Difference between improvement and revolution (the Street Fighter story)

(sorry for writing an article that ends in depression-haha)

In 1987, video games had made a successful comeback. Nintendo had helped the industry recover from the crippling 1983 video game crash and arcades made a healthy profit. Arcades were delivering the games that were not always availiable to home consoles and if they were, the games were extremely limited. A prime example is a game called Strider, a platformer in arcades that was so poorly handled on the NES that people assumed that it really WASN'T the same Strider.

Arcades had some great games, but the NES was making things easier; no trip to play games- just plug and play. The downside to that was nearly EVERY game on the original NES was about the same. Beat Em Up's were huge and this was mainly due to the popular Double Dragon series. From that point on games were all about walking left to right and punching and kicking ANYTHING that walked in your direction. WHY? because those fucks kidnapped your girlfriend. Again.

This formula was wearing thin around 85. The same man attacking you over and over really starts to suck at about Level six and most of these games didn't even have good endings that made you feel good about your accomplishment. It would have been nice to see after awhile a cool cartoon porno scene come up after you've saved your frail waif again from the clutches of the evil crime boss-ninja-robot assassin- whatever. But again, it was all about the adventure getting to the end, and if the roll of quarters you brought to the arcade didn't get you there, then the Game Genie cartridge strap-on could.

Fuck that. It was old news. Then something happened. A little company called Capcom took the beat em up concept and made something of it that didn't require the monotony of fighting the same man twice. Head to head action, colorful characters and special moves. The even stranger part is that no one saw it coming and most of it hadn't been done in such a grand scale before.

Anything would have been better than its main competitor. The only other fighting game at the time that was Head to head style was the 2600's Atari game simply titled 'Karate'. This game blows beyond anything else. The classic mess ET: the extra terrestrial is 6 feet under the ground in New Mexico and this game is probably still floating around in pawn shops and antique stores, is there no justice in the world? If you want to see just how awful things can get on the 2600 then click here. Your Lego collection could look better at fighting than this.

But with this piece of shit giving reason for you to attack an Atari cart with a hammer, Street Fighter premiered in that same time and blew minds. When your partner games in the Arcade is ANOTHER Double Dragon clone and a 4 color Atari pong game with stick men, then success presents itself naked at your bedside.

For those of you that don't remember or have never played, Street Fighter 1 was amazingly small compared to its latter game Street Fighter II. In the first installment, you only got to pick 1 man, Ryu (Yes, THAT Ryu). You would have light-medium-and fierce punches and kicks to mix it up. You got 3 special moves which we all saw in SFII: the hurricane kick, the fireball, and the Shroyuken punch. Despite all these limits, it was still the best thing out there, and was only available at arcades and on the Turbo Graphix console (that few of us owned). It doubtful that the NES would have been able to pull this game off, seeing that it was so detailed and had real (but crappy) digitized voiced dialogue [to be honest the only phrase you could hear being spoken was after you won a match when your opponent said "What strength! But remember there are many guys like you all over the world." ].

The reception wasn't all that big for the first Street Fighter but it was enough to prompt a sequel. The rest-as they say- is history, but the jump from 1 to II was big. There was 8 fighters instead of just 1. The story was different for each character you picked. SFII may have been just a way of classically reviving a dead franchise because in video games 6 years is a LONG wait for a sequel. 6 years gave us a lot of time to get better home systems made which is why the SNES version might be the best arcade translation ever for that time.

The Genesis released the Champion Edition of SFII but with only 3 buttons on the controller for a 6 button game WHY FUCKIN' BOTHER. Nintendo and the SF games gave the industry a clue when it came to designing a game controller: you needed at least 6 buttons. These games are very reason Sega had to make the Model 3 Genesis (with a new 6 button controller).

The list of later Street Fighter games is long enough for me to not want to name them all on this page- if you want that list, go to wikipedia. It seemed to take a long time for this series to make a Street Fighter 3, and when it finally did the reception was lukewarm and bittersweet. We even got to see the series get a 3d face lift with the Street Fighter EX games, giving the snail paced Virtua Fighter a run for its money.

As of writing this, Street Fighter 4 is on its way to the latest generation systems like the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. I, however don't own any of these systems and really am not holding my breath on this newest chapter.

Am I too old? No. Am I pissed that it took over a decade for Capcom to count to 4? No. My real reason for not caring about SF4 is that I'm one of a few that remember the series true roots and the real secret to all its charm. Whatever 3d multi-polygon- cinematic shit comes of this new game will just depress me even more.

Sometimes change isn't always good.

Land before 'Prime' (aka: my 'Fuck Halo' article)

[Whilst I was prancing around at a Wal-mart, I noticed the racks I call the 'Covet wall'. The video game racks, this section of the store gets me a lot of shady looks, mostly because I get caught humping the PS3 case. I won't lie, I want that thing. Behind these racks of all I lust, I see it. HALO. ]

Fuck Halo!

Sorry x-box fans- it just has to be said.

During the holidays I was keeping my researching eye on the 3 latest and greatest consoles on the market: The Wii, PS3, and the Xbox 360. All of these systems are fantastic and each of them have that ONE great feature that separates one from the other, weather its a new fangled way to control games or graphics so good you can count the strands of the characters ass hair.It was amazing the Nintendo won some ground with its underpowered, yet innovatively functional Wii (last year which was the consoles launch they couldn't even give those things away).

There are some 'killer apps' that have debuted in games. Guitar Hero, where you use a fucked up controller to play 'imaginary riffs' of legendary songs. Rock Band- a game just like GH but way more complicated and covers all the instruments along with a guitar. These games are fine in my book but it kinda pisses me off that 'party games' seem to dominate right now as of writing this article (1-12-08). While games with stories and real epic scale seem to be out of ideas or taking from other greater ideas from the past (IE. Bionic Commando is getting a xBox 360 face lift).

In this pile of games that are either sequels, remakes or crap is a game that is so derivative and dull that it amazes me that people spend hours playing it. Ha-fucking-lo. I understand the greatness of its multiplayer functions, and I guess i just don't have that gene in me that digs being called slurs over and over and being fragged repeatedly by people who spend their lives playing this shit.

These people that play this game hours on end are a sad lot. Most of them unemployed and overweight. I'm sure many of them don't have girlfriends and if they do, they are most certainly embarrassed to be with that couch tumor that's playing Halo. There is a line fanboys must draw in order to keep things sane. There's 1.)a big fan, then there's 2.)pathetically obsessed, then 3.) useless to society. Number 1 is someone that plays a game moderately and has beaten the game a few times and at the most knows a few tricks and secrets. Number 2 is someone that knows all the tricks, but still has to enter a cheat code, look at an FAQ but hell if you want that 'Special ending' your going to have to make an effort even if your up till 3am and have to call in sick at work and sacrifice a night of sex. If your number 3, then fuck you. Number 3 people have no job, don't need sleep, and can't have sex because a giant roll of fat covers their genitalia. That fan is death matching against everyone via broadband, and doing it all from his mothers basement.

I love FPS's and its single player story is very well done, but this games level design leaves something to be desired. That something is VARIETY.

Before I go further I should point out whom you play as in Halo. The Master Chief. A bio engineered man in a battle suit from the future. The United Nations has awoken you from cryo-stasis while your spaceship is under attack. This idea isn't all that new nor original, in fact its Demolition Man meets Universal Soldier meets Aliens. What are you fighting against? The covenant, an alien race hell bent on destroying man because...

because... Shit they don't really mention that. Well at least not in the games campaign mode. Anyways the covenant are a diverse group with a few different ranks from tall foot soldiers called Elites to pint-sized pawns called Grunts that remind you of Ewoks from Star Wars. The one thing I found cool about this game is that Grunts are really pussies and run away screaming as you run behind them with barrels blazing.

The rest of Halo,-at least the first game-is dominated with repetitive levels that love to tease and force you to walk back through them 3 times or more. For a game that only came on 1 cd, it took me forever to finish it. The ending wasn't worth my time, either. Its a good game but not life consumingly good.

Many who grew up in the 80's and 90's remember a great series Nintendo came up with in the heyday of the NES. Metriod! This was a side scroller with a protagonist with a special suit and what was better is that inside that suit was a hot chick name Samus. Master Chief needed to go hunting and find weapons, while Samus was already armed. Samus had an arm cannon with unlimited regular ammo and could fire a variety of special rockets. The NES version of Metroid was interesting because Samus's suit was usually tight pants and a pair of 'fuck me' knee high moon boots. The Snes version she was more covered and in a suit that allowed her to morph into balls, and dash through whatever got into her way. For the time these were all amazing ideas and it was all original.

Samus is a bounty hunter, a free spirit, a lone wolf. She has her own damn spaceship. Her own weapons. Her mission is to recover a Metroid organism and bring it back to scientists for it to be analyzed. Metriods however are highly desirable and every slimy fuck in the galaxy wants to reproduce them and perhaps make them into a weapon. Its 1 woman against the universe and the only thing guarding her is her special suit.

Master Chief on the other hand is a total flunky. He is part of the United Nations armed forces and is forced to do what he's told. Aside from a protective suit he doesn't get much else, except for Cortana, an artificial intelligence program in the form of a woman that lives inside his helmet. Cortana is a nagging bitch, constantly telling Master Chief everything she thinks he needs to know. Sucks to be a puppet on a string for someone that isn't even real.

Super Metriod rocks. I loved this game during the SNES days. In fact everyone loved it, and it is long considered the best the SNES had to offer. The levels look lush and dark and surreal, the sound is organic and yet still very much other-worldly futuristic. The gameplay is very easy to follow, but at the same time there's a lot of times you have to 'figure it out for yourself'. Your first time playing this you will take hours trying to finish it. Over 3 hours in fact. Enemies are all very detailed and not all of them really attack you, most of them are just creatures on the planet of Zebus that are just minding their own business, while others just simply don't want you fucking around them at all. Dead enemies will leave power-ups and health assuring you that you should NEVER run low on anything unless your careless and fire rockets at anything that looks funny.

What sells SM to me the most is the music and sound. Its a great soundtrack- dark, mysterious. It actually reminds me of Jerry Goldsmith's Alien film score. Most of the levels have a Jaws-like pulse that massages the ear, telling you that your not in kansas anymore. Its beginning cinematic is creepy, just showing you a lab setting with the Metroid organism floating in a jar, the camera panning across it, and your ears catch the squeals of its screams. Whatever the Metroid is, its probably dangerous even if it does look kind of like a cute jellyfish. It might be cute, but jellyfish still sting.

