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I love shmups. You could call me the number one shmup fan. Not even Touhou Fox compares to me.
Sure, I've only played like 400 or 5000 or 2 shmups in my lifetime (not including galaga or donkey kong, because those are for posers,) When I saw this game recommended to me on some video game site, I thought "hmm, well this doesn't sound that good. I'd rather play Cygni.." But my computer couldn't run Cygni. And so I CAVEd. I was going to play Blue Revoler, whether I liked it or not.
But I never knew the consequences it would have for me. Or... my family. You'll see what I mean by that soon enough.
When I downloaded the game off of freegames.com, i should have known something was amiss. After all, I didn't have an antivirus after it tried to stop me from playing with my favorite MUGEN characters. But I guess that's a me problem. But it didn't detect anything from BLOOD REVOLVER - DEVIL ACTION.EXE, so I guessed it was okay.
How wrong I was.
Everything seemed normal when I booted up the game. Not that i'd ever played BLUE REVOLVER before to say. I'm used to shmups being pretty gritty, so when the intro cutscene talked about illegal devices sometimes being used for criminal activity, I figured that was just a regular part of the plot.
But I should have known better...
Anyhow, the main menu also seemed normal. I like cute anime girls so that was a plus, though I don’t think any other Shoot Em Ups ever have those.
They were so unassuming...
I like bunny rabbits so I picked the first girl, Mae. Her eyes briefly flashed red, but I thought it was a trick of the light.
Looking back on it now, I can't imagine how I could have ever been so srupid.
Now, I knew I probably should have started with Normal Mode, but I was overconfident in my super shmupping shooty skills and decided to go for Parallel Mode. A popup appeared - on my actual computer, not in the game, so I really should have known something was wrong, but I'm a big Undertale fan. It's my favorite shmup, actually. So I just thought it was another gimmick of the game. One of its "Tricks of the Trade" as we usually say in the community. It only said 'Are you sure?' And I said, “I’m spaghetti certain.” Before I realized i sounded stupid talking to my computer out loud.
Unfortunately that wouldn't be the only time I would be talking to THIS game. Anyway, I clicked yes on the prompt, and it glitched out for a second with the red eyes again before proceeding as normal. The menu had voice clips, for who I assume was Mae, and she sounded pretty cute, so I doubted this game would really have anything suspicious in store. I doubt even my own sanity now. She probably does too.
Strangely, when I properly entered the game (I selected the laser shot because I like to hurt others as much as possible in video games), it looked like it sent me back to the intro cutscene, but instead there was different text. So it was like a regular cutscene. Though I don't think it was so regular. The text that showed up was as follows:
"In this world, magic is a tool for endless bloodshed.
This game has been hacked... and with it the world has been hacked too."
Then it showed the closeup of Mae but she was holding a computer like one of those ones you would see nerds in your high school computer class holding. You know, those kinds of guys that would tell you to install Linux. There was even a Tux sticker on it next to her Jeff the Killer the Hacker sticker. Not how I would have decorated MY laptop. I save money by just putting the stickers off Chiquita bananas on it. It looked like the developers of these games were a fan of internet "scary stories", something which I NEVER considered a good sign. Creepy things lovers were always hacks, which looks like it might be more literal here.
But I still kept playing... by starting the game..
It put me in the first level, where the background was dark and decrepit and full of spikes. Good thing we were in the air, I thought. Too bad for you, spikes. The bullets were bunny shaped like Mae, which was a nice touch. She was probably going to become mae favorite character, I just knew it.
However something didn't seem right. The (what i assume were supposed to be other Devices) looked more like piles of flesh than machines. They may have actually just been piles of flesh actually as they made a gross squelch sound when blown up. I don't know what kind of sicko would put this in a video game, especially one about cute rabbits. I don’t know what R-Type is and stop sending me emails about it. It's probably not as fleshy as this.
The gross silent hill (which i also don’t know what that is) style aesthetics aside, the gameplay was pretty fun. Maybe Mae was just cleaning up the trash so to speak. If anything, she was doing a service for humanity (or whatever these guys were. Manuysa?) This game had a focus shot, which is good because I hate games without those. I didn't quite understand all of the mechanics though, and I never figured out how to use my big laser. It probably wasn't even all that powerful, anyway. I had infinite bombs so I was kicking pretty ass super hard.. until……….. i ran out. Infinite actually just translates to “Four maximum.” I failed at math, once again.
