Hot Shit of The Week - Unseasonably Hot October 2009 Edition

It's been a great month and the hot shit just keeps on coming. To start out this week's post I thought it might be good to explain the process used to determine what constitutes hot shit. There are three simple rules:

1. No hype. To be hot shit worthy, something has to be substantially available.
2. Cool, Useful, Hilarious, Cheap/Free, or Entertaining: pick two.
3. It's only geeky if you're ashamed of it. It's only a fad if you stop caring about it.

Now with that little bit of administrivia out of the way I'm very excited to get started with this week's Hot Shit.

First Up: Hey Ash Whacha Playin'?

Love'em or hate'em, Destructiod has some pretty good content. If it wasn't such a chaotic site, Destructiod might even be a good alternative to the game-site-I-hate-to-use-but-pretty-much-have-to, IGN. Excessive poop humor and findability aside, Hey Ash Whacha Playin'? is a great video series starring an oppositionally defiant female gamer and her brother. If I thought my parents would buy me something from online, this would definitely be on my Christmas list.

As with most web series the episodes are short and of variable length. Comedy is spotty, but they do a great job of building on the gags. Poop humor gradually becomes actually funny. There is an occasional dud, but my harshest criticism is over use of foul language which doesn't really do much to add to the comedic effect. Hey Ash is a charming and clearly an indie production unlike a number of other semi-/para-/quasi-professional web series out there.

The biggest challenge in being a fan of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin' is finding episodes and figuring out what order they are best watched in. Eighteen dollars seems highly reasonable for their DVD release, but not having purchased it yet I can't say that with any certainty.

Next Up: Fat Princess

While you might never see an Xbox exclusive game make it onto the Hot Shit list, that is not because there are no such titles that deserve it. It is because I don't own an Xbox, I'll never own one (unless someone is feeling generous), and I very rarely have the opportunity to play on someone else's. Techno-political issues and politically correct game concepts aside it is great to see developers that work really hard to provide a good online multi-player experience like the kids at Titan Studios.

Earlier this week details for the 1.03 patch were announced. This update comes almost three months after the US release and includes a number of attempts to fix social and technical issues with the online multi-player.  Designing games with online competitive ranking is hard. There are always going to be rude-ocd-wankers out there that will use every cheap-ass bug in the game and play the system to boost their score while sucking the fun out of it for the rest of us. It is the kind of thing that impossible to eliminate, but Titian is doing a really good job of addressing it and some of their solutions are down right creative.

To boot the official word is that the 1.03 update will include, for free, the New Pork map which has set the Fat Princess community a buzz. There is still no word on when for-pay content will be added to Fat Princess, but this is a case where free is infinitely more fun than paid.

Fat Princess is currently one of the more expensive PSN download only titles at $14.99 US. It is however worth it. The solo play is very fun and disappointingly short, but provided you have a good Internet connection the online play can make it well worth it.

Moving Along: Passive Aggressive Notes

First oppositional defiance and now passive aggressiveness? This week's hot shit sure is chocked full of social disorders. Passive Aggressive Notes is another in a long line of recommended blogs you'll see here in Hot Shit of The Week. Some of the material there is weak, but it is a lot harder to prove a fake passive aggressive note (PAN) than a photo shopped image. The humor also often requires some shared social experience.

Passive aggressive behavior is much more funny if it relates to something one has dealt with personally. Most of the notes follow common situations: retail stores, roommates, dating. The real gems are the ones that make you wonder just how pathological people can be before they are labeled insane.

And Before I Forget: Old School Shit - Timing

It is critical in comedy, in business, in life: It's Timing. Don't be too early or you're wasting time and likely resources, but don't be too late because that is just a missed opportunity. Timing is also about appropriateness. If you start a slow clap at the wrong time, you're going to look like an idiot. You can't bring back old fads too early either.

Here are some things everyone can brush up on to improve their timing skills:

The running head start - People that try to go from zero to sixty instantly often wind up flat on their face. If you want to look like a pro, practice. The clever thing to do is find ways to practice in a value added way, without looking like a fool.

Know your windows - With timing there is a window of opportunity. Sometimes it is like Rock Band: the closer to optimum the better. Other times it is like Blackjack and you either hedge our bets or play it safe with good enough. More often than not however it is just better to make it somewhere in the window while balancing other commitments. Avoid sweating the details whenever possible.

Under commit, over deliver  - It can be hard to sell a course of action that looks padded, but a good start is to hold your cards close. Don't give away all of the aces. Who ever it is you're trying to impress, they will be more pleased with a pleasant surprise than slipping deadlines. Without slack, there is no control over timing.

Finally: More Indies, Indies, Indies, Indies

There are commercial games, indies, and then Real Indies. Don't get me wrong. I am very exicted that full-scale indie-feeling games are being released commercially. It is like bread and butter: commercial games are the bread and indie games are the butter. When the two come together it is SOOOOO GOOD.

On the other hand, sometimes you just want butter. Free games are not indie games. Some of them are just commercial games that lacked that certain something or were made for the sole purpose of pushing paid advertising and drawing potential convertible customers. Real indies are a whole-nother innovative breed. Today I Die, and the other games at Daniel Benmergui's Ludomancy are a great example of really-really indie.

To add to this, it really feels like we are on the creative cusp where more people will be empowered to go from entertainment consumers to entertainment producers. It is a really exciting place to be.