Count_Zero

The Nintendo Power train continues on to issue #31, for December of 1991. Our cover story is Metroid II for the Game Boy – the first Game Boy game to make it to the cover. The cover art is better than last issue’s art, but not by much. Letters The theme for this issue is what you’d want your ultimate gaming system to be. As you can imagine when a large chunk of your reader base is kids, basically they want a console that does everything–including their homework. Batman: Return of The Joker Guide The Joker is back, and the Batman is waiting. The guide details the new power-ups for this game: a crossbow, homing batarangs, the Sonic Neutralizer, and the Shield Star (which is a spread attack). We get maps for stages 1 through 6. I have to say that the levels look really generic. Levels 1 & 7 are the only ones which really have a look to them that feels different – though the gimmick for 5 is itself generic – it’s a sewer level. Nester’s Adventures This issue Nester is playing Kid Icarus. The tip here is to move to the left and shoot up when contending with the tumbling mirrors. Actraiser Guide Enix has put out their combination shooter and strategy game on the SNES in the US. We get basic notes about what you need to do in the various areas in the game to free it from evil influences, while giving info on the power-ups and level maps for the 2 levels in Fillmore, Bloodpool, Kasandora, Aitos, plus a couple notes for the areas of Marahna & Northwall. The art in this feature actually isn’t too bad. They’re not great – but they’re not terrible either. The Addams Family Guide So, somehow Morticia got lost in the Addams Family’s mansion, and Gomez needs to find her. This would totally be unrealistic – if it weren’t for the fact that this is probably something like foreplay for Morticia and Gomez–which is fine, they have a healthy and energetic sex life. We get a map of the hub area, as well as some of the side areas of the mansion – the game is fairly non-linear. Tiny Toon Adventures Guide Does this look familiar to you? As unoriginal as the level enviroments looked for Batman: Return of the Joker, Tiny Toon’s look worse. Take the bricks in stage 1. If I didn’t know better, they took those bricks from Super Mario Bros. For that matter, same with some of the enviroment graphics of Stage 2 (which we get a complete map of). If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’d ripped off Super Mario Bros 3. Anyway, we get maps of stages 1 through 3, and chunks of stages 4 through 6. Game Boy Coverage Wow, that's big for a barely 8-bit handheld. First up is our cover story, Metroid II. We get a list of the various weapos you can get, as well as a general map of the area. This game is rather expansive, much more than I thought a Game Boy game could get. We also get a map of some of the various chunks of the game–specifically phases 1, 2, and 3. We also get a guide covering Ninja Gaiden Shadow (otherwise known as Shadow of the Ninja). We get maps of just about all of the game, up to the halfway point of stage 5 (the final stage). Frankly, I do enjoy the Ninja Gaiden series, though I’m not good at it, so I’m willing to give this a try. We also have a mini-guide for the Game Boy version of Hudson’s Adventure Island. SNES Coverage We have some coverage of Pilotwings for the SNES. This is definitely one of the first games to really heavily show what Mode 7 could do. We also have a little guide for the SNES port of one of Peter Molineux’s first attempts at a God Game–Populous. Now Playing Of note among the also-rans this issue is Tail Spin (based on the Disney animated series), Irem’s Kung Fu 2, Paperboy 2 from Mindscape, and Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball Top 30 So, this is the last issue of Nintendo Power where the Top 30 is going to be NES Exclusive. They’re not clear how they’ll be adding the SNES and Game Boy titles in, but they will be included. The Top 30 for issue #31 Celebrity Profile This issue we have a profile of Mayim Bailik, the star of Blossom. I never watched that show as a kid. Anyway, after Blossom, she did a bunch of voice acting in some animated series, as well as a few guest starring roles, but nothing as long term as Blossom. Anyway, just about everyone one set owns Game Boys, and play them on down-time. Pak Watch Of note of things to come, There’s Rampart, Mega Man IV and Bart vs. The World for the NES. For the SNES there’s a port of Smash TV (which I’m not sure how they’ll work on the SNES’s controller. For my Quality Control pick of this week, I’m going with Ninja Gaiden Shadow for the Game Boy. Next week, we’ll enter Nintendo Power’s 5th year, and we’ll see how that turns out. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source

