personal routine. At a certain point, the obvious struck me: I created a venue to capture my inane ramblings, yet I never produce content for it. Why not apply the same attitude toward it as I have toward myself?

Each day, I will find something, anything, related to the broad scope of nerdery and just unload on it. If it comes into my brain, it’s going on the site. No concise wording. No exemplification of craft. Just good old fashioned rambling crap crammed into your eye sockets. If I finish up my thoughts before the 750 mark, I’ll just find a way to keep going. God only knows what will come out of it, but I will not stop. If I go over? My first inclination is to just cut off right at the word count, but I may try to clean things up in post as to make something readable. I guess it just depends on how I feel and what seems to work best.

At first glance, this is the complete antithesis of what NRDLNGR stood for. When I started, I wanted clear, tightly-written articles emphasizing ideas over content. The Internet is filled with opinionated crap, and NRDLNGR was to hold itself to something better. I didn’t want content for content’s sake. Let me be clear, I still believe in that. However, my own tendencies began to work against me and kept anything from getting done. Precision became perfection, and perfection became a barrier.

My hope is to use this column to break down that barrier. As I move into the consistent day-to-day writing, I hope to generate a momentum I can carry into a more complete realization of what I would like NRDLNGR to be. I hope to make this the foundation of something I can be proud of. At the very least, it will be something, which is a whole hell of a lot more than what has been going on around here.

Rest assured, this is not the only step I have planned in getting this rusted word-wagon moving again. The second step is something I have toyed with in my mind for some time, yet have never fully committed myself to until now. The world of live-streaming is nothing new. Bored or narcissistic people have been broadcasting their every waking moment for some time now. I’m bored. I’m narcissistic.

I want in.

At least one night a week, I want to produce something for the unruly Internet masses to shit all over while they’re bored at home. Ok, my goal is not to produce something terrible, but, to be honest, I really am not too sure what I make will stand up to what others are doing. The live-stream community looks like an easy one to break into, but I am almost certain it is not. Also, my production equipment is mediocre at best, so what gets made will undoubtedly look like it had been produced by a toddler. So be it. If NRDLNGR’s content becomes the RC Cola of the Internet, is that really such a bad thing? How many Americans accidentally ingest RC Cola annually? Ten? 20? If I can get 20 people to tell me NRDLNGR’s a piece of shit, I think that’s a pretty solid win.

Whatever will be will be, and what will be is more. More words. More stuff. More something.

And now, an oldie, but a goodie, courtesy of The Onion:

Onlookers were amazed by the copious amounts of blood. Onlookers were amazed by the copious amounts of blood. Onlookers were amazed by the copious amounts

Um... Yeah, About That...

2011-11-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

Hey.

Been a while, hasn't it? I wish I had a good answer for you as to why I never write anything, even when I have so many functional ideas floating around in my fickle consciousness. I think some of it is dreaming bigger than my means, which causes my perfectionist tendencies to shoot myself down even before take-off. Another part of it comes from my easily-distracted...

Where was I?

Oh, now I remember. I was making stupid excuses. That should stop. So, here goes a shot at crushing my excuses and making something resembling a decent attempt at generating some stupid nerdy crap for you to sink your mind-teeth into. I'm gonna do my best to make the most of my fledgling nerd-hovel. I have staked my digital claim to 'NRDLNGR,' and I want to do the name proud.

First off is more rapid-fire writing. My journalism professors would strangle every ounce of life from me if they heard me say that, but I need to move with the shifting tides. Will my writing suffer because of it? Probably not. I really don't think I could make my writing any worse, so why spend time worrying about it? I mean, what fun is a slow-moving train wreck? So, get ready for a questionably articulated rocket-sled of nonsense coming right at you.

Next is multimedia. While I was half kidding about my crash-and-burn writing mentality, I really do think this one will end in some sort of flaming wreckage. I have zero background in sound engineering, video editing, or basic human social skills. Sufficed to say, the unholy union of these things and more will either make for some of the most unintentionally entertaining stuff out there or become one of the many so-bad-it's-bad pieces of work left to rot in the digital wastes. My hope is to get some live streams up since they seem to require little back-end work. Now, my recording equipment is, well, anything I have on hand. If this seems to work well, I might consider investing in some, but for now, it's whatever I find in my apartment. Think of it as being quaint in a world that has no room for the quaint.

I guess I look at this as a change of mindset for myself and NRDLNGR. I started with the focus on not screwing up. Now I just want to wreck it for my own entertainment.

And yours, too.

So get ready for some concentrated half-assery, because when you're too small to fail, there's nowhere to go but up...

Fourplay: Q and You

2011-09-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Let's kick this off with an exercise. I'm going to list a bunch of common video game actions, and I want you to name what key you would instinctively press to make it happen.

Oh, if you haven't figured it out already, I'm talking about keyboard controls. You can set the controller aside for this one.

Ready? Press a key to:

Open a door
Pick up an object from the ground
Search a downed enemy
Flip a switch
Press a button
Talk to someone
Examine an item

So, what did you hit? E, right? The E key is the action button, the 'use' key, the go-to input for interaction between the player and the environment. If you're not shooting it, punching it, or blowing it up, you're pressing E to manipulate it in some way. Now, this fact alone could spur endless debate in terms of game design and interactivity, but that's not where I'm taking this. No, I bring it up simply to point out that E is far and away the key you're using most to do things (movement notwithstanding, naysayer in the back).

Why does this matter? Quite simply, E is the go-to because of where it sits on your keyboard. In a WASD position, there are few keys easier to hit than E. Yet, even with all these things we map to E, an equally viable key is nearly ignored when it comes time to set controls. Yeah, you know the one...

Or maybe you don't.

Exercise number two. Hunt down your five most played games on PC. Steam should let you sort that, but if not, or heaven forbid you aren't using Steam, just use your best judgement. Got your five? Now, tell me what happens in those games when you hit Q. It's ok. Take your time. Hell, I'm writing this damn thing and it still took me a minute to remember what it did in two games.

If E is the key we're using most, why isn't Q the key we're using second-most? I cannot, for the life of me, make heads or tails of it. Does it stem from decades past PC design where Q was used to quit programs? Maybe. I really don't know. Whatever the reason, Q is underutilized, which makes it a great place to start when messing with your keybindings.

