The Jazz of journalists explains webflash

This has nothing to do with flash, though much to do with gaming, but this Playstation Network hackjob is making me angry.

You see, I don’t have a PS3. I never wanted one, considering it’s inferiority as a platform to the Xbox 360. But I was nice enough to loan my debit card to a friend so he could download some Guitar Hero songs. Now, since the hackers have 77 million user infos now, there’s a large possibility I may have to cancel my card.

I really wish I could get a part of the law suit money from the people, if that pans out. I have no stock or faith in the company, though if they go bankrupt we may lose out on a few great PS3-exclusive games. No huge loss. Not that I expect that Sony will have to pay out monetary compensation to 77 million users. But if I can get on that list, I will.

Plus, we knew from the beginning who the culprits were: American members of Anonymous after a hacker was banned. I heard them blaming other sources in a radio segment, and they weren’t joking. Seriously, they were saying that it must be China. because they have a large population of tech-savvy people. Then they blamed the Russian finance hackers, which makes more sense but is still total BS. Lastly, they mentioned there’s a very small chance it’s American “recreational” hackers, because our cultural bias has to downplay the severity of any fowl play by a US citizen.

I really don’t know. Hopefully, my own card was lost in the cracks, and I mourn for anyone else in this annoying position. I’d rather not go bankrupt for a bunch of mask-wearing rejects. Geez.

I was thinking today about a game that isn’t flash. A game created as a love letter to the more difficult days of gaming past, games such as Mega Man or the Mario levels with that angry sun that wants nothing more than to make you wish you were dead. Or that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the Nes. Geez. That is I Wanna Be The Guy. Download this indy freeware game, and if you finish it, be prepared for some serious bragging rights in the gaming community.

But it’s not the only one. Our good buddy Flash is here to lead us to the depths of hell and back in the form of head-thumpingly, nail-bitingly, wall-punchingly difficult games. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

The Hardest Game Ever

This one is just tedious, actually. You use the age-old formula of squares and circles through mazes, trying to dodge bad thing until you get to the end. The detail I liked was berating you after every level about how impossible the game will get. It’s certainly completable, but will make you go insane. Kind of boring in a design sense, but the gimmick is perfectly sound.

Super Mario Flash

Many of these hard games were based off a manipulated Mario design made years ago that made you question your very terrain in a video game landscape. This led to some great videos of people playing them and being pissed.

Language Alert! Not safe for work.

Karoshi: Suicide Salaryman

This is not a nice game. Other than the fact that they are making light of Japanese working themselves to literal death, and suicide, it’s just evil. Kind of interesting in that the goal of a normal platforming game is reversed: you must lose all your lives to win. It is considerably more fun than the other games designed to make you lose your mind and snap into a violent rage completely. It’s also a very competent puzzle game, despite the grimness of the theme. Music’s catchy, too. There’s a sequel, but i’ve never wanted to taint my salaryman experience.

If you can survive these atrocities in gaming, tell me.

I was at a convention this weekend in Pittsburgh, and learned of an internet meme the likes of which I hadn’t put a name to. This was the creepypasta.  Since this sounds like something strange (and it certainly is) the best I can describe the phenomenon is this: As ghost stories are to the physical and spiritual happenings, these are stories of horrible abnormality happening in the realm of video games. These could be urban legends involving hacked cartridges or terrible accidents occurring during a game. Some of the more notable have to do with the incredibly popular Pokemon series, questionably enjoyed mostly by young adults and college students. Here are a few freaky and well-known ones:

Majora Mask’s BEN

Pokemon’s Lost Silver

They really are only creepy in the context of those who have religiously played the game they are based upon, which is much of the charm. Encyclopedia Dramatica gives their best shot to confuse the reader on the subject, while the devoted Wiki gives a better synopsis. To be fair, it’s not just video games, but those are the favored on the nets.

Anywho, the panel I went to (at midnight) inspired me to look for how this affects the medium of Flash. While most involve text, or the occasional video or sound file, I knew there had to be a flash basis, as with most memes. I found a few newgrounds flashes, but nothing great. In the most basic sense, youtube is flash, but I was looking for animations.

