You know, few people truly understand me. It may be from the fact that I don’t speak, let alone explain my reasonings. Do you think I enjoy headshotting grunts for hours a day using a high caliber sniper rifle? Don’t get me wrong, I do. Most of the time. Sometimes, I come home with a sore shoulder or blown ear drums or yet another set of plasma burns. Trust me, that gets old really quick. Then, of course there’s the occasional misfired rocket. You try sleeping with the feeling of falling at terminal velocity and you might know how I feel. So, next time you slide Halo 3 in and pick up a controller, try to consider I might want to have a day to myself.

All right, I’m willing to admit it. Let’s chalk the “Gourmet Race” up as one of my worst ideas ever.

I thought I had everything set up nicely. I figured that my opponent would be distracted by all the food in such obscure places. That would give me a chance to run the straightest path to the goal and grab the moderate amount of stuff that was along the way. I made sure that winning the actual race was worth a lot more than just the food. The thing is, though, for a blob that does nothing but eat and float, Kirby is… a lot faster than you would think. He ate EVERYTHING! AND he won!

Look at what it’s done to me! I’m burning a lot of energy out there with no food to make up for it! I must have lost at least 15 pounds since we started. Or maybe it was 50… For a heavy weight fighter like me, I need that weight to throw around! Bowser’s laughing at me somewhere, I just know it.

I need to go back and re-think this. There are some serious adjustments that need to be made. Maybe I should add some secret food-heavy tunnels that you can’t get into without a hammer… Would that be enough to tip things in my favor?

Okay… So a Gourmet Race sounded like a good idea at first, but it turns out there’s some problems you wouldn’t think of until you try it…

I love the idea of it–you run around and eat as much as you can in a competition. Should be great, right? Well, sometimes you have to eat things so quickly you don’t even get a chance to taste them. And considering how fast I like to eat, that’s saying something!

The other problem is that once I eat, I usually like to take a second to… you know, enjoy it? Savor the taste, let it start to digest, stuff like that… You don’t get a chance to do that while you’re racing. Even when you finish, you usually have to go straight to the next race before you get a chance to rest. After the last one, I got sick for the first time in, well, ever! (I think…) All that good food gone to waste…

I didn’t even want it to be a race in the first place. That just sort of happened when I got there. I was looking forward to a leisurely stroll through a buffet, not a crazy anything-goes foot-race… Can we make it a walking race next time? Please?

It may seem simple enough. You invade a country, capture a princess, things like that. But the things that you go through behind the scenes are hard.

Running Hyrule while some kid in a green tunic is ruining your plans is not simple. Especially when you go through all the trouble of releasing those things.

Have you ever tried to revive an ancient fire dragon while at the same time trying to organize your minions? Or release a monster amoeba to freeze a race of people under a block of ice?

It isn’t easy. And when the hero comes and destroys all the work you’ve done, it’s aggravating. There are a lot of times where I wish I could have just gone out to find Link before he had what it took to defeat me. But I was always busy with other things. If it wasn’t letting yet another monster out, it was making sure all of my minions were in the right place.

And there’s another thing. Building the dungeons. It’s costly. If not by money, by your resources. If I had my way, Link would have to go through a hundred dungeons before even thinking about being able to fight me.

You’d think that having taken over the land, you wouldn’t have to worry about how much money you’re using. But the workers refuse to give me anything without mind numbing prices! And I can’t just kill them because I can’t get all those resources myself!

And then building the places takes even more time! And once the hero gets in there, he starts destroying walls, killing all the minions I assigned to the place, and defeating the monster I had set free there! And don’t even get me started on my castle. Almost every time, I have to build it from scratch. And I have to make sure it’s menacing, but at the same time, elegant. It costs a lot to get so much red carpet to place on the stairs.

When you first look at me, you don’t see much, do you? I don’t look like a threat to anyone, and even when I’ve tried to be intimidating and get right in someone’s face, I’ve heard them say it was just like having a bug in their face once my back was turned. (That sort of talk hurts, by the way. Knock it off.)

I don’t need to be big or threatening to be useful, though. You non-smalls out there probably never even think about the sorts of things I can do every day. Sure, I’m pretty good about helping you keep an eye on swift creatures that would hurt you, and I can tell you everything you want to know about them (and lots of stuff you didn’t even know you wanted to know, too!), but I can do a lot more than that. See, think like a spy. I can fit effortlessly into places where most people don’t even realize there are places. I can navigate through an airway or behind some old bookshelves, look around, get a feel for the area, listen in on a conversation, and report back before anyone even realizes I was there!

On that note, you’d be surprised just how invisible I can be. I can float around a corner and watch and listen, and nobody ever pays attention to me! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve peeked around a corner, saw a bunch of monsters suddenly turn in my direction and start coming, and warn the person I’m with! I mean, that always happens JUST in time! It’s even funnier when I fly right in between people who are having a conversation, and they don’t even seem to notice I’m there. You wouldn’t think they could miss a floating ball of light with wings, but for whatever reason, they ignore me completely!

Which brings me to another useful thing I can do! Stuck in a dark place? Not a problem if you’ve got me by your side, because I make my own light! The only fuel I need is my food, and that’s something most non-fairy folks can’t even see. (It’s tricky to describe it–it’s sort of like snow that hangs in the air and can be found in patches here and there… and it exists pretty much everywhere you go, so you can take me anywhere and I’ll be fine!) Every once in a while, I see a dark room with a twisted pathway that’s supposed to trick people into falling because they can’t see where they’re going. This is such an easy one for me. All I have to do is fly around, figure out where the path is, and lead my partner along it.

There is one other nice thing about being small and quick… It sometimes happens that someone or something tries to attack me. They never even come close.

Now, there’s just one thing I need to work on… Every now and then while I’m spying on people, I have a tendency to shout something out and give away my location… Still struggling with that one.

Those executives and their secrets… It’s getting so it’s hard to leak anything to the public anymore. Well, your speculation is as good as mine at this point, but we know for certain that Nintendo is releasing a new console soon.

To whom it may concern:
Re: Wii’s successor system
Nintendo Co., Ltd. has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii, which the company has sold 86.01 million units on a consolidated shipment basis between its launch in 2006 and the end of March 2011.
We will show a playable model of the new system and announce more specifications at the E3 Expo, which will be held June 7-9, 2011, in Los Angeles.
Sales of this new system have not been included in the financial forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012.

There’s lots of rumors flying around about this “Project Café”, so allow me to clarify a little bit of what we know for sure that we know (or at least we think we do).

The controller will have a six-inch touch screen. We don’t know exactly what the final model will look like, but it’s thought to look something like this. That screen should be usable for streaming games right into it, so there’s some potential there.

It will still be compatible with Gamecube and Wii games. No word on transferring data from the old Wii, so don’t go trading it in just yet.

It should be a more powerful machine. They’re saying something along the lines of PS3 kind of power.

Most interestingly, they say they intend to appeal to “hardcore gamers”. Now nobody is sure if that means people who want a powerful system with super-sweet graphics, or if it means people who want longer, tougher games. Either way, though, they’re breaking away from the casual market. When you think about it, they don’t really have a choice.  I’ve talk to a few folks I know from Toad Town about this. As long as they’re not having problems, they’ve got no reason to trade in their Wiis for something new. The hardcore crowd is the only group that will be after this, so yeah, we kinda need to cater to them for a bit.

I’ll be excited to see what direction this goes, but they’re still not telling me anything, so we’ll just have to wait and see what unfolds.

All right, so there are these things called hacks out there, all right? They change how a game works. See, the problem with that doesn’t really come into play for you gamers. Sure, it might mess up your game a bit, crash the console, whatever, but think of us for once, okay? Next time you want to change how I look so you can play as someone who looks a bit like Jeff, don’t, all right? His glasses are so thick that they stop bullets in mid-flight. My eyes hurt for hours afterwards.

I mean, sure, if you want different music options and the like, fine, be my guest. We need more music. But for the love of all things holy, stop messing with us characters. We work our butts off daily to give you gamers a good time, usually by beating each other up. We’d really appreciate you making sure that we can wake up the next morning without a new face and inhumanly long, spindly legs. It took Dr. Mario a half hour to get Pikachu to recover from a heart attack when someone implemented the Pikaman hack the first time.

And Peach, Samus, and Zelda? They work ten times as much because they’re the only girls in the roster. Every fanboy that wants his fictional crush in Brawl is going to use one of them, with a few exceptions.

I’d give a few examples of the ‘exceptions’, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy by Ganondorf and Wolf. They don’t like me talking about that stuff, for some reason. I mean, they shouldn’t, it was against their will! They could milk this for publicity! Except they’re just sooo preoccupied with the ‘tough guy’ look. I mean, geez, dressing up like Colette Brunel isn’t all that bad, Ganon! You could have had to do Sheena like Wol-

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I’ve just fought off a feral Wolf here… and I’m typing this with one hand. I’m going to see if Dr. Mario can regenerate arms. Toodle-oo.

“Don’t go fight Sephiroth.” “You’re not ready to fight Sephiroth.” “Sephiroth is sooo hard to beat.”

So I don’t always listen to you, fine, but you know what? I want to make my own mistakes. And you know what? I have. I’ve made a lot. That’s right, a lot, how many of your friends did you have killed today?

I thought so. Now shut up and listen.

I will tell you right now, Sephiroth is not scary, not difficult, and definitely not a threat to humanity. This monster couldn’t attack a stone statue. (trust me, I know. Tifa has been petrified for half an hour, the useless… … Anyway.)

Sephiroth is a vain minded, beauty motivated, egotistical, brain dead, pansy. I’ve been fighting him for an hour and let’s take a look at his last 10 moves: heal, heal, heal, attack (for 800 damage), heal, heal, heal, heal, heal, and heal. Thats right. In the past 10 minutes he has attacked me for 800 damage and healed himself for over 60,000 health points.

Tifa is frozen and I think Yuffie is taking a nap. (Insert eye-roll here.) Barret, Vincent, and I are actually doing pretty well together as a team. That said, for every 5000 damage we do, Sephiroth heals for 6500+. This guy is harmless. I say we leave him in this crater and go enjoy the rest of our lives on a nice beach. Goodness knows we’ve collected enough gil by now.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to release Bahamut on Tifa and then get out of here.

Well, if you saw the princess’s castle from the outside, you’d think it was a sturdy, well-built, artistic piece of architecture made to last for ages, right? It looks pretty nice from the inside, too. They really went all-out with the stained glass windows, plush carpets, ceiling-hangings, fancy mirrors, and all those portraits. So… I ask you… Why didn’t they spring for a decent set of bricks?!

I know they don’t look that bad. They keep them nice and white-washed and everything. Still, just underneath that shiny exterior, the sturdiness is a joke. It’s better in some places than in others, but it needs constant repairs just to stay standing! Who do you think is responsible for those repairs? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not a Hammer Bro.

When I’m at home, I usually shudder when it starts raining. I just have to hope nothing comes apart before I get a chance to fix things up. We’ve had more walls fall apart because of rain than we’ve had attempted break-ins. Repair’s not an easy job, either. I sometimes have to glue broken pieces back together, then wedge them back into place. There have been times when I’ve tried to seal things up only to find out that there was no cement holding that section together in the first place! I don’t know what contractor we called to build the castle in the first place, but he seriously got paid too much.

You might think this is the sort of thing I’m not supposed to talk about publicly, but it’s no secret. The Mushroom Kingdom castle is the joke of the royalty in the surrounding areas. I remember once there was a large gathering where–for no apparent reason–the entire North wall fell apart like a bunch of Legos. Everyone just stopped talking and watched it. And you’d think the birds outside were just waiting for it to happen, because they were awfully quick to swoop in and help themselves to the refreshments.

I’m no fan of lousy masonry, but if there’s one good thing that comes from it, it’s this: all the money they don’t spend to buy better bricks goes straight to me.

This is an outrage! I thought I was doing well in Megaman 9 and 10. I thought I had impressed them in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with my special attacks. But no, I’m ended up being excluded from Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

I mean, it wasn’t bad in Tatsu-whatever vs. Capcom, one of my advanced forms appeared in it as a playable fighter, alongside Zero. But in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I was never featured! This is the first time they excluded the series’ main hero in their entire history.

I understand why Tron had to stay, but why does ZERO get to stay? He’s not Mega Man! Just because his colors can be changed to Mega Man X’s doesn’t make him the hero of the entire series.

You know another mistake Capcom made? I’m replaced, but they let a zombie and a zombie killer fight? Chris may be good defeating zombies, but his weapons are barely a match against the others. Seriously, he’ll be squashed by the Hulk’s gigantic hands after 1 second after the battle started.

WHAT WAS CAPCOM THINKING!?!

If they make one more mistake like that, I hope Nintendo will let me move to their side and hopefully appear in the next Smash Bros.

…

(Why do I bother posting this? Most of the writers don’t even know about the Marvel vs. Capcom series…)

Okay, now some people (who will remain nameless, Meta Knight) have been asking me why I use such an ‘impractical’, ‘dishonorable’ and ‘clunky’ weapon as a hammer. And why I don’t use a more ‘honorable’ and ‘king-like’ weapon such as, say, a sword.

Listen. I’m the king. I’m not going to let whats-his-face-orn or whosit-idas tell me how to be a king. A king that lets someone tell him what to do ain’t a king, he’s just some idiot with a crown! No! I’m a king, a true ruler. And I wanted to forge my own legacy, and I chose the hammer to do that with for a good couple reasons.

First of all, those little hammer things that judges use? Gravels? No, gales? No… okay, gavels! That’s what they’re called. Anyways, those things, when they come on down on the little wood thingy (I’m not up to looking that up too – does that even have a name, anyways?) then that pronounces justice! That’s what my hammer shows my (mostly) loyal subjects – that I am justice in the kingdom, strong, firm, even-handed justice.

Also, my subjects are usually pretty loyal, subservient folk, but what about when you’ve got to lay down some obedience-inspiring blows around the place? If you’ve got a sword, then pretty soon you won’t even have subjects for long, amirite or amirite? With a huge wallopin’ hammer like mine, you can hold back just a tad and your subjects know who’s in charge.

Finally, can you honestly see me with a sword? It’d have to be a big ol’ sword, something like that Cloud kid’s got, and even then that’s kinda sketchy, y’know? A hammer, a big thing like I’ve got, now that says strength and power.

Once you’ve got all that added up, all that my hammer represents: justice, obedience, and power, well, what does that spell? It spells king, in big, bold letters.

KING

Like so.

Crud! I am sooooooo MAD! I can’t stop thinking about that stupid New Pork City fight!

I can’t figure it out! Things were going so well at first! I mean, sure, Ness had the upper hand for a while, and there was that Deku Nut incident, but we got that turned around pretty fast. Kirby got off his Final Smash, and we planned it out, so I was able to dodge that no problem. Actually, I kind of suggested that as a ploy. I wanted the food that I knew would come from it to recover from everything that happened so far. That way I’d be able to finish Kirby in short order.

I lost sight of him after that, but I had something else on my mind. I’d wanted to use a Pokeball before (when I wound up with a Deku Nut instead), and I still wanted to break one out. I left Kirby to his own devices and started to scour around for items (which are always a bit scarce after that Final Smash for some reason).

There was a pause in there, and usually I don’t like it when that happens, but it gave me a chance to spot a crate. As soon as things got moving I bolted over there to break it open, and I spotted Kirby run past me from behind. “Oh, sweet!” I thought, “Now I know right where he is! He’s gonna be sooo–”

My thoughts were interrupted by more teeth of larger size than I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m still not entirely sure where they came from, what they were doing there, or how that thing managed to sneak up on me so perfectly, but I did figure out one thing. It was KIRBY’S FAULT! He led that thing right to me!

I tell ya, next time we step into the ring, it’s not gonna be pretty!

That fight at New Pork City was quite a fiasco. I was doing great for the first part of it! I managed a hit with a full-power PK Flash, recovered a bunch of damage thanks to a Fire Flower I saw coming, and got a Final Smash in! I even managed to grab a Pokéball from behind Sonic’s back. He thought he had it, but he grabbed a Deku Nut instead. He was pretty close to Kirby when he threw, so they were both left reeling, and I just couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

But that was probably a mistake on my part. I was getting some pretty fierce looks from both of them after that, and before I knew it, they were ganging up on me. I’ve… never had a real appreciation for how fast Sonic is until that moment in time. I mean, he doesn’t really have any way to attack someone from a distance (which I’m pretty good at), but WOW! Does he know how to close that distance fast!

And I can’t figure out the next part at all. Kirby used his Final Smash, and Sonic dodged it! Working together is one thing, and I know Sonic’s fast, but how could he possibly dodge that?!

That was enough to do me in, so I’m not really sure what happened after that. I guess I got what was coming to me in the end there, but that won’t stop me from coming back stronger next time!

Just one more thing, though. What does Kirby PUT in that pot? That’s WAY too hot for boiling water!!!

Boy, today was not what I expected to happen.

I was fighting in New Pork City against Sonic and Ness, and I kept on getting K.Oed most of the time. A funny part about it is that Sonic threw a Deku Nut at me, but he said that he thought it was the Pokeball that he was about to throw. He probably forgot to check, since the items in Brawl appear randomly at the wrong time. Ness started to laugh at us for our mistakes that we caused. Sonic and I both got mad, and he let me use my Final Smash to knock Ness out, and help ourselves with the food coming out of the pot.

While I wasn’t looking, however, a weird monster with the yellow birdie on top tried to attack me. I had to dodge very wildly, not knowing the right way to dodge. I tried to stop and rest, but the monster was getting closer. I soon tripped, and the monster opened his mouth to start chewing me up, but then everything froze. Nothing moved. I couldn’t move, but neither could the monster.

The player must’ve pressed the pause button.

Everything was still, except for the background music.

As the player pressed the pause button again, I quickly dodged the big brute’s mouth, and led the monster to Sonic, who didn’t saw the monster pounce at him. He was knocked out of the screen, and I won.

So now I will apoligize to Sonic and Ness for defeating them.

No hard feelings, Ness and Sonic?

That’s right. I eat pie. I love pie. I just can’t get enough pie.

I’m a pie snob. A connoisseur of pastries. (You don’t become the King of the Koopa’s by eating salads and munching lettuce.)

Now, I have some of the best pie and pastry cooks hidden away in my various castles. At least, that’s why I try to keep them. Until someone gets it in his mind that he wants some cake. (I won’t make a cake joke here, but I know you’re thinking it.) A good Peach pie is much better than one of her cakes.

