Minor Introductory Note From the Editor: 

The following came to me as a series of e-mails from The Good Reverend Victor "Voodoo" Smith, which this week I wish to share with you all because they were over the top (in a good way, not in a bad 1980's Sylvester Stallone armwrestling movie kind of way).

"Just Cause" Just Blows

I'm the Notorious Reverend Voodoo Smooth, a man who loves women and videogames...in that order.  A man who's got as many hours in the sack as on the 'Station... sometimes at the same time (they call it "freaky".)  I get more box than UPS on Christmas Eve, and have sacked Mad N00bZ, some of whom immediatey fall in love with me after being completely "pwned"

....what does my gaming and rather impertinent sex life have to do with Activision's "Just Cause"?

I'm just sugar coating things and putting you in a happy place for the horrible tale I'm about to tell re:  Just Cause.

Ever since GTA, every Tom with a Hairy Dick has been itching to get in on the ground floor for "sandbox" style game design.  Most titles are decent, others suck...this one doesn't suck, it blows.  By blow I mean blows goats harder than a CAT-5 hurricane with a beastiality fetish!

You begin jumping out of a plane over a small, ficticious little Latin island.  In your freefall you can toggle between freefall and your NEVERENDING SUPPLY OF RESERVE CHUTES!  It's like a fucking "bag of holding" from D&D or some other such gayness reserved for the likes of the entire population of Castro's Market...or Liberace.  The only forgiving factor (I guess) is that when you get close enough you can blast the shit out of whatever's in range while you slowly descend to earth.

Your character is this fucktard Antonio Banderas/El Mariachi wannabe (which begs to ask, who wants to be Antonio?  Watching his latest movies is like getting your testicles shaved with broken glass and his wife took a dive from the ugly tree) with a fake-ass Ricardo Montalban accent hell-bent on liberating this small island "Panama, 1989"-style.  He's even go the scorpion fixation when it comes to accessories like belt buckles and medallions and as we all know, nothing exemplifies machismo and Latino-Badassitude better than scorpions because we love to propogate stereotypes when we're making a videogame that's THIS bad.  Plus he works for the guv'ment freelance and I don't know if that's bad or anything but dude if it's like this in real life I'll never pay taxes again.

Now for the mechanics:  First of all, your automatic targeting recticle is twitchier than a dope fiend in Harlem so have fun shooting anything without going to manual.  Then there's the driving/flying/boating mechanics and now don't get me wrong, being able to go real fast, hop out of your vehicle and unfurl your parachute in mid-run, then descend to earth with guns a-blazing and rain righteous death upon your enemies sounds pretty fucking righteous (redundant, I know) but it begs to ask one question:

HOW IN FUCKS NAME DO YOU FUCK THAT THE HOLY FUCK UP!?!?  I could tell Activision to "unfuck" itself but that amount of unfucking necessary would take year and years.  I mean I'd need the jaws of life to pull their heads from their asses.  You're asking yourself to get glitched into veritable oblivion.

Lets talk about voice acting...in short I couldn't say anything nice, because a lie that flagrant would cause the earth 'neath me to open up and swallow me into the fifth circle of hell.

Okay, so you're saying "But Rev. Voodoo, you get to liberate sectors of the island like taking over gangland in GTA: SA."  Well lets see, trying to use the games "squad-based" tactics in rallying the villagers to fight is a joke.  By joke I mean it's about as funny as a shoebox full of week-old dead kittens (which I've seen, not funny).

So Ben, if you ever had or will have the displeasure of playing this game, I absolve you of the sin to gaming you have committed in advance.

Peace Be With You,
Rev. VS

Boondock Saints

It's Rev. Smooth again, wishing you peace and absolution from whatever it is you did this past Cinco of Mayo...

But I must say it's a travesty to not see the Saints of South Boston a la "Boondock Saints" on your Badass of the Week page.  Dude, these guys are fuckin sweet!  They made every white person on the planet try to prove they're irish nowadays, so much for being Native American I guess.

