Old News: Page Five
... To Johnny Cash. You remember Johnny Cash. He's our spokesman. Who died. Well, it's his birthday, and you know what? Even dead, he kicks more ass than most people I can think of offhand.
Work is going well on my latest review for the crazy game review section. I don't want to spoil anything, mind, but I'll give you a little teaser image. See if you can figure out from this image both what game it is and whether or not I liked it:
The first thing I want you to notice in that image is the Dragonball hair. Remember that when the Japanese can't think of anything new, they just rip things off from Dragonball. The second thing I want you to notice about that image is the large object just a bit to the left of centre. You do know what that large object is, yes? Now see if you can guess how much I liked the game.
So SSOD's own personal mystery glitch has returned with a vengeance, and I've no recourse but to wade into the mess of muddled keystrokes I laughingly call the combat system and see if I can maybe figure it out. Later, I mean. Right now I'm too busy shaking my head in wonder.
I know what you're thinking. "at what, Darien? Please enlighten your fellow man with your great wisdom and large manhood." No, admit it; you were thinking that. And who am I to disappoint? So here's the great wisdom part. I was shaking my head in wonder about this jail guard who got fired two years ago for making an insensitive remark about Osama bin Laden. He just won his lawsuit and got his job back, which is all fine and good. My problem is this: it took two years to happen. Somehow, this fucked up mess of a hypersensitive romper room we call the American legal system thought there was two years worth of possible arguing about this. I can solve it in sixteen seconds.
Those of you who were around at the time may remember two years ago as roughly when Osama bin Laden personally laughed and cheered as several of his crazed henchmen killed thousands of regular old Americans and destroyed some rather keen buildings in suicide dives because they were sold on the idea that they would get several nubile young virgin girls in return. This particular jail guard expressed his downright understandable dismay at this by commenting that perhaps, given the opportunity, he would like to throw something at Osama bin Laden. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not exactly the pinnacle of impropriety. It's even the sort of thing you could say with G - I - R - L girls around. I mean, it's not like it's a swear word, like shit, or a swear word that's also an ethnic slur, like shit-eating Arab, or a swear word that's also the name of a European country, like Shitzerland. So he lost his job for being offensive, on the grounds that, if Osama bin Laden happened to stop by the break room right then, he might have his feelings hurt. And it took the legal system two whole years to decide that, first off, the chances of Osama bin Laden happening to stop by right then were really pretty slim, and, probably more significantly, that if a guy declares that he hates and wants to kill you, your whole family, everyone you know, and everyone near you just for good measure, and on top of that actually tries to do it, and, on top of THAT, actually succeeds in killing up a whole bunch of people you may or may not know, and you call him a name or maybe even a name with a swear word in it, that's not entirely so far out of line after all.
I wonder how horny you have to get before you're willing to move to another country, learn to fly a plane, actually hijack a plane, and then slam it into a building in a suicide attack just because some guy promises you'll get laid if you do. Maybe there's something about being in the desert that gets people all worked up. Maybe it's just what desperate Muslims do instead of online dating services. After all, I don't really know much about their mysterious ways of life. Everything I know about Islam I learned from this amazing tract. Seriously, go read that. At least the first panel. The first panel of that could be shown by itself in one of those "Worst-case Scenario" books with the caption "how to make your own worst-case scenario." It's that good. Also, what is this moon god I hear about? If he's any relation to the earth goddess that's all the rage with the unpopular teenage girls these days, they're backing a hell of a loser.
Now don't everybody start with the religious tolerance thing. It's not like I don't tolerate different religions. Frankly, whatever name you want to append to the end of "oh my" is cool with me. I'm not exactly convinced that tolerance is something that applies to a situation in which one legitimately doesn't care, but, if it does, I'm hella-tolerant. And, if it doesn't, well, then I'm content with my non-intolerance. Sort of the touchy-feely political correctness kind of conscientious objector, except that it wouldn't exempt me from military service if the government needed my ninja arts to help combat the nutty Islams.
