Well it's been a while since I last graced SDN so I thought I would take you guys on another flight of my absurd if not esoteric imagination. Here I will chronicle a few moments of my early years
Keith Courage:First Blood
One day in that winter season, I walked down the street to my friend Chase's house to see his new TurboGrafx-16. Back in that age, the Genesis had just barely surfaced and the SNES was but a myth: we had all been living in an NES world. So, needless to say, I was excited to see THE NEW 16-BIT REVOLUTION as they called it. My friend and his brother were greedily plugging away at Legendary Axe, a damned impressive game for the time. In fact, I myself wanted a TurboGrafx-16 after seeing it! After playing that for a while and admiring the colorful graphics and HARD (but I-WILL-BEAT-THIS addictive!) levels, we played some Sidearms (known as Section-Z on the NES but shhhh, don't let Nintendo know!).
So, Chase had bought those two games. But didn't the system come with a game?
''Oh yeah, Keith Courage - yeah you walk around and earn money to buy yourself weapons and beat things up. It's kind of like Ninja Gaiden but, you're not a ninja and you're this guy who blows stuff up, Keith Courage has bright colors though like bright blue and red, but I don't feel like playing it right now. Hey let's try Legendary Axe again, you're the pit-jumping god, you want to try the level that me and my brother keep dying on?''
Keith Revisited
''Hey guys, I'm glad to see you brought a TV. I brought my video game system. I don't have a lot of games for it, but this one here - Military Madness - it's really good. It's a strategy game, kind of like Command and Conquer, but turn-based. It's a lot of fun Mark, we should try it some night when our silly room-mates are going to parties and drinking and all those other things they like to do. Blazing Lazers is fun too, I'm not really into action games anymore but I think you'll like it, Pat. It's one of those spaceship games like Raiden, but this one is actually good.''
Keith Courage Vol. 3
One day, my friend Mats and I were discussing system pack-in games. He preferred Super Mario World; I preferred Sonic. Of course, he brought up Sega's FIRST pack-in game (Altered Beast), which pretty much put an end my pro-Sega ramblings. In the two years since Chase's house, I had completely forgotten about Keith Courage. Fortunately, my good friend Mats remembered and reminisced about the beginnings of the 16-bit wars...
''Well, you know how Sega released Altered Beast as a pack-in with the Genesis, and parents complained it was Satanic? That's why they changed to Sonic. Well, the Turbo people - I don't even remember what the company's name really is - well, they went the other way, their pack-in game was Keith Courage in Christian Zones. Hahaha! Now that's trying to make Sega look bad! See, the Turbo people knew which game parents would want their children to play!
''It was so funny - you walk around as this old guy, you play as Jesus! And you hit these little monsters with a stick, the Staff of Wisdom or something like that. I SHALL SMITE THEE WITH MY STICK!! You can buy better sticks, but that's all you do - hit things, pick up money, and buy sticks! When you beat enough people with your pole, the Holy Light shines down upon you, and you become robot Jesus and fly around in caves, incinerating monsters with lasers, though the instructions probably say you're smiting sinners or something like that. FEEL THE WRATH OF GOD UPON YE, AND REPENT!! And then you turn back into normal Jesus, walk around hunched over like you've got some debilitating spinal cord injury, and poke things with sticks again until you turn back into robot Jesus! And you do that over and over and over and over!
''Altered Beast is unusual, but whoever designed Keith Courage in Christian Zones must have been using some serious drugs.''
A few years later, I realized the main character was named Keith Courage, and not Jesus. I have also been informed that the game has nothing at all to do with Christianity. However, people tell me that - aside from those minor details - Mats' synopsis of the game is surprisingly accurate.
In the annals of video game history, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones shall always be remembered as peoples' first experience with the TurboGrafx-16, a system that would later be known for classics such as Ys, Legendary Axe, Military Madness, Cotton, Gate of Thunder, and Ninja Spirit. Is Keith a fitting memory for such a system? Only the Lord knows.
So in conclusion Keith courage and myself have been inexorably linked in this crazy willy-nilly world.
. That, and I talk too much (so says the wife). Speaking of her, she went to OU, grad. in '99, and works for an independent here in Muskogee.
