Your Hot Cup of Rant

By now most of you have presumably heard or read about the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, or if you haven’t, you will. The BASIC gist of the film is that it’s a film advocating Intelligent Design (the belief, in essence, that we come from an intelligent designer, what a surprise) over Evolution (the belief that we evolved to be the way we are). This is the sort of argument that is particularly problematic, because in most respects, the sides in this argument come down to

- rational scientists who use logic and evidence

versus

- ID proponents armed with belief and faith

so there cannot possibly be a winner. Logic cannot defeat faith because faith is belief in something, and if someone believes something strongly enough, that belief will allow their mind to override the most convincing of arguments because “I believe differently”. Faith cannot defeat logic because even the most religiously interested scientific mind has facts and tests and examples that make them accurate, and no amount of faith and belief can defeat their cold hard numbers.

Which is why movies like this come around.

Now, I have no specific interest in seeing Expelled, largely because if I’m going to waste my money, I’d prefer it not go to a lying prat with ulterior motives who lies on celluloid (which is why I don’t go to Michael Moore films, either), and frankly, between the litany of dissections of the fallacies others more interested than me have dissected and the blatant lies the creators have told just to make certain their film actually had a “bad guy” so to say, I don’t think I need to spend nine dollars to find out that the film is a smear job intended to present the theory that “a wizard God an ‘intelligent designer’ did it” is a better theory than “we all evolved from share a common ancestor with monkeys”.

I mean, what the fuck is the tailbone for, if we’re all designed? We don’t use it for very much of anything.

But let us step away from the “faith versus proof” argument for a moment.  Let us step away from “taking sides” and being non-objective for a moment.

Evolution has, regardless of arguments to the contrary,  more or less made a reasonable case for itself; the archyopterix (and before some mouth-breathing twit who only believes what he reads in badly-written forum arguments comes here and says “TEH ARKYPOTRIX WZ FAKE DOOD!”, not even your own supporters argue that point anymore (scroll down, it’s there), so let it go), The Moth Experiment (also proven true), one hundred and fifty years of research and evidence and findings and pieces of data that, while they do not 100% prove irrefutably and beyond all doubt that Evolution is the absolute be-all-and-end-all of how we are the way we are, certainly do provide a sufficiently convincing argument to that effect.

The ID side has had, what, twenty, thirty, forty-odd years to formulate proof and facts and evidence and such, yes?

So where is it?

Seriously. Where is it? If there is ANY actual legitimate proof that ID is real, why is no one bringing it out, showing it off to the doubters and saying “Here, now do you see?”

Because this is where the problem comes in, and why everyone is having a problem on both sides with this situation: Evolution supporters are not in the position where they have to defeat Intelligent Design, NOT because ID has no “proof”, but because that is not how science works. Proponents of ID have spent many years attempting to tear down Evolution experiments (some successfully, others not), but that does not prove the validity of Intelligent Design as a theory.

Tearing down a co-worker does not instantly make you Employee of the Month if you’ve done nothing but sit at your terminal playing Minesweeper. Finding the flaws in a house does not immediately mean you can sell someone your property if you’ve not built the house on it yet. Even IF Evolution were to be utterly disproved and discredited tomorrow, guess what? There is still no actual proof that Intelligent Design is anything but religious dogma, so the space that Evolution occupies would be filled with a provable theory and ID would still be rejected as HAVING NO BASIS IN SCIENTIFIC FACT.

So do all of us a favor, and when I say “all of us”, I mean EVERYONE ON EARTH. Either admit that ID is “Creation Sciences” as applied by the Wizard of Oz “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” method, or find a piece of proof. Just one. Not a theory, not a “hypothesis”, not a potential avenue of discovery. Perform an experiment, record the results, perform it a few more times, check the results, hand the experiment off to someone else and have THEM record the results, then present it as your irrefutable proof.

If you can actually DO that, then maybe people will stop snickering behind your back.

Largely because they’ll be so amazed at the flying pigs, presumably, but we can hope.

The world needs an enema.

I’m running out of game companies I can support without feeling like a whore.

I’ve had a tenuous relationship with Electronic Arts over the years, especially since they’ve taken and summarilly raped the Madden franchise, and I don’t have many nice things to say about Sony or Sega either, the former because they’ll always be tainted by the Rootkit fiasco, and the latter because they continue to jerk around with Sonic and Phantasy Star while ruining their other franchises, such as the latest Nights game.

However, “Gerstmanngate” - the firing of Jeff Gerstmann almost definitively because of the poor review he gave Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, which caused external pressure from publisher Eidos, who were actively pouring advertising money into CNet - opened the door to so many potential problems for the industry, and their relationship with outlets that could theoretically keep them in check with consumers. The precedent had been set: there were companies that were willing to buckle to the almighty dollar at the small cost of journalistic integrity, and the small, triffling fact that I will never buy another Eidos game again, as if they’ve ever released anything that appealed to me. It was only a matter of time before other companies decided to see how far they could go.

A few companies picked the wrong people to fuck with.

Electronic Gaming Monthly has been removed from the mailing lists of three different game makers because of low review scores: Midway’s Mortal Kombat team, Sony’s sports game division, and Ubisoft. The line is clear here: you will give us the scores we want, or we will try to run you out of business, and there aren’t enough Frank Provos out there to hurt us. They should have done some homework: when EGM first came out, they had a review of the NES game Total Recall that was so poor that Acclaim went to pull it’s advertising to show them who was boss. So Ed Harris publically humiliated them, and made them a laughing stock. By the way, they ended up going out of business. Even more recent, Dan “Shoe” Tsu, the man who currently holds the Executive Editor position that Harris brought to fame, was noted for a particularly harsh interview with Peter Moore, who at the time was head of Microsoft’s XBox division, where he asked a lot of tough questions, a practice which isn’t really propagated throughout the industry, because afterall, companies need access to inside information in order to get a scoop, or they’ll be made irrelevant.

Game companies have been trying to get game review standards back to what they were in the early ’80s, when magazine companies knew the score: you give us good scores, or you don’t get paid. And back then, these publications - more sizzile than steak all around - were all anyone had. Therefore, anyone relying on these publications for honest reviews got burned, and with the propensity of bad games getting good reviews, the market crashed. That’s right: game compnanies are so short sighted that they don’t realize they’re trying to bring back one of the conditions that killed their very industry 25 years ago!

This brings forth an interesting game of Chicken. Electronic Gaming Monthly has put three different companies on the shame list at a time when most smart consumers are already on alert due to Gerstmanngate. Companies know that EGM - and it’s parent company, ZiffDavis - are the exceptions to the norms of CNet, IGN and others. It’ll be very intersting to see who blinks first, and interesting to see if EGM is still the same EGM that I grew up reading, and the same one I’ve been subscribed to for 17 years.

In the meantime, I’ll miss the MLB: The Show series. But I’ll find something else, because there are always alternatives.

I really want to be happy right now.

I would love to do a little dance of joy around this wonderful world of ours.

I want to grab a little party hat, run around in the streets with a boombox blaring “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead”, occasionally doing that stupid little dance move from Singing in the Rain where you jump in the air and click your heels together all happy like. I REALLY REALLY do.

But these fuckers can never make it easy, and this is where the problem comes in. Because no matter how happy I WANT to be, I am forced into the uncomfortable position of defending the indefensible, because I WANT to talk about this, but I am not afforded an opportunity to be smug and amused, because the entire situation just reeks of stupid bullshit.

Okay. I suppose it behooves me to try and explain exactly what I’m so torn about, so here you go: according to all registered reports, Jeff Gerstmann is no longer a Gamespot employee.

And I WANT to be happy about that, I really do, but the situation is rather… tainted. Specifically, tainted by the knowledge that the REASON he is no longer an employee of Gamespot may have something to do with the fact that he gave a bad video game a bad score, and that this act may have cost him his job.

And that’s something of a problem. Because, you see, Jeff Gerstmann is, and I’m not going to even try and be kind about this, a pox upon the industry he was, until recently, parasitically attached to. He is an idiot savant whose talent du jour is writing terrible, factually inaccurate reviews, and that I am not the first person to say so does not make the assertion any less valid. He is a fool who is admired by fools, and in a fair and just world, he would be working at some middling nine to five job somewhere far, far away from the public eye and not out there poisoning the collective consciousness of the gaming public.

I really, really loathe Jeff Gerstmann.

To be fair, there are absolutely reasons for this thing. Let us assume, for one moment, that Gerstmann was fired for reasons other than giving a bad game a bad score. If that were indeed the case, I would wholeheartedly be willing to, should I happen to meet the guy or gal who made the final say on the matter, buy that man or woman a drink and toast them as an asset to their company. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’m not celebrating the fact that a man’s primary source of income was snatched from his meaty fingers; I’m saying that Gerstmann was the worst reviewer on Gamespot, even behind the guy who looks like he dresses himself in a subway tunnel and thinks polygon boobies are scary, and the asshole who thinks farming is the best part of Monster Hunter.

Discarding the above-noted Wario Ware stupidity, the man has a track record of dumb following him around; so much, in fact, that you could essentially pick any review he’s ever written and say “Hey, something’s wrong here”.

I know everyone got miffed about the fact that he gave Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess an 8.8, but I couldn’t care less about that (and I also don’t think this act was the move of some gutsy maverick who plays by his own rules; it’s very nearly a fucking nine, people, stop being stupid). What I do care about is the fact that he spent two pages analyzing every minor detail of the product and never once mentioned that more than a few of the elements within bore a striking resemblance to the PS2 game Okami (which came out a full two months prior). I mean, we were all aware that Okami was more than a little bit “based on” the Zelda concept, but that LoZ:TP seemed to share so many elements with Okami, when Okami had kind-of sort-of done them first… well, that’s just the teensiest bit of an oversight, especially when that sort of critical thinking is YOUR FUCKING JOB.

This is a guy who made the observation that WCW/NWO Thunder was a game that LOOKS like wrestling ought to, but plays perhaps a bit… not so good, which is a viewpoint that is echoed by absolutely NO ONE. Thunder is, without question or exception, regarded by virtually everyone who has played it as one of the worst games ever made, regardless of console, genre, or age of the product. It is an abysmal, horrendous pile of shit, and virtually no one would tell you any different, except, perhaps, for Jeff Gerstmann.

