Bio-Cop: Thank You Card

The PCS has been on a bit of a hiatus of late, but leave it to the creative savants behind Bio-Cop to be the ones to drag us out of our winter sabbatical. In case you are unfamiliar with the aforementioned cop made of bio, take a moment to watch the video. It's cool. We'll wait...

Now, that you've educated yourself, the only thing left to do is let the nanobots have a go at it so that they can see exactly where this thank you falls on the progressive film spectrum.

• Mentioning The PCS in any context, even as a thank you for contributing to an Indiegogo. = +25pts
• Opening credit sequence montage of your main character that features both an attempted suicide AND double finger-guns. = +10pts
• Casting Nobu for your bio terror horror movie. = +4pts
• Bio-Cop realizing he wants nothing to do with that ninja action. = +2pts (He's nothing if not practical.)
• The nanobots hearing their name in lights. = 0pts (They are nanobots not people, and are unmoved by bribery and thanks.)
• Letting a ninja cut off your head. = -3pts
• The realization that you can grow back your head with a fresh set of astonished eyes, weighted with the sadness of knowing that you are still Bio-Cop and not dead. = +6pts
• Playing hide the regurgitating head with a ninja. = +10pts
• Shrugging apologetically after surviving multiple ninja stars to the face. = +6pts (It's good to know there is at least one cop out there with a sense of shame.)
• Committing Seppuku for being unable to kill a Bio-Cop. = -5pts
• Giving Bio-Cop the idea of attempting Seppuku in his ongoing effort to kill himself... = +5pts
• ...only to realize that doing so results in another mini-Bio-Cop head that we're sure also seeks the sweet release of death. = +3pts
• Giving your kid a gun for his birthday... = -10pts
• ...possibly in an effort to try out some secret bloodright, thus granting you the eternal slumber you so desire. = +5pts
• Finding out that patricide for Christmas is like new underwear for Bio-Cop. = -2pts (Hey, we have feelings.)
• Taking the gun you gave your son for Christmas and trying to use it on yourself because he's too much a of brat. = +3pts
• Bio-Cop's lament. = +5pts (Don't say that the nanobots don't appreciate hilarious irony.)

Total Score: +64pts

Not a bad score for three-minutes of B-Movie tribute. Quite possibly the greatest scene from a fake movie (n)ever made. He may be part cop, part nightmare, but he's 100% a gentleman. You're welcome, Bio-Cop. You're welcome.

Yandy's Sexy Halloween Costumes: 2015 Edition

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

So, we know things have been a little quiet around the PCS lately, but come on, you didn't think we'd forget, did you? It's Halloween, and if that means anything, it means that it's time for us to wander on over to Yandy.com to peruse their 2015 Halloween costume selection.

This year, the good people at Yandy must have gotten Halloween mixed up with Christmas, because they bequeathed to us the world's greatest gift in the form of this amazing music video (Go ahead and watch that and see how long you can go before you can feel yourself start to cringe on a cellular level.):

But enough horsing around. Let's take a look at what they're peddling.

Topical Costumes

•  Can you imagine trying to have a conversation with a person who would wear this? She would definitely show up to the party with a guy dressed as a breathalyzer. = -7pts
• The extra weird thing is that this isn't even the only pot nurse costume available this year. = -2pts

• This slinky little two-toned number will have everyone at the party going, "Oh, yeah, I remember that, I think." = -3pts

• Hey, guys, your pizza rat costume was a bit too subtle, so we took the liberty of doctoring it a little:

•  PM us so we can send you our banking information and collect our royalties. = -25pts

•  This right here is the sexiness singularity. When women want to dress up as Donald Trump and look hot while they're doing it, well, then the very idea of "sexy" itself has come to mean everything and nothing all at once. = -100pts
• But, hey, at least they aren't carrying a Caitlyn Jenner costume. That shit's not cool, guys = +15pts

Barely Trying

•  So, obviously this is a mermaid costume. What, you couldn't tell just by looking at it? = -8pts

• On a similar note, hey, costume designers, if the only way people can tell what your customer is wearing is by sewing a picture of the thing they're supposed to be onto the middle of it, then you've done bad job. = -4pts

•  Does it count as a "costume" when it's the outfit you wear to work as a gun show booth girl? = -9pts

•  There's honestly nothing wrong with this Sexy Executioner costume. We just wanted to point out that the manufacturers blew a perfect opportunity to call it "The Sexicutioner," though. = -1pt

WTF?!?

