March 14, 2013 Springfield Update
COOOOOOOOOOOOORN!!!
My corn crop came in last night. Remember my corn crop? So apparently I’m still playing 90 days later. I’ve made my peace with that. I had every intention of capturing screenshots of the crop being ready and then harvested, as I figured such a momentous occasion should be immortalized in JPEG form. Unfortunately, in trying to get the shot lined up I mis-tapped and accidentally harvested and was therefore unable to get the shots. I’m more bummed by that than you probably think.
If you’re playing The Simpsons Tapped Out and you’re not regularly reading The Simpsons Tapped Out Tips, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Lots of great info over there, and it makes me ashamed I even tried.
I’ve been formulating a wishlist for the game and I thought I’d share what I have so far:
- A way to keep track of all characters. I’ve lost count of how many characters I’ve got running around my Springfield and when I need to send them all out on new tasks it can be a chore finding them all. One town I visit had all the roads take out except for one square in the middle. Since the characters look for the nearest road once they’re finished with their job, they all congregated in that loop. It was a good idea, but I felt the town looked a little weird using pavement instead of roads. The Sims Freeplay has a great method for keeping track of all your Sims: a scrollable side menu that shows each Sim and what they are currently doing. Tapping on a Sim highlights them wherever they are, even if it’s in a different building in town. Very handy. Granted, TSTO has a lot more characters, but it seems like there could be something along those lines.
- A farther zoom out. It is possible to take multiple screenshots and piece them together to see an overview of your Springfield, but good night is that ever a pain. Plus, scrolling around is getting to be a pain because my town is getting larger, and a farther zoom out would mean less scrolling.
- Ways to earn donuts in-game. There are very few donuts given out in the game – a couple for cleaning up nuclear waste and a recently-added chance to win a few more at each new level up. I know they rely on people paying actual cash for donuts, so I know they won’t ever implement this, but it’s a wishlist, and that’s a wish I have.
- Co-tasks with larger rewards. When Smithers got added to the game things took an interesting twist. His one-hour task is to exercise for Mr. Burns, but Mr. Burns has to be available for the task to be available and it occupies them both for the hour. The two of them together earn the same amount that both of them doing separate one-hour tasks would, and you have to remember to set Smithers going first or you miss out on the opportunity. I’ve sent Mr. Burns out walking briskly several times accidentally just because I was finding and tasking everyone, and then Smithers just wanders around for an hour not doing anything. What I’d love to see are tasks that involve two or more people and have larger rewards for grouping. For instance, there are several characters that can have a Mensa meeting, but they can all do it separately and it doesn’t matter. To me it would make sense that if they all met together at the same time, the reward could be ever-so-slightly better. Same with giving sermons and church attendance, and teaching and school attendance. There’s plenty of opportunities.
Still, I feel like I don’t have much room to gripe. I haven’t paid a thing for the game and I’ve gotten hours of enjoyment out of it. That’s a pretty sweet deal for me, even if I never get to have Frink’s Lab.
What would you like to see added to the game?
Tags: Simpsons, Tapped Out
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March 13, 2013 I Apparently Hate Ghosts
The nightmare begins
(click on image to buy this on a T-shirt at Threadless)
It’s probably Pac-Man’s fault. I was John Rambo, minding my own business in the maze-town, chomping on pellets, when these four ghost-cops start chasing me all over. “We don’t want your kind here” is what they would have been yelling if the arcade machines of the day had voice capabilities. I just wanted to be left alone, but they hunted me and chipped away at me, one life at a time. They drew first blood, not me. But when the power pellets gave me the opportunity, you bet your face I was gonna pay them back for as long as I could. They didn’t know me, they didn’t know my life. In the end, though, the ghosts always won. They were too fast, too powerful.
Then, in 1984, everything changed. Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddmore showed us there was hope in the form of proton packs and containment units. We had a way to fight back and I was all for it. As usual, the politicians messed everything up for a while, but when ghosts need bustin’, Ghostbusters get called.
I didn’t realize my insatiable need to bust ghosts until just recently. I mean, I was all for it, sure, but didn’t realize just how much.
Just about four years ago, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released. Many of the original actors voiced their characters in the game, and it tied aspects of both movies together and brought in new elements. Dan Ackroyd himself said “This is essentially the third movie,” and I have to agree. While I may have had issues with the gameplay here and there, the story and the writing were both fantastic. If you’re a fan of the movies, you need to play this game for the story elements alone.
