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Ah, pretend-Egypt! I feel so... at home! Or so I'll pretend!

This time, my wardrobe choice is... questionably appropriate in several regards.

First, I've yet to actually play a Halo game... unless one counts picking up a controller at a friend's place and running around in a futile attempt to pick up what the other 99.9% of players in attendance already knew years ago, simply trying to avoid catching quite as many bullets with one's body as is possible. So that's a big mark against this outfit...

Secondly, it was actually a "free" limited edition gift of sorts granted for tuning in on the Xbox dashboard-linked presidential debates of 2012. I wish I could say that was time well spent, but then I'd be claiming there was any reason to tune into the debates. The candidates were so completely different and their respective supporters so completely already predetermined and unshakable that the real spectacle was in the aftermath and how many different ways the various news outlets could call the events "won" or "lost" despite very little actual direct discourse being allowed to take place.

I'd say more, but I'm really not up for actually advocating an actual position and thus opening the door to theoretical political discourse in which there will be no winners, so no thanks. (Hey, this conversation piece brought me as close as possible to actually discussing politics. Well, maybe it could end up closer with presidential Miis, but I doubt I'd allow myself to fall into that trap either.)

At any rate, somehow it feels... as close to "right" as possible in this setting: an ambulatory innermost anthropoid coffin made of solid gold (don't you question it!) placed directly within a series of nested similar coffins inside the sarcophagus itself... this depiction is clearly lacking in all the splendid extra shrines and additional layers, but an entombed royal on the go needs to travel light, even if it means slumming it a bit along the way.

So there, some very slight and disingenuous excuses for justification as to why I'd do such a thing... but what good is a wardrobe if you don't rummage through it for weird stuff you picked up and probably wouldn't wear under any other circumstances now and again?!

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1. Sand Shenanigans

The original Crash Course had three sets of stages in total, as well as most of the general hazards seen in this particular game, now fully rounded with the appearance of water balloons. All other damaging fixtures that existed at the time would make you restart from a checkpoint, but now that honor seems to be reserved for swinging mallets that will knock you off the plane running along the surface of the path.

Given its longer duration and greater number of courses, we may have encountered all the standard features... but the difficulty curve is nowhere near as harsh along the way. Don't worry, there's still time for Crash Course 2 to catch up to (and rush past) the standard set by its predecessor.

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2. Your Biggest Fan

Fans creating huge air currents existed in the first game, but there wasn't actually any control provided to the player while caught in one. Actually controlling your rate of ascent was more or less a trial-and-error process of varying your point of entry, lateral speed, and therefore how long you stayed under its influence.

Oh, thank goodness... a gamer picture reward. I'm so ...incredibly gratified that I can advertise this (adver)game's existence (adverxistence?) after it's gone by using it as a picture to represent myself. I'll get... right on that. Probably.

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3. Hang Time

Hey, I knew it finally happened! If you've been hearing that weird "fluttering" sound that goes nuts but you can't really figure out why, it's because that's what happens when you hold the dash button too long. You're only in danger of stumbling while running along the ground, but the "over-boost" will still keep track of you holding down the button even as it does nothing in the air.

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4. I've Got a Bad Feeling

Uh... sure? I mean, the stage names haven't exactly been poetry in (or out) of motion, but they've seemed to remain slightly relevant to at least one stage fixture or hazard, if only just... but I'm finding it hard to draw even a tenuous connection anymore...

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5. Pharaoh's Curse

I'm sorry, but are we even trying anymore with the names? Sure, the curse is that I have many expletives to sling at the stage namers for desecrating my temple! You are all now honorarily and dishonorably cursed!

I like some of what this stage tries to do, especially near the end... but it really relies too heavily on the player not making small mistakes that quickly add up to create catastrophic ones.

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Well, now that's quite the jack-up in price for the next set of stages. So it seems we won't be able to continue in the fashion to which we've become accustomed along this breadth-first tour of wacky platform parkour... ... ...but time is of the essence! Whatever shall be done about this?!