8/5/2008 - Scary Maze Game

Before there was "Rickrolling", there was the Scary Maze Game. As an internet practical joke, it was great in its execution. All you have to do is navigate your mouse cursor to the end of the maze without touching the sides of the wall. Think of it as an electronic version of Operation. It would get progressively harder, of course, with the walls getting thinner and thinner. But then, at the very last level, when you're about to inch through the narrowest of paths and you are concentrating so intently on your mouse control... BAM! A closeup picture of the demon Pazuzu from the movie, "The Exorcist" appears with a deafening roar. For the uninitiated, it's guaranteed to start your heart and keep it racing for minutes. How effective is it? Only hidden cameras can tell the tale:

4/21/2008 - Legend of Zelda Movie trailer

When I saw this trailer, I said "Wow!", they were making a Legend of Zelda movie and they kept it secret for this long?



I expected a Zelda movie would happen sooner or later. After all, if they can make movies out of Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Hitman, Bloodrayne, House of the Dead, Street Fighter, DOA, and Super Mario Bros., then why not a movie of one of the most popular game franchises of all time? Especially since the Legend of Zelda's storyline could easily be made into a screenplay... particularly that of the Ocarina of Time.

But then I was wondering who are these no-name actors? I guess it would be a good move... you don't want big-name actors distracting from the audience's perception of the characters they know intimately from the game series. It's a lesson you'd think George Lucas would have learned from the success of the original Star Wars trilogy. Sadly, he cast well-known actors for the prequels and it was not for the better, in my opinion.

I was this close to being excited for an actual upcoming Zelda movie until I realized the date this trailer was released: April 1st. Yes, this was all an elaborate April Fool's joke... one that I actually fell for! And who could blame me? It must have cost a fortune to do this trailer! Ever since the famous Sheng Long April Fool's joke in EGM, game magazines and websites have tried to one-up (pardon the pun) each other in creating the most elaborate hoax. I have to say that this year's prize belongs to IGN.

4/3/2008 - Super Clean Glass Prank

I pride myself on my neatness... you know, everything in its place and so forth. Organization and cleanliness requires effort and I actually disdain cursive writing, for example, because it can be sloppy due to laziness of the writer. I didn't think that anything could be TOO clean. Well, I was wrong:

10/24/2007 - No Reflection Practical Joke

Normally, I don't like to watch shows purely showing practical jokes like the stuff they do on Candid Camera. Something about watching others getting made fun of behind their back just turns me off. I don't know... maybe it's from personal experience or something. However, there is something so very clever about this particular practical joke that made me smile:



As you can see, perfect strangers are led to believe that they are not casting a reflection, despite seeing the supermodel next to them casting her own "reflection". This is similar to how a certain special effect was pulled off in the Special Edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day where you see Linda Hamilton drill into Arnold Schwarzenegger's skull to remove his processor. Not many people know, but Linda Hamilton has an identical twin sister. And now that you know, you can see how that practical joke was done and how this special effect was done: