"The Blue Bomber Strikes Back"

This is the second review in a trilogy of the Mega Man X games for SNES. We'll focus today on Mega Man X2.

If you see this intro on your TV, prepare to have your face rocked.

Mega Man X2 was developed by Capcom and released in both Japan and America in December of 1994. It's one of my favorite games for SNES, and probably of all time. A lot of the reason why I love it so much is nostalgia, but it's also just an all-around well built game. Let's jump in X-buster first and see why.

Story: 10/10 


I've already explained the backstory for the Mega Man X series. This game takes place six months and 13 days after the fall of Sigma in Mega Man X. X is now the leader of the Maverick Hunters. Even though Sigma has died, the Mavericks still continue to wreak havoc everywhere.

Three Maverick leaders, Serges, Violen, and Agile (the X-Hunters), establish a base on the North Pole. They claim to have all of Zero's parts (since Zero was destroyed during the first game). They split up the three pieces of his body, taunting X with them, hoping to lure him out and destroy him once and for all. The big question: do they have Zero's control chip?

Zero, X's equally badass partner.

This game was a little bit more story-heavy than the last (in-game, at least), which I think was a welcome change. As I've said before, I really love the story throughout both the Mega Man and Mega Man X series.


Graphics: 9/10


This game uses the same graphics engine as Mega Man X; as such, it looks just as beautiful. The huge difference is that this one seems to have a lot less slowdown. I think this is mostly because of the developers making the enemies more evenly dispersed and having less fast sequences like the mine car ride in MMX1.

This game is notable in that it uses the CX4 chip, one of only two games to use it. The CX4 was added to every cartridge for Mega Man X2 to help quickly perform general trigonometric calculations for wireframe effects and sprite positioning and rotation. It helped them make some really slick-looking sequences you can see towards the end of the game. The carts all still have the option to view the wireframe debug scene by holding down B at startup.

It looks so much cooler in motion...much cooler than, say, a Vectrex.

Gameplay: 10/10

The gameplay in Mega Man X2 is much the same as in X, albeit with a few minor tweaks. You run and gun through a level until you reach the boss room. When you beat the boss, you get his weapon. Every boss is weak against another boss's weapon. Finding the right order is half the fun.

Always start with Wheel Gator, then Overdrive Ostrich. Trust me.

Instead of having to find the dash this time, you start with it. The capsule system is still present, but the upgrades are different. One allows you to dash in midair. The helmet upgrade lets you search for hidden passages. The armor upgrade lets you absorb shots from enemies to fill up a meter; when it's full, you can use a super explosion 9000 attack, hurting everything on screen quite a bit.

Capcom put in another hidden capsule when you find all the others and all the heart tanks and E-tanks. This one's just as hard to find as the one in Mega Man X, but instead of Hadouken, this time you find Shoryuken, the uppercut move used by Ryu and Ken in the Street Fighter series. Like the Hadouken, it's a one-hit kill on any enemy and almost all of the bosses.



Sound: 10/10

Mega Man X2 had, in my opinion, one of the best soundtracks of any SNES game. Definitely top 5, at least. The sound effects were largely the same as Mega Man X, but the soundtrack is much better. It has more of a metal vibe the whole way throughout, with the exception of a few stages like Crystal Snail and Bubble Crab. Like usual, rather than talking about it too much, I'll just post a song. This is the opening song from the first introductory level, the Reploid Factory.



Here's one more, the music for Flame Stag's stage. This is what I mean when I say the soundtrack had a more metal vibe. Still a lot of the old Capcom electronica you've come to expect from the Mega Man series, though.



Replay Value: 7/10

Sadly, this game has about as much replay value as Mega Man X; not a whole damned lot. The big pull is the same as MMX: go back through and get every upgrade and get the Shoryuken. The other big things to try are playing through with no e-tanks/hearts, and if you can do that, try a game with only the X-buster. It's hard, but it's completely do-able. The only thing that might give you trouble is the final boss.

If you're seeing this screen on your TV, your face has been successfully rocked.

Trust me, though, you will come back to this game at least once. I tend to beat through it once every few months. I'm a bit of a nutbar, so I don't imagine most of you will play it once every few months, but it truly is a great game.

