:genki: THE 501 GAMES OF ALL TIMES :genki:

Time zones suck!!

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425. DENSHA DE GO

I love arcade games more than anything else but I do not mourn the death of the American arcade. That shit was expensive. I remember when the price leapt from 25 cents per credit to 50 and that’s when I tapped out. I couldn’t afford that shit! And that’s way cheaper than Japan, where it’s almost always been 100 yen (almost $1!) to play a cool gamesoft. In America I’m pretty thrifty. If I’m by my lonesome I will not spend any money to have a good time! But overseas anything goes. I was dropping so many yencoins in arcade machines. Partially cuz it was fun and partially cuz carrying around change is a fucking burden. The less of it rattling around in my pocket the better! This is horrible thinking so next time I go back I am going to get a change purse.

Unfortunately that “next time” is probably a ways off. Went a bit wild at the game center playing the new Densha De Go, you see. @Rudie covered my first credit but after that it was all me, swiping my Suica all over that cab. One time I accidentally bought 900 yen worth of credits doing this and any other time, any other place, any other game I would have been cursing myself…but here I was very happy. I was with @bhendahu at the time, and I think I apologized a bunch for being so sloppy, but inside I was overjoyed. 900 yen gives you like 15 minutes worth of train time! I love trains now, even though I’m very bad at Densha De Go.

My dad worked on trains. He never really talked about it with me. I think he started off cleaning them and slowly worked his way up the ladder. Got a big promotion at one point, shortly after shaving his beard. He later told me that one way to get people to take you seriously is to shave. I have not followed his advice. Seeing him without a beard was always odd, and when he only had a mustache it was really odd. Dude started looking like Luigi. Still handsome, but y’know…you can only be so handsome when you’re looking like Luigi.

At one point he gave me a job application for the MTA. I think I filled it out but I did not submit it. It was a long fuckin’ commute! And I’d have to ride those shitty trains. And I’d have to work. No thanks. He also gave me an MTA hat and jacket. I wonder if wearing them means you can ride those shitty trains and do citizen’s arrests for free.

My dad once took my nephews to a train rodeo. They were very excited, thinking they were gonna see trains doing tricks and getting lassoed, like at the rodeos cowboys do. But it was just trains sitting around, not doing anything in some yard? The kids complained a lot about it when they got home. They complained about it for years afterwards. And my dad complained about them, and what little monsters they were. I guess it became a treasured family memory of sorts, the really lame train rodeo. Feel kinda left out that I never went.

My dad retired early, cuz he hated his job, and died soon after, cuz his job killed him. They used some real nasty chemicals to clean trains back in the day! Everyone in his crew got cancer from it. I think he was the last one to go. None of them sued. I think that was pretty foolish, personally. Think you should get some compensation if your job fuckin’ kills you. Think you’d wanna make some big bucks so your son could buy his own gold-plated Densha De Go cabinet with a custom “IN MEMORY OF MY POPS” nameplate on it. I bet I’d be a real pro at braking and honking horns for train otaku if I had my own custom cab…

If they ever do Densha De Go at a Games Done Quick the above paragraph will be attached to a donation and they better read the whole damn thing.

First thing I did when I got home last week was look up prices for home versions on eBay. I could probably get one for less than I dropped on the arcade version but again, way thriftier at home, thank goodness. But if I ever hit the big time you better believe I’m gonna splurge and go by train all day every day.

424. BATTLE JOCKEY

I only played this for 5 minutes cuz it was a Salaryman Corner game for the SNES Exploration Squad podcast and that’s more time than any of those games deserve, but during those 5 minutes I saw this, the greatest attract mode that isn’t Dimahoo. I think the game itself might actually be the only Salaryman Corner game I’ve played that might be worth investing more time into but like…should I bother? Is any of it gonna be as good as this? No. In a kinder world people would have spent 20 years quoting this instead of Zero Wing. In a kinder world we all help us grateful.

423. MISCHIEF MAKERS



I remember renting this from Blockbuster and thinking “Why can’t I play with the analog stick? Holding the N64 pad like this sucks. This game is cheap bullshit.” Then I returned it.

Actually now that I think about it that was my reaction to the AKI WCW games for N64. I was angry I had to play with the dpad and that the games didn’t have Street Fighter-style special inputs. I preferred WWF Attitude. In that game if you hit like down then forward then back then square you could do a Stone Cold Stunner and it felt like shit but at the time it made more sense to me than the AKI grapping system!

