While we were supposed to have an article for just the April YouTube Poops only, we at the staff decided to focus more on looking into individual Poops or Poopers, which ended up letting us forget about the actual article for April. As a result, we've decided to merge the favorites from April with our favorites in May!
 
Crazy Luigi's Picks: PAY YOUR GODDAMN BILLS by Stuart K. Reilly/MustangSally72 (April)

While April of 2013 might have been the month of WalrusGuy due to his YouTube Poop with Arthur, no one ended up releasing a video as unique as Stuart K. Reilly. This video has practically everything you would ever really want in a YouTube Poop; old sources, new sources, ear rape, sentence mixing, visual gags, and much more. However, three primary sources involved that help make it push the boundaries more than any other YouTube Poop that I've seen thus far this year are Stuart's usage on the New Kids on the Block DiC cartoon, the Rap Rat board game videos, and the Ludwig Von Drake cartoons. With the New Kids on the Block cartoon, it shows how the ridiculousness of the New Kids on the Block going to high school and doing homework while the adults do pretty much nothing other than maybe play video games truly becomes. Rap Rat, on the other hand, takes the spastic nature of the rat in question and uses it in many different ways from being a video game to being a victim to even being the devil itself! However, nothing truly stood out in this video more than the cartoons involving Ludwig Von Drake, as it takes the cartoons' serious, yet light-hearted nature and mocks in many useful and unique ways. All those effects and sources end up combining together to make one of the best YouTube Poop videos of this year thus far!

May: Manwith10hats Loses His Segases in the Wash Machine by ProfessorCheeseBall

May of 2013 might have been... shall we say for the most part uninteresting, but the one person that ended up bringing a shining beacon of light on a dull little period was ProfessorCheeseBall! In a month where nothing (at least to me) truly stood out among other videos that came out around that time, ProfessorCheeseBall wound up making a video that would catch my attention from the very start all the way until the very end. The effects flowed smoothly, the jokes felt funny, and what was perhaps the most important thing for me was that the video did not grind to huge sudden halts for some odd reason. Some of this is helped out by the home-made videos done by the well-known (former) YouChew user Manwith10toes, which hold the same amount of ridiculousness as many of us like to see in some of our sources, only it's more intentional. Even with the intentional silliness at hand, it still makes for what I consider the best YouTube Poop for May of 2013.

HerrVarden's Picks: YTP: Greg Despsies Being Himself by Crimsonman5 (APRIL)

This is a bit of an interesting video in the sense that it's pace is much more frantic. The speed goes slow and fast and the jokes are quite varied, but they're arranged properly. For example, the stutters following the quick laughter and the masking worked really well. In fact, a lot of the uses of masking throughout the video were used very well and added the overall absurdity. I loved the intro, mainly because it reminded me of Run Kayne Run on crack. Whilst the volume was an issue at first, I found that it would make the ear rapes and distorted sounds more effective. That could also just be an editing issue, but in that case it's a delightful accident. It was a great move to use Garbage Pail Kids as a source, mainly considering just how insane and horrible the aforementioned source is. It was great how Crimsonman5 made the sentence mixing with the sourcing. The parts with Garbage Pail Kids really sold the video, particularly with the Wii U bit. Still, the rest did well enough, since it built up the clusterfuck of effects. The running gag of running (HA!) was played greatly throughout the video. Even if in a general sense the video feels like it does not follow the conventional transition movement in a poop, the content present is enough to make up for it.

MAY: The Severe Multiple Personality Issues of Adolf Hitler by ChemistryGuy and Co.

This time I've decided to post an entire collab as my favorite YTP of the month. Simply put, the idea is marvelous. Make fun of the mustached, goose-stepping, Sieg Heiling madman that stormed through Europe like he was cock of the walk. There was a lot of great things going on, with Chemistryguy's sentence-mixing, EmperorLemon having the Brodyquest music play as Hitler invades nations, the Kony 2012 video made out to look like Nazi propaganda, the usage of the Bugs Bunny propaganda video by SuperSpyro3000, FriedRice2009 making Downfall's Hitler speak to a crazy Tony Montana, LinkOnDrugs and Likety's contribution, ManMonocle syncing up old footage of the Fuhrer having fun to "Putting It On The Ritz", the ending and many other wonderful moments. Everyone involved really had a good sense of what to do to make the best they could and Chemistryguy's editings of their collaborations made the timing all the more impeccable. It was just great seeing how differently people tried to make Adolf look like an assclown. It's just good ol' Nutzi fun.

Tofucakecan's Picks: Pac-Man Eats Muslim Children in Koran Recitation with Lords of Acid in Background by Prophet Mohammad/__7MtojvtKfv__ (April)

How could I describe this video without saying anything the title didn't already say? This poop won't win any awards for crazy effects or memorable "poop" innovations, but I don't think there's another poop out there like this and it deserves some recognition for its "balls". Some people may be turned off because it is arguably insensitive to Islam, but others will likely appreciate it's "South Park-ian" approach to humor (ie: either everything is okay to make fun of, or nothing is). I admire artists (no matter what the medium) who have the guts to toe the line and dare us to laugh at things that we're "not supposed to laugh at". Although freedom of speech isn't something that comes up often in YTP, everyone deserves the chance to make their statement (even if its an unpopular one). This poop makes me think of others that make similarly "shocking" videos (like ones using 9/11 footage in a poop) and for that reason I think it is important that videos like these exist. Their artistic merit may be debatable, but when I see something like this it makes me thankful that I'm in a country that doesn't censor what is available on the internet, for whatever the reason. Love it or hate it, videos like this help make sure that everyone gets to say what they want.

May: The Commercial Collab by Bloodis & Co.

HerrVarden isn't the only one that chose a collaboration this month. I've always had a soft spot for commercials, both as entertainment and as pooping material. Perhaps it's because they're so similar to poops. They're usually fast paced, short, and have to get your attention quickly. Memorable characters usually abound, and scripts are often so odd they're just begging to be pooped. Enter "The Commercial Collab": Twenty minutes of "Commercial" poops. To start off, there are some great names that contributed like Chief Doggingfood, MountainDewMann, and CorruptionSound. If that isn't enough to get you to press play, most of the entries are filled with some ridiculous yet hilarious sentence mixing. Some of my favorites include SassPD22's entry (which centers around old Chevy Corvair commercials and Bill Cosby's New Coke commercial), MAZZ0murder's ad for "Power Rangers Mega Meat", and I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but thewoof's "Genital Mutilation Barbie" had me laughing pretty hard as well. There is too much good material here for me to describe it all, so just make us all happy and watch it... Clitoris refills sold separately.
 
If you feel like we may have overlooked or missed out on a favorite YouTube Poop from the last two months, please post a comment talking about your favorite YouTube Poop in either April or May 2013 and why you think it's your favorite in that period of time.

As you may know, it's easier now than ever to make your own video game. Granted, it's not simply copy-and-paste a few assets and objects here and there (though some people do), but you can't ignorethe hundreds of tools out there to use, and thousands more of tutorials to get you started. Seeing this big boom, I decided to start-up a column where I review the latest and most popular indie games to tell you which ones are worth playing, how they can improve, and maybe even give you a little advice on how to make a game of your own if you're curious. So, strap tight and hang on to your seat, as we go through Mashu's Indie Games!

* * *

Our first game we'll be taking a look at is a horror/adventure game called Kraven Manor. Kraven Manor, produced and developed by a small team of 13 graduate students known as Demon Wagon Studios, has received quite a bit of attention primarily by big-name let's players, and has risen up to the top of the IndieDB Top Games list, currently at #12.

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The game takes place in, what else then, Kraven Manor, a big ol' spooky mansion with elaborate hallways and whatnot. What reason you have for being in here is, expectantly, unknown. The game leads you as you go down a giant library, stocked to the brim with mahogany bookcases and ancient literature, crisp pages within. Creepy ambiance plays in the background, like sudden mechanical switches going off, thunder in the distance, etc.

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Already, as you can see, the visuals in the game are astounding, especially for such a small team working on it. The shading is fantastic, the textures are of great quality, and the overall look and feel suits the manor's enviroment very well.

As you search through the library, you begin to uncover news clippings and assorted books that detail the house's peculiar past, including readings related to odd philosophical subjects such as mental limbo and sorcery, like some sort of mental hospital version of Harry Potter.

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Don't give anyone ideas, the indie devs and/or fanfic writers will devour it...

Advancing through the room, you find a small model room of the house's cellar, which introduces the game's unique gameplay element: model rooms. As you explore through the household, you'll find models similar to these that you can connect to a table in the main hall, which lets you progress further in the game.

However, with this brings the game's first flaw: the model room element seems more like a gimmick than a genuine gameplay feature. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a fascinating idea, switching rooms around, creating the environment around you. It's just, it's barely used within the game, so much to the point where a simple key system could have replaced the entire element, and everything would have played out the same. I think the developers should have utilized it more, and perhaps have different objects interact with these model rooms; for example, you could perhaps accidentally drop a pebble on it, and have an entire room collapse, making you have to find out how to navigate the area. Instead, it's not much more than a cookie cutter version of something we've already seen.

Soon afterwards, you make your way into a wine cellar, and this is where the horror begins to really amp up. The room is dark and dingy, as moss outlines the slanted walls and aged wooden barrels. As you go on, you swear you can hear a very faint metal crank sound in the distance...

The wine cellar is a fantastic example of the game's way of showing atmosphere. This isn't one of those cheapo "abooygooboogyboo generic horror face jpeg from nowhere" games, as it's easy to see that the game can display pacing quite well.

Suddenly, a smash, as part of the cellar's foundations comes smashing down, blocking your path. Before it, though, a very subtle glimmer of orange flashes beneath the hauntingly dark chamber. Soon enough, you see the shine of orange you saw before as you walk down a menacing hallway and see it: the main antagonist you're gonna hate throughout the game.

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Just as you see him, he disappears, and in his place is a crude writing in blood, saying "GET OUT". Leaping out of the place, you find yourself back in the not-really-menacing-anymore-now-that-I-think-about-it main hall, where you find another model: the bedroom model.

Hey, a bedroom! I mean, come on, it's a bedroom, nothing that ba-

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Oh. It's him.

The bedroom is actually one of my favorite rooms in the game because it portrays subtle horror amazingly. There's little to hurt you in this area, but the constant tense environment and creepy events, like a body being dragged in the corner of your eye, makes for a brilliant showcase of the game.

You find out that you must go back to the library to retrieve another piece of the puzzle, which begins easily the most iconic and downright terrifying part of the game: a direct contact with that son of a bitch mannequin thingy.

It plays out very similar to the classic Weeping Angels; always look at him. If, for one minute, you ponder even an eye in a general distance beyond him, he gets closer. And closer.

However, one thing that I absolutely love about this part is that the monster is smart. Really, really smart. As in, he won't just get closer and closer to you as you look away. Sometimes, he might throw a curve ball, and spontaneously appear right behind you.

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fffftfffzfzfzzzzffzz

As it chases you, you're ordered to push some book-lever things in a direct, correct order, like a memory game. Except, unlike a memory game, you're being chased by a demon-spawn in goddamned bronze.

The scene executes perfectly, as all the buildup before this really adds up, and a final (though not really final) sort of confrontation with this horrible beast. Another thing that I love about it is the monster itself. The game really didn't have to try very hard at all to make him seem scary, as he looks just like an oversized classical artist's mannequin. It's just, the way the game shows him in this menacing aura makes it so that nothing else is needed to make him any more scary. It's minimalist horror done very well.

After the encounter, you find yourself a small metal token that you take back to the main hall, which grants you a piece to the puzzle known simply as “white room”. From this, you must use the pieces that you have to create a path to this white room, then traverse them to it.

What I really quite like about this is that it gives you time to sorta "re-experience" the rooms. They're in the same format, but there are new elements and scares within them, and are, as you might expect, generally more tense and terrifying, especially our good old friend the Bedroom.

However, from this point on is when I believe the game seriously declines in quality. While the concept behind the revisiting of the rooms is nice, it's not much executed beyond a couple of shoehorned puzzles with little horror at all. Believe me, I enjoy puzzles in horror games, but I enjoy them when they flow naturally along with the horror aspect of the game. It's almost as if the developers took all the scariness of the game and packed it into the first half of the game, then picked out some basic puzzles here and there and scattered them across the second half. The tension that was making the game so great is gradually being lost.

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Soon, you find the White Room, which turns out as a room filled with bloody worn surgical equipment and, whadya know, mannequin body parts, implying that this is where people were operated on and turned into those hellish beings. To be honest, the White Room is probably one of the least scariest places within the game, as instead of using natural and psychological fear like the others, it takes a more generic "mental hospital with blood oh gee willikers", and just isn't scary, not to mention the whole "people being made into mannequins" scare was fairly evident from the beginning.

However, to make up for it, the final, final(?) confrontation of this beast ensues, as you hopelessly run away from it. Instead of moving around a bit when you're not looking, this time, he's serious; he runs full-speed at you no matter what, giving you little time to escape this deadly foe.

One of his attacks is a sort of "energy ball laser" thingamajig. As you run deeper into the halls, you manage to get it to shoot it through some sort of ball of energy(?) that manages to set the whole mansion on fire(??), including the monster.

The place is beginning to collapse as you hear wood violently cracking and the vibrations of the whole place coming down. In the background, an almost Battlefield 3 Main Theme-ish sounding action movie tune plays, which definitely does fit the scene, but is still quite unexpected from what we've seen previously in the game.

You make your way through crumbling bits of burning debris, trying to find...levers?

This is probably the biggest annoyance of the game, the pre-ending. To get out of the place, you have to find about 3 or 4 levers hidden around the room as slowly burns away. The levers are very well hidden, and it took me a while to notice that they were even there, causing multiple deaths and constant frustration during this part, especially during a part that's supposed to be fast-paced and cinematic.

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Throughout the place, you find a crazy reality-bending room, just to show off how pissed the house is at you. This would be pretty damn amazing, if it wasn't for, once again, the obligatory pace-breaking "puzzle" that you have to do during it.

Slowly but surely, you make your way out of the rooms you were in before back to the main hall. You know that you will have to confront this beast for a final, final, final battle, as you curse yourself for the fright that will co-

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Wait, what the hell is that? Is that...the mannequin?

The horrifying, grueling monster that chased me on all fours? The being that lasted through rich history of the household's history, being converted to a metal, creaking horror? The leviathan that haunted my dreams and nightmares? Is now a clichéd "ball of energy"?

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily mind final boss fights in these types of games. They often turn out to be enjoyable. What I do mind is how it was actually done. Instead of making some intense, horrific ultra boss fight where this being mercilessly hunts you down, the developers were like, "yeah, let's just put in a generic platforming puzzle with this super-mega-ultra-giga-powerful thing". It completely takes away the suspense and overall "presence" of this being we once feared for so long. Even the sound effects the being makes when it shoots lasers at you are hilariously cheesy.

So, after completing...whatever that was (mind you, this part took me about 10 minutes to complete because of how finicky the platforming is), a small piece of metal comes soaring through the air and hits you in the head and knocks you out. At least we all know that horrifying thing is go-

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Wait, you're kidding, right?

You mean, not only are you going to have that disappointing boss battle, but you also shoehorned a "WOAAH YOU WERE A MONSTER ALL ALONG"?!

And then the game ends.

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Oh man BLOOD

Again, this game really has quite a bit of potential. The visuals are fantastic, and the beginning of the game plays out very well. It's just, I have a feeling that the creators of the game honestly had no idea what to do afterwards. They had some fresh ideas on paper, and managed to put them to mostly good use, but then they took a complete nose-dive with the quality during the middle of the game. The style just totally reverted as the rest of the game instantly became much less interesting, the pacing just completely collapsed during the last ¼ of it, it took a shit on what could have been one of the scariest beings in a horror game yet, and all the game's interesting and developing plotline was just wasted and thrown away.

But beyond those points, Kraven Manor is still a good game. It did a fantastic job at scaring me and putting me in a feeling of tension with its creative and unique atmosphere, and still entertained me plenty with its fresh and changing gameplay premises. It's easy to see that a lot of work has been done into the game, and for being made by a bunch of graduates, you do gotta give them credit for actually managing to get up and develop such an impressive game. I think if the developers put more thought and effort into planning out the second half of the game, then the game could really reach its true and fulfilled potential.

So, should you play Demon Wagon Studio's Kraven Manor? Overall, I recommend it a fair amount as being a genuinely scary game at first. If you've read this and feel interested in trying out, then by all means, do so. Just some advice, I recommend not playing it beyond the final library part, because the afterward parts simply don't do it much justice.


Kraven Manor gets a 7.5/10.


Kraven Manor can be downloaded at http://www.kravenmanor.com.

Difficulty is, pun intended, a hard topic to take to task in terms of videogames. The difficulty of a game can depend on numerous factors, from the game’s genre, to how well it’s designed, to other aspects such as restrictions or gimmicks that the developers may enforce on a player. Quite often, particularly in recent years, the videogame industry has been trying to reach out to a wider and wider audience, and that means that many games have had their inherent difficulty reduced in various ways. However, difficulty has an effect on more than simply the player’s enjoyment of a game, and if used in conjunction with other parts of a game, can actually enhance the experience.

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Decisions, decisions...

Difficulty’s greatest strength, however, is also its greatest weakness: the fact that it can cause players to struggle. This struggling can lead to frustration, which can lead to players quitting the game. However, this struggle is what allows games to create memorable experiences, and this can be performed in a number of ways.

Take, for example, a horror game. Horror games, by nature, are supposed to evoke fear and, aptly, horror from the player. To most people, the first step towards pulling this off would be to make the game have dim or dark lighting and moody sound, and having some sort of serious tone or setting. And while these are good first steps, they can and will be undermined if the game they’re in isn’t difficult. When a game is difficult, a player struggles, the tension grows, and the player is vulnerable. This vulnerability is perhaps the core target that a horror game should aim for: a vulnerable player, in a game where the stakes are clearly against him, is a player who is more likely to be afraid of the odds, to think twice when confronted with a challenge they may or may not be able to handle, or to be horrified when the tension bubbles to a peak.

A great example of making, one that was partially intentional on the part of the developers, are the three Thief games (more well known for being one of the inventors of the stealth genre).

Thief was born originally as an Arthurian game with sword combat; however, playtesters found the swordplay to be clunky, and so the game was scrapped. Later, when Thief began development, the unwieldy swordplay was given to the player character to encourage being stealthy. To add to this, they also make the enemies the player could face in combat deal large amounts of damage. However, since the game was about stealth and not combat, enemies only became hostile to a player if the player was unstealthy. Combined with the usage of dark lighting to make shadows for players to hide in, and the usage of sound, with different materials causing different amounts of noise (which enemies could hear, and then investigate), this encouraged stealth gameplay.

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"...for their visage is wrought to strike terror into the enemies of Karras... or, those who might consider becoming enemies."

What this did was not only make the Thief games into stealth games, but also into horror games as well: the game’s tension was always simmering, as making a wrong move could lead to enemies being alerted to the player’s presence, and consequentially to the player’s quick death. Accidentally making a noise and hearing a guard say “Who’s out there? Show yourself!” only served to increase the tension, and it was up to the player to keep themselves from panicking and easily making their situation worse. The high difficulty of the Thief games not only encouraged playing properly (ie: stealthily, like a thief would), but enhanced the dark, tense tone of the game’s setting.

On the other hand, Pokemon is a great, if predictable, example of low difficulty fitting a game's tone.

Pokemon has always been inherently designed as a cheerful, lighthearted series, with a very idealistic setting, bright and colorful graphics, and upbeat, catchy music. While the games have a general appeal that anyone can enjoy, the easy difficulty of the games contributes to its nature: the games aren’t meant to be tense experiences that leave a player on the edge of their seat (at least, the main stories aren’t), and the easy difficulty allows for a player to relax, without needing to worry about huge consequences or ramifications of certain actions. Even the possibility of a Game Over is omitted, as you are always sent back to a Pokemon Center upon defeat.

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"Your Pokemon are fighting fit! We hope to see you again!"

This also encourages the other aspects of the game’s RPG nature: actions like exploring routes, engaging in battles and other activities are not typically risky due to the low difficulty, meaning that players are more likely to go ahead and do these things because they understand that it’s safe to do so. In turn, this makes areas that are clearly more difficult more apparent due to the abrupt tension they put on a player; in a game where tension is low, if an area makes a player feel tense or vulnerable, it’s a signal that tells the player that they may not be ready for this area yet, and may want to explore elsewhere.

The curve of difficulty, ie: starting a game off easy and increasing the challenge as a player continues, thus depends on the difficulty of the game itself. If a game is meant to be dark, serious and tense, it ought to be difficult and grow more difficult as the player continues. If a game is meant to be happy and simple, it ought to be easy, and either stay fairly easy throughout, or grow more difficult as the player continues.

That being said, here are some tips on what to consider when trying to decide how difficult you want your game to be:

• Not every game carries a “tone” like a horror, adventure, or RPG does. Take a puzzle game, for example. Tetris is simple and gets more difficult, and doesn’t have to worry about “tone” because it lacks one (are “lighthearted” or “dark and edgy” ways you would describe something like Tetris?).
• Juxtaposing difficulty (and, similarly, seriousness) in a cheerful setting can also create a memorable experience in its own way, but be wary of how well these aspects meld in your project. Making a lighthearted-on-the-surface game difficult and dark can potentially backfire by attracting an audience through a first impression, and pushing it away later on.
• Having sections of a game where the difficulty eases up can be a boon on players, especially if a game starts off difficult in the first place. These breather sections often take pressure off of a player and allow them to relax somewhat, and if these sections introduce the player to a new ability or function, affords the player a safer section to learn how to use the ability.

Doug Griffin: Secret Agent Teacher

I got my first call from them on the special phone they gave me. You could call it a “company phone” I suppose, but I’m not allowed to tell anyone about “the company’. So if anyone asks about them, just do like I do and pretend you don’t know anything.

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I'd love to show you a picture of myself, but I'm not allowed to, so here's my Facebook profile pic

Anyway, the phone rang last night while I was grading papers. I had trouble finding the phone because it’s camouflaged and it blends in with almost everything. Thankfully, the ringer played the theme from “Mission Impossible”, so I could still locate it. I made sure to tell my boss how subtle that was. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about and he didn’t know who I was. I laughed at his joke, but I reminded him that they’re only supposed to disavow knowledge of me if I get captured and not before.

I was to rendezvous at the “Quick Sack” convenience store with my partner Bermufto Marmolejo before going to the school. We were scheduled to meet at 0600 hours which was two hours before school began. That would give us enough time to complete the mission and get changed before school started. I hoped to have enough time to finish my lesson plans before first period.

I arrived at the Quick Sack in my Mercedes Benz SLK320. It’s a company car. I tell everyone that I’m a day trader to cover my real job. I left my car there and we drove to the school in a borrowed Smart car. Unfortunately, the smart car was too small for the rocket launcher, so we strapped it to the roof of the car, and Bermufto ran a remote control into the car and mounted it on the dash.

