And then May happened.

Life got in the way. Work. Friends moving away. Friends moving back. A pretty nasty back injury that I needed to rehab. All of that stuff came first while I set my writing to the side. Sort of. Ironically enough, I wrote a lot throughout the month of May. But the things I was writing were different. They weren’t good. They were cynical. They lacked a point. They weren’t particularly fun to write and as such, I imagined that they wouldn’t particularly be any fun to read. So I didn’t publish them.

You guys can thank me for doing that, by the way. I spared you all from some real shit.

And so now it’s the summer. While things are calming down a bit, the weather is getting nice and there are things to do all over the city. Even though life is significantly less hectic, there’s a lot of things I want to do other that aren’t “sit in front of my computer and write about Sylvester Stallone movies”. Thing is, I don’t want to shut this blog down, but there’s no way I’m going to hit that one post a week quota I was originally aiming for. While I want a place to write when I have something worth writing, I also don’t want to just churn things out to hit some artificial quota I set to make this thing feel more “legitimate” or whatever I had thought that quota was accomplishing. That’s dumb. I just want to write and have fun.

So I’m going to do that. It might be a little less frequent than it was before (especially because I’ve burned through most of those old posts), but I’ll be publishing things that I want to write. No more writing out of obligation. It’s dumb and I want you all to actually enjoy the things I write here. So with that, I’m going to go ahead and say that while things may be a little slower around here during the summer, I’ll aim for a higher standard of quality.

You guys can feel free to call me out in the comments if you feel like I’m not reaching that. It’s the Internet. That’s what the comments are for anyway.

And since this post hasn’t been a very fun one, here’s some Nicolas Cage for all of you who stuck with it this far:

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, is working on a novel, and spends way too much time on Twitter. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

And with that, let’s get down to the details:

1. Sachsenheim Hall (Last Quarter: (N/A): That’s right, a new number one. Sachsenheim Hall is a unique place, to say the least. Being a bar in a converted Sachsen lodge, the atmosphere is one of a kind. Filled with a strange combination of hipsters, old steel workers and others that are in the know when it comes to food, I’ve never been to a place that felt like this. Add in the fact that the jukebox is seemingly filled with nothing but Yacht Rock, and this may be my new favorite place in town. As for the food, the taco options are endless and only a $1.00 a pop. You can also order a liter-sizede stein of German beer for $6.00. The only drawback? Tacos are only served on Tuesdays. The menu changes daily, with other options such as wings and burgers taking over the rest of the week. While they’re still delicious, this is strictly about the tacos.
2. Barrio (Last Quarter: 1st): Barrio’s had a busy three months. Not only are they now opening a new location closer to my apartment, but they are also now offering “suggested” tacos, which come in a to-go box, which eliminates the problem I had previously with their lack of space. There’s also now a Barrio taco truck, so it’s safe to say that Barrio is making moves to solidify their position at the top of the Taco Power Rankings.
3. Papuseria La Bendicion (Last Quarter: 2nd): Good news! They’re still open. Also, the food here is still incredible. The only complaint I have at the moment is the lack of variety in their tacos. While the Carne Asada taco is delicious, that’s the only option you have. The rest of their menu, while not taco-related, remains great, but I could see myself tiring of the same tacos after enough visits.
4. Cozumel (Last Quarter: N/A): Cozumel is essentially the pinnacle of chain Mexican food. While the menu looks exactly like what you would expect to find at any chain Mexican place in the suburbs, Cozumel actually makes their food the right way. I ordered the “Mexican Tacos”, which are a more authentic taco with soft corn tortillas, carne asada and chorizo garnished with onions, cilantro and salsa verde. If you’re looking for a place to grab a pitcher of margaritas and chow down on some free chips and salsa and decent tacos with some less adventurous friends, this is the place for you.
5. The Oak Barrel (Last Quarter: N/A): When I was in High School, the building that The Oak Barrel is housed in was a terrible BBQ joint called Hoggy’s. Now, it’s a higher-end brasserie with an insane beer/whisky menu and an incredible Taco Tuesday. As good as I found the tacos here to be, there were two things holding it back from climbing a bit higher on the list. The first was the price. While not anything near Orale, The Oak Barrel is definitely on the higher end of Taco Tuesdays when it comes to price. The second was the use of soft flour tortillas instead of corn. Given that they seem to be going for a more authentic, upscale type vibe, you’d think they’d go with a less dense, more flavorful shell to match the toppings. A simple inclusion of a corn tortilla option, and this place can make a significant move up the list.
6. Taco Tonto’s (Last Quarter: 3rd): Taco Tonto’s has sort of been lost in the mix for me personally, as I’m yet to go back. Fond memories coupled with growing word of mouth is making me think that a second visit should be happening sooner rather than later.
   
