Are you prepared to play the game? The dare's the only price of faaaaaaaame~ 🎵

Possibly the greatest crackshot rental I have ever had. Little did I know that during my wandering of those hollowed halls of that fabled local Blockbuster would result in me taking home quite possibly the greatest racing game ever known by my own two eyes. Captain Falcon's likeness on the cover beckoned me to come forth and play his game, a person who I had only known from punching Mario in the nose in some game involving smashing some brothers (DRAMATIZATION). How was I supposed to know he was the person behind the wheel of that blue car in that SNES game I played when I was like three years old? Unfortunately, I was most definitely not prepared to play the game.

After I threw that adorable little disc into my Gamecube, I was thrown into a twisting spiral of thrill going at the speed of sound threatening to somehow give me whiplash from the TV screen. With my new and now trusty Fire Stingray I became acquainted with the controls quickly, I leaned into those corners at Mute City as if they'd throw me from the seat if I didn't, and mashed the boost as much as I could upon my approach to the home stretch like some insane button pressing demon who loves pressing buttons. It wasn't until later I would find out about attacking other racers, and I would become a true heel of the circuit. Look out y'all, I'm comin' through! Get outta my way chumps! This doesn't even touch on other techniques I would learn such as snaking and flying like a damn jet aircraft. To this day, none can touch this.

Preparation in just the grand prix and practice could only do so much to prepare me for one of the greatest challenges I would encounter in this generation, the infamous story mode. The first few chapters? Not terrible, but then you get to your first true race and suddenly you realize just what kind of game you're truly in for. Chapter Seven is legendary amongst fellow racers who have experienced this mode. It's so well known that I capitalized it, as it deserves the distinguishment. The Story Mode Grand Prix race was insane and took me to my limit as a driver and put me on the brink of emotional breakdown, but in this world you've got to be strong. You've got to fight to keep your spirit alive. And you might feel like there is nothing left to go for and fight for, but it's the fight that keeps us ready and on guard!

I couldn't give up, I had to see the end! I needed to earn my happy ending. I had to channel Captain Falcon himself, I had to muster up driving ability that he would be proud of. I had to feel the power, see no fear, and feel no pain!

I've got power~ 🎵
I'm gonna fight to win~ 🎵
I'm gonna fiiiiiiiight to the eeeeeeend~ 🎵

Even I can feel the poooowerrrrr...when I think of him I see no feaaaaar....FEEL NO PAAAAIN!

MISSION CLEAR!

For a second I had thought I had lost yet again, but I in fact won by a hair! Hell yeah, fuck you Black Shadow, you goddamn loser. One of my proudest achievements growing up, after endless hours over my weekend! After this, the final showdown with the true mastermind of evil was a piece of cake. After all, we are Captain Falcon. The fight has indeed kept us ready for anything they could possibly throw at us. In this world I have become strong, and my spirit is alive and well. They didn't stand a chance, as I'm not just a dreamer and Falcon will forever be the hero.

What truly captivates me most however, is the amount of love and care that was given to everyone on the roster. All FORTY ONE of the drivers have their own bio, theme music and unlockable Tekken movie. These aren't simple theme songs either, we're talking actual lyrics and many different genres being represented. How do you get me to care about Jack Levin? By giving him the catchiest song in the game, I mean why wouldn't he? He's a former pop group member. I used to spend an unhealthy amount of time dancing along with the characters to their music in the profile section, I love how Bio Rex looked like he was swaying and thrashing out to his music.

Kid translation of Bio Rex lyrics:

DOOOOO OONYAAAAAGH! DAGH! NYAGH! OWAAGH NAGH! YYAAAAGH DAGH! MESMELIZE! DAAUGH NAUGH!
EEYAAAH! EEEYAH! DROP DA PRESSHUH!
EEEYAAAH! EEEYAH! DROP DA PRESSHUH!
EEEYAAH! EEEYAH! DROP DA PRESSHUH!
EEEYAAH! EEYAH! DROP DA PRESSHUUH!

EERRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🔥 🦖

Hell, just last night at work I had Princia's chorus stuck in my head.

