FANFARE GET

Let us for a second imagine that, as many other people, I'm about to give the excuse that "I was busy." I will instead list several explanations that together compose this four-letter-word that is so often used to eschew responsibility.

Not that writing about nerdy stuff is a responsibility. It's quite more like a biological imperative. Which is why I never quit fully; I just don't care for a few years at a time.

First and foremost, I graduated undergraduate school in December of 2008. After a long, dark period of filling out meaningless online paperwork that never netted me a job, I submitted an application to a temp agency which managed to get me a solid, "neverending temporary" job with a place that maintains airplanes. For about nine months I have entered data regarding work orders performed by mechanics. It has been an absolutely wonderful job for a number of reasons. I began graduate school at WVU's Social Work Master's program in August, completed my first semester, and just started my second. During the first semester, I worked Thursday through Monday and went to classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. With a few exceptions, I sort of had no days off, but I made it through and shall continue to do so. This past December, I was hired direct by my employer, effectively raising my salary, adding benefits, and ensuring that my temporary-but-still-sort-of-permanent job would stay permanent. Over the wintry break, I got my weekends back and utilized many of them to travel to visit friends and family.

Despite my not-days-off, I managed to still have a pretty good time. I still had several opportunities to play games online with Jimmy, Matt, and Scott, and I took up karaoke with Ron. These things managed to help me retain some sanity during the semester, and indeed, I owe much to my friends for these things. This picture is just a sample of the kind of things we managed to do.

Musically speaking, I've been working really hard. Sweep-picking, economy picking, and tapping have all been on the regular practice schedule. Despite this, I've not written any new music or anything. Almost seems a waste, but I'll do that when I'm good and ready. (I've made a couple recordings, but one is a cover and one is a song that I wrote a few years ago.)

I have a 7-string guitar.











Except mine has a Tune-O-Matic bridge instead of a Floyd Rose. Which, in hindsight, I would've rather had the Floyd on a 7, simply because I never change tuning from the standard BEADGBE. And of course, having cheap tricks over not having cheap tricks? That's a no-brainer for the flashy guitarist. But I like it. Quite a lot.

Some updates have been made to my computer. First, I've essentially maxed out my 32-bit XP-detectable memory at 3 gigs. Second, I have an ATI Radeon HD 5770. Third, I'm thinking very seriously about installing Windows 7. But still in the thinking stage.

My Steam games list has grown immensely. Not that I've managed to finish them all yet. But I'm working on it. I don't exactly have that much free time these days.

Anyhow, I have successfully achieved contact, for what that's worth after roughly forever. Oh well. Ron will forgive me.

MMO vs. IRL

I think, rather than give a long-winded discourse on the following characters and my experiences with them (or AS them), I will simply list the games on which they appear and allow the comparison to speak for itself.

Vanguard

Age of Conan

Age of Conan

Guild Wars

Final Fantasy XI

Anarchy Online



Switzerland (Four Years Ago)

Enjoy, and keep gaming.

Funcom.com, and Apology to Vanguard

First of all, I will say that Sigil and SOE finally have their crap together with Vanguard. A funny thing happened about that...you see...the very day after I posted my last entry, I went to IGN's Vanguard site. There, I discovered that through the month of July, I have some free play time on Vanguard.

First, they have fixed helmets. You can now see them. They finally have flying mounts that are player owned. There is now an anti-hitching...thing...that steadies the framerate incredibly well. I mean, if the framerate is low anyway, it will still be low, but it won't dip into the single digits every time you rotate your character (as it did before). In my case, now that my P4 is cranked up from 3.2Ghz to just shy of 3.8Ghz, that framerate is a bit higher than it was before, of my own accord. However, I can also run textures at very high settings, put the draw distance as far as the eye can see, and max out the tree quality distance (a horrible option which distorts trees that are farther off for the sake of saving FPS; my setting used to be at 40% a year ago). And...I can *GASP* turn shadows on! And all this can be yours at the cost of looking at a framerate of 35 FPS.

