Our Video Game History Part VII

Every so often I lose whatever standards I have and flat out make fun of the awful PC games of yesteryear. And why shouldn’t I? I was stuck with these monstrosities because my parents never bought me a Nintendo. I was forced to play keyboard-based games that made me want to die painfully. And so, I bring them to you, so that we may find some kind of catharsis. This, ladies and gents, is the land of awful video games. FROM THE PAST!

My guess is that no one under the age of 50 bought this game, since it combines two things that only old people enjoy: bridge and Omar Sharif. Does bridge make sense to anyone? I mean, they print it in the newspaper but it always sounds like a murder mystery. “EAST takes two cards and looks knowingly at NORTH, who has dipped her hand to cover her nose. WEST smiles, passes a card to NORTH, who lights a cigarette and discards two. The air is smoky. No one talks of the war.” And why Omar Sharif? Was he getting so few sponsorship opportunities that when Interplay came knocking he immediately signed his name? “Once you get into the competitive world of electronic bridge, you’ll find yourself more confident, more methodical in your actions, and the ladies will flock to you like Omar Sharif. Hi, I’m Omar Sharif.”

Magic Johnson teaches children about the dangers of sitting on a termite mound. “It’s not about who can run faster, or jump higher, or who can sink that 3-pointer. It’s about knowing when your house’s structural integrity has been compromised, and the best ways to shore up saggy supporting beams. As Magic Johnson says, ‘Shore up, or get out!’”

This game was voted “#1 soccer game with a tubby British guy shouting in the background.” It has won every year since. Play in your council flat with a can of Heinz beans!

In an attempt to revive the steadily perishing Pac-Man franchise, Pac-Man was sent backwards through time by an evil wizard. Why? Because there were little dots to be eaten in the past. Because that’s all Pac-Man does. He eats dots. Why would a wizard give two farts about Pac-Man? How offensive does this yellow blob have to be to incur the wrath of a wizard who has the power to send him back through time? What the hell has Pac-Man been known for other than eating dots and running away from ghosts? And why would sending him to another point in time really make the repetitive game of running around a maze more interesting? Hint: that’s why it’s a value classic.

Buying armor of God is difficult. Buying armor of God when you don’t have shoulders is nigh impossible.

A hydrofoil simulator? Really? This couldn’t have been done just as easily with a boat? Because when you’re playing a little 2-D video game you’re not going to be sweating whether or not your 23 pixels that look like a rectangle is traveling on the water or above it. In fact, you should be sweating the money that went into purchasing this stupid game. Or the idea that your child chose this game over other, more relevant games in the store. “Honey, this one teaches you typing, and this one lets you be a king in a castle and…oh, you want the hydrofoil simulator. Great.”

The most graphic (and delicious!) representation of the Rape of Nanjing ever!

Take your hand and cover up the illustrated character on the left. Just look at the man screaming in agony and the gooey words “Pipe Mania.” Think for a while on this image. Now take your hand off the character on the left and put it over the screaming face. Does this image and title work better at selling the game to you? It does, doesn’t it? Now take your hand off the screaming face. Does that enhance your desire for this game? Or does it make you think of prison rape and only prison rape?

This is actually the sequel to Pirates, “Pirates II: Foppish Dandies Somehow Get Ahold of A Boat.” Did not sell as well as the first, but did have better cuffs.

From the makers of Naptime Adventure and SimBreathingOxygen comes Prime Time! You can yell at people! An activity normally reserved for interactions with living, breathing people has now been made more fun by becoming a video game! I assume though that to yell at someone you must enter a chain of commands that makes the spontaneous fun of yelling redundant. SHIFT + Y + –> + CTRL + R + ENTER = “Shut up!”

They say a good marketer can sell anything, but I have a hard time believing that “Israeli Crotch Attack Adventure!” sold any copies.

CAUTION: Quadrel is an untested game handed us by government agents. There may be side effects to playing Quadrel, including loss of lower extremities. In some extreme cases (as pictured on box), you may grow to enormous size, while your head aches. Not for use on Mac platforms.

Anytime your video game has a ninja on a motorcycle escaping from an explosion by heading into a herd of panthers who walk on two legs, it’s a sign that the game inside is going to suck big time.

LOLInvestors!

Inspired by LOLCats and the failure of our banking system, I give you the next phase in the LOL craze: LOLInvestors!

Buy this comic book! NOW!