You're scared of the dark~🎵
Walk through the night~🎵
Give me your hand and let me take you through the night~🎵

You're scared of the dark~🎵
Walk through the streets~🎵
Give me your hand and I'll hold all the things you find~🎵

It's so good. I actually do really enjoy the cast, and it's pretty clear Nagoshi and the rest of AV had fun fleshing out the characters more. It's truly exceptional how the person who directed the first 3D racer I cared about would also be behind my favorite racing game ever. No one truly does racing as well as Sega. If there was one good thing that came about from Sega going third party, it's F-Zero GX. If there has to be an ending, I'm glad it's this. The only way you could one up GX is making the story mode a free roaming Yakuza-like with Falcon where you beat up Zoda goons, hang out at pubs getting pulled into illegal races, have a "Goroh Everywhere" mechanic where he constantly tries to challenge you to skeeball, texas hold'em, or darts, and meet up with the rest of the racers in crazy hijinx. One could dream, right? Even if it's all left in the past, he'll live through this masterpiece and forever he will be my hero....and now that I'm not just a dreamer....

Forever he will be my heeeeroooo~...🎵
and now that I'm not just a dreaaaaaameeeer~....🎵

Forever he will be my heeeeroooooo~....🎵
and now that I'm not just a dreaaaaameeeeerr~..... 🎵

Ganondorf appears at my doorstep

"Okay first it was fucking crossy road being the same rating as dark souls, now you think baby felix hallowsneed is better than skyrim?!"

gets punched in the kidney stone and turns into a cucumber

cw: game starring real life pervert

I've been doing this gaming thing for a while, I usually come across almost everything a platform has to offer whether from me mindlessly wandering around my legally acquired wares that I dumped myself, word of mouth, browsing Hardcore Gaming 101 articles, seeing it on Game Sack, etc.

Needless to say, my job is never done it seems, even on my childhood console and it's original Japanese counterpart. Tashiro Masashi no Princess ga Ippai, aka roughly translated as Masashi Tashiro Has So Many Princesses, and also unofficially renamed by Suicidal Translations as "Princessestual Orgy" (No, there's nothing of the sort in here) is a side-scrolling problematic affair starring some real life bloke named Masashi Tashiro who's on a quest to save four princesses and save fairyland from the hot Ultra Witch, and apparently this guy never once had to actually jump in his entire life. "Mashi" without a full head of steam may as well have no steam at all, no steamed hams to speak of. The horizontal gain on his leaping ability could be described as outdone by a worker ant doing jumping jacks. In order to gain any kind of respectful distance you need to run at least a little bit before making your disgraceful attempt at getting aboard a platform.

The game itself doesn't do anything original, but has a complete identity crisis of whether it's trying to ape Super Mario Bros, Zelda II's non-linear stage layout, or even inexplicably swapping to top-down Zelda in the final stage, or perhaps more comparable in quality to Deadly Towers aka Hell's Bells aka "that shit that the assholians bowed down to". Mashi doesn't have a sword, but instead uses a yo-yo. I don't know if that's a thing he does, but I'm just going to assume he's trying to rip off The Noid's style, who would probably slap a kimura on this geek and tap him out in a nanosecond.

Mashi was apparently a member of the band Rats & Star, then became a comedian later. Is this another one of those Famicom games by a comedian where the joke is apparently that the game sucks? Because I've yet to laugh or feel good about myself. I can think of funnier games on the same system, like the Transformers game that I can't stream on Discord because the military-grade light show it throws constantly can sear the eyes off an entire planet's population, or that FDS tank game that tells you to insert it into "the fucking box". It certainly does not help matters that Mashi looks like a fuckin' dork here being in a game where some anime girls are fawning for him, and proves to be the one legitimate time a game ages like a decomposing corpse when Mashi was later arrested for trying to film up women's skirts.

Classy fella.

While doing some research on the few areas on the internet with information on this, a lot of them push that this game was among the few to first introduce multiple endings. I'm going to go ahead and assume this is some kind of Simon's Quest erasure that's been spreading since 2006, the conspiracy is strong and my tin foil containment suit is forever donned. Yes, they will indeed push this Famicom game that only two people have played in order to destroy all accolades of Konami's sequel to one of the most legendary games to grace the 8-bit era. It be like that.

I'd half-star this game out of spite, but unfortunately the final boss's second form actually looks kinda rad and that's something for it I guess. Still shocked I hadn't caught wind of this until now, my sources have failed me and I no longer wish to know them.

Laundry day is a very dangerous day.

