With the new rule protecting him, Erik began each work day by pestering me with one repeated question:  "I'm a lot smarter than you, aren't I?"  My old response would have been to ask him if he could outsmart a headlock, then put him in a headlock, then demand that he say, "I am in love with Roberta Willams.  I love her and I want to marry her" until Marvin made me stop or Erik pretended to or actually passed out.

My new response?  I didn't have one.  If I dared to say no, I was treated to a thirty minute recounting of some news item Erik read in one of his fancy, cartoons instead of pictures  magazines.  At the end of the rant, he'd question me about what I had learned.  He'd greet my blank stare with "You learned nothing because you are stupid."  After a little more blank staring, he'd ask "Do you need me to tell you what 'stupid' means?"

I begged Marvin to let me apply just one open-handed slap or put Erik in one of my many Nelsons, such as the not-as-lethal-as-it-sounds "Inoperable Nelson".  Marvin would reply, "Is VGN done yet?"  But how could I work with Little Lord Princess Phone riding me every day?   I wrote less and less.  Last month, Marvin and the Old Man demoted me.  Erik was put in charge.

The next morning, Erik debuted a new variation of his now standard greeting. "Are you smarter than anyone?" he asked me.

My silence emphasized his point.  After 10 minutes of thinking, I decided to avoid another long-winded rant and just tell him no.  Erik laid down the law:  Until I could find someone dumber than me, I wasn't allowed to post any updates. 

After a week without posting anything, the emails started to flood in.  Every one was a variation on one of three themes:

1) Where are you? We miss you.
2) I met Levelord at E3, is he a child molester?
3) Chris Harding is the stupidest man alive.

I received these emails for about a week before something clicked.  I researched Levelord, but came away pretty convinced that he is smarter than me.  So another week passed.  I started playing some baseball games.  I played MS 2001 which was fun and easy to pick up.  But I'm a baseball fanatic, and it wasn't realistic enough for me.  Then I started playing High Heat 2001 and really started getting into it. 

I decided to check out a few reviews of both games to see what other people were thinking, and that's when I found the man who I am without a doubt smarter than:  Avault's Chris Harding.

In his review of MS 2001 he says:

All signings revolve around a team's current available capital and the player's corresponding salary, which is measured in points against the cap. All teams, just like in the real Majors are required to be under a salary cap limit.

From his review of High Heat 2001:

In truth there's not a whole lot missing from Sammy Sosa's High Heat Baseball 2001, except for a sophisticated financial system that factors in salary caps and detailed trading.

There is no frigging salary cap in baseball!  He actually weighted his reviews based on a fictional aspect of baseball.  Hey Chris, here's a good headline for your MS 2002 review: "Touchdown!"  What a reviewing nut job (just read the intro to his System Shock 2 review).

Excited, I ran to work today ready to show Erik my proof, but he was already waiting with a DQ ice cream cake that had "You're smarter than Chris Harding. Welcome back!" scrawled on it in chocolate.  I was confused.  Had I called Erik in my sleep?  Erik explained by showing me this Daikatana editorial * by Chris.

Chet: Wow!  He bases most of his article on some imaginary conversation with a store clerk.

Erik: And those Mark Twain and Samuel Johnson quotes...  Even I'm not that precious.  If you feel compelled to quote Doctor Johnson, at least surprise me and make it the butt plug distributor.   "Bending over just became more exciting than ever!"

Chet: You know, those quotes remind me of...

Erik: Oh, okay, you're smarter than two people.  Chris Harding and Tom Chick.


*In Chris's Daikatana editorial, he bashes all negative reviews of Daikatana with this line:
"I wonder how many of the criticisms waged over Daikatana are based upon a complete evaluation of the final edition? I suspect not many."  Where does he come up with this idea?  After he has an imaginary conversation with a store clerk.  Please refer to the quote on the top of this piece.

Last Week:

Arstechnica : Daikatana review : Graphic detail was a mixed bag.

Gamespy : Evolva review : Overall, Evolva is a mixed bag.