•  For everyone who looked at the adorable mogwai from Gremlins and thought, "I would hit that." = -11pts

• A shield that tiny is going to be useless in battle. = -3pts

•  Hey, you know what's totally appropriate? A sexy costume based on cartoon pre-schooler. Yeah, nothing at all creepy about that. = -200pts

 Total Score = -358pts
Available on: Yandy.com

Another year, another perplexing batch of sexy Halloween costumes from Yandy.com. We hope this has been a helpful guide for making good sartorial choices this Halloween. If you forget everything else, please just remember this: stay away from any pre-school aged characters. Otherwise, we'll have to call the cops on you.

L.A. Noire

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

L.A. Noire sat in the bargain bin at GameStop, wearing a torn cover and a smudged price sticker. “Pre-Owned,” it said. We knew how it felt. In fact, we’d met before, in a different incarnation, four years ago: the game, wrapped up in a shiny new package; us, naïve young PC owners. The game wouldn’t load, and when it did, the frame rate was excruciatingly slow. We couldn’t perform. It happens. We snapped out of our reverie and glanced around the store. “Yes,” we heard our wife saying to the clerk, “I will take this Xbox One and a copy of Witcher 3.” We knew then that she wouldn’t be needing us for a while. We looked back at the game. “We’ll take you,” we whispered. “We’ll meet back at our old Xbox 360. It’s not pretty, but it generates a lot of heat. This time, we’ll make it all the way through. This time will be different.”

• Part One: Patrol/Traffic Desk, or The Game Walks In. The game simmered like a house squatter’s  can of Chef Boyardee on the hot plate of the city. We burned our fingers a few times rotating the can and feeling around its edges: learning to drive, trying to aim, and getting socked in the kisser. Yeah, we thought, lighting a cigarette on the city’s reddening coils, this metaphor is going nowhere. = -2pts
• The map: probably the geekiest thrill of the game. Being able to explore L.A. as it was in ’47? Forget the gameplay – turn this map into a mobile app and let us use it in real life to roam the city for days on end. = +20pts
• Being able to “requisition” any vintage auto you see and immediately wreck it. = +9pts
• Scaring the shit out of your partner by crashing into things in the middle of his dialogue. = +9pts
• Stout Scarab. What. The Hell. Is this thing. = -3pts

• Could be called “Ellroy Noire.” Watching or reading about all the brutal racial/sexual discrimination of the ‘40s in L.A. Confidential is one thing, but when you’re forced to engage in it during gameplay, no amount of showering will cleanse your conscience. This gross feeling will manifest itself as soon as you begin the case where you badger a teenage sexual assault victim in her hospital bed. = -17pts
• Part Two: Homicide Desk, or The Big Gulp of Murder. The game burned on from simmering to bubbling hot. It foamed over the sides of the city, like so much civic pasta. We got the hang of driving through the noodly streets, ladling out meatballs of justice.  ‘Damn,’ we thought, ‘that sentence was terrible.’ = -2pts
• Cole’s reactions while you discover items like a baseball bat and a switch blade in almost every bush surrounding a murder scene: “This isn’t going to help much.”; “Seems irrelevant.” = +3pts
• Hmmm, I could use these intuition points for clues, or I could Google “L.A. Noire walkthrough.” = -5pts
• Not being able to save the crazy guy with a pan on his head. = - 2pts
• Getting in and out of a car multiple times in a row, just to annoy your partner. = +7pts
• Watching NPCs on the street randomly knock each other down and run away in a panic. = +3pts
• “Whoo sister, I was so tight, I couldn’t even walk,” is either a ‘40s radio catch phrase we’re unfamiliar with, or you’re constantly walking by one woman in L.A. with a serious alcohol problem. = -5pts
• Guy who answers the door, shouting gibberish, wearing a goblin mask, says, “Sorry, I was playing with my kids,” then leaves mask on during ENTIRE INTERVIEW. = +13pts

