What would my life be like if I wasn't married? If I didn't have a little screaming brood running around fucking shit up in my house every day? If she didn't slam the spacebar key while I was playing FTL and TOTALLY SCREWED ME OVER FUCK. I have wondered this sometimes. And by sometimes, I mean one time, this morning, after I read this blog on this site that isn't as good as Destructoid about a girl who was trying to find love on OKCupid, and instead found a bunch of socially awkward nerds who just wanted to fuck in the bathroom. They were attracted to her because she put in her profile that she was a gamer.

But not all gamers are socially awkward creepy weirdos. I have put together a future OKCupid profile for the inevitable day when my wife leaves me. I am not a ashamed to be a gamer, and I think that the woman who wrote this article would totally dig me for my honesty, and sexiness.

Send me a message if you want to hang out someday when I'm available. We can hold hands, or chat, or you can just step on my balls with stilettos. Whatever, I'm game for pretty much whatever. We just gotta wait until my wife finds my stash of geodes I spent her life savings on. I just can't get enough geodes these days.




My self-summary

Do you hear the wind blowing through the spruce trees? Are they calling my name to you? Because if they are you should probably get help or something. That ain't right. I know a psychiatrist in town and he only charges twelve dollars an hour to do a full psychiatric review of his patients. It might be kind of weird that he asked me to take my pants off and took pictures of my genitals for three hours, but he said it was like, some Freudian thing that I wouldn't understand anyways because I don't read books or whatever. Anyways, I'm a great guy, and when you read this profile, you'll see why. It's like a novel where you get hooked early on and have to figure out how it ends.

And then it stops on a cliffhanger and you're all pissed off. But unlike that book, which ended with a main character death or the introduction of some fucking stupid plot point, this one ends with you and me getting nasty in a bathroom stall. And the very last word in the novel is "shame".

What I'm doing with my life

Well this morning I went out to get coffee. I was feeling kinda crappy so I just put my jeans over my pajama pants. My car was frosted up real bad and I spilled some of the coffee on my crotch. Tomorrow I might eat a sandwich. But I don't wanna say anything for sure yet, life is unpredictable sometimes. I make enough money to afford loaves of bread when they go on sale at four for four dollars, and I spend a lot of time drinking in the bathroom in case I get sick and throw up. I guess you could say I'm a man who likes to be prepared.

I'm really good at

Sonic the Hedgehog 1. I beat the fuck out of that game. I was sick with the flu once for a week, and because I didn't want to move, I just kept watching the only DVD in my Xbox which was King of Kong. For a week. I probably saw it like a hundred and twenty times. It changed me as a person and inspired me to get the high score at Sonic the Hedgehog 1. I didn't quite make it though. Somebody beat me to it, so I sent them a can of kidney beans in the mail. It was supposed to be like, a vague, confusing sort of threat. I don't know if they ever got the beans though; it was hard to make chili that night so in retrospect it was kind of a bad idea.

The first things people usually notice about me

Mostly stains. I am a messy eater. I get a lot of shit on my shirts usually, and it's hard to wash out. I don't like washing machines because loud noises frighten me, so I hand wash everything I own with a bar of soap. I always smell lemony, and that's only in part because of the cocktails I drink when I'm out of money; Pledge and Orange Crush isn't as dangerous as people think, you just need to do shit in moderation. Kind of like Mescaline.



Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food

I like those bathroom reader books. I can learn about stuff and they rate about a 3 on the Gunner Fog Index which is great 'cause I don't have a very good vocabulary or nothing what like that. My favorite movie is Blue Velvet, but mainly I just watch the scene where Dennis Hopper kisses Kyle McLaughlin over and over. It was artistically stylish, don't get the wrong idea. I don't watch television because I don't want the cable guy coming into my apartment, or anyone else for that matter; I don't need to go through all that shit again, the cops were here for like two days checking things out last time. I mostly listen to Abba albums at a really low volume and at twenty percent speed, and I made a recipe I like to call the "Poor Mans Pants Shitter Casserole" which is made of like, a box of Kraft Dinner, an onion, and a shitload of those little chili peppers. But I make sure I take the next day off if I'm gonna make that for dinner because, well, the name should have given that away anyhow.



