"Classic" Video Games

Okay, today I'm going to talk about really shitty games from the past that people consider "classics". Don't know what I'm talking about? Let me explain. There are people out there who call themselves "oldschool gamers" and play really old games while simultaneously closing their minds to new ones. They feed on nostalgia, it is what drives them and inspires them to live out their unproductive lives. They repeatedly play "classic" games like Galaxian and Altered Beast, not because these games are actually good, or even playable, but because they are old. It's really a weird way of thinking. I wonder if these same people would nail old ladies just because they're old.

Anyway, so I'm going to talk about some of these really shitty games that people consider classics. I've played these games, and some of them are even a part of my childhood, but even so, I'm going to rip them apart because they suck and I really can't fathom why anyone would want to play them in this day and age when we have so many good new games coming out of the wood-works.

Super Mario Bros. 2
This game is bad, I mean really bad. For starters, let me tell you the truth about this game. It's not even a Mario game. It was originally a Japanese-only game called Doki-Doki Panic, but the Western Hemisphere hated it so much that they didn't even want it released here. So, Japan just replaced all the sprites with mario sprites (excluding the enemies and bosses) and rereleased it as a "Mario" game. The Western gamers ate that right up. They won't accept a game about a bunch of people in turbans picking vegetables and throwing them at their enemies, but they'll take a game about Mario, Toad, Luigi, and the Princess doing the exact same shit anyday. Anyhow, back to why this game sucks. Since it's not even a mario game, it introduces a bunch of lame concepts that don't make any sense and completely remove everything that makes a Mario game. It doesn't contribute anything to the series because it's so damned obscure. In fact, the only thing I can confidently say that SMB2 has contributed to the series is the ability to pick things up. Only the mechanics for lifting in SMB2 and the games following it are completely different anyway so it doesn't even matter. Super Mario Bros 2 is such a bad game that none of the Mario games following it borrowed or took any elements from its gameplay. The enemies in SMB2 made appearances later on in Yoshi's Island 2, but never again, to my knowledge did Nintendo make another game with gameplay as hideous as SMB2. Even New Super Mario Bros, which was supposed to be a tribute to the original mario trilogy, didn't borrow anything from SMB2. That's how bad it is. I won't be a complete asshole to this game though, I gotta say, the only thing this game had going for it was the unique level design, that's it. But of course it was unique, it's not even a Mario game! The bosses were way too easy because they can't do shit when your'e throwing mushroom blocks, eggs, and vegetables in their direction (except Mouser, who has to be killed in a different fashion), and 90% of the enemies are boring as hell. Only a few of them actually tried to chase Mario & Co. for a change, but the rest of them were basically like Goombas and Koopa-Troopas only they couldn't be stomped in the regular Mario fashion. Super Mario Bros. 2 was a halfway decent game, but it was also a terrible Mario game.

Ice Climbers
This game sucks. I really don't think anyone ever liked this game, much less heard about it, until the protagonists made an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. The game's purpose is to make it to the top of the mountain and grab on to some pterodactyl-looking thing (see image). The only problem is, the mountain is more like a series of breakable platforms teeming with strange birds, polar bears in red shorts and shades, fuzzy things that turn ice into rocks, and vegetables. Why are these two eskimos climbing to the top of the mountain and picking vegetables? Why are there conveyor belts on a mountain? The world may never know. This game is all about jumping. That's right, just jumping. You jump to break blocks, you jump to kill airborne enemies, you jump to reach the top, and you jump to grab the pterodactyl's talons so you can fly on to the next stage. You're also equipped with a hammer, but that's only used for killing fuzzy things and polar bears. It really has no other use. Well, technically it does, since when you jump under a block it's supposed to be the hammer that's hitting it, but whatever. This game would be more fun if gamers were given some kind of incentive to beat it. At the end of every stage is the next stage, at the end of the last stage is the first stage. It would make a much better arcade game than it would a home entertainment game. There's multiplayer, but it's really no fun at all. It's about the same as passing the controller around every time someone dies. It doesn't even deserve to be called multiplayer. Don't get me wrong. Consecutive multiplayer can work in games like SMB3 and SMW, but with Ice Climbers it's just bland. You're just taking turns and it's boring as hell. I'd rather watch paint dry.

Paper Boy
This game disgusts me. It's just all around bad. I don't even know why I ever liked this game when I was four years old. I don't even want to talk about this game, but for your sake, I will. This game is about a kid who rides down the block delivering papers to his suburban neighborhood. The point of the game is to keep as many subscribers as possible. Red houses are not subscribed to your newspaper, while blue and white houses are. If you fail to deliver a newspaper to a house, it will terminate its subscription. Sounds easy, right? Well, at least it would be if it wasn't so god damned hard to deliver papers to these houses. In order to successfully deliver a paper, you have to press B in order to launch the paper to your left; it must then either hit the door of the house, or end up right in the mailbox. If you fail to do either, the delivery will not count. If you run out of newspapers you can pick up more off of front lawns. Which makes me wonder. If there are assloads of newspapers just sitting around in the suburbs, why do they need to hire this douche to deliver them? Just to spice up the game even more, they added obstacles as well. Obstacles include kids on skateboards, cars on the road to knock you the fuck out when you're not riding on the sidewalk, grown men riding on tricycles in their driveways, kids who look like they're trying to stand on their heads, yellow motorcycles, guys with jackhammers on the sidewalks, remote control cars with no one controlling them, sneaky tires that jump out from behind houses when you least expect it, dogs that chase you down until you crash, and lethal tornadoes that plague the sidewalks and front lawns of the suburbs. I should also mention that most of these obstacles can almost never be avoided because your bike has crappy steering and can only constantly move forward without the ability to stop or turn around. At the end of every run through the suburbs, you get to do a little bonus stage where you jump off ramps and stuff. It's really no fun though with the game's shitty controls. You can also score points for performing amazing feats like hitting an obstacle with a newspaper, like a grave mark (yes, there are people in this game who actually have gravemarks in front of their houses), or one of those kids doing handstands. You can't hit tornadoes though. I think the tornadoes exist just so we can't beat the game. It sucks.
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So there you go. These are just a few really old games that just outright sucked. There are alot more, but I don't feel like bitching about those right now.

