Mario Kart 64: Driven: Difference between revisions
m
Text replacement - "’" to "'"
m (Text replacement - "”" to """) |
m (Text replacement - "’" to "'") |
||
Line 1:
==The Backstory==
[[Image:Driven.png|thumb|The picture taken.]]
Growing up as a kid in the mid
Nazi Zombies and Modern Warfare may have taken up most of my gaming time as I became part of the Xbox Live age, but Mario Kart 64 still held a place in my heart as my all-time favorite. All of that was before these past two weeks. Now I
A few months back I brashly sold my N64 and my SNES at a yard sale my family was holding. Avarice and arrogance were brought to me by my discovery of emulators. In my eyes, their ability to deliver classic games in unlimited quantity at no cost was second to none. I
The family consisted of a small Hispanic woman with two very young children. She
It
The budget
Now I had believed in ghosts, (and still do) but the idea of a haunted video game seemed implausible to me. My brother was a total skeptic and agreed with me. Thinking nothing of the store
We arrived back home at about 4:00 P.M. Versus was our first order of business. I chose Toad, my personal favorite from childhood because of his unparalleled acceleration. My brother chose Luigi, his personal favorite because
==The Game==
All of the cups were completed on gold. Whoever played this game was pretty close to getting everything, as the only things left to complete were the reverse cups. It
How could someone get a perfect Grand Prix record with Time Trial times like that? My brother being the skeptic he was suggested it was someone trying to mess with us. Not being inclined to disagree, I cleared the data with the press of a button. That was undoubtedly the worst decision I have ever made in my life.
Line 25:
The game shut off by itself. Only static could be seen and heard for a good five minutes. Dominantly audible was the depressed, scared voice of Mario repeating a cryptic phrase. ''You have driven us, ''he said in clear melancholia, ''and now you must watch us suffer.'' My brother thought that this was just something someone programmed into the cartridge. I had been playing the game for the entire time after dinner, and I refused to play it after what happened. My brother was visibly shaken, but he still wanted to prove to me nothing out of the ordinary was wrong with this game. So he played it with me watching the next morning.
He switched on the game without incident. The start, menu, and player select screens were all normal. He chose the star cup and started the first race. All of the characters looked normal, except things were very wrong. The borders on the sides of the track
Their kart would sputter out and black smoke would begin to fume out of the engine accompanied by their screams and cries for help. My
Right when he passed the finish line, a distorted version of the victory theme played accompanied by a slow, distorted demonic laugh and several explosion sounds. As Luigi made his victory lap, all of the racers whose karts were smoking had died as their kart exploded. Charred 64-bit body parts littered the course as a plume of smoke hovered over the race track. In front of all of the
After this all was finished, he shut it off. The T.V stayed on as he flicked the switch, and Mario appeared on the screen. His kart was a mangled mess besides his sprawled body. Bones protruded from his arms and legs and patches of flesh were missing, revealing his muscles. His organs laid strewn on the floor around him as his body uncontrollably twitched in agony. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. Blood and bruises covered his pained face. He was panting as if he were about to die. Mario had lost his cheerful, animated look and donned a dreary, solemn one. He softly wept as he gave a grave warning.
Line 35:
''You never should have cleared that data. His record has died. Now we will die too. You have driven him to this, so you must watch us suffer.''
After all of that, these words appeared on the screen in the
YOU HAVE DRIVEN US. YOU HAVE DRIVEN HIM.
My brother refused to play through the
The title screen showed the characters going down the hill. Donkey Kong was splitting
The game catapulted me straight into the player select screen. The facial expressions of the characters had all drastically changed. All of the "good" characters – Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad – had an expression of utter horror on their faces. Some shook their heads nervously while others remained completely still. Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario were unanimously showing bloodlust. Not a playfully menacing look, but one of pure greed and evil. I moved over to toad and selected him.
Instead of his happy trademark ''WA-HOO!, ''he started to weep mournfully. I was starting a race on a more dejected than usual version of
''3, 2, 1, DIE!''
Line 51:
All of the cars sped past the bridge. A flame shooting statue of a demon stood in the place of where Bowser would normally be. Bowser, Wario, and Donkey Kong all veered off to take their place next to the statue. An audible conversation could be heard, the satanic figure speaking in tongues not uttered by mortal men. All three of the villain characters appeared to be able to speak and understand this archaic language.
Suddenly, a burst of flame shot out and killed Luigi. The three characters laughed in a sick tone, a tone that implied that they were loving the sight of such dismay.
''You have driven us…''
''You…have…driven…them…''
Line 61:
With a final thump, pieces of her body went flying everywhere. The Whomp laughed in the same tone the three villains did. Mario and my character, Toad, were the only ones alive at this point. After what happened to Peach, my brother threw up in his mouth a little. I asked him if he had gotten everything on camera. He did, so I un-paused the game and continued the race.
I had managed to dodge the bursts of flame emitting from the demonic statue all three laps. At this point, it
I finished first ahead of Mario, but a somber-sounding version of the losing theme played. Again, it said R.I.P in front of our names. Except it this time it was different. This time it said Richard, which was my actual name. The screen faded out to a Whomp laugh, which was scary in itself. I was then delivered to a sick version of a familiar environment.
It was Rainbow Road, but there were no rainbows. Patterns of flesh, veins, eyeballs and other various internal body parts created the floor. Wario, Bowser, and Donkey Kong
Our karts left tracks of blood. I went down the long track at the beginning. Mario performed a special trick. If you hop right before the drop gets steep, your kart will fly above everyone
It was the final lap now. Lakitu laughed, and I could have sworn I heard something chuckle from my room. My brother did, and that was it for him. He told me to turn off the game or he was leaving. I obviously
Mario was still lying there. He was barley alive, begging to be put out of his misery, but I refused to give that satisfaction to the game. I completed the race, and just like the last time it said R.I.P Richard. My place now read 666 instead of 1 <sup>st</sup>. I got really scared. How the hell did this game know I was playing … How could it speak to me … How did it know my name? Never before had a video game elicited emotions of such magnitude. Elicited fear so primal. I persevered, hoping all of this madness would soon come to an end so I could preserve my sanity. What I next saw will haunt me forever.
Toad spawned in front of the Mario 64 castle in Royal Raceway. All of the greenery was ablaze and the waterfall filled the surrounding moat with blood. Macabre figures could be seen in the distance. The sky was black and filled with lightning as bursts of lava erupted in the distance. Where the yellow sand should have been laid the flesh-like ground I encountered on Rainbow road. I legitimately feared for my life at this point. This place looked like hell. No, it was hell. It had to be Pressing on in gripping terror, I approached the
Bowser was in 1 <sup>st</sup>, Donkey Kong in 2<sup>nd</sup>, Wario in 3<sup>rd</sup>. They were all laughing as the fire-breathing demon from
They were unable to see anything, but they were staring at me. Their faces no longer displayed expressions of suffering or anguish. They were blank, looks bereft of any expression. "''You have driven us" ''they said as one. Suddenly the "swelling noise" was made, as if the trophy were about to come out. Instead, it was much different. Blood went everywhere as a huge sword came down and sliced Bowser in half.
|