Where we’re going, we won’t need…eyes.

You might be expecting me to be talking about a horror game today, with a title like that, but nope. Bit of a story behind what brought this word to mind:

So, my wife and I went to see the fireworks downtown last week. Our city is situated on a lake, so we went down to the lower harbor and found a spot to sit right by the water while we waited for it to get dark. At one point, I took them off to rub my eyes or something, and they just slipped out of my fingers, skidded across the concrete embankment, and disappeared 20+ feet underwater. I’ve been using a pair of cheaters since then (though a holiday weekend and several hundred dollars later, I do have a new pair of actual glasses ordered), but walking around with them on feels like I’m inside a fishbowl. That means, when I’m at home or work and I need to move around, I’ve relied a lot on remembering where stuff is. And in a roundabout way, that brings us to today’s word.

homing, adj. – finding one’s way to a target or location through memory or technology

Learned from: Raiden (arcade, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbographx-16, PC, Atari Lynx, mobile)

Developed by Seibu Kaihatsu

Published by Tecmo (1990)

Raiden, to me, is the quintessential vertical-scrolling shmup. Other games are flashier, or have deeper mechanics, or fill the screen with more bullets, but there’s something about Raiden that keeps me coming back even after all these years. The sprite work is solid, the levels all look distinct, and there’s just something to the overall gameplay that simply feels right.

I don’t even remember if there’s much of a story, but sometimes all you need is to hop into the cockpit of a red or blue jet, decide if you want lasers or a spread of bullets, dumb-fire missiles or homing ones, and mow down wave after wave of enemy tanks and planes. Raiden is an emblematic arcade experience: difficult but fun, simple but addictive; it’s one of my favorite arcade games of all time, and one of these days I’ll beat it on a single quarter.

I don’t even need my glasses to see this is a *Crystal Castles* arcade cabinet with the *Raiden* logo slapped on the side. Bizarre.

And let loose the dogs of war

When people think of cyberpunk movies, the first one that probably comes to mind is Blade Runner–and for good reason. It’s an amazing film, and a shining example of the genre. It’s also not at all what reminded me of today’s word; that would be the mostly-forgotten cyberpunk flick, Split Second, starring Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall. My wife and I watched it recently, because I told her it’s like a really good Shadowrun adventure, just from the side of law enforcement–a statement I still stand by. It’s got the grimy underbelly of a large city, shady characters, and a serial murder case full of occult underpinnings and strange goings-on. Anyway, this brings us to today’s word. I promise.

havoc, noun – mass destruction, chaos, and confusion

Learned from: Major Havoc (arcade)

Developed by Atari, Inc.

Published by Atari, Inc. (1984)

So, in Split Second, there’s a guard dog that features in a couple scenes. He’s a big old boy (a Rottweiler, I think), who the credits say was played by a pooch with the real-life name of Havoc. My wife and I agree that’s a great name for a dog–and that it might be an even better name for a little dog, for the comedic factor.

Major Havoc, the game, is also kinda cyberpunk in its presentation: lots of bright, almost neon polygonal vector graphics, like what people in the ’80s thought the Internet would look like. I think the title is actually the main character’s military rank, and it pits him in a quest to fight his way to various space stations, board them, make his way through their maze-like interiors, and set their reactors to self-destruct, ideally escaping before everything blew up. It was an interesting juxtaposition of shmup, physics-based landing simulator (a la Lunar Lander), and platformer. So you may be asking yourself, “Why have I never heard of it?” or “Why didn’t it ever get ported to home consoles?” Well, dear reader, that would be because of the game’s ludicrous controls.

Most arcade games control movement with a joystick: a nice, simple, intuitive interface. Less common was the trackball, sort of a stationary mouse that you spun in place in the direction you wanted your character to go–a little awkward, but with the added benefit of controlling speed. A handful of arcade cabinets even had simple buttons for left/right, or acceleration. For Major Havoc, Atari looked at all of those and said, “Nah, all that crap’s for squares. Check this out!” and invented the absolute worst control scheme I’ve ever seen, making you move by spinning a cylinder, while assigning a button to make your character (in the bases) awkwardly jump. Like, it sounds simple enough, but I remember it being sluggish and unresponsive in practice.

But hey, this was the wild west of game development; nobody really knew what would work until they tried it. Major Havoc isn’t a good game, but it’s one the left a mark on me all the same. Perhaps for all the wrong reasons.

