January 22nd, 2001 With our excitement last week at getting to preview the Playstation 3, my mind wanders back to my younger days in the early 90's and suddenly it occurs to me... Today is the 10th anniversary of a video game that changed my entire life! It seems silly, I know, but nothing has taught me more about life, and how to be and how to live like one particular Gameboy game I bought on January 22, 1991... Astro Rabby™ By Gary The Gripping Backstory PUSH START! Wow, are your pants leakin' now, too? I can't believe we're so close to booting up our copy of Astro Rabby! If I could blend my copy in milk and drink it I would, but then I wouldn't have it to play at all-hours of the day and night. Let me explain the story to you, so you have some idea what's going on here. Firstly, Rabby is a robot, or a rabbit, or an octopus. It's hard to tell from the game, but you won't care. You're about to wet yourself! If you're like me, this game will excite you so much, you'll begin investing in Gameboy-sized Ziplocs. It's so fun you won't even care about characters and backstory. Speaking of backstory... Excitement! Rabby is just like an early 90's version of the Pikachu! If this game was made today, it would be called "Hey you, Rabby!" No wonder he was so infinitely popular back in the early 90's! I remember my room, stocked with Astro Rabby lunch boxes, dolls, sheets, trading cards, and t-shirts. I had more Astro Rabby gear than anyone. I'm wearing the Underoos right now! Look at this response letter I got a year ago directly from Astro Rabby headquarters in Hakaido, Japan: Dear American, Thank you for so many letters through all years. I must ask you never send more we have closed business. I am only person who was made Astro Rabby. There no company. I am now outgrow this hobby and no longer can read mail for Astro Rabby. The photo of your room with so many Astro Rabby amazing merchandise is amazing. I never approve any merchandise! I also never get paid. You must be stolen merchandise is fake. I also Nintendo of America never pay me for other half this money for Astro Rabby! American asses! I am out of money. No more write me America, okay? Thank you for enjoy Astro Rabby! -Hishi Cinematic Splendor Here's the very first screen you'll see as your Gameboy whirls to life. I'm not exactly sure if this means that I've received a letter from the "Dortoise Troops," or if ten pieces of the power-up parts have been hidden "somewhere in the space" in an attempt to keep them from the Dortoise Troops. The game makes no attempt to explain this, or furthermore, who the Dortoise Troops are. As you make your way up the downwardly scrolling levels, this screen will undoubtedly fade from your consciousness. Let it. After all, this game is endlessly entertaining, and words only sully the awesome graphics. The gameplay is fantastic, and Rabby himself handles like a well-balanced sword. I'm not sure these opening exposition screens are actually from Astro Rabby, honestly. I'm feeling like maybe they were made for a different game and somehow used, like when movies from the 50's cut to stock footage of monsters attacking from other movies. As a perfect example of this, I don't recognize that birthday cake with eyes in the lower-right corner. I don't recall that it ever shows up anywhere else in the game. Of course, in the decade I've been playing this game, I've never beaten it. Maybe it's my long lost brother or something. Here's the second and final cinematic scene. Now it's entirely clear to us. Apparently Rabby is indeed a robot, and it is the Doc's dream that Rabby fly freely. Throughout the entire game Rabby is free, except that lots of stuff tries to kill him, so it's kind of an oppressed freedom. I'm guessing what Doc really means when he says he wants Rabby to fly freely is that Doc wants some women. You may think of his "Rabby flying freely" as a metaphor to his sexual prowess. He just wants Rabby to kick some ass so he can sidle up to chicks at the local geek bar and say "Hey, remember when we were all being oppressed by the Dortoise Troops? Yeah, well my invention, Rabby, is the reason we're all still here enjoying ourselves and sipping cocktails. You owe me, babe. And you, too. Where you going? Sit down, I'm not done explaining my greatness!" I realize that my creator, the Doc, is quite sorrowful. It says so. It says that he wishes I may fly freely, and that's great. He's obviously kind and empathetic to the problems facing today's superhero robotic rabbits. It says I'm missing several power-up parts. Okay then. For ten years now it's been feeding me little spoonfuls of information about my life, yet I still don't get what these "power-up parts" do. I guess they're for me. I mean, it all seems to be about me, right? It certainly can't be about the Doc. Look at his beard! He obviously spends no time worrying about his own health and well-being. Oh, how horrible and twisted he's become with worry over me! I'm a horrible rabbit! I deserve these power up parts least of all! Oh Doc! Don't spend one more minute on this silly quest. I have my life and I love it! You have been the greatest mad scientist father a robotic rabbit with super powers could ever want! You didn't fail me... I failed me. Gameplay There you are! Can you see you? I know, at first it's a little difficult. It took me a solid month to figure out where I was when I first bought the cartridge. Of