The InSephtion is a semi-frequent (read: when I feel like it) series of opinion pieces were I attempt to implant, or otherwise remove, a thought or series of thoughts from your mind.

In this inaugural edition of the InSephtion I’m going to cover a topic that is quite familiar with many of you already, the “Online Pass”. If you’re reading this, or simple are a visitor of Destructoid, it’s highly likely that you’re already familiar with this entire concept since a multitude of bloggers here, as well as Destructoid’s Reviews Editor Jim Sterling, have covered this topic until they were blue in the face. For the small fraction of you who are still not familiar with online passes I’ll give a quick explanation as to what they are.

Online passes are a system implemented by the gaming industry as both a light form of DRM and as well as an attempt to bring in a slight profit from the used game market. How the online pass works is by locking out certain content from the game, such as multiplayer access for example, until the gamer provides an online pass one of two ways; either through a preset code that can be redeemed or through purchasing online pass for, what usually costs, ten additional dollars. If you buy a new copy of the game the online pass is included with the game so you aren’t forced to spend more money on the game you just bought, whilst used games will almost certainly have used the “free” online pass by then. Obviously, the trick with online passes is to encourage gamers to buy their games new instead of used. Why? The answer to why is that publishers and developers get jack squat from used game market sales.

I’m going to be straight to the point – I really don’t think online passes are that terrible of a thing and I don’t entirely understand why some people freak out like someone opened the Ark of the Covenant in their living room every time someone brings up a new game coming with an online pass.



Now, you’re likely thinking “But used sales are a perfectly legal, why punish something that's legal?” or "You don't see the film industry trying to snag cash from second-hand movie sales". For one, that comparison between film sales and game sales isn’t totally valid since the film industry’s primary source of revenue comes from box office sales (when you see it in theaters) not store sales, like video games. Movies have an huge second pool of cash to dip into and DVD sales are generally the secondary source of revenue for major movies, not the primary unless we’re talking about low budget direct-to-DVD stuff. The retail market is a game maker's one and only shot to make profit on a game, so their eggs are essentially all in one basket and they have to make the most out of what they have. Yes, the used item market is a perfectly legal part of how most economic systems work, however, there’s also absolutely nothing illegal about systems like an online pass. If you can use legality as an excuse so can they, it’s a two way street.

Another defense against online passes I seem to frequently hear is that they hurt used game sales due to hidden charges. Yeah, I understand that hidden charges can be a pain in the ass… anybody who has flown on a major airline or bought an Xbox 360 will agree, however, to a certain degree consumer ignorance factors into this problem as well. We’re in an information age here where the internet is almost constantly at our fingertips. If you’re interested in modern gaming you almost certainly have access to the internet (and if you’re into multiplayer gaming, it’s required). Is it really that hard to head over to Google and do a quick search to see if Arkham City or Battlefield 3 require online passes? If the answer to your search is “no”, then just do some elementary level mathematics people. If a used copy of online pass required game is 45 to 50 dollars the tax and online pass factors are just going to bump you up to the cost of retail copy anyway, meaning just save yourself the trouble and buy the new copy of the game instead. It’ll cost you the same amount of money in the end and then you at least don’t have to worry about whether or not your disc was previously owned by some fat guy who smothered his games in Doritos crumbs. That extra minute or two of research will save you a little bit of agitation later on unless those 120 seconds are that desperately important, which brings me to my next point…



People saying “Entering this online pass code wastes my time!”

This is where I stare at you awkwardly, raise one of my eyebrows, and go “Really, that’s your defense?”. It takes about thirty seconds to type in an online pass code, give or take, unless you type something in wrong (which is your fault, not the passes). I want to know what kind of tight knit lifestyle you live where losing thirty seconds of your life is going to ruin your entire day. What else could you be do in that time? Grab a Snickers? Wait for your game to load? Is that one kill (or death) you might miss in Call of Duty that important? Hell, you can’t even make a sandwich in thirty seconds unless you like terrible sloppy sandwiches. PC gamers had to enter serial numbers for years and you never heard them bitching about it wasting their time as much as console folk bitch about passes these days. You can preach from the highest mountain about how entering an online pass wastes your time, but you still sound childish because you’re crying that a microscopic portion of your life has elapsed (or that the time you're wasting bitching about it is in fact longer then it takes to actually type in the code). I really don’t think I need to explain why you look like a tool and not the publisher any further beyond that.

