Dadadat-doo-dat-dat... doop

   As I'm sure you could all tell, that's the first few notes to Super Mario Bros/Twins, one of the best video games of all time.  I wouldn't consider myself a "gamer..." like I don't own any shirts with Sonic the Hedgehog on them, and I don't have a World of Warcraft account (actually I've only played that game once and it was only for about 5 minutes... meh).  But video games have played an integral part of my life.  I've played them since I was a kid and without them I certainly wouldn't be as awesome as I am today.  Almost, but not quite.  And so, without further ado, here are the best videogames in the world.  You may have additions or changes to this list, and you may disagree with some of my choices... if you do, you're wrong.
   Battle - The first game system I ever had was an Atari.  It had the usuals: Pac-Man, frogger, Pitfall... but there was one game that stood out above the rest: BATTLE.  Battle was better than any game on the system for the simple reason that you could play against each other and actually kill each other on like, 30 different battlefields.  Sure they were mostly repeats of the same thing (planes in clear skies, planes in cloudy skies, THREE PLANES EACH), but for its day, this game was incredibly badass.  And I was pretty good at it too.
   Super Mario Bros - I'm going to lump all these games into one category, because for the most part they're all amazing.  I never really played the RPGs or Paper Marios, and the Party/Cart games are kind of in their own category (still pretty good though)... I'm mostly talking about the Mario and Luigi adventures where they ran around punching blocks and stomping bad guys.  I haven't tried the new "Galaxy Games" yet (though I hear they're great), so I will just say that the best ones I've played have to be Super Mario 3 (NES) and Super Mario World (SNES).  Super Mario 64 was also good, but it doesn't have the timeless fun that 3 and World have.  Still, screw Sonic... Nintendo got it right with Mario, and he's still moving systems for them today.
   Tiger Heli - This game rocked because of its music and because of its incredible difficulty.  It never ends (thank you Game Genie)!  This game was awesome because you got to blow a lot of stuff up, and you could pick up powerups in the form of little helpercopters that would either shoot forward or sideways.  Sidenote: when I was a kid I HATED the sideways shooting helicopters, but now I realize they are awesome because you can really wreak havoc on a level shooting in all directions.
   Bubble Bobble - Hands down, the BEST co-op game on Nintendo... Bubble Bobble is incredible because you really can't beat it for real without a second player helping you out.  Sure you can get to the last level, but it's not the REAL last level.  I can't tell you how many people have "beaten" this game but never seen the true ending... that was a pretty sly move by the Japanese.  I can see them all sitting back sipping Sake, laughing at us as we try to figure out why we can't get to "Happy End."  Well, me and my brother got it, so all of you can just suck it.  Great level design, and a ton of them, interesting bad guys and a TON of great powerups (whuddup Umbrella?) make this still one of the most fun games I've ever played.
   Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time - There have been a lot of Ninja Turtles games on the systems I grew up with, but these two are without question the best ones out of the bunch.  "The Arcade Game" came out on NES and it was the closest thing you could get to the actual arcade (one of the best arcade games ever, by the way).  It was hard as a mofo, and the mechanics weren't nearly as good, but for a Nintendo game it was a lot of fun.  "Turtles in Time" on the SNES (don't waste my time, Sega), was also incredible.  They got everything right on this one... hell I like it even better than the arcade.  It's a very satisfying game, GREAT sound effects and music, and awesome bad guys to fight.  Now if they could just figure out how to get a Ninja Turtles game to not suck, we'd be in great shape.
   Zelda - Another one that I'm going to lump together, though there have certainly been a fair share of awful, awful Zelda games.  Windwaker?  Ridiculous.  Majora's Mask?  More like Majora's waste of time.  But Ocarina of time, Link to the Past, and Twilight Princess were all very impressive, very enjoyable games.  And don't even think of bringing up some Final Fantasy bullshit... everyone knows these games are better.  Real-time combat, fun levels that don't act like Soap Operas and don't get ridiculous... the only thing Zelda doesn't do better is character design (N'avi made me want to kill myself in Ocarina)... but the people behind these games have a formula that works, and when they stick to it, their games are awesome.
