5 craptacular game character names

Waluigi

Game: various Nintendo titles, first appeared in Mario Tennis

Origin
Just like in the first Super Mario Land on the GameBoy, the second game didn't have the classic Bowser as the main antagonist. Instead, Mario would face Wario, a grotesque caricature of himself. Once you beat him, the W on his castle stronghold would flip over, returning to the M of Mario and thus providing a cute little graphical pun. Wario went on to star in his own games and became a staple of the character line-ups in many Nintendo games that followed.
Then along came Mario Tennis and suddenly the need for an ally, like Luigi to Mario, arose. Simply flipping the L upside down wouldn't work, as you'd end up with the same letter or nonsense depending on the used font. But surely finding some variation on "Luigi" wouldn't be too hard, would it?

Why it's lame
Apparently it was too hard as they settled for "Waluigi". That's right, the only thing they could come up with is simply sticking the same prefix to Luigi's name, thus giving us the most cumbersome, senseless name out of a whole number of possibilities. It didn't exactly help either that the character design made him look like the type of guy who hangs around playgrounds with candy in his pockets.

Have I got a surprise for you!

How they can get away with it
In all honesty, the name Waluigi makes a damn sight more sense in the language of origin. The word "warui" means "bad" in Japanese and was used as a play on words for Wario's name. Since warui will sound kind of like "walui" in Japanese (seeing as they don't really have a separate sound for 'l' and 'r'), the jump from Luigi to Waluigi over Waruigi (this is getting tiresome to type) isn't too far-fetched at all. In English, though, all this subtle wordplay frequently used in Japanese media is totally lost. What we're left with is quite simply "Wa-luigi", and that quite simply sucks. Why they didn't bother choosing a different name for releases outside Japan while in other series there's been more name-changing than original content is something best not thought about if you're a fan of logic.

Solid Snake

Game: the Metal Gear series

Origin
The codename Snake was based around that of the protagonist of "Escape from New York", Snake Plissken. Where the Solid part comes from is not even clear in his Metal Gear Wiki page, a site entirely devoted to the series.

Why it's lame
There's really only two ways the freudian undertone of the name would escape you, and that's if either you don't speak English or you've been playing the Metal Gear games from such a young age that the name crept into your mind while it was still not devoted to sex for over 30%. Codenames of other characters include Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake, so at least Konami dodged the "Floppy Snake" or "Big Snake" bullets.

How they can get away with it
Having Metal Gear Solid, the game that brought the series into stardom, kicking vast amounts of butt certainly helped. Better yet would have been to make the names refer to the various states of matter, but having Solidus called "Gaseous Snake" instead would've induced far more unintended hilarity. Whether "Plasma Snake" is a cool name or not is open to debate.

Hiro

Game: Daikatana

Origin
Pretty much any Japanese production can get away with using the perfectly acceptable name "Hiro". When it's the name of the protagonist of Daikatana, however, and he fights alongside people with such names as "Mikiko Ebihara" and "Superfly Johnson", it only serves the double whammy of being Japanophile AND lame. That, and Daikatana really can't get away with anything whatsoever.

Why it's lame
Calling the hero of the game Hiro isn't great. Giving him the surname "Miyamoto", the same as famous samurai Musashi, is downright laughable considering the first level consists mostly of killing robotic frogs. "Hiro" is a good name for the Saturday Night Fever John Travolta look-a-like in Bust a Groove, it's not a good name for the main character of a dodgy first-person shooter.

How they can get away with it
Before release Daikatana had worked up more hype than creation itself, so only slightly less than Windows 95. When it was finally released and gamers played it only to find out the names were amongst its best aspects (relatively speaking), stuff like "Hiro" and "Superfly" were some of the least worrying turds of the shit pile.

Rockman

Game: Rockman. Or, if you wish, Mega Man.

Origin
One of Capcom's best known characters, Mega Man has won the hearts of many with his arm blaster and platforming action. Yet when you mention his name in Japan where the games originate from, most people probably won't have any idea what you're talking about. Because in Japan, he is known as Rockman. He always has been, right from the start.

