Eulogy for an Unknown

A friend of mine was killed in a car accident about two weeks ago. Well, I really shouldn't call him a friend because he was more of an acquaintance than anything. We had gone to middle school together for a couple years, and then when high school rolled around, he vanished from my quaint little teenage world. Whether he had dropped out or just transferred to another school is beyond me -- the point is, I knew him, and by educational means, he was connected to me.

Then, after I had graduated and began attending the nearby community college, this acquaintance of mine reappeared. I got a call one morning from my dad saying, "Your mom was in a car accident; she's okay, don't worry. She just bumped her head is all." Dad and I drove to the hospital, where Mom was recovering from a slight bruise to the head, but you could tell she was shaken up from the event. I really don't think she drives as casually as she did since then.

My mom was dropping my brothers off at school when out of the blue, this car careened into her, completely totaling the back end of our three-year old Toyota RAV4. Apparently, the guy driving his car hadn't bothered to scrape the ice off the windshield and was leaning his head out the window so he could see. Obviously, he didn't spot my mom's car in his general direction. Nobody was seriously injured, but once I found out who the driver was, I did a double take and vomited all over the floor.

Okay, so not really. My realization was relatively clean.

Yeah, it was him. The guy from school. It's rather strange having someone vanish from your world and then quickly reemerge to preform some surprising act that will forever leave an impact. Sure, it had more of an impact on my mom than anything, but it affected me, too...little though it may be.

Months later, I saw him at a popular local pizza joint. He didn't recognize me, nor did he know he had crashed into our family car. I thought I had wanted to beat the living shit out of him, but I didn't. Really, the first instinct that came to mind was to ask him, hey, man, are you stupid? Who the hell drives with an iced-over windshield? Let that shit thaw out, yo! I'd give him the run-down, he'd say he was sorry, it won't ever happen again, and we'd go our separate ways.

That didn't happen.

Instead, I avoided all eye-contact, finished my pizza, and left the restaurant a few minutes later. I didn't hear from or about him until a phone call two weeks ago. It was my dad.

"Hey, do you know a [such-and-such]?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why? That's the guy I went to school with. The guy who hit mom."

"I thought so. Well, there's a thing in the paper about him. It says he was killed in a car accident."

Huh. Really now. You don't say.

My acquaintance was twenty years old. Like some goddamned magician, he did a disappearing act two times in my life, and twice did he reappear to shock the hell out of me. He spoke a little English when I knew him, though mostly Spanish to his actual friends. He was in some of my classes; I probably lent him some pencils and paper and him the same to me. We might have even played some Four Square. And now, because I didn't give him the rundown at that pizza place or give him a fucking black eye, he's dead. Dead and gone.

I've thought about this for a while. I don't blame myself, or try not to, at least. He was speeding and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Same old story. But you know, I could have stopped this from happening. I mean, it would have made a hell of a story in the local paper: "Kid Starts Fight With Other Kid He Knew From Middle School -- Victim of Black Eye Learns Lesson." I probably would have been banned from that pizza place and done some jail time, maybe, but it would have been worth the goddamn effort to save his life.

And lately, the food at that pizza joint hasn't tasted all that great, either. Yes, it would have been a fucking noble sacrifice.

The noblest fucking sacrifice the world ever saw.

Rest in peace, guy. Thanks for letting me borrow those pencils in middle school. I never really thanked you for that.

Yeah? Well Fuck You, Too, Blanka, You Slimy-Barrel-Rolling-Piece-of-Shit-Asshole-Sonuvabitch-Dillweed

That's right. I'm looking at you, you cute, costume-wearing Street Fighter IV Blanka.


If you're anything at all like your HD Remix counterpart, I'm gonna fucking tear you limb from limb and wear your hat as a...hat. See you in February, motherfucker.

Sincerely,
Your Friend,
Ken Masters

Pricking Needles

After I declared that the word "videogame" should be replaced with "Mother 3" in the English language, I just might want to retract my statement. Not that the game isn't absolutely brilliant, mind you -- it's just, I still haven't finished it because the last remainder of the quest isn't pulling anymore, but pushing. Honestly, I don't really care about pulling needles across the Mother 3 world; I've done this kind of quest in hundreds of other RPGs and I don't really want to do it again. And the undersea, hold-your-breath section? Don't even get me started.

It's just strange that a game that began so well and so near-literary just tapers off into a fetch quest. Sure, one could pose the argument that this actually is being satirical about the whole "going to find the eight crystals scattered about the globe" template that so many games follow, but how about developing this part of the quest in a different manner? Maybe it's more difficult than it sounds.

So, I still haven't completed it, but I hope to finish within the next ten years...and I hear that the ending is strange, funny, and heartrending. Huh.

Wait! Don't Go! You Clicked My Name Out of Pure Curiosity on Some Website, Didn't You, You Poor Bastard

You really shouldn't go around doing that. Most of the time, you'll see some unusual or interesting comment left by some random person on a message board, and you'll think, "Well, this guy's comment was pretty damn weird, so I'll just see what he's going on about at his personal website!"

And when you get there, you realize, "Oh god, what have I done? This blog of his is complete shit and absolutely incompetent compared to real, professional writing."

Believe me, I sympathize with you. Let me be the first to tell you that this blog, too, is complete shit, and I have given up updating it because -- *gasp* *big surprise* -- nobody reads it. Which, as you can see by the title, is kind of a strange, double-edged-sword-kind-of-gimmick.

Honestly, I'm just trying my best not to blend in with the crowd, that pulsating mass of "personal feelings" and "political stances" and "absolute shit" that is the Internet...again, which is a double-edged sword because everyone probably is trying to distance themselves from it, too. It's like that time when I wanted to be original, so I dyed my hair blue, carved the alphabet into my chest with a knife, and ran around singing that wondrous 80's classic, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".

Problem was, everyone at my high school was doing the exact same thing.

Can't win 'em all.

Oh, and I'm sorry I called you a bastard. It just...slips out sometimes.

The "Mother 3" Mother 3

Once you play Mother 3, you may not need to play another videogame again. Instead, you'll probably want to read a lot of literature, smash your TV, and wish capitalism never existed -- or, at least, these are the feelings the game evokes in me after about ten hours of play time. Many people across the Wonderful World of the Internet have already posted their feelings on the new Mother 3 English patch, and I certainly don't want to add to the cesspool of opinions (though I'm certain some opinions are more thoughtful and well-written than others). So I'll try to make this addition to the cesspool short.The term "videogame" is dirty. Nintendo has been trying to distance themselves from the word since the launch of the DS and Wii, and Sony and Microsoft now would like their customers to call their wonder machines "Home Entertainment Systems". I unabashedly agree. "Videogame" conjures up images of juvenile delinquency and inadequate social skills and yellow orbs eating ghosts; this most likely will never change. However, since Mother 3 was brought out into the world, surprisingly not kicking and screaming but docile and sophisticated, I honestly would be comfortable to use "videogame" in a conversation with a normal human being. This is the direction videogames should go. Enough of the war-reenactments, the guns with knives, the Scarface wannabes -- they were fun when we were thirteen, but now we've grown up. We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore.

Mother 3 reads like a book, plays like a movie, floats like a butterfly, and stings like a bee. It never falters, never shrinks, and has balls. From the moment the game begins to the ten-hour mark, Mother 3 knows exactly where it's going and how it's going to get there. It's absolute perfection.

So, as of this moment, I propose that the term "videogame" be abolished and replaced with "Mother 3". We'll be better off for it.

No More Heroes: A World of Murderers, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

No More Heroes is a Wii game I bought because the Wii didn't have any games. When I take a glance at the case sitting on the shelf, I think of all the incredibly polished NEXT GEN GRAPHICS and REALISTIC PHYSICS ENGINES on other systems and in other software, I almost have to sigh with relief that thank God I don't have to deal with that videogame marketing shit in this game. What does the back of the box say, anyway? Here, let me read you some of the bullet-points:

1) "Slash your way to the top with your trusty beam katana."

