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Five Franchises That Need To Be Revived, And Five That Don't

By The_A_Drain June 8, 2009 47 Comments

I'll get around to writing silly review number 3: Game Manuals sometime soon, promise. I tend to write spur of the moment, so planned things usually get held off until i'm done vomiting opinion. As always, this is just my opinion, and not all of it is meant 100% seriously, so sit back and relax as we reminisce about five franchises i'd love to see brought back, and five that I want to stay dead, in no particular order.

5. Bring Back: Road Rash

Overtake me huh? That's it, your dead sucka.

Forget Vigilante 8, forget Twisted Metal, Road Rash was the epitome of motorsports violence. I'm aware that some sequels were made for the N64 and PS1, but I won't count those as they were, well, shit. This game, and it's sequel Road Rash II, utterly blew me away, I had no idea that you could combine motorsports and violence and not only come out with a playable game, but one that was better and more interesting than just a plain racing game like Super Hang-On. The concept was simple, illegal street racing for a cash prize, and no rules. You could steal weapons from other riders, knock them off, or send them careening into a passing car, you could even beat up policemen. I had so much fun with this, and still do occasionally. What we need is either a remake, or a sequel, that follows the original format without changing it too much beyond what it is. As much as I liked bikes in PGR4, what we really need is Road Rash.

Don't Bring Back: The Adams Family:

God the games associated with this franchise were awful. From Festers Quest to Pugsley's Scavenger hunt, i've never played an Adams Family game that I liked, or even enjoyed for a short while. Often poorly programmed, with terrible design choices and overbearing levels of difficulty. Aside from that, you have to wonder, just how exactly do you introduce this family to the videogame world? They don't seem all that suited to being anywhere near videogames in the first place. I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if we never saw this franchise again in any format, be it television, film or videogames.

4. Bring Back: Shenmue:

This just looks creepy...

Ok, not so much 'bring back' as 'finish it, or so help me god i'll hunt you down' The series really needs to be completed. However, while we know almost for certain now that the series never will be completed, as it's creator no longer works for Sega, or something like that, and Sega have said many times they do not plan to ressurect the series, that doesn't mean I can't want for it. I need to know what happens, dammit.

Don't Bring Back: Yu-Gi-Oh

I'll admit, shamefully, that I once enjoyed the card game itself quite a bit, I was a succesful tournament player in my region and even placed well nationally. However, every single videogame adaptation of this with the exception maybe of one of the GBA games, has been utterly atrocious. I guess the major problem here is that the developers needs to change up the gameplay in order to differentiate itself from the physical card game rules so that people will buy it. This just leads to incomprehensible rules and unbalanced games, when you combine this with incredibly slow gameplay and terrible (or abusive) AI you definately have a loser on your hands. Why continue to attempt to compete with the physical card game? I mean, it's still making tons of money, and the company responsible for the games is the same company, so stop trying to compete with it and simply divert the cash into making more money from the card game itself. Simple.

3. Bring Back: Dark Forces:

Die holographic Death Star! Pew Pew!

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan at all, but like KOTOR, Dark Forces being a high quality game, I loved it. I didn't love it as much as Doom or Duke Nukem granted, but I still loved it and i'd play it over some of the more modern FPS games (if I had the choice, I don't own the game anymore) and for an FPS, the Star Wars universe is one that provides some quite unique situations, enemies and weapons to play with. I honestly feel the franchise should be brought back with a vengeance. I'm aware that what we got out of this franchise was in fact the adventures of Kyle Katarn in Jedi Knight and eventually Jedi Academy, but those didn't resonate as well with me as the original Dark Forces did.

Don't Bring Back: Alone in the Dark:

The original series was ground breaking for it's time, and highly enjoyable well-crafted games. But the previous two attempts to ressurect the series have not succeeded. Firstly, we had The New Nightmare, a literal mashing together of Resident Evil and Silent Hill with an incomprehensible storyline and overly difficult bordering on punishing gameplay. The characters were difficult to care about, the plor hard to follow, the game itself difficult to play and while it managed to be pretty damned creepy for the first two thirds, as always with these kinds of games the run up to the end was just plain weird, not creepy or clever.

