DmC Devil May Cry - First Impressions

Okay, let me just get this out of the way before I begin.

DISCLAIMER: I am a twenty-year-old, slighty pudgy nerd stuck in a rented apartment in the middle of England with nothing but this internet connection and a slightly unhealthy obsession with Maltesers to keep him going through every day. I have no links to Capcom, Ninja Theory or any big gaming company involved with the development of DmC Devil May Cry you care to name, because I'm not cool enough for that. So there is no possible way I could have been "paid off" to say the things about DmC that I am going to say - I have always been and will continue to be an impartial speaker, with no general bias towards any perticular property, console or company that exists. Anyone who wishes to insinuate otherwise can direct their enquiries to the nearest ravenous, man-eating predator.

Right, that's that. Also, let me get this other thing out of the way - I never was a fan of Dante from Capcom's Devil May Cry series.

I was introduced to him via Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and his cocky, one-liner-shooting smugness immediately made me dislike him almost instantly. On top of that, Yahtzee Chroshaw's mostly negative review of Devil May Cry 4, as well as a mish-mash of conflicting evidence, implanted me the subconcious message to avoid any game in the series the same way I avoided Final Fantasy games back then (until Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, that is, but shut up). From getting my ass handed to me to fuzzy second-hand comments about which game was the best and how technical you could get with what seemed to be dumb, over-the-top anime games, I just thought to myself for the longest time that the Devil May Cry series just wasn't for me.

So when Ninja Theory got torn apart for changing a lot of things in their reboot of the franchise, I was left kind of lost. Sure, Dante looked different. Sure, the world was different. Yes, creative director Tameem Antoniades was kind of a prick when you get right down to it. And yes, F-Bombs and Sniperbortions were being thrown around like the ball pit balls in Charlie Chalk's Fun Factory and the writing was juvenile as fuck. But I didn't really understand the outrage the fans were spewing onto the internet. Dante was still an unlikeable prick, even if he had been listening to Linkin Park for a bit and cutting his hair, and the game was still an over-the-top hack-and-slasher. What were people getting so mad about?

So today I toddled down to my local games retailer and bought a copy to see what the fuss was about.

So what's the story? Well, in this alternate-universe prequel-reboot... thing, Dante is living in a trailer and just trying to get through life with as little fuss and as much booze and angel stripper shagging as possible. Unfortunately, he just so happens to live in a city controlled by demons, who are keeping the public stupid via soft drinks and a terrible Bill O'Reily impersonator, and something about our hero(?) rubs them the wrong way enough for them to suck him into the alternate world of Limbo and send a giant monster after him to blow up his house. After dealing with that mishap, Dante is taken by a mysterious woman named Kat to meet his brother Vergil, leader of the terrorist organization known as Anonymous The Order, who reveals that there may be more to Dante than he realizes...

So going into the game, I could most definitely see why hardcore fans of the original games might bring out the pitchforks and torches. Not only has Ninja Theory seen fit to change Dante's design (on Capcom's suggestion, ironically enough), they also changed his character from a confident, self-assured badass to a whiny, self-important bellend. Tameem took every opportunity to insult the fans at every turn, claiming he had no respect for the original quadroligy  and that his story would "stand among the greats" despite... well, Sniperbortions. The change from Capcom's MT Framework to the Unreal Engine was seen as a downgrade by the technical fans, who claimed that the drop in framerate would cut out the depth of the combat. And on top of that, the writing is crap even by Capcom standards, and considering Street Fighter X Tekken reduced Kazuya to spouting cliche'd villainous one-liners, that's saying a lot.

So yes, I can perfectly understand why this game should get the flak it-

I AM THE FUCKING GOD OF HELLFIRE

...Woah, I do apologize. It's just that after experiencing the combat of DmC, I've developed the uncontrollable urge to bellow such lines at the top of my voice.

DmC, in my mind, stands next to Max Payne 3 as one of those games where, if you get it right, you feel like an untouchable god among men. It's the sort of game where you can walk into a room full of slavering demons and, a minute of button-pressing later, you can walk out again completely unscathed and feeling like a badass, with only the blood stains to tell the story of how you should not be fucked with ever. It's stylish, fairly simple to grasp, and once you truly get the hang of it it's a satisfying as wrestling open a particularly stubborn bottle top, although my Darksiders playthroughs might have helped pepare me for this game to a degree.

See, the game is obsessed with style. You build up "style" by chaining together successful combos, and the higher your style ranking at the end of a fight, the more points get added onto your score at the end of the level. You also get rewarded with currency and upgrade points to spend on new abilities, and if you get struck, you have to build up the style meter from scratch, and may not get as many rewards as before. So the idea is to basically be an untouchable badass who cuts apart anything that looks at him funny, flitting from mook to mook like an enraged butterfly on a sugar rush and busting out unimaginably crazy attacks. If you seriously don't find something awesome about keeping an enemy afloat with a constant stream of bullets, then it's time to re-assess the way you look at things.

But what DmC brings to the table are the interchangeable fighting modes that grant Dante different weapons and abilities to use in combat. In his standard mode, Dante wields his familiar sword Rebellion and uses his twin pistols Ebony and Ivory for long-ranged attacks. Pulling Left Trigger activates Angel Mode, where Dante uses the Osiris scythe for crowd control and fast, multi-hitting strikes. Pulling Right Trigger, inversely, acivates Demon Mode, where Dante's attacks with the giant hammer Arbiter are slow yet can shatter any defense. Both modes also feature different grappling techniques that allow you to deal with pesky airborne or far-away enemys and extend combos - the key is switching between the two modes to build up the style meter effectively.

And when you get it right, it feels fucking amazing. Here's a combo I'm very fond of at my current stage in the game - rush in with the Trillion Stabs, pull the enemy back with the demon chain, dice them up with the scythe, uppercut them into the air, perform a special move that's basically a rising tornado of bullets, dice them up some more, yank them back again, then smash them into the ground with the axe. The length of that sentence alone should tell you that the number of ways to inflict major pain on the demonic enemies you encounter is enough to keep things Schadenfreude-tastic, and I haven't even progressed that far in the game yet. There should be a law banning this kind of catharticism in the world.

And there is a feature in this game I will happily debase myself in gratitude for in future hack-and-slashers, and that's the "Try" feature in the shop. In games that allow you to spend points or whatever on buying new moves, I tend to get flummoxed by the array of choice I have, unsure wherever to pick the arm blades or the glidy-wings and wherever it's going to bite me in the arse later. Thankfully, DmC's shop grants you the ability to go into the game's Training mode to test out the move before you purchase it, allowing you to figure out if you could naturally work this move into your repitoire. Oh, yeah, and there's a training mode as well, which is also cathartic, but more in the punching-bag sense of whaling one this one unfortunate demon over and over until your thumbs hurt.

That said, practicing flashy combos in a white void against one enemy is one thing. Trying to remember your elaborate sequence of grapples, slashes and bullet bonanzas in the middle of a crowded room full of various types of jerks is another. Due to the huge variety of nasties all closing in to take a bite out of Dante's underfed arse, I tended to panic and mash buttons like Woody Woodpecker, occasionally pulling out the chains or hitting dodge when my Spider-Sense kicked in. I guess all that gushing about the flowing and intuitive nature of the combat is invalidated now, but it's this same button-mashing instinct that tends to get me through most fighters, so it seems to be working out fine here. I still get, like, B's and A's on the style meter.

So yes, DmC Devil May Cry can be called a lot of bad things. You can call it a catastrophic abomination that takes a dump on everything that was good about the previous games. You can call it a childishly-written lump of bad dialogue that reads like a 13-year-old's fan fiction fever dream. You can even call it another in a long line of Capcom's big blunders after the whole Mega Man and Street Fighter X Tekken debacles. But there have been few games I have ever played where I can cry "Giant Hary Bollocks to story and character development" and go smash someone's face apart in a kickass manner. One of those is Saints Row The Third, and the other is DmC.

So if nothing else, I can reccommend this game on the strength of it's combat and maybe the platforming sections, but I haven't played far enough to talk much about those. Maybe my not playing the previous games invalidates my opinion and secures me a spot in that special Hell nerds condemn people to for not agreeing with their views, but I'm having so much fun right now I simply don't care, so suck it, haters. If you're determined enough to overlook the troubled development history, unsubtle social commentary and flimsy writing of DmC, or never really cared about the franchise and just want to hit things with various kinds of metal stick, then I definitely say it's worth a

EAT SWORD YOU DEMONIC FUCKWITS

...That's it. Where's my cider?

Steel Komodo's Top 11 Favourite Pokémon

As I may have expounded on a previous blog post of mine, I still love Pokémon. I love it from it's cheesy chiptune soundtrack to it's ever-growing legion of colourful beasties to tame and build into unstoppable powerhouses. It's one of the few games (apart from Fire Emblem, which I just discovered) where I can tolerate turn-based combat, and with Pokémon X and Pokémon Y looming in an October-ly direction, I thought I would pay tribute to a series that has managed to capture my attention for as long as it has (except for the spin-offs, haven't touched those yet). So here we go - another Top Eleven list, this time comprising of my most favorite 'Mons of all time, from the humble days of Red/Blue to the current generation of Black/White.

A small thing to keep in mind: This list does not in any way factor how the Pokémon are viewed competitively. Because I am diametrically opposed to the notion of tiers, wherever a Pokémon is considered tourney-viable or not has no holding on the progression of this list. This is simply those 'Mons I think look cool or inventive or played a big part in my experience with the games.

So here we go!

11. Smeargle
Unless you're one of those people who don't have an appreciation for the wierd, then Smeargle isn't for you. This is why he makes it so low on the list - he's not really a Pokémon that most would consider "cool" or "inspired" in any way. He's a Normal-type, a typing which is considered mostly useless even in regular casual play. His design is nothing to write home about - a monkey with a paintbrush for a tail and a tongue sticking out like he's tried to eat thistles like Tigger did in The House at Pooh Corner. And he only ever learns one move - Sketch, which randomly turns into one of the many hundreds of moves available, and not all of them useful. So what makes him special compared to the fan favourites like Gardevoir or Lucario?