7. Chipotle (Last Quarter: N/A): You’re probably wondering why I’m including Chipotle on this list. And I don’t blame you. There’s nothing unique to Cleveland about Chipotle. Their menu is constant and unchanging, meaning they will likely not move above this position in the rankings. But this is an important distinction to make. Chipotle is the break-even point for a taco. If a restaurant can’t surpass Chipotle, they probably shouldn’t be selling tacos. Chipotle tacos are mediocrity in a taco shell. If you can’t top that, you’ve got some work to do.
8. Taco Bell (Last Quarter: N/A): You’re also probably wondering why I’m including Taco Bell on this list, because Taco Bell is hot garbage. Again, I’m not going to dispute that. But honestly, if a restaurant is selling tacos and can’t even manage to be better than “this would be pretty good if I was hammered”, they shouldn’t be a restaurant. If Chipotle is break even, this is the gutter. If you’re under Taco Bell on this list, you’e looking at a full restaurant revamp.
9. Orale (Last Quarter: 4th): Despite how great these tacos were, I still haven’t been back. You know why? Because $16 for three tacos is still bullshit.
10. El Jalapeños (Last Quarter: N/A): “Authentic Mexican food” from a place that doesn’t even know how to pluralize the word “jalapeño” properly in Spanish? Not even close. Remember earlier when I said Cozumel was chain Mexican done right? This is chain Mexican done totally wrong. If it only takes you three minutes to get my food to my table, just take it back, because I want no part of eating crap that’s been sitting under a heat lamp or in a warming tray for hours.
11. Luchita’s (Last Quarter: N/A): I’m going to get killed for this, but holy crap was Luchita’s bad. Despite being hyped to the moon, I found my food here to be terrible. I ordered the fish tacos which, as described, sounded amazing. Lightly fried and served with some spicy chipotle sauce. I can get with that. Instead, I got some fish which had been so heavily seasoned and fried it tasted undistinguishable from a McChicken served on a flour tortilla with some pre-packaged spicy mayo. The rice also seemed to be some sort of pre-packed base for fried rice that a Chinese takeout place would use, because for some reason there were peas scattered throughout. Oh yeah, and this was also $15. Prices like Orale with food like El Jalapeños? That’s the Charlotte Bobcats of Cleveland taco joints, right there.

Who will step up in the following months? Who will stumble? What new places will I find that will come out of nowhere. Stay tuned to find out the answers to these questions and many more in the next installment of Cleveland Taco Power Rankings.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, is working on a novel, and spends way too much time on Twitter. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

You can’t ignore the fact that this trend towards garbage television has been all within the past two years or so. As the economy has stalled and more and more people are finding that their financial safety net is gone, they’re having to turn to new ways find cash. What do you do when you have bills to pay, your paycheck won’t cover it and your safety net is gone? You liquidate your assets. In lay terms, you find someone to sell your garbage to.

Enter this guy. He is the guy that tells you what your garbage is worth, gives you the quick cash that you need and then makes a quick buck by selling your garbage to someone else. I know, the American Dream. If you’ve watched one episode of Pawn Stars, you’ve watched them all. Someone comes in with something that has immense sentimental value, the employees of the pawn shop discover it’s either a forgery, worthless or worth far more than they’ll pay (they are a pawn shop after all), and the item is either passed on or sold for far less than what the seller is expecting. You’ll hear the same quote every episode, “it’s worth more than that, it has to be worth more than that.”

Sounds like the kind of thing someone who has their back up against the wall would say, doesn’t it? And when you think about it, that’s really the great untold story behind all these shows. Why are people so willing to sell these immensely sentimental items for ultimately trivial amounts of money? Medical bills. Rent. Student loans. While the specifics may vary, people are selling these items because they need money badly and their safety net is gone.

Okay, so that’s the great economic engine that fuels the source material for these shows, but the question as to why they’re so popular still stands. The veil of desperation is pretty thin on these shows. Often times when the guys on American Pickers are “picking” a house, that house is full of garbage, looks like it’s about to fall down and you can tell the owners checkbook is pretty in the red. Meanwhile, is it any coincidence that Pawn Stars is set in Vegas?

It all comes down to hope. Everyone’s been at that point in some point or another in their life when they’ve been kept up at night wondering how they’re going to pay for something. Even if it hasn’t happened, the way the media’s portrayed this depression has lead to a pretty crazy sense of anxiety in just about every sector of the economy.

Maybe your waterlogged copy of Paradise Lost is actually a super rare first printing and can fill the gap between your paycheck and the bill for your MRI. Maybe your gold Link to the Past SNES cartridge is worth enough to sign up for those few credit hours you need to finish your degree. Hell, maybe that Dasagna Diop rookie Fleer card is worth enough to fill your gas tank.

When times are good, we spend our money freely and usually on dumb things that we don’t need. When times are bad, we rely on our savings and credit to get us through the rough spats. However, when that savings and credit are gone, you realize how stupid those purchases you made earlier are, and wonder if you can unfuck the situation by selling all those mistakes to someone else. Generally, the answer’s no. But on occasion, that book you bought or the train set in your basement might be worth enough to get you through the rough patches. And that’s why we watch Pawn Stars, to give us hope that if we find ourselves in that situation, that we can be the ones to turn garbage into gold.

It’s either that, or it’s because these shows are cheap to produce and mainstream audiences love a formula. Your call.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, is working on a novel, and spends way too much time on Twitter. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

Angelo

As I’ve been playing through the new Devil May Cry game, after every level I’ve been wondering what’s happened to the boss fight in contemporary video games? How have things gone from a point where boss fights were expected after every level, to something where they happen maybe once every three or four, if at all, and usually feel rushed and slapped on. Do you share this lamentation?

SpaceFunMars

It bothers me more when boss fights are slapped on badly than when they aren’t there at all. I’m not going to say every game needs a boss fight since plenty of games are near perfection without them. I will say bad boss fights bother me to no end. At that point, just cut it out. I may be playing devil’s advocate when I say this, but boss fights often feel forced into games that are sticking to old videogame norms instead of doing what feels natural. Even to the point where some games have two different development teams — one that makes the actual game and one that makes the boss fights. That disconnect is in no way good for games.

Does it mean I dislike boss fights? Far from it. There are plenty of modern games that get it right. I just don’t lament the lack of boss fights — if only out of fear that adding them will make games worse.

Angelo

Do you have some examples of modern games that get it right? Generally speaking, I find that more often than not, most games get it wrong. Devil May Cry may be one of the first games I’ve played in a while that I thought got them really right (which is odd because I’ve noticed most reviews are ragging on the boss fights, so apparently I’m the only one who thinks that).