Then we have the Atari remake Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360 and PC (and later, and hopefully much improved, Inferno for PS3) which was very poorly recieved. While the

Just be thankful i'm not Christian Slater

game had a lot of ambition, some really great mechanics all but wasted by the poor level design. Much of this games ambition and technical achievement was put to incredibly poor use which really is a great shame, I mean the game achieved a lot of things, environments that could burn realisticly, entire levels being animated in one of the greatest cinematic action sequences ever seen in a videogame, and more. The level design however, the plot, the characters, utterly abhorant. Impossible to care for any of the characters, and what I onestly feel is one of the worst, rip-off endings ever seen in any media format. And I havn't even touched upon the bugs or terrible driving sequences. Alone in the Dark for 360 was 100% wasted potential, and in my opinion the final nail in the coffin of a once great series. Leave it alone now.

2. Bring Back: Oddworld

Holy shit! He just posessed a fart!... No Way!

Both of Abe's adventures in Oddworld were classics, the following games in the series not so much. But despite the failings of Munch's Oddysee and Strangers Wrath (even though I quite enjoyed Strangers Wrath) I still feel the franchise would be perfectly at home generating side scrollers like the originals, or adventure games for episodic content or DS/PSP releases. Theres so much lore there, and so many unique characters and environments to put te player in, I honestly don't think we've seen many franchises quite as unique as Oddworld and it needs to rise from the ashes like a pheonix. Apparently Oddworld Inhabitants are working on something new, but we've not seen or heard anything in quite a long time now.

Don't Bring Back: System Shock:

This one is going to be controversial, but I am very confident that the current right holders (EA) would make a stink of it. To start with, interest in the franchise from EA was only reinvigorated upon the release of Bioshock, and while I loved Bioshock, I do not want a knee jerk reaction from EA resulting in a Bioshock clone set in space. But illogical reasons like that aside, i'm seriously fed up with the business practice of shitting all over fans of a classic series in order to make money from a name people are curious about because they have heard great things, but don't want to, or cannot play the originals. We've seen it with Fallout 3, FarCry 2 and others, and we're going to see it with Deus Ex 3, the Monkey Island remake, and more. I'd rather they make a new game, under a new name, especially considering any new project under the name of System Shock would not include any of the original talent, and that doesn't sit well with me just as it didn't in the other examples.

1. Bring Back: Discworld:

Out of work, Death is forced to audition for Brutal Legend.

This is the second franchise on the list that while I want brought back, in all likelyhood will never ever happen. I'm deeply saddened by Terry Pratchetts diagnosis of Alzheimers a couple years ago now, as my favorite author and a great man I was very upset to hear this. I own both the PS1 discworld adventure games, and Noir on PC. While Noir didn't fare so well, I still think that the previous too games are a fantastic example of the genre, and contain some great comedy moments and superb voice acting from comedy legends such as Rob Brydon, Eric Idle and Tony Robinson. I honestly think that if it were revitalised, and you could get hold of some equally good voice actors and get a clever script and puzzle set written, that the fanchise could put out an adventure game to rival that of Grim Fandango or Starship Titanic in greatness. (Incidentally, Starship Titanic features John Cleese as a voice actor)

Don't Bring Back: Duke Nukem:

I'm a massive fan of Duke Nukem, but lets face the truth here, his first and last truly great game was Duke Nukem 3D, a game that not only was brilliantly constructed and immense fun, but gave the FPS genre that final kick it needed in order to be fully realised after Doom had proven to everyone that it was a legitimate player. But since then, we've had multiple ports of Duke 3D, side scrolling platformers, terrible third person games, and several cancelled games. Not to mention the whole fiasco with Duke Nukem Forever. DNF? More like DNR. Duke's an old man now, and need to be layed to rest, even if he were brought back, in all the flashy glory he's known for, three quarters of todays gaming population wouldn't even have a clue who he is, just let the man rest, I think he deserves it after being strung out all these years.