And you thought the N64 controller was weird.

The loss of a legend

I’m only going to be paying lip service to the game in question, today, because the real focus is something much more important. Even with us being down to about 60% staff at work, and all the extra hours and stress that’ve resulted, the news that broke last night was something I couldn’t let pass without comment. Kentaro Miura, the author and artist of Berserk, one of the best dark fantasy series ever written, died earlier this month. As far as I can tell, the news was only made public yesterday (or, today technically, since Japan’s in a different time zone). This post won’t be a tribute to the man, directly (since I didn’t learn any words from the Berserk game on the Dreamcast), but it’s the only way I could think of to talk about him while still being relevant to the purpose of this blog.

berserk, adj. – frenzied, uncontrollable

Learned from: Berzerk (Atari 2600, Arcade, Atari 5200, Vectrex)

Developed by Stern Electronics

Published by Stern Electronics, Atari, Vectrex (1980)

Berzerk with a Z was very much a “survive as long as you can and get the high score” style of game. There was no end, or any real story as far as I know–just room after randomly-generated room of killer robots that you had to shoot.

Berserk with an S has nothing in common with the above…except, I guess now it also has no end…. I avoided this manga for the longest time, because what little I’d seen of the first anime adaptation suggested that it was about a band of mercenaries fighting in various wars: a magic-less, fairly realistic medieval fantasy series (except for the one monster that was an inexplicably unkillable minotaur). I generally prefer my fantasy with more inhuman creatures, magic, and stories about more than just dudes in armor. And the fact that the Dreamcast game I mentioned centered around plant monsters just muddied the waters, because the anime had nothing like that, and a friend at the time said it was an unrelated side story. My first impressions were that Berserk was a series with no real identity, as a result.

I discovered years later that I’d done both the series and its author a tremendous disservice. There is a lot of human drama in Berserk, and in the pages of the manga, it’s poignantly heartfelt and sincere. To the point where I cried at certain spots. And I couldn’t have been more wrong in my assumptions about the magic and the monsters; some of these demons look like if Lovecraft and Bosch had a baby.

I…realize I’m on the verge of rambling, but the emotions are still too raw right now to do much else. Berserk is a manga that’s been in the works for decades, and the story Miura wanted to tell will now forever remain unfinished. He was only 54 years old, and his death truly is a loss for the world. Even if you’ve never heard of Berserk before today, I can guarantee you’ve felt its influence: The oppressive, hostile worlds of the Dark Souls series. Cloud’s gigantic sword in Final Fantasy VII. The whole “one hero against hordes of enemies” idea that’s at the core of Dynasty Warriors. Hell, Sam Sykes’ fantasy novels are practically just reskins of Berserk when you get down to it (they’re still good, though). And on, and on. Miura created something special with Berserk, and his legacy will continue long into the future. The next time you see a character wielding a sword so absurdly large that it’s more “like a hunk of iron,” or a band of mercenaries who keep running up against impossible odds, or a fantasy world where life is cheap, but true friendship is the most precious thing there is…remember Berserk. And if you haven’t read it yet, I cannot recommend it highly enough. So long as you’re not squeamish, that is. Nothing is really off-limits in this series, but it’s all part of the journey. And, as with all the best journeys, this one will have to be more about the path, than the ultimate destination.

I know this is the image a lot of people are using, but it honestly works so well…

Happy Bunny Day

Well, it’s Easter, and while I haven’t really done anything to celebrate the holiday since I was ten years old or so, and my job is closed on Sundays already, at least there’s good candy. Seriously, after Halloween, I think Easter has the best holiday candy. (Though, if they worked maple candies into Arbor Day celebrations, I might be tempted to change that ranking.) But the first thing that pops into most people’s minds when you say “Easter” isn’t candy, it’s probably the Easter Bunny. Which brings us to today’s word.

lapin, noun – a castrated male rabbit

Learned from: BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (Playstation 3, Arcade, XBox 360)

Developed by Arc System Works

Published by Aksys Games (2010)

If it sounds like the word of the day took a dark turn, imagine how I felt when I looked it up–especially since it’s a nickname for a female character in the game! Rachel Alucard is a gothic lolita vampire, of the “looks like she’s twelve, but is actually 200” variety. She has some history with another quasi-ageless character named Hakumen: a tall, imposing figure who may or may not be a living suit of armor. (BlazBlue’s weird.)

