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[Editor's note: megaStryke started a brand new C Blog series games that mimic other games. More details on the introduction post on the series. Also, his rating system is hilarious. -- CTZ]

For my inaugural foray into interactive media mimicry, I thought I’d treat you guys to something a little special. I’ve been meaning to discuss this particular gem for quite some time as it is a guilty pleasure of mine. It also addresses the mystery of just who that strange blue lad in my avatar and blog header is.

In the past, I’ve mentioned that I spent my early years in Japan where my father played baseball. As a Famicom child, it would follow that I played a game or two that never found its way to the West. Power Blazer was such a game.

And heaven help me, it looked like Mega Man. If I at the tender age of five could tell that I was playing a crass knock-off, someone out there better be ready to throw down some yellow flags on this case of foul play. 

OFFENDER: Power Blazer
DEVELOPED BY: Taito
RELEASED ON: Famicom, 1990
TASTES LIKE: Mega Man

Though this title in its original form never left Japan, you may have heard of another game called Power Blade. A Nintendo product evaluator saw some merit in Power Blazer but had quality concerns and thus reworked the game into something a little more palatable. The hero was replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Chevrolet-inspired twin Nova, the game’s mechanics were tweaked, and the linear levels of the original were scrapped for ones with multiple paths and tighter platforming. Except for the music and a few enemy sprites, the entire game was overhauled and the result was one the best rarely mentioned classics on the NES.

Power Blazer is not that game.

In the late 21st century, all the nations of Earth are managed by a central computer called the Brain Master, but one day it goes Skynet and causes machines the world over to freak out. You are Steve Treiber, a super soldier decked out in a blue bicycle helmet, a black wife beater and the only man able to stop the madness. Oh, and you use a boomerang.

How many games assign a boomerang as your default weapon and not just as a sub item? Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and… uhhh? To be honest, it’s an interesting tool with some clever implementation. At the outset, your boomerang has a very short range as indicated by your power meter. Collecting a certain item extends the meter and allows you to hurl the weapon farther, but each throw drains the meter and reduces the range of subsequent throws unless you allow it time to refill completely. The boomerang returns upon contact with an enemy, but by overshooting a baddie the boomerang can skip along its backside, scoring multiple hits.

Aside from boomerang gimmick, game progression is straightforward. You select from one of six stages, all of which must be completed before you can gain access to the final level. You square off against a gamut of themed robo-nasties in locales such as a military base, a weather station, and an abandoned residential zone. Quite by-the-numbers.

HOW SHAMELESS IS IT?

If guiding a short, blue wonder boy around a stage select screen with the goal of wrecking a mechanical master at the end of each world sends waves of déjà vu down your spine, the levels themselves won’t do anything to erase that sensation. Every obstacle seems to have an analogue in the Mega Man universe. Large robotic frogs, gargantuan-yet-immobile pellet launchers, and little hard-hatted critters that expose themselves for only a moment to fire a shot or two. Hell, even the damn vanishing blocks that are the bane of every long-time Blue Bomber fan make an appearance.

This wouldn’t be too much of an issue if the game at least played like Mega Man, but Steve plods at a pace somewhere between Simon Belmont and a Slinky and gets about as much air as a forklift. Those skills are invaluable when it comes to hopping from falling platform to falling platform or across foot-wide gaps to ledges that are a block higher than your current elevation. But the best parts are the long stretches of nothing save for a gaggle of migraine-inducing jokers who track your relentlessly. After all that, the bosses don’t even have the courtesy to offer you a weapon upon their defeat.

So if you were to follow the flowchart of this game’s design, you’d begin with a typical Mega Man game, replace the gun with a limited-range weapon, eliminate all athletic prowess of the protagonist while keeping the enemies just as capable as ever, then alternate level terrain between barren and frustratingly ridiculous. Not to worry, though. Should the game prove too much to handle, you are allowed to store up to four E canisters that refill your health instantly. Golly, where ever did they come up with that?

