As per my long standing tradition of being late to the party, I’m only now catching up on the Angry Video Game Nerd episodes, and it’s brought me to the horror of actually navigating GameTrailers dot-com. Up to this point, I’d really only ever gone to GameTrailers to watch sporadic- wait for it- trailers that people link me in IM’s or IRC or whatever. But upon finding out that only so many episodes had YouTube mirrors, I ended up following one of the ‘trailer’ links on YouTube to see the feature, and then the joy began. I filled out the age verification before the video played- because hearing the word ‘fuck’ causes anyone younger than 18 years old- even by a few minutes- to spontaneously combust. (As an aside, be careful not to indulge your porn and cigarette buying urges on your 18th birthday without consulting your birth certificate for the actual time of day you were born!) I watched the video. No problems there. In fact, I dare say I enjoyed that. However, immediately after the video ended, rather than a ‘PLAY AGAIN’ button or list of links popping up, it immediately loaded up a review of Jungle Strike, Screw Attack’s latest offering (as of this writing, durr.) I then searched around for any other links that would take me to the AVGN archives. After way too much prodding, I found out the AVGN videos were organized on the Screw Attack index, under a tab- a Flash tab. Meaning, simply hitting the back button in my browser would take me to Screw Attack rather than directly to the menu I had just used. I played a video from said menu, anyway, and at the end (having chosen my selection from a categorized list), I expected the next AVGN to come up. Instead

(SA guitar riff)
“Jungle Stri-”

I guess it’s only appropriate those videos be hosted on a site whose interface would be described, if you will, as a SHITLOAD OF FUCK! ASS!! NASAL DIARRHEA!!

I’m kinda getting the impression the Nerd himself’s a coprophile while I’m on this. He always says that he’d rather do something shit-related than play (Game X) with a regularity that makes you wonder if that’s like, his thing. More power to ya?

We’re nearing the most wonderful time of year to be in the retail business, and if I meant that any less, my statement would probably be the Magna Carta of Bizarro World or something. Our store officially decided they were giving Thanksgiving a pass and putting the Christmas decor out early. I really intended to do more with the site this month, but I’m already coming home from work feeling like my ass has been thoroughly kicked, or at least carelessly trampled by dozens of portly soccer moms and their roly-poly offspring, as they charge into battle searching for the Kleenex that’s 5 cents cheaper than that other brand.

I shouldn’t gripe too much since I’m not a cashier or stocker, but merely positioned as such within the store that people think I’m the goddamned information desk and/or complaint department. And I could pretty easily disappear or tell people to fuck off (in more polite terms) if they get to be too overwhelming in their demands.. like the recurring little old man who wheels up acting exaggeratedly pathetic and demanding we retrieve everything on his list for him.

I’m still going to slap together a good end of year piece this year, I feel like I better since it’s been ten years since I started.

When loading up a Mega Man 9 session this morning and looking at the ESRB rating, it dawned on me that I don’t consider shooting football sized balls of plasma into the faces of dozens of enemies ‘violence’ anymore.

I thought I’d escaped from the world of plastic dice and doing math worksheets for the glorious reward of bragging rights to other nerds about what kind of imaginary monsters I could kill, but I’ve been being slowly drawn back toward the pen and paper rpg side. It’s like a cancer going into remission, then coming back in full force like a 20-sided prostate tumor. If only I hadn’t nursed the habit with occasional Heroscape bouts- I thought it was safe if the dice didn’t have numbers– but my accursed sense of individuality got me using my old ‘my color’ d20 from my D&D dies for initiative rolls. The virus must have been lying dormant on the die, waiting for me to fail a saving throw!

So, yes. I’ve decided to start a new, Super Robot Wars-inspired mech rpg using the Jovian Chronicles ruleset. I’ve wanted to devise something suitable for it from the ground up, but I just don’t have that much free time. Luckily, the JC Companion’s mech generation system is capable of building just about any godforsaken thing, and despite making me want to tear my hair out at first, the formulas for deriving the stats is pretty good once you get by the curve. The Sil engine itself works really well for anime-ish play, too, since hero characters with their extra stats and skills tend to be able to finish off nameless mooks in a few shots while blazing about the field shrugging off damage, but not too invincible. And the fact that most of the mecha stats can translate into real-world statistics (MP’s convert easily enough to kph, ‘Size’ points break down to tonnage and can be used to determine volume as well, so on) kind of makes the Companion enticing as a tool for anyone who just likes making up big stompy robots and wants some kind of shortcut to figuring those attributes out.

It gets better, too- I got the book expecting to still have to make up scratch home rules for Voltron style combinations and variable fighters, and yet, right there in the back under a heading of “FANTASTIC!” technology, combining/transforming/assimilating/nanomachine-driven/HOT BLOODED mecha options are given. What all this means is you can build say, the Lagann from Gurren Lagann with the same set of rules as some gritty-realistic desert grunt mech. And that is awesome.