But you’re absolutely correct, bad boss fights are one of the quickest ways to get me to stop playing a game. Actually happened to me and Arkham Asylum. As much as I loved that game, the Poison Ivy boss was just so bad and so irritating, that I totally walked away and never finished. I just didn’t get it. The game was a brawler, yet that boss relied upon projectile weapons precise timing? Huh?

I think a lot of it has to do with what you mentioned about separate design studios. Too many games now-a-days feel like they have two different play mechanics, one for the the boss fights and one for everything else. While I loved quicktime events in Resident Evil 4, by this point, they’ve become so ubiquitous that it’s annoying. And there’s nothing worse than a boss fight that is comprised solely of QTEs. Or, like some of the bosses in the Dead Space series, where the game suddenly goes on rails and it turns into a glorified game of Duck Hunt. It’s so disappointing that these developers create these awesome environments and play mechanics, yet can’t deliver a boss fight that really utilizes them to their best

I think the problem is that the scope of videos game has gotten so large that developers feel like they have to make boss fights these huge, enormous set pieces like the God of War series (which I think actually does that right, but those games are some of the few). It’s like developers have forgotten that a good boss can still occur on a limited scope using mechanics found throughout the rest of the game and not everyone has to be this huge climatic battle with a boss the size of a building.

I mean, the Mega Man series had some of the best boss fights ever and they were barely larger than Mega Man himself.

SpaceFunMars

I think Nintendo consistently gets boss battles right in their games. I’ve been playing New Super Mario Brothers Wii-U, and I can’t fault the boss design in that game at all. Zelda and Metroid games have also nailed boss design over the years. I can’t think of any huge boss misstep in the world of Nintendo at all, which is something video game purist can count on over the years.

However, it is easy for Nintendo to to really nail boss battles because — Metroid aside — those games haven’t really changed ever. The 2D Mario games are exactly the same as every 2D Mario game in the past right down to the Boss battles. The 3D ones are pretty much refinements of Super Mario 64 which itself isn’t all that different from 2D Mario games. Although, I would say the 3D Marios have more variety than their 2D counterparts. Zelda games haven’t changed at all. 2D. 3D. It’s all the same. Metroid is the only series that has undergone any significant change, becoming a first-person-shooter Zelda during the Prime series. In this way, the boss fights also have a very Zelda feel to them, which isn’t a bad thing.

The main criticism of Nintendo is that their games never change. They’re all small refinements on a formula, and it’s for that fact that their boss battles never feel out of place. It almost doesn’t seem fair to list Nintendo games as examples of boss battles done right. I can’t exactly say they are examples of modern gaming, and I don’t think I can list many modern games that have done boss battles right.

When you asked me to join you in this boss battle conversation, the first game I thought of as an example of a game that does bosses correctly was Bit.Trip Beat. But that’s a game that — if stripped of its psychedelic lightshow backgrounds — could easily have been on the original Nintendo or even one of the Atari systems. If new Mario games aren’t modern, then this game is absolutely ancient. It seems that most new games that are purposefully retro nail boss fights, but to use them as examples is almost cheating.

As far as actual modern games go, I think the Portal games (Portal 2 especially), the Borderlands games, and the Viewtiful Joe series have pretty good boss fights.There aren’t many boss fights in the Portal games, but I excuse that because it’s a puzzle game. It’s amazing that those games have boss fights at all. Borderlands isn’t overrun with boss fights either, but I would say it’s more common than most games and never feels out of place.

What both of those games do right is bring game mechanics the player has been learning all along into the boss fights. The player has to every trick and every skill to beat the bosses. They’re bigger, more complete versions of the types of things they saw before.

Viewtiful Joe is somewhat different, and I’m not sure how to describe it. Those games use old school beat-em-up mechanics and completely turn them on their heads by adding in some super modern designs. Mostly, Joe’s ability to manipulate time (among other super powers). It’s a game that feels super modern while the level progression is more on the retro side. It’s almost a post-modern look at retro beat-em-ups. Of course, any good beat-em-up also has boss battles as part of its design, but this is the only game I can think of right now that mixes old and new design so flawlessly. Some of the answers to the boss problem may be hidden in figuring out that kind of mix.

Angelo

Oh, I absolutely agree that Nintendo get it right the most consistently. Actually, if I had to compose a list of my top five favorite boss battles, most would be Nintendo bosses.

You’re right, the best boss fights are ones that gradually build upon the skills learned in the game. That said, I took issue to the boss fights in Viewtiful Joe. While they did build upon those skills, they required a near mastery of them in order to get through them. While I’m all for difficult games, I prefer if a game allowed multiple solutions to each problem. With Viewtiful Joe, I just couldn’t do what needed to be done to beat one of the later bosses and never passed it. If they had allowed any other strategy to be successful, I would have finished and would have enjoyed the game more.

I call it the Mega Man Rule. Each boss had two ways to be defeated. There was the proper way, using the correct weapon, or there was the harder way, using the default Mega Buster. Sure, that was was already harder, but sometimes you didn’t have the right weapon. It’s a way of accepting that not every player will be able to master every skill and allow them to brute force their way through it if need be.

That or I was just terrible at that game and am kind of a wuss. Your call.

SpaceFunMars

My call is you aren’t very good at Viewtiful Joe. I’ll admit that particular boss is hard, but I beat it in a few tries. Editor’s Note: Without me even mentioning the specific boss, he immediately knew the one I was talking about. It’s THAT hard. It isn’t even the hardest boss in that game, but I’m not sure if that fact helps or hurts your case. I will say Joe is an example of a game that builds upon skills — although not to the point of mastery. Just near mastery.

