Is Gypsy Juggler racist?

So I go nearly two months without posting, and now, I come back with the sole purpose of answering this question.

The answer is, I don't know.  I honestly never thought of juggling eggs as a thing to stereotype Gypsies with.  However, I have heard that it's spell "I got Gypped." not "Jipped" so that's a discriminatory remark that I last made when I was, like, 8.  So I'm sorry to any of my Gypsy friends if my words 23 years ago hurt you in any way.  Also, I've read that the Romani people don't like to be referred to as Gypsies...so I'm sorry to any of you who may be Romani and are offended too.  Damn...this is getting to be a controversial blog entry. 

So the game...it's an arcade machine from 1978, where you juggle 1, 2, 3, or 4 eggs.  The more eggs you juggle, the more points you get for every bounce.  I say bounce because the game pretty much plays like breakout, if the paddle physics were reversed.  If an egg hits the arm on the left side, the egg goes right and vice versa; if it hits your head, you get no points and it only goes up a little.  The head is a good tool to slow things down later on in a round when things are getting hectic.  That doesn't sound like a double entendre at all.  If you drop an egg, it hatches and a chick walks off the side of the screen (I guess they didn't want to risk getting an M rating for breaking the eggs for real). So after about 10 minutes and half a dozen quarters, it gets kind of redundant.  Not a bad 10 minutes, though!

How many quarters would it take me to get to 37 million in Q*Bert?

So, after 30 years, the Q*Bert World Record was broken last week.  George Leutz scored over 37,000,000 points during an 84 hour marathon session on one quarter.  This astounded me, mostly because I suck at Q*Bert.  So I wondered how many quarters it would take me to get to 37,000,000.  Now, I'm obviously not going to play that many games.  So I will see how many it will take me to add up to 37,000 and multiply that by 1,000.

So my first game went bad because I can never remember which way Q*Bert jumps with which direction.  I lost my last 2 live consecutively this way, and ended up with 625.

My second game went much better, but I'm still not very good at this.  I managed to get to the third round and score 4,900.  Total so far: 5,525.

Now I'm getting somewhere!  I managed to make the snake kill itself twice and made it to Round 4.  I even managed an extra life...which I then wasted due to hitting up instead of left.  8,250 for a grand total of 13,775.  Over a third of the way there on ONLY 3 quarters.

On my 4th quarter, I came up just short of my high score and got 7,750.  Four quarters in, and I'm over halfway there, 21,525!

On the 5th, I reverted to form and scored 550.  I really am really bad at this game.

Got my mojo back for my 6th game, 10,320, AND I reached level 2.  PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF:

Of course, level 2 SUCKS because you have to hit every platform twice.  I didn't even get out of the first round.  As a matter of fact, I only got about seven platforms before losing my last life.  32,395.

FINALLY, on my 7th quarter, I broke 37,000.  I lost my first 2 lives quickly, but recovered for a score of 5,150...giving me a grand total of 37,545.  So you give me 7,000 quarters and I will crush that dudes record.

Toki Tori: How good can a 49 cent game be?

I would be willing to bet that everyone who doesn't have Steam would have no idea what the hell Toki Tori was.  Heck, I have Steam and I had no idea what it was.  All I knew is that it kept popping up in my suggested games to buy during the last few Steam Sales.  After the 20th time seeing this, I decided to finally click on it to see what it was.

It turns out it was a puzzle platformer, and most importantly, it was 49 CENTS!  I immediately bought it, along with Heavy Weapon which was suggested with it (and also 49 cents!)  Then it sat, untouched for over a month (come to think of it, I haven't played Heavy Weapon, either). Today, I shall try to play it. 

When I first turned it on:

FUCKING LOUD!

The screen was loud and the music was decidedly louder than just about anything I've ever heard.  I turned the volume down to 30% just to get it to a normal volume.  After the ringing in my ears stopped, I started the game.

As I said, Toki Tori is a puzzle platformer.  You play a chick (the animal, not a woman) that is collecting eggs and you cannot jump or fly.  However, you do get items such as bridges, or teleportation pads to help you overcome this handicap.  It looks very nice, both in the background, and the foreground.  As the game goes on the puzzles get harder and harder, and once you beat all of the easy puzzles in a land, you move on to the next environment.

Overall, 49 cents was an amazing price for this game.  I played over 40 minutes, I was never bored, and the time flew by.  One the main menu page, there was an advertisement for Toki Tori 2.  If I'm done with Toki Tori, and the sequel is any less than, say, five bucks, I'll definitely be buying.  So next Steam Sale, check it out!

So, Euro Truck Simulator 2...

Nice, addictive, relaxing fun.

I put 8 hours into it this weekend, alone.

My only problem with it is a "me" problem in that I preferred the early few hours of the game when I was driving for other trucking companies, making money, but having no pressure. Now I own 2 trucks and have a driver working for me, and i have a €400,000 loan I have to pay off, so there more pressure on me to make the daily payments which takes away some of the relaxation.

Still, once that settles down, I can see me adding this to my list of games I play when I just want to wind down and listen to a podcast or two.

So I Hear The Lion King is Hard

Even though I grew up loving Disney movies, I can't recall a single video game I ever got for any of the movies that I watched over and over and over again.  Now that I'm (physically) grown up, I have the opportunity to make up for lost time and play some of these undiscovered (to me) gems.

After talking to a friend about The Lion King for Super Nintendo and how hard it was, I decided to read up on it a bit, because you see, this friend is not only female, but she doesn't play any video games.  Well, after reading up on it, it seems that there are a decent number of people out there who agree with her.  Now it's my turn.

I gotta say.  This game looks and sounds gorgeous.  But how does it play?