That was the wrongest I’ve ever been in my life. That’s way more embarrassing than the “I thought Bioshock was a good game for like 5 hours” confession in my previous post.

I haven’t played Mischief Makers since it came out but I kinda feel like 90’s Treasure is vastly inferior to 00’s Treasure. Like all those games minus maybe Gunstar are more interesting than good. I also know if I went back and replayed all those games I’d probably feel ashamed of this statement, though not too ashamed: 100% certain most of those 00’s games are fuckin’ great. No way the 90’s stuff eclipses it.

Also what’s the deal with the last suggestion in the screenshot above. Is this game based on the Quran.

422. BIGFOOT

One time my father took me and a friend to a “tractor pull”. I had no clue what the fuck a tractor pull was but it sounded like a very divorced dad thing to do. Turned out it was a contest of sorts to see how far trucks could pull trailers loaded with giant cans of Budweiser. It was very lame. There was also an interlude where a truck transformed into a robot that was kinda like Truckasaurus from the Simpsons, but instead of eating cars it just stood upright and shot red lasers everywhere while a track by the Edgar Winter Group played. I kinda got into that. And after the #1 tractor puller was determined there was the true Main Event: a superstar monster truck showdown, where Grave Digger took on Bigfoot to see who could do a better job crushing cars. This excited me. It wasn’t as good as a demolition derby but it was some form of contained mayhem, and I could get down with that. So when the announcer asked us fans to cheer on Bigfoot I followed his instructions and politely hooted and hollered and clapped. And I continued to do this until my father and best friend started shooting me dirty looks, as if they were ashamed of my antics. I do not believe I was making a scene. I was probably the most well-mannered young man at this tractor pull. And it is not like they were rooting against purehearted babyface Bigfoot and for the rudo Grave Digger; they were just sitting there stonefaced until they turned in unison to glare at me and fill my soul with shame. So I just slumped down and sat on my hands and waited for the show to end. I think Bigfoot won. Maybe the winner was determined by audience response but I may be confusing this with Showime at the Apollo.

So yeah I stopped emoting in public for like 25 years after that. Whatta buncha cranks. Though maybe it’s for the best. What if I’d gotten super into monster trucking? That would be so embarrassing. Whole thing is a sham! Polar opposite of pro-wrestling, which is very good, and king of sports.

421. YOSSY’S COOKIE

I have no memory of playing this game but I did play the import of Super Mario World shortly after it came out. It was a very exciting, mysterious game. No tutorial, couldn’t read the manual, no other kids at school had it. The pianos sounded like real pianos. It had a dinosaur. It had lots of secrets. It was my favorite.

I didn’t know you could bounce off spiky shit using the spin jump until I watched some Kaizo Mario video. I thought that was just for breaking blocks.

I took the manual with me to a Japanese restaurant and asked the owner to translate it for me. She was a busy lady so she didn’t have the time for such things but she did tell me the dinosaur’s name was Yoshi. I was really pissed off, cuz my friends and I had named the green dinosaur Bill. The blue one was Gil, the yellow one was Phil, the red one was…uh…Will? They all rhymed, that’s what I remember! And we thought these names were way better than Yoshi. So this nice lady had her fancy restaurant filled with a bunch of suburban pre-pubescent shitheads groaning loudly about how shitty Japanese names sounded. Kids sure do suck, huh.

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i had kinda fell behind on this thread, so I was going through it, and I do this thing a lot when I’m reading something more than sixteen words long on the internet where I take a break because I’m a degenerate, and often when I do that part of my break consists of me kind of reflexively opening select button and doing nothing, cause that’s what yall are good for mostly. and I bet you figured it out but I took a break from this and I figured I may as well open select button and boy was my face red

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I do this with Twitter like, once a day

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i went to a monster truck show for the first time a few years ago, with only the knowledge of a few truck Names, including Bigfoot and Grave Digger, and not only did i find out from others that you can seemingly name a Truck after any franchise you want (Hawaiian Punch? Scooby Doo? Family Guy??) but there were, at that same event, three different versions of Grave Diggers, including Grave Digger, Digger’s Destruction and Grave Digger: The Legend (which i think might have actually been driven by the father of the current GD?) and now all i want is a prestige family drama series about monster trucks and their drivers (and i’m just gonna link to this before anyone might have a chance to)

anyways, i guess what i’m saying is, if you give me enough alcohol, i will scream for any kind of large jumping truck

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420. ULTIMATE MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3

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I have spent most of my life “sober as a judge” but the first time I did any kind of drug was in Miami in 2012. I took some mushrooms in my friend’s apartment and I had “a bad trip” where I felt like I was made out of wet cement and I kept grinding my teeth.

When I started feeling a bit better I was disappointed by the lack of visual hallucinations, cuz thanks to cartoons and movies and such I was lead to believe that was a big part of the 'shroom experience. Since the apartment lacked any blacklight posters I whipped out my phone and tried to find a twitch stream of Marvel vs Capcom 3, which is a game with some very nice yellows and purples, but those colors don’t really pop on a 3" screen at a bleary 240p.

I’m very cool but for a brief moment drugs turned me into a total dork. I’ve been (mostly) straight edge ever since.

Anyway remember when Kusoru came from Japan and beat all those Americans at Marvel using Viewtiful Joe/Frank West/Rocket Raccoon? That was hilarious. That guy is my fucking hero.

419. IGNITION FACTOR

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You don’t gotta shout at me buddy. My hose is ready to go at any time.

I don’t think I’ve ever played this game but it’s not as good as Burning Rangers. I’ve also barely played Burning Rangers but I did own it and it’s for the Sega Saturn, the #3 console after NEC PC Engine and Nintendo Family Computer. If you disagree please fire off in the comments.

418. DONKEY KONG 94

Donkey Kong '94 25m Animated

Feel like half the image searches I do for the games on this list give me UK ads that are loaded with really awful euphemisms. I always download them and intend to use them but delete them before posting cuz holy shit, do I wanna post an ad that’s like “GO BANANAS NUTTING IN DK’S FIST”? I don’t. They say sex sells but I ain’t buying…I’m selling. :sunglasses:

I believe Donkey Kong 94 is the best Nintendo game of the 90’s and, maybe, the best game of the 90’s. I say this despite never completing it, but I gotta say playing this game on a Game Boy Pocket while watching BET Comic View with my friends is one of my treasured memories. Maybe cuz it was one of the few times in my life I actually did things with friends but…Comic View was good. Anime Club is going to start watching complete episodes of Def Comedy Jam before the year is out. I will never give up until everyone I know appreciates the beauty of Bernie Mac’s airbrushed jeans.

417. DOUBLE DRAGON II

The other day I saw this dude on Instagram sharing photos of his new Amiga setup. I’ve had a really rough month filled with self-loathing but that made me feel really good about myself. I may be lonely and homely and unloved but at least I’m not so far gone I buy a fucking Amiga, cuz the Amiga has no good games.

I say this having never actually played an Amiga game but I don’t need to. Look at that image above. That’s the Amiga cover for Double Dragon II: The Revenge. It is bad. Got more mullets than the NES version. The gall is showing more butt, which might be good, but she’s looking more distressed, which is bad. On the NES box she looks like she’s kinda into this shit. Like maybe she got kidnapped on purpose cuz watching dudes brawl and do murders for her is her thing. Also this looks like it was done by some dope who probably spent most of his career doing airbrushed Cadbury ads or some shit, while the NES box was someone doing their very best Tetsuo Hara impersonation (or maybe Hara himself?? I’ve heard conflicting stories). So yeah, the Amiga is awful and for racists. Sorry if you like the Amiga, but it’s true.

Also sorry if you enjoy beat ‘em ups but they’re maybe the worst genre of gamesoft. I won’t get into that here – I’m gonna be droppin’ fuckin’ loads of hot takes on the next Snexploration podcast – but it’s true: beltscrolls are bad.

416. THE FROG FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

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The other day at 3AM I woke up and gamer streamed this. I had 2 viewers and I like to think we all had a good time. I tried streaming Shigesato Itoi’s fishing game prior to that but that was a bust. Too much Japanese in that thing. Shoulda kept it unplayed. Shoulda just continued to admire its fabulous box art.

This game was in English though, thanks to a “fan patch”. You need to be able to read the words in this one, cuz it’s like a proto-Link’s Awakening. There is a lot of text, and it is kinda “janky,” as some folks say. When I think Nintendo I think “super polished gamesoft” but boy, this is frequently unresponsive and sloppy. I loved that. Like hearing your favorite band play a messy live set, or learning your super hot crush has a pimple on their butt or hair on their back. (Hi, I think I have hair on my back now – I dunno when that happened but whatever, I don’t care, I ain’t gonna shave that shit unless someone volunteers to do it for free.) This game humanized Nintendo for me, which might not be good but…Nintendo is good. Sorry, I’m a mark for Nintendo, and loved getting confirmation that they just released buggy shit in Japan and fixed it up for the rest of the world.