They drink, they fight, they brutally and I mean BRUTALLY murder mafia crime bosses and all the while not getting a single drop of blood on their peacoats.  About peacoats, being in the Navy like me and all, you automatically get one, not because you're a beer-swilling motherfucker who will bang your whole family and leave your neighborhood covered in empty beer cans and used condoms (if we choose to use them) because we'd just don't give a fuck but because the Saints rock them pretty hard.  I mean when I wear my peacoat and a gray t-shirt w/jeans I get more ass than a mule farmer in the Andes and for that I have to thank the Saints for that.  Plus, being a mega-hot comoddity like me doesn't hurt either but the fact remains they were partly, if not totally, responsible for that.

Oh and they speak a holy ass-ton-load of languages because they're geniuses in the field of badassitude.  How many true badasses can say that.  Don't get me wrong, Superman speaks a buttload of languages but then again he's a pussy who got his ass beat repeatedly by a rich, moody fuck who likes bats and doesn't have any superpowers (Batman).

...and I think the Saints could totally take Batman...

I understand that there are many who have said God told them to bust the heads of many bad people, but they're either Joan of Arc or serial killers.  These guys get people pumped for them, so pumped that they made their best friend involuntarily blast his skank girlfriend's cat into a "fine pink mist" with a .357 Magnum revolver before joining them on their crusade, which technically is a burnt offering that is pleasing to the Lord in accordance with the Old Testament;  how sweet is that?  It's so sweet I get a toothache thinking about it (lame joke.)

Anyway, find it in your heart to proclaim the Saints of South Boston worthy of feasting in the halls of Badass Valhalla, where nutsack kicking, Femme-Nazi cold cocking, bad guy blasting motherfuckers live....FOREVER!

Peace be with you,
Rev. VS

Soda Beef

So I'm at work and the two old farts in charge of our sorry asses bitch at the other guy in charge of my sorry ass.  Seeing as how I also (late to my knowledge, or I'm a scapegoat) keep the fucking vending machines stocked because that's how the fuck we roll.  Yeah buddy, hardcore motherfuckers keeping production high by keeping them damn vending fridges stocked because the world may depend on whether or not you get the right pop to start your day.  Anyway, one old fart is butt-hurt because he got a "zero calorie" coke vice a "diet" coke...

...what...the...fuck...over?

First of all, you mean to tell me you'd rather take me away from giving half-assed yet bitingly snide customer service to these fuck-asses who need my help for whatever it is they need?  My designated job in writing?  Just so you can have your sugarless fucking pop?!

Well a righteous "fuck you ass hat" goes without saying, but it's the question of your manhood that comes into play.  I mean there are people out there who let you father children.  Think of the children, dickface!  You're setting a bad example and next thing you know they join the Air Force and practice group masturbation and sing show-tunes...

Show-tunes...ugh, the humanity.  Ethel Murmon, you're a son of a bitch!

Now I'm never one to get into it about shit as innane as soda or tea or shit but they just had to drag that shit out of me by it's short 'n curlies.  Well first of all, bitch, let me just ask you what kind of self respecting man drinks diet soda, let alone if he does, tell anyone and I mean ANYONE that they drink some gay assed sissy alternative to the tooth-rotting, caffeine-high inducing elixir that is fucking pop.  I mean it's pop for God's sake, not friggin iced water.

I don't really drink pop that much unless I'm hanging out with the guys, playing D&D in which case I'm drinking the worst friggin soda you can possibly wrap your lips around and that's Mountain Dew.  We're talking the Holy Hand Grenade of Tooth Decay, it'll send your ass off on a tweakin' rampage if you can down a twelve-pack without falling into a diabetic coma.

