Ok, so I promised an update, here it goes: What I didn't like about Super Mario 64.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it alot. It was great fun. But there are some gripes about it, and I've been meaning to write this since I beat it.

First, is the horrible clipping. Not the kind where you walk through walls, or smack someone in football. Its the kind of thing where you're doing some traveling and all of a sudden there's a million goombas dead in front of you and you go "Huh? Where'd they come from?" And desperately try to kill them. Thats another thing. You can run up and punch the gombas. What the hell? You step on them. They should not be able to be killed by punching! Another thing, they look more like brown beanbags than the evil mushrooms they are. C'mon, Nintendo!

Another horrible thing is the flying. Flying in the other mario games was simple; you get an item (raccoon leaf, cap, etc.), you run really fast, then jump and press the jump button really fast to get height until you run out of power and float to the ground. In this one, you have to first find a hidden switch. That's not hard to find. Then you get one of the many red blocks placed throughout the levels. Then you have to jump three times in rapid succession, and you take off. However, the only way to get more height is to dip down and then back up. But you can never quite achive the original height. It's very difficult to do precise steering. And you slowly lose height the whole time you're flying. Gee, the coolest part about the earler Mario games is now a catch 22. Great. Must go down to go up, must go up to go down. Mr. Myamoto, I glare at thee.

Third. Lack of power-ups. There are three in the game. The flying cap (you fly), the vanish cap (you can walk through fences, some thin walls), and the metal cap (you can walk through fire, sink in water). These all don't last very long, don't have many uses, and aren't very fun to use. What happened to the fireflowers? The easy flying? The secret items? Yoshi? Well, I'll get to him in a little while. Maybe I'm just spoiled on having played every other Mario game out there (except for Mario Kart for SNES), but the point of the games is to run around and have lots of fun. Sure, you can still do it, but now you have objectives. Yep. That's right.

Bowser stole the "power stars" which "give power" to Peach's "castle." And you have to get them back by jumping into magical picture frames. Thanks a lot, King Koopa. Make me collect things, huh? You are so dead later in Super Smash Bros. So you enter a world, have 6 stars to get, and your done. Well, there's a seventh for getting 100 coins. Woop-die do, Basil! Even Rare at least put lots and lots of things to do in each level of [insert Rare adventure title here]. Some of these levels, you spend nary twenty minutes on, if you're hardcore like me. Back in my day, we kept the Tanooki suit till we beat Bowser, I tell's ya! I don't know how long you'd spend if you weren't, but with the obvious clues to most of the stars, it won't be long. Granted, in a few, there is no way in hell you'd ever figure out how except by asking the person you borrowed it from how to do it (like in big-little island.)

Next up, Bowser is a complete WIMP! First, you have to go through a very long difficult stage full of fun platforming action old-school style, except with three dimensions. You hop down a pipe at the end to get to the big guy. In order to kill him, you have to run around behind him, grab his tail, spin him around real fast and throw him at the bombs placed around the stage. The first time he is agonizingly slow. He will plod along, randomly spewing harmless fire in every direction, he also stops when he does this, and takes his time. You run behind him, throw and miss, then discover the trick of getting him next to the edge and giving him a light toss. One hit, he lands on his back, gives up. Now, this is the guy who has captured that bitch of a princess at least four times, and you tip him over and he gives up. As Super Smash Brothers Melee will tell you, Bowser can give it (a twelve pack of whoop-ass) to any Pok�mon in the game. But it will also tell you that with his weight, he can out last Mario's lame combos. And get up when he falls over. Not here. The second time you face him, when you get to close, he teleports away. He's starting to learn, but still hasn't thought of just moonsaulting on top of our mustachioed hero, or giving him a slap with his tail. When you try to get the timing down on long range throws of him here, he leaps back in the stage, causing the whole thing to tilt nearly vertical. Mario franticlly runs the other way, some how getting enough traction to not fly into the lava below. Then Bowser tries to ram you, misses, and teeters on the edge of the level. His tail grabed and thrown into the bomb five feet away, he is defeated yet again. Two times, one hit each? What the hell? If anything, he should take two hits the second time. The third time, after a delightfully chalenging level (I couldn't resist going on those thin thin platforms to get the extra lives) he is slightly more difficult. Now, instead of dissapearing, he jumps up and when he lands, shockwaves come out and zap our plumber, taking out one block of his eight life bar pie pieces. They are easy to dodge. When you throw him off and miss, besides making you utter a string of profanity coarse enough to make a sailor blush, he again jumps back on out of the abyss that will kill Mario if he falls into it. Except now, when he lands, he will send out more shockwaves, and knock a piece of the level slowly out, nowhere near mario. When you manage to hit him twice, he jumps up and knocks out half the level, leaving a star shaped small battle field. Then you realize with a sinking feeling that you will have to throw him. Far away. And hit him with the giant bombs.