Believe it or not, re-mapping Q can salvage what may otherwise be an unplayable or frustrating game. Take Borderlands. Melee attacks can be life-or-death in a clutch, but are difficult to pull off on the fly when a physical disability prevents rapid shifting of hand positions. To go from movement-by-touch with the left thumb to hunting down V (the default key) and back again is a nightmare. You have to stop moving, which is a naughty no-no in shooters. Re-map melee attacks to Q, and see how it changes things. I rush with W, and simply slide my thumb left to strike. I don't even need to let off W. All well and good, but what do we do with Q's old mapping? In this case, absolutely nothing. Borderlands doesn't map anything to Q. It's prime real estate completely ignored.

So, what should you be mapping to Q? Anything, really. Q is a great key for actions that pair well with movement. If you can comfortably stop in a game while hunting down the key, what you're looking to do probably doesn't need to be on Q. For me, I tend to play with default controls for a bit til I identify the single key I repeatedly find myself fishing for. If it's more useful to me than what Q is doing, I swap them. A lot of it is trial-and-error.

I was gun-shy about changing keybindings at first, but found Q to be a great, safe place to start. Even for the able-bodied of you out there, consider using Q as a stepping stone toward becoming comfortable with switching up controls. You may be of the mindset that 'developer knows best,' but that is a fallacy. The simple truth is you will always know better. Don't be afraid to wreck up the place once you find yourself comfortable with switching things around. You can always change them back if you take it too far.

Don't let E have all the fun. Make Q work for you. You'd be surprised how much fun you can salvage from frustration.

Half-Life 2 Fear Journal - Part 0: Knowing the Unknown

2011-08-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

"There's a headcrab around that corner."

Those were the last words I uttered to Half-Life 2.

* * *

I am almost never affected by horror films. I don't know if it's an inability to suspend disbelief or a general desensitization to media violence, but I've always found the genre to be more comedic than frightening. Of the dozens of horror flicks I have seen, only one has really gotten under my skin. I react more to the disturbing nature of something than the types of fear shilled by the typical Halloween movie season.

Games are different. Games scare the shit out of me.

I'm not just talking about horror games. Any game made to instill any type of fear gets to me without lifting a finger. Sewer level in Dark Forces? Freaked out. Even the creepers in Minecraft turn me into a panicky mess. I am a complete wuss when it comes to games, and it has come at what many would call a terrible price.

When a game scares me, I do the most logical, sane thing I can think of: I quit. With horror movies, I find myself rolling my eyes at the characters and their blatantly stupid actions. It takes a tremendous willpower to keep from yelling at the screen. Why are you doing that? What are you expecting? How can you all be so stupid? It would do no good, even if I did shout at the top of my lungs. The character on screen's getting a chainsaw to the face, preordained long before I became an observer. That is how games are different for me. I am not the observer, I am the participant. When I yell, "Don't open that door," at my TV, I'm not yelling at the character.

I'm yelling at myself.

And I take my own advice. I don't open the door. I don't round that corner. I take the route of safety, which in the world of games does not exist. The game does not progress if I stop doing what it wants me to. No door, no more game. The only true choice, the only true freedom given to a me is whether or not to play. So I stop.

The worst offender of this is one of my greatest shames as a games enthusiast. My own fear has kept me from playing Half-Life 2, considered by many to be the pinnacle of PC gaming. Once I hit the point where I know something is waiting for me, I pop Gordon Freeman in reverse. Which you can't do. Freeman, like most every other game protagonist, is a shark. If he's not going forward, the game dies. I save, quit, and come back when I'm ready to deal with the threat waiting for me.

I'm never ready. That headcrab in that vent is bigger than me, bigger than my ego, and it crushes my will to continue even without a physical presence. The idea has defeated me. I eventually decide to start over, let momentum carry me past my fear. It doesn't work. It never works. I have restarted HL2 well over a dozen times and each playthrough finds me cowering to the known unknown.

It's time to put a stop to this.

At the request/suggestion of a few friends, I am going to chronicle my playthrough of Half-Life 2 as a way to push past these moments that have kept me from enjoying what is universally accepted to be a damn-good game. I'll journal everything, both what I'm playing and how it affects me. I have no idea how long it will take, but I will finish. I hope to stream my playthrough as a fun opportunity for the internet to watch a grown man lose his shit (because I'm sure there's a lack of that out there). Details will come when they are available, so check back.

Mark Twain once said, "courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."

I have none of these. This is gonna suck...

Fourplay: You Just Got Beat by a...

2011-08-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

I have always been competitive when it comes to video games. I can let just about every other adversarial activity slide without a second glance, but something inside me demands my best once you set a controller in my hands. Maybe it's because games are something I'm good at, so I demand to be better. I'm not the best, but I feel like I hold my own. I would wager I sit in the 80th percentile of 'general player ability' when spread across all genres. I say this not to brag. I bring it up because there is a fact often neglected when considering my skill of play, a truth no one on the other end realizes when I lap them in a race or capture their flag.

I am a quadriplegic.

To be specific, I have a C7 spinal cord injury. I won't go into the specifics of how, but I broke my neck a little over a year and a half ago and lost motor function and physical sensation throughout most of my body. Specifically relevant to NRDLNGR, I have lost thumb opposition and finger flexation (that's techno-babble for 'I can't close my hands'). For someone at my level of injury, I am fortunate to have the minuscule finger movement I still possess.

The implications of this in how I play games is pretty obvious. Since my thumbs don't oppose, I can really only move thumbsticks with my palms. I can't hit shoulder buttons, pull triggers, or even click my mouse without committing my whole hand. This turns the quintessential control scheme of the current console era, dual-analog, into a frantic reflex test-meets-game of Twister. PC controls are easier to manage, but still hinge upon a fundamental use of digits I can no longer control. WASD was not meant for thumbs, let alone any non-finger input. Adding in additional, simultaneous, actions creates nightmare scenarios out of the typically mundane. Running and jumping in a shooter is a pain, and crouch-jumping seems to be specifically engineered to keep those with disabilities from playing Half-Life. Yet, like those who came before and those who will come after, I have found ways to adapt.

