Li'l Mac

@ Defenestrator: The 'h' is silent.

@ everybody else: as glad as I am that Hudson's putting everything on VC (I don't want somebody else deciding what games are "classic" enough for me to play), it needs to be said that:

* Splatterhouse hasn't aged well. Now that the violence is no longer shocking, you see how thin the game really is.

* Double Dungeons might be the worst game ever made (apart from Deadly Towers and Hydlide for the NES). More boring than C-SPAN. It seems like every time a developer got the idea of using randomly generated levels (Double Dungeons, Fatal Labyrinth, etc), the game turned out to be awful.

Chew Man Fu turned out to be pretty fun, though.

Zippy-senses . . . tingling . . .

Viral marketers to the rescue!

Just a quick note to all of the people responding to posters like "Grunge."

Has it occurred to you that "Grunge" is probably an employee of the Zipatoni (sp?) marketing agency? Sony's already been outed about this; those ad guys weren't just running a fake PSP fansite; they were actually spamming message boards with links to the site. To me, that's proof positive that Sony's been monitoring (and covertly contributing to) the chatter on sites like this.

Also, I just question whether any Sony fanboy is truly ignorant enough to make the kinds of comments posted by "Grunge." (PS3s are sitting on shelves b/c Sony's been doing a better job meeting customer demand?) And the name "Grunge" suggests a 50-something executive struggling to "jive with the young people." (Next week, I'm guessing you'll be seeing anti-Nintendo posts by "Gangsta" and "Emo Rulz.")

It's worth thinking about. Right now, the perception of most Joystiq readers is that a hardcore contingency of Sony fans can be counted on to flame any article that discusses the sharp (and -- come on -- at this point, undeniable) decline of Sony's games division and of the Playstation brand.

But what if there really AREN'T any hardcore Sony fanboys posting comments? I don't personally know anyone who owns a PS3 or is even planning to buy one. ($600 just to play Resistance?) I do know plenty of people who, like myself, bought PS1s and PS2s (and were happy with those systems), but have now moved on to the 360 and the Wii.

I should never read the comments to these kinds of stories. I can't help myself. (Sigh.)

Video game players have to be the most racist, homophobic group of people in the world. I remember when someone politely suggested that there might be something dubious about those blackface-reminiscent characters from LocoRoco. I agreed that the visual similarity to blackface images was probably coincidental, and nothing to get too upset about. But the outraged, vicious response to that LocoRoco complaint was so far out of proportion, I came to think that maybe the readers of these blogs really are a bunch of hardcore racists. (Why else would a suggestion about something potentially offensive in LocoRoco send you off into a rage? What's at stake for you, suburban white guy, that you're so infuriated by someone else even bringing up the subject of racism? POLITE CONVERSATION about racism isn't supposed to send you into a fury, dude.)

And now the ignorant, exasperatingly stupid "It's just a joke" and "Political correctness sucks" responses to Joystiq readers' totally valid complaints about the offensive use of "round-eyes" (vs., what, "slant-eyes?" How is that not offensive?) in a blog that surely draws a lot of Asian readers around the world.

Please, somebody, answer this question:

Why are spoiled suburban white boys -- guys who've never been ostracized or ridiculed, who have no idea what it's like to be humiliated by racist/ethnic "jokes" and name-calling -- so FUCKING ANGRY all the time?

Honestly, why don't you people try looking at life from someone else's point of view once in a while? It won't kill you. (And for God's sake, quit mentioning Mind of Mencia, as if the fact that there's some "edgy" comedian on Comedy Central somehow closes off the possibility of any discussion of racism. ACE, are you four years old? The fact that the man in the TV set makes a racial joke = none of us can complain about racism?)

(Mind of Mencia isn't funny anyway. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, people. Aqua Teen Hunger Force.)

#4:

I notice that the Wii isn't purple. And neither is the DS. (Hmm...)

For the record: I always liked Nintendo's purple hardware; it signaled that they weren't pretending that their latest game system was "really a computer" or a "digital entertainment station" or whatever.

On the other hand, while I liked the purple gear, I also thought, even from the SNES days, that it was a dumb move from a marketing perspective. To win and hold a majority market share, a game company has to get teenage boys on its side. And since teenage boys (as proven by literally ANY message board on ANY topic on ANY gaming site in the world) tend to be insecure, homophobic, misogynistic, humorless, etc., etc., a purple system seems like a strange idea. (Yes, I know, the pink DS is selling well in Japan, but come on: you can't seriously disagree with what I'm saying. Look at the way Microsoft designed the first Xbox. It looks like a tennis shoe!)

And even if the Wii is a huge success (as I predict/hope it will be), that won't prove that calling it the Wii was a good idea (as Nintendo will claim).

It doesn't make sense that Nintendo would be doing so little, at this stage, to encourage third-party development for the Cube if it were working on a portable version. The "presumably" in that anonymous quote is what stands out to me; why would anyone "presume" that Nintendo was going to make a mini-Gamecube? It also seems to me, from much of what Nintendo has been saying lately -- and from the way it soft-peddled Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess GCN at E3 -- that the company's in a hurry to put the Gamecube "brand name" (and the Cube itself, w/its adorable handle, purple plastic frame, and hated "kiddie" rep) in the rearview mirror as soon as possible.

Ha -- I've never felt compelled to leave a Joystiq comment (although I love the site) . . . and this turned out to be the one topic I couldn't resist. (NES was, like, my whole childhood. Sad.)

Any list of the hardest GOOD games would have to include Ghosts and Goblins, Battletoads, and -- I agree -- Solstice. Then add a Ninja Gaiden (any of them will do) and Castlevania I or III. (Castlevania III frickin' broke my heart. That damn pirate ship!)

I'd give the #1 spot to Battletoads, because it got so hard so early on -- and yet there weren't too many "cheap deaths"; you were always aware that you'd screwed it up. And the game was inventive and surprising enough that you were desperate to see that next, unattainable level.

Deadly Towers, TMNT, Roger Rabbit: all insanely hard, I agree, but that was partly because the games weren't very well designed. (TMNT was glitchy and ugly. Roger Rabbit: just baffling. Deadly Towers: no comment.)

Faxanadu wasn't hard until the last dungeon -- when the game suddenly became impossible. Ditto Adventures of Link and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, where the difficulty ramped up insanely near the end. Milon's Secret Castle was frustrating and sort of crummy -- but it kept calling me back for another try.

No way does Goonies II belong on this list, though. (Does anyone remember the first Goonies game, b/t/w? It was only playable on Playchoice-10 arcade consoles.) Also: Kid Icarus? Mega Man? Dude, if I was able to beat those games, there's no way they were among the hardest.

Viva NES!