Aliens vs. My Little Pony... One sided yes... But just think of the tie-in toys!

I don’t think it will be possible for me to review a video game poorly. This is not because I give all things related to the medium a free pass but because in order to review a game properly one must play through the game, and playing poor games is quite simply unnecessary in this day and age.

Reviewers cannot be trusted. These writers are corrupted hacks, industry whores who have thoroughly skewed the system with their secret allegiance to a product provider. I should know; I’ve done the deed and cashed the cheques. You know something isn’t right just by looking at the numbers. Sevens, eights, and nines dominate the review space and nothing wrought by human hand achieves such success on a sustained basis. Ours is a species of momentary, accidental greatness.

Reviews when taken as a whole can be used as a metric. Many game sites now collect all the reviews to create an average. This is more helpful but not without knowing how to mine the data. The system is simple and I can spell it out for you briefly. The system assumes the rankings are from 1 to 10.

Six or Less: This game is an unrepentant piece of shit and you should feel no guilt in stealing it or vandalizing copies when in the store. If you are given a six-rated game by a friend then they are no longer to be trusted because this gift constitutes a serious lack of judgment. If a girlfriend or significant other gives you this game you are within your rights to find someone who looks exactly like them, fuck them mercilessly, take pictures of the event, and then hand them over to the girlfriend while thanking them for last night because it was bloody amazing, and I do mean bloody. Your mother will buy you this game.

Seven: This game has glaring flaws and/or lacks innovation but isn’t broken. It is the video game equivalent of channel-surfing and you will play it only to stave off boredom. There is a whole retail industry devoted to seven-rated games and in English we pronounce it RENTALS. It is possible to fall in love with a seven-rated game if the subject matter just happens to intersect with a topic or task that you are intensely interested in. For example, my favourite seven-rated game is “The Suffering: Prison Is Hell.” In this game you can shoot little girls in the head. They’re supposed to be the evil ghosts of little girls but the graphics are spotty and so they just look like little girls… Little girls that you get to shoot… In the head. I borrowed this game from my gamer-wife Mike years ago and I’m not returning it because mooching off my friend enhances the whole illicit experience.

Eight: This is the true passing grade for a video game. Fucked eh? Eight-rated games are the low-water mark not for excellence but mere acceptability. Little Chinese girls must score an eight in gymnastics school or else they are drowned in dark wells of ice-cold water. I wish the video game industry employed similar motivational tactics. Buying an eight-rated game at full price is a necessary evil to feed the industry.

Nine: This is your standard great fucking game. You will play this game right through two times minimum and you may even do it back to back. This is the heady cream on the top of Belgium beer. Radical Islam flourishes in the Middle East because nine-rated games are unknown to their angry and sexually frustrated youth. Wives should not speak or move ungracefully when a nine-rated game is slotted into the machine. The game would often enjoy a sandwich while running and the wife should feel free to make herself useful in that regard.

Ten: This is a nine-rated game that is being reviewed by one of the above mentioned bribe-taking hacks. The review is worth reading because within you will find reams of bullshit laid out in the most glowing of terms. Reading the lies of others does improve your own skills and so you should approach it as an educational endeavour. Ten-rated games are reviewed by the used car salesmen of the video game industry. They operate in a Glen Gary Glen Ross fog of desperation, and their fawning while pathetic, serves to expose the misery that is their celibate lives. Still this is one good fucking game and you should pick it up.

Reviews are however losing even more status than they already have because downloadable content in the form of demos is sweeping the industry. You get to play a slice of the game and form your own opinion. To that end I have currently played four-and-a-half metric shit-tons of garbage game demos and I could review one of them. I will in fact do so in my next post but right now I’m going to throw out the news items that closed off my week.

Iran defiant over US Sanctions

Sanctions Are Meant to Prevent War

Sanctions against Iran are official. Banks and business interests have been targeted, though these measures are seen as mainly symbolic given that the Iranians do little business with the U.S. This is how a run-up to an attack goes though. You get congressmen into a voting pattern so you can go back later on and coerce them to remain consistent.

U.S. considers Kurdish air strikes

The Kurds may wind up face to face with the business end of the 21st century. In order to keep Turkish forces out of Iraq the U.S. is considering the use of air strikes on the independence-seeking guerrillas. Right or wrong mean nothing in the face of air power.

Modern Ideas in the Desert

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is building a more secular university of technology with his own money because he believes the Arab world is falling behind in that regard.

$240 Million from Microsoft for Facebook

I know you kids love the Facebook. Microsoft bought a very small stake in the business for a quarter of a billion bucks. I’m amazed that advertising dollars alone can generate this kind of megalith.

Pit bulls, Miniature Horse and Cancer Boy

Finally I’m going to tell you the saddest story you’ve ever heard. One day a little boy was stricken with brain cancer. Now I’m going to tell you the nicest story you’ve ever heard. The Make-A-Wish-Foundation found the little cancer boy and gave him a miniature horse named Anniversary which made the boy very happy. Now I’m going to tell you the most terrible story you’ve ever heard. Anniversary was ripped to pieces by a pair of pit bulls! Unfortunately there was no picture accompanying this story so instead I put up a picture of the Predalien to be featured in the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator movie because that is probably what those dogs looked like to poor Anniversary as he met his gory doom. In closing I only have one more thing to say. Where is your baby Jesus now, cancer boy? He’s not in your head fixing your dying brain and he wasn’t protecting your teeny-tiny horse, so where is he?

Kids have to learn. That’s what I’m here for.