From the Brow of Zeus

Here's a little something from the vaults: A rant titled Think Outside the Treasure Chest.

I dig skimpy chainmail babes as much as the next guy, but I'll never understand the video game industry's obsession with fantasy RPGs. Sure, early RPGs ripped their play mechanics from D&D, which borrowed heavily from Tolkien, who was inspired by mythology -- but that's no reason EVERY FREAKING RPG must contain magic and goblins.

Click here to read Think Outside the Treasure Chest

Written in 2001; still holds true today.

I use a game trading site, which lets me swap used games for points, then cash in those points on other used games. It actually works really well, because it solves the age-old problem of trying to find someone who not only has games you want, but wants one of your games in return.

Anyway, I sent out a copy of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for GBA a couple of weeks ago, and never got any feedback. Worried, I sent a Private Message asking if they got the game. The reply I received was priceless:

Sorry about not being able to reply earlier. I got grounded off the computer. I got the game and I loved it so much my eyes were shriveled up from playing it so much

That is awesome upon badass. Things like that make me miss being a kid.

Labels: videogames

When I saw there was an article over at Cracked called A History of Violence: 6 Old School Games as Brutal as GTA, I checked it out to see if they had discovered Chiller, an arcade game I once called, "the most brutal, violent and sadistic videogame of all time." (Link to my Ironic Consumer review.)

Not only did they list Chiller, they made it their #1.

But there was something oddly... familiar about this screenshot.



That's right -- same point total, same time left on the clock, same last minute 300 point shot.

I actually like Cracked. Hell, I link to them on my website. It's just too bad they couldn't have tossed poor, neglected Ironic Consumer a little link. (Neglected, but not too obscure -- we're the primary source cited on Wikipedia and the top the Google search.)

When Games Radar used some of Flying Omelette's screenshots for an article called The Top 7... Nudity You Didn't Notice (in video games), they were kind enough to credit her for her work.

It's one thing to steal images from other websites when you're independent and barely covering the cost of web hosting with AdSense. But I kind of expected more from professionals.

I may not be the first guy to cover Chiller, but I'm pretty damn sure I 'm the first to use that screenshot -- especially considering I'm the one who took it

Update: I heard back from Jack O'Brien, EIC at Cracked. He apologized and added a link to Ironic Consumer. No hard feelings on my part. I don't really mind if people use our images, just as long as we receive credit. (Visa, Mastercard, anything but American Express.)

Labels: videogames

There's rumor over at Dead Central.

It starts off like a dream:

According to our source all four Ghostbusters -- Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson -- have agreed to return to the franchise.

But then the dream girl rips off her face, revealing the Freddy Kruger beneath:

Apparently the ‘Busters will be handing over their proton packs to Seth Rogan and the crew from 40 Year Old Virgin!

A great man once said --

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Look, humor is subjective. Everyone is entitled to their own taste in comedy, provided said comedy wasn't squeezed out by one Judd Apatow.

Judd Apatow -- I just don't like him. I'm not impressed with his movies. (Update: Okay, glancing at IMDB, he's actually produced a lot of fine comedies. Until now I had always assocaited him with Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin, but Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Anchorman are some of my favorites.) Steve Carell hasn't made me laugh since Jim Carrey was pulling his strings in Bruce Almighty, and Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan look like some shrewd Hollywood types tried to clone Napoleon Dynamite and kept them in the tanks too long.

Dread Central actually tried to put a positive spin on things:

Some may roll their eyes at this, but think about it; these guys are doing the same thing Murray, Ramis, Ivan Reitman, John Candy and their whole crew did back in the 80’s, churning out comedy after comedy, so it makes sense they’d take over these reins as well.

Rob Schneider churns out comedy after comedy. Let's give him the series! He can form a super team, along with Dane Cook and the Blue Collar Comedy Team and together they can prove that when it comes to comedy, staggering, inexplicable success is more important than actually being funny.

Ghostbusters is my favorite movie. Seriously. I grew up wanting to be a Ghostbuster. The Sega Master System game is one of my all-time favorites (open-world, car-based, mission objectives -- it's Ghost Theft Auto!) I own a Ghostbusters halloween costume. (Not that one.) I had a battery-powered proton pack that projected ghosts on my wall. There's nothing with the Ghostbusters logo stamped on it that I don't like.

But this?


Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. That's what a Seth Rogen Ghostbusters 3 would be like.

Labels: movies

Being able to consolidate all your email accounts with Gmail is great. But what if Google deleted your email? It's hard to remember, but when you use any online email service, you're one TOS violation away from losing everything.

MailStore Home is a free Windows program that archives email. The truly paranoid can even burn all their correspondence to a CD, put that CD in a fireproof case, and hire twenty ninjas to guard the case day and night.*


I can't recommend this program enough. Once, before moving to gmail, I was offline for a few months racked up about 6,000 emails. My email account was filled to the brim and they were bouncing all further letters. Reading through all those letters and manually deleting the junk would have taken forever, but with MailStore Home, I was able to back up everything (just in case!) and start over with a fresh inbox.