What the game does wrong, as you say, is a very narrow-minded approach at beating bosses. There is basically one way to do it. The best boss fights allow for multiple approaches. You are absolutely right in that. I just think that is also a relative rarity. Look at Zelda and Mario games as an example. Zelda games always require the player to hit the boss three times with whatever new weapon Link acquires in each dungeon, and then attach the boss with the sword. Mario games involve jumping on someone’s head three times. The approaches in these games are not only narrow but follow a precise formula. Gamers don’t complain about that because these games don’t stray above sorta hard at any given time.

We live in an age where a lot of gamers bemoan the time when games were difficult, but when we get a game like Viewtiful Joe that is hard and has well-done boss fights, we complain about that. Very few games come even close to perfect, so it seems harsh to bad-mouth Viewtiful Joe for either being too difficult or not having two approaches to every boss fight. When I write it out, that’s a very small mistake in the grand scheme of a game.

It’s too bad Joe didn’t come out after some of Nintendo’s more recent games. They have a very interesting quasi-cheat mechanic in Mario games and Nintendoland where if a player dies too many times in an area, they get a special block that essentially makes them invincible so they can beat that difficult part of a level. If Viewtiful Joe had something like that — although maybe not nearly as powerful — it wouldn’t have to dial down the difficulty level so wusses like you can beat mid-game bosses.

Angelo

And this is where I’m going to have to disagree. I find that mechanic of “clearly you suck at this, so we’re going to let you skip this part” to be super cheap. Where’s the sense of accomplishment in finally beating that part you’re stuck on? Not to mention, that has to kill creativity. That’s one of the things I do like about incredibly difficult boss fights, the trial and error and “hey, maybe I should try doing this” that goes on before you finally figure out what it is you need to do.

And that’s why I like it when there are multiple ways to beat a boss. You still get that exploration of what it is you need to do, and the creators can make the preferred solution as complicated as they want, like in Viewtiful Joe. That said, since there will be a handful of people who can’t do that preferred method, having another option of just brute forcing your way through the boss can still allow players to proceed through the game and get that satisfaction of beating a difficult boss.

The newest Metal Gear game does that perfectly. When I went through the first time, the mechanics of beating the bosses was just too complicated for me to grasp, so I wound up brute forcing my way through the bosses. It took a lot longer and a lot more med packs, but I was able to beat the game. Now that I’m going through on a New Game+ mode on a higher difficulty, I’ve figured those mechanics out and can beat the bosses in the preferred way much quicker and while taking much less damage. Even on a significantly harder difficulty.

That seems to be the best possible solution to this problem, no?

SpaceFunMars

I think you’re getting nit-picky at this point. You have to remember that anyone who is going to use the hand-holding feature probably isn’t good enough at video games at this point to play it over and over again until they beat it. I personally get so offended when I fail so much that it gets offered that I try super hard to beat it. It’s like a taunt that focuses me (not to mention, using this feature usually results in a lesser score if people care about that shit).

And I’ll also say that, in recent years, Mario games have been incredibly soft on players. New Super Mario Wii-U is the most hardcore Mario game since Super Mario World, and the only reason it gets away with that is because of the hand-holding feature. That has inspired increased creativity for a game that has to cater to more audiences and difficulty levels than any other game. And it’s not like some games where you can just choose easy, medium, or hard for a difficulty. What makes it difficult is the level design itself, which cannot be scaled easier or harder.

And keep in mind that some people just can’t “power through” a boss. You are talking about a skill inherent in hardcore gamers that casual ones may not possess. Even at that point, allowing such a tactic may compromise the vision a designer has for a game more than even the hand-holding feature. Allowing less skilled players to basically cheat code through a game doesn’t change the essence of the game itself, but allowing a “power through” tactic does.

I’m not disagreeing that I prefer multiple approaches to bosses, but I think in a world where great boss fights are going extinct, we can’t nit-pick over games that actually nail the design. Whether they make them too hard or create features that allow unskilled players to beat parts of the game where they are stuck is just complaining for the sake of complaining. We can’t have things go our way 100% of the time.

Angelo

You’re right. I’m nit-picking. That’s probably a sign that we need to stop and just appreciate what we have. And, with that, I think I’m going to go play some Bioshock.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo writes/podcasts about the NBA for I GO HARD NOW, covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, and ocassionally writes about horror films for Bloody Good Horror. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

Spacefunmars has a photo-blog about his pets. He designs the world’s best ever board games. He lives in Buffalo and loves chocolate milk. All he wants is to love and be loved. You can find him on twitter @spacefunmars.

Luckily, this has given me a certain amount of perspective as to what goes into making a game fun. It is almost inspiring how one failure can actually lead to a greater knowledge than if I had succeeded completely on my first attempt. Any success would have been completely accidental and also completely useless.

Part of the problem with loving both board games and video games is it is hard to keep the correct perspective on how exactly these different mediums require different mechanics to be fun. The surface differences are obvious. You can directly interact with the game world in video games better. They are also more expansive and require the player to rely less on his imagination — often creating linear, story-based game play and win conditions entirely impossible in a board game. Board games are more tactile, more social, and require a certain baseline of strategy that is not necessary in all video games (not that some video games don’t have more strategy than board games — strategy just isn’t a huge prerequisite in video games).

These difference are unavoidable, so there is no need to consider them in this discussion other than to mention them and throw them away completely.

The important difference between board games and video games is the ability to take care of tedious actions. Video games can keep track of an infinite amount of information for you and display this information in a way where you avoid the tedium of constantly having to reference different game trackers. Game trackers, of course, are any changing number, ability, or penalty that you need to keep track of during the game (thus “game” and “trackers”). This is not a worry for video games, and I forgot that completely when designing my first game — Urban Expansion.

