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This Gamer Is Preeetttyyy Sure He Knows When A Game Is Or Isn’t Political

There’s been a lot of to-do around politics in games of late, and, honestly, it’s hard to know what to think unless you’re equipped with a big old brain that understands politics like me, 31 year old help desk supervisor and gaming aficionado Gunt Plopper. That’s why I’m here to give you a whirlwind tour of what games are and are not political.

Let’s start with the easy ones. Storming the beaches of Normandy? Not political, nosiree. Soviet officers executing you in Call of Duty if you run from battle? Not political. It’s fact. You can look it up in history books, which are the least political thing I can think of. Black soldiers in a World War 2 game? Actually probably not political – I think they existed. Haven’t checked. If I have to play one though? Hoo boy, that’s political. Women are right out.

Alright, let’s see. If a war game has an anti-war message, that’s political. Stands to reason – any kind of message is likely to be political. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare assigning the blame for Tariq Almawt to Russians when it was committed by Americans? First of all, if it was a big deal then why have I never heard of it? Secondly, there’s only so many ideas for war crimes to put into games. It’s called parallel construction. Look it up.

Games where you’re a SWAT team taking down terrorists? How on earth could that be political? They even dock you points if you kill civilians which is a bit on the nose for me, but I guess they had to put it in there for realism. Rainbow Six can’t be political – it’s not even a real department. Breach and clear! Shit rules.

Now the nerd stuff. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri depicting a bunch of bloodthirsty ideologues battling over a hostile planet while utterly altering its form and atmosphere both intentionally and unintentionally in a bid for absolute and ultimate power? Not political. Alpha Centauri’s fake, dipshit. It’s made up. OK, so Civilization 2 and Civilization: Call to Power had some pretty big climate change stuff in there, but that was back in the 90’s before we knew how political that was, so they get a pass from me.

While we’re on the topic – Crusader Kings 2 depicting a gigantic chunk of history that was hugely formative for a large part of the globe, including the eponymous crusaders, who clashed in religious warfare and created a vast symbolic language which still influences culture today, in a game where real historical figures are assigned positive and negative stats and traits, and who obey a large array of underlying systems describing how they must act based within the framework of their culture and religion, all created by human beings with their own underlying cultural and political biases? Not political, but I hear they won’t let me say “DEUS VULT” in Crusader Kings 3 which is insaaanely fucking political.

Now the juicy stuff. A female protagonist? If she’s not hot, that’s political. If she kisses another girl, that’s super political. Trick for developers though – if you let me move the camera around so I can upskirt her, that’s a get-out-of-political free card. If you admonish me with in-game text for doings so though I will burn your office building to the ground. Otherwise if I have to play as a broad, make sure to put in an accurate model of her totally nude in the shower. That’s not political, that’s just sexy. Can’t be sexy and political, genius.  

If a game has pronoun assignment, that’s political. There’s a trap here though: if you don’t assign pronouns but you let me give a girl voice to a boy body, that’s still political. Probably MORE political, if you ask me. Again, there’s an escape hatch for devs though – old Gunt isn’t completely unreasonable – if you let me assign a boy voice to a girl character and it’s clear it’s for laughs, that’s not political at all. It’s called “doing a Charles Shaughnessy”. Oh, and it goes without saying that gay people in games are like a glowing nuclear rod of political.

Lightning round. Copy protection? Political. Not letting PewDiePie stream your game? Political. Loot crates? Political. Microtransactions? Political. Mods you can pay for? Political. Not allowing mods? Political. Epic Games Store taking a loss leading position to build volume by making completely legal commercial arrangements with game developers while taking a lower cut and offering their engine for free so that they can one day capitalise on said market volume in a setup that is actively incentivised by the modes of capital underpinning not just the games industry but increasingly our entire existence? That’s so political, it’s basically communism.

