anthillz

I lost my phone. It’s yellow, has anyone seen it?

I have never considered myself any sort of video gaming fanatic. I bring that up before I even start this because they do in fact exist and I don’t want to be mistaken for one. Now, not being a video game fanatic probably just means that I don’t spend much of my time playing video games, not that I’m not a nerd. That is a label I’ve learned to live with. I’m going to talk about video games real quick though, I don’t care if you don’t like it, I’m done with school.
Ron Gilbert may be the greatest game designer of all time.
He reinvented what a video game could be. Not enough people pay attention now. You can’t die, everything is based on either extreme silliness or irony, the graphics are pixelated cartoons and laughing out loud at something other than a head blowing up is a definite possiblity. His games were smart and biting and had exactly nothing to do with the real world.
In 1986 at LucasArts (George Lucas’ gaming company) he designed his first game: Maniac Mansion. It was the first game to introduce his SCUMM system which most consider the first step into mouse controlled gaming and certainly the best upgrade from text based adventures like Zork. Where people were once typing in their commands, and mostly without anything pretty to look at, now people could choose from a list of verbs then click on the object they wanted to act upon. For example one could click on the word open and then click on a door to open it. It seems obvious today, but once this was established it ‘opened the door’ (wow) for some of the most fun you could (or still can) have on a computer.
I didn’t even mention that Maniac Mansion is hilarious. Maniac Mansion is hilarious. You choose your characters and your mission is to save your girlfriend Sandy the Cheerleader and the world from the evil clutches of Dr. Fred and his meteor. Two tentacles, Weird Ed, Nurse Edna, a hamster, and some of the most wacked out puzzles in the history of gaming are between you and your mission.
When the game was ported to the NES, Nintendo had a few problems with it. The game was so successful that there was even a spinoff TV show, on the family channel cowritten by Eugene Levy.
In 1990, The Secret of Monkey Island came out. I stand by the Secret of Monkey Island being the all-time greatest adventure video game ever created. You play a wannabe pirate named Guybrush Threepwood on a mission to become a pirate in the pirate-laden Caribbean. This game set a standard that I have yet to see topped in any game for sheer entertainment value. If you think pirates are great, nerdy not yet pirates are even better. This game gives you all the nerd jokes about Star Wars and Indiana Jones, three headed monkeys and evil ghost pirates you could want. If you never got to play this, you missed out.
Gilbert followed up Monkey Island with an Indiana Jones game for LucasArts. It wasn’t all that great but is still a classic.
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge was the next installment in the Monkey Island series. Now that the tone had been established, a large amount of headway was made in the sound (This game came on CD-Rom, and the version I played actually talked) and graphics. This game essentially just added to the world of inside jokes and wacked out puzzles that had begun five years earlier. LeCuck’s Revenge also has what is probably the greatest ending of any game ever.
The sequel to Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle came out in 1993 and pushed the cartoon element of these games to new levels. Now the purple tentacle from Maniac Mansion is trying to take over the world, and you play three characters stuck in various points in time. Ron Gilbert’s duties as program lead were taken over by Tim Schafer, who later made the amazing Grim Fandango. Of course it’s bizarre and hilarious and includes more hamsters as well as the original Maniac Mansion in an arcade stand inside the game.
Another Scumm system game that came out in 1993 was Sam and Max Hit the Road, which was based on Steve Purcell’s underground comic Sam & Max. Purcell did much of the artwork for previous LucasArts titles and took this games graphics to places that no game has been since. Sam is a giant talking dog in a suit and Max is a weird naked rabbit thing and you have to travel the country trying to find a sasquatch named Bruno. This game again is hysterical, cartoony and bizarre.
The Curse of Monkey Island was the next game in the series, and could be the most beautifully drawn 2d game of all time. By 1997 3d games were controlling the market with mindless shooters like Doom and Quake and gaming companies weren’t all that interested in 2D adventure games. LucasArts threw most of it’s money away on 3D Star Wars titles while the Curse of Monkey Island was probably their best game out. The Curse of Monkey Island was sprawling and beautiful and even without Gilbert aboard the vibe felt the same. Here is an interview with Bill Tiller, the background painter for The Curse of Monkey Island.
The final installment of Monkey Island to date is Escape from Monkey Island. This game no longer used the SCUMM system, took the game into the realm of 3d. Making the game 3d lost a lot of the vibe of previous games, and although I’ve never played it, I’ve read that the sense of humor stayed the same.
With a few exceptions, games now suck. It’s not that most games didn’t always suck, they did, but quality, entertaining, intellegent, funny games just don’t exist anymore as far as I can find.
More Scumm Games:
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988)
Loom (1990)
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1991)
Full Throttle (1995)
The Dig (1996)
Grim Fandango (1997)
More Links:
ScummVM is a tool which will help you be able to play these classics again on (hopefully) any machine. Now you really have no excuse.
Here is a frontend for ScummVM.
LucasArts classic games.
SCUMM on Wikipedia

Not on purpose but I may be turning into a bit of a francophile.
Listening to a lot of Stereolab, so there’s that.
Watching the Truffaut box set.
Reading Sartre.
Drinking wine and eating cheese.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that France is one of the most outspoken opponents of current policies.
Maybe it’s out of jealousy of real culture.
I think I’m going to try to learn German though, anyway.

Get the miles in.

I’m 22 and stuff.
This break I want to get going on a web project or two. If you know of anyone who needs some pro bono work done let me know.
Send me submissions for the next Lift.

I’m not doing any more damn homework! I give up! I don’t give a fuck!
Mi Sei Apparso Come un Fantasma.

I overheard some broad today talking about how she was going on an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii with some new guy and how she wasn’t going to talk to him afterwards. First, I was thinking damn, I want to stab this bitch. Then I was thinking I wish that guy was there so I could stab him. What kind of asshole would pay for a bitch like that to go to Hawaii?
I hate it when people put the top back on 2 liter bottles when it’s squeezed in and like missing some air. I don’t know why it bugs me.
I love white cheddar popcorn.
Drinking and coding do too mix.
I’m totally going to fail the class that you have to show up to 3 times and talk about your job or whatever and talk about how to get ahead and every once and a while post a message on the internet because I absolutely hate classes where you have to pretend to have a discussion online even though or maybe more like because it is without a doubt the most pointless and stupid class ever. It’s going to be like the time I almost failed health class. I don’t do makework. Ever.
I heard some people were Elliott Smith for halloween.
National Beard Registry.