Filling

So, while my new job has caused me to go to a normal work schedule, like a heathen, I've been trying to come up with something to write about. I had all but decided to go for a second consecutive week without a post until a friend of mine specifically requested that I write something presumably because he gets really bored and wants to read something. So, while I don't have anything really on my mind, I do have a near inexhaustible resource of ranting that I could do, so here it goes:

Sonic the flipping Hedgehog: what the hell happened to my favorite childhood hero?! I'm not just saying that I'm a fan of Sonic, but I did literally wait for the night where I had a dream about hanging out with the hog. I'm still freaking waiting!

Maybe I should explain a little before I get to share some things that will get really creepy. We never had a Genesis in the house. We were a Nintendo family. But, every Thanksgiving, we'd drive up to Meridian, Idaho where my grandparents lived along with my degenerate uncle Rodger. He was cool to a little six year old. He smelled faintly like smoke, had his own computer and had a TV in his room! His copy of Sonic 2 was actually Wonder Boy in Monster Land (which, incidentally, totally needs a sequel). He swapped out the ROM boards after renting the game from Blockbuster. (Which I thought was totally badass and clever) But most importantly, and should've been included before I mentioned Sonic 2 so the narrative would've flown better, he had a Sega Genesis.

I spent hours at that thing. I would play from sun-up till about sundown. It would slowly get dark and I'd be so glued to his TV that I wouldn't notice or bother flipping the light switch. I'd slowly go through his game collection until I had exhausted all of my favorite games, and would swear that this year I was old enough and mature enough to not totally freak out at playing games like Bram Stoker's Dracula or Warlock. Both are great nightmare fuel to a little kid and doubly so when playing it in a strange house in the dark by yourself. So, after getting shaken up, I'd invariably decide to try playing a game to get my mind off how freaked out I was. If I was smart, I'd pop in Sonic. If I was dumb, I'd pop in Kid Chameleon, die, and then race out of the room as fast as I could because of the demons shouting, "DIE" when you die in that game. (And now you know all about my obsession with Kid Chameleon, which will get more attention at a later date, I guarantee it)

Sonic was the coolest character in town. He was fast, had a kick-ass TV show, and dated a chick who sometimes, wore nothing more than boots.

First cartoon crush and first sign that I would someday be a furry.

He stood up against the pollution stereotype that was so prevalent in the 90s, but didn't feel the need to be preachy about it. Instead, he'd just smash the hell out of some robots. The games had awesome music, the cartoon series was jaw-droppingly awesome, and Sonic could do no wrong in my eyes. (I hadn't seen Sonic Underground yet, but it's awesome in a totally different way.)

Jump to today. Sonic has gotten so ingrained into the pop-culture that he's now selling insurance. And yet he's in some of the worst games to ever disgrace my PS3. I played through Sonic 06. I must admit that I never saw the "true ending" since I couldn't stomach the Shadow levels, and to be honest, I still find the whole human/hedgehog shipping to be a bit distasteful. (I know, I'm hypocritical, so sue me.)

The game had me frothing at the mouth while I waited three minutes for the game to load two lines of written dialogue and then have me wait another three minutes. Anyone who has played this game knows what I'm talking about. Now, I'm not going to say that it's the worst game I've ever played. (I'm sure Dino Riki is still topping that list) but it was kind of an eye opener that I just didn't love Sonic like I used to.

For me, Sonic started going downhill in Sonic Heroes. I beat that game completely and was pleasantly surprised by Big the Cat showing up (the best third-tier character in the Sonicverse) but had started noticing a few things that had gone on for far too long. Things like endless rails over nowhere, a huge focus on the Chaos Emeralds, and sub-par dialogue.