One point that I don’t think gets brought up enough in online pass discussions is this; while used game sales in a roundabout way may help the industry as a whole, they don’t directly help the people putting out these games one bit. Yeah, you could buy a used copy of Dark Souls and then tell everybody how amazing Dark Souls was but you still did absolutely nothing to help From Software because you gave them none of your money, you gave Gamestop your money. And while used game sales can create positive word of mouth that would eventually bring about more sales come a sequel the problem is that buying the game used instead of new in fact hurts the likelihood of a sequel ever happening in the first place. Even if the anticipated sequel happens they’d likely include an online pass system to make up for the money that they lost the first time around.

I hope I’m not in the minority with this, but I believe in giving developers money for making games I like. If I’ve gotten to the point where I’m going to purchase a game it’s likely that the game as already done enough to warrant its purchase (instead of say a rental or borrowing from a friend), and I want to give those developers something as a reward for their hard work. If even that tiny amount of money for an online pass goes towards them and I still save money on buying a game used then it’s a win-win for both sides!

Now, I’m not trying to turn this into a rant about why the used game market is bad. It’s still a very good thing and it has its place in the industry, if there was no used game market to keep the retailers in check then I’d be very afraid of retail costs skyrocketing. However I also believe that online passes aren’t this giant evil entity that is bred to simply murder the used game market like others feel it is. Is the online pass system perfect? Oh hell no, it can definitely be better. I consciously can’t remember the last time a new idea or system was implemented that went off perfectly fine without a hitch. Here are some suggestions I would have for improving the online pass system:

- Make the requirement of online passes more directly present to customers. Personally, I think call game cases should be required to display the inclusion of an online pass. (I’ve seen this on some games occasionally, but it should be universal).

- Break the dependency on a consoles online service for verification. Currently online passes depend on the platform of choice’s online store to verify or purchase online passes. As we learned with the Playstation Network outage last year this is a terrible idea because even after Playstation Network functionality was restored people still couldn’t access the store and activate their online passes (Mortal Kombat & Dirt 3 were hurt by this). Online pass activation should be done directly through the publisher and eliminate any middle-men.

- Don’t force gamers to quit out of a game and return to their system dashboard/store to renew their pass. While the actual process of entering a pass is pretty quick and painless, despite what some people will try to make you believe, it is annoying to have to load up a game and then quit back out in order to activate the pass. Developers should be kind enough to include a within-the-game method for renewing your pass as well.

- Passes that can expire over a set amount of time are dumb for obvious reasons.

- Cut it with some of the bullcrap regarding online passes and single player games. I don't care if you're going to put a pass on my single player title, but if you're going to please keep the pass restricted to stuff like add-ons and downloadable content. Don't threaten to cut out parts of the actual game, that's just a dick move.



Is the online pass system a perfect goody-goody thing? No, it’s not. If someone would say that the online pass system is a little greedy I’d be inclined to agree to a certain point. Anytime you want more money then you previously had, yeah, that’s being greedy in some (even if it’s small) fashion. However, considering that the industry itself has grown a lot over the last decade and development costs have risen up with it I can understand why some people within the industry feel it’s vital to do whatever it takes to continue making money. While I think it’s silly that major companies like EA, who make more than enough money off of games like Madden, push online passes I can understand why smaller groups like the Ninja Theory’s of the world might feel the need to adopt this system. I’m well aware of the fact that I’m not a business major so I could be unaware of some of the things that go into the industry as well, but this is just my general consensus.

Ultimately the point I want to get into your mind is that we should all chill about online passes for a little while longer, let the system work out the kinks, and then pass judgment on whether or not it is a good or bad thing. If you’re someone like me who primarily buys games new then you generally have nothing to worry about anyway, unless there’s a somewhat rare Arkham City incident were some passes don’t renew (which can be attributed to working out the kinks in a system). If you traditionally buy your games used, well, just become a more educated shopper.

