Anyone who talks to me about videogames for any length of time will soon learn that one of my favorite games of all time is U.N. Squadron for the SNES.


I freaking love this game and due to the excessive amount of time I’ve spent playing it, I’ve gotten ridiculously good at it. No kidding, if I had to point to one game that I can legitimately say I’ve mastered, it would be U.N. Squadron.

Heck, it’s even gotten to the point where I add restrictions to myself to make it more challenging. Why not trying to beat the game on Hard with only using the worst plane? How about beat it on Gamer mode? Okay, now beat it on Gamer mode without using Greg? Okay, now beat it on Gamer mode without using Greg AND without Special Weapons? And now, beat it on Gamer mode without using Greg, Special Weapons, or getting a single weapon powerup?

Alright, you caught me, I wasn’t able to complete the last two of those challenges. I honestly don’t think it would be possible to do those last two. But, you get the idea.

Because of my love for U.N. Squadron, the Arcade version has been sort of my own personal Moby Dick. I vaguely remember playing it a few times at the arcade in the mall, but that was before I was even in middle school. My only recollection was of how much harder (and how different) it was from the SNES version.

Since those days, I’ve always checked every (increasingly rare) arcade that I run across to see if they have the cabinet, but alas, they never do. I have seen a few clips of people playing online, but they are almost always using an emulator.

Needless to say, I had pretty much resigned myself to the realization that I would never really be able to experience this game on my own.

...Until I found someone asking way too much for one on Ebay! So, I did what any reasonable person without a job would do, I bought it - and it is glorious!

Catching Up

Holy Nuts have I been super busy with a bunch of nonsense the past few weeks. But, some free time finally opened up this weekend, so I can get a few updates on what I’ve been up to.

Let’s start off with the Halo LAN party I went to. Or as I have come to call it: Halo 3: Noob Nooberson gets Pwned. Unfortunately a bunch of the people who were going to show up were simply too intimidated by my FPS prowess, so they bailed. Ultimately we ended up playing 2 on 2 - first to 50 kills. Below are my stats for each of the 5 rounds that we played. Go ahead and bask in my undeniable dominance.

Round 1
Map: Valhalla
Kills: 11
Deaths: 25

Round 2
Map: Snow Bound
Kills: 7
Deaths: 31

Round 3
Map: High Ground
Kills 10
Deaths: 24

Round 4
Map: Epitaph
Kills: 13
Deaths: 34

Round 5
Map: Pit
Kills: 15
Deaths: 29

Pretty ugly, huh. Seriously, the most kills Noob Nooberson had was 15? That's just sad. The really amazing thing was how incredibly awesome my teammate was. We won two rounds and only lost the other three by one or two kills. Now take a look again at my above stats and imagine how kickass he was to overcome such a horrible partner and accomplish that.

Despite being unable to aim, I was able to help my teammate in other ways. By positioning myself in the open and then spewing a steady stream of smack talk, insults, and questions of manhood at my opponents, I was continually able to lure them in to the open to slaughter me. Meanwhile, my teammate was hiding nearby to then come in for the kill. You’d be surprised how long it took the opposing team to figure out that we were doing the same trick over and over. Sure they would kill me, but my partner would usually get two kills on them.

Next Up, I have a few New Acquisitions.

I fell hard into an advertising trap the other day. I saw that Amazon had Final Fantasy XIII for pretty cheap on a ‘one day only’ deal. Deciding that this was the lowest I would see FF XIII for a quite a while, I decided to go for it. And, 'click' it goes into the cart. Well, while I'm here, I might as well check out some other things as well... So, I also ended up buy the Gradius Collection (PSP), Gradius III/IV (PS2), and Metal Slug Anthology (PSP).

Additionally, I recently picked Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles and Puzzle Quest for PSP; Suikoden III and Persona 4 for PS2; Castles of Shikigami III for Wii (so cheap it was almost free).

Oh, and I also got a second copy of R-Type Final, so I can just leave it upstairs at the TV and PS2 by my bed. Yeah, I’m a loser, I own multiple copies of my favorite games so I don’t have to walk downstairs to get them if I want to play them on my TV upstairs.

Should have some stuff up on Ogre Tactics soon. I’m pretty sure I’m nearing the end and I think I may have a lot to say about this one.

Currently Playing and a few New Additions

Phew. I am still playing Final Fantasy XII. I am beginning to seriously doubt that this game is real. Perhaps I'm stuck in my own personal video game purgatory where I must do never ending hunting side-quests and travel almost exclusively on foot through an enormous world. Maybe this is my punishment for actually sort of liking Final Fantasy X-2.

Relax, I said sort of.

Anyway, I am making progress. I think I am starting to near the end because the plot is picking up. And, by 'picking up,' I mean where the story usually negins to fall apart because they are running out of game to properly develop the third act.

In completely unrelated news, I have numerous new additions to my collection. Part of me is psyched about this (because most of my new games are awesome), but my more rational half tells me that this just puts me deeper into my never-ending black hole of a backlog.

Who cares, bring on the awesomeness!

My newest additions:

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I was lucky enough to find this brand new and for super cheap at my local abandoned warehouse... um, I mean K-Mart. Seriously, didn't K-Mart declare bankruptcy, what a decade ago?

Carrier Aces. I picked this up on a whim at a sketchy basement used DVD/game store. After having tried it, I can firmly say that it sucks. I can also say that this is the kind of game that I would have deemed 'awesome' when I was eight, despite taking thirteen weekends worth of renting to finally get the hang of the control scheme.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. I'm not very fond of fighting games. In fact, the last fighting game I really played a lot of was Killer Instinct. But, BlazBlue has all the right stuff to attract me to a game: kick ass art style, 2-D sprite based graphics, awesome backgrounds, enough of a story to keep it interesting, and lots of pretty explosions.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Hell yes. It's about time I rounded up a copy of this. I've wanted to play this ever since someone described it as being 'sort of like Super Metroid.' Anything that remotely resembles Metroid is cool by me. I can't wait to fire up this little beauty.

Demon's Souls. I've wanted this for a while now, but never enough to actually shell out the cash. Fortunately, the girlfriend paid attention to my longing gazes at Target and gave it to me for Valentine's Day. Score! I definitely think she got the raw end of the deal... I got her Scribblenauts.