Chatzy Madness Volume 99: IT'S ME, SHAGGY

SteelKomodo: http://steelkomodo.blogspot.com/2013/12/dirkmas-2-epilogue-presents.html
Harpy: DIRKYYY
SteelKomodo: yep
Jingle Dels: dirky~
SteelKomodo: #ShurikensAndLightning
Harpy: it rhymes with
Harpy: turkey
SteelKomodo: it does
Harpy: that is proof
Harpy: that dirk
Harpy: IS A CAT PERSON
Harpy: BECAUSE CATS LIKE TURKEY TOO
SteelKomodo: D:

---

Harpy: N-no
Harpy: someone
Harpy: either moved my chocolate or ate my chocolate
Harpy: the chocolate that goops gave me
Harpy: I HOPE IT GAVE THEM STOMACH ISSUES BECAUSE THAT WAS GIVEN WITH LOVE AND I WAS GONNA EAT IT
Harpy: GRRR SO MAD
RubyChao: D:
Harpy: and thus thats how I pouted about chocolate
Harpy: chocolate is serious business
SteelKomodo: D:
Harpy: no wait crisis averted, it was just that it was hard to see the chocolate since the packaging blended in with everything else
Harpy: chocolate tried to avoid its doom
Harpy: but there is no escape from me
RubyChao: sarah intensifies
Harpy: now this
Harpy: this is good chocolate

GB's Vidya 2013: Year In Review

Last year I made the twenty-one post series "GB's 100 Games", wherein I gave short writeups of 100 games I had beaten that I considered to be good or better. Since then, I've beaten over a dozen more video games. I've decided to make a sequel of sorts to 100 Games in the form of a "Year In Review" that gives writeups on every game I beat this year. In addition to that, I'll be putting the games in a rough ranking. Remember, the game can be released in any year, and I can first acquire the game in any year - as long as I first finished the game in 2013, it qualifies for the list.

First, however, to get them out of the way...

Unranked: A Horde of Atari Games
Trying to place all the new Atari 2600 games I played this year would be far too difficult. It's hard enough ranking such old games alongside modern ones as it is - with this many, it'd just be a pain and the list would be littered with them, so they all get shoved here.

Games in bold were played on an actual Atari 2600 with a cartridge. Games in italics were played on my Atari Flashback plug-and-play system.

Atari Climber - A game similar in some respects to Donkey Kong. You must climb from the bottom of the stage to the top, avoiding hazards and scoring points.

Atlantis - You control three cannons and try to shoot down flying ships that want to bomb your city. The cannons cannot aim or move, so timing is literally everything. Nice graphics for the 2600.

Demon Attack - A very similar game to Phoenix. Demon Attack is a static shooter in which you fight wave after wave of "demons". They come in many shapes, but they mostly behave the same.

Dragonfire - In this medieval quest, you alternate between two screens. The first screen is about jumping over and ducking under fireballs to reach a castle. Once there, you gather treasure for points while dodging the attacks of an angry dragon.

Off the Wall - I've never been good at Breakout-type games. Off the Wall is not an exception.

Secret Quest - One of the rare games on Atari that cries out for instructions. I can't give this Zeldaesque game a fair shake because I didn't know what to do a few levels in.

Space Jockey - Space Jockey is hurt by technical limitations - only three enemies are onscreen at once, making the game far too dull. A difficulty option to make the enemies move randomly may help your experience somewhat.

Video Checkers - Not sure how I'm supposed to win. The computer seems to counter my every move. Then again, I don't play much checkers.

Video Chess - Same problem - the computer consistently outfoxed me even on the lowest difficulty. I played chess a lot back in elementary school, and I don't remember being this bad at it.

Yar's Revenge - One of the strongest Atari games I've played. Yar's is more complicated than most Atari games, but it can be figured out pretty quickly, and it's a lot of fun. Once upon a time I had a Game Boy Color version of this game, but I wasn't any good at it and wound up selling the cartridge in a yard sale.

Chatzy Madness Volume 98: Sarah Cheesecake

Gooper Blooper: Harpy: damn, no goops
Harpy: i must tell him about this alternate universe full of alexes
RedSpy: pfffft
Harpy: after he defeated yursarsh, everybody started naming their bebbes after him and hoping they grow up to be big, strong knights
Gooper Blooper: ...
Gooper Blooper: >​big
RubyChao: alex's size was highly exaggerated in the legends
Gooper Blooper: The size given in the scrolls was in fact the length of his idiot hair
SteelKomodo: Lolz

---

Harpy: *just made a flower girl in a new steam game called Starbound*
Harpy: NOT MORE CHARACTERS GKJLGJ
Gooper Blooper: The Harpykin
SteelKomodo: :3
Gooper Blooper: An enormous, glorious throng of fantasy people

---

RubyChao: so if Spy is Shane and Goops is Vince
RubyChao: what does that make me
Gooper Blooper: uh
Gooper Blooper: The Rock?
Harpy: what
Gooper Blooper: Chao is the people's champion
RubyChao: can you smeeeeell what the chao is cooking
Harpy: I am more confoot than ever
Gooper Blooper: harpy is always confused by chatzy
RedSpy: We rustlemans now
Harpy: more confoot than a death god drinking snapture ready
Harpy: why is he even at the KoB anyway
Gooper Blooper: It's not like gods have never dropped by the KoB
Harpy: Muh ideaaz, they outta control
RedSpy: Because Wynaut
Gooper Blooper: Arceus stopped by for a few pints the other day, mumbling about "Banktide"

The Children Were Nestled All Snug in Their Beds

"Ahhhhh... Bliss. Pure bliss." Gloria announced happily to no one in particular.

