News and Stuff ~ Week of October 26th

Yeah, so I skipped a week. And yeah, I'm kinda late. But most video game news doesn't really interest me. Why? Because most games nowadays are stupid. Why back in my day...haha, just kidding. But seriously most games are stupid FPS or other stupid interchangeable shooting type games. But I digress.

• First and foremost I need to complain. About what this time? About the character battle currently going on at the Gamefaqs website. They do this same nonsense every year, and every year either Link, Sephiroth or Cloud ends up the winner, depending on which characters they decide to let in it this year. Well, this year they're all in it. So la de freakin' da, I could have proclaimed Link the winner before this whole thing even began. It's really getting boring now. Once a character wins they should be retired for a long time. Like 5 years or something. At least. But surprisingly, that's not my real complaint. My real complaint is L Block. L Block, you may be wondering (and justifiably so), who the hell is L Block? Well, my friends, L Block is not a who, but a what. L Block is not a person. L Block doesn't talk. In fact, L Block never even appeared in a game where there were talking characters of any kind. L BLOCK IS A FUCKING PIECE FROM THE GAME TETRIS! Yeah! And as my sister pointed out, it's not even the best piece. (That would be the straight line, of course. They never give you one of those when you need it.) So while Gamefaqs may be up on it's high horse about having strict guidelines for it's content, they certainly don't abide by their own guidelines for their own contest. Because last time I checked, L Block is just that. A fucking block. And it's not a magical enchanged block that was once a sorcerer or something. It's just a block, like one of those bricks Mario smashes with his head. And last time I checked, blocks don't count as characters. So why is it in the contest? And worse, WHY ARE PEOPLE VOTING FOR THE BLOCK? Haha, let's vote for the inanimate object! WTF? If it's a character battle, keep it that way by only allowing CHARACTERS to be included. None of this block bullshit. Because if that's the case I'd like to see the ? blocks from the Mario games included. At least there's a little surprise with that box. Never know what might come out!

• Okay, that was long. Anyway, speaking of long, looks like the new Metal Gear Game has been pushed back to Q2 of 2008! Yikes! That news even caused Konami's stock to take its largest drop in 4 years! Guess everyone really wanted to get their hands on Solid Snake as soon as possible. ...That sounded wrong.

• The rumor is that Gamestop will no longer be selling PRPs (that's product replacement plans) on the Xbox 360 systems! Why? Um, maybe because way too many people are seeing the Red Ring of Death on their systems and a lot of people are losing a lot of money because of it. So far Microsoft has spent over a BILLION dollars repairing the dysfunctional systems. Maybe they should have spent more time on the system instead of rushing it out the door.

• And finally The Simpons Game is out in stores. Gamespot gave it s 7.0 in their review. I played the demo and while I thought the game was very clever and visually fantastic, the demo was hard! Mostly because the controls weren't the greatest. In fact I wound up giving up on it. So while I'd like to play the game, I think it's definitely something I'd rent just to enjoy the humor of the game. Definitely not worth buying.

Top 10 Memorable Lines in Final Fantasy Games

(This, believe it or not, was rejected from Gamefaqs for being "too narrow". Oh well. We can enjoy it here, since it took me hours to put together!)

In a series like Final Fantasy, where every game is an epic quest, there are many things said that stand out. These are just some of the memorable lines that may have made you smile, stop and think, or even shed a tear.

10: "...That is my story." - Auron Final Fantasy X (PS2)
The full line: "Legendary guardian? I was just a boy. A boy about your age, actually. I wanted to change the world, too. But I changed nothing. That is my story."
The phrase "my story" was certainly used frequently in this game. When the party finally gets to their destination, Auron reveals that he wavered the first time he came to Zanarkand. This causes Wakka to comment that even legendary guardians choke sometimes. Auron's response is this line. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this tough and experienced warrior was young and naive once too.

9: "........Whatever." - Squall Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
"Whatever" is the full line in this case. Squall uses this word so frequently in the game it's basically his catchphrase. It's certainly the word most associated with Squall. It's his universal answer to everything, even if he might not always say it aloud.

8: "...I just can't handle the pressure..." - Irvine Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
The full line: "I...I can't...I'm sorry, I can't do it. I always choke like this... I try to act all cool, joke around, but I just can't handle the pressure..."
Irvine is the sharpshooter from Galbadia Garden who joined your team for the purpose of assassinating sorceress Edea. Once everything for the plan is finally in place, it's time for Irvine to take up his gun and do his job. But he's only sitting there, shaking. Squall yells at him, but all Irvine can do is speak this line. The once seemingly confident lone wolf shows his true colors.

7: "...I've lost all sense of purpose..." - Locke Final Fantasy VI (PS)
The full line: "I wasn't able to save Rachel... I've lost all sense of purpose... My life will have no meaning until I can right this terrible wrong..."
Rachel was Locke's love, and she lost her memory while trying to save him from a collapsing bridge. Later she was badly hurt in an Imperial attack. Locke feels responsible for this, and goes on a quest for the Phoenix esper, which he hopes will save her. He speaks this line in the Phoenix cave, when you find him again in the World of Ruin. It really makes you feel for Locke.

6: "...I'll control the world with fear..." - Rufus Final Fantasy VII (PS)
The full line: "That's right. I'll let you hear my new appointment speech. …Old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to have been working. The population thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist attacks, the Shinra army will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste money on them."
After his father is killed, Rufus is quick to arrive at Shinra headquarters. He meets up with Cloud and his party on the roof of the building. Rufus doesn't waste time before he details exactly how he plans to control the world. Chilling.

5: "...I am becoming one with the Planet." - Sephiroth Final Fantasy VII (PS)
The full line: "A lost treasure house of knowledge. The wisdom of the Ancients... I am becoming one with the Planet."
This dialouge is classic because becoming one with the planet is the main line associated with Sephiroth. In the temple of the Ancients, Cloud and Aeris see a flashback of a recent encounter Tseng had with Sephiroth. Tseng tries to question Sephiroth about the temple, and this is his answer. His insane plot is finally about to be revealed.

4: "...I'll be your knight." - Squall Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
The full line: (Rinoa...... Even if you end up as the world's enemy, I'll... I'll be your knight.)
This line is thought rather than spoken, but for a man of few words like Squall, that's to be expected. While in space Squall discovers that Rinoa has taken on the powers of the sorceress. When they land, she's taken away to have her powers sealed for the safety of the world. But Squall comes to her rescue. Alone again, they talk in a meadow by Edea's house. Rinoa worries what will happen if she gets posessed again. Squall doesn't respond verbally, but we get to see what's really in his heart.

3: "...What irony..." - Freya Final Fantasy IX (PS)
The full line: "Ahahaha...What irony. To find the man about whom I have dreamt endlessly......only to discover that he cannot even remember who I am!"
Freya's love, Sir Fratley, went out on a journey around the world but never returned. So she went out to search for him. To her great joy she does find him alive, only his memory is completely gone and he doesn't remember her at all. Vivi asks Freya if she is crying, and this is her response. You can really feel her pain.

