Category: NERDING DAY
Unlock with Patreon
Quick: name the person you’d most like to see write a near-future sci-fi roleplaying game about a second Civil War sparked by a bloody conflict over reproductive rights.
Everyone said Chris Field, the guy who wrote the hentai RPG where you shit yourself to get plus five to AC, right? Good. Awesome. Let’s talk about Otherverse America.
Where were you when the historic “Ogalada [sic] Souix [sic]” abortion clinic was wiped off the map by a post-human terrorist codenamed Life Tank? Were you in a Malibu comic from 1993? It doesn’t matter. Otherverse America doesn’t actually take place during the Second American Civil War. That would be too easy. No, it’s set decades after the Treaty of Boston ended it. Who won? Well, which side had access to gay pagan wizards and metahuman technology?
Those poor, non-rainbow magic-having pro-life idiots didn’t stand a chance. And if you were expecting a gritty, down-to-earth depiction of a nation torn asunder by religious conflict, well, yes, Otherverse America is kind of that, just like Black Tokyo was kind of about the horrors of demonic sexual violence. But maybe it’s also about cartoon superheroes and gene mods and technowarriors? It’s hard to tell. Otherverse America has no table of contents, and I would describe its formatting and organizational choices as: not applicable.
Stats bleed into fictional history, tables and sidebars pop up out of nowhere, and early 3D imagery sits alongside crude hand-drawn depictions of transhuman anti-abortion cyberdocs sitting coquettishly in front of actual prenatal ultrasounds.
It’s a lot. And keep in mind Chris Field wrote this well before the advent of generative AI. If nothing else, he’s dedicated. Not dedicated enough to arrange a book in any kind of useful way, maybe, but dedicated enough to come up with all kinds of genetic modifications that the theoretical players of a game set in this world can select, which, I think you’ll agree, are all totally normal.
Ok, fine. That’s something that people probably would do if it were possible! At times like this, you can tell that Chris is trying to take his setting seriously. He’s following his premise to its natural conclusion and arriving at the kind of social commentary which would be at home in any number of dystopian YA books from the early 2010s. And then there’s stuff that, well, isn’t.
“It’s part of the setting!” Chris screams. “Everyone puts titty milk in their cereal in the future because there’s no factory farming anymore! Luxury milk! From the human cow!” Sure, Chris. Now, which collapsed institution of industrial civilization explains this one?
See, uh, grocery stores don’t exist in the 22nd century, so people have to grow their own clits.
God, there are so many of these â gene mods, I mean, not clits â and while a few of them are useful for battle and adventure, a lot of them are about sex. The generous angle here would be that it’s realistic that people would use genetic engineering for getting freaky and that including more than just combat abilities makes for a more well-rounded roleplaying experience. Counterpoint: the guy who wrote this also invented a dragon who breathes aerosolized semen. Keep that in mind as you’re trying to decide whether “Hivelove” is a flavorful, interesting sci-fi premise or the feverish invention of a brain that is 99% loose jizz sloshing around in a human skull.
This could be the whole article. We could just talk about the gene mods and cyber-implants that give women prostates so they can enjoy anal sex more, that make everyone squirt, that let you lay eggs instead of carrying a baby to term. There’s one called “Moe Facesculpt!” That’s “moe” as in “anime child,” not The Simpsons or The Three Stooges, for anyone who is normal.
There are some neat ideas here, like hackers and criminals inventing ways to fuck with genetically modified people, but again, this is Chris A. Field we’re talking about. You know it’s not going to stop with gene-hacking politicians to give them heart attacks.
In the grim darkness of the future, there are only cum-spewing cyberdragons. How did we get here?
Long story short, gay rights groups, pro-choice organizations, and AIDS activists joined forces to form the Covenant of the Goddess Universal. They were all early adopters of gene mods that gave women more control over reproduction and allowed gay couples to have kids without needing a third person in the mix. STDs were eliminated and everyone lived in a cum-soaked paradise, but Evangelicals weren’t happy about it, so they started doing (more) domestic terrorism. In response, the Covenant created a gay pagan strike force codenamed RAINBOW Liberty. And then aliens showed up? Maybe? They’re called the Lifechain, and I think they’re explained in another book. There are Half Grey people and that’s why some people have superpowers? I don’t fucking know, man.