Why it's lame
In a move so rare that it can only be likened to finding a 1 kilogram diamond lodged in the fossilized skull of a previously unknown species of dinosaur, something actually got better as it got translated from Japanese to English. While "Mega Man" might not be the most inspired of names, you can't deny it's not all that different from, say, Superman or Spiderman. And guess who kids will know better; those two or Jesus. "Rockman", on the other hand, would be a very suitable choice if The Thing from the Fantastic Four would go solo, but how on earth it befits a small robot with a gun arm (that doesn't shoot rocks, to be clear) isn't exactly obvious. His name forms a rather tenuous pun with that of his sister Roll (as in Rock 'n Roll). "Waluigi" may be pretty clever in Japanese, but naming a character just for the sake of making a sibling connection in a way that doesn't reflect any other part of the game is a bit daft to say the least. One can imagine the process involved at Capcom headquarters (circled by a trench filled with sharks, android guards at the doors ...) exactly went like:
Guy 1: "We still need a new name for the robot kid. The programmers liked 'Mighty Kid'."
Guy 2: "What do they know. We run this company. No Mighty Kid."
Guy 1: "Knuckle Kid?"
Guy 2: "That doesn't make sense. Call him" -tries to pronounce Rockman- "Rrlllockuuu man."
Winner: Mega Man.

How they can get away with it
Find someone Japanese and ask them to pronounce "Rockman". You'll notice that it doesn't really matter one iota to them what a character is called, as long as it sounds English and appears to be cool. Besides, if Mega Man's legion of fans is anything to go by, Rockman has so much unnerving fanfiction dedicated to him as well that no-one will stop to think about what nonsense the name really is. At least Capcom had the sense to leave out an extra 'l' in Meg... Rockman's adversary's name, Doctor Wily. The idea that they really intended to naively call him "Doctor Willy" but misspelled it is too delicious to be real.

Stick Breitling

Surprisingly, an image search for
"Stick Breitling" yielded mostly
wristwatches

Game: Zombie Revenge

Origin
Zombie Revenge is a spinoff of House of the Dead. Ignore the Wikipedia entry where in the trivia section it says "there are signs throughout the game that prove Zombie Revenge is a spinoff to The House of the Dead", when the first point in the same section states the game was "originally titled Blood Bullet : The House of the Dead Side Story". The only way it's gonna be more obvious is if they planned on called it "Zombie Fighting: House of the Dead spinoff", which is only marginally worse than what they settled on. Then again, who in their right mind is gonna claim "Resident Evil" is a better title than "Biohazard".
The three protagonists of this game provide a cavalcade of awkard naming, with such gems as Stick Breitling, Linda Rotta and Rikiya Busujima.

Why it's lame
While Linda Rotta's name at least somehow inspires a link with zombies, "Stick Breitling" just sounds wrong. Not even in the good old "sounds like a willy" way, but on a far more sinister level. It's the sort of name you'd chuckle at when you hear it's the national sport of some country you didn't even know existed. Poor Stick probably didn't have it too easy in school. So when he gets the chance to blow out his old classmates' brains because they've transformed into hideous zombies, Stick won't hesitate one second.

How they can get away with it
A spinoff of some other arcade game, with the only home release being on a console that died for the sins of us gamers... Never mind that it didn't play too smoothly either, it was never going to be hard to forget about this. It's gonna take a rather select public to get anything other than a puzzled look by mentioning the name "Stick Breitling".

