ZERO STARS: The Worst of the Worst of MA

I'm glad you guys are enjoying this!
I have never seen or heard a single MST3K in my life, though, so I'm afraid the resemblance is unintentional.

...

I'm missing out on a lot, aren't I?

[ QUOTE ]
I'm glad you guys are enjoying this!
I have never seen or heard a single MST3K in my life, though, so I'm afraid the resemblance is unintentional.

...

I'm missing out on a lot, aren't I?

[/ QUOTE ]

You really are.

... search Youtube for "Prince of Space MST3K" or "Space Mutiny MST3K". Those are two of the best, and you'll probably turn up quite a few clips that'll give you some idea of what MST3K is about. ^_^

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm glad you guys are enjoying this!
I have never seen or heard a single MST3K in my life, though, so I'm afraid the resemblance is unintentional.

...

I'm missing out on a lot, aren't I?

[/ QUOTE ]

You really are.

... search Youtube for "Prince of Space MST3K" or "Space Mutiny MST3K". Those are two of the best, and you'll probably turn up quite a few clips that'll give you some idea of what MST3K is about. ^_^

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL @ the memories.

Oh, man. "Prince of Space" was awesome.

Emperical data suggests the accuracy of my earlier contention that your weapons against me are without merit!

Good times, man. Good times.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard as I have before, watching MST3K. I'll have to see if I can get DVDs with subtitles, though, since it's hard to make out what they're saying sometimes.

Anyway.

Suggested by a friend, @VolcanoStyle. I was considering doing this another time, but I like him and this enough that I figured I'd do it now. Also, my main typing hand was horribly mangled this week, so sorry about the brevity and lack of teh funnay.
I'll be funnier once my hand heals, promise. Cross my heart. XOXOXO

VENGANCE
Playthrough Cohorts: @VolcanoStyle, @Tomanton, @Crasical, @ExiledAlice
Arc ID: 25292
Morality:
Description: There is a king known as Count Dracula. He ruled with fear and respect, but there is one. One who seeks his power the one they call Alucard
Characters Used: Argorath (Elec Melee/Energy Aura), Mondlicht (Bane Spider)

This is a bit of an exception for Zero Stars. See, mechanically and technically, this arc is fine. It's not stellar, of course, and any other reviewer would probably give it a terrible rating, but this is probably the first arc where I've got very few qualms with the technical aspect of how things are supposed to go.
The story, on the other hand? Utter baaaaalls. Earlier in this thread, there was talk about finding a "bad, yet good" arc. I'd vote this probably fits that perfectly! It's terrible, but in a way that makes it so campy. It's hilarious, even though none of the laughs come intentionally. Best of all, it's a blast to go through with friends, preferably while drunk and just after watching Twilight.

The arc opens with an anime-haired girl named SARA (I'd like to know how to pronounce the capitals), who informs me in the most distraught manner possible that her family has been killed and her sister taken hostage! Oh no! She's going to be killed by vampires! Why kill her later instead of now, when they killed all her other family now, is unfortunately left unexplained. Who can understand the feral mind of a vampire?
After you accept the mission, she informs you again to please save her sister, as if it was so unclear beforehand. If didn't you didn't tell us, girl, I think I'd've wandered the entire abandoned warehouse map without any clue how to go about it!
Unfortunately, this is basically the point of the plot for two of the three missions--SARA's sister, the significantly less capitalized "Clair", apparently keeps running off for vengeance for getting captured and keeps getting captured. This is only going to keep racking her debt up. Strangely enough, around her every time in every mission, the mob is always vomiting profusely. Maybe they're just as sick of having her as I am of rescuing her. And the funny thing is, after I rescue her the first time, the system text is "Find the boss and stop this from happening again".
SWELL JOB I DO WITH THAT, EH?

The enemies are all of the group "vamps", which I take objection to since none of them are beautiful and this certainly ain't an opera. All of them are also overly fond of black, which goes to show you that once you turn undead, you're only allowed to have one color in your wardrobe. Possibly three, including red and grey/gray/greih/grahhaugh/cheese.
Either way, these creatures are a menagerie of terrible. They've got the mandatory bad powerset picks (Necromancy/Pain Domination is NOT MISMATCHED AT ALL) and worse costumes, but what really takes the cake is their text. Both their in-mission dialogue and bios are so absolutely peppered with quoteable quotes; from their bios ("No longer rotting. There is beauty in the undead, so for me to be pretty again .You must die."), to their wandering dialogue ("Blood AAHHHHHHHHH"), to their combat text ("why do you kill me."), every single word is taken straight from bad gothic fantasy novels.
Written by a 21-year-old amateur.
With dyslexia.
And ADD.
And a sliced hand.
...
That isn't me.
My favorite is the Elite Boss in mission 2, whose bio is cut off. "I am the best One day I will".
He must've been midway through editing it until you came along.
You jerk.

