You saw it here first, folks!
BONUS CONTENT:
A Scottish grocer put a collection box on his counter with a small sign reading, “For the Blind.” Charitable customers put in their change. When the box was full, he used the money to buy a new window blind!
Also, a song explaining why Australia couldn’t decide on a government, for those of us who don’t throw shrimps on barbies.
While in the shower this morning, I received a sudden revelation. I came up with the perfect critical rating system for videogames. It is based around a single, simple question;
Would I rather jack off than play this game?
Though undoubtedly two of our favorite pastimes, fondling the faucet has many advantages over videogames; we can (almost) control the length of the experience, we always know it will end with an explosive climax and, unlike most videogames and sex, it’s completely DRM free. Sure, the experience can wear you out by the end of it, but videogames are no different.
Let’s face it; many of today’s games are far too long for their own good, offering too little reward for such a huge time sink. Ultimately, they can make you feel like you’re wasting your time and that you’d be better off painting the ceiling white. After all, you’ll have more to show for it at the end.
Thus I decided that all the games I review from this point on will be primarily judged on their wank-resistant capabilities. I initially met trouble when it became apparent that no game would rate higher than 30 seconds. On my second try, six minutes seemed to be the maximum before deciding I’d rather play pocket pool. Fortunately, by the third attempt, I started to get some real results before introducing Master Bacon to Rosie Hancock. Here are a couple quick examples:
Mirror’s Edge: You may be tempted to pet your one eyed trouser snake while playing the story mode thanks to some moments of frustration, but thankfully it’s rather short and is split in easy consumable chapters, allowing you to fire the purple-headed yogurt pistol between them.
Rating: 6-7 hours
Far Cry 2: At first this game feels like it contains a world of limitless possibilities and for a good couple hours it will keep your mind off pumping your fist. Unfortunately, the world eventually reveals itself to be deader than platform shoes, and the gameplay becomes repetitive. Even worse, the game is one consistent world, leaving no breaks to shake hands with the governor of love.
Rating: 3-4 hours
And there we have two of the greatest reviews I have ever written.
ALTERNATE FEMALE VERSION
While in the shower this morning, I received a sudden revelation. I came up with the perfect critical rating system for videogames. It is based around a single, simple question;
Would I rather jill off than play this game?
Though undoubtedly two of our favorite pastimes, buffin’ the muffin’ has many advantages over videogames; we can (almost) control the length of the experience, we always know it will end with an explosive climax and, unlike most videogames and sex, it’s completely DRM free. Sure, the experience can wear you out by the end of it, but videogames are no different.
Let’s face it; many of today’s games are far too long for their own good, offering too little reward for such a huge time sink. Ultimately, they can make you feel like you’re wasting your time and think you’d be better off fanny fapping. After all, you’ll have more to show for it at the end.
Thus I decided that all the games I review from this point on will be primarily judged on their wank-resistant capabilities. I initially met trouble when it became apparent that no game would rate higher than 30 seconds. On my second try, six minutes seemed to be the maximum before deciding I’d rather play stinky pinky. Fortunately, by the third attempt, I started to get some real results before spearing the bearded clam. Here are a couple quick examples:
Mirror’s Edge: You may be tempted to maul the maid while playing the story mode thanks to some moments of frustration, but thankfully it’s rather short and is split in easy consumable chapters, allowing you to dance the two finger taco tango between them.
Rating: 6-7 hours
Far Cry 2: At first this game feels like it contains a world of limitless possibilities and for a good couple hours it will keep your mind off killing the ferret. Unfortunately, the world eventually reveals itself to be deader than platform shoes, and the gameplay becomes repetitive. Even worse, the game is one consistent world, leaving no breaks for orchid grinding.
Rating: 3-4 hours
And there we have two of the greatest reviews I have ever written.
When I was but a wee lad, I was gifted with a Nintendo Game Boy for my birthday. I took it where ever I went, especially to the toilet, a most liberating experience since I often suffered from severe and brutal constipation at that age.
