This and XCOM, aka "I'm bringin' every last one of you home alive, and I'll save-scum like a fiend to do it!"

How I play Fire Emblem:

How I play pretty much every other game:

An original table from an emulator possibly remade as a physical machine? How endlessly amusing...

Confirmation of some potentially very interesting news at Polygon: FarSight has been in talks with "some of the famous pinball designers from the past" to design original tables for Pinball Arcade. Two words: Ritchie Brothers. Please.

I can only hope, given an unlimited canvas, that things at least stay within the realm of the physically possible. Video game elements have been creeping into Zen Pinball since the beginning, which is one of the reasons I prefer Pinball Arcade despite Zen's slightly tighter ball physics. Ideally, we can trust old-school pinball developers not to be tempted, but terrible things have happened to pinball in the past once this became a possibility - from the addition of enemies to High Speed on the NES to Pinball 2000. An article at Stern Pinball goes into greater detail on the issue. Blame lays squarely on Williams executives for the latter nonsense, but there's a fine line between the "unfeasibly expensive and/or breakable" gimmick and the "impossible" one, and from there it's a slippery slope to the table flying away and shooting lasers. That's not what I play Pinball Arcade for.

"Grapplin' Grandpas, it's the Mandatory Wrestling Episode!"

And right into a wrestling episode - they're not holding off from any of the old standards, are they? "Leg Wrestle" has a different take on the theme - one that doesn't require positing an entire bizarre wrestling league that the characters join somehow (and thankfully avoids the need for even a 'special guest' referee) by keeping the conflict and resolution within the core team. Not one Macho Man impression or "is it real?" joke, either - there's a difference between going with the classics and going for the easy ones, and Uncle Grandpa is at least on the right side of the line more often than not.
"Leg Wrestle" opens with a variation on the old interrupted viewing gag, which I'm always surprised to see an all-ages cartoon get away with. Mr. Gus looked involved enough in his 'dumb crocodile show' it recalled Friends as much as Spongebob ...although, the question of why all three of these variations involve marine life is one best left to the ages. Especially if it's unwitting selection bias on the part of the person choosing examples.

Even when it comes to aquatic variations, there's precedent...

...and if I may be permitted one '90s "joke", I bet it's precedent Clinton, hurr hurr.

The fight itself had the standard geographically-named moves and un-imitatable action expected, but at least they worked a couple of really strange ones in. How the "Dino-Skin Shed Maneuver" is even supposed to work is beyond my comprehension - of all the wrestling episodes of the past half-century of animation, I don't think I've seen that one before. I have seen plenty of training montages, though, both sincere and parodied - and I say with confidence that self-referential jokes about the existence of montages are just as tired as the subject of mockery itself. Especially when they more or less play the montage sequence straight (well, for Uncle Grandpa) immediately afterward.

We also witness a few seconds of Uncle Grandpa's just-mentioned favourite show, "Teenage Fartthrob", which I'd like to see become a recurring segment - the entirety of the modern monster soaps (how I imagine them, at least - I'm not made of viewing time) condensed into a few seconds of high drama. It must be a consistent challenge to come up with premises dumber than Uncle Grandpa itself, to convey that it's ridiculous even in-universe...I can safely say challenge met with "Teenage Fartthrob". That's one more sign how times have changed, too. It now seems to be no big deal for a cartoon character to say "fart", even in reference to the fart they're visibly farting at that moment. Until recently, it was a considered a punchline for someone to allude to the fact that they could have said "fart". We've come a long way from "Stimpy's First Fart" being forcibly renamed "Son of Stimpy" before airing. PS: Fart. PPS: "Airing", yar har yar har.

Siiiick! It's so liney! John K would be proud, if he didn't hate everything to do with animation after 1953.

(I also didn't notice that Uncle Grandpa's foot is the exact same shape as his head until just now. Nice - it takes care to insert a freeze-frame bonus like this, and it takes restraint to not stop the action to point out your "hidden" joke (by, say, having the foot start talking).

On the subject of Ren and Stimpy, If Uncle Grandpa was actually made in the era, rather than just inspired by some of the grossout greats, the close-up of his foot would have been extremely grody and brutal...with like, rusty nails sticking out of it and one toe replaced with a barfed-up old dog treat or an eyeball or something. Here and now, it's just sort of...liney. For that matter, the entire "juicer ad" sequence would have been absolutely vile, rather than merely unsettling. But I reiterate, they could have never, ever spoken the word "fart" in a broadcast cartoon.