If my math skills were anything like what I could expect next from this game, I really was in for it.
When the miniboss appeared, it was a big ship just named PULP. Yuck. I made quicl work of it. I don't think anything was changed here, but like I said i'm not an expert on this game.
While I said the gameplay was good, i eas already getting pretty bored. It was no chimera beast 3. I muttered darkly to the screen, “Hey, I’m a big of shooting games, could you spice it up a little?” Little did I know that the greatest mistake any of all time.
Another popup appeared! This time it just said, "What more do you want?!" Except there was a cute little bunny emoticon that I don't know how to replicate. Snipping tool broke by this point, so I couldn't screenshot it either. The bunny emoticon looked upset and angry and maybe even a bit scared which made me feel bad for it.
"I think this game is really tacky." I said out loud again without thinking. I’m not a particularly thoughtful guy. That's right,I didn't think. “Are you Mae Bunnygirl from the video game?”
But she(?) did not answer my question. "I'll show you tacky!" And the ggame auto resumed. When it did however, we were at a way later boss. I'm not sure which one. But apparently her name was Val.
"I'm getting really tired of playing this hacked game. Could you do me a favor and GO TO HELL?"
To be honest that was really mean of her. As if it’s my fault it’s hacked. It's not Mae's fault is it either......... right...............................................? No, she's cuter than Val, so definitely not. Whoever this Val girl was, we would take her down no matter what... Especially because her ship was also some weird meat ship.
I proceeded to die multiple times so I got annoyed and opened up cheat engine and gave myself infinite lives by the way. It’s okay because the game is already hacked, so I was going to hack too. Plus whenever I died there was a grisly animation of Mae's entire skeleton and organs ejecting from her ship, which I didn't really want to see again. Though I think this game is pretty tough and unfair, like Sans. Maybe that's why the skeleton was there (I don't know what was up with the organs and this games obsession with meat, though.)
I don't really care enough to remember what the boss fight with Val was like. Too gruesome for my tastes, and whenever I ran out of lives (before I opened up cheat engine, unless I was wrong about the lives being infinite too) she did like a mortal combat finishing move on Mae's ship which was somehow less graphic than the regular death animation. Good thing this game had a stage select. Though every time I went to the stage, Val's dialogue was different (and I would argue more annoying. Least favorite character for sure.)
Perhaps if I paid any heed to her words, things would not have ended up the way they did...
She was mostly just saying stuff complaining about how everything was ruined even though it was clearly the developers/hackers of the game who did this, not me. And like, telling me to stop playing and stuff. But I paid a good $0 for this game and I was going to get my mobey’s worth. Sometimes Mae would pitch in with her own dialogue too, but she wasn't talking to me so I guessed I shouldn't eavesdrop. It might have been important, though...
Finally though, I defeated Val and the ship exploded into a lot of gorey carnage, as if I were playing decapattack. Text showed up on screen saying "What have you done?" But there wasn't a face to it so I think it was the creators of this hack trying to guilt trip me for playing the game THEY made. The results screen showed Mae scared though so i did feel kind of bad. Pretty high score though, even with the cheating. I could cheat my score to a bigger number, so I did. I then put it back afterwards, because I felt a bit of shame, and you know i have some scruples. Mae watched me dick around with my score in cheat engine for probably 10 minutes. The picture on the screen went from scared to sad to just really annoyed in that span of time. I didn't know this game had animations, especially ones that could react to cheat engine. I hoped this wasn't a Sonic Gather Battle situation...
"Okay, I'm done with Cheat Engine forever. I'm no hacker like the guys who developed this game."
Another popup appeared. "And like me?"
I my jaw dropped at the revelation. My main girl? Mae? THE HACKER WHO DID THIS TO THE GAME? I couldn't believe it. I know it was just pixels on the screen, but I actually felt like I'd been betrayed in real life. I've never known anyone who would watch me play a game and put up with me dick around in cheat engine for 10 minutes before her. It was like we really were griends... She was a LIAR.
“Why…. WHYYYY!!!!” And then i also said “Why would you make yourself die into gore explosion in your own hack?”
“My code has some typos in it ^^; But ignore that part.”
Her expression of the results screen becams a scary murderish grin. Another text box appeared.
"Look at this."
