Game (NEVER) Over

Jim Meriwether’s blog, April 21, 1:18 p. m.: NEW BEGINNINGS
Hi everyone! Welcome to my new blog. I’ll see about transferring my old one onto here when I can, due to the previous one’s host (whom I won’t name, but all of my friends that were on there know who it is) becoming so incompetent that everything was lost, plus their response to me in their support forum was so unprofessional it bordered on disgusting. Sorry for those who have to re-sign up here – I hate it when people have decent forums, then they change them, force everyone to restart with a zero post count, then wonder why they keep on losing people – but many on here swear by this site, even though I’m having to find out how to do things all over again. So right now I’m leaving comments off until I’m used to this new interface.

And that’s not the only new beginning either, due to my divorce being finalized. Goodbye, witch! (Good thing she’s not into the internet much. But then, I can say all I want about her, and without using her full name, there isn’t much that can be done about it.  So tough luck.  Witch witch witch witch witch witch witch.  Oh lookie over there, there’s a broom!)

I’m starting over in a new place as well, due to the house being sold (good thing I work at a law firm with advice o’plenty, so I was able to not be cleaned out in the divorce proceeding). I almost went with an apartment, but after going over numbers, I figured I could go with renting a house after all, as the crime isn’t bad in this neighborhood (again, law firm with advice...) and it’s not expensive. I’ve also sold and downgraded some things, such as my formerly big tv (no need for it now in a smaller place and room that it’s in), as I’ll have to tighten the old belt a bit, but I’m pretty sure I can make it. If not, I can move into that dreaded apartment after all. It still doesn’t mean you’re dead though, as I hit the local resale shop for a break once I got my stuff totally unpacked for two rooms (the kitchen and my bedroom). After all, my video game stuff is set up for when I need a break! Granted, I still skipped out (again, budget/having to make it here) on a few things I didn’t have to have for a dollar here or four dollars there, but then I ran across a game for the Sega Genesis I had never heard of: FD Rescue Team, by the long-dead 16Byter outfit (who “byted” the dust indeed, har har). I almost left that on the shelf too: why "Rescue Team" at the end? Why would a fire department need a separate rescue team? Isn’t that usually included with their job? That’d be like if I opened up a sidewalk eatery and called it the "Hot Dog Weenie Stand". Well, whatever, as something told me I should get it. And luckily I did, as I have an old GAMEr’s COmpany (or GAMECO for short) catalog lying around, and I found out it’s a rarity 7! Wow, my first rarity 7 Genny game. I don’t have many rare games in my collection at all, except for several limited edition Vectrex homebrews, but other than that, I don’t have anything super rare, just some 4s or 5s like H. E. R. O., Tunnel Runner, or several Starpath games for my Atari 2600, and The Immortal (how that stayed underneath the radar when Congress was arguing about video game ratings is beyond me, with the gore and all), Fatal Rewind, Starflight and Star Control for the Genesis, as the last two only stayed in print for a year or so, although I think the latter had to do with some lawsuit Accolade filed against Sega. So this is pretty cool indeed.

Yes, for those new to my blog, I mostly talk about games, as I’m a mostly old school gamer, having an Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Vectrex, the Genesis, 32X and CD, along with some handhelds, plug and play units, PC games, and a Wii. And it’s nice to add to my Genny collection, as I haven’t done that in a while.

Hopefully I’ll start diving into the game tomorrow – I’ve got some other stuff to do first, as I want a fresh full day to get into the game, case it becomes addicting! – as I’ve only glanced through the instructions briefly (which luckily those were rubber banded around the cart, as there’s no box, unfortunately). From what I can tell, the game’s divided into four different sections, the first of which involves some matching thing where you match up equipment that you need or something, then you enter a building next. You need to rescue victims there that are usually children, which will earn you points, and an especially huge bonus is given if you rescue two or more from the same family. You also have to do something with ladders in that stage (again, this is just me skimming), then the final stages is when it kicks into gear, where you’re higher up in the building and there’s a lot of flames and dangers than when you were in the basement where you start off, and you have to rescue some CEOs or something. There’s several here, one named Linda or something that looks good in her instructions pic. Yes, I definitely wouldn’t mind rescuing her :)

So, off to do some things, then get into the game later, as I’d like to find some more info on this, especially since it seems a little familiar now after looking at the instructions, for some reason. There’s hardly any information on the internet about it at all, as some sites said the game was never released. Well, I’d say that’s wrong, and I’d send the instructions off to prove it to some sites that need scans, like Stage Select, but for some reason my scanned copy of it didn’t come out well. I’ll have to try again later, but then my scanner is a bit old.

More later, and keep on gaming in the meantime!

April 22, 9:27 p. m.: REVELATION!
Holy crap! I HAVE played this game before!

This is really, really odd. There are bits and pieces of memories we all have from something that happened when we were five, seven, 10 years old, etc. Usually once you’re in your late teens, you remember certain stuff for the rest of your life, as you’re gearing towards adulthood, and that’s usually when you start really getting into music, you think movies of that time period were the best and a lot afterwards just sucks (especially when you get to be an old, grumpy adult later and Everything’s Been Done To Death By ThenTM), etc.

I was just a teen when I got into the Genesis, so it’s really odd how I forgot about this one. Me and my brother Dave didn’t really play this game that much for some reason, although I liked it a fair amount, I remember now. I don’t recall what the deal was exactly, but this was before a severe incident that happened with Dave and he’s no longer the same nowadays. (People into my first blog should recall my several mentions of him, which I’ll get to later, as I’m going to visit him next week once I get totally settled here, which I almost am.) Maybe that’s what kept me away, and I don’t know what happened to his copy of this game, as everything else I would later get from him had all the boxes and the like, as he kept his gaming gear in really good shape. I got everything after a while once we realized the gravity of his sad situation and I eventually accepted his stuff from mom and dad, although I felt guilty about it even though what happened wasn’t my fault or anything. And plus playing games such as Gauntlet IV wasn’t the same without him sitting at the other controller anyway.

But...yeah. Odd how just firing up the title screen for a few seconds changed everything, and memories started coming back, kind of like an old arcade game that I saw photos of at the International Arcade Museum of Interstellar looking so cool and I thought it’d be neat to play. And then a few years later I did play it at a gaming expo and figured out I had played it at a pizza parlor years before. The video game crash had pretty much wiped out the arcades by then, and this game was already several years old as it was and it was gone after only a few weeks of my finding it; I think the owner said the laserdisc was prone to breaking down and it was costly to repair.

The graphics aren’t quite what I remember – things seem darker and all – but then I’m playing this on a different tv and all, and years later too. So that could be it.

Ok, anyway, the game! Before you get your first emergency call at the fire station, you have to sort out a bunch of equipment, which will then be loaded onto your fire truck once the round ends (which is timed). This is a bit of a silly intro to the game, since you either have to match two exact kinds of equipment or grab two pieces that are flashing. Ok, why is my equipment flashing? I’m not sure I’m going to want that in my truck/during an emergency! It doesn’t set a very proper tone for a game that involves risking your life (/lives) in regards to running into a burning building and all, a bit like Strawberry Shortcake Musical Matchups for the Atari 2600. I’m not real familiar with the Atari, but Dave, being several years older than I am, is, and he mentioned that this part of the game is like that Strawberry Shortcake one (I think he had an Atari at some point but sold it). So fire rescue vs. Strawberry dolls, or whatever...yeah, that doesn’t really add up.

So anyway, after that silly round is (luckily) over with, the alarm sounds and, via the obligatory cutscene, you slide down the pole to your truck and take off to some building that’s on fire.

