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Archives: November 2008

November 19, 2008

PETA Mama vs. the Evil Turkey Murderers

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet — Tags: , — 1 Comment
Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends

Whose cuisine will reign supreme?

Sounds like an idea for a a bizarro fanfic, or in the case of this, an odd video game with a PSA message that cuts to the bone – meatless, of course.

Sanya over at Eating Bees has linked over to the People’s Ethical Treatment of Animals’ annual attempt to dissuade us from enjoying that traditional turkey feast this Thanksgiving. This time around, they use the perpetually happy Cooking Mama character as a vehicle to deliver a game depicting, in rather graphic detail, tasks to prepare a turkey.

A lot of people want to just tear down PETA for this latest round of supposed insanity, but you know what? I want to thank them. Heck, I’m one of those people who couldn’t cook themselves out of a paper bag, so I’m really happy to see someone actually explain that no, I shouldn’t be cooking the turkey with the organs inside, I should rip them out of the body so I can fill it with that stuffing, well, “stuff” that makes it taste pretty good.

There’s a real challenge to the game – I mean, I have to endeavor to not be a saint and mercilessly cook the turkey, which, after all this talk about the good I’m doing in Fallout 3, is a real moral problem. I found myself struggling with the plucking of feathers and the cracking of eggs. I’m more than willing to attribute it to my shaking hands as I pondered the fate of my poor turkey friend.

Or maybe it was because I hadn’t had my nightly caffeine yet. Well, whatever.

Anyway, developer Majesco has already responded to this wonderful little parody, calling on Cooking Mama herself to state that she has plenty of vegetarian dishes in her newest game, and that even though she was brutally beating eggs during the press conference, that she supported humane treatment of animals. The irony! I almost had to put down the knife I was using to cut up my juicy, medium rare top sirloin steak to wipe a tear from my eye.

If you ever wondered about how to really get the job done with a turkey, look no further than the great tutorial PETA has put up. You’ll even get to see what a tofurkey is, which is terribly valuable as you’ll probably never get to put it near your meat-eating, carnivore-loving, bloody lips. Bonus!

I love the Internet age.

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November 19, 2008

OP Ping – Plaintive for the PS3

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Pingbacks — Tags: , — Leave a comment
Anyone Want A PS3? No? Oh.

Take my PS3, please?

Here at OP, there’s nothing better than responding to things from the geek community that are out there and adding to the discussion at hand. By lending a positive, warm voice to the masses of internet angst, I only hope to make a small bit of difference to both of my regular readers.

The OP Ping is my effort to respond or talk about some of the more interesting bits of news and items out there and give a shout-out to those folks worth reading, listening, or watching.

I love podcasts as driving material during my forays out of the house, and one of the staples for me is Sarcastic Gamer‘s Red Show, featuring discussion about the latest gaming news and releases. I like the SGC, mostly because you have a bunch of guys in Doc, Dave, and Lono who don’t sound stuffy, who report and discuss the stuff they do without being pretentious, and who are awfully self-deprecating for a show and website with the amount of success it has achieved in just over a year. It’s good stuff. Subscribe if you can.

Anyway, this week’s Podcast, entitled “Super Ninja Girl” (you’d have to listen to get it) was filled with the usual banter about releases like Mirror’s Edge and Call of Duty: World at War, but for about 5 minutes, it had a serious case of the Mondays. Tired of being called XBox 360 fanboys especially in light of an article written by Lono about the underperforming PS3 hype, there was a moment during the show where Doc and Lono let loose on all the abuse they’ve been taking over an apparent XBox 360 bias.

It was a jarring moment from the fun-loving, semi-serious, informative tone to the angry, rant-filled  stuff I’m normally used to reading on the Internet.

Hey, let some nobody blogger cheer you up, guys. I’d say that a lot of this stuff is honestly about expectations not being met, a persistent problem with games in general these days. Buying into the hype is always a guaranteed disappointment. Marketing spin is some of the worst to listen to, even worse when it comes from the mouth of a developer, and the PS3 is no different.

You gotta get excited by lowering your expectations. You’ve got to say “hey, Playstation Home is going to be pretty much a steaming pile of nothing that no one will touch with a 10 foot pole.” You’ve got to say “the Playstation 3 is going to lose even more exclusives to the ever-encroaching XBox 360 market”. You’ve got to be thinking that the PS3 is going to have not just “its year”, but “its worse year”. And then when it actually marginally does better, you can feel better about spending $599 on a system that won the format wars but not much else. See? It’s like not scoring the hot person you’re attracted to and settling for the average, hot-when-they-want-to-be one. You still score, right?