One day my mother dragged me and the rest of the family to church for Easter. I had somehow convinced her to let me take my Game Boy. The game inserted in the cartridge slot was Teenage Mutant Teenage Turtles, which was basically the Hannah Montana of the day. I had my headphones with me so I could listen to the hip tunes of Tomoko Nishikawa and Michiru Yamane, and ignore whatever religious mumbo jumbo was spewing forth from the Pastor’s vocal volcano.
Simply playing my Game Boy was not enough for me, though. I wanted everyone else to know I had it, I wanted them to be jealous of the fact that while they had to listen to some crap about the crucifixion of Santa, I was hanging with Donatello, the most bodacious of all turtles.
So when I delivered the final blow to Shredder, the penultimate and most difficult boss of the game, I decided to publicly declare my awesomeness. Unfortunately, it was just as the Pastor said “And so he died for our sins…” to which my response appeared to be “Haha, suffeeerrr!”
I was never allowed to bring my Game Boy to church again.
Winner: Jesus.
BONUS CONTENT:
Jokes.
A dying grandmother told her granddaughter, “Dear, I want you to inherit my farm, my villa, my tractor, the farmhouse and all my livestock.” “Wow!” said her granddaughter. “Thanks, Grandma. I didn’t know you even had all that stuff. Where is it?” Grandma replied, “On Facebook!”
Why did the blonde nurse carry a red magic marker at work? In case she had to draw blood!
A taxi came to a screeching halt, just barely missing an obviously pregnant jaywalker. “Watch it, lady!” shouted the cabbie. “Do you also wanna get knocked down?!”
Did you hear about the gay carnivorous parrot? He likes to eat a cockatoo a day!
There is now a /dance command in Transformice.
BONUS CONTENT:
A joke;
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Additionally, a terrible Sega peripheral that I somehow didn’t know existed.
A videogame did not introduce me to the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Simpsons can take credit for that; I’m sure most of you know the episodes to which I refer. But a videogame is responsible for me actually becoming interested in his work.
The game was called The Dark Eye, a product released during the height of the multimedia craze in 1995, and which I downloaded off The Underdogs way back in the day. In it, the player visits some relatives and… well, saying anything more will spoil the story really, but obviously it’s all a rather sordid affair. If I remember correctly, it involves incest and possibly paedophilia (or kiddie fiddling as we call it in Australia). This original story ties together three of Poe’s works together, in an… ALMOST clever way. Good enough, though!
What most grabbed me was the presentation. The music is moody, the voice work is excellent (William S. Burroughs provided his talents. He’s the fellow who wrote Naked Lunch. I can name at least two things wrong with that title), but what most grabbed me was the visuals, namely the creepy clay models used for the characters. I mean come on, look at that sad sack up there. What impressed me the most was in how you experienced Poe’s work… first as the killer, then as the victim. If you’ve ever wanted to see what it would feel like to be buried alive, step on up, dear friend!
It actually wasn’t much of a game, really. Mostly you just interacted with things, trying to figure out how to trigger the next sequence in the story, but the presentation is all so lovingly dark and gloomy that I can forgive it for that.
When I finished it, I wanted to read some of Poe’s work. I mentioned this to my Dad and it turned out he had a large collection of his stuff sitting on the bookshelf. So there you go!
Yeah, to grab my attention as an adolescent, you had to be pretty DARK AND GOTHY. Actually, you can still grab my attention that way, but I’ve lightened up since then and prefer things that make me smile.Like boobs.
And small furry animals.
If you combine the two (in a non-sexual way) you can get a HUGE smile out of me. Feel free to attempt this in the comments.
BONUS CONTENT;
A joke;
A family was having dinner when the elder son piped up, “You may as well know it: I’m homosexual.” His other son chimed in, “Me, too.” The father looked at them sternly. “Doesn’t anybody like girls anymore?” His daughter smiled. “Me!”
Additionally, I really enjoy Delve Deeper. It’s a turn-based multiplayer game where teams of dwarves try to gather more treasure than each other, fun stuff.
An old, tacky DOS game.
If you’ve ever wanted to watch me ejaculate on boobs (and everything else), you’re in luck!
I forgot to ask why my semen is so deadly. Is it radioactive?
It’s also worth noting that although I say it impressed me, I don’t think it’s a good game. It’s just much better than it should be.
