Page 199 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Hachiemon

Those Japanese are a crazy bunch of people. But, you have to respect the fact that pretty much everything they do is undeniably unique. These are the people who created the Transformers, pretty much every famous video game character, and the pancake bunny. Everybody loves a good dose of Engrish, as it highlights a lot of their oddly-named products (Anus Bar, anyone?) and the hilarity that follows bad translations. But of course, you have to take the good with the bad, and there are some things that somehow mystify and sicken the viewers at the same time, like this game here. I told you they were crazy.

And every day, their culture takes over our Western civilization just a little bit. Just look at how anime has invaded and taken over our TV sets so quickly and efficiently. And of course, they practically invented video games (I’m aware that they didn’t. I did say ‘practically’ after all), which have become more popular over here than even movies and such. So you really have to ask why, despite the fact that we get all of their uber-popular stuff, do we never really see any of their extremely oddball gadgets over on this continent? After taking a little time to conduct some research (which consisted of scratching my ass and making stuff up), I’ve concluded that even if they are destined to take us over, our culture still won’t be changed that easily.

And really, I’m not that surprised. Why play some awesome action game when you could be driving over people or killing cops? Why should you play something totally unique instead of playing a rehashed football or racing game that is exactly the same as the last five? No, no, I totally see why we should reject anything at all different from what we’ve got. …Oh crap, I left the sarcasm on. Whoops. Well, in any case, what I’ve got today isn’t exactly the cream of the crop, but is a hilarious and oddly entrancing game from the Land of the Rising Sun called Hachiemon.

Just as a little side note, I was intending to sort of phase out the intro part, but this one just kinda fell into place while I was writing and then turned into a sarcastic semi-rant. But that’s not really the important. Back to Hachiemon.

Now, I was just doing what any good pirate would be doing, and I was spending my time downloading GBA ROMs again. It happens. What can I say? But anywho, I saw the screenshots and just knew that I had to have this one, even though I was primarily concerned with finding Boktai (which, in retrospect, is a bad ROM idea, as it uses a solar sensor.). So I dropped everything and immediately downloaded the Hachiemon. I knew right then and there that I was going to want to review this baby.

Now you can’t tell simply by the screenshot, but the title screen alone is vibrant and alive enough to warrant a closer look. Hachie, as I’ll call him, is over there in the corner, and starts spewing out characters that despite my intense Japanese training (I learned to recognize their most basic alphabet), were distorted just enough so that I couldn’t recognize them. So I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s got a very deep voice for a creature such as he is. Yes, there are voice samples in the game, and more than enough of them too. Hachie isn’t a chatterbox like (GBA) Mario or Link, but he does do a fair amount of “talking”.

I took the most logical step and pressed start. This is what it got me. More letters that I didn’t have a translation table for. You may be thinking that even if I did translate the characters, I still don’t know the language. But as it is, a lot of words (particularly those in the characters that I know) are very close to their English counterparts, so I can pick out easy stuff like “sebu” and “batoru tonamento” and get a little better idea of what’s going on. And speaking of what’s going on, I just chose the top option, as that’s usually the “main game” option.

Huzzah for the powers of deduction! I was right, and was taken immediately to the opening cutscene. Now a lot of stuff happens here, and I didn’t take pictures of all of it, so you’re going to have to bear with me for a while. At first, Hachie and his friends are playing around happily in the greens, but suddenly Hachie gets very angry and they all slink away. Why this happens, I have no idea, but we’ll assume that he’s not angry, but has let off some terrible gas.

After that irrelevant little scene, we get show a huge bunch of (for lack of a proper word) Hachie-cows, who are all very jolly until their beaks fall off! Oh my! What could have caused this horrible happening? The hachie-cows have suddenly become very depressed, and not even the fact that they look adorable can make them feel better about their loss. So Hachie pops up in the traditional red hero headband and probably pledges to return the beaks. He stares across the lake at a city, probably where the cow beaks are being held captive.

But then this sinister-looking Hachie shows up. Just look at those glasses. You know this guy is pure evil. He mutters something that’s probably evil, and then disappears. We’re then taken to the world map, which reminds me of Punky Skunk even more than Back to the Future 2 did.

You see? You see? World map. I told you. Here, we can really start to appreciate that great graphics that make up Hachiemon. It’s not exactly the most original style, but it’s very colourful and is quite funny, what with all the Hachie-cows and such. No, you obviously have to go into the first level before you can get anywhere else, so I presses the A button and I was off. Little did I realize that this first “level” was just another cutscene of sorts. In this cutscene, Hachie happens upon one of the lost cow beaks, just laying there on the ground, but as soon as he grabs it…

A pair of evil Hachies show up and start making fun of him or something. Eventually, they force him to relinquish the beak, and not only are Hachie’s feeling hurt, but his pride is shattered as well. So the evil Hachies walk away laughing at poor Hachie, and leave him crying and alone. But all is not lost! Hachie pulls himself together and catches up to the green evil Hachie. They gab for a while, and then the greenie runs away. He seems to have pissed off Hachie, as he gets quite angry after greenie runs off. He gives chase again, and this time he looks as if he means business.

After that, we get yet another cutscene, this time it starts with Hachie rolling in the grass. Here we learn that Hachie has not only eyes and a beak, but an ass crack as well. I think I just figured out why this game will never get here. Bored and overprotective moms don’t like asses, after all. Then he starts singing to himself. This game is making less and less sense every time something happens. I really wish that I could at least get a few words out of the narrative so I might have a clue what’s going on. But anyway, Hachie walks off again and then we get to progress to level 1. For real this time.

Grrr… Another cutscene? Yup. Only this time, it’s just Hachie yakking it up with a couple of Hachie-cows. After that brief scene, we finally get into the game. As the little intro thing plays out, it seems to me that I’ve been charged with finding some beaks in the level. And not even cow beaks either. Just normal Hachie beaks. Oh well, Off to the chase for me then! So, I started the level all gung-ho and confident that it would be a cinch, but there were plenty of things that I never expected. Firstly, and most importantly, all the different things that Hachie can do.

