Video Game Review - Crimson Tears (2004 - Sony Playstation2)

I am a big fan of the stuff that CAPCOM puts out. They have captured my attention since the days of Mega Man and Street Fighter 2010. I love their ideas and while I know that they only tolerate new ideas from the general poulace when making a new Mega Man villain, I'd still like to give them an idea or two. Here's my idea: make an action game in the vein of SEGA's Phantasy Star Online, but without the online part or the create-a-character part. It'd generally be a dungeon crawl, but without the crappiness of PK or online fees! It'd be brilliant!
Oh wait, they did that already? Crimson Tears? Never heard of it. Got to play it, and here's the review.

Set in futuristic cyberpunk Tokyo, three battle androids have escaped from a high-security facility because they stumbled on to some strange plot concocted by the evil corporation called ARMA. ARMA makes bio-weapons for the military, but something is amiss. The three rogue androids are out to put a stop to it, but they need to be stronger to do so. They set up camp in the city and traverse many levels to fight insane bosses to free not only themselves, but the entire city.
The three previously mentioned androids are Amber the ninja, Kadie the heavy blader and Tokio the gun master. Amber has dual melee weapon skills with swords and knives, but has poor hand-to-hand skills. Tokio can only use a few melee weapons, but he can use two guns at once a la Chow Yun-Fat. Despite Kadie's petite frame, she's the only one who can wield a buster sword. Their weapons, skills and combos can be upgraded to higher and higher levels and, in the case of weaponry, imbued with status effects or elemental effects. All of this is great and everything, but to give you just that would make the game far too easy to play. That's why the game designers decided to introduce the Heat Gauge.
The Heat Gauge measures how hot your android gets as it progresses through the game. When the gauge reaches maximum, the screen turns red and several things happen to your android. Your android can do max damage with every strike and runs twice as fast. While suffering from the status of being overheated(much different from the status effect "Overheat", which can be cured with "Overheat Cure" but not with "Coolant", which lowers your Heat Gauge and stops overheating), you take twice as much damage and your energy dwindles down to very little. If you're not careful, overheating can kill you. if you happen to survive a bout of overheating, your Heat Gauge will rest, but your HP meter will dwindle to 10% of max. It can be a bitch to keep your Heat Gauge down and your HP up and STILL have enough to deal with the enemies throughout the stages.

The enemies are where Crimson Tears really shines for me. I never thought that I would play a game where I'd fight not just ninjas and zombies, but zombie ninjas on top of that! Additionally, the enemies also level up along with you as the levels progress and eventually begin to use the same weapons you do. So, that scrubby soldier or robot you fought on stage 1 will be waiting for you on stage 4 and it'll have the strength to exact payback. And if you think that's tough, wait until you fight the Agent Smith-like "techno vampires" and the infamous "Mr. Black".
Bosses are strange and varied, and that's a good thing. From liquid ninjas to time-warping grim reapers, to the prerequisite evil characters with Biblical names [ex.: Abel and Eden] that are so common in Japanese sci-fi action, they all rock. That and they'll also mop the floor with you.
While quite entertaining when the enemy gets the drop on you, to the chore of getting every last item needed to create your ultimate weapon, Crimson Tears is not a game for the Madden and NBA Street set. Oddly, it CAN work for the Tekken set. Button-typing combos abound from this game, totally unrelated to the Konami game Crimson Sea or the Cliffhanger Comics title Crimson, but indirectly related to both Phantasy Star Online and the Ehrgeiz mini-game "The Forsaken Dungeon."


RATING: 8/10

Cordoba Chronicles IV: Chapter 6

Groaning in response to the creaking of his bed, Rashad stretched the covers off of his body and got ready for another day of working at the construction yard. The sun’s rays shone on the edges of the windowsill to his room at the Stonesthrow Inn as he threw on his clothes and headed down stairs to get some breakfast. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard a faint crying. He looked about the inn lobby and saw that it came from the shadowed tables on the opposite end. Rashad looked around to see if anyone else heard it. Most of the other people in the inn were wrapped up in breaking their fast, so he went over to the tables.

Rashad found a familiar figure sitting with her back to him. It’s Inia, Rashad thought with a smile. He heard the crying coming from her and asked, “Hey, miss. What’s wrong?”

Inia turned around and Rashad almost jumped back at what he saw. Inia was a deathly pallor, the tan skin replaced by a pale olive shade. Her body looked as though she suffered from some sickness, because her body looked askew beneath her clothes. Even her eyes, a bright and fierce gray-green, were reduced to an icy green and underlined by rings of fatigue. “Hey, Rashad,” the young woman’s voice rasped in greeting.

Rashad looked at her a bit longer and said, “Inia? Is that you?” As he reached out, he said, “What happened?”

She suddenly recoiled from his hand, as if it were a snake. “P-please, don’t touch me…”

Surprised by the request, Rashad acceded and sat down near her. “Alright, I won’t. What happened, though?”

