Love and Death in Skyrim

Back in early December, Tracy Allvis gave me a six-month anniversary (semianniversary?) present - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for XBox360. Now, I had never played an Elder Scrolls game before. I had heard through various geeky channels that Skyrim was a massive, gorgeous fantasy RPG with insane customization and a nearly infinite world of places to go and things to do. I'd also heard it was thoroughly addictive. Tracy was told as much when she purchased the game for me, warned she would become a "Skyrim widow", one of many significant others of nerds who found more and more of their time spent in Skyrim (the name of the continent on which the game is set, as well as the subtitle of the game itself).

The rumors were right. This game is ENORMOUS, and it is extraordinarily addictive. While I am able to limit my play time enough to not shirk work or boyfriendly duties, I have nonetheless logged many, many hours of my free time into Skyrim in the past couple of months, and have really only done 1/4 to 1/3 of the things to do in this game. This is partially because of the sheer amount of stuff to do, but also because of the way the game gives you minimal prodding to do anything in particular. If I want to spend 20 minutes trying to glitch-hop my way up a mountain for no reason, the game lets me. If I want to run around stealing food items and cooking them into different food items, I can. What's that? Dragons are attacking and there's a civil war and the world is in jeopardy? Sorry, no time for that, I'm trying to catch this firefly now.

As part of the immense openness of the game, there are numerous NPC's with whom you can form various relationships. Including romantic relationships. In Skyrim, I am a married man. This is hilarious. Not because marriage is inherently hilarious (it's not), nor even because video game marriage is inherently hilarious (it is), but because this game's conception of romance is ludicrous. Here is my tale of hearts intertwining (photos are not screencaps of my actual game and characters, but rather shots pulled from the web that were close enough).

My wife is a merchant. I like her because she has red hair and is not racist to the cat people. When we met, she was having trouble finding mammoth tusks. I found her some mammoth tusks. From that point on, every time I saw her in town, she would flirt with me and/or buy Sleeping Tree Sap from me. Later, I bought a necklace at a church in a different town. The next time I spoke to her, while wearing the necklace, she pretty much immediately asked me if I wanted to ask her to marry me. Just like that. I went back to the other town, set up the ceremony, slept at an inn until it was time, and headed to the church.

Ysolda, AKA the future Mrs. Remus the Breton

It was time for the wedding. About 10 real-world minutes after the engagement. Which occurred after a grand total of probably 15 interactions, most of them business. Here is what I wore to the wedding:

I spent hours crafting and enchanting this shit, like I'm gonna take it off for some WEDDING!

But I decided it all felt a little... forced. It was all happening too fast. I needed some tradition. I needed a Best Man. And who better to be my Best Man than my constant quest companion/servant/carrier of heavy stuff. Her name is Lydia. Lydia has cleaved more heads with axes to protect me (even when I don't want her to) than I can count. And sometimes I shoot her with my magic bow by accident when she runs in front of me and then she dies and I curse and reload my last save file. Because I am progressive and awesome, I am OK with a woman being my best man. This is what Lydia wears, and indeed, what she wore to the wedding:

Darth Vader + Boobs = My Best Man

But I couldn't find her. I don't know where she was. She usually is directly behind me, especially when I've entered a tiny room and want to back out of the door, wondering what me SPRINTING in place in her direction means in terms of whether she should move or not. But on my wedding day, the most important 3 minutes of my life in Skyrim so far, she was nowhere to be found. I knew she wasn't dead, just missing. Maybe she was jealous I was marrying another woman after she'd literally died for me repeatedly and hauled a metric fuckton of heavy dragon bones all over the continent for me. Fair enough. I'd need a different best man, though. Lucky for me, I am a conjurer:

SAY "YICE" TO THE ICE!!! BEST MAN #2!!!

OK, I had my 2nd string Best Man, it was time to get married. So I got married. There was like a 60-second scene of a priest guy talking, then we were married. There were some rings. My wife asked if she wanted me to move in with her or vice versa (she moved in with me, I had too much stuff to move out). And it turns out Lydia did come to my wedding, she must have been in the back, giving her tacit approval to my happiness without her (she is still my battle partner/servant/quest friend). Now my wife lives in my house and gives me money sometimes and cooks meals if I ask. I don't know if we've consummated our marriage, the game is fuzzy on that detail.

But not all in Skyrim is love(ish?) and roses (I have not seen a single rose in this game, to my knowledge). Sometimes life events are of a harsher nature. One time, I stole a horse. Well, stole is kind of a strong word I guess. I stole him for somebody else, along with some pedigree papers or something. I think he was stolen to begin with. I don't know, I just follow the arrows on the map. Anyway, when I went to bring Frost (that is the horse's name) back to the guy who wanted me to steal it, an option came up to persuade him to fuck off and let me keep the horse. That sounded good, so I tried that. And then Frost was my horse.