The six things I could never do without

Alexis Texas five times, and face-sitting videos.

I spend a lot of time thinking about

Corn. I don't really get why that is. There is something about corn that makes it endlessly fascinating. It can be used for so many different things, but all of those different things are just for eating. I just really, really like corn.

On a typical Friday night I am

Fat.

The most private thing I'm willing to admit

I cried once while watching Finding Nemo. It was only because I was real sick and on a lot of drugs. I mean his fucking mother died, give me a fucking break, am I the only one with any emotions? Who the fuck puts that shit in a kids movie, anyways for Christ sake? I didn't turn that shit on to watch a friggin' dramatic play, I wanted to see CG fish do crazy shit while I tripped balls and threw up into an ice cream bucket. Fuck you Pixar.

I'm looking for

Girls who like guys
Ages 40-72
Located anywhere
For activity partners, long-distance penpals, casual sex

You should message me if

You know what, fuck it. I didn't realize what a pain in the ass was. I think I'm having flashbacks. All I can think about is that scene in the fish movie where the dad fish is all like "oh shit your mother died" and mom is dead and it was all quiet and sad. And then just to fuck with you the whole thing fades to black and then cheery music starts playing and it's all like "AND THEN IT WAS BACK TO BUSINESS AS USUAL" but you're too FUCKED UP INSIDE TO WANT TO KEEP GOING so you sit in the shower and cry while trying to wash all the ants off of you. But they just keep coming. They never stop. And then you are in the hospital and they are shoving charcoal down your throat. Fuck, where am I?

Oh yeah, I also like gamer chicks. My favorite game is Cosmic Carnage for the 32X. We could play it and then cuddle and you could make me french toast or something. But you gotta pay your own bills, I only have enough pop cans in my closet to buy groceries once a week. This ain't a charity drive, I expect self sufficiency. Don't try to steal any of my cans, you cunt.

Jack Forrester winced as the biting wind from the mountain top assaulted his skin and caused his bones to ache. He hated the cold; his arthritis was beginning to act up worse every winter, and when he was called to the Ten Pines Ski Resort up on Mt. Pirih to investigate an incident, he knew it was going to get real bad.

There was one way to warm the bones, though. Jack took a swig from his canteen full of steaming hot coffee, with a shot of Jack added for flavor. He and his partners would be staying at the resort over night. It was a convenient way to squeeze a vacation into the middle of their work week. The body, or at least what was left of it, had been taken away the evening before. The area had been closed off from the public. Jack had all the details, and a dossier packed full of photos; photos that would have given a lesser man nightmares.

It had been a busy week for skiing. With fresh snow thick on the mountain, and the long first long weekend of the season, the tourists had come in droves. The town of Speers at the base of the mountain was a tourist joint first and a town second. Jack had never seen so many novelty souvenir shops in his life.

"So this is where it happened." A soft voice said through the piercing wind.

It was Evelyn Foster, his long time partner. She was a good kid; married young, fresh back to work after a long and difficult pregnancy. It hadn't worked out; the baby never made it. But Evelyn was tough as nails, or at least that's what she claimed. She was back to work two weeks later, and she wouldn't hear a word about it.

She was a tough woman. If Jack had been a few years younger, he would have gone after her himself. But at 52 years old, he was just an old man to her. And he could feel his age upon him as the aches from the cold really started to set in, and his hand began to cramp around his canteen.

"Most people don't come down this far." Jack said, pacing through the snow. "The trees are thick and it's easy to get lost. A guy got killed last year, slammed into a pine. His wife and kids were waiting at the top of the lift and when he finally came back, he was in a body bag."

Evelyn pulled a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes and pulled her green wool scarf up to protect her face from the wind. "People come here to relax, have a nice weekend; pretty tragic when it turns out this bad. Crashing into a tree, or getting torn apart in the middle of the mountain. Pretty nasty stuff."

