It's not an extremely commonly used phrase but sometimes when you throw out a big word people will call them "$5 words." I don't really know the origin of this phrase but, it kind of got the gears turning; what if words really did have a monetary value? Well it would be losing value exponentially. In the same way that light pollution blocks out the stars; word pollution lessens the impact of nearly everything we say or hear. Take for example a love letter; in the olden days that alone could win the heart of a prospective (literate) maiden. You ever try to write someone a love note these days? I've seen two people do it in my grown life and it didn't woo anyone; it was just openly mocked by the recipient and all of her friends on both occasions. Strange thing is we even have many more options available in the ways of getting a message of love to a potential mate: we have email, cell phones, land phones, post mail, MySpace, Facebook, Match.com, Zoosk, eHarmony. Honestly now text messaging your intentions will do you just as good as any of these other options. What the hell are you even going to say anyway? Anything that you think is coming from your heart probably was in some Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy already.
Point is that the English language is only so vast, and now more than ever, it is thinly spread across so many millions of things. Think of how many words you hear, read, and say every single day. If you're like most Americans you probably watch about two hours of TV a day, give or take, think of how many ideas are presented to you. For ten minutes you are watching Jesse Katsopolis try to impress his biker friends while Danny Tanner is trying to fight the feelings for the coworker that replaced his old co anchor who is on maternity leave pregnant with Jesse Katsopolis's child while D.J. Tanner is trying to fit in at school leaving Michelle Tanner to be neglected. Then we are interrupted by an ad showing gangster Boost Mobile is, then we are told how if we don't check our credit score we will end up working at a Red Lobster for the rest of our lives, and then we see an ad for killer super-evolved piranha, and then Flo from Progressive... So in roughly 10 minutes we have been bombarded with so many words, very socially complex scenarios, and emotions we were supposed to have associated with them. After three of these intervals then we completely shift gears when we see Dr. House treat a man for Anthrax only to realize he also has Flesh Eating Bacteria but he got Dysentery from the Anthrax treatment but the Dysentery treatment will make the Flesh Eating Bacteria grow faster... And this is our recreation; add in a highly stressful job with equally stressed out people and then come home to a family trying to cope with their own myriad of problems...
Eventually our eyes become so glazed-over and our mind becomes too overwhelmed that almost nothing can get through. The shame is the people that matter to us most are the ones we see after we are overloaded at the end of the day. But how did this happen? Look back at the turn of the century, before silent films you would only be able to see plays maybe go to a saloon and hear some music and maybe a new book comes your way every couple of months. But these are really the stimulus that even comes from somewhere besides your small social community and they would probably be pretty few and far between. Now-a-days we have movies; often we have a dozen to choose from, and even the least wordy movie probably has at least 100 pages of dialogue. In the past the music was limited to a few records or whatever music the musicians of the community knew; but now you almost don't even meet a person with an iTunes library of less than 1,000 songs. And as for books, there are so many we need a best seller list or an Oprah book club recommendation before we even decide they are worth our while to read. At my last job I remember coming off of a 1 day vacation to over three hundred new emails; and then I realized, in a normal day I look over 300 emails. Obviously, not all were for me specifically but I had to at least look over them. Unless you're really famous and get tons of fan mail, or you are Santa Claus, at what point in history would one person be receiving 300 pieces of mail a day? And advertisements... we are bombarded by them. I think the idea of subliminal advertising is almost absurd; think of how many LIMINAL advertisements we have to ignore on a given day. Even in the room you are sitting in right now turn your head 360 degrees and tell me you don't see at least one thing that is used for advertising, see just how far you have to turn before you see a corporate logo of some kind, if you want to melt your brain count how many words you see on the nearest object to you. I'm holding in my hand a 12 oz. bottle of water (very small bottle) there are 171 words on it and it contains water. I tried to count the words on a bag of Skittles but my head started hurting. And a Blockbuster receipt for two videos totalling $6.48 probably has more words than this entire article. It's word pollution...
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Total Ad-ness: Insurance Commercials
There have been a lot of very strange messages that commercials have now. Some leave me saying, "what the fuck was that about?" while others I just have to wonder why any of these companies would want to give the impressions that they do. Take this first one for example:
Company: State Farm
Message: State Farm will give you stuff that isn't yours and help you abduct people.
The very first thing to notice is from 0:00-0:03; what are they talking about before they are interrupted by the baseball?
I've seen it like a dozen times and it sounds like they are saying, "Snatching stuff takes..." So those guys are sitting around talking about stealing things when 8oz. of karma comes smashing through their window? Thinking about that makes the whole rest of the commercial seem a little darker. So firstly a woman shows up in their house and they immediately force her to make them a sandwich, then they abduct some girl they've been stalking, and it all ends up with something that really blows my mind. They ask for a hot tub and get one; but this is an insurance company. So the reading-between-the-lines message is that, "Hey, so a baseball flew through your window; what is the fun in just getting your window fixed? Think big, tell your agent that you got your hot tub stolen... They're an insurance company, they screw people all the time, they can afford it... And you're the victim here; think of all that anguish you went through in the eighth of a second it took for your insurance agent to set things right... Oh yeah, and tell that bitch you need a sandwich!" So message received loud and clear: misogyny, kidnapping, and insurance fraud are met with beaming approval by your State Farm agent.
Company: State Farm
Message: Who fucking knows?
Here is the other State Farm commercials hosted by this guy... Without mentioning he looks like a creepy bus station drifter; see if you think there is anything strange about this commercial:
If you are wondering why the hell he said, "La Familia" when identifying State Farm customers then we are on the same page. None of the rest of the commercial is in Spanish and it's not like the commercial even panders to Spanish speaking people. And it isn't like 'la familia' is some phrase that you typically say in Spanish instead of English like "Mi casa es su casa." So why even do that, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not one of those people who get bent out of shape when I hear, "Para espanol marque dos" on the phone; but I know people who are. In fact I'd have to say it's more likely to have people not like it because of that; than it is to have people say, "Oh shit, he said 'la familia,' State Farm understands the plight of my people." And they also have tons of Spanish commercials as well so that seems to be a little overkill to put it in the English commercials as well. I'm thinking there is some ill-informed executive at State Farm that says, "Hey look at this huge untapped market of Spanish speaking Americans; hardly any of them have insurance."
Company: Esurance
Message: We will respond to serious inquiry with mockery and annoyance.