I guess I like Smeargle exactly for that reason. He's not over-the-top in concept like Lucario or a legendary like Deoxys. Hell, his design is pretty simplistic, even by the standards of most Normal-type Pokémon today. But he's an oddball, one of those Pokémon that even by the wacked-out standards of the world he occupies just doesn't make any logical sense. And sometimes we need the oddballs to balance out the overblown "cool" look of legendaries, or the mundanity of most of the 'mons you find right outside your doorstep. On top of that, Sketch makes him something of an unpredictable foe - no two battles against him are ever the same, and you have to be on your toes all the time. Smeargle is unique because of his oddity, and that's why he makes this list.

10. Escavalier
Who remembers those Pokémon that could only evolve when traded? Well, up until Black/White, the series was kind of hoping you didn't. Generation 1 introduced it with four different creatures - Haunter, Kadabra, Machamp and Graveler, and Generation 2 then refined the concept by adding Pokémon what could only evolve when traded whilst holding a certain item - Slowbro to Slowking, Onix to Steelix and so forth. But from then on the concept kinda stagnated, with no Pokémon that embraced the concept bringing anything new to the table apart from Clampearl and it's two evolutions. But then along came Shelmet and Karrablast, and they said "Hey, remember when this was new and exciting? We sure do! HAIKIBA!"

Focusing soley on Escavalier, it's easy to see why this makes the list. It's based on the concept of European knights, which means it has an awesome crest on it's head and fucking lances for arms. And if that wasn't badass enough, it's a proper Bug/Steel type, none of that wishy-washy in-betweeny approach Burmy and Wormadam were going for. This means it only has one true type weakness - fire. The rest can only watch in despair whilst Escavalier stabs them full of holes like Swiss Cheese, with it's lance arms. If Chuck Norris was a Pokémon, then Escavalier might not be that Pokémon, but he'd be pretty darn close.  Look at him. He's too busy rocking those lance arms to care for your problems. And that's why he's badass.

9. Ninjask
Ninjask is one of those Pokémon where you just know it's going to be cool. I mean, the name alone rolls beautifully off of the tongue - Ninjask. The moment you hear that name, you know good things will come of it. I mean, I could talk about how much better it's counterpart Shedinja is due to the Wonder Guard ability making it practically invincible, or how it's preevolution Nincada is a horrible bore to train because it takes so long to learn anything decent. I could also mention any of the more viable Bug types out there, like Dustox or Drapion with their poision-based movesets designed for crippling the opposition and much higher attack stats. But basically fuck you, it's Ninjask. It's the Die Hard thing - the fact that it exists quashes all arguments.

I mean, look at it. It's sleek, it's compact, and yet it has claws longer than it's own body and a golden mask like something out of a martial arts drama. It's a look that screams "I might be small, but look away for even a split second and I'll fucking end you". And it's Pokédex entry states that apparently it moves so goddamn fast that for a long time people thought it was literally invisible Anything that moves that fast is definitely worth adding to your collection. Ninjask is probably one of my favourite non-legendary Generation 3 Pokémon of all, if not the best, and it stands out because it was a Pokémon that, from looking at it alone, I knew I had to have when I started out. And that's an achievement, as far as being an awesome Pokémon goes.

8. Chatot
Like Smeargle before him, Chatot is one of my favourites because of his completey oddity compared to the rest of the cast. Chatot was one of the first Pokémon to be revealed for the Diamond and Pearl games, alongside Buizel and Mantyke, as a promotion for the upcoming Pokémon Ranger movie starring Manaphy. And we were all hyped as hell for more details on it - we wanted to know if it was a pure Flying type, what moves it could learn, what sort of significance would it play. We were to be dissapointed quite a bit - it stuck to the Normal/Flying mold of most bird Pokémon, it was significantly weaker than most over Flying types and it was only available via trading with some other douche on a random route. It was a novelty, merely existing to flesh out the Pokémon roster than add anything new.

But it's Chatot's unique feature that earns it a spot on my list. Chatter, a move that damages and confuses the opponent, can be customised to play back any sounds you like by speaking into the DS microphone, which also changes it's in-game cry. Now, I want you to imagine facing this thing in a fight and suddenly being confronted with a shout of "HI BILLY MAYS HERE" from this otherwise cute and innocent-looking Pokémon, or even Dante from DmC bragging about his penis size. It's this tiny yet easily-abused feature which puts Chatot at the number 8 spot on this list - sure, it exists only to shoehorn in the DS mic, but who wouldn't want a Pokémon that recites internet memes every time it attacks? I know I would catch it in a heartbeat.

7. Typhlosion
Anyone fortunate enough to choose a Cyndaquil at the start of Gold/Silver, and not stupid enough to pick Chikorita or Totodile, would have their patience rewarded. From a sleepy shrew-thing it evolved into Quilava, which was awesome in it's own right - a flaming badger-weasel with a look of malicious intent and the firepower to back that expression up. But with enough perseverance, levelling up and swearing at enemy Pokémon, both wild and Trainer-owned alike, then an already-cool beastie bulked up into the marvel of creation we call Typhlosion. Evolution doesn't describe the change - it's more akin to a sudden steroid binge that turned it into a hulking mass of awesome - even as a kid, I thought Typhlosion was a baddas mofo.

Look at that majestic yellow and black fur. Look at that collar of flames, so striking and imposing on what would otherwise be a dull and mundane creature. Look at those red eyes, that bellowing mouthful of sharp teeth. This is one of those Pokémon you just don't want to cross, even if you know you have a type advantage against it. If this thing had a voice, it would sound like Christian Bale, storming around the battlefield and yelling at it's comrades that it's going to kick their fucking asses if they don't shut up for a second. On top of that, it was introduced to make Flame Wheel, the cool indie alternative to Fire Blast, a better move by being associated with it. Keep your Feraligatr's, man, this badass badger's where it's at.

6. Genesect
Okay, I swear this is gonna be the last bug type that gets featured on this list - Escavalier and Ninjask were already quite enough. But if you've been on Chatzy recently, you will understand fully why I have found a new appreciation for a Pokémon that, apart from the cassette gimmick, seems rather underrated as Pokémon go. Okay, so it's a bit obvious that a Pseudo-Legendary would make this list - they have to look kinda cool in order to make it worth all the effort to capture them, or else no-one would even bother. But Genesect makes this list for one specific reason, one which Gooper Blooper pointed out to us all on the Chatzy but I think bears repeating here. Genesect is basically the Pokémon equivalent of a Zoofighter.

Think about it. He's a prehistoric, carnivorous insect ressurected by a team of morally-questionable scientists and augmented with various mechanical upgrades in order to be a weapon of mass destruction. He has metal plating instead of a carapace and a massive cannon on his back. And to top it off, he can turn into a jet and fucking fly. I don't care if it's coincidental - the moment I catch a Genesect, I am going to name him Gravitas in honour of the wonderful animal pugilism and forum-based frolics that brought us all together. And then I'm gonna teach him Fly, because he can learn that apparently, and sing snatches of the Transformers theme every time we head to a new town. Not sure about checking out his new movie, though.

5. Anorith
Ah, the Fossil Pokémon. In Generation 1, they were a novelty - pick one of these two uber-rare, extinct Pokémon and that's it. They kinda got abandoned for Gen 2 before Ruby/Sapphire brought them back with a vengeance, reminding us of how awesome they were. And now every Pokémon games since then has done the concept to death and we're all wishing they'd hurry up and jump the shark by throwing in the inevitable T-Rex/Stegosaurus combo already. But Generation 3's fossil Pokémon deserve a close examination, mostly because they didn't have to rely on stock beasts like Generation 4's felt it had to do. And in my playthrough of Ruby, I picked up Anorith, so that's partly why he makes the Number 5 spot.

I think Anorith was the Pokémon that introduced me to Anomalocaris, the creature that inspired it and it's evolution, Armaldo. Anomalocaris, for the unitiated, was a prehistoric sea creature that lived in the Precambrian era, a voracious predator that used it's spiked mouthparts to grab hold of food and hold it in place to be devoured. For Game Freak to base one of their new Pokémon on a prehistoric creature that had only been recently discovered is pretty ballsy, and on top of that it shows the wealth of imagination they used to have before Black/White started rehashing Pidgey and Rattata. So despite his double-weakness to Grass types and goofy looks, Anorith secures a comfortable 5th place on my Top 11 Favourite Pokémon for sheer imagination.

4. Electivire
Let's face it - creating new Pokémon is hard. I have enough trouble conceptualizing an entire roster of starters, let alone 150 of the new bastards. This may explain why Game Freak had to rehash old concepts for Black/White, and also why they often filled the roster of previous games with older Pokémon to save the effort of creating new 'Mons. Now, there is one way to get around this pitfall, and that is to design new evolutions of previous Pokémon to try and give those golden oldies some fresh time in the spotlight. But this is extremely risky, and if you don't do it right (Lickilicky, anyone?) then people are going to hate you for it, wondering why you didn't just use the slots to create new Pokémon instead.

Electivire is a new evolution of a previous Pokémon done right. It's everything one expects an evolved Electabuzz to be - it's muscular, it's bizzare-looking and it has jump-leads for tails - always a bonus in my books. The whole design of the thing screams powerful, brutal and sadistic, not afraid to punch your lights out if you cross it in any way and looking as though it's plotting more pain against your life with every moment. If it were a pro wrestler, it would have this for it's theme and it would employ suplexes and backbreakers at every opportunity. Rhyperior could have taken this spot for similar reasons, but Electivire holds the distinction of looking cooler than it's previous form, which is more than can be said for Magmortar. Or Lickilicky.