I also realise I pronounced “equality” wrong. I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying.
Oh, and wouldn’t putting a condom reduce the effectiveness of your primary weapon? Whatever, I guess!
FINALLY, apparently the game gets much less tasteful later on, including scat overtones and enemies which shoot rats out of their whatsits. Tragically, I never played that far.
If you play further, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because I totally just did.
BONUS CONTENT:
Jokes;
Reading while sunbathing will make you well red!
When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.
A banker fell overboard. His friends searched the whole boat, but couldn’t find a life preserver. They yelled to him, “Can you float alone?”
Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Why did the condom fly across the room? It was pissed off!
Living in vacuum sucks.
Additionally, someone made a book about adventure games… with data mostly collected from Wikipedia.
When I first dropped all the pieces out of the Tetris Cube, my nerd rage exploded like an off-shore oil rig (look, I’m being topical). None of the pieces were authentic Tetris shapes, straight from the game! The gall of the creators! What the hell were they thinking!
Then I realised perhaps those shapes didn’t make a very interesting puzzle. Additionally, the cube is made up of 4x4x4 smaller cubes, so it’s definitely a Tetris cube. Finally, the solver has to place them back in the box, a bit like dropping pieces in the videogame. So I guess it’s a fairly accurate recreation of Tetris in 3D after all.
Obviously, it’s much more complicated than it first looks. There are over 9000 solutions (seriously, that isn’t a reference to that idiotic meme) and it apparently takes the average person two months to find one. I solved it in a week, spending an hour or so on it each day while watching something on the telly. I then gave it to my Dad, a man much smarter than me (he studies physics in his spare time) and he called me two days later telling me he solved it.
Was it a fluke in my case? Possibly. I don’t want to try it again though, because it means I have to leave all the pieces out until I solve it and I don’t want animals chewing or (much worse) eating them. Which is my primary problem with this little puzzler. It’s messy, just like my love, except I just need to spend five minutes with a mop and bucket to clean up my love, not spend hours trying to get plastic into a tight space.
That said, it did have me quite captivated until I solved it. I see it being good for younger people to build their spatial awareness, and older folk will have fun trying to solve it too. Worth grabbing if you see it on the cheap.
Verdict: Better than 3-D Tetris.
BONUS CONTENT:
A joke;
When a guy is sexting, does he get a phoner?
Additionally, if you didn’t know that there is a coffee made from animal poop, you do now.
As a child, I enjoyed rather dark, gothic things. Predictably, I was obsessed with the likes of Tim Burton. Also predictably, I desperately wanted Dr. Franken for the Game Boy as soon as I saw its cheerfully gothic cover in stores.
The thing that interested me most was that the player was cast as the monster, and since I considered myself a bit of an outcast, a freak (or rather, this is what other people told me I was), this appealed to me. Oh, what a troubled child, I was!
After dropping many obvious hints, I eventually received it as a Christmas present. It turned out to be a rather mediocre platform exploration game, where the player runs around trying to find their girlfriend’s bits. Something I did much more of later in my life, oh ho!
Anyway, the game introduced me to classical music! Specifically Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (appearing in many games since), which plays throughout the game. It became one of my favourite pieces of music, and it is an ambition of mine to learn to play it on the piano one day.
I will then learn how to play it on the accordion.
BONUS CONTENT:
A joke;
What kind of meat do priests eat on Friday? Nun!
Additionally, Everybody Edits! It’s a multiplayer level editor for platform games. It’s pretty bare bones at the moment, but it’s still fun messing about. I kind of like the lack of chat; the only way to communicate is through changing the emoticon of your avatar, or through your level design.
Also, there are new items and maps for Transformice! Some of the new maps are quite devious, and the balloons add a nice dynamic to the game. I’m not sure about the portals, though… I think they make it too easy to recover from a mistake, and half the fun is recovering from a screw-up (and often failing horribly). In fact, I think they make things too easy in general.
