The Objectively Definitive Weird Al Tier List

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Do you like “Weird Al” Yankovic? I love Weird Al Yankovic! Everybody loves Weird Al Yankovic. What do you mean, you haven’t heard of Weird Al Yankovic? Only complete losers don’t know about Weird Al. If you don’t want to embarrass your entire family on the world wide web, then you need to watch the Objectively Definitive Weird Al Tier List! Behold as three white and nerdy guys listen, analyze, and rank every single Weird Al studio recording ever put to tape or digital bits!

This project was cooked up back in November. My good pal Brickroad and I were chatting around Discord (as we do) and he proposed the idea of ranking every Weird Al song ever recorded. I don’t need an excuse to talk at length about music, let alone Weird Al, who is one of my favorite artists. But we knew this project would be too big for the two of us to tackle, so I suggested we bring in mutual friend notabuttface ShifterChaos to act as our Canadian Idiot. Before you know it, the three of us had the criteria for our tier list defined in the most scientific way possible.

We go through every one of Weird Al’s fourteen studio albums and methodically review and rank each and every song. From Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung to Craigslist to It’s All About the Pentiums, we’ve got them all. Which songs will reach the rarified S-tier? What will be unlucky enough to fail in F? Plus, at the end of each show we review a bonus potporri track from Weird Al’s archives. Don’t worry, The Brain Song, our funky, funky neurons haven’t forgotten about you.

So if you’re interested in hearing the most accurate list of rankings for Weird Al songs, you can head over to Brickroad’s youtube channel. Here’s a playlist you can follow which will have all the videos in chronological order. A new video covering each studio album will be posted every Saturday. So see it! See it! Don’t you make me repeat it!

The Assassination of DPReview by the Coward Amazon

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The world can’t have nice things. I was shocked to find this email in my inbox yesterday.

At first I thought it was a phishing attempt. I punched up DPReview.com in my browser, and sure enough…

Yep, it’s really real. Due to Amazon’s attempts to please its unpleasable shareholders, DPReview.com will cease operations on April 10th. To say this is a great loss for the photographic community is an understatement. Phil Askey started the site in 1998, back when we still used AOL Instant Messenger on the regular. DPR would soon grow to one of the largest resources for digital imaging on the internet. Combine the staff writer’s work in reviews and test suites along with community posts in the forums and you’ve got the largest library of digital photography info on the planet.

Of course I was there; it won’t be hard to root out my many posts in the Konica Minolta and Sony Alpha forums. And while I was there I participated in the usual ragging on the site’s foibles. The “Highly Recommended,” the “Canon/Nikon/Sony” bias depending on what your system was, and so on. But such is the nature of posting on a forum, where user versus user sometimes brings out weird arguments.

But none of the old pissing contests matter anymore, because Amazon’s pulled the plug. They bought the site from founder Phil Askey in 2007, presumably to use it as an advertising engine. To their credit, they largely left it alone; the only Amazon influence I’d seen was affiliate links here and there. Amidst the flamewars and other noise were genuinely helpful contributors who helped each other out with settings, style, and critique.

To say that shuttering this site would be a huge loss for the photographic community is an understatement. The employees will be fine; Chris and Jordan have already joined PetaPixel and I’m sure the other staff writers will land on their feet. But it’s an indictment of our current society that it’s more profitable for a corporation to destroy something than to find it a new home. Don’t get me started on David Zaslav and HBO Max.

Every digital camera I own was purchased after a thorough research process. In the early aughts it was DPReview, Steve’s Digicams, Imaging Resource, and maybe a few more I’ve forgotten. The years have whittled them down, but Imaging Resource is still around, which is the Nikon to DPReview’s Canon. Whether it was my lowly Kodak EasyShare DX3600 or my current Sony A99II, the folks at DPReview made sure I knew the pros and cons.

My hope is that somehow someone can buy it off Amazon (unlikely) or that the site’s content is archived in some fashion. Forums come and go, and I’ve lost a few over the years. It’s the nature of the web. But DPReview is large enough that having an archive for historical purposes is pretty important. The early years of consumer digital imaging were a whirlwind, and where else could you track every movement, every rumor, every piece of news but DPReview?

As for Amazon, well, they’re making billions of dollars. DPReview is literally a rounding error to them, and Bezos is the Don Draper to DPR’s Mike Ginsberg. But there are people who do care, and they won’t forget.

Iomega Zip Drives in Pixel Addict Magazine

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If you’re a fan of obsolete storage, make sure to check out the newest edition of Pixel Addict magazine. I’ve written a new column about everybody’s favorite drive, the Iomega Zip. You can find it in bookstores and newsstands worldwide, or you can order digital and print copies online. Make sure to pick up a copy of volume 10 and remember a time when you could fit all your digital stuff onto a three-and-a-half inch cartridge.

Which SimCity is the Greatest SimCity?

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This originally appeared in Pixel Addict Magazine. It’s been expanded and revised for a video version. You should subscribe to Pixel Addict for more content like this!

Here in Userlandia: I dunno. I never heard ‘ah no mayah.