Well that's it for now, this is just the compilation of this mornings thoughts really, what do you guys feel? Any franchises you'd like to see brought back? Or ones you feel strongly should remain dormant for ever?

47 Comments

5 Games You Probably Didn't Know You Should Try

By The_A_Drain June 6, 2009 18 Comments

Now, i'm all for hating on celebrating mediocrity in games, i'm the first to get out there and voice my opinion when something full priced isn't to my liking. But, once you've played the top 10 or so games of the year, what's left? There's something to be said for a lazy afternoon enjoying an 'ok' game, especially when those games can be picked up horrendously cheaply, thanks to the recession you can pick up things like Mirror's Edge and Prince of Persia for under 20 quid. Bargain right? I mean sure, I paid full price for Mirror's Edge and regretted doing so, but for half price, I wholeheartedly reccomend it to anyone.

But what about games that just fly under the radar? Or older games? Those are deserving of your attention too, especially when you consider this entire list can probably be picked up for less than the cost of a full priced retail game. So here we go, 5 games you either never heard of, or thought/were told was shite, but actually deserve a look even if it's just for a lazy afternoon. In no particular order, and as always the disclaimer: This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree completely.

5. Robocop VS The Terminator (Genesis/Mega Drive):

Dead or alive you are coming with me.

I've always liked this game, but it seems to have been thrown into the same bin as most of the Terminator games from that era, as just a cheap cash-in that's a pile of shit. Well, i'm not going to go all out and claim it's the best thing in the universe, but it's easy to play, offers a lot of action, controls pretty well (It's no Conta but it's certainly not the SNES Terminator II that's for sure) has varied levels, a wide selection of weapons, some reasonably impressive graphics. And ED 209 makes an appearance as well.

I'd reccomend this to anyone who loves the old 16 bit era style of side-scrolling shooters, climbing ladders, hanging from railings, shooting every-which-way. Man those were the days.

4. Bullet Witch (Xbox 360):

Cheap enough, this is a great afternoons entertainment.

This is not a game I expected to like, or even wanted to play. At the time I discovered this, it was £4 (that was ages ago, so probably even cheaper now) and I was on a massive achievement kick. So I bit the bullet and picked it up, it's certainly not Gears of War or any other third person masterpiece, but aside from some issues with the controls, the game plays pretty well and you can have a lot of fun messing with the dumb AI. The game can become pretty challenging too, and has some kind of impressive boss fights. For a game I was totally expecting to despise, I had a lot of fun and even ended up playing a game a further 5 or 6 times. Two or three times for achievements, and a further couple of times for the sheer hell of it on a boring afternoon. I got a lot more out of this game than I ever would have expected, it's certainly worth a look if the price is right.

3. Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force (PC):

Pew Pew! Lasers Captain!

This is arguably the best game on this list, and has received a fair amount of critical acclaim over the years. Yet still people don't seem to want to give it the time of day. I guess maybe because it's a Star Trek game non Trek fans avoid it, and because it's an FPS the Trek fans avoid it. But once you sit down and play it you realise it's a really great combination of both. It puts you in the role of a security officer aboard the Voyager, lightyears from home and trapped in the delta quadrent, you must take on the more dangerous aspects of being a member of the crew. These include taking you to various locations, such as alien ships, voyager itself, borg cubes etc and fighting against various hostile enemies too. Oddly enough, Star Treks weapons seem to work quite well in the FPS genre, and you have a wide variety to choose from, starting with a simple phaser and plasma rifle, but gaining additional weapons as you go. The storyline works well to put you in enough situations not to bore the player, but isn't particularly great in it's own regard. Not only do I consider this the best Trek game ever made, but it's a shooter I hold in very high regard. The game spawned a sequel, Elite Force II, which also comes highly reccomended.

