Miscellaneous Video Game Corruptions
Created: 2010-12-26 18:08 -07:00 | Views: 92- View Entry
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Each of the following corruptions come from various video games but aren't large enough to warrant their own entries.
Whenever a structure is destroyed, a group of citizens immediately emerges and scurries over to rebuild. Josh found their tenacity amusing, and as they scrambled to fix the destruction would say "*unintelligible*come on*unintelligible*let's go guys*unintelligible*gotta go rebuild the city!" in a very rapid manner with a somewhat Kirby-esque tone.
Touhou has multiple instances of Backseat Gaming.
Josh enjoys watching Adam play fan-made games, one of which is a Lucky Star beat-em-up game. Various food items appear on the ground to restore health and bestow powers. One of the items is a chocolate cornet. Josh noted that the item vaguely resembled poop and began to refer to it as such. Whenever it would appear, he'd urgently command Adam to get it as soon as he could, yelling "Get the poop GET THE POOP!". Barring convention in these situations, Adam would almost always comply.
There is a fishing mini-game that the player can partake in. Seen from the side, the player can view all the fish that are in the lake. After casting the line, the player tries to draw the attention of the fish until he catches one, at which point he needs to carefully pull back on the line in order to reel the fish in without the rod breaking. If the fish is stronger than the rod can handle, the rod snaps and the fish gets away.
Adam and Josh noticed that there would occasionally be one or two very large fish hanging out at the bottom of the lake. They moved slowly and the animation of their fins made it look like they were pulsing with power. Because of their aura of power and their bottom-dwelling nature, Adam and Josh called these fish "Submos". These fish would rarely show any interest in the line, but when they did, they would latch on and more often than not snap the rod. As they pulled and snapped the line, Adam and Josh would say "Don't mind if I do!" in a somewhat manic Kirby voice. After the line is snapped, the player's character is left looking at the screen in a somewhat stunned manner. Adam and Josh would say "Now what?" in their standard hick voice.
When playing Bust-a-Move, the characters exclaim various English phrases that Adam and Josh had trouble interpreting. Because of this, they created their own versions that they would repeat in response to the game. At the end of a level, the characters say a phrase that Adam and Josh interpreted as them saying "apple" reverently. Neither one of them is sure what apples have to do with anything in the game. During levels, when a combo or other good move is made, the characters happily exclaim another phrase that Adam and Josh interpreted to be "grandpa!". Similar to apples, Adam and Josh have no idea what the significance of grandpas are to the game.
Aria of Sorrow is the third Castlevania game released for the Gameboy Advance. Having a gift for wordplay, Adam invoked the Metallica song "Harvester of Sorrow" when mentioning the game, yelling "Aaaaaria of Sorroooow!" in the style of the lyric from the song.
"Dark Metamorphosis!"
One of Alucard's abilities is called "Dark Metamorphosis". When activated, he calls out its name. Due to sub-par voice sampling, "Metamorphosis" is somewhat garbled, leading Josh to announce the spell in his own garbled way.
"HOhoho"
During the opening sequence of the game, a fight occurs between Simon Belmont and Dracula. Over the course of the battle, Dracula phases in and out, laughing as he does so. His laugh, "HOhoho", comes across as very haughty and condescending to Adam and Josh, and the two repeat it whenever referencing the game.
Adam and Josh's only exposure to this game is a single instance of playing it on an emulator. Adam played while Josh watched. Near the beginning of the game, as Reinhardt Schneider approaches a castle, he comes upon skeletal remains. After getting too close, the skeletons begin to spasm and rise to attack him. Josh found this animation humorous. As the skeletons began to tremble and rise, Josh would nonchalantly remark "Ohp, ohp! Here come the tremors!". It is ambiguous as to whether Josh was speaking as an observer or from the perspective of the skeletons themselves.
As Adam watched Josh play The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon, he noted the spear Josh was using by calling it "a IRON spear...", in reference to an old school project. One time, Adam misspoke and called it "a HAMMER spear" in the same tone of voice. To cover for himself, Adam insisted that this combination weapon - a hammer spear - could be used to bludgeon and then stab a foe.
While working on the entry for El Cazador de la Bruja, Adam misspoke while doing the "Sniper Cat" section, referring to the sniper rifle as a "snifer rifle". This compound weapon enables the user to zoom in on a target from a distance with the scope of a sniper rifle and knife them as if they were within arm's reach. How this works is not exactly known.
The midboss of the first level is effectively a tank with metallic spider legs. For no particular reason, Josh dubbed the tank "Dinkylegs", finding great amusement in the contradiction. Dinkylegs's entrance music seemed to fit particularly well with his appearance onscreen, only making the whole situation more comedic.
