(Submitted for your approval: Mindfuck Monday, a weekly smorgasbord of sights and sounds the likes of which you cannot fathom.... Or just another guy streaming a movie, depending on how you want to look at it.)



Good evening, Destructoid. Tonight's movie is The Fall. Filmed in 26 locations on over 18 countries, and directed by Tarsem (director of The Cell) this movie has moments in it that are visually breathtaking. Put that together with a strange plot that scrambles fantasy and reality and you've got the perfect recipe for a Mindfuck Monday movie.






Because the movie is nearly 2 hours long, I'm going to start it a little earlier than usual.
Movie starts at 8:30 Central / 9:30 Eastern.

You can watch it here!


See you tonight.

I posted half of a comic purchased at the door of PAX yesterday. This is the second half (or first half if you want to be difficult about things) of that comic. I feel as if I should make a few things known beforehand. I neither support or un-support Mormons. I bet some of them are pretty rad dudes. Lastly, my scan abilities are less than desirable, so for the unreadable parts on the notebook paper, I have included the text below with spelling and punctuation intact.

Enjoy.






Dear Jesus or other high ranking Angels that may find this letter,
My name is Nathan Rogers, I'm a member of the LDS Church. I'm writing you this letter as a very desparate attempt to save my family and friends who have made a colony here in heaven on the planet Kolob. I don't expect to save myself and I don't really think I deserve to live. Because right now I don't really understand the difference between heaven and hell and I really don't believe you exist at all.


We've been here for about 5 months. We came here from the planet earth to be by your grace and to see all our loved ones again who passed away during the Great Holy War. Maybe it's because we cheated and came to heaven the wrong way. That's why it's been so hard.

Coming to Kolob has been a struggle for all of us. We lost a quarter of our settlers of New Salt Lake during the first 2 months from radiation sickness while we were still building safe housing that can withstand the immense radiation from the God Star. Most of the deaths were of the more able bodied men doing the construction work of our housing. Sacrifices were to be expected, I thought their deaths were just a minor set back, and very soon they would be reunited with their loved ones when we located exactly where you castle is along with the cities where all the normal angels and saved lived.




What my dad said, really disturbed me. Until that time I never doubted that I would be the one to locate heaven underground and save every one. I put all my trust in Thomas Woodruff, my parents, and the Mormon scientist. They were all so smart. I mean, the scientists discovered a way to travel here to Kolob using wave propulsion engine and they created the Digdug arm that drills and blows dirt clear to move through solid ground with ease. With such brilliant minds, who am I to question anything they say.




Tunneling underground reminds me a lot more of earth, compared to the surface, with the extreme heat and radiation. I don't really like thinking about what we left behind on earth. I don't like to dwell.














After I escaped the underground that's when I decided to write you this letter. What am I supposed to think, now? Is everything I've grown up to believe all of my life and everyone that I've loved and trusted wrong? Is there no heaven, no golden paradise, no God? Are all my fondest hopes and aspirations, everything I believe an elaborate fable?
I've lost everything and everyone in life and death.
I can't return home. I won't spread what I've discovered to everyone else. They wouldn't accept me, anyhow. Please help them if...

Here's my contribution from PAX 09. 1/2 of a Morman comic that I didn't even pay the three dollars for (Chooly did). I stood in line to play Borderlands and read this, and thought, " This is so over the top. People have to see this." There wasn't any fine print in this book saying not to post it on the internet, so if you're Aaron Wright and want me to pull it, just let me know.

This isn't the best scan ever made, but it gets the job done. Without further ado, I present to you The Legend of that Link Kid: An 8 Bit Tragedy Presentation.

[Every month (Except last month) Analoge showcases an overlooked, under-appreciated, or just plain weird piece of video game history in a segment called Object Obscura.]



First of all, thanks to Chronoswing for suggesting this wonderfully bizarre game to me.

Incredible Crisis is a Videos Game for your Television Entertainment System (TES). It was produced by Titus, and developed by Polygon Magic (the makers of a very eclectic catalog including the Rambo arcade game and the Galerians series) The basic premise is this: You are a Japanese Family. It is the Grandmother person's birthday, and tonight will be a special dinner celebration in her honor (the only reason for living, according to her). So you all go your separate ways: Taneo (the father person), Etsuko (mother woman), Ririka (tentacle-fodder), and Tsuyoshi (kid who looks kinda like Conan from Case Closed) with the maternal instructions to be back early for dinner. What happens next is told through some of the most ridiculous minigames ever, accompanied by a soundtrack by the ever-sexy Tokyo Ska Paradise.