Death on four hooves

Frost was a great horse, and rather than run from danger, he would actively assault my foes. The best was when I was hiding and firing arrows into a fort, trying to snipe off enemy bandits, and then Frost took off. I thought he was running away. Quite the opposite. He ran into the fortress. I got worried. Then I saw him, on the battlements, kicking the shit out of an enemy. He ran INSIDE AND UP THE STAIRS to mess dudes up for me. That is a true horse friend.

Sometimes Frost died too, and I would reload and save him. But recently, the magical college in which I am enrolled went all wonky and the neighboring town was attacked by magic ghost comet things. I forgot I had left Frost in the town, and when I rushed back to fight these dudes, which were FAR harder to kill than they looked, I noticed like half of them weren't there in the town (I had to kill 10, 5 were unaccounted for). I followed my radar thing to the road out of town.

Frost was bravely, desperately fighting all 5 of them himself. It was a hopeless battle, and he fell. It had been way too long since my last save, so I finally opted to not reload to get him back. I was sad, and I mournfully avenged my loyal horse warrior by destroying the magic ghost comets with a vengeance. RIP Frost, you died as you lived: kicking the living shit out of bad guys.

Oh, but the messed up part? When I checked his corpse to make sure he was really gone, the game gave me the option of removing one horse hide from his inventory. "Where was he carrying a- oh, no. No way." I opted not to skin my horse friend. His body lies in state, frozen and ageless on the road out of Winterhold. I'll visit some time and try to set up a shrine of dropped belongings. This is what passes for respect for the dead in Skyrim.

Snow Time Like the Present

As I look outside, there is more white stuff coating everything than even in the ending of Ghostbusters (you are welcome for that clean yet witty punchline). I know I am getting older because snow is finally starting to feel more like a curse to me than a blessing. I think how much a person likes snow is directly proportional to the amount of driving they're required to do in it. Oh to be 8 again and have snow mean no school, making forts, and drinking hot chocolate. I'd like to take a few moments to reflect on some snow-related things that come to mind, be they good, bad, or other. Without further ado, here's some snowstream-of-consciousness.

Ice Cream - Ice cream is basically snow evolved. Temperature? Same. Texture? Similar. Flavor? + 1,000,000. Some people think it's not fun to eat ice cream in the winter. If you barbecue over an open flame in the summer, why not eat freezing cold ice cream in the winter?

Ice Planet Hoth - The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. I know Star Wars and Return of the Jedi have their fans, and some blind idiot somewhere must be standing up for the prequel trilogy, but really, Empire is unassailable. Part of the charm of this movie is the opening sequence set on a frozen planet where the rebels have holed up. The battle with the Imperial Walkers, the Luke vs. Abominable Snowman sequence, the infamous Tauntaun makeshift sleeping bag (I make references to that ALL THE TIME)... it's just so memorable! And I'm not even particularly a Star Wars geek. A movie geek, yes, which is why I can geek out about Star Wars to some extent, but this isn't fanboy talk. Just sayin'.

Video Game Snow Levels - This is really a mixed bag of a category. Snow/Ice levels in video games tend to either be some of my absolute favorites or absolute hell. I find a direct correlation between how much "slidey" physics a game throws in and how much I want to throw a controller at the screen. My favorite snow level is the Ice Country area of Secret of Mana, which I've referenced before, in no small part thanks to the music which I find so soothing as to be near-therapeutic, as well as the crystal trees that gently change colors. I also like the Ice Cavern in Ocarina of Time despite the "slidey" floors. And I remember really liking the Snowfield area of Final Fantasy Adventure for Game Boy.

Skiing - I have not had the appropriate combination of time, money, and motivation to go skiing for several years now, but I used to love it. In theory, I still do. It's a sport where I don't have to feel like I'm constantly overheating, and it's a chance to move fast, really fast, when I'm more used to moving kinda slow. I used to go to a mountain in Canada every year during February break with my dad's mom's side of the family (The McDormand clan, which was my grandmother's maiden name before she became Lavinia Thirty, and later Lavinia Kodiak). I've got some very good memories of bombing down the slopes with my cousins, and hope to be able to get back into skiing again at some point.

That one shot from the first Lord of the Rings film - I love the Lord of the Rings films and books, and even the occasional video game. Within the film trilogy, there are numerous shots that are absolutely visually stunning, for any number of reasons. Sometimes it's because of the intricacy of the set work, or the expressions of the characters, or the excitement of the action. But my favorite shot in the entire trilogy is a very simple one. It's the shot, as the Fellowship approaches Caradhras the snowy mountain, of the ring on its chain, lying on the snow, having just been dropped by Frodo, who fell over. This is it, or close enough to it.