Fatality Physiks no. 1: Jax's arm-pull

Blitz association. I say something and you say the first thing that comes to your mind. Ready?
Mortal Kombat.
At least some of you must have immediately thought of fatalities. It's hard not to... at the appearance of the first Mortal Kombat game, they were the blood-soaked cherry on a very gory cake. MK wasn't exactly a prime example of proper software design, and arguably the two following installments were even worse in terms of bugs and glitches. This echoed throughout the gameplay as well, with revisions being geared towards stopping misbehaving code from generating hallucinatory situations rather than the fine-tuning that was going on in the Street Fighter 2 franchise. In a time where plumbers riding smiling fantasy dinosaurs were all the rage, buckets of blood were likely to attract some attention to what was essentially an average game. And it did. To the point that the blood-letting got so over-the-top it actually became the more interesting gameplay pursuit. Playing Mortal Kombat as a discerning gamer was sort of like watching porn... somewhere in the back of your head you felt you were supporting a morally bankrupt concept, yet it delivered such a delightfully basic satisfaction. Just like I pity the teenage boy who never got his cheap fix of tits from late-night semi-erotic programs (apart from those who were more interested in the non-tit-bestowed sex), I pity whomever never experienced the joy of decapitating, de-spining or otherwise deforming their virtual opponents... let alone those who've never even witnessed it.
In some ways, this simulated violence that led to such a public outcry back in its time is laughably soft compared to what we have now. While not many games have let us so gleefully visit the most surrealistic deaths upon bitmaps or polygon collections as Mortal Kombat, they've certainly become much more realistic in any depiction of life-ending activities. Yet until the character models come with complete and fully rendered bones and intestines, all realistically destructible, today's eye-candy somehow falls short of what was basically a Tom and Jerry cartoon run out of hand. So with the current emphasis on physics in games, one can retroactively wonder (or at least I choose to do so) just how realistic those fatalities were. Would one actually be capable of executing them?
In a bid to answer this open question, the blog for YOU presents you with the first case study, the first in a series of fatality physiks: Jax's arm-ripping fatality.

Jax's arm-pull
Character: Jax
First fatality appearance: Mortal Kombat II
Appearance studied: as it is in Mortal Kombat II
Description: Jax grabs his opponent's wrists. He then proceeds to yank his/her arms off. The opponent turns to face the screen as blood sprays out of what used to be shoulders to the viewer's delight. Everybody remembers what a mescaline trip MK really was.

Anatomical analysis
A first consideration is the structure of the human arm. Jax grabs his opponent just past the wrists, so no force is exerted on the wrist joint. This means the pulling action takes effect on the elbows and shoulders. Mortal Kombat would have us believe that if such force was applied that the structure were to fail to the extent of coming loose, it would happen around the shoulder. This is quite believable... dislocated shoulders are a common injury, while dislocated elbows are a rarity in comparison. I base this on the relative number of search results for "dislocated shoulder" and "dislocated elbow" on Google. Since the force is exerted along the axis formed by the straightened arm, the bones are assumed to provide a maximum resistance to stretching and fracture. We can therefore conclude that under sufficient stress, the shoulder joint would indeed dislocate while the rest of the arm remains mostly intact.
Then we need to look at what would happen with the soft tissues. There's a shitload of muscles around the shoulder joint that are quite frankly too numerous and complex to fully analyse here, even though this is the most in-depth analysis available on the feasibility of Jax's arm-pulling fatality - I dare you to find counter-evidence for that claim. What it comes down to is that even with the shoulder dislocated, ripping those tissues would be very hard. While manageable for the rotator cuffs, ripping a thick structure like the deltoids would require near-superhuman force. Which brings us to the aspect of the agressor side.

A person with above-average strength could be deemed capable of dislocating another person's shoulders with a prodigious yanking. Tearing off someone's arms is another matter altogether. What is to be taken into account here, though, is the person executing the fatality. Let us not forget that Jax, whom apparently is capable of tearing of limbs without too much effort, ...

is the same guy who for Mortal Kombat 3 augmented his arms with bionic implants as apparently he didn't consider himself quite strong enough yet.

What it comes down to is this: if Jax were chosen to conduct an experiment to see if someone can truly rip another person's arms off with his bare hands, none of us would feel secure enough to volunteer for test subject.

Physics analysis
Anatomical considerations out of the way, let us take a look at the physics at play. We'll use the following simplified figure to illustrate the party receiving the dismembering.