I should have realized this would be an issue during the game testing. After each round, we had to write down several numbers: the game score (which also doubled as the money received at the end of each round), money off of buying new stuff, and penalties for money received at the end of the round. We would go person-by-person and ask them what changes occurred to each of their numbers. Then we would go person by person and subtract their penalties from their game scores and hand out the appropriate money.

If you think reading a few sentences about it is tedious, you should try actually playing the game (except you can’t, and you shouldn’t). The time between each round took almost as much time as the rounds themselves, and the game drug for that reason. I succeeded in making the game part of the game fun and balanced and competitive. But keeping track of everything going on in the game was too much.

Add into this some other small mistakes, and it was a complete failure. I made the text on all the cards in the game too small ( you had to hold them up to your face to read it). I made everything too textual when board games are usually a visual medium. Those mistakes, combined with the game tracking mistake, and it wasn’t any fun at all. In fact, the game was actually more fun when I was play testing it and writing down all the information on a pad of paper after each round. When I added a game board to track the information, it actually became less fun. And here, I thought that would fix some of the issues!

On my second attempt at a game, Flatworld Shipping, I initially made the (easily correctable) mistake of taking the Monopoly approach to winning a game. If you somehow aren’t familiar, players lose in Monopoly by going completely bankrupt in the game — at which point, they are out of the game completely. Which means the winner is the one player who never went bankrupt and thus holds the entire market share of the fictional business world. In general, this is a bad game mechanic that even Monopoly barely pulls off.

The problem with this mechanic comes when playing with people who aren’t idiots. It’s completely possible to not be an idiot and lose quickly in the game. Monopoly is a game of chance, so a string of bad luck can wreck even the smartest player’s ability to win. But in most cases, if the people playing are smart, they know how to hold on in the game and slowly, slowly die. They can end the game earlier by taking bigger risks designed to basically suicide themselves, but the most stubborn of players will fade away slowly.

A few months ago, my wife and I were visiting some friends in Boston, and we played some Monopoly. The game pretty much played out where I lucked into a bigger initial foothold on the board, so I controlled where all monopolies would go. As my wife and friends started to lose money against me, I would keep them in the game by giving them huge amounts of money for some of the properties they wanted.

In short, they were selling their own properties to me in order to pay debts they owed to me. This cycle kept repeating itself for the longest time until they went bankrupt one by one. It was both a depressing example of how the world kind of works and a really boring game. That’s coming from the guy who won.

The problem with domination-style games like Monopoly and Risk is the game is often over before the game is technically over. Some people playing the game are eliminated and have to sit around for a long time waiting for the game to end. Other people have almost no chance of winning, but often have to play out the game anyway. I’m not sure if it is technically a balancing issue, but both those games provide greater and greater rewards the better a player does. It creates a snowball effect of in-game success.

In Risk, this often balances out in games of three or more players because everyone will gang up on the player who starts to pull away too much, but at some point in the game, there will be two players left, and the snowball effect will come into play. At least it’s less drawn out in a game like Risk over a game like Monopoly.

The best games allow everyone who has employed a good strategy to be in the game until the end. It punishes players for not playing well, but not by giving an exponential advantage to any player who starts the game quickly. It punishes players for not playing well by refusing to employ rubber-banding effects.

Anyone who has played Mario Kart should know how awful that is. A game uses rubber-banding when it has some mechanic that punishes the best players for being good and rewards the worst players for being bad. It’s a version of handicapping that adjusts based on in-game performance.

I’ve found that the best designed games allow any player with a good strategy to stay in the game until the end. Games that reward a game-long strategy, so a player who thinks short term won’t gain the advantage too soon and pull well out of reach. And a player who constantly makes bad decisions can’t win based on some random action that has nothing to do with the players’ abilities.

This is why so many games we play have similar mechanics and win conditions. Certain things just work from a design perspective. In board games especially, games rely on a certain set of guidelines and mechanics. Picking up cards. Some variation on victory points (almost every game has it, whether you realize it’s a victory point or not). Bidding on stuff. Some form of payment for in-game actions. Most games rely on standard, unavoidable stuff because they help facilitate the parts of the game that are unique.

The next you are playing a game that seems all too formulaic, try to imagine if those formulaic parts could have been done in a different way that also works equally as well. Try to isolate the parts of the game that you haven’t seen in other games — or that are at least combinations of mechanics you haven’t seen in other games. In most cases, we don’t want to know how the sausage is made, but in games, it creates a higher appreciation for a seemingly simple thing.

All that, and I haven’t even talked about the pricing concerns that go into creating a game, which is an even worse layer of Hell.

Spacefunmars has a photo-blog about his pets. He designs the world’s best ever board games. He lives in Buffalo and loves chocolate milk. All he wants is to love and be loved. You can find him on twitter @spacefunmars.