Firstly, he can move around and jump. That was obvious enough. Though I guess it would be more of a bounce for a creature like Hachie. Next up, is a strange move assigned to one of the shoulder buttons. It makes Hachie speak and produce a bunch of characters above his head that seems to say “Kantere” or something close to that. Like I said, the characters are a little distorted. Wait a minute! That’s the same thing he says at the title screen! Uh… anyhow, the move doesn’t seem to do much. Using it by an enemy does nothing at all, and using it by a destructible block shows whether there’s anything inside or not. A pretty much useless move as far as I’m concerned.

Next up in the beak stretch. This is easily the most useful move in the game aside from moving. It does everything. Firstly and most importantly, it can be used to latch onto walls to use as a primitive grappling hook of sorts. While grappled to a wall, Hachie can jump again to do a MegaMan X-esque wall climbing technique. Also, it can be used to catch items that are just out of jumping range. It can also be used to stun enemies, and finally to catch the attention of female Hachies, which I will discuss later. I can’t help feeling that I forgot something else that this can do, but it won’t matter, I got the important stuff down.

My personal favourite move, this one is what I call the “Beak Boomerang”. Maybe it’s because I love using boomerang chips in the MegaMan Battle Network games (don’t know why, they’re just fun), or for some other reason, but I just really enjoy watching Hachie toss his beak like a boomerang. It’s got the same item-scooping properties as the beak stretch, but this one goes through walls, so it can pick up stuff on the other side. It can also be used to stun enemies or finish them off once stunned. Other than attacking and collecting items, it doesn’t do much else, but would you really expect it to?

Finally we have the Hachie Roll. The name really says it all, but for the sake of any idiots out there, I’ll explain it. Pressing down and jump make Hachie spin into a rolling attack that can take out enemies as well as breakable blocks that might bar the way. A wall of these blocks was stopping me at one point (before I’d discovered the roll), and I was going to give up and forget about reviewing it. But by some miraculous fluke, I found the rolling move and was able to press on. It was a happy day, since my dream of reviewing Hachiemon was once again possible. Oh, and after a little rolling, Hachie gets dizzy and has to stop for a bit. I’ll also point out that you can see his crack in the pic above.

Above is a shot of me taking out some nasty green Hachies with the boomerang. While it would be a lot more convenient to bowl through a group set up like this, I already told you that I get a kick out of the boomerang. On a completely different topic, by that time, I had already found more than enough beaks to get me through the level, but I wasn’t even halfway done. Why would this be so easy to do? Well, I later found out that there are difficulties in this game, and that on easy you only need 3 beaks to finish the first level, but on hard you need 13 or 14. I’m not sure that I even saw that many beaks in the entire level, so I’m guessing that hard mode is quite hard.

Here’s one of those female Hachies I was talking about earlier. It seems that when you use the beak stretch on them, they get all blushy. Nothing else happened immediately, so I bounced around for a bit, when to my surprise, a small Hachie popped out! Holy moly! In Hachie world, kissing is enough to make one pregnant! Because I didn’t want Hachie to have to deal with the troubles of being a single father, I had him eat the kid, which earned me an extra life. I wonder if hamsters eat their young in hopes of getting extra lives as well?

So I finally made it to the end of the level, and the game pulled a Super Mario Bros. 2 and forced a slot machine on me. Only this one was covered in words and such, so I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to line up. I just jammed the button, the spinners stopped, and nothing happened. I guess it’s probably for the best. But I tell you, I could have used a couple extra lives from this thing, because the next level was quite dangerous indeed…

It seems that my likening the beak stretch to a grappling hook wasn’t all that far off from the truth. In level 2, there is a place with a huge pit and some goodies on the other side. I tried my hand at getting across, but due to poor control conditions, I ended up losing more lives than anyone would have liked. And that female Hachie over there, she must be on the pill or something, because kissing her doesn’t produce children. Instead, she throws produce at Hachie, who happily gobbles it all up. And she just keeps throwing it too. I must have gotten 30 or so carrots out of her before I gave up and left.

At the end of the level was this huge Hachie-head. It took some convincing, but he finally decided to fight me. All the guy really does is dash back and forth, so hanging on the wall proved to be an excellent tactic. Until I decided to fight back, that is. I dropped from the wall and rushed him from behind, smacking him upside the head, but if proved futile and he turned to dash at me. I tried to get Hachie out of the way, but I just wasn’t fast enough, and Hachie suffered quite a horrible fate for it.

Yes, Hachie got flung all the way into orbit and around the world, somehow landing in the exact spot the he left at. As you might have suspected, I got creamed by the big guy. Another round would prove just as disheartening. And on my last life, I just barely made it through the fight. After getting whomped by Hachie, the big guy was none to pleased and let me though. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased with myself, and let out a small “booya!’ as a sign that I had triumphed. Of course, Hachie just waddled over to the exit, where I was forced to do the slot machine thing again. And for a second time, I probably failed.

At the end of this map was a final point, and on that point was another cutscene. This time, Hachie ran into that thing there, which I call Hachiemama. She seemed to have a slightly unhappy disposition, and I didn’t care what would happen, so I just went and skipped it. After that, we pressed on to the water levels, where Hachie donned one of those inflatable water donuts to keep afloat. At this point, I was certain that I had more than enough to compose a proper review, so I quit. It also didn’t help that The game wasn’t nearly as fun as it was kooky.

This is getting far longer than it should be, so I’ll just summarize all the review-type stuff here quickly. The graphics are colourful and bright. Animation is done very well, and the overall look of the game is great. I can’t really grade the music, as it was very choppy due to the bad emulation speed. Sound effects that I can remember include Hachie’s voice, which seemed to be good, and not overused either. Controls were probably good, but I was using a keyboard, so once again it’s hard for me to give an accurate account. And as for fun, it was an okay game, but it lacked a little bit of that je ne sais quoi that most of my favourites have in bucketfuls. Overall, Hachiemon is a decent game that I’d like to at least be able to play through once on a real GBA, and not a slow emulator.

So that’s it. It took me a couple extras days due to computer hogs, but I finally did it. It only took me about 3 hours to type it up too, which it a little under the average for these things. If you include pictures, maybe 3:30, but it’s still a good time. I think the best thing that I could do right now is to go find a FAQ or something so that perhaps I could understand a little better what’s supposed to be going on in this crazy game.

