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Babies, Get Your Fash On

I was shopping in the newborn girl's section of Target the other day (Don't make assumptions, now.  Y'all don't know me.  Maybe my "look" involves wearing pink outfits that only cover one foot.) when I saw the three especially tacky bibs, even by today's standards.  We all know about the ten year old girls wearing clothes that say Juicy and Your boyfriend says I'm a good kisser and so on, and of course there are infant versions of those as well.  If you see an infant in one of those, it's entirely some parent's fault.  That baby didn't secretly run out and buy that outfit at the mall.  Someone had to struggle to get it on her while she wriggled around.  Amazingly, at no point did they look down and think, "Gee, I'd better not take her to the play date like this.  What if one of the other girls is baby Susan Faludi and my daughter ends up as a cautionary tale in her baby exposé of baby society?"

So I came across this series of bibs, sold as a three pack, and flipping through them as a series, I saw one little girl's life story foretold in infancy. Three little pink bibs:

Adorable, or so I'm told

then

Super Model

then

Kisses 25 cents

I think her name is Alexis, or maybe Madison.  Fight, baby!  Spit up on that bib!  For feminism, for your future, and because Gerber Butternut Squash & Corn is gross.  I can barely choke that stuff down.  (Yes, I wear onesies and eat baby food.  Y'all don't know me.)

Technorati Tags: baby clothes, feminism, baby food, want to know the saddest thing?, boys earn 50 cents per kiss

My Name is Bonus

Obviously, the site is on a little break for the holiday festival season.  Anything new that comes up here before the year ends is a bonus post and should not be considered part of Banditos! canon.  Don't worry, today is Christmas, the frantic purchasing season is over, and all y'all can just relax now.  Merry everything, and be excellent to each other.

Alpha Prime - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Czech Republic

If you like games, or conceivably, if you hate games and want them all to suck, you may want to read the new Alpha Prime review up at Gamers With Jobs.  Oh, what a shoddy piece of work.  The game, not the review.  Alpha Prime is another one of those Eastern European imports that have been making it into North America lately.  S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is the only example of a good one that comes to mind.  All the rest have been junk.  I'd like to check out the Night Watch game someday, if only because Night Watch is such a fun movie.  Sometimes the movie's luster can carry me through the rough spots in a game.  Hell, I'd play an adventure game based on Russian Ark if they made one.  It'd make a good roguelike.  The movie is one long take, so the game only allows you one life.  Hardcore.  Like me.  I am hardcore, too.

Anyway, the most outstanding bits of awfulness in Alpha Prime are the cutscenes, which aren't fully translated from Czech.  One of the characters is a cowardly Italian stereotype, and he speaks in half Italian, half badly translated English, and it's clear the voice actor is in way over his head.  They're all bad, though.  I put a couple of examples of awkward dialogue in the review, but here are a few I had left over.  Imagine all of these being read in an overly dramatic space soldier voice:

"They'll surely prize us out of this ship like an oyster from its shell.  And eat us with some lemon!"

"How could they hire such a worthless sack for a prospector?"

"By pressing (Default T) you turn on flashlight to help you in the dark corners."

When you walk over some bullets or health, the text on the screen says, "You Picked Pistol," or "You Picked Medikit."

"I'll get you Glomar . . . I'll pull you out of the fucking wall."

(That's another thing, pointless swearing.  I left all those quotes out of the review because someone might be reading it from work.  Also, I wanted to get away with using "dick" somewhere else.)

"Don't be such an asshole!  Do you think I've just been sitting on my ass here?"

Sometimes I'd sit around in a firefight and let everyone shoot at each other a while.  This is an actual transcript of the taunts and exclamations these soldiers tossed around while I waited for them to die:

"Fuck!"  "Shit!"  "Fuck!"  "Shit!"  "Take him out!"  "Shit - fuck!"  "Jesus!"  "Somebody take him out!"

Admittedly, it's fun to think of the voice actors having to record a hundred versions of "Oh shit!"  That's an apt way to describe Alpha Prime, too.  A hundred shits in a firefight.  Ew.