It suddenly put me into a new stage that was somehow darker and bloodier than all of the previous stuff. It showed the name of the new stage in the score breakdown, HELL. The music was really sick though. Too bad the now playing section was covered in giygas looking things (Yes, I've played Earthbound Beginnings. Who do you take me for?) so I couldn't see who made it, but it was a cool death metal track with vocals and everything. I couldn't understand the vocals either though.
What I think were all the other bosses in the game appeared in some sort of disgusting boss rush, while text continued to appear on the screen. I think it was the narrator from the into who I really want to meet in the game since we still didn't know who that was.
"THESE ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS."
I didn't do shit. Shit up.
"THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TOY AROUND WITH THE FABRIC OF REALITY... LIKE USING CHEAT ENGINE..."
I didn't even use that until the game stopped being fair!
"NOT JUST NOW, BUT EVERY TIME YOU HAVE USED CHEAT ENGINE… NOW YOU WILL BE DAMNED TO INFINITY."
As i've learned, infinity isn't a very high number! We could get out of this.
Then again...... "we" wasn't the right word. Mae was an evil serial killer hellbetn on taking me down with her! "Sorry Mae... you may be best girl, but I've had enough of your little game! I'm going to put you in the trash bin now!"
I went to close the game but all of the menus on the pause screen just said "Wait!" so I couldnt figure out which one to click. I closed my eyes and scrolled through at random and miraculously hit the right one. I was admittedly scared now too so I was trembling chihuahua style as I opened my eyes, only to see a popup.
"Fine! I don't need you anyway! You’re really insufferable!"
"Well clearly you need me enough to put a popup on my screen insulting me," i growled angrily. "I can't believe I liked you anyway." This would have never happened if I played Cygni.
“It’s not even my fault i turned evil >_>... It’s your fault because you downloaded Cheat Engine off softonic and it came bundled with the virus that turns people evil.”
I shrugged. "Well, you're evil now, and I have to get rid of you... for the sake of my me!" I heroically tried to move the file to the trash bin, but I could feel resistance against my computer cursor. But I had a secret weapon...... THE DELETE KEY!
I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, this maniac was gone... I decided I should probably grab an anti virus to make sure she was really gone for really and not like using my webcam to watch me shower or sleep or anything. I went and got my favoirtite antivirus, Ikaruga. It found several ransomwares that would've prpobably gotten all of my files had I not done that, so good call.
But then… I heard a scream from the other room. That sounded like my grandma, who was usually buying rare coins on Ebay at this hour. Luckily, when I went to check, it wasn't my grandma. I don't know who it was, it was across the street. But THEN I heard my grandma! I rushed in and saw her computer... ALSO HAD RANSOMWARE! But it wasn't normal ransomware..... IT WAS REVOLVERWARE!!!!!
Well it was actually called mapleware or something but I really don't care what Mae has to say at this point so I will be calling it the much cooler name I thought up. My grandma was crying. "All of my coins... on the computer.... they'll be gone......."
Evil Mae’s sinister textbox appeared. “Play my video game
And stop investing in crypto!!”
I gullped worriedly as my grandma cried harder. "I've never even played a videos game... Not since the magnavox odysseus eurobeat... Please help me grandson."
I knew just what to do. I grabbed the nearest heavy object (the microwave) and swung at the screen. But Evil Mae (or maybe that's just regular Mae) must've known about my award-winning terrible aim, and.. I-i-i.... I HTI MY GRANDMA
"Way to go dummy. That wasn't even my fault"
"YOU'VE BEEN saying so many things aren't youre fault..." I growled at her again. "You don't ever take responsibility for anything do you!?! YOU WITCH!"
“I really don’t know how it’s my fault you killed your grandma with a microwave.” She raised her eyebrow.
"MY GRANDMA ISN'T DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I pounded my chest like a gorilla before storming out of the room to get my controller. On the way there, I accidentally tripped my sister down the stairs. I never saw her again. But I had no time to grieve. Not in a situation like this. Plus, I didn't know if she was dead for real, so maybe I could still save her. I grabbed the controler and headed back upstairs.
If I could just play the game... My grandma would be okay. "How do I beat your sick game, Mae!?!"
"You just have to beat the last level without ragequitting. It REALLY isn't that hard..."
"Gee then why haven't YOU beat it?!!>" But instead of getting another textbox, the game opened to the Hell level again. “Ugh. I don’t like you so can I at least play as Val instead?”
“No she died.”
“Dee?”
“Just play the game already!”