Yet as mediocre (and short) the entire experience is it remains one of my favorite games of all time. A large part of that love is thanks to the thick lenses on my nostalgia glasses. Another part is that Mega Man is my favorite game franchise of all time, and so great is my appreciation of it that the love extends to the weeds that sprout in its footsteps. But most of all, I love the music. If nothing else, Power Blazer features some catchy tunes composed by the same chick who did the music for the original Castlevania.

Also, one of the robot guardians is named "Brian D. Danger." Does the "D" stand for "Danger" as well? "Brian Danger Danger"? "Danger’s not just my middle name but my last name as well!" Did Goichi Suda work on this game?

Years ago, I gave this game along with the rest of my Famicom collection to my uncle’s family for them to do Lord-knows-what. It left a burning desire in my heart that intensified whereupon I snatched up a complete-in-box copy off of eBay some months ago on a whim. With the game back in my possession, I came to the realization that Steve Treiber is the greatest gaming icon in the history of forever.

Think about it. Against the deadliest metal nightmares mankind has wrought, he shows up to the party with a boomerang. A boomerang! It takes some serious cojones to thrust yourself into the thick of battle with something that can be purchased at your local dollar store, but if Jason Bourne can beat a man senseless with a rolled-up newspaper then Steve Treiber can chuck a goddamn boomerang.

Even his name is brilliant! "Mega Man," "Nova," those are not names but handles that denote excellence in their profession. "Steve," on the other hand, is just an Average-Joe name. "Steve" is your buddy! "Steve" will buy you drinks at the tavern! He certainly doesn’t look the part of a super soldier. His profile in the game manual makes him appear lean, tall, and equipped with the latest survival gear. It’s in stark contrast to his box cover and in-game appearance which pegs him as a short man with a beer gut and lax standards of dress.

Steve Treiber represents the everyman, lacking athleticism yet applying just enough effort to get the job done. He is my hero. And he uses a boomerang. And I will fight you all to the death if you do not agree with me.

So… yeah. Power Blazer. It’s Mega Man with the lazy All-American can-do spirit. And a boomerang. Maybe that floats your boat. It definitely floats mine.

THE ERIC BAUMAN SCALE OF CONTENT SWIPING:

There originally wasn’t going to be one of these this week, since I was traveling. However, I had an idea on the plane ride home and I found it so funny I laughed really loudly in the face of the frightened woman sat next to me. Then I punched an air stewardess when she told me to calm down. I also refused to turn off my electronics when the plane was about to land. That’s the last time Delta messes with me.

This is being posted tonight on account of the site downtime happening tomorrow. Be warned that this one has a few offensive bits in it. Not that you really should worry about that kind of thing if you’re still paying attention to my diseased rubbish after all these years. 

Watch the stupid bloody video, anyway.

A recall that a few months back, I got a few frantic messages from my co-worker Conrad Zimmerman in reference to a little game by the name of Alan Wake. "Oh my God," he said. "Alan Wake has completely blown me away — you have to see this game. RIGHT NOW." I watched the E3 video of the game and certainly thought it looked fascinating — after all, the protagonist’s predicament reminded me of a mix of my beloved Silent Hill 2 and the best of the best Stephen King novels.

Seeing Alan Wake in person at this year’s Comic-Con was an entirely different experience for me than watching the videos out there on the web, and all the piqued interest I had quickly tumbled into an obsessive, borderline fanatical interest in what I was looking at. We were able to speak to Remedy Games‘ Matias Myllyrinne and Oskari Häkkinen about the title, and they offered some fascinating insight into what makes the game tick, why they chose to go with one firm ending and more. Hit the jump to take it all in!

It’s a surprising thing to post a ranting video one morning and then find your inbox flooded with emails (in this case, six emails constitutes a "flood") a few hours later. It’s even more surprising to find that several of those emails link to a video rebuttal of your aforementioned rant. It is still more surprising when one realizes that the rebuttal in question was made by David Jaffe, the man behind Twisted Metal, God of War, and Calling All Cars!

