Mame -> Bubble Bobble 1

I keep forgetting that this isn't a good game to play on a laptop, especially if you're like me and you forget how to rotate the display of your laptop... or, rather, UN-rotate it.  It's Ctrl-Alt and the arrow keys!  You know... WHAT YOU USE IN BUBBLE BOBBLE.  Also, that "Windows" key's a little too close for comfort.  I'd be better off playing that knife and fingers game, really!  Now, that's a blog worth reading!

4/3/'15 - Okay, played it on the desktop.  Dayamn, but that level 95 is unforgiving.  But it just makes it all the sweeter when you jump all the way to the top and find that one narrow window of opportunity to get all them Duke boys... I mean, those space invaders and drunks and put 'em into bubbles.  So now I just have to figure out how to decipher the cryptic message at the end.

Wikipedia: Bubble Bobble in its "List of video games considered the best."  Which can be important to some, but... Super Meat Boy?  Clearly I'm not a gamer.

Anyway, before I look it up elsewhere, I'm going to try and guess what the big 8-letter mystery word is.  Of course, there's always the possibility that the Japanese team at Taito might have made up a word accidentally... sure, their words are usually correct, but the grammar's a little off.  "No Miss Clear"?  "This Words"?  Anyway, the numbers have been crunched, and for now, these are the possible words: Atlantan, biajaiba, camshach, diapsids, diureide, Esbensen, refusers, reposers, revisers, sedatest.  I'm thinking "Atlantan", given the nature of the game and what not.  Seems like they want to be part of a legend like Atlantis.

(later) ...I knew I couldn't wait.  The key to the alphabet... at least, the teeny letters, is here.

MAME -> Arkanoid

Well, I can't think of a better way to prepare for bombing my big accounting final in a few hours than by playing a little Arkanoid 1.  The two must be similar!  After all, what is Arkanoid but a fancier version of Breakout, which is just Pong by yourself.  And after all, what is accounting, but basic arithmetic all gussied up to look terribly, terribly official.  I mean, arithmetic by itself is hard enough as it is, so with accounting it's all about the powerups... I mean, the official certifications.  All the endless hoops to jump through.  Meanwhile, people who do math like calculus look down their noses and laugh... and frankly, rightly so.  But I think both parties began to get puzzled looks on their faces during the end of the last Bush administration, when the worlds of real estate accounting and calculus began to merge.  What the douche?  These two worlds were meant to be bipartite entities!  Separate, even.  But that's why I'm the nobody I am, and Goldman Sachs is the financial giant that it is.  No taking of risks, that's my problem.
At least, the wrong kinds of risks.  I have yet to successfully guess my way through an accounting test.  Probably won't happen tomorrow, but what the hell.  I grow weary of the world of debit and credit accounts, and I'm sorry, but I don't think I had enough time for statements of cash flows to grow on me.  I'm happy as a clam that they can be so different, that each statement of cash flow is indeed like a snowflake; no two are equal... but I'm still just a newbie at this thing and I need something I can cling to as I slide down the sheer cliff face that was my grade point average.
As for Arkanoid, well, what can me say?  I rocked it!  Took a lot longer than I thought I was going to, but I got to that Easter Island head and pounded the crap out of it... it's a lot easier to dispatch than in the sequel, that's for sure.
And, of course, it's a lot less fancy than the sequel, but maybe that's part of its charm.  Most of the basics are still there: the 'E' pill that makes you bigger, the 'B' one that lets you skip one level ahead.  Ah, powerups.  The gamer's best friend.  And yet, there aren't any in Boulder Dash.  Well, some games don't need them.  I got a screen capture, but it's on the other computer.  Also, I only did one every 60 seconds, so I missed most of the big finale.  Not one shot of the big Easter Island head!  Not one!
Well, I best be getting to bed, but I'll probably have to play a couple games before doing so.  Had to play Hard Hat William again last night, and of course, I had to make it all the way through without state saving.  If that ain't fanatical, I don't know what is... oh, right.  Modern games and systems.

MAME -> Arkanoid 2

I should of... have just done a bloody screen capture.  Oh well.  Firing up the old camera's more fun.  Welp, I did it!  Boy, that brain with the five tentacles was a pain to defeat.  Good defense mechanism.  Also, the levels in the second half seem easier somehow.  The "N" is still my favorite "powerup."  What could be better?  Let the balls that have the wrong trajectories fall to one side, thereby spawning new ones with the right trajectories, in the areas of the screen you need to clear.  Anyway, that golden powerup seemed a lot rarer this time.