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Robot Chicken Torments the Excite Bike Guy

I've always been of two minds about Robot Chicken. It's basically a lot of claymation jokes about our favourite childhood toys and mascots farting and pooping and I am so above that. (*frt*) But sometimes the show comes out with something that makes me laugh in spite of myself. It happened again today, in the middle of a library. :(

Robot Chicken: Excitebike follows the innocent little biker from Excite Bike on the NES. He's just tooling around, driving home from a long day at work to see the wife and kids--

Wait, does the Excite Bike dude have a name or a background? What do we know about his life? His motivation? His credit history? Even F-Zero's tight-muscled pilot, Captain Falcon, has gained a certain amount of infamy. We now know he loves to brawl, he writes slash fanfiction about himself and Samurai Goroh and he fathered an illegitimate son somehow.

And despite all that, I think I'd rather date the Excite Bike guy. A bit of mystery is sexy. Looks like he'll have to take care of his shattered legs, first.

Also, I'm a new admirer of the adjective "anus-shattering."

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

Videogame designers have found a great deal of inspiration in elemental dichotomies. Wood versus stone, wind versus lightning, ice versus fire — these natural conflicts are excellent bases for compelling environments and rich atmospheres. What better than tangible extremes like hot and cold to convey a sense of place to a player? To celebrate the imminent arrival of summer, 61 Frames Per Second is going hot with our first top-ten list, looking at the greatest fire levels in gaming history. If you're sweating, don't worry — we'll get to ice soon enough. — John Constantine

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts — Crucible of Flame

Nobody would subject themselves to the brutally difficult Ghosts 'n Goblins series if the games didn't feature Capcom's usual immaculate production values. Dying a hundred times in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' third stage, the Crucible of Flame (and you will) is made marginally more bearable by the brooding music (forever seared in my brain after a misspent youth) and the characteristically idiosyncratic twist on the usual "fire level" theme: instead of a generic inferno, the Crucible of Flame finds you in some kind of metallurgical hell. The stage has a lot of character; as fire levels go, it's more of an oozing, molten nightmare than a pyrotechnic fun fair. (In fact, some would say there's nothing fun about it.) A word of warning: it only gets worse from here. — Peter Smith

Alternate Soundtrack: Need For Speed: Underground vs Justice's †

Written by Derrick Sanskrit

Until 2003, the most serious racing game I'd played was probable F-Zero. This became a problem with my roommates, who LOVED racing games, and so I was baptized into the world with Need For Speed: Underground on the Playstation 2.

Now, if your experience with this game was anything like ours, you loved every minute of gameplay to be found in NFS:U. The characters felt human and you felt genuine affection for Samantha and disdain for Eddie. The city felt alive, and oncoming traffic was a plaything to use to your advantage. Circuit races were intense, drift races were ego boosts, and drag races separated the hardcore from the wimps. Everything about the game just bubbled with glowing, neon awesome.

Except for that soundtrack! Ugh!

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.