[I'd like to create a little archive of my GWJ contributions, so here's a link to my FreeRice writeup and also the 2007 Gaming Reference Guide to which I added a few mini-reviews.  After the winter break I'll make a little sidebar list for these links and start turning this joint into a proper website.  For now, think of it as low-fi DIY rustic charm.  Think of it that way.]

Technorati Tags: Alpha Prime, Gamers With Jobs, GWJ

The Extra Slot

I love my new DS Lite.  I got my original DS Heavy just before they came out with the Lite and I would've felt like a chump buying the same system again for full price.  I held off until this Thanksgiving, when I took advantage of a discount and trade-in deal on Black Friday.  It was absolutely worth getting up early and standing in line in the cold.  My new machine feels like a whole new system, not just improved hardware.  It's bright, satisfyingly clicky, and fits in my pocket now.  It also plays all my favorite DS games, I checked.

Here's the problem.  If you put a GBA cartridge in the slot, it sticks out a bit.  Not a whole lot, but it's a little less streamlined.  Nintendo's solution was to include this little plastic pretend cartridge that doesn't break the lines but also doesn't play anything.  I almost never use the GBA slot anyway, but it was always nice to know that I had that backup game.  Now the slot just sits there, empty but full, mocking me.  Shut up, slot.

I've considered getting a Rumble Pak for the slot, but that would also protrude, and come on, rumble?  Almost no DS games support it.  Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents support it, so that your DS can jiggle around while you're trying to hit the beats.  What a terrible idea.  Also, Hotel Dusk supports it.  Now, I played and even liked Hotel Dusk, but at no point did I think, "You know what this sedate, moody adventure game really needs?  Rrrrrrummmmble!"

(Super Princess Peach also supports rumble.  That's a game in which Princess Peach uses a "Vibe Wand" to control her "emotions."  Thanks, Nintendo.  Now I'm coming down with a bad case of imagery.)

Have you heard about the Glucoboy?  It's a glucose tester which plugs into the GBA slot and comes with some little video games as well.  Diabetic kids can win points and unlock games for having good blood sugar levels.  Gimmicky, sure.  But I love that kind of stuff.  It's even better if adult diabetics end up playing it.  What they need to do is integrate it with some of the better DS games, for example, unlocking cheat codes in Contra 4.  That game is dead hard, and I'd test my blood over and over if it gave me an edge.  Of course, I'm not diabetic, and (no offense) I'd rather not get diabetes, so that really would be cheating.  Sorry, real diabetics.  And now, since I've mentioned blood glucose levels and Contra in the same breath, it's time to let you in on a little secret:

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, <140 mg/dl 1-2 hours after meals.

 

Technorati Tags: Nintendo DS, DS Lite, Rumble Park, Glucoboy

Part-Time Astronaut

Come on, people,  start lying!  Too many of you are only half-lying, or (shudder) telling the truth.  It's almost Christmas!  We get so caught up in the presents and family reunion folderol that we forget the true meaning of Christmas: deception.  It's about Mary, a legally married woman who, even as she was giving birth, claimed to be a virgin.  That's the most courageous thing I ever heard.  And Joseph went with it!  Brilliant.

Lies upon lies, that's the way to do it.  A nice solid foundation of lies makes for a comfy house of deception with untruthful shingles and a bullshit chimney.  Or to be more seasonal about it, you want your lies to snowball.  Let's just look at one of the simpler lies every child should know:

"I am a part-time astronaut."

which, upon further scrutiny, becomes,

"I had to cut my astronauting hours to 20 a week because I was too good at it.  NASA wanted to leave some planets for the other astronauts to explore."

"The other 20 hours I spend wiping this table at Chick-Fil-A, as you can see.  I am paid one hundred thousand dollars a day."

"That seems like a lot of money, but this is the most contaminated eating surface on the entire East Coast.  It's all I can do to keep it from killing everyone in Georgia simultaneously.  Do you see how someone carved ASS into the corner?  Poor Assil didn't live long enough to see his masterpiece completed."

(At this point, you may want to take a left turn and discuss Assil.)