Adam and Josh were amused by the death screams of the two main characters. Instead of a pained cry, it sounded to them as if the characters were pleasantly surprised at their situation, yelling "Wow!" Taking this further, they assumed that the characters were excited at discovering what it was like to die, completing the phrase as "Wow! So THIS is what it's like!"
Lutzes
The final boss has an attack where he levitates and slowly spins around, drawing his arms and legs inward before shooting himself forward at the player. Adam found this to look very awkward and annoying. For reasons not totally clear, he referred to this attack as a "lutz". During struggles with the final boss, Adam is known to have repeated "Damn lutzes!"
Missile Spinning
At the beginning of the 4th level, the players fly in clinging to the missiles of their attack craft. The craft then fires the missiles, which spin rapidly. Adam and Josh found this humorous, adding the Curly "woowoo" sound as the missiles spun.
When watching Adam play Darkwing Duck on an NES emulator, Josh was particularly annoyed by some troublesome enemies. He dubbed a green enemy that ran with a knife extended as "damn little gentlemen" and another that wore glasses, hid behind a cape, and quickly popped out to throw knives as "stupid knife throwing picards." The origin of both these names is entirely unknown.
During the first mine cart level in Donkey Kong Country, Adam randomly yelled out "Spoooochch!" as he jumped over pits from one mine cart to the next. He has no idea why he did this, but it became standard practice.
On the overworld map, completed levels are marked with icons of either Diddy or Donkey's head depending on which character was used to beat the level. The icons are animated such that the mouths repeatedly open and close. Adam and Josh found this odd, as if the characters were chewing cud and began to imitate them in a mocking manner. Whenever this detail is brought up, Adam and Josh proceed to noisily chew their cud in the same manner as the characters in the game.
A trailer for the game was dramatically narrated by one of the characters. By the end of the trailer, it is clear that the character is not in his right mind and is locked in an asylum. As the camera pulls back, the character dramatically warns the viewer of the trouble to come. He particularly warns about "the darkness!" Adam and Josh took note of the way he said "darkness" and in typical form obsessed over and exaggerated it. The breakthrough of the British glam rock band "The Darkness" only added fuel to the fire. Continuing this out of context reference, the release of the game "The Suffering" called to mind Yoda's famous line from the Phantom Menace trailer: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Adam, Josh, and their friend Mike, when referring to the game, all began to refer to it exclusively in Yoda's voice.
In most beat-em-up games, the player is able to pick up various weapons throughout each level. In Final Fight, as with most games in the genre, the player is not allowed to carry the weapon from one stage to the next. In Final Fight, this is manifested in the weapon being cast off toward the ground in a spinning motion without the character moving at all. Adam and Josh interpreted this as the character realizing that weapons are beneath him, and disdainfully tossing it away from him, offhandedly saying "I don't need this shit..." As the weapon was dropped, Adam and Josh would frequently make the stereotypical sound of an object flipping through the air.
One of the obtainable weapons in Final Fight is a samurai sword. As with all items the character interacts with, its name is displayed in a corner of the screen. When picking up the samurai sword, "Muramasa" is displayed in all capitals with an exclamation mark. This is the only weapon that gets such treatment. Noticing this, Josh would call out with joy "MURAMASA!" any time the sword was picked up.
When any of the generic cavemen enemies get hit during the course of the game, they cry out in pain. To Adam and Josh, the scream sounded very much like "a-WUCK!" and they would mimic it any time they heard it. Whenever Joe & Mac is referenced, it is inevitable that one or both of them will exclaim "a-WUCK!"
One of the bosses is a giant plant with tendrils. Whenever the boss takes damage, it utters a very gravelly cry of pain in a rather low tone of voice. To Adam and Josh, this sounded like the plant was saying "Damn!" whenever it got hit. As with "a-WUCK!", Adam and Josh would echo the sound any time the boss was hit.
After defeating each boss, a cavewoman is rescued and kisses the player before running off screen. Adam and Josh referred to these women as "Cave Honeys". On the overworld map, checkpoints are represented by what appears to be a stone statue pointing upward. When a continue is used, the player emerges from said statue. Adam and Josh created a logical explanation for this phenomenon. After the Cave Honeys are rescued, the players impregnate them. The stone figures on the map, which always looked to Adam and Josh to have large stomachs, were actually the impregnated Cave Honeys, pointing upwards in victory (accompanied by a Kool-Aid Man-like "Oh yeah!"). Emerging from the statue represented the player being reincarnated via the pregnant Honey.
Kobo Deluxe is a freeware game that Adam obtained to play on his laptop while traveling. Josh was introduced to the game when Adam played it while visiting him.
When casually glancing at Adam's laptop from the couch, Josh saw Adam playing the game, but misread the title as Hobo Deluxe. The title stuck.