Which leads me to one thing that I am totally, unabashedly, positively intolerant of, which is people trying to blow my shit up. Sorry, but if you try to blow me up, I'm calling you names. I'd rather wreak ninja havoc all over you, but, let's face it, I'm the guy in those pictures up at the top of this page. I'm probably better suited to internet name-calling than I am to fighting guys tough enough that they live in caves in the desert. Guys deperate enough that they're willing to suicide-bomb expensive real estate because, hey, there's a chance they'll get some snatch that way. You think I can fight that? I can't fight that. I'm from a sensible country where we live in air-conditioned comfort boxes, and, before we get anywhere near that desperate, we can find some internet porn that's a better substitute for the real thing than is, say, hijacking aircraft.
That's the other thing I wanted to talk about. I was engaging in my legitimate research earlier today, and I don't know what happened. There was this mixup, and one thing led to another, and my screen ended up showing me these pictures of Alvin and the Chipmunks porn. I repeat for the benefit of those whose optic nerves refused that last sentence: Alvin. Chipmunks. Porn. Do not click here unless you hate your eyes. Seriously, don't. Just because I'm passing the pain on to you doesn't mean you actually need to take it.
So I guess what I mean is that I'm presently too shaken up by jihads and chipmunk porn to fix things. But I'm working on it.
In response to SSOD acting funny, I've reset it. If you notice anything not working properly, let me know about it. And if you want to play bug tester, try wandering around with a Syringe, Vial of Neurotoxin, and Pocket Mirror and killing people and look for anything odd that happens. That seems to be the easiest way of triggering the bug.
Two updates today? Will wonders never cease? If you look over there by where the poll is, you'll see a brand new entry for Recent Updates. That's where you'll find the last five updates to the site listed in an easy-to-reference fashion. Presently, the oldest three are pitifully far back (actually, I had to dip into the Old News to find the last one), but that won't necessarily be the case all the time. Note that layout changes like this one - along with any other updates that are purely front page or meta updates - don't get listed there. That's for updated or new features. Also, I'm redoing the layouts for the features to add navigation and things to them. So far I've done the easy ones: everything that's listed under "single-page humour" toward your left. If anyone wants to object before I do the rest of it, or send me praise and worship, that's the same e-mail address it's always been.
Now for the funny stuff. I see here this story about companies getting lots of money from other people because they hold overly broad patents on things that really shouldn't be patentable. This smells like easy money to me, so I hearby declare myself the holder of the patent on internet humour. Any time you want to say something funny on the internet, you owe me ten thousand dollars. Those of you who were repeatedly in violation in the past I'll let off easy: I'll forgive your whole debt to me for the paltry sum of one hundred thousand dollars. Apiece. So go ahead and Paypal your funny fees to darienkd@cox.net and I won't have to sue you. Not that I want to, mind; it's just that I have these hospital bills to pay. Also I have this burning desire to get rich without having to do any work for it, or even preferably without having to move from this chair.
And, no, I don't read the McNews. I got that link from somewhere else, I swear.
I've written another dynamic and culturally sensitive installment of the award-winning Heroes of Communism. Perhaps this will assuage the deprived Darien fans somewhat, as well as saving me from ninja attack. There's always the hope. If not, hey, I'm already in the hospital. At least hold off on the ninjas until I could theoretically fight back.
So I see Terry told everyone I died. That's not necessarily statistically accurate, since I am not, in fact, dead. As a matter of fact, I just woke up to find out that I've apparently been in a coma for the past three weeks or so. I finally convinced the nurse to let me use the computer so I could find out maybe who it was who allegedly hit me with the alleged blunt object. But maybe I should start with the beginning.
I discovered at the Christmas party that it's never a good idea to drink anything Dr. Wily gives you. The last thing I remember is taking a sip of the alleged ginger ale, then I wake up three weeks later in the hospital and neither my wife nor Terry is speaking to me. Terry's sister won't leave me alone, though. I don't know what's up with that. The hospital staff tells me that someone allegedly attacked me with a blunt weapon, but nobody seems to be able to pin down who it was or why. I'll look into that more when I can maybe get out of bed.