The victim was twenty three, and was training for the Winter Olympics. He had won several competitions locally and abroad, and even Jack had seen him on the news once. Now all Jack could see were the photos; photos of a carcass ripped to shreds and scattered all over the mountain side. It sent a chill up his spine when he thought of the poor kids that had went too far down the mountain and found him in that state. They wouldn't forget it for the rest of their lives.

Suddenly, a crack shot out from the trees just beyond where they were standing. Evelyn and Jack both jumped, and peered down into the woods.



"What was that?" Evelyn said, turning to look at Jack.

"I dunno." He replied, scratching his sparse, rugged beard. "Let's go find out."

They moved slowly through the powder, the wind whistling with a deep rhythmic hum. From where they were, they could barely see the resort towering high above, so distant it was barely a speck. And as they made their way down toward the trees, the fog of the mountain clouds obscured their vision completely.

It felt isolating and lonely, even with Evelyn at his side. But since Maria's death, he always felt that way. The kids would seldom visit or make the time, blaming their lack of interest on Jack and his career. It was something his first partner warned him about when he was a beat cop, a rookie as green as Evelyn's scarf.

"Don't drag a family into it, that's all I can say." John had said to him in that thick British accent. "I left mine back home which is where they belong."

Jack hadn't listened, of course. Those first few months with Maria before he got accepted into basic training were a hard, fast living dream. She was such a classy woman.
Christ, he missed her.

"Did you hear that?" Evelyn asked, reaching an arm out to stop her partner.

Jack had been too lost in thought, but he caught the next one. It was like the bark of a dog, and it echoed all around them. Another snap followed, and then another. Jack looked around and realized how deep they were into the trees now. If they were to scream, nobody would hear them.

Evelyn watched Jack as he slowly reached for his pistol.

"Is that necessary?" She asked with a nervous smirk.

"I sure as hell hope not." He replied, keeping his eyes on the woods in front of them as he drew his Beretta and carefully aimed it in front of him.

The thing came out of nowhere, and all Jack saw was a flash of grey before he was hit so hard it nearly knocked his damn teeth out. He was thrown into snow and felt the powder mist his face, the gun flying out of his hands, and the terrified scream of Evelyn apparent through the chaos all around them.

He righted himself on the palms of his hands and darted his head around. He saw Evelyn a few paces away laying face down in the snow, and quickly rushed over to her.

"Hey are you al-"

As he turned her onto her back, his gut twisted in horror. Where that pretty face had once been, there was nothing but a pool of forming blood melting through the snow; whatever had rushed them had taken her head clean off.

"Oh sweet Jesus, no!"

Jack leapt to his feet, cupping a hand over his mouth. He could feel his heart racing as he twisted his head to look around, to see whatever the hell it was had done this. It dawned on him that he had dropped his gun, and he instantly felt defenseless, weak, like a child without his mother.

He raced over to the place he had fallen, an imprint of his body left in the snow there. He heard another terrifying crack from the woods, and he reached down to grab his gun.

Just as he was wrapping his frozen fingers around the handle, he heard the rush coming at him again. He pointed the gun in the direction of the grey, abnormally fast thing heading in his direction, and found it on top of him faster than he could pull the trigger.

It shoved him hard to the ground with a strength he could barely comprehend, and as he looked up, all he could see were two slanted red eyes staring back at him, and a set of jaws obscured by patches of grey fur. The thing opened it's terrible maw so wide that he could see the back of it's inflamed pink throat, and the bark it let loose nearly deafened Jack completely. Acting entirely out of instinct, Jack felt his grip on the pistol tighten, and despite the crushing weight of the thing on top of him, he managed to pull the trigger one, two, three times in a flurry of a gunshots which shook the silent mountain.

The thing instantly released him from its grip and let out a pained, shrieking howl. And before Jack even had the time to lift his head and look at it, it took off into the woods, and was never seen again.