We parked down the street from Sam Jackson high school (where I teach at), put on ski masks and walked the rest of the way. We carefully approached the school from the west side and hid in some bushes near the entrance. This is where we ran into our first snag; three Afghani spies dressed up as fifteen-year-old white males were standing near the entrance. They sold the disguises well by smoking cigarettes and having rap battles. Good disguises, but no one ever fools me. Our original plan was to shoot them with the silenced Glock 9mm pistol that Bermufto had planted in the bushes the night before. Unfortunately, Bermufto forgot to buy bullets and there was only one round left.

We decided the best course of action was to shoot the surveillance camera above the spies, then take them out one-by-one while they were distracted. Sadly, Bermufto became distracted by a plane flying a banner behind it for the “Beatnik Buffett”, and he fired his bullet in the opposite direction. Luckily, the bullet ricocheted off some strategically placed buildings and hit the camera anyway.

With step one complete, we went to step two: taking out the spies. While the first spy was distracted by the broken camera, Bermufto expertly threw his gun and hit him in the head knocking him out. Before the other two could figure out what was happening, I ran up and knocked the other one out with a perfectly timed jump kick to the face that would have made Bruce Lee jealous. The third one stood there stupefied. I tried to interrogate him first.
“Who do you work for?”
“Huh?”
“Do you work for Muhammad McDonald?”
“Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout?”
“Don’t play games! We know you’re an Afghani spy!”
“Are you retarded? I go to school here!”
“Retarded enough to know an Afghani spy when I see one!”

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I was doing some spy work on AskJeeves.com, and I found this picture. I believe it to be the secret hideout of Mohammed McDonald.

Before he could say anything else, I ran at him, jumped up in the air and did a flying triangle choke on him, knocking him out as well. Regrettably, I forgot to say “no homo” as I applied the choke, so Bermufto got to kick my ass. We dragged the unconscious spies off to the side, piled them on top of each other in a latently homosexual manner, took pictures, and continued to the next step.

We had to pick the lock on the west entrance. This door had multiple deadbolts keeping it shut. Picking the locks proved to be very problematic until we realized that the deadbolts were in fact not locked. We proceeded down the hallway with our masks off. We decided that we would attract less attention without masks as both of us were employed by the school as our cover jobs. We stopped by the janitorial closet to pick up a special weapon that Bermufto had successfully stashed there the night before. Our orders were to proceed to the boys’ restroom and take out subjects W240. We were told they would be waiting there.

When we entered the restroom, the subjects were indeed there waiting for us. Thankfully they had not been alerted to our presence. They appeared to be asleep. Bermufto made the first move with his special weapon since he had more experience with it. With a can of raid in hand, he sprayed the wasp nest with a solid stream, dousing the hive and most of the wasps. The nest fell to the ground and lay there in a pool of insecticide. The mission was a success and our losses were minimal. Bermufto and I sustained no injuries in the line of duty.

As we were on our way out, I noticed that one of the subjects had not been terminated fully. He was angry and gathering his strength for a counter offensive. Bermufto had the can of Raid, and I had to act quickly or risk one of us dying. In a split second I formulated a plan. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my weapon of choice: a red pen. I pulled the cap from my deadly weapon and hurled it deftly at my foe. The pen found its mark and split the wasp in half at the thorax. Now our mission was complete.

Before leaving the restroom, we put our masks back on and proceeded toward the closest exit. As we reached the smart car, several police cars rounded the corner with lights flashing and sirens blaring. They were not informed of our operation and their presence could compromise national security. I brilliantly devised another plan in a split second. We quickly boarded the smart car, and drove straight at the oncoming police officers. Bermufto used the rocket launcher to create a diversion. He launched it at the lead car which was supposed to explode when the rocket hit it. Unfortunately, Bermufto mounted the launcher incorrectly. The smart car we were driving in was so light, that the rocket picked us up, and we glided over all the police officers. We landed on the other side of the cruisers and made our getaway sometimes reaching speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour. The police were too confused to successfully chase us down and must have known that we were going too fast to be caught. Our mission remained a secret.

We returned to the Quick Sack after driving the smart car over a cliff. I pulled off the mask, changed into my work clothes, got into my Mercedes and headed back to the school. It dawned on me during the ride back that perhaps I should have gotten into the Mercedes before taking my clothes off as some angry women began hurling bruised fruit at my nude form.

The three Afghani spies had reported the assault to the principal. They recognized my voice and reported me as a possible suspect. I told the principal that they were obviously liars, and showed her photos of the embarrassing positions I had laid them in order to discredit their reputations. I also commented that they were obviously jealous of my penis size. The principal did not agree with my statements. She must have been impressed with my photography skills because she took the photos from me and refused to give them back. She let me go just the same since there was no definitive evidence against me.

All in a day’s work for Doug Griffin: Secret Agent Teacher.

Author's Note: Just want to thank TheAnnotatXperiment for supplying the full film for me, as well as pointing out crucial points of the film.

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Let's talk about questionable decisions. We've all made one in our lives. Let's not try to deny it. Sometimes we were fine with it from the start, but then when we looked back on it we regretted what we did. Other times, we were simply desperate and an opportunity arose in a way that wasn't as favorable as we wanted it to be. Hell, we might have just been forced into it. Those sort of circumstances are very common with actors. It may be because of money, it may because of fine print in a contract, it may be because they desire more and more attention. At the end of the day, when it all comes down to it, some of the things stars act in are just atrocious beyond belief. Sometimes, you wonder how some big names out there even managed to last so long after you see them in terrible, terrible movies. But then they are other times that you understand why some people are where they are, why their careers have been cut like an infected limb. I'm pretty sure that in this case, Foodfight! would be considered that infected limb. I heard things about this movie, all of them saying just how terrible it was. What I gathered was it that it was an animated flick, it had something to do with food and a detective. My curiosity was peaked the more I looked into just the kind of people that were surrounded by this project and I became tempted to see how disastrous of a trainwreck it would be. Then I stopped caring because I wasn't that invested in the idea for one reason or another. (Un)fortunately, I stumbled across the Annotated version of this film and watched it a good amount of times to truly sink in what I was being presented too. To merely imagine that this was directed at children is frightening and/or hilarious considering that when I tried to see it through a more official means, I was warned that I had to be 18 or over to watch this film. Still, I have to share this mess to those who aren't aware of it, because I refuse to be the only one whose eyes have witnessed such a spectacle.

I'll give you the low-down on things you have to consider:

- Sexual references that make porn look subtle
- Terrible aversions of profanity (like saying fudge instead of the freakin' F word)
- Food-related puns
- Drink-related puns
- Grocery-related puns
- So many puns...
- Shoehorned references to better things
- Cameos (both the kind you're thinking of and the ones you're not)
- Blatant stereotypes
- I just can't stop mentioning how many fudging puns there are in this movie
- Incredibly thinly-veiled Nazis
- Bizarre acting choices

Take your kids into the other room and turn on Spongebob for them. Then if you really want, you can comprehend the true nature of Foodfight! with me.

The movie opens with a relatively decent title sequence. It's probably the nicest looking bit of animation in the entire film. I know that sounds discouraging, but trust me when I say that you'll find some good animation...just not in a conventional sense. We see a supermarket at closing time and then we see it light up into some sort of mini-city with an instrumental quasi-cover of I'm a Believer playing in the background. Most of the music in this movie is some sort of weird combination of cheap stock music and 80s-90s pop music that's been choked out of all of it's energy. Then we see some bat thing fly in front of us. Now, I'm one of those people that thinks bats look cute. Especially fruit bats, those little buggers are just adorable. The animated bat I saw though is not cute. It's not good-looking either. It's just wrong. Now, why get so up-in-arms about the design of an animated bat, you may ask. Well, it's because it's a clear example of how some of the animation is going to be. It's going to look atrocious and bizarre. You may think I'm contradicting myself here, but you will soon see what I mean.

The song drags on for god knows how long (it was actually 2 minutes, but when you see it, it feels like an eon),. You get a glimpse of the forced humor, which consists of overblown stereotypes, sound effects and bodily functions. Oh and all of a sudden you see Mr. Clean. Yeah. Then we get Charlie "I Wish I Couldn't Handle It" Sheen, in the form of a dog detective by the name of Dex, that spews puns like a Tim Vine sprinkler that shoots acid. He fights off a bunch of rat things on top of a hot-air balloon, then pops it to defeat the mastermind and finished off by falling in a way that would make early greenscreen look hyper realistic. He saves some bird-kitten things and then gets a bunch of random people (including a...I don't know what species of bird reporter) congratulating him for solving 500 consecutive cases. After saying something forgettable, he talks to his chipmunk-squirrel thing-of-a-friend, Dan, played by Wayne Brady (post-Improv-A-Ganza, pre-WLIIA renewal) about proposing. His character is by far one of the most annoying, poorly-animated creatures in this film, and it really hurts me to say that I found myself annoyed by a character played by Wayne Brady. We get some boring conversation with Dex and Dan, and then Dex's cat-girlfriend-thing, Sunshine (Hilary "Haven't Succumb To Lindsey Lohan Syndrome Yet" Duff) is introduced. More boring conversation, followed by a Brooklyn moose, some hijinks and crappy lovey-dovey banter happen as Dex is about to pop the question with a carrot ring, Dan crashes his plane and then we're back to Dex and Dan talking about Sunshine. Okay.

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And that's why I don't do drugs, kids.

Aftewards what follows is the best minute of your life. We cut back to the grocery store at day when we see Mr. Clipboard (played by Christopher Lloyd) talking to the owner about Brand X. Lloyd's performance as Mr. Clipboard is a combination of Judge Doom's overt maliciousness and toony horror and Doc Brown's bizarre speech mannerisms. It's accentuated by the abhorrent walk-cycle which really shines through when his voice goes from "sort of okay" to "why are you talking this way?". By god, it is beautiful. The tears I've shed seeing that minute over and over could fill a million seas. Mr. Clipboard then crushes a bag of chips because he's the obvious villain and then the owner weeps over them as a pirate voice curses Brand X for what they've done to one bag of chips. So, just to recap the logic of this movie so far, crushed chips equal murdering a child. Maybe that's a bit extreme, but it's almost played as so, mainly with how the owner grieves over the chips. Don't worry, it'll get more outrageous as it goes along.

Out of nowhere, we cut to a white-suited Dex (symbolism for how he's a good guy or just some generic hero get-up?), who apparently is grieving over not being able to save Sunshine and quitting the supermarket detective agency. I know sudden changes occur in a movie, but the pacing in how we cut from one thing to the next is just abysmal. Dan tries to cheer him up, though I'm more tempted to punch a brick wall hearing him blabber on. Apparently, Dex owns a club now thanks to Dan's wonderful expositional skills and Dan flies off seeing that Dex is crying over spilt milk. As Dan flies around we hear him trying to pick up...I mean booty call some random girl on the street, saying lines that 70s pornos would be ashamed of. Dan crashes his plane again (because hurr durr, collateral damage is funny), lands on a tree, and makes more poorly-done cartoonish humor. We cut back to Dex who finds himself in a shady alley, confronted by a weasel voiced by Lawrence Kasanoff. He's worse than Dan because unlike Dan, I can't respect the actor behind the disgusting animated abomination. Kasanoff here pulled a Tommy Wiseua, being the director, producer, writer and an actor in this film, sucking at each field. Plus the design of the weasel looks more inappropriate and filthy than sneaky and filthy. The weasel gets run over by a train, but averts a satisfying death because of a deus ex "writer-director-producer wants more screentime" and we cut to the Copa-Banana, followed by some more jukebox rejects and random product placement cameos.

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I don't know what's sadder. Him being here or in Two and a Half Men.

Dex drinks himself some Irish milk as some pirate who I don't care about gets chipfaced on potato juice and then we get the femme failtale, Lady X(XX). If you thought Jessica Rabbit and Holli Would weren't the least bit subtle about being sultry smooth-talking sex-bombs, well, you're right, they weren't. Jessica did have the exaggeration down in a manner that was meant to tribute/parody the archetype and Holli Would at least had the decency to be in a movie that declared itself to be adult. Lady X is just a Hooters neon-sign designed by DeviantArt. Dex then makes the worst Casablanca reference in the world, followed by Dan doing some more smooth talking to get into Lady X's grocery aisle. The pirate character finds the Lady suspicious while Dex is wondering what's up with her familiar scent. A foodfight ensues with all the icons of brands, which is dissapointingly dull. You'd think that with all the weirdness and stupidity of the world that the action sequences would at least be entertaining in some way, but it's not. Save for like that one bit where the lady spins around the whole place, but maybe that's my selective "lolrandum" kicking in. Thankfully, Dex tells them to split...oh I'm sorry, I mean "banana-split"...out of his club as Lady X decided to go with the perverted Dan because she digs chocolate. Get it? Because chocolate stands for black people and black people have big penises. Surprisingly, my description of the joke makes it feel less blatant than how they deliver it. Dan celebrates his chance at getting his popsicle licked as Dex goes back to sulking some more about no sunshine. I'm just glad they didn't cover Bill Withers's hit. I don't want to imagine his body spinning so out of control that it then throws us off the planet. Oh wait...he's still alive. Thank god.

Lady X comes back, wearing her not-even-remotely-naughty schoolgirl uniform and tries to get to Dex. Dex doesn't care and then they go to a crime scene where an icon has been removed, causing the product it represents to go bad. I don't really understand why that's the case, couldn't they just get a new icon to fill in the place? There's millions upon millions of those things running about in the film, just have them be the new spokeperson. Hell, couldn't the grocer just get new products instead of having to submit to Brand X? Couldn't the grocery even make their own products? Then again, we don't know how powerful the grocery is yet...there's actually a lot we really don't know. Gah, whatever...cut to the grocery store where Mr. Clipboard is prancing about as gracefully as an epileptic ballerina, filling in for the products that have been removed. I'd love to talk about Mr. Clipboard some more, but before I can finish my sentence, it cuts back to Dex who keeps moping about Sunshine. Dude, I get it, you don't have her anymore. Just get a bone or a chew-toy, it's just as effective. A town hall meeting takes place whereupon Lady X and the rest of the NaXis take over Eggrolland with a speech that couldn't even rouse the most gullible sheep in the world. The weasel then comes back again and gets "killed" by a Nazi that sounds like an impersonation of a stuck-up, egocentric, over-acting "master thespian". After all, that was completely necessary.

As you'd expect, Dex comes back into the picture, breaking into Lady X's lair. The two then proceed to have the dullest tango in the world. And considering the set-pieces that they try to throw into the sequence to make it amusing like knocking down a weapons rack, breaking some fish-tank-thing, releasing a bunch of crazy-bird things, and then breaking a glass-ice-sculpture-thing, that makes the lack of enjoyment so much more prevalent. Oh and don't forget puns, because that sequence was full of them. So then guess what? Lady X turns out to be evil and then traps Dex with Dan in a washing machine. Of course they escape, and find out the totally-not-obvious plot of Brand X and then try to escape, bumping into another annoying character whose nose is twice the schnoz of Jimmy Durante. He's too annoying to even talk about. It interrupts the lack of humor that resonates from the Three Signs of the Apocalypse and cuts to a disturbing execution of an icon done by Brand X. It goes back to the three of them because this movie sucks at transitions. Dex gets the idea to go into daytime and cross to the other side of the store where they can find a computer that'll inform them about the evil plan of Brand X. Of course, in the daytime it's risky to go out because humans might see them. Lord knows no one wants to see those icons coming at them, they have enough to worry about. Although to be fair, if you saw the humans in this world, you'd probably want to become a hermit for the rest of your life. Dex and Dan barely make it to the other side, defying an incredibly ugly Brand X minion and the laws of physics.

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Level 6: You are the devil, and you're drinking rubbing alcohol out of desperation.

While they're on the other side (god I wish that meant something else), they find the bat I was talking about early, voiced by Larry Miller. I suspect this movie was to pay off a gambling debt of his. Despite the design, he's one of the most hilarious characters in the movie. Partly because he sounds like if Larry Miller is rambling rather than saying lines, partly because they make the character a bumbling fool and partly because they make him into a gay bat. Yeah, this movie really knows how to push boundaries. They reach the computer which is working on IBM (I don't think anyone even knows what they are anymore), and find that both Sunshine and some prune brand was recalled by Brand X. Among other brands. And if they know how powerful Dex is, why don't they just recall him? Also, this just has him spouting more angst than ever. It's making Shadow look dignified! They get trapped, but then escape. More Brand X propaganda occurs, then Dex ends up back at his club and just in time! Brand X was going to make the icons sing allegiance to them. Fear not, for another terribly forced Casablanca reference is here to save the day! Brand X isn't pleased with their defiance and vows to get them back. This gives Dex enough time to apparently set up a trap to catch Brand X off-guard and launch out a more literal food fight. Well, more like a food war.

Now, you think that this would at least be moderately fun, what with the fight starting with the icons pouring hot chocolate (with marshmellows) on Brand X, and later bombarding them with food that would probably have fed an entire African village. At least there would be something that would keep you somewhat invested in the action. But nope. It just feels like it drags on endlessly and the desperate attempts at comedy and cartoon violence are more annoyingly frequent than an ad on Youtube. The weasel comes back, big surprise, and I guess helps out, I don't know, and neither do I care. The General of Brand X then kills some penguin which Dex apparently had some relationship with (yeah, this movie doesn't like explaining anything at all) and then Dex gets payback by covering him in tape and then running him over with a tomato soup can. And then afterwards he says some really terrible one-liner because that's really all Dex does. Say puns, one liners and just how much he misses Sunshine. He's flatter than flapjacks, I tell ya. Speaking of things I don't care about, a whole bunch of icons die! And Big-Nose comes back to assault your ear-drums! And then Dan comes back to grace you with his terrible presence! It's like Christmas morning in Hell!

Going back to our main character, Dex decides to infiltrate the Brand X HQ, but Lady X gets the upper hand, taking her to her lair again where Sunshine is being held captive by a Brand X soldier! Oh no! As they're having the good-guy-bad-guy-banter, I find that this part is funny for all the wrong reasons. Sure, Dex says perhaps one of the worst lines in all of history, but it's so bad it turns into a magnificent swan that majestically flies away. Sure, the sequence plays out more like a gritty action movie, but it leads to one of the best deaths in the entire film. The only issue I have is that the way Dex kills the soldier is by spitting a raisin at a gun in mid-air. Really, a raisin? This would disappoint me, but that would imply that there was something in this movie that gave me hope. Dex and Sunshine go back to boring googly eyes (in some cases, I mean that literally), but then realize that they have to escape the building before it collapses. As you'd imagine, Dan comes to rescue, finally pulling off the loop-de-loop and not crashing the plane for once. Come to think of it, where does he get a new plane? Shouldn't they just revoke his flying license already? Why am I asking these questions?

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FE FI FO FUM I SMELL THE BLOOD OF BAD ACTORS.

Once they successfully land, the final boss emerges. That's right, Mr. Clipboard comes back, as if he were a drunk Godzilla. Wonderful, now they can all die and this movie can end! Or at the very least we get a decent fight. What's that? He gets defeated by dental floss? Well, now I'm disappointed. Thanks for that false hope, movie. It doesn't stop there though, because guess what? No...really...guess. It turns out Mr. Clipboard is Lady X in a human robot! And, she's also the icon of the prune brand that got recalled.

WHAT

Let me see if I get this clear. Brand X recalled the prune brand, thus leading her to change her appearance into Lady X, and then take over as the head of Brand X in the form of a human robot? First off, if the brand was recalled that would either mean that she killed the original head of Brand X and then replaced the head with the robot of Mr. Clipboard or that she recalled herself. Second, how the hell did she get that human robot, let alone sneak into Brazil to get herself surgery?! I mean, I've seen asspulls in movies before, and some I could take, but there was absolutely no indication that the world they lived in was incredibly high-tech. Sure, talking icons and certain grocery related warfare makes sense, as well as the grocery city, but the human robot went too far. What's next, you're gonna tell me Sunshine could actually kick some ass and smack Lady X back to her ugly self? Hell, I'd buy that, it's less absurd and insulting than the HUMAN ROBOT. Fuck this, the movie ends with Dex and Sunshine back together and Brand X destroyed, whoop-de-damn-do.

Foodfight! is that combination of a movie gone so wrong that feels so right and a movie that is so abhorrent, you will no longer feel anything and roam the earth as an empty husk of your former self. The animation is awful, the attempts at comedy are awful, the whole plot is awful. How they shoehorn cameos of different products makes commercials look subtle. Half the actors are either boring or annoying, and it's sad considering that there's actually some talented people behind this. At the same time, Larry Miller Bat, Mr. Clipboard and the two Brand X head soldiers (one played Jerry Stiller, oddly enough) made up for what the others lacked and bizarrely enough, some of the abysmal lines are actually quite funny. The humor is not a conventional one, as well as it shouldn't. It takes a good amount of strength to stand this movie. It's awful beyond belief, you have to find some other way to enjoy yourself, and I guarantee you'll find it. Either in the disjointed nature of the production, the random animation jerks or simply because you get a kick out of horrible dialogue, there's bound to be something in this that you'll at least get a kick out of.

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How far has western animation come? Not very. Where are all the great cartoons of today? Why are the most successful shows still imitating the “classics” of the 1990s and late 80s when they could be branching out into new areas? Would Walt Disney have regretted making Steamboat Willie in 1928 if he had known that 2013’s most popular shows would be about gender-swapping dogs and pot-smoking park animals as a result? Face it: even if they showed occasional flashes of wit and brilliance, most cartoons from the 2000s (and even the 90s) were beset by the typical problems of inconsistency, bad characterization, weak humor, and unused potential. It’s hard to imagine the future of 2010s cartoons if the trend continues. What if that show starring Tosh.0 actually becomes a hit?

If people are having trouble coming up with good shows, they can always look back to a shining example from 1995. The potential of animation has never been seized quite like it was when Darkstalkers was made. This gem came from Graz Entertainment, the same people who gave us X-Men (1992) and the beloved Street Fighter cartoon. The creators of the western animation series Darkstalkers faced an insurmountable challenge: taking a Japanese fighting game with gratuitous amounts of sexuality and violence and reformatting it into an American children’s cartoon show for viewers of all ages. They tackled this challenge armed with a stellar animation budget, an all-star cast the best Canadian voice actors they could afford, and a crop of writers who had lent their talents to classics like Jem, TMNT, ReBoot and Muppet Babies. Nobody thought it would succeed, and yet…it didn’t. It ran for only 13 episodes before its second season was cancelled.