“But,” you may ask, “what about Fallout? Cut the crap – is Fallout political?”. You’re asking me if Fallout, the game in which Raygun Gothic relics of America’s golden age rust openly in desolate plains while only those wealthy enough to be able to afford shelter attempt to recolonise a world left in total ecological ruin by a world war started over resource shortages wherein China invades Alaska, America annexes Canada, and the atom – a literal symbol of Western hegemony – is the ultimate destroyer? A game where even if you win, you are turned away to die in the desert because you are an outsider? A game which literally opens with the line “war never changes” while technofacists who control the very access to knowledge and technology execute a restrained man in the streets? That Fallout?

Not political. You can tell because there’s lasers.

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The Challenging Depths Of Man

I

I am, you may say, a "fish pervert".

As a scuba diver I am not unique in this regard. In fact, it is a poorly-kept secret that the vast majority of scuba divers are fish perverts. I mean, what other possible reason could we have for risking the kinds of death most men only dream of in the kind of steaming nightmares that come when the nights are humid and inescapable? What do you think we occupy our minds with in the diving bell eternities while we keep the bends at arm's length if not the undulating, shivering forms of fins and flippers?

No, we are humble fish fanciers and we do not care for, nor about, your judgement. You should not be surprised that we shirk society's expectations when we look death in its suboceanic rod-rich retinas every day of our damned lives. Within the first week of training a fellow diver, a fine boy from my own hometown by the name of Felix Trunkopolis, was crushed by a dropped anchor which had been customised to look like a gigantic pair of buttocks in tight-fitting lycra. Such tragedies are commonplace. His diving partner, Chudwick, having not warned him of the obvious danger (distracted as he was by a particularly alluring Pterois Lunulata), inherited the entirety of Felix's considerable debt and the burden of the nine monstrous Trunkopolis children. Chudwick accepted this burden magnanimously. Any of us would have accepted it likewise, because Diving Law states that it must be so.

We all know of the danger, and of the cost of inattention. Diver Law exists to keep us together, and to keep us alive, and is simple: if your diving partner perishes, you inherit their life's responsibilities. It is simple, clear, and extremely legally binding.

It is thus that we divers are bonded as brother and sister. Bonded in responsibility, in fraternity, and in fish pervertery. It is thus that we remain strong.

I, Phil Glanschirp, am a scuba diver. Or at least I was before James Cameron ruined my life.

II

Depending on who you ask in the diving community, James Cameron was either a missed opportunity, a charlatan, or an aberration. He was a missed opportunity because, despite his interest in oceanography and the power that he wields culturally, he did not include a single shot in Titanic of caviar being massaged out of a beluga sturgeonfish's asshole. He was a charlatan because, like so many other rich men with expensive hobbies, he expected to swoop in and solve all of our problems despite an almost total lack of experience. He was an aberration because he did not once express a desire to fuck a fish.

There are technical and logistical factors underpinning the incident, of course, but it is my sincere belief that James Cameron was turned into compressed bonechum at the bottom of the ocean that day because he did not develop the deep bonds shared by the diving community. The rest of us have spent person-years together drinking in semi-abandoned dive bars (pun unavoidable) where the marine air rusts the emptying beer kegs hungrily. We have been bored, together, alone, in steel bedrooms with a view of the infinite waterline, passing well-thumbed copies of Fishy Rendezvous Monthly amongst ourselves samizdatically despite the fact such material is not just allowed but encouraged. As we pull our hands to our chest ready to slip backwards from the deck into Andaman, deep green waters, we hold Diver Law to our hearts, each of us an oath-bound Hippocrates.

I must admit that, on a cosmological level, much of the blame for the misfortune I now find myself in must fall upon my own shoulders. My excellence in the field led me to deeper and more dangerous dives, which usually means being led deeper into the cold and lightless parts of the ocean. Those who dive past a certain depth -- the depth at which life loses its form and changes to vague, sexless creatures like urchins or sea cucumbers, also known as the "Pillusker Attraction Depth", i.e. the depth at which 1940s diver Proust Pillusker stopped feeling horny -- are viewed with utter suspicion.