Woolly Mammoths - Or Mastodons. Either or. In any event, it has been a constant disappointment to me that they aren't around. I can distinctly remember times where I'd think about mammoths, then have the conscious thought, "and there aren't any of them." And then feel sad. BUT!!! Scientists are working on cloning them and having modern elephants carry them to term! In possibly as little as FOUR YEARS we may be a world that once again hosts my favorite ice age animal!!! SO. FREAKING. PUMPED.

Snow Days - They were awesome as a kid. Stay home, play in the snow, hang out... it was great. But as an adult... yep, still awesome.

Christmas - I know. I know I'm agnostic. I know I don't like most Christmas music. I know I don't like most Christmas movies, or Christmas television episodes. But I love Christmas. I really do. Just because I don't like much of what comes along with it doesn't mean I don't dig the holiday itself. And blame Irving Berlin (who I hope just liked snow and wasn't in fact a massive racist), but I associate the holiday with snow, which is one of the things that comes along with Christmas that I am A-OK with.

The Yeti - Probably not real. But would be cool.

One Particular Part of Driving in the Snow - In general, I hate driving in the snow. Even moreso sleet and other precipitation of the "Wintry Mix" variety. But I've always like the look of driving at night, when the snow is falling but not too heavily, of zooming into the snowflakes. It gives the feeling of flying into a starry night sky, and that's pretty damn cool.

The Sound - I really like the sound snow of moderate consistency makes when walked upon. The crunchy sound. Especially if it's otherwise quiet around.

Hostess Snowballs - I don't really like them that much, but they're OK I guess. I always liked Twinkies and Cupcakes better.

(Ant)Arctic Animal Species - Polar Bears, Snow Leopards, Walruses, Seals, Arctic Foxes, Penguins... some of the coolest animals are cold weather animals. As above, soon to be added to this list: WOOLLY FREAKING MAMMOTHS.

OK, that's enough for now. Stay warm, folks!

Maybe 1 Person Will Find This Interesting (And That's Rounding Up)

When I was in 3rd grade, I got a very special birthday gift from a very special uncle. That uncle was Hulka, whom you may remember from, uh, like every other post on this blog. That gift was a Nintendo Game Boy. I remember it now: the olive green screen, the gray brick-like shape and weight, the mountains of batteries it killed... I loved that Game Boy. I loved it for years and years.

My cousin Sarah Thirty had gotten one about a year before me, and had a few games. So, naturally, we'd trade and try each others' games out. One game in particular that she had stood out to me. The label on the cartridge had a picture of a sword on it. And the gameplay... holy crap, it was like Zelda! It was like Zelda, but with more weapons besides swords, and with partners who followed you around! This game blew my mind. It was called Final Fantasy Adventure. Sarah didn't particularly care for it, she had too much trouble finding Bogard at the falls (the first objective). When I found ol' Bogard, she was impressed and offered to let me borrow the game for a while, since I seemed to be more into it than her. I played that game like an obsessed madman until I finally had to give it back. I needed more. I begged my parents for the next gift-giving holiday to include a copy of Final Fantasy for Game Boy. I got my wish on Christmas. I got double my wish.

Unbeknownst to me, there was more than one Final Fantasy for Game Boy. On that Christmas morning, I shredded wrapping paper to find not just Final Fantasy Adventure (the green box one), but Final Fantasy Legend II (the blue box one). Also Jeopardy! which I found difficult to type answers for using a D-Pad and two buttons, and played maybe 5 times. (Still, 2 out of 3 were and are all-time classic favorite games, so thanks Mom & Dad!) So Final Fantasy Adventure was a known quantity, and I focused my attentions on it first. And I played the hell out of it. I took a few minutes to try starting up Legend II, but it didn't play at all like Adventure. I couldn't use any weapons, and instead of enemies showing up on the screen, I'd walk around and the screen would flash and go to a "battle screen" where I'd have to choose my actions from menus. What the hell? Back to Adventure, the Zelda-style action-RPG. Eventually though, I found my way back to trying "the blue one" for real.

Reader, I married him. ... Yes, I just quoted the book I hate more than just about any book I was ever forced to read. I love(d) this game THAT MUCH.

This is the game that cut my teeth on RPG turn based battles, and what a long strange trip it's been since that point. But this game was SO NEAT in SO MANY WAYS. To start, you pick your character from a list of 8 character types: a male and female Human, a male and female Mutant, a Robot (a freaking robot!), and three different Monsters. Each type of character plays differently, and within moments you get to choose 3 characters from the same list to round out to a team of 4. You can double/triple/quadruple up, too. Lots of combinations to try!

So to run the types down, Humans are a basic character type. They use items and weapons and get stronger by participating in battles (I learned the hard way that this means running from as many battles as possible means you have weak-ass humans by not far into the game). Mutants also get stronger by battling, but more slowly than humans. This is offset by the fact that they randomly learn up to 4 special abilities, which are either innate (like preventing enemies from sneak attacking) or rechargeable (like fire magic). The rechargeable thing is important because weapons have finite uses before "breaking". So the male human's starting sword, for example, gets 50 uses before it's gone. That mutants have abilities that can recharge by staying at an Inn is a real economizer.