• Just to be clear, I’m going into this expecting to hate it. That is where I’m beginning.
• Things aren’t starting off on the right foot. The film opens with a sequence that feels a bit too much like something out of a Rob Zombie film for my tastes as a father and a bunch of inbred redneck looking dudes “purify” a girl that has been tainted by the book by burning her at the stake. I’m now worried.
• Hey, that guy kind of looks like Ted Raimi. (Editor’s Note: Upon consulting IMDB after the film, it was not Ted Raimi. It totally should have been though).
• Alright, with that rocky opening out of the way, we’re being introduced to the group of kids spending their weekend at the cabin in the woods. Thankfully, there is no one named “Ash” in this group. A very wise choice.
• Okay, so this David character is pretty much Ash, but is not actually named Ash. His little sister Mia is pretty much Cheryl, only she’s trying to kick a drug problem, hence the retreat to the cabin. I really like that added touch. A much better reason for the trip than simply wanting to get away for a weekend to a creepy-ass cabin in the woods. This is growing on me.
• THE CLASSIC MAKES AN APPEARANCE!!!!
• They find the book in the basement, as well as the burnt remains from the opening of the film. In yet another excellent decision, there’s no audiotape from the original movie. I like how they’re consciously avoiding anything and everything iconic from the original film. A really solid idea on the filmmaker’s part.
• A passage from the book (which wisely doesn’t look much like the book from the original series) is read and the shit starts to hit the fan. I’m really liking the deeper meaning here in that this can all be traced back to Mia’s withdrawal and drug addiction. You don’t often see remakes adding meaning or depth to films.
• I’m really enjoying how much more of the book you see in this film.
• Even though they hinted at it in the trailers, I’m still shocked they kept the tree rape scene in the film. Though they also introduced this “Evil Mia” double character, which again plays nicely into the running allegory about drug abuse.
• I’m constantly being surprised by how smartly the filmmakers are side-stepping everything iconic about the original film. The creature design is totally different, with the white contacts from the original totally being abandoned. The possessed’s voices are much deeper than the original and, so far at least, none of them have promised to “swallow your soul”. Thumbs up all around.
• Ah, now they’re actively fucking with fans of the original film. There’s totally a scene that makes you think there will be a possessed hand running around the cabin like in Evil Dead II, but alas, it’s all an elaborate rouse. Again, very smart.
• I’m sitting here and thinking that this is exactly how you remake a classic horror film. I wrote about this a while back for Bloody Good Horror, and it’s amazing how well Evil Dead is fitting the mold I proposed in that article. The filmmaker’s knew there was no way they’d be able to out-Bruce Campbell Bruce Campbell, so they didn’t even try. They boiled the Ash character down to it’s essence and created the character of David. All the iconic visuals and sounds are gone, with no attempt to replicated them (which is a great idea, because the “we’re gonna get you” part in the trailer is terrible and immediately draws comparisons to a scene that this film was in no way going to be able to surpass). As a result, this feels like a full-realized story that just happens to fit in the Evil Dead universe. I approve of this. Immensely.
• I really enjoyed this, so I’m not going to spoil anymore. Go see this. Trust me.
• Groovy.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo writes/podcasts about the NBA for I GO HARD NOW, covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, and ocassionally writes about horror films for Bloody Good Horror. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

• Oh hey, this movie starts with Lou from Major League getting decapitated by a werewolf. That’s a promising start.
• It then segues into a kid with some sort of gasoline powered, wheel-chair/motocross bike hybrid thing hanging out with his drunk Uncle played by Gary Busey. That’s… puzzling.
• And then the werewolf climbs up the side of a house to break into a bedroom window. That’s also puzzling.
• Apparently this werewolf doesn’t know it’s a werewolf and has instead taken to killing people in very un-werewolf like ways. Such as exploding from underneath a greenhouse floor and stabbing someone in some wood. Or by attacking them from underneath the cover of fog. Something tells me they didn’t have the budget to actually make a werewolf movie, yet tried to do so anyways.
• Yeah, that’s absolutely what they did.
• How has Stephen King made so many movies when they’re almost all terrible?
• Oh my God. The church scene.
• Oh, so the family in this movie let an alcoholic Gary Busey build their child suped-up, gasoline powered wheelchairs that look and funcition like motocross bikes. That makes a lot of sense.
• Oh, and they also let him hang out with him and give him fireworks to fight werewolves. That also makes a lot of sense.
• So this kid blows Werewolf Priest’s eye off with a firecracker and then proceeds to start mailing him passive aggressive notes suggesting that he should kill himself. Sounds like a cool kid.
• My thoughts exactly, Werewolf Priest.
• Finally, the movie wraps up with a climatic battle between Werewolf Priest and Gary Busey. It was everything I had hoped it would be.
• Yeah. That was pretty awful. Glad that’s over.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo writes/podcasts about the NBA for I GO HARD NOW, covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, and ocassionally writes about horror films for Bloody Good Horror. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

Skyrim would have been my perfect game just three years ago. It is a huge, beautiful game with near-endless possibilities (for a videogame). I can customize my character to be any nerd-fantasy I want. Skyrim is the game I always wished videogames would become when I was playing the Eye of the Beholder games on my 486 computer as a child. That series featured the same kind of gigantic world Skyrim has – only it was too early for its time. The world was just a static image that changed every time the player moved (although the enemies WERE animated, so that’s something). The game didn’t feature any towns or non-playable characters to speak of. Eye of the Beholder was a huge world that had no inhabitants.

Now I have Skyrim, which does everything I want a game to do. It is a monstrous-sized world filled with life and a trillion quests. Only I have a big problem with the game. I have been waiting for a game like Skyrim all my life, and now that it is here, I can’t play it. I got too old.

This is not a problem with the game itself – it is a problem with time. I live a life now where I have too many responsibilities to put any time into Skyrim. Rarely do I have the time to sit down with a videogame for four or more hours and really sink my teeth into it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what I would have to do to get anything out of Skyrim. Getting anything done in this world takes a lot of time. There are endless distractions – and I am very ADD.

It took me several weeks to complete the first main quest in this game, and I have not progressed much beyond that. I have owned this game for two months now, and it is clear I am not getting anywhere in it. It is clear that I will probably never get anywhere in it. Life is coming at me quicker and quicker now. I am closing on my first house in April. I am getting married in June. I am probably less than two years away from having a kid. If I don’t have time for Skyrim now when I am living a relatively lazy life in an apartment, how will I ever have time for it?

