i'm slowly going crazy.

well, my sanity was a relativity issue to start with, but for the past week, i think what little vestiges of that abstract quality known as 'the sane Fred' have pretty much been run into the proverbial ground by crayon colored knobby tires. Today's comic is entirely Seraphim's fault.

Oddly enough, even though i do happen to own more game consoles than most people, most of them are older systems and many of those are japanese-only systems (i only have one modded box, and that's my Sega Saturn). This is great for some of the funkier games i like to collect, but when it comes to simple, modern day, entertain-friends-and-the-kids gameplay, i got just about nothin. When sarah's neice and nephew were over last weekend for a few days, his little eyes glowed as he looked over the jumbled mess of cables and game consoles under the tv in the 'office'. After beating up my poor dreamcast for a while (which i have very few english language games for) and telling him that my playstation is broke (once again, few english games) i finally had no choice but to drag out the old Nintendo 64.

There's a reason the N64 was stuffed deep in the closet. There are two evil carts that i made the mistake of not melting down years ago when they had been cast into the darkness that is my closet - Bust a Move 2 and Diddy Kong Racing.

Bust a Move 2, which is really just one of the iterations of Puzzle Bobble, is actually a great game, and i admit a certain level of addiction to it. I actually like the N64 version better than the Dreamcast version. Seraphim can kick my ass in Puzzle Bobble. Flat out, totally, complexly owns my pants in it. Bust a Move 2 is one of the lesser evils - only part of a much bigger evil that i will not cover today.

Diddy Kong Racing is one of those smaller little evils that is like a life-sucking destructive force all in itself. The kids were nothing - Diddy is here. He had taken over. The problem with that damn game is that there is too much to do, and its frustrating as hell sometimes when you get *this* close to winning and (whump!) you're in 8th place.

Seraphim has pretty much been playing it non-stop since the kids left. There is nothing but Diddy Kong Racing music in my head. It has chewed out my brains, and sent my sanity running for places more civilized.

The worst part is when she gets frustrated and hands me the controller and says 'here, win this one for me' Gyah. In desperation sometimes I'll take the pad and work for several hours, playing again and again till i win thru the level she has been fighting with. It's always a glorious moment, when that LSD inspired blue elephant with the bad Indian accent floats down to give you one of those egg-like golden balloons that i'm sure are filled with nothing but happy gas. But it is short lived. I play in hopes that Seraphim will be satisfied that the evil level has been defeated, and that maybe she would be finished for the evening... but lo, such is not the case. It's on to the next challenge.

Sometime in the distantly near future, she'll once again beat the entire game. But i know it wont stop there. The good thing about new games and new systems is that there is a relatively low number of 'current' games people are playing. Once these are thoroughly beat down, there are usually newer games coming out. The problem with old-schooling games is that it is a completely bottomless pit. What would happen if you went back and started digging for older games that you fondly remember playing years ago? there is simply no end to them, there is no bottom.

The last new console i purchased was a Dreamcast, and that was a while ago. Why? because i've been avoiding that endless sucking noise known as 'the next great game' - but now i'm almost desperate to go and buy that damn GameCube or PS2 just so i could get some *variety* in the games that burn my brain down. But every time i look, i get scared away by how expensive it all still is. I've been so busy that I've been pretty much avoiding gaming anyway.

I'm scared now, though. I'm seeing signs that i'm on the verge of being sucked into the bottomless pit of Old Schooling. Last week i was looking around for that opening song for "The Secret of Mana.", i borrowed a friend's US playstation so i could play Final Fantasy VII, i found my old disks for Myst and Doom II, Tokimeki Memorial is beckoning me...

I feel like typing a desperate plea for help, but my fingers are kinda stiff (damn N64 controlers)... Besides, i dont think i can be saved. I need to start a "Buy Seraphim a New Game System and Save Piro's Sanity" fund while there is still time... but it might already be too late.