In Gamespot’s history, they have managed to avoid the urge to give out “perfect” game scores, with four exceptions, and they’ve not scored a game a perfect “10″ score in the past seven years. Of the four “perfect” scores the site has awarded, two were handed down by Jeff himself. One, for LoZ: Ocarina of Time, is at least vaguely flirting with sane, rational thinking and is generally a score that most people wouldn’t argue against too strenuously; but the other “perfect” game was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, which is either the work of an asshole or someone who is barking at the moon mad. When this sort of thing is your career, you will inevitably be expected to defend the scores you give out to games, sometimes several years after the fact. The idea that Gerstmann looked at this score, for this game, and thought it a defensible score to give is either ludicrous (in the sense that he didn’t even think about this possibility) or the work of a douchebag (because he really, truly believed that A FUCKING SKATEBOARDING GAME was among the pinnacle of gaming achievement). I mean, let’s be reasonable here: titles that are parts of constantly updating and evolving franchises (Madden whatever, Smackdown whatever, Tony Hawk whatever) are, by their very existence, not going to be “perfect” unless they are the very first title in the series because, honestly, THERE IS NO ORIGINALITY TO SPEAK OF IN THAT KIND OF GAME. At the end of the day, the most recent Tony Hawk title and the very first Tony Hawk title share a strong amount of similarities, so much so that someone who had never played a video game before in their lives and was not even remotely aware that such a franchise existed, could readily identify both games as being part of the same series in minutes. That the third one, specifically, did so many wonderful things that the second one somehow did not do that it needed, nay, DESERVED to be considered perfect? Bullshit. Kay?

(Oh yes, before I forget: while only four titles ever earned a perfect ten score, another seven achieved the near perfection that would be a 9.9 score. Two are also Tony Hawk titles. Three were reviewed by Gerstmann. I think you can connect the dots without my help.)

This is a guy who reviewed Sega Classics Collection and didn’t mention but one time, more in passing than in actual evaluation, arguably the best game on the damn disc (and, while we’re on that subject, wrote a review so vague on the product that you could Babblefish the damn thing into Russian and back and it would be about as informational as it is right now). This is a guy who, when asked what games make you cool, took the topic seriously (seriously, compare his answers to those of Greg Kasavin, the only person on the site with any sort of actual, you know, credibility before he resigned to go actually MAKE games for a living). This is a guy who apparently decided it’d be mad sexy to dye his hair blonde, as if looking like Eminem Peanut was going to attract the ladies.

Fuck him. Seriously.

That said…

Look, Kane and Lynch is a shitty game. Most everyone who has reviewed the game acknowledges this thing. It does not play well, it is not enjoyable, it should have spent more time in development, whatever. Assuming that, yes, Gerstmann was terminated for properly noting that a weak game was, in fact, a weak game… well, that’s the sorriest load of bullshit I done ever heard.

Is this really where the gaming industry is at this point?

Everyone ASSUMES game reviewers are corrupt (assuming they care at all). It’s an assumption that’s not very hard to come to; after the third GTA title in a row wins all sorts of video gaming accolades despite the fact that it’s more or less functionally identical to its older brethren, we kind of clue into this thing. Very few games are TRULY deserving of a score greater than 8, and I can think of, MAYBE, one or two that came out this year… which would be probably ten percent of the actual amount of games that recieved such a score. It is, it seems, simply a part of the business: if you review games, you are either being bribed or bullied into scoring some of them higher than you would normally consider, because that is how the industry works.

But come on now. If a fuckton of your advertising budget for the year is coming from a company, and they hand you a high-profile title to review with the expectation that said game SHOULD get some sort of a “reasonable” score, doesn’t it behoove you as a corporation to at least PRETEND you have some sort of credibility? 1UP seems to think this is important; they scored Assassin’s Creed below the “normal” level, they had one of their paid shills (Dan “Shoe” Hsu) come out and publicly denounce the notion that anyone on 1UP is taking bribes, they more or less seem intent upon convincing the average gamer that they are beyond being bribed and coerced so as to convince each and every one of us that THEY are a shining bastion of objectivity.

They also pulled a low scored review of Neverwinter Nights 2 for dubious reasons, but they, at least, claimed that one of their non-contract writers wrote it and not an actual permanent staffer; this doesn’t make the situation any better, but it DOES, at least, say “Hey, we’re not doing it because someone bribed us; we’re doing it because this review isn’t so good”.

Right.

IGN is more or less accused (more so than any other game review website) of having a 7-10 review range, but they’ve largely managed to avoid any sorts of significant scandals related to pulled reviews or fired employees through this. They, too, claim objectivity to a certain extent, though they’re not nearly as defensive about the situation as many others are, presumably because they feel they have little to defend; after all, they haven’t pulled any reviews or fired any staffers for giving a game a lower score than the parent company wanted, though the fact that most people consider their scores artificially inflated doesn’t seem to register with them.

The point I’m trying to make is this: the various and sundry game review websites that exist seem to actively desire that we perceive them as fair and objective in their video game ratings, Gamespot included. This specific act, the act of canning someone because they were, perhaps, a little too hard on the games they reviewed… it is a slap in the face of quality and objectivity, no matter who the target. That the target was someone who had been with the company for over a decade and had (inexplicably) managed to attract a fanbase who would really only read the site for his reviews only makes the act more blatantly obvious.

Assuming this was an act that was committed exactly for the reasons we’ve been supplied, the intent was to show other staffers that towing the company line is not an option, but the results are that the corruption of the gaming industry has been made incredibly apparent, to the point that we can see nothing else but the comical dollar signs in the eyes of the chief executives as each 8 and 9 score is handed down to the hottest new titles on the market, regardless of actual quality or value. We are left with little option as consumers in this case: do we continue to trust a company who claims objectivity but speaketh with forked tongue and fires employees for saying what they think? Do we move on to another site, where the integrity has proven itself to be no better and, in some cases, seems to be even worse? Do we invest our trust into indy sites, who have no superiors to answer to but also have no quality control filter and may well review a good game in a horrible manner simply because there is no hierarchy for the reviewer to report to?

One longs for the days of magazines like Diehard Gamefan… though their fanboyism was rampant and apparent, at least we could believe that, perhaps, they were not so jaded as to give terrible games fantastic scores without SOME sort of reason behind it (which may or may not explain their demise, oddly enough).

In the end, though, the point remains: Jeff Gerstmann was terminated from his position that he had held for over a decade. Management says that he was terminated because of “tone” considerations (he was too much of a dick, too often, when doing his job). Others say it was because he refused to tow the company line and spoke his mind about things he shouldn’t have. Me? I know damn well he’ll have another job in the industry (if he so desires it) by the end of next year, but I can only hope that he might perhaps find a job doing something, anything else, not because I think he should be revolted or disgusted that the industry has done this horrible thing to him, but frankly, because I never want to see his name attached to another video game review as long as I live.

Fuck it. The world might need an enema, but ding dong, the asshole’s gone. Hurrah.

New on the spam listings: ANAL SEX!

Because apparently the spammers have decided that the site would be a good place to advertise this thing. I don’t know about that, but whatever.

Moving on…

If you’ve ever spent any sort of time on the internet, you’ve most likely come across a webcomic somewhere or another, either by accident or on purpose. Webcomics, for the uninitiated, are essentially like the things you see in the morning paper, only

1.) completely unregulated by quality control in any sense of the word, and

2.) supported entirely by “fans” instead of anything like “publishing” and “syndication”.

The former means that webcomics are essentially immune to the needs of things like good artwork, good writing, consistent updates, and memorable characters; they can exist for absolutely no reason whatsoever beyond some asshole deciding “hey, I want to make a webcomic”. The latter means that, unsurprisingly, they HAVE to be read to stay around unless the creator is willing to toss money into a hole to make something no one reads.

Ahem.

Now, logic says that if something is absolutely terrible, no one will be a fan of it, and in theory, that’s pretty true. I mean, a lot of your webcomics out there tend to have SOME redeeming value that maintains a fanbase; Something Positive is well written, even though the art is generally not the best in the world, Megatokyo appeals to fans of the “animu” stylistic (and it’s better than anything Ben Dunn has made, ever), and Penny Arcade is fun for people who play video games and doesn’t look too bad.

And yet…

For reasons I will never understand, things that would NEVER be published because they would NEVER make money continue to exist on the internet, flush with a fanbase that somehow manages to keep them afloat despite the fact that, in the normal world, they would bomb faster than Macho Man’s rap CD. Terrible, TERRIBLE comics that should never be read by anyone, ever, not only exist, but grow and flourish and attract fans that would NEVER pay money for this shit if it were $3 at the grocery store, but will read it and enjoy it when it’s free.

It’s like that scene in Nothing But Trouble in the elevator, except we replace the espresso machine with something HORRIBLE. Here’s Chevy Chase, logging onto Keenspot, and all he can think to say is, “Thanks for the burning poker in my eye… and the bag of shit…”

Now, that’s not to say that ALL webcomics are bad. Technically, all of them are hated by someone out there somewhere, but realistically, someone somewhere hates EVERYTHING. You would think something in the world is universally liked by everyone, but I guarantee you that somewhere, some guy is sitting in his room right now grumbling, “Fucking blowjobs… no guy/girl is ever going to put my penis in THEIR mouth…”, and really, if you don’t like oral sex, there’s not much hope for anything else now is there?

But generally, there are webcomics that can be considered “decent” or perhaps even “good” to some certain extent, and they’re not hard to find. A lot of the better web comics are the ones that are privately hosted; in this sort of circumstance, the creator(s) of the comic are forced to pay for their own bandwidth, and thus, if the comic is a failure, continuing to make it becomes a self-defeating situation: why pay for something that isn’t bringing in any sort of returns?

Ahem.

This isn’t a perfect way of knowing if a comic is any good or not, of course, but it’s a reasonable litmus test to start with: if the creator(s) can afford to host the comic on their own, and the comic actually ranks above, say, one hundred thousand on Alexa, the creators have to be doing SOMETHING right (and for the record, most of the “popular” ones rank FAR above that).

But many comics aren’t hosted privately, and it is those comics which tend to be further down the “quality” scale in comparison to others. Granted, this is also not always the case; the Blank Label group has several acclaimed webcomics associated with their name (and by “acclaimed”, I of course mean “by other webcomic authors and fans”), and there are other comic hosting services that feature good, worthwhile comics amidst the crap that is their standard fare. Generally speaking, you can go almost anywhere and find good, entertaining comics that, while they would never be published in book format, are an amusing enough way to waste five minutes if you’re bored.

And then there’s Keenspot.

Keenspot, for those who don’t read webcomics, is essentially a massive webcomic hosting service broken up into two parts: Keenspot proper, where the “best” comics are hosted, and Keenspace - nee - Comic Genesis, a free hosting service where pretty much anyone can put up a comic if they want. Their website’s subtitle is, unsurprisingly, “Still the Best Damn Comics On the Web”, which is either a case of staggering egotism or hideous self-delusion. Judging by the various people that make these comics, I’m inclined to believe it’s a combination of both.

Now, Comic Genesis is essentially the asshole of the webcomic body: it’s ugly and everything that comes out of it stinks. Comic Genesis is a place where people can put their horrible webcomics so that others may gawk at them, much like drivers rubbernecking at a decapitated motorcyclist on the freeway, only more damaging. Anyone with actual talent either realizes that being associated with CG is a death sentence and bails out to make their own comic, or is assimilated into the collective that is Keenspot proper before they do the former. It is a pit, a black hole from which no light can escape because THERE IS NONE. You could erase the entire thing from the internet and we would be richer for it as a people.

