MECHABLOGZILLA

I had this great opening paragraph about how my childhood was probably better than your childhood when it came to cartoons and video games.

Seriously, I had the spread. I was name dropping Darkwing Duck and Super Dave and the NES and all kinds of crazy shit that turned me into the well adjusted handsome young gentleman you don't see before you. I was going to get weird with it and actually cite how and why your childhood sucked and how the late 80's and early 90's were the greatest era of all time. Then I was going to call you a bitch and steal your lunch money.

But I scrapped all of that. I took everything I wrote and, much like God wiped out the Earth with a little bit of rain, I deleted it with extreme prejudice. You know why? Because I like some of the new stuff out. Not all of it, or even a good amount of it, but some of it. I definitely like the new Ninja Turtles show on Nick. This mentioning of turtles will come full circle a paragraphs from now.

Plus, going back and watching some of the old stuff I used to think was so awesome is just plain depressing. I used to love the Mario cartoon and it's a goddamn embarrassment, except for how wicked cool Lou Albano and Danny Wells are. In fact, most of the cartoons that I say are light years ahead of the Sponge Bob crap that our kids get force fed now are just plain terrible and painful to watch. I have all these DVD box sets of classic cartoons which I can't even make myself watch because they're so corny and obnoxious.

Except for Jaleel White in the Sonic cartoon. That brother was way past cool.

It's all nostalgia. As long as you remember something in a good light you're fine. Hold on to your lies for as long as you can. Just don't go back and try to relive those glory days because you'll end up a broken, broken man.

It's not just cartoons either. Before, during, and after my glory days at GameStop I would preach about how awesome the NES was and how Nintendo had the greatest consoles of all time. I stand by that statement. Long before online connectivity, DLC, and your fancy schmancy third dimension graphics were commonplace, I was a wizard on the Nintendo Entertainment System. They even made a movie about me going to a huge tournament, where I used my Power Glove to play Mario Brothers 3.

I think that happened, anyway.

Looking back after decades of changes in the industry has definitely shattered the rose colored glasses. I still love the system I grew up on, but  I can openly admit not everything holds up well. I'm not talking graphics or sound or design, most Nintendo games were pretty solid in those respects. But ask anyone that grew up with the NES what they remember most about the system and they'll probably give you the same answer I will - the difficulty. Before From Software made you cry with its Souls series of games, the NES was bitch slapping children's self worth like no other ever could.

And that brings me to the game I want to talk about today - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's another circle completed.

If you've ever played a Ninja Turtles game you already know what to expect. Before the 2000's cartoon churned out awful turtle game after awful turtle game, the shell backs were known for catchy music, beat em up action, and multiplayer goodness.

Well, except for the very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES. Holy shit was that game the dark horse of the Ninja stable. Whoah, nice wordplay! *High five*

I won't bore you with the details that every other reviewer has gone over a thousand times in length. Let me just shorten it by saying the game was ungodly hard. There you go, that's the secret of the TMNT game. I just saved you hours of watching squeaky voiced gaming nerd videos to find out why the game is so infamous.

Yeah, the game was a bitch to play. I'm surprised I got as far as I did as a kid, which honestly wasn't very. You can breeze through the first act pretty quickly, especially if you save Donatello for the final boss. You'll quickly discover that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might have been one of the first games that used a tier list, as Donatello is the Cadillac of ninjas. Leonardo is some kind of hybrid that means well but isn't quite as cool. Raphael and Michelangelo might as well have been renamed Red Fodder and Orange Fodder because their short range weapons are almost completely useless. Raph didn't have any of the attitude he was well known for in the series, here he was just the guy you sent in to save the good turtles for the boss.

And, by the way, God forbid you do lose health and try to play through with that turtle. That noise the game makes when you're low on health may be the single most annoying sound that has ever been created, and I'm including Rosie Perez's voice and the alarm clock that goes every morning reminding me that real life is ready to fuck me in the ass again.

Kotaku is right on the money here.

But unless you suck completely at every aspect of life, or you were lucky like me, you won't hear the wails of a thousand dead angels until the second level. If you've ever researched this game at all you already know about the underwater level. It is probably one of the hardest things you will ever do in a video game, and let no one discourage you and say the difficulty was overrated. No, this level is damn near impossible. Forget Blight Town and Ninja Gaiden, this is what you want someone to play if you're trying to ween them off of gaming for good.

I can't remember how long it took me to beat this level, but it single handedly destroyed all desire to finish this game. When I did beat it there was no sense of accomplishment or the feeling that I had defeated my greatest rival. I was broken and depressed by the end of it and I just wanted my adventures with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to end. I made a level or two past this point, but the damage was so bad to my psyche that I gave up not long after and moved on to the admittedly superior Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.

I always regretted never finishing the Turtles game for the NES. It was a black eye on a pretty good gaming career. So I recently went back and, with all of the experience I've accrued since then, decided to face my demons one more time. This time...I would be ready.

And I still can't beat this fucking game. Fuck this game! Goddamn fucking Turtles!!! I'm selling all of my gaming gear to GameStop and I'm going to buy a Little Caesers pizza with the 7 bucks they give me for it.

THERE IS NO MEANING TO LIFE ANYMORE.

