Rule 32: Enjoy the little things in life.

A while ago I wrote a post on one of my favorite Super Nintendo games, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.  Not long after that, I asked on twitter and facebook what other people’s favorite SNES games were.  And boy did I get a response.  Before I get to the list, let me laud the SNES some more.

Pure Awesomeness

I got my SNES over a decade ago, it was a birthday gift from my friends, and somehow it still works.  It’s on of the original SNES with the two purple bars for power and reset.  These things were made to last.  A library made of greatness (as you’ll see later), it is still my favorite console.  For the record, PS2 is number two (one of the greatest library of games).  Games for the SNES are just flat out fun.  And to make sure it’s not just nostalgia speaking, I recently hooked mine up and played it for quite a while.  Lo and behold, most of the games are still quite fun.  Super Mario World is my favorite Mario game, (I just never could get the hang of 3d mario controls, and I prefer sidescrolling platformers anyways), Mega man X is totally awesome, Super Metroid defined the series, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past of one of the greatest games ever (my personal favorite Zelda, nothing against Ocarina, just a preference.)  Final Fantasy VI (3 in US) is my favorite FF ever,  etc.  So many classic on the system. So, so many.

Now for the list (in no particular order):

Secret of Mana – awesomeness.

Zelda: Link to the Past – maybe not the best, but my favorite Zelda.

Super Mario Kart – Still the best of the series. (many people agree with me)

Super Tecmo Bowl

Yoshi’s Island – One of the best platformers ever made.

Super Mario World – THE CLASSIC. (many, many, many people on this one)

Mega Man X – (X2 and X3 as well if they weren’t impossible to find)

Donkey Kong Country  (whole series. many, people on this one.)

Final Fantasy VI (III in America) – (IV is also very good, II in America) Also, my favorite Final Fantasy ever.  Terra FTW, Kefka FTW.

Battle Cars

Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen

Other games deserving mention:

Chrono Trigger – One of my favorite RPGs (and games) period. You must play this game.

Super Metroid

Bahamut Lagoon

Castlevania X

Tiny Tales: Buster busts loose – Don’t laugh! It’s a really fun game!

Turtles in Time: A Great beat-up em starring everyone’s  favorite mutant ninjas.

Super Star Wars, Empire, Jedi – These games.  Great games, hard as hell. Not sure if the’re more to say about ‘em other than that, really.

Super Mario All-Stars –  simply a must have collection

Pilot Wings – Surprisingly fun.

Aladdin – Great platformer, despite being a license game.

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest – Kidding! But I did enjoy it in middle school.

Please, let me know if I have left any off this list.  I will gladly add your in my celebration of the Super Nintento Entertainment System.  Goodbye everyone, and good gaming!

–theindiegeek out.

Now that 2009 is up and over, time for me to rant and rave about the crappiest movie of the year (that I actually saw).  Now, every year will have its stinkers, but you can usually tell most before you actually go to the show.  Others you expect to be mediocre but fun, and they are.  This one is a bit different.  It is a sequel from a big-name director, and I actually enjoyed the first one pretty much.  Wasn’t the biggest fan of the lead, and thought they could do with more of some things and less of others and had hoped for the sequel they’d listen to feed back and get it right.  Boy was I wrong.

The movie, incase you haven’t guessed it yet, is Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Seriously, don't see it.

This movie is shit.  There’s no way around it.  It’s a pile of crap.  The only redeeming thing about it is that it has Optimus Prime in it, but (SPOILERS!) they kill him off halfway through the movie.  They kill Optimus Prime.

They. kill.  Optimus.  Freakin’.  Prime.  WTF?

Seriously?  In favor of what?  More screen time for Shia LaBeouf?  Dude was one of the reasons Indy 4 tanked, although that was unsalvageable from the get-go.  Also, the McGuffin (that is, the mystical plot device that will save everybody from the unspeakable evil, AKA, the thingie)  is called the Matrix of Leadership.  C’MON!  That’s one of the lamest things I’ve ever heard.  Should we call in Morpheus?  Or perhaps Agent Smith?  Mouse?