2: "...You know what they say about the leading man?" - Balthier Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
The full line: "Princess! No need to worry. I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies."
At the end of the game, Balthier is aboard Bahamut trying to keep it from falling and crushing the city of Rabanastre. His odds of survival don't look very good. Ashe asks him if he understands what he's doing. This is his response. Balthier refers to himself as the leading man several times throughout the game, but you can't help but smile at this one.

1: "...But...not like this..." - Sephiroth Final Fantasy VII (PS)
The full line: "....I've always felt since I was small...That I was different from the others. Special, in some way. But... not like this...."
This line comes during the infamous flashback, where Cloud is telling the group what happened in Nibelheim when Sephiroth disappeared. Sephiroth is in the reactor, investigating the mako mutated creatures stored there, when he starts to come to the realization that maybe he too was created this way. Maybe he is one of these monsters. This line really shows the human side of Sephiroth, before he is driven mad. It's the last line Cloud recollects before finding Sephiroth in the Shinra mansion basement.

The Final Fantasy series is full of memorable lines, and this is just a few of them. I'm sure that future installments in the series will have memorable lines of their own. And it doesn't matter if the dialouge is spoken or displayed in a text box. Every Final Fantasy game draws you into the story and gives you characters you care about, whether you hate them or love them.

Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction ~ Review (Spoiler Free)

I’ve always been a big fan of the Ratchet and Clank series. They’ve always been solid platformers that had interesting stories, great characters, clever dialogue and fun gadgets and weapons. So needless to say I was quick to pick up the newest installment, especially after being quickly hooked by the demo.

Gameplay – Gameplay is similar to the past games. The game is still a platformer with RPG elements. Ratchet still gains nanotech from killing enemies. So in a sense he ‘levels up’. The weapons also level up with continued use. Ratchet comes with some of the old gadgets you’ve become used to in the older games. (Can’t get around without that swingshot and grindboots!) You can still buy armor and weapons from vendors. The quick select is expanded into pages, so you can basically have all your weapons and gadgets at the tip of your fingers. The controls, as always, are perfectly suited for the game mechanics.

But this game is no carbon copy of the past titles. You can also buy devices from a separate vendor. These do various things, such a leech bomb which steals your enemies’ HP for you. I haven’t really found a use for these items yet. Raritanium is featured in this game as well, only here it levels up your weapons instead of your ship. You can do this at the armor vendor. Each weapon has a grid and each space on the grid levels up a different feature of the weapon. There are spaces that increase damage, cause the enemies to drop more bolts, and increase the rate of fire, among other features. Each space costs a different amount of raritanium to upgrade. This varies greatly depending on the weapon and what you want to upgrade. The weapons you get early in the game don’t need too much raritanium to level up, but as you get farther into the game the weapons require more and more. Each weapon also has a ‘?’ space that you have to unlock by purchasing all the upgrades around it. This then turns into a special addition for the weapon that basically serves to increase damage.

Space battles are back, but this time your controls are different. You control the ship itself with one analog stick and control your aiming with the other. Sometimes you also switch to Clank at a gun turret, where all you do is aim and shoot. I’m not a particularly huge fan of the ship battles. To me the controls are kind of difficult to use, but then again I’m no fan of piloting games in general.

This game also makes use of the motion sensor in the PS3 controller. There are several instances (including one of Clank’s devices) which require you to tilt the controller in order to complete a task. I found this kind of control sort of difficult at first (and this is from someone who owns a Wii), but I’m getting the hang of it. It certainly does add a different dynamic to the game.

As usual there are also portions of the game where you control Clank. Only this time he has different powers, including levitation and the ability to slow down time. It’s certainly much more interesting than the usual fare of ordering other robots to do your bidding.

I’ve read other reviews that said this game was easy. Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I will admit that there are certain aspects that do make your journey a bit simpler. For one thing, unlike past Ratchet and Clank titles, money is not that difficult to come by. I haven’t found myself short on cash yet. Also, the raritanium to update weapons is not hard to come by. It is not in abundance, and you will have to pick and choose your upgrades wisely, but upgrading as a whole is not something that happens rarely. Also, weapons vendors seem to be everywhere. That’s not only good because it allows you to frequently purchase ammo, but also because it actually heals you!

Story – The story is interesting as always. Once again you’re up against an evil, but unintentionally humorous, villain. The dialogue is also as funny as it’s ever been.

Graphics – Well, it’s the PS3, so I wouldn’t expect anything less than great. The environments are extremely detailed and expansive. Ratchet and Clank themselves also look great. You can even see the hair on Ratchet’s face.

Sound – The voice acting is top notch as usual. All the old voices you’ve come to know and love are back. The music is enjoyable.

Overall I’ve been extremely pleased with the game. The changes keep the game fresh, but at the same time it retains the same aspects that made the past games so enjoyable. This new installment will please not only fans of the series but new fans as well. Hopefully we haven’t seen the last of Ratchet and Clank.

Total score: 8.5 (9 on Gamefaqs. They don't allow 1/2 scores)

News And Stuff ~ Week of Oct. 15th

• First a bit of comedy. I went back to the grind of Animal Crossing: Wild World. In discussing the game with my sister, this conversation ensued:

Her: remember i told dad one of the animals was creepily
hanging outside my door with a shovel, and he thought i was
in legitimate danger?

Me: LMAO, that is the funniest thing ever. Omg! Your
Animal Crossing character is going to be murdered! What are Booker and that
other cop guy gonna do! This has never happened before! Next thing you know, Tom Nook will be robbed at gunpoint!

• And Sony is stupid. They announce a cheaper PS3 with a smaller hard drive. Nothing wrong with that. Here's the problem. It won't be able to play PS2 games. Yeah. Why? Because, and I quote, "Sony said this was due to a more extensive lineup of games of the PlayStation 3." Wow...have they seen their own game line-up? Now I am a fan of Sony, and I have many, many games I greatly enjoyed for PS2 and PS3. But so far for PS3? Not a thing. You've got a whole huge catalog of great PS2 games that you're just going to ignore now? I'm paying $400 for a system that has pretty much no backwards compatibility. Why do you want to fail more, Sony? Just wondering. Because I really don't think this is a good move.

• Looks like Mario Party is coming to the DS. The game, where four people can play using only one cartridge, ships next month. Now I can beat everybody on the go!

And that's all the news I care about.

Crossing of the Animals

Over the weekend I had a sudden desire to play Animal Crossing: Wild World. For those of you who know squat about Animal Crossing, that's the (better) game for DS. Why is it better? Because you can visit other people's towns WHICH TOTALLY ROCKS. But on the other hand Animal Crossing is totally evil because IT TOTALLY TAKES OVER YOUR LIFE. (And it has nothing to do with Tom Nook.)

So how and why does Animal Crossing take over your life? Well, you see the game runs on real time based on the clock inside your DS. So if it's October 15th at 10:25 a.m. according to your DS, that's the time and date in the game! Fun, right? WRONG. If you don't visit your town pretty regularly, your town starts to degrade. Weeds pop up. Neighbors move. Cockroaches invade your home. It's not a pretty sight. Plus, think of all the fruit you'll miss picking and the rare items Tom Nook might have for sale! Not to mention the special character visits! It's all too much to take. So you're going to feel the need to play every. Freaking. Day. I'd get home and be like, "Ugh...gotta pick the fruit and visit Tom Nook so he can pester me to buy his overpriced crap..." Soon the game became a chore. And chores aren't fun.