Anyway, Hakumen sees himself as being above most people, so he rarely refers to anyone by their actual name, assigning most folks a nickname instead (a la “Grimalkin,” which I believe I featured awhile back). He isn’t the only one who calls Rachel some sort of rabbit name, on account of the bow she wears in her hair that resembles bunny ears, but man is his choice the most scathing! I mean, Hakumen is kind of a jerk to everybody, but the more you think about his particular choice of nicknames for Rachel, the more insulting it seems: Castration tends to stunt a person’s growth (Rachel is quite short), prevent the development of sexual characteristics (Rachel is flat as a board), make the person more docile (Rachel speaks quite softly–though she’s entirely capable of dishing out violence), etc. and so on.

Bit of an extra lesson today. You’re welcome. 🙂

I was so focused on the hair bows, that I didn’t even mention her fat imp and living cat umbrella…did I mention BlazBlue was weird?

What’s in a name?

If you’re like me, the current state of things has you pretty frustrated. I considered a bunch of words that would reflect different aspects of the aggravation I’m feeling about how poorly people (in my country at least) are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, when I realized I could sum it all up in one. It’s not so much the word itself, but rather the game it’s from.

halitosis, noun – bad breath

Learned from: Aaargh! (Apple IIGS, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Arcade, Commodore 64, PC, ZX Spectrum)

Developed by Binary Design, Sculpted Software

Published by Arcadia Systems, Melbourne House (1988)

Aaargh! is an early attempt at portraying giant monster battles in a game. But in the absence of licensed properties like Godzilla, Ultraman, or King Kong, the developers had to make do with a generic giant lizard, and an “ogre” (which, for some reason, they actually drew as a cyclops). The two monsters were basically sprite swaps, since they each had the same moves, though the ogre certainly got the short end of the stick, thematically. Instead of the lizard’s actual fire breath, he was described as having “halitosis, which is so bad it sets things on fire.” And yes, I dug up the manual to find the exact wording, after twenty-odd years. I’m dedicated. 😉

The game itself was technically less about beating up the other monster, and more about finding the eggs of a giant bird, hidden in a primitive village before your opponent did. (The actual type of bird is another word I learned from this game, but that’s a post for another time.) It was…okay for what it was trying to do, but there are reasons it was overshadowed by Rampage, which came out a few years earlier and offered more robust gameplay. Plus, there’s that title…

aaargh

Aaargh! indeed.

Perhaps the most important post I’ll make.

I originally started this project, because I was tired of video games being blamed for social ills, and I wanted to show that if anything, they can enrich people’s lives, not degrade them. This past weekend, there were not one, but two mass shootings, within a span of 24 hours. Once again, we’ve got politicians (specifically, Republican, Kevin McCarthy) blaming video games, instead of the obvious problem that it’s easier to get a gun than a driver’s license. Or a passport. Or a liquor license for a restaurant. Or…you get the point. But it’s easier to blame video games–and do nothing about the problem–than it is to pull away from the teat of gun lobby donations and actually try to fix things. Which brings us to today’s word.

guile, noun – manipulative cunning, deceit, duplicity

Learned from: Street Fighter II (Arcade, and pretty much every console released since the ’90s)

Developed by Capcom

Published by Capcom (1991)

Looking back, I have to wonder if it was an intentional move on Capcom’s part, to name one of the American characters in Street Fighter II after a term that essentially means “untrustworthy”. Guile is an Air Force major, best known for his sonic boom ranged attack. He’s a character I never gravitated toward, but he’s got his fans.

…and I’m finding it hard to stay on-topic with game-Guile, as opposed to why I chose the word guile this time around. I try not to be overly political on here, but I can’t ignore this subject–it’s the reason this blog exists, after all. Numerous studies have been conducted on whether video games lead to real-life violence, and the results keep coming back the same: they don’t.

But those studies appeal to logic, which the politicians and public figures who keep pushing for making video games a scapegoat don’t care about. They care about emotional appeals, because when objective reality fails you, what else do you have? I mean, who cares if all the evidence shows that violent themes in games are about as “dangerous” as violent themes in movies, or rock music, or D&D, or “provocative” literature–little Billy turned to a life of crime, because he played Grand Theft Auto! So, fine. Let’s go with a personal anecdote, designed to pluck at the heartstrings, and lull to sleep the mind’s critical thinking faculties. I’m good at games; I can play this one, too.

