The "Genesis" of a Rift

One, among many, regrets that I have my life is that I wish I were closer to my brother. It’s not that we’re insanely distant, although I haven’t talked to the kid in a couple of months. Since I’ve been in JC, I don’t get around to his neck of the woods much anymore. We don’t really hang out and I don’t think I fit in well with his “clique.” We’re just not as close as I wish we were.

I’ve thought about this recently and tried to determine if there was something that maybe caused this. Was it when I used to rib him in middle school for being so odd? Nah, don’t think so. Was it when I used to rib him in high school for being so being so odd? No, I think I know what caused this irreparable rift with my brother, and it took place long before middle school or high school. Yes, I have found the source of his animosity. It began when he was in elementary school. We actually used to do something together, work as a team toward a common goal. It was this activity which caused us to drift apart. And that was…….

I owned, and still own, a Sega Genesis. This bad boy came packaged with it (remember when video game systems used to include games with the system?) and I played it ferociously. Next to Golden Axe, I believe Altered Beast was the best game for the Genesis that I had played.

Well, here’s the basic plot of the game: Zeus has resurrected your character from the dead to rescue his daughter from the evil Neff, lord of the underworld. Simple enough, eh? Anyway, your character also has the ability to power up, by collecting the orbs that are released when one of the white dog creatures is slain. Three of these appear per level (pic of said creature below)

Your character goes through three transformation phases as orbs are collected, gaining strength at each phase. He starts off looking like this:

Then this after one orb:

Onto this after two orbs (those orbs must’ve been INCREDIBLY potent steroids):

After three orbs, the fun begins. You turn into an animal with super powers. The animal you transform into depends on which of the game’s five levels you are on. Here’s the list:

Level One- Wolf (The first time I saw this, it was the baddest thing I’d seen in video games up to that point. Click the link below to see the transformation screen.)

http://members.shaw.ca/tom.t/ab/ab-anim1.gif

Level Two- Dragon (The best beast. He shoots lightning and flies. Awesome.)

Level Three- Bear (This is by far and away the shittiest beast on the game. He’s got two powers: One, he jumps straight up and spins, completely missing enemies. The second, he breathes on them and turns them into stone, so he still doesn’t kill them. It’s a joke.)

Level Four- Tiger (Shitty, but not as bad as the Bear.)

Level Five- Back to the Wolf

Much in the mode of Contra, Altered Beast possessed a bad-ass 2-player cooperative mode. And, much like the “life stealing” trick in Contra, Altered Beast had its own 2-player trick sure to lead to contempt between the two players.

See, in a one-player game the white creature mentioned earlier releases a single power up orb. In a two-player game, it releases two. However, both of these orbs can be collected by one player, leading to the powering up of two levels, hence expediting the process of achieving beast level. See where I’m going with this?

Well, Kaud and I used to play this game together. He was all about teamwork, each of us collecting one orb from the destroyed white beast and powering up together. I, on the other hand, was about getting the “beast state” and leaving that little gimp to fend for himself.

So, I would allow him to kill all of the other enemies until the white thing appeared. I would then say “I got this one.” I would slay the white beast, then quickly snatch both of the orbs. Of course, out of the hundreds of times this happened, I would pretend it was an accident every time. And, as one might imagine, this cheesed him off royally. I remember some of the slurs he would send my way. Kaud was a pretty foul-mouthed kid:

“YOU COCKSUCKER!” (This was his favorite thing to angrily yell at me.)

“YOU DICKHEADED PUSSY!” (Dad taught him some colorful language as a child.)

“I HATE YOU SO BAD…” (This was funny. After saying this, he would just sit there shaking his head in anger and discontent.)

Sometimes, he would just punch me. Yes, he hit me because of this game.


Such memories would be fun to reminisce about if they weren’t so painful. At the time, I got a kick out of pissing him off. I found joy in watching his pale, freckled face turn red with anger just before yelling. The most enjoyable thing was, after I had already achieved beast status, stealing the two orbs from the last creature on the level, leaving him to battle the bosses as the scrawny wimp. This created countless “Angry Kaud” moments.

But I'm older and wiser now. I realize how childish I was. To believe this tiff that my brother still carries to this day was over those damn blue orbs truly hurts my heart. Although the Genesis still works, I don’t think he’d play Altered Beast with me again and give me a shot at redemption. The image of me laughing at his ire is probably still burned into his memory. I don’t know that he’ll ever give me a chance to make it up to him.

If I had it to do over, I’d change some things….

I’d at least let him turn into the Bear first.