"In the year 20xx, a new robot was born..."

Today's review is the first in a trilogy of reviews for the three Mega Man X games for SNES.

Ah, nostalgia...

Mega Man X was developed by Capcom and released in Japan in late 1993 and North America in early 1994. It was a run-and-gun in the same style as the original Mega Man series, only with a new title character and a LOT more interesting powers like the ability to cling to walls, dash along the ground at any time, and other abilities hidden throughout the levels. The difficulty was also ramped up, in my opinion, making for a much more fun and challenging game. I'm getting ahead of myself, though...let's jump in and take a closer look at Dr. Light's brainchild.

Story: 10/10

Mega Man X was another creation by Dr. Light, the creator of Mega Man. About 30 years after the Mega Man series ended, Dr. Light decided to create a new robot, one that, unlike Mega Man, had the ability to make his own decisions. However, as Dr. Light reasoned, what if X decided to be evil? Even worse, what if society wouldn't accept him? At best, he would be an anomaly, and at worst, an abomination. Realizing that he wouldn't live long enough to finish 'debugging' X to make sure he wouldn't become evil, Dr. Light sealed him in a capsule to finish testing. He was supposed to be released in 30 years, but the building the capsule was in collapsed.

Eventually, about 100 years later (in the year 21xx), an archaeologist named Dr. Cain stumbled upon the capsule and freed X. Together, they ended up producing a series of robots known as Reploids designed to replicate X's free will. However, the circuits weren't replicated perfectly; this left the Reploids vulnerable to a long-dormant virus created by Dr. Wily, the nefarious antagonist from the original Mega Man series.

Dr. Wily, also known as Doc Brown. "Great Scott!"

The infected Reploids became known as Mavericks. A group called the Maverick Hunters was put together to combat this new threat to mankind with a Reploid named Sigma as their leader. In time, though, Sigma also became infected with the virus. X felt it was his duty to join the Maverick Hunters, now led by Zero (another of Dr. Wily's creations), to take down the Mavericks and ensure that Sigma could never wreak havoc on mankind again.

The first game in the series introduces this backstory and begins with the Maverick Hunters going out to take down their first Maverick. I really love the Mega Man/Mega Man X backstory; I realize it's probably not too realistic, but all the same, I've spent hours reading about the storyline throughout the series. It got watered down and lame towards the end of the X series, but in these first few games, it's blissfully awesome.

Graphics: 8/10

Wow! For a SNES game, this one has fucking AWESOME graphics. VERY rarely, you'll find some minor slowdown during really action-heavy sequences, but otherwise, the game moves quickly and smoothly throughout. This is especially impressive considering that the Mega Man X cartridge didn't use the CX4 chip like X2 and X3 did, although to be fair, Mega Man X didn't have any wireframe sequences in it, rendering the CX4 chip more or less meaningless.

Still, this game looks absolutely beautiful. Capcom knew how to do graphics right, and this game is a prime example of that.

Pictured: Robot excavator about to explode and X about to run into a wall.

Gameplay: 9/10

This game really shines in this section. At the start, you jump into a quick introductory stage, a staple of the Mega Man X series. Afterwords, you're taken to a level select screen similar to the one seen in the Mega Man series.

Rather than Robot Masters, now you're fighting Mavericks, each of which is usually modeled after an animal of some kind (Chill Penguin, Armored Armadillo, etc.).

The game plays a lot like the original series in that you run through a stage, killing enemies and doing lots of platforming along the way, and then you fight a boss at the end. After killing a boss, you gain the ability to use one of his weapons. There's always a boss order that's 'best' to take; one enemy will be weak against another enemy's weapon, his weapon is strong against another, etc.

However, Mega Man X really increases the fun. Certain stages will be affected depending on the order you play them in (beating Chill Penguin's stage will freeze the lava in another stage, etc.). X now has the innate ability to dash on the ground instead of the old slide move, he can jump and dash at the same time (making him jump much farther and faster), cling to walls, and wall jump. On top of this, there are hidden capsules throughout the levels that will give X added abilities like his dash (yes, the dash had to be found, but only in this game), halved damage, and the ability to charge all the weapons obtained from killing Mavericks.