Really, the movie is one big pile of filth from the start to the end.  Sure the robots look cool, until they talk.  Sure the action is nice, all couple minutes of it.  Megan Fox isn’t bad looking, but there’s tons of better looking actresses who can actually act.  I’ll have to agree with a friend that a burning piece of cardboard would be a suitable replacement:  It’s hotter and a better actor.

Really, if you’re desperate to see robots smash each other, go watch the first one, or better off, Gundam.  Just not this movie.  If you just want a decent movie to watch, I can name you dozens.  Zombieland, Dr. Strangelove, The Assassination of Jesse James, and Brick come to mind off hand.

That is all. theindiegeek out.

Other movies in 2009 friends hated:

G.I. Joe

Angels and Demons

The Orphan

Ninja Assassin

Star Trek

Transformers 2

theindiegeek on: Heat Wave by Richard Castle

I recently had the pleasure of reading Mr. Castle’s new book, entitled Heat Wave.  And I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Good to know that old Rick Castle hasn’t lost it.  Heat Wave is a very nice read.  Fast paced, flows very well,  just enough plot twists to have your head spinning and very likable characters;  it’s well worth reading, and perhaps then reading again.

I have to be honest, after offing Derrik Storm, I wondered if Castle’s future books could reclaim that sense of awe and trill that made him the Master of the Macabre.  But have no fear, my friends.  Nikki Heat’s just as thrilling as Derrik.  Different, perhaps, but still excellent.  She’s the kind of cop you want on your side, and really not the other way around.  Dangerous, smart, gorgeous, and relentless, she is a hound that sticks with the case until it’s solved.

Now I know that we all know that Castle’s been following (or is pestering perhaps the right word…) one of NYPD’s finest detectives.  Personally, I’m not sure what to think about having a writer on hand at crime scenes, mucking things up, but if this it what comes out of it, and as long as the bad guys still get behind bars, I’m all for it.  Still you have to admit it’s a bit odd.

One thing that’s always made me wonder about Mr. Castle, and that’s his uncanny resemblancethat one actor guy.  Y’know, the one in Firefly.  No, not Alan Tudyk.  Not Adam Baldwin.  Yes, Nathan Fillion. That’s him.  Always thought the similarities in appearance was a bit eerie.  Someday I’ll have to ask either of them about it.

But back to the book.  Please buy it, borrow it, steal it, whatever you have to do, just read it.  It’s well worth the time.

theindiegeek on: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

A long time ago, before the Wii and Paper Mario, before Tidus and Yuna, even before Squeenix, there was a little game called Super Mario RPG.  I say little, and yet the game was pretty big, and pretty fantastic.  A joint venture between Squaresoft (not Square-Enix) and Nintendo, this game was the grandaddy of all the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi RPGs.

Let me start out by saying this is one of my favorite games of all time.  It is extremely entertaining, with funny and whimsical characters, great mini games, an engaging combat system, and quite simply it’s flat out fun.  In researching for the article, I fired the game up to see if it was still fun.  Lo and behold it was.

The story starts out with your typical (and by typical I mean every time) Mario beginning.  Princess Toadstool has been captured by Bowser and Mario has to to rescue her.  Shortly after giving Bowser the boot, and just before he’s about to untie Toadstool, a giant frickin’ sword comes down right through the center of Bowser’s keep.  Mario, Bowser, and Toadstool are tossed to the far edges (if an elliptical world can have edges).

Seriously, the world's one giant ellipse...

Mario is convenient tossed right back into his house, and at the insistence of Toad (y’know the guy from Mario 2), he runs back to Bowser’s keep, which is apparently only a short ways away from Mario’s house.  This explain alot.  He gets to the keep and confronts the giant sword, only now it’s a giant talking sword.

The Giant Talking Sword (GTS)

After antagonizing Mario for a bit, the sword destroys the bridge, and given that the world is one giant ellipse, he starts out on his journey the long, aka other, way.  Along the way he finds out that because of the giant talking sword, wishes are no longer granted.  Well, shit.  So he pulls together a motley crew including Mallow, the not-toad magic user, the aforementioned Princess after rescuing her from child-like psycho Booster, the not-evil-just-misunderstood Bowser, and the awesome Geno.