However, since I can get on this here interweb, I've finally reset SSOD, and this game will last for two weeks. Congratulations to Grishny, who won the last game. Also, this time, no registering multiple names just to kill yourselves off. If I catch you doing that, I swear to God I'll cut you. Bad.
Also congratulations to Thomas and Ross, who won the million-year-old cramagram contest. Get me some shipping information and I'll get you some prizes. If the nurse will let me.
So Darien didn't survive. That puts the count at... 1. Him.
Merry Christmas, all! Everyone here at pd.com is gearing up for the annual office party. It's sure to be a blast. I'll let you know the body count if I survive it.
Well, the results from the poll are in, and people seem to be largely in favour of adding more porn to pd.com. I'll get right on that, as soon as I figure out how to take naked pictures with my scanner. Speaking of manporn, Terry still hasn't finished that thing he's supposed to be doing, so I intend to beat him with a rake.
Also, Ghaleon's up to something. He won't tell me anything, but every time I walk past his office, he's in there cackling maniacally. I don't think there's any way this could be a good thing.
I'm back from my month-long sabbatical. What have I been doing all month, you ask? Singlehandedly winning the war on terror. Also enjoying my new Playstation 2 that I got for fifteen damn dollars. But I'm back now, so there should be stuff happening around here. Including that Heroes of Communism update my forum is demanding, and also fixing SSOD. But more on that in a minute. I'm going to blather for a while, and, if you read carefully, you may be able to find a few game reviews hidden in here. Possibly even a joke or two.
First, I would like to tell you all a story about Grandia II. I picked it up on the cheap at EB (since I needed games for my fifteen dollar PS2). I get home and I put it into the fifteen dollar PS2, and I pick "new game" from the menu, and I wait for it to start. Everything's all fine and good so far, yes? Trouble is, fifteen minutes later, I'm staring at pixellated models having a lovely little chat and I'm still waiting for my damn game to start. When I put a game in the game machine, it's not because I want to play a game later. It's because I want to play a game NOW. I mean, including the cost of the system, I spent thirty bucks to play this game. The least it could do is have the decency to start. I mean, I get that game designers are all hung up on long-ass intro sequences lately, but they can at least have the decency to do what they did with the intro sequences in the old days: print them in the manual. That way, I can experience the thrills and excitement of polygons chatting while I'm in the car on the way home to play the game, or, preferably, ignore it altogether.
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to offer my personal thanks to Konami for making it possible to skip not only the long-ass intro for Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, but also every single cinematic in the game. Also I would like to thank Konami for making the cinematics interesting enough and pretty enough that I actually watched them the first time through the game, and wasn't pounding controller buttons trying to activate a secret "skip bullshit" combo. But I would like to curse Konami for making the voice acting too good to make fun of this time around. Most of the time. But, hey, Symphony of the Night was better pretty much all around; it should have better bad voice acting, too. Also, a big round of curses to the people who designed Dark Cloud such that the opening cinematic can be skipped, but none of the others can. That's the worst kind of bait-and-switch, right there.
Anyway, back to Grandia II. Once the game starts - and it eventually does - it's pretty decent, except for the plot and the script and the characters and the voice acting and especially the low-res cinematics. But the gameplay is pretty decent. I just wish it didn't take so long to get to. So, note to game designers: in the wake of Dragon Warrior VII's goddamn THREE-HOUR-LONG intro sequence, you're not going to impress anybody with the length of time it takes to get into your game. And don't think you can get away with being cruel and requiring button-presses for the duration of your intro, either - Dragon Warrior VII did that, too. Basically, you've already lost the long intro contest. Now it's time to make a game. As a public service, and to illustrate my point, here's a classic example of the best kind of intro sequence, taken straight from the NES classic "Bad Dudes":
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?
