mcgrew's Journal: Quake Christmas Carols

I started the car to go to work this morning, and a new variation of "Grandma" came on the radio, a protest against the TSA. "Grandma got molested at the airport, flying home from our house Christmas Eve..."

Ok, where's the change Obama promised us? The only changes I see are for the worse. Hell, in my opinion Bush was the worst President we've had in my not short life, but Obama is by far not the best. As Presidents go, he's marginally better than Carter but he's still a dismal failure. To misquote Airplane, "he sure picked a bad time to quit smoking".

Seems it doesn't matter whether you vote Democrat or Republican, a vote for either party is a vote for more corporate power and less personal freedom.

The short carol I posted the other day wasn't my first. Several years ago I penned "I'm dreaming of a secular Christmas" (without using a pen, of course). If I find it before next Christmas I'll post it here next year. It was on the internet before, when I had the now defunct mcgrew.info, but if it's still there Google can't find it.

But the "Grandma" song took me back ten or so years ago when I had my Quake site, the Springfield Fragfest. Every December I posted the Quake Christmas page, with a tree decorated with weapons and ammo, dancing Stroggs decked out in their Christmas finest, Santa and Mrs. Claus skins, and Quake Christmas carols. I had an MP3 of the then eleven year old Patty singing "I saw mommie killing Santa Claus", and another one I can't remember (Patty's 23 years old now). If You're her age, that was half a lifetime ago. If you weren't into Quake and Quake II, these carols likely won't make sense to you, so here's a little background.

In my opinion, the turn of the century was the golden age of computer gaming, and Id was the king of computer games. Quake was a surrealistic mismash of medevil and futuristic themes and kind of a disjointed offshoot of DOOM. It was far easier to play networked than DOOM, and Quake II brought it to a new high. It was very open to players; like DOOM, you could make your own maps ("maps" were the actual playing arena) and "skins," which were what you looked like to other players. Anyone could host a server, and servers were easy to find within the game, and even easier after somebody wrote "QuakeSpy", which Planet Quake bought and turned into GameSpy, letting it work with about any networked game.

With the lyrics to "I saw mommie killing Santa Claus" there were downloads of the MP3, and Santa and Mrs. Clause skins. It was illustrated with a screenshot of Santa Claus getting fragged by a BFG. here are the lyrics:

I saw Mommie killin' Santa Claus
Playin' in a game of Quake last night.
Old Santa didn't see
Her shiny BFG
The way he splattered on the wall was such a funny sight!

I saw mommie kicking Thresh's butt.
Boy, my mommie sure knows how to play!
He was camping by the cage
And I guess he couldn't guage
Just how her super shotgun would blow his butt away!

I saw Mommie fragin' everyone!
Boy, it sure was such a sight to see!
Immortal, Blue, sCary,
Zaphod and an LPB.
And oh, my God! She even killed- Kenny!

I saw Mommie killin' everyone!
Gee, my Mommie sure can play that game!
Oh, Mister, are you sure
That you want a game with her?
'cause you're surely gonna wish she hadn't came!

Gaming today sucks, having been corporatized into oblivion.

The "Grandma Got Molested at the Airport" made me think of "Grandpa Got Dismembered by a Shambler". The shambler was a monster that was in both Quake and Quake II. It was illustrated, of course, with a screenshot of a shambler seconds after your player died.

Grampa got dismembered by a Shambler
Playing Quake at our house Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as shamblers,
But Grandma couldn't get his ass to leave.

Grandma said "come home, you old fart"
As she headed for the door.
Grampa grabbed another cold one,
Mumbling something 'bout a dried up bitchy whore
Grampa said "I'll beat this damned thing"
That was followed by "OH, SHIT"
Must have had too many cold ones
'cause he tripped and fell into a lava pit.

Grampa got dismembered by a Shambler
Playing Quake at our house Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as shamblers,
But Grandma couldn't get his ass to leave.

We'd been drinking too much whiskey,
Then he drank a little more.
First he threw up on the keyboard
Then he puked and passed out on the kitchen floor.
Now there ain't no Quake for Grampa
'cause the shit has hit the fan!
Grandma says his game is over,
And she's gonna play a little Ms. Pac Man.

Grampa got dismembered by a Shambler
Playing Quake at our house Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as shamblers,
But Grandma couldn't get his ass to leave.

Bob Waring, who wrote a DOOM strategy guide that sold pretty well (Bob was known in the Quake community as "Sgt. Hulka") emailed me that his favorite of the songs I posted was "Oh come, all ye campers". A Camper was a player who hid out and sniped, usualy at a respawn point, and was pretty much universally hated. Campers were Quake's version of a messageboard troll, who got their jollies ruining the game for other players. It was a short carol, and went like this:

Oh come, all ye campers
Joyful and triumphant,
Come out, all you pussies and fight like a man!
Come, let me kill you
Frag your ass to pieces
Come out so I can kill you
Come out and let me kill you
Oh, Come and let me kill you
Christ, this is fun!

This one was illustrated with a pickup truck with a camper shell.

My personal favorite was "Rudolph, the four legged Stroggie", which takes a lot of explanation for someone who didn't play the game. "Stroggs" were the single player monsters, and there was one that looked kind of like a doberman that would kill you with its tongue. These Stroggs never showed up in the multiplayer games, which were called "deathmatches".

There was an online competetion that Id sponsored, and the winning prize was John Carmak's Ferrari. One fellow named Dennis Fong (AKA "Thresh") won the Ferrari by what some considered cheating -- he rented a T1 line back when nobody had broadband.

Rudolph, the four leg Stroggie
Had a very deadly tongue
And if you ever saw it,
you would prolly die real young.
All of the other Stroggies
Used to growl and call him names;
They never let old Rudolph
Join in any deathmatch games
Then one bloody Stroggos eve
Shambler came to say,
Rudolph with your tongue so long,
come take care of Dennis Fong.
Then all the Stroggies loved him
And they shouted out with glee,
"Rudolph the four leg Stroggie,
You can come and play with me!"

Man, I miss those days.

How Metroid Prime Hunters dealt with campers

[GameboyRMH]

In MP:H if you sat in one spot for too long, you'd show up as a giant flashing dot on the player radar so everyone could see where you were. There were too many respawn points in each level to make spawn-killing a viable strategy, but they apparently didn't want people camping with the sniper weapon ("The Imperialist," pretty much identical to the railgun in Quake 3, except it was a guaranteed one-shot kill) either.

Just too bad it didn't take care of people who used a glitch to hide INSIDE a wall, that they

Never played anything fancier than pong myself

[countertrolling]

And I never get tired of it. Though the original arcade version is obviously the best way to play it, with that big flywheel knob. All the shooter games feel like you're looking through a diver's helmet. You need surround, or preferably holograms*. That will be cool.

*safer than robots that can go on the fritz like in Itchy and Scratchy Land.

This camper thing sounds like a nice reminder that there's no such thing as a sure thing. Seems to bring some realism to the situation and shows the importance of being

ETQW?

[chill]

You aren't active on ET:QW, are you?

Moderately good fun.

Re:

[mcgrew]

No, I haven't been into gaming at all in quite some time. It does sound like fun, though.