So I dropped it cold turkey. No more! I declared. I love Animal Crossing and I love how you can visit other people's towns, but I hope the new installment will not punish you for not playing for awhile. If I don't play for a month, I want to be able to come back and find my town exactly how I left it. Or, almost exactly. I don't care if that bitch Baabra moves. (Why do I always get her?! Why?!) Sure, it's not realistic, but you know what? IT'S A GAME. It doesn't have to be realistic. Same reason why I stopped playing Harvest Moon. Cow can only give milk after giving birth?! What the fuck is this, real life? If I wanted the real farm experience, I'd go work on a farm. (And the time in that game is the total opposite of Animal Crossing. Each day seems to last five minutes. You barely have time to tend to your crops, nevermind walk to town. RUN, RUN! The sun is setting! For the love of god, I need supplies!)

But anyway, I haven't played Animal Crossing in over a year I would say. So my town is probably a ghost town by now. I'm sure if I turned the game on almost everyone would be gone, the place would be covered in weeds, and my house would have become a cockroach amusement park. I managed to avoid playing this weekend. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that kind of commitment again.

Oh, and Tom Nook is an evil dictator who rules the economics of the town with an iron fist. Beware him.

It Feels Just Like I'm Playing For the First Time...Okay, Maybe Not ~ FFVIII

Long story short, I've decided to play Final Fantasy VIII. Again. Honestly I cannot tell you how many times I have played this game. But it's a lot. I have done everything in this game that you can possibly do. And yet I keep coming back for more.

I guess it's special to me for two reasons: one, it's the first Final Fantasy game I played, and two, I can identify a lot with Squall, the main character. He's a brunette who's cranky and doesn't trust people. I'm also a brunette who's cranky and doesn't trust people. Luckily for me I don't overuse the word "Whatever." Squall is far and away my favorite Final Fantasy lead character.

But back to the game.

I didn't get very far last night. I played for around two hours and just finished the Fire Cavern. Right now I'm supposed to go to my room and change into my uniform for the SeeD Field exam. But instead I ran around Garden playing cards. But more on that in a minute.

There's several things that always annoy me at the beginning of this game.

• When Squall and Seifer are in their class at the beginning of the game, everyone else is wearing their school uniform. Why do they get special permission? I guess you can make the argument that Squall just came from the infirmary, but if he slashed Seifer across the face too (which we can assume from the matching scar Seifer sports) why wasn't Seifer seen in the infirmary as well?
• Squall has apparently been studying at Garden for a long time. And apparently he knows nothing. I understand they want to explain to you how to play (and badly, because those tutorials blow ass) but the guy is supposed to know all this stuff already. He's about to take an important exam. He should know how to use his gunblade. I know I'm totally nitpicking, but they could have presented that information in a context that actually made sense.
• Quistis is supposed to be like this prodigy who became a SeeD at like age 15 or something. So why is she only 2 levels above Squall?

So anyway, I get the starter deck of cards, skip all of Quistis' stupid tutorials, and leave Garden. I junction Shiva to Quistis and Quzeqotal (totally not spelled right) to Squall. Then I fight some stuff for awhile, until Squall has 100 blizzard and 100 cure spells and both GF's have learned boost and summagic10%. Then I go into the fire carvern and picked the 20 minute time limit. Mistake! I did not take my time getting through that cavern. And even though I spent more time drawing spells from Ifrit than attacking him, I still beat him with 10 minutes to spare. Blah. That is bad for the SeeD exam results. Oh well.

So back out of the fire cavern and back into Garden. "Go change and meet back here!" Quistis commands. Yeah, okay. I go save, and then it's a mission to win some cards that don't suck.

This is not a very easy mission. The starter deck of cards SUCKS. I won't play cards until after I beat Ifrit, because at least then I have his card, which is pretty good. It's definitely leaps and bounds better than the other shitty cards you get at the beginning of the game.

So I go on a mission to find someone whose cards suck just as much as mine. And I'm LOSING (and resetting after each loss). Of course I'm making the mistake of playing offensively rather than defensively. Finally I manage to win a Mesmorize card from some kid in the cafeteria. Then I find a guy who appears by the front of Garden who has crappy cards. I change to a defensive game and take an Abyss Worm card. This is a pretty decent card because while it's not overly powerful it's good starting card because it's got decent numbers protecting it if you put it in the bottom left corner. I keep playing this guy until I've got a decent hand of cards. His cards are no longer any good to me. So I move onto the guy at the reception station and beat him. He's got bettter cards. Now I'm feeling pretty confident so I go inside and find that kid who runs around. He plays MiniMog, and I take it. MiniMog is super strong up and down (with 9's) and weak on the sides, but it's still a very useful card early in the game. Then I head for the library where I know there's this guy who plays pretty good cards. I manage to win a Malboro card from him, which is a good card for this stage of the game. Finally I've got a good hand. It's time to go win the Quistis card.

I've been saving after every match until this point because I don't quite trust my hand 100% yet. I'm a decent card player now (a far cry from the days where I had no idea what I was doing and spread the random rule all over the freakin' place) but I still don't want to lose my Ifrit card and then have to win it back. But by now I'm feeling pretty good. I know the kid in the cafeteria, one of the Quistis groupies, has the Qusitis card, but the rest of his cards aren't very good. It takes him awhile to play the card, but once he does I win it. Victorious! I finally have a decent hand. Happily, I go off to save. Now I'll go forward with the game so I can do the SeeD exam and go play cards in Balamb. (Gotta win Zell's card from his mom!)

I Guess I'm a Heartless ~ Kingdom Hearts

Anybody who considers themselves a gamer should have heard of Kingdom Hearts. It's a wildly popular RPG series made by Squarenix. There are three games in the series so far: Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts II. Partnered up with my husband I managed to play the first and latest games in the series. Because try as I might I just don't see what everyone else thinks is so great about this series.

Let's backtrack a little to September 2002, when the first game came out for the PS2. I was super excited about this game. In fact, I don't think there were too many people more excited than me about this game. Why? Because it was combining two of the things I love most - Final Fantasy and Disney. I love, love, love Disney. Disney World, Disney movies, if it's got Disney's name on it, I probably love it. And the idea of having two of my favorite things combined in a video game made me proclaim that this was going to be the best game ever.

Well, I guess other people would be proclaiming that, but I wasn't one of them.

I clearly remember purchasing the game (and guide!) while on a break from the poster store I was slaving at at the time. As soon as I got home I popped the game into the system and settled down to play the 'best game ever' at long last. I liked the opening cinema, but sadly it was all downhill from there.

I did not like the battle system. At all.

In my defense, I wasn't used to the type of game where you had to run around smacking things while trying to lock on and cast magic. I was used to standing there and taking it while carefully selecting my next move. I didn't like playing one character. In fact I have always avoided any RPG where you only control one character. (Parasite Eve immediately springs to mind.) I don't like the idea of only have control over one character. So meanwhile in this game, I'm trying to attack stuff while Donald and Goofy run around like maniacs, sometimes hitting enemies and sometimes hitting the wall. Both their MP is gone in two seconds and they're using items like munny grows on trees. It was like Lord of the Flies.

