Mega Man – Page 12

Mass Review Time – Fargo ’08

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It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these mass review articles (usually they’re just blogged). More importantly, it’s been a while since I’ve done an article at all. Much to my own dismay, a cheap mass review is not way to worm my way back into the game, but it’s all I’ve really got the gumption to work on at the moment. It’s not that I don’t want to write articles anymore, it’s just that there are so many other things I want to do more. And even more things I need to be doing.

But I digress. Blabbing about why I’m no longer writing full-length pieces is not today’s topic! But rather I’m here to discuss money well spent? I decided to end that sentence with a question mark because at this point I still can’t gauge the actual quality of most of the products below. I just bought most of them through good word-of-mouth and personal tastes. In fact, I’m pretty sure that at least a couple would be considered complete garbage by the general population, but we’ll see!

So the bonus theme here is that I picked up all this stuff when my girlfriend and I went away to Fargo(, North Dakota) for the weekend. I did a little photo gallery with commentary of last year’s trip south of the border (see sidebar), so maybe you’ll prefer that one if you’re looking for an article with a little more meat on its bones. Also, certainty. This here article, as of this writing, is pretty much all assumptions. It’s built on the hopes and dreams of millions! …Or maybe just me.

• Item #1

Tesla – Five Man Acoustical Jam

Okay, I know said it was all assumptions from here on in, but I’m starting with something I know is awesome: Tesla. I’ve been listening to Tesla for many, many years now, and sadly, I’ve only ever been able to find one of their CDs in any local stores. Thus, I often take it upon myself to scour the multimedia-type shops south of the border for anything I can find by them. This time I got real lucky, finding the two Tesla discs I was really gunning for. Five Man Acoustical Jam is obviously enough, a recording of a live acoustic show. It’s one of very few Tesla albums that I haven’t downloaded, so jackpot!

In other news, it’s completely awesome. Tesla is a great band, and they made their name through their acoustic prowess, so the only logical conclusion is that this album must rule. And rule it does. Don’t know what else there is to say other than I love it. Score: A

• Item #2

Tesla – The Great Radio Controversy

I know it seems silly that I only bought two Tesla CDs while I was down there, and now that I really think about it, I probably am really silly for it. I mean, I probably could have completed the full discography, but I stopped looking after I picked up these two.

Unlike its lovably live cousin above, The Great Radio Controversy is a studio album, but that means little. The Tesla-loving community largely believes this to be their finest work, and I’m not one to argue. It’s everything that makes Tesla great (minus the “awesome live performers” bit), and while it may not rock quite as hard as Psychotic Supper, it rocks just as well or better. Two thumbs up. Score: A

• Item #3

Mega Man Star Force 2

Yeah, I know you’re groaning right now and about to skip this paragraph, but that’s quite alright. You put up with more than enough of my Mega Man nonsense that you deserve a break from it if you can find one here or there. So go ahead and move on to the next item if you’ve gotten sick of hearing me rave about Mega Man.

For those that care, Star Force is the dual-screened big brother to the MegaMan Battle Network games. It seems like it’ll be following the same “new chapter every summer” release schedule that Battle Network had. I played the first one almost to completion last summer (I didn’t beat the final optional boss), and I was surprised to see this one in stores because honestly, I had no idea it was out. so I picked it up, and I’ve got to say, it’s most certainly not as big a step up from the first as Battle Network 2 was to its predecessor. I mean, I’m enjoying the game, but it hasn’t offered anything that improves on the first game. Well, not enough to make it feel exciting and new anyway. Score: C+

• Item #4

Etrian Odyssey 2: Heroes of Lagaard

As soon as I’d finally stopped flip-flopping on whether I wanted the first Etrian Odyssey or not, it had long since become impossible to find at retail. I was afraid EO2 would see a similar fate (despite being a new release), but after searching each and every store that sells video games in Fargo, I gave up and checked GameStop. As much as I generally loathe the GameStop/EB chain, it has to be said that they do actually carry Atlus games, and as a fan of Atlus’ niche titles, that scores some decent points in my book.

Anyway, I haven’t actually had a chance to plug it in and start playing yet (probably because I’m awasting all sorts of time writing about shit I buy), but I’ve read more than enough on the subject to be more or less familiar with what I’m getting into. The Youngest One bought it too (before I had a chance to advise him otherwise), probably because he thought “Ooh, an RPG. I should buy it”, and promptly got his ass whupped and put it right down. I doubt he’ll be spending too much time on this one, but someday when I’m in the middle of fewer games, I’ll crack this one open and spend a little quality time with it.

Edit : Decided I’d just forego finishing some other games so I could sink my teeth into this one. I’m not regretting it. Etrian Odyssey II is even better than I’d imagined. This is a real horror game, because you’re always on the edge of your seat, wondering if you’ll be able to survive the next fight. Also, even the slightest progress feels like you’ve made a huge accomplishment, so yeah. props to that. Love it. Score: A

• Item #5

Day of the Dead

No, it’s not Romero’s classic with a new cover. It’s one of those horrid “re-imaginings”, or so I assume. At least on the back cover it said it’s inspired by Romero’s Day of the Dead, so we can hope it at least pays a little homage to the original. In any case, it’s a zombie movie, so it most definitely belongs in my collection.

I should let you know that I fully expect this to be completely awful. That’s how these movies are. The characters are stupid and unlikable, the plot makes little to no sense and there’s buckets and buckets of gore. Yeah it sounds like a disaster, but that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I enjoy a good zombie movie, but I love a zombie movie that makes you want to root for the zombies. It’s brainless (in a manner of speaking) fun, and that’s really what I want in movies. So despite the fact that it’s defacing a classic, I have high-ish hopes for this one.

Edit : Yeah. So I watched it, and it’s not so great. It has almost nothing in common with the original, though if you concentrate real hard you can find a couple loose parallels between the two. But yeah, it’s not even a fun gore-fest. Just low-grade zombie schlock. When Nick Cannon is the best part of a movie, you know that you’ve got a bit of a train wreck on your hands. I’m a little let down by this one, honestly. Score: D+

• Item #6

The Dead Pit

As I was perusing the horror section at Fargo’s Best Buy (why doesn’t our Best Buy sort movies by genre? It’s so much easier…), and I saw that Day of the Dead remake thing, and then right beside it, The Dead Pit caught my eye. The cover didn’t really get the idea of zombies across to me, but reading the synopsis on the back confirmed my suspicions: zombies!

Much to my delight, this is one of those 80’s zombie flicks that pretends to have a cohesive plot. By that of course, I mean it’s more than “OMG zombiez. Let’s try to survive!” Something about a mad scientist attacking a mental ward with a horde of zombies? I dunno and I’m too lazy to go check the case, but it sounded like a riot at the time. I honestly think this could be as unpredictably lovable as Hellraiser. Score: B (pending)

• Item #7

Chucky: The Killer DVD Collection

I’ll level with ya, I’ve only ever seen the first Child’s Play movie, and even then, I was still a little squeamish at the time and covered my eyes a lot. I did like the movie though, and I’ve always wanted to at least see the first two sequels. Bride of Chucky isn’t exactly a priority, and Seed of Chucky seems like they’re just taking it too far. Alas.

I’ve been putting off buying this collection for a while now because I knew that not having the first one would drive me bonkers (OCD, you see), but it actually hasn’t been grating on my nerves too much. It’s not like the movie isn’t on DVD or anything either, I just can’t find the damn thing anywhere. Oh well. I’m sure some day I’ll be in the right place at the right time, and it will be mine. Or I’ll have forgotten my wallet and smack myself in the forehead. Score: B+ (pending)

• Item #8

Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control

I’ll say this now, because it’s the most important note here: I was promised a lot more Patrick Warburton than I got from this purchase, and it makes me ever so slightly disappointed. Other than that, good times!

If you haven’t seen Get Smart yet, you’re really missing out on something. I loved it so much, I ran out an bought this straight-to-DVD supplemental material without even reading a review first. Fortunately, it’s not nearly as awful as most straight-to-DVD stuff, but it’s still nowhere near as great as the main movie. Then again, I never expected it to be. I’m just confused as to why exactly Steve Carell couldn’t make at least a cameo. Anne Hathaway shows up in one scene, so why do we get no Steve Carell? Ah well. If Get Smart was at the “hilarious” level, I’d probably only rate this one as “silly” at best, but it’s still worth a look if you liked the source material. Score: B

Also, I should mention that I bought some other stuff, like shorts and foodstuffs, but I decided to cut them out because clothes are boring (do not tell my girlfriend I said that, she bought clothes almost exclusively) and junk food isn’t something that really needs to be logged into the annals of internet history. At least, not any of the food I bought. It was all pretty much run-of-the-mill junk food that a) isn’t available in Canada or b) is ridiculously expensive in Canada. So yeah. That’s the end then. Good night.