Along the way, you'll also find groups of werewolves fighting against the vampires, for no other reason than because werewolf versus vampire is the gothic version of ninja versus pirate. The werewolves are all Mace/Shield, which makes sense because I know every wolf in the wild has used a big hunk of steel to protect itself while beating up other creatures with a metal pipe. This all culminates in the final mission, where you get a wolf EB to act as your ally. He says he would eat you, but he doesn't feel like it.
Man, he's so hardcore. I'm terrified of my theoretically getting eaten if he felt like it.



Story-wise, none of the missions link together at all logically, and so you're just jumping around areas for the hell of it. You go from an abandoned warehouse to a sewer to an Arachnos base, and while the clues indicate some sort of progress, there's never any sort of information that talks about what this progress is, why you're beating up vampires, what their motivations are, or why all this even began. Why are they screaming like crazed junkies? Maybe they're selling Backstreet Boys CDs, I dunno. Actually, that would also explain why almost all of them are girls!
Oh God. Vampire yaoi fangirls.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The werewolves? Their inclusion is also entirely without explanation. They don't even have descriptions, unlike all of the other NPCs. While at least the vampires had quoteable quotes, the werewolves just languish in obscurity as "there for the hell of it".
I get that vampires are nice and generic enemies to use, much like Nazis, zombies, or demons--but that doesn't just mean you can slap them in, put a sign above that says "THEY'RE EVIL, KILL THESE GUYS" and expect players to go ahead without any questions. It's fine for parody, but even good parodies (like LaserJesus' Drakule arcs) have backstory that fill you in and tell you why to do these things.

Writing is not as easy an occupation as people think. People think that if you string a lot of letters together, you have a sentence. If you string a lot of sentences together, you have a paragraph. If you make a lot of paragraphs, you have writing. Since anyone with a basic grasp of English can make a lot of sentences, logically, anyone can be a writer, right?
Wrong.
Writing is a lot more than just hammering out a lot of sentences. Continuity, flow, and characterization are some of the hardest aspects of writing for anyone to grasp, and yet are the most frequently attempted aspects of writing. Anyone who roleplays, anyone who makes fanfiction, anyone who makes an original character for an established series, anyone who makes a concept character on an MMO, these people all attempt it.
But it takes a lot of work to go from being bad to good, and far more to go from being good to great. And the changes are always so subtle, too...it's usually very hard to tell what makes a great writer "great", as opposed to being just "good".
Though, on the other end, it's very easy to tell when a work is neither of these. It's easy to tell when a writing is bad.
And this?
This is just laughable.



JERK MOVES: -3 (WP minions on Hard! Mind Control LTs! EBs in every damn mission! Classy)
INCOHERENCY: -5 (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
IRRITATION: -2 (Not only does Clair needs a damn leash, but Lord La Varde needs to NOT be Super Reflexes)
COMPLETABLE: -2 (Completeable by many ATs, as long as you can take on EBs)

FINAL ANGRY METER: -1

As I said, this arc is more laughable. Not really anger material. It's storming with clichés and genericism to a level that borders on self-parody. It takes itself way too seriously, and the dialogue is downright embarassing. Of all the Zero Star arcs I've reviewed, I have yet to review, and I'm not sure I want to review, this is probably the only arc I actually suggest people play. It's hilariously bad. It's so bad it's good, and yet all the while it's still bad.
Maybe it's fitting that this review was the one I was introduced to MST3K in. I'd love to see somebody do a play-by-play mockery of this, making fun of all the dialogue, maps, and events in proper MST3K-style. It's certainly got the camp, and it's certainly well and open to mockability.

The "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" alone is priceless.





SUPER SPECIAL SECRET NEXT ARC REVIEW PREVIEW:
Arc Name: All that bad?
Arc ID: 38364
Quick Review: Rikti do not work that way!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I'll definitely have to give this one a shot. It sounds right up my alley.

