This article is a collaboration between Moyah and Mr.Wumpus. Here we hope to provide you with an interesting look back at a bunch of games that deserve a proper and sincere remaking. What they should include in their remakes and what they should leave behind.

Mechwarrior

Good Times

Mechwarrior was incredibly fun. Bloody simple fun too. You get 100 some tons of armor and guns, then blow shit up. With rockets, lasers, autocannons, pretty much anything that can leave a dent in a ton of steel. If there is a simpler recipe for fun it probably involves short circuiting your spinal cord while directly injecting dopamines into your brain.

Needs to include: The same basic system that Mechwarrior 4 had with a bit more customization.
Needs to exclude: Mechassault. Simplifying Mechwarrior down fails, because the fun of the game was in loading up your custom mech with the weapons you wanted.

Note: Fans of Mechwarrior may yet get their fix. A Crysis mod by the name of Mechwarrior: Living Legends has sprung up and is producing amazing work. Though the mod is not yet playable, if you bought crysis check it out.

Descent: Freespace

Yeah, That's Awesome

Freespace was an awesome game that nobodies ever heard of. The game is a space shooter, in the style of TIE Fighter. The sense of scale was unprecedented in 1998. The ships you encounter in Freespace 2 are as long as 6 kilometers and armed to the teeth. Watching battles play out with massive warships ripping each other to pieces with beams capable of instantly vaporising your fighter without any effort at all. The icing on the cake is the Freespace modding community. Freespace still has an incredibly active modding community who are producing mods for just about every universe imagined. Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars (Lucas shut it down; say goodbye to your dreams of anything like a TIE Fighter sequel).
Needs to include: Even more massive ships and new storyline, and maybe some more customization.
Needs to exclude: Goddamn escort missions. I want to blow up alien space craft, not babysit a destroyer through an asteroid field (actual mission) or keep a bunch of tiny escape pods alive in the middle of a massive alien interceptor rush.

Alien Vs Predator

Concept Art

Some of the most awesome games ever. Who doesn’t have memories of running along the walls as a sneaky alien, before dropping silently behind an unsuspecting human and eating his skull? How about cloaking as the predator then pinning people with the speargun. And no one can deny that the selection of weapons that the humans have was anything less than awesome. Homing bullets? Awesome. Even though this series has had several sequels, none have been worthy of the AvP Title. Give us another AvP 2.
Needs to include: Aliens. Predator. Humans. Guns. Done.
Needs to exclude: Suck and fail.

Bushido Blade

Sparks? Or blood?

Bushido Blade was a game for the original Playstation, it was a one on one armed fighting game featuring Japanese weaponry and fighting styles. The reason this game was so facking oresum was because of how realistic it was. I am a huge advocate of realistic damage in games no matter how frustrating or difficult it is and this game had it all. It was a fighting game with no health bar or time gauge, you could cripple, disable limbs of or even kill your opponent in a single strike. Your throws? literally just grapples on the ground and what not. We need a next gen version of this game because as frustrated as most children would get with the realism, it just adds a sense of believability and tension to a fight where one slash to your chest from a katana is game over. The game forces you to block and parry and dodge and play like every move is your last, now that is exciting shit and it makes each kill so satisfying because of how important just that one blow was. The original Bushido blade even had a revolutionary level design system whereby it wasn’t the standard side scrolling tiny arena most fighting games have, you were free to run, climb and jump around huge 3d environments to your hearts content. Free roaming is always a good idea. This next gen version could provide dismemberment instead of just limb disabling and some beautiful next gen graphics and online play. I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Needs to include: Hyper realistic damage simulation, updated graphics, Free roaming levels, deep weapon-character relation
Needs to exclude: Being released only on a Playstation system

Jet Force Gemini

Headshot

Jet Force Gemini was a 3rd person shooter created for the nintendo 64 by Rareware, and by the current standards of the time you couldn’t call JFG anything less than totally fantastic. This game just knew how to make gun battles with giant insects gory and exciting and even included a cooperative mode by way of a floating robot companion named Floyd. This game had great graphics for it’s time but was really so good because it was incredible violent and made it very satisfying to slaughter ants, you could even collect ant heads for rewards and unlockables. Rare really made some fantastic shooters for the N64; Jet force gemini, Perfect dark and Golden eye. Lets just hope that a JFG remake doesn’t flop like Perfect Dark Zero (ugh).
Needs to include: Fun level exploration, Great gore, Awesome weapons, Co-op
Needs to exclude: Original final boss, Necessity to unlock co-op mode

