Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 9

#53 – Plug Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: He wasn’t intimidating when he was flying around in the middle of Spark Man’s stage.

Brad: Plug Man would be absolutely deadly if Mega Man had been designed with a giant electrical outlet in his chest that PM could plug into and drain all of the Blue Bomber’s power. Of course, Mega Man doesn’t have such an outlet, which is something Dr. Wily probably should have figured out by the ninth game in the series.

Stryker: Oh look out everybody, a giant pink wall plug with tiny, tiny legs. Is Wily going to have to bring a really long extension cord with him now?

#52 – Ring Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: I keep thinking he’s trying to propose.

Brad: According to his bio, Ring Man was designed specifically to fight Mega Man. With rings. I don’t care what Wily says, there’s no way that happened on purpose. I get the feeling Doc W just up and decided one day that he was going to build himself a ring themed robot without ever thinking ahead about what he was actually going to do with him. And then once he finished and realized Ring Man didn’t fit into any kind of plan for taking over the world, just went with his default job for all useless robots – cannon fodder to keep Mega Man busy while the rest of his creations attempt to do something useful.

Stryker: At least you can use his weapon on Xbox Man to kill him instantly.

#51 – Flash Man (Eliminated by Brad Lawrence)

Brad: Flash Man has a pretty impressive weapon, the Time Stopper, which, as its name implies, has the ability to stop time for a few seconds. This is an incredible power, but for whatever reason, Dr Wily decided to combine it with a bright flash of light that leaves Flash Man temporarily blinded. So he usually ends up spending all of this frozen time running around blindly and shooting in random directions. Yeah, Flash Man sucks.

Chris: And he’s a registered sex offender in 14 states -_-

Stryker: The next time Flash Man kills me will be the first. Good riddance.

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 8

#56 – Spring Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: I would think that wintry conditions would be more difficult for Mega Man to deal with than a mild spring day. Oh wait, you mean spring like the things in your mattress? Yeah… Spring Man.

Chris: Let’s lull Rock to sleep with the most boring level possible and then when he dozes off Spring Man pokes him!  Yeah this elimination was a long time coming.

Brad: Oh sure, he might not look scary, but just wait until Spring Man disguises himself in the suspension of Dr. Light’s car, and the first time he goes over a bump, completely fails to absorb any of the shock – BAM! Broken tie rod. Ha, ha, ha! Who’s going to fix your car, Dr. Light? You? What, are you some kind of mechanical genius?… oh, right, you are.

Stryker: Hey Wily, my dog also has the power of springs, AND he can turn into a submarine or a jet plane. Sincerely, Mega Man.

#55 – Bright Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: I hate the lights off gimmick from 8 bit games.

Brad: Despite his name, Bright Man actually attacks by making it dark. The cafeteria ladies in my elementary school wielded this same awesome power, but combined with their heavily accented shouts of “No talking ven ze lights are ov!”. At best, this was effective at shutting up a room full of ten year old kids about half of the time.

#54 Galaxy Man (Eliminated by Brad Lawrence)

Brad: When you’re facing off against a nemesis who’s main thing is that he takes the weapons from the opponents he defeats, you probably shouldn’t give your best weapons to your weakest guys. Especially if the weapon in question has the power to create a black hole. In fact, you really don’t need to be making robots at all once you’ve created a weapon like that. Seriously, Wily, you’re done. Go make your demands to the U.N or whatever and stop trying to come up with an appropriately themed robot to go with your super-weapon. But of course, Dr. Wily can’t not make robots, so we end up with Galaxy Man, the weak link in  Mega Man 9’s chain of otherwise formidable bosses.

Stryker: Every time I think of Galaxy Man, I just keep picturing an elevator going down into Wily’s laboratory, and the doors opening to reveal Galaxy Man’s lifeless body with a note attached: “Now I have a Black Hole Gun. Ho. Ho. Ho.”

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 7

#59 – Bubble Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: You can kill him before his bubbles even get close to you.

Chris: Bubble Man is one of those robots that makes you rethink who is the bad guy here.  Perhaps Dr. Wright reprogrammed Rock for evil because all I see a cute little robot that stays in his pool blowing bubbles and couldn’t harm someone if he tried.

Brad: You might be on to something there, Chris. Somebody ought to write an article about that.