Wahahahahaaaah, welcome weary car crash survivor, did you have an invitation?! No...?!

begins tearing you apart and laughs hysterically as your body slumps to the ground

Uninvited fuckin' rules. A genuine fun romp of a point-and-click adventure with a similar aura to other such scary/funny NES games like Monster Party, where their objective is to unnerve you until they start saying shit like "that bouquet would look pretty good next to a gravestone". That particular quote stands out for me, because not only does it seem like dark humor out of nowhere as you're just examining things in the dining room, but it's also a clue. In a way that's just this game in a nutshell. Just you bumbling your way around a house while shit just pops off and the narrator hits you with dry wit. Love it.

The original computer versions exist, but they lack music which in itself the silence can be quite a help in making the game spookier, but I really really enjoy the stuff here in the NES port. It really sets the tone of the desolate hoity toity mansion out in a forest, and it's "danger" and "death" themes are legitimately haunting and create a sense of paranoia when you suddenly hear them as you enter what seemed to be an innocent room. The original games also have the infamous "time limit" that I'm not big on, it still exists here in the NES port in some spoiler-ish form but it's pretty easy to figure out. At least your torch isn't going out while you're in some hallway with the game explaining that you died by tripping like a clumsy oaf and smashing your skull into the ground at a high enough velocity to kill you instantly. What a palooka you are.

A few solutions can be a bit preposterous and out of nowhere, but nothing horrendous when you have Sierra games running amok and this game lets you continue from a screen ago, which is downright hospitable. The maze can be a bit confusing to traverse, but it's small enough that you shouldn't take more than five minutes, especially when the game is at least using literal "dead ends" in the form of zombie mobs to keep you on your toes. Genius.

Also, rare moment where I prefer the funny NES art over the original. Muhhahahahah, welcome to the devil house motherfucker! A fun annual replay for me around this time of the year, and I genuinely think of it as a favorite of mine now for the system.

Ever have a fucked up night where you wake up from your eternal slumber in the graveyard to your now happy no-longer grieving pink-haired girlfriend, only for the pumpkin asshole buried next to you to also wake up and kidnap her right in front of you? (Who the hell buries a pumpkin? Who held a funeral for it?)

Welcome to Devil Town motherfucker.

Good simplistic tasty Famicom action at the core of it's apple. You move, you jump, you hit things with your adorable little axe and you sometimes have a shotgun. The standard action-platformer affair of it's time, but surprisingly competent in it's philosophy despite the appearance of being a parody. Movement is tight, hitboxes are right, and the most dastardly thing pulled on you is falling into pits and being sent back a bit, which is like a 2 on the scale of NES bullshit with 10 probably being that room in Dirty Harry that softlocks you until you reset. The only thing I could nitpick was the fly boss whose hitbox seemed to be the wings and not his face, sorry I like hitting things in the face.

Functionally sound, and that's probably at least half the reason it has a decent speed run scene along with some of the other comedic elements that never really get old like the girl who walks off having 50 chestbursters fly out of her, or being assaulted by haunted shit coming out of a cursed toilet complete with possessed plunger. Probably an NES/FC game I should be hocking to people more often since it's very beatable, and not as capable of filtering people like a Ninja Gaiden-branded faucet attachment.

It's here that I remember, was it a movie I watched or was I daydreaming just now?

looks at the camera and points to the audience

Remember kids, winners don't use drugs.

Oh to be a wee diecast car on a little track going through the loop de loop. pinched fingers emote

I played the original Unleashed and left satisfied, but was left with very little memory of it to the point it took me a bit to realize how many of the cars and modules were reused from that for this. You'll see familiar faces like the Tanknator, Surf n' Turf, and the Nitro Bot here again for another round to fill space in the base game while they get the licensing ready for whatever overpriced DLC I bought with the deluxe edition that I probably won't play until next year when I remember I own this. At least Sol-Aire CX4 is still here, I love you Sol-Aire CX4. You have the coolest name.

The racing itself is improved for the better, with F-Zero X side attacks and Twisted Metal 2 jumping that doesn't require a Mortal Kombat input. It helps make the racing more lively and give it some more mustard, but ultimately I never bothered side attacking much, because I never adjusted the difficulty past easy after how bad the rubberbanding was in the last game, plus I'm not going online against strangers because I don't feel like getting wrecked by the people who put a thousand hours into this somehow after only a little over a week, because I guess they don't work full time jobs like I do.