Die by the Sword

Weed Wacker

Nothing good can really be said about DBTS’s horrible graphics, story or dialogue but what has to said is that this game had a revolutionary control scheme where one would swing the mouse to simulate swinging of a sword. Very very tricky to get used to at first but in the end that method of control would prove to make this game incredibly fun especially when the full dismemberment of the battles was to be considered. Sword fights become especially epic when real skill comes into place because of your total control of the swords movement, and the game becomes even greater when limbs can be removed (it was always a great laugh to see a one legged knight hopping around). This game needs to, more than ANYTHING be remade on the Wii, not with this bullshit “swing in eight directions” game play (see: Red Steel) but with FULL range of motion, because you and I both know, Nintendo, that the Wii mote is capable of that function. So fucking use it already.
Needs to include: Full range of motion controls, Dismemberment, Arena battle mode
Needs to exclude: Voice acting, Story, Incredibly aimless wandering through missions that give you no clear goal whatsoever

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an original article, it feels good.
This article will now commence on giving you six good reasons why you should definitely give the game Castle Crashers another look, or possibly even a first look. This, in all logical assumption, is going to be a fantastic game.

1. It is a 4-player cooperative game.

Everyone in their right mind, or anyone with real-life friends, knows that there can never be too many games with 4-player co-op. I hold in firm belief that EVERY game should attempt to incorporate co-operative into it’s campaign mode and when a game gives four people the chance to all kick ass together? Well, that’s just fantastic of them. n+ being the most prime example of epic 4-player action on the XBLA so far. There is nothing default in the human psyche that dislikes comradery and hence slaughtering barbarian hordes with 3 knightly friends has no inherent problem, but is in fact quite awesome.

2. It is made by The Behemoth, producers of glorious win such as Alien Hominid.

Anyone who has not played Alien Hominid, in it’s roots as a flash game on newgrounds or in it’s last-gen console version or even in it’s beautiful HD re imagining on the XBLA should be playing it right now. Alien Hominid is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a favourite game, it had everything going for it: fun, addicting gameplay, humour, co-op and a phenomenal art style. You know that because these are the same people behind Alien Hominid that the game is going to have just the right feel; and the developers know how to make killing lots of dudes with a relatively simple combat system incredibly addicting and stylish as fuck. Even though controlling 4 element-wielding knights with swords would be fun enough as is, this game boasts over 20 characters and a fucking slew of awesome weapons (40 weapons), also, helper animal orbs ranging from adorable to terrifying. Alien Hominid had only one playable character, only six or so upgrades to your gun and only one kind of melee attack and because of how well it worked, it still never got old. Just imagine how well this will turn out given the content.

3. The art style is phenomenal hand drawn work. And will look fantastic in HD

Here are links to some choice pieces of artwork. Not only is the art style colourful and very cool looking, it is often hilarious. Alien Hominid was a very funny game and manage to slide something “lulz-worthy” into just about every element of scenery or animation it provided to the player, and the screen shot gallery for Castle Crashers proves that we can expect the same level of cleverness hidden in every nook and cranny of the game’s design.

4. The videos and trailers make it look just as good as you would expect.

The developers provide a plentiful development blog to keep everyone’s interest and in doing so, numerous videos have been released regarding the game. Here is a link to some very interesting videos showing the creation process that goes into the game. Below I have put up the two trailers available with actual gameplay footage.

This is the old trailer, really old actually and technically the only trailer.

Castle Crashers Trailer (Old) from The Behemoth on Vimeo.

This is a short trailer of “Beefy mode” a high-damage form you can achieve with a sandwich.

Castle Crashers - Beefy Mode from The Behemoth on Vimeo.

5. It has been in production for at least two years and honestly, The Behemoth cannot afford to botch this release considering it is only their second game.

Castle Crashers has been in production from at least 2006 when it was announced and likely even before that.The Behemoth so far has a spotless record (having released only one game prior) and it would be in bad taste to proudly release and hype a game that they knew was terrible. Given the quality of Alien Hominid and the necessity of this release being all that it looks to be, we can give The Behemoth excitement purely on faith even if one were to ignore all the conclusive evidence that it will surely kick ass.

