cjdaweasel.com

Dear Team Sonic,

What the fuck are you doing? I’ve been a devout fan of Sonic the Hedgehog since the Genesis. I love Sonic, and I like Tails, and I will usually crush Dr. Eggman (Eggman, Egghead, Robotnik… whatever) if given the time. But I feel that the Sonic series has taken a decided turn for the crappy, and someone needs to say something. Through research, time and frustratingly boring gameplay I think I’ve narrowed down my three major complaints with the new games:

1) Please stop adding characters to my Sonic games.

Really and honestly Sega I give less than a sh!t about Peach and that stupid alligator. I don’t want to beat the game with 52,000 different characters that are just clones of the three main characters: Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. I never asked for that, and from my reasearch (see above) neither did anyone else. Please remove all of them, except for Shadow. He can stay.

2) Please stop making levels so flippin slow.

I play sonic so I can fly through a level a top-notch speed. Unless I missed a meeting, which is entirely possible, that’s what Sonic is about. I will take the time to admit that you have been pretty good about this, but there should never EVER be a time where I have to stop Sonic and line up a shot before I jump. If I wanted to play something slow and easy I’d play Mario.

3) Please stop making Final Fantasy 7 : Sonic Edition.

All of the sudden Sonic can gain levels and pull off limit breaks. Let’s stop pretending. He’s already got the spikey hair, why not just give him a sword and be done with it. I’m up to my scrotum in bad RPGs, I don’t need another one.

Seriously guys, what the h*ll are you smoking?,
CJ

Ruleo-ography: Arnold Schwarzenegger Kicks Ass

and Chuck Norris sucks

The faster everyone comes to terms with this, the faster we can be on our way to world peace, and wouldn’t that be nice?

But it seems that a false prophet has arisen in the form Chuck Norris, who is, unfortunately, a complete puss. Now I could go on a movie by movie basis and prove why Arnold is better, but let’s face it, that’d take quite a bit of time that neither of us have to reach a conclusion that both of us know. Also that’d be so many Arnold movies in one post that your pants would hereafter be in a permanent state of “blown off”.

Let’s size up our competitors. The first is an Oklahoma native who had an Cherokee/Irish alcoholic father, while Arnold was born in Austria to a Nazi alcoholic father. Using the playground “My dad could beat up your dad” argument we have an Irish Indian (Here “Irish” and “drunk” are used interchangeably) fighting a drunk Nazi

While the basis for a short but totally awesome fighting game, my money is on the Nazi Nazis killed several million people while Indians, with the exception of that awesome strategist named Custer, never even had a shot at that number.

Score:
Arnold: 1
Norris: 0

Now let’s compare names. Chuck Ray Norris sounds like a gas station attendant that everyone calls “Ray”. Not really manly at all. Hard to take someone seriously when their name is “Chuck”.

However, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, not only is hard to pronounce and would work well in an RPG, it DOMINATES the movie screen. Every time Arnold’s name appears in a movie’s opening credits it’s always by itself. That’s because there’s no room for anyone else’s. One name to rule them all.

Score:
Arnold: 2
Norris: -1 (for having two hillbilly names in one)

Next up is tag lines. Arnold always had cool things to say when he killed someone. Like when he snapped a guy’s neck and laid him on a pillow; “He’s dead tired”. Not Monty Python by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn’t need to be. He was always sunshine, jokes and roses even when something horrible just happened. That’s a positive message for today’s youth.

Example tag line:
Situation: Arnold sticks a knife through a man’s chest.
Line: “Stick around.”

Situation: Arnold is pulled out of a movie and into real life where everyone can guess what he’s going to say.
Line: “Rubber Baby Buggie Bumpers. Bet you didn’t know I was gonna say that!”

Norris hasn’t any really cool tag lines, or any tag lines AT ALL really.

Example tag line:
Situation: Norris does something that Arnold could’ve fixed in half the time with no pesky survivors to take to jail.
Line: “Walker, Texas Ranger”

Score:
Arnold: 3
Norris: -1

Arnold and Norris have also found themselves in similar circumstances but in every case Arnold handles it far more awesomely than Norris.