Folks, I ain’t gonna lie to you. Well, not like I usually do. Usually I talk out my ass and get away with it because, well, I live in a nonextradition country. But for once, I’m going to come clean with you.

GI Joe may be returning big time.

“But Ethan!” you cry, “GI Joe’s been around for a long time and they keep making hit toys and comics and there’s this movie and everything! And we really like whining!” And you’re right on all counts. But now IDW publishing is doing something that I think has been overdue for a while: they’re restarting the GI Joe franchise.

GI Joe #0 came out yesterday and costs only $1, so you don’t have much of an excuse to not buying it (unless you live somewhere where literacy is outlawed - I’M LOOKING AT YOU, KANSAS). It’s three short tales to set up the three new Joe series, GI Joe proper, GI Joe: Origins, and GI Joe: COBRA, each done by the artists and writers of their respective series. The goal is to reboot the franchise, starting at the early days when the Joes and COBRA were still unaware of each other, leading into how the Joes were recruited, and possibly the same with COBRA (the short COBRA story in #0 has Chuckles infiltrating the organization).

And normally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about GI Joe. I adored the show as a kid but lost track of it right before the animated movie. Now there’s been so many changes to the teams and the storylines and whatnot that I couldn’t be bother with it. Especially when everything from the 1980’s until now was all considered part of the same story. And because they released figures that looked like this:

But this new start looks very, very promising. All three stories had great writing and amazing art and after each teaser I found myself saying, “I want to read more of this! This will make me happy!” I haven’t kept up with any Joe continuity, but at this point I don’t have to! It’s all new! It’s perfect for me, despite breaking some of my major rules:

1) I don’t like war comics/movies/stories/shadowplays/flipbooks, etc.
2) I don’t like series that start out with an enormous cast of characters
3) I don’t like jumping onto a series that has an extremely rabid fanbase stretching back two decades
4) I generally stay away from books based on toy lines (see also “Centurions”. Dear God, why do I even have that issue bagged and boarded? I got it in a sampler pack.)

But for the first time since little 7-year old Ethan purchased his first GI Joe figure, I’m excited about picking up more GI Joe stuff. The issue #0 was that good. And I recommend it highly to anyone who’s intrigued by GI Joe but has been on the fence about learning more at you local library.

Now don’t drop the ball on this one, IDW. I’m trusting you.

This week in Netflix: a Review

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week? Well, we have a few of them.

Sunday School Musical

When financial woes threaten their church’s future, a group of teens, led by one talented performer, enters a song and dance competition in hopes of winning a heavenly cash prize. Starring Candise Lakota as Savannah, this heartwarming and energetic Christian spin on the tremendously popular High School Musical franchise features 21 songs, including seven originals by composer Don Raymond. Rachel Goldenberg directs.

Financial woes. The old song and dance (ha ha ha) that has been known to organize kids into starting musicals. By doing a little bit of research (ie, looking for another synopsis), it looks like the church is going to be torn down. That’s right, a church is a little arrears on the rent, and the whole thing is going to be gone. That, to me, is next to impossible. If a greedy developer was trying to take over the land, the odds are that there would be huge legal battles involved with evicting and then demolishing a church. If they owe back rent, then the most expensive thing to do would be to tear it down - demolition costs cash, which is why you see churches for sale these days. And how dire is the financial situation if it can be solved by entering a talent show? The choices are come up with the money you win in a talent show OR LOSE EVERYTHING. Doesn’t add up.

Plus, if the church was important enough to save it should have enough support from the community/diocese/historic preservation to stay afloat. Otherwise the church folds but the congregation moves on to other things. Like a smaller, more affordable space. The church is people, not brick and mortar, it will survive wherever people take it. So this really is about kids who don’t want to lose a building that no one else is fighting for. What a great movie! No wonder this religious knock-off of a popular franchise only got 2 stars from Netflix, less than Curse of Alcatraz!

Half a Person

When Mark (Michael Majeski), a young gay man, and his straight best friend, Alex (Nigel Smith), leave their hometown for the big city, Mark exposes a self-destructive streak, while Alex must confront a painful secret from his past. But as they reveal more of their true selves, their hidden feelings for each other drive them to a decision that changes their lives forever. Adam Santangelo directs this sensitive coming-of-age drama.

Not much to say, other than I finally decoded the Netflix website. If a movie is called a “coming-of-age” anything, it’s really code for “and then I figured out I was gay.” Next movie.