As an experiment in what our founder calls "realtime interactive Internets," you can watch David Jaffe’s rebuttal to my most recent Rev Rant after the jump, as well as a text-only rebuttal to his rebuttal. A rebuttal squared.

If you’re interested, hit the jump to watch the director of one of the most profitable Sony franchises in history tell me to shut the f*ck up.

Here is the weird thing about Jaffe’s rant, in relation to mine: we both seem to agree with everything I said. The stuff Jaffe seems to disagree with…well, it’s stuff I don’t recall ranting about. 

My argument was, and remains, that games should be more than just mindless fun, that the medium needs to expand in order to be taken seriously, and that those people who want games to just be fun are cowards who are stifling the inherent expressiveness of games as an art form.

Jaffe’s, at least as posited in this video, seems to be that the reason we don’t see these games comes not from some mixture of greed and/or laziness on the part of big publishers, but from the fact that game designers have absolutely no idea how to speak to the human condition through their medium of choice. People should stop preaching for the evolution of games as art, and just start doing it (or, alternately, shut the fuck up about it). 

In other words, we’re arguing two completely different things. Still — that’s no reason not to continue the discussion, right? 

If the argument is that big companies like Sony simply haven’t seen anything artistically feasible that they’d get behind, then sure — that’s fair. I haven’t been privy to as many design meetings or industry shenanigans as Jaffe is, and I’m more than willing to accept the fact that a lot of people just don’t know how to speak to the human condition through button presses.

But that nobody knows how to do it? That nobody could turn something like Passage into a longer, $60, "real" game? 

I don’t buy it. 

If five-minute artgames can speak to the human condition through gameplay alone — and I’d argue that they can — then a hefty amount of the theoretical work is already done. Games like Today I Die and Passage prove that interactivity on its basest levels can evoke an emotional or intellectual reaction unlike any found in other, established artforms. If you can get a button press to make players cry in five minutes, you can make it do the same thing over a period of hours — it’s just much, much harder. At which point, "we don’t know how to do it" seems less like irrefutable fact and more like an excuse.

I don’t know how to speak Spanish, for instance, but I’ll never be able to do so if I don’t try and fail to pronounce "sacapuntas" hundreds and hundreds of times. The "shut up about it until you can do it" mantra seems irrelevant at best — is all videogame critique of any sort just supposed to cease until someone makes an unerringly artful game? — and regressive at worst. 

Jaffe says nobody knows how to do it correctly. I’d point to, just as a start, games like Braid, Silent Hill 2, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus — hell, even parts of not-great games like Fable II can speak to the human condition. If these games prove that it can be done, even if only occasionally, then what excuses does the industry have as a whole for not pursuing those goals further if not purely pragmatic ones? 

As someone who tried to make a big-budget artgame and failed to do so, Jaffe presumes I’m (to briefly quote his Twitter) a poser who bitches without actually doing anything about the state of the industry. Even if I hadn’t made an artgame of questionable quality in an attempt to explore the very things I rant about in this video, however, I’d still take issue with the idea that gamers shouldn’t be asking for more from their media with every breath in their bodies. It’s possible and it’s insanely difficult, but it’s what the medium — and gamers as fans of that medium — ultimately deserve. 

It’s a surprising thing to post a ranting video one morning and then find your inbox flooded with emails (in this case, six emails constitutes a "flood") a few hours later. It’s even more surprising to find that several of those emails link to a video rebuttal of your aforementioned rant. It is still more surprising when one realizes that the rebuttal in question was made by David Jaffe, the man behind Twisted Metal, God of War, and Calling All Cars!

As an experiment in what our founder calls "realtime interactive Internets," you can watch David Jaffe’s rebuttal to my most recent Rev Rant after the jump, as well as a text-only rebuttal to his rebuttal. A rebuttal squared.

If you’re interested, hit the jump to watch the director of one of the most profitable Sony franchises in history tell me to shut the f*ck up.