Jack was forced into retirement the week after the incident, deemed mentally unfit to work. The resort closed the mountain past the slalom course off for further tourism, and although the details Jack gave during the investigation into Evelyn Fosters death corresponded with the evidence found on the scene, the composite sketch of the thing that had taken her life was taken into question.

Every now and then I like to put up a writing related blog. After all, that is what most of us are here to do, sharing our thoughts and feelings about the things we love, and sometimes even more; our personal stories, are deepest secrets, and our affinity for boners.

I think a lot about writing and what it has done for me as a person. Although approximately none of you will probably ever be unlucky enough to meet me in the flesh, most who know me through writing first and then meet me in person after are usually quite surprised at how different the real life Manchild is from this guy right here. That's because it is far easier to articulate exactly what is on my mind through writing - and I do write about everything on my mind - then it is to do it in person. I can hardly find the right words otherwise, although it is also a detriment to speak through writing alone because I barely have time to filter out any of the real more nasty crap that collects in my brain, instead opting for a "blurt it all now, apologize later" route which hardly shines a positive light on the strength of my character.

The fact is that writing is something I have grown comfortable with as both an artistic exercise and a cathartic one. It has become a part of my daily routine. Whether I am yamming about nonsense on Twitter, or posting irrelevant quips on Facebook, typing up a piece here or on my own blog, I am always writing. It is something I do just about as often as I take a dump in the morning. And as a result, I have become reasonably skilled at getting a point across.

For the month of November, that is all I will be doing, because it is National Novel Writing Month. I don't know how many of you are just as interested in writing stories as you are writing blogs and opinion pieces, since the two are thoroughly different practices, but I wanted to talk about NaNoWriMo and why it is a good thing, regardless of its many detractors.

I like to spin a good yarn. I have had a couple of things published here and there, and although my success rate for doing so has been abnormally high, I also don't submit my work very often. Fiction is mostly a hobby on the side, one which is obviously directly in line with my tendency to write, but not necessarily a large portion of what I do. I love stories, big and small, in books films and video games alike, but they aren't something I am particularly comfortable writing. And NaNoWriMo, which has you writing 50,000 words in a month, is no small task for someone who doesn't often sit there and attempt to pen out their Magnum Opus of Great Canadian Fiction.



So why do I do it every year? Why do I do it when I know I'm usually going to fail, or that the stories, which are of particularly low quality due to the time constraints and lack of pre-planning are never going to amount to anything?

Practice makes perfect.

I have known a lot of people who were interested in a topic, say sports, or of course video games, and wanting to involve themselves somehow in the industry but not really having the talent to get into the fray and become either an athlete or developer, decided they want to take the journalism route instead. One guy in particular had never written a word of anything in his life. And while he is spending an enormous amount of money and time on courses in order to do so, I honestly wonder just how successful you can be if you haven't invested the years of time it really takes to be proficient with such a skill?

There is an overwhelming focus on "education" these days, with "education" implying that you will hand over a wad of sweaty bills to a teacher or professor and suddenly become a master in whatever art they are striving to teach you. People go to school almost exclusively because they are afraid of the stigma they will face if they don't; peer and parent pressure, mixed with the desire to meet others expectations drives droves of kids into a learning environment where they aren't interested in learning anything. Many of them will pick "cop out" topics like Psychology and Philosophy for a lack of real passion in anything else, and will pay themselves out of house and home, only to finally return, sometimes ten years later, when they are a little wiser and actually have something tangible in mind.

Personally, I thought it was a racket when I was in high school and wondering what I wanted to do with my life. I realized that whatever it was, I wasn't sure of it and didn't want to invest deeply into post-secondary until I really knew what I wanted to go for. Sometimes the simple act of being involved in that system can inspire kids, can teach them about professions or endeavors they otherwise may not have known about before they went to College or University, but much of the time it doesn't; and as someone with absolutely no financial support from parents or other family, I simply didn't want to take the risk. I knew I loved writing back then, but wasn't sure about doing it as a career. And frankly, I'm still not sure.

