Catchy Name News

Reviews on Ritalin: R-Type

2008-07-22T13:28:00.003-04:00

My friend, Mumblin' ADHD Joe, has asked if he can write a review for me. I, being the kind and benevolent soul I am, said yes. So, pending Joe's $200 payment, I proudly present Joe's Reviews on Ritalin: R-Type.

(Yes, I know R-Type is 21 years old. It still kicks ass, so if you're going to complain, just save me some time and tell yourself to eat a wheelbarrow full of flaming dicks.)

R-Type is a shoot-them-up game released in arcades in 1987. It has 8 levels, 3 weapons, 7 bosses, 987 enemies, 6,796 stars in the background, and it took me 84 quarters to beat it, which is 21 dollars, or 2,241.77 yen.

R-Type is very difficult. I spent exactly 9 hours, 34 minutes, and 17 seconds attempting to memorize the entire level so I could make it through completely untouched.

Took more medication. Slowing.

Graphics: Each ship is made of 486 pixels.

Sound: Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Gameplay: Game is very. Play.

(Joe then stopped writing and started staring at his pants, saying "These are out of style as of right...." before finishing 10 minutes later with "now." and walking out of the room. I dunno where he went after that.)

Crackdown - Can Reviews Be Over a Year Late?

2008-07-05T16:28:00.006-04:00

Ok guys, I know this is kind of late, but I've decided to review Crackdown. Mostly because I exist in a dimension outside of time and space, where a man can play years-old video games for the first time, genuinely enjoy Styx's 1972 Crystal Ball album without a touch of irony, and not know what a "Hannah Montana" is, despite being under the age of 40.

Pictured above: Hannah Montana.

Crackdown, or, as you may recognize it, "The Game that Came With the Halo 3 Beta", is the story of one cyberneticaly enhanced supercop/brave American hero murdering wave after endless wave of illegal immigrants. The mysterious "Agency" that you work for, presumably the Minuteman Project, teaches your character at the first of the game (and randomly throughout the game, because there are only about 30 comments that your Wonder Years-esque absent narrator says) that, by murdering the Mexicans, Russians, and Chinese flooding the city and terrorizing the pure, white Americans, your character can climb the superhero chain from Aquaman to Spiderman. Once you're upgraded enough to jump 400 feet in the air and throw cars into the river, the game goes from a substandard 3rd person shooter to being a standard 3rd person shooter with some amazingly fun physical combat. As fun as it may be to shoot foreigner after foreigner, it's ultimately much more satisfying to throw a car at him. You can upgrade every major skill, including agility (allowing you to jump ridiculous distances and oddly enough, run only slightly faster), driving (makes the police cars magic and able to transform into better cars when you get in), shooting (you're better at it; tragically, it doesn't make it any more fun), explosives (your explosion radius gets fucking huge), and physical strength (probably the first you'll upgrade, because the melee combat is fucking fun).

As I've said, the shooter aspect of Crackdown really isn't that great on its own. All the guns are either grossly inaccurate or extremely underpowered, and you basically just press the auto-lock-on button and hold the fire button until they're dead, which even at the top possible firearms rating takes about 15 seconds unless you're immediately next to the minority you're shooting. When you're surrounded by 30 people pumping ammo into you, this is not helpful.

That said, everything else is a blast. Even running from one objective to another can be fun, since you get to jump from building to building to get there. I tend to get distracted, because I'm incredibly spiteful to NPCs (in every game, but especially here). For example, say I'm running to kill a gang boss, and I decide to run against heavy traffic on the interstate. Cars are speeding towards me at 100 miles per hour. One has the audacity to hit me. Do I accept that as my punishment from playing on the interstate? Of course not! I pull the driver out of his car, kick him in the face, and throw his car into the river, and leave him to try and shamble his shattered body across the still-busy interstate, which usually doesn't work out successfully. And if my police allies see me do it and try to bring me down? I murder wave after wave of them, killing many citizens in the process. It's even fun with non-innocents. Case in point: One time a huge semi full of Russian immigrants was speeding towards me, presumably planning to hit me, then shoot me to death. What was my solution? I stepped slightly out of the way, and kicked the truck into the river as they sped by. They all drowned. I think there were children on board. God, I love this game.

