Brock Lesnar was a born and raised farm boy from Webster, South Dakota. At 17 years of age he looked to join the army, but was assigned to desk work after colorblindedness denied him entry to work with explosives (Can't imagine how dangerous this man would be with explosives on top of everything else). He was discharged from the army after failing a typing test and presumably ripping off the officer's arms in retaliation. He'd later work in construction, most likely building entire complexes by himself in the span of only hours. He would then make a name for himself in amateur wrestling, winning the NCAA Division 1 heavyweight wrestling championship and about 700 other championships after mauling at least 106 men.

Not long after he was signed to the WWF, where in OVW he would win the Southern Tag Team Championship with fellow freak athlete and former college roommate Shelton Benjamin a total of three times. After being bored of OVW he would debut on Monday Night Raw annihilating Al Snow, Maven and Spike Dudley in a match he wasn't even supposed to be in. Not long after he would tank a chairshot to the face from Jeff Hardy like it was nothing and then smash him and Matt Hardy into the ground on PPV. The Beast Incarnate would then win the 2002 King of the Ring and beat The Rock at Summerslam, winning the WWE championship in only five months since his debut. In addition to the WWE championship, he would also win the IWGP belt, and would take the UFC heavyweight belt off Randy Couture at UFC 91 after eating him alive, and would demolish the Undertaker and end his streak at WrestleMania. He also doesn't give a shit about your kids.

Needless to say, Brock is a man of very few equals. He could've potentially done any sport he wanted and most likely dominate at it, whether it was MMA, curling, electronic Battleship, or miniature golf.

However, all of that is absolutely fucking paltry compared to the depiction of Brock Lesnar in WWE Smackdown Here Comes The Pain on Playstation 2. The tale of this particular dragon is legendary across the pro wrestling/video game community. A STR stat that is apparently actually 12 and not the "10" depicted in-game, meaning he can massacre you in few moves. Picking Brock Lesnar in HCTP is the equivalent to picking Rugal in KoF or using a semi truck to race against go-kart drivers. You don't fuck with HCTP Brock, not even real life Brock would want to fuck with HCTP Brock. You don't master HCTP until you've defeated Brock Lesnar in a last man standing match with Stevie Richards on Smackdown difficulty WITHOUT abusing the sledgehammer.

If you don't do this you cannot be considered a true master of Here Comes The Pain.

Great game btw, you can fly off a helicopter in Times Square onto someone.

This isn’t a joke. This isn’t a meme. This isn’t a copypasta or some stupid shit. This is a genuine cry for help. I can’t listen to anything but touhou music. At first I thought it was just video game music, or instrumental music, but no; even other game songs that I used to love are meaningless to me now. Songs from when I was a child, songs that previously had genuine emotional meaning and were attached to precious memories, are utterly worthless to me now – and I can’t enjoy any new music, either.

It’s not even that “mOdErN mUsIc iS bAd,” I mean I literally can’t reprogram my brain to pump out even the slightest amount of dopamine – or frankly any other chemical – at the sound and experience of music I’ve never heard before. Bands and musicians that are almost universally well-regarded for music that will be remembered throughout human history, and perhaps even afterwards, just sound like blank noise to me. I tried listening to Queen and had to stop because my stomach acids started boiling and I felt a migraine coming.

It’s not even just a matter of genre. I listen to remixes of touhou tracks of all kinds of genres, with and without lyrics, and I love every single solitary second of it. The sheer ecstasy that the climax of Starry Mountain of Tenma brings me is unrivaled by even my most tender and intimate memories.

My emotions are entirely controlled by what touhou song is currently playing, either out loud or in my head – and if I’m forced to hear any other kind of music in a public setting, like the playlist my bosses run at the restaurant I work at, my mental state gradually deteriorates until I’m forced to listen to fucking Cirno’s Perfect Math Class lest I suffer a complete mental breakdown in public. I was caught in my car after work singing Lyrica Live’s cover of Necrofantasia by the guy I have a crush on, and I nearly drove my car into the fucking ocean. I think he might’ve been recording me. It hasn’t been brought up by any of my coworkers but that doesn’t mean they don’t know.