Arnold: Fought an alien from another planet armed with only a few grenades and a jungle.
Norris: Fought illegal aliens from another income bracket armed with enough weaponry to make the south surrender.. again.
Winner: Arnold

Norris knows: Several forms of martial arts to kick your ass.
Arnold knows: How to use a grenade launcher to remove your ass–permanently.
Winner: Arnold

Norris knows: That being well dressed is most important.
Arnold knows: That if you can’t fit 8 grenades and 200 rounds on it, it aint worth wearing.
Winner: Norris (Haha, yeah right: Arnold)

Final Score:
Arnold: 6
Norris: -520

As you can now see from this scientific study, not only is Arnold cooler and more manly, he’s just plain better. So if Chuck Norris’s tears really cure cancer, we need to get Arnold over there to rip his tear ducts out and say: “It’ll be alright, don’t cry.” Always positive, that Arnold.

Final Fantasy 7 – The Spin-offs

Part III: The Article Formerly Known as “The Spinoffs”

Final Fantasy 7 : SARS Crisis

After failing miserably at attempting to scare the public into a frenzy with Bird Flu, Fox television will re-release FF7 as an “epidemic control” game. At the beginning of the game all characters will start with some disease such as SARS, Ear Lobe Cancer, or Terminal Tennis Elbow. As the story progresses, each character will have to seek out members of the legendary CDC and obtain cures for their respective diseases. The big twist will come at the end when each character learns from nurse Sephiroth that their diseases never even existed to begin with.

Final Fantasy 7 : Texas Chili

Brought to the market as yet ANOTHER service pack for FF7:EC, TC removes the original Exclamation mark bug, but as a side effect introduces a new error that turns all the weapons in the game to Happy Meal toys. Microsoft will at first deny that there is a Happy Meal bug, but after six months of complaints will quietly release another patch to fix it. As well as fixing the code for the original EC, TC will introduce a new chili cook-off mini game. In the Texas Chili cook-off players will have to collect herbs and chemicals from around the world and infuse them into a chili recipe. If the player wins the contest they will be rewarded with a Chili materia, that while not lethal will force the enemy run to the nearest bathroom.

Final Fantasy 7 : Underwear Capers

Going back before FF7:BC, Underwear Capers will introduce Cloud, Barrett, and Cid as mischievous college pranksters. Playing as one of these characters, the player must (a la Sam Fisher) sneak into the girls dorm and steal as many pairs of panties as possible without being caught. Then the panties must be duct-taped together and run up the campus flagpole. Beware of Headmaster Sephiroth. If he catches you you’ll be suspended and you’ll have to spend your days writing articles for a union on Gamespot.

Brought to you by aerisISalive and their android strike force.

Final Fantasy 7 : Viet Cong
 
Square, after realizing that unless they start going into triple letters they’ll have to stop making the spin-offs soon, will determine that there is one area that they haven’t cashed in on: War Games. Using the engine from the Medal of Honor series, SquareEnix will release Vietnam version of FF7. Pitting you as Sergeant Barrett’s squad against an army of Charlies you will have to use your guns, guns, some more guns, and maybe a rocket or two to survive.

Protip: Be careful with grenades, a mistake can make you very unpopular with what’s left of your squad.

Final Fantasy 7 : Wile E Coyote

Taking a tip from other cell-shaded games, FF:WC will feature none other than Wile E Coyote as a spiky-haired, sword wielding Cloud. The game will forfeit most of the traditional weapons in favor of the ACME line of defense. Most swords will be replaced with hammers on springs, guns with cannons that shoot marbles, and staves with little guns that say “Bang!” when you pull the trigger. All the weapons will backfire in some way, making the game easiest to beat if you just set everyone to defend and let the enemy blow themselves away.

Final Fantasy 7 : XXXsored CXXe

AXXer seeiXg the sXcXss of Xhe FiXXX FanXXsy SerieX a XXX amXendXXent wiXX be addXd to XXX Partiot Act aXXXwing thX government tX cenXor anyXXXing that thXy fXXl theatXXs Democracy, America, XX FrXXdom of SpXXch. NeedXXXX to sayX the gXme wiXl be aXmosX entXXXly unplXyablX.