Two lovers in love, we was lovin’ a lot

Not as though I’d be doing too much blogging anyhow, but for the next couple days we’re heading down to Fargo to celebrate… well, not working for like four days? I dunno. Going down to the States to celebrate Canada Day seems a little dumb, but there really isn’t any other occasion. I suppose it’s just for the sake of shopping and getting away. Yeah.

So how about that Mega Man 9 news? Pretty damn awesome, I’d say. This is exactly what digital distribution is all about. I suppose that means that Capcom will finally be putting all the old Mega Man games on the Virtual Console then? I have the Anniversary Collection, so I wouldn’t be buying them, but it would be nice to know that they’re there.

Two Rockman Arrange albums, reviewed

We all know that I love video games. I’ve made no attempt to cover that up at any point in my life. I’ve downplayed it a lot, but never outright hidden the fact that my number one hobby is spending hours with a controller in my hands. It’s not a glamorous hobby, and most certainly not one that wins me any points with the fairer sex, but it’s what I do, and there’s no point in trying to deny who I am. Given, I spend a lot less time with video games than even a year ago, but it’s still a fairly prominent part of my life, and where a huge portion of my personal funds are directed.

So how could this inherently geeky hobby get any geekier? Well, it doesn’t help that I listen to lots and lots of video game music, and have shelled out many hard-earned dollars importing huge game soundtrack collections. You’ve heard me go on many times about how I’m absolutely fanatical about Yoko Shimomura and Motoi Sakuraba’s works, and how I nearly messed my pants in excitement when my copy of the Okami soundtrack arrived, but I never really talk about any of the music that relates to my most deep-rooted video game obsession: MegaMan.

It’s sad but true, I never really blog about how deeply I love the music from the many hundreds of MegaMan games out there. I may have mentioned it in passing many years ago when I wrote that article about why I’m such a Mega-fanboy, but other than that, I’ve never really touched on it for more than maybe a short paragraph once every God-knows-how-long. Today, I shall begin to remedy this situation though, as I have not one, but two discs worth of shimmery remixed Mega-goodness. Enter the 20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Arrange albums.

Left: Wily. Right: “Mr. X” (Spoiler: It’s Wily in disguise!)

I recently purchased these two arrange albums from Play-Asia, and have been listening to them maybe not quite as often as my fanboyism might lead you to believe, but more than enough. I’m sure that there are still people out there who would be shocked to learn that people produce and pay for soundtracks to video games, and possibly even more shocked to learn that I fall into the latter category. It’s no surprise to long-time readers, but the last time I mentioned that I collected video game soundtracks, there was an obvious air of confusion afterward. My parents even, who I’ve explained it to many times, are still dumbfounded whenever I receive a new one in the mail. I can understand that it’s a very niche genre, yes, but how is it so hard to understand? But I digress.

As the whole “Rockman 1-6” part up there might have clued you in on, these two CDs specialize specifically in music from the original run of MegaMan/Rockman (I’ll be using Rockman from now on. First-timers, they’re the same thing) games on the NES. Depending on your knowledge of all things Rockman, you may not be surprised by this fact, but overall the CDs weight very heavily in the favour of material from Rockman 2, whilst the first, fourth, and fifth games are all represented very sparingly, with only one dedicated track per disc. Yes, I know and agree that Rockman 2 was completely epic in every respect, especially as far as music goes, but you’ve gotta give the underdogs a little more credit. On the upside, my personal favourite tracks are the medleys, and every game gets its respects (due or not) in those tracks.

The ROCK CD, which was the first one I got, is obviously more oriented towards rock-style remixes. In that respect, it does not disappoint. The albums opens with the most killer “Boss Mix Medley”, which alone is reason enough to look into this disc. It is an impeccable track that combines a handful of what are essentially throwaway pieces (boss music is usually a 30-second loop at best) into a hard-rocking six-and-a-half-minute tour-de-force that will melt your face right off. It is simply awesome. Its follow-up track, “Cutman Mix”, does it perfect justice, as it takes the already stellar Cutman theme, changes the pacing a little, and makes the whole thing a wonderful sequence of guitars hammering out the verses and screaming solos like they’re going out of style.

At this point the CD goes up and down. I can’t fully appreciate their new spin on the MetalMan theme, but the infamous Dr. Wily theme from Rockman 2 comes out in full force with a wailing guitar duet that just won’t quit. Shadowman’s theme is nice, but is somewhat lost on me, and I honestly cannot believe that they managed to pull a whole 3:30 of non-repetitive material out of a “get weapon” theme for the “Get A Weapon (Rockman 3)” track. The Dr. Cossack theme was never my favourite track from Rockman 4 (though they mixed it quite nicely), and I can’t say the second Wily theme on the disc is overly impressive. “Yamatoman Mix” features an instrument that I’m not smart enough to identify (I may be a moron and it may very well just be an acoustic guitar) which plays a tune in the background of the entire song, and hits the foreground at the beginning, the end, and whenever the electric guitars take a breather between verses. It’s definitely makes the song stand out, and gives it a nice Asian vibe. “Tomahawkman Mix” has what might be the fastest solo on the album, though it could have been so much more epic if it had lasted even ten seconds longer. Like “Boss Mix Medley” before it, “Title Mix Medley” takes all the title screen themes and blends them together into a track that can only be described as awesome. It won’t blow you away quite as handily as the former, but if you’ve got a thing for fancy guitar work, you’ll love it to death.

After getting and playing the snot out the ROCK disc, I decided to go ahead and reunite it with its peppy twin brother, TECHNO. I’ll admit that I’m not a huge techno fan, but I’ve got at least a dozen various other Rockman remix albums on my PC that are mostly techno-centric (which I do quite enjoy), so it was a risk I was more than willing to take. TECHNO opens with a fairly competent “Stage Select Mix Medley”, which like the boss medley, takes a bunch of throwaway tracks and makes them into something worth far more than the sum of its parts. The ROCK disc was all about the screaming guitars and blistering solos, and the TECHNO disc comes right out the gate with pulsing synthesizers and heavy percussion that let you know that it’s going to be living up to its name. Elecman’s theme is next on the chopping block, and it’s slowed down considerably, though unlike another particular mix, does not invoke the feeling that you might be listening to a rip-off of Journey’s “Faithfully”. The constant thump of the bass drums and the peppy synth contrasts the slower tempo and floaty choruses to make sure that you’re grooving and not mellowing out. After that, we see the return of Rockman 2’s first Wily theme, and to tell the truth, I don’t think anyone has ever done a bad remix of this track. Regardless of genre, speed, or instruments used, this is just an overall wonderful piece, and Capcom’s skilled sound crew certainly put it through its paces here. The rock version does it justice with fiery guitar leads, and the techno version will storm you and make you want get up and move move move with its high-speed thump thump thump.

Sadly, those three tracks set far too great a precedent for the following pieces, as they’re simply mediocre in comparison. On it’s own though, “Quickman Mix” has a wonderful metallic vibe going for it, and as much as I want to praise the great, punctuated chorus-type bit, the song relies far too much on the main tune to really be a kickass techno track. “Airman Mix” has an airy (no pun intended) lead-in that lasts far too long, but once it gets going you’ll be able to feel that beat coursing through you. Oddly enough, I feel that this one makes too little use of the base tune, only bringing it in for short bits at a time. “Heatman Mix” doesn’t really do anything for me personally, but I can’t get over how much I love the “Snakeman Mix”. The high tempo and the bridges (which I can only think of as “carnival-esque”) really work for me, and the original tune is peppy enough to inspire at least a little bopping along. The revised Magnetman theme is another one that I consider entirely missable, and the second Wily track on this disc doesn’t exactly inspire me to create a Facebook group dedicated to it. Honestly, the less said about “Starman Mix”, the better. It has a nice spacey sound, but otherwise alls flat on the grounds of impressing me. “Flameman Mix” fares a little better, but only because I really like the original song. Unfortunately, the techno disc does not end on another wonderful medley, which officially makes me a very sad panda, but I won’t dwell on it because it’s a techno CD and I didn’t exactly expect to be blown away by it to begin with.

Besides the fact that they both feature mixes of the “Dr. Wily 1” track from Rockman 2, the two CDs have but one thing in common. That would be that they both contain short versions of all the original tunes used in the mixes. You may look at the track listing and see a robust 20/21 tracks on each, but then you’ll notice that half of them are just the original 8-bit chiptunes directly from the NES games. And that’s not an entirely bad thing, say if you’re trying to educate someone who liked the mixes on the background of the music, but a much better way to do that would be to have them actually play the original Rockman games. Or to play the games and have them watch, because seriously, someone who has never played one of the old Rockman games by this point likely won’t be playing any video games other than Wii Sports anytime soon.

