From: Ham Kingers <hamkingers9@mac.com> Date: August 17, 2011 1:05:13 PM EDT To: "All Company (SKS)" <all@skscorp.com> Subject:TIMESHEETS- DO TODAY
Hi everyone. It's Ham Kingers. Most of you probably don't know me by my name- I'm the "weird guy" whose office is over by the recycling bin you probably laugh at. Whatever. It's open floor plan and I can hear everything.
I've been tasked with reminding the entire office to turn in your timesheets today. Don't ignore my pleas just because I'm the "loner in the break room" or that I "stare creepily at people getting coffee." Just do your duty and I will skulk back to my hidey hole forever.
Here are the job numbers:
82246: Submitting your resignation
02585: Taking it all in (and not in a dirty way)
095327: Hearing the IT guy rant about Farscape again.
816650: Finding out who the hell Ham Kingers is
400319: Showing some nips
529934: Lying about free food being in the kitchen
Ever since I've taken the NJ Transit train to New York, out the window I've noticed workers out in the swampy area around Secaucus. But instead of clearing the marsh area or dumping toxic waste like normal people, they've been laying down hundreds of wooden palettes. In the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
And when I say "nowhere," you have to understand, there's nothing but dry cattails and knee-deep mud in this entire area. Why these workers would haul a bunch of equipment and supermarket palettes out there is an annoying mystery to me.
I know what you're going to say: "maybe they're filling up the deep water with the palettes to help minimize soil erosion so that they can eventually build a high-end shopping plaza on top of that area with a nail salon that doesn't tear the shit out of your cuticles when they push them with their sharp little nail tool."
Right. But why would they do it so shittily and haphazardly like that? Are they just laying a few at a time as a little engineering experiment? Again, it would be a shitty and haphazard experiment.
It's certainly not meant to be a secret dumping ground, because they're obviously doing it in open view of thousands of train commuters.
In "Fraggle Rock," there was a little race of builders called "Doozers" that built little bridges and scaffolding for no apparent reason. The big difference being, Doozers worked in dark, cramped quarters underground, and these New Jersey workers are working in New Jersey. Pause for laughter.
I had taken it upon myself to name several of the structures:
"The Partial Trail" "The Partial Dock" "Ugly Stack" "Wooden Line" "Scheherazade" "L-Shaped Half-Assed Project"
And just as baffling as the building of these structures is the fact that they've also been dismantled without ceremony or explanation. You have to wonder if this is all some corrupt Superfund project– millions of your tax dollars being spent on two guys playing dominos with gigantic wood palettes in a swamp.
It's really hard not to get excited about it, but EADJ's lunch with the one and only Jerald Johnson is THIS WEEK! Just 5 days until the greatest event in EADJ (hell, HUMAN) history.
Here at the EADJ offices we are all discussing the repercussions of the historic date. Some have even suggested that we start using a new system for dating our blog entries: BJJ and AJJ. Many writers and correspondents have called their families to tune in on that date to enjoy the photo, video, and written accounts that will be submitted. Our receptionist has even renamed her 7-year old son Jerald. Stay tuned for the latest in this fantastic, utterly exhilarating and historic event! I just came!
Warning: The video game reviewed here sucked so much ass that a longer-than-normal review was required. Feel free to stop in the middle of reading and stretch your legs. Maybe get a smoke.
The video game is an oft-maligned medium. It simply doesn't get enough respect because of either its association with mouth-breathing dorks or by nuns labeling it "The Devil's Pastime." And you know what? Maybe it shouldn't get any respect, judging by Ubisoft's Largo Winch, Commando SAR for the Playstation 1. Maybe it needs to get taken out back behind the shed and smacked on its fat thighs with a wet Wiffleball bat. Maybe with games this awful being released, it should be considered "Lucifer's Scroat."
Largo Winch, Commando SAR is apparently the video game extension of a popular German TV franchise, "Largo Winch," which in turn is based on a BELGIAN comic book, which was based on a series of FRENCH novels. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. "Largo Winch" is an action series about a jetsetting playboy millionaire businessman hellbent on avenging the murder of his father. So, think Bruce Wayne if he spent Euros and bathed weekly.
I tried to IMDb "Largo Winch" and it laughed at me. Then I looked it up on YouTube and had to close my office door, because the music from the clips made it sound like an episode of "The Red Shoe Diaries," which if you ask me would make for a much better video game.
So it was with great trepidation that I dove into the world of Largo Winch:
So imagine this thing translated from novel form to comic book to TV series to video game, crossing multiple languages and being released in a country that doesn't know about the franchise, and you'll start to get an idea of how awesome this game is. Here's one of the first cutscenes from the game. And, no, this is not that old Dire Straits music video:
One could argue that this video game was released for the Playstation 1 in 2002, so you can't expect the greatest of graphics. But 2002 was the year Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released for the Playstation 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 came out for the Gameboy Advance and the Xbox. So your argument sucks, Largo lover. That was a burn.
Object of the Game: Save the Corporation by sneaking in and stopping the terrorist. Occasionally, you'll be confronted by boxy security guards or henchmen, who you're apparently supposed to sissy-slap into oblivion:
(Warning: Graphic Violence)
Gameplay: The response to controller input is amazing. Largo Winch responds to your movements almost a minute within you moving him! Also, I often confused the button for "jump" with the button for "attack" or "hit lightswitch" so I got this bit of jumping awesomeness in the heat of melee:
Difficulty: There's a certain training session where you have to sneak past workers in a factory. If they even so much as glance in the approximate direction of a particle of your shadow, game over! Yaaaaaaay!
So I would have to say that Largo Winch, Commando SAR is up there with Daikatana for the Nintendo 64 and ET for the Atari 2600. I had this game in my Playstation 3 for about a week and a half for this review, and now on occasion I can hear my console weeping in the middle of the night from the next room.