Avault : Invictus review : Appeals are a mixed bag 

Firing Squad : Daikatana review : Daikatana is a very mixed bag of good and bad

One year ago:

Gamepost : Everquest review :  During the first couple of weeks, it was a mixed bag

The Overall Addendum: 

Gamersdepot : Daikatana review :   Overall this game is a disgrace 

GG8 : Blaze and Blade review :  Overall, I'm not really impressed 

Gamespy : Evolva review : Overall, Evolva is a mixed bag.

Regular OMM forum contributor Monty Cantsin has been awarded the coveted Daily Radar Daikatana Pre-Review Contest Prize.  The feature isn't layed out so well, making it difficult to determine what entrant wrote which entry.  After reading all of them, I hope Mr. Cantsin's review was simply left out by accident.

While reading the reviews, I started wondering what would happen if Jason Hall were to be caged in a giant, sealed fishbowl.  The fishbowl would be equipped with an industrial humidifier, such as the popular Cool-E-Vent centrifugal atomizer.   Mr. Hall would be fed as much food and protomyosin muscle drink as he wanted, but he'd have to evacuate right into his fishbowl habitat.  Thanks to the humidifier, none of his urine would ever evaporate.  Eventually, he'd have to make the choice between starving or drowning in his own waste products.  Lucky for Jason Hall, I noticed a pair of my underwear sitting on top of an old bowl of cereal which reminded me that I've always wanted an upskirt shot of Queen Elizabeth.  Within minutes, the Government of France sent me this:

Not much to say here.   This brilliant guy has created the only good thing to emerge from four long years of Daikatana content creation.  Click here for an unforgettable 2.2 meg listening experience

Solipsism is defined as the theory that the self is the only reality.  There is no word for solipsism when it's no longer just a theory.  I'd ask one of you to invent one, but since I'm the only non-imaginary resident of the universe, I suppose I'll have to do it myself.  I've always suspected nobody else was real.  If even a few of you were real, I'd have some feelings for at least one of you, wouldn't I?  Sympathy, empathy, some damn thing.   And to those of you I've invented for the sole purpose of telling me that I do have those feelings but just don't recognize them:  I know sympathy - I feel sorry for myself a lot.  I'll often shoot myself off a few sympathy e-cards - sometimes as many as thirty in one day.  This one is my favorite because the chinese symbol probably means something like "eat shit" and that makes me feel even worse, which gives me more reason to pass the time - what I now realize is most likely an eternity - by writing myself a few more sympathy e-cards.

What finally convinced me that my suspicions about the nature of reality are true?  Everything that I wish for happens.  I wanted Lord British to pay for Ultima IX, and he did.  I wanted Daikatana to stink, and it does.  I wanted Paul Steed to crash his private plane into the woods where it would flip over and he'd become stuck upside down, wedged in the cockpit window he'd partially smashed through.  He wouldn't die, but would just hang there as all the fluids and organs in his body slowly settled into the space between his scalp and skull.  After a few weeks, his head would look like an over-inflated water balloon out of which his withered body was sticking straight up - like a tootsie-pop.  Everyone would wonder "what happened to Paul Steed?"  A few people would look for him, but it would be The Mushroom's Kevin Murphy who'd actually find him.  Paul Steed would see Murphy approaching and would try to say "Dude, don't touch my head!"  But his mouth would be so dry that he'd barely be able to speak.  "Dooooooooooooooooo" is all he'd manage to croak before Murphy gingerly pressed an index finger against the swollen head, popped it, and drowned beneath a tidal wave of Steed's rancid fluids. 

That didn't happen.   But only because I later ammended the wish to be that my dreaded arch-enemy Steed would be put somewhere where he'd pose no threat to my favorite make-believe person, Adrian Carmack, and that Murphy would quit The Mushroom to work somewhere even worse, like Gamepro.   As you know, Steed was fired.  What you might not have heard is that the dust hadn't even resettled on the places where Steed's trophies and Corvette pictures had been before Kevin Murphy announced his retirement.  Am I God or what?  What will I do next?  How does "Game developer Jason Hall exiled to moon" strike you?  Not that it matters.