   Contra - Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start.  If you don't know that code you've never played videogames or you're a fool.  That code is what let me (and countless others) beat this punishing Nintendo game.  This game is great because it's one of the VERY rare cases where the Nintendo version is actually BETTER than the arcade.  The graphics are simple, the levels are fairly bland, and yet I cannot put this game down.  Why?  One word: Spread.  The Spread Gun on this game might just be the best powerup in any game ever.  When you get the Spread Gun, it's like you're a god on thin ice... you have a badass weapon, but it still only takes on hit to kill you.  More often than not when I have the spread gun, my nerves get the best of me and I wind up dying just because I'm too scared to try to jump or too busy trying to make sure that tank won't kill me and I get blasted by the foot soldier instead.
   Mega Man 3 - I'm only talking about Mega Man 3 because I never really played any of the other ones.  Mega Man 3 is the best Mega Man simply because of its soundtrack.  Sure Mega Man 2 has some gems, but Mega Man 3 is like the perfected version.  The bad guys were awesome (with the except of Hard Man), and the power ups were great too.  My favorite part of this game on the original Nintendo was the cheat where player 2 holds Select and Down, granting Player 1 invulnerability (you die, but you don't die).  It really glitched out the game, but it was a lot of fun.  I finally beat this game for the first time a few weeks ago, one of the most satisfying moments of my entire life.
   XMen/Jurassic Park (Sega) - There are only two good Sega games that the Super Nintendo didn't do better: "XMen," and "Jurassic Park."  Xmen was fantastic because it was a side-scrolling beat-em-up.  It didn't have Collossus (who was the best X-Man ever), and it was hard as hell (I never beat it), but it had classic characters and decent level design.  Plus you could make Wolverines claws go in and out.  "Jurrasic Park" was great because it followed the movie and actually had surprisingly good graphics.  There was nothing scarier than the last level where Velociraptors were chasing you and unless you had the cheat on, you only had a certain number of rockets to down them with.  Otherwise they would keep getting you up, hunt you down, and eat your SOUL.  I was never a big Sega guy, but these two games were friggin' sweet.
   Top Gear - All you fans of "Burnout" or "Gran Tourismo?"  Yeah, you wouldn't be ANYWHERE if it weren't for the Top Gear games.  Kemco (are they even around anymore?) created a brilliant series here.  The first game was like nothing I'd ever played before: beautiful graphics, and excellent soundtrack, and challenging courses.  The second one upped the ante by giving you upgradeable cars, though it sacrificed some of the great visuals and music.  The third one put it all together though, and those dudes created what is still in my mind one of the best racers of all time.  Excellent cars, excellent graphics, incredible power-ups, and an ingenious refueling/repair mechanism make this game near the top of my "all time greatest" list.
   Tomb Raider - I'm only talking about the first one here.  I used to go to Blockbuster and rent a playstation (10 bucks biatch!) just so I could play this game in all of its pixellated glory.  Looking at it now, it's pretty ugly, but back then having an entire 3-d world to explore was just insane.  It was HUGE, and even though you couldn't really make out bad guys on top of the ugly-ass brownish color pallete, it was still a blast to play.  To this day I've never beaten this game, I got to this part with a huge cliff and I just stopped.  To be honest, I don't think I'd want to take it any further than that, it might spoil the memory.
   Colony Wars - "The Earth Empire Saw Everything... Knew everything... PUNISHED everything."  James Earl Jones, ladies and gentleman, in a game that was way ahead of its time and way awesome.  Fully 3-d ships flying around blowing the crap out of each other, this game was like "X-Wing" on steroids.  This was the best game I ever owned on Playstation.  The best part about this game, a part that frustrated the hell out of me at the time and that I've only recently learned to appreciate, is that there was no such thing as replaying a mission.  If you failed, you moved on, licking your wounds and hoping for the best.  This game had something like 10 endings, and depending on how far you got successfully was how well things wound up for your Rebellion.  If you beat every mission, you had outright victory and shut the Empire down.  If you lost the last mission, you struck up a truce with the Empire and you both went your separate ways.  Brilliant I tell you!
   Killer Instinct - There were some pretty badass fighting games on consoles growing up.  I was always more of a "Street Fighter" fan than a "Mortal Kombat" guy, but the game that really changed everything for me was "Killer Instinct."  I wasn't ever any good, I always played as Fulgore and even though I could beat the game, I could never get much more than a 5 or 6 hit combo.  I honestly liked watching this game more than playing it, I just thought it was awesome how fast everything went, and how nuts it got when two very good players went up against each other.  ULTRAA  ULTRAAA ULTRAAA ULTRAAA!
