Avatar Schmavatar

This Christmas I got the gift of free movies from a friend. I was unaware that movie theaters still gave out prepaid movie cards, but boy am I happy that they do! That's because on Christmas Day we had the totally rad plan of going and watching Avatar in 3D. That was the idea anyway. The actuality is that where I live this is only one theater in four (total) that shows the movie in 3D and it is (of course) in the smallest projector room. So when we got there more than an hour early the ticket seller laughed. He didn't actually laugh because all humor had long since evaporated from him. He merely changed the angle of his cold dead eyes and monotonically wished us a happy holiday.

OK. The next plan was to buy tickets a day early and get to the theater way before the movie started. Which seemed like a solid tactic, but have you ever tried to motivate people to drive to a dark room and sit in it for an hour? Strangely enough I have, and for a completely unrelated reason. Regardless it did not work out as we had planned, and instead we got to the theater 15 minutes early, which was just enough time to claim some polarized glasses that smelled powerfully of gasoline, and the only open seats in the front row. I wanted popcorn too but I decided against it after waiting in line for 10 minutes and literally not moving an inch. Turns out gasoline fumes and incompetence are not a recipe for workplace success. It also turns out that those 3D glasses surgically remove your peripheral vision, and I unwittingly, savagely, slapped my friend's bag of popcorn out of his hands as he was passing it to me.

As a side note have you ever noticed that when you need to pee during an blockbuster movie there's always a gauntlet of obstacles that keep you away from that amazing action scene? There was actually a guard stationed at the exit making sure I didn't steal the theater's magical glasses. He eyed me suspiciously as I assured him that the glasses on my face, which looked nothing like the 3D kind, were in fact prescription eyeglasses. As I hurried on from a rough pat down (that's not a weird thing for a movie guard to do right?) I saw a bunch of people I know standing in line for the next showing. Panicking I put my head down and tried to run past. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to see them, but this was not the time. If I had come out of a movie titled "Les Shoot Yourself" with tears streaming down my face and t-shirt that said "I shouldn't be alone right now" you can bet there would be nary a familiar face. That's just how life works. And as such at this moment they saw me and drew me into a warm hugging (oh God not so tight!) welcome. I managed to slip away with seconds to spare, sweat pouring from my forehead, and there in my path was another friend! He started to tell me how amazing the movie was before I cut him off shrilly, shrieking "NO! GOTTA PEE!", and vaulted over the hand rail, which was very nearly a terrible mistake. Somehow, by magic I submit, I made it to the stall just in time.

The movie, by the way, was awesome. I won't go into details, but I will hint that it takes place on an alien planet. WINK. But seriously the aliens were Native American cats.

Assassin's Creed.....No The First One

I have been noticing the previews of Assassin's Creed II for a long, long time, always thinking, "yeah that looks pretty cool" but never really committing myself to get excited. Then reviews started trickling in from the various sites and it became obvious that the game was not only pretty cool, but possibly amazing. Still, new games are $60 and, I have a fear of commitment. That's why I'm not even married to my job. We have an on again off again relationship with my job always complaining I need to spend more time at work. Don't you hate clingy jobs? The point is I could buy ACII for MSRP or buy the original at Walmart for $20. So I did that.

There have always been a lot of complaints about Assassin's Creed since it released, most of which hinge on the fact that the game got incredibly repetitive. This is grounded in rock solid truth. You will travel to a new location, climb on things, investigate targets, climb on more things, and then assassinate. And then you will do it all over again. But when you have to slaughter city guards in bloody cinematic encounters that only result in making you feel like a murder machine I can't really see the down side.

I played the game start to finish in about a week, and I was having a blast right up to the end. When, you may be asking yourself, did my fun stop? Well that was when all of a sudden the opponents started using seemingly unblockable combos that took off a quarter of my life. And here's the kicker: there were about 30 of them. You know what mister game? When I fight 30 people at once it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to take damage and it's going to be difficult. I don't need master swordsman surrounding me and, I swear this is the truth, chest bumping me to death. Fuck you. Also any water in the game deeper than Altair's head will kill you instantly. That's especially tricky when drunks on the docks will push you, and only you, into the water for literally no reason.

After everything I still love this game. It was an awesome trip through Crusade era Jerusalem as a psychopath with a hidden blade. I dare you to tell me how that could not be amazing. It's all about an alien artifact and a nancy boy from the future you say? Touché Internet, touché.

Black Friday

If you've never braved the early morning rush of assholes that is Black Friday please ignore this post. You will be bored. I'm a little bored by it. In fact how fucking ridiculous is it to call a shopping day Black Friday? "Oh my stars! It's all over because people are going to show up early and look for deals! What a terrible calamity this day is!" So to whoever named it Black Friday to elicit some kind of sense of disaster: Get over yourself, you've led a mediocre life in sales. That being said, here are a list of the video game deals that I found especially intriguing this year.