Halo does use the concept of moving through the same level twice, SM has this as well, but its better used. The only reason your going through an area again on SM is because your suit has a new ability and you'll need to use that to attain a higher power-up or to advance to another level. Halo's use of this is scripted, unavoidable and really just comes off as a lazy way to lengthen the game. Jumping puzzles is a platform staple that always pisses me off. I never cared for Super Mario World's use of always moving platforms and the way Mario moved as if there was a layer of margarine on the floor. Metriod has jumping puzzles but they are easier to navigate due to Samus not having grease on the bottom of her boots. I once saw Samus fall 50 feet down a tunnel and landed just fine. On the other hand, Halo never is about making any fantastic leaps and very rarely will it matter how you time your moves. In fact, Halo doesn't even need a jump button, unless your avoiding a landmine or playing a deathmatch game and you want to really piss off someone by bouncing around like a bunny on meth. SM gave us a challenge but it was one that was satisfying to complete.

and finally...

Halo: Combat Evolved had 2 endings, if you beat the game on a regular difficulty, you got a regular ending. On the highly difficult Legendary setting you got a better ending. Since I don't have the fucking patience to barrel through the Legendary setting, I'll probably won't see the latter ending except for on Youtube. Super Metroid had 2 endings as well. If you defeated the but it took you over 3 hours you got to see Samus with the visor on her helmet off, revealing her face. If you defeated this monster sized game in UNDER 3 hours, you got to see her out of her suit and in her black undies. No shit. look it up here. For game made in these days, partial nudity was the ultimate reward and we never got to see it. I don't know anyone that could beat SM in under 3 hours. Halo's legendary ending cannot top Samus in a black swimsuit. Not in a million years.

Even with the great sound, playability, graphics and even a chance at T and A, Metroid didn't get another chance to shine until the GameCube released Metroid prime, which Halo stomped all over. Sad. The Game Cube had the best looking games and Microsoft still put a mudhole in its ass, and with what 'killer app'?

Fuck it, I'm not even going to say (or type) its name again.

Point is, if you love to collect SNES shit and you haven't had a chance at playing Super Metroid, your missing out on one of the best games the SNES ever made.

Worst Fighting Games of The 90's-Part 5-Atari's Pitfall

From the makers of such hits like :
ET: The Game (Still availiable 6 feet in the ground somewhere in New Mexico)
The Atari Jaguar system (Still availiable under the platform shoes in a bin at a goodwill... you gotta kinda dig for it)
and the smash hit translation of Pac-man (now availiable in a dumpster in New York City, happy diving you fucking BUM!)
Comes...
Damn it.

Pit Fighter-1990- Atari

I almost cannot consider this a 'fighting game'. You only can pick from 3 fighters and all 3 of them blow, there is a button to push in order to jump and the game really has no story other than "fight people and make money" . But since punching and kicking someone head to head is the name of the game in Pit Fighter, I guess you can consider it a fighting game.

This game was made by Atari games and was an arcade hit but for only 1 reason: it was the first fighting game to use photo-real digitized graphics. I'm sure however once the quarter was inside the machine and the player selected his fighter, the games horrible animation, uninspired characters and way-too-easy system of fighting kept them from depositing another 25 cents. (Is it me, or does Atari have a fascination with making shit?)

As I've mention you get to pic from 3 fighters, all of them pretty much the same. Kato, a black belt and karate kid ripoff. Ty, a kick boxer and rip off of Billy Blanks (I don't care if this game came first before ty-bo). Last and least-of-all-time we have Buzz, an ex-pro wrestler that unnecessarily wears black under-eye stripes because EVERY wrestler has to have some kind of gimmick.

The game takes place in abandoned warehouses and subways, and your surrounded by a huge throng of people that look and act as of they're on their way to the Jerry Springer studio after the fight. Surrounded by concrete walls and rabid human waste that wave around cash, you get the feeling that you've been there before, and if you don't get that feeling don't worry, you'll be fighting there again real soon. Over and over again.

Your fighter that you selected merely just on a frustrating whim will battle against REAL hardcore brawlers. Before a match however most of them have to get greased up to look grossly sweaty and then have to get drunk enough to move as slowly and stupidly as possible. The casting for this game must have been done at a biker bar somewhere near the Atari headquarters. The only interesting character I fought against was Angel, who is the only woman in the game. She dresses like a dominatrix, so I'll give them some points for at least trying to get sexy with this. Then there is former KFC employee, Southside Jim and greasy fat ass biker, CC rider. And who could forget rejected WWF wrestler, and gay porn actor Chainman Eddie, who NEVER uses chains to attack, he just wears chains for fashion (fabulous!).

This game was able to support up to 3 players but I doubt whom ever played this game had any friends. That person that was begging for 2 more players had already convinced everyone in the arcade that he was dangerously insane and playing a game like Pit Fighter proved it. So what was this lonesome dove with a roll of quarters to do? Maybe if he was brave enough, he could pay that woman across the street from the arcade to play with him. A good deed after all, what else is she gonna do? Scream at traffic about how the FBI put a chip in her brain. No way did the FBI do that, that's just political soapbox shit. The FBI in the 1990's was too busy putting "Winners don't use drugs" on the demo screen of nearly EVERY arcade game. Which is far more deplorable than putting a computer chip into a crack whore's brain. It was also WAY less effective at keeping kids off of drugs as the Nintendo anti-drug smash hit Wally Bear and the NO Gang.

opps, I forgot I have a review to do here...

Drugs might have made Pit Fighter tolerable. It might have also made the lousy animation move a little smoother. The digitized graphics of that time may have been a little too sketchy to make a FULL game. One might say this was just a first step in making games like Mortal Kombat... Whatever. When Mortal Kombat hit consoles later on, the reaction was huge and people were buying Genesis and SNES systems left and right. When Pit Fighter premiered on home systems people played the game for about 5 minutes, then traded it in for 5 minutes alone with the aforementioned street-walker they met outside the arcade.