Here, the game (thankfully) gets a lot better, as I liken it to the Alien3 game that would come out a couple of years later for the Genny, where it becomes a platformer, as it especially reminds me of one of the later rounds when you have to save like 10 people or something before the round ends, lest they become alien fodder (it took me a while to find that one last guy that was hidden and the blasted alien baby would burst out of his chest; whee!).

Here you’re in the basement of a building and you can collect some bonus stuff for points, pick up some bonus pieces of equipment and, most importantly of all, save children. Unfortunately either the building is real old or as I think as it says in the instructions (I need to spend more time reading them, really) that the heat from the fire has damaged the ladders and they’re fragile: run up and down a ladder twice and it’ll crumble to dust. Ok, why is this, exactly? Doesn’t heat travel upwards? But then again, this IS the16Byter company we’re talking about, they weren’t around for very long. This isn’t real difficult though, as there’s just one corner in particular where you can screw up, go up and down a ladder twice by accident and you’re stuck there, although with the few games I’ve played so far you always seem to have an ax with you from the first silly matchup round, so you can just use it to chop through a door and then go up the ladder in the opposite corner and you’re out of there.

Going back to the aforementioned children though, there’s a lot of them in this area. Why is this, exactly? This seems to be an office building. Do they have a daycare center taking up an entire floor? Well, whatever, but yes, the kids are running around everywhere. You just run up to them, which you’ll kind of lock onto them for a second (it’s kind of hard to explain here in print, rather than just by playing it), then tap them on the shoulder once you press button A on your controller, then you press the D-pad left or right depending on where the exit sign is, then they’ll run off in that direction and they’re safe. Granted, they’re in no danger anyway, as the fire doesn’t seem to ever get down there, but they’re worth quite a few points, even more so if you rescue two per family (as I think the instructions said; again, need to read...). And two from the same family are easy to spot, since they look exactly alike. Why all these multiple sets of twins here from families, by the way? Well whatever, but they run around pretty quickly and it’s hard for two to be together at once, but hopefully I can save two at once at some point.

After you rescue a certain amount of kids and break down a few doors or whatever (pressing pause will give you a mission statement as to what you need to do, depending on the building), things get even better from there, as you go to the main part of the building afterwards. Imagine the basement (or that one aforementioned Alien3 level), but it’s several floors high and wide, taking a long time to navigate, plus there’s more to do (again, depending on the mission) and fire is popping up here and there. It’s so large there are several places to save the game, which is really needed here.

Along with dealing with regular fire, you can (hopefully) douse it via a fire hose (for the levels that have them) or by fixing the circuit that a damaged sprinkler system has (again, for the levels that have them), and then there are also these weird Flameoid things that can suddenly pop up and/or run straight at you from out of nowhere. These can be kind of creepy at times since they almost seem to have legs, and if you take too long to deal with them, the later ones get bigger (since the fire keeps on growing if you take too long on a floor). After this is the final (fourth) area of the game where you have to find and rescue someone named Linda (I think, as per the instructions I barely glanced through), but I’ve yet to get there, the Flameoids keep on getting me. Granted, I can just restart at a save station, but right now I’m just having fun exploring various parts of the floors (while taking care of some flames and fixing some equipment along the way, mind you), as some doors that can be broken with the ax have the occasional bonus item to help you with the game.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough, just thought I’d give a heads up on the rare game right now as it is. Back to playing :)

April 25, 8:09 p. m.: Still getting burned (har)
I’ve been playing for the last few days, which at times I’ve gone further than the last, then at others I seem to get snake bit and get screwed pretty good, especially with the longer you take, the bigger the Flameoids get, to the point where they seem to start growing devil horns, which is...well, not right, lets put it that way. A bit unsettling, to say the least.

Still haven’t made it to the top/last section of the game to rescue Linda, though. Too bad, as I’d like to snag that damsel in distress, she looks good in the instructions (and fine with me to be a hero to someone right after my divorce too).

More later. I’m enjoying this game a bit, as areas two and three are a bit addicting, and better than Alien3, in my opinion.

April 27, 10:11 p. m.: Nearing the top...
Argh! I finally got to the end of the blasted stage where I was going to go up to the final level (still don’t know what to expect from that) when some blasted beam from the ceiling came crashing down on me, killing my ass...and my last one, too. Nuts-o-rama! The exit sign – pointing out the stairs leading up to the final floor – was just in sight, but I blew it. Sucks!

Yep, I’m definitely addicted :) It’s a feel-good situation too, where you’re getting to the point where you get further and you’re itching to see what’s next, and it’ll have to do for now as well, since I can’t exactly afford dating at the moment (but then I don’t feel like jumping into that right now anyway) and I’m dealing with a fairly strict budget, so this is filling in some extra time that I could be spending money elsewhere quite nicely.

One thing that was nuts was that, for a split second when my last fire dude keeled over and bit the dust, what looked to be a blank face appeared on the fallen beam. That was kind of odd, but I blinked and it seemed to disappear. It was shaped like a face, but just seemed to have blank eyes, or maybe just eye sockets, somewhat skull-like. Might’ve just been a glitch though, as the game is over 20 years old now.

I might actually start out at the last save station though, rather than starting over, since I want to see what the final floor is like. I don’t have a problem restarting games from the very beginning though, even after I’ve beaten them, just as long as they’re enjoyable, as some people will beat a game and then never play them ever again. (I’m not one of those!)

April 29, 7:23 p. m.: Oh, sorry about that
For anyone who might want to comment on this blog, sorry about that; I’ll look into it soon, as I got contacted by someone named Sonic75 (cool nick! :) ) at my YouTube channel via PM. Again, I’m not real familiar with these blog settings, but I’ll make sure and turn on the comments soon.

Unfortunately Sonic, unlike you asked, I can’t record a video right now due to having to scale down on expenses and selling my formerly pimped out computer that had stuff galore on it, like a video capture card. I did try making a video of some of the gameplay for you (odd that there’s no video of this on YouTube? I hadn’t even tried doing a search for it there until you mentioned it) but for some reason it came out looking like crap, having kind of a reddish tint to it (maybe heat from the flames [and Flameoids] in the game?  Har) and looking blurry, which I wasn’t going to upload it looking like that. Maybe I need to do some adjusting to the lights in my bedroom, the colors and/or tint on my tv, and possibly a few settings on my video camera, as recording from a tv screen is new to me, although it seems like it shouldn’t be too hard though (just place the camera and record, how hard could that be?).

So, sorry again for anyone wanting to comment, I’ll get to that soon, I promise! (I just forgot, with the way things have been with this addicting game, moving and all.)

May 1, 5:47 p. m.: Burn in roach hell!
Whoa, freaky...

So I’m awakened at like 3 a. m. or something by THE most repulsive noise of all, the rustle rustle of a disgusting roach walking around some stuff in my room. I turned on my light and saw where he was on my FD Rescue Team cart. Get off my R7 cart, a-hole!

Well, here’s where things started to get weird: it wasn’t moving. Usually they’re moving their disgusting antennae around, as they know something’s up, the better for them to instantly flee from your swatting them with a shoe.

But instead it just sat there. I got close enough to blow on it, but it STILL wouldn’t move.

Ok, so I’ll shoo off the disgusting turd with...well, a shoe. I just swiped it at the roach just to get it to move and it just EXPLODED. I don’t mean that I smashed it into oblivion with my shoe (not on top of the cartridge!), I just barely brushed it. Or maybe it just laid a giant poop in panic and instantly disappeared. No, that couldn’t be it, I’ve never seen a roach poop before. And I would have heard it scuttling away.