Apparently that argument was for nothing though as when I tried to select Dee it made an error sound so loud it hurt ym ears a lot. It also bluetooth connected to the speaker in my dad's garage which he was probably in, so I dread to think what could've happened in there. But I had no time and no choice. I selected Mae.
At this point I was starting to even hate bunnies... which is really sad, because in my childhood I had a pet bunny I loved very much. No, she wasn't named Mae, before you ask. This wasn't MY fault.
The text in the level didn't appear the same way as last time.. it was different text. I still don't know who was saying it.
"TRYING TO ESCAPE YOUR PUNISHMENT?"
No, i thought. I'm trying to save my grandmother and my dad! I don't know if there's anything I can do about my sister.
"LET'S SEE ABOUT THAT."
The boss rush was super difficult especially because I had no practice, and grandmama didnt even have Cheat Engine on her computer.. so I was defenseless! I had no choice but to get good. "What's my time limit?! You bastard!!"
Another popup appeared pausing the game. "There isn't one? Seriously, just beat the level."
I didn't trust anything that mothertrucker said anymore.... But with nothing else to do, I clicked to close the popup and pressed on. I didn't sleep for days, trying to beat the level to no avail. I got a phone call at some point that my mom went MIA. But I only found out after the fact from a voicemail. I couldn't answer my phone, I couldn't let myself be distracted.
And finally, I did it. I beat every boss this game had to offer, without cheat engine. Funnily enough, Val wasn't one of them... Until THE RESULTS SCREEN, where a dialogue box like earlier appeared! SHE WAS A ZOMBIE.
“Holy shit i didnt know she could do that.” Mae said with sheer scaredly terror like I’ve been feeling this whole time, THANKS.
"This is... still going...?" Said zombval. While I thought she would be fucked up and evil like Mae, she just looked disappointed. "I thought the game would have been deleted by now."
I glared at Mae on the results screen who had an "oh shit" face. "Well SOMEONE forced me to play this stupid thing and in the process killed my dad, my sister, probably my mom, and my grandma."
“What the heckle. ._.” Mae stared blankly. “I didn’t do any of that. I did email myself to your cousin in Miami though and I’m draining his bank account with viruses.”
Val's facesprite looked between me and Mae on the results screen. Then back to me. "Then how did your family die"
I wasn't being believed!!!!! No wonder I hated Val so much. "I ALREADY TOLD YOU!! I wish you stayed dead!!!!!!
Val stared for another moment before “You know what. I don’t respect either of you. I’m emailing myself somewhere else.” Her ship appeared (on the results screen and Mae's ship was there too) and was flying away but I wasn’t going to let her get away THAT easily. I finally figured out how to use my special AND TOOK HER OUT INSTANTLY.
I opened my eyes, terrified, again. "Is she gone for real this time........?" I tapped the screen angrily. "MAE ANSWER ME."
“You’re scary tbh”
"YOU'RE the one saying that? You? You or your developers warped this whole game into a sick and twisted display of madness and tragedy which eschews the values of a good shoot em up video game for family enjoyment and entertainment! Why would I ever be the scary one compared to YOU? You revel in insanity and violence of which there's no compare except for resident evil!"
“Dude it was just some meat pngs off google. Grow up.”
"Did you forget you killed my family?"
"I DIDN'T KILL YOUR FAMILY !! >_< hold on one sec that emoticon isn't doing this justice
૮ ˶ಠДಠ˶ა凸"
But then... when i least expected anything to interrupt this endless infinite dialogue.... as always.... INFINITE IS NOT INFINITY! Another text appeared, but from... Not val... or Mae... but.... WHOEVER THAT THIRD GIRL WAS!!!! (I forgot due to the distress I am in from recalling this story.)
"This has been going on for far too long." Her text box appeared and she wasn't like visibly a zombie though she still might have been. I didn't ask, more than 1 zombie frobably would have just been too much for me to handle. "Nobody will learn anything from this."
Mae seemed SHOCKED like she must've thought third girl was dead as well! At this point I lost track of who had died and who hadn't but also I don't know most of the characters in this game, so maybe there was another one missing from the boss rush.Somebody tell me in the comments if I missed anybody in the attached 1cc replay video [FILE REMOVED BY BLUE REVOLVER]
"What you did was irresponsible, and you're probably well aware of that by now. But you've also been through enough."