The one thing I want to encourage is simple. If you really are against this online pass system then please fight it with your wallet and nothing more. Don't pirate these games in some foolishly noble attempt to "fight the man" or anything stupid like that because stuff like that is what directly leads to things like SOPA, things that hurt everybody including the people who never did anything wrong in the first place.

Want more opinion articles like the InSephtion? Improvements? I don’t have any kind of recurring episodic blog, I’d like to fix that. Let me know in the comments section below. Also, congrats to Magnalon for getting into the fold with Dtoid's staff. As a fan of his stuff for a while, it's nice to see deserving people get accepted and recognized.

You know what a non-work day, boredom, and Dayquil can do to you? Well, for me somehow awoke my creative side a little and shot me into WWE 12’s arena creator mode. My goal? To create an arena that would fit both the glorious image of Destructoid and the completely zany world of professional wrestling.



Admittedly, the arena I envisioned couldn’t be fully realized thanks to some technical limitations of the game itself. However the end result that currently exists is something that I think Niero would smile upon anyways. Also I apologize for the slightly not pristine quality pictures in this blog, I took all of these pictures by pointing my smart-phone at my TV.



As you can see, the ring itself has been meticulously crafted to resemble Destructoid’s well known robotic mascot. It’s glorious gentle eyes looking up into the heavens as sweaty half naked men crawl over his face. The blood, sweat, and tears of these competitors is obviously what thrives the robot’s will to survive. Alongside the ring, the apron is a nice vibrant red corresponding to the traditional color that backs up the Destructoid mascot in most forms.



At ringside the padding that protects wrestlers from smacking into solid concrete is a nice green color that again matches the nice color of Destructoid’s mascot. Along with that, the ring television commentators table has been specially customized for the Destructoid themed event. A green, red, and yellow color combination has been bestowed upon it as well as another image of Destructoid’s mascot in clear view. While beautiful, it is designed to be sturdy enough to take a beating as it will inevitably be used as a weapon by any aggressive wrestler (or if you’re Mick Foley, a landing pad).



Even the security barrier that separates fan from wrestler has been spiced up to a Destructoid-approved level of customization. Sporting a red similar to what the ring apron has, an image of the Destructoid mascot appears here as well. Sadly, technical limitations from the game struck at me here as I really wanted to recreate Mr. Andy Dixon’s famous avatar and splash it right here.



You know those bright LED strips most arena’s have now? At most sporting events they’ll relay the score or play stupid animated advertisements like “Eat at Joe’s” or some shit. Well even the Destructoid arena has one of these, except this time the Destructoid face subtly appears on a green fiery backdrop. Why green fire? Because it looked bad-ass and I said “yeah it’s staying”. Again, technical limitations prevented what I originally wanted to do which was make the entire LED strip read “Also, Cocks” over and over.

Of course every new arena needs some inaugural event in order to properly break it in, right? Well, I figured I would get that out of the way too.



Yes, I made a Jim Sterling wrestler just for this blog (sorry Jim, I wasn't really concerned about life-like quality when I quickly made this).



If you wanted a sample of what WWE ‘12’s create-an-arena mode was like, well here you go. My only complaint is that you cant place your own custom ring commentators in for your custom arena... If you could, I would totally make Jonathan Holmes and Jim Sterling my commentators and it would be the second coming of Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan.

I plan on uploading this to WWE '12's PSN server soon, search for "Destructoid Arena" and you should be able to find it.

It is unquestioned scientific fact that adding Godzilla to anything makes it exponentially better than what it was previously. The laws of the universe dictate it. So you can clearly understand why, in this age of high budget multi-million shipment video games, I am utterly perplexed that video game developers have ignored this blatantly obvious quality edition to video games.

So in the spirit of both making video games a better place for everyone and in the name of all fans of giant monsters crushing tiny little pathetic things I have decided to devote a blog explaining the top five games that would obviously be better with Godzilla in the equation. Now while I could take the easy route and say everything is better with Godzilla, and it's of course true, I'm going to try and be a little more specific and trim things down to a few games that would have extra benefit to the King of the Monsters gracing their good graces.