So, this week, with our EGM recaps, we’re skipping ahead another few months, to issue #81 for April of 1996. Our cover story for this issue is Street Fighter Alpha II, and I have to say that the cover art isn’t very good. Frankly, the mid-90s have not been kind to EGM’s covers. Editorial This issue Ed Semrad is taking up the pen for the editorial column. It’s been almost a year since the last issue of EGM I recapped, and the Nintendo 64 still isn’t out. That said, at the very least they have decided what they’re calling it now. Ed also has some complaints about Capcom’s inability to count to 3 with game titles, referring to Street Fighter Alpha II (and the lack of a proper Street Fighter III), and also warning Capcom that they should avoid from taking some of the mis-steps that Sega had taken with their Virtua Fighter series around this time (with Virtua Fighter Kids being singled out). The editorial column is much more stream of consciousness this issue. Additionally, they’ve taken to increasing the font size for certain words and phrases for emphasis. I don’t particularly like that. It disrupts the flow of the column, and makes it feel more like a rant. News The Ultra 64 is now the Nintendo 64. However, while it is getting a new name, what it’s not getting is a simultaneous launch in the US, Europe, and Japan. The Japanese launch is still on, while the US and European launch is delayed. Nintendo is not officially saying, at the time this issue came out, why. However, some information in the Editorial column suggests that the delay is due to a shortage of necessary components. Also, the Japanese system isn’t getting a bundled title, and apparently neither will the US. I do remember that we get some bundles later – however, I don’t remember if we got a pack-in at launch or not. Leading into this, we get a preview of the N64DD which, like the Super NES CD-Rom, is vaporware. As it is, from the specifications we get for the hardware, the system would almost be better off with a Zip Drive, except for the whole problems of the click-of-death. On other news fronts, being that this is the age of the CCG (Customizable Card Game–think Magic: The Gathering) Boom, Topps is doing a Killer Instinct CCG. I can’t see that game having the same legs a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat game could have. Additionally, Psygnosis is porting some of their former Sony-exclusive titles to the Saturn, most notably Wipeout. We also have the launch of what would become one of the last great great cheat devices – the GameShark, from Interact. The GameShark, along with the Action Replay lasted until the current Console Generation. With the start of the current generation, with its heavy focus on online multi-player, the era of the game cheat device came to an end. Also, Sega is working with Matsushita (who worked on the 3DO – remember that?) on a system that will use the new Digital Versatile Disk technology to carry games and video. Oh, and we get an ad for gaming news site Nuke.com. I did some more checking and yes, Nuke.com became Gamespot.com, trusted home for Gaming news until Gerstmann-gate. Now, it’s just okay. I still check it out on occasion, but the people I trusted are no longer there, and I’ve noticed that their review style appears to have deliberately changed to make the reviewers less visible. Review Crew So, after the past few months, the Review Crew has been shaken up once again. The new lineup is the late Andrew Baran, Mark LeFebvre (which I’m not going to try to pronounce), Mike Desmond, and Sushi-X. I’d do a Where-Are-They-Now for Desmond and LeFebvre, but I can’t figure out what they’re up to. If Mark and Mike would like to give a shout-out to what they’re currently working on, and they read this, please feel free to drop a note in the comments. Alien Trilogy (Acclaim, PS1): The “Trilogy” part is a misnomer. The game’s plot basically revolves around “Aliens”. However, Alien 3 came out 4 years prior, and Alien Resurrection is set to come out the following year, so the game’s title is going to invoke the idea of the trilogy. Anyway, this game is basically an Aliens First Person Shooter where you play as a Colonial Marine. It’s also EGM’s game of the Month. The Crew applauds the game’s slower pace and the game’s more lethal enemies–which plays up the fact that a Facehugger can (and should) be able to kill you. Additionally, the levels have objectives, as opposed to your standard “find the exit” game-play, with an occasional variation of “find the key to unlock the door so you can exit” game-play that you often saw the early first person shooters. Though, to be fair, while most first person shooters still have a certain degree of reach-the-exit going on, the use of objectives helps change things up enough to provide some variety. Anyway, they’re also impressed with the game’s lighting and level design. Andrew gives it an 8.5, while Mark, Mike and Sushi give it 9s. Overall: 35.5/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Frantic Flea (GameTek, SNES): I remember GameTek. They did a lot of licenced trivia games – specifically with the Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy licences. I don’t recall any notable original IPs from them, aside from the Brutal series. This game is a mascot 2D platformer, one of the last as the genre starts to kind of burn out gamers, at least for a while. The complaints are, mainly, that the game is frustrating, the main character’s only attack isn’t very effective, and that you need to collect a certain number of fleas to progress, but if you get hit once you drop all your fleas, and thus have to start over. Andrew gives it a 7, Mark gives it a 5, Mike gives it a 5.5, and Sushi gives it a 6. Overall: 23.5/40. Thunderstrike II (U.S. Gold, Saturn): Helicopter flight simulator. Frankly, I didn’t know that US Gold survived this long. I was sure they went under earlier. The consensus is that this is one of the best flight-sims for home consoles, though it still has it’s flaws. In particular, there is some graphical pop-up, some problems with slowdown, and an inability to change the target you’re locked on to. Frankly, that last one is a major biggie. Andrew gives it an 8.5, Sushi and Mark give it 8s, and Mike gives it a 7.5. Overall: 32/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Defcon 5 (Data East, Saturn): This is a kind of base/tower defense game, but one that’s played in the first person. You are an engineer at a deep-space mining installation, but in charge of setting up, controlling, and repairing the base’s defense system, and trying to keep alien intruders from getting inside of the base and destroying it. The Crew generally likes the game’s take on the first person shooter genre (and frankly, it’s a take on the genre that’s still innovative – to my knowledge nobody’s tried to do a new combination of the tower defense genre and the first person shooter genre). However, there are some control problems. Andrew and Sushi give the game 7.5s, Mike gives it a 7, and Mark gives it a 6.5. Overall: 28.5/40 D (Acclaim, Saturn): This is a puzzle based horror adventure game with a time limit – you have to solve the game’s puzzles within 2 hours, and there’s no pause function, and you can’t carry over stuff between playthroughs. To me, that sounds like an exercise in frustration. It’s also (as many other adventure games from this period) FMV heavy. However, the Crew likes it. Andrew and Mark give the game 8.5s, with Andrew drawing comparisons with Phantasmagoria (a valid comparison). Mike gives it a 7, applauding the lack of load time between areas, and Sushi gives it an 8. Overall: 32/40 and it receives the Editor’s Choice Gold Award. Clockwork Knight 2 (Sega, Saturn): Clockwork Knight got a sequel rather quickly. Further, the sequel managed to incorporate a lot of refinements quickly as well. In particular, the difficulty was tweaked for novice players, running is easier to do, and the graphics are adjusted to take better advantage of the Saturn’s potential. Andrew and Mike give it 9s, Mark and Sushi give it 8.5s. Overall: 35/40. Johnny Bazookatone (US Gold, PlayStation): So, this is a licenced action game, and one that I’m not surprised that I’ve never heard of. All things considered, I’m not surprised that the game has some problems. To be specific, the game is very picky about what you can or can’t stand on and it’s picky about the collision detection. They cut it a surprising amount of slack though. Andrew and Sushi give it 7s, Mark gives it an 8.5 and Mike gives it an 8. Overall: 30.5/40. Krazy Ivan (Psygnosis, PS1): This is a mecha simulator. We’re going to get a lot more of these as the 90s go on. They liked the game, though Mark and Mike thought it was a little short, and Andrew had a bit of a problem with the strafe controls. Specifically, instead of holding them down to constantly strafe, you have to mash the strafe button, which I can understand why that’s frustrating. The game gets a 9 from Andrew, 7s from Mark and Mike, and an 8 from Sushi. Overall: 31/40. Braindead 13 (Readysoft, 3DO): A FMV-heavy adventure game – which is to be somewhat expected as this is the studio that brought you Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. It’s also a little less linear than those games, and it gives you unlimited lives. The crew does agree that there’s essentially no replay value here, except maybe going for a speed run later. Andrew gives it a 9, Mark gives it a 7.5, and Mike and Sushi give it 7s. Overall: 30.5/40. Baldies (Atari, Jaguar CD): This is a real-time strategy game. That’s right – we’re getting into the heyday of the RTS. Mark compares it to Lemmings and Command & Conquer, Mike compares it to Lemmings & Warcraft. I’m suspecting the Lemmings comparison comes from the game’s lighter tone. There are some complaints about the controls being tricky to get the hang of, and the FMV cutscenes not looking very good. Andrew gives it a 9, Mark gives it an 8, and Mike & Sushi give it 8.5s. Overall: 34/40. Tetris Blast (Nintendo, Game Boy): Basically, it’s Tetris with bombs, which allow you to clear ever more massive swaths of the screen. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as addictive as standard Tetris. The game gets a 7 from Andrew, 8s from Mark and Sushi, and an 8.5 from Mike. Overall: 31.5/40. Gaming Gossip Being that this issue of EGM is undamaged, we have a full Gaming Gossip column this time. First up, rumors are already circulating about the PlayStation 2. That’d be a pretty fast turnaround time on console generations. Mind you, we do eventually get a PlayStation 2, but not for some time. Square is also considering releasing compilations of Final Fantasy through FFIV on the PlayStation. Not quite – we don’t get III, but they make up for it by giving us V, VI, and Chrono Trigger. Quake is rumored to get a home console port from GT Interactive. Well, we do get a home console port on the N64 and the Saturn, but Midway publishes the N64 version, and Sega publishes the Saturn version. Sega’s planning on putting out a web browser for the Saturn. Unfortunately that browser is vaporware. However, they do include Internet connectivity in the Dreamcast, the first console to do so. They even designed a mouse an keyboard for it, and first person shooters that were ported to the Dreamcast could be played with the mouse and keyboard, and played online, and played against PC gamers. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast was ahead of it’s time. And last, but not least, Atari is pulling out of the console market. So, for those playing the home game, that leaves Sega, Nintendo, Sony, and Matsushita left in the console market. Feature Articles We start off with our preview of Street Fighter Alpha 2. You know this is the mid-90’s when they describe the game’s visual style as being “Japanimation” instead of being “anime”. First off, the major differences between the versions are that Dan Hibiki, Akuma/Gouki, and M. Bison/Lord Vega are now playable characters, instead of being hidden bosses. This is kind of good, which considering that Dan Hibiki is a joke character, and bosses are always cranked up in difficulty, can you imagine getting beat by Dan Hibiki when he’s controlled by the computer? Getting beat by Dan while controlled by another human is humiliating enough. Zangief also returns, and with this game we get the additions of Rolento, Gen, and genki schoolgirl Sakura. Next Wave We have a much more in-depth article on Frantic Flea here. However, unlike the usual more “in-depth” coverage later in the magazine, the focus is more on talking about the game and the writer’s impressions about the game, instead of of using the magazine as a method of conveying screen shots. This is a good thing, considering that around the time of this issue’s publication, the Internet is becoming more wide-spread, and thus screen shots are becoming a little more accessible. However, magazines can still have higher quality screen shots, as they don’t have to worry about using a lot of bandwidth (since in 1996 broadband Internet wasn’t very common). Still, having more discussion of the game is very nice to have. There’s also a preview of Guardian Heroes, a fighter/brawler from Treasure for the Saturn that can handle six-person free-for-alls, which is impressive, and also fits with the frantic tone that Treasure is known for. The game also has some RPG elements as well, in that you can level-up the fighter you play as. This sound pretty interesting, actually. However, being that is a brawler, it can get monotonous over time. That said, since it does support multi-player, that should help alleviate some of the monotony, as from my personal experience, brawlers like Turtles in Time were considerably more fun when you were playing with someone instead of playing by yourself. Next up is Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge from Capcom. I’ll be frank, I’ve never really gotten into the Darkstalkers series. It just never quite worked for me – I’m not sure why. As far as over-the-top fighting games go, I prefer the Guilty Gear series to the Darkstalkers series. There’s also a look at Street Fighter Alpha for the Saturn. Apparently while the Saturn version has arcade-quality graphics and sound, what it doesn’t have is Arcade-quality speed. Now, I haven’t played the arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha, but I have played the version on the Street Fighter Alpha collection for the PS2. Hopefully that version retains the arcade quality graphics with the increased speed. Anyway, the Saturn version of Alpha has some problems. The controls are laggy, and there are problems with collision detection – which, because of the nature of fighting games, are big freaking problems. We also have a look at Revolution X, Aerosmith’s first try at a console game – one that failed pretty badly. Cheer up guys, you’ll do better once Red Octane comes around. There’s also a preview of the Saturn port of Magic Carpet. Meanwhile, we have the first Namco Collection for the PlayStation. I have to say that the Namco Collection series, early on, had some of the best presentation in its little genre (Compilations of Classic Arcade Games). This collection contains a few games that I haven’t seen in later collections – specifically Rally X, New Rally X, Pole Position, Toyopop, and their shump Bosconian. The PlayStation is also getting a port of Myst (just like just about every other disk-based system). There’s also the PlayStation port of the first-person shooter (by the way, gaming has progressed enough that they’re willing to call it a “First Person Shooter” now, instead of a Doom Clone) PO’d, which really doesn’t look very good. Frankly, it looks downright terrible. Vik Tokai has the point and click (or in this case, press), adventure game Silverload, which is rare among video games because it’s set in the Old West. Mindscape has the space sim Raven Project. It looks like the game works okay in the levels that are in a planet’s atmosphere. However, when the game is in space, it apparently runs into problems, as the engine doesn’t work well for three-dimensional combat, ala Wing Commander and X-Wing. Moving away from games that are in a more Western themed design idiom, there’s Horned Owl from Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a sort of shoot-em-up like Virtua Cop, except you’re controlling a cop in powered armor. The mechanical design is even by Masamune Shirow, which is nice. They oddly don’t name-drop Ghost in the Shell, but they do name-drop Appleseed. To be fair, Ghost in the Shell was only out for a month, and none of the mecha from the manga made it into the film. Meanwhile, the Japanese PlayStation has its first platformer in Floating Runner. The game looks pretty generic, and if it got a stateside release, I’d be surprised. We have a new sub-section of this called “Protos”, for games that are very early in their development. This section has screen shots and some notes on the games. This issue has coverage of Ultimate Mortal Kombat III for the Saturn, and the announcement that the game will have a 22 character roster (one of the biggest fighting game rosters for the time). There’s also a look at a licenced game based off of Congo for the Saturn, and a game from Atlus titled Devil Summoner (or, rather, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner) the precursor to the later Raidou Kuzunoha games in the series – though unlike those game, Devil Summoner’s protagonist isn’t an Onmyoji (or Onmyoji-knockoff). We also get our first look at Final Fantasy VII and it’s protagonists Claude, Ealis, and Barrett. Well, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad…. yes it is. There’s also a new Top Gun flight sim, and a Warhammer RTS in “Shadow in the Horned Bat”. I’m eternally amused by the fact that the Top Gun franchise, despite being spawned by a movie, is made up almost entirely of arcade-style fight simulators. Speaking of sims, Wing Commander III is getting a PlayStation port, FMV cut-scenes and all, including the perfomances of Malcolm McDowell & Mark Hamill. I really hope that this makes it to PlayStation Network eventually. Also, the Playstation is getting the Arc The Lad Strategy RPG. I haven’t played the original game – just the most recent game for the PS2, which I wasn’t impressed with. SCE is also putting out a more sprite-based traditional RPG in Beyond the Beyond. Meanwhile, Virtua Fighter is getting a fighting game with Super Deformed characters (set to be released in the US as Virtua Fighter Kids), and Sonic The Hedgehog, of all of Sega’s franchises, is getting a fighting game. It all goes downhill from here folks. On the bright side, SNK’s got a new fighting game coming out called “Ninja Masters”. Once again, we’re skipping the Sports coverage, and moving on to the letters column. Letters This issue they’re saving the best for last, sort of. The letter of the month is voicing a complaint that EGM’s own editorial staff has expressed – one of exasperation with Nintendo’s constant delays for the release of the Nintendo 64. Frankly, I would say that part of the reason why the N64 didn’t do well on the market was the fact that the system’s launch lineup really didn’t compensate for the constant delays. With the SNES, we had titles like Super Mario World, Super R-Type, and Castlevania IV that really made up for it. The N64 had Mario 64, Pilotwings and (a little later), GoldenEye. That’s it. There’s also a question about whether Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 will be ported for the N64. The response is that Midway is working on a port – but it never materializes. The N64 doesn’t get a Mortal Kombat game until Mortal Kombat 4. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source

