Full Throttle

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I have always been a big fan of adventure games, for the pc.  Games like King`s Quest and Space Quest, and others like them that make you use your brain instead of just mashing buttons to kill things.  So when I found out about Full Throttle I just couldn`t wait.

One of my coworkers at the time had this game and invited me over.  I am not really sure how the game starts though, because my friend chose this time to do his silly biker impressions like the games characters.  I admit though they were awesome impressions.  Everything I did my friend had to make some silly comment about it in his biker voice.  I entered a bar “Hey bartender poor me a cold one” I wanted to kick him so bad but the impressions were so funny I couldn`t.

Anyway after a few hours of playing around we got to a part in the game where you have to go to someones trailer and get something.  Back in the days of these type games , sometimes clicking certain icons would get a funny response from the game.  For some unknown reason my friend tried to like a door.  Out of nowhere you hear the game say “I`m not putting my mouth on that!”  That would have been the funniest line ever BUT, yes theres always a but.  My friend had to reply “What would you put your mouth on?”  Talk about the most awkward silence ever.  37 seconds of “…….” , and a look from me saying, please do not ask that again ever!

I think I have played this game maybe 25 times in my life, and it keeps getting better.  Too bad though there was supposed to be a part 2 but it got cancelled.

Kid Icarus

I have got to say , Kid Icarus is one of my favorite NES games.  The thrill of playing a game about mythology, shooting enemies with a bow, just makes my day.  Until You get to the damn eggplant wizards!  Words do not describe my hatred for these guys.  It never fails, getting all the way to the end of one of the boss levels, and get eggplanted.  I think my record is 15 times eggplanted on one stage.  When you get turned into an eggplant, the nurse is the only way to fix it, and she her room is usually far away from you and far from the direction you are heading.

I know my friends have to love it though, Hours of enjoyment laughing at me lose my temper has to make their day.  I have never been good at losing,  Something about being eggplanted just makes it worse.  I skip the “angry” stage and go straight to the part where I call the tv names, cuss and scream and punch doors like a complete idiot.  Meanwhile back on planet Earth, my friends are watching and laughing “O crap Ed got turned into an eggplant again!  This is hilarious, I think he is going to throw the TV out the window” .  I guess that’s just their way of getting even with me for all the crap I do to them when they play video games.

One last thing , if by some chance the person that created the eggplant wizard reads this, I hope you get beat up by an old lady with a basket of vegetables!

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Back again

After a few pc problems I can finally write a little for my blog today.

Ms. Pac-man

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Everyone has a game they like that you don`t really know why you play it , you just play it.  For me that game was Ms. Pac-Man.

I first started playing it at the local pizza place.  Mom used to give me a quarter to go play it because I can`t eat hot foods(not spicy hot i mean like temperature hot).  Any time I had anything above warm my mouth blisters.  So I would go to the one arcade game they had at the pizza place, and have fun.  Think I might bust out the Atari and play some now.

PSO

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Phantasy Star Online was my first attempt at any online type of gaming.  I hadn`t even seen an online game before that much less tried one, so the experience was completely new.  After spending an hour messing with the create a character feature, to make a purple haired human ranger I was finally ready to start into the world of the unknown.

The first thing I notice when I begin is that your character has a speech bubble above their head filled with whatever fancy stuff you might type.  That`s when I see it, instead of people typing normal things, people are making all kinds of weird pictures with letters.  Things like sumo wrestlers or faces, or even 2 stick people doing things that would make you spit your soda out laughing over.  They were mainly there as a kind of way to communicate to your friends or teammates during the game, they even had a few features that made you able to quickly link a word or phrase to a button.  Things like saying “Thanks” or “Let`s go” but not having to spent time typing out things.  These bubble chat things seemed fun, and I took note of them for playing.

I really loved this game.  It was pretty simple, 4 stages and 3 classes to choose from, but seriously fun.  You could play by yourself or with your friends offline or online.  A few of my friends played this game with me, but one in particular I really had fun with.  Sure we had fun killing enemies and making new online friends but that wasn`t why I enjoyed playing with him.  The reason I enjoyed playing together was the speech bubbles!    When my friend would get up to go to the bathroom or smoke or go get something from the fridge, I would take that time to change all of his bubble chat speed things to say weird stuff “I`m a noob” or some other things that were either really stupid or embarrassing OR BOTH!  The first time I did it, I am almost certain he spit in my soda later on so I know he must wanted to kill me. We still play every now and again but now he refuses to leave the room without takin his controller with him. I don`t even want to get starting talking about how much fun I had killing him on the last boss.

The game does have a fun special weapons and things are and rare items, which I gave him.  I can`t be a pain in the butt all the time.  The special weapons were actually what really made me play so much.  There making a new Phantasy Star game now and it looks to be similar to the first one, so I am really excited.

Non BGM

What types of game music do you usually listen to if you aren`t listening to the music or soundtrack of the game itself?

Wolfenstein 3D

First of all I would like to say, I am flat-out horrible at any game that involves shooting stuff.  This is one of maybe 5 that i actually played.  Most people might love game music however once I finish a game (sometimes I don’t even wait that long depending on the game’s soundtrack) I crank up the radio and listen to other things.

My choice for this game, was Delbert McClinton.  Sure I realize that shooting people in a pc game has absolutely nothing to do with this, but I was into that kind of music then.  It is funny that to this day every time i play Wolfenstein I think of one of his songs, or if i hear him sing i think of Wolfenstein.