"He was my best friend.  He was born of a virgin mother but he didn't make a thing out of it.  I used to come over to his place by following a star in the sky and then we'd make s'mores and race meerkats."

"His place was absolutely infested with meerkats.  They live in nooks, you know, because all they eat is breakfast.  The way you race a meerkat is by standing up straight and kind of rotating your head around looking for predators.  You do that for a couple of hours and the first one to not see any predators wins."

"Yeah, eventually I became kind of a mentor to the little guys.  They gave me this beautiful and meaningful tattoo on my shoulder here.  It means "teacher" in African, although to the untrained eye it looks like Calvin urinating on Yosemite Sam."

(And always mix in a little bit of truth at the end.)

"In Russia, they call it cosmonaut ice cream."

Technorati Tags: lies, Christmas, astronauts, Chick-Fil-A, meerkats, tattoos, ice cream, fish, gotcha! no fish, that was a test

Phoenix, We Have A Problem

New article up at Gamers With Jobs about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations.  Read it here.  It'll take less time to read than it took me to type out that long ass title.  It's the conclusion to the Phoenix Wright trilogy, but there's a new Ace Attorney game coming out with a new protagonist, Apollo Justice.  Apollo has an uphill battle because he'll never be my beloved Phoenix Wright, with his retinue of wonderful characters like Maya, Mia, Pearls, Gumshoe, and of course Edgeworth.  (I also enjoy Godot's antics, and Franciska has a certain crazy appeal.)  This last game is bittersweet because the better the story gets, the more I'm reminded that this is the end.  Well, that's how stories work, and Phoenix Wright is very much a story-based game.  Most games nowadays don't tell a story very well at all, and I'm still surprised when I find one that has a coherent narrative structure, with character arcs, heightened stakes, imaginative details, etc.  Usually I ignore a game's clumsy attempts at storytelling unless it really interferes with my playing.  I've played many games which would have been more fun if they'd just dropped the plot altogether.

Phoenix Wright, however, lives and dies on its characters and plot, although once in a while it throws in a clever puzzle to solve.  As such, it's a tough game to review because I can't just tick off the little boxes (graphics, controls, multiplayer, length, replayability) and tally up its score.   One funny thing about games is that because they cost so much, we keep looking for ways to quantify the experience.  I never see book reviews that say it's a great story, but not worth the cost of the book, and you wouldn't want to re-read it.  Gamers With Jobs is pretty damn obsessed with scores, or with not having them, so I actively avoid trying to tick the boxes in my articles.  Unfortunately, it's a deeply ingrained part of every gamer's mind.  (Adult gamers, anyway.  Kids who don't pay for their own games have different priorities.  They'll play anything, which is kind of sweet, isn't it?) 

The problem is, even though you can't really quantify a story, we try to do it anyway.  This twist was good, this character is bad, they left this thread hanging.  I don't have a solution for this mind set.  I think time tends to smooth the rough edges of a game and after a few years I look back on it with pure nostalgia.  I've even gotten to the point where I can be playing a great game and feel a kind of pre-nostalgia: "I'm definitely going to remember that moment."  Later, I find myself listing the reasons why that moment works so well, and it kills the magic a little, like explaining a joke.  Well, there are worse problems to have.  Enjoy a game, analyze it later, and come back much later to enjoy it again.  I've gotten more than my share of enjoyment from the Phoenix Wright series, and even if Phoenix isn't in it, I'm doggedly optimistic about the new story on its way.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney, Trials and Tribulations, Apollo Justice, Gamers With Jobs, over-analyzing analysis itself

Accidental Stilton

I'm friends with a cheesemaker who tells me that sometimes, when making something like Cheddar, the wrong bacteria gets into it somehow and you end up with Stilton.  Stilton is my favorite cheese by far.  I even like the crust.  I realized that I've only had intentional Stilton.  I want to try accidental Stilton.