My friends have desperately tried to pull me out, to introduce me to other genres, I even joined a fucking punk rock band for a little bit in the hopes that it’d recondition my brain, but I just found myself drumming the solos from Pristine Beat and Sailor of Time in every song we played. Nobody even noticed, they thought I came up with it on the fly, they called me a professional drummer in the making, but I knew I was just a hack.

I even hear touhou music in my fucking dreams. Literally, just last night I had a dream in which was hosting a fancy yacht party with all my friends and I could perfectly hear Jynx’s remaster of Plastic Mind blaring in the background, the ZUNpets pouring into the very ethereal essence of my soul as the dreamscape laid my inner desires bare.

I’m listening to 17.5’s version of Egoistic Flowers as I write this; I can feel Allah’s love coursing through me. Maybe he’ll take pity on me – for no other god seems to care.

They don't give money to people with a sense of humor anymore.

In modern day, a video game being endorsed by a celebrity can only mean one of two things: It's either a sports game or the worst piece of shovelware you've ever played. It's a shame! Just 30 years ago, a game being endorsed by a celebrity could mean one of three things: It's either a sports game, the worst piece of shovelware you're ever played, or the most batshit crazy thing ever designed.

The most obvious comparsion point would of course be The Ultimate Challenge from Beat Takeshi, as both are video games developed by comedians as essentially one big joke, but I think a more apt one would be Don't Buy This, a semi-obscure british pc game that was a collection of bad indie-developed games publisher Firebird was sent. All three of these, however, do have the same central thesis: This is all a joke. The key difference is who the joke is on; For Kitano, it's the poor shmuck who bought the game, for Firebird, it's the poor shmucks who developed those games in their homes, and for Penn and Teller, it's everyone.

Most obviously, it's a joke on your friends. The majority of these games solely exist to fuck with onlookers by way of convincing them that the game is a psychic, that they suck at video games, or just that your tv broke. Very cool how they implemented these through secret codes you would input, but they're more a novelty now than anything else, especially Sun Scorcher, which basically wouldn't work on any modern TV. They do at least come packaged with very entertaining FMV segments, so it's not a full bust even if you're playing them alone.

Then, you get to Desert Bus, the most infamous part of this package by a long margin, the ultimate video game simulation. Iconic, incredible, insane, it still stands as the greatest genre deconstruction in video game history. Just drive the fucking bus, dude. Finally, there's the title game, Smoke and Mirrors. While not as much of a punch in the face as Takeshi's offering (Nobody can beat the master), it's a very effective piece of "literally what the fuck is going on" platforming: Movesets barely make any sense, enemies and puzzles are frustrating, levels are designed like ass, about what you'd expect. Once again, the FMV is the real highlight, shout out to Lou Reed blowing Penn and Teller the fuck up in the impossible level, from one shit eater to another (Any Metal Machine Music fans in the audience tonight? I'm not one, I'm just curious).

Finally, in the most cosmically apt way possible, the ultimate prank was played on Penn and Teller themselves, as the company publishing the game went under right as the game was ready to ship, leaving it unreleased for 10 years until some journo who was sent a review copy leaked the rom online. It's as if some kind of divine intervention prevented them from pranking anyone, which in turn made the game the ultimate prank: Seeing as it's literally impossible to play the game now without knowing what you're getting into, it's only truly possible to prank yourself by playing it now. It's the embodiment of "Dead Dove, Do Not Eat".

Go fuck yourself.

