It’s time once again for another speed run. This time we present to you Mortal Kombat 2 on a Sega featuring the wild antics of Shang Tsung. Check it out:

Sigh. It’s quite unfortunate, however, that like most speed runs, this speed run of Shang Tsung on Mortal Kombat 2 is tool assisted and played on an emulator. Ahh, but what the heck. It’s still fun watching a character beat up all his opponents from start to finish.

Next time, I’d like to see the player do it without the tool assist. :p

After suffering a humiliating defeat in the hands, er, paws of Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario is back on a Mugen game, this time versus the yellow chomping machine known as Pac-Man. From the title I just posted, it’s clear that Mario should just go back to cleaning pipes of goombas and turtles.

Look, ma, no hands! It’s strange seeing Pac-Man land blows on the diminutive Mario without flailing arms and legs. It must be his, er, its big mouth.

The debate about who deserves video gamedom’s crown—Mario or Sonic—is probably getting old, but actual fights between the two video game heavyweights deserve attention. Take this video featuring Mario and Sonic beating each other up in a classic Mugen game for example:

Oh, for those wondering what Mugen is, here’s a brief description:

Mugen is a freeware 2D fighting game engine designed by Elecbyte, written in C with the Allegro library. The engine was originally released in July 1999. Beta versions of it were made to work on DOS, Linux and Windows platforms, distributed through their website. The engine allows users to insert created characters, background stages, and other game objects through interpreted text files, graphics, and sound compilations to create a functioning fighting game similar to commercial games.

I guess you already know how I feel about Swashbuckler, a 1982 computer game for the Apple II created by Paul Stephenson and published by Datamost. Sorry, Paul, it’s just so … boring.

Oh, I used to enjoy playing it, back when I was, what, 10 years old. I thought I could rekindle the flame by watching a video of Swashbuckler, but no go, unlike other Apple II video games.

The problem: Swashbuckler grew old pretty quickly. Check out this entry in Wikipedia about the reception of the game (emphasis in bold face mine):

Computer Gaming World gave Swashbuckler a glowing review, only lamenting the rollover of the five-digit score at 250 (which was fixed prior to final publication), appended by an editor’s note that, although the graphics were superb and the concept somewhat unique, the players at CGW grew tired of the lack of variety after a few dozen kills.

Not convinced it’s a bad game? If you can sit down in front of the PC for the entire length of the video, Paul might give you a cookie.

Actually, these are not any of my signature moves. It’s actually a video showing a lot of combos and fatalities. I’m not really a big fan of Mortal Kombat since I find the idea of playing characters whose motions aren’t fluid, even by a long shot, dull. If not for the blood spewing out as the various characters punch and kick each other, I probably wouldn’t have paid Mortal Kombat any attention.

Well, here’s the video. Hope you get something out of it (if you still play Mortal Kombat, that is):

Actually, this has nothing to do with Saberwulf’s suffering at the hands of Orchid in the side-scrolling video game classic Killer Instinct. It also has nothing to do with Orchid flashing her bumpers at the end of a very long combo. It does, however, have everything to do with my reaction to the video below:

Although I laud KIG666’s effort at trashing his opponent with an 80-hit ultimate combo, I have to say that the way he executed the combo was rather, uhmm, dull. It’s repetitive, and nothing reeks mundane more than a repetition of moves. Unfortunately, the limitation on executable moves is the software’s fault, I’m sure.

To highlight my point, here’s a video of Killer Instinct’s Jago dealing the same amount of punishment with an 80-hit ultra combo. Yes, it’s still repetitive, but notice how the player changes tact at the end.

Now, if only I could do that. Haha.

Talk about inspiring. I’ve just finished my daily rounds of Internet video publishing websites and found this classic video on YouTube featuring the different boss fights of yesteryear. Contra! Mega Man! Castlevania! Legend of Zelda! Punch Out! Sigh. Let me just shut up and dish out the video:

Whew! Makes me wanna bring out the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo Family Computer again and play all the classics shown in the video … at least, until I reach the stage where the bosses are hiding. *wink, wink*

Well, it’s not exactly retro gaming, since Diablo III hasn’t even been launched yet. But its predecessors, Diablo, Diablo: Hellfire, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, are already classics in their own right.

For now, though, let me focus on Diablo and its expansion Hellfire. These two are probably two of the most played games on my old Pentium 200MMX. Yeah, not Pentium 4, not even 3 or 2, but just plain Pentium, and I owned two of them back in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Why Diablo? Well, for starters, it’s the only game, aside from Dungeon Keeper that is, the runs on the bucket of bolts. Fortunately, it was enough to keep me busy during boring nights without my stalkers bothering me on the telephone.

Anyway, I found out soon after installing it on the, yes, Pentium 200MMX that the game was short. So I got a copy of Hellfire and slapped it on Diablo. I don’t remember much from the time I spent, however long it may have been, playing Diablo: Hellfire except the fact that I loved wearing cow armor.

Cow armor? Yeah, it’s called the Bovine Plate and it was the best (at least for me) armor available back then. Consider the following stats: Armor Class 150, Indestructible, +50% Light Radius, Resist All +30%, and -5 Damage from Enemies. It’s only drawback is the reduction of spell level by 1. Sigh. Those were the days.

It was I who chopped down the cherry tree! It was I who went to the Birmingham Comics Convention and challenged a 60-year-old man to a FITE! Read more

There’s a party in my knuckles and everyone’s invited!

For more of the beatings you’re needing, check out Bahlactus!