My Top100 still pretends to have a hundred games as we continue! Today's smorgasbord includes games, games, and gorillas.
Intro Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)
Bowser: Okay, everybody, huddle up. Here’s the plan: Monty Mole, I want you to get the ball right when the whistle bowls. Do whatever you have to. Throw some dirt, head butt Diddy Kong in the chest- I don’t care. Whatever it takes.
Monty Mole: Won’t I get red carded?
Bowser: No. There’s no ref.
Toad: What happened to the ref?
Bowser: He’s been taken care of. Forget about being red-carded. Birdo, listen up. As soon as the cow flies across the field-
Birdo: There’s no such thing as flying cows-
Bowser: Just trust me on this, Birdo. As soon as the cow flies across the field, Monty’s going to pass you the ball. I want you to twirl when they come at you-
Birdo: T-twirl?
Bowser: Yes, twirl, like a goddamn ballerina. Toad? Toad, you’re going to run at the goalie. Right at him, and Birdo- Birdo you’re going to pass the ball to Toad.
Birdo: After I twirl?
Bowser: Yeah, twirl a couple times first. Toad, you’re going to dodge the lightning-
Toad: Great, now there’s lightning?
Bowser: Yes, there’s lightning. Stay with me here. I want you to dodge it and run the ball right at the goalie. But don’t let him grab it. As soon as he gets close enough, I want you to flip over him. Just right over him. And keep the ball between your feet. Then just walk it in. Okay?
Toad: No, no, that’s not okay-
Birdo: Why is there lightning?
Monty Mole: Can we please go back to the part about the flying cows?
Bowser: Alright team. I believe in you. On three. One, two, GO GO BOWSER!
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
The night is dark. The faint sound of a beagle’s guitar echoes in the distance, from the city on the horizon. Here, beside a late night coffee shop, the only light comes from the one that hangs above the door. Two figures in hoods meet in the shadows of the alley, glancing nervously to see if anyone is watching. They think they are alone.
“You think all those weeds are a goddamned accident?” demands the first. “I’m telling you man, they don’t just appear. Nature fucking puts them there. It’s the trees, man. The fucking trees. They like, I don’t know, fertilize the soil or something so the weeds can grow.”
The second gulps, taking a step back from the week that sticks up to his knees, not half a dozen meters away.
“And there’s nothing we can goddamn do about it. This whole town is getting taken over by bitch ass mother nature. Haven’t you noticed? Nobody lives in this town but a bunch of deranged talking animals.”
He lights up a joint, and offers it to the second figure. The figure takes it gladly, perhaps hoping to calm his nerves.
The first continues. “That’s why we need a hero. Someone willing to do what the rest of us can’t. Someone with nothing to lose. Any idea where we could find someone like that?”
The second one puffs deeply. “Y-yeah man. I’ve heard of a guy. Someone with nothing to lose, at least. In Lindwurm. They say he’s never been the same after- well, you know.”
“After what, man?” The first presses.
The second glances around again. “After Olivia left.”
“The cat dame?”
The second one nodded. “Now he says there’s nothing left in the city worth living for. Or, that’s what I heard.”
“Where’s he at?”
“That’s the thing,” shrugs the second. “He disappeared. No one’s seen him for months. That’s when the weeds started popping up.”
The first figure snorts. “You think that’s someone we can count on?”
The second breathes out smoke dejectedly. “Or hey. What about the Locust?”
The light outside the coffee shop flickers, and the first figure freezes. “The Locust?”
“Five years ago,” the second one mutters. His voice has dropped so low the first figure has to lean in to hear it. “Five years ago, there was this guy. Dressed in full camouflage and a gas mask. It was all over the news. He just showed up in town one day with this massive ax.” The figure pulls at his collar. “He chopped everything down, man. I mean everything. That’s why they call him the Locust. There was nothing left. No trees. No flowers. No weeds.”
The first figure drops his joint and crushes it beneath his foot. “Sounds like just the guy for the job. Any idea where we can find this…Locust?”
“Right beside you.”