DB = Door Buster
F = Friday
S = Saturday

Black Friday Deals

Sears
F&S Dragon Age $39.99
F&S Brutal Legend $39.99

Kmart
DB? Batman: Arkham Asylum $39.99
DB? Dragon Age $39.99
DB? Brutal Legend $39.99

Target
F&S Batman: Arkham Asylum $37.99
F&S Assassin's Creed II $59.99 w/ $10 GC
F&S Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 $59.99 w/ $10 GC

Best Buy
DB Dragon Age $34.99
DB Brutal Legend $34.99
F&S Resident Evil 5 $19.99

Walmart
F Lock's Quest $7
F Call of Duty 4 GOTY Edition $25
Others at reduced price?

Radio Shack

DB Dual Shock 3 $29.99

Gamestop
F Prototype $29.99

Why Mummies are scarier than ghosts

*Editor's Note: Although insane, hateful, and possibly parasite infected this post has been left completely intact and original because it is hilarious. It's author is likely a member of some mummy fraternity or other. --thepeopleshooker*

ok, so mr. big shot tyler hooker over here decided to spread his tom foolery with the internet. at first i was all "whoa tubular! tyler is gonna talk on the internet! i genuinely want to read what he has to say!" then he fucking blew it by throwing mummies COMPLETELY under the bus. In case you didn't read his post "Ghosts are scarier than vampires" or whatever...i'll give you a synopsis "OH HAI! I'M TYLER AND I'M A BIG DUMB IDIOT WHO KNOWS MOM KEEPS ALLL THE GOOD DRINX UNDER THE KICHEN SINQ. (ONLY IF YOU CHASE IT WITH YOUR URINE!!!) LOLOLOLMAO anyway, ghosts r why i pee my bad at night, not poor bladder control. did i do good? Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrr me no like computar! i eat keyboard?"

i think thats what his post said...i dunno, honestly, i skimmed it.

now he DOES bring up one good point, and that is vampires are the worst. there are 2 exceptions. 1st obviously, is count chocula, and 2nd is cheech from dusk til dawn. was he actually a vampire? i dunno, but didn't he have a gun in his belt buckle? maybe that was another character. so count chocula gets a pass and cheech gets one too IF he is indeed a vampire and also has a gun belt buckle. (all i remember is his rant on pussy)

anyway vampires suck. yes, 1 point retardyler.

but c'mon mummies are WAY cooler than ghosts and here's why. First off, any old loser can become a ghost. Remember GHOST DAD?!?!??! Was he scary to fucking ANYBODY?!??!! BILL COSBY IS AMERICA'S BLACK DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, but now he turns semi-transparent and goes thru a city bus and everyone's terrified? Get outta here.
Look, if anyone has ever ridden the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, they know that ghosts just AREN'T scary. all they want to do is dance around, hitch hike, and stop the ride every 5 minutes to repeatedly remind you to not "step out of your DOOOOOOOMbuggy!!!!!!!!"
Mummies are the opposite. They must be SUPER important people back in ancient Egypt. They were all pharoahs (which I learned about in Scooby Doo) That's a very select group. Plus they're not just semi-transparent versions of themselves going "ooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo" no, they're freaking in the midst of decomposing! that's fucking scary! Plus, what do mummies want? zombies want brains, vampires want blood, ghosts want someone who really "gets" their poetry, but mummies? who the fuck knows what they want. they just want to FUCK you up! plus there are fast zombies, there are slow zombies, they can use their fucking mummy wrap as a fucking lasso or whip or something! WHOA cool! i just thought of that right now!!!
Plus, mummies were buried in pyramids. That means after these nerds died, they STILL had enough control over these egyptians to make them build a pyramid just to store the body.
Egyptians were ready to kill themselves in some of the most difficult work of all time. People think ALIENS built the pyramids!!! ALIENS!!!! No, pharoahs were just THAT bad ass at controlling. Which means, once resurrected, you'd better believe they'd work an army up no problem. Either that, or the pyramids actually were built by aliens, which would leave me to believe that hey, that probably means mummies have ALIEN POWERS!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT that's scary!

so in conclusion, if you saw a ghost, in your head you'd think "oh man! i guess ghosts really DO exist! huh...weird. well time for bed."

but if you saw a mummy, you'd scream "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HOLY SHIT!!!! What is that? A fucking mummy? In Burbank? WHAT? THE? FUCK? Does that mean they've been on a killing conquest since they left their pyramid in Egypt? Let's get out of her.........................." *the mummy eats you.,..or whatever mummies do, but trust me, no matter what it is, it's scary*

also, thanks to tyler for editing this...i did a terrible job.

Peggle With My Puggle

Yeah, yeah, everyone has already played Peggle a billion years ago on XBLA. Yesterday it came out, many months later for some undisclosed reason, on PSN. It also happens that I have a two year old obese pug named Beowulf. Now I have my entertainment system set up in a loft, and because of poor Beo's weight problem it would be impossible to actually play Peggle anywhere near him. But I like to think that if he could struggle his way up those ladder steps he would enjoy watching me play. He enjoys everything. Right now he's enjoying sleeping on my legs, and I'll be damned if they're not going to sleep too.