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However, we all know that it could’ve run forever and never dipped in quality. Despite what fans of the game may tell you, the show’s creators succeeded in every way. Darkstalkers is the pinnacle of western animation for its brilliant re-imagining of the source material, unforgettable dialogue and characters, and general sense of wonder that might make you say “What the fuck did I just watch?” but should really make you think “Why can’t I understand this genius?” No one really understood it, which is why it got canned so early. With the benefit of Youtube uploads, we can return to the show and see it for the great series it is.

No matter how many changes the creators had to make to the game to fit the show, the basics are pretty much the same. They took all of our favorite Darkstalkers and had them fight each other, more or less. Since the game was all fighting and not much story, the writers had to furnish the various personalities of the characters, giving them more humanity and likability (most of the time) than they had in 16-bit. Everybody remembers the succubus Morrigan (who, true to her popularity, got a great honking deal of screen time), the sinister vampire Demitri, the outrageous zombie rock star Lord Raptor, the derp-looking and lovable Bigfoot, the big sister-esque cat-woman Felicia, the completely clueless mummy Anakaris, the vivacious werewolf Jon Talbain, and “generic young boy protagonist with glasses who kinda looks like Teddy Duchamp.” That’s right, the writers were even generous enough to grace us with a brand new original character (who, come to think of it, gets more screentime than any of the Darkstalkers individually. Nothing wrong with that).

I watched this 4 times, I still don't understand what the fuck is going on. – A Youtube user

To represent this diverse cast of characters, Graz called upon their list of strong vocal talents and let them run wild (but not too wild). The ever-so-versatile Scott McNeil, best known as the voice of Dr. Wily, was lucky enough to land three roles: Lord Raptor, Rikuo, and Anakaris. Surely McNeil must have been thrilled to get the opportunity to read amazing lines like “All hail the imperial pudding! There are lizards in my pants!” Among the notables, there’s Gary Chalk (of Grounder fame) in the memorable role of Donovan, Ian James Corlett (of Coconuts fame) as both Victor and Pyron’s stupid computer, Richard Newman (who voiced M. Bison YESH! and several Transformers) as Pyron, and despised beloved talent Lee Tockar as Talbain (although he doesn’t get many lines; a blessing or a curse, you decide).

The show’s creators had one big problem to overcome. Darkstalkers is a fighting game, meaning any players can pit one character against any of the other characters and the match will make sense. Unfortunately, kids’ shows depend on black-and-white battles of good and evil to teach the kids lessons and draw good ratings. What sense would it make to the children if Felicia beat up Lord Raptor and then turned around and beat up Talbain? The game needed some friendship and magic, so the creators gave Pyron a spaceship and had him travel around the world; anyone who joined him would be evil, and anyone who resisted would be good. In this way, kids could learn to identify with the “right” Darkstalkers, even though they were all monsters. The writers decided not to explain why or how Pyron had a spaceship not because they were lazy and pulled it out of their ass, but because it simply wasn’t necessary. (Also, his ship’s sarcastic computer has a voice extremely similar to that of Halo’s 343 Guilty Spark. You can bet that Microsoft borrowed a lot from this show, eh?)

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Once the creators cleared that up, they had another moral problem to solve. They had already decided to cast Morrigan as a villain, but given her revealing appearance in the games, they had reason to worry that kids might be attracted to her, despite not knowing what the word “sexual” means or implies. How do you put a sexy villainess in a kid’s show? Answer: you don’t. So they got around this problem by making Morrigan look ugly as sin and giving her a hideously thick Scottish (bordering on Glaswegian) accent, thus taking all of that unnecessary sexiness away. The western cartoon thus prevented thousands of children from falling into sinful temptation, and helped them to make the proper conclusion that ugly people are evil.

The show also taught children valuable lessons about acceptance. The art team was told to give the fish man Rikuo attractive features, and they succeeded, to the point where several characters would stop whole dialogues just to remark that Rikuo is “curiously attractive for a fishman” (“or strangely attractive”). What’s funny is that the majority of these remarks came from other male characters; even the demon hunter who hates Darkstalkers can’t deny the fish man’s astounding male beauty. Some might call the line a dumb running joke, but it was much more than that; I think we can call it a noble effort to teach kids to accept homosexuality and not to be afraid to admit that people of their sex are sometimes hawt. What more valuable lesson could come from a cartoon based off of a video game? That people shouldn’t be racist? Yeah, right. Kids should learn to respect their fish more. Until we learn to value ichthyic beauty as much as the characters in the show, some screams won’t be heard.

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Look at that ass.

Seriously, those buttocks are pronounced as hell. This couldn’t have been unintentional.

The show’s greatest achievements lie not only in its lessons to the youth, but also in its amazing storylines and characters. Witness the developments in “The Game,” wherein the villains trick the good guys and hold them hostage but are eventually defeated by kitchenware. Notable too is “Pyramid Power,” in which the powerful Demitri and Morrigan get their asses handed to them by house cats, a nice reminder of how good can triumph over evil, however stupidly (a message we need more than ever nowadays). The team of 80s cartoon writers punch the screenplays up with witty banter between the monsters and plenty of pop-culture references and puns that never, ever get dated. Never is the script wittier when Donovan tells the young boy that Morrigan is a succubus and the boy says “I’ll say she does!” It must have taken years to come up with a joke like that.

The best (and craziest) episode has to be “There’s No Business Like Dragon Business,” a story which defies all kinds of description. I have yet to see any other show manage to cram an almost foppishly gay dragon (who likes peace, love and tea), a Lord Raptor rap number, a yeti on a walkie-talkie, a minute-long arm-wrestling match, a T-Rex getting his head blown off by a guitar, an Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo, and a dancing shark in sunglasses all into one episode. How many WTF moments can you fit into 22 minutes? The answer: ten to twelve.

Terrible rapping + terrible beatboxing + inappropriate beat + long out of style beach attire + party hardy dudes + actually snapping fingers to a beat = whitest script writers in all of existence. No seriously, the people behind this deserve a fucking Guinness world record for this hilarious abomination. – Another Youtube user

Some will tell you that the Darkstalkers cartoon is a strange and embarrassing failure that disgraced the game and deserved its swift cancellation. Those people are heathens. Never let anyone call Darkstalkers anything less than the pinnacle of western animation, because that’s the only title it deserves. If anyone tries to criticize it for bad characterization, weak humor, and inconsistency, turn the tables around on them and reveal that they like shitty cartoons like TMNT and Avatar. Where will they be then? In ridicule, that’s where. So always keep an eye out for Darkstalkers.

Oh, and remember to party hardy, dudes! Yeah, that does sound pretty stupid. Oh well. Still a great show.

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The Elder Scrolls’ history is a storied one, full of ups and downs that could, in a way, rival a few other well-known franchises. The first game, Arena, was originally slated to be, aptly, a game involving arenas, with the player managing a team of gladiators that would travel from city to city in Tamriel and making their way up the ranks of gladiator teams, culminating in a championship match in the Imperial City. Between arena matches, players could take on sidequests (likened to typical RPG sidequests) to make money, likely to be used to buy better equipment for the team of gladiators.

As the game’s development progressed, however, the idea of arena battles became less and less important as more focus was placed upon building up the world that the developers had dreamed up as the setting for the game. Areas outside of Tamriel’s cities were created, including towns and dungeons, more and more sidequests were created, and ultimately the concept of arena battles was dropped entirely. Despite this, the game was still titled Arena, which was one of the many issues that plagued the game’s miserable release.

Reviews for the game, not an arena-battler but a full-blown role-playing game, were lukewarm, criticizing the game’s high difficulty, as well as its bugginess and high system requirements for its time (sound familiar?). Alongside missing their planned Christmas release date, the fledgling Bethesda Softworks was in a precarious position, almost positive that the issues with Arena would lead to the company’s early demise. However, as patches were released and word-of-mouth helped the game’s reputation, the game became somewhat of a cult classic; while not a massive success, it was enough to plant it among the ranks of the other computer-based RPGs at the time.

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Don't worry, that's about the biggest impact the Elder Scrolls themselves have on the first game. And the second. And the third. And the fourth.

While the franchise has become one of the strongest footprints of the industry in current years, the first chapter was released as a freeware game by Bethesda to celebrate the series’ fifteenth anniversary, to be emulated under DOSBox. While it’s easy to find debates among the TES fanbase about which game in the series is the “best” (with the second game, Daggerfall, and the third game, Morrowind, being bitter rivals for the position), The Elder Scrolls I: Arena seems to be left out the most, likely owing to the major differences it has in comparison to its younger brethren, even though it is the original root where the rest of the franchise truly stems from.

Arena begins off with a rather simple introduction that sets up the setting of Tamriel and also attempts, weakly, to make sense of its own title: the Septim Empire of Tamriel, almost four-hundred years old at the time of the game, has become so embroiled in civil wars among its provinces that people have begun calling the world the Arena, due to the never-ending violence. It’s a flimsy excuse, only made worse by the fact that it’s extremely rare to hear anyone refer to Tamriel by its supposed nickname, or even refer to it at all; you’re more likely to hear NPCs talk about the cities they live in or spout off conspiracy theories about whatever lord or lady rules over the city.

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You have to wonder what in Tamriel made this guy more appealing than Ocato, the far-more-loyal Imperial Battlemage in later games.

When the player reaches the main menu and decides to start a new game, they’re thrown into another simple scene that sets up the game’s story. The Emperor, Uriel Septim VII, and his Captain of the Guard, Talin, are called to counsel with the Imperial Battlemage, Jagar Tharn, on rumors of treachery. Tharn betrays the pair and uses a powerful artifact called the Staff of Chaos to warp the pair to another dimension. He then kills Ria Silmane, his apprentice, who finds out about this plan (somehow – we’re never told how), and uses illusion magic to make himself look like the Emperor so he can take the throne. After this, the player is finally given their choices to start creating their character, starting with their gender, their name, and then their class (all to the tune of a low, heart-pumping song that excellently clinches the concept of creating a hero-in-the-making).

Character creation is one of the few aspects of the game that is more similar to the other games than it is different. You’re given the option to either choose a class directly, or answer ten questions that will assign you a class based on the answers you choose. Each answer corresponds to a different central class (Warrior, Mage, and Thief), and the average of each answer you get will give you your class. Someone with a warrior-like demeanor, but with some thief-y qualities, will likely end up as a Rogue or something similar, and so on and so forth. Each class has its own small advantages and disadvantages that make them at least slightly different: Knights are immune to Paralysis, Rangers have a massive boost to fast-travel speed, Healers have a faster healing rate when resting, and so on and so forth. One of the most notable omissions is the ability to make a custom class, the reason for which deals with gameplay aspects that I’ll explain later.

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And far above, among the stars, the Warrior, Thief and Mage constellations watch you.

Once the player has their main details down, they’re given a choice of what race they should be. Unlike the modern games, there are only eight races, each of which have a slant towards a class and generally an extra advantage of some kind:

• Redguards and Nords are good warriors, with Redguards getting a damage bonus with melee weapons and Nords getting a resistance to ice spells.
• Bretons and High Elves are best as mages, with High Elves being immune to Paralysis and Bretons having a resistance to magic.
• Khajiit and Wood Elves make work as thieves, with Wood Elves getting a damage bonus with bows and Khajiit having faster climbing out of water or pits.
• Argonians and Dark Elves have no particular slant, with Argonians having fast swimming in water and Dark Elves getting a small damage bonus with any kind of weapon.

While these may sound decent enough on paper, certain advantages ultimately make some races extremely overpowered, while making others unfairly underpowered:

• The Khajiit’s fast climbing is mostly useless as climbing out of pits is rarely an issue, the Nord’s resistance to cold is eclipsed as enemies with ice-based spells thin out mid-game, and the Wood Elves’ damage bonus with bows can become pointless due to the fact that Arena puts you in close combat situations more than it does ranged combat.
• Meanwhile, the Redguards’ damage bonus is incredibly useful due to the constant melee combat that any character will be dealing with, and the High Elves’ immunity to Paralysis makes an entire class obsolete (the Knight) and removes the risk of one of the most dangerous status effects in the game, meaning less money needing to be spent on magical items or Potions of Free Action.

After this, the player then has their stats randomly picked, and is given a handful of bonus points to distribute. The stats can be rerolled if the player chooses, but the spreads of a starting character are more likely to be the same no matter what. After this, the player can choose one of various faces for their race, and once satisfied, they are thrown into… yet another small cutscene where they have a vision of Jagar Tharn’s deceased apprentice, Ria Silmane. She explains that she has been killed and is using what little magic she has left to keep herself alive as a ghost, and tasks you with getting out of the dungeons that you are imprisoned in, helpfully providing a key that will unlock the cell, as well as giving you directions to a Shift Gate that will warp you to a city in the province of your race (ie: if you’re a Breton, you’ll get warped somewhere in High Rock). The player then awakens inside of a jail cell (a trend that would become a recurring joke in the series), with nothing but the clothes on their back and a weapon (and, if they are a magic-user, some spells in their spellbook). In the corner of the cell is the key to their door, and once the door is open, the player is free to explore the tutorial dungeon.

The character is controlled via the arrow keys, and jumping is handled via the J key (or Shift-J to jump forward instead of straight up), though your cursor needs to be on the playing area in order for jumps to register. Ten buttons at the bottom of the playing area can be clicked with the mouse to perform various functions - however, these can also be done via keys on the keyboard, such as pressing the U key to bring up the list of magical items you can use, or pressing the A key to ready or put away your weapon. I feel like having the hotkeys makes the clickable buttons almost entirely pointless, as it’s much quicker, faster, and safer to use the keyboard hotkeys rather than to move your cursor to the buttons and click on them, which can take a few seconds, enough time to leave you wide open to any number of hazards.

Attacking with melee weapons is done by holding down the right mouse button and then moving the mouse around in various directions, with each direction representing a different type of attack. Moving the mouse from the bottom of the screen to the top will perform a thrust, the opposite will perform a vertical slash, left to right and vice versa will perform a horizontal slash, and diagonal movement performs diagonal slashes. While the different types of strikes have their differences, I found them to be negligible. Bows and magical spells, on the other hand, just require clicking on an enemy with the cursor. Arrows and spells follow the Doom style of aiming in that they will reach your target even if you are in a pit and they are up above you, but since magical items are more handy (and weigh less) than bows, it’s more efficient to carry a melee weapon at all times and use magic spells or items for range.

The controls of Arena are, to be blunt, indicative of its time. Putting aside the small details such as not being able to look up or down, the best way I could describe it is that it feels like the controls would suit me better if I was left-handed instead of right-handed, as having my right hand on the arrow keys and keyboard hotkeys all the time would free my left hand up for the mouse, meaning I could attack and use hotkeys at the same time. While the controls are clunky and hard to get used to, they’re at least workable, though, and there was never a point in the game where I felt like the controls messed me up. However, anyone going into Arena from the later games in the series is going to find it hard to get used to, and it may even turn people away completely from playing the game at all, something which I can hardly blame them for.

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It's common in many of the main quest dungeons to be confronted with DM-style flavor text. Unfortunately it tends to disappear a bit too quickly for my liking.

The Imperial Dungeons were initially somewhat daunting due to the game’s reputation for being hard, but I feel like much of this was simply bluster, as I found traversing the place to be fairly easy. There’s no particular gimmick to the Dungeons and the only enemies that inhabit the place are rats and goblins, meaning that unless DOSBox is running the game slowly or you’re getting confused with the control scheme, you’ll likely do fine. The worst-case scenario is that a rat ends up giving you a disease, something which would be worrisome if it weren’t for the fact that the dungeon is small and you can easily find enough money in the dungeons to buy a cure from a city.

The game is also nice enough to have some small hand-holding messages pop up from time to time, the most important one pointing out platforms that are safe to rest on, as they decrease the chance of getting ambushed in your sleep. Resting will restore the player’s health, magic if they have any, and stamina, the last of which drains at a slow, fixed rate instead of draining whenever performing actions such as running, jumping or attacking. This is probably the most “realistic” implementation of a stamina meter the series has seen, and I have to admit that it’s probably my favorite; it drains no matter what you do, but it doesn’t affect how well you perform your actions, and unless you are extraordinarily careless, you’ll likely never fall unconscious from a lack of stamina.

The player will likely defeat enough enemies in the dungeon to gain their first level, which highlights the first major deviation from the rest of the series: levels are gained via experience points instead of increasing class skills. This, I feel, is the main reason why a custom class creator was omitted from the game, as there would really be no point to it. It’s also the main reason why I feel like Arena is more like a traditional CRPG instead of what the Elder Scrolls is more well-known for nowadays, alongside the fact that the lore contrasts heavily to the current setting; this isn’t something that detracts from the game per say (can you really criticize an older game for not being faithful to lore that was thought up later on?), but it is something that may contribute to Arena’s status as the black sheep of the main series.

After gaining at least one level and sleeping somewhere, you’ll receive another vision from Zelda Ria Silmane, who compliments you on the fact that you went from level one to level two and finally explains your main objective to you. As it turns out, Ganon Jagar Tharn has split the Triforce Staff of Chaos into eight pieces and scattered them across the kingdom of Hyrule various provinces of the Empire of Tamriel, and it’s up to the player to find the pieces and reassemble the staff. She tells you that the first piece can be found in Fang Lair, and that you should ask around about where in Oblivion the darn place could possibly be, because she hasn’t got the slightest idea.

Once you eventually make it to the Shift Gate and get flung in front of the gates of a randomly-chosen city, the game starts to resemble the other games much more. You can blow off your quest to find the Staff of Chaos all you like; maybe you can chat up the townspeople and look for work, or sell some of that crusty old junk you found in the Imperial Dungeons. Maybe someone might have a general rumor about someone who knows about a powerful magical artifact you could find! Or you could just do a 180, exit the city, and just start hoofing it down the countryside on foot.

Unlike the later games in the series, Arena offers you the entirety of Tamriel to explore, from the very corner of Summurset Isle to the tip of Morrowind on the opposite end of the continent. This vastness of the playable land is expressed nicely during fast travel, where it can take upward of a month to travel from one particular province to another – going from a city in Elsweyr to Lillandril in Summurset took 63 in-game days to get to. In fact, it’s impossible to get from one specific area to another without fast travel, as the wilderness loops on itself and you’ll eventually end up in the same place, even if it means holding the movement keys down for hours on end.

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For reference, Mid Year is the equivalent of June. Frostfall is October. That's a long walk!

This both makes the world fun to explore, but also tedious to explore. While the game looks nice and likely looked excellent considering the time period (1994, remember), the limitations of the engine mean that the entirety of the world is flat, with the occasional raised platforms over pits of water to simulate bridges and rivers, buildings occasionally popping up near roads for players to sleep while traveling on foot (if they choose to do so, for whatever reason). The terrain of each province is basically identical save for a different coat of paint: there are snowy areas, grassy areas, desert areas, and rocky areas, with various little bits of background clutter like trees, rocks, strange altars or statues, cacti, and occasionally the entrance to a dungeon. It’s big, but both samey and uninteresting to explore, meaning that for all the randomly-generated wilderness the game can give you, you're more likely to just use fast travel.

The towns and cities themselves are nothing to sneeze at, though. They can range from being a decent size to being huge, and services are harder to locate through the massive mazes of houses that can be found within the city gates, despite the fact that some places can have upwards of eleven shops to buy and sell things at, along with multiple temples to get your diseases or poisons cured. NPCs themselves can be found walking through the streets, and you can ask them for their name, for directions, or you can ask them about general rumors (flavor text or an artifact quest) or work rumors (normal sidequests).

This realistic portrayal of cities comes at the price of, once again, being tedious: you can ask the wandering NPCs for directions (if it’s daytime; if it’s nighttime, you’re out of luck and just have to wander aimlessly until you find an inn to snooze at), and the game thankfully provides options for “nearest store, nearest temple” and so on, but unless you’re very close by you’ll be given a vague answer of one of the eight compass directions. It can become especially frustrating on foggy days, where you can run around the city like a headless chicken, talk to an NPC that emerges from the fog, only to be told to go “west for a while and ask there”. This is only exacerbated by the slow chatting interface, where dialogue boxes have a dissolving effect when appearing and disappearing. It’s easier to just look around a town, find a shop, find an inn near the shop, and then never explore any more of the city.

The best compliment I can give to the game’s non-combat aspects is that there is a broader sense of atmosphere in place. The game has a full day-and-night system, complete with the twelve months and a good handful of holidays sprinkled throughout the year, with various benefits (if you’re quick getting out of the Imperial Dungeons, for example, you might end up in a city on Tales and Tallows, letting you buy magic items from the Mages Guild for half price). Unfortunately, due to the abundance of fast travel and the sheer size of the world, it’s uncommon to be hanging around a settlement when a holiday rolls around, unless you talk to a townie about general rumors. Even then, they may not mention a holiday, and won't, if there isn't one coming up soon.

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Well, he's got one of those right, at least.

If nothing else, the cities provide the two most important pieces of the game: sidequests, and services. The services that can be found in the cities take on four different flavors:

Inns provide a place to stay inside of cities, with five different tiers of rooms to stay in, though I’ve never found any advantage to taking the Emperor’s Suite instead of just snoozing in a Single. More importantly, if you’ve heard a rumor about a sidequest from an NPC, they’ll point you in the direction of a specific inn, and you can initiate the sidequest offer by talking to the barkeeper. You can also buy drinks, but they just give you flavor text. Artifact quests are also started here, but unless you use an exploit, you can only have one artifact at a time, something that feels very much like a cheap way to keep the game balanced in some way or form.

Shops are where you can buy various types of equipment, such as armor and weapons. The game kindly keeps you from buying items you can’t equip (so if you’re a thief, you’re never going to see chain or plate armor in stock), and you can also sell off the spoils of war to the smiths. If your weapons need repairing, you can also get them fixed up at shops, though it will take the smith some time to do so (meaning you’ll likely spend that time resting in an inn). The items that shops offer are fixed, meaning that you can travel to Ebonheart and gaze longingly at that Ebony Dai-Katana of Passwall as soon as you finish the tutorial.

Mages Guilds are perhaps the second most important service after the shops. For those who prefer the bite of steel to slinging spells, you can pay them to detect the enchantments in magic items you pick up, as well as buy whatever enchanted items they’re offering (though you can’t sell them your enchanted items, for whatever reason). They also sell Potions of all types, meaning everyone will visit a Mages Guild at least once to stock up. Those with an affinity for the arcane can also buy spells for their spellbook from the guilds, and can use the Spellmaker to create their own customized spells.

Temples (not to the Nine Divines or the Daedra Princes, but just meaningless denominations) offer Blessings, Cures and Healing for a price, but they’re possibly the most meaningless service to exist in the game. Cures are used to cure diseases or poisons that enemies may end up transmitting to you, but Potions of Cure Poison or Cure Disease can be easily bought from the Mages Guild (or spellcasters can just buy the spells and cast away), and Healing just restores your hitpoints… even though it’s easier just to get a room at an inn instead. As for Blessings, I've never found any benefit from donating for them.

