Metroid Lightspeed is a top down shmup where you control Samus' ship in the time between the events of Metroid II and Super Metroid. It features many of the classic weapons at the ship level, like the (now stackable) ice and wave beams. Weapons that don't appear until Super Metroid take the form of "cannons", which allow you to use the Spazer, Charge, and Plasma upgrades with Wave and Ice. The Varia shield reduces your ship's hitbox by half, and the Gravity engine allows faster movement through space.

Every time I hear "Rated M for Mature" on TV, I think to myself what a misnomer that is. Games that exhibit the symptoms of "mature" gameplay are often anything but. I cannot think that seeing blood spurt out of a demon's recently exposed neck-stump constitutes any concept "developed and worked out fully in one's mind". Likewise, beating hookers mercilessly hardly represents actions "fully considered and developed".

I installed Sibelius on my laptop to make sure it would work fine for my wife Susan. As soon as I confirmed it worked, I uninstalled it. However, it left traces of its presence like an unwelcome ex-lover.

Before the title dismisses me as a Coors Light swilling FPS addict, let me make two things perfectly clear: First, I drink Miller. It's a more refined version of swill, and has a much more appealing label (just LOOK at that blue). Second, I cut my gaming teeth on games like the first Final Fantasy, logged more than 140 hours on Xenogears, and unlocked every Chrono Trigger ending. I've played them all, from Suikoden to Vandal Hearts to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

Videogame stories, until recently, were an afterthought. No one bothered postulating why Pac-man was eating dots and fleeing phantasms. It was simply assumed that someone came along periodically to empty the arcade cabinet's coinbox, and that money went to pay the people who made it - that was the entire impetus for the game's internal progress. Story wasn't an issue when the game only asked for a few minutes of your life. Arcade cabinets were a vending machine. Coins in, refreshment out.

This essay was submitted for my Rhetorical Analysis class. It was returned with a message that it exceeded expectations and earned an A. I was also invited to take a look at Iowa State University's graduate program in Rhetoric - I was flattered, because I think there's a lot of room for improvement in this paper.

I went to the rental place to look for Beyond Good and Evil, which sadly was nowhere to be found. Of all the "last gen" games they had, I picked up Prince of Persia: Two Thrones, and this, since they were running a 2 game special. Having walked out of the store with them, I realized that I really didn't feel like sitting down to a hardcore JRPG grind session. I put it in the PS2 and said aloud to no one in particular that if there was even a hint of terrible voice acting, I would stop immediately. I was looking for an excuse not to play it.