God bless her. Even after getting a cigarette put out in her eye, then having to attack that 'john' with a broken ashtray, she still finds time for games.

1990's Fighting Game's Hardest Bosses

I'm a calm man (I think so and my friends would agree to as long as I lay off the booze) and I rarely lose my cool especially when it comes to something as simple as a video game. Its a real pain in the ass however to face a challenge so grueling, unforgiving and unfair that the controller to my SNES or my Genesis leaves a dent in my drywall. Everyone has- at one point- turned thier controller into a projectile so don't start laughing as you read, thats the main reason that 3rd party companies make replacement controllers for game systems. They certainly don't build controllers like they did the origional NES ones back in the 80's and I'm sure that they have the 'rage prone' gamer in mind for designing new ones: one hit against a wall or floor and boom!, plastic everywhere.

Fighting games of the 1990's didn't give us our victories very easily, and more times than many we all suffered the wrath of bosses so horribly hard that we would turn to our Game Genie's and cheat codes JUST to say 'I did it'. I choose to not grant myself a victory so cheaply until i had finished the game myself, and I when that was done, i'd dabble in that crap later. Gaming is supposed to be a challenge and in arcades the games were even harder because that roll of quarters that burned a hole in your pocket wasn't going to spend itself, now was it? Hell that girl in high school never believed it was your penis anyways.

Bosses in games are just like bosses at work, they cripple your spirit and successfully remind you that you CANNOT press a button fast enough and/or at the right time. No one ever really remembers an easy one like KI2's Gargos, or Mk2's Shao Kahn. Its those cheap, AI controlled, and borderline psychic oppenents that drove us normally calm gamers to the 'cheat' sections of the gaming magazines.

Let's take a look at some of the toughest (I think anyways):

Kintaro (MK2): According to the story of Mortal Kombat 2, Goro lost the first Mortal Kombat tournament and it might have something to do with the fact that he was weak and didn't block much. I beat Goro after 1 try just by doing jump kicks, (cakewalk!). But Kintaro, Goro's brother is way meaner and way pissed off. He blocks almost every thing that heads his way and doesn't give you a lot of oppurtunity to strike for free. I could only beat this four arm goliath with Kitana because he did fall for the 'fan lift' attack a lot, but he didn't fall for much else. To make matters worse, his stomp attack was hard enough to kill half the life bar, and every hit that he landed on you threw your character across the screen. Kintaro wasn't a fair fight, but he was possible to defeat and when you did, you already felt like you had beaten the whole game even though Shao Kahn was waiting for you next.

M.Bison (SF 2,3, Alpha and god only knows how many others): A flying, stomping, and scissor kicking threat to your sanity. The trick of beating Bison was just to 'get lucky' and hold back to make sure you block whatever he decides to hit you with next. There was no telling what he'd do either. One second he jumps and stomps your head than he follows it the next second a flaming hand slap of some kind. Then just when you think you got him and you channeling that final blow fireball, he flies at you with an electrically-charged arm out and blows past your projectile and fries you into defeat. At this point you either set your SNES on fire or you might have to explain to a zit-faced virgin that runs the arcade just WHY you put your fist into the screen of thier Street Fighter 2 cabinet.

Vega (SF2 the only one he was technically an unplayable 'boss' in): You ever had a fly bugging you while you sleep or drive and no matter what, you can't possibly kill it, because the little fucker dodges nearly every swipe of your hand and fly-swatter? Thats SF2's pretty boy fighter, Vega. Nevermind the sexual orientation or androngenus image of this all-too-vain SF2 brawler. What pissed more gamers like me off was the fact this asshole never stood still.

Eyedol (Killer Instinct): I hate this son of a bitch. Eyedol played as fair as Hitler. For starts he delievered punishing combos that killed have your life bar. Oh! But if you were lucky enough at all to have damaged him beforehand, then after the combo that he branded you with he'd end it with a club smash that sent you flying 30 feet in the air, giving him time to stomp his foot and recharge a portion of his health. The same club smash can also be used to slap incomming projectiles back at you with triple the speed, making you feel like a stupid cock for thinking you could 'fireball' you way to victory. Rare and Nintendo owe anyone that defeated Eyedol a hookers' blowjob, because the games endings just seemed too small a reward after trying to kill a boss that cheats.

Motaro and (sort of) Shao kahn (MK3): Forget how stupid he looked, or how much of the damn screen his horse/human body took up. Mortaro was a cheater. EVERY projectile attack bounced off of his body and hit you, so forget about trying to freeze him. A slight punch from this centurian turned you into a human cannon and threw you against the screens edge, and any time he blocked an attack you would be then picked up and pummeled with his fist. Your reward for beating him was having to fight an upgraded verion of Shao Kahn now armed with a 50 lbs sledgehammer that knocked you unconcious, leaving no wonder that MK3 blew so much.

Death (Timekillers): A notorious blocker, a heavy hitter, a speeder and not defeatable unless you stun him and then kill him via 'death move'. All the more reason that Timekillers was so ill-recieved.

[Thats really what comes to mind so far, if you readers have one leave me a comment and i'll try that one out, just keep in mind these are FIGHTING games from the 90's. I want to always keep this blog intersting even it if it is about the past. Thanks.]