When you’re king, you really get a taste for food. You know what’s good and what’s not. You get treated to the finest dining in the whole created universe. A low brow plumber doesn’t know a thing about food, and if all he is craving is a little of Peach’s cake, he doesn’t deserve her desert. In fact I bet the christmastwins would think a cake mix from the local Orb-Mart is the best thing they ever tasted.

Please, I’d rather eat dirt a Yoshi sat on. You’d get better results deep frying some sawdust and serving it with bad milk.

But hey, you all want to side with the tail sprouting pseudo doctor, be my guest. It’s not like I would share any of this good food with you anyway.

I’m sorry to say there isn’t much going on here today. It seems a number of internal issues have been slowing things down. Namely, your beloved site runners have scheduled some sort of showdown, and many posters here are too excited about it to talk about anything that’s actually interesting. Meanwhile, there’s chaos on the back end of things as Russian spy robots are attempting to overthrow order and take everything that isn’t nailed down. (It wouldn’t be such a difficult thing to deal with if they weren’t so good at blending into a crowd… But those eye lasers of theirs are quite nasty.)

At any rate, things should be more or less back in order this time next week. You would have my apologies, but I’m still trying to discern the robots from the rest of you.

Hm… Maybe I should put out a bounty…

There will be brawl,
Fighting a battle on
Final Destination,
Powerful heroes and ferocious demons,
Creatures of various backgrounds,
Characters never forgotten.
Friend and Foe
Fighting in the advancing dusk.

Rapid arrows hover above,
And Damaged opponents transform into
Fallen trophies.

Forever the brawl continues,
Unaware of the fallen and hurt,
Unaware of losing their lives.
Unaware of fighting an evil monster,
Who would soon become a friend.
Unaware of losing to a ally,
Who will become your foe.
Unaware of becoming champions,
They struggle to survive.

Through day and night,
Dusk ’till dawn,
Sunny or cloudy,
Rain or hail,
The brawl continues.

But no matter how long a fight,
How deadly a battle,
How horrifying the circumstances,
There is only one champion.

The true champion…

Is the player that can control it.

Earlier this week, I decided to rent Super Paper Mario. I just wanted to see what the hubbub was about, I didn’t intend to get all the way through it. The game turned out to be a lot shorter than I expected, though.

It looked like it had a lot of back-story. (Well, a lot for a Mario game, anyway.) It took about 5 minutes before I got control of anything; everything before that was setting up the plot. That’s what I thought, anyway.

The first control I got was a guy asking me if I wanted to save the world. I just chose the natural choice. “Of course not! I don’t wanna!” What happens next? It’s the end of the game. I’m told the world will be destroyed, and I see “Game Over” on my screen. I paid five dollars to rent this?! And there are people who pay fifty to buy it?! What kind of lousy game are they trying to pass off, here?

I don’t know where all those pictures from the back of the box are coming from. And now I think those people are ridiculous for saying how great a game this is. What kind of game gives you one yes-or-no question after five minutes of build-up? There’s not even anywhere to save! Why do they have save files if you can’t/don’t need to save? They’re wasting a perfectly good story here, I gotta say. Meh, but maybe it was just a joke story since it never really went anywhere.

I doubt I’ll be renting that one again for a while. Next time I do, though, maybe I’ll try saying yes just to see what happens. Probably just some other short ending.

I like to think I’m a pretty good fisherman. I caught the record-breaking fish at the local pond, and the owner is pretty good himself. That sounds like it says something.

But even pros have mishaps sometimes, and this one almost makes me feel like I never had any idea what I was doing. See, the owner keeps the biggest fish ever caught (mine) in a tank on the front counter. I stood ready to cast, with my back to the counter. Somehow, I let the line go on the back-swing. The owner dodged it like a ninja, but it landed in that tank.

If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the fish took the bait. As a kind of reflex, I jerked on the rod trying to get it out of there. I set the hook by mistake. So now, here I was with my biggest fish ever hooked in a tiny tank on a counter. I had no idea what I was supposed to do now. Do I try to reel in that monster of a fish, even though that means dragging it across the ground? Do I try to walk over and get the hook back?

The owner was no help at all, by the way. I don’t think he even realized what happened at first, but when he did, he couldn’t stop laughing. I heard him yelling out fishing instructions, like “Give it some slack!” and things like that.

I tried to walk over while reeling so the fishing line wouldn’t end up all over the ground. Um… the fishing line broke. After that, the owner was finally willing to step in and get it back from the fish, but really, the whole incident left me feeling pretty embarrassed.

I’m not sure if this incident tops the time one of the fish jumped out of the pond and swallowed Navi or not, but it’s certainly one of the more memorable stories.

Okay, I’ve been at Donkey Kong Country Returns for a while now, and BOY! Am I mad!

Don’t get me wrong, things started off just fine. DK and I were having a blast taking down anyone who got in our way. I had my Rocket Barrels and Peanut Popgun, so I was kind of running circles around him. Tried not to make him feel too bad.

Then we got to the tough levels. It was getting kind of insane for both of us to navigate everything and still stay together, and DK was having trouble making it at all, so I hopped up on his back and used my Rocket Barrels to help him out. I felt… just plain useless up there! I went from buddy to backpack in an instant!

I didn’t sign up for this just to be a spectator! I wanted to get in there and help! In the old Donkey Kong Country games, I was the more agile one, so I usually took the lead, and DK was at least able to follow me. Now I feel like I’m just watching from the sidelines! I mean, yeah, I’m right there and everything, but I’m not getting any exercise or stomping bad guys or grabbing coins or anything! Nothing but trying to hang on!

The whole situation is a step backwards if you ask me. Next time I wanna be the one who does all the cool stuff! We’ll see how DK likes riding on my back! (Oh, wait a second…)

Okay, can I just say that I think Donkey Kong Country Returns is the best idea ever?!

All right, all right. Maybe it’s not the best idea ever. I sort of miss the action I saw from DK64. But it’s still a lot cooler than some of the recent games I’ve been getting. No need to worry about pounding the heck out of a pair of drums, because I get to pound the heck out of EVERYTHING ELSE!!!

It’s awesome to have the feel of the old Donkey Kong Country games back. I mean, if you think about it, the last time I was really playable in one of those was the original! That was years ago! But the fact that they brought back some of the old songs from that game really makes me feel like I haven’t been gone at all. They found some cool uses for lots of old favorite things, like the Banana Coins and the KONG letters. I can’t get enough of those Banana Potions at the old man’s shop. (Now if I could just figure out some kind of secret to get rid of him…)

But I think what I like most of all is the way Diddy and I can play together. Sure, the two-player cooperative thing is a nice touch, but when he’s on my back, you really get the best of both of us. It really feels like playing both of us at once!

There’s really not much bad I have to say about this game. See if you can stomp on a bunch of foes in a row–good things start to happen after 3!

I’ve got to get this off of my chest: I feel like my fan base has really turned it’s back on me. I mean, I know you guys and gals love me, but you have NOT been showing it lately.

OK, so now everyone is freaking out. “OMG, did we miss his birthday?” (Yes.) “What new Dedede game did we miss? Which voice actor don’t we know about?” No, no, no, no, it’s nothing like that. Everyone knows what I’m talking about. They’ve all seen it, heard about it, and about 87% of you lifeless nerds have played it. Rather, played them.

I’m talking about the Super Smash Brothers series.

The first game was pretty cool. I thought it had a decent amount of characters with different abilities. My favorite was probably Link, or maybe Captain Falcon. However, something bugged me about it a lot. I was supposed to be in it.

Did you see playable Dedede? No?

Then we’re on the same page.

I was pretty offended to see that I wasn’t on there. I mean, it’s one blasted thing to not be a starting character, but to not even be unlockable!? In a game with 12 heroes and no villains, they didn’t put me, a king, in. I easily could have replaced Jigglypoof ball, Zoshi, or the lochNess loser. But instead of me, a familiary face, Nintendo puts in a few lesser known, less cool characters.

Eventually, I got over it. I mean, it’s only the best game ever and I’m not in it.

Well, next they made Super Smash Brother Melee. I didn’t really like this one as much, but it was still fun. New options, more characters, and some fun events.

AND STILL NO DEDEDE!!!

I mean, I was on the board to be put in. Why not? They gave Mario and Link villains, but no Dedede. They put in stupid characters like Gdub and those girly Fire boys, but didn’t put me in! They where even going to put in a third party character, Solid Anteater before me. MEEEE!

This time, I didn’t get over it. You wonder why Kirby had no real games on the big TV consoles during that time? It’s because I went on strike.

Then Nintendo grew a brain and FINALLy put me in a game. It was great. More characters, options, and ME! New bosses and modes, a decent story, and ME! More items, online play, and METAKNIGHT! This is all anyone could ever want in a game.

And then you mustard-gobbling Sith Lord wanna-be ink-headed losers call it the worst game in the series? What?

WHAT!!

WUT!!!!!

I don’t care if it has a few flaws in it. If we all forgot how to walk. I’M FINALLY IN A GAME! IT IS THE BEST ONE YET!

And if you dare call yourself a fan of mine, you’d better agree. If my fans’ opinions don’t change; if you don’t all see how shortchanged I’ve been by both Nintendo and some of you, then I’m going to retire again. For good.

I’m not joking (no jk).

So get your stupid acts together, and Dedede spam the crap out of the online Smash Bros Brawl Community.

P.S.: It’s April 17, 1992.

Hello my fast friends and slow fans.

Just wanted to be THE FIRST to wish you a Happy New Year!

As we begin another year I just want you know that I haven’t lost the touch. Some people have been saying I need to give up the saga for years already. But I’m still the fastest character SEGA has ever made and I still got years of life left in me! Maybe even decades!

Anyway, just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year. Hope it’s a good one!

Catch ya laters!

Well now I’ve seen everything. (Well, not everything everything, but you know what I mean.) I stomped on a Koopa Troopa and knocked him out of his shell. He was right next to a pipe when it happened, so he slid right into it with his shell right next to him. I expected that he would just jump right back into it, but he didn’t. Instead, he just kicked it and sent it rolling! For like, no reason! I wasn’t even in the direction he was kicking it!

I can only wonder what might have been going through his head when that happened. Why would you kick your sole source of armor off a cliff when there’s nothing to be gained by it? Maybe he just didn’t have his wits about him yet, and thought I was over there. Maybe he was fed up with his job and getting stomped all the time, and he was just blowing off some steam. Heck, maybe he was an angsty teenager who was saying, “Take this, world! See if I care!” or something like that.

Well, looks like it’s time to un-pause. I’ll bet the next thing I do will be to stomp him again now that he doesn’t have his shell! Oh, um… I guess this will be one of those stomps that makes me feel guilty about it later…

I always thought Nintendo was getting worse and worse with their new-fangled technologies coming out. I suppose I can understand adding more buttons to a controller, long as they’re all within easy reach. Not sure I’m ever gonna forgive ‘em for that broken-looking control stick they added on, or for the button hidden on the other side of that handle, but I guess they straightened it up a bit after that. But really, if they had to add even more buttons, shouldn’t they have at least kept them as buttons, instead of adding another control stick on the other side? Seriously, make up your minds, people!

This next generation of consoles is going even further out of bounds, what with their clunky motion detection controls, and their fancy touch screens… When I was in my prime, touching the screen could get you thrown out of the arcade! And I tell ya, these motion controllers have got somethin’ against me! My old trembling hands could handle those older controllers well enough (just well enough), but these new games always think I’m trying to activate some shake-based ability or something.

But now that I’m starting to see what the competition is, I’m stunned. Stunned that someone could take it in an even more bizarre direction. When I’m browsing channels at night looking for westerns, I’m running across commercials where people are falling all over themselves and calling it controls. Well, you’d better hope falling on the ground is some kind of super-ultimate-combo (or whatever you kids call ‘em), because if I have to put my cane down to play, that’s about all I’ll be doing. And I can only imagine how easy it would be to cheat with two-player simultaneous play…

What really got me going today was this commercial I saw where people were playing a racing game by pretending to hold giant steering wheels. Now, people… I’ve thought you looked ridiculous playing those games for some time now, and I’ve stood silently by and let you play however you wanted. But this… pretending you’re holding an imaginary steering wheel as a controller? Even Nintendo’s over-sized plastic accessory is a better choice than that! If you really want your game to be “immersive”, you should be able to feel what you’re supposed to be touching.

It still all seems like a bunch of balderdash to me, but I expect to see a little more effort out there from now on! How about an upgraded version of the Zapper? One that still doesn’t need a sensor bar, please…

It has been a while, but when I came back from Patchland (yep, that’s where I have been, due to a evil wizard named Yin-Yarn, who had sent me to Patchland in a magic sock, and transformed me into yarn, but that problem’s taken care of), there happened to be a lot of arguments from the main Nintendo Characters.

First off, I agree with Ness that us “little heroes” should have more games (That also goes to the Ice Climbers and Lucas).

Link should also have more games, but do sports and party games really fit the medieval time in Hyrule? That’s up to Link.

True, Mario’s appeared in a lot of games, but that doesn’t mean that I disagree with him. His games are famous throughout the years, and it isn’t going to change.  Still, I sometimes wish I was a playable character in Mario Kart, but it doesn’t really matter…

If that wasn’t bad enough, then there’s Samus with her complaint on me!

Kirby goes around shoving everything he sets eyes on into his mouth (without washing it off first). What kind of plot is that?

Sure, my games aren’t as “advanced and hardcore” as hers, but really? Even after in Kirby Dreamland 3, when I got rid of those Metroids for you, you still dare say something like that? (If you don’t believe me, here’s a link. http://www.kirbysrainbowresort.net/info/cameos/samus.html )

But my plot isn’t always about eating. Sometimes I had to be used as a pinball to pass though the level. Another time is that I needed the help of a stylus to get around because my arms and legs were removed. Then in this year’s Kirby’s Epic Yarn, air passed through me when I tried to inhale! That, miss, was really annoying. Luckily I always had a plan to “improvise” in those games. Plus, if I never ate that Time Badge in Subspace, you would still be a trophy! If you don’t remember, other games also have to eat to survive. I mean, if there were no mushrooms in the Mario games, he would have never saved the princess. If Link never that those heart cookies (or whatever they are), he would die immediately. Even Pac-Man needs food to pass through the levels. Speaking of plot, most Nintendo characters at least know who their parents are! I mean, if I  knew where I had come from, I wouldn’t be called a “puffball” or a “marshmallow”.

*sigh* If only my canceled SNES game Kid Kirby wasn’t canceled.

Anywho, I’m not taking sides on this. Besides, it’s the season to be happy, not to be mad at each other. So then I’ll forgive Samus if she forgives me back.

Has anyone seen Navi around here? I’m trying to stay clear of her as much as I can right now… I mean, she just does NOT stop talking when she gets going lately! Just because I don’t say much doesn’t mean I want to hear EVERYTHING going on in her mind! Eh, but enough about that…

I’ve been having days where I feel like I’ve been reduced to nothing more than a delivery boy. I mean, I don’t really mind gathering mystical artifacts to bring them to a holy location. Getting to travel around like that is really cool, and I really love checking out all the ancient temples and everything. Sure, there are monsters lurking around the corners, but once you learn to deal with them, it’s surprisingly peaceful down there.

But what I was getting at is the fact that I’ve had to run around bringing things to people all over the world. All kinds of things, from rusty tools to letters they don’t want to pay to deliver to strange mushrooms to empty bottles, and I’m pretty sure I had to deliver a living but frozen frog in there somewhere. It’s just becoming ridiculous lately!

I don’t mind carrying a lot of gear all the time, but does that really mean I need to carry it for other people? And delivering things isn’t really my specialty. I make mistakes sometimes. Now and then I just have to leave a bag at someone’s door and be on my way. I’ve had a few people chase me down saying, “What happened to the magic dust you were supposed to bring my sister?” or “I didn’t ask you for a hen! What am I supposed to do with this?!”

Listen folks, just because I travel all over the place on a regular basis doesn’t mean I should be the one who takes your stuff there with me. Why are you trusting heirlooms and potion ingredients to a guy like me, anyway? I know I’ve got a trustworthy face, but seriously, I could take this for myself and you’d never see it again. Maybe you’ve got busy lives, but who’s busier than a guy trying to save the world? You’ve got legs. You’ve got horses. You’ve even got a way to send letters to each other. If you want to return that book to your friend you haven’t seen in ages, why not actually go visit them for a while? You’ll enjoy it a lot more than me coming back two weeks later and saying, “Yeah, he was doing all right.”

And when I do take time out of my day to help you out, it wouldn’t hurt you to tip me or share a meal or something. I’d probably be a little more inclined to help with whatever you want next if you give me some kind of incentive.

HEY! Listen! Blogging While Paused is making a comeback!

Look! After two years of inactivity, people are finally starting to gather and share their experiences on this site again! I wonder where Link is right now? He likes to know about this sort of thing!

I’ve been told to expect something new every week or so. I can’t wait to hear about what’s going on in everyone’s lives! There’s so much fun stuff that happens in games now–I can only imagine what we’ll be hearing about! Will they be describing what they see while they’re paused? Will they tell us their feelings about their lives in general? Will we get the best of some memorable conversations? Oh, I’m so excited!!! ^.^

I really need to go find Link. He’ll want me to tell him about this, I’m sure he will! HEY! LINK!

Hello! I’m Dr. Wright. You must be the new Mayor! Let’s practice our city building techniques by building a Power Plant and then adding Residential, Commercial, and Industrial zones. Next, connect all zones with power and then add roads for the residents to travel on.

I’m sorry, but your plans for the city have failed. The residents are demanding a new Mayor as your city is in great disorder. Let’s think about what went wrong in your master plan and try again.

By Royal Decree, I declare that a tournament of Avalanche shall be held, in my honor. The rules shall be simple, when you meet with anyone, you shall challenge them to a game of Avalanche. The winner of that game will be eligible to continue on, until they have come, undefeated, to me. Where I will then pummel him into the ground.

Should I actually be beaten in this game, the winner shall receive the largest trophy ever commissioned in the land, as well as a monetary prize that shall be paid out in the game currency of the winner.

Let the games commence!

The nuclear power plant has had a core melt down! Radioactive particles have made parts of your city uninhabitable. Bulldoze the affected area and rebuild your city using uncontaminated land.

I thought Luigi was the one who got stuck all the time. I’d be willing to venture that being lost inside a structure is the same thing as being stuck there.

It started when I was, uh… escaping—I mean, attending, uh, leaving—a business meeting with some locals in the alleys. As I waited around a corner for them to run by, I ran into an old green rapper lady. (I think she was a rapper anyway; she spoke in apparently pre-meditated rhymes.) She showed me a treasure map and said it led to rare stuff that is incredibly difficult to find. I was a bit skeptical that eggs and ice (real ice, not diamonds) were rare treasures, but she assured me that they were really valuable. I bought the map, loaded up some supplies for the trip, and took Wario to the place the map said to start: an old witch’s lair at the top of a mountain. The bridge needed to be fixed, so Wario had a lot of work to do before we could even start looking…

We knew we were lost as soon as the map said “straight ahead”, and there was a statue of the lady who sold me the map in front of us pointing to our left and right. I handed the map to Wario as I pondered the situation. I resolved that I would definitely never buy an eleven dollar treasure map in a back alley again. I asked Wario to hand me the map so I could see if we just made a wrong turn or something. I figured we were doomed when I saw that Wario was chewing and swallowing a piece of parchment.

Since then we’ve been wandering about, trying to figure out which way we came in. You’d think re-tracing our steps would lead us out, but even when we turned around there were junctions! Not only is it confusing, but it’s a dangerous place. Some of the danger you’d never see coming. When a tombstone stood up and ran invitingly toward us, we ran for it right away. I mean, yeah, some of the dangers are obvious. I told Wario not to smash a beehive when it was surrounded by bees! Of course, that’s not to say I’m not guilty of causing him to slip off of a dock into piranha infested waters, but come on! Piranhas aren’t supposed to bite things that are alive! Everyone knows that!

Oh, yeah, and get this. Remember the lady who sold me the map and then was a statue pointing our way? She keeps rhyming at us as we wander around being lost. We also found a fairy lady, and it looked like “Oh, good, here’s someone who can help us!” Sounds good, right? All she did was tell us about her sister’s disgusting secrets that I can never un-hear! Can you imagine how little I care right now that she hangs her dirty underpants from her ceiling and takes them to bed with her when she sleeps on a pile of treasure or in a dumpster?! This is useless knowledge!

This place brings up the age old question of how villains survive in their own lairs. We’ve gone from a sandy dry desert, to a freezing frozen tundra, to a room full of boiling lava in less than a minute! I can’t figure out how you’re supposed to dress around here! And did I mention there are rooms you have to swim underwater to get through? It’s crazy!

After a while, we sat down and went through what supplies we had. Now I’m not sure what kind of venture Wario thought we were setting out for, but clearly we weren’t on the same page. You wanna know what I pulled from his supplies? I found a pound of bricks, a bowling ball, some rope, a shovel, Toad, mayonnaise, more rope, and a handful of Kwerky brand turkey jerky between two slices of bread. It’s no wonder he ate the map.

One of the rooms we walked into looked like a peaceful wooded area. As we were taking it all in (and hoping to get our bearings), this giant blue bull charged me in the back! Wario quickly beat it into submission. About a minute later, the stupid thing attacked me again! Wario was able to wrestle it down. After an hour or so, we decided it wasn’t going to stay down, and evacuated from the area.

After that, we walked into an area that had a board-game style floor in a game-show style room. We thought the way out might be beyond it, but as soon as we set foot on the first square, our famous green rapper lady started rhyming a question to us. We quickly found out we didn’t know anything. After a few lucky guesses, we hit one square where she asked us a question about one of the revolting secrets the fairy told us! Once we spotted a square with a skull that had glowing eyes on it, we decided to bolt. We certainly didn’t come in this way, so hopefully the way out isn’t that way.

Our current status is that we’re getting tired, the ropes are broken, Toad ate Wario’s jerky, all of us hate bulls now, I’ve forgotten what the sun looks like, and none of us have any idea which way is out. Sounds about like par for the course, to me…

I must be having a run of bad luck. First I got stuck in the trapdoor to the basement. Then I got stuck in a castle while rescuing the princess. After that, I wound up stuck in the background plotting revenge against DK. Well, it’s pretty ironic this time. I’m stuck in the trapdoor again. Yeah, the one that goes to the basement.

I thought I filled this hole with cement! I mean, yes, evidently I was wrong, but seriously! Do you know what it’s like getting caught in the same impromptu trap twice?! Call it frustrating, aggravating, humiliating, and just not very pretty. I was just catching up on some reading, set the book down to close the window, and BAM! The floor boards on an axle give way beneath my less-than-stellar weight.

There’s quite a bit of regret spinning through my mind right now. If I had gotten that window closed, I wouldn’t be up to my mustache in snow right now. There also wouldn’t be a squirrel in my refrigerator eating the pie I baked last night. It was even this awesome recipe for apple rhubarb pie I found on http://apatheticthursday.net! Lousy squirrel can’t appreciate the skill and effort that went into constructing it. Bothers me more than the snow. What’s a squirrel doing out and about when it’s snowing, anyway?

I wish I had that book back, too. I was just working my way up to the climactic scene! It was bothering me for a little while, but after I’ve been away from it, the ending is starting to become pretty clear to me. I’ve got it narrowed down to three possibilities. I figure that Professor Peru is going to come forward and admit to murdering the ambassador. If that doesn’t happen, that means the zoo keeper has been running an illegal brewery under the mountain, which will turn out to have been a land fill long ago. If neither of those cases are true, we get a big reality change, because that means the entire middle chronicle was really a dream imposed by the warlock, who turns out to the real deal after all. The only problem then is that I have no idea what kind of clue the arrow with a stone head found in the graveyard was. It’s pretty bizarre, but there isn’t much left that can surprise me.

*Sigh.*

You know, I’m remembering something out of Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga right now. It’s RPG-style, and they have standard statistics like HP, Attack power, Defense, and all that good stuff. Then there’s the odd-ball statistic: ‘Stache. That’s right, as you go, you can improve your mustaches. There’s even a nice coffee shop—Star Beans—where you can buy coffee that improves your mustache further. Actually, there were going to be guest appearances there by folks like Link and Star Fox and Wario and Captain Olimar, but they got cut. Link was even going to give you the Triforce, but they renamed it the “Great Force” instead. My point in all this is that a frozen mustache probably isn’t that high up there as far as statistics go.

Thinking back, I know I saw a cement truck come by and start pouring cement. Now I’m afraid to find out where it ended up. Next time I’ll make sure it goes to the right place. The only thing I wonder is how I’m going to get out of here and fill the basement up without Mario finding out. This time he’s only gone for as long as it takes to come back with a newspaper. This time, even if I slip through, though, the trampoline I used to get out is gone. This is going to take some serious brain power…

If anyone has an idea they can get to me before Mario gets back, I’m all ears.

The citizens of your city need jobs! Build Commercial or Industrial zones closer to Residential zones and check the transportation grid to make sure your mass transit lines are used efficiently.

Cryogenics is a really crappy way of passing the time. You’d think that it’s kinda like sleeping, well, it is… kinda. You’d also think that you’re not suppose to feel like time is passing. At least, that’s what they tell you. But I’m pretty sure the cryo chamber is damaged, because I can still sense that time is passing… for pete’s sake, I’m writing a freaking blog post about it!

I’m not going to lie, it’s really boring. It’s really, really boring.

It’s like a billion freaking years of nothing! I dare you to try it. I dare you to try it for 10 minutes. Go, grab an egg timer, turn off the TV, turn off your music, dim your monitor, set the timer for 10 minutes, close your eyes and wait. Wait until the timer goes off.

I’ll wait for you.

How was that? Did you last the whole 10 minutes? Did it seem like a year? Did you fall asleep? I challenge anyone to sleep for a year solid.

I just hope someone finds me soon. This got old a few months ago.

I’ve asked for no butter and gotten no popcorn. I’ve asked for no pickles and gotten no burger. Or fries. Or onion rings. Not even any soda in my cup! But this might be the worst offender yet (and it’s certainly the last time I tip the delivery guy without inspecting the goods). I asked for no anchovies and got no pizza!

I don’t know how these incidents keep happening to me, but it’s ridiculous! They give me most everything except what I really want. I reach into the take-out bag, I find a bun slathered with ketchup and mustard—and pickles!—but no meat! Add to that an empty holder for fries, an empty box for onion rings, a cup with a straw and no soda or ice, and two stacks of napkins and you’ve got one insulting “meal”. I ask for popcorn with no butter at the movies along with a bunch of candy, and they give me a bucket of butter with no popcorn. As I sat down, before I realized what was in the bucket, I dropped all my candy in it. That was disappointing. I’ve even ordered a game online listed as having “no instruction book”. What did I get? I got an instruction book with no game! That’s the last time I order from “the_purple_prankster94″.

This time I just got a plain old mess. Inside my cardboard box was pepperoni, extra cheese, garlic, onions, green peppers, red peppers, chili peppers, fries, black olives, and anchovies (notice anything?). But no pizza! No tomato sauce, no normal cheese, nothing you could call pizza! And I hate to tell you how I found out what was in there. I carried the box to my kitchen upside down. It opened and my order fell to the floor _right_ where I was stepping. Seriously, my foot was coming down and gravity somehow caused that mess to win the race to the floor. Naturally, I slipped and landed in it on my back. Of course, there was no single solid mass holding everything together or anything, so I had to scrape everything I could salvage off the floor and onto my plate.

You can imagine how unpleasant it is trying to eat a pile of toppings without a solid pizza for a foundation. I tried adding some oregano part way through, and then I just dumped some tomato sauce all over it. I also broke out some of the vintage soda-lemonade mixture I’ve been experimenting with. None of this made up for the lack of actual pizza. They even got mud in it somehow! I couldn’t let it go to waste, of course, but it was still a rather dissatisfying thing to have for dinner. Next time you get a pizza (or anything, for that matter) that’s been put together properly, be sure to be a little extra thankful.

If the tax rate is too high, the residents will move to other cities. Most of the residents feel that a 7% tax rate is fair.

My parents sent me to “Spring Camp”. What a joke. You know what Spring Camp means in English? Eight weeks outside in the cold in northern Canada that ends right as spring begins. Our instructor wouldn’t even show us how to make fire until we proved ourselves “trustworthy” by doing meaningless activities first. “Oh, well,” I thought, “at least I’m away from school for a while.” My parents mailed me my homework. Lessons and tests, too. Can you imagine taking a test while being lost in a frozen forest without anything more to eat than trail mix and no fire? And PK Fire wasn’t any help until a sufficient amount of snow melted, and by then all my Psi Points were gone! I’ve never been happier to be back in school again.

Of course, I checked up on this site as soon as I got back. It looks like Mario advocated for me in getting another game up. Everyone does realize that Lucas guy has nothing to do with me, right? Even if you call his game a sequel to mine, I still need something else that involves me and my friends. (Heck, maybe he can come with us. I’m open to ideas.) So, big Mr. Link, I don’t care how big you think you are with your “your villain’s name can’t start with G!” talk. If Mario’s on my side, I might even be able to get something as substantial as Spacebound going!

Of course, before I can set out on that, I need to figure out if Mario really is on my side or not! I’m glad he pointed out that there is such a thing as an Earthbound franchise. I happen to have a Ness baseball bat bat myself. Wouldn’t it be cool if I started a game with one of those equipped?! But, Mario! You were in charge of the great ’64 Scandal?! I mean, come on! You were my childhood hero! Still are! How could you, an 84-year-old white haired cane-walking hero (with about 15 pounds of graphics covering it up), lie to me—or anyone—in such a heartless way?!

I mean, yes, I should have realized that what I was looking at was just Diddy Kong wearing my shirt. When I think about it, I should have figured there was no way Chunky Kong could have been Paula using a new spell, even a ‘super powerful rare’ one. And I really should have said something when Diddy swung his tail and they put a picture of my bat over it, saying that was me swinging my bat back and forth. Their lies didn’t end there either. They said Jeff wouldn’t be playable anymore, but would make cool gadgets for you (which is what Funky did). They said Diddy firing red peanuts was me using PK Fire. I think they told the truth about Cranky Kong, but they staged a fight with a beaver claiming that it was classic turn-by-turn RPG style fighting. First Diddy got hit, and this cheesy fake hit point counter went down, then he used his ‘bat” against it and knocked it over, then Mario got me to ‘look over there” while another beaver walked up (they called it the same one), and finally Diddy jumped the beaver’s attack and used ‘PK Fire’ to finish it. I guess I was eager enough to see a cool, new Earthbound game, I somehow didn’t notice all this. Were you behind _all_ these lies, Mario?

And what made you think it was a good idea to show Donkey Kong 64 footage as a new Earthbound game in the first place? I don’t get what you mean about getting what we were promised! I was promised an Earthbound game, not a bunch of levels and moves! Plus, I was promised a turn-by-turn fight with a tiny beaver. Actually, that’s not too disappointing by itself… but what’s the deal with the Super Mario 64 game, anyway? I already own a copy of Super Mario 64! Most people already own a copy of Super Mario 64! I’d prefer you with me over against me, but I don’t need help advertising my own game!

Oh, and to clarify, I am not 8. I am 11.

I am about 1/100th of a second away from being KOed right now. Just kinda hanging in the background, about to become a bright shiny sparkle.

I tell you, those home run bats are killers. I’m also going to tell you that DK is going to be deader than a chewed up Pikmin. When I get my hands on him I’m going to stomp him like a Gumba.

Yup. Just as soon as I’m unpaused… I’ll be KOed into the background and come back fresh and fighting! Yeah! Fighting time. Any minute now…

…

Any time now…

…

I’m going to beat him down… …and throw him off the edge…

…

He’s not going to stand a chance… …

…

Oh, come off it and unpause already!

You’re not alone Mario. The rest of us are still loved too. (Well… most of us… )

Don’t believe me? Just check out this awesome paper craft!

Just got done reading a Raving Review of Super Mario 64, I’m still a pretty popular guy, despite what some of you may think.

Best quote from the article:

Even today, despite the dated graphics, Super Mario 64 is still a fantastically fun game. Getting all 120 stars is still a challenge and I’m sure it’d take a good memory jog to even remember where all of them are. It’s just a fun honest game that you don’t need to set aside an hour to play. 12 years later it’s worth keeping the N64 around, even if only for this one game.

Geeklog Date: 03.20
Mood: Miffed

The stupid wind knocked out my electricity for the past four days, so since I couldn’t surf the internet, I’ve been watching “The Pink Princess” series I taped. (When you buy a battery adapter for your TV and VCR on meDock, you never think you’re actually going to need it one day.) By the time Season Five rolled around, I couldn’t help asking myself why I was still watching. Yeah, Princess Akiko was hot, but she still looked the exact same as she has since episode one! We’ve seen her massive wardrobe seven times, and she hasn’t changed outfits ONCE! She’s the main character, and she’s only one who hasn’t! All that fan art doesn’t make up for it; she seriously should have appeared in SOMETHING else, shouldn’t she? I counted 41 opportunities she could have disguised herself, and wrote 6 fan fictions about each of them! Not only that, but by the time Season Three came around, everyone’s voice was completely different than they used to be. Haven’t any of these people heard of dedication?

The character development was lousy too. Kenichi and Yasunori both had conflicts with their cousins—conflicts which looked exactly the same, mind you—and in all the 95 episodes and 20 movies, they said 43 words to each other. Total. COME ON! Stories that cross over with each other can make a series! Not that the individual stories were done any better! When Ishizaka went to duel Tsujiyoko, son of Sakuraba, we got to see bits and pieces of their fight over the course of four episodes. During that time, we saw one of Ishizaka’s most powerful techniques, his Mighty Super Potent Absorbing Destructive Translucent Charged Holy Ball of Light, fail to do anything against Tsujiyoko, son of Sakuraba. After that, he used his signature maneuver, where he gathered chi from all good creatures on the planet, and his power multiplied a hundred-fold and he still couldn’t win! Then it cut away to another scene. The next time we saw Ishizaka, he regrouped with the others unharmed and said Tsujiyoko, son of Sakuraba, was dead. No one asked how or anything! The whole reason Yasunori joined was because Tsujiyoko, son of Sakuraba, was such a big enemy of his, and now he was just gone!

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the worst story ever. During the climactic episodes of Season Four (and of course I mean episodes 47 to 52), the Great Invincible Minako set out to retrieve the Final Lance Of All Desires to help in the fight against the evil Lord Hiroyuki. Remember what happened? He was never seen again! He was never _mentioned_ again! The only time you heard about this guy was in flashbacks that he was in (where he had his original voice), but he was still in the title screen! Even the manga didn’t explain what happened to him!

I really did like the first movie. Everyone’s voice was right, and it’s really the only one that can be considered canon. I was really upset that Season Eight got so short changed. It’s only four episodes long! I’ve got all of them on one tape! And the bosses were lame! The stories need to last longer to be any good. I mean, the Spirit World saga spanned three seasons! Why can’t they write more like that? And why couldn’t they have done more things right with that one? You’d think they’re ignoring every e-mail I’ve ever sent them.

I’m glad my internet connection is back up. I got to order the combo-box set of the whole series on VHS and DVD before it was all sold out. It comes with five limited edition trading cards! I can’t wait for them to release the game. Finally, I’ll get to show them how the story _should_ have turned out! It’s going to have 150 different endings, and I plan to see each and every one of them! Until then, I’ll be making up a list of everything that’s wrong with it. I hear everyone’s going to have ANOTHER new voice. Not a good start.

I got a cold the other day. Not just a normal cold, one of those filthy ones where your head becomes a snot factory and your nose has a constant flow of mucus running out of it and you sneeze every five and three quarter minutes.

Let me tell you, snot and armor don’t mix well. When I sneeze inside my helmet there is snot everywhere. First off, I can’t see out my visor anymore. Hopefully I don’t need to see where I’m going or even where I’m shooting. Because it’s all a blur. That’s not all though. It gets worse. The snot is traveling so fast when it hits the visor it bounces back and instantly my eyes, my mouth and my ears are all full of snot which then oozes down my body and eventually pools on my feet.

I can’t tell you how good a nice hot shower feels after spending a day drenched in your own snot.

If anyone knows a good way kick a cold, drop me a line. I’m really tired of lubricating my suit with mucus.

Pika, pika!!! Pika, pikachu! Pika, pika! Pika, pika, pika, pikachu! Pikachu! Pikachu! Pika! Pikachu!

I made a mistake. A big mistake. A mistake that is undoubtedly going to cost me my life. I strangled a Pikmin.

I knew it was wrong, I knew it was stupid, but he just wouldn’t listen to me! I got caught up in a fit of rage and rushed at him like a maniac. He stood there, wide eyed and frightened, my hands went around his little neck and suddenly, he was limp in my hand. His little spirit floated away and his body disappeared.

It was at this time when several other Pikmin fainted and died, probably because of the pure shock, and the rest ran away into the onions. I can’t get them to come out. They’ve been in there for several days. I’ve tried to coax them, to apologize, to bribe them, I just can’t get the to come out.

I’m stuck here on this planet, and every minute is precious time that is slipping away from me. My ship is still not capable of interstellar flight, and without the cooperation of the Pikmin, I fear there isn’t much hope for my return home. I’ll do what I can over the next few days, but things are looking grim.

If I don’t make it home… well, you know what happened. Tell my wife I love her.

Picture this for a second: a set of graphics distinctly exclusive for video games, a simple set of two buttons, title screens that come up in a second without lengthy intros, and more variety than you can fit in six feet of sandwich. That’s right, I’m talking about the glory days of a system we now know as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Games released for the NES boasted simple design schemes, unnecessary uses for the Select button, ambiguous mysteries with single solutions and few clues, passwords, and instruction books you were actually expected (but not required) to read. As you can well guess, it was brilliantly put together. Choosing a set of five best here is not an easy task, and if any of you ingrates actually know five games from this time, feel free to formulate a top five of your own. As for this old monkey, I’ve chosen Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda, and Kirby’s Adventure.

Hm? What’s that familiar sound? Oh, yes. I believe I hear complaining. Let’s see what we’re looking at. “That’s the last straw! Cranky’s a Metroid hater!” Okay, first off, weren’t the actual Metroids the bad guys? But anyway, cool your heels. It’s different this time. As far as NES games go, this one’s a pretty good play. Very difficult. The problem this time is simply what happens when you finish quickly enough. Finish in 3 hours, and Samus takes off her suit to reveal a one-piece bathing suit. Finish in less than one, and the little lady shows off a two-piece ensemble. Either way, you can play again using her in a swim suit. I don’t care if it was 8-bit; it’s the idea that counts. Games didn’t need to pass this kind of thing off then, and they don’t need to deal with it now. If the game took place on a beach, maaaaybe this would be okay. But does this game look like any beach you’ve ever been to? And who the heck is Justin Bailey?!

What else am I hearing? “…Gah! Donkey Kong didn’t make the list! Cranky starred in Donkey Kong!” Both those statements are true, but my true masterpiece was not a title for the NES. Rather, it was an upright arcade game, and you lucky players can experience it for free in Donkey Kong 64. Yes, even these developers do something right, now and then. “What about that Contra game?” For those of you who don’t know about this one, there are a handful of players who think this game is the best thing since sliced cheese. It’s not. It’s nothing but a fast-action shooter with cut scenes ripped out and almost no plot. Your reward for clearing this harder-than-homework game is the word “Congratulations!”. Even the fans complain about that. “Why is Mario getting so much attention?!” Try naming five NES games that everyone will recognize that don’t include Mario. Even some that no one knows (such as Golf) are about Mario!

I have a feeling a number of you are familiar with the Mario titles. Even if you don’t know it, you may have seen (not Super) Mario Bros. It’s in Super Mario Bros. 3, they’re including it in a number of Gameboy Advance releases, and if they’re smart, they’ll put it in the next Smash Bros game. It’s all about racking up your score. While you might be more inclined just to beat it, Super Mario Bros. can be pretty enjoyable with that goal, too. Ever tried completing it without seeing “Game Over” or using a warp zone? Your score can be pretty high. I’d bet you’d also be surprised to find out just how many games make references all the way back to this title. The game we call Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels never made it to the U.S. NES, so I’m not including it here, and Super Mario Bros. 2 was completely different; I’m not even going into it. Super Mario Bros. 3 is where complexity started to really come in. Intricate maps, collectable items, and some nice secrets that are pretty different from what you normally see today make this a pretty memorable title. Here’s the one thing that confuses me: this game was easy enough for kids to pick up, but they haven’t made another one with quite the same style (particularly the flurry of items you could collect and hold). Why do you suppose that is? I don’t even see laziness as a reason for this one.

Well, with Mario out of the way, let’s look at something Mario might have heard of once: The Legend of Zelda. Get out your thinking cap for this one, because this game is packed both with secrets that are and aren’t revealed in the game. How good you are can really influence how this game comes out, because you don’t have to visit the dungeons in order, although you do have to finish the first eight to enter the ninth, provided you can find the blasted thing! Okay, I’ll give you a hint: you need a bomb. Notice, by the way, that there are eight dungeons and a final, rather than seven and a final. Kind of interesting.

That leaves us with Kirby’s Adventure. Here’s another one that’s easy enough for anyone to figure out. It’s also got a few secrets tucked away; no world is complete until it’s a uniform shape, and a door goes white once you’ve found everything. If you’re spoiling for a fight, more challenging versions of the mini-bosses are available, and once you’ve finished, you can try taking them all in a row with a single life. Sound familiar? This is where that one came from. There are few (if any) places that actually require an ability from you, so pick your favorite and go!

That’s what old Iron-Memory Cranky offers on this set of golden oldies. The good news is that of the games mentioned throughout this ramble, all the good ones are on the Wii Virtual Console at five bucks a pop. It might look like it adds up quickly if you’re after a bunch, but if you compare it to how much you spend on the high-tech games or the number of quarters you’d use at an arcade, it’s really not so bad. Of course, everything’s more expensive than I would want it. You know how many games fifty dollars would’ve gotten you when I was a kid? That’s right—zero. There were no games that early on.

Well, save for some bizarre twist of fate, this will be my last “Top 5” critique. But you know me—I can always find something to complain about. For now, I’m turning in; I haven’t slept in days.

It’s that time once again. Cranky Kong here, bringing you the greatest of the latest with the top five Gamecube games in circulation.

The Gamecube is beginning to bear some semblance of me: it’s getting old, it’s getting tired, and Nintendo thinks it’s time for it to retire. Not being quite as energetic as me, the ol’ system has decided to step down, meaning no new games are being produced for it. However, with the list officially complete, that means I get to make your judgment for you and pick the five most meaningful meaningless games it has!

Where I thought the Nintendo 64 was bad, the Gamecube got even worse. Instead of giving up and going back to the reliable methods of the previous age, the programmers followed through on their endeavors and smoothed out their danged 3D workmanship. Characters could now have five fingers on each hand. In addition to reaching the peak of graphics, they managed to do something halfway right and made more sturdy control sticks on their controllers, although taking away all those yellow buttons limited some of the potential of the games that were putting them all to use before. (Oh, blast it all! Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I hated all those yellow buttons!)

Games on this console introduced new ideas and tried to blend them together with old ones. It’s all too much for me to keep up with, but you kids seem to love it for some reason. An example of something new is those Pikmin games. Is one better than the other? I’ll go through that in a minute. My lumbering son didn’t even sign up for an adventure this time: went off experimenting with those bongos of his. Ah, well. That’s what happens when an entire company disappears. Since they left Nintendo, I haven’t heard so much as a six word sentence about them (and believe me, it’s not hard to spare six words). This is going to look predictable, but I’ve got the means to defend my claims. In an ambiguous order, the top five games are: Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, the Pikmin games, The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, and Mario Kart: Double Dash. Quite a light-hearted lot this time around, eh?

Now don’t break out any military satellite control programs yet. I know exactly what you’re thinking. “Cranky left out the Metroid games again!” First off, as much as this cruel, mean old man can, I respect your opinion. Let’s be fair, though. Metroid’s not for everyone. Notice the rating? Point out the most recent T-Rated game you’ve seen here. Besides, this time they looked more like those shooter games than a 2D adventure (or even a 3D adventure!), the music was as scary as the monsters, and a feeling of darkness loomed over everything. As soon as I found out blowing up that planet within the first 15 minutes wasn’t a choice, my interest was gone, and your reward for finishing the game with enough stuff was to see the girl take her helmet off. Maybe with blonde hair. You really want to play hours on end for that? I’m not saying that no one likes them. Metroid games are perfect for some players. (Nobody’s been able to pull Chunky away from it for what’s going on five weeks.) The rest of us though? I don’t think it’s fair to hold us accountable for not being able to screw in a light bulb with a laser cannon. “Cranky left out Super Smash Bros. again!” Its successor is coming soon. Is it out yet? I’m losing track. Go buy that! “Why do Mario and Luigi get so many titles?” Because my son didn’t. Next! “Why are the Pikmin games lumped together?” I told you, I’ll explain that in a minute. Where’s this generation getting their patience from? Certainly not from their grandparents! “Craaaaaaaanky! What about Zelda: Ocarina of Time—Master Quest?” Remember the Disk Drive game that was going to finish the half-hearted Ocarina of Time? Well, this isn’t it. In Japan, it is. The version we got is a toned-down version (only the dungeons have changed). It’s not good enough to mention.

Well, that ought to take care of those arguments. Of course, by the time the Gamecube came out, there were many people who were interested in games; more than when previous systems were new, that’s to be sure. Because of this, there are many more titles that many people know about. That just means that arguments that can be presented are usually good ones (but then, when you argue with Cranky, you need to clear your schedule for the day).

Well, where should we start? Let’s try Super Mario Sunshine, shall we? This is another of those games that you can pop in, start up a complete file, and just play and have fun. There’s a map that shows you where all the areas are, so with a touch of imagination, you can quest from one place to the next. The play style was somewhat familiar from Super Mario 64, but with the punch/kick combo taken out, it was necessary to get used to the new scheme of things. Also, just completing the game was somewhat unintuitive if you didn’t know what to do next. Who would’ve guessed you need to beat the fourth mission of the fourth world to continue? Or the seventh mission of each world just to finish? At least Super Mario 64 gave you freedom of choice! And where’s that lazy good-for-nothing Luigi, anyway?

Oh, here he is. Luigi’s Mansion was the first game for the console, and it wasn’t quite the Super Mario Sunshine people were expecting. I say it was much better. Here we have an old-fashioned style game on our hands! You don’t have to run and jump at just the right moment at a ridiculous angle to have fun here; just watch what happens and react. And there’s a score system, which seems to have died out since the 2D era. Recently I was watching a video from one of my security cameras, and I caught a conversation Dixie was having with Diddy. She said her sister got a high score on Luigi’s Mansion, then played again and tried to beat it, but got the same score again! If you can beat 137,460,000 G, you’ve beaten her. Every coin and jewel counts!

Speaking of treasure, that brings us to those Pikmin games. The first one has good points where you might not expect to find them. First there was the 30 day time limit. Believe it or not, that adds some replay value. When you’re limited by time, content needs to be reasonable. That means you can try it several times in a row and try to best your fastest time. They also put bomb rocks in here, which can be (you guessed it) a blast. The sequel took these things out, which might make play more comfortable, as well as removing all those unnecessary accidental unintended mass suicides. It was all I could do not to laugh harder while pointing at Lanky’s record-breaking loss of 44 Pikmin with bomb rocks, along with three quarters of his health meter. Throw in some new confusing Pikmin colors, and take away the daytime time limit in those underground areas (which doesn’t make any sense at all when you think about it), and you’ve got something like fun. The addition of multiplayer modes might just be enough to give this one an edge over its predecessor. Of course, no one said those little guys ever got any smarter. The final decision is probably up to the player.

That brings us back to Zelda. I think this “toon” version, bright and cheerful as it is, beats the later “twilight” version with its themes of darkness and teen rating. In this edition, dungeons are short and sweet. They’re also few and far between. That leaves most of this depressing oceanic world for you to explore. To make up for the lack of dungeons (I’d swear you could finish the story in three hours), they packed a multitude of side quests. Look for enemy outposts on the ocean. Explore small and large islands all over the place. Decorate the town and your own private island (if you find it). Take pictures of everything. Conquer 50 floors worth of semi-intelligent monsters. And of course, pay with your hard earned savings to play cheap games on corny obstacle courses. If you enjoy the excitement of pirates without all the lethal and unethical factors, you could have a lot of fun with this game. Try exploring the world without any online help; you could go at it for quite a while. The only thing missing with this approach is some kind of finale once you’ve found everything… If it’s too easy for you, there’s always the hard mode.

So, who here has ever heard of Mario Kart? This new one, Double Dash, is a bit easier to look at than its predecessors, despite its advanced 3D graphics. Also, the music doesn’t disappear on you when you incorporate a lot of players. The big attraction here, however, is that each racer has two drivers in it. You can also choose your vehicle independently of the drivers. Aside from the main attraction of racing, there’s a lot of ways to get a laugh here. Arguing drivers, random road trash, oncoming traffic, and any number of hazards can put a bit of a spin on your race. Ever tried racing while cycling drivers at a rate of once per second? And trying everything flip-flopped after you’ve taken so long to get used to it can really throw you. I almost made it in myself, but for some reason the producers turned me away when they realized I was trying to have them build a Rocker-Mobile, not a Rocket-Mobile. What is it with these kids and their jet cars, eh?

There’s a few other quirky titles out there. Animal Crossing? That might be more fun if a certain inevitable cycle didn’t happen. You’re busy for a few days and don’t play. “Oh, that’s no problem; I plan to come back later.” It turns into a week. “Well, my town’s going to be a mess, and everyone will shout at me, and there will be bugs in my house, and I don’t want to deal with that right now!” Before you know it, months have passed. By the time you’re ready to play it again, you can’t remember one blasted thing about that town and find yourself starting a new one. I seen it happen to Funky 54 times now. “Well, there’s Pokemon Channel, right?” Whose idea was it to make a game about watching TV?! Donkey Konga? There’s a few of my critics out there who say the best thing about the game is that I made an appearance. Star Fox Adventures? This looks like someone threw away some old Zelda schematics and Rare recycled ‘em. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance? Would anyone even buy these games if it weren’t for Smash Bros? Besides, the story’s so in depth it’s sickening, and even that’s full of holes! F-Zero GX? Throw in a Rocker-Mobile, and we’ll talk about it. Star Fox Assault? Well, it’s no Star Fox 64… but then, who is? “Oh! What about Sonic Heroes? Surely Sonic can stand up to Mario!” Maybe, but not with this edition. It can get repetitive playing the same game on four difficulties without having to finish any of them once. Oh, and I didn’t say any of these were actually bad; this is just why no single one of them is the top five.

Well, my bones, muscles, organs, tendons, skin, blood vessels, and perspiratory glands are starting to complain to me, so I’m off to bed. I’ve got my work cut out for me trying to figure out which of the old NES games are the best of them. I’ll see you in a week, and don’t steal anything on your way out.

I don’t know what they have been putting in the air these days, but it sounds like somethings going around about Mario and I going golfing on the weekends. Apparently there is a big hubbub over this or something. I don’t know much about what the whole argument is, but I just thought I would chip in and say a few words on behalf of golfing, mainly because I like to golf.

I like to golf. Golfing is a good sport. You get to enjoy nature for what nature is, see the clouds, the trees, the birdies. You get to walk for several miles and shoot the breeze with your comrades. It is a great way to relax and have fun. If you’ve never tried it, I would suggest that you go out and give it a shot sometime. (Pun intended.) Or, if you don’t have a nice sunny day just go out and buy a Wii along with that obnoxious golf-club-shaped Wii-mote holder thingy and pretend that you are going to go golfing.

Golfing is a nice sport, and I don’t think any of you should be against it until you give it a try. True, it might not be up to par with some of your other favorite activities, such as saving the world from monsters that kill humans or evil demons that turn the world into the twilight zone, but it can still be fun if you let it be fun.

Just thought I’d give you all something to think about, or perhaps to swing for.

That is so typical Mario. You are so pretentious. You think you are this great big huge amazing guy. Just because you’ve been around so long, you think your all that. Well, your not. Well, at least, I don’t think you are.

First off, if you had any clue as to how to treat your enemies you wouldn’t have to worry about them kidnapping the princess every 37 minutes.

When fighting your enemies:

1. Use a weapon! Bouncing on their head is not going to stop them. Trust me, you need a sword, or a boomerang, or a bomb, or a slingshot, or for pete’s sake man, even a net would do. Yeah, yeah, I know, you finally got up the courage to pick up a squirt gun. I’m sure that scared off all the 2nd graders that had kidnapped the princess.
2. Stop playing golf with the person who is responsible for kidnapping the princess!!! I can’t emphasize this enough! This is just stupid. It’s like: “Hey, Bowser, wanna go play golf by the castle. Oh, and by the way, don’t kidnap the princess who is sitting in side!” or even better “Hey Bowser, the princess wants to go golfing wanna come along? Oh, by the way, Don’t kidnap her! Hahahaha!!!” What are you, a lunatic?

I think you’ve done enough, you’ve had your day of glory and it’s time for you to totally let someone young and handsome step in and take over. I mean, aren’t you getting a bit greedy? You have

1. Mario World
2. Mario Party
3. Mario Golf
4. Mario Tennis
5. Mario Baseball
6. Mario Basketball
7. Mario Soccer
8. Mario Olympic Games

If you were really interested in the “kids’ best interest” you would step down gracefully and allow for some new games like

1. Hyrule Party
2. Hyrule Golf
3. Hyrule Tennis
4. Hyrule Baseball
5. Hyrule Basketball
6. Hyrule Soccer
7. Hyrule Olympic Games

Do you know how much freaking fun it would be to play golf on Hyrule Field? Hyrule is a great place for fun activities we have plenty of space and a beautiful location. Why can’t we have some fun for once?

Excuse me Cranky, but have you even picked up a Metroid game? I don’t think you have. I think you have an issue with the female video game characters. I think that is what your problem is.

 ”But the themes are very, very dark, not like sunny old Super Mario.”

Dark, you accuse me of having a “dark” theme? Excuse me, the entire HUMAN RACE IS BEING DESTROYED BY ENERGY SUCKING ALIENS!!!! That’ll make a great cheerful story. Yeah, “sunny old Super Mario,” unlike Mr. Mario, I’m not in the habit of spending my weekend golfing with beast who keeps steeling the princess. I don’t have a trust complex. I know who my enemies are and I kill them.

But what really irks me is this whole “dark” theme. What’s so dark about Super Metroid? You think “A Link to the Past” wasn’t dark? I thought the whole “Dark World” thing was really obvious. Fortunately for Mr. Linky, energy stealing aliens didn’t come and KILL EVERYONE OFF BEFORE HE GOT THERE!!! It’s not like I wanted to be stranded on a lone planet with millions of creatures trying to kill me.

Sure, I can see how the new Metroid Prime 2: Echos and maybe Prime 3: Corruption have a “darker” theme, but why not pick on Twilight Princess then? If that isn’t dark, I don’t know what is. I mean, it’s TWILIGHT for goodness sake.

“It didn’t have any dialog, and the puzzles had no real clues for you to figure them out.”

Super Metroid is totally a run around and shoot things game, there was nothing to figure out, unless you kept changing the controls and couldn’t remember what button did what. What more of a plot do you need? I mean, MegaMan just rand around shooting things for seemingly no good reason. Kirby goes around shoving everything he sets eyes on into his mouth (without washing it off first) what kind of plot is that? And I suppose you think that two monkeys can really take out an overweight crocodile by jumping on it’s head? I could have taken him out with 3 super misles. (I actually did once… that was… kinda fun.

Anyway, I think maybe you should actually play some of these games before you give your crappy opinion on them. Thanks for nothing.

So you thought I was kidding, did you? Well, take heart, because ol’ Cranky’s back with his comments and criticisms (but mostly criticisms) on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the best five games that new-since-’91 thing has to offer.

I certainly didn’t like the SNES when it came out, believing that they were going completely radical with their fancy new graphics and such. Of course I was right; look at what that started. In retrospect, though, it’s definitely easier to enjoy than those new three dimensional puzzles they call games, because most of what’s there is pretty similar to what came before it. But didn’t it seem like a rip-off to you when they tried selling old games with new graphics? What could be more useless? (For more ranting, visit me in the original Donkey Kong Country game. And don’t press “B”.)

The Super Nintendo was an era of wonderful 2D games wrapped in the fruits of artists who were paid too much for their time. Perhaps the pinnacle of this was the Donkey Kong Country series. (Hey, don’t think I’m biased here; ever seen my instruction booklet comments for these games?) Instead of the redundancy of listing three titles from one series, I thought I’d just lump them together as one. How does that sound? So, my list for this system in no particular order is: Donkey Kong Country Series, Super Mario World, Kirby Super Star, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. In a trend similar to N64 games, I see a lot of titles with “Super” in them.

Let’s dodge a few mines real quick, shall we? “Evil old Cranky left out the Metroid game!” I know, I know, I’m a criminal. I’ll touch on that one later, I promise. It came down to choosing between that and the Zelda title. Which would you have preferred? “No fair! Mario got two places!” Yeah, and that son o’ mine got three. And two of them were games he barely bothered to appear in. Let’s face it—those boys know what they’re doing. I’m not looking for the most famous characters ever (who happen to be there); I’m looking for fun content. And I understand there’s this flame war going on about that psycho-whatzit kid and his Earthbound game. I’m not taking sides here, but something that influenced me was that Diddy can be completely excited about playing it when he starts, and by the time he beats that final bad thing, he’s sick of it. Personally I like a game that tells you when you’ve been playing too long and includes brushing your teeth as beneficial in battle. That’s all I’ll say on it.

So, where should we start? Let’s get this one out of the way: my son’s Donkey Kong Country series. The first one is perhaps the most bare to some of you, because there wasn’t anything to collect over time except bananas. It had hidden bonus areas though, which was a necessary staple of this game that I don’t believe I’ve seen anything quite like in other titles. But the bosses were lame. The unnecessary sequels are where things get interesting. They’ve got stronger, more interesting bosses, coins from the bonus rooms to help you reach the surprise final boss, and money you can collect and give me! I still think Dixie should’ve been the damsel in distress. …I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s my favorite thing they did in this series. On the File Select screen for Donkey Kong Country 3, press: L R R L R R L R L R. You will be prompted to enter a cheat. Enter the cheat TUFST (pronounced “toughest”). Select a new game, finish it, and find everything. When you see something like this on-line, it usually looks like a hoax. Take my word for it—this is genuine. I won’t spoil what happens.

Super Mario World introduced Yoshi and his ridiculously large tongue. It also gave several worlds two ways out. Yes sometimes you would go in circles this way, but there was a lot to find even without collectables. If a world was red on the map, it had two ways out. Remember that. It won’t help you with haunted houses, but remember it anyway. Then there was that Star Road, and then the secret within the Star Road. Things get real confusing after that; complete it at your own risk! Oh, and you think I’m getting forgetful in my old age? Seems Bowser’s children were forgotten after this one. Ah! And here’s a good one! When you go to face that final boss whose name escapes me at the moment, the place was ominously called “Front Door”. It was also a clue about the “Back Door” you could find. Not too shabby, eh?

Kirby Super Star was eight (or nine) games in one. I think this was brilliant. I only had to learn the controls one time (just one!), and I could play almost anything they threw at me. Two player simultaneous compatibility means more fun for more people. There was even an appearance from that Meta Knight fella folks seem to like. This idea is certainly a better alternative to trying to sell all those games individually!

So… We’re back to Zelda, are we? Well, this one was definitely easier to understand than that original Legend of Zelda, so you wimps had it easy. You could even buy tips to figure it out if those blinking marks on your map weren’t enough. And fairies healed you seven hearts—not eight. Seven makes a bit more sense, don’t you think? The bosses? Simple, but not easy. That’s what I think they should be.

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with Super Mario RPG, but it was made in part by the same folks as Final Fantasy. Oh, yeah, I didn’t put that one Final Fantasy game in here (is it III or is it VI?!) because it just takes too long to get strong enough to conquer the challenges. It’s not bad besides that. But this game was sweet and simple—a good first RPG for anyone. It’s not like the Paper Mario series either, where 8 HP is a big deal. It’s an all-fire RPG with elements of Mario added in. But really, is there ANY good way to earn the Super Jacket? (If you’ve never tried it, you might not want to bother…)

Okay, okay, before anyone gets a good chance to organize the torches. Why didn’t Super Metroid make it? It didn’t have any dialog, and the puzzles had no real clues for you to figure them out. Sound pretty good so far right? Well, this game was the “Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels” for the Super Nintendo, and by that I mean the hardest game on the console. People loved how long it was, too. But the themes are very, very dark, not like sunny old Super Mario. I’m not going to forgive them for their animation when you run out of health, either. Don’t people abuse this sort of thing enough, already? Oh, yeah, and that final boss (which took me ages to reach) has one of the worst attacks I’ve ever seen. If you’re already too low on health, you’re already screwed. It’s also unavoidable, so there’s nothing you can do about it. It does phenomenal damage which I’m pretty sure the boss healed with. An attack this powerful isn’t bad by itself… as long as there’s something you can DO about it! Did I mention that it felt like it was missing a plot where one should have been? And not a title being to be found, either. Still, if you’re looking for a big, long challenge, you might just like it.

Well, I hope I’ve whet your appetite a bit, so try some of these not-so-oldies and give your hands a break from those less-than-intuitive broken-feeling control sticks. I think the Super Nintendo is the best place to find a good side-scroller, too. The NES has the widest variety of games I know about, so I’ll need some time for that one, but tune in next week, when I cover the best five games that have come out for the Gamecube!

The Star Cup Tournament has just been finished for the 150cc category. I am very excited about these results! There were some close races and some last second comebacks which made for a very interesting and intriguing race. I was so caught up in the whole race business I almost forgot to give the “Final Lap” signal a few times. Fortunately I did remember and no harm was done.

Here are the final rankings:

Yoshi pulled out in 1st place.

Mario came in with 2nd place.

Bowser came through with 3rd place.

A few banana peels caused Peach to fall back to 4th.

Starting off poorly and making a slight comeback, DK took 5th overall.

Despite his best efforts Luigi found himself in 6th.

Toad make a good effort, but sadly ended up in 7th.

Sitting last in 8th place was Wario.

Link… Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link… Link, my dear friend… You are much too hard on the boy. There are many good points to the Earthbound series. For starters, playing as a little kid isn’t that bad now and again. I seem to recall a certain someone who spent much of his most recent hit running around collecting bugs. Doesn’t that sound like something a child should be doing? And yes, it may be true that your dad you never see anymore keeps calling you and telling you to stop playing, but he makes up for it by depositing bundles of borrowed cash into your bank account! And who said calling you was a bad thing anyway? And Giygas? That’s the best villain name I’ve ever heard! A lot better than “Bowser”. I mean what is he, a dog? “Heeeere, Bowser! Come get the stick!” Seriously.

Of course, I’m always looking out for the kids’ best interests. That’s why I came up with the idea to thinly veil the Donkey Kong 64 footage and music. This way, the light of hope does not vanish, and when the veil is removed, it’s not too disappointing because they get exactly what they were promised!

Of course, to be perfectly honest, Earthbound already has a franchise. It has a prequel and a sequel, although neither is available outside Japan. I’ve seen the merchandise too: Earthbound plush, Earthbound controllers, Earthbound action figures, Earthbound coffee mugs, Earthbound pencils, Ness baseball bats, Ness baseball bat bats (don’t ask), and Earthbound PSP (that is, a PSP with an Earthbound skin). See? That’s a kid on his way to success! His franchise is already more successful than Star Fox’s, am I right?

I say we let the boy have his U.S. sequel to his sequel! Surely it’ll be better than some of those Zelda games they never released! There is of course, just one point I must disagree with. “I say it’s time to chop off Mario—” I’ve heard enough! Right there! If I get cut down, Nintendo’s going down with me! After all, I AM Nintendo! No, child, I think that instead of me stepping aside for you, we should put a Nintendo 64 in your room with a fully playable version of Super Mario 64 in it. That’ll really attract the fans! Oh, but the rest of the sentence was fine.

Well, I’d have had my suspicions if you told me this eight years ago, but I’d probably have believed you anyway: I’m actually MORE disgusted with the games they’re putting out now than the ones they came up with back then. Bright colors, smooth graphics, streaming media that plays orchestrated music, in-depth stories—it all just looks so unnecessary to me. I’ll never be swayed from my opinion that the older the game, the better it is (except of course that Donkey Kong is probably the best one of all time). Space Invaders and Jetpac are old favorites, and Sabre Wulf is about as high tech as this old monkey cares to get. However, even I have to admit that some of the old N64 games were better than this new generation that uses controls no scientist could figure out.

I’m going to name what I believe are the best five N64 games out there, and what some of you might think are the best five ever. Now I’m aware there’s a number of those awful and confusing shooting games that are supposed to make you feel like you’re seeing it through your “hero’s” eyes, but luckily for me the opinions on those are so scattered it’s not worth trying to name one. The N64 was also incongruously short-changed when it came to role-playing games, which also were supposed to make you feel like you were whatever character you were playing, and none of them were any good anyway, so there aren’t any nominations there. And of course, there was no Metroid game, so that’s definitely not going to come back to bother me. Now I’m still going with the older the game the better, so that leaves us with this list of five: Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 (not necessarily in that order). Nothing quite like this set has come before or since.

Now before I continue, let me attempt to quell the rioters out there. You say there were sequels to these games? Not the same sequels that were originally planned. Ever heard of the Disk Drive? Went over like a lead balloon in Japan and was never released in the U.S. Worst mistake they ever made. Ah, but more on that in a minute. You say these games aren’t perfect? Well, no one ever accused them of it! A game’s only as good as the folks who program it. So, all you want, you can say to yourself, “You should be able to save!”, “Cranky should have kept his rocking chair!”, and “Luigi should be easier to find!” (Star Fox 64, Donkey Kong 64, and Banjo-Kazooie, respectively). I’m betting you’re still pretty satisfied with these games. “Oh, Cranky! Craaanky! What about Super Smash Brothers?” It has a sequel that most folks like better, and possibly another one coming out in February. …What’s that you say? Oh. Apparently due to some bubble-gum related incident, it’s coming out in March. At any rate, it might be the best N64 game ever, but it’s been trumped and not many folks play it as often as these ones.

But anyway, my list stands with those five mediocre games as the best this old new system has to offer. Now then, let me give you your opinion and tell you exactly what it is you like about these games so much. Super Mario 64 was the first game of its kind, and they must have done something right, because even if you’ve finished it with all those stars, you can just start it up, play, and have fun. I’d bet it’s because the levels are very large, but also easy to navigate quickly. Because of this, you don’t need an objective always in front of you. You can just make it up and play. Any game that captures this aspect means virtually endless hours of play. Banjo-Kazooie had a similar play style, although when you got the collectable things, you couldn’t set them back up. Still, it was just quick-paced enough that you could start over whenever you wanted. Plus, they built cheats right in, so you don’t have to pull out some third party piece of hardware when you get stuck! And the board game at the end was marvelous, revolutionary even! Donkey Kong 64 falls in this category too, although the levels were perhaps a touch more confined when it comes to navigation. Still, we gave you so much to find, so many critters to bash, so many mini-games, and even an appearance from me AND a Donkey Kong arcade game, you can’t help but love it. You could also earn cheats here, not by finding everything, but just by finding all those fairies. Unfortunately I broke my system trying to install that expansion thing they gave you with it. Very annoying.

Star Fox 64 and Zelda are in their own categories, I suppose. Let’s start with the easy one. Star Fox 64 defined replay value. The instruction book told you what you need to do to unlock harder paths, but your first time through you probably weren’t good enough to do it. Even so, you were able to finish the game, weren’t you? As you get better, the challenges become easier, and soon enough you’re setting up your own confusing matrix of stages you’ll be visiting. Plus, you get to bill the fella who hired you at the end. And they don’t expect you to read anything—they read it all for you!

So… Zelda, huh? Well, I’ll tell you this: as far as advertising VS delivery goes, this is the only Zelda game they’ve done right. Sure, they announced working on it two years early, but they didn’t really start advertising it until one year before its release. After this one it’s always three years in advance, so long you’ve lost interest by the time it comes out, and then it doesn’t have all the thrill of the original. What made Ocarina of Time so good? It couldn’t have been the fairy… Sure wasn’t the owl… Let’s see here—dungeons, easy to navigate world maps, side quests, mini-bosses, gear that tends to be used in only one or two places, a story (sort of), the fact that you could go anywhere you wanted again—hmm, this all looks like standard stuff. Wait, could it be? Yes! This game didn’t follow these standards, it set them! Not only that, but it made playing through all of it fun! Of course it had its own quirks, too. Surely you’ve all seen giant versions of those sand worm things, but how about a giant nighttime skeleton kid? Or a giant crow? They’re in there. The one thing I will complain about is I nearly doubled my age trying to get all those gold spiders (which turned out not to be a rip-off after all!).

Now let me ask you this: Wouldn’t you be excited if you heard—now or back then—that Super Mario 64 II was in the works? Or another Zelda like that one? That’s what the Disk Drive was going to accomplish. It would attach to the bottom, and you would put a game in the N64 and another cartridge (different shape) in the Disk Drive. The result would be a new game using the first one as a sort of basis. That means all the old worlds are there, but anything could be changed about them, and all kinds of new ones could be there too. If my studies are correct, they’d be able to release these just 2 years after the original, instead of going crazy, redesigning the entire thing, and releasing their “sequel” five years later. Two years is enough time for you to finish the game, get excited about the advertising, and get “all revved up” to play it when it comes out.

They actually finished the Zelda sequel, but never released it. That is, not until that “Master Quest” bonus disc thing. And not on the U.S. version. You heard me: somewhere right now, a little Japanese kid is pointing at the U.S. on a map and laughing his head off playing the real Master Quest. What kind of changes might there be? They didn’t tell me. But looking at the evidence, I’d say you get that Triforce, melt that frozen kingdom, go on some kind of mask side quest, and… something to do with Arwings.

Banjo-Tooie was going to be a Disk Drive game too. The version they finally settled on doesn’t quite make use of the super secret collectables of Banjo-Kazooie the way the original would have, but overall it’s not terribly disappointing. A Disk Drive version would mean you could go to the old worlds, collect the things, do new stuff, then go to the new part of the game and use the things. The sequel that exists is perhaps not as much fun as the original, but it does deserve an honorable mention here.

Those old games are looking pretty appealing right now, huh?

Join me next week, when I visit the top five Super Nintendo games!

STOP IT!! Hey, STOP!! Hello!? Are you listening to me?? YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!

What is with you people today!?!?! No one is ever going to win this race if one of you doesn’t turn around!! You’ve been at this for 30 minutes now!!! I don’t know if you haven noticed, but this is really pointless! This is never going to end!!! Someone just please turn around!

*sigh*

Why doesn’t anyone listen to me!?!?!?

Fine, you know what? If you want to play this same race for the rest of your life, traveling in a very small blue and red oval for years, that’s your own call. But I’m leaving! Yeah, you heard me. I’m out of here. You can keep track of your own laps, because I certainly have better things to do with my time. So take that!

Ness, I think the reason you have completely failed as a franchise has several reasons. First, you are like, 8 years old. No one want’s to play as an 8 year old kid when they could play as a dashing and handsome young adult with a sword and a horse. I mean, how can you pass up someone as good looking as me?

But I think more importantly than that, your plotline is so stereotypical it can’t get much lamer.

“When the chosen boy reaches the point, he will find the light. The passing of time will shatter the nightmare rock and will reveal thee path of light.”

Whoop-de-do. You are the chosen one. If you’re not one of the first people to the table with this idea, you’re seen as passe. I managed to get in before the door shut, but banging your head against the door won’t open it again.

“Giygas”

Sorry, but the main villain needs a better name. And it can’t start with a ‘G’. Too many people have villains starting with the letter g. Why not try using “Levarithan” or “Opoluthon” or even “Kevin” for goodness sake.

“Three things are of the utmost importance: wisdom, courage, and friendship.”

3 Things. You need 3 things, what do you want? A freaking triforce? Please! Surely you can come up with something better than copying me. (Or… maybe you can’t…)

Then one last thing, tell your Dad to stop telling off the gamers. The last thing gamers need is a phone call every two hours tell them they should stop playing. You know what? THEY DID STOP. And they NEVER GAME BACK. Your Dad is probably the sole reason that you never caught on as a franchise. If gamers want to play for 12 hours straight that’s entirely their call, they don’t need your Dad to yell at them and tell them to stop.

Enough is enough! You’re the one getting all the game and glory around here. You should be the one who makes the decisions. Remember, elections are just around the corner!

I am really irritated. Ever since Earthbound for the Super Nintendo, I’ve been campaigning for some sort of sequel. I mean, Earthbound is a really fun game and I think it has a lot of potential. Nintendo promised me a game for the N64. They gave me music and showed me video clips of this new game they were making for me. Turns out, they were really just showing me Donkey Kong 64 footage to keep me off their backs.

I’ve suggested Earthbound Cubed, Earthbound Advance, Earthbound DS and Earthbound Wii. Each time Nintendo nods politely, like a grown up listening to a little child tell a story and tells me that they plan to save a spot for me in Smash Bros. I’ve even approached other companies to try to pitch Earthbound PSP and Earthbound 360. Even Dreamcast turned me down.

I say it’s time to chop off Mario and Zelda and Metroid and let some of the small little buds grow up and have a franchise.

You know what is really, really stupid. That I’m not mayor.

I’ve be giving advice to a lot of horrible mayors for 35 years now, and I could do better than any one of them. I mean, I know all there is to know about the people in the city. I could talk for hours and hours about crime, pollution, fire, earthquakes, floods and what-not. But for some reason, I just can’t get elected. Maybe it’s the 44 hour speech seminars that I hold all the time in my campaigns for mayor. Yep, they must be a key factor in my loosing. I’ll go for 88 hour seminars next time.

Or could it be… I’m not popular. Let’s see here: Bad hair style, goofy colored hair, ugly tie, lame suit, enormous nose, crappy mustache, wide and misplaced ears,  beedy little eyes, bottle neck glasses… and I’m short. Not 5’7’’ short, 4’2’’ short. Well, that plus my annoying voice, endless stuttering, random fainting in front of crowds, random fainting for no reason, selfish look at life, and often giving speeches in ancient Greek, says one thing. I must be super popular.

So that says there’s only one way my competition is wining. They cheat. No wonder Waluigi got 69.9 times as many votes as me last election. Or how Bowser got 100% in four elections in a row, even though the world was telling him he was the worst mayor ever; he still has the “Worst leader of any kind” award in his house. Or that I lost to a Pikmin in the last election. By a long shot. It got 84% of votes, I got 2% and the no-longer-running Bowser got 14%. Maybe it would be better if more people than just me and one other “person” ran for mayor.

I know what I must do… I will… without a shadow of a shadow of a doubt… do the logical thing. I’m running for president of the United States of America in year 2008. Raise taxes, stop paying for cops, no more road repair, no more government jobs. It will be great.

Doctor Wright for President! My slogan… “Way better than the rest of these derelicts, that’s for sure.”

I… am… so… OLD!!! Look at me, I fought Cranky Kong when he was DK’s age. And he’s like 65 years older than DK or something. I had to be in my mid 30’s back then. Do da stinking math. I must be 100 years old!!!!!

This can’t be true!  Sure the entire world says I’m old, but come on! I can jump 25 ft in the air on a triple jump. I run faster than most other people. I lift hammers made out of pure carbonized anodized steel. I’ve lifted a dragon by the tail and chucked him 1,000ft into oblivion. I am considered an Olympic athlete in skill. I play a ton of sports. I Party like crazy. I may not be the youngest, most spry guy around, but PLEASE, 100 YEARS OLD!?!?!?

This is crazy. Madness. I am only 76 years old, not 117, not 120, and not 6,000! I will now call my lawyer, and he will set you all straight.

AND I’M NOT 100!!!

Hey, Mario! You’ll never guess what happened while you were out at the market this morning! Or were you jogging? Ah, I can’t remember. Anyway, while you were gone, a letter arrived from the Princess that said she’d been kidnapped by Bowser!

Well, since you weren’t around, I figured it was up to me to face Bowser at his castle and bring the Princess home safely. You should’ve seen the fight we had! There were fireballs and hammers flying every which way! Well, after some time, I came up with this brilliant plan. See, we were fighting on a bridge over a pool of lava, and I noticed next to the ropes supporting it, there was a fine looking axe. It was just sittin’ there, totally unguarded! So, watching Bowser’s movements carefully, I managed to distract him, then jump over him, grab the axe, and cut that rope! The bridge came down, and Bowser fell into the lava (which I’m sure was actually intended for me…).  He didn’t look particularly uncomfortable in there, but he couldn’t climb back out, so he was giving me a pretty chilling glare.

Well, normally this is the part of the story where the hero rescues the fair damsel and escorts her home in triumph, right? Well, I’ve come across a bit of a snag in things… See, I’m here with the Princess right now, but since the bridge is kind of out of service, we can’t get out. There’s no back door, or else I would have come in that way. Tunneling is out of the question (trust me—that’s why we don’t have the axe anymore). And even if we found a way back across the lava, not only is Bowser just waiting for his opportunity, but there’s a multitude of difficult jumps we’d both need to accomplish.

The Lakitu I’m talking to says he’ll have this message delivered in 6 to 8 weeks. (I hope he’s joking.) He recommended we survive by eating sawdust and chewing leather, neither of which we have access to. Who eats things like that anyway? I tried to upgrade delivery to the priority service, but he wanted 80 coins for that. Now I admit I snagged a few on the way over here, but avoiding a fiery fate at the hands of Bowser’s minions takes a few bribes, you know what I mean? Peach says she couldn’t manage to grab her purse before Bowser captured her, so she’s broke. I tried saying her crown would be worth at least 80, but he wouldn’t buy it. And, of course, he couldn’t ferry us out on his cloud, ‘cause that would only rank 8.5 out of 10 on his “Safety Scale”, which comes out to being only “Extremely Safe” and not “Perfectly Safe”. (Hey, you don’t think he’ll actually read the message that complains so much about him, do you?)

If you have any time or ideas, I’d really appreciate a quick visit from you right about now. I’ve got a single Gameboy Advance on me, so hopefully that’ll keep both of us well enough entertained for a while. (Please hurry—I think Peach likes to cheat in hot-seat mode.) I’m fairly sure I disabled most of the cannons when I came through, so your trip should be reasonably safe. Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Bowser on your way here. He might still be kinda mad.

By the way, has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Hope to see you sooner rather than later…

Luigi

Well, I’ve been a racer for quite a long time now, and I’ve seen my share of suspicious racers. A lot of them come out as clearly evil or just plain nuts, but there’s one guy who I just can’t shake this uneasy feeling about. He’s a fella who calls himself James McCloud.

Now at first I wasn’t sure what might be wrong with this guy. I never saw him without sunglasses, but that’s not too unusual. Still, I didn’t want to take my eyes off him. Then, at about the time I was ready to give up on finding out anything about him, who do I see for the first time? Who is it that dresses the same way he does? It’s a kid by the name of Fox McCloud.

Now, don’t think I thought it was him on sight. After all, James is a human, and Fox is, well, you know, anthropomorphic. Still, when I heard the kid’s name, I could tell there must be some kind of connection. I asked Fox if he had heard the name before, and he told me that was his dad’s name. His dead dad’s name.

This looked like a dry well to me. Can you imagine how awkward it would be to ask a fox if his dead dad was a human you’ve seen racing alongside you? Still, I felt like this deserved further investigation. I casually chatted with him and his crewmates, trying to subtly learn as much as I could. Turns out the James they knew dressed the same as Fox and always wore sunglasses, just like the James I know. But they also confirmed that he was a fox, not a human. I did get a little confused about how he died, whether it was a black hole or at the hands of some giant monkey thing, I—I don’t know.

After a number of trips back and forth for comparison I concluded that the racer James has been using looks very much like the ships the Star Fox team fly. The only difference is the way the wings are folded. Those Star Fox ships also happen to use the same kind of G-diffuser system that all our racers are required to use. I also found out from James that he has a young son that he’d like to get a racer for someday (but no way could I ask if that son was a fox, right?). Still, there are just enough holes here to keep me from deciding anything conclusive.

Finally, one last clue fell into my hands. I wasn’t snooping or spying to find this out; I just sort of came across it by accident. It turns out that just once, Fox saw his father, who saved him from a perilous situation. As soon as he was safe, his dad was gone. Others were around, but none of them saw him. He wasn’t transparent like a ghost. That’s the extent of what I know about it.

If all of this is a coincidence, it’s a very, very scary one.

This is an outrage! I looked at the Smash Bros blog a while ago, and you know what I found out? I’m not in the starting line-up. I’m not a secret character. I am an assist trophy.

Now at first this wasn’t all that terrible. At least they took the time to draw me with all that detail. They even got my good side. But you know what really did me in? Guess what I saw when I checked it two days ago? They added Pikmin & Olimar to the starting cast!

I mean, seriously! This is unbelievable! Did you read what he said about the Pikmin? Oh, yeah, and try this one on. You got a quarter? Go get a quarter. Hold it up. That’s how tall the space captain is. And the Pikmin are smaller. Come on! This guy has appeared twice since 2001, and I’ve been going at this so long, I—

You know what it is? Every game I’ve ever appeared in could be labeled a spin-off. No adventures. I mean, you could call my appearance in Mario Tennis for the Gameboy an adventure, but ALL the Mario series characters were pretty much making cameo appearances in that one! And my part was humiliating. I sounded like a snake! “Yeessss… Thaaas-a riiiight…” What’d I tell ya? Humiliating.

But what? Did they think they were lacking for moves or something? Look at all the stuff I’ve done! I spin like a tornado. I cause thorny plants to grow from nowhere. I lie and cheat. I set nasty traps. I steal. I clunk people with disguised eggplants. I swim! Into the air! I was even going to be the antagonist in Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, but that never even got off the ground! That’s surely enough to draw four special moves from! Wario made the starting line-up, and he FARTS!

You know something else? I don’t get this bit of confusion at all. There are some sources that say just like Luigi (lousy no-good spotlight stealin’ little…) is Mario’s twin brother, I, too, am Wario’s brother. Other sources say I am not. Are you kiddin’ me? This one is totally obvious!

Maybe they’re accusing me of being under-developed as a character. But really, how much do you know about any Mario series character? Age? More than one family member? I think they used to tell us about stuff they liked… maybe. And any game that involves the kind of talking that requires you to read it, then press A (say, Super Mario 64) or shows text on-screen while characters speak it (Super Mario Sunshine), big high and mighty mister Mario doesn’t say a blasted thing! And Luigi’s (spineless cheese-lovin’ puny little…) voice wasn’t what it is now until Mario Kart 64. And there’s been confusion since then (his voice is the previous Smash Bros games was just a speeded-up version of Mario’s). And I’m under-developed?

The release date for the new Smash Bros game was already pushed back once, but don’t be surprised if it happens again. I do have this new bubble gum bomb I’ve been dying to try. Heh heh heh heh…. Watch your back!

So I was out golfing the other day and apparently people are saying that my whole “Kidnap the Princess” gig is getting old. It’s not fun anymore, it’s not funny. It’s not politically correct. I don’t know. I don’t know if I trust Donkey Kong and Yoshi as great sources, but every now and then they get something right.

To be honest, I love the gig. I think it’s freaking hilarious to see the look on Mario’s face when he realizes… “oh not again.” I mean, my timing is perfect. It’s just like the punch line of a joke. Just when he’s about to go spend some quality time with Peach, BAM! I’m there, and I make him jump through somewhere between 38 and 120 hoops before he can see her.

I also love the Toadstools.  They rush around like caffeinated chickens with their heads cut off. It’s really funny. I’m not going to lie, I spend hours on YouTube just watching the Toadstools run around in circles like the world is going to end.

I mean, the kidnapping is usually all in good fun. Mario and I know how to get along, somedays I’m just in a really bad mood and really just want to make someone angry. But maybe the next day I’m over it and the two of us go out and play a round or two of tennis. It’s no big deal. It’s just the way I do things. I’m sure you understand.

So really, I don’t care if anyone thinks my gig is getting old. It’s usually the most fun thing I do. Nothing relieves stress like kidnapping a princess, let me tell you that. So hey, don’t look for me to stop. It’s kinda like Charlie Brown. He’d always run to the football and Lucy always pulls it away. Every time Mario gets close to Peach, I’m going to pull her away. Why? It’s fun and that’s all there is to it.

Living with Pikmin is a love-hate relationship. The little critters are cute, completely adorable. They are also extremely helpful when trying to accomplish various tasks, such as carrying things. Sadly, they are dumber then a bag of sand.

However, one can only assume that they have the intelligence of a vegetable when you realize you have to pluck the things out of the ground before they can do anything and after you pluck them out they proceed to bash their heads against every solid object in sight. It’s no surprise that they all have applesauce for brains.

When scrounging around for pellets of compressed dehydrated Pikmin, or whatever they are, one might hope that the Pikmin would have a certain affinity or attraction to pellets of their own color. You know, the blue ones pick up the blue pellet and the red ones theirs, etc. This is sadly, never the case. If I find that I have a yellow pellet to take back to an onion, it will inevitably be taken by a blue or red Pikmin despite the fact I only called yellow ones to follow me. On the off chance it is grabbed by a yellow Pikmin, a blue one will undoubtably try to help out and in their wisdom they will carry it to the red onion.

Blue Pikmin are my favorite. I say this because you can take them anywhere you want without much worry. True, you must be careful of fire-ish things, but those are usually fairly easy to avoid. It’s true, red Pikmin are nice because they are a bit stronger, but bashing their heads against walls all day does something to their brains. It gives them a forgetfulness that is usually found in various species of canine. Just as a dog will forget everything it’s ever learned if it picks up the scent of a rabbit, one sight of an enemy and the red Pikmin will gleefully chase it into the water and promptly drown.  Yellow Pikmin, on the other hand are good for two things: blowing up large quantities of Pikmin and I don’t remember what the second thing was. Oh yes, blowing up themselves.

I may seem a bit harsh on the poor little critters, but trust me. If I didn’t have to babysit them all day long I could have escaped from the planet in under 10 days. Less then a week even! If they would only learn, just a little bit… just a tiny bit, I could simply set up chore lists for them to accomplish and have a set of each of them working all day at several landing sites and they could bring the pieces and set them right where I land my ship and I could go around and collect ship parts all day. Sadly, Pikmin do not learn. Not even a little bit. They are as stupid on day 30 as they are on day 1. I tried to teach them. I showed them examples. I did similar tasks with them over and over and over again. Each time they approached the ordeal as if it were an entirely new experience for them.

It’s hard to believe I survived 30 days with those creatures. It’s maddening, trying work with them. I think in 30 days I would be much more likely to die of a nervous breakdown then being exposed to Oxygen. Hopefully I’ll never have the chance to find out, right?

Abandon Ship! A ship has crashed somewhere! Let’s find out what happened and repair any damage it may have caused.

The pollution has gotten out of hand. Eventually the land value will drop and the crime rate will rise. To prevent this, why don’t you spread out your Industrial zones and keep them away from the Airport.

Geeklog Date: 11.26
Mood: Ranty

The sun is bright outside so I’m going to stay in and watch “The Blubbening.” Season One has better writing and voice acting than the later seasons. I mean COME ON. Everything went totally downhill after the big dream sequence. Still, the animation in the scenes where Tubba Blubba battles robots is schweet. Season Three was obviously just a vehicle for selling action figures and vehicles. I never understood why they changed the sound effect when the princess appears. It was “Deet-dinga-deet-ling!” then suddenly it was “Dinga-deet-dinga-ling!” As if no one would notice! Pffft! True fans care about important stuff like that. They should totally run the show without commercials and let fans suggest story lines! That’s what the fans want and we’re the only ones that matter. I guess I’ll still buy “The Blubbening” box set. The preorder bonus is a costume! While I wait for it to come, I’ll go online and tell everyone it’s stupid.

After reading Bowser’s post from a while back I have been thinking about things. There are a lot of bosses out there that are simply too easy. Too weak. Too pathetic. And I think we should really do something about this. First of all, it gives us Boss folk a bad reputation for being pathetically egotistical. As if we all assume that we are the greatest ever, some of us know we aren’t but would just like to be.

Also, it’s an insult to the gamer to make bosses that are easily slaughtered. A good boss should send the gamer away crying that he lost a handful of times before the boss is actually beaten. Double that when it comes to the final boss. Bosses are meant to be big challenges that push the gamer to new heights of their gaming career. If the gamer comes in and kills a boss right away they don’t learn anything. Also, the game is less of a challenge.

I think that most bosses should be fought 3-5 times before they are beaten. This allows a time or two for the gamer to get use to the bosses fighting style and weaknesses, and then another time or two for the gamer to perfect his moves.

If bosses are made to look like pathetic pushovers, what will that teach gamers about real life? I mean, if you come across a fire-breathing dragon in the middle of a volcano that is easily clobbered with a hammer in a video game, it doesn’t teach you much about how easily a volcano-dwelling, fire-breathing dragon is going to react in real life. I mean, it’s going to take a lot more then a hammer and a lot more hitting of the dragon to kill it. We need bosses to be more realistic.

This is something I want to try to focus on for these next year. Once a month I propose that the bosses get together and give tips on how to be better at being a boss. If we learn from each other we might be able to do a better job at not only supporting the reputation of the bosses, but also giving the gamers what they deserve. A quick and timely death! (Editors note: “The views expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of BWP.”)

TIME Magazine, I would just like to take a moment to thank you for picking Super Mario Galaxy as the #4 game of 2007.

I would like to thank all of my co-characters including Peach and Bowser for helping to make this happen. I would also like to thank all the Lumens and Toads and Toadettes for their stunning performance in the intro scene. I think this was a masterful production and I think we did a great job. Thank you all and I look forward to making 2008 even better!

I would also like congratulate Link on his #7 place for Phantom Hourglass. Better luck next year kid!

Happy New Year all!

I dream about racing. It looks like so much fun, zipping around the track, jumping over banana peels, skidding around corners and boosting with mushrooms. It looks like a smashing good time, but it seems that I am always left on the sidelines to watch the matches.

I do like flying, I can zip around the sky and float freely in my cloud. Life is good, and peaceful. I don’t understand how you ground creatures can survive being trapped on the ground and al. Flying is a freedom that just can’t be explained, it has to be experienced.

I would imagine the same goes for racing, the thrill of the track is all in the moment, and describing it could be hard to do, but experience would describe it perfectly. I think everyone should try flying, it is jolly good fun. But I wish I could try racing, it really seems like a riot.

When I zip around in the sky, it’s hard to race with other friends because there are no set boundaries. We can try to race to a cloud, but the cloud is always shifting shapes on us, or disappearing before we get there. We can’t go in circles because there is nothing to give the circles bounds. It causes quite a dilemma for us sky critters.

Maybe someday we’ll be able to get karts and drive around the track like other people do. Until them I’ll just have to enjoy my sky freedom and dream about racing.