The arrow denotes the direction along which the force is applied to the arms. Let's study how this would manifest itself. First of all, the point that provides counter-leverage is located at the feet. We must assume sufficient friction with the ground, otherwise the victim would simply slide forward. With said friction, the feet can be considered to stay more or less stationary. Now we arrive at a strange observation. If the body is kept completely rigid, the direction of the pull and the fact that this is done along the arms, which exceed the length of the feet, then the friction with the ground would mean the body would topple over. It would rotate along an axis situated along the toes:

Yet this doesn't happen. Alternatively, if the body of the victim was made to relax, he/she would just as well be dragged forward. In both cases this would prove to save his/her life (or at least arms, but bleeding to death is assumed inherent to this fatality). Since Jax doesn't apply any opposite force with, say, his foot, the only way this force could be there would be for the victim to lean backwards, using this angle to provide the required grip on the ground and counter rotation:

This assumes willful assistance of the victim, which is unrealistic considering the intent of Jax to get those arms off. A possibility is that this stance would be a sort of reflex naturally occurring when one is pulled by the arms, but one can not be expected to maintain it to the point of having said arms torn off.

There is one final venue for explanation, and that is to assume that the exact pull which results in the removal of the arms happens with such acceleration that the inertia of the victim's body is sufficient to provide the counter-leverage. A formula that links mass to acceleration is F = m*a, where F is force, m is mass in kilograms and a is acceleration in meters per square second. This can be rewritten as m = F/a. With a set mass, that we can estimate between 60 kilograms and 300 for the regular kombattant (there's some cyborgs in there), all but the heaviest fighters would require enormous force to bring the acceleration of their body below what is needed for keeping their arms attached. Also take into consideration that it's 5.30 AM at the time of this writing and I might be thoroughly abusing a formula that isn't relevant here.
It is imaginable that Jax's shiny metal implant-enhanced arms are capable of such force and acceleration, but how the MKII Jax pulled this off (sorry) is very debatable.
When watching the fatality played in slow-motion, we see that the exact time-interval for Jax beginning the actual pull and ripping off the arms is extremely small, indicating that this final scenario is indeed what happens here. As a matter of fact, the pull is so fast that the victim's arms effectively seem to surpass lightspeed, as evidenced by the small frame of time in which they exist in two different parts of space at once (indicated in the footage below).

Dismissing a basic assumption about maximum speed for matter and energy in physics for the sake of explaining this fatality seems to go a bit too far, so we'll keep the evaluation of this scenario at "somewhat unrealistic".

The verdict
Following points are taken into consideration, with + speaking in favour of realism, - in disfavour (that's the best antonym I could come up with).
+ The shoulder joint is a weak spot when it comes to force exerted along the axis of the arm.
- The many muscles around the joint would be hard to tear loose.
+ Jax is really strong.
- Jax is only human, as most but not even all of his victims.
- The physics don't add up.
+- It's only a damn game.

After no specific quantification of said points, the following rather arbitrary score on the realism-o-meter (ranging from 0 to 10) is awarded:

4. While not disastrous, it is below the half-way mark. Jax's arm-pulling shenanigans get the benefit of doubt, but are not lent enough credence to make us fear dismemberment by overly muscled robbers.

That was it for this installment of Fatality Physiks! This was only the first analysis, with more to follow. So watch this space! Au revoir.