Later.

Seven Things I Hate About Miami-Dade Public Transit

Let me start by saying that the transit kind of sucks here. I've been riding the trains and buses in this city for about three and a half years now, so I guess I should know. If you avoid these ten things, your transit experience should be heightened to an at least bearable level. Meaning it will still suck, but not as much.
The Filthy Floors - Sometimes I'm afraid to put down my bags and stuff because the floor looks like it might eat me alive. They do mop the floors, but from what I've seen, they just use water, no soap. And they don't change that water until the day is done. Just hold on to your shit. Putting it on the floor increases your risk of getting jacked anyway.
The Rancid Restrooms - I once had the pleasure of entering one of the restrooms at one of the train stations. The whole place smelled like urine and feces. That's right. Not just the toilet, the whole fucking place. There was also a phone in there for some reason. Yeah, right next to the shitter. The floor and the walls looked like they were coated in some sticky substance. The mirror was still intact though. Better than the mirrors at my school, that's for sure.

The Crowded Cars - Apparently the economy is getting really poor because now they only run four cars per train rather than the usual six. They do run six cars sometimes, but only during rush hours when people are going to and from work. These four-car trains get mad crowded, and often. If I haven't already mentioned this, I hate crowded places. Nothing makes me uncomfortable than being forced to be in close contact with three other people who I don't know for an extended period of time. And the fact that it's on a train only makes it worse.
The Slow Service - On weekends and during non-rush hours, the trains run infinitely slower. Seriously. If you miss your train you'll have to wait nearly an hour and thirty minutes for the next train to show up. You probably could have beat the train to the next station in that time. It's really ridiculous. One time I was headed for the station on a Saturday, when I saw the train zooming above me. I knew then that I had missed my train, so I hung around the mall east of the station for a while and still returned in time for the next train. It sucks.
The Gratuitous Graffiti - Being an artist, I can appreciate graffiti when it's put in the right places, looks good, and has actual artistic merit, but when it's just some asshole writing shit I cannot understand in a format I cannot understand, I just get annoyed. Seriously, these morons have no talent. I don't even think these thugs can afford spray-paint, because they usually scrape the stuff with knives or razors like prisoners. Some use sharpies, but that's a very rare occurrence. Common places where you'll see graffiti include windows, walls, seats, poles, benches, and sometimes doors. I'm surprised there wasn't any in the restrooms.
The Arid Advertisements - Welcome to Miami Dade Transit: Home of some of the most boring, uninteresting, unimaginative, poorly designed advertisements known to mankind. I found two particular recent ads to be very interesting though. One was an ad for a dental clinic that talked about how you can improve your smile. The lady on the ad (the dentist herself) looked very manly and had one of the ugliest smiles I've seen in a while. The irony was thicker than a stoner's skull. The other ad I found interesting was one from a group known as Calling Islam. It had a picture of a lady in scrubs and said at the bottom, "I am an American-Muslim Doctor," and then something about how the teachings of Islam say that being a doctor is a good thing, followed by a link to some site. I found the overall ambiguity of the ad to be irritating, as it looks utterly stupid from a distance. On a first glance, it appears that they're advertising their religion so their churches can get a little more jingle in their greasy pockets, so they're kind of initially getting the wrong message across. If you go to their site, though, you'll find that their cause is a lot less corrupt than one might think. They're only defending their religion, not advertising it.

The Inferior Enforcement of the Rules - Sorry, no alliteration this time. There are three rules on the trains. The two that are most commonly infringed upon are "no eating" and "no playing loud music". These days people just don't give a fuck, and will play their shitty, played out, weak Little Wayne music at full blast on their Ipods so that everyone on the bus or train car can hear it. I despise most of the music being made these days, so the degree of annoyance produced by this is exponentially higher than that of most things. People also like to eat their junk food on the train. This wouldn't be a big deal if the fatasses weren't so messy. If they aren't leaving crumbs, they're leaving wrappers all over the floor. It's gross. And that shit will sit there for weeks without being touched if it ends up in a corner. Because you know good and well that those janitors are not doing their best to find every single piece of trash on the trains and busses. The transit security is weak too. It's so easy to get in the stations without paying. Sometimes there will be nobody stationed at the turnstiles, so if you wanted to jump, you really could. Those knucklehead security guards are too busy bothering people who are sitting on light fixtures and fences to care.

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Remember how I said that if you avoid these seven things, you'll be fine? Well, I just realized that most of these things can't be avoided, so tough shit. If you're getting on transit, you'd better be a bad enough dude, or you may never come out alive. Don't worry, though. I lived, you can too.