Porocrom’s Crappaper

Once upon a time there were two princes. One prince, Martin the Foppish, was plagued by accusations of indiscretions with the peasant women of the countryside. The other prince, Harper the Dastardly, maintained that he would destroy all corruption by throwing huge bags of money at it until it went away.

It came to pass that the people of the kingdom wanted a new ruler to govern them. They held a great tournament that would decide once and for all who would be the king. The first event was an archery contest. Sir Martin, momentarily distracted by the light shining off the head of Lord Layton, managed to repeatedly shoot himself in the foot. Sir Harper fired an arrow that killed several homeless people and single mothers. He quickly hid the evidence behind a bag of gold dubloons and was proclaimed winner of the archery contest.

The second event in the tournament was a joust. Sir Martin mounted his steed backwards and forgot his lance at home. Sir Harper, his golden toupee shining gloriously from atop his jet-black steed, promised to give money to anyone who couldn’t afford a horse so that they could ride around on a donkey cart. “But Sir Harper,” protested the people “Why not just lower the price of horses?” “Sir Martin is a LIAR!” replied sir Harper. “But…” began the people “No!” said Sir Harper. “It’s time for CHANGE! He’s a LIAR!” Sir Harper repeated this phrase until the people were hypnotized out of their foolish well-reasoned objections to easy answers. Sir Harper was proclaimed the winner.

The final event was the most exciting. The two combatants were sequestered in a ring filled with mud. It was declared that the contestant who could throw the most mud at the other man would be the winner. “Finally,” thought Sir Martin “Here is an event I can actually win!” Sir Harper made the first volley, splattering scandalous amounts of mud on Sir Martin’s standard. As Sir Martin was preparing his crushing reponse, a dark shadow appeared over the ring…

A passing Duceppe bird, over 40 furlongs in length and weighing 20 stone had flown overhead and released a dropping so big that it blotted out the sun. The castle archers fired arrows, but the bird was too far out of range to be hit. “Fie!” said Martin. “Once again, Duceppe has shit all over EVERYONE and gotten away with it!” For his failure to mud-sling adequately, Sir Martin was disqualified and relegated to the cruddy side of the kingdom.

“What will you do with your new power, oh great king?” the people asked.

“I will throw big bags of money at all problems that come our way. The more money people have, the more they will agree with me.”

“What if a problem comes along that can’t be solved with bags of money?” asked a wise man.

“If such a problem exists,” said King Harper “I don’t want to know about it… or I’ll just blame it on Sir Martin.”

And so Sir Harper won… and the people lost.

I recently stumbled upon a copy of MechWarrior 4: Real Version Number – 121894, and it took me back to the “good old days”, when I was playing MechWarrior 2. Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December when I immersed myself in the incredible awesomeness that is MW2. It was 1997 or so and I had found a demo of it in a CD of a magazine. It only had three levels and three Mechs, but it was the best game ever. The graphics were superb, the gameplay magnificent and the sheer coolness of driving a 10-metre tall robot kicked ass.

I still remember the soft, seductive voice that ran the systems check whenever you began. “Reactor: Online. Sensors: Online. Weapons: Online. All systems nominal” she would say, and my heart would flutter before the reassuring bleep that meant that all was OK. Of course, come to think of it, there was no chance something would go wrong because that was hardcoded in the game, but it was awesome still. Then the game began and I would promptly kill the 3 enemies on each level (it was a demo, remember?). I would then proceed to shoot the legs off my teammates. They were so loyal, they wouldn’t even move while I wreaked havoc upon their Mechs (in retrospect, I suspect that was due to the fact that they had a good insurance policy).

Wanting to relive those glorious days, I, ahem, procured a copy of MechWarrior 2 and prompty installed it. I ran it, chose the biggest, meanest looking Mech in the game and entered the arena, but, what is this shit? The graphics are crap, the enemy vehicles look like shoeboxes with wheels and the robots look like chickens that rolled in the mud for too long. You can imagine my surprise, because that was certainly not the game I remembered. At least the voice was still great (reactors and all that).

This can only mean one thing. Games deteriorate with age. This game’s graphics are much worse than the first time I played, it, and it was somewhat boring. Why don’t the gaming companies make a game that won’t go bad after a while? I didn’t know that games had expiration dates, but apparently they do, and this game was way past its. I tried a few more games from the saintly days of yore and, sure enough, they had also gone bad! This is a great tragedy that has befallen me. I was planning to introduce my newborn son to the games I played as a kid, but what am I going to show him now? A moving shoebox? That’s gay. I tried to play MechWarrior 4 but it required the skill of a pianist and the stamina of a pornstar. If I wanted a fucking chore I would have taken out the garbage, not bought a game.

By the way, what the fuck is up with Prince of Persia? That damn game has a 60 minute timelimit and every time I got past the level in which I ran out of time the last time, it had a whole new one! Nice going Broderbund, don’t make new and challeging levels, just force the player to play over and over again. Also, what’s up with Pacman? A pizza-shaped dude eating dots? Where’s the fun in that? Ooo, look ma, I’m being chased by ghosts. I better eat that hugeass dot, I bet it’ll save me. How much LSD were the creators on? And don’t even get me started on Wonder Boy. He just ran around on clouds with his privates showing and threw hatchets. Brilliant idea. Let’s give him a skateboard while we’re at it. A caveman with a skateboard, deadly.

NewZealand Story, now that’s a kickass game. You were a small bird of indeterminate species and you went around on balloons and in water and shit shooting stuff to save something from someone. You would go in portals that were always in a loop so you would always end up where you started, but noone would notice, that’s how kickass it was. Golden Axe was also one kickass game. You could be a woman, a gay or a dwarf. The woman was the best of all, she couldn’t hit for shit but if you somehow managed to survive long enough to collect all the powerup vials she would cast a spell that caused a huge dragon to come and puke fire and shit lightning on everyone. There was noone left after that, even the final boss got pussywhipped. Plus, you could ride dragons, how cool is that.

The game I want to play now is Shadow of the Colossus, but unfortunately I don’t have a PlayCube 380 or whatever these new things are called, so I can’t. I have a lesbian friend who has all that stuff, but he won’t let me play because he’s gay, he just listens to Tori Amos all day. Shadow of the Colossus must be great, you play the role of a small dwarf who has to go kill the Colossi because they raped his sister or something. The Colossi are all tall like Michael Jordan (sometimes taller) and you have to climb on their legs and tickle their balls and stab them in the back. Sometimes you get a horse to ride on. That is the recipe to success, my friends.

Since it’s getting late and I have to study (computer networks exam in two days) I will give you this familiar epilogue where I just stop writing with a lame excuse. I’m having my period.