Hey a classic TV episode review

I've been watching some stuff. Like Batman: The Animated Series.
I just watched episode 4: The Last Laugh.
How was it?
Eh, okay.
The jokes were pretty flimsy, and since Harley Quinn wasn't around yet, Joker had a nautical robot clown minion named "Captain Clown" who got crushed by a garbage compactor/ scrap compactor at some sort of confused trash incinerating plant/ scrap metal foundry.
Not much else to say.

Combat sequences .8 Batmans
Attempts at humor .5 Batmans
Episode Plot .5 Batmans
Final Location Set-piece .6 Batmans
Batman being awesome .8 Batmans
Overall .64 Batmans
A good episode. Not great, entirely skippable. But entertaining.

The Freemium Chronicles. Part 1

I'm sure you've seen them. We all have. They seem like an unavoidable price of using the Internet these days.

Of course, I am referring to the ads for Evony online. Sometimes known as "that game with the boobs" the ads for Evony have devolved into preposterous displays of cleavage. While nothing is inherently wrong with utilizing such a marketing strategy, I will soon show how this choice was poor at best.

Evony bears the dubious distinction of being a browser based game. Since it is also a free game the limitations in its capabilities are simply staggering. This is not to say that it could not rise above this initial set back. Some browser based free games are exceptional. Most are not.

As a browser based game, it is playable on any computer with Internet access that allows access to the games site. So those people who do not care for their jobs with sufficient Internet access are free to play at work. In fact, since the game allows you to change the browser bar page title, as long as you can minimize the window fast enough it can be played "unobtrusively" at work. Such actions reflect poorly on any individuals who choose to embrace them. Since they are doubtless violating the terms of their contract of employment. The game actually advertises this feature as one of its few selling points.

I suppose I should actually discuss the game before I dismiss it wholly, huh?

The game, for those of you who don't know is a lot like the Civilizations games only "real time." I added the quotes because, yes the game does occur simultaneously, it consists largely of waiting for hours as research and construction occurs, and even if you do construct and research as quickly as possible you will rapidly run out of resources and need to wait for several hours before anything of merit can be accomplished. Of course you could build your resource generating buildings to absurd levels, but then if you just so happen to stop for a couple hours, you will have a resource surplus you can never finish. Of course you can sell resources to players, and buy others yourself but this is all dependent on further resources and takes substantial time for the transfer to occur. Did I mention that you have to build a structure to be able to buy and sell, and upgrade it if you want to do a good job?

I said this game was a lot like the Civ-series. For those of you who don't know, those games are a kind of turn based strategy game on the scale of cities and armies, rather than individual troops. They feature a broad and complex system of upgrades and complex unit structure paths. Of course to make it a browser based MMO, and not charge a cent to actually play, they had to substantially and fundamentally alter this model. Sure the scale is the same, but the turn-based structure is gone so there is much less time to ponder your stratagems. Of course, as long as you have enough spies, which are rather expensive to build, it is easy to evaluate the chances your troops have against any other troops. Since troops exist in a sort of tiered rock paper scissors system where the impact of research is poorly visible at best. Which reminds me, research, and construction upgrades? Are they trees with varied results like in many strategy games? Of course not, they are frustrating codependent linear paths, where technology y level n requires buildings x, z, and r, all of level m. The upshot, you never meet the pre-reqs for a building upgrade, technology, or troop type when you want to. It'll probably take days just to figure out what you need. And of course there are the preposterous development, construction, training and travel times to deal with when upgrading and managing your "empire." These times, which begin in the 2 or 3 minute range and rapidly escalate into the range of 20-some hours. until we actually reach a point so the game leads me to believe where 20-30 hours is less than ten percent of a research or construction timeframe. Then we have the frustrating troop controls. Troops can be dispatched, and retrieved. No course correction mid-way, no realizing you have made a horrible mistake, none of that. Also: when you have troops stationed at some random location in order to capture it, but want to defend it with less, you must bring everything back invoking a ponderous travel time. And when they arrive at your base, THEN you can send more troops to defend it. Invoking another ponderous travel time and of course leaving the location exposed for at least an hour.
Well I have now reached a natural point at which to address the mium portion of this freemium monstrosity. Or: how they make you pay money to drive sharp objects into your eyes. The currency is cents, which you get at a predictable exchange rate of 100 per dollar spent. Cents can be spent to purchase items to increase resource production, allow certain high level upgrades, get high level heroes, level up your heroes, acquire troops, obtain medals (the purpose of which I didn't really understand), and more often than not speed up development times. Cents were also used to speak in chat. That's right chat was a premium feature. You needed speakers to communicate in any chat channel, and they had to be paid for. Now you could get quite a few from early game "quests" but when those ran out you had to buy them. I should note that in addition to paying for specific items, you could also purchase "amulets." These mystical fun-jobs got you one random item from a randomly selected list of valuable doodads. The all of them worth more than the 5 cents required to buy an amulet. So if you didn't care what progress you made as long as it was progress amulets were the way to go. To encourage continued play, you could receive one "free" amulet every day you played. The quotes are not because visiting sponsors or such was in order, but simply because you actually had to play the horror that was the game. Now, amulets, including the free one, can actually result in a pile of cents with which to buy more amulets, though I never had such a questionably enjoyable windfall. Also: the game features "investment opportunities." You can pay an amount of money (up to US$200 per server of which there are more than 40 at last count) and receive your cents not in one lump sum, but over 15 weeks, with interest. So I understand you could by this worrisome investment plan obtain a huge gain on your actual investment. If you actually value this "currency." Evony also seems to have a tendency to reward players for speaking highly of the game. So they pay people to like it. That sure is a sign of enjoyability.