Okay so the last one, and this one cuts through me like glass... with rusted nails in it. I'll just warn you, that this is so incredibly unfunny and annoying that you might just want to skip to what I'm talking about:
How do you totally ruin a time-tested dance like the robot... Anyway, I don't understand why when she explains that they can contact the website 24/7 he yells, "ERROR!" Does that mean that the website doesn't do that, or that the website is prone to errors? Their new ad campaign seems to have an undertone of the people getting worked too hard that they become cynical; but is that what you want in an insurance company? That would be fun, you get in a car accident and you realize that luckily your family is okay but your family car is totalled, you've been through a lot and then you call the insurance company and some asshole starts yelling, "ERROR! Does not compute" at you. Insult to injury I think that the people who made this commercial actually thought this was in some way funny. They were probably like, "Dude we should totally say something funny, like they would say in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. How about, 'We aren't really robots','I thought we were.' It's funny because, like, how come he wouldn't know he's not a robot." Terrible...
Company: State Farm
Message: State Farm will give you stuff that isn't yours and help you abduct people.
The very first thing to notice is from 0:00-0:03; what are they talking about before they are interrupted by the baseball?
I've seen it like a dozen times and it sounds like they are saying, "Snatching stuff takes..." So those guys are sitting around talking about stealing things when 8oz. of karma comes smashing through their window? Thinking about that makes the whole rest of the commercial seem a little darker. So firstly a woman shows up in their house and they immediately force her to make them a sandwich, then they abduct some girl they've been stalking, and it all ends up with something that really blows my mind. They ask for a hot tub and get one; but this is an insurance company. So the reading-between-the-lines message is that, "Hey, so a baseball flew through your window; what is the fun in just getting your window fixed? Think big, tell your agent that you got your hot tub stolen... They're an insurance company, they screw people all the time, they can afford it... And you're the victim here; think of all that anguish you went through in the eighth of a second it took for your insurance agent to set things right... Oh yeah, and tell that bitch you need a sandwich!" So message received loud and clear: misogyny, kidnapping, and insurance fraud are met with beaming approval by your State Farm agent.
Company: State Farm
Message: Who fucking knows?
Here is the other State Farm commercials hosted by this guy... Without mentioning he looks like a creepy bus station drifter; see if you think there is anything strange about this commercial:
If you are wondering why the hell he said, "La Familia" when identifying State Farm customers then we are on the same page. None of the rest of the commercial is in Spanish and it's not like the commercial even panders to Spanish speaking people. And it isn't like 'la familia' is some phrase that you typically say in Spanish instead of English like "Mi casa es su casa." So why even do that, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not one of those people who get bent out of shape when I hear, "Para espanol marque dos" on the phone; but I know people who are. In fact I'd have to say it's more likely to have people not like it because of that; than it is to have people say, "Oh shit, he said 'la familia,' State Farm understands the plight of my people." And they also have tons of Spanish commercials as well so that seems to be a little overkill to put it in the English commercials as well. I'm thinking there is some ill-informed executive at State Farm that says, "Hey look at this huge untapped market of Spanish speaking Americans; hardly any of them have insurance."
Company: Esurance
Message: We will respond to serious inquiry with mockery and annoyance.
Okay so the last one, and this one cuts through me like glass... with rusted nails in it. I'll just warn you, that this is so incredibly unfunny and annoying that you might just want to skip to what I'm talking about:
How do you totally ruin a time-tested dance like the robot... Anyway, I don't understand why when she explains that they can contact the website 24/7 he yells, "ERROR!" Does that mean that the website doesn't do that, or that the website is prone to errors? Their new ad campaign seems to have an undertone of the people getting worked too hard that they become cynical; but is that what you want in an insurance company? That would be fun, you get in a car accident and you realize that luckily your family is okay but your family car is totalled, you've been through a lot and then you call the insurance company and some asshole starts yelling, "ERROR! Does not compute" at you. Insult to injury I think that the people who made this commercial actually thought this was in some way funny. They were probably like, "Dude we should totally say something funny, like they would say in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. How about, 'We aren't really robots','I thought we were.' It's funny because, like, how come he wouldn't know he's not a robot." Terrible...
Friday, August 6, 2010
Pearls on Swine
You know what really grinds my gears (ha, see I was an O.G. Family Guy fan); when people who are way fatter than I am, tell me that I need to lose weight. Like seriously, what the fuck? It's a slap in the face for actually liking people for who they are on the inside. Seriously, I've never even had the urge to tell someone they need to lose some weight. The only time I would consider it, is if they were normally smaller and they started gaining weight out of control. But as for me, I actually weigh a little less than I did last year, in fact as long as I can remember I was this size. I've tried walking 2 and 1/2 miles to work and also reducing my meal sizes to 5 meals the size of my fist like they say. After about 3 months I only had one person who didn't know I was doing that ever even remark about it. As for looking better to girls, didn't even help slightly, in fact being my normal size seems to work about the best; and my normal size is 220-230 range. My class reunion is at the end of the month, and for those of you who don't already know, I'm helping plan it. But honestly I could lose 30 pounds and it wouldn't mean a damn thing. I've already thought about it, you see here are my obvious character defects that will definitely come to light in the beginning stages of small talk: I started going bald at 25, I'm 5'7", I'm a borderline alcoholic, I have gout at 28, my normal weight is 230 lbs, I have been unable to find a job in over a year and half, I live with my parents, the sum of my total assets is in the $1,000 range, I've dismally failed at everything I've even tried in the past 5 years, I have a rotten personality, and I lack confidence. I can't even fix most of those bad ones; so plucking the weight problem out of there is like taking a shit on the floor and saying, "It will be okay as soon as I get the corn out of there." At this point I've given up on my love life and it's completely unsalvageable. So if I can't get any chicks; what the fuck is the point in worrying about it right now?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Down on Williams Street
For those of you who don't know who Williams Street is; they are the main production company on the Adult Swim (late night on Cartoon Network) line-up. I mentioned before that I like watching it, especially when I'm doing my brutal accounting homework. In it's hay day Adult Swim was legendary; it was a whole night of very interesting shows. Anytime I was lucky enough to have the day off, I would celebrate by watching Adult Swim until my eyes literally couldn't stay open. But I went for a long time without watching TV and sort of lost track of the line-up. After reconnecting due to brain-searing amounts of late night homework; I realized that Williams Street is in sort of disrepair. It's kind of like that feeling you get when your best friend gets married and you are just kind of left in the dust. You can hang out with them but they are just not as cool and fun as they used to be. I want to say, "Hey Adult Swim, remember that time when you put that billboard of the Moonanite up in Boston and they thought it was a bomb and you got arrested... Good times, but seriously what the fuck happened to you, man?" I am barely even exaggerating, Williams Street made you feel like a friend; shit they even played little pranks on you. For instance on one of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs they have an option to "Play All" and then it plays every episode simultaneously on a grid. It leaves you saying, "You fuckers," but you know like you would to a friend.