Get Season 2 from Bones from Amazon.com As you may have gathered from my review of the first season, I liked the start of this. I liked the Forensic Anthropologist take on the Science Detective show.  I liked the characters, and I liked the stories in the show. Now I’ve watched Season 2, and the show has slightly changed it’s focus, to a certain extent. Specifically, in this season the focus has changed from being heavily based around the murders, with the character focused side plots orbiting around it. Instead, with this season, the show has balanced itself out, like a binary star system (which is thus far the geekiest reference I’ve ever made), between the mysteries themselves and the portion of the plot based around the lives of the people working with Bones. This is not a bad thing. To get into the details, this season of Bones has two little side arcs to it. The first relates to the mystery surrounding Bones’ ex-bank robber father, who is still alive but missing, why he and Bones’ mother ran away from their children all those years ago. The other focuses around the blooming romance between Hodgins and Angela, which gets progressively serious over the course of the season. Both of these side plots are pretty well executed. I was a little worried about how they’d handle the arc around Bones’ father, but it worked out well. To be frank, the first episode involving Bones father was flawless. However, as Bones’ father, Max, returned, I became a little worried about how this would turn out. My ultimate concern was that they’d turn Max into what would ultimately be a Carmen Sandiego-esque super-ex criminal. Not in terms of stealing national landmarks, but always staying 3 steps ahead of the police, despite the fact that he’s constantly hanging around Washington DC, and semi-regularly contacting his daughter. The fact that Max was arrested (by Booth) at the end of the season was a good way of resolving this plot arc, in my opinion. On the other hand, the romance between Hodgins and Angela was very well written – especially considering that Hodgins is probably one of the most functional people in the lab aside from Angela. It was believable and generally executed splendidly. If I had any complaints with that, the one that came to mind was the prior marriage that Angela had just so happened to have forgotten about – a cliche that I find to be more than a bit hokey. Other then that, I have only one other complaint about this season. In one of the episodes, Hodgins and Bones are kidnapped and buried alive. This is a traumatic incident for both of them, one which is referenced throughout the season. The kidnapper gets away and there’s a general declaration of “I’ll get this guy” or something in some form or another to that effect by various members of the cast. Aside from the brief references in dialog though, the hunt for the kidnapper in question, the “Grave Digger”, is quietly brushed aside. I do hope this plot point does come up later eventually in a future season. All complaints aside, among all the many bright spots in this season, one shines brighter than the others. That is the repeat guest starring appearances of Stephen Fry as Dr. Gordon Wyatt. He is fantastic in every episode he appears in this season. Fry is a genius actor, and he works excellently with every character in this show he shares a scene with, and I’m looking forward to Season 4, which is where his character returns. Recommendation: This is a very good show. If you like detective shows (particularly Forensic Detective shows), and don’t have problems with skeletons and some limited gore, I’d say this show is worth checking out. Filed under: Television Tagged: DVD, review, TV Source

Get UN Squadron from eBay By the time you read this, I will have a copy of Final Fantasy XIII in my hands. So, since I don’t want to do a game for Quality Control that would take time that I could otherwise spend studying or playing Final Fantasy XIII, I’m picking UN Squadron for my Quality Control. Additionally, since this game is based on an anime and manga series (Area 88), I’m also going to do a review of the first OVA series (presumably the one that came out contemporary with the game). That review will, of course, come out later. First, though, we scramble for the review. (See what I did there? Fighter pilot joke). The Premise Shin Kazama is a young, successful, Japanese airline pilot. He’s got a lucrative job with a major Japanese airline. The boss’s daughter digs him. Everything looks good. So good in fact, that he doesn’t realize that his friend Satoru resents his success. So, he’s caught rather off guard when Satoru gets him drunk, and signs him up with a mercenary contract with the Air Force with the nation of Aslan (a fictitious Middle Eastern/North African country), which is in the middle of a civil war between the two heirs to the throne. Shin (lucky him) gets stationed at an air base near the front lines, the titular Area 88. Shin has only two ways in which he could get out of this war alive – last the 3 years of his contract, or earn $1.5 Million from the bounties for shooting down enemy pilots and destroying targets so he can buy out his contract. Did I mention that he has to pay for his own fuel, ammunition, and if he gets shot down he has to buy new planes? The Good It’s a shump with a life bar. More than that, it’s got a level up system for your gun, so that when/if you die, you keep the same powered up gun when you start over. The selection of power-up items you can purchase are excellent. The bullet patterns for the enemies, while difficult, are avoidable with practice. The variety of level environments (and the objectives you have to complete) are nice, the controls are rock solid (at least with an analog stick), and the sound effects and music are good. The Bad One of the of the bosses (one of the last two – before the final level) is designed in away that it can only be beaten with certain planes or special weapons. The Ugly There are no mid-mission checkpoints. If you die in a mission, you have to start over from the beginning. The game also limits your possible continues. As I’ve expressed previously, there’s no particular reason to put a limited number of continues in a home console game. Limiting your continues and making you start the level over from the very beginning when you die, when you’re dealing with a home console game (instead of an arcade game), only serve to artificially pad out the game. The Verdict This is a very, very good shump. I’d even say it’s one of the best Shumps on the SNES. I strongly recommend picking it up, though if you want to get it, you’ll have to get it through eBay, and you’ll need a SNES to play it. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: Nintendo Power, Quality Control, review, SNES Source

Moving on to our Nintendo Power recaps, we come to issue #30 for November of 1994, and our cover story is Final Fantasy II, otherwise known to the rest of the world (and most gamers today) as Final Fantasy IV. Oh, and the Chocobo on the cover, even though it is black, isn’t the wrong cover. It’s flying, and in Final Fantasy II/IV Black Chocobos are the ones that can fly. Letters This month they were asking for letters from people asking who they’d like to play multi-player Game Boy games with over the link cable. About half of them don’t specify a game, but a few do. A few writers specify the game they’d like to play against that person – usually something in the same “field” as the person works in. For example, one person wants to play Bo Jackson’s Baseball against Bo Jackson, NASCAR Challenge against Bill Elliott, NBA All-Star Challenge against Michael Jordan, and so forth. The semi-exception being one player who wants to play multi-player Tetris against Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev because, and I quote “I would like to study his strategy and maybe even beat him.” I like that. The Flintstones Guide Well, the Flintstones have gotten their own platformer, in a Super Mario Bros. 3 style. The game’s plot (what little there is), has Fred and Barney using The Great Gazoo’s Time Machine to rescue Dino and Hoppy (the family pets) from a 30th Century scientist. Considering that the character was introduced toward the end of the series, when everything started going downhill, and leading up to the show’s cancellation. However, unlike Super Mario Bros. 3, this is essentially a one, maybe two World game. One World is the Flintstone’s world, where you collect the pieces of the Great Gazoo’s Time Machine, and one World is the future world, which is where you go when you get the Time Machine, and where you will also team up with the Jetsons. *Sigh* Anyway, we get maps of all the levels in the Flintstone’s world, as well as advice on getting item upgrades by playing Basketrock. Nester’s Adventures This issue Nester is playing F-Zero. Aside from managing to slip a Monty Python And The Holy Grail reference into the strip, they also advise us, when ramming our opponents on the track, to hit them off center to get them to lose control. If that works, that’s some pretty complicated physics for a SNES game. Final Fantasy II (IV) Guide Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be a complete guide like the one they did for Final Fantasy I. As it is, it’s okay. If I have any complaints, it’s that some of the art isn’t so hot. For example, Kain, the Dragoon, is depicted in the art they have of him as not wearing pants. Neither is Cecil. For that matter, the art we get of him at the start of the guide depicts him more as a Holy Knight instead of a Dark Knight. Plus, the art for Rosa certainly *ahem* emphasizes her bust. I’m just going to say that I’d prefer Yoshitaka Amano’s art to the art in this guide. Anyway, the guide doesn’t take you all the way through the game, but it does take you to the segment on the moon. Once you get to the Moon, you have to finish the game on your own. Good luck. Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego? Guide Broderbund’s classic enjoyable edutainment game has been ported to the NES, and it even comes with a New American Desk Encyclopedia to help you get though the game. Or, if you’re playing the game now, you could just use Wikipedia. The guide helps you get through your first case. Ultimate Air Combat Guide This is a flight sim for the NES from Activision. We get a run-down of the 3 types of fighters you can fly as (F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet, and Harrier Jump Jet), and the kinds of weapons they can be equipped with. We also get a run-down of the cockpit display. Tom & Jerry Guide So, you’re playing as Jerry, and have to rescue his nephew Tuffy from Tom, who has locked him in a trunk in the attic. We get detailed maps of the first Stage of each World, as well as notes for the other 2 Stages in that World. Game Boy Coverage We get notes on the Game Boy port of Battletoads, with maps for stage 1 and 3 through 5, and notes on Stage 2, which is a vehicle level. We also get maps of the first half of the Game Boy version of Kid Icarus. We also get notes (but no maps) for some of the levels in Faceball 2000. We also get some level maps for the port of Double Dragon II. There are also some tips for WordHai, a word puzzle game. We also get a look at a few upcoming titles, such as Ninja Gaiden Shadow, which was originally meant to be a port of Natsume’s Shadow of the Ninja. SNES Coverage We get a guide for Super Tennis, with notes on all of the different kinds of shots you can make in the game, as well as the different kinds of playing surfaces, different game-play modes, and different players you can control. There’s also a guide for UN Squadron, which is adapted from the Manga and OVA series Area 88. Unfortunately, the manga series was never released in it’s entirety in the US. Hopefully someone like Yen Press will release the complete series, since we’re experiencing a new wave of backlash against Scantilators in the anime fandom community. There’s also a guide for Natsume’s Baseball Simulator 1.000. We get notes for each of the different “Ultra Moves” which pitchers and batters can use in the game. Now Playing Of note this issue is Space Shuttle Project, a Space Shuttle flight simulator and Darius Twin from Taito. Top 30 Alrighty, I’m going to try splicing both pages togeather again, and I’m going to see if I can put the picture in without breaking the formatting. Celebrity Profile This month they’re profiling Robert Englund, aka the original Freddy Kruger. It’s pretty clear that Englund isn’t much of a gamer. As for what he’s recently been up to, he’s played The Vulture on the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series. Pak Watch We have the Empire Strikes Back game for the NES, which I’m going to skip, Wizards and Warriors III also for the NES, and Lemmings for the SNES. Letter from the Staff This month’s letter is from editor George Seinfield (no relation to Seinfeld), about the lead time coming up to Nintendo Power issues, and the selection of games for the cover. Why bring this up? Well, Robin Hood: Prince of Theves, which not only recieved a guide in the magazine, but was featured on the cover, hasn’t come out yet. This is their semi-mia culpa. Now, for my Quality Control pick for this issue. While I’m totally tempted to go with Final Fantasy II/IV, especially since Final Fantasy XIII is being released soon, the fact is Final Fantasy XIII is being released soon, I’ve pre-ordered it, and I’m not going to have time to beat Final Fantasy II before switching to Final Fantasy XIII. So, instead I’m going with UN Squadron. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source

