A new F-Zero, Nintendo? Please?

F-Zero is a fantastic Nintendo franchise that needs a new entry, especially with the crazy hardware capabilities of both the WiiU and the 3DS. The last major console title -- F-Zero GX for the Gamecube -- was a kickass game and one of my favorite racing games of all time. It came out in 2003 and I STILL love playing it to this day.

I could talk for days about GX, but I would much rather talk about what's great about the franchise and why it absolutely needs a new game in the series. For those who don't know how awesome F-Zero really is, buckle up for a sec and read on.

Imagine, for a minute: the year is 20XX, of fabled Nintendo fame. Space travel is so possible we don't even give a fuck about it anymore. We humans are too busy RIPPING THE GALAXY APART so we can put crazy anti-gravity racing tracks everywhere for our own enjoyment.

You're some alien dude with a souped-up zero-gravity machine called an F-Zero, and you wanna race your ASS off in the most watched sport in the world: the F-Zero Grand Prix. Only thing standing in your way? 29 other borderline insane racers who want nothing more than to crush you into a fine silicon dust on the racetrack. Including this motherfucker:

"Black Shadow," a douche villain/C. Falcon's nemesis.

On tracks like this:

It's called "Fire Fields" because it's literally just a tube suspended above a bunch of lava...

And then there's Captain Falcon, the main protagonist who can blow up the entire damn universe with his punches:

2012: the year that gaming (sort of) grew up

Instead of another dreaded year-end "best of" list that most folk love to hate, I decided to take some time to go over some of the important trends and news stories from the game industry. Gaming turned 40 last year -- and with this progression the claims that it has "grown up." In my opinion, the growing pains have just begun.

Geoff Keighley being dead inside is a pretty good way to sum up how weird last year was.

2012 was a wild year for gaming as a global community. As a whole, the entire business of thinking about video games has been in the process of upheaval from all corners, regardless of how slow actual progress may seem to be. There were also a lot of painful, awkward incidents that (hopefully) helped teach universal lessons to developers, writers, PR execs and gamers alike.

In my own opinion, one of the biggest things that happened to the gaming community in 2012 was the corrosion of the powerful hold that shitty, racist, sexist and sophomoric people have on our electronic entertainment. Part of this beautiful corrosion was a result of the continued blossoming of games writing sites that encourage thoughtful discourse about the tenets of game design and the issues surrounding it. For example: BrainyGamer, Gamasutra, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and even Kotaku all had some wonderful posts.

My Pokemon Nuzlocke, Chapter 3: THICK AS A BROCK

>>continued from here.

Hey guys!  Just plugging Jessica Staub's artwork again here because she does ALL OF THE ART for this and it is AWESOME.  Gooo here and give her work upboats or whatever happens on deviantart, I don't really know how it works.

Chapter 3: Thick as a BROCK

I had been flying through the next leg of my journey ever since Gail joined Goldie, Jade and I. Route 2 was pretty tiny. When I tried to catch a Rattata I found there, Gail ended up kicking it so hard that it exploded instantly.

That's something I'm not gonna forget anytime soon.

The only way to Pewter City from there was through Viridian Forest. Honestly, I don't understand how a simple road from one city to the next is so fucking HARD TO COME BY in a world that has computers that can digitize animals into complex online libraries.

My Pokemon Nuzlocke, Chapter 2: A dickbag among the trees

>>continued from here.

Chapter 2: A dickbag among the trees

As I explored Viridian the next day with Goldie on my shoulder and Jade at my side, I ran into a kid talking to some rocks on the ground. I tried to tiptoe past him but his freak-sensors apparently activated, shouting “HEY YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF CATERPILLAR POKEMON?”

Stunned momentarily, I backed away slowly, shaking my head and whispering “No... no thanks. I'm.. I'm fine.”

He turned his head back to his rocks, saying “Oh, okay then,” more to himself than me.

Kanto is fucking weird.

My Pokemon Nuzlocke: welcome, and chapter 1

Hello, all!  Lately, I've been playing Pokemon LeafGreen version (which is a remake of Pokemon Blue Version) with a very special set of rules that some of you may have heard of before: a Nuzlocke Challenge.

The basic rules are as follows:

1.  If any Pokemon is to be "knocked out" by anything,  they are then considered "killed" and you must release them and can never use them again.

2.  You may only capture the first Pokemon that you find in any new area.  If you fail or knock it out, you cannot catch any more.

3.  You must give every single Pokemon you catch a nickname.

I also added in one extra rule to help me out a little bit because I seem to be really uber unlucky with critical hits:

4.  The first time a Pokemon dies from a lucky, random critical hit, they can be saved ONCE.  Only once, and you cannot choose which event.  Only the first time it happens.

