Codec City

Why does this world need so many media compression file types? Why can’t we just have one compression type with limitless resolution and aspect ratio settings? Instead we have an endless array of meaningless acronyms that have to be dealt with individually. If you want to open the file Pokemon.SKXEECGJSAQ-43783, then you have to get a codec that decompresses SKXEECGJSAQ-43783 files, (wherever that is.) Why should you have to do that? The files all do the exact same thing so what’s the point of having each one have it’s own stupid codec you have to acquire to open it with? That’s like if every time you got a letter in the mail, you had to use a specific letter opener to open it. If it’s a bill, use the bill opener. If it’s a Christmas card, use the Christmas card opener. Don’t have a Christmas card opener? Then throw that Christmas card away because you can’t open it. They’re all paper envelopes with letters inside. You should just be able to use anything sharp to open them with but no.

Having four or five file types is one thing but we have: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, RealVideo, AVI, DivX, XviD, OGG, OGM, Cinepak, WMV, MID, WAV, MP3, WMA, and M4P/AAC among many more. And in my opinion, WAVs are needlessly large files; MPEG-4s don’t work; and M4Ps were created by the Prince of Darkness. An M4P is a compression that online music stores use. The only difference I can see in it from an MP3 is that You can only play it through whatever service you bought it through like Napster or iTunes, which is just a pain in the ass. M4P was literally created to be less useful for it’s consumer. OGG is something I find popping up more often then it should. I remember I had to scour the internet for days to actually find a program that would play them. That’s another thing, if I have to research a file type in order to find a way to play it then the type in question just shouldn’t exist.

Who keeps making all of these file types anyway? Did it really seem to them like a good idea to make new stuff for an, (already polluted beyond use), universe of compressions? It’s like a handful of people creating new languages and then expecting everyone to use them. We don’t need any more languages. Languages get in the way. Here’s a good rule of thumb if you’re thinking about making a new compression type: unless your compression is going to make files 1/10th their original size, it’s worthless and no one will give a shit. Have a nice day.

Mortal Kombat Movie Marathon

The Mortal Kombat franchise was created when co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias stayed up all night watching kung-fu movies… at least that’s what *I* like to believe. There are so many MK characters that look like movie characters it’s weird. I’m certain there are a lot more than this but this is just what I’ve noticed. Inspired by, ripped-off from, or total BS from my head… You decide.
*SPOILERS*

Starting with the most obvious, we have Bruce Lee from “Enter the Dragon” and Liu Kang. They’re both trained as Shaolin monks. They don’t like wearing shirts. They also go WHAAAAAAAA!! when they throw a punch. Still, it’s a very common fighting game character archetype. What’s more interesting is that the plot of Enter the Dragon is very similar to the “plot” of the first Mortal Kombat. I.E. the main bad guy throws a tournament on his island inviting fighters from all over the world.

The main bad guy from Mortal Kombat is Shang Tsung. His movie equivalent isn’t from ETD though, it’s Lo-Pan from “Big Trouble in Little China.” They’re evil and impossibly decrepit-looking. They sit on their asses until it’s absolutely necessary to stand. And they steal people’s life-force to regain youth

Speaking of Big Trouble in Little China, here are some Raidens from said movie. OK they are actually called Thunder Lightning and Rain. That’s kind of weird, there’s also an MK character called Rain but he looks nothing like the other Rain. Actually he was supposedly named after Prince’s “Purple Rain” which makes a very silly visual pun.

Anyway, aside from dressing exactly the same and using lightning attacks, they also have the same moves when charging their lightning, if you compare it with an MK cut scene like the intro to MK Deception.

The three cyborgs, (Sektor, Smoke, and Cyrax) were actually said *by Midway* to be based off of a favorite sci-fi character. No name was mentioned but I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s the Predator. The Predator is a high-tech hunter from space that just likes hunting people with lots of cool traps. It’s been a while since I saw the original but I know in AVP he has this net he can shoot at prey. The cyborgs are all assassins which is almost the same as a hunter right? Cyrax, (the yellow cyborg) also shoots a net to trap people in, which is like the most annoying thing in the game. Still Predator looks most like Smoke, (the blue one.)

So Blaze and the Human Torch from “The Fantastic Four…” If I cropped the pictures a little more you wouldn’t even be able to tell which is which.

