Nope, nothing vaguely sexual here.

Packy&Marlon(SNES)
Raya Systems and A Medical Supply Company With Cash To Burn

The Short Version: The other SNES game for diabetics. Yep.

The Long Version: Pull up the splatter sheet. Continue reading Packy&Marlon

I can’t seem to escape Blaster Master the past couple of weeks. Until We Win did an episode on how to beat it. It came out on Wii VC. And the thing about me and Blaster Master isn’t so much that it’s my favorite NES game, though it’s up there for sure- it has a tank that can JUMP for fuck’s sake. I think it’s the music that sticks with me worse than anything else. But even past that- Blaster Master was the first game article I did for this site, even though it’s been more or less lost to the ether since it was written in a time where I still hosted fan-fiction and thought it would be nifty to write articles “in-character,” which incidentally was the first glimpses the ‘net had at the cast of Revolver Knight, even if a lot changed since then.

But Blaster Master… Blaster Master never changes.

AUTHENTIC ARCADE EDITION (of a home console only game)

THE TANK FUCKING JUMPS. THAT'S BLASTER MASTER. THAT'S WHY IT'S AWESOME.

A lot of people chide the game’s intro and plot for being… silly. Childish, even. A boy risking his life for his pet frog? Well, good sir, you clearly have no idea what a frog can mean to a boy. Sure, puppies and kittens are soft, fuzzy, warm and affectionate, but the smooth, porous, slightly sticky hide of a tiny frog does things to a little boy. It makes him realize, that yes, girls are icky and teachers are boring and everyone basically hates your scabby kneed ass, but here, in the palm of your hand, wide eyed, tiny and delicate is a creature that will accept you. Love you, admire you, depend on you. And that creature creeps the hell out of all those girls and teachers. By god, you would go to hell and back for this frog- and that’s exactly what you’re going to do, in this case.

It’s totally not because this is a hastily adapted version of some generic Japanese sci fi story.

So, you’re Jason. Your loins burn for Fred the Frog. So you hop into the conveniently waiting, fueled, and apparently child sized all-terrain assault vehicle Sophia III, and proceed to roll out and master your blasters on whatever passing creatures you see. The stages are massive, and can be freely explored as long as you have the ability to reach x ledge or blow up y wall. But there’s a catch to all the nifty gadgets you can attach to your tank, and that catch is well… the other half of the game.

Floating Terminator heads and tiny spikes are your Kryptonite. Actually everything is. Jason's kind of wimpy.

Every so often you’re made to hop out of the tank and explore overhead maze stages in order to locate the bosses therein, kill them, and collect whatever part of your tank they happen to have in their pocket. You know, there are some things that I just kind of look past in video games, like wolves carrying wallets full of cash in RPG’s, or people being able to consume food with their feet or top of their head or whatever part of them comes into contact with the dish, but these are non-humanoid monsters who are hoarding pieces of a one-of-a-kind vehicle. Maybe they just like shiny things? At any rate, while Sophia is a force of awesome, Jason kind of sucks on foot, something I guess the bosses planned for by hiding in those little holes. You can gather power ups for your gun, but every time you’re brushed against, your gun levels down, and in a wonderful monkey’s paw twist, fully leveling up your gun renders it pretty useless as your bullets begin curving in weird arcs instead of shooting straight ahead. So from time to time, you may find yourself taking damage on purpose to keep your gun in the level 2-3 range before a boss or something. You can also lob grenades, though the range seems to vary depending on if you’re trying to hit something or not. If you are, it seems like the grenades can suddenly triple their range and overshoot the enemy. They’re more powerful than your gun, though.

I mean, they better be. They’re fucking grenades.

They’re also your key to one of the great cheats of the NES age. Lob one at a boss, pause while the boss flashes, wait a while, then unpause and bam, boss chili. It’s kind of like the Elec Beam cheat in Mega Man 1, except it works for me.

The worms would later be recast as the Shitweasels in Dreamcatcher.

