PixlBit

1. Well you got two of those right.

2. I never liked the Vectorman games.  If I'm going to play a run and gun shooter like that, I'd pick Earthworm Jim.

3. What makes you think I like Vega?

4. Ding!

5. Scorpion and Sub Zero aren't even green!  Although if you mix their colors yellow and bllue...

6. There must be a lot of SNK fans where I live because as a kid, I saw NEO GEO arcade machines everywhere!  So I had a lot of exposure to that stuff.  Definitely one of the harder questions, though.

7. Ivy scares me.  And who the heck is Xina?!?  I don't even think that's a character.  Although since you can make your own characters in that game, I guess you could name one Xina.

8. Nope, but I do like Chocobos.

9. I don't mind the leafy spinach in salads, but canned spinach is nasty.

10. Pretty close.

And thanks for the mints.  Are you trying to tell me I have bad breath?  It must be really bad breath if you can smell it over the Internet.  I don't really like mints, though.  If I need a breath saver or gum, I'll pick cinnamon flavor, like Big Red. 

Thanks for reading and commenting!  --Cary

It's interesting that you say that since you can play Xevious on Star Fox Assault.  You can also collect Special Flags in the main game, also from Xevious.

Here are some things I know about Xevious:

Yeah the storyline in Xevious is ridiculous.  In Japan they made a whole book series about it back then. 

The sprites in Xevious are prerendered, like Donkey Kong Country. 

There have been a ton of Xevious games and sequels.  Like Super Xevious, Xevious Arrangement (awesome music on that one), Xevious 3-D/G+, Solvalou (a 3-D arcade shooter using StarBlade's engine), etc.

There are a lot of Xevious cameos in other Namco games, too.  It's a hidden bonus game in Star Fox Assault.  Susumu Hori pilots the Solvalou to help out his dad in Dig Dug Digging Strike.  There is a Xevious skin you can use in the DS puzzle game Trion Cube.  The square indestructable enemies from Xevious appear in many Tales games as foes.  There are lots of others, but those are some of my favorites.

Here's a funny story about Xevious and my childhood.  I was fascinated with Xevious when it first came out as it was one of the first vertically scrolling shooters that didn't use a static space background.  One weekend I got sheets of my dad's dot matrix printer paper (you know, the kind that was connected and you tore it off with the preforated edges).  Anyway, I spread out the printer paper from the front door all the way to the back door and fireplace and tried to draw a map of the Xevious backdrop on it!  I think on the other side of the paper I tried to do that with Zaxxon.  Then I would play 'pretend' Xevious with one of my toy spaceships.  I got in a little bit of trouble for wasting so much of my dad's printer paper, though!

Anyone else besides me think that it looks like you're flying over a golf couse in Xevious?  Anyone else think the US Atari Xevious arcade cabinet looked really cool?  --Cary

Cool, thanks.  I sent you a PM message, by the way.

Any Diablo 3 characters you think I'd like?

Two reasons why Dream Course was the first Kirby game that got me into the series.  One, most of the Kirby games prior were on the Game Boy or NES.  And I was knee-deep in SNES territory (again, kid with a limited income so I couldn't afford to buy a bunch of games for multiple consoles).  So Dream Course being one of the first SNES Kirby games helped.  Also, Kirby's Dream Course is a reworked version of a never released game called Special Tee Shot.  I was interested in that first game ever since I saw screens of it on the back of my SNES box.  It looked like a mix of Marble Madness and mini-golf.  So that's why I played it. 

It may be hard to believe since I'm such a big Kirby fan now, but I wasn't sold on the original Kirby game when it came out.  Oh sure, I had my eye on it, being a game from HAL and all, especially since back then I was a huge fan of the Adventures of Lolo games.  And I also appreciated how it was a game designed to be easy for younger players.  However, back then I was just a kid with a limited income, and paying money for a game I could beat in an hour just didn't make much sense back then.  Really, the first Kirby game to get me hooked on the series was Kirby's Dream Course!

I think my Smash Bros. go-tos will be Pac-Man, Kirby, and Mega Man.

I don't know anything about Resident Evil but my favorite character is Jill because I like calling her Jill Sandwich.

Well, you can at least read my birthday blog when I post it later this week. :)