Here’s an interesting one; Kenshi and Neo from “The Matrix Revolutions.” They were both blinded by their worst enemy but still see with some kind of extrasensory vision. They have psychokinetic powers. Over their eyes they wear red headbands. I guess physically they look similar too. Also Neo stopping bullets and Kenshi’s “Telekinetic Push” have the same, (fun to practice in the mirror), stance.

Neo actually does this once or twice while outside of the matrix so it’s a legitimate power and not just “bending the rules” of the matrix. The weird thing is that Kenshi first appeared in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance which was released in 2002. The Matrix Revolutions was released a year latter so I don’t know how to explain that one. Maybe The Matrix copied Mortal Kombat?

I’ve saved my favorite for last. It’s Kobra and Johnny from “The Karate Kid.” Look at that, they’re wearing the exact same gi! (If you’re using Kobra’s alternate costume.) Kobra also uses karate and Johnny is on the Cobra Kai Karate Team. Cobra… Kobra… Get it? They also both have cobras on the backs of their gis. I like to think of this as what Johnny looks like as an adult... with a big knife.

My Cynical View on Holidays

Well it’s almost Valentine’s Day and that just means another opportunity to throw money away. I’ve had a beef with this holiday forever. Actually most holidays I think are a complete load. Well, some more than others…

Valentine’s Day - A day where, for whatever reason, you are obligated to reassert the presence of the love you possess for significant others. Well that’s all well and good for people that are loved but for everyone else it’s a punch in the face. And another thing; I don’t want The Man brainwashing my significant others into believing they’re absolutely entitled to receiving flowers and candy every single year on February 14th.

St. Patrick’s Day - Another holiday with “St.” in the title. What, are we all Catholic? That’s bullshit. If the government wanted to make a Vishnu or a Quetzalcoatl day, it would get picketed and/or voted down. But if you staple an excuse for alcoholism onto it, the public can probably overlook whatever random deity or saint is attached. Does anyone even know who St. Pat was? Well no they don’t, but they *do* like being plastered-ass drunk. If people were required to go to mass to drink on St. Patrick’s day, do you think it would still have the same amount of observance? It’s a mockery. Maybe if I’m lucky enough, some bitchy atheists will complain about the name and get it changed to something more appropriate like Alcohol Awareness Day or Get Wasted Day.

Easter - I don’t really know what the point of Easter is. It has something to do with the resurrection of Christ, bunnies, and hiding shit in the backyard. Makes perfect sense. I’ll admit it has a quirk factor in that you’re hiding eggs that you may or may not see again. Then one day you’re mowing the lawn and there’s a thud followed by a fountain of shredded multicolored plastic and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

I only have one clear Easter memory and it involves an Easter egg hunt orchestrated by my dad. Instead of hiding a bunch of little eggs all around, he had put one big Easter basket cache somewhere for me to find. I looked around for like half an hour without finding anything. After being highly demoralized from this, I inevitably looked up at some point and found that the basket was in a damn tree. It wasn’t even below eye-level let alone within my reach. Ever since then I couldn’t wait to have kids so I could do the exact same thing to them.

Independence Day - Well how could I have anything against something that feeds my lust for unchecked pyro madness?

Halloween - Halloween used to be a big thing for me. I used to carve like half a dozen pumpkins, decorate the house, watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, and go trick-or-treating. Looking back I have to ask the question; what was I thinking? You see I’ve lived out in the country for most of my life, in a community with houses that were an average of 50 yards apart and then the driveways themselves would be like another 50 yards to the actual house. When you’re 8, the promise of free candy can easily cloud your judgment, (what little there is.) Is it more economical to walk through rural hickville for four hours to get two pounds of saltwater taffy and pennies, or to just go to Costco and get an $8 box of Milkyway bars? The decorations and whatnot I put out every year never got seen by anyone not living in the house because it’s the most secluded house in the neighborhood. It’s down a hill surrounded by a poison oak grove. You can’t even see it from the road. On the rare occasion that a trick-or-treater passed by, do you think they would go down the creepy road going God-knows-where in the woods? Fuck that, that’s where Michael Myers hangs out. I can seriously only recall one party of kids ever visiting the house for
Halloween. Jehovah’s Witnesses show up more often.