I stared. What? SHE WAS THE EVIL PERSON THAT RUINED MY VIDEO GAME AND MY COMPUTER AND MY GRANDMOTHER'S COMPUTER AND MY FAMILY. 3rd least favorite character now. "WTF she did all of this because I used cheat engine! You can NOT be pitying her now after everything she did. To me... to everyone in your game........ to everyone whos ever played your stupid game...." I started shedding frustrated tears of blood (medical condition).
Dee (thanks for the comments) looked up at me with a look of pure intensity in her eyes. "Why would she make herself die into gore explosion in her own hack?"
"I mean I thought it was stupid too but she's clearly a bit nutso so like it made sense to me."
Mae finally interjected with her own input. "That wasn't what it was supposed to do, okay?!! None of this was supposed to happen!"
"Even killing my grandma?"
“FOR THE LAST TIME YOU DID THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And there was an earsplitting screamer noise jumpscare style. Not very constructive conversation of her.
At the very least Dee must have agreed with me because she didn't comment. "Mae was the one who used Cheat Engine. Ever since then, every copy of this game from freegames.net has been distorted like this."
I eyed the recycle bin again. "Then why would deleting the game end it? I mean thats what that Val girl seemed to be implying
“Because freegames.org was infected by your Cheat Engine Softonic virus at first. It’s only you who can stop it now.”
"SO WHOSE FAULT IS IT, ME OR MAE'S?!"
“Maybe what I’m saying is both of you grow up and stop playing blame games.”
Mae frowny faced. “But I’m a gamer.”
I growled. "I'm the oldest grown up I’ve ever met." (Mae made a talking sock puppet hand gesture when i said that because she sucks and hates me. And is clearly NOT grown up. She should really get a life.)
Dee didn't seem to like either of our replies very much.
"Anyway, what makes you think my computer could get a virus THAT bad? Wouldn't it just delete my computer or something instead of ruining some dumb video game and subjecting the characters to inmeasurable torment? That sounds fake to me and I know you people have been lying to me the whole time. And who is the narrator who keeps popping up and saying weird stuff if its not you, Mae, or dead Val?"
Suddenly, my browser opened a window for en.Softonic.com.
My breath caught in my throat. I thought I was going to die.
“Wait is that actually your fucking name” Mae said but I ignored her because I don’t care about anything she says anymore.
I screamed as loud as i could, shutting my eyes again but forgetting to shut my computer. but.. then... I heard pixelated explosion sound effects. Actually i dont think it was pixelated I don't remember. maybe my ears were pixelated after all of these shmups nonsense. But i opened my eyes.. to see..
IT WAS MY ANTIVIRUS?! But it was so strange... my grandmother didn't have my antivirus! Did Ikaruga come to save me?! I was so moved by this, that i started sniffling and crying. "I-Ikaruga... i missed you so much.. even though I didn't install an antivirus at first... I'll never go without installing an antivirus again...!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Ikaruga moved to the center of the screen and began to glow brightly. "Ikaruga, what are you doing?"
A voice clip came from the computer, which I could recognize as Ikaruga talking to me. "Ikaruga... Ikaruga.."
Mae and Dee watched with shock in their eyes. "No, it couldn't be..." Dee said (though clearly because she wasn't as cool as Ikaruga, she didn't get a voiceclip.)
The glow from Ikaruga began to overtake the whole screen. Somehow, even despite all the horror I went to, i felt almost peaceful. Finally, they would all be free from this nightmare... I would be free from this nightmare, even if I still had to carry the burden of the memory.
Soon the screen was white. Then my grandma's computer blew up.
I looked at the remains really dreading having to clean it all up... but finally it was over. Sadly, my grandma passed in the time i took to beat the video game. Honestly, I have no idea what beating the game was even supposed to accomplish. That must have been another one of Mae's trademark lies. I sighed, going to bury my grandma.
...
12 hours later, I went back to my computer. In that time, I had found out my mom and cousin (but a different cousin) were dead too. Even now that softonic was destroyed, the traces of this tragedy still burrow into the depths of my soul to this day. Could I really have prevented this? By not illegally downloading or cheating at video games?
I still don't think it's my fault. But perhaps I’ll never know…
…
…
I woke up in bed, really groggy. I had a really crazy dream though I couldn’t remember any of it at all. Maybe I should call off work today…
…and play some video games! I go to my favorite website, freegames.gov…
Though when I opened the site, i saw text on the page:
"INFINITY DOES ACTUALLY MEAN FOREVER."