Yuna: "My two girlfriends. And yes, they smoke weed."
Wakka: "Do they smoke weed, ya?"
Yuna: "Yes, actually."
Lulu: "You mean she isn't just smoking a cigarette?"
Khimari: "Khimari don't know weed cigarettes."
Dressphere change: Dancer
Yuna: "It's called a phid... not weed cigarette..."
Yuna: "And yes, it is a weed phid. They all smoke weed phids before we kiss. (They are my girlfriends,)"

I really want to like Art of Fighting, I really do. I love the big dumb sprites and the attention to detail for 1992 in making the characters show damage during the fight, and the whole crime drama plot of finding the person who took your sister is cool as shit.

But John Crawley is broke-ass Guile down to both his character design and his obnoxious ability to throw three sonic booms faster than I can throw one of my great value hadokens. The AI being patented early SNK dogshit combined with the terrible feel to the fighting and the stiff control just makes for a crappy experience.

This game makes me hate Mr. Big, and that sucks because I love Mr. Big, at least his theme in this kicks ass.

A quick one for the road: I'm honestly blown away by the attention to detail that's evident throughout FEAR. Craig Hubbard stated in an interview that he wanted "to make combat as intense as the tea house shootout at the beginning of John Woo's Hard Boiled" and it really shows; from the particle effects of the shrapnel to the visceral reactions of enemies upon being shot and the constant flash of gunfire that becomes even more pronounced upon the game's "Reflex Time" (slow motion distortion that lets you react in real time while the game's animations are slowed down), the devs definitely did their homework and I can't think of any other game that best captures the intensity of close quarters gun firefights than this.

It's also one of the most harrowing games I've ever played thanks to the moody lighting striking a contrast between your omnipresent shadow and the few eerie sources of light scattered in the darkness, not to mention the phenomenal sound design as you trudge your way through the urban landscape and its litter. Of course, the AI is definitely one of the big draws; it was such an unexpected shock when the enemies first shouted out "Flashlight spotted!" and the way the foes adapt to your different approaches, from trying to take cover if you rush them to trying to flush you out with grenades or plan flanks (even calling out your own flanks if you play evasive) absolutely kept me on the edge of my seat, terrified that they'd get the drop on me. There's no better shooter at making you feel like an absolute monster as you suddenly pounce upon them while the soldiers yell out "He's too fast!" or the classic "Oh shit!," yet carefully maneuvering your way through the shadows as enemies squads try to coordinate to pin you down is downright terrifying in its own way. It really speaks volumes that FEAR has no true bullet sponge bosses whatsoever; they kept the game focused on integrating fierce gunplay with unsettling atmospheric horror, and it's never been a more distilled and focused product. There are minor complaints, such as some environments/levels blurring together due to lack of distinctions (so I did get lost a few times) as well as a flurry of bugs & glitches that did force me to restart a couple of times (make sure you're not holding down your trigger as you fall through the level checkpoint triggers, I learned that the hard way!), and I do think the ending was a bit abrupt, perhaps to not give away too many details for future installments. Regardless, this was one of the biggest surprises, in more ways than one, from the last month or so, and I absolutely adore it.

By the way, I wouldn't recommend buying this on Steam, because for some reason you can't buy the original game separately and you have to spend $54.99 for a bundle valued at $34.98... what the actual fuck Monolith? Just buy the original on GOG, it works just as well there after some tweaks from PCGamingWiki.

What makes a person who they are is an endless ocean of choices, decisions, and mistakes. It’s nearly impossible to sum up the human experience succinctly, no matter how you go about it, but the past always returns as a unifying factor. Going through life, with every fleeting moment influencing, or influenced by, an infinite amount of moments, what gives someone that unique spark among the almost eight-billion could be condensed to the minutiae of human life, the trials and tribulations of living on Earth. Each trauma, each miracle, every fear and passion, coalescing into an approximation of humanity, the individual soul.