Aside from those stipulations, I will be playing it like any normal game of Pokemon--with the intent of writing a STORY about it!  Therefore, I hope you guys get as attached to my Pokemon as I do throughout this whole experience.  

This story is going to be incredibly melodramatic and it's meant to be a fun/sometimes sad retelling of the events of my game as I see them through the eyes of a character who isn't the normal mum hero of Pokemon lore (I don't wanna say it's me but it pretty much is).  Another cool thing about this project is that I'm getting my cool artist-ly friend Jessica Staub to illustrate some of the story! Here's a link to her DeviantArt page.  Awesome, right?  

I'll be updating with a new chapter of the story every week or so, right here on my blog.  Uhm.. I think that's about it, but I hope you guys like the story thus far and wanna keep coming back to the story!  

Without any further ado, Jess and I would like present you with my...

In a land very far away, people have learned to coexist with the animal side of the world—to count them not only as other living creatures but also as friends and partners. This strange land's name is Kanto, and those animals are called “Pokemon.”

In Kanto, it is customary for children in some families to leave with their beloved Pokemon in tow in the pursuit of bettering themselves and their animals friends. They become Pokemon “trainers,” creating teams, helping their Pokemon grow and learning about the birthright they were born into. Many of those children hope to someday reach the pinnacle of trainership: to beat the best trainers in the land at the Pokemon League and become the Pokemon Champion.

This story follows the path of somebody who had never had a chance to strike out on his own; a particularly jaded, foul-mouthed young man from Pallet town.

FART CAT

Just a quick update here because this made me die of laughter earlier today:  FART CAT.

It's a game where you feed a cat until he farts.  It's available now for a dollar in the App store.  GET IT ON YOUR PHONES.  

There's not much else I can say about this game that this trailer doesn't already say perfectly.

yeah....

I really honestly can't wait to see what the guys from Summer Camp Games are gonna do next--this is their first game ever, but judging by their candor and humor in the video I'm sure they're gonna make plenty of great stuff.  

Hopefully if this awesome little app sells well they'll move on to bigger and better things.

Digital immortalization

Death is a specter that haunts everybody throughout their lives.  Sometimes it may seem like it's everywhere--in our personal lives, in our jobs, in the news--and that's because it is.  It is an inescapable part of life, though everyone deals with it in their own way. Often times for myself, it's hard to even fathom the concept even when it's one of the few single experiences that every human being will eventually share and has been since the beginning of time.

I apologize for wanting to write about such a somber topic, but the recent theater murders in Aurora, Colorado as a result of one cowardly person's actions have sent my brain into a tizzy.

Don't read this, you should be watching "Prometheus"

"Prometheus."  Go see it.  Stop reading up about my pathetic life through my writing and see something fucking real.

It was kind of a humbling experience, watching the movie.

The kickass crew of actors (Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron) fit the movie like, well, actors in a really good Ridley Scott movie should.  Rapace is the new Sigourney/Ripley, and good god is she as gorgeous and badass as the new female protagonist any "Alien"-lover could only hope and dream for.

I wish this movie didn't feature you getting the shit beat out of you so much, girl,
but if it makes you feel any better you made me fall in love with you while it happened.
/SUPERCREEPYMODEDISENGAGE

Story-wise, too, it blazes along the well-traveled path of great science fiction that causes us to question our humanity, like a sequence of contaminated, foreign DNA racing through the body of one of the film's unfortunate souls.  The movie's terrifying in a psychological way, even moving beyond the hideous alien forms and their murderous tendencies.

Of course, the special effects and sound design are great, too (convincing boom booms and deepass alien-sounding bass). But there are also some truly mind-blowing examples of cinematography in the film that aren't going to leave my mind anytime soon.  Yeah, the script isn't particularly inspiring at times and there are a few "plot holes" if you could call them such, but they still aid the overall experience in a meaningful way.

I really don't want to say much more or do a write-up of this movie because, seriously, you should just go see it.  It honestly makes me incredibly depressed -- the fact that I'll most likely never create something on the same scale of "Prometheus."  Most of the strands come together -- narrative, music, cinematography, acting, special effects -- to make a nearly pitch-perfect sci-fi film.  It's unforgettable.

WATCH IT WATCH IT WATCH IT

Oh... one more thing.

SPOILERS SPOILERS DON'T LOOK BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET

Arma 2's DayZ zombie survival mod is everything your lil' nerd heart desires (probably)

Ooh!  Zambies!