With or without the pug Peggle is awesome. If you've never played, it's a little like pachinko with crazy characters, crazy peg designs, and cuuuurazy background art. Everything is crazy, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at. But what you might not expect is that it's also very funny. The loading screen at the game's start-up, for instance, will display hilarious little sayings. And when you do something especially unlikely a tiny rodent (gopher? chipmunk?) named Jimmy Lightning will appear in the lower right and exclaim "EXTREME!" Terrific. There are ten Peggle masters to play as and each one has it's own unique abilities when hitting a green peg. Jimmy Lightning's specialty is the Multiball which is, predictably, extreme.

Now too many people have complained that that game plays itself. That is simply not true. The truth is that the player controls very little. That sounds to me like the ultimate selling point to lazy people. And people who play games are often very lazy. So does this make Peggle the best designed game in history? I submit that it does. I also rule that Beowulf is the cutest dog in the world. Court is adjourned.

Why Ghosts Are Scarier Than Vampires

Now that Halloween is safely past us it seems like a good time to make fun of the paranormal without fear of retribution from monsters. We all know that being incorporeal ghosts can't browse the web, and werewolves shun non lunar light. And let's face it, no one is really afraid of mummies anyway. And Mothman............... well, fear Mothman. Dracula, however, is one tech savvy dude, and meticulously searches out all queries with the words "vampire", "Dracula", "Transylvania", or "macramé". But with the Count sleeping off the diabetic blood from candy infused trick-or-treaters the internet is free to deride his immortal race of limp-wristed fops.

Here then is the truth of why ghosts are scarier than vampires.

Chains: When there are chains hanging off a ghost it's terrifying. How did those chains get there? Did the ghost die in those chains in life? Are they a sign of torment in the afterlife? Did the ghost make those chains, and if so could the ghost make swords? Conversely when a vampire has chains on it, it's because some government organization or other has captured them (with minimal effort) in order to make super soldiers clad in Victorian garb. This is destined for failure, because though inhumanly strong, vampires are conscientious objectors.

Vulnerability: Ghosts are without any solid physical body, and so also lack any physical weaknesses, making them immune to conventional weapons. Nothing is more threatening than a foe you cannot harm. Vampires, on the other hand, are basically animated corpses that drink copious amounts of blood daily. Logically then they are the humanoid equivalent to a mosquito, and should therefore explode like water balloons from the gentlest of assaults. Also their gentlemanly ways require exercise no more strenuous than a leisurely walk, and so have the muscle mass of an anorexic manatee.

Visibility: As most of us know true terror comes from the horrors that we can't see. Ghosts are completely invisible with the exception of instances when they want us to see them doing something scary. Every other time we just have to assume that they're doing something spooky. A vampire's reflection cannot be seen in a mirror, but he is completely visible in every other respect. The only people this attribute could possibly effect are movies stars who never stop looking in mirrors. They have nothing to fear though because celebrities often drain their blood to lose a quick 10 pounds. Also most celebrities are already vampires.

"Orientation": Let's just say it: A vampire (of either sex) is just as likely to kiss you as kill you. Unless you are an actual homophobe (as opposed to the PC connotation) this is not at all scary. It's actually kind of flattering. A ghost will never try to seduce you because they lack self esteem, and have repressed sexualities. Like teenagers from the '50s, and hey a lot of them might be, they have channeled all their unexpressed emotions into hate, rage, and pep rallies. All of those things inspire cold sweats.

So the next time you're wandering through an enchanted labyrinth (I can see your future: Tuesday) and you're faced with the choice of Poltergeist or Nosferatu, think back to the facts I've given you here. Maybe they'll save you a pair of lean underwear.

Tekken 6 = Tech-Un

Tech-Un isn't Spanglish for Tech-One. When I wrote that I meant that the majority of Tekken 6 and the tech around which it is built, is a shambling corpse of a video game. The core of the game, you know the part where you fight, is phenomenal. But all the other shit they've heaped on is just painful. Also the user interface is like something out of a CPA's nightmare: full of misleading titles, poorly worded descriptions, and probably some false tax information.

Now let me temper that word steel by saying first off that I am a huge fan of the Tekken series. How can you not love a series where the "main" character is thrown of a cliff by his father as a five year old, then takes revenge by throwing his father off the same cliff? And then his dad throws him in a volcano! Awesome! But all that amazing leads up to the disappointing sixth installment.

So in order to keep my vitriol to a controlled minimum I'm going to treat Tekken 6 as if it were three games.