6. The merchandise is incredible. (Not really a reason to buy the game but it’s really quite cool.)

Awesome shirts, awesome hats and possibly the best thing of all; figurines! Every game should have figurines! I personally already own an Alien Hominid shirt and a set of AH figurines but I am physically restraining myself (well, my wallet is) from ordering Castle Crashers figurines! God-damn those things are cool.

I hope this list has enlightened you to the release of a game that really does not deserve to be over-looked. And if you already knew it existed then I hope this article helps you decide to buy it, I really think these guys deserve the money. So that they can make some more games. Castle Crashers releases August the 27th 2008, if you have Alien Hominid HD already downloaded you unlock Alien Hominid as a character in the game, it’s The Behemoth’s little way of thanking the fans.

Castle Crashers at IGN

A bit nerdier then usual, but still a great article about the 6 worst ideas that are in use in computer security. Below is a quick excerpt and you can read the entire thing over on Ranum.com

#1 Default Permit:

This dumb idea crops up in a lot of different forms; it’s incredibly persistent and difficult to eradicate. Why? Because it’s so attractive. Systems based on “Default Permit” are the computer security equivalent of empty calories: tasty, yet fattening.

The most recognizable form in which the “Default Permit” dumb idea manifests itself is in firewall rules. Back in the very early days of computer security, network managers would set up an internet connection and decide to secure it by turning off incoming telnet, incoming rlogin, and incoming FTP. Everything else was allowed through, hence the name “Default Permit.” This put the security practitioner in an endless arms-race with the hackers. Suppose a new vulnerability is found in a service that is not blocked - now the administrators need to decide whether to deny it or not, hopefully, before they got hacked. A lot of organizations adopted “Default Permit” in the early 1990’s and convinced themselves it was OK because “hackers will never bother to come after us.” The 1990’s, with the advent of worms, should have killed off “Default Permit” forever but it didn’t. In fact, most networks today are still built around the notion of an open core with no segmentation. That’s “Default Permit.”

Another place where “Default Permit” crops up is in how we typically approach code execution on our systems. The default is to permit anything on your machine to execute if you click on it, unless its execution is denied by something like an antivirus program or a spyware blocker. If you think about that for a few seconds, you’ll realize what a dumb idea that is. On my computer here I run about 15 different applications on a regular basis. There are probably another 20 or 30 installed that I use every couple of months or so. I still don’t understand why operating systems are so dumb that they let any old virus or piece of spyware execute without even asking me. That’s “Default Permit.”

A few years ago I worked on analyzing a website’s security posture as part of an E-banking security project. The website had a load-balancer in front of it, that was capable of re-vectoring traffic by URL, and my client wanted to use the load-balancer to deflect worms and hackers by re-vectoring attacks to a black hole address. Re-vectoring attacks would have meant adopting a policy of “Default Permit” (i.e.: if it’s not a known attack, let it through) but instead I talked them into adopting the opposite approach. The load-balancer was configured to re-vector any traffic not matching a complete list of correctly-structured URLs to a server that serves up image data and 404 pages, which is running a special locked-down configuration. Not surprisingly, that site has withstood the test of time quite well.

One clear symptom that you’ve got a case of “Default Permit” is when you find yourself in an arms race with the hackers. It means that you’ve put yourself in a situation where what you don’t know can hurt you, and you’ll be doomed to playing keep ahead/catch-up.

The opposite of “Default Permit” is “Default Deny” and it is a really good idea. It takes dedication, thought, and understanding to implement a “Default Deny” policy, which is why it is so seldom done. It’s not that much harder to do than “Default Permit” but you’ll sleep much better at night.

Via: Digg

Top Ten Worst Places to Stick Your Penis

10. The crack between a door and the wall
Although you would be hard pressed to find a more efficient way to decapitate your corduroy-commando, this action goes low on the list merely because of its simplicity.

9. Any animal cages at Pet land
Assuming that the staff dont catch you “preparing” for this act and escort you off the premises never to return; this act of self-deformation has potential for a creative way to dismember your member. You are guaranteed to pull back a stump that has been clawed bitten or torn to pieces if you pick the right animals and prod them accordingly.