2. Obscure (PC/PS2):

Die Zombie!

Again, another game I expected very little from, I got it simply because I was buying Warcraft III and it's expansion, and both were in the "Buy 2 Get One Free" section (although it's easy to find super cheap now, I believe it's even up on GoG.com EDIT: It is)

Immidietely I was struck with how much this game pays homage to Resident Evil, and how well it does so. Large, creepy setting, strange creatures, very limited tools and ammo for what few weapons you have. I was right at home, the puzzles are in the very same style, at one point for example you have to fill a paper cup with acid and get it to the door that is chained shut before it eats through the paper cup. But the game isn't just a ripoff, it has some unique distinguishing features of its own. You play as a whole team of high school students searching for their missing buddy, and each one has different skills (lockpicking, brute force, the ability to search out hidden items etc) and it's up to you to guide these students in groups of two through the twisted halls of this creepy old school. Needless to say there are secrets, and horrors hidden throughout and they all come to an abrupt close with a rather large boss encounter. The plot itself is a little disjointed in places, but it does the job, and the game certainly manages to make you feel uneasy quite effectively, often you'll hear knocking or banging on wat sounds like the wall to te next room, and occasionally, blood curdling screams. I didn't even play Warcraft after trying this one out, I couldn't put it down until i'd finished, and it was a goddamned freebie. I reccomend this to anyone who enjoys survival horror it's a great little game. And to anyone it matters to, the game features music from Sum 41.

I don't reccomend playing this with a keyboard though, especially not on a laptop haha. It's doable but, damn am I glad I bought the PS2 version a year later. Again, this one spawned a sequel which is also worth playing, (Obscure: The Aftermath stateside and Obscure II in Europe) Also, theres something that reminds me a lot of The Faculty in this game. It probably takes a fair few cues from that as well as Resident Evil.

1. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (PS2):

The main dude this time around, Soki.

It seems to me that after Onimusha 3, for some reason people gave up on the franchise. I'm not sure why, I absolutely loved Onimusha 3 I thought it was fantastic even if the time travel thing was a little absurd.

Dawn of Dreams totally re-invents the franchise, gone are the Resi style tank controls people didn't like (although I still support them wholeheartedly and maintain they had no reason to go) and we have a more streamlined set of controls, and as a result a much more action oriented game. Instead of following the protagonist of previous Onimusha games, you follow a group of characters who's aim is to stop the invasion of Genma, who are returning after a 15 year absence brought on by the ending of Onimusa 3 and Nobunagas defeat.

The gameplay is much faster paced, and bigger in scale, you'll see a lot more of the typical anime style huge enemies and bosses, and can rack up combos with regular enemies in a similar way to that of Devil May Cry. As well as this, you have a variety of characters that you can switch between at will, all of whom have different fighting styles.

I hadn't expected the game to be bad, like some others on the list, but you can certainly pick it up very cheaply now, and I'm not sure if that many people actually know it exists, let alone have played it. It seemed to fly right under the radar and simply vanish into thin air, but I say if you see it go for it! You won't regret it.

There we have it, five games that you might not have heard of, or thought weren't worth the time of day to look at. All games that I am happy to play despite also having apprehensions about playing them for the first time.

What about you guys, do you have any similar experiences to share? Or opinions? Would you rather buy this lot, or go out and get a full priced, recently released game? I want to hear your thoughts.

Next time, I review stupid things part 3, game manuals.

18 Comments

I Review Stupid Things #2: American Product Design

By The_A_Drain May 30, 2009 23 Comments

There's something i've come to notice a lot more recently, what with the amount of people showing off their videogame collections on the old interwebs. I have noticed that some of the product design seen in these collections, specifically i'm talking about game cases here (expanding on my previous entry, but this time not looking at box art specifically) and the manner in which they've been designed.