However, that is not to say that Keenspot is a bastion of great talent and artistry.

Frankly, all of the comics on Keenspot have one or more of three problems that keep them from ever being anything that doesn’t vaguely resemble terrible:

1.) They look like something that was drawn by a pencil held between the artist’s buttcheeks,

2.) They read like Little Billy’s short story for third grade English class, or

3.) They have “Family Guy”-itis; IE the plot makes absolutely NO SENSE, and this is by design, not apathy or ineptitude.

Now, normally I’m absolutely the sort of person who’s all about picking targets and kicking the hell out of them, but in this case I’m less inclined to target comics specifically and more inclined to document one broad, generalized set of instructions on how to, hopefully, write and draw a comic that does not, in fact, resemble the inside of a toilet bowl after a meal at Taco Bell. This is partly because I have learned that, being as how webcomics share the same internet as something like YHCOR, those who make said comics are entirely likely to blunder across this site by accident (or through vanity searches) and I’m not very interested in defending my opinion to the throngs of “FUK U WERE’S UR WEBCOMIC?!?” assholes who apparently don’t understand that what they like isn’t done very well, but it’s also because, frankly, so many webcomics do so many of the same things wrong that it’s just easier to make one big column and hope for the best.

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO FIX YOUR WEBCOMIC:

WRITING:

1. Proofread your work. Now, one of the major problems I have with webbcomic authors, especially in this day and age, is when words are misspelled. Look, seeing as how you have a scanner to scan in your drawings, and internet with which to upload them, I have to believe that you fuckers have Microsoft Word installed on your PC’s (especially considering it usually comes installed on most PC’s and, frankly, I doubt many of you have the intellectual acumen required to build your own). Word has a spell-checker built RIGHT INTO THE SOFTWARE, so do us all a favor and FUCKING USE IT.

And on the off chance you DON’T have Word, allow me to help you: download either Open Office, which is functionally identical to Word, only FUCKING FREE, or download Mozilla Firefox, which is also FUCKING FREE. Both of these programs offer a spellcheck function, so all you have to do is type in your script and BOOM! INSTANT SPELLCHECK. I’m looking at you, Jennie. Spelling errors take five seconds to fix. I’m sure you’re a nice person, and I’m sure you have lots of fans, but you’re asking people to pay money for your work. This? Unacceptable. “Merchandise”. No red line. Simple.

That’s not to say that the rest of you get a free pass. Those of you who have homonym problems? You know what I mean: there or their or they’re, your or you’re, its or it’s, that sort of thing. Right, well, stop doing that. I’m not the grammar fairy or anything (my legs are too hairy for the dress), but most of you are high school graduates. Some of you actually made it through college. And while I might be a little fuzzy on the details of each specific high school and college curriculum, I’m willing to bet that they’re all identical in their requiring that you take ENGLISH COURSES. ACT LIKE IT.

Oh, and before I forget: if you’re not comfortable with big words, or if you want to use a word and aren’t certain if you’re using it right (or even if you are), LOOK IT UP. This comic sums up everything that’s wrong with assuming you know what a word means: the word the author was looking for was “corroborates”, which means what they were going for (verifies), as opposed to what they said (works together).

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be an asshole. If your character’s gimmick is that they misuse words on a consistent basis, then fine, so long as you’re pointing that out in some form or fashion. If your character has some sort of odd accent or speaks in some type of slang, that’s also fine. But otherwise? Fix that shit. Because I don’t care if this is “just a hobby”; you are charging people money to own products with your characters on them. If you are such a lazy douchebag that you can’t be bothered spending the ten seconds to check your own spelling and grammar before you post your comic on the internet, but you’re entirely willing to collect your donations and commissions from loyal fans who are hoping you might, I don’t know, IMPROVE… well, honestly, you’re a worthless human being. Sorry, but it’s not MY fault you’re a lazy shit who has no interest in bettering yourself. But the good news is, your parents will have to take at least SOME responsibility for that.

No, not all of it. Sorry, I can only do so much.

2. If you get bored, start over. I mean, I get it, okay? You’ve invested a lot of work in your characters and you have love for them and their world, but you don’t want to keep doing the same shit you’ve been doing because it has become boring. That’s fine, but you need to understand that sometimes it is perfectly okay to say “well, it was a good run, but now it’s time to do something else, flex the creative muscles in a different direction and try something new” and retire the comic you’re making to start work on something new.

You will note that most of your peers do not do this. To you I say: don’t be like them.

It’s easy to find a comic that does this; one can throw a metaphorical stone and find an example of this sort of behavior. Exploitation Now, originally a random comedy story about two ridiculous characters, turned into an action-drama about two secondary characters before its eventual retirement. College Roomies From Hell, originally about college students going to college, somehow or another polymorphed into a story about the same characters going through various dramatic and overly ridiculous sci-fi/action stories with their college life taking a DISTINCT backseat (to the extent that if their college involvement were eliminated from the comic entirely, no one would notice). Roomies, originally about college students going to college, turned into half a story about college and half a story about a SECRET ALIEN FIGHTING ORGANIZATION until the comic was eventually renamed “It’s Walky” and the college storyline was jettisoned almost entirely, along with most of the characters in it (well, the likable ones, anyway; the annoying ones were brought on board the It’s Walky comic and given major personality transplants to make them into characters people might like). Road Waffles which started as… well, a knock-off of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” meets “The Chase” and ended up becoming a GIGANTIC MESS by the time the writer mercy-killed the strip eons later… before resurrecting it years later as even more of a FaLiLV knock-off, then turning it into an even LARGER mess. The Life of Riley (one of a million ‘Machall’ inspired comics), originally about friends hanging out, turned into a major battle between angels and demons and God only knows what else. Applegeeks started out as another Machall before it suddenly turned into “OMG ADVENTURE” in-between the gags and such, and Comedity seems to be trending in the same direction. The king of this gambit is, of course, Megatokyo, and if you haven’t read that, then I just can’t help you. Of course, Fred Gallagher somehow managed to do this thing in a way that wasn’t hideously offensive to the fanbase (and wasn’t MORE offensive than anything else he was doing to those who loathed the comic), something no one else seems capable of doing.

That means you.

So, in conclusion: if you get bored, DO SOMETHING ELSE. Do not turn your “story of a few people doing fuck-all” into “OMG ADVENTURE AND LASERS AND SHIT” because there’s no need for it. Pick a concept and stick with it. Also, stop writing comics about people going to college; I mentioned FOUR in the above paragraph; it’s a dead concept, let it go.

And also, Eight is a hack.

3. Write what you know. Yes, yes, I know, EVERYONE says that. Well, dig this: they say it for a reason. If your entire reading career has been spent on Archie and fanfics of Beverley Hills 90210, then yes, perhaps a high school themed comic might well be right up your alley. If you’ve been reading nothing but Dragonlance and D&D books, then a fantasy story might be reasonable for you to consider. And if you’ve been reading nothing but romance novels and slash fic your entire life, well… um… you probably shouldn’t make a webcomic.

See, there’s a reason, as I noted, that everyone says “write what you know”: because the theory goes that if you love something and spend your time immersed in it, you SHOULD (key word there) know how to tell a story surrounding that thing you love. Now, obviously if you are a terrible writer you most likely will be a failure at ANYTHING you write, but if you at least stick to what you like, you should be LESS of an abysmal failure than if you write something you have NO IDEA about. I don’t care how popular Spider-Man 3 was in the box office; if you’ve never read a superhero comic in your entire life, you probably shouldn’t try writing one, because you would most likely be BAD at it.

I mean, this mentality is, in most cases, how great writers come up with great stories. Steven King was told that they were exterminating vermin in the textiles mill where he worked, and BANG, “Night Shift” was born. Frank Miller knew far more about writing pulps and stories of corruption and greed than he did about writing superheroes, so when he wrote a pulpy story about corruption and greed, it worked, and “The Dark Knight Returns” was born. This is, literally, not very difficult, people. If you do not READ science fiction and you do not LIKE science fiction, do not try to WRITE science fiction; all you will write are stories that are hideous and offensive both to fans and detractors of science fiction.

I know this seems simple, but you have no idea how often people do not do this thing. Seriously, compare the genre a webcomic falls into with any interests the writer happens to note and in most cases you’ll find yourself wondering what the hell happened. I’m just saying.

4. Understand that “reality” is not the same thing as “realistic writing”, and act accordingly. Look, in real life, people are strange. People can be summed up by one of many Scott Adams principles: “We expect others to act rationally though we ourselves act irrational”. This is a completely fair and valid assessment of people as a whole, and a GOOD writer can translate that into the printed form without losing any of the emotional subtext a simple action or reaction might carry.

Most people, however, are not that gifted.

See, here’s the thing: in reality, we are not privy to everyone’s thoughts and emotional responses, so we have NO IDEA what someone might be thinking when they fly off the handle at what we believe is a largely innocent and reasonable comment. In fiction, however, we are generally privy to these sorts of internal dialogs (unless everything is written in the first person) and thus we can be made aware of why, for example, a character chose to bash his best friend in the face after his BFF just made an off-hand comment about finding our principle protagonist attractive. If you fail to fill in this sort of internal dialog, we’re left to formulate our own, because in our minds, these characters are PEOPLE, they are ALIVE, and they think like PEOPLE do.

And yes, most readers do this thing; if you don’t believe me, go look at a Harry Potter forum sometime.

The point being this: If you establish a character as being a certain way, you generally need to follow up on this by either continuing to write the character this way or, alternatively, by explaining the change in behavior. A character who is shown as being devoted to a specific character will not see this person change their behavior and explain it away as “oh, they became a psycho”; they will try to help and understand what has happened UNLESS something has changed between the two that is significant enough to warrant such a reaction. A character who is just and moral will not attempt to kill others WITHOUT A SIGNIFICANT REASON.

I mean, Jesus Christ people, Saved By the fucking Bell knew how to do this; they created characters and kept their motivations consistent throughout the series. SAVED BY THE BELL HAS BETTER WRITING THAN YOUR WEBCOMIC, OKAY? And just because Anne Rice says it’s okay to say “fuck character motivation” when you have a story to tell doesn’t mean you should. Remember: your characters are PEOPLE, not your playthings, and when you start treating them as pawns that can fill any role in a story just because “it needs to be told”, then you lose the readers. Seriously.

And on that note, in fact…

5. Understand what it means to make a character. I will say this once and once only: there is a difference between making a character and a cypher, and it is that characters are defined by what they DO, NOT by what happens to them.

I feel I must say this because YOU ARE ALL VERY, VERY BAD AT TELLING THE DIFFERENCE.