Coincidentally, I'm a 21-year old amateur with ADD.

... and I've written 3 arcs about vampires.

Maybe the author is the bizzaro me?

I ran the arc late, late last night, gathering many glorious screenshots and silly ideas along the way. I may run it again when I get home from work tonight, I failed to get shots of some things.

I'm thinking of doing it up like a screenshot-based "Let's Play", but we can only embed four images per post, so it's either massive multi-posting or some Photoshop work. I'm leaning towards Photoshop.

The reviews are just HILARIOUS! Reminds me a lot of Zero Punctuation, which is one of the best things to grace the internet.
MOAR is all I can say

Aw, c'mon. Praise is praise.
I may not like Yahtzee, but I'm pretty honored someone would compare this little free-time thing to something professional. Thanks.

I think these reviews are awesome, you and Terminus should definitely keep them up. Though I do fear I will see one of my arcs up here...

*runs off to check spelling*

Courtesy entirely of Bitt_Player, we now have an LP of the just-reviewed VENGANCE, delightfully titled "Zero Stars Visual". Thank you very much, sir, for going the extra mile for the simple sake of everyone's entertainment!
Please give Bitt plenty of applause and love, as well as an extra round of both for the unfortunate lass he subjected it to!

Read it here, and please enjoy.

AHHHHHHHHH

Man, those vampires were... I don't even know, man. Making that Zero Stars Visual was a lot of fun, I'm thinking of doing more. Anyone have arc requests?

I'd suggest the Uniocracy of Gray, but...heh...I don't think anyone deserves that monstrosity.

...actually, I suggest it anyway. That is one bad arc.

All right, you guys, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna run through the Uniocracy of Gray. Oh yes. I've got a Level 47 Brute who kicked Ghost Widow's spectral face in solo, and she needs something just as ridiculous to challenge her. Plus, she's a horrible person, so it's okay for her to suffer for our entertainment.

I'll head into the first mission later tonight. I don't know how long it'll take me to get the finished Zero Stars Visual together.

Oh, I forgot to mention this about the VENGANCE arc. I did manage to finish it the first time through, but I didn't get screenshots and was unable to reproduce my good fortune of getting King Devaro to hit Alucard with his effing mace once in a while. Rest assured, Prince Alucard has Resurgence.

Hand's healing next week. I'll be back to the random screamings and overexaggerated reactions then.



ALL THAT BAD?
Playthrough Cohorts: @El D, @Wonderslug, @ExiledAlice, @Tomanton, @Crasical, @Drake Hetaro
Arc ID: 38364 (Formerly)
Morality: Heroic
Description: The rikti have been around for quite some time now, and wile most of them seem set on dominating this world some of them are 'good'.
Characters Used: Wence (Fire Blast/Energy Manipulation), Mondlicht (Bane Spider), Anonysmo Dragon (Martial Arts/Willpower)

(NOTE: Having played this, the arc has gone offline since. Whether for updates, or a glitch, or something else, this arc simply isn't up anymore. This review is written mostly off of memory--if the arc ever goes back up, please excuse potential errors and incorrections. If you want proof this arc exists, please contact any of the playthrough cohorts for additional testimonies)



WHOAH-HOAH-HOAH THERE, buddy-boy. I think we need to call the presses, because this is BLOWING MY MIND.
Surely the Rikti don't have a spec of goodness in them! They are evil aliens from beyond the stars, from a cosmic space that is both cosmic and spacey! And evil! Their planet is made from the corpses of thousands upon billions of sacrificed puppies, the tears of every kitten is harnessed to act as their steroids, the national anthem is song and dance routines about being evil, and every night before they go to bed they make sure to run outside so they can punch each other at least twice.
In fact, I'm fairly sure this is a grave insult to them. Any Rikti? GOOD? Pah! Perish the thought, one mutters to himself as he drinks his cup of virgin blood while strangling an orphan with the other hand. He must be typing with his toes to read this. Alien, non-Earthling toes.

