trans_9 | VIDEOGAME LAND

"Welcome-a to Videoland!" tells you an animatronic, rusted and chipping man. "My name is-a Somari the Spaceman! It's-a very good to see you, woohoo, ha ha!!" Next to him a green (also chipped and rusted) fat Hedgehog statue dressed in green and with a leather outfit stands close doing a peace sign. "And I'm his good buddy, Scory the Porcupine! Welcome to Videolang Buddy!"

Ahh Videoland! Popular no less than ten years ago, it has began a recent decline compared to the other parts of Happy Happy Land due to most of their clientele simply growing too old for it and going off to the other parts of the planet. Still waiting for a new deal with a game provider to use their licenses, it becomes older and more jaded, still trying to have the same magic as a while ago, but the dream being long gone. The world is now a dangerous combination of video games bordering bootleg and strange creatures and things that are just the right amount off not to be written as simple copied parodies. Costumed men and women wear the suits of the mascots, and a few pretty girls wearing the Princess Lana, Ruler of Videoland™ costume don't look as bright and cheerful as they should be. Every four hours, there's a Captain N: The Gamemaster show, with the typical theme park overacting and asking kids questions as anagrammatic versions of Mother Brains, Eggplant Wizard & King D'ippo capture her and have to be saved by Rock N' Rollman, Solomon Belmont, Kid Icarus and, of course, Captain N, the Game Master.

Everything seems sort of wrong. Like a marketing gimmick that caught on. The annoying young kids seem to like the show, mind you.

However if you're not here to watch terrible theater productions, the park is divided into six subsections, accessible by a monorail. Well, when the monorail is working anyway (and it is today! LUCKY YOU!) When you arrive you are standing near the Palace of Power, large, impressive (and pink) castle that apparently belongs to Princess Lana.

Kongoland is jungle-themed. Once in a while you see a large animatronic ape roar in the distance, but it looks completely fake. The sections' biggest draw is, of course, the Videoland Arcade. Somari's classical game is displayed prominently, but there are also spinoffs like the slot machines and a really, really intergalactic popular hit, Kart Fighter. Kart Fighter has an entire subgame community dedicated to it. On most days you can find foul-smelling aliens huddled together on the big screens, watching the tournaments going on.

The game is only surpassed by the other mass playing Monster Dragon Tactics Phone. Teenagers and young kids can be seen walking around with their portable console, playing the game, exchanging Monster Dragons and just making walking around in this room a bit worse. If you stay, there is more! Panda Adventure, Jurassic Boy 2, The Dragon...

But...if you look closely, you might start to notice some strange things. Like this Hardy & Centaur Take on Black Dragon Queen! arcade game, Night Fedyd games, Advance Emblem, Fire Wars, Scory the Porcupine, Deus Ex Machina: Building of an Empire, Nurse Who, McNinja Burger, Age of Dragons, Final Quest of the Fantasy, Dungeons and Dorks, Ronin Sentai Rangers, Effect of the Dark Mass, Space Pirates!, Danbateyo! Clash of Ninja-Pirates, Magical Teleportation Gun Adventure, Resident Sweet Home, Gate of the Stars, World of the Stars and Crafting, and Disgaea 77: The Quest for Even More Money. They're all here, in various sections. Pricing is based on hourly play for some and judging by the amount of food, some aliens have been here for a long while, saying out numbers and things like robots, talking with their teammates.

The second level is dedicated to all sorts of instrument and rhythm games. Dance Dance Revolution, Guitaro Devil, Guitar Angel, Guitar Super Angel Devil the Second Best DX, Popo and Nana Rythm Fever, Drum Drum Super Beat Master, Sing sing your Heart Out! and of course the classic, Band of House Rock.

The third level has all sorts of board and card games, but only the nerdiest of the nerds go there and they tend to be...really special.

The food served here is jungle-themed as well, overpriced, tiki umbrellas and roasted bananas everywhere.

~~Metroid~~Spacepirateland is pretty much your terrible run horror section of a theme park, with four haunted houses, terrible horror movies in the scare-o-thing being displaced in 4D SMELL TECHNOLOGY (bring a coat, you'll get wet!). Men and women dressed up as space pirates move around the theme part, pushing everyone and probably the only costumed people in Videoland to enjoy what they get to do - be grumpy and annoying and get paid to do it. There are zombie movies of every kind in the classic section, mostly in black and white.

Food is BBQ themed, large racks of meat are roasted around in pits everywhere by zombie-dressed attendants and space pirates.

