Crossing the Streams to Inclusion

I hurt so many with my playing.

The sad truth about most of the Ghostbusters video game adaptations is that they are bad, and you FEEL bad while playing them. There was this one time where I got highly intoxicated at a friend’s house and fell asleep in his mother’s china cabinet, my face covered in wet potted plant soil and my pants blissfully missing. When her father finally pulled my twitching body from the cabinet’s cold, wooden embrace, I was told I spent most of the night playing the NES version of Ghostbusters.

I still haven’t forgiven myself. I probably never will.

Another sad truth – one of the saddest truths in video game history – is that all but a measly two Ghostbusters games leave out good ol’ Winston Zeddemore – and one was only released in PAL territories. If you live in America, your only chance to see the oft-forgotten fourth ‘Buster in action is 2008’s Atari adaptation of the franchise for next gen consoles (and also the Wii).

On the NES? No.

Good ol' Winston is one of the most under-appreciated characters in comedic cinema history. As the last Ghostbuster to join the fray against the demons and demigods trashing the semi-innocents of New York City, most viewers see Winston as “the token black guy,” but his appeal – and his merit as a paranormal investigator – go far beyond his genetics. Mr. Zeddemore represents what would happen if the viewer were clad in a silly jumpsuit with an unlicensed nuclear accelerator strapped to his or her back: While the other three ‘Busters are trying to find ways to take down the ancient evils roaming beneath the city streets, Winston is cashing his paycheck, paying his rent, and praying to the Almighty that he gets out alive and home in time for a beer with his wife. Also, Winston has a really rockin’ mustache, which is indeed the truest measure of a man’s character. So thumbs up to you, Winston Zeddemore, and thank you for all you've done to protect the living from the wrath of the evil dead.

In the meantime, I’m going to go petition Sega to re-release the Genesis/Mega Drive version of Ghostbusters with Winston as a playable character. Then not only would bustin’ make me feel good, it would make me feel like a great wrong had been made right.

UNACCEPTABLE.
Also Peter looks like a scumbag and Egon looks like Billy from the Power Rangers.

World of the Digital Natives: Hands-on Learning Through Gaming?

In the beginning, there was only television’s warm glow. The Muppets put on a wacky variety show every night, Voltron cut the bad guys down to size and the Thundercats saved the day five times a week. Back then I didn’t think there was any way that my TV Titians could ever be upstaged. What could be better than watching the adventures of the world’s greatest heroes?

In December of 1985, I was barely three years old. My father had recently purchased an Apple II-C computer a few months before and was looking for software he could use to introduce me and my brother to the fledgling digital world. He chose KidWriter – a program where children write and illustrate their own story book page by page, albeit in pea soup green thanks to the Apple’s monochrome monitor. It was a little bit like television, but here I was the one who controlled the action. I hungered for more, and soon, my father obliged.

The Kidwriter title screen... on a color monitor!

Over the next several years I played games like Pac-Man, Moon Patrol, Test Drive and my favorite, Dig Dug. But it wasn’t until 1988 or 1989 when a chance encounter with Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt and the Nintendo Entertainment System at my aunt’s house ensured that my free time for the rest of eternity would be spent in front of a television or computer monitor with a controller in my hands. And though I never stopped hangin’ with my boob-tube buddies, it was clear that gaming was my new – and permanent – sweetheart.

Approximately 25 years after Dad bought KidWriter, I’ve amassed more than 1,000 video games spanning almost three decades, from E.T. for the Atari 2600 and a quazi-legal copy of NES Earth Bound to Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. KidWriter, of course, remains in my collection.

Seeing as how I’ve grown up with technology, I’ve always been rather comfortable with it. It’s worth noting that technology was introduced to me as something fun and it wasn’t until I was about 12 years old that I began using it for school, so perhaps that explains the extent to which computers and gaming are integrated into my life. Also, very few of my computer skills were taught to me by another person. My father taught me the basics – what an .exe file is, how to run programs, etc. – and I’ve been learning on my own ever since.


Productivity ended the day I discovered you, Nintendo.