Yet I allowed myself to lured by the usual siren songs of fame, money, and recognition when I joined the team of the Deepsea Challenger 2. Although the Deepsea Challenger mission had already reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, James wanted to do another go-around as an excuse to delay his fifth divorce. And I was to be his wingman, travelling in a second ship to look out for any art deco bullshit that may have once belonged on the Titanic. He beckoned, and I came, and we dove toward the centre of the Earth.

And so it was that, on 7:42pm on the 21st of March, 2020, my submersible's video feed showed a crack appear along the glass of James' submersible all at once, as if smited. In that moment I knew there was nothing that could be done. Not even a second later the submersible was crushed, altered to an impossible miniature form as if it were a can of tomatoes under the heel of an industrial press, a jet of James sent firing out of a breach and into the water like a silly string of vicsera.

In that moment I knew there was nothing that could be done.

By Diver Law, I was bonded to James Cameron's earthly responsibilities.

I would have to write and direct the next four Avatar sequels.

III

I should be fine with being out of my depth. Christ. And yet I find myself floundering (stop -- you don't have time to be horny), this responsibility tied to me like lead weights around my ankles. I'm not any kind of director, let alone one who should be responsible for a multi-billion-dollar franchise. The lawyers have found no way around it and no way out. There must be four Avatar sequels, the money must be spent, and I must be the one to make it happen. But I cannot possibly do the thing that is asked of me. I cannot do what I need to do.

IV

Am I not a creative being? Do I not ache and burst with the same pain and failure and urges as Melville, or Hemingway, or del Toro? I am large, I contain multitudes! Creation should not be rationed to only those qualified! Have I not something to say about this most human condition? The more I think of this burden of mine, the more it swells from itch to pleasure. I feel like my pipes will burst if I do not turn this tap, and fill to the brim these Avatars with myself!

I must do what I need to do. I will prove I am not just the man who had to make Avatar 2, 3, and 4 because I am legally bound to, and along the way if some of myself makes its way into the movies, would that be so bad? It is time for me to show the world who Phil Glanschirp really is.

V

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Hardware Corner Review: Everhard 100mm x 3m Black EasyDRAIN Prejoined Polymer Channel and Grate

Hi folks, and welcome to another Hardware Corner Review. Today we’ll be taking the Everhard 100mm x 3m Black EasyDRAIN Prejoined Polymer Channel and Grate through its paces. It’s often said that people go through life pretending to know what they are doing, but that is not true within a hardware store, where there are Real Men who Know Things, and those who stumble from emasculation to emasculation. The EasyDRAIN channel is available from Bunnings retailers for $53.90.

Construction

The EasyDRAIN channel is composed of 3x1m sections with an allegedly removeable grate on top. The grate is sealed inside the channel by an ancient shithead curse. I applied so much force removing it that when it finally came undone it nearly flew over the fence into my neighbour Dennis’s yard. I can’t talk to Dennis without suffering mild to moderate anxiety since the day he bought a motorbike (the large loud kind). He is very happy and mostly beyond my comprehension. The EasyDRAIN channel comes in three colours: black, black with white grating, and terracotta.

Ease of Use

When I visited my grandfather in hospital, I told him the following joke:

A patient says to his doctor “doc, I feel terrible. Everything hurts and I don’t know why.”

The doctor takes one look at him and says, “well, first of all, you have to stop masturbating.”

The patient replies, “why?”

“Because I’m trying to examine you.”

He liked this joke a lot. I didn’t want to convince myself that he was on his deathbed. He was a man who towed the materials to build a shed three thousand kilometers down the Australian coastline to his new plot of land, built the shed, and lived in the shed with his wife and four children while he built his house.

I cried when he died and I cried assembling the Everhard 100mm x 3m Black EasyDRAIN Prejoined Polymer Channel and Grate.

Quality of Instructions

The EasyDRAIN system comes with a link to Everhard’s online help system. To log on, first you must answer the question “What’s worse: that you inherited your fatalism from your mother and father, or that you developed it independently?” Unfortunately I was not able to progress past this step in the review period.