Eventually, you'll get it, and he says something like "Wow, you beat me again. Were I smaller, and wore clothing, I would soil my self like a little girly man." Ok, so he doesn't turn into Hans/Frans, but it's not very fullfilling. Then he disapears, leaving a star. Mario runs up and grabs it and gets a free wing�d cap. He does a normal jump, then this badass sideways jump off the side of the cliff and flys away. You end up back at the entrance to the castle. The star lets Princess Toadstool out along with two Toads. She drifts to earth, eyes closed. When she lands, her eyes pop open startled. "Mario. The power of the stars has restored the castle. Thank you." Mario takes off his cap and looks bashful! He goes and saves this trollip's sorry royal booty every time something happens, and this is all he gets? Wait, she's going to do something. She is, she's gonna do it. Hey! She leans over and kisses Mr. Blue-overalls on his oversized nose. He does a spin thing and gives the camera a peace sign. "Let's bake a cake. For mario." She says, turning and walking into the castle. Mario looks up, deep in thought Mama mia! No spaghetti? It doesn't say that, but you know that's what he's thinking, and it's not really about food... Peach calls him and they go into the castle. Credits roll. At the end, it shows a picture of a cake with Mario and Peach on the top as figurines. Then Charles Martinet (voice of Mario) says in the most Italian accent ever "Thank you so much for to playing my game-a." That is it. Fin. No more. I was left feeling dissapointed, as an Everquest freak would after realizing his level 60 warrior won't sell for over three hundred dollars on E-Bay, no matter how many hours he's spent over the last year. If you've managed to get all 120 stars, you get a little something else.

When you start your game up, behind you, a cannon opens up. You shoot yourself ontop of the castle and see... Yoshi! Finally! Some eating to do! But no. You talk to him, and he says "Blah blah blah waiting for you blah blah seeking tetrad blah blah." Ok, so that was from StarTropics. He says that theres a message from the SM64 team. "It may be the end of the game, but it's not the end of the fun!" Then he gives you 99 lives. Except they count up slowly, so by the time you've given up waiting, watched a movie and come back, its just now being done. Oh, your triple jump becomes sparkley too. (The one that makes you fly.) You still don't get that badass sideways flip he did in the ending. After you do the sparkley jump for a while, you realize that when you land, you softly bounce back to your feet with a padded feet sound. Then you go see how high you can fall with that jump and not get hurt. Once you do that, there's nothing else to do. Yoshi commited suicide by jumping into the waterfall behind the castle, and wouldn't let you ride him. There are no more stars. What the hell? No second quest? So maybe they couldn't fit Ura Zelda into the Ocarina of Time cartridge, but this could just involve changing some code. I want to see some more difficulty. Some Buzzy Beetles instead of the Koopas.

The enemies were also quite scarce. Beside the brown beanbags, there are exactly three koopas in the game. They can't hurt you, and have gotten the hint to run away by this game. However, they are easy to stomp and they fly out of their shells. Then you can't pick the shells up and kill a chain of enemies. You ride on top of them. Although I have to admit that was pretty fun. Going up steep hills and across water without falling. There was not a single buzzy beatle, and all the fire flowers popped out of the ground; no pipes. Spinys, even though in only two spots in the whole game, are still nigh immortal. Stupid bastards... I will make them all pay...!!!