Geno the badass

Geno is a badass.  He is a doll, possessed by a higher being who tells Mario what’s going on with the Star Road (the thing that grants wishes that the giant talking sword, from here on out referred to as GTS, destroyed).  He is both an adept fighter and magician.  He uses guns and his spells do quite a bit of  damage.  I wish Geno was in other games, but to this day he has not made an appearance beyond his role in Mario RPG.

One of the awesome parts of the game is the extremely varied places Mario has to go on his quest, including but not limited to:  The Mushroom Kingdom, Kero Sewers, a town of mining moles, Yoshi’s Island, a child-like psycho’s (Booster) tower of fun and explosives, Marrymore, a town whose economy is entirely built around weddings, a pirate shark’s sunken ship, beanstalks to climb, a magical kingdom in the clouds, a fiery volcano, a casino, Bowser’s Keep, a town of reformed monsters, and a world of machines.

One thing I found very entertaining is the way the story is told.  Given that this is a fantasy world, a large number of things that shouldn’t normally talk do, i.e., tadpoles, arrows, machines, turtles, etc.  One exception to this rule is plumbers who like the color red.  That’s right, our boy Mario is a mute in this game, but that doesn’t prevent him from getting his point across.  Mario is apparently a mime on the side.  He conveys his story by a series of elaborate and hilarious pantomimes, and is often joined quite comically by his teammates.  A rather unique way to get a point across.

I believe that Mario RPG has recently arrive on the WiiWare network.  If this is so, you have no excuse for not playing it.  If you are lucky enough and your Super Nintendo still works (like me) you really owe it to yourself to find a copy and play it.  It’s truly a great game.

–theindiegeek

Something different. Felt like writing. Please enjoy.

The other night I had a dream. In it, I was standing outside my office in the parking lot. Not sure what exactly I was doing at the time, but it doesn’t matter. I was in the parking lot of my office, the white two-story building lay ahead. I started to walk across the street to enter when saw the smoke and then heard the noise. All of a sudden, the building was engulfed by flames. My jaw dropped and yet no sound came out of my mouth. The next was the worst part. Next I heard the screams. Not just any screams, but the screams of children. For whatever reason, there were children in the building while it burned.

I dropped everything and started running towards the door, the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. As I got closer to the door, I noticed a woman also running towards it as well. About my age, but I didn’t recognize her.

Then the dream fast forwarded a bit. I was in a burning room by a window. Apparently I’d been helping kids get out of a window when a burning beam had fallen on my back and pinned me to the ground. Despite the kids outside, I was overcome with an immense feeling of failure. I turned to my side as little as I was able and heard more kids screaming, retreating, and the woman stuck under a beam similar to the one on my back. And then I believe I died.

This dream repeated several times over that night. Each time ended just about the same. Different numbers of kids survived, sometimes the woman died with me, sometimes she didn’t, but each time was the same sense of failure and my death.

When I awoke in the morning, I was naturally shaken. Took a shower to try to put it behind me, then went to work as it was a monday. As I pulled up, I expected to see it in flames, but it was normal as ever. Just my coworkers, pulling up at the same time I did. I got to my desk and lost myself in my work, finally able to free myself from the dream.

The day passed on normal as ever. Lunch came and went. As I walked back up the stairs from my local sandwich shop, I noticed some balloons and that the office across from ours was having bring your kid to work day. Rest of the afternoon went as any other monday would have.

Shortly before I was getting ready to do my last rounds for the day, I received a call from my mechanic. Couldn’t hear him well, so I stepped outside to the parking lot to get better reception and some quiet in which to hear him. A few minutes into our conversation I saw the smoke and heard the noise. All of a sudden the building was engulfed in flames. My jaw dropped and yet no sound came out of my mouth. Next I heard the screams. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I dropped my cell phone. I started running. Despite knowing how it would end, I started running. I looked to my side and saw the woman. Despite knowing how it would end, I kept running. I kept hearing the screams. Despite knowing how it would end, I kept running and re-entered the building.

–theindiegeek