Also I’ll probably stream this again tomorrow so if you wanna watch a dude repeatedly fail at a game for children while griping about how no one appreciates him please tune in to https://twitch.tv/bachelorsoft and I will definitely entertain you.

415. EARTHBOUND

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The last time I played Earthbound was 2012. I had completed it numerous times before that but that time I was totally blindsided by the bit at the end where you say your prayers. I’d totally forgotten that shit. But I did it. I fell to my knees in front of my desk and I prayed sincerely to this fucking game and I am not ashamed. God is real, and God listens to gamesoft. Also it’s okay to spoil the prayer moment here cuz if you haven’t played Earthbound you’ll probably forget I spoiled it after spending 80 hours watching HP meters spin and shit.

There is a moment in Earthbound where Ness gets a glimpse at his parents when he was a newborn. They were still very young, and in awe of their child. It hit me hard. Made me realize my parents were like that once too probably. I’d spent years feeling they were super cynical folks but this game…kinda made me realize they were deeply traumatized people who were trying to do their best. That maybe they really did love me, but they had Circumstances that made things difficult.

I think I am now older than both my parents were when I was born. This blows my mind. Makes it even easier for me to forgive them for their faults cuz holy shit, imagine if I had a kid? I’d probably be collecting Funko Pops and forcing my 3 year old to 1CC Super Mario World before they’re allowed to use the potty. But I also think maybe I’ve done the right thing by isolating myself for most of my life. Maybe I’ve minimized the hurt I would have caused. Maybe this is a poison thought. I dunno. Currently thinking I should be alone amongst the cacti though.

So yeah you should probably force someone you love to play Earthbound.

414. TANGO STRIKE

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OK actually I’d probably be a way better parent than my grandmother cuz I think she once covered my uncle in olive oil and left him on a windowsill cuz he was crying too much. Maybe she thought some hobo would come and take him away, like he was some kinda pie – in case you didn’t know 70% of early 20th century comedy revolved around pies cooling on windowsills, often stolen by hobos – but instead he just slipped off that windowswill and fell a few stories into, like, the garbage.

He survived the fall but boy, he sure was a bitchy adult. Maybe that fall did a number on him.

Anyway I don’t know what this game is – again, much of this list was pulled from you, the reader – but I also believe a “covert.d” is required. I don’t kiss and tell. :shuffle: Believe it.

413. THE SOPRANOS: ROAD TO RESPECT

The Sopranos is the best TV show that isn’t the first 8 seasons of the Simpsons.

In case you haven’t noticed I have very vanilla tastes.

Someday I might try playing the video game on gamer stream but for now, no. I can’t do that shit alone. Big on laughs over here but dunno if i can handle a terrible Sopranos adaptation right now. That shit is my Rosetta stone. That shit helped me figure out my life.

I maybe should have saved this clip for #1 but despite having vanilla tastes I’m all about breaking the rules so here it is, #413. Goodnight. I’m going to sleep at noon.

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Given the whole thing with both players fighting each other at the end of the original, this makes a lot of sense really.

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The frog for whom the bell tolls is the first game I ever gamer streamed

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Just stumbled on this and spent the last hour or so reading it all, thanks for posting it. I did the Frankie Teardrop challenge a few years ago too and man, going in blind like that with some good headphones in the dark made me feel like a terrified kid watching the shadows on his wall again, primal shit.

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This thread has now made me want to play Obsidian. Already a success by all accounts!

:genki:GENKI TALE: SIDE STORY’S CORNER :genki:

Wallaby_04

I wrote a ton of words but I’m too tired to proofread so I’ll post them tomorrow or on Saturday. For now here’s a screenshot from WALLABY!! for PC engine. If I recall correctly it’s a game about gambling on kangaroo races. That is a koala smoking a cigarette. I am not sure if the koala is a janitor or a bookie or a convict but I do know it has a very unhealthy habit.

kickball

And here’s a muscle man playing kickball from the PC Engine title KICKBALL. Possibly the first appearance of Heihachi of TEKKEN fame?

Thank you for your patience. It will be rewarded.

