Why? No1: Blue Nail Polish
Why? No1: Blue Nail Polish
Written by Arran "Ace" Yarwood. This does not reflect the views of PAndroid. Dated 17/6/98.A rather odd email from Arran Ace Yarwood
Mr Arran Ace Yarwood thinks there are simularties between Trek and the lack of orginality in gaming. And he's made a trek parody to make it all the funnier. But you'll probably just read the parody. Oh well. Fish?Bridge of the star ship enterprise: Suddenly a ship appears.
"Mr Sulu, Red Alert. Shields up"
"Yes sir, charging phaser banks!"
"But, we never use phasers except to attempt to break out of a force field, or to utterly fail to damage a massive unknown spaceship!"
"True sir, but we always charge them anyway, just in case."
"Ahhh…. Yes, of course, well done… Carry on Mr Sulu, put it on screen."
The screen shows the USS Voyager, lost in the Alpha Quadrant
"Its some kind… of flying bog seat… Mr Spock, what do you make of it?"
"It is a ship from the future, which was stranded in the Alpha quadrant, and is searching a way back to federation space."
"Ohhh…. <distant look in Kirk’s eyes> well…. Whatever…. Tactical?"
"It is better armed than us, and has an advanced computer using organic neural links."
"What does that mean?"
Bugger all captain…
"Yet you say it is better armed?"
"Yes captain, it was built many generations in our future. The have holograms!"
"Nice… <Kirk looks into mid distance and dreams of having a ship like that…>
Well, we should run away, full speed! <Leans over chair and hits communication button> Scotty, gimme warp eight!"
"Sorry cap’ain, I cannae be arsed…"
"No warp power? Shit… Lets shoot it then (Just wish it was a double episode or a movie, then I would be able to use photon torpedoes…) fire phasers…."
Meanwhile, on Deep Space Nine:
Benjamin Sisko sits in his chair, playing with his baseball.
He calls in The Gorgeous Dax.
"Dax, has anything come through the worm hole?"
"No Ben, still waiting…"
"Not even a rock?"
"Nope…"
"Shit, there goes another bloody episode… It was looking so promising when that asteroid came through yesterday… You positive it was just a rock?"
"Yes, we checked it with a full sensor scan three times, and even put some people on it… It is just a rock…"
"Bugger, it looked such an interesting rock anyway…"
---- But now, back to the action. On board the Voyager, the ship is rocking all over the place, and several small fires have erupted.
"Chakotay, shield strength?"
"100% and holding"
"Thank god they haven’t damaged the shields… Now if we can just repair the damage to the actual ship… Damage status?"
"Wellllllll…. Not much, the roof has collapsed, and there are several small fires on the bridge… The chocolate vending machine is spitting out Cruchies, and there is a lot of steam about. Better than when the Kazon D’obla attack… For a species who don’t have replicators and are dying from lack of water, they sure have some mean-ass ships!"
"That bad? Where *are* we going to find parts in the alpha quadrant?"
"Doesn’t matter captain Janeway, it will all be fine by next episode."
"Good…"
Ship continues to take damage, despite the shields being up.
"Captain, a subspace anomaly has caused a warp core breach… We can’t move anywhere for at least an hour… Now we will have to spend a whole hour doing bugger all, when Picard manages to fit an entire mission into 35 minutes… Shit."
"Can’t you fix the Warp coil before the end of the show?"
"Well, we usually don’t, but if you think it is important, I think we may be able to wheedle it."
"OK, what will you do?"
"I’m sure Belanna will be able to modify something or other to re-align the whassit…"
"Chak, mate… I’ve never asked you this, but will you shag me?"
"Urm… Doesn’t my odd face tattoo put you off?"
"Nah… As long as you can bear my cacky voice… But first, tell me about this warp core jobbie, it happens every time we bloody get shot, hell it happened when Neelix used all the hot shower water when he was tossing off over Kes…"
"Well, you know when we warp, those sticky up bits at the back fold up…"
"Yes"
"Well, this little bit of metal foil occasionally gets stuck in them, and we have to pull it out before they move…"
"Why do they go up anyway?"
"Dunno, haven’t read the manual… I’m pretty sure its just to look pretty…"
"God, I TOLD you it wasn’t worth the extra million credits for the fins… We could have had go faster stripes for *half* the price…"
"Sorry Captain…"
"So, how do you fix the fins then?"
"Well, you know those gripper arms that are used to pick up litter? We use one of those to pull the metal out…"
"Why does it take so long?"
"The modifications take time captain, don’t they Tuvok?"
"Indeed they do sir."
"Why not use one of those litter grippers we have in stock?"
"Well, it keeps us busy captain… 75 years in space can be quite boring… Tuvok here has already finished a one million piece jig-saw, and they take ages don’t they Tuvok?"
"Indeed they do sir."
"Well, back to the matter at hand, what can we do about that ship Chak-mate?"
"Shoot it sir?"
"Good idea, we haven’t tried that before have we? So, what can we do? Use Trichlorothane bombs like we did on that array? Now that *was* an explosion…"
"Sorry Captain, for some reason we aren’t allowed to blow up ships. Its in the script… We have to stick to photon torpedoes…"
"Well, we’re s’posed to be the best the federation has to offer, what can we do?"
"Blow them sky high captain…"
"No-no-no, can’t have that, besides, I don’t know where the button is… Lets try and make friends with them… We *are* ambassadors in this quadrant, remember? Put them on screen, lets try to communicate."
Ship still rocks, and bits of roof fall down…
:::::END:::: This highlights many of the problems of Modern Trek…
In Deep Space Nine, nothing happens.
In Voyager, the latest in a long line of ships has the shit kicked out of it by wussie ship which don’t even have replicators. The shields don’t seem to stop the ship from taking damage, making them bloody useless, every episode, there is a warp coil breach, and they can’t go anywhere for an episode.
Of course, the decline of trek is mirrored by the decline in Computer Game originality. There was a time when almost *every* game was original, and *all* of the best were pioneers of a new genre, or sub-type. Then with better and better consoles and computers, the games could be touched up (A la The Next Generation (good link ehh?)) and still new slants and styles came out. Look at the difference between Dune 2 and Red Alert to see what I mean. But now is the age of the clones. Like Trek, more and more clones are coming out. The first batch (the deep space Nine of games) try to give a slightly new slant on genres. Such as Duke Nukem 3D which was one of many games which added a whole new dimension to the First Person Perspective genre (I.E.: Inventory, Jumping/Crouching, etc..)
But Now come the pathetic clones which are just plasticy imitations of the games we love. Quake is just Doom with knobs on (And not that many, considering no crouch, inventory, etc..) and as for Dark reign/Total Annihilation... These are the "Voyager" of gaming which sell us on our nostalgia and brand loyalty.
I hope computer gaming get un-mouldy quickly, otherwise not only are the specs of games going to strangle the market, but also the lack of originality. This lack of originality leads to swamping (Look at the Playstation, as Digitiser said on Monday, after E3, we only have lacklustre sequels to look forward to) and any game which shows even a modicum of originality is hyped as the best thing since sliced bread (look at Resident Evil 2, a rather lame pile of tosh... Nice, but nothing *special*)
Anyway, I have spoken, and spell checked...