460. COSMOLOGY OF KYOTO
The other night I felt so depressed and worthless I spent like 5 minutes giving this beggar money just to hear him say nice things about me. Sometimes an audio clip of the beggars’ moaning would play, and that was very unpleasant because you can’t skip it. That is usually a dealbreaker for me, but I will forgive Cosmology of Kyoto, because it is excellent and also a CD-ROM from 1994. Maybe you can’t skip audio clips because this was relatively new technology. Or maybe it’s because this game cost $98 and why would you ever skip an AIFF when you paid such big bucks for it?
I knew this real hotshot dude who was always going on about how “Station to Station” is a masterpiece, which disgusted me. I hated that album. Made me question everything that dude liked. Even if he was saying nice shit about me I’d be rolling me eyes internally! Who wants to be praised by someone with no taste? But then after Bowie kicked it I gave it another listen and realized maybe the copy I downloaded from usenet years and years ago was, like, a rip of “Tonight”? Because “Station to Station” is top tier, yeah. I recommend listening to it if you ever have to shovel a ton of snow. That’s not a cocaine joke. I just spent a lot of time over the last 2 winters shoveling snow and I would put this album on every time. Maybe the only times I let myself feel emotions or listen to music for awhile there.
Anyway, playing Cosmology of Kyoto the other night was a similar experience. I remembered putting a bunch of time into it, thinking it was rough, kinda interesting, but maybe too much fucking work. But no, I must have quit on it after like 3 minutes, cuz it’s simple and brilliant. You’ve probably already played it but if you haven’t get on it. I have no clue what you’re supposed to do or what anyone’s talking about cuz I refuse to study or think more than is needed but when it comes to games where you click on stuff this is at the top. For awhile there it made me forget I was depressed and worthless, even when I wasn’t giving money to panhandlers. It is also really spooky so please don’t blame me if you get scared!
Also please don’t judge my dusty monitor. That photo prompted me to finally clean up this place, so lots of positive things came out of playing Cosmology of Kyoto. I mean, I’m still super sad and cleaning up freed up so much space that it just highlighted how lonesome I am but that’ll change soon enough cuz I’m going to sell my game for $196 and make at least enough money to frame for all this awesome art Select Butts gave me at the Meetup.
I will never be truly lonesome once I have your art on these walls.
459. AQUANAUT’S HOLIDAY
Artdink is my favorite developer whose games I never bother playing. Partially cuz of the name, partially cuz their games have themes that are so good you don’t really need to play them. Train sims. Aquatic exploration sims. Caveman sim. Mech A.I. programming sims. Unstoppable sentient domino sim. All those ancient untranslated Japanese baseball sims they have on Steam. I am glad all these games exist. I’m also still too much of a neanderthal die-hard rock 'n roller to ever put serious time into something as nerdy as all their shit. Maybe someday I’ll settle down, get married, find a real job, have some children, and hate my life so much that I need to play A-Train to relax but I’m good for now, thanks.
As further proof I am now Officially Taking This List Seriously I not only played Aquanaut’s Holiday prior to writing this but I read its manual from cover to cover. To be honest I spent more time with the manual because it is very charming and good. For example: it says you gotta go under the sea because “the pressures of worldwide renown have become too much” and buddy, fuckin’ tell me about it. Also:
“No ‘need to’s’ or ‘must have’s’. No interference. No deadlines. Just you and the deep blue.”
“Tranquility floods you as you begin exploring the mysterious 3D liquid world.”
“Don’t be shy. This is your holiday.”
After reading all that I was real keen to go deep, deep down and never come back up. But then I found a dolphin. Hit a few Shift buttons. Conversed for a bit. The dolphin just went “squee squee” over and over again because it did not speak English, only Fish, but dolphins are super rude and horny so it was probably sexually harassing me. The dolphin did not lead me to treasure or unlock a page in a bestiary or present me with any intense moral dilemmas. Just swam in a circle and went squee endlessly.
So I turned the game off, went back to bed, and slept another 10 hours.
Maybe now’s the time to face facts: I’m a poseur and I’d probably be way happier if I just played MOBAs.
458. DOTA 2
Never mind, no. I’d be that guy, up there. I’d be truly miserable. Again.
My Steam profile is set to private. It’s almost always been that way. I don’t want people knowing how long I’ve spent on a game. I don’t wanna know either. Game clocks are one of the worst things to happen to games. Shit sure got bloated once they became commonplace, right?
Final Fantasy IV was the first game I played that kept track of my playtime and I remember when it hit 24 hours I was overwhelmed with shame. “A whole day of my life…gone. What if anyone found out I wasted so much time on something so frivolous? They’d think I’m such a nerd…or worse!”
I didn’t get over that feeling for a long time. But I kept playing games.
Nowadays everyone loves games and shows and movies and books that gobble up all their free time and it’s unlikely anyone would shame me for my Dota time but they should. I could have done so many marvelous things with those thousands of hours. Instead I sat online, getting drunk, in the dark, shouting at Russians and Pervuians and Americans kids who all no doubt grew up and voted Republican. I shouted so much.
Most of the time no one could hear me. I had many, many commendations for being kind and sweet and trying to broker peace amongst warring teammates. I never met anyone with half as many commends as I had, I am not boasting. I was just a tiny bit more civil than most Dota players, because I lost my cool many, many times a day, but I rarely did it on mic. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think about how I’d trade another 4,000 hours of my life if it meant I could take back all the times someone heard me call them a “needle-dicked mush-mouthed cry-baby” or some other nasty, unimaginative shit. Bad enough when you hurt someone’s feelings by accident, but to be so malicious…ugh! But I wouldn’t regret not all the times such words went unheard. Have you played any of these games? You need to vent or you will likely have a stroke and die.
I remember Tulpa once said Dota wasn’t a game and I heartily disagree. I think Dota is the most videogame of all video games. It is stupidly complex and requires dozens of hours of study and play before you will be remotely competent, if you ever get there. You shouldn’t get there. It’s not worth it. Just do drugs instead. I wish I’d gotten into drugs instead of Dota. Like, I had a choice, and I went with Dota. I forced myself to learn and like this game, because my life was a wreck and it seemed like a thing to do. But imagine how many great stories I’d have if I’d become a barfly. All the broken hearts and barroom brawls and boozed-up bonding and one-night stands. And V.D. I woulda gotten so much V.D. But hey, I can tell you about the time a Rubick flung my Drow Ranger up on a cliff at the start of a match and I somehow got a triple kill while I was stuck up there. Amazing shit, right? My book deal gonna be Clinton-big once publishers learn I got dozens of stories like that.
I never really kicked the habit. I have a tournament stream running in the background as I write this. It’s a rerun of one I already watched earlier today. I have spent the last few days in bed, in pain, wanting to cry, listening to a Dota 2 tournament. Maybe there’s a correlation there, but probably not. This game attracts the worst people and you should not play it.
I…I kinda want to start playing it again, though. Kinda want to blow my life up with the world’s #1 worst gamesoft.
Please don’t let me. Please.
457. YUME NIKKI