I did my best to struggle onwards. After all, this was supposed to be the best game ever, right? So I did Traverse Town. I did Wonderland. I did the Deep Jungle. I did the Olympus Coliseum and Agrabah. But then I got to Monstro. Yeah. Monstro.

In case you're not that familiar with Disney movies, allow me to fill you in. Monstro is a whale. The giant whale that swallows Pinocchio and Gepetto. So yeah, out of all the movies and places to choose from in all the Disney movies, some genius decides to have a level inside the belly of a giant fucking whale. Worst. Level. Ever. Needless to say it was at that point I gave up. There was nothing keeping me playing this game. I didn't like the battle system, the characters were boring, the story was a bore and I was inside a fucking whale for goodness sakes. Best game never. Onto the shelf with you.

Years later...

Everyone else has played Kingdom Hearts. And loved it. I hear repeatedly that the story is "amazing". And believe it or not I start to feel bad that I gave up on it. My now husband Brian didn't finish the game either. He "got lost" in Halloween Town and had stopped playing. (To this day I'm still trying to figure out how he got lost.) So we decided to team up and play the game together. We would switch off playing levels. (Guess who was playing Monstro - NOT ME!)

So we start to play. And I start to hate the battle system less as I begin to get the hang of it. But I'm failing to see where this great story comes in. Stuff happens in the beginning, and stuff happens at the end, but in between there just seems to be a bunch of regurgitated Disney movie plots. Why? I've seen Tarzan. I don't want to watch it cut down to 10 minutes with a duck, a dog and a random kid shoved in there. That's not a story. That's laziness. Sometimes the freakin' dialogue is word for word from the film! Pretty much all you do in this game is go from world to world sealing them so the heartless can't return. (Even though they do anyway.) The Heartless are bad, because they steal hearts and destroy world. Oh, and Sora lost his friends Riku and Kairi and wants to find them. And in between Aladdin falls in love with Jasmine and Jack wants to be Santa Claus and every other freakin' plot point from every freakin' film in this game is shoved in your face again. Wow. Wonder what'll happen?

Eventually we finished the game. I was still left unimpressed and wondering what was so great about it. I could have watched all those Disney films without having to watch Donald and Goofy waste all my potions in between cut scenes. (And don't even get me started on how little voice acting there was. Why hire these actors at all? If you're gonna pay them, USE THEM.)

So even after finishing it I didn't think Kingdom Hearts was anywhere near the best game ever. But I didn't hate it. So when the second one came out Brian and I once again decided to team up.

We haven't quite beaten the whole game yet. That's all we have left to do, as we just finished completing the whole Jiminy Journal, but I'll get to that ridiculousness in a minute.

If you didn't play Chain of Memories, which I didn't, things start to get a little confusing. The Heartless from the first game are back, but now there's some Organization XIII that's bothering you as well. Get rid of them all! And so onwards to go. Oh, and you want to find Kairi and Riku too. Or something. Mostly Riku. Game developers not helping at all to cut down on the slash fic.

The beginning of this game is mostly kids eating a lot of ice cream. And you don't play as Sora. But then Sora comes back and changes outfits and stuff and then you meet back up with Donald and Goofy, and off you go to revisit the plots of various Disney films, some of which you already visited. Oh, and the Organization weirdos pop up from time to time but they really fail to give you any information so the story doesn't move along at all. Again. At least there's no freakin' whale stomach level in this game.

There's a secret ending movie in this game, and if you play on normal and wanna see it, you have to complete the Jiminy Journal. What is the Jiminy Journal? The stupidest thing ever. King Mickey sends Jiminy Cricket along on your quest to record every single last thing and annoy the crap out of you. There's characters, and story sections. (Who the hell wants to read the stupid story section?? Who cares?) A map section and a treasure section. (So you have to get every chest in the game) And a mission and mini-game section. This is where Jiminy gets extra annoying. Because not only do you have to play every single mini-game in the game, but you have to live up to the standards Jiminy has set for you. So you put up those posters in 30 seconds, or Jiminy isn't giving you the golden Mickey head. My question is, where does the freakin' Cricket get off making me do this stuff?? You put the 20 posters up in 30 seconds you stupid, Cricket! I'm on some kinda quest here! The lives of Disney characters may or may not be at stake! I probably don't have time to waste! Annoying.

Like I said before, I haven't finished this game (yet!) but I'm still failing to see this great epic story. My friend, who's obsessed with this game, says it's a quest of a boy finding his friends or something. Yeah, I can see that. But that doesn't make it a great story. In a story, stuff happens. In a good story, there's at least one point where something awesome happens and you're like "OMG!!" or "WTF?!" But Kingdom Hearts lacks all of these moments. Maybe I'm too jaded from playing Final Fantasy games, where plenty of stuff happens and there's always at least one "OMG/WTF!" moment. If I wanted to watch the plot of all those Disney movies I'd watch the fucking movies. And I must admit that throughout both games I never cared too much about Sora, Riku or Kairi. The games never made me care. They could all die at the end of this game, and I'd shrug my shoulders. Guess that makes me a heartless.

I guess I'll never understand why everyone loves Kingdom Hearts so much, but I guess I'll still play the next one. As long as there's no whale stomach involved.

How I Found Video Games, Or How Video Games Found Me (part three)

In case you're too lazy to scroll: part one part two

Part Three: Another Game In Town

As I mentioned at the end of my last entry, I wanted a N64 for Christmas. Why? Because a new Donkey Kong game was coming out for that system. A SNES was no longer gonna cut it.

I made it very well known that I wanted an N64. So come Christmas morning I unwrapped all of my gifts.

No N64.

But I can't say this was a video game system free Christmas. Why? Because my SISTER, who barely plays video games, got a Playstation. Yup. A Playstation.

Let me backtrack a minute. I still don't know why my parents chose to give the Playstation to my sister. I wound up playing it way, way, way more and currently have it in my home. Why they got the system at all was because my dad heard it was better or something.

Neither the Playstation nor the N64 were new systems at this point. No way. They were a few years old in fact. I didn't know much about the Playstation. The most I knew about it was from seeing the demo system in Toys R Us (I thought the controller was the weirdest bulkiest thing ever and I thought the symbols on the buttons was a strange choice.) and reading an article that pitted it against the Sega Saturn in an issue of Zillions. (LOVED that magazine. If they still made it, I'd still subscribe.)

Oh, and I also vaguely knew something about a game called Final Fantasy, but I'll get to that in a minute.

I was kind of annoyed that I wanted an N64 and didn't get one, but my sister gets this Playstation and doesn't even play video games. But being a video game freak, I consented to play it anyway, of course. We had two games: Toy Story 2 and Crash Bandicoot: Warped. I remember when I first tried to play Toy Story it told me I couldn't save because I didn't have a "memory card". This concept was foreign to me. Why did you need a separate thing to save the games on? I made my dad go out and buy one.