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kickball is one of those pcengine games i always see cheap, but don’t bother getting because it sounds boring.

but now all that has changed. if i see it for less than £5, i’ll totally get it now

:genki: GAMES ARE OVER IF YOU WANT IT: THE FINAL GENKI :genki:

terrorist fist gonk

I didn’t post the promised update cuz I’ve spent most of the last week in bed, in the dark, either seething or on the verge of tears. Not in a healthy place here so I am trying not to do real life or online…unless it involves Dragon Ball.

let's go steal some dragon balls in a mercedes

I love Dragon Ball Fighterz so much I am now reading all the manga. I’ve read the first few volumes a bunch of times over the years but I usually burned out once the Red Ribbon stuff pops up. This time I kept going and it was worth it. I mean, it’s not Dr. Slump and it’s way too long for its own good but I think if I’m gonna read one complete shonen action series from my lifetime it may as well be this one.

goku butt

This is a very stupid, very appealing comic book. As of late I have either been totally numb or overwhelmed by negative emotions but while reading this there were a few seconds here and there where I felt this tiny thrill, like an echo of how I would have felt as a child. Goku is so pure-hearted and dumb and he is so fast and strong! I love Goku so much. I want to be more like Goku.

krillin bleeds

But there’s a part of me that suspects kid me woulda been a way harsher critic than current me. I bet I would have gotten so mad at every false death and genuine resurrection and all that talk about training and getting stronger and power levels. I think every fifth word in this book is “strong” and that would driven kid me crazy. Kid me was super cranky. Kid me was way too smart for his own good. God, I gotta get in touch with my inner child so I stop wasting so much time on fucking bullshit.

bald on bald crime

Since there’s no Bulma or Lunch or Master Roshi in Dragon Ball Fighterz I had to settle for second stringers. Tien was on my team for awhile. He’s a bald martial arts master but he’s different from the 20 other bald martial arts masters in the game cuz he has 3 eyes. When the game came out I didn’t know who he was but I liked getting fraudulent wins with his level 3 supers. In one of them this little hopping ghost guy flies in and does some suicide bombing. It’s very emotional. I’m currently on the first volume of Dragon Ball Z and that little hopping ghost guy is dead but I don’t recall seeing him suicide so either he comes back to life and dies again or I skipped a page. I can’t imagine that scene is exclusive to anime, cuz anime fuckin’ sucks. In the time it took me to read 16 volumes I woulda watched like…3 episodes of anime. Anime is 100% not :genki:

lunch did 9:11

Eventually I decided to replace Tien cuz that gimmicky shit wasn’t working and it’s easier to make a clean break than unlearn all those bad habits. So I went with Goku Black, the evil Goku. He has a really good anti-air attack and he is very strong. Plus he has pink hair. But he is evil, which means I never should have added him. I don’t care if he is God Tier, because there’s a tier above that, and it’s Goku Tier, and only one character belongs in that tier: Son Goku, hero of Dragon Ball.

Like the more I read the comic the more dirty I felt about using evil Goku? Like I’d sold out? I liked the pink hair yeah, but everything else? NO. Plus I was losing 70% of the time. Don’t play competitive games while dealing with crippling depression, everyone. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t help. Really makes it hard to hit your bread 'n butter combos.

goku is almost as cool as me

So last night I did it: I turned to Goku. Spent some time in training mode. Figured his shit out. Hopped online, even though I said “I am not going to go online today because whenever I do I get very angry over getting bopped” but what do you know: I was the one doing the bopping. Sometimes. I still mostly lost but my hands were working again and my team felt right. They felt like a family.

goku drawing bulma

My team is Yamcha/Android 16/Goku. I have no clue who the fuck Android 16 is. I somehow spent a life immersed in all this culture yet never watched or read Dragon Ball Z. I was exposed to kid Goku first, ok? I taped that first Dragon Ball dub off WPIX at 5AM every Saturday. I didn’t wanna watch a buncha muscle guys stand around shouting at each other. I wanted to have a laugh. I wanted to see Bulma yelling at Goku’s baby dick. Yes, Goku wore briefs in the dub, which is another reason why anime sucks ass and why I bought a whole mess of untranslated Dragon Ball tankoban from Mitsuwa in New Jersey – God, I’ve always been so cool. It’s fucking insane.

eraserhead 2 krillin becomes a cop

I dunno if I’ll finish reading this shit. I flipped through some of the later volumes of DBZ and the art gets really rough. I dig that. I dig learning the source for half the screen names and gamertags I’ve seen in my fuckin’ life. I like how Toriyama tricked a whole generation of Western kids to name themselves after vegetables and underwear. He is a funny guy. But even if I don’t finish it at least I learned a little more about Goku, and I feel a little less sad because of him.

goku requests an air burial

Don’t fully trust my current state of mind but I do think this might be one of the funniest comic panels in history.

charles schulz's krillin

Go draw a bunch of squiggly lines all over Krillin’s skin and this panel could be me. I’m wearing those kung fu pajamas right now too.

dommed by bulma's mom

Anyway I was gonna let this thread die but I have all these Dragon Ball panels that I liked so here they are. Maybe I’ll come back when I am feeling better and post the remaining 400 odd games. But if not…I’m signing off with Bulma, and her mom, and a boing.

