MY ENEMY: Clouds

Recently I've been playing the Sony Computer Entertainment Japan title Trash Panic on my PS3. It's basically a more complicated version of Tetris. You are given items, of various shapes and sizes, that you stack on top of one another in a giant trash bin. Now, these items start out pretty mundane, things like pencils, erasers, gum, etc., but, later on you get into some truly crazy items, for example, there is a point where you need to destroy an Iron Mail Box, or in that same level, when you need to destroy a giant Iron Bells. It's absolutely nuts! Among the most impressive I've encountered is the during the part where you are tasked with the enormous responsibility to destroy something which took millions of years to create. A natural beauty from all across the world. Yes, lads and lasses of wherever you may be, you are tasked with the destroying a fucking mountain -- in a trash can. Later on, from what i've seen, you are beating the shit out of Saturn. Not the Sega console or the late automaker. No, I'm talking about the planet. Here you go, destroy a planet, again, in a trash can. Ridiculous.

The key to all of this is that you can use the items to break one another down. So, for example, if you have a large item, like an Oil Rig Platform, you can drop that on smaller items to break them down, or, even better, you could place it down and use it as a spiky object to break smaller objects on. It's quite brilliant. You are given help along the way, with things like matches (to burn all the burnable trash), Bombs (To blow shit wide open, son), and the occasional water-fueled pink-ball thing which disintegrates items that, not instantly mind you, touch it. You have to balance these objects while not allowing more than two items to fall out. Also, there are "Boss" objects, such as an HDTV, or a Truck, which you are given ten seconds to destroy, failing to due so rains down a bunch of objects and just generally ruins your progress. If the "Boss" falls out of the trash, it's an instant game over.

The variety is great, many of the items get a bit of a personality to them as well. When you see that giant land mass coming down, you think "Dammit, how am I gonna work with this..." then you do whatever you can with it, and try to break it down. While this can be frustrating, it is my personal belief that there is no enemy more innocent looking while undeniably fearsome (Up to Stage 5, that is... I'm having troubles with it) than Clouds. I hate you Clouds.

I'm on Stage 5 now in the Main Mode. My console has been on for four days, because the game lacks any sort of continue feature. I've probably only played the stage fifteen or so times, but it's pretty tough, at least for me. The reason is, early on, you start receiving a Cloud to dispose of. Below is an image to show you what your facing here, folks (Sorry for image quality, cell phone camera):

[caption id="attachment_391" align="aligncenter" width="650" caption="The Cloud: An unholy, life threatening piece of shit."][/caption]

"Oh!" you say to yourself gleefully, "What a nice cloud, I must destroy it on this nice big object over here that I've been breaking down for the past ten or so items." It's a little like autopilot, when you're trying to break down those big bastards. Then suddenly, you notice the Cloud doesn't break on this object. "Huh..." you mutter quizzically, "Guess I'll try to break it with this other thing." Good fucking luck. Your items just bounce off of Clouds, because they're fucking clouds. So now, you have an object you can't destroy by dropping items on it, that sucks. Then, you realize that, hey, you dropped that cloud on the strongest part of the aforementioned big object, which, again, you have been using the previous ten or so items on, rendering the big object nearly untouchable, since the cloud acts as a shield. Great, this filthy son of a bitch doesn't break down... I guess I'll just have to kill it with fire.

I see it, the glorious sight of an open flame, I quickly check my trash bin, and shake my controlled (to shake up the trash, shift it around so other items fit better), then after two of three new item drops, I get the open flame. I drop this in the barrel, amongst some trash, and it lights the place up. I can see my "Fire Chain" going up and up, and I can see the clouds heating up. Thank Christ, there is a way to deal with the fucking Clouds. Fire. While I don't quite know the science on how exactly that would work, it seems that the only common way to deal with clouds is fire.

The problem with this is fire isn't terribly common. You may receive fire, maybe three times in a stage. This means if you want to get rid of these Fluffy White (Sometimes Gold, for whatever reason) Invincible Blankets of Hatred and Disgust, you're gonna have to carefully stack these bendable bastards into a corner which you can set alight. Guess how many times I've accomplished this task? I'll give you a clue, the universe would explode if you divided something by it. Yeah, I'm talking about zero. Never. Nada. I have disposed of a couple of Clouds, but, never really reliably. Truth be told, I'm not terribly good at the game, I'm always rocking Ego and getting an E rank on the levels, so, this may be a mundane mother fucker too, like the rest, but, at this time, he is my nemesis. My enemy, the most vial, obtrusive, calming, puffy, white tube of water vapour. I hate you Clouds. I'll never forgive you.

The Cloud: An unholy, life threatening piece of shit.