course, it also took me several hours to find my way out of the store I bought it in. What's great about Astro Rabby, especially for Gameboy is that it doesn't pander to sissies who want all the sugar-coatings and sprinkles that normal games dump all over you. Things like easy navigation, the ability to start where you die, graphics that explain firstly what you are, and secondly which way you're facing, etc.... Look at this thing! You have no idea where you are! I LOVE IT! For a clue as to where you are, roll your mouse over the image - you'll see I've circled it in clashing red. If only the game had given me this ability, I would be a full month farther in my quest to beat Astro Rabby. Secret Codes and Strategies! Take a gander at the middle of the screen, at the very bottom. You'll see what looks like sort of a rock texture. This is "cracked earth," a name I came up with to represent what it is. It's earth, that's been cracked by Rabby jumping on it. About a minute and a half into your gameplay experience you'll realize that if you jump twice on any location, the ground will fall out from under you, revealing that the floor you're standing on is really about a half foot deep, under which is nothing! That's entirely true. Whatever planet Rabby is on must be entirely flat, or else there's a thin inter-dimensional portal shaped like Earth, just below the surface of Earth, so that when you jump hard enough, you break through what we think is Earth, and fall forever! Now don't get all excited and start clamoring with your scientific mumbo-jumbo. Don't give me your "But if the planet is flat, where is he falling through to? Why would there be any gravity, and when the ground broke away, what gravitational force would be pulling him through and then past the surface of the planet?" I know, I know, but that's the way it is. There is pure nothingness on the other side of his thin planety shell, and that's just the way it's going to be. I talked it over endlessly with the council, and we wrote mailbags full of letters to the creator, Hishi, who has since stopped returning our calls and hasn't written us anything since '79. For now, we've simply determined two things: 1. The council is out on why Rabby's paper thin world can have gravity             (same thing goes for the worlds in Toe Jam & Earl) 2. Don't jump twice in any one spot This sad and graphic photo shows what happens when you get careless and jump twice. We've taken point number two up there into our collective sub-conscious. We absolutely refuse to jump even once in real life, here on our real Earth, just in case, and the council members often answer things with the phrase "That would be like jumping twice in one location!" For example, say I ordered pizza, but I didn't order enough, and the council knows there won't be enough for all of us, and they question me with "Did you order enough pizza for everyone this time?" If I reply "No, just like last time, I have not ordered enough," they would probably unanimously respond with "Why must you jump twice in one location!?" Then we'd all have a good laugh about it, and I'd go phone in an order for more pizza. Either way, they never let me have any, and I never jump twice in one location, just in case... What is Rabby? Here's a blow-up image of Rabby, placed here for the purposes of showing you how difficult it is to tell what Rabby is. For a long time I met with a board of elders with the sole intent of discovering the true nature of this only semi-definable creature. We knew he was a robot, the manual told us that much. But a robot in the likeness of what? For the free-thinkers out there who would say "But why would a robot have to be designed in the likeness of anything?" the council released this letter in late 1995, and I reprint [relevant sections of] it here with their permission: To all who would join us in the seeking of the true identity of Rabby, the robot, it must be made clear... ...that in answer to these skeptics it is said that all video games that contain robots will contain robots that bear likeness to existences in the real world... ...only by attempting to take the form of a real-world object will the children [and adults] who play these games understand that they are indeed robots created by humans to serve man... ...they may indeed look like cars or trucks or various other military instances (see our Transformers, Robots in Disguise discussion, Living in the Box, April '94), or like humans with special features, like scissors for hands, or fans attached to their bodies (see our Is Mega Man Voltman's Lost Brother?, Robot Fancy, Jan '96), or even like animals that seem somewhat human, or can become humanlike in design by changing the shape and orientation of their robotic parts (see our Voltron vs. Voltman, Robotic Survival Guide, 3d edition, Sept '96)... ...in conclusion, it must be reiterated that no robot in any video game anywhere on this great green earth shall or has ever looked in any way unlike something already in existence, and furthermore, that often times, the robot may be lifted, either by hand, or by other means (i.e. by crane or bulldozer) and used in the fashion of the object for which it bears the likeness (e.g. any of the cats robots from Voltron maybe be wielded as a cat). printed by permission of the Board of Rabby Investigation and Naturalization Group © 1996, B.O.R.I.N.G. This is an artist's