5 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3


Hey, somethings got to break up the mundane repetition the Call of Duty series has adopted. I’m pretty sure your team would shit its pants if someone on the other team reached a 50 kill streak and suddenly spawned Godzilla on your ass. Now I know what you’d be saying, “But this would be worse than the tactical nuke in MW2!”. Fuck that! This is Godzilla we’re talking about, everybody wants to see that! Calling in Godzilla wouldn’t be an “instant end of game” thing, naw, it would be more like an AC-130 on nuclear powered steroids.

Oh, and there’s no way you can kill Godzilla and remove him from the map. You’re the military. Godzilla always beats the military.

4 - God of War


Kratos has made it a habit of fighting things that are tremendously larger than him, and even turned into one of those large things at the end of God of War (the scene where it happens totally needed a Rita Repulsa “make my monster grow!”, by the way). Given Kratos’s knack for picking on things way too fucking big for him, Godzilla is the next most logical thing for him to get angry at. How would Godzilla play into God of War? Simple, Kratos is off being pissed and suddenly Godzilla walks up to him. That’s it. What, were you expecting something deep and clever? God of War has never been fucking Shakespeare, we don’t need that clever storyline shit here! MONSTER BATTLE!

Godzilla could serve as the token “depower Kratos” device that has seemingly walked hand in hand with all of the major God of War games. Kratos fights Godzilla, gets the ever-living fuck beat out of him, and gets sent to Hades where he has to climb out and start over. You’d think this would lead to an obvious rematch where Kratos wins right? Hell no. Kratos just moves on and doesn’t dare fight Godzilla again. He damn well knows better.

3 - InFamous 2


Did you notice how inFamous 2 has two giant monsters (Bertrand & The Beast) and the two of them never cross paths to have an epic monster battle in the middle of Not-New Orleans? Yeah, I thought that was complete bullshit too. The Beast is the big baddie of inFamous 2, a giant sized super being that destroys anything in its path. How do you insert Big G into the mix? I’m pretty sure Godzilla would take exception to somebody else doing the thing Godzilla is known for doing best. This results in Godzilla crossing the Pacific to make his first North American appearance since Destroy All Monsters (since the 1998 Godzilla obviously doesn’t count) and give inFamous 2 its proper Beast Beatdown.

If you want you can even use Cole nuking The Beast as an excuse to lure Godzilla in since radiation is both Godzilla’s calling card and favorite mid-day meal. Now you might be thinking “Hey, wouldn’t this end with Godzilla then destroying Cole after he’s done with The Beast?”. Odds are against that, actually, as Godzilla has a habit of simply leaving cities after finishing off the resident monster who didn’t know better, meaning Cole lives to see another day.

2 - Shadow of the Colossus


This is a game that's all about climbing, usually, massively tall monstrous beasts and slaying them with your mighty sword. Why not have The Wanderer climb the biggest beast in an attempt to be the only badass motherfucker to take on Godzilla with only a sword and a horse? Shadow of the Colossus is pretty story light so we don't have to worry about shoehorning some ridiculous reason for why Godzilla suddenly shows up in the world this game takes place in, which leaves us with plenty of time to simply think and marvel about what a glorious battle and climb it would be.

Imagine if you just returned from slaying a colossus, lets just say the underground sand-snake colossus, and after waking up in the main temple you hear a distant rumbling sound similar to what you would hear in Jurassic Park. Then, just before you mount your horse and set outside, you hear it... that iconic but bone chilling sound... Godzilla's roar. As you feel the hair on the back of your neck rise, you quickly mount your horse and head out into the open landscape. Thats when you see it off in the distance, charcoal colored skin, massive plates down its back, and coming straight for you. You lift up your sword to see where you must go next, and the light points you towards the King of the Monsters.

You do the rest.

1 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim


Yahtzee kindly referred to the main protagonist of Skyrim as “The Godzillaborn”. Personally, this is a mod that has to happen in some way shape or form. You think fighting dragons is epic? Wait until you leave Whiterun and see fucking Godzilla come from behind one of those mountains. Hah, yeah, and you thought dragon bones would be heavy.

