Comment Corner

Folks,

I'd say that video-games have finally acheived that level of mainstream respectability that allows somebody to actually pursue video-games on a more mature level. That is, video-games have risen above their roots of competing for children's attention with hobo cock-wrestling. I remember the day when a quarter got you another chance at crazy Gunsmoke at the A&P or it encouraged one homeless rummy to bite the nipple off a sleeping second homeless rummy.

But, much like people remember certain hilarious movies, like JFK, or remember those haunting tear-jerkers, like Shrek 2 or just those plain fucked up movies that nobody understands why they were green-lit let alone actually had a movie-crew not murder themselves in shame making it, like Fever Pitch, video games have ushered in those moments.

Who among us hasn't cried when PacMan ate all the power-pellets and there were still a couple of normal shit pellets on the far side of the board? Who among us is so giant in spirit he didn't spit on the screen and leave when his last bit of health was chipped away with a blocked fireball by some cunt kid who just kept having Ryu whip those things out incessantly while you're still trying to figure out how to make Guile do the upside-down kick? Or just look directly at him and say, "Think that's funny? How's this for funny, Mr. George Fucking Carlin?" then dragon-punch him hard enough he stumbles backwards into the Hotstess chip display, tumbling it over with a callow grunt. If the kid had bonked his head hard enough to kill him, I so would have tried to inhale the sweet essence of his last and final earthly breath. Unless it smelled like burp.

Anyway, I've spent some time in arcades and in front of screens, and my God, have I blown a fucking kidney right out the back of my shirt I've laughed hard at some things.

SUB-ZERO'S SPINAL RIP FATALITY



In the early 90's, arcade games still featured rather cartoony violence. Street Fighter II had ushered in fighting games, but until then, they had all featured hand drawn sprites with perhaps some blood, mostly sweat and a touch of vomit. Enter Mortal Kombat. Pushing the envelope in terms of violence, each match ended with an ominous voice inviting the winner to "Finish Him", just like in a gay porn but with a different outcome. After being weaned on pretend violence, here was a digitized actor ripping the head off of another. Much like Sub-Zero actually turns into the screen to show his handiwork, the first time I saw this in the arcade, the fat-ass midget playing it pretty much did the same thing. Believe it or not, the crowd gasped and laughed.

HITLER'S FACE EXPLODING ~ BIONIC COMMANDO



Bionic Commando for the NES is arguably one of the best games ever. Taking such radical gameplay ideas as, "Okay, dude doesn't jump, dude fucking grapples. EVERYWHERE!" and making it work, Capcom had a bona fide hit on its hands. Adding to the sheer joy of spearing people with the grapple-claw, Capcom threw in a story about how some evil dictator was resurrecting the Albatross, a giant floating death-machine that could vaporize the anonymous cock in Britney Spear's coked up mouth right now without so much as singeing her lip. Bottom line, the dictator was Hitler. Then, you shot a bazooka right into his squash at about 10 feet. The above picture was the result.

HARD DRIVIN' INSTANT REPLAY OF RUNNING OVER THE COW



Atari, before it went belly up faster than Lindsay Lohan on her 33rd shooter in the car on the way TO the party, made a polygon sit-down race car simulator called Hard Drivin'. You know the game was hip because Drivin' didn't have a square ass "g" at the end. Rather than be stuck on the track like in other racing games, Hard Drivin' was basically a free-form driving game with two different courses, a speed track and a stunt track for the geek loser that liked driving properly. Well, the stunt-track had jumps, a loop-de-loop and I don't remember what else. If you floored it coming around down the first corner towards the barn before the speed track, you would slide off to the left hand side of the road and plow through a cow before exploding in a Billy Joel-esque spectacular crash involving your car, a barn and a cow who didn't fucking move. While playing the game, the driver sat in a seat and looked out the front windshield. After a nasty crash, a bird's eye view gave the player a rather whimsical look at the last moments of a cow's life before becoming a permanent addition to the broad-side of a barn. Even better, it mooed.

Folks, video-games are here to stay and their history is there right along side it. Maybe you have some video-game moments that mean something to you. It's not like I fucking care or anything, I finally wrote an ending to this!