Scenario Campaign
Do you remember the the beat-em-up style Tekken Force mode from Tekken 3? Remember how it kinda sucked? It's pretty much the same this time around. It was always fairly easy to dismiss in its past incarnations because it was a side diversion, separated from the main game. Now however its the main storyline. Yup the only way to unlock the super cool CGI movies specific to each fighter (Oh brother are they good too) is to play through the Scenario Campaign, unlock the fighter, and then beat the Arena with them. GUH. If that weren't bad enough the vast majority of the trophies offered are related to the stupid campaign. And the whole thing is ultra repetitive, hard to control, and devoid of fun. But at least after you beat up a bunch of dudes you get to watch super slow no action cut scenes with lots of dialog about shit you already know. And then you get to beat up a bunch more dudes.

Online Mode
Don't even bother playing this unless you absolutely have to have the trophies. It's like playing Tekken, but without the illusion of control. If you try a complicated combo then maybe, just maybe, at some later time, your on screen character will throw a punch. This mode is so bad the only time I've managed to win is by closing my eyes and pushing buttons randomly. That means that I actually had more fun and achieved greater results by pretending to play a better game. If that's not some future technology I don't know what is.

Offline Mode
Praise the gods, or something, because this is what Tekken was meant to be. This is where you get to the part where you fight other players, one on one, in the style of a fighting game. And it's awesome. It's just like the last three Tekkens in the mechanical sense with the addition of the rage system, which gives the player a boost in strength when their life bar gets low. Rage aside I've always thought that Tekken controls like a dream, so it's nice to go back to something comfortable. Aesthetically it's leagues (as in distance, not baseball) beyond other fighting games I've seen. Everything runs at 60 frames per second which when combined with the high character detail looks gorgeous. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks so but it fills a visual niche that I particularly enjoy. There are also, as far as I know, 46 characters to play with,and most have their own specific fighting style. Two out of every three of those characters are also bitch crackers insane. And I glory in that insanity. It's in everyone's best interest to just pretend that this mode is the entirety of the game.

So to wrap it up Tekken 6 has a core of rich nougat goodness surrounded by a thick casing of coconut shavings and poop. Do I feel a little duped for paying for a spoonful of fighting game and a shovelful of insolvent lunacy? Without a doubt. Will I continue to wade through crap to get to awesome? Yessir.

Achievements: Whoring or Boring?

Oh God I have the hardest time coming up with good titles. I am so sorry.

Recently there have been a great deal of Buy 2 Get 1 Free deals out there. That's a good deal for new games, but like most people I don't have $120 to drop. As a better value proposition I began to look at half priced PS3 games, specifically Greatest Hits titles. Three games for $60 is pretty sexy, but there are so many! To try and narrow down down the list of potential buys I decided to check which had Trophy support. And that brings us to Achievements.

Much has been made about Achievements ever since the XBOX 360 implemented them and the overarching Gamerscore. The PS3 and Steam have since followed suit, and even some iPhone game developers. No matter the console, the two vocal groups that have made themselves heard are the "ZOMG achievements r0x0rs!!1", and the "stfu achievements r 4 gae wh0res!111!". There is of course a gigantic group of people that don't seem to care either way as long as they get to play video games, never saying anything. Are they bad people for not joining in on a pointless rage-filled internet debate? Yes.

Personally I prefer to play a game with trophies. I Always thought the concept of achievements in a video game was just a touch on the retarded side. Then I did something neat while playing Little Big Planet and a colorful icon and some text popped up in the right hand corner. Next thing you know I was selling my body on the street for trophies. Not really but one addiction is fairly comparable to another. Except I don't live in a cardboard box, and there are no track marks on my arms. Needles scare me. Cardboard scares me too but for a completely different reason. One that has absolutely nothing to do with trophies. Trophies which add value to a game by increasing play time. See how I brought that around?

The downside is that they have absolutely no value outside of a very small scope of life. Who gives a shit if you did 17,000 jumping jacks in Beijing Olympics 2008? I certainly don't but it's less because of the mediocrity of the feat and more because that was a terrible game. Anything with Michael Phelps in it is a crime against Humanity. Come to think of it was he even in it? No one will ever know.

Do you think achievements give you a sense of accomplishment and nerd bragging rights? You are correct. Do you think they are ultimately pointless and break the atmosphere? You are correct. But you are also a fun killer, and a little bit of a douche nozzle. Do you not care at all? You are ULTRA CORRECT.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

First of all I want to point out that the above is as terrible a title as it is a name for a game. The odds of all those words getting together and making a coherent statement is what astronomers refer to as "ri-goddamn-diculous". Final Fantasy in general is a fairly convoluted set of games, but I don't even know where to begin with this one. It's a sequel to a DS game (FF CC: Ring of Fates) which is a half sequel/half spin-off of a Game Cube game, which is itself a spin-off of the Final Fantasy Series, but more closely related to the Mana series. Somewhere the people who made these games are smoking cigars and laughing at us. They are geniuses. But, as usual, I digress. Despite that unsightly train wreck of a name the game itself is pretty good.