But their humanoid wolf race STILL DOESN'T HAVE TAIL ANIMATION. Still no tails.

Now, this extra trial came at a somewhat detrimental time. I'm still playing (and enjoying) Age of Conan. For the novelty of it, I started playing Anarchy Online again (because it's a Funcom game). I still fire up Guild Wars about once a week, because I'm going to get a character to level 20 if it hurts. All of this, and then I find out Vanguard doesn't suck anymore and I get a free month of it. I'm never, ever, ever, EVAR going to finish Neverwinter Nights 2 at this rate.

Regardless of all that, I must still sing Age of Conan's praises, because I said I would, and because I actually want to do that. Contrary to what I said about continuing my Silent Hill series analysis.

Last post, I discussed the game's technical flaws. While some of those flaws still persist, the game itself is still a great concept.

For those who have not heard of Age of Conan's "revolutionary" gameplay, it works kind of like this: Launch directional attacks based on where the enemy's shields are not. Sounds basic enough, but it's bloody near revolutionary in an MMO, for it requires that one PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT IS GOING ON (I'm looking at you, EverQuest and Final Fantasy XI). Essentially, every Unfortunately, the MMO precedent was set a long time ago, and it was mostly a bad one. You have a "hotbar" on which you place skills, spells, and items. You click the skill you wish to execute. You wait until you need it again. You click it again. All the while, your character is on auto-attack, dealing damage-per-second (DPS) based on your gear and a virtual dice roll. In some games, you can let the auto-attack do its thing while you run off to make a sandwich. Age of Conan has defeated this style of play with its "one click, one hit" style of play.

I think MMOs finally just caught up with single player games.

Anyway, essentially every character has three "shields" that it can assign, in any combination, to its front, left, or right sides. Players are included, although few seem to take advantage of it (because it requires an incredible amount of micro management skills). Keys 1, 2, and 3 are attack upper left, attack middle/front, and attack upper right, respectively. At some later level, Q and E turn into attack lower left and attack lower right. Essentially, you see where enemies' shields are placed, and you swing elsewhere. Swinging at 1 shield does normal damage, 0 does extra damage, and 2 and 3 mitigate the damage a significant amount.

Is there a hotbar? Of course, there's a hotbar. However, skills work differently. Some skills you just activate and they do something. However, there are very few for my character. The vast majority of the skills are called combos. You click/press the skill on your hotbar, and then you are presented with a list of directional attacks to execute. The final one in the chain is the most important, as it is the most powerful, and the directional damage still applies. So if an enemy has its middle unprotected, I would want to do a combo in which the final attack is aimed at the middle. This requires one to think ahead a few steps and know your combos well. Enemies react realistically to attack directions, as well, so you can bet that you'll usually only get a few shots in on any unprotected side. This also helps when trying to pull a certain combo and do maximum damage. Currently, I don't have any worthwhile combos that end in a left attack, so I usually swing left a few times early in a fight to get the middle or right sides unprotected. Plus, when you kill an enemy with a combo, you have a chance of triggering a fatality sequence, during which you dismember, decapitate, or otherwise destroy your foe in a gruesome manner. Afterward, you gain a bonus to stamina and health regeneration. And they look really cool (aftermath of one such fatality is pictured right).

The setting is pretty grisly. The world of Conan the Cimmerian is a brutal world in which a well-placed blade can be considered a ticket to wealth and glory. It is a place in which drinking takes place in excess, followed by any sort of pleasures the mind could fathom. It is a world in which good and evil gods compete for the peoples' allegiance, while the demons of the latter kind freely roam the countryside. Most importantly, it is a place which doesn't require its inhabitants to grind levels on rabbits and other harmless wildlife for hours on end. When are other MMO developers going to learn that we are tired of fighting rabbits, crabs, bats, rats, worms, and snakes? Even if they do exactly the same attacks, demons are much cooler to kill than rabbits. Really, now, do you think 9 million people would be running instances four times a week on World of Warcraft if the bosses at the end were...prey animals that just happen to do dragonlike damage? Nay, in the first five character levels of Age of Conan, you will fight murderers, witch shamans, slave masters, and at least two different types of demons (only a little bit of embellishment...the two types of demons in this case are "big" and "small").