Also found in the major cities of the provinces (represented by castles on the world map, instead of small houses that represent towns and villages) are Castles, where you can speak to the rulers of the particular city. Just don’t walk around where you shouldn’t, or the guards will crawl out of the woodwork (or stonework, as the case would be). The kings and queens, too, are sometimes the subject of sidequests, though you’ll need to be a higher level to start receiving jobs from the nobles. However, they offer much more coin for their quests, and much more variety to boot, from escorting other nobles to towns (and being attacked by thieves or assassins if you try to rest in an inn on the way) to the more typical dungeon crawl, whether it be to kill a monster or to rescue someone.

TES-fans may notice something missing, and they're right. This highlights the second major deviation from the rest of the series: the lack of guilds to join. There are guilds mentioned (the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, the Blades, and so on), and the Mages Guild makes its aforementioned appearance, but there are no factions you can align yourself with or take jobs for. The idea of alignments towards guilds or certain factions wasn't quite set in stone yet (hence why you can't double-cross the Empire and join Tharn or something like that), and even if you could join guilds, the game lacks enough variety in its sidequests to merit it. There are no quests to break into houses and steal things, no quests to guard an area and defeat any enemies that try to trespass. Just dungeon-crawling.

Dungeon crawling makes up the brunt of the gameplay, and unfortunately, if you skimp on the main quest and just do sidequests, you’ll likely grow tired of trudging through the same randomly-generated places over and over again. Unfortunately, given that it’s the best way to make money, it can become a necessary evil.

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Wouldn't be a Bethesda game without bugs. Thankfully, the Neoquest II-esqe glitchy tile graphics are the worst I've encountered.

The problem with the randomly-generated dungeons is not so much their size or inhabitants – most of the dungeons, while they can be anywhere from two to four floors, are small enough to make filling out the map pretty easy, and while the enemies can scale to your level, if you learn to prepare for what you might find, you’ll be in much less danger than you might think. Potions of Resistance and certain magical weapons can be an enormous help, especially a weapon with Lifesteal. If not, then save often, rest, and pray you don’t get ambushed by something twice your size.

Where the dungeons flounder is, similar to the overworld, their design. Particularly with artifact quests, where you go to a dungeon to find a map, and then go to another dungeon to find the artifact, the floors of the randomly-generated dungeons end up looking the same, which makes the crawling feel bland and boring. Floor one is dark gray walls, floor two is light green circular stone walls, floor three is brown stone walls, and so on and so forth. To add to this, the pieces that are mishmashed together to create the dungeons seem to be picked from a fairly small pool, meaning you’re likely to find familiar structures over and over (in particular, I remember seeing a 3x2 cluster of rooms, only accessible by swimming under the walls, in more than five dungeons).

A lot of this can be forgiven due to the time period (again, 1994), but it’s still a difficult thing to ignore and press on with your objective when you’ve seen this place a dozen times before. I’m actually a big fan of dungeon-crawlers and roguelikes in particular, so I was able to focus myself on my objective and turn a blind eye towards the repetition of the graphics, but not everyone has that kind of willpower, especially if you started playing TES with the games where dungeons were handcrafted, more detailed, and more streamlined (or linear, in some cases).

By contrast, the dungeons for the main quest are all hand-crafted, and they all have a unique and memorable design in some way or form. The first couple dungeons are at least a little interesting – Stonekeep is a ruined castle that leads into a large cavern system, and Fang Lair is a brightly lit abandoned mine – but the dungeons really start to pick up when you get to places like the Fortress of Ice or Elden Grove, with the former’s icy interior contrasting the dull rock of other dungeons, and the latter is basically a foggy, outdoor dungeon with wide open areas. The Crystal Tower in particular is one of the most memorable dungeons in the game, with each floor having a different design or setpiece.

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It's also handy to have a spell or item of Light with you, both to have better vision and to appreciate the dungeons more.

Unfortunately, the game does see reuse of some of these themes, with Murkwood being an outdoor dungeon similar to Elden Grove, and the Crypt of Hearts and Vaults of Gemin share their looks with some of the randomly-generated dungeons. The main difficulty of the dungeons in the main quest is that they are often enormous, and unlike the dungeons of the later entries, Arena’s large dungeons grow very tedious to navigate, and I often found myself checking my map every few seconds to make sure I was going the right direction. Later dungeons will also introduce new requirements or recommended abilities for the player, such as a dungeon full of pits that you need to levitate over.

However, this also means that players will end up having to grind cash to collect certain abilities, from magic items or potions, in order to avoid some traps; I like Levitation, and its usage during the main quest in Morrowind was wonderful, but it feels annoying to have to buy Potions of Levitation just so I don’t overshoot my jump and land in a pit of lava. In Morrowind, and to a lesser extent Daggerfall, the dungeons were unique enough in their design that using Levitation felt exciting and mystical. In Arena, it feels barely any different from walking.

There’s little else to really say about the story and main quest, however, as it plays out exactly as you’d expect: you find the dungeon, find the piece of the Staff of Chaos, have Tharn taunt you in a dream before sending one (yes, just one) enemy to try and kill you, and then have Ria send you another vision that tells you what ancient dungeon to ask about next. In the end, Ria uses up all her magic and passes to the afterlife, you collect all the pieces of the Staff of Chaos and storm Tharn directly in the Imperial Palace, kill the treacherous Battlemage and save the Emperor, getting named the Eternal Champion in the process. And then you get booted outside of the Imperial Castle gates, free to continue doing sidequests as much as your heart desires in true TES fashion.

I do have to give some praise to the usage of sound and music in the game, as they’re both some of the best parts of the package. I know many people have a disdain for General MIDI (I know I’ve heard plenty of hideous renditions of songs off of VGMusic), but Eric Heberling’s compositions for Arena are fitting for whatever situation they tend to play in, whether it be the various town themes, the four moody dungeon pieces, or (a particular favorite of mine) traveling while the moons are high in the sky. Combined with the usage of sound to alert players to enemies in dungeons or around the wilderness, it creates a very effective experience that can lead to some legitimate jumps of shock or surprise, especially if you turn a corner and run into someone – or something – that smacks half of your health away within a few seconds.

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Ironically, not only would giant robots be reintroduced later, they would also make more sense, too.

Ultimately the question boils down to “is The Elder Scrolls I: Arena worth my time”? And ultimately I would answer “maybe”. The game is difficult, and there’s absolutely no question to that, but it’s difficult in both good and bad ways. At its good times, it’s difficult because you’re prepared for the dungeon but still having a tough time, but you’re still able to make it through. At its bad times, you’re dying constantly, have no money to repair your gear or get supplies, and all you can do is save-scum or cheat yourself a bunch of gold and health so that you can take more than one or two hits. A lot of times, the difficulty of the game can come down to if you’ve got the best equipment and if you’ve got the magical items that are practically a requirement at higher levels, and sometimes your equipment can come down to the luck of what the random-number-generator generates for you when you check that treasure pile in the corner.

What Arena demands from its players is patience. Even though you need to get that Staff Piece, you don’t have the funds to properly supply yourself, so just be patient and force yourself through the randomly-generated dungeons; you’ll get there eventually. Even though you’re low on health and save-scumming your rests is a risky proposition where you are, just be patient, because it’s more of a risk to go running around with your health that low. Even though the controls are frustrating and it’s bothersome to deal with the slow dialogue system with NPCs, just be patient, because you’ll get back to dungeons soon enough. If you’re a TES fan that’s interested in learning about the series’ roots, or if you’re an aficionado of older games and wanted to give Arena a try, it will be frustrating, clunky, and occasionally entirely unfair or tedious, but also rewarding, fun, and engaging in its own way. But, above all else, if you want to play The Elder Scrolls I: Arena, you will need to arm yourself with patience.

For those of you that may not know who ProfesserCheeseBall is, he's a YouTube Pooper that makes videos with lots of ear rape and heavy effects, yet is still able to make funny sentence mixing jokes, references, and other various effects throughout many of his videos. He only has 631 subs, but I, NITROCONCRETE1, honestly believe he should have more because he puts plenty of effort in his videos, which helps makes me laugh every time I see his Poops. I did this interview because 1. I was curious about many different things about him, and 2. as a fan, I thought I could interview him as a means of having us both know more about each other. With that said, enjoy this interview with a wonderfully talented individual.

NITROCONCRETE1: So, where did you first hear about YouTube Poop?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I don't exactly remember the first YouTube I've ever seen, but it was probably some sort of Spadinner Poop from 2007 since I remember seeing a lot of those at first.

NITROCONCRETE1: Did you enjoy Spadinner when you first saw it?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I did, but then I discovered Poopers such as CommanderGwonam and Imaperson and quickly got into that style afterwards.

NITROCONCRETE1: Ah. And what Poop with that style did you first see?

ProfesserCheeseBall: Once again, I don't remember exactly which one (MEMORY=10/10).

NITROCONCRETE1: Okay. So, which one of your Poops are you most proud of?

ProfesserCheeseBall: As of right now, I'm most proud of Burgers I. I feel like it has the style I've been trying to achieve since the beginning.



NITROCONCRETE1: Ah, so longer Poops and more effects in one part of video is the style you like?

ProfesserCheeseBall: To me, it doesn't really matter how long a Poop is. It could be only 10 seconds and be the most beautiful thing I've ever watched. However, the really fast-paced and heavy visual style I seem to like the most. I still like seeing many other styles of Poop, but this just happens to be my favorite.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright. If the heavy effect and visual frenzies didn't exist, what one would you like the most?

ProfesserCheeseBall: It would actually be pretty much tied. I can't really decide since all of the YouTube Poop styles all have at least one thing unique to offer.


NITROCONCRETE1: Ah, that's interesting! Who are your favourite Poopers and what famous Poopers have subbed to you on YouTube?

ProfesserCheeseBall: Oh there's quite a list of them....

NITROCONCRETE1: Can you list at least 5?

ProfesserCheeseBall:
avojaifnot
SporeDotCam
CommanderGwonam
Imaperson
GoodVsEvil1314
CreepahWeegie
AustRock9080
cupoficewater1
MaggedRat
SaturdayNightCleaner
superspyro3000
youthboy14
Geibuchan
Peskeh
DaKooperPooper
Stuart K. Reilly
Geibuchan
Imaperson
TheCaledioScope (although it was before he became well known)

These are all the people I can think of at this moment.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright. If you could describe your style in one word, what would it be?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I guess I'd say....hectic. I like to try and give my videos that feeling.

NITROCONCRETE1: Okay, what do you think about today's Poops?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I think that many of the Poops made recently (that I've seen) are great. It's what I thought since I'd first seen it.

NITROCONCRETE1: Since the Spadinner days, right?

ProfesserCheeseBall: Yes. That's what I meant.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright. Have you ever made a Poop of yourself?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I actually have in one of my first videos (so, it's not really as good as the stuff I have now).



NITROCONCRETE1: Do you regret making it or not?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I really only made it for a certain collab that got cancelled. So honestly, I kinda do, but I won't be taking it off YouTube.

NITROCONCRETE1: Good to hear! Have you ever regretted make any videos?

ProfesserCheetoBall: If I didn't like how a video was turning out, I wouldn't finish it. So, other than the Poop of myself, no.

NITROCONCRETE1: Okay. Have you ever gotten a real life friend to make an account with some YouTube Poops on it?

ProfesserCheeseBall: None of my in real life friends have ever made a YouTube Poop account. I've shown some of my videos to them and the best reaction I got to them were that they were okay. So, I don't think it's happening anytime soon.

NITROCONCRETE1: So, on a scale from 1 to 10, how important is YouTube Poop to you?

ProfesserCheeseBall: That's a pretty interesting question. I really wouldn't say something around 1 because I probably wouldn't be making YouTube Poops at all. Then again, I wouldn't say something around 10 either because I really only make these as a hobby, and don't really dream to become a film editor of any kind (but I still have fun making them). I guess I'll say...6.5.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright, what's your opinion on Spadinner?

ProfesserCheeseBall: If it's used in a completely non-serious matter, then I still find it amusing, but otherwise, it's just not that entertaining to me anymore.


NITROCONCRETE1: Well, how much would you say you improved since you started making YTP's?

ProfesserCheeBall: I'd say that I have definitely improved over the years. I seem to like my own work more and more after every video I make.

NITROCONCRETE1: Basically, you would say the video you just posted was the one you were most proud of?

ProfesserCheeseBall: That's usually how it goes, but at this point, Burgers I is my absolute favorite. The newest video that I'm working on might change that though.



NITROCONCRETE1: That's interesting to hear about! Have you edited something which is not a YouTube Poop?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I actually haven't.

NITROCONCRETE1: Ah. Have you ever thought of doing so?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I thought about having a possilbe career as a film editor, but that's about it.

NITROCONCRETE1: Good to know, then. You have 600+ subscribers. How do you feel about that?

ProfesserCheeseBall: I don't really care that much for my subscriber number anymore. I mean, seeing more and more people that like my videos is always nice, but what's really most important to me is that if I enjoying what I'm doing. If I don't than what's the point of making it in the first place?

NITROCONCRETE1: I see what you mean now. So what do you think of older Poops?

ProfesserCheeseBall: There are many out there that I still enjoy to this day. I probably would've never gotten involved in YouTube Poop if it wasn't for some of the older Poopers like CommanderGwonam, Imaperson, avojaifnot, and others that I may or may not know of right now.

NITROCONCRETE1: Well then, what are some sources you'd like to see in a Poop?

ProfesserCheeseBall: Although it really doesn't matter too much to me anymore, I still really love seeing Filthy Frank Poops.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright. How long does it take for you to make a regular video?

ProfesserCheeseBall: On average, it usually takes about a month. It may take longer or shorter depending on how long I plan to make it.

NITROCONCRETE1: Why would they sometimes be like that?

ProfesserCheeseBall: It depends on how many ideas and how much motivation I have.

NITROCONCRETE1: That makes sense! What are your favorite sources at the moment?

ProfesserCheeseBall: Like I've mentioned earlier, Filthy Frank (literally every new video he uploads is good Poop material) and manwith10toes are sources I still enjoy to this day.

NITROCONCRETE1: Alright. Do you like viral videos as sources?

ProfesserCheeseBall: As a source, yes. Most of them I don't actually like though.

NITROCONCRETE1: Okay, is there anything else you want to say before this interview ends?

ProfesserCheetoBall: Nope. That's all I got.

NITROCONCRETE1: Good to hear. Thanks for letting me interview you! Have a good day.

ProfesserCheeseBall: You're welcome, and I'll see you later.

NITROCONCRETE1: Bye!

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Welcome back to the second annual YouChew E3 Awards ceremony! Once again we’re here to praise the winners and decry the losers with their own medals, trophies, and awards, made of either gold or dog doo. Your votes are in, and your voices have been heard; now here’s your picks for the 2013 YouChew E3 Awards!

The "You Are Tearing Me Apart, Reggie!" Award
For the most unintentionally funny moment

We’re starting things off with a new award, one that we somehow missed out on last year. E3 is famous for bad speech muckups, technical fuckups, and an array of events that are supposed to make us cheer and applaud, but instead make us burst out in derisive laughter. While last year’s event was mostly just a grand bore, this year did not disappoint in the category of unintentional comedy.

The top two contestants were neck-and-neck. From Sony’s conference, we had Assassin’s Creed IV break down before our eyes, lagging, skipping, and eventually just freezing up, all while the man playing stood there with a sad, defeated look on his face. While that was funny, the moment that came on top was the lack of audio in the trailers for both Crimson Dragon and Battlefield 4.

To add insult to injury, the guys in charge of the conference allowed the Crimson Dragon trailer to play through to the end without its audio, while the EA representative demanded that we be able to listen to Battlefield 4’s glorious sounds of generic military action, all the while as the audience laughed and jeered. It was certainly a riot to sit through; if only it was the greatest of Microsoft's problems.

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The "You Are the Controller" Award
For the most awkward placement of motion control into a pre-existing franchise

Surprisingly, there weren't that many instances of forced motion control this year. One can only be hopeful in thinking that gaming companies have decided to cut back on that shit, but it’s more likely that they’re just keeping it away from E3 so the “hardcore” crowd won’t have something to laugh at. With that said, we’ll go for the next best thing: using your mobile device.

It’s funny; developers complain about it being too frustrating to develop games for the Wii U Gamepad, and then turn around and make games that use your iPad as an external control device. It’s almost like they just hate Nintendo. Almost.

The most prominent use of an iPad as an unnecessary controller was using it to summon an air strike in Dead Rising 3. Need we remind you that the whole point of Dead Rising is to carve through hordes of zombies in fun and creative ways, and having a kill switch takes the fun out of it. You might as well just hire on James Rolfe and ask if you can borrow his "beat-a-game" button. Because if you can just win the game with the push of a button, why bother playing?

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The "Great Job, Jeremy!" Award
For the most patronized on-stage performer

During the Microsoft conference, two players came on stage to present the new Killer Instinct game. As they played, one of them let loose a few comments that were...controversial, to say the least. Within hours of the conference concluding, the internet was ablaze with self-righteous fury.

"Just let it happen, it'll be over soon,” became a shining beacon of controversy that lasted the whole week of the show. Was the massive backlash called for? Maybe, maybe not. One could argue that he would've said that regardless of whether he was playing with a man or a woman. One could also argue that he was being a sexist douchebag and should've watched his tongue. Whatever the case may be, the girl he was playing with probably didn’t appreciate being treated like a joke. Regardless of whether she took offense to the comment, we’ll give her this award on account of being the most patronized performer.

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The "My Body Wasn't Ready" Award
For the biggest "Oh SNAP" moment of the show

This year had a lot of great surprises to choose from. We were graced with trailers for Final Fantasy Versus XIII (now christened Final Fantasy XV) and Kingdom Hearts III, two games that had long since thought to be vaporware. We got tons of information about the new Super Smash Bros, including the reveal that Mega Man would be joining the cast, which blew a lot of us off our feet. However, there was one thing that was even more surprising, and it wasn’t even a game trailer.

Going into Sony's conference, everyone was terrified that they would use the same system of constant monitoring and game licensing that Microsoft will be using. Near the end of the conference, however, after showing off an array of great-looking new games, Jack Tretton suddenly dropped a bombshell by saying that the PS4 would support used games. And that you could share games without hassle. And that it wouldn’t require an online connection. And that it wouldn’t require online checkups. And he just went on and on in an epic smackdown of the Xbox One.

We haven’t seen such an awesome, savage beatdown of a competitor in years, and this was the giant final nail in the coffin on the Xbox One’s chances of success. Oh, and this video posted online later didn’t hurt things either.

Oh no they didn’t.

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The "Rock Band 3, Fucking Finally" Award
For the biggest bait and switch

When we saw the reveal for the new Killer Instinct, we were pleasantly surprised. We knew that Rare would be trotting out a new entry in one of their old franchises, so we feared for the worst; however, seeing how it could've been another desecration of poor Banjo, or a Conker sequel without any of the original developers, Killer Instinct wasn't too bad of a result.

The problem came in when it was later announced that you could get the game as free to play with exactly one character: Jago. All other characters would be purchase only.

To be fair, it was eventually revealed that it was possible to just buy the full game as usual. However, at the time, we didn't know that, and our excitement for Killer Instinct took a swift 180 when we heard this bit of news. Could've been worse, but still quite the unpleasant surprise.

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The "We Can Rule the Galaxy as Father and Son" Award
For the most unsettling corporate partnership

You know, it really says something that all of this year's contestants had Xbox somewhere in the mix.

Perhaps the most unsettling of all partnerships that surfaced this year was that between Microsoft and EA, who, as expected, was glad to share its whole-hog support of Microsoft's "buy once, suffer forever" ideals". While it did come close, though, one nominee came out on top.

We're sure you all remember this priceless image.

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This became the iconic representation of the state of gaming journalism; a man with a blank, dead look in his eyes promoting a game while surrounded by advertisements.

And now they're doing it all over again.

Microsoft announced that their partnership with Doritos and Mountain Dew would be "the biggest gaming promotion in brand history". Or to put it more bluntly, the biggest sellout in brand history.

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Buy Doritos and Mountain Dew and you could win a new Xbox! Wow jeepers creepers!

Was this a joke? We thought so at first. But as time went by, it slowly dawned on us that this was real, and that they were serious. Had it not been for Dorito-gate, we probably wouldn't have made quite as big of a deal out of this as we did, but with it still fresh in our mind, it's hard not to look at this image and think "sellout". And seeing how Microsoft's lumped in the middle there, that statement couldn't be any more appropriate.

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The "ESPN Experience" Award
For the announcement/presentation that had the least to do with video games at a conference about video games

While we'd love to just point to Microsoft's pre-E3 Xbone reveal as the pinnacle of anti-game gaming, we're going to leave that off the table for now. They kept it out of E3, so it's only fair game. However, it's quite clear that the reason they didn't save it until E3 is precisely because they knew they'd get the massive backlash.

So we'll give them a pass for this award. Instead, we'll focus on the announcement of a Need for Speed movie.

Put aside the fact that video game movies in general tend to be shit, and that trying to make a game into a movie more often than not damages the IP more than helps it. This is a movie...for Need for Speed. A racing game with little to no plot structure whatsoever. We'd say it'd be like making a movie based on Mario Kart, but at least it has pre-established characters, flat as they may be. Instead, it'd be more like basing a game on the epic conflict of Pong, between Paddle A and Paddle B.

Not only was the announcement stupid, but it was incredibly unnecessary at a trade show supposed to be about games. As such, Need for Speed: The Movie most certainly lives the ESPN Experience.

(Though don't count yourself out of the running just yet, Microsoft. We'll get to you.)

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The "Exciting Dog Action!" Award
For the most boring game due to lack of innovation

Another new award, this one focuses on games that refuse to innovate, and instead bore us with nothing new, as displayed by its namesake, Call of Doggy (which, unfortunately, was not on display at E3, meaning it dodged this bullet). With this award, it came down to two choices. One of the most popular choices was Ryse: Son of Rome, in which the player did nothing but perform quicktime event after quicktime event, with every single action scripted. In fact, some who played the demos reported that even upon failing the quicktime events, there was no penalty, and the developers said they made this choice because they "didn't want players to feel frustrated". Really, when it comes down to that, you might as well just make a movie.

Though while Ryse accumulated many votes, the choice that came out on top was EA, with their slew of sports titles.

Football! Basketball! Soccer! Wrestling! Aw yeah! Holy shit dog!

Okay, look, we know that there's an audience for these games and that, in general, we aren't it. And we know that there's other franchises that tend to meander about in sameyness out of fear of losing a fanbase (we're looking at you, Mario). But there's two stark differences between EA Sports rehashes and Nintendo rehashes. The first is that Nintendo usually puts out one, maybe two games per console in a given series, while EA churns out a new sports title year after year, which you think would be great, but instead it just allows them to wallow in the same pool of mediocrity. The other difference is that Nintendo games are...well, good.