Anyway, if you read my article on Black Tokyo you might remember that Chris has other distinctive qualities besides crippling horniness and a complete inability to organize his thoughts. He also fucking loves peppering his work with unrelated quotes in an effort to add an air of sophistication, or perhaps a humorous juxtaposition.
So here he is using a quote from The Devil Wears Prada to introduce the liberal microstate, which I’d assumed was fully half of the US but in fact is a loose assortment of neighborhoods strung throughout the country that are constantly fucking and wield advanced cybermagic. Or maybe there are full-on Choicer cities and states? Chris says they have a constitutional monarchy, but it also seems like he’s describing a world where the Choicer and Lifer nations exist within the greater United States.
To me, this implies that in addition to the many-clitted egg-laying technowitches of the Choicer nation and the cyborg death commandos of the Lifer state, there are also just normal Americans walking around. And honestly? I kind of like that. It reminds me of Omegaverse fanfiction where the vast majority of the population is just the normal human Betas who are trying to maintain civilization while Alphas and Omegas are trying to fuck it apart all the time. So here’s a high-level look at the Choicer society.
Wow, that seems pretty grâ ah. Hm. Thirteen to fifteen, huh? You’re going to see more and more of this, but Chris definitely paints the Choicers as the “good guys” in this brave new world. So maybe he’s just trying to paint them as a culture that goes too far in its pursuit of sexual freedoms? Or maybe it’s insane to give the benefit of the doubt to a guy who, just a few pages earlier, was jacking off to the idea of drinking titty milk.
We get a lot of details about the Choicer nation and its organization, and Chris points out that they’re just as religious as the Lifers. It’s a matrilineal theocracy run by the Neo-Witch Church that rules from an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay sometimes called Aradia and sometimes called Araida and which is protected by force fields and lasers. Even when he’s not explicitly writing anime bullshit, Chris is writing anime bullshit and â lest we forget â drawing it.
One detail here might surprise you: gay people have “fallen out of fashion” in the liberal utopia of the future. Most people have bisexuality genetically programmed by their parents at birth, but there’s a faction of young people who rebel against their omnisexual society by being full-on gay or hetero. Good for them. But beware, rebel gays and straights, of the Apollo Psi-Field!
These things just look like stereo equipment and are commercially available at Sacred Feminine Radio Shack, so in this world you could go over to a neighbor’s housewarming party without knowing they’ve got the Field That Makes You Bi set up. And speaking of stupid names for things, this:
Improbably, Lady Sylvia Moondark is not the dumbest name for a character in Otherverse America. That honor goes to LORD CHARLES STARSPIRAL, whose name is so fucking idiotic that it causes a buffer overflow and wraps around to being sick as hell.
Chris opens the next section on Choicer celebrities and sports with a quote from I Love Bees, a sequence of words that means nothing to anybody under 35 years old. He says that Choicer culture is basically the dominant culture on the planet, and even in Lifer territories they bootleg Choicer “mesh dramas” and sneak into Choicer neighborhoods to watch light, fairly frivolous adventures as well as distorted, highly fictionalized accounts of Phallus Space.
That’s basically the only mention of “Phallus Space” in the book, by the way. Sloppy writing? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s keen worldbuilding, the type that raises questions in the reader rather than rushing to fill out every blank space on the map. What could Phallus Space possibly be? What could the movies be getting wrong about it? Are there people who have been to Phallus Space, if it is indeed a physical location in the cosmos, who are furious about future gay witch Hollywood’s misrepresentation of it? Chris has prompted us to wonder about so much with this throwaway sentence. And isn’t that the mark of a true shaper of the fantastic? I wonder how Chris is going to characterize the defeated Lifer pseudo-nation.
Sure, they’re a military dictatorship whose citizens are undereducated, poor felons, but you do have to hand it to them in one particular respect: they don’t fuck kids. There’s a whole section on pedophilia and age of consent laws, and Chris treats this subject with all of the care it demands: by putting it next to a picture of Catholic battle cyborg.