Yes, I think the combat system is much better than that of any other MMO. There is a place in my heart for the "hands off" gameplay styles of FFXI and Anarchy Online, but I've been wanting a little "action game" in my MMOs for a long time. Heck, even Phantasy Star Online did that for me for a little while (although it isn't really an MMO).

I guess that's enough for now. I wanted to type more, but it's getting long winded and probably boring, so I'll save my future exploits in Age of Conan for future posts. For now, a picture on high settings and 2X anti-aliasing.

Age of Et Cetera

I'm a big, lying, liar. Because I haven't felt like typing about Silent Hill since I spent so much bloody time on interpreting number 2. I thought to myself, "You know what? You're gonna deliver this time. You're gonna suck it up and deliver." And finally, a month later, upon remembering that nobody actually reads this besides Ron, I remembered that I have nobody to whom I must deliver. Because Ron and I can just talk about it.

So until I receive a plea for more Silent Hill series stuffs, consider it on indefinite hold.

That is, until Silent Hill 5. Which will be the day I buy a PS3. Maybe not, but here's to crossed fingers.

Let's see, let's see... What have I done for the past month?

LIST SUMMARY MODE ENGAGE

-Started a summer job. I'm on week five. Relief all around. Frivolous spending has ensued, a bit.
-Visited Alison a lot.
-Visited with Ron a few times.
-Participated in a wedding. Not my own.
-Finished Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
-Obsessed about playing D&D again. Even though I still have not.
-Caught up on Penny Arcade and CTRL+ALT+DEL.
-Let me know if I forgot something, Ron.
-Age of Conan.

It is the last on that list that I will discuss briefly.

Age of Conan is an MMO that just launched on May 20. I did not start playing it then, for I had doubts of its stability. Funcom designed and developed it, so if anybody remembers Anarchy Online's launch, well, let's just say that Age of Conan's launch went much, much more smoothly from what I understand. However, I did pick it up around a month after the launch, so I've had it for about a week-and-a-half. Conan marks the earliest point at which I've participated in an MMOs, edging out Vanguard by about six months. (I still have no desire to start an MMO on launch day, but I would really like to participate in a non-Korean MMO beta some day.)

First, I really, really like Age of Conan. But the purpose of this post will be to discuss the technical flaws so that in the next post, I can sing its praises. As for fun factor, I think Funcom has it nailed. Technically, though, the game is far from perfect.

For the first month of AoC's launch, Funcom has released something like five significant patches. This doesn't count the tiny ones that occasionally occur and have no patch notes to accompany them. I would have killed for Vanguard's dev team to have released a single bloody patch in a month, especially since their crash-to-desktop bug went unchecked for something like eight months (not that I know if they fixed it or not). Funcom is frequently pumping out hotfixes and scheduled two update/maintenance days during the week for the first five weeks. They also have introduced a few dozen new quests after the first three weeks of launch.

Sounds positive, yes?

While I am ecstatic to see them go to such lengths to get the game up and running in the right direction, the unfortunate truth is that the game has some fairly serious stability issues. Vanguard had the crash-to-desktop (which would cause me to drown or be killed in the wilderness, as my character would continue to run forward for 30 seconds as I crashed), inconsistent framerates, and to my knowledge, their awesome looking sentient wolf/man race still has no tails a freaking year-and-a-half post launch (and yes, for the record, they ARE supposed to have tails). Age of Conan has an infamous 10k lag spike, during which the latency goes up to some 9800 milliseconds, followed by an imminent crash, or if you were fighting an enemy, death. There's also some problems with grouping, in which players will be in a group, and then very suddenly be "dropped" from the group. They're still in the group, but they cannot see their group members' health bars and such. One more still-present issue renders a person unable to access any characters on their account except for the one they last played. It claims that they are still logged into that character, and no amount of logging in and logging out seems to fix it. That one only happened to me once, but it was during a day when three of the servers (one of them was the server my main character is on) were having severe problems.

Age of Conan is very scalable, graphically speaking. the only problem is that performance gains are ENTIRELY RANDOM. Yes, I will explain why the scalability of the graphics engine makes no sense at all. First, many people claimed to receive significant performance gains when "texture quality" is turned to high, rather than medium or low. Of course, I thought it was a crock. But I tried it, and it friggin' worked. My guess is that on the lower texture settings, the game tells the video card to flush the textures from the video memory more often, resulting in choppier gameplay and slightly more sluggish framerates. But the texture quality is but one of many settings. When I first started playing, I just assumed that I should drop my resolution just a bit, from the maximum 1440X900 to 1280X768. I played through the entire starter city on this resolution. When I was getting unusually low framerates in a wilderness zone, I upped it to 1440X900 and GAINED 8 frames per second, from 22 to 30. Everybody who has ever had to turn down the graphics a little bit to get a PC game to run better knows that this is exactly the opposite of what should happen. Especially anybody who has played Crysis. There is no logical explanation for why increasing the resolution would also increase performance, and especially to such an alarming degree.

The only graphics setting that does seem to work properly is shadows. Turning them down or off increases the framerate significantly, but this only makes sense; I'm running a single core processor. (Actually, for the record, my P4 is up to 3.8 Ghz, as opposed to its stock 3.2.)

At one point (and this may have just been for me), every wooden floor surface dropped me through it. It was an experience similar to using a "no clipping" cheat on a PC game. When I walked across a bridge, I fell into the water. When I went to walk down a wooden ramp, I found myself in the infrastructure. Better yet, I went into the starter city's main tavern, fell through it, and ended up in some weird developer's playground. Since the game has zones instead of a seamless world, Funcom has chosen to create several instances of each zone so the smaller zones don't get as crowded. It is possible that the area in which I ended up when I fell through the tavern was some sort of "instance hub." The tavern was simply floating above an ocean just offshore of a giant island mountain (which I managed to scale, despite the numerous invisible seams that made it difficult). Circumnavigating the shoreline revealed that there were several identical floating buildings, which I assumed to be taverns. The mountain was incredibly tall, for the game's incredibly long draw distance would still not draw the mountain's peak until I nearly reached it. I took about ten minutes to explore this peculiar zone, including my trek to the top of the mountain, for I was positive that upon logging off, the "no clipping on wooden surfaces" problem would be fixed. And, of course, it was.

Also, upon falling through the tavern, my character's hair (which is normally a light brown) turned white and took on the texture of a chainmail hood. Bear in mind that A) I have no chainmail hood and B) in nearly all cases, I use the "hide my headgear" feature (which hides the helmet or hood you're wearing while still giving you its defense benefits), for I don't take the time to customize my character's head for it to be covered by a piece of armor.

And for those that cry "Screenshot, or it didn't happen," I have a few.

This shows the floating tavern and my crazy chainmail hair. Freaky. And a guy in chat claims that his computer runs on the souls of orphans. Which is probably appropriate for a game as gritty and dark as Age of Conan.

Another floating building found during my travels. I had a certain occlusion setting disabled, so the most distant objects look like blue shadows until I'm within something like 500 feet of them.


A shot of the immense draw distance of the mountain's peak. And I finally figured out that Alt+Z removes the graphical user interface for the purpose of taking screenshots.

"I got a room at the top of the world tonight, and I ain't comin' down."
-Tom Petty

Now, it seems that the fact that I like this game defies logic, reason, mathematics, physics, electricity, and probably other disciplines that are so firmly rooted in the real world. However, bear in mind that these bugs are actually pretty uncommon, besides the graphics options' EPIC FAIL. And I was able to explore a zone that few will ever be able to see due to one of the glitches. And besides, I've not spoken at all about the game mechanics.