She was alone in a large library.Rain gently pattered against the windows. Surrounding her were tall shelves of books. All in all, it was much like her library back home in Manhattan, complete with solitude. Except...

Except that the books were from all around the world, many of them hundreds of years old. Their quality was amazing given their age, but they still had that wonderful musty old-book smell. Best of all, even though they weren't all written in English, Gloria held in her pocket a shining gem called the Rosetta Stone, which allowed her to read any language. French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, Lufenian... no book could escape her now.

She sank back into a large, comfortable recliner, put up her feet, popped a small chocolate in her mouth to suck on, and cracked open a bestiary of monsters written over five hundred years ago.

Chatzy Madness 97: Royal Rumble Edition

iDel: I just watched a movie about evil santas being exported to work in malls
iDel: Rare Products
SteelKomodo: what
iDel: It's Finnish
iDel: Look it up
SteelKomodo: actually it's called Rare Exports
iDel: Thanks for correcting me
SteelKomodo: no probs :U

---

Triple S: The Spacetime Beam, also known as the Reset Beam, is a beam used in Super Metroid to cause a glitch that will reset the game. This doesn't reset the game as a normal reset; instead it causes all bosses to respawn and all upgrades to be reset, as well as all doors that were a different color than blue
Triple S: This is canon, Samus can change time
RubyChao: 2014 plot: Samus tries to go back in time to make herself not a jobber
RubyChao: It results in her creating the jobbing in the first place
SteelKomodo: XD
Triple S: Samus uses Spacetime Beam. Lord, Sentinels, Fiends, and every other threat respawns
Triple S: BOSS RUSH

---

RubyChao: hmmm
RubyChao: so what i'm getting from this
RubyChao: is that scorpion is a lost soul, bent on... vengeance?
Triple S: Yes
Triple S: Also his singer was kicked in the balls a bit too hard

---

Goops McMahon: sarah.jpg
Harpy: don't eat alex sarah
Harpy: unless that is a cookie pretending to be alex

Chatzy Madness 96: Crapfully Yours

RubyChao: "The official forum search system is offline at the moment. This is a temporary search until the official system returns." fun fact: invisionfree has said this for well
RubyChao: about seven years now
RubyChao: good job guys

---

RubyChao: don't go looking for sites you haven't seen in years
RubyChao: you'll feel old

---

Gooper Blooper: fakeangelbr: RIP WWE 13, YOU LIVED AS YOU DIED, LIKE A PIECE OF SHIT
Gooper Blooper: e_tap: YEAH, RIP
SteelKomodo: it died as it lived - glitching through table-san
Gooper Blooper: Here lies WWE 13. It loaded slow and died a virgin.

---

EscapeeSpy: Gloria for WVGCW
EscapeeSpy: Give her Brodus Clay's entrance, Osh and Garland replacing the Funkadactyls
EscapeeSpy: (Don't do this that's an awful idea)
SteelKomodo: XD
Gooper Blooper: Gloria for ZFRP 2014
EscapeeSpy: Gloria for Triple B 2014?
Gooper Blooper: that is a possibility spy
Gooper Blooper: If only because I know she'd get plenty of votes
Gooper Blooper: >​.>​
EscapeeSpy: *OSH INTENSIFIES*
EscapeeSpy: *ZEPH sorta gets dragged into the fight I guess*

---

(Cornwind enters Sine into Drown Yer Mates III)

Cornwind Evil: it's Christmas
Cornwind Evil: Why not give Del a Christmas gift
Gooper Blooper: I assure you, CW, Del is already enjoying your gift
Del: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH​A

Chatzy Madness 95: Roll D20 to Not Explode

The Deleter: yo bro
The Deleter: do you remember what the russian on this says
SteelKomodo: squish
SteelKomodo: basically :U
The Deleter: i see
The Deleter: :U

---

SteelKomodo: you know what ticks me off?
SteelKomodo: ...sorry, that should have been
SteelKomodo changed name to Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin: YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS

---

Gooper Blooper: Last week I put up something on the GTS and asked for a Petilil. Some Japanese dude gave me a shiny one
Gooper Blooper: I didn't even notice

---

Saberwulf: I'm pissed that making a webcomic requires the ability to draw

---

RubyChao: you know what sucks
RubyChao: forgetting to heal and getting KOed by tubba blubba after beating his heart :V
The Deleter: that sucks

---

Gooper Blooper: I have found what shall help pass the time as I await christmas
Gooper Blooper: IT'S
Gooper Blooper: HAPPENING