The addition of all of these extras, especially the dash, allows for the possibility to beat through the entire game using only X's main gun, the X-buster. While challenging, it's entirely possible, and it makes for a helluva fun run through the game.



Other collectible items include E-tanks, tanks that slowly fill when you pick up energy pellets that can be used to refill your health when you're low, and hearts, items that increase your maximum health. 4 E-tanks and 8 hearts can be found scattered throughout the game.

It pays to find all of the hidden items and capsules in this game, though. Capcom threw in a great Easter egg in the form of a move straight from Street Fighter, the Hadouken. I won't give away where to find it or how to use it once you do find it; all I'll say is sometimes, death can be your friend.



Sound: 9/10

This game is rare because it has both good sound effects AND a good soundtrack. All of the large robotic moving noises fit very well with the visuals and music, and the weapon and charging noises also fit well, never getting too annoying or intrusive as you play.

The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. The only reason it doesn't get a 10/10 is because I think the soundtrack for Mega Man X2 was slightly better; hence, not both can be perfect. I'm a huge fan of the music throughout most of the Mega Man games, but the X series especially had phenomenal tracks. Here's one of my favorites from this game, the music from Boomer Kuwanger's stage.



Interesting piece of trivia: a lot of people get all pissy about the fact that most Mavericks are based off of animals, but Boomer Kuwanger is not. After all, what the fuck is a 'kuwanger'? Well, it's based on the Japanese word 'kuwagata', or stag beetle. That piece of trivia was a gift from me to you.

Replay Value: 7/10

Sadly, this is where the game suffers the most in score. Once it's been beaten, there's not a whole lot left to do. One thing to do is go through the game, getting every upgrade and hidden capsule, as well as the Hadouken. Another thing to try is going through the game without getting ANY upgrades or hearts. The third, and hardest, is to go through with no upgrades or hearts, using only the X-buster.

Other than finding ways to challenge yourself, though, the only real reasons to go back to this game and replay it are that it's just mindnumbingly fun and that it has one of the top 20 best soundtracks in a video game ever.





If you've never played this game, what the shit is wrong with you? Go play it right now! Don't just trust me, read literally any review for this game; it's universally considered to be awesome beyond belief. It will turn your brain into awesome-flavored pudding.

If you have played this game, go replay it! What the shit are you waiting for?

Tomorrow or the day after, I'll be back with a review of the next game in this series (and my personal favorite), Mega Man X2. Until next time, keep your finger hovering over that dash button. You'll need it.

"Dazzle your friends with the all-new patented Hooter Shooter!"

Today's review is on an old DOS game, Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does A Little Undercover Work.

If only it were 1990 and this game was 'Coming Soon'...

Leisure Suit Larry 5 was developed and published by Sierra Entertainment and released in America in 1991. Some of you older gamers might remember the LSL series, the brain-child of programmer Al Lowe. It was a raunchy series filled with both hilarity and bewbs, aimed at the older crowd. Let's check out the 5th (and in my humble opinion, best) entry in this exceedingly strange series.

Story: 10/10

The story for LSL5 requires some understanding of who the main character, Larry Laffer, is. Normally, I'd write this up myself, but the Wikipedia entry is just too hilarious:

"According to his creator [Al Lowe], Larry was a nerdy geek all his life and eventually became a computer programmer. He never had close relations with friends, women, or his colleagues, and every day of his life was identical. He lived with his mother and brother. Around his 38th birthday, his brain hit a sexual alarm and started having his first kinky thoughts. He started reading adult magazines and could not concentrate on his work. Because of this his life was destroyed; he was fired from his job, and upon returning home he found his house had been sold and his mother had left for vacation.

He then decided to turn a page forward in his life; he left everything and decided to live the wild life. He moved to the city of Lost Wages, where, being a fan of the '70s, and assuming that '70s styles were still trendy, he bought a polyester leisure suit and gold chains. He sold his VW 'bug' to a junkyard for $94 and ended up in front of Lefty's Bar, where the first game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, begins."

