Pinkerton's Weblog

Deathmatchin'! (Pt. 2)

8:30 PM

At suggestion of someone who plays online all the time, download Steam, the place where all the cool kids go to play online. Enter Deathmatch and bring ass. Wrap ass up in a gorgeous pink bow and present to other players. Have ass shot to cinder and small shrieking chunks.

8:45 PM

New level. Decide to mount 'giggling, Barbie-playing school-girl' offense. Am obliterated.

9:05

New level. Remember how to lead enemies with shots. Remember how to strafe while jumping. Have ass handed to me. Get a few kills.

9:15

New level. Remember to stay calm and aim. Remember to cycle for appropriate weapon. Come in fourth place.

9:35

New level. Remember how to cycle through weapons in firefight. Perfect circle strafes. Adjust mouse speed and adjust controls.

9:45

Rack up kills. Second place.

10:15

Suck. It. Down. BITCHES.

Decide I'm ready for some Big League Chew. Enter Counterstrike match. Present ass on sterling silver platter for other gamers, with enormous crosshair stenciled on each buttock. Have them handed to me.

Deathmatchin'! (Pt.1)

After about four years off from gaming, I decided to get back into it in a big way today. I've got a nice PC now, and a decent net connection -- there's simply no reason I shouldn't be enjoying the joys of diffusing bombs and blowing tangerine-sized holes in people online.

After work I popped by EB and picked up Prince of Persia (for dicking-around gaming) and Half-Life Generations, which comes with the original Half-Life, Opposing Force, Counter-Strike and Blue Shift. I figure it's been four years since I fucked people up online, so I'd best get my mad FPS skillz in shape before I tackle Unreal Tournament or Half-Life 2.

When I get home I crack open a beer and dick around with Prince of Persia for a bit. I do sweet backflips off guys and then slice them in the face with a sword, and run along walls like a super-ninja for a while. Impressed with the game, I decide to come back to it later and get down to the real order of business: getting on a server and blowing the dust off my deathmatching tricks before trying out Counter-Strike.

I start simple with the original Half-Life. My reasoning here is it's an old game, so I can probably hunt up a few simple deathmatch servers in which to completely embarrass myself before moving onto the real deal with CS and some of the popular mods.

When I boot up multiplayer I get this:

Fair enough. I sort of expected a six year old game right out of the box might not have kept pace with online play, so I click the option to check Sierra.com for the latest updates.

Within seconds I'm told I have the latest version: 1.1.0.8. I click on multiplayer again and get this message:

This goes around and around about five more times before I face the harsh truth that, whatever Sierra's pop-up window is telling me, I'm not getting the latest version. Wily like the Internet fox, I google the words "Half-Life Executable is out of date". The first search response is from a place called File Planet, which seems to have exactly what I'm looking for: Version 1.1.1.0.

When I try to download it I am told that for only $6.95 a month I will be able to download files from File Planet as much as I want! But until I do that, I'm not getting shit. Given that the "files" File Planet is in the business of sharing are exclusively patches to games, and that the games wouldn't need patches if they worked properly in the first place, I feel more than a little bitter at the idea of paying additional money to download a file that makes the game I just paid $35 for actually fucking work. It's like ordering a plate of spaghetti from a restaurant and then having them try to charge you another two bucks for a fork.

I return to google and try a few other sites, all of which helpfully reroute me to File Planet. Apparently File Planet is the only place in the world with this file--though ten thousand sites have been built up around the sole purpose of helpfully redirecting me to it so I can be asked for free money. Webmasters have too much time on their hands, this much is clear.

Eventually I think "Fuck this." I bought the game from Sierra, I know precisely what patch I need to make the game work (1.1.1.0), so I'll just go over to sierra.com personally and either a) get the goddamn patch that actually makes their goddamn game goddamn work or b) beat them to death with the game developer's soft baby.