While I'm not judging anyone for being proactive or ambitious here, I have to wonder about passion sometimes. How do you know you want to be a writer if you've never sat in front of a computer for hours on end attempting to write, sharing your work with others, and bracing yourself for the inevitable criticism to come? How can you say your passionate about something if it isn't a complete obsession, a need, and if you have put no effort in to do it every single day, and to get better despite the lack of tools at your disposal?

That is what payed education is; a tool. I have heard of a lot of people flaunting their credentials, especially when they are called out for being poor at what they are supposed to be geniuses at. But the simple fact is, nobody with half a brain thinks that working your way through a course automatically equates to success in that field. You have simply been given working tools with which to further your skill; how you implement them relies completely on you, and your passion to succeed in your given field.

As with all artistic practices, writing is absolutely no different. You say you want to be a games journalist, a novelist, a sports writer? Well then do it. Start now. Today. If you are saving up for a journalism or creative writing course, keep saving, and do what you think you need to do to improve. But in no way will you improve faster than constant practice, failure, defeat, and savoring in the rare few real successes you will see throughout your career as a practicing writer, even if it is not a career in the payed sense of the word.



That is what projects like NaNoWriMo are good for; failure. You are going to write your ass off, there is a great chance you won't accomplish anything, and there is a definite possibility you will fail to achieve your goal by the end of the month. But what it will get you doing is writing every day; putting up with the frustration of writers block, and making you think actively and write on the spot. The biggest problem with writing is not having anything to say. NaNoWriMo doesn't care if you have anything to say, it just wants you to say something, and like a kid hanging out in a College taking Psyche courses and realizing just by being there that he wants to be an Engineer, you will get bigger ideas, you will be inspired, and all that practice will have one definite benefit; you will get better at writing, just through the act of trying.

I'm going to do it this year again. I probably won't succeed. But I will become a little better at what I do. Just like every time I write a blog for Destructoid, I get a little better at blogging. So no matter how much you think you suck, no matter how discouraging it can be do be criticized by others, just remember this; it's all part of a long and tedious learning process. You will not get better at writing simply by reading materials about how to write. Only practice can bring that.

If you are a blogger for this site who wants to someday become a legit GERMS JERNERLIST, consider this place your education. Consider your payed education to be a toolbox of knowledge to put to work furthering said education.

And most importantly, write, write, write, write, write. Because that is the only way you will ever get better at writing, period.

(For anyone interested in NaNoWriMo, here is the link. The shenanigans start tomorrow. By making an account you can upload your stories and update your word count, find people in your area to communicate with, and sign up for motivational emails to help you stay on track. Good luck, and if you are participating, let me know how it's going for you!)

CHAOS CONTROL



GO SONIC GO!



BOING


This was an example of what can go wrong when Destructoid implements Youtube embeds. This is a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Manchild reminding you to use Youtube embeds responsibly, and not as the sole body of your work here on the Dickstructoid C Blogs. (the C is for Cock) Nothing is less tasteful than posting a series a mind boggling Sonic the Hedgehog fan videos, or an entire series of Let's Plays for Avernum IV running at three frames per second because it was the only game you could afford on Steam and "fraps dont working rite".

Keep it classy, folks. Keep it bloggy. And most importantly...



Keep it Kelly.

R. Kelly.

An R. Kelly music video...with fucking Sonic shit going on.

Goddammit.

The movie industry really sucks these days. Hardly anything groundbreaking ever comes out, and the odd film worth watching is usually ignored by the movie going public. Instead, sequels and remakes are relied upon to make some chump change, and that reasoning is why there are more Saw movies than volumes of the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.



That's right, more than three. I wasn't exaggerating.

