Walking Dead #17

 I finally got around to reading Walking Dead 17, and holy fuck, this Negan guy is scary. This series is certainly my favorite series ever, and the only thing I can say that it's lacking are big time villains. They had Shane, and the Governor, but now, this Negan dude has taken the cake. I won't go into who he killed and how, but it was startling, shocking, and completely story changing.

Carl's story is slowly taking center stage, and it is starting to worry me. Rick and Carl's relationship is becoming less father/son, and more sergeant/soldier. One of the reasons that Kirkman is so good is how he writes Carl, showing us exactly what would happen to a child who actually grew up during the zombie apocalypse. Carl is still a good kid who believes in doing the right thing, but he is completely desensitized to death, and isn't bothered by it anymore, at all.

This issue was a much darker step in the direction towards Carl taking this fucking story over, and the introduction of Negan and his Saviors makes things once again remarkably tense. Issues #15 and #16 left us brimming with hope for Rick and team's new community, and #17 did what Walking Dead always does, it fucked our feeling of happiness and hope right in the ass.

I also read Adventure Time #1, it was so math!

What's Next

Now that Im completely done with Bioshock, (until a dlc gets released), Im kinda at a loss for what to do next. When the high of a new great game goes down, it always sucks deciding what to follow it up with. I took the advice of a new Pennsylvania friend and Im playing through the Monkey Island games, and Im currently in the middle of #2, but I need a new big game.

I do have a new iphone, so I've been playing around with Pixel People, Steph was obsessed with their previous game, Tiny Tower, and the 30 minutes that I've spent with this Sim City spin has been addictive. You clone people and splice their genes trying to create a genetically superior worker to enter your ever growing army of capitalist laborers. Its cute capitalism!

The sequel for Dead Island 2 has come out, and I was thinking about getting it. It's gotten underwhelming reviews from what I've seen, but if it fixes the unbelievable fetch questing in the first, then I might be curious enough to drop 60 on it.

Dead Space 3 is out and I havent played it yet! It's amazing how excited I was for #2 and now that 3 is out, I'm barely aware of it's existence. Dead Space's story is just awful, and I think they have known that for a while now.

Theatrerhythym Final Fantasy is out for the iphone, and I never got around to it on the 3ds, so I downloaded it. Research your games before your purchase, because this piece of shit doesn't even have the event mode that it does on the 3ds. Fuck you once again Square!

Harvest Moon 3DS

This is our Harvest Moon collection, we are big fans of the series in this house. Oliver here is holding the new Harvest Moon, released for the 3ds, and currently satiating my farm craving. These games are crazy addictive, disgustingly g-rated, and fuck Farmville, Harvest Moon is the ultimate when it comes to farm simulation.

The very first thing I noticed that was different about this new version was the unintended racism. There is a single latina mother who needs the town's charity to survive, along with a middle eastern slave and master combo that moves into the village. There's a grizzled texan that talks a lot about shooting things, along with a fat german who loves to bake. Echo village is colorful and full of stereotypes. Awesome.

Like every other Harvest Moon, A New Beginning has a brutal long tutorial, and a super slow first season, but after that, it's crazy pants. You're rebuilding and revitalizing the town in this one along with your farm, so you can't waste a single minute of your day. Collect those bees, chop that wood, massage that cow, it all matters. Most of my money was made early on by catching bugs, but now that Im harvesting wheat and building a newspaper office, my money is reliant on crops. It's all planning, because in late fall and winter, crops dont grow, and I better have a shit-fuck of livestock ready to make me milk, eggs, wool and high grade urine.

 Yes, watering your plants is tedious. Yes, cooking a mushroom soup everyday to increase your stupid cooking rank sucks, but there is always a goal, a carrot on a stick, that you are constantly advancing towards. This Harvest Moon has incorporated all of the things that make this series great, an efficient crop system, an easy to use town editor, hidden music that unlocks secret areas, upgradable tools, and a more polished dating sim. This may be the best handheld Harvest Moon that Natsume has ever made.

All 50!

