Moving sucks...I hate it. Hopefully this will be the LAST time I will ever have to move. It is one of the most futile and frustrating activities that I've ever had to do. You pack up all your stuff, move its physical location, unpack, and hope you didn't forget anything.

Unfortunately for me, these last 3 years at my apartment have made it so that I have yet to be completely unpacked from my last move from my parent's basement. If I include this most recent move coming up, I will have moved 13 times in my life (I can thank Uncle Sam for 9 of them), which automatically qualifies me as a 'moving' ninja. I'm good at what I do, I just don't enjoy it.

Luckily, Mrs. Excremento and I have finally closed on our house and are now in the process of uprooting and moving to the fortress of solitude where we can raise our brood. This means that I will finally get a chance to have my media room decked out the way it should be. In the process of this move, after going through boxes upon boxes of games that haven't seen the light of day in years, I found some that I forgot that I even owned until yesterday when I found them all over again. Today’s list is The Weird Kid's Top 10 Games I Forgot I Owned Until I Found Them While Packing Up My Apartment To Move To My New House. Enjoy!


N2O: Nitrous Oxide - PlayStation


I used to have the biggest boner for any album that The Crystal Method made. Their first album Vegas is still one of the best examples of good ol' American made Techno. When I found out they did the soundtrack for a game, I was there, with cash in hand.

For those of you that might have never played N2O it's like this other game that was popular a long time ago (when I was a kid), Tempest. The similarities being that you pilot a ship that is tethered to a wall of a tunnel that is full of all sorts of baddies that you have to try to clear. The great thing about this game was its graphics. The tunnels you are in change shape, undulate, and change color sometimes in order to rape your eyes and give you motion sickness. This game's experience was made so much better by having its soundtrack be nothing but TCM all the way through.

Hell, in a time before custom game soundtracks, stuff like this was important and could be seen as selling points for games. I almost bought a Duke Nukem game just because the opening song was by Stabbing Westward. I can even remember popping various PlayStation games into my Discman to see if the game's music would show up.


Ghost in the Shell - PlayStation


Being a fan of many anime and not too much manga, you'd have to have been living under a rock in the nerd world to never have seen Ghost in the Shell at least once back in the late 90s. The movie was great, but for most of us silly Americans, we had no idea who the characters were. Not until the GitS: Stand Alone Complex series did we get a chance to find out the back-story on most of the series' beloved characters.

Too bad that the game came out before the TV series...

Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty fucking awesome by PS1 standards. The bad part is that every level has you playing as a no-name troop known as "The Rookie" inside a Fuchikoma tank as you crawl along walls, scaling buildings, hanging upside down, jumping chasms, and essentially shooting anything that isn't a friend. The best part of the game is the soundtrack and cut scenes (actually made by Production I.G.), the soundtrack was good enough to warrant its own soundtrack cd and the voice acting in the game was done by the actual voice cast from the TV show and movies.


Code Name: Viper - NES


Can someone say complete rip-off of Rolling Thunder? I can, but you know what, I don't care. This game was a fun little romp through 8 stages of similar looking enemies that are palette swapped. There's platforming, getting behind cover, shooting, and more awesome NES speak from the hostages you rescue. Instead of "Thank You!" it sounds like "Meeekh Maw".

If you've never played this game before, and you're a fan of Rolling Thunder type games, give this a shot. It's no Shinobi, but is pretty well done for an early Capcom game on the good old NES.


Shatterhand - NES


One of the greatest unsung heroes here in America for game development would have to be Natsume. The company never really made it huge here but they kept on releasing awesome action game after awesome action game and Shatterhand is one of the greatest.

There's a special place in my heart for all the awesome action games on the NES, whether it be Ninja Gaiden, Vice: Project Doom, or even G.I. Joe, I think it was the console's defining genre. Shatterhand is one of the few games that once imported into the country was made better by adding effects and better graphics over the Japanese version.

The game's mechanic is your typical action platformer reminiscent of a run-and-gun game except you yourself have no gun, just your fists. Well that's true until you collect enough 'Alpha' and 'Beta' icons to build a little robot buddy to help you out. This game is one of the rare gems that came out near the end of the NES's lifecycle, at that time when the games on the console were really really well done. If you're a fan of the genre and you like having fun, check your apartment out when cleaning up, you too might have a copy you forgot about.


Side Arms Hyper Dyne- Turbografx 16


Another game that incorporated the Alpha and Beta theme was Side Arms Hyper Dyne that was originally an arcade game that got ported to just about every system imaginable for its time. Taking cues from other shmup games like Gradius, you had a multitude of powerups and speed-ups for your character that you use to battle all sorts of various no name enemies.