   Command and Conquer - I know, I know, "Starcraft" is much better than Command and Conquer.  There are a million strategy games out there, and most of them are as good or better than Command and Conquer, but the C&C series was my first taste of real-time strategy and so it holds a special place in my heart.  I'll never forget the day my friend Jacob brought this game over and loaded it up for the first time.  The thought of amassing a gigantic army and trampling bad guys with it was unheard of... and awesome.  These games have gone down in quality over the years, unfortunately, but I still play the first one every now and then just to feel the satisfaction of building about 20 GDI tanks and leveling everything in sight.
   Goldeneye/Perfect Dark - Don't get me wrong, I could easily write for days on either of these groundbreaking games.  These were hands down the best games on the Nintendo 64.  Each one has it's perks, even though they're essentially the same game with different skins.  My favorite part of Goldeneye was putting on the invisibility cheat and blowing up Soviets with the rocket launcher.  It was like the 64's physics could ALMOST handle it, but not quite.  And Perfect Dark's multiplayer should be a template of the absolute best way to do things ever.  Bots?  Challenges?  Awesome character and level/weapon customization?  This game had it all.  They just re-released Perfect Dark on XBox Live Arcade, and I've been playing it like there's no tomorrow.
   Super Smash Bros - I'm not any good at this game... in fact, I rarely play it because I get so frustrated it makes me want to bang my head into a wall... but I think this has to be one of the most brilliant ideas for a game design ever.  Combine all of your best characters from all of your games, and some from other license-friendly competitors, into one huge mosh pit and duke it out.  How can you go wrong with that?  I'll tell you: Pokemon.  Pokemon ruin "Super Smash Bros."  They invade the entire damn game, clogging it with their stupid powerups and stuff.  Give them their own game for the idiotic kids to play... when I'm beating the crap out of Starfox as Samus Aran, I don't want a damn Pokeball getting in my way.
   WCW Vs NWO - There was a time when I was really into wrestling, and it was because of this video game.  Still the best wrestling game out there, WCW was ugly, hard to control, and overall pretty slow... but we played it for HOURS at a time.  This game had such an influence on our lives that we actually used parts of it in the movies we were making at the time.
   Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon - I've never read a Tom Clancy book in my life, but if I saw that guy I would shake his hand (assuming I was still alive).  I can't speak for his writing, but his ability to inspire Ubisoft employees to create great games earns my gratitude.  The original Rainbow Six on Xbox was one of the most addictive games I've ever played.  Forget the story, it was all about multiplayer.  I actually still talk to some of the friends I made playing this game (whuddup BigKev).  My buddy Paul used to come over and set up in my brother's room, with me in the living room, and we would host huge rooms of people and just wail on them.  We even had "plan alpha," where we would turn on friendly fire without telling anyone, and then drop grenades right at the spawn point before booting everyone out of the server and turning off our xboxes.  Classic!  Oh and just a quick comment on Rainbow's little brother "Ghost Recon..." what happened to those games?  The first two were incredible, sneaking around and sniping off bad guys from afar... but in the more recent ones, as soon as you fire a shot (even a silenced shot), EVERYONE knows EXACTLY where you are and comes running like mad.  Kinda takes the fun out of it don't you think?
   Crimson Skies - I've always wanted to be a pilot, and while Crimson Skies is no simulator, it certainly gives the illusion of flying.  Playing this now on my big-screen, even with its outdated XBox graphics, is awesome.  I keep waiting for these guys to put out a sequel to this game, but so far all I've seen from them is the sub-par "Dark Void."  Why?  WWWHHHYYYYYY???