Eventually I find the Galf-Life Support page and, sure enough, there's patch 1.1.1.0 in bold font as the first thing I see:

Evidently the latest patch is kept protected from any software Sierra produces that might try to download it. This makes sense, as the last thing Sierra needs is the bad press you'd get from millions of people actually getting their games to work properly. But whatever -- at this point I'm 40 minutes in and have yet to rack up a single frag. At least I have the thing now, and I don't have to pay $6.95 for it. I download the exec and install it.

It searches, then says this:

In other words: "No need to update, friend! You've already got 1.1.0.8, our latest patch!"

No. I don't have your latest patch. You gangrenous fucking cock-monkeys.

So. Sierra has a link to a 1.1.1.0 patch available at their site, which refuses to load because -- get this -- "You already have 1.1.0.8, you silly goose!"

Alternatively, File Planet has the 1.1.1.0 patch, at the low low price of more money for a game I just bought that doesn't work.

Now I remember why I switched to consoles.

Free Crap (With Every Order of Crap)

I got a Pizza Hut flyer today with a deal for one of three free DVDs with my next order. Customers ordering this deal will roll the dice when they order, getting either Weekend at Bernie's, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Lost in Space.

Given the ridiculously high caliber of cinema being given away with pizza here, I'll pause for a second and let you come up with your own punchlines. Feel free to form discussion groups. Choose your best and then come on back.

...

Great. I hope you had some fun with it. Anyway: I'd be genuinely interested to know if Pizza Hut just bought the rights to these films outright, or if they stumbled on an abandoned warehouse full of them or what. If anyone works for Pizza Hut or knows someone who does, I'd love to hear a dollar amount for what they paid to give away free copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if only because I suspect it's equitable to what I might pay to rent it.

As far as I'm concerned, it's still a pretty sweet deal without the DVD. I plan to insist that they just hold onto it and send me the food. After all, I'm trying to eat here. It'd be like buying a nice steak dinner and finding a Police Academy: Citizens on Patrol DVD under the fucking potato. I don't care how free it is; please have the decency to keep Lost in Space away from my food. I'll be up all night on the toilet after Matt LeBlanc's stilted, uncomfortable performance as Major Don West disagrees with me.

Operation Texas-Style Success

You DON'T Think

For some reason Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic' song came up recently in a conversation, concerning Alanis's tenuous grasp of irony in her lyrics. It's a pretty dead horse as comedic premises go, so I didn't flog any examples. I just googled the topic so I could find one of the ten thousand essays currently raking her over the coals for it that I could forward along.

In doing so, I found an article that's unintentionally ten times funnier than its subject matter. The author's one of those gratingly annoying people who somehow only seem to pop up on the Internet: Brainiac, The Internet Genius. Among Brainiac's characteristics:

A) thinks he's the only person on the planet with the ability to construct thoughts, and sees his disdain for retarded sitcoms as irrefutable evidence of his frightening intelligence. Is convinced he is only person on planet to have "seen through" the idiocy of The Hogan Family.

Example from article: "Who would've thought Alanis could get away with such illogical lyrics? Given the general population's blind desire for a catchy tune and lack of critical thinking... it figures."

B) believes everything he writes is a flawless prism of logic, and unanimously supported by his lessers.

Example from article: "This may be true, Alanis, but why should I believe you as I have demonstrated your complete lack of credibility?"

C) because someone once wrote *lol* to a comment of his at Tarantino Fan Forum, thinks he's really really funny.

I'd forgive the first two if the last one weren't so painful. To give but one example of his cutting wit, when Alanis sings "and yeah I really do think," he attacks with a devastating "Well Alanis, you are wrong and frankly I believe that you really don't think."

Pow-zoom. If I was Alanis I'd have to change my name to The Red Face, because I'd be so embarrassed it'd be my distinguishing feature for the rest of my life.

PS -- among the publications listed on the author's website is a research paper he wrote for a virology journal entitled "Efficient replication of bovine viral diarrhea virus subgenomic replicons". If I was Alanis Morrisette, I think a fitting comeback to his scathing essay on her song would be: "Okay. So maybe it's not ironic. At least I'm not trying to clone cow diarrhea, genius."