Bethesda (the company who made Skyrim) likes to pretend games like Skyrim and Fallout are marketed towards my late 20′s/early 30′s age group, but that cannot be true. I have serious reservations about anyone who is my age and actually has time to play a videogame like Skyrim. This is a game I would have eaten alive in my early-to-mid 20′s before I gave a fuck about anything like “responsibilities.”

I have found myself playing games that can be handled in short bursts instead. A level or two of Mario 3D Land here. A game or two of NBA 2K12 there. Maybe a few Grand Prix Mario Kart 7 races. These are games that can be sneaked into the little parts of my life where I have time to play videogames. Somehow as I’ve gotten older, I have acquired the same videogame taste I had as a seven-year-old.

Maybe it is just a cycle, and I will some day get back to playing these huge, in-depth games again. Maybe when I retire. Perhaps Skyrim is targeted at videogaming seventy-year-olds who have nothing but free time?

Spacefunmars writes about basketball at I GO HARD NOW. He also has a photo-blog about his pets. He lives in Buffalo and loves chocolate milk. All he wants is to love and be loved. You can find him on twitter @spacefunmars.

It was gross. Hence the need for the air freshener.

Now, I’m looking at air fresheners, when I find these little sticks that you stick into your vent. I look at them and think “hey, this is pretty unassuming looking” and consider picking them up as they won’t be super obvious or anything. However, I can’t figure out what the listed smell, “Primal Impulse”, smells like, so the turn the package over.

And there, I find gold:

I stood in awe. I read the packaging again. Yes, I did read everything correctly. This was not a joke. This really was a “TOTALLY EXTREME BRO, WOAH” air freshener. For your car.

The reality of what I was holding quickly began to sink into my psyche. Somewhere out there, there exists a marketing manager who thought that the market for air fresheners had a hole. A hole the size of sexually insecure/frustrated/angry bros who needed their air fresheners to be “TOTALLY EXTREME TO THE MAX” because otherwise they couldn’t bring themselves to face another human being in the checkout line without feeling massive amounts of shame.

And how exactly do you market to this demographic without making them self-conscious of the situation that they’re in? Let’s translate this line by line:

DIRECTIONS: SHOVE IT IN THE VENT… PREPARE TO BE BLOWN AWAY!

Translation: Look dawg, it happens to all of us from time to time. Things happen and you kind of hit a dry-spell with the ladies. We get it, bro, it’s hard to meet someone out there. And when you do, they want you to like listen to them and shit. And let’s not forget, you gotta have that scrilla because women be shoppin’, am I right? Yeah broseph, I get it. It’s been a little while since you’ve gotten some action. But don’t worry. You can just shove DRIVEN BY REFRESH into your air vent over and over again and we won’t tell anyone, brochacho. Your secret’s safe with us breh.

DANGER! THIS AIN’T YOUR DAD’S AIR FRESHENER!

Translation: Listen brah, your Dad’s a pretty intimidating bro. I mean, he’s got his shit put together and owns a house and can pay his bills and all that shit. And while it’s totally cool and all that he’s letting you stay in his basement while you spend all your money at the bars with your bro magnons, it’s hard. Girls always asking you if you live with your parents. Having to sneak back into their house in the middle of the night so they don’t know you were out partying hard at the brodeo. Your Dad asking you shit about when you’re finally going to get a job and settle down and act your age and all that. Well, fuck that shit Brosiedon! DRIVEN BY REFRESH ain’t for that asshole! It’s for you and young brofessionals like you! This ain’t some lass-ass Glade Plug-Ins shit breh.

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS! IN YOUR FACE SCENT GUARANTEED TO DRIVE THEM CRAZY!

Translation: Bruh, women be wantin’ so much out their man these days. They want you to like have a job and be in shape and be a good listener and to respect them and all that bullshit. We get it, it’s hard for a Chillbro Baggins like yourself to juggle time in the gym getting ripped with your brodigious bromigos and trying to have a job and be put together and shit. Luckily for you, DRIVEN BY REFRESH is just what you’re lookin’ for Bromeo. All you gotta do is shove some hazardous chemicals all up in her face and DRIVEN BY REFRESH will do the rest! It’s that easy breh!

THE TIME IS NOW! GET READY TO BE DRIVEN BY REFRESH!

Translation: Cuz your car still smells like shit, breh.

Shockingly, it actually gets worse. After reading all that and pondering the fate of humanity for a solid 15 minutes, I still had no idea what the hell “Primal Urge” smells like. So, I walked out of Target with a new car air smell air freshener (which I later spilled all over myself the next day during lunch because I’m slick like that) and consulted the Internet when I got home.

And again, I struck gold. DRIVEN BY REFRESH has a website. And woo boy is it something.

Right away, you get hit with this brilliant sentence:

Cutting edge design, innovative platforms and bold, masculine scents guaranteed to get you the attention you deserve

Because you can’t get women. And you’re insecure about it. And you’re too manly to publicly acknowledge your car smells gross. Because this is apparently a huge market opportunity.

But still, my answer was elusive. What the hell did “Primal Urge” smell like? I found their scents page and finally got my answer:

Leather and wood notes will mesmerize all who come close with your power, limitless strength and obvious good taste

I don’t know if that’s a description of an air freshener or the world’s weirdest fortune cookie saying. Limitless strength? Power? What the hell does that have to do with an air freshener? Also, I’m pretty sure if you’re buying an air freshener called “Primal Urge” your taste, while quite obvious, is not good.

But there’s more. Here’s the description of the scent “Titanium Rain”:

Titanium Rain’s hints of ocean and sandalwood are a scented reminder of EVERYTHING you did last Summer

Yes. There’s a sexual innuendo in a sentence for an air freshener that’s supposed to smell like the ocean. Gross.

