Oppa Gangam Style - Memes are Powerful

First of all, if you have no idea what Oppa Gungam Style is, visit youtube for a second and see it for yourself.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Okay, assuming you've returned after that surreal experience, let me give this post a little context. 

About a month ago on NPR, someone brought up Oppa Gungam Style, playing a short clip of the song, and promising to talk about it later on in the broadcast.  At the time, I didn't think it was highly unusual.  After all, media outlets have been covering memes for awhile. 

No matter how terrible they are.
http://blogs.umass.edu/dlajoie/2011/04/05/assignment-on-viral-videos-its-friday-for-colbert/

 

My mother, a high school drama teacher, was in the car at the time, and said she would talk about it with her students later that week, which I laughed off as a joke.

A week later, she informed me that they had listened to the whole song.  In the middle of class. 

Okay, that is kind of strange, but then again they ARE a drama class, so it makes sense to expose them to unusual cultures and media in a way. 

It was only in the last two weeks that I realized how far this had gone, where, at two separate weddings, two completely separate DJs to two very different venues both opted to play the song.  

And people danced to it.  

A few days ago, in response to a rush of Justice Beaver fans trying to boost him to the Most Popular status on Youtube Music, Gangam Style fans attempted to beat them out and keep Gangam style at the top, where it had already been for awhile.

They succeeded.  

I choose to call him Justice Beaver both to reduce his google search results, and to make it a little more bearable to talk about him at all.

http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/2012/03/justice-beaver.html 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Gangam Style is all of 5% in English, consisting entirely of the phrases "Hey, Sexy Lady", "You know what I'm saying", and the words "hey",  "eh", and "baby".  Most of the people who listen to it have no idea what it is even about.  (For reference, it's about an extremely unusual and flamboyant subculture of Koreans, though this is not the first time a culture has made such a product.)

This meme has power.  It has force.  It pulls people into it, and makes them a part of it.  And it is part of a growing trend in memes that saturate the media. 

It's also incredibly silly, and I'm not sure why I spent an entire post talking about it. 

That's just the kind of effect memes have on you.

Memes also do this.  Whatever this is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpJbAcMsyHc

Mann Vs. Machine Review

So lately, I've been playing the new TF2MVM Update.  And since I haven't written anything in awhile, I thought I'd give it a review.

I know what you're thinking, and yes, I could make the acronym longer.

http://www.gamefront.com/you-can-play-team-fortress-2s-mann-vs-machine-mode-now/

To summarize, the "Mann vs. Machine" update adds a new game mode to TF2 - a co-op mode where you and up to 5 other players face off against hundreds upon hundreds of robots. 

And when I say hundreds, I do literally mean hundreds.  And that is the least of your worries.  Along with trying to keep literally hundreds of robots from carrying a bomb to your drop point, there are hoards of rocket-spamming soldiers, multi-medic-backed heavies, giant walking bombs designed specifically to destroy sentry nests, giant versions of the classes you know and love with their weapons cranked up to 11, and massive tanks that, while not a direct threat, have such a massive hit point total as to make breaking them before they reach your base absolutely vital. 

And these guys.  Man, fuck these guys.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Sniper_Robot

The good news for the players, though, is that they all get to buy upgrades at the start of each wave of robots.  So now your rocket launcher does 75% more damage, fires 40% faster, has a double-sized clip, and heals you for 25 hp on each kill.  

Even with these upgrades, Mann Vs. Machine is by no means easy.  I played a few rounds where no one could beat the first wave.  And it does not pay to spam a single class, because it seems the game spawns robots designed specifically to screw you over if you do. 

So there is a heavy focus on teamwork.  This being Team Fortress 2, you'd be forgiven if you thought coming in that was what it was already about, but standard play tends not to foster a spirit of teamwork so much as a spirit of animosity towards the other team.  Unless you're on a private server, you have no way of knowing who you're getting teamed up with, and it is difficult to form a team spirit when the only reason you have for working together is to wreck the other team. 

Especially with certain classes specifically designed to annoy other players, not that we're naming names.

http://rocketdock.com/addon/icons/21186

In Mann Vs. Machine though, you have a common goal - to beat those damn spam-happy robots.  And you genuinely need each member of your team to be cooperating if you hope to stand a chance.  Even on the lowest difficulty, if you aren't doing your part, it could be the difference between flawless victory and humiliating defeat.  

It works too.  Going in and playing a game of Co-Op, you find at first the same trash-talking teens who insist that you're playing your class wrong and demand you switch, even though they know you lose your upgrades when you do and it's four waves in.  But gradually, as you play and fight together, you start working together, and earn a respect for your fellow players.  I'm not even building up to a joke here, this is literally a full reverse of what you usually get in a TF2 match. 

It can be a little difficult getting into a server at peak hours, and Valve seems to have woefully underestimated the level of demand that the new mode would bring, but it is well worth giving a try.

Ah yes, one caveat though - if you're going in as a TF2 Pro and expecting to dominate, be warned that the strategy for Mann Vs. Machine is drastically different, and that you are being paired up with other people who are just starting.  And an Advanced wave is leagues more difficult than a normal one.

Good luck!

You're going to need it.

http://mygaming.co.za/news/news/42844-team-fortress-2-mann-vs-machine-co-op-mode-incoming.html

LIMBO vs Braid

Here is a piece of advice for all those aspiring to become a game designer - an interesting game mechanic, by itself, does not make for an interesting game.

To put this in context, I recently purchased The Humble Indie Bundle - a bundle of independent-developer video games where part of the profit goes to charity.  For $9.00, I got eight brand new games (one of which I already owned, so actually seven), and two of those games bear some striking similarities to each other.

I'd recommend it both for the games and for the really cool art
Source: http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/24135140832/introducing-humble-indie-bundle-v

Braid and LIMBO, besides both being indie games, star a singular male protagonist with realistic jumping prowess, as opposed to the traditional thrice-thy-height jumps of most platforming protagonists.  They are also puzzle-solving games, and while Braid's puzzles focus chiefly on the creative use of time-traveling in various different manners, LIMBO's puzzles utilize nothing but your hands and the environment. 

And while both games have very intricate puzzles, I found myself more interested in solving the ones offered up by LIMBO than I did by Braid.

Actually the least scary individual in LIMBO
Source: http://anotherdepressionvictim.blogspot.com/2012/02/still-in-limbo.html

What LIMBO offers that Braid lacks can be summed up in one word - Immersion.  LIMBO places you in a dark, shadowy world with no textual context, and never gives you a hint about anything going on in the world.  Each puzzle pushes you forward into a different part of the world, and your reward for completing each puzzle is seeing the next part of the world, which is never the same as the part you just left. 

Braid, on the other hand, gives you several books to read before the start of each level - literally, though each book is only a short peek into the "story" that the game offers, it is so far-removed from the events of the game that it is practically unrelated at all.  None of the levels seem terribly unique, or even much different than previous levels, so the only reward for completing each puzzle are various puzzle pieces, which you are meant to put together in order to solve more puzzles and supposedly unlock the end of the game. 

But I'm not interested in the end of the game, because I'm not interested in the rest of the game.  

I must give credit to their marketing team though. First three image results for a search of "Braid" on google

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/app/26800/

Braid doesn't draw me into the world, and that is why I will probably never revisit any of the time-focused puzzles.  I plan to finish LIMBO though.  I just got to the part where the factory is flooding with water, and I have to see what lies beyond that.