Modular Extras

When hardware is “modular” it is sort of like when a game has DLC, except if you don’t buy the right modules your house will collapse.

An essential extra is the Everhard EasyDRAIN 100mm End Cap, without which your drain will become inundated with concrete and you will need to rush back to the store where a 90 year old ex-carpenter will suck air through his teeth and tell you “of course you’re gonna need one of those”. It does not attach securely to the drainage channel, but is largely blameless in the process.

To secure the end cap in place you will need an Everhard EasyDRAIN 100mm Black Polymer Converter. Its role is to vaguely hold things together until immersed in concrete at which point it will fall apart and be concreted into place, becoming yet another thing in your life you cannot take back.

Join me next week when I recap all of the products my stepdad describes as “probably too powerful” for me. Until then, Happy Hardwareing!

[deliciouschickenjuice]

The Boundless Miyazaki Sky

Why am I known as Ranchin Anime Noel? Werll, my pa saw fit to baptise me Noel in the eyes of the Lord. And considering you’re settin in Son Goku Ranch, I guess you can work the rest out from there.

Noel sat restlessly opposite me. His body was leathered and purposeful. Sinew stretched and coiled underneath his My Neighbor Totoro shirt which wore the mud and grit and waste of a thousand days lived harder than I could imagine. 

I guess I’m forty-seven or forty-eight if you gotta write it down there. He tapped my notepad. My ma never cared that much for dates but I guess I’m forty-seven or forty-eight if that means sumthin to ye. That’s given me near four decades of ranchin and anime and while it might not seem like much of a life to your readers there’s sumthin that stirs inside a man when a days work is done and Heaven and Hell are conflagratin a storm up above and you’ve settled your head on your Rei Ayanami comfort pillow and there ain’t a worry in the world. There ain’t nothin like it.

I guess I reckon we live on a blessed Earth. The Lord saw fit to bless this Earth with Akira in all forms, from the manga to the LaserDisc to the Blu-ray. Of course a city slicker like you might say sumthin about Katsuhiro Otomo creatin Akira, not the Lord. Werll, the Lord created Katsuhiro Otomo too and you’d do well to remember it.

What does your wife make of all this? His faced relaxed. A softer man might’ve smiled, but Noel allowed himself a single chuckle. Werll. A man and his wife need their assignations. But I will just say that during the rising of the North Star when our bodies are meetin there in the confluence of flesh of man and wife I guess a man can’t ask for much more. And when it’s time for me to get to work and my huge beautiful wife rolls off me and says to me, see you Space Cowboy, werll. There ain’t nothin like it.

I asked Noel how he managed to keep up to date with anime while running a cattle ranch, especially considering his advancing age. Werll it’s a big old world out there, he said. His blue altostratic eyes searched out something in the room. A man has to choose what he keeps up with. What’s important to him. I guess that’s about it. I guess that’s about it.

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Celebrating the Space Quippers - Profile of Murderin’ Mal Jiggles

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 15 years since the members of the Serenity quipped their way off of the screen and into our hearts. Let’s revisit the sensational characters which made up Captain Murderin’ Mal’s motley crew.

CAPTAIN “MURDERIN’” MAL GIGGLES

PROFILE

When considering the motivation for his criminal actions as an officer of the Browncoats in the great rebellion, it may be impossible to know whether scum begat treachery, or treachery begat scum. Either way, he’s a real piece of shit.

May have been his heart was two sizes too small. May have been his soul was replaced with a small lonely turd, like one you might find left anonymously on the toilet floor of a ill-reputed bar.

One thing is for sure: the only law he respects is Sharia law, which he enacts strictly on Serenity. Outside of that, anything is up for grabs as his violent and sexual misadventures take him across the universe and back!

Murderin’ Mal would do anything to ensure the survival of his crew, as they are worth several million credits in organs and raw minerals to offworld organ trader Half Dick Joe, who, as astute viewers will remember, sold Mal a trawling net full of dogs in episode 6.

