Tag: final fantasy

Go-Go Gadget Play!

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As longtime supporters of the New England Patriots organization, Nerds on Sports got a special sneak peek at some of Bill Belichick’s trick plays for this weekend’s Big Game. Here are some highlights:

Ain’t life a blast?Boy Scout: Brady fakes the toss, then pitches the ball to Maroney while Ben Watson opens a lane to the outside. Maroney then draws a Sig Sauer P226 and shoots Sam Madison, Aaron Ross and Gibril Wilson. Belichick claims that nothing in the rules expressly forbids the use of a handgun, arguing with the ref and giving Brady time to rest between plays. Bruce Willis dances a jig.

uWEE-hee-hee-HEE!Fallen One: Only two wideouts on this play; everyone else drops back to block or protect the pocket. Linemen form a multi-story tower built from the remains of a world shattered by a madman’s ambition. Giants’ linebackers enter tower and attempt to sack Brady, at which point he unleashes attack that reduces them all to 1 hp. This may end in an incomplete pass or a sack, but will almost certainly result in several Giants defensive players being taken out on the next down (as Tom Coughlin has likely used up all his Elixirs getting Kiwanuka and Shockey game-ready).

Tom Cruise rates this play OT-VII.Valkyrie: Heath Evans takes the direct snap. Evans substitutes the ball for a briefcase lined with lead and filled with sensitive explosives. Evans “fumbles” the ball on the tackle, allowing one of the Giants’ linebackers to recover. As the linebacker runs the briefcase down field, the vial of acid that shattered in the fumble eats through the lead and into the explosive. Linebacker dies messily; Steiner signs peace accords with England and France.

My life for Foxboro!Gestalt: Brady runs down the play clock until Logan Mankins and Billy Yates can merge into an Archon, a barely corporeal psychic entity. The Archon paralyzes the Giants’ backfield with a Psionic Storm, allowing Brady to throw leisurely routes for 40 yards a pass. N.B.: Hold off on this play if the Giants have EMP capabilities, as the Archon’s power rests entirely in its immense energy shield.

Wes Welker has the smooth complexion needed to play a 16-year-old at age 25.Flux: Shotgun snap, Brady to Welker on the outside route. Welker accelerates to a ground speed of eighty-eight miles per hour, traveling back in time to the Waterloo High School Senior Prom in 1964. He shows up Tom Coughlin in front of his date, winning her heart and depressing the impressionable young man. Coughlin enlists in the army instead of going to Syracuse and is killed in Vietnam. Jim Fassel stays on as head coach long into his senile years, keeping Kurt Warner as the starter and never acquiring Eli Manning. The Giants end the 2007 season 4-12 and never make it to the postseason; Patriots win by default through temporal anomaly.

In 4th edition, wizards get no spellcasting penalty for wearing sweatshirts provided the sleeves have been cut off.Sphere: Belichick designates all tackles, guards and the center as eligible receivers and casts a prismatic sphere on Brady. Analysis of game film suggests that defensive rookies Aaron Ross and Michael Johnson will be blinded for 2d4 plays even looking at the sphere’s arcane colors, and that while Michael Strahan may be able to pass through the first three levels of the sphere (suffering 20 points of fire damage, 40 points of acid damage and 80 points of electricity damage respectively), the poison in the fourth layer will either kill him or put him out for the rest of the game. Brady can now take upwards of ten minutes to complete each pass.

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[Business Day One] Level 99

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Some of my favorite memories of my childhood involve laying on my bedroom floor, with my head and shoulders against a bean bag chair, and playing Final Fantasy VI.  For hours on end after my homework was done, I’d lead my party into a desert or a field somewhere and just level up.  For those unfamiliar with the process, let me give you a run down.  A lot of role-playing games from that era (the mid-90s) followed a fairly straight-forward story arc.  Your main character would get a team together, go on a journey, battle villains along the way, learn some lessons and eventually confront the Main Bad Guy in an epic final battle.  The fine folks that programmed these games made assumptions about how strong your team would be (i. ??????? e. what level they were at) at any given point in the game and adjusted the relative difficulty of the villains accordingly.  So, at the beginning of the game, you’d come across angry slime piles that would pose a challenge to a Level 5 team.  At the halfway point, there’d be roving bandits that would threaten a Level 30 team.  By the end, you’re throwing down with stone golems that’d give a Level 55 team the business. ??????? ?????????   What I used to do is spend hours battling in minor skirmishes to built up my team’s level far beyond where the programmers figured I’d be at each step.  So I’d be slaying those slime piles with all my heroes at Level 10, dispatching bandits at Level 45 and crushing golems effortlessly at level 70.  I loved to be one step ahead of the game.  I loved it to the point where I’d spent 15 or 20 hours over the course of my week walking back and forth in a forest fighting tree elves to level up.  There’s just something about utter dominance over an enemy force that is so darned fun. ????? ??? ????

I suppose that’s why I am gleeful over the Patriots season.  It’s like they spent an entire weekend outside of Figaro Castle before their Week 1 game and have just been riding since then at a level unforseen by the programmers. Read More

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