This post is rated 15. For... reasons...

Now, first up, a little background. I'm from the UK, and our products filter through as European but we have to apply our own laws to them as well, so i'm used to seeing a number of the same things pop up on all manner of different products, prime example being our good old buddy the BBFC logo, as well as PEGI and other types of rating, i'm also not used to flashy colours attempting to draw my attention or things that seem to be different purely for the sake of it.

Disclaimer: Images are from google search, so if they are yours many apologies i'll replace them if you want.

First up,
Gamecube games:

Ok, so i'm used to seeing video games a certain way, it's always been that way and changing that serves no purpose in my mind other than to confuse, bewilder, or differentiate simply for the sake of it. I can think of no reason at all, other than completely fucking with someones head why gamecube game cases should be, essentially, upside-down. It makes no sense, it confuses the eye, and it's already distracting/disorienting enough staring at a shelf of gamecube games because they have spine artwork instead of an easily readable font and solid colour background like most games.

Unnatural I say!

The other thing i'm confused about it the unnecessary use of colour for (I assume) the budget release titles, I mean.. yellow? Seriously? Ok, so it's not that much worse than grey, and it's miles better than those ugly neon green PSX games we'll get to in a moment. But I see no reason for yellow, just for the sake of a bit of uniformity they should also be black. Although this is a problem I have with case design the world over, theres no reason that people should be embarrased to have a budget game on their shelf, don't give them one just for the sake of it.

Playstation 2 Games:

PS2 games in the UK, a uniform starfleet would be proud of... Maybe...

Now, this complaint doesn't apply too well for the gamecube games because they are the same in the UK (except the right way up...) but flashy artwork on the spine. It's something that has always irked me, I suppose it depends entirely on the box art design but i'm of the opinion that if I can't read what's on the spine from across the room, then what's the point of having the name on the spine? If I have to pull the goddamn thing off the shelf to see what it is that's just ridiculous. I'm all for flashy artwork on the front and back of a box, but the spine should be purely functional, and not distracting or difficult to read.

Look at all the colours, it's like standing in an arcade

In addition to that, again in europe we have grey cases and a grey spine for our budget releases, but i'm seeing red for the US releases? Red? Seriously, if you thought yellow was distracting and over the top, how about red? What kind of message does that send out to consumers as well, red is associatted with danger, anger and pain. Not the best colour to use if you want people to actually buy the product, but then I guess if a game as sold enough to make the grade for a budget re-release it just doesn't matter anymore whether or not it sells. (I'm hoping that the discs aren't red as well, that would just creep me the hell out)

That said, I do prefer the consistent black boxes of non-budget games, in the UK we have something like 95% come in nice blue boxes, then 5% will be in black cases just to fuck things up, it's pointless and annoying. All blue, or all black, what difference does it make? So why do we need both?

Also, why does the Playstation logo need to be in it's own little white box? Again, pointlessly distracting and honestly, I just think it looks hella ugly.

Playstation Games:

Look at those cheap tacky PC games... wait a minute...

What were they thinking? These are some of the ugliest things i've ever seen. Ok, so everythings functional, fantastic, that works for me. But, going to the other extreme from the one above, they have uniform spines with plaintext, but it's so damned small, again making it unreasonably difficult to read for no good reason. Aside from that, the jewel case design lends them a certain, cheap looking quality. It looks like somones tatty cd collection or $0.99 PC games from the bargain bin at the local store.

So, aside from the fact that all I see in the picture to the left is what looks like 30 copies of Diablo II: LoD, PSX games are fine right? Wrong. Very wrong. I've seen some ugly product design in my day, but this has got to be the mother of them all. What better way to persuade people to go for a new, full priced retail game than to make your budget games snot green?

I can't be the only person who thinks these look nasty...

