Gunblade NY/Victoria

Game: Gunblade NY, Sega, 1995, Arcade
Beer: Victoria, 12 fl. oz., 4.0% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 3
Level Reached: End Credits. Twice.
Level of Intoxication: Three Sheets to the Wind

Game
There was a time, not too long ago, that Sega was the undisputed champion of arcade games. Back in this storied time, where arcades could be found literally everywhere, Sega made more high-quality games than any other company. Sega made so many classic games in fact that anyone who has ever had an occasion to plunk a quarter or two into an arcade machine has more than likely contributed directly to Sega's profit margin. Were I to somehow come up with a comprehensive list of Sega-branded arcade cabinets, perhaps from a website that rhymes with "sticky-bleedia", I have no doubt that everyone reading it would be able to pick out more than a few games that they had experienced themselves. If you don't believe me, all I have to do is mention Outrun. What I'm trying to say is Sega made a ghetto-dumper assload of awesome arcade games, one of which was named Gunblade NY.

Gameplay
Gunblade NY is one of Sega's many, many lightgun games. The arcade cabinet features two swivel-mounted machine guns complete with a force feedback mechanism that oscillates, making the players feel as though they are firing a real gun. In the game, the player (that would probably be you if you're awesome and love good games) is the wing gunner in a special helicopter built specifically for the task. Your hovering platform of incomprehensible doom flies so low, fast, and completely without regard for the laws of physics that you would swear your pilot is a cross between a 90's-era Gary Busey and Chuck Yeager with a Monday morning hangover. As your helicopter careens through the cityscape, you will unleash an unending fury from your gun, shooting at and explodifying annoyingly agile and resilient cyborgs.

The game is a classic rails shooter, meaning you are on a set path and your task is to simply lay the smackdown on anything that crosses through your field of view. The cool twist to this is that while you have a set path, depending on what you target, the cocaine-fueled pilot will focus obsessively on that enemy until it is defeated, whereupon the camera will spin nauseatingly around to find any of the remaining robots so you can end their robo-suffering in a similar manner. What is difficult to properly convey about this experience is the speed at which everything happens. This is one of the few games to successfully give me a feeling of vertigo as I play, and that is because the game will routinely find the camera panning across insane angles and rotating on wild axes in an attempt to home in on the next set of bad guys or traverse to a new portion of the level. The challenge then, seeing as how you never run out of ammunition and never have to reload, is keeping your sights steady on a group of enemies as the helicopter you're in seems to perform yet another airshow caliber loop or roll.
As the levels progress, the enemies get more agile, dodging your gunfire with infuriating ease. The speed and frequency at which they return fire on you is also increased, with later levels looking like a green rocket salad with a side of rockets and extra rocket dressing. This presents one of the game's shining moments though as you suddenly realize you are one hit away from death, you see enough ordinance coming at your face to make the Taliban giggle like schoolgirls, and in some miracle of coordination, luck, and determination you dispatch all the incoming missiles and proceed to exfoliate the hell out of the bastards who dared fire upon you.

One shortcoming of the game is in the end-level bosses, who--with a few notable exceptions--are pretty ho-hum. Most of them are almost totally stationary, and can be taken out in only a few seconds. The boss challenges seem to have an unnatural dip as compared to the rest of the game and feels like more of an arbitrary gateway to level progression. In certain boss fights, it even seems like the game's designers went out of their way to avoid making the boss fights cool. A chopper versus chopper battle over a bridge, which even sounds cool and had the potential to be sickeningly amazing, was neutered right out of the gate as the boss helicopter flies lazily in front of you, facing away from you for so long that if you fail to shoot it down before it actually turns around and starts shooting back you might want to have the arcade come and check to see if your gun is even connected.
Aside from the bosses and the relatively short game time, which for both missions as well as the time attack remix will clock in somewhere under 40 minutes, the game is full of fun, fast-paced throwaway thrills. Such experiences are essentially the highest form an arcade title can achieve, simply because the short playtime encourages a new batch of players always cycling into the machine, and the fun and addictive gameplay brings the same players back for another round. Thoughtfully, Sega knew that people who loved Gunblade NY couldn't get enough, and in 1998 released L.A. Machineguns as a direct sequel. L.A. Machineguns preserved the same great gameplay with updated graphics and sounds thanks to being hosted on Sega's premier Model 3 hardware.

Graphics/Sound
Gunblade NY was one of Sega's Model 2 games. Other notable games from the Model 2 era include Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter, Datona USA, House of the Dead, and Virtual-On. To say that the Model 2 hardware made Sega a fortune is an understatement. The Model 2 hardware was a dedicated 3D platform, offering up bright, detailed graphics and smooth animation. Gunblade NY may not have taxed the Model 2 like some of its later games, but the graphics are clean and bright, and the amount of action in any given scene along with the number of special effects and level of detail combined to make Gunblade's graphics an incredibly potent showcase of motion and color. If you are epileptic in any form, you may want to keep your wussy-ass away from my game. Of course, if you're epileptic and you play videogames, you're much like a diabetic in a candy-eating contest, equal parts stupid and brazen.
The sounds of Gunblade NY are at once typical and unique. If that sounds like an oxymoron, stick with me. For one, all the gun sounds, explody-type sounds, stuff getting hit sounds, and approximation of musical instrument sounds pretty much scream stock sound libraries. Of particular note in this regard is when you shoot down an enemy projectile, which makes a classic movie ricochet noise. This noise is so pronounced and twangy, that by about the 100th time hearing it you will either have a psychological break, or will have already defensively tuned it out. Other noises such as the constant punch of your machine gun firing into everything you can see are largely unobtrusive and will blend quickly into the background din. The music is so overblown and kitschy that you know it had to have come from a Japanese design team. The synthesized guitars screech and wail patriotically during cutscenes in such a cartoonish fashion that I'm tempted to assume the musical scores were composed on a bet. On the other hand, certain facets of the sound production are so unique and unapologetic they ascend to a new plateau of interest. Worthy of particular mention is the game's voice work. At certain points in the game, usually during cutscenes, a male voice will come on informing you of mission parameters and other such nonsense, since really, the mission is always "kill every robotic bitch you see". In my very humble opinion, this voice-over is the greatest thing ever, because the speaker is obviously Japanese. How do I know? Because when you die and hit the continue screen, the announcer suddenly yells "GUNBRADE! PREASE RESPOND!!" There's no way to explain why a desperate Japanese man with poor enunciation makes me even more frantic as I dig in my pocket for the next quarter, but that's just the way it is.

Story
In the super futuristic year 2005, New York City is suddenly besieged by nasty robotic terrorists all toting RPGs and missile launchers. As these electromechanical malefactors wreak havoc on The Big Apple and its citizens, you are tasked with using withering levels of firepower to bring the menace under control. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Any finer details of the story are buried under the apparent notion that it doesn't have to be explained if it's sufficiently awesome. Why are the terrorists killing people and destroying cars and buildings? Because awesome, that's why. What do the terrorists want? Awesome. Who is leading them? Awesome. Where did they come from? The country Awesome, which as I'm told is right next to the country of What, where they do not speak English.

Beer
Most people know about Coronas, and thanks the the Most Interesting Man in the World ads, everyone and their frickin' granny knows about Dos Equis. A select few know about Modelo, and I'm willing to bet about thirteen people outside of Mexico know about Victoria. Make that fourteen now that I've had a chance to drink it. From what I've been able to find out, Victoria is actually one of the oldest beers in Mexico. In fact, it's only just recently tried to move into the US markets, starting up in Chicago and slowly bleeding out from there. I'm only speaking for myself here, but I actually hope the beer gains a healthy foothold here in the states, as I'm tired of not only hearing about how terrible domestic American beer is, but I'm also tired of having to drink the same three or four well-known Mexican imported brews. Victoria is a nice change, even if it isn't the alpha and the omega of south-of-the-border barley pops. With a simple presentation and quite the lengthy lineage, Victoria sets itself up nicely as a beer to take notice of. Unfortunately, while it isn't terrible, it is by no means going to usurp any beers that I hold dear, and while it has a number of points that do in fact cause it to stand out among the rest, it has an equal number of shortcomings that serve to push it back into the rank and file.

Smell
Victoria has a clean, almost sterile smell, with just the barest hint of earthy tones. There's definitely a lot of malty smell in there, and a slight undercurrent of fruitiness, much like the generic version of Apple Jacks that comes in the 5 pound bags. Don't even play like you don't know what I'm talking about either. Everyone in the world has had a run-in with "Apple Kickers", "Apple Snaps", "Apple Ring-O's", and, if you lived in China, possibly "Apple-Flavored Processed Grain By-Product for the People"...Where was I? Oh yeah. Point being, whether you had poor parents or a thrifty aunt, you know exactly the knock-off cereal I'm talking about. Well, Victoria's odor has just the slightest twang of that special Malt-O-Meal essence, and you know what? I'm diggin' it man. It isn't out of place and actually rounds out the beer's bouquet quite nicely. It's distinctive and interesting in a sea of beers which seem to take the easy road.

Taste
This beer manages to pull off a clean, malty swing, with a hint of complexity and a slightly bitter aftertaste. There's definitely a feeling like I've been here before, and to be truthful, I'm seriously reminded of a more full-bodied and bitter Budweiser. I'm not saying this is all that and a bag of chips mind you, this beer is still just on this side of pedestrian, although it seems to toe the line between a beer that's strictly middle of the road and one that has enough character to be almost great. It isn't displacing any of my top five; or top ten for that matter, but it does manage to get my attention, if even for only one bottle at a time. Not unlike the weird girl at school getting all made-over and showing up at the prom looking super hot and grabbing the attention of all the guys, but then showing up all mousy and weird again the next day at school. Victoria reminds me of that weird girl's rainbow tights and knee-high moccasin boots.

Intoxication
This beer lends a very full-bodied intoxication, giving the limbs an interestingly numb feeling that leads to exaggerated movements when walking and poor coordination when typing. Seriously, I had to spell-check this paragraph like 16 times because all the words came out looking like "exxagetated", "interstinglly", and "corrdinatuin." Going to grab another beer was like learning how to walk again, only more in a funhouse ride sense and not in a tragic, spine-paralyzing accident sense.

Feel
Victoria is afflicted with the same problem most Stephen King novels suffer from, too much body. Even a small sip will seem to fill your mouth like that cool ass safety foam from the car in Demolition Man. Unfortunately, this stuff isn't going to save your life, and if you drink too much of it, will probably make you feel like you just ate a whole bag of the Demolition Man car foam. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to YouTube and check it out, it won't take long. Once you come back enlightened and a better person overall, we can discuss how logic and physics would dictate that safety foam finding its way into every one of your orifii possible and how insanely uncomfortable that would be. Anyway, yes, Victoria has a lot of bloat to it, as well as a lot of fizz. Remember those certain drawbacks I mentioned earlier? This is chief among them.

The Matchup
When you look at Gunblade NY and Victoria each in their native environments, they both seem to fit quite well. For me at least, Gunblade's native environment is reflecting off the back of my retinas. Your mileage may vary depending on how much of a nostalgic love affair you had with classic Sega arcade games and how tolerant you are of rail shooters. In the case of Victoria, the beer is quite well loved in its native land of Mexico, and with such a loyal and long-standing following, it's easy to see why it attempted to make the jump to the American market. Only time will tell if this particular fish can survive in unknown waters. Of course, as Budweiser and Coors have so readily proven, popularity is based less on taste and more on advertising and forced availability, so if Victoria manages to embrace that, it very well could do just fine.

Cheers/Game on.