What the Fucking Shit Fuck Ass Fuck Is this Doing on the Web?

Webcomics are the bane of my existence. Especially now that sites like Comics Genesis and Drunk Dunk make it possible for any idiot with a copy of How to Draw Manga to post their comic without even learning how to build a website. (In my dreams, Chris Crosby's fate after dying of a massive coronary at 37 is to spend eternity in Hell reading every single comic posted on his site.) You can even skip learning to draw entirely and make a sprite comic. If you don't know what a sprite comic is, I envy you.

Sprite comics use sprites from video games rather than the creator's own art, making it easy for thousands uncreative people to make comics starring their favorite video game characters. Like Mario, who has to figure out what to do with himself after Bowser stops kidnapping the princess in What the Fucking Shit Fuck Ass Fuck Is Mario Gonna Do Now?

The title suggested I was in for an Angry Video Game Nerd-esque experience, with random swearing substituted for humor. I didn't even get that. There are more curse words in the title than the entire run of the comic. Instead, after a painfully long explanation of why Bowser has stopped kidnapping the princess, I just get Mario bouncing from job to job and kicking Luigi off a diving board several times in what appears to be an attempt at a running gag (which may or may not be an homage to Jim Davis' famous "Garfield kicking Odie off the table" attempt at a running gag). Here's a tip for any aspiring webtoonists reading this: for a comic to be good it should either have an interesting storyline or jokes. WTFSFAFIMGDN has neither.

Now, if I was a real jerk, I could make fun of the writer's spelling and grammar, but he's obviously not a native English speaker. I will, however, suggest that he have someone with a better command of the language look over his comics before he posts them. This will save him from embarrassment and save his readers (Judging from the comments left, most of his readers appear to be his non-English speaking friends. Webspeak is not English! Do not try to learn English from the internet!) from trying to figure out what he really means.

I hope the next time you and your friends are hanging out, cracking jokes while playing Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu and you realize how easy it would be to take a couple of screen grabs, put your jokes in some speech bubbles and post the result on the internet, you don't. Instead, turn the game off and do something that will benefit society far more than another webcomic ever could. Maybe sell meth to school children.

Thomas Holzer Likes Girls

Just by looking at pictures of his game room, I can tell that Thomas Holzer is a raging heterosexual.


Does Thomas Holzer hide his dirty games in a box with a blanket over it with a plant on top of it? No. He puts them on the shelf right next to his other games.


In case you can't see all of them, Mr. Holzer was kind enough to provide these pictures.


If your German's a little rusty, let me help you out. "Rotlicht" translates to "red light." As in "red light district." You know who doesn't play Whorehouse Tycoon? Gay guys. Here are some more games gay guys don't play.


No self-respecting homosexual would come anywhere near a game called "The Sorcerer's Appliance." OK, that one might be a little bit of a gray area, but "Sorcerers Get All the Girls" is straight all the way.

It is my fervent hope that Thomas Holzer one day meets a real girl. (Not a real doll. I assume he already has one of those.) In the meantime, the pool for when Tom leaves his wife to live with a man he met while on a business trip to Miami starts at age 35. The winner gets all the games pictured here and a big metal footlocker to store them in.

Rock Bland

Having grown bored with Guitar Hero III in just a few days, I'm hesitant to spend 200 dollars on Rock Band. Fortunately, my good friend Meager has no such reservation. And when he extended the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at his place, I eagerly drove across town, Spear's pumpkin pie in hand, for a chance to rock out.

What makes Rock band different was obvious the moment I set foot inside his house. The plastic drum kit in the living room. And drumming is fun. On easy. Harder than that and you'll want to save it for actual drummers or to teach a lesson to annoying know-it-alls who think any idiot can play the drums. The same goes for singing. You'll probably be able to make it through any song on easy even if you've never so much as sung along with the radio in the car before. Start upping the difficulty and prepare to have your bandmates "save" you.

That's another new feature. If one member of your band fails a song, it isn't over. Someone else can bring them back using their Star Power (called "Overdrive" here). Make sure your guitarist and bassist save it to help the drummer and singer out. Also new, at least if you've never played a video game before in your life, is the character creation feature. Why this hasn't been standard since Guitar Hero 1, I haven't the slightest idea.