Traction. Ok, maybe Mario has crappy treads on his shoes. But he will slide down steep sand dunes. I dunno about you, but I've never felt the least bit slippery in sand. Maye it slid a little underneath me, but not enough to make me fall down a hill, just make walking feel wierd. Sure, he should slide down ice, but snow? I don't think someone went by a whole level and flattened the snow to the point of slipperyness. Even then, he could dig his feet in and climb. Oh, he also will slide down a grassy hill if its steep. Maybe he just gets tired trying to climb, you may say. And to that I counter with this: you can run constantly with him, he friggin' triple backflips. That is does a backflip, but three in the air. Even if you had a horrible hybrid of grease and ice fused into your shoes, Chozo style, you still don't slip on sand. But Mario somehow does. I bet the big green machine could top his brother climbing a hill. Thats the big "L" for you uninitiated. Taller, better jumper. Wears green, kicks ass. Related to Mario. You know.

Well, that turned out longer than I expected. That just means I don't have to bother with an update later this weekend. Nah, I'm kidding you guys, I might still do something. I still maintain I really enjoyed playing Mario 64. My griping just apperently was really really big. And now, I shall send myself to bed. My friend Pat is comming over tomorrow. We're gonna do some Madden 2k3 and Vice City (W00t!) Peace
posted by Slade at 11:37 PM

Hoo ah! Here I am, gonna write an update later. However, I've been online too long during the times people try to call us. But I will write it. I swear!
posted by Slade at 8:39 PM

Well, here it is, Friday night - well Saturday morning now, and I haven't updated my web site. Why? Am I redecorating? Running into trouble with the law/mob/a sponge? Another case of writer's block? Nope, I'm just too damned lazy right now. I don't have any ideas for features at the moment, and can't muster the strength to make more pages, as is my plan. My super spiffy keen webmaster has given me a boatload of free space, which will take me forever to fill up, so I'll be trying to upload as many non RLE bitmaps as possible to try to fill it anyway. Maybe I will write something tomorrow, maybe not, I dunno at this point.
posted by Slade at 12:31 AM

Well, I mistyped the [a href] tag in Heccubus' link, so I fixed it. I was gonna write something else, but I forgot what it was, and got caught up playing Super Smash Bros. Melee. Great game, I am the Link masta. I want to put a copyright notice at the bottom if this page, but I can't find where I should in the HTML template I use, so I gotta ask someone to help me out. If you can help, drop me a line, preferably at my nightfission address, but hotmail would be OK too. So, for future notice, all original material on this site is copyrighted 2002-2003 by me, Slade, real name withheld for now by my request. All other material is copyrighted by it's individual owners (even though I haven't ripped off anything yet.) So don't steal my stuff, sucka, or I'll sick my Bling-Bling and my mohawk on you. Then we will pity you, foo. Oh, that counts everything, even stuff I wrote before now, so don't try anything, or I'll have to sue your ass. And really, you knew it was stuff I wrote anyway, so you know better. Geeze, I sure do ramble when I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Enjoi, people. Watch out for that panda poo.
posted by Slade at 10:11 PM

Ok! I've just added a link on my side bar to Heccubus' domain. Go read it! He has worse luck than I do!
posted by Slade at 12:39 PM

*Yesterday I was having a great dream. I had just won a yacht and was about ready to have a huge boat party barbeque with my brand new George Forman grill, while bikini clad women flew by me on roller skates carrying eclairs, when my fuzzy dice alarm clock woke up with that obnoxious noise it makes.
Gllllllllloooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnk! it blared.

I reached for my mallet, but then remembered it was stolen by a group of African ninjas with feather boas. I lept out of bed and into my clothing, ate my daily bowl of cottage cheese and rudabegas, and took the curlers out of my hair. I drank a glass of orange juice which I love so very, very much and was just about to floss my teeth with chocolate and hotdog flavored dental floss, when someone rang my door bell like a hyperactive guinea pig on crack.

"Hanf n a segn!" I said, getting the bovarian cream filled donut flecks out of my teeth. I went to the door, stepping over my giant novelty iron, and opened it. To my surprise, there was a giant midget with a huge overbite and multicolored socks. "HEY BUDDY!" He yelled.

"WHAT?" I yelled back.

