by Name = Spencer Hansen on Sunday, August 31, 2014

The title pretty much says it all.  Let's get to it. 

#5 - From Halo ... " The Batman Drop"
Halo is lauded as one of the great shooters of all-time, a recognition owed primarily to it's excellent gun mechanics; aiming and firing in Halo just feels better than it does in other games.  Which makes the fact that my favorite kill in Halo has little to do with shooting and everything to do with falling from the sky like Batman all the stranger.  In a game that provides few surprising moments, dropping from above for the kill is never expected and always so dang satisfying.




#4 - From Uncharted ... "The Nathan Drake Yank and Boot"
Multiplayer in the Uncharted canon is the Granger High School of multiplayer, which is a ridiculously confusing way for me to say it has incredible diversity. You can kill with grenades, neck snaps, guns of course, propane tanks (spoiler alert), fisticuffs, bugs11.  Weirdly. and via the use of ledges, as demonstrated in the video below. I've done them all, which means I'm qualified to say yanking people off of ledges or kicking them to their doom is one of the most entertaining out there. In a game where people scramble like it's Black Friday to find all the best weapons, it's beyond enjoyable to kill with the most rudimentary of them all: your hands and feet.


#3 - From Smash Brothers ... "Donkey Kong's Suicide Ride"
If you've ever played Super Smash Brothers, then you're guaranteed to have taken your opponent to the grave via the Donkey Kong Suicide Ride.  So why isn't there a video of this demoralizing and hilarious act anywhere online?  I have no idea; hopefully my words and this picture can give you a clear idea of what happens here.  In Smash Brothers, all characters can grab and hold an opponent but only DK can grab an opponent and carry them against their will.  Now, understand that in Smash Brothers one of the three ways you can die is by falling off the edge of the board.  Enter the DK Suicide Ride.  You grab your enemy.  You carry them to the edge of the level and jump off it.  Sure, you'll fall to your death too, but trust me, you won't care one bit. 



#2 - The Uncharted BBQ
To the surprise of no one we see that my favorite game makes this list twice.  I don't apologize.  The art of barbecuing in Uncharted consists of locating a propane tank, soft-ball tossing that propane tank in the vicinity of your peer, and then firing bullets into the tank as fast as possible in the hopes of causing a fatal explosion. It goes a little something like this:

Before I ever played Uncharted, before I knew of it's overwhelming mastery, I was visiting my brother once when I saw him kill a guy with this very tactic. I remember thinking to myself, "I like that."


#1 - The People's Elbow
A little known fact: I love The Rock.

In junior high and into the beginning of high school, during what one might call the dark ages of my social life, I watched a lot of weird TV shows to pass the time.  WWE was one such show, and it's most famous wrestler sucked me in from the get go.  Unfortunately whenever the trio of me, Bunna and Ian dialed up No Mercy on '64, we rarely allowed anyone to be The Rock because like the coverboy on Madden, he was upgraded beyond the point of beatability.  However, when those moments came, when Ian and Bunna agreed to fight me and a computer in tag-team, with me taking control of the People's Champion, well, there was only one goal in sight and it wasn't to win. It was to deliver the 'most electrifying move in sports entertainment today, The People's Elbow!!'  Considering how hard it was to properly execute the elbow22.  First you had to do the Spinebuster off the ropes, which was challenge enough in its own right. But not only do you have to do the Spinebuster, you also have to do it close enough to central spot in the ring so you could have ample space for the bouncing off the ropes portion of the move, then you had to hope the computer wouldn't trip you as you ran across the ring to bounce off those ropes. Very complex indeed. , considering how rarely I pulled it off and considering how awesome it is, I submit that the Rock's classic move is the most enjoyable way I've ever finished someone off.


Oh, what you wanted to watch the real life version? WELL THE ROCK DOESN'T CARE WHAT YOUR CANDY --just kidding.  I want to watch it too.  
 

 No man ever made a speedo look so cool.