Fortunately, I have not needed to change any of my equipment. My keyboard and mouse have somehow managed to stay viable post-injury. Mice are usually one of the first things to get replaced by a quad. Many with spinal injuries more severe than mine have no tricep control. They can bring their forearms into their body, but cannot extend them without external force. This makes conventional mouse movement a struggle, which is why many quads prefer to use a trackball. For me, my current mouse, a Razer DeathAdder, is a perfect match. The high DPI may seem like a disaster waiting to happen, but I have found it works in my favor more than it doesn't. The biggest perk comes from not having to pick up and re-center my mouse, an action that I cannot do without two hands. The shape and length of the main buttons are perfect for clicking with my palm. I plan to spend more time on my equipment in a later post, but just wanted to give a picture of what concerns arise when gaming as a quad.

The greatest help in taking control comes not from changing equipment, but from changing the controls themselves. Yep, I'm that vocal minority that demands re-mappable controls in everything. Here's my prime example. The only reason I can play Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and not Burnout Paradise is because I can change the controls. For those not in the know, Hot Pursuit is a fair bit more complex in its controls; I would argue twice as convoluted. Yet, once you put the option to change things in my hands, I can put a Bugatti Veyron through a hairpin sideways without thinking about it. In Burnout, I'd be surprised if I cold get a Carson Inferno 100 yards before colliding into oncoming traffic. I don't need developers to find a way for me to control their game. What I need is for developers to understand that only I can adapt a control scheme that works for me. Who gives a shit if it messes up all your tooltips? I'm pretty sure no one reads those anyway...

Really, control is what it's all about. My injury has limited many freedoms we all take for granted. That's not meant to instill guilt or pity, but to express a simple truth. It can be hard sometimes to feel like you're actually the one holding the reigns. Gaming, both recreational and competitive, gives some of that sense of control back. My choices, my actions, yield results. I am the conductor of an audio-visual symphony, and it satisfies that latent human need to create, to produce, to craft and control when so many other outlets are narrowed or shut. And it is done without concession or compromise.

I have never mentioned, until now, that I have a disability that would compromise my play. There's no reason to. I don't need special treatment. I get so much of it every day and it drives me crazy. There are times where I screw up due to complications, get chewed out for not doing something conceptually simple, or generally blow it in situations an able-bodied person wouldn't. Never, and I mean never, will I or have I used my disability as an excuse. I know when I've made a mistake, and I can apologize for my part in whatever went awry.

But I will never apologize for who I am.

Because I am the sniper pinning you down. I am the Lamborghini Gallardo passing you in the corners. I am the warlock crushing your DPS. I am your guildie, your opponent, your teammate, and although fate or chance has created a rift between us in the real world, in here, we're equals.

In here, I'm the one kicking your ass...

Dirt 3, Games for Windows, and the Meaning of Progress

2011-08-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on Games for Windows as a sample for a job application. It centered around a small pet peeve in GFW Live integration in Codemasters' exceptional rally racer, Dirt 3. A few things have changed since then and now, making the old piece slightly outdated. Even so, the problem persists.

And it all starts with a triangle...

Dirt 3 is great. Really great. I have a personal fondness for racing sims, and Dirt 3 exceeds expectations each and every time I fire it up. It even finds a way to transcend the depressing and frustrating 'quick-port' feeling of every multi-platform racer made since a time currently beyond my recollection. Sure, a lack of mouse use to navigate menus kills me every time, but once I get past the console-centric annoyances, it feels right on PC. Grid didn't. Dirt 3 does.

However, there is such a thing as going too far.

Or maybe it's not going far enough. I guess it depends on how you want to view PC gaming's tradgecomedic blight. On one hand, using Games for Windows Live acknowledges Dirt 3 is, in fact, a game on PC. Seems obvious, but tell that to Crysis 2 and the other under-featured PC portlettes sitting on my hard drive. On the other hand, GFWL is just about the most un-PC thing you could possibly engineer. Either way, Dirt 3 uses it, and somehow finds a way to make it even more obnoxious.

The second you hit the main menu, Dirt 3 starts shoving DLC down your throat like a vulgar analogy. It reminds me of some sort of Idiocracy-esque future come to life. First off is the caution-sign exclamation-point icon, unmistakable, next to the Live menu. Simple enough; unobtrusive and straight forward. Now, just in case you manage to miss that gem, at the bottom of the same screen is a banner bearing the same alert icon, telling you new DLC is available. It then cycles through every piece of content for Dirt 3, regardless of age. Ok, Codemasters, I get it. I cannot fault you for making a game in this crass, 'nickel-and-dime' era. This is the age of the microtransaction, and we must all endure. Yet, somehow, even the logo and banner aren't enough. You had to throw in the announcer.

That's right. No longer is screaming at our eyeballs enough to shill digital crap. You have to literally scream at us. It's like that fairy from Zelda somehow got a job at a car dealership. "Hey! Buy this! Hey! HEY! Buy this!"

The thing is, this isn't what irks me. I've come to deal with it. Some of it may be that Dirt 3 is fun even with a dude hounding me to buy stuff. It could be that some of the DLC makes worthwhile additions. New cars and paint jobs are a dime a dozen, but to add new racing circuits? Monte Carlo tracks? Sign me up. That guy can call me 'cupcake,' or whatever my in-game call sign is, till he's blue in the face. No no, what gets to me isn't what they're selling or how aggressively they sell it. It's how they implemented it.

The core single-player experience in Dirt 3 is subdivided into a series of race seasons, visually represented by a set of rotating pyramids. Each race series is a face of the pyramid, which unfolds to help show your progress at a glance. Finishing first in each race in a series turns that pyramid section the most satisfying gold. Finish each section, and you have a lovely gold floating tetrahedral with which to bore your friends and loved ones. Blah blah blah. Why does any of that matter? Because when Codemasters added their DLC, they TOOK MY GOLD TRIANGLES AWAY!

Codemasters, in a single stroke, un-completed my game. Instead of keeping content neatly contained somewhere, they just tacked on races to existing series. This recalculates the completion of the series, stripping me of my superficial, yet hard earned, shiny pretty pyramids. Yes, I hear you, discerning voice of obvious reason. "Quit your bitching," you say, "and just finish the new races and get your vain reward back."

