Divorce isn’t easy, especially as a child. A lot of things are running through your head; things you really don’t want to deal with, or maybe can’t even fathom.
Everyone needs some sort of escape. My grandest grief excursion, was the world of Morrowind.
I never had an experience with an Elder Scrolls title before, or even heard of them. Bethesda Softworks had stunned the world with the releases of Elder Scrolls: Arena, and Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Both were first-person adventure games that would become Bethesda’s trademark genre, and both were highly acclaimed at the time.
Honestly, the most enigmatic part of my journey into Tamriel could be the fact that I, to this day, have no idea why I bought the game. I think I found the brown, runic cover intriguing, as I’ve always been a huge fan of fantasy.
As soon as I entered what would become my home until my dying days; Balmora, I immersed myself in the world of Morrowind. Balmora was a quaint town with a river running straight through it, and district seat of House Hlaalu, one of the three political parties found in the region. Although their morals were sometimes questionable, their pragmatic ways really spoke to me, and so, I chose them as my affiliation.
The Code of Hlaalu: In the great wind of progress, tradition cannot stand. Grasp fortune by the forelocks. When you see your chances, seize them. When you see a chance to turn a profit, take it. But do not follow money blindly. There is value in reputation, more than many young Hlaalu realize. This value must be carefully balanced against the more tangible coins in any deal. Theft and murder are bad for business. You can steal from someone, but will he trade with you after that? You can't bargain with a dead man.
Eventually, rising through the ranks of the house, I became a lord, and as a reward, I was given an entire plantation, complete with servants. After living there for a few days, I decided it just wasn't "me". I had been given a few homes as quest rewards, but really, I was never satisfied. None of them exemplified anything I stood for; one was too small and cramped, one was too large and presumptuous, and so on. It wasn't until I was propositioned by a gang of deadly assassins called The Morag Tong, that I found my home.
The Morag Tong gave me an offer I couldn't refuse, and I laughed in their faces. I had never known of their existence before, but no guild of murderers was going to do business in my town. I, in turn, murdered all of them, and took over their bar. It had a quaint sitting area on the roof, and only had one room on the ground floor, but was equipped with a very large basement. Slowly, I started moving my effects from my old homes (which, looking back, was an odd experience. Moving, in a game?), which took me 2 hours to do, going back and forth. I was very happy with my situation, and started building a library in one of the downstairs rooms, and an armory in the other. I would never move again.
As I continued my journeys throughout Morrowind, one thing was for sure; it was always interesting. You see, the deity Dagoth Ur, housed within the Red Mountain in the center of the map, was spreading pestilent disease across the land. I knew eventually I had to put an end to it, but honestly, it could wait. There was so much more out there than the lair of some deity, and I was going to explore all of it. In Morrowind, there is no “fast travel” option, outside of Silt Strider beasts that are able to transport you to major cities. As a result, you could never skip past anything, and are able to enjoy the nuances of the environment. I couldn't have imagined skipping past some of the enchanting towns I came across.
One of my grandest tasks was given to me when I joined “The Temple”; the official religion of Morrowind. I was required to go on a pilgrimage to seven shrines across the land. During my travels I saw wondrous things, as I had to walk the entire distance on foot! 10 hours later, I was able to complete this quest, after being sidetracked a few times. Never before had I experienced a 10 hour quest in any game I’ve ever played; it’s most likely an event that will never happen again.
During my travels, I met kings, robbers, murderers, thieves, and noble knights. I was never in one place too long, but rest assured, there are some faces I could never forget. 300 hours later, enough was enough. I was ready to finally continue my quest to stop Dagoth Ur, and finally become a hero.
But I had to come back to reality. School was starting again, and I couldn’t simply escape any longer. My final resting place was in Balmora; I died with the world still in tumultuous ruin. I perished as the Arch-Mage of the Mage’s Guild, Master of the Fighter’s Guild, High Acolyte of The Temple, and Lord of Hlaalu. I still, to this day, never saved the world from the terrors of Dagoth Ur: and I’m ok with that.
Well, I decided to copy Half-Left and do an unboxing of what is probably the greatest collector's edition of all time, compliments of Dtoid's latest Lord of the Rings contest. I don't think you're ready for how awesome this edition really is.
Like Half Left, my package was choke slammed to my door, seemingly.
The box looked innocent enough
But it was packed full of shit
Awesome, awesome shit. I had no idea it would come with not only a map of the Mines of Moria, but a full map of Middle Earth.
Now, I can finally pin-up the full map on my wall, so my wife and I can follow the movie's trail during our watch-athons. Moral of the story; enter Dtoid's contests, because you win free shit
If anyone missed it, I challenged Garison to a comment-off, with Funktastic as the Judge (may the best man win!). We commented in 100% of the c-blogs today, and Funk will tally up who had the most pertinent/funny things to say. I found it to be a rather rewarding experience. I've never actually sat down and read every single blog for the day, and now I realize, I probably should do it more often.