8. Toaster
I’m not sure how many people ever looked at a toaster and wondered, “How much of my dick could I fit in there” well if you have then I hope you enjoy your cock toast. I do ask that if you attempt this daring deed of stupidity that you don’t press down the button that turns on the heat, because, well that would be silly. ONE more word of advice, if you do decide to consummate your favourite breakfast apparatus then please, don’t do it while in the bathtub because you could bring the situation from stupid to death, a subtle shift.

7. Wine corker
Just look at the picture and tell me this wouldn’t be as painful as sticking your dick into a wine corker… oh wait that’s exactly what its like.

6. Bear Trap
Bear Trap (noun) A trap for FUCKING BEARS. DO NOT INSERT PENIS!! DO NOT INSERT PENIS!!!. As if two serrated steel clamps ready to slam together and the release of a trigger right together onto anything unfortunate enough to set it off wasn’t enough of a warning sign, then there is the added knowledge that it was designed for mother fucking bears and it should therefore have no problem slicing clean through your junk.

5. Rail Road Tracks
Instead of wasting a perfectly good penis just go ahead and take out its abusive owner at the same time… its just as easy as taking a step… forward… onto the tracks, and awaiting sweet death.

4. Mechanical De-boner
Something that uses blades and knives to automatically remove the skeleton from meat is something that if you decide to put your penis into can take you from idiot to Darwin award in seconds.

By the way, no play on words was intended with the term “de-boner”.

3. That second little mouth of the alien queen
If you can even some up the balls to attempt this one then you deserve a medal of heroism.

2. Hillary Clinton
This might cause you to experience true to god physical pain.

1. Children
If you do not know why this is wrong then you shouldnt ever have a family.

#5 Have a mile-long face book profile.

Everybody loves Facebook right? Well not the people who are having their personal information sold to pedophiles by the creators but that is very besides the point. As social networking sites go, Facebook is among the most popular and for good reason because it really is not a bad site. Or at least that was the case until Facebook was mercilessly attacked by hordes of dvd-rewinder useless applications. Not only do the poor denizens of this site have to fight off constant invitations to each and every one of these shitty applications every day; but they have to put up with their friends and family stupid enough to give into these constant temptations and end up with a Facebook page it takes a literal minute and a half just to scroll to the bottom of. No picture could be provided because the sample page was so long it was just too much of a bitch to screen cap. Instead, I offer you Tetris.

#4 Wear a Blue-Tooth headset with sunglasses.

This is a good one because, at least in the last few years, these morons have run rampant. If you have never actually seen one of these people, it is very unlikely, but I will break it down for you: This man (usually a white man at any rate.) will be wearing his Blue Tooth wireless headset for his cell phone, this man will quite possibly have a suit on, this man will likely be wearing product in his hair and it gets really bad when the guy throws on his Ferrari sunglasses just to punctuate his ensemble of faggotry. You are likely to observe one of these people to be constantly talking on the bloody thing, almost as if they call people just so that they can use it. Even while paying for something in line at a store these people will just keep chattering away like there is no one else even in the store. It seems that all these wonderful folks are the ones who range around 30-40 years old and have high paying jobs at offices downtown and unfaithful wives back at their white picket fence suburban home with their 2.3 meth-addicted children. Finally, the thing about these dammnable headsets is that we know these are the people who get into their SUV’s and Buick’s continuing to talk as though they can manage to do that and drive at the same time… well you see this is why we have car accidents. So in this way they look like douche bags and often like dead bodies.

#3 Own an N-gage.

I do not believe that I have to really explain the N-gage past telling you that it is Nokia’s piece of shit “Gaming-phone”. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen this thing is the penultimate waste of money. Seriously, who wants to play a series of terrible 16-bit examples of failed ports on a tiny low-res screen with the buttons on a cell phone while “on the go”. Selling only 2 million units of the predicted 6 million units in a span of three years it seems the usually moronic public caught on to this epic fail of a money grab… well not as well as they should have because those buggers still sold 2 million of these fucking things. If you do break down and buy one of these in a drunken haze or something please don’t get caught with it out in public.

#2 Do exactly what the faggots in this picture are doing.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

#1 Dress, literally, as a tool.

This is not only one of the better Halloween costumes I’ve seen in my life but it is, in essence, the most effective way of looking like a tool, literally and figuratively.

These, of course are not the only ways to look stupid, and humanity is constantly reinventing the old ways of doing it. This collection is merely a few tips and tricks on how to look like a tool, but im sure you’ll find your own ways.