YIKES

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i remember my more conservative aunt buying me some Dragon Ball comics (and i mean they were like the same size and went left to right like the shape of Western Comic Books) because she had heard once in passing that i liked some cartoon called “Dragon Ball Z” and because the anime was the only thing i had familiarity with, i was totally SHOCKED to learn that in the original DB books did NOT censor any Bulma nudity or Master Roshi perversion. it was a strange shock to my 14 year old self.

hope you feel better, HOBO.

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412. TROUBLE SHOOTER

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By now you probably know this thread is the place to be for the hottest takes. You’ve probably been dying to hear me weigh in on the great 16-bit console wars. You wanna know my opinion because it’s going to become your opinion, right? But now’s not the time. We’re still early in the list. I’m saving the Final Verdict for the very end. We gonna have a climax and it’s going to be very intense. Believe it.

But for now here’s how Vic Tokai, makers of Trouble Shooter, felt about the Super Nofriendo:

I like to think I’m a very calm, sweet person but we all know that deep inside my heart burns some real deal primal rage. Yet even I wouldn’t do something as merciless as this. How do these people sleep?

There’s a Mega Drive only sequel to Trouble Shooter that has some fine box art. I like to think someday I will be very rich and happy and able to buy a copy just so I can put it on a shelf and admire it. I’d probably never play it. Game probably stinks. Pretty sure Trouble Shooter kinda stinks too. Most 16-bit console action games are bores. Why am I gonna play watered down arcade games in 2018? I have MAME. I have an arcade cabinet. I have constant access to the Real Deal Holyfield 24-7. I have everything you could ever need to be happy. I’m blessed.

411. JADE EMPIRE

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Isn’t Bioware a Canadian studio? Don’t they have laws against hate speech up there? Why isn’t everyone involved with this game in jail. Like even if Knights of the Old Republic: Far East Coast Edition wasn’t racist (it was, right? I remember it being pretty fuckin’ iffy) it had the absolute worst shoot 'em up minigame I’ve ever played. You either make a shooter right or not at all. That’s my opinion.

You know that John Waters quote about not fucking anyone who doesn’t own any books? Apply that same rule to anyone who has anything positive to say about Bioware games. They’re so fucking bad.

410. PHANTASY STAR

One time when I was a kid my older sister took me with her to the mall. While she was shopping for clothes I waited at Waldenbooks, checking out the comic books. You didn’t have to venture into a specialty shop to buy comics back then unless you wanted some shit like Elfquest or one of those books where old hippies drew themselves fucking and doing racisms on every page. If you wanted a comic you could just go to 7-11 or a newsstand or a book store. They were displayed in spinner racks and an issue cost like…75 cents? $1? They were always in horrible condition but no one cared cuz that shit was cheap disposable trash for kids, not overpriced collectibles for continuity obsessed losers.

I’m not saying things were better then. The were very bad. The newstand selection was nothing but superheroes (which are awful and I hope I live long enough to see a generation that doesn’t know Batman) and Archie (which was good, because Dan DeCarlo). But at least those books were pretty cheap.

So I was looking at these comics and there was this one Transformers issue I really wanted but I was too scared to ask for, even though I knew my sister definitely had way more than 75 cents in her change purse. I’d been reading comics since I was 3. They were very much my thing. But I also knew they were shameful and naughty. I’m not sure what planted that idea in my head. I don’t remember my family ever saying anything pro or con about comics. I do know I was somehow aware of Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent from a very early age, but not that early. I never read that book but I’m sure everything in it is wrong cuz there’s no way Batman’s turning anyone gay. No way Batman’s anywhere near that good.

Anyway I spent so long filled with anxiety and desire and pee that I ended up wetting my pants in a Waldenbooks. I was way too old to be wetting my pants. That was almost as shameful as wanting to read a comic about Starscream getting married to Soundwave or whatever the fuck happened in those shitty robot comics. And when my sister found out she was fucking cheesed off. At the time I thought she was overreacting – and maybe she was, my sister was and is a real deal b – but in retrospect yeah if I owned a car I probably wouldn’t want anyone who just pissed their shorts riding in it. Would probably buy out that entire spinner rack and make the kid ride home on a mountain of piss soaked comics. Maybe teach them a lesson. Maybe protect the upholstery of my very fancy, very lovely car. God, I can’t believe I’m not a dad. I’d probably be good at it. I’d at least hand out lots of punishments that would make me laugh a lot, which is more important than raising a healthy, functioning human being.