I loved the first DS Crystal Chronicles game, and I love this one. They're pretty much the same game though so that makes sense. I'm not joking. This game is almost identical in level design to its predecessor. It came out only a year after the first one though, so it's not too unusual for a company like Square Enix to recycle a game. And that's ok because it's surprising how amazing the 3D engine looks and feels. The battle is smoothly polished real-time combat too, so no complaints there. Add a whole new story, a bunch of aesthetic revisions in the menus, overworld. etc, and some sweet cutscenes and people like me will buy it.

Plus just look at the kitty in the Japanese cover art
Adorable.

That being said both games are host to a nightmarish version of Co-Op play. If you happen to have three friends with a DS and this particular game (I don't) then you will probably have a great time. If however your friends make fun of you for playing a Final Fantasy game with a cute kitty on the cover (mine do) then you have to make do with the A.I. controlled players that are provided. They are beyond useless. You can switch over and control them, but then your main character becomes brain dead. Overall switching between allies feels imprecise. It's like trying to juggle raw eggs with huge woolen mittens, but the eggs are stupid. And the eggs hate you.

If you don't recruit any computer controlled teammates (and why the hell would you?) it becomes very easy to lose a few hours just running around dungeons, killing dungeon things and solving dungeon puzzles.

Pastimes anyone could enjoy. Except the communists.

I Hate Uncharted 2

You probably won't hear anyone else say it. Ever. But I'm going to go ahead and say it: Uncharted 2 is a horrible game.

Now before you turn all Judas on me and, if I remember my Bible correctly, serve me my last supper, let me just say that I'm not saying it is a horrible game in order to be some counter-culture douchebag for the sake of being a counter-culture douchebag. I'm being a douchebag for a totally different reason: because it's fun.

But it wouldn't be fair to just say it's awful and leave it at that. Surely I must have some compelling reason to make such a bold claim. I do and it's two words long: sleep deprivation.

I never had the priviledge of playing the entirety of the first Uncharted. It came out at a time when I was just starting to get into non-RPG console games and they required a type of dexterity that's wasn't quite necessary in PC FPS games, which was my other milieu at the time. PC FPS games require twitch reaction of a godlike level in order to headshot the bastard terrorist who just jumped off the roof and tried to land on your back. And by "godlike" I mean Michael J. Fox twitch like reflexes. Console gaming, on the other hand, requires more deliberate movements and my thumbs just weren't accustomed to it. It was like going from 1980s cocained fueled business parties to Terri Schiavo's last birthday "party." Too soon? How about this colorful analogy then: Playing console games that required any sort of aiming made me feel like a T-rex trying to masturbate.

And so I played Uncharted for about ten minutes, grew red faced with frustration and deemed myself unable to play it properly and promptly forgot about it.

But now, a scant few years later, my thumbs have evolved to a level where aiming no longer feels like I'm slogging my gun through air as thick as peanut butter. The monsters approaching me at a ponderous pace no longer threaten to bolt at me with unexpected quickness and the need to swing my arm in a long pendulous motion to do a 360 degree triple multi-headshot railgun kill is a mere vestigial skill developed in a more barbaric age. I can now take my time to aim with prepared precision instead and have become a creature of strategy instead of pure instinct.

Uncharted 2 has the facade of console aiming but the inner soul of a PC FPS (even though it's third person, I know). The action is quick and relentless and moves, I feel at times, a bit too quickly. I can take my time to aim at individual soldiers but they press on relentlessly, forcing my old age gamer instincts to kick in and flail around for survival. Ducking for cover is for chumps. However, if it were a computer game I'd probably feel it was too slow.

The tension created by clunky aiming, partly just because of the medium but mostly due to my continued preference for the mouse, and waves after waves of pretty smart, most likely underpaid asshole henchmen, is palpable and if anyone were to walk into The Virtual Happy Funzone - which is what I call the place where I game - they'd undoubtedly feel a slight change in atmosphere. It's a combination of Old Spice Swagger, Tag Wild Card scent and determination that I call "The Gamer's Musk." It manifests itself only when a game has me so enthralled that I forget to take a shower. Or go to the bathroom at all for that matter.

While playing last night I kept saying to myself "Once I get to a safe spot I'll quit and finally get to bed." And just as I walked into a seemingly peaceful city a god damn tank came barreling down, smashing walls and firing its cannon at my head. Once the tank was dispatched, the rumbling of its engine no longer terrorizing the denizens of that quiet town, I let out a sigh of relief and reached for the power button only to find myself on a wild jeep chase, leaping from exploding car to exploding car while shooting and being shot at and almost falling off of cliffs and I think thats a pterodactly in the distance swooping in towards me carrying a chainsaw that also shoots grenades and happens to have the awesome power to turn men into crazy Goat-yeti monsters that want nothing more than to suck my blood - bipedal chupacabras I think they're called - and after dispatcing all mine foes I, perhaps foolishly, once again felt it was safe to turn off the game. That's when the pterodactyl came back to life as a zombie magician and I just said "GODDAMN IT I NEED TO SLEEP!" and turned the monitor off. But not the game. I couldn't bring myself to do that. The action DEMANDS it goes on, even if you cannot. My little buddy Drake is probably still being ripped apart by that beast as I write this.