Here is the weird thing about Jaffe’s rant, in relation to mine: we both seem to agree with everything I said. The stuff Jaffe seems to disagree with…well, it’s stuff I don’t recall ranting about. 

My argument was, and remains, that games should be more than just mindless fun, that the medium needs to expand in order to be taken seriously, and that those people who want games to just be fun are cowards who are stifling the inherent expressiveness of games as an art form.

Jaffe’s, at least as posited in this video, seems to be that the reason we don’t see these games comes not from some mixture of greed and/or laziness on the part of big publishers, but from the fact that game designers have absolutely no idea how to speak to the human condition through their medium of choice. People should stop preaching for the evolution of games as art, and just start doing it (or, alternately, shut the fuck up about it). 

In other words, we’re arguing two completely different things. Still — that’s no reason not to continue the discussion, right? 

If the argument is that big companies like Sony simply haven’t seen anything artistically feasible that they’d get behind, then sure — that’s fair. I haven’t been privy to as many design meetings or industry shenanigans as Jaffe is, and I’m more than willing to accept the fact that a lot of people just don’t know how to speak to the human condition through button presses.

But that nobody knows how to do it? That nobody could turn something like Passage into a longer, $60, "real" game? 

I don’t buy it. 

If five-minute artgames can speak to the human condition through gameplay alone — and I’d argue that they can — then a hefty amount of the theoretical work is already done. Games like Today I Die and Passage prove that interactivity on its basest levels can evoke an emotional or intellectual reaction unlike any found in other, established artforms. If you can get a button press to make players cry in five minutes, you can make it do the same thing over a period of hours — it’s just much, much harder. At which point, "we don’t know how to do it" seems less like irrefutable fact and more like an excuse.

I don’t know how to speak Spanish, for instance, but I’ll never be able to do so if I don’t try and fail to pronounce "sacapuntas" hundreds and hundreds of times. The "shut up about it until you can do it" mantra seems irrelevant at best — is all videogame critique of any sort just supposed to cease until someone makes an unerringly artful game? — and regressive at worst. 

Jaffe says nobody knows how to do it correctly. I’d point to, just as a start, games like Braid, Silent Hill 2, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus — hell, even parts of not-great games like Fable II can speak to the human condition. If these games prove that it can be done, even if only occasionally, then what excuses does the industry have as a whole for not pursuing those goals further if not purely pragmatic ones? 

As someone who tried to make a big-budget artgame and failed to do so, Jaffe presumes I’m (to briefly quote his Twitter) a poser who bitches without actually doing anything about the state of the industry. Even if I hadn’t made an artgame of questionable quality in an attempt to explore the very things I rant about in this video, however, I’d still take issue with the idea that gamers shouldn’t be asking for more from their media with every breath in their bodies. It’s possible and it’s insanely difficult, but it’s what the medium — and gamers as fans of that medium — ultimately deserve. 

If you own a Nintendo DS, you are doubtless getting quite excited for Mario & Luigi: Bower’s Inside Story. If you’re somehow not excited, then you’re obviously mentally impaired and should probably be killed. I’m not saying I wish death upon you, I’m just saying that it would probably be awesome if you were dead.

The rest of you, prepare to enjoy a pair of vignettes for the latest Mario Bros. RPG adventure. It should look instantly familiar to those of you who enjoyed the previous two games in the series, but that’s a very good thing. It’s a brilliant formula — so long as the jokes are fresh, I can keep enjoying that same established gameplay. 

Hit the jump for the vids.

It’s been a fierce couple of weeks for our six Quake Live FNF tournament finalists, but the results are in. Coming in at first, second, and third place respectively are Weird, Gandhi, and Torzelan. These fine gentlemen are all walking away with a high-end gaming PC from Cyberpower for their efforts. Congrats, guys, and stay tuned for footage of the matches.

Didn’t win any sweet loot? Don’t fret. We are still handing out $8,300 in Maingear PCs to Call of Duty 4 players of all skill levels. Remember, there’s only one week left until the season ends, so get out there and start gaining some wins!

