 21/6/04: Your Powers Are
Weak
Something
occurred to me recently while thinking about Star
Wars. I was thinking about Princess Leia in a
gold bikini and what I was doing while thinking
about it is nobody's business but my own, but
when I'd finished I started thinking about that
other crucial aspect of Star Wars, the light
sabre.
The
light sabre, it seems, is not something that is
mass produced in a light sabre factory by jolly
light sabre Oompa Loompas. From what I have seen,
every Jedi who uses a light sabre uses a
different model. You can have a light sabre that
has a green laser bit, or, if you're one of those
poser Jedis, a red laser bit. And if you're evil
and don't let things like rules upset you, you
can even have one with a laser bit on both ends,
although I'd be very surprised if you got through
life swinging that around without losing a toe or
a shoulder blade every now and again.
From
there, it was a natural progression of logic to
wonder what, were I a super kickass Jedi, my own
personal light sabre would be like. 'Kickass' of
course goes without saying, but then I wouldn't
try to write an update consisting of only the
word 'kickass' unless I were talking about a new
Bruce Campbell film. So here's a little picture
of my light sabre.
1.
Skull motif. Pressing the left eye socket makes
the laser blade appear, only instead of the usual
FWOOOSSHHHAAAA noise, it makes a noise like
choirs of angels singing. The laser blade is
white, because it's a colour no jedi has yet been
cool enough to have, and quite frankly bright
neon greens and reds look just a little bit gay.
Pressing the right eye socket causes the blade to
detach and shoot forward at high speed. It takes
a little while to grow a new one, but I'm hoping
my opponent will be sufficiently distracted by
the gigantic hole that has suddenly been made in
his or her torso.
2.
What are technically known in the sword trade as
"sticky out bits". These are so I can
hold it over my head and do the whole Grayskull
bit. They also act as an electric tazer in case
my laser blade has detached and flown away for
whatever reason.
3.
Fingerprint readers. If anyone other than me puts
their hand around the hilt, it welds itself to
their flesh and unleashes venomous spiders.
4.
Miniature wizard. He casts evil spells on my
opponents, as it is even harder to concentrate on
swordplay when festering sores are opening on
your face. The miniature wizard is a shy beast,
dwelling mainly in tree trunks in the most
isolated forests in Scotland, and lives on a diet
of sultanas and pencil shavings. The miniature
wizard speaks in a high-pitched voice with such a
thick Scottish accent that his speech is
completely incomprehensible.
5.
Naked lady decorations. If you rub your thumbs
against their pert buttocks, you become overcome
with feelings of arousal and shame.
6.
The mark of Zorro, which will hopefully bless my
light sabre with the legendary swordsman's
fencing prowess.
7.
This miraculous globe-like device, which I like
to call the Super Globe Miracle Fun Time, absorbs
all the blood it will no doubt be soaked in, as
well as the sweat from my grubby mitts, and
converts it through a complicated nanofactory
into something more useful. It has three
settings: 'Energy Drink', 'Worcestershire sauce'
and 'Drano'.
8.
Ambience button. Sophisticated nanosensors detect
how intense the current battle is by how much I'm
perspiring, and plays appropriate music. It comes
with three songs for the three stages of battle
intensity - the Blue Danube Waltz, Ride of the
Valkyries and Flight of the Bumblebee - but you
can insert your own, customised minidiscs if you
want. Now you too can lop off heads in time with
your favourite Chemical Brothers tracks!
9.
Volume control. The usual zuzzung-zuzzunging
noise light sabres make can be muted in case your
roommate is trying to sleep in the room next to
your pitched death battle.
10.
Radar. It detects the smell of fresh urine, such
as what is produced in the trousers of any
enemies in the vicinity who have seen my ultimate
lightsabre. With a slight adjustment, the radar
can also detect the freshly-moistened vaginas of
onlooking females.
11.
Since this is all total fantasy, this is me
fantasising about meeting Dylan Moran.
Now
then, readers, I throw down the gauntlet to you
pussies. I challenge you to design a more
kickarse light sabre than this and send it in. Then I will put them up
on the front page and rate them based on how
kickarse they are. Ignore this if you wish, but I
would like to point out that, according to a
little-known 18th century law, if you've never
designed a light sabre, you are not the legal
owner of your testicles.
- Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
15/6/04:
Monster Mash
Dear
Hollywood,
I
hope you are well. I am. Yesterday I went for a
walk. It was drizzling. Pleasantries aside, let's
talk about your monster movies of late.
| Having recently seen the
new Dawn of the Dead film, and knowing
the film 28 Days Later by reputation, I
think there's an aspect of horror that a
lot of you cigar-chomping
wannabe-starlet-humping bigshot producers
seem to have overlooked. I always thought
that the monster formulas were all set
down pretty clearly. Vampires suck blood.
Werewolves turn into wolves. Paedophiles
have crooked teeth and wring their hands
with glee. And zombies, those lovable
zombies, they shamble around very slowly.
So whats with all the Olympic 100 metre
sprinter zombies in horror films of late? |
 |
I
always thought this was the most fundamental
zombie symptom. Zombies should never look like
they're particularly interested in human brains,
they should just amble in the general direction
of them until one comes within arm's range.
That's part of what makes them so scary. The
unsuspecting normo isn't exactly sure what the
pale, slow-moving gentleman with no lower jaw is
after, but 'devouring brains' will probably be
somewhere near the bottom of the list of
possibilities. You'd assume he was looking for
someone to direct him to a good lower jaw shop.
Once a zombie
starts legging it towards you, slavering and
moaning and tucking a napkin with a delicately
embroidered brain on the front into his collar,
all uncertainty goes out the window. Nobody runs
towards you with good intentions, unless they're
a soldier been away for many years and you're his
pining love. Or they're a commuter and you're a
moving bus. And while we're on the subject, Van
Helsing's Frankenstein's monster was rather
athletic for another traditional member of the
lurching brigade. I always thought his legs would
snap off at the knee if he ever moved at anything
faster than walking pace.
Fast zombies
just go completely against known zombie science.
I'd like to quote now from the scientific paper
"My Family And Other Lurching Dead"
by Dr. Herman Von Zombie, largely considered the
definitive resource on the subject.
 |
1.
The zombie cycle begins when
intergalactic space dust descends into
the atmosphere. The origin of the dust is
debatable. It could be the trail of some
very bizarre dead-raising comet, or a
powdered formula released by mischievous
aliens as some sort of prank. Whatever
the cause, the result is always the same.
Dead people claw their way out of their
graves and move to re-acquaint themselves
with the brains of their living
associates. |
 |
2.
After reanimation, the zombie begins
generating zombie germs - sometimes known
as Evil Zom Puppies
- inside their teeth, which are
transmitted into the bloodstream of the
victim through a bite. As soon as a
living human is bitten by one of the
zombies, the fun begins! Next stop the
brain! |
 |
3.
The human, non-zombie brain, as seen on
the left, is divided into four sections,
which I like to call Flopsy, Mopsy,
Cottontail and Peter. Flopsy, in orange,
controls the long term memory and higher
cognitive ability. Mopsy, in yellow,
takes care of the ability to run fast and
the vital suppressive reflex termed the
"don't eat human flesh" reflex.
Cottontail, in red, takes care of all the
other boring shit. And Peter, in blue
down at the bottom there, is in charge of
shambling, moaning and cannibalism. This
is usually kept dormant until it becomes
absolutely necessary, such as when
attending an excruciatingly boring
theatrical performance. |
 |
4.
Evil Zom Puppies travel from the bite up
the neck and into the brain. Brains are
the tastiest thing in the world to the
Evil Zom Puppies, but for some reason
they will eat everything except the Peter
section. Experts debate this endlessly,
but the best theory we have so far is
that the puppies just don't like blue
very much. |
5.
A new zombie is created, who also goes shambling
off in search of living flesh to sink their
puppy-filled teeth into. The process continues
until everyone on Earth becomes a zombie, or a
plucky hero rises from obscurity to save mankind.
Plucky heroes are those bestowed with the Kickass
Gene (sometimes known as the
Bruce Campbell gene),
which mitigates the effect of the zombie bite by
releasing Good Lovely Puppies, every single one
of whom is armed with miniature nunchucks and
cans of mace, to combat the Evil Zom Puppies.
