Hey, guys! I'm being a shameless attention whore!



In actuality, I'm posting this because this might be relevant to your interests. I just put up my Zelda Game and Watch on eBay. Click here to check it out, I have more sweet pics in the auction.

"The Zelda Game & Watch was first released by Nintendo in 1989 as a multi-screen game and watch (also known as ZL-65). One of the last forays into the Game and Watch series, the unit is a triumph of late 80's technology. Obviously a precursor to the Nintendo DS, this item is a must-have for Zelda-philes, tech junkies (like me!), or retro gamers.

In this adventure, Link must climb to the top of a Stalfos and Moblin infested dungeon to reach the Triforce. At the end of each level you must fight a large dragon before being rewarded with a piece of the Triforce. Along the way you can pick up and use items to help him, such as the Water of Life, a map, and a Tomahawk. If you fall or get hit by a Stalfos the game's over, however there is a continue feature. The game features branching levels, allowing a player to take separate paths through each dungeon, maximizing replayability.

This game is one of the first Zelda games to be released with the gamer playing as Link. This game is now considered to be a cult classic, with some units now fetching up to $400. It was re-released in 1998 as a Nintendo Mini, and can also be found on Game and Watch Gallery Advance for Game Boy Advance, however you must unlock it somehow before you are able to play it." (text brazenly borrowed from Legends and Adventures - A Zelda Fansite).

The unit is really nice, and to all of you screaming DO WANT, please feel free to throw large bushels of cash at me, because Mr Perfect needs to buy textbooks.

This is the product of my first foray into digital creation. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this thing. Please post something for me to draw, it'll make good practice and I'll post my interpretations of it later.

Feel proud, fuckers, I made it with all of my love.

So I waited in line, patiently anticipating the puppies, rainbows and Vietnamese hookers that was going to come pouring out of my 360 when I stuck in GTA 4. And I was mostly correct in that assumption. Concelmo riding a dolphin level happiness ensued upon playing this game.

Then it died. I don't know why. I felt more finished than Daniel Day Lewis at the end of There Will Be Blood. So I took a few days off. I felt overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff in the game. 200 pigeons? WTF? Why not make it 400, you arbitrary sadists?

I fell back to my standby: the SNES. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my SNES to college, so I play Wii VC. So, Here I am, playing Super Mario World, cowering in my little Nintendo security blanket. And I gotta tell you all, it's pretty awesome. Not punch a hooker awesome, but close.



So in lieu of my GTA impressions, I'm gonna give you all some Super Mario World impressions. Maybe you got Rick-Rolled, but I think this will be more entertaining than the glut of posts about GTA.

First and Foremost:

Fuck you, Gamecube Controller.



I somehow have to be able to hold Y and press B without touching the HUGE FUCKING A button. My thumb is not meant to bend this way. Everytime I want to hold a turtle shell or do a long jump, I end up spin jumping. I hate that goddamn spin jump. The worst is when I am riding Yoshi. When I try to make a jump, if I even so much look at the A button it boots my fat Italian ass off that dinosaur and laughs. LAUGHS.



Second,

How damn awesome are the rainbow road levels? Let's ask them! We have:

Gnarly
Tubular
Way Cool
Awesome
Groovy
Mondo
Outrageous
Funky

They are so awesome they make Mario explode:



Best level names Ever? Pretty much. Best levels ever? I still love gnarly, due to the message box at the beginning of the level. Funky was amazing due to the coin message at the end proclaiming "You are a Super Player!"

However, Tubular is one of the most frustrating levels in Mario history; and I'm including the lost levels.



Basically, Mario has to maneuver his way to the end of the level by maintaining a chain of P balloons, otherwise he falls to his death. If any enemy touches him, he dies. The game throws every projectile hucking charging chuck and volcano lotus it can at you while your bloated mustache tries feebly to rise and sink to avoid baseballs and footballs. FOOTBALLS. I have never been screwed so many times by a football in this level (outside of Madden). Wait, projectiles? Awkward handling? One hit Kills?

Tubular is a Mario Shmup. I love hyperbole, so I'm gonna say it is as hard as Ikaruga. The floating mechanic is just terrible. P balloons are the worst power up since the frog suit.

However, the best part of Super Mario World comes after completion of the extra levels. The entire game is given a sprite-swap, giving everything a neon, trippy quality. The levels become neon green and orange, and the koopas turn into little mario clones.



My personal favorite transformation is the piranha plant into pumpkin. It reminds me of Halloween, the best time of the year.