The father leaves for his soul-crushing Japanese office job (making license plates or whatever it is they do) When suddenly an impromptu dance-a-thon is started and you're plunged into a rhythm-game style minigame. Soon after, you're being chased by a giant boulder a la Indiana Jones. Next you're riding in an ambulance playing a quiz-game being asked questions like "Taro is heavier than Hanako; Pierre is heavier than Taro. Hanako is the oldest and Pierre was born before Taro. Is Taro heavier than Pierre?" and "HAHOHOHOHOHOHIHOHUHOHO... Were there 12 HO's?". When the paramedics are satisfied That you're OK based on their ridiculous questions they launch you out of their ambulance on a stretcher, where you're forced to dodge cars and motorcycles. After that, you wind up giving backrubs to strange women on ferris wheels, followed shortly by shooting at fighter jets in a Navy turret gun. All this, only to show up right on time for Grandma's special meal. What a day, right? Well that's just Dad's adventure! We still have to thwart bank robbers and destroy giant teddy bears in fighter jets as Mom, go make-up shopping and meet aliens as Ririka, and be shrunk down and fight bugs as Conan Edogawa.



In spite of each challenge being more ridiculous than the next, they actually fit into a plot that isn't as batshit crazy as it would seem. It all follows one storyline that weaves each family member in pretty well (as well as a batshit crazy, uber-Japanese mini-game collection can, anyway). I really loved how each character finishes they're wild adventures just in time to make it home for Grandma's party.

As far as gameplay goes, It's a bit sub-par. Some of the games are incredibly (pun intended) hard, and your fingers will hurt like crazy after an extended playthrough. Also, some of the minigames repeat themselves (although it is done as a bit of a joke). Really though, it's less about the destination ( slightly annoying mini-games) and more about the journey. The incredible journey.



There really isn't much more that can be said about Incredible Crisis. It's another weird PSX game and I Iove it. Check it out, if you're down with strange gaming experiences, and if you have any suggestions for further installments of Object Obscura be sure and let me know. Chances are I'll end up doing it eventually.

[Every month (since 2 months ago) Analoge showcases an overlooked, under-appreciated, or just plain weird piece of video game history in a segment called Object Obscura.]



No one can stop Mr. Domino.

No one.

Not you. Not your big, burly dad. Not your brother who played football in high school and drinks protein shakes. No one can stop Mr. Domino. This is what Artdink would have you believe, but is it true? Is there really no one alive capable of halting the progress, nay, impeding the doom-like march of an anthropomorphic piece of rectangular plastic?

The answer is no. Just about anyone or anything can stop Mr. Domino: Shirt buttons, pool balls, The occasional tiny hill, other anthropomorphic dominos. In fact, unless you are very talented, Mr. Domino will be stopped quite a few times, but if you've got an eye for the strange, and if you don't mind slogging through some occasionally overly hard gameplay, Mr. Domino might interest you.



No One Can Stop Mr. Domino is a unique game, to say the least. The look can be best described as "Katamari-esque". The characters and backgrounds are blocky and very Japanese, which works well with the also "Katamari-esque" premise of a little guy running around causing havok in the big people's world. You play as Mr. Domino (or some variant of a domino-person including a domino woman and a domino alien) and run around a circular, track-based level trailing dominos by holding the circle button. Around this track are obstacles to dodge and buttons that need to be pressed by a domino (non-anthropomorphic). When you set up a domino to press the button, you'll let go of the "trail dominos" button until you get to a cue a bit later in the level telling you to start trailing dominos again. When done correctly, You'll do a full circle around the level, and when you get back to where you started, you'll knock over the first domino starting a level-wide chain reaction. Your chain of dominos will hit buttons which will cause something silly to happen and knock over the domino you set up at the cue point continuing the chain. Pulling this off is really satisfying and makes you feel like an all-around cool person.



It is extremely hard to pull this off.

No One Can Stop Mr. Domino is hard. This game might as well have been called No One Can Control Mr. Domino As He Plows Headlong Through The Level Tripping Over Anything In His Way. You can control your speed by pressing up and down, which is quite awkward. You can also land on a speed up/slow down tile to control your speed, but you'll more likely run into them on accident, sending poor Mr. Domino careening towards peril at breakneck speed or reducing him to a crawl. Not being able to control your speed well makes it even tougher when you consider that each level is timed. I really really wish you could opt to turn off the timer. I've said before that timers are outdated features that rarely make a game more enjoyable, and this game is no exception. Half the time, I'll go through the whole level only to knock over my first domino and realize that there's a gap in my chain. The timer makes sure that you don't have enough time to go all the way back around, place a domino where one needs to be and go all the way back around AGAIN to knock it over, meaning you're forced to strive for complete perfection every time.