But now they feel like they are growing up or something having a huge line-up of live action shows. The best one they have is Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! which is hit or miss, and I'd have to say more miss than hit. It's avant garde nonsequitur humor to a nauseating level. Seriously, I've gotten multiple headaches and had to lay down because of watching one of their shows for too long; which is strange because the episodes are only 15 minutes long. Then they have The Mighty Boosh which by saying it's not the worst thing on television would be extremely generous... like dedicating a building to someone because of a generous donation generous. I don't think Williams Street has anything to do with this one, I think it's some BBC show, but they sure as shit bought that show for reasons I'll never know. If you think Tim and Eric is hard to sit through, watching this would be an act of heroism. So after sharing half a good show between the two of them; it blows my mind that they think people would want more shows like this. Their newest show is called Childrens Hospital which seems to ooze bad taste to make a show about a children's hospital; but can you even say it's bad taste if there is almost no way you could think it's funny? I mean, I can't even tell if that's supposed to be the joke, like it's a joke about comedy shows that would be in such poor taste as to make fun of a children's hospital. I can't even tell, because it's not like the jokes just don't hit, and it's some problem with delivery and they can fix it by tweaking it a little; I don't even see where they were going, why anyone would ever think any of that was funny. Marking the recent success of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell; every boom mic operator that worked on The Daily Show gets a blank check for whatever ill-advised show they want to make. This show stars Rob Corddry (I know he can be funny, I've seen a bunch of shorts that he made on the internet) but I can't tell if he was so excited to have his show that he tried too hard or if he went too far out on a limb and decided he'd get the show canceled so he could be free of a contract or something. I find it almost impossible to believe that he actually thinks this show is gold or has any sort of promise. I will say there are so many hospital shows it's about time they are parodied... or is it? They have made very good hospital dramadies like Scrubs that can be funny as well as letting you connect with the characters producing very emotional moments. Sad thing is, Scrubs is a million times better, and doesn't have nearly the star power this show has. Seriously it has Rob Corddry, Henry Winkler, Michael Cerra, and Ed Helms; I'd watch any show with them in it, except Childrens Hospital. The female cast is atrocious and they tend to get the most screen time, especially in the first season. Except maybe for Tina Fey, they are the most unattractive and unfunny women on any comedy show that I can think of. They seem like they don't even want to be there, with such an male dominated viewing audience, you'd think pretty much any semi-attractive semi-funny girl with as much face-time as they get would kill to be there. Just to make sure I've got all the current ones, I think I need to mention Delocated, far and away the worst show of all of them. The plot is about a guy in the witness relocation program pursued by a stand-up comic hitman... Did I piece that together from watching the show? God NO! You think I'm crazy, I got that from watching a trailer for it. Watching 5 minutes of that show will give you inoperable brain cancer. But if you think that a guy in a ski mask with one of those anonymity voice filters over his voice isn't a stale premise, you may like it... Ha, just kidding, nobody could ever think that show was entertaining.
But now they feel like they are growing up or something having a huge line-up of live action shows. The best one they have is Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! which is hit or miss, and I'd have to say more miss than hit. It's avant garde nonsequitur humor to a nauseating level. Seriously, I've gotten multiple headaches and had to lay down because of watching one of their shows for too long; which is strange because the episodes are only 15 minutes long. Then they have The Mighty Boosh which by saying it's not the worst thing on television would be extremely generous... like dedicating a building to someone because of a generous donation generous. I don't think Williams Street has anything to do with this one, I think it's some BBC show, but they sure as shit bought that show for reasons I'll never know. If you think Tim and Eric is hard to sit through, watching this would be an act of heroism. So after sharing half a good show between the two of them; it blows my mind that they think people would want more shows like this. Their newest show is called Childrens Hospital which seems to ooze bad taste to make a show about a children's hospital; but can you even say it's bad taste if there is almost no way you could think it's funny? I mean, I can't even tell if that's supposed to be the joke, like it's a joke about comedy shows that would be in such poor taste as to make fun of a children's hospital. I can't even tell, because it's not like the jokes just don't hit, and it's some problem with delivery and they can fix it by tweaking it a little; I don't even see where they were going, why anyone would ever think any of that was funny. Marking the recent success of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell; every boom mic operator that worked on The Daily Show gets a blank check for whatever ill-advised show they want to make. This show stars Rob Corddry (I know he can be funny, I've seen a bunch of shorts that he made on the internet) but I can't tell if he was so excited to have his show that he tried too hard or if he went too far out on a limb and decided he'd get the show canceled so he could be free of a contract or something. I find it almost impossible to believe that he actually thinks this show is gold or has any sort of promise. I will say there are so many hospital shows it's about time they are parodied... or is it? They have made very good hospital dramadies like Scrubs that can be funny as well as letting you connect with the characters producing very emotional moments. Sad thing is, Scrubs is a million times better, and doesn't have nearly the star power this show has. Seriously it has Rob Corddry, Henry Winkler, Michael Cerra, and Ed Helms; I'd watch any show with them in it, except Childrens Hospital. The female cast is atrocious and they tend to get the most screen time, especially in the first season. Except maybe for Tina Fey, they are the most unattractive and unfunny women on any comedy show that I can think of. They seem like they don't even want to be there, with such an male dominated viewing audience, you'd think pretty much any semi-attractive semi-funny girl with as much face-time as they get would kill to be there. Just to make sure I've got all the current ones, I think I need to mention Delocated, far and away the worst show of all of them. The plot is about a guy in the witness relocation program pursued by a stand-up comic hitman... Did I piece that together from watching the show? God NO! You think I'm crazy, I got that from watching a trailer for it. Watching 5 minutes of that show will give you inoperable brain cancer. But if you think that a guy in a ski mask with one of those anonymity voice filters over his voice isn't a stale premise, you may like it... Ha, just kidding, nobody could ever think that show was entertaining.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
If Seth MacFarlane was an Ice Cream Cone Flavor He'd Be Pralines and Dick!
I was watching Adult Swim last night as I often do when I'm doing homework late at night and I watched a line-up that was made by a viewer and really enjoyed it. But then I saw a bumper they made that said something like, "Great first try, but ratings were a little low, next time try this," and then showed a line-up made entirely of Family Guy. Well even if Cartoon Network won't say it, I'm fucking proud that someone had the guts to not put Family Guy or American Dad on, if only for a night. I know how huge Family Guy's fan base is and I used to be among those ranks; I saw the pilot short on the What a Cartoon Show and I knew it was going to be a hit. Then 4 or 5 years later Family Guy went on the air, and I loved it. Fox later canceled it and then brought it back a few years later... It kind of reminds me of Full Metal Alchemist when they try to bring their mother back from the grave, but she's been dead way too long and so she's totally evil... The show was now solely about shock value, which wears kind of thin after a while. Even South Park realized that they need to have some substance in addition to shock value humor. But look at the score card, South Park went from shock value humor to thought provoking writing; Simpsons started out with great writing but have now sacrificed it for shock value and cheap laughs. South Park is still fresh (if they ever decide to make new episodes) and Simpsons are sort-of on their way out. I mean look at some classic Simpsons episodes like when Bart sells his soul; there is some genuine emotion there. But the last 5 or more seasons haven't produced anything like that. First couple seasons of Family Guy, same thing, they will never make another classic like Road to Rhode Island.