Eventually I wised up and started trick-or-treating at subdivisions in town. But I still decorated the house for some reason. One time I was going to go with my friend in his neighborhood but he got his hand slammed in a car door and decided not to go. It wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even sprained. He just got hurt and skipped out on trick-or-treating. Oh, I felt pain in my hand an hour ago so I don’t want an ass-load of candy now. Boo-fucking-hoo. What are you, a communist? I ended up going with his little sister who I never talked to. Thanks a lot.

The last time I went was when I was about fourteen. I went with friends and I swear every other house we went to had an occupant that would make some comment to me like “Aren’t you too old for this?” No, I’m the same age as my damn friends you fucker, I’m just tall. After that shit, I never went trick-or-treating again. I didn’t decorate either.

Thanksgiving - I’ve heard my mom say that Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday. I used to not really care about it but it seems that the older I get, the more I enjoy it. I like Fall. I like having a break from school. You get to see family you like that you haven’t seen in a while. You get to eat lots of good food. And you don’t have to fucking buy shit for anyone. This is funny because three seconds after Halloween is over, all of the stores are decorated for Christmas and it’s almost another two months to Christmas. Thanksgiving isn’t a consumer holiday and therefore unimportant to stores. For me, any holiday not developed and administrated by Hallmark, and Macy’s is worth celebrating. The down side is the school break is ruined because my school feels it necessary to completely encompass any sort of free time you might have by giving you extra homework. God forbid I actually get to interact with my family on Thanksgiving. The suffering is multiplied exponentially because the kind of homework I get involves thousand dollar 3d modeling programs, table saws, drill presses, compressed air generators, and disk sanders. Needless to say, I don’t have any of that shit so it makes it a little difficult. This alone makes me want to stay at school. The other thing is that with the people that you want to see come the people that you *don’t* want to see. Then the drama. Oh hell, the drama.

Christmas - Every time someone asks me what I want for Christmas I draw a blank. I can never come up with anything I actually want that someone will buy me. I hate trying to figure out what to buy people and who to buy for. It’s just highly aggravating for me. Come to think of it, Christmas is like a holiday built upon layer after layer of chores. Go get a tree. Set up the tree. Decorate the tree. Decorate the house. Find a parking space. Buy X number of presents for X number of friends and family. Now wrap all of those presents. Etc. Etc. But gift procuring is what really bothers me. What if they hate my presents? What if I hate there’s? What the hell am I even going to get them? This may sound silly but wouldn’t it make more sense for everyone to use their money to buy themselves presents that they want? Then everyone could wrap their own presents and put them under the tree. And all December people would wonder what you got for yourself. Then when Christmas comes everyone opens their presents and acts very surprised and elated over what they got themselves. They will turn to one another and brag about what they received and whoever gets the most expensive presents wins Christmas.

New Years - St. Patrick’s day with pointy hats and half-hearted promises to yourself to change in some way. Definitely not cause for celebratory fanfare.

iPods

Ipod is still an unbelievable phenomenon even after being released like seven years ago. I haven’t even gotten to my main point yet and I’ve already found another thing about iPods that annoys me. The Way you’re supposed to write the word iPod is “iPod.” What is that “i” even for anyway? Is it supposed to be referring to “you” in first person like the pronoun? If that’s the case then it should never be in lower-case. Then after that, the P in “pod” is capitalized. Have you ever seen a word with only the second letter capitalized? And then if you use it as the first word in a sentence like I did, what happens? Does the P remain capitalized creating two capitalized letters in a row? i.e. IPod is still an unbelievable… Do you make the P lower-case so that, that doesn’t happen? i.e. Ipod is still an unbelievable… Or are the laws of basic grammar overridden to correctly state the word? i.e. iPod is still an unbelievable… Oh God, it’s horrible! I can’t look at it!

Anyway, what I was really going to talk about was how iPod has a monopoly on the portable mp3 player market. It has such a large presence you’d seriously think it was the only mp3 player in existence. Why is that? I’m 99% sure it’s the advertising because if it’s the quality then the rest of the market must be lightyears away from creating a functional product.