Back to my N64 saga. After Christmas I had acquired a good amount of money. I was in high school by this point, my senior year, believe it or not. (That SNES had lasted a long damn time.) We went shopping one day and we were able to leave when I spotted a video game store. I ran inside and the store was PACKED. But I saw a box that had not only an N64 but it was bundled with Donkey Kong 64. So of course I bought it. My parents were not pleased. But I was happy.

I'll make my thoughts on the N64 brief, because honestly, it was the most useless system I ever owned. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Donkey Kong 64 and the price of the system was worth the game. But I never really got into the other games for the system. In fact the only other game I ever owned for it was some stupid Kirby game that felt like it was for 5 year olds. I really was more interested in the Playstation. So I guess in a way my parents had done the right thing. (Pretty shocking, I know.)

Back to the Playstation. As I said before I had heard of a game on the Playstation called Final Fantasy. Some of my friends were playing it. They all talked about a guy named Sephiroth. My friend tried to explain it to me once but she got as far as it was about a guy named Cloud before my eyes glazed over and I lost interest. RPGs were not my thing. They reminded me too much of Link. Plus, they looked too complicated for my action/adventure themed brain. I was determined to steer clear.

My sister, however, was interested. She wanted this game. So she instructed my father to go buy it for us. (Dad was feeling extra generous this holiday for some reason.) He came back with Final Fantasy VIII. My friends, of course, had been talking about Final Fantasy VII. But we didn't know any better and neither had dad. FFVIII was the newest FF title out there. So my sister sat down to play.

I, meanwhile, played through all of Toy Story 2 and all of Crash Bandicoot: Warped. (Both were enjoyable games, especially Crash Bandicoot, which was right up my alley.) My sister, in the mean time, was playing with Final Fantasy VIII. I find it horribly boring to watch other people play video games, so I had no idea what she was up to. She told me about how there was this guy named Seifer who teased this guy named Zell which made Zell flip out. And there was this cool cowboy guy named Irvine. She also had no idea how to play. She dragged Squall's dead body around for a long time because she didn't know how to bring him back to life. (The game eventually gave him some pity HP, I shit you not.) She drove around in one of those rental cars searching for the Tomb of the Unknown King for HOURS. Seriously, HOURS! I tried to help her find it, but we were both overwhelmed by this world map. It was nothing like the games we were used to. (Too much like Link.)

I avoided the game for awhile. But then something bad happened. I had beaten Donkey Kong 64, Toy Story 2, and Crash Bandicoot: Warped. The only game in the house that I hadn't beaten...was Final Fantasy VIII.

So out of boredom and boredom alone I picked up the game, mostly as a joke. And I don't remember when the joke ended and the addiction began but I quickly became hooked. I was all over this game. The junction system confused the heck out of me, it was ages before I figured out how to boost a GF, and forget that card game all together. But I found myself really liking the game. It wasn't like Link at all.

So I made it through Disc One and most of Disc Two with no major problems. By the time I got to the fight with Fujin and Rajin in Balamb the only GF's I had were the ones you started the game with. Yeah. I know. So anyway Fujin and Rajin kicked my ass all over the place. I tried time and time again but all I did was die. I got so frustrated I remember very well throwing the controller to the ground in a fit of rage. I was starting to not like this game anymore.

Then one day at the mall I stopped by the video game store and saw a strategy guide for the game. I opened it up and flipped through it. And there I saw everything I had missed, including a ton of GF's. I remember being amazed you could draw GF's out of some bosses. Well oh crap, I thought. I really messed up big time. So I bought the guide, went home, and decided the only thing I could do to play this game right was start over. So I did. And I will fully admit that I've never played an RPG without owning a strategy guide since.

So in the war of the Playstation vs. the N64, the winner was clear. Parents: 1, Me: 0. If it wasn't for them, I'd probably wouldn't have played a Final Fantasy game until years later, if ever. Weird, really. Go figure.

How I Found Video Games, Or How Video Games Found Me (part two)

Part One

Part Two: The Super Years

I remember being told to sit down in the kitchen one Christmas by my parents. All I wanted that year was a Super Nintendo. I don't remember what year it was, but the system wasn't brand new or anything. Anyway, I had already opened all my presents from "Santa" and there was no SNES to be found. But my parents had news for me. Apparently my cool Uncle (same uncle who got me a video game for my Communion present) was going to get one for me. But he didn't have it just yet. That was fine. I waited excitedly for my Super Nintendo to arrive, and when it did I set it up myself. My parents were very impressed. Nothing was about to stand between me and my new system.

I had played a little SNES at friend's houses and the one game I always played was Super Mario World. Well my bundle came with a game titled Super Mario All Stars. Included on the cartridge was Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3. And The Lost Levels, or the real Super Mario Bros. 2. I thought it was great to have all those Mario games in one place. Once again it seemed Mario would be the dominant game series for this console, but a new kid was coming to town.

But I had Super Mario World now, and that was what I played. I thought it was a great game and I still do. Yoshi quickly won me over. I liked to take him with me wherever I went. Yoshi, unfortunately, did not feel the same way, because he didn't care to join me in the haunted houses or the fortresses. Even after I fed him all those berries. Ungrateful dinosaur. I remember I was almost to the end when my cousin came over one day and somehow my save got erased. I still don't know quite what happened with that, but I was pissed. I remember saying something like, "Well I better start playing now! I want to get to the Forest of Illusion by tonight!" That's something only a nerd child would say.

This was the first game where I really wanted to do EVERYTHING. I was determined to beat all the Star World levels and find all the Star World entrances. I found all the secret exits for all the red levels. Some gave me more trouble than others. I remember finding out how to actually get to the secret exit for the Butter Bridge level drove me nuts. The first time I tackled the Special levels that had all the total 90's expression names (Tubular! Awesome!) I found them all really hard. I especially remember being frustrated by Tubular. In that level you basically had to float the whole time using those p-balloons, and of course there were tons of enemies and other stuff in the way. I felt like I played that level hundreds of times before I actually beat it. But I finally finished. I got through all the extra levels. And I was rewarded with...a different color scheme for the map, and some of the enemies changed their appearance. Not so great. But at least I could say that I finally finished everything there was to do in a video game.

Super Putty - This game was a gift. Super Putty was like some kind of alien or something. He was a blue ball of...putty that wasn't very interesting. It wasn't a horrible game but there was nothing about it I really found too interesting. I'd play it, get to a certain point, die, and then put it down. Not so super.

Zoop - They showed commercials for this game on TV all the time. Whoever made it totally wanted it to be the next Tetris. Only they failed. Zoop is a puzzle game. Only it doesn't have blocks. I think it had like circles, or something. As you can tell by my awesome description I didn't play this game too much. In fact I don't even remember how to play at all. Shows what an impression it made on me.

Donkey Kong Country - Mario was the main man in my video game life until the monkey came along. I don't remember exactly how I got introduced to Donkey Kong. For some reason I vaguely remember my dad renting it for me, and when I liked it, he bought it. At the time the graphics on this game were absolutely amazing. I'll never forget being so in awe of how "real" everything looked. At the time, this game really was pretty great graphics wise. And it was pretty great game play wise too. I liked the dynamic of Donkey and Diddy being a team and you could switch between them at will. The levels were fun, but not too easy (for me at the time.) I remember a level called "Barrel Cannon Canyon" that I'm pretty sure was one of the last levels in the first area of the game. Towards the end of the level you jumped in a barrel and then had to keep shooting yourself into different barrels to get across the way. There were a lot of barrels there, and they moved in all kinds of directions. I was not used to this kind of game play, and I could not shoot those monkeys into those barrels for the life of me. I even went as far as holding a ruler up to the screen so I could see when they were in a straight line. I'm embarrassed to admit that ever happened, but I eventually got the hang of it and I'm now proud to say I'm a monkey barrel shooting pro. I loved this game, so of course I grabbed the sequel that followed it.

