Die Mega Man

I rented the Mega Man Collection in order to play the single most frustrating game of my life, Mega Man 2. My friends and I in grade 8 would have sleepovers and play this game for hours on end, taking turns trying to get past each boss. We could never finish the game, even though we rented it several times and put God knows how many hours into it.

Playing it again for the first time in 15 years, I am shocked at how difficult and unforgiving it still is. Maybe it's because of the difficulty setting which on this disc is set to hard (I can't remember if the original had difficulty settings but according to faqs I've read it did). Did they not know back in 1988 that they should have ben making games easier, especially since they were played by kids? Airman is the level you're supposed to start with, and it's unbelievably hard for an opening level. Anyway, I've just beat Airman and Crashman and am stuggling to beat Flashman. It's been brutal. I've never thrown my controller this much. I'm dreading the Heatman level with the horizontal lasers that come at you as you free fall. That was some difficult shit when you're 12 years old.

I wanted prove to myself that I could finally beat this irritating game. I am a capable gamer, or so I thought, and MM2 should be no problem. But I have to admit that 15 years later, it has defeated me once again. For that, I will hate you forever Mega Man. And it's a really, really true and pure hate.

Interestingly, I checked out the other versions of Mega Man on the disc (it has up to Mega Man 8) and basically 1 through 6 are the same game. Same designs and game mechanics. All that really changes are the bosses' names. Having never played past MM3, I thought the game would have evolved. It didn't. Mega Man 8 improved the difficulty settings by making it more first-timer friendly, but since one of the weapons is a soccer ball you kick at your enemies, it ain't a great game.

So, to sum up, DIE MEGA MAN DIE.