Alright then. We’re going back, after a long hiatus, to my Electronic Gaming Monthly recaps. This time we’re skipping ahead some to issue 75, for October of 1995. Our cover story is Mortal Kombat III for the Sony PlayStation and… Street Fighter: The Movie – The Game for the Sega Saturn. I can tell you right now which one I’d rather play. Editorial Danyon Carpenter has this issue’s editorial column. As the 16-bit generation comes to an end, it’s going out with some pretty impressive games. Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, among other games for the SNES. The Genesis on the other hand is getting Vectorman, Comix Zone and other good games. So, Danyon advocates hanging on to those soon-to-be oldies-but-goodies for your 16-bit systems, something that I can definitely agree with. Letters So, the year is 1995, the year of the Primaries for the upcoming 1996 Presidential election, which Clinton wins. Again, though, before the election, we must have the Primaries, which means we have primary ads. This leads us to our Letter of the Month. Our letter writer reminds us that candidates who run on an anti-video game platform are thus running on a pro-censorship platform, and thus we should be wary. I wouldn’t say that you should vote on the video game censorship issue alone, though. If I had during the 2000 election, were I old enough to vote in that election, I would have ended up voting for Bush because of Tipper Gore, and her ties to the PMRC and Jack Thompson, and that would be something I would have regretted later. We also get a letter complaining about the magazine’s price being increased by 4 cents. Really? Four cents. And I thought I was cheap! We also get a letter commenting about the delays that the Ultra 64 (later the Nintendo 64) has experienced, saying that it’s got an uphill struggle against the Saturn and the PlayStation. Well, 1 out of 2 ain’t bad. Indeed this console generation is the beginning of a stretch where Nintendo’s total dominance of home consoles was no more, playing second fiddle to Sony. This situation would remain until the launch of the Nintendo Wii. We also get a complaint about the odd shape of the cases for Sega Saturn games. They actually look similar to some DVD cases I’ve seen, which were an odd amalgam of a Jewel Case and DVD case. Not the best design in the world. We also have some complaints about the PlayStation (currently known as the PSX) shipping without a launch game. There’s also a letter complaining about some of the ads Sony and and 3DO have done for their systems, and their more “edgy” ad slogans (with various sex related pitches). I have to agree that these kind of sound like the type of slogans you’d get from, say, Vince Russo. We get a question about whether we’ll Neo-Geo ports for the PlayStation (they do come, but not for a while yet). There’s also complaining about the Virtual Boy (something that’s totally justified). News Sega’s Nomad (their hand-held Genesis) is still under development. Also, many game publishers are going on-line, though it’s not totally widespread yet. Ah, the Web, it’s growing up. Oh, and it bears mentioning that throughout the letters column and news, there’s plugging for Nuke.com, a game news site which is currently owned by C|Net, which owns Gamespot (and if you go to Nuke.com, it redirects to Gamespot.) We also have the first appearance (in these recaps), of MadCatz, who has a new Composite cable switch on the market. We also get an add for Hori’s arcade sticks for the PlayStation and the Saturn. Review Crew Our Review Crew as of this issue is Danyon Carpenter, Al Manuel, Andrew Baran (who is unfortunately no longer with us, killed by pancreatic cancer), and Sushi-X. Mortal Kombat III (Sony, PS1): This issue’s Game of the Month gets some major accolades, with only one complaint – loading times causing the game to lag when Shang Tsung uses his morphing power. Danyon and Andrew give the game 9s, Sushi gives it an 8.5 (apparently they’re giving half-points now) and Al gives it an 8. Overall: 34.5/40. Dracula X (Konami, SNES): This port of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, actually was never released in stores. Fear not, though, as it was released for the PSP as Dracula X Chronicles, and is apparently set to be released for the Wii Virtual Console. Unfortunately, it’s not a good port of the PC Engine CD Rom version of the game. The sound quality is down (which is to be expected from a cartridge game), and some of the game-play innovations from Castlevania IV are absent (like the 8-way whip). Danyon and Sushi give the game 7s, and Al and Andrew give the game 6.5s. Overall: 27/40. Mechwarrior 3050 (Activision, SNES): This is not a first-person perspective mech piloting game like with the PC Mechwarrior games. This is instead a isometric game along the lines of the $ENVIRONMENT Strike games. The opinion among the crew about the game is mixed. Danyon and Andrew like the game, though Andrew’s more of an Inner Sphere kind of guy. However, Andrew found that the enemies get some cheap hits in, and Al finds it hard to control with this camera angle. Sushi, on the other hand, isn’t a fan of Battletech in any form and doesn’t particularly enjoy the games set in the universe. Danyon gives the game an 8 and Andrew gives it an 8.5. Al gives it a 5 and Sushi gives it a 5.5. Overall: 27 out of 40. Scooby-Doo (Acclaim, Genesis): Essentially this is an Sierra-style adventure game. Al and others in the crew found the game incredibly short, only taking 20 minutes to complete both stories in the game. Danyon and Andrew give it a 8.5s, Sushi gives it a 7.5, and Al gives it a 6. Overall: 30.5/40. Lunar: Eternal Blue (Working Designs, Sega CD): The crew enjoys the game, though they find the game very simplistic, with none of the customization that’s included in even the Dragon Quest games. However, they do like the game’s presentation. The game gets 8s from Danyon, Andrew, and Sushi, and a 7 from Al. Overall: 31/40. Robotica (Acclaim, Saturn): First person shooter for the Saturn. However, this is the mid-90s, so it’s a “Doom Clone”. That said, it’s a “Doom clone” which the Crew thinks is pretty good, and an original take on the genre (though nobody’s calling it a genre yet). However, they do think the levels start to blur together over time. Andrew and Sushi gave the game 7.5s, Al gives the game a 7, and Danyon gives it a 6.5. Overall: 28.5/40. Kileak: The DNA Imperative (Sony, PS1): A first-party, first person shooter for the PlayStation. However, the Crew isn’t as impressed with this game. There are a lot of cheap hits in the game, the interface and control aren’t as good, and the creature design isn’t so hot. Andrew and Sushi give the game 7.5s, Danyon gives it a 7, and Al gives it a 5.5. Overall: 27.5/40. Total Eclipse: Turbo (Crystal Dynamics, PS1): This is a Starfox style behind-the-back shooter. It’s also a 3DO port, and one that’s not as good as the original (which is saying something). The controls are sluggish, there are loads of cheap hits, and too sensitive collision detection. Danyon and Sushi give the game 6s, and Al gives the game a 6.5. Andrew gives it a 3. Overall: 21.5/40. Panzer General (SSI, 3DO): It’s a port of SSI’s classic World War II strategy game. Like its source material it’s very complex, and dull to some players, and like most SSI strategy games, it has a steep learning curve. The game gets a 7.5 from Andrew, Danyon gives it a 7, and Al and Sushi give it 6.5s. Overall: 27.5/40. Space Hulk (EA, 3DO): Games Workshop’s turn-based strategy game is adapted into a first person real time strategy game. I have to say, this sounds like it is #1 – hard, and #2 – scary. The opinions of the crew agree with my suspicions. Andrew gives it a 7.5, Danyon gives it a 7, Sushi gives it a 6.5 and Al gives it a 5.5. Overall: 26.5/40 Virtua Fighter (Sega, 32X): Well, if you don’t have a Saturn, but do have a 32X, here is how you may play Virtua Fighter. The port gets decent reviews, though Al isn’t a fan of Virtua Fighter, and his score reflects it. The main complaint is that this is the original Virtua Fighter, instead of the Remix, and its visual haven’t aged well. Andrew gives the game an 8.5, Danyon gives it an 8, Sushi gives it a 7.5, an Al gives it a 6.5. Overall: 30.5/40. Pitfall (Activision, 32X): I presume this is “Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure”. I’ll also take a moment to notice that little to none of Activision’s old IPs from their founding has been revived or remade by Activision Blizzard in any form. You’d think they’d try to capitalize on Uncharted’s success with a Pitfall revival. Anyway, this version is just like the 16-bit version, except with loose controls. This is a deal-killer for Danyon, though the rest of the Crew is more forgiving. Danyon gives it a 5.5, and everyone else gives it 7s. Overall: 26.5/40. Red Alarm (Nintendo, Virtual Boy): Well, we’ve missed the launch of the Virtual Boy in the gap I’ve got in the EGM archive. Hopefully I’ll be able to fill that later, particularly considering the Virtual Boy’s role in ending Gunpei Yokoi’s career at Nintendo. This game is another behind the back shump like Starfox – a genre that’s become pretty popular with the start of the 32 bit generation. Unfortunately, the Virtual Boy isn’t able to do some of the polygonal shapes that make these types of games good on the SNES with the Super FX and on the 32-bit systems. This leads to the main complaint that it’s easy to get lost in the game, particularly if you run into a wall and bounce off – because odds are high that you’ll pinball into another wall, and keep going until you lose either most of your life bar or die. The crew don’t think it’s too bad though. Danyon and Andrew gave it 7.5s. Al and Sushi gave the game 6s. Overall: 27/40. Galactic Pinball (Nintendo, Virtual Boy): So, to my knowledge, this is the first pinball video game which basically better replicates the perspective that you have when you’re playing pinball, rather then looking straight down on the board like with most other Pinball games on consoles. However, aside from being on the Virtual Boy, it also has some problems with the paddles control being sluggish, which is very, very bad in a pinball game. Andrew gives the game a 7.5, Danyon gives the game a 7, Sushi gives it a 5.5, and Al gives it a 5. Overall: 25/40. Gaming Gossip We also get a brief ad for the some Aliens game from Mindscape which doesn’t tell us what system it’s on. It might even be a PC game for all they tell us – which is what it is, and it’s an adventure game. Unfortunately, my copy of EGM is missing top portions of several pages. Now, most of these are ads, but one of them is on Quartermann’s so I’m not able to to do all of that column. From what we are able to get, apparently the 3DO is getting a Mortal Kombat III release. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, it’s now officially the Mid-90s, where having a port of Mortal Kombat III is a necessity for each console, the same way Street Fighter II ports were back in the early 90s. Also, the N64 is also supposed to be released in December of 1995. Only it doesn’t actually come out until June (in Japan) and September (in the US) of 1996. Special Features We’re starting out with a feature preview of Mortal Kombat III for the PlayStation. We don’t get a lot of info about the game that isn’t in the review in the Review Crew segment though. Similarly the preview of Street Fighter: The Game of the Movie isn’t very informative either, which is kind of unfortunate because the game was crap, and it’s pretty clear that it’s crap. My guess is that the EGM staff doesn’t want to pass judgement on a game when it’s unfinished, and they’re hoping they’ll fix the control problems when the game is finally released. There’s also a preview of the various home ports of Virtua Fighter, such as the 32X version, as well as screen shots of Virtua Fighter Remix and Virtua Fighter 2. Oh, and we also have previews of some of our standard upcoming lineup titles. Notable ones include The 11th Hour (which is a sequel to The 7th Guest – which was ported to just about every single disk systems). There’s also Spot Goes to Hollywood, the sequel to Cool Spot but with the same isometric camera angle of Sonic 3D Blast. Arcade Action Sega has Virtua Cop 2 coming out (which I’ve played at a Ground Kontrol, a local arcade, and I enjoyed it immensely). SNK is coming out with Metal Slug, one of their longest running series of action games. There’s also a new Bust a Move game called Puzzle de Pon. I’m just going to take a moment here to put a minor complaint about the current format for the Arcade Action column, or the form of this column in this magazine. Specifically the writing style’s a little unprofessional. In what way you ask? Well, here’s a quote from Mark Hein, one of the writers for this column – “(Namely, the death of fighting games–YAY!!!!!!!!!)”. This is part of a longer thing about seeing the “future of arcade games” at SNK’s Gamer’s Day. My complaint with this that it looks like something someone would write on the comments at NeoGAF, but with better grammar. No, I take that back–I can’t think of anyone on the Internet who would be as stupid as to grave-dance a genre like Fighting Games. However, the writing style looks like something written by a 13 year old. International Outlook Sega of Japan is working on Sega Rally Championship, a semi-arcade style racing game, along with Formula 1 Live Information, which is more realistic and serious. They’ve also got an Isometric Godzilla action game. Square has Romancing SaGa 3, which is a fairly ambitious sounding RPG, and I’m considering emulating and trying to review. There’s also an in-depth preview of Clockwork Knight for the Saturn, which is set to get a US release. There’s also a look at Super Mario RPG from Square. Next Wave We get our very first screen shot in this issue of Resident Evil for the Sony PlayStation. We also get a preview of the 3DO version of Primal Rage. Acclaim has a Batman Forever beat-em-up, with digitized characters ala Mortal Kombat. It’s also absolute rubbish (something the Angry Video Game Nerd has covered at length on his show). Vik Tokai (which is surprisingly still around) is working on Alien Virus for the PS1. Capcom is working on Mega Man X3 for the SNES, and we also get a first look at Street Fighter Alpha which is currently known as Street Fighter Legends, and we get a look at Breath of Fire 2. Capcom is also working on Final Fight 3, featuring the return of Guy. Activision has their FMV-powered sequel to Zork titled Return to Zork. Ocean is also working on various games based on Waterworld for 16-bit systems, 32-bit system, and also the Virtual Boy (the Virtual Boy’s only 3rd party title). Domark has a flight sim called Flying Nightmares that looks kind of interesting. Koei has a sequel to PTO: Pacific Theater of Operations. I still miss the days where Koei did strategy games that weren’t based on Japan and China’s Warring States periods. Now, again, I’m going to skip the Sports game section here, and go straight to the PC Games section. PC Games Well, it’s the mid-90s, which is a heck of a good time to be into PC gaming – as shown by some of the previews we have in this issue. We get a look at Quake from ID (which I have not beaten because of the motion sickness the game gives me). Micropose is also working on a Magic The Gathering PC game, which I’ve played, and I thought that it was okay. Not great, just okay. There’s also Magic Carpet 2 from Bullfrog, headed by a guy who you may have heard of (Peter Molyneux). Sierra also has the combination Real-Time-Strategy/City-Building sim Caesar 2. There’s also a review of the sci-fi racing game Hi-Octane, which is also from Bullfrog. The game gets 8.2/10. There’s also a review of the helicopter flight-sim Apache, which gets an 8.8/10. SNES Coverage We have a preview of a port of Civilization from the PC. Now, parents, you can hear your kids sing the refrain of “One More Turn”. It’s also being published by Koei, which seems like a good fit. I wonder who publishes the Civ PC games in Japan. Is it 2K Games or is it someone else? There’s also an action game based on The Mask, as in the Jim Carrey movie. Urban Strike is getting a SNES port. There’s the puzzle game Zoop, which is a block elimination game. Sega Coverage No previews of any Genesis games that weren’t in the review section. We have a review of Space Pirate, which appears to feature Cobra from Space Adventure Cobra. The Saturn has the sci-fi helicopter flight sim Black Fire which doesn’t look (graphically) terrible. The game itself (according to the preview) is apparently kind of dull. PlayStation Coverage No previews of anything that wasn’t covered by the Review Crew. 3DO Coverage Nothing here that wasn’t covered by the Crew. Game Boy Coverage We get a look at Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie for the Game Boy, which I’m not impressed by. Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: EGM, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read Source