Better yet, why do all of the dragons just have to be Godzilla in this mod? Why not make all of the various types of dragons be different monsters from the Godzilla universe? King Ghidorah is simply a space dragon with three heads. Rodan bears a fair resemblance to the Skyrim dragons anyway. Everybody would like to beat the shit out of Mothra. One of your dragon shouts could be Godzilla's radioactive heat-beam or something.

Someone make this mod, now! And rule all of the internet forever.

The new trailer for Metal Gear Rising debuted at the Spike TV VGA awards this weekend, and I have to say I’m a little surprised by the high amount of negativity floating around the response to the trailer. Now while I haven’t looked extensively into the responses about the trailer (I’m still playing Skyrim after all) I have to say that there are some people out there who are saying this that, quite honestly, make me think they have their head somewhere up their ass. Why? Because they’re saying things that really don’t make much sense when you think about them more in depth.



There’s one item I want to get out of the way as fast as I can. There are people who are trying to draw parallels to Metal Gear Rising and DmC. To all of you people doing this: Stop it, you don’t understand what you’re talking about. The only comparisons that really exist here are that the game is being made by a different developer and that its “different”. Remember that Rising is not a reboot of the Metal Gear franchise like DmC, it’s a spin-off title featuring a different character in the franchise’s universe. So don’t feel like everything you know and love about Metal Gear is going to get swept under the rug. In fact, considering there were mums about Metal Gear Solid 5 floating around (yes, this hasn't been confirmed) and the fact that Kojima in the past has said he’s done with Metal Gear and then another title pops up (see: Peace Walker) I’d say the standard Metal Gear games are perfectly fine and will continue on. Assuming Rising is some sort of replacement to the games we know and love is a little foolish.

The other thing that factors into why this Rising/DmC parallel is stupid is by examining the developers involved. Platinum Games isn’t some western developer who may be out of touch with the Japanese styles that go into a Metal Gear game. Platinum Games is very Japan based, like Kojjima Productions, and is a lot more likely to properly recreate some of the core aspects of a Metal Gear game (at least in storytelling) then, say, Ninja Theory with DmC. Heck, I don’t know if I’m the only person who felt this but while playing Vanquish I felt like there some (albeit very exaggerated) Metal Gear stylings in there. Plus, you haven’t seen Platinum Games come out and basically rail on its own main character prior to making a new game.



Alright, now that I’m done ranting on why that stupid comparison is foolish let me move on to something else. People for some reason seem to be upset with how over the top the action in this trailer was, claiming it was apparently “Not Metal Gear”. I have to ask if anybody remembers some of Raiden’s achievements in previous games, because there’s already been some plenty over the top shit he’s already done. Remember when Raiden fought 20 Rays in Sons of Liberty, without any of his cyborg-ninja shit he got later, and won? How about when he appears in Guns of the Patriots fighting a bunch of those mooing Metal Gears and winning (seriously, whats with the cow noises)? Or later on in MGS4 when he cuts off his own arm and stops a giant ship from crushing Solid Snake by himself, gets pretty much crushed doing so, and still lives to fight again later in the game carrying a sword with only his teeth? So you’re telling me that lifting a single Ray is too much? Don’t complain about this being over the top, because Metal Gear is filled to the teeth with silly and/or over the top crap. This is the same franchise that used possession-via-the-arm as a plot device at one point (before thankfully being retconned).

The response to the hack-and-slash nature of this game seems to be raising my eyebrows a bit too. I saw one user comment that said “Metal Gear is dead now” regarding this trailer now being a totally different thing from the games of the past. Um... the moment this game was announced it had the subtitle of “lightning bolt action” under it, did this get ignored somehow or did people seriously expect Raiden (with this list of accolades mentioned above) to do all of his crazy robot ninja shit in a total stealth game? It’s been firmly established that Rising was going to be of a different genre since pretty much the moment it was announced. And hey this isn’t even the first time such a thing has appeared in a Metal Gear game, anybody remember the Ninja Missions from Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions? Genre switches in the Metal Gear franchise aren’t entirely foreign either, the only reason nobody made a stink about Metal Gear Ac!d is because the game was on the PSP.



