Follow the Worms

I wonder if there's ever really been an ancient tomb or temple that was guarded by actual mechanical traps that shoot darts or caused boulders to crush people. You never read about archeologists being killed by giant saw blades that spring out of walls all that often. No, most people are killed by the saw blades at the end of robot arms, which isn't surprising given that robots have a natural tendency to rebel against their human overlords. Thank god that it rains so often.

Because robots are allergic to rain.

That said, I've been thinking about robots (and cyborgs for that matter) for the last couple of days. Mainly because I'm watching Ghost In The Shell Standalone Complex at night. Think we'll see walking, talking robots in our time? Will they take over the low level service sector?

Hagar the Horrible Long Term Planner

Villians: Always fucking their good plans up.

You ever notice that? They sit around in between the time when films or television shows come out (sometimes for two or three years) and come up with a master plan. One that took years of planning and organization to set up. And what do they do? They have the whole first part pretty much down, but at the last minute they start acting like a bunch of idiots. They lose their cool. They treat their employees like garbage, for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are villians. They start making speeches. Listen, villians: DO NOT make a speech about how powerful you are until AFTER the hero is dead and your plan has gone off without a hitch. Then you can hold a big villian banquet at a local hotel and invite your henchmen.

Here's the other thing: Let's say your plan fails, and you don't end up falling into a shredding machine, or off of a cliff while a flaming helicopter (ironically, its always your escape helicopter) plummets from above to crush you after you break every limb you have. Let's say your plan almost worked, but because someone wasn't tied up well enough, or because you had a traitor in your ranks, it failed. WHY do you never try the same plan twice? Except, the second time, work out the kinks. It would be brilliant, because the hero would think, "He's not really going to try it again, is he? That would be ludicrious."

If I was a villian (and of course, I'm not saying I'm not) and some suave hero killed my second in command and blew up my base, you know what step one of my next plan would be? The step we'd have to take before any other step could be made? That step would be to kill the hero. Does he live in a house? Blow it up. Does he like melon? Poison all melons. Does he go camping? Two words: Robotic Bears.

Anyhow, villians, clean up your act. And stop hiring creepy albinos. They're not really that tough.

Ribbit Ribbit Ribbit

In older days, video games were hard. So hard that they were unbeatable. Some games didn't even really have endings: Take the original Gauntlet: It had an endless number of levels that just got progressively harder. What was the point? We didn't know. They didn't tell us. I'm not even sure who "they" are.

In any case, now we expect endings in games. Hell, we expect fucking three act structure from them. And we expect to be able to play through the whole game. After all, what's the point of designing a game that only a few people are able to see through to the end? Its ironic that you* want to reward good players, but also want to make sure everyone sees all the hard work you put into making said game. Who cares if the final fight is the greatest gaming experience known to mankind if people keep getting killed by Darknuts (actual enemies from the original Legend of Zelda, I swear) on level six of twelve?

I guess what I'm observing, or what I have observed as I have gotten older is a shift in the focus of what games around about. Originally they were more like a sport for people with great hand eye coordination. Now they are more like interactive films.


* And by you, I mean "them."

Avenging Unicorns

We all know that ground up unicorns horns can help prevent poisoning, and that cutting them off plunges the world into an age of eternal darkness, and that the horns are invisible to people who have stopped believing in unicorns, but what do unicorns themselves use them for?

What I'm picturing is this: A bunch of toughs are roughing up a kid, trying to steal his coin purse or a piece of bread. Suddenly, we hear galloping. Then, a unicorn flies out of a bush and impales the toughest looking guy there and throws him into a tree.

Has anyone seen a unicorn do anything remotely resembling this? If you have, think back, because it might have just been a triceratops that was an off white color.

Cold Iron Avail You

Have you ever noticed that most looming statues aren't just statues? They usually end up animating just as you walk into the room, and then you have to fight them. Sometimes it's just a stone shell around some sort of demon creature, who emerges angry at being awakened. Other times you try to walk between them and their eyes open an obliterate you with laser beams of some sort. Any time that I see a statue I usually just start shooting. If I have a gun. Which, usually, I don't. Often, all I have to protect myself is a pair of car keys. I wonder if they could be considered masterwork?