You would be right, but there is a crucial detail missing: I didn't buy the DLC. Dirt 3 patched in the new races, messed with my progress, and locked me out till I finally break down and throw $10 worth of Microsoft Monopoly money at my monitor. A few days ago they added another set of races, further undermining my progress and bringing the 'cost to complete Dirt 3' to 1200 fun bucks.

It comes down to this: Dirt 3 is the embodiment of progress in the wrong direction, not just for itself but for PC gaming as a whole. Games for Windows Live is dead. Or, at least it should be dead. In a landscape dominated by Steam, the expectations of how an integrated digital content delivery system functions have risen far beyond what Microsoft provides with GFWL. The reality is that Steamworks is beyond anything Microsoft would even bother to take the effort to create, so it's recent slip into internet obscurity is, in my mind, the acknowledgment of its obsolescence. Surprising? Not at all. Any PC game enthusiast could have called this after seeing what a disaster Shadowrun was.

What surprises me is how a game that makes a great effort to shine on PC so thoroughly integrates the dying GFWL. Dirt 3 is a great step forward for Codemasters on the PC front, but the use of Live is a leap in the wrong direction. It undermines the progress they have made. Not only that, I cannot help but blame it for undermining my progress as well. I want my games to see support post-release. I love seeing PC ports receive the same content as the consoles. These things add to the experience. Taking away my sense of accomplishment does not. Dealing with Games for Windows does not. It is progress in the opposite direction, and I would hope the creator of so many racing games understands the perils of going the wrong way...

Logo-a-Go-Go

2011-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

You can't be iconic without an icon. I present to you the new logo for NRDLNGR:

Simple, with a nice rough edge. It really speaks for itself, so I'll leave it to it. Let us know what you think.

Hidden Treasures: Descent

2011-06-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

I don't get motion sick.

Ok, so there was that one time in the second Pirates movie. There's a three-way swordfight between Jack Davenport, Orlando Bloom, and Johnny Depp (not nearly as sexy as it sounds) inside a rotating water wheel. That scene, with the genius marriage of spinning backgrounds and shaky-cam, is the closest I've ever come to winning first place in the cookie-toss, but that's it. Mirror's Edge? Back to the Future ride? The infamous county fair Pukenator? Nada.

So I do not state it lightly when I say Descent makes me nauseous.

Even now, there isn't really a game out there quite like Descent. It predates Quake as a fully-3D first-person shooter, and has much more in common with shooters than the space sims it appears to emulate. Consider it a quaint love child of Doom and X-wing that makes you vomit every few minutes...in a good way. The gameplay is more akin to the previously mentioned FPS, with its claustrophobic level designs and color-coded locked door progression. The twist literally comes with the controls. The player has complete control over the x-,y-, and z-axes of their ship, turning a simple firefight into a gyroscopic hellscape.

I don't mean to make the controls sound like a gimmick, because nothing could be further from the truth. So much of what makes Descent fun and unique is maneuvering yourself in a truly 3D environment. Enemies attack from every direction, forcing you to twist and turn yourself to the point where simple terms like 'up' or 'down' mean absolutely nothing. The labyrinthine level design thrives from this disorientation, making a maze out of even simple layouts.

It's hard not to agree that Descent is a PC classic. Too bad I'm playing it on the PlayStation...

Remember my complaint with Crash Bandicoot's lack of analog support? I take it all back. Descent on the PS1 controls like a practical joke. The 3D maneuverability in Descent is pretty easy to conceptualize on a keyboard-mouse setup, so let's do a little exercise. Set yourself in a typical WASD hand position, like you were playing a shooter. Think, if you were playing a game where you could fly in any direction; up, down, rotate, whatever, how you would make that happen. Got a feel for it? Now, transpose that on to this:

It goes about as well as you'd expect.

However, for what gets lost in the transition to PlayStation, Descent does gain a few perks. The music quality in the PS1 version is much higher. The music itself isn't terrible. Mostly forgettable. I will say, though, it does get high marks for not having Rob Zombie. To be honest, it will be a miracle if I don't make it through this box of games without hearing 'Dragula' once.

Another addition to the PS1 port is full-motion cutscenes. Behold the ravages of age:

Oh, how far we've come.

When I spend time with Descent on the PS1, it's hard to keep from being frustrated. There's a good game right in front of me wanting to be played, but that damn controller keeps getting in the way of the fun. I hesitate to call it unplayable, but it is so nerve-wracking I could never play it for more than 20 minutes at a time. When I finally gave up on it, I didn't know what I was more sick of, the motion or the controls. Either way, I wasn't having fun.

Next time, we dive headfirst into PlayStation's most lauded shark-sim, Treasures of the Deep.

Hidden Treasures: Crash Bandicoot

2011-05-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to get it out of the way now:

Although nearly all of us grew out of it, I still have a soft spot for the good ol' days of mascot warfare. Mario and Sonic were our playground standard bearers. They inspired us to greater feats of fervent loyalty. If we saw a kid with a Sonic backpack, my friends and I would roll up on them and start some shit. This was Nintendo turf, and if we ever saw a Sega kid anywhere near the jungle gym, they were going back to the basketball court in a Genesis-shaped casket. The first parties were our gangs, and the mascots were our colors.

Maybe we made Crash Bandicoot into a mascot because we needed him to be one.

As the PlayStation began proving itself a capable addition to the mainstream console arena, it became more obvious it lacked an iconic champion. Wars need heroes, and Sony had yet to name one. Whether it was Sony itself or the American public who decided, everyone came to agree there was no better choice for the PlayStation than a barely-recognizable facsimile of a mammal wearing blue jean shorts...

Crash Bandicoot came at the tail end of an embarrassing era of platformers. There was a time when the anthropomorphic critter terrorized the video game landscape. We lamented, for if there was such a thing as a loving God, how could it let horrors the likes of Aero the Acro-Bat into this world (let alone its hilariously bad spin-off, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel). By 1996, we had finally started to realize that '[clever name] the [animal]' Madlib design was a pretty shallow well to draw from. Still, Naughty Dog was able to create something transcendent of its premise.

Although Crash strays little from the most basic platforming mold, it still manages to entertain through its charm. The Pacific island vibe permeates nearly every aspect of the game, be it the shield-bearing natives or the floating tiki mask that follows Crash everywhere. Somehow, the theme never feels out of place, even when combined with some of the strangest character designs anyone had seen at the time. Ok, maybe not the strangest, but out-there enough to be impressed when the Hawaiian-vacation theme and a blue kangaroo in a straight-jacket work so well together. Throw in Crash's still-entertaining dances and death animations, and it's hard not to see why the game and its hero stuck out.