"You've got a package. Sign here." He pulled a cobra shaped pen from his UPS slacks and handed it to me. Well not so much as handed as tried to stab me in my eye! I moved backwards to dodge his stubby arms. "Hey watch it buddy, someone could get hurt!" I yelled. "That's the whole point!" He screamed back. "Oh." I said, unperturbed.

Suddenly he pulled out a cup of McDonalds coffee and pulled it slowly back, ready to drop it in my lap. "Just come along quietly, and you won't get hurt." He said. "You want me to go with you?" I laughed. I mean, here's this little UPS guy trying to kidnap me. "Well, yeah." He said. "Then you have to take my alter ego too!" I yelled. I spun around in circles, changing into my secret identity. That's right, the super-duper ultra �ber mega powerful Pencil Shavings Man! Except I couldn't because I got stuck in my zipper, and while I was hopping around on one foot trying to fix it, I tripped on my giant iron and fell out of my window, missing the well placed garbage dumpster, and landing on old Mrs. Higgins from the third floor. Man, I hate it when that happens! "Sorry" I said, throwing her a twenty to pay for the broken hip, and running down the street. She just yelled and screamed obscenities at me. Some people are so rude! I had just turned at the corner of Smith & nine hundred and twelfth street when I was stopped dead. Not literally of course, because then I wouldn't be telling you this. Anyway...

There was a sale on lime green tomatoes! I bought about three hundred from the guy in the store and was going to dig into the juicy cream filled center on my way out, when I ran into a pack of rabid pit bulls. Oh, great, just what I needed. Everyone knows rabid pitbulls are vegetarians. Just my luck, ya know? I turned and ran, jumping into my bright pink Pinto, knocking over a telepathic chinchila, and sped away from the crazed canines. I was halfway to the pizza parlor when the man behind me covered my eyes. "Hey man, I can't see!" I yelled. "Who is it?" He asked. "Uncle Bob?" "Cousin John?" "Captain Hackneyed?" "Dr. Stevenson?" "George Lucas?" "Nope." He said. "Oh! It must be Hitler!" I said. "Damn, you are za only von to guez zat today. Have a free frogurt."

Well, he was a nice enough guy, said he got lost looking for some guy who had a red hat with a smiley face on it. Man, was he off! I gave him directions to the Santa Casa Pequeno airport, and he thanked me. But as I was giving him directions, I ran a red light, and unbeknownst to me, an old guy in a blue Chrystler had just OD'd on Viagra and drank a cup of espresso. Needless to say, we got into a huge car wreck and everyone in it died! Except for me. Because I had my seatbelt on.

So I crawled from the burning wreckage, carrying my bucket of KFC popcorn chicken, when two gangs of four toed sloths decided to have a gangwar in the streets. Geeze! wasn't there a crack house they could shoot up or something? Well the poo was flyin', and the hair was fryin, and people were dyin' and aww man it was a mess. Not at all like West Side Story. Then suddenly a sloth with an eyepatch and a nasty ear infection flung poo and hit the side of my KFC. "Hey, moron! That's my lunch!" I yelled, and lept for his throat like a bloated bananafish. He clawed my uvula, and I pulled his ear, and we rolled around, snarling at each other. Then he used his weight to get on top of me, those sloths can fight! It seemed like it was all over, I could see the head lines: "Wuss gets killed by freak-sloth crossfire during gang-war." Then there was this loud humming noise. "What's that?" I said, punching the sloth in the face, knocking him off of me, and taking a bite of my chicken. I looked up and there was a flying saucer. This huge yellow ray came down and picked me up. Aww man, I thought, not again! I didn't even get to finish lunch! Well, the thought of getting things shoved up my rectum was slightly more imidating than dying by the hands of some crazed sloths, but they apearently didn't read my application right. Jerks, fifty years and they don't know what "If being killed in sloth gangwar, do not abduct." means?