And yes, I couldn't resist. I threw myself from the peak when I decided my journey through the hidden zone was complete.

I guess I'll discuss why I love the game so much in my next post.

A Post in Which One May Expound Upon the Silence Surrounding Pre-Mountainous Regions, Part One (of Two or Three, Depending on How I Feel)

This past weekend, I observed the completion of Silent Hill: Origins. Ron, the state's resident Silent Hill control scheme specialist, did the playing. I got to watch in all the cinematic glory of watching a seven hour long horror film. Except that Ron was controlling it. And it wasn't really a film. And it was actually seven-and-a-half hours.

The appeal of the series is fairly obvious to me. It has deep psychological themes, children becoming demons, and a great combat interface.* Perhaps the most obvious source of appeal is the atmosphere. It is dense with a horror deeper than Resident Evil startle scares. Resident Evil is about widespread terror resulting from the outbreak of a virus; Silent Hill is about facing one's own demons. Those demons come in many different forms (including the real kind).

*One of these things is most certainly not true. There is a reason that the title "Resident Silent Hill Control Scheme Specialist" is one to be paraded about. He even finished Silent Hill 4: The Room.

While I have not seen the very first of the Silent Hill games to completion, I have seen the rest of them.** One particular theme that I've found runs through all of the games is that individuals' experiences in Silent Hill serve as a coping mechanism. The unfortunate characters who enter Silent Hill are not experiencing their first tragedies. No, the rust-stricken walls and blood-laden rooms are not the first horrific events in their often dysfunctional lives. These folks have often experienced tragedies involving family members, and many of their memories are repressed. I will stick by my guns on this no matter what others' plot analyses decide: Silent Hill is a very twisted, psychologically challenging environment in which individuals inadvertently deal with their past tragedies.

**For the sake of fairness, I will exclude 4: The Room from all of my plot/themes analyses, for I can't really, erm...remember much about it. And it doesn't take place in Silent Hill. But by all means, if Ron wishes to endure the hellish control scheme of it in my presence for the second time, by all means, I will give it a second chance. But it still doesn't take place in Silent Hill.

MEGA HUGE ULTRA SUPER SPOILER ALERT OF GREATNESS +2 OF HOLDING

I'm not going to withhold anything in the following paragraphs. Endings will be ruined. Demons will be birthed. Items which can not traditionally fit in bags WILL BE HELD IN BAGS.

'Grats to the identifiers of D&D references.

I will try to keep the stories light. The games are very, very depressing, and many of them are littered with sad notes.

BEGIN SPOILERS REGARDING STORY ELEMENTS OF SILENT HILL

Seriously. I'm serious.

LAST WARNING! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WILL NOT EVER PLAY THE GAMES! Or, um, already have played the games. And such.

Also, some of the images used may be pretty gross or moderately disturbing.

Okay. Silent Hill 2 starts off on a depressing note. The main character, James, receives a letter from his very dead wife, Mary. WHOA. Since we know that doesn't happen IRL (especially since Maria's a little lacking in the "L" department), we're all like, "Doubleyou-tee-eff," right from the get-go.

Alright, so perhaps I shouldn't make this quite THAT light-hearted.

Anyway, Mary's letter instructs James to meet her in Silent Hill, where they spent some amount of time together. In the span of eight hours or so, we find out what quality of time they were spending there. Regardless, James puts on his ugliest green coat (the one Mary must have just loved) and turns the car north. Or south. Or Dennis. Or some direction.

During his trek through Silent Hill, James meets Pyramid Head, the comic relief. Slash, murderous, armor-laden, HUGE SWORD (and later, spear) wielding maniac. PH is pretty much there to remind James of his terrible repressed memory. See, as it turns out, James killed Mary after she suffered from her regressive disease for three years. During that time, James watched helplessly, unable to cure his wife. While the method of her death isn't discussed (or isn't remembered...), I'm a fan of the "pillow over the face" theory. It should be noted that all of the other enemies in the game (save for the "father" boss) have a feminine likeness, stressing both the sexual repression of having a disabled wife and James' activity in his wife's death. It should also be noted that PH is almost always introduced while exploiting or killing one of the "female" creatures.

