NOW PLAYING: GUILTY GEAR X2

Player One: Staff Member #716
If you’re anything like me (or like me only in this one particular way, which I’m about to mention), then you’ve had a thought in the back of your mind which has popped up unexpectedly every now and then. You’ll be fixing lunch, or waiting at a red light or something, when all of a sudden, you think, \"You know, I enjoy those Street Fighter games almost as much as as my slightly ironic interest in kitschy retro heavy metal. If only there were a way to combine the two.\" Well, some Japanese video game producer must have crawled inside your brain and looked around, because the Guilty Gear series has done exactly that.
At first glance, the game looks like a pretty straightforward Street Fighter knockoff: two hand-drawn, anime-styled characters beat each other up in a best-of-three-rounds fight, using flashy fireballs and other epilepsy-inducing attacks. But Guilty Gear brings something to the table which other fighting games desperately need: personality.
Rather than going to the usual played out selection of characters (\"Okay, we need a military guy, a ninja, a pro wrestler, and a Jamaican dude who knows capoeira.\"), Guilty Gear has lifted its cast from the Eighties music scene. Sure, there’s a giant powerful-but-slow-moving guy and a lightning-quick Chun Li wannabe in there, but they’re mixed in with characters sporting names like Slayer, Venom, Testament, and Zappa, not to mention a couple of dead ringers for Billy Idol and Axl Rose.
The game has a soundtrack to match, too. While it’s all generic video game synth music, the composer did a damn fine job of emulating the butt-rock hair metal riffs and guitar wails that inspired the rest of the game. One track in particular makes me think of \"Sweet Child Of Mine\" every time I hear it.
No game is without a few drawbacks, though, and Guilty Gear is no exception. Like most fighting games, the \"plot\" is damn near indecipherable. It has something to do with mutants 200 years in the future, I think. And while most of the special moves are pretty easy to do, the PlayStation’s joypad isn’t exactly built for making some of the circular motions required. This game has given me one of the worst cases of Nintendo Thumb I’ve had in years. But if you’ve found yourself playing Vice City just to listen to the music (like me), there’s a pretty good chance you’ll eat this one up.
Player Two: Das Bork
Round One: Okay, so, yeah... I got started playing this game, you know? I chose my character, started the match, and this nine-foot-tall guy in a white suit with a paper bag on his head came out and started stabbing me with a long scalpel knife. Yes, he had a bag on his head! I was like, \"Okay, punk. I\'ll take you on!\" Just as I tried to attack him, he threw some Pop-Tarts and donuts on the ground in front of me! WHAT?!? Now what is this? He dropped a baby version of himself, carried by a balloon, to the ground. The Pop-Tarts and donuts didn’t do anything to me, so why would this? I was wrong. It crawled over to me and self-destructed at my feet. Damn! Just when I thought I had seen it all from this guy, he disappeared. A door then appeared, and he popped out of it, slapping me with his paper bag head. After that, I was dead. He pulled out his suitcase, and flew away on his umbrella like Mary Poppins!
Round Two: After that fiasco, Pizzaface from The Ring came and started stomping on my ass! Why me?!? Pizzaface frightened me more than that lady with sausages who asked me to play with her dead baby. After she was done, she finished me off by showing me the tree and a television screen with an eye that looked at me. I was made dead forever. I am not going to mention more of what she did, because I fear it might kill you in seven days if you read it. Don’t ask. I already got the phone call.
I know I usually write about weird and strange shit that happens to me, but this actually happened in the video game Guilty Gear X2. Paper Bag Head is named Faust, and Pizzaface is Zappa. Zappa actually, to explain, is possessed by Pizzaface. He\'s a guy that walks backwards on his hands and feet. Considering the type of stuff I normally write about, this game had to have been made for me.