10 things I loathe about combat school (the game...real life must be better...)

10. The fact that you have to waste time (ie:jump later) to beat Joe in the first race, and then have to knock him off the monkey bars (there's just no fair way)

9. Hey! Hey! Does that Konami building in the background look familiar? What the heck are they doing on an army base?

8. Shooting range #1. Yeah, this is a fair evaluation. I've had games where I've had 5 consecutive 5 targets, and others where I've had five consecutive three targets. Whether your score leaving it is 70000 or 100000 seems to be a random factor, depending on how many targets you get.

7. The obstacle course. Might be a little confused on this, but since when did the army use LIVE land mines to test new recruits? "Well Bob, looks like you failed that one. We'll send a nice In Memoriam to your wife and kids."

6. Intermission: Well I got two and a half times the bonus time I needed in the obstacle course, but looks like that little jog across the screen is gonna wreck me.

5. Shooting Range #3. What game-player hating maniac came up with the controls for this one? They're about as responsive as me after an all-you-can-smuggle-in tequila night at the local Taco Bell.

4. Know why that jog across the screen wrecked me? CAUSE I'M SMOKING WITH MY PAL JOE, IN A VIDEO GAME!!! Maybe we can do some pot when we get to P.O.W., and send kids a real message about life in the army!?!(editor's note: are Nick and Joe the P.O.W.s? Does anyone know?)

3. My combat instructor is fluent in eight different forms of martial arts, but reverts back to the very simple one one of KICKING MY ASS when I try to do anything up close.

2. Well, three firing ranges and a couple of runs later, here I am outside of the White House, fully ready to deal singlehandedly with an army of terrorists. The cops (who have guns) have the building surrounded and appear to be bombing it (with bombs). After a very thorough briefing in which my instructor describes his culinary preferences in broken English, I'm sent in to the building with my BARE HANDS. After three rounds of munitions training! And the malevolent terrorist army fights back with KNIVES! They probably managed to take over because everyone was too busy laughing at their threats to take them seriously.

and the #1 reason

1. Rah-Rah America (at least in Canada, we give our soldiers weapons)

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 15, 1999