Robots (and can I just tell you how effing delighted I was at that age to have a robot on my team!?) grew in a really neat way. Equipping weapons and armor to robots increased their raw stats. They didn't need to battle to get strong, they just needed to hold your best stuff. And when they equipped weapons, the number of uses remaining got halved (ouch!) but they could recharge at an Inn, just like mutants' abilities. So instead of 50 shots from the basic gun of the game, I got infinite shots, but no more than 25 before needing to recharge. Again, this was a real economizer and made rare one-or-two-in-the-whole-game items stick around much longer.

Monsters grew in an even more interesting way. The monsters you could have on your team were the same as the enemy monsters of the game. Same stats, same abilities, everything. Basically whenever you fought a monster, there was a chance it would leave behind its meat (somehow, even skeletons, ghosts, flowers, and viruses [amongst others] left meat). Eating that meat transformed your monster into a new monster (through a complex table that is unexplained in the game and confused me to no end as a kid). It wasn't foolproof, but generally eating a stronger monster's meat made your monster transform into a better one. Learning certain patterns in this meant you could wind up with a monster on your team several worlds ahead of the ones you were fighting. This kicked an ass or twelve.

Uhhh, is it clear I was really into this game? The story was pretty awesome for a Game Boy game. Basically there was a network of worlds all connected to one larger "Celestial World" by giant pillar-like vines. You'd go from world to world solving crises and looking for shards of a statue of an ancient goddess, trying to track down your lost father. Various non-player characters would join your team temporarily (including that selfsame father!) as the story required. Usually they were awesome help in battles.

Here comes my favorite part about it all. I was a mythology nut as a kid, and I still love those stories. This game weaved several world mythologies into itself. You're not the only one looking for the pieces of the ancient goddess statue. New Gods, seeking to bolster their own growing power are on the hunt as well. I hadn't heard of Ashura before, but Venus? Yeah, I'd heard of her. Odin? Yeah. Apollo? Check. (I guess technically his pre-translation name was Apollyon, the Greek spelling of Abaddon, the demon of christian mythology, but as far as I knew, it was Apollo, Greek/Roman light god). This game required me to KILL GODS. Not just made-up, in-game gods. These were gods I'd heard of. Even the final-stage monsters were gods or epic legendary monsters. And the ones I hadn't heard of, I was so curious about! It gave me tons of leads to learn more about different mythologies.

Good lord did I love this game. At one point I was even working on the novelization of the game. OK, it was fan-fiction, but really, this was pre-internet and I didn't realize this would eventually be commonplace and ridiculed. So yeah, after my initial obsession with it, I'd still go back and replay it every few years. The advent of the internet shed light on all the hidden mechanics of the game for me to go back and retry. ("Ohhh, so this is how to know ahead of time what monster I'll transform to!") I've long lost the cartridge, and even if I hadn't, by now I don't have that old Game Boy, or any player compatible with it. But by George there are emulators now! And I'll be damned if FFLII wasn't one of the first ROMs I downloaded when I learned about emulators (and no, it's not even gray area illegal, since I owned the game legally before downloading. Well, THIS game anyway...).

Now, nostalgia put away, it wasn't a perfect game. There's a lot of game mechanics that really should be better explained in-game, but aren't. Some things are glitchy. I mean, it happens. Such is the nature of older games and their limited programming space. But there are other issues, such as gameplay balancing. There are too many abilities, particularly monster attacks, that are clones of other abilities, just with different names, leading to very little actual meaningful variety between early-game monsters. And a lot of the monsters are just plain useless compared to others. Rotate between the fairy, eye, medusa, ghost, and maybe slime classes and you're all set. It's nice to know how to power through the game, but it lacks variety. Human and mutant stat growth is random and slow. So yeah, flaws.

About a year or two ago, Square-Enix announced a Nintendo DS fully enhanced rebuild of this game. I was PSYCHED. I sifted through the internet for information, images, music from the new release. Seeing my old pixelated monochrome buddies in color and 3D filled me with oddly powerful nostalgia. The Japanese release came and went. Surely they'd announce the US release soon. Surely. ...surely?

... please?

Still no word on if that'll ever happen (I still hope it does). But two very interesting things have happened for me and this game recently. 1) I got an Evo 4G. It runs Android. Android has an app store. The app store has emulators. Miss Susie went to Heaven, the Steamboat went to... um, anyway. After years of having to play this game boy classic chained to a desk (WHAT IS THIS COMUNISTS RUSHIA AM I RITE?), I can take this game handheld, like it was meant to be played. 2) There are a few folks on the internet who apparently loved this game as much as me. Actually more. And they have programming skills. I just downloaded a hacked, patched version of the game that seems to fix most of the flaws, adds variety and difficulty, and even does cosmetic touches like allowing longer names (originally 4 characters max).