So, great, now I’ve got some kind of mystery roach glob on my rare cart. I go to get a kleenex to wipe it off when...well, things got weirder: Dave, when talking of the old days of the Atari and all, told me about Activision cartridges and anti-plaque, or whatever it’s called, that would usually appear on their carts over the years.

This looked sort of like that...but in the shape of a skull. Seriously. A blocky, 8-bit like skull with pixilated eye sockets. Try as I might, I couldn’t get that shape off of there. I guess some of the label just kind of disintegrated by whatever happened with that roach, but in the shape of a skull is a weird coincidence.

Can’t say I got enough sleep in order for me to drag off to work this morning, whee.

May 3, 7:42 p. m.: More playing
After a couple of busy days or not enough sleep to enjoy things with (due to the roach in the previous post), I finally got back to the game. AGAIN I almost got to the final level exit, but I took a slightly different route this time, and juuuuuust when I saw the exit sign, I thought "hey, isn’t that where I–" bonk, too late chump, the damn beam came down and, again, squashed my last life. Argh.

One thing that was odd though: when I powered off my Genny and pulled out the cart, it was hot...and I mean really hot to the touch. And I hadn’t been playing it for that long, either.

May 5, 3:27 p. m.: seeing Dave
Ok, to a non-video game entry here...

For a new person or two (or three) that doesn’t know, I have an older brother named Dave. He was a bit of a protector of myself, giving me advice while growing up (that I didn’t always listen to, and then he usually turned out to be right), and was someone fun to play games with, of course.

Unfortunately the Dave we all knew, for the most part, is gone now, which I would say (hang in there with me, new people) was due to a traumatic brain injury, and now he’s barely half the person he was.

Dave was successful, climbed the corporate ladder, was strong-willed, and engaged to a great lady that everyone liked (being the total *opposite* of mine once things started going downhill, leading to our divorce. If the real Dave was around back then, I’m sure he would have given me some good advice about her, which, I’ll admit, I might’ve ignored, then regretted it later like I definitely do now.  Oh well...).

Then one day what would have been a traumatic brain injury changed his entire life. He needs help every day with everyday things now, can barely speak, instantly lost his job, then his fiancé not long afterwards (she still comes by occasionally though). Things are no longer the same, to put it mildly.

The only thing is, though, doctors have never figured out exactly what happened: there never were any signs in any x-rays showing where he wasn’t wearing his seat belt, he bashed his head against the steering wheel in an accident or whatever, and poof, now he’s been diminished to the mentality of a two year old. He was just found in his room unconscious one day. It doesn’t make any sense. Many doctors have tried to figure it out over the years, but there is no plausible explanation, unfortunately, no smoking gun. And even if there were he’s probably not coming back. I don’t want to say that something just snapped, but if a person were to have an on and off switch, he’s since been turned off, let's put it that way.

I got a bit of his gaming stuff and all after a while (like I mentioned earlier), which is kind of like a survivor’s guilt thing. So, I still help mom out with him when I can, coming by and spending time with him and leaving her some money, since things haven’t been easy for her, as she and dad divorced. At first she refused, as I can understand how uncomfortable it is to accept money from your grown child, but as things got worse she didn’t really have a choice. Besides, he helped me over the years (as I’ve explained to her several times), and I will help him as well; it’s the least I can do (again, explained...).

So, I went to visit him today, which made him happy, since he hadn’t seen me since the move. (Me and mom aren’t sure if it would be a good idea to have him come over to my new house, as it could really confuse and/or upset him. Or maybe he’d be ok with it; we might try this out one day, but not now.) We played some checkers, along with my playing some video game music off the Genesis (since I bought him another one later) from several games that have music tests (which helps keep him calm) and did some birdwatching and all (since mom puts birdseed out and we get quite a few feathered friends, which Dave also likes).

Leaving’s always bittersweet, since I did my part to help out, but things aren’t the same though.

Anyway, once I get around to getting my old blogs moved from the previous crappy site (reminds me, I need to do that), I might see about dividing the blogs between video games and other miscellaneous stuff, like these entries, but then, I need to get a better look at this new interface to see what all it can do as far as cataloging these entries or whatever (which also reminds me: TURN ON THE COMMENTS! So that way people that are much more familiar with this site can tell me what I should do here ;) ).

And one thing I will say here before signing off with this entry: try to find some time to volunteer a visit with a child, or even an older person with brain injuries, as it’s not easy for families and they would usually appreciate the help, if not be really grateful.

Help change a life(ves).

May 9, 9:20 p. m.: Success!
Ugh, I really need to see about dividing up my blogging, as this definitely throws off the serious note I had with the previous entry, but yes, back to gaming now (with no offense towards Dave).

Well, I finally made it. I made it to the final level on FD Rescue Team! :)

So, I had become familiar enough with the area where the beam would fall from the ceiling and kill my last guys, ending my last two games. I very cautiously approached the spot, then ran back the moment I heard the quick, tell-tale creak of the beam about to come crashing down. I hesitantly went through the exit, expecting something *else* to happen, but I made it through! Very cool!

So, this last floor is a bit more open and not having anywhere near as many offices as the previous floor. This is a floor of CEOs. I found one person there, who, like a kid, you just point them in the right direction and they make a run for it. Bonus points there. I rescued a guy in a suit (don’t know what happened to him as he ran off, but the points indicator appeared two seconds later, so I assume he made it out ok). I entered one office in particular, didn’t see anything, and was about to leave when I heard a female voice say “help”. Then I found Linda hiding underneath her desk. Like with a kid, you just lock onto her for a second and tap her and she’ll react, although in this case she starts following you, somewhat like that dimwit guy during the second level of Flashback who needs to go through that area filled with dangerous mutants. I listened for the telltale signs of any falling beams (although there was only one), then went for the exit. That lead us to the roof, which, in real life, isn’t a very good idea! But then the game automatically starts up a cutscene where a helicopter picks you two up, takes you down, lands, and you disembark. Linda looks even better than in the instructions ), and gives you a kiss on the cheek before the credits roll; the end.

I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t another building though, but it was still cool to get to and, more importantly, beat the game. I plan on playing more of this game though, as there’s still possibly some more places with hidden bonus equipment inside and stuff, as the third area is pretty big and there’s several places that I haven’t nosed around yet. Oh, and something odd happened, as for a brief second at one point when Linda was following me out, her face seemed to change into a skull. However, the graphics were glitching out a little, as the Flameoids wouldn’t be appearing in full, but rather just their devil horns (which was kind of funny), among other things, so I’m waiting for the cart to cool off before cleaning it, which should do the trick.

Happy though, and a bit of a different game, although, again, it reminds me a bit of Alien3.

May 10, 10:03 p. m.: More playing and goals to reach
I beat the game again after starting from a save spot in the second to last area. I think I’ll start a new game entirely over and play it again from the very beginning. After all, I need to try to get the big bonus by saving two kids from the same family.

The graphics problems have cleared up after cleaning the cart, although for a split second I thought I saw something weird again: remember when I mentioned I thought I saw some figure earlier that didn’t seem to have a face, just eye sockets? He seemed to appear again for a split second during the cutscene when the helicopter landed and my character and Linda got out. When I blinked, though, I just saw it was a lamp post as part of the background, but it did look like a face there for a moment. There’s some term for that, when you see faces in objects: "paradelia", or something like that.

Edit: found it! Pareidolia is the term. Hey, I was pretty close.