If I asked the cheesemaker politely, I'm sure he could make me all the accidental Stilton I could eat, but then it wouldn't be accidental.  All he can do is continue to make cheese properly and maybe someday he'll make a mistake.  I wouldn't wish failure on him anyway, even serendipitous, savory, slightly pungent failure.  It might not even count as Stilton anyway, because I think there are a handful of dairies in the English Midlands who have a monopoly on the name.  That's a very European thing, all this idiotic regulation keeping my local dairy from making Stilton.  Cheese wants to be free.  On the other hand, there's something exciting about accidental, illegal Stilton.  That's what I want.

Stilton's a Christmas cheese.  I'm visiting the cheesemaker this Christmas and truly it would be a yuletide miracle if he were to hand me a giant circle of the stuff.  "Did you make this for me?"  "No, I was trying to make Cheddar.  I got fired, but they let me keep the cheese."  "Well, I guess it all worked out then.  Won't you have a bite of Stilton with me?"  The cheesemaker rips open his shirt to reveal that he's wearing a wire.  "We got it, boys.  He called it Stilton.  Enjoy the rest of your cheese -- in jail."

Technorati Tags: Stilton, cheese, mistakes, breaking the law, breakin' the law

Top Ten Best Holiday Gifts

1. Money
2. Currency
3. Lucre (preferably filthy)
4. Instantly redeemed promissory notes
5. "Banker's Delight"
6. A donation has been made in your name, to you
7. Cold, hard cash
8. Moist, warm coins
9. A coupon for one free train heist
10. Lagomorpha pancakus

University of Pennsylvania economist Joel Waldfogel makes this point every year in one story or another.  It also makes the rounds at a lot of holiday parties, especially around the cynics' hangouts like the buffet table.  Simply put, when people receive a gift and are asked how much money they would charge to give up that gift, it's 20% less, on average, than the giver spent on it.  In a way, 20% 0f the value of any item is lost simply by one person giving it to another.  A well-chosen gift from a very close friend or relative will only get up to about a 10% loss.  Money is the only exception, as it's always worth exactly what it's worth.  Waldfogel's new book is pretty depressing, too.  It makes a perfect stocking stuffer, and the best part is that you're throwing away 10-20% as soon as it hits the stocking.  Ho ho ho!

Technorati Tags: gifts, money, economics, Joel Waldfogel, The Tyranny of the Market, pancakes, value added bunnies

Assassin's Chat

I think the various controversies surrounding Assassin's Creed have died down now.  Everyone was yelling about whether it was over-hyped, whether reviewers unfairly knocked it without really playing it, and some childish idiocy about the game's producer.  I'm not even touching that one.  It's funny that a game in which you traipse around the Holy Land during the Third Crusade sticking shivs in every Christian, Muslim and Jew ended up as an Internet shout-fest about whether or not the gameplay is repetitive.  Religious watchdog groups don't bother with video games.  You could make a game about leading a group of starving kids during the Children's Crusade and the only controversy would be whether your squad mates have decent AI.  Actually, that game sounds like fun, but now I've over-hyped it.

I played Assassin's Creed for an entire week of multiplayer fun, and it never got boring.  The game doesn't really have modern multiplayer.  Rather, it features the underrated pleasure of watching someone else play.  It doesn't work for every game, but the cities of Assassin's Creed are glitteringly beautiful and the control scheme makes it easy for even a novice to pull off cool acrobatic feats.  You climb to the top of very tall buildings, see a breathtaking panorama of labyrinthine streets and sun-baked domes, then dive off a ledge into a cart of hay and pop out unscathed.  Let's just ignore the question of how a small pile of hay prevents injury and why passersby don't flip out when you jump out of it.  I'm a little ashamed that every time I did that, I'd quip, "Hay there.  I gotta bale."

That one sequence of events just never gets old, whether doing or watching it.  That's not to mention all the shanking, sneaking, swordfighting, and rooftop chases that make up the actual game.  Maybe they're right, it is a bit repetitive, but finding things that give me pleasure and then repeating them over and over, well, that's the general idea of my life.  My only real criticism is when the game insisted on showing off its idiotic story.  I don't care about the complex and intriguing story behind Assassin's Creed.  I also don't know anything about it, because every time someone started talking we went off to get more drinks, and they were still talking by the time we got back.  The speeches were always negative, too.  From what I could tell, every character who talks to your guy, Altair, calls him a dupe or a coward.  Why does everyone think it's a good idea to endlessly berate a guy who carries throwing knives?  Each conversation seems to run for at least five minutes.  Four minutes of that should just be Mr. Rudy Insult's gurgled apology.

