Fugdale’s Funhouse

Object: Shoot and destroy all the crazy toons with your finger.

Review: It’s another hectic stressful shooter for all you gamers who need to take out a little agression. This one has an inventive setting and structure. Basically, you wander down the photo-realistic streets of what looks like Manhattan. The quality of the video is quite good, as if you are watching a film. Hovering in the foreground of the picture is your hand with a finger pointed like a gun. Every once in a while you stop and all sorts of devilish cartoon characters rush out of doorways and sewer drains and start running towards you intent on smacking you. You must shoot your finger at them in order to kill them before they hit you.

Each time you take a hit from one of the critters, you lose one of your hearts, and you only have four hearts to start with and those toons are ruthless. The variety of characters coming at you include speedy fanged cats, bobbling gumdrops and snakes with cannons for eyes. The controls feel a little wonky and aiming can be a bit tricky. As you progress little cardboard boxes appear which give you power ups, like devil horns. You can also save your progress at certain points throughout the game and even challenge a friend to play with you. I found the game a little difficult to master, but kind of cute and original in it’s unique design and gameplay.

If you hit the space bar it activates a flying duck, but I haven’t been able to figure out what purpose the duck serves. It just flies across the screen quacking, but you can neither shoot it, nor does it appear to help you destroy the enemies. Maybe I lack enough focus to figure out what purpose the duck serves, but I’m sure gamers who enjoy this type of challenge will have no problem discovering what is probably obvious.

About: A guy sings a very popular tune backwards and then reverses the video so you can hear the song forward. Most people should be able to guess the song at some point during the first half of the video. This technique harkens back to David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”, where all the spirits in the red room would talk with a backwards tracking effect. The actors all had to learn their lines phonetically backwards and then the film was reversed to create an erie effect. In this much more upbeat video you get to see the same results, but also get to see how bizarre it must be for someone to memorize a song or speech backwards.

Nutshell: For all those office workers who ever wanted to do “IT”, I dedicate this video to you.

Review: A hilarous and poignant video depicting a candid looks at office workers who have gone off the deep end largely due to nagging routines and outdated equipment. While the actions of the people in this video obviously come out of sheer frustration with their jobs, they represent what many many people in the world feel about the world we seem forced to live in. When you watch these angry, trapped people destroy their computers and attack other co-workers you want to cheer for them. Notice how the people around the office in the background usually react with shock, but then just return to what they were doing as if events like this were bound to happen and as if they must preserve their jobs at all costs. Too bad all the workers couldn’t be that frustrated all at the same time. There may be a revolt in corporate America.

As someone who is facing the prospect of returning to an office environment for work, I find this video a haunting warning. You see, I rarely feel like throwing my guitar across the room. Maybe I should consider a Bohemian lifestyle.