When I first got my iPod mini, (in ‘04 I think), I thought I just got a defective one or something. The battery’s lifespan was drastically short, (about 45 minutes.) It also had a tendency to freeze. I wouldn’t even be able to turn it off. Sometimes plugging it in to my computer would reboot it but not always. A couple of times I had to wait for the battery to die so it would shut off. Also sometimes when I paused it and tried to turn it off it wouldn’t turn off. I’d have to wait like 10 seconds for it to get ready or something and then it would let me turn it off. I got a Nano for Christmas over a year ago. I thought this would be the end to all the problems. Well… the battery actually worked which was more than I could say for my cousin’s. His Nano’s battery was defective and had to be sent in to get a new one. The rest of the problems however, remained. It still freezes and still has that 10 second delay shit that drives me crazy. My old iPod mini became a mass storage device for a while until it decided that it didn‘t want me to have any of my files back. So now it’s a useless piece of junk. I guess I did get a defective one. They’re all defective.

My roommate came in a while ago and said his Nano was frozen and it was. The backlight was stuck on and everything. It stayed like that for a couple of hours and then just turned off by it’s self. What the hell? Why is this such a big problem still? Is it just so damn popular you don’t even have to fix the problems? How much more simple does it need to be for it to not do this. It has one function; play music, and it freezes. It’s not rocket science.

House Creatures

Well all of our pets died/disappeared so that means my family had to get a new generation of pets. (AKA one puppy and one kitten)

The puppy is the newer addition. It’s an Australian Shepard with fur white like snow, eyes as blue as the sky, and teeth like a motherfucking piranha. She lives in the kitchen and outside. Whenever you enter the kitchen she bounds out of the pantry tackles your feet and begins to bite them. Rest assured that this is going to occur for the entire duration of your stay in the room. She literally *will not* stop biting you until you leave. It’s occasionally punctuated by her trying to jump up on you or rip the cuffs off your pant legs but that’s about the zenith of interaction you’re going to achieve. This would be less annoying and a little more cute if it wasn’t so damn painful. You have to wear shoes if you go in the kitchen now but even then, her tiny teeth still go through and get your foot anyway. And not only that, she just starts biting your ankle. It’s not like she just wants something to chew on , she actually seeks out your vulnerable spot and bites it. She *wants* to hurt you.

There’s not even anything you can do to stop her either. Moving around makes it more fun for her. Staying still is a surefire way to get wounded. Kicking her away makes her do it more. I hope she grows out of this before she gets big enough to reach my face.

The cat has been around since before Thanksgiving. When I came home for break he avoided me at first but after everyone in the house went to sleep he would come into my room because I stay up late. He would hide under my bed and I could actually pet him sometimes. But since I came home for Christmas break he won’t give me the time of day and it pisses me off.

This is about as close as I can get to him before he runs away. (Yes
I’m aware of the resemblance to Ceiling Cat.) You can get closer if you aren’t male. (however that works) He’s constantly hiding and most of the time the only way you can tell he exists is by observing how much food is left in his dish. But then again that’s a variable because the stupid dog eats it too. What’s the point of having a cat if you can’t go anywhere near it? It’s a waste of money. I want companionship you bastard!

Recently I was given charge of the animals. Night came and it was raining so I brought the dog in. She basically lays right outside the door so she’s easy to find. The cat was there too, right next to the dog as a matter of fact. As I stipulated earlier, the dog is a sadistic maniac that no wants to be around. When I opened the door the dog ran in and the cat ran away. This leads me to ask the question, what does the cat think I could do to him that’s worse than what the dog is already doing to him? Unfortunately I was supposed to get the cat inside too. Fucking cat. You don’t have to let me touch you, just go in the house. After about ten minutes of *here kitty kitty* I finally got some food and lured him close enough to capture and bring in. I set him down and he promptly ran away under the staircase.

Can’t you get pets that are in between annoyingly violent and boringly reclusive?

And now for something completely the same...

It’s been a while since I’ve played Super Smash Bros. Honestly I haven’t played any since the first one on the 64 system. It was a pretty good game. I’m not that familiar with it’s Gamecube sequal Melee. But I was looking through a Game Pro or something at the book store and happened upon the character lineup for the new Smash Brothers Brawl game. In short, I was extremely underwhelmed. It’s so unoriginal and repetitive. They’re operating within such a narrow spectrum of characters and series’ that I get bored of the game just looking at the characters in a magazine.