Overall, 11/10.


Now, GTA might be more beautiful and better many senses of the word, but why did I return to a game that I have played at least 15 times? I think Rockstar should percolate on that.

Dear DC,

A good chef knows when and how to mix proper tastes in order to make a dish more than the sum of its parts. He knows what flavors work well together: mint and chocolate, steak and red wine, etc. etc. Intellectual properties work in much the same way. The point I'm trying to make is that the mixture of Mortal Kombat and DC is much akin to mixing yogurt and mayonnaise.



To carry this half-assed metaphor farther down Fail Avenue, some myopic dingleberry at Midway probably saw these two IP's and thought, "Hey, these two things have the same consistency and color! We should put them together! I am so hip!" So Mr. Dingleberry called you with terrible brain-abortion. And one of your higher-ups, I'll call him Mr. Suckington, well Mr. Suckington thought this was just swell.

Well, Mr. Dingleberry and Mr. Suckington both forgot the most important part of this mixture, flavor. In this case, how it will play, and what a person will play it for.

There are three camps looking disinterestedly at this game: The MK purists, the DC fanboys (yours truly), and those who just want a semi-decent fighter to while away a few hours.

The MK purists are those who want a bloodier game experience, like the seminal MK 2. The symbol of this movement seems to be everyone on the messageboards sounding out "No fatalities, LAYM." What needs to be said, however, is why fatalities are practically an impossible dream. The inclusion of such iconic characters as Superman and Batman necessitate that there will be no overt death scenes.



Which of your PR guy wants to go to bat for you when Fox News comes after him, screaming that his company's new videogame made this little guy cry after his icon got his head ripped off by a yellow ninja? Seriously, LOOK AT HIM.

If you knew going into this partnership that there would be no fatalities, then you were going in knowing that you would be alienating both of the target audiences you were trying to attract in the first place. Smart parents won't buy their kids violent games, and this exclusion alienates the older people who buy MK games just for the silly gore.

Honestly, I don't know what the fuck you are thinking. If you're trying to reattract disenfranchised teenagers with a "darker edge," it's not going to work. Didn't you try this before?



It didn't work in the 90's, it's not going to work now. I love you, DC. I love you enough to put a Green Lantern symbol indelibly upon my body.



What did you have to gain in this? Your movies are more often better than not, and I understand the need to capitalize with mediocre movie-to-videogame adaptations (Superman Returns, Batman Begins). There was no financial reason for this aberration.

The only possible reason I can envision this happening is due to a deep-seated jealousy regarding Marvel vs. Capcom. I know they had a great fighting game and it's still stuck in your craw, but it's alright! They made Daredevil and Stan Lee is almost dead! Just think about it, though, there's a difference between the content matter of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The general public will accept Spider-Man fighting a guy whose biggest attack is a blue beam of energy coming from his hand. Will they accept Johnny Cage's crotch punch? Will they accept a guy who can impale his opponent with harpoons in his hands?

This is doing nothing but giving you bad press. Bad press for videogames and bad press for comic books; two media that desperately need good light if they are to get the respect as art forms they deserve. Shame.

P.S. Don't you dare make Green Lantern John Stewart. Just because you needed a black guy in the cartoons to make it scientifically diverse enough for a kid's show means that you need to do it here. You owe it to us, dammit.

Perfect out.

I am a Resident Adviser for a Residence Hall @ Northern Michigan. At the beginning of each semester, I am charged with many different projects to create a fun, livable community. These include: creating door decorations displaying each person's name, a duty board which lists which Ra is on call in the building that night, and a info board containing information about anything prevalent. Last semester, I made a Pac-Man theme which pleased me greatly, but I unfortunately lost the photos.

This semester, however, I decided to make a new theme. Sticking with what I knew, I created the Mario theme. I made power-up door decs and a pixelized duty board. However, I was stuck on my information board. I didn't know what to do. I was surfing around Dtoid, back when I was a lurker, when I found The Great Retro Quiz: Mario Edition by Chad Concelmo. It was perfect. I found that it transfered perfectly onto my info board. The answers I believe came from ElectroLemon, so props to you as well. I think that the theme came out rather well, considering I have large, meaty sausages where fingers should reside. Thanks Dtoid!

This is the board. I'm sorry in advance, it's been three months in a high traffic area. My pics are a little ugly because they've been beat up.





I used a folding sheet to hide the answers.







My Duty Board



Some Door Decs