Final Fantasy 7 :Yankee Core

In this version of FF7, Sid Meier takes over as project lead, replacing the original Final Fantasy Seven Universe with historical figures from the American Civil War. The main character will be Abraham Lincoln dressed as a Union soldier. Swords will be replaced with musket rifles, and the battle system will be turned based. Your group will consist of a total of five characters including Joseph Hooker and the love interest Mary Todd.

Limit Break List:

Clean Musket – Lincoln cleans his rifle, inserts charge, loads bullet, aims and fires. The entire limit break will last about 35 seconds. Effect: 300 damage to any one creature.

Emancipation – Lincoln delivers a speech lasting about 5 minutes. Effect: All enemies are put to sleep.

Homestead – Lincoln invites the poor into the battle to build houses. Effect: All enemies that are of Native American descent are instantly killed.

Assassinate – Lincoln is killed instantly. Effect: Kills your character, erases your saved games, swears at you and then melts your PS2.

Final Fantasy 7 : Zod’s Crusade

Failing to defeat Superman on at least 125 occasions, Zod will team up with Sephiroth and beat the ever loving tar out of Cloud. While not much for a story, it will be extremely gratifying to those of us who are FUCKING SICK of hearing about Cloud.

 

Bonus Features

Any DVD that’s worth its weight in asparagus has bonus features. So here’s a list of things that would be under the EXTRAS menu if this were indeed a DVD.

- The actual answers to the opening paragraph that read “What does it mean? Are there more planned? Will there be a Hot Coffee mod for any of them?” Are as follows: Nothing, yes, and only for scenes with Tifa in them.
- If DC were not Dirge of Cerberus it would have been F7F: Core Dyslexic – Version Final of this Fantasy will all have words mixed the of it in around.
- Originally the bonus features were just going to be a list of different meatloaf recipes. Aren’t you glad I changed my mind?
- I first played FF7 on the PC. Due to faulty display drivers it wasn’t until two years later that I learned that Barrett was black, not purple.
- The Wile E Coyote one was kind of a stretch wasn’t it? That’s too many letters.
- I would buy a copy of Love Crisis. Hell, I’d be waiting in line on launch day.
- I almost didn’t put in Falafel under Hell’s Chicken. I didn’t think that anyone would know what it was. But there was a copy and paste error and it somehow got back in after I replaced it with “Pancakes”.
- Originally this article was called “That Sinking Feeling”
- Don’t discipline your donkey without a proper license.
- By the end of the bonus features list I had run out of things to say. So I explained that I had nothing else to say and then explained that. Then I added on a few more sentences that had little to do with Final Fantasy just so it would look like it was long and involved. I hope I succeeded.

Final Fantasy 7 – The Spin-offs

Part II: The Spin-offs vs. Predator

Final Fantasy 7 : Kris Crosis

After a disaster of a music video game on the Sega CD, it appeared as though no one would ever buy another Kriss Kross video game. But in 2005, seeing the market value of a remake, but without the finances or the brain power to back it up, Kriss Kross approached SquareEnix to develop a sequel. After tough negotiations consisting mostly of snickering, Square agreed to create the game on the grounds that, and I quote, “As long as it says Final Fantasy on it, someone will buy it.” The code was finished in a weekend and uses pieces from the original Sega CD version as well as the Final Fantasy Seven engine and story. Battles were replaced with a semi-puzzle game where you match completely unrelated video clips to music that you normally wouldn’t be caught dead listening to. The end product of the battles will usually look like six different families tried to record their home movies on the same tape, but were only able to agree that “I missed the bus” was a good idea for the soundtrack.

Final Fantasy 7 : Love Crisis

Finally admitting that the only thing that most Final Fantasy Fans want to see is Aeris and Tifa naked, Square releases a spin-off of Final Fantasy 7 that pits the girls against each other in a variety of games including Mud Wresting, Wet T-Shirt Contests, and so much more. Unlockables will include characters from other games in the Final Fantasy series such as Rinoa, Yuna, and Quistis. The game will sell 3.5 million copies in America, but no one will admit to buying it.