The assassination targets even chat with you after the hit.  As they're dying, you get one of these scenes:

"So it is you, Altair.  You have come to kill me."

"I did kill you.  Stop breathing."

"Don't you want to know the big secret behind my entire operation?"

"Not really.  Can we get out of this magical slow-time whispered confession?  You're not the only guy I'd like to kill today."

"It isn't what you think.  You're a pawn in a deep game.  Forces beyond your control are pulling the strings."

"The strings on the pawn?  What?"

"I was once like you . . ."

"Come on, just die a little more.  Please?"

"Altair, come closer . . ."

"No."

"I am your . . ."

"Shut up!"

"The password is . . ."

"Die already!  I killed you!"

"Believe me, I am still alive . . ."

"No!"

"Still alive . . ."

"Boo!"

". . . still alive."

Technorati Tags: Assassin's Creed

Safe, Effective, Downloadable Psychonauts

You can now directly download Psychonauts on XBox Live.  It's a wonderful experience, one of the most imaginative, genuinely funny, lovingly crafted games I've seen since they all went 3D.  I don't know if you'd call it an adventure game, really, but it gave me that magical LucasArts/Sierra feeling.  I couldn't wait to see more, but I also wanted to savor every last moment.  Like it was the only game I owned.

Here are a couple of cutscenes from the brilliant Lungfishopolis level.  Spoilers, obviously.

Technorati Tags: Psychonauts, Tim Shafer, adventure games

Texas. Thanksgiving. Truth. Beauty.

I spent Thanksgiving break in Texas, and came back with lots of notes for my new epic Western novel.  It was originally titled A Texas Thanksgiving, but then I decided to poetry it up a little and now the working title is October Tamales in November Husks.  It has symbolism.  Here's the first line:

It was a one horse town, but that horse was huge.

And it just gets better from there!  Thematically, it's about all sorts of stuff, but the main plot revolves around a friendly loner cowboy type who makes a really embarrassing faux pas with his gun and has to leave the brutal, lawless Texas high lands and cross the border into Mexico, where life is still lawless but at least it's festive.  Then he crosses the Mexican border into Guatemala, and El Salvador, and on through South America, and without giving away the ending, he eventually learns the secrets of manhood at a penguin rodeo.  Don't think that it gets all whimsical and sentimental, though, because he also kills every single person he meets on his journey.  Even the minor characters:

Which way to Panama stranger? asked Bringun Gristleback.

(Oh, I forgot to mention, I don't use quotation marks or apostrophes.  Like Cormac McCarthy.  Also, Bringun is the main guy, and the other speaker is the minor character.  His name is Wangly but he doesn't live long enough to mention it.)

--I reckon youre in Panama, friend.  Thats the canal.

--Whats on the other side.

--More Panama.  I reckon its pretty good too.

--Thanks.  Whoops I shot you.

--Thats on you then.  I never did nothing to you.  I am dying now.  Take care of my cow for me.

--That cow over there?  Whoops.

--That aint what I meant by take care of my cow.

I'm knocking out this stuff at a great clip now that I don't need to worry about punctuation or what happens to my characters after a couple of pages.  Once I get into the zone, it's like I am Bringun Gristleback, and his needs are my needs.  We need to keep moving, and we also need water, and some food, nothing fancy, but hopefully cooked all the way through.  Such a life makes a man watchful, and a little . . . lonely?  As I sit at my keyboard, the tears trickle down my cheek like the last traces of rain winding through a painfully handsome arroyo.  Each mournful droplet that plashes onto the backspace key erases a single letter from my life's work.  Hey, that's kind of symbolic, too.  Although mostly it's just annoyin

 

Technorati Tags: Texas, Tejas, Cormac McCarthy, Corjac McJarthy