Nerdstalgia

Geekback #15

2009-04-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

Four years after I decided I wanted a motorcycle, I still haven't taken the motorcycle class to get my permit, nor have I saved enough money to buy one (but I did just purchase a car.. go figure). The reason I decided this, was so I could find a way to holster my katana on the bike for when the apocalypse happens, which when it does, would instantly make me a bad-ass for having it (I'd also have to find a fireproof suit so that the feds can't catch me, but that's another story..). ANYhoo.. my on-bike battle tactics would come from one gaming series I adored as a kid, and that's Road Rash.

I think I must have wasted over 300+ hours of my seventh year of my life. Not only do I love GOOD racing games, but especially ones where you can beat down your competition. I didn't play much of the first one, but 2 and 3 for the mighty SEGA, I definitely did enjoy. The first time I saw the animation after your bike wrecked, I peed my pants from laughter.. and definitely at least giggled the next 50 times I saw it.

Oh! Road Rash! Where have you gone? Where did you venture to? Why did you leave us?!? Please, oh please! COME BACK!

Geekback #14

2009-04-18T10:49:00.001-07:00

In the later 80s era, my mother somehow managed to always find and purchase many of the Godzilla movies. Actually, anything that had to do with the big lizard on VHS, she bought. One of the best ones she gave me was Godzilla vs. King Kong. Now everyone I knew that had this movie, King Kong won in the end. But not the version I had.. no no. In the Japanese version, Godzilla won. Thats the one I had, and I liked it better.

Anyhoo, I loved Godzilla as a kid, and when the game Rampage entered my household, I lost my shit. I finally got to play as a big lizard and destroy cities. My brother would accompany me as "George" and I would do my best to take him down. But there was nothing better than taking out the nation one city at a time with a giant gorilla/lizard. I mean really, don't you wish you were in a giant rubber suit with a miniature tokyo at your feet for you to fight another guy in a rubber suit in? At the time, this game made that dream into a reality... aside from actually being in any kind of rubber suit.

Geekback #13

2009-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

Before the Soul Calibur came along and made the weapons fighting scene it's bitch, there was only one game in the genre worth playing...

The Last Blade 2

This game was just amazing. Screw the first one, that one was just SNK practicing. This was the result of that knowledge making sweet love to pure awesome:

That is Setsuna, FUCKING SHIT UP.

He did a lot of that in Last Blade. But then again, so did everyone else. You had an old dude riding a turtle, geriatric ninjas, homicidal zombies, a lady samurai dressed as a guy, and Musashi.

If you haven't played this gem, do it NOW. There is no single 2D fighter that holds a candle to this game.

Geekback #12

2009-04-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

There is a favorite food I eat at least once a week.. and that is pizza. All kinds of pizza. The reason I love pizza so much is because of four green ninjas. These four green ninjas were teenagers who loved to beat up robotic purple ninjas dispersed by a metal masked caped avenger named the Shredder. WHO, was always after a black belt humanoid rat that fathered these four green ninjas. Yes.. these ninjas were turtles.

The best iteration of this insane predicament was, IMO, on SNES.. when these four mutant badasses chased the tinman through time.

TURTLES. IN. TIME.

Really?!? Whoever came up with this idea, I thank you for producing special moments in my nerd life. (like me saying "Big Apple. 3 AM." randomly)

One of my favorite beat 'em ups I've EVAR played. It had just about every character from the cartoon. Ferrealz, you get to fight the FOOT while 60 ft tall Krang (in his body) demolishes NYC in the BG. Even all my favorite small time villains like Fly Baxter, Metalhead, Rat King, SLASH (zOMG) were bosses (but why Tokka and Razaar, srsly?). The TMNT games learned their lessons early with the impossible first NES installment by switching to the beat 'em up genre with 2 and 3, which are both awesome and fun as hell. But when TIT ( bewb) hit the home console, they did a solid for my childhood.

Geekback #11

2009-04-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

A Boy and his Blob was a two-sided coin as a kid: on one side, you had a game in the same vein as Simon's Quest, where it was absolutely impossible to progress past the first 10 minutes of the game without a strategy guide. On the other side, you had a game where, given the right mindset, you could have hours of fun finding ways to kill the boy with random jellybean powers.