Okay, that's true. You do hack bad guys. You also have a lightsaber. The marketing team at Ubisoft was pretty trustworthy on this one.

2) "Complete side jobs for extra cash to customize your character and weapons."

This, while knowing why undergoing side jobs should be listed as a positive bulletpoint is a joke in itself, is also true. So far, you special marketing team you, are not completely bullshitting me.

3) "Bring the pain with an arsenal of over-the-top combat moves."

Yes. Okay. But enough of that.

Like I said before, No More Heroes was a game I bought because the Wii didn't have any games. Metroid Prime 3 was dead and gone, a mere shell of what the original had been, and you can only play Wii Sports for so long before it becomes something akin to actual work. As a skinny kid pretending to be a fat kid for the sake of this blog entry, I'd like to say that, yes, Wii Sports was my weight-loss savior, but now that all the women flock to me like my old-fat-self to a Krispy Kreme donut, I really don't want to mimic swinging a tennis racket anymore. I'd also like to point out the state of our nation when people actually get tired by pretending to play a sport in front of a television set -- and doctors, for christsake, are forced to give a "scientific" name to a "disease" caused by this "exercise".

But since I'm not a fat kid anymore (or never really was -- it's your call), I guess I can sympathize.

Anyway, when the first trailer for No More Heroes was posted online, I watched it with little curiosity. The game at the time was dubbed just Heroes. The trailer starred a dude with a lightsaber named "Travis Touchdown" and another dude with a cigar and long silver hair named "Helter Skelter". Personally, I was rooting for the silver-haired dude because I was a fan of Final Fantasy, and even though I'm not gay, I would totally go for a dude that looked like a chick. Travis Touchdown looked like a Johnny Knoxville clone, and Jackass isn't all that appealing to a not-gay dude who could totally go for dudes that look like chicks.

In the end, the trailer was poorly voice-acted and honestly looked like it was destined for the bargain bin within a week after release. Plus, my effeminate-looking-cigar-smoking dude lost the duel! Not cool!

A couple months later, a second trailer was released at the Tokyo Game Show (and this would also become the game's opening). This, however, immediately made a fan of me -- even before the game was released! I mean, here you have this satirical videogame about a guy who doesn't have any money, decides to become a serial killer to earn a living, and gradually make his way to the top of the serial killer food-chain. How could that not be appealing to anyone who plays videogames? Most games have a main objective: destroy anything that moves. See that goomba walking toward you on screen? Stomp it to bloody bits. How about those ghosts? Eat the shit out of them. And those falling bricks that threaten screen-closing demise? Line those suckers up for ultimate decimation.

Maybe the Tetris reference should be rendered moot, but my point here is that anyone who has ever picked up a videogame has probably killed something in that virtual world. That's okay -- I'm not saying this should be taken negatively; just mull it over for awhile. Destroying stuff has always been fun, like smashing an expertly-built sand castle. What's wrong with taking out a bunch of Nazi scum in Call of Duty? Nothing. But that's because it isn't real.

Silvia, your assassin boss, contacts you during your first real mission. You've already slashed about a hundred guys into fountains of blood and cash and exaggerated vocals, and now, your controller begins to vibrate. It's Silvia. You put the controller to your ear, like a cell phone. Your boss really has nothing but frenchly-accented gibberish to say, but you think it's cool anyway that the developers had the incentive to make the Wii remote into something of a phone. The only reason you are impressed by this, though, is because you've played many a videogame before.

No More Heroes was made for people like you and me, people who watched all the Star Wars movies and can quote Han Solo's script word for word; people who get excited when a new Sin and Punishment is announced; people who, when the Wii was first revealed, daydreamed during dull math lectures about pretending to be a Jedi and swinging that goddamn controller around like a lightsaber.

What do you do with a lightsaber, exactly?

Kill stuff, that's what.

We're a nation of murderers. That last sentence isn't a cut on who we are as people -- it's just simple fact. Destruction is in our nature, and by God, do we like to slash the everloving shit out of salary-men, baseball players, wannabe-superheroes, katana-wielding minors, bad girls, and most importantly, magicians. Slash left: Travis twirls his fluorescent blade and massacres a dude into a fountain of blood (bastard!). Slash down: Travis leaps into the air and slices another dude in two (my spleen!). Slash right: you get the picture.

It's like lightsaber porn, really. At the beginning of the game, we're so jazzed up by the action on screen and the motions the game demands of us, but by the end, we've killed so many guys and defeated so many bosses that becoming number one doesn't seem so glamorous anymore. Travis, too, seems more and more disgusted by the people he meets (and eventually kills) -- a trait which makes him surprisingly human.

In the end, Travis kills his father. Er, he doesn't kill his father! His sister kills his father, but then his sister, who actually is only a half-sister, reveals that the person she just killed wasn't Travis' father at all -- but she did kill his real father a few years back.

This is good, isn't it? A mish-mash of convoluted plot-lines that really don't matter in a game where all you want to do is massacre the shit out of assassins and Pizza-Butt CEO's. Or maybe, near the end, the game has affected you in such a way that you end up caring for these characters.

Or maybe not.

P.S. -- The music is awesome, bro! Let's see how far we can take this thing!

Eyes

With blood pouring down my face, I picked up the dead man's cell phone and called it in.

"It's done. You can let her go now."

"Not quite," the voice said. "You've still one more assignment."

Silence on my end.

Finally, I mustered, "Isn't there another way?"

The voice didn't reply.

Frustrated, I conceded defeat and hung up. I closed my eyes, wishing the throbbing pain in my head would fade, that the blood would stop seeping into my eyes. My sight was important. Without it, I had nothing to rely on.

How many had died for her? Ten? Twelve? Fifteen? It wasn't a staggering number, but killing anyone ripped chunks from a man's soul, to the point where that person became inhuman, a monster. Once you kill, the soul was essentially a goner, and so, too, the man with it.

Searching the ground for my sword, my head became increasingly heavy, and I collapsed to the ground. There, sticking from the corpse -- there it was. Shining blue steel, my third arm. The organization who had taken her had given it and vague instructions to me:

"Use this sword, and only this sword, to conduct your business. Then she will be set free."

That was it. I had wondered why they hadn't equipped me with a gun or some other more efficient weapon, but I found out soon enough.

It's the eyes. The eyes give it away.

When you stab a man through the heart, all the while listening to his hopeless gasps for breath, you witness a quick flash in the eyes. Brief, almost too brief. In that moment, you get to know a man better than you ever could -- you see his hopes, dreams, memories, everything, vanish into thin air. They're yours now. Absorption. However, because everything that once belonged to that man has changed ownership, you begin to lose the essence of what you call "yourself". It's unpleasant to say the least. I'm hardly me anymore.

That's why the organization equipped me with a sword instead of some other weapon -- all of this murder is beginning to kill me from within. But finally, I have only one more target to defeat. One more target.

Still lying there, blood pulsing from the head wound, I unstuck the gleaming steel from the man's corpse and brought the blade to my throat. It would only be a matter of time before they found me, and then, only then, would they let her go. Sweet release from this awful assignment.

I hope she knows what I've done for her.

The Bikes of Burnout Paradise

Some time ago, the developers of Burnout Paradise added bikes to their exploding cars game.

This may have been the best thing that had ever happened to anything, anywhere.


Much like F-Zero GX on the Gamecube, I like to occasionally take one of the speedier bikes out on the open road and just space out for about an hour. Seriously -- I just hold down the R2 button for a full sixty minutes, staring blankly at the screen until something in real life jerks me back out of the cycling-induced coma. This isn't the first time this phenomenon has happened: F-Zero GX, too, had me cruising the free-run-never-ending time trial in Captain Falcon's or Rainbow Phoenix's rides until several blood vessels popped in my head and I was rushed to the emergency room. The doctors told me to slow down.

Ha, right. Now, both fortunately and unfortunately, popping blood vessels has become a tradition. The doctors stopped complaining once I became a regular bill-paying customer, though.

