BruteStomp officially live!

That means this blog is officially dead. Or, at least, it will live on at www.brutestomp.com.

I'll see what I can do about making this link redirect over there. To those who have followed me thus far, again, my humblest thanks. Valete.

Onion: Dorm Fire in NYC

Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire

Coming Soon: BruteStomp.com

It looks as if I'll be moving (that's a preview, not the final product) very soon. Since I graduated, I've spent much of my time working and working on working, so Stomping Grounds--or www.brutestomp.com--will be my online portfolio and new cyber bullhorn. Everything will be final in just a few days or so.

Think About This

When Democrats lose, they're pathetic. When Republicans lose, they're bitter and mean.

-Timothy Noah

Voicemail, You're Not Wanted...

From Farhad Manjoo, of Slate:

The bill of particulars is damning. Unlike your e-mail inbox, voice mail is impossible to skim: If your phone tells you that you've got five new messages, you've got no choice but to listen to at least a bit of each one before you can decide what to do with it. In a user-interface decision that I suspect might violate some subclause of the Geneva Conventions, your voice-mail system insists on making you listen to the same instructional prompts between each message. But wait, is it 9 to archive and 7 to skip, or is that the way the work phone does it? I couldn't tell you, because every voice-mail system seems to have settled on different numbers to activate its main functions. It's an absurdly backward mode of human-computer interaction.

In other words, someone out there with some smarts has realized how much voice mail sucks. The Intern (that lovable goat) will be delighted to hear it.

Elsewhere Interweb

Do not f*ck with Bionic Commando: Rearmed. This is the spiritual mantra of Capcom's re-imagining of their 1988 NES classic. While it isn't quite at Ninja Gaiden levels, death is constant, often, and happens a whole helluvalot in BC:RA.

But every true gamer knows that sheer challenge doesn't make a game. By that standard, Rise of the Robots is an unplayable masterpiece. No, what makes the player return for death after control-flinging death in BC:RA is the fact that it's almost never the game's fault. Moving around the world map may be annoying, but BC:RA's precision, in-level controls are the stuff of gaming legend, on par with Mega Man, Tecmo's already-mentioned signature game franchise and any title by hard-core developer Treasure.

Meanwhile, BC:RA's difficulty also begs for a cultural revival in video games; not the one associated with achievement whoring, the one associated with getting good for good's sake (only slightly different). Around 1/5 of the secrets in BC:RA don't even empower the player; they simply unlock more challenge rooms. Alternately put, this game rewards completion of blisteringly hard game play with more blisteringly hard game play. And bragging rights on Capcom's leaderboards.

When you take these play mechanics--that turn novices into pros over 12 levels--and marry them with retina-seering graphics, Simon Viklund's flawless 8-bit-tronica soundtrack, and a $10 MSRP, you have the gold standard by which all other downloadable content and classic game retreads should be measured.

For these reasons, I believe Bionic Commando:Rearmed to (also) be game of the year.

Garamond

A fine font, I say. I may never use Times again.