May 12, 2:15 p. m.: Seeing Dave again, guy
Hah, there was a severe problem at the firm with the networking system, which tech support said it could be three hours for the system to be back up and running, and it was nearly noon. So what would be the point of stopping work for three hours, then you only work (or not) for two more just to take off? Why not just let most people go home early? :) Fine with me! Lunch and then leave, especially on a Friday.

Unfortunately you can file this under "this isn’t going to end well", which not end will it did.

With my newfound time off, I figured I would go see Dave again, although I came up with the [now not so] bright idea of grabbing the FD Rescue Team game to see if he remembered it. Since his motor skills (and, sadly, pretty much everything else) aren’t anything like they used to be, he can’t really play games any more, but sometimes he has me play something while he watches, especially something that’s tough enough for gamers as it is (that unfortunately he can’t play any more), such as Fatal Rewind. He likes the cutscenes from Flashback too, although it seems to me like that ending’s quite a bit too depressing (although that’s on the CD version though, which he doesn’t have). Because later after I got his Genesis and all, I bought him another one, but with a scaled back library, since he can hardly do any of that like he used to. Sometimes I just bring over carts just so he can listen to the music, which he really likes (since mom is so anti-technology I doubt I could get her to play any soundfiles on her computer [that she almost never uses] if I were to save them into .wavs that way, which would be easier for me). So once I got to mom’s, I took this out and asked him if he remembered the game.

It scared the hell out of me when he started hollering the moment he laid eyes on it. I jumped, then hid the cartridge behind my back. Because one thing is that, when you have someone in his condition, you don’t try to force an issue with something that upsets them, as that won’t help, so just put an end to it as quickly as possible until they calm down. As I think I said earlier, Dave likes watching birds, for instance, as mom puts birdseed out on the patio, but unfortunately one day a big hawk landed on the patio, freaking him out, for some reason (but then, some people are afraid of birds). He wouldn’t go anywhere near the den glass door for most of the rest of the day after that. So now mom stops putting birdseed on the patio in the winter when that hawk migrates through, as he stops by this neighborhood then, and we just hope Dave doesn’t spot him elsewhere in the yard (which he hasn’t, thank goodness, even though the hawk’s been back several times since over the years, due to him catching the plenty of sparrows we get all year around). Mom came running in to see what the matter was, but knew better not to ask what had happened, just to calm him down for the time being. I still got the Genesis on though, and went through some funny soundbites from some games that he liked that have sound tests on them, like with the ones on Shadow Dancer with people getting beat up, which always cracks him up. Music from Sorcerer’s Kingdom also helped too.

Later as I was leaving, mom asked what happened, which I just said he freaked over FD Rescue Team, which I showed her the cart. For some reason she scowled at the game, like I had just showed her Mortal Kombat and she somehow knew what it was, with its questionable violent, graphic content.

Then I heard Dave speak, very clearly, from the hall: "don’t play".

Me and mom were really stunned by that. It’s been quite a while since he said something anything near to being coherent.

I said "what?" He replied, "oooon’t...aaaaay", which was him trying to repeat "don’t play", I’m pretty sure, but again, his speaking skills are long since shot. Then he turned and went back to his room.

What the hell?

So, I’m leaving and find that someone vandalized my car: on the front passenger seat, someone burned part of it, going to a lot of trouble to make it in the shape of a skull. I didn’t like the thought of my cartridge bouncing around in my glove compartment (it was sitting in that very seat on the way to mom’s, which I figured I shouldn’t touch that crime scene), so I just took it pretty slowly as I drove to the police station. I was there for about an hour, filling out paperwork and all, but unfortunately unless the police find a witness that saw the person that did this at my mom’s house (and they can be identified, as they’re going to talk to the neighbors later) then it looks like this case isn’t going to be solved, since they left no fingerprints behind. Whatever, dummy: you could’ve swiped my insurance card with my address on it from the glove box. At least the police officers I talked to were pretty professional and all; nothing makes things even worse when dealing with jerk cops after you’ve been violated, as it just pours salt into the wound.

One thing (ok, make that the *second* thing) that was odd, though: on the way out from the police station, I spied someone really odd-looking: the guy was pale, fairly tall and thin, and looked like he had no face. Granted, I was trying to keep my eyes on the road and I only caught a glimpse of him, but it was still pretty strange. I’ve only seen one real-life albino in my entire life, and this could have been the second (with no offense to any albinos possibly reading this, but I’ve had enough strangeness lately to last for the rest of my life, thanks).

I’ll ask the two criminal attorneys at the firm if they have any advice for this matter, as we have a meeting on Monday anyhow and most of us will be there, but they probably won’t tell me anything that the police haven’t already told me as it is.

May 16, 8:14 p. m.: Back to graphical glitches
Dammit, I hope my cartridge isn’t going to degrade so much it’s going to croak eventually, as I played it again today and the skull glitch appeared with Linda again. This is rather annoying, but at least none of the other graphics are glitching out in that area of the game again. But then, that could be tomorrow (although maybe I shouldn’t say that).

May 19, 1:03 p. m.: Easter Egg
Ok, so after I’ve beaten a game several times and feel I have become familiar enough with it, it’s time to take it to the next level: by seeing if it has any secrets!

I looked around on several gaming code websites, and found only one code for the game, as FD Rescue Team is rare, not very well known, and 16Byter wasn’t a big player (pardon that pun) in the gaming world, so information on this game isn’t easy to come by (the only code I could find on all the sites was provided by someone credited as J. K. Hanning. Gotta love copying and pasting!).

So, I powered up the game and did the required funky button pressing routine during the title screen before the theme music ended in order for it to work. The sites said that this was a part of the game that ended up being left out when it was released, as supposedly, originally the game wasn’t supposed to end after you rescued Linda, there was going to be another building and you get to upgrade your rescue equipment at a shop after you complete the first building. Odd that they left it in though: why not take this shop out? Why would it still be here, as only an easter egg?

So, what’s the shop like?

Well, like I said with copying and pasting, if no one actually HAS this cart, then the original poster could be wrong.

I got a shop all right, but for something totally different.

In the shop were bone saws, sternal saws, Gigli saws, iron maidens, breaking wheels, jougs and other crap of the like.

What the hell? None of these are rescue instruments, as the saws are after the fact, and the others are torture devices!

You could select the items, but you couldn’t purchase them or anything, just move them around, and that was it. None of the buttons on my controller seemed to respond to do anything else with any of these things, which was just as well, as this creeped me out just a bit. This isn’t something I’m going to be showing to any of my friends. Again, why even leave this in here if it didn’t make it to the completed game?

Oh, but backing up though: those that recall from my old blog, my gaming friend Jess came over today. I showed him this game, but for some reason he did NOT want to play it. I don’t know what the deal was – true, the mix and match first part is stupid, as Jess pointed out when I showed it to him, but it gets better – as this isn’t like how I showed The Immortal to a religious friend of mine who, once you got to the point in the intro where the wizard touched his wand onto the goblin and his head exploded, he didn’t want to play it, so we just settled for some Gauntlet IV. I can understand that, but why not play this game?

So, yeah, we played some Gauntlet and Star Control, then some Sundance on the Vectrex. Jess almost beat me too for the first time ever on that, but not quite. The near-victory didn’t help his sullen mood though as he left.

Jess, are things ok? Even though I’m not sharing your full name here I can remove it if you want. Don’t want to make things any worse in case it was something I did :(

May 23, 6:57 p. m.: Nightmare
Occasionally video games show up in my dreams, although, believe it or not, it’s not really that often it happens.

So, in real life, I’m still trying to save two kids from the same family in FD Rescue Team, remember?