I got distracted by the dope robot for a second, but uh oh! I’m breaking the glass labeled “in case of Chris A. Field talking about child pornography.” What’s inside? Why, it’s something called “catminding!” This should be fun.
Oh. It’s not fun. I’m breaking the second, different glass labeled “Chris A. Field is still, improbably, talking about childlike sex slaves.” And good news! It’s not a sex thing this time.
It’s a guy I can only describe as fanart of a non-existent Deus Ex mod where everyone only ever talks about stopping abortions in the same way that everyone in PokĂŠmon games only ever talks about PokĂŠmon.
Pages and pages of text tell us that the Lifers are bitter, ugly morons whose love of graphic depictions of mutilated fetuses is only equaled by their adoration of SMG-wielding, heavily-pregnant paramilitaries.
This stuff overshoots satire and â I can’t believe I’m saying this â ends up actually feeling kind of mean-spirited. Like, we know that the right-wing Evangelical movement is essentially evil. But Chris has created less of a plausible-sounding world where embattled bigots fester in hatred of their genetically superior lib conquerors than a version of Captain Planet where instead of polluting for no real reason, the bad guys are barely-literate jazz-loving necrophiliacs.
Sorry, I’m just re-reading that and it looks like I wrote “jazz-loving necrophiliacs.” That can’t be right.
Hey, wasn’t this supposed to be a roleplaying game? We haven’t had any stats or powers in a while. The Choicers got all kinds of cool gene mods. What advantages might a Lifer character have? How about being someone who almost got aborted, but then wasn’t?
I want you to do something for me. Guess what kind of powers being a “survivor of abortion” might give your RPG character. Some kind of healing factor? Perhaps the ability to manipulate fate? Really mull it over, then come back and see how wrong you were.
You get better at arguing that people shouldn’t do abortions. And if you make a successful Bluff against someone who is pro-choice, you get an action point which you could spend, just theoretically, on using your cum breath attack once. Remember to do it after you recover from the emotional exhaustion of trauma dumping, but before you go to bed, otherwise you’re leaving cum on the proverbial table.
We are now barely 100 pages into Otherverse America. This is a 320 page book. God help us all.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: David Shull, who is a full force advocate of titty milk in your cereal. The future is now!
Categories
Nerding Day: Reglar Fellers Comics
Categories
Nerding Day: Human Vs. Hamsterđ
From the celebrity power couple who brought you a beige rug that costs eight thousand dollars, a set of beige mixing bowls for ninety dollars, and a game of Connect Four vastly improved by being made colorless and impossible to play, also it’s a hundred and fifty dollars (down from $190!), comes an exciting new game show! You’re never going to believe which one it is.
You would think that Chip and Joanna Gaines, the media moguls who turned their HGTV show Fixer Upper into several retail stores, a line at Target, a magazine, and finally, their own television channel, would only create sad beige game shows. I’m picturing an oatmeal eating competition? Maybe something where women compete to see who can clap the politest. No, Chip and Joanna Gaines somehow became the executive producers of Human vs. Hamster, one of the least dignified shows on television and as we all know MILF Manor exists, so that’s really saying something.
Chip and Joanna Gaines are so famous that if you ask a certain group of young women what they know about Waco, Texas, they will say, “It’s the home of Chip and Joanna Gaines!” and nothing else. They think of beige Connect Four when they think of Waco, and I’m sure the tourism board of Waco, Texas, could not be more thrilled about that.
The Magnolia Network, which Chip and Joanna run, is primarily focused on home decoration but expanded into a few food shows, and then in 2024, it expanded into hamster. Human vs. Hamster is a show that really tests the limits of what humans are willing to do for a very small amount of prize money. Most contestants walk away with two or three grand; if a team does really well, they might take home around eight grand split two ways, which isn’t nothing, but I would need a lot more money to gnaw through a noodle rope on television.
The premise of the show is that Chip and Joanna Gaines have built Saw-like games and obstacle courses for hamsters and then scaled them up exactly to human size. Humans have to run on a hamster wheel to raise a rocket ship to a tiny fake moon; they tumble through a forest of 150-pound juice boxes and balance on giant dominoes. Sometimes, there are side challenges where they have to do things hamsters are known for, like squeeze into a bottle or eat corn fast. I guess that’s a thing I think of when I think of hamsters? There’s no competition to struggle against being dropped by a giant ten-year-old, which we all know is really a hamster’s greatest challenge.