I’ve been gaming since I was about five years old, when I got a hand-me-down Intellivision from one of my cousins. Primitive though it is by today’s standards, there were still plenty of games that included depictions of violence: from killing other humanoid-looking programs with frisbees in Tron: Deadly Discs, to fighting monsters in Tower of Doom, to punching out other human players in Boxing, I was exposed to virtual violence young. And it never really stopped. From the bare-knuckle brawls of Street Fighter II, to the spine-ripping finishing moves of Mortal Kombat; from blowing away demons with a shotgun in the original Doom, to feeding them their own hearts in the 2016 remake; from 20-player kill streaks online in Unreal Tournament 2004, to endless nights murdering people to protect checkpoints in Overwatch, I have bathed in enough virtual blood to fill an ocean, and taken enough virtual lives (both AI and from human players) to build a mountain range. By the “reasoning” of people like Kevin McCarthy, after decades of constant exposure to this, I should be one of history’s greatest monsters.

I have never even thrown a punch at someone.

I was bullied throughout most of my school-age years, because I was the quiet, pale, skinny kid with terrible social anxiety, who preferred to be left alone with books. I don’t want to get into the details of my home life at that time, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t a walk in the park either, and contributed strongly to my anxiety and awkwardness at school. Looking back through the lens of recent history, I’d be considered a prime candidate to shoot up my school.

And after Columbine happened, that’s exactly how people started to treat me. Here I was, the spitting image of one of the pale, skinny, loner kids who liked violent video games, and killed a bunch of their classmates. Almost overnight, the bullying stopped. People who noticed me in the hall tended to move out of the way. I’m pretty sure even some of the teachers were looking at me differently. You might think this would’ve come as something of a relief, but it didn’t. In some ways, it was worse than what came before, because I was no longer being called names out in the open–instead, people were thinking much worse things about me, and my imagination was left to fill the void of everything they weren’t saying.

So, I just kept on going more or less as I normally did, but even less sure of how to go about interacting with the people around me. Being a source of fear for everyone around you is only empowering to a sociopath; when it happened to me, it stung in a way I didn’t know was possible.

The fact that nothing has changed, either in legislation or in the common narrative in the twenty years–TWENTY YEARS–that followed stings even worse. My virtual body counts have risen to countless numbers, across hundreds of games, and I’ve still never physically harmed a soul. As these mass shootings keep happening (and keep happening, and keep happening…) at schools, movie theaters, festivals, night clubs, and on, and on, I’ve found my sense of shock and horror is steadily turning to frustration and incredulity. Because for more than half my life, something I love has repeatedly been named as a scapegoat, because those in power are too cowardly, lazy, and complacent to confront the actual problem, and people keep dying because nothing is being done. The common thread in all these killings isn’t video games, any more than previous atrocities were the result of violent movies, or D&D, or any other convenient counterculture pariah du jour. The common thread is unstable people having easy access to guns–often with modifications that serve no defensible purpose aside from the intent to commit mass murder. It’s not rocket science, you unconscionable, Congressional fuckwits.

guile-sfiv

This is Guile. Guile is a major in the Air Force who fights terrorists with his bare fists, and has theme music that goes with everything. Guile doesn’t actually exist, but he still manages to somehow be a better American and human being than the useless, craven shitbag “representatives” we have in Congress, who refuse to actually do anything to keep their citizens safe. Be like Guile. Stand up for what’s right, in whatever way you can. Even if it’s just through an exasperated post on a blog with double-digit followers.

Writing buddy

As I type this, my cat is curled up on the back of the couch near my head, snoring. This entry goes out to her.

grimalkin, noun – A domestic cat–particularly, an old female cat.

Learned from: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (Playstation 3, Arcade, XBox 360)

Developed by Arc System Works

Published by Aksys Games (2008)

For fighting games, the BlazBlue series has always had a rather fleshed out story mode. Granted, after a couple entries, it stops making much sense, but it certainly is deep. A lot of the characters have extensive backstories that color their interactions with one another. Ragna and Jin are extreme examples of feuding siblings, Litchi and Arakune were lovers back when Arakune was still human (at least, in Litchi’s eyes), and the once-great hero, Hakumen (who’s now a living suit of armor), hates the mad scientist, Kokonoe. Kokonoe also happens to be a catgirl (because, Japan), which has earned her the derisive nickname of “Grimalkin” from Hakumen. He doesn’t seem to hate any of the other cat-people in the game though, so at least he’s not a racist.

kokonoe

I should point out that Kokonoe has a split tail, technically making her a nekomata: a Japanese mythological creature that’s essentially a house cat that’s lived for a very long time. So, maybe she’s older than she looks.