Unfortunately, Murderin’ Mal’s story was cut short by Fox’s bean counters after only one season. However, viewers will always have the memories of Captain Jiggles exploring the boundaries of the universe and morality. Did he eventually strike it rich with his scheme to harvest the scent of used seats and sell them to überperverts on the double-black market? We may never find out.

BEST QUIP

“I need a lecture on morality from a child like you need a hole in the head!” [he shoots the child in the head]

FAVOURITE PASTTIME

Firing dogs out of Serenity’s torpedo tubes into the great void of space.

WHERE IS HE NOW?

Crushed into a giant cube with several hundred paedophiles for his involvement in a child abuse ring.

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How I Got My BMW

“Dude.”

Who let him in? He wasn’t on the visitors’ list.

“Dude, fuckin’ charity? I didn’t get my BMW by giving money to charity.” Six foot of well-fitted suit loomed over my bed.

“Uh, hi Kane. Well, I guess giving my stuff to charity seemed like the right thing to do.”

Something churned between Kane’s Roman features. A machine in the room went *beep*. Kane frowned.

“Look at that beautiful fuckin’ car,” he said, motioning towards the window. I craned my neck but could only make out the tops of street lamps. “Do you think I got it by doing the right thing?”

He blocked one nostril and sucked on the other disinterestedly. “That’s some beta shit.”

*beep*

“I’m not sure what you think I should be doing with my money,” I said, “but I was hoping I could give it to someone less fortunate.”

“Jesus Christ. Do you think I got my BMW by giving shit away?” he asked and again motioned towards the window and, assumedly, to the car beyond. “Well, apart from giving my 8 inches away to nine point fives! Right?!”

*beep*

I blinked at him, trying to make sense of his presence.

“I’m pretty certain my time for that sort of thing has passed. Bone cancer tends to do that to you.”

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, I thought to myself.

“Dude, grow up. Seriously. Girls can smell that beta whinging a mile off. ‘Oh, I’m sick. Oh, I’ve got bone cancer.’ Fuck that, be like ‘oh, I’ve got a BMW. Want to ride in it?’ You gotta be cocky, be confident.”

*beep*

He paused and seemed to weigh his options.

“Do you want to know how I got my BMW?” he finally asked, but his tone had shifted - it was almost deferential, co-conspiratorial.

It was then I finally understood who he was - who he really was, I mean - and why he had come here. I knew I could not refuse his words. I knew I could not refuse him. He sensed the dawning of this realisation, and drew slowly and silently towards me until his powerful, perfect, equine teeth were breathlessly at my ear.

*beep*

Then, with searing finality:

“I was the first person to realise there are hot singles in your suburb Mansfield 4122 looking to fuck tonight! Fuck bored housewives! The site they tried to have banned! Tammy is 2.1km away. Don’t let your wife find out!! NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED!”

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An Open Letter to Fiona Apple

Dear Fiona,

I’ll be brief because you seem like a busy person. Fiona, I’d like you to beat the shit out of me.

I would hate to seem presumptuous, but it seems to me like you would be willing to beat the shit out of me. I would hope that you gain some sort of release from the experience, but most of all I would just like you to beat the shit out of me.

Before you stop reading, please understand that this is not some pseudosexual request. This is not a kink of mine. You do not have to worry about subtext. All you have to do is meet me in a parking lot somewhere - it could be a Walmart, it could be a Taco Bell - and go to town on me.

I will put up as much of a fight as you would like me to, although you will win. Once again, without being too presumptuous, it seems like you would fight with a deep experience and ability. I would fight, and I would lose, and you would win.

You do not have to talk to me beyond explaining to me the parameters of how you would like the fight to proceed. If you would like to tell me about fights you may have had with famous people you are familiar with, such as P.T. Anderson or Jon Brion, I will gladly listen but it is not mandatory.

You can come to me, or I can come to you.

Please beat the shit out of me.