Even with all that Crash Bandicoot still does well, time has taken a toll. Crash was an early entry in 3D platforming, and it shows. You hear it a thousand times, but it is always worth repeating: Platforming is about precision. Crash's level design is built with such precision in mind, chaining seemingly insurmountable jumps and using clever enemy placement to hit that sweet spot between twitch response and memorization. In a three-dimensional space, maintaining precision is difficult, and the subtle design tricks that help assist the player had just started to find their way into games. You will find yourself repeatedly shorting jumps or running headlong into a bottomless pit because you have little concept of Crash's position relative to the world. Adding to this frustration is the lack of analog control. For those who may not remember, the original PlayStation controller did not have analog sticks. Even with a decent D-pad, the controls still feel less than stellar.

Taking the bad with the good, Crash Bandicoot is still a fun game 15 years later. Its style still appeals and its gameplay outshines the cheap deaths due to design limitations. Although his legacy stands mostly forgotten, Crash Bandicoot will always be my PlayStation mascot.

Next week, we'll look at the game that doesn't know the meaning of the word 'up.'

Hidden Treasures: The Mystery Box

2011-05-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

Backlog. 'Pile of Shame.' Whatever you call it, many of us amass a stable of games that, for whatever reason, we never get to. The folks at NRDLNGR are just as guilty of this stockpiling, so we're digging into our own catalog to find some of the gems we'd long since buried.

In elementary school, I was known as 'the kid who knew about Nintendo.' Anyone could come to me with a video game question, and somehow I always had the answer. The title has evolved over time, but it is one I still wear with pride. Yes, part of it means I obsess over every aspect of the massive world that is the interactive entertainment industry, losing sleep and ignoring loved ones in exchange for an intricate knowledge of insignificant nerdery. Yet, with burdens of expectation come the thing that makes it all worth it.

Yep. I'm talking about free stuff.

Being the resident video-game-guy of nearly everywhere I go means I am the first person to find when it comes time to cash out, clean the garage, or be rid of anything and everything related to games. In high school, someone I barely knew came to me to sell a few of his Super Nintendo games to buy a PS2. The next day, he hands me two cartridges and says he'll part with them for $30. Staring me in the face were clean, undamaged copies of Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. I halfway tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted. Just by being the resident nerd, I'd hit the jackpot.

Now, I know $30 is hardly free, but this is just an example of the benefits of having been the go-to guy for the last 20 years. Many times, I'm the recipient of the 'I just sold my [console name here] and they wouldn't take these games, so I thought of you' fistful of curiosities. Rarely, I get the odd-and-end 'game a brother/sister bought and left for college without, so take it.'

The latter is how I came into possession of what i call the PS1 Mystery Box.

In college, a fraternity brother overheard me cussing-out my copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night when it wouldn't read. After a short discussion, he surprised me by saying he was pretty sure he owned the game and I could have it as a replacement. He left my room for a minute returned with the CD box you see here. It was slightly dusty; unused, but not forgotten. The turquoise latch was broken, but the box stayed closed without it. Affixed haphazardly was an 'I voted' sticker, I'm guessing, from the 2004 presidential election (I'm pretty sure he voted for Bush, but, given the circumstances, I'll let that slide).

He said his brother bought a bunch of PlayStation games years ago and kept them in the box, but had lost interest in gaming in general and left them to his younger siblings to do with what they wish. In the end, my frat brother wound up with the games, but not the system, so the box and its contents were effectively useless to him. Therefore, if I wanted it, it was mine.

I've been through the box a few times since, but have never played anything out of it besides SotN. There are quite a few gems in it, but, like with most game collections, they have become another pillar in my personal tower of shame.

Until now.

As previously mentioned, the PlayStation Network outage gave me the motivation to crack open the Mystery Box and cross it off my list for good. If I can stay disciplined, I hope to do one game each week until the box is empty. There's a lot of PS1 history in this box, and it would be a shame to let it fall into obscurity.

Come back Monday as we kick this off with the once-touted mascot of Sony's first console, Crash Bandicoot.

The Game(s) you Didn't Buy Today - May 10th, 2011

2011-05-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

So, what games didn't you buy today?

The short answer: Any of these...

What began weeks ago as a frustrating inconvenience, the complete collapse of the PlayStation Network has gone on to become what I can only imagine will be a defining PR disaster in the history of the video games industry. As the days go on, I find more and more facets of this outage rising to full awareness. Between the personal information compromises, the estimated financial loss for anyone involved, and the incalculable loss of public trust, this fiasco almost defies conventional definition.

It's pretty bad. Scratch that. It's really bad.

What makes it even worse is that it's still going on. No one has expected this to go on for as long as it has. Not a single one. Hell, even Sony expected a bit more progress on resolving the outage by now. When I read about the Network shutdown on April 20, I blew it off. With a nice vacation planned for the weekend, I had little to worry about. I remember saying to myself, verbatim, "this'll be fixed by the time I get back."

I almost did a double-take when my phone's RSS reader was filled with PSN articles when I got home Monday night. Not only was the service still down, but there's a pretty good chance my personal information had been taken.

Personal data aside, the thought of a major global server network and digital retail space being down for six days is insane. The expectations of a digital culture has made us notoriously impatient. Six days is an eternity when it comes to the internet. I mean, look at this blog. Anyone reading it before today was pretty sure I had died. A service like PSN being down for more than a weekend is pretty unheard of. I don't remember any of the Xbox Live outages lasting that long, but the backlash against Microsoft was still huge.

Now add the theft of personal data from millions of PSN users, including ambiguity as to the safety of credit card information, and you have a public relations nightmare from which Sony will not soon wake.

That's only after day six.

Today is day 21, and the issues have only compounded. Now, Sony isn't the only one taking a hit. Although some third-party developers have commented directly on the outage, such as Capcom, it would be hard to imagine anyone with content on the platform exit this debacle unscathed. One instance I find disheartening is Bethesda's release of Brink. A Bethesda spokesperson assured Eurogamer it would ship on time in spite of PS3 users being unable to play online. That's a pretty bitter pill for Bethesda to swallow, given the cornerstone of their game is its online component. Games live or die by their releases, and to be forced to choose between pushing back your street date and killing your game's hype and momentum or launching a game that lacks its core functionality based on bad circumstances, the fault of which is not your own, is terrible.