I'd say the biggest improvement is actually the shop. The one in the last game was absolutely abominable, you couldn't refresh the available cars and it took about six ice ages of in-game time for it to finally swap things out. Here there's more available cars to buy, the time for rotation is like a fifth of the original's, and you can refresh for a paltry amount of coins. Thank christ, fuck those loot crates even if they still snuck a slot machine in here.

The campaign is basically the same, except waypoint, elimination races, and overly demanding drift challenges are added to mix things up. As of this posting date, the drift challenge achievo is the lowest percentage of attained on the global chart on Steam. Whether that's people not caring about the campaign, or not wanting to bother with the idiotically high score needed to clear the Unleashed goal for the drift challenges is up for interpretation. There's little story cutscenes in-between that ultimately were aiming for a saturday morning cartoon vibe, but the only thing I remember was the amount of poses the artist kept putting the female character in who kinda reminded me of Totally Spies for some reason. It was basically just my time killer as I listened to new metal albums, because the in-game music still smells and one of the tracks actually legitimately sounded like bozo the clown music to me. I also rectified this for a little by simply putting the Stunt Track Driver soundtrack on with a bit of Fuel by Metallica.

What fucks Unleashed 2 over the most is unfortunately the same thing that fucked the first game for me, and it's how unanimated the game is beyond the track itself. The sense of scale is there, but there isn't enough being done to showcase that more. There's no dogs barking at the cars as they drive by on a curve, there aren't birds flying by overhead, you're not landing in a bucket of sand at the end of the race, and they didn't even bother putting actual blades of grass onto the offroad portions and everything seems to just have minigolf turf. I truly do hate comparing modern games to things I played from my childhood, because I know it makes me sound like a "kids these days" shithead, but I just think it sucks when a 25 year old FMV game does a better job of scale. It's probably just a case of the entire game being built around the track editor, but it's such an unfortunate side effect of it that makes the whole thing feel forgettable in the long run.

Looks nice, but no lasting impression. Sucks man, why does that feel like I just described a ton of AAA games from the last decade?! I have to be wrong...

There's really no way I can sum up the amount of love that was poured into this little modification of a classic that I rented way too much when I was little. Words couldn't possibly describe it, and a visual representation couldn't possibly depict it.

I will say that kid me and probably many others were thinking "wow, I sure wish I could play as that cool girl, she looks totally badass!"

Now I can, at least in this game. You rule CF.

Let me sketch something out for you.

Imagine yourself in a hoverbike race for your life over the skies of Heaven to some mellow and pleasant orchestra music of public domain variety, playing a risky game against other racers to try and speed ahead at the cost of a potential fall into the void below to whatever could be possibly awaiting you down there. Fret not, because you will know soon, as the same track across paradise ventures off downhill into Lucifer's domain of death metal guitars, darkness, and fiery checkpoints. Survive if you can across this literal platforming hell, and you will make your nice return trip to the promised land....only to do it again....and again.... and literal holy hell does it rule.

To this day, still the coolest track concept I have ever seen.

Gloriously awesome courses adorn Jet Moto 2, and it probably still has one of my favorite soundtracks on the system courtesy of Chuck Meyers. This is good, because learning the tracks themselves is even more important than ever, otherwise you'll be falling off cliffs and smashing your head into the bottom of checkpoint signs like that Stormtrooper in Episode IV. God knows I engaged in time trials to an insane degree on my uncle's old disc. Unfortunate that the CPU is pretty ruthless in the higher difficulties, it was a nice reminder when I opened the case again and found a piece of notepad paper in there with the track unlock code on it. It's always quite a nice surprise when you go to keep your phone on hand to potentially look something up, only to find that your kid self had you covered. Thanks me, good on ya. I'm sure whatever copy of Tips & Tricks I had growing up that originally had it was lost in the forever void of moving trucks.

All the terraflops in the world and we still haven't topped that track yet, you gotta love it. Always stay winnin' og Playstation.

A thinking man's game.