Even a cold can be good for something

As the title suggests, I’m sick right now. Have been, for about half a week or so, with a very irritating head cold. It started with my throat hurting, and my voice dropping an octave, then only coming out as a croaky whisper, like a mummy that just woke up after a millennium-long nap in the desert sun. It’s since migrated (somewhat) from my throat to my nose, and if you compressed all the tissues I’ve used back into solid wood, you could probably build, if not a house, then at least a garden shed. All of which brings us to today’s word.

phlegm, noun – The buildup of thick mucous in the respiratory passages.

Learned from: Xenophobe (Atari 7800, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Lynx, NES, ZX Spectrum)

Developed by Bally Midway

Published by Bally Midway (1987)

Xenophobe was, at its heart, a ripoff of Aliens. It’s a side-scrolling action game, where you have to travel from space station to space station, clearing each one of an alien infestation before the self-destruct sequence counts down. All in all, it’s a decently fun game, with a good variety of weapons and monsters–from little ones that just crawl along, to ones that roll into balls, to the big ones that spit phlegm at you from a distance.

I know it was phlegm and not acid, because the instruction manual (remember those?) said so. As a kid of about seven or eight, I of course knew the term “snot,” but I knew “mucous” as well; phlegm was new to me, though. So much so, that I thought this weird amalgamation of letters was a typo (which weren’t really uncommon in manuals at the time). So, I asked my father–pronouncing the word wrong, I’m sure–and boom, I had a new entry in my burgeoning vocabulary. As well as a hilarious mental image of a hulking alien beast killing your character by covering them in snot. (Hilarious to seven-year-old me, at least.)

Fun fact: Xenophobe also taught me a bit of the Greek alphabet, as each station was Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. I won’t be including those as entries here, since they’re just letters, not full-fledged words, but I think it’s neat that this simple run & gun shooter taught me so many varied things.

xenophobe

Hideous alien hellbeasts–you know, for kids!

Lexical ambiguity

I used to live in an apartment building with a lot of old people. In fact, I think my wife and I were the youngest people there, being in our early thirties. Given that–and the fact that the other residents apparently had nothing better to do with their retirement–we became quite the regular topic of conversation. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad, if not for the fact that anywhere from two to five of them would be sitting outside, in front of the main entrance at any given time. And gods forbid, if you tried to just go home from a long day at work, without first engaging them in a 20-minute conversation. Carrying groceries? They were 100% sure there wasn’t anything perishable, and that we were young and strong enough to just stand there, holding them, while they yammered at us. Moving furniture? Oh, where’d you buy that from? What, could I hold the door for you? That’s crazy talk.

We took to calling these people “The Gauntlet.” We’ve since moved out, but one of them still shows up at the place where I work from time to time, and still tries to pry into my personal life. Which brought today’s word to mind.

gauntlet, noun – A long, grueling ordeal.

Learned from: Gauntlet (Arcade, and ports to virtually anything that can display graphics)

Developed by Atari Games

Published by Atari Games, U.S. Gold (1985)

When I first discovered Gauntlet, I wondered why this game about going through mazes, killing hordes of ghosts and demons was named after a glove. Was it a magical gauntlet? Was it a treasure you were trying to recover? Why has it never shown up, in all the hours (and quarters) I spent playing this game?

So, eventually I looked it up, and was introduced to my first example of lexical ambiguity–inferring the wrong definition of a word, when there are several to choose from–even though I wouldn’t know the term for it until decades later. And suddenly, the game made a lot more sense, because it really was a long, challenging experience. It was also one of the first multiplayer games I remember playing, though since you could hurt each other, keep the screen from scrolling, and accidentally (“accidentally”) destroy useful items, having friends along often didn’t make the challenge any easier.

Still, it’s a true classic, and a series that’s kinda still alive, today, in name and in spirit. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Writer needs food.

gauntlet

If you look closely, you can see several friendships ending, as the Warrior is chucking an ax at the Elf, while the Wizard is going to destroy that potion, because he missed the ghost. A picture really is worth a thousand words.