The essence of technology for me, and I think many of my “digital native” peers would agree, is exploration. Since the days of Pac-man and printer paper with tear-off edges, it has been more gratifying for me to figure out computer programs and other technology on my own, reading the manual at a later time if at all. When it comes to computers, it’s easier for me to remember what I discover on my own than through reading or time in the classroom.

Technology lends itself to that kind of thing. Whereas the facts in a book need to be memorized, much of what a person can do with technology needs to “come from within.” Reading and lectures can tell you how to jump to the next platform in Castlevania or do a simple combo attack in Street Fighter II, but until the player experiences it for him or herself, it’s just words. We all know how to hit a baseball: You swing the bat. But you don’t get the hang of it until you’ve swung and missed a few pitches.

Otherwise you’re just watching someone else do it, like in a classroom… or on a television show. And as I discovered early in my life, just watching a character like Lion-o from Thundercats have an adventure can be good, but it’s always more rewarding to take up the quest yourself – if only through the comforting embrace of a Nintendo Entertainment System.

I’ve been told that learning can’t take place without emotional involvement. So what better tool than gaming for getting people like me emotionally involved in the classroom? Perhaps it’s the silly dream of a second-rate educator who finds himself more suited to the theoretical than the practical. But then again, a lot of the “digital natives” that I was asked to lecture to would have been much more interested in writing KidWriter stories than anything I had to say.

I don’t think I’m the one who will wind up revolutionizing the current educational paradigm in American schools, but I think I know how that future superstar teacher will do it.

The future of education ...was yesterday? Maybe.

Oh no! Evil Nintendo!

Have you ever heard the urban legend about the Evil NES? I guess it's kind of silly, but a little frightening in a way.

Apparently the cartridge slot is the best you've ever seen: It plays any game you put in, regardless of how dirty the connections might be. Both of the controllers are functioning perfectly and the light gun works on any television, even the new flat pannels.

But supposedly, after you turn the NES off for the 666th time, the game remains on your screen. No matter what you do, it won't go away. Finally you take out the cartridge. The power is off and there's no game in the console, but that image just won't go away.
Then you go in for one more look...



Nobody really knows what happens at that point. Some say the player's soul is sucked into the unit; others say it takes your sanity.

The one thing that's generally agreed upon is that once the Evil NES has obtained its grim harvest, it disappears from the victim's home... and reappears on the shelf of some used game store, good as new.

It's got to be an old wives tale. But do be careful the next time you head into a pawn shop.

Nintendo Life, Vol. 4

Nintendo Life, Vol. 3: Now with More NES Advantage

At the suggestion of Wade from Video Games or Bust:

Nintendo Life, Vol. 2

'till the end of time

Nintendo Life

Racism: It’s What’s for Halloween (Whomp 'Em for NES)

Halloween stash time! Let’s see here: a Heath bar, Tootsie Rolls, some of that God awful Now & Later stuff, a rock, O.J., purple stuff…

…and a copy of Whomp ‘Em.

Whomp ‘Em, an NES game by Jaleco – the company that would later lash out at the LGBT community with Rivial Turf! – bears perhaps the most faceplam-worthy name since the Nintendo DS game, Homie Rollerz. Playing it nearly 20 years after its release, one realizes that Whomp ‘Em is a shining example of how it was not only okay to be racist in the ‘80s and early '90s, but it was considered super cool.

The title screen.

Well, I already don't wanna play this garbage.

DEADLY hopping mushroom attack!

Wait a minute. Beyond all expectations, this game is actually kind of fun!

The player takes control of what appears to be the “average” boy as he spears his way through seven or eight levels of weirdness. After making it past the hopping mushrooms, flying boogers and giant, rolling eyeballs of the first level, the player is presented with a Mega Man-esque level selection screen, with six stages based on the elements, which in this game, is the least racist part. The elements include fire, water, ice and uh, magic. Also “sacred.”

Okay, so they’re not all based on elements. So sue me. I guess for maximum cliché/racism, Jaleco had to add words like “ritual” to the game somewhere.

His fight money!

Whenever the player completes a level, he or she receives a new weapon, just like in Mega Man. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you’re NOT playing as the Blue Bomber and you began to wonder when Capcom got so racist. The answer there is “Whenever Capcom came up with Balrog.” But then you remember: This isn’t Mega Man, it’s, uh, Whomp ‘Em boy!

The controls are pretty good, the graphics are well done for the time, the controls are tight and the music is a treat. If the game had just been called “Mega Man Clone #478” and starred a drunken, walking pencil or some kind of cute animal mascot, I wouldn’t feel nearly as horrible for playing it.

Apparently, this is what magic forests look like.

Fun Fact: Remember the TV show Video Power? For its first season, it was a cartoon. But then in 1991 it morphed into a gaming game show. The winner was allowed to run through a video game gauntlet, sticking games to his or her Velcro-covered chest. Everyone who ran through wound up with AT LEAST five copies of Whomp ‘Em. And sometimes they gave away copies of Whomp ‘Em as consolation prizes or to members of the audience. It’s like Jaleco drove a dump truck up to the Queens studio where Video Power was taped and poured every unsold copy of Whomp ‘Em right on host Johnny Arcade’s head, kind of like what Atari did with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in that New Mexico landfill.

Actually, being dumped on Video Power contestants is just as bad as being dumped in a New Mexico landfill, now that I think about it.

Top Games of All Time #4: Final Fantasy (NES)

In the late ‘80s, a small Japanese video game company named Square found itself rocketing towards bankruptcy. After a string of lukewarm releases like 3-D WorldRunner , King’s Knight and Rad Racer (known in the Land of the Rising Sun as Highway Star), things were looking grim. Square Director Hironobu Sakaguchi felt he didn’t have a good action game left in him, so he tore a page out of Dragon Quest’s book and decided that Square’s final project would be fantasy role playing game. If the gambit didn’t pan out, Sakaguchi was reportedly poised to quit making video games and head back to university.

FF1 North American box.

Thankfully for the gaming world, university would not see the likes of Sakaguchi any time soon: Released a week before Christmas 1987, Final Fantasy for the Famicom was the critical hit Square needed to stay afloat. More than 23 years later, the little company that almost drowned in the waves of the Nintendo console market has merged with Enix – the creators of the Dragon Quest series – and is a dominating force in the gaming world, with much of the credit going to Sakaguchi’s not-so-final fantasy game.

Released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990 in North America, almost three years after it appeared in Japan (and the same year Square unleashed Final Fantasy III on eager Japanese gamers), Final Fantasy made a moderate impact on a small-but-devoted, RPG-starved American audience. The only thing American console gamers had seen that was anything like FF1 up to that point was the original Dragon Quest game, dubbed Dragon Warrior in the US and released just the year before. Unlike Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy gave the player control of not one, but four warriors of varying ability. What’s more, the player could chose his or her team from six character types, allowing for 126 possible combinations. This is not counting the unofficial trio, duo and solo possibilities for gamers looking for more of a challenge, or the option to forgo the class change option halfway through the game and press on with the young, inexperienced versions of your characters.

For those wondering, that leads to 418 possible combinations.

Herein lies the reason you’re currently reading about the original Final Fantasy and not 1994’s SNES classic Final Fantasy III/VI. After 16 years, my desire to take on Final Fantasy IV again is not nearly as high as my wish to take new and exciting FF1 parties into battle against the four elemental fiends. I’ve finished Final Fantasy in its various incarnations, from the NES original to the PS1, GBA and PSP remakes and even on my cell phone, more than 10 times. And still I want to dig deeper, to ignore the world outside and pour myself into this decades-old video masterpiece.

Battle!

Your party determines everything in FF1, from how long you have to grind (if at all) and how much money you’ll need to how long you can stay out in the wild before having to trudge back to town with your tail between your legs. Four fighters are expensive killbots who, with limited healing options and armor slots, have a tougher time taking down the evil Chaos than you might think. You could go with a party that will have a lot of trouble throughout the adventure, like four white or black mages; or a party who’s lives get progressively more difficult as the game progresses, like two red mages and two black mages; or even a group that overcomes initial adversities to blossom into a well-oiled war machine, like a black belt, a thief and two white mages (I highly recommend this party to those looking for a “ugly duckling” style coming of age experience).