Thing is, I'm not sure whether driving these blistering-fast vehicles, be they the futuristic-hovering variety or two-wheeled insanity, is fun. Honestly, I'm not really sure what fun is anymore. If it includes an injection of adrenaline, then yes, I will have another dose -- otherwise, talking to random NPC's in those fancy RPG's isn't all that enjoyable to me. Nor should it be to anyone! Want to talk to the crotchety, cane-wielding old man in the next Final Fantasy game? Why don't you just walk into some real-life woods where the sounds of "Dueling Banjos" incessantly waft through the trees and synchronized shotguns chime in the distance? I'm sure you'll find an interesting old man in there to talk to. Heck, if you're lucky, he might even be a cannibal! Hooray for that!

Anyway, the Burnout bikes are a fantastic double-edged sword: on one hand, you have these amazingly fast modes of transportation for getting you from one place to another, rocketing off jumps all the way. But on the other hand, the cars themselves feel slow in comparison. I almost don't want to go back to four-wheels...

INFECTIOUS

OH MY GOD. Listen to that.

Let's Tap: The sensation that's sweeping the nation!

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (1): Surprise Cameo!, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

Note: This article also was ripped straight from the devilishly artistic pages of IGN, and it doesn't exactly say anything about the actual game. But, since I'm strapped for things to post on a blog that nobody reads, I guess this will fit nicely into the plethora of articles that do the same as this one.

I loves me some Johnny Depp.

And I don't mean this in, uh, that way. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Apparently, Nintendo does too. I mean, if Depp didn't make a surprise cameo in Phantom Hourglass, how would the game continue?

It wouldn't. You wouldn't have a boat, and you'd be stuck on that island for eternity. Depp's girlfriend on the high seas (who just so happens to just dress like a pirate, yet strangely knows how to captain a ship and shoot torpedoes, just by standing at the bow) might pick you up since she seems to have a thing for little boys in green tunics anyway, but that's beside the point.

Link, although fiercely determined and courageous, wouldn't get anywhere in his games if it weren't for someone else's assistance. Take a look at the series: besides the first three, every single Zelda pits Link against these perils -- yet, even though he's equipped with a sword and a mean face, he'd get nowhere.

In Ocarina of Time, poor crying Link-on-a-bed needed a fairy.

In Majora's Mask, he needed help from a crazy mask salesman.

In His Awakening, Link received assistance from an imaginary monochrome-yet-really-red-haired girl and her mushroom-sniffing father.

In Twilight Princess, Link was transformed into a wolf and needed help from a floating cat-thing.

Need, need, need, need, need.

And now, Link needs help from Johnny Depp to save his spunky pirate girlfriend from the clutches of an evil boat.

Who's the real hero, huh? Certainly not Link. And since Phantom Hourglass was such a great game, one that hearkened back to my nostalgia of A Him to the Past, I think we all owe Jack Sparrow a round of applause.

Without him, we'd be stuck on that island forever, forced to repeatedly cut the weeds in that one guy's garden and find that we ONLY get hearts instead of rupees, which we need for that way-expensive ring-thingy at the shop that looks like you'll get a bargain for at the treasure place, but you'll really just get gypped out of a great deal.

Thanks, Johnny. We appreciate your support.

Shadow of the Colossus -- Revisited and (OH PLEASE SAY IT AIN'T SO!) Reviewed!

Note: This "review" was posted on that wonderful Shakespearean website, IGN, a few years back. It's not very good -- even by IGN standards! -- seeing how I received a "thumbs down" from some jerk on the internet. Oh well. Can't win 'em all!

Well, after a year of holding down the R1 button, desperately trying to cling to the grassy-hair stuff on the back of a giant colossus, I decided enough was enough.

My right index finger was getting cramped. I needed to beat this foul beast of a game and I needed to beat it NOW.

So I did. And it was extremely frustrating.

But at the same time, I was totally in awe of what I was experiencing.

There aren't many "Holy Crap" moments in video games anymore. The last game I played with these moments was Twilight Princess -- I'm hoping that riding an over-sized top while fighting a giant floating skeletor-head made other people shout "Holy Crap, this is fricking awesome" at their television sets while waving their controllers in their air and weeping with pure joy.

But that might be just me.

Shadow of the Colossus doesn't have giant skeletor-heads. Instead, it has a huge flying worm that makes you turn to your brother and scream directly into his ear, "Holy [expletive], this is [expletive] epic!"

I kid you not. Shooting the bulbs on the worm's belly, riding neck-and-neck with its arms, making a death-defying leap onto its climbable appendages, rushing headlong through grassy-hair, and then shoving your sword into the poor worm's convenient weak points -- aw, man, I did not want that battle to end.

No other game, I thought, made me feel so much like a badass. I felt that Shadow of the Colossus wasn't just a game -- it was an experience.

But, after I massacred a couple other colossi, those feelings did a complete 360.

And that was when I met the final boss.

* * *

Some games make you want to throw your controller at the wall, and then run and cry into your pillow, cursing the world for all its misery.

When those fricking balls of electricity began to plummet in my direction, I could feel the frustration-factor start to sink in.

I was shot. I was shot again. I was knocked down. I could not get up.

"Get the [expletive] up, you dirty son of a [expletive]!"

Why the hell wouldn't the game let me get up?

Oh, because this is an experience, and not a game?

In a game, when I get shot with electricity, I get knocked down, and then have the ability to immediately get back up.

However, since Shadow of the Colossus is an experience that walks the fine line between reality and fiction, I have to wait ten seconds while frantically rotating my joystick, all the while screaming at the TV for the down-and-out character on screen to get to his virtual feet.

And then I get shot again. And again. And again.

And then I got mad.

Anyway, I beat the game. Great twisty ending, yadda yadda yadda, you've heard it all before.

But while the credits were rolling, I reflected on what had made this game so different from anything else I had ever experienced.

And then it hit me:

I have not been more scared in a videogame than when I swam out into a calm lake, all alone, anticipating the cold icy fangs of death to form beneath the dark surface and consume me, all the while a faint wind howled along the walls of the valley.

It evoked a Jaws-instilled fear that has never released me from its ever-tightening grip, even in the most shallow of swimming pools.

And for that, I -- someone who has the coldest of hearts, numbest of souls, and the personality of a brick -- commend Shadow of the Colossus for making me feel something.

"In Bruges" Review!

I wish I had an idea about how many blogs are updated daily, each one probably concerning some piece of media or world event (Jesus, people, enough with the Sarah Palin crap already!) -- most are probably not very well-written (perhaps...like this blog?) and occasionally unintelligible. For example: "ilkiek teh new batmn movie heath leger man i wish taht guy didnt die he was soooooo00 good totlly shold win a oscar for taht role and i like teh mvoei vary much liek wen tehjoker was in the truck an btaman used teh rope t flip teh truck o man ti was sooooooo cool!!!"

Uh-huh.

Personally -- and I don't know about you, dear non-existent reader -- but I don't really want to read what random people on the internet think about films or movies or Sarah Palin. It doesn't really benefit me in the long run, know what I mean? I could scrounge through millions of posts and maybe, just maybe, absorb only a couple of useful morsels of tasty information. What's new, right? In this case, it's somewhat ironic that you, dear non-existent reader, are reading (or perhaps skimming over the rubbish) about what I think about what other people think about...things. Absolute lunacy, I know. But, since you're here and still reading (I mean, come on -- still?!), let me fill you in on my opinion of the film, In Bruges (starring COLIN FARREL(!), BRENDAN GLEESON(!!), and RALPH FIENNES(!!!) no less!):

I just watched this film last night. It was good. Go see it.

It May Sound Weird, But...

I haven't been able to finish anything in a long ti

Remember the Days

With the release of Mega Man 9 upon us and Jeremy Parish's excellent piece about how everything wrong is right again, I changed my ways of thinking. Metal Gear Solid 4 was forgotten, Soul Calibur IV tossed aside, even Final Fantasy IV DS was put on hold for a week. I regressed from 4's to 3's instead. Digging out my old NES system, I plugged in a controller, hooked up the AV cables and AC adapter, and began the only Mega Man game I've ever played. (Editor's note: this has since changed.)

