V-Day 2003: No Escape February 8, 2003 By: Green Gibbon! Currently Playing:    Skies of Arcadia Legends    Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball    Guilty Gear X2

   My body doesn't seem to be producing as much testosterone as it was just a few years ago, and boy do I miss that stuff. With it went my vigor for life and that irrepressible teenage spirit that made me feel like I was immortal. Unfortunately, though my drive to dominate has left me, my libido has not. I want a girlfriend. Not even for sex, specifically, I just want to possess a member of the female gender in the same way that I want to possess a NeoGeo. And now that I think I'm finally old enough and mature enough to form a relationship that works, I've lost my will to try. The irony, the irony.

   Introspective thought of the month aside, I thought I'd get into the spirit of the season by examining a few of gaming's more noteworthy love stories and then revel in tearing them apart. Let's have a look, then, at the reality behind the most famous videogame romances:

• The Romance: PaRappa and Sunny Funny. Truly, it would take a jaded soul to not be charmed by this lighthearted tale of puppy love. Subsequent outings to be on time for a concert and save the world from noodle aliens lack the spirit of PaRappa's original quest to procure the heart of "the girl next door."
  The Reality: Mixing anthropomorphic species is one thing, but when you start throwing plants into the mix you're sowing botanical disaster. I mean, I'm fine with learning martial arts from an onion, but when I think of a dog doing the critter nasty with a sunflower... NO. Just, NO. An illustrated example.
• The Romance: Alex and Luna. My personal favorite videogame couple ever, from what can indisputably be called the most romantic RPG ever. Boy meets girl, girl gets kidnapped by power-hungry dictator who actually has a noble ulterior motive, girl turns out to be the final incarnation of a goddess, boy rescues girl, boy and former-goddess girl live happily ever after. That's a love story in its purest, most natural state.
  The Reality: This is a tough one to tear apart. These crazy kids have been hanging together since early childhood, so it would seem they have a solid foundation. But what of Luna's lineage? Even though she's technically mortal now, you can't just kill off those divine genes. An illustrated example.
• The Romance: ICO and Yorda. Despite the fact that this wonderful game oozes with innuendo (horny boy manipulates submissive girl onto couches at places you would not expect to find couches), the developers have done a good job covering this up with a simple story of innocent young love.
  The Reality: It's one thing to find a foreign prostitute, it's another thing entirely to attempt building a serious relationship around the language barrier. An illustrated example.

   So anyway, I've been playing through Skies of Arcadia Legends and had a revelation that I find most disheartening. I can now play Sonic Adventure 2 and will soon be able to play Sonic Adventure 1 on my GameCube, I can play Skies on my Cube, I can play Shenmue 2 on my Xbox, I can play PSO on my Cube or my Box, I can play ChuChu Rocket on my GBA, I can play Grandia 2 on my PS2 or my PC, I can play Space Channel 5 and Seaman on my PS2 (in Japan, at least), and I can play Crazy Taxi on all of the above. So riddle me this: why do I still even own a Dreamcast? I think it's down to three games: Samba de Amigo, the original Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue chapter 1. The Saturn may have been an even bigger failure than the Cast, but at least I still actually have to hook the damn thing up if I want to play NiGHTS, Guardian Heroes, or Panzer Dragoon Saga. When the Saturn passed on there was a certain prestige that came with owning one simply because there were so many great games that you still can't play anywhere else, but the Dreamcast's entire library of noteworthy titles has been pimped out, and to me that really cheapens a system that I once loved so dearly. On the bright side, now that there's no leftover material left to cash-in on, it means Sega's actually going to have to devote resources into creating new original product... assuming they don't dip into the Saturn's till.

   I've also been playing DoA Xtreme Beach Volleyball and, like all games that don't follow the rules, it certainly has its haters, but chances are they have dick in their mouths most of the time. I liken it to Animal Crossing more than anything else... no goal, just play around, collect stuff, and have fun. Oh yeah, and there's boobies. That certainly doesn't hurt. As far as Guilty Gear X2, it's not actually something that I am "currently playing" but something I wish I was currently playing. My ignorant co-workers, god bless them, keep selling the damn thing before I can get to the store to pick it up even though they know I want it. Today I was actually working and had one set aside I intended to buy and ol' "Slapnuts" Brad, hungover and dazed, sold it from right under my nose. I love those guys, but I want to kill them.

   The spring semester has commenced... one week late, I might add, and it looks like that one week is going to be just enough to keep me away from E3 this year, which is extraordinarily depressing. Of interest to you heartless lot, however, progress on the site has returned to its usual standstill. I didn't achieve nearly as much as I'd hoped over winter break, although I did cover most everything pre-PSO era. Most of the stuff since then I haven't cared enough to play thoroughly. I don't have a single Chaos Emerald in Sonic Advance 2 and I doubt I'll ever get around to collecting any... and if I don't care enough to play the darn game, I have even less interest in writing about it. Hopefully that isn't the sound of the gears of fate changing their direction, but we shall see what we shall see.

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