Hell Comes to Dad's Office Computer

It's been said that the most vile and contoversial things can become the most popular, and in the world of gaming that fact is clearly seen. Many of of saw our first look at a gory video game with Mortal Kombat, the fighting game that might have just been a lame punch-kick game with digitized graphics if not for all the blood that spalttered with every hit your opponents face. Mortal Kombat would have died out if not for its adult themed violence. The Grand Theft Auto series gives a look at the thug life and gives us to oppurtunity to be as bad assed as we have always wanted to be, but were afriad to do in the real world. Resident Evil pits us a against an entire army of the undead, and puts you through an adventure that makes the heart race, surprising you forcing you to charge every corner with every barrel alblaze. Doom gave us gamers a chance to battle our asses off out of hell, mars and earth-bound hell, and it did this with a concept in gaming that continues today, First Person viewing.

In the early 90's computers had a new buzzword called "Virtual Reality". Origionally the idea wasn't JUST for video games, but eventually it made VR its best selling point. The idea was to put a person into a computer generated world and make them believe they were somehow inside it and affecting it, not just watching it and playing. VR's transition to video games was a natural and obvious one, and why not? Who wouldn't want to BE Mario rather than just watch Mario. The VR craze wasn't a long lived one, that is, if your idea of being inside a video world meant strapping and uncomfortable headset to your face that shined a brightly lit video LCD screen in your eyes. The screen showing you early wireframe polygon graphics that moved at slow framerates and looked just as they looked,... like graphics.

Despite it drawbacks, VR was still ok and convincing. County Fairs and arcades had VR stations where people could get lost in that trippy pixelated world where they could shoot, kill, dance, drive, or even just ride a roller coaster without actaully going anywhere. It was a pop-culture sensation and an easy venue for naughy things as well. One could go to virtual strip clubs and even have virtual sex. Gaming companies pounced on this concept. Nintendo was widely known for the development of its VR device called the "Virtual Boy" and it was a total flop. Nintendo's VB console had red stereostropic grapics with the resolution of its previous system the Game Boy, all you did was look into the oversized viewmaster-esque display and enjoy playing Tennis. The manual for the system advised its users to take breaks during playing to avoid the headaches that followed, few games were made and the system was garage sale fodder after it was canned. Kudos to nintendo for taking the risk. Sega had a much cooler full color VR system in the works, and it never got released (maybe they had other plans like competing against themselves by making another system identical to the Genesis). Bummer.

In the world of computers, VR was becoming popular as well, but the whole headset thing was kinda ignored. Why would you need that? When you look at the screen you lose all periferal vision anyways, and if the world is interesting enough then who cares if it projected from a screen on the desk or two inches from your eyes? The game idea of VR was to put you into the characters eyes and make you the one that controls what that character does.

There was probably a few attempts to make this all come to light, few of which are noticeable. The most notable attempt in first person gaming was a shooter called Wolfenstein 3D. W3D was you controlling a soldier blasting through level after level of a Nazi prison camp. The game was quite fun, you got different weapons and fought against hordes of Nazi foot soldiers, and even got to fight the big bad bosses at the end of each episode. The graphics were ok to the standards of () it showed us a cartoon of violence that we got to see through the eyes of a battle hardened prisoner of the 3rd reich. This game has some gore happy fun to it as well, making it a parents worst nightmare on daddy's home office computer. One company was brave enough to release this title: id Software.

Id software (pronouned 'Eed' not 'eye-dee') had an artist, John Carmack and that artist had a dream to make a fun submervise adventure in 3d worlds. Id software had been successful in creating a 3d graphics engine that was capable of putting you inside rooms and letting you navagate through them, open doors, interact with objects and yes, even shoot shit.

W3d came out in 1992 and was an undergorund sensation and a controverisial hit. The graphics didn't look all that, but the gameplay was and more. The controversy was there from the start, and why? well the violence was a good start, but also the use of nazi symbols made a lot of people uncomfortable. It makes no sence in this day and age, at least not to me the writer(Who wouldn't want to kill nazis? Its not like they don't have it comming). Most of the controvery was just from the blood, gore and the fact that you were running into rooms with guns, and parents just weren't ready or basically refused to excersize the right to put thier foot down and say, "no billy you may not play that game!" This was also before games like Mortal Kombat warped everyones fragile minds.

Id software was on the map in the gaming world and they met with a challenge. Many episodes were made of W3d and it was getting kinda old. How do you follow the funnest and most violent first person shotter without repeating the formula and boring the audience further. Id software bounced ideas about a car racing game with the adult violence theme in mind, but things moved back to the shooter format. They had advanced thier engines graphics capabilities as far as looks but they had decided to pit you the gamer against the grandaddy of all villans, Satan. After all Hitler had to become evil somehow? Why not make the devil your prime target.

Doom was what the name implied. You were fucking doomed from level one. Rooms were dark some had flikering lights, some had these computer panels on the wall, some were stone stuctures with a blocky gothic look, some walls looked as if they were constructed from a sheetrock made of human innards and flesh wallpapering it all like if Ed Gein was an interior designer. Some areas has pools of toxic waste that would damage you if you if you walked on it without a special suit. The environment wasn't scary really but we knew exactly what the game designers were thinking. Hell was now a realistic place, with wooden walls or large pools of blood that drained your health if you were to ever lose your footing and fall. The level design was bigger than in W3d, The game took place in a variety of settings like Mars, Hell, Earth with Hell on it, Mars with hell on it, Earth with Mars on it, Earth, Mars and Hell all put into a blender. I can only remember so much but it was all cool but eventually it all looked alike to me. So much in so little of a package. Each level was about getting to that red panel at the end. To reach that panel your going to have to get VERY fuckin creative or VERY fuckin lucky. The game play was the same thing, again and again, but it was the RIGHT same thing over and over.