When I was a kid, I picked up a used copy of Ghouls & Ghosts for the NES. I picked it up after hearing Adam Sessler, a game critic I respect immensely, gush about the game on Extended Play (which might have still been “GameSpot TV” at the time). I played it, found it frustratingly hard, and turned it in. When I came to the last issue of Nintendo Power which I did a Where I Read for (Issue #26), I decided now, with the aid of emulation, to give the 16-bit version of Ghouls & Ghosts another try. This way I’d actually stand a chance of beating a level and would be able to pass some sort of judgement about the game. The Premise: You are Arthur – King of the Britons. Queen Guinevere has been kidnapped by demons, and you must travel across the land trying to rescue her. The Good: Considering that this is a SNES launch title, while it doesn’t do a lot with Mode Seven, what it does, it does well. We get level art with 4 layers to it – foreground, the level itself, and a layer or two of scrolling background. We get several levels which involve rotation (including a level based around rotation, but not as heavily as the rotation based level in Super Castlevania IV). The controls are generally fairly solid, with a few problems. The Bad: I have one major complaint about the controls. Jumping at an angle. It’s not too clear that the way you jump at an angle is that you hold the direction you want to move in, and then jump. As it is, I tend to prefer pressing jump than the directional button. Unrealistic? Yes. However, if you’re dealing with precise jumps (as you do on occasion in this game), being able to jump that way helps me make those jumps a little easier. The Ugly: Here’s the main problem. I did not beat this game. Why? Well, Basically, you need an item called the “Goddess Armlet” to be able to beat the final boss. The game doesn’t tell you that you’re looking for it. Well, it might if you read the manual – but that doesn’t help you if you’re getting the game used, getting it through Virtual Console (thus, essentially, emulating the game) or if you just lost the manual (or, as many modern gamers do, you don’t read the manual in the first place). So, if you don’t get the armlet, what do you do? Why, you get sent all the way back to the beginning of the game, of course. You then have to play all the way through the game again, while trying to find the damn armlet. The Verdict: This is a bad game. I’m sorry, but this is a perfect example of bad game design – specifically because of the failure of the game to tell you about the damn Goddess Armlet. You don’t need to hand-hold us and tell us where the armlet is, you just need to tell us that we need to get the armlet while we’re on our way there. For all the merits the game has to it, I cannot recommend playing this game. 3 out of 10. Filed under: Quality Control, Video games Tagged: Nintendo Power, Quality Control, review, SNES Source