The first figure glances up and before he can gasp an ax has lodged itself in his head. He tumbles to the ground, blood pooling about his corpse. The second figure’s shoulders shake, and from his coat he draws a gas mask.
“I think this city’s overdue for a bit of…pruning.”
Fire Emblem (GBA)
Fire Emblem is a game that taught me about lies. Everything I thought I knew about it before I purchased it was untrue. Smash Bros had told me that it was the game from which Roy and Marth hailed. A commercial had led me to believe it would be some sort of action-platformer. A whimsical purchase on a drive back from LEGO Land promised an enjoyable romp for weeks to come.
I had never been so deceived in all my life. Roy and Marth were nowhere to be seen, leaving me instead with the admittedly far more attractive Lyndis. The action-platforming gameplay was as far from the truth as possible: instead I was commanding a battlefield of soldiers as an army tactician. And the weeks of enjoyable romping? What happened to that?
Years happened. Years of an obsession with what would come to be one of my favorite genres, franchises, and games ever. And it all started when a group of bandits ransacked my friend’s village, and I was the only one on hand to help.
Well, after the lies, that is.
Summon Knight Swordcraft Story (GBA)
If you know me at all, you know I pick the fire starter in every single Pokemon game. Without fail. It’s my favorite type in the entire RPG.
It’s not like I’m really all that enamored with real fire. I enjoy sitting around it when camping, and I like it when the fireplace at home is lit too (though usually that would suggest some sort of catastrophic climate change- I live in Socal, after all). But I don’t particularly care for it over any of the other elements or types or options in most games.
Nonetheless, it’s created a habit that has carried over into every RPG where such a choice is presented. They aren’t too many, honestly, but the best, aside from Pokemon, is easily Summon Knight: Swordcraft Story. In the first, that meant I was partnered with the badass, foul-mouthed Rasho, Oni-king, and in the second, some scrawny looking kid. Of course, that meant skipping out on the scantily-clad females (oh, the things I do to stick with tradition!). In the end, it was worth it. My Guardian Beasts became my staunchest friends, and let me romance the cuter, far more normal human girls in my play-through without feeling awkward every time my Guardian Beast popped out for a chat. Which was all the time.
Drill Dozer (GBA)
Let us say you could be a thief. A master thief. A jewel thief or thief of paintings or culturally significant artifacts, it’s up to you. If you could be a thief, what would be your one tool? Your greatest tool, the one you would use to get into the banks, the museums, the safes. Batman’s utility belt? I thought about it, after playing Arkham City. A friend? Monaco reminded me there are no friends you can trust in a heist.
How about a drill? A drill you could ride in, a drill that would tear through any obstacle, but also pull you through pipes where security would never think to find you. A drill whose purring roar struck fear into the hearts of guards, but sounded to you like progress. A drill dozer, if you will.
That’s what Jill took, and after playing Game Freak’s Drill Dozer on Gameboy Advance, I’m inclined to think she had the right idea.
Dustforce (PC)
Dustforce grabbed me first, I think, with its aesthetic. The faceless designs of the characters, the simplicity of the visuals. Most of all, the fluidity of the animation. I was enamored with it, and the idea of cleaning leaves and trash instantly made sense once I saw it in action.
Then I was taken by the music. It helped set a rhythm to my actions, not in the way of BitTripRunner or Rhythm Heaven, but in a freer way where the music set my mood, the tone of each stage, and the eagerness with which I attacked every mess.
Dustforce’s cleaning mechanic requires only precision- it forces you to land and jump and wall run just so. It allows you to trust the developer too, and it guides those landings and jumps and wall runs as much as challenges you. This precision and guidance, combined with the music and the animation, makes Dustforce one of my favorite platformers ever: it flows, like the leaves in the wind, the dust that floats gently to settle on the floor. Leaves and dust you’re now in charge of cleaning up. But don’t worry, Dustforce is no chore. It’s a blast.
VVVVVV (PC)
In my freshman year of college, I hadn’t yet had much experience with the indie scene. Any?
Let me go back.