Centered in everything, a large tent gives out horoscopes by famous Madam Rizzles, for a mere (read: very very overpriced) fee!

Megaland, is a sort of future world, where everything is bright shiny silver, sleekly designed and hosts Videoland's biggest rides and luck-based games. This is Rock N Rollman's world and you can see the tiny green guy shaking hands, posing with kids, and just generally being himself. Something about "To Energy Tanks and Beyond!" Do you like neon? Hopefully because this place is filled with it. NEON OF EVERY COLOR.

There are roller-coaster rides, space shooters, laser shooters, that spinning thingie everyone knows what it is by looking but can never really name, an entire row of zippers, spinners high atop the largest tower (you have to sign papers) and so on.

You can win toys of every kind! Space robots! Superheroes! Other types of super heroes (WITH SWORDS!!) Baman and Robbit action figures! Horribly disfigured plush toys hang on nearly every game booth as booth owners scream out in loud microphones for you to come try your luck at this or that and get a large overstuffed toy, all videogame themed. Somari is present everywhere from toys to plushies to an entire line of Kart Fighter outfits. Kat (with bright red hair) from Advance Emblem and Maverik (who has pink hair and a yellow outfit) can by won in a shooting game. Some transforming action figures too!

A large dog goes around in a costume giggling at the loosing contestants and generally being a pain. It is a miracle no one has killed him.

The food is videogame themed. There is also pizza of every kind and a special kind of cake that is served.

Mount Icarus is the children's section of the theme park. Dangerous but child-size rides are scattered across out, with the Kid Icarus themed yoyo swings, a tunnel of love (cause he looks like Cupid, you see) and magic cloud carpet rides (we don't know either)!

Children's food and ice cream colors are available, very, very overpriced. You're better to go to another overpriced part of the planet than to eat here.

Castlevania is half horror (since Space Pirate Land stole some of that) half medeval land. There is a special section of the the section (a subsection if you will) called Carnival of the Damned that boast the biggest coaster on the planet, the Monkey Island theme ride! The entire ride lasts for a mine-shattering 10 minutes boasts several drops, and lava and claims that no accidents have happened for the last TEN DAYS! WOW!

As with everything, it is medieval-video game themed. You can pose with the main hero, get yourself some leather whips and 'holy' water (not really holy), and fight off some men in vampire costumes.

The only food you can find here is Fish-Cream Sandwiches which are fancy baguettes with roasted eel (but shh that is a secret), cheese and cream inside. That's it. Nothing else. Well actually, there is the wild waffle reserve that allows you to hunt for one waffle if you want to pay the price, but they are hard to catch.

With all these sections it might take a while! Or you'll just run off in horror to another park and never, ever look back.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh woe was it that one(1) Victoria and Jamie had decided to stop at videogame land first. Victoria is still looking around curiously at everything, amazed by the technology and these games. She has pointed more than once to the toys that sort of look like Lash and the other rangers.

"Oh my! This is much more grander than the fares we had at home! Perhaps we should go the Medieval Land next..." She looks at the large, over-sized map they were given at the start of their trip. "There are so many places to go...and so little time." This was much, much, much better than the last shore leave Victoria had been part of. Maybe if they do more of these she won't feel so bad about going to the others (okay no she would anyway.)

"Aye, well, I suppose we could. Maybe they'd have something half-way decent to eat there," he grumbles. Actually, some of the food smells quite good, but it's all so expensive. He'll have no money left at all to try out some of the games, at this rate. Or to get her something - although he's not too impressed by those toys that look like the Rangers and Lash (and that one lassie, too, who he would have sworn was her if not for the red hair).

Maybe there'd be something better in one of the other places, he thinks. However, it doesn't stop him from continuing to walk through the park with Victoria, a bit amazed by the sights himself. He may be a little more used to some of this technology, but even he has to admit that he's never seen anything quite like it.

Well, mostly. As he happens to glance towards the rides, he gets a glimpse of what appears to be a giant swan disappearing into a tunnel - with people in it. There's a bit of what looks like water, too, unless he misses his guess. Tugging on Victoria's arm to get her attention, he points in that general direction. "Hey, would ye look over there? I think they've some sort of boat ride set up. Let's go see."

"Oh that could be interesting, yes!" she agrees, stopping mid-walk toward the strange booths with flashing lights and men to follow Jamie towards the pure white swan boats.

"How adorable!" They appear to be made of polished wood and intricately painted details. Strangely enough, Victoria quickly notices that most boats do not just have two people in them, but sometimes three or four. Perhaps this is more of a friendly ride? Something calming. She could go for that.