But even loyal fans who still love Seth MacFarlane need to realize the love isn't reciprocated; Seth MacFarlane hates you... Picture Seth MacFarlane in a giant Scrooge MacDuck money bin, swimming in money saying, "How stupid do I think American TV viewers are? I think I can sell them the same show 2... no 3 times and people would still watch it... Hell I'll even take the worst character from one show and make his own spin-off! Shit, I bet I could even have all three run in a prime-time slot on a huge network channel. And it will only make me RICHER!" College Humor nailed it with this video: Seth MacFarlane's Secret. I think even if MacFarlane saw that video he'd say, "That zutalor cat was amazing, call Fox and tell them daddy needs another time slot for his new show." And the whole generic family dynamic thing, that is totally ripped off of the Simpsons; I think they really had the perfect family dynamic going. If you want to have something about babies, you have Maggie; something about a mischievous boy you have Bart. And if you need an eccentric character for a joke that doesn't meet the specification of the principal cast, it's a cartoon, just make a new one. I think this is why no other sitcom had the versatility of The Simpsons. It's not like they didn't notice they got ripped off either, they even called them out a few times. But The Simpsons weren't the first and wouldn't be the last to call Family Guy out. The first to call them out was one of the people from Clerks: The Animated Series; but this is easily dismissed at just sour grapes, they turned down a very generous offer from UPN for a show on network TV that competed with the Simpsons/Family Guy, power hour. Well if they were on UPN they probably would be a little more lenient in what are acceptable ratings, so really it's their own fault; besides, it's hard to feel sorry for Kevin Smith, the only person I know with a greater contempt for the audience than MacFarlane. But then Trey Parker and Matt Stone (from South Park) finally called them out for their "cut-aways" where they just say, "This is like the time when..." and throw in some bit that they couldn't figure out how to work into the show. This is fine once in a while, but shit now it's like the whole show now. Instead of having some point to it, they now just use it to pad their incredibly thin main plot lines. Insult to injury, I can't remember a recent episode that didn't have "filler" (i.e. Peter falls down and holds his knee for like two minutes) very funny the first time I saw it, but they have one of these every episode now. Seriously, let me get this straight, you can't make 22 minutes of a story but you need 2 more shows?
But that still isn't enough, you made a DVD release called Cartoon Cavilcade of Comedy yeah I don't know if I spelled it right, and I don't care. I saw the previews for this show and I have one word... brilliant... That bit about the princess kissing the frog, and then he tells her it will only work if she kisses his dick, and then he says he's not a prince after she already kissed his dick... Give that man the Emmy, nay, give that man an Oscar! Seriously, where did you come up with that brilliant sketch? The only crime is I can't buy a million copies and watch it on a million TVs. And then he has this production he did called, Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein at Carnegie Hall. First question: How much fucking money do you need Mr. MacFarlane? Oh, it's for a good cause? The Writer's Guild? Wow, somehow that makes you seem like even more of a douche bag. But it's nice to see you appreciate how hard it must be to write your own stuff instead of taking your ideas from The Simpsons and Robot Chicken. Second question: you don't... like... masturbate to the sound of your own cartoon voices... right? I mean it seems kind of strange that you would even think that you are worthy of playing Carnegie Hall; that your voice is so golden that people would pay to see you do cartoon voices on a stage? I mean, I never saw it, but what the fuck else could it be? It's Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein, who has created such memorable characters as: Ms. Swan from MadTV, and Lois Griffin from Family Guy... and Ms. Swan from MadTV. Wait... what's that noise; I think it's everyone who practiced their entire lives for one chance to perform at Carnegie Hall but died before they realized that dream simultaneously rolled over in their graves. So in speaking of two unfortunate looking people with very limited imaginations sharing the stage; be sure to check out me and James Belushi when we play to a sold out Shea Stadium later this month.
Okay so I know I haven't been very nice, but Mr. MacFarlane, can you do me a huge favor and kill off Brian... soon. In the worst cartoon character hierarchy it goes Peggy Hill, Lisa Simpson, Brian Griffin, and then in a distant fourth Scrappy Doo. Favorite Family Guy moment of all time, when Stewie beats the fuck out of Brian for not paying his gambling debt... I could watch that over and over. The sad thing is that he's the only character you bother to develop. He's way too preachy; you're ultra-liberal, you smoke pot and you're an atheist, we get it. But guess what, it's a fucking cartoon dog, you can have a million episodes about those things (and believe me there is at least two episodes devoted solely to each) but you won't reach anyone. That's why people watch cartoons, because they aren't trying to cram some message down your throat. You watch cartoons when you are sick of the real world and just want to laugh about it. And seriously if there is one more episode about Brian professing his love to Lois; I will never watch the show again. And don't think I don't realize that Brian is supposed to be you, Seth MacFarlane, it's not like I don't see where that is coming from. You don't even change your voice when you play him, come on now. But now that you have literally sold out to every sort of medium out there; you really can't find a different way to express yourself than through a cartoon dog? Okay... I will settle for you killing of the baby on the Cleveland Show but it's going to have to be like the most violent death I've ever seen.
But even loyal fans who still love Seth MacFarlane need to realize the love isn't reciprocated; Seth MacFarlane hates you... Picture Seth MacFarlane in a giant Scrooge MacDuck money bin, swimming in money saying, "How stupid do I think American TV viewers are? I think I can sell them the same show 2... no 3 times and people would still watch it... Hell I'll even take the worst character from one show and make his own spin-off! Shit, I bet I could even have all three run in a prime-time slot on a huge network channel. And it will only make me RICHER!" College Humor nailed it with this video: Seth MacFarlane's Secret. I think even if MacFarlane saw that video he'd say, "That zutalor cat was amazing, call Fox and tell them daddy needs another time slot for his new show." And the whole generic family dynamic thing, that is totally ripped off of the Simpsons; I think they really had the perfect family dynamic going. If you want to have something about babies, you have Maggie; something about a mischievous boy you have Bart. And if you need an eccentric character for a joke that doesn't meet the specification of the principal cast, it's a cartoon, just make a new one. I think this is why no other sitcom had the versatility of The Simpsons. It's not like they didn't notice they got ripped off either, they even called them out a few times. But The Simpsons weren't the first and wouldn't be the last to call Family Guy out. The first to call them out was one of the people from Clerks: The Animated Series; but this is easily dismissed at just sour grapes, they turned down a very generous offer from UPN for a show on network TV that competed with the Simpsons/Family Guy, power hour. Well if they were on UPN they probably would be a little more lenient in what are acceptable ratings, so really it's their own fault; besides, it's hard to feel sorry for Kevin Smith, the only person I know with a greater contempt for the audience than MacFarlane. But then Trey Parker and Matt Stone (from South Park) finally called them out for their "cut-aways" where they just say, "This is like the time when..." and throw in some bit that they couldn't figure out how to work into the show. This is fine once in a while, but shit now it's like the whole show now. Instead of having some point to it, they now just use it to pad their incredibly thin main plot lines. Insult to injury, I can't remember a recent episode that didn't have "filler" (i.e. Peter falls down and holds his knee for like two minutes) very funny the first time I saw it, but they have one of these every episode now. Seriously, let me get this straight, you can't make 22 minutes of a story but you need 2 more shows?