You know, these outros are really just a pain in the butt for me, because they’re not supposed to relate too heavily to the game (else they’d be in the body), and they shouldn’t be too off-topic, so I don’t know what to do with them. They shouldn’t be too much about when I did the review or news about the site, because only regulars will really get what I’m talking about. I’ll be trying to phase it out, like with the intro, but they’ll have to go at the same time, because it would be weird to have one and not the other. Well, I guess I’d better quit babbling if I ever hope to end this thing, so here’s a final note: TV ghosts are shy. Don’t expect much out of them.

The raven

Please excuse the lack of update. I won’t really be able to do much in the near future, as it’s getting to that point in the school year when teachers assign as much as they can and tests are abundant. Fortunately, I only have math and chemistry to worry about, so I’ll probably have time to add a couple smaller things here and there. Anyway, updating should resume normal pace somewhere between mid-June and the start of July, when all I have is free time. Oh, and there was no update this weekend due to being out way too much and having an IM whore as a brother.

~Ryan out.

Shine

Hooray for no school! Eh, it’s just an activity day, so I’m not missing anything. But anyway, I finally got around to properly cleansing my PC of evil programs, and it turns out I had a nasty trojan buddy of that CWS thing that’s been going around. But thanks to Merijn’s CWShredder, it was disposed of right quickly. And this whole story just to tell you I put up a new link. Guess where to? New article due either late Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Don’t miss it.

~Ryan out.

Twice as hard

It took a little longer than I’d have liked, but the second Disney World log is up. I would have had it done yesterday, but I was out all night. It happens. Especially with me. Oh, and you’ll have to deal with any typos you might find, because it’s way too long for me to go over with to find an “it’s” that should be an “its”. If any of the picture links go to the wrong place though, I’d like to hear about it. That problem is easily and quickly fixed. So yeah, PC was trojan’d, but that’s gone as far as I can tell. Updates will resume normal pace eventually. Sorry about the mixed-up updates lately, that trip really threw off my rhythm.

~Ryan out.

Down again

First of all, it’s not my fault. I was going to update yesterday, but there are vile things going on with my internet. And for those of you thinking you’re all clever and such, I’m typing this at school. Ooh, I feel like such a rebel. But anywho, I’ll run every virus/spyware/hijacker killer I’ve got tonight and try to fix that little oopsie. And then all will be well… if it works. If not, well then you’re waiting a couple more days. So deal.

~Ryan out.

The path

Okay, so the week went to complete waste. I’ll level with ya, I was just being lazy and putting off anything I should have been doing. Tomorrow there WILL be an update. Whether it’s going to be big or small, I don’t know, but it will happen. I’ve still got 6 days of Disney World coverage to do, and there are also a couple ROMs that I wanna bring to your attention in the next little while. You know you can’t expect much from a guy like me, but I will get back to regular updates eventually.

~Ryan out.

Disney World Day Two: A Kingdom of Magic

The first day was long, and we were all ready for a good night’s sleep. Only problem was, nobody seemed to realize that that first day was going to seem like no big deal after the rest of the trip had gotten through with us. I knew in the back of my head that everything had only begun, even though I’d seen and done what seemed like so much already. We were used to below 0 degrees Celsius, and now we were going to bake in the Floridian temperatures of over 80 degrees Fahrenheit (about 27°C). And there was going to be a lot more waiting, too.

But of course, you don’t really tend to complain about waiting and heat when you get to go to Disney freaking World for almost no cost at all. Even with these impediments that usually prove fatal to people like us, we knew that it would all be worth it, because this is one of those “of a lifetime” experiences. After not nearly enough sleep (we were at Wal-Mart until way past midnight, and didn’t hit the hay till much later), I got up and started preparing for the long road ahead.

Of course, nothing starts your day like a good shower, so I hopped in and turned on the faucet. I was instantly repulsed by the terrible odor emanating from the tap. I’m not sure where exactly you’re not supposed to drink the water, but if Florida’s not on the list yet, add it. The stuff smelled like terrible, and tasted as such. So I did a rush job and ended up about as clean as I was when I entered, but at least I was outta there. Oh, and the towels were scratchy too.

To make up for the horrible showering problems, the hotel we stayed at provides a free breakfast buffet every morning. So we headed on down and prepared to stuff ourselves full, as my dad had threatened that he wouldn’t be feeding us at the parks due to sky-high prices. The spread was quite impressive. There were pancakes, waffles, cereal, muffins, fresh fruit, and danishes. I ate a waffle (These were real-sized. None of that Eggo crap), an apple, a muffin and a couple danishes and finished it all off with some OJ. My morning had officially been made.

After breakfast, we went back to the room and geared up for our first day of awesome. I was stuck with the backpack full of water bottles, but later would be grateful for their cooling effect, even if I did get a soaked back. So we left and headed out to the Magic Kingdom. The best part about it all is that the Disney World mini-city was located not three minutes from where we were staying, so we were there in no time. Not only that, but inside there were signs every six feet that pointed out where everything was, so there was no getting lost today!

Not even ten minutes after we’d left did we arrive at the parking gates to the Magic Kingdom. So far everything was going great, and the near future was looking up for us. We paid the hefty parking fee of $8 and moseyed on in. They have the best parking system in the world there, and after we parked, we were stuck with the trouble of figuring out what to do next. As we tried to figure out where we were, I said cleverly “Remember kids, we’re in the Itchy lot.” thinking I was so smart. Everyone laughed and we found out that we were really in the Minnie lot. Then we saw the tram car that would take us to our destination and hoofed it on over.

We hopped on the tram, and I heard the “Itchy lot” line at least 5 times, and felt a little less clever. But despite the terrible overuse of a Simpsons quote, the tram went on its way and took us to the real gates of the Magic Kingdom. There, we picked up our passes and waltzed in. But there was one final trial to overcome, and that was a giant lake. There were two ways over, a ferry or a monorail. We opted for the ferry, which seemed like the better choice at the time, and started our journey across the lake.