When I was about five or six, my dad took me to a pawn shop so I could pick out a game from behind the counter. Of course, while Super Mario Brothers 3 looked awfully tempting, I had played the heck out of it already and wanted something new -- which is why Mega Man 3, with its bright purple cover and a white guy who looked like Gary Coleman in a blue spandex suit shooting a nasty-looking robot, looked so appealing. I'm glad, all these years later, that made this choice...if only for the white Gary Coleman. Maybe the resemblance is just me.

So, yes: Mega Man 3 is the only game in the series I've played (excluding a brief stint with Mega Man X on a friend's SNES emulator). Magazine publications, gaming websites, and internet forums all tell me that the second is the best, like a gift granted to the masses from heaven above, but I've played the third for so long, it's hard to believe otherwise. And frankly, I don't really care to argue about the best -- I just want to shoot up some robot masters. Especially Shadow Man. What a bastard!

Shadow Man and I have a long, sad, frustrating history together; it's a history fraught random jumping and constant sliding and throwing ninja stars that are almost seemingly impossible to avoid. I'd try shooting Hard Man's Flying Punch Thing, but that was impossibly slow and completely bounces off Shadow Man when it makes contact. And...that's about it, though: my only tactic was to either shoot him with the Mega Buster or attack him with a useless robot power-up (because Hard Man was the only boss I could beat at the time without dying). Years later after I bought the game, however, I discovered that you can beat this Shadow Man sonuvabitch with the worst power-up in the game: Top-Spin.

What kind of crazy game design is this anyway? It's like finally realizing that final boss Ganon in Twilight Princess bizarrely has a soft spot for the fishing rod. Huh.

With Mega Man 9 now released unto the masses, the third game feels like old news -- well, that might be because it is -- but that doesn't mean it's any less proficient at what it does well than it did twenty years ago. Most power-ups still pack a punch, your robot dog is just as useful (somewhat), and the additional slide feels like it was implemented perfectly into stages that required, uh, sliding. It's just that...Mega Man 9, a game I'm becoming more and more attached to, was made with hindsight and experience, clearly and precisely combining everything that made the series good into one package. While still one of my favorite NES games, Mega Man 3 was made hot off the tails of a supposed masterpiece, and had a difficult time attempting to surpass near-perfection.

What I'm trying to say is that despite having an 8-bit sheen, the early Mega Man games hold up incredibly well -- and like I said, I think I'd rather be playing this series than Metal Gear Solid 4 or Soul Calibur 4. Why? Well, instead of preaching to its audience about PMC's and the horrors of pantless monkeys who smoke and drink, or shoving players' eyeballs into a pair of virtual heaving bosoms, this series was made with fun in mind, to give anyone who played it a challenging yet enjoyable experience from their first battle with Snake Man to the final showdown with Dr. Wily.

Fun is key here: forget cinematic experiences and screw involving storylines.

They're not exactly fun.

But Mega Man is. And that's what's most important.

Double Dragon II: Spin-Kicking Down the Rabbit Hole, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

This is why I'm here, isn't it? The reason for this blog, the reason I constantly write essays about videogames despite the fact that nobody reads them, the reason I find a lot of entertainment nowadays to be completely devoid of a soul -- it's all because of Double Dragon II.

Well, for the most part.

Occasionally, I reach into the drawer where my NES is kept, pull out the system and cartridge, and start whaling away on bad guys. These bad guys, they just never learn, do they? I'm just a never-ending spin-kicking machine of doom and blood and death, and they constantly walk straight into the hurricane of legs. Just like real life. Seriously, people. Get some glasses or contacts or something.

Reno, Nevada used to be my home town, see? The Biggest Little City in the World was the place that taught me to never trust strangers with candy, lest you wanted to be taken away somewhere you didn't want to be -- and it also was the place where strangers with candy learned never to trust little kids who learned how to spin-kick strangers with candy in the face. Again, I'd like to reiterate that "hurricane of legs" image.

There's this little violence in videogames debate going on right now. Well, as of this moment, let me tell you that the politicians and prissy soccer moms were right: I, a GoforBroak writer, spun-kick a stranger with candy so hard in the face, he ended up dead (more than dead, actually. The cops had to pry my tennis shoe from the guy's brain cavity) because of an NES game. To make a long, legal story short, Double Dragon II: The Revenge was my terrible, wicked, and violent teacher, and I was the best goddamn student it ever had. Whenever I saw a bunch of red-haired guys cartwheeling toward me like a couple of idiots, I readied my mental simultaneous A + B button press and kicked the hell out of them. Whenever dudes with bandannas began to back up slowly, as if they were about to throw something in my general direction, I mentally pressed up or down, dodged that shit, and totally kicked the hell out of them. Whenever Arnold Shwarzenegger showed up (he's in the game, by the way, and nicely orange) and attempted to lay down some sort of crazy foreign policy, I absolutely positively kicked the hell out of his Austrian ass.

(Except sometimes he would do that head-bash move. I could never get around that one.)

In reality, though, and not in some vague spin-kicking fantasy of mine, I love Double Dragon II. It's still a game I can go back to time and time again and still have a good time -- in fact, playing it is almost like riding a bike, really. Depending on the direction your character is facing on screen, pressing A or B would either punch or kick. Facing right: A would punch, B would kick. Facing left: the opposite (and correct me if I'm wrong on this, dear nonexistent reader, as I'm not completely positive. So much for the "riding a bike" analogy.). Pressing both buttons at once would execute a jump and pressing them again while in the air: the dreaded spin-kick.

When the game first came out, I could never beat it with the default three lives. It was pretty much all over once I made it to that stage with the dripping fireballs and blinking wall-eyes -- for my dad, the gear room (complete with jumping needles, rotating gears, and spikes on the floor) was his downfall. I remember him getting especially angry whenever he reached that level, and when he'd inevitably lose, my mom would semi-console him in a sarcastic voice,

"Now, now, it's only a game."

Yes, we knew it was only a game, but for the two of us, both of our respective levels represented a laughing malevolent villain standing in the way, mocking our pathetic attempts to reach the final stage. My dad probably saw this cackling persona in the jumping needles. For me, I saw the villain in those blinking eyes...and he wasn't laughing. Just simply standing there, grinning, as if he was privileged to know some pivotal information I didn't have access to.

I discovered his dark secret a little while later:

In order to beat the game, I had to kill Jimmy.

***

See, three lives weren't enough to pass that godforsaken fire-dripping stage. Every time I would take a leap of faith, hoping I wouldn't get "thwacked!" by a slice of Hell itself, and immediately be shot down, falling to my demise. It wasn't entirely all that great of an experience, and I was a little frustrated, to be honest. But one day, while messing around with one of the two-player modes, I found out, that, when Billy beats the crap out of his brother Jimmy, Billy gets an extra life.

Oh, this was absolutely delicious. Not on a malicious level, mind you, but on a "Oh My God, I Finally Can Beat the Game" level. Also: "Deliciously Malicious" might make a earth-shatteringly great slogan for Lucky Charms. Trust me on this -- after taking five years of business classes and struggling though countless marketing meetings, I am more than ready to set the commercial world on fire. Get ready, people. LUCKY CHARMS ARE BECOMING DELICIOUSLY MALICIOUS!

Tangent, tangent.

So yes, armed to the teeth with seven lives -- count 'em: seven -- I challenged Double Dragon II once more...and still had my ass handed to me. The final boss, a long-haired, back-flipping, pirouette-spinning, occasionally invisible bastard, became my arch-nemesis after attempting to defeat him for I-don't-know how many times. I reflected back to Jimmy: his heroic sacrifice was all for naught. My videogame brother, a helpless, lifeless, pixelated corpse...all because of me.

I cried a little that night.