Josh created a mythos to explain his alternate title. Originally, men were recruited to pilot the spaceship. Due to the frequent destruction of the spaceship, more pilots would need to be recruited. These pilots were often men with families and when they died in battle, their families would be left without financial support, causing them to become homeless. Left with no choice, the sons would grow up and follow in their father's footsteps, leaving their own newly formed families homeless after their deaths.
The game goes through cycles of levels with increasing difficulty before introducing a new feature and lowering the difficulty again. Toward the end of each cycle when the difficulty was at its highest, Adam was more likely to become frustrated and need multiple continues to progress. Once, after losing his last life, Adam exclaimed in half-mock frustration, "It's impossible!". On his next continue he immediately and easily beat the level. Ever since then, Adam would declare "It's impossible!" at the slightest hint of a challenge and more often than not, beat the level soon afterward.
The second to last boss in The Last Blade for Neo Geo is a dual sword wielder named Musashi. His pre-fight action consists of him flexing very hard to gather his power. As he does this, he says what sounds like "Aaaaaaaaaah...!- Oh yeah...". Adam and Josh enjoy this because the "Oh yeah" portion sounds so anticlimactic (and so egotistical) in comparison with his dramatic buildup beforehand.
For some reason, Adam and Josh enjoyed the fact that the full name of the game (Last Blade) didn't fit the eight character naming scheme that Mame roms maintained for maximum compatibility. Instead, the file was named "lastblad". After noticing this, Adam and Josh continually referred to the game as "Last Blad".
In most shooting games, when enemies are destroyed, they drop power ups for the player to collect and increase their firepower. In the game Armed Police Batrider for Neo Geo, if enough power ups are collected, the player "Level Ups". Due to the somewhat poor audio sampling, to Adam and Josh, this sounded as though the announcer was saying "Level Wrap!" instead. After first coming across this, Adam and Josh have since implemented the phrase when collecting any power ups in any shooting game. In an odd sort of way, level wrapping makes sense in that there is a carry over from one power level to the next, hence "wrapping".
In the movie, the priest set to marry Prince Eric and Ursula (in disguise) says the prince's name with a slight phlegmy sound at the end, sounding like "Erichch". Adam and Josh exclusively refer to Eric this way.
In the game, there is a specific cut scene where Eric and Ariel are sitting in a boat. Eric's profile dramatically reminded Adam and Josh of Bob Saget, causing them exclaim as such in mock surprise. Since noticing this, any time Eric is mentioned or brought to mind, one of them inevitably yells "Bob Saget!?"
Adam and Josh greatly enjoy the music from the game, particularly the track from stage seven. A certain portion of the track oddly reminds both of them of the phrase "dayenu" from the Jewish song "Dayenu", meaning "it would have sufficed". They have no idea why this is.
During the ending sequence, still shots are show with narration underneath. Something is most definitely lost in the translation, as a portion of the text reads as: "He decided to die. But I could find my way. Our peace will be back soon. Soon be back." Adam and Josh enjoy this mistranslation quite a bit, particularly the "He decided to die" portion, as it seems to imply that your victory wasn't a true victory as the villain decided he was done.
In Mega Man Soccer for the Super Nintendo, the player is allowed to create a custom team. In a fit of whimsy, Adam created a team of all Wood Mans. This resulted in a team of large, excessively slow players. Adam and Josh determined that Wood Man's bulk was what was slowing him down and made a gasping, wheezing noise each time any of the sprites took a step. Adding to the effect, Wood Man ran with only two frames of animation. Adam and Josh took great enjoyment from watching a screen full of puffing, wheezing Wood Mans.
Adam and Josh noticed that the music in the first level of the game had a somewhat overly bubbly, gargly feel to it and so they sang along with it mockingly, saying "gar" for each note. A sample is as follows:
(sound goes here)
Another of the levels had music that Adam and Josh greatly enjoyed. Taking a break to listen, Adam stood his character on a floating leaf that was moving in circles. At a certain point in the music, Adam stared ducking and changing directions on the leaf as if he were dancing to the music. Adam and Josh enjoyed this so much that they eventually went to that level exclusively for the dancing.
Being a game affiliated with McDonalds, the official title is "M.C. Kids" (pronounced "Mic-Kids"). Adam and Josh, possibly being annoyed at the obvious commercial the game was, refused to call it by the actual name, instead referring to it by stating each letter separately - "Em Cee Kids".
When playing Ogre Battle, the player can select units to travel across the map. Sometimes these units are pursued by enemy units. When they move, the units appear as a stationary icon gliding across the map. One time while he was playing, Josh noted that the enemy units more often than not had a hard time catching up to his own. Josh laughed as he watched the enemy units pursue his own across the entire map. As he watched, Josh started speaking as if he were the pursuer who was just trying to get the attention of the other units. He began rapidly saying "Sir. Sir, excuse me. Excuse me, sir? Sir. Excuse me? Sir? Sir." ad nauseum. Adam and Josh enjoy the fact that the unit remains exceedingly and persistently polite while being utterly ignored.
