Category: Comics

Today is a special day for mothers, but what the heck does it all mean? According to wikipedia, “Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring mothers, celebrated on various days in many places around the world. Mothers often receive gifts on this day.”

Thus, today we celebrate boss fights that involve mummies (hyuk hyuk). Rather than exhaustively research every game that ever featured a mummy battle, let’s break down what these fights always consist of, no matter what.

Flying bandages! Nine times out of ten, a videogame mummy has but one attack: it lurches forward and lets its ribbons fly! This holds especially true for the Castlevania franchise; a series that ain’t afraid to celebrate “Mummy’s Day” every day of the week!

One of the best features of Castlevania games is that you know, at some point near the end, they always run out of ideas and just pit you against all of the Universal Monsters as bosses. Rest assured, folks, when this idea was first pitched, it was no doubt a “graveyard smash”!

What’s that, Pharaoh Man? Fine, fine, go ahead…

… “Happy Mummy’s Day, everyone!”

So I have to direct you all to the fresh-as-a-baby’s-buttocks blog of Brandon Fincher, the legendary voice that can also be heard on the weekly Robotronic Dynamite podcast. In true point/counter-point fashion, he’s pitting some goodniks against my burgeoning bestiary.

Put it in your bookmarks, google reader, or whatever other virtual knapsack you use to traverse the internet!

Alright, here’s how this works, guys. I spend an entire week posting about nothing but video game bosses and, as in any awesome game, you get to play, too! Let me know what you want to read about and what your favorite bosses are; you can even contribute your own sexy entry by emailing something to me (contact link is on the sidebar)!

Bosses are of major importance to the structure of video games. In fact, I say a game is borderline worthless if there aren’t boss battles. What’s the point? What kind of fool didn’t leave a giant guard to defend entry into the next area of the game? Developers know this well, which is why, for instance, they spent time adding more bosses in God of War 2– there weren’t enough in the first!

This week we’ll be diving in this crucial aspect of the game world like Captain N! I leave you with some images with which you can celebrate the mother(brain) of all 16-bit boss fests: Super Metroid!

*Bosses not to scale

Though I thought it to be true eventually, I’m super excited to see confirmation of a sequel to one of my very favorite game cassettes! Why do I like this game? Hell, this is the Joseph Luster Report, so I might as well pull-quote my ding dong self!

From my Got Next review:

“The beauty of depending on your environment’s stock is found in the combat system. While guns are sporadically placed and found on enemies throughout, you’ll never see loose ammo, so you better check the clips and use each bullet wisely. This is mostly an excuse to exercise your skill in the meat and potatoes of Condemned: melee fighting. Ethan can tear pipes off of walls, lift loose locker doors, and slice with paper cutter blades; and this is just scratching the surface.“

“Condemned is exhausting, regardless of whether you’re fending off homeless lunatics or just nervously roaming claustrophobic passageways with your finger twitching on the right trigger. Thanks to a consistent atmosphere of desperation and dread, the game is almost at its best when nothing is happening at all. The sound design, especially if you have a nice surround set-up, is about as eerie as it gets; a feature that pairs perfectly with the disgustingly gorgeous visuals.“

You know what really burns my biscuits?

All this Final Fantasy anniversary bullshit. Square Enix is about as big a bunch of crooks as you’re likely to meet this side of EA. As if their reluctance to put anything up on the Virtual Console wasn’t bad enough, now they’re doing one of those FFIII-style 3D remakes of FFIV. I know the games are adored by millions, and heck, I dabble myself, but at a certain point you’re just preying on the vacant minds of your fans.

I shouldn’t even be dogging SE about it, though– they’re just running a business in the way that every RPG nerd in the world lets them do it.

Speaking of games, who wants to talk about awesome bosses here? I think I’ll declare Midnight tonight through Midnight next Thursday BOSS WEEK on The JLR. Stay tuned.