I got stuck at the Handyman fight in Finkton, I got stuck again at the 3rd Lady Comstock fight, and stuck AGAIN at the final fight, (took 14 tries), but I sucked it up, didnt purchase anything from a vending machine, and hand cannoned my way to the end. All 50 bitches!!!!

Patton Oswalt: The Star Wars Filibuster

On Parks and Recreation last week, Patton stands up for all of nerdkind. Apparently, it was 100% improvised.

Patton Oswalt's Star Wars Filibuster

This Week in Politickin

This is Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona who suffered a gunshot wound to the head during the massacre in Tucson. Ever since the tragedy there, and following the even more shocking mass shooting in Newtown, Congresswoman Giffords has been championing gun reform. So, when all 3 parts of the gun reform legislation failed this week due to a dickhead republican filibuster, Gabby lost her mind. Were you mad when the filibuster worked and gun reform was denied despite 90% of the American population supporting it? I can guarantee that you aren't even close to the level of pissed off that Mrs. Giffords is. Here's her op-ed in the New York Times about it, it's blistering.

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

People have told me that I’m courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.

I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.

They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.

They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

Nature and Celebrity Apprentice

When we moved to Pennsylvania from Chicago, it was with nature and a more magical childhood for Oliver in mind. Yesterday, as a family, we took advantage of that nature thingy that we've been hearing so much about.

After the long walk, Steph decides that it's Pixeljunk Monsters time and no longer listen-to-Tyler-talk-about-nonsense time.

I watched Celebrity Apprentice for the first time in my life last night to support my hero Penn, and I feel like a little bit of my soul is missing. I thought I would hate trump the entire time, but I actually enjoyed it, Trace Adkins is one of those rare decent southerners and Gary Busey is pure poetry every second. Piers Morgan is a fucknut who loves fame more than human happiness. Peace out.

Games for Atheists

Hey there impressionable mind, do you reject the christian fairytale? Me too! Believe it or not, the video game industry has a huge history of poking fun at teh jeebus, and I have collected my favorite examples. These games can be enjoyed even if you do thump a bible, but if you're an atheist, you'll enjoy them so much more, I promise.

Silent Hill 3

I'm going to spoil this 50 year old game, so get ready. Heather, the protagonist, is impregnated by satan and must give birth to the antichrist. So, how do you show the devil you're still in charge? Well, YOU EAT YOUR OWN FETUS AT THE END OF THE GAME. You'd think Luke would approve of that kind of behavior, but it kinda pisses him off. Not only does SH3 make you eat your own devil fetus, it's also chocked full of creepy churches, violent nuns (that you get to beat to death with crowbars, awesome), and creepy catholic confessionals with creepy ministers who say creepy things to the teenager you're playing as. 

Final Fantasy 10

This entire game is a metaphor for catholicism, Hironobu himself admitted it. The church of Yevon is corrupt, murderous, and hell bent on punishing the world with sin, (literally, the cities of the world are constantly attacked by a massive whale-fish-plot twist human named Sin). Seriously, a huge fish named Sin kills people who don't follow the church properly. Seriously.

Act Raiser

It's Sim City mixed with Golden Axe, and you play as God. Actual, motherfucking aids-creating God. And you punish those who don't believe by burning non-church goers and rewarding those who telepathically pray to you. It's a classic.

 Wild Arms

One of the greatest rpg's ever made, Wild Arms is all about the power of individual human beings. Set in a weird parallel industrial revolution, the three main characters discover that there really are gods, and that they are omni-present and powerful. So what do you do now that the heavens have been revealed? You enslave those godly motherfuckers and force them to eradicate your enemies. Fuck yeah, man wins.

Parasite Eve

So you're a rookie NYPD police officer who wants to make a big splash with your career. You really want to make a difference, and do some good for a change. Then, your opportunity comes when you discover that a perfect child named Eve is going to be born in six days, and will act as the new world's messiah. So, with your ideology and a machine gun, you hunt the bitch down and pour thousands of bullets into her holy fucking face showing god that you don't like taking orders from others. Hallelujah. 

Boston Marathon

Just taking a day off from nerding and posting a couple of things that I noticed in the wake of the tragedy in Boston. See ya tomorrow.