In the game, various NPCs will whistle to themselves while making their rounds. On one particular occasion, Adam was tailing a guard, waiting for the opportune moment to shoot him with an incapacitating dart. Just as the guard finished his whistle, Adam shot the dart, narrowly missing the guard and hitting the wall with a very juicy sound. Not only were Adam and Josh highly amused at the timing of the sounds, they took delight in the guard's apparent inattentiveness as he took no notice of the dart whatsoever.
Each of these quotes come from reactions by the NPCs to something that the player has done to catch their attention. Many of the characters have Eastern European accents, making the quotes stand out more to Adam and Josh.
"Oh crap."
Adam was having difficulty in an early stage of the game. He kept throwing soda cans down a flight of stairs to attract the attention of a number of guards. One of the guards responds with a wary "Oh crap." Due to his incompetence, Adam and Josh heard this phrase countless times.
"...Some kind of American commando..."
Similar to the quote above, Adam and Josh heard this phrase repeatedly over the course of a play session. As the player descends an elevator and enters a room, he hears cross traffic from enemy radios. They talk about the player, describing his as "some kind of American commando..." Adam and Josh enjoyed the awkward emphasis the voice actor put on the "man" in "commando".
"That's... not right at all...
The only phrase without an accent, this quote was heard numerous times due to the same reasons as above. Adam and Josh enjoyed the hesitation and suspicion in the NPC's voice, especially because the NPC doesn't follow up on his suspicions at all.
Adam and Josh are fans of vertical shooting games a la Raiden or Giga Wing. In these games, it is standard for powerups to be dropped from defeated enemies. In many cases, these powerups float around the screen in a predictable pattern. In some games, however, the powerups seem to move erratically, making it harder to obtain them. This annoys Adam to no end, and he and Josh refer to this phenomenon as "swimming powerups".
One of the characters in the game is a dark elf named Slash. One of his post-fight victory comments is "I just felt it was my duty to slash you." This comment amuses Adam and Josh because of its assumed earnest nature and awkward phrasing.
Occasionally, the player needs to fight enemies, which they accomplish primarily through punching. By tapping the punch button repeatedly, the player makes Eddie charge up power. This is manifested by Eddie hopping up and down with one arm curled. Adam and Josh quickly noticed that they were able to move side to side while charging, making it look like Eddie was dancing a jig.
While the purpose of punching is primarily for battle, Eddie is also able to punch regular people. Adam and Josh would maraud around punching whomever they felt like, employing the jigging for extra power. When people get punched hard enough, their heads bobble back and forth cartoonishly before. Adam and Josh got very practiced at triggering conversations with their victims at a point during which their head was backwards (speaking to the victim would freeze the animation). Furthermore, they took delight at the generic woman's post-punch response of "Go away you horrid man".
The general overworld theme of the game, as with many NES games, prominently features a high-hat sound. The use of this is so prominent that Adam and Josh took special notice of it, imagining a musician devoted solely to the accurate and persistent playing of his instrument. For more on this type of devotion, see "Effin' Vinnie Moore..." and The Knight Rider Theme Guy.
Ironsword is the sequel to Wizards & Warriors for the NES.
The first part of the first level features a mountain Kuros must climb. As such, there are many opportunities to fall. During one long, unintentional fall, Adam and Josh noticed that Kuros's body seemed to adjust from tension to acceptance as the fall progressed to the point of Kuros reclining as he fell. The combination of Kuros's reclined fall and the point in the music at which he descended proved to be highly comedic, and so Adam and Josh tried to replicate these conditions as much as possible.
At various points in the game, Kuros can enter a shop where he can buy items. There is a shopkeeper next to the counter, his arms folded in patience. If Kuros gets close enough to the shopkeeper (and has money) a subscreen appears enabling purchases. However, if Kuros does not have money, the shopkeeper will carry Kuros out of the shop by the scruff of his neck. Adam and Josh took great delight in getting as close as they could to the shopkeeper without getting thrown out. They would jump around the room, sidle around, punch the air (indoors Kuros had no weapon), squat and punch the shopkeeper's crotch, etc. Eventually, they would become careless and get too close, causing the shopkeeper to throw them out.
Actraiser
Whenever a structure is destroyed, a group of citizens immediately emerges and scurries over to rebuild. Josh found their tenacity amusing, and as they scrambled to fix the destruction would say "*unintelligible*come on*unintelligible*let's go guys*unintelligible*gotta go rebuild the city!" in a very rapid manner with a somewhat Kirby-esque tone.
Backseat Gaming
Touhou has multiple instances of Backseat Gaming.
"Get the poop GET THE POOP!"