Taysom Versus the Back Shoulder

by Name = Spencer Hansen on Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Last month in BYU's win over Middle Tennesse State, Taysom Hill threw a side-line pass that settled into the hands of a falling away Mitch Mathews for a perfect back shoulder toss.  Late in a blowout the pass had no impact on the outcome, but I was so wowed that I immediately turned to my co-viewers and proclaimed, "That was an amazing pass - you know, assuming he did that on purpose."  The words sound like a slam on Taysom but it actually was just my way of addressing reality, for so bad had been the BYU QB that such an impresive throw seemed more likely the product of chance than talent.  Sadly three straight games of below 50% passing will generate skepticism in even the most hardy of believers.  (For the record, I was a believer in Taysom being better than he showed in the first 3 games of the season.  But 400 yards through the air and 100 on the ground good? No.)

But now, after having seen Taysom drop a similar back shoulder beauty in each of the last three games, it's apparent that the pass in question was no fluke and, more importantly, that BYU's young QB may have a new favorite weapon.

Last month Sports Illustrated ran an article on the back shoulder throw, calling it the 'undefendable pass'. Matt Hasselbeck -- you know, the guy who is the brother of that guy who married that girl from the second season of Survivor who starred on The View? Yeah, him -- says of the throw, "If it’s properly executed, the defender can’t be right.”  Even Joe Flacco took a break from looking for his lost chicken nuggets to contribute to the piece.  Said he: "The back-shoulder throw has really redefined what open and covered mean."

That redefining was on exhibit during BYU's game-winning touchdown pass Saturday against Houston.  The target of Taysom Hill's throw was senior Skyler Ridley.  Watch this 7-second clip and decide for yourself if he was even remotely open on the play.



Replay it a couple of times and you'll see the defender was tight enough to have his arm draped on Ridley from the 5-yard line all the way up to the catch.  At max the defender is, what, one maybe two feet away from Ridley at any point while the ball is in the air?  This is just one example: the back-shoulder throw can be unstoppable, even against a perfect defense.

What exactly is a back-shoulder throw?  I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. YouTube is here to help if you're that interested, but I doubt you are.  It's different from an out route and it's not quite a hook. The receiver, rather than redirecting his path towards the middle of the field or the sideline, twists his body away from the defender back towards the QB without changing his overall directional momentum.  That's my best shot.  Maybe a couple more examples will help.

Here's the first back-shoulder pass I saw Taysom complete this season:



Here was the one against Middle Tennessee that got me rolling on this train in the first place:



And here is one final example from one of Taysom's touchdown tosses to Mitch Mathews during the Utah State game.  It was this pass that first got me thinking that maybe Taysom was starting to get comfortable with the back-shoulder thing.  Saturday's game-winner confirmed it.



I don't know what's in store for Taysom's future.  I'd like to say I'm great at predicting quarterback success stories, but I'm still rebounding from hoping Heaps would be Ty Detmer II.  This I know: when thrown as well as Saturday's ball was, the back-shoulder pass is nigh unstoppable.  Combine it with Taysom's prodigious speed and BYU might have something special on its hands.

Brian and Bride

by Name = Spencer Hansen

Last Friday's sky was perfect, so much so that Nathan and I went for a coordinated run for the first time in our history. Valentines day, video games, viral cinema; these things we had done together, but running never had been considered. Why had we never pounded the Logan sidewalks stride-by-side when at school?

Upon returning from the track -- successfully dodging the student drivers out on the adjacent course --  we learned we weren't the only ones running that day. Our friend to the north, Bryan Farnsworth, had taken to the hills as well; the fact being noteworthy only because he would end up getting married some three to four hours later. Contrast that with my pre-wedding routine: three hours before I got married I ate a sausage link, the likes of which almost came back up on account of nerves when my wife to be was 10 minutes late to the temple. (In a fortuitous turn of events my stomach was calmed by the sight of my favorite professor, one Jeffrey Doyle, in an incident that marks the one time in my life that the thought of accounting has stopped me from barfing instead of encouraging it.)