3. Bulbasaur
I don't really think I need to explain why Bulbasaur even needs to be on this list. But if I didn't, then that would be cheating, so I shall. See, the reason Bulbasaur makes it in here over any of the other starters was because, for players of Red/Blue, he was the only logical choice. The first two Gym Leaders, Brock and Misty, both used types that Bulbasaur, in all of his Grass type glory, had absolutely no trouble curb-stomping given the right training. With enough patience, one could teach Bulbasaur his two big Grass moves, Leech Seed and Vine Whip, in little-to-no time at all, and then one could simply thrash both Leaders without even needing assistance from any other Pokémon on your team at all.

You picked Charmander? How cute. Good luck getting curbstomped by Brock because you forgot to catch a Mankey outside of Vidiran City, close to where Gary F. Oak was lurking. You picked Squirtle? Fair enough, you'd be alright against Brock, but you'd have to comb the grasses looking for Grass types to take on Misty later on, or else you were fucked. But for those of us who had the brains to put aside the dumb argument of which starter is the coolest (IT'S SNIVY YOU MORONS), then Bulbasaur was the only starting Pokémon that made any sense to pick. Start off with this little dino-frog thing and you'd go far, my friend. You'd go so far that Team Rocket would need the Hubble Telescope just to catch the merest glimpse of you.

2. Vaporeon
Yes, I'm not making it any secret that first and third Generations are my favourite, am I? Point is, they stand out because they were the only Pokémon games I completed all the way through at some point. I never beat Gold, so that's why it's lineup doesn't get much attention as the others do on this list. But back on topic - the only argument dumber than which starter was the coolest was which evolution of Eevee was the coolest. Nobody stuck up for plain old vanilla Eevee  - it merely existed to allow people access to Super Jolteon Arcade Edition or Ultimate Flareon vs. Erika 3, with some training and a stone's purchase being the only hurdles. But my favourite will always be Vaporeon Continuum Shift Extend, and this is where the analogy breaks down.

I literally have no idea what it is that attracts me to Vaporeon so much. Is it it's more defensive playstyle, with attacks like Acid Armour that contrast with Jolteon's speed bias or Flareon's attack-focused growth? Is it it's sleek, mermaid-inspired design that I always found more aesthetically-pleasing than Jolteon's spikes or Flareon's fluffy appearance? Or was it the fact that I was finally sick of Charmeleon losing in fights and got a quick and dirty Water type to compensate, regardless of the fact that Erika was a Grass type user and therefore a pushover? Nevertheless, you can brag about your Leafeons and Sylveons all you like, but Vaporeon will alwasy be my preferred Eeveelution of choice. (Ugh, I hate that term)

And my Number 1 Favourite Pokémon is...

1. Jirachi
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Oh, a Legendary/Psychic-type Pokémon got the top spot! I'm looking forward to reading about how SK thinks it looks cute and how it's got all these fancy moves and how it fixes a game-breaking bug and that he genuinely liked the movie it appeared in!" And while I do like Jirachi for some, if not all, of those reasons (I never say Jirachi: Wish Maker, so I can't pass opinion on that), trust me when I say Jirachi doesn't get the top spot on those reasons alone. No, the Wish Pokémon gets here for an extremely specific and strong reason, one which I hope you'll agree with me on - mostly due to the fact that involves inflicting a lot of mental pain on oneself. Brace yourself, because this is gonna be a shocker.

It's the sole reason I played Pokémon Channel.

Allow me to wait whilst you recover from your heart attacks, replace your exploded heads and empty your mind of all those fucks. And then allow me to elaborate on that previous sentence.

As I'm sure everyone who can call themselves a Pokémon fan knows, Pokémon Channel is a godawful abomination. It's like Asura's Wrath in that I'd be hard pressed to even call it a video game, but this doesn't have the excuse of being, well, Asura's Wrath. For all it's faults, Asura's Wrath at least had over-the-top visuals, an epic soundtrack and that non-sequitur hot springs scene. Pokémon Channel is a painful, snore-worthy grind-fest where you baby-sit the world's most ungrateful Pikachu as he watches the same shitty fucking television shows for the eleventy-billionth SHITTY FUCKING TIME okay I'm calm. The point is, with it's utterly asinine setup and card-collecting mechanic, this seems to be the kind of game that assumes children will play anything as long as that fucking yellow rat is on it, and it's just as condescending as you would imagine. Were it not for the somewhat cool shopping channel featuring a sunglasses-wearing Squirtle, as well as the existance of Billy Bob's Huntin'-n-Fishin', I'd be inclined to call this the worst game I've ever played.

But it is worth it, oh, it is so worth sitting through the torture. Once you've unlocked all those channels and extras, found those CD's in the game's clumsy attempt to add some kind of a plot and sat through that god-awful Pichu Bros. cartoon, then you get the opportunity to download Jirachi to your copy of Ruby or Sapphire, provided you have a space in your party. The opportunity to get my hands on this exclusive, ultra-rare Pokémon was the only reason I brought the game - I knew I was diving into pure shit when I loaded the game up, and my only regret was spending money on the thing. But once it was over and I could get my mitts on Jirachi, then the sense of achievement I felt was greater even than beating the Elite Four itself. "Finally," I thought to myself, "a reason to stop playing this godawful waste of ploygons and programming routines!"

When you have to sit through literall Hell to reach the light at the end of the tunnel, then the reward seems all the sweeter when you consider the pain you had to inflict on yourself. Jirachi isn't just my favourite Pokémon of all time - it's the Pokémon that I forced myself to play a shitty spinoff game for. He's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the gold medal at the end of the marathon, the loving kiss from the princess after the grueling battle against the dragon. His existance alone made purchasing Pokémon Channel completely worth it.

Also, he has a third eye in his stomach.

Fucking creepy.

And now, honourable mentions:

• Omastar: For generally looking badass, but losing out to Anorith on coolness factor.
• Suicine: For being my all-time favourite of any legendary trio. But putting three legendaries on this list would be cheating.
• Marshtomp: For carrying my team through the difficult Flannery period of Ruby. Sadly, was not badass enough to beat out Bulbasaur, currently occupies slot 12 on this list.
• Darkrai: For sparing my parents a grueling drive all the way to Manchester for the sake of an exclusive download event. Thank God for Action Replay. Also for having (imo) the only good movie in the series.
• Krookodile: For basically being Sharptooth in The Land Before Time. Seriously, go check his Pokédex entry.
• The Litwick Family: For being the best fucking concept for Pokémon ever.

Well, that was another Top 11 list! Hope you enjoyed reading it, and stay tuned for hopefully more original content!

Steel Komodo's Top 11 Games That I Stopped Playing

Well, Gooper Blooper did his top 100 list of video games he likes. And seeing as how we people like to follow bandwagons, I figured that I should go ahead do something similar to that. Of course, we all know that I'm not the best at doing very long projects like what Goops did - my constant delaying of Monster Mash fights speaks to that. So there's no way I'll be able to do a daily list of my personal favourite games. Instead, I'm going to do a one-off thing - a top eleven list of games I really like, but stopped playing for one reason or another. Why top eleven? Because I like to rip off the Nostalgia Critic :P

Now, keep in mind that this list is going to be limited to games I actually still own, and not just any old game I picked up and never finished. For instance, I never got around to finishing Mega Man: Powered Up, but I sold my copy recently, and I can't talk about a game I don't own anymore because there's no way I'd be able to play it again if I wanted. Also, this isn't a list of "great" games by any measure - this is just unfinished games rated by my own personal standards. And on top of that, all release dates listed are for the game's European release, not the American one, unless stated otherwise.

So, with that said, let's begin!

 

11. Saints Row The Third
Genre: Third-Person Sandbox Shooter
System: XBox 360, PS3
Developer: Volition, Inc.
Publisher: THQ
Released: November 15, 2011

Saints Row The Third is what I like to call a "shameless" game - one of those games you know you wouldn't get away with playing in polite company, yet that's exactly why you play it. In your quest to help the Third Street Saints get revenge on the enigmatic Syndicate, you'll drive at top speed down the wrong side of the road, pimp your ride with Boudiccea wheel spikes, piledrive people's faces into the pvement, dress up like a Care Bear, attack rival gangs with a VTOL and carry a giant floppy dildo as a melee weapon. It's madcap sandbox madness at its finest, and you'll be giggling like a madman with every second.

However, the fact that it's a sandbox is the main factor of why I stopped playing this. See, put me in a sandbox game and the first thing I do... is play the story. Odd, you might think. That's a great reason to keep playing it, why am I listing that as a negative thing? Except I play the story up until the point where I have at least above-average weapons, upgrades, vehicles etc. and then simply break off to faff around in the sandbox world with my jetpacks and laser guns and whatnot. And then I inevitably get tired of the whole "unstoppable god of destruction thing" and can't be arsed to carry on with the story, so I stop playing the game.

I've had fun with sandbox games while I've had them - Prototype and Just Cause 2 get some honourable mentions here - but they've never been able to keep my interest for long. Just Cause suffers from being shackled to a fairly realistic setting, thus denying us of real sandbox potential, whilst Prototype has a whiny sociopath for a protagonist, which hits a bit closer to home. Saints Row The Third makes it onto the list, however, just because of the scale of madcap antics you can pull off, and if there was a game that combined Prototype's soft science with SR3's colourful mayhem then I'd be all over that like wasps on a picnic.

 

10. Endless Ocean
Genre: Simulation
System: Wii
Developer: Akria
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: November 9, 2007

Developed by the people who brought us the underhwelming Street Fighter EX series, Endless Ocean is basically their way of apologizing for it. This is, at heart, a scuba-diving simulator with a great atmosphere and some wonderful music. You swim through the blue waters of an unspecified, marvelling at the wonderous array of sea-life that surrounds you. You can ride on the back of dolphins, turtles, whales and more, and even interact with smaller creatures that lurk in the coral reefs and the depths of the ocean. Even the sharks are placid and won't attack you. It's calm, it's serene and it's an experience like no other.

At least, that's what the hype promised.

So I buy the game, pop it in and start it up. One totally-not-religious title song later, and we get our premise - our player is a diver in the fictional sea of Manaurai, tasked to chart local sea life and is occasionally hired out by rich companies to find sunken treasure. Assisted by his companion Katherine Sunday, and with a charming penguin companion by his side, the hero will encounter the greatest mysteries of both the natural and ancient world, which eventually leads to a shadowy conspiracy as the greed of mankind once again threatens to disrupt the harmony of the natural world-

Har de har. Very funny. Now get out of the way so I can play Endless Ocean.

...Oh, this is Endless Ocean.

How awkward.

There's developer secrets, Arika, and then there's blatant lying about your product. Not once in any of the trailers I saw or the reviews I read were any mentions of a boring, tacked-on story mode that locks us away from the open-world swimming and scenery we were promised. Granted, it's hard to get away with making your game about nothing in today's bloated, uncreative industry, but you could have at least been honest about what your game was in the first place rather than trying to cover it up with your advertising. "No, really, it's just a diving simulator, there's no story or anything, honest". Mind you, not telling us about the campaign mode - which you have to beat to unlock free mode, by the way - was probably a smart move, because it's about as preachy, stupid and predictable as any Ferngully film you care to name.

Okay, I'm being overly mean - the environments are breathtaking, the music is gorgeous and that deep sea level is fucking terrifying. All of that was promised, and we got it. But if I have to slog through repetetive missions and cringe-inducing dialogue to get to the part of the game I was promised, then something is clearly wrong. So yes, I admire Endless Ocean for what it set out to do, but I'm not prepared to be lied to, or treated like I'm a dog that has to be lead through a plastic tunnel before I get a treat. I had fun with the game at the time, but I can't really reccomend it to anyone unless penguins are your thing.

9. Yoshi Touch & Go
Genre: Side-Scrolling Adventure
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: May 6, 2005

Yohsi's first proper solo outing since Super Mario Advance 3, this game is a retelling of the classic Yoshi's Island story designed to showcase the features of the DS. You start by bringing Baby Mario down to safety by drawing cloud paths, then use that same technique to guide a constantly-running Yoshi across dangerous pits and through hordes of enemies. The Touch Screen also lets you fire your trademark eggs at enemies, which becomes neccesary when you drop Baby Mario and he lets out that ever-cursed wailing that still haunts veteran players of Yoshi's Island to this day. Thanks for bringing back the night terrors, Nintendo.

Yoshi Touch & Go makes the list for the same reason I put Endless Ocean in here - I feel like I was conned. Not by the company, god no - at least they had the decency to tell us what was in their game in the first place. No, I was in fact decieved by the reviewers Official Nintendo Magazine, back in the days when the first two letters were swtiched around and the reviewers were all loveable yobbos. The review claimed that the game was "fast-paced and frantic" and that I would have to be on my toes in order to survive the marathon of pits, enemies and obstacles and deliver Baby Mario to safety.

Bullshit.

The game is not fast-paced in any way. It doesn't matter what colour of Yoshi you have - they all move like their wading through molasses, so there's no sense of urgency. You don't need to worry about building cloud bridges or anything until you're almost near the pit, he moves that slow. And on top of that, enemies come in predictable patterns, so it's almost trivial to take them out one by one with eggs and tongue - even the ones that appear on the top screen just to fuck you over. The only time it gets difficult is near the end of the last stage, where the Stork is waiting, and that's only because the screens are so full of baddies you can't tell one from the other, like a lion trying to pick out one zebra amongst a hundred.

Don't get me wrong - it's still a Yoshi game, and with the exception of Yoshi Tilt N' Tumble those are guaranteed to give you a good time. But I feel let down when a game isn't what I expect it to be, even from reading the reviews I so cherish and rely on for information. Even when playing, I always felt Touch & Go was made less as a game and more as a marketing tool for the DS, and it shows. So in the end I simply packed the game away and never picked it up again. I might give it another shot, for old time's sake, but I hardly see myself being enthralled with it.

8. Sonic Generations
Genre: Platformer
System: XBox 360, Wii, PS3, Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Released: November 1, 2011 (Worldwide)

It would be remiss of me to not talk about classic video game heroes without mentioning Sonic the Hedgehog, a character so classic he should be perserved as a culturally-significant landmark. And in order to celebrate his many, many years of hyper-speed heroics, Sega decided to pair him up with... his past self, mixing a blend of classic and modern Sonic gameplay in one big adventure whilst taking the time to remix the fuck out of the best songs on their soundtrack. Seriously, go listen to the Classic remix of Escape from the City. It fucking rules.

So what's not to like about this game? It's got the faced-paced action Sonic games should have - a mix of classic side-scrolling and modern 3D akin to Sonic Colours. It's got all the characters you know and love/tolerate/despise from past Sonic games. It's got recreations of classic levels and modern takes on them to accomodate Modern Sonic's high-octane speed. In short, it's everything a Sonic game ought to be, if Colours already didn't do that first and top it off with better writing. So why is this even on the list?

To tell the truth, I was never a Sonic fan. I was more of a Banjo/Mario kind of guy, where the expansive, imaginative worlds allowed for the kind of exploration and glitch abuse that the linear, high-speed running of Sonic games could never give me. To me, going fast at top speed in one direction can't hold a candle to climbing trees, traversing narrow walkways and uncovering hidden secrets in a 3D environment. On top of that, I'm not a particular fan of the character of Sonic himself. To go back to my previous example - Banjo may have been practically invincible depending on the player's skill, but he was also kind of dopey and often unsure of himself. He had flaws and insecurities that made him seem more relatable. Sonic knows he's a badass, and he takes every opportunity to flaunt it with his "cool" dialogue and cocky smirk until I want to blind the little git with his own quills. I wanted to connect with him, but his attutide (not to mention many of his previous games) made it very hard for me.

So Generations is mechanically sound, but suffers from the fact that it's a Sonic game, and considering the reputation of the franchise as of late I can see why that fact alone would make people pause before buying it. It's fun and adrenaline-inducing, as all Sonic games should be, but the fact that it's about Sonic, a character as likeable as a drawing pin to the bum, is kind of a put-off. Go ahead if you want to give it a try, but I'd reccomend Sonic Advance over it - not only is it tighter and more focused than Generations, but at least Sonic keeps his gob shut.

7. Spectrobes
Genre: Action-RPG
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Jupiter
Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios
Released: March 16, 2007

The year was 2007. The DS was riding high, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were looming on the horizon, and Poke-Mania was coursing through us all like a virus. Everyone was clamouring to get their hands on the first ever titles of the series to be released on the DS, from the smallest child to the nerdiest gamer. But with the release date set to July, a long march awaited those faitful many, and thus it was inevitable that someone would try to take advantage of the hype by releasing their own take on the monster-gathering RPG genre. No-one, however, exected Disney to be that someone, or that the end result, Spectrobes, would become so popular.

The reason Spectrobes took off the way it did was because it was so drastically different from the Pokemon forumla. You didn't just catch the creatures - you excavated their fossils and awakened them with your voice. You didn't evolve them through training - you had to raise them in an incubator and feed them minerals. And you didn't simply battle other Spectrobes - you guided Rallen, the game's protagonist, on a quest to save the universe from the Krawl, planet-eating monstrosities of all shapes and sizes. The changes made to the formula, including a cast of colourful characters and real-time battles, made Spectrobes a unique and fresh offering compared to Diamond and Pearl, which introduced only a hundred more of the little buggers.

Sadly, Spectrobes had two major flaws that kept it from being as popular as it's contemporay.

Firstly, the graphics. The game was made by the same team that made Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories on the GBA, and perhaps the jump to 3D polygons from sprites was a bit disorienting for the poor guys. The models are blocky as hell and the textures, whilst colourful and detailed, are in dire need of some anti-aliasing. This normally wouldn't be a problem, except the camera just loves to zoom in on the models so you can see their blocky ugliness taking up the majority of the screen. On top of that, the sprites used for the overworld seem dull and washed-out - which is odd, considering how sharp and bright the sprites for CoM were.

Secondly, the battle system was, for want of a better word, wiggity-whack. You control Rallen and two Spectrobes with the D-Pad at once, and three guys  are hard to manouvre, especially when the floors seem like it's made of margerine. You command Rallen to attack with the face buttons and the Spectrobes to attack with the shoulder buttons - the problem being that all attacks draw from the same pool of energy that needs to be charged to full before you can attack again, leaving you vulnerable half the time. Even worse, the Spectrobes were the only things that could damage the Krawl properly, Rallen's attacks having as much effect as hitting a cliff with a wet towel, but some Spectrobes are downright useless because their attacks have such a long wind-up time. In short, the combat was basically deadly ballet without being anywhere near as fun as those two words together should imply.

Nevertheless, Spectrobes proved to be a sleeper hit of 2007, popular enough to spawn two sequels - Beyond the Portals on DS and Origins for the Wii. But since then, there's been no word on any new games in the series, which is a shame, because I would actually like to see more fossil-hunting, Krawl-bashing goodness. The combat and graphics were big enough issues that meant I had to put the first game down after a while, but I sincerely enjoyed what I'd played of it. I hear Beyond the Portals fixes those issues, but having played a brief snatch of the ROM I will say this - it's better to have played the first game beforehand, so you know what the hell is going on.

6. Darksiders
Genre: Hack-&-Slash/Action-Adventure
System: Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: Vigil Games
Publisher: THQ
Released: 201001January 8, 2010

You may remember way back in the pre-industrial dark age of April 2012 when I did a double-bill review of Kid Icarus: Uprising and Darksiders for the sole gimmicky reason of highlighting the extremes the average fantasy setting tends to keep visiting. In that review, I praised Vigil's magnum opus for it's flowing combat, epic setting and inclusion of Mark Hamil, even if it was somewhat bogged down by the inevitable comparisons to Zelda and the Middle-School Drama Club story. We are now in the futuristic space age of 2013, and I've instead been banging on about the sequel and all the things it does right.

So what happened? Why did I switch out War for Death?

The answer is simple - I fucked myself over. See, I'm actually at the second-to-last dungeon, and the whole thing is themed around redirecting beams of light in order to free Azrael, Angel of Death, from his prison in the Spire. Sadly, after completing two of the puzzles required, I decided to take a break and stopped playing for a bit. "A bit" turned into two months, during which I forgot all about the puzzle and what I was doing. So when I turned the game back on, I was stuck. I had no idea where to go or what to do, the sole guide I could find on the game was incomprehensible and Azreal didn't offer to help in the slightest. "The beams, redirect the beams," he'd drone like a broken record. Shut up, you old fogey, I'm getting lost here.

And now that I've played the sequel, I find it hard to go back and try and finish off. Having gotten used to Death's acrobatics and array of weapons, I'll probably find myself wondering why War's as slow as a narcoleptic tortoise with heavy shopping and where all my awesome gear and weapons went. Trust me when I say I'd love to go back and finish it off so I can fill in the story gaps - I just need to unstick myself from my unfortunate predicament in this bloody dungeon before War hypothetically goes mad or starves to death. Not pleasant thoughts for a gamer to have, let me tell you.

5. Kirby Mass Attack
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: HAL Labratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: October 28, 2011

This is one of those games that Harpy loved to bits. She used to be on about it quite a lot in the Skype chats we used to have, talking about how it was played and all the secrets one could unlock just by exploring and collecting those coins. Not only that, she kept pestering me to ROM it and see it's brilliance for myself. Skeptical, I decided to do exactly that. I downloaded a copy, booted it up onto my R4 and gave it a shot to see what the fuss was about. And... well, it was okay. Not great, but not bad, either. But it kind of didn't live up to the hype that was being thrown at me, and in the end I decided to quietly retire it.

See, in the same way I'm not a Sonic fan, I don't consider myself a Kirby fan. The only games of his I've played are Kirby 64, Power Paintbrush and this, whilst Harpy has pretty much got the entire collection because she loves the series so much. I suppose it's because I don't feel the series is aimed at me - I'm a man's man, who loves adventuring and explosions and bashing bad guys over the head with a blunt instrument. And thus I find myself getting turned off by the Kirby series' colourful aesthetic, which I feel is more aimed at kids and girls than jaded 20-somethings like me. Then again, my mother doesn't like Kirby either, so what do I know?

I'd have rated this lower than Darksiders, maybe even Spectrobes, were it not for my traitorous inner Nintendo fanboy whining in protest. And in all honesty, it can at least boast the fact that it's a familiar IP in comparison to the other two, which at least gets it some extra marks. I still have the ROM hanging around on my R4, so I might just force myself to give it another go, but that hardly seems likely considering my free time is now spent up with playing fighting games all the time. Curse you, Street Fighter X Tekken Version 2013 patch!

4. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Genre: Action-Adventure/Platformer/Vehicle Construction
System: Xbox 360
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Microsoft
Released: November 14, 2008

Eight years have passed since Banjo and Kazooie bested their nemesis Gruntilda way back in Banjo-Tooie. What's happened since then? Well, the bear and the breegull have put on a lot of weight, and Grunty's decapitated skull is seeking revenge. But to this classic confrontation comes a third party - L.O.G., the Lord of Games, creator of all things pixelled. L.O.G. suggests a competition to determine the rightful owner of Spiral Mountain, in which the dynamic duo must make use of a magical wrench to construct a variety of madcap vehicles to complete a marathon of challenges. Of course, Grunty's not going to make it easy for them...

Yeah, I know this is an easy target, but I'll be honest - I kind of enjoyed Nuts & Bolts far more than I think most fans did. I can definitely call myself a Banjo-Kazooie fan, yet I was open-minded enough to accept the change of direction that Rare pulled with the whole vehicle thing. It did sound like a lot of fun - building custom vehicles to try and take on a variety of challenges, with the sort of vehicle you build determining how tough how the challenges end up being. If your vehicle worked, great - keep it for similar challenges! If it didn't, tweak it and see what can be improved, added or removed! It seemed like a great recipie for fun!

I don't think I was wrong on that assumption - vehicle creation is indeed fun, and it's interesting to see what the community comes up with. But when you give people a customization mechanic that lets them build practically anything from scratch, then it isn't long before the creativity runs dry. Eventually you'll have created vehicles for every concievable obstacle, and then the game poses no challenge anymore and you turn to the vehicle creator. And then once you've made your all-terrain battle fortress that spits fire and oranges for teh lulz, then there isn't a whole lot to do except recreate Pokemon characters or Super Sentai mecha endlessly. Give me everything and I can't think of anything. It's kind of depressing.

Also, it's not a platformer like the previous games. There, complaint addressed. You can stop reading now :P

I still have a ways to go in the game, and I suppose I could start playing again for the sake of getting those Jiggies and unlocking all those parts. And everything about the series I love is still in there - the anarchic humour, the colourful characters, the imaginative worlds and setpieces. It's just that it's such a major departure from the previous games that I can't help but feel disappointed with Rare for not giving out Bajo-Threeie like the fans asked for. Then again, what other game lets you build an all-terrain battle fortress that spits fire and oranges for teh lulz? Maybe a few, but Nuts & Bolts is a Banjo-Kazooie game, and therefore better.

3. Pokemon: Fire Red Version
Genre: RPG
System: Game Boy Advance
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokemon Company
Released: October 1, 2004

Okay, I know what you're thinking. "A remake of the first and arguably best Pokemon games in third-gen graphics, with new writing, extras and re-orchestrated music? On this list? What the hell is wrong with you, SK?" And yes, I know, you're right. But it scores so high because it stikes that chord in me, that good feeling you get when you look back on your childhood through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. And it's all there - Gary is still a douche, Team Rocket are still incompetent, Snorlax is still a bitch to catch and the gyms are as familiar as ever. Also Professor Oak got to say "Oh, for Pete's sake...", which made me laugh like an idiot.

But like the Darksiders example above, I had to stop playing this game because of my own idiocy. See, back when I was playing this game, I was in the bad habit of keeping my starter in the first slot and letting him do all the fighting, switching out to only a few others from time to time. Plus, I went on a bit of a catching spree in Mt. Moon on the way to Cerluean, snagging a Paras and a Nidoran♂ among others. These two factors combined into one hideously painful result - stuck at Cerulean City with a bunch of low-level Pokemon, unable to train them because the wild Pokemon were too high-level and unable to go back to find weaker ones because of that stupid design desicion to block off Mt. Moon with those idiotic ledges. So in the end, I gave up in despair.

Lord knows I want to create a new save file and start this again - my future experiences in Pearl and Black have taught me better team management, and thus my teams are more equally leveled. Unfortunately, GBA games are a dying breed, succeeded by DS games and their backwards compatability with the 3DS, which refuses to associate with the obsolete riff-raff. So either I'll need to keep hold of my old, limping DS no matter what or ROM the game later. Either way works fine, I suppose, but until then I'm keeping my focus on my ROM of Black. Now come here, Audino - gimme five-hundred squat thrusts! One-two-one-two-one-two...!

2. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Genre: Action-Adventure
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD Group No. 3
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: October 19, 2007

Everyone talks about Phantom Hourglass, the first Zelda game on the DS, and how that one shitty dungeon made them stop playing it. Well, I'm not here to talk about that - I'm here to talk about the sequel, Spirit Tracks. This game is the sort of sequel that pretty much fixes everything that was wrong with the original - the controls for the forward roll have changed, the travel system is a bit more exciting now, the central dungeon is vastly improved and Zelda is no longer your damsel-in-distress - in fact, she's the assitant character who helps out by possessing objects to aid you out! How's that for improving gender relations in Hyrule, eh?

To be brutally honest, I have no idea why I stopped playing this. Unlike the others, which I can put down to disappointment or boredom or my own incompetence, I can't remember an exact pinpoint reason for suddenly losing interest in Spirit Tracks. And that's odd, because there was nothing particularly offensive about it - the trains are a bit stodgy to control, sure, and there's still an annoying stealth element to the central dungeon, but otherwise this is a major improvement over Phantom Hourglass? So what did make me stop playing? Did I just get burned out and forget all about the game? Whatever, I dunno.

I still have the came card for it, so I could pop it into my 3DS sometime and get going if I wanted. And I do want to play this again - it's everything a DS Zelda game should be and more, with the right amount of polish and flair one expects from the series. And the best thing about it is that, unlike the Spectrobes or Darksiders sequels, you don't need to have played the previous game to understand what's happening. It works just as well as a standalone game as it does as a sequel, and that's got to be worth something.

Honourable Mention: Asura's Wrath
Genre: Action/Beat-'em-Up
System: Xbox 360, PS3
Developer: CyberConnect2
Publisher: Capcom
Released: February 24, 2012

Those who frequent Chatzy will no doubt be aware of my experience of playing this, as well as the "Jaxx Tantra: The Game" jokes that came from how over-the-top and ridiculous it is. I hesitate to call it a "game", per se - it does have moments where you beat up enemies Devil May Cry style, but there's also sections that take on the form of rail shooters, and even a segment where you're in the hot springs taking shots and oogling the female servants. Interactive movie is a better description - quick-time events form the bulk of gameplay, with points awarded for how well you managed to hit them. It's over-the-top, it's full of action and it's worth checking out if you're into whacked-out media like this.