That pretty much does it for the new, which leaves us with the old: guitar and bass. The new Fender Stratocaster controller is way prettier than anything ever made for any of the Guitar Hero games, but the flat buttons and stiff strum bar might make for a difficult period of adjustment. Grab your trusty Guitar Hero X-Plorer controller and someone can join in on bass, just like they've been able to do since GHII.

What made Guitar Hero so great is that it took 6 (or 4) string and 22 frets and simplified them down to 5 buttons so that anyone could pretend they were a rock star. Drumming and singing in Rock Band, particularily at the higher levels, isn't a video game. It's drumming and singing. If you've got four people together who are that musically inclined, why not just start a real rock band?

Maybe I'm just burned out after 3 Guitar Hero games (II, Rocks the 80's and III) in the span of a year, but I see no reason to own my own copy of Rock Band. I will, however, gladly accept any invitations to sit in on bass for an evening.

...You Got Sonic in My Mario

Mario visited Mobius in Somari, so it seems only fair that Sonic repay the favor by visiting the Mushroom Kingdom in Sonic Jam 6. (Pirates love continuing the numbering sequence of legit games. Super Mario Bros. 17 is Mario hacked into Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers.)

Knuckles?

Sonic Jam 6 is just Sonic dropped into the 16-bit Super Mario Bros. from Mario All-Stars ported to the Genesis, complete with all the, oh let's call them quirks, you expect from a pirate game. Quirk number 1: instead of starting as a smaller version of himself, Sonic starts the game red and turns blue after eating a mushroom. OK, that's a little weird, but harmless.

The game also lacks any of the secondary animation. Sonic doesn't transform when he gets a power-up or lower into a pipe. He's just instantly a new color or in a new place. The only animation of him running is the full-speed, cartoon legs-in-a-circle, no matter how slow he's going, so it always looks like he's having trouble getting traction. And the Sonic sprite itself looks bad. The edges are jagged and black. Again, these are fairly minor things that don't affect gameplay.

Watchayoo doin' in-a my game?

Now we get to the fun stuff. Sonic can only jump 1 of 2 preprogrammed distances: too far or not far enough. Try a mid-air course correction and he goes careening into the nearest bottomless pit of death. All of the controls feel loose and sloppy, a feeling heightened by the "out-of-traction" look of the animation. And the collision detection is overly sensitive. If anything comes anywhere near you, you will die or power down.

So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna play Mario if I wanna play Mario and I'm gonna play Sonic if I wanna play Sonic. Good. That's settled then. Actually though, I kinda feel like playing Alex Kidd...

You Got Mario in My Sonic...

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is getting hype as the first meeting of those video game icons. Don't buy it. Mario visited Sonic's world more than ten years ago in a pirate game from Hong Kong called Somari. The two don't meet on-screen, but Mario is wearing Sonic's shoes, which suggests an off-screen meeting. I imagine Mario jumping out from behind a bush, turtle shell in hand, beaning Sonic from behind and making off with the shoes.

The programmers took quite a few liberties with the level maps, but this is more or less an 8-bit version of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game with Mario as the hero. The programmers also forgot to include the Scrap Brain Zone and the extra life for collecting 100 rings. And those checkpoints that let you start a level in the middle after dying? They forgot those too. You realize just how helpful those are when you have to start a level over from the beginning after misjudging a jump against a boss.

Oops. Back to the start.

On the plus side, you'll never notice the extra life reward is missing. Because you probably won't go long enough without getting bumped into by something or shot by something or bumped into by something while something else is shooting you to ever get anywhere near 100 rings. There are more enemies in this game than I've ever seen in any Mario or Sonic game. I challenge you to go ten steps without getting hit by something.

This being a pirate game, there are plenty more problems. The graphics are glitchy. In the Marble Zone, moving platforms appear that aren't really there. Some of the rings can't be picked up, or can only be picked up if Mario touches them while jumping. The first boss battle is extremely flickery. The physics are off. It's almost impossible to get Mario to stop from running speed. Oh, and the music is terrible. In fact, I recommend against ever getting the invincibility power up solely because, as bad as the music is, it's even worse sped up.

Somebody needs to clean the pool.

For all it's problems, Somari is an interesting novelty and infinitely better than Sonic's adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom...

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night

This image accompanied an online article about the possible next generation Xbox. While I know this isn't even remotely official, I am intrigued by the possibility of using the same device to play video games and charge my power ring.

Game Snob Buyer's Guide #1

Ebay item #250189173724 - The Music Machine for the Atari 2600. Buy it now for $329.99. But before you get your credit card, here are a few other things for you to consider.