Good Lovely Puppies also sing children to sleep
and go well with a little vanilla ice cream.
So there you
have it; zombies move slowly and I will hear no
argument. Please don't think I'm ragging on the
new Dawn of the Dead, by the way. It's a pretty
good film that we should probably all go and see.
It's just that it might as well have been about a
horde of marathon runners who all simultaneously
become addicted to human leg pie.
- Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
10/6/04:
When Larry Met Sally
I
was flicking through a games magazine the other
day in a newsagent, killing time before I had to
begin another day of pointless drudgery in this
workaday circus we call society, when I happened
upon the news that they're actually making
another Leisure Suit Larry game.
Now,
I read a blatantly contradictory article a few
years back that the series was being ended for
good, and I was as unsurprised then as I am
surprised now. Leisure Suit Larry just isn't a
game that pitches well with today's modern
sensibilities. No matter how you phrase it,
you're going to have to admit to the publishers
at some point that it's about a small, ugly twat
attempting to coerce a succession of easy sluts
into mattress mambo.
Example
1:
"Okay,
so I've got this idea for an adventure game. It's
about this small, ugly twat attempting to a
coerce a succession of easy sluts into mattress
mambo, and -"
"STOP."
Example
2:
"Okay,
so I've got this idea for an adventure game. It's
a dark, philosophical work in which a small, ugly
twat, representing the arrogance of Western
imperialism, attempts to coerce a succession of
easy sluts -"
"STOP."
Example
3:
"Okay,
so I've got this idea for an adventure game. It's
about an intergalactic space ranger on a mission
to an unexplored quadrant of the galaxy, where he
must uncover and foil the sinister plot of an
evil space emperor. Oh, and if there's time, I'd
also like to add elements in which a small, ugly
twat attempts to coerce a succession -"
"SECURITY."
The
first Leisure Suit Larry game was made back when
video games could be thrown together in an
afternoon, and as such an awful lot of games were
released which, had more time been spent on them,
would probably have been quickly considered a
waste of everybody's time. This was a time when
games were made about making a trip to Sunday
School, or goddamn fucking toothpaste.
LSL
was going to be popular, because it had tits in
it. There's a basic rule when it comes to
marketing - if you want to sell more of your
game, add either tits or Jesus. This is why the
Passion of the Christ raked in the money and
Germany has any sort of games industry at all.
LSL
was more than a game. For me, and for many of my
fellows, it was a rite of passage. An essential
part of puberty. I'm pretty sure it must have
been the same for everyone; at the age of twelve,
rumours circulate around the playground of some
kind of adventure game with sex in it. And
because we were all like that at twelve, and
anyone who says they weren't is either going to
hell for lying or was castrated at birth, it
quickly became the ambition of every sweating
dance partner of Mrs. Palm to play it.
The privileged few who had
witnessed it grew in street cred as they
gave first hand accounts of the Mystery
Game, but their accounts ranged from
exaggerated ("You can fuck a hooker
and get AIDs") to downright lies
("You shag this girl and you can see
everything and then this dog comes in and
you shag the dog") until, finally,
your turn arrives. You go round your best
friend's house 'cos he managed to get a
copy from his older brother's best mate.
Then you start up the game, fingers
excitedly brushing your nasty little
crotch.
Once you've gotten over
giggling at references to blow-up dolls
and herpes, it soon becomes clear that
there is very little in the way of the
promised hardcore sex. On the rare
occasions when you do slide twixt the
sheets with some pouty lass, a big black
'censored' box gets between you and the
action. Too late you have discovered that
Leisure Suit Larry was the video game
equivalent of an 80's spring break movie.
You sit through hours of sniggering
sophomore jokes to see two brief glimpses
of tits, and masturbating to it feels
like redecorating your bedroom with puppy
entrails; too much like hard work, and
leaves you with a feeling of shame.
And if you take away all
the pseudo-pornographic elements, the
game is probably one of the worst
adventure games Sierra ever produced, and
that's saying something. Half of it is
spent making money in boring gambling
subgames. The defining moment, though,
was the puzzle right at the end, where
you convince the Grand High Slut to have
PG-13 sex with you by giving her fruit.