Also, my username contest:
Well, Ballistic was half right!
My name comes from
Magna Centipede from Mega Man X2
Shenlong from Gundam Wing (I'm oddly enough not a huge fan of the mech itself, but I loved it in Endless Duel for the SNES).
Everyone has to do one of these at some point, right?! Come in for the random top 10, stay for a creepy #1 image.
10) I married my high school sweetheart (some would say)
The reason I say “some”, is because I met her the summer of my Junior year, so I don’t know if that qualifies for “standard sweetheart status”, but I’d like to think that it does. She was going off to College, and I ended up following her there the following year. During my first semester we were seeing different people, but it didn’t work out for either of us and we started dating. The rest is history. As luck would have it, we both enjoy playing video games with each other (we just finished Resident Evil 5, and now are working on Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance for PS2).
9) My favorite total package Bruce Wayne/Bats is Christian Bale
Every top 10 needs a random ass fact. In my opinion, if you want the perfect Bruce Wayne, call up Michael Keaton. If you want the perfect Batman, give Val Kilmer a call. If you need an incredible voice, Kevin Conroy is your man. But if you want a real-live Batman, it’s gotta be Christian “trash your fuckin’ lights” Bale.
8) Through a series of unfortunate events, I gained 20 pounds .
I used to be fit as a fiddle. I ran every night, ate well, and didn’t drink soda for 3 years. In what is not considered an unfortunate event, I went on a cruise for my honeymoon, but gained 10 pounds. Typical of a week long cruise right? What’s not typical is that apparently I developed cellulitis on my right foot before the trip, and I received a horrible bacterial infection courtesy of the sleazy beaches of St. Maarten (protip: Don’t ever go to St. Maarten). As luck would have it, my insurance plan just ran out, and my wife and I were drawing up papers to get a new one a bit after we got back from our honeymoon.
After 3 weeks, skin started falling off my right foot. We hurried to a local clinic, and they told me that if I had waited much longer, I may have either lost my foot, or had to have all the meat sucked out, which could potentially put me in a coma. The end result was me having to take off work with the added bonus of not being able to walk for a month. While it was a great time for me to finish my PS2 backlog, but a horrible time for everything else. I’m still working on getting rid of the extra weight as we speak.
The moral? Don’t fuck around when it comes to your feet!
7)I was once a Nintendo Man.
I bought my NES when I was 4 years old. When I was 6, I got my first Gameboy, when I was 7, I received an SNES for my birthday, and when I was 8, I bought a Gameboy Color. Video games were synonymous with Nintendo in my world. When the 64 came out, I had to have it; but something was standing in my way. My cousin showed me this platform called the Sony “Playstation”. I wanted it for all the wrong reasons.
I thought it would be really cool to have the coveted, “cool”, “non-kiddie” machine. Looking back on it, I was a moron for wanting it because of that, but I never looked back. Playstation 1 brought me my grandest moments of gaming; Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu, Final Fantasy 7, Brave Fencer Musashi, Gran Turismo. Not even Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time could match the sheer amount of fun I had with the titles I found on the PS1.
A few years after becoming a Sony Man, I considered buying a 64. Then it hit me: I had beaten Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 at a friend’s house. All of my buddies had WCW v. NWO Revenge, and Goldeneye. To boot, I was the best in my group of friends by far at Smash Brothers, so I had no reason to practice. I think I ended up spending my potential N64 cash on a Dreamcast or something. I actually passed on the Gamecube (same deal; beat the big titles at my friends, and played Melee at friend’s houses). Really, if I had to live with one system, it would be a toss up between the Dreamcast and PS2 (assuming the PS3 would have no backwards compatibility).
6) I have a passion for movies
I’ve always wanted to be a movie producer. Stereotypically enough, my favorite movie is Pulp Fiction, but what I dig is the performances. I can’t get enough of Tim Roth; I’ll hunt down everything that man is in, from Funny Games, to The Hulk, to the short amount of time he was in Four Rooms. I also believe that Pulp Fiction hosted some of the best performances of nearly every “A” list actor in the film, and had some of the best written dialogue you’ll ever find. With a big “oh no!” from you guys out there, my second favorite director is Kevin Smith. I just love his movies, social commentary, and jokes. Flaming, commence!
5) Music, man
I can easily narrow down my two favorite genres to power metal and hip-hop. I listen to a lot of old school Ice Cube (when he was good), and The Wutang Clan. Some of my favorite rap, however, comes from one man: Del tha Funkee Homosapien. You probably remember him from that insanely popular Gorrilaz video.