Find key #1
To open the door #2
To throw switch #3
To bring up the drawbridge that leads to an exit.
And don't let the throng of zombies and fat monsters with flameball throwers for hands stop you.

Fun as fuck. But that wasn't enough to create a hostile environment, you needed to hear it and sound played a good role. Most of Dooms sound effects were sampled. I still watch movies and hear Doom sounds of opening doors, rockets flying, and demons growling. But the shotgun sound sticks into your head and doesn't let go. I can hear that in my sleep. the chainsaw buzz makes you WANT to tear some demon flesh..

Your enemies were a diverse lot, solidiers, pink demons that bite, brown imps that throw fireballs at you, flaming skulls, skeletons with rocket launchers, really bad ass looking monsters that... well you get the picture, it was big even though all of the characters were just 2d images that were drawn in multiple angles. These enemies gave your trigger finger a workout with an array of different weapons that you could use.

Your weapons were a diverse -and simple to weild- lot as well. You had the shitty pistol, your fist (with a pointy ring on the index finger), a shotgun (in doom 2 you got a double barreled shotgun), a chainsaw (on mars!?), a plasma shooter, a rocket launcher, a chaingun (to make you feel like the terminator) and who could forget the big fucking gun called the BFG 9000. Fire one round of the BFG and watch all your enemies flash out in a green spark. Watch the rocket launcher turn that Pinky demon into mush. The chainsaw was too much fuckin fun and handy when your trigger happy adventure leaves you with no bullets.

Your weapons were your only ally and it was fun not to have to worry about who NOT to shoot at, most games these days just bog you down with crappy AI controlled side soldiers that LOVE standing in front of your barrel. Another great note was that it was almost impossible to screw up, there was no 'secondary fire' that caused you to lob a grenade at a bad moment, all one needed to do was hit the fire button.

If you even still have the CD (or Floppy disk package) give Doom and Doom 2 a whirl. Theres a good chance you might not like it as much as Halo or Halflife. Your surprised at the origionals limitations, its like playing pacman again. Its still beyond fun to enter that cheat code and go beserk but suddenly your brought back to the old days. Your character can't jump. The rooms are long and 1 story, the games engine couldn't have rooms above a room. Enemies are as dumb as dumb, the only thing they have in mind is to run at you with arms flailing. You can't look up, down or all around. Believe it or not THIS was hardcore entertainment in that time and we still had a long way to go.

Your challenges never went beyond JUST STAY ALIVE, it was a survial game, not really startegy. The cyberdemon is a GREAT example of this. You see this skyscraper with metal legs and your first instinct is to shoot it. Good idea, you just better run like hell while you do it, or you'll become rocket fodder in no time. The sound of those stomping feet are still in my head. I would run my character around the entire level looking for that heath pack or ammo crate and meanwhile I can hear him stomping his ass my way, looking from me.

Dying in this game was something horrifying. Your tough as nails character would let out a shreak and your viewpoint would drop to the floor. The screen would go red and the image of your character at the bottom of the screen looked as he had just recently just called Mike Tyson a pussy. Another insult to injury was that the view also turns to what ever son of a bitch shot you down. Thats just teasing you, but at least you learned about that imp that was hiding in the corner you never thought to look.

The point to all this is that Id software was and to this day still is absolutely genius at creating a sence of urgency. You panicked while playing Doom. It was hell and you had a damn fun time fighting through the place. At the end of the game nothing was better than seeing that kill count from the final level of doom 2, when you had to get upon a platform and drive a rocket into the demon's head monted on the wall of that last, big arena. It sounds simple and it would be if only that head on the wall wasn't spitting out floating boxes that transported more demons that would get in your way. Doom had a scoring system as well that displayed at the end of each level, but really did anyone care? Not me.

Multiple versions of the game were made. Doom 2 was bigger and badder. The aformetioned double barrel shotgun was a treat to use. new enemies filled the screen and by the final version of Doom (called Final Doom) the developers went all out to make your life hell, but of course they also new that you the gamer knew the id cheat codes which gave you inviciblity. There was then no harm in making levels filled with every monster times 1000. It was overkill and the most outrageous company with the most successful shooter ever made moved on to other projects.

Though Doom gave people entertainment, it also gave others ideas. Controversy of course erupted in the wake of the columbine shooting, when 2 students with a lot of guns but no brains whatsoever walked into thier school and turned it into a Doom level. They killed (13) students and then eventually themselves. Since the two boys were avid players of Doom, it was obvious that the game was going to have the right wing finger pointing to it and it did. It was a controversy that ultimently was labeled as ludicris to most of the gaming world since millions of other people that had played Doom never hurt anyone. Games like Doom really shouldn't JUST be denied to young children, parents need to also look at thier kids mental state before you let him escape into a world of death and destruction, because you never know if your scatterbrained teen might just lose thier sense of realilty altogether. At the age of 14-17 a kid needs a job more than a video game and internet access.

I played doom religiously and never hurt a soul. Theres proof for you. I know that the gun in my characters hand is just a sprite. I also know that while killing demons is ok, killing people is not, because:

A. Its wrong, and most importantly,

B. Its against the law!

Id software did move on, and suffered through the heat, flack and success of Doom. Nearly every gaming console had a realease of Doom. Even low end ones like the Snes and the Sega genesis (with the 32X attachement) had a version worthy of the name. The greatest success for id even continued when they made another great legendary shooter: Quake. Quake would go on to be the game that not only gave us everything Doom lacked, but also powered other great shooters of the future like Half Life.