When we arrived home my sister just went off, shouting at my mother about how I ruined her day cuz I wet 'em like some kind of baby, but my mother was very kind and loving and said “I’m sorry you had a bad time. I have something that will make you feel better. There was this cartoon on TV I thought you would like so I taped it. I missed the beginning but maybe it will air again someday?” And she hit play on the VCR and she left me alone with a cartoon.

And this cartoon was Warriors of the Wind. Also known as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Also known as…anime.

My mother’s custom edit of Warriors of the Wind began with Nausicaä flying around that forest with all the spores and she gets shot or some shit. And I think some dude comes along and tends to her wounds? Opens up her jacket and maybe touches a bloody boob? I think there may have been some moaning? Then it ended with Nausicaä hugging some giant cicadas and crying. It was fucking weird as hell and it seemed way, way raunchier anything I’d seen in an American cartoon. It made me feel very uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable than riding home in a 2 seat sportscar alongside both my sisters while soaked with piss. It made me think my mother was sending me some kind of message. Like this was her version of “the talk”. This was not the case, of course. My mom just saw some weird cartoon on HBO and decided to do some home piracy. But I can’t help but read too much into things. I can’t help but have a guilty conscience. I can’t help but think every other time I speak to my mother she’s finally trying to tell me what sex is. And I couldn’t help but think about this movie for fucking years. I never saw it in its entirety. I’m not sure I ever rewatched that tape. But the way that movie made me feel was burned into my soul and I don’t want it tainted by reality. I will probably never watch Nausicaä. I will hopefully never wet my pants again. Please pray for me.

Somewhere in between watching Nise Nausicaä and learning about Miyazaki I played Phantasy Star. This game had a major impact on me. It was so much better than Dragon Quest. It was so much prettier than any American cartoon. Those colors! That music! It was when I finally understood what anime actually was. It taught me that you can show blood and death in a video game and that would make you feel things. It taught me that if you dive deep enough into a dungeon you can buy a cake. It taught me that being a girl is pretty cool. It taught me that it was fun to make numbers go up, and that first person dungeon crawling is the best.

But then years later I found the english edition of Nausicaä at Barnes & Noble and realized that half the shit I found novel in RPGs was stolen from that book. Myau and chocobos and tough gal protagonist and fighting godbeasts and God knows what else. It’s all derivative bullshit and Japanese culture was no better than America’s. Thanks to Phantasy Star I accepted that games are pretty trashy, but comics…comics are the #1 art form. The best comics are worth wetting your pants over.

I’m sure games will be the #1 art form soon enough though. I’m making one, after all. And I only mess with the best.

I think Phantasy Star isn’t the best but it’s a good game provided you play the version on the PS2 Sega Ages compliation that lets you tweak the XP/Gold rewards to reduce the grind. It’s OK to cheat at RPGs, cuz they’re barely games. Also it helps if you draw a maps. It’s fun drawing maps. Give it a shot. Or download pre-drawn maps from some old angelfire site, I dunno, that works too.

409. POINIE’S POIN

I learned at a young age that Japan really isn’t any better than America but that didn’t mean I truly accepted it. I still spent years tracking down and consuming all sorts of dumb bullshit simply because it originated from Glorious Nippon. I gave everything a chance. I modded my PS2 as soon as I could and one of the first games I bought was Poinie’s Poin, because it was like $10, had a colorful box, and no one online knew anything about it. Extremely my thing.

Of course I played it for maybe 10 minutes and never touched it again. I think it’s some 3D platformer but you don’t really jump or do anything fun? But that music, holy shit. Watch that opening. It’s very good, with the kids singing in English and such. But it’s not as good as the old official website for the game, which had a very low bitrate 16 bar loop of that song playing whenever you visited it. And I visited it a lot. I would leave that tab open and just groove to that mysterious power for hours on end. I did this for years. It’s no longer online, sadly. And I never did archive it, even though I knew I should have. But it still lives on…in my heart.