Pick any webcomic and and you’ll see what I mean. “Ooh, my friends went and reconciled behind my back so instead of DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT I’m just going to stalk them for an undisclosed period of time, not because I’m legitimately upset about this, but because I want to know why they didn’t forgive me.” This is not “character building”, no matter how much you might think it is; this is shit, written by someone who is a shitty writer, period.

Characters are people. Period. People behave in clearly definable fashions that are at least vaguely understandable to someone who isn’t paying attention very well. When characters act a certain way, then COMPLETELY change how they act and react, there needs to be a REASON for this. People do things for reasons; expecting the reader to fill in the blanks is (say it with me) LAZY. If one cannot rationalize the behavior of your characters, even if they HAVE read your entire archives, then YOU HAVE FAILED.

“So and so is an asshole!” Why? “Because he cheated on other so and so!” But you don’t like this character either. “But what he did is wrong!” And? FDR lied about Pearl Harbor to get us involved in World War II, something pretty much everyone accepts at this point because had we not kicked Hitler’s ass, we’d be fucked.

… and yes, I’m aware that’s an extreme example. The world isn’t black and white. People cheat on other people for plenty of reasons; if you don’t like EITHER character, how can you be compelled to care that THIS character did something wrong?”But he’s a crazy stalker now! See, he’s an asshole!”

He’s a crazy stalker because the writer is shitty and couldn’t think up anything better for the character to do. This still fails to explain WHY the character is an asshole when he really hasn’t DONE anything, especially since he doesn’t really have a consistent character to begin with.

(Not to mention this is the second character to go “crazy” in this comic; the writer in question seems to have a thing with ‘mental problems’. Hmmm…)

In other words: why should I care what your characters do and do not do when you obviously don’t care either, because you devote so little time to giving them consistent motivations and spend so much time HAVING THINGS HAPPEN TO THEM OH NOES that we never know who the characters are in the first place, let alone give a shit? When a character is presented in a certain way, then changes to act a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT way, there SHOULD BE A REASON for that. If the reason provided is something that changed internally for the character that is explained and seems organic (even if not understandable), that’s perfectly fine. If there IS no provided reason, or the reason is EXTERNAL rather than INTERNAL, than we’re left with a character who’s become a completely different person for no adequately explained reason, then what you’re saying is “I wanted to write this story and continuity and character development and the long-term viability of my characters mean very little to me, all I care about is telling a story, so fuck you and read it”.

And I’m telling you, if you want to develop a fanbase that doesn’t consist of ten drooling sycophants and the car wreck mentality crowd, YOU CANNOT DO THIS.

Just a thought.

There will be a second part to this, when I feel the need to finish it. You have been warned.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.

How about instead of giving me a 40 paragraph strategy guide so I can shop in your pawn shop without getting screwed you just sell me a game when I ask for it. - Gabe, from Penny Arcade, on Gamestop policies.

He’s pissing and moaning about this, for general refference.

Hey, mind if I make a suggestion?

How about, instead of pissing and moaning about how you hate Gamestop so much, you STOP FUCKING SHOPPING THERE?

…

Oh, right. That’s crazy talk. YOU CAN’T.

Look, I hate Gamestop as much as everyone else who plays video games, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s a shitty company, and if Mr. ‘Fuck the Man’ above has only had to deal with being denied a game on day of release for him to be pissed off at Babbages Inc, I can only imagine how pissed he’d be if he were me.

See, I hate Gamestop for many, MANY horrifying reasons, inclusive of but not wholly limited to

- my ex-girlfriend purchasing me Steel Battalion as a Christmas gift and being double-billed on her debit card, which is doubly problematic because

1.) Steel Battalion is not a $50 normal game; at launch the fucking thing cost TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS, which including taxes and shipping costs, is a significant chunk of change to double-bill someone, and

2.) When someone double-bills a credit card, this double-billing only hits a nebulous source of credit that one does not have to directly acknowledge until payment time comes around; hell, if one is lucky, the billing company will realize the error and kill the second billing before your next statement even comes in, thus leaving you none the wiser. Double-billing a debit card, however, is much worse, because debit cards are linked to bank accounts which contain real money that one might attempt to use for things like groceries, bills, and other things that one uses to CONTINUE LIVING.

Ergo, $250+ was fucking gone, penalty fees were assessed, and Gamestop refused to do anything to rectify the scenario short of refunding the second charge; the $25 in fees were never resolved by either side in this little war that should never have happened.

- I had to wait six months for something I ordered. Specifically, during a bout of “MUST HAVE ALL GUN GAMES” I found a used copy of Vampire Rain (not to be confused with Chocolate Rain) on Gamestop’s website, with the Guncon controller (essentially a bright orange plastic pistol) included. I purchased said bundle, which I received a week later, sans Guncon. Upon calling the customer service line, I was informed that I could send the game back, and when the Guncon came in stock, both would be sent back out; I did as instructed and figured eventually the problem would be rectified.

Six months later, I received a package containing the game, sans Guncon, again.

This time when I called customer service, I was advised I would receive a Guncon in the mail, which I did, thus begging the question “Why did I have to wait six fucking months for this to be resolved, and why couldn’t you have just done this in the first place?”

- VxD had to threaten an employee with a call to the corporate office to buy a game.

No, really.

Story goes as thus: VxD finds uncommon game in store, brings to register. Employee hems and haws about how he wanted to purchase said game but this is the only one left in stock. Conversation escalates back and forth between the two, ultimately ending some ten minutes later with VxD having to tell said employee that if he didn’t just sell him the fucking game and let him go home, VxD would be calling the corporate office and reporting said dipshit.

- Trying to trade in a Nintendo DS and being informed that because it is missing the factory stylus it can’t be traded in; thus, instead of simply having the company bill me a $10 deduction against the trade-in value of the product, a stylus had to be acquired and inserted into the unit before a trade-in would be considered viable.

- Going to a store no less than FIVE TIMES on release day for something I pre-ordered, asking about the pre-order gift, and being told by the manager, “No, we gave them away to the employees/the employees stole them all”.

Okay?

Do we understand? Are we registering the point here? Is it sinking in?

Yes, yes, I am well aware: I am a fucking moron for continuing to do business with such a shitty corporation, I understand this. But if you are one of those unlucky people who considers his or her self a “Gamer”, you are pretty much FORCED to shop at these shitholes because otherwise, your options are limited.

Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target? Most don’t get games in on day of release, most have limited shelf stock and don’t carry niche titles (so the odds of finding something like a King of Fighters title or Fire Pro Returns are somewhat slim), and if someone has a knee-jerk reaction to stupid bullshit, you’re fucked on getting games you might want to play.

Amazon.com? Yes, because I want to pay ten dollar shipping costs to play games a week after they come out. There’s a fine line between “principals” and “stupidity”, and over-spending on things that are already insanely expensive crosses the line, burns and salts the earth upon which the line rests, and pisses on the scorched and salted remains.

Play-Asia? FUCK NO.

Local specialty retailers? In theory this isn’t a bad idea, but the problem becomes “what local specialty retailers, exactly?” Babbages owns five different “name brand” videogame retailers (Software Etc, Babbages, Funcoland, Gamestop, and EBGames) and could potentially have their hands in God knows how many more retail fronts, so you’ve no idea WHO you’re actually buying from, and in the absence of hours and hours of research, you could damn well be funding anyone from Babbages to religious fundamentalists to Stevie Richards.

No, seriously.

And that’s assuming said retailers even exist; Game Crazy, the closest thing to competition Babbages has, is a direct part of the Hollywood Video movie rental franchise… which just entered into Chapter 11 in October. Most other “competitors” are privately owned enterprises that either fare poorly, never have stock of games one would want, or are run by bigger shysters than the companies we hated in the first place.

In other words, it’s not like you have a fucking CHOICE in the matter, okay? You’re either going to shop at something Babbages owns, or you’re going to be fucked over even worse. Period.

So pretty please, with sugar on top, shut the fuck up.

You are not going to instigate change, you are not going to solve anything, and no one is going to stop shopping at these stores because YOU are not going to stop shopping at these stores. Shit-shacks like EBGames have been around for years and years and will continue to be around even longer, simply because THEY ARE MAKING MONEY and THEY ARE YOUR ONLY RECOURSE.

Digital distribution will not solve your problems; PC Games are, at this point, a fucking novelty that all but the most serious gamers regard with derision and scorn, and no one is going to want to download Halo 4 onto their 360 hard drive when they can just buy the disc and move on with their day. The shitty tactics employed by game stores will continue to be employed so long as they continue to make the company money, and when they stop working, tactics will change to meet consumer needs, no matter how much they end up screwing you over.

And you will continue to bend over and take that ass-reaming you so deserve because you can do nothing else.

Me? At least I understand my place in the grand scheme of things. YOU are the one who is delusional if you think you’re accomplishing anything.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.

But first: Memo to people spamming the comments sections: not that I expect this to stop you, but NO ONE SEES THOSE COMMENTS BUT ME, AND MY PENIS IS BIG ENOUGH, THANKS.

Ahem. Moving on.

Can we please stop with the unnecessary bolstering of the potential ego of others with utterly inaccurate statements that serve to do nothing more than give people artificially inflated perceptions of themselves? I know we as a society are used to doing this sort of thing, but really, there’s no point to it; at best, we’re telling these people filthy lies that serve only to let them down at a later date, and at worst we’re creating egotistical douchebags whose self-worth is substantially larger than is merited.

Here’s a primary example: “You can be anything you want to when you grow up.” This may or may not be followed by some sort of ridiculous job that very few, if any, people ever manage to attain in their short, messy lives, such as “even president” or “even an astronaut”. How many of you were told this by your parents?

I wasn’t. You know why? BECAUSE MY MOTHER KNEW BETTER.

First off: if you’re anything but white and rich, the odds of you becoming president are similar to your odds of winning the lottery, being struck by lightning and surviving, AND developing superpowers ALL AT THE SAME TIME, while having sex with (insert attractive and famous actor/actress here, because I’m lazy). Okay? And if you’re not some kind of Christian? FORGET IT. I don’t care how smart you are, I don’t care how strong your political convictions and speaking voice are, and I especially don’t care how dedicated you are. Our current president is a stuttering idiot with a drawl that would make Gomer Pyle stop and go “Damn”, but he is (say it with me) RICH, WHITE, AND CHRISTIAN, so he’s effectively more eligible than the rest of us by divine right.

And honestly, some of us, no matter how much we WANT to become an astronaut or an archaeologist or a pop star or a model or an actor or a writer or whatever… well, some of us are frankly too stupid, ugly, or otherwise genetically cursed to manage this thing. I mean, okay, fine, Tom Waits sells out pretty much anywhere he plays and Ron Perlman probably makes more money in a year than most of us make in twenty, but they are EXCEPTIONS. When you think back to your parents telling you that you could be anything you wanted, then look down and realize that you’re working in a place that requires you to wear your name on your shirt, all while you get to wonder if the smell of the gasoline around you is giving you brain cancer, well, ask yourself: IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?