With patience, know-how and a bit of old fashioned luck, any four-member combination (with class change) can finish the game, barring an unwelcome meeting with WarMECH on Tiamat’s bridge or a well-timed CUR4 by Chaos; just be sure to grab the Mas(a)mune sword, bury your hardest hitter at the bottom of the lineup, RUSE/INV2/White Shirt like crazy and pray, pray, pray.

Many of the incarnations of FF1 available in North America.

Things are much easier on the PSP and Gameboy Advance (Dawn of Souls) version of the game; ridiculously easy, in fact. The extras in these “upgraded” iterations feel tacked on and mismatched at best and completely game-breaking at worst. If you’re looking for the true FF1 experience and you’re not a little sissy baby who can’t handle a bit of adversity and leveling, the original NES cart or the PlayStation 1’s Final Fantasy Origins disc are the way to go. Also, Namco’s recent cell phone port of FF1 retains about 90 percent of the challenge of the original, so if you can stand squashed graphics and crippled sound, grab that mobile device and start saving the world.

Classic. Epic. Flock of Birds.

Speaking of the true Final Fantasy experience, players knew they were in for something special when the main credits began rolling only after they conquered the game’s first real challenge. Not many games bothered with cinematic elements in the mid to late 1980s, so when a screen popped up telling the player that the game has now truly begun as he or she crossed the first bridge into the unfamiliar, it really felt like you were about to embark on an epic adventure the likes of which had been hitherto unknown to the world of console gaming. The four Warriors of Light climb a hill as the sun sets in the background, looking back on the castle from whence they came and trudging ahead to the challenges that await them. Just like feeling one gets the first time they plug in The Legend of Zelda, the player suddenly felt like anything is possible. A vast new world was theirs to explore, a feeling that’s hard to shake even two decades later.

Please don't make fun of my cell model.

My current party, on the cell phone version of the game, is a red mage, a black belt, a white mage and a black mage. Yeah, the going is a little tough, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That is, unless I felt like it at the character select screen.

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What are YOUR top games of all time? Leave me a comment with your top three games, in order, and have your opinions heard in a future post here on Wordsmith VG!
 
Tomorrow: We'll Duke it out with one of gaming's baddest anti-heroes!

Top Games of All Time #5: Super Mario Bros. (NES)

While browsing through Video Games or Bust the other day, I read a post where the the author, Wade, spoke about his favorite game of all time. It got me thinking: What are MY favorite games? So I concocted a list of what I feel are the five greatest titles of all time, from the dawn of gaming through today's 80 gig, high definition monsters. For the next few days I'll be revealing my choices, culminating with a chance for you, the readers, to weigh in on YOUR most beloved titles. Feel free to agree or disagree with my choices, or even leave a list of your favorite games of all time, in order, as a comment!

Now, without further ado, Matt's fifth favorite game of all time: Super Mario Bros. for the NES.

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The third entry into the series might have been bigger and better, but the original Super Mario Bros. started the Nintendo revolution.

The title screen that's permanently burned into the psyche of thousands of 20-somethings.

From its instantly recognizable, peppy soundtrack to its brilliantly simple controls and play mechanics, Super Mario Bros. screamed instant classic from day one. Designed by the immortal Shigeru Miyamoto – who would go on to create many other system-defining titles like The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Kid Icarus – the original Super Mario Bros. shows the player everything he or she needs to know in the very first level, then expands upon those abilities as it progresses through World 8, when the action hits a fevered pitch. Novices and NES power players alike seemed to never get enough of the red-clad plumber and his brother, stomping gomba after gomba and terrorizing the turtle population of the Mushroom Kingdom on their endless quest to rescue the elusive Princess Toadstool (later retconned to the airheaded Prince Peach).

The first level.

One might assumed that a game which only progresses from left to right couldn’t have much depth, by Miyamoto’s Mario could discover a gaggle of hidden goodies, from extra coins, mushrooms and 1-ups to concealed steps, instant vines leading to “Coin Heaven” and even the coveted Warp Zones, which allowed industrious players to skip levels they didn’t feel like trudging though or had already completed. The secrets of Super Mario Bros. were the buzz of school yards, playgrounds and cafeterias for years afterward and, whether they cared to admit it or not, a hot topic for many adult fans as well.