Human vs. Hamster treated its contestants with a wide range of dignity. When they had teachers and nurses on, the vibe was, “Wow, you’re all such heroes, ok now squeeze into the glass bottle like a hamster as quickly as you can, hero!” Which, I guess, is the respect we should give to public servants before we make them squeeze into a bottle because that’s a thing hamsters do.
However, when magicians and dancers come on the show, they force them to eat garbage in almost every competition. They’re chewing the pasta rope. They’re facing off against a hamster in a corn-on-the-cob eating challenge. An adult man is crawling around a maze to locate a very cold-looking slice of pizza and a stale cookie to eat. A lot of people were concerned about how the Hamsters were treated during filming. I’m concerned about the magicians, a phrase I have written many times before, but never in a sympathetic way.
Someone claiming to be a contestant on the show said on Reddit that the hamsters were recorded separately, and the humans simply competed against their times. So, I guess don’t worry about hamsters being harmed in the making of this show. They’re doing normal hamster stuff. It’s basically The Real Housewives Of Hamster for them.
Let’s talk about the energy the hosts are bringing to the show. It’s hosted by SNL’s Sarah Sherman, Kyle Brandt, who I’m told is some sort of football man, and in-house hamster expert, Brian Balthazar. Sarah Sherman seems almost uncomfortable with the forced hamsterization of the contestants, while the football man has never been more comfortable with anything in his entire life. If he could force-feed plain spaghetti to the magicians all day, he totally would. Brian Balthazar is there for the pageantry of the show. He pops in with elaborate background stories for each competing hamster and real hamster facts, and then I’m sure he goes back to his trailer and never thinks about hamsters for even one more second of the day. I guess I’m proud of him?
Sarah and the football man do commentary while the contestants battle the hamsters, and you can tell it’s really hard to make a person crawling through a little ball maze to find pizza slices not sound dystopian and terrible. Sarah clearly struggles with it. The football man grew up in Head Injury City, so this looks like a kindness to him. Chip and Joanna tried to give the show an American Gladiators feel, which is kind of funny, but also, it’s really hard to shit-talk a hamster or to create any kind of urgency or drama around the idea that humanity must prove ourselves against these hamsters. You can’t fight an animal named Ham without looking ridiculous.
There’s no amount of hamsters I’m afraid of. I think a human could kill nine million hamsters without even trying. The tasks are specifically designed for hamsters to be good at and humans to find difficult, and still, the hamsters lose sometimes, mainly because they have no idea that they’re on a competition show. They’ll stop to take a bath for five minutes while a human dangles precariously from a ladder. It doesn’t look good for anyone. There are truly no winners here. Both human and hamster come out looking like douchebags.
Ok, so one species is losing a little more. They should make the hamsters do some human stuff. Redesign this 1950s kitchen with a modern farmhouse aesthetic, hamster. Oh, you’re colorblind? Wow, that’s probably going to make things really difficult for you. Kind of like how it’s hard for these poor dentists with inflexible spines to quickly move through a series of tunnels in pursuit of a toy badger, dick. Sorry, I’m not sure why I suddenly got so mad at the hamsters. It’s not like they produced the show.
It would have made so much more sense if the show were about Joanna Gaines training hamsters to do interior design. The few months The Magnolia Channel spent promoting Human vs. Hamster on social media were so chaotic. Look at this snap of their Instagram grid. You’ve got a sweet potato casserole in a beautiful rustic casserole dish, then two women chowing down on corn like their life depends on it, locked in battle with a fancy rat. A gorgeous, curated breakfast nook, and Sarah Sherman about to force a man to chase a hamster through a series of plastic tubes. Joanna Gaines probably saw this grid and canceled the show herself.
The Magnolia Channel attempted two other competition shows at the same time as Human vs. Hamster. One of them was an artistic roller skating show called Roller Jam, so they were really taking some big swings. The third was a fairly typical singing competition, but like the other two competition shows, it also failed to get renewed. In fact, rumor has it that The Magnolia Network might not be doing so well.