The inevitable conclusion.

#56 – Ice Man (Eliminated by Chris Delp)

Chris: The most overrated of all the female Gladiators.  One word for you. . . . Mullet.  Wait, what are we talking about?

Brad: Ice Man is out, because fuck Val Kilmer, that’s why.

Stryker: I’m in agreement with Brad’s logic here, but reserve the right to change my vote if Ice Man ever starts saying “I’m your huckleberry” or calling Mega Man a daisy.

#57 – Junk Man (Brad Lawrence)

Brad: Imagine Dr. Wily announcing this lineup: “Behold, Air Man, who can control the skies and the winds! And Gemini Man, with his fearsome Gemini Laser! And Junk Man, who… who I made out of some stuff I had laying around while I was waiting for my microwave pizza to finish.”

Chris: I dunno Brad, if you’ve ever spent some time around real hoarders you might actually be terrified of Junk Man.

Stryker: The only way a robot called Junk Man could ever be scary was if he was named that because he was constantly trying to hit you in the junk. And you know what? There’s a girl like that in almost every Jr. High or middle school, and we still managed to survive that (mostly) unscathed.

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 6

#62 – Wood Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: Wood Man has to be the next one out. He might have an imposing figure, but that doesn’t really matter when you’re made out of wood in a world made out of metal. It also doesn’t help that he coexisted with a robot who looked like a giant cigarette lighter and one who threw metal freakin’ gears.

And he throws leaves? I mean, really… he couldn’t have thrown massive logs like javelins or something? Failure.

Chris: I always had a soft spot for Wood Man.  Clearly, he went to school in the short bus, and the fact that he is going to protect his highly flammable armor by surrounding it with kindling is priceless.

Brad: Given his questionable battle skill, Wood Man’s best bet is probably to disguise himself as a tree and try to hide from Mega Man. But that’s only going to work until Mega Man kills Search Man and steals his abilities.

#61 – Knight Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: This isn’t Final Fantasy, although he would’ve made it a little further if he was Dark Knight Man.  If he adopted the Joker Theme as well then he’s a shoo-in for my Top 8.

Jon: I believe Knight Man & Centaur Man were the 2 American kids’ entries into Mega Man 6, for what it’s worth.

Brad: Knighthood just ain’t what it used to be these days, and I can’t think of Knight Man without picturing him leading an army of Sir Elton Johns and Sir Ian McKellans into battle. Talented as they are, I’m not sure Mega Man is going to have much trouble fending off wave after wave of British senior citizens.

#60 – Cloud Man (Brad Lawrence)

Brad: Cloud Man is the poor man’s Air Man, which is a lot like being the minor league affiliate of the Florida Panthers.

Stryker: Look Dr. Wily, if it not being cloudy enough somehow messes up your plan to take over the world, the answer isn’t to build a Cloud Man. It’s to come up with a less stupid plan.

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 5

#66 – Centaur Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: His name is kind of an oxymoron.

Brad: I’d just like to know at what point Dr. Wily was looking at his lineup of Robot Masters and thought “Needs more horse. Not a whole one, though, that would just be insane.”

Stryker: Are you kidding me? Fucking look at this guy. The only threat he poses is if we die of laughter.

#65 – Gyro Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: I was promised a tasty lunchtime treat in there somewhere but all I got was Air Man’s illegitimate child

Brad: Gyro Man is another Robot Master who’s name has more than one meaning, and once again Wily went with the less interesting possibility. I would have loved to have seen what an entire stage themed around Greek food would have looked like… though I suppose Sheep Man is probably relieved that didn’t happen.

#64 & #63 – Guts Man & Concrete Man (Brad Lawrence)

Brad: With my pick, I’m going for a special DOUBLE ELIMINATION!

Chris: *gasp*

Jon: :0

Brad: My choices are Guts Man, because he’s useless and has a silly name… and Concrete Man, because your new hat isn’t fooling anyone, Guts Man.

10 SNES Games Eliminated

I imagine with all the Dreamcast coverage, the Mega Man draft, Top 50 Genesis game entries, and other projects we’ve been working on, the bad SNES games of the world probably thought they we had forgotten all about them. Well, no such luck, guys. Today we reach into the seemingly bottomless pit of horrible Super Nintendo games and find 10 to revoke the Seal of Quality from:

Troy Aikman Football – Are we sure this wasn’t supposed to be Tony Romo football? Because I keep feeling disappointed by it.