The contact's name, if I remember, is Ziva--a gray-laden lass with long pants, tactical pouches slung around the waist and chest, and a blonde ponytail. Not a bad costume at all, which my eyes are so grateful for. Of course it's not GOOD, and any costume contest would probably have her as absolute last place and would berate her for comin' along to begin with, but it's still better than slapping the random button 13 times.
She greets us simply, getting straight into business.
EVERYONE SETTLE DOWN, WE'RE ABOUT TO LEARN THAT THE RIKTI ARE NOT ALL THAT BAD.
She talks about how the Rikti are planning on taking over the world and how she won't let that happen--she somehow got her hand on some Rikti plans, which talk about in great detail about how they're going to blow up some caves underneath a residential area. Then she asks us to stuff them, because she really couldn't be ***** once she got the plans. "Not let that gonna happen", indeed.
For the record, these caves must be incredibly tactically important if the Rikti are planning on bombing the hell out of them despite the residents above. That's also a pretty bastardly thing for the Rikti to do. I mean, there's people living there. They're nameless NPCs so nobody cares about them or their hopes and dreams, BUT ANYWAY. I MEAN, REALLY, WE'RE HERE FOR THE PLAYERS.
If they aren't so bad, surely they must have a justifiable anti-heroic reason for this?! (Hint: No)
We must dive headfirst into this maelstrom of moral crossroads and murky ethics.

So, upon zoning into the mission, the first thing you'll undoubtedly notice is that there's 25 glowies you need to pick up. 25. Two-five. That's a number of bombs I believe that borders on overkill, since (depending upon the make) even a homemade nailbomb can pulverize vital structures. Just one straps of dynamite ducttaped to a gas cans (instead of actual Rikti bombs, you'll note) would do the job far more efficiently, but I guess these NOT ALL BAD aliens operate entirely on the Mythbusters premise of scientific experimentation: If you have a problem, throw explosives at it.


Nah, I think we need more.

Midway through the mission, you'll come across a lone 5th Column MekMan, stuck at level 35 with very outleveled (depending upon your own level) enemies surrounding it. The MekMan has the bio of a Rikti priest, and thus is probably the result of some error or another--but obviously it was an error that was never fixed or even cared about, probably because robots are cool and people like helping the Nazis.
Oh, wait, no! I get it! This is what makes the Rikti cool! They HATE NAZIS!
AND SO DO WE!
AT LEAST, I DO!
For the record, so did the Mafia. And while the mental image of smooth-talking Sicilian aliens in fedoras with tommyguns is officially awesome as hell, it does nothing with the problem at hand.
You rescue him, he simply goes on to say "thankssssssssss" and runs off, smacking into numerous walls along the way to jiggle his circuitry in hopes that he'll eventually find the "not be useless" switch.
your welcomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Now what would the Rikti want with a Nazi robot, anyway?
Why would they even want it?
Well, golly, I'm sure the answers are simple and would never cause any mind-scarring to a precious mind, would it?



After the mission inevitably ends, after you go insane from 25 bombs and accidentally snip a green wire and cause the death of all of society as we know it (you *******), you head back to what's-her-name to inform her about this Nazi robot associating with the evil aliens.

"Thank you very much for stoping that it could have been devistating. Now you said that you ran into a Rikti that helped you? Mar'cer?"
(HE HELPED)
"Hahaha must have gotten herself into some trouble. She is good. Yes one of the few that are. She likes it here but she wants to live here in peace not to take over."

Wait, he's a she? Since when did Mekmen have genders, much less be humanoid enough to pass as androids and gynoids?
Maybe he's a hermaphrodite robot. Transexual robo-Nazi Rikti priest. YES.
THIS MAKES SENSE.
Actually, no it doesn't, but let me just throw the start of the next mission introduction text.

"Well... technically Mar'cer is my step-mum, and I have a half brother. He likes to tease that he is half in more ways than one. Turns out he wen't to rescue Mar'cer and got cought himself. His name is ki-el would you go get him for me."

WHAT.
NO.

WHAT.
NO.

WHAT.
NO.

WHAT.
NO.

WHAAAAAAAT.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

OH GOD THIS IS OFFENDING MY SENSIBILITIES.
MY BRAIN.
MY BRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNNN!
RAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
oh hey a penny

Okay, my previous ranting about the Nazi robot was bull, but this?
Rikti do not work that way. They're not actually aliens! They're mutated humans forced by some...crappy chemical that gave them diarrhea to crap out their souls, or something! Hell, I don't know! But A: they're not actually from space, B: they're not actually aliens, and C: they were never bad to begin with!
Oh, and that's not even getting into the mental images born from a Rikti boinking a human to form a half-Rikti, like Ki-el apparently is.
Don't think about it.
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.
NO, SERIOUSLY, DON'T.
Aw, dammit, you thought about it. I hate you.


