I jumped into that game with a single save (I rarely do that). It had to be that one game where it is the least safe to do so. Well, at least I only gave 20$ for the game, so it's no big loss and aside from that, the 65% I've done through that game were amazing.

I remember the first time one of my buddies died. It was the old man. He died of friendly fire. I shot him dead. It was, well, as with most friendly fire occurrences, an accident. A plane had crashed near the end of an op that ''didn't include the plane crashing part'' in the plan and well, I went for the crash site and we got ambushed from every angle. They were zeroing on our position fast and... and they were everywhere, I was wounded, he was wounded... I mistook him for a weakened enemy guerrilla trying to go for cover. Except he was in a worst shape than I was. He had just put up a flare, I shot him dead in the face, he fell the instant that followed. No healing him now. I stood there in shock as if time itself had seemed to stop. For the moment I realized he WASN'T an enemy, was the moment I had released the trigger. It had been too late.

I felt bad for at least 2 weeks and must have pestered AJ at work about the event for a week haha. A game had never managed to make me feel so bad about such a mistake. To the point where, in my second playthrough, I swore I wouldn't kill the old man. I couldn't, since I chose to BE the old man. It was my way of making him live on... too bad my will to play the game died way ahead.

Where I bounced off was from having completed as much as is humanly possible to complete (read, probably found all the diamonds and tapes that could be found at that point) up to 65% of progression in the game. Then got the ''save corruption bug''. Which happens if you save at 65% progression mark. And try to load that save again. 100% repro rate, unavoidable. The only way to ''dodge'' it is to go from 64% progression to 66% or more then save.

I thought it wouldn't be enough to take me out of the game, but despite having started over and felling good about playing again and wanting to get on with the story still, it's hunting those damn diamonds and tapes that I had already gone through the trouble of finding beforehand that made me give up. I wanted the progress and wealth that I had without putting the efforts to do it again. That is where I lost interest entirely. Damn shame, for I had learned to like the game with all its flaws, shortcomings and bugs up to that accursed 65% mark.

I think the level of alcohol in my blood played a role in my survivability.

Most of the times, it blatantly played against me; yet few times, it clumsily played in my favor.

Well, we DO live in a ''let's suck more coins out of players'' era, with all the freemium going on left and right, regardless of the platform used, so I'd say it's probably a sign arcades are now being plagued as well! When you think about it, they probably were the original ''seed'' for this trend.

You pay a couple dollars to play a couple minutes of a game... pay-to-play at a crazy price ratio, am I right? Now it's just that this extends to the point where you are being overcharged for something that - by default - already overcharged you! And I'm not adding of the freemium options in that equation here just yet! Just the default price to play the game is insane. I mean I payed 1 dollar for 3 ''arcade coins''. This arcade requires 4 coins to make 1 credit for 1 player. I played as two players, hence, needed 8 coins to get 2 credits, therefor, 2.50$-worth of coins.

But wait, this isn't as simple as it sounds.

The machine transferring my money to coins doesn't really give me coins per how much money I put in, no, it does it in a ''Microsoft point'' lame way, where I can get a set amount of coins for 1 dollar, 2 dollars, 5 dollars, 10 dollars and 20 dollars. So right there - before I even started playing - I have to invest more money than I originally want to put to play ''this one time''. That, or invest much more money than I originally wanted to and ''play more without being stuck with a handful of ''arcade coins'' left that can't pay up for a single credit for anything here''. Gross. Just gross.

First and last time I go there, o wait, no I still have 4 coins left. I might give SEGA GOLDEN GUN a try while using only Player 1 just to see how hard it is that way. How did I manage that? I found another arcade that didn't require 4 coins for 1 credit and played so I could have, from the money I put into the coins machine, an extra credit for SEGA GOLDEN GUN. Couldn't use them at the time because, well, as mentioned above, the movie we were going to see was just about to start.

They managed to enhance the experience of lightgun shooters interestingly over the years. From Silent Scope to Police 911, it's pushed things from a point-and-shoot game to a psychological and physical trial the player has to go through. My mind was numb after having completed Silent Scope and my knees were DEAD after Police 911!

I gotta say, I'm surprised Police 911 1 and 2 don't have Kinect ports already...

Re-reading the part where you made it almost sound like I make it a habit to take myself out with Harverster-suicide makes ME feel like you are such a git. :p

I mean, come on! That was a single-occurrence! Granted, I DID kill/sabotage my resources/forces/self more than once - and in a many various humiliating ways - but none top the ''Harvester Incident at Turn 1''. Which, I repeat, happened only once.

...

I think.

DAMMIT

Man, if you ever bounce back to Montreal for a bit, I should have you guys over and we'll play some more, this time, on a 55 inch screen!

Surely I'm thinking of another Virtual-On with a billion variations of every troopers ever which also had an arcade in Japan that used saved gamer cards similar to Initial D... Or was that MARZ?

Virtual-On + loading times... sounds like nonsense to me! It's almost as if it was developed on an inferior console. Was it released on, what, PS1? Or is there a LOT of unskippable cut-scenes with voice acting and CG and... gods know what else to make VO long to load.

And I haven't even gotten to try MARZ yet. I thought that stuff stayed in Japan? Goes to show how absorbed I was playing VO:OT. Now I want to play MARZ.

