This article is probably the best and most accurate explanation of Touhou I have ever seen, highlighting both the fact that the games are incredibly punishing and also highly bizarre. Not that that should come as a surprise, considering they were made in Japan, the product of what the article refers to as “a 110 lb Alcoholic Game Designer”.

The author summarizes the Touhou subculture as follows:

1. All of the Characters are little girls.
2. Despite what Fact #1 may lead you to believe, the games are extremely difficult.
3. The Touhou Fanbase has achieved levels of craziness that make other Fanbases look downright lazy.

I always knew that Touhou fans were completely insane, but I didn’t grasp the sheer scale of their insanity until I saw a “Touhou Fan Music Collection” torrent somewhere. The collection of music was over 400 GBs! I think my entire music library is only like 25 GBs tops.

Well, that and also I’ve heard that the DoujinStyle forums are just a terrifying den of iniquity^{[citation needed]}.

The series revolves around a Miko (Shinto Shrine Maiden) named Reimu Hakurei… who lives in a magical world named Gensokyo. Every so often, disaster strikes, and it’s up to Reimu to save the world from little vampire girls, little ghost girls, little demon girls, little exiled moon princess girls… Generally, mythical entities that all look like LITTLE GIRLS.

Unlike most popular Japanese PC Games, Touhou isn’t an Erotic Dating Game or a Rape Simulator. In fact, instead of letting the player rape little girls, the game RAPES YOU… metaphorically speaking…

In any given Touhou game I think I make it about two or three stages max before I get absolutely shot to hell by these loli boss chicks and their Unlimited Beam Works spellcard BS. And that’s on Normal. I think on the hardest difficulty my average lifespan is somewhere in the neighborhood of approximately 8 seconds, give or take 7 seconds.

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If you’ve been wondering about the relative silence here at EW recently, well, this is the reason.

I’ve been occupied with fending off Big Daddies and desperately hunting for my next ADAM fix like some kind of strung out junkie.

I must say, from what I’ve seen so far Bioshock seems like an amazing game. It trades the frenetic run n’ gun gameplay of Quake or Unreal Tournament for a more cerebral, tactical experience. You have to move carefully, use the environment to your advantage, and conserve your ammo.

The story itself could’ve been a decent sci-fi novel all on its own, but coupled with great mood music and dark visuals and it’s made for a pretty creepy experience so for. Well, but really, any game that let’s you shoot bees out of your arm has gotta be awesome, right?

Bioshock’s plasmids

Come to think of it, I’m surprised a game like this hasn’t gotten more criticism here in the regulation and lawsuit happy United States. I mean, one of the core gameplay elements involves “reloading” your plasmid attacks by shooting up unknown drugs with syringes you just find lying around! Not that I’m complaining, but how did this make it past the ESRB unscathed?

Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

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