Smuggled through the underground by Oblivion and his secret force of highly-trained ninja rabbits.

Final Fantasy 7 : Marlboro Core

Due to the restrictions placed on cigarette companies in the advertising arena, Marlboro will form a deal with Square Enix to produce a game starring the Marlboro Man. The Marlboro Man character will be a “Wild West” gunslinger and will fight alongside Sephiroth to spread a “thick rich taste” across the land. Joe Camel will a make an appearance as a mount replacing the Chocobos. Also, Materia will be substituted in favor of a new power up system which will include different types of cigarettes ranging from the “Light No-Tar” up to “Silky Smooth Red Box”. The game will retail for 49.99, but after taxes will cost around 80.
 
Final Fantasy 7 : Newbie Core

After most of their fans were incarcerated for owning FF7: FC, Square will attempt to broaden their fan base by making a Final Fantasy 7 spin-off that is so easy that Grandma could play it. FF:NC will come with a 1-800 number and a free cell phone on the outside of the box in the event that the user cannot open the case. Once the game is opened, a small robot will come out to put the game into the system, set up the system if necessary, insert memory cards, and plug in the controller. The game will then play the intro, and begin playing by itself. In-game, all attacks will be replaced with Omnislash and Knights of the Round, and all health will default to 9999. Once the game is completed the included robot will go to EB, trade in the game and Western Union the money to you.

Smuggled through the underground by Oblivion and his now not-so-secret force of highly-trained ninja rabbits.

Final Fantasy 7 : Other Characters

Seeing the success of the other spin-offs of Final Fantasy 7, Square will release a set of alternate versions of the game that will feature unused characters. Most notably, the original character playing Cloud was called Clod and wielded a gun that fired rounds of Vienna sausages. Cait Sith replaced Cowman at the last second due to their inability to figure out what limit breaks a cow was supposed to have. Anyone who hasn’t been missing their meds will see that either choice was doomed. In the original scripts, Barrett was played by Mr. T, but was removed when Square refused to put 50 pounds of gold chains on the character. Vincent was originally a full blown clown, but today only the shoes remain from those original designs.
 
Final Fantasy 7 : Politically Correct

With impending lawsuits by various organizations that wish to make the English language as complicated as possible, SquareEnix will release a revised version of Final Fantasy 7 that replaces key words that might be considered racist, ageist, sexist, etc with euphemisms. A sample list of replaced words is as follows:

Room: Living quarters
Black: African American
A**hole: Mad Person
Whip: Discipline
A**: Donkey

Unfortunately, due to translation issues between the Japanese and English versions of the game the dialogue will render it completely unplayable. Here is an example of a conversation from a scene where Tifa is trying to get Cloud to paint a room:

Original Version: “Tell that a**hole that if he doesn’t paint that room black by the time I get back I’ll whip his a**!”
Politically Correct Version: “Say to that mad person that if he doesn’t paint those living quarters with the African American, I’ll discipline his donkey.”

Final Fantasy 7 : Quarter Cost

Following the events of Advent Children, Cloud is forced to find a real job. Since “guy to swing sword around” is not a job trait that is useful in today’s job market Cloud takes out a low-interest small business loan and opens a used motorcycle lot. Using a good/evil system similar to Knights of the Old Republic, Cloud must build his used vehicle empire while trying not to screw his customers out of too much money. Become good buy selling only solid bikes at reasonable prices. Become evil by selling lemons at exorbitant prices. Do YOU have what it takes to help Cloud become salesperson of the month?
 
Final Fantasy 7 : Rectal Conquest

You start off in a prison, where you… never mind. Its about fluffy bunnies and their search for Happyfun Mountain.