Donkey Kong Country 2 - This game, obviously, is the sequel to DKC. Except this one was even more fun. Out of all three games for SNES I like your two playable characters in this game the best. Why? Because Diddy and Dixie are both small and easy to move. There's no hulking mass of a character in this game. Plus Dixie can use her ponytail to hover for awhile. I've always been a fan of that. This game had a 'Lost World' you unlocked with coins you earned from the bonus games. In order to complete the Lost World you had to pretty much complete every bonus game. Not such an easy task, considering they hid some of those barrels pretty damn well. My favorite world in this game was the Kremling amusement park. What I didn't like about this game was how if you wanted to save more than one time in a level you had to PAY for it. WTF, Wrinkly Kong? Fallen on hard times?

Kirby Super Star - 8 games in one! I remember that being plastered on the outside of the box. I liked Kirby so I was very excited to own this game. Especially when there were 8 games. Some of them were more like mini-games, but there were several longer 'full-length' games as well. Kirby had more powers than ever, and you could even have a friend play alongside you (or the computer.) My favorite of the games was the one where you had to find the treasure chests. I don't think I ever found them all.

Donkey Kong Country 3 - The third game in the ever awesome Donkey Kong series, and my favorite of the SNES bunch. This game just had so much to it. There was more than just completing levels and collecting bananas. There was even more to do than finding bonus barrels. This time you had to collect different items and banana birds and interact with bears. Yeah. Bears. Plus you actually needed Funky Kong in this one! Previously the probably pot smoking Kong had been kind of useless. But now you had to rely on him to update your ride in order to move onto to new areas. There was also a Lost World in this one, and it was the hardest one yet to find. I remember you had to ride around these four rocks that were in the middle of the water. And you had to do it in the right directions and a certain number of times and stuff. This game had some tough levels in it too. I remember one of the later levels had all the controls inverted. And I'm pretty sure you had to swim. There are two things I don't do well in video games - swimming and flying. So for me, swimming with inverted controls wasn't the easiest thing in the world at first.

This was another game that I wound up completing in full, but I have to admit it wasn't until years and years later when I had access to the internet. Told you that Lost World was hard.

Yoshi's Island - Oh, a game about Yoshi! And annoying, crying baby Mario! This was a solid title. I liked playing as Yoshi. What I didn't like was chasing down the sobbing baby Mario every time you got hit by an enemy. After awhile you just wanted to let the bad guys have him. I remember how you got a score at the end of each level based on how much stuff you managed to collect. It would be out of 100 points so I would equate the scores to school. So if I got 75 on a level, Yoshi got a C.

Street Fighter II - I don't know why this is even on here. This wasn't even really my game. It was my sister's, and I don't even know why she got it. This was the first fighting game we ever owned. I almost never played it. I could never really get into fighting games. I didn't have the patience to memorize all those different button combinations. Whenever I played this game I would play as E. Honda and just use his hand slap attack repeatedly. That always seemed pretty effective.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors - I didn't own this game, my cousin did. And together he and I teamed up (he as the boy and I as the girl, of course) to take on the masses of zombies, monsters, killer toys, vampires, giant babies, and chainsaw wielding maniacs that roamed the levels of this game. This game was awesome but it was hard. Whenever we were together we played it and tried to get a little bit farther than we did last time. We turned down the sound in level 4, the first chainsaw wielding maniac level, because it freaked us out. It took us a long time to beat the level with the giant baby stomping around. And the level with the freaky giant snakes in the ground really had us stumped. Plus if you ran out of bazookas, or god forbid keys, you were in a lot of trouble. And the worst part was there was no saving in this game! Instead there were long, convoluted Bomberman style codes that had whoever was watching (my sister and other cousin usually) fumbling for a pen. But these codes we did save carefully. We would need them for the next time we took the zombies on. This game is a classic.

Kid Klown - You probably know by now that me and circus related games don't go together too well. And this is no exception. This was another game that belonged to my cousins, and they didn't really like it. I didn't really like it either, but everyone got such a big kick out of me playing it (because of my constant cursing the name of Kid Klown) that I played it a lot when I was over at their house. Kid Klown is this stupid Klown that is trying to save this girl (who I think was another clown) from this evil guy who keeps trying to blow things up. There were different kinds of themed levels like they have in every other game. Stuff like a woods level, a lava level, a city street and an ice level. I remember the woods level best because it was the first level and there was no saving to be had in this fantastic piece of gaming history.

Anyway, at the beginning of this level, just like every other level, you see the evil guy setting up his explosives and dragging the beginning of the fuse really, really far away from it. If this guy really wanted to blow some shit up he shouldn't have made such a long fuse. Anyway, your job is to beat the fire to the explosive before it can blow the bridge the hell up. Along your route there will be many balloons. You have to grab the end of the balloons to see what's inside. Your object is to get the 4 suits: hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. Some of the balloons hurt you and some give you coins and stuff. All you basically can do is move forward and jump. You cannot move backwards. So if you move past the end of a balloon even a little bit, you can't get it. This is where most of my cursing stems from. Also the fact that this game is just stupid. If you beat the fire to the end but don't have all the stupid suits (the point of this being...?) you literally watch as the bad guy sets up his explosives all over again! You literally stand there catching your breath and waiting for him to be done! Why not just kick him in the crotch and steal the stupid explosives?! No. No. Because that would make sense. The lesson - games involving circus things are bad.

Mario Kart - Wow. I seriously suck for almost forgetting about this game. Aside from Red Racer, which I played a couple of times on the NES (ugh), this was my first real racing title. And I loved it. Partly because of the the Mario characters, but mostly because it was just plain fun and not too hard. I like how there were different ranks you could play and there were plenty of different tracks. I fell off Rainbow Road tons of times before I got it down. I loved the Bowser's Castle and Ghost House tracks as well. The multiplayer aspects of this game also rocked, and I'm not talking about a second player in the Grand Prix. My sister and I loved to try and destroy one another's balloons. We could play that game for hours. It was one of the few games she'd play with me. Oh, and my character of choice? Toad, or Koopa. Give me small and speedy any day.

Yes, the super years were good years. From Mario I moved onto to Donkey Kong, gaining a new game obsession. I had to have all the Donkey Kong games. So when I heard there was a game coming out for Nintendo 64, I had to ask for one for Christmas. My parents, however, had other ideas...

Stay tuned for the final section of this saga - Part Three: Another Game In Town

How I Found Video Games, Or How Video Games Found Me (part one)

Part One: The Beginning

I got a NES when I was six. It was a Christmas present given to me by my grandparents and there are many pictures of me happily posing with the box. Since that was such a long time ago, I don't remember if I specifically requested this gift, or if they just figured it would make a good gift. Either way it doesn't really matter. I had my first system, and my life as a gamer had begun.