WAY. TO. GO. BEAM. SPLASH. X.

Speaking of music: I can't help but find it hilarious that VO:OT's selection is either corky as f**** or epic as hell.

I remember being soooo hyped for Virtual On:Oratorio Tangram's XBLA release and you being soooo ''meeehhh'' about it (and by that, I just mean ''not hyped'')... that I jumped on my Dreamcast copy and played it for about a week or two straight. Problem with that is I completely ''missed/discarded/forgot about'' the XBLA version.

Since I would really like people to hold onto Virtual On LONG ENOUGH to remotely enjoy it,
I'll post a quick guide for new players

IN

THIS

VERY

POST:

///_VIRTUAL_ON:_ORATORIO_TANGRAM_FOR_NEW_OR_NORMAL*_PEOPLE__START_///
* people without ADD or ADHD

|||_0._INTRODUCTION_|||

WELCOME to this stupidly rushed guide! I'll cut the intro here because WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR SUCH NON-SENSE, THIS HAS TO BE A SERIOUSLY (somewhat) QUICK GUIDE TO GO THROUGH.

|||_1._CHOOSING_A_TROOPER_|||

OK. I suggest training on NORMAL (or 4 of 8 on the difficulty slider), and NOT choose mechs (or troopers, WHATEVER) which mostly only excel in melee or appear frail. That means no Apharmd B, Cypher - even though it IS cool to manage to turn into a plane - and Mr. Deat-err Specineff and Angelica. The only exception to this rule is Sailor Moo-err Fei-yen. She LOOKS like a pinky-frail-lil-girl... but has decent armor and is the fastest fast-shooting annoyance you'll EVER encounter on the battlefield. Temjin makes up for it by having decent firepower, range and accuracy with his MAIN weapon and ok armor. He also has one hell of a lethal melee, if you can pull it off without missing pathetically. Longest range in the game for a melee strike has advantages... but the MAJOR disadvantage is that the opponent WILL have a greater window of opportunity to dodge it.

Anyway, MOVING ON with what you SHOULD look for: hard hitting long/medium range harassers. OR, try the big slow and powerful ones. Like RAIDEN. He was my first pick back in the Saturn days, mostly because his MAIN weapon is a freakin' full-auto BAZOOKA and he has beams of holy mind-melting laser rays of DOOM as his SPECIAL, I then discarded long range fighting altogether and jumped to ''grenading/knife-fighting'' with Apharmd B near the end due to lack of challenge and - paradoxically - because I was tired of getting owned for being too slow as Raiden and stuck with that guy ever since and onto VO:OT (read: I didn't take the time to be patient with Raiden, and just switched and forced myself onto a HARD FRAME to master out of sheer, uh, desire to kick ass in CQC instead of LASER range. Really, that's pretty much only why).

|||_2._TACTICS_|||

Remember, ALWAYS MOVE. Dash. Anywhere (except backward), JUST DOWIT. At first, just keep dashing, minimize jumping (and if you do, don't double jump, dash somewhere instead!) and, BY ALL MEANS, do NOT try to always face your target while standing in place. It will take forever and be harder to hit anything than just DASH SHOOT, the game will do the aiming for you while dashing so make the most of this ''feature''. Trust me, it's not a ''win button'' feature; it's a ''not using it will get you do DIE fast, using it will keep you alive for 30 more seconds'' feature.

|||_3._PROGRESSION_TO_AWESOMENESS_|||

When you think you are awesome, TRY finishing the game on Easiest. I know you'll say ''HA! they drop so easy, they just STAND there!''... but somewhere along the way, like, by the mid-game boss or final boss, you'll go train in difficulty 8 for a year.

...

Then try to beat the game on easy/normal again. Then go back to training on the hardest difficulty or against AWESOME people forever.

|||_4._CONCLUSION_|||

I gotta admit the boss battles are RIDICULOUSLY hard, to the point where I gave up with story mode altogether and played against people or training at hardest difficulty, much more fun. No story, no arcade bosses, virtually no loading, just duels, infinite duels, instant action, always all the time, always all the time, always all the tiiiime. What more can you want, really?

THAT PRETTY MUCH COVERS IT!

///_VIRTUAL_ON:_ORATORIO_TANGRAM_FOR_NEW_OR_NORMAL**_PEOPLE__END_///
** people without ADD or ADHD. Yeah, see this is just in case you DID have ADD or ADHD and forgot I mentioned it at the beginning of the guide.

Now what's nice about this guide is that, when you put your browser in full screen (assuming you have 1280x1024 resolution, for all others, forget it), you can print-screen that thing and make a wallpaper. It fits PERFECTLY!.

I'll admit I JUST noticed it AFTER the guide was made so, I guess that's less awesome. Still pretty awesome, I find, albeit a little UTTERLY USELESS.

Regarding JSR: [WARNING SPOILERS]

[IN 3]

[2]

[1]

I raged quit when I ended being brutally ravaged by a freaking Apache Combat helicopter. Over and over and over again. Yup, that was that.

I really liked the levels in the U.S. though. At the time, I think it was mostly for the music. And maybe the ''culture shock'' of not being in Japan in JSR. CRAZY, RIGHT?