But you know, as they say in the Wonderful World of Cliches, practice makes perfect, and today, I can beat the game with the default three lives. Hot diggity!

And now the street brawler genre is pretty much dead. Aside from, what, God Hand and Final Fight: Streetwise (both games the press didn't seem to appreciate all that much), one of my favorite pastimes has vanished and I'm left here standing, a twitch in my agile legs. What happened? Doesn't anyone like to kick the crap out of bad guys anymore? I guess now this act is done with a bunch of ultra-violent firearms and not with a intensely-muscly pair of real arms. Pining for the good 'ol days won't get you anywhere, though.

***

Here, I now stand alone, my legs twitching, itching, ready. Yet I cannot move.

"Go for broak," says the misspelled spray-painted wall during the prologue to Stage 2.

I blink. "Uh, what? What was that?"

"Go for broak!" the voice says again, this time a little louder.

"Huh? You're not making any sense. Volume does not beget comprehension, ya know."

Finally, it shrieks, "GO FOR BROAK! JUST MAKE THAT FUCKING LEAP OF BALLSY, COURAGEOUS FAITH AND GO...FOR...BROAK!"

So I did. And now I'm endlessly spin-kicking down the rabbit hole, a goddamn hurricane of legs, fleshy helicopter blades in the wind. This is life, and I'm living it.

The Rebirth of Frequent Death

Much like the THOUSANDS of other people who are probably going to write about their playthroughs of the recently released Mega Man 9, I felt I should do the same. You know the gist: "When in Rome", "Go with the flow", and all that other bull. Nothing new is going to be said here, and you're gonna like it that way.
That said, Mega Man 9 is hard. Like bone-crunchingly difficult. Like, as I write this, it's as if I can hear the millions upon billions of players moaning in agony over the delicately-placed spikes in Splashwoman's stage or Concrete Man's third elephant battle. That's okay, though. Not many games these days attempt to strain every single ounce of hand-eye coordination from their audience, and because of this, I commend Mega Man 9 for its brutality.

Funny, though, that a game created solely to reboot a struggling series -- I'd like to call it the Rebirth of Everything That Once was Good in this World -- has death awaiting you around every goddamn spiky corner. Despite this, the levels here are some of the most well-designed I've seen in a game since I played Bionic Commando Rearmed's demo over and over again. Even though I perished many-a-time, I always knew it was my fault and my fault alone. Let's see here: you've got sneaky enemies who grab the hell out of you and slam you head-first into pointy razors of exploding death, and a simple leap down into another stage's quadrant might lead to more spikes. There are spikes on the ceiling, spikes on the floor, spikes on the goddamn everything.

Spike fetishists will be in heaven.

When nerds all over the internet aren't talking about the difficulty, they'll probably be salivating over the 8-bit music -- yes, the little bleeps and boops that represent actual instruments are back from the dead, and they sound better than a cheeseburger sounds right about now. See, I'm kinda wicked hungry, and I could definitely go for a burger. However, I won't stoop to such a level and ruin my cheeseburger-free diet because I have Mega Man 9, and its music will satisfy my ravenous appetite. These tunes make me feel like I'm climbing a craggy mountain, wind blowing needles of snow and ice into my skin, and Death himself is staring me in the face with an upturned finger, beckoning. But, something buried within the depths of the music keeps the fire within alive, and I continue onward to the Robot Master awaiting my arrival at the summit.

How's that for hyperbole?

No, there's something more than nostalgia in old videogame music, and it's present here in Mega Man 9. A goal at the end of this hellish tunnel of spikes and scissor beasts and mechanical octopi sits patiently in a locked room, trident in hand, and the music is your guiding light, urging you forward.

It's a shame Splash Woman wants nothing more than to stab you in the face.

That's okay with me, though. Bring on more sharp, spiky death!

Then the Rain Came Down

His name was Roald. He was a penguin.

Every now and then, he would send me a couch through the mail, or maybe an awesome striped T-shirt, or maybe even a riveting NES game. I'd see him whenever I was walking from the beach to cash in on some shells, and we'd talk and have a few laughs. His house, which I'd enter unannounced sometimes, was like a McDonald's ball pit -- a child's dream come true. Occasionally, I would take the time to compose a rockin' letter to him, dictating how he was so cool and that I loved his house and Clu Clu Land was kinda boring, but thanks for sending it to me anyway! He'd respond by saying that he had no idea what I was talking about, that my grammar and spelling were atrocious, and he couldn't understand a word I said. But he was grateful for the letter! That much he was sure of.

Yes, Roald the Penguin and I were friends to the bitter end, even if he mistook my careful and meticulous letter-writing skills for pure rubbish. He'd cluck, "Hey, man, let's be buddies forever, deal?" I'd nod, hell yes, man, let's.

And then he moved away.

Through my TV speakers, the piano was playing the bitter sweet rain song, intensifying my sense of sheer sadness when I discovered Roald's house had completely vanished from my town of Aniville. All that was left was a patch of bare earth. I felt...empty inside. Not even furiously mashing the big green A button to twirl my umbrella made me feel better. My best friend, a nerdy penguin with amazing fashion sense, was gone, leaving no evidence as to why he'd commit such a heinous crime against our friendship of trust.

So I confided in Fang the Wolf about my emptiness, that with Roald gone, a massive void in my heart had appeared from nowhere, devouring all that I deemed happy in life. I rhetorically asked Fang, "Who am I going to talk to when times are bad? Who is going to send me tasteful items of furniture and incredible pieces of retro software? To whom am I going to give shells I found on the beach in hope that they would continue to send me said tasteful items of furniture and incredible pieces of retro software?

"No one," I said. "That's who."

Fang told me to shut the hell up and walked back into his house.

I got a letter from Roald in the mail later that day. He explained that he simply wanted to move on and see the world, that Aniville wasn't hip enough for him, dude, and that he hoped that this wouldn't leave a stain on the great white sheet of our everlasting friendship. Through teary eyes, I managed to murmur,

"No, Roald the Penguin, you'll be my best bud forever. I wish you only the best."

As the piano continued to play the rain song, I twirled my umbrella for the last time, spoke with my Gyroid, and never returned to the town of Aniville again.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin: Bagpipes and Electric Guitars, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

So...it turns out my original "review" of Advance Wars: Dual Strike I posted a while ago has turned up on some sort of blog-search engine called "boxxet". Or something. If anything, this aforementioned blasphemous site may or may not completely shatter my dreams (and supreme mission) of having no one -- absolutely no one -- ever read this blog...hence the subtitle, "A Blog That No One Will Read or Care About". By having someone actually read what I write means more work for me and an additional name change to "A Blog That Only A Couple People Read, But Ultimately No One Cares About."

Hmm...that honestly has a nice ring to it! Nope! Nevermind I said that!

In any case, in honor of the first DS Advance Wars installment, I guess I'll write about the second, Days of Ruin (but only because this "boxxet" site seems to love handheld strategy games. Or something.). Also, Will Wright apparently loves this series and since he's a dude who makes games that I don't necessarily play, it seems that the right thing to do would be to talk about Advance Wars. Which is okay. I like this series, too, Mr. Wright (and do you have any job openings in your company, by the way? Just to let you know, kissing ass is something I do very well! Watch: Says the author of GoforBroak, "Spore is a gift from heaven above, delivered from God Himself, unto the poor peoples of the earth; and it was good! Really good!" Mr. Wright, I even will give you permission to use that quote on the back of the box! Sure it may sound a little sacrilegious (or maybe not at all -- it's your call), but I'm sure this Spore game will sell millions because of it! Honest! I am not kidding! Also, I guess I should mention that I'm not too much of a psycho! Emphasis on the "too much"! Okay? OKAY?!)

Ahem. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Yes.

I happen to feel that the first installment on the DS was a little too arcade-y (note: I hate throwing that word around) and somewhat made the whole experience a little uneven because of it. For example, the CO powers pretty much broke the game -- get Colin and Hachi on a team, or something, and it was essentially game over. The inclusion of all the other sorts of modes (such as the Tanks mini-game) also seems to reinforce my arcade-y argument about Duel Strike. But that's okay! I loved every minute of that game and still do! Also, Jake's music was bitchin'!