MailStore Home is a free download for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista. It's simple, effective, and easy on the eyes.

Enjoy.

* Ninjas sold separately.

Labels: software

Ever notice that most big name directors start out doing horror movies?

• Stephen Speilberg [Indiana Jones], Duel (1971).
• Sam Raimi [Spider-Man], The Evil Dead (1981).
• Peter Jackson [Lord of the Rings], Bad Taste (1987).
• Guillermo Del Toro [Pan's Labyrinth], Cronos (1993).
• James Cameron [Titanic], Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)
• Francis Ford Coppola [Godfather], The Terror (1963).

It's like the Correct and Unalterable Path of an A+ Director is to start out doing horror movies and end up making big budget action features.

Also helps explain why everyone hates Michael Bay. After directing a Playboy video or two (heh), Michael Bay's first picture was the action buddy cop movie Bad Boys. Only after directing successful action movies like Armageddon and The Rock did he dabble in horror, producing remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th.

Other reasons no one respects Michael Bay: Pearl Harbor, his face, and that two and a half our Shia LeBouf romantic comedy with some robots in the background.

Note: Thanks to Googleshng for helping me come up with this list.

Labels: movies

I've got a new article over at Bucket Bros, justifying the purchase of another indy game:

5 Reasons I Bought Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

Here's a sample:

Inspired by the original Star Trek, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (SAIS) is a game of turn-based galactic exploration and simple real time combat. You're not here to conquer the galaxy so much as swipe a few alien artifacts and exotic lifeforms, then make it home in time to collect some cold hard spacebucks.

Click here for the full article.

Labels: videogames

It's always interesting -- and a little scary -- when my page is quoted as a source. My stuff shouldn't be considered a source for anything other than a few laughs. But still, it's nice to be taken seriously.

TV Tropes tracks "story components or elements which have become standardized through decades (or more) of use."

It's kind of a wiki of television cliches, and they've got an article called Blond Guys Are Evil with a big ol' quote from yours truly.

"In Hollywood, blond guys have two choices: Dye your hair brown, save the world and get the leading lady. Or keep it blond and work on your bad guy face."
-- J.R. Antrim Vs. Evil Blond Men

Their description sums up the cliche quite nicely:

Fair-haired guys in media almost always end up evil. Especially noticeable if they are compared to a nice dark-haired guy, or if they are opposite ends of a Love Triangle.

If they're not evil, they're still jerks, although they may or may not be nice underneath, and they usually lose. Where a Betty And Veronica usually has a blonde Betty and a dark- or red-haired Veronica, a male version of this setup will do the reverse.

Given that blond heroes were not rare in films 40 or more years ago, this may be a Cyclic Trope, albeit with a longer cycle time than that for female "bad hair colors"

The Betty/Veronica bit is a good point.

Read the full list of Evil Blond Guy Tropes.

Labels: misc

I got the idea after reading an article in EGM on the feasibility of famous video game weapons. Seeing the Gunsword next to a Lancer got me thinking. Are Double Weapons fundamentally flawed... or certified works of genius? And given enough time and a bit of javascript, could I do better?

• Nuclear Baseball Bat

• Remington Fists

• Flak Cannon Lasso

• Sniper Numbchucks

Click here to see your random Double Weapon!


This page has my first ever Stumble Upon button, so somebody tell me if it works and it trips them up. Just don't sue me. This page can't afford insurance.

P.S. This is a work in progress. If you can think of any weapons I should add, let me know in the comments.

Labels: videogames

Note: I'm going to post the full article in the next day or two, but for now, here's a preview.

5 Reasons I Bought UnReal World RPG

#1 - The full game is only $3.
You heard me, *three bucks*. The catch is, the $3 license isn't good for updates. Ever. Not even if you run into some really gnarly bugs. For that price, you have to Hex Edit them out yourself.

A $10 license will grant you a few buxfixes until the next major revision. Finally, a Lifetime License is available for $55, which is a lot of cash, but if you're really into the game, it'll entitle you to years of upcoming content without ever having to shell out another dime.

Me, I only spent $3. If they add anything new down the line, I might look into the $10 license. But nobody ever accused me of *not* being a cheapskate.

Might not be the most interesting reason, but I find this whole tier-registration plan oddly fascinating.

Buying this game almost becomes a game in itself. You want to time your $3 registration just before the next major revision, when all the old bugs are fixed and the new ones are ready to be programmed in.

I bought mine a few days ago, because there hadn't been an update in months and I thought I was fairly safe. Turns out I was wrong, as less than a week later, out comes version 3.10-2!

Oh, the horror!

Will the devious minds behind the game hook me into buying a more expensive license? Will I ever actually get to play it? What do I mean, "Digital Finns"? Tune in to find out! The next major revision of this article will be out in just a few days. And it's going to cost you $0.47.

Labels: videogames