Behold the adventures of Ryan "The Pound It Dude" and his buddy Kevork as they travel to the Disneyland Resort. This trip report is a total hoot and reminds me of the craziness I used to get up to with my friends in junior high when we were let loose on the park. My favorite pictures here are "Kevork Didn't Know I Took This Picture! Shhhh!" and "I Just Told Kevork That People Died On This Ride..." Enjoy the craziness:
Pound It!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I'm NOT going to Fantazy Land!
Wow. I mean, just...wow. This has got to be, hands down, the worst theme park in the world. You've got to see the pictures of this place to believe it:
Fantazy Land: United Rides of Fantazy
What kind of post-apocalyptic hell is this? Crappy, crappy rides that aren't even open? Shifty scam-artists at the ticket booths? Suspicious kids sizing up their chances to steal this guy's camera? The garbage dumb lake? This place is so horrible it's hysterical! I half felt as though Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot should have been commenting over my shoulder as I was looking at these pictures. Fantazy Land has got to be the Manos: The Hands of Fate of theme parks!
Fantazy Land: United Rides of Fantazy
What kind of post-apocalyptic hell is this? Crappy, crappy rides that aren't even open? Shifty scam-artists at the ticket booths? Suspicious kids sizing up their chances to steal this guy's camera? The garbage dumb lake? This place is so horrible it's hysterical! I half felt as though Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot should have been commenting over my shoulder as I was looking at these pictures. Fantazy Land has got to be the Manos: The Hands of Fate of theme parks!
Sombrero Grande rambles on about Mega Man 2
Mega Man 2 is one of my top 10 favorite video games of all time (it would have to be for me to write as much as I'm about to for it.) To this day, I can still pop it in and fight my way into Dr. Wily's Skull Castle with the same level of enjoyment I had when I was a kid. I can still recall when the game was new, anxiously thinking about the game during swim meets (to the degree that it was sometimes foremost in my thoughts even as I was underwater, swimming in an event).
My brother and I owned the first four Mega Man games for the NES (I much later played the rest via the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on my Xbox) and Mega Man 2 was always my clear favorite of the series and still is. It just seems to have the right mix of difficulty/fun along with some of the best graphics and music of the day.
For those unfamiliar with the series, you control Mega Man, a robot who looks like a kid in a blue helmet and tights with a cannon for an arm, who must single-handed defeat the evil Dr. Wily and 8 new robot "masters" with each installment. These robot masters could be tackled in any order and after defeating one, Mega Man would then gain a new weapon based on that robot's gimmick. Part of the fun and initial difficulty of the games came in trying to figure out the order in which each of the robot masters should be taken on. You see, each of them had a severe weakness to one of the others' weapons, and if you were to, say, hit Ice Man (in the first Mega Man game) with Elec Man's Elec Beam it would only take a couple of hits to do him in. So the whole endeavor became like a giant paper/rock/scissors game, and while some weaknesses were easy to figure out (such as using Ice Man's weapon on Fire Man), most of them were far less intuitive.
Every video game "cheat" book or magazine back in the day had their idea of the best order of attack to most easily fell Mega Man's foes in every game, and usually they were spot-on, but I've always taken issue with the common, shared order for Mega Man 2. I've got my own order I follow that I enjoy quite a bit. Nearly all the guides I read as a kid listed Flash Man or Bubble Man first, but for me I always start with Metal Man.
Metal Man had by far my favorite and most useful weapon in all the Mega Man series: the Metal Blades. Here's why the Metal Blades are so awesome:
1) You can shoot them in any direction--up, down, forward, back or diagonally--so it's great for disposing of otherwise hard-to-reach baddies, especially when on moving platforms.
2) Its power drains very slowly. The Metal Blades use less energy per shot than any other Mega Man weapon I can recall, making it easy to use throughout an entire level while most other special weapons only came into use for a quick barrage on a particular enemy, typically a boss.
3) It's range is pretty wide--far superior to the standard Arm Cannon--and continues to fly onward even after hitting a foe, so multiple enemies could be hit with a single shot.
4) It's very effective on multiple bosses.