I suppose there are some redeeming features, some of the greatest hits range kept their original box art, which was the same with the platinum range in the UK (yet again we got silver/grey instead of some crazy psychadelic colour) and it's not as immidietely obvious from the side as it is with the UK design, the whole spine is silver for us.

Other Offenders:

There is a multitude of other similar things i'd like to talk about, but they don't need a whole section. Firstly, it would seem that Sega Saturn games suffered the same fate as Gamecube games, needlessly flipped spine artwork, the difference there being that this is the same in the UK. I still hate it though.

SNES games? They looks like building blocks. C'mon, tell me they don't looke like Lego bricks or something. But there's a downside to the UK ones as well, they don't have end labels (which as James Rolfe will tell you, is a bad thing) so you win some, you lose some.

C'mon... Which one?

A very similar argument to the PSX argument applies to Dreamcast games as well. Yet again the PAL versions got a thicker, sturdier looking case. While the US cases remained very similar to the Japanese design, with the jewel case and the black curved design on the face. We got chunkier boxes, and a blue design, i'm not gonna lie though, the paper inserts for the front and back designs literally fall out when you open the case, they aren't fastened down... Lame.

Most other things have only minor differences. DS games for example have a similar appearance in the US to PS2 games, they have the logo atop the spine, then artwork and the games logo below. In the UK however, I feel that they've struck a nice balance. We have a slightly enlarged DS logo (no reason, I guess) and a white background on the spine with the games logo on it. This makes the logo itself slightly easier to read, but maintains some of the appeal of the artwork. Although some games choose to use the generic text for it's title instead of displaying a logo.

Overall, i'd honestly say that while PAL product design is arguably just as shitty, i'm glad my PSX and DC games look the way they do. I'm not going to actually score this review, as that would be a bit pretentious and honestly I have no position to gauge from, after all it's whats on the disc that counts right? Not what box the game comes in.

What do you guys reckon? Like them the way they are? Hate them? Hate PAL designs instead? Discussion and ideas for the next stupid thing to review are welcomed.

23 Comments

I Review Stupid Things #1: Box Art

By The_A_Drain May 28, 2009 9 Comments

I did the whole reviewing games thing a while back, and i've done quite a lot of it, but the bottom line is that people don't want to read me telling them how much I love older games, and for newer games they have people getting paid for their writing prowess to tell them what to think. So I thought i'd try a bit of an experiment, i'll review other things, or from other perspectives.

Today, i'm going to talk about Box Art. Every game has to have some, and not all of it is good (or even sensical) and there is often discrepencies between the three major territories, Japan, North America and Europe. People often like to complain about box art, so some people must obviously care? Right? Well, even if it's just me who cares, here we go. First up is a classic you'll all know, and (hopefully!) love.

#1: Resident Evil: Directors Cut (PS1)

Now, everybody on this site should know of this game, so it needs little to no introduction, the classic zombie horror game pits you, the lone hero, against a mansion full of monsters and more in what has become one of the worlds most respected and succesful franchises, spawning several sequels, prequels, and even a remake.

But the box art? Hell, where do I even begin? Let's take a look at it first would probably be a good idea, seeing as I have it sat in front of me and you probably don't.

The first thing to note is that this one is slightly different to the actual one I have in front of me, as this is the NTSC and mine is the PAL version, the differences are minor, the character is a little larger, a BBFC logo is included (15 rating) and the whole image is a lot brighter. In fact, so much brighter that I didn't even realise those were meant to be flames in the background until I saw this image.

So, we're to assume that the character is supposed to be Chris Redfield, right? Well, ok, I can dig that. But aside from being incredibly muscular (which he is not normally depicted as, at least until Resident Evil 5, and even then he isnt this ripped!) it looks like he has acid burns in localized areas, for example his mouth, cheeks, and the back of his hand leading up his forearm, as well as his ears and parts of his neck. Now, obviously those parts are going to be a different colour to the rest of his face if indeed they are burns, but if you look closely, it appears as if someone has just photoshopped two halves of a head together to create this image. While that may or may not be the case, it certainly appears that way to the eye. The only other thing wrong with him is that he is glowing for some reason. I get that he is meant to be highlighted, to stand out, but could they have done it any less subtly? I think they'd struggle.

