8-Bit Theater Read-through: 001-010

Recently, I found out that 8-bit Theater finished its lengthy web comic run at 1225 episodes. I don't think it was recently, (Wiki Check: Ended June 1, 2010, guess it was recently). I liked the comic a ton during my heavy web comic phase and was caught up back when episode 300 was new, but it seems a lot has happened since then.

As a tribute, I've decided to dedicate quite a few posts to reliving my 8-bit experience, going through the entire run and sharing my thoughts throughout. I'm sure I'll enjoy myself, and if I can make just one person aware of the greatness that is 8-Bit Theater, my work here is done.

Read-through Episodes 001-010

Ah, humble beginnings but still chuckle-worthy. It's a simple set-up, but already resembles the comic that it shall be in the future. Some of the one-liners may be lame (actually, quite terrible), but that's part of the charm of the whole experience, seeing how much it's all evolved. It's charming to know that Black Mage was always a little evil, and Fighter always loved swords.

Sunday Bloody Sunday, Now With More Zombies!

I'm a simple man. I like my cheese melted, my drinks strong, and my games simplistic. Safe to say, it took me almost no time at all to fall in love with Infectonator: World Dominator.

The game has a classic look about it (good NES/bad SNES), and operates on a simple "click the screen, win eventually" framework. As long as you keep playing you can't really lose, just win less quickly. Each attempt at a level still earns you some money to buy upgrades, and once everything is maxed out it is impossible to actually lose. Upgrades for what? Oh, just to make your army of bloodthirsty zombies even more merciless.

Once a city is selected, you select a "ground-zero" for the virus, and watch the feathers fly in a delightfully bloody manner. Eventually you can even unlock special zombies like Colonel Sanders, or even Michael Jackson (he makes all the zombies dance). When the goal of the game is to destroy everyone and everything, there's no better feeling than a screen full of 16-bit blood-splatter.

The Internet, (Why So) Serious Business

I will admit that being on the Internet as much as I am, I feel a little bit detached from "regular folk". Everything on the Internet goes so lightning quick, and I feel I've burned through so much before the average person even finds out about it. I still have friends that are only now finding out the glory of Japanese commercials.

The other day I was casually talking to someone and they asked me what this "digg-thingy" was. Seriously? I can barely fathom a world where people don't at least know what Digg is. The same goes for pedobear and rickrolling. I take these things for granted as assumed knowledge, but the average person has no idea about this sort of stuff. Sometimes it feels almost like I've traveled through time, I mean one of my friends tried telling me a Chuck Norris joke the other day. I half expected him to bust out some POGs next.

There are times that I've tried to give "regular" people some insight on what the Internet really has to offer, but it always falls apart. Heck, if these rubes can't grasp the concept of Twitter, how am I supposed to explain what the hell a demotivational is.

I suppose the scariest part is that I don't even consider myself an Internet guru. Hell, I only found out about that meekakitty chick a couple months ago. There is just so much out there to discover, and it's hard to really grasp how big it all really is.

If there are people who use the Internet on a regular basis and have no idea what the heck podcasts are, I can't even fathom how much there is that I myself haven't found yet. When you sit back and think, it's actually quite intimidating. Thank god it's pretty much just filled with porn and wholly inaccurate movie rumors.