In related news, Fat Princess is out now, and I have been hearing nothing but good things. As expected, there will be plenty of Dtoiders playing that as well as a slew of other games. Hit the break to see what else we’ll be doing tonight.

Quick guide to FNF for new players: Each week, a bunch of Destructoid readers and usually an editor or two get together to play some videogames online. Fun times!

The planning for FNF takes place in the forums, where Dtoiders volunteer to host by posting their information (gamertag, time to meet up, game, etc.) in the forum post corresponding to the system they’re interested in playing on.

Then, every Friday, reminder posts for those who don’t read the forums regularly go up in the community blogs section all thanks to a dedicated group of cool individuals. And for everyone who wants their info all in one place, they have got my weekly recap posts which you are currently reading.

Now that you’re here, just scan the list below and find a game you want to play. All that’s left to do after that is to join the match by contacting the host below using any means necessary. For Wii, you might have to be a little creative, but for 360/PS3 a simple "invite plz" message will be fine.

If you want to get your gaming done later on in the evening, scroll on down past this section, otherwise hit up the following European hosts/early FNFers for a good time.

Tonight’s Hosts (more info from EuroFNF):
• Gibbo – JGibbo08 (Left 4 Dead from 10:00 – 12:00 GMT)
• NegFactor – NegFactor (Marvel vs. Capcom 2 @ 6:00 EDT)

Tonight’s Hosts (more info from blehman):
• roshey – Roshey (Call of Duty 4 @ 8:00 EDT)
• de BLOO – BLOORATARD (Marvel vs. Capcom 2 @ 9:30 EDT)
• JohnnyViral – JohnnyViral (Castle Crashers from 9:00 – 10:30, Halo 3 @ 10:30 EDT)
• Aborto the fetus – asbestosSNDWICH (BlazBlue @ 10:00 EDT)
• Blehman – blehmeng (Left 4 Dead @ 10:00 EDT)

Tonight’s Hosts (more info from Shipero):
• IronPikeman – IronPikeman (BlazBlue @ 8:00 EDT)
• Takeshi – JohanHin (Killzone 2 @ 9:00 EDT — password = "TOID")
• shipero – Shipero (Fat Princess @ 11:00 EDT)
• Santanaclaus89 – Moosehole (SOCOM: Confrontation @ 12:00 EDT)

Tonight’s Game (more info from ryu89):
• ryu89:
  Skype: Ryuh89
  Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 0817-3428-3165
  Starting time: 11:00 EDT

On September 20, Pearl Jam will release its latest record Backspacer, the band’s ninth album. 

Because we’re not a music blog, you may wonder why we think you should care. Well, that’s because according to Billboard, the album will be available on Rock Band "the day it comes out." It’s also reported that Target will have a special edition of the album which will offer access to download the songs to Rock Band via PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Marketplace, as well.

We have to say we’re a bit skeptical on "the day it comes out" thing; September 20 is a Sunday, and Rock Band content hits XBLM and PSN on Tuesdays and Thursdays, respectively. But Billboard was pretty clear that it is coming. Pricing is unknown, but with the album featuring 11 tracks, you can probably do the math based on previous album releases.

The full tracklist for the forthcoming album can be found after the jump. You can hear some of it here.

[Thanks, power-glove!]

"Gonna See My Friend"
"Got Some"
"The Fixer"
"Johnny Guitar"
"Just Breathe"
"Amongst the Waves"
"Unthought Known"
"Supersonic"
"Speed of Sound"
"Force of Nature"
"The End"

Destructoid is moving on up (to the east side, in a deluxe server cloud in the sky) this weekend, so the site may be down for extended periods of time as we set the current servers on fire and dance around their dusty remains.  The planned maintenance will begin sometime on Saturday and end as soon as humanly possible. Our sister sites Tomopop.com and Japanator.com will also be down during this upgrade.

Until then, I leave you this informative gallery of images that explain the benefits of our new platform. We look forward to serving you again on Monday with a faster, better site.  Thanks for reading us. Also, chicken broth.