Now, issue number two. Just look at that gun? I defy anyone to tell me what in the sam hell that is supposed to be. It looks like another cut-and-shut photoshop job again, we seem to have elements from what looks like an M16, and AK47 and my best guess is that the barrel comes from some kind of shotgun. And to top it all off? The damn things not even loaded! The section that looks like an M16, where the clip would be, it's empty. It boggles the mind, no wonder he looks like he's just crapped his pants, he's got no bullets left.

Edit: One more pointer about the face. Look at it again for a moment... His eyes are looking in two completely different directions, and that facial expression? Damn. It's like each side of his face isn't connected to the other, lending even more credit to the "2 Faces, 1 Photoshop" theory. You try pulling that facial expression, I guarantee you can't. So either Chris Redfield is a cross-eyed version of Liam Neeson playing Darkman, or something went horribly wrong in the production of this picture.

The rest of the artwork looks ok, but as I said from the one sat in front of me there is virtually no way to tell that there is supposed to be flames burning, or that the red spot detailing the inclusion of a Resi 2 demo is also supposed to be burned away, it just looks like it's been highlighted. The games logo is in place nicely and the subtitle fits well with the original logo, even if it is partially blocked by Chris' fat head.

The Japanese cover

Overall i'm inclined to say that this box art is pretty dire, not only is it a piss poor photoshop job, but the artwork is reused from the original boxart. But holy shit, what I wouldn't give for a gun that's both an M16 and a Shotgun! even if it's not loaded. While I would never choose a purchase like this based on boxart, and Resident Evil: Directors cut is by far the best release of this game (and available with nicer box covers too) i'd have to say the original boxart is far superior to this one. Heck, even the japanese boxart looks nice compared.

Resident Evil: Directors Cut, Box Art. 2/10

Actually that turned out pretty long, so disregard what I said above I'll leave this post to just one piece of boxart.

Next time I hope to pick on some more modern games, or maybe review something else entirely, feel free to shoot suggestions and feedback, as well as comments about box art. :D

9 Comments

Ten Things You Need To Save Your Ass

By The_A_Drain May 27, 2009 11 Comments

Everybody knows that Terminator, Alien, Die Hard, Highlander, etc are awesome franchises, what you don't need is another top ten list containing the same old things.

What you do need, however, is to know what's going to save your ass should you find yourself, inexplicably, in a similar situation to that of many of these franchises. Being chased by one or more terrors? Possibly alone? Maybe with a partner? No hope of rescue? The only thing left in the world that can save you is yourself, and this list!

10. A Diversion
Firstly, you need a diversion. The ability to draw attention away from yourself is key to giving yourself time to breath in order to make use of some of the other items on this list. An explosion? A pet, that guy you never liked? These things can all create distractions which can give you time to escape, you might lose them in the process but who cares, right?

We're totally safe here. Yup...

9. A Bullet Shield
Usually you're going to hope you have something to take cover behind, but this isn't always an option. In an open, crowded area full of people, sometimes you're going to need someone between you and the bad guy. If this is another bad guy, then you get bonus points but if it's an innocent bystander, then at least you're still alive, that's what counts, right?

8. The Right Tools
Hey, this one might sound obvious but if you can get your hands on the right gun for the right situation it'll save you a lot of bother. For example, taking out a helicopter with a 6 shot Magnum Revolver? Difficult as hell.

Shit. Me? I'm just that awesome

7. Samuel L Jackson

This motherfucker can get you out of all kinds of situations. Snakes on your plane? Europeans stealing all your gold? Ghosts in your hotel room? Shit, Sam Jacksons got you covered, and then some. Heck, dude's a jedi too.