This had actually all started with Sonic Adventure, but it was his debut to 3D and there were far worse games out there. In fact, it was just a matter of fact that we accepted poor 3D platforming because we didn't have anything to compare it to. The graphics were ahead of its time, but the animation was poor during certain cut scenes, the voice acting was irritating at best, and the camera had its issues too. But we overlooked all of that because we were kids and we didn't know better. Neither did the industry. Sonic Adventure 2 should've alleviated those problems, and while the lip-syncing was a lot better (since they decided to get rid of the tongues in the mouths) and the dialogue just tiny less bit cheesy, the game still suffered from flaws that were growing. Things like instant-death scenarios, since falling caused you to die and all of the levels were effectively large floating islands in the nether. Wonky camera that wanted you to focus on the truck behind you, while still expecting you to dodge obstacles in front of you. (This would be amped up in Sonic 06) And of course, attacks that would either kill the enemy, hurt you for some reason, or hurl you into who knows which direction. But, Sonic Adventure 2 was one of my favorite games at the time, and being about 12 when I first played it, I can think of two reasons:

By now I knew that I wasn't normal.

Too many game-hours to count...

While I still have the game in my GameCube stash, I haven't played it in a long time. Partly because the game hasn't aged well, but also because I lost my Tails Chao from Phantasy Star Online and until I can get another one, I don't even want to see the Chao Garden. (You only love once...)

Next was Sonic Heroes which crushed my dreams of a new and improved Chao Garden, but did bring back Big, which as I said before, was a pleasant surprise. It also brought in the Chaotix crew which was even more interesting. But the game had some terrible lines and some terrible rail controls that made me very angry. This was the first time that I really started to notice how much I was starting to hate the direction the games were going.

Touche...

First of all, the stories were getting more and more repetitive. How many times can Dr. Eggman steal the Chaos Emeralds until he realizes that any plan that involves the word "CHAOS" as part of an energy source cannot, by its very definition, go according to plan? What's more, with the introduction of Shadow, the side-story was getting more and more convoluted.

By now, I had realized that the games were trying to be more story driven, which would be a good thing, except that they were still neglecting some serious camera control and artificial difficulty issues. Also, the story would've been helped a bit if the characters had a little bit more background than just a theme song and a brief introduction in the manual. Somehow, we were supposed to know that Tails was slowly getting sick of being in Sonic's shadow but didn't want to abandon his friend either. Knuckles never had any motivation except to protect the Master Emerald (and for some "fists metal crackle" according to his rap song about Pumpkin Hill.) Amy still is the most two-dimensional character out there with nothing in her motivation but pure, white-hot hatred love for Sonic.

We can assume that Rouge is still there for the emeralds that she knows she'll never have, and for the echidna which she should never have, since monotremes and mammals should never mix. Big never had any sort of motivation except for his friend Froggy making him much like Cream in the sense that without the person their looking for, they loose all character motivation. Omega honestly shouldn't exist, since Dr. Eggman couldn't possibly create AI that would have unshackled freedom to turn on him like he does. This list obviously omits dozens of other characters whom I either don't care about (Charmy) or just don't know anything about (Nack). In the end, while all of these characters seem just interesting enough to keep them around, their whole story is never investigated in satisfying way to keep them interesting.

Nope, never investigated in a satisfying way.

 Sonic 06 is the epitome of the worst of all of these things. The camera that forces you to rush ahead while dodging obstacles that you can't see because the camera wants to show you that totally bitchin' tornado behind you was implemented in Sonic's stages, presumably because Sega hadn't figured out how to make people see red when they saw the blue blur. The game's loading times were a joke for a current-gen console. While the graphics were undeniably pretty, it was hard to focus on them when they were falling through the ground for no apparent reason. The new character introduced here was Elise which delegated Sonic's role to that of a Mary Sue, as someone on TVTropes pointed out. He literally only exists in the story to fall in love with Elise in order to have someone cry at his passing. All the rest of the actual plot is taken care of by secondary characters, like Shadow or Silver. (Who, incidentally, is one of my favorite Sonic characters, as fate would have it.) The story gets even more ridiculous when someone pointed out that with the time-travel and chaos emerald swapping, one of the emeralds, stays in an impossible paradoxical loop.

Timelines solve everything.

Logically, that means that the blue chaos emerald cannot be possibly used in any other event in any Sonic story. If Sonic 06 were to stay canon, no other Sonic game that included the blue chaos emerald could be accepted canonically too. Which pretty much just leaves us with Sonic CD, since those were Time Crystals or something. And I think that Knuckles Chaotix could exist, too, I guess. Still, that's pretty damn bleak if the Sonic 06 game is so bad that if taken seriously, not only ruins itself (on account of it being so bad) but also ruins retroactively the rest of the series!