Josh enjoys watching Adam play fan-made games, one of which is a Lucky Star beat-em-up game. Various food items appear on the ground to restore health and bestow powers. One of the items is a chocolate cornet. Josh noted that the item vaguely resembled poop and began to refer to it as such. Whenever it would appear, he'd urgently command Adam to get it as soon as he could, yelling "Get the poop GET THE POOP!". Barring convention in these situations, Adam would almost always comply.
Breath of Fire II
There is a fishing mini-game that the player can partake in. Seen from the side, the player can view all the fish that are in the lake. After casting the line, the player tries to draw the attention of the fish until he catches one, at which point he needs to carefully pull back on the line in order to reel the fish in without the rod breaking. If the fish is stronger than the rod can handle, the rod snaps and the fish gets away.
Adam and Josh noticed that there would occasionally be one or two very large fish hanging out at the bottom of the lake. They moved slowly and the animation of their fins made it look like they were pulsing with power. Because of their aura of power and their bottom-dwelling nature, Adam and Josh called these fish "Submos". These fish would rarely show any interest in the line, but when they did, they would latch on and more often than not snap the rod. As they pulled and snapped the line, Adam and Josh would say "Don't mind if I do!" in a somewhat manic Kirby voice. After the line is snapped, the player's character is left looking at the screen in a somewhat stunned manner. Adam and Josh would say "Now what?" in their standard hick voice.
Bust-a-Move
When playing Bust-a-Move, the characters exclaim various English phrases that Adam and Josh had trouble interpreting. Because of this, they created their own versions that they would repeat in response to the game. At the end of a level, the characters say a phrase that Adam and Josh interpreted as them saying "apple" reverently. Neither one of them is sure what apples have to do with anything in the game. During levels, when a combo or other good move is made, the characters happily exclaim another phrase that Adam and Josh interpreted to be "grandpa!". Similar to apples, Adam and Josh have no idea what the significance of grandpas are to the game.
Castlevania
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Aria of Sorrow is the third Castlevania game released for the Gameboy Advance. Having a gift for wordplay, Adam invoked the Metallica song "Harvester of Sorrow" when mentioning the game, yelling "Aaaaaria of Sorroooow!" in the style of the lyric from the song.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
"Dark Metamorphosis!"
One of Alucard's abilities is called "Dark Metamorphosis". When activated, he calls out its name. Due to sub-par voice sampling, "Metamorphosis" is somewhat garbled, leading Josh to announce the spell in his own garbled way.
"HOhoho"
During the opening sequence of the game, a fight occurs between Simon Belmont and Dracula. Over the course of the battle, Dracula phases in and out, laughing as he does so. His laugh, "HOhoho", comes across as very haughty and condescending to Adam and Josh, and the two repeat it whenever referencing the game.
Castlevania (N64)
Adam and Josh's only exposure to this game is a single instance of playing it on an emulator. Adam played while Josh watched. Near the beginning of the game, as Reinhardt Schneider approaches a castle, he comes upon skeletal remains. After getting too close, the skeletons begin to spasm and rise to attack him. Josh found this animation humorous. As the skeletons began to tremble and rise, Josh would nonchalantly remark "Ohp, ohp! Here come the tremors!". It is ambiguous as to whether Josh was speaking as an observer or from the perspective of the skeletons themselves.
Compound Weapons
As Adam watched Josh play The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigino Dungeon, he noted the spear Josh was using by calling it "a IRON spear...", in reference to an old school project. One time, Adam misspoke and called it "a HAMMER spear" in the same tone of voice. To cover for himself, Adam insisted that this combination weapon - a hammer spear - could be used to bludgeon and then stab a foe.
While working on the entry for El Cazador de la Bruja, Adam misspoke while doing the "Sniper Cat" section, referring to the sniper rifle as a "snifer rifle". This compound weapon enables the user to zoom in on a target from a distance with the scope of a sniper rifle and knife them as if they were within arm's reach. How this works is not exactly known.
Contra
Super C
The midboss of the first level is effectively a tank with metallic spider legs. For no particular reason, Josh dubbed the tank "Dinkylegs", finding great amusement in the contradiction. Dinkylegs's entrance music seemed to fit particularly well with his appearance onscreen, only making the whole situation more comedic.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Adam and Josh were amused by the death screams of the two main characters. Instead of a pained cry, it sounded to them as if the characters were pleasantly surprised at their situation, yelling "Wow!" Taking this further, they assumed that the characters were excited at discovering what it was like to die, completing the phrase as "Wow! So THIS is what it's like!"
Contra: Shattered Soldier
Lutzes
The final boss has an attack where he levitates and slowly spins around, drawing his arms and legs inward before shooting himself forward at the player. Adam found this to look very awkward and annoying. For reasons not totally clear, he referred to this attack as a "lutz". During struggles with the final boss, Adam is known to have repeated "Damn lutzes!"