WAHAHAHA!

The internet is so much fun! I love it! I truly love it! Today I went on the internet and found all these really cool games that involved falling down stairs, launching stick-figures, poking cats, defending castles and flying helicopters!

The wealth of knowledge on the internet is amazing! But the craziest thing is that people are giving away these games for free! For FREE I say! Don’t these people realize anything about game selling? They could be making fortunes right now! I would gladly pay $10 an hour to poke virtual cats!

Since everyone seems to be giving these games away, I figure I will simply steal them …er… borrow them… and put them in my next WarioWare game! It’s absolutely brilliant! I won’t have to think of a single thing myself, I can simply take all the fun games that people already play and package them all together in one easily overpriced affordable bundle!

If anyone else has a great idea for a game, let me know! I would be more then happy to add it to my collection of games! This is going to be perfect! Wonderful! WAHAHAHA!  Thank you all!

This is really starting to bother me. Yoshi and I are good pals, we go way back, but recently I have heard a rumor that more people think that Yoshi is cuter than I am. Now I am pretty darn cute and I’m not saying Yoshi isn’t, it’s just that… well, I don’t think he could ever be as cute as I am. Here’s why:

1. Yoshi is green. Look at the poor kid, with a body that green you can’t help but feel sorry for him. green is just a hard color to love.
2. Yoshi has a big nose. Has anyone taken a moment to look at Yoshi’s nose? You can’t miss it, even if you wanted too! It’s the size of a walrus! I know he can’t help it, but I mean, it’s just far too large to be cute.
3. Yoshi wears a saddle. This indicates that Yoshi is meant to be ridden as a beast of burden. Oxen and donkeys are beasts of burden. They usually are filthy creatures and never seen as cute. A cute creature is something that doesn’t do work. That’s how we stay cute, we stay out of the mud and away from filthy islands.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little jealous about Yoshi having his own island, but I can get over that, because I’m super cute and he isn’t, right?

Am I right? Or is this too egotistical of me? Comment below and let me know who’s cuter.

Dear Mario,

I’ll be waiting for you at the castle on the night of the Star Festival. There’s something I’d like to give you.

From Peach.

Oh man, I hardly want to move anymore. http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01507/ This music is just so… out of my world…

I was hanging around my house today, listening to the classic Zelda themes, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Field, Water Temple, you know, all the good ones. When the Post Man shows up with a package for me. Turns out Samas is sending out some complimentary music CDs of Metroid music.

This music is insane! It’s amazing. I mean, I’m extremely partial to Zelda Music, full orchestration, remixes and even the midis. But when I started listening to Metroid stuff… it was so different, it was so… …I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like I just fall into this trance-like groove and time holds perfectly still. I can’t do anything while listening to this music (like doing dishes, riding Epona, killing monsters…) but I really don’t seem to care. It’s like a large dose of apathy hits me when this music starts.

I don’t know how you can focus with this stuff Samus, it’s really amazing music.

Crime Alert! The crime rate in the city is beyond acceptable levels. The residents want to reclaim their neighborhoods and are willing to take matters into their own hands. You better build some police stations fast!

Okay, I need help. Major help. If anyone is even remotely capable of holding and firing a bow and arrow, please contact me ASAP! I’ve been riding around Hyrule Field for 45 minutes trying to give Zelda a good shot at Ganon. BUT SHE NEVER DID!!!

“I’m too far away!” or “It’s too bumpy!” or “It’s not the right angle…”

IT’S NEVER GOING TO BE A FREAKING PERFECT ANGLE!!! JUST SHOOT THE MAN!!!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I lost my temper. I was pretty far gone, and I really should have stepped back and counted to 10. But I didn’t, and you know what?

You know what she did? Do you know, what SHE DID to me?

She shot me!

She Shot ME! Right in the back of the head. Point Blank.

SHE SHOT ME!I just can’t believe she shot me!!!

“Well, if I’m not good enough, do it yourself.” She said. And she left.

BUT SHE SHOT ME!!!I don’t even think that she hesitated. I mean, I’m trying to save the world, nay, universe, and she shoots me! What’s up with that?

Anyway, I need help and I need help fast. I’ll be riding around Hyrule Field until someone shows up to help out.

Thanks much!

And I am totally going to win. Not to say that no one else is any good, it’s just that, I am the fastest, and if Mario thinks he can keep up with me, well… that’s just not even physically possible. I can outrun his kart with ease, I routinely play frisbee by myself, I am so fast it isn’t even funny. So stand back Mario and watch a real runner go. Because I can run.

The crime rate will be higher in areas where the land value is low or the population density is high. Check the map and make sure police stations are distributed so that they provide overlapping coverage in high crime areas.

If anyone is up for a game of Avalanche give me a call. It’s been awhile since I’ve played and boy, I really need my fix.

I don’t fully understand my place in Mario Kart. I’m a ghost, I don’t technically weigh a thing. Yet, I found myself in the heavy weight class of cars.

This must be some sort of mistake on the paperwork, I distinctly remember checking the “Lightweight” checkbox on the registration form. Something must have gone wrong. I have weighed myself, and I have no weight, because my being doesn’t physically exist in this dimension of space. It’s odd, I know, but it works. Trust me.

I must say, I do drive a heavy kart, but that cart can’t make that much difference. I mean, if the kart was as heavy as they make it sound, then Pete’s Kart wouldn’t be able to move. No offense Pete, but your kart has to be light, or else adding your weight to it would cause it to crawl along the pavement like a dead caterpillar.

I tried to have it changed when I found out what happened, but they have some sort of policy against that, so I guess I’m stuck with it. Oh well, there is always next time.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I think of my favorite video game song, it’s definitely the DK Rap. This song is simply a classic. I listen to it about 37.5 times a day as I do my monkey workout. It totally gets the blood pumping. It makes me want to sing. It’s a compulsion, I can’t help it… I just gotta… just gotta… oh man, I’m in the groove!

H-H-H…Here we go! So they’re finally here, performing for you
If you know the words, you can join in too
Put your hands together if you want to clap
As we take you through this fun-ky rap!
HUH! D. K.! Donkey Kong!

He’s the leader of the bunch.
You know him well.
He’s finally back to kick some tail!
His coconut gun can fire in spurts
If he shoots ya, it’s gonna hurt!
He’s bigger! faster! and stronger too!
He’s the first member of the DK crew!
D. K.! Donkey Kong! HEY!
D. K.! Donkey Kong is here!

This Kong’s got style, so listen up dudes!
She shrinks in size to suit her mood!
She’s quick n’ nimble when she needs to be
She floats in air and climbs up trees!
If you choose her, you won’t choose wrong
With a skip and a hop, she’s ONE COOL KONG!
D. K.! Donkey Kong!

He has no style, he has no grace
This Kong…has a funny face
He can handstand when he wants to
And stretch his arms out just for you!
In-flate himself just like a balloon
This cra-zy Kong just digs this tune!
HEY! D. K.! (D. K.!) Donkey Kong!
D. K.! (D. K.!) Donkey Kong is here!

He’s back again, and about time, too
And this time, he’s in the mood!
He can fly real high with his jetpack on…
With his pistols out, he’s one tough Kong!
He can make you smile when you hear his tune…
But, Kremlings beware ’cause he’s out after you!
D. K.! Donkey Kong! D. K.!
Donkey Kong! D. K.! Donkey Kong!

Fi-nal-ly, he’s here for you!
It’s the LAST member of the D. K. crew!
This Kong’s…so strong, it isn’t funny!
Can make a Kremling cry out for Mummy!
He can pick up a boulder with relative ease
Makes crushing rocks seem such a breeze
He may move slow; he can’t jump high
But this Kong’s one heck of a guy!
Hehehe…

Come on Cranky!
Take it to the stage! Walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells! Grapes, melons, oranges, and coconut shells! Oh, yeah! Walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells! Grapes, melons, oranges, and coconut shells! Oh, yeah!

DEAR DIARY THEY HAVE FOUND ME I MUST RUN FOR MY LIFE THEY ARE TOO FAST I MUST GET AWAY MUST GET AWAY MUST GET

Dear Diary:

Forgive my hand writing, for it is unusually bad today, since I am writing while walking. Actually, walking is not quite the right word. Running is more like it.

We were attacked in the night by a bunch of Orcs and I would be dead now if the Undead had not attacked at the same time, and provided a distraction.

I am afraid I am the only one left now and I must find a place to hide. It looks like there is a path up ahead here might offer some shelter.  Perhaps I can rest here the night.

Dear Diary:

Today was exciting. We were attacked by a horde of undead forces that killed our soldiers and burned our buildings. They were so big and powerful that they killed everyone, except for a small band of 3 survivors. Myself, along with a foot soldier and another peasant headed away into the woods to hide from the onslaught.

Unfortunately the foot soldier died when we were attacked by some creatures guarding a gold mine. We finally killed the creatures, but now it’s just us two peasants. Looks like we’ll have to start from scratch.

Tomorrow should be fun.

Dear Diary,

Today was not exciting. I got up early and chopped wood from morning till dusk. At which point, when I thought I was done, I had to go and fix a barn.

People really seem to be in a hurry around here. I am really tired of chopping wood. I hope I can get a change of occupation soon.

Stay off the streets! Heavy traffic is clogging our roads, residents are upset, and the pollution levels are rising. Now might be a good time to introduce your mass transit program.

Dear Diary:

I built another farm today. Then I built a tower. After that I built another tower and then another farm. Then I chopped wood for the rest of the day. It was a long and boring day. I hope tomorrow is more exciting.

Peach, I’m sorry to say it, but that is the worst idea ever. No one is ever going to need to save Mario, ever. And that’s that… well… okay, there was that one time in… oh, and that other time… …when I was missing… …man, I forgot all about that… …those were good times…

But back to my point, no one is going to think that that is a good game. I mean, even the name is clunky and hard to say: “Super Peach World”? Please! Spare me!

Besides, we’ve moved beyond the realm of castles now, we’re in the space age now! We have whole universes to explore, not just lame old castles. You’ll have your time to play golf and tennis and Olympic games, and racing.

Leave the people saving to the professionals.

I had an idea for a new game the other day. Call it Super Peach World. Here’s the concept. Mario, while fighting Bowser, gets kidnapped and taken to a castle, and then Princess Peach, (that’s me!), has to fight through 8 levels of castles to save Mario from the Evil Bowser.

This game would be amazing! It would be much better than most Mario games.

Mario games make me look ditzy. I keep getting caught by Bowser, and I have to be rescued. Well, I’m not a fragile little statue! Have you seen me in Smash Bros? I am a death machine!

In fact, just last week I was in a match against Mega Bowser, and I defeated him single handedly. Which is more than I can say for Mario, one of my “Allies” against Mega Bowser.

I know I can do this! Just give me a chance! Why can’t I save the day once?

The only thing I hate more than noobs, are noobs who think they can take on Legendary. These people come in, having never played Halo before. Never! In fact, some of them have never even played a first person shooter. This is the generation that grew up on Pokemon.

And it’s killing me.

Literally.

Legendary is called “Legendary” for a reason. And this reason is: IT’S REALLY FREAKING HARD!!! Let’s not forget that. Legendary is a mode made for people who spend their entire life playing Halo and have become so good at the game that they can play through the entire thing blindfolded. And even then, it’s a challenge!

When these newbies come on and start playing Legendary, I die. Not just once, no, I die multiple times. Over and over again.

Dying is painful! I’m not going to lie. Getting shot in the head 18 times in a row, is not only humiliating, but very painful. It hurts! I’m assuming most of you have never been shot in the head. In fact, most of you have never really been shot at all. But this is my life. I am constantly being shot at, and I am constantly shooting back. But if I am at the mercy of someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, I’m going to get clobbered.

So  do me a favor, stick to the easier levels until you know what you are doing. Please!

I don’t mean to be anti-female, but oh my goodness! Peach should not be allowed to drive! I was coming around the corner of Luigi’s Raceway (my favorite track) when she came flying out of nowhere, hardly keeping control of her car, and smashes into the side of me! I spun out and was nailed by Browser and the whole thing was a mess.

This isn’t an isolated incident. She’s done this before, and not just to me, to anyone who just so happens to be in her way.

The accidents never help her either. It would be one thing if she would run me over and take off to the finish line, or something of that sort, but when she continually is coming up in last place, this isn’t good for anybody!

I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but she won’t listen. She says her driving is fine, and she rarely makes any mistakes. She probably has her eyes closed, thats the only real way to explain it.

I don’t know what we can do, but we have to do something, or someone is going to get hurt!

My body is numb. I feel all tingly. I think I played two dozen soccer games today… which I estimate to have sent roughly 18 hundred Gig-a-watts through my poor body. Every time I got the ball I was smashed into the wall. I finally began running away from the ball, but even if I was on the opposite side of the field, there was always someone there shoving me against the electric fence of a wall.

I have 3 dozen bones in my body. I counted them. I had ample opportunity to count them. I could see every one of them glowing bright white inside of my quickly cooking body. I’m beginning to smell like sautéed mushrooms. Maybe I should just go bathe myself in butter.

I was tidying up my room the other day, and I found this account written on a page in one of my many notebooks by my bedside which covered one of the 14 degrees of art I have. (Woodrow Wilson scholarly my foot, but that’s a rant for another time!) Memories. Hmph!

3/8/2001
Well, now I’ve done it. While Mario was off on another of his adventures (I think he calls it “Paper Mario”), I secretly installed a trap door in the floor of the bedroom and constructed a cellar underneath it. I’ve been keeping a diary down there as my own little secret. Something to do while he’s away. So why aren’t I writing this entry in that diary, you ask? Two words: I’m stuck.

That’s right, while trying to drop through my trap door, I got stuck in it. I’ve actually been here for three days now. My periodic flailing has finally gotten me a notebook and a pen from a table to give me something to relieve the madness. So now I’m just waiting here for something to happen.

Mario hasn’t come home in weeks. I haven’t eaten, slept, or changed my clothes since I’ve been here. I miss my toes. I left spaghetti cooking before I went to the basement, foolishly believing I would be back in five minutes. The house is now fragrant with a light scent of spaghetti, mixed with a heavy dose of over used hot metal and burnt noodles. The pot of sauce has been overflowing, and the puddle grows closer to me every day (though I shudder to think what the kitchen looks like). I think I heard a meatball explode yesterday. Dust is gathering on every shelf I can see, and I long to clean them sooo badly. I left a window open, and birds have started to land on the window sill. My poor notebooks which I left by the window! Why do I leave them by the window?!

The next time Mario goes off to adventure, I’m finding some diversion to keep me out of the house. I’ll hire some help to take care of those dusty shelves while I’m gone, but I seriously don’t think I can afford to have this happen again. Maybe I’ll take a cruise and tour the Mushroom Kingdom. Maybe I’ll get lucky enough for a fair to roll by. Heck, if I have to, I’ll check
into a hotel in town and play tourist right here.*

Maybe if I’m really lucky, I’ll get a letter that sends me off on an adventure to a far away place.* Then I’ll be the one with many great tales while Mario
stays home to watch things. Then he’ll build and subsequently get stuck in a trap door and I’ll just laugh and laugh and laugh!*

All of a sudden I’m noticing things seem a lot taller. Is my malnutrition and lack of rest causing me to atrophy into shortness? Mario, if I don’t get out of this, I just want you to—————-~~~~~ (The rest of the page is one large scrawl as a result of falling through the trap door.)

Luigi’s notes:
I later wrote a short entry about this account in the diary I mentioned.

* 3/11/2001: Now that I’ve eaten and thought about it, it might make more sense to do this in some of the places Mario’s adventured through.
* 10/14/2004: I was shocked today when this happened. However, it turns out Mario got a similar letter just days earlier! (Paper Mario 2)
* 6/10/2007: I found this page again. Um… I didn’t mean the last statement that I put a star by, Mario. I was tired and hungry! Please don’t hold it against me!

It happened again. I can’t stand when it happens—literally, I can’t! I’ve been paused in midair. It’s been happening to me since as long as I’ve been able to jump. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve always enjoyed the whole jumping ability I’ve been granted. But I really don’t like it when I get paused on the way up or down. Does it sound like fun to defy gravity? It is… if, say, you do it right with a Wing Cap or some other method of flying. Sitting there suspended in the air without even being able to dangle is nauseating.

Super Mario 64 is where it really started to get irksome. Some folks heard me complain about how much more comfortable it would be if I could sit down while paused. Looking like you’re sitting down doesn’t help much while you’re in midair. And then came the worst of all: “Hey, let’s try pausing it while he’s upside down! That’ll look funny!” The horror.

Super Smash Bros. Melee brought a new dimension to it with that zoom in feature of pausing. People pausing to check out various cool poses just means I get paused in whole new angles to be observed. And the most horrible is when someone pauses to leave for an hour or two saying “Can I leave it paused ‘til we get back?” Of course, that’s not as bad if I’m on the ground, but think about it: how much more often do you pause in midair than on the ground?!

Super Mario Sunshine offers me some relief. You can’t pause at all unless my feet are planted solidly on the ground. Less people realize you can “pause” with the Z-Button any time in that game, but then at least I can read the brochure of Isle Delfino and not think about the lack of land beneath me. But, oh! I can only shudder as I anticipate what will happen in Super Mario Galaxy when it comes. Am I doomed to be paused while leaping across chasms with miles of nothingness between me and the ground below? The horror.

I must be the worst boss ever. I mean, look at me! I kidnap a Princess, and hold her captive, IN HER OWN CASTLE! So I’m basically giving Mario home field advantage. He’s over at Peach’s place every other day, if you see where I’m going here. Fixing the plumbing, that kind of thing… … … …

On top of that, the stars Mario needs to defeat me, are found in the pictures, in the castle. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here!

Then there’s my “helpers.” If you can call them that. These stupid bimbos waddle around all over the place, just waiting to be stepped on. All it takes is one foot and “POP”! There goes another goober. I step on about 3 of the stupid things just on my way to the kitchen for afternoon snack! Like these things will ever stop anyone. Maybe they can “cute” him to death. Or maybe he’ll die laughing!

Then there’s a matter of hit points. You know how many hit points I have? Three. That’s right, three. Whoop-de-do! You know, I could stand to have 3 hit points, IF THERE WEREN’T BOMBS SURROUNDING MY ARENA!!! I mean, what’s up with that? Why in the world would I put BOMBS IN MY OWN ARENA!!! It’s not like Mario is going to run up and jump on them all by himself! I’m just totally asking to be killed. It’s like, “Hi, I’m a moron! Please kill me! Have a nice day!”