Overall, I’d say that these are two very solid albums, and make a very good case of representing Rockman’s 20-plus-year legacy, regardless of how niche it’s become over the ages. I’d recommend both albums to diehard Rockman fans, but only the ROCK disc to the general populace, as the mixes are a little more interesting on that one. If you’re interested in owning them legitimately (and God knows you aren’t), I most definitely recommend procuring them through Play-Asia.com, as I snagged them both for a debatably reasonable price of about $30 each, whereas Amazon is charging $42.99 for the ROCK disc and a whopping $72.99 for the TECHNO CD. It’s not cheap either way (retail game soundtracks never are), but at least your wallet won’t get completely raped if you order from Play-Asia. Of course, if you’re up to searching for a better price, I won’t stop you.

Remembering the Cottage: Part 1

My fondest memories can more or less be summed up in three categories: “Shopping at Toys ‘R’ Us”, “Holidays/Trips”, and “The Cottage”. The first two categories can still potentially be added to, but sadly, the third is now sealed away as only memories.

I’ve mentioned many a time on this website (most often in the blog) my many visits to my grandparents’ house, which just happened to be a sweet cottage out on the Winnipeg River. The thing is, I never described many events in detail, or took any pictures while I was out there. to nearly everyone, this mysterious cottage could have just as well been a well-constructed myth. To me though, it was very real, and it was the essence of my summers. I spent at least two weeks out there during the summer months for as long as I can remember, and there were quite often other trips out there for such events as Spring Break, Christmas, Thanksgiving, family reunions, long weekends, and many more. It was a great place, and while I may not have appreciated it quite as much in my older years, it was still a place I loved being very much.

Imagine my heartbreak when I first heard that my grandparents were thinking about selling. As if enough bad mojo wasn’t surrounding me in the year 2007, but now my beloved cottage was going to be taken away? Yeah, it sucks balls. The place was actually sold right at the end of August, and on my last weekend out there, I decided I would take a few pictures so I could put them on a webpage laced with wonderful stories of the time I’d spent there. This is that page, and it’s definitely more for my own sake than for anyone else to read, but feel free to sift through it. There are a lot of memories and strong emotions here, so don’t expect even an attempt at humour.

The TV Room

Overview: Ah, the TV room. I probably spent more hours here than anywhere else, but there are a couple catches that help to make that seem less like I was glued to the TV for all the time I was at the cottage. The most obvious one would be that for a couple years I used one of the couches as my bed, so that racks up the hours pretty quickly. If I regret anything in my lifetime, it’s that I didn’t spend nearly enough time out on the balcony that extends from this room. Don’t know why, but it just never seemed like the place I should be hanging out.

Atari: I guess the earliest thing I can remember this room for is that it’s where we had out Atari. Long before I got hooked on video games, my dad left his Atari system out here, only to be dug up many years later so he could show me the kind of games that were around before the NES. I spent many many hours playing Kangaroo, Pitfall, and Pac-Man. Even back when I was only but a wee lad, I could recognize that ET was the worst game ever made. The biggest mystery about the whole thing though, was that we had a manual for Donkey Kong, but there was nary a cartridge to go with it. Oh, how I burned to play Donkey Kong.

Simpsons & Bonding time: My younger cousin would often come in to visit at the same time we did in the summers, and it worked out well because he’s very much like me, so myself and The Youngest One would often spend a lot of time hanging out in here with him and playing whatever handheld game was in at the time. Or just whatever the most recent Pokémon game was. Those two are even more into Pokémon than I am, and I would always get into it when we came out to the cottage, because the young ones just wouldn’t shut up about it, and that would drag me into it. The Tall One and I were also deeply entrenched in the MegaMan Battle Network series, and it was pretty much a summertime tradition to buy the games just before we went out the cottage and simply play the Hell out of them while we were there. Both series of games brought me not only the regular pleasure of playing video games, but also a lot of valuable bonding time with my brothers and cousin. Sure, I can still play with them at home, but it’s just not the same. Also, my grandparents got satellite TV a few years back, and it seemed like that on any given evening that we were there, the Simpsons would always be on at least one channel, so we generally always had that on in the background. Good times, they were. Good times.

Movie night: Back in the day, my grandpa would often borrow a bunch of movies from a neighbour so we had something to watch while we were out there (this was before the satellite, and we were restricted to like three fuzzy channels). This is notable because it’s the first place I ever saw Kindergarten Cop, which remains my favourite Schwarzenegger film, and is near the top of my overall favourites. Many other times, while my grandparents were staying in the city, my family would come out for the weekend and basically binge on junk food and watch movies. Most of them were stinkers like RV and Epic Movie (to name some of the most recent), but it was still cherished time spent with my family and many, many cookies.

Random thoughts: It was a great place to hang out, and of course we often brought more in the way of video games than handhelds, as Atari was fun, but never quite enough. We fought over which console we would bring each time almost as much as we fought over who got to sit in that big reclining chair you can see in the second picture. I played a lot of Donkey Kong 64 out here, and that particular week at the cottage remains one of the most memorable for many reasons. I’ll always carry in my heart the memories of the first time I caught all the legendary birds in Pokémon Blue, as they were all while I was out at the cottage. I spent many subsequent trips out there playing through the game again and again, always reliving my triumphs over Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres with a smile on my face, often in the middle of the night when I should have been long asleep.

Guest Bedrooms

Overview: Only one is pictures, but there were actually two bedrooms upstairs. While I suppose they weren’t technically guest bedrooms, nobody used them but guests, so there you have it. Until the shed outside was turned into a mini-cottage of sorts (more on that later), we would often sleep in these rooms. For a handful of years I slept in the TV Room, as I mentioned before, but these were where we stayed the majority of the time.

Bedtime: The room you see pictured is actually the final phase of that room’s series of redecorations. Initially it had two huge beds lined against the window wall and the wall opposite the shelving. And when I say huge, I mean huge enough to play underneath with plenty of room to spare. I guess they were more high up than anything else, but while they were in there, I was still small enough to think they were gigantic. Until The Youngest One was born, the older two and I would sleep in this room together, a crib or mattress was placed in the empty floor when needed, and I moved onto the second bedroom room when The Youngest One came along and three beds weren’t enough to satisfy the four of us. But until that time, we spent many nights staying up “late” (back when 10:30 was late) and telling stories and jokes in the dark. Being all boys, there was plenty of roughhousing after bedtime too, and I really miss those times.

Bedtime 2: Eventually, when I moved onto the second upstairs bedroom, I was on my own and free to do whatever I pleased instead of sleeping. Obviously, I used that time alone to play GameBoy, listen to music, and read (most memorably the Final Fantasy VIII strategy guide, because that was another completely kickass summer) all through the night. Once the boys started sleeping outside (in the aforementioned shed) I took over the original room for myself again, and at that point it had been rearranged into the room you see in the picture above.

Comics: You can see the shelving in the picture, but hidden behind the pile of assorted sheets and whatnot is a huge collection of comics. They consisted mostly of Archie, Alf, Heathcliff, and Richie Rich. While those aren’t exactly my first choices in comics nowadays, I was pleased as punch to spend countless afternoons leafing through them. And though it took me a couple years to get the job done, I did eventually read through them all. Taking note of my love of comics, my grandpa started saving me the Sunday comics from the Free Press every week, and every time I went out to the cottage he’d always have a stack of funnies for me to peruse. He still saves them for me to this day, and I haven’t put any time aside to read through them for a while now, so I’ve got a rather large pile in my closet just waiting to be read or thrown out.

Horsin’ Around: Back when we were young, and the huge beds were still in the room, my brothers and I spent a lot of time playing in there, often concluding in someone being injured, however slightly. The number one game would be “Lava Monster”, which I know is not exclusive to us, because I’ve seen characters on TV playing it. But in case you have no idea, basically one person would be the Lava Monster and have to stay on the floor, and anyone else would be trying to stay on the beds while the Lava Monster tried to pull them down “into the lava”. The limited playfield may seem like an issue when I describe it, but it was more than enough when we were just lil’ guys. Plus, we’d always get any other visiting children to join in too, so sometimes the Lava Monsters would amount to more than one, depending on rules (either “Tag” or “Last Man Standing”).

Random Thoughts: Now that I think about it, I guess probably the thing I miss most about the cottage (and childhood in general) was playing with the older two of my brothers. While we still hang out and play video games together now and then, we don’t spend nearly as much time together as we did when we went to the cottage. Back when we were kids, we fought a lot (like, seriously, a lot) at home, but as soon as we got to the cottage, we were like best friends. It’s weird to say because I still see them every day, but I kinda miss my brothers. The Youngest One, I still find plenty of time to hang out with though, so at least I’ve got that. For now.

The Kitchen / Dining Room

Overview: Honestly, the living room, dining room, and kitchen are pretty much all the same room. But that’s hardly the point here. Being the glutton that I am, this area of the house holds just as many lovely memories for me as any other room. My grandma is a wonderful cook, and even the simplest dishes meant a lot, just because. I’ll certainly miss the couple weeks each year where I was guaranteed to have three square meals a day.