In short, cool your jets peeps. Rising isn’t here to replace the games we know and love, its a spin-off game (and possibly series) that’s trying to do different things with the franchise and the comparison between it and DmC is ridiculous and stupid. Plus, even though he’s not a developer for this game, Hideo Kojima had to give some sort of “okay” to all of this and is still one of the brain childs of this game and I think he has a bit more credibility than some of the talking suits you see littered all over the industry right now.

I love Godzilla. Long time followers of my blog (all seven of you) know this to be true as well. Godzilla is awesome & he does everything like a boss. You know what’s more fun than watching Godzilla stomp through giant cities while wasting other giant monsters? Actually being Godzilla and stomping through giant cities while wasting other giant monsters! Yes, there are plenty of Godzilla video games in existence with more recent titles such as Destroy All Monsters Melee and Unleashed getting a little more recognition. However I’m going to use the way-back machine and pull you back in time to the red-rose tinted time of the Super Nintendo era and totally go into detail about how much of a Godzilla nerd I am, because I’m about to talk to you about an entirely different Godzilla game.



It might seem wrong to be calling a movie licensed game on one of the best gaming platforms ever obscure, but hear me out. Super Godzilla is an old Super Nintendo title that, to be perfectly honest, isn’t that great. It’s not an inherently bad game in the sense that there’s anything broken about it, outside of some lacking in the explanation of the game mechanics. However, the game itself isn’t exactly great either… nothing you’d mention to anyone who isn’t a fan of big city destroying monsters. It’s a game aimed at a fraction of the already existing Godzilla fanbase, not something to pull in new people.

The actual gameplay of Super Godzilla is an… interesting… take on how to do a Godzilla title. Some humans find a way to control Godzilla (why? I don’t know, for science?) and use him to fight other monsters that are attacking Japan. The first half of the gameplay involves moving Godzilla around levels in order to find, and of course fight, the enemy monster on the level. This is done by using a split-screen technique that shows a top-down view of the level (usually a city) with a blue dot representing Godzilla. Why it’s not a green or grey dot to match his skin tone is beyond me. The upper half of the screen is pretty much just for show, as it’s just an image of Godzilla stomping around the city tearing through buildings and shit.



As you move around the levels you’ll have to navigate around obstacles such as buildings or vehicles from the Japanese military. Getting close to the military units will cause them to open fire on you and take damage, because apparently they missed the memo about Godzilla being controlled by humans for the sake of good (or it could just be an innate reflex to shoot at Godzilla upon seeing him, since he’s been stomping down Japan for roughly 40 years at this point). Another way to take damage during these sequences of the game is by running into buildings. Yeah you read that right, smashing through buildings hurts Godzilla in this game. Doing the main thing he’s known for doing hurts him. Imagine if Mario lost health every time he jumped into one of those power-up blocks, it’s the same idea. Navigating the level isn’t just about avoiding damage, there are power ups littered around the level that can do things like boost Godzilla’s health or damage output (which will be more important in the other half of the game’s mechanics). Also floating around the level are, usually, two other things; sometimes you’ll encounter UFO’s that act like mini-bosses, and the main boss in the form of an enemy monster. Both of these characters are represented by different colored dots on the map and beginning an encounter with them only involves moving Godzilla to the dot. Thus the “monster battle” portion of the game takes place when the two magic dots meet.

The battle section of Super Godzilla also uses a split-screen approach, although this time the lower half of the screen is dedicated towards things such as Godzilla’s health and moves while the upper half is for watching Big-G show the bad guys how it’s done. To what is probably your disappointment, Super Godzilla’s monster battle sequences don’t play like a straight up 2D fighter (that would come later). Instead the game used some quirky “fighting spirit” system that I honestly still don’t entirely understand even today. The monsters move back and forth on the upper half of the screen while two ‘fighting spirit’ bars move back and forth on the lower half of the screen, seemingly linked to the movement and position of the monsters above. The stronger (aka: further to the right) Godzilla’s fighting spirit bar is the more powerful his attacks will become and the more likely they will hit, and the same rule tends to apply to the enemy monsters as well. When your fighting spirit gets high enough pressing a face button will cause Godzilla to punch the enemy monster. Connecting with this punch opens up a window in the bottom half of the screen that shows an attack Godzilla can perform. The player can either use this attack or try to quickly substitute it for another attack before the attack window closes.