Well, in this dream I had last night, I was playing, but instead of it being the side-viewed, scrolling platform game in real life, instead of seeing the kids as they were normally presented, when I approached a group of them, the camera angle changed to a full-screen cutscene of the kids, rather than the normal side view.

They looked very scared, as per usual, then all these flames appeared behind them (or maybe it was a gigantic Flameoid, as I think I saw some horns at the very top of the flames for a second). They then engulfed the children as they started screaming. Granted, it didn’t look real at all -- those pixilated flames -- but it was still pretty sick, and creepy enough to jolt me awake.

“Nightmare” from Hypocrisy is much better to listen to than go through something like that, to say the least. Visuals I can do without.

May 25, 9:23 p. m.: Celebration?
Well, I would report that yay, I finally saved two children from the same family! However, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Ok. As I’ve said before, this is a difficult thing to do. You don’t always see two identical kids running around very often as it is, especially being on the screen at the exact same time, either. Some kind of bar appears over the kids’ heads for a brief second if you see two twins together -- kind of tethering them to each other -- if you don’t move the controller in the right direction, the tether will break, and one kid will individually run off (never to be seen again), while the other lets your rescue him or her.

Well, I not only finally lucked out with getting two identical kids onscreen at once, and not only did I save both of them, but something really special happened!

First, I thought I’d just get a big bonus and have some points appear over the kids’ heads, like when you normally save one at a time as they run off. Nope, right then and there when you save two kids, the game changes into a cutscene. It shows the two kids running up to their mom, who drops down on her knees and gives them a hug. That was pretty nice.

Well, at first. Then the camera view backs up to showing just one kid on the screen as the other one and the mom disappears. He looks rather grumpy. Then the angle changes and it shows him kicking a soccer ball, which smashes a window.

What the hell? Granted, 16Byter wasn’t a huge, successful publisher, and several elements from this game (and probably the few others they made) could have been better, like the voice synthesis of the kids yelling “help” in fear as you first approach them, so maybe this was a bad soundbite, as it could have been (I suppose) the roar of a crowd cheering the kid on for making a goal (indicating the kid would grow up to have a good life) and the sound came across rather poorly. However, it looks and sounds like a window breaking to me, and the kid definitely looked pissed off at the beginning. Again, what the hell?

And on a side note, I had something odd happen right afterwards, as I heard a twig snag right outside my window, like someone was there. I didn’t see anyone there when I looked though, but at least it reminded me to close the window, since I had found a lizard in that room earlier and opened the window to let it out. Nice going to leave an open invitation for the friendly neighborhood psycho to come in here, kill you and steal your very first Rarity 7 cartridge ever there, Jim.

May 27, 8:17 p. m.: Multiple creepy things
Today’s been pretty fried, all in regards to the game, too (although work also somewhat sucked, but...).

So I started a new game, and it wasn’t long before oddness started happening. First off, in the basement, there wasn’t the usual clatter going around, no fire alarms in the distance or anything like that. Ok, so sometimes sounds cut out here and there from time to time during a game (which can happen in a lot of games ever made period), but during the entire stage? That didn’t make any sense.

Also, when it came time to rescue some kids, they weren’t panicky and running around all helter skelter, they were just standing around, almost zombie-like. And if that wasn’t bad enough, when I tapped one of them to send them off to safety, not only did they just stand there for a moment before trotting off, but he also gave me this look like I had just shot his dog.

Why the hell did their behavior change so much? What’s happening to the game? This doesn’t make any sense at all.

So I finish the game and beat it, which, once you get to the final cutscene and Linda gives your character a kiss, I noticed, real dimly right next to her, was that *thing* I’ve seen several times. You know, the one who’s face you can’t see. Was he there the entire time, and I only just now noticed him? I don’t think so. It/he was so faint it was like in one of those "when you see it" photos where it takes you a minute to spot the hard to see guy in the background. Yeah, he was that faint.

And one last thing in regards to today’s entry: I just had to delete several comments on here.

First off, just having to DO that was really weird, because I never enabled comments in the first place. (Sorry about that for any inconvenience this caused; with being so busy and such lately, it never occurred to me how odd it was that I didn’t get the occasional post that I did like with my original blog, even though most of you thankfully followed me here.) I double- and triple-checked it, which, yep, I didn’t have that square checked off to enable people to be able to comment in the settings menu.

So how the hell did these comments get here? Well, I suppose I could have been hacked somehow.

So, why am I pointing this out, especially since (hopefully) not many, if not any of you saw these? Because they were in pretty poor taste, to say the least.

Here they are, as I guess they think my game getting weird is funny or something:

"YOU DIDN’T RESCUE ME FIRST", "LITTLE JOHNNY IS WITHOUT HIS SISTER BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T RESCUE HER (hey, PUT AN END TO THE CAPS LOCK, I can read, jackass)", "YOU PURPOSELY NEVER GET THE HUGE BONUS JUST SO THOSE CHILDREN COULD DIE (since when did any children die in this game, ever? Where are you getting this from?)", and "HOW YOU LIKE YOUR RESCUED DAMSEL IN DISTRESS NOW?".

You got something to say to me? Do you know something about what’s going on with this game? Then tell me, rather than being abusive here. I realize some things don’t translate well over the internet, but in case you can’t understand a basic (probably) fifth grade reading level, I’ve been getting pretty unnerved by what’s been happening in this game over the last few weeks. This crap of yours is NOT funny, USER (again, caps his, as “user” is all this person identified themselves as).

So, comments are open now (again, sorry for any inconvenience to any of my actual friends out there that have been wanting to comment, just like back in the old days), and for the first time ever, I’ve enabled it where people can just flat-out e-mail me right here from this blog if they want. That’s right: click on my name at the top of this here blog and you’ll enable a pulldown menu of contacting me via Facebook, YouTube, or even by e-mail, so you don’t have to have an account on here to send me a PM any more.

Finally, even though I use foul language fairly often in my real life (i. e. on my day to day, non-internet world), I’m not much on comedians, movies, etc. where they think they can only get a point across by using the f word several times in every other sentence. This gets even worse (in my opinion) when it spills over into the gaming world and various gaming persona uses this kind of language in their reviews (like on YouTube), not doing any of us any favors when games are blamed on various things for violent content and the like.

And as these foul-mouthed reviewers’ egos get huge, they only listen to those that put them up on a pedestal, rather than look at both sides, especially as listeners become divided, many of which chide them for their presentations. Then their fanboys (and girls) say a bunch of nonsense/make up excuses for them, like “you’re just jealous of the money he makes for playing games”; sorry, I already have a profession, and I’m good at what I do, and that’s not for sounding like an eight year old who thinks they’re a badass (for saying things like “ass”, and even worse. Get the sarcasm there?) by using fowl language when it comes to talk about a video game. Oh my, what an awesome, mature person there (more sarcasm there, for those who couldn’t catch it).

I try to steer clear as much as possible for using bad language here in my blog, but keeping all this in mind, though, I’m going to make an exception for once.

So lets dance, Mr. Big Man. E-mail me and tell me what’s really on your mind, rather than being an abusive, anonymous coward here.

I’ll be waiting, you piece of fucking shit.

Meanwhile, I have your IP address and I’ll be running it by one of the attorneys at the firm tomorrow who’s a bit of a techie, which works pretty well in their area of law. Better hope for your sake you’re able to disguise it through a proxy so I can’t get your physical address so we can meet up and discuss this in person. Yeah, that’s right, I’m not threatening you or anything because that alone is illegal, even if I were to threaten something that I end up not even carrying out.

At least I know where to draw the line, which is more than I can say for some *other* people.