Breakfast time: Where to start? I suppose breakfast would be the obvious one. I’m not a big breakfast eater. I adore the meal, but very rarely to I have enough motivation or time to partake. The nice thing about the cottage is that breakfast was always a sure thing (with the exception of the later years where I would stay up too late and sleep right through breakfast time). Most of the time it would be a simple cereal/toast/fruit affair, but that was okay. My grandpa would always have the paper completely read by the time I got up, so when I was eating breakfast, he’d have the comics and puzzles pulled out and ready for me. Eating cereal is twice as awesome when you’ve got a crossword laid out for you and someone to chat with. On the best mornings, my grandma would make pancakes. Oh, those were mornings to really treasure. Until later on when grandma didn’t feel like making tons of them, my brothers and I would always compete to see who could scarf down the most. Good times were had by everyone, but our bellies were probably the happiest of all. Lazy mornings are probably my absolute most favourite thing in the world, and at the cottage, they were all that much better.

Lunch: I never looked quite as forward to lunch as much as I did breakfast, but I still like to revel in the nostalgia of noon-related meals. Most of all, would be when I was between eight and twelve or so, and we would often get the boat out and go fishing with my grandpa in the mornings. We’d always get bored pretty quickly and just resort to fooling around on the boat, but going home was a payoff in more than just getting back on dry land. My grandma would generally have lunch ready by that time, and it was awesome. Coming home to a big plate of sandwiches, veggies, cheese, cookies, and all sorts of etc was just superb after a long morning of fishing. Of course, lunch was great on other days, but those are the ones I remember the most. Looking back on this, I guess maybe it all sounds a bit mundane, but you really had to be there. Being pre-adolescent would help too.

Dinner: This is where grandma’s cooking really comes into play. You’re not going to do anything too fancy for lunch, but dinner is a different story. Grandpa often joked that he ate like a king whenever we were over, and I suppose maybe it’s not too far from the truth. I’m a notoriously picky eater, so I would often pick at some things, but most of the time I ate really well. Hams were especially common, and my family seems to be imbued with the power of making wicked awesome mashed potatoes. Going to the cottage on special occasions was great too, because that meant my grandma would make an extra huge and extra delicious dinner, which was always something to look forward to, even for one with as particular eating habits as me. In fact, I actually wrote about one particularly wonderful Easter dinner on the blog. Turns out it would be the last Easter diner we ever ate there….

Elsewhere…

Overview: While it’s true that being at the cottage was in itself the high point of going to the cottage, there were plenty of other cool places nearby to spend time. Most were great for adventuring while we were little, and some offered more than a simple thrill of an excursion into the unknown. All of them though, played a vital role in making trips to the cottage as memorable as the were.

Town: The cottage was about a five minute drive from the nearest town, Lac du Bonnet. I never cared too much for it while younger, but as I grew, I started to realize that it was more than just a grocery store and a beach. Annual Canada Day parades, while officially boring as Hell, would become an important family tradition, and the fireworks afterward only seem to get better each year. It was also home to the only dollar store where I’d ever seen the infamous Nintendo Surprise. It has since closed down and moved to a much larger building, and the goods within have become only slightly less magical. When Subway moved in, it was all we talked about for ages. The only chain restaurant that had been in the town until then was Chicken Chef, and that’s not the kind of place you just go on a whim. Nope, after Subway moved in, I don’t think there was one trip to the cottage where we didn’t partake.

Town 2: Pinawa is a little farther away, and we visited less often, but always for good reason. Firstly, I would like to mention that if it weren’t for my need to shop compulsively for various electronic media, this is exactly the kind of place I would like to live in. It’s small, but not tiny, and most if not all of the houses are quite nice. I’ve always entertained the thought of living in a small town, and Pinawa has always romanticized that idea. Anyhow, the main attraction here is The Burger Boat & Ice Cream Barge. It’s not the best ice cream place I’ve ever gone, but there’s something special about getting your ice cream from a boat. Always a special occasion, going to The Burger Boat was something to really get excited about. Seriously! On a boat! Turns out they even have their own web page. Neat!

The Boat Launch: A short hike away from the cottage, there’s a boat launch that I’ve never seen anyone use for boats. We’d go swimming or fishing off it, but never any boats. Probably because nearly everyone with a boat in the area has their own boat launch, but that’s besides the point. In any case, over the years, it became more of a point just for me to travel out to just to get some alone/thinking time. There were better spots for such things, but they were all farther away, and I’m lazy. The hike there was worth mentioning too, as there was always a bunch of stuff on the way. Mostly bodies of water to skip rocks in and bales of hay to climb on, but they meant a lot back in the day.

The Rocks: Along Tower Road was, that’s right, a tower. To this day I’m not sure exactly what kind of tower it was. Maybe a broadcasting tower of some sort? No idea, but that’s not what we ventured over there for. All around the mysterious tower were what seemed like endless miles of rocks perfectly fit for climbing. Heading out there at least once per summer, we’d make entire days of climbing around, searching for something, but not quite knowing what that something was. Maybe we were looking for anything at all? To me, it always seemed like the formations had changed, but I guess that’s dumb to say. I know they couldn’t have, but I guess my mental mapping skills weren’t entirely developed by then. We did, on occasion, find a small pile of rocks that signified that someone else had been wandering around there too, and we’d often set up our own little rock piles, with the intent of showing both other people and ourselves that we’d been there already. I haven’t been out there since I was about fifteen, and many times I’ve considered just making a trip out there to visit both Lac du Bonnet and Pinawa, and to spend the rest of the day climbing around on the rocks I so loved as a young’un. Maybe I’ll get around to it one of these summers.

More!: Yeah. There’s still more here. Hell, I could go on nearly forever with stories of my youth in any of these categories. It just so happens that the ones that take place outside sound infinitely less boring to everyone else. There were a lot of other places we’d head out to see what we could see, often against our wills. The Pinawa Dam was close enough that we didn’t mind going, but there still wasn’t much of interest. Point Du Bois was much farther away, and while it held a bunch of great memories for my grandparents and dad, there’s like nothing there that’s even remotely interesting to anyone who never lived/spent summers there. There were all sorts of other landmarks that my grandparents liked to take us to, like a big ol’ suspension bridge, and yet another dam. All were pretty boring and mosquito-filled, but in the end, I appreciate them taking us, because as lackluster as they are, they still count as good memories.

Woof. Considering that I haven’t tapped even half the pictures I took, this article could very well go on forever. We certainly don’t want that, now do we? No. So, keeping everyone’s best interest in mind, I’ll stop here for the moment and call it Part One. How many more will there be? Who knows! It’ll likely only be a two-parter, but if I’m as verbose with ther rest of the pictures as I’ve been with the ones I’ve posted so far, we’ll likely be seeing a Part Three as well. But that’ll be the absolute limit. Even if I tried, there’s no way I could justify doing this in a four-part series. I guess you can’t really put a limit on your memories, but the honest truth is that most of the events that I found significant and still dream happily about would be viewed as horribly mundane by pretty much anyone else. So keep an eye out for number two. Given how long it took me to finish this one, we should be seeing it by the second half of 2011.

It’s bringin’ me to my knees

When The Tall One turned 18, he got himself a new cell phone and one of them fancy-pants plans. That left his pay-as-you-go phone out in the cold. Over the next couple months money was passed under the table and blood was spilt, and phones changed hands all over the place. In the end, I ended up with a free cell phone. It’s a third-gen hand-me-down, but hey, it’s not like I ever planned to use the thing. I had no intent of getting a cell phone ever, but I accepted and it’s actually bailed me out of a couple sticky situations.

In any case, as I am wont to do, I quickly started browsing for games to play on the thing. Yeah, I know pretty much all mobile games except Bejeweled suck, but it was something I needed to see with my own eyes. And that’s why I have the mobile version of MegaMan 2.

Ya heard me. I downloaded MegaMan 2 for my cell phone. It was a horrible idea and overexpensive, but I stand by my decision, because really, it’s not as bad as you might assume.

Don’t get me wrong, shit doesn’t even match up to the legendary NES version, even though it’s almost exactly the same. The level layouts mimic the original perfectly, from each enemy to every power-up item. All the bosses are present, and they all follow the exact same patterns they did almost 20 years ago. In this respect, it’s a perfect port. Oh, except for the disappearing blocks. Those are all gone. But personally, I consider that a plus. I fucking hate the disappearing blocks.

However, there’s more than just content to worry about, most importanly being how the game plays. Maybe it works better on more powerful mobiles, but on my phone, MegaMan 2 runs at about half speed. This alone makes the game unabashedly easy. Remember how you could never get past QuickMan’s stage because of those Godforsaken lasers? Yeah, at half speed, they’re totally nerfed. I flew by the entire stage without even thinking about using the Time Stopper. Also, Mega jumps about 1.5 times his regualr jump height, and you can imagine that that makes things a lot easier too. If you put the game speed back to normal, the extra jumping power alone would be enough to see you through some of the most difficult parts of the game.

