The Tauz = Gamer?!?

Thanks to the Wii ownership status I achieved on Christmas, and because of the people I hang out with, I have become a little more of gamer. I'd by NO means consider myself a hardcore gamer, not even by a longshot. But I am progressing, and I'll prove it.

I recently have both beaten another video game and I pre-ordered and, subsequently tore into, a new game. Two rapid-fire, Grown-Up Gamer accomplishments, back-to-back. Suckadick, y'all.

A while back, Joe (of fourhman.com fame) started some hype about an upcoming game for the Wii: Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I'd played Melee, which is Brawl's predecessor for the Nintendo GameCube, back when I lived with Molyneaux. I liked it well enough, but no big whoop. So when Joe was REALLY bonered up about the release of this game for the Wii, I was nonplussed. I didn't really think it should be such a big to-do. He and Tony both seemed excited for it.

So, me being the highly suggestible person that I am, I kinda got excited about it too. I even took up the cause. I tried to get Molyneaux excited, because he's more of a gamer than I have ever been, so I thought he should be excited, too. Alas, he was not very excited.

Then came the pre-order buzz. Joe went to his Toys-R-Us to place his order, which often makes him nervous. We always hear him calling and checking in on the status of the shipments and such details because he knows that the idiots who work over there can completely bone his on-time Drop-Day Purchase quite easily.

Next, Tony reported that if you pre-ordered Brawl at Circuit City, you get a $10 gift card to boot! Hearing this from him made me assume that he'd already gone through with this deal himself. (He had not, mostly because of the arrival of Codename: Project Grits. Cutest. Reason. Ever.)

Somewhere amidst all the hubbub about this game, which I was still not yet overly or even genuinely excited about, the prospect of online play came up.

I was immediately intrigued. The Wii was going to put its multi-player wi-fi abilities to the test with Brawl and that meant that I could get my ass handed to me by a broad spectrum of friends and strangers alike. There's something about combatting someone from across the county, or maybe even the world just sounded so damn COOL! This just might be worth the hype, I thought. And it was then and there that I decided I'd join the fold and pre-order with my veteran gamer brothers.

Later on, I spoke with Molyneaux about how I was going to join the ranks, and he said that was a good idea. Shortly thereafter, he proceeded to Circuit City and cashed in on the pre-order deal. Apparently I may have convinced him to be excited after all! Days later, I held true to my own mental self-vow and made the purchase. I not only bought a portion of a game that day, but I also bought a piece of The Tauz's Gaming History. I put five dollars down on progress, folks.

But all I walked outta there with... was this:

It was still a proud day.

It's a funny thing, though. I wasn't really excited about Brawl for a while, but once I got excited about it, I was REALLY excited about it. And, the Friday night before it dropped, I got a call from my boy, Caleb that got me uber-excited about it.

Joe had just left work after talking about when we were going to Brawl online against each other on Sunday. He also took off of work that Monday so he could play all day, undistracted. He was straight-up stoked about SSBB. So when Caleb called to ask if I wanted to do the normal games and fun with he and Autumn that night I said yeah. THEN, he's like "oh...and we got a Wii, and I got an advance copy of Smash Brothers. So we can play that."

I felt something come out of my butt at that point. And in spite of that feeling, a smile split my face wide open. I was realizing that I was going to get to play this game before Joe. And I did. And we took two pictures of Caleb and I with the game, flicking off the camera, and we sent them to Joe's wife's phone that night. She was confused. He figured it out and was probably pretty jealous. Good times.

My friend Brett joined in the fun with Autumn, Caleb and myself that night. We played for a solid 4 hours I'd say. It only made me want to have my own copy all the more. But there was still something in the way...

The next night (Saturday) I realized that Brawl's Launch Day was nearly upon me, and I still had yet to conquer the other game that I had recently taken quite a shine to: Super Mario Galaxy.



At this point, I was within 15 galaxies from being able to access the Final Level, but I wanted to keep playing ALL the rest of the galaxies. In order. If I was going to defeat Bowser for the first time in my life, I was going to do it right, dammit!

Sidebar

I know. I know. Some of you are in shock and awe. You're probably saying something like, "Damn, The Tauz, I'm no gamer myself, but even I've beaten the original Super Mario Bros. like, twice in my life, dude. Seriously, man? What the shit is that noise about, ass-hat?" Well, my defense is that I didn't ever have any of the consoles when I was younger.