But that still isn't enough, you made a DVD release called Cartoon Cavilcade of Comedy yeah I don't know if I spelled it right, and I don't care. I saw the previews for this show and I have one word... brilliant... That bit about the princess kissing the frog, and then he tells her it will only work if she kisses his dick, and then he says he's not a prince after she already kissed his dick... Give that man the Emmy, nay, give that man an Oscar! Seriously, where did you come up with that brilliant sketch? The only crime is I can't buy a million copies and watch it on a million TVs. And then he has this production he did called, Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein at Carnegie Hall. First question: How much fucking money do you need Mr. MacFarlane? Oh, it's for a good cause? The Writer's Guild? Wow, somehow that makes you seem like even more of a douche bag. But it's nice to see you appreciate how hard it must be to write your own stuff instead of taking your ideas from The Simpsons and Robot Chicken. Second question: you don't... like... masturbate to the sound of your own cartoon voices... right? I mean it seems kind of strange that you would even think that you are worthy of playing Carnegie Hall; that your voice is so golden that people would pay to see you do cartoon voices on a stage? I mean, I never saw it, but what the fuck else could it be? It's Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein, who has created such memorable characters as: Ms. Swan from MadTV, and Lois Griffin from Family Guy... and Ms. Swan from MadTV. Wait... what's that noise; I think it's everyone who practiced their entire lives for one chance to perform at Carnegie Hall but died before they realized that dream simultaneously rolled over in their graves. So in speaking of two unfortunate looking people with very limited imaginations sharing the stage; be sure to check out me and James Belushi when we play to a sold out Shea Stadium later this month.
Okay so I know I haven't been very nice, but Mr. MacFarlane, can you do me a huge favor and kill off Brian... soon. In the worst cartoon character hierarchy it goes Peggy Hill, Lisa Simpson, Brian Griffin, and then in a distant fourth Scrappy Doo. Favorite Family Guy moment of all time, when Stewie beats the fuck out of Brian for not paying his gambling debt... I could watch that over and over. The sad thing is that he's the only character you bother to develop. He's way too preachy; you're ultra-liberal, you smoke pot and you're an atheist, we get it. But guess what, it's a fucking cartoon dog, you can have a million episodes about those things (and believe me there is at least two episodes devoted solely to each) but you won't reach anyone. That's why people watch cartoons, because they aren't trying to cram some message down your throat. You watch cartoons when you are sick of the real world and just want to laugh about it. And seriously if there is one more episode about Brian professing his love to Lois; I will never watch the show again. And don't think I don't realize that Brian is supposed to be you, Seth MacFarlane, it's not like I don't see where that is coming from. You don't even change your voice when you play him, come on now. But now that you have literally sold out to every sort of medium out there; you really can't find a different way to express yourself than through a cartoon dog? Okay... I will settle for you killing of the baby on the Cleveland Show but it's going to have to be like the most violent death I've ever seen.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Top 10 Videogame Levels that Will Make You Throw Your Controller
Again let me reiterate that these ones about videogames probably aren't for everybody. I check the numbers and the readers for these ones are about half of what they are for the others. Honestly I really don't know who reads this; I know about 5 or 6 people who tell me they read them; but other than that I couldn't venture to guess. Also publishing them on the weekend sort of drops the numbers as well; so I guess no better time like the present to do this one. After all, I don't want to break my "write every day" mantra this early, so without further ado...
A couple of my favorite blogs are Cracked Magazine because of their awesome lists, and Angry Video Game Nerd because it's awesome to see someone get pissed off at videogames. So in an homage to those I am going to put together this blog. I have a feeling that there is a special place in hell for game developers who have a normal difficulty slope, then with no warning at all the crank the difficulty up to 11. In most of the cases below, you're just playing with a hard part here and a hard part there, then all of a sudden there is this part that makes you want to scream and throw the controller at the nearest expensive breakable object. Sad thing is that once you past most of these parts you realize the rest of the game is ridiculously easy.
#10 New Super Mario Bros.: World 3
Ice levels suck no matter which Nintendo game you are playing, that's one of the few things I'm glad died off with the regular NES. But then they came out with the Wii and put a whole world of stupid ice levels; which are the only things worse than underwater levels in the gaming hierarchy. Now I've watched most people play this level and I wondered why it was such a challenge; but it wasn't until I started watching their hands that I realized what actually makes these things challenging. Nearly everyone playing on an ice level jerks the controller when their character skids where they don't want them to go. This becomes an even bigger problem when you use a controller that responds to your movement. Nintendo did try to level the playing field with a "penguin suit" which is great if you can't wait the necessary 30 seconds it takes to die on these levels. I'm not sure what they were going for with it but the purpose it serves is to make you slide on your belly into the nearest pit completely effortlessly.
#9 Diablo II
: Duriel
Likely Diablo fans will disagree with me, but just think back to the very first time you played against this guy. He's got a million gagillion health, you can't leave, he hits like a truck, and on top of all this he damages your with freeze and slows your attacks down. If you use a melee weapon you get maybe 2 hits on him before you die; if you use a pet he's dead somehow before you even go into Duriel's room. He's the end boss of the second act, so if it's your first play-through you probably don't have anything amazing to take him down with. If you ask me, he's the hardest boss aside from Diablo, but he's the end boss so you kind of expect that.
#8 Marvel vs. Capcom: Onslaught
You're tired, you have fought your way through the masses of Marvel and Capcom characters. Finally took that cheap bitch War Machine down a peg. Now just have to beat Onslaught and then you can see the ending and go to bed. For those of you less nerdy than me, Onslaught is Magneto and Professor X from the X-Men combined (I forgot how it happened). His first form, really hard but sill in human form. In this picture you can see his second form; no that's not the background that's the guy you're fighting. His second form is not quite as hard really but whoever gets the last hit on this guy, is the one you get to see the ending for. So what if you want to see it with, let's say Venom, who doesn't have any great attacks that go to the very top corner of the screen. So you have to jump-punch, jump-punch, jump-punch until you finally kill him.