But that's besides the point.

See, when Days of Ruin first was released, I was excited. Maybe even a little beyond excited. Finally, it seemed as if Intelligent Systems (the game's developer) was taking this series crazy-serious and ironing out everything that made Dual Strike a little wonky. The characters were all new and dark, the war-torn world was more realistic and dark, and the graphics were completely redone (and dark). Did I mention the game was dark? The masses love dark!

Anyway, the game itself is a hell of a lot more balanced. Those funky CO powers aren't constantly used (since you pretty much could have been wiped out in one turn when somebody engaged their power in Dual Strike), and some of the more questionable units (like the stealth fighter) have been removed. Most of the characters more or less resemble the old ones in battlefield abilities (especially Gage and his sniper traits) -- this isn't a bad thing, since the character system in the previous games worked so well. And speaking of Gage, his theme may rock even harder than Jake's! Bagpipes? With electric guitars? Yes, please!

I don't really want to talk about the plot, since people talk about plots in videogames way too much. Go read a book or something. Anna Karenina comes to mind for some reason. Don't ask me why. But the actual campaign mode here is really well done, if not almost completely identical to the campaign modes in previous games. You know how it goes: complete one mission, move onto the next, until you finally reach the Final Bad Guy (in this case, by the way, he isn't in wheel chair. So you don't have to feel bad about shooting him. Or blowing him up. Spoilers!).

That's about it, if you, the nonexistent viewer of this blog still persist in reading. Days of Ruin probably is my favorite in the series, even if it's a lightweight content-wise in comparison to other Advance Wars games. The content that's here, though, is so well-crafted and finely-honed that I simply cannot complain -- and neither should anyone else. Do you really need to play that Tanks mini-game again? Uh, no.

P.S. -- And here's to you, Boxxet! Way to ruin everything! This will probably cause me days of ruin, I might add! Hyuk-hyuk!

The World-Saving Idea (Part 2)

Essentially, the film details the extraordinary life of a dude with a porta-potty time machine. He orders it from Ebay and uses it to correct his numerous past mistakes that ultimately led up to a broken relationship with his girlfriend. After traveling through time and attempting to mend the relationship along with his broken heart, everything he does just seems to make the situation worse. Finally, he gives up. In the end, the viewer finds out that the porta-potty was actually just a porta-potty, and the protagonist was an idiot to believe in time-travel in the first place.

This idea was supposed to save the world.

It didn't.

Surprise, surprise.

The World-Saving Idea

My film teacher in college once famously told me never to begin a movie-in-the-making with the protagonist hitting a buzzing alarm clock -- he said that most film connoisseurs will immediately frown upon this opening and shun it like rancid gravy.

Funny he should say this, I thought at the time.

While we were still in high school, my friends and I took a class called "Media Empowerment" and one of the requirements was to create a short film that was entertaining but ultimately conveyed some sort of message to its audience. When you get right down to it, brainstorming was a bitch. None of the people in my group had something they wanted to say (well, important to say anyways) and neither did I -- nothing in the world affected me in such a manner as to inspire me to get up on a soapbox and shout at the top of my lungs. I could talk about the "illegal immigrant" issue, but that was a horse that had been beaten to something beyond death; the Iraq War, well, that was even more unoriginal than talking about Mexicans who cross borders.

Smartass that I was, I presented the idea that I was too apathetic to care about any world issue, and maybe I should create a film based on the theme of apathy and how it was effecting the U.S. population. The problem with this was that I, in fact, was apathetic and didn't really want to make a movie in the first place.

Ah. Well. That doesn't exactly cut it, now does it?

Why should you care, dear nonexistent reader of this blog that nobody reads? Well, my friends came up with a brilliant movie idea that might possibly save the world today. Hunger would be quenched, poverty would vanish, and I would cease to be apathetic if the idea was spread.

Yes, it was that good.

However, the film began with a guy hitting his goddamn alarm clock.

To be continued!

Jesus, Get On With It Already!

Dragon Quest bores me. To tears, even! But as the years go by, I keep coming back for more -- it's probably the wholesomeness of the entire experience and the fact that the Dragon Quest series has always had "growing up" and "maturation" themes scattered throughout its imaginary worlds. Despite the fact that many, if not all, of the games have been candy-coated and display Akira Toriyama art, they still have an underlying sense of depth. You can learn stuff from these games. They can change you.

Or, at least, I get that impression.

At the end of the day, I've only played the first and eighth game in the entire Dragon Quest series -- the others haven't been major sellers here in the U.S., and as such, never really caught my attention until a few years ago. They're HUGE in Japan (like the equivalent of a Halo or Grand Theft Auto here); because of this, I feel I should give them my respect. And with the release of the localized fourth Dragon Quest right around the corner on the DS, I also felt I should take a look at one of the previous entries.

It just-so-happened to be Dragon Quest VII.

Here, right now, as I write this blog that nobody will end up reading, I'm going to give this game a subtitle: "Dragon Quest VII: Jesus, Get On With It Already!" Seriously, I watched a couple Youtube walkthrough videos, and YOU DON'T ACTUALLY FIGHT ANYTHING UNTIL MORE THAN AN HOUR INTO THE ADVENTURE. That's insane! Ludicrous! And inexplicably genius! In comparison to the latest eighth entry, in which you and a fat guy slice through a group of slimes within the first couple minutes, Dragon Quest VII is like an old man in a wheel-chair trying to roll his way from LA to San Fransisco. Through snow. And the old man doesn't have any arms.

Maybe I was bored. Maybe I'm still just trying to respect a series that is held in such high regards esteem. Either way, watching someone else play Dragon Quest VII was enthralling. Don't ask me why. The guy playing it even took the time to speak to everyone he saw -- and then talked to them again when he knew that the person he was going to talk to was going to say the exact same thing they said the previous time he talked to them.

And then he talked to them again! ENTHRALLING!

At the very least, Dragon Quest VII was living up to its God-given subtitle...not that I'm God or anything.

Gears of War: Stupid Brilliance, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

"Sucks to be them."

Really now, does it? The two other hulky man-beasts on my team, stuck down in the sewer, a place probably devoid of any monster encounters whatsoever -- does it really suck to be them?

The answer doesn't matter. What does matter is that this scene in the Gears of War is the second-most cringe-worthy out of any conversation between stereotypical gun-toting muscle-freaks I've ever seen. See, they're on a mission. A mission to save humanity from alien-yet-strangely-human-like creatures who have bad complexions and also are on steroids. They're going below ground. Like, under the ground. And they're gonna blow the shit out of these aliens. And they eventually do...with a speeding train armed with a bomb. Boom. Just like that.

No, Gears of War isn't literature -- it barely meets the criteria to become comic-book worthy material. Instead, the game relies on its mechanics (the "pop n' stop" gunplay) to ultimately become one of the best shooters on the market and something I want to come back to time and time again, regardless of lines like, "We want your ammo on our location!" (On a side note, you'd think that with a massive budget, these game makers would actually get some real talent on the script, but...I guess not. It's not like your playing this game to stimulate any intellectual thinking, now, are you?)

Unlike other games this generation, Gears of War is a place I can go back to time after time and still have fun -- I think Resident Evil 4 and F-Zero GX were other such games where I could just jump into a firefight or a race or escape from a giant statue of a midget (I commend the designer who came up with that idea) and still enjoy myself, no matter what. Maybe it just all comes down to the fact that I might have ADD and that I can't enjoy something unless it delivers "fun" in quick, intense bursts. "Slow" and "meticulous" are words that have not entered my vocabulary until the moment I just used them in this last sentence -- this might also mean that "college" (a word that also just was inducted into my vocabulary hall-of-fame) might be out of the question. Such is my dilemma.