Fiesta Grand

When Monica dumps her overbearing boyfriend, Rueben, and becomes engaged to sweet but poor James, her parents disapprove and scheme with Rueben to sabotage the engagement. Meanwhile, James’s pals are planning to throw a wild bachelor party that could land the groom in hot water. Can James and Monica navigate interfering relatives and well-meaning friends and actually make it to the altar? Josué Gutierrez and Lyanna Tumaneng star in this comedy.

Wow. A wild bachelor party that could land the groom in hot water. That sure makes for a fun twist. Wow. Can’t wait to see this, it looks stellar. Really breaks new ground.

Now imagine how different that paragraph would have sounded if I used exclamation points instead of periods. Now realize why I didn’t. It’s the problem of too many subplots. Why mention the bachelor party? How is this different than so many other awful wedding movies? And why did the one reviewer on the site give it 4 out of 5 stars and say it was “must see?” My guess is they were cast or crew, since Netflix gives it less than 2 stars.

Birds of America

With only his daffy neighbor (Hilary Swank) offering a diversion from his daily grind, Morrie (Matthew Perry) feels stifled by his suburban life and career. But circumstances change when he’s forced to reconcile with his younger brother and sister (Ben Foster and Ginnifer Goodwin). They resented him as a surrogate father when they were growing up, but now, their freewheeling ways just may be Morrie’s salvation. Daniel Eric Gold co-stars.

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Matthew Perry should take a break from his film career and give television a go.

Let’s swim to the moon

I keep checking out LPlover.com for some classic oddball albums and I’m going to keep posting some of the winners over here. Why? They funny! They make-a you laugh!

Except this one.

There is so, so much wrong with this particular album, entitled “To conquer the moon,” that I should be calling up the French League of Decency, except they don’t exist.

For starters, what’s being depicted on this cover? A large man taking a little boy past a launching rocket. Perhaps this man is taking the boy on a trip through the awesome world of space exploration, starting with a lunar rocket launch, much like a Disney World ride. It would kind of make sense then, although the child would be burned to a little cinder since they’re so close to the exhaust area of the rocket.

But what’s really going on? The man is much, much larger than the boy, which could be to show that he has the higher status on this cover. He looks angry, like he’s determined to get the kid somewhere and the rocket is just a distraction on their way to…wherever they’re going. “Stop looking that way, we’re going to the rest stop toilet.” Not only that, what the hell is he wearing? A real astronaut’s uniform has all kinds of gadgets on the front. See?

Tubes and valves and gauges. This guy on the cover is wearing coveralls with a cargo pocket, a collar, and two patches. He’s not an astronaut. It’s very obvious that this man made an astronaut-like suit so he could bait children with it. It really isn’t anything convincing, unless you’re at a shuttle launch with your folks and you expect to see NASA people walking around. He’s got a bulge in his pants that would put a pornstar to shame as well. And the launching rocket, well, that’s Freudian for ya. Sometimes a rocket isn’t just a rocket.

This boy is being abducted for sinister purposes. And it’s all captured on the cover of a French album about space exploration.

Found on eBay: Love

Every now and then I pop over to eBay and do a search for a very broad term, just to see what oddities come up. Today I did a search for “LOVE”. Let’s see what I found!

Native Baby Pouch Sling Papoose - Bundle with Love -NEW

If you can’t tell, it’s a little sling that looks like a duffel bag made in a third world country. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that it looks like Matthew McConaughey is endorsing this through his use of devil horns. I doubt that’s true, and if it was, is Matthew McConaughey really the face you want associated with your brand? He’s not well-known for being level-headed or clear thinking. The rest of the auction is filled up with about 50 pictures of other celebrities using the papoose, mostly Kerri Russell looking not interested.

Psychic love reading from Flora - unlimited questions

Bidders beware! You are not bidding on this fetching young(ish) lady! You are giving money for a phone call so she can talk to dead people for you! And then dead people will tell you about your love troubles! Don’t believe me? Here’s the description, the capitalization is hers (the dead are hard of hearing and she must yell):

MY NAME IS FLORA.

I FEEL SPIRIT FEELS EMPATHY, AS THEY HAVE ALSO EXPERIENCED THESE PROBLEMS, WHEN ON THE EARTH PLANE AND I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER YOU THE CHANCE TO USE MY INSIGHT AND SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE, IN ANY LOVE PROBLEMS YOU MIGHT HAVE.