It's your eyes, baby.

With that horrifying canon **** out of the way, the next missions really only go downhill.
Why?
Because testing arcs is for IDIOTS, you. Everyone knows everyone just ***** out masterpieces on their first go. It's a law of inverse awesome--the more you test, the more the final result sucks.
The second mission has a chance of spawning a map in which you simply can't progress at all. You get a wall of rock reminiscent of a door, but with no keys spawning anywhere to open it up. Every time I tackled this mission with a team, the mission would just lock itself up in a desperate attempt to save us.
It saved them. But I was too far gone.
None of the rocks' pleading would ever reach my ears.
Why am I doing this again? Oh, right, because it's fun.

The third mission and the fourth mission are hazier in memory, but I remember them being kill-alls where you need to purge all of the bad Rikti from the planet while you put the good Rikti on their spaceship to send them back to their planet. In the meantime, Cowboy Bebop spends her time on her computer, and Metroid's a pretty cool guy who shoots aliens and doesn't afraid of anything.
For each of these other two missions, you'll get your favorite mind-breaking allies in the transexual robot and the alien/human cosmic horror spawn-thing from the 9001st layer of Hell. Despite the latter being a custom NPC, the "good Rikti step-mom" (which sounds like a classic horror film already) will always spawn at 35 and thus will always get her sorry *** whipped. And when she inevitably does, you will get kicked out of the mission because the author thought making a level-locked minion NPC a required objective was a good thing.
And the kicker?
The failure text doesn't even exist, mostly just placeholders and random "oh well that didn't matter" bullcrap.

The canon woes, sure, those can be brushed aside. But the poor building just cinches it.
A note to all you architects out there?
Test Mode does not amputate your dong. In fact, it strokes that dong ever so softly and lovingly. It reaches down with a single hand and rubs its soft fingers across that desperate member, then unzips those pants and gives you a night to remember. It loves you so much, and if only you would GIVE IT A CHANCE would your rewards not only spread to other people but will also fulfill your love life and remove all unresolved sexual tension ever.
I think I forgot where I was going with this point.

If you are a woman, uh, please disregard that.



JERK MOVES: -5 (25 glowies in the first mission is tolerable. The second mission having a chance of not letting you continue is inexcuseable. The third and fourth missions with underlevel NPCs that you need to protect is beyond even pretending to excuse)
INCOHERENCY: -4 (Complete, if run-on, sentences fill the entire thing. Minor typoes. This is admirable. The only problem is...RIKTI DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! EVERYTHING IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!)
IRRITATION: -3 (So many things come together to make this arc unwinnable, things that could have been avoided if the author had just TESTED THE DAMN THING)
COMPLETABLE: -5 (Even if you get past the sometimes-impassable second map, you still have to deal with underlevel NPCs getting shot at and easily dying in the third and fourth)

FINAL ANGRY METER: -5

I'm not sure whether I'm glad or not that this arc was taken down. It's a terrible arc to be sure, but what it did for trying to explain the canon was absolutely laughable. On the other hand, the underlevelled hostages and the glitched maps very frequently killed any and all progress.
In the end, well, I guess I should just take it as a compliment. Apparently when I play terrible arcs, authors see it coming and take it down. This just makes my life empty, though. Now what will I do when I'm not sure about facts and I need to waste three hours fighting through terrible writing and design decisions just to make sure I mistyped the proper typo'd word, all with a sliced hand that makes writing incredibly tedious and actually physically painful?

WAIT, I KNOW. I CAN PLAY NON-CRAPPY ARCS.
Well, I'd still be playing it with one hand, but that'll change after this week!



Oh, and now I can post pictures! WHOO!










SUPER SPECIAL SECRET NEXT ARC REVIEW PREVIEW:
Arc Name: Uniocracy of Gray TaskForce Pt. 2
Arc ID: 109495
Quick Review: Worse than the first, without any of the laughable charm. I have no words.

It is my duty to chronicle the terrible, no matter what.
Even if this means playing through terrible arcs multiple, multiple, multiple times.
Even if they don't have so-bad-it's-good qualities.
And, of course, it's still a blast.