What was great about this game and why I'm glad I found it was that it is a damn near arcade perfect version of the game. Not as cool as my copy of Blazing Lazers but still a pretty damn cool game nonetheless. Also, if you find the hidden powerups in the stages and you are playing 2 player, you join together like F-ing Voltron to decimate your foes...man I loved this game!


Grandia - PlayStation


Grandia, you either loved it or hated it. I'm one of the few that adored this game. The story was strangely attractive, considering it was like most JRPGs and dealing with the coming-of-age of the characters involved. The main draws for me with this game, like all of my games is the great soundtrack, and innovative battle system that mixed active-time and real-time elements.

I remember from the game, the quest to reach the wall that divides the 'end of the world' was pretty epic, and the cool way that the game made you feel sympathy with the characters by tackling elements that all gamers tend to share. Most of us game players share the same traits, we're curious, energetic, loyal, adventuresome, and most importantly we enjoy other people's company and like to have fun. That's what this game is, one of the best examples of JRPG fun. My only complaint...slowdown, there's massive slowdown as the screen fills up with sprites.


Excitebike - NES


Its fuckin' Excitebike, 'nuff said. I just cant believe I forgot I owned this one!


Jet Grind Radio - Dreamcast


Jet Grind Radio (aka Jet Set Radio), I thought I lent you out to my friend back in the day! I am so happy I didn't cause he's not my friend anymore! I thought this game was lost forever due to the strange circumstance that is known as growing up. I got this game mainly because it had graffiti art as the main gameplay mechanic. Little did I know that electro-magnetic inline skates and gang warfare would be the other 2 big things.

Probably one of the first cel-shaded games ever to be made, JGR holds a special place in my heart as one of my favorite games with a wild and eclectic soundtrack that suits my personality to a "T". Holy crap if you seriously have never had some time with the Jet ___ Radio series, go out to Gamestop and spend 4 bucks on an Xbox version of the game. I'm just glad that I found my copy, now I don't have to source a new one from ebay!!!


Dungeons & Dragons Collection - Saturn


Man I got so lucky in finding this game. I had it stuffed in my PC game box of games because it doesn’t even resemble other games that I have on my Saturn. Not only is the game really 2 games smooshed into one box. It's two arcade perfect versions of the games, and it's friggin D&D!

Only one problem, I speak and read only enough moonspeak to get by, not quite enough to get the whole story of what’s going on in the game, or what somebody just said to me. It's ok, this beat 'em up is one of my favorites that never gets old, no matter how many times I play it. I especially love being the cleric and killing undead enemies with my magic rings. Have fun with the dragon at the end of the first game though. Oh, and boobies in the second game!!!! Woo hoo!

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Legend of Mana - PlayStation


I don't know how I forgot I had this game. Honestly, with the amount of time I spent playing this game would have made it an easy thing to remember...alas, it was forgotten. This is probably my second favorite version of the Mana series, with Secret of Mana claiming the number one spot in my heart.

The graphics in this game are spectacular, all of the hand drawn and painted backgrounds, all of the 2D character sprites were just unbelievable. The music is probably one of the most important aspects of the game for me. The soundtrack was composed by Yoko Shimamura, the same genius behind the soundtracks for Kingdom Hearts I & II, Parasite Eve, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tobal No. 1, and even Street Fighter 2; that makes her alright in my book.



Now many people think that this game isn't worth the Mana moniker (I'm looking at you BigPopaGamer!!!), I happen to disagree. Its true that there isn't much story in the game (probably why I forgot the game) but there is sooooooo much content there to keep a guy like me happy for weeks. I really want to throw this game into my PS3 just to see the opening video right now...too bad for me, I'm at work.


Pro-Wrestling - NES


The beginning of the button-mashing console fighting game was in an area of my apartment that hadn't seen daylight in a long time. I picked up the cartridge, and immediately ran into the other room to pop it into the good ol' NES. I was immediately frustrated by the control scheme and the unrelenting computer opponents, but had to give a good laugh when the match was me 'Starman' vs. 'The Amazon'.

This game had it all, cameramen, referees that dropped to the mat when you go down for the count, and even better is the simulated 3 count that the NES's sad little sound chip tries to emulate. I had a good time with the game, but seriously it got old FAST. Its sad though I can remember a time before home console fighting games where all we had to keep us entertained on weekends when we'd have friends over were games like this one.




Well, this concludes yet another Weird Kid's Top 10 list. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I'm just glad that most of my most precious games that I thought I lost or forgot about are still in my collection. Remember my top 10s are meant to be entertaining and not meant to be taken seriously. Its all for fun, just enjoy reading and take something away with you or leave a comment if you so wish.

As always, please let me know if you have a particular Top 10 that you'd like to see, and I'd be happy to oblige. For all of my faithful fans that do submit ideas, I promise I'll eventually get around to yours. Thank you again for reading. See you next time.