You know what’s a great product name when you’re advertising something towards sexually frustrated men? “Venom Assault”:

They won’t see it coming. Venom Assault, with traces of orange and spice, sharpen your senses for other nocturnal adventures

What the fuck is this? “Nocturnal adventures”? “They won’t see it coming”? Do they not realize what the subtext behind this is? No, they totally do, and that’s super gross.

But there’s actually more. THEY SELL AN AIR FRESHENER THAT LOOKS LIKE A BACKSTAGE PASS FOR A VAN HALEN CONCERT!

This is the world in which we live. We have a non-ironic air freshener marketing campaign run by a real life @DadBoner with some really questionable/reprehensible sexual undertones. Some real Don Draper shit right here.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo writes/podcasts about the NBA for I GO HARD NOW, covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, and ocassionally writes about horror films for Bloody Good Horror. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.

What is Coast to Coast AM you ask? It’s only the single greatest radio show ever. Ever. For four hours every night, Coast to Coast AM features the cream of the crop of conspiracy theorists, psychic mediums, cryptozoologists, and pretty much everyone else that makes Glenn Beck look like a sound, reasonable man, talking about an array of topics as varied as Bigfoot, alien abductions, hauntings, and, my personal favorite, politicians that are actually shape-shifting reptilian alien overlords. It short, it fucking rules.

Look at that man. Aviators. Turtleneck. Mustache. Smokers voice. He’s pretty much the coolest. He’s also the original host of Coast to Coast AM, Art Bell. Sadly, Art’s been retired for most of the past decade, leaving the reigns of Coast to Coast AM in George Noory’s somewhat shaky hands, but when he was at the helm, Coast to Coast AM was some of the greatest entertainment around.

You see, Art’s an old school conspiracy theorist. While contemporary conspiracy theorists have hung their hat on lame conspiracies revolving around 9/11, Obama’s birth certificate and new world orders run by bankers, Art was all about the good shit. Alien abductions. Roswell. Area 51. Reptilians. Bigfoot. New world orders run by space lizards. You know, the batshit awesome stuff you think a guy that looks like Art would be into.

The best thing about Art though, was that he didn’t take any shit. You see, Coast to Coast AM is known for it’s unscreened open phone lines. Being that there are no call screeners, pretty much any paranoid hillbilly that’s awake at 2:00am on a Tuesday could call in and get on the air with Art. And while these crazy phone calls about being abducted by aliens that did your laundry were awesome, Art calling these hillbillies out on their shit was even more awesome. You know, you don’t want people to not take your show seriously after all.

While Art’s retired, he’ll still come back to fill in from time to time, which is great not only because the show is back in it’s old form, but because Art has since quit smoking. Why does that matter? Because Art’s been taking Chantix for seemingly a solid decade. Chantix, if you’re unaware, has a variety of crazy side effects, including super vivid night terrors, which Art will talk about at length on air. Now keep in mind, this man spent his life talking to dudes who hunt Bigfoot. Can you imagine the fucked up, crazy ass Chantix nightmares this man has? Yeah, they’re fucking awesome.

Coast to Coast AM was always about the moments. On any given night, you had no idea what crazy shit was going to go down. Below are some of my favorites:

Moment 1: The Area 51 Caller

Like I mentioned earlier, Coast to Coast AM never screens their calls. One night back in 1997, this happened. A man claiming to have worked at Area 51 called in and began detailing a far-reaching government conspiracy involving cross-dimensional aliens, NASA and population control. While the caller was frantically (fairly legitimately I may add) explaining the “truth” behind Area 51, something happened and the satellite carrying the show was knocked offline.

While just a crazy coincidence, this of course was a sign that the government got wind of the fact that someone was spilling the beans and killed the satellite. The caller later called back and confessed that he was pulling a prank, but even after that disclosure, Art chose to believe the government knocked the show off the air because the guy had accidentally hit upon the truth. Like I said, this show rules.

Moment 2: JC and Oscar

Coast to Coast AM has a few notable recurring callers. My personal favorites go hand in hand. The first is the hillbilly you hear in the video above, ranting about how Bigfoot is actually Satan. His name is JC. He claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ, hence the name. Art hates him and has had many amazing duels with him on the air, including this one.

The second caller may be familiar to fans of the band Islands, as they sampled him in the song Volcanoes. Oscar is a demon that also happens to be the son of Satan. He’s also a woman named Rachel. It’s complicated. Oscar started calling after Art had handed over the show to George Noory, but has still produced many memorable moments, including this great one when JC and Oscar briefly had it out over the phone:

Moment 3: The Sounds of Hell

Back to the Art Bell days. The story goes that a Siberian mining operation was wiped out when it accidentally opened a hole to Hell. After Art had covered the story, a listener sent in a cassette tape supposedly from a tape recorder lowered into the hole. The result was another classic Coast to Coast AM moment.

The actual story if you’re curious, is that the hole in question was actually a sinkhole that was amplifying the sounds from a roller coaster many miles away. Science!

Like all things in life, Coast to Coast AM isn’t going to be around forever. Already, without Art Bell behind the mic, the quality of the show has slipped. And sadly, I’m sure there will be a day when Coast to Coast AM will become an extension of Fox News and just become Republican talking points about how Obama is an socialist atheist that was born in Indonesia that is waging a war on religion, the family and America. However, until that day comes, I’ll be listening just in case something awesome happens and another classic Coast to Coast AM moment is born.

In addition to Goodspeed & Poe, Angelo writes/podcasts about the NBA for I GO HARD NOW, covers the Cavaliers at Fear the Sword, and ocassionally writes about horror films for Bloody Good Horror. He lives in his native Cleveland with his Netflix account and PlayStation.