And that is why Uncharted 2 is a horrible game. It has awakened the gamer that hibernated inside of me for the past few years that had been lulled into slumber by uninspired gaming and a painful transition from the precise mouse to the galumphing analog stick that made me shy away from the new generation of action gaming. Ones that required aiming, anyway. And now I feel like I'm sixteen years old again, staying up all night long playing Counter-Strike and throwing my hands up in triumph or yelling at the monitor in disgust or just feeling something in general. And that's something that hasn't happened in a very long time. The feeling part, especially. And feelings hurt.

And so, Uncharted 2, I hate you. I hate you for making me stumble bleary eyed into work Monday morning smelling faintly like pizza. I hate you for giving me that spark of hope that made me look forward to playing games every day. I hate you because I'm older now and I have responsibilities and I can't sit around all day playing you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a diamond the size of a beach ball to save.

The Secret to Making Enemies

Battlefield 1943 is a wonderfully enjoyable game when everyone on your side works as a team, advancing at a smooth pace. It's even more fun when both sides are organized and challenging. But because it is played on the internet, the reality is that at least of of the time you will be playing with and against total jackasses. Fortunately I absolutely adore playing with jackasses.

"Why", you may ask "would anyone enjoy that?" The answer is, of course, because when you play with people there is an unspoken code of conduct, but when you play with whatever the hell it is that congeals between the consoles you have free reign to do as you please. "Really?" you say to me with your brow furrowed and one hand resting coquettishly (fruity-like) on your hip, "are they that bad?" Yes. They are absolutely that bad. Almost exclusively when they have microphones with no noise cancellation. Here are some of the worst offenders:

Vocal kid who dies frequently but is puzzled as to why,
Dude who calls anyone near him a fag,
French dude,
Group of dudes with TV on in the background,
French dude with nagging wife,
Sarcastic "look at my score" guy,
Kid who can't pronounce "wow",
French dude with nagging wife and coughing baby.

These are just the assholes on your team. Feel free to step or drive in front of their shots often. Are they in a vehicle? Just driving in that game can be difficult, so if you continually ram into them it becomes a herculean feat to stay on a road. And if they're in your vehicle, by all means, drive them far away from the action. I like to give people narrated tours of the islands until they realize that I'm not going anywhere near the shooting. Best of all is to get one or more players into your landing craft and take them as far out into the ocean as possible, and then just sit there. They can't kill you or make you give up the driver seat so the only option is to swim to shore. Once they start making their way in drive the boat in front of them, always positioning yourself just out of their reach. And lastly if you bail out of a plane while flying at someone you can actually manage to kill teammates. Good luck!

When messing with the other team try to pick someone and make it personal. Anyone with "420" in their name is a reasonable target for hate. Be unrelenting and imaginative. If you pick the sniper job you can head shot people on their starting carriers. You get no points for it, but it is incredibly irritating to the other players. I know the preferred term for this kind of activity is "griefing" but I'm not one of the cool kids. I just call it "fishing" where the rod is your gun, the fish is the asshole in front of you, and the lure is your bullet. I suppose that's an alright metaphor. Except in real fishing you don't catch a fish, wait for it to re-spawn, and then catch it again. And you certainly don't shoot a fish in the head over and over again until it rage quits and leaves you a message calling into question your sexuality.

Then again, maybe I'm not doing it right.

FLASH GAME REVIEW #1:

Hi all!

Loser McFagFace here!

I'm a guest on this here blog to review flash games. Remember the title part that said "FLASH GAME REVIEW #1?" Yeah, in case you were confused by that heady subject line, I'll be reviewing FLASH GAMES. Also this is the first one (which explains the #1 part.)

Alright, now that we're all cleared up. What? You honestly still don't understand what I'm doing? Really? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!? You know what? Fuck it. I'm just gonna go on and review this fucking game anyway. Why I spent so much time worried about you understanding this blog post, I'll probably never know. I hope your parents are proud. (sarcasm)

ANYWAY, why am I reviewing flash games you ask? Well cuz I work in a cubicle and I'm bored out of my mind. But, since I'm on a computer with no administrative privileges, I'm not allowed to install any games (or viruses.) That leads me to wasting a lot of time on celebrity blogs, then wasting more time hating myself for actually reading celebrity blogs & finally wasting most of my time in search of a playable flash game. Which is hard, cuz they all suck. ALL suck.

SO for my FIRST game review (remember the #1 part?...FINE, I don't even know why I thought I'd try again.) The FIRST game I'm reviewing is a little thing called Paintball Flash Game.