 

Near Death with Killer Instinct

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I will admit of all the fighting games I have ever played, this is my second favorite.  Only KOF 96 to me was more fun.  Anyway, This game was at the local gas station, which was a lunch hangout spot for a bunch of the kids from school.  Some would play pool, others would play arcade games, and have a snack from the store.

On this particular day, I was playing against a friend of mine.  Now it is important to note, he had never defeated me before.  I am not some super player, I just knew his tactics and how to avoid them.   We start playing and I am winning as usual, everything going normal.  All of a sudden I hear loud noises from outside, and look out the window.  The arcade machine was right in front of a giant window with bars in front of it, so it had a really good view of outside.  Now even though it was lunch time , the roads were very bad from an ice storm the night before, that together with the small curb in front of the store made it a very bad place to be.

So I hear the sounds and look up, just in time to watch my friend’s car slide across the ice, hop the curb and barrel through the glass window that was less than 3 feet in front of me.  The car shatters the glass window, mangled the bars in front of it and with the angle the car hit at it kind of spins the machine sideways turning in my direction.  At this point I`m covered in glass(probably would`ve been blind if it weren’t for the fact i wore glasses then) and my friend is yelling ” I WON!  I finally beat you  AHA!”I am not the kind of person that would be overly mad at losing, but this time was different.  I am standing there covered in glass, half kneeling on the floor, with a car almost parked on my feet, a girl in the back screaming “If you aren`t old enough to be smoking get out of here before the cops show” and this dude is talking about beating me at a video game.  This made me so angry, I learned every finishing move in the game, and damn near every combo for all the different characters, just to show off the ways to kill him and annoy him.  I didn`t even use any of the cheapness like cinders air juggle or glacier`s puddle uppercut.

Looking back though, I think “Wow, I never got that kind of rush from 1 quarter in my life”  It does however change your playing.  I still look around the arcade machine in between matches and duck when i hear loud noises playing.

Mortal Kombat for Push Ups

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Now most bad ideas start out the same for me, with boredom drinking and friends playing video games.  This particular time is no exception.  I was over at a friend`s house playing Mortal Kombat with him and another friend, and I said “Man I wish i was in better shape”.  Now if I hadn`t been drinking I might`ve caught my mistake here, but too bad for me I didn`t.  Alcohol and exercise do not mix!  The friend that came up with this idea was a wrestler in high school, and one of the fittest people I have ever known.  This just keeps adding more points to the “stupid idea” column by the second.

With any type of challenge like this, you need rules.  We had a list that we worked out.  25 push ups for losing, 35 if you lost and the person did a fatality, 50 for a friendship or animality loss, and if by some chance you tried to were going to win and but the other guy makes a comeback you had to do 100 push

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 ups.

What none of us realized at that time was the side effects of doing push ups and trying to play.  If by some chance you lose a few times, your arms turn to jello.  Unable to even hold the controller much less push buttons.  You have to set the controller either on the floor or table because your arms are burning.  Most times we did this sober,(after the first time you try 100 push ups drunk, and hurl all over a controller sober seems like the only option).

I still remember catching one of my friends doing push ups on his knees, what made it funny was his excuse.  It wasn`t anything like i`m tired or my wrists hurt, or whatever.  His excuse “Dude i weigh 2 times what all of you weigh.  I`m a big guy I can`t do real push ups”  This was not the thing you want to tell someone who wrestled.

If you want to try something like this, I suggest doing it with more than 3 people like we did.  The more people playing, the better shot you have of not having to do 1500 push ups.  If you must try with just a few, buy a copy of the game yourself and learn one persons moves.  I chose to learn Sector and Sonya.  With your arms feeling like jello you want to have any advantage you can get, and being good with one of the characters is always a plus.

Megaman 2

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There are many Mega Man games but this one was the one I played the most.  I first got this game because I heard the Japanese call him Rock Man.  My thoughts were how do you get Mega Man from Rock Man?  Never did figure out the connection but man I had a blast playing.

Unlike most games that make you take a certain path or fight things in a certain order, there’s no real path in Mega Man.  You can pick and of the stages and go in any order.  After spending a few minutes wondering which to try i selected the Flash Man stage.  After improving my button mashing skills i set off to fight my first boss.  Now to this day i have no earthly idea what time stop ability has to do with a guy named Flash, or why he’s blue and when i equip his powers i turn into a pink power ranger.  Somethings I guess will always be a mystery,

One thing to note about Mega Man games, is that each boss has a weakness.  One of the other bosses super powers will help you kill another boss way easier than with just your regular arm cannon alone.  Now I think it was maybe a joke by the creators but for some reason the best weapon to beat metal man was his own damn metal gear.  If you didn`y have to fight them again later in the game I would`ve gone the entire time thinking he had no weaknesses.   Flash Man`s weapon is really onely good for one boss, and that is Quick Man seen in the photo here.

After gathering up the weapons , it`s finally time to take off after Dr. Wily.  Let me say he’s one mean old guy.  Don`t let the fact he`s going bald fool you, He`s not dieing without one hell of a fight.  My way of jumping around like mad and shouting at the TV wasn`t every effective but after about 30 tries I finally won.  If you have any advice for him please feel free to say.  I owe him a rematch, one that doesn`t involve me getting my butt handed to me over and over.