Now, the reason that I stopped playing this game would have earned it the top spot, where it not for what my actual final choice was. See, I beat Chapter Eleven and it ends with Asura running towards a giant cobra-turtle monster with no arms and a sword in his mouth. The little girl who was palling around with him watches with horror as he disappears to confront the beast, and a giagantic explosion fills the screen. "Woah," I think. "What the hell happened? Did Asura win? Did he die? I gotta know, damn it!"

And then the next chapter opens on Yasha, Asura's rival and the man responsible for killing him at least once (death is kinda trivila in this world). I was stunned. This was the complete opposite of what I was promised - I was looking forward to a bombastic battle against unspeakable odds, not playing as this emo prick I didn't care about. Desperate, I took to my old friend Google and began, trying to find an answer to this perplexing mystery. Was the fight to be adressed in a later chapter? What was going on?

And then it turned out that chapter is paid DLC. And so was the actual, proper ending of the game.

Now, you may be wondering why I have a problem with this. I mean, I didn't raise a ruckus when Street Fighter X Tekken's DLC characters were discovered on the disc. Surely this is no different, I hear you cry. But here's the thing - you didn't need the extra characters to enjoy Street Fighter X Tekken. They didn't affect gameplay or story in any way, and most of them (Looking at you, Sakura) didn't add that much to the game as a whole. You could theoretically enjoy the game without downloading them ever, gaining nothing and losing nothing except for the changes to the tier list (but who care about that, right?).

It's when game companies lock away the last goddamn third of the game away and make us pay actual money to get 100% completion that pisses me off. What is even the point of that? Why would you want to keep players from completing the game that they purchased just for the sake of making more money?! When we buy a game, we expect to buy the whole game, with all of the story. We want the whole experience the designers made for us. Why would you think that making us pay physical money in order to earn full completion on a game that, by all rights, should contain the full story package, is a good idea? Because it isn't. It's stupid and asinine and you should hang yourselves for it.

As you can see, my liberal use of italics in that last paragraph indicates that this is one subject I feel extra-strong about. So unless I can scrounge up the money to buy enough points to get the missing episodes, I shan't be touching Asura's Wrath anymore. That's not to say it's bad - quite the opposite, in fact. As a game it's okay, but as interactive media it's something else entirely. If you can tolerate Capcom's stranglehold on your wallet and watching your protagonist crush an old man to death with his six bare hands, then I can highly recommend this game, because you will experience nothing like this ever.

But with such grand titles on the list, what could possibly make it to the Number 1 spot? Which game did I stop playing was so phenomenally good that I could possibly put it higher than Pokemon or Zelda? Well, the answer may surprise you, so buckle your seatbelts and put on your helmets in case your brain explodes from the revelation and the force of it launches you from the chair and into a wall.

The Number 1 Game I Stopped Playing is...

1. Kid Icarus: Uprising
Genre: Shooter
System: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Project Sora
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 23, 2012

Why, why, why did I ever put this down? It has everything that I love in a game - quirky characters, gripping story, deep and varied gameplay, awesome music, neat little extras - the works! It's the first Kid Icarus game in around 25 years, not counting the angel's return in Smash Bros. Brawl It's development was headed by Sakurai, the guy behind Smash Bros. It's the game that inspired me to start writing as Pit in Season 2 of Zoofights RP, which is an achievement in itself. And it's the game I kept playing even after that Anglo-Australian tit Yahtzee decried it as "a shit game for twats". How does one stop playing a game this phenomenally good for so long?

Okay, you're probably going to hate me for the reason I stopped playing this wonderful game. I know I hate myself for it - out of all the reasons to stop playing a game I've listed here, this one has to be the most petty and selfish I've ever mentioned. Hell, at least Asura's Wrath has the valid excuse of Capcom being greedy bastards - this one doesn't even have that problem! But the reason I stopped playing it is a rather big one, and as stupid as it is it's a personal enough issue that I felt I had to put the game down for a while. So here we go.

Also, spoilers and a rant are ahead. Skip past the dotted lines if you don't want to read it all.

-------

Thanks to my terrible habit of reading ahead for game plots (which I can never seem to grow out of), I've learned that, after the Aurum invasion, Pit gets himself trapped inside a magical ring for two years. When he breaks out, the world has gone to shit - by blowing up Arlon's moonbase, the angel has accidentally unleashed the Chaoskin, who looks like Mothra's inbred cousin she doesn't invite to parties anymore. The Chaoskin, in Pit's absence, has possessed Palutena and wreaked general havoc, with the result that humanity now hates the shit out of her. To make matters worse, Pit's body has been going walkabout on a killing spree, and Magnus has been hired to track it down.

With Magnus' help, Pit gets his body back and flies up to save Palutena. The Chaoskin is defeated, but in the resulting confusion (I'm not even sure what happens myself) Pit ends up overextending his flight limit and his wings burn up. Knowing that the planet is at the mercy of Hades and the Underworld without Pit to stop him, Palutena asks Dirk Dark Pit to take him to the Rewind Spring andvheal his brother before he perishes and things go even further to shit. Also Pandora returns in a new form - and yes, before you ask, there is already porn of it. Rule 34, people.

So what's my problem, you ask? How can I take issue with this piece of story that has integral character development and actual drama going on? Didn't I say earlier that the game's story was gripping? What's the issue here?

Allow me to explain. I grew up on 90's classics such as Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Buck Bumble, to name a few. In those days, memory on a cart was limited, so there was no way you could get away with a complex story - "A witch kidnapped my sister" was all the motivation I needed. Therefore, there was little room for character development and people were just expected to play the game. This meant that Banjo's proficiency in fighting Gruntilda's minions revolved around how competent the player controlling him was. When Banjo fucked up, it was because the player was being a cack-handed buffoon, and drama didn't come anywhere near it. The character's mistakes were the player's mistakes, and we took the blame for it whenever the hero slipped off the ledge and plummeted into the lava below.

But now we demand more from our games. We demand bigger characters and more complex stories. And with current video game storage mediums being as expansive as they are, companies can experiment with ways of making their characters more complex. And it seems a common way to do this is to wrench control away from the player, show our hero making a giagantic mistake or suffering some misfortune, and then leave us to pick up the pieces. It's supposed to make us feel sorry for the hero, to make us sympathize with him and want to help him fix the thing that got broken or help him recover from the setback. Such situations that come to mind include that non-sequitur bit in Oracle of Ages, where Link gets shipwrecked on a island of talking lizards who steal his stuff, and he has to spend half the level getting it back.

Speaking as a 90's kid and a miseryguts, it doesn't work for me.

When a character fucks up as part of the story, it doesn't make them more relatable or flawed, it makes them look incompetent. We don't think "Oh dear, how unfortunate, guess we better help him out", we think "Wow, is there not some more qualified person we could be playing as right now?" Making a character suffer misfortune isn't a bad way to tell a story, I'll grant you, but there seems to be few games out there that do this right, and Kid Icarus wasn't one of them. Pit's misfortune wasn't my mistake, as I didn't cause it through some natural consequence of gameplay, so I don't empathize. It's like the opening of Monster Hunter Freedom 2, where the player character gets knocked off a cliff by the local dragon and ends up in bed for three days. And he's supposed to be the guy protecting the village from the angry wildlife! With guardians like that, the villagers might as well just slather themselves in barbecue sauce, lie down and let the dragons eat them all.

I told you this gripe was petty as fuck, but having been spoiled by games that didn't rely on your character being an idiot has jaded me to this form of storytelling. And that's why I put down Kid Icarus - because it was throwing in this drama for no apparent benefit to any of the characters or the story as a whole. I can still say the game is excellent and one should get it, but the sudden tonal shift was jarring at best and completely unneccesary at worst. I already plugged through three whole chapters of filler, game! Just let me at Hades and his ugly face already!

But Kid Icarus: Uprising gets the top spot not just because it's a game I want to pick up again. It's a game I want to pick up again and keep playing, regardless of flaws, until I get to the very end and beat it. And hopefully, if I can swallow my story gripes and find the time to do it, I will be able to do just that. Look out, Spy and Goops, because I'm gonna catch up to you someday!

-------

So there you have it - the top eleven games I stopped playing for some reason, but really out to start playing again. Thanks for reading this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Stay tuned for more writing goodness in the future! And as a special present for reading this pretentious nonsense, have an image I threw together in Photoshop in like ten minutes!

Monster Mash - Round 1 Fight 4: Chupacabra vs. Mothman

Hello again, sports fans, and thank you for your patience! I'm Connor Hardy, and my long recuperation in hospital has done me a world of good! Thanks to my physiotherapist, I don't freak out at the sight of bats or butterflies anymore, and red reflector lights aren't scary to me! Also, thanks a ton for the get well soon cards and presents - everyone at Monster Mash Public Relations was amazed by the response, and we'll put all that stuff in the vault to commemorate your support for The Monster Mash 199X!

 

Tonight's episode is the battle you all have been waiting for, folks! At this very moment, a team of cargo trucks is headed for the pristine, untouched wildlife reserve that is Costa Rica, which will soon be transformed into a deadly battlefield! Their cargo - a pack of rutheless, bloodsucking monstrosities kept as pets by the Spanish Royal Family, clamouring to sink their fangs into their prey! And a red-eyed, leathery-winged denzin of darksest Romania awaits them, lurking in the shadows of the park, ready to swoop down and deliver vengeance upon their souls! That's right - it's time for...

 

 

And, of course, I'll be reporting on it live as it happens! Stay tuned...

 

-------

 

It's almost midnight at the sprawling, country-sized national park that is Costa Rica. The air is sticky and warm, even at this time, and the moon casts a silvery glow onto everything below it. The grass and flowers glitter with it, the trees are coated in silver, and a far-off lake shimmers with prickles of light. It even glints off the grey steel of the electric fence and double-door loading gates that squat on the border of the park, a metal circle around a pristine canvas of colours.