Special thanks go to:
Mortal Kombat Warehouse
pages.cthome.net/mnoni/webpage/

Cigar review: Avo XO Maestoso

If ever I saw a cigar that was a joy to behold, this is it. Grand, majestic, a ratio of length to ring gauge that commands respect, and a flawless wrapper. Never before have I felt such pain in disturbing the perfection of a cigar. And rarely has a cigar received so apt a name: Maestoso. I've lingered on some beautiful smokes, but this one made me get a good deal of my money's worth just looking at it, holding it, which is a sensual (almost pornographic) experience.
I bought it along with a Partagas Short, and the following choice presented itself: one of the two was to be smoked in the comfort of the homestead, with no onlookers but myself and my dad. The other, reserved for a night out with friends some days later. The egomaniac in me told me to keep this monster for the night out. People are used to seeing me with cigars, but with something of this magnitude I'd still be sure to raise some eyebrows. I'd really have outdone myself in their eyes. Either that, or they'd find me a more arrogant bastard than I had ever been. But then I realised such matters should not be taken into account. Let me smoke a small and modest cigar (if there is such a thing in the perception of non-smokers) in the vicinity of friends. This work of sheer beauty could not receive justice when smoked in some bar, accompanied by lager, receiving scorn from cigarette smokers who find my cigars stink. No, this cigar deserved to be smoked in the utmost concentration, not to the glorification of my ego but to its own credit. This cigar told me it would not just stand to serve me as pleasure, but was to be beheld. The smoker no longer the active object, but subject to an experience that would surpass himself. I was not going to smoke this cigar, I was going to witness it.
With such consideration and marvel already completed, the actual smoking was still to be done. The cigar was not up to an easy task... A vitola as large as this should be the crowning achievement on a production line, a king on its throne serving as a bright example for all others. While greatness can lie in something small, no cigar as big as this should ever be the underdog of a brand. Yet, it finds itself in a precarious situation. How to enthrall the smoker for such a long time? How to provide its profile to the fullest yet maintain that subtlety, complexity and even humbleness wherein true grandeur is to be found? Up until here this review was written before any cut was made, before flame drew near tobacco. Can any cigar live up to such expectancy? No Avo XO had ever disappointed me. This line is a corner of the triangle of Dominican brands I appreciate, the triumvirate wherein the other two are Private Stock and Arturo Fuente (of which I became a believer after only one smoke). All cigars in the line seem similar, yet they differ so subtly that each really can be chosen independently. Like variations on a musical theme, the same deep down but with different accents, complementing each other so as to form an almost mathematical basis, no two identical but each and every one serving to create a complete space. My appreciation for the XO line had been well established long before this point, but its completeness would stand or fall with this cigar. Enough, on with it. The moment of truth hath come.

The scent is typical of an XO and thus that of a trusted friend. It strikes the nose as a piece of exquisite or rare wood, combined with the well-known aspecs of hay and almost-but-not-quite caramel that result (seemingly invariably) from a connecticut wrapper. A taste of that one reveals dry spices, even more vivid than I’m used of the brand.
After clipping, the draw shows itself to be quite sturdy. Yet, it feels reliable, and appropriate as if I couldn’t have expected anything else from this format. A slow taste unlit grants more pepper, a deeper hay aroma and an unmistakable undertone of chocolate (at a guess I’d say gianduja).
And now the moment that is nearly as dreaded as anticipated: the lighting. An exquisitely thin ring of ashes appears at the foot, and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis blows wide open with the “Kyrie Eleison” (I put on a CD, you must understand, although it would be appropriate to describe the cigar in such terms).
Smoke comes through in carefully measured dose and tastes floral, subtle… like water given flavour. It is like the opening on other fine Dominican cigars and XOs, yet even more refined and elusive, as if the extra inches in length give a boost in all aspects. The flavour speaks of flowers, the most qualitative tea and incense. The scent at the burning end is thick with sweet woody notes. Everything is “XO” through and through, yet all in greater measure… including subtlety.
Already an inch has passed and a scent works its way through the nose that, like the madeleine cake in Proust’s well-loved novel, triggers a faint recognition. My mind scrambles to find a link, but hopelessly falls short as the flavour like a prankster makes room for others. Words thoroughly inadequate here, all I can write down is that a creaminess I’ve come to rely upon in the line has awoken. The “Christe Eleison” sets in and along with the distressful swirling polyphony the smoke from the cigar draws fractals in the air. The flavour thickens, wood claims its place now.
2 Inches. A realisation dawns on me… The template of an XO is unfolding: all its usual evolutions are being walked through. But where the smaller sizes must do so faster, here everything is elongated. There is more time to linger on every stage, all is scaled upwards. It could be argued that there is nothing here you won’t find in other XOs, but the extra time allotted allows you to find more, probe deeper into the nature of the smoke. Thus, you’ll find what could elude you in other vitolas.
Exit wood and enter cream. Whipped cream. It permeates the smoke that changes its texture accordingly. Or is it the other way around?
The ash is flat, the burn remaining straight. It is not slow, yet has the steadiness and elegance of a running athlete.
There is little time to admire the construction since the smoke’s evolution will be stopped at nothing. Boredom is impossible in such company but to the dullest mind. Wood has already returned, but it is not the same as before. Cedar has crept in.
Past the halfway mark, one is led to believe that this cigar is less evolving than it is toying with the smoker’s senses. The moment you have a flavour pinned another will appear. They flutter around like frolicking birds, hard to follow but providing a heart-warming display. Yet there is method to the chaos. Intensity has been picking up. After another inch a certain thickness manifests itself and now one is urged to smoke slower, even more contemplatively, lest you be overwhelmed. The smoke becomes palpable, chewable (for want of a better word).
When the finale approaches, gently beginning to set in even, the taste becomes smokier. An additional hint of resin rears its head, which is a first to me for this brand.
As the utmost serene “Benedictus” from the mass plays, the smoke of this cigar begins to display a certain elderness, as if it has passed a lifetime and now would settle down with dignity and an aloof wearniness. It feels like tormenting it to continue but I must see it to the end. It now seems to look back upon itself. All that went before is gathered, the musical themes compounded into a final chorus. The “Agnus Dei” sets in. The smoke, compassionate with the cigar now so short, swirls ever slower up into the air. As a final farewell, a blast of wine-like depth and fruitiness caresses my tongue. When the Missa Solemnis’ final chords play, this cigar ends. I set it down into the ashtray more reverently than I have ever done before.