SimCity 2000 – Hey, remember when this game was on the PC and actually, you know, worked?

Tuff E Nuff - Perhaps someday, we can live in a world where seemingly every really bad concept doesn’t get turned into a game, and where developers are inspired with ideas a bit more creative than “Hey, let’s rip off The Final Fight again.”  Until then, we have Tuff E Nuff.

Suzuka 8 Hours – Answers the age-old question “What would happen if we took the world’s fastest sport bikes, made them all handle exactly alike, and then raced them on real-world tracks against other motorcycles being driven by idiots?”

Brandish – In a twisted kind of way, it’s almost impressive how Brandish adheres so strictly to what is essentially the exact opposite of good game design.

Super Goal! – The goal was apparently “create an atrocious SNES game” and the developer reached it successfully.

Brunswick World: Tournament of Champions – Seriously, how do you fuck up bowling this badly?

NBA Give ‘N Go – “Give ‘n Go” being a good strategy for anyone planning to hand this out at Christmas.

The Mask – For those of you who haven’t played The Mask, it’s basically what you get when the company that publishes Bass Masters decides to make a game based on a Jim Carrey movie that everyone hates.

Capcom’s MVP Football - Finally, the Mario Van Peebles Football game we’ve all been clamoring for.

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 4

#69 – Charge Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: Charge Man is the next one down. His best attack is running into Mega Man, and he’s not even really good at doing that. In fact, if Mega Man were to stand on a ledge above Charge Man, he would be basically invincible and free to rain down projectiles on him as he saw fit. When your most redeeming quality as a Robot Master is being kind of difficult to jump over, you’re not gonna go far.

Brad: Then again, Mega Man can’t aim up or down, so in the ledge-standing scenario Jon just described, they would fight to a draw. While not an ideal outcome for taking over the world, in relative terms, this makes Charge Man the ‘85 Bears of Dr. Wily robots.

Chris: I want Dr. Wily to build Anvil Man just so I can beat Charge Man the way Bugs Bunny trained me.

#68 – Astro Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: He looks like a blowup toy that I would kick the crap out of when I was 8.

Brad: My favorite thing about Astro Man is the way he looks like an old-skool rap DJ that’s about to do something really fresh:

Stryker: I didn’t play Megaman 8, so I’ve never fought Astro Man. But as a kid, I had plenty of boss battles against my parents’ Astro Van. It’s main attacks were long rides to boring holiday family gatherings, and a rather insidious technique known as “really not impressing the girl on our first date”.

#67 – Chill Man (Brad Lawrence)

Brad: -1 point for redundancy, as Ice Man, Freeze Man, and Blizzard Man all already serve his function, and -2 points because the first time I saw his name, I thought it was Chili Man, and that would have been wonderful.

Chris: OMG I hope Dr Wily is listening. . . I want to have a 4 alarm fight with Chili Man!

You Should Like Us on Facebook

Hello, everyone. Ever wish this site was a bit more interactive? Maybe comments just aren’t your thing, but you still want an easy way to send us messages, and have a little discussion with other people who like this site? Maybe even get to know us a little better? Well, you’re in luck, because we just set up a new page on Facebook.

This isn’t just an easy way to shamelessly plug our website (although, rest assured, it will definitely be that, too); we want this to be a community for our fans and readers. I’m going to regularly be filling it with my own (hopefully) humorous status updates, which may or may not be game related (quick warning – I talk about sports and forgotten 90s bands… kind of a lot).  We’ll be sharing videos (wait until you get a glimpse of Scorpions Saturday), links, and offering up “bonus content” for our readers. Not only that, but you can post right on our page, ask us questions, and comment on whatever we say. We’re really going for the full fan experience, here. So if you like this site, then you should definitely, uh… “like” this site.

Brad Hates Games on FB!

Mega Man Elimination Draft – Round 3

Search Man – I think he’d approve of how we found this image.

#72 – Aqua Man (Jon Hornbaker)

Jon: Aqua Man… too many water-themed masters before him, and he’s named after the worst Superfriend ever… well besides, Apache Chief.