I spent 2 years of my life playing Defense of the Ancients but I have never played Yume Nikki. It always ran in this real tiny window and the graphics were all fucked up and unplayable. I had this problem on more than one computer…I think. Maybe this is another Station to Station deal.
Someone please tell me how to fix Yume Nikki.
456. SKYKID

I just learned that Skykid is actually furry. Or…I dunno, is it furry if it only has birds? Also: it was developed by Namco, not Sunsoft. Which would explain why its music was in Taiko no Tatsujin, huh.
I think you could do a loop-de-loop in Skykid. I liked that.
That’s all I have to say about Skykid.
455. CLOCK TOWER
This game is inspired by all the most boring parts of Dario Argento’s “Phenomena”. Like, I don’t think there’s a single monkey in this. Or Donald Pleasence. But it’s still real swell and kinda spooky and you should listen to the episode of Super Nintendo Exploration Squad: A Select Button Podcast where we discussed it. I haven’t listened to it, cuz even though I love the sound of my own voice I don’t love the sound of my own voice, but it’s probably 70% talk about Jennifer Connelly’s eyebrows which means it’s probably really good. Not as good as the impromptu 3DO erotica podcast shrug, Tulpa and I did afterwards, but still: probably really good.
454. LEAGUE BOWLING
I may be 49 years old but I’m an Honorary Official Millennial cuz I got a participation trophy in my pee-wee bowling league.
I knew I didn’t deserve that trophy. I used to stare at it at bedtime every night. I think my score was like, a 39? That’s really bad right? It wasn’t a 300, that’s for sure. You may have noticed that nowadays I’m willing to get a little sloppy but as a kid? Everything needed to be perfect. 300 or bust.
That trophy made me feel like shit.
453. PENGUIN WARS

The first game Kojima worked on was Penguin Adventure, which was kinda like Crash Bandicoot starring a penguin on an MSX. I haven’t played it but it’s an MSX action game so I assume it sucks. It was a sequel to Antarctic Adventure for the Famicom, which I have played. You don’t have to play it. You should track down the box art though; it’s got a fat hungover penguin who’s causing all sorts of harm because he is, presumably, late for work.
Penguin Wars was a game about throwing balls at animals. That might sound crude but above you will see art for an upcoming sequel, and it looks like they’re embracing crude cuz that penguin got a fuckin’ dick.
452. ACTRAISER
Yuzo Koshiro had a ton of albums up on iTunes years ago. I assume I’m one of a handful of people who bought them because not only were they game soundtracks for sale on iTunes but he misspelled his own name. He was composing on a PC-88 forever so some of the Super Famicom albums were the original FM synth versions and I highly recommend those. Fuck, I recommend all the Actraiser albums. That game has the best tunes.
I beat the Japanese version of Actraiser as a kid. I got stuck a few times so I called the import mail order store my grandmother bought it from and asked for help.
OK I’ll be honest: my grandmother called for me. She played middle man. I had anxieties, okay! But together…we all beat Actraiser.
451. SUPER POLE RIDERS

Who put all my exes on their top 5 list?