No, you stop blocking the highway! By you and your entire family DROWNING!

Even though it's basically the same mission over and over again 30 times, Crackdown has nearly limitless replay value. The depth of things to do in the city is amazing. In addition to the main mission, there are several street races (which are horribly unfun until you reach the highest level of driving skill AND pay for the downloadable content pack, which includes extra cars), rooftop races (which are always fun no matter what, except the ones that are fucking impossible), and various other distractions, in addition to the well-designed multiplayer and, in all seriousness, the best achievements of any game available for the 360 (there's actually an achievement for using a harpoon gun to attach 5 corpses to a car, which you can then drive around like some kind of devil engine. I love this fucking game.)

The story of Crackdown is long and sad, however. Despite its esteemed pedigree (the creator was also responsible for Lemmings and the original Grand Theft Auto), innovative, well-designed gameplay, and ridiculous depth, the only reason it really sold as well as it did was because it came with the fucking Halo 3 beta. That's right. One of the greatest sandbox games ever made became a beer coaster for dumbshit frat boys. It's like everything associated with Halo is ruined by it.

Except Halo Wars. If I could somehow find a hole in the trailers for that game, I would have sex with it.

FUCK YES MOTHERFUCKERS

2008-06-28T13:19:00.003-04:00

http://kotaku.com/5020476/blizzard-splashwatch-final

The Blizzard splash page I've been too busy slavishly following to update about is finally finished. It looks a little bit different than the ice-based teaser pic with the Death Knight/Protoss eyes that was up before. Here's the pic so I can show you the differences:

The differences are subtle, but many. For example, the ice motif is gone, replaced with a red and orange, fire-based theme. Text is now present on the image. Also, IT FUCKING ANNOUNCES DIABLO FUCKING THREE. I may get sick of having to pretend I give a shit about WoW anytime I'm around gamers that I don't already know personally, but if it allows them to finance projects I actually care about, I want a law passed making a WoW account mandatory for all US citizens, punishable by torture, because when Blizzard's good, they're really good. Now I'm just waiting for a splash page announcement for Lost Vikings III.

Overdone

2008-06-27T16:03:00.001-04:00

Am I the only one who stops reading a video game preview/review/whatever when I see "trading card elements" and it's not proceeded by "contains absolutely no"? I probably am.

Analyst Says Casual Gaming May Be A Fad; Millions Stunned

2008-06-22T03:31:00.007-04:00

Industry analyst Hiroshi Kamide believes DS hardware demand has peaked globally, and that the massive, gleaming ivory tower casual gaming has built is soon to topple, killing all who dwell inside.

Casual gaming growth has been the primary driver for the industry over the last three years, the key player being the Nintendo DS. We believe DS hardware demand has now peaked globally. A downturn in software demand is likely to follow, as casual gamers are "happy with their lot" and do not need to consume more. We feel that the same predicament awaits the Wii console with its similar market expansion angle.

Well, ok, yeah. I mean, that has been pretty obvious. You may not have noticed, but your 13 year old sister isn't really interested in much outside of Wii Sports and possibly a game about puppies or something. However, I do take issue with the last part of his statement:

Titles such as Brain Training and Wii Fit do not act as ‘gateway drugs’ to turn non-traditional gamers to core repeat users. We feel this is a structural industry issue that cannot be easily changed.

This is simply not true. Well, maybe not simply. It's actually a pretty complex issue. Many people will pick up a Brain Age or a Guitar Hero, get hooked, lose track of their lives, and wake up in a pile of Unreal Tournaments and Front Missions. Many people won't. It could really go either way, and there are enough examples of each to claim there's a 'majority' on either side. If you look at the DS, yeah, Big Brain Academy may be flying off the shelves, but so are Professor Layton and Ace Phoenix. And that's where the biggest problem lies.

What exactly constitutes a "casual" game?