It's kind of weird when it comes to games, though. At least for me. I am someone who is compelled by the idea of the "total package." The one game to rule them all, a game that will eat up so much of my time that I won't be able to do anything else except masturbate and eat hot dogs, a process (and it is indeed a process) which usually occurs simultaneously. I have been looking for this game forever, and finally found it; it was called Dwarf Fortress. But shortly after investing a small chunk of my life to learn the mechanics of that game, I realized I was wrong, and that there is no all encompassing experience out there. As humans, we get bored, and have to move on eventually, to find the next best thing. But a flaw in the sequel system, in our constant need to refresh our experiences, is that we can often forget what made the original thing so damn good in the first place.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a pretty good example of this. The game came out to rave reviews, and most people seemed to really be sold by the quality of it. There was not much hate abound at that time; it was a fresh new thing that hadn't yet caught the attention of the mainstream "Mountain Dew" crowd (a term I made up because I imagine jocks who play video games also drink Mountain Dew because it sucks and fuck them) and was a great addition to an already long running series of solid first person shooters. The cinematic approach was kind of new at the time, there were some real shocker moments, and the multiplayer was strong across all platforms. It's still a strong game if you go back and play it now, although it loses a lot of it's value after one play through since it is so cinematically oriented; the gameplay is identical to the new games, however.



Now, no one talks about it. It sits on dusty shelves by the dozen in Gamestop stores employed by sneering children who spit upon each copy they have to stick a new, yellow "recycled game" sticker on. People hate it for what it "did to gaming", a commonly employed slander against anything that becomes too big too fast, and is eventually exploited in order to continue churning out a profit. Hell, when Modern Warfare 3 came out, I was sick of hearing about the series. A part of me which is annoyed by small things, the same part that wants to murder everyone in the neighborhood when I hear a dog barking at night, wanted it to die. Critics like Jim Sterling were absolutely raked across the coals for giving it a good rating; yet it sold a bajillion copies anyways, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 5: Black Ops 2: The Sequel is coming out in short time, only to receive a similar treatment.

Apart from a few hold outs, the first game in that series and therefore the most important, is all but forgotten. It has been replaced by a fresh new thing; this is how Activision has chosen to treat the franchise, much like a new Madden game. You play the new one for a bit, but don't worry, another is well on the way. So be sure to trade in all your old copies of the series to get your due credit, which will be somewhere in the vicinity of a cent to the dollar on what you had payed originally.



This kind of sucks, and I feel like the potential is there for it to happen with a lot of other things, as well. Hell, even Mario titles these days feel like they are doing that. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is an infinitely better title than the already mind blowing Super Mario Galaxy; so much so that if I wanted a copy of the first, all it would cost is around ten dollars and a quick trip down to the mall, where my EB Games store has about fifty of them in stock. Mario Galaxy 2, however, still retails for around fifty bucks, and there isn't a used copy in sight. Because the sequel did everything better, without doing anything new, it acted as a complete replacement, an upgrade, and not as a unique, stand alone game. Even though the first is still as amazing as it was the day it came out, it has largely been forgotten. It was effectively replaced, and therefore functions now only as an inferior version of its successor.

This happens in the tabletop gaming world, as well. As soon as Wizards of the Coast got their hands on Dungeons & Dragons, they pumped out a new edition which was a welcome upgrade at the time to a dwindling 2nd Edition, which had been hurt by extreme modulation in the form of hundreds of products. The father company, TSR, simply couldn't support it's flagship game anymore, and closed shop. At the time, people thought the 3rd edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, simply called Dungeons & Dragons, would be around for at least another decade. But it wasn't long before a revamp of that system, called 3.5, as well as a whole new set of books came along to change things. Fans held up their hands, shook their heads, but went ahead and bit anyways, only to hear an announcement not long after that a fourth edition was in the works, and that it would drastically change the game and be completely incompatible with the third, thus acting as a total replacement for an entire product line. And D&D; fans would once again be expected to get rid of their old materials, and embrace the new; although they would be two different games, they simply could not co-exist as 3.5 would no longer be recognized or supported by Wizards of the Coast.