Another thing about this game is its difficulty level. It’s fairly hard, but it’s kind of hard to explain why. Sure there’s cheap enemy placement, and enemies also have an annoying tendency to just kind of pop into being when you’re so close to it instead of flowing in neatly from offscreen, but basically it’s that the enemies tend to not act like Nintendo enemies. You know how most things that want to kill you lazily wait for you to come to the platform they’re pacing back and forth on? Like they’re expecting to murder you by appointment? In Blaster Master, you might think enemies have a pattern, but it’s all a ruse. The rock men/mech people (what ARE those grey things?) will look like they’re just patrolling a lonely hovering platform or space in front of a door, but whenever your guard is down, they LEAP directly at you. And that’s not counting the ones with guns. Pretty much anything capable of firing a bullet is going to actually aim at you instead of merrily shooting into the air and hoping you take a big flamboyant FAME! leap into the line of fire. These two things combine to make the game classically hard, in addition to feeling your way around the map like a blind man in ‘Nam. In particular, the worm enemies are HORRIBLE- they’re too short for the tank to shoot, and they charge at you, mercilessly, making ominous little grunting noises. And they can jump. And they’re actually pretty strong too, something they like to emphasize by hanging out in and leaping out of lava pits unscathed. Damn worms…

The game ends (which is probably a surprise to some due to the red frog boss) with Jason and… I don’t know, the Princess? There’s usually a Princess to save in NES games, so we’ll roll with that- looking on as a pointed thing collapses and turns all the trees back to green. Hey, maybe Jason kissed his frog and it turned into that girl. Radiation does some pretty impressive things these days. I wonder why they stopped storing it in boxes in the backyard, though. You couldn’t take three steps without encountering radioactive things or mutagen canisters in the 80’s. Now it’s all under lock and key and the only radiation we can get ahold of is the cancer-causing variety. It was a simpler time. It was a better time.

Still awesome.

Like, oMg! I so look like that!

Persona 3: FES Edition (PS2)
2007/2008 Atlus

The Short Version- Instead of a mind numbingly slow paced JRPG that makes you wanna blow your brains out, it’s a decent JRPG where the characters blow their own brains out and splatter the walls with ectoplasmic AWESOME

The Long Version- Continue reading Persona 3: FES

The real thing is shiiiny.

Metal Slug 7 (NDS)
2008 SNK Playmore/Ignition

The Short Version: Hey look. It’s a new Metal Slug game. I wonder if you get to shoot droves of dopey looking soldiers, save hostages, then fight a gigantic contraption at the end of every level? It would sure be great if they could work some kind of a dating sim element in there too!

The Long Version: Continue reading 7? Really, now?

Drifting racks up big style points in the driving scenes between dungeon rooms!

Bubble Bobble is a promising title coming in the first or second quarter of 2009, barring any further delays. As BB fans undoubtedly know (and there are many who imported the much sought after Japanese edition), the game was originally due to be released domestically last year but hit a speedbump when Rockstar Entertainment threw the computers containing the project out the back of a truck trying to stop a vengeful Jack Thompson from following them all the way to their headquarters.

Now the game is in the hands of Atlus, who rabidly slurp up anything remotely Japanese who heard that one of the interns at Rockstar was named Tanaka. Expect a witty localization from the original Japanese.

Space Marine Dr. McFisty- he only wanted to save lives, but now he is doomed to take them!

Bubble Bobble is a 3-D platformer like no other. Rugged Space Marines Bub and Bob (to be renamed Clyde and Doctor McFisty in the American edition) have been transmogrified by the demon king Baphamodeous into genetically enhanced spacedragons. (A process shown in painful detail during the 30-minute intro cinematic.) The two men set off after the demon into the Cave of Monsters order to save their busty girlfriends- and their humanity.

The game opens with a tutorial where an annoying fairy-like being flits around informing you how you can walk forward by pressing forward, and how ‘jumping’ can allow you to reach higher platforms. It’s standard fare, but things can get a little overwhelming as you reach the meat of the game’s physics engine- the fabled Bubble Dynamic System. Bub and Bob can fire these weird bubbles from their mouths that encase enemies, lifting them helplessly off the ground. Oddly, you cannot messily kill enemies directly with your bubble breath, or even watch them run out their air supply. Once the enemy is bubbled, a simple double tap of the analog stick while pressing L1 will enable a rapid dashing manuever, from there you can leap and pop the bubble with your razor sharp head spikes, accompanied by a jagged semi transparent ‘arc’ thing. Fallen enemies will drop life replenishing medikits and fruit, along with a small arsenal of Eastern European firearms. Guns allow you to take out enemies at a distance with little harm to yourself- but watch out! Some enemies have ‘guns’ too! In addition to being a weapon, you can also use the bubbles as stepping stones to higher ground.

