Hurrah, more useless shit

Recently I decided to start doing something bizarre--something else bizarre, that is. I've decided to start collecting material from previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons I've never played. Not that I'll be much of a collector--I fully intend to open and read everything I acquire. This is actually pretty liberating; it means I can even buy damaged stuff! So long as any box sets I find have all the books and stuff inside, I'll buy it! I was already kind of doing this--I've owned a water-damaged copy of the original Fiend Folio for a few years now.

Some exceptions: I don't plan on collecting any 3.5 stuff--in fact, I just sold off most of my remaining 3.5 books. I still have my old Player's Handbook, since the spine's damaged and I didn't think Powell's would take it. That will, in all likelihood, be the only 3.5 book in that collection.

Why? Simply put, I had so many unpleasant experiences playing that edition I've come to hate it. Every group I've played it with wound up violently hating one another after about three combats; my involvement with the last one ended so acrimoniously that not only did I not play D&D again until 4th Edition (which I like, should you wish to flame me for it), it left me hating the entire human race (well, left me hating the entire human race more). That, and I might be interested in actually playing some of the stuff I find, and I will never play 3.5 again. I know it's unusual for D&D players to despise the edition they started with, but then I also thought modrons and Spelljammer were cool.

Also, I doubt I'll be doing this with the original 1974 "tan box" D&D that started this whole female-repelling mess. Not because I'm not interested, but because it's just not economically realistic, especially if I'm not doing this for some theoretical monetary gain. There's a copy of it for sale at Guardian Games, where I picked up the stuff below. The box is in HORRENDOUS shape (it looks like someone hurled a bucket of santorum over it) and one of the three booklets is missing. And they STILL want $100 for it, leading me to conclude I'd have to take a shit directly into the box before it'd lose value.

So, yesterday I went to Guardian Games (possibly the best hobby store in the Portland area, notwithstanding its odd location) in search of an inaugural addition or two. I came home with these:


In case you can't make it out (when, exactly, did I smear my cell phone's camera lens in Vaseline?) those are copies of the 1981 "Red Box" edition of the D&D Basic Rules Set and the Hollow World campaign box set. See what I mean about damaged stuff? The Hollow World's in great shape, but the Red Box looks like Comic Book Guy sat on it.

Their overall condition can wait, though. See, I plan on reviewing each new acquisition right here in this blog. I'll be including photos, general rundowns on each piece's condition, and of course massive quantities of snark on the game material itself. My Red Box review should be up in the next day or so, right after I finish reading both booklets, with Hollow World forthcoming. I'll also be sticking in reviews of the Fiend Folio and *sigh* the 3.5 PHB somewhere along the way. I can feel my attractiveness to women shriveling as I speak. Not that I had much of that anyway.

Postmortem

(Note: In my last entry, I somehow failed to mention that Howard Phillips works for Shadow Complex's developer, the bizarrely-named Chair Entertainment. Had I done so, my brief reference to Howard & Nester would have actually made some contextual sense. TIP regrets the error.)

Well, I finished Shadow Complex this morning. I'm even more convinced now it's a great game--you know why? I got to the end and found myself annoyed to have run out of game. That doesn't often happen--even in the case of, say, Mass Effect I was content to wait 3 years for a sequel.

I wasn't kidding about this being a Metroidvania game. The map screen looks exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, like Super Metroid's (and, for that matter, Symphony of the Night's). All the other elements are there too--the starting with nothing and slowly building into a killing machine, the partially-open world that becomes gradually more accessible as you find more powerups, etc.

Sorry to dickride so much, but I'm just blown away at how much effort they put into this thing. This is, after all, a $15 Live release, and a licensed game at that. They would have been well within their rights to just dash something off and forget about it. The benefits they'll reap for not doing so should (but probably won't) serve as an object lesson to film and TV studios looking to cash in on all this newfangled Atari stuff.

That said, it's hardly perfect. Like I said, it's very short. The writing (by Peter David, as it turns out) is perfectly serviceable and knows when to stay out of the way most of the time, but the twist ending (without giving anything away, not that that's any kind of favor) is, as usual for twist endings, fucking stupid. Honestly Pete, I know you're just a work-for-hire guy but you're usually better than that. Also, if anybody out there didn't see it coming about, oh, a quarter of the way through the game or so, please write in and let me know what it's like to be the single dumbest person on the planet. I'm thinking of doing a series of posts where I interview the world's thickest people, and Sarah Palin and Jeremy Clarkson haven't been returning my calls. And why did the player character have to look so much like the guy from Uncharted? Not only that, they're both voiced by the same guy! It's enough to make me wonder if this was originally an Uncharted project they retooled after the rights fell through or something. If that's the case, it's even more amazing the game turned out as well as it did...

And you know what? I think I am going to read Empire now. Oh, I'm not going to buy it (that's what libraries are for)--that "use it to pay a lawyer when you get arrested for soliciting gay sex" bit only works so many times. I know I shouldn't hatchet my counts before they chicken, but just from reading the Wikipedia entry it looks like I'll find plenty of horrible things to say about it. And if/when I do, it'll all wind up here.

Until then, however, I need to get back to unlocking the "Make 'Em Scream" achievement.

You (insert derogatory noun here)

Damn you, Howard Phillips.

You tricked me.

As a child, reading your hilarious adventures in Video Game Land with a turkey-headed preteen, little did I suspect that one day you would dupe me into giving my barely-earned money to a Mormon of the worst order. A man who believes those who don't share his preference of body orifice eat white babies right out of the cradle.

You see, the Xbox Live game Shadow Complex is based in the setting of the novel Empire, the latest neocon twaddle from formerly respectable science fiction author/homophobic asshole Orson Scott Card. And it's really freaking good. Seriously, it's a Metroidvania game of the best kind. It's everything the critics have been saying about it, and that's a rarity.