Well a little company named Paizo called bullshit on this, and with their own game Pathfinder, decided to keep their beloved 3.5 rules alive. Today, they pump out an insane amount of content which is both compatible with their game and with the original 3.5 rules for Dungeons & Dragons, and they have built a massive consumer base, with many converts from the new, more controversial set of rules Wizards of Coast has provided the past few years. Now, a new version of Dungeons & Dragons called Dungeons & Dragons: Next is on the way, and it will once again be an overhaul of the system. Yet all the while, the 3.5 ruleset flourishes, not only in competition with the current D&D; product line, but also co-existing alongside it; there are plenty of people out there who happily play both games. In fact, there is quite a sizable portion of people who recognized that the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules were good enough for them, and who create oodles of content to support that, too.

It's sort of funny to me then, that many companies these days act like supporting their old content will threaten the new stuff. Imagine if Wizards of the Coast had decided to continue support for every product line they have created up to this point, even if it was just putting out a new book here and there. With the problems they have faced profiting off of the fourth edition, this seems to be a problem they are looking to address with Next. In light of all that, seeing how profitable Paizo has been with their Pathfinder line, Wizards of the Coast released a reprint of their 3.5 core books just a month ago, along with a reprint of the very first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons earlier this year. They wanted every new edition to completely obliterate the ones which came before it; they wanted it to be a full replacement, but people wouldn't stand for that. They loved their games, had invested so much time into them, that no new flashy rule was going to change that for them. The new thing didn't make the old one obsolete.



In my opinion, a sequel shouldn't just be "the next step", or an evolution of a formula, to the point where you put "Next" in the fucking title; It should do enough different that it becomes an experience all its own. That's why I usually stray away from big name franchises which are able to pump out game after game, year after year, all using a slightly modified version of their engine; or an engine which is often exactly the same. When you pump out a constant stream of titles, same as with endless sequels to a movie franchise, people get sick of it really quickly. They start to feel like they are paying for a mere upgrade rather than an entirely new package, and the old ones feel obsolete. There needs to be a reasonable gap in between each new title so that the attempt to cash in on success isn't so blatantly obvious. People treat some sequels to games like a full replacement because that is the way the companies behind said games treat them, and it tarnishes those really good experiences, and makes us forget their origins and why we liked them so much in the first place.

Go back and play your old games; pop in that copy of the first Super Mario Galaxy, pick up your old AD&D; books once in awhile. Remember what brought you to the fourth edition of a tabletop RPG, or the tenth of a multiplayer military shooter, and you might be surprised at how fun the experience can still be, despite all of those changes and improvements brought to the formula over the years.

A sequel doesn't have to be a full replacement, just like buying a new cat when Mittens dies can't ever really replace her. Except if she shit on the floor all the time and scratched the back of your head whenever you sat on the couch. It's a bad analogy though, because I can't really think of any games which started out as abject shit and eventually turned into something good.



Oh...right.

This is a newer title, so I was kind of wary about writing about it. This is supposed to be a series more about obscure Wii titles, and Kirby games are anything but. The reception for this game was fantastic, I have heard sales were decent as well, so what gives?

Well, Kirby has had a bit of a tough time since Kirby Super Star came around and rocked everyones socks off in the mid nineties. Every single Kirby game in the platforming genre featuring the little dream puff has been compared, somewhat unfairly to that amazing game, and it's easy to see why; with a two player co-op mode, a ton of variety in the stages, and several different modes and mini games to play, Kirby Super Star was one hell of a title. The re-release on the Nintendo DS, Kirby Super Star Ultra was even better, featuring extra goodies as well as updated graphics, and even today the Super Nintendo iteration is still a blast to play.

I feel like people have been quiet about Kirby lately. The new collection for the Wii has helped to spark some interest, but I felt like there was a lot more hype and acclaim happening over Epic Yarn than the latest Wii release, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, and that despite being a traditional Kirby platformer (and shutting up the fans who whined about Epic Yarn) no one really had a whole lot to say about the new Kirby game. Maybe it's just me, but it just seemed to be a title that came and went.



