Gunbarich/Mickey's

Game: Gunbarich, Psikyo, 2001, Arcade
Beer: Mickey's, 40 fl. oz., 5.6% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 1
Level Reached: Beaten twice
Level of Intoxication: Buzzed

Game
Have you ever played a game that was so weird and unique that you start to think: "Wow, so that's why major game developers tend to stick to established genres."? If so, then you'll be in familiar territory here. A decidedly Japanese game, and one that only enjoyed major success in the land of the rising sun, Gunbarich is a combination of shooter, brick-smashing game, and weird pinball freeform prototype. The mind boggles when one tries to reconcile the graphic and art direction into the package. When consumed as a whole, including trying to decipher the cryptic and engrish laden cut scenes, the game begins to peg out my Japan-calibrated Double-You-Tee-Eff-O-Meter.

Gameplay
As mentioned above, Gunbarich attempts to cross breed a number of genres with rather intriguing results. The biggest game mechanic is the brick-smashing one, where you bounce a ball off bricks at the top of the screen with an aim to smash all of them, clearing the board and paving the way for the next level. Instead of a flat, boring paddle with which to deflect the ball however, you are outfitted with a pair of pinball-style flippers, which allow you more control over your projectiles. Finally, there's enemies on the play field, who shoot paralyzing blasts at you, which can make it very difficult to get somewhere to retrieve your ball before it falls of the screen, killing you. You can retaliate by bouncing the enemy's shots back at them, or hitting them with your brick-smashing balls, effectively taking them out of play. Several powerups are available, from multiball to a wider set of flippers for you, to a supercharged ball that plows through bricks and enemies alike, and all are plentiful as gameplay progresses. Every third stage is a boss, complete with a life meter, and let me tell you...these bosses run the gamut from pretty benign to cool to outright scary. The Christmas Teddy Bear boss disturbed me on a number of levels.
As you progress throughout the game, either with your anchor straddling pirate boy, or your broom riding witch girl, the enemies get tougher and more plentiful and the pace of the game becomes more frenetic, what with your balls shooting all over the place at increased speeds. Some blocks require more than one direct hit to destroy, and others will split into smaller blocks after the initial hit. All the blocks have this strange behavior of freaking out whenever your ball of doom whizzes close by them, and by that I mean they have faces whereby they shake and visibly fret. Did I mention this game was unusual? What I was really trying to say is that this game is a very close approximation of a bad acid trip.

There are also switches, which when hit cause different things to happen, including spawning foes, making impenetrable walls appear or disappear, and opening chests filled with powerups or baddies. Each level is timed, but I never felt any panic over the time limit, even when I was down to one last impossible to reach block, time never really factored into my anxieties. It's there, but unless you suck at games on the high end of the Fujita scale, there's really nothing to be worried about. To be honest, if you've had occasion to play any Breakout clones, you know what to expect here with just a few twists. If Breakout and it's ilk are your meat and potatoes, this is the gravy.

Graphics/Sound
Having been made in the dawn of the new millennium, the graphics and sound are obviously rather good. The game is extremely colorful, and everything appears to have a nifty pre-rendered look to them, keeping the visuals slick and tightly bound. The Japanese "Cutesy-Train" definitely made a stop at this station, as all of the level elements and enemies have big googly eyes and silly facial expressions. The continue screen was specifically engineered to get young adolescent males to put their hands in their pockets, root around in there, and produce more quarters within a strict and teasing 10 second time limit. Which is pretty standard in the industry of coin-operated arcade games, but seems woefully short when you spend half that time ogling the carefully rendered, bountiful, and scantily clad cartoon breasts of the game's NPC. Excuse me while I intentionally die a few times...
All the levels are themed, which makes for nice eye candy, and include such exotic locales as Egypt if it were taken over by whimsical clowns, a fairy tale castle, a Halloweeny in the sky type setting, and a Christmasy type north pole-ish setting, among others. The level sets progress differently for each of the two characters, but no matter who you pick, you'll see all the pretty, cutesy, colorful, saccharine-soaked stages in all their glory, whether you like it or not. If I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be the little pigs in pharaoh costumes dancing the Egyptian dance across the screen, yeah, they give me the giggles. They also remind me of The Bangles, and the lead singer was hot. So...high marks for the graphics, which are weird, and not for people on LSD, but which remind me of how smokin' Susanna Hoffs is.

The sound is your usual collection of computer synth fodder, with an occasional sample thrown in the mix to spice things up. Without a doubt, my favorite sound, and one that is worth the price of admission alone, is the screams of agony your character makes when hit by one of the stun projectiles, of which there are tons in the later stages. The music, lest you think they forgot something, has also been put through the industrial strength Cutesyfying machine, and is best supplemented with noise canceling headphones playing Gwar turned all the way up to 11. Okay, I take that back, some of the tunes are catchy, in the same way tuberculosis was catchy at the beginning of the 20th century, and if you are one of those creepy Japanophiles, you may very well find yourself humming along as you break bricks. But taking into account the sensibilities the rest of us have, this game's music makes Puzzle Bobble's tunes sound like Marylin Manson.

Story
Story...Story...Oh goodness, where to begin?

Well, I'm not sure where to begin since the cut scenes don't make any damn sense, and I've found zero places on the internet that satisfactorily explains the happenings in the game. The only things I've been able to divine from the game's story points are the fact that you are apparently an apprentice magician, and must advance your art by progressing through the number of stages and besting all of the bosses. Your ultimate goal is to defeat the wizard in the crazy palace, at which point you'll apparently become awesome. I was unable to determine when that point arrived. The bosses got weirder and weirder, and at the end of the game, I found myself reading the closing cut scenes with rapt attention...not because the story is really that interesting, but because I was making a last desperate attempt to make sense of the game I had just experienced. All I know is that the game continually spiralled down into a supposed universe where you would find yourself if you sat down at the Tokyo Games Show and ate shrooms and popped Amyl Nitrate...during the Hina Matsuri. Google that shit...you'll know exactly what I'm getting at.

The only other thing about the story I could figure out is that it's spun off from one of Psikyo's other shooters known as Gunbird, which is actually a really cool game. When I play Gunbarich I just pretend the story is the same as Gunbird, only it was a nightmare I was having while I was asleep in Bizzaro World. Once I look at it like that, everything makes perfect sense...So yeah, Gunbarich's story rocks!

Beer
Mickey's is an Irish themed malt liquor made by the well known Miller Brewing Company. It's in a green bottle with a green and gold label with an angry bee with cartoon hands for a mascot...that's not a joke or an exaggeration intended to get laughs, the damn bee actually has cartoon hands.

I bought the beer down at my local 7-11. The reason I bring this up is because of the guy I bought the beer from. As I was checking out, I was making the requisite small talk. The guy said how bored he was, so I mentioned they should let him watch television, he points to a set of security monitors. So I say offhandedly, "The You Show, starring you!" Well, either the guy was hard up for entertainment, or I'm much more humorous than I originally anticipated because at that comment he began to laugh deep, loud guffaws that prevented him from finishing my transaction. My money sat unbidden on the counter and other people stacked up in line waiting for their turn as this strange man took to slapping the counter and repeating the line I had just uttered in a convulsive fit of mirth. This is what stand up comedians have nightmares about. I thought to myself as the person's squall of giggling ran itself out. I only mention this because it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the night involving the Mickey's bottle and its contents. The bee's cartoon hands didn't help matters.

The beer smells rather grainy, which isn't bad, since other 40's of malt liquor smell like sewage, or runoff from a leper colony after a heavy rain. So in this case, a clean grainy smell is actually welcome. The taste is also pretty grainy, with a sort of sweetness that is enough to turn you off if you're used to drinking better. But really, Mickey's is one of the much better 40's on the market, so if you're all about better beer, and you find yourself really strapped for beer money, Mickey's will get you through till payday, but it's still malt liquor, so don't say I didn't warn you.

The buzz one catches from imbibing Mickey's is pretty pedestrian, so no real surprises there, the only notable thing is that it makes me feel...slow...I don't know how else to describe it. If you absolutely need metaphorical comparison, my brain feels as if it's an egg timer and some asshole kid is grabbing the dial and slowing it down while giggling inwardly that the casserole I'm supposed to be timing is going to get burnt and mom'll have to resort to ordering pizza again...So Mickey's equals ordering pizza. I have a feeling most readers will agree with that one way or another.
The Matchup
While Gunbarich would likely pair better with something along the lines of, say Absinthe (not a beer, I know), we have to make do with what we got. Gunbarich is pretty out there, it's not a game everyone will find enjoyable, and yet, it has quite a bit to offer to those inclined to sample its wares. Mickey's on the other hand is a pretty limited affair, but for the niche it fills, it does so admirably, and I would select Mickey's over just about any of the other Malt Liquors on the shelf if I found myself in the predicament of having to limit myself to such choices. The properties together? Not bad, not great, if you're hard up for entertainment, this might bridge the gap, but for anyone with more refined tastes...there's better pastures to graze.

Cheers/Game on.