Every time I powered up the game, I always threw that blob a tangerine jellybean. That turns that little bastard into a trampoline, which you would typically use to bounce to higher ledges. I used it to bounce all the way into space....and then whistle, making the blob turn into his original form. The boy would fall hundreds of stories, unaware that his gelatinous companion has betrayed him to the blacktop.

This game happens to be getting a re-make for the Wii. It looks fantastic.

Geekback #10

2009-04-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

Geekback #9

2009-04-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

When you are 6 years old, killing Dracula is serious business. Super Castlevania IV was the first game I beat from start to finish without the assistance of passwords or Mom (the mom was a huge Zelda and Mario junkie). At 6, I did NOT have the motor skills or pattern recognition to defeat Dracula as easily as the video above depicts. At the point those little pieces of chicken dropped, I really needed some fucking chicken.

Looking back, its amazing that I managed to beat him at all with my limited skill set. I can remember throwing that indestructible SNES controller as hard as I could for every 10 times Dracula took me down. The newest incarnation of Dracula would have made me commit suicide at a really young age.

Geekback #8

2009-04-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Over brunch today, we were talking about the new Karate/Kung Fu Kid. And then this glorious mistake the movie-world made hit my senses..

Yeah.. our favorite Lee bros from the Double Dragon series.. are just.. completely ruined. This movie had nothing to do with the game, but grabbed ideas from the game like the "neo-punks" and "abobos" (zOMG. ABOBOS).

The movie is so bad, its so enjoyable.. just like the horrendous movie rendition of Street Fighter. Except, instead of Van Damme, you have Scott Wolf.

Geekback #7

2009-04-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Around the age of 5, my parents bought their first computer. Fell in love immediately. Use to type novels out in DOS because I obviously didn't know any better. Then came the games for DOS, and one of the best studios to put games out was LucasArts. The point and click adventures being mostly my favorites. With that being said, here is my favorite LA game EVAR.

zOMG. Day of the Tentacle. One of the many games as a kid that won't escape my memory. Really. What is more cooler than a purple tentacle alien growing arms and suddenly thinking he can take over the world!? And eventually does!

Seriously, if you like any kind of point/click adventure games, and haven't experienced this one yet. GO GET IT.

ScummVM
DOTT

Geekback #6

2009-04-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the most exciting moments in NES history...

Battletoads - Wind Tunnel

Geekback #5

2009-04-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

This is Rupture Farms...

If this game taught us anything, it's that scrabs and paramites are the mind's creepiest creations, and under no circumstance are they to be fucked with.

Anyone who's played through this game has seen that horrific dance hundreds of times. Except instead of upon another scrab, it was on the corpse of our unfortunate Mudoken savior.

Geekback #4

2009-04-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

Beat-em ups. The best way to spend time with your friends, as well as completely waste your quarters. They were a dime a dozen in the late 80's and early 90's, but none of them held a candle to X-Men: The Arcade Game.

Did you see that intro? Fucking awesome.

The cabinet itself had 6 joysticks all in a row, and you just jumped onto the joystick that corresponded to your character. 6 people playing this at the same time was insanely fun, and just outright insane.

But Dazzler? Really?

Geekback #3

2009-04-03T10:27:00.001-07:00

The other week I was playing MvC2 with my buddy Criggles (yes I call him Criggles, which is actually short for CriggleFranks), and we're both pulling off the crazy specials which cause these massive 50+, 80+, 120+ combos. Anyone who knows anything about MvC2 knows this is sort of an easy task. But where did this crazy mega hit combos really start?!? Of course, anyone who's been playing veegees since at least NES era knows. You could say MK started it, but the combos were weak, short, and anti-climatic. I think it all started here....

Oh yes! Killer Instinct!! You had this metal guy with claws on his hands, a woman with 2 night sticks that turned into a golden lynx, a burning man, an ice guy.. oh yeah.. and a raptor..

o da memreez

Geekback #2

2009-04-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

Stage 2-1 from Castlevania 3. This stage cemented my love for the Castlevania series at a very early age, as well as beginning my eternal hate/hate relationship with flying medusa heads.

And let's not forget the ninja pirate. Grant was years ahead of the internet.

Geekback #1

2009-04-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

One of my most favorite easter eggs found in a video game is from Summoner. This video titled "Summoner Geeks" is a rendition done by THQ to Dead Alewives - Dungeon and Dragons. This is where all my magic missle jokes come from.