#7 Monster Hunter Freedom 2: Tigrex
I wrote a whole blog on this game earlier so of course I had to include him on this. The main problem with that game is that it's sofa king hard it's difficult to nail down a specific hard part. This guy was the biggest bottleneck in gameplay for me. As I estimated before, I'm thinking 60 hours just devoted to training to beat this monster. He isn't supposed to be the hardest, in fact he's just kind of the midway checkpoint guy. He is, however the "flagship monster" of the game so they want him to be tough but I think they went a tad overboard. See the "Hardest.Game.Ever" post for more details.
#6 Record of Lodoss War: Wagnard
You remember on the Dreamcast... What, you don't remember the Dreamcast? Okay well remember that show called Record of Lodoss War? Oh okay so you aren't as huge of a nerd as me. Well back in the olden days there wasn't a Lord of The Rings trilogy; if you wanted something that was basically the same and yet totally different you would watch Record of Lodoss War. Well there was even a game out for Dreamcast, but it was kind of strange. Basica
lly it was a rip-off of Diablo but as with RoLW and LotR there were almost more things different than things in common. You couldn't just play Diablo and then assume you knew how to play RoLW. There was this really strange armor system that made it so you melt down all equipment in the field for mythril to improve your early game equipment. It's one of the few RPG's where you get the lion's share of the equipment at the very beginning. So already strange you think the main character, Wart, would be giving you legit advice. But he says not to stray from the path, in the beginning you will see how bad you get owned wandering off it and just kind of assume you aren't supposed to do it. But if you don't venture off you won't be able to do any subquests and there are like 50 of them. The worst part is, you really don't need to do them up until the 2nd to the last boss of the the game. Even the room before this guy is easy and then BAM! you walk in the room, hear him say "Cardis" and you're dead. Then you realize you need to do 50 some-odd dungeons to get the equipment to kill him.
#5 Final Fantasy X: Dodge 200 Lightning Bolts
This is the first one that you technically don't have to ever do to progress to the end of the game. But since it's Final Fantasy you practically won't be satisfied to fight the end boss until you have all the best equipment and bend the end boss over like in Deliverance. So I consider this required... Anyway, in the FF universe there are so many bogus secrets that people make up (like the silver chocobo that sinks in the marsh in FFVII) I at first thought this was a joke. Dodge 200 lightning bolts... that come from the sky... that you don't know when they are going to happen... These lightning bolts come out on the Thunder Plains, you see a brief flash of light, and then you need to press a button to dodge them. You can't see anywhere how many you
have dodged, you just keep doing it until whatever happens (I don't know what happens honestly, my record is in the 6 range). They come down once every 3-7 seconds so it takes a long time as well. Seriously; do you even have the patience to count to 200? I don't, another thing is that your eyes almost start to bleed waiting for a flash every couple seconds... so the best internet advice is to just sit there like a tweaker with the lights off staring at the screen for 30 minutes. Also of course this is 200 in a row... so getting in the 180 range and slightly fucking up... I don't even want to think about it.
#4 Mega Man 9: Tornado Man
Wow, trying to find an image of Tornado Man's level is hard; but if I was trying to find a fan pic of Splash Woman giving Mega Man a BJ I would be able to make a whole gallery of them. Since I can't find a pic of the level you just have to take my word for it. You start off at this part where you have these little platforms that spin around while spinning you around at the same time; jump at the wrong time and you are jumping down at the pit. Well there are things like this scattered through the Mega Man (Rock Man in Japan) franchise. But this one goes on ridiculously long, so if you're like me you scrape by with maybe one life left if you even pass it. But the rest of the level is just as hard, there is some sweet fucking ice block parts, yeah you know like the sweet ones in the New Mario Bros... yeah they brought it back for this one, and then there is the one where the rain makes you jump too far and then the rain makes it so you can't jump far enough and then the fucking umbrellas come down slow as shit so you have to wait for them because you already died like 20 fucking times from thinking you can pass them just a little before but you jump so fucking high now that you run right into them, and then you're finally at Tornado Man with like two dots of health and so you throw the fucking kitchen sink at him because you're so stressed out and you don't want to have to go all the way back to the stupid platforms again... ARRRGGHHH! Then it's Hornet Man and he has a bullshit hard level too. Insult to injury; take a look at the achievements for this game. They are like, "Beat the game without dieing", "Beat all bosses with M Buster", "Beat a level without firing a single shot", "Beat the game in 5 minutes," "Beat the game while drawing pornographic pictures of Splash Woman"; who the fuck can beat this game with enough style and flair that they need these challenges. It took me weeks to beat Tornado Man...
#3 Final Fantasy XIII: Barthandelus
"Alright so I can finally pick my own team? After 60 hours or so into this, I finally get to do my own thing... that's awesome! And here is the first boss... Oh shit I died after duking it out with him for a half hour. Well at least now I know the strategy kill all the little faces and then fight the big one... Oh I made it 40 minutes before he killed me. The big face is really strong when I kill the little faces how about I leave one face up and hack away at the big face... well this is going to take 2 years this way. I think I'll play a little Bioshock now." This guy is a pain in the ass; he increases his power exponentially the longer you fight him. If you fight recklessly he has too much health and hits too hard to do a fight that way. If you fight cautiously he will just keep increasing his power and will flatten your tanks long before you kill him. I can see a 30 minute boss that you need to use strategy for; but no strategies work... and I mean not even close.
#2 Sega GT
This game was free with my XBox at the time I got it but it is the king of bad difficulty spikes. Either the license tests are too hard, or more likely, once you've passed the license test you have harder races but no easy races to try again ever... Unless you were the extremely savvy consumer you won't have the greatest cars ever but that's just tough shit, because if you don't, you'll never be able to get them. This could have all been fixed if you could just race lower ranked tracks but for less money. But if you're like me, you didn't know there is only one car that could ever win against the slightly higher ranked cars. Granted you can get money for losing races but that would be like saving for a Maserati with your paper route.