Technically I already had a video game system. Or my parents did anyway. We had an Atari, and I remember playing some Pac Man and Breakout as a kid. Those were my favorite titles of the small collection my parents had. I'm not even sure why exactly they had an Atari. Maybe just because it was the thing to have back then. Neither of my parents really play video games. I don't even think I ever saw my dad play it. But I digress.

So I had an NES. And not only did I have an NES but I had the super awesome pack that came with the light gun and the power pad. And the game that came with it had Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt and Track Meet. I liked Duck Hunt okay, but I wasn't much good at it. I cheated a lot by going right up to the screen to shoot things. Track Meet was more fun, but you needed a few people to play it. Even if it was just my sister and I we would make up names to fill up all six character slots. We used to use a chair to cheat at the jumping. You couldn't stay on too long or you'd stumble and fall! It was a learned art.

But Super Mario Bros. was my favorite. At first I wasn't very good at it. At all. In fact it took me a very looooooooong time just to beat "Cheep Cheep World". This was the name we had given the level where all the Cheep Cheeps jump out at you. Cheep Cheep World was my first video game struggle. I was very proud when I beat it. From there I had to worry about the rest of the game. And of course this was the dark ages where you couldn't save. So every time you had to stop playing and shut the system off you had to start all over again.

My sister also had me convinced for a long time that it was possible to jump over the flag pole in the game. She claimed to have seen it at a friends house. Well I tried and tried but I was never able to do it. Lesson learned - never believe your little sister.

I was only 6, so it took me a long time to finally beat Super Mario Bros. Probably more than a year at least. I remember feeling so proud when I finally beat the game. Then when it asked if I wanted to do a new quest, I was surprised to see the same worlds with fuzzy beetles replacing the Goombas. Guess I was expecting something a little more impressive.

My mother liked Super Mario Bros. as well. I picked up a book about "How to Win at Nintendo Games" (I swear that was the title) at a book fair at my school one year, and one of the tricks in the book was how to get quick 1-ups in the game. The trick was you had to take this turtle shell at the end of level 2-3 and kick it repeatedly against the brown brick like structure it had been walking on. After awhile you'd start getting extra life after extra life. Well I tried and tried but I could never pull this off. My mother, however, somehow managed to master it. To this day I still cannot do that stupid trick. But my mom's got it down like it's second nature.

I never had too many titles for Nintendo. My parents rarely bought me any games. But I had a small collection of titles I enjoyed playing (and some I didn't.). These included:

Super Mario Bros. 2 - I don't remember where or how I got this game, but I never really liked it. The only thing I really liked about it was that you got to play Princess Peach and she could fly. It never felt like a Mario title to me, so I wasn't surprised years later to find out it wasn't. I lost interest in this game and found it kind of hard, so I never beat it. Even now I have no interest in finishing it.

Marble Madness - Oh, I was no good at this game at all. I could not move that stupid marble around. I think maybe I could get to the second level tops before I would keep crashing the marble off a cliff and breaking it, or falling down an endless pit and hearing that creepy scream. (Since when do marbles scream?) Year later, after never getting anywhere in this game and being constantly frustrated by trying to navigate that stupid marble around the totally unrealistic map, I eventually gave it to a friend. She was able to beat it no problem. Go figure.

Spy vs. Spy - I remember getting this gift as a gift for my Communion from my Uncle. (Yeah, cool Uncle!) This was a fun title. We mostly didn't bother with trying to get all the objects and the briefcase and then escaping. (It annoyed us to no end that you couldn't hold more than one item if you didn't have that stupid briefcase. You should have come in with the briefcase then, you stupid spy!) Instead we would plant traps EVERYWHERE and since you lost time every time you got blown up, whoever ran out of time first lost. We always thought it was so morbid that after you died you turned into an angel and went to heaven. Then how did you come back??

Circus Caper - Omg, if this is not one of the worst games ever made, some companies must have churned out some real crap over the years. I hate this game so much I can't help but go into a lot of detail, so bear with me. You have to understand a lot to get a full picture of how bad this game is. I got this game for Christmas one year from my parents. I don't know why they chose this particular game but I'm sure the words 'Bargain Bin' were involved. First this game has the creepiest premise EVER. Two kids, a boy, Timmy, and his sister, whose name I can't remember, want to go to a circus. No idea where their parents are. Probably drunk in an alley somewhere. Anyway, the kids don't have any money because their parents are drunken bums, and the circus is sold out anyway. Aw, shucks. Oh! But this creepy pedophile clown will let you win tickets if you win his sleazy dice game! Now this is the intro you get every time before you play the stupid game. The clown never explains how this game works, and the combination of the dice changes every time. And yet you still win. Every time. Rigged? I think so. Oh! But the creepy clown only has one ticket left! Timmy, being ever so kind, lets his sister have the ticket. He'll wait for her right by the exit! So she goes into the circus tent. This is where the music turns creepy. The show is over, but there's no sign of sister! Then this sleazy guy appears, announces he's Mr. Magic (Yeah, nobody pulled that name out of their ass), he's got the sister, and he's not giving her back. He has no reason to do this, other than the fact that he's a pedophile. "You can't have her!" Timmy cries, but it's to no avail. So Timmy has to go into the circus after his sister.

After that engaging plot, I bet you can't wait to play, right? I mean what child doesn't dream of running into a weird circus at night that's just crawling with clowns? Sadly, not only is the story godawful, but the game play is too. Timmy can walk around or jump crappily. He has a weak punch or a kick that makes him look like he's having a seizure. He also has a slew of crappy items he can use that pop out of enemies when he kills them. I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that the child is killing clowns or that the clowns are carrying bricks, yo-yos, soccer balls and snack cakes. There were probably more items but they were so useless I forgot them. In the first part of the first level what you basically do is kill clowns, and jump across the mouths of alligators that are opening and closing. Oh, or you can play a carnival game. But let's talk about the alligators first. Okay, first of all, alligators have nothing to do with the circus. Just because most circuses have animals doesn't mean they're zoos. Secondly, why are there random pits full of water in the middle of the floor? Isn't that a hazard for the people working at the circus? Now, saying that jumping across the closed mouths of alligators is a death trap is like saying the sky is blue. But this is a video game, and weird things are to be expected I guess. But Timmy's jumping is so spastic and the mouths of these alligators are so narrow that it gives the phrase 'death trap' a whole new meaning. If hit the open mouth of the alligator (which of course is open most of the time), you die. If you hit the water, you die. Timmy's drunk parents never taught him to swim apparently. That pretty much sums up the first half of the first level. What's in the second half? A jet pack. Now this kid can't even jump right. What do you think giving him a jet pack is going to do to him?