No developer should be put in that position, but many have and many will if this trend continues. As it stands now, there is no definitive end to the PSN outage. Sony is shooting for a return of all functionality by the end of the month, but have yet to set a date for basic services like multiplayer support and PlayStation@Home (which I am sure will make a lot of already-bored people very happy). Sony has promised reimbursement to account-holders in the form of free games and services (such as free identity-theft protection, how thoughtful), but what of those who have lost more than playtime on FreeRealms? I cannot imagine what small developers who rely on PSN as a distribution platform are thinking right now. I don't mean to be melodramatic or alarmist, but I am confident more than one person is going to lose their job as collateral damage from this.

And that, more than anything, is what makes me upset. Yes, there are games I would be buying if PSN were up, but I have a big enough back catalog of games to barely notice. In all honesty, the fear of not earning trophies (regardless of what they say) has caused me to dig out an old treasure trove of unplayed PS1 games, the contents of which I hope to write about soon. Between that and Netflix, I have been rather unaffected by the downtime. What gets to me is the idea that, with the hacking of Sony's network, the people who stand to lose the most aren't Sony at all.

The jury is still out on who actually perpetrated the security breach, but to those responsible, I ask: When the dust settles, what will it all have been for? Greed? God, do I hope it was greed. Greed is easy to justify, and, at the very least, has a purpose. What depresses me most is the idea this attack was meant to send a message to Sony. If the goal was to remind the PlayStation devision it's not God, good job. They're mortal. So is this whole industry, and you have done little more than harm individuals who most likely have more in common with you than with Sony. You know, it goes beyond that. If the punchline in all this is 'don't fuck with hackers,' I am disappointed by your narrow-mindedness. You have proven yourself a petulant anarchist. Even further (assuming you are who we all have begun to believe you are), you have drawn the ire of your cohorts, the only group of individuals likely to have ever garnished you praise. All you will have to show for this is the fleeting satisfaction that you undid something that never really needed undoing, and if that's good enough for you, so be it. Enjoy your chaos if that's all you want.

Because other than my time right now, that's just about all you'll get.

The Game you Didn't Buy Today - April 12, 2011

2011-04-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

"Not extreme enough. Better add a snake..."

I'm just gonna be out with it: I used to be a Boy Scout. I never made Eagle and I was pretty terrible at everything. Camping was never really my cup of tea. I really like the outdoors, but when it comes to survivability, my chances are pretty low. Unless the threats against me are solved by knot tying or automotive repair, I am pretty screwed.

Take Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. You know the one. Plane crash, kid has a hatchet, survives a few months and gets rescued. Yeah, that kid? Hell of a lot better than me. If the plane crashed into a shoelace factory where my only escape hinged upon a clove hitch and a fuel line, I might make it home. Any other circumstance, and it'll be a rough sight.

I bring this up because, with all the things I never learned about survival, there is one rule they hammered into my head so often with a force so blunt it somehow managed to trap itself in my adolescent brain: Don't move.

This is how I know Bear Grylls was never a Boy Scout.

Bear says, "pay attention. This will save your life someday."

This is also why I don't consider Man vs. Wild a show about survival. I know watching a dude sit around waiting for God or man to deliver them from solitude isn't very entertaining. People did love Beavis and Butthead, though, so I may be wrong. Truth be told, no one is watching Man vs. Wild to see Bear Grylls survive. They tune in to see a dude run really fast through the wilderness and watch him eat a bunch of gross shit. Let me be clear. Nothing is wrong with that. I love watching a show where a person weaves through trees at breakneck speed like they're trying to escape the Predator. I also love shows where people cram bugs and mammal entrails into their mouths because they think they have to.

Is it survival? Hardly. Is it fun? Hell yes.

When you think about it, a game based on 'jungle-parkour meets a Fear Factor lunch plate' seems like a great idea. Separate, these two game concepts don't fare so well, but together, Man vs. Wild: The Game is a sweet peanut butter cup of potential.

And really, for a game inspired by a tv show, it doesn't look absolutely terrible. It may not be the prettiest thing out there, but it is hardly the worst to see the light of day on current consoles. The game itself is comprised of five environments based directly on episodes from the show, and its progression will be instantly familiar to anyone with even a tertiary knowledge of the program. Bear finds a crazy way to strand himself in the wilderness, fights and kills some wildlife, eats said wildlife, plays MacGyver, and escapes to safety in an arbitrary and ultimately unsatisfying manner. Essentially, gameplay is the quick-and-dirty equivalent; open-world exploration stitched together with scripted events and item gathering.

Cue tangent rant. I love Resident Evil 4 only slightly more than I hate its influence on the games industry. Quick-time-events are a tool. They are not the foundation for a game. When the majority of your game's player interaction comes from QTE's, you need to take a hard look at what you've made, because it's no more a game than a DVD menu. Most every animal interaction in Man vs. Wild is a QTE. Prompt after prompt, fight after fight, you will wonder if there is possibly any way to make fighting an alligator more boring.

So, where is the fun? Its first instance is most obvious. There are a ton of ways to watch Bear Grylls meet his maker. Wish Bear had missed that jump over a canyon? Make it so. Wonder what it looks like when he loses a fight with a python? Wonder no more. Mr. Grylls himself stated in a "USA Today" article:

"It's a bit weird, seeing myself get killed by crocodiles and stuff..."

Weird for him, satisfying for us.

The second morsel of enjoyment is found in its unlockable material. Playing through the game nets you image galleries and video from the show, including the single greatest clip in the entire series. Yes, players can earn footage of Bear Grylls drinking his own urine. There was a time when such a thing could be worth the $29.99 Amazon wants for it (a much more reasonable price than some of the other television-based fare). That time is long gone. The internet once again gives us the best stuff for free...

With all my mockery aside, this really isn't the worst licensed game out there. It's budget priced (by current-gen standards), obsessively draws from its source materials, and plays to its audience. Realistically, no game based on Man vs. Wild could be better than what this is. If you're the person who wanted this game to exist, here you go. It will do for you exactly what you expect it to.