And then the trucks arrive.

There are around three of them in total, huge black things that cruise across the dirt road towards the gates of the park in single file. Each one bears the familiar logo of GaiaCorp - the globe intersected by two DNA helixes - as they approach the gates, once used by the Spanish government to ferry sick animals from the park to nearby vetinary surgeons without causing danger to the rest of the park. Only these drivers are on a different mission entirely - for as they guide their vehicles down the narrow path, the growl of their high-powered engines fight to be heard above the cacophony of shrieking and snarling from within their trailers.

The moonlight glints off their iron hides as, one by one, they sidle up to their destinations like massive elephants lining up at a drinking hole. Then, with careful precision, their drivers back them towards the gates, and in response the three-inch-thick steel doors prise open with a hiss of hydraulics and a creak of disused, neglected hinges. Bit by bit, the trucks are inched through the gates until their trailers are at least half-in and half-out of the park, their wheels perilously close to crushing a bed of rare flowers. For a brief moment, except for the rumbling of the engines, there is silence.

And then the trailers swing open.

 

 

From within their black depths pour a pack of scaled monstrosities. Fanged, clawed and deformed, the horde of bipedal beasts dubbed the Chupacabras by their royal sponsors tumble from their confined prisons, four from each trailer, rolling and biting at each other in a blood-fuelled frenzy. Starved of their usual meat rations for a day before by the GaiaCorp scientists, they are in the perfect condition to take on their opponent - hungry, mad and just about ready to eat anything that gets in their way. And that, were it not for current circumstances, would include each other.

But a bark from one of their group brings them to a halt.

Perez, the de facto pack leader by virtue of being the biggest and toughest Chupacabra the labs have bred, stands tall in the moonlight as his nostrils quiver. He's picked up a scent, and not a pleasant one at that. It's the scent of disaster incarnate - of burnt wood, of spilled blood, of rusty metal and decay. But it's the scent that his handlers have trained him to detect - to perceive as an enemy, to stalk and to corner and to kill. And as Perez learned to hate that scent, he taught his packmates to hate it, with the same loathing and drive to destroy that he earned from the handling. And now it's here, and as the rest of the pack distangles itself, the scent reaches their nostrils too, and sets off all the triggers to hunt and kill in their minds.

Perez draws himself to his full height and screams, eyes glowing red and spines clattering together as he issues a challenge to his invisible foe. The call is taken up by the rest of the pack, and for an entire minute or so the park rings with the high-pitched battle cries of the horrid hybrids, sending birds flapping into the air and animals scurrying for cover in terror. Then silence falls once more as, as one, the pack splits up and disperses into the foliage. Some go in twos, some in threes - the instincts to stick together are strong in these vat-grown vermin, but they never seem to form a proper, cohesive group of any sort. The royal reptile even allows one scrawny specimen, the runt of the litter, to hop alongside him, stumbling and spitting as it tries to keep up.

One by one, each splinter pack dissapears into the shadows of the park, leaving only the shadows.

 

 

"S̊̓oͫ ͏B̡ͣ̔e̴ͫ̋͒̂͑̒ͨ ̏̿Ī͝ṫ̨.ͫ͂̓̓̔ͧ ͊̓͌͒̇Cͥͣͥo͂͛̿M̒ͮͦ͂̎e̓̾̾̍͊͝ ̆̔̊́̽̀Á̄̏̊͡nͪ̓̃͜D̂̊͡ ̋͌ͦͮ͑ͫm̈Ė̽ͬeͮ̊T̆̑ͣͭ̽ ̷̎̈́̐̍̓̍̒ẙͦ̇ͨ̂̅͆͘Ȏ̃̔uͤͦ̅ͪ̿Ř̌͊̈́ͥ ̾̏ͦ̀̍d̐͊́̆E̊a͂͂T͡hͭ̎̉͂͘.̢ͨ.ͩ̇͑̒ͩ̂́.̈́̎͒̓̚̚"

 

And with that, the eyes melt away...

 

-------

 

The lake was undisturbed until a pair of the pack came along.

They may be made from the same DNA that Perez was, but these previous iterations of the Chupacabra are nowhere near as refined. They lack the same heightened senses as their leader, and don't have the same dogged hunting instinct or smarts, despite being almost equally as vicious. So it wasn't long before these two brothers not only lost the foul, choking scent of their target and became distracted by the smell of fresh water and blood that pointed to a nearby lake, reminding them of their gnawing hunger and thirst. So as animals will, they made a beeline for it, pushing their way through the foliage until they came across the sprawling lake, where a number of nocturnal animals had gathered for a drink and to socialize.

The result is a domino effect of chaos. The jaguar that had been stalking a tapir a few minutes prior is startled out of her wits as the two repulsive reptiles launch themselves from the bushes. The noble stag, watching his herd at the water's edge, had no idea of his impending doom until the sharp fangs had already punctured his neck. After that, the other animals had no desire to stick around - in a thunder of hooves and paws, the lakeside emptied itself faster than Usain Bolt's best sprints, leaving only the unfortunate deer to his demise at the hands of his unnatural killers.

Almost immediately after this, the largest of them growls threateningly to his sibling, claiming the carcass for himself as a lion muscles in on the kill of his pride. Much snarling and rattling of spines ensues, but the younger brother is not willing to argue with something that could snap his neck just as easily as they dispatched the stag, and thus he back off, subdued. As the older creature begins to rip flesh from bone, wolfing down every mouthful without even chewing, his sibling hops down to the lakeside for a drink

The lake is one of many that dot this park, fuelled by the streams that trickle down from the mountains far away. The Chupacabra shows no caution whatsoever as he bends over for a draught - either he does not know about the crocodiles that inhabit this lake, or he doesn't care at all. The water is crystal clear and fresh, and relatively undisturbed as the beast laps up his fill, grunting in satisfaction as his burning thirst is quenched. Come his turn at the carcass, both of them will be at full strength to pursue the enemy their pack leader has directed them to. This will be a good hunt.

A sudden splash startles the beast from his drinking - he leaps onto his feet, snarling at the intrusion. But his sharp eyes, piercing through the dark, make out the shape of four large crocodiles hauling themselves from the shore, almost immediately breaking into a run the moment they hit shore and loping across the sand into the bushes. While this should reassure the Chupacabra that there is nothing in the water to cause him harm now, it in fact does the complete opposite. What could possibly be down that that would bring fear to something that has no natural enemies?

Warier now, the hybrid horror bends down for another draught.

And sees the red eyes glaring up at him from the water surface.

"D̴̨̻͚̻̝̣̗̬͚̭̱̟͉͓̞̼̻͔̏ͦ͋ͤ̂͒ͥ͂̅ͨͦ͘i̢̼̰̻̣̗̙̱̻͎͔̠͖̱̤͙̞͔͐̓̆̉ͧ̉͒͛̓̈́͒̈̚͡Ě̴̷̳̱̹̮̣͙͍̳͉͙̙͉͙̄ͭͩ̂̔̽̈̋ͭ̀ͣ̽̀̊̓͢͡.ͥ͊̂̈͗̍̂ͥ̑̐͆̾̏͗͏̷͕̙̱̦͉͈̺͉͚̗͇̹̙̺̫̫̟͓͢ͅ"

The next thing the older Chupacabra knows, his brother is sprawling onto the sand, blood gushing from a stump where the neck should be. As the eldest snaps to attention, Coșmar the Mothman rises from the water, clutching the severed head of their comrade in one hand and spreading his tattered black wings about him, blotting out the moonlight with their width. Eyes like car reflectors shine down on the elder reptile, and the unholy thing's jaw distends down to his chest as a soul-curdling shriek echoes from his mouth. No wonder the crocodiles fled the lake.

Most normal animals would have fled in terror at this scene, and many humans have indeed soiled themselves at this sight. But the eldest brother has been overtaken by his predator instincts, and his blood-red eyes see nothing more than a rival intending to steal his kill. As the Mothman steps from the water, tossing his victim's head to the floor as, the enraged chimera hunkers possessively over the stag's half-eaten carcass, issuing a hiss of warning to the challenger. Blood-stained teeth are bared, spines clatter and eyes narrow in defiance as the dark shadow approaches, the Chupacabra refusing to back down and surrender his meal.

Coșmar does not respond to the threat. Instead, he merely stops a few feet from the blood-crazed beast, nowhere near a safe distance from any sudden attack. His glowing eyes stares down at his foe, regarding it's antics with an almost clinical coldness, as if it were something happening far away that doesn't even concern him in the slightest. The moonlight seems to shrink away from him, as if terrified of his merely being there, filling the space left behind with more darkness. For a moment, save the enraged calls of the Chupacabra, nothing happens.

Then the Mothman moves.

The wail of pain fills the air.

It is several hours before the animals slowly tiptoe back to the watering hole. The only evidence of the terrible event is a half-eaten stag, decorated with unidentifiable organs from another creature.

-------

A little while later, and it seems that a trio of the pack hasn't been having much luck either.

The scent they are supposed to follow is not only foul and acrid, but it is weird. As in, really weird. Sometimes they can catch faint hints of a trail that lead somewhere, but after only a few yards it ends abruptly, with no indication as to where the prey has got to. Then a few minutes of sniffing around leads to the discovery of another trail, which peters off into nothingness again - a cycle of annoyance and frustration that is severely wearing down on the pair's patience. It's already gotten to the point where they've begun to snap and growl at each other at intervals, as if blaming each other for their current predicament.

They eventually do find something, however.

As the three Chupacabras emerge from the foliage, they discover a blocky hump of iron, jutting out of the ground like a silver blotch in the green grass. The trio cannot know it, but they've stumbled upon one of the many security bunkers that dot the perimeter of Costa Rica - a home for the park rangers and a deterrent for unscrupulous poachers. The rangers wisely cleared out of the park long before the battle was scheduled, to avoid the disaster that was the Malibu Incident, so the bunker is not only deserted, it is locked. But the scent maze has led the trio here, and seems to continue right up to the door of the hulking construct. And nothing can keep a determined Chupacabra out, if it so desires.