This rollercoaster of a game begins in a jail, where Marcus Fenix is saved by his friend, Dom. In this scene, we not only are able to vaguely see our protagonist without a shirt on (just how inhumanly muscly is he?), but we also get the privilege to hear the word "shit" used just for hell of it. Dom and Marcus fight through swarms of aliens, narrowly escape a giant underground bug that appears out of nowhere to devour our heroes, and fly away on a helicopter.

Here, Marcus has an IMPORTANT CONVERSATION with a helmet-clad soldier named Carmine:

"Hey," says Carmine to Marcus, "are you the Marcus Fenix? The one that fought at Aspho Fields?"

Marcus looks grumpy. "Yeah."

In the most horribly voice acted line in the game, Carmine responds, "Wow, cool!"

And what does Marcus think of this praise? Does he thinks it's cool?

"Not really."

You, the person reading this blog, who actually isn't reading it because no one reads this anyway; you who theoretically dropped out of high school to pursue an acting career and now only star in Kentucky Fried Chicken(TM) commercials; you who once asked the waiter in an Apple Bee's restaurant whether or not it felt better to walk through glass with shoes or go barefoot, and if so, does that come with onion rings -- you, you magnificent bastard, you could have written better dialogue. Start living the good life, son, because you'll make it as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer in this here Videogames Industry in no time.

I want to tear my hair out whenever I watch this scene. I want to club baby seals and steal candy from 7-Elevens whenever I watch this scene. I want to smash my hand with a hammer, I want to beat myself over the head with a spiked club...I even want to *gasp* go read Anna Karenina instead of watching this shit. (Note to non-existent reader: I used "shit" instead of "crap" or "trash" because, like Gears of War, the more profanity I use, the better everything gets. So shit. Also: shit.)

But the majority of the time, I skip this scene -- in fact, I skip most of the scenes, because frankly, they're awkward, poorly written, and not very well-shot.

Surprisingly, I like Gears of War, though. I've played it through all the difficulty levels and found all the dog-tags, and right now, I wouldn't mind playing it again. It's just...when people argue over whether or not videogames can be taken seriously, as in, on the level of other forms of popular media, I just think back to Marcus Fenix and his conversation with Dom.

"Sucks to be them."

Oh well. Back to Anna Karenina, I guess.

You Have Been Warned

Since this is a blog that no one will read or care about and its only purpose is to allow me to spew out my nerdy tendencies on paper, let me say to anyone who might actually read this:

"I'm sorry."

To people who may know me personally, I'm even more sorry. If you even glance at what I have written, you probably will immediately vomit and curse at your computer screen and throw a temper tantrum right where you stand (which, by the way, would be incredibly hilarious on film). Yes, I am a nerd, and as a nerd, I have to indulge in nerdy tendencies and write about nerdy things. So...I'd like to reiterate by apologizing profusely. Preferably out my nose. If that even makes sense.

To everyone else: I can't apologize because you don't exist. It's not conceivably possible for someone other than someone I know to be reading this in the first place -- however, if you do exist, well then, more power to ya.

Thanks, and Go for Broak!

Bionic Commando Rearmed!

The most fun I ever had with my Playstation 3 wasn't with a big-budget $60 game or even a cheap download from the Playstation Network -- nay, dare I say -- it was the free Bionic Commando Rearmed demo. Seriously, I think I'd be fine selling my PS3 library and end up spending my entire day swinging around on my bionic arm, shooting Nazi bad guys with a shotgun. I don't even need to buy the whole game because the first level will suffice for eternity. Really!

It's just...so satisfying, you know? Don't ask me why. Maybe it all boils down to Jeremy Parish's everything wrong is right again, where what was once good (and forever will be good) is recognized by the games industry to be freaking awesome again. I mean, really: what was wrong with the early Mega Men, the Castlevanias, the Marios, and all that other 2-D software? Nothing. In fact, I'd argue that there is limitless and untapped potential in the second dimension -- and while the third dimension has this reputation as being "mature" and "where games need to go" in order to progress, I'd say that there's been very little progress at all in the last few years.

To be honest, thinking about playing Metal Gear Solid 4 again makes me a little queasy. Thinking about playing Soul Calibur 4 again has me a little turned on.

Thinking about playing Bionic Commando Rearmed, well...I could think about that all day.

That Feeling of Desperation -- The Survival Horror RPG

The labyrinth is dark, and in the center of my current room sits a large pulsating fireball. In actuality, the fireball is a T-rex creature, armed to the teeth with massive Fangs that are seemingly ready to rip chunks from my party members' faces. Yet, the F.O.E. calls, beckons to me: take up this near-impossible challenge, succeed above all odds, and you and your guild will ultimately feel like a bunch of badasses -- but deep down I know that facing this pulsating doom in the center of the room certainly means quick, painful destruction. I'd have to turn my game off. I don't want to stop playing.

I can't stop playing.

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard can be likened to Resident Evil in the fact that both games are oh-my-god scary. Like, crap-your-pants scary. Like, please-oh-please-F.O.E-don't-follow-me-into-that-corner-or-I-don't-know-what-I'll-do scary. Sometimes, I even cry a little. But that's okay. It's fine to have a good cry every now and then when your party members are obliterated by mutant elk.

Like Resident Evil, Etrian Odyssey II leaves you stranded in an unfamiliar place with nothing but a few spells, weapons, and medicine. You have a map. It's blank. You have to fill it out as you go along; otherwise, you just might take a wrong corner into something you don't want to take a wrong corner into. T-rexes and mutant elk, for example.

But you're literally surviving -- the game is about making it as far as you can into a labyrinth that supposedly leads to the sky or something. It's your job as explorers to find out what lies beyond and perhaps even knock a few heads along the way. Or even get your head knocked in a few times. Or many times. Or too many to count!

Especially by mutant elk.


Edit: More recently, I was killed by a pumpkin, too. GODDAMN!

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Nostalgia, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

A genuine redneck whom I went to school with was actually the one to instruct me in the basics of psychology and the fundamentals of memory -- actually, I guess it all essentially boils down to pure nostalgia -- without my even realizing it. Can you imagine? A redneck! This guy wasn't just an ordinary redneck -- he also happened to be getting married, he spit his chewing tobacco on the school carpets quite frequently, and he ended up becoming a good friend and a pretty nice guy. Who knows what he's doing now, but I wish him the best.

Anyway, during a dull computer class, this genuine redneck allowed me to look through his collection of CD's; I could pick one out and give it a listen. So, being the nerd that I am, I chose one of the Grand Theft Auto soundtracks (Flash FM or something), and began grooving away to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". Honestly, it was a great CD and one that I'll always correspond with boring computer classes with headphones on my ears and my fingers clicking away on keys. Not that that's a bad thing.

One day, my redneck buddy asked me something peculiar as we were flipping through his CD's:

"Do songs ever take you back to better times?"

Whoa. Hold on there, Jimbo. Not only was this guy getting into emotional territory here, but he was also a genuine redneck, and genuine rednecks shouldn't ask these types of questions. I went along with it, though, and answered as wisely as I could.

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"Really?" he wondered, honestly surprised. "I mean, like, say you were on this road trip."

"Uh-huh."

"And you were listenin' to this song."

"Uh-huh."

"And then later on in the future, you hear the song again, and then it brings you back to old times, when you were on the trip."

"Right. I kinda know what you're getting at." I shot him a suspicious look. "What about it?"

He pointed to a CD in his collection. "Well, this album here always brings me back to this road trip I had, and it was a helluva lot of fun. I just wish I could do it again, know what I mean?" And with that, he returned to busily staring into space and not working on his computer.

At the time, I simply shrugged it off. I mean, really! His statement didn't seem that profound, and obviously, coming from the mouth of a redneck (albeit a good-natured redneck), I didn't pay it much thought.

That was my freshmen year of high school. Now, I'm beginning to think, as I get older, that that goddamn redneck was onto something.