This is an image we're all familiar with.

Because it was included in some way or another in many incarnations of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s basic gaming package, most NES players had access to Super Mario Bros.; therefore, Mario and Luigi’s first super adventure is what introduced many players to the vibrant world of Nintendo, or even video games in general. Super Mario Bros.' impact on gaming can be seen even in today’s 3D titles, and Mario is arguably the king of the video game mascots, securing just as many (if not more) Nintendo fans as he did during the glory days of the NES.

I salute you, Super Mario and slightly disrespected brother Luigi, for giving me hundreds of hours of fun and enlightening so many to the ways of the Nintendo.

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So what are your favorite games of all time? Leave a reply with your top three in order of greatest to third greatest to have your voice heard here in a future post!

Capcom Cartoons (CapToons?) Raise the Bar for Mediocracy

From left: Dr. Light, Megaman, Roll 

Since the days of Ducktails, Megaman and Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, I've been enamoured with all things Capcom. In 1992, the SNES version of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior came along and exploded that passion into a near obsession, and by the time I was entering the fifth grade, Chun-Li, Ryu, Guile and the Red Cyclone himself, Zangief, had become my eternal heroes.

The other kids in my class were starting to gain an appreciation for rolemodels like Anne Frank, Ben Franklin and probably some other people who's names escape me right now, but may or may not have "Frank" in their name; I like those historic heroes too, but it would be a massive lie to say that their attitudes and values affected my development as a human being more than Street Fighter's perky pugilists. Before you close out the window and never visit this blog again, consider this: While they're not exactly three dimensional characters on their own, the core values of Street Fighter's good guys are actually an excellent guide for living one's life in a moral, fulfilling way. Ryu represents discipline, power and persistence without overindulgence; Dhalsim is full of love for his family; Guile proves that revenge is all-consuming and letting go of hate will settle your soul; and Zangief loves vodka. Also, I'd like to see Ben Franklin wrestle a grizzly bear, shoot fireballs or flip upside down and show everyone his underwear. He can't. Therefore the Street Fighters are better.


It's a dream match of mine.

I think I went temporarily insane when I noticed that my Capcom heroes had started appearing on television one Saturday morning at 7:30 when the oversized feet of none other than Megaman went jogging across my screen - WITHOUT the NES powered up! I say "I think" I went crazy because other than the show itself, I remember nothing of the next seven hours. I woke up in my neighbor's tree house with only Megaman 1, 3 and 6 covering my wet, naked body.



Here's the show's into, ripped from the Megaman DVDs I bought years later. And in case you didn't know, here's a quick description of the plot: Built by Dr. Light, Rock and his sister Roll are soon recruited into the war against the evil Dr. Wily. Rock is transformed into a super fighting robot known as Megaman! Roll... was given a vacuum attachment! Fight! Mega Man! For everlasting peace!

Truth be told, the Megaman TV show isn't exactly Shakespeare meets Terminator like I would have hoped for, but it was a decent way to spend a Saturday morning while chowing down on last night's leftover pizza. There are only a few glaring continuity errors, like Protoman being evil and Gustman and Cutman having a starring role; everyone knows those two sucked horribly at life, even in the game. If Dr. Wily had taken the time to build new henchmen instead of just reconstructing the old ones when they inevitably got their cans kicked by the Blue Bomber, he just might have been able to take down Dr. Light's lapdog and rule the world.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

The Capcom cartoons didn't end with Megaman; soon, Street Fighter received its own animated makeover, ignoring far more things in the game's established cannon than the Megaman show ever did.



Based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia film of the same name, Street Fighter is the action-packed tale of Lt. William Guile's battle to take down the evil Shadowloo/Shadowlaw terrorists lead by the dastardly M. Bison. If you're an astute gamer, you know what's wrong with that last statement: It's based on the 1994 Street Fighter movie. That means that Guile is the main character instead of Ryu and all the good guys work together like some sort of  fireballing, face-punching basketball team. Still, the Street Fighter cartoon was an okay waste of a half hour and I got to see my heroes battle it out in full animated glory.