It wasn’t a long ride, but everyone was getting very excited by the time we’d even gotten halfway across. We could see so many of the all-important Disney monuments growing closer in the distance, and the family kept asking the same questions about my last trip. It was growing irritating, and then it came into view. The castle. My mom had been longing to see the castle for pretty much all of her life, after seeing it week after week on that “World of Disney” thing on TV. I guess in a roundabout way, this really is the place where dreams come true.

Finally, we were there. The feeling you get when you arrive at the Magic Kingdom for the first time (that you can properly remember) is indescribable. You’d think it would go for any of the parks, but nothing compares to this place. This is bar none (that I’ve ever heard of) the most extravagant place on the face of the earth. Everything stands out, and you can tell that when they built this place, not a single corner was cut, not one spared expense. If Bill Gates did something like this with his money, I’d probably respect the guy. But seriously, best place ever.

Before we got anywhere though, there were small souvenir shops right near the entrance, and since it was the first day, we dove right in. The boys picked up pens and autograph books, and as for me, well I decided that I’d just take the pictures this time around seeing as I left my old autograph book at home. After we’d finished our pre-park shopping, we passed through the train station and walked right into the middle of Main Street U.S.A.

Main Street is basically the long stretch of shops and such which leads up to the park’s hub, which is the castle. From there, the park branches out into six differently themed “lands”. While the Disney and Minnie statue certainly is a nice decoration, it doesn’t exactly maximize seating space. Especially when someone has seated their bag in the empty spot. But there was no time to waste sitting down. After my brothers picked up their first few autographs, we moved on down the street. You know, here’s a map for you, in case you ever want to get a kind of idea what the place I’m talking about looks like on a map.

To our left were shops upon shops. To our left, more of the same. And while they all sported some sort of reason to visit all of them individually, we only entered a single store. Oddly enough, it was the sports-themed store. There were indeed plenty of sports-themed goods inside. If there’s one thing you can say about Disney World, it’s that that there’s no false advertising. And in the “back” of the store, there was even a huge screen playing some old black & white Goofy cartoons. Can you say “sweet”? On a completely different note, there was one place on the street called “Penny Arcade”. It made me think of all the good times I’d had reading the webcomic of the same name. Sadly enough, I never got the chance to check it out.

And right at the end of the street is this rather famous statue of Walt and Mickey. There’s not a whole lot I can say about the statue, except that it seems to be made of an excellent type of bronze, as it has withstood many many years, and is still in tip-top condition. Yup, that’s about it. Can’t move on yet though, cause the next pic has to be seen before I can. And I cant’ have this paragraph be too short, now can I?

There ya go. The most recognizable structure on Disney soil; Cinderella’s Castle. It’s actually not a whole lot, for what it is. Basically, it’s just the castle with a path through the bottom leading to the other side. Sure, there’s a store and a restaurant to either side, but you really don’t get to see much else. Sometimes some of the characters will be running around up on the balconies and putting on shows, but other than that, it’s a pretty boring hub. It’s nice to look at and all, but like many beautiful girls, it lacks the substance necessary to make it truly incredible.

After we gawked at the castle for a while, we stood wondering where exactly we’d be starting today’s adventure. I suggested the most excellent Tomorrowland, and after a few minutes of discussing why it was the most logical way to start, we were back to the chase. Unfortunately, we didn’t get 20 steps further before we were stopped by the need to get the autographs of not only Chip and Dale, but Pluto as well. Now you might come up with some crazy idea that the character lines are unbearably long, but in reality, most of them aren’t too bad. They move fast too, so we got the autographs and kept a-movin’.

This was the best way to start, and I know, because I’ve done it twice now. Tomorrowland is my personal favorite part of the Magic Kingdom, but that’s not to say that everything else isn’t equally as impressive. In this picture, you can see the Astro Orbiter, which is basically one of those round-and-round spaceship rides, only it’s really high up. It’s conveniently perched above a some sort of restaurant that they call the Launching Pad. At least I think it might have been a restaurant, I never actually checked the place out.

Between the two was the something or other, which was more a tour of the Tomorrowland area than a ride. We hopped on that first to waste a little time, and being the first thing we did, it was fun. At first it was nice and slow, but every once in a while it would speed up. Not to a pace much faster than that of a slow car, but my mom was still caught off guard. Oh boy, was she going to dread Space Mountain. So anyway, the ride took us on a tour of the place, and went through a couple of the more thrilling (than this) rides, like Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Space Mountain itself.

When we were done with that little tour, we arrived at the Space Ranger Spin. I’m sorry you can’t see Buzz too well, but he was moving, and his face was being projected on so that it didn’t look like another stupid animatronic robot. This was a fun ride. I hopped on, ready for some sort of tame roller coaster, but what I got was much better. On the “cart” was a sort of steering device, and mounted upon it were two guns. The point of this ride was to shoot as many targets as you could. And to make it more fun, you could manipulate the steering device to make your cart turn in circles, which was obviously the feature that put the “Spin” in the ride’s name. Buzz’s ride was a blast, even though I was only able to score a measly 1400+ points. It’s not my fault thought. The guns don’t have any real aiming device, so you can only shoot blindly.

After that, we planned to go on the mighty Space Mountain, but of course I was distracted by this place. You know I have trouble saying no to video arcades, so you shouldn’t be too surprised. There were only two disappointments here: they’d gotten rid of their Donkey Kong machine, and there was no Bust-A-Move. But if you can see past those faults, there are tons of other excellent games to play, such as Soul Calibur and a really cool turret game that spins around. Me, I found my glory in a Star Wars podracing game. While I had always kept a place in my heart for the N64’s Episode 1 Racer, this was the podracing game to beat all others. It was set up like a podracer, and the steering sticks were the same as you’d see in the movie. Not only that, but it was one of those head-to-head games too, so I got to have fun and smoke my brother all at the same time.

We left the arcade far faster than I’d have liked, but there was plenty more to be seen around this vast park of wonders. Space Mountain was calling us, but we needed to waste a little more time, so we got some ice cream. I got me a chocolate-covered ice cream Mickey on a stick, and it was good, as expected. After we were done with that, we went on that tour-type ride again. After we had finished there, we finally headed over to the best part of Tomorrowland: Space Mountain.