Leisure Suit Larry 5 stars the same lovable Larry in yet another quest for the elusive vagina. The premise relies on the idea that there was no Leisure Suit Larry 4. There were a few reasons why there was no 4th game; primarily, though, a planned 4th entry would be an online game, allowing players to interact with each other over Sierra's popular online network. Technology at that point wasn't quite up to snuff, though, so it was abandoned. Al Lowe, disgusted with this, declared that there would never be a Leisure Suit Larry 4. Indeed, the first three games played like a trilogy with a complete ending after the 3rd game. When he began working on the 4th game, Lowe was unsure of how to continue the story. Basically, he joked that the floppy disks for the game were lost, so he could start fresh on the 5th title. This also proved him correct in saying there would never be a Leisure Suit Larry 4.

The story revolves around Larry and his old flame, Passionate Patti. A man named Julius Biggs has stolen the floppies for LSL4, causing Larry to have amnesia. Larry's now in the adult film industry, working for a company called PornProdCorp, a seedy Mafia-connected enterprise. His boss sends him around the country to scout for (and maybe even seduce) models to appear in their newest video series, America's Sexiest Home Videos. Larry's chosen because, as his boss says, they need someone who's so disgusting and nerdy that only the most attractive women on Earth could find him sexy.

Patti also stars in this one; you play as her for half of the game. In this title, she's working in a dive strip bar with dreams of becoming a famous pianist. As she leaves the bar at the start of the game, she's approached by the FBI to try to find evidence of two big record companies implanting subliminal messages in their albums.

At the same time, PornProdCorp tries to eliminate all competition by donating money to CANE (Conservatives Against Nearly Everything). All three storylines converge at the end.

All you need to know is that this game is completely hilarious. The entirety of it is filled with juvenile humor and references to what a geek Larry is. If you don't laugh while playing this game, you're taking life entirely too seriously.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics are nothing special. I mean, things move smoothly and look as they should for a 1991 Sierra game. It's not too pixel-y and there's fairly liquid movement throughout. There are some hilarious 'adult' scenes interspersed, none of which will exactly get your juices flowing.

Oh yeah, baby, shake those pixels!

The key, though, is that this game plays more like an interactive comic than anything, and so the graphics really do matter considerably. That being said, you'll never be confused as to what's going on in the game visually (well, you will, but not because of bad graphics, just because of completely 'what the fuck'-inducing visuals).

Put it this way: they came a long way since Leisure Suit Larry 1.

Pictured: Ladies' Man.

Gameplay: 7/10

As I mentioned earlier, this game plays a lot like an interactive comic of sorts. It's an adventure game, similar to the previous games in the series as well as other classic adventure games like Space Quest. However, LSL5 wasn't a text-based adventure game. Rather than typing in explicitly what you wanted Larry to do, it had a GUI with different icons you could pick to make Larry do different things. There were basic icons like some to make him walk, talk to people, pick up objects, and examine objects...others were more silly, like the one icon (a zipper) that removed the clothes (or tried to) of whatever you clicked on. This led to some hilarious text boxes coming on screen when you tried to do things like unzip a statue.

The game switches you from controlling Larry to controlling Patti at various intervals, walking through their respective stories. Both are equally entertaining, though Larry's sections stand out as being much more fun, in my opinion.

This game is interesting in that it's impossible to die. Unlike most adventure games, you can never be trapped and you can never die, and the game can't be put in an 'unwinnable' state. Losing is literally impossible. While this really reduces the difficulty, it also makes it a bit more accessible. I don't know how many of you played older text-adventure games, but the constant deaths do get frustrating after a while.

There's a point system in this game, like in many other old (especially Sierra) text-adventures. Doing certain things at certain times will increase your points (like examining a statue of some boobs), as will advancing the story. The score is largely meaningless other than to give you something to shoot for. Lots of objects you can pick up will increase your score and give you bonus dialogues later on, but most of them are largely superfluous to completing the game.

This game also had an interesting copyright protection system. Whenever you travel on an airplane (which is quite often), a certain code needs to be put in to get your ticket, based on where the flight is going and when it leaves the airport. This doesn't present a problem these days because the passwords are all online, released by Al Lowe himself, but when I was a kid, I remember this used to drive me batshit when I couldn't find the game manual.