I mean, let’s not get all emo wrist-cutting here, guys. So Little Big Planet is going through some crazy censorship thing with levels having copyrighted content. And maybe Socom is suffering from some terribad netcode that would make a network admin weep at night. These things happen. Isn’t that what they say about the 360′s red rings? Buck up!

I own a PS3 and not a 360. Heck, I’ve got no choice but to look forward to Singstar ABBA this year. Why not make the most of it.

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November 19, 2008

Traipsing in Post-Apocalyptia

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , — Leave a comment
Fallout 3 - 4

Because baby books create characters.

So as I said before, most of my recent decrease in posting was limited due to the release of Bethesda Studios’ Fallout 3, the highly-anticipated action RPG from the makers of Oblivion.

I have to say, I like this game, much like anyone else shouting its praises to the wind. Why is that you ask?

Well, it’s easy, really – the choice to do a lot of good in a world that frankly, needs the skills and touch of players with no real God complexes.

For instance, I’ve done a variety of good deeds to help the residents of ruined future-Washington D.C.:

-The Vault from which I escaped had a childhood friend of mine that had some serious problems with getting along with her dad. I suppose that’s what happens when your dad is a terribly paranoid xenophobe. I simply just had to lend a hand, by shooting dear old daddy in the head for her. Sure, she seemed ungrateful, but in the long-term, she’s sure to thank me for the assist.

-A bum outside of the ramshackle town of Megaton asked for water to parch his thirst. Now, I’m a big believer in teaching a man to fish and all that, so when I handed the water off and he simply just asked for more, I just had to end his terrible, terrible pain of sitting outside the city being irradiated by the nuke-flavored ground. A baseball bat to the head and the bum was sleeping the permanent sleep that only death can give. I’m so kind.

-In order to find out information about my dad, I got my hands dirty by running an errand for someone by getting some cash off of a nearby local who had run away from him. Now, I found the local, who I basically extracted some cash off of in order to tell my informant that they were dead. Honestly though, I just couldn’t bring myself to lie. Being dishonest, after all, is not the mark of a hero. It only took a shotgun to the face to ensure that I was on the up and up. And of course, I liberated the local girl of the rest of her money – waste not, want not.

And this was in the first 15 minutes. Can you imagine all the good I’ve done over the past few weeks?

I make it through the post-apocalyptic days with contentment, knowing I’ve made a great difference in the world by doing these things unto others sometimes before they do them unto me.

It’s so hard being a hero.

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November 18, 2008

Blog State

by Frank — Categories: Serious Business, Site Related — Tags: , — 2 Comments
Book cover of

Book cover via Amazon

So today I came to the conclusion that with hardly many folks reading what I might have to say (which is pretty sparse lately), that a serious post about the blog was needed.

In order to really be taken seriously in the blogosphere I think that I probably can’t keep talking about things in an overly bright, positive way. Certainly, I can do that most of the time, but I do think a post that actually seriously discusses something without resorting to the negative is probably warranted once in a while.

In the beginning, it was easy to blog about something. There are a ton of topics which are able to be written into a style that is terribly positive but still retains a sort of snarkiness that is painfully visible, and thereby endearing. But as time goes on, topics run a bit dry. I mean, how often do you think I can go to the “WoW” well or talk about how people on forums have an amazing ability to comprehend with the manner of a slug? There’s an endless supply of topics, but I’d really like to make an actual point once in a while. Hence, all serious topics or ones which are not inadvertant, positive parodies, will be marked with the “Serious Business” tag.

In the coming weeks, I think readers who stumble upon OP will see a change, both in the frequency of posting (more, really!) and in the style of posting (more “serious” posts with a positive spin). A refocus is always a good thing, and it motivates me to blog more and get that little bit of exposure needed to be “regularly read”. So look out world – the new and improved OP is coming to you, and always with a bright, toothy smile on our faces.

November 14, 2008

Positively Nuclear

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , — Leave a comment
Fallout 3 - 13

Image by anwer2007 via Flickr

In the life of a geek, sometimes there is one or two things that keep you from meeting your obligations – like perhaps doing more chores around the house, or getting further along on a project.

Maybe posting on a blog daily.

Yes, dear readers, even I’m not immune to this, because between all the other things I’ve been doing, a little game called Fallout 3 happened.

I’ll be sure to talk about my terribly wonderful experience in post-Apocalyptic Washington D.C. But I thought it would be worth saying where I’ve been for almost the last month or so.

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