No? Then stop it.

Second: “Women can do anything men can do”, often followed by “better”. Can we stop with this please? I mean, I’m not a misogynist and I’m full-on all about equal rights, but if you can find me a woman who can lift the Big Show over her head for longer than ten seconds, I’ll find you a rainbow-shitting unicorn. Look: women can do MOST things men can do, just like men can do MOST things women can do. This is non-negotiable. There will always be aberrations on both side, but Bruce Lee and Chyna notwithstanding, until the day comes where we become a unisexual race undefined by primary and secondary sex characteristics, women will generally be perceived as attractive, graceful, athletic and generally of more artistic thought processes (to certain extents), and men will be perceived as the spider killing heavy lifters who think with our dicks and can pee standing up, and have generally simpler, more tunneled mentalities. Please accept that if you want to play football, you will be the place kicker, and I will be wholly content in return knowing that because of my gender I will be forever subjected to horribly stereotyped sex jokes that I have nothing to do with because “you think they’re funny”. Kay? Kay.

Third: “Handicapped people can do anything regular people can do!” Oh really? Then by all means, Legless Joe, DANCE FOR ME.

Look, I understand the need to make handicapped people feel like legitimate people, as well they should if they’re paying their taxes, but let’s be fair here: Steven Hawking is a once-in-a-lifetime gift from God and should be treated as such, and anyone who’s actually out there DOING SOMETHING, and I mean ANY FUCKING THING, is perfectly fine in my book, but a sufficiently large amount of handicapped people are living on government subsidies and contributing absolutely nothing to the world or anyone living in it, and frankly, fuck them. Deaf people making their children deaf prior to birth as some sort of “cultural” gesture, some way of continuing the “traditions” of the deaf? That makes me fucking ill knowing I’m paying tax dollars to support children whose parents MADE THEM DEAF because having hearing children is TOO EXPENSIVE.

If you are crippling your own children and making me pay for them, fuck you and fuck your kids, right in the ear. People like this deserve NO ego-boosting whatsoever; they are fucking useless and should be told as such, in whatever manner possible, as often as possible. In general, anyone who is incapable of contributing SOMETHING, no matter how minute, to society is a leech. You’re getting government money to do fuck-all with your life; if that’s how you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life, then fine, but FUCK YOUR SHITTY EGO. YOU ARE USELESS, and the sooner someone tells you so, the sooner you’re likely to actually DO something with your life.

Fourth: “Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice”. Can we stop with this bullshit please? We all know you’re saying it so you can feel better about hating gays, but you really don’t deserve to. You do not, in fact, deserve to feel anything but a railroad tie in the foot, but that’s not the issue here. People who say this are not saying it for any other reason but to make themselves feel better about the fact that homosexuals are, in a lot of respects, treated like dirt; by saying “it’s not biological, it’s a lifestyle choice” they can rationalize being ignorant pricks to other people without having to worry about being good little whatever their fucking religion of choice might be.

I never understood this mentality because it contains a critical flaw: who in their right mind would wake up one morning and say to themselves, “You know, I’m awfully tired of being loved by my family and friends and by not being looked down upon by part of society, so I think today I’m going to start having sex with people of my own gender, because BY GOD it’s time for a change”? How many public officials have to resign from office in disgrace for trying to pay for male prostitutes or getting their boyfriends jobs before you people realize that your warm fuzzies that you’re getting from saying this bullshit are undeserved because YOU ARE WRONG? You are lying to yourselves, and the sooner you stop doing this and the sooner you just accept your bigotry and move on with your day, the better.

Or, alternatively, you could just claim it’s all the fault of evil spirits, but I don’t think this is a good idea either.

Fifth: “You’re special”. See also “they’re just jealous”. I would’ve thought Tyler Durden did a sufficient job explaining why this is bullshit, but parents are telling their kids this more and more often these days, to the point where NO ONE is willing to take constructive criticism anymore (and if you don’t believe me, webcomic authors and DeviantART are all the proof I need). Look, there are more than SIX BILLION FUCKING PEOPLE on the planet; the ONLY reason you are SPECIAL is because of your individual genetic makeup, not because nobody wants to play with you at recess. None of us are “special” in that the world could do perfectly fine without any of us; someone else could do whatever it is you are doing at the moment, and nothing you contribute is so great that the world would mourn your loss. I’m not saying “hey, kill yourself”, but the sooner you suck it up and realize that there are plenty of people JUST LIKE YOU, the sooner you can perhaps develop a coping mechanism so that you stop feeling this unnecessary sense of entitlement you possess, and perhaps rear children who are not needy shits who think everything on Earth is deserved by them and them alone.

And finally: “I will love you forever”. Now, in all fairness, this one is perhaps a touch difficult, in that

1.) we tend to hold onto first crushes and really good relationships that end for stupid reasons moreso than anything else, so it’s wholly reasonable to believe that you may have some sort of feelings for these people, even if “love” isn’t quite the word for it, and

2.) a very small percentage of people actually DO stay in love until they die.

That said, the divorce rate in the US trends around 30 - 50% (depending on what sources you believe), so I think it’s about time we retire this shit and move on with our day. You are not going to love him forever if you come home and find him balls deep in the babysitter or find her being bent over by the pool boy, okay? I think we all understand that, but it needs to be said: if things fall apart, you were just made out to be a fucking liar. And relationships fall apart for LOTS of reasons, not just cheating; lack of communication, lack of time spent together, lack of money, all of these things can cause the two of you to fall out of love as quickly as you fell INTO it in the first place.

And even assuming you DO spend the rest of your natural lives together, “love” isn’t specifically going to be a part of it either. My grandparents are rapidly approaching their 60th anniversary, and while that is indeed a wonderful milestone, to say that the relationship is based wholly upon unconditional love is perhaps a touch… disingenuous. I mean, if you see four yelling matches in the span of two hours in their presence, I have to think that perhaps “love” has about as much to do with the marriage staying together as “consistency” does, to be completely honest about it. Sometimes, after forty or so years of being together, you stay together because no one else would have you and you wouldn’t want to be alone, instead of because you truly love another.

And if you don’t believe me, do some looking around at how many 60 - 80 year old widows of both genders are getting re-married. If you still loved your spouse as much as you claimed to, why get re-married? You’re going to be joining them in a few years anyway. Or maybe you were full of shit…

Look, in the end, it all comes down to this: you are either saying all of the above (and many, MANY more things) either to make yourself feel better or to help others cheer up, and YOU ARE NOT HELPING. There is no reason for you to spend all of your time shielding your ego and the egos of others from the slings and arrows of the outside world, because the longer you continue to insulate these people and their emotions, the longer you continue to propagate the cycle of people developing into egotistical, uninteresting assholes with overinflated senses of entitlement and overly developed senses of self worth and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to back it up with. When these fuckers get out into the population, they either deny reality for the remainder of their lives and essentially act like stuck-up pricks because they’re SO wonderful that everyone hates them because they’re jealous (and not because you’re a prick), or they become cynical and disenfranchised and grow to hate everyone and everything around them because YOU LIED TO THEM.

Your choice, folks. You’re either creating a nation of Hummer driving, frappuccino drinking assholes… or a nation of people who spend four days a week in therapy complaining about how they hate their parents while you rot in an old folks home staffed by people who pee in your underwear drawers. Choose carefully.

And remember: The world needs an enema.

I tried to think up a larger, more impressive word for the title, but really, that just says it all.

Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that this is “Your Hot Cup of Rant”, and not “Rantmaster Mark reviews products you should or should not purchase”. So assume that I like the product that has inspired this rant and let us move on with our day, yes?

The term “fanboy” has taken on a negative connotation insofar as “internet society” goes, and there’s a reason for that: fanboys take everything entirely too seriously, get worked up over petty shit, and generally act like asshats. There are few greater havens for fanboys on the internet than internet forums; by allowing a person the option to post their opinions of a person, place, or thing, behind the anonymous veil of the internet itself, you in effect give them the opportunity to say whatever strikes their fancy without fear of retribution or assault. It’s very interesting in a sociological sort of context, but generally not so good insofar as actual intellectual discourse is concerned.

Within the various domains of internet fandom, each seems to vie for the title of “Contains the most douchebags per board”, which is not a title most people would actively covet, but then, I don’t specifically think these people do this thing on purpose. They’re not acting like prats because they want people to think of them as prats, you see… rather, they believe themselves the sole voice of logic and reason on teh interwebs, and thus they feel that they are Moses coming down from the mountain, the Ten Commandments clutched in their worn, leathery hands, only to see the rest of us flailing about as we worship some golden calf. They think they are here to properly educate us on what it is we are doing wrong, and how we might do it right, to the betterment of our fandom, if not our entire species.

Me, I just do this to amuse myself. Hence the long time between updates, but never mind.

Now, each of the various fandoms (and there are many) has its miserable dregs residing within it, but video game fanboys are amongst the worst, simply because they are the overall largest in number. Unlike comic book fans, video gamers are at least marginally socially acceptable (so long as no one actually finds out what games they play). Unlike anime fans, video gamers aren’t assumed by proxy to be twelve-year-olds sight unseen who worship Yu-Gi-Oh and love big chested, large eyed subservient women. And unlike both, they have a martyr complex about a mile wide because, hey, Jack Thompson isn’t targeting Batman and Outlaw Star in his ineffectual bullshit.

And unsurprisingly, a not insignificant amount of these people frequent Gamefaqs.

Gamefaqs is, essentially, a repository for video game codes, hints, and strategies, and so long as one never goes any further than that part of it, it’s a generally useful tool for those who want to screw around and play video games. But each of the various games also has its own forum board, and it’s here where everything falls apart. Because, when given an anonymous voice with which to express themselves and a generally mild set of restrictions to abide by, most people turn into assholes almost immediately.

Now, in all fairness, railing against Gamefaqs isn’t terribly hard; plenty of people have done it, and done it better than I ever could. But I do have something in specific I’m annoyed about, that pertains to Gamefaqs, so I’m kind of obligated to explain that yes, many people on the site are the sort of people whose best parts seeped into the mattress at conception.

Because, you see, if Gamefaqs is filled with assholes, the folks on the boards for the various Monster Hunter games represent the most assholiest of those assholes, the kings amongst men in the grand evolution of complete jerkassitude, as it were.

Brief explanation: Monster Hunter is a series of action RPG-esque titles created by Capcom (they of Street Fighter and Resident Evil fame) that are generally an acquired taste. The Japanese love the holy hell out of the franchise, but America has yet to fully embrace it to any sort of degree, and with generally good reasons. The people who frequent the Monster Hunter boards on Gamefaqs generally fall into various categories and sub-categories, but those who post most frequently are either masters or believe they are, and as such, they act like they are somehow interesting and or important, as if anyone could be bothered to give a shit.

