Premium Poetastery! (a contest of sorts)

Hey all! My reputation as a poet needs no introduction, so I’m not going to write one. Your assignment today is to write a real bad haiku or limerick based on a game from 2018. Like this one, about Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey:

Kassandra, de Greece
(That means “from Greece” in French)
Hangs from Zeus’s dong

See? That’s atrocious. You can probably do worse than that, though! Go ahead and try. If your genius can't be contained in a single poem, try writing two or three, but don't go any longer than that because ain't nobody got time for that, etc.

I have three prizes to give away for Premium subscribers: two hardback copies of Halo: Silent Storm, which is I guess about some weird HALO DEEP STATE bullshit, and a set of three paperback copies of various Halo novels that’ll all go to one lucky (?) winner. So there’ll be three Premium winners! I’ll pick one that I like, I’ll pick another from a random number generator, and the third will be chosen by Harold Bloom, author of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (or another staff member if Harold cannot be reached). There’s one non-Premium prize, too, to be chosen randomly: a copy of Halo: Smoke and Shadow.

Gallery

I’ll ship these wherever you are, but if you’re overseas I have to add the cost of the books to the shipping information so you might get some tariffs or something! Thanks, Kim Jong-Un!

Note that this isn’t a sponsored contest or anything; these have just been hanging around the office for a while and I figured someone else might get some use from them. I haven’t even read them! I haven’t read a video game book in a long time, since those Perfect Dark Zero books that Greg Rucka wrote a long time ago. Those were great!

Get your poems done by next Tuesday, 10/30 and I’ll pick some winners when I get a chance.

I'm no wordsmith myself but I gave it a go, here are my three

Spider-Man leaves the criminals all in a muddle
Swinging around town cleaning up trouble
But even though he bursts the Kingpin's bubble
He's not that great because there's just not enough puddles

Kitchen chaos reigns
Meals and plates fly through the air
It's overcooked too

There once was a game called MGS Survive
Without Kojima it didn't strive
The game was a bore
With zombies galore
And it's snakeless, so a two out of five

On the Obra Dinn

Is he Irish or Chinese

Insurance reasons

I'll take a stab at this, It will be bad, but thats the idea!

Boot up the Xbox

Kids Swearing is all I hear

My Call of Duty

Here's the lowest-effort, worst haiku I could think of in the 30 seconds I spent thinking about this:

Boy boy boy boy boy

Boy boy boy boy boy boy boy

Boy boy boy boy boy

Stuck to the ceiling

Shooting white gunk at the floor

Spider-man's night in

PS: I don't actually want any of the prizes i have a pile of unread books shaming me.

There once was a dude from New York,
Who everyone thought was a dork.
But by spider was bit,
And costume did fit,
Now Spiderman is on PS4-k.

(This was a cool, fun idea!)

Walking red dead minds
Corporate yakuza laugh
Too state of decay

There once was a prince named Vegeta

Who hated Goku more than Vinny loves pizza

Despite all his bragging

His power was lacking

But at least he was cooler than Frieza!

I couldn't think of a good one for Hollow Knight, but here are two from my other favorite games of the year.

Into The Breach:

There has been an invasion of Vek,
That we couldn’t stave off with our mechs,
But brave pilot, we beseech,
please go into the breach,
And blow them to a smoldering wreck.

Celeste:

There was once a young woman who climbed,
A strange mountain that played with her mind,
But With the help of some friends,
Madeline made amends,
With the fears that she once had maligned.

EDIT: I also thought of a haiku about my new favorite console:

Switch's second year;
indies, ports, and not much else.
Where's Metroid Prime 4?

There once was a Master Chief.

His mission in life was to grief.

From player to player

In Oddball and Slayer

He’d teabag beyond all belief.

Or...

I am Master Chief

I go shoot all of the things

Give me free book please

In two days we play

So big others stay away

guns, booze, misbehave

A father and son
Both have got an axe to grind
It's God of War Boy

Not from a game but:

Fire fire fire fire fire
Fire fire fire fire
Fire fire fire

No Man's Sky was a game
Hyped to be - 'less of the same'
But it didn't match its own hype
And the community did gripe
Most said, I won't play this game

Kassandra, was a young lady of Sparta
Who saw Zeus' legs were a-part-ah
She was not squeamish
She climbed to his penis
Which scandalized the pious of Sparta

Ode to a Monster
----
Wherefore art thou, wretched beast?
Are you hiding... in the east?
I don't fear you in the least.
And when I catch you, I will feast.

Over hill and over dale
I will bash your stinky tail
When I hit you, how you wail!
For 'tis true, I will not fail.

Gnash your teeth and slash your claw
Try to catch me in your maw
In you terror I once saw
But now 'tis I who beats you raw.

Monster, Monster you're no winner
Though chasing you has made me thinner
Be you saint or be you sinner?
It matters not, 'cuz now you're dinner.

Zoom in Ferrari

Take in view, but take out trees

All of the sheep: dead.

- Big Denim

Arthur's redemption

Works each week for hours on end

Someone get the Benz

Or

Seasons change each week

Drive, race, win, but don't forget

To stream on mixer

Or

There once was a man with a barcode

Whom death and calamity followed

Hit-Dan made a mess

But Brad tried his best

To make targets' toilets explode

Shep-Sheps' a spectre second to none

With the best spaceship and the best gun

But let's just surmise

Where her true power lies

The galaxy is afraid of the bun

I haven't played a new game in years

Which often leaves me in tears

But I will always have my memories

At least until I lose my faculties

Arthur Morgan Cowboy.

Shoots people wearing a mask

Smells like some goat shit.

Misleading title

For a metroidvania/

Ninja Gaiden clone

The Missing is great.

Though I haven't finished yet

Major hemmorage.