I have to admit, I never could figure out what the hell was going on in this fucking game.

It's generally accepted that shitty poker games and "700,000 Slight Variations on Mahjongg!" collections are casual games, and likewise that games like Gears of War and Quake constitute "hardcore" games. But what do you do when you get into grey areas? Look at Professor Layton and the Curious Village. A good amount of gamers consider that a "safe" game, meaning that their friends won't hold them down and take turns punching them in the stomach for playing it. But what difference is there between Layton and Big Brain Academy? A narrative and not much else.

Does that make Azada a hardcore game then? Hell, that game was written by John Cutter, famous for Betrayal at Krondor, which is about as good as a fantasy-based storyline can get (it was based on the Riftwar series of books, and was so good that the original author of the series eventually novelized it and considers it canon). Azada's gameplay is in fact very similar to Myst (cold, humanless environments and arbitrary logic puzzles), which most people would generally consider a hardcore game that happened to appeal to many casual gamers.

Myst also presents a unique problem. What happens when a game is claimed to be part of both camps? Myst was the best-selling PC game of all time for almost 10 years (in 2002 it was overtaken by The Sims, both in sales and as the only game your 43 year old uncle will talk about other than Tetris and Super Mario Bros. when he tries to converse with you about video games), and drew a lot of fans who couldn't give a shit less about games, but who WERE able to follow technological fads. After Myst hit, many companies tried to court adults who hadn't grown up with video games. As many people now know, adults simply do not enjoy things that are fun, preferring things that are trendy and fashionable, hence the rise of "multimedia games".

Only the 3DO could take a game based on Jurassic Park and make the game's focus puzzles and not dinosaurs.

Multimedia games were a blight on gaming history from the mid-90s, spurred on by the growth of CD-ROM drives for PCs and the Sega-CD and 3DO consoles. Myst served as a "killer app" for CD-ROM media, as well as opening the gates for gameplay-less slideshows with brief panty shots to sell in some cases as many as 100 copies. Games such as The Daedalus Encounter and Entombed presented players with movie-quality plots ("The aliens are attacking! Hurry! Our only chance to survive is to arrange these tiles to form a picture of a goose with its head stuck in a bucket!") intertwined with deep, intricate gameplay ("There must be millions of different types of puzzles mankind has created, why does it keep giving me slightly more complex versions of the same three puzzles I've already completed?") in a way that was completely unprecedented. Well, actually, it presented players with shitty, poorly acted, poorly directed movies that occasionally give them the option to go left or right, by which I mean, choose to watch either movie A or movie B.

Multimedia games were largely unsuccessful. The most successful multimedia game (probably, there's virtually no info on sales for these games, and I don't care enough anyway) was Digital Pictures' Night Trap. Originally for the Sega CD andlater released for the ill-fated 32X and multimedia toilet the 3DO, Night Trap was the story of the Sega Control Attack Team using security cameras and their undercover agent, Dana Plato , to uncover the secrets of what jailbait girls do at slumber parties. They soon find out that when a group of teenaged girls gather together in nighties, they're attacked by vampires, ghosts, mummies, or various other supernatural phenomena. Of course, the only way for a specially trained, heavily armed police task force called the Control Attack Team to protect the girls whose privacy rights they're so flagrantly violating is to setup a series of Scooby-Doo traps.

Night Trap wasn't really "successful" in the traditional sense, rather, it was successful in popularizing the idea of "adult" games. Night Trap (along with Mortal Kombat) was responsable for the first ever congressional hearing on the content of games. After this uproar, many people looked at the controversy and screamed "me too!" Thus was born the "adult" "multimedia" "game". I put each individual word in quotes because not a single part of that is true. The games would have maybe 1 or 2 "damns" and "hells", or maybe an underwear shot, so they weren't really adult. They also weren't truly multimedia, and they certainly weren't games. However, they did bring in a few old men who attempted to be dirty, but met with no success.