Nor did I have any serious skills at gaming.

Nor the interest to get into gaming as a serious hobby.

But now I at least have the interest. So leave me alone. Everyone has a road to travel, and mine didn't have too many exploding bricks or big question-marked coin boxes on it, and the only mustachioed siblings of mine were not plumbers.



The only games on my road were the likes of Mortal Combat and Eternal Champions. And the only opponents I've ever beaten on my road before now were the original Sonic the Hedgehog...



...and QuackShot...



...(both of which I bested on the second-hand Sega Genesis console I bought for myself for Christmas one year from a friend). So bugger off about it.

Back to the story.

So the night before Brawl dropped, I went bowling with Loban and Angela, KK and Mike. Seeing as how we met around 11pm, you can see how this easily went well into the night/early morning. When I got home around 1am, I putzed around on the Internets for a bit and then decided that I was going to go defeat Bowser in space.

I grabbed my Wii-mote and Nunchuk, pumped down the volume and pumped up the amount of muted, swearing screams. I wasn't really that tired, actually, mostly because I get so frustrated sometimes with video games.

I should have documented this journey to rescue Peach closer to the event, because now I can't recall many of the insignificant yet entertaining details. I know I used an ass-load of continues and got a whole bunch of 5-UP letters from the Princess in the process. I did eventually beat the final stage, much to my elation. There are still stages and events to go back and mess around with, too, at a later date. But when the credits finally rolled, the sun was peeking through the blinds in my living room. I trudged up the stairs, posted the following away message: Beat Super Mario Galaxy @ 7:30am. going to bed now and P.T.F.O. (passed the FUCK out). I think I then slept until 1pm or so.

So that was done. Another notch in my belt. Next up: Smash Brothers. Later that day, I headed over to Circuit City. (I almost pulled out of my parking space without my pre-order receipt, which would have pissed me off pretty hard.)



I went to the counter and told the chick I was there to get my copy of SSBB. They had a little cart behind the counter, next to a display with the Game Guides. She grabbed one of the very few game boxes remaining on said cart. From the looks of it, I was one of the last people to pick up their copy that day. She brought it to the register and I saw that it had a stickie taped to it with "Tauzin" scrawled on it. That made me feel special for some reason. I wanted to request that she leave it on there for documentation on The Blaug, but I chickened out. (I need to work on that!)

So I brought it home, and loaded it up and Loban and I did a couple of Brawls against each other. I also let Joe know it was in my hands and that I was searching for my Friend Code to give him. I entered his onto my Friend Roster, since he'd provided his as soon as he had gotten it that day.

I gave him a holler on the phone and we started up a marathon of online Brawls between the two of us. He, of course, pwned me more times than not, but the warm-up session on Friday at Caleb's had served well as a refresher course. I think I beat him once or twice, probably with my fave, Kirby.



Since you choose your characters separately from one another, it's always a surprise which character you'll be facing. So when we both picked Pikachu and we ended up battling in Pokemon Stadium, that was funny. But the most memorable match was when he chose Peach and I chose Mario, and we ended up in one of plumber's home stages. It looked like the Famous Gaming Couple was having a helluva domestic disturbance, which made me giggle throughout the fight.

In the days since, I have come to love Spectate Mode, in which you can watch random matches between random people that are going on around the world at any given moment. It has replaced ESPN as what I watch while having breakfast in the mornings. It's really friggin cool to watch and bet on who's gonna win.



Also since that first day, Caleb and Autumn, Molyneaux, and Loban and Broban have all helped me unlock more characters with whom we can Brawl. Although I've "mastered" playing as Kirby and a white-palette-swapped Donkey Kong, I long to unlock Sonic, Mr. Game and Watch, and Jigglypuff. I've played Joe online a few more times, I've played against the brothers Loban (who were playing in my apartment on my console) alongside Molyneaux at his place, and just recently Tony picked up his copy and he, Joe and I had a hot three-way online.

It was pretty sweet... 'specially since I won a couple of matches. That made me feel good; like I belong amongst these seasoned gamer vets. Turns out I'm not completely terrible at some of these games I've been playing. And I found out that some of them are actually fun!

And that makes me feel like I am a real gamer.

See you in the Brawl Arenas, chumps!!


"Hayahyahyaaaaaah!"