I also wanted a new Doom.   It should come as no surprise at this point that I got it.  It's called Serious Sam and it's being developed by a group in Croatia.  The amazingly fun demo - which I guess in Croatian is called an Alpha Test - is available on Croteam's home page.  I'd kind of forgotten what it's like to have pure, adrenaline pumping fun while playing a game.  Mike Wilson should postpone his public search for Steed and instead make sure Croteam gets into the U.S. before one of those talented kids steps on a landmine

Hello gaming friends!   What a week we've had!  Many of you have written to ask us how we feel about Daikatana, the apparent internal strife at id, the closing of Looking Glass Studios, and the rather matter-of-fact shitcanning of Paul Steed.   Where to start? 

As far as problems inside id go, we'd just like to state for the record that we're firmly on whichever side of the issue Adrian Carmack is on.  We'd hate to think that he may eventually get around to firing someone we do care about, such as himself, Adrian Carmack.

Speaking of which, we derive no pleasure from Paul Steed's loss of a job.   Yes, he was my arch-nemesis.  He was the Salieri to my Falco, the great Satan to my every major world religion, and the alleged Jon Benet Ramsey's parents to my Jon Benet Ramsey.  But unlike millionaire slash billionaire Lord British, Steed was also a working man just trying to get by on this mixed up planet I'm forced to call Chetland.  Like chubby John Goodman, he was made entirely of ham.  He was attuned to the everyday desires of the common people, also like chubby John Goodman.  It could be said that he was the chubby John Goodman of the gaming industry - a fat, foul-mouthed everyman who posed no real threat to anyone or anything other than the world's supply of pies.   Godspeed, Paul Steed.  You were a worthy adversary and a truly ginormous tub-o-lard.

As you've probably already heard or discovered for yourself, Daikatana is bad but not bad enough to warrant much clever outrage.  It's both uninspired and uninspiring.  The depressing fact is that the release of Daikatana and the firing of Steed have resulted in the unfortunate closing of two of gaming's most entertaining loudmouths.  And with Looking Glass gone, we can't look forward to creating some controversy by badmouthing their next boring game designed for fancypants who consider themselves too good for regular fun. 

This leaves us in something of a pickle.  Without a worthy foe, I'm going to have to start cranking out more episodes of the Slugger.   And by Christ I'll do it, too.  What I'm saying is that one of you developers better get on the stick - the joystick! - and start making some stupid pronouncements regarding your upcoming stupid game.  We really don't care which one of you it is.  But in an attempt to focus our lobbying efforts, we'd like to officially request that 3D-Realms George Broussard open his big yap and take one for the team.   The team being us and you, our dear readers.  Both Duke Nuke'm and Max Payne are hugely delayed and have dumb names.  So you've got a lot of material there, Mr. George Broussard.  Now get to work

Paul Steed has apparently gotten all seven of his fingers on a picture of me and posted it on the Internet.   I suppose it was bound to happen.  Here it is:

I'm the one that's not Paul Steed or Seanbaby.  If I look kind of disgusted, it's only because his mangled freak hand is touching my ass.  Steed digitally imaged Adrian Carmack's tight little body onto his head, which would have been pretty clever if I didn't have the snapshot of Steed to the left.  Right after the above picture was taken, he tried to put his mouth on me.   I screamed and he apologized and said he thought I was a pie.  When I told him that I didn't believe him, he made a pouty face and waved his fucked up hand around like I was supposed to feel bad for him.  Whatever, man.  That's just pathetic.

This incident really made me think:  Paul Steed must weigh nine hundred pounds.  Another thing I realized is that - whether by court order or out of the goodness of our hearts - OMM has always been about serving the community.  And if the community says it wants a fabulous E3 Erik construction set, that's what the community is going to get.  I've taken the liberty of putting my head on eighteen different hairstyles to try to ease the task for you image doctorers out there.

I stole the base image from a Clairol ad, which Chet says might be breaking some kind of law.  I'll tell you what:  Have the lawyers wake me up when I break a law of nature. 

As those of our dear readers who may have been exposed to movies, a television, or books already know, reporting on the future before it actually happens rarely ends well.  Such is the case with our Post-E3 wrap up.  Not only did we not rock E3 like a typhoon, we've altered the present so that "rock me like a typhoon" isn't even a valid ironic pop culture reference.   In the world left in the wake of our tampering, I don't live with Jason 'loonyboi' Bergman and I'm not even a musician.  To my dismay, I appear to be a bitter, loudmouthed prick.  What's worse, I appear to be that very publicly right here on this website.  On the other hand, the post-tampering me drives an Isuzu Trooper, which is awesome and almost mitigates the burning shame I feel at the fact that this America seems to have somehow lost a war with Vietnam.  Maybe one of you unbelievable pussies can drop me a letter and tell me how you all live with the embarrassment so that I don't kill myself when Monaco decides to kick our ass. 