But there’s gotta be other downsides to the game besides being too easy, right? Oh totally. The original music is all there, and it’s decent quality too. The issue is that all the tracks are about half their original length, and do not loop well at all. For the first time in the history of ever, playing MegaMan 2 with the sound off is actually a good idea. Also, the stage backgrounds are missing, but that’s a problem that I can easily see past. I actually didn’t even notice they were gone until I got to FlashMan’s stage, so yeah.

Do I recommend MegaMan 2 mobile? Honestly, no. It’s playable, but it’s still a complete butchery of the best MegaMan game ever. I can say all the good things I want about it, but you just can’t match up to dusting off your NES and ricking the original. Capcom probably hasn’t made a MegaMan Powered Up! 2 because they know that no matter how much they improve it, MegaMan fans will likely shun it as a bastardization of their holy grail. I’d sure like it though. But don’t get the mobile one. Unless you totally suck at platformers and want to see the end. Even then you’re better off just trying to find a Game Genie.

Top Ten: Greatest Games of 2006

Really, I don’t know what to write as an intro. I’ve done this twice before, so go back and read those intros if you really need a preface. Just a couple notes before we begin:

1. I broke down. While I was compiling my list, I kind of forgot that I wasn’t supposed to have ports on it, but they were there, and I just love the included games so much that I couldn’t boot them. Oh well.

2.There are three special awards mixed in between the regular list, just so you don’t get confused. I was going to have them all before the actual list, but that’s so dumb. My way is spicier!

3. I think the 10th-4th place trophies are hilarious. If you don’t agree, I am terminating our friendship right now.

Well, that should be all. So let’s get it on!

Before we really get rolling, I just want to give out some special props like I did last year. I think I’m going to include a couple special awards every year from now on. What they might be each year is impossible to say, but I know I’ll keep the “Special Mention” (the award for the game I wanted to play most, but never got a chance to) award kicking around. It’s a good award.

2006’s “Special Mention” goes without a doubt to Final Fantasy XII. Because there were so many other games that I had planned on purchasing (and when I set my mind to something, I never go back), I never got around to playing FFXII. It just came out at a really bad time. Had it been released in the summer lull, I would have definitely picked it up right away. Sadly, Square-Enix didn’t have it ready until November, and that month was just so chock-full of games that were higher on the priority list that it got passed by.

The reason I put it here is because I do have a genuine interest in it. It’s the first Final Fantasy since IX that I’ve cared at all about (and even that was only because at that time I was still a Squaresoft sheep), and I really do hope to get around to playing it someday. The way the game plays, with it’s neat little character programming system interests me to no ends, and even the story, which I usually have zero interest in, fascinates me. And let’s not forget that so many reviewers are saying that it’s the best FF to grace a console since God-knows-when. And that’s a pretty strong point, because let’s face it, most of the gaming world thinks FFVII is good.

So in conclusion, I declare Final Fantasy XII to be the best game I never played last year. However much sense that makes.

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Hey, what can I say? I’ve been waiting for a new Mario side-scroller for a while now. God knows why Nintendo didn’t make one on the GBA. Oh, right. They had all those old games to rehash. Must have saved them a ton on, you know, work. Can’t win ’em all though, am I right?

Past grievances aside, I really enjoyed New Super Mario Bros. Like everyone else on the damn planet, I flew through it pretty quickly because it was real easy, but it was impressively fun. I even played through it a second time right away. Of course, while getting to the end of the game presented little more than a suggestion of difficulty, clearing the game 100% did require a bit of skill. The big coins, finding all the extra paths and warp cannons, that kind of stuff. It wasn’t as tricky as some of SMW’s rough bits, but all the extras really helped to flesh out the game. The new power-ups were pretty unnecessary too. Unless they were needed for getting somewhere, I much preferred good ol’ Firey Mario. Why did they axe fireballs in the 3D games? Firey Mario would have been so much totally better than FLUDD. Maybe.

I don’t know. NSMB was such a big deal that everyone and their mom wrote about it, and everyone’s read something about it too. I doubt I could add anything original at this point. I guess if there’s anything that really stuck out for me, it was the final boss fight. It wasn’t terribly difficult or long, but it was pretty epic. For a Mario game. Hey! You know what would have been great? If there had been some Yoshi. Yeah. Especially if he had all his Koopa shell powers like in SMW. And there should have been a Top Secret Zone where you could go after every level to gather power-ups. Sigh. It’s going to be quite a feat if Nintendo ever expects to outdo Super Mario World. That’s pretty much the definition of a perfect platformer. But New Super Mario Bros was easily good enough. Just barely good enough to beat out Rayman Raving Rabbids out of the #10 spot, but good enough no less.

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I’ll be the first to point out that technically, I’m breaking my “no ports” policy, but I have many good reasons to back this up. First of all, there is a good deal of extra content. For every so many operations you finish on the main storyline, you unlock operations for a different story featuring a different doctor. Secondly, while the main story is almost a word-for-word copy of the DS game (with prettier graphics), the completely different control methods make the game seem totally new. Sure, you know what to do, but now doing it is a whole new experience in itself. Also, a couple levels have changed dramatically, specifically the bomb level.

So the game then? Well, it’s neat. The premise is that you’re a doctor (by the name of Derek Stiles) who just completed his whatevers and is getting into the real world of surgery. It starts off like any old medical drama you’d see on TV, with the new guy being uneasy and having to overcome personal obstacles and crap, and then bio-terrorism enters the picture and everything goes to shit. It’s an incredibly story-heavy game, to say the least. Some chapters don’t even contain an operation and are just really long dialogues sequences. Fortunately, it’s all skippable for those who couldn’t give two shits an’ just want to cut people open and toy with their insides. Which is awesome. The game starts you off with easy things, like suturing up cuts, removing shards of glass, and lazering the crap out of polyps. It slowly ramps up to tougher things like excising bigger tumors and removing thrombi. Less than halfway through, though, the video game part starts to come into play and you have to start removing various types of (fictional) parasites (known as GUILT), which can be real pains in the ass. Unlike the original game, however, there is a difficulty option, so getting to the end of this one isn’t such an impossible feat; you can just choose to play on easy mode!

The operations in the side-story abandon the GUILT for more traditional surgery. Though the game throws in a few new things and some curveballs like fixing broken bones, excising super tumors (which grow right back if you don’t get them all out within seconds of each other), and working in the dark with only a camera’s flash to help you see. The extra story, while much more brief than the main one, is also pretty interesting, though it’s even more obvious that it was thought up by those crazy Japanese.

All in all, even though it’s essentially a beefed-up port, Trauma Center: Second Opinion is very much its own game. While playing with the Wii Remote is slightly less accurate than the DS’ touch screen, the control scheme is very intuitive and great for switching tools fast. It’s still as challenging as the original though, so don’t expect any pulled punches, even on the easy difficulty level. While it’s no epic adventure, I still think TC:SO is a spectacular launch title for the Wii, and were it not a port, I may have even put it up closer to the top spot on the list. As it is though, number nine will have to suffice.

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What’s with all the DS games, you ask? They’re pretty good man. You should invest in one. It’s definitely the greatest portable gaming thingamijig ever. Hell, I play my DS more than my GameCube and PS2 combined. We’ll have to wait a year or so to accurately measure how the little Wii does. But there are games to be ranted about! On I go! Holy crap I think I’m getting worse at writing!

So Elite Beat Agents, huh? Surely you’ve heard of the import hit Osu! Tatake! Ouendan!. Surely. I never bothered to import it (I got Jump Superstars instead), but when I heard they were making a version (sequel?) for North America, I was ready to jump all over it. And jump I did. EBA is a rhythm game, much like DDR or Guitar Hero, only instead of some cockadoodie $50 peripheral device that only works with one game, you just use the touch screen. As the music goes, beats appear on the screen. Most of the time, you just tap them with the correct timing to get by. But sometimes, you have to drag a ball across a path which spices things up a little. Well, maybe not. There’s also a spinner that you’ve gotta, well, spin. That one only shows up on the rarest of occasions though. All this happens while zany situations play out in the background, as the idea of the game is that the Elite Beat Agents motivate people through song to help get them through tough times. Well, there’s actually one scenario that’s quite sad rather than zany, and ashamed as I am to admit it, it had me weeping like a little girl. Seriously. If you can play the “You’re The Inspiration” level without shedding at least one tear, you’re made of stone, man. Fucking stone.

Like many of those other rhythm games out there, Elite Beat Agents out there is hellishly difficult. Which is odd because Nintendo stuck it in with the “Touch Generations” games, which are supposedly accessible to everyone. I guess most people could get by okay on Breezin’ (easy mode), up until the last song, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (a snazzy fast version too), which is like 50 times harder than all the other songs. And while I’m on the song note, the soundtrack is definitely there not for any single niche, but rather a hodegpodge of crap from all over. On the awesome hand, you’ve got kickass bands (well, covers of kickass bands) like Deep Purple (“Highway Star” FTW) and The Stray Cats, but then you’ve also gotta suffer through dreck like Cher and Goddamned “YMCA”. I mean, personally, I don’t mind too much, but I know that’s more than enough to turn off some people. And that’s sad, because EBA is a frickin’ awesome game. My only complaint is that they cut like a minute off of Hoobastank’s “Without A Fight”, wich is a stellar song.