I am back on that Christmas morning, with my brand new Game Boy Final Fantasy. The other, blue one. A whole new, harder version of the game I've loved for years awaits me. It is new and old, mingled together. Nostalgia and novelty. ... Why yes, I am 27, chubby, and single, why do you ask?

I know I rambled on this one, guys. To those of you who read this blog for funny stories (80% of my readers, or 1.6 people, if you do the math out), I apologize. Actually, you probably stopped reading several walls of text ago and I can say awful terrible things about you, your mother, and other loved ones. But I wont. To the remaining 0.399 of you who stuck through this, thanks for bearing with me! And to the 0.001 of you who can relate, or maybe even loved this game yourself... let's hang out and be best buds forever.

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

I enjoy things. Not all things. Some things. And some things more than other things. This is, as far as I can tell, true for just about everyone. And what with all people sharing certain common physiological and neurological traits, the continuum of enjoyment of things tends to map out fairly consistently across individuals, at in broad senses. For example, most people would place "uncontrollable vomiting," "being stabbed in the face," and "smelling a bus full of dead cats" in the "not enjoy" category. I'd wager nobody who ever existed would have all three of those NOT be in the "not enjoy" category. Most people would place "eating delicious food," "belly laughing," and "having really good sex" solidly in the "enjoy" category. These are like, universal human constants.

However, there exists an immeasurable plentitude of sensations/experiences for which, to co-opt a popular phrase, your mileage may vary. These are the little things in life that, for reasons known or unknown, we enjoy (or maybe not enjoy) significantly more than other people seem to. Listed here for your reading pleasure (or not - your mileage may vary (see what I did there?)) are some of those life's special pleasures for me, in no particular order.

• New Socks - I did a whole post about this several years ago, before the big hiatus and reboot of the blog. Basically, wearing new socks feels really good. No sock will ever feel as good as on its first wearing. On mornings where I get to put on brand new socks, I smile.
• Driving in the HOV Lane - It rarely makes any difference at all in terms of getting where I'm going more quickly, but when I have a passenger and an opportunity to travel in an HOV Lane, 8/10 times I take that chance. Something about getting to drive in a lane that I'd sometimes not be allowed to drive in feels awesome. Like taking a secret road to the Batcave or something.
• Using Parentheses (sometimes) - If you read this blog, you already know this about me. In fact, the more grammatically inclined amongst you (what up, dorks?) may find it irksome. Especially just now. I like doing it though. It makes me feel like I'm writing a little secret message to you, the reader. Like the rest of the body of the text is general admission, but what's in the parentheses, well, that's just between us. And FYI, I'm grammatically inclined like you wouldn't believe, and I've got test scores to prove it, son, so don't be thinking you out-grammar me just because you're a hater.
  
• Coldsandal - So my car has the A/C blow in the foot area as well as out of the dashboard vents. Well, not just the A/C I guess, it's an option for ventilation of any temperature. But only the A/C applies here. Basically, when I wear my sandals and drive, I like to take my right foot out of the sandal to work the pedals. Keeping it on feels imprecise. Sometimes the left foot wanders out too, but that's just for the sake of luxury. In the summer, with the A/C on, something delightful happens. When my foot is out of the sandal, the sandal, with the A/C blowing right on it, gets cold. When I eventually put my foot back in, it is a magical feeling, my friends. Like, new socks magical. Sometimes my feet are lucky.
• Lies that are the Literal Opposite of the Truth - I don't know why I find this hysterical, but when a person or fictional character tells a lie that is a flat, obvious contradiction from reality, I find it hilarious. Not just any lies, specifically lies that couldn't be further from the truth. They must be told with utter confidence to be funny too. Sometimes I like to do this to answer really obvious questions that I've gotten tired of hearing: "It's cold out, are you really wearing shorts?" "No."
• Eating Chicken - Full stop.
• Singing Along with Non-Vocal Parts of Songs - It's not just me. It's apparently a "Lebowski" trait. At least Jaja's habit of announcing the song lyrics right before they're sung didn't propagate as well.
• Bridges - Particularly ones for walking on, although ones for driving on can be cool too. There's something I really like about walking on a wooden foot bridge though.
• Icy Crystal Tree Phenomenon - I think that when deciduous trees with thin branches at high altitude have ice completely coat the branches so the tree looks like it's made of crystal, it is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I've tended to run into this on higher trails while skiing or on the ski lift. This, combined with the super clear air at the top of a mountain makes it one of my favorite places in the world on a cold but clear day. By extension of the crystal tree phenomenon, I've consistently spent inordinate amounts of time in the Ice Country area of Secret of Mana for the SNES every time I've played through it. Check this video from about 8:52 in if you're not familiar. God I love that tranquil song...