All anxiety has been washed away, all promises fulfilled. This truly is the crowning achievement of the XO line. To put a mark on this cigar is as hopeless as trying to score life itself. What fair comparison to make? Can I attribute it a ten knowing full well that there will be cigars that can top even this? Can I grant a nine when I’ve been presented with perfection? To catch its aspects in numbers would be disrespectful when even words fall short of expressing my appreciation.
Now I see how shortsighted my method for checking a list of flavours is as well. With every cigar possibly teaching me new awareness, only trying every one ever produced could obtain a complete list, even then not taking into account new productions. I’ve been taught a lesson in reviewing… There’s no limit to this cigar’s generosity.
The Maestoso has treated touch, sight, taste and smell to grandeur. Beethoven has taken care of hearing. Seldom have I experience such completeness. I could write a thousand more words and come none closer to a full description.
Consider all said.

Welcome

Welcome to my brand spanking new blog! Wait no, I didn't say it's about spanking! Well, that ruined the Google searches for this one...
But let's continue with the introductions. As you'll have noticed from the title, this is the blog for YOU! Yes, I insist on capitalising that. There are many blogs about that wax on about the private happenings in the lives of the posters, online diaries read by friends and online acquaintances. Then there are blogs that tackle specific subjects, becoming a sort of personal journal for the writer. This one will be none of that. This blog can veer in any direction that seems interesting to take at that moment. But one thing will permeate every post: it will be written for YOU, not for the poster. Hey, capitalised that "you" without even thinking about it. That's the spirit I'm planning to keep up here.
Posts will focus on bringing you snippets that are of varying value to you. Whether it will be a list regarding a certain theme, a humorously written article (at least I hope it would be regarded as humorous), reviews of various sorts or recipes, the aim will be to please the reader. You can only trawl through so many posts of someone raging against all that gets on their nerves, what games they've been playing and what they think of them, how annoying it is when you activate the dryer without knowing the cat was sleeping in it... before it all becomes repetitive and the reader is left with a wry taste of self-indulgence from the posting side.
One thing left to note is the url of this blog itself. Variations on "blog for you" that I could come up with were already taken, so I used "diffusespace". Diffuse as in varying subjects, as well as in the meaning of elaborate and longworded posting.
With good hopes for creating a readable blog that can strike the right chords in the hearts of all who stumble across it, I now finish this introductory post. Do not expect any new content too soon as I'm still caught up in exams right now, but work will be made of it in the very near future. Incidentally, that reference to my personal activities should be the last one in its kind for a long time. Because this is the blog... for YOU!