The last time I had visited Disney World, I was only nine years of age, and was a very timid fellow. But before I left this time, I vowed to go on everything to make sure I had no regrets. And as far as the theme parks went, I kept my promise. My first challenge was Space Mountain. You hear stories about it, and you just know that it’s going to be crazy, so there’s no way to not be even just a little nervous the first time you get near. It’s a sight to see, that mountain. But I was going to do it. And I did. Due to the great new invention called “FastPass”, we almost literally flew past the regular line, and only had to wait four minutes at the max to get on the ride. And once we were there, I knew it was going to be one helluva ride.

And let me tell you, it sure was. While I haven’t been on a lot of roller coasters, Space Mountain is surely one of the best I’ve seen. At first it seems to be just your regular, run-of-the-mill coaster, but then the theme kicks in. Almost the entire ride is hurtling you through an almost pitch-black expanse of stars and screams. It’s extremely fast, and definitely not for the weak of heart. My mom screamed for the whole ride, which was a good minute long, and when asked if she’d go on again, she replied with a solid “no”. But me, I’d do it again in a second.

Our last stop in Tomorrowland was the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. This was one of those rides that wasn’t popular enough to earn a Fast Pass machine, so we waited quite some time to get on this one. And while it was alright, it could have been a lot better. The premise is simple, you drive a car which is on something of a track and go around, then the next person gets in and does the same thing. It’s not exactly a thrilling ride, seeing as the maximum speed is probably slower than that of the touring ride.

See, there are these rail things under the cars, and the wheels don’t go over them, so if you drive badly, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. The craptacular steering response didn’t help matters either. But on the positive side, there are signs all over saying not to bump the car in front of you while you’re waiting to unload, and my dad rammed me several times. It was funny, but there was nothing I could do to retaliate, so I had to put up with the constant jerking. I did get to ride alone though, so nobody was there to criticize my horrible driving.

Before we leave, I’ll wrap up some final notes about Tomorrowland. Firstly, there are a couple boring rides here, like The TimeKeeper and The Carousel of Progress, and I was lucky to know that skipping these would be a great saver of time. Secondly, I really wanted to go on the Alien (as in Alien the movie) ride, but oddly enough, they had it closed down for some sort of remodeling. I was too scared to go on last time, so I was hyped to get on this time, and now I’ve been shot down. With any luck, it’s just to accommodate a Fast Pass line, so it’ll be open if I ever get down here again.

Next in line was Mickey’s Toontown Fair. It was closed for maintenance the last time I’d been here, so this was totally new for me. After doing a little research, I learned that originally it was just Mickey’s Toontown. Turns out they had closed it down to remodel it into a strange sort of town fair dealie. I guess it’s for the better that I never saw it before, as this seems worse than the original, and I wouldn’t want to be disappointed, now would I? Actually, this place was rather boring, so I’ll just post a few pictures and summarize them all in one or two paragraphs.

The first one shows the water tower in front of Goofy’s Barnstormer, a decent roller coaster ride. It wasn’t great, and it jerked more than a pubescent young man, but I’d do it again if there was a short line. Next is Minnie’s house. I didn’t go in because it was far too pink. Mickey’s house was also present. For some reason he had a bike in his living room and a tent in his backyard, but I stopped asking questions long ago. You can see some of the unique plants in his garden and the autograph tent in the next two. That tent is huge, and filled to the brim with people. Mickey’s autograph isn’t worth that. And lastly is something that piqued my interest while going through Mickey’s garage.

Other things that I saw in the Toontown Fair were a playground for small children, some sort of large boat which was apparently owned by Donald Duck, and a giant store disguised as a contest tent. There was indeed a lot of crap in there, and I was going to get me some giant Mickey gloves (because like the Hulk Hands, they’re just irresistible), but opted not to when I saw the price tag. They didn’t even make sounds. We found the Toontown Station, where we found a train that took us on a trip around the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom, and once we got back we left and headed due west for Adventureland.

But to get through to Adventureland, we would have to pass through Fantasyland first. We were going to save it for our next visit to the Magic Kingdom (this place takes 2+ days to see everything), but it was just impossible to say no to the teacups. So we got on, and the only person who enjoyed it fully was myself. Everyone else has this strange problem with spinning very fast, and they say something about “dizzy” or something like that. Me, I get a kick out of it, so I cranked that thing as hard as I could and had a blast.

After that, we moseyed on back down to Main Street, from where we could access Adventureland. Everyone was still a little out of shape from the teacups, so we sat down. The heat and time had gotten to us to, so while we were there, we got drinks, hot dogs and fries. This was the last time that I remembered to take a picture of my food before it was too late, so enjoy your only view of what the food looks like in Disney World. Kinda familiar, I think… Oh, yes, and I had only a drink and fries, because frankly I wasn’t that hungry.

So we were just sitting there regaining our strength when what do you know, a parade comes along. These things happen all the time in the Disney parks, so it wasn’t a big surprise, we just didn’t expect to be there at the right time. I had suggested that we not bother with the parades, but it was coincidence that had brought us to it, so I decided I’d get some snaps in while I was there. Up above you see the top of the Mickey float. It’s quite literally covered in Mickeys. Most were statues, but the one in the dome was like all the other mascots bumbling around the park all day.

As you can se, the floats were varied and all had different character themes. There were also many characters dancing around in the street, and before that day I’d never realized just how hot Alice actually is. Not like that Blue Fairy. Uggh. So yeah, Pinocchio, Aladdin, evil guys, there were others too, like the princesses, and one with all of Mickey’s friends and Peter Pan on it. Now why would they mix Pan with the Mickey crew? None of the other floats had mixed characters. It doesn’t really matter, so onward!

We made it to Adventureland not long after the parade. Once inside, we stopped at a small shop to gawk at toy guns and personal fans. Once the family was done with all the shopping, we moved on and sorted out which rides we were going to go on. Up first was the Jungle Cruise, so we grabbed Fast Passes for that and then let my mom and brothers climb up the Swiss Family Treehouse, which was far too large and stair-covered for me to even consider getting near at this temperature.

When the Jungle cruise was ready for us, we hopped on a boat and the tour guide stated blabbering. Now, it’s really just a boat ride with statues or broken animatronics lined along the shore. Then there was the tour guide. He kept telling these terrible one-liners, and the worst part about it all was that I remembered every single “joke” he made from my last trip. So we got off a little angry, and went to get passes for The Pirates of the Caribbean.

