I'm the Joker! Apparently.

I recently took a "Which Batman Villain Are You" test on the Escapist. Here's The Result:

If I weren't crazy, I'd be insane!

Take this quiz

In defense of The Simpsons

*Sigh* I never thought I would have to write this. Here goes anyhow. One of my favorite shows of all time "The Simpsons" stands at the threat of being cancelled. This is despite other shows of the same nature (Family Guy) having 2 or 3 spin-offs running smoothly. This is sad. Whenever I defend The Simpsons in public or whenever I hear The Simpsons being talked about in public lately, a lot of people accuse it of not being funny anymore, and having grown stale. More recently, people have said that Family Guy is a much better show and that Simpsons should be cancelled to leave more space in programming to that show.

I'm sorry but that is just not true.

Like a lot of other kids of my generation, The Simpsons were one of my first mature satirical influences. These were dark times in Scandinavia, only 3 channels and most of them only showed local bad comedy or reruns of The Muppets Show to trick you into having a glimmer of hope that the monopolic channels might actually show something of quality for a change. Then, in 1995, a channel called TV3 burst onto Danish television, showing all of the sugarcoated American nonsense from the 80's that everyone missed if they didn't get it on VHS. Sooner or later, Simpsons started getting shown on Danish television and when I became old enough (Around 8) I was hooked. The family was dysfunctional as hell and reminded me alot of my own family. And as they say, truly good comedy makes people laugh at themselves. This is perhaps why Homer Simpson may be dumb and egotistical, but unlike Peter Griffin he actually cares about his family and will do anything he can to make them happy.

That's what I like about The Simpsons, and why I don't really care about Family Guy. Family Guy is just a collection of people who's cherishment of one another is dependent on comedic value. The charactirazations of the Griffins feels like easily modeled high concepts, with only few steadfast characterpoints that isn't thrown to the wind unlike the rest of the charactarizations if a joke calls for it. A very easy example lies in Peter. Peter is supposed to be catholic, but this is only brought up when it's convenient. Instead he goes and does all sorts of stuff like creating a church dedicated to The Fonze. If the creators intention with Peter Griffin was to make fun of catholics, they failed miserably.

I'm very fond of South Park, we know who the characters are, and although they're completely bizarre they don't just go and do stuff that they really... wouldn't do. For instance, we know that Cartman is a anti-semitic asshole of a kid, so we know that he's not suddenly gonna go pick flowers and dance around in a tutu.. unless brainwashed of course.

I see Simpsons as a classier South Park (No dancing poop), and a valuable asset to the comedic scene. And Family Guy? Uh.. Am I the only one that feels like I'm watching some animation a fanboy made to a stand-up perfomance? It doesn't really feel like a show.

A Random Selection of Good Old Games

Most of the time, when you talk about old games that are good, chances are the most mentioned are either not only good but GREAT or almost exclusively from the consoles.

So this is a selection of old games in random order that aren't GREAT but they hold a nostalgic value to me, and can most definetly get the rank of "good".

THE PINK PANTHER - PASSPORT TO PERIL.

Back in the 90's, The Pink Panther was re-exposed to the world in a packet-format TV-series as was popular at the time. Typically, an episode of such a show would have a 10 minute episode with the host character (in this case, The Pink Panther) and then two 5 minute long cartoons with other characters like forexample The Blue Anteater. In Any case, the show spawned two PC adventure games for kids that would challenge them but teach them about stuff while they do it. Pink Panther - Passport to Peril taught kids (and at the time, Me as well) about different cultures and countries around the world.

The storyline is as such: There's been made a summer-camp called Chilly Wa Wa for the children of highly influential and rich people from around the world. But suddenly the children have started to act weirdly from one day to the other, Pink Panther gets assigned to travel around the world (England, Egypt, China, Bhutan, India and Australia) and find out stuff about the kids so he can try and make them normal again. All the while the kids playing the game would learn about the things children in these cultures have to deal with while growing up. There would also be songs, Awesome songs. Go check them out on Youtube. And while you're at it, check out the sequel Hocus Pocus Pink as well.

LEGO: Chess

Do you like Lego? Do you like Chess? Well then what the hell do you need to know?! This game taught kids about the boardgame chess while entertaining them with short clips depending on which character defeated which. There would be differently themed Chess boards and stories, forexample: In the Cowboy storyline, a sheriff is trying to capture three robbers. So yeah. It's Chess. CHESS!

DONALD DUCK: QU@CK ATT@CK

This is one of the simplest and shortest platformers I have ever played. It's easy as boink and you can pick it up and complete it in an afternoon. Which is perfect if you have an afternoon to spend. Seriously, I know standard length for a game is 10 hours and I wouldn't have it any other way. But this game is just too much fun to pass by.

For another really good Donald Duck game check out Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow.

(EDIT: I know the picture says "Going Qu@ackers" but it was called "Qu@ck Att@ck" in Europe.)

ASTERIX: THE GALLIC WAR

It's the universe of Asterix The Gaule meets the boardgame RISK in a way. You start out with the ever-silly village that Ceasar somehow just can't conquer and then start conquering back all of Gaule from the Romans. While most of the time the conquering would be like a simple strategy game animation, other times it would switch to a platform game depending on if you're Asterix or Obelix. And other times (again) it would be a parody of the Olympic game Hammer Throw.

There, wasn't that fun? If you have other games that people really need to mention more, please name them in the comments! Maybe I can make more of these :D