Yeah, that's biased, but let's be honest; you could just play the same FIFA game for 5 years without really missing out on anything aside from a few GUI, roster, and graphical changes. And we don't think any of us were clamoring for a new Madden anytime soon.

So out of sheer boredom and failure to innovate, we award EA Sports with the "Exciting Dog Action!" award. Ooh! Ah! Wowzers!

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”Jack Black’s Octagonal Emblem"
For the most cringe-worthy and painful game/presentation to sit through

Another new award, this emblem is proudly presented to whatever was the most painful to sit through.

You know the feeling. Wii Music. Vitality Sensor. Microsoft's conference last year. Those moments that aren't so bad they're funny, they're so bad they just hurt, and you want them to stop.

And this year, we were presented with such a moment.

Exhibit A: "Rabbids Invasion".

So...let's get this straight. It's a TV show...that you interact with by using your Kinect...by waving at stuff on the screen and screaming into the microphone, which tangentially causes changes to occur in the show. Or maybe not. Maybe it just plays the same either way, like with Ryse. We honestly don't know.

So in other words, it's the Sega CD.

That's not even a joke. They're literally the same thing: pre-recorded footage that you have some basic control over before it transitions to more pre-recorded footage.

Yeah, this is obviously a game/show/whatever tailored for kids, but come on. Don't insult kids' intelligence. Mario is good for kids. Pokemon is good for kids. And yes, Rayman is good for kids, because it's a fun game that doesn't treat you like a brain-dead infant.

The whole time, watching kids being expected to wildly swat their hands at the screen and then scream at the Rabbids, it just hurt. A lot. It was a combination nightmare of the horrible Kinect conferences of 2010-2011 and the Rabbids who, frankly, in a sea of Despicable Me-inspired chattering "cute"...things, have lost their charm.

Stop it, Ubisoft.

Just stop.

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The "Girl-Wooden Plaque"
For the worst excuse of a "Girl Gamer"

Speaking of Ubisoft...

Remember last year's E3, with the mildly annoying Aisha Tyler and her joke about "girl wood"?

Yeah, she made it into a hash tag.

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While there weren't too many nominees for annoying phony girl gamers (even the girl being mocked playing Killer Instinct didn't constantly shove "HEY GUYS I'M A GIRL AND I PLAY GAMES ISN'T THAT JUST WAAACKY" in our faces), Aisha more than made up for it.

Yeah Aisha, we get it. You're tall. You're a female. You did dirty things to people. You get girl boners. You probably have a penis. Please stop making us think you have a penis.

Well, at least we can take this as a sign that things are getting better when Aisha's the only disingenuous "girl gamer" at the show. Now if only she wasn't such an extreme example of it.

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"Usher’s Plastic Disco Ball"
For the most shoehorned-in celebrity

This new award is for something that we're certainly no stranger to at E3: celebrity appearances.

From Shaun White snowboarding to Usher and Flo Rida's dance numbers, often gaming companies prefer to have celebrities come along to pitch a game rather than let the game just pitch itself. And while there were plenty of choices to pick from, almost all of whom came from EA, such as the terrifying "super real" LeBron James, we went with Drake, who came out to give a speech about...FIFA.

Again, let's try to think positives. At least it wasn't a rap (gonna take a swing at da fifa fourteen, gonna hit the ball and i'll give it mah all and with dribbletek it's gonna be sick).

But yeah, this was still pretty stupid. Because when we think video games, we think rappers talking about soccer.

While not as much of a travesty as last year's onslaught of celebrity appearances, this was still pretty silly, and earns the shining shattered disco ball of shame.

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"Mr. Caffeine's Bronze Coffee Mug"
For the worst performer of the show

God damn it, Ubisoft.

Look, maybe it's the pressure of only having one speaker on stage 90% of the time. Microsoft and Sony constantly shifted speakers, while Nintendo was pre-recorded which meant no stupid stage shenanigans. So maybe it's just something inherent in the system.

But Ubisoft, why must your speakers be so goddamn annoying?

First there was Mr. Caffeine and his legendary display of awfulness. Then came Aisha paired up with Toby, who absorbed most of the hate due to his oafish shenanigans. But this year, Aisha was all on her own, which meant it was up to her to make as many dumb jokes, stupid one-liners, and bad puns as possible.

You're not funny, Aisha.

Okay, let's be reasonable; she's not the worst in the world. Lord knows she's leagues above he-who-shall-not-be-caffeinated, but the fact that Ubisoft keeps getting recognized as having the worst speakers seems to be a growing epidemic.

From master to student, the student will become the master, who will take on the new student and continue their legacy for eternity. And so you, Aisha Tyler, will continue the eternal legacy of Mr. Caffeine.

And so he spake: Doodly doodly doodly doop.

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"The Concrete Donkey"
For the company that made the biggest ass out of themselves, in both presentation and content

We could easily just post this and call it a day.

But that would be too easy. Besides, the rabbit hole goes much deeper than their initial shitty reveal.

When you get right down to it, the conference itself wasn't so bad. They had a reasonable amount of games, some of which look really good. Yes there were the hilarious technical fuck-ups with the Crimson Dragon and Battlefield 4 trailers not working. Yes someone playing Killer Instinct possibly said something incredibly sexist and offensive. Yes Microsoft's idea of what we would sound like on Twitch is beyond inane. But when you compare it to their last three years, their conference wasn't quite as bad.

But. Just because the conference wasn't awful doesn't give them a free ride.

Sony brought the pain with more PS4 reveals, lots of surprises, and their savage beatdown of Xbox's licensing policies. Nintendo might not have had the same flair, but they still brought game after game after game. And Ubisoft, while hit and miss, still had a good variety of games. So by default, this goes to either EA or Microsoft.

But it's not just about the conferences, is it?

No. Microsoft thought it could weasel its way out of this discussion by shitting all of this out before E3, but it's not getting away that easily.

Limitation by country. Inability to sell or lend games. The need to pay $60 to "unlock" used games. Constant internet requirement. An overwhelming focus on TV and sports spoats over actual games. The need to connect to the internet once per hour when playing at a friend's house. Required Kinect. And all of this for a reasonable five hundred dollars (and you can get a special black box and an autographed controller for only $100 more! Woooowwww!).

The Xbox One is an absolute travesty, a bomb that's waiting to go off, a grave that Microsoft just keeps digging deeper with announcement after announcement. And with Sony's reveal that it wouldn't be doing any of that shit, the Xbone was done. Iced.

Good job, Microsoft. You'll be able to milk a ton of money out of the handful of people desperate enough to play Halo 5 and the poor mothers and fathers who don't know any better. It better have been worth losing everyone else in the process.

Xbox, go home.

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"Best in Show" (Game)
For the game that, through trailers, live demos, or other presentations, deserves the most praise and built the most hype

When you think about it, as a whole, this was a pretty great year. There might not have been as much flash and grandeur as some past years, but we got tons of information on upcoming games, as well as astounding reveals about ones we didn't know about. You know it's a great year when there's fights in the street over which game reveal we're most excited about. Between Kingdom Hearts III, Bayonetta 2, Metal Gear Solid V, and more, the scuffle was pretty intense. But in the end, the new Smash Bros. came out on top.

We can't help it; we're a Nintendo forum at heart. We love Smash. And this new one looks to be pretty damn awesome. And while the Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were cool additions, it was Mega Man who stole the show.

Now we only have to bide our time until 2014, when the game can finally blow our balls off. Our bodies are ready.

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"Best in Show" (Company)
For the company that overall was of the highest quality and standard, in both presentation and content

Again, in the grand scheme of things, this was a pretty good year. We got a lot of great games and not a lot of bullshit. But when it came down to the nitty gritty, two companies vied for top spot: Sony and Nintendo.

They both had a lot going for them. Sony had Kingdom Hearts III; Nintendo had Smash Bros. Sony had The Order, Nintendo had Monolith Soft's untitled game "X". Sony had Final Fantasy XV, Nintendo had Super Mario 3D World. They were neck and neck.

But in the end, they'd need something other than new game announcements to push them over.

And Sony brought that something with their show-stopping smackdown of the Xbone.

We couldn't help but laugh and cheer and applaud Sony the whole way through it. And this wasn't some "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" shit where it's just talking technical specs; they were ripping at Microsoft for their terrible consumer policies. And after all of these awesome announcements, all these great games coming out of the PS4, how much is it priced at?

$399. $100 cheaper than the Xbone, and only $50 more expensive than the Deluxe Wii U, which is most likely far less powerful.

So Sony, we salute you. For your great games, for your great system, for your great price, and for your great middle finger to Microsoft. You truly were the best in show.

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We hope you enjoyed the 2013 YouChew E3 awards, and we hope that you were around to enjoy it with us so we could relive these great memories together. See you at E3 2014!

Thanks again to Combuskenisawesome for the new award emblems and the updates to the old ones. This wouldn't be the same without them.

Crazy Luigi's Pick: "An Elongated Juncture Of Revolting Anthropomorphic Venereal Outbursts" by MrTennek
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Admittedly, I wouldn't normally consider a YouTube Poop with lots of dirty humor as a high quality choice for a recommended YouTube Poop since there is only so many times you could see Gwonam say "CUM!" and hear Link say "fuck" before it ends up being stale. However, with this YouTube Poop, it takes its chances to very extreme measures that, for some insane reason, actually work after it's all said and done. Part of the help does stem from its usage of Ren & Stimpy, which was a Nickelodeon cartoon known for taking its surrealist nature to varied amounts of extremes that were permitted by the company back in the 1990's. What MrTennek does is capitalize on its potential on the absolutely nastiest, yet somehow still funny moments of extremes with emphasis on shit eating (and vomiting), sexual actions, over-exaggerated emotions, transgender-ism, and pure sadism. Basically, this video shows us what its "Adult Party Cartoon" spin-off that TNN & Spike TV aired back in 2003 should have really been like. Beyond that, the title explains what to expect out of it, yet it makes the actions not only tolerable, but also funny for practically anybody watching it.

Nozdordomu's pick: "The Smugness of Mobility is Independent in its Sensibility" by Simon Belmont Painting

I chose this poop mainly because it dared to try something that has defeated poopers from the very beginning: using Sonic Underground as a source. Why is Underground unpoopable? I can think of a few reasons: the dialogue isn’t very exploitable like in AoStH, the show itself is ugly and unappealing to look at, and it just feels wrong. Nobody can “fix” it, but then again, no one (aside from Deepercutt) has really tried. SBP found a semi-solution: to make Underground work in a poop, one has to make it unrecognizable. He almost succeeds, adding sight gags, unfitting music, psychedelic effects, and references to other works to distract the viewer from the source’s flaws. Sometimes he can tie it all together, but most often he just lets it slide; the MC Hammer joke comes straight out of nowhere, but it’s still the funniest part of the video by far. Some of the sentence mixing is a little muddled, and the ending feels a little too abrupt (and it might’ve been done before), but I can’t complain too much. “The Smugness of Mobility…” is probably the best-case scenario that could’ve come from using this putrid source. I give you a gold star, Simon.

HerrVarden's Pick - "Game Grumps Shirt Ads Prove Popular with Male Teenagers" by Countsmegula and KandyMan971

The choices for this entry were either going to be this one or Simply Simple. The latter wasn't only because I had a part in it but also because it really exemplified the versatility of poopers going for a less elaborate style and still managing to get the most out of a source. With that said, due to the length and perhaps the great amount of subjectivity the multitude of entries can trigger, it probably might be more off-putting for some...so instead we're talking about this one. The Game Grumps are quite the source to use as there's a lot you can exploit from the source. Their bizarre mannerisms and speech patterns make for great appeal, and both these poopers take advantage of it. Mainly with the repetition of "God rest his soul" and the quick back-and-forth reversal on Jon. The sentence editing is simple and it works well with the gags that they throw in, especially around 1:39. It used the bleep effect greatly too (although I've never been that against the usage of it). I particularly liked the bit when they get to the Android, Jon going super, the Gaben joke (even if those sorts of jokes are getting incredibly trite) and the ending with some song I'm not aware of being mashed up with Space Jam. My only problem is that I'm not too sure when it's the Count and when it's Kandy. I'm guessing that anything that has to do with TF2 sound effects is Kandy, and I do like how he implements the sounds into the videos. It doesn't really add or detract from the video if I'm not aware when it's one or the other, it's got great pacing and a very focused sense of itself to know when to implement a certain kind of joke.

[size=6]SkyBlueFox's Pick: "2500: Escape From Pooptanamo Bay" by Stuart K. Reilly/MustangSally72


In case there's anyone who doesn't know yet, I'm not a very avid Poop watcher anymore - you're more likely to find me enjoying an old goofy Deepercutt video, or maybe something from Boogidyboo, and I rarely see recent creations aside from a very scant few Poopers I'm subscribed to that still make them. Taking the first few steps into the video section of the forums was like going into a library with no idea what books you want to borrow. Stuart's video stuck out immediately from the bunch, and I did skip over it at first so I could watch a proper handful and come back to it later, but ultimately it still ended up being my pick - though not just because of a recognizable name attached to it.

What struck me about 2500 is that it involves a lot of developmental concepts that, had it been released back when I was still an active Pooper, would have made it into an object of ridicule. A lot of the Poop is mostly repetition, effects, and other standard nonsensical bits, but the heavy usage of masking and the pseudo-storyline elements made it feel much fresher than I had really expected. Most importantly, I didn't really feel like either side of the Poop overshadowed the other, since the narrative sections were generally short and served as a breather between more active, frenzied bits. While there are some other recent Poops I've watched that have done something similar, 2500's story elements were clearly more intentional than most (given the dialogue was done via recorded voice acting instead of the more typical sentence mixing), and it serves as a nice reminder to Poopers that giving a Poop a "story", no matter how nonsensical, goofy or dumb the story might seem, can make the video more enjoyable.

[size=6]Tofucakecan's Pick: "I Spell PENIS With Fire" by SaturdayNightCleaner

In my opinion, SaturdayNightCleaner is one of the most underrated poopers on the scene today. It’s no coincidence that this isn’t his first appearance on the Recommended Poops List. It’s definitely hard to describe his style, but I’d say he’s almost a mixture of SeductiveBaz and MadAnonymous. Traditionally he uses a lot of masking, deform effects, and time stretches to create a bizarre and creepy world within his videos. More importantly, he can keep a poop entertaining even if you aren't familiar with the source, and that's a noteworthy skill. SNC keeps things fresh here though by incorporating some amusing sentence mixing and pitch shifting. The clown at the end of the video will no doubt give you nightmares too. I’d even go so far as to say he has a “Lynchian” style about his work (see Eraserhead and you’ll know what I’m talking about). Ultimately what keeps me coming back to his channel is that you never know what he’s going to put out next. His videos are consistently improving in quality and he shows no signs of stopping yet. Check out his poops for some wonderful randomness.
 
If you feel like we may have overlooked or missed out on a favorite YouTube Poop from the last two months, please post a comment talking about the YouTube Poop and why you think it's your favorite in that period of time.

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It seems that the world that we live in is entering a phase of complete and utter fear. Not only from terrorists, outside enemy forces, nature, semi-threatening co-workers, and various phobias to speak of, but from ourselves. Mainly, when I say ourselves, I mean the government. It's bizarre to think that we are worried of an establishment that is supposed to be working for our benefit, but we've often seen that their words are hiding a greater agenda. An agenda that could be fueled by some other selfish need. At times they merely cover up what lies behind closed doors, other times they don't even follow with what they originally say. So it's hard to tell when what they do is in our best interest or is in their best interest. With the issue of security on the minds of many, especially in times when attacks in national soil can come without much warning, it's safe to say that we've tried as much as we could to stay secure. The government swore to us that it would keep the bad guys at bay and it made promises to increase security. We were fine with that back then because we were scared. It came with its hassles like not being able to bring certain things on a plane and getting awkward patdowns, but we (somewhat) adjusted to it. Now, with the reveal of PRISM having been in effect for a while, we realize that perhaps we might have surrendered too much in the heat of passion. Except the problem with that is that we didn't willingly give the government the power. The government asserted the power on it's own. That, in turn, has caused a whole slew of problems.

PRISM, as we know, has been monitoring our Skype calls, our chat logs, our emails...basically anything that we usually use the internet for. And there's a facility somewhere that harvests all this information. Surprisingly enough, it's still smaller the the amount of porn there is in the world. Joking aside, they have a grand pile of our information without our permission and they're sifting through it, bit by bit, until they find something incriminating. Even though that's quite the stack to sift through, it's still a bit troubling that there might be something in there that relates to us that the government can be aware about. Perhaps we're not one with anything illegal to hide and there is nothing that truly incriminates us, but at the same time there's the issue of them manipulating the information in a manner that it plays against us. After all, context is important. Matters are more confusing when you consider that the way they target people might be arbitrary considering that the accuracy rate for foreignness is 51%. We have been given information to suggest that the common person isn't going to completely under review of terrorism and that no one really is getting targeted, but the power that can be exerted by the program can still be abused one way or the other. It becomes more subjective if one would put their faith in the government or not. The main issue though, is still again, that they put forth this initiative without us knowing about it.

See, if we were aware of what happened, this wouldn't have the media making a huge scandal over the whistleblower and the policy itself. If anything, that scandal would have happened when people were debating on whether or not to push forward the proposal. We'd be accepting the fact that the government would be spying on us then because we let it pass. It still might be unsettling for others, but at least the whole public is aware of it. The mere concept that this was pushed without us having knowledge of it creates more alarm than what the PRISM program has to offer, but it doesn't make matters better that what the program's directive is to invade our private lives for the "sake of security". What they have done with PRISM shows that the government is not concerned with the voice of the people. If they're not focused on the people that they're supposed to represent, then they're more invested in their own needs, and most of the time a government desires power and control. Governments who make it their goal to desire power and control are pretty much around everywhere, even in the more benevolent and structured of societies, but when it's the primary goal and they're blatantly projecting this out to the world, that's when the problem ensues, because it's when it shows that the leaders of the nation are following a more barbaric and tyrannical method of governing. To put it shortly, this is the first step towards totalitarianism.

It's not that we weren't warned by others that the government was really part of something much more despicable and twisted. Various conspiracy theorists have claimed that we were being watched in secret and that there is an illusion of "freedom" in our government. The reveal of PRISM has proven both of these concepts right, and it's sort of painful to see that what we once scoffed as a ludicrous paranoia has turned into a frightening reality. The reality is that when it comes to certain conspiracies, there is a valid point of that the government has been keeping certain matters in secrecy and not informing us properly about the events. While I am certainly not a "truther", I can't deny that it is peculiar that the US government would disclose information about an event that was supposed to be an outside attack. You'd think that the details would be a bit more available. At the same time, one can argue that it's disclosed because there's still more that needed to be clarified until a full, 99.99% factual report on the incident was made. It is also a matter of national security, and those matters should be kept private. Ironic considering that currently national security is taking away the privacy that we have. Despite the counter-argument that I presented above, knowing the secrecy that comes with national tragedies with the addition of PRISM, it is reasonable to see that perhaps the fear that the government is not playing fair with the people and that we are nearly closer to becoming a neon-sign of totalitarianism. One could say that perhaps the idea that this Orwellian nightmare is inconceivable in the modern day, but perhaps if we look elsewhere we could see that it is not that far-fetched.

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There are many places where certain freedoms have been dismantled and a vast majority of people have been oppressed by powerful forces, but none exemplify the concept of complete control that the government of North Korea. North Korea has held an iron middle finger up to the world when Kim Il-Sung came into power with the policy of juche, that made the nation more reliant on promoting its own strength. His shaping of the nation glorified him to god-hood, and he has successfully altered history and writing so that it follows his favor. The only other people that revel in his glory are his children, and they have pushed the policy of juche further by emphasizing the military more and creating nuclear weapons. The nation is a police state, and there is no slandering of the great leader. A great of the people there are unaware of words that could register in their mind to insult the leader, which could either be due to the success of the propaganda created or the fear that there are government agents always nearby, assuring that they follow through with the sole agenda of the nation. North Korea has shown that the ideas of totalitarianism can take root and lead to incredibly devastating effects, so is it possible that the US may follow under this trap? On the one hand, more and more seems to point that the US is capable of enforcing total control and has exerted governmental power in a more unruly manner. But what about the size of the nation? North Korea succeeds in creating this haven for the Kims because it is a proper size for such a control to take effect. The US is larger than North Korea, therefore perhaps such a control would be near impossible. That is counteracted by the mere existence of PRISM though, so perhaps it could happen. The real importance isn't whether or not it is feasible, but rather if it will happen.

When PRISM came out, many reactions were triggered, but the only ones that matter for this to happen are those that are in seats of power such as the Senate. Some were displeased with PRISM, others thought it was a proper proposal and some even claimed that further protocol must be made to improve national security. Obama seemed to welcome the debate that would come from the reveal of PRISM, although concerning some of his commentary (particularly the one about not having 100% security and 100% privacy but we'll get to that later), it seems that he's more on the defense of PRISM, which makes sense if he wasn't going to remove the proposal that was initiated in Bush's term. It's also interesting to note that he seems to be describing the program as if it isn't as intrusive as we would think it to be, but when the program relies on looking on personal information, it's hard to take that truly into consideration. Plus, we come again to the point that this was kept secret from a great deal of people. So, it's very difficult to say what the likelihood of totalitarianism in the US taking effect is when you have representatives that are divided on the issue and a leader that is not removing the program that is causing alarm and describing said program in semi-contradictory ways, but is welcoming conversation based around it. Ultimately, if it were to happen, there would have to be a domino effect that leads to more freedoms being stripped away from the people, which then would bring up the question of whether or not people would revolt. That really depends on what is being taken away from them and who you're referring to. After all, we all choose our own battles. If it's going to happen any time soon, I very much doubt it. People are still able to have free debate and revolution is happening at the snap of injustice.

Although, I do want to talk about this issue of security vs privacy because it is a critical component of this issue. In the modern world there have been advancements. And with these advancements we are capable to be more secure as well as more vulnerable. One step forward, one step back. With the countless outlets that have been created for the sake of social interaction, those fields have provided us to be more open about ourselves and to edit our perception so that we can hide what really lies behind the screen. We have used devices less as a means to transport something to one another but as our own haven that harbors a great deal of our personal information and we don't want anyone to take advantage of this information. With that said, that personal information coming from other sources could have been essential to stopping something terrible from happening. Think about it, if your store is robbed, you'll have security cameras installed so that you will be more secure when another robbery happens. It will keep away others from robbing the store if they are aware that cameras are watching them. At the same time, the owner has the ability to do something illegal and destroy any footage that could incriminate them. Ultimately, it comes down to circumstances. If you haven't been robbed, you worry more about privacy than security because you want to keep your actions personal. If you have been robbed, you worry about security more than privacy because it's security that ensures that you can have privacy. As with all good things, balance is important, and with an issue so complex as this one, that might be problematic.