To me, he’s also known as Deltron 3030, and the leader of one of my favorite groups, Hieroglyphics. There’s only so many people in the world that would be willing to rap about Starscream (my favorite Transformer oddly enough). Deltron 3030 is a collaboration between Del and Dan the Automator (an amazing producer), that is actually a rap narrative concerning a future incarnation of Del in a dystopian environment.
Oh, and I like HIM (I made sure to let you know I was married, aka not gay, before I told you this). If you’re thinking of “Wings of a Butterfly”; that’s Dark Light, and I loathe that album. There’s something about Ville Valo’s vocals that I dig; he really gets into his music, and I respect that.
If you think Metal is just Metallica and Pantera, you got another thing comin’! (Oooh metal reference) Listen to these below, and if you find any of them interesting, hit me up and I can get you boat loads of listening material.
4) Tom Cruise is my favorite actor (I know what you're thinking; fuck this kid)
If you doubt him, I strongly urge you to go watch Born on the Fourth of July. In what is one of the most truly guilty pleasures of all time, you could name me any Tom Cruise movie and I probably loved it; even Cocktail.
There’s something about his energy and the way he carries himself throughout a film that’s just gold. The Last Samurai is one of my top 5 favorite movies, and Collateral was another top notch recent performance that proves that he’s still got it (pretty soon you’ll realize just how much I enjoy guilty pleasures). As an added bonus I have an excuse to post a funny looking Tom Cruise picture.
3) My blog header give it away? I love anime.
At one point I owned around 120 anime DVDs (sadly I sold most of them to afford college), but I had a friend in High School that literally owned 500 titles (confirmed). He would let me borrow boxed sets at a time, so I could easily absorb myself in just about every popular show ever made. Some of my favorites include Trigun (obviously), Full Metal Alchemist, Berserk, and the Lupin TV Specials and Movies (not the TV show).
I remember in High School some of my favorite moments were spent watching boxed sets all night with a group of my friends. Naturally this hobby led me to Otakon a few times, and while I enjoyed it, I found it to be way too big. I most definitely prefer the smaller cons, like how Katsucon used to be.
2) Give me a flamboyant Japanese hero or give me death
Well, not definitively. I do enjoy games of all sorts of genres and origins, but ultimately, I’m a sucker for action-adventure games, specifically of Eastern descent. There’s something douchey and uninteresting about the Master Chiefs and Marcus Fenixes (Fenix, LOL) of the world that turns me off. I thoroughly enjoyed the Halo series, and to a less extent Gears of War, but I can’t get enough loudmouth theatric anime-esque antics; ever.
Take a look at the above picture: man that looks like a woman? Check. Giant sword getting ready to clash with ridiculous claw hands? Check. That’s my shit, that’s my shit!
Bonus: This is my favorite feature found in a video game – “Enhance the challenge! Replay in Hard or Expert mode and face more difficult opponents, different types of enemies, and even changes in the environment that will test your sword-swinging skills to the limit.” I beat good action games at least 3-4+ times depending on the title.
1) Jim Stoilon’ and Jonathan Holmes inspired me to write about gaming (and naturally inspired me to make the creepiest image ever)
After lurking Dtoid for many months I decided to create an account and start blogging. Jim Sterling’s unique writing style (har har) and Jonathan Holmes’s pure passion for gaming sparked something inside of me.
I wasn’t always the greatest straight-writer, but one thing’s for sure; I love video games of all shapes and sizes. Shortly after my writing tenure with a particular site, I was promoted to Editor-In-Chief, and I currently have a pending admission to E3; I never looked back (except at Dtoid).
Dtoid is the best community I’ve came across for any medium, not just gaming. The sheer amount of passion that pulsates from blog posts (not to mention the forums or weekly events) is astounding. No matter what happens in terms of my writing career, I know that I’ll always be a Dtoider.
I've posted some blogs before, but I hope this thing will allow me to familiarize myself with the "in" blog crowd a bit. What the fuck is up with long time members leaving? I suppose it just happens in cycles; I've dug years into the blog backlog and seen drama before. Here's to a long lasting Dtoid relationship!
I thought I didn't love pain. That was, until I met Alma.
My life for Gaiden
You see, Alma and I go way back. I was visiting prospective colleges in 2004, and I had a few friends at a southern Virginia college named Christopher Newport University. Those friends happened to have Ninja Gaiden. My first mistake was to start playing it, even though I only had 2 total days there, and most of it was supposed to be spent viewing the campus and "taking in" my future.
On one hand, there was the thought of "choosing my future place of education, where most likely what I learned there would influence the rest of my life in respect to Academia", and on the other hand, there was the primal thought of "I want to fucking play Ninja Gaiden right now". Stew on it a bit and guess what prevailed...