• Creepy Taraldsen kids. Back. Away. Slowly. = +6pts
• Seems to be a theme shaping up here about how it wasn’t good to be a drunk woman, alone at night, in ‘40s L.A. Or, well, a woman, basically. = -15pts
• Is every street crime supposed to end with us shooting someone? Is this game supposed to have such disturbing contemporary relevance? = -3pts
• Start car, wait till partner opens door to try to get in, drive away. Repeat, ad nauseum. = +7pts
• Being able to drive down the L.A. River. = +5pts
• Not being able to figure out how to get out of the L.A. River. = -5pts
• Cole’s interrogation style: SHOUT EVERYTHING. = -2pts
• Not being able to “requisition” a street car. = -4pts
• As an officer of the peace, you scale the chandelier in the Hall of Records, send it crashing to the floor, then scram nonchalantly: “Let’s get out of here.” = +15pts
• Getting the chance to drown in the La Brea tar pits. = +7pts
• Getting to pull a Chinatown, as one of the perps you shoot in a street crime slumps forward on the horn of a car. = +8pts
• Part Three: Vice Desk, or The Long Drool. Our promotion has been rapid, but we feel hollow inside, like a disappointing piñata. Surely the men we arrested were guilty? Are we being shunted off to the vice squad to avoid uncovering the truth? It’s very possible. We find ourselves seeking more street crimes that end in shoot-outs. Anything to avoid facing the hard facts, or the immediate need to relieve our bladders. Is there an empty soda bottle within reaching distance? = -6pts
• “Morphine – it might not be filling, but I’m sure it’s satisfying.” = +5pts
• Who enjoys the sequences where you have to tail a suspect on foot? Who? Perhaps you would also enjoy this DLC where you get to file paperwork? = -7pts
• Getting to have a shoot-out in the Egyptian Theatre. = +6pts
• Getting to interrogate Mickey Cohen. = +6pts
• So far, driving off a cliff at the end of the “Paper Sack Robbery” and still catching the suspects wins the prize for most satisfying ending to a car chase. = +10pts
• Part Four: Arson Desk, or, Another Big Hot Long Thing. Busted for adultery. Demoted. At some point, when we weren’t watching the pot, the game stopped boiling and became tepid. We scuffle through burned out husks of houses, wondering why someone would be put on Arson with no experience in the area of fire, other than being a flash in the pan. Again with the cookware imagery. We stop looking at every clue on the ground.  We even start playing a different character, an insurance investigator, lowest on the list of desired video game avatars. Are we played out, like an…outdoor piano?  **score technician shoots self** = -4pts
• Ok, thanks for the verisimilitude, but phone calls in this video game don’t actually have to take as long to connect as they did in 1946. = -3pts
• Chasing Chapman and his stolen streetcar: awesome. = +14pts
• Jack Kelso: Insurance Investigator: the Video Game! = -2pts
• Ok, the Ford H-Boy makes up for the Stout Scarab. = +8pts

• Exploring old Keystone Film Studio/using movie camera. = +7pts
• Constantly destroying the Hall of Records. = +12pts
• Kelso, shooting Leland in the leg: “That’s my opening negotiating position!” = +9pts
• Well game, we made it. It was touch and go there for a bit, but we pulled through, this time. You know, there's something about this that was like, well it was like you're expecting a letter that you're just crazy to get, and you're hanging around the front door for fear you might not hear him ring. You never realize that he always rings twice... = +47pts

Total Score: +149pts
Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Often for free (Seriously, Rockstar REALLY wants you to play it.)

The major appeal of L.A. Noire is the environment. Getting to explore over eight miles of faithfully recreated post-war era L.A. is fantastic, and if you’re not familiar with L.A., then as long as you’re into 1940s style, the world is just as fulfilling. If that style is not your thing, then you might be happier playing Grand Theft Auto, and if solving mysteries is your bag, then you’ll probably enjoy any of the fine Nancy Drew titles more. Seriously. In the Nancy Drew games, you’re trying to work your way through a series of logic puzzles and clues, whereas in L.A. Noire, you’re clearly arresting the wrong people half the time, and the goals are more about driving/fighting missions and completing investigations using coercive interrogation techniques. So, yeah, if you like logic, then Nancy Drew; especially the one, where you go to an old hotel and try to get information from the innkeeper, but she’s all like, I’ll tell you, but first you have to help me serve fifty breakfasts, and you’re like, really? And then hours later you finally finish breakfast and you call Bess for a hint, and she…well, we digress. Despite our not at all embarrassing penchant for Nancy Drew, we found L.A. Noire to be quite entertaining.