Two years later (apparently March is Ghostbusters Month? I’d agree with Congress making that official), Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime was released. I downloaded the demo at the time, but it wasn’t really my thing, so I didn’t buy the game. Something changed for me a couple of months ago (I’ll get to what shortly), though, and I bought it. This one’s more arcade-y, with Robotron-type controls, where the left joystick controls movement and the right joystick aiming particle beams. Janosz Poha (from Ghostbusters II) starts of the mayhem, and the Ghostbusters team hires new people (that’s you!) to go out and fight the new menace. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not very good at this game, so I’m sort of stuck about two-thirds of the way through it. I’m hoping I’ll eventually bust all of the ghosts, but as Pac-Man taught us, sometimes the protagonist doesn’t win.
Earlier this year (ruining the March theme), Ghostbusters was released for iOS. While Venkman et al. do show up (in cartoony form), the bulk of the work rests on new characters… unless you buy the original Busters. It’s a freemium game, and you can play it without spending any actual money on it, but if you want the coolest stuff (like the original Busters), it’ll cost you. The plot of this game has the Busters climbing a tower (each new floor is a new level) to find out who they are after, but we know it’s the weird-looking kid Venkman was doing testing on in the first movie. He’s angry and has powers now. New floors are being opened in regular updates, and I’m at the highest level right now, so I can’t tell you where it’ll go from here. My absolute favorite part of the game is when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man shows up and you get to fight him. His presence is explained by some technobabble, and you have to fight and beat him ten times to win special gear. Once you beat him, he goes away for an hour, and I generally set a timer so I don’t miss his return.
So up to this point you might think, “Well, he’s just a fan of the brand” and you might be right except for The Sims Freeplay. Sims can have different hobbies: swimming, fishing, fashion design, karate, dancing, or ghostbusting. Yeah, weird mix. By buying haunted items and placing them in the Simhouses, Sims have the option to hunt for ghosts. Once they’ve searched long enough, a ghost appears and you can capture it by tapping it three times. Once you’ve captured all twelve unique ghosts, you unlock a ghost containment unit, though for some reason this glitched on me and I didn’t get mine. (Fun sidenote: the highest level of Sims ghostbusting is named “Peter Venksim.”) The difference here is that the Ghostbusters games are designed specifically around the idea of ghost being busted. If you don’t have that, you don’t have Ghostbusters, plain and simple. In The Sims, you can go the whole time without even knowing that there’s ghosts in the game if you aren’t paying attention. Not only do you specifically have to buy haunted items and place them in the house, you then have to make your Sim actively seek out ghosts and then actively tap on the ghosts to capture them. It’s kind of a lot of effort to go through to bust ghosts, but I apparently have something against ghosts enough that I not only decided to level up my ghost-busting enough to earn that not-gotten containment unit, I’m also considering leveling up another Sim to try to actually get it this time.
So I guess I hate ghosts. I had no idea, but the evidence is piling up into one impossible-to-ignore gigantic Twinkie.
Tags: Ghostbusters, iOS
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March 12, 2013 Tuesday 10: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episodes
Today’s guest post is by Meags
I was a (way) latecomer to the Buffyverse, but I devoured the series (and its spinoff, Angel) in a matter of weeks. I now completely understand the general fascination with this show. I spend an inordinate amount of time rewatching and reading essays on it, and so I’m sharing my top ten favorite episodes. It was hard to whittle it down to merely ten, because there are so many fantastic episodes, but I tried my hardest to cull the absolute best.
10. S02E06 Halloween
I love the play on masculine and feminine expectations in this episode, where the usually kick-butt Buffy becomes a damsel in distress and the putzy Xander becomes a gun-toting soldier boy. Willow comes out of her timid exterior to take charge when she’s the only one who can. It’s a great commentary on the characters (and on stereotypes) when they are suddenly doing the opposite of their normal, and that includes Giles. The only low-point is Buffy’s horrible noblewoman accent.
TRIVIA: A spin-off show about young Giles called Ripper was conceived but never produced. Unfortunate.
9. S05E07 Fool For Love
For an episode that basically recounts how Spike gleefully slaughtered two slayers, it’s surprisingly moving. The viewer knows that Spike has feelings for Buffy, but she doesn’t, and that colors how we view the events. Spike is obviously not a safe love interest, but his story is still sympathetic and compelling and gives a lot of background on his motivations. He gives a fantastic monologue about how slayers have a death wish, and the camera perspective as he tells the story is really interesting.
TRIVIA: The flashback events are expanded in the following episode of Angel entitled “Sanctuary”, from Angel’s viewpoint. During the slo-mo walk, Angel already had regained his soul.
8. S02E17 Passion
This episode is amazing in establishing Angelus as the greatest villain in the series. He’s cutthroat in this episode, and relentless in his pursuit of Buffy. He brings out all the stops to taunt and tease, including the death of a major character. David Boreanez is fantastic in his portrayal of Angelus, who is a sinister precursor to Edward Cullen. (See, stalker vampires are CREEPY.) His passion for Buffy is what drives him to such sadistic extremes.
TRIVIA: Willow mentions that she loves watching Xander do the Snoopy Dance from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. He demonstrates this in season 5, The Replacement, to prove he is really himself.