Arma II is a 2009 tactical shooter that most people (myself included) had probably never heard of before a few months ago.  Even fewer people had the desire to play it despite solid mechanics, a huge open world and tons of support for modification of the game -- mostly because it's incredibly realistic and therefore incredibly sloooow.  Also, it had tons of bugs at launch.

Then, all of that changed after word got out that there was a new extensive mod for Arma II which turned it into a zombie survival game.  

The mod, called DayZ, was originally coded and produced by one man (who is now employed by Bohemia Interactive, the company that originally made Arma II).  As of the writing of this post, there are currently 726,882 players who have currently installed the mod and have played it at least once.

Keep in mind, that's around three-quarters of a  million people.  Playing a mod.

Saying goodbye to animal friends

This was prompted by the recent death of my 4-year-old cat Mischa. When we first got him, he was the tiniest kitten I've ever seen. We were afraid Pixie, the other much larger kitten we got at the same time as him, would kill him because of how rough she was when she played with him.

Fast-forward to around a year later, and Mischa was a globular house of a cat with a dangling belly that would not stop growing. He was about the size of two Pixies.

He was fat and grumpy and unenthusiastic about human contact, and I couldn't pick him up because he squealed like a little pig. His belly wobbled hilariously when he ran, and he snored louder than I do.

He was my little buddy, and I loved him.  

One of the few pictures I took specifically with him; it's an action shot cause he always RAN AWAY.

Let me start off by stating this: we are all animals. Regardless of what the entire breadth of human culture, art, religion and morality teaches us about ourselves, we are still animals.

While our brains have developed to accomplish and build things far beyond what the other living organisms on the planet are capable of, this does not make us any better than them.

Like everything else, our only scientific purpose is to ensure the survival of our species—despite what the aforementioned societal structures may say otherwise.

In a strict Darwinist sense then, why should we care about other creatures if they do not directly relate to our own survival?

BREAKING NEWS: composer Yanni to join rap group Brick Squad

Much-lauded composer Yanni announced some incredibly shocking news on Tuesday at an AP press conference: he would be leaving his prolific career behind in the pursuit of a “more active, enriching musical experience.”

In a subsequent personal interview with the NY Times, the aging artist divulged that not only was he quitting composing—he would be joining popular rap group 1017 Brick Squad.

Pictured above:  Yanni and Gucci have been firm friends
outside of the limelight of the media for many years.

This news comes after Yanni—famed for his tireless work in music composition and fund-raising—had just released his latest live album during a free PBS broadcast of the show, “Yanni Live at El Morro.”

“I was so incredibly tired of always writing these huge musical productions—it was like people only expected me to compose music without showing off any of my obvious lyrical and instrumental talents,” Yanni said in the interview.

“You can always see me playing the air guitar and air piano and such... and being visibly affected by my music in front of the crowd. I just wanted people to know that I can perform—but it never got any appreciation.”

On the other hand, Brick Squad has steadily increased in popularity since its conception in 2008, recently picking up members Fatal and Creation after the tragic murder of Slim Dunkin while in his studio recording music last year.

WHAT IN THE HELL: Dark Souls (VIDEO FEATURE, GURL)

"THAT'S THE BIGGEST PIECE OF ASSHOLE I'VE EVER SEEN.  FUCK THIS GAME.  FUCK THE DESIGNERS WHO EVEN THOUGHT THAT NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD SPEND THEIR TIME TRYING TO PLAY THIS MASOCHISTIC PIECE OF SHIT."--Conor Morris' last words before strangling himself with the charger cord of an Xbox 360 controller while playing From Software's Dark Souls.

I've been playing my suitemate's copy of Dark Souls as of late, though I sometimes don't know why because it's one of the most damned difficult games I've ever had the chance to play.  I'm quite addicted, though, even despite my rage as seen above.  It is in fact a really good game.

The entire experience IS frustrating, but it's frustrating because of what kind of game it is.

It's an adventure game.  A modern ode to the archaic pieces of work in the 8-and-16-bit era that were so fond of blasting gamers with infernal combinations of difficulty, technology limitations and just plain lack of regard for sanity in the consumer.  The original Ninja Gaiden, for example, and even Zelda II (even if it is a bad, bad thing).

Even despite echoing the classic adventure game experience, Dark Souls manages to have its own satanic difficulties that pull at the very essence of your being as it laughs at your suffering.  The interface is pretty barbarically simple for how complex of a game it is, the inventory system too guerilla and with too few hints on how everything works.

Pictured above:  Dark Souls (devils) fucking with you (pussyass pumpkinpeople).

The joy of flight.