Hard Mode - Contra: Shatterted Soldier

2011-03-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

Are you a glutton for punishment? Is throwing a controller through your television cathartic? NRDLNGR understands the need for a good challenge every now and then, so we've dedicated Wednesdays to the masochist in all of us. So find a comfy chair, take a deep breath, and get ready to hurl obscenities at loved ones...

When discussing difficult game franchises, it's hard to avoid bringing up Contra. Konami's bullet-riddled side-scroller is what many gamers my age cut our teeth on. The game was difficult, but rarely felt frustrating. There were a few cheap deaths to be had, I admit, but it was still fun. All it took was a friend and a Konami Code to turn an exercise in pain into an afternoon of joyful fighting over who got the spreader.

That's the thing about nostalgia. It lies.

Contra: Shattered Soldier is an unapologetic reality check. You will not see the end of this game. There will be no credit roll. You will not unlock any extras. You will not pass go, and all you will collect are an unrelenting feeling of inadequacy and your face off the pavement. Think I'm overstating it? Go hunt down a copy and see for yourself.

There are a few things right at the start of Shattered Soldier that hint you may want to rethink your decision to play it. There are two modes, normal and easy. Don't let this fool you; these options have no true bearing on difficulty. Easy mode gives you more lives and 99 continues, but will not let you progress beyond a certain stage. Normal mode is the classic three lives, three continues we all grew up with. There is no hard mode, but to be frank, I cannot imagine what they could do to make it any worse. In the style of its predecessors, one hit from anything will kill you (although what constitutes as 'anything' gets tricky, which I'll get to in a bit), and reducing the number of lives or continues quickly becomes moot.

Don't know what happens next? Then you're gonna die...

Shattered Soldier is, at its core, a test of memory. Pattern recognition has always been the hallmark of difficult games, and this is no exception. If you do not know where to stand or what to shoot, you will die. There is rarely any warning, and many sections are built to punish twitch reactions. You can only make it so far on instinct before the game checks in to make sure you've died at least once on a given area. By the end of it all (and by end, I mostly refer to when you've decided to give up), you will know the location of every enemy, where they shoot, how they move, and where you need to be when it all comes to a head.

Pavlovian response is only one component of this hellish nightmarescape. The second is pixel-perfect execution. This is where the game can sometimes feel cheap. As with many 3d-rendered 2d side-scrollers, making positioning calls based on game environments can be deceptive. When it comes to Shattered Soldier, any misjudgment will result in death. The game will require you to make some unforgiving jumps at times, which are only made more difficult when you can't tell exactly where you stand relative to the hazard you need to avoid. The same goes the hazards themselves. Some objects are non-lethal, but there is no way to tell but trial and error. Explosions may have sections you can come in contact with, while others must be avoided completely. This may fall into the realm of memorization, but being deceived on what can and cannot kill you always feels cheap.

So, what's the payoff to all this punishment? As with most soul-crushingly difficult games, succeeding in Shattered Soldier makes you feel like a badass. Completing whole stages without dying, while a natural product of the nature of the game, creates a feeling of invincibility. You feel unstoppable as waves of transformer-esque robots and wacky baby-mutants fall to a hail of machine gun fire and smart bombs.

It's like sweet music, barely heard over the sound of you own screaming...

The Game you Didn't Buy Today - March 29, 2011

2011-03-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Live to ride, ride to live..

I want to start by making an apology: This article is only available in 2D.

Yes, that turquoise cube of multi-dimensional potential is finally in our hands. The Nintendo 3DS was released here in the US Sunday, and whether you’re in love with the alternate-reality functions or its curious abundance of fishing titles, it’s hard to imagine a time before depth perception.

So, while you read this from behind your stereoscopic camera, let’s take a gander at the games you can no longer afford. There’s a racing game (yawn), some golf thing (still better than real golf), and a new Dynasty Warriors installment (the Japanese seem pleased with it...). These are all well and good, but they pale in comparison to the awesome might that is, you guessed it, a new wrestling game.

WWE All-Stars. Forget plot. Forget sanity. THQ has cut the crap and given fans what they want; oiled, shirtless men rolling around on a raised platform. It may literally be more fun than you can shake a folding-chair-autographed-by-John-Cena at. And don’t worry hyperactive 12-year-old/redneck drunk on testosterone/redneck drunk on PBR and possibly turpentine, because you don’t need one of those expensive HD tee-vees or a current-gen console to get a piece of this dudefest. WWE All-Stars is available on the Playstation 2.

That’s not a typo. This week will see a game released for the PS2. It isn’t even the game I wanted to write about today, but I am too amazed to let it slip by unnoticed. Sony wasn’t kidding when they designed the PS2 with a 10-year lifespan in mind. Ok, maybe they didn’t have this in mind, but anything is better than nothing, right? I am curious, though, does THQ know Gamestop doesn’t have shelf space designated for new PS2 games? Maybe the PS2 version is exclusive to truck stops.

Now that I think about it, I would not be surprised to discover my previous statement is true...

With that out of the way, I would like to draw your attention to the Wii’s newest system-seller, I Love Horses: Rider’s Paradise. Published by Destineer, Rider’s Paradise is another installation in a long legacy of horse-fantasy games, the likes of which include Let’s Ride: Friends Forever, Horse & Foal: My Riding Stables, and My Horse & Me: Riding for Gold. What has always struck me as quaint is how so many of these titles sound like they were inspired by an issue of Easyrider. Even Amazon’s product description for Rider’s Paradise sounds like it was pulled from a Harley Davidson ad, or, at the very least, an episode of Sons of Anarchy:

“...live a stoyline about friendship, love for horses, wrong choices, sacrifice and responsibility.”

Ok, maybe not that part about horses...

As with many of the family-friendly games about animals or babies, I often look at the title and ask myself, “who would buy this?”

With Rider’s Paradise, I was disturbed to find the answer... Horsecrazygirls.com

Although I can never fully convince you, I swear to God this is not a fetish porn website. Let’s be clear, though, just because it isn’t porn doesn’t make the site less unsettling. The whole thing feels like your divorced aunt’s crystal unicorn collection. Lord only knows what profound psycho-social trauma befell the creator or patrons of this website, but whatever it was, there remains no therapy in existence capable of returning to them any semblance of connection to humanity.