When you've got a rubber butt, what happens when you rub one out too much? You would now have an empty metal butt. How else would you maneuver through the cavernous Bubsy 2-adjacent level design without a rubber?! You've got your wooden stiffy jump that flops at the most inopportune times, and you're over here trying to draw naked mermaids while getting blasted by nu metal pirates and vacuum cleaners who won't even give you the common courtesy of a reach around. Here's a tip, be quick on the draw, or eat lead as they say. Get my point?

You attempt to rub another one out, but you constantly miss your mark because what are hit boxes but a suggestion? I'll pen you one right now, or better yet a finger because fuck pens, we pencils in this bizzatch. No more monkey business from you, or it'll be a walk of the plank straight into the giant toilet. With a zillion units sold, the entire multiverse has accepted massive amounts of wood into their homes, and the brick wall industry has collapsed unto itself. The last winning effort to preserve the rain forests was one love tap from a new beloved mascot, move over Mario Andretti or whatever that jabroni's name is, because the stiff competition has found itself on top. A new pencil-necked dude with attitude has replaced the hedgedork as the head of Sega, replacing the current timeline as Nintendo is now the one who missed the mark and has found themselves rubbed out for good.

Say it! SEGAAAA!!!!!

Your favorite president is Woodrow Wilson.

I think my least favorite thing in fighting games is when they lock you into the main character for the single player mode. It's especially bad in this era, because wow they sure did love their bland karate guys.

"Hey game, can I play as the cool looking pirate dude or the girl?"
"No, you're gonna play as your dull-ass karate guy and you're gonna like it."

Bonus star for having Toguro as the final boss, that's pretty neat.

I've often wondered what exactly makes a game "the worst" I've played in an objective sense. The stuff that doesn't involve shit that just pisses me off specifically like terrible remakes that are used as judgment pieces for the superior original, or games that I think did active harm to the industry. I'd imagine it would have to be a game that is either a potential physical or emotional health risk.

Well, this one threatened to give me a headache with some of the terrible water effects/backgrounds, and features unmentionables that would require me to put a trigger warning in order to go into detail, so I guess this is in the running now.

There's a specific spot that Granada occupied in my mind that also currently encompasses a lot of edutainment PC games I played when I was young, and it's that it was a part of my childhood, but I didn't know what the hell it's name was for over a decade.

This scenario was brought about thanks to Sega Channel, a game service device you plugged into the top of your Genesis like a regular cartridge and had it hooked up to your cable to get access to a rotating library of games you could play. Granada I assume was a game that would regularly make the rounds on it, because I recall my dad playing it a ton and I would watch him make it pretty far, but don't recall him ever beating it, meanwhile I could barely figure out how to get the first boss to spawn. As you could tell, this was also a specific enough part of my life where I could play games, but couldn't really read well either or at least not well enough that I could remember the title of a game I tried to play back then that didn't have Sonic's name in it. So to me it was "that Genesis game with the little blue tank you drove around until the first boss appears and scares the shit out of you".

I remember trying to find it on emulation sites for a while to no avail, because the name "Granada" just didn't really click with me that it could be it, unlike M-1 Abrams Battle Tank or...oh lord no Heavy Nova. So for a longass time I just could never find it, because I was also using sites that didn't display screenshots, and retro gaming youtubers was a fledgling concept back then, especially when everyone was too busy copying the AVGN. For a while I was flat out convinced I was making it up, or worse the game was just not dumped online and was lost forever. It wasn't until I started grabbing everything to maybe find other games that would jog my memory of playing them back on Sega Channel, until eventually I would suddenly be met with that familiar title screen with the blue tank on it.

"Oh my god, it's real!!!!" ~ My live reaction probably when I booted it up on my PSP

That was it! Granada! That was the name! The little blue tank that could!

Intense tank shooting action, destroying big-ass jets that make up the stage itself, getting jump scared by the first stage boss who can instantly jump to you the moment you clear the objectives, that iconic Motoi Sakuraba Genesis/MD music style with DA CLAP. Perhaps a bit too intense later with slowdown that would kill five Super Nintendos, and a stage four boss that kinda smells even when I know what to do. Hard to put down, easy to revisit and "get good" at with strafe mechanics and a power shot that double as additional movement tech. Good stuff, still aggressively overlooked to this day.

For a while I thought I may have been overhyping it in my head due to attachment, but perhaps I shouldn't have doubted my dad's taste. Was happy to finish the story for him, he was always the realest. Goodbye Granada, until next time.