6. Listening
That's right, even more important than Sam Jackson, is to listen to what people are telling you. Sure, he sounded crazy before, but now you're being chased by a killer porcelain doll you wish you'd listened to him when he told you how to kills a posessed doll huh?

5. Protocol/Procedure
Does your safety handbook tell you not to let the guy with the alien facehugger stuck on his face onto the ship? It does? Well don't do it then! Simple. You can deal with any consequences when you get back home to earth, alive.

4. Mothballs, ammonia, what's for dinner?
Ok, so you can't actually make pipebombs out of mothballs and piss. But, if you can fashion an explosive from raw materials when it counts, it might just save your ass. Even a simple molotov cocktail can be the difference between life and death. But as anyone who has ever encountered zombies will tell you, be careful! Fire spreads faster than you realise sometimes.

3. A Motorcycle
If you can ride a motorcycle, you can be fast, agile, hard to target and you can get to place cars, trucks and other vehicles can't reach. That said, in this kind of situation any vehicle is a bonus. Provided the guy chasing you isn't in a bigger, meaner, faster vehicle.

"Now I know what a TV dinner feels like."
2. Witty one liners?
How are the bad guys going to know they've been defeated without a witty one liner? You gotta have an arsenal of these babies ready to go at a moments notice.

1. The ability to run!
If theres one thing that's common across almost every movie you can think of, Terminator, Alien, Die Hard, Highlander, Escape from New York, The Thing, 28 Days Later, Scanners, Lethal Weapon, almost everything, it's that occasionally you're gonna have to run, so get used to it soldier! That said, good luck outrunning the T1000. Heck, it's that or a big 80's perm so take your pick.

And as Witchhunter_Z rightly pointed out, I have no excuse for forgetting this guy, Bruce Campbell, and his chin, are legendary. He's also the Prince of Thieves.

11 Comments

Been a while, plus, Space! The Final Shelf

By The_A_Drain May 26, 2009 1 Comments

Been something like, 18 months since I blogged anywhere, I guess im kinda apathetic and cynical, also lazy.

I collect videogames, and unlike your common collector I have no particular alliegiences to a specific subset. I don't aim (yet at least) to collect every NES, SNES, or etc game there is, I just want to own everything I can get my hands on. My collection spans something like 900 different videogames nowadays, it must be nearing a thousand. Yup, you guessed it, all these games have to go somewhere and we can't all live in humongous houses and have lots of money.

Shelf space, I need this many.

Given my many personality flaws, one of which is the total inability to part with posessions I have decided that selling items to make room for more, while the most logical choice, is not the one for me. I have instead decided to simply box everything up ready for the move home, but put most of it in the loft until i'm given the opportunity to kit out an area large enough to house my collection.

The room i'm in at the moment is about the perfect size provided I don't let the collection grow by even a single item, but unfortunately i'd rather be bereft of storage space than have the landlord I currently have, so I am forced to move back home this year. Hopefully sometime in the near future an opportunity will arise and the collection can once again begin to grow.

Sometimes I wish I could simply hop on ebay, sell a few things and not have my soul scream in agony.

What about you guys, where does your collection go? How big is it? And what do you plan to do about future storage space?

1 Comments

Totally honestly...

By The_A_Drain August 20, 2008 3 Comments

I think that Epic is like the EA of the game engine world.

They have spent the last 5 years hoovering up all the cheaper indy engines in order to eliminate any competition, and then released the UE3 engine prematurely, offering little to no support.

But on the other side of the coin, this was wholly evident for people to see, Dyack really shouldnt have wasted all that timer and money on it and should have just built his own engine (or chosen another) from the beginning.

Too Human seems to be another one of those games that could have been amazing, but due to some bad design choices, engine trouble, and general ignorance/bad business choice has been compromised. I will file it in the same box as games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl and Alone in The Dark. Although I will probably buy it anyway sooner or later, probably when it's £9.99 on play.com.

3 Comments

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