Hi. Fuck that arcade X-Men game on PSN and XBL. There, I said it.

Oh, don't give me that look. You know it had to be said. Hell, I'm willing to bet you're thinking the exact same thing. Remember when you bought it—no, remember when you saw it? That nice, polished Ad that popped up in the PlayStation Store or X-Box Live? Yeah ... you creamed your pants, too. Sucker.

So you paid the "measley" ten bucks for it because, well, you want to support the culture, and you also want to relive your childhood memories on the awesomeness that is your elaborate gaming setup. Sure, you could have just as easily downloaded the game for free and played it on a MAME emulator, but you're too good for that. So you bought the damn game.

You were excited. You even called up a few dudes. "Hey, remember that X-Men game we used to play at Putt-Putt? Dude, I know, it was awesome! I have it! Come on over!"

Your friends came over with Funyuns and Four Lokos. You even cracked a Loko open for yourself, because you enjoy punishing your body as well as your self-esteem. Then you and your pals picked up your controllers and fired the game up. It's time, baby. Fuckin' X-Men.

You noticed that the only thing in "High-definition" were the goddamn life bars, and that the screen wasn't even fullscreen, but you disregarded that and fell back into the game. You remembered this game being awesome, after all. Man, it sure does feel good seeing Nightcrawler teleport all over the screen, right? Haha!

You conquered that bitch in ten minutes, and you and your friends just stared at each other, lost.

"You, uh ... you feel like playing again?" You asked.

"What the fuck was that, man?" Your chubby friend said.

The rest of your friends joined in on Tubby's "WTFs," and then you felt like an idiot for spending ten bucks to relive ten minutes of nostalgia. So now the game sits on your console's harddrive, taking up space, because you refuse to delete it on the principle that you fucking paid for it. It sits in your games folder, and when you highlight it you find all of the X-Men there with sardonic expressions.

Then you notice the blond-haired Dazzler in the front, her arms folded, smiling, staring back at you as if to say, "I just got the test results back, and I'm pregnant. You'll never get rid of me. We're having hooker babies."

You snap yourself out of your schizophrenic trance, then you pop in Red Dead Redemption and utter—

"Fuck that game."

- CASTLE