Id software returned in 2004 with Doom 3. Again, everyone had to tweak thier gaming rigs to play it just like back in the day with the old Doom. The graphics were dark but good enough to still scare us into a frezny and make us want to play with the lights on. The game was not near perfect. It was long, repetative, way to dark and had some feature problems that made the game seem to not make sence (like the flashlight that could not be used along with a weapon), but really the harshest reviews of Doom 3 were made by people expecting the origonal experience (which will NEVER happen). The first Doom game are on a plane so high that nothing will ever out do it. It was nice to see that the old dogs of ID learned new tricks and showed the other tough kids on the block how a shooter is made. Not even Microsoft and its 'Halo' series can reach the same legendary status as Doom had. [Hmm do I dare challenge the big 'M' with the big 'H' title that is worshipped by biggest ' L's '(losers). Yeah fuck it, why not. This is MY blog dammit.]

The first person shooter is in full swing now, and the Microsoft X box 360 has carried the torch. Halo dominates the scene (though I don't know why seeing how its the most overrated shooter of all time). There is now millions of people around the world who 'frag' each other on a 24/7 time frame. Its nuts! War is no longer fought in the real world and if it is, its flying way over the heads of Halo, Counterstrike and Unreal players all over the world. The harsh words of flaming get thrown around in chat rooms, spoken by gamers who talk as if they're foul mouthed fourth graders on crack. A man in America is fighting in a virtual hell right now against everyone in the world VIA broadband connection, all for the sake of higher points. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm not saying its sad, or even that the industry has forgotten the point of good gaming, I'll just say that I miss the good old days, when all that mattered was getting to that red panel and ending the level. The rest of those 'professional' Halo players can enjoy living in thier sister's basement.

The Quarter Munchies-the Arcade Classics

If you can think of a pic to put into this article than go ahead and let me know, for an entry this somber I'm kind of out of ideas, visually.

At every arcade back in the day, you could see what games are popular and which weren't. What amazes me is the games that were NOT all the popular but still stayed in those arcades.
I'm not referring to the great classics like the NEO GEO games, because SNK had never made a shitty game for arcades. Midway rarely did either (I said RARELY). In fact there were few companies that made shit that didn't deserve a cabinet. But every once in a while a game company would crank out a so-so title that really gets outshinned by the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter cabinets. Yet, through the haze of popularity and after all the hype over that big-name fighting game is calmed, that shitty game still manages to keep its spot on the arcade floor, even when that popular (yet expensive to play) House Of The Dead machine has been hauled away by the vendors.


When I was kid I used to go to this shitty roller rink in Florida (so shitty I can't remember the name of the place and as far as I know now that place is now probably a strip joint). Thier back room was a little arcade filled with more games then pairs of rental skates that were availiable at the front counter. The room had a door that sealed off all the pounding, repatative, extasy induced crap music, and let the games speak thier language of love and hate. Im not meaning to oversell this, but I loved games as a kid, more than roller blading in circles under colored lights, anyways.

I was too busy with Mortal Kombat 2 and the Killer Instinct games to even notice Timekillers but I had seen it and thought it was kinda mediocre looking on the outside and besides which this son-of-a-bitch punk kid was playing on it, and I hated and still hate playing against strangers. I just wanted to play MK and be part of the cool crowd that refused to try anything else.

I was down to 1 quarter and that after a failed try at scavenging for another out of all the return chutes, I finally gave up and said 'screw it' andf went to the now abandoned Timekillers game. It only need 1 quarter which was nice considering most of the other games needed 2. I played 1 match of this fighting game and I was very impressed but not as blown away as I wanted to be, maybe it was just the fact that it was my last game before I packed it in and headed home. I saw a game though that was way more violent than MK and KI. In the one one match I played that the computer beat my ass on, my fighter, Rancid, lost both limbs and on the second round got his head chopped off. It was sick! I liked it but when your a snot-nosed brat at the age of 14 anything with blood or boobs is fuckin Oscar-worthy.

Years later, I had gone to that same roller rink and noticed that the arcade was now really in the crapper. Almost all the games were gone, including the quarter thives like MK, KI and Street Fighter. I can kinda guess that business went bad there and perhaps all the games were damaged by little dickheads that broke the joysticks or deliberately jammed the buttons in too far. The point is, this was now 1999 and the arcade was being replaced, and by what? The Sony Playstation, the Dreamcast (before it failed) and other home consoles that delievered arcade quality without the long drive to the real arcade. It was an electronic graveyard.

In fact the only new game at this arcade was Dance Dance Revolution, which (in case you've been on an island for the past 9 years) is a stupid assed attemp to combine video games, music and phys-ed class. I like to play a video game cause I'm fuckin lazy! People crowded around this machine like Jesus was on the screen and everyone had leporsy. It was sad. The joystick was replaced with a foot pad, and frankly the crowd that surrounded this thing all looked like a rich kid, hipster group, not the usual skateboarding punks with the pizza complexion and the pizza making job.


I remember seeing an old Mortal Kombat 1 cabinet, just the first game, not the sequels. I foundly remember playing that again and seeing what had started it all. I also remember kicking that games ass, and winning my first arcade game and finishing it completely.

These days, we have home game systems that rock with great 5.1 surround sound, killer graphics, and games that couldn't possibly function in an arcade. Can you imagine Halo in an arcade? Game companies now make millions off of the 50 dollars we spend on the CD's for games at Walmarts and Best Buys, so screw quarters, screw driving to the arcade and screw that fat bastard that emptied the machines at the end of the night or that other fat fuck that delivered games on a two wheeler cart. We got our X boxes and the only bastard behind that is Gates (well sorta).