More parallels are drawn between James and PH as James interacts with Maria, a figment of his imagination. The perfect woman; she looks like Mary, but acts however James wants. Well, he does control her to a degree, but perhaps subconsciously. It becomes apparent that she isn't technically real when she dies not once, but twice (thrice if you count the end boss). Both times--you guessed it--at the hands of Pyramid Head. He watches in pain as he suffers the death of his wife's likeness twice, finally discovering that he WAS Pyramid Head to his real wife. At the end, James kills a monster version of Maria (perhaps even with PH's sword, if he chooses) (pictured). I believe three endings (discounting the infamous UFO ending) can be achieved. James remembers that he kills Mary in all of them, the difference is his level of remorse. In one ending, he is remorseful and loved Mary; in another he drives his car into a lake; in the most bothersome, he runs off with Maria.

In one way or another, James "deals with" his dark secret during his stay in Silent Hill. Is it a coping mechanism? Is the horror supposed to help him cope? Do the horrific surroundings make light of the visitors' sins? Or once one discovers a terrible truth about the visitors (in this case, that James killed his wife), do their sins make light of the horrific environment that is Silent Hill? I theorize that much of the twistedness of Silent Hill (especially Pyramid Head) exists to show the visitor what they have done in a very different light.

A guilt-riddled, rust red light with a hellishly bloody afterglow.

(Silent Hill 3 and Origins will be saved for later.)

The Not-So-Rare Occurrence

Surprise! Long absence!

I can explain. See, there's this thing I'm going through that I'm trying to quit. It's called college. It's over now, though, so I'll have to come up with another excuse the next time I disappear for a few months.

Things are going pretty well, most things considered (and some things omitted). I 4.0-ed both semesters this year, so I'm pleased with that. Right now, though, I'm waiting to hear about summer jobs, which is never fun. Worse yet, the jobs I want are overseen by seemingly irresponsible individuals. One of them won't get back to me until (or perhaps unless) I call him at least one more time. The problem with that is if I call again too soon, I'm harassing him. If I don't call, he'll fill the position with some city employee's or council member's son or daughter. He's just like that.

On the games front, I don't have a lot of news, other than that I'm now playing Lord of the Rings Online and I haven't once had the urge to quit. Granted, I'm still in my 30 day free month from having bought the client. Regardless, I'm up to level 23 of 50, and it hasn't been much of a grind. The biggest difference between LOTRO and many other MMOs I've played is the players. On at least four occasions, someone in my group has gone away from the keyboard to calm a crying child, fix dinner, call their wife or husband, etc. My guess is that a lot of Tolkien fans play, and many of them are older.

My character is a human Lore Master. While it is not technically a wizard (as in LOTR lore, there are only a few wizards), it is essentially the attack casting class with a pet (currently, I have a bear). Many say it is a difficult class to play, and thus far in my experience, it is. The biggest problem I face is that I'm running out of quick bars on which to place spells and abilities and I'm not quite halfway to level 50. I've attempted to remedy the problem by switching my quick bar key bindings to the number pad. That way, I can control movement with my left hand (WASD) and skills with my right. This method alleviates my biggest problem with MMOs that use quick bars: It is difficult to use abilities above number 6, because I have to look down at them. With three rows of three and the zero key all at my right thumb, I can very easily locate my skills without looking. Once the initial quick bar is full, three more bars can be accessed by holding CTRL, ALT, or Shift. I use the main bar for attacks and debuff spells, the alt bar to control my pet and do various harvesting actions, and the CTRL bar for my healing and less commonly used spells. (The shift bar is currently unused, as there is some sort of bug in the key binding menu that does not allow the shift button to be used in conjunction with other keys, as it will only register the shift button being pressed.)