Chatzy Madness 94: Soylent Pink Is Hippo

The Deleter: i wish there was a game where you went around rustling jimmies
The Deleter: peturbing people on the street
The Deleter: gaining jimmie dollars to spend on new ways of rustling jimmies

---

M Sheep: quick(?) and dirty post
M Sheep: the dirtiest post
M Sheep: Also, may be very confusing at a certain point
Saberwulf: I'm the king of confusing so that sounds rad
Gooper Blooper: Sheep vs Wulf, Confuse Yer Mates
The Deleter: haha
Gooper Blooper: Nobody understands the fite but everyone agrees it was somehow enjoyable anyway

---

M Sheep joined the chat
M Sheep: Nobody times M Sheep out!
M Sheep: NOBODY!
M Sheep: And give back the Cyclop's eye, already!
Gooper Blooper: M Sheep timed out M Sheep
SteelKomodo: M SHEEP SCREWJOB
M Sheep: NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW!
M Sheep uses chaos emerald to go back to the past
M Sheep: M Sheep left me there
M Sheep: for FIVE MONTHS

---

RubyChao: damn you len

---

Gooper Blooper: Spy, thought you should know
Gooper Blooper: Today I caught Pansage, Panpour, and Pansear and nicknamed them Funky Kong, Diddy Kong, and Leo Luster, respectively
SteelKomodo: XD
M Sheep: Leo Luster had better know Attract

Chatzy Madness Volume 93: Call of Duty: Doge

Gooper Blooper joined the chat
Harpy: HEY GOOPS
Harpy: IS IT COLD OUT THERE
Harpy: ARE YOUR TENTACLES FREEZING OFF
Harpy: IS WIDOW MAKER OKAY

---

Gooper Blooper: I named my huntail Achilles
Gooper Blooper: never forget
No: . . .
No: ACHILLES ;-;
SteelKomodo: ;_;
Harpy: .n.
No: ;_;7

---

iDel asked Chatzy to choose between Emeny Within and Dota 2 spirit update. Chatzy chose: Dota 2 spirit update
iDel: >​asking chatzy
Saberwulf: Putting brick dust across your door is more useful than asking Chatzy
iDel: Hahaha
DerpKomodo: XD
Triple S asked Chatzy to choose between brick dust to the door and asking Chatzy. Chatzy chose: asking Chatzy
Triple S: Well yeah, of course YOU'D say that, Chatzy

Why I'm Not A Regular PC Gamer

So, once again, I'm unable to play Beat Hazard. I tried to start the game and was rewarded with an eternal black screen.

Now, where I come from, when you want to play a video game you put the game in the system, turn it on, and begin playing. There's no updates, there's no surveys, there's much less waiting and loading, and there's NO CRASHES. I don't have to cross my fingers and pray every time I turn on my 3DS in hopes that Pokemon Y will boot - it boots 100 percent of the time, in seconds, and in less than sixty seconds after turning the system on I'm playing my game. Even my Atari and Genesis are more reliable, and they aren't 100% - I might have to wiggle the cartridge or blow on it, but at least it doesn't take five minutes to reboot. Console games that crash are usually either extremely old/dirty/corrupted or terribly coded shit-piles, but when I play PC it's just par for the course.

This is the biggest problem I have always had with PC gaming. There are four PC games I have spent great amounts of time with - Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction, RPG Maker XP, Streets of Rage Remake, and Beat Hazard. I love these games and three of them are great at taking advantage of the fact they're on PC by using customization features that are hard or impossible to use on normal consoles, like importing your computer's graphics or music. But three of these four games are unreliable, with problems I have to wrestle with every time I play them, sometimes keeping me from playing altogether. Beat Hazard often fails to boot. Robot Wars has the same issue, and also has sound problems. Nothing about my system setup changed between these games working perfectly and them turning into gambles. RPG Maker XP, meanwhile, will crash 100% of the time when playtesting a project unless I use an annoying workaround that shouldn't be needed involving constantly editing and re-saving a Notepad file.

These problems are not acceptable. I understand things like not having a powerful enough system to run such-and-such, but here I am unable to run games I could run fine a few months or years ago on the same system. I KNOW my system can run these games, because it's run them dozens of times. So why don't they work now? It's worse when they fail to work, then work again, and then fail again. That's even MORE unacceptable! Now it's just randomly crashing for no reason! My GameCube doesn't just decide it can't play Skies of Arcadia today, that's nonsense!

I can't rely on it at all. Every time I play a PC game I have to treat it like I may never get to play it again. Until PC gaming lets me play my games 100 percent of the time guaranteed like a console would, I can only see it as a novelty and occasional source for games I can't otherwise play, not a "real" gaming system I get new games from regularly, and certainly not something I spend more than pocket change on for new games.  It's far too risky to pay for a full-price game if I don't even know if it will boot.

PC Land seems nice and all, but it won't let me appreciate it properly. I might get a new computer in a year or two. It might make Steam more reliable, but it might lock me out of Robot Wars or RPG Maker. Who knows for sure? I don't.