But goddamn if I'll suck down some damned diet alternative, like pop is so fucking great that I have to have my carbonated water/corn syrup fix.  Go fuck yourself if you think I'll ever drink that shit.  I'd rather suck down a case of Canadian Beer seasoned with the urine of Vancouver lumberjacks.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are people who are very concerned about their health but you need to be some kind of sweatin' to the oldies, Richard Simmons watching member of the farie folk to resort to that shit.  It doesn't even taste good, what with that splenda crap-assed sugar alternative that makes me want to vomit.  I mean projectile vomit exorcist style if I even catch a whiff.  But what the fuck is this Splenda crap and why didn't anyone tell me about this shit when I was overseas for four years, huh?  It sounds like some damned state fair gypsie chick that'll kind of allude closely to your future for ten bucks and take you "out back" for an extra five.

Oh well, guess I'm still the realest, baddest and meanest.  But it sure is lonely at the top...

...no, it's crowded at the bottom.

Peace Be With You,
Rev. VS

Cup O' Joe: 50 Cents?

It has become almost cliché to say "Wow, you can't even get a cup of coffee for under a buck."  Well that's about fucked up in my opinion, considering I'm an impoverished youth and shit that ultimately doesn't concern the people who govern my salary with an iron grip.

First off, let me just poke the dead horse that is "Starbucks sucks!"  We get it, their coffee tastes like lukewarm breast milk unless its frappucino or macchiato or fag-iato.  Then it's breast milk with a hint of caramel or mocha (whatever the fuck that is.)  Shit, I know the baristas there are usually some emo kid or emo chick that think they're better than everyone, which is bullshit because I AM better than everyone.  But just show them you're a cynical asshole who wants their fucking coffee and it's a quick and painless transaction.  Of course the usual emo goddesses they have working the counter inevitably force every man, or rather, dweeb who comes to the counter to make the vain attempt to sound like they know how to order coffee (which I had found out long ago was an actual art form) but fail miserably.  Let me tell you, there's nothing like a geek kid trying to make the time with a hot chick and screwing up, thereby making my trip to Starbucks worth the $5.00 and my first-born, left-nut and frontal lobe just for the laughs.  Of course if I'm going through all that crap like a dumbass then I really don't need that frontal lobe, it's like an appendix to my brain.  But as of late my broke ass ain't getting no goddamned starbucks in the near future, so that's pretty fucking much out of the question.  Why?  It's ultra expensive to the fuckin' 9 and then some.  Oh those fucking danish thingamajigs they got in the case by the counter?  Say goodbye to college for little Johnny.  Sure he probably won't go, instead drop out and smoke pot all damn day but it's the principle of the thing.

Then there's work, the great equalizer in the battle for cheap joe.  At work, coffee is free and if you don't believe me, then reference "Tempin Ain't Easy" and then shut your ignorant-assed mouth.  I mean I stopped making coffee at my place because of that, that getting up early to put Folgers in my cup is fo' suckas.

...goddamned motherfucking Folgers jingle's stuck in my head again...

But you get my point, it's fucking free!  Until they expect you to put in for more coffee, in which case I make like a nacho and dip...

...yes, I'm a cheap asshole, comes with the territory...

But I have more beef with all the different coffee creamers with their goddamned "flavors."  I can't grab some half and half without clearing away such flavors as hazelnut (which I'll forgive), french vanilla (too sweet), irish cream (can't be, no alcohol) and of course amaretto (what...the...fuck?)

...now this amaretto bullshit has got to stop.  First off, it's fucking weak enough to not need a mixer.  Second, it's the ass-nastiest booze this side of Thunderbird which tastes exactly like the ghetto brand of poverty.  If you use the slightest bit of coke to take away the disgusting medicine-like twang, it turns into Dr. Pepper. I swear to God, Doctor-fucking-Pepper, that's exactly what it tastes like.  I'm guessing some sort of chemical change or mitosis make two flavors divide into 23...

...and I think those 23 flavors is bullshit!  All I taste is fizz (yes, that's what I call it) and prune juice.

.........Yes... fizzy prune juice