I always liked the way Bowser’s castle was portrayed in Super Mario World. Namely, his name written in gigantic neon letters, surrounded by lights strobing around it (speaking of strobe lights, one of the things I remember most from the SNES Shadowrun game was killing a vampire with one). I feel it represents Bowser better than any of the gothic castles seen in pretty much every other game. It’s sleazy, much like Bowser himself(or King Koopa as I insist on continuing to call him), and is a perfect contrast to the squeeky cleanliness of the Mushroom Kingdom where everything is smiles and sunshine up to your rectum.
It also made me decide that Princess Peach (or Princess Toadstool as I continue to insist on calling her) actually prefers this world of sleaze to the dull, drab kingdom she rules over, and is actually having an affair with Bowser. The whole kidnapping thing is just a cover for it, with Bowser organising a bunch of obstacles in Mario’s path to slow him down, giving him and the princess enough sensual time.
(Edit: turns out this was revealed in Bower’s Inside Story? I haven’t played that one).
Bowser and the Princess are actually unhappy with this arrangement, however, and what the Princess truly wants is to have the best of both worlds; a threesome. Let’s face it, though. Mario is far too much of a prude to let that happen, and most certainly too selfish to share his lady friend. It’s a bit of a tragic story, really. No one wins.
No one.
Drugs are probably involved somewhere too, what with all the mushrooms.
Speaking of sexuality in Mario games, has anyone else wondered if vore fetishists spend hours eating each other with Yoshi’s in New Super Mario Bros. Wii? Nintendo sure likes tackling untapped markets.
I actually can’t remember the first time I played a Leisure Suit Larry game. I remember one of the other boys brought it to school on their laptop (rich git), a crowd of us gathering around it and sniggering as we ran around a low resolution city trying to do all the naughty things boys like to do. But I also remember an earlier time, before I was in high school, when a friend brought over a CD full of pirated games (it amazed me how much data those flimsy discs could hold!) and the first one we tried was Larry 3. I could even have played it earlier than that! I’m not sure. You know what, it’s actually not important.
I’m a big fan of the series. Because they involve sex, yes, but that’s not the only reason. After all, as Al Lowe repeatedly reiterates, the humour is more about the humiliation of Larry, and the satirizing of modern life and society. Additionally, more women play the game than men. So I’m not creepy at all, okay?
I enjoyed all of the games, even the rubbish ones, but the first is my favourite for several reasons, but the biggest one is the sheer amount of fun stuff to do. The phone sex adlibs, the customised condom scene, the many Easter eggs that spring from the text parser, gambling, actually managing money (it’s like an immersive simulation!) and so on and so forth. The seventh game, which was a great send off for the series even though it wasn’t supposed to be the final game, came close to matching it, with the where’s dildo game, all the Easter eggs (most involving nudity), the optional text parser (sometimes it’s more fun typing commands), the scratch and sniff card and all that jizz. But there is something Larry 7 lacked that the original game had… HEART.
Okay, so at first the only objective is to sink Larry’s battleship, but after this is quickly accomplished with a rather unattractive hooker, it becomes a quest to fulfil the desire of Larry’s heart, not just his wing dang doodle. Really, it’s something I should have paid attention to when I first played it. In fact, I could have learned a lot from the first game. The embarrassment and awkwardness I’d feel when buying my first pack of condoms. It taught me that you should always dispose of condoms thoughtfully, and use them in the first place unless you want your penis to spontaneously combust. Now that I think about it, this game should be used in Sex Ed classes all over the globe.
It would have also been an early warning about women. Pursuing them would often leave you humiliated. They would often manipulate you to get what they want; only to dispose of you liked a soiled tissue once they got what they came for. They will lead you on only to reveal they have a boyfriend just when you muster up enough courage to ask them out. And just when you think you found the perfect woman, just when you think you found happiness, she will immediately dump you at the start of the next game.
Yes, I am bitter from a recent dumping, thank you for your concern.
At the end of Larry 3, the closure of what was originally intended to be a trilogy, Larry finally finds true love and receives a happy ending (not the massage kind). Here’s hoping this will turn out to be true to life, too.
Here’s hoping.
Here’s… hoping.
BONUS CONTENT:
A joke;
People in hell…where do they tell someone to go?
Additionally, someone has ported Sierra’s Jones in the Fast Lane to flash! It’s a satirical board cross time management game that occasionally just feels a little too much like real life. Can you keep up with Jones?