Even with the likelihood of totalitarianism taking hold in the near future in a country like the US being relatively low, the issue of PRISM is still a very important one. It's also conflicting because we desire both the security that we are protected in case of an attack and the ability to leave certain bits of information private. Should the government be given the right to look at our information, if that's how they have located/captured greater threats? Can we confide that they can look at our information and not use it against us, whether it be distortion of the facts, selling it to advertisers or using it for other terrible purposes? These questions are very much relevant and should still be the subject of conversation. Such a proposal does bring upon its own benefits to national security, but it also provides a great sacrifice and detriment to the rights that we try to uphold. Ultimately the problem of PRISM isn't so much in what it offers but in how it was introduced. Whether or not it will do any good is irrelevant when the program that we speak of wasn't something that is being currently discussed in Senate on some bill but rather an initiative that was secretly put into place. It could have been an interesting discussion that could have taken place when Obama took office, because then, it would at least show that he is willing to bring light to an issue that is of great importance to the public and have them decide in good conscious whether or not to use the program and how to use it. Instead, we had to have someone leak this information publicly and have everyone go on a panic-frenzy because of what occurred. That, to me, is what insults me more than the policy in question, because it shows that they don't care about your voice and are willing to violate the law for their own favor. It may not fully be 1984 as some may imagine it to be, but it doesn't make it any less despicable.

SOURCES:
http://www.washingto...97_story_3.html
http://globalnews.ca...spying-program/
http://www.popsci.co...-prism-nonsense
http://news.national...r-spy-programs/
http://www.huffingto..._n_3396223.html
http://www.guardian....zon-court-order

The Wonderous World of Animal Crossing

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Animal Crossing has opened its gates to the entire world just recently, allowing for us to explore its lands and once again grow onto its strange customs. It's a world where humans and animals coexist, and where fun is the name of the game. However, many things are different in this place than our own, ranging from the mundane to just plain mind boggling. I'm here to act as a guide to what those changes might be and what they may entail. Welcome to Animal Crossing, motto: "We've turned over a whole New Leaf!"

In the world of Animal Crossing, children are considered to be mature much earlier in their lives than in our own, being able to strike out on their own starting from as young as the age of six (as recommended by the ESRB), and are shipped off to towns they might not have even heard the names of before to start from absolute scratch, sometimes not even knowing if they will have a home to live in. But that's where Tom Nook comes in. This greasy raccoon is more than ready to exploit children as soon as they step off the train, waiting for his moment to pounce and force them instantly into debt. He used to run his racket in reselling old homes, but he quickly figured out that he can charge bigger bucks for building entirely new homes for his victims, forcing them to live in tents until the penniless traveller can afford the 10,000 bell (their own currency) down payment for their home.

However, thankfully homes are constructed extremely quickly and extremely quietly. In fact, all renovations can be done in a single night, and are so quiet that you sleep right through them. Whether it's building the actual house and removing the tent from around you, adding a second floor, or even making your room sizes larger, you won't notice a thing until you've stepped out of your front door the next morning. Nobody even knows who this dream construction team is, but more than likely it's a pack of Chihuahuas.

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Thankfully as well the local shops and villagers are more than happy to pay money for fish and bugs, but strangely enough, you might think at first, you will never see them again. They do not seem to be being shipped anywhere, and they certainly aren't displayed on the shelves of the shop the next day. It can only be assumed then that the villagers themselves eat everything you catch, no matter how disgusting of a bug or mishapen of a fish. It's not outlandish to believe they suppliment their diet this way, considering otherwise the only things they could eat are fruit and fortune cookies, and why else would their world require ovens and microwaves? Still, it's something interesting to keep in mind.

Other than fishing and catching bugs, you can also spend your days digging up fossils, which are in great abundance in every town. For some reason, though, there always seems to be the same number of fossils each day, almost as if they were placed there by someone to dig up. It's really weird! You can also find pit traps littering your town, most likely done by a prankster, as well as an assortment of robots known as Gyroids.Gyroids are funny little things that dance and sing, but for some reason always appear immediately following a rainy day. It's almost like they grow underground or something! So are they actually plants? Or are they robots? Maybe some kind of hybrid. Who built them, or where did they come from, if they are indeed robots? This is one of the greatest mysteries of Animal Crossing.

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Eat worms erryday.

Another oddity in this world deals with works of art, and even moreso with monuments. In this world all paintings are given the same generic names, such as Serene Painting or Rare Painting, all by an unknown artist who apparently is capable of painting thousands of exact duplicates of the same exact painting. They can't be prints, either, as it is possible to purchase forgeries, and who would bother forging a painting if it were so easy to copy? Monuments as well seem capable of existing within every person's town. Not only that, but the mayor can have these monuments built on a whim, as long as they can pay the bell. How exactly do you build an ancient stone henge? Do they relocate a stone henge from someplace else? It's all rather mysterious.

As I mention mayor, it apparently becomes duty of the first human to enter a town to become the mayor the minute they enter it. They do not get a choice in the matter, no matter how many times they may complain or tell them that they are not the person they're looking for. They will force you into the position. They never even had an election, leading to quite a few questions about their system of government. Being a mayor also isn't exactly what you would think it to be. Rather than being a cozy job where you can sit on your buns and rake in the bells--possibly steal some funding here and there for "mayoral purposes", you are basically a slave to the whim of the villagers. Sure, they will ask you to build things for them such as bridges or street lights, but where do you think the bells are coming from? Straight from your pockets. The villagers of the town also don't pay you a dime for your services, and only pay in paltry amounts for community projects whilst the brunt of it is absorbed by your very own wallet. Seems a bit unfair, and perhaps racist (speciest?), if you ask me. At least if your villagers are mad you can always make it up to them by sending them a letter and a crappy gift. They never seem to be able to accurately describe what it is your letter said, but are always happy to have received it!

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A not so nice note that will probably never be read in detail.

Oh, and you know how I mentioned Tom Nook building your home earlier, right? Make no mistake, this mothertrucker has apparently set up shop in every single town EVER and regularly visits each one, not only to scout for new victims, but to host his shop as well. In fact, all of the workers in town work at every single town in the world. Isabella, Pelly, Mabel, Blathers—everyone. How they can accomplish such a feat has been a mystery for many years, with the main concensus being that they use the brand new train system to get around. However, a more disturbing theory is that they are in actuality a massive army of clones that inhabit the entire world. If this were true, who was it that created them, and why? They themselves seem completely oblivious, and will not entertain any discussion about a counterpart of themselves in another person's town.

The strangest part is that it's not even just the workers. Oh, no, all of the villagers seem to be able to live in multiple towns as well. It's not uncommon to see a Clay, a Rosco, or even a Candy living in your friend's town while also taking refuge within your own. It seems that humans are the only ones that do not have the luxury of having homes in multiple towns, and they are fairly rare in comparison to their animal counterparts, outnumbering them by a wide margin.

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Now that I think of it, there has got to be something to be something going on here. Things just aren't adding up. I dunno what it is, but I sort of feel like... maybe the animals are getting back at humans for using them as pets and beasts of burden in our own world, making us slaves to them in their stead--acting like they care about us, love us, but in actuality would throw us out when our use is up? They're sucking humans dry of all of their resources and energy, expecting us to do all of their work for them whilst reaping the benefit. Some of the villagers even whisper bad things about us behind our backs. I heard it...

Oh, crap! I forgot I was supposed to be at Rosie's house in just a few minutes! I'd better hurry up before she gets mad at me again! She said this time she really meant it. In the meantime, hope you enjoy your stay in Animal Crossing. Once you enter, you'll never want to leave! I know I don't!

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I've been a fan of Japanese giant monster movies for a while now, ever since I was a pre-teen watching old 70's Godzilla movies thanks to James Rolfe's Godzillathon. There was just something about these films: their over-the-top demeanor, their almost-worthless plot, and the fun action sequences where the monsters duke it out with their claws and laser beams. In spite of this, as I grew older, I lost touch with the series and moved on to other things. However, my interest was once again piqued when, in 2012, trailers and viral footage promoting Guillermo del Toro's newest film began to appear. This new film, Pacific Rim, promised giant robots and giant monsters fighting with one another.

I was torn. On one hand, giant robots fighting giant monsters is one of the most fucking awesome ideas for a movie ever. The Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla films are among some of the best of the franchise, as they find Godzilla going up a creature equal in strength created by humans (or aliens, in the case of the 70's films) and he nearly gets his ass handed to him, losing a fuckton of blood in the original Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and almost fucking dying in the Heisei film. On the other hand, Hollywood's track record with Kaiju movies hasn't been the best: 1998's Godzilla was considered by many traditional Godzilla fans to be a mockery of the source material, and Cloverfield, while liked by critics, could have been a better film without its shaky camera. Thus, I looked at this film hesitantly.

However, as the months went by and new trailers and behind-the-scenes footage came out, I threw my caution to the wind and remembered that this was Guillermo del Fucking Toro we were talking about here. The man is great with pouring every ounce of passion he has into his movies, and the behind-the-scenes footage certainly showed it, with him going into great detail with how he wanted the Kaiju to appear and how he wanted piloting the mechs to seem as realistic as possible. The trailers were also badass, showing tasty little snippets of action scenes and key one-liners and monologues ("We are CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE!"). Needless to say, I was hyped and could not wait for opening day. When, at last, it finally came, I went with some of my friends to go see it, hoping we would not be let down.

The film's premise, as the trailers have constantly spouted off, is that in alternate-dimension (or is it?!) 2013, a giant portal opened in the Pacific Ocean. Soon, giant monsters came out of this portal and began to attack several major cities on the Pacific such as San Francisco, Manila, Cabo, and so forth. As the attacks became more frequent, the nations of the world realized they wouldn't be going away any time soon and began to build these Jaegers, giant mechs requiring two people to pilot them via neural link, to defend the world against Kaiju attacks. This initially went well, but by 2020, the monsters had begun to adapt to the Jaegers and began atacking more frequently. The bulk of the action in the film takes place in 2025. Humanity is now at its breaking point, with only 4 Jaegers remaining, the Kaiju attacking weekly, and the governments of the world giving up on the Jaegers in favor of building a giant fucking wall.

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Spoiler alert: It doesn't go well.

Stacker Pentecoast (Idris Elba), commander of the Jaeger forces, refuses to give up, though, and, after being relocated to Hong Kong, seeks out former Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), who had quit the program following the death of his brother to the Kaiju whilst the two were connected during a mission, and convinces him to rejoin the program to pilot American Jaeger Gipsy Danger. Pentecoast then unveils his plan to take out the Kaiju: the Jaegers will approach the breach, and with a nuke illegally acquired from the Russians strapped to his chest, Australian Jaeger Striker Eureka will enter the portal and blow itself up. Back in Hong Kong, Becket forms a bond with test pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), who had also lost relatives to the Kaiju, and despite protests from Pentecoast, they are paired together to fight in Gipsy Danger. Meanwhile, there's this whole side plot with a scientist, Dr. Newton Geizler (Charlie Day), attempting to understand the Kaiju further via neural link with salvaged Kaiju brains, resulting in him having to buy Kaiju brains from a notorious black market dealer, Hannibal Chau (Ron Pearlman), which is quite hilarious.

The plot is certainly entertaining, though flawed. There are several times throughout the movie where I noticed both humans and Kaiju alike pulling things out of their ass to gain the upper hand over one another (ANALOG!). If anything, though, this sort of thing moreso pays homage to old Kaiju movies, as Godzilla was given several plot-convenient abilities throughout the series (most notably his flying ability from Godzilla vs. Hedorah) and is charming in its own way. Though character development was minimal, I still enjoyed and felt for all of the characters in this movie and it legitimately seemed like they belonged in this sort of world. In spite of this, though, there are some flaws that cannot be overlooked. Charlie Hunnam, despite being British, plays an American character, and this normally would be perfectly fine - if he could keep a consistent American accent, which he doesn't. In fact, you can hear the warble going on in his voice as he tries to adapt to an American accent. Furthermore, a lot of the dialogue is cheesy, which, for the most part, I'm willing to let slide due to it being a Kaiju film, but other things can't be ignored (ANALOG!!!).

In spite of its flaws, there are a lot of things that this film does right. ILM have hit their masterstroke with this film, and that's not a light compliment, considering this was the company that did the visual effects for the Star Wars franchise, The Avengers, and Jurassic Park, among other films. The robots look amazing, not like the PARTSPARTSPARTS Bayformers designs. You've got the towering Russian Jaeger Cherno Alpha, the three-armed Chinese Jaeger Crimson Typhoon, the godtier Australian Jaeger Striker Eureka, and the remarkably humanoid American Jaeger Gipsy Danger, all of which have a distinctly realistic feel to their design. They walk like giant robots, they fight like giant robots, and they loom like giant robots. The Kaiju, on the other hand, are equally as threatening. They're all ugly summbitches and at points even look like guys in giant rubber suits. Their toxic goop looks equally as harmful as well. My one complaint, though, is that they all have the same color: black skin with blue muscle and blood. Let's not forget the action scenes, oh god, the action scenes... Fucking fantastic. Everything from the robots' special attacks down to the kaiju getting the shit beat out of them looks amazing. If anything, they should have had more fighting in the movie. Oh well, we can always hope for the directors' cut.

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Gipsy Danger gets ready to kick some Kaiju ass while the crew of Striker Eureka look on.

The soundtrack is equally as fantastic, accentuating the intense situations in the movie rather well. When the wild west gunslinger music played as Gipsy Danger dragged a cargo boat towards the Kaiju, I damn near lost it at how perfect it was. Still, though, it was nothing too memorable, nothing that made me want to go on Youtube after the fact and blare that shit. While on the topic of sound, the audio is great in this film. Even in a regular theater, I still felt as if I was in the middle of the action as crumbling buildings came down all around me. I can only imagine how this movie might look and sound in IMAX 3D.

Now many people on the internet claim that this film rips off anime like EVA or Gundam. To be perfectly honest, the only real mecha anime I've seen is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, so I'm not the most qualified to really refute or support this statement. However, I won't deny that this certainly feels like an anime. You've got badass action scenes, an amazing soundtrack, and cheesy dialogue (at one point in the film, Mako says something along the lines of "THIS IS FOR MY FAMILY!" In Japanese, no less.). It has that feeling of something foreign, something unfamiliar to typical Western cinema, and for that, I appreciate it.

This film is not perfect. Oh, hell no, far from it. But is it a great summer blockbuster action film? The best. I can not imagine a more perfect film to go see in a theater with friends, and I heavily recommend seeing it before it leaves theaters. Though, if anything, don't do what I did and see it in a regular theater. Get the full experience. See it in IMAX 3D. With how amazing it was in a regular theater, I can only imagine how amazing it would be seen that way. Hopefully this movie will rake in a great sum of money and prove to directors that, yes, ambitious movies like this are certainly worth the massive budget and lead to a new golden age of giant monster movies.

The last 2D animated feature produced in America was released around two years ago. It was Disney’s Winnie The Pooh, a faithful, but unnecessary nod to the studio’s past. Pooh didn’t achieve much at the box office, due to limited advertising and an inauspicious release date (shared with the final Harry Potter). After it flopped, work on 2D projects at the Mouse House began to slow. The Academy-Award winning short Paperman was produced, among other side projects, but another feature did not seem to be on the company’s mind. Disney finally put their cards in the table in March: the leading company for drawn feature animation was letting go of its “traditional” animators. Again.

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Lest we forget what prompted them the first time...

There was a lot of speculation over what happened, and the decision stirred a big controversy among fans of animation. To me, the news definitely felt like a blow, but I also had to acknowledge that the claims surrounding the layoffs were exaggerated. Disney did not fire every person at the studio who draws. They held onto a small crew of 2D animators, and elected to keep their training program open. This was a way of leaving an option for the long-term future, so it isn’t fair to say that Disney has decided to be done with hand-drawn animation for eternity. It is fair to say, however, that they’ve decided to be done for now.

That choice seems perplexing, and it certainly raises a lot of questions. Disney is the company that built the animated medium up from the ground. Why would they choose to limit themselves to one method of producing films, when they can competently do several? Why do they regard 2D as a risky venture, when the films they’ve produced that way have been their highest earners? Why didn’t they promote Winnie The Pooh, and if they didn’t believe it would be successful, why did the studio approve it? What, if anything, did John Lasseter do to prevent the artists he rehired from being tipped out the door again? Will animators such as Glen Keane have an opportunity to convey their expertise to another generation? These are all questions that won’t be answered immediately; only time will allow for a clear perspective on this development. In the meantime, meaning the here and now, Disney is focusing on making what the other companies are making: 3D blockbusters.

Passion tends to run high when people get into the 2D vs. 3D debate. I am not seeking to write about that issue; rather, I am here to emphasize that 2D has a future outside of that drama. We simply have to look away from the American feature studios, and distance ourselves from the idea that 2D and 3D films are at odds.

Right now the big studios have an active interest in creating hip, new stuff (because it makes a lot of money!). The problem here is that people forget that cartoons produced in 2D are also hip and interesting! 2D animation is not an old, outdated way of doing things. The process has changed with the times, and by this point 2D production is no less technological than 3D’s. Considering this, the word “traditional” begins to feel inappropriate. Practically nothing done in Hollywood today could be considered traditional, least of all animation, a form that has been on the cutting edge since its beginning. Still, the term and its connotation have made the large studios nervous about working with 2D.

Katzenberg’s trust fund (aka Dreamworks) gave up hand-drawn pictures ages ago. Warner Bros. made a few attempts at regaining their old glory with some Looney Tunes movies, but those did not make much of an impact. Blue Sky and Pixar have never produced 2D films, so it’s highly unlikely that either of them will start. Fox’s animation division, at best, can be depended upon for another chipmunk sequel. Others, like Don Bluth, seem not to be producing anything at all. No doubt, this inactivity in theaters is troubling to the generations who grew up with hand-drawn films.

So where should we turn when we want some frantic cartoon action presented in an even number of dimensions? There are many places we can look.

One of them is TV. Over the last few years the quality of animated programming has improved noticeably. Cartoon Network filled up with original programs like Adventure Time and Regular Show, both of which convey a classic, cartoonish sense of wonder and frivolity. Later this year we’ll see a new show called Steven Universe, which—if the pilot is any indication—promises to be entertaining. In the meantime there are AT and RS to enjoy, as well as reworked versions of classics, like Mystery Inc. and The Looney Tunes Show. There’s also the ever-thriving Adult Swim, which recently launched a new season of Venture Bros, and Toonami, which was rebooted with a strong set of (mostly the same) shows. Cartoons aren’t quite as widespread on TV as they were at one time, but at the moment CN at least is doing well, and it’s a fine resource for 2D fun.

Another great way to see modern 2D animation is to look outside of America. This may seem a little obvious, but nonetheless it remains true that the rest of the world is still producing great stuff in the 2D style. Notable films from the past few years (all of which have been shown stateside) include The Illusionist, Chico and Rita, Summer Wars, A Cat in Paris, The Secret World of Arrietty, and From Up on Poppy Hill. Miyazaki and Takahata both have films due out this year, and they may not even be the last we’ll see from the two masters. Beside them in Japan, new crews of dexterous artists are popping up (see studios Khara and Trigger), and we can expect to see the volume of 2D works continue at its present rate (as for the average quality of a modern anime, we’ll discuss that another time). 2D features may not be so common in the US, but when times get tough I’ll always be content to look elsewhere in the world for examples of excellent works.

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Miyazaki's next movie, The Wind Rises, is due out this month in Japan.

The most tedious (but perhaps the most accurate) way of appreciating today’s 2D animation involves seeking out independent filmmakers and aspiring artists. Student film festivals and indie screenings are the most romantic ways of finding art such as this, but thanks to the internet it can be easy to find a short 2D film. News sites, blogs, advertisements for Kickstarters, all showcase short films in some way. The only difficult part is finding one that you like! Independent and student films often lack the unity and collaborative energy that permeates large productions, and at times they can seem frustratingly simple. But the good films will eclipse whatever lesser products you subject yourself to. Anything that can make a clear statement that is emotive and direct will stick with you. If you are committed to staying in the loop about 2D animation, it can be rewarding to go blog-hopping and watch a bunch of low-budget shorts made by young people. A good number of them will surprise.

So, there are many ways in which one can get their toon fix without having to make contact with the Hollywood majors. Personally I believe it’s worth making contact with them anyway, because 3D films are also worthy of great recognition and patronage. However, to me 2D is an essential part of the package. It is something that can’t be lost or underappreciated.

Unfortunately, nobody can reasonably expect a revival of Disney’s peak art at the moment. But it was the studio’s decision to fall off the horse, and 2D animation will continue, with or without its architects. If Disney’s out for now, somebody else will step up, and works from outside the Hollywood sphere will continue to dazzle. 3D innovations may be fun and interesting, but there is plenty going on in the animated world that doesn’t involve them, and the fact that we all looked to Disney as the exemplar in the past doesn’t create a need for us to do so today.

One might be wondering why I am writing an overview/review of an animated music video, of all things. Considering this video in particular has something... peculiar about it, it is fascinating enough that it could not go left unmentioned.



The video tells the story of a little girl, Natsumi Andoh, who travels across a vibrant, green field with an escort, Monā. Within this field, she finds a group of assorted creatures whom Natsumi hops off Monā's hovercraft to play with: they play in the tall grass, harass couples, and even boogie down to the music! When Monā discovers this, he becomes enraged at Natsumi for attempting to leave the hovercraft; she plays innocent and continues with Monā, as they leave the fields and continue toward the mountains.

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Along the way, Natsumi recalls flashbacks of her breakup with her ex-boyfriend, which involve them argument and parting away. Devastated, Natsumi waits at a train station to travel as far away as she can, perhaps to the place she is in now. These flashbacks imply that Natsumi's adventure is motivated by her desire to move on from the disastrous relationship, and move on to a completely different life.

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Natsumi succeeds in this, as she throws the remaining artifact of her relationship, a gold locket, into the sea. Once this chapter in her life has finally concluded, Natsumi and Monā nod at each other, as they walk toward the hovercraft for future adventures!

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Is it not a heartwarming story? Then how does one explain this?

Hiding behind its deceptively cute aesthetics are implications that tell a much darker story. Before reading on, watch the video again and look closely for anything wrong with this video.

One of the first things that is off about this video is where it begins: the bus stop which Natsumi waits for Monā. When the video pans out to show Monā pulling up to Natsumi, one can see a celestial body in the sky, which looks suspiciously like... Earth. The cut-off sign next to Natsumi confirms this, with barely legible letters reading "E," "A," and "R." If the planet in the background is Earth, where is Natsumi now?