Get Troy from Amazon.com Ever since the dawn of cinema, people have aspired to adapt the great myths and legends of history. The tales of the Arabian Nights, the legends of Heracles, and most significantly, the Illiad and the Odyssey of Homer. However, the technology required to tell the second to last has been a little lacking. However, the Lord of the Rings films, with the technological development of the Massive Engine, when was used to show the massive battles of the books, now the time has come where Homer’s works can be given the adaptation they so richly deserve, in a live action format. This film is not that adaptation. Now, don’t get me wrong, this movie isn’t bad. It’s just not the Iliad. The film attempts to hit the bullet points of the Trojan War – Paris flees Greece with the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. King Menelaus is not pleased by this development (as you can imagine), so he contacts his brother Agamemnon asking him for help getting her back. He in turn contacts all of the kings of the various city-states he’s turned into vassal-states and tells them that it’s time for them to fulfill their end of the deal and bring along troops to go with him to Troy, and get his brother’s girl back (and also to get control of Troy). Alright, here’s the main thing, that I’m going to get out of the way right now. In the Iliad, the Greek Gods weren’t just set dressing, they played a major role of the story. Unfortunately, this is set aside in favor of an philosophical sub-plot about – basically, atheism vs. theism (in Troy – with the theists causing Troy’s destruction), and another plot about leaders leading from the front vs. leading from the rear (Achilles being the former, Agamemnon being the latter). Now, I normally wouldn’t have any problems with such a sub-plot in other films, but it feels out of place here. This is mainly because of the film’s source material. With the Illiad, as mentioned previously, the Gods are actively coming down to the battle regularly (on both sides even) for the first 2/3rds of the book. Posideon sides with the Greeks. Aphrodite (who gave Helen to Paris as a bribe in a beauty contest between herself, Hera and Athena) sided with Troy. Further, in the Illiad, the many of the heroes of both sides were children of Gods (and not just of Zeus, who anyone who remembers their Greek mythology knows would couple with anything that had a vagina). This lead to hand-wringing by the Gods, who cared about their children, and didn’t want them to die, but to interfere would just make the battle worse. Also, in the Illiad, both Agamemnon and Menelaus are both front line leaders, with Menelaus being killed in action, and Agamemnon being wounded but surviving. Instead, the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is more focused over respect than leadership styles – Agamemnon took a woman from Achilles who he’d claimed as spoils for work he’d done. To be fair to the writers of the film, Homer’s Achilles would come across to modern audiences like a whiny bitch. Still, there had to be a better way to resolve that without settling to one of the top two insipid straw men to come out of your standard High School political arguments (“When we go to war, the President should fight in combat!”, with the other being “Politicians should force their kids to fight when we go to war”). Other than that, most of my complaints are the standard Hollywood stuff, like the deaths of Agamemnon and Ajax (which don’t happen in the Iliad). Additionally, the sack of Troy is basically the standard Hawk the Slayer, Deathstalker-style burn then pillage sacking, just bigger, though not better. With my bitching out of the way, let’s talk about what I liked about the movie. Wolfgang Peterson did a really good job with this movie, both in terms of the casting and the directing. Eric Bana is great as Hector, Brad Pitt is great as Achilles, all the casting is just good. Everyone puts in excellent performances whether they liked their performances or not. Sorry Peter O’Toole, even if you didn’t like this movie, you put in a damn good performance, and you, Pitt, Cox, and Bana’s performances (as well as Sean Bean’s as Odysseus) are some of the high points in this film. The fight choreography is also excellent, and they even do stuff that I hadn’t seen done in other films before (like actually incorporating the participant’s greaves in the choreography). To be absolutely honest, I had a lot of fun with this movie, and I’d say that this is one of the best “epic” films I’ve seen out outside of the Lord of The Rings that I’ve enjoyed in a while. Rating: 7 out of 10. Note: I’ve decided to go back to assigning scores to reviews. This is basically because when it came to give a verdict, I always kept leaning toward “rent it”, which feels like a cop out response to me. Assigning scores isn’t a graceful conclusion, but it’s one that I feel better about as way to more clearly express my thoughts on a film. Filed under: film, Reviews Tagged: film, Reviews Source

If you’ve been following my reviews on Bureau42, you may know that I enjoy superhero comics, particularly judging by my reviews of DC: The New Frontier and similar works, as well as allusions to superhero comics in other reviews I’ve written. So, I missed Justice League when it first aired on TV. I missed it when it came out on DVD. However, now it’s finally out on Blu-Ray, and I’ve finally seen it. I’m pleased by what I’ve seen. My mind was not blown, but I did enjoy what I saw. The series does what some of the best Justice League comics runs have done, such as Grant Morrison’s, and kept the league to a tight lineup: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman (II – Diana Prince), The Flash (technically The Flash II as we see Barry Allen’s origin story, but we’re not doing prior incarnations here), Green Lantern (IV – John Stewart), Hawkgirl (I – Shayera Hol) and the Martian Manhunter. While the series is done by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, unlike their earlier series Batman: the Animated Series and Superman, this series does a bunch of mini-arcs, each two to three episodes long, making each arc essentially mini-movie. This really helps to keep the comic book storyline feel, as most great comic storylines in team series, in my opinion (with a few exceptions) are multi-issue arcs. This approach gives all the members of the team plenty of screen time, and gives them a chance to shine, more or less. I say more or less because if I have one complaint about this series, it’s that some characters are under-used. Hawkwoman, in particular, doesn’t get an episode focused on her, and often in big fights she ends up getting knocked aside, with heroes like Batman, Wonder Woman or Superman (and occasionally Green Lantern) taking the spotlight. Considering that she’s one of the two characters who never had their own TV series before hand (the other being Green Lantern – The Flash had a live-action TV series), she could really do with getting some additional screen time. Other than that, the animation is well done – being superior to both of Timm & Dini’s prior animated series. The number of animated frames per second is higher, and movements are generally more fluid. It’s just a great superhero series. If you like superhero comics and don’t have major problems with the more high powered style that DC’s supers comics have, then you’ll like this show. Yes, I know doing the “if you like this, you’ll like this” stuff in a review is bad form, and cheesy, but it works here because well, there’s Marvel. They’ve got their own animated stuff out on DVD and frankly, some people find it difficult to wrap their minds around some of the DC universe stuff because it’s more super-powered, where as the lower power-level stuff in the Marvel Universe is easier to believe in. Filed under: Reviews, Television Source

Get Bones: Season 1 from Amazon.com I enjoy mysteries. I read Sherlock Holmes novels as a kid. I read pulp detective novels and Agatha Christie novels as a teen. As a grown up I’ve found myself drawn to the current trend of forensic detective TV series, like CSI on CBS. After missing the boat early on, I’ve picked up the first season of Bones, and have given it a watch. The show focuses on Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (played by Emily Deschanel), a woman with a doctorate in Forensic Anthropology who works at the Jeffersonian Institution (not-the-Smithsonian). She’s also a novelist, and probably on-spectrum (and it doesn’t help her mental state that she was knocked around the foster kid system for a while). She’s partnered with FBI Special Agent Seely Booth, an ex-marine sniper (played by David Boreanaz), a more intuitive kind of guy. Togeather–wait for it–they fight crime! Internet meme’s aside, this is a good show. The forensic anthropologist take on the genre is one that’s a nice twist on the standard Forensic Cop Show formula, which has been iterated upon ever since Quincy M.E. and refined by the CSI Franchise. The acting is excellent, the writing is generally good, and I can kind of keep track of the technobabble (though I’m taking a Medical Terminology class, so that effects things some). This doesn’t mean the show’s flawless. One of the things I hated about Quincy is that in the show, the police treated forensic evidence and the scientific method with slightly less respect and validity than the Amazing Randi would treat tarot card readings and using a ouija board. While the FBI treats forensic anthropology with a little more respect than that, there’s this constantly running trend on the show of conflict between cops and the “squints”. Ultimately the squints are always vindicated, that’s one running trend that I would be happy to see die in popular culture. All of that said, Bones (at least its first season) is a solid forensic detective show, and a good pick for someone who is looking for a show of that type that doesn’t involve Jerry Bruckheimer. Filed under: Reviews, Television Source

Get Battlefield: Bad Company from Amazon.com Well, it’s a new year, and with the new year comes more opportunities to clear more titles off my Pile of Shame. First up is the spinoff of EA’s Battlefield series, aimed for the Consoles – Battlefield: Bad Company. The Premise: Private Preston Marlowe has screwed up. After going in a joyride in a helicopter, destroying a General’s limo in the process (along with the helicopter), Marlowe is assigned to B Company of the 222nd regiment, also known as Bad Company. The unit has the highest mortality rate in the Army, and is made up more-or-less entirely of bad apples. His squad is not an exception. It consists of pyromaniac George Gordon Haggard Jr., Terrence Sweetwatter, and Sgt. Sam Redford, who volunteered to be in the unit if it would get him out of the Army early. When the squad discovers that enemy forces in this war have hired the mercenary company “The Legionnaires” – an infamous mercenary company that is always paid in gold, they decide to go on a Payroll heist. The Good: I have to admit that, for a game that was a spinoff of a very-multiplayer focused PC first-person shooter (one with essentially no single player to speak of), I was impressed by how involving, amusing, and entertaining the single player story was. It’s not as serious as the story of the Modern Warfare games, but I came to like the characters considerably more. Additionally, most of the time the game’s mechanic of destructible walls is also handled very well in combat. The shooting is also good. The guns are fairly accurate (but not too accurate), the controls are solid, and generally everything is good on the single player end. The Bad: Due to the size of the maps, and the distance traveled in many of the levels, checkpoints need to come more often. I found myself covering over the same long stretch of territory multiple times during some levels, which was a bloody nusance. The Ugly: While the single player is solid, the game has its problems with multi-player, particularly the Gold Rush gameplay mode. Control Point matches are fine, and generally play the same way that Control Point matches played in the standard Battlefield games. Basically, in this gameplay mode, one team is defending a pair of crates containing gold, and the other team is trying to attack them. The attackers need to blow open both crates to win. Blowing open one crate unlocks the next crate. Fine in theory. In practice, on the other hand, it doesn’t work out as well. Here’s what happens: There’s a lot of fighting (a lot of fighting) over the first crate. Eventually, after much battle, the attackers get the first crate. The problem is, either the attackers have someone waiting at the second crate for the first to be taken – or the attackers already are in a vehicle or have a vehicle handy, and race to the second crate before the defenders (who aren’t in vehicles necessarily, because they’re holed up in buildings) can get in vehicles of their own and get there to stop them. This is presuming, of course, that the defender’s vehicles haven’t been destroyed already. This makes Gold Rush maps rather balanced in favor of the attackers, which I find to be a nuisance. The Verdict I hate doing the “if you like…” weasel stuff in a Verdict, but it applies here. If the kill streaks and team and map size in the Modern Warfare games weren’t doing it for you, then this game (and Bad Company 2, which is coming out later this year), will scratch your itch. On the other hand, if you’re already satisfied with Modern Warfare, I can’t see anything making this significantly more appealing. Well, aside from the lack of killstreaks and dual shotguns. Filed under: Reviews, Video games Tagged: PS3, review, Video games Source