While we wait for that ride, I’ll take some time out to properly explain what the Fast Passes are and how they work. Each popular ride has a couple of these boxes out front of it. What you do, is you put your tickets in, and they come out with passes for the ride they’re by. These passes allow you to go down a completely different queue line and skip all (or at least, most of) that nasty waiting. The passes have a time on them, and at that time, you head on over to the ride and get on. The problem is that you can only hold one type of Fast Pass at once, so you have to wait until your time (which could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours from when you get it) , grab your next one, and get back to the pass’ ride. Fortunately, they’ll honour late passes, so even if you manage to miss your variable window of opportunity, you can still get in the quick line.

Also, while we waited, my youngest brother and mom went on this ride. It didn’t seem like anything I wanted to go on, so I skipped it. We just loitered around outside while they were on it, and I practiced taking pictures. And just to give you a little something to think about – the time we were here was about 4:00, so there was still a lot of day left. Fortunately, most of it was spent shopping or watching Big Daddy, so there isn’t too much more to read.

Finally, The Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s a good ride, with a couple thrill drops, but at the simplest level, it’s an indoor Jungle Cruise with proper animatronics. There seems to be some sort of story going on throughout the ride, but I missed it because I was too busy trying to take a good picture. I took a lot, but the one above was the only one not to come out way too blurry. And even that got screwed up by being far larger a size than I intended it to be. Musta pressed the wrong button somewheres along the line. But it’s still the best ride in Adventureland, even if it is hard to get pics of. I recommend it.

That being done, we decided we’d leave the other three lands until the next time we came, so we up and left the Magic Kingdom. It’s not like we had a lot of time left, either. McDonald’s had reserved the entire park for a company party of sorts, and it would be closed off to the public at 6:00. Now, you can really tell when a company is rich when they can reserve freaking Disney World for a staff party. I guess it just goes to show that they aren’t lying about how many burgers they’ve sold.

So because my word count is nearing 4500 at this point, I think I’ll just do a little wrapping up. Basically what happened the rest of the night was: We went to an outlet mall so that my brother could look for shoes. He found them. Then we went back to the hotel, were I proceeded to laze around. We went out to the Olive Garden for dinner. I ate half a personal pizza. It was the most disheartening moment of my life. We also learned that in America, iced tea is quite literally tea with ice in it. We went back to the hotel again. Everyone went swimming but me, who proceeded to watch Crank Yankers and the first half of Big Daddy. The family came back and dragged me away from my movie to go to Wal-Mart again. Then we got back home and I slept.

All in all, I’d say that the first day was one of the best. Mostly because it was the most exciting, but also because the Magic Kingdom is the best park. So I’ll be back eventually with the next installment of this crazy adventure, the day we went to Disney-MGM Studios. It’ll be packed with thrills, cool hats, and overhyped rides, so make sure that you don’t miss out on my account of the second best thing that Walt Disney World has to offer.

Chop suey

My new article is up. Should have been done yesterday, but while I was writing I got distracted by lunch, and then GameCube. I just can’t resist tasty things. Or GameCube. Especially when my alternative is writing. Don’t get me wrong, folks, I love writing, but it gets tiresome and annoying after a while. So I took a day-long break. It’s not exactly the next installment in the Disney World saga, but it’s sort of a spin-off. Anyways, updates will hopefully be a lot more frequent this week, cause I want to finish this Disney World thing in as small a timeframe as possible, just to minimize unneccessary suspense. And that’s all for today.

No, wait. Gotta give a shout out to my buddy Justin, who hits the big 18 today. Happy birthday, man. You know I can’t afford more than this, so don’t expect anything.

~Ryan out.

The Biggest McDick’s in the World!!

You’ve read the first installment of my Disney World log, right? If not, go here to check it out. If you have, you’ll know that while we were touring in Orlando, we came across a big freaking McDonald’s. In fact, the biggest in the world. After seeing it on the Food Network, my mom and brother were determined to find this place while we were there. Not only did we manage to find it, but on the first day to boot. And as they had been raving for about a week at that time, it was really freaking big. So big, that it was advertising it’s greatness on the M signpost outside, and several other signposts in the vicinity.

Just as a little preface, I’d like to point out that a lot of my pictures of this McDonald’s turned out a little blurry. And by “a little”, I mean “terribly”. I’m not sure why, as almost every other picture I took turned out fine, but that’s the way it is, so you’re going to have to deal with it or go and do something else. The blur isn’t so bad that you can’t tell what’s what though, so you should be able to cope rather easily. Now let’s get this party started.

So now we’ll take a wondrous journey into one of the most amazing places that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Disney World. Our tour starts outside, where amazingly, there is quite a bit to see. Just standing outside of this place, you can tell that it’s going to be like no other fast-food restaurant you’ve ever seen. You have to witness it first-hand to get the full effect of how spectacular this place is, but I’m going to do my best to give you a good general impression.

Well that one turned out horribly, but I’m sure you get the picture. It’s the big M sign seen in front of every single McDonald’s restaurant, so chances are pretty good that you’ve seen one. Only instead of a sign saying that they’ve sold so many billions of burgers, it’s got a fancy-ass electronic signboard that boasts about it’s hugeness and greatness. It also gives details on current specials, what kinds of food they serve there, and just how popular the place is. I can imagine that it’s running the 3 other McD’s restaurants within 30 feet into the ground.

And the fact that there are other McDonald’s restaurants close by is the really sad part. I thought it was a pancake house that they had on every street corner, not a McDonald’s. But on that note, there were a lot of pancake houses around. Especially IHOP (International House of Pancakes, for those not in the know. I just learned that while I was there.). That seems to be the granddaddy of them all. And while pancakes are good and all (now that I think of it, I wonder what the breakfast menu is like here…), I’m at McDonald’s, and that’s what I’ve got to get back to reviewing. So in conclusion, while in Florida, I ate no pancakes.