Now that's a good intro. Succinct, but gets everything across. It tells you what the problem is: the president has been kidnapped. By ninjas. It tells you who the bad guys are: the ninjas. It tells you what the goal is: save the president. From ninjas. Then it inspires you to kick some ninja ass by asking that backhanded question about your badness. Am I a bad enough dude to save the president? You'll see how bad a dude I am, game. Why on earth would a game need more intro than that? I mean, the whole fifteen-minute intro to Grandia II could be replaced with one Bad Dudes-esqe screen of text that reads "Our hero is a freewheeling outlaw who can't stand authourity and especially God. Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" Just something to keep in mind for when Grandia III comes out. Unless it's already out, in which case pretend I said Grandia IV.
As for SSOD. See, there's one little problem with the game: it shouldn't still be going. It was supposed to end after a certain amount of time had passed, and then start over. But, in my rush to get the thing finished and opened and done with, I more or less completely forgot to write the part that does that. So enjoy your extra-long SSOD run while it still lasts; one of these days, I'll fix it so it works.
Reaction to the new layout and to SSOD has been surprisingly good. A pd.com fan by the unlikely name of "Wedgie" tells me that the new layout "rules," whereas a different fan by the similarly unlikely name of "Monkeyman" has declared me the most awesome human being in existence for making SSOD. So, in light of this being so well-received, I'm preparing to embark upon my next big project. With luck, it'll be done by the end of the year, but it's way more complex than SSOD, so we'll see. But, if I'm lucky, this should elevate my status to "more awesome even than most people who don't exist."
Lordy.
Check this out, huh? Major new layout change! I think it's downright sexy, myself. If you have any comments about it, let me know. Alternatively, you can let Terry know, but I don't think he cares. Not like I do.
In other - and probably more exciting - news, my sekrit projekt is now open! Click on the words Spaceship of Death to go find out what it is, and probably kill some people in the process. Any questions about SSOD should be sent to whomever you sent your comments about the front page to, probably with the same results.
I just thought I'd draw your attention to this:
Guess who won't be playing either of these games. That's right: anybody.
Dear Konami,
I never did actually get a PlayStation 2, as I was banking on the hope that nobody would ever release any actual PS2 games, and I would have no need for one. This is a plan that has served me well for the past several years. But I hear you've released your PS2 Castlevania game, thereby roundly spoiling my plan.
I figure this might be a good time to adress a problem I've encountered when playing these games. Now, don't get the wrong idea; I like the Castlevania games as much as the next guy. Okay, not if the next guy is this guy, or this guy, or especially these two, but it's safe to say that I like the Castlevania games as much as anyone who is not among the criminally retarded. It's just that there's this bizarre bug that seems to be common to every single game, and I can duplicate it if you would like a demonstration. Here's a screenshot:
You see what I mean? This happens in every single game, too. I'm playing along, having a great time, and all of a sudden I'm in a freaking clock tower. I would think maybe your playtesters would notice this sooner or later, yes? But the clock tower bug wouldn't be so bad, except for another bug that invariably shows up with it. Here's a picture of that:
I think you know what I'm talking about, and I eagerly await the news that these bugs have been fixed in Lament of Innocence. Since it's going to cost me an arm and a leg to play the game, it's the least you can do. Also, it would help atone for Castlevania 64. Though I'm not sure there's any amount of atonement that covers you for not only releasing Castlevania 64, but releasing it again under a different title a year later. Naughty, naughty.
With a subject like that, there's only one thing this update could possibly be about: the world's most popular website store. I have three exciting new pieces of junk to offer you today: a handsome journal with "hallo i am a teenager and i am talking about teh death" printed boldly on the cover, and an apron and golf shirt identifying themselves as official Super Buffet merchandise! Face it - you need official Super Buffet merchandise. And boy can we hook you up.
Suddenly I realise that, in my last update, I was so busy making snide remarks about Terry and the federal government (note to government watchdogs: COCAINE TERRORISM BOMB HEROIN KIDDY PORN) that I completely forgot to include any content. Instead of the apology matrix that I used to explain and atone for my shortcomings in the whole Terry profile debacle, I've decided to opt for simply overlooking it and plowing right ahead to the real point of this update, which is to inform the federal government that I intend to blow up several important public buildings in the name of Islam.