#1 Final Fantasy Tactics: Wiegraf and Velius/Belias
This has to be my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics, it has gotten to the point that I literally have memorized the approximate odds of each attack connecting etc. And even knowing mathematically the odds for everything in this game, there is one challenge that every time I play it, I'm convinced, that victories are pure luck. There are hard levels in this for sure; Dorter Slums and Golerand Execution Site but these pale in comparison to the battle with Wiegraf at the middle of the game. Now typically in this game you have 5 characters to play with and maybe an extra "guest" (uncontrollable character). But for this level you have only the main character, Ramza, to control. Now I've tried this in nearly every combination of actually feasible characters and I'm rarely even able to beat him in this stage. Fact is, Wiegraf hits for about 112 and even more when he crits. Every possible combination of armor lends me in the high 200's at best. So if you are lucky you can survive 3 hits (as I said if he doesn't ever crit). You, on the other hand, hit for about 60-90 and he has in the low 300's of health and on top of that, he's a knight with a shield so 60-70% chance of hitting him is actually good... oh yeah and he can also "Counter" so hit or miss he gets a free chance to hit you again. So he has a 100% chance of killing you in 3 turns; while you have a 65% chance of killing him in 5 turns unless you somehow crit the fuck out of him... Did anyone even bother to run the numbers on that fight before they released it? So what is even worse is, you're stuck inside a castle and so you can't leave and level up to get a skill that might be helpful. You just have to make do or reset the whole damn game. There are really 2 or 3 strategies that work against him; both involve doing some borderline cheating moves like using "yell" (tailwind in the new version of the game for PSP). Then you beat him, big whoop... the next half of the fight is even harder. That's right, a mathematically impossible fight is still the easy part of this fight. Well once you get his health down low enough you can bring 4 of your friends. But then he gets to bring in 3 of his friends called "Archaic Demons" basically some of the baddest monster in the whole fucking game. All but 1 of the cheater strategies will have Ramza on the verge of death; but Wiegraf turns into Velius (Belias in the new version) and is cured fully and gets over 6x his normal health. And then let's look at his attacks, Clops (Cyclops) has massive range and will kill anyone who isn't wearing the best armor (Knights or Holy Knights) so basically heals and casters are dead first turn. Ramza is dead if there is a chill to the air. So you 9/10 times have one character (Agrias) in charge of doing 1600 damage... but she's going to die in the next turn because the Archaic Demons do "Dark Holy" which will kill most anyone especially if they just got hit by Clops. Top that off with Velius who can do 100% confuse (that character is out) and the Archaic Demons can also do "Giga Flare" and do 70 damage or so without charging which is a nice follow up to any of these other attacks that didn't quite kill you to begin with. But if you do end up beating him, you will cry tears of anger when you see how easy the rest of the game is.
A couple of my favorite blogs are Cracked Magazine because of their awesome lists, and Angry Video Game Nerd because it's awesome to see someone get pissed off at videogames. So in an homage to those I am going to put together this blog. I have a feeling that there is a special place in hell for game developers who have a normal difficulty slope, then with no warning at all the crank the difficulty up to 11. In most of the cases below, you're just playing with a hard part here and a hard part there, then all of a sudden there is this part that makes you want to scream and throw the controller at the nearest expensive breakable object. Sad thing is that once you past most of these parts you realize the rest of the game is ridiculously easy.
#10 New Super Mario Bros.: World 3
Ice levels suck no matter which Nintendo game you are playing, that's one of the few things I'm glad died off with the regular NES. But then they came out with the Wii and put a whole world of stupid ice levels; which are the only things worse than underwater levels in the gaming hierarchy. Now I've watched most people play this level and I wondered why it was such a challenge; but it wasn't until I started watching their hands that I realized what actually makes these things challenging. Nearly everyone playing on an ice level jerks the controller when their character skids where they don't want them to go. This becomes an even bigger problem when you use a controller that responds to your movement. Nintendo did try to level the playing field with a "penguin suit" which is great if you can't wait the necessary 30 seconds it takes to die on these levels. I'm not sure what they were going for with it but the purpose it serves is to make you slide on your belly into the nearest pit completely effortlessly.
#9 Diablo II
: DurielLikely Diablo fans will disagree with me, but just think back to the very first time you played against this guy. He's got a million gagillion health, you can't leave, he hits like a truck, and on top of all this he damages your with freeze and slows your attacks down. If you use a melee weapon you get maybe 2 hits on him before you die; if you use a pet he's dead somehow before you even go into Duriel's room. He's the end boss of the second act, so if it's your first play-through you probably don't have anything amazing to take him down with. If you ask me, he's the hardest boss aside from Diablo, but he's the end boss so you kind of expect that.
#8 Marvel vs. Capcom: Onslaught
You're tired, you have fought your way through the masses of Marvel and Capcom characters. Finally took that cheap bitch War Machine down a peg. Now just have to beat Onslaught and then you can see the ending and go to bed. For those of you less nerdy than me, Onslaught is Magneto and Professor X from the X-Men combined (I forgot how it happened). His first form, really hard but sill in human form. In this picture you can see his second form; no that's not the background that's the guy you're fighting. His second form is not quite as hard really but whoever gets the last hit on this guy, is the one you get to see the ending for. So what if you want to see it with, let's say Venom, who doesn't have any great attacks that go to the very top corner of the screen. So you have to jump-punch, jump-punch, jump-punch until you finally kill him.#7 Monster Hunter Freedom 2: Tigrex
I wrote a whole blog on this game earlier so of course I had to include him on this. The main problem with that game is that it's sofa king hard it's difficult to nail down a specific hard part. This guy was the biggest bottleneck in gameplay for me. As I estimated before, I'm thinking 60 hours just devoted to training to beat this monster. He isn't supposed to be the hardest, in fact he's just kind of the midway checkpoint guy. He is, however the "flagship monster" of the game so they want him to be tough but I think they went a tad overboard. See the "Hardest.Game.Ever" post for more details.