Throughout the first part of the level you will see curtains you can press up in front of and go into. What are these? Carnival games. Now in a circus where people kidnap kids and have dangerous alligators snapping their jaws in the middle of the floor, I guess a game where you have to jump over a moving ball of fire is pretty much expected. You're accompanied by a bear (Hello, ASPCA?) and you have to keep both yourself and Smoky away from the fire. And if you guessed you and Smoky both move like molasses, you're absolutely right! The game is over when either you or Smoky gets torched by the searing hot flame. And I mean torched! When you get hit by the flame the image you get makes you glad this game only had 8-bit graphics! Even then it looks like you're going to need some serious time in intensive care and a lot of plastic surgery to recover! But the of course you exit the game without a scratch on you. Well, until you get mauled in the alligator pit.

There's also a fairy who's in this game for some reason. What is the point of the fairy? Well, if you get really badly hurt she'll come and play a dice game with you to see if you're lucky enough to live. If that doesn't sound screwed up enough, you should know that the fairy does come often enough...after you're dead. I think the fairy is too busy playing craps in a back alley with that pedophile clown to come and rescue your poor, stupid ass. She's real useful.

So, what's after the jet pack part? I don't know. I never got that far. The booklet that comes with the game goes on to describe each of the levels in some detail. When we were kids my sister and I were convinced they wrote those descriptions so they could pretend they actually made a whole game. Now I guess there's a whole game in there, but I don't know who'd actually wanna play it.

Barbie - I remember my dad buying this game for me. I think I rented this first, liked it, and he got it for me. Is it pretty stupid? You betcha. The concept of the game is basically Barbie is dreaming about all the stuff she has to do the next day and after you complete each area you get a new accessory or piece of clothing Barbie can wear on her date with Ken or whatever. The different areas included the mall, being a mermaid, and the soda shop. You don't really have a life bar, just Z's you lose every time you get hit. If you lose all the Z's Barbie wakes up, but you can choose to go right back to sleep anyway. What really annoyed me about this game was that Barbie could barely jump. Guess those pointy feet and high heels don't make for good air time. Barbie also uses charms from her charm bracelet to interact with the different things around her. Some of the stuff was kind of cute, especially the walking food and drink in the soda shop area. I have to admit that even though it's pretty lame, I do like this game, and I did beat it. The last level involves jumping up and down to make these three coins spin at the same time. It's pretty frustrating. But there are two other levels that really stick out in my mind. There's this level in the mall section where all you do is wait for these waterfalls to stop running water so you can walk by. Yeah. That's the whole level. It's so boring. Guess Barbie's too afraid of getting her hair wet. The other level was very frustrating. It involved Barbie jumping onto narrow musical notes, moving records and tiny little spiky balls all over a moving platform. So if you fell, it was all the way back to the beginning. And because Barbie jumps like an elephant, this was not an easy level to navigate. Since the rest of the game is pretty easy, this level really sticks out.

Jack Nicklaus Golf - I don't remember when I got this game. Now I like golf to some extent, but I didn't when I was a kid. My favorite part was making up names for the male or female golfers.

The Little Mermaid - I think this game was made towards the end of the NES era, because the graphics on it were pretty good. I was a huge fan of the movie (still am!) so it's no surprise really that I had that game. For a game based on a movie it really wasn't bad. I enjoyed playing this game, and I did beat it.

Super Mario Bros. 3 - To this day it is still my favorite Mario title. I remember my friend had this game first, and all I wanted to do was play it. I loved all the different suits for Mario, I loved all the different themed worlds, I loved the graphics, I loved the world maps, I loved the bonus games and items, I loved the story, I loved all the Koopa kids, I loved everything about this game. For a NES game it was pretty complicated. I played this game all the time. I even bought an issue of Nintendo Power that was totally dedicated to walking you through the game. (With the help of that magazine, I did beat the game. I loved that issue and kept very good care of it for YEARS. I wish I still had it. This was it.)

Kirby - I didn't actually own this game until years later, but I picked it once to rent and loved it. So every time I was allowed to rent a game I chose this one. I loved the extra games you could play, and Kirby, who could fly, was different from the characters I had played. That stupid cloud boss at the end of Grape Garden (I think that was the level.) always killed me. Stupid cloud. My favorite mini game was the crane game where you picked up the Kirby stuffed animals for extra lives.

Mickey Mousecapade - Now I have always loved Disney, but this game is pretty stupid. If they really wanted you to play through the whole thing, why did they give you the cheat codes for skipping levels in the instruction manual? (That really explains the level 'The Woods' pretty well. I never, ever, could figure out how to get past that level. So I guess I'm thankful for the cheat codes, because otherwise I never would have gotten past that.) Of course, if you skip the first level, you never get Minnie's shooting power. And without her shooting power, Minnie is totally useless. Luckily my sister would often agree to play Minnie (who Mickey treats like crap in this game. He's always yelling at her.) because otherwise I would be forced to drag Minnie's unwilling form around. It was a pain in the neck to get her to follow you sometimes. If she didn't land on the same platform as you, forget it. I used to like when so got kidnapped, just so I didn't have to deal with her anymore. I never wound up beating this game.

The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventures of Link - I don't care if I don't have the title exactly right. Because I hate this game. I actually got it at a garage sale, and it had saves on it from the previous kid who had played it. (Saves...ooooh...) That kid had gotten pretty far. So what did I do, genius that I am? I deleted them. And thus begins my hatred of all Link games.

I had never played a game like this at all. I had no clue what I was doing. Walking around, black things swarming all around you that you had to fight with your tiny sword. There was this passed out girl lying in this mausoleum type place for no reason I could figure out. The people in the towns were weird and all looked the same. Some creepy wizard wanted me to come down to his basement and teach me magic. Tons of places were blocked by rocks. It was no good. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do or why. And I found out that I didn't really care. When you got the 'Game Over' screen, it said: "Game Over. Return of Ganon". I didn't know who or what Ganon was, but I figured he was probably better off running things because Link clearly didn't know what he was doing. The game of no direction. I finally gave up trying to play it. Maybe I could have moved on and eventually given Link a second chance, but instead I decided I like it better if I stay away from Link related games and he stays away from me. Guess you could say this scarred me for life.

Bomberman - This game was HARD. After awhile, those enemies started moving fast. Or you ran out of time looking for the door. Or you accidentally blew up the door and more enemies came flooding up. I never survived that situation. The powerups were great, though. I really liked this game and had a lot of fun playing it, even if I never really got that far in the scheme of things. (This game had a million levels, or so it seemed.) I dutifully wrote down the long and confusing passwords every time I had a game over screen, but I always seemed to lose them. Stupid days before saving with the stupid passwords that seemed to go on forever. Every time you got a game over you were screaming 'Grab a pen!' to whomever happened to be nearby.

Tetris - I think everybody's played Tetris. I liked being able to change the music, but I hated when you were about to lose and the music got really fast. That really made me more nervous. Thanks a lot. Anyway, I was never too great at this game. I could get to about level 9 before the blocks became too overwhelming. My mom, however, is great at this game. It's kind of embarassing for your mom to be better at a game than you.

I also had a propoganda title where you played a game involving Spot, the 7-Up mascot, but I didn't play that one too much. This is pretty much the list of games I played as a kid. And in some ways they really started to shape me as a gamer. I started liking Mario titles, and, thanks to Link, it was years before I'd go near an RPG.

Eventually the Super Nintendo came out. And I didn't want to play regular Nintendo anymore when there was a super one out there. Stay tuned for part 2, The Super Years.

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