Chris: I also heard he’s obsessed with Barbie dolls.

Brad: Somewhere in Dr. Wily’s headquarters, Bubble Man, Wave Man, and Pump Man are discussing how the U.S. needs to built a giant fence, or, I don’t know, underwater net, to keep robots like Aqua Man from sneaking over the border and taking their jobs.

#71 – Search Man (Chris Delp)

Chris: So more than a passing link to my 90′s post SNL viewing habits the main gist of what I think makes a bad master robot is a non intuitive name. I want to hear the name (Flame Man, Drill Man, Metal Man) and instantly know what kind of horrible death awaits me. So that leads me to a Master Robot whose name I don’t understand on any level to this day. Search Man. Is he going to try and kill me by using Google to find my old MySpace accounts?

Brad: No matter where you hide, Search Man will find you. He will then fight you ineffectively, die, and pass on to you his powers of finding things.

#70 – Shade Man (Brad Lawrence)

Brad: Here’s what we need! A Mega Man Boss who has the power to keep you cool on a hot summer day. Look out Mega Man, Shade Man is going to help Wily conquer the world by making it slightly harder to see.

Stryker: Actually, he’s a vampire robot, an amusement park attraction, and he’s afraid of ghosts. He also want to be a singer or something, too. Yeah, Shade Man has enough crazy for 10 ineffective robots.

Mega Man elimination Draft – Round 2

#75 – Toad Man (Eliminated by Jon Hornbaker)

Jon:   Going with an obvious pick in Toad Man. I mean… he’s a toad. Most of the master robots’ names pertain to their abilities, attacks, or something along those lines. Toad Man’s just means he looks like a toad. He’s the easiest boss to tackle in MM4 (and one of the easiest in the series outside of the second and third installments where most of the bosses weren’t very difficult). Considering some of the bad-ass company he had in MM4, I just don’t know what Dr. Wily was thinking. Then again, Wily has proven time and time again that he’s an idiot. Yeah, we really believe that Dr. Cossack is behind everything…

Brad: Toad Man’s power is that he has the ability to make it rain briefly, because… toads can do that, right? Regardless of whether or not that makes sense, it isn’t particularly useful. We’re not talking about torrents of rainfall here, just some brief showers. At best, Toad Man might be able to get a few little league games cancelled. Although, come to think of it, that’s a power I would have killed for when I was 12.

Chris: Even Halle Berry would know how to kick this guys ass.

#74 – Gemini Man (Eliminated by Chris Delp)

Chris: I continue my personal Assault on Mike Adamle’s favorite robots by voting off Gemini man. Gemini is the twin constellation so he clones himself, I’m following him here, but why can’t he move independently until MM manages to Breakthrough & Conquer his clone? And why isn’t MM’s new power to clone himself ala Ninja Gaiden 2? Instead he’s firing a Laser into the ground and off The Wall that I’ve barely ever seen Gemini man use. Gemini Man — Out. I hope Dr. W didn’t make a Malibu Man because he’s next.

Brad: In Bad Dudes, there was one boss who had the ability to make 6 or 7 copies of himself, and that guy was still considered to be so useless that the organization he worked for made him hang around in the sewer while the rest of them went off and kidnapped the president. Gemini Man can only make one copy of himself, which makes him about ¼ as useful as that guy. Yes, Mega Man, good luck defeating TWO  hapless robots.

#73 – Jewel Man (Eliminated by Brad Lawrence)

Brad: My pick is Jewel Man. His attack is that he throws precious gems at you. Look, I’m no expert – I’ve never tried to take over the world myself, but… that’s just not going to work. I shouldn’t even have to explain it.

The point is, you should never WANT to be attacked by a Robot Master. Some of them are legitimately dangerous, and even the ones that aren’t would still be an annoyance if nothing else. If you were at work and suddenly Bright Man ran in and started flicking the lights on and off and trying to fight you, you’d probably think “Goddammit, I don’t have time for this.” But Jewel Man? Yes, please, come over to my office and start throwing rubies at me. That’s fine. I’ll clean up when you’re done.

Chris: Yeah, this is a horrible use of a potentially wonderful power.  Jewel Man should have flown to the now bankrupt Greece, bought the place with Jewels and rebuilt King Leonidas’ Spartan Army.