It was the last Sonic game I've played. I've been told that the newer ones are getting better, but until they figure out how to catch the same spirit of the game I'd been playing since I was 5, it's going to be hard to convince me that they're still worth my time.

Instead, I'll stick to the Archie Comics who seem to treat all of the characters with a bit more respect.

Except Marina. 'Strewth.

I'm a Blasting Master

Okay, being a retro-gamer, I've obviously played Blaster Master for the NES. It's one of the more popular games for the NES that never seemed to make much of a splash at the time. If you haven't played it, you definitely should, since it's awesome. I'm a huge fan of the game. I've beaten it several times. I sometimes draw my rendition of SOPHIA (the tank), have read the A.L. Singer (Worlds of Power) novelization of the game, and have even named my car SOPHIA the 3rd. Okay, that's a lie. I don't have a car. So I've named my bus pass SOPHIA the 3rd instead for the time being.

The NES game was a clone of Metroid, except that it had (in my opinion) tighter platforming controls. It varied the gameplay by forcing you to leave your tank and wander around as Jason (a cute little bite-size Jason) and fight the bosses in an overhead mode while you were out of your tank, exploring random caves and structures. It's got a great soundtrack, awesome graphics for its time, and one of the more catchy "game over" tunes. Seriously, even when I was frustrated at having died, that little tune would make me feel just a little better. (Especially that little noise at the end that sounds kind of like, "Browser") In short, it's one of my favorite games. I even had designs for a reboot of the series in the works until someone beat me to the punch.

Unfortunately, the game's franchise has been terrible. It's had a variety of sequels, including one for the Playstation (which I may review at a later date.) A gameboy color release, which was more or less a remake of the NES version with a few alterations, and a rip off of Bomberman. But none of these were as terrible (save the Playstation version, perhaps) as was the Sega Genesis version.

This just screams "Trying too hard"

The game picks up a few years after the events of the first game. I should point out that I mean the American events, because apparently Americans prefer a backwoods farm-boy chasing after his mutated frog as the story. The Japanese version was a bit more simple.

I don't honestly know or remember the story of Blaster Master 2, but that's okay because neither does the game. Or if it does, it doesn't factor in to the ending in any way. (Much like Mass Effect 3.) I had high hopes the first time I found out that this game existed. My first warning sign that things were going to be bad when instead of just taking me straight to the game or showing a quick little intro, the game instead brought me to an options menu where I could choose how many continues I could have and configure the button scheme. This has rarely, if ever, been a good sign of things to come.

The game begins...

And you can immediately deduce that everything is trying to kill you. I couldn't make it past the first level without having to use a variety of cheat codes. Now, my playing experience was made worse, admittedly, by the emulator I was using. I can't reassign the "save state" and "load state" shortcuts, and therefore am forced to use the F5 and F8 keys respectively. This normally isn't a problem, except that I'm playing on a laptop, and that means that those F-keys are always doubled up with another function, forcing me to press the "function" key before being able to press any of the F-keys. This really sucked later on. But for now, suffice to say that the game is rediculously hard at the get go. Most of the enemies take more than three shots to kill. If you're making a video game, please, please, for the love of all that is holy, never have baddies in the first level that take upwards of three hits to kill. And if you're dead set on it, at least make them rare and easy to hit.

The first level is kind of like a forest, although the color scheme reminds me of Angel Island Act 2.

It's been years, but I still can't figure out how Tails can fly...

After a little while, you fall down a pit and enter the underground. The underground is a woefully tragic story of robots, deadly dripping water, and fireballs that will kill you if you don't keep moving.

Rush hour traffic would greatly benefit from that last one.

Now, the gameplay itself hasn't varied all that much from the original NES version, except for how they've made it more retarded and difficult to do anything. Jason can still get out of the tank and has to if he wants to explore doorways that lead to boss fights. The height that he can jump has improved a lot, though.

You'd think that ladders would be kind of unnecessary in his world...

