Mike's Mondays with Mike McGee: Speed Run King

       Nice job, Ash! You did it! You beat Gary! It was a great battle and, in the end you trounced him soundly. It’s nice to see that you’ve gained a mutual respect for each other. That was a great Pokémon episode-watching marathon! I’m glad I decided to do this instead of disturbing Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance from its peaceful sleep inside the Target bag where it’s been for almost a week now – aaaannnnddd crap, it’s Monday…I’m in trouble. I’ve gotta find a way to play some games quick. I don’t want to let the readers down because I was too lazy to play games. Ding! s’perfect! (that was supposed to be a light bulb…not a microwave or the like) Ok, at the risk of relying on the ol’ MMwMMism “I didn’t play anything this week” and then proceeding to talk about stuff that I played, I’m actually gonna say just that and it’s gonna actually be true this time! Then, I’ll talk about speedruns that I watched like they were the games that I played this week. Yep, that’s the joke this week…at least I’m not late, JOHN!!

I'm black for the sake of this joke

       This week I decide to push myself a little and 100% Luigi’s Mansion. With the sequel coming up sometime in the recently-decent future, I decide to purchase, 100% complete, and immediately sell this game. This would explain why you wouldn’t find it in my inventory at present. I breezed through this puppy in about an hour and a quarter so, I didn’t notice too much of the story, other than Mario was kidnapped and Luigi’s gotta find him. It made sound like a direct and shameless rip off of Mario is Missing, but Luigi’s sucking up ghosts with a ghost vacuum in this one. So, in the eyes of this cool guy, it’s actually something completely original in the scope of all media. There are these like “boss ghosts” throughout the game that are actually pretty creative. It’s fun to figure out how to make some of these ghosts appear. Usually, you just have to interactive with the environment (the room of the house), but, sometimes, there’s that extra level of having to use fire, ice, or water power-ups to your Poltergeist 3000. It’s lets you shoot fire, ice, or water out of your Poltergeist 3000…if that wasn’t clear.

I still have to play Luigi's GoombaHog's Day. Heard it was pretty good.

       The game looks really good too. It was a launch title for the Gamecube and it definitely did a good job of showing off what the system was capable of. I mean it’s like this and then Picasso in terms of graphics, need I say more? Also in terms of presentation, Luigi whistling/humming along with the background music was a really nice touch. It’s got some annoyances, like when Boos will jump back and forth between two rooms, adding tedium to the inevitability. Granted, this is only a factor if you’re trying to 100% the darn thing like this champ. I’ve never not 100%’d this game so I don’t know if there’s a difference in difficulty of King Boo (final boos, lololol pun!) if you don’t get all 50 boos. At the end of the game the money you get goes towards building a new mansion. I got the best one, naturally. Hopefully the sequel is harder to 100%, cuz this one’s a breeze!

I knew it! Luigi was a ghost the whole time!

       I was on a 100%ing role, so I decide to go with a game that already owned Pokémon Colosseum. Luckily, I had played this game already because I ended up sleeping through most of this playthrough. It’s not unlike every other Pokemon game, except that every battle is a double battle and that you can only catch “shadow” pokemon; there are 48 of ‘em. Evil bad science made these pokemon evil and you catch ‘em and “purify their hearts” and then everything’s ok. There are some cool ones and some dumb ones, but you’ll get a good party set up pretty early on. It’s a pretty fun game if you’re a pokemon fan and the 3D pokemon make the battles feel even more epic. The moves seem way more devastating, especially earthquake; it’s all like, “ckruaesckaeauhskasK!!” It's really badass! The playthrough took me about 7 hours to do, even with me sleeping through most of it. I did figure out a pretty handy trick to make that pesky pokemon catching a breeze! Once you get the Master Ball, use the first your pokemon’s turn to use the master ball and then, when you have to choose your other pokemon’s moves, go to the item screen where your pokeballs are and switch the position of the master ball (i.e. first position to third, etc.). You’ll use the master ball, but still have it in your inventory. Neat, huh! Gotta cheat ‘em all!

Why couldn't I have this in Pokémon Red?

       Another one done and I’m feelin’ fine! I had so much fun with Pokemon that I decide to buy one of the Pokemon games that I’d never played before. I looked to Japan for the legendary Pokemon Green Version ooohhh! Now I’m not proud of what I paid for this game. I’m not gonna say the exact amount, but it was somewhere upwards of some money. The disappointment started when I booted up the game and much to my chagrin, I wasn’t grinnin’ at what I saw. It was all in Japanese! I know this game basically the Japanese “Red version,” but that’s all I know! Not 4 minutes in, I did something somewhere and ended up glitch the heck outta that sucka! I walked this way and that and then talk to this one dude that was hidden behind some binary and, ShaBam, the credits started a-rollin’. I’m not sure if it’s something that happened on my end or if this is considered a game in Japan. They’re pretty kooky over there. I could probably tell you if I could read Japanese, but, alas, it will probably forever remain a mystery!

Ugh! The text is glitchin' up again!

       After that failure, I decide to tackle a game that I got pretty recently: Donkey Kong 64. This is an interesting little game involving Donkey, Diddy, and the three characters that we never hear from or speak of again: Lanky, the Orangutan; Tiny, the girl one; and the big stupid one. The game is set up so that each member of the DK crew brings different skills to the table in both a forced and unforced way. Unforced in the sense that each character has a specific set of skills that make it easier to complete certain sections, but at the same time, not impossible to do it without them. It’s forced in the sense that each character can only collect a certain color of collectable, which results in a lot of backtracking and ultimately extends gameplay a good 5 hours if you want to 100% the game. I didn’t get much else out of the gameplay, story, or even the levels (there were some instruments or something. Hell, I don’t know), because I was exploiting glitches in the game to get done as fast as possible. No time to enjoy a game, I’ve got a blog to write! I managed to finish the game in about an hour, 54 minutes if you’re keeping track, but not before an amazingly designed boss fight with King K. Rule. If you’re a fan of the show, then you’ll know of John and my recent discussion on platforming boss battles. We weren’t really able to come up with any good ones off the tops of our heads, but I think this one is definitely one of my new favorites. It’s set up as a boxing match and each character goes a round with the fat-weight champion. The sections are designed to utilize each ape’s skill set and there are little cutscenes in between rounds. It’s really good trust me, my brother’s gonna be a doctor.

Tonight on Behind the Music, From Disco King to Obscurity: The Chunky Kong Story.

       That’s it for that nonsense. I’m glad you all really enjoyed this and appreciate that, despite all my laziness, I found something to talk about and I’ve always talked about it in a timely manner. All the speed runs I watch were found at speeddemoarchive.com. They’ve got some pretty crazy ones; I’d recommend it. I think I’ve apologized in my head, but I figured you actually needed to read a real one for it to count. I’d like to apologize for my extreme laziness. I know nobody reads these anyways, but I still feel like I’ve cheated you. I hope I at least made it entertaining as I recapped what I saw. And, although, I can’t guarantee that this won’t happen again, I can guarantee that I’ll try my best to make you put down the gun, climb off the ledge, drop the toaster…outside the bathtub. After all, I’m doin’ this for you. I sure as hell ain’t doing it for me, cuz I’m don’t get paid! Happy 23rd Birthday to my brother, Warren! He gon be a doctor! See you next week with another winner!