My theory on what happened here is that we should blame Discovery CEO David Zaslav. He had a hand in creating The Magnolia Network and Human vs. Hamster has his fingerprints all over it. Chip and Joanna got some bad business advice from a friend whose idea of great art is 90 Day Fiance. They’ll be fine, though. There will always be people who want to buy beige mixing bowls. The audience for people who want to watch their fellow humans crawl around in hamster tubes for three thousand dollars is, thankfully, a lot smaller.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Craig Lemoine, who will absolutely destroy any amount of hamsters you throw at him. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again.
In three thousand years, there will be exactly two songs from the 20th century that will be remembered: “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot and “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)” by the Immortals. Both inspired the world in their own ways. One taught us that it was difficult to lie about preferring a larger butt. The other taught us the names of all seven fighters in the arcade smash hit Mortal Kombat. Itâs a song that transcended genre, going from a song created to promote the game into a song that was in the movie based on the game.
If youâre unfamiliar, “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)” involves a man yelling the words âMortal Kombatâ very loud and then, as youâd expect, a techno song. The rest of the tune is intense music punctuated by the announcer from the arcade game saying the names of the characters, but if youâve heard it once, you can already hear it in your head. If you havenât heard it once, just imagine the worst of 1990s Europop got into a choreographed bar fight and youâre pretty much there. It was a hit amongst us kids and, I assume, rode the billboard chart for years. Actually, I think it really did make the billboard charts which is weird as hell.
While “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)” was initially released as a single, it was conceptualized as part of a full album based on the game that was released later. This album, also by Belgian supergroup The Immortals, was advertised along with the game and features nine more songs. Seven are about the fighters you can choose, one is about Goro, the penultimate boss, and the final one is a quasi-remix of “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”.
Unlike other video game albums such as Killer Instinct’s Killer Cuts, this wasnât a soundtrack. It was all new music inspired by the game! Or, at least, new music inspired by bits of information written on loose sheets of paper that were handed to the musicians in a language they didnât understand. I think their main directive was âmention every fighterâ and âmake sure the songs donât sound too different from one another.â
That said, it would be a shame to lose the other songs on the Mortal Kombat album to the fame of “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”. Thatâs why, to help you save time, Iâve ranked every song on the Mortal Kombat album except “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”. Please remember, art is a subjective experience and my opinions on this song ranking may not reflect your own or that of your family and friends.
9. “Hypnotic House (Mortal Kombat)”
Unfortunately, “Hypnotic House (Mortal Kombat)” is like the annoying little brother to “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”. They both basically sound the same and, again, there are no lyrics outside of the charactersâ names. While Iâm sure there is a lot to do with naming all seven Mortal Kombat characters, this song sticks to its roots a little too hard. At its best, “Hypnotic House (Mortal Kombat)” tries to be a slightly smoother, less head-banging version of “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”. At its worst, this song represents an odd omission: Every other song is based on a character in the game. And every character except Shang Tsung has one. So, whereâs our Shang Tsung song to sing, sirs? Theyâre not talking.
8. “Kano (Use Your Might)”
Iâll give “Kano (Use Your Might)” one thing: It tries pretty hard! It sounds like a DDR song that only the worst people play. It sounds like a level in a 3D fighting game with no personality. It sounds like music from where the less cool vampires would go for a party in Blade. Itâs just loud â90s techno with no heart. Which I guess is why Kano always needs to rip one out of people! Thatâs our show, folks!
At the very least, we get the announcer voice giving us a little juice with âKano winsâ so we at least know who this song is about. That said, there are again almost no words in this song. And the lyrics we do get are what Iâd call âdraft zero.â For example:
Use your might! Kano, fight!
The world is at your feet
Fight! Use your might!
I’m on your side
Why are we on Kanoâs side? Heâs a bad guy!
Also, I went about five minutes listening to this song before I realized it was on loop. That tells you something about how memorable it is, top to bottom.