Final Fantasy 7 – The Spin-offs

Part I: Spin-offs The Movie

If you’ve been alive lately, or dead and reading gaming sites, you have probably heard about an interesting trend in the Final Fantasy Seven spin-offs. FF7 now has 4 spin-offs either planned or released, and they fall in order alphabetically. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of finding this out for yourselves, here is a breakdown:

FF7: AC – Advent Children
FF7: BC – Before Crisis
FF7: CC – Crisis Core
FF7: DC – Dirge of Cerberus

Thus, the questions remain. What does it mean? Are there more planned? Will there be a Hot Coffee mod for any of them? For this, there are no easy answers, but, thanks to my crack squad of investigators, and a little reworking by me, the Lieutenant of Awesome, we’ve broken the code and now bring you the list of all of the 26 spin-offs for Final Fantasy 7. Due to restrictions of space I will only release a few every couple of days when the nice men let me out of my room (read: when I get around to it).
Final Fantasy 7 : Error Code

In an attempt to save money for upcoming FF titles, Square out sources its development to Microsoft. Microsoft completes the game in 10 years and 5 million over budget. The game will not feature any of the characters or locations from FF7, but will instead have a slick interface for reporting crashes and bugs. Due to a scripting error FF7:EC is completely unplayable past the main menu, but MS swiftly releases a patch in a little under 16 months to fix the issue. The patch also allows error reports to be displayed in a new “Hot Red” color as well as the traditional blue. Unfortunately it is discovered that the fix introduces a new bug that causes the game to freeze any time an exclamation mark appears in the dialogue. The more hardcore fans will discover that they can get about 17 minutes of play out of the game if they don’t do anything “too exciting”.
Final Fantasy 7 : From Columbia

This version of FF7 will actually be Dance Dance Revolution MAX with Final Fantasy Seven written on the CD with a Sharpie. But since the game ships packed in cocaine, by the time the player reaches the CD they won’t care.
Final Fantasy 7 : Google Crap

Google Inc’s developers, in a desperate bid to prove that they can do more than write web search programs, will release a spin-off of FF7. The new version will be nearly identical to the original except that every time you use a potion, walk around, talk to someone, enter a battle, win a battle, lose a battle, save, load, or hit the triangle button, you will be pelted with “Ads by Google”. Most people will still consider this version superior to the other spin-offs, but will be unable to describe why.
Final Fantasy 7 : Hells Chicken

This spin-off of FF7 will be sponsored by Tabasco and feature Cloud wielding a large bottle of hot sauce. All of the enemies will be replaced with different food items that are deemed hot sauce appropriate. Here is a partial list of the changes:

Dragon Zombie: Spaghetti
Parasite: Buffalo Wings
Goblin: Falafel
Ultimate Weapon: Box of Original Recipe

Final Fantasy 7 : Indian Camel

Released as yet another service pack to FF7:EC, Indian Camel will give users the option of replacing the games Chocobos with Camels (two-hump not included). The American version, much to the relief of players, will not include the “Indian” portion of the riding scenes. Cloud will instead be holding a bright red lollipop.

The information on this version was smuggled through the underground by secret agent Odin75789

Final Fantasy 7 : Jesus Crisis

In another, soon to be classic attempt to make God “cool” several churches will ban together to rework FF7 to include more religious themes. Cloud will be removed and replaced with Moses as he tries to free his people from Sephiroth’s control. “Plagues” replace the basic Limit Break system, and instead of a sword, Moses wields a burning bush. The Sphere-Grid scheme will make a comeback when it is found that leveling up can be made more religious as players will inexorably groan “Jesus Christ, not this thing again.”

The Curse of the MMOs

Phantasy Star Online

Phantasy Star Online is the game that dares to ask the question “How many times can you port a game before you can officially start announcing that you’re just doing it for the money?” If there has been one game beat to death in the MMO arena, it’s poor little PSO. The game was originally developed sometime in the late 1800s and has been ported to every system under the sun excluding the original Nintendo. To top it all off, its not really that good of a game. In fact, dare I say it? It kind of sucks.

IA IA O

The first thing that most people will notice about PSO is that the enemies are just a bit dumber than over-ripe cantaloupes. Well, that isn’t completely true, because I’ve known cantaloupes that did things like “dodge fire”, and “move out of the way of each other”. Most of the baddies in PSO will run at you Gauntlet style in the hopes that they will reach you before they die. This would be a pretty effective strategy if all the players were fish and lacked the ability to move a joystick. Usually, the strategy for beating most enemies is running right past them and sitting on the other side of the room as they slowly amble toward you. From there, you can shoot at them until they reach you yet again and run past them again. Rinse, Repeat.