Here's a video showing the first few minutes of real gameplay. Keep in mind, the walking speed can be increased to A LOT faster than what this guy has it set as.



Sound: 6/10

The sound in LSL5 is pretty underwhelming. Like a lot of games I've reviewed, the sound effects weren't so great. In fact, they were even kind of shitty. Lots of lag in the noises, and they tended to be very basic internal-speaker-sounding noises.

The music, on the other hand, was...well, also not that great. There were some totally decent tracks, don't get me wrong, but overall, it was a pretty mediocre soundtrack. Luckily, the great gameplay and humor make up for this.

Apparently, the games I review have hit a new level of obscurity. This is the first one that I couldn't find a sample of JUST the music from this game. I suppose in lieu of that, I'll refer you to the above video for a small taste of the music and especially the shitty sound effects.

Replay Value: 5/10

This game gets a big, hearty "meh" in this category from me. It's not that it's not worth replaying, it's just that you won't exactly be running to your PC to play it again immediately after you finish it. Nonetheless, give it a year or two after playing through this one and I guarantee you'll want to play it again. The big thing making you come back will be trying to figure out all the little things you need to do to get a perfect score.

That, and the humor.






I hope you'll give this game a shot. Larry's chauvinistic, raunchy, geeky, horny, vile, dorky, and lovable beyond all reason. The whole series is worth a playthrough, but this is the one I have the most fond memories of playing.

And remember, the Hooter Shooter is sexy, sure--but with a license to kill.


Below is a collection of Leisure Suit Larry 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6, all on CD rather than floppies.

Update - Where do we go from here?

Hello, Faithful Readers.

Today has been a day of fantasy. Rather than doing anything of any import, I took two exams and then spent the day playing Final Fantasy XII in the hopes that I can complete it before the long, harsh winter. In lieu of posting a review, I thought I'd make a post detailing what is and what will be when it comes to Programmable Abortion.

For those of you who haven't been reading since the start (only two weeks ago, but it seems so much longer), so far, I've done reviews of:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
Death Rally (PC)
Joe & Mac (SNES)
Earthbound (SNES)
Katamari Damacy (PS2)
We Love Katamari (PS2)
U.N. Squadron (SNES)
Tyrian (PC)
Ys III: Wanderers From Ys (SNES)
Darius Twin (SNES)

10 reviews in, and so far the reviews have been very heavily weighted towards the Super Nintendo. They'll continue to be that way for a little while. This is mostly because A) most games I've beaten have been for SNES,  B) I feel the SNES had one of the best game catalogs in video game history, and C) 95% of Super Nintendo games are cheap and easily accessible to anyone who's interested in trying them out.

Now, in the future, not every review will be of video games, although 90% of them will. There are plenty of books, movies, and albums I've been interested in doing reviews of, and there's always a million more items on my list of media to absorb. Even just right now, I'm reading through a great novel called The Road by Cormac McCarthy, playing through Final Fantasy XII, reading a collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories, and playing through Final Fantasy VI (sparingly). My list of things to get around to includes rereading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (as well as several other novels of his I've missed), playing through Dragon Quest 1 and 2 for NES, watching the entirety of Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe, and watching several dozens of interesting-looking movies I've missed out on over the years.

In the distant future, reviews of most of these will be posted. However, it's going to be a while before I finish those things as somewhere in there, time needs to be made for college and work. In the meantime, expect to see reviews posted within the next month or so for:

Leisure Suit Larry 5 (I already have a review almost finished for this one; holy shit, this game was great)
Mega Man X-X3 for SNES
The Incredible Machine for PC
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Lufia and Lufia II for SNES
Pokemon Snap for N64
Pokemon Trading Card Game for GameBoy Color
A few more games that I think were incredibly shitty, just to balance out the good ones

...and presumably many more.

My continued thanks go out to you, Faithful Readers. I have a blast writing these reviews, truly, but if no one were here to read them...well, there's no reason to speak. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

To close, I'll leave you with my favorite image from Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 6, Episode 25 - Timescape).

Troi has never looked so fine.