I finally finished The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword recently after a whole month of time in which all I wanted to do was play it; alas, though, life occurs and even my favorite videogame series must wait in its wake.

Now, after spending a good 40-50 hours in the game, I think I'm finally ready to talk about not only it, but the Zelda franchise in general.  I'm going to try to keep this relatively short, because I know I could talk for ages about something that's so close and personal to me.

Yes, the Zelda series is a very important thing to me.  Yes, they are a bunch of video games that follow similar archetypal storylines that have been repeated since the dawn of man. 

In that vein, though, "The Canterbury Tales" is just a collection of stories.  "Citizen Kane" is just a movie.  Shubert's pieces were just music.

Shinfo week: "The Human Centipede II"

Hey, you know what's the single most awful piece of media I have ever consumed in my entire life?  "The Human Centipede II."

I'd never had the desire to see "The Human Centipede," and especially not "The Human Centipede II" after being coerced into watching the first by my stupid friends.

In fact, you know what?  These pieces of shit aren't even worthy of being recognized as pieces of entertainment.  I'm dropping the quotes around the names of both movies, and just abbreviating them from now on.

HC2 starts off in what is supposed to be "our world:" a world in which HC1 was actually just a movie, and a world in which it's the favorite movie of a bug-eyed, overweight, mentally retarded guy with a penchant for sandpapering his dick and pooping his pants.  He works in a parking garage and kills/captures people that piss him off a bit too much.

This guy, who never talks aside from random guttural noises and squeaks, is--I'll have to grudgingly hand it to the producers--incredibly disturbing looking and weird.  His life absolutely sucks; his mother wants to kill him, his father abused him as a child, his therapist wants to molest him.  It's an awful world.

This guy.

However, all the poor mentally handicapped guy wants to do is recreate his favorite movie, in real life.  And boy, does he ever.

Through an INSANELY huge amount of fortuitous concussions that he gives people with his trusty crowbar which allows him to move their unconscious bodies where he wants, he traps a whole entourage of 12 or so people.  These 12 people include one of the actresses from the first movie (as if her career wasn't already destroyed enough) as well as a pregnant woman.

Shinfo week: NEW BULLETIN BOARD

Interview with Nicholas G. Southall, sophomore english major and newly-christened RA of Ryors hall. Recorded on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

Conor Morris
hey
let me interview you

Nicholas G. Southall
OKAY
i'll interview you back
GO

Conor Morris
about how you're bad at making bulletin boards

Nicholas G. Southall
okay!

Conor Morris
alright! are you ready?

Nicholas G. Southall
no
my turn!
what's your favorite toy?

Conor Morris
cardboard cut-out of patrick stewart. my turn!
why do you suck at making bulletin boards?

Nicholas G. Southall
Well, when i was in the third grade my teacher, mrs. mason made me make her bulletin board. I slaved over it for days during her class, even staying in during recess. It had a black history month theme and I printed off all of these pictures which were crazy hard to find since the internet was kind of hard to use back then, especially for a 3rd grader. So, i finally got it done after a week of working on it and Mrs. Mason yelled at me because she hated it. She tore it down and had Ashley Becker make it instead. She got it done in one class period and it stayed up the whole month of February. I still harbor hateful feelings about that event and I hate making them so I devote as little time as possible to making them.

Conor Morris
wow, I'm really sorry to hear that, man. you want a warm business handshake with lots of eye contact?

Nicholas G. Southall
that sounds perfect!
Wait, look behind you!

Conor Morris
what?

*"Nicholas is offline, but you can still send him a message" message appears*

Conor Morris
perfect! cut! dry! set! we're going into print!

/End interview.

The above interview proving far too useless to use on any ordinary Quest for Cats post, I SET OUT to find  exactly what was going on with Nicholas Southall and the bulletin boards in Ryors hall.

The following video is the edited version of what I uncovered after careful study and an in-depth, 24-hour-long interview with the chump in question:

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for.  The finished product.  The swaddled child.  The glory that is, THE NEW BULLETIN BOARD AT RYORS...

...and I don't have the picture from Nick yet.  What the fuck, man?

Welcome to SHINFO WEEK 2K12. Tyler Bules hates frozen yogurt.

Greetings, readers, and welcome to my newest venture into the hallowed realm of fantastic ideas that will get my blog tons of views and credibility: "SHINFO Week!"

Quick lesson: the term "Shinfo" is a shortened combination of "shitty" and "info," coined by members of the band Every Time I Die to describe information that is neither helpful nor interesting.

As such, I have dubbed this week "Shinfo Week" and will be celebrating it by giving ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKS about having a target audience.  I will be posting news stories--of which I could hardly contrive for people to actually care about in the slighest--that I've uncovered and lovingly detailed with every journalistic fiber of my being.  