And let's not forget the staple of Sierra
games - DYING ALL THE FUCKING TIME!
In the first Leisure Suit
Larry game, you die if you flush a
toilet. No warning, no sign saying 'do
not flush this toilet or you'll die', you
just die. You die if you try to cross the
road. You die if you walk the wrong way
from certain rooms. You die if you have
sex with a prostitute without using
protection, and even if you do remember
to WEAR CONDOM, you die if you forget to
take it off. God almighty, it's almost as
if they're trying to discourage you from
soliciting sex from a diseased whore.
The sequel wasn't that
much better. It had a better storyline
(any storyline would be better than 'me
want sex'), but had its fair share of
stupid deaths. You could unavoidably die
after playing the game all day because
you didn't lick a stamp or poke a bunny four hours ago.
Plus there was practically no sex. And I
can't have been the only person with
enough nerve to complain about that, 'cos
Leisure Suit Larry 3 had no end of it.
But there was always a censored box or a
foreground object in the way, or the
designers would try to make us believe
that you could still have full
penetrative intercourse when both
partners still have their pants on.
"Yahtzee, how can you
denounce classic games just because the
groups of coloured pixels aren't humping
as explicitly as you'd like?" you
ask. Well, let me tell you this: the
Larry games, whether consciously or not,
were never designed for adults. They were
designed for sniggering pubescents who
wanted to see tits. And when you're
twelve, tits make the world go round. And
fists go pump.
|
THOSE SEX SCENES
IN FULL 
Is it hot in here, or is it just you?
What the fuck? A black box? We had to be
over 18 to see this?
Ah, now this is the right sort of mood.
GODDAMN FUCKING GRROOAAARRGG
This has got to go somewhere. You can
almost see half a breast, for god's sake.
Oh. Swell. Fireworks. Maybe if I hold my
breath for long enough they'll start to
look like Shannon Tweed.
|
-
Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
7/6/04:
Rhyme and Rhyme Again
| What do Billy Joel,
James Brown, Britney
Spears and Blackpool
all have in common? I'll let you stew on
that conundrum for a paragraph. Why is
advertising so fucking lame? Is it just
coincidence that everyone who works in
advertising has the sense of humour of a
fifty-year-old Beano comic, or is there
some portion of the marketing university
course that involves being strapped
Clockwork Orange-style into a cinema to
be shown so many films of tragedy and
horror that one is left with a complete
psychological inability to know a joke
when it sticks its foot up one's arse?
|
 |
Anyway, to get back to the
question, what DO Billy Joel, James Brown,
Britney Spears and Blackpool all have in common?
The answer is that they have all sung songs in
which the word 'girl' has been rhymed with the
word 'world', with the exception of Blackpool,
which is a Lancashire coastal town popular with
tourists and has no musical credits to my
knowledge. Except for once doing backing vocals
for the Bee Gees. I don't know what the hell I'm
talking about, so I'll just move on to the point.
I
have this new theory that 'girl' and 'world' is
the most appallingly overused rhyme in the entire
history of music, right from when Blondel, the
minstrel Richard the Lionheart was suspiciously
fond of, started putting words to his
lute-strumming. This, I decided, would require
some research on my part, so I did what I always
do; posted a query on the Underdogs messageboard and wait for some poor
sap to do it for me. Thanks by the way to the
absurdly-named aagepult for his
much appreciated service!
For
the record, here are the snippets from the three
artists mentioned above.
Billy
Joel - Uptown Girl
Uptown girl / Always living in an
uptown world
Here
old Bill demonstrates the most common usage of
the most common rhyme - a girl of a certain
quality said to be living in a world of the same
quality (see also Material Girl, Barbie Girl).
Now, not wishing to diss the Pianoman or
anything, what exactly is an uptown world? Is
'uptown' some kind of parallel dimension, or is
it some kind of amusement park, like Seaworld?