#6 Record of Lodoss War: WagnardYou remember on the Dreamcast... What, you don't remember the Dreamcast? Okay well remember that show called Record of Lodoss War? Oh okay so you aren't as huge of a nerd as me. Well back in the olden days there wasn't a Lord of The Rings trilogy; if you wanted something that was basically the same and yet totally different you would watch Record of Lodoss War. Well there was even a game out for Dreamcast, but it was kind of strange. Basica
lly it was a rip-off of Diablo but as with RoLW and LotR there were almost more things different than things in common. You couldn't just play Diablo and then assume you knew how to play RoLW. There was this really strange armor system that made it so you melt down all equipment in the field for mythril to improve your early game equipment. It's one of the few RPG's where you get the lion's share of the equipment at the very beginning. So already strange you think the main character, Wart, would be giving you legit advice. But he says not to stray from the path, in the beginning you will see how bad you get owned wandering off it and just kind of assume you aren't supposed to do it. But if you don't venture off you won't be able to do any subquests and there are like 50 of them. The worst part is, you really don't need to do them up until the 2nd to the last boss of the the game. Even the room before this guy is easy and then BAM! you walk in the room, hear him say "Cardis" and you're dead. Then you realize you need to do 50 some-odd dungeons to get the equipment to kill him.#5 Final Fantasy X: Dodge 200 Lightning Bolts
This is the first one that you technically don't have to ever do to progress to the end of the game. But since it's Final Fantasy you practically won't be satisfied to fight the end boss until you have all the best equipment and bend the end boss over like in Deliverance. So I consider this required... Anyway, in the FF universe there are so many bogus secrets that people make up (like the silver chocobo that sinks in the marsh in FFVII) I at first thought this was a joke. Dodge 200 lightning bolts... that come from the sky... that you don't know when they are going to happen... These lightning bolts come out on the Thunder Plains, you see a brief flash of light, and then you need to press a button to dodge them. You can't see anywhere how many you
have dodged, you just keep doing it until whatever happens (I don't know what happens honestly, my record is in the 6 range). They come down once every 3-7 seconds so it takes a long time as well. Seriously; do you even have the patience to count to 200? I don't, another thing is that your eyes almost start to bleed waiting for a flash every couple seconds... so the best internet advice is to just sit there like a tweaker with the lights off staring at the screen for 30 minutes. Also of course this is 200 in a row... so getting in the 180 range and slightly fucking up... I don't even want to think about it.#4 Mega Man 9: Tornado Man
Wow, trying to find an image of Tornado Man's level is hard; but if I was trying to find a fan pic of Splash Woman giving Mega Man a BJ I would be able to make a whole gallery of them. Since I can't find a pic of the level you just have to take my word for it. You start off at this part where you have these little platforms that spin around while spinning you around at the same time; jump at the wrong time and you are jumping down at the pit. Well there are things like this scattered through the Mega Man (Rock Man in Japan) franchise. But this one goes on ridiculously long, so if you're like me you scrape by with maybe one life left if you even pass it. But the rest of the level is just as hard, there is some sweet fucking ice block parts, yeah you know like the sweet ones in the New Mario Bros... yeah they brought it back for this one, and then there is the one where the rain makes you jump too far and then the rain makes it so you can't jump far enough and then the fucking umbrellas come down slow as shit so you have to wait for them because you already died like 20 fucking times from thinking you can pass them just a little before but you jump so fucking high now that you run right into them, and then you're finally at Tornado Man with like two dots of health and so you throw the fucking kitchen sink at him because you're so stressed out and you don't want to have to go all the way back to the stupid platforms again... ARRRGGHHH! Then it's Hornet Man and he has a bullshit hard level too. Insult to injury; take a look at the achievements for this game. They are like, "Beat the game without dieing", "Beat all bosses with M Buster", "Beat a level without firing a single shot", "Beat the game in 5 minutes," "Beat the game while drawing pornographic pictures of Splash Woman"; who the fuck can beat this game with enough style and flair that they need these challenges. It took me weeks to beat Tornado Man...
#3 Final Fantasy XIII: Barthandelus
"Alright so I can finally pick my own team? After 60 hours or so into this, I finally get to do my own thing... that's awesome! And here is the first boss... Oh shit I died after duking it out with him for a half hour. Well at least now I know the strategy kill all the little faces and then fight the big one... Oh I made it 40 minutes before he killed me. The big face is really strong when I kill the little faces how about I leave one face up and hack away at the big face... well this is going to take 2 years this way. I think I'll play a little Bioshock now." This guy is a pain in the ass; he increases his power exponentially the longer you fight him. If you fight recklessly he has too much health and hits too hard to do a fight that way. If you fight cautiously he will just keep increasing his power and will flatten your tanks long before you kill him. I can see a 30 minute boss that you need to use strategy for; but no strategies work... and I mean not even close.
#2 Sega GT
This game was free with my XBox at the time I got it but it is the king of bad difficulty spikes. Either the license tests are too hard, or more likely, once you've passed the license test you have harder races but no easy races to try again ever... Unless you were the extremely savvy consumer you won't have the greatest cars ever but that's just tough shit, because if you don't, you'll never be able to get them. This could have all been fixed if you could just race lower ranked tracks but for less money. But if you're like me, you didn't know there is only one car that could ever win against the slightly higher ranked cars. Granted you can get money for losing races but that would be like saving for a Maserati with your paper route.
#1 Final Fantasy Tactics: Wiegraf and Velius/Belias
This has to be my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics, it has gotten to the point that I literally have memorized the approximate odds of each attack connecting etc. And even knowing mathematically the odds for everything in this game, there is one challenge that every time I play it, I'm convinced, that victories are pure luck. There are hard levels in this for sure; Dorter Slums and Golerand Execution Site but these pale in comparison to the battle with Wiegraf at the middle of the game. Now typically in this game you have 5 characters to play with and maybe an extra "guest" (uncontrollable character). But for this level you have only the main character, Ramza, to control. Now I've tried this in nearly every combination of actually feasible characters and I'm rarely even able to beat him in this stage. Fact is, Wiegraf hits for about 112 and even more when he crits. Every possible combination of armor lends me in the high 200's at best. So if you are lucky you can survive 3 hits (as I said if he doesn't ever crit). You, on the other hand, hit for about 60-90 and he has in the low 300's of health and on top of that, he's a knight with a shield so 60-70% chance of hitting him is actually good... oh yeah and he can also "Counter" so hit or miss he gets a free chance to hit you again. So he has a 100% chance of killing you in 3 turns; while you have a 65% chance of killing him in 5 turns unless you somehow crit the fuck out of him... Did anyone even bother to run the numbers on that fight before they released it? So what is even worse is, you're stuck inside a castle and so you can't leave and level up to get a skill that might be helpful. You just have to make do or reset the whole damn game. There are really 2 or 3 strategies that work against him; both involve doing some borderline cheating moves like using "yell" (tailwind in the new version of the game for PSP). Then you beat him, big whoop... the next half of the fight is even harder. That's right, a mathematically impossible fight is still the easy part of this fight. Well once you get his health down low enough you can bring 4 of your friends. But then he gets to bring in 3 of his friends called "Archaic Demons" basically some of the baddest monster in the whole fucking game. All but 1 of the cheater strategies will have Ramza on the verge of death; but Wiegraf turns into Velius (Belias in the new version) and is cured fully and gets over 6x his normal health. And then let's look at his attacks, Clops (Cyclops) has massive range and will kill anyone who isn't wearing the best armor (Knights or Holy Knights) so basically heals and casters are dead first turn. Ramza is dead if there is a chill to the air. So you 9/10 times have one character (Agrias) in charge of doing 1600 damage... but she's going to die in the next turn because the Archaic Demons do "Dark Holy" which will kill most anyone especially if they just got hit by Clops. Top that off with Velius who can do 100% confuse (that character is out) and the Archaic Demons can also do "Giga Flare" and do 70 damage or so without charging which is a nice follow up to any of these other attacks that didn't quite kill you to begin with. But if you do end up beating him, you will cry tears of anger when you see how easy the rest of the game is.
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