See, these type of games already start down a couple pegs in my book. You know why? Cuz why just paintball? Why must we play video game paintball? The reason you play fucking paintball in real life is to simulate killing all your friends cuz they're all actually really annoying. So why would I want to play a video game where I shoot and shoot but can't actually kill anyone? Is it cuz there are gamers out there who become riddled with guilt over killing video game characters? Do they wake up in the middle of the night with night terrors? Are their families destroyed?
"What happened to you James?"
"You wouldn't understand!!! You've never taken a digital human life!!!!!!"
Of course not. When I play video games I try to shoot/destroy anything the game will let me, cuz in real life if there weren't a bunch of squares walking around "policing" this world, then that's exactly what I'd be doing...destroying shit.

Making a game about paintball is like making a bike racing game where all the bikes have training wheels. Or a bowling game with bumpers that can't be put down.
Plus why paintball? If they want to make it warm and fuzzy, why don't they make a game where you shoot teddy bears into kitten vaginas until the kittens get so fat they explode into the jonas bros 69ing with tlc? the world may never know.

When I started playing this game, I actually liked it a lot. (I know I started this post saying I hate all flash games...then I just rambled on and on about how I hate paintball games...but then I started playing it and this game was kinda fun. So just in case you're following along, yeah I'm ruining all my credibility RIGHT off the bat.) Yeah, this game was actually fun. Its a birds-eye view and you control with the normal WASD keys and look with the mouse. Its capture the flag 1 vs. 1, which we all know most paintball games are 1v1. Have you ever tried to play paintball with more than 1 other person? Oh man, it's AWFUL! The communication is better, the camaraderie, and don't even get me started on how gay teamwork is!

But no, this game was pretty fun, shooting the guy was fun and also you can shoot with the flag in hand. RAD! Once you capture the flag you go onto the next level. There's also fog like they had in Warcraft II, which I always used to put the code in to get rid of. It sucked in Warcraft II cuz you couldn't see what everyone was doing, and also you're in 5th grade and have yet to fully comprehend concepts such as "strategy." However in Paintball Flash Game, the fog is a great device! Oh hey, where's that red asshole? OMG! He's in the black fog! (Or is it SMOG????? LOLOLOLOL) no its fog. Smog is a dumb joke, also gross.

Here are some downsides to the game...first off, the name. Paintball Flash Game? That's the least original name you could possibly give it. In fact its so unoriginal, its almost original. I think the creators of this game used to have a longer title that they had to trim down to make it "catchy for the kids!" It was originally called Paintball Flash Game On The Internet Web Browser Of Your Choice That Is Played On Your Computer And Controlled By Both Your Keyboard And Mouse! The only way this title could be original is if you controlled a ball named paint and went around flashing nintendo cartridges your dick. 2nd downside...is levels 5-10 my opponent seemed to mysteriously disappear. Seriously. That's not an exaggeration. It goes from 1v1 to 1v0. The game turns from paintball to a super lame maze with no dead ends. I guess this could be an upside for some people...but for me it got a tad boring. Then I got cocky and at level 11 I got my ass kicked cuz I thought there were no more bad guys.

Other than that...good first outing! I guess I should figure out a rating system...I give it 69

The Other Fives

Everyone is familiar with the traditional high fives dished out as a congratulatory measure. But there are other variations of which the greater world may remain wholly unaware. Here then, are a few of those other, sometimes highly experimental, "fives".

The Pry Five
The inspiration for this blog, the Pry Five is a regular high five with the exception that a pry bar is substituted in place of an open hand. Any prying tool can be used within reason, such as a crow bar or cat's claw. But please for God's sake never use a peeler bar. A 50 pound swinging steel bar is too much for all but the most experienced fivers. I have personally practiced the pry five.

The Fry Five
Another five I have experienced first hand. The Fry Five uses frying pans at the contact point. The impact is much the same as a Pry Five, only many many times louder, especially in an enclosed space.

The Sky Five
A high five given to another person while sky diving. In theory this is likely the most awesome variation of a five in existence. In reality, however, the problem arises that Sky Fives are done exclusively by some douchey ad exec or other and his "totally not gay friend friend" Brent in an attempt to get both of their pictures into that new extreme deodorant ad campaign. Afterward he goes back home and says: "Hey honey! Yeah we can totally sleep in the same bed tonight!" Then in a hushed voice: "God I wish I was sky diving with Brent."

The Cry Five
A high five that is so hard that one or both of the participants cry. Tearing up is not enough. Actual sobbing must take place. I have witnessed such an event where both parties held their hands out of a car window on a cold day while on the way to a movie in order to achieve maximum pain. The movie, by the by, was Doom.

The Pie Five
An ultra secret form of the high five that is guaranteed to cause uproarious laughter in all who witness. A certain someone, whom I will call Dan, has assured me this particular five is only performed in the underground clown societies. Understandably, pies are involved.

The Tri-Five
A high five with three participants. Never attempt a Tri-Pry-Five. I've done the math and I can assure you that the angles involved can lead only to misfortune.

The Two-by-Five
Please note that this is in actuality a high five where each party wields a two-by-four, but for the sake of naming the board width has been exaggerated. The reverberation of such an event is terrible and the danger of EXTREME splinters should never be ignored.