Sure it sounds easy, and it wouldn’t be so difficult if the targeting system didn’t hate you. Most of the time the camera will swing in the opposite direction of what you are attacking. This will assist you in getting a nice close-up of a tree while you practice swearing. Most of your deaths in this game will be followed by “Why the fuck am I looking at a wall?!?!”. They couldn’t have made this camera system more unfriendly if they programmed it to sleep with your girlfriend, slap you in the balls, and tell you how much you suck every fifteen seconds.

After you inevitably get the crap pounded out of you by a bunch of creatures that resemble some fourth grader’s attempt to make a gerbil/chicken hybrid, you’ll get what’s known as a photon blast. Let’s not pretend here, photon blast (PSO) = limit break (FF7). They function exactly the same. You get beat on a bunch, and you release a mega powerful blast that usually summons a bunch of Peeps or a worm. Yes a worm. Be afraid. These are all presented via a wonderfully Technicolor acid-inspired in-game movie which seems to end before your summoned characters do anything worthwhile. The worm will spin, the Peeps will bump heads, and all of this will leave you feeling empty, and wondering how many starving children in Ecctiobonia could eat for your monthly fee.

Literacy is Over Rated

But who needs to feed starving children when you can ask people half way around the world how the weather is? No kidding, thanks to PSO’s multilingual chat system, you can make people who don’t even speak your language hate you just as much as people that do! Using a menu of preset phrases, you can ask people in foreign countries as though they spoke your own language. Unfortunately, most of the phrases that I use on a daily basis weren’t in the list. Apparently, “How much for sucky-sucky?” didn’t make the cut. I’m hoping they’ll rectify this oversight in a future patch.

And that’s not all. If you can’t find your ideas in the pre-defined list of phrases, just send your emotions via various series of smilies. Sure it’ll take up screen space, but everyone can read simlie-ese. Here’s an example of how you can use the PSO system when dealing with others of foreign nationalities:

I like my tea with cream and sugar.

George Bush is our president.

+ =
How much for sucky-sucky?

Why is this Happening?

Of course, all of this is second to the great story of PSO. The PSO epic is based on a true story originally printed in the fine print on the back of a waterbed pamphlet. In only a few hours, this game reveals a chronicle that took the pamphlet over 2 sentences to describe. Printed here for your convenience is the original memoir:

“Some people go to a planet and they die. So we send more people to investigate. Do not use waterbed as a floatation device.”

AC: 10% This game surprisingly had the lowest number of assholes than any of the other MMOs I’ve played to date. This is mostly due to being constantly pelted with happy faces every time anyone said anything like “ Eat shit and die! ” or “I’m a lonely pillow-biter getting mad at someone over a fucking game ”

LLA: 100% You don’t even need to know English, or Japanese, or any language at all for this game. All you need to know is pictures. means ‘good’, means ‘bad’, and #()%#2222222222 means ‘I fell asleep on my keyboard’.

LSR: “Stamp Collector” If you’re playing PSO, you have to admit that you have no life. If this is the most fun way that you can think of to spend your time, then you’re probably better off collecting stamps, or toenail clippings.

My Character: I played a Force character (a spell caster). Which means (with the help of the camera and targeting system) I spent most of my time lying on the ground.

Conclusion
PSO is a vast (kinda small), wonderful (slightly entertaining) world with all the charm (mild interest) that an MMO (made by hyper-intelligent ballpoint pens) could be. All of this coupled with stunning visuals (for an N64), great music (resembling a Casio keyboard stuck on DEMO), and a wonderful community (I hate you all and hope you die). It truely is an MMO not to be missed (so aim carefully).

The Curse of MMOs

The Matrix Online
 
 
 

The Matrix Online is a game that was obviously designed by a group of developers that hate people and want to hurt you personally. MXO punishes the player  for playing the game and Monolith Productions makes sure you feel the burn. After spending several more hours than I probably should have playing this game I’ve determined that for the most part, they’ve succeeded.