   Halo - Alright, we all knew this one was coming.  Halo is by far the best, most influential video game series I've ever played.  Hell it might just be the most influential on any console ever.  It's certainly sold enough copies to claim that title.  I knew almost nothing about Halo when it came out, which is probably good because I was in college and I know I would have failed out.  The first time I ever played Halo was at a CompUSA in Sugar Land.  They had a demo set up with the old "Duke" controller (the giant monkey-hands one).  I picked up the controller and wandered through some hallways on what I now know was Blood Gulch, and I distinctly remember looking out of one of the doors and thinking "man if only they would make a game where you could go out there... that would be incredible."  I didn't even try to go out the door.  If I had, I would have opened my eyes to one of the greatest games of all time.  Luckily, my buddy Patrick brought it over one night, and the next day I went out and bought an XBox and a copy of the game.  Halo was groundbreaking because you could actually link up to 4 xboxes together and play via system link, on four different TVs, in four different rooms!  That meant no more looking at each other's screens, no more cheating... now you could make plans with your team in complete secrecy, spring ambushes, and plan out detailed "Capture the flag" assaults.  This game held its own for years, and even today firing it up and driving the old Warthog around brings back some great memories.  The sequels to this game have also been groundbreaking and fun... I still play Halo 3 sometimes, and I'm pretty pumped for the Reach Beta coming up... but there was just something about the first Halo.  Something about throwing a grenade under the front wheel of an oncoming Hog, only to send it flying overhead and shotgunning the driver out as he flew past.  Something about spending hours trying to get out of the level and into areas that weren't designed and would make the game crash.  Hours of "BOBBY'S SOMEWHERE!" and then running around the corner to give someon a shotgun shampoo.  This game changed gaming for me forever, and no matter what the haters say, it's been a HUGE part of why gaming is so popular and so widely accepted today.
   There's more.  There are oh so many more games that I played growing up.  These are just the cream of the crop, or at least the cream of the part of the crop that I can remember offhand.  I'm sure there are also a lot of good games out there that I missed out on, but I don't care.  I'm not a gamer, as that list of 20 some odd games will prove.  Right?

iCrap
   Oh you stupid, stupid, chumps.  I've seen a lot of stupidity in my day, but this whole ipad craze has to be some of the worst.  For the 2 of you on the planet who haven't heard, the "ipad" is Apple's latest gizmo, the latest thing that people will wait hours in line for, a device that, despite it not really serving any purpose, everyone HAS to have.  And it's also Apple's latest way of making fools out of every single last one of you.  Oh I could sit here and tell you what's wrong with the ipad.  I could try to explain to you that you're dropping hundreds of dollars on something that any netbook or laptop could do better for a fraction of the cost.  I could try to show you that it's awkward, large, glarey, etc.  But I won't, because there are already plenty of articles from smarter and better writers than myself out there doing a fine job of that.  No, instead I'm going to try to show you why you're a complete toolbox for even THINKING about buying one of these overpriced paperweights.  That way when you're out hundreds of dollars, looking at your ipad sitting there on the table turned off, thinking "now what," you'll have my voice in the back of your head shouting "I TOLD YOU SO!"
   There's a great skit in an episode of Family Guy where this dude is writing on his laptop at the coffee shop.  Another dude is sitting there and he says "getting some writing done?"  The first guy says "yeah, the only way I can feel like I"m getting anything accomplished is if people are watching me!"  The skit goes on to explain why the idiots you see at the coffee shop working so dilligently on their laptops are there.  Sure there might be one or two people actually trying to get stuff done, but the bulk of those people are updating facebook or twittering about how their extra hot foamy latte burned their tongue.  My point here is that if you buy an ipad, you're essentially telling the world that you're one of those people.  Do you really care what the ipad does, or is it more that you feel better about yourself walking into a room with one of those tucked awkwardly under your arm?  Do you feel cooler trying to type on it even though the back is slightly rounded so it wavers on the table?  Do you feel like a champ knowing that you paid upwards of 500 dollars for the book your reading, and I paid 5 dollars for the same book in paperback?  Let's hope you do, because otherwise you just completely wasted your money.
    Apple is smart.  They've fashioned their devices on the premise that they're trendy, they're cool.  I've said repeatedly that I have no need for an iphone, and you know what the unanimous response has been?  "I said that too until I got one, now I don't know what I'd do without it."  I'll tell you what you'd do: go on living your life like the rest of us.  But the iphone, while I still have complaints, is at least acceptable because it serves a purpose.  It is a smart phone that does a lot of convenient things for you and fits nicely in the palm of your hand or in your pocket.  I get it.  The ipad, however, I don't get.  A glorified iphone, blown up 10 times, though not much faster or better in any way, and hundreds of dollars more expensive. 