You might not be able to tell so well from pictures, but this place, as I may have mentioned before, is frickin’ huge. Just look at it and compare it to things around it. Oh yeah, there’s also the whole two-storey thing going on. That’s a big one. Not only is it huge, it’s exuberantly decorated as well. The huge fry box motif, the art all over the walls, and the lights and decorative crap coming out of every which way, it’s amazing just to look at. If you do ever visit, you’ll probably be stuck standing in awe of this place for a good five minutes or so before you actually get inside. And it only gets more extravagant on the inside. If God eats fast food, this is where he goes.

When you walk in (and through automatic doors, no less) you’ll notice that every bit of wall and possibly even ceiling is covered in something. To your right is the dessert bar, which I’ll get to later, right in front of you are swarms of people trying to get food, and to your left is the happy little scene pictured above. As you can see, we’ve got ocean-painted walls, a huge map, a table for taking charity donations, and that token Ronald McDonald toy display. On the floor are some sort of funny footprints that point you to the exit (which you might miss with all this stuff going on around you), and the occasional shoe scuff, which might be unintentional.

Now this one is the real kicker. Look at all of that food advertisement and display. In the very back is the regular McDonald’s counter area, where you get your food. Right in front of them are more little cash register machines, where you order your stuff. This is all a lot more complex than any McDonald’s I’ve ever seen already. Then in front or that is their gourmet food displays. These contain pizza, real sandwiches, desserts, and seafood, among a bunch of other fancy stuff. You can see various signs posted around, like the black pizza sign above, the sandwich sign in the background, and that bistro gourmet sign to the left. Over on the right side, you can just barely get a glance at that dessert area and chef station. That’s right. This McDonald’s has real chefs. That means food that won’t make you crap 5 minutes later (or block you for several days, as I would soon learn).

So while my parents stand in line to get us our grub, we decide to go explore this huge place. It might be the excess of people, or that fact that it’s crammed to the brim with games, tables, chairs and odds n’ ends, but it feels a lot smaller on the inside. Well, to be more precise, the first floor does anyway. The second floor is less jam packed, because the eating area is exclusive to downstairs, so there’s a lot more room to move around, but we’re still investigating the downstairs, so I’ll get back to that.

As you can see in the picture, there are not nearly as many people as I might have led you to believe, but there were still an ample amount. You can also see that the walls are still painted from top to bottom, and there’s decoration as far as the eye can see. Unless you’re looking out those crooked windows, because even downtown Florida, a place filled with more crap than you can imagine, looks bare compared to this single establishment. And you can also see a couple of the games along the back wall, and I’ll hint at it now, that’s one of, if not the best part of this McDonald’s.

There’s the kid’s/birthday area. It’s just as covered in fancy as the rest of the place, and it’s even got those cool character chairs. Just looking here, can you imagine how exhilarating it must be for a kid to have his birthday party here? Even to attend a party here? Or Hell, if you were going to go to a party here, chances are that you live close enough to go whenever you so desired. And that would be great. A place like this is just one of those places you have to go to more than once if you ever get the chance. Just like Disney World, and I have been there twice. Not to boast or anything, though.

Ack! It’s the attack of the blurry camera invaders! I swear… It’s not that I screwed up. No. I’m good at taking pictures. What’s that? I already admitted to screwing up at the beginning? Damn. Hoisted by my own petard. Now while that phrase makes very little sense according to dicitionary.com, I’ll take the Family Guy quote for what it’s worth. Now back to the stuff and such, this is the opposite wall to the kid’s area, and you can see that it’s covered in games, and the floor is absolutely cluttered with eating place. It’s actually quite hard to move through the tables themselves, even when they’re unoccupied. Going around the perimeter may be a longer trek, but it certainly is easier.

Oh gah! It’s even blurrier than the last. Luckily, this one I can chalk up to wanting to take the picture fast so that girl wouldn’t think I was taking a picture of her. It’s just one of those things you have to watch for when you have a camera. You see the aquarium. It’s cool and blue, but the fishies inside leave something to be desired. They’re tropical aquarium fishies and all, but they’re no eels or mantis shrimp or anything really awesome like that. Just plain old angelfish and other brightly coloured aquatic critters. It is pretty big though, so it’s not a total loss. And even if they aren’t special, fish are always fun to watch, in a bored sort of way.

You know, I think it might actually get better after this one. I’m not sure, but we can hope, right? This little corner is jungle themed for some reason that I can’t explain. It comes complete with tons of leaves and flowers hanging from the ceiling, a little statue thing with some water in it, and a rather dark air altogether. It certainly is different from the rest of the restaurant, and it really shows that they were trying to please as many as possible. This way, plant lovers can bask in their flora, and goths can sit in a dark corner. Fun for everyone!

and now, we get to the best part of the whole entire place, and one of the biggest highlights of my trip. Yes, it’s something that only I would get super-hyped about, and yes, I realize that it qualifies me as a huge loser, but damned if my heart didn’t stop when I saw this beauty…

Mc-freaking-Donald’s has an F-Zero AX machine!!!! Just like it says in the title bar! Ever since GX came out, I’ve been searching the city for one, but up here in Canada we’re lucky to get cool stuff late, and most of the time, we just plain miss out on it. I’ll tell you this, If one of these machines does take up residence in Winnipeg somewhere (please inform me if you know of one!), I haven’t been there, because I know I would have used or at least caressed it once by now.

To make my severe geekness a little more understandable, I love F-Zero. I’m not a huge racing fan, but the Nintendo racers have always had a special place in my heart. Mostly because those are the only ones that you can control without being a racing freak. Damn that Gran Turismo and it’s complexity. Heck, damn all sim racers for being too hard for me to understand. But F-Zero, it’s not like that. The car turns when and where you want it to turn. If you want to make a sharper turn, you hold the sharp turn button. None of this spin-out, drift and slow-down-when-turning funny business. Just me, the track, and 29 other racers. All set to awesome music and beautiful sci-fi scenery.

and the arcade game only capitalizes on everything there is in GX. For one, the seat moves around while playing. And since it’s an extreme racer, it moves a lot. So much it needs a seat belt. And then the speakers are right in behind your head, so those awesome tunes are blaring in your ears all the way to the finish line. It may sound distracting, but anyone who doesn’t like a hardcore mix of the Mute City music needs a serious re-evaluation of their musical tastes. Plus it sets the mood really well. I’ll even throw in this link, which you can follow to download every track from every F-Zero game. The steering was a bit touchy and oversensitive, but was easy to get used to.