The Music Machine or Gibson Melody Maker electric guitar

Priced at $329.99, the Music Machine lets you score points by collecting Fruit of the Spirit symbols.

Priced at $349.99, the Gibson Melody Maker features a mahogany body, rosewood fingerboard, 2 single-coil pickups and is available in a black, white or sunburst finish.

The Music Machine or Pro-Ject Debut III Audiophile turntable

Priced at $329.99, the Music Machine lets you play alone or challenge a friend.

Priced at $329.00, the Pro-Ject Debut III features a felt-covered steel platter, an aluminum tone arm, a silicone damped arm lift and is available in your choice of colors.

The Music Machine or Nikon Coolpix S50c digital camera

Priced at $329.99, the Music Machine lets you help Stevie and Nancy avoid the mischievous pudgeons.

Priced at $349.99, the Nikon Coolpix S50c features 7.1 megapixel resolution, 3x optical zoom and a built-in wi-fi antenna.

The Music Machine or a hooker

If you can afford to spend over three hundred dollars on a video game that isn't even fun to play, then you probably fall into one of two categories. Either you have so much money you can get any woman you want, in which case you don't need a hooker or financial advice from me, or you're a 35-year-old virgin living in your mom's basement. If that is the case, I would recommend the hooker because while any 2600 emulator can mimic the experience of playing Music Machine, I know of no software that can imitate what a hooker will do to you for 330 dollars.

Super Clifford Bros.

I have a request. I would like for all of you to please stop putting your video game hacks on the web. If you want to spent your spare time pretending to be a programmer, that's fine. Everyone should have a hobby. I just don't see why the rest of us should have to be subjected to your creativity.

Example number 1 is Knuckio. Based on the name, I think this is Knuckles in Super Mario Bros. Based on the visuals, I'm not so sure. Knuckles kinda looks like a dog to me. Yup, that's Clifford. Clifford the Big Red Dog is in the Mushroom Kingdom. And here's a tip for all you would-be hackers out there: change the text too. Look at the score. Mario has 6,150 points. How'd he get those points? I haven't even seen him anywhere in this game. And how many points does Clifford have?

Open your eyes, Toad. That's not Mario. It's Clifford. I know they're both red, but they look nothing alike. Mario is a plumber. Clifford is a Big Red Dog. Not as big as you right now. But just wait. Next level he'll find a power-up. While he's doing that, maybe you can do something useful for once and figure out which castle the princess is actually in.

Speaking of power-ups, what the hell is this thing? Flaming toaster? Box of Kleenex? It replaces the flower. I never understood how eating a flower would give you the ability to shoot fireballs anyway, so I guess a flaming toaster is actually an improvement. That's one point for you, lazy hacker! Now do us all a favor and quit.

Angry Video Game Nerd vs. Halloween

Sixteen minutes ago I made a very bad decision and watched the Angry Video Game Nerd's painfully humorless Halloween video. It follows the same premise as almost every other Angry Nerd video. The Nerd plays a bad game and lets us know how bad it is. To his credit, he doesn't say the game sucks shit or that he'd rather suck an elephant's balls than play it again. He can't really muster any emotion at all about this game, which makes for a pretty boring review.

Since this is the Halloween video, some trick-or-treaters show up. But look at this:

That's not a front porch. These kids are inside. Is it an apartment building maybe? No. When the Nerd leaves later, you can see coats hanging on the wall.

Is it a closet? Is it the hall outside his bedroom at his mom's house? What? You couldn't move the camera to the front door for this shot? Do a little actual editing? Maybe they're the Nerd's little half-brothers doing a little warm-up before hitting the streets for the real deal. Wouldn't want to pull a hammy.

So now the Nerd has reviewed 3 games and taken a dump in a kid's trick-or-treat bag. Why is this video only half over? Because now we have to watch him take on Michael Myers in the basement with a pair of Atari wireless controllers. I thought this guy was a game critic. Now I have to sit through his cheesy fanfic remake of Halloween?

And this thing got an average viewer rating of 9.3. Out of 10. Am I missing something? Is the Nerd's new subtle humor lost on me? Maybe he was never funny and I just didn't know any better. I mean, I thought Garfield was funny when I was a kid. I had all the books and everything. Then, years later I went back and read them again and was left wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

Okay, that's enough of this. I've got a hard drive full of ROM files I should have been playing.