Gaaahh! I can’t take this anymore. I need to call my agent.

Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu. Pikachu! Pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu, pika pikachu. Pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu pika pika. Pika pika pika pika pikachu, pikachu. Pikachu, pika, pika, pika! Pika, pikachu, pika pika pikachu. Pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika, pika, pika, pikachu. Pika! Pikachu! Pikachu pika pika. Pikachu.

It’s been awfully quiet on the video game front lately. Forget being paused, we aren’t even being turned on. Things do not bode well when this happens, and some of us are starting to get cabin fever.

Bond managed to hack into the Wii Weather Channel this morning, and it’s worse then we figured. The temperature is suppose to be in the 70′s all week! It’s going to be perfect weather for volleyball, baseball, soccer, and frisbee. No one is going to be inside playing video games, this is terrible!

Hmm… maybe we just need a virtual frisbee game… I can see it now. Mario Frisbee! Sign me up Nintendo, this is going to be the biggest hit since Pokemon!

Let Hyrule rot. Let the light world be taken over by darkness. I don’t care. You know why I don’t care? Because no one else does!

These fairy people are starting to get on my nerves. I’m working my way down into the cave of ordeals, and it’s those blasted fairies! You talk to them, and their all like “Hey, I never expected you to make it this far. Good job though! If you want to start over, let me know!”

What?!?! Is this the first fairy that doesn’t refill your health? At least partially? I’m the freaking Hero of Light, and you can’t even refill my health!?!? If you want me to save your pathetic little planet, it might help to show me a little courtesy.

And what’s so magic about the number eight? Why do fairies refill 8 hearts? Why not 10? Why not all your health? I don’t understand why 8 is the magic number. It just doesn’t make sense.

These stupid Hylian people don’t know how good they have it. The all carry on about their pathetic little business, while I, single handedly mind you, VOLUNTEER, to save the world. I even save two worlds this time! What do I get in return? Nothing. Not a thing. Sure, I’m no longer in wolf form and precious little what’s-her-face, gets her memory back. But I don’t get any benefits at all! I have to buy my arrows, I have to buy my bombs, I get to scavenge all over tar-nation looking for rupees and trying to find health.

I don’t even qualify for fringe benefits! This is like the most retarded deal ever. That’s why I have decided to quit. I’d like to officially announce that I am going to stop saving the world, until I am shown a bit more appreciation. If you really care about Hyrule as much as you say you do, prove it.

It’s been fun, a nice good franchise, but I think it’s time I retire. I found a nice little island a few clips to the west of my grandparents house, you can find me there when you change your mind.

I must say, that being paused for hours on end is quite a drag. I’ve had some pauses that run a good 5 to 8 hours, but being paused is sometime preferable, especially when compared to a speed run. Speed runs are down right exhausting. I just got done with a MASSIVE speed run, and could probably sleep for a week.

I just got done playing through every Mega Man game made. Okay, so we didn’t go EVERY game, but we must have been pretty darn close. Let’s see, we went through… Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, Mega Man 4, 5, 6 7, 8, Mega Man in Dr. Wily’s Revenge, Mega Man II, Mega Man III, Mega Man IV, Mega Man V, X, X2, X3, X4, Mega Man Xtreme, X5, Mega Man Xtreme 2, X6, X7, Mega Man X: Command Mission, X8, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man Zero 2, Mega Man Zero 3, Mega Man Zero 4, Mega Man ZX…

…I might be forgetting a few. I really don’t know. I am so bleary-eyed right now it’s not even funny. My biggest problem was staying awake. It really was. I mean, this was non-stop action, we jumped from one game to the next faster then you can say “Sonic is a Loser!”

… Yeah, I gotta get some sleep. Just remember, if you ever want to do a speed run, please be kind to the video game characters and pause once in a while, okay?

I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty well lost right now. The water temple confuses me to no end. I just don’t get it. I had the water lowered, finally figured out how to raise it, only to find that I needed it lowered. Once I get it lowered I discover that I need it in the middle, and once it’s at the half way point, I realize that I forgot to get something when  the water was lowered, which means I have to raise the water again to lower it.

By the time I get here I have no recollection of what rooms I have been in, and what rooms I still need to go through.

And these stupid jumping spiders keep coming back… grr…

I’ve been at this for 3 hours now… I don’t know… it’s just not working… … … maybe I need a walkthrough…

I am ready to cry. I really am. I just want to break down and bawl for awhile. (Not to be confused with Brawl, which isn’t out yet…)

I have been paused for 3 weeks.

THREE (3) WEEKS!

I’ve been standing here, on the beach, for 3 weeks. That’s 21 days. That’s 504 hours. That’s 30240 minutes. Which is equvilent to 1814400. You wanna know how bored I am? I did all that math in my head! SIX TIMES!!! I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m BORED OUT OF MY MIND, and I have a REALLY BAD SUNBURN!!!

Who leaves a game paused for 3 weeks?!?!? This is worse then solitary confinement. The first few hours were fun. I got to hang out here on the beach, soaking up the sun rays, enjoying the sound of the ocean. I started to worry at the 12 hour mark. After you’ve been paused for 12 or 16 hours, you begin to wonder, but you realize that you’ll probably be unpaused soon.

Little did I know, I would be spending THREE STINKING WEEKS paused. My skin is as red as my hat. This sun is deadly. This is like, “I’m going to need a new body,” bad.

I’m angry, I’m stinky, I haven’t slept in days. I’ve tried, I really have. At first I could, but I’ve been through so much, I just can’t take it anymore!!!

I ThInK I Am GoInG cRaZY!?!!!!

SOMEBODY HELP MEEEEE!!!

PLEASE!!!!

…somebody… … someone…

*sobs*

Forest life rocks. You don’t know how awesome it is to live in a jungle. It’s amazing. The only thing better then living in the jungle is a side scrolling game. You may think I’m a bit off the wall with this, but I’m serious. Side scrolling is great, I don’t see why they don’t do more of it. Just because you can have a three dimensional world doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, Donkey Kong 64 was an amazing game, but I’m still a big fan of the classics. The first original Donkey Kong Country was one of the greatest games to grace the world. (Just because I am a bias source doesn’t mean my opinion is useless!)

Those were the good old days, riding rhinos, swinging on vines, collecting banananananananas… Ah, bananas! I love bananas. I’m not happy with these new gigs that my agent is throwing my way… Donkey Kong-a? Get real! It’s like a bunch of drunk PR people came up with the “cute” (read: very not cute) idea to use my name as some sort of sick pun. My agent, being the kind hearted moron he is, signed up me up then goes to tell me that this game is going to take off like a NASA rocket! He was dead wrong, what more can I say.

Actually, I think the biggest problem came when Microsoft bought our Rare. I tell you, I had around 6 dozen apes and gorillas with picket signs trying to boycott the deal. We had internet campaigns and a ton of TV ads, the problem is first that apes and monkeys don’t watch TV or use the Internet. The second problem is that Microsoft doesn’t listen to animals, even if the Animals are capable of developing better software… …please don’t send me hate mail… …I really didn’t mean that.

Well, I’m off to go throw my drums in the trash… again…

The fog drifted in around me. The water lapped up around my arms as I took another step deeper into the pool. Her dead body lay across my arms. I was still in shock, my legs wanted to collapse out from under me, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. She was there, so beautiful, so loving, and that beast… that thing… I wanted to yell out but I couldn’t. What good would it do anyway. She was gone. It was all my fault too. It had to be, had I just not let her go, but she never did listen to orders. She wanted to go. She asked to come along, in fact she had insisted; jumping ahead before I could stop her. Then he came down, right from the ceiling, sword in hand.

Utter loss and despair courses through my fatigued body. What more can I do? I could hardly stand, I just wanted to give up. Helplessness flooded over me, and I released her body into the water. She slowly sank downward into the deepening pool. I couldn’t take it… …I couldn’t stand it…

I feel like I have been run over by truck. My companions had gathered about a fire and were softly talking. Companions? I had forgotten completely about my companions. Not that I cared, I was just going to stay here until I died. I would never forgive myself for what happened last night. How could this have happened? I hated him for what he had done, and I hated myself even more for not being able to stop it. It happened in slow motion, the moment replayed through my mind over and over again, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

It won’t go away, I just want it all to end! I feel sick in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t right, something must be wrong, something must be wrong…

I don’t want to live anymore. I’m helpless. She’s dead! She died because that sick beast just wanted to get revenge upon me. Why couldn’t I stop it! Why didn’t he just take his anger out on me, why did he drag her into it? Was it because she was an ancient? No, it was because I loved her… I can never forgive myself.

Okay folks, I need to set some stuff straight. After my last post I have been flooded with email asking me if I am depressed, offering moral support, giving me yellow ribbon cards and trying to sell me watches. I’m not suicidal, I’m not sick of life, I was just a bit lonely.

I like my job, I really do! I got around to sitting and listening the other day and I have come to the conclusion that the best part of my life, is the music. The music I get to listen to on a day to day basis, is absolutely amazing. It’s incredible. Even the pause music is so great that I could listen to it for hours. (Okay, so maybe I have no choice but to listen to the pause music for hours, but that doesn’t make it any less good!)

Music is a big part of my life and I bet it’s a big part of your life too! Music is one thing that really keeps me going. The theme to Talon Overworld, I was paused in Talon Overworld for 3 and a half hours yesterday. I got so lost in that music that I felt like I was only paused for 15 minutes. I’m totally serious, it’s amazing.

Now, granted, when I’m sitting here in the original Metroid and I have been paused for 45 minutes, well it’s getting a bit long. Not a whole lot to listen too, and even the music that might be accessible, repeats ever 21 seconds.

Oooh! Looks like Jr. is coming back, time to go fight some baddies! Catch you laters!

I really don’t wanna be here today. I have this killer headache and it is really getting in the way of my concentration. I had a bad night last night, couldn’t sleep, and today, of all days, we get to play Halo. Charlie hasn’t played Halo in months, and to be quite honest, he’s not really that great. That doesn’t bother me though. I don’t mind playing the same level a few times because I keep getting killed, what bugs me is the fact that I have this stupid headache, right in the front of my forehead and now I have to run around shooting baddies.

I am really tired and I really can’t focus. I don’t even know what level I’m on right now, that’s how out of it I am. The only thing I do know, is that there is a plasma grenade stuck to my helmet and the second Charlie decides to unpause, I’m a dead man. Though, knowing Charlie, he’s probably going to try to record the dumb thing and put it up on YouTube.

I really wish you could see my face right now. Because the annoyed stare that is plastered on my face is so utterly perfect, I really can’t describe it. I won’t have to though, because in another minute I’m dead. Then I can re-spawn with an even larger headache, and go through the whole deal again.

I tell you… <...transmission ended...>

Hey ya’ll! Sonic here.

Not really one for blogging myself, but when news reached me about Captain Slow-Poke’s post, I needed to correct a few issues.

First off, Captain Falcon is not the fastest person on the planet. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even drive the fastest car on the planet. Anybody can out race Captain Falcon, some of us can even do it on foot.

The thing about racing in cars, is that anyone can do it. You get in and put your foot on the gas petal. Doesn’t sound that hard to me. That’s why there are so many characters to choose from in F-Zero. Get a clue Captain! Anybody could take your place with a weeks worth of training.

You want speed? The only way to truly have speed is to train up for it and have it yourself. I’ll take you up on your offer. Let’s go to a track, you and me. First one to 300 laps wins.You know what? I’ll even run the outside lane, and let you run the inside lane. I’ll still be done long before you will be.

The only person capable of matching my speed is Shadow. And on most days I can beat him, but it’s not always easy.

So kids, if you are looking for speed, don’t be taken in by some cheap marketing and hat tricks, stick with the true blue, go Sonic!

Man, I am fast. You think you’re fast? You think beating Twilight Princess in under 30 hours is fast? Well I so totally have you beat! I am the king of fast. I am so fast it’s not even funny. That’s right, I am faster the humor!!!!

I’m just whippin’ around corners, yippee! How many people do you know, that can start out the race in 20th place and be in 1st by the end of lap one? Yeah, that’s me. Did you see my last race? Did ya? Did ya? It was amazing, if I do say so myself. I am sweet. That’s all I gotta say.

The best racing game on the planet is F-Zero, and there ain’t no buts about that. You think Mario Kart is a racing game? Think again. It puts me to sleep. It’s kinda like all these new “action” movies that are coming out. They are far to slow. They take like a whole half second to change camera angles, it’s awful. I’m sitting there in the movie theater going… “Okay… can they change the camera angle yet? Anytime now…” and then finally, I have to wait another second or half a second and the camera angle changes.

I am like, the fastest game character in the world. It rocks. Some people think Sonic, is fast, but I am so much faster then Sonic. Granted, I must say that Sonic has a cool “blue and red” color theme going for him, (my personal favorite) but you put the two of us on a track, and… well… the only conclusion is that I would win. That’s all there is too it. Why? Because I am fast!

Yeah, so the last race was rockin’ good fun. This next race is going to be awesome too. As soon as I get unpaused… …Which is… like… TAKING FOREVER… sheesh… it’s been a whole two minutes… come on, come on, come on, come on!!!! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!

Hey, Gotta Race! Laters!

So I’m paused while fighting the Omega Pirate, and I’ve been standing around for the better part of forty-five minutes now and I have basically come to the realization that I have no friends.

It’s really rather sad. Here I am, risking my butt to save this stupid planet, when in all reality, there isn’t a creature on this planet that doesn’t want me dead! Why should I even get involved? What harm would come of just nuking the place?

See, this I don’t understand. When Link saves Hyrule, he’s saving the people there. Mario goes out to save Peach. Me? I go out and kill things that want me dead. Sure, I’m a bounty-hunter, but why can’t I just blow up the planet? If the planet goes, so will the creatures on it, no harm done to me. Job done, it’s party time! I don’t have to fight these bosses if I just blow them to high heaven.

I wouldn’t mind if there were people here to save. That might even be kinda fun. Playing hero to a receptive audience would be a great change of pace. I like the lone bounty-hunter work, but sometimes I am just looking to enjoy some company. It gets pretty lonely in these far reaches of space.

Maybe I’ve just been paused for too long.

So the Wii is out, and guess what? No Mario game! And what’s worse, no Luigi game!

When I heard the Wii was coming out I was excited. When I heard that Mario was not going to make it for the Launch I was ecstatic. I started waiting for my agent to call up with news about Luigi’s Mansion II or something like that. Imagine, swinging a Wii controller around like a flashlight. Is that not cool or what?

I wait for two weeks, don’t hear a thing from my agent, and decide to give him a call. Two weeks is a long time to not hear from your agent, especially when you think there is a new title for you to be in.

Me: “Hey, Charlie! What’s happening man?”

Charlie: “Hey… Luigi? How are you doing bud?”

Me: “Hey, the Wii is launching soon. You hear anything about a Launch Title?”

Charlie: “Wii Launch title? Hmm… I can’t say I have. I heard something about Link being in the Wii Launch. Nothing about you though.”

Me: “Oh.”

Charlie: “Are they really going to call it the Wii? That’s crazy! I don’t see how that’s going to sell.”

Me: “So any new gigs at all?”

Charlie: “Sorry Bud! Nothing new on my end. I was pushing for that Mario Party 23, or whatever it’s called, but Toad isn’t signing on. He says he’s getting to old for the party scheme.”

Me: “…”

Charlie: “Hey Bud, I gotta run! I’ll catch you later though!”

Man, I need a new agent. This is just crap. No new Wii launch titles. I mean, come on! I’m getting sick of the whole Mario Party scheme, but at least it pays the bills.

Zelda?!?! Zelda gets a launch title?!?! Come on! How many Zelda games do you need, wasn’t like three enough? Super Luigi World is bound to be the next big thing. Hey, I’d even settle for Luigi-ware Inc, or Luigi-Kart. Diddy Kong even has his own racing game… A bunch of jerks, the whole lot of them.

Maybe I’ll go start work on Luigi-Pinball…

This is stupid. I’m sorry, but this kids a moron. Here I am, in the shadow temple, you would think he has a slight clue on how to actually play this game, seeing as he go this far to begin with. But no, let’s throw me off that cliff a few times, yeah, like I can make that jump! HELLO!!! YOU DON’T HAVE THE STINKIN’ HOVER BOOTS YET!! Kids these days. I almost glad when Navi starts talking to him, I mean, I don’t really wish Navi on anyone, but boy, this kid is really clueless. And now, here I am, dangling on the edge of this cliff while he just takes off and eats lunch. Sheesh, the least you think he could do is pull me up so I could rest my arms.

Maybe he won’t come back, then his older brother can come and we can actually get something done. It’s not like I have all the time in the world. Although maybe it would be better if someone will just hit the reset button and I can forget this whole nightmare. He killed me 5 times. 5 times! And I’m not talking boss battle kills, I’m talking: “Let’s jump off that cliff, because maybe I can make it across this time” kills. It drives me nuts.

You would think that a looser like this might actually be a decent gamer, I mean, if you spend 9 hours a day in front of a game console you expect some improvement, right? That’s usually how it works, I’ve seen it happen before! I’ve seen terrible players go from crappy to mind boggling awesome in a matter of three temples. Why can’t all gamers be this way, why am I always stuck with the losers?

I’m going through rooms with secrets hidden left and right, it’s so blatantly obvious that the walls can be bombed that even my grandma knows what to do… if I had a grandma that is. My history in this game is crappy. I don’t have a family, I don’t have a mom, I don’t even have a dad. I get a tree. Yippee, skippee. A tree, maybe I can celebrate Arbor Day or something. Nothing like being an outcast, it’s like the lonely hero. Why do I have to do everything myself? Look at Cloud! He gets a whole gang of people to help him out. The Donkey Kong clan gets to work together, even Mario get’s a brother. And I get a tree, a tree that dies 10 minutes into the stupid story. That just makes me angry.

Maybe I should just let go and drop to my death once more. It’s not like that kid is going to care. He probably forgot all about me as soon as he got to the top step. He opens the door to the kitchen and instantly I no longer exist. Eat some Mac and Cheese, go watch TV, mommy kicks him outside for a few hours and then sometime tomorrow he remembers that I’m still hanging on the edge of this stupid cliff hoping that someday he will learn how to actually use the controller to… you know.. CONTROL things…

Yeah, I’m sick of this….

EEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!