Heaven Hates a Hockey StickMarch 15, 2010 by

Why is it that the difficulty in most video games looks something like this?

And the goalie looks bored :)

Oops! Wrong picture! I actually meant like this:

New Sport Idea? Howard Stern? Call me!

Dammit! Screwed up again. OK, what I really want to know is why the difficulty comes out like this most of the time:

Ahhhh, that's better... No wait...! I hate these things!

Let me put it this way;

Do books get harder to read right before Frodo and Sam start to climb the mountain? Do movies get harder to follow right around the time Darth Vader loses his hand? Do TV shows get extended for another season just as everyone's about to escape the island? (I wish) Why, the hell, then, is this trash monster near the end of Bowser's Inside Story kicking my ass? And why has Mass Effect started crashing more and more the closer I get to Ilos? And why have I been stuck for like a week now with that one castle that just won't go down in Crush the Castle? Is difficulty really the only tool we have for ratcheting up the tension near the end of the game? What about drama? And plot twists? And spectacle? They seem to be enough for every other medium...

Now I know what you're thinking at this point:

"Those chicks up above were hot..."

But I'm just going to keep going because I know we can do better.

So, while all of you developers go back and create Mass Effect and Bowser's Inside Story patches (oh, wait...) so I can actually beat them, can you do one other thing for me as well? Please, please, please stop telling me in advance that the next dungeon I'm about to enter is the last one. I get so exited and think I'm actually about to accomplish something, when I should know by now that I'm still a good 3-6 hours from beating the game. It's called setting expectations. You send this message that says "You're about to be rewarded" when you don't really plan on delivering for a good long time. Frankly, it's a little frustrating. If you insist on telling me at all that the end is near - and I would prefer that you just don't, but if you must - save it until right before the final boss instead of the final dungeon, ok? Everybody's happier that way.

All right, thanks for listening, O Therapeutic Internet. We'll talk again when I've beaten one of these suckers. Or perhaps sooner. I saw Alice in Wonderland last night and... WOW! We have stuff to talk about...

That's all for tonight!

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Catch UpMarch 6, 2010 by

Hey everybody! It's time to get caught up!

Mass Effect

So, I'm nearing the end of Mass Effect and have to admit that I've really, really enjoyed it. Contrary to many opinions I've heard, it is NOT the second coming of Christ nor a reason to alienate your peers (If you don't enjoy it, "You're playing it wrong," is not a real argument). It is, however, a solid RPG in the 8.5 to 9.0-ish range - a thoroughly enjoyable game without much to complain about, including, interestingly enough, the things most people complain about; the elevators aren't really that bad. Nor is the Mako, for that matter, except that one mission against the Thresher Maw with it's numerous one-hit kills. Even the crashes and hangs, though abundant, aren't that bad as the autosave kicks in frequently enough, and the game can be stormed through again so fast that you don't lose more than a minute's worth of play in a shot.

All of this pointless whining about not-really-broken things in Mass Effect, coupled with the fact that the developers took it so to heart, makes me wonder about Mass Effect 2 a bit. Remember the monstrosity of a car that Homer designed at the end of the Simpson's episode where Danny DeVito played his brother? Is that what we're looking at here? Were IGN and other sites forced to give it a ridiculously high rating because it was essentially the game they made? Well, I'm sure it will be fun anyway.

I hope Christ is driving this thing when He returns


I'm finally caught up and have a few impressions to make. First of all, episodes 3 and 5 were terrible in the way that terrible Lost episodes usually tend to be. The problem is simple, and I hope the writers take this to heart for future series; STOP WRITING EXPOSITION WHERE THE CHARACTERS REMINISCE ABOUT PAST EPISODES TO CATCH SLOW VIEWERS UP. To put this simpler: STOP DUMBING IT DOWN! I get that you have this perceived problem where you can't pick up new viewers because they don't get what's going on, but making your show worse for everyone is not going to help that. By all means, do the pop-up video thing if it helps. Lengthen the "Previously on Lost" segments if you need to. But please stop watering down your actual show; we only have a few moments left together, so let's make them count!

You sit there, Jack, and think about what you've done.

With that said, episodes 4 and 6, where the writing has been tight and the pace has stayed quick have been phenomenal. Hopefully I'm ranting about nothing and we are moving onto the meat of the show from here on out. (I believe season 5 went down this same path as well.)

Nintendo and Sony

Dear Nintendo,

I've been trying. I've been really, really trying to make it work. But games like Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story do not help things at all. What once was a good, innovative series has devolved into little more than a minigame compilation with some stats, and that's just really sad. No matter what I do anymore, I just can't not feel like a child anymore playing your games - in a bad way. I'm afraid that Heavy Rain and God of War III are the games for me going forward, and for gaming on-the-go, all I need is my iPod. Therefore, it is with great regret that I inform you that my DS is going up for sale, with the proceeds intended for the purchase of a PlayStation 3. Furthermore, should any one of your competitors figure out that they can make a fortune selling a balance board that hooks directly up to the TV, my Wii will be up on the auction block in the blink of an eye too. It's over, Nintendo. I'm sorry.

[b]Is this the last nail i

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