Can't Wait, Want Now.

I always found that one of life's greatest ironies as a child was that the same people who persisted with the idea that playing video games would rot my brain were the same people who bought me those video games in the first place. My parents bestowed my first Nintendo Entertainment System upon me as a Christmas gift sometime in the late 80's (note to self, forgetting the exact year could be proof of brain rotting capabilities), and almost immediately the warning of imminent short bus riding began. Not that I can blame them, I was hooked on the damn thing. For at least a two-week period I'm pretty sure I convinced myself that Mario and Luigi were actual members of my family, and that we had loaned our family dog to assist me in Duck Hunt. The warnings of brain rot, and threats of permanent NES removal were actually starting to make an impact at one point, and I was ready to give my controller some rest, but then along came one of the greatest video games of my generation: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.

Now, it's not what you think. Sure, I loved this game, but frankly I was never very good at it. What made this game so life changing is that when I was at my breaking point, believing all of the evils that my parents were advertising, a funny thing happened. I arrived home from school early one day to find my stepfather, the loudest champion of the anti-gaming society, in my bedroom, controller in hand, fighting Don Flamenco.

The jig was up.

The fortune associated with catching my stepfather in the act was two-fold. First and most obvious, he backed off his anti-video game stance and compromised with the all-familiar "not until your homework is finished *wink*" directive, and second, he had been secretly playing so long he was actually able to teach me how to play the damned game. Sure, I was the last person I know to actually beat Mike Tyson, but it happened and for better or for worse is one of my bigger accomplishments in life.

If you have even managed to read this far you are definitely asking yourself what the point of all of this is. Well, besides that I am trying to let all of the DR faithful know that I have actually accomplished something with my life, Punch-Out is being resurrected for the Wii. Sadly, and I can't figure out why, Mike Tyson's name and likeness have been removed, but the below commercial should squash any doubts you may have of the game because of such an omission. This commercial has it all, a real boxer (Paulie Malignaggi for those that know boxing, which I sure as shit do not) playing Little Mac, Clay Davis playing Doc (sidenote, couldn't even get Cutty a little cameo?!?) and a lot of gym props dressed up as game characters. There has yet to be any annoyingly witty internets slang created to express how I feel about this game.



I'll see you bitches in line at Best Buy on May 18th.