7. “Liu Kang (Born In China)”
Donât worry if the title of this song makes you uncomfortable, because the song itself will also make you uncomfortable! And good news: Itâs just one of two songs on this album to specifically mention a character is from China! But at least it also includes the same explanation of Liu Kang that I wouldâve said to my first grade teacher when the game came out:
Born in China
Liu Kang
Shaolin monk
The youngest, but also the fastest warrior in the tournament
Itâs just so generic, even compared to the other generic songs. Iâm all for weird, drawn-out explanations of characters in lyric form! Give it to me! Pour it down my fucking throat like molten gold! But god the music here feels like a sample track from a âHow To Make Musicâ program you bought in a Humble Bundle and never plan on actually using.
The only thing saving it is using actual Liu Kang sound effects from the game as part of the beat. Thatâs actually nice. I can admit that.
6. “Goro (The Outworld Prince)”
Now hereâs a song that starts with a little more pizazz! Right off the bat, we get a deep voice telling us some background on Goro. Whether or not you know a lot about Goro – and I bet you know lots! – itâs always good to get a refresher on one of the most famous characters in the series. Maybe you havenât played one of the older games in a while! Maybe you just never looked up the lore of a fighting game because you donât care.
2000 years ago
A man-beast was born
On a distant planet
They named him Goro
8 feet tall with four arms of terror
This Outworld Prince, half human, half dragon
Was trained to fight, to conquer, to rule
Whoa, right? Thatâs as cool as you can get in my book. Half human, half dragon, and trained in multiple subjects! So why is it not ranked higher? Because thatâs about all there is to the song! It also has the vibe of the beginning of a Super Nintendo JRPG where they do a giant exposition dump about the end of the world or something. This would normally be cool, but the rest of the lyrics are just someone saying âGoroâ at irregular intervals. It almost becomes a musical jump scare.
5. “Scorpion (Lost Soul Bent On Revenge)”
When this album was made, I donât think anyone knew that Scorpion would be a breakout character. Then again, with only seven people to choose from, I feel like they all became breakout characters? Itâs not really a big ensemble cast in this musical.
Scorpionâs song gets points for sounding different than most of the others. At least at first. It begins with something of a jungle-y theme – almost evoking the Living Forest level in Mortal Kombat II. This is almost immediately dropped, so donât get too excited. But itâs still awesome for while it lasts, much like life, man. There isnât a lot of âexploring the spaceâ going on in this album, so any difference is welcome.
Unfortunately, where Scorpionâs song loses points is its lyrics. The entire thing is literally the words âScorpion, lost soul bent on revengeâ and then the âCome here!â and âGet over here!â sounds from the game. Iâll be honest: If hearing those sounds werenât like rubbing my dying stomach with a warm glove, this song couldâve ranked even worse on the list. But itâs different enough and entertaining enough to eke up a few spots.
It is weird that they donât mention Scorpionâs spear at all. Like I said, we do hear him shout âGet over here.â But, really, thatâs⌠I mean the spear is a big part, folks! Why are we leaving out the obvious stuff here?
4. “Sub-Zero (Chinese Ninja Warrior)”
Alright, I know, I know, another song that mentions the character being from China. Back in the day, racism also meant that people from other countries were like aliens in Star Trek with their own specialties. In fact, for a couple decades, the entire fighting game genre was built on this belief system. Itâs possible part of the reason weâre in this mess we are today is because we really hit home that being from a specific country led to specific ethnicity-specific abilities.
Not important! The Sub-Zero song is pretty neat. It kicks off with a militant beat that at least vaguely lines up with the characterâs backstory being a ninja assassin antihero. This songâs lyrics are also ridiculous, but at least theyâre kind of funny? While the previous entries on this list tended to just describe the character, this song also does that, but it sounds like a Lonely Island song making fun of them. Take this slick verse:
Ooh, Chinese ninja warrior
With your heart so cold, Sub-Zero
Ooh, your life is a mystery
Warrior with a mask, Sub-Zero
Wait. It gets better. Throughout the song, a woman screams âYeah, yeah, freezing vibrationsâ in the exact tone and syllabic structure of the chorus in the song âGood Vibrations.â At first I hated it, but then I realized that it launches this song into absurdity. Itâs one of the first songs to break me, and I respect it for that.