rendering of what Rabby is probably supposed to look like. After reviewing and ultimately dismissing several of the Board's suggestions as to what Rabby in fact is, we determined that he must be a rabbit, like the manual seemed to say. In the 7 years or so that the Council has met, many many ideas that were often humorous or very interesting have been brought to light. It is important that I share some of these with you. Feedback is always appreciated, and the council would love to hear if you can shed some groundbreaking new light on the topic of what Rabby is. Several of these suggestions include, but are not limited to: a boomerang robot a walking robotic stomach a robotic part of the loch-ness monster's back (with dorsal sail) one of them [robotic] lawn signs that look like someone's bending over a patriot missile, in robot form people crossing a small London bridge, all fashioned into a robot aliens peeing off a small Parisian bridge, formed as a robotic diorama of such someone's bridge work, fitted with bionic, robotic parts a rabbit, but only the head part, kept alive by the fact that it's a robot a robotic mystery, wrapped in an enigma a robot... you know, just a robot...     Alright, "...that looks like Queen Elizabeth's tiara" Reasons Rabby Kicks Ass RABBY GOT A POWER-UP PARTS! Doesn't that just say it all? One of the most compellingly retarded things about this game, that I love so much, is that the power-up parts are your keys to each new level. I equate finding one of them with finding your actual keys in real life. You can't drive your car (i.e., go to the next level) without your car keys, right? And so, too, can't Rabby proceed without finding a power-up parts. I have equated this with finding your car keys, because no one ever knows how long it's going to take to find their car keys, and so, too, does one never know how long it will take to find one's power-up parts. There are boxes all over with question marks, and by jumping on them, as robots are wont to do, you can find what's in them. Apparently there's no rhyme or reason to the order the boxes are placed in, or as to what's in them. Sometimes I go for many hours in one level before jumping on a box with the power up parts that I need, and sometimes it's like the first box I jump on. And when you jump on your power-up parts, instead of damaging them like you might think would happen when a several ton rabbit jumps on a box of parts, it congratulates you and you go to the next level. Sometimes when I jump on one, Pearl Bailey will come running out after me with a rolling pin singing a tear-jerking rendition of "Devil's in 'da Kitchen," and still other times, I'll click on a box and it will reveal a Haiku so moving I need to pause the game and put it down for a good cry. Once I jumped on a box that turned out to be filled with my long lost brother and the game stopped scrolling past in order that I might have time to get to know "Robby" as he was called. It even sat us together at a quaint little diner and offered to pay for drinks. And I vividly recall the time I jumped on this one box that explicitly told me in a thick German accent not to jump on it, and it reprimanded me, displaying the text "We have you on file for disobedience," and then it showed me a very pixelated and grainy version of my face, both front and side, with my file number on a board in front of me. And I don't even own a Gameboy camera! These are the reasons Astro Rabby is such a great game. You never know what it's going to do for you, or to you. How Can I Get My Copy!? Well, it may not be entirely legal, but considering the fact that it's a decade out of date now, no one ever liked it, besides me and the Council, and the fact that Hishi doesn't seem to give a damn about Astro Rabby, his electronic child anymore, I'm going to guess no one will mind if you try out a bootleg copy. If anyone does have a problem, meaning, if you are, or are affiliated with someone who can care, legally, about us offering the chance to taste this divine cartridge, write us and let us know in a non-threatening and Christian way that we've offended you. We'll most likely laugh and use it as part of the feature, but if we sense the heat coming on too strong, we'll probably comply and remove the download like the whimpering sissies that we are. Until then, we're assuming that like a bootleg copy of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby," not one of your local "men in blue" is going to give a damn if you've got it. If you're like my uncultured friends, you're going to get bored in less than 5 minutes and delete it for space for more porn anyway. You can taste divinity! As the game says (each time you fall through an endless hole of death) NEVER GIVE UP, TRY AGAIN! It's got almost the same tagline as Galaxy Quest, marking today's final reason why Astro Rabby kicks an awful lot of Gameboy ass. To play Rabby, you'll need some variety of Windows, and a Gameboy emulator. We recommend the KGB emulator, written by Matt Currie, which you can most likely find here: http://kgb.emulationworld.com. As far as Astro Rabby, just click on the now infamous motto below, and you'll get your power-up parts! NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!, I mean, NEVER GIVE UP, TRY AGAIN! Whatever. Click the image. Download Astro Rabby! Just click here and choose: "Save this file to disk" from the list of choices. It's ~35k