Wanted: Editor

The biggest glaring problem with MXO is that for some reason the dialogue was written by the janitor while he was drunk. Sure it saves money, but the typos in the game are horrendous. Sometimes I don’t know what the hell is going on. I’ll just pick out the words that look like places or people, go there and kill them and hope that’s what was I was required to do. I didn’t get paid to write this, but I can bring myself to put a period in the right place every now and then. Sometimes, when I’m feeling really generous I’ll correctly capitalize a letter. The developers can do complex mathematical computations, code entire worlds, but don’t know where to put a comma in a sentence?

It’s A Boring World After All

When I get the occasional mission that makes sense it’ll just be the same crap I’ve done for the last far-and-few-between coherent missions repackaged. All of them follow the same form: Find something, talk to something, kill something. And once in a while in a mission you’ll be given the pleasure of using one of Metro World’s great elevators. Whoever decided that it should take fifteen thousand mouse clicks to open a fucking elevator should be drug out and shot. No, change that: Drug out, insulted, slapped, beaten, THEN shot.

I wish the problems with the environment ended there. If FFXI’s dominant color was gray then The Matrix Online’s dominant color is turd brown. Everything is brown. Everything. This wouldn’t be so bad (I like brown) if the environments were actually interesting. It seems that every four blocks in any given area its the same brown buildings in a different order. I usually don’t like to get into arguments about textures, bump-mapping or any of that tech crap, but it bears mentioning that the brownish textures in MXO suck. Doom 2 had better textures for walls. Oh how I wish that were sarcasm.

When you bore of looking at the brownish world, take a look at the brownish clothing that you can buy. For being a major selling point of the game, the clothing line would make even “Let’s do the same damn thing over and over” Levis hang their head in shame. The local Salvation Army has more clothing types than this game. Not that it really matters as everyone is either dressed like a Pimp, Ho, or a Goth. There’s only so many places that you go with those styles.

Stand Still!

When you actually get around to fighting someone, you’ll find that the game tries hard to imitate the fighting in the movies. I mean “tries” in the same way that a four year old “tries” to help you paint your living room and ends up painting most of the carpet or your mentally challenged cousin “tries” to help you with your math homework. Initially you’ll go through a period where you’ll try to find a pattern or develop a strategy around the battle system. This will be brief, as you’ll soon catch on that it all breaks down to just guessing or in my case, guessing poorly.

Whatever you do, don’t pick up a gun for you character, they’re worthless. Apparently there is a disarmament deal going on between the humans and the machines where the machines won’t enslave the humans if the humans replace all their high powered weaponry with BB guns. Really. In The Matrix Online, a kick is deadly and a bullet is just aggravating. No, I don’t understand it either.

MXO: The Slideshow

All of this is rather pointless though, considering that most people will never get the damn thing to run in the first place. I won’t go through the particulars with you, but four hours into the game I still hadn’t played it yet. There were several problems getting the game to install, the biggest of them being the system requirements. You almost have to have a Cray supercomputer to get this game to run poorly. You have to do twice as good as that to get the game to run decently. The game box should read “Recommended System Requirements: Deep Blue”.

AC: 20% To be quite honest I really didn’t see that many people online. It must have just been the time of day or the server I chose. It also may have been because I spent most of my time running into walls as my Alienware struggled to keep my frame rate above 3.

LLA: 80% The few people that I did run into didn’t seem to either speak English at all, or thought that they could imitate English by giving me a random string of letters. “LLO!!1 wtF RU saiz??/? kiLLR?!?!1″ In my country that translates to “I love to suck dick. Please put one in my mouth so I’ll shut the fuck up.”

LSR: “Farscape Fan” You’d have to be one exceptional masochist/loser to play this game for more than a couple of days. The game is grinding (not in a good way), and tedious. The story stinks, and their mother dresses them funny.

My Character: I played a Brittney Spears prostitute clone. So basically I played as Britney Spear’s sister.

Conclusion

All in all Matrix Online is a bad game. The more you play it the more you get the feeling that the developers are truly out to make you suffer. The real pain will come when you realize that you paid for it. That probably hurts the worst. Truth be told if I were a red piller and I had to deal with this shit, I’d jack out, go to Zion and give cave dancing lessons.