My hero Patton Oswalt's full post:

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

11 More Infinite Achievements

I am very proud of my 50/50 achievements for the original Bioshock. They added a 51st achievement months after I was done with the game, and thats bullshit, so my perfection still counts. I only got 41/68 achievements in Bioshock 2, and that was out of principle. DLC that I don't download should not have it's achievements added to the list, and multiplayer acheevies are a ploy to take my money. Now, after beating Bioshock Infinite, I am going back and playing on 1999 mode, and trying my best to mop up the 11 achievements that I missed the first time around. Here's the list of achievements I have yet to obtain.

Scavenger Hunt: Complete the game in 1999 mode without purchasing anything from a Dollar Bill vending machine.

Fuck, this one is going to be hard. The whole point of 1999 mode is tougher enemies, less money, less supplies, and now I can't purchase anything either? 

Eavesdropper: Collect every voxophone

A collection achievement, I missed two, JUST TWO without using the internet the first time through, this one is easy, I just gotta stay vigilant.

Auld Lang Syne: Beat the game on 1999 mode.

Alright.

Mind Over Matter: Kill 20 enemies using possessed machines

This one is tricky, because on normal difficulty, I possessed every single machine I encountered, and only got 10 kills using possessed machines. The problem is, they dont do enough damage, so I have to help them out by shooting their targets, hoping to deplete the enemy's health but not killing them. Pain in the ass.

Strange bedfellows: Kill 20 enemies using allies brought through a tear

Same problem as mind over matter, except less opportunities to try.

Bolt from the blue: Kill 5 enemies with a headshot while riding a skyline

Before you CoD fruitcakes start guffawing at me, there is no aim-assist in this game, and you have to nail this shot while flying around on a rail. It's difficult.

Skeet Shoot: Kill 5 enemies while they are falling

Pure luck. Im keeping a machine gun in the 2nd slot until I get this one. I hate falling enemies achievements, because they are so hard to unlock on purpose. In Resident Evil 5, it is the one single achievement that Im missing.

Lost weekend: Kill 5 enemies while you are drunk

I simply didnt remember to try this one, but I think I know of a good spot to do it, I just gotta get around halfway in the game.

Heartbreaker: Kill a handyman by only shooting his heart

I hear theres an exploit for this, and some kinda glitch, but Im not going to go that route. Im going to man up, get a magnum, and jump on and off rooftops because he cant touch me when I do that. 

Sightseer: Use all the telescopes and kinetoscopes in the game

Again, just like the voxophone achievement, I missed this one by two.

Stone cold pinkerton: Beat the game on hard or above

Okay, I should get this upon completion of 1999 mode, since it is harder than hard.

Its not a crazy hard list, but it will cause some frustration, piled onto the fact that 1999 mode just by itself is so hard.

Good Opening, Bad Opening

Hey, let's play money making game! I'll post two video game openings and you tell me which one is good, and which one is bad.

April update

After beating Bioshock infinite, I am replaying it again in 1999 mode, which is jesus-stabbing hard. Also, coupled with the Scavenger achievement, (beat 1999 mode without purchasing anything from a dollar bill vending machine) this is going to be really difficult to finish. Certainly an achievement i'll be proud of once I obtain it.

 This made me cry yesterday

And now that the weather is warmer, Ollie gets to fly his Michelangelo kite! 

Bioshock Infinite Review

Bioshock Infinite has a lot to live up to, the two previous games were groundbreaking works of art, and taking the third installment to a completely new setting and time did make me a little nervous, but holy fuckshit, it more than lives up to the series standard, and then some. It's political, racially charged and super interesting.

The first two Bioshocks took place in the underwater industry-driven city of Rapture, and this one took it to the natural opposite, Columbia, a patriotic religious city in the sky. Columbia is connected by rails, called the skyline, that you can latch onto and zip around the city, shooting rockets and stabbing enemies in the brains with your hook from above. It's a blast, and the largest source of fun in Infinite. When a firefight gets hairy, (and it often does), running for your life screaming and plunging off the edge only to be saved by a conveniently placed rail is so exhilarating, swinging around and turning the tables instantly. I loved it, and it's way more than a gimmick, its a whole new way to play a shooter.