That being said, the game has undeniable charm. If if didn't, it wouldn't have stuck with me as long as it has. I first played this game off of a PSX Jampak in a Wal-Mart somewhere when I was a wee lad, and now, years later, I recommend it to you. Give it a try. It's bizarre enough to be worth your time.

Jim didn't want to be an adventurer. He was perfectly content to live out the rest of his days in the sleepy village he called home with his beautiful wife and daughter, Shayna. That was before the foreigners came. When the villagers refused to pay them tribute, they turned to violence. Peaceful farmers and millers were struck down with curved blades and malice. Jim was forced to watch as his house was razed and his wife and child were taken to God knows where. Now, after swearing revenge and setting off to find his family, Jim finds a town. It's the first civilization he's seen in the month since he left the village. He makes his way to the building marked Joe's Bar, and enters. He has so many questions. Where did the foreigners come from? Where had they taken his family? He was so lost in thought that he almost stumbled over a stool as he approached the bar. The man at the bar peers up at him and says, "How about a drink, stranger?"

Yes
No
>I was just leaving.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how much depth and backstory you try and put into your character. The computer will always find a way to make you an automaton. It's like trying to build the Louvre with legos.

After reading Alice and Kev (and BrianKeljore's Dtoid Sims), I'll admit that a great deal of depth can be read into generally shallow mechanics. It remains to be seen, however, how much depth we're actually seeing and how much we just want to see. Will every Sim with the insanity trait kick over people's trash cans and be ZOMG SO RANDOM XD? That gets real old real quick. Just because Alice possesses the good trait doesn't mean it's realistic to think that she would give every paycheck she earns to charity. Some people try too hard to get more context out of their customized characters. It doesn't matter that you're the slick, dynamite-packing, wise-acre with a soft spot for kids when everyone around you is a doe-eyed sap and your dialog is limited to "Yes", "No", and "Tell me more about the wolves".

I think that as far as story is concerned, the less input a player gets the better. Character customization, while delivering that awesomely vain feeling that only creating yourself with a top hat and an Uzi can deliver, can seriously detract from the task at hand or the message you're trying to send. I still haven't beaten Saint's Row 2, because by the time I got my character just right I was sick of the game.



It seems like when I play open world games, I have to cut it some slack because of its size and scope. A lot of computer reaction in games like SR2 and Fallout 3 is knee-jerk. You steal, people scream and yell, you leave, come back, and people are greeting you with a friendly hello. I think it could help to make the world smaller. On a smaller scale, you could make the world more genuine. You could make every NPC important in some way.

I think that a linear storyline can get you a lot more mileage than a so-called open one if done right. Most open worlds are just vehicles for linear storylines anyway. At what point do you stop calling it an open world and start calling it a hub world or a lobby?

Games should take less from movies and more from books. Not choose-your-own-adventure books, mind you. I don't want to flip to page 46 to give the puppies a treat or flip to page 103 to throw them into a lava pit. These black and white morality systems have got to go. The Harold quest from Fallout 3 was a good moral choice. On my first play through (as a good character) I was legitimately torn over choosing what was best for the world or what Harold would want me to do. Rev has talked about feeling powerless in games. I believe he was speaking from a physical standpoint, but what about feeling emotionally powerless? Being put into a situation where you genuinely care about the outcome of your decision, and you don't have a clue what you should do. For example, your dad needs chemo. The cancer is already pretty bad and the doctors say he probably won't make it, but your dad wants to fight it. Do you pay for the chemo or not? It'll only make him sicker. Do you suggest that he take pain killers and ease his last days, instead? In this situation, there really is no good or evil. It's what you think is best, and it's not leading to an obvious reward. There may be no reward. Real plot is its own reward. I can get a new laser gun from somewhere else. You don't need to tempt my decision with spoils. Give us moral choices that actually affect something. You saved a town full of people? Great! The next time you're in town, hold it over their heads a bit. You did save them after all. Extort them a bit, maybe.

In the end, it seems like game developers are determined to get this right, and open world games are (slowly but surely) getting better. Milo is an attempt to improve NPC relations with the player, even if he did seem wooden and disingenuous. Façade was a fair attempt at eliminating the multiple choice dialog tree that is suffocating actual player interaction. Who knows? Maybe one day, I'll be able to accurately represent my own personality in a video game. Until then, I'll just have to settle for the bitchin' top hat and the Uzi.