Are you ready to join in this incredibly fruitless journey with me, friend?  Alright, let's go.

FIRST STOP:

Tyler Bules is a second-year engineering student at the University of Cincinnati.  (NASTY NATI, AMIRIGHT?) 

Isn't he precious?

And boy, does he have a veritable treasure trove of juicy information about himself to share with us.  Below is a transcript from when I sat down with him earlier last week.

Social experiment time! Drawing cats vs. penises.

Have you ever wondered at the complex inner machinations of a college student's mind?  Have you ever wondered at said machinations and realized that they're pretty derpy as far as humans go?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if, given an optional prompt, how many people would draw a picture of a cat versus a picture of a penis on a whiteboard in a public setting?

Well, here's the social experiment that's JUST FOR YOU!  

The setting:  The hallway in my dorm which, as far as OU dorms go, is pretty nice and only admits sophomores or above.  

The tools: THE PEOPLE INVOLVED LOL.  Just kidding.  The dry erase board on the front of my door and a purple marker made readily available.  (The door, I should note, is right by a major exit from the floor that I live on, meaning it's got plenty of traffic going by it.)

The prompt:  "Social experiment time!  Every time you walk by this, draw either a cat or a dick." 

The "experiment" (I shouldn't really call it that because it's too stupid) was set to run for five days, the board being wiped at around midnight every night to allow room for the next day's shenanigans. 

See pictures and commentary of the results below the cut.

Note:  Pictures involving cat dongs, dongs that look like cats, cats that are made out of dongs, or anything else were tallied as both a cat and a penis.  DEALWITHIT.

Warning:  pictured below are stupid, harmless drawings of cats and phallic objects.  If you have any objection to either:  1) why are you reading this blog?  2) grow a friggin' sense of humor, NERD.  

"Bastion:" a ruined world, a kickass narrator and a great game.

“Proper stories are supposed to start at the beginning.... ain't so simple with this one.  Now here's a kid whose whole world got all twisted, leaving him stranded on a rock in the sky.”--Rucks, Bastion

Supergiant Games' Bastion is one of the best games I've played all year.

Since we're fast approaching the end of the year, I've been thinking back on my year spent through playing games.  There are plenty of fantastic games that I've had the privilege to play that stick out in my memory:  Portal 2, Pokemon Black, Skyrim, Dark Souls, Skyward Sword and many more.  But one of the most special to me has also been the one that I most recently finished: Bastion.

Bastion is an action-adventure game/RPG that came out earlier this year, though I didn't give myself the chance to play it until recently when it was on SUPER SALE on Steam, that most wondrous online platform of all platforms.

UPDATED 12/29/2011: MERRY CATMAS, HALF-LIFE 3 WON'T COME IF YOU'RE GOOD OR NOT

EDITS TIME, most of the rumors in this original post have been proven to be false.  Therefore, it is now a parody of itself.  Everything in bold and red below will be edits that I added after the fact.  ENJOY.

Just a quick update here on this Christmas night:

1.  Merry Christmas from all of us here at "Quest for Cats!"  (which means Merry Christmas from just me).
2.  Half-Life 3 is most likely NOT coming out sometime, hopefully next year.

Pukesgiving: obligatory picture blog of what I'm thankful for

To those that were annoyed by the whininess of my last post, I apologize.  ZEES post, however, is the yang to the last post's yin.  The catharsis that was badly needed.  The hymns of Thanksgiving in Psalms of the Hebrew bible to the Lamentations of the past (I'm not religious, but the Old Testament is badass).

Here is a list of some people and things that I really need or want to give thanks to, without whom and which I definitely would either not be here this day, or otherwise would be an entirely different or entirely douchier person.

1.  My mom.

Idn't she precious?  Ignore that weird fucker to the left.

My mom is the epitome of the term "tough old bird,"(just like her mom and my grandma Peggy, who deserves special mention here too because she's fucking awesome and crazy) and will continue to be such as life continually hands her bullshit and she throws it back in its face as much as possible.  She's gone through a lot of awful things in her life, including the events of this last year, but through it all she's kept her humor and an insane amount of compassion.

She's absolutely wonderful and the most supportive, accepting and loving person I've ever met even despite being jaded by the shit she's had to deal with.

I know I don't say it enough, mom, (if you're reading this, which I'm sure you will at some point) but I love you.  And I know I'm definitely not the best son in the world a lot of the time, and you deserve a lot more respect than you get, and so I'm sorry, too.

Thanks, mom.  You are the best.