There's plenty other things I enjoy probably more than most other people do. But those are some random good ones. If you feel like commenting, post a few of your own!

NES Nightmare Fuel

Like so many people in my age cohort, I had the pleasure of having my childhood years coincide with the explosion of the video game industry. While my loving parents, Steven and Diane Thirty successfully kept video games out of our home until I got a Nintendo Game Boy in the third grade, I had been playing them for years prior to that, courtesy of my dear uncle Hulka and his stepsons Jimmy and Charlie Easterbreak. Hulka actually spent a few years working for a local video game story that was actually (unknown to him) a front for a media pirating racket. Hulka got tons of games through this position, and Jimmy, Charlie, and I reaped the benefits.

However, video games aren't all fun and... uhh... games. At least not when your age is in the single digits and fear is a still a difficult emotion to regulate. There are scary games today. They tend to try to be scary, sometimes to awesome effect (What up Resident Evil and Bioshock?). Old video games, if they were terrifying, were often terrifying without particularly trying to be so. Their anxiety was more one of a feeling of impending, inevitable death at the hands of some relatively cartoonish looking creature.

I would like to share with you today a rogues gallery from my young childhood, a veritable who's who of my most hated and feared 8-bit nemeses. Those of you of comparable ages to my own, be warned, this could trigger long-buried anxieties. Without further ado, here are the five NES-era video game baddies that taunted, tortured, and traumatized me more than any others.

#5 - Duck Hunt Dog

Alright, this guy would be higher on the list for the sheer amount of hate he caused me to spew, but I wasn't actually afraid of this dog from Duck Hunt. I hated him. I hate him still. This smug god damn dog would act like my friend, eager to help me shoot some ducks. But when I inevitably eventually missed one or two, he would laugh at me. He would laugh at my failure, giddy with contempt. A boy can only take so much of this before he turns his NES Zapper on his faithful four-legged companion. But wait. What's this? Oh dear god. Dear god in heaven. YOUR FIREARMS ARE USELESS AGAINST HIS DICKISHNESS! The only thing to be done was eventually to turn off the NES through tears of frustration. God damn you, dog. God damn you to hell.

#4 - Dodongo

Dodongo, a level boss and later mid-boss in the Legend of Zelda, wasn't really that terrifying. Look at his picture. He's just a little yellow triceratops. But beating Dodongo took careful timing. You had to place bombs directly into his mouth (or apparently you can stun these guys with bombs that explode NEAR them, then hit them with your sword. I did not know this as a child). Getting the timing on this right as an adult is tricky but not that bad. As a child, coupled with a genuine desire to not screw up at Zelda in front of my beloved uncle, getting that timing right was awful. 3/4 of the time, I wouldn't even fight Dodongo. I'd wander around the dungeon, putting it off, until finally giving the controller to Hulka and begging him to just beat this one part for me. This strategy was also useful for the #2 foe on the list.

#3 - Baron Von Blubba

When I was really young, I loved Bubble Bobble. In nursery school, we made an "All About Me" book that was a cross between a scrapbook and a yearbook, and my favorite song is listed as "The Bubble Bubble Song" because my nursery school teacher didn't know what a Bubble Bobble was. There was a restaurant in my town that had a Bubble Bobble arcade game. I loved that game so much. But there was one problem with Bubble Bobble. Taking too long to beat a stage caused the game to generate an invincible, deadly, and scary looking enemy: Baron Von Blubba, the ghost whale. Nothing can hurt him. Nothing can stop him. He will chase you until you finish the level or die at his ghastly white flippers. This was so much worse than just dying when a timer ends. Here you had the faintest glimmer of hope for escape and a grinning death's head cetacean ripping that glimmer out of your 5-year-old hands. If I knew who Captain Ahab was at age 5, I would've understood him. White whales are trouble like whoa.

#2 - Queen Medusa

I don't know why, but the Medusa boss in Castlevania earned the name Queen Medusa in the American manual for the game. Maybe because she was the queen of the lesser-but-still-unbelievably-frustrating Medusa enemies. Whatever. I don't know what it was about Queen Medusa's grinning, snake-haired head that filled my heart with ice and stopped my brain in its tracks, but she did just that every time I neared the end of level 2. I would literally stop advancing down the hallway to the battle against her for minutes at a time, trying desperately to think of a way to keep playing without having to face her. Maybe it was something about the way she moved in those sinuous arcs, maybe it was the perfectly cast sinister smile on her face, but Queen Medusa reduced me to the scared little child I was, leading to me begging Hulka to "please just beat her for me!" I would even leave the room when Hulka was playing while he fought her. Hulka put up with a lot. I owe you one, buddy.

