Pengo

I wish I could be writing about how I came back from an awesome Medi-terranean cruise this week, but instead events conspired against me. Instead I shall write about my childhood adventures....

When I went on my first cruise way back in 1983, I was amazed to find an arcade on board. But it was my second cruise in 1985 that really wowed me. You see, the arcade in this ship wasn't big or anything; it actually only had 3 or 4 games. BUT THEY WERE FREE! Do you know what this means to a 10 year old who has to survive on quarters meted out by his parents in small doses? It doesn't matter how lame the games are (well, luckily it didn't have Moon Patrol; I hate that game - I'll rant about that another time, pink moon buggy), I got to play them over and over and get good at them.

I only remember Time Pilot '84 and Pengo. Only I never really got very good at Pengo. I don't think I grasped the awesome ability to squash the Sno-Bees with ice blocks really well. I could stumble around and avoid them half the time, but the game is kind of clunky and it's hard to get away from them and smash while on the run. Nevertheless, I like the cheesy electronic attempts at classical music, and Pengo just looks cool. He also trips a lot and has some weird friends that never help him out, but they sure like to dance and wiggle their rear ends.

I don't think I'm ever going to get to a Time Pilot '84 ship, there's too much grey going on. And I did so much better on that game. Maybe because missiles are way easier to destroy your enemies with than ice....

Bubble Man (portrait)

When I first conceived of these video game recreations, I thought I would stick to the oldest games because they were simple to put together, and I could do them fast. Unfortunately, some of the games that I've always liked don't always translate so well when you just make one character at a time (see Legend of Zelda for what I'm talking about).

I've wanted to tackle most of the Mega Man villains, but they're big and take a long time to map out correctly. So how did I end up with this, my largest portrait to date? I have no idea. I just got inspired one day to make the actual portrait on the menu selection screen, instead of the guy himself. I'll get to him someday. I almost ran out of those light green bricks. Sadly, he'll probably be the only portrait I do because all the others ones have colours I cannot replicate in Lego form.

Darn, I just noticed that I screwed up a bit right before posting it. I fixed it. This one actually didn't take too long because the different colour lines make it easy to avoid (major) screw ups.

Ice Hockey (Poland)

Finally, the NHL playoffs are among us. I've been excited all season for this, and I can't wait! Oh wait, I don't follow hockey. Although I did go to a regular season game for the first time ever this year, so I guess that counts for something. It had a bunch of guys skating around that sort of looked like this.

In the meantime, in honor of this momentous Canadian occasion, I give you the Nintendo Ice Hockey player that represents Poland. I chose Poland because when I first met my friend Alex, she brought this cartridge over. Playing it for the first time in many years was also reminded me why this game was not very fun in comparison to Blades of Steel. The players are clunky and the controls seem all over the place.

There is an interesting bit of strategy in that you can choose to set up your team with as many skinny/medium/fat players as you choose. So if you like to play fast, you can load it up with a bunch of skinny guys, but watch out if the opposing player makes a bunch of fat guys flatten your lithe team. This particular character is the medium guy. I'm sure someday I'll get to the skinny Swede and the fat Czech. Or maybe the skinny Russian and the fat Canadian? The possibilities are endless! Or as many you can come up with using six countries....

Kuribo's Shoe (Goomba)

So I was finally inspired last week to come up with something green for St. Patrick's Day, and Kuribo's Shoe popped into my head. Normally my inspiration comes from replaying a game, and not a holiday, but I quickly slapped the shoe together and was about to post it when I realised it was just a big green boot. It looked kind of sad all by itself. And here I was so happy that I put something together in record time.

Now, I've seen people put Mario in there, and he does look good when he's stomping all over the place, but I wanted to be different. I looked at my ever-expanding array of colours, and there was good old orange-y brown. I had never used orange-y brown before. It was perfect for a Super Mario Bros. 3 Goomba, so I started piecing him together. Whoops. I only had a few squares, and still didn't want to post this boring green blob with no context.

I found a place out there that can give me access to a few more colours. So I placed an order, and a few days later, he's done for all of you to see. Doesn't he look swell? Oh, by the way, it's actually referred to as dark orange, so I shall have to retire the name orange-y brown or apply it to some other muddled colour out there if I stumble upon something comparable. And so there you have it: your green-inspired post, only one week later....

Space Invader

The original Space Invaders game was (mostly) in black and white. It's boring to make any of these pixels in just white, so I went with this creative pink. I seem to recall there was some green in the game, but that wasn't for the space invaders themselves (at least until they got to the bottom, and by then it was too late). I also bought a lot of pink bricks so one day I could make that one Pac Man ghost. What else would I use them for? This is the first true 1x1 pixel design I've made; it looks decent when it's a small character like this, but I find that you need bigger bricks for big chunks of colour for it to look good on the big sprites. It doesn't look as crooked when you've got all those little bricks that can end up slightly rotated in funny ways.

There's a street artist out there that takes this particular character and places him in locations around the world. I've seen them in Los Angeles, of course, but was pleased to find one in London, and I took a picture. I think it was on the bridge across from the Houses of Parliament. Wow, there are a lot of them; go here to pick a city and see where he (or his imitators) have been. His name is Invader, strangely enough....

Octorok

I didn't want to have to do this. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had any free time to make more of these, so I'm down to my last one from the stockpile. And he's not even that exciting.

Octoroks. Probably the easiest name to remember of the random enemies Link faced. Don't remember the rest? Maybe this will refresh your mind: The Legend of Zelda NES commercial. Without that ad flashing their name quickly and repeatedly into our adolescent heads, we would never have learned that the random tree-shaped things that came in blue and red actually were land molluscs that shot small boulders out of their snouts. Just like snails do in our world.

I really wanted to start out with Link, but as I've mentioned previously, he just doesn't look good in the two versions I've made him in. The first used yellow for skin and it was alright, but the tan bricks I used for the second one were just too light for this weird elf-looking guy with a shield that can protect him from rocks if he just doesn't swing his sword at the same time. Besides, I'm here to talk about Octoroks. Um, I'm really going to have trouble stretching the entry out when I get to a Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Octorok....

Rockman

OK, so I never really call him Rockman. He will always be Mega Man to me. He's the most complicated character I've made to date, so I thought I'd end the year with him. He's so nice I haven't had the heart to disassemble him and work on his adversaries. Magnet Man calls to me....

When I first heard they were bringing back Mega Man (and in 8-bit glory no less), I got so excited I pulled out all the old games and tried to beat them all. I even played Mega Man II on the difficult level, which I had never done before. Unfortunately, I didn't finish III in time, since Mega Man 9 showed up for download right in the middle of this run. It was a little jarring to try and finish up III while still trying to check out the new game. I have never even finished IV, but then, I got that one off Ebay and haven't had years to try and defeat it over and over like the others.

Mega Man 9 is the hardest one since at least the original Mega Man. Even after getting a few hints online, I got so frustrated I haven't played it in weeks. I'm going to play it right now though, as I'm strangely inspired for some reason....