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Number Nine:
So I was at Vincent Diamante's place in late August 2002, and we were eating Del Taco at his dinner table. I'd arrived at LA just an hour or so before. I was tired from the drive, and hungry at the same time. That's why we'd gone out and gotten Del Taco. We were talking about all sorts of stuff. I'm not sure I remember half of it. At one point, Vince got around to telling me that the previous occupants of his apartment left a bottle of chocolate liquer in the cupboard. I asked him if he ever drank it. He said it wasn't his thing.
Soon enough, the conversation turned to Radiant Silvergun. As in, how many dozens of hours had I logged in it?
I had to turn up a big fat zero. I mean, really -- the game's so damned expensive. It's one of those things I've always wanted to do, I assured him -- kind of like watch The Godfather, or actually read Anna Karenina, a novel I cite in my own writing and even recommend to people left and right. My main excuse: I just never get around to having the time and energy and resources on hand.
Vince wouldn't take my excuses.
How shameful is it, really, that a guy like me has never played Radiant Silvergun? Vince assured me, in not as few words, that I deserved to be shot in the face for not having partaken in such splendor. So he introduced me to his Japanese Sega Saturn, and we hit it off pretty well.
Playing Radiant Silvergun for the first time was a renaissance of the thumb for me. This me that had been so lazy in the years since the release of Final Fantasy VII was now realizing full well why I have, by habit, beaten Gradius III at least once a week since 1994: it was all in preparation for a Del-Taco-fueled night in Los Angeles, California, during which Radiant Silvergun would hand me my gaming ass.
Days later, Brandon Sheffield would tell me he didn't care for the game -- yet he still felt a deep regret when he realized he'd once seen it on sale at Electronics Boutique in the last days of the Sega Saturn for $9.99. We then played some Gunbird 2, Bangai-Oh! and Gigawing. At an arcade in Las Vegas some days later, I spent a couple of dollars on Raiden Fighters.
The next month saw my interest in shooters eclipsing my desire to play anything else. Out came the boxes in the basement, and into my Nomad went Wings of Wor, Gaiares, and everything Thunder Force. Axelay came my way. I beat Gradius III eight or nine more times. I spent a week playing exclusively Panzer Dragoon Zwei. Then it was Gunstar Heroes. I might or might not have played Silpheed for Sega CD.
And then Ikaruga willed itself into my Dreamcast. If I'd been playing Gradius III only so that I might be prepared for Radiant Silvergun, I'd met Radiant Silvergun only so that I might get my ass kicked by Ikaruga.
These days, I dream of Panzer Dragoon Orta, and I can beat Ikaruga in five credits. I think, if nothing else, that's not bad.
With all the flashy leaps forward (Metroid Prime, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City) and even backward (Kingdom Hearts) that came about in 2002, it's beyond nice to play a game that is about preservation: preservation of grooves you can feel in your thumbs when you're not playing. That Ikaruga could burn new grooves into these thumbs that have not grooved anew properly since, what, Soul Calibur? -- that's definitely something worth remembering.
[next: number eight: if you, too, ride every train in tokyo]
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