After beating Metal Man, I typically never returned to using Mega Man's standard Arm Cannon for the remainder of the game; Metal Blade was the default weapon from then on out.
Metal Man isn't too difficult to best with merely the Arm Cannon; just try to stay in the middle of his room on the moving platform, and if you do, Metal Man will be too busy leaping from one end of the room to the other to throw many projectiles your way.
With the Metal Blades equipped, now there's a choice: Bubble Man or Wood Man. The Metal Blades are the weapon of choice to topple either of these guys and I've always found it nice this early in the game to be able to pick which boss I'd prefer to fight next (the strategy guides of the time never offered a choice like this). More times than not, I'll take on Bubble Man second because I enjoy the design and music of his stage so much. When it comes time to battle Mr. Bubble, the multi-directional capabilities of the Metal Blades make it a pretty quick fight. If, however, I decide to ambush Wood Man, then Bubble Man's stage becomes a nice break later on in the game, as Bubble Man's Bubble Lead weapon won't really come in handy until a few more bosses down the line.
With Wood Man cut down, it's time to get some air with Air Man. A few hits from Wood Man's Leaf Shield will easily knock the wind out of the fan-powered robot (not to mention aid in dealing with the egg-dropping birds of his level). Air Man's Air Shooter will make quick work of Crash Man next, and the Metal Blades and Leaf Shield being necessary for dealing with more egg-dropping birds.
At this point I'll make sure I've bested Bubble Man so that I can use his weapon to defeat Flash Man. The reason I wait until after defeating Crash Man to take on Flash Man is that having Crash's Crash Bomber enables me to take some very nice shortcuts through Flash Man's level. Once Flash Man is no more, it's on to my least favorite level of the game: Quick Man's domain.
Why is Quick Man's level my least favorite? It's got everything to do with those damn, thick yellow beams that dart across the screen as soon as you enter, blocking your way and killing you instantly if you touch them. The last part of the level where Mega Man must fall faster than them kills me so frequently that I typically just use Flash Man's Time Stopper to make it past unharmed. The downside to this is that it's then completely drained and useless against Quick Man (if you use the Time Stopper in the boss fight against Quick Man, it drains half his health before he can even move). Without the Time Stopper, Quick Man is quite a bit harder to deal with, but a few extremely well-timed shots with the Crash Bomber will put an end to him.
Last up is Heat Man, whose stage is also rather difficult but is all that then stands between Mega Man and Wily's Castle. Of course, once in the castle there's an awful lot of big robots and nasty traps that separate you from the final battle with the mad doctor, but that's all pretty straight forward.
It's a damn shame that Mega Man 2 hasn't yet been released on the Wii's Virtual Console in the U.S. Europe's had both Mega Man 1 and 2 for a while now, and I'm getting irritated having to hook my Xbox back up just to play though this game again. I mean, seriously, what's the hold-up? If you've never played Mega Man 2, I suggest you grab it immediately whenever Nintendo gets around to rereleasing it for a mere $5 on the Virtual Console. If you have played it, then I'm sure you're just as anxious as I am to see it available on the Virtual Console soon.
My brother and I owned the first four Mega Man games for the NES (I much later played the rest via the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on my Xbox) and Mega Man 2 was always my clear favorite of the series and still is. It just seems to have the right mix of difficulty/fun along with some of the best graphics and music of the day.
For those unfamiliar with the series, you control Mega Man, a robot who looks like a kid in a blue helmet and tights with a cannon for an arm, who must single-handed defeat the evil Dr. Wily and 8 new robot "masters" with each installment. These robot masters could be tackled in any order and after defeating one, Mega Man would then gain a new weapon based on that robot's gimmick. Part of the fun and initial difficulty of the games came in trying to figure out the order in which each of the robot masters should be taken on. You see, each of them had a severe weakness to one of the others' weapons, and if you were to, say, hit Ice Man (in the first Mega Man game) with Elec Man's Elec Beam it would only take a couple of hits to do him in. So the whole endeavor became like a giant paper/rock/scissors game, and while some weaknesses were easy to figure out (such as using Ice Man's weapon on Fire Man), most of them were far less intuitive.