Shortly after multimedia games failed to be the big draw for non gamers to become addicted to, PC developers finally realized one of the few areas that had been successful with casual gamers: the puzzle game. The advent of Shockwave and especially Flash made it much easier to get someone to try a game, even if they aren't regular gamers. With no cost and little download time, people were willing to try new things. The first game to really explode with 48-year-old toothless shut-in women who sit in front of the computer all day was a little rip off of Tetris Attack (or, technically, the Puzzle League series) called Diamond Mine. You may know it as Bejeweled.

Bejewled took the casual market by storm in 2000. Suddenly, fewer spreadsheets were finished on time, more computer-side ashtrays were filled up with cigarette butts and fun-sized Snickers bar wrappers, fewer forwarded emails about Procter & Gamble being satanic were mailed out. Bejeweled introduced a massive amount of people to the fact that good games were still coming out. Now, we're left with a glut of casual games, most of which are very, very bad. (I've also noticed that many seem to have silly nonsense names, like Zubaz or Bongle or Borga.) Nonetheless, some of them are somehow still getting people more interested in games.

I myself have witnessed many of these people. And while a lot of them never leave that same casual category, a few have. And those few are some of the hardest-core gamers I know. So I refute the notion that casual games cannot function as a "gateway game". Even now, thousands of people are firing up Peggle, unaware of the fact that someday soon, they could know what the term "pwned" means. Yes, the casual game monster will soon fall, crushing many, many developers under its gigantic, unsupported frame. But I think the effect the genre has on games will make a change for the better.

Or who knows. Maybe 5 years from now we'll all being playing "Puppy Match 12: Sing for the Stars!".

(Well, Ice is back with a brand new invention. Sorry about the long delay. I haven't forgotten about this thing. If you REALLY want to encourage me, make sure to give me some Digg love.)

MMO News Stories Made Easy!

2008-06-14T21:31:00.002-04:00

Way too much time on gaming news sites is wasted talking about MMORPGs. WAY too much time, considering that they tend to all be basically the same story. So, to help out my fellow journalists, I've written some MMORPG news story templates. Here's the first:

MMORPG Released

A long-awaited MMORPG was released today. The game is based on either a popular fantasy or science fiction franchise or a long running video game series. Fans of the franchise have been waiting for an opportunity to see an open, free-roaming version of the franchise's world for many years. The game will focus on PvP combat. To help the game compete against smash hit World of Warcraft, the game will have (here, just fill in the single feature the designers have half-assed to slightly differentiate it from The Only Popular MMO In America (tm), for example, sex, nudity, minigames where you earn currency, or vaguely "enhanced" PvP). This seems like a really exciting new setting for an MMO. Will it be able to compete with World of Warcraft? I can't wait to see!

Qore is Now Available for the PS3

2008-06-06T13:39:00.003-04:00

Sony's new subcription-based advertisement service, Qore, is now available. Qore (which is oh-so-delightfully close to being called "queer") is only $25 for 13 1-to-2 hour advertising segments a year.

Hopefully this will summon images of the "qore", or empress dowager, of Kush, thus improving Sony's performance in the vital Sudanese market.

Order now and receive a free download of David Jaffe's Calling All Cars!

David Jaffe on Calling All Cars reviews:

"Fuck you, guys. Go fuck yourselves. What other developer makes a fucking change to a game when a review (IGN's in this case) has a good, valid point and is willing to open the fucking code up at the risk of more bugs to make the game better? Amazing.But hey, you guys are great, you guys rock. I hope Kotaku fucking puts your ass out of business, wanna be fucktards. And if you were actual journalists you would have read the motherfucking quote I posted on NEOGAF where I said because of the two bugs we needed to fix (not because I was afraid of the bargin bin) we had a window of opp. to fix the magnet problem. Assholes...total fucking assholes. "

- David Jaffe
davidjaffe.biz

As a side note, has anyone noticed that Sony can't spell? "Qore" and "Xross Media Bar"... these spellings aren't clever or hip, they're just illogical. And it's not just the Playstation division. Look at the X-Plod speakers, or "ARccOS" copy protection. What the hell does "ARccOS" mean? Is it an acronym? A robot? Some kind of Portuguese pirate exclamation? It's like it just came from a random letter generator. I suggest as a change of pace, instead of calling their next system "Playstation 4", they call it the Sony FrFFkH. I guarantee it will be big in Nordic countries, although I suppose gamers will have a hard time figuring out if their friends are conversing with them about the next generation of systems or merely choking to death.