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Early in the video, one can find imagery that foreshadows what this place really is. In the background, one can find an assortment of various scenery: mountains, cities, the ocean; etc. One of these background objects appear out of place in this otherwise cheerful setting: when the animals first appear to greet Natsumi, behind them are five red pillars, topped with glass orbs. These pillars serve as the landmark of where Natsumi and Monā are heading. When Natsumi finally leaves her animal friends behind, they are last seen standing next to a two-way sign: the arrow pointing away from the two reads "Tengoku"; (59 being "goku"), meaning "Heaven," while the one pointing in their direction means "Jigoku," or "Hell."

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When Natsumi and Monā approach the mountain range, the scenery becomes more hellish, with the flowing fields replaced with jagged mountains, the sunny sky by ominous dusk, and scenery by various spikes and tridents protruding from the ground. Behind Natsumi and Monā is a structure with a stone door: on it is an image of crossed scythes, above it a gargoyle vaguely resembling Monā . Among these, the red pillars from earlier in the video now loom over Natsumi, encircling the structure. Whatever "adventures" await Natsumi are bound to be unpleasant.
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With this setting in mind, Monā is hinted to play a more sinister role than the humble cab driver he appears to be. When Monā confronts Natsumi after noticing she has left the hovercraft, he appears in front of a red background with a scythe, indicating that Monā is actually a psychopomp. He takes responsibility in ferrying the souls of the dead to their proper destinations, which in Natsumi's case is Hell. While Natsumi could have just been distracted by the animals when she hopped off the hovercraft, she may have also been consciously attempting to avert her fate by staying in Heaven instead, thus giving Monā a reason to return and scold her for deserting the trek.

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With all this symbolism indicating that this fantasy land is really the afterlife, one must wonder why a cute girl like Natsumi is being sent to Hell. Remember that flashback of her waiting at the train station, and a train rushing toward her? She is not about to board that train, but step in front of it, hence the title of this video. The date and time seen earlier in the dance sequence is that which Natsumi killed herself; the same exact time, 23:36, can be read on a clock in the train station.

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Shocked yet? It gets worse...

Remember the bonus flash file? By this point, it should be clear why she's crying... except there is even more to the story. First, narrow the window until the size of the flash video shrinks...

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...and when the video ends, right-click and hit "Play."

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What do you think she did with that crowbar? Whatever it may be, it will haunt her well into the afterlife.

Natsumi STEP! was created by Takehara Minoru, and was presented alongside one of his other works, Magic User Manami?!, in the flash collaboration FLASH ★ BOMB '04. It has since become Minoru's magnum opus, with Natsumi herself becoming one of Koshiandoh's most prevalent mascots. For how obscure it is, it has achieved infamy from Japanese and Western audiences alike: just look at the comments of any Youtube video. What makes this video remarkable is not only the smart execution of its themes, but also in how the video stands on its own merits.



The music video's fast-paced editing is very appropriate, not only for its (seemingly) energetic tone, but also for obscuring its darker imagery. Much of this imagery appears only momentarily and is very easy to miss, such as the scythe background behind Monā. When they are not concealed in a flash frame, they are placed just conveniently outside the view of the camera: the Earth, along with the sign saying "EARTH," is only shown when the camera pans away from the bus stop, while the sign pointing in two directions first appears when it is shown in an awkward angle. Only by the end of the video do the dark implications become clear, in which the atmosphere completely contrasts with the one from before; even then, it likely will not dawn on the viewer until well after the fact. The subtlety of this imagery not only serves to shock unsuspecting viewers, but to tell three completely different stories with the same visuals, depending on how aware the viewer is (or how much they have been spoiled beforehand): is this a feel-good story about moving on, or anticipating the afterlife after committing suicide/murder?

The strongest part of the story as a whole, however, are the two details in the bonus video: the fact that the window has to be minimized to see Natsumi's crowbar, and that one has to right-click to see her Kubrick stare. These alone are what completely change the nature of Natsumi, not only showing her as a suicide victim, but also a murderer. For the main video's clever editing, these alone are what make the work take full advantage of the web's capabilities. In no other medium can this be achieved: even if the work was successfully adapted into an anime series; etc, it would be missing these vital elements for executing this plot twist.

Leaving behind any mention of the deceitful nature of this work, the art style of Natsumi STEP! can be best described as simple, yet effective. First off, the character designs are adorable: Natsumi's wide eyes give her lots of life, her summer-colored clothing complement both the video's tone and the character herself (her name meaning "summer"), and her facial expressions never fail to put a smile on my face. The animals (which are actually 2ch characters) are similarly cute, with simple yet expressive facial expressions, and can change emotions with a simple reversal of their eyes and mouths. The environments also have an interesting minimalist style, except that it suffers at times for being too simple: many objects are composed of basic shapes and coloring patterns, failing to convince that they really are those objects, rather than representations of them. This is most noticeable with the flora in the park: being spheres colored with gradient patterns, they look as much like bushes and trees as they do miscolored rock croppings. The lack of shading does nothing to help this, being limited to gradients and two-tone coloring styles. However, considering this is an indie work - and one made in 2003, no less - both of these faults are forgivable, and the character designs more than make up for it.

Accompanying the visuals is the video's iconic soundtrack, which is not only incredibly catchy but also suited for its tone and themes. Being a remix of "I've Been Working on the Railroad," it makes use of the video's motif of trains, and does so ironically, as it also accompanies the video's energetic pace. Take a listen to the full version!



Natsumi STEP! is successful as a work of horror: it appalls the average internet-goer, yet captures the curiosity of those who like cute-but-creepy things. In either case, this quirky video will sure leave a lasting impact on those who realize the implications behind it.

Spoiler

Fun Fact: There is a commercial for the Tokyu Group - a company in charge of Tokyo's railways - that features a girl with a pink hat very similar to Natsumi's. It is likely that this commercial served as an inspiration for Minoru's video.

The Wii U is kind of in a weird place right now. In the wake of its launch, there really haven’t been any major system-pushers, or even games in general, which is probably the main reason why excitement for the system hasn’t been very present beyond the legion of Nintendo-faithful. Luckily next week a savior for the system is coming in the guise of Pikmin 3, along with various other releases in the fall, but at the same time, for those who don’t want to wait to pick up a system just for one game, allow me to shed some light on another release that hit the Wii U this summer, known as Game & Wario.

The game is yet another installment in the WarioWare series, and in similar fashion to previous releases, it mostly revolves around the mechanics that are capable of whatever new feature the system or game happens to have. However, this time around the series strays away from its microgame set-up and instead focuses more on bigger mini-games that take advantage of various things that the Wii U Gamepad can do. In a sense it’s like Wario’s take on NintendoLand, except a bit more single-player oriented. Game & Wario comes with 16 different games, 12 of which are single player and 4 of which are multiplayer. I’ll be providing a quick rundown of each single player game and will then rank them accordingly from greatest to least, with 12 being the least, and afterwards I’ll provide quick reviews of the multiplayer games. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

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Arrow: This game is hosted by Wario, as per usual with the other games in the WarioWare line. The control scheme involves holding the gamepad sideways while pulling back on the touchscreen, which displays a Wario-fied crossbow, to aim at the various mini Wario enemies that are trying to steal your four strawberries. If all of them get taken, it's game over. However, this only really becomes an issue with the flying enemies, since when they bump into you, you'll automatically lose a strawberry, as opposed to the regular enemies that walk on land, which will just hop onto the Gamepad screen where you're quickly prompted to crush them by tapping on them with your finger to prevent them from stealing any strawberries. Which, quite frankly, is pretty easy, though it is a pretty inventive use of the Gamepad to further the game. There’s also a neat feature where you hold your Gamepad up in front of you in order to block incoming cannonballs that are shot in your direction. Again, this is an idea that is cool in concept, but never really fleshed out to benefit the gameplay, since every time you need to block you’re given plenty of time to do so, and it only happens once per level.

There are four levels total, each following the same kind of set up. They’ll usually introduce you to a new form of enemy, a cannonball will be shot in your direction, fend off more enemies along with experiencing potential weather hazards such as wind, and then taking on a giant Wario mech at the very end. While I wouldn’t call this the worst game of the bunch, it’s very easy and forgiving to the point where it does more harm than good. Overall I’d rank it as the 8^th best game.

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Shutter: This game is hosted by Mona, and her new job in the game this time around is to go around to various parts of Diamond City and take pictures of the listed citizens that you're assigned. The TV displays a zoomed out view of the environment, while the Gamepad serves as your camera that provides you with a close-up look at a small fraction of the TV screen, which also allows you to zoom in even further to get a more precise photograph. Scores of up to 100 are given for how in-focus the person is, whether or not they're facing the camera, whether or not they're centered in the picture, and other miscellaneous details.

The game isn’t entirely complicated, though the later stages will probably throw you for a loop the first time you experience them. All around it’s a pretty fun use of the Gamepad in conjunction with the TV, even if it’s probably not the game that you’ll be spending the most time on. I’d say that it would rank 6^th.

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Ski: Hosted by the ever-so-funky and smooth Jimmy T., this game is essentially the same kind of experience that you get from the Captain Falcon's Twisted Race game found in Nintendo land; you hold the Gamepad on its side and tilt it left and right to control Jimmy T. as he moves down the slope and send him off jumps. There are only two real differences between the two though.

However, in comparison to Twisted Race, I feel that this game benefits more from having five separate ski runs rather than one long, segmented race track like Twisted Race did. There’s also an Endless Run mode that consists of Jimmy T. going on an endless course while collecting other skiiers down the line. Overall the game is just standard fun, and Jimmy playing a role in it just makes it that much better. It gets 7^th place.

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Patchwork: This particular game; hosted by Kat & Ana, is probably the game that you'll spend the most time on, due to the amount of content provided. It's essentially a puzzle game that involves you placing various pieces of cut fabric on a layout pattern so that each piece fits into the lines provided and forms a picture. For the most part you'll just be looking on the Gamepad screen to play this since the TV screen just shows what is on the Gamepad but larger. Along with that there will be buttons on the Gamepad screen that can assist the player when stuck with a certain puzzle: a hint button that highlights a section of the puzzle where a certain piece goes and a check button that clarifies whether or not the pieces are in the right place. Both buttons have their side-effects, with the former adding more time to your clock while the latter can only be used between certain lengths of time. Despite the fact that this game doesn't really stretch the possibilities of the Gamepad too much, the puzzles are fun and there are plenty of them to spend time on. It earns 3^rd place.

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Kung Fu: Young Cricket and Master Mantis take charge in this game, which involves the player controlling Cricket as he jumps his way across an obstacle course to get back to Mantis. However, your stamina is constantly draining, so you need to collect the various dumplings scattered across the level in order to keep it up. Something important to take note of is that Cricket travels by jumping really high from Point A to Point B, which is controlled by the player tilting the Gamepad in various directions while holding it flat to stay jumping at a stationary point. Pressing the ZL and ZR buttons simultaneously will have Cricket instantly spiral down to the point that he is currently aiming towards, which allows players to speed along through the course if coordinated enough.

I think the one issue I have with this game pertains to the use of the Gamepad and TV. The TV provides a straight-ahead view of the level, but since Cricket jumps high from place to place, you’re unable to properly tell where to land just by looking at the TV alone. The Gamepad provides you with a top-down view of where Cricket is at, giving you a good idea of where to land in the near vicinity but losing the view of the rest of the course. However, there honestly isn’t that much of an incentive to look away from the Gamepad in the first place, and the only time you really need to look at both screens in order to make it safely across is in the final level. Otherwise you really won’t have to look up at the TV very often. It’s an interesting game, but never feels very engrossing, so I’ll rank it 9^th.

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Gamer: Being hosted by 9-Volt & 18-Volt, this particular game probably wins the award for the most fourth-wall-breaking game of the bunch, and probably one of the most enjoyable ones at that. The concept revolves around 9-Volt playing the traditional type of microgames that the original WarioWare games are known for in his bedroom late at night. The TV gives you a view of 9-Volt playing in his room, while the Gamepad acts as the “handheld” that you play the games on. It’s a surprisingly immersive experience, with only the Gamepad speakers playing the music going along with the microgames while the TV just plays the background noise that you hear in 9-Volt’s room.

The catch, however, is that it’s late at night and you’re supposed to be sleeping, so 9-Volt’s mother will constantly hound you during your play session, and if she catches you playing then it’s game over. Pressing ZL and ZR simultaneously makes him hide under the covers, which is how you avoid being caught, but hold the buttons down for too long and 9-Volt will lose all of his energy and actually fall asleep, thus ending the game. For this reason it’s very likely that you’ll need to play through each of the three stages more than once during your first time trying them, since his mom will keep attempting different tactics to try and catch you in the act.

For those who wish to just play the microgames, on the other hand, you’re able to do so after beating the first stage and unlocking 18-Volt’s portion, which lets you experience the microgames uninterrupted. Overall this was definitely one of the best games you could play on here, both for its use of microgames and the clever examples of Gamepad integration. I rank it 2^nd; it’s pretty hard to top, though I can think of one more.

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Design: Dr. Crygor hosts this game, which ends up being one of the more interesting ones despite not having a ton of content to it. For the most part, this game pretty much involves Crygor telling you to draw shapes and lines of a certain length and then use your best guess to draw as close to the described measurements as possible. At the same time, you’re also judged by how neat your line or shape is along with how accurately it measures up. It’s a very fun game, even though once you get the highest award possible you’re pretty much done with the game. This game also has a 2-player mode as well, so you can compete with others to see who can match up with Crygor’s requests the most accurately. All in all I’d rank this 4^th of the bunch.

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Ashley: As the name suggests, Ashley is the host of this game, and the idea behind it basically involves Ashley and Red trying to escape a sugary wonderland that Ashely accidentally sent them to in the process of trying to bring herself into a dark, haunted environment showcased in a book. The game has the player hold the Gamepad normally as Ashley flies on her broomstick across a sidescrolling shooter-esque level. You’ll mostly be looking at the TV, since the Gamepad only displays a close up view of Ashley, and you only use the Gamepad to choose which paths you want to take when prompted and if you want to use a lightning powerup that eradicates any obstacles onscreen.

Otherwise, the latter ability is Ashley’s only means of attacking, and you’ll mostly be tilting the Gamepad side to side to maneuver her around the level to collect as many of the purple pellet things as possible. Pressing ZL and ZR will make Ashley do a loopdeloop upward or downward, which comes in handy when trying to collect some of the pellets that you accidentally missed. Collect enough and you’ll win the “Best Buddy” award which is pretty much just a means of giving the player a goal to shoot for point-wise. Ultimately there’s nothing more to it than that, with little real innovation with the Gamepad and controls that feel stiffer than they should. For this reason I rank it 10^th.

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Taxi: To cut to the chase, I'd say that this is definitely my least favorite game of the entire batch. Appropriately hosted by Dribble & Spitz, the game basically involves you fending off a hoard of alien UFOs that are kidnapping potential passengers by shooting them down with a bazooka, grabbing the passengers as they fall, and then driving back to the drop-off point usually located in the middle of the stage. The main thing that doesn’t make this game work is the display; the TV showcases an angled overhead view of the entire course, and the Gamepad screen shows a first person view; both don’t really help you control the taxi very well because you constantly have to stay aware of what direction you’re facing in order to drive properly. The game’s objectives are also really scattered, and it’s hard to pay attention to every single abductee while maintaining focus on where you’re driving. The only competent thing about the game is the bazooka controls that you use by aiming the Gamepad around and pressing ZL to fire. This easily earns the 11^th place ranking, not much else has to be said about it.

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Pirate: The final game, hosted by Wario again as per tradition, has him sporting a pirate outfit this time, as the name of the game suggests. This is a rhythm game that revolves around Captain Wario shouting out commands to his ship along with ships on the left, right, and above to shoot arrows at the player. During this time you hold the Gamepad down while watching him spell them out, and after his commands are complete, the player moves the Gamepad to the corresponding points with the same timing as Wario in order to block the incoming arrows. After that the player has to swing the controller down to shake the arrows on the Gamepad free, which then prompts Wario to shout out more commands. Rinse and repeat.

The game itself doesn’t offer up a ton of content, and it may just be the rhythm-genre nut in me, but of all the games available this is definitely the one that I found myself enjoying the most. Some of the other games included feel a bit like they just slapped some tech demos onto this with WarioWare characters, but everything about the set-up of this game makes it feel like it’s just a boss microgame from the usual WarioWare series. There’s even a bit at the end of each level that takes a bit of inspiration from Smooth Moves where you’re suddenly prompted to stand up and do a bunch of really weird poses in tune with the music. Because of all of this, I rank it 1^st of the bunch.

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Bowling: The last game serves as the finale for the most part, but you can unlock two more games afterwards, with this being one of them. Hosted by all the characters, the game is pretty self-explanatory. The various characters form pins of different size, shape and weight, and you use the Gamepad to both bowl the ball and then control the trajectory of the ball in order to knock the pins down. Very simplistic, but also fun to try and find out how to take out some of the trickier layouts that the game throws at you. I’ll rank it 5^th due to this.

Bird: There’s really not too much to say about this one. It’s essentially just Pyoro from the old WarioWare games, and you can play it on either screen (the TV shows a high-def version of the game while the Gamepad shows a Game & Watch version, which is pretty cool). For this reason I’m not going to bother including it in the ranking with the others.

Crazy Luigi's Pick: "(YTPoop) AVGN Plays a Bootleg Atari Video Game" by Dioprel


Honestly, there's times where a guy just needs to be a little more simplistic in their approach in order to show off a worthwhile YouTube Poop. In this case, the approach that Dioprel went with here actually makes it work to its advantage. It starts out very simple enough with ear raping and very simplistic sentence mixing and effects; it may not sound like it's worthwhile for your time, but trust me when I say that the further it goes along, the more you'll enjoy it. The beginning actually has a few parts that show the flaws that both the Angry Video Game Nerd and Dioprel himself has in their video, such as how the AVGN kind of forced that "toilet bowl" joke there or how Dioprel did a stutter joke on a Sega Genesis baseball game and ended up going "what the Hell?!" immediately afterwards. However, the further you dive into it, the more you see how underrated it really is. There's a scene that involves the Benny Hill song in it, yet it actually goes at it in the most clever way you would ever envision it to work under. In addition, the AVGN breaking down into madness and then trying to make sure he calms down is one of the few scenes where I could say that I have laughed under every single time I watched it play out in motion. The rest of the YouTube Poop is good to see as well, but for not only getting me to genuinely laugh at a Benny Hill joke for the first time in a long, long time, as well as for creating a scene where I could honestly get a laugh from it every single time it plays, it deserves a spot as one of the best (and underrated) YouTube Poops of July 2013.

Nozdordomu's Pick: "Gwonam's Gweat Adventuwe; or, Dino Time Enough for Love" by NAveryW/WalrusGuy


What do Link: the Faces of Evil, Zelda: the Wand of Gamelon, Super Mario World, MASH, Gargoyles, AI Artificial Intelligence, Dino Time, Hamlet, Islam, Pokemon, facial hair, Subway, assisted suicide, unwanted pregnancy, zoosadism, the apocalypse, and Jerry Bee Seinfeld all have in common? WalrusGuy used them in “Gwonam’s Great Adventuwe.”

It’s hard not to heap praise on WalrusGuy’s new video; it’s a more than welcome surprise to the YouChew community and a great feat in sentence mixing and visual editing. At 8 minutes long, it’s his longest video and his most elaborate story-poop. The story is about our favorite Middle Eastern wizard Gwonam, who’s just dying – literally – to see the legendarily unreleased cartoon Dino Time. The poop cuts back and forth between the “real” world and clips from the film, which looks about as good as it looked in the trailer (i.e. bad). The sentence mixing is pretty much flawless; at one point, the trailer announcer quotes part of the Hamlet soliloquy word-for-word, and at another, Gwonam asks in disbelief, “What has science done?” The visuals look great too, with mustachioed Link slapping a baby and Gwonam showing more facial expression than he ever did in the game. There are too many great little moments to note; the best thing is to see it all for yourself. This video proves that WalrusGuy’s still got it.

HerrVarden's Pick: "The Misadventures of Skooks Part 5/5 feat. Deepercutt" by OrpheusFTW


Ah, the Misadventures of Skooks. Never have I witnessed such anticipation for a series of poops since Captpan6 and Deepercutt tennised each other. OrpheusFTW has often found very creative, impressive and surreal ways to edit videos and this series has served to showcase his abilities in full force. It was great that he happened to get Deepercutt to aid him and the collaboration works well with both of their abilities combined. Now for those of you unaware with the Skooks series, I suggest you watch his older videos, because it'll explain why Shaggy seems to be having bizarre sexual thoughts and why Daphne glitched out when Fred punched here. As well as what's behind Skooks. The faux intro was a wonderful way to start, and Orpheus manages to use that joke enough so that it won't feel too worn out. The actual introduction is a bit more...interesting, shall we say, but it's still great. It's very clever to note that the source they're using is the crossover of Scooby Doo with Batman. Also interesting to note that when Deepercutt is introduced, he makes a joke involving Scooby Doo's special guests. Both of these poopers have a very distinct style of humor present in the poop. Deepercutt's more of the video game referencing, super silly sentence-mixing type with the occasional sight gag and elongated joke for good measure. Orpheus likes more to fill the screen with an array of crazy imagery, ranging from mind-boggling to unnerving, as well as tons of sexual sentence-mixing to boot. Both are timed properly and deliver with a lot of laughs. There was a lot I enjoyed, ranging from the "That's not funny" bit the Joker says, the commercial break, the fight between Skooks and the bad guys and the part where Batman is talking about cookies and group hypnosis, and that's just to name a few instead of saying the whole damn video. It's a marvelous melange of two terrific talents.

Tofucakecan's Pick: "Chao Chow wow" by iamoutofideas1 (youchew)


I sat here watching this video over and over, trying to think of how to describe it in a paragraph or two, but any adjectives or “poopisms” that I could list wouldn’t ever really be able to describe what iamoutofideas has produced. Let’s just say it’s a visual and audio odyssey for the mind that straddles the line between what is and is not Youtube poop. At times you’re bombarded with a variety of layers and graphics that loosely resemble a kaleidoscope, while other segments of the video are reminiscent of a music video. I’d venture to say this falls into the “ambient poop” subgenre, because the focus isn’t really on jokes or how many effects can be used at one time, but more about creating an atmosphere and “bending your mind” a little bit. I particularly enjoyed the segment at 1:07-1:22 where pinch/punch, track motion, and invert are very creatively combined to create something that you’d expect to see in an LSD trip. I also loved the segment of 1:40-2:10 for reasons I can’t fully put into words, other than to call it “an inspired use of layers and compositing modes”. If nothing else, this is a work of video art that your brain will thank you for watching.
 
If you feel like we may have overlooked or missed out on a favorite YouTube Poop from this last month (especially since that was the month of I.M. Meen's return of sorts), please post a comment talking about the YouTube Poop and why you think it's your favorite in that period of time.

