Last call(s)

Just a couple of quick notices while I convalesce from the abuses of the past week: (1) You have approx. 24 hours to turn in any thoughts you might have on Earthbound or the Mother series in general for my upcoming Retronauts piece. Drop me an email or send me telepathic waves (ideally via 1UP’s private messaging service). And (2), you have approx 48 hours to submit an original Mega Man Powered Up stage code to the MMPU club at 1UP. Why would you want to do that? Well, if you happen to submit the most impressive level design, we’ll submit it in turn to Capcom, who will make it an official 1UP.com-branded download through their Network. So tell your fellow MMPU dorks to hurry. I don’t know if I can stomach the thought of Niku/Sadako’s exercises in brutality and abuse representing our fine establishment.

Meanwhile, on the toastyfrog.com front it looks like it’ll be another ten days or so before I get back into the routine of real updates. I’m a little burned out from the past couple of weeks, and in a few days I’ll be skipping town to visit family for a week… they don’t have broadband Internet, and Apple pulled another of its little draconian stunts on my MacBook. This time, they’re trying to force technological standards to evolve by not including a dial-up modem in it — thanks, guys. Yeah, OK, so dropping diskette support worked for the iMac, but modems are a little different seeing as they’re designed to interface with a technological standard that exists everywhere in the world. Oh well, such is the cost of having a copy of Oblivion to take with me on vacation, I guess.

When I return: something timed to coincide with the release of Advent Children. It will be… glorious.

19 thoughts on “Last call(s)”

  1. Kekekekekeke.

    If nobody else submits one, I’ll at least throw you a copy where you start with full life. After all, a life preserver without air is better than none at all.

  2. I’ve been working on a few levels in between sessions with Kingdom Hearts 2, but I always think they’re too gimmicky or experimental for the competition, but I’ll try to submit something decent soon.

  3. Earthboun is boring. Children and teenagers as heroes suck (this is why Harry Potter sucks so very much also). I can take hobbits but not children, children are stupid and weak and need to be protected, they can’t possibly save themselves let alone the WORLD! Children are stupid little itdiots who fall in love with perverts in myspace.com and write Buffy fanfiction. I bet Shigesato Itoi is a pedophile and I’d like to strangle him with my bare hands and beat his face to a pulp (It’s a joke, please don’t sue me, I mean, the killing with my bare hands part).

  5. “I bet Shigesato Itoi is a pedophile and I’d like to strangle him with my bare hands and beat his face to a pulp (It’s a joke, please don’t sue me, I mean, the killing with my bare hands part).”

    But not the beating his face to a pulp part?

  7. This is only going to get uglier. Oh well, I’m prepared to do a reverse-IP look up on each and every one of you so I can come to your house and hit you until candy comes out. ¡Viva piñata!

  8. Square-Enix is actually releasing Advent Children soon? I figured it was going the way of Twilight Princess and being eternally delayed.

  9. I think they sell USB and/or Bluetooth dial-up modems now. Yeah, I know. But if you care about having one, they’re there.

    You got my Earthbound email, right?

  10. The really dangerous thing about Earthbound is it encourages children to root through garbage cans and eat whatever they can find.

    On another topic: Red Steel?

  11. I bet Jeremy’s Advent Children feature will be called “FFVII: man, FUCK that game.”

  13. Advent Children is coming out? I guess Square finally determined that everyone who might have been even slightly inclined to steal it, has.

    DFS.

  14. You know what? Just ditch the comments. What are you gaining having them? I appreciate that asked about City of Heros in that other comment thread and you followed up with a helpful link, that was cool, but I’ll bet I could’ve just emailed you with the question too.

  17. Really people, Toastyfrog is how I rest after every hour of playing Far Cry, keep the comments or I wont be able to finish Far Cry in Real mode. Also, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is not such a bad game (if, like me, you got it for $5).

  19. (Possibly too late, but…)

    Very few games have tackled religion the way that EarthBound did. Sure, there are games where you are god, like Black & White or other sim games, but EarthBound is the only game I know of where to beat the game you have to pray. And not just your character in the game either. Midway through the game, you’re asked for your name. Not your character’s name, but your name. They even come back later to confirm that it really is your own personal, actual name. (The confirmation part is actually a localization issue workaround, but a well played one. In the Japanese version, you’re asked for your name in Japanese and Roman characters.) Time goes by and you forget all about that, dive into your character’s subconscious, defeat his evil side, emerge, and get changed into a robot before approaching the final boss. As you battle the final boss, things start out OK, but soon get freaky. Hellishly freaky. Characters on your team are dying left and right, but you do your best to bring them back to life and slog through the battle. You make some initial progress, but then seem to snag, so you try something new. Paula, the girl on your team, has a “pray” action. For the most part, this action is d-d-d-dangerous. It sometimes helps you and weakens the enemy, but more often, a rainbow light comes down and makes your side miss their attacks, too. However, at this point, you’re fighting what looks to be the mouth of Hell itself, so you think, it’s worth a shot.

    The first time you do it, you can’t tell if it actually has an effect or not, but as you do it again and again, the text becomes less ambiguous. It starts to not only say your characters are praying, but it starts to show all the friends that you met along your journey thinking about you as well. Then, in the very end, it shows your name, your real name, and says that you’re thinking fondly of your characters too. And it’s true! It’s completely true! You do care about your team! You do want them to win! You are concentrating all your hopes on the screen! You have been praying for them all along!

    And then the ultimate evil fades away, and all that’s left is your love of the game and it world and the life that let you play it.

    It’s the most religious game I’ve ever played. (And I’ve even played that one where baby Moses had to be rescued by his sister.)

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