Uptown world! Fun for all the family! Come ride
the
Move-into-the-city-and-get-a-crap-job-while-you-attempt-to-write-a-screenplay
that-will-never-go-anywhere-coaster! Costs five
dollars to get in, and seventy-five dollars to
get out!
James
Brown - It's A Man's World
This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing
Nothing not one little thing
Without a woman or a girl
Old
JB tries to pull a fast one on us, here. He
starts with the world thing, so you're expecting
the third line to bring in the girl thing, but
then he makes monocles worldwide pop out of their
sockets by saying 'WOMAN' instead. And then, just
when you begin to admire him for his
revolutionary tactics, he shamefacedly caves in
to the pressure of conformity and sticks that 'or
a girl' on the end. I expect better of the
Godfather of Soul, unlike -
Britney
Spears - Boys
You're a sexy guy, I'm a nice girl
Let's turn this dance floor into our own little
nasty world
As
much as I despised Britney Spears during her
schoolgirlish, virginal, pink tip of the tongue
appearing momentarily between the teeth phase, I
hate her even more now that all her videos look
like they were directed by David Fincher. The
whole 'bad girl' thing just doesn't work for me.
FUN
POP FACT: Female vocalists tell the press that
they're adopting a 'bad girl' image only when
their career is freefalling towards the
unforgiving concrete at terminal velocity. You
generally start getting your tits out during the
fourteenth of your fifteen minutes of fame.
And
that's just the beginning of a roll call of
shame, visiting artists from every genre and
sub-genre in the BBC Radio archives. This, my
friends, is the root of it all. Why isn't new
music as good as old music? Why do record
executives spend so much time dallying with bimbo
sluts while the real talent moulders in a corner?
Why do little orphan children die in the snow?
IT'S BECAUSE THERE ARE TOO MANY SONGS THAT RHYME
THE WORDS GIRL AND WORLD.
It's
not like there aren't enough words that rhyme
with girl to go round. I took the liberty of
writing a little song to illustrate this. Feel
free to make up your own tune.
I
knew this lovely girl
Her name was Shirl
Her hair was in curls
And her dad was named Earl
Earl
took me aside
and in his Southern drawl
He said to me, "Wurl,
"You do right by mah girl,
"And we won't have no quirl." (quarrel)
So
I took Shirl to Blackpurl
And we went on the tilt-a-whirl
But I'd just had a Curly Wurly
So I had to get off and hurl-y
Which rather spoiled the romance of the evening
I
went down to the beach with Shirley
And said she looked like Liz Hurley
And gave her a necklace of pearl-y
Anything else would have been churl (ish)
Then she was eaten by the giant space oyster
Who had vowed revenge on me
For pinching her pearls
So I went back to Earl's house
And he was kind of broken up about it for a while
But he recovered
After a few games of Sonic the Hedgehog
And now I've sort of lost the plot
I've
lost the plot
I've lost the plot, yeah
I lost my Shirley
And now I've lost the plot
(guitar
solo)
 |
Lacking
any other way to close this article, I'd
just like to point out that Billy Joel
looks like the result of a depraved
breeding experiment between Ringo Starr
and the tall bloke from Everybody Loves
Raymond. |
-
Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
6/6/04: Go
towards the light
So, er, yeah.
I guess this all
deserves an explanation.
Do you know how
long this site has had that dowdy grey-on-black
motif? Since the September of 2002, that's how
long. Two years, and it took until now for
someone to make me realise how crap it looked.
This site was
well overdue for a redesign, and it's only now
that I could be arsed to go back through the
archives and change all the pages. So, here it
is. The brand new, lovely, sky-blue Fully
Ramblomatic.
I've got a
proper links page now, rather than
just having links down the sidebars, so now I can
add links to the site without having to add them
to every fucking page. If you have a site that
you think I have unfairly overlooked, then make
sure your site isn't as lame as a two-legged
racehorse and drop me a line.
Okay, well...
I'm tired and my fingers are freezing up. I can't
really think of anything to be funny about, so
I'm just going to leave you to bask in the
wonderful glow of the new motif and do something
constructive. I guess I'll have a proper update
sorted out in the next few days.
- Yahtzee
updates - features - essays - reviews - comics - games - novels - about - contact - forum - links
|