The no-look casting model that utilizes the number pad would be great for MMOs, if only we hadn't become so dependent upon the mouse. When I played FFXI, I never used the mouse. In more modern MMOs, the mouse is used for everything, in fact, I could very easily learn to play LOTRO without ever using the keyboard (other than to communicate), as my autorunning, turning, camera control, and quick bar buttons can all be executed by using the mouse. Granted, I have five buttons, including the wheel. Regardless, unless one is very, very proficient with keyboard controls, this model simply doesn't work well.

Fortunately, I was complimented last night on my Lore Master skills by a fellow guild member.

Near the end of the semester, Mattjew, Ryan, Spencer, and I started playing Command & Conquer 3 LAN-style. It was an unhealthy amount of fun, and I hope we'll be able to do that some over the summer.

Until next time, whenever that will be.

The Really Long List: Red Version (SNES)

Yes, I made a Pokemans reference. Pokemutts? Meh.

My SNES list of completed games is much more impressive, worthy of an "all-star" or "game of the year" ranking. I'll get straight to it:

Super Mario World
Super Mario Kart
Yoshi's Island
Super Metroid
Final Fantasy IV
Castlevania 4
Castlevania: Dracula X
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Star Wars
Super Empire Strikes Back
Super Return of the Jedi
Chrono Trigger
Sunset Riders
Joe and Mac
Joe and Mac 2
Maui Mallard: Cold Shadow
Kirby: Super Star
Mega Man X
Rockman and Forte (Late Mega Man game)
U.N. Squadron
Air Strike Patrol
Aladdin
Power Rangers
Power Rangers 2
Animaniacs
The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey and Minnie
Biker Mice from Mars
Bubsy 2
Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems
Captain America and the Avengers
Earthworm Jim
Earthworm Jim 2
Indiana Jones Trilogy
Knights of the Round
Star Fox
Super Ghouls and Ghosts
TMNT: Turtles in Time
TMNT: Tournament Fighters
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Country 2
Donkey Kong Country 3
Illusion of Gaia
Cybernator
Demon’s Crest
Battle Clash
The Firemen
Cool Spot
Super Adventure Island 2
Rocketeer
Shaq-Fu (Oh, God)

I have two words. Misspent youth. Or totally awesome. Perhaps a mix of both.

Let us once again observe which games I should put on the "bollocks" list. Some of these are so terrible that they don't even have a Wikipedia page. And almost everything has a Wikipedia page. Even Spiritual Warfare has a Wikipedia page.

The first notable "bollocks" game is The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey and Minnie. It was actually pretty entertaining when I rented it. Of course, I was probably eight years old. Regardless, one plays as Mickey or Minnie Mouse (co-op, even...Ron, we will have to play it) in a adventure that begins in a circus. Didn't see that coming. However, unpredictably, only the first level is in any way circus-related. Mickey is granted suits that are accompanied by special powers: The fireman, magician, climber, etc. While it wasn't terrible, I know that I'm remembering it more fondly than the game actually merits.

No matter, The Rocketeer was much, much worse. It was a foul mix of action, shooter, and side-scrolling airplane racer. None of the elements of gameplay were anything short of miserable. Seriously, don't play this game. Please.

Don't play Shaq-Fu, either. I completed this game because my babysitter's son owned it. I would go over there after school while I was in my elementary grades, as my parents did not get home until around 4 or 5 PM. If there was absobleedinglutely nothing else to do, he and I would play Shaq-Fu. It is a fighter with terrible EVERYTHING. Controls are sticky, collision detection is sketchy, and the music is terrible. But I finally defeated the mummy, Sett. And all was well in Shaquille O'Neal Land.

Biker Mice From Mars? Doubleyoo-tee-eff? It's a racer based on the terrible cartoon. And yes, I finished it. It was a rental, and I wasn't going to allow my weekend rental to go to waste.

The Donkey Kong Country games were superb. Nothing short of fantastic. They were a yearly Christmas treat until I received a PlayStation. (And then it became Crash Bandicoot, as I previously mentioned.)