I imagine a woman meandering through the clothing section of Walmart, the bottom fallen out on her life, seeing one of those airbrushed horse t-shirts and saying to herself as she clutches it to her chest and stares at the sky, “it all makes sense now! Thank you, horse-Jesus, for opening my eyes! I’ll never be lonely again!”

We could have just as easily wound up with BigDogCrazyGirls.com.

Regardless of what made them, the equestrian-obsessed women get another mini-game/dress-up bonanza to unsuccessfully fill the horse-shaped hole in their hearts. It really isn’t all that different from the juiced-up rednecks and their homoerotic bludgeon-a-thon. If enough people love something, someone will find a way to cash in on it. Whether it be cars, animals, sports, or dudes pretending to punch one another, someone will find a way to sell you more of what you love.

God help us all when the time comes to make a game about Jersey Shore...

Behind the Curtain - On the Topic of Biting and Chewing

2011-03-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to day three of what we were all sure was destined to become a one-day mistake.

We here at the NRDLNGR headquarters hold ourselves to a high, yet curiously abstract, standard. We want to make stuff. Fun and informative stuff. Stuff that says, "I am here, doing whatever it is I do. Isn't my presence entertaining and valuable?"

However, in our haste to give you all that stuff we were pitching, we kinda forgot what it takes to make said stuff. Making stuff takes time, inspiration, and resources both tangible and intangible. Trust us, we're inspired more than we should be. Those other things, however, are where we hit some snags. Some resources, such as equipment, are quickly being acquired. Other resources, such as time, are easily mismanaged and difficult to obtain. All this means is that we need to be patient. Patience sucks, but it always seems to pay off at Christmas, so we see little reason as to why it shouldn't pay off here.

In short, stuff is good, time is tricky, and we're sorry if a lack of one results in the lack of the other.

Worry not. A shipment of stuff , with its smooth, good taste and rich stuff-y flavor is headed your way, and the driver has been instructed to ignore all stop signs and crosswalks...

The Game you Didn't Buy Today - March 22, 2011

2011-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

This may still be better than Rush Hour

Money is tight. We know you can't afford to play everything out there, and when push comes to shove, you have to make some tough calls. Don't worry, NRDLNGR has your back. Every Tuesday, we'll take a closer look at a game you probably passed by. You'll never have to wonder 'what if?' again...

Well, nerd-o-sphere, we have come to the end of an era. The Nintendo 3DS is arriving on American shores this Sunday. Regardless of how you feel about the constantly-looming threat of blindness (I could go either way at this point), it is difficult not to be excited by a new generation of hardware. With this excitement comes a twinge of sadness as we bid adieu to the giant-grey-paperweight-turned-something-more that was the Nintendo DS.

What could be a better swan song to Nintendo's cash machine in the week before the 3DS than the thing that made it great: Licensed shovelware! I give you Playmobil: Top Agents.

Top Agents is another entry into the curiously robust list of games based on the plastic toy line of its namesake. This, in itself, is already a strike against it. At the risk of stomping on someone's childhood, I've got to ask: Did anyone actually play with these toys? Of all the enticing choking hazards out there, Playmobil struck me as a third-stringer at best. When I think Playmobil, I envision a kid's birthday dashed to pieces when they finally get to open that big present, eagerly shredding that wrapping paper to reveal a box of plastic disappointment. There aren't enough Ninja Turtle cakes in the world to save this one, mom and dad!

I was kinda hoping Top Agents would be about that. It's not...

Or maybe it is. I'm still trying to figure that out. I know it isn't really fair for me to rip into a game I've never played, but I definitely would have considered picking it up from Amazon if it wasn't currently sold out. Of course, it isn't hard to see why, given their description:

"Escape from the depths of hell through ten single-player levels"

Where was this playset when I was growing up? Given what I can gather from the box art, a minifig-esque buddy cop blast-your-way-outta-hell would be an awesome way to send the DS off into the sunset. Leave it to the ESRB to dash our dreams:

"This adventure game...lets players assume the role of 'cartoony' agents on a quest to stop the Robo Gang from gaining world domination."

Hmm... Team Fortress 2 has 'cartoony' agents, and I love that. Maybe I was too hasty to judge.

"Players run and jump through side-scrolling levels and use punches and kicks to fight enemies."

This kinda sounds like New Super Mario Bros. Alright, ESRB, sell it to me.

"Players can also fire a small pistol...enemies cry out, slump over, and quickly disappear when defeated."

Guns, TF2, and Mario? Maybe Amazon really did get cleaned out. Needing to know more, I went to the website for Top Agents' developer, DreamCatcher. I found nothing there about the game. Not a single mention. I emailed their PR inquiring about any sort of press materials, but have yet to hear back (I'll update if I do).

Then I found this:

Yeah, take that, Crysis 2! I cannot wait till Amazon gets this game back in stock...

Well, DS, here's another one to add to the low-cost third-party cash-in pile. Not the best way to go out (yes yes, Pokemon and Okamiden, you can be quiet now). But who knows? Between now and when Gamestop decides you're not worth shelf space, someone might toss a real gem your way. At least you didn't close out your run with one of those half-assed educational psuedo-apps.

...oh wait.

Welcome to NRDLNGR

2011-03-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

Everything comes from somewhere.

This is NRDLNGR, a shot-in-the-dark attempt to give other nerd blogs something to write about. Whether it be about technology, entertainment, or anything else remotely amusing, we hope to produce something worth paying attention to.

Or not. We'll see.

God only knows how you got here (probably looking for Simpsons quotes), but we might as well make it worth your time for a bit. The hope is to produce a variety of content to inform and entertain, but you can never tell with these things. For all we know, this could wind up with the rest of the 'it sounded better in my head' ideas littering the dregs of internet craptastrophy. Most likely, we'll get bored and drop the whole thing.

Regardless of what happens here, the ultimate goal is to avoid redundancy. Reposts are easy. You didn't come here by accident to read something you just read a minute ago. It isn't fun to make, and it isn't fun to view. We want you to leave here with something new. You guys like new, right? Thought so.

There isn't really much more to say. Come back often, tell your friends, cross your fingers, and hope this bra-bomb works...