Mikie: Headbutts and Heartbreak

Ah, High School. I remember it well. Repeatedly bumping my butt against my fellow students to knock them out of their chairs. Headbutting my teacher. Letting the entire staff discover the joys of dribbling a basketball while I smash glass jars containing hearts.

Good times.

What? You mean your high school experience wasn't a thing like that? What kind o' crazy school did you attend, my man? Let me tell you all about my school. It was exactly like the 1984 video game Mikie by Konami.

Here, this opening demo will explain a lot of what the game (and my high school) was all about:

Here you can see Mikie, the golden-haired all-American boy (just like me) approaching the desk of a football player who is wearing his helmet indoors. What do you think will happen? Perhaps he will ask to borrow a pencil? Or pass a note?

Of course not, silly! Mikie is going to bash his ass repeatedly into the side of the football player in order to knock him out of his seat! Just like in my school! Then Mikie will slyly take the seat of the deposed footballer:

And get 200 points for it! Just like in my school! Well, that takes care of that assumedly evil football player. Now onto some biology. You saw those jars containing hearts, right? Well, so did Mikie. When you were in school and there were jars containing hearts, what did you do when you passed them in the halls? I'll bet you did the same thing that Mikie (and I) did:

Headbutt the jar until it shatters, then take the heart from within the jagged remnants of the broken jar! Am I right? I mean, come on, this is exactly like high school, right?

Let's go through what a typical day was like for me back then.

My high school, like Mikie's (and undoubtably yours as well), was cleverly called "Hi-School" as a jolly pun. Well, it was either that or the Japanese company, Konami, that constructed your high school didn't know the difference between "hi" and "high." Either way, it was a jolly school, with small class sizes (only nine students) and advanced relativistic physics being taught. Also, several students kept hearts under their stools (just like your school, my school had no chairs, only stools at the kids' desks).

This being a typical school day, it was time to get them hearts!

I always loved bashing my ass into the face of the girl who sat next to me until she disappeared and teleported to the seat I had vacated. For some reason that I never understood, this made the science teacher really, really upset, and he would try to kick my ass. But don't worry, I knew how to deal with him—the same way you'd deal with your teacher when he chased you for buttbumping someone and stealing their heart:

HEADBUTT TO THE CROTCH!

Man, this brings me back. Good times.

Anyway, as I collected hearts by bumping my ass into my fellow students and causing them to teleport to empty seats, a big sign on the wall would start to spell out "OPEN!"

Once that was all spelled out, the "OUT" sign above the door to the hallway would open and it was time for me to run for my life.

Once in the hallway, of course the homicidal maniac janitor that was at my (and your) school would attack me with his push broom.

So I'd just scoop up the discarded American Flag lunchbox and duck into the next door down: The locker room.

It was always comforting to know that even though I had just passed the janitor in the hallway, he was already inside the locker room waiting for me. It was also comforting to know that our locker room was staffed 24/7 with a fine, four-star chef in full chef outfit. Brings you right back to your school, doesn't it? It's like you're there.

The best part of my day was when the science teacher, who for some reason was still upset about me stealing hearts and headbutting him in the crotch, would chase me into the locker room. You remember what you'd do in that situation. You'd grab a basketball out of a bin and toss it at him:

Look at how happy he is while he's dribbling that basketball! For a moment, my science teacher would be lost in joyous physical activity and forget all about the pain in his crotch.

While he was distracted, and after headbutting the janitor and the fine chef, I would always find that six kids would have left their lockers wide open, exposing their glass jars, each with a heart inside (remember the day you got your glass heart jar and put it in your locker for the first time? Man, those were the days).

Well, since the jars were just sitting out in the open, there was really only one thing to do. While my science teacher was busy dribbling a basketball, and after I'd headbutted the janitor and the chef, I did what we all did back then:

HEADBUTT TO THE GLASS JAR!

After collecting a whole bunch of hearts (and a whole bunch of glass shards in my forehead), the big sign on the wall would spell out "GET ON!" and it would be time for lunch!

After ducking back into the hallway and escaping down the stairs to the second floor of the building (with the science teacher still in hot pursuit)...

...I would enter the place where you and me, we'd all get our food in high school.

The Hi-School Restaurant! Man, we had it so good back in high school. Not only did we have a fine chef staffing the locker room, we had three chefs running a five-star restaurant right in the building! I don't know what you called your three chefs, but the three chefs at my school were nicknamed "The Butcher," "The Baker," and "The Salad Maker."

As an added treat, remember how they would always scatter hearts around the floor so that the first student into the restaurant during lunch would get an extra treat? That was great! Except for the part where they'd try to stab you with their knives. That was always a little bothersome. By this time of the day my head always hurt a little bit from all the headbutts and glass shards, so I was a little tired of just headbutting the science teacher when he would inevitably chase me into teh restaurant. Maybe you weren't so tired by that time? Me, I was always so hungry that I just wanted a break. So instead, I would grab some bone-in beef out of a bowl on a table and toss it at the teacher.

Look how happy he is as he chows down like a pig! Chasing me all over the school was hard work for the science teacher. Let me tell you: teachers really aren't paid enough to do their jobs.

The rest of the day was always kind of a blur after that, what with the blood loss from the glass shards in my head. I vaguely remember trying to get a heart from under a glass serving lid on one of the tables.

You know, I love reminiscing about my school days, because I know that it's something that EVERY kid in America goes through. No matter how different we may seem, underneath it all we all headbutted our teachers in the crotch and broke glass heart jars in other kids' lockers, and force-fed fine chefs bone-in beef in our schools' restaurants. Group experiences like these bring us all together.

Good times. Just like in your school.

I'd like to talk more about my daily adventures, but to be honest with you Mikie is a f--king difficult video game! I never got Mikie to actually survive his lunch in the fine dining establishment in his high school. It took all my gumption just to get him there in one piece. This is usually what happened to me:

But still, it is a really fun game, and it's nice to see a video game that really accurately portrays what Hi-School is like in America.

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