This screencap features the players fighting enemies and not each other. This is a lie.

One of our neighbors was babysitting myself and my sister and he brought over his cart of Double Dragon 2. I must have been 9 or 10, my sister was doing homework and I was partaking in co-op (though now that I think about it, why wasn't I doing homework too?). If you haven't played this game, you probably haven't gotten this far in the paragraph, but as you all know you can play a mode in the game where there is friendly fire, or as they should have called it "Forget the levels, I'm going to beat the snot out of you."

My lack of knowledge about a game I had never played before drew the sitter's amusement, and his cruelty was expressed by attacking my character and then laughing about my lack of experience. When at one point I jumped into a pit and died, he laughed and began to pummel me when I reappeared.

Not willing to play the fool, I acted quickly I gripped the controller cord and whipped the solid NES paddle down upon his left knee. Needless to say, he was surprised. That was the day I learned a lesson about self reliance.

Steel, Shaq fu, Kazaam, if one thing can be said its that Shaq is so rich he bathes with diamond studded midgets and drives a platinum hover craft while six highly trained teams of concubines anoint him with precious oils and perfumes and felate him, in

Being 12 and in the 6th grade lends itself to some fairly unique behavior. To understand the significance of this game, let me refresh the part of you that remembers the 6th grade mindset. At the time the worst insult you could conjure was insinuating that an individual was gay, (I had yet to learn such hurtful words as pedophile, cunt-bag, or republican) I have since outgrown such childishness. Though I'm still reminded of that mindset when I play madden online and get connected to the only other pool of people that plays Madden online, West Virginia. Their insults and counterpoints top out at "You're a gay you fag! You're queer!" and not just because I play the niners. Most of these people freak out when you feign gay, which works greatly to your advantage, its a known fact you can't play very well blinded by rage.

So in sixth grade and knowing nothing about basketball, but all too much about videogames when myself and friends first saw an ad for "Shaqfu" in Gamepro we (like the rest of the country) made fun of the game. We went so far as to say anyone who had a copy of the game MUST be gay, by the virtue of the fact they know nothing about games. This continued for some months, the name Shaqfu instantly garnering ridicule, it became an easy punchline in our social circles. I'd laugh when I saw the lonely copies in Toys r' us, little ornaments of bad taste and poor form, chuckle at the placements in magazines to think how the populace could be so blind to the poor quality of this venture.

Much to my suprise I had forgotten about Grandparent's innate ability to humble you. And so that Christmas, waiting in a box under the tree was a Sega copy of Shaqfu. My parents were angered that I was ungrateful and forced me to perform the perfunctory post x-mas call and thank the relatives for the gift, but to also write them a thank you letter. Being bored on New Years presented me with an opportunity to ridicule the game. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, Shaqfu consists of: Shaq in Japan goes into a store and falls into a pocket dimension where he battles veiled stereotypes of Egyptians trying to save some kid (where he learned any kind of "fu" in Japan I'll never know). I threw it in the trash that night New Years eve 1994.

During the winter break some friends came over to you know "hang", and at some point we sat down to play some games. I would later find out and be grounded for trying to throw a gift from my grand parents out. But right then when we walked into the living room, beneath the tv in the media stand, next to the vcr where I kept my stack of Sega games, one of my Parents had replaced Shaqfu to an unearned spot on the shelf. They actually found it in the trash and returned it.

I was filled with terror.

I tried to play it cool and suggested we play the last decent game EA ever released (General Chaos), or maybe play a little Toe Jam and Earl, throughout it I was uncomfortably trying to keep the conversation going, laughing superfluously at times to distract them, pointing out things on screen unnecissarily. But then it happened, one of them saw it, like they saw a leprachaun or kookaburra, at first they weren't sure, and then I saw his hand snake out like a falcon striking a rabbit and snatch the game up into his hand.

The first obvious salvo of questions were actually giving me the benefit of the doubt, but when I offered up that I had never played it and it was a forced gift, I couldn't explain why it was out of the cellophane.

The fallout at school was as systemic as a holiday.

I'll wrap this up by saying, Kids can be so cruel.

Just looking at these marbles makes me want to pick a fight with a four year old and then throw him into some kind of dumpster.

This game was cruelty incarnate. I never beat this game. When I had it as a kid I never had the hand eye coordination to do it, and even now I shudder at the thought of making another serious attempt. Tortuously short rolling times, poor controls, diabolical maps, and that sad sad sound when your ball fell sticks in your ears like the sound of a hamster left in the disposal echoing in the ears of a young man who just learned a big lesson about responsibility. I remember one time getting so mad about running out of time a mere 20 pixels away from one of the goals I took the cart out and yelled and then bent it slightly until it creaked. Aside from the difficulty level I'm surprised anyone managed to get into an argument about this game because of how little you actually get to play. I was over at a friends house for a birthday party, and two of them were over playing the game. Charles commented that the sad wail the balls let out when they fall off the edge sounded as if it was actually sampled from a person. Stephen disagreed, and also refused to turn up the tv via the remote he was sitting closest too. Charles started to yell and push Stephen, who now took it as a matter of principle. When Charles reached for the remote, Stephen snatched it away and before long they were really shoving each other. The argument soon ended when Stephen exclaimed: "Here take the fucking remote!" and threw it at Charles's face. It broke his glasses and cut his eye-brow pretty bad. It was Charles birthday.

God... three players, when you could have four, ugh.

This one is pretty simple, fairly soon after this game was released we got to play it four player for the first time at a 3-day weekend party/sleep-over. My circle of friends had been pretty keen on the first mario kart and we were all excited at a chance to go head to head. Of of the 6 people that showed up three of us brought an extra controller to furnish the four player awesomeness. Within twenty minutes of playing one of the guys was freaking out that we were kicking his ass in each of the modes. He was hemming and hawing about stuff being fair, controller not working, etc etc, you know the type. He just couldn't handle it. Finally when the collective had seemingly had enough of his crap the retorts to his belly aching got more severe and he got so mad he called his mom to come and pick him up. The asshole took his controller home too.

wow... I had forgotten how kick ass this game ass. I urge you to go play it.

In 1990 I was 8, and Contra was still a blast to me. I remember one afternoon that summer a good friend of mine came over and we ended up putting that cart into the NES. We both had a fairly good grip of the game, until we got past a few levels, and we were in enchanted by our own abilities, as we had never gone co-op this far before. Joy and excitement turned to frustration, and then to anger when we started blaming each other for each death. Our judgement clouded by rage, when he expended his last life like an idiot jumping into one of the trademark slow moving projectiles, I informed him that he was stupid. His rejoinder alluded that I had lapsed in my responsibilities to kill the guys in front of us and he'll focus on the back and above. He didn't take kindly to my suggestion that he did not in fact know how to play at all. This incited him to tackle me to the floor. (For some reason we had both been elevated by excitement and we were simply standing infront of the tv). There was a furious exchange of blows, I got a few good shots at his stomach when he tried to pin me, and then he hit me in the ear as we rolled across the room, I ended up getting a handful of hair and pull pretty well before we went crashing into a table.

The table sent a glass flying out the window which shattered on the concrete below, to which we both stopped and laughed, and then resumed playing.