Just kidding! Really I want to let you all know what's going on here at pd.com these days. There's exciting stuff brewing around here, as we have two major projects that should be revealing themselves to you shortly. In fact, I'd say that the likelihood of both of them being ready within the next two weeks is at least as high as is the likelihood of my killing thousands of American citizens in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to throw off the tyrannical yoke of the damn gubmint (note to federal government: there's a running joke around these parts about how I never meet deadlines, see? So I'm not saying it's likely that I'll kill lots of people in a militant anarchist uprising, but, rather, that it's unlikely that I'll meet my deadlines. Do you see? I hesitate to refer to it as a "snowball's chance in Hell," as I know the current administration is both very anti-Hell and very pro-snowball, and I certainly wouldn't want to seem like some pro-Hell, anti-snowball, troublemaking radical). The first project is one that should take the journalism you've come to expect from perfectlydarien.com in a totally unexpected direction. I won't spoil the unexpectedness by telling you which direction that is, but I will say that we here at perfectlydarien.com are journalistic crusaders. When the news media stupefyingly reported that Final Fantasy VIII was "not as good as Final Fantasy VII, but should appeal to people who like it," we were the only source to rip that can of doublespeak apart and tell you the straight truth: FF7 sucked nuts, FF8 sucks more nuts. We were the only media outlet brave enough not only to complain about societal decay, but to point fingers and blame people for it while providing what illiterates may be tricked into thinking is research supporting that claim. Also, when the rest of the world's media came down on us for posting a scathingly negative review of Morrowind sans ever having played the game, we stuck to our guns. And the media shut up after finally playing it and realising what we knew all along: that we were right anyhow.
What I'm getting at with all this is that I can't really claim that pd.com is a bastion of journalistic integrity, since I never finished FF8, never started Morrowind, and faked all my research for the decay thing. But what I can claim is that pd.com is a bastion of journalism correctness. In fact, we're so good at being right that we don't even need to know what we're talking about and we're still right. I've more or less lost track of the point of all this, since I rather got distracted by telling you all how great I am, but it probably had something to do with the upcoming crazy new journalism-type feature. No more hints, though; I've already spoiled the fact that everything we say will be God's own truth (note to federal government: except any bits that may accidentally sneak in about possible drug trafficking, terrorist affiliations, illegal violation of copyright and especially illegally insensitive attitudes toward the chinks and darkies), and I'm not going to tell you anything more.
The other big thing I've already mentioned, and it's the secret project I'm sure you've forgotten I was working on. It's very close to being unveiled, and I guarantee it will revolutionise the entire internet, except of course for the parts that ensure that everyone obeys the law like all right upstanding American citizens do. That part is already perfect and requires no revolutions whatsoever, especially armed and violent. Speaking of which, the term "armed and violent" relates directly to the upcoming secret project. How? Remember how in that movie from the eighties the kid thought he was just playing a computer game but he was actually killing millions of people? Well, it has nothing to do with that. Honest.
Please shut up and die.
Love,
Terry
I would like to apologise on behalf of the management of perfectlydarien.com - me - for the lies, damned lies, and everything I said that Terry was bitching about. He's exactly right - his profile was way wrong. Just to emphasise how much of a shit I really am, I will now provide a detailed list of everything I got wrong. And, because pointing the finger of blame is only half as good as pulling the finger of making everything better, I will also provide corrections.
I hope that clears that up. Again, I'm sorry. Anything I can do to make this up to you, please let me know.
While we're on the subject of lies, it's been pointed out to me that the famous photo of Super Buffet on the moon has also been printed, by respectable news media, without Super Buffet visible anywhere in the shot. This is yet more proof that NASA never landed on the moon in the first place. When will the government stop lying to us?
Questions, comments, suggestions, or insults? Send them right along to darien@perfectlydarien.com
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