3. “Johnny Cage (Prepare Yourself)”
This is the first track on the album, and I can see why. Itâs uplifting, sounding a little like that song asking everybody to dance now, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”. Itâs more fun than most of the other tracks. Maybe they wrote this one first, before all the gas was out of the tank. Whatever the case, this song makes me happy and, like Sub-Zero, has some of the dumbest lyrics on the album. Which, I want to reiterate, is saying something.
The song has three primary thematic elements: Johnny Cage is a movie star, Johnny Cage is not afraid to die, Johnny Cage needs to prepare himself. Seriously, we hear these facts mentioned quite a lot throughout the song. But we learn so much about Johnny here! For example, did you know this fun fact as explained in the song?
From the United States of America
The movie star with the iron fist
He’s 29, he’s mean, he’s in great shape
The one and only Johnny Cage
The fact that heâs 29 kind of bums me out considering Iâm a decade older than him and I still havenât killed anybody or starred as the lead role in a movie. But this song really brings out the full Eurotrash pop background of the album. You can hear those thick Belgian accents as they talk about Johnny Cage being from America and being too cool. It was that way that people actually used to see our country, which was awesome while it lasted.
Did I mention that they say that Johnny Cage has âthe shadow kick we all admireâ? No? Well, thatâs why itâs third.
2. “Sonya (Go Go Go)”
Sonyaâs theme is probably the most normal song on the album outside of “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat)”. That isnât saying much, I know. Itâs like choosing the most normal character in Street Sharks. But at least it feels like an actual song that an actual club could play, even if by mistake.
Whatâs the secret behind the success of “Sonya (Go Go Go)”? It has a normal beat at a normal tempo and, thank god, some actual lyrics that go beyond just describing the character. Although, fortunately, we still have that too:
I’m the coolest chick in the USA
I’m 26 and on my way to become the best
And that’s a fact
I wanna win the contest and forget the rest
Thatâs another reason I love this song. Itâs the only one from the first person! Rather than singing about the character, the artists are embodying her! And thank God, because sheâs got a lot to say about her process.
I’m Sonya Blade, so be prepared
I’ll knock you right out of the air
I’m left, right, up and down
The quickest foot sweep in this town
I control the air, don’t you dare
To attack me: I’m everywhere!
Don’t try to fool me, don’t forget
I can kill you with my kiss of death
Letâs be real with each other: Thatâs a solid summarization of Sonya Bladeâs abilities in the game outside of shooting those pink rings from her hands. This song, of all of them – including the number one – does the best work telling us who this person is. Plus, sheâs the only woman in the game, so you get the sense that the musicians actually could try something slightly different. That âslightlyâ is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
This is the song that could end up on a playlist and me unironically enjoying it. If released today, it would probably be described as âwokeâ by people online.
1. “Rayden (Eternal Life)”
Here we are! Number one! It doesnât have the best beat, but it does have the absolute best lyrics. I donât just mean in the album. I mean of any song ever written. “Rayden (Eternal Life)” is a hall-of-famer. And of all the qualities that Rayden possesses, the one thing The Immortals really want you to focus on is that he is, in fact, immortal.
We all know he’s not afraid ’cause Rayden cannot die
He lives up in the thunderclouds; he comes down from the sky
Like the Sonya song, itâs nice that the musicians seem to know who this character is and some of his moves in the game. But these descriptions are far stupider, far sillier, far more goofy than anything that came before. Itâs all the detail Iâve wanted for the whole album, but with the same âfirst draft, no notesâ energy. I mean, have the Beatles ever come up with lines this good?
The kombat king, the best of the best
Just look at Rayden, he cannot rest
Our champ, solid as a rock
He gives his opponent a state of shock
With power, electricity, he disappears
No, you cannot see him move, ’cause Rayden flies
The Superman with eternal life
Thatâs poetry. Thatâs everything we really need to know about Rayden (later Raiden, but who fucking cares?). He does lightning. He cannot die. This song is just so stupid. Listening to it again has changed me as a man. It should be used in science experiments.
And itâs the best song on this album thatâs not “Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat).”
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Alex Knollenberg, eight feet tall with four arms of terror, half hot dog half dragon. ALEX.
ALEX.
ALEX.