June 18, 2008 - Most games tend to suck players in with gimmicks or slick graphics, yet the one thing I recall with great fondness about the Mega Man series is its excellent music. Other old-school games featured catchy assortments of blips and bloops that have the tendency to lodge themselves in your brain, but the tunes in Mega Man titles seriously rock. They're the kind of tracks that inspire bouts of humming the melody lines in a high falsetto or pretending you're shredding some sick air guitar. Maybe that's just me.

Mega Man's premise was an interesting one at the time. Dr. Light (who looks suspiciously like Santa) created Mega Man as an assistant, but he had to crank him up into an ass kicking machine to take on the nefarious Dr. Wiley and his band of robo-goons. The great thing about it is what I like to call the "beat this guy, take his sweet power, and then use it on another guy" mechanic that I still love to this day.

We can only speculate on why Mega Man would agree to embark on such a tedious quest. Perhaps subtle trickery was involved to provide a little extra incentive!

The game's six main stages are populated by the likes of Cut Man, Guts Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Ice Man, and Elec Man - guess the developers couldn't come up with spiffier titles for their villains. In any event, there's no mistaking what power you'll get from capping one of these baddies.

The original also established a trend that would continue in subsequent (and there are MANY) titles. After pulling your hair out in an effort to beat all the bad guys, you're stuck facing a series of über-tough boss battles along the final path to confront Wiley.

Mega Man requires almost zen-like, heightened senses and occasionally inhuman reflexes to conquer. It spurs arcane strings of profanities from my lips. Thanks Mega Man. You helped me invent a new language.