Chrono Trigger may be the best RPG on the SNES, but I have not completed Final Fantasy VI, even though I claim it as my favorite non-Tactics Final Fantasy game. Super Mario RPG was pretty good, but I'm fairly convinced that it is only above average, as I have never been a big fan of what I will call "low HP RPGs". But that is another post for another day. Besides, it has ruined me with its "timed attack" system, which has ensured that I always, always, ALWAYS press the attack button as my character attacks in any RPG ever made.

The Castlevania games for the SNES were just as good, if not better (for the most part) than their NES origins. The frustration in completing them created something of a rabid desire to prove something to the games. Regardless, Castlevania is one of my favorite game series, and these two games were excellent offerings.

The Earthworm Jim games were funny, excellent platformers. The brand of humor used was something that went unexplored in games because it was gritty and just reeks of late-night cartoons. Regardless, I would like to see the character Earthworm Jim expanded and not forgotten. The games were successful, but I imagine further incarnations were scrapped due to the relative unpopularity of the N64 offering (which I have not played).

Well, I have shared a significant portion of my list. Bear in mind my age when most of these games were completed. I was young, innocent, and for the most part ignorant of what good games should be. Even some of the best games on this list would challenge my attention span today.

I will offer yet another section of my list soon.

The Really Long List v1.01

Can you feel the tension rising as I come closer to the elusive number 150? What game will it be? Will it be worthy of such a title?

Yes. Yes, it will.

Upon looking through a more complete list of NES games, it has come to my attention that I have completed at least 150 games. The forgotten one? Uninvited. It was a point-and-click before we had the "click."

I also forgot Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Dunno how the crap I forgot it. Definitely my favorite MGS game.

Solid Snake disapproves of your shenanigans.

That means I can officially crown Nights into Dreams my 150th completed video game. I'm so happy for that silly little androgynous, flying court jester...thing. (A conscious decision on the part of the developers.) And now that he/she is enjoying him/herself on Japanese PS2s everywhere (erm...in Japan) and will soon have a game on the Wii, I think it is my duty to somehow join in his/her excitement. Just like the Sega Saturn, I will someday own a Wii when it can be found in bargain bins, and I will own one title for it. Nights: The One for the Wii.

(Technically, the Sega Saturn is Jimmy's. So I don't own one. But I will. You'll see.)

I have decided to release a teaser mini-list of the NES games of which I am certain that I have completed. It's a pretty small list dominated by a few series. To clarify, I am not sure that this is the entire list of NES games I've completed, but I'm certain that I've completed the titles listed. Without further delay:

Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario 2
Super Mario 3
Castlevania
Castlevania 2
Castlevania 3
Excitebike
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
Spiritual Warfare
Spelunker
Parodius
Rygar
Uninvited

There are a few that didn't make the list. Such classics as Air Wolf, the unforgettable Bayou Billy, and the ever-popular-yet-miserable-to-play Double Dragon. There is some doubt in my mind as to whether I completed 1942, 1943, or any of the other titles involving airplanes and a year. I may have completed the first of those.

Has anybody recognized which of the games on that list was utter bollocks? If ever I was ashamed to be a Christian, it was while I was playing Spiritual Warfare. You throw fruit. FRUIT. Fruits of the spirit. Hoh-lee-CRAP, that game was terrible. I lost some important item because I went into a bar. The reasoning was something like, "You are a Christian. You have no business being in a bar!" I thought I was going to "witness" to some bar patrons by throwing fruits of the spirit at them. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Or did. God, don't let them do it again.

But at least I got to beat the hell outta' Satan. That was the whole reason I played the game. Oh, how I wish I could find an image to share.

Edit: Ron found this. Even as un-scary as Diablo is in Diablo II, this is far, far, FAR less scary. Funny, I always used the word "devil" in my search terms, and never "Satan." No, I'm not subconsciously afraid that my soul will be stolen via the internets. They already stole it.

Anyway you can look forward to the rest of the list soon. Because it is easy to post a list. Especially when all I have to do is copy and paste.