Video Game Hall of Fame: Mega Man 2

Younger people are going to remember their first big time video game as something relatively recent, maybe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Super Mario Kart, or Super Smash Brothers. And older folks will probably remember Tetris or Pong. For people my age and a bit younger, there's going to be a wide variety of games, like Super Mario Brothers, Ninja Gaiden, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Dragon Warrior. But for me, the first, big time, "gotta play it for as long as my mom will let me" game was Mega Man 2.

Mega Man 2 had all the things people liked about the Super Mario Brothers series: jumping, running, and bad guys. It was a fairly standard platform game, as were many of the most popular games of that era. But there were a few really neat pieces that made it one of my favorite games of all time, and based on my conversations with others around my age, I'm not alone.

First, the concept of taking your enemy's weapon and using it yourself is awesome. I'm sure it wasn't started in the Mega Man series, and plenty of people out there would suggest some other origin for the concept, but the first time I saw it was in Mega Man 2. Beating Wood Man and then using the leaf shield to get through Crash Man's stage was very gratifying. As was using the air cannon from Air Man to take down Crash Man himself in two hits.

The second aspect of Mega Man 2 that warmed my heart was the ability to choose your path for at least the first half of the game. Initially, you spend all your time trying to figure out which weapon works best on which boss, so you can try to always have your enemy's weakness handy. But as time goes on, it became more of a personal challenge. For those of you familiar with the game, you'll know that trying to beat Quick Man's stage without Flash Man's weapon was a very serious undertaking. And when I was finally able to do it, I felt like a million bucks.

But there's one thing that transcends even those two impressive features: the music. You wouldn't think that the music from an old 8-bit Nintendo game would be such a selling point, but it was absolutely tremendous. Each song suited its stage brilliantly, and they were all well made tunes. What's that you say? That kind of music would've been nice enough in the 80's, but nobody cares about it today? Not so fast, my friend. Check out the many remixes that have been done of classic Mega Man 2 songs on OCRemix.org, a favorite site of mine.

This may be called a "Blog For The Modern Human," but sometimes its the classics that hold the most sway. I could play Mega Man 2 today and love it. In fact....I've got to run.