The backing short, "Evil Wizard", had such a Savage Steve Holland vibe going with the design and animation of the titular character that I actually looked up whether he was involved in some way. Sadly, wishful thinking on my part. Still, it was a lot funnier than the rap video or anything involving Tiny Miracle the Robot Boy.

Last entry I mentioned that Uncle Grandpa shone when it took "a few good lobs" at the radar - "Evil Wizard" ignores it entirely. There are completely innocent explanations for the state of the money at the end (even with the visual of the adhesion), but the Wizard's parting barb, "...and good luck figuring out why they were stuck together!", promptly eliminates all of those from consideration.

So far, Uncle Grandpa has relied heavily on stock plots, but built up an interesting cast of main and minor characters to perform them - nowhere is this more evident than "Leg Wrestle". The fact that it's a narcissistic, manipulative slice of pizza goading a ditzy pseudo-genie into leg-wrestling (which naturally is leg-oriented professional wrestling, rather than a type of contest in its own right) his dinosaur bodyguard over the right to watch "Teenage Fartthrob" is the sort of gleeful nonsense that makes Uncle Grandpa more than the sum of its recycled parts.

Ooh, the Eastern sea's so blue...dammit!

It's a little distressing how quick Uncle Grandpa is to pronounce his friends dead. The mere sight of a graveyard in Giant Realistic Flying Tiger's path convinces him that she died in "Tiger Trails" , and in "Big in Japan" he's making funeral arrangements the moment Mr. Gus hits the ground. I guess if you've been around long enough to be an Uncle Grandpa (or perhaps are ancient enough to be a genie, that's a rabbit hole to explore at a later date), you've had enough loved ones die on you that you've come to expect it...wow, that's grim. Like, Season 3 Adventure Time grim.
As for the episode proper, "Big in Japan" sees Uncle Grandpa and associates take on another old standard, the kaiju episode. So far, it's been a general rule that the more screentime Mr. Gus gets, the funnier the segment, and this is no exception. Fortunately, the entire episode isn't just devoted to the inevitable visual of Toho-style urban renewal, which was already addressed pretty thoroughly in the "Workout" short. Events eventually segue into Mr. Gus' awful faux-funeral - again not the most original situation in all of animated comedy, but the unintentional roast works in many of the ways the "standup" sequence in "Perfect Kid" failed to. This seems to be where Uncle Grandpa works the best - taking on traditional cartoon plots and adding a layer of surrealism and a few good lobs at the radar. That's been enough to sustain Spongebob Squarepants for an inordinate number of years post-movie - and it still provides more comedy per episode than any other current Nickelodeon fare in spite of itself. Uncle Grandpa falters, though, when it imitates Spongebob too closely, or runs with a stock plot and doesn't do anything that actually requires its own characters and world.
On a much more minor note, this episode also contains a particularly stark example of a running gag sent straight into the ground. "Ac-TOR" was funny the first time (and even then mainly because of Gus' 'theatrical' hand flourish) but it did not improve on repetition. By the end of the episode, I was well into "oh, just say it right!" territory. Kudos for the title pun, though. Ouch.

Transitioning awkwardly, I'm not sure if this is a skillful sidestep of the treacherous area of ethnic caricature or walking right into it - other than a marathoner, businessman, John-K-esque ingenue and a mandatory geisha, all of whom we see for a few frames at most - this one child seemingly comprises the population of Tokyo.

Other than this run-through crowd - even at the  blockbuster movie premiere or as Mr. Gus rampages through a major urban area - we see one character outside of the regulars. Perhaps there's an Ocean justification in effect to keep everything TV-PG or lighter, and all those buildings were empty because it was Sunday.

Funtip!

Start 'Clock Chaos' in Twilight Zone pinball, but when "Pop Goes the Weasel" starts really speeding up think the lyrics from the I Am Weasel theme song. Now, for double bonus challenge, try to not hear them next time. Or forevermore.

Wherein the hazards inherent in building a formula become obvious...

Uncle Grandpa has had its ups and downs, but "Perfect Kid" was the weakest effort of the season so far. This could have been a bad Phineas and Ferb episode in so many ways - the shows go-to base plot, served up without variation; a seemingly unsurprisable blue-collar workforce to drive (hurr hurr) the story along; and a climax featuring a berserk robot ultimately disposed of in the most cliched fashion possible. A few good throwaway jokes floated this episode somewhat (the silhouette gag below was inspired old-school cartoon surrealism) but the cut-and-paste story, generic extras, and completely arbitrary celebrity guest overshadowed the couple of solid laughs.