408. BATTLE GAREGGA

study

Why you gonna play this instead of Armed Police Batrider, a game that has colors and visible bullets and a song titled “LET’S ASS KICK TOGETHER”. Why would you ever wanna be a plane or a dragon when you can be some chub on a flying carpet or a babe on a flying motorcycle. Why would you wanna kill yourself on purpose in any game? I got enough problems in real life okay I don’t wanna be blowing myself up to manage my rank. This game is too hard and complex for me but God bless all the weirdoes who love it. I’ll never be as patient or passionate as you are.

407. SOL-FEACE

ElfQuest-image-elfquest-36535673-600-472

So we all know that comics are #1, games not really there yet. This is a lesson I’ve tried to instill in everyone I’ve met, to varying degrees of success. For example I bought a Black Jack book for one of my nephews and it inspired him to go to medical school and save lives and shit. On the other hand…well, one time, as an adult, I took another nephew, who was a child, to Borders with me. I bought a bunch of manga, as adults are known to do, and I told my nephew I’d buy him a book of his choosing, because reading is fundamental and I like to instill solid fundamentals in youth cuz God knows I sure coulda used someone doing that for me growing up. Or now. It would be helpful now too.

We all know I’m, in some ways, a very giving man, right? But I’m also really big on entertaining myself. Very self indulgent over here. Also very vain. If I love you I maybe see you as an extension of myself (that’s healthy, right?) and if you like something iffy, yeah, that’s okay, I’ll forgive you, but if I’m gonna drop some money on you? It ain’t going to something shitty, that’s for sure. And if I let that kid pick his own book he woulda gone for some Wolverine or Deadpool or Evil Ernie garbage. So I used my powers of persuasion to convince this child – who saw me as a father figure of sorts, someone he could confide in and trust, someone who wouldn’t steer him wrong, not even as a laugh – I convinced this child to buy a volume of the comic book series ELFQUEST.

Elfquest is a comic book about elves. They have big eyes and tiny waists and high cheekbones. I think they ride wolves and fight trolls and have orgies. It was one of the big small press comic books in the early days of the direct market (comic book stores) and as a kid I always saw it advertised and written up but I never bought it, cuz it was Very Not For Kids, and not in the same way as all those Suggested For Mature Readers Batman books were. This book was by a lady, and the characters sometimes kissed instead of killing each other. That’s some taboo stuff.

But that day, in that Borders, it was 200x, not 19xx, and the kids of the 21st century…they’ve been online. They’ve seen some shit. They could probably handle some elves questing, right? And it would be really funny to make this wannabe macho kid read a book about big eared fantasy homos. I was also too shy to admit that I also wanted to read it myself. See how it measured up against other small press books like Hepcats and Omaha the Cat Dancer and Xenozoic Tales*. So I convinced this kid to pick Elfquest as his book. I steered that kid fucking wrong. When I dropped him off at home he’d left the book in the car, intentionally, and probably never read any kind of book again after that.

And holy shit, after reading me some Elfquest I couldn’t blame him, cuz this shit is for nerds. Elves are easily the worst of the fantasy races. They are ugly and bigoted and I don’t think they can grow beards. I could never be an elf! I’m too nice, and hairy, and have good taste in comics.

I think I tried to apologize to that kid about this more than once but I think he pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. I don’t blame him. We also don’t talk anymore. And who can blame me? Why would I ever want anyone in my life if they were dumb enough to get tricked into Elfquest, regardless of how old they were.

This entry could have been for JAK & DAXTER THE PRECURSOR LEGACY but I think that series was offensively ugly so I don’t want it on this list. Like I used to compare it to Elfquest but that was incredibly unfair to the Pinis. Elfquest is probably better than any Naughty Dog game. And you can’t spell SOL-FEACE without E-L-F I guess. So that’s why this entry about a kinda lame Sega CD shoot 'em up is about an old timey horned up elf comic.

*I haven’t read any of these but they’re all bad.

23 Likes

Trouble shooter vintage is actually real good imo

For all its many warts, I have tepid appreciation of the Mass Effect series

I am utterly unfuckable

CRPGs were broadly horrible in the aughts and most efforts to get people excited about them again were embarrassing, but I enjoyed fully three of the bioware titles I played over that time period (roughly bookended by planescape torment and witcher 2) versus zero of the obsidian ones

They only had two passable games in the 00s, kotor 2 and that nwn2 expansion pack

The 00s were the slow decline but we also had pretty much every troika game released that decade

even the worst troika game(temple of elemental evil) far outshines the best of bioware

I should actually play troika stuff sometime, I know

it’s just that I only really learned about it after CRPGs got good again, see