It’s rare when a game combines art and science in such a way that it becomes a cultural phenomenon. SimCity’s one of them, and I became a SimAddict the first time I plopped a zone. It doesn’t matter if it’s new or old, because I always enjoy a good city building experience. But you never forget your first love, which is why I always come back to the one that started it all. Poll a random gathering of gamers and chances are you’ll find many with happy memories of Will Wright’s SimCity. Whether you’re dutifully detailing a downtown district or marshaling monsters to make mayhem in midtown, there’s no wrong way to play. But maybe it’s been a while since you’ve micromanaged a microcomputer micrometropolis, and you’re ready to dive back into city planning. Thankfully, classic SimCity is the choice for you, with the right amount of charm and complexity to entertain newbies and veterans alike.

Or it would be, if it existed. What is “the original SimCity,” anyway? There's over a dozen “original SimCities,” each for a different platform, each with its own perks and quirks. Just check out this list—Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, Macintosh, Atari ST, IBM PC, Super Nintendo, UNIX, Psion, Palm Pilot, Sharp X68000, FM Towns, Amiga, enhanced Amiga, Amiga CDTV, and a partridge in a pear tree. The same gamers polled earlier will probably share their fond memories of whatever system they played it on too. Before you know it, they’ll all be arguing about which SimCity is the true classic.

“The BBC Micro version did the most with the least!”

“No, the PC version  had the most add-ons!“

“Oh yeah, well, the Super Nintendo version had the best graphics and sound!”

“Fools, the UNIX version had network play!”

There’s nothing gamers love more than an old-fashioned platform fight, and I’m happy to oblige. My history with SimCity started on the C64, where I treated it more like a drawing app than a city builder. I soon graduated to the SNES version, where I spent countless hours crafting copious cities. I even played my fair share on PCs and Macs at school. SimCity ignited a love of city building games that still burns in me today. I’ve played every SimCity sequel and spinoff—even that weird one on the Nintendo DS. So fear not, because as a SimCity expert who's spent years preparing for this moment, I'm here to tell you which classic SimCity is the true classic SimCity.

First to be eliminated, and first chronologically, is the Commodore 64 version. Yes, it's the first game to bear the SimCity name, but it's not the best. Its gameplay was limited, and slower than rush hour traffic when you didn't build enough roads. And its presentation was noticeably worse than the other 8-bits. Think of C64 SimCity as a historical curiosity, like Action Comics #1: something to check out to see where the series began, but not the definitive take. Speaking of the other 8-bits, the Acorn, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC versions manage to cram the complete gameplay experience into their tiny memory footprints, which is an impressive feat on its own. They have better graphics and sound than the Commodore version, but obviously they're not up to the caliber of the 16-bit platforms. The PC-98, FM Towns, and X68000 versions are nice to play for gamers fluent in Japanese—or so I assume, because that group doesn't include me. The UNIX version may have multiplayer, but it’s so hard to run that you’ll never get to try it, much less find a buddy to share it with. PDA versions are right out. These may be good SimCities, but they are not great SimCities.

This leaves the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh, IBM PC, and Super Nintendo.  Now it gets tougher. You can play the Amiga, Atari ST, or Mac versions and be confident you'll get the complete gameplay experience. There’s even a terrain editor and custom graphics packs, for those who like to customize. Of these three, the Mac supports larger, higher-res screens, but the enhanced Amiga version has better graphics. Still, actually running these versions is more challenging than using the Deluxe PC CD-ROM or emulating the SNES. They’re still not the greatest SimCities.

That leaves us with two contenders: the IBM PC and Super Nintendo. The IBM PC itself had multiple versions—MS DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.1, and Deluxe 32-bit for Windows 95. The DOS version is more like the Amiga and ST versions, but in the interest of fairness, we’ll use the Deluxe 32-bit Windows version as a point of reference. It’ll even run on modern Windows, making it the easiest way to experience classic SimCity. Playing SNES SimCity is almost as easy, thanks to ubiquitous SNES emulation.

The Super Nintendo version makes a strong opening argument thanks to its audiovisual prowess. A crack team of Nintendo pixel artists created brand new graphics, taking full advantage of the system’s capabilities. Watching the seasons change to the tune of Soyo Oka’s brilliant soundtrack is one of the most Zen experiences in gaming. Not satisfied with just updating the graphics and sound, Will Wright and Shigeru Miyamoto teamed up to tweak the gameplay too, crafting the best SimCity possible on a console. New mechanics like bank loans, special rewards, and enhanced tiers of city services are major improvements over other versions of SimCity. Computer gamers wouldn’t get these features until SimCity 2000!

The PC version’s graphics and sound might not be as good as the SNES, but it takes the lead in performance and usability. As good as the SNES version is with a controller, a PC gamer with a mouse and keyboard is a master of multitasking. Maps, tools, and charts are displayed in their own windows alongside your city view, which makes it easier to track your city’s growth without interrupting construction. Plus, the gameplay is literally faster—a 486 PC runs rings around the Super Nintendo’s 65C816. I appreciated these advantages when playing SimCity on a PC, even though I missed the SNES's changing seasons. Plus, PC gamers can create their own custom maps, which is impossible on a console.

It’s a tough call, but SimCity for Super Nintendo is the greatest SimCity. The PC version might be a better simulation, but the SNES version is a better game. It’s the definitive version of a classic that still endures because it’s the complete package. You’ll be charmed by the graphics and sound, but you’ll keep coming back to try to reach the next population milestone. Or you can just enjoy the bonsai experience of putting roads and residences wherever you like, because you’re the mayor and it’s your city. Just remember that happy citizens make for a happy mayor.