We’re doing something a little different today: A guest column! Here with something to say is someone we’ll call “Grumpy Monkey.” Wait, no, that’s too on the nose.
We’ll just call him “Kranky Cong.”
Take it away, KC!
Don’t ever call me that again. If you thought jumping over barrels was hard, just wait’ll you feel the business end of my cane across the backside of your head!
Anywho, I’m here today to talk to you about a growing problem which affects all of us: Gamers today are too spoiled when it comes to ports!
Y’see, back in my day, we didn’t have all these fancy chips and computer whatchamadoos that could bring arcade games home perfectly! We were thankful to get a version of a game we could play at home at all, even if it wasn’t quite as pretty as the stuff at the local arcade, and we liked ’em, too! Preferred ’em, even!
Just look at those Contrary boys! Sure, the arcade game had more colors, and you could tell which one was Bimmy and which one was Jimmy even if you were colorblind, but the NES version? That one had heart! (And a 30-life code.)
And how about those Teeny Muted Ninny Turduckens?! Sure, they had voices in the arcade, but you shouldn’t need to have everything read to ya’! Open a book or maybe a good game magazine now and again, maybe you’ll learn yourself something! What’s more, the NES game only let you have two players, but gave you two more exclusive stages in the process. Now that’s what I call a deal! ‘Sides, you probably didn’t have four friends to play with, anyway. That’s why all the good consoles have only two controller ports!
Now, where was I? Oh yeah, trade-offs! Sometimes you’ve gotta give a little to get a little!
Now look at this. Thinga beauty, ain’t it? That chiselled jaw, that sculpted physique. Looks just like the arcade experience, but y’know what it took? It took getting only three-quarters of the whole game to make it work, but we were glad to get that much!
Then we have the kids today, who whine if maybe there aren’t as many pol.. poly… fancy triangles making up a character, or cry if the textiles look a little blurry, or lose their minds if puddles don’t look wet enough. You know what water looked like in my day? Blue and white, and that’s it! Maybe some black if the artist wanted t’be fancy about it. Don’t know how lucky you have it…
AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON SAVE POI
It’s at this point we had to take the typewriter away from our guest, who walked away muttering under his breath about how he had better things to be doing anyway. We hope you enjoyed this special guest feature.
Lover of fine foods and felines, as well as comics, toys, and... oh yeah, video games. David Oxford has written about the latter for years, including for Nintendo Power, Nintendo Force, Mega Visions, and he even wrote the book on Mega Man!