Japan Only, or, Why the Japanese are Happier and More Productive Than the Rest of the World (Part 3)

2008-06-05T13:41:00.006-04:00

Ok, this one I'm going at completely, totally balls-out. This game is completely untranslated. That's right: I'm a pioneer.

That said, I seriously doubt that any dialog could possibly make this game the least bit comprehensible.

Zig Zag Cat: Ostrich Club mo Oosawagi Da (1994, DenZ)

The Game:

"Zigu! Zagu! CATTO!" Greatest intro to a game ever.

Zig Zag Cat is the story of a mentally disabled ward of the state in pajamas carrying a trampoline to bounce his cat into ostriches in order to make them explode.

I know, I know. I thought the same thing. "Greatest plotline ever. Somebody call Hollywood; we've got the next Casablanca on our hands."

The game's actually pretty good. Unlinke most Breakout clones you just look for a specific block and try to break it to win the level. In between levels you can stay at an inn (I think. It may be some kind of fucked up church. It has a nun with enormous bouncing tits.) and play little bonus levels, and make money, not that I've been able to figure out where, how, or on what to spend the money. You don't make much, so I guess he uses it to pay for psychiatric bills.

Why was it never released in America?

I have no idea. The only thing I can figure is that the powers that be knew that between Super Metroid, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 3, and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, we had too many completely epic games to handle a story of Zig Zag Cat's magnitude.

(I think this is a new record for me: 3 posts in a series! Check out part 1 and part 2.)

Japan Only, or, Why the Japanese are Happier and More Productive Than the Rest of the World (Part 2)

2008-05-31T19:35:00.008-04:00

Sometimes games that were never let out of the Promised Land had a good reason to stay put. Case in point...

Bird Week (1986, EMI, Toshiba, Lenar)

The Game:

Wow. I don't really know where to start with this one. Oh wait, yes I do: It's a bird life simulator. I know to start there, because that's where you can end, too. There's nothing more to the game. Really, it's a bit of a stretch to call it a bird life simulator; more like a bird feeding simulator. I think a bird's life would encompass more than feeding babies. For example, the game could've included brief minigames, where you become confrontational with humans who don't provide you with bread, or shit on statues of Napoleon, or terrorize the English countryside, or something, fuck, I don't know. But no, you just fly around, catching butterflies. It's like a rumination on the futility of living. Surviving murderous predators, darting around just desperately trying to catch just enough butterflies to survive, going nowhere. And if you quit and just fly around, enjoying the beautiful day? Your children starve to death. Fucking Bird Week. Now I'm a nihilist.

Why was it never released in America?

I'm not going to waste your time telling you why a bird-feeding sim was never released in competition with Contra and Battletoads. Instead, I'm going to focus on Lenar, one of the 3 companies responsible for this game. Lenar, in cooperation with megacorps Toshiba and EMI, released Bird Week, their first game ever, in July, 1986. They followed it up 6 months later with Deadly Towers, widely reputed to be one of the worst and most confusing games made for the NES, which is really saying something.

So where is the Lenar Corportation now?

They make tractors. No, really.

(Will I actually finish something I start? Read in the next few days to see if I update again! Or, read part 1.)

Postal is a Fucking Train Wreck

2008-05-31T02:11:00.005-04:00

(Story from: Kotaku)

Uwe Boll's latest film, Postal, is a Chicago Fire-sized disaster. I mean, yeah, the movie itself is a disaster. A child could tell you that just from the poster.

Pictured above: Every joke you stopped thinking was funny around April 2002.

What I mean, is that the movie is FINANCIALLY disastrous, on the scale of global warming. The movie opened to 4 screens, later expanded to 13. And they're actually REFUSING to release financial information. For comparison, Zyzzyx Road, released in 2006, made $30, $10 of which was refunded to two patrons by the director. Obviously, its financial information was released.