Now the Darkstalkers cartoon... that's where things started going very, very wrong.



Darkstalkers is the messed up tale of a little boy who hangs out with a super hot catwoman named Felicia. Boy and cat battle the evil alien Pyron for control of the planet Earth, with the aid of "good guys" like wolfman Jon Talbot and huge, stupid Frankenstein monster Victor, all while Felicia is so hot that steam pours off of her all the time.

Darkstalkers was a relatively unknown Capcom property at the time it took the cartoon plunge, so I'm not really sure what the reasoning was behind the move. The Darkstalkers show is a re-imagining of the arcade original, toning down the mature themes and sexualized atmosphere that made the game so appealing in the first place. Felicia is the focus of this mess, but she's also picked up some little boy along the way who has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the established Darkstalker mythos. Also Felicia is wearing more clothing than in the game, which wasn't too hard to pull off but was still very annoying to me when I was 12. Felicia and the stupid kid run around trying to stop the "bad" Darkstalkers, which is basically everyone else. Honestly, I wouldn't have watched this cartoon if it didn't have "Darkstalkers" stamped on it, but at least it was entertaining to see peppy animated versions of my favorite Night Warriors.

Overall, the CapToons provided a decent, if occasionally mentally challenged supplement to my daily gaming, despite their reckless abandonment of sacred cannon and disregard for, uh, actual quality.

Take THAT, Ben Franklin!


You gonna cry now, Kite Boy?



Potentially Frightening Halloween Games: Monster Party (NES)

BRRR!

Grab your spiffiest ape costume, some big fat apples and a bag of delicious razorblades to hide inside them America, because the Great Pumpkin is almost upon us once more! ...no, not Samhain from The Real Ghostbusters. Uh, well, they are related, kind of. It's actually pronounced "Sawain" by the way. See, I'm talking about that Charlie Brown special where Linus stays out all night in the - PUT THAT STEEL PIPE DOWN; there are no ghosts on the way, damn it!

Never mind, you ruined it. It's going to be Halloween soon is what I was getting at. Thanks for screwing up my into.

Halloween is my third favorite holiday, right behind Christmas and Arbor Day, so you can imagine how excited I am to celebrate the season of splatterpunk horror flicks, inappropriate novelty costumes and cheap, extremely flammable decorations constructed with a mildly carcinogenic foam and the tears of thousands of third world children. While TV stations observe the holiday by playing The Exorcist 8,000 times in a row and children celebrate with their yearly costumed begging, I prefer to commemorate All Hallows Eve by digging out the most frightening video games from my collection, turning down the lights and taking on the undead hoards.

Also by drinking heavily.

It's like a normal frat party, only here, you have a slightly higher chance of death.

Monster Party, Bandai's forgotten NES offering circa 1989, is a deceptive and uneven title, both in its presentation and its challenge. You know you have a winner on your hands as the off-the-wall introduction presents itself before the first level. In my mind, this game's intro is tied with Blaster Master's as the shoddiest - and most beloved - Nintendo storyline of all time.

This is Mark, or as the manual calls him, MARK. He's apparently an eight-year-old Japanese baseball player living in America whose mother lets him hang out with his friends far past midnight. As he's walking home from one of his 3 a.m. games, clearly labeled with a giant "M" on his shirt so murderers and aliens will know who he is, he sees a star and simultaneously forgets the rules of proper grammar "While he stared at it."

The "beauty of the star" makes MARKS's eyes moist, a term generally reserved to describe delicious chocolate cake, but used here to imply that staring a bright lights might hurt one's eyes. As you all know, this is certainly not true.

Lo and behold, it's not a celestial body at all; it's a freakish purple birdman alien. His name: Bert, obviously.

"Evil monsters" have invaded Bert's world, and only an eight-year-old Japanese-American baseball player can help! MARK's pretty scared right now and I don't blame him. Just look at the horror (or indifference, whatever) written all over his face!