"I've never quite seen something like this before!"

It's just as well that she changes direction when she does. There's a few of those game operators Jamie doesn't like the look of - especially one who's trying to get people to come over for a game called 'Catch the Mumpus'. Even though Victoria's from a time before she met the Yeti, Jamie remembers them quite well. And the operator in question has some poor teenager dressed up in something that looks a bit like one...well, if a Yeti had purple fur.

If that isn't bad enough, there's the matter of the prizes. From here, he can see containers of green slime, rubber bats and some odd looking stuffed beasties - which are also purple. He supposes those are the mumpuses and the teenager is a life-sized example of one, but he doesn't think any of them are anything Victoria would actually want to take back to the ship with her.

No, he thinks, this boat ride is much more promising. It doesn't look all that exciting to him, but he wouldn't mind the chance to sit for a wee bit, and if it's something Victoria wants to do, well...he figures it can't hurt to go along with it. Especially if he can finagle it so they can sit together.

"Aye, and it's different than a lot of the other rides around here, too," he comments, before reaching into one of the pockets of his sheepskin vest, feeling around for a moment before pulling out a string of the wee tickets that he's used a good chunk of his money to buy. He counts them out, then double-checks the sign briefly. "It looks as though we've enough tickets for the both of us, if ye want to go."

Edited 2011-10-20 06:06 (UTC)

Her smile brightens as she looks over at the ride again. This place certainly has been strange, but something like this, calm and soothing, could actually really make her day and the entire trip worth it.

"Oh yes! Let's do that then!" They join the small line and soon enough they are ushered into a very comfortable swam boat. The man gives them both two clear coats. "Oh? Why do we need that for?" Victoria asks curiously. The man just shrugs.

"If for..ya know...the dripping." Victoria just assumes he means there's a waterfall at one part and it might wet their clothing. Dutifully, she puts it on and marvels how clear it is.

"Hey, what? What dripping?" Jamie turns to look at the man in confusion, even as he automatically takes the coat that's offered. Having done his job, the attendant turns to the next group getting into the boat behind them, leaving Jamie to look at Victoria in confusion. "Victoria, what's he talking about, dripping?"

A second attendant flips the switch, starting the mechanism to send the swan boat slowly moving through the water. Slightly disgruntled at not getting an answer from the the attendant, Jamie makes a face at the coat and sets it aside.

"I don't know what we'll need that for, anyway." He shakes his head, then turns his attention back to Victoria. "There's nothing around here that's dripping. Seems perfectly fine to me. A wee bit slow-moving, maybe, but I guess it's supposed to be. How are ye liking it so far?"

~~Sorry she's busy still looking at the coat.~~ Before she answers, Victoria takes a look around. Now that the boat is moving, they've been pushed into an area that is filled with crystal blue waters. The corridors, from which they can't quite make out what comes next to the angle, are reflective mirrors, coral and seashells plastered on the wall. Statues of classical Greek mythology complete the look.

She looks on amazed, sticking her hand to touch at one of the seashells and realizes they are real.

"I'd say it's rather beautiful, really," she replies quietly, amazed at the scene. There is no noise, apart from the wooden creature silently advancing in the waters. "Relaxing even!"

Nothing like the rest of the park and its loud noises, that was for sure. In fact, it almost seems like they've entered the portal into another world, with how quiet it suddenly got as they entered.

Amazing, actually, isn't too far off the mark. But after his initial survey of the area, he finds himself less interested in their immediate surroundings and more interested in her reactions to them. She does seem relaxed, with none of the uncertainty that's he's noticed from time to time since she's woken up - and certainly nothing like the expression on her face when their travels had proved to be too much and she had stayed behind.

There's something quite appealing about seeing her like this, and he shifts in his seat. Maybe - just maybe - she'd not mind so much if he moved a little bit closer. Or if he stretched just a wee bit and let his arm fall in a slightly different position, loosely laying on the outside of the boat and coincidentally where Victoria could settle up against it. That is, if she chooses to do so.

"Aye, I'll admit, I've not always been fond of boats, but this one's not so bad. Maybe we can find something to make something like it back up on Stacy. For real, I mean, not just in the Sensoriums."

VIDEOGAME LAND

VIDEOGAME TUNNEL OF LOVE

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I could have sworn I had tagged this. Lazarus even has the tag saved :|

Maybe LJ ate it?

Lj keeps eating a lot of things. Also omg those descriptions.

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This rest of the week will be Victoria week :|

Victoria week, now on the Discovery Channel? XD