So they strapped me to a table and tried to pick my nose and eat my hair and cook my KFC in a microwave. Just when it seemed it couldn't get any worse, guess what happened! ... It did. There I was, a zillion bajillion miles above Earth, stuck on an alien ship, with things in holes I didn't know I had, when this big ole earthquake happened. The whole place was shakin' like an angry construction worker denied his sandwich. It was horrible, and then the lights went out. Aww man! Now what? I thought, feeling and finding a piece of chicken in the dark. Hey, I'm not stuck to the table! I thought, munching happily. Suddenly I got an idea. I raised my arms in the air and began running around, screaming incoherently, flailing like an ecstatic jelly fish. About that time, a little song began going through my head, and it went something like this; "Aww crap! Gonna die! Can't see! Ow my eye! Damn it! Toe toe toe!"

It was then I looked out the window and realized that we were gonna crash somewhere in New Mexico. The ship was heating up like a jelly bean in a carburator, and the Earth was getting bigger, and then suddenly we hit the roof of a huge building, and everybody aboard the ship died. Except for me. Because I ate a good breakfast that morning. So I took my chicken, and my lime tomatoes, and my sandals from my trip to China, and walked outside. The air smelled of warm rootbeer and suddenly I knew right where I was. Boise Idaho!

Well, I went to the bus stop, and waited for the bus, and then finally it came. In the form of a maroon van with gold plated hubcaps. "Hey, take me back to where I live, here's a dollar." I said when I got on the bus. The man was touched, and offered me a ride in the front seat. He was such a nice guy, said his name was Charles, and was going to California, but was happy to go out of his way. I dunno about the people in the back though, they seemed pretty wierd. With all that talk of silverware and vilolating what it's used for. Some people are sick. Pigs, even...

So anyway, I got a ride with some sherpas, and managed to get home in time to watch The Simpsons on my blow up chair shaped like Groucho Marx. Some more stuff happened, but I kinda forget what, it wasn't too important. You know, I really like KFC.

*This account may or may not contain elements which may or may not be what they may or may not be.
posted by Slade at 8:52 AM

Ok, so the update is Sunday night. What ever. So. Yeah. Ever notice how the english measurement system is just so friggin' stupid? I mean, you have to remember eighty different converters. 12 inches in a foot. Three feet in a yard. 2580 feet in a mile. I mean, c'mon! I'm not even to volume measurements yet. 16 ounces in a cup. Two cups in a pint. Some number of pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon. I can't even remember them all. All I can say is I'd like to go back in time and strangle the idiots that decided to standardize the system. Now we get to the metric system. Base ten. Ahhhh... Ten millimeters in a centimeter, ten centemeters in a decimeter, ten deceimeters in a meter. That's something I can do. No stupid random number conversions to do. But I do have a few gripes (of course.) Everything just seems too small. Like temerature. When its 85 degrees fairenheit, its only like 30 degrees celcius. You mean to tell me I'm out here, sweating my ass off, and its thirty degrees? Thirty is cold! Not just because it's cold in F, thirty isn't a lot. Our nody temperature. 37 C. Thats not much either, my head feels hotter than 37 anything. Water freezes at zero. Ok, ice is pretty cold, but zero has got to be really cold, that doesn't work. Water boils at 100 C. Ok, 100, that's pretty hot, but not that hot. And boiling water is really hot. That's why I propose a new scale, called the Slade Scale. The units shall be !#@* because that's what you say when you reach the temperatures mine is based on. The temperature at which my toes will get frostbite and fall off when left unprotected from the harsh weather will be my zero !#@*. The temperature at which I get third dergee burns from putting my hands where they arent supposed to be will be my 1000. 1000 sounds like a good number. Big enough to be really hot, but it can get hotter. Ok, lastly, the temperature at which matter ceases to occupy space, when the molecules in it completely cease moving, which will probably not be attained for a while, since it would mean the laws of physics would have to be written, (that's absolute zero, for those of you who know what I'm talking about), will be negative seven hundred billion, one hundred sixty-five million, five hundred forty two thousand, two hundred twelve. That's -700,165,542,212. That gives justice to how friggin' cold that would have to be. Oh, were that number fairenheit, it would be -55,944,536,412,322.2 degrees celcius.

There you have it. My crappy sunday night rambling. Were I someone with more talent for writing humor, it would be worth reading. I mean, I can't even write funny self degredation.
posted by Slade at 9:45 PM