As a side note, despite the limited release, I saw the film at a theater in Charleston, SC.

Well, I mean, I didn't see it. I'm not a masochist. But it was playing there.

New Street Fighter 4 Character: Rufus

2008-05-31T01:54:00.006-04:00

(Story from: StreetFighter4.org)

Some new Street Fighter 4 characters have been announced, including my new favorite opponent, Rufus.

Above: Movie studio ad copy writer Harry Knowles

Finally, I can live my dream of beating the crap out of Harry Knowles.

Above: New SFIV Brawler Rufus

Japan Only, or, Why the Japanese are Happier and More Productive Than the Rest of the World (Part 1)

2008-05-30T11:49:00.013-04:00

In 1990, Nintendo released Startropics, a fantastic action/adventure game that plays like a mix of Zelda and the early Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior games. To this day, the game remains unreleased in Japan.

"HA!" you may say, your pride in your country bolstered. Perhaps you allow this pride to degenerate into fevered hoots of "USA! USA! USA!"

Well!

I'd hate to bring you down from your nationalistic high, but I need to inform you of something, something you may already know.

In 1991, Nintendo completely localized and translated Mother, the predecessor to Earthbound, for an American release.

Completely finished and translated.

COMPLETELY FINISHED AND TRANSLATED.

And yet it was never released here. Why? They didn't feel the game had "a large enough market". To this day, the 9th best NES game and 38th best game of all time (according to Japanese gaming bible Famitsu) has never seen an official American release.

Now, Earthbound's sequel, Mother 3, has been released in Japan, thanks in part to the series' massive, extraordinarily dedicated fanbase in America (largely located at Starmen.net). Despite the truly astonishing level of support, Nintendo STILL refuses to risk releasing another Mother game in America. The reason? "There's not a large enough audience." But is this belief really founded?

Yes. Yes it is.

Ha! I had you going for a second. It's cute when I do that.

That said, just because there's not a large enough built-in market for the game doesn't mean that one wouldn't develop, given some the correct marketing. Just look at Katamari Damacy. NOBODY thought that game would fly in the States, but slap a $20 price tag on it, and all of sudden, people are willing to take a risk, and, in turn, find one of the most satisfying games of this decade.

Still, the Mother games will probably never be released here. It's far from the first time this has happened. Many games have run into the same problem, some true classic of their genre, some incredibly creative innovations, some complete, incomprehensible shit. So what exactly causes this? Is the cultural gap between the two countries so wide that some games are completely unmarketable in America? Or are American publishers so concerned with their bottom line that they're unwilling to take a chance?

I don't know. Here are some dick jokes and commentary.

Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995, SquareSoft)

The Game:

Commonly known online as "Secret of Mana 2" (although, technically, Secret of Mana was actually Secret of Mana 2, it is not referred as such because such a paradox would create a vacuum of dimension-destroying proportions), Seiken Densetsu 3 (Legend of the Holy Sword 3) took it's predecessor's qualities to a whole new level. A truly amazing adventure/RPG, the game featured 3 main storylines, 6 concurrent backstories for the characters, and a class system.

Why was it never released in America?

3 main storylines, 6 concurrent backstories for the characters, and a class system. The game was actually in the middle of being translated when it was decided to shift focus to Super Mario RPG, which I suppose is a point that's pretty difficult to argue with. Some argue that the somewhat similar Secret of Evermore was released in lieu of Seiken Densetsu 3. Nobody really knows if that's true or not, but frankly, I wouldn't be mad if it was. Considering the common quality of games coming from America at the time, it was nice to have at least one great game to notch on our belts since Asteroids. Personally, I believe the suggestion that the game wasn't released due to the possible need for a recall. The game had a very difficult time being debugged; many times, when a bug was fixed, it would cause two more to pop up, both worse than the last. So frankly, I'm kinda glad. I'd rather wait, potentially forever, to play a game that works rather than play a game that glitches so bad that it makes my Super Nintendo radioactive. Not causing cancer is a rather important yet understated criteria when choosing a game. That's why I 'm declining to pick up a PS3.