Jeez, do you think that’s enough fucking Mario characters?! I thought this was Smash Bros. not Mario Party. Pick two characters. TWO! Get rid of the rest. Actually I think Mario can sit this one out. I’m kind of tired of him.

Samus and Zero Suit Samus? Why are they passing off what is essentially an alternate costume as a separate character? I don’t care how different their skills might be. It’s still the same character.

Lucas is just a watered-down version of Ness. What’s the point? Just use Ness. It’s like if they used Luigi instead of Mario. It’s the same person, the only difference is that nobody likes him.

Why the hell would I use Meta Night when you’re giving me King Dedede?

Who the fuck?

Who’s idea was it to put Sonic and Snake in? They’re good characters, don’t get me wrong. But I don't care who bought the rights to what, they still aren’t Nintendo characters and shouldn’t have even been considered to be in this game. Particularly Snake. That’s like inserting Officer John McClane or Rambo into Disney’s next Pixar movie. Did the Smash Staff just completely forget they have more than three franchises they can draw characters from? Remember Megaman? Remember Castlevania? I guess not. You have to go purchase characters from other consoles and then fill the rest of the roster space with Mario characters. And how cool would it be to go around as Richter or someone, whipping people and burning them with holy water?

First of all, this isn’t anyone you know. It’s just “Pok’emon Trainer.” Secondly, a pok’emon trainer doesn’t fight, (with the exception of those retarded karate dojos), and doesn‘t have any special powers or skills. They release a pok’emon and tell it what to do. I’m imagining this character having about three legitimate attacks: punch, kick, and release pok’emon. If he has any more than that in the game then it’s simply inaccurate.

Yeah, just bring in another primate character from the same game series. No one will get bored or anything. Personally I think DK is the worst character in Smash Bros. He could be easily replaced by the much more nimble Diddy, but are they doing that? No they aren’t. They’re keeping Donkey in as well just to keep with their theme of over-saturating the game with what is, (for all intents and purposes), the same exact thing.

Final Fantasy VII Minigame Hell

Instead of talking about Final Fantasy VII, I’m going to talk about some of it’s minigames. I typically don’t care for minigames. I think they suck. I don’t enjoy being thrown into random situations at the drop of a hat and then being expected to accomplish a specific task while having almost no idea of what’s going on. True, some are optional but most aren’t.

Train Graveyard: This isn’t so much a minigame as it is a puzzle. It’s this big junkyard full of defunct trains and various types of twisted metal and debris. All of this garbage forms a really bizarre and circuitous path through the yard. The problem is that the path is so weird and devoid of any form that you can’t tell what you can walk on, climb up, go under, go in between, go behind, go in, or jump off of. Sometimes it takes several minutes to just figure out where you can actually go and when you do figure it out it just seems to be a completely random and irrelevant path. The overhead view of the camera compresses everything into 2-D making it even harder. There’s one part where you drive a couple of trains into each other to make a path. After I did this it still took me a while to figure out what the point was. Their roofs lined up so I could probably walk across them but how do I get on top of it? The difficulty of a game shouldn’t stem from it’s indistinct graphics and horrible camera angles.

Squats: I seriously can’t believe you have to do this. So you need to get a wig for reasons that I’m not going to go into. Where do you get a wig..? Duh, from the local gym. Isn’t that where all cross-dressers go to get their accoutrements? The gym is full of musclemen that want the wig and so one challenges you to squats. Yeah squats. You know squats..? That sissy warm-up exorcise that you don’t do because it makes you look like a moron? Anyway, you have to do more than him before 30 seconds are up. There are three buttons you press in order and you have to do it in rhythm. If you get off beat you stall for a couple of seconds. I beat this weirdo on the first try despite a bad start. Then I made off with the coveted wig… whoop-dee-freekin-do.

Motorcycle Battle: The pretext for this is that you’re escaping the Shinra Building and you’re on a motorcycle while your friends are on a truck. Everyone has a lifebar too. You’re speeding down the freeway with motorcycle troops in hot pursuit. You’re supposed to race around beating them up to protect yourself and the group. This would probably be really cool with some kind of analog controller but no, you’re stuck with directional buttons making movement rather awkward. And it doesn’t help that we’re going about three times the speed limit and the camera seems to practically spin around me. Since I’m playing this on PC with keyboard everything is just a little more challenging. Just trying to find all the control buttons on the keyboard is frustrating. When I started the game, the default controls were literally all on the number pad. What, do they expect me to play this game using just my right hand? Who’s stupid idea was this? Have you ever played a videogame with one hand? Have you ever seen a one-handed controller? No, that’s retarded. Anyway, I was able to find the button for attacking on my right but not the one for my left. It didn’t really seem to matter though because ramming into other motorcycles was a lot more effective than using my sword.

