You guys have played Cave Story, right?

So Uglicus has been trying to get me to watch some Japanese cartoon, and I'm two episodes in

I know that's not so uncommon a thing, but it got me thinking of a game where the ultimate goal is to kill Jesus. Obviously there is more to it than that, and it's not some teen-angsty bullshit thing, but you do end the game by shooting him in the eye a whole bunch. That's the kind of shooting people in the eye I can get behind.

This game happens to be the best game ever.

Believe I'm selling it wrong by bringing up the 'kill Jesus' thing first. It's a sorta but not really at all Jesus; a failed, mad Jesus. Even though the picture at right just happens to depict killer cherubs. Wholly coincidental, the game really isn't about that. It's about one man, singlehandedly over five years making a kick-ass side scrolling action platformer.

Maybe you're sick of the retro nostalgia pixels-are-kewlz thing, but shut the hell up. This shit is breathtaking. They're not little low-rez sprites because the game's cashing in on a fad, a guy did this. One guy. He did the art. He wrote the music, he wrote the words, that's Pixel's game*.

Oh, and uh, yeah, pixels are cool...

Game plays delicious. Our protagonist there (dude to the right with the fine robot ass in his face) moves through the world as if it were drowned in the sweetest of syrups. There are a few ways to enhance your mobility including the greatest machine gun of all time. Yeah, that's what I said.
Nice load of weapons, genuinely varied. You can go from firing rubber goddamn duckies at your foe to unloading a torrent of fucken rockets point blank into his eye socket and that feels every bit as satisfying as it sounds.

Music has the same best-SNES-game-evar feel as the graphics, in that it's pushed further than that machine could ever go but stopping short of the years of bland disk-based shit (I'm being harsh here, I know) that were to follow. Oh and crude untextured polygons.
Simple, but catchy, and emotional when it wants to be. Maybe not topping a Mega Man game in it's prime (2), but certainly broader than 'kill robots for two hours'.

'Simple catchy and emotional when it wants to be' describes the actual story pretty damn good too. There are a few dick moves in there where your first time through you will probably get a few people killed, who didn't need to die, (goddamnit Pixel why couldn't I pick up the tow-rope after the battle whhyyyyyyh), horribly counter intuitive. But when you stop to pick up that tow-rope and leave Booster to die thereby forcing him to survive and build you a better jetpack then postpone your escape from the falling skyland to check out that hut for any suspicious portals to hell you're rewarded with the most adrenaline-charged you-against-the-world first/best/only-friend-and-hot-robot-chick literally strapped-to-your-fucking-back-guns-ablaze VIDEO GAME GLORY.


It's then and only then they spring the 'kill Jesus' thing I mentioned at the start on you.

You've no reason not to play this game. It's PC freeware, great English translation (far as I know). Very fine PSP port if you've got your's hacked. WiiWare enhanced port finally came out for something like ten dollars, though unfortunately I bent my Wii and have not tried it. : (


By the way, those panties? You can totally steal 'em.