The Encounter
I started the game and was blown away. Not by it's difficulty, but by how much fun it was. I breezed past the enemies with my advanced hand-eye ninja coordination, and before I knew it, I was in a chapel. It seemed innocent enough; you know, it's a holy place.
There's nothing there but tortured screams, cries, and death; there's nothing there but Alma.
When I first saw Alma I laughed so hard my eyes hurt. She looked like a Power Rangers villain that didn't make Rita Repulsa's B Squad. The battle started, and I was shocked. Every time I attacked her, she did a flip-dodge, and every attack she landed on me did-in most of my health.
Now Alma wouldn't have been too hard if I had any healing items at all. Left naked in the sun, I had to defeat her with my skill alone (problem #1). Finally, in what felt like days, I learned her tactics.
She was dead.
I am the girl in this picture
I was done. Finally, 2 hours later, I was free of my seemingly eternal torment. 6 more hours of the game flashed like lightning. I felt a sense of relief coming over me; even though Alma swore to me that she would be back, she was no where in sight. Then it happened.
Spider-Queen Alma
Ziggarat. Alma Form 2. Spider body. All memories of that event are just fractured thoughts. I vaguely remember the shock of Alma actually coming back very late in the game when I thought I had been purged of my arch-nemesis' effects.
All I remember is killing her.
I cried. The joy overtook me like a sack of potatoes dropping right on my head. But wait! I had to leave in order to be on time for work the next day...I had to leave my saved game on my friend's hard-drive, who was graduating that year...I head to leave my hopes and dreams.
The Pain
Funnily enough, I actually ended up going to Christopher Newport. My first day on campus, while perusing the local shopping mall, I came across a Gamestop; and what did I see on sale? A used copy of Ninja Gaiden. I mustered up the courage and decided to tough it out again. Alma got her shit wrecked. I sliced her on every parry, and dodged all that she could muster.
I decided to play hard mode, innocently enough, and said to myself "if Alma is too hard, I'm just going to quit, ok?" 30 minutes into hard Alma I decided to call it quits. My roommates were in at the time and called me a chicken.
Oh no they di'nt.
1 hour later amidst loud cheering, Alma was vanquished. Next stop, Spider Alma Hard.
Check.
Pressing my luck, I ventured into Very Hard. I had similar experiences with Alma, even though I was very prepared for the occasion this time, stocked with healing goodies. Eventually, health couldn't save me...
An unpleasant surprise
In Ninja Gaiden, on Very Hard, the enemies change, and in some instances, so do the bosses. I had just mastered Alma to the point of near perfection; I did it! Alma would never again trample me with her salmon-feet and slick buttocks. I had made the decision not to venture into the next difficulty level, and all I had from here on in was to defeat a few more easy bosses, then the final foe.
What....the....hell
Final area. Final boss gauntlet. Alma: reincarnated. I couldn't believe it. Team Ninja shamelessly used Alma's character model to re-create an entirely new boss fight only found in Very Hard. 3 hours, 2 popped blood vessels, and 1 busted controller later, and I had beaten the game. I promptly turned it off and never looked back.
To this day, I have not beaten Alma on Master Ninja. She is a hurdle that I must cross before my time is up on this Earth. Once I beat her, I think it would just be best to sell the game and never speak of her again. Never before have I experienced that much pain in a video game, and I do not foresee anything like it in the future. Alma tormented me a total of 7 times before I was finally through with my anguish; and I still have another 3 to go.
Ckarasu, I hope you enjoyed it; my copy of Soul Nomad just broke.
I figured a little introduction was in order in case people were curious. My name is Chris, and I have been enjoying Destructoid avidly since late 2008. I finally decided to make an account and start blogging in January of 2009.
I'm in my 20s, I'm newlywed, and I've been playing games since I was 4. I still remember buying my own NES system at Sears and going home and playing Mario/Duck Hunt. Fast forward to the present, my wife and I now own a PS3 and 360, and in the winter of 2009, we bought a Wii simply so we could play New Super Mario Brothers Wii. If I had to choose a system I had the "best times" with, it would be a two way tie between the Sega Dreamcast and Sony Playstation 2.
There are too many good games out to count now, but recently I've been itching to play my backlog of old PS2 action games. I'll play anything and everything action-adventure, so if you have a game in mind, drop me a line!
Tenchu 2
Lunar 1 and 2 (too hard to decide)
Disgaea 3
Skies of Arcadia
Devil May Cry 3
Resident Evil 5
Phantasy Star Online
Metal Gear Solid 4
Assassin's Creed
Ape Escape 1
Rockman and Forte (Megaman and Bass)
Odin Sphere
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
God Hand
Mass Effect
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
Jet Set Radio Future
Ikaruga
Donkey Kong Country
Dragon Age: Origins
Bonus (to be added in when I think of 30): Onimusha 3
Demon's Souls
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)
Power Stone 2
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
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