Its weird. If any arcades are still thriving you'll still find a pac-man machine, a Timekiller machine, and a origional Street Fighter 1 cabinet. Maybe those are still makin some dough for them, by people like me. People that DON'T go to video arcades to have a computer give them dance lessons.

Strange Finds- The MK Game-in-a -controller thingy

[this review was written by myself, however before this blog was made it was originally posted on the Ultimate Console Database website. The owner of that site- "mark" -has small reviews and personal thoughts on nearly EVERY game system ever made since Atari's 2600 machine and even before then. Awesome site so please check it out, I owe a lot of thanks to him for not trashing what could have been just ANOTHER Mortal Kombat review. Thanks, Mark]

At the tender age of 11 (or maybe 12) I was in a bowling alley arcade. As I bounced around from one Street Fighter II game to the next I discovered something that seemed odd. A group of about 5 adults crowded around an arcade game that I couldn't make out because I was so very small and unable to see over them. Adults? In a arcade? What, no beer at home?

At about 10 pm I got my last 2 quarters from my deadbeat father and headed back to the arcade. The crowd was gone and I could see the machine they had been gawking at for the last 4 hours. I didn't really read the name, which was odd now that i think of it, but the screen seemed to be alive to me. Then when I noticed 2 joysticks and on the screen some punching, kicking and fireball throwing, my 50 cents found a home. This encounter would scar my mind. This was Mortal Kombat.

A gong sounded and I picked my fighter, Sonia. I always picked female fighters in video game because most of the time those characters were faster, and fun for an 11 year old to watch jump around on screen. I did my first round and my character was real. Street Fighter was a cartoon that came to life, all in all, good fun but this was far more subversive. I jump kicked my opponent only to get jacked by an uppercut that would spray out the first sight of blood I'd ever seen in a game before. My jaw dropped. The third round I was already hypnotized. The sounds were agonizing, the music was darker than SFII and I had made it winning until I found my character killed by being upper-cutted into the famous 'The Pit' level. The image of Sonia Blade being impaled in a lower level of a level upon spikes sticking out of the ground next to other dead bodies drawn into the background was like watching Faces of Death. I had that dirty feeling, I had lost 2 quarters and saw something so "grown up." I loved it, but this was the kind of game my mother didn't hear about when I got home. Well,... not until its console release on the SNES (best 16-bitter in my opinion by the way). The SNES version was limited but still bad ass fun and I didn't even need the quarters to have it. Unfortunately the SNES release had no blood, or even a code for it like the SEGA Genesis release. The "fatalities" were there but some were modified (no head-exploding fun for Rayden or Head-ripping-with-spine-intact fun for Subzero) which was a downer, but MK II's console release pulled out more stops and gave me what I saved 2 months allowance over.

11 years later, I cruise into a Walmart and check out those videogame in a controller gadgets and find something (in the stack of bullshit Atari rehashes) - Mortal Kombat TV game. The rest of the day I felt like a teenager again. The quality and gameplay can be compared to the SNES versions and this time, NO CENSORSHIP! Blood, Original Fatalities, Special moves, All in a great and small package. The controller itself is cool looking, though uncomfortable for long playing. Don't expect the joypad to be sensitive, expect a red blistery thumb instead (it makes me wonder how that passed the test stage). Also the there is loading times, including for Shang Tsungs morphing from character to character, very annoying, its not a CD so why the hell am I waiting? Goro is there in his four armed glory, the mysterious Reptile, those funny and cool shadows in the moon on "The Pit" level. Its all here and its all still good. Great gift for someone that hasn't owned a system since the PS1.

Midway's name is on the controller, along with Jakks Pacific. It takes 4 AA's and also an included 2032 button cell for its memory (I suppose at Jakks they think we care about keeping our high score initials saved). There's a input on the front of the unit and link cable included for 2 player hookups which is a good move. As I said before, the joypad is heavily textured for grip and after an hour your thumb will be throbbing. Included in the packaging is the manual to the game which features unnecessary character stories and all the finishing moves, I wish they'd done that 11 years ago it would have saved me a lot of flipping through EGM's. A great deal for less than 20 bucks, and better than what the cart cost me 11 years ago.

The Good: A nostalgia classic in a small, cool looking package. Doesn't gobble batteries, and gives you the adult oriented SEGA Genesis blood, with good looking SNES quality looks and playability. FOR JUST 20 FUCKING DOLLARS. Niiiice.

The Bad: Its hard to type right now my thumb is sore. I guess the loading times on a non-CD game(?) give my joypad thumb a chance to rest (sarcasm).

The Ugly: Thank you Jakks for the ability to use a button cell battery for saving my high score, now I can type in SEX and ASS or other 3 letter obscenities and treasure them forever.

I've fallen out of the MK loop. It went to 3D action during the PS1 days and since then I haven't cared for it. Its bad enough Sub Zero has the unrealistic ability to yank your head off and leave the spine in great shape (?). I don't care to see it every time, and every sequel from 100 different angles. Midway has and always will be wringing out the corpse of MK and if a penny seeps from any orifice of it, they'll surely keep it going. I'll stick to the game that started it all, and was the back cover story of the 16 bit golden age that lead to the end of those days, and Midway can sell Mortal Kombat Go Cart Racing (no, that game doesn't exist) to some other 11 year old gaming brat.