If you’re looking for a distraction, maybe go play Magical Starsign or something. If you pick up Elite Beat Agents, you’ll likely get sucked in and lose hours upon hours trying to beat “Canned Heat”, assuming you’re as bad at this game as I am. But yes, this is a sweet game. I really shouldn’t have to say that, what with it being eighth on my list of the ten best games that came out last year and all.

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Our second special award this year is the “Most Improved” award. We always had one of these back in junior high back when they still gave out little trophies and medals to all the smartest kids, so I thought it would be a neat one to have here. The “Most Improved” award is for exactly what the name implies; a game that vastly improves over the previous entry(/entries) in that series. Whether it’s because the previous game(s) stunk like ass, or the sequel is just that much better, we don’t care as long as it beats out it’s predecessor(s).

MegaMan Battle Network 6 is not here because it’s a great game. It’s not ground-breaking, it doesn’t deliver a compelling story, even the gameplay is pretty much unchanged from the first game in the series. What does make it special is that it’s the only MMBN game that’s really been worth playing since 2. And I mean that quite literally. I got into the series at 2, and I loved the game to death. I explored every nook and cranny of it, and I got everything there was to get. 3 was okay, and while I did finish it 100%, my whole heart wasn’t in it. 4 flat-out sucked, and 5 was mediocre at best. Needless to say, I didn’t come anywhere close to finishing those two. Then 6 came along, and I felt the same spark I did for 2. And I played the snap out of it.

So what makes it better than the abysmal 4 and 5? I’m not too sure. It’s basically just the same thing over again. Look at any MegaMan series, and that’s the way it is. But there are a few little tweaks that propel it above the rest. Capcom changed the power-up system just enough so that it made the game fun, and not a hassle. In the two previous chapters, your battle power-ups (Soul Unison) would only last three turns, and they were kind of useless. There were also these horrid “dark chips” that completely broke the game unless you ignored them completely. In 6, the power-ups (Cross Change) are now virtually unlimited, and most of the Crosses are useful and/or fun to use. The dark chips have pretty much been tossed away altogether as well.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you as an outsider, and it isn’t entirely clear to me either, but MegaMan Battle Network 6 is somehow a much better game than the last few in the series. Best of all, it’s the last game in the series, so you don’t have to hear any more about it, and I don’t have to worry about it going down the shitter again. Definitely the most improvement in a sequel I’ve seen in a while.

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Yeah yeah. More MegaMan. I know, I’m weak. But this one is actually a seriously kickass game, and not just on here because of my insane fanboyism. It plays like a stronger, faster, more intense version of the MegaMan Zero games, two of which hit the chart in the past two years, so it’s really no surprise that ZX showed up.

The game is actually pretty far removed from MegaMan though. It’s MegaMan only in name, really. I mean, there are a few references to past MegaMan storylines, but aside from that, you could essentially put a different name on it and nobody would know. But it is MegaMan, and with that comes the promise of top-notch side-scrolling action. Like I said, it plays like the Zero series, so it’s fast and rather intense. The difficulty level has been toned down a bit, but most of the bosses and certain parts of the game will still give you a good run for your money. Adding to the greatness of it all, it plays like a Metroidvania title, in that the game is one big world for you to explore, rather than being cut up into levels. Of course, you can only access certain areas once you’ve got the right items, but unlike Metroid and Castlevania, those end up being more on the end of card keys rather than power-ups.

When you do get power-ups, they take form as different suits of armor for your character to wear. The game revolves around Biometals, which are basically rocks which hold the essence of various MegaMan characters. Once you gain a certain Biometal, you can use it and gain the powers of whichever robot it represents. Such powers include increased dash abilities, hovering, better water mobility, and being able to break select few walls. Half of them are pretty useless for regular combat, but there’s a secret Biometal you can earn which kicks complete and total ass. Still, playing the entire game as only the default MegaMan should be more than enough to please fans. The extra powers are just kind of for fun and finding secret stuff.

One of the coolest things about the game is that bosses regenerate themselves, so you can go back and fight any of them whenever you feel, without having to start a new game. You can even insert MegaMan Zero 3 and 4 into the GBA slot to pick fights with a few bosses from each of those games. I don’t really know what else to write about. The game is all about action, and dueling the multitude of boss robots is about as awesome as it gets. For anyone who thinks the MegaMan name should have died long ago, MegaMan ZX makes all those years of crappy X and Battle Network sequels totally worth it.

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Ever taken the time to dig up the StarFox 2 ROM? Well you’d be pleasantly surprised if you haven’t already, because StarFox 2 is totally great. It’s radically different from the original, but still maintains the StarFox feel and manages to rock all over the place. StarFox Command, as I would find out, is basically an extension of the wonder of technology that is StarFox 2.

I won’t dance around the fence here, there aren’t any on-rails flying levels in StarFox Command. It’s all all-range enemy hunts. And those are the butter to the game’s bread of strategic map-conquering. Sounds awfully sketchy, I know. That’s exactly what I thought. But, because I just can’t say no to StarFox, I picked up the game anyway. It couldn’t be any worse than StarFox Adventures, anyway. Long story short, the game is awesome and I feel awful for ever doubting it. The franchise has had some rough times, but if Command is any indication of where it’s going, then the outlook is pretty damn good.

So what’s this strategy business I mentioned? Simply put, each mission takes place on a map of whatever planet/area of space you may be currently flying around. The aim is either to destroy all the enemy fighters while defending the Great Fox from attack. Sounds simple, and it really is. But things get tricky once stuff like missiles and fog of war get involved. Yeah, that’s right. Fog of War. In StarFox. it’s weird, I know, but it works. Keeps things interesting, and you on your toes. So encountering an enemy or an enemy base on the map will initiate a dogfight, where your objective is to destroy all the listed bogeys within the time limit. Yep, there’s a time limit too, but trust me when I say all the game mechanics work perfectly well together. And speaking of which, the whole game is played with the touch screen. All the buttons on the DS do are fire your blasters, except the start button, which does the usual pause. Barrel rolls, loops, bombs, it’s all touch-activated. And it’s all good.

The only complaint I have with the game is actually with the series as a whole. I hate that the fact that they continually age the characters. At this rate, two games from now, Fox McCloud won’t even be in the games anymore. That or he’ll be an old fogey handing out advice, rather than blasting space monsters and whatnot. But aside from that little complaint, the game is stellar. Tons of story paths to choose from (though the story[ies?] isn’t particularly strong), great strategy and action gameplay, and good local multiplayer (sadly, WiFi multi is kind of disappointing). This isn’t the highest-ranked DS game on the list, but it’s probably the one I’d recommend the most. I just love it to death.

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Durr, more DS loving, coming right up. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was granted a spot on last year’s list (#9), and now that I think about it, I really think I should have placed it higher. But it’s too late for that, so let’s just forget it and move on to this year’s contribution to the Castlevania franchise.

For everything Dawn of Sorrow did right, Portrait of Ruin comes and does it even better. Mostly. I mean, the games play essentially the same, but Portrait of Ruin is so much more refined, with so much more to it. Firstly, you get to play with two characters, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Auldin, at the same time in PoR, which turns out really well. You have the choice to either just swap out between the two, or have the non-player character follow you around and help you out (using your MP bar as a life gauge). Either way you choose to do it, the system is great, and allows for a lot of choice in how to get around different enemies. Dawn’s Tactical Soul system is gone, replaced by subweapons and spells for Jonathan and Charlotte, respectively. While the Tactical Soul system was really great for customization purposes, I really like just having the basic subweapon/magic instead. Also, only some of your subweapons/spells are held by enemies, basically meaning you don’t have to grind every enemy in the game to have access to your full arsenal. That, and the Shuriken subweapon is insanely cheap once it’s mastered.

The castle is scaled down a bit on PoR, but that’s because there are nine other maps to explore! While the bulk of there are pretty small, it’s still the biggest Castlevania yet, as far as raw acreage goes. Sadly, the second set of four “levels” just feel like remapped copies of the first set with harder enemies. The castle itself is as great as ever though, and the ninth (optional) level is a very sweet colosseum-esque stage with some horrifically challenging battles inside. And speaking of horrifically difficult things, the bosses in PoR are crazy hard. The bulk of them will slaughter you pretty quickly on the normal difficulty. Needless to say, I’m a bit afraid to start a hard game. The final boss battle isn’t quite as rough as some of those leading up to it, but it’s quite a spectacular fight. Seriously. Fuck you, I’m spoiling it. You have to fight Dracula and Death. At the same time. And then they fuse. It’s awesome. If you look up the word “Awesome” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of PoR’s final boss fight.