Classifying games as “Indie” or “AAA” is doing a disservice to the games. Classifications are restrictive. We pretend it means something more than it does. Often one is praised at the expense of the other. There’s no reason for it. The size of a game’s budget or studio, whether or not they required external funding or publishing shouldn’t matter to the consumer. What should matter is the end product. If the end product is fun or worthwhile in some less enjoyable way, then that should be enough. Not to say developers shouldn’t be given credit- but they should be given credit for the end product. Not for being Indie or AAA.
That said, VVVVVV is hypnotic. A game so difficult has to be, to keep someone like me playing it from start to finish. But it was not hypnotic because it was made by a tiny team, because they didn’t have a publisher. It was hypnotic because of the music, because of the somehow lonely atmosphere created by often only a couple colors. Because crossing to the next screen midair, not knowing what was beyond, especially in a game that had thus far set already so many traps, required a faith that could only be achieved by perfect mind control. I loved VVVVVV, and it would be easy to say I hated it too, in those moments when I died for the fortieth time on that same stretch I’d been struggling with for the last half hour. But that’s only because lying is easy for me. In truth, even when VVVVVV frustrated me, I could have never hated it. It wouldn’t let me. I was hypnotized.
Not because it was indie, but because it was just that fucking good.
Minecraft (PC)
I played Minecraft with so many people, it’s not funny. My brothers, my cousins, my friends from high school, my friends from college, my other friends from high school, my cousins’ friends from high school, people I met online, people my friends met online, people my friends met online’s friends from high school. And with everyone I played with came a new inspiration. For some of them, there was a spirit of competition. Who could make the coolest things, the biggest murals, the most intricate castles.
For me, there was only an inspiration of subject- their castles would inspire me to build restaurants, their homes bars, their murals model dinosaurs tearing through the hillstops- dinosaurs that you can step down their throat and into their stomachs. Pokemon murals led me to make Pokemon gyms, and Pokemon Gyms led me to make Elite Four stadiums.
Spaceships inspired floating carriers with spaceships on them. Banter led to the Deep Anus 9. And then it was back to houses, model homes that would sell for twenty one million in real estate pamphlets. Always starting up something new on new servers, and whenever someone’s fancy would strike them, it would strike all of us into a fervor of creating.
Such fervor was not without its hostilities. Giant toilets leak dirtied water across the surrounding landscapes, and there are more craters between creations than I’d care to count. Craters where creations used to stand, though rarely was anyone so thorough. Houses with their foundations torn away stand beside castles missing their gates. Murals have been given mustaches, the fanciest bedrooms signs announcing, “Here sleeps the lord of doodoo.” Because I played with seven year olds, too.
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze (Wii U)
I was never going to get Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. The budget was too tight to be pumped about DK, especially since I just purchased Bravely Default a couple weeks before. But then DK came out, and before the week was over, the entire soundtrack was on Youtube.
Three days later, after listening to the entire soundtrack for a grand total of 36 hours, longer than I play most games, I couldn’t help it. I gave up on Mario Kart 8 for Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. I started the download, listening to the OST in my hours of waiting. There was nothing else to be done. It was one of the most moving soundtracks I’d ever heard, and easily one of the catchiest. I generally write to music, with or without vocals, it hardly matters, since when I’m writing I generally drown it out anyway. It’s mostly just there to keep me pumped in those moments of lag. But I can’t write to David Wise’s music. I have to drum, or whistle, or beat box, or dance, or all of the above at once.
Then the game finished downloading onto my Wii U, and I launched it. Played it. And loved every moment.
My favorite level, Bopopolis, taught me that it was okay to trust in the level design. Trust the developer. I rolled and jumped as fast as I could, often when there was nothing to land on, always counting on the stage to give me something. I’d bounce off of penguins before they even came onto the screen, skip entire platforms, knowing the old adage about a single step, but too impatient to enjoy the journey. But it wasn’t a matter of impatience, really. Taking the stage that fast was simply exhilarating, and knowing that I could, even without knowing exactly what was coming my way, taught me that there was more to level design than just looking good, more to it than just personality and fun. There’s momentum, and trust, and all the things you don’t really think about until you just go for it.