You'll notice rather quickly, that the most fortunate citizens of Columbia are shockingly racist, idolizing gargantuan douches like John Wilkes Boothe, seen here in the best video game artwork ever. The game doesn't let up either, forcing you to witness the over the top brutality of the ethnic population, all the while blasting the national anthem through the loudspeakers. This game is totally different if you happen to be American, shoving our own disgusting history in our faces, yes, it is fiction, but the slavery and genocide of our past isn't, and the effect is sobering.

 Elizabeth plays alongside you through most of the game, grabbing ammo, salts, and health. She is less Ico-princess and more dog from Fable 2, her AI works well. She can't be hurt in fights, so you don't have to worry about protecting her, and her dialogue is always interesting while you explore, also making combing rooms looking for supplies less boring. She's a good character, one that keeps revealing pieces of the puzzle till the very end.

Some great stuff happened to me while playing through Infinite for the first time. I got to 40,000 gamerscore, and the achievement that put me over the top was Street Sweeper. I got three achievements with one bullet during the battle of Wounded Knee in the Hall of Heroes, and stumbled into a secret alley of smoking 7 year olds. There are only a couple of things that I didnt like, and they were minor, like the ciphers, which are a lot of fun, but you only come across them three times in the entire game. The Vigors (plasmids) are fun, but don't ever have the same stopping power that your guns do, and take a more secondary role, and no Big Daddy esque enemies, (there are Handymen, but I think you only fight 3 ever), which is one big part of the franchise.

Infinite blew me away, and what was even more awe-inspiring was the ending. I always thought that the plot-twist in #1 would never be topped, and #2 upped the ante with Minerva's Den, but Infinite's finale ties all three games together, in a holy shit kinda way. It's memorable, and makes the entire game just pack a bigger artistic punch. Buy this. Now.

Favorite weapon: Volley Gun
Favorite Vigor: Bucking Bronco
Favorite character(s): The Luteces
Favorite stage: The Hall of Heroes
Favorite Moment: The big reveal

My son watches Animaniacs

Oliver watched his very first episode of Animaniacs, a cartoon that is near and dear to my heart. It was a weak episode, with an overarching Slappy the Squirrel plot, but there were appearances by the great Chicken Boo, The Goodfeathers, and my personal favorite, Good Idea Bad Idea. This is certainly my favorite cartoon ever, and it really stood out in a decade of already great tooning. Oliver finally got to share in some of my retro joy.

There was a great scene that Ollie laughed a lot at, where Yakko acts through a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream, where Dot translates his Shakespearean speech into crude jokes. Fucking great. I remember Wakko listing all of the states and capitals to the Turkey and the Straw beat, or Yakko naming every country on the planet earth, and I also remembering committing them to memory.

We made paleo pizza with Steph afterwards.

An April Fools Memory

 At the height of my obsession with the greatest fighting game ever made, Super Smash Bros Melee, my favorite magazine (EGM), printed a little story about how to unlock Sonic and Tails. Thinking that I had done every single thing there was to do in that game, and the fact that I was 13 or so, I believed what I read, and proceeded to put a couple weeks of time into unlocking them. The only problem was that they didn't exist, and it was all one big practical joke.

This terribly shitty little screenshot is what duped me, and I wasn't the only one. Thousands of people poured their hearts out, trying to achieve what was in this picture, despite it's appearance, that picture was incredibly effective. EGM had already famously pulled off the Sheng Long deception, so I shouldve been aware that they had this kind of cruel humor, but I still fell for it.

This was what actually appeared in the magazine itself. It states that if you can get a KO count of 20 in Cruel Melee then Sonic and Tails will challenge you at the same time. This is what makes this April Fools joke so fucking mean, is the way they tell you to unlock them. Cruel Melee is batshit impossible, and proving this thing wrong required hours and hours of frustration. It pissed off Nintendo something fierce, they printed several articles in several Nintendo Powers telling their fans not to believe this nonsense, and EGM finally admitted to the joke, mocking everyone who fell for it, and giving copies of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle to everyone who could send them proof that they fell for the hoax.

Now, I never fell for the Toad hoax, I had learned my lesson by then, but Ive heard it was even more heartbreaking.