Lets get this started right. 

The date: 1989.  The game: a game of passion.

So I have finally arrived to Austin, Texas.  Ya know, I got to say this place is a lot bigger than I thought it was. The city has a population of 1.6 million people according to the last census held here, and the slogan for the city is "Keep Austin Weird."  Yes, that is their actual slogan.  I guess you could call it a bit of a culture shock being here, it's very much different than what I was used to back home.  But it's been a good experience for the most part, the people here seem to enjoy life (the people back home-not so much) and I've met a couple of interesting folks along with having some interesting opportunities.  Take for example this magazine.

Be still, my beating heart...

Study Breaks magazine.  Somehow, through the wonders of Gmail and craigslist, I managed to land an interview for an internship at this magazine.  I'm still kind of confused on how it all happened honestly, but the interview, let me tell you, I think I did ok for my part of it, but boy, were those people not ready for what I had to offer.  For one thing, this magazine is about the local night life/bar scene here in Austin, which takes a life of its own come Friday night.  Seriously, in terms of nightlife, this city and downtown 6th street turn nuclear with activity.  It really is something to see. But what do I  pitch at the Study Breaks interview? What do I tell a magazine that is focused on hooking up and looking at hot people?  Why, I tell them I'm a nerd and how I want to write about technology, how there are so many personalities and developers here in the Austin area that it would make your head spin thinking about it, how people like Warren Specter and Richard Garriott probably live 15 minutes away for Christ's sake, and of how Austin is one of THE premiere places to be for game development.  I told them all that during my five minute spill.  I really thought everything was going over rather well, I knew my shit and they could definitely tell as much. It was a blitz of technology and gaming who's who that they simply were not ready for.  What was their reaction?

"Um, Do what?"

That picture sums it up pretty well.  I came to the interview with a few ideas, I threw them a couple of zingers, you know the kind of headlines that make your head spin, and as soon as I was done with the pitch you know what their first question was?  "But do you think you could write about other things?"  Oh how deep, my heart did sink.  Needless to say, they have not called me back since our interview.

Besides the professional opportunities that have strangely been frequent since I've arrived here in Austin, my gaming habits have taken a very strange turn since my move to this self proclaimed "weird" city.  Being endowed for the first time with plastic money (a debit card), its now easier than ever to download games off of the Wii's virtual console.  I've probably sunk around 30 dollars into old school classics such as  Megaman 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Sonic 3, Kirby's Adventure, and  Castlevania 3.  Out of all of them, I've only beaten Sonic 3 for now (not an especially difficult feat knowing its development history, but thats another blog for another day), but I'm getting really close to finishing Megaman 2. Let me state for the record that Megaman 2 is the shit, seriously.  The amount of variety in the levels is really something to behold. Its apparent that the developers of this game had a good time creating it and exploring all the ideas presented in the game to their fullest extent.  The platforming, mixed in with the shooting, mixed in with the mixing and matching of powers really makes for great gaming session.  The quality of the title is in no small part directly linked to how the whole project was conceived and executed, which brings up the topic of Megaman 2's interesting development past.  

The line below the youtube video above, "the game, a game of passion," isn't an exaggeration, or some crude remark.  The production of Megaman 2 was actually made during the the teams off-time at Capcom back in the late 1980s.  The story goes that after the original Megaman had been shipped (Rockman, as the series is known in Japan) Capcom had the team start work on their next product,  Professional Baseball Murder Mystery.  You read that correctly.

Professional Baseball Murder Mystery

"Three Strikes and your dead", now THATS a fucking zinger.

Besides the hilarity of putting the subjects of both "baseball" and "murder mystery" together, the team behind M egaman felt that they were really on to something with the 1987 classic, and convinced Capcom to let them develop Megaman 2, but only if they developed Professional Baseball Murder Mystery at the sametime.  History has obviously chosen the better product.

The Legacy of Professional Baseball Murder Mystery

But Megaman 2 holds a very large part in the hearts of old school NES gamers, and its understandable.  The game really does withstand the test of time, with its 2-D pixelated charm, and "rock-paper-scissor" design aesthetic to enemy and boss encounters, I truly think it'll be remember in a far better light than many of the 3-D games that are so popular today.  It makes one wonder, if all studios developed their games with such a personal investment as the one made by the Megaman 2 team, how would this industry be today?  Most likely, "Professional Baseball Murder Mystery"-less.