Missile Spinning
At the beginning of the 4th level, the players fly in clinging to the missiles of their attack craft. The craft then fires the missiles, which spin rapidly. Adam and Josh found this humorous, adding the Curly "woowoo" sound as the missiles spun.
Darkwing Duck
When watching Adam play Darkwing Duck on an NES emulator, Josh was particularly annoyed by some troublesome enemies. He dubbed a green enemy that ran with a knife extended as "damn little gentlemen" and another that wore glasses, hid behind a cape, and quickly popped out to throw knives as "stupid knife throwing picards." The origin of both these names is entirely unknown.
Donkey Kong Country
During the first mine cart level in Donkey Kong Country, Adam randomly yelled out "Spoooochch!" as he jumped over pits from one mine cart to the next. He has no idea why he did this, but it became standard practice.
On the overworld map, completed levels are marked with icons of either Diddy or Donkey's head depending on which character was used to beat the level. The icons are animated such that the mouths repeatedly open and close. Adam and Josh found this odd, as if the characters were chewing cud and began to imitate them in a mocking manner. Whenever this detail is brought up, Adam and Josh proceed to noisily chew their cud in the same manner as the characters in the game.
Eternal Darkness
A trailer for the game was dramatically narrated by one of the characters. By the end of the trailer, it is clear that the character is not in his right mind and is locked in an asylum. As the camera pulls back, the character dramatically warns the viewer of the trouble to come. He particularly warns about "the darkness!" Adam and Josh took note of the way he said "darkness" and in typical form obsessed over and exaggerated it. The breakthrough of the British glam rock band "The Darkness" only added fuel to the fire. Continuing this out of context reference, the release of the game "The Suffering" called to mind Yoda's famous line from the Phantom Menace trailer: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Adam, Josh, and their friend Mike, when referring to the game, all began to refer to it exclusively in Yoda's voice.
Final Fight
"I don't need this shit..."
In most beat-em-up games, the player is able to pick up various weapons throughout each level. In Final Fight, as with most games in the genre, the player is not allowed to carry the weapon from one stage to the next. In Final Fight, this is manifested in the weapon being cast off toward the ground in a spinning motion without the character moving at all. Adam and Josh interpreted this as the character realizing that weapons are beneath him, and disdainfully tossing it away from him, offhandedly saying "I don't need this shit..." As the weapon was dropped, Adam and Josh would frequently make the stereotypical sound of an object flipping through the air.
MURAMASA!
One of the obtainable weapons in Final Fight is a samurai sword. As with all items the character interacts with, its name is displayed in a corner of the screen. When picking up the samurai sword, "Muramasa" is displayed in all capitals with an exclamation mark. This is the only weapon that gets such treatment. Noticing this, Josh would call out with joy "MURAMASA!" any time the sword was picked up.
Joe & Mac
"Awuck!"
When any of the generic cavemen enemies get hit during the course of the game, they cry out in pain. To Adam and Josh, the scream sounded very much like "a-WUCK!" and they would mimic it any time they heard it. Whenever Joe & Mac is referenced, it is inevitable that one or both of them will exclaim "a-WUCK!"
"Damn!"
One of the bosses is a giant plant with tendrils. Whenever the boss takes damage, it utters a very gravelly cry of pain in a rather low tone of voice. To Adam and Josh, this sounded like the plant was saying "Damn!" whenever it got hit. As with "a-WUCK!", Adam and Josh would echo the sound any time the boss was hit.
The Cave Honeys
After defeating each boss, a cavewoman is rescued and kisses the player before running off screen. Adam and Josh referred to these women as "Cave Honeys". On the overworld map, checkpoints are represented by what appears to be a stone statue pointing upward. When a continue is used, the player emerges from said statue. Adam and Josh created a logical explanation for this phenomenon. After the Cave Honeys are rescued, the players impregnate them. The stone figures on the map, which always looked to Adam and Josh to have large stomachs, were actually the impregnated Cave Honeys, pointing upwards in victory (accompanied by a Kool-Aid Man-like "Oh yeah!"). Emerging from the statue represented the player being reincarnated via the pregnant Honey.
Kobo Deluxe
Kobo Deluxe is a freeware game that Adam obtained to play on his laptop while traveling. Josh was introduced to the game when Adam played it while visiting him.
Hobo Deluxe
When casually glancing at Adam's laptop from the couch, Josh saw Adam playing the game, but misread the title as Hobo Deluxe. The title stuck.
The Never Ending Cycle of Hobos
Josh created a mythos to explain his alternate title. Originally, men were recruited to pilot the spaceship. Due to the frequent destruction of the spaceship, more pilots would need to be recruited. These pilots were often men with families and when they died in battle, their families would be left without financial support, causing them to become homeless. Left with no choice, the sons would grow up and follow in their father's footsteps, leaving their own newly formed families homeless after their deaths.