The trio leave the confines of the undergrowth and stalk towards the bunker, low to the ground and cautious - in this exposed area, they are vulnerable to the possibility of a sudden surprise attack. But no such thing happens, and they soon reach the door of the building without ny incidents. A cursory examination reveals the scent of rust and decay - the rangers have been negligent in their upkeep of the park defences as of late - and a swift double-kick smashes the elderly lock and flings the door wide open with a bang. Quickly, two of the hybrid horrors dart inside the building, following their noses, whilst the third remains outside, taking up a sentry position.

This third one is rather scrawny - perhaps a result of vitamin deficiencies in his growth vat - and doesn't seem at all suited to the pack life. In fact, as he sits in the darkness, crouched low to avoid casting a shadow in the moonlight, he looks small and nervous, almost immature. The night-time forest, once filled with the cries of wild animals and the buzz of insects, is now eerily quiet. Except for the rustling of leaves as the wind blows through them, there is almost nothing else to be heard. The little lizard scans the foliage with his piercing red eyes again and again, but finds nothing.

It's too quiet...

-------

Meanwhile, inside the bunker, the two other Chupacabras are getting frustrated again. The smell ends right inside the observation room, linked to one of the many networks of security cameras that keep en eye on the park in case of illegal break-ins. And that's all they've got - the room is small, so there's barely any places to hide, and yet there is no sign of their intended victim anywhere within the building. The enraged hybrids have even gone so far as to turn over and smash apart every table and chair in the place, but nothing except dust mites have scurried from the woodwork.

Now, the two stand in the room, snarling and confused. The scent has led them to another dead end, with no sign of the creature they are meant to destroy, and the beasts are trying to work out what they should do next. Should they leave and seek out Perez, the pack leader, to inform him of what they've found and to get new orders? Or do they continue searching the area, following a scent that's still fresh? Indecision grips the creatures as they pace around the room, growling.

Suddenly, they realize that the lights are flickering.

As one, they turn around.

The room is full of monitors. No surprise there - this is the room where the rangers keep tabs on the park perimeter. But they should be turned off for the night, especially seeing as nobody is there to turn them on again, and nobody would be daft enough to try and break into the park at night anyway. But every single one of them is on, illuminating the room with their glow and casting long shadows on the walls behind the two Chupacabras.

And every one of them is showing the same glowing pair of eyes.

 



-------

The thick walls of the bunker pretty much deadens any sound from within, so the scrawny Chupacabra hasn't heard the demise of its friends. It's still waiting outside, looking about it's into the forest in case anything shows up, and the vigil is already beginning to tell on him. The red eyes are drooping shut, and the reptilian body is slumped against the wall of the building in an attempt to keep upright. The vile vampire isn't even alert, merely looking back and forth from bush to bush in a mechanical routine rather than an actual attempt to keep watch. The moment this is all over, perhaps a good lonk drink is in order-

Suddenly, a noise - a cracking twig, just in the distance. The transgenic terror freezes, now wide awake, staring in the direction the noise came from, expecting a predator of some sort to emerge from the bushes. The seconds tick by, and yet nothing happens - no signs of life or the sounds of footsteps to confirm the Chupacabra's suspicions. The scaled beast whimpers in nervous fear, backing away from the undergrowth and pressing itself against the cold metal in order to make itself a little less obvious.

Big mistake.

Behind the frightened reptile, red eyes flash within the reflective metal of the bunker. Then a shape forms, and before the scrawny saurian realizes it, a clawed hand has latched around its throat...

-------

Elsewhere, the trees rustle as another Chupacabra bounds from trunk to trunk, red eyes searching the ground and canopy for its foe. With every leap, the skin between it's limbs billows out like a parachute, catching the air and helping the revolting reptile drift through the forest air like some horrific flying squirrel. Its claws make horrific gouges in the bark of the trees he uses as it's platforms, gouges that will take many years to heal properly, and what animals of the night have remained outside turn tail the moment it's shadow passes over them, fleeing into the relative safety of the undergrowth.

Of course, the beast doesn't pay attention to them. The foul stench of its enemy is ascending to the highest point of the forest, and that is exactly where it is headed, climbing higher and higher up the trees in its bloodthirsty quest to find and destroy the hated monster. Its nostrils are already filled with the imaginary scent of blood, and strings of drool hang from its fangs as it slavers its way across the forest, hopping from branch to branch in maniacal fashion. Its mind is totally focused on the hunt - nothing else registers in its senses except for the kill to come.

So it doesn't see the black shape swooping towards it until it's too late.

Down below, a wildcat yowls and bolts as it's pelted with a red rain of shredded intestines.

-------

Somwhere else in the park, two more of the beasts howl in pain as they are thrown with incredible strength against the park's electric fence. 100'000 volts courses through their systems like streams of concentrated pain, their muscles spasming in reflex as internal organs are fried and skin chars black from the voltage. And through the haze of pain, a looming black figure observes their pain, red eyes boring into the brains and finding what they discover wanting in every aspect.

"P̀a̷Th̸Et̨I͠c,̕" growls Coșmar as the blackened corpses slump to the floor...

-------

 

In short, it's not so much a fight as it is a massacre. As vicious as the Chupacabras are, and as good as their pack tactics are, this nightarish beast they are hunting is proving itself to be an opponent they simply cannot compete against, and one by one the vampiric vermin are picked off like ducks at a carnival. One Chupacabra is too late to stop itself being garrotted with barbed wire, another runs afoul of the park's automated turrets, a third squeals with despair as a foot pushes its head under bubbling quicksand... Whatever the scenario, the reptiles simply stand no chance.

In the end, there is only one left. Only one of the original twelve remains to stand up against the Mothman. And he has no idea that he's all alone...

 

-------

 

Wind rushes past the scaled face and bat ears of Perez, the prime Chupacabra, as he stands tall and proud on a raised hillock, overlooking the deep forests of the park. The smells of wood, nightflowers and the blood of small creatures fill his nostrils, and his eyes scan the treeline with a flickering intensity. A claw flexes, throttling thin air.

 

“̀ThEy̶ ͡A͞rE ͡a̶L̨l̛ ̨D͢eAd.́”҉

 

If Perez is aware of the presence behind him, he does not show it. Nostrils flare with the stink of the enemy.

 

“͝Y̷o̢U͡r̀ ̵Re̷SiSt͞A̵n̨Ce ̵W͜a͡S̵ p͝AtH́eTi҉C. ̀s͢Tu͞P͡iD̴ aNi͘Ma̷L͟.”̀

 

The Chupacabra’s eyes narrow. Somewhere within the primitive brain, there is a spark of pride. He is pack leader. He is a killer, the final authority. And whilst he understands only a few commands and no English, he is vaguely aware that he is being insulted.

 

He kneels down.

 

“Yo̵U͡ aR̨ę ̴G͘oInG҉ ̷t͝O̴ ͜dI͏e͝,̶ St̴U̷pI͟d ͘A͝n͏ImA͟l. ͝Yo̡U̴ ̨wIl̵L d̴I͡e̡ S̷cAŕȨd͠ ͝A̛n̷D͞ a̴Ļo̵Ne ͝Li͞Ķe ͠EvEr̶Yo̧N̸e ͠El͏Se̷.”̸

 

There is a scratching sound. Perez’s back is firmly to the Mothman.

 

“̨̨L҉҉O̴̵O͜K̛҉ ̶̷A̴̸̶͢T̶̷́͜ ͟͠M̛͘͝͝E͏͠!̵̡͟͢”̴̀

 

A rush of air.

 

Perez turns and lashes out, his speed making him almost invisible. In his hand is his secret weapon. He has knapped it in secret, dim understanding and power flickering to life in his brain with every stolen stone from the Glorious Princess’ Rockery, every strike and every spark. It is why he is (was?) the pack leader. His symbol of authority. Anthropologists would compare it to an Acheulean tool, used by primitive man in its savannah hunts.

 

A hand axe.

 

Coșmar the Mothman howls as, for reasons beyond human comprehension, a line of red scorches itself across its abdomen. The black stitches of the monster’s body snap and fray in the unholy heat. Perez snarls, pushes both clawed hands into the wound –

 

“̧́͢͞͞Ń̶́͞Ǫ̶N̶O̷̷̶̶͢N̛͟͝Ò̸̶͞Ǹ͡Ò̵̸”҉͢

 

And with an industrial force, levers Mothman’s torso away from his pelvis and legs. Coșmar screams an apocalypse, his top half pin-wheeling down the hill and trailing evil ash, his legs stumbling and unravelling and burning to nothing. Howling in triumph, Perez stands tall and primal, fangs bared, and tosses the hand axe aside. The Chupacarba bounds down the hill, catching up with the bundle of wing and limbs easily. He pounces.

 

Red eyes flash up, and hands like vices grip the reptile’s face.

 

“̕GǫT͝ ͜y͝O̷u͏.”́

 

-------

 

Shit, where’d they go? Try camera 6, it’s the closest, we’ll see if –

 

Oh.

 

Oh no.

 

 

WINNER: MOTHMAN!

 

-------

 

So, uh…

 

Anyone gonna go get him outta there? Because I sure as shit ain’t.

 

This is Connor Hardy, and...

 

....watch your backs.

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

(Well, that maye have been the biggest Monster Mash fight I've ever written! I'd like to give a big shoutout to The Deleter for drawing the K.O. art and for helping me with tough writing spots. But I'd also like to extend a big thank you for all the support you;ve given me. Writing this son of a bitch was tough, and I'm glad I had you guys behind me cheering me on, otherwise this thing would never have gotten finished!

 

Stay tuned for more...)