Reactor Hill: It’s this big hill with a reactor on the top that you are supposed to protect from an encroaching army. Your enemies slowly advance up the side of the hill, (emphasis on slowly.) The way you defend the reactor is by placing soldiers and various armaments on the hill. It’s kind of like a Fire Emblem or Advance Wars type strategy game, only it’s not really fun or necessary to strategize at all. Every impediment you put in the enemies’ way costs a lot of money and it doesn’t really do much to them except slow them down, as if they needed to go any slower. When they get past your soldiers, your last line of defense is you. You get to fight them in a typical RPG menu battle. Well if you can just do that, then what’s the point of wasting tons of money on something that wastes your time and barely does anything? Just start the battle with no soldiers and beat the crap out of them yourself. Oh and the guy that you’re helping conduct this war is always asking you for money to contribute to the war budget. If you decide to donate, a box comes up with various amounts of money for you to chose. After you choose, he says thank you and then the money box comes back up again. What the hell, moocher? If a stranger gave you a thousand dollars would you say, “Hey thanks. Give me more now?” He’s lucky I’m helping him at all. My advice is to give him 0 Gil and don‘t hire any soldiers. It’s the cheapest, quickest, easiest solution to an overly-complex minigame.

Formation Marching: In this part you dress up like a Shinra soldier to infiltrate their base. Then you get roped into this stupid parade for the president and have to do a couple of simon says marching things. Honestly, this formation marching shit just makes me wanna kill myself. It’s not fun at all. It’s the opposite of fun.

CPR: You save this little girl from a monster on the beach but she gets knocked out in the water or something and you have to perform artificial respiration. Actually this old man runs down to the beach and tells you how to do it. Now if he already knows CPR why doesn’t *he* just do it? Does this really seem like an opportune moment to be trying to teach it to some random bystander? I’d report him to EMS for failing to respond. So actually doing CPR is really easy, you just press the “switch” button. Switch button? What the hell is that? Why did they give all of the buttons code names? It doesn’t make it any easier to locate. They might as well have named it the “purple orgasmatron” button. I spent like five minutes mashing every button on the keyboard and cursing at myself for not changing the controls. I finally found it, it was the decimal button.

Dolphin jump: You swim around in the water below some kind of Iron scaffolding. When you think you’re in the right location to make it up, you whistle for the dolphin, (AKA “Mr. Dolphin”), to come and jump you up on top of it. This is literally how it went: *What the hell am I supposed to be aiming at? The I-beam? Is it the I-beam? The dolphin doesn’t even jump high enough. He keeps going under it. How much closer do you want than that? Screw this.* I pretty much got it as soon as I stopped trying and started just repeatedly tapping the button without thought.

Grab the treasure: In this one you’re walking along this roller coaster track trestle. I think it’s actually supposed to be a mine car track because it has a drawbridge and it’s in a rural location but if it is a mine car track then why does the track go up and down so wildly? So as you’re walking, the track will break sometimes and you will fall. When you fall a box comes up that says to use the directional buttons to grab the treasure. There are two treasure bags, one on either side of you. Whether you’re supposed to grab them while falling or while climbing back up, I’m totally clueless because the directional buttons don’t seem to do anything. Needless to say, I didn’t get any treasure.

The Gold Saucer: The Gold Saucer is an entire theme park with several different themed lands. It has dozens of minigames and thank God I was thrown in prison before I could try a single one.

Chocobo Race: You have to win this race if you want to get out of prison. There

are like seven chocobo riders and you have to be the first one to make a lap around the track. Your impromptu and unnecessary racing agent gets you a different chocobo every time you lose. Each one handles a little different. The game itself is OK but the race track is a sickeningly fanciful acid trip. I’m not sure how much skill is actually involved in it either. It seems a lot more dependent on what chocobo you get stuck with. I beat it the third try with an ill-tempered chocobo.