   As I said, the people at Apple are smart, they must have known what they were doing.  I figure they were probably sitting at a board meeting trying to brainstorm on how to wow people once again, when someone says "hey, this isn't original, and really it's kind of embarassing, but what if we just made a bigger iphone?"  "Hey yeah, you're onto something there I think."  "Well, what will it do?"  "Not much, we really can't get it to do much without turning it into a netbook."  "Yeah but that's okay, because we're Apple, and as long as we sell it right people will flock to it no matter HOW shitty it is!"  "Yeah you're right!  Hey let's charge a lot for it just to really stick it to these morons!"  Good meeting guys.  It worked.  These things are selling out left and right, Apple is rolling in the dough, and you're a chump.
   Bottom Line: Apple is Microsoft, only on a smaller scale.  If Apple had as much money and if they had won the PC wars, they would be exactly like Microsoft, and chances are, Microsoft would be just like Apple.  People like to help out the little guy, it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside, and Apple did a good job of selling themselves as that for years.  Now they're selling themselves as the underdog who grew up, and it's working.  But, just like the fashion Gurus in "Zoolander" who had people wearing GARBAGE, the people at Apple are basically poking fun at you, trying to show you just how foolish you are by cramming a basically useless, worthless object down your throat, knowing that you'll buy it because it has an Apple logo on it.  You think you're sticking it to the man, but really you're just making a fool out of yourself.  How's THAT for counterculture?
   So do you own an ipad?  Tell me why.  I dare you to give me one good reason why I or anyone else should drop that huge amount of money on such a shitty device.  Show me one thing it does that a laptiop can't, or even a cheap netbook can't.  And at least look in the mirror so you can see yourself: walking around with your iphone in one hand, ipod in the other, earbuds in tight, listening to some anti-establishment punk rock, golfer's hat on backwards, wearing three shirts that don't really go together or fit at all, super-tight girly jeans, loafers, hemp bracelt, and tucking a very, very expensive book under your arm.  CHUMP.

Rendition
   An egyptian born dude is at a meeting in South Africa, when on his flight home, he is abducted by the CIA and taken to a secret prison somewhere.  In the meantime his wife and son are left at the airport with now information or knowledge of his abduction.  Meanwhile there's an attempted attack on some official in the same country where this secret prison is located.  Meanwhile Jake Gyllenhal and his new friend are driving along when suddenly Jake's buddy is killed by shrapnel from said explosion.  So Jake is now promoted to the position that leaves him watching this Egyptian Born guy get tortured while he swears up and down that he had nothing to do with the attack.  But can he stomach it?  Guess you'll have to watch and find out.  Or not.
   Here's a movie that would actually be very interesting if it weren't so overtly political in its statement.  Okay we get it, you don't agree with torture, no need to ram it down our throats for two hours.  There are some good performances here, considering that one guy had to actually be water-boarded... I don't know if you could pay me to do that.  And I have to admit, while they were pretty anti-torture, anti-bush, they also didn't try to make you feel sorry for the terrorists either.  Sure there was some pity toward the ignorant kid who had no idea what he was getting into or why he was getting into it, but the terrorists certainly weren't painted as saints.
   Two things killed this movie for me: the fact that you are (unknowingly) time-travelling through the entire story, and Reese Witherspoon.  The time travel thing was very confusing, especially because there are no cues to tell you you've been travelling through time until the very, very end.  I remember the exact scene when I was liek "WTF?"  I actually went and googled it and found a lot of other frustrated people who didn't like that either.  And Reese Witherspoon can't really be blamed for her role, I think it was just poorly written.  You've got so many political statements flying around in this movie, there's no need to throw in another one about the strength of a pregnant woman and women's rights too.
   I cannot recommend this movie.  It wasn't bad, don't get me wrong, but it certainly wasn't as good as it could have been.  Compelling story idea on paper, not great execution.  There are some big names in this one too, but I guess it just goes to show you that no amount of great acting or great actors can save a movie if it sucks at its core.  You can polish a turd, but in the end it's still a turd.

   And while I'm on Netflix, get this: they've signed a deal with the movie studios to DELAY THE RELEASE OF NEW MOVIES 28 DAYS!  28 days people!  Can you believe it?  How much money could they have possibly been paid to risk pissing off their entire customer base?   Keep an eye on this one people, we might just bear witness to one of the greatest companies and business models the world has ever seen, shoot itself in the foot and bleed out right before our eyes.  Until next time...