Every video game "cheat" book or magazine back in the day had their idea of the best order of attack to most easily fell Mega Man's foes in every game, and usually they were spot-on, but I've always taken issue with the common, shared order for Mega Man 2. I've got my own order I follow that I enjoy quite a bit. Nearly all the guides I read as a kid listed Flash Man or Bubble Man first, but for me I always start with Metal Man.
Metal Man had by far my favorite and most useful weapon in all the Mega Man series: the Metal Blades. Here's why the Metal Blades are so awesome:
1) You can shoot them in any direction--up, down, forward, back or diagonally--so it's great for disposing of otherwise hard-to-reach baddies, especially when on moving platforms.
2) Its power drains very slowly. The Metal Blades use less energy per shot than any other Mega Man weapon I can recall, making it easy to use throughout an entire level while most other special weapons only came into use for a quick barrage on a particular enemy, typically a boss.
3) It's range is pretty wide--far superior to the standard Arm Cannon--and continues to fly onward even after hitting a foe, so multiple enemies could be hit with a single shot.
4) It's very effective on multiple bosses.
After beating Metal Man, I typically never returned to using Mega Man's standard Arm Cannon for the remainder of the game; Metal Blade was the default weapon from then on out.
Metal Man isn't too difficult to best with merely the Arm Cannon; just try to stay in the middle of his room on the moving platform, and if you do, Metal Man will be too busy leaping from one end of the room to the other to throw many projectiles your way.
With the Metal Blades equipped, now there's a choice: Bubble Man or Wood Man. The Metal Blades are the weapon of choice to topple either of these guys and I've always found it nice this early in the game to be able to pick which boss I'd prefer to fight next (the strategy guides of the time never offered a choice like this). More times than not, I'll take on Bubble Man second because I enjoy the design and music of his stage so much. When it comes time to battle Mr. Bubble, the multi-directional capabilities of the Metal Blades make it a pretty quick fight. If, however, I decide to ambush Wood Man, then Bubble Man's stage becomes a nice break later on in the game, as Bubble Man's Bubble Lead weapon won't really come in handy until a few more bosses down the line.
With Wood Man cut down, it's time to get some air with Air Man. A few hits from Wood Man's Leaf Shield will easily knock the wind out of the fan-powered robot (not to mention aid in dealing with the egg-dropping birds of his level). Air Man's Air Shooter will make quick work of Crash Man next, and the Metal Blades and Leaf Shield being necessary for dealing with more egg-dropping birds.
At this point I'll make sure I've bested Bubble Man so that I can use his weapon to defeat Flash Man. The reason I wait until after defeating Crash Man to take on Flash Man is that having Crash's Crash Bomber enables me to take some very nice shortcuts through Flash Man's level. Once Flash Man is no more, it's on to my least favorite level of the game: Quick Man's domain.
Why is Quick Man's level my least favorite? It's got everything to do with those damn, thick yellow beams that dart across the screen as soon as you enter, blocking your way and killing you instantly if you touch them. The last part of the level where Mega Man must fall faster than them kills me so frequently that I typically just use Flash Man's Time Stopper to make it past unharmed. The downside to this is that it's then completely drained and useless against Quick Man (if you use the Time Stopper in the boss fight against Quick Man, it drains half his health before he can even move). Without the Time Stopper, Quick Man is quite a bit harder to deal with, but a few extremely well-timed shots with the Crash Bomber will put an end to him.
Last up is Heat Man, whose stage is also rather difficult but is all that then stands between Mega Man and Wily's Castle. Of course, once in the castle there's an awful lot of big robots and nasty traps that separate you from the final battle with the mad doctor, but that's all pretty straight forward.
It's a damn shame that Mega Man 2 hasn't yet been released on the Wii's Virtual Console in the U.S. Europe's had both Mega Man 1 and 2 for a while now, and I'm getting irritated having to hook my Xbox back up just to play though this game again. I mean, seriously, what's the hold-up? If you've never played Mega Man 2, I suggest you grab it immediately whenever Nintendo gets around to rereleasing it for a mere $5 on the Virtual Console. If you have played it, then I'm sure you're just as anxious as I am to see it available on the Virtual Console soon.
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