Why limit yourself to love, Flora? If the dead are speaking through you, don’t they have better things to tell you than “tell him he’s going to meet a brunette”? This is our channel to God and what’s it being used for? Crush advice. You make me sick. And that’s even without reading feedback by her fans, one of whom is named “!galadriel!”

The Man Who Loves Women! - Dimples (CD 1994)

Dimples is a man who wants give you the sex thing. He’s not too skilled with design tools, as evidenced by his CD, and I’m guessing his grasp of English isn’t too hot, as evidenced by the Borat-esque title. To that end, I’d like to give his commentary for his track listings (ok, I’m making it up):

I Wish Mama Was Here Tonight!: A soulful ballad where I have sex thing with woman but I think of mother.
Don’t Turn Your Back On My Love: My love am here to stay, it will not go away on you with others. Okay!
Natural High: I get drink drunk on wine and sex thing.
I Do The Job: I work daytime at Payless, but I makes money to buying nice things for woman. I love woman!
Rainbow ‘95: I make mistake in Bangaladesh college in 1995 and go to wrong door for sex thing.
Good “N” Plenty: I will buy you candies if you having sex with me. I live two blocks away from drugstore.
I’m Hooked On Your Lovin’: Dimples is lonely man.
Meet Me Tonight!: Internet date is cute but she no email me so I propose meet tonight! Aha!
Freaky Lover: I have not met one of these, but I read about them in book.
You Can Have My Heart: I gave heart to woman in Bangaladesh college but she no go there and I cannot find her. I feel ashamed.
Sugar Boom Boom: This comedy song. Big hit at shows.
I Want Love In My Sex: I am not serious, I will take sex thing without love. I will pay money or pay off your student loans.
I’ll Try Something New: This is a Smokey Robinson cover.

Lee Middleton ” HONEY LOVE DUCK Green ” NIB

Last time I saw a doll with that face and the word “love” in its name, let’s just say it wasn’t for sale on eBay.

3-X SIGN LANGUAGE T SHIRT..I LOVE SIGN LANGUAGE

The setup and the punchline don’t work together. No one should be warning someone that they love something, especially something as benign as sign language. I could understand a shirt that said “WARNING! I love Hitler’s ideals and his book Mein Kampf!” or “WARNING! I love rubbing against girls on the train”, especially if it’s a part of a community service deal, but sign language? Maybe it’s warning people that you’re wearing a 3XL shirt and approaching you rapidly.

Jail Bait Bird PRISONER OF LOVE Costume S-M CONVICT HAT

This is a STRICT prison, if you’re not allowed to keep your head attached to your torso. “Prisoner of Love” my ass, Prisoner of Taliban more like it. One of the costume’s previous wearers is modeling this, but unfortunately she was caught outside after 4PM and well, you can see what happens to law breakers.

Stunning Mother’s Love oil painting by William Schimmel

This painting is being made available to people who live in an area where they can’t get this airbrushed on their van. This is, quite possibly, the ugliest thing i’ve ever encountered, and I’ve watched both the Elephant Man and the GG Allin biography. A snow leopard and cub in front of blue and red mountains and a moon floating underneath. Is this missing a band logo somewhere? Should there be a wizard in this?

Alas, Jonathan Kent

The news today made mention of Jonathan Kent, Superman’s adopted father, passing away in the pages of Action Comics. For a man who’s been around since before my grandparents were married, he’s had a good run of things, and the fact that he is violently killed by Brainiac one ups the usual assumption that he would die from old age. A good man down.

In tribute to this great adoptive father, I’m putting up a Superman meme that I put together a few months ago. Here’s the blank:

What can you do with it? Put one together and post a link to it in the comments section! Here are a few of mine:

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And I promise, when my home computer gets fixed I’ll put up my Baltimore Comic Con photos! I hate not being able to update!

Catchy tunes to get your feet a-tappin’

I found this little gem over at LP Lover and it was so odd that I needed to borrow it for Feed Me A Kitten (thanks!).

Things are laid-back on side one, where we talk about the Chairman and how he’s doing, as well as thinking we’re sunflowers. The sunflower is probably symbolic, but as I haven’t heard the album and the screechy kids who sing it, I’m going to let the matter drop. Then on side two, things get serious. Repudiation meetings! Growing stronger in the fight! Everything sung in unison! (which is appropriate) The killer hit, number 1 with a bullet, has to be “Criticize Lin Piao and Discredit Him Completely,” which I would almost expect to be covered by Rage Against the Machine on an upcoming album. Get out on the dance floor and sing in unison! Buy the cassingle! March with your friends!