Akinator

So, this isn't so much a review as it is a link (aka Internet BJ). Strolling through Pajiba today, I came across a link to a 20-Questions style application called Akinator. It challenges you to think of any real or fictional character and it will try to guess which one you're thinking of.

"Oh yeah," I says, "Let's see if you can figure out who THIS is!" Thinking I was being infinitely clever, by picking WWE wrestler turned UFC fighter Brock Lesnar. 15 guesses later, Akinator had me beat.

Here's what the rest of my tries went like:

Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly) - 18 guesses
Ronald McDonald (McDonalds clown) - 17 guesses
Henry Rollins (musician/speaker) - 28 guesses
Kristen Bell (actor) - 14 guesses
Jesus Christ (alleged godspawn and heck of a nice guy) - 14 guesses
Hank Scorpio (best Simpsons character ever) - 19 guesses
David Fiasher (Six Feet Under) - 30 guesses (20th guess was Brian Kinnay from Queer As Folk)
Gambit (X-Man) - 20 guesses
Wikus Van De Merwe (District 9) - 18 guesses
Frances (Left 4 Dead) - 18 guesses
Robert Paulson (Fight Club) - 18 guesses
Charmander (Pokemon) - 12 guesses
Dr. Alan Grant (Jurassic Park) - 20 guesses
Forrest Griffin (UFC Fighter) - 19 guesses
Benjamin Linus (Lost) - 20 guesses

As you can see, this gets to be a bit of an addiction. So, as the rest of you are playing Farmville, I'll be trying to come up with an obscure enough character, that I can still answer questions about, to beat this damned culturally-endowed piece of wizardry. Rather than finishing this summary, or even think about starting my Aliens review, I keep coming back to this site, trying to outsmart it with my clever, unguessable characters. I am, however, always wrong, and haven't really accomplished anything since seven o'clock this evening.

My only real beef with the process is that it doesn't seem to work consistently. It states when you enter the page, that it can only support so many people playing at once, and during pretty much every other attempt, the whole thing crashes, prompting you to

1) Refresh the window until Akinator eventually does so, and then says something like "Sorry, I got lost, can you come back later?" then "Would you mind starting again?", forcing you to start from the beginning, including having to sign back in.
2) Skipping the refreshing and just going back to the beginning by re-entering the url or refreshing the whole page. It pretty much works the same way, except you don't hold onto any kind of hope that your previous game will be kept.

Even though going through a whole round takes about 3 minutes, the frustration at having to restart does take away from the experience.

After you've finished, you also have the chance to ammend questions, as well as review the details of your game. This includes reminding you of all the questions you were asked, your answer, as well as the answer that Akinator would have expected you to answer with for that character.

If you're like me and have any kind of obsessive personality, for the sake of your soul, stay away from this site. Otherwise: Enjoy. You can play the game by clicking here.