If you do select an attack then you are greeted by a nice little cutscene showing Godzilla performing his attack on the enemy monster. For the Super Nintendo era graphics these little sequences actually look pretty nice. The same “cutscene for a special attack” rule applies for the enemy monsters as well, and this whole process repeats itself until one of the enemy monsters is defeated. Defeating the monster ends the level, ending the level sends Godzilla to the next level. Rinse and repeat until there’s no more game to be played. There is a little more to this game, but not too much, such as a plot involving an alien takeover and the scientists using magical science stuff to make Godzilla even more powerful (because that’s such a good idea). The final boss of the game is actually a pretty interesting original monster named Bagan, a creature that has been dropped from three different Godzilla movies during production stages before being introduced in this game, whom is actually quite a difficult challenge.

Super Godzilla walks a line between classification as an obscure title and being a title simply nobody cared about, and you can really say it goes either way and technically be right about this too. However, I classify it as an obscure title simply because of when it was released and the audience it was catered towards.

Super Godzilla was released a few days before Christmas back in 1993. For reference 1993 was the year; “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf was a #1 song, Jurassic Park was released, and Brett Favre started his first full season as an NFL starting quarterback. Being a Godzilla fan before the rise of the internet was pretty tough. Finding any Godzilla movies on television usually required mining through TV guides hoping Sci-Fi channel or some other backwater network would be having a monster movie marathon. Beyond that you had to search through rental stores hoping they’d have something, which was a crapshoot at best because even if you did find something the VHS tape was usually in pretty rough shape. If you could actually find a Godzilla movie on sale at a store or garage sale then you pretty much felt like you found the Holy Grail.

With no Amazon & eBay, or video streaming websites getting in touch with your inner kaiju fan was problematic. If you were a Godzilla fan and a gamer that was even worse, and that’s not even including how much you were begging to get picked on in school. Before 1993 there were only three Godzilla video games in existence, two were on the NES and one on the Gameboy, and none of these games were good (not a single friggin one). If you were turned off to the idea of future Godzilla video games nobody would really blame you.

You might be thinking this is obscure enough already, but oh wait it gets better because I’m about to blitz you with some stuff you probably didn’t think you’d ever know.

Super Godzilla is a game that was released during the Heisei series of Godzilla films. The Heisei Godzilla film era covers all of the Godzilla films made from 1984 until 1995 and exists in a separate continuity of films from the 60’s and 70’s Godzilla movies (known as the Showa era), keeping only the original 1954 film as canon. Godzilla himself in this film era isn’t the kiddie drop-kicking hero most people know him for, and is a destructive force of nature that can be classified as an anti-hero at best. These films, compared to the previous two decades, take themselves pretty seriously. Super Godzilla was designed to exist within the Heisei era and thus uses monsters from this era as well, Godzilla himself also resembles his early 90’s look as well. So you’re probably thinking “okay, big whoop, so it uses the 90’s stuff” but here is the problem: in Japan there had already been five Heisei era Godzilla films by 1993 and only two of those movies had been released in America (The Return of Godzilla & Godzilla vs Biollante). In fact none of the other Heisei era films would come to America until 1998… three years after the entire series had concluded, and the first two films in this series that did see a VHS release originally still haven’t seen a proper DVD release here.



So not only was Super Godzilla just appealing to exiting Godzilla fans who happened to own a SNES, but it was using monsters and likenesses that American audiences had absolutely zero clue about. In fact, I’ll list all of the monsters that appear in Super Godzilla here and go into detail about the issues this game has for its transition overseas.

