GSQ3: The princesses and the P

I’m making one final pass through GameSpite Quarterly 7 this weekend to look for typos and errors. I’m sure some will make it through the cracks nevertheless, because that is the way of things. However! I’m giving it my best. Effort counts for something, right?

For the time being, however, please to enjoy the following very, very old pieces from GameSpite Quarterly 3. This encompasses all entries beginning with the letter P. Except Percy, ’cause to hell with that stupid jerk.

  • Pac-Man: You know this guy already. Or you should, anyway. 31 years is a long time to be in a coma.
  • Penta: Possibly the only compulsive overeater to star in his own video games. Well, besides Pac-Man.
  • Pit: Also known as Kid Icarus, although the demo for Uprising mentioned the fact that it’s been 24 years since the original, which makes Pit the Kid Rock of video games, i.e., not actually a kid and kind of embarrassing in his flailing attempts to hold on to his fading youth.
  • Pitfall Harry: In our collective personal canon around these parts, there hasn’t been a Pitfall! game made since the 2600 days. Those others were a delusion caused by a blot of mustard or undercooked potato.
  • Pokémon: Can you name them all? (Please do not try.)
  • Prince Duncan: Star of a game I have never played. Huzzah!
  • Prince Meyer: For more on the travails of Prince Meyer, please witness Octopus Prime’s classic (but utterly excruciating) Let’s Play of the game.
  • Princess Gwaelin: Do you want to read this article? [YES/NO] But thou must!
  • Princess Toadstool: Every modern article or comic that attempts to analyze or deconstruct Princess Peach inevitably paints her as an insane, polyamorous whore who dazedly sleeps with both Mario and Bowser (and Luigi, and Toad, etc.) in a hackenyed attempt to be shocking and iconoclastic. This article does not, which ironically enough makes it the most shockingly iconoclastic piece of writing about Mario on the Internet. Rather, it’s wistful, not juvenile and trite. However, it still doesn’t explain the mysterious goiter on display in the princess’ original sprite.
  • Psycho Fox: A man of many names in many games, all of which you’ve probably never played.

10 thoughts on “GSQ3: The princesses and the P

  1. Love the Princess Toadstool one, and it’s funny how 2/3 of her distinguishing features aren’t even evident in the sole picture chosen. I hope this leads to at least one instance of cranial crump.

    And while I appreciate the narrative of the article, I’ve always wondered why some people seem to think the Princess is a better jumper than Luigi. That largest gap bit?

    There is a gap between the two towers near the start of World 4-3– anyone who believes the Princess superior can try to cross it with both characters. I’ll tell you right now, only one can make it without trickery.

    But I like the way the article describes her going into dreams like that, it’s often how I’ve imagined her situation myself.

    • Luigi can cover more distance, but the Princess feels like a better jumper because she’s more controlled and precise, and she doesn’t need the same vertical space as Luigi to get her full range. Luigi can only get maximum distance if there’s nothing overhead, due to the arc of his leap.

  2. Man, you’re not kidding about Kid Rock. I live near Detroit, and the radio station here keeps playing this song about how he’s turning “frickin’ 40” and it’s awful. They keep playing it because he mentions the station name in the song.

    The dude continues to do good things for Detroit, but god I hate his music.

  3. I probably should have caught this much earlier, but the Dark Castle games were (originally) for the Mac, not the Apple ][.

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