But let's end this on a positive note. For all the trouble this game has given me I still love it. I love the box art used a style similar to the original comics and even has the turtles all wearing red. I like the music, the graphics were solid, and there's just something about my very first Ninja Turtle game that will always hold a special place in my heart.

Also, here's a picture of porn star April O'Neil cosplaying as...April O'Neil. How clever!

If the Wii U is a joke, I don't see the punchline.

I've been a long time defender of the Nintendo Wii U, and the Nintendo brand as a whole, and I stick to my guns that they're the most innovative and enjoyable systems on the market. From the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Wii U I've enjoyed my time with that beloved plumber and his hardware more than any other machine or mascot.

That's right, read it again.

But even I, the most humblest of internet personalities, have to concede that the Wii U has not lit the world on fire like I had hoped. Numbers don't lie, and the XBox One and PS4 have outsold the Wii U to the extent that a lot of people are worried that the latest Nintendo offering is already on life support.

VGChartz lists the Wii U selling a reasonable 220,732 systems globally the week of Dec. 28th, while the PS4 and Xbone sold 465,686 and 290,762 respectively the same week. If my memory is correct, and God knows it usually isn't, the Xbone and PS4 have already outsold the Wii U, at least in North America, in a few weeks compared to the entire Wii U's life span.

That's just not good news, folks. Unlike the general public, I hold out hope tha
t Nintendo can turn it around though, much like they did with the 3DS and Sony did with the PS3. Both systems got off to a very rough start and both systems, the 3DS especially, has enjoyed great success in the years since their release.

The biggest hurdle Nintendo is facing is the lack of a general direction or personality for their hardware. The big N has always been an innovator, and during the golden era of gaming you knew that the NES and SuperNES was head and shoulders above anything the competition was trying to sell you. Nintendo dominated the charts throughout the eighties and early nineties, but really started to lose its steam when the n64 went toe to toe with the Sony Playstation. That would be the last great battle they would know, as the Gamecube was greatly overshadowed by the PS2 and original XBox. Once the Wii came out Nintendo was already in an uphill battle to stay relevant outside of its handheld division, and though the Wii was a knockout in terms of sales, it greatly hurt their reputation with the so called "real gamers." Though designating someone as a "real gamer" or "casual gamer" is an ignorant argument, it can't be denied that gamers believed the hype and a lot of them turned on the one time titan of gaming.

The Wii U aimed to cater at that hardcore demographic by upping the graphics and third party support while keeping the innovation, but perhaps it was too little too late. It is a cool machine and one that I play quite often, but you can't say that it outsells or gets more attention than Sony and Microsoft's new gear.

And that's where Nintendo screwed up. The Wii U came out a console generation too late. It is superior to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in almost every conceivable way, but it came out in the final years of those systems life spans and just a year before the One and 4 took the game world by storm.

In my opinion, the innovation and sheer enjoyment of the Wii U's library outshines the upgraded ports and lackluster titles the Microsoft and Sony consoles have offered us so far. And that's without even diving into the Wii U's backlog of virtual console titles. It combines nostalgia, innovation, and power in a way that no other system does.

But no one cares, because the XBox One and PS4 are newer, shinier, and strikes a better cord with those so called "real gamers." You know, the ones who call you a faggot online and refer to you as some kind of nigger no matter what color you are.

But imagine if the Wii U had come out at the same time, or perhaps a bit before or after, the Xbox 360 and PS3. In fact, what if we rewrote history a little bit. Let's put the Nintendo family in this order - NES, SNES, n64, Wii, and Wii U.

"But Shannon! The Gamecube was awesome, why take it away? It had Melee!"

Settle down, Porkchop.

The Gamecube was a good system, but aside from a handful of games I really enjoyed I can barely remember its library. Meanwhile the Wii was filled with so much shovelware that it became a permanent black eye on Nintendo despite its success, and compared to the PS3 and 360 the system was woefully under powered and outclassed. Those Gamecube games I did enjoy would have felt right at home on the Wii as the two systems felt so graphically similar, and with the added first rate games from the GC maybe the Wii would have developed a much better reputation. Imagine how embraced and beloved the Wii would have been, back when its innovation wouldn't have been so hampered by its subpar graphics.

The original Wii's graphics would have held its own against the PS2 and Xbox, and it would set the Wii U up as a contender against the next generation systems and their fancy HD graphics and online capabilities.

I also would have changed the name of the Wii U to, I don't know, ANYTHING THE FUCK ELSE. Never have I seen more confusion over a new systems purpose, and that's counting the sudden influx of people referring to the original Xbox as the Xbox One. Nintendo should have just stuck with the horrible "Project Cafe" name. It may sound ridiculous, but at least people would know it was something new and not just an add on or companion piece.

And maybe, just maybe, if the Wii had directly competed with the PS2 and Xbox, and the Wii against the PS4 and 360, that lacking third party support would have resulted in a more even playing field between the three companies.

The Wii was like a beautiful assassin. She blinded Nintendo with her assets while getting a blade behind their back to stab them. For all of its profit it may have sent its parent company into a slow death that is being held off more or less by the success of the 3DS.

But, if it had just come out one generation earlier, I might have been able to boast about my blatant Nintendo bias without the little bastards at my store laughing to my face.

Fucking Nintendo.........I love you.

*hugs Mario doll tightly*

And, as a side note, the sites not dead yet, bitches.

In a few weeks, definitely.