The Most Important Question in Zelda

Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has grappled with many poignant philosophical questions. Mainly the humankind rich enough to not be thinking of starvation instead, but the point stands. Deep, inescapable ponderings such as "What is our purpose in life?", "Why should we go on living?", and "Why do kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?" I don't pretend to have the answers to such questions. Except of course: Because there's cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite. That…is why we should go on living. But there is a far more important question that I'm here to answer today. And that question is…Which Link is the Stinkiest?

'Tis a question that has plagued The Legend of Zelda franchise, since the ancient days when Plato challenged Aristotle to beat his high score at Link's Crossbow Training. Adventuring is smelly work! You think the Hero of Time stopped by CVS to nab a stick of Cool Rush deodorant? No! That dude literally aged seven years without stopping to sleep! Or eat. But this isn't Which Link is the Most Malnourished, so let's stop stalling and settle the stench subject!

The Legend of Zelda

The first game doesn't have much in the way of odorous occurrences, but you can be swallowed by a Like-Like. These counter-intuitively named monstrosities are like short fat worms that digest your shield and spit you up like used chewing gum. But this isn't the only appearance of Like-Likes, and more importantly, getting caught by one isn't guaranteed. If a player was better at the game than you, Kevin, then you might complete your whole adventure with nary a single torturous tummy tour. This makes Like-Likes a Quantum Stink Event, and I'm not qualified to evaluate those until I complete my Master's. Doesn't count!

Plus, this is back when the Like-Likes look-looked like forbidden pancakes rather than an oozing intestine.

An Eye-OU for an Eye-OU

The readership of this blog is something I hold no illusions about, at least not since I killed the sorcerer who cursed me. The illusion I'm alluding to is that of active readership, which is to say, I have none. But that didn't stop me for 160 posts over the course of a decade, so as ever, I'd like to keep you all updated as though "you all" existed. I'd specifically like to address something I said last year, on my 2023 April Fool's day post. Or more accurately my very short April Fool's day post about why I didn't have an April Fool's day post. The quotes in question are:

 

"Sometime between now and April 1st, 2024, there will be another article on genericide-blog.com"

 

and…

 

"Unless I die. Would be tough to schedule around that one."

 

The good news, unless you're a clan of sorcerers out for revenge, is that I have not died. Nor do I plan to any time soon. Alas, I do need to prevent myself from dying, which it turns out is just as hard to schedule around. Yes, this is another post about why there aren't any posts, a hallmark of creators too lazy to create but too guilty to quit. But I do have a better reason than usual for being busy on April 1st. Specifically: I got cancer and will be in surgery having one of my eyes removed that day.

 

I have prepared an apology greeting card:

 

You would not believe how hard it was to find this card pre-written.

 

As alluded to above, this should prevent me from dying in the near future, the not-so-near future, and with any luck, all futures the distance of a normal human lifespan. I can't guarantee futures beyond a human lifespan until I reach an arrangement with a clan of sorcerers. Rest assured, I'll likely return to posting passable parody pieces and glib gaming grumbles before long. But before short, I have an upcoming crop of cyclopean circumstances to contemplate. I discovered my impending binocular bisection a couple months ago, and it's something I had to keep more than one eye on while I still could. And if there's one silver lining to cancer, it's that everyone feels too awkward to ask what you were doing with the 10 months of the year before you found out you had it.

 

In short: Blah blah cancer blah blah no blog posts for a while blah. If, against all evidence and good taste, you still want to hear more from me, I will point you to my game Small Favors, which has about 40 hours of content and a novel's worth of words. Yes I know I mentioned the same thing last year, but the game didn't go anywhere and it still has a thousand times the words of a blog post. It'll be a bit before I post again, but if it's any consolation, it's highly unlikely I'll have the same scheduling conflict in 2025.

 

If I do I suspect the sorcerers have found me.

No Fooling

Once upon a time, there was a traveler and a jester. Many moons ago, when the traveler was young and hale and hearty, they stumbled upon a most curious festival. It was there they met the jester, a comedian of, it must be said, somewhat limited capacity. Their jokes were a bit plain. Their stories were quite mundane. And they had a nasty tendency to bog down a sentence with so many embellishments and qualifiers that it became altogether harder to follow than if they had offered no clarifying details at all in the first place in addition to the fact that it generally robbed them of any of the sort of comedic punch that they were clearly intended to carry which probably was a result of their lack of brevity, I think. But…there was one thing the jester could offer: Consistency.
 
Every week, the jester came to the festival. Rain or shine, morning or night, funny or dull they came. And thus that festival became a place of comfort to the traveler, and they resolved to return when they could and watch for a time. But as the weeks turned to months and the months turned to years, the festival changed. The patchwork tents and faded banners disappeared, one by one, until only a single stall remained, but once a year: the jester's. The traveler could not hear the creaking bones behind the bells, could not see the wrinkled face behind the mask, but it was then they knew that one day, even the jester would be gone.
 
Sure as the sunrise, the day came. The traveler arrived at the site of the now-yearly event to a festival-shaped hole in the dust. The only color was the weeds poking through the dirt. The only song was the lonely howling of the wind. And not a single joke could be heard.
 
