Try, try again

[vovat]

Yes, it's another post about video games, which I'm sure will interest no one.

I find it rather annoying when, in a video game, you have to try something over and over and over again. I'm not saying you shouldn't have to try anything more than once, because that would generally make for a really easy game. What I find especially tedious is when, if you mess up on a certain part, not only do you have to do that part again, but also quite a bit of stuff BEFORE that. I played a little of Mario and Luigi today, and I finally managed to get past the first hall of Bowser's Castle, where there are a few semi-tough jumps to make. The thing is, if you mess up on ONE of these jumps, you have to start from the beginning of the hall again. After I finished with this hall (and I'll admit that I missed something obvious about the last jump, which makes me feel kind of dumb), you enter Iggy Koopa's room, and he does this thing where he spins around you and makes you disoriented, and the controls get all mixed up. An interesting idea, to be sure, but if you run into a flame, you have to start the room over again, and that means having to watch Iggy spin around you again. I remember when I was playing the Nimbus Land part of Super Mario RPG, and, whenever I died on Valentina, I had to watch the cut scene of her arguing with the Nimbus Landers again. It made me wish there were some way to just skip to the battle. I didn't mind trying the battle multiple times as much as I minded seeing that tedious cut scene so many times.

Mind you, I'm really bad at video games. Most people probably wouldn't have had the trouble I did getting past those parts I just described. That's not to mention that those are all RPGs, which don't require the reflexes of action games, and give you lots of opportunities to save your game.

By the way, if anyone wants to see a really disturbing nude picture of Ozma, you can see it here. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Oz fandom and sexual frustration are a dangerous mix.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

What I hate in video games is when you have a thing where you didn't get some sort of random widget in the first screen and by the time you get all the way to the end, it turns out you _need_ that random widget, and since you've saved over all your places so much, it's like, you know you've got to start over. Sierra games were really bad for this.

Also, what's the deal with the gigantic breasts?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, the picture is grossly exaggerated in general, but yeah, the breasts are ridiculous. The legs seem to have some extra joints, too.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- the legs are pretty weird. Almost like some sort of animal's. But I dunno, the breasts are more striking, just because they seem pretty much in the "impossibly large" realm, and it seems weird that someone'd do a picture of Ozma like that. (Unless, say, that's mentioned in her character in the original books, but I kinda doubt it. Though it's been forEVER since I've read any of the Oz books, and I think I've only read the first one or two, and that was like, I dunno, when I was 7 or so? So I'm really, really hazy on the details.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I doubt that many early-twentieth-century children's books describe their characters as having freakishly large breasts, and the Oz books are no exception. I've seen other naked pictures of Oz characters, though, including one of Ozma as a dominatrix, and another of Jellia Jamb (Ozma's maid-in-waiting) doing a striptease. They're from a small handful of people, since there aren't that many Oz book fans anyway, and the number of them who want to use the characters for their own perverted ends are even more slim. I don't know who the guy is who did the picture I linked to, but I looked at the website where it was housed, and it looks like he does a lot of naked-chick comic type stuff. While I find the "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if these fictional characters had sex and posed in the nude?" kind of mentality to be weird anyway, I think it's especially crazy for the Oz books, since they WERE written for children and all.

As far as Ozma goes, John R. Neill did eventually start drawing her looking a little more physically mature, probably largely due to the fact that there were some characters in the Ruth Plumly Thompson books who wanted to marry her. So it's not QUITE as disturbing to sexualize her as it is with, say, Dorothy, who seems to be about eleven years old throughout the series. But, you know, it's still pretty crazy.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah -- I'd be really surprised if, well, any early-20th-century children's book had any line like "And she was the majestic queen of the forest with beauty and wisdom unimaginable, and gazongas the size of all outdoors." But yeah... There's stuff like that that I tend to think of as Not For That Sort Of Thing, and as such, I find it odd when people will go "Hey, what if the powerpuff girls were 18....and naked!", and it basically makes me weep for humanity.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

LOLZ!!1 Neohan iz a prevert!!1

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hey, I never said I LIKED that picture.