And it really fucking hurts to recommend it. Because there's no escaping the fact that some of the $15 you spend on it--and it may not be any vast amount, but still--will go into the coffers of a man who considers the legalization of same-sex marriage grounds for armed rebellion. In fact, Card really, REALLY likes talking about how much he hates gay people. And as we all know, the people who scream loudest about this stuff tend to have the most to hide.

And yet, this is still a really good game.

So take my money, Mr. Card, with my blessing. Take the dollar or whatever you get in royalties from the 1200 points I spent buying Shadow Complex. You'll doubtless need it for legal fees when you inevitably get caught tapping your toes in a Salt Lake City International Airport men's room. But know this:

You still suck. Not just cock, but in general. You hit your literary peak 24 years ago and since then your writing talent's evaporated along with your brains and your empathy. Oh, and you're not just ugly on the inside:





Stickly! You look like one of those Down's Syndrome kids. That'd certainly explain a lot, but every Down's Syndrome kid I ever met was a lot nicer than you. Hey, if you can make fun of others for being born different, I can make fun of YOU for being born Mom-slapping hideous.

And you know what? I hope gay marriage DOES become legal (well, I already did) and you DO try to start another Civil War over it. Because the thought of you being forced to your (no doubt heavily callused) knees and drilled through the back of the head as a traitor verges on boner-inducing to me.

Get fucked. Oh, and good game by the way.

I don't wanna dip my balls in it

Reno 911! has been canceled.

You know, I've just about had it with Comedy Central. It's gotten to the point that if The Daily Show and The Colbert Report got canceled, I'd have zero reason to watch it. To answer the immediate question, no, I'm not forgetting South Park--I lost all patience with that show once they saw fit to become the propaganda wing of the Libertarian Party. I was pissed off when Dave Chappelle bailed--now I wonder what he knew that I didn't.

This is, after all, the same network that canceled TV Funhouse after one season but kept bringing back Mind of Mencia. The same network who insists on punishing us with reruns of Scrubs and MADtv, shows which respectively showcase everything wrong with sitcoms and sketch comedy. The same network that thought (for a mercifully brief moment) it could bring back Futurama without the original voice cast. The same network that, most unforgivably of all, helped catapult Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy to superstardom. And the less I say about their original movies, the better.

Of course, there's no accounting for taste (I thought and still think Drawn Together was funny--it's not something I'm proud of)--they wouldn't keep airing this horrid shit if people weren't watching, right? And most of the really terrible shows are done and gone in one season, so perhaps I'm being unfair. In fact, I AM being unfair--The Daily Show and Colbert aren't going anywhere.

Still though...Dane Cook.

Errr...

Apparently I'm only eating about 1373 calories a day...

Should I be worried?

Rejection

So, there's this Facebook page called I'm Not Right In The Head. The basic idea is that it's where people come together to share how "not right" they are, make up funny captions for odd photos, read odd news stories, etc. As anyone who knows me can attest, I'd be all over this like hubris on an Objectivist. And I was.

Until today.

You see, INRITH (as I now think of them) frequently held a "fill in the blank" activity. It'd be something like "I'm not right in the head because I enjoy watching________", and you were supposed to--guess what?--fill in the blank.

Now, something else people who know me can tell you: I will NOT do something like this halfway. If prompted to shock, startle or outright offend, I'm gonna start where most people stop. There is very little I hold sacred. Your mother? She's a whore. The pope? He's molesting a child RIGHT NOW. Your favorite band? They suck. Your religion? Lies. Bigotry? Hilarious. You? Puh-leeze. Me? A physically unattractive, festering ball of neuroses who ridicules the flaws of others to hide his own massive insecurities, content to waste his life taking the path of least resistance. Were I to attempt an Aristocrats joke, I'm pretty sure all of reality would implode into a scatological vortex.

At the same time, though? I don't mean it--don't mean most of it, anyway. I am not a racist or a homophobe or a rapist or a misogynist or an anti-Semite or anything like that. This is because when I say gross or disturbing things, it is entirely for the purposes of humor--to effectively shock a laugh out of the listener. If I really was any of the things listed above, well, it wouldn't be funny anymore. It would, instead, become merely disgusting and pathetic. Like Glenn Beck. (Oh, and I DO mean that one.)

Anyway, back to INRITH. Their most recent fill-in-the-blank was "I'm not right in the head because I once made love in________". At this point, I'd already decided I was going to take the concept of "not right in the head" as far as it would go, adopting the persona of someone who's genuinely miswired upstairs. Since this is pretty much me anyway, this proved rather easy. I could tell my entries tended to be the weirdest of the bunch, and this time was no exception.

My entry this time was "my mom's ass".

Yeah.

Let me clarify: I did NOT mean I had fucked my mother in the ass. I meant to imply I had once made love to a woman unrelated to myself, and we had just so happened to be inside my mother's ass at the time. Looking back now, I can see how this could be misinterpreted.

As my mouse hovered over that "comment" button, I experienced a pang of doubt. Do I really want to say this? I thought. Am I about to step over the line from transgressive humor to mere repulsion?

I need to start listening to that voice, because the answer is invariably, with the resonation of a slamming door in a previously-thought-abandoned house, "YES."

But I hit that button anyway. Just like I always do.

The next day, this message was in my inbox:


that's it

there's Not Right and there's sick.
your comments are sick.

goodbye

Wow. In my defense, I'd point out that "not right" and "sick" are virtually synonymous, but still...wow. Stuff like that makes me wonder: Am I really as funny as I think I am? Or am I just another jackass who doesn't know when or how to keep his mouth shut?

Thoughts?