“Last night…” Inia began, “Auntie got mad at me. She hit me because I liked you, Rashad. I don’t know why she did, but she was real mad. Kept callin’ you a male and all that. Then Auntie said that she’d never let me see you or any other man ever again.” Tears rolled down the young woman’s face as she continued, “I’ve seen Auntie mad before, but not this mad…”

Rashad hated to see a girl cry, so he hopped up and said, “Hold on; I’ll go get my handkerchief…”

Inia waved him away, saying, “It’s alright. I just wish she would stop being so close-minded about you and all the men in town…”

“Forget her.” Rashad had a defiant look on his face when he said,” She’s just a shriveled old maid who spent so much time in her books, she forgot how to live. I hope she doesn’t expect you to live your life the way she does.”

Inia shushed him as fast as she could and said through clenched teeth, “They’re listening.”

“Who?”

“Them. The black-hoods. They’re everywhere and know everything.”

Rashad shrugged and said, “What’s your point?”

The young woman leaned closer and said, “Auntie owns them. She owns this whole town.”

“One more reason to not pay them any mind. They’re shady cops who work for the interests of one person.” Crossing his arms, Rashad said, “Trust me, I know authority figures. Best thing to do is cheer yourself up and go out with me on a date to watch the stars after work.”

She offered a small smile and said, “Nice try, but I don’t want to—“

“You gonna let your auntie do your thinking forever, Inia?”

She stared at him with a strange look of shock. This guy just made fun of her AND he had the audacity to ask her out in the same sitting. Inia thought about it a moment more and realized Rashad has gone a lot farther then any other guy has. So she gave him the benefit of the doubt and said, “Fine.”

Praying to Toren for things really does work, Rashad thought. “Great! I’ll pick you up from Egress Bar tonight—“

“I don’t work there anymore.” Inia cut in. “Given her state, she’d kill me for real if she found out where I really worked, so I don’t want to give her any other reasons to do so.”

“Fine,” Rashad sighed. “I’ll meet you at the construction site tonight.”

A smile spread over Inia’s face as she said, “Alright.” Then, “Wait: the construction site? Why?”

“Just be there, miss,” he said as he walked out the door.

The smile on Inia’s face brought a flush to her cheeks and a curious hope: what could Rashad be all about?

.....................................................................

“Date?” Wyle said through bandanna-turned-mask.

“Yeah,” Rashad shot back through his own scarf. The workers had covered their mouths to make sure they didn’t breathe in harmful dust from the heavy-duty work being performed at the Karmor’s Bend Town Hall building. The shipment of slate had just come across the Dumas River from the northern Svetarra Mountains in the east. The slate was cut to order by miners at the quarry site, transported by wagon to Karmor’s Bend and further manipulated to suit the needs of the construction crew. This particular shipment of slate was cut into thick ring shapes and standard bricks. 

Many of the workers, like Rashad, Wyle and Cyan, unloaded the bricks and set them aside for the future walls of the town hall. The stone rings, cut especially for the creation of columns, were too heavy to be handled by any normal humanoid. So Jollum called in the only abnormal person on his crew he could find.

“AWRIGHT” came the cry across the work site. Barcrab was digging holes for the wall supports when the wagons rolled up, and he dropped the earth where he was standing. Rushing over to the wagon, he reached over and grabbed a stone ring, carrying it as if it were no heavier than a laundry basket. He grabbed another in his claws, proceeded to the back of the lot and placed them with the other pieces of slate.

“Yo, who’s the girl?” Wyle asked over the commotion.

“Like you’ve gotta ask. It’s Inia, man.”

Wyle’s eyes widened over his bandanna as he said, “What in Hells? Are you crazy?”

“Do I look like someone’s who’s crazy?” Rashad asked.

“No,” Wyle said, “but you look like someone who doesn’t want to keep their job! If the Benefactor finds out that you’re messin’ with her niece, you’ll be out of a job!”

Rashad hefted a slate brick and said, “Like I care what that woman thinks. Plus, she probably already thinks that I am messin’ with Inia.”

Wyle’s eyes got as big as saucers as he stared at Rashad walk to the back and put his block down. The new guy doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, the carpenter thought. Rashad came back and continued, “Man I was over at Blackheart Estates walkin’ Inia home last night and she wants me to meet the damned Benefactor. I go in, we’re relaxing and her aunt—the Benefactor—shows up like some kind of lurking shadow.

“She’s in my face about who I am and what I used to do—I used to be an adventurer,” Rashad slides in as Wyle grabbed another slate brick and walked to the slate deposit. Wyle comes back and Rashad continues, “So I used to be an adventurer and she tells me I’m not. Old bag’s yellin’ at me about ‘I need to show her proof’, so I show her this and she shuts up quicker than a shame plant. I wasn’t gonna put up with that another minute. Inia was home, so I left."

“Wow, new guy,” Wyle said. “So, you beat the Benefactor in an argument without getting fired on the spot AND you’re dating her niece. Sounds like you’re a liar on top of being insane to me.”

Rashad pulled another brick from the wagon and said, “I’m not lying! I went to Blackheart Estates and had an argument with the Benefactor. On top of that, she—

“The Hells is going on over there