"It's impossible!"
The game goes through cycles of levels with increasing difficulty before introducing a new feature and lowering the difficulty again. Toward the end of each cycle when the difficulty was at its highest, Adam was more likely to become frustrated and need multiple continues to progress. Once, after losing his last life, Adam exclaimed in half-mock frustration, "It's impossible!". On his next continue he immediately and easily beat the level. Ever since then, Adam would declare "It's impossible!" at the slightest hint of a challenge and more often than not, beat the level soon afterward.
The Last Blade
"Aaaaaaaaaah...!- Oh yeah..."
The second to last boss in The Last Blade for Neo Geo is a dual sword wielder named Musashi. His pre-fight action consists of him flexing very hard to gather his power. As he does this, he says what sounds like "Aaaaaaaaaah...!- Oh yeah...". Adam and Josh enjoy this because the "Oh yeah" portion sounds so anticlimactic (and so egotistical) in comparison with his dramatic buildup beforehand.
lastblad
For some reason, Adam and Josh enjoyed the fact that the full name of the game (Last Blade) didn't fit the eight character naming scheme that Mame roms maintained for maximum compatibility. Instead, the file was named "lastblad". After noticing this, Adam and Josh continually referred to the game as "Last Blad".
Level Wrapping
In most shooting games, when enemies are destroyed, they drop power ups for the player to collect and increase their firepower. In the game Armed Police Batrider for Neo Geo, if enough power ups are collected, the player "Level Ups". Due to the somewhat poor audio sampling, to Adam and Josh, this sounded as though the announcer was saying "Level Wrap!" instead. After first coming across this, Adam and Josh have since implemented the phrase when collecting any power ups in any shooting game. In an odd sort of way, level wrapping makes sense in that there is a carry over from one power level to the next, hence "wrapping".
The Little Mermaid
In the movie, the priest set to marry Prince Eric and Ursula (in disguise) says the prince's name with a slight phlegmy sound at the end, sounding like "Erichch". Adam and Josh exclusively refer to Eric this way.
In the game, there is a specific cut scene where Eric and Ariel are sitting in a boat. Eric's profile dramatically reminded Adam and Josh of Bob Saget, causing them exclaim as such in mock surprise. Since noticing this, any time Eric is mentioned or brought to mind, one of them inevitably yells "Bob Saget!?"
Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie
"Die-die-ay-nu"
Adam and Josh greatly enjoy the music from the game, particularly the track from stage seven. A certain portion of the track oddly reminds both of them of the phrase "dayenu" from the Jewish song "Dayenu", meaning "it would have sufficed". They have no idea why this is.
"He decided to die."
During the ending sequence, still shots are show with narration underneath. Something is most definitely lost in the translation, as a portion of the text reads as: "He decided to die. But I could find my way. Our peace will be back soon. Soon be back." Adam and Josh enjoy this mistranslation quite a bit, particularly the "He decided to die" portion, as it seems to imply that your victory wasn't a true victory as the villain decided he was done.
Mega Man
In Mega Man Soccer for the Super Nintendo, the player is allowed to create a custom team. In a fit of whimsy, Adam created a team of all Wood Mans. This resulted in a team of large, excessively slow players. Adam and Josh determined that Wood Man's bulk was what was slowing him down and made a gasping, wheezing noise each time any of the sprites took a step. Adding to the effect, Wood Man ran with only two frames of animation. Adam and Josh took great enjoyment from watching a screen full of puffing, wheezing Wood Mans.
M.C. Kids
The Music
Adam and Josh noticed that the music in the first level of the game had a somewhat overly bubbly, gargly feel to it and so they sang along with it mockingly, saying "gar" for each note. A sample is as follows:
(sound goes here)
Another of the levels had music that Adam and Josh greatly enjoyed. Taking a break to listen, Adam stood his character on a floating leaf that was moving in circles. At a certain point in the music, Adam stared ducking and changing directions on the leaf as if he were dancing to the music. Adam and Josh enjoyed this so much that they eventually went to that level exclusively for the dancing.
Title Dispute
Being a game affiliated with McDonalds, the official title is "M.C. Kids" (pronounced "Mic-Kids"). Adam and Josh, possibly being annoyed at the obvious commercial the game was, refused to call it by the actual name, instead referring to it by stating each letter separately - "Em Cee Kids".
Ogre Battle
"Excuse me, sir?"