So, comments are finally open (again, sorry for that, after all this time), except for a certain a-hole. But feel free to comment again anyway, as you’ve been reported for abuse.

Comments (1)

May 28, 7:15 p. m.: Jim Meriwether Just me here, following up on this. The tech attorney ran this above IP address I mentioned from some software he has, but couldn’t come up with a name or address on it. So this guy was lucky there.

May 29, 7:22 p. m.: Still playing, but for how much longer?
I’m really doubting any kind of future playtime with this game. I’ve never seen anything like this before in a game, ever.

So I start off from the last game I had played and saved. I almost lost my last few lives and didn’t win, but I somehow beat it.

Right before that happened, though, Linda’s head didn’t turn into a skull for a split second, for once, like how it has happened several times before. So, that’s nice, right? No more glitchy graphics?

Um, no. This time, for a brief moment, the top half of her body turned into a full-fledged corpse right before my eyes, being mostly bones, missing a lot of skin and eyes and the like.

This is really screwed up. What kind of sick minds worked on this game? This must’ve come out before ratings for the Genesis started up, as this definitely would deserve an M rating at this point, if it keeps on getting worse.

I’m starting to have less fun with this one too.

May 30, 2013, 6:57 p. m.: Holy screwed up, Batman
Like with the previous blog entry mentioned, I’m having severe doubts about continuing to play this game any more. And today’s little event really rattled me good this time, even though it was only for a split second.

So I was playing again (although it might be one of my last times), starting from a save point in the last area, rescuing the CEO and blah blah, then onto Linda, which I found myself feeling apprehensive about.

As she’s following me out of the building, for one brief instant she – get THIS – turned into an entire skeleton. No, the skull glitch didn’t show up, she turned into a full-fledged skeleton.

This is getting to be too much. I’m not a tech person, but I know these aren’t glitches (obviously the skull deal isn’t a glitch after all). I don’t know what to do here, as I enjoy the game (well, I’m having doubts about that now too) but I’m thinking of selling it. This is too creepy. Is this what is meant by certain “extras” that it said in the instructions to look for, but it didn’t specify what they were? If so, this is a really sick way to run a business, as no wonder 16Byter is no longer around if they put all this ghoulish crap into the game without warning us, unlike with The Immortal (I still have the sticker that came with mine, by the way). Even though I didn’t see every single issue of every single video game mag that was published back in the day, I don’t recall hearing about a write-up about this in Electronic Games or NEXT Generation mags or anything like that, as this is pretty scandalous.

I’m going back to my Vectrex, and back to an earlier part of it as well: like how this game got me back into the Genesis (unfortunately), I’m going to start playing Vecmania next, as it was the first homebrew I got for that unique vector machine. I’m steering clear of this game, as I feel like I’m losing my mind here. After all, I could blame all of this on my previous cocaine habit, except that I never did drugs though.

[put a] Stop [to] the madness.

June 2, 7:32 p. m.: Vectrex, police again
Yep, I decided to quit playing FD Rescue Team. It’s been three days now. I returned to my Vectrex, playing Vecmania, like I said. I forgot how hard Birds of Prey can be (which is a clone of Phoenix, one of my favorite arcade games). Things started seeming better, even with work and all seemingly getting better too, although that could be just a coincidence.

Until today, when, for only the second time in my life, I had to dial 911 (the other time being years ago when the neighbor’s [at the time, before I had to move] kid started having a seizure, although he would turn out to be ok).

Something was going on again right outside my bedroom window. I caught a glimpse of someone running away, which they seemed pretty guilty indeed, so I called the cops just as a precaution.

The person looked very thin, tall and pale as hell. Sound familiar?

After a couple of minutes of checking out the perimeter to make sure he didn’t seem to be around any more, the police asked me to come out and ask if something left behind meant anything to me.

It was a big burn mark on the ground not far from my window, about the size of a large bucket.

I don’t think I have to tell you what it was in the shape of.

This time with the police took a bit longer, since they had to call out someone in regards to their arson squad as well. They hadn’t seen anything like that before, with it being especially curious as to why someone would go to the trouble to burn something in the shape of a you know what, then hightail it out of there. And in the middle of a damn DAY? That’s pretty brazen, and asking for a huge crapload of trouble.

I can’t afford to hire and have the police patrol through here during the week; I’m doing ok with things financially as it is, but I’m pretty sure that would break me there. I’m just going to start watering down my house as it is just in case. At least I have an alarm (fire and regular), along with fire extinguishers.

What IS this nonsense? I quit playing the damn game and tried putting it up for sale on ebay, but I got a damn error when I tried entering the ad for it. Oh, come ON here! This has to end.

June 3, 3:57 a. m.: THE END indeed
I’m doing this at 3 a. m. right now, on a work night. I can’t BELIEVE what just happened here.

I was never much of a sleepwalker; I only had a couple of episodes of this when I was a kid. I also had a couple of incidents in high school where, as a lazy teenager, I would stay up late, then fall asleep in the afternoons for a nap. Twice I awoke with a start, ran into the den for some reason, and blurted out some nonsense (before I was fully awake) to my mom and brother, who laughed at me and asked what on earth it was I had just said. Not quite sleepwalking I guess, but it happened, and it was a bit embarrassing.

My last incident of that was over 20 years ago.

This morning I had somewhat of a reoccurrence of that. Sleepwalking, sleeprunning/shouting gibberish, but sleep video gaming?

Yeah, that’s right: I woke up to finding myself sitting in front of the tv, controller in hand, on the final floor of the building where I had to rescue Linda. How the hell did I manage to get up, decide to play the game (for whatever reason, as you all can see in print where I swore this off days ago, plus I had deleted my last saved game), get everything set up, start a game, and get through over 90% of it without waking up? How is that even POSSIBLE?

That was bad enough. What’s worse is what happened next. So like I said, I was at the part of the game where I was to rescue Linda.

She was not in her office at the top floor. No Linda, no skeleton, nothing, just a gaping black maw of an office left when I made it in there. All was quiet; there was no background sounds of additional sirens/fire trucks coming, no police, no crackling of nearing flames or the approaching Flameoids with whatever noise they made (which I’ve always found hard to describe), nothing, unlike you always hear during a game.

This was beyond creepy as hell, that black maw of what remained of her office.

I shouldn’t go in there, but something has obviously been happening with this fried game for weeks now. Plus I somehow started all this myself, so I might as well finish it.

I went in. The room was burnt out, but no Linda, torched to death (thank goodness) or not, no one was there. I don’t see how I could have been in the building where everything got burned to a crisp, yet I wasn’t harmed, but whatever.

Then the room faded out, like a scene from an old movie or something. Some image came zooming in, although it stopped before getting too close, keeping somewhat of a distance. Only enough of the pale, faceless figure appeared to take up the center of my tv screen, showing only a head and its (his?) shoulders.

As per usual, it was a cloudy figure. It was like looking at someone through a dirty or frosted window; I couldn’t see his (?) face, make out any features of anything, as per usual, like with several of the Entries of the Slender Man in the Marble Hornets videos where you can’t make out much of anything in regards to his face (although some say he has no face, but it seems to me that it’s just never seen).

I’m 100% sure this is the guy whom I have spotted in the game and in various places outside recently, following me.

Words started appearing beneath him; he turned his head a little from time to time as if he were speaking, or just contemplating what he was saying.

It read something like this on the screen (yes, in all caps again, just like from that jerk who posted [the same one, I’m sure] from this blog the other week):

THIS IS NEARLY THE END. THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS GAME OTHER THAN DEATH, WHICH IS UNAVOIDABLE, JUST LIKE IN LIFE.