Now, here’s the thing: a Monster Hunter “asshole” is a special rare breed of asshole, only encountered in very, very rare circumstances, as they combine the worst aspects of many subsets of gamers:

NICHE - Their game is generally not well accepted by the masses, causing them to berate the masses for DARING to not appreciate the wonderful game, as well as declare that their game of choice is FAR better than it, in fact, actually is.

MMO - Much like MMORPG’s (online games that drain the life from their players), Monster Hunter features hundreds of hours of gameplay, most of it spent doing the EXACT SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN to accomplish things most games would allow you to do in an hour or so. This leads to the “MAH SHIT’S MAD IMPRESSIVE YO” mentality, where he who has the best toys wins. Combined with the fact that one could spend DAYS trying to unlock certain parts from certain giant monsters just to make uber sets, and you have the “unwarranted self-importance” personality trait personified.

FUCKING HARD - Self explanatory. Making large progress in hideously difficult games not only causes the aforementioned “unwarranted self-importance” trait, but also causes such strong players to look down upon others who lack their awesome skills. This is doubly so of “cheaters” who lack the skills to accomplish things fairly, because despite the supposed sense of accomplishment one gets from doing the impossible tasks the game asks of you, most of these people get severely bent when someone else has all sorts of awesome gear without actually having DONE anything to merit owning said items. Logic says that one may play a game however one wants, seeing as how they DID pay for it and all, but logic is something that never enters into the equation where these sorts of people are involved.

UNFRIENDLY GAMEPLAY - Doesn’t play in a way the majority of gamers would expect, or would want, thus making the game inaccessible to many people. Those who tolerate, or perhaps even LOVE this sort of shit become bitter towards anyone who DARES to suggest the game could, perhaps, play better, insisting that the poor gameplay is, in fact, done by choice to make the game more challenging, et al.

It’s like a perfect storm of terrible personality traits in each and every single post. Elitist assholes who believe themselves to be important because of their achievements in Monster Hunter frequent the boards, looking down upon those who have failed to meet those lofty goals and whipping out their metaphorical dicks to drench the masses below in their distainful golden streams.

These are people who, when someone writes a guide for something, instead of perhaps expressing any form of gratitude, they instead shit on that person for daring to try and be helpful.

These are people who makes jokes about pretending to be Final Fantasy VII characters whilst having buttsex, which is simultaneously INCREDIBLY dorky and really gross.

These are people who make a list of what items are considered “cheating”; IE “make the game playable for people who DON’T want to spend their ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE PLAYING A GODDAMN VIDEOGAME TO THE POINT WHERE THEY CAN KICK A DRAGON TO DEATH”.

These are people who, when you ask their opinion of your capabilities as a player, slag you for caring what they think (even though they themselves essentially lord themselves over all others as the best of the best).

These are people who feel the need to slag the same people multiple times, for (as near as I can tell) no other reason than the fact that they’re not good at the game, feel the need to cheat to get anywhere, and are not even a little ashamed of this fact.

These are people who bitch about the reviews of their favorite game, without bothering to realize that the game is a NICHE title, and therefore DOES NOT APPEAL TO EVERYONE. These people also essentially agree that “Developers really should be telling reviewers how to review games” like developers and publishers DON’T have a vested interest in the scores of their product (and the quote in the last link, by the way, applies to a certain extent here, too).

These are people who write informational guides to help out new players, then turn around and lay into those players for DARING to have a weapon or armor preference they don’t share. Sometimes they just lay into you without contributing anything of value to begin with.

“I’m just sayin’ ” what, exactly? That you’re an elitist douchebag who thinks his opinion better than everyone else’s? No shit.

Oh, and God forbid someone asks to make a game save available to others (essentially a file with a character on it that, in most cases, has lots of stuff and is probably hacked). You will be buttraped. Repeatedly. Period. Same with cheating. And they are, in fact, so butthurt that they’re even trying to petition Gamefaqs to DELETE FUCKING EVERYTHING in regards to the above. Because they are, in fact, douchebags.

(And on the off chance that any or all of those links don’t work, no worries: just go here and I guarantee you you’ll find one or more examples of the above in the first three pages, tops.)

You beat Monster Hunter? You’re a god? You think healing and Flash Bombs are the tools of the weak because you’re the most expert dodger on Earth? You unlocked the White Fatalis Armor all on your own, without cheating, without using anything but your weapons, whetstones, and the supply items in the box?

Thanks to Encyclopedia Dramatica for this image that explains it all.

Okay? I mean, I’m aware that your board is full of so many tools that it should have a fucking Craftsman logo at the top, but NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU OR YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Let me spell this out for you in plain and simple English: each and every last one of you loves this game, I get that. Hell, I love it too. I personally think it’s better than most of the games on the PSP, and frankly, I BOUGHT my PSP for Monster Hunter Freedom. But there is a MAJOR difference between MHF and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. And that difference is this:

And see, THAT means that PEOPLE PAID MONEY FOR GTA:LCS. Or, more specifically, ENOUGH people paid ENOUGH money that it was considered to be a PSP best seller. In fact, so are a lot of other games. And really, 250,000 units sold isn’t a lot considering the dearth of great gaming the system has experienced since release. The Sony PSP, at present, has an installed user base of around 8 million users in the USA at this point, so 250,000 units sold really only equates to about 3% of the market buying your product. The overall review scores for MH2F are pretty decent overall, enough so that this version of the game could very well hit that coveted “Greatest Hits” level and inspire Capcom, as the publishing company, to continue releasing Monster Hunter titles stateside.

And your shit-eating attitudes aren’t helping.

I’m not saying you should tolerate the weak and stupid. And I’m also not saying that you should go out of your way to encourage anyone and everyone to play. But I AM saying that really, you should do your best to stop acting like God shit in your Frosted Flakes this morning and accept that, yes, people are going to play how they want to play, and if you happen to play with a fuckhead, you’ll know better for next time.

Because think about this: in about a year or two, when Monster Hunter 3 is coming out in Japan and you’re all frothing at the mouth to own a copy, and Capcom says, “Well, Monster Hunter Freedom 2 didn’t perform up to expectations, so we’ve decided not to release Monster Hunter 3 in the United-” and as the rest of the statement is cut off by your anguished fanboy wail, remember that really, your #1 status on Gamefaqs and your M@D L33T SK1LLZ J0 didn’t help shit. If no one buys Monster Hunter, there will be no Monster Hunter to buy.

There’s a reason something like five new Pokemon titles come out per year, but no sequels to God Hand, Okami, Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts, and Beat Down are pending. Don’t add Monster Hunter to that list. Extract your head from your ass, step back, realize that IT IS ONLY A FUCKING VIDEO GAME, that IT IS NOT FUCKING PERFECT no matter how much you like it, and stop being such a fucktard to other people.

Or, y’know, learn Kanji and get used to playing offline. Your call.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.

So, Roger Ebert is back on his high and mighty horse about how games aren’t art.

Ahem:

Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy.

That’s really all I should HAVE to say, but since I have a self-imposed word limit, let’s move onward a bit.

Now, “art” can simply be defined as “the products of human creativity”. That’s it. Simple, isn’t it? Problem solved. Ebert, of course, can’t just accept this as it is and moves on to refine his opinion by noting that games, as he understands them (which is to say, not at all) cannot be “high art”.

The dictionary definition of high art, as near as I can find it, is “art which deals with lofty and dignified subjects and is characterized by an elevated style avoiding all meretricious display”. In other words, high art is dignified treatment of subjects in a way that is respectful and not tacky. This essentially disqualifies, oh, ninety percent of all artistic things ever, which is what we would call an “asshole tactic”. But let us press on. More modern definitions of “high art” essentially denote that high art is “perfect art”, which is honestly an impossibility; so long as someone somewhere dislikes your art, it is not “perfect”.

But let us trudge on anyway.

Ebert’s definition of “high art” is inclusive of the works of Shakespeare, a man who wrote to cater to the interests of the public of the time, talent be damned. Not to split hairs, but comparing modern artistic interpretation to “high art” that is over four hundred years old is, well, pretty unfair. It would, I think, be more fair and appropriate to compare video games to, say, modern movies or books as an artistic medium; this way, at least you’re working within similar time periods (though Ebert, I would imagine, would argue that most movies are not, in fact, high art either, as is his right).

The article in question essentially is Ebert debating a monologue delivered by Clive Barker at the Hollywood and Games Summit, as Ebert seems to believe that Barker is somehow more qualified to discuss the merits of high art than, oh, most gamers. Is he right? Probably. But Barker, he of “Hellraiser”, “Candyman” and “Rawhead Rex” fame, is not the man I would choose to represent the artistic merits of the medium. Pinhead is an interesting villain, absolutely, but Barker is, generally speaking, a mediocre writer, and most of his films run the gamut from “average” to “outright abysmal”.

The fact that Ebert himself has a variable opinion of Clive Barker flims seems to elude him in this “debate”. I find that funny for some reason.

Regardless, the debate as it is raises an interesting question: what, exactly, is “high art”? Ebert highlights, at most, two examples of “high art”: the works of Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare. While that might be a fairly small list, it serves Ebert’s purposes well enough: it illustrates an impossibly high standard to which one must conform, while simultaneously serving to promote that Ebert does, in fact, “know” what high art is without really attempting to qualify it. It’s an incredibly simple argument that has serviced the uses of others time and again: pick two things most people will agree are “TEH BEST!!!11!” in a particular category, state that they are, in fact, the best, then note how nothing in a comparable category will ever compare.

“Hollywood actors today are so feminine; none of them compare to the heyday of manly men like John Wayne and Cary Grant.”

“Music is so terrible today; no one will ever be as good as The Stones and the Beatles in their prime.”

You get the point.

Now, Ebert really only makes ONE distinct observation to note why video games will NEVER be “high art”: because the player can influence the outcome of the proceedings. This is and will forever be the crux of his argument: so long as the player can make the choices, he argues, he or she dictates the game experience and therefore manipulates it, thus devaluing the artistic merit of the product.

This is the logistical equivalent of saying “Choose Your Own Adventure books let you decide how the story ends; ergo, books will never be high art”. While it is true to say that CYOA books will never be “high art” given those EXTREMELY strenuous demands, to apply this viewpoint to the entire medium is, frankly, absurd.

Most video games are linear to a fault, okay? For every Fable, there is a Halo; for every Fallout, there is a Final Fantasy, et cetera. Grand Theft Auto III, the game of “sandbox” stylistic where you can go anywhere and do anything, has ONE FUCKING ENDING. ONE. UNO. SINGULAR. You play through the experience until you get to the end of the storyline and then, poof, you win exactly as the developers intended you to. I mean, hell, forget GTA III for a minute. You could walk into EBGames, have someone blindfold you and spin you around, and you could meander about until you grabbed virtually ANYTHING, and chances are significant that you will either grab a title for which there is no underlying narrative (which would therefore disqualify it), or a title where there is an underlying narrative, and it is linear.