(More to come! Check back later, or I'll eat your brains)

Tomonobu Itagaki Calls Devil May Cry "Shallow"

2008-05-24T19:33:00.005-04:00

http://kotaku.com/5010815/itagaki-not-impressed-with-devil-may-cry

In an interview with OXM UK, Tecmo/Team Ninja's Tomonobu Itagaki said that the Devil May Cry series is "shallow". I suppose it doesn't have enough undulating titties for him. I'll give him that Ninja Gaiden was an amazing game, and I respect his attempt at bringing Japanese gaming back to its reigning status (which would be awesome, because I'm tired as playing as a fucking space marine, the only idea American developers can seem to come up with), but how could the developer of Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball criticize anyone for being "shallow"?

Pictured above: deep gameplay.

In all honesty, it doesn't even really bother me that he would call DMC shallow. It's not exactly Civilization. But when you put more care into making character models with basketball-sized breasts made of Flubber than making sure your game is, you know, fun, you kinda lose the right to call other games shallow.

Jack Thompson Killed by Gamer

2008-05-24T19:18:00.002-04:00

Anti-Game Crusader shot to death outside of courthouse

Early yesterday morning, anti-video game protester Jack Thompson was shot to death during a protest against Rockstar Games' new product, Grand Theft Auto IV. The identity of the shooter has not been confirmed, but witnesses say he was carrying a mouse and keyboard. The man snuck up behind Thompson, pulled the mouse and keyboard out of a trenchcoat, used the mouse to steady his aim, held the ctrl button to crouch, and fired one glowing laser shot. He then screamed "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" and escaped to the top of a building. Thompson's body twisted a few times, then landed twisted up with his legs touching his back, not unlike a ragdoll. The shooter than made his escape. "He just jumped from one building to another, using his rocket boosters. I mean, I knew all along Jack was right about video games being evil, that's in the Bible, but I didn't realize he was this accurate about them turning kids into killing machines," said Wayne Kalasky, a fellow protester following Thompson. "After he shot him, he fired about 3 of these huge missles into the courthouse, which for some reason didn't even seem to make a dent in it, then hopped into a World War 2-era fighter plane, which immediately after liftoff he crashed into a wall." Despite police investigations, no body has been found. "We believe he has reappeared, or, 'respawned' in another location," said Tim Perkins, chief of police. The investigation is ongoing, and details will be posted as they come in.

Could Haggar's Incumbency be Threatened?

2008-05-24T17:15:00.003-04:00

Dean Rexley, a city councilman from Metro City, USA, has announced his candidacy in this year's Metro City mayoral election, becoming the first to oppose incumbent Mike Haggar since his first term. In an interview with the Metro City Generic Press that has been described variously as "insane" and "suicidal", Rexley stated his reasons for his campaign against Haggar. "13 terms is simply too many! The only reason Haggar was elected in the first place was his 'anti-crime initiative'. Yes, I agree that Metro City had a crime problem at the time, but Haggar took it too far. In response to requests for increased police funding, Haggar simply walked down the street killing everyone in sight, viciously beating them with lead pipes and piledriving them into the concrete, headfirst. All of this culminated in Haggar dropkicking handicapped businessman Horace Belger out of his wheelchair and through a plate glass window to a deadly 11-story drop. I mean, the man eats barbeque he finds in oil drums! Do we really want someone like this running our town?" Upon hearing this, Haggar, who had been standing at the door waiting to be interviewed, shattered the door to splinters with his trademark Spinning Lariat, threw a knife into Rexley's face, then suplexed him four times. Witnesses report Rexley then flashed 3 times and disappeared.

(This blogger endorses Mike Haggar for Metro City Mayor.)

La Introductio

2008-05-24T13:47:00.002-04:00

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. So I'm gonna post some old stuff. Then I'll start posting new stuff, not unlike the way many sites work. Some of you technical-types may understand.