Wall of Shame: Unfinished Games

I like to think that I'm fairly good at a number of varying video game genres, or generally speaking, I like to think that I'm generally good at video games.  I've been playing them for about 25 years pretty consistently.  The point being, that in most cases, I'm able to start and finish a video game.  However, there always seems to be a handful of games that I'm unable to finish for any particular reason.  Despite being able to go through the game, learning the necessary moves and techniques in order to reach the final stage/boss/encounter, I cannot, for the life of me, seem to finish the game.  This has happened on more than one occasion which has lead me to create a list.  This list, albeit an incomplete one, we will now refer to, as my WALL OF SHAME!

Diddy Kong Racing  (N64)
Now I know a lot of people reading this are most likely scoffing at both the game itself, as well as the fact that I can't beat it.  I will also surmise that everyone who is scoffing, has never played Diddy Kong Racing.  Yes it is a "kids" game in the same vain as Mario Kart, but I assure you, the game itself is pretty difficult.  In DKR, you not only have to get 1st place in each race in order to advance, but then do the same courses in reverse and collect hidden coins in the level (which are usually off the main path) and still get first.  I did all this.  The Kid can attest to this.  I cannot however, pass the final stage/boss, WizPig.

In the final stage, you have to race a giant WizPig who is running/flying along the course and can easily stomp on you, which will flatten your car, ensuring that you will not beat WizPig.  You also have to hit every single boost/zippers and not land in any of the water on the course or you will fail.  This person actually makes it look easy:

God of War: Chains of Olympus  (PSP)
Now I'm not going to give away who the final boss of this game is, as finding out is part of the storyline and I thought, "Huh, I'd never thought of that.  That's pretty cool," so I'd rather not ruin it for someone who's never played the game before and is looking to; yes, even for a game that's four years old.

The game itself isn't overly difficult having played through on the "normal" difficulty level.  There were some areas and bosses that took a couple of run throughs in order to figure out the right/best way to complete something.  Then comes the final boss.  Like in Disney's Mulan, you use tactics and tricks from previously in the story to overthrow the villain.  However, that did not seem to be the case with me.

After numerous battles, I broke and looked up on Gamefaqs how to defeat the final boss.  Apparently, you need to use the Gauntlets of Zeus.  Funny, I sparsely used them in the game, instead favoring the traditional Blades of Chaos.  I got that I needed to use the Sun Shield, but not using the Blades of Chaos seemed, a bit odd.  So then I went back, and still failed to defeat the boss.  I've tried on even more attempts and have been unable to finish the game.  I've been tempted to play the game on "Easy" just so I can see how the game ends, but the thought of going through the entire game again was a bit daunting.  Maybe that says something against the replay value.

Two games that I'm going to give special mention to are Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! for the boxer Soda Popinski, whom I cannot beat on a regular basis although I can consistently get to him.  Yes, I know the trick about blocking when he goes to upper cut, which confuses him, then you punch him in the stomach to get a star; then you do the same thing, but then super punch him and it knocks him out.  Yes, I know about that.  I just apparently suck at executing that maneuver.  And don't get me started on fighting Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream (obviously using the code to get to him/them/it).  The second goes to Kefka from Dissidia: Final Fantasy, specifically when doing Terra's storyline.  I don't know what it is about fighting Kefka with Terra (both are heavy magic users compared to say, the Light Warrior from Final Fantasy I, who is based more around physical attacks).

So there.  Now along with a slough of NES games, I feel like I've given plenty of fodder for people/villains/arch-enemies who want to challenge me to some sort of saving the world video game play off.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
We Are All Doomed.

Introduction to a Theory about Video Game Music Composers

"This is the first entry in what I hope to be a series of posts about composers/programmers of music in video games.  And not just any composers, but composers that we either don't know much about or have miss-attributed soundtracks to.  What do I mean by "miss-attribute?"  Okay, when you think of the music from the Legend of Zelda series, who comes to mind?  Right, Koji Kondo.  Except that he didn't write the music for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.  That soundtrack was composed by Akito Nakatsuka.  Who is that you ask?  In short, he also wrote some of the music for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!"

The above was my going into what was originally planned as a series of about nine to ten posts, focusing on individual composers and why some soundtracks are miss-attributed to them.  As an avid collector of soundtracks, I had thought that knowledge of video game composers would be about as prevalent as knowledge of film music composers.  Granted I only know of a couple by name, and those're some of the big guns: Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo, Koichi Sugiyama, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, Robin Beanland and David Wise.  

As it turned out, this happened to be one of those instances where when you grow up with a particular thing, like a dad who collects and chops/cuts and stacks firewood, that you think that all dads do that.  Turns out a lot of dads do not drive out on county roads looking for felled trees or asking people who have had trees cut  down if they would mind if their wood was taken out of their gutter.  Who knew that wasn't normal?  Turns out knowledge of who the composers of video game music are and what games they've composed for is not common knowledge.

I found this out when I put up a survey seeing if 1)  If people knew who wrote the music to a particular video game and 2)  If they knew, then they were to put down their answer by name.  My theory was for example, that if someone would think that because Koji Kondo wrote the music to Super Mario Bros. that they might think he wrote the music to Dr. Mario.  Or, as in the first mentioned example of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. 

In the following post I will give the results and my initial analysis of the data that I collected from the survey (which when I last checked was only 20 people).  So with this in mind, I will now leave you with a couple youtube-ified tracks from various video games soundtracks that I absolutely love:

Tooth & Claw by Robin Beanland : Killer Instinct

Overworld by Koichi Sugiyama : Dragon Warrior

Sacrifices by Yuzo Koshiro : ActRaiser

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Can Just Hear It Now

P.S.  If you would like to take the aforementioned survey, here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XSYPF3N  And please do not look up any information before taking the survey as I am/was trying to find out people's existing knowledge.  Thank you.