This is not a difficult concept. “Interacting” with the product is not the same thing as “influencing the outcome”.

Here’s a simple example to expand the concept in a way that makes sense for all parties involved. A video game like Madden ‘07 or some variant of DDR is like a book of crossword puzzles; it is there to entertain and occupy, nothing more. Can they be visually artistic? Absolutely. But is the underlying product art? Probably not. Something from the Carmen Sandeigo series would be equivalent to a math book: it serves an underlying purpose of trying to inform the user, and while you may well derive entertainment from it, the goal of the product is to inform, be it directly or indirectly. No one is accusing that of having artistic merit. Could it? Maybe, but probably not.

With me so far? Good.

Now, the “multiple endings” game, IE where one can achieve multiple endings within the confines of one product… say, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, can be compared to a CYOA book. Maybe you turn the world back to normal. Maybe you ally with a friend who has become a demonic entity. Maybe you suck Satan’s cock forever. Whatever. It’s really up to you. Do these have artistic merit? Absolutely. Are they “high art”? By the above definition, no, not really.

Which then brings us to the “linear plot progression” game design. I know what everyone (AND I MEAN EVERYONE) has been dragging out of the mothballs, but honestly, I’m just not in the mood to say “ME TOO SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS FTW!” so I’m going to work with Okami here. Rest assured, I absolutely do think SotC is “high art” and is fully deserving of the wankery associated with the situation, but I’d prefer to be at least a little divergent here.

So, Okami. Linear plot progression. Singular ending. Absolutely artistically amazing in all possible respects. Is it “high art”? Maybe, maybe not. I happen to think it MIGHT be, though I imagine Roger Ebert would disagree. That’s not the issue. The issue is, “why”?

Were he to take umbrage with the storytelling aspects or the visuals or the overall presentation of the product as an artform, I could wholly accept this. Were he to find fault with some artistic element of the product, I could perhaps see his point, or at least understand where he was coming from on the whole.

But if the argument is “because you interact with it”, I have no use for him or his antiquated opinions.

I can skip pages when reading “The Raven” or “The City in the Sea” or “Romeo and Juliet” or “Othello”. Does this devalue the artistic presentation? I’m INTERACTING with the book, aren’t I? I have to to read the story to appreciate the art, right? I can fast-forward a Hitchcock film on VHS or DVD, does this remove the artistic merit from the product? If I use the shuffle feature on my CD player, does that render Bach or Chopin any less artistic in their endeavors?

Of course not.

Interacting with the product does not make it “not art”. It doesn’t even make it “not high art”. It makes it “interactive”. To appreciate the “artistic merit”, you have to interact with the product. That’s the beginning and end of it. You influence the world to move the story along and progress towards the inevitable conclusion. The end. The artist still retains full control of the narrative and the flow of events; all you control is the periods in-between. You do not dictate the narrative, you do not control the flow of events, all you do is move from one event to the next, performing tasks that, ultimately, are of no tangible consequence to the narrative; if you fail, you may try again, and if you succeed, you progress the story along the path the developer has designed.

The argument that interacting with a product, even for so simple a reason as to progress the chain of events forward, immediately devalues the artistic merit of the piece is ignorant. It is the opinion of an elitist, an opinion borne from the belief that the possessor of said opinion is of greater knowledge than those below him, and that BECAUSE he is of such great knowledge, he can impose his viewpoint upon others and they should respect it, even in disagreement.

Roger Ebert is a pompous ass. His opinion is of little to no merit because, honestly, he does not understand the medium and does not care to. He is not “prejudiced”, he is not “closed minded”, he simply “does not give a shit”. Video games mean not a drop of piss to him in the grand scheme of things, and they most likely never will. All those who are bent out of shape over his OPINION (and that’s all it is, people) need to understand that he, essentially, does not care. If he truly did, he WOULD go out of his way to play the games others recommend to him and provide an opinion of their genuine artistic merit beyond “You interact with it, therefore it isn’t art”.

He does not, because he does not care. To him, it is irrelevant. He feels that he is correct, and he perhaps could be, but it does not interest him to decide otherwise. He is, at best, interested in defending his opinion of why video games are not art, and at worst, interested in generating additional traffic for his website and additional controversy around his name so that he may continue to remain “relevant” in an age where most have long since stopped giving a shit about his mediocre existence. He does not feel any sort of impetus to perhaps experience the fruits of the video game media and, perhaps, formulate an argument that says “this is not high art because of its plodding narrative, tedious characters, and uninteresting physical world”, instead of an argument that is based solely on a flimsy premise borne from an ancient mentality.

Look, Ebert has nothing to say on the topic that anyone of even average intelligence should consider important. While the phrase “one should have an open mind” is often a thinly veiled attempt at saying “THINK MOAR LIKE ME”, in this case it is wholly valid. When the entirety of your argument is based on one single elitist concept that keeps you from more readily analyzing the greater subtexts of the matter, you are a closed-minded dinosaur who has seen the meteor coming directly at your skull and, rather than take steps to evade it, has chosen to face the burning space rock head on. And while this is also fine, that you continue to assert this opinion as if it were some sort of opinion others should hold instead of an antique we ought not even dignify as an existent thing is, frankly, asinine.

I mean, let’s be fair about this here. Very few games, save for their artistic interpretation, could be considered “high art” in any sense of the word. SMT: Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga, the first Metal Gear Solid and Rule of Rose might qualify if not for their variable endings based on player choices, which is fine. Products like Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, the various Zelda titles, Okami, Yakuza and the Shenmue games might qualify to different degrees, but may well be held back because of their artistic interpretations, dialog, characterization, or any number of other problems that may keep them from achieving greatness or anything similar. But, instead of focusing on what is DIRECTLY wrong with the medium (and believe me, there’s a lot, no doubt about it), Ebert discards the entire medium in a heartbeat because of one fundamental difference between his chosen artistic medium and ours: the ability to interact with the product and immerse ourselves within the world the artist has created to an even greater degree than any movie could possibly hope to allow.

Congratulations, Ebert. You have become an internet troll. Does this please you? Does this, perhaps, fill your rotund little body with joy? Mayhap it motivates you to make some sort of bowel movement? Whatever. You are the product of an antiquated way of thinking, and while I’m certain that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens might, perhaps, be closer to your artistic cup of tea, the rest of us will be happy to play Indigo Prophecy and Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened in our land of artistic heathens until such a time as opinions like yours become obsolete purely by virtue of the raising of the collective sanity of the populace.

Until that time, the world needs an enema.

Consider this: historically speaking, if a video game/franchise has the capability to “matter” beyond its period of release, it will generally fall into one of five distinct categories:

1.) It will be hailed as a historically significant achievement purely based on how good/pervasive it was (Half-Life, Pokemon, Tetris),

2.) It will be recognized as something that was special at the time but has since fallen into “overrated” status because it has not held up (Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy VII according to some),

3.) It will be recognized as something that, while it didn’t turn many heads at the time, has since progressed into something loved by the niche gamer for what it did, either in terms of gameplay or artistic vision (REZ, Suikoden II),

4.) It will be forever remembered for being an abomination of God and man (Superman 64, Bubsy 3D, 75% of the Jaguar library), or

5.) It will be hailed as an unappreciated gem of its time that was scored well, that people will forever hope will generate a sequel at some point in the future because of how awesome the original was, even if no one played it (Panzer Dragoon Saga, Earthbound, Valkyrie Profile).

You will note that I bolded the last entry. There is a reason for this.

The game media, as a collective whole, is hated by many for many different reasons. Some hate them because they are inherently corrupt at their very core (I’m looking at you, Dave; I liked you when you were E-Storm, but Play Magazine scores almost every game on Earth as 90% and you need to stop that). Some hate them because the vast majority of people within it are, well, dicks (*cough1UP.comhack*). Some hate them because they shit on games that really don’t deserve it for no really obvious reason (I have no specific example to offer here, but you’ve probably seen it before).

I hate them because they are single-mindedly intent upon turning Beyond Good and Evil into a #5.

So, yes, I’m flogging a dead horse. To whit:

“So, yeah, seeing the same game pop up A MONTH LATER as a “missed gem”, once again, rubs me the wrong way. Stepping over a pile of dog loaf does not a “missed gem” make. It’s $10 used; if people aren’t buying it now, they’re not GOING to. You can walk into your local EBGames and count the used copies of the damn thing in the store on BOTH HANDS. People have played it, hated it, and deemed it insufficiently worthy of keeping. There’s a reason for this: THE GAME IS LAME. SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY.” - Me, Playing the Lame vol. 6, in relation to “Beyond Good and Evil”, 02/23/06.

Now, here’s the thing: go to your local magazine shop and look through a mag, or if it’s shrink-wrapped, buy it and take it home. Thumb through it. Odds are one in five you will see BG&E SOMEWHERE in the magazine. I swear this to you, because I have seen it, and it is horrible. It’s like these people, somehow, have come to some sort of universal mental conclusion that if they shill this game enough, that people will accept it when, years later, they try to induct this into the public lexicon of games that are “deserving of ‘iconic’ status”, despite its being unworthy of such a lofty goal. Now, I get it when fans of the game express their love:

“They (Ubisoft) better get to making Beyond Good and Evil 2.” - random poster on Gamespot.com, saying this presumably because he’s looking forward to watching another mediocre game crash and burn under the weight of all its hype and unreasonably and inexplicably high scores.

because, I mean, they’re fans. Of COURSE they love it. They are not (presumably) paid shills, and they do not have something better to do with their lives. They can comment that they love a game, and that’s really about all of the thought that needs to go into the situation.

The game media, on the other hand, have no such excuses.

“Question 10: Have you ever played Beyond Good and Evil?

A.) Yes, that game rules!

B.) No. I have shamed myself, my father and my father’s father.

Correct answer: A.” - Game Informer, thus taking their status as “a magazine no one would read if Gamestop didn’t give it away for free” and wearing it as a badge of honor, July of ‘07.

“Yet another amazing vision of design, Beyond Good & Evil is an original property designed by Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman, and lead player in such titles as King Kong, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Beyond Good & Evil is a total sleeper classic offering gameplay strikingly similar to Zelda, but in a world (and design) all its own. Shortly after its initial release, the game dropped to $10 and then slowly began to rise again once production went up. This is one of those games players will forget to grab, and then make a mad rush for on E-bay years later. Why not pick it up now, enjoy the hell out of it, and then mock those who didn’t later? Sounds good to us! Beyond Good & Evil is, without a doubt, one of the best games on GameCube.

Other games influenced by Beyond Good & Evil: None specifically. BG&E takes heavy influence from the Legend of Zelda series.” - IGN, documenting why BG&E is one of the greatest games ever for the Gamecube, 03/07.

