Leeeeroy Jeeenkins

Leeroy Jenkins is the name of the World of Warcraft character of Ben Schultz. He became famous after the release of a video clip featuring Leeroy and his Clan preparing for a raid on the Rookery room in Upper Blackrock Spire.


The video shows the players strategising before the battle, using audio teleconferencing. They meticulously plan and strategise, even calculating their chances of survival. But all the while, Leeroy Jenkins (Ben Schulz) is away from his computer, apparently making himself some chicken.

When he returns, he unexpectedly charges into the Rookery, yelling, "Alright, time's up, let's do this! LEEROOOOY JENKINS!"

The rest of the group stands around shocked for a second, then decide they have to follow him into battle. They try to hastily execute the plan, but it’s no use – soon they are all killed. They hurl insults at Leeroy… to which he responds "At least I have chicken."

The video clip is a form of 'machinima' an emerging kind of filmmaking in which movies are created entirely inside video games. The video was initially released on the World of Warcraft forums, but you can now find Leeroy Jenkins references all over. Within WOW, there are very few people who don’t know about Leeroy Jenkins, and his fame has spread amoungst non-gamers as well.

Fame!
A Jeopardy episode features a question relating to Leeroy Jenkins. Blizzard Entertainment made a trading game card featuring Leeroy. Toyota Tacoma made a TV ad parody of the Leeroy Jenkins incident and an advert for the Video Game Awards spoofed Leeroy Jenkins in a lift and business meeting. There are also numerous Leeroy-inspired works all over the Internet. Leeroy even had a stalker for a while. A character named "Leeroy's Apprentice" wanted to hang out with Leeroy in the game and followed him everywhere.

Check out this page for more links.

My opinion - this guy is legend

The cake is a lie!

‘Portal ’ is a game that was released together with Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 in a special bundle pack called The Orange Box. In the game, you are challenged to make your way through various ‘test chambers’ using a portal gun. The game’s originality and dry sense of humour meant that Portal became an instant hit. At varoius points in the game, you are promised a cake as a reward for completing all the chambers. But as the levels progress, the initially helpful AI voice becomes more and more suspiciously sinister.

On one level, it is possible to find a hidden room, filled with graffiti, including the phrase: ‘the cake is a lie’.

This phrase became a shared joke amoungst Portal players all over the net.






Is the cake a lie?

While the final sequence of the game does show a chocolate cake, your character doesn’t necessarily ever get to enjoy it.


A further in-joke:
The Portal game takes place within the "Aperture Science Enrichment Center". Aperture science are the Portal Gun manufacturers. Gamers soon discovered the website www.aperturescience.com . This viral marketing device is basically a mini ARG (Alternative Reality Game). When you login to the system, you are given a chance Apply to aperture science by taking a bizarre 50 question test.

If you play portal, look out for the Username and Password to enter the site. (If you don’t have any DOS knowledge, you need to know that to enter the username and password, you will need to type ‘login’. To find out what's on the drive, type DIR)

If you haven’t played the game, but you’d still like to take a look, you can enter the site by typing any user name using the password ‘PORTAL’ – but this will give you access to less information. Andrew Neo gives a good breakdown of what happens and what to do on this site.

All your base are belong to us!

What is it?

“All your base are belong to us" is a broken English phrase taken from the opening cut scene of a 1989 video game called Zero Wing. It sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002 that was incredibly popular amongst gamers.


The year is 2101, and a war has started. The scene is the interior of the command deck of some form of battle cruiser, in which a captain is stood watching an explosion rip around the ship. The captain enquires 'What happen?', to which the ship's mechanic replies 'Someone set up us the bomb.' Next, the ship's operator states 'We get signal' and 'Main screen turn on', revealing to the captain that the perpetrator is none other than the dastardly, borg-like CATS! CATS asks 'How are you gentlemen!!' and then tells the captain of his impending downfall - 'All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction.' Finding it hard to take this news, the captain replies 'What you say!!', but CATS simply replies 'You have no chance to survive make your time', following which he laughs rather maniacally and then disappears. Resolving to win despite the odds, the captain orders the operator to 'Take off every Zig.' The captain instructs the Zig pilots, 'You know what you doing', then repeats to them to 'Move Zig' and states that he fights 'For great justice'.


Huh?
The intense popularity of this clip derived from it’s poor – and therefore humorous – translation from Japanese into English. After an animated GIF of the opening sequence was posted on a gaming site, the craze started to catch on. Altered images of road signs, cereal packets and other photographs containing the words 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' had started to appear. Techno remixes of T-shirts featuring the line were sold by enterprising online stores. The story was picked up by newspapers and TV-stations around the world.

But as more and more TV channels, newspapers, websites and 'celebrities' began to jump on the bandwagon, it became important for those who wanted to remain credible to reject the craze as old news.

Soon it died out, although new parodies pop up every now and then. These include 'All your Iraq belong to U.S.' and the techno remix of the video clip.