--King Ghidorah
--Mechagodzilla
--Biollante
--Battra
--Mecha-King Ghidorah
--Bagan

Now King Ghidorah is a Godzilla arch nemesis who’s been around for a long time so obviously fans know who he is. However it should be noted that this game’s version of the monster uses the version shown in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, a title not yet available in America. Not a big deal for King Ghidorah initially, but it will matter in a little bit. Mechagodzilla also is known from the earlier era of Godzilla movies too however this version of Mechagodzilla was supposed to use the Heisei version shown in Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 2 (again not released in America at the time). Besides having a vastly different origin than the original 70’s Mechagodzilla, his abilities and appearance are also substantially different. To attempt to resolve this confusion for the American version of the game, Toho had to swap out the 90’s Mechagodzilla with the 70’s version and modify some of the monster’s moves and abilities as well (even giving this MechaGodzilla a fake-Godzilla skin like in the 70’s movie).



No problems with Biollante in this game as his film came out a year before the game in America, and it was considered the “new” bad monster then. Battra becomes a definite head-scratcher for American fans in this game; most fans think of Mothra for the “giant stupid bug” in the Godzilla mythos and not this odd evil version that (again) appeared in a movie we, again, didn’t know existed yet. The final villain that will be unclear for American fans is Mecha-King Ghidorah. Now I did say King Ghidorah gets a pass for being a very well-known villain despite his newest Vs flick not being stateside, however this one doesn’t. Mecha-King Ghidorah appears in the finale of Godzilla vs King Ghidorah as a rebuilt version of the beast sent back from the fucking future to kill Godzilla (Fun fact: Mecha-King Ghidorah’s remains are used to make the 90’s Mechagodzilla). So again, this is a monster American fans will definitely not know of.



To recap; Super Godzilla is a title that appeals directly to Godzilla fans whom own the SNES, actually knew of the games existence (as this was Toho’s only Super Nintendo game to make it to the U.S.), weren’t turned off to the previous Godzilla games, and had some sort of working knowledge of the 90’s era Godzilla films. Perhaps I’m just confusing “obscure” with “niche”, but regardless Super Godzilla in my opinion fits the bill for both. Yes, the game’s obscurity has been lessened ever since the birth of the information age (AVGN even discussed the game) however when looking back to games of this era I really think you need to keep it in your mind that the internet pretty much didn’t exist to us yet.

I’ve gone back and revisited this game a few times in the recent past. It’s still a pretty rough playtime considering the odd gameplay style it has and in general is a bit frustrating since you’re fighting the game just as much as you’re fighting the other monsters. But for fans of Godzilla who at least want to taste something different than an arena fighter like the more recent ones, it’s a game I’d at least recommend you sample for a few minutes. The worst that can happen is that it puts you in the mood to watch some Godzilla flicks, which is really never a bad thing.

In a unique an interesting experience, I came to Destructoid this morning hoping to find some good insightful articles and maybe have a laugh or two. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon a technology-inept person who felt like putting together the following list of steps for playing Resident Evil 4 on the Playstation 3.

Fortunately, I've compiled a very easy, step-by-step walkthrough to help you.

1- Download Resident Evil 4
2- Wonder why the fuck I signed a contract for such a slow ISP
3- Do the same amount of shit I would do if I was downloading something from Xbox Live
4a- Discover that I'm having connectivity issues and question whether or not my archaic router firmware is actually the cause of the problem (because it probably is).
4b- Just bitch and be ignorant.
5- Reconnect and start downloading again
6- Be told that there isn't enough free space on my PS3's HDD
7- Feel like an idiot for assuming hard drives are magical infinite buckets of space
8- Spend 3 minutes deleting Heavenly Sword and Enslaved data, because there's no foreseeable way in the future I'll revisit those games again.
9- Whine that 3 minutes of my life are gone. Then ignore that it was my fault those 3 minutes were wasted.
10- Waste 3 minutes of my life whining, but ignore that I just wasted those 3 minutes whining about the last 3 minutes.
11- Wait five minutes at most for something to install.
12- Speak in hyperbole about stuff.
13- Post some stupid article like this in the cBlogs, just like other writers do, where it belongs so I don't waste space and bump down work from other writers who are actually trying to do their jobs.

Hay guize I can use intarnets too! :|

In all seriousness though, stuff like this is pretty much exactly what I meant during my blog about improving things on Destructoid. I still don't think Niero needs to sink to flame-bait to generate hits for his site.