And speaking of awesome stuff, there’s a ton to accomplish in Portrait of Ruin. Firstly, you’ve got the main game with it’s hugely long main quest, plus all the fun of fleshing out complete maps, completing all the quests, getting (and mastering) all the subweapons and spells, getting all the enemy drops and filling out the item collection. That alone took me over 25 hours. Then you unlock a whole whackload of shit. Not only one, but three bonus game modes, plus a hard mode for all four games. Then there are three Boss Rush mini-games to play (because there are just that many bosses in PoR). To top it all off, there’s a nice little WiFi option in which you can either buy/sell items from/to other players, or join up with someone else to play a co-op Boss Rush. The co-op mode doesn’t offer much of a challenge, really, but competing for top times is always fun, and the Shop Mode is decent if you have a bunch of rare drops and need to make a little extra coin.

Holy smokes. This is going to be like the longest article ever. By me. In any case, Castlevania rules. If you still haven’t waded into the series, I would highly recommend now to do it. It’s really not going to get much better than this. Konami’s set a very high standard for themselves, and the only way to really improve upon Protrait of Ruin would be some more diverse level design, and to go back to artwork that doesn’t look like it came out of a crappy Saturday morning anime. Seriously. Dracula looks like crap in this one. Normally he looks awesome and evil, but here he just looks like Uninspired Anime Villain #43. Don’t even get me started on Death. Eeeeeewww. Fuck, Konami. We know you have talented artists. Why did you not use them?

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“Wait. What?” you ask, “I could have sworn that game was for PSP.”

It’s true. I’ve been hiding a horrible, horrible secret from everyone: I broke down a bought a PSP a while ago. Under most circumstances, I’d feel pretty bad about it, but MegaMan Maverick Hunter X is just so damn awesome that I don’t care. It was worth every penny to be able to play this remake of one of my favourite games ever. As I’ve stated many times before, I’m quite a MegaMan fanboy. It’s a tough lot in life, but it’s the road I chose. And this road has led me to play nearly every MegaMan game in existence; some good, some bad, some utterly repulsive. But through it all, one thing has remained constant: my love for the original MegaMan X. I don’t know why I love it so, but that’s the way it is, and I doubt it’s ever going to change.

Maverick Hunter X is a full overhaul of MegaMan X, much like how Capcom redid Resident Evil for the GameCube. It keeps everything that made the original X great, and makes it better: the superb music, the harrowing storyline, the highway stage. Everything. Sure, they moved most of the power-ups around to throw off vets, but that’s quite alright. Incentive to fully explore the stages again is a good thing. Most of the stages do retain their original layout, but the Sigma palace levels are all completely mixed up, with some bits moved around, and some entirely new parts. It’s great. Even the transition to 3D graphics worked marvelously, beautifying the levels, and making some of the bosses look more like the animals they were modeled after (Spark Mandrill, anyone?).

Best part of the game? Hard to say. Firstly, they’ve included a 30-minute movie detailing to origin of the original Maverick outbreak, which is an absolutely awesome bonus feature. Second, you get a Hard difficulty level to play on once you’ve slaughtered the game completely, and hard it is. Bosses get new attacks, you get less life, all that good stuff. Third, Vile is a playable character! Once you’ve finished the game once with X, you can play through as Vile, who plays completely differently than X and adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game. And Vile’s game is nail-bitingly tough on the normal difficulty to boot. Hard mode with Vile is nigh impossible.

So in conclusion, this game is more than enough to warrant the purchase of a PSP for me, no matter how outrageously expensive it was. As such, MegaMan Maverick Hunter X gets the award for Best Port. Quite frankly, I wanted to place this game at Number 5 on the list, and while it does contain a gigantic deal of new and altered content, I just couldn’t bear myself to put two ports on the list. So why did Trauma Center make it? Because quite frankly, all new content aside, the core gameplay in MHX doesn’t change much at all, while Trauma Center’s is radically different from that of the original game. Still, I give Maverick Hunter X a great big recommendation, because it’s a really, really sweet game.

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While Okami certainly deserves a place in the top three, I’m afraid there are just other games that I have far too much brand loyalty to to say no to. But hey, if it’s the fourth best game I’ve played all year, that’s still putting in a pretty damn good word for it.

Ever since Clover Studios (now defunct) opened their website, which had a preview page for Okami, I’d been following the game from a distance. It wasn’t something I was anxious about, but it was on my radar. Then September came around and poof! there it was, and it was getting spectacular reviews. The good reviews coupled with Clover’s high standing in my mind and the beautiful art style were more than enough reason to rush out to the store and pick it up. And pick it up I did. Okami was more than I ever expected it to be. I was thinking it would be some sort of run-of-the-mill 3D adventure starring an animal, but it turns out it’s essentially Zelda for PS2. Seriously. At first, I was kind of on the fence about how much it resembled Zelda, but then I got to the first dungeon and I couldn’t help shaking the feeling that I was retreading the Forbidden Woods level from The Wind Waker, only as a wolf. There’s even a postman who, aside from attire, I would swear is the same as the one from Ocarina Of Time.

So what makes Okami original? Well, for one, you play as a wolf. Oh, right. Twilight Princess. To tell the truth though, now that I’ve played both, I can confidently say that I much prefer the wolf play in Okami. It just feels so much more natural. There’s also the fact that half the game is based around drawing stuff. Yep. Your special power as a God-in-wolf’s-clothing is to be able to paint stuff to make things happen. Over the course to the game you’ll learn many different brush techniques, letting you do many things ranging from slicing trees to making wind blow to creating bombs out of thin air. It’s awesome and works incredibly well, no matter how odd it sounds. Even though the game pauses for you to draw, it doesn’t really mess up the pacing of the game. It’s really not that fast-paced a game anyway, aside from battles. And those are pretty nuts. The boss enemies in particular are really impressive and require some tricky brush maneuvers to defeat. It’s also worth mentioning that they’re much more difficult than any of Twilight Princess’ bosses, no matter how gargantuan those may be.

One of the neat points of Okami is the focus of the game. I’m not a big fan of nature, but since this game is influenced so much by Japanese history and lore, most of the game revolves around saving nature and using your powers to help people and restore their faith in the Gods. Leveling up is actually done not by battling, but by gaining faith by helping people, animals, and plants. It’s a very refreshing change from the usual game that takes itself too seriously and focuses on saving the world from utter destruction. Playing Okami is like taking a beautiful, relaxing vacation from normal video games, in the same way The Wind Waker was from other Zeldas. It’s just so pretty and stylish that you could just roam about and enjoy watching the scenery go by.

There’s much more to be mentioned, but there’s a better way than listening to me ramble about it: go out and buy the game. Trust me on this one. It’s fantastic. Fifty dollars is a bargain for such a fine piece of art. The only thing that really makes me wonder is why this wasn’t a DS project. I mean, it’s all about drawing after all. And Tony Hawk proved last year that cel-shading looks pretty good on the little handheld that could. Even a sequel (on either platform) would be fantastic, but I doubt that we’re going to see one, what with Clover being broken up and all. Worst decision ever, Capcom. And you’ve make some pretty big fuck-ups. Anyway, I know you own a PS2, everyone does. Go out and buy Okami. You’ll be doing yourself a huge favour.

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If you read my blog, you can pretty much skip this. You already know how much I loooove Guitar Hero. Best peripheral/music game ever. And the sequel only makes everything better. Well, as better as it can get.

First off, we’ve obviously got ourselves a new soundtrack. It’s quite a bit longer than the original too. Boasting 17 more songs than the first game, Guitar Hero 2 comes full of bands that I love (though the regular songs are all covers) like Cheap Trick, KISS, The Stray Cats, and Rush. Fucking RUSH. That alone is enough to boot the game up to the top of the list. Anything that features Rush must be good. It’s science. Some other bands/artists that I’m happy to see include The Police, Dick Dale, and (the return of) Megadeth. GH2 is also a helluva lot harder than its predecessor. I’m not saying Guitar Hero was easy, but some of the songs on this one seem like they were put in there just to break even the most confident players. You ever heard All That Remains’ “Six”? Or how about Buckethead’s “Jordan”? Incidentally, while “Freebird” is the final song, it’s not nearly as bad as it might seem by ear. I’ve actually gotten rather good at it. “Thunderhorse” on the other hand, continues to wipe the floor with my sorry ass.

On the gameplay side of things, it’s exactly the same. hammer-ons and pull-offs were changed just a leetle bit to make life easier, assuming you’ve the ability to put the techniques to use. I’m learning slowly, and surprisingly enough they’re actually helping a bit, and making my game all that more impressive to passers-by. There are a couple new characters to choose from, including the frightening and poorly proportioned Lars Umlaut. All the default characters also have a second costume that you can unlock. Also, the range of guitars you can buy and use has increased exponentially, and there are plenty of different finishes for each style to boot. There are even secret guitars that can be unlocked by beating and five-starring each song on each difficulty level. Obviously, the best ones are the hardest to unlock. Finally, the unlockable songs (some mentioned above) are mostly better than the last game’s offering. A lot of awesome bands return, including Freezepop (<3 Freezepop), Drist, and the Acro-Brats. Made In Mexico still sucks though. And then there’s great new bands like The Last Vegas, Bang Camaro, and That Handsome Devil. On a related note, I’ve actually seen Every Time I Die in concert, which is kind of neat.