The traveler sighed, and picked up their pack. All things must come to an end eventually. And it seemed this year, they'd have to go elsewhere…to tell people Best 0nline Casin0 Free Sl0tz Click HERE!!
 
 
***
 
 
So yeah, that's all you're getting this year.
 

Game Exec Laments Market Too Depressed To Oversell

Over the past decade, how games are monetized has been a hot topic of debate among gamers. We here at Genericide are always looking out for fresh takes on the subject. So when a high-ranking game company exec started rambling their views on Twitter, we knew we just had to give them a platform for that. That's how we ended up on a call with Activision's Assistant VP of Finangling Boondoggles, Chet Smorgasbord. Here's how it went…

 

Good afternoon Mr. Smorgasbord, it's an honor to speak with you.

 

"Thank you, it sure is."

 

This all started a few days ago, when you decided to weigh in on the controversial micro-transactions in Gran Turismo 7, is that right?

 

"That'd be the start of it, right. I woke up to my timeline just plastered with people outraged that a full-price game could charge $40 for a single digital car model. And that's all well and good but I mean, we've heard it all before right? Blah blah consumers angry, but what I wanna' know is, where's the CEO's opinions, why aren't we giving their voices a place to be heard?"

"Besides, it's my firm belief anyone angry about the artificial scarcity of prestige cars being re-created with imaginary ones is just mad they didn't think of it first."

 

Valve to Release VTuber AI That Plays Your Steam Backlog

 A press release from Valve Software earlier today states that they plan to release a VTuber AI that plays your Steam backlog for you. VTubers, or virtual YouTubers, are live-streamers and video content creators who use a virtual avatar, which is rigged in some way to match a person's movements. They have recently experienced a popularity boom, with over a dozen VTubers passing one million subscribers in the past year alone. This did not go unnoticed by Valve, curators of the popular PC game store Steam and publishers of classic games like Ricochet and Garry's Mod.

 

"After the release and critical success of Half-Life: Alyx, we collectively remembered we can finish and ship products" stated Valve game designer Robin Walker. "However, most of our developer's work time last year was spent watching anime girls swear in broken English. We simultaneously noticed a problem where 91% of users' Steam libraries were games they had purchased in a holiday sale bundle years ago, which they 'swore they'd get to as soon as they wrapped up a few more Netflix shows and their friends got bored of Among Us for the third time'. The AI was a perfect fit."

"We originally questioned the wording of the AI launch button, but we figured honesty was the best policy."

Mists of Pandaria is WoW Classic's Next, Only Expansion

A recent press release from Blizzard Entertainment reveals that Mists of Pandaria will be World of Warcraft Classic's first, and only, expansion.

World of Warcraft Classic is an alternate version of the MMO giant, released in August 2019 to appeal to players who wished to play the game as it was prior to the many paid expansions of the original. Since launch, many players have been speculating if Blizzard would invest in legacy versions of these expansions as well. The news broke this morning that the company was interested in just that, but only for the fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria.

Citing that the expansion "appealed most to the company's current sensibilities", the press release stated that Mists of Pandaria was the only expansion they would add to Classic, ever. It additionally revealed that though some beloved parts of previous expansions would be kept untouched, like all lore involving Kael'Thas Sunstrider, changes would be necessary to adapt to the sudden jump in content. We have compiled a list below of the most notable points about gameplay fixes, story alterations, and Blizzard's development plan:

The Top 10 Breaths in Breath of the Wild

Posted by 4LornTri4ce at 2:47AM:

It has come to my attention that the collection of slack-jawed ignoramuses known as the human race are even more incompetent than I first suspected. I've scoured the internet for articles on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and found them on all manner of inane subject matter. Reviews, walkthroughs, retrospectives, confirmation that the cartridge works…all sorts of completely useless information! I trudged through this morass of infantile garbage and found not one, not one post that bothered to talk about what's really important.

Why is no talking about the BREATHS in Breath of the Wild?!

Seriously, what is WITH you herd of glue-munchers?! Am I the problem here? (Hint: I'm not). Have I wandered into some parallel dimension where free lobotomies are given out at birth?! Anyone with two sub-atomic particles clattering together in the vacuum behind their eyes should realize what an essential part of the gaming experience this is. Fortunately for all you addle-pated internet bottom feeders, I am benevolent as I am eloquent. I have therefore taken it upon myself to rank the most notable instances of breathing in Breath of the Wild. I know you cretins will never understand how blessed you are to be enriched by my wisdom, but feel free to thank me anyway. You ungrateful swine.

10. Low Stamina Breaths

Link performs a large number of breath-inducing activities in Breath of the Wild, all of them so insultingly perfunctory they didn't make this list. Breaths after eating are understated and unimpressive, breaths from heatstroke have you hang your stupid mouth open in one position, and breaths after diving haven't improved since Ocarina of Time in 1998. Don't get me started on breaths from damage, which often don't even have the decency to time their mouth flaps correctly. Of all these animations the least likely to induce aneurysms is the low stamina breathing, which conveys something approximating a humanoid figure gasping for oxygen. It's the bottom of the list though, because I'm not the kind of drool-stained degenerate who can't even tell the difference between clavicular and diaphragmatic breathing. If you're one such moron I encourage you to either get the hell off my blog or read a fucking book.