Bastard Chase: I don’t know what to call this one so I used my creative license. This game is pretty simple in objective. You have to catch this midget wizard thing to get his key. There are 14 cave openings that he goes in and out of on the side of a cliff and you basically have to be going in the one that he’s coming out of. It’s not in real time though. You pick a door and then he picks a door. You’re never on the screen at the same time. The instructions for this minigame tell you to memorize the pattern of the openings he goes in and then catch him knowing where he’s going to come out. As far as I could tell, there was either no pattern or it was just a really long pattern. Although I admit I really wasn’t paying attention because I didn’t give a rat’s ass, even though catching him was mandatory. When *I* go through an opening, I come out of another opening at total random. How can *he* have a pattern? I just walked around and went in whatever openings I felt like, again not really paying any attention. Eventually I got bored of that and just went back inside whatever opening I happened to come out of, mostly because all I had to do was press the up arrow. Pretty soon after, I caught him. I’m pretty sure that just going back in every opening you come out of is a lot faster and more thrilling than actually trying to play the game.

Snowboarding: When I first saw the snowboarding screen come up my first reaction was “Whoa! This is gonna kick ass!” Twenty seconds later it was “Oh, never mind. My mistake.” The course is nice and long with jumps and obstacles. But just like the motorcycle game the controls make it suck. This time the directional keys are too unresponsive. You can’t make the turns because it basically wont let you turn. Well actually you have two ways of turning: one for barely turning at all and one for turning wildly out of control. You have to break almost to a stop to avoid hitting the edges of the course. Any time you touch anything, unless you’re breaking, you fall. Some parts have moving obstacles, randomly appearing obstacles, or just so many damn obstacles that falling down several times in a row is inevitable. Getting through without falling would be from luck with not much merit of your own. There are multicolored balloons on the ground and in the air that you can collect and as far as I know they do absolutely nothing. The best thing about this game I guess would be how fast you can go, (albeit for only two seconds before you hit something.) and the fact that you can do a few tricks like a grab and backflip.

Iceberg Hopping: In this game you have to cross some ice water by finding a path over some little icebergs in a matrix formation. For whatever reason each time you move, different ones sink and rise. You never know if the one you step on is going to be underwater after you step on it. It’s just a simple trial and error game but the annoying thing is that you have to do it again coming back. When I came back I expected them to all be in a row but no. Do it again.
Escape The Gas Chamber: Mash the four command buttons until you escape the restraint chair. Rather mindless.

Cat Fight: This is the best minigame ever! All you do is repeatedly press the OK button to slap that bitch Scarlet around. It’s epic! Although it is tarnished a little because I know Tifa can ball a fist and yet she doesn’t. *sigh*

Chocobo Breeding: No thanks.

Drive the Train: You’re supposed to stop this train from getting away. The whole premise of the train getting away is faulty. It’s running on the same track as “Grab the treasure.” Yeah remember… the track that you put a bunch of holes in, making it completely impossible to be used for moving anything? The train wouldn’t make it a quarter mile without crashing into the ravine. Anyway, when you jump on the train and get to the engine you have a time limit and have to pull some levers around…? You know I don’t really know how to explain this one. The instructions it gives you involve pressing two sets of buttons simultaneously and alternating between them or something. I had less than two minutes to do this and they gave me the most horribly incoherent functions to perform. I found the four buttons and just pressed them all a bunch. I guess I did it right because it worked.

Submarine: Son of a Whore! Could the controls be any worse?! This game is actually pretty easy but it’s practically unplayable. You’re supposed to pilot this submarine through a bunch of mines in a canyon and follow/sink another sub. The mines appear and disappear somehow and only hurt you when visible. Why and how would you ever make a disappearing underwater mine that doesn’t work when it’s invisible? While piloting the sub you can accelerate and decelerate. The rest of the time it just seems to go any random speed. You practically have to have a mile of clearance and five minutes to turn around. I realize it’s a sub and it doesn’t turn on a dime but is this really necessary? The ability to go up and down only accomplishes one thing, disorienting you. The graphics look terrible and there are like half a dozen pointless gages and dials blocking your view of the environment.

Bonous Material

How much of a dork do you have to be

to get a kick out of that?

Here's a good out-of-context

one that I thought I should share.