Others were just bad modifications of animated cutscenes, like a stupid submission of a really unplayable Mario game. Same sort of deal with Spongebob,  and a irratatingly long and pointless “terrifying” Mickey Mouse cartoon.

I’m annoyed that there’s no flash beyond your average Youtube Poop (look it up). Maybe someone else can find something. I’m out.

Not every flash game that gets popular is a masterpiece of programming. Sometimes, all it take is an Erasure song to go viral.

This is the least seizure-inducing picture I could find. Yes, the internet is a ridiculous place, as this adult swim game is near the top of a list of addicting games I just made up. In it you play a robot unicorn and run while listening to fruity music. Go play it, and then ask yourself why it’s relevant.

Is any of this relevant?

It isn’t relevant, and yet this conspicuous lack of a point is what makes certain games, animations, and other stuff addictive. The internet has a sense of humor about promoting things that are only good for an ironic sense of entitlement. That, I suppose, is the basis of a meme. Go to knowyourmeme.com for an idea of what a meme is. Hey look wikipedia.

Another addiction-worthy artist is one The Weebl, most notably Amazing Horse/Get on my Horse. (NSFW) Does it have any merit? No. Is it fantastic and have many millions of views? Why yes. I was going to post the youtube clip, but it’s far better in Flash, as it loops endlessly. The endless looping song is his specialty.  Also, Narwhals. And of course, in 2003, he did the Badger flash. (Mushroom Mushroom)

And yet, no one can put their finger on what makes something special like this.  I suppose we can chalk it up to the overall power of global media. If 100 million monkeys with a hundred million keyboards bang hard enough, you get a keyboard cat.

The internet seems less interested in figuring out why memes work than simply trying to keep up with the aforementioned memes. The eternal question: What is this, and why do I love it so much? Tell me in the comments.

Half of the comments I make on the internet (at least those pertaining to my favored media platform) are composed of bitching out those who call flash dead. These are not a few fringers on the outskirts of web and technology. but social thinkers and techno-pioneers. Do I have any right to argue with the people who create real substance using this program? Absolutely. That thought process belongs in the past before mass media became available to the masses. With all the Flash I have enjoyed for the last eight years, and with the truths I have acquired about the many sides of Adobe, I have every right to defend the use and digital divination of my content.

What brings joy to my heart is those who do defend, like Scott Schiller who made a single page site called isflashdeadyet.com, using HTML 5. I love that a simple website exists just to prove a point, and he makes it eloquently and succinctly. His ideas on staying relevant and evolving to a technological middle-ground are certainly valid.

But there are many others touting the open protocol. For obvious reasons, Adobe themselves have some words on compatibility. Like the inherent irony of blocking Flash from a tablet when it was made for tablet PCs 15 years ago. Lordy. Lee Brimelow snipes the Ipad with dead aim below:

(For the interested, the removed image was a screenshot of pornography, added for a little comedy. Adobe did not approve. Ahem.)

This is not to say this is a new debate. Jakob Nielsen introduces the idea of contemporary flash hating back in October 2000, just 10 months after the proposed destruction of the world. This article is laughably outdated, written about the earliest form of a somewhat flawed system. His comments made sense 10 years ago; now the evangelists preaching the bad news of ol’ Adobe seem misguided.

This debate/fight for supremacy is getting bigger. Wall street journal reports that Flash will remain a key video format for all adobe systems, and if they get more buddy-buddy with Google, things could turn into a major brawl.

Yes, I have a bias, as I haven’t posted any recent articles specifically stating that flash is utterly obsolete. Yet none of these pieces tout Flash as the single answer. I believe in the stakes of my viewing property, and call for constant evolution. Some people have the testicular fortitude to stick to their guns in a dark age; some crawl into a hole and hope that what they can’t see doesn’t actually exist. May not lose them a sense of profit, but it could detract a wealth of audience and credibility. The war rages on.