In addition to the seemingly endless dungeon of the story mode, Bubble Bobble comes loaded with extras. You can play as the human versions of Clyde and Dr. McFisty, their well endowed girlfriends (Kazuki is a scantily clad ninja amazon assassin vampire, and Mystykya is her slightly more modest childhood best friend whose occupation is as a whore), Baphamodeous, the giant spider from Room 32, Christian Weston Chandler, the tutorial fairy, Link (on Wii only), Gothos HorrorDarkRavynCock (a Todd McFarlane original on the 360 version), James Stewart, and of course, Shadow, a unique ‘dark’ version of… one of the heroes (I’ll be honest, Clyde and Dr. McFisty are basically the same guy in blue and green respectively.)

The most controversial aspect of the game, just to address the elephant in the room here, is the ending- namely that the only way to get the real ending is in ‘co op’ mode. This is a tragic foresight on the part of the developers as it’s very difficult for friendless failures in life to see “A TRUE END (cutscene).” The lively XBox Live community, however, makes that console’s version slightly more attractive as it’s pretty easy to find a sharp voiced adolescent homophobe from the MidWest with nothing better to do than hold your hand through 99 floors of dungeons while calling you a fag at every turn. It’s annoying, but it’s the easiest way to get that 100% collection rate. Oh, speaking of which, I hope you like collecting things. Bub and Bob have the opportunity to steal Baph’s horde of treasure piece by piece, provided they first forage for the raw meterials you need to take to the blacksmith within the hidden room on the second to last floor to make a display case in which to put the 101 golden sex toys of Rahanimu, and repeat the process on Legendary difficulty in order to synthesize the materials needed to construct a nice wooden hutch on which to store collector’s commemorative plates representing each and every cel of animation from the Disney animated feature Fantasia. Though these fetch quests might be called mind-numbingly dull and repetitive, you’ll find that your chosen SpaceBioDragonoid will level up comparatively quickly during this process, allowing you to tank through the main game with ease. Your hit points will be so ridiculously high by the end of the Sex Toy hunt, that you won’t even need to bother with that pesky jump button or even the quick-sidestep invincible dodging technique.

Bubble Bubble (full title: Bubble Bobble: Now Is the Beginning Of the Aeon of Legendaryness) is also noted for its large, innovative boss encounters. In each, you dispense with the platforming and hordes of robots and zombies to take on one massive robot (or zombie.) They’re a challenging bunch, but if you stand in one place for a while then quickly sidestep while shooting whatever glows- with your GUNS- you just might pull through. Sometimes the game throws you for a loop though and you have to lure an enemy onto a bullseye, then shoot a lever to activate the giant steampunk piledriver things on the ceiling. God, I never would have thought of that if the auto-lock targeting circle for my Bubble Breath special attack hadn’t pointed at it when I tried locking onto the boss itself. My only complaint there- why do you need to hit the lever with a charged bubble shot? It takes a while to charge up, while dodging 3-d rendered shockwaves- the one weakness of my strategy of running around in a big circle shooting at a large target that can’t lead its shots.

In spite of some shortcomings, Bubble Bobble is a solid game, fun for all ages as long as they’re not too squeamish. There’s well… uh, there’s  a rape scene, alright? And it’s pretty graphic. Because they’re not using the right holes. Existing holes. They’re fucking a girl’s liver. The good guys, I mean. I haven’t gotten that far, but I assume there’s a good plot reason for that scene to be in there. Actually, rumor has it the Japanese version had a tea party in that cutscene’s place, so it’s exclusive to the US edition (the PAL format release keeps the original tea party scene, and the disc is cinnamon scented.) If you can get past the curious localization (Bub’s use of overly-formal Japanese has been replaced by a thick Irish brogue spattered by out of place Southern phrases, and for some reason the small cross neckalace sported by Mystykya was changed to a German Iron Cross for being too religiously symbolic. The level 53 boss, The Shitting Mohammed suffered a similar fate, replaced by a middle-manager who just asks you to sign his sign-in sheet before progressing deeper into the cave of monsters.

Bubble Bobble! Coming in 2009! Maybe! To your Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, or Kenmore EDGE Gaming Blender! Five bucks GUARANTEES you a copy at your local Gamestop!*

*Pre-orders receive a gorgeous four page glossy booklet full of the director’s thoughts (yes, all of them, in four, large-faced pages), a Kazuki gel mousepad, and one MadCatz UltraBobbler Wireless Gamepad- specially designed for use with BB’s revolutionary Dynamic Bubble Engine!

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