I don't know Bryan as well as some. Compared to the Brothers Duncan or the Nathans and Landons of the world, my history with Bryan is only above average. It's a caveat worth keeping in mind considering the declaration I'm going to make a few paragraphs down. Making up for my lack of years with Bryan is one single advantage:  I've attended a dozen or so BYU football games with Mr. F-worth over the course of the last few seasons. What this means is that I've seen Bryan on more than one occasion in instances of extreme happiness: BYU beating UCLA 59-0 in 2008, BYU beating Utah in overtime in 2009, BYU beating Texas earlier this year.

The victory over Utah in 2009 was probably the best of the bunch, being that it was Utah, being that it was overtime, and being that we charged the field in the aftermath and nearly highfived Bronco Mendenhall in the process. I remember that the stadium doesn't look quite as big on the field as it does from the stands. It was a great way to send off the seniors: Max, Pitta, Jorgenson, Bryan himself.

I was as happy as I ever had been, and I feel safe in assuming that Bryan felt more or less the same. And yet that level of happiness was lame compared to what I saw out of him during last week's wedding. Take it for what it's worth considering how well you think I do or don't know him, but the Bryan I saw on Friday was 10 times happier than the Bryan I saw that day in 2009, and really, it was the happiest Bryan I have ever seen.

I guess that fact made me happy too, at least happy enough to want to write for the first time since the city of Logan named my wife cousin to Bin Laden.

So to the couple I say congratulations.
To Lauren I say thanks for making my friend's life.
And to Bryan I say hurry home soon: we need you against Boise State.

Dear Paul: If Only You Were Tall

by Name = Spencer Hansen on Thursday, July 11, 2013

If Paul Millsap's career with the Utah Jazz is nearing its finish line, as the general feel around town suggests, the memories of number 24 will be mostly good. But there will always be that one nagging what-if, the wondering of where our relationship with Paul could've gone if just one thing about him were different: his height.


The man who was known for never having a nickname (Boozer's Understudy? The Garbage Collector? Cerebral Paulsy?) was instead always known for being too short. This isn't a knock, just a fact. A fact that was drilled into our heads for three seasons in a row when the Los Angeles Laker-Giants dispatched the Jazz from the playoffs in 2008, 2009 and yes, 2010. Pau Gasol was way too big, Andrew Bynum was way too big and even Lamar Odom was too much length for Paul's scientific scrappery1. And doesn't that last opponent tell you about all you need to know about Millsap's constant size disadvantage? The Lakers, at any time they wanted, could roll out their small forward (Odom) and still outsize the Jazz's power forward.



It's certainly not a popular storyline in the sporting world to bash on someone for not being tall enough. We sportorialists (in my case, sportorialist wannabe) prefer to make statues and heroes out of the small legends who perform at All-Star levels despite their relative tiny-ness. You know the list, guys like Allen Iverson, Emmitt Smith, Spencer Hansen. So when we hear the opposite -- “Ah, he was good, but he was just too short” -- it kind of makes you cringe a little.  
Height or no height, we’ll always have the Miracle in Miami. Was there anything more surprising than seeing a guy who doesn’t shoot threes rain down with pure accuracy when it mattered most? How many NBA players can list ‘Scored 11 points in 28 seconds’ on their resume?
Give the man a few more inches and who knows how that resume could’ve swelled.
1-inch … division champion?
2-inches … Western Conference Finals?
3-inches … All-NBA?
Then again, if Paul were six-foot ten he would never have made it to the Jazz in the first place. He’d have gone from second-round steal to first-round building-block, and that second-round designation is as much a part of his identity as anything size-related. And so I’m made to remember the old adage: it's better to be small and have lost than to have never played at all.
On second thought … yeah, you’re right. It probably isn’t. Oh well. If it makes anyone feel any better, Boozer was too short too.


1 This was the best term I could come up with to define Paul's game. He's a scrapper, but not a wild one like those who usually earn the term (see: DeMarre Carrol). Paul always relied on hustle and smarts.↩