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Dragonball Evolution is confounding in every way. How did this film get made? Why did it get made? What got made? I’ve seen it in its entirety and I’m still not sure. One of the most infamous films to hit the internet circles, it perplexes fans and divides viewers into warring factions: those who think it’s so-bad-it’s-good, and those who think it’s just plain bad. (A small splinter group actually likes the film non-ironically.) Even though it came out in 2009, a scant four years ago, Dragonball Evolution already feels like an old shame, a mythic embarrassment that nobody wants to dredge up.

Not being a hardcore DB or DBZ fan, I couldn’t get too angry at the way Dragonball Evolution handled, or failed to handle, its source material. But I didn’t have to. To be honest, I was too busy laughing at the film’s complete ineptitude to notice. Dragonball Evolution doesn’t succeed as an adaptation, a serious summer blockbuster, a fun summer blockbuster, or an epic hero’s tale. No, a film like this was cursed to succeed for all the wrong reasons. Its fate was to become one of the greatest comedies of the decade.

The easiest question to answer would be “How did this movie get made?” It’s actually quite simple. 20^th Century Fox wanted to make a Dragon Ball film and they did. Stephen Chow, a proclaimed fan of the show, signed on as producer. James Wong, best known as an ex-writer-producer on The X-Files (that’s a lot of x’s), stepped in to direct a script penned by Ben Ramsey, who also wrote The Big Hit and Love and a Bullet, both films dealing with hit men and the former starring Marky Mark “Good Vibrations” Wahlberg. Surely Ramsey’s knowledge of hit men and crime rackets assisted him in adapting Dragon Ball to the big screen. How could it not have?

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Some people – Ramsey included – will allege that the original script was very faithful, and that interference from Fox executives, along with Wong’s rewrites, ruined it. Others will say it was bad all along. I believe both. No matter how much the script suffered, the studio still managed to get an A-list cast the best D-list stars they could find, with three B-list actors just for shits and grins, more on them later. On a budget of $30, $50, $65 or $100 million – no one can agree, but I’d take the lowest one – the filmmakers began shooting around Mexico City and Durango. According to some sources, they made most of the movie on the site of an “abandoned Mexican jeans factory.” High-quality special effects were added thereafter, an incredible marketing effort built momentum, and the film was released to negative critical and commercial reaction. What could have possibly gone wrong?

Let’s have a look.

Even before the title screen appears, Evolution has problems. We're treated to a super-condensed version of the preface, something about a demon named Piccolo and a monster and some balls that will bring the monster about. Already the film's fidelity to the series is in question. A lot of people claim that Evolution “killed” DB for them, but frankly, I can’t see where they’re coming from. The film begins fine enough, with villain Piccolo on a quest to own the seven Dragonballs and Goku learning martial arts from his grandfather. It's Goku's 18th birthday, and his grandfather decides that he's ready to own the precious 4-star Dragonball. The rest of the film stays just as faithful to the source. Seriously, who doesn’t remember those times in the comics when Goku was American and went to a high school just like ours and told his British teacher about the Nameks and beat up a black muscular jock who was stealing his girlfriend Chi Chi and as a result of his being away his grandfather was killed by a warlord in bad Yoda makeup who then blew up his house for absolutely no reason?

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Dragon Ball Z: the High School Years

Okay, me neither. Maybe we could’ve forgiven Evolution for bastardizing Dragon Ball if it had been good in its own right, but that’s not really the case. One thing you’ll immediately notice about the film is the near-constant use of slow motion. After the title screen, we get to see incredibly detailed, slow motion close-ups of Goku’s eyes and mouth as he trains with his grandfather. Later, when he uses his powers to lure Chi Chi away from some other guys (IOW for purely selfish reasons), we get to see slo-mo shots of Goku pounding each one of them into submission, and even some pointless focus on one guy running up behind him like an idiot. So much of the fighting is shot in slow motion that I’m not sure that the actors weren’t doing it themselves. Funnily enough, whenever the characters aren’t moving slowly, they compensate by moving incredibly fast for a few seconds and pretending that it makes sense. Well, it makes more sense than Goku keeping his flyaway hairdo in a modern high school setting and not getting the crap beaten out of him everyday.

Justin Chatwin plays our “chosen” hero Goku. He doesn’t really try to act, though you can’t blame him too much; anyone who's appeared in both Josie and the Pussycats AND Baby Geniuses 2 has earned the right to be cynical. The filmmakers were lucky to get the versatile James Marsters (another fan, best known as Spike on Buffy) to play the villain Piccolo. Curiously enough, though, the camera prefers to skip over Piccolo and devote most of its attention to his almost-unnamed foxy bodyguard woman. (I still don’t remember her name. I think it’s Cy or something.) Maybe they were embarrassed by his makeup, and if they weren’t, they should’ve been. Who could’ve guessed that a man with a face smeared in green tea ice cream and pigeon shit would be just as threatening as the wind instrument after which he was named?

Anyway, Goku receives a message from his dying grandfather to seek out Master Roshi, who holds one of the Dragonballs that Piccolo wants to take. Between his grandpa dying and the responsibility thrust upon him by the Dragonball, this might go down as his worst birthday ever. After giving his granddad a proper burial with sad music and everything, Goku runs into Bulma Briefs – out of all the last names they could’ve used, they went with that one – who wants to study the Dragonballs and maybe bring one back for her father. Bulma’s actress was going to wear blue hair like the original character, but it didn’t look too good, so think of this Bulma as her very own Original Character instead. After magically unfolding a motorcycle with the best special effects in the film, she and Goku go looking for Roshi.

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It turns out that Roshi lives in a crappy apartment in the city. This is where big fans of the series should draw the line and stop watching. This film’s version of Roshi isn’t an old man with a long beard, turtle, and sunglasses; no, he’s an average-looking, forty-something, overweight bum with “generic Asian hair” and a Hawaiian shirt. Maybe an older man couldn’t handle all of the martial arts in the film, but that’s what stunt doubles are for, isn’t it? It doesn’t help that Roshi is played by Chow Yun-Fat, an actor and actual martial artist far too talented for this awful movie. Every scene he’s in, you get the feeling that he’d rather be off doing another John Woo film, or any other film, really.

The rest of the film goes just as well as you can imagine. The trio runs into Yamcha (a one-note comic relief in this film), who joins them. Piccolo sits and plots. The gang runs into some bad guys and takes them out. Goku reunites with Chi Chi. The gang camps out at Sifu’s temple. Sparks fly between Goku and Chi Chi, as well as between Bulma and Yamcha (in this universe they stay together). Goku learns the Kamehameha. Piccolo steals 3 Dragonballs. The gang goes to stop him. Goku gets turned into a terrible special effect and strangles Roshi while the rest of the group battles the forces of evil. Goku realizes something about himself or maybe he just gets his mojo back or something I don’t know anyway he turns back into Goku and uses the Kamehameha and Piccolo and his sexy bodyguard are defeated. Roshi is still dead. Goku uses the power of the Dragonballs to bring Roshi back to life. Everyone is happy and they go on to have some more adventures, hooray.

That makes the film sound boring, and occasionally, it is. Watching the characters engage in witty banter and/or love scenes isn’t much fun because Wong somehow forgot everything he learned about dialogue from The X-Files. However, there are some standout scenes. At one point, the gang is crossing a bridge over lava or something, and Goku has to fight some bad guys who crept up behind him. So he throws all of them into the lava. Every. Single. One. It's almost like they filmed him doing it once and then looped the film. Also worth mentioning is the later part of the film when our heroes meet up with Sifu – but wait, in this film he’s Sifu Norris! And he’s played by ERNIE HUDSON?!? Give them some credit, this is the only time you’ll see a vampire, a ninja, and a Ghostbuster together in a film.

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Ernie Hudson, what are you doing. Seriously, you have some explaining to do.

It’s worth mentioning that Dragonball Evolution doesn’t really try to match the look of the Dragon Ball animes, or even the look of anime in general. Every scene is shot in Hollywood blockbuster colors, and if you don’t know what those are, I’ll spell them out for you: blue and orange. This film is one of the biggest abusers of blue/orange contrast I’ve ever seen. You don't have to look further than the poster to see why. If Bulma’s hair was blue too, that would have pushed the whole thing into overkill. I’m not lying, either; there are several fight scenes, including the climax, where the entire screen turns orange or blue for no reason. It’s like someone spilled Sunkist and Curaçao on the prints.

The film’s climax deserves further mentioning. This is where the film’s questionable effects come back to bite it on the ass. Piccolo uses the 7 Dragonballs on the solar eclipse to summon the monster Ōzaru (mentioned in the prologue), then reveals a shocking plot twist: Goku is Ōzaru! We discover this through an amazingly bad-looking CGI transformation where Goku becomes a cross between the troll from Sorcerer’s Stone, a Goomba from the Mario movie, and Manbearpig. At one point, Yamcha (or maybe it's Bulma, I honestly couldn’t give a crap) is thrown against a rock that bounces. Piccolo’s sorcery looks just as fake as ever, and Goku’s final Kamehameha is REALLY BAD. There’s no other way to describe it.

However, they saved the biggest insult for last: in an attempt to recreate Shen Long in 3D, the effects team graced the screen with a bad gradient-colored, hopelessly generic dragon-looking thing. It doesn’t even look finished. Well, anyway, you’ve got to end on a high note. After Roshi is brought back to life – not with tears this time, although that might make it less corny – the gang discovers that their Balls are gone and they need to go find them again. So the adventures continue, and we see Goku and Chi Chi sparring as the film comes to an overdue close.

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The special effects team also designs webpages for designers in 1996.

But wait! We get to see a mid-credits stinger where Piccolo is * gasp * STILL ALIVE! Then we get the end credits proper, played over the song “Rule.” Hiring Ayumi Hamasaki to sing the song was probably the best decision the filmmakers made.

So that was Dragonball Evolution. As most of you probably know, it bombed in America and failed to recoup its budget, whatever that was. However, it was a huge hit in most Asian countries, and for some reason it made a very strong showing in Mexico. The show has done well there in the past, but I think all those Mexicans just wanted to see their jeans factory on the big screen. Still, it’s shunned by most of the Dragon Ball fandom, and Akira Toriyama, the series guru himself, has disowned it. At first he told fans to treat it as an “alternate universe,” but then later went on record saying that the filmmakers never listened to the advice he gave them, and that the film was a “disaster” with “nothing to do with Dragon Ball.” But if the film didn’t gel with fans, then why couldn’t it have done well with casual filmgoers?

It goes without saying that Dragonball Evolution is clichéd in the worst way. We’ve got an average high school student, a prophecy about a “chosen one,” ancient powers that come together to make even more power, a dead family member as motivation, an apocalyptic showdown between good and evil, and a love interest with no influence on the plot. To be fair, most of these elements also come from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but the filmmakers decided to play them completely straight, instead of fashioning something interesting out of them. On top of that, the anime and manga didn’t try to do Goku’s entire story in under 90 minutes’ worth of plotting. Evolution tries too much with too little; its script doesn’t tell Goku’s story well, its directors don’t know how tell his story, and its actors don’t try to help matters either (except for Marsters and Yun-Fat, maybe). It’s hard to care about anyone or anything in the film when it’s all so cheesy and overblown, or maybe I mean over-blue.

So, technically, Dragonball Evolution is a pretty bad movie. BUT, unintentionally, it’s one of the funniest films ever. The fact that the filmmakers took it seriously might make it less enjoyable for some, but for me, it makes the end product even funnier. Like, wow, they were trying to do something “Shakespearean” and they wound up with this? What the hell happened? The visual techniques are so poorly chosen that they just seem funny, and the effects are laughably bad, of course. The actors’ overwrought, melodramatic performances make almost everything they say humorous, even if the lines aren’t funny (they mostly aren’t). On top of that, the sheer ridiculousness of the film makes it hard to take seriously and easy to laugh at. It’s not a fun movie on its own, but when taken out of its context, it’s a lot of fun to riff. True enough, many forum members went to near-empty theaters to see Dragonball Evolution and ended up laughing their asses off at it. Some have even called it one of the greatest comedy films of the decade, and I almost agree with that.

So, from a critical standpoint, I don’t like Dragonball Evolution very much. Ironically, however, I can’t get enough of it, and I'd recommend watching it, if only to see Ernie Hudson in the role of a lifetime. And to see Goku beat up a black guy.

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I know I shouldn't write anymore album reviews for the Staff, but I can't help myself.

People have to know about Yeezus. There's something quite magical about the record.

Yes, it's just Yeezy channeling the Death Grips and filtering it through the aesthetic of The College Dropout, but it feels like there's something more. Like, he's trying to say something through his abnormally barbed words and paranoid ramblings. It feels like, in many ways, the darker spiritual successor to that collaboration album he did with Jay-Z a couple of years back - same minimalist beats, same negative depiction of the stereotypical black lifestyle, same distancing-himself-from-the-wide-sound-of-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, etc.

Look around you - it's in the promotion. Kanye dropped no singles for Yeezus - just performance art-esque video clips of him interspliced with barking dogs and price tags to the tune of "New Slaves" and "I Am a God." He appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed in front of a slideshow of price tags and barking dogs, screaming madly about being ostracized for trying to avoid the stereotype. Hell, there's no front cover to Yeezus - very similar to System of a Down's Steal This Album in concept. A rap album that showcases how bad making rap into a commodity is ends up borrowing ideas from a metal album that showcases how bad making anything into a commodity is.

The musical content on the record is as follows: it basically changes up the guy's style by minimalizing his orchestral art-rap sound he seemingly perfected with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. While his prior albums were bombast and light in a sense, Yeezus is the hangover to the power trip Kanye experiences on MBDTF. The music matches the revelations - discordant beats laid over subtle samples (sometimes, outright using a sample for more than a minute as evidenced on the outro to "New Slaves"); keyboards whirring, playing unnatural sounds in a manner not seen since Pere Ubu's early years; and a ton of bass. And yet, there are tracks that Kanye strips down the beats even further - "Blood on the Leaves" is, for all intents and purposes, a Nina Simone vocal sample played over some bass and quiet keyboards; a majority of "New Slaves" is a synth line that adds tension to Kanye's desperate lyrics about trying to destroy his limelight; and "Black Skinhead" is a a drum beat with the occasional distorted guitar.

Why this minimalism works is similar to why minimalism was created: to make people aware that true music isn't just flowery orchestras devoted to expanding your mind and massive vocal overlays. Music can be a man singing over a bass line - music can be a man rapping over the occasional paradiddle. Music has no universal standard - it's everywhere. Speaking of the omnipresence of music, Kanye channels that with his continuing use of obscure samples, ranging from soul songs nobody's heard of to Chicago house music to Wendy Carlos-era synthesizer experimentation to Hungarian progressive rock. Occasionally, he'll dust out a well-known sample - i.e. Nina Simone's disturbing rendition of "Strange Fruit" - but he'll use the sample in ways nobody will expect. Rather than sampling the backing band on the Simone performance, he instead makes a mantra out of her "blood on the leaves" recitation and creates a nightmarish atmosphere that matches the ones found on other songs.

Regardless of its massive praise, Yeezus is still a flawed album. Kanye's still spitting out clumsy lyrics about how he wants to be rich while criticizing consumer culture and modern rap. Chief Keef ruins the aesthetic of "Hold My Liquor" mainly because of his persona: a party-hard musician that goes against Kanye's manifesto to a T. "Bound 2," while one of Kanye's best tracks, doesn't work as well as a closer. "On Sight" should've been longer. Kanye should've stuck to the concept of the first half - the minimalist beats - before going into the industrial-meets-trap-meets-noise second half. I could go on forever.

However, rather than the mixtape of songs people paint the album as, Yeezus works as a concept album about the pressures of fame and its relentless hypocrisy as one tries to compromise individuality with a public perception of themselves. Kanye confronts you with his ego - he has grown to embrace it. He proves Trey Parker and Matt Stone very right - that he would become something more than just a rapper that thinks about his image too much. And yet, he proves them wrong - they thought he would melt away like all the pop stars they have lampooned. Look at the celebrities that have come and gone - they're just flashes in the pan. They've outgrown their societal usefulness. And yet, Kanye has not jumped in the ocean and tried to hide. He's become even more popular since then. He's more than just a vapid pop star who makes popular rap albums. He's become so controlling that, as mentioned earlier in how he tried to promote the record, he's not pursuing conventional outlets or artists to help him push Yeezus, He shows his hypocrisy quite clearly, as also mentioned earlier, while being proud of it. Kanye is not ashamed.

Kanye wants the listener to confront the ideal with the real thing on Yeezus. It makes the listener uncomfortable - Kanye being comfortable with "being a god" and screaming to a "damn French restaurant" for his "damn croissants" before talking about how he wants to escape fame and its consequences. You have to face the hypocrisy head on - you have to accept that you're a hypocrite in the way Kanye is. You say you aren't - some of your ideals don't mesh with the real thing. You have two faces - public and private. You need to accept yourself as you are.

This is the same thing MC Ride wants listeners of Death Grips to understand. One second, he's praising his own violence. The other, he's decrying other peoples' violence. This double standard is everywhere. It's all over religious discussions. It's in law enforcement. It's in journalism. It's even in fame. Even fame has two sides. Everything has duality - we can be sure of that. However, in the end, who fucking knows? What is real? Which is the ideal? Are we applying the ideal to everybody? Did we create this egomaniac of a monster? Are we responsible for the blossoming of pain within celebrity culture? Did we give rise to tabloid journalism because we want to know everything about celebrities? According to Kanye, yes. And we should learn to accept it as opposed to denying it. If we deny it, history will repeat itself however it wants - and it could be worse the next time.

[font='trebuchet ms'][/font]

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Clik here to view.

I know I shouldn't write anymore album reviews for the Staff, but I can't help myself.

People have to know about Yeezus. There's something quite magical about the record.

Yes, it's just Yeezy channeling the Death Grips and filtering it through the aesthetic of The College Dropout, but it feels like there's something more. Like, he's trying to say something through his abnormally barbed words and paranoid ramblings. It feels like, in many ways, the darker spiritual successor to that collaboration album he did with Jay-Z a couple of years back - same minimalist beats, same negative depiction of the stereotypical black lifestyle, same distancing-himself-from-the-wide-sound-of-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, etc.

Look around you - it's in the promotion. Kanye dropped no singles for Yeezus - just performance art-esque video clips of him interspliced with barking dogs and price tags to the tune of "New Slaves" and "I Am a God." He appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed in front of a slideshow of price tags and barking dogs, screaming madly about being ostracized for trying to avoid the stereotype. Hell, there's no front cover to Yeezus - very similar to System of a Down's Steal This Album in concept. A rap album that showcases how bad making rap into a commodity is ends up borrowing ideas from a metal album that showcases how bad making anything into a commodity is.

The musical content on the record is as follows: it basically changes up the guy's style by minimalizing his orchestral art-rap sound he seemingly perfected with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. While his prior albums were bombast and light in a sense, Yeezus is the hangover to the power trip Kanye experiences on MBDTF. The music matches the revelations - discordant beats laid over subtle samples (sometimes, outright using a sample for more than a minute as evidenced on the outro to "New Slaves"); keyboards whirring, playing unnatural sounds in a manner not seen since Pere Ubu's early years; and a ton of bass. And yet, there are tracks that Kanye strips down the beats even further - "Blood on the Leaves" is, for all intents and purposes, a Nina Simone vocal sample played over some bass and quiet keyboards; a majority of "New Slaves" is a synth line that adds tension to Kanye's desperate lyrics about trying to destroy his limelight; and "Black Skinhead" is a a drum beat with the occasional distorted guitar.

Why this minimalism works is similar to why minimalism was created: to make people aware that true music isn't just flowery orchestras devoted to expanding your mind and massive vocal overlays. Music can be a man singing over a bass line - music can be a man rapping over the occasional paradiddle. Music has no universal standard - it's everywhere. Speaking of the omnipresence of music, Kanye channels that with his continuing use of obscure samples, ranging from soul songs nobody's heard of to Chicago house music to Wendy Carlos-era synthesizer experimentation to Hungarian progressive rock. Occasionally, he'll dust out a well-known sample - i.e. Nina Simone's disturbing rendition of "Strange Fruit" - but he'll use the sample in ways nobody will expect. Rather than sampling the backing band on the Simone performance, he instead makes a mantra out of her "blood on the leaves" recitation and creates a nightmarish atmosphere that matches the ones found on other songs.

Regardless of its massive praise, Yeezus is still a flawed album. Kanye's still spitting out clumsy lyrics about how he wants to be rich while criticizing consumer culture and modern rap. Chief Keef ruins the aesthetic of "Hold My Liquor" mainly because of his persona: a party-hard musician that goes against Kanye's manifesto to a T. "Bound 2," while one of Kanye's best tracks, doesn't work as well as a closer. "On Sight" should've been longer. Kanye should've stuck to the concept of the first half - the minimalist beats - before going into the industrial-meets-trap-meets-noise second half. I could go on forever.

However, rather than the mixtape of songs people paint the album as, Yeezus works as a concept album about the pressures of fame and its relentless hypocrisy as one tries to compromise individuality with a public perception of themselves. Kanye confronts you with his ego - he has grown to embrace it. He proves Trey Parker and Matt Stone very right - that he would become something more than just a rapper that thinks about his image too much. And yet, he proves them wrong - they thought he would melt away like all the pop stars they have lampooned. Look at the celebrities that have come and gone - they're just flashes in the pan. They've outgrown their societal usefulness. And yet, Kanye has not jumped in the ocean and tried to hide. He's become even more popular since then. He's more than just a vapid pop star who makes popular rap albums. He's become so controlling that, as mentioned earlier in how he tried to promote the record, he's not pursuing conventional outlets or artists to help him push Yeezus, He shows his hypocrisy quite clearly, as also mentioned earlier, while being proud of it. Kanye is not ashamed.

Kanye wants the listener to confront the ideal with the real thing on Yeezus. It makes the listener uncomfortable - Kanye being comfortable with "being a god" and screaming to a "damn French restaurant" for his "damn croissants" before talking about how he wants to escape fame and its consequences. You have to face the hypocrisy head on - you have to accept that you're a hypocrite in the way Kanye is. You say you aren't - some of your ideals don't mesh with the real thing. You have two faces - public and private. You need to accept yourself as you are.

This is the same thing MC Ride wants listeners of Death Grips to understand. One second, he's praising his own violence. The other, he's decrying other peoples' violence. This double standard is everywhere. It's all over religious discussions. It's in law enforcement. It's in journalism. It's even in fame. Even fame has two sides. Everything has duality - we can be sure of that. However, in the end, who fucking knows? What is real? Which is the ideal? Are we applying the ideal to everybody? Did we create this egomaniac of a monster? Are we responsible for the blossoming of pain within celebrity culture? Did we give rise to tabloid journalism because we want to know everything about celebrities? According to Kanye, yes. And we should learn to accept it as opposed to denying it. If we deny it, history will repeat itself however it wants - and it could be worse the next time.

[font='trebuchet ms'][/font]

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