Since our initial E3 wrapup is now a total bust, we are currently working on a giant Portal of Evil E3 report.  It is the first time the POE staff has collaborated on an article and will feature commentary by me,Chet, Seanbaby, Kevin, Miguel, and Bad Candy Mark. 

As the mighty Television converges on its inevitable omega point, an endless, uninterrupted feed of Elian dancing back and forth to Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5, game journalism appears to be making a similar journey towards a magazine whose only content month after month is a picture of Killcreek's tit with the word "pussy" printed across it.  But last week, this destiny was imperiled by the announcement that PCXL, the elder statesman of gaming fuckbooks, had folded.  In an effort to fill the void, we've decided to become your source for sexy on the web.  Before we're once again accused of selling out or pandering, let me just present this undoctored image from the "golden age" of gaming:

Before you whip it out, or for you ladies, stick it in, look closely at the hot drunk lesbian who is just to the right of the butler.  That's none other than the very sophisticated Roberta Williams.  In her own immortal, un-take-backable words:

Back when I got started, which sounds like ancient history, back then the demographics of people who were into computer games, was totally different, in my opinion, then they are today. Back then, computers were more expensive, which made them more exclusive to people who were maybe at a certain income level, or education level. So the people that played computer games 15 years ago were that type of person. They probably didn't watch television as much, and the instant gratification era hadn't quite grown the way it has lately. I think in the last 5 or 6 years, the demographics have really changed, now this is my opinion, because computers are less expensive so more people can afford them. More "average" people now feel they should own one.

I know you've all read that before, but it's worth reading again every couple of months.  And I think she's got a point.  I want to lead the return to a time when fewer "average" people played games; a time when titles like Softporn Adventure were "FOR  ADULTS ONLY!" not because they they were violent, but because they dealt with mature themes that appealed to people of a certain income and education level, themes such as nymphos sucking each other's wet slits and how to defend your gated community against the blacks.  Nothing is more adult than porn. Period. Even kiddie porn is pretty adult when you think about it.

I'm going to start con-cock-ting our own hot content tomorrow.   Or the day after that. In the meantime, I actually stole the following image and caption from the pages of our new direct competitor Incite:

Ripley's Pussy

I think the observation that both Ripley's cat and her twat share a synonym is a good one.  But Incite is simply too subtle in their presentation.  Just as there's a fine line between well-groomed and queer, the difference of a few simple words can turn a funny, sexy, and highbrow double-entendre into an inaccessible bore.   Ripley's pussy?  Seriously, Incite, if I want difficult life lessons, I'll go read Chekov.  I'd have captioned it "I don't know which pussy to fuck first!"  Then I would have italicized the words, thus making them even more adult.  Although we're both targeting today's sophisticated gamer, who sure wouldn't mind a little dripping snatch with his or her Warcraft III, we're approaching the subject from slightly different angles.  Incite is more strictly academic, while we plan on being more drippy, snatch-wise.   I think there's room for both of us, or, at least, us.

In closing, until Eidos gets with the program and announces John Romero's Horny Amateur Shoves Phone Up Her Hole, you won't be hearing much about John Romero anymore. Unless Gas Powered Games takes my advice and retitles Dungeon Seige "Not John Romero's Dungeon Seige" to capitalize on the great consumer demand for games not by John Romero.  

Coming This Week:

More sexy pictures, our new sexy mascot, and our sexiest contest ever!

Also, today marks the beginning of sex week here at OMM.  Set phasers to sexy, put on your sexy drawers, break out your most scorchingly sexed-up screensaver, pull up the sex chair with the peepee hole, and get ready for the sexiest old man since the first time you visited us after searching AltaVista for "old man sex".  Here's a little something to get your juices flowing:

Can you feel the gastric juices flowing up your sexy esophagus?  If not, you will