“Unusual, quirky and endearing, Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil is familiar in some respects, but entirely different than any other action-adventure game. Like any developer intent on creating a 3D adventure title, Michel Ancel and his team in Montpellier, France, borrowed liberally from the book of Zelda. Only Beyond Good and Evil is really one of the first “activist” games, starring Jade, a woman of color photographer, as the lead character.

The story is well told, the graphics are artfully handled, and the sound is outstanding. The narrative is unique to gaming. Jade is recruited to help IRIS, an underground organization working to prove that the Alpha Sections are not at all what they seem, to expose a massive conspiracy. She and IRIS try to counter the Alpha Sections’s propaganda, spread by a corrupt media, by disseminating evidence of the truth. Her handy camera grabs photos, naturally, but also scans data that uncovers information relevant to the story, a central part of the game’s attraction. The charmingly gruff Pey’j, a half-human, half-pig works in tandem with Jade to solve problems and defeat bosses and becomes one of the most endearing characters in the game. How? Through carefully handled dialogue and smart editing. The use of logic and physical puzzles and a nice range of vehicles round out the game, which is presented and told with craft and skill.” - IGN, documenting why BG&E is one of the greatest games ever for the Xbox, because jerking off on the game once just wasn’t enough, 03/07.

Understand this: BG&E is not Suikoden 2. It is not Valkyrie Profile. It is not Panzer Dragoon Saga, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, or any one of a million other games no one loved except for the hardcore.

There are a million copies of BG&E available for retail purchase. You can walk into any store that sells used video games and buy a copy. You could probably buy two or three. You can find multiple copies on Ebay that cost about one half to one quarter of what something like REZ costs. Okami is of greater value because, even though it is fundamentally ALSO a Zelda rip-off (something NO ONE can deny, as the bolding above notes) it is a BETTER Zelda ripoff that ALSO sold poorly, and there are LESS copies of Okami then there are BG&E. You could probably build a house out of all of the copies of BG&E that exist in the US at this point. It was a huge release with a huge marketing campaign behind it, and it failed miserably. It was NOT a ‘niche’ title, it was MAINSTREAM. And it was a MAINSTREAM FLOP.

Alright, look: let’s take some of this shit and look it over for a second:

“Yet another amazing vision of design, Beyond Good & Evil is an original property”? Ripping off Zelda is not “original”. Okay? Okami is KIND OF original, purely through its presentation and artistic style; BG&E rips its visual style from Don Bluth and its gameplay from Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid. Fuck, let’s spell this out: it’s The Mark of Kri with a less interesting control scheme and no blood.

“Shortly after its initial release, the game dropped to $10 and then slowly began to rise again once production went up.” You can get it used for $8 from EBGames.com. That’s not “rising” by any mathematically accurate definition I’ve ever heard.

“This is one of those games players will forget to grab, and then make a mad rush for on E-bay years later.” No, not really; the print run on the title was astronomical. Only games that have small print runs tend to be worth anything substantial. This is why REZ is worth $50, Gitaroo Man was at one point worth as much as $100 (no, I swear), and Disgaea averages for around $50 or more: low print runs combined with fan interest equals high prices. No one is going to be flipping out trying to buy a Zelda knock-off that had a humongous print run; you’re more likely to see Psychonauts or Okami or Godhand fetching $50 on Ebay than BG&E.

“Why not pick it up now, enjoy the hell out of it, and then mock those who didn’t later? Sounds good to us! Beyond Good & Evil is, without a doubt, one of the best games on GameCube.” Considering in the entirety of the entry, you failed to point out one single reason why anyone would want to own the goddamn thing, I rather doubt this.

“Other games influenced by Beyond Good & Evil: None specifically. BG&E takes heavy influence from the Legend of Zelda series.“ And yet Zelda as a franchise makes shitloads of money and this does not. Anyone wonder why that is?

“Unusual, quirky and endearing, Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil is familiar in some respects, but entirely different than any other action-adventure game.” People who make $50K a year to write this bullshit should be acquainted enough with the English language to know that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DIFFERENT FUCKING THAN. IT IS DIFFERENT FUCKING FROM.

Also, Jamaican Rhinos are not “quirky and endearing”. There is no purpose to a Jamaican subculture in a universe that IS NOT OURS. Imaginary universes have IMAGINARY cultures, not the same ones, okay? This is why Star Wars and Star Trek, bad as they CAN be, are millions of years ahead of Michel motherfucking Ancel. If you cannot be bothered to spend an hour thinking up ORIGINAL concepts for your talking animals, why should we care about the product? Fuck you.

“Only Beyond Good and Evil is really one of the first “activist” games, starring Jade, a woman of color photographer, as the lead character.” This sentence is confusing for two reasons. First, what does “woman of color” mean in context? Does is mean she is a woman of color? Because she looks pretty white to me. Look:

At best, she’s Asian. Like, Korean or something. That’s not exactly “of color”. Alternatively, it’s meant to say “a woman color photographer”, which is equally stupid, so I’m going to have to assume that the cockmongers at IGN apparently believe that Jade is, in fact, a proud representation of some race that most likely does not, in fact, exist in the game universe. Very confusing. And second, “activist” games? Who really wanted to play video games based on being an activist of ANYTHING? Was there this massive outcry for activist games in the bowels of Gamefaqs that I was unaware of? How is this a positive fucking selling point? IT’S ZELDA. THAT’S IT. This “activist” bullshit is meant to convey additional “pretend importance” upon a product that IS STILL FUCKING ZELDA.

“The narrative is unique to gaming. Jade is recruited to help IRIS, an underground organization working to prove that the Alpha Sections are not at all what they seem, to expose a massive conspiracy.” Um, dude, Deus Ex. Perhaps you’ve heard of it; the sequel came out AT THE SAME TIME AS THIS FUCKING GAME.

“Her handy camera grabs photos, naturally, but also scans data that uncovers information relevant to the story, a central part of the game’s attraction.” Um, dude, Metroid Prime. Came out a year before BG&E, honest. I swear.

“The use of logic and physical puzzles and a nice range of vehicles round out the game, which is presented and told with craft and skill.” First, “logic and physical puzzles” are not new. 7th Guest, Myst, et cetera. Second, the game is physically appealing, aurally pleasant, and plays okay, absolutely.

But the plot is only “well crafted” if one has never seen a Pixar film in their lives and does not regularly read books that are above a fifth grade reading level. The gameplay is unique and unusual only if one has not, in fact, played a video game in the past, oh, decade. Beyond Good and Evil is, at BEST, “above average”, and at worst, “a cheap rehash of other, better games”.

Please, stop this. There are THOUSANDS of better games to spend your time felating. Many of them have come out in the past two or three years, even. Michel Ancel will forever have a job and does not need you crying to the heavens to support him in his ventures, okay? He helped create Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. He will forever have a job SOMEWHERE until he becomes the next Peter Moleyneux, only less interesting. Clover Studios, meanwhile, have been dissolved, as have Black Isle Studios and Ion Storm, among others. UbiSoft is not going to follow them into oblivion, so please, do us and everyone else a favor and shut up about Beyond Good and Fucking Evil. Mainstream failures created by high profile companies do not need your support when the little guys are sleeping in the streets fighting over crumbs.

And if UbiSoft does somehow go under, good. Fuck them. That shitty TMNT game they made was a billion times worse than any of the Konami ones.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.

When the iPhone came out, everyone HAD to have one. Steve Jobs took time out from running his computer division into the ground to expound on why it was the Next Generation of phones, the sycophantic media fawned over it while poo-pooing it’s “minor” flaws, and of course, the public - always looking for the next materialistic gadget to take their minds off of how worthless their lives really are - waited in massive, twelve and eighteen hour queues just for the privilege of owning one of these gadgets at $500 (4GB) and $600 (8GB). After all, why not? It’s an iPod that makes phone calls! Why, we have to have that! But most importantly, it’s a STATUS SYMBOL! It will GET ME LAID!!!

Naturally, no one paid attention to the warnings. No one cared that in order to do just about anything with it you needed proprietary software like iTunes or Safari, possibly the world’s worst browser. No one seemed to notice that you can’t load ANY third party applications on the phone (sorry, all you Linux-on-iPod freaks), which caused the Safari lock. No one bothered to do the research into the fact that Apple’s hardware typically shits the bed in the first generation, and those kinks get worked out in later generations (see: iPod). And the whole “two year, exclusive contract with AT+T with no other choices” bit? Ignored. But they DID pay attention to Steve Jobs’s warning that there “weren’t enough” units to go around. Who cares if it could explode in your pocket in the worst case, or that Apple’s batteries tend to shrink in effectiveness as they get older? The iPhone might not be in! I have to get in line for it, or I won’t be cool! I WON’T GET LAID!!!

I can see their consternation; after all, if there’s anything a woman has ever wanted to fuck, it’s someone that stinks from waiting in a line outside for 18 hours coming up to her going “check out my gadgets!”

Of course, now that the euphoria has worn off, everyone’s starting to notice just what they paid for with that $600, or what is also known as most of my month’s rent. “What do you mean I can’t use this with Verizon?” “This thing’s really touchy!” “I can’t load my old SIM card?” And my personal favourite… “I can’t activate!”, which means your new gadget is nothing more than a $600 paperweight. It’s not like Apple cares, they already have made a profit of $335 - straight, since they control distribution and don’t have to charge wholesale prices to distributors - off of you idiots. I could spend three paragraphs going over everything that sucks about this product, but instead, I’ll let this site handle that

My job here is to send a collective bitchslap to American consumerism.

I find it amazing that in a country that features people digging in the dumpster and having to work two jobs just to get by, that so many people are so wilfully ignorant that they just throw their money away. I’m not talking about the super-rich here; I’m talking about people like you and me, people that simply don’t have $600 to blow. What causes this thought process? What makes a disposable gadget THIS important that people completely lose their minds and queue for almost a day, and in the case of devices like the PS3, even longer, to the point where they resort to VIOLENCE? And even worse, do these people realize how foolish they really look? Do they realize that this contributes to the rest of the world - a world that kills policemen over a children’s game played with nothing but a ball and a feet, don’t forget - viewing Americans as a group of fat, lazy, stupid mounds of protoplasm that lead meaningless lives, jumping from one mindless distraction to the next, caring of nothing but themselves and saying “fuck the world” because it’s inconvenient? Do they realize that the press intentionally propagates this hype and buzz to take us off of how badly we’re being fucked over by the people that are supposed to lead us? Even worse… do they even care? Do they give it even a moment’s thought?

Thankfully, the release of the iPhone went smoother than the release of the Playstation 3; everyone that’s wanted one has gotten one for the most part, there were no reported incidents of violence (to my knowledge), there’s no poachers making $10,000 off of this thing like they did on eBay with the PS3, and the threat of not enough iPhones turned out to be a bluff instead of an intentional hardware shortage like Sony put forth. But it still doesn’t make us look any less foolish that we put forth so much effort towards something that will be obsolete in a month, and won’t work properly much longer after that.

And the last time I checked, looking like a fool never helped anyone get laid.