As someone who gave Kirby's Adventure on the 3DS a near perfect score, I am probably not the right guy to be reviewing a Kirby game. Kirby isn't one of my favorite franchises in general, but there is something so infinitely appealing about the games for me. They are what games should be about; having fun. From the power stealing, the cutesy art, the fun boss battles, and the hunt for goodies, Kirby has a very specific style that few other games have attempted to emulate. They are unique, solid adventures that anyone can pick up and enjoy.

And Kirby's Return to Dreamland? In my opinion, it is the best in the entire series, right up there with Super Star.

That's a bold statement to make. Kirby's Adventure is, in my opinion, the best platformer on the NES apart from Super Mario Bros. 3. In fact, it's one of my favorite games of all time. The hours I invested in that and Super Star cannot be counted by modern machines - at least three. Three hours. But after sitting down with the new one for just that long, and only completing the first three worlds, I realized this was not just a quick cash in on the Kirby franchise; all the attention to detail present in previous titles is here, complete with new powers, new enemies, and even a couple of mini games which are very reminiscent of Super Star, and a welcome addiction to an already great game.

The new Kirby finds that fine balance once again between two player co-operation, and a solid single player experience. The puzzles needed to collect energy spheres, the games main collectible used to unlock mini games and challenge stages, are all catered toward challenging a single player, while being made easier by having a partner around so you can focus on the fun stuff; beating up baddies, taking their powers, and generally getting in eachothers way, which usually results in lots of laughs.



There have been complaints that the second player feels more like a sidekick than an actual part of the game. Unfairly, the second players role has been compared to that of Tails, which is only true in that the camera will always focus on the first player. The second player is treated as expendable, but will not return infinitely; each time he suffers a death, gameplay continues, and he must consume one of the first players' lives in order to continue. The game is liberal with lives, so the challenge is not one of repeated deaths, but rather, discovery. In order to unlock everything the game has to offer, you need to collect several energy spheres in each level. Kirby games have always been challenging, with a ramping difficulty level, but the challenge usually lies more in exploration then obstacles. I was able to beat Kirby's Adventure without a hitch when I was seven; anyone complaining about how Kirby games aren't difficult enough is completely missing the point of the franchise. These are accessible, fun platforming titles, not gut grinding platform hell games.

The super powers are a neat distraction, and a lot of them are quite fun to utilize. The Wii remote is used to good effect here, relying on waggle controls only when it is necessary to do so. The problems that plagued great games like Donky Kong Country Returns are not present here; you will be using nothing but the d-pad and buttons a majority of the time, the way it should be for a 2D platformer. The graphics are gorgeously cutesy, and very much in proper Kirby form, and despite what others have said, I feel the game has a soundtrack that is both familiar and appropriate, and fits the style of the game just fine.

The gameplay in general is Kirby Super Star, but with more focus. Rather than splitting the story into several semi-disconnected chunks, you have a cohesive adventure with a large selection of worlds, and quite a bit of gameplay depending on how good you are at finding collectibles. There is even a hard mode you can unlock for veteran players, and few will be bitching about difficulty once they are able to unlock it. And yes, this is a game where you will want to revisit stages; not because there is necessarily anything else to collect, but because some of them are just so damn fun to play through.



Kirby's Return to Dreamland is an amazing package, one which I think people will reminisce fondly about down the road, even if it isn't receiving the praise it deserves right now. I see no reason why this shouldn't be considered a worthy successor to Super Star; playing them practically back to back, I found this to be the superior game, and I don't think that's something you will hear for most people. Personally, I find that unfortunate; when a great game like this comes along, even for a near dead console, it should be recognized, devoured, and celebrated. And that is why I wanted to mention it, to remind people that great games did come out on the Wii, some of them more recently than most people seem to think.

Even at a fifty dollar price tag, this is well worth getting, with or without a friend to play it with; though having a friend is always preferable.



It's the only game my wife will sit and play besides Minecraft, so that, for me, was worth the price of admission alone.