When playing Ogre Battle, the player can select units to travel across the map. Sometimes these units are pursued by enemy units. When they move, the units appear as a stationary icon gliding across the map. One time while he was playing, Josh noted that the enemy units more often than not had a hard time catching up to his own. Josh laughed as he watched the enemy units pursue his own across the entire map. As he watched, Josh started speaking as if he were the pursuer who was just trying to get the attention of the other units. He began rapidly saying "Sir. Sir, excuse me. Excuse me, sir? Sir. Excuse me? Sir? Sir." ad nauseum. Adam and Josh enjoy the fact that the unit remains exceedingly and persistently polite while being utterly ignored.
Splinter Cell
The Whistler
In the game, various NPCs will whistle to themselves while making their rounds. On one particular occasion, Adam was tailing a guard, waiting for the opportune moment to shoot him with an incapacitating dart. Just as the guard finished his whistle, Adam shot the dart, narrowly missing the guard and hitting the wall with a very juicy sound. Not only were Adam and Josh highly amused at the timing of the sounds, they took delight in the guard's apparent inattentiveness as he took no notice of the dart whatsoever.
Memorable Quotes
Each of these quotes come from reactions by the NPCs to something that the player has done to catch their attention. Many of the characters have Eastern European accents, making the quotes stand out more to Adam and Josh.
"Oh crap."
Adam was having difficulty in an early stage of the game. He kept throwing soda cans down a flight of stairs to attract the attention of a number of guards. One of the guards responds with a wary "Oh crap." Due to his incompetence, Adam and Josh heard this phrase countless times.
"...Some kind of American commando..."
Similar to the quote above, Adam and Josh heard this phrase repeatedly over the course of a play session. As the player descends an elevator and enters a room, he hears cross traffic from enemy radios. They talk about the player, describing his as "some kind of American commando..." Adam and Josh enjoyed the awkward emphasis the voice actor put on the "man" in "commando".
"That's... not right at all...
The only phrase without an accent, this quote was heard numerous times due to the same reasons as above. Adam and Josh enjoyed the hesitation and suspicion in the NPC's voice, especially because the NPC doesn't follow up on his suspicions at all.
Swimming Powerups
Adam and Josh are fans of vertical shooting games a la Raiden or Giga Wing. In these games, it is standard for powerups to be dropped from defeated enemies. In many cases, these powerups float around the screen in a predictable pattern. In some games, however, the powerups seem to move erratically, making it harder to obtain them. This annoys Adam to no end, and he and Josh refer to this phenomenon as "swimming powerups".
Waku Waku 7
One of the characters in the game is a dark elf named Slash. One of his post-fight victory comments is "I just felt it was my duty to slash you." This comment amuses Adam and Josh because of its assumed earnest nature and awkward phrasing.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Eddie's Sociopathy
Occasionally, the player needs to fight enemies, which they accomplish primarily through punching. By tapping the punch button repeatedly, the player makes Eddie charge up power. This is manifested by Eddie hopping up and down with one arm curled. Adam and Josh quickly noticed that they were able to move side to side while charging, making it look like Eddie was dancing a jig.
While the purpose of punching is primarily for battle, Eddie is also able to punch regular people. Adam and Josh would maraud around punching whomever they felt like, employing the jigging for extra power. When people get punched hard enough, their heads bobble back and forth cartoonishly before. Adam and Josh got very practiced at triggering conversations with their victims at a point during which their head was backwards (speaking to the victim would freeze the animation). Furthermore, they took delight at the generic woman's post-punch response of "Go away you horrid man".
The High-hat Theme Guy
The general overworld theme of the game, as with many NES games, prominently features a high-hat sound. The use of this is so prominent that Adam and Josh took special notice of it, imagining a musician devoted solely to the accurate and persistent playing of his instrument. For more on this type of devotion, see "Effin' Vinnie Moore..." and The Knight Rider Theme Guy.
Wizards & Warriors
Ironsword is the sequel to Wizards & Warriors for the NES.
Kuros's Relaxed Fall
The first part of the first level features a mountain Kuros must climb. As such, there are many opportunities to fall. During one long, unintentional fall, Adam and Josh noticed that Kuros's body seemed to adjust from tension to acceptance as the fall progressed to the point of Kuros reclining as he fell. The combination of Kuros's reclined fall and the point in the music at which he descended proved to be highly comedic, and so Adam and Josh tried to replicate these conditions as much as possible.
Kuros Harassing the Shopkeeper
At various points in the game, Kuros can enter a shop where he can buy items. There is a shopkeeper next to the counter, his arms folded in patience. If Kuros gets close enough to the shopkeeper (and has money) a subscreen appears enabling purchases. However, if Kuros does not have money, the shopkeeper will carry Kuros out of the shop by the scruff of his neck. Adam and Josh took great delight in getting as close as they could to the shopkeeper without getting thrown out. They would jump around the room, sidle around, punch the air (indoors Kuros had no weapon), squat and punch the shopkeeper's crotch, etc. Eventually, they would become careless and get too close, causing the shopkeeper to throw them out.