Oh, just look at that. A perfect picture after all of that blur. Fitting, isn’t it? Well, there’s yet ANOTHER great thing about this machine that I didn’t yet mention. If you’ve got an F-Zero GX game save, and you bring your memory card, you can slot it in here and unlock a bunch of new machines, tracks and parts to play on GX. Yes, you can unlock them without AX, but it’s freaking hard. Just ask anyone who’s played the game. Finishing the races on the AX machine is a helluva lot easier. And even though it might cost you a couple bucks to do it, the experience is definitely worth it. This is one of the greatest arcade games I’ve ever played, topped only by Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man(which was also at this particular McDonald’s), and Bust-A-Move.

So now that I’m done with that little rant, it’s about time that we moved upstairs. Like I said earlier, up here there were no tables or chairs, so it was a lot less crowded, and access to games was much more convenient. If you turn around while heading upstairs, or happen to be on your way down, you’ll see the scene pictured above. While the downstairs was built around the premise of eating and playing F-Zero, the upstairs is a much more patriot-friendly place. But of course, only for the American visitors. Foreigners like me feel completely out of place, eh.

Holy crap. Now that one is bad. More patriotism with the flag-bearing Lady Liberty, and behind her is a huge and brightly lit wall. Inside that wall is the prize room. Not only is this place awesome, it also takes the premise of Chuck E. Cheese’s before it and implements a ticket/reward system. All the prize-type games might have been upstairs, but I’m not sure, since I didn’t even give most of them a second glance. I was far too caught up in F-Zero. It’s ~~kinda~~ very sad that I’m obsessing so much about a single arcade machine, but I’ve been looking for one for months, so I technically could have had a orgasm when I saw it and still been in the right. But I didn’t, so I’m not totally screwed for finding a girl yet. (Note: Even I have a limit when it comes to video game hype.)

And the monstrous ball pit/climbing structure is something you just can’t ignore. This thing, like the restaurant, it huge. I couldn’t go in it, of course, but you know I wanted to. All the twists and turns and windows and things inside. It’s a spelunker’s paradise. In the first picture, you can see a Rollercoaster Tycoon sign of some sort; it’s a pinball game. I thought it was pretty cool, but not cool enough to earn a picture. And in the second, you can’t really see anything. I’m almost ashamed at how bad these pictures turned out, but it’s not like it’s something I can just go back and re-shoot any time I want, so they’ll have to do.

I played a mere two games while I was here. That may sound quite odd, but you already know about the F-zero AX situation. “What was the other game?” you ask? Well, in my entire life up to this point, I’ve only spent money on one woman; Ms. Pac-Man (I make things for my mom, or get my dad to buy stuff. I’m not totally heartless). Now seeing as that statement pretty much ensures me to be single for the rest of my life, I might as well keep going, as I’ve nothing left to lose. …Strange. I think I’ve typed out a phrase similar to that in an older article. Maybe it’s just one of those inaccurate feelings of déjà vu. I don’t know, and I don’t care enough to check. Now bring out the next picture!

You’ve all played one type of Cyclone game or another. Unless you’ve never been to Rucker’s or Chuck E. Cheese’s, but that’s impossible, so I’ll assume you all know how it goes down. In any case, they had both this Cyclone machine, and an identical machine called “Titanic” almost side-by-side. Maybe it’s in case of a busy day, maybe they’re just being redundant. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but I do know what didn’t kill her. Smoking. Ah, now that’s two Family Guy quotes that don’t quite fit. Oh well, they bring back good and funny memories, so I’ll leave ‘em there. Family Guy rules.

And now that we’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see in this Super McDonald’s, it’s time that I leave. It had to happen, but not after one final race across Mute City. Well, after that, I was done, we had to leave for real, and on good timing, too, because there wasn’t anything else I really wanted to take pictures of. But on the way out, there’s one thing that stares you in the eyes through the whole long walk to the exit.

The ice cream bar. The most magical gift the human race has ever been given, and my last stop in the world’s biggest McDonald’s. There wasn’t a huge selection of flavours to choose from, but all the best ones were there; bubble gum, cookies n’ cream, mint chocolate chip, rainbow, chocolate, chocolate swirl, yellow, and a couple less noticeable ones. I, the ever-hungry pile of human I am, decided that I would delight myself with some of this ice cream even though I’d just eaten 4 double cheeseburgers, a super-sized drink and 3 portions worth of fries. I got the yummy bubbly gum flavour that I haven’t had in the years since the awesome ice cream place we used to go to closed down. That was a sad summer for everyone.

See? Blue. It also matched the sign outside if held up properly. You might also notice that it says “internet” in the window. Yes, they had internet. Yes, I could have made a little post while inside. But it cost money and it was a touch screen, and I had racing and dot-eating to do. So I opted not to and simply went on my way.

And that’s the end of that adventure into the wilds of fast-food land. Actually, if you compared it to the rest of fast-food land, it would be like the throne room where the king sits and get really fat. And now that I’ve typed over 3100 words about a McDonald’s restaurant, I have to go and wonder why I’m not doing this for money. Seriously. I would love to get paid for the site, but it’s not going to happen. So while I flush that pipe dream, I’ll leave you with a couple closing statements.

1. If you’re ever in Orlando or anywhere remotely close to it, make sure you visit this place. Even if you don’t like McD’s food, they’ve got something for every taste. They’ve probably even got caviar if you’re into that kinda stuff.

2. Buy me an F-Zero AX machine for my birthday. It’s still 4 months away, but you’ll need to start saving now. If nothing else, get me GX and a racing wheel so I can pretend.

3. Yes, they have a Bill Cosby standy. If that’s not reason enough to travel down to America’s wang, I don’t know what is.

Tear it up

Holy crap, I’ve been living a day behind eveyone else… And for like a week too. Just goes to show how little importance dates hold for me. Today I managed to post a new bit of craziness from good ol’ Steve. It’s about penguins. I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s just awesome the stuff he comes up with. And never for any real reason other than to look busy, either. So that’s up there, and more updates might come later tonight or tomorrow. Most likely the latter, as you’ve probably come to expect.

~Ryan out.