However, Jason still suffers from falling damage, which is a terrible thing to have if you happen to be in a platformer. Sadly enough, if Jason dies from falling, his body just kind of breaks apart and scatters, as though you had the "Bloody Mess" perk from Fallout turned on. This tends to happen a lot if you play as Jason and the game designers must have loved level 4 from the original Blaster Master because not only do you spend a lot of time on foot as Jason, but 1/4 of the game's rewards are keys to access a door to the end of the level.

Well, Level 1 has two bosses. In these boss battles, they've done away with the overhead view of the boss fights, as well as the originality of the first game's bosses. Here are the first two bosses.

At least Jason is all grown up now, for some reason.

Now, at this point, I should point out the counter-intuity (probably not a word) in the control scheme. To make Jason leave the tank in the NES game, you press Select. To make him walk through a door, you pressed up. That makes sense. To make Jason leave the tank in this game, you must press down and C (or whatever you've mapped the "Special Fire" button to) which would be all fine and dandy except that on your Sega Genesis controller, you have this nice little "Mode" button that isn't being used for anything in the game. You must do the same thing to enter the tank, which makes entering the tank a tad bit difficult if you parked over a ladder. And then you have the doors. I was literally stuck in that first boss room for fifteen minutes trying to use that damn door. At first, I tried pressing up, because that's what I seemed to remember doing to get in. Nothing. Maybe I'm not standing right? Adjust. Nothing. Down? Nope. Down and C? Nuh-uh. I pressed just about every combination of buttons there were and started to panic that the codes I had put in had made the game unplayable. I deactivated the codes right as I stumbled upon the secret of the doors. Up and Shoot. I had apparently stumbled on this combination as I entered the room by mistake. I don't know why they felt the need to add the shooting part to make it work. Especially if I'm already accustomed to the "Special Fire" C button as what lets Jason in and out of things. This was pointless, and maybe I'm being nit-picky about it, but I literally couldn't find any help in getting out of that room. I even looked at GameFAQs.com to get some help, but couldn't find any walkthroughs or codes. The only one they had didn't tell me anything but an intro, some "Frequently Asked Questions" (that I doubt were ever actually asked) and a bunch of "Don't steal this!!!" disclaimers that most FAQs and Walkthroughs on GameFAQs tend to be noted for.

Well, the horror was over, the quest for whatever the hell I'm doing in the game could finally continue. I pass through a door and enter the world of overhead view...

The horror... THE HORROR...

These parts were extremely stressful and unnecessary. First, controls. For the first time, I actually regretted not changing anything in the options menu at the beginning of the game. You see, the designers had the novel idea that since SOPHIA is a tank, you should be able to pivot her gun separately from her treads. Good idea on paper, but terrible execution. Here's why. In the standard set up, A button fires the cannon, but the B and C buttons rotate the canon counterclockwise and clockwise respectively. It seemed more natural that B should turn the cannon to the left (being further left on the controller) and C should turn the cannon right. Not so. The enemies move fast here, and before you leave the first level's top-down mode, you'll have encountered a spawn point for infinite enemies. You take heavy damage everywhere you go and thanks to the amount of detail provided by the designers, you lose a lot of control trying to accelerate, decelerate, or even just turn thanks to your treads having to reposition. You bounce off walls like they're made of rubber, often times throwing you back into the same danger that you'd just avoided.

"But what are you complaining about?" I'm sure you're wondering, "You've got cheat codes!"

First of all, interrupting is very rude. I was talking about the difficulty of this part of the game and you came in here all, "Hey, I'm gonna interrupt you with my interrupty-ness. Derp de derp." and it totally threw me off my groove. Don't do that again.

Second: for some reason, I couldn't find any cheat codes that worked for this part. I don't know why. Infinite lives code? Doesn't work on overhead mode. Invincibility? Doesn't work on overhead mode. I don't even get any special weapons in this mode to help defend myself. You'll notice in the screenshots that I actually lose lives in this part of the game. That's because between the difficulty of these areas and the convoluted way that I have to go about making save states, I got stuck in some very nasty situations. I was always lucky if I ended any one of these sections with any life left in my health bar.