#1 - Phanto

I do not have a good track record with floating heads that smile evilly. Medusa may have been the queen of my video game nightmares, but Phanto was king. Phanto appeared in several levels of Super Mario Bros. 2. His gimmick was to appear as a simple wall hanging until you picked up a key, necessary to proceed through the stage. Once you picked up the key, Phanto would fly around, his gleefully sadistic expression unchanging, until you either narrowly made it to the door, or he murdered you in cold blood, grinning all the while. The fact that you could get him to back off by putting down the key seemed like mercy, but in fact it just made lifting the key again all the more panic-inducing. Touch the key and Phanto will get you. Phanto was the monster under the bed, the boogeyman, the man in the van with free candy. Everything you fear when the lights go out, that was Phanto. The grin of pure evil.

Some of you may be wondering why the Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't on the list. Honestly, I didn't like him either, but he didn't fill me with terror like these other guys did. By all rights, a big face moving in an arc pattern fits the description of my hit list, but maybe his fiery grimace scared me less than an ice-cold smirk.

Thinking With Portals

I have been playing a game for the past few days called Portal. This game is available for the 360 and for computers, and it is awesome. Basically it's a puzzle adventure game that runs on the Source game engine. Playing the game consists of creating and using portals from a portal gun to move yourself and other objects instantly between two flat surfaces. Only 2 portals can be open at a time, orange and blue, and they connect to each other. Opening a new portal of a color closes the previous portal of the same color. Momentum is preserved upon passing through a portal, allowing for some really neat movement tricks, such as falling from a high platform to build up speed, passing through a portal you've opened one end of on the floor and the other end on a high wall to launch across the room. Along the way you must contend with electrified water pits, robotic turret guns, weighted cubes, a weighted companion cube, bouncing energy balls, and a darkly hilarious AI named GLaDOS who guides you through the challenges.

As you play through the game, your thinking changes subtly. You see new possibilities where there weren't any before. You learn to think with portals. For example, in real life, if you wanted to get to one end of a long room from another, you'd walk the distance. Thinking with portals, though, you'd use your portal gun to open a portal at the near end of the room and another at the far end then use the portal, eliminating the need for a time-consuming walk. Of course, the brain likes to borrow successful strategies from one part of life (or fiction) and apply them to other parts, so I have been thinking with portals in real life (unable to do anything with these thoughts, of course).

Here are some of the thoughts I've had for how portals could be used in interesting, useful, or funny ways in real life:

• The Portal Backpack: Attach arm straps to a flat board. Open one portal on the board. Open the other in a closet or similarly large storage space. Carry around access to a much larger storage area than ever possible before.
• The Infinite Waterfall: Open one portal on the floor, another on the ceiling. Get a hose and start pouring water into the infinite loop you've opened. The water will fall forever!
• The No-Need-For-Wireless: Open one portal near your modem, the other near your computer, anywhere you are. Run an ethernet cable through the portals. No need for unreliable wireless networks now.
• The Stole-This-Idea-From-The-Simpsons: Open one portal in front of a toilet or urinal, the other in front of yourself. Stand and deliver.
• The Home Away From Home: Get a truck or van with enough space on a surface to open a portal (the roof a normal car might work too) and open one. Open the other end in your home. Anywhere you drive, you're already home.
• The Elaborate Coyote: Construct a box of sorts that is tall and wide but very narrow. On the inside of one of the large flat panels, paint a picture that looks like a hallway or open space. On the other inside flat panel, place open a portal. Close up the box. Open the other portal anywhere. Watch idiots try to walk through the portal and hit the painted wall. The portals ensure forced perspective of the painting.
• The Sunny Basement: Open one portal on the ceiling of your basement or other windowless room. Open another portal outdoors under a sheet of clear plastic, glass, etc. to prevent rain or animals from passing through. Enjoy natural light in any room.
• The Art Vandelay: Travel to another country. Open a portal in the business or residence of a trusted associate. Open another at home, upon returning stateside. You are now an importer/exporter. This one is not strictly legal.
  
• The Fail Safe: Purchase a large safe and place a portal at the back, then cover it with a weak or removable false wall. Open the other portal someplace convenient and private for you. Re-sell the safe. Take, take, take. This one is even less legal.
• The Moon Cartographer: Travel to the moon somehow. Open a portal. Return to Earth. Open another portal. Purchase cartography equipment. At your leisure, create a detailed map of the moon.

Peggle (Not The Same As Pegging)

Peggle is a game available on Windows, Mac OS X, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, iPod, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Thanks to my recently acquired, super cheap Xbox 360 ($80!) I have been enjoying playing Peggle this week. The game is fairly simple, each stage is a static image upon which an array of moving or stationary pegs and blocks are overlayed, and the goal is to shoot small silver balls from the top-center of the screen and bounce them around like Plinko to break the pegs/blocks, specifically the ones that are colored orange, but other colors help you in different ways. Blue ones are basic, they just give a few points and bounce the ball, purple ones give you lots of points, and green ones are special.

