You cannot get more hardqore than Qix.

Hey kids, so you think you have shown every badass motherfucker of a video game who is the REAL boss? You are the zombie overlord? No terrorist organization can outsmart you?

Well now is the time to show who will rely in the battle between the man and the machine. It's time to play Taito's classic Qix. For GameBoy in this case.



YEAAAAAAAAAHHHH BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Ok, I usually prepare a long ass speech when I make a blog entry, but I just want to tell you the little boring story behind my experience with it.

Long time ago, around 8 years ago, maybe, I was VERY addicted to Flash and Java games from those sites where they just stole everything from Newgrounds. Those were the days I was spending my time as a "PC gamer" as I was getting used to the WASD keys and other commands while everyone else was spending time on Starcraft.

Anyhow, in the game library of the site, there was a wide selection of arcade classics remade in the Java platform, and besides Arkanoid and Galagan, there was also Qix. I was hooked immediately once I got to play, and just last week I found a cartridge of the GameBoy version at Bookmans (a really AWESOME second hand store that is more hippie than hipster) for just three dollars.

Qix is a very, very surreal game. It reminds me of those that were all vector-ish and made of lines and blocks that were in the movie Tron. Ok so let me try describing the objective. You are a diamond-shaped thingy that can cover areas by drawing squares and have to contain an electric/radioactive shock wave thingy, and you win the more you cover the area (about 75% at least, on the GameBoy version), you also have to avoid spark things that go through the circuits you made.

Well that was not really hard to describe, but I suppose it's more understandable if you just look at the gameplay.



So why am I saying that this game is pretty damn hardcore? Well, it is not just because it's an arcade classic, and has an X on the name, but also because it's REALLY DAMN HARD! That sqwiggly-shockwave-whatever KNOWS you are plotting against it. You will suddenly start drawing a box thinking that everything is fine as he is in the other side of the area, and SUDDENLY that bastard will leap unto you like a hungry cheetah! That line is a freaking troll! I want it to die!

I think that very simple games can get very challenging too easily. Kind of an oxymoron taking the perspective of how it really is a casual game, and as other casual games, it gets very, very addictive. I suppose we should stop using those terms anyway.

I will admit, I saw the NES version a little ago (like ten minutes ago on YouTube, per say) and it looks pretty superior on the sounds and designs of the patterns your blocks leave. But you know what the GameBoy version has that it makes it an instant must have? Mario sings dressed as a mariachi.

Ok haha what.

Mario. In the desert. Singing as a mariachi. With a poncho. So... SO EPIC.



Mario dresses with different places of the world as Spain, Kenya and other countries, but... COME ON, MARIOACHI!

Actually the other few cutscenes of the game are pretty interesting too, but I don't know what complex subconscious artistic clusterfuck this has under the hood. Watching all of this is like an interpretative dance. You don't know what the fuck is going on, but you are satisfied for what happened as random it was.

Or is it possible?



Is Nintendo's version of Qix an art game in disguise? Are the blocks you draw a representation of Mondrian's paintings? Is it a representation of the meaning of "the man" suppressing the free ones? Is it about victory? Control? Chaos?

And the most important question of all: WHAT DOES ANTHONY BURCH HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS?!

Ok, peace.