After trudging through what could only be described as hell from above, I finally made it to level 2.

I'm honestly just as confused about what that thing is as you are.

First of all, I felt the need to ask something. Why do so many Sega games have skulls in them? Kid Chameleon alone had like, a bazillion. It just seemed like any time Sega wanted the game to be edgy or dark, they'd throw in a couple of skulls in the scenery like Martha Stewart throws flowers into a centerpiece arrangement.

The second level is much like the first. The exploration that you had in the first Blaster Master game is long gone by now. There is no back-tracking, no Metroid-esque exploration. Your path is pretty linear with a few branches that lead to dead ends, sometimes with goodies other time without.

Well, I guess now is a good time to explore your equipment screen.

Two of these options are set to 'ON' and I've yet to see them do anything. Wanna know why? Because everything to the right of the controller is actually a power-up you haven't gotten yet. I suppose that you would already guess that you'd get the hover ability, but it takes the anticipation away when you know that it's an eventuality. If we compare this to the first game's inventory screen:

Each dash represents a component that you would get for the tank, plus one for Jason. It led an air of mystery and kept you on your toes. It didn't just tell you outright what you were going to get. In fact, the only clue you'd have that there was a hover ability at all were the 'H' pickups that didn't do anything until you got the hover module. What's more, there's nothing special about Blaster Master 2's screen at all. Everything is in an ON/OFF position which is cool and all, but we really don't need a full position for "HOVER ON" and a full position for "HOVER OFF". The lights going on or off would do the trick. Greying out the boxes until you'd gotten the add on would help you feel like you could track your progress in the game.

But, I digress: Bosses...

Tanks for all the memories.

Eeeyup. Around here I've started to realize that each boss is just a rebuild of the previous one for the level. Here you get some armor which protects you from an electrical conduit (the only one in the game) and the other nets you the drill arm. (Which you will use exactly twice and has no other applications) Already, the game is setting up extra doodads and macguffins to pick up to pad the gameplay experience.

After some more exploring, you get another overhead portion (HATE HATE HATE)

World 3 is a world engulfed in flame.

This game is the harbinger of the apocalypse.

This is a fun one, since I got lost here for a very long time. The most confusing part was walking through a far away door as Jason only to come out of one that was closer. Upon trying to backtrack through that door I got:

He was also revved up like the roamer in the night.

I discovered that I'd need another pointless powerup that wouldn't directly affect the rest of the game: sunglasses. After a boss fight, I got the glasses, backtracked through the door, only to discover that there was no point to it at all. If I'd already gone the long way around, I didn't need to go through that door at all. To make matters worse, the boss will die over a fire pit, dropping your new power up in fire that hurts you.

Post-humus douchebaggery at its finest.

Both of the bosses will do this. The second drops fire armor which, to the best of my knowledge, is completely pointless after this level anyways. At this point, it's kind of like if Samus got the Ice Beam after a lot of exploration only to discover that its only use was to open the door from the inside of the Ice Beam room. Most of these powerups have been failing to do anything useful. I'm sure that the armor actually affords Jason some extra protection against attacks, but it still seems really pointless.

More overhead sections and then level 4.

He even is starting to look like Samus now...

Level 4 had an interesting premise, that there were dozens of doors to choose from. Choose the wrong one and get sent to some random place. Unfortunately, that random place was probably just one door south of the first door you walked through. The third door gets you a boss battle and the hover upgrade.

"Jason, your tank is the tank that will PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!!"

The boss is the only thing worth mentioning this time around, since the second rendition of him has him teleporting around like Nightcrawler from X-Men.

Incidentally, it's good to see that Master Chief wasn't always a big-shot.

I think they were trying to recreate the boss from level 3 of the NES version. Photophage, but as we called it in our family, Miss Madame Block. (I'm not being cutesy here, that's literally how we referred to the third boss)

If you never cried in frustration because of this boss, then you aren't a man.

The only problem was, because of his teleporting, the boss from Blaster Master 2 is a lot easier to beat, since he will teleport, move to ram you in a random direction, then disappear again. He won't always hit you with the ramming move, but will frequently jump in front of your line of fire.