***

The first game I received with my original Game Boy Advance was Golden Sun, a role-playing adventure set in a fictional world of sorcery and puzzles and feminine-looking dudes (well, at least Alex looks kind of like a chick). In 2001, it was incredibly fun and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread -- nowadays, however, sliced bread isn't quite as revolutionary as it once was, and it definitely pales in comparison to (OMG!) hoagie rolls. Explore Golden Sun again in modern times, and you'll notice that it plays it pretty safe as far as RPG's are concerned.

But The Lost Age, while also going strictly by-the-book, luckily slipped into my "good-times memory" category created by my redneck friend. Let me explain.

Family road trip to Southern California. 2003. The Lost Age was nearing completion after a couple months of hardy adventuring, and I was foaming at the mouth. I had to see this baby all the way to its dramatic conclusion. While the weather in reality was beautiful and sunny and gorgeous, I was virtually fighting my way through an apocalyptic frozen wasteland as Felix, the (mostly) silent protagonist. The edges of the world were deteriorating into an ominous darkness (or something), and my traveling companions and I had precious little time to save it from impending doom.

Climbing to the top of the Mars Lighthouse, we encountered the Wise One, the mysterious floating eyeball Isaac and Garet had met in the first game -- and despite the fact that he was in no position to confront my party (because I was convinced my leveled-up characters were gods themselves), the Wise One sicked a freaking three-headed dragon on us. My fifteen year-old head whirled in amazement: I was not only fighting a dragon of massive proportions, but a dragon with three heads? Ho lordy!

At the time of this battle, in reality, I was sitting on my great-aunt's couch with headphones on my ears and sleep in my eyes. We had had a long day of swimming and laying out in the sun -- and since I grew up in the mountains where we had no access to a beach, I firmly believed (and I'm still convinced) then that there was no place I'd rather be. There's just something about the combination of sun and sand and water that gets me every time.

Meanwhile, I was still fighting my way through a three-headed dragon, Felix unleashing the epic "Megiddo" nearly every turn. As one of the heads was dismembered, a sickening thought occurred to me, previously thanks to Kraden's warning about the beast's true identity: what if, just what if, this dragon I'm currently doing a bang-up job slaying here, also happens to be Felix's parents and Isaac's dad who had disappeared long ago in a massive glowing boulder-rolling accident?

I thought for a moment.

No, there's no way. The dragon only had a single head at this point, so really, there was no turning back. With one final stroke of my blade and another discharge of "Megiddo", the dragon collapsed to the ground, slowly morphing into three *unconscious* bodies. My worst fifteen year-old fears confirmed.

***

As I reflect back, both the setting of the game and the vacation I was taking were such stark contrasts to each other that I'm still, for some reason, able to vividly remember each and every exciting/relaxing moment. I was in two places I wanted to be at the time -- me, on the beach, listening to the ocean waves crash on the shore, and me, sacrificing a three-headed dragon in order to save the world. The Lost Age, not really known for its originality, is a game that will stick with me for a long time, simply for this reason alone:

"I just wish I could do it again, know what I mean?"

Thanks, ya redneck bastard. I probably wouldn't have thought of it without you. Well, maybe.

Soul Calibur IV: I Don't Like a Good Porno, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

Prior to my semi-decade with the Gamecube, I had never heard of Soul Calibur -- I had unfortunately dabbled in too much Mortal Kombat and eventually ended up crying one night when Liu Kang (or whatever his name is) turned into a dragon and ate the upper half of my babe, Sonya Blade. It scared the crap out of me. I was also eight years old.

That's probably when I stopped playing fighting games. When my dad rented Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 a couple years later, I fooled around a couple minutes with Smoke (the dude who, uh, blows smoke), and then shunned the game like the plague. Even in my later years, no matter how flashy the fatalities or baby-alities or whatever other fluff they have now, I would not touch a Mortal Kombat, much less a fighting game.

Flash forward to late August of 2003. Soul Calibur II is just released, and my anticipation in getting to the store is overflowing. Why the sudden change?

Well, because of Link, of course. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have touched it.

It turned out to be one of the best games I've ever played, and with chippy Talim under my control, no opponent was safe from her whirling tonfas of doom. Not even the best player, armed with Mitsurugi's deadly (and cheap) Damascus sword could destroy me. And even after five years or so, picking up a Gamecube controller is second-nature, like riding a bike.

Soul Calibur IV...feels like I just fell off and skinned my knees. It's a nasty boo-boo, too. Emphasis on the boob-oo.

In actuality, everything that made Soul Calibur II great is back here in full force. The graphics are fantastic and smooth, the character move-lists are updated and feel more balanced, and there are modes I can give a damn about this time (as in, no cheesy RTS stuff). It's a Soul Calibur fan's wet dream...literally.

Which is why I can't stand it.

See, I am a dude, and as a dude, I just-so-happen to appreciate boobs. Boobs, it can be said, make the world go round (unless, of course, these breasts happen to be saggy and/or misshapen), and without boobs, our lives, as we know it, would shatter like a gigantic rock through paper-thin glass.

When boobs take center stage in my favorite fighting game, however, I have a tendency to step back, wave my hands in the air, and yell,

"MY GOD, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

Boobs aren't new to the Soul Calibur universe, judging by this and this, but the fighting engine was the true star of Soul Calibur II a couple years ago, and it was a helluva lot of fun. Now, with advances in technology and, um, implants, the fourth installment in my favorite fighting series seems like little more than soft-core porn.

Let's conduct a little experiment here, shall we? I'm going to have a look at some pictures, and you're going to tell me the first thing (or things) you lay your delicate eyes on. Ready? Go.

CLICK!

CLICK!!

CLICK!!!

Stop. This experiment is done. It may have been to much for you, you bratty pubescent boy, but you have survived the trials and lived to see the light of day. Sure, you may have horrible, recurring nightmares of titanic hot-air balloons blocking your windpipe, but all odds point in your favor.

What can I say? Maybe I could avoid any female encounters (hey, just like in real life!) and just play as The Apprentice instead of jiggly Taki or Ivy or Setsuka or Cassandra or Sophitia or Tira or...you get the point. At least Talim is safe from any heaving breasts or cat-girl fetishes, right?

RIGHT?

...NO!!!!!

"Punching Monkeys"

Punching Monkeys.

Punching Monkeys.

Punching Monkeys.

...Just, say it with me. That's all I ask. Please. I'm on my hands and knees here. For you. Only for you. Otherwise, I'd be standing. Makes sense, right?

When you left, I didn't know what to do. You were gone, leaving no trace, no evidence -- no nothing -- of where you were going or why you had left. I was scared out of my wits, like a child left alone overnight in a run-down dollar-store. Sure, I had the keys to the kingdom and all the toys at my disposal, but no matter how hard I tried, I still felt empty inside.

Huh. "Tried." "Inside." ...Almost like "Punching Monkeys." Funny that.

Arrg! Okay, okay! I get the picture! You don't have to slap me. I know what I did, and I blame you. When Sparkles was attacked...by that...thing...

Oh. Oh GOD! I don't even want to think about it! It was you! This was why you left! It was the guilt, you son of a bitch! When you took her out for a walk, the...the organ grinder...his...pet...

PunChing MonKeys

pUnching MOnkEys

PoNching mUnkeYS

...No, no, I'm okay. Really! I'm fine! It was just a headache -- it'll pass! ReAlLy!

So, then. Where do we, uh, go from here, hmm? You've got a car and I've got my what's left of my dignity -- we could just hit the road and never look back. What do you say?

...We can't? What do you mean, we can't? If anything, I should be calling the shots, not you! You're...you're nothing but a filthy dog killer! ...Or, at least, the assistant to one! You should be the one behind bars, not me!

...oh...sorry...about that little...outburst...

It's just, when I saw that...thing...staring at me with its beady eyes and snarling face, I just...I get a little tense. My hand...it curls into a ball...and I lose...control...over my head...and I just have to...

PUNCHING MONKEYS!

PunChinG MonkEYs!

PunSHing MNKEYS!

Pnshg Mks!