Get Burnout Paradise from Amazon.com So, I’ve previously reviewed Need for Speed: ProStreet and Carbon. Both were pretty decent racing racing games, putting aside the very significant and major flaws I pointed out in my reviews of both games. Well, in my review of ProStreet, I said I’d give GRID a try. As you can tell from the title of the review, I haven’t. What I have tried is Criterion’s more arcade style, open world street racing game Burnout: Paradise. I’ve basically made it through career mode (I’ve gotten my Burnout License), so it’s time to give my thoughts on the game. The Premise: No particularly story in this game. You complete various racing events in the fictitious city of Paradise City. As you complete racing events, you upgrade your license. As you upgrade your license you unlock additional cars, as well as unlocking cars by taking them out (by which I mean force them into a wreck) while driving around the city. The Good: The Burnout games have generally been known for solid racing, and enjoyable crashes, and this game is no exception. It’s refreshing to see a game (particularly after the last few Need for Speed games) which doesn’t penalize you for crashing particularly (at least not as heavily as those games did). Further, considering the spectacular cut-scenes you get when you crash, I might say it rewards you for crashing in the course of a race. Also, there is an excellent variety of events around the city for you to race – from demolition derby-esque events which have you trying to take down a certain number of opposing cars, to chase events which have you running from a bunch of other cars to reach a certain point without getting taken down, to your more standard race types, plus a stunt mode that has you hitting jumps, drifting through turns, and so on. All of these allow you to change up your game experience more than Need For Speed’s Sprint, Lap, Drag, and Drift race types. The Bad: If you’ve played the first few Tony Hawk games, then you’re familiar with the concept of trick lines. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, I’ll explain. A trick line is when you have a series of items (be they ramps or other things) that you can trick off in sequence to get a good score. You can trick off other items to get the score you need, but the trick line is the ideal way to get the score you need to meet or exceed, if not the only only. It’s artificial, and if it’s required to hit the trick line to progress then I’m not a big fan of it, particularly in playground/sandbox games like Burnout and Tony Hawk. This game uses Trick Lines for the stunt events. The Ugly: The problem with racing games in an open-world environment is that, really, it’s difficult to tell where you need to go. You can follow the crowd of other racers, which will get you there, but can also put you in a position where however you win, it won’t necessarily be by much. On the other hand, you can go off the route the rest of the racers are taking, and see if you can get there by a shorter means. However, you either have to have a lot of knowledge of the city, or you have to keep checking your mini-map. As much as it breaks the immersion of the game, having a giant green arrow on top of your car pointing your towards your objective (plus the mini-map, and maybe a few other indicators) have their place. The Verdict: This is the only racing game that I can reasonably say that I’ve “beaten” in that I’ve completed the career mode – though I did not 100% Complete it. That says a lot for this game. Enough that I recommend purchasing it (either as a physical copy, or from the PSN store.) Filed under: Reviews, Video games Tagged: PS3, racing games, Reviews, Video games Source

Get "Shawn Michaels: From the Vault" from Amazon.com Now, once again I have another wrestling DVD review this week, though this one takes a different tack from my other reviews, because I’m not doing a match-by-match recap this time. Why? Well, the review will explain. The Premise: The DVDs recap some of Shawn Michaels’ wrestling career, from his tag career, to the beginnings of his solo run, to his return to the WWE. The Good: Most of the matches on here are classics. Shawn Michaels’ ladder match against Razor Ramon. The Iron Man match against Bret Hart. His match against Mankind at Mind Games. The first Hell In A Cell match. The list goes on and I can honestly say there isn’t a bad match on the set. The Bad: Michaels’ tag career is represented with one match from the AWA, which is good, but I wouldn’t consider a good choice – the team was two-time AWA Tag Champions, and while the match they picked was for the AWA Tag Titles, it wasn’t one of their wins. I would have picked a win or a successful title defense myself. Also, the Rockers run in the WWF isn’t represented here either, including the infamous Barbershop segment. The Ugly: All those classic, famous matches are on other DVDs. The ladder match is on the Ladder Match collection and in the Wrestlemania boxed sets. The Iron Man match is also on Bret Hart’s DVD set and in the Wrestlemania collection. The Hell in a Cell match is in the Hell In A Cell set and on the Undertaker’s DVD set. The match with Mankind is on the Mankind set. All of those matches make up about 3/4ths of the matches on the DVD. The Verdict: If you already own any of the DVDs listed under “The Ugly”, then you don’t need to bother about buying this DVD – just rent it. Hopefully the upcoming Shawn Michaels DVD set will have more material that hasn’t been collected in any other sets. Filed under: Wrestling, WWF Tagged: DVD, review, Wrestling, WWF Source

Get "The Devil Came on Horseback" at Amazon.com This review is going to differ from my usual review format, mainly because in this case, the film I’m reviewing, which is a documentary about the Genocide in Darfur, asks a few questions, and I’m going to try to give some opinion based answers. The Premise: Brian Steidle was a captain in the US Marine Corps who, after his term of service was up, left the Corps and became an unarmed monitor for the African Union, tasked with monitoring the cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebel groups. There he observed the Darfur genocide, documenting it with thousands of pictures and hundreds of reports sent to the AUC commanders, which were ultimately classified and ignored. My Thoughts: This is a touchy subject. Firstly – the situation in Darfur is a Genocide. Anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar. Anyone who says it shouldn’t be stopped is – at best – an assclown to the highest degree. The question is – how do you stop it? How do you stop a genocide in a land-locked country in Africa, which can’t be stopped through diplomacy – we’ve tried – and whose neighbors won’t put boots on the ground to stop it? And how do you do it without raising the specter of colonialism, without sticking yourself hip deep in a potentially drawn out war that could be just as prolonged as the wars in Afganistan or Iraq – and could lead to messes like the Battle of Mogadishu? That’s the problem. I don’t know if anyone’s thought about it that way yet. At this point – I don’t know of another way to fix it. The militias which are engaging in genocide are spreading it beyond the borders of Sudan and into neighboring countries like Chad, and the government of Chad isn’t willing to defend the refugees because they risk starting a war with Sudan. Humanitarian groups are pulling out of the refugee camps because their aid workers are at risk of being attacked. In theory UN Peacekeepers could be sent in – but Sudan isn’t willing to allow them in the country. The African Union didn’t act on this before, and aren’t acting militarily now. The United States is still in Iraq, though they’re slowly pulling out, and they’re going to be sending more troops into Afghanistan. From a military standpoint, we don’t have the troops to commit – no matter how many letters we send to the Government. Sure, if we start a draft, we could get the troops that way – but that’s not the right way to get the manpower we need. Ultimately, we need a (and I apologize for using this term again) “Coalition of the Willing” again – lead by someone else. The US doesn’t have the manpower to be the world’s policeman at the moment. We’d need UN Peacekeepers who’d be willing to start a war with Sudan to protect refugees, to get them back in their homes, and to keep them safe. I can’t see any way the US could provide that until 2013, and you’d need a president who was both a bleeding heart and a hawk to do it. Barack Obama might be that president – I don’t know. Sarah Palin definitely isn’t that president. John McCain, maybe – but I doubt he could get the Republican nomination again, and that’s assuming he’s dumb enough to run. Anyone the Tea Party wingnuts could bring to the table or could force a Republican Party nomination might well be a hawk – but the stench of racism from the Tea Party makes me doubt that any member of that group cares about black people – particularly black people killing other black people in another country. I, on the other hand, feel that the genocide in Darfur is an hideous atrocity, and one of the first of such in the 21st Century. I’d love to have it be the last. I can’t think of any way for it to be that way unless more countries take military action against genocide – and at least for a while, I can’t think of anyone who’d be willing to take such action. The Verdict (on the movie): If you’re not pissed about the genocide in Darfur – watch this movie, it will explain why you should be pissed. Also, despite what I said above about writing your Congressional representatives not necessarily leading to action – write to them anyway. Especially if they’re on a committee related to the armed forces, budgets, or foreign policy (especially Africa). Posted in film, Reviews Tagged: Darfur, Documentary, film, politics, Reviews Source

Get Miami Vice from Amazon.com on Blu-Ray I’m a fan of the Miami Vice TV series, or at least the first two seasons of the show. So, when I heard that a movie was being made of the TV series, one directed by Michael Mann, who helped create and set the tone for the series, I knew that I had to see it – but I missed in theaters. So, for almost a year it had been sitting in my Netflix queue, and was meaning to bump it to the top and watch it. Well, now I’ve finally watched it. The film follows James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, undercover cops on the Miami PD’s Vice Squad (not their actual name). After one of their informants that they had entrusted to the FBI for safekeeping ends up dead, along with his family, they work to investigate a mole in the FBI by infiltrating a Colombian drug cartel. However, the danger that Tubbs and Crockett face ends up going beyond them, and enveloping Gina, Trudy, and the rest of the team as well. If you’ve seen Collateral, you’ll know what this movie looks like – lots of hand-held digital camera footage, with the footage in the daytime being shot in the day, and the nighttime footage being shot at night with near natural light. With the way this film is shot, it actually gives the movie a better “documentary” feel than shows like Battlestar Galactica and The Shield do with their documentary style, particularly with the use of shaky cam, and snap-zoom effects in the middle of shots. The gunfights are grounded and realistic, while still being exciting and visually dynamic. The acting is generally pretty good. In particular, Colin Farrell & Jamie Foxx do excellent performances as Tubbs & Crockett, and the performances of the rest of the cast are generally solid. The only point in the performances and the casting that I find myself scratching my head at is with Crockett’s love interest Isabella, played by Gong Li. The character is written as a Cubano (or would it be Cubana), but is played by a Chinese actress. Mind you, Gong Li is an excellent actress, and her performance is solid, but it feels a little off. I would have preferred a Hispanic or Cubana actress in the role. It’s not that I have problems with casting against ethnic group (for example, Lieutenant Castillo is recast as an African American), but you need to choose carefully how you choose to do it, depending on what the story demands. The story would fit in well with the original television series – and reminds me pretty well of one of my favorite episodes of the first season episode – “Smuggler’s Blues”, which had Tubbs & Crockett infiltrating a drug cartel in a similar fashion, with a story that also took them outside of Miami and the United States. However, it feels slightly padded. I can’t totally explain why – it maybe it’s because of the number of smuggling trips they take. In the course of the show they usually only make 1, maybe 2 runs before moving in and shutting down their target. Here they practically take 4 or 5 trips. I understand that you really need to get the movie to a certain length. Hell, I’ve criticized movies for being too short (particularly Ghost in the Shell), but there’s a point when you’re trying to get a movie to a certain length when you need to say “This is padding and needs to go”. While I understand that in order to go deep enough to get enough information to totally shut down the group they’d need to make multiple trips, we don’t need to watch every trip. As an additional, minor complaint, the story really doesn’t give some of the other members of the team a lot of time. We get a bunch of Castillo, of Trudy, and of course Tubbs & Crockett. We don’t get much of Zito, Switek or Gina. We don’t even necessarily get their names used in dialog. I was able to figure out who was who based on my knowledge of the show – but not everyone would recognize that. Just dropping a name every now and then would be fine. The score is pretty solid, and the use of catalog music generally goes pretty well. There are a few hiccups though. In particular, the nu-metal cover of “In The Air Tonight” they use leading up to the climax really doesn’t work as well here. When the original Phil Collins version was used in the TV series, it was used to build the action up for what could possibly be the final confrontation with Calderone (but wasn’t). Once Tubbs & Crockett arrived at their fateful meeting with Calderone, they stopped the music and let the score take over. On the other hand, in the movie, the music doesn’t play leading up to the showdown, it also plays during the gunfight. It made the use of the music feel like fan-service instead of using it to dramatic effect like it was in the original series. When all’s said and done, the movie is good. It feels like one of the two-part stories the series told (like the pilot), without being stuck in the trapping of the 80s. It’s a good solid narrative. However, it’s visually very different from the series in every respect, being much closer to Collateral than the original series – or even Heat. I enjoyed the movie and I’m reccomending it, though if you didn’t like Collateral’s look and feel you’ll definitely want to give this a miss. The Verdict: Buy it – particularly on Blu-Ray. Posted in film, Reviews Tagged: film, Michael Mann, review Source