Well, more overhead portions (I didn't get many screen caps since I was trying desperately not to die.)

Level 5 is the water-themed one. Only there's not that much water. It took me forever to find out where to go because I wasn't aware that Jason could shoot down. (Knowing that would've shaved 30 minutes off of Level 3) The boss is a giant fish that tries to ram you. He actually becomes less deadly the closer you get to beating him, since you get hit twice when he's slow (since you're still in his hit box as he swims past you) but only once when he's fast and near death. Then, just like so many fish before him, he turns red and explodes.

I'm not sure that this is physically possible...

It's at this point that I realize that the game is requiring me to get all of the bosses, because the powerup from this boss wasn't anything special (the ability to use rockets like the tank, but as little Jason). But beating him inexplicably caused a wall to disappear allowing me to move on. Onto the water part of the stage where SOPHIA can't jump. Just like Level 5 in the NES version. Only in the NES version, you got a sweet submarine attachment for SOPHIA. In this one you get...

A toy Scuba-SOPHIA?

Which allows you to...

Jump.

The worst part about this, again, is that it would be useful... If there were ever any use for it afterwards. Once again, Samus is given the Morph Ball for the sole purpose of escaping the room where the Morph Ball is stored. This is the first and last instance in the entire game where your vehicle is completely immersed in water. It's also the first and last instance in the entire game where water doesn't inflict damage to your body.

This part would've been hell without cheats.

Alright, so I skip over the overhead parts because there is nothing cool to see there and they were insanely hard. The safest place was right near the entrance of the overhead level. I still died there more than 3 times.

For that one guy who will not shut up about the overhead parts.

Level 6 is indistinguishable from previous levels. It lacks creativity and just proves that the creators were just trying to pad the game to a good round number of 8 levels. Around level 3, I was hoping that there would only be 5 levels. This was the last nail in the coffin for that dream. (Of course, the fact that I hadn't figured out what the white backpack thing in my inventory was is another good clue)

It's never a good sign if the creators are recycling bosses. I can't remember what I got here, but I honestly think that it was just two keys to doors to continue on to the next level.

Level 7 is another place holder level. The only thing worth mentioning is that by now you have the jetpack for Jason which eliminates falling death. The downside is it seems to burn up more hover fuel than the tank does. (And they somehow inexplicably draw from the same fuel tank...)

I know it's not clever or witty, but damn that's a big key...

I can't remember anything else about this place. The bosses were repeats of the bosses of level 2, which means that they've literally just added two levels of filler for no other reason than to prolong the game. But finally, through perseverance and a helluvalotta cheating:

I was born ready...

Level 8 is red, as you would expect from a game like this. It seems like a staple of early 90's games that the last level had to be red. This one has an interesting gimmick where any door you walk through will put you back at the beginning of the level. I would like to point out that you've gotten one or two gun upgrades for SOPHIA by now, but all of the enemies still require like, 6 or more shots to kill.

Finally, after abusing save states to avoid backtracking, I stumble upon the correct door.

Nothing prepared me for this...

This is the big bad of the game. I have no clue who he is. I'm more confused than in the first Blaster Master, after I'd blown up Fred the frog, why I was still progressing through other levels. Leave it to the Sega Genesis to come up with a boss like this. Honestly, I think they might have ripped this guy off of Kid Chameleon.

Another game known for it's repetitive levels, recycling bosses and nightmare fuel.

Well, just like any other boss, after a million shots, several changes of fighting style and shades of red later:

WHO ARE YOU? WHY WERE YOU SHOOTING ME? WHY AM I EXPLODING?

He blows up and the game ends. Roll credits while SOPHIA rolls on out...

And flies away...

...Um... Yes?

Well, unfortunately, I know that it's not the end. Blaster Master: Blasting Again continues the story. The only interesting thing to note is that the Worlds of Power novelization of Blaster Master is the only legitimate backstory you could get for Blasting Again. They ended up using the story that he created originally as filler since Blaster Master had little to no story for 90% of the game. It deals with Jason and SOPHIA's creator, an alien girl named Eve. They fell in love during the course of the book and have a son named Roddy... But that's a story for a different time...

Still a better love story than Twilight