7. S02E03 School Hard
This is where Spike and Druscilla are introduced, arguably two of the most interesting and complex characters in the series. A play on Die Hard, the fighting takes place in the school during a parent-teacher event, where Buffy is simultaneously trying to keep her mom away from the principal and stay alive. The relationship between Buffy and her mother is so great in this, especially when Joyce attacks Spike with an ax when Buffy is about to be bitten.
TRIVIA: The Anointed was supposed to be season #2’s Big Bad, but the actor’s voice began to change and so Joss had to come up with someone else. You know, because vampires are not supposed to age.
6. S03E16 Doppelgangland
This episode deals with the events that happened in The Wish, a few episodes earlier. The ex-vengeance demon Anya, in an effort to regain her powers, accidentally summons Vampire Willow from an alternate dimension. This causes a lot of confusion when Vampire Willow runs into the Scooby Gang. When they manage to switch out the Willows to avoid a mass killing at the Bronze, Willow has to assert herself in a way that she is not accustomed to.
TRIVIA: The woman that Vampire Willow attacks in the Bronze turns out to be Sandy, whom Riley meets in Willy’s bar the following season. After letting her bite him, he stakes her.
5. S05E16 The Body
The saddest but most beautifully filmed episode. It’s meant to jar the viewer, to feel disjointed and out of sorts, much like a grieving person. There’s no music in this episode; it is stark and quiet. All the members of the Scooby Gang show their own unique ways of dealing with grief. All of these reasons make the episode difficult to watch, but it is amazing television.
TRIVIA: Out of all the deaths in the series, this is the first to be of natural causes.
4. S04E16 Who Are You
Both SMG and Eliza Dushku are amazing in this body swap episode. They pick up the other character’s mannerisms perfectly. Faith’s characterization is pretty incredible in this episode as well, as she goes from bad girl to confused girl, when she understands the calling of Slayer from Buffy’s point of view. Faith’s goal is to hurt Buffy as deeply as she can, but in the end the person she hurts most is herself.
TRIVIA: The credit card expiration that Faith-as-Buffy gives to the airline is May 2001, when the episode The Gift aired, foreshadowing Buffy’s sacrifice.
3. S02E14 Innocence
This episode is so great and was a huge game-changer for the series. Combined with Surprise, the previous episode, it showcases the incredible switch in Angel/Angelus. His whole appearance and demeanor changes; he talks, walks, and even stands differently. The scene where Buffy cries on her bed is amazing and heartbreaking, as is the one where Angel and Buffy talk before she knows she has lost his soul. Plus, there’s a super cool scene where Buffy blasts the Judge with a bazooka.
TRIVIA: Angelus’ first victim is played by SMG’s stunt double for the first four seasons. Also, the Judge is played by the same actor as the vampire Luke from the series premiere.
2. S06E07 Once More With Feeling
A musical episode could be completely hokey and cheesy, but this one works. The rationale for the singing and dancing (spell from a demon) and how the episode is both serious and silly at once completely redeem any potential cheese. The songs match up with each character’s personality beautifully, and are fantastic to boot.
TRIVIA: Several behind-the-scenes people had parts in the musical, including episode writers David Fury, who sang “They Got The Mustard Out”, and Marti Noxon, who sang the song about the parking ticket.
1. S02E22: Becoming Part 2
This is a great episode from start to finish. It’s fast-paced, with lots of important changes and character development, but still has subtle nuances that you can pick up on subsequent viewings. Willow casts her first major spell, Joyce finally finds out that Buffy is a slayer, Spike shows his humanity for the first time, and Buffy makes a huge sacrifice when she stabs Angel into Acathla to save the world.
TRIVIA: At the end of the episode, after the credits, the Mutant Enemy logo says “Oh, I need a hug!” instead of its typical “Grr Argh!”
Honorable mentions:
- Him – the scene where Principal Wood is in the foreground and Spike tackles a bazooka-bearing Buffy in the background is one of the single best comedic scenes in the entire series.
Tackled!
- Band Candy – I love Giles and Joyce in this episode, and especially how their tryst keeps coming up in later episodes.
- Wrecked – I love this episode. There’s a lot going on, and it’s incredibly dark (as is most of season 6), but it’s still a fascinating portrayal of poor choices, addiction, and desire.
Because I know it’s going to come up: No, Hush isn’t on this list. Why not? It is a pretty good episode, and I rate is highly, but aside from some incredible face-acting, it’s pretty much a monster-of-the-week episode for me. It doesn’t really change much, except for the kiss that Riley and Buffy share and the end reveal where they find out each is involved in the demon biz. Oh, and I think this is the last time Giles ever got to be in a relationship. Poor Giles.
Did I leave out your favorite episode? Make a case for it in the comments.
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