Inexplicably Wasting Time with Flash Games

I’ve been on a kick with flash games lately, for no particular reason. It is a taste I will acquire from time to time, typically while waiting for more commercial games to either be released or end up in my hands. (For the record, Disgaea 4 can’t come out soon enough, even though I still haven’t even played the poorly-reviewed third installment.)

The best flash games I typically play involve some tongue-in-check humor. For example, Rebuild has you rebuilding with other survivors after the zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty standard grid-based, turn-based strategy game, but it has multiple endings and a fun amount of randomization. Each game lasts a couple hours, and I’ve played a couple times, enough to get all the badges on Kongregate.

Also high on my list is The Space Game, and its sequel, Missions. Both are simple resource allocation slash tower defense games, except, of course, IN SPACE. If the Muppets have taught me anything, it is that things frequently improve whilst in space, such as Pigs in Space.

I think the simplicity of all three of the aforementioned games snares me in. One of my all-time favorite games is Warpath, which is a fairly forgettable resource management game. It came out for Windows 3.1, and despite a new edition in 2000, it still looks and plays pretty much exactly the same as then.

The game is incredibly repetitively, which makes for a calming rhythm – You mine empty planets, and then put colonists on them. They make money for you, which you can use in a variety of ways: buy weaponry to take over enemy planets, turn them over to your side by buying influence, or invest the money back into your own home planets. The whole thing was basically a very basic version of Master of Orion, or a streamlined, not-crappy version of the space portions of Spore.

The odd thing about all of this is that I’m now far more into various casual games than when I was paid to review them for one of my friend’s sites. And speaking of that, it is weird to see snippets of my reviews from years ago used to poorly cite articles on Wikipedia, like here.
The Rebuild photo comes from this site.

Hibble bibble, Michael Steele!

I'm with Dennis Leary on this - The muppet The Daily Show has of Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is one of the funniest bits they do. If you're otherwise unawares, you can check out it out on Comedy Central's website right here. The muppet pops up about three minutes in, if you want to skip ahead.

The best part is when Wyatt Cenac, who voices the muppet and writes for the show and serves as a correspondent, starts spitting out other non-agenda stuff as Muppet Steele. "Oh, look at that, someone must have smelled my Boca burgers. Keep an eye on the grill, Mr. Bill!" "Hey, I'm just keepin' it real, Tatum O'Neal." "You want cheese on your Boca burger?"

His previous appearance on the show was also hilarious. You can see that here.

It's time to play the music! It's time to light the lights!

Have you ever watched old episodes of The Muppet Show? They really are incredible, still, even though we're now about 33 years past the debut of the show. The puppets and costumes appealed to me as a kid, yet on re-watching it, pretty much all of the humor is aimed at adults.

In reflection, I think this is pretty much how all cartoons and animated shows should work. Kids don't really have discerning palettes. When I was little, my mom tells me I liked orange juice and chicken mashed together. (As I grew up, I would use this against her a lot – Yes, I ate broccoli as a kid, but I also ate chicken and orange juice, so obviously, my tastes changed a little bit.) When you're a kid, you don't know from good, as the saying goes. You're just happy to be watching TV, so you can't tell the good from the bad so easily.

Therefore, I'm signing off on The Muppet Show being a good thing. In case you're completely unawares, the format was essentially that of a variety show with a rotating weekly host, backed up by the Muppets ensemble. The best episodes feature George Burns and Milton Berle, and both of them are primarily using zingers and one-liners in their act. For example, the running gag in the Burns episode is a throwaway joke made in the beginning of the episode by Gonzo. “I've got a great idea for an act: Gonzo fiddles while George Burns!”

The Muppet Show was also very musically-based, with the best episode in this vein being hosted by Paul Simon. He does three complete songs, I believe, and also appears in a couple skits. Even when a musician didn't host the show, a number or two by the Muppets was still on the show. I surprisingly think most of these are good, and I'm a person who typically cringes during singing parts on most shows.

Although the show ran during the 1970s, it is light on cultural references. The only dated references are normally the guests themselves. Rudolph Nureyev is apparently some sort of famous ballet dancer, and I only know this because most of his skits feature dancing, and because Brian Henson mentions this in his introduction to the episode. However, for every Nureyev, there is a great host that simply isn't around anymore or not in peak shape for whatever reason – John Cleese, Steve Martin, Dom Deluise, Peter Sellers, Don Knotts, Bob Hope, Johnny Cash and Roger Moore.

Of course, the stars of the show are the Muppets themselves, and they're in peak form on The Muppet Show as opposed to their watered-down versions on Sesame Street and the horrid Muppets Tonight, and although Muppet Babies was good, the cast isn't nearly as big.

I've never been a big fan of Kermit or Miss Piggy or Scooter, and unfortunately they are in a lot of skits. However, this is more than made up for by the expanded roles of the other characters: Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rowlf, the Swedish Chef and the two old men in the balcony, Statler and Waldorf. (When I become independently wealthy, one of the first things I'm doing is reviving their Siskel and Ebert-like show that used to run on the web.) The aforementioned Brian Henson also provides a little intro to each episode, and he gives out interesting information about how each puppet is run, or about that episode's guest, or just about The Muppet Show in general.