Get Wisconsin Death Trip from Amazon.com I’m back from my little vacation from blogging, and I’m returning with a review of another documentary – and not one from Frontline or another episode of a PBS program (not that there’s anything wrong with that). With historical documentaries these days, film-makers tend to go either the History Channel route (scenes with reenactors inter-cut with talking heads), or the Ken Burns route (narration and readings of writings from the time with possible scenes of reenactors). This film takes the Ken Burns route, but with different subject matter than the type of material Burns covers. The Premise: The documentary covers 1 year in Jackson County, Wisconsin in the 1890s. During which much of the county, particularly the area around the town of Black River Falls, goes more than a little bit mad. The documentary is told through articles in alocal paper in the county, read by Ian Holm. The Good: The use of newspaper articles as a framing device works really well at emphasizing the strangeness of the goings on in the area - when articles about deaths, murders and suicides are more common than birth announcements and announcements of other local events. The Bad: While the segments which take a look at Black River Falls in the modern day provide a nice break from the doom and gloom in the past, it ultimately feels out of place – particularly considering that the events in question happened in an area wider than the town. The Ugly: I can’t help but feel that for some reason the directors are guilty of the error of omission here, by possibly mis-representing the amount of grotesque and macabre events in the era, and making them appear more common than the more mundane events. The Verdict: The documentary makes for an interesting curiosity. However, I can’t find reason to justify doing more than renting the documentary – certainly not purchasing it. Posted in film, Reviews Tagged: Documentary, film, history, Reviews Source

Get "For All Mankind" from Amazon.com The space program has always fascinated me, particularly because my interest in Science Fiction, particularly through series like Star Trek – which in turn lead me to an interest in the space sciences and some terrestrial sciences as well. So, when I heard about a documentary about the space program that I hadn’t seen before, and one that was coming out from the Criterion Collection, I had to check it out. The Premise: Using footage from all the Apollo missions (plus a bit of the Gemini missions), the film depicts the journey from Earth to the Moon, to the explorations of the Lunar surface, to finally the trip back home. All of this is accompanied with interview audio from various astronauts in the Apollo program discussing the program, and what it felt like to go to the moon. The Good: The film does an excellent job of showing what the trip from the Earth to the Moon, and what the lunar surface was like. Both through remastered versions of film footage that we’ve seen before, and footage that the public hasn’t seen before. In many ways, this is the most captivating way I’ve seen this footage before – re-mastered and looking like feature film footage, instead of the fuzzy film footage that we’ve all seen in the past. The Bad: The trip home from the moon gets kind of brushed over, which is kind of disappointing. I understand from a visual standpoint it’s pretty much the same, but from a psychological standpoint it would be interesting to hear in the interview audio what it was like to come back from the Moon, especially those who were on the Apollo 11 and 12 missions. The Ugly: Watching this after having watched all of HBO’s series From the Earth to the Moon, I feel that while the movie does a good job of showing each stage of the journey to the Moon, I feel that the time-line of the Apollo program is so captivating – the process of preparing for the final landing and preparation for the actual science to be done on the trip. The movie doesn’t have much of that prep, and we barely see any of the Science being done. This is a deliberate decision by the director, but one I don’t totally agree with totally. At the very least, I feel watching some of the science being done would be really captivating, and would give me, as a fan of the space program, a fan of science and space science, and as a layman, it would give me a better idea of what the process was like. On the other hand, as depicted in the movie, the geological process of getting moon rocks can be described as “What a pretty rock, we’ll take that one.” The Verdict: This is, frankly, an excellent documentary. If you are interested in the space program at all, especially the Apollo missions, you really need to watch this movie – especially on Blu-Ray if you’ve got a Blu-Ray player. Posted in film, Reviews Tagged: blu-ray, Documentary, film, review, science Source

Get Joe Kidd from Amazon.com Last week I had a review of a Western adapted from a short story by Elmore Leonard. This week I have an review of a Western film that was actually written by Elmore Leonard. The Premise: Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood) is a bounty hunter who has given up his old profession and instead has taken up raising horses. However, he ends up finding himself caught in the middle of a struggle between some Mexican revolutionaries and a cattle baron by the name of Frank Harlon (played by Robert Duvall), who is out to claim their land. Kidd must decide whether to side with Harlon and get paid, and get revenge for attacks on his own land, or to help the revolutionaries. The Good: The film has an excellent cast, particularly with the performances by Eastwood and Duvall, and an excellent script, with a few exceptions. I also like how the film handles, subtly, improvements in technology around the time and the way they were changing the world quietly, through some of the guns in the film, such as one character’s Mauser with a stock, and several other characters with sniper rifles. To be more specific, Kidd ends up using both the semi-automatic Mauser and the sniper rifle, and has to adjust to using each – and does successfully. The Bad: While Kidd is an amusing and entertaining Marty Stu, he’s a Marty Stu nonetheless, one with no weaknesses in the film, and who is practically invincible. Fortunately, this is the only film with the character, as if we had to watch multiple films with the character, I’m concerned that if not written right in the long run he’d become insufferable. The Ugly: The film’s conclusion at the end is a little more over the top and becomes kind of comedic because of it – more so than other films adapted from Leonard’s work, like Pulp Fiction and 3:10 to Yuma. To a certain extent there’s part of that early on, as exemplified by a sequence where Kidd is rescuing a judge from a hostage situation in a courthouse by walking him out the back, sneaking him into the local bar and having him go out the back, while he waits in the bar itself, pouring himself a beer and arming himself with the bartender’s shotgun, and then making himself a sandwich before watching a posse ride out to pursue the revolutionaries. However, the sequence at the end where Kidd drives a locomotive through the bar wall, to surprise the Harlon’s thugs within is considerably more over-the-top. The Verdict: This is an entertaining western. However, if you’re looking for something as grounded as the re-make of 3:10 to Yuma, you’ll be sadly disappointed. I’d give it a rental first, before buying it. Posted in film, Reviews Tagged: film, Reviews, western Source

Get 3:10 To Yuma at Amazon.com This week I’ve got another western movie review for you. The last review in this genre was a somewhat older film in the genre with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This week I have a more recent film in the genre for you with the 2007 version of 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe & Christian Bale. The Premise: Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a rancher and Civil War veteran, who is barely scraping by – and it doesn’t help that Glen Hollander, who Evans owns money two, is actively sabotaging his efforts so he can claim Evans’ land. Evans finds a possible way to save his land, and his self respect, by escorting captured bandit Ben Wade (played by Russell Crowe), to the town of Contention where he will be put on a train to Yuma prison. However, Wade’s gang, lead by his psychopathic lieutenant Charlie Prince is out to rescue him. The Good: The performances by Crowe, Bale, and Ben Foster as Prince are excellent. Foster’s performance in particular is one of the best in the film, and he does an excellent job expressing confusion at Wade’s actions by the conclusion of the movie. Additionally, the fights are choreographed very well, and shot very well – no shaky-cam here (thank G0d). The story, which is adapted from a short story by Elmore Leonard, is solid, and fleshes out all of the members of the cast, save a few supporting characters who are, basically, Redshirts. The Bad: The interlude in the Chinese mining camp didn’t help the film’s momentum in my opinion. It might even have hurt it. To elaborate on this a little, my ideal film plot arc is The Fellowship of the Ring. The film has continually rising tension until Rivendell, where the audience gets a break, and then again until Lothlorien, when the audience gets another break, and then we get rising tension until the end of the film. Further, every plot point during those sections serves to forward the plot somewhat (and it helps that they cut Tom Bombadil from the story for that reason). This brings me to the Mining Camp sequence. As far as the plot is concerned, all that sequence does to serve the plot is to kill off Alan Tudyk’s character, and to (in theory) bring Wade closer to Evans because Evans saved Wade’s life. To a certain degree, the film pays off later, but the sequence could have been executed better. The Ugly: To be honest, I don’t particularly have an “ugly” in the film for once. The Verdict: This is now one of my favorite westerns. The excellent score, writing, and performances just make for one excellent whole of a film. I recommend that if you enjoy Westerns that you add this film to your movie library. Posted in Reviews Tagged: film, Reviews, western Source

I have both of the hand-helds and a PS3. I've been meaning to get a 360 as there are some games on that that interest me, and the Wii for the Virtual Console.

Hmm... I may pick up Legacy of Kain for the PS1, and Abe's Exodus. I already got Abe's Odyssey for the PC through Good Old Games though (with slightly more stuff to go with it than the PSN release), so I'm not going to re-buy that.

Just got Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and Retro Game Challenge today, and I purchased Namco Classics Museaum and TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled earlier in the week.

I, for one, welcome our new moderator overlords. (No, seriously, congratulations on your promotion to moderatordom)

I play a mix of both, depending on my state of mind, and on whether I'm planning on doing anything else at the time, and if so, what. Basically, if I need to multi-task, I tend to play RPGs, preferably ones with a turn-based battle system, and possibly less attention tracking on the actual environment. Thus retro RPGs work great for this (particularly grind-heavy ones.