Remember the depressing stretch where pretty much any cartoon writer would just assume pop culture references and mild snarking made them The Simpsons, or at the very least Animaniacs? Yeah, it usually didn't. Uncle Grandpa has had a decent number of callbacks to good aspects of 90s animation - this episode showcased a lot of the terrible ones. References to products and businesses presented as jokes in and of themselves, "observational" standup, Shaquille O'Neal appearing for the flimsiest of reasons, a completely unnecessary music video...well, let's leave it with Sturgeon's Law is constant and absolute, and no era is excepted.

Also, was this really necessary? I sincerely hope the gag isn't that pizza is 'junk food', because that would just be gross.

More like...um...SKUNKle Grandpa! Yeah, that's the ticket!

At the risk of being that guy, I'm pretty confident I'm not imagining this one...well, moderately confident.

 

Yes, it's established in the previous and subsequent shots that's a palm tree air freshener, but that's certainly now how this shot's cropped. This is bolder than a split-second of someone, say, running past 'Room 420' - I like it. Let's review what else we see in this frame - the robot's eyes are red, the mirror just got blasted, and the only other thing we see in the mirror is Uncle Grandpa's hand raised as if waving. Waving. As in "hi!". Not to mention the fact that the trucker is surprisingly nonchalant about the goings-on.

Unfortunately, I can't say for sure that my cartoon-addled brain wasn't just adding its own funny part there - the episode this appears in, "Perfect Kid", was otherwise the weakest of the series so far. Thoughts on it and "Big in Japan" coming soon.

Fun Fact

FTL and Don't Starve are both excellent quiet-time activities, with no real effect on play if you turn the sound off entirely. FTL also auto-pauses when you minimize out. Don't Starve does not. And I had so many carrots!

Update: One real-world day worth of deaths, all of which happened before the third in-game night, and I've unlocked an adorable pyromaniac . This just gets more and more intriguing. Also, lighting a carrot is immensely satisfying for reasons I cannot fully explain.

First Impressions of Don't Starve.

Keeping current with the gaming as always, today was my first encounter with Don't Starve. I’m not sure if it’s saying something about me or the game when I immediately run up against contextually plausible actions I can think of but not execute...but given the nature of some of these attempts, I’m going to assume it’s me.

“I’m gonna make him eat some buffalo crap!” – nope.
“I’m gonna chop that skeleton!” – nope.
"Hah, I’m gonna arson that pigman’s house!” – n'arrr, matey.
“Fine, then I’m just going to light your whole stupid forest on fire!”
Absolutely welcomed and encouraged, good sir! Here are some special graphics just for the occasion! Froooosh.
And of course, my guy promptly burned to death.

At that point, Don’t Starve officially had my interest. It’s not often it only takes four attempts to find something a game will let me do – hence my love of roguelikes in the first place. After trying to swipe an egg and being chased by a towering bipedal eyeball the description insisted was 'one tall bird', hunting bugs in the manner of the Muskokan (with a forest fire), and gamely leaping Sierra-style into what was clearly a sandworm’s deadly maw (but not just getting killed for the effort), I’m willing to forgive it not indulging all of my more arbitrary moments of sociopathy.

It definitely says something about me that a friend saw this reviewed and I was "the first person that came to mind". I am officially unsettled. Steam Gifts are awesome, though - while it's not quite the same experience as getting barbecue^* chips all over the couch and debating who gets stuck with the NES Max, they capture some of the spontaneous fun of a buddy showing up with an unexpected game rental.

* Actually Ol' Grandad's Mexican Jalapeno, but that's a little wordy for the body text. Besides, I'm not Dinosaur Dracula over here. Children of the 80s, follow that link and you will find something to make you acutely, painfully aware of days gone by.

"Gopher it!" "Was that really necessary?"

In the spirit of the holiday, and in memory of at least the seventh-or-eighth greatest Canadian hero(es), Wiarton Willie, I saw Numb Chucks for the first time this morning. I predict six more weeks of  production. Seriously, though, various creatures getting hit in the face is funny, but you have to have further depths to build the slapstick on. Why should I have any significant reaction if a character I don't care about gets hurt? Also, the show builds a good argument that most of those pain signals aren't actually reaching the leads' brains, anyway.
Contrast, for example, The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Wand". It's a completely different level of humour when you empathize with the character sustaining the damage, and can fully appreciate the extent of their suffering...and now I kind of feel bad. So here's the epic paean to positivity "The WAND" by the Flaming Lips, and a sweet thematically-appropriate pinball machine.

Image from ipdb.org

Now that's yammering-gophers-getting-reefed-in-the-face-based entertainment!