The new training mode, I assume, is rather useful. I’ve used it very little, but it has helped me improve a few rough spots and pass a couple songs on the expert difficulty. I might get really good at the game if I were to make better use of it, but as it is, I prefer just to play a song over and over to learn the ins and outs, even though practicing parts of a song at slower speeds sounds like a much more practical way to do it. Multiplayer is vastly improved, with better competitive options, and a spankin’ cooperative mode. Add the fact that on co-op you each play a different guitar part (lead, rhythm, bass), and you’ve got some wicked shredding going down.

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It was impossible for me to decide between Tales of the Abyss and Guitar Hero 2 for second place, so I had to tie them. It’s a reasonable compromise, don’t you think? I just adore both games so much, how could I put one over the other?

If you’ll recall, I named Tales of Symphonia the best game I’d played in 2004. And Abyss doesn’t fall far from that tree. But wait, there were two Tales games released this year, and Tales of Legendia isn’t even on the list! So what gives? Quite frankly, for all the things I liked about Legendia, I could just never get into it. I found the characters lovable, the story great, and the battle system fun, but literally I had to force myself to put the game disc in and muscle through it after the first half of the game. I don’t know what it was, but somewhere the attraction waned. Fortunately, Tales of the Abyss came along a short few month later to make everything better. It might even hold a higher place in my heard than Symphonia, if it weren’t for Symphonia’s exquisite character design and writing.

If you want a basic review of Tales of the Abyss, go find the Tales of Symphonia review on the September 2004 page in the blog archive. All the great things about that game translate directly onto this one, with only a handful of real changes. Obviously, the story and characters are different, but the overall feel of the game is essentially the same. The soundtrack is (mostly) once again by genius Motoi Sakuraba, which means it’s good enough to purchase twice. The battle system is almost exactly the same as that in Symphonia, the only real differences being that you can run around freely (after acquiring a certain skill), and a slightly altered magic system. Really, if you’ve played any previous Tales game, you should have a good idea what to expect: RPG battles that play out almost like Super Smash Bros.

One of the big changes are the various stat/ability-altering systems. Capacity Cores will add to your stat increases during level-ups, allowing you to super-power your characters in whatever field(s) you have a Capacity Core for. Fon Slot Chambers allow you to attach an FSC to each of your spells/skills to add different effects, depending on the skill and FSC colour. For example, a red FSC on most skills will increase attack/healing power, while a green FSC will usually decrease TP consumption. Lastly, we’ve got Additional Skills. Your characters will all gain AD skills when they reach certain levels or increase a stat to a certain number. Some are pretty basic, like moving faster in battle, while others have awesome effects like being able to use Over Limit attacks and avoid status effects. All three systems add a far deeper level of character customization than even Symphonia did with its wacky Exsphere business.

Tales of the Abyss doesn’t stray much from the Tales mold (except for they’ve been cutting out the Summon Spirits completely lately…), and that’s exactly why I think of it as lovingly as I do. Namco has a real winning formula here, if only the general populace would free themselves from the shackles of Final Fantasy and realize that there are fun RPGs out there, the world would be a happier place for all. Again, it’s science.

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It’s fucking Zelda.

Yeah I’m leaving it at that. Sometimes the point is best made with few words. In any case, I know this list might be a little harder for some to agree with than previous lists, in which I ahd a slightly higher percentage of popular games, but meh. These are the kinds of things I like to play. If you don’t like it, go back to whatever overhyped garbage you think is good. Also, blow it out your ass.

I’m a winter breeze in summertime

I’ve recently bought two new games for my Nintendo DS: StarFox Command and MegaMan ZX. I mentioned Command not long after I picked it up, and while I haven’t rambled on about ZX yet, there is a small link between the two that I feel I should express my feelings about: aging characters. Really, I just want to get the unsavoriness of that last post off the top of the page.

I don’t know how well you’re acquainted with MegaMan and all the various MegaMan spinoffs, so I guess I’ll give you a quick breakdown. The series started with the original MegaMan. Taking place many decades after that, you’ve got the MegaMan X series, featuring all new characters and whatnot. Taking place about a century after the X comes MegaMan Zero, which stars MegaMan’s partner from the X series, Zero. And now, another century after that, we have MegaMan ZX. Only this one’s main characters aren’t even robots at all. They’re humans who essentially dress up as MegaMan X. Now, the game is excellent, but every time Capcom introduces a new MegaMan series (that isn’t some alternate timeline like Battle Network or Legends), the characters get further and further away from the source material. I guess it helps to keep the games from getting stale, but really, will they even be able to call the next spinoff a MegaMan game? If the trend continues, there will likely only be a brief mention of the characters from ZX, nevermind any kind of MegaMan.

So what does this have to do with StarFox? Well, the thing is, Nintendo’s doing the same thing with those characters, just at a much slower pace. In the original StarFox, the team consisted of Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy. After Star Fox Adventures, a new character named Krystal joined the team and Peppy stepped back from an active fighter position to just an onlooker. Now in Command, he’s gotten real old, and taken over for General Pepper, who’s been confined to a sickbed. By the next game, General Pepper will be dead, and I just don’t want to see that day come. Because then it’ll be Peppy’s turn, and damn Nintendo if they think they can just kill off Peppy. StarFox Command has a lot of different endings, and since we don’t know which one is the “true” ending, there’s no way to know how the next game will turn out, but some of those endings suggest that the next entry in the Starfox saga will star someone other than our beloved Fox McCloud. And that would be horrible.

But why does it have to be this way? Why have the StarFox characters been plagued by age, while Mario, Donkey Kong and Captain Falcon stay infinitely frozen in time? I guess maybe because StarFox is a little more story-/character-centic than those franchises, but that still isn’t a good enough answer. Just look at Metroid, for example. The Metroid series has developed a very deep storyline as of late, but Samus hasn’t aged a day. And the basic story structure between Starfox and Metroid is the same. They both star hired guns who fight on the side of good, who often go out of their way to help people even when no reward is promised. So why does Fox fall victim to time while Samus is forever young? Just because you have an sequential story doesn’t mean that you have to age and kill off the characters.

So I guess there’s something for you to think about. I guess it’s nothing really important, but it’s something that I thought might make a semi-interesting post. Maybe I was wrong, I dunno. I really just needed something to occupy my mind for a half-hour or however long it took to write that. And, you know, the unsavoriness.

Like a grain of sand

I knew that MegaMan and the robot masters had been cuteified for MegaMan Powered Up!, but I’d never seen the character art for Dr. Light until now.

Wheee! Look at how fat he is! And his giant shoes! Chibi-Dr. Light is adorable! Hooray for Capcom and their spectacular artists!

That was a beaut

Remember when I went nuts over the prospect of Biker Mice From Mars on DS? Trailer! While it certainly looks like it could be good, they really need to inject some, oh, I dunno, action into it. Not a whole lot going on there.

Help name a bridge after Stephen Colbert! We’re still a long way off, so go get voting, you dummy.

Best internet mashup video ever. Even better than all those Zidane headbutt collections. There must be dancing!

I know I’m really late on this one, but if you haven’t seen the PS3 vs. Wii vid yet, hurry up. Hot chicks in boy shorts are always excellent promotional tools.

After just over a week of being under repair (felt like forever though), Tyler’s back!

I finally got my hands on Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero 4: Physis. I heartily approve! Even the drama tracks (which are diaogue explaining the story, and entirely in Japanese) are pretty cool. Sample, anyone? (right-click, save as)

Love said no

I had an inkling when I heard about XBox Live Arcade that the chances that I would one day own an XBox 360 had risen astronomically. Now, thanks to Jeremy Parish, it’s nigh inevitable.

Servbots! I could ignore the MegaMan X suit, but I cannot hope to resist the Servbots. If you’d played MegaMan Legends, you’d know exactly why. Read the post on ToastyFrog for more info.

My iPod got royally messed the other day. Read the tale here. Hopefully it’ll be corrected one way or another pretty soon… I miss the little guy.

I recenty read through the Ugly Hill archive. Good stuff.

If you love platformers and theses, I recommend reading this study on platform games. I spent my Friday night reading all 31 pages of it, and I don’t entirely regret it. Then again, I’m a huge nerd.

Apparently there was recently a Masturbate-athon held in London. I’m still trying to figure out why I wasn’t the guest of honour.

I’m not going to argue with this list of the Top Ten Manliest Superheroes, mostly because they included Grifter (a personal favourite), but I really think that despite Bruce Banner being kind of a pussy, the Hulk should have been on it somewhere.