The Squid
The ultimate in high five "griefing". The squid is performed by recoiling one's hand last minute from a high five, where said hand moves backwards in a squid-like motion. Always hilarious, the Squid is prone to retributive ball kicks. Use with extreme caution.

Halo LANd

Once every month or so I get phone call from a friend of mine telling me to come over that night and play Halo 3. Whenever this happens I have to go stand on the carpet, to dampen the noise of me jumping up and down excitedly. After a day of slugging through it's finally time to head out, buy some Game Fuel (it's terrible), and face the enemies who were friends just hours before.

If you play games, chances are you've played some form of Halo over the years. That means you have probably also been to a Halo LAN party, or as I like to call it Funtown. In all honesty I have never actually called anything Funtown. Except the city of Funville once, and I've already apologized for that. In any case if you've been there you know what it's like: dudes, small stuffy space, controllers in various states of repair and readiness, TVs and monitors everywhere (and often in precarious positions), and a smell you hope is old pizza. The greetings are sparse because everyone is too busy making offerings to the Router Deities, and you don't want to acknowledge what you're going to be shooting.

And then it's three or more hours of running, shooting, throwing grenades, and generally hating everyone you see. Oh and cussing. With all the food laying around it's kinda like a technology fueled Thanksgiving.

I know the word picture painted above is old hat to most people, but it's a beautiful thing. There are underlying themes in such a gathering that are reminiscent of the Freemason meetings of the past. A group of select people gathered around softly glowing devices of mystical design and using a language that no layman could understand. There are secret handshakes too, and a hierarchy established partly through time involved, and mostly through skill. There's also hazing, but it's decidedly less homoerotic than in traditional secret societies, and that is including all the in game tea-bagging . Someone could definitely make a study about that. Or maybe not.

The point is I don't have an Xbox 360, so when there's a Halo Party going down it's a big event. It's one of those things a lot of us will look back on as we turn gray and think, "Boy oh boy I used to have fun before the robot revolution when I wasn't hunted by wolf-like packs of sentient machines." LAN is good. I prefer to think of them as Ethernet chains.

Does Anyone Still Care About Fallout 3?

Of course there are people out there who still care about Fallout 3. Somewhere in a basement there is a person who has put a facade on his/her door so that it looks like the giant gear protecting the entrance to the Vaults. That person will always care. But I'm not sure that game holds any real sway over me.

I distinctly remember finishing Fallout 3 proper after exploring everything there was in that world with a mild sense of relief. It was cool. It was huge. It was glitchy as hell and it froze too much. Now though there are add-ons available for the PS3 and I could not help buying Broken Steel the day I accidentally found it on the PSN Store. Months after it was supposed to be released it showed up incognito, and low and behold, the next week Operation Anchorage and The Pit popped up as well. This brings up some faults with PSN that are best left for another time.

Regardless, once I started playing the expansion it was hard to remember why I loved the original game so much in the first place. I remembered it being full of glitches, but DAMN! In the first five minutes of playing I was stuck in place after a scripted scene and had to reload. seven minutes later I got in a firefight and the game froze in VATS. And had I ever thought this game was pretty? The whole purchase looked like a mistake.

But then a funny thing happened: I started having fun. It took some time for the mental gears to shift into place but when they did it all came back to me. The game itself is laughably broken at times. And it's so big it's hard to immerse oneself too deeply in any one area, let alone all areas. But there's a certain something about that game outside of all it's pieces. Something that makes all those jagged shards fit together into a really amazing whole. It feels animate. Or something close to that. Something good.

So in spite of everything I was expecting I still care about Fallout 3.

Downer

It's never a good idea to start an endeavor on a down note. Fortunately Pry Five is not about good ideas. It's about awesome things like giving high fives with crowbars, or strapping a brick onto your feet and giving someone a good kick. Mostly It's about video games, but those are pretty awesome.

First though: some things that suck.

Garnett Lee is leaving 1up.com to go to GameFly Media. This is good for him, but bad for people who like to listen to the podcast Listen up, formerly 1up yours. Sure Garnett was cheesy and a little predictable, but damn it he was comfortable and funny. Here's hoping 1up won't lose any more of the excellent personalities that work there.

Battlefield 1943, while often the pinnacle of rad, can at times be reminiscent of a hate crime. Let me set up a scenario. Spawn, head-shot!; dead. Wait. Spawn, grenade!; dead. Wait. Spawn, bombing run; dead. Wait. Wait. Still waiting. Wait just a little longer. Spawn: head-shot! "FUCK!" When this happens, and it happens more than it should, it's hard to remember why you bother playing with human beings.

And getting tortilla chips jammed into your soft vulnerable gum. That completely wangs chung.

Just to be a little positive here is a list of things that don't suck: being the guy spawn killing in Battlefield 1943, potato soup, ogame.org, one crowbar, popcorn, most things with PixelJunk attached to the name, and having more than one crowbar in a social setting. Pry Five.