With the game, and monetary components discussed, there is one feature left to discuss. That festering pit of suffering and bile that MMO players love so much, THE COMMUNITY. Now I've played my fair share of MMO's and I've seen some appalling communities, but never before have I known such despair. The community consists of desperate teenage nerd-children that are enticed by the gratuitous breastage of the advertising screaming desperately into the chat such gems of discourse as "WHER AR TITS/." Chat that I will note they are possibly paying actual money for. A few of these simpering wastes of spacetime will actually continue playing, though refuse to observe the overwhelming and ever present documentation that explains the entirety of gameplay in mind-boggling detail. A small number of them will instead read the entirety of the available documentation, start fan-sites, and form ambitious alliances in order to conquer the server. The remainder of the community is composed of desperate middle-aged men, enticed by some breasts, who work dead-end cubicle jobs and play at work to bide their time until they slowly wither away into nothing. So if there's one thing you can expect from Evony's community, it's desperation. I would also like to note, that none of the gratuitous cleavage visible in the games adverts is anywhere to be seen in game. Some relatively attractive female faces exist. But that's about it.

And now the final word.

Game: ultimately a stripped down and awkward version of Civ

.375π of 2π

Freemiuimitude: Needless complication with perplexing merit and transparent noobtraps

.25π of 2π

Community: Desperate sorrow, pain, and suffering

.125π of 2π

Verdict: Take Civ, oversimplify it, add needless and arbitrary complication to the stripped version, and fill it with despair.

.25π of 2π

I can in fact conceive of a worse game. But I highly recommend avoiding this one like the plague. Please don't play it. I beg of you.

I spoke to a squirrel.

The squirrel told me where this is all going.

I now know what to say will come from headwords.

It begins with some bad habits.

I have two bad habits that I have decided to embrace, in order to help others.

Are you ready to find out what these habits are? How am I doing at the suspense thing? Am I doing a good job?

Well, let's approach these habits backwards.

There are a lot of video games out there, lots of them require some type of monetary contribution. And lots of them are online these days.

There are an almost equal number of people who review games, both in humorous and non-humorous ways. Does the internet really need another random guy to review and mock newly released video games? No.

But there is a kind of game that receives little attention from reviewers. A kind of game with a very regrettable name: Freemium games.

Freemium games: those games which are free to play but have features that cost real money.

The problem with freemium games is not that most of them are terrible. The real problem is that some of them not only don't suck, but some of them are even good. Even great.

But the average individual, after a number of poor experiences will despair that no good can come of freemium games and will miss out on a number of potentially good game experiences.

And here is the bad habit you may or may not have been waiting to discover. Optimism, I've never been able to give up on freemium games. I try them, every time I discover one that seems even passably interesting I give it a shot.

Since I cannot cure this habit, I will use it for the public good. Each time I finish examining a new one I'll give it a write up here.

I'm in the process of writing up the first one. Something that the internet has come to loath almost completely. Something I hope to prevent even one poor soul from playing.

I also "like" to watch episodes of old television shows, espescially cartoons. Espescially those of questionable merit. I'll write up those episodes as I see them as well. I didn't really build that one up, since this post is already way to long as it is.