Blue Reflection: Second Light initially seems wrapped up in this hypothesis, with memories and recollections of the past at the forefront of determining who we are. Waltzing across each character’s reified backstory, a physical representation of themselves, the keypoint in coming to terms with oneself is found in accepting what came before. Throughout the story, however, there’s this constant rhetorical question being asked, an implication that shines doubt what you are approaching as a goal. As you weave between the collective backgrounds of the game’s cast, the detours through the various Heartscapes becomes secondary until… something happens. Somewhere between spending precious hours beside these characters and learning their experiences one by one, Blue Reflection… opens up. The narrative isn’t about "the before", the uncountable and infinite universe of outcomes that fused into what becomes an individual. The "past" isn’t “you”, so much as it’s context for “you”. What makes someone who they are after that, in the moment, is just as much the bonds they share, the loves that flourish, the passions ignited and fears embraced, as it is an arbitrary “past”.

…It’s sort of inescapable that this game is focused on the meaning of “moving on”. The summer vacation framing, the constant allusion to people not wanting things to end, the oppressing fear of what comes next and the change it brings… The future as we know it is beyond the horizon, endlessly far off but within reach, all the same. What happens to the friendships we made, the stories we’ve told and moments we’ve shared, five years from now? Ten? Fifty? Facing the crossroads at the end of an era, what will you take away, and what will you leave behind? Even looking at Backloggd itself, it eventually vanishing is a sure-fire possibility. Not now, maybe not in the near future, but… what do you do with that? For most, this site, the one-liner reviews, the heartfelt tangents, the caustic arguments, will all vanish without a trace, while others will hold the memories earned here close, all gained by sharing a passion with, to be blunt, total strangers.

Inevitably, this will end, and we’ll all move to new corners, a sort of “moving on” itself. But is that necessarily a bad thing? If the site died tomorrow and the community surrounding it shriveled up, would that change the love and hate that went into the words etched into it? Just as the past gave context to who we are now, does this community become another page of backstory, a background to appreciate as we move onto the next thing?

…These are some thoroughly navel-gazey thoughts brought out by what could be surmised as a “cute-girls-doing-cute-things” game, and I won’t pretend I haven’t gone off on similar tangents for an endless slew of slice-of-life anime. But over the entirety of Second Light, with every new character thrown into the party, I saw a familiar face, a person I recognized personally. Chalk it up to great writing, or chalk it up to me seeing what I want to see. I’ve seen these stories, not in a “trite anime trope” way, but in a “I know someone like this” sense, and even on a niche video game logging site I’ve seen the people who are deftly portrayed in Blue Reflection. I won’t go as far as to say this is an essential introspective reflection on community or something pompous like that. I’d imagine for most crowds, this will come off as a very well done character-focused slow burn, and that itself is by no-means a negative reading. But I suppose I can only say this, the story, what it meant in the grand scheme of things, hit me at the right time.

if you played TETRIS ATTACK instead of PANEPON you have been played for an ABSOLUTE FOOL and i shall impress upon you the DEPTH OF YOUR FOLLY

TETRIS ATTACK is for PAWNS and BABIES, UNDERSTUDIES and BIT PLAYERS dancing to the tune of a MADMAN, PERVERSE AND EVIL, the landscape of PEAK 90'S ANIME AESTHETIC EXPUNGED and LEAVENED with LIES by THE FALSE IDOL, YOSHI

will you remain PREY TO HIS AMBITIONS? remain ENSLAVED to a SHAMBLING SHADE OF PERFECTION?

REAL ONES will answer NO

REAL ONES will play PANEPON

Never forget. At any time, the Panel de Pon ruling class will silence you, they will eradicate your voice, they will render you unable to speak or express yourself, lest you be brought to a quick and malicious end.

Rise, humble laborer, ever-steady soldier of the working class. Build the brick walls that will shield you against those in power. Stage the Tetris Attacks that will levitate your disenfranchisement, and construct the foundation of a Puzzle League of your own.

In the face of evolution, do not hinder yourself by the restrictions of old, the classical repainting of history. Do not limit yourself to the predecessors of old; rise to the challenge of new experiences, lest you be cast aside by the waves of time.