But thanks to his superior conversation skills (and the fact that he's a HUGE SHARP DEMON) Bert convinces MARK to go with him to another planet and risk his life by pointing out that MARK's got the only weapon capable of stopping the interstellar intruders: a three foot long slab of wood. Apparently, Bert's planet is either highly peaceful or just very behind in national pass times. Or both.

BEST LINE EVER.

You know, I'm starting to get the impression that Bert just doesn't care who he recruits to try to stop the "evil monsters." He kind of reminds me of a job I once applied to that was way too interested in hiring me. It turned out they were involved in the illegal soap trade and the cops cleaned them out not three days later.

Bert grabs MARK without his permission and flies STRAIGHT TO ANOTHER PLANET without the aid of things like oxygen, but it's okay because MARK's helmet-like hair protects him from burning up upon reentry. Along the way, MARK asks how Bert can help him take down the "evil monsters" and Bert screams, "Like this!" and they... "fuse" together. Then MARK is attacked relentlessly by the bird-beaked extraterrestrial, and OH THANK GOD Then MARK and Bert combine their power to become an unstoppable monster mashing machine!

Unfortunately, even after the transformation, Bert remains a very unintimidating shade of purple.

This is how MARK'S adventure began!

I just said that.

Everything starts out fine with MARK bashing enemies' faces in with his baseball bat. MARK can run, jump and crawl like a worm to escape his ememies' deadly attacks, and even knock back projectiles to the sender, producing a satisfying, Megaman-like explosion. Power pills allow MARK to fuse with Bert to become a nearly-unstoppable, winged monstrosity who shoots poisonous quills from his facial area and can fly past danger. The transformation lasts only a few seconds though, so you'd better intimidate as many space priests as possible during that time in order to steal their congregation's cash and purchase some unpurple clothes for your naked birdlike friend.

MARK even runs into a few bosses, like this giant plant reminiscent of Audry from Little Shop of Horrors. Fun fact: Originally, fake Audry was supposed to be singing karaoke, complete with a speaker and a microphone. For some reason, all the accompanying graphics were removed; only the now-pointless stage lights remain. The speaker is still present in the game, however: You can stand on the invisible platform to the right where it used to exist.


Feed me!

Remember how I mentioned that this game has an unbalanced presentation and challenge? Just look at this: Halfway though the level and things are fine. Even the blocks are smiling and nonthreatening. At this point, MARK's probably thinking he has it made; whack a few disembodied legs, collect a few hearts, kill a few overgrown, formerly karaoke star plants, and you're on you way home in time for the next midnight baseball game with all the other unsupervised third graders. But then the player makes the mistake of running past this seemingly innocent tree...

Oh, a giant tree. That doesn't look threatening. Let me keep going...

OH SWEET JESUS

Suddenly, all those happy blocks turn into bloody skulls, everything that was previously smiling now bears frowns and fangs, and giant eyeballs with tentacles and man-faced dogs join the cast of creatures MARK has to take down. This is when the player knows that he or she isn't playing the average 8-bit platformer. Isn't this supposed to be a kids' game? How did stuff like this get past the Nintendo censors, but a little bit of blood on a zombie's shirt was too extreme for the unreleased MOTHER 1 prototype?

And then there's this guy.

This boss has already bit the dust, so all MARK has to do is stand around and wait for a prize to appear. A minute later, a pumpkin ghost that looks a bit like Samhain (don't start whipping out pipes again please) beats you like Sham-Wow guy does his prostitutes. The incongruent challenge and schizophrenic theme make this one a hard game to peg, but once you get the hang of it, Monster Party is actually pretty fun. It's gotten a bad rap in the past for some reason, but truth be told, it's one of Bandai's best.

There's plenty more wicked wierdness to be found in Monster Party, including a group of Japanese cabaret  zombies who require the player to wait and watch their dance, a giant, skewered shrimp, a punk rocker who attacks with "bad playing music," and a bull who throws small cows at our sandlot savior, but 1.) I don't want to ruin it for you, and 2.) nothing is as messed up as the first level's transformation from harmless NES game to horrific wasteland.

Well, unless you count the ending.

Happy Halloween, and remember: Never trust purple birdmen with strangely average names, because they're probably flying child molesters in disguise. Also, don't play baseball after midnight, or a princess will melt you face.