You see, when you play, you play with the help of a slightly anthropomorphized animal companion. They sit at the top of the screen on the ball launcher and occasionally give you useless tips. But they also each have a special ability that takes effect once you break a green peg/brick. For example, the Crab dude puts pinball-flipper claws on the side of the screen for you for a few turns, the pharaoh Cat makes the ball catcher thing at the bottom wider, and the space Alien makes shit blow up. These characters all have (not quite) clever names and themes, but I am too lazy to look them all up on gamefaqs right now, so whatever.

Here are some ideas for new animal helpers for future editions of Peggle. I also took the liberty of MS Painting what they might look like.

Red State the Elephant

Red State believes in the free market, family values, and bootstraps. BOOTSTRAPS. Red State can be a stalwart ally, but be warned: if you're not with him, you're against him.

Special Power: Social Darwinism

Once a green peg or brick has been struck, on the next turn, Social Darwinism goes into effect for 1 turn. If you clear 50,000 points in that shot, you'll get your point total for that shot doubled. If you fail to do so, you'll have your point total for that shot halved. The wealthy deserve the breaks!

Von Poopenheimer the Dung Beetle

Von Poopenheimer is pleased to meet you! He has brought a special present all the way here, just for you! He made it himself!

Special Power: Ding Dong Dung

Once the green peg is struck, Ding Dong Dung activates for the rest of that turn and an additional 2 turns. The longer the ball stays on the screen for a turn, the bigger, heavier, and browner it becomes.

Pimpossible the Peacock

Pimpossible has asked me to make this very clear: he will cut you. Don't think he wont, he will cut your face. As long as he gets paid, we all cool. But don't even test him, he will cut your damn face.

Special Power: Big Pimpin'

Once a green peg is struck, for the next 5 turns there will be 3 purple pegs per turn instead of 1. Strike all three in a turn for a Bling Bling Bonus (2x multiplier!) That's how Pimpossible rolls.

Smokey Cough the Three-Toed Sloth

Dude, just like... chill a minute. Smokey is, like, heh heh, he's like, heh heh, umm... dude, he's like, busy. Hey, are you gonna eat those leaves? I mean, like, if you're not gonna eat them anyway... heh heh heh.

Special Power: Altered Perception

Once a green peg is struck, for the rest of that turn and for 3 subsequent turns, the ball catcher and any moving pegs will move at 1/2 speed. Make sure to have some snacks nearby.

Hugh Mann the Human

What? What's this? The human animal? By all that is sacred, our attempt to create a beast with the viciousness of a lion, the cunning of a fox, the dexterity of an ape, and the social understanding of a wolf succeeded. God help us all, it succeeded.

Special Power: Awareness of Mortality

Once a green peg is struck, for the duration of that turn, and for 1 additional turn, the ball will gain limited movement abilities and will actively seek to avoid falling off the screen. And when it does inevitably fall, it will either weep or scream. Enjoy!

Landmark Characters in Video Game Racism: Vol. 1

Welcome, reader, to the first in a continuing series of entries about racist or stereotypical characters in video games. As those of you familiar with gaming know, characters are have not always been presented in the most nuanced of ways. This series will commemorate some notable examples. So sit back, get ready to laugh, feel uncomfortable, and reminisce.

Our first entry harkens back to the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is a game that many of my generation remember fondly for its simple-yet-addictive gameplay, its notorious difficulty at higher levels, and most of all, its colorfully racist characters. Of them all, one stands out above the rest, a boxer whose stereotype was so blatant that he had to be toned down in the transition from the arcades to the home console. Meet Soda Popinski.



Soda Popinski, a champion boxer from Moscow, U.S.S.R. boasted a 33-2 record, with 24 wins by K.O. He was 35 years and 237 pounds of pure Soviet muscle (and moustache). Soda had a habit of drinking bottle upon bottle of soda (hence his name), even sipping during his fights to power up. But Soda Popinski had a secret. That wasn't his real name, and that wasn't soda. His real, original name? Vodka Drunkenski.

That's right, folks. That bottle labeled "POP" was falsely identified. That's vodka. He is drunk. He is Russian. Because, didn't you know?, all Russians are drunks. I will say, to his credit, Vodka is a high-functioning alcoholic. He's only lost twice (before Little Mac came along, of course) in his boxing career, which is pretty good for a guy who downs vodka like water, especially in the middle of matches!

So here's to you, Vodka Drunkenski, A.K.A. Soda Popinski. You introduced a whole generation of kids to the "Russians are drunks" stereotype through punches, blocks, and star uppercuts. And you fit in just fine here, because your shorts are quite short, and parts of Russia do indeed fall well below freezing.



I WANT YOUR INPUT!! Please submit suggestions for future entries in this series! I've got a few ideas, but I want even more. Email me or comment and let me know who YOU think deserves to immortalized for perpetuating stereotypes about various races and nationalities!