The Game Scammer Days of Reckoning

Good used game sellers are an important part of gaming.  It’s thanks to places like Ebay, Gamestop, Half-Priced Books and smaller retail shops that we’re still able to buy games long out of production at generally reasonable prices.  Say what you want about Gamestop, because they deserve it, but there are several used games I couldn’t have gotten without them, one of which was a big contributor to my Namco vs. Midway series (sorry I haven’t gotten back to that, but I hit a snag with one of the games).  Without these decent sellers I would have never gotten games like Neogeo Battle Coliseum, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword or the King of Fighters Maximum Impact games.  These are the people that should be supported.

The evil twins of these sellers are the scammers.  Also commonly called scalpers, scammers do not care about selling games at a reasonable price.  They care solely about fleecing as much money as they can out of people who just want to play them.  These scammers attempt to force people to pay more than the original game’s initial retail price even though a used game is degraded and thus worth less than when it was new.  They treat games like they’re some kind of collectible rather than a mass-produced product that’s the same as any other copy of the game that was sold for 50 dollars at launch.

Namco vs. Midway: The King of Arcades 2: 1990 & 1991

We’re back from my Sengoku Basara detour and our contest picks up in 1990 and 1991.  Since I can’t get any Namco games from 1990, this is a judgement for a 2-year time span, where most of Midway’s games are from 1990 and Namco’s games are in 1991.  Once again, Namco’s failure to release arcade games in English has them going in with a very low ammo count.  Technically one of their games for this year, Tank Force, didn’t even initially come out in English at all, but since they would otherwise only have one game for entry, I need to throw them a bone.  Maybe it will be the game that comes in clutch.

Top 10 Stupidest Resident Evil Moments

Resident Evil has a reputation for being badly written and stupid, something I don't think it deserves.  The games have more strong emotional moments, badass moments and detailed lore than people give it credit for. Heroes, villains and the monsters in between them are well-established and have some good relationship building and continuity.  I can unironically say that a big part of why I like the Resident Evil games is for the story.

But I cannot pretend that Resident Evil doesn't have its bouts of stupidity, as if the concept of viruses being astoudingly mutagenic weren't outlandish enough.  Bad writing, bad delivery, bizarre concepts or awkward handling of situations are where its reputation comes from and regardless of whether it's exaggerated by the general public, it is still a part of what makes Resident Evil what it is.  As a sort of demonstration and celebration, this is my top 10 stupidest Resident Evil moments.

Top 10 Final Battles #6: Viewtiful Joe 2

Viewtiful Joe 2 is one of my favorite games of all time.  It is the only game I have ever given a perfect 10 out of 10.  It exceeds an already fantastic game in every way including in its amazing final battle.

Context:

With all the other happy ending-controlling Rainbow Oscars gathered and kept safe with Joe's dad Jet, and with the evil-spreading Black Film destroyed, the heroes Joe and Silvia need only one more Rainbow Oscar: the blue one Captain Blue was changed into before being taken by the big bad Black Emperor of Gedow.  That means smashing their way through Gedow's giant moon base full of robots and weirdness taken straight out of the Aliens franchise (as opposed to the first game's villain's Star Wars motif).

At the end of the very long, very difficult gauntlet, the emperor himself sits in wait, ready.

His plans are pretty much foiled by now, since the heroes have the Oscars and his Black Film is gone, but when Joe points this out, the Emperor pulls out his secret weapon.  Apparently it wasn't as gone as they thought.

"The Black Film is unbreakable!  It can never be destroyed completely!"