Well, first I come upon a lizard.  I easily bounce off his head.

Next, a porcupine.  I roar (I'm Simba as a kid, so it's more like a meow) at him.  He flips, I jump on him.  That wasn't bad at all.

Next, a bug.  This'll be easy.  Wait...I jumped off of him and he didn't die.  Now he EXPLODES.  WHAT THE FUCK?  There goes a third of my life. 

The collision detection is a little wonky in this game.  Just as I think I figure out where to jump on something, I hit what I assume is the same spot, and I lose some life.  This really comes out in the first boss battle with a hyena.  I jumped on the hump when he was tired, and it counted as a hit.  Good, I'll to that again.  Oops...that hurt me.  I tried two more places, and I was dead.  Luckily the next life, I got him in two hits.

I was rewarded with JAMES EARL JONES

This game really does look and sound cool.

Okay, after a mini-game where I catch 1 bug with Pumbaa.  I'm now in the song "I Just Can't Wait to Be King"  There's no enemies early on, just a bit of platforming.  I can do this.  After roaring at a couple of monkeys I get thrown on top of an ostrich.  After literally ten seconds, I start to wonder if I'm supposed to do something.  Well, suddenly and arrow points up...oooooh this is going to be like God of War.  I try pressing up, nothing.  So I jump, good...and I land on a pig and INSTADEATH.  There goes my last life.  This sucks.  Apparently the arrow was warning me to jump in like 5 seconds, not right away.

Apparently, there is 1 continue, so I use it.

I get to the ostrich again, and jump over the pig.  Good!  Next I duck a birds nest.  Then another pig.  Now there's TWO up arrows.  This must be double jump!  GUESS NOT!  I jump off the ostrich onto the ground and I'm dead again.  I have to do the whole level again to get to this spot.  Two up arrows, single jump.  HIT THE NEST.  One more try.  Get to the spot, double jump onto the nest?  Nope, that wasn't right either INSTADEATH.  Game over.

Rafiki looks disappointed in me.  Now I'm disappointed with myself.

Oh well.  Guess I'll have to try an easier game.  Lion King is too hard for me.

Hook!

Last night, I randomly found out that they made a Hook beat 'em up game for the arcade.  I decided at that moment that I MUST PLAY THIS.  Sadly, it was late and I'm old so I went to bed.  However, I made up for it today by playing it!

It was...fine.  You get to play as five characters from the movie including Peter Pan, Rufio and the fat kid.  Each of them have different power, reach, and speed.   I played most of the game as the fat kid as he is awesome in this game with max power, though little reach and speed. 

So the first level has an SNES version of the music from the movie, so I was really getting into it.  It was basic beat 'em up fare with pirates, but Hook music!  However, by the second level, the music got generic, and the game started to slowly regress into repetitive.  About the only interesting moment from stages 2-5 was the boss battle of 3 where you fight 2 Hook?s.  There is a nice little attention to detail, in that SPOILER just like Hook in the movie, the Hooks were wearing wigs, and they had to take time to pick it up when it came off.

Sadly, I was unable to capture the wig coming off as it was very quick when it happened.

 The game picks up again in the sixth and final stage with some cool little details, such as Smee running off with treasures (if you are able to hit him, he drops his sack along with at least half a dozen treasures), and the final battle occurring right near the crocodile, just like the movie.  Sadly, no ticking sound.

The sixth stage of the game really saved it for me.  I will definitely pick it up to play again some time, I'm sure.  It's about 40 minutes, so it's not a large time commitment. 

Super Mario RPG - First Impressions

So Clive has been mentioning Super Mario RPG a lot lately, so I start to realize that I never really played it much.  Since I have it, and since he keeps mentioning it, I may as well give it a chance.  Here's some first impressions I've had of the game:

So far, I'm liking the music.  The orchestrated classic Super Mario themes are excellent, and while upbeat, still feel very RPG-y.

Toad is dick.  I'm sick of him five minutes into the game.  Mind you, I'm saying this as someone who ALWAYS plays as Toad in any Mario Kart game.  Hopefully he gets less dickish, or I may have to shove a wrench up his ass.

It's kind of strange that Jump is a special power for Mario.  You would think that would be his regular attack, since it's always his regular attack in "real life." 

I like that you can select a bonus for leveling up, instead of just getting the generic boost.  Adds a tiny bit of customization to the game.

The Save Points thing bums me out.  I always wish there were more places to save the game in SNES and NES RPGs though.

So I have a crying frog in my party.  Yup.

The first half hour's been alright.  A little slow going, though.  I hope it picks up a bit, or I may be forced to abandoned it and get yelled at by Clive again. 

My Second Minecraft House

I went a little nuts with the glass.  So much so that there's an underwater viewing area...even though there's no visible fish in Minecraft.

Also...flat roof.

What the NRA game taught me about gun safety

Bad Dudes (Again?)

After some taunting from a dude named Clive, I decided I'd try Bad Dudes again...for Arcade!  The arcade version is called Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja and this title screen looks REALLY good (for, you know, 1989):

The game plays pretty much the same, but it looks good for 1988, so I slogged through it.  The fact that 99% of the non-boss or mini-boss enemies die in one shot kind of bored me after awhile.  It was fine early on in the game, but when I'm late in the game and I'm still cutting through dudes like butter, then it just gets ridiculous.  

The highlights for me were a boss that looked like Robocop and Sloth's lovechild

Whenever he lifted his arms to swing, I was waiting for him to shout "HEY YOU GUUUUUYS!" but he pretty much just said "DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR" every time.

The second highlight for me was the picture when the credits were rolling

Nuff said.