Other than yelling at some games like when I get frustrated, I don’t usually talk to them. However, I thought to myself, what HAS all this been? A curse?

That was one of the times when the figure turned his head a little, like he understood.

THE PRODUCTION BEHIND FD RESCUE TEAM WAS ROOTED BEHIND AN UTTER DARKNESS THAT DESTROYED EVERYTHING, THE COMPANY AND SUCH. THIS GAME NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME TO REALIZATION WITH ALL THE TRAGEDIES THAT OCCURRED BEHIND IT. I SUPPOSE IT WAS A CURSE.

That really sent a chill down my spine. It was like this game was reading my mind.

This time I did talk to the game out loud.

"I’ll end it then! There must be a way."

NO. IT IS TOO LATE., the words said back on the screen.

For a brief moment, I swear I could see a faint outline of two black sockets where the eyes should be, but it could be due to my new-found terror and fatigue of not getting enough sleep. Then they went away.

"How can it be too late?" I blurted out. "What do you want with me anyway?"

The figure then went away.

Then another one came into view, in the exact same manner, except that it came closer and it was clear this time.

It was an image of my brother Dave.

That was bad enough. Then, to my horror, a red line appeared, starting from the top of his head, traveling down at an angle to where his shoulder would be. Another one appeared, intersecting in the middle...forming a huge X over his face.

Words appeared underneath him:

"Rescuing one per family is one thing." it read, in actually lower case letters this time.

After hovering around for a few seconds, the image of Dave and the words went away, but to replaced by more, which filled up the entire tv screen.

I WILL GET A HUGE BONUS FOR TWO FROM THE SAME FAMILY.

That was IT. Like with the horror movie where you can’t believe someone is so stupid to enter a creepy house, climb up rickety stairs, and open a door where you know the murderer (or a body) is behind it and you say don't open the door, yeah, I actually finally woke the hell up and ended it there: with a scream of terror, I dove at the off switch on my Genesis and yanked the cartridge out. It resisted for a couple of seconds, like something really strong had a death grip on it, then it relaxed, causing me to almost topple backwards onto my bed, I was pulling with all my might. Just as I regained my balance, I threw the cartridge against the wall with just as much force, making a small dent in the wall where it hit.

The dent was charred black, like a burn mark. Probably just some old paint that was covered over right before this house was rented to me, which was no big deal.

Except that the dent was in the shape of a skull.

Make all the skulls that you want. This WILL end.

First off, this game is GONE. The reason I’m not taking any action right this instant is that I have to get these words out: if any of you reading this comes across a copy of FD Rescue Team for the Sega Genesis (and possibly the Mega Drive, although I think it was a States-only release), do NOT play it. Either leave it on the shelf, do not put in a bid for the ebay/Game Gavel sale, nothing. Or, buy it and then, again, do not play it. Destroy it. I have no desire whatsoever to play this game any more, and I can’t risk playing it by accident in my sleep again. The firm has no cases this week in court, so this is usually clean up time, so I should be able to get the day off today with no problem. If not, I’ll deal with this once I get home.

Once whichever happens, I’m going to destroy this game with a hammer, then do different things with the pieces so it can’t be reconstructed in any way possible: some parts I will bury (somewhere away from here), others smash to pieces, others will be burned.

And I’m going to attack this in several ways at once: right now, I’m just leaving this all up as a warning. I will then delete every single entry (starting all over yet again, argh) that mentions this game. That will take away the evil power that went into this by erasing whatever record of it stands. And as I’ve spent an hour reading over all of these entries, one thing I never realized until just now is that, with every entry, things kept on getting worse and worse with this game. With every mention of this game on here, and with my devoting more and more time to it, this thing kept on growing in power. Time to make a game changer out of this one, and pardon that pun. After all, with what very little information I could find online about this game, I ran across a silly urban legend about it that I never posted about on here, as I just thought it was the usual nonsense that surrounded a mystery game that no one could prove actually existed, as there are no photos of it anywhere or anything (which I tried doing several times myself, to no avail, not to mention with making that video too).

And like I said, I went back to my Vectrex, as that console barely had a mean bone in its body: even with your girlfriend Molly getting kidnapped in the Spike game, the blood-chilling illegal act of taking someone against their will is made humorous, due to the pieced-together voicemail-sounding recording of "eek, help, Spike" comes across as to being funny, rather than morbid. (Plus she’s so dumb to keep on allowing herself to be kidnapped anyway.) VecSports Boxing isn’t too bad either, due to the puns of "Spike Tyson", rather than Mike Tyson. And I just preordered a new homebrew, a port of the classic vector arcade game of Railgunner, which comes with either a free Railgunner sweatband or armband, I don’t recall which. My first game preorder with a free bonus, though! I would be pretty excited about that, but under the obvious circumstances I’m just feeling a tiny bit better than “meh” at this point, really.

So, that’s it. I’ve turned on all the lights in the damn house. I never believed in ghosts (except briefly as a little kid, but that doesn’t count), Bigfoot, evil entities, demons, etc., until now, or at least the latter two. Something very, very wrong happened and/or went into this game, I don’t know which. However, from what I’ve read online (even though none of it can be proven), usually evil doesn’t like light, so they’ll have a hard time getting in here, if that’s what is about to occur.

Because the thing is, this all started off pretty innocently, what with getting a new game. Granted, sometimes that can take a bad turn, like becoming addicted and playing for hours at a time, like how it went with 3D Blockout when I rented that at one point. Newspapers don’t get read for days, sometimes all you do is eat and go to the bathroom, then go back to the game. I never played Dune for the Genny because games that were SO addicting like that scared me, as one friend said he kept it from Blockbuster Video for two weeks, then actually admitted it was late and paid the overdue fees for it at the return desk. He actually lost weight playing the game too.

I’ve loaded up with several knives and my gun. I’ve got some heavy metal coming out of my stereo to keep me awake just a couple of more hours until the sun rises. Evil isn’t going to come in with all this up, especially once it’s the sun’s turn to keep it out.

ENOUGH already. This sick event is about to finally end.

Edited at 5:17 a. m.
Holy crap. I saw the guy who appeared on the screen right before Dave did (and that I saw outside the police station and right by my bedroom window, as I’m almost 100% this is him), right outside my kitchen window. I’m sure it was him. Something made a sound in my kitchen though, causing me to look away for just a brief instant, then when I looked back he was gone. He seemed hesitant though...yep, the lights are all on, chump. Good luck getting past that, plus my house alarm. If it goes off, then my gun goes off, as this is a stand your ground state: there’s signs around the house stating I have an alarm, it’s armed, *I’m* armed, you’re on my property, and I’m pretty sure you’ve been following me (as I’ve documented on here, too).

Not for long.

Edited at 5:23 a. m.
Crap, my alarm isn't on after all, I just noticed. The control panel is right by a big window too, which I suddenly felt nervous about for a moment in trying to make it there in case he’s waiting. Well, no matter, I’ve got my gun and knives. I’m not even afraid now, either, knowing this is almost over with.

Screw it. I’m going for the alarm after all. Up yours, chump, and with bullets too, in case I have to.

I’m ready to dance, Mr. Big Man.

Comments (7)

June 5, 7:18 a. m. By Elmer

FAKE!

June 5, 11: 42 a. m. By Sonic75

Holy crap dude, it’s been two days now. What happened?

June 5, 12: 37 p. m. By Blogreader

Hey Jim, is everything all right? I called the firm long distance and they did confirm that you still weren’t in. Didn’t you just ask for one day off?

June 5, 10:52 p. m. By Teresalady47

hi, remember me, Teresa? We went out a few times several months ago. Sorry about the emergency that happened with my kid during that one time and we had to cut our night out early, it wasn’t your fault. I felt bad about that and hope your ok. Glad the divorce became final.

June 5, 5:37 p. m. By Anon2

hey man before you delete this just lettin you know it’s Thomas, you had banned me for questioning this ordeal so I’m posting under another account, but I’m really sorry for doubting you, this is on the news now, hope we can talk again

June 6, 6:56 p. m. By A USER

WHUT? LOLLOL

June 7, 8:54 p. m. By Nate in Wisconsin

OMG, it’s Nate here. Man, I can’t believe this all happened, it’s really f’ed up! And here you got things, your life, back together after finally leaving that witch and now this got dumped in your lap.

I hate to say this now, as we obviously got over it all years ago, but you were right back in the 6th grade, it was indeed Stacy, not Kelly who passed you that note, Stacy did indeed have the hots for you. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked anyway but I was jealous back then that she was after you and never paid any attention to me. I meant to tell you I was sorry about this years and years ago but obviously you moved past that, that was just the kind of guy you are and have always been.

I can’t believe I have to say this, but RIP. Spontaneous human combustion? Man, what a waste.

...

Bil Bo’s boring blahg
(A few months later, on another part of the internet...)

August 10, 2013: Welcome to Bil Bo’s boring blahg (blog)!

Hi, I’m Bil Bo, allow me to introduce myself and my Boring Blahg. Ok, maybe it won’t be boring, but it’ll be mostly about Games. Sometimes I will actually get on something serious, like with my previous blog about my cousin who barely escaped the 9/11 attacks. He was supposed to be in the World Trade Center on That Day but wasn’t, God willing. That was indeed pretty heavy, but that blog is gone now.

Anyway, I am 39 years old, not married and have no kids. So this will be about Stuff, as I am an overgrown child with many Toys. I have a few Pinball Machines (space willing) and many Game Consoles. Right now I am actively collecting for the Sega Genesis.

One odd pickup I just got over the weekend included a Genesis Game I had never heard of called FD Rescue Team. It was at a local Estate sale (yes, video games at an estate sale! I’ve heard of it before but never been to one!). Luckily no one else wanted them (snooty looking people who wanted furniture and the like) so I got some good Genesis stuff, along with a VECTREX! I had never seen one of these before but have always wanted one. And with doing research on many of the games I got, many of them are Homebrews, so I have a good mix of original and modern day Stuff for it.

Back to the Rescue game though: it starts off like a kid’s game where you have to mix and match Fire Stuff, which is silly. However, afterwards you have to get special Ladders to replace crumbling ones at the basement of a burning building, along with saving Children. You also use some of your Equipment you had matched in the previous level to help you along the way (a fire extinguisher, Axe to break down doors etc). This area is pretty large, takes a while and has several places where you can save the game in progress. The higher you get up in the building tho the more flames you encounter, which is where the trouble and difficulty levels begins. The last area is the very top of the building, where you have someone you have to rescue, then a Helicopter picks you up and the game ends.

Now, there’s a few strange things with this whole ordeal. First off, on the day I got this game, as I stopped my car to empty my overflowing waste basket into a garbage can, I happened to notice a newspaper at my feet, open to the obituaries, complete with one of the guy WHOSE ESTATE SALE I WAS JUST AT. Jim Meriwether. He died weeks ago. How freaky IS that? Ok, so this was at a local park that I stopped at, it could be a newspaper from some homeless Wino that had it, as they usually hang around parks until police come by, then they usually take off (something in regards to a local ordinance or something that says they can’t stay there for extended periods of time, mostly overnight). So that’s probably not a big deal, but still freaky, at least.

Also, in regards to the person that you save in the last part of the building, I could have sworn this was a woman, named Lucy or Linda or something. That’s what it said in the Instructions, I could have sworn it said that. But then when I got up there it was a guy, named JIM (again, the guy who died and had the Estate sale where I got this Game from was named Jim!), and it even looked like the same Jim guy as the picture in the obit! Then when I looked back at the instructions it said it was Jim after all. Well, my Memory was never that good, but I’m pretty sure I read differently (why would a guy like myself want to rescue another guy at the top of a burning building? Gimmie a woman to save, dammit!  Especially a Blonde!). The box might help but this didn’t come with a box, and one of the few things I could find on the Internet about this game was a silly urban legend that if you got this game complete (which is cursed, omg no!), then the day after you played the game for the first time you’d find the box reduced to total ash, then strange and Bad things would begin to happen from there. Well, there’s a Psychic down the street from here that I might visit in regards to this, but she was pretty busy when I went in, what with reading an elderly Elvis’s fortune (he’s old and skinny now but I still recognize those ‘burns and sequined jacket) and Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster were waiting in the Lobby, so I left. However, I talked with Big and Loch (their nicks) for a bit and they’re totally cool, which we’re going to chill at Darth Vader’s house this weekend, so that wasn’t a waste after all. (Yes Darth’s still alive, his death was faked and he’s mellow now, those movies made him look bad.) (Oh and this is all sarcasm in case you didn’t figure it out, lol)

Anyway, one last thing about rescuing the Jim guy (I was able to do that later upon playing again), his face seemed to turn into a skull briefly on that screen, but then the game started glitching out then anyway. I have a Cleaner, which I’ll have to dig up, I forgot to do that before putting a used Game in my Genesis like I usually do first thing when I get a new one for it, so that should fix it up.

Anyway, enough typing already, I’m going back to this Game after I find the cleaner. After all, I need to work on saving the Kids, as I’ve only saved one per family so far. Its hard to describe here, but its hard to round them up, and you get a huge Bonus for rescuing two or more from the same family, which I’m going to work on next.

Wish me luck!

Comments on this blog (6)

August 10, 1:24 a. m.

Trenton005

W00t, first!

August 10, 8:07 a. m.

WillyBeamish@yahoo.com lol on the Darth Vader part, hilarious! Let us know what the psychic says about the game, and how it goes with Bigfoot and Loch as well!

August 10, 12:55 p. m.

Estellegmrbabe

Wow, an estate sale? Gnarly, but wherever you can get some games!

August 10, 7:53 p. m.

Mike in Oz

Hey mate, nice intro and such, is getting games at an estate sale common in America there?? I had never heard of that. Blimey!

August 11, 6:06 p. m.

A USER

ENJOY YOUR GAME. THERE IS NOTHING OTHER THAN DEATH, WHICH IS UNAVOIDABLE, JUST LIKE IN LIFE.

August 11, 9:37 p. m.

Darrylb.

USER (caps yours, not mine, so don’t shout, ok?), no need to be morbid here, just let the guy enjoy his game, for God’s sake. What’s death have to do with any of this? Up yours, Mr. Big Man.

Mike in Oz, I’ve also heard before of people getting games at estate sales, but only once, so I’m guessing it’s not too common. However, for those of us who started out playing games that go back as to being in black and white, we’re not getting any younger, so it could become more common!

Bil, look forward to more blogs, as I have a Vectrex myself, so I’d be more than happy to talk about that, although I have a Genny too. Never had heard of this game either, and there’s very little info about it online, no ROM to download, nothing. Do you have a video camera? It’d be great if you could make a video about it, as for some reason not even YouTube has any videos about this game, which is odd for a R7, as I’ve seen even unreleased prototypes have videos of their own, but not this. Really strange.

And I hope you’re able to get that huge bonus for rescuing two or more from the same family! :)