Mixed-Up Mother Goose
      After an evening of quaaludes, ecstasy, and snorting fat lines of coke with Simple Simon, Mother Goose was pretty fucked up. In her altered state of mind, she abused her powers as the omnipotent deity of Nursery Rhyme Land. I can't go into details due to the impending charges, but let's just say that Little Boy Blue was not called to blow his own horn that night. Statutory rape aside, Mother Goose also did quite a number on the rest of the inhabitants of the land. So while the police are busy with Mr. and Mrs. Blue, it's up to you to set things straight once again!



      The title of this game is actually a bit of a misnomer. There's nothing wrong with Mother Goose; the problem is, all of the nursery rhyme characters have lost their key props. I can understand why Sierra decided on the name they did though. 'A Bunch of Stupid Fucking Nursery Rhyme Characters Went and Lost Their Shit' is an encumbersome title. The characters of Nursery Rhyme Land are all bilingual. When somebody wants you to get them something, they tell you what they want, and then they think about what it looks like. I don't know how the fuck they project their thoughts into a visual manifestation, but I wish I could do that. Like when I want a girl to show me her tits, I'd just think about it and boobs would appear in the air. Unlike some other Sierra games, like Leisure Suit Larry, this game is geared toward children, so the difficulty is considerably lowered. While the Police Quest games require you to get hundreds of points, this one only has eighteen. There are also no commands to type in, you just have to walk up to a lost item to pick it up, then walk up to the person who wants it. You can only carry one item at a time, which can be a little annoying, but the game is very small, 25 screens in all, so it isn't that big of a deal. One of the cool things about this game is that you get to pick what your character looks like. You can pick male or female from four different ethinicities: White, Black, Oriental, and Aryan.



      I'm not sure why, but a lot of the rhymes in this game have been changed. I'm fairly certain it's supposed to say "And everywhere that Mary went...." "Wherever Mary went" has three full syllables less than the correct rhyme, and sounds absolutely fucking terrible. I'm all for free verse poetry, but nursery rhymes need to have a certain cadence to appeal to children. The game provides music for the rhymes, but the seemingly random beeps coming out of my computer tower aren't enough to make up for sloppy meter.



      Getting pie is great. Getting pie on Christmas is the fucking bomb. I usually go to the bedroom, but Jack here likes to eat pie in the corner. Who am I to judge? I do feel bad for poor Little Jack Horner though. The worst way to find out your girl is pregnant is to attempt manual stimulation and pull out an aborted fetus.



      The old woman in the shoe story always bothered me. Just because the slut can't keep her fucking legs closed doesn't give her the right to malnourish and beat her children. Seriously, if you've got six kids, and all you feed them is broth, the child welfare cheques alone should be able to afford something a litlle nicer than a shoe. It's pretty obvious that aside from being an overly fertile whore, the old woman also has gambling and drinking problems. We need Super Nanny! Wait a minute, that bitch is really old, and those kids are really young. Oh, I get it, this is a foster house. Ok, everything seems to be in order.



      Call me a homophobe, but when a nursery rhyme starts off by telling me to ride a cock, I get a little uneasy. In order to complete this rhyme, you have to bring one of those horsehead-on-a-pole things that kids used to play with, so I assume that's what a cockhorse is. At least it doesn't say to ride a horsecock, because even if she was riding a white whore, no fine lady is worth that amount of pain.



      Speaking of sex with farm animals, here's Jack Sprat and his heifer hubby. I'm convinced that this nursery rhyme is what inspired Jerry Springer to leave politics and start a talk show. Skinny guys with fat wives are just so damn funny. I usually try not to think about the origins of nursery rhymes, because some of them are really fucked up, but I can only imagine that there really was a guy named Jack Sprat, and this was written by his friends to make fun of his wife's obesity.



      Ah, Jack and Jill. Poor, poor Jack and Jill. Always climbing that hill, always falling back down. WHO BUILDS A WELL ON A FUCKING HILL? 'D'uh, hey guys, we should dig a hole in the ground. Let's go to the top of the hill over there just to make extra work for ourselves.' I suppose I shouldn't really get upset about it; A well is never mentioned in the rhyme. All we know for sure is that there's a pail involved, Jack is a quadriplegic at the end, and Jill is a whore.



      What kind of a name is Peter Pumpkin-Eater? I've heard the female genitalia refered to by many names, one of which starts with P-U, but never as pumpkin. This rhyme is one of the more interesting nursery rhymes to analyze. Basically because the moral is that if your wife wants to leave you, the best course of action is to imprison her against her will. Maybe 'pumpkin shell' is code for shallow grave. That works too.



      To complete the Humpty Dumpty rhyme, you need to bring fatty a ladder. Now, I'm no expert on the law, but I'd assume that if you gave a razor blade or a full bottle of sleeping to someone who was suicidal, you'd get in a lot of shit. The same principle should apply here. You know that the bastard is gonna fall and shatter, yet you still facilitate the act. Seriously, leave the suicide-assisting to the professionals.



      I may not be an advocate against animal cruelty, but cutting a dog's ears short and it's tail long is just wrong. I know some breeds of dog get their tails cut off because they grow curly, but it's always confused me. Is the dog bothered by having a curly tail? Or is it for aesthetic reasons? Because if it's just for looks, I know a lot of people that would look better minus a few appendages. Namely Fred Phelps, and specifically, his head.



      I can't really think of anything humourous to say about this particular rhyme, so allow me to write a rhyme of my own.

      Hickory dickory dock
      Your Momma loves the cock
      She's gone down
      On every guy in town
      Hickory dickory dock



      What can you say about a crooked old man aside from the fact that he isn't straight? I suppose I could point out that sixpence is about eleven cents American, and wonder who sold a cat for eleven cents, but it probably wouldn't be very funny. There's also no point to laugh at the fact that he walked a mile for eleven cents, because I've seen people whose career is living off the money they pick up around fast food drive-thrus.



      I can only imagine what hallucinagenic brought this nursery rhyme to life. I picture some aspiring writer sitting at home on a farm, completely baked out of his mind. He looks out the window and sees a cow and the moon, looks across the room at his dog, cat and fiddle, and then really trips out when his dishes get up off the table and run away.



      At this time I considered making a reference to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but that would be assuming that everyone who reads this would have read the book. I've had to read it twice in my short life, and that's enough for me. Besides, I'd rather talk about James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. That book was great.



      Miss Muffet asks you to help find her tuffet. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had gotten a brazilian wax when she was drunk. Instead I told her I would donate some of mine directly. Then I brought her over to this weird blue cushion where she was molested by a giant-ass spider. It was okay, after seeing what she was eating, I didn't want to go there again.



      If you're a shepherd, and you don't know where to find your sheep, you should probably consider a career change. That would be like a lifeguard who couldn't swim, or a zombie hunter without a chainsaw for an arm. As for the claim that they'll come home if you leave them alone, I can't really support or refute it, having never owned a sheep. I do know that most animals leave home when their about to die, and that lambchops are delicious, so I don't like Bo Peep's chances here.



      When I was a child, I assumed that Tommy Tucker sang for his supper by choice, or because his family was musical. I didn't realize that he was a homeless orphan, whose only means of sustance was through busking. In the game, your job is to bring him a knife, while someone else brings the bread and still another person falls in love with him. When bashful Tommy sees the floating heart that is indicative of one's affection, he turns the most unhealthy looking shade of shit brown I've ever seen. That or life on the street exposed him to some terrible disease that causes him to deficate through his face. I don't care either way.



      Like Nat King Cole, Old King Cole is the greediest and laziest denizen of Nursery Rhyme Land. He commands you to bring three separate items, and when you do, you get to watch him smoke the pipe, eat the food, and dance around like an idiot. I prefer my rhyme.

      Good King Val had a fine looking gal
      And an open-minded gal was she
      She always was fine
      With the King's concubine
      And sometimes would join in for three



      And finally we have Mr. Jack B. Nimble. I can't say I've seen a whole lot of candlesticks in my life, but I doubt there are many that would be that difficult to jump over. Hell, bonfire jumping was a favourite activity of my friends and I, and none of us ever caught fire. Still, somehow Jack manages to light his ass on fire. Luckily there's a river nearby, so Jack's testicles are sparred, as is my sanity now that the game is finished.



      Once you've solved all eighteen nursery rhymes, Mother Goose flies in and tells you what a great job you've done. You then fly back to her place where everyone sings your praises before you fly away home. I'm not entirely sure why Jack, Jill, and Humpty Dumpty are cheering for you; it was your actions that caused them to be injured. Once that bit is over, we get the plot twist of the century. IT WAS ALL A DREAM! A CRAZY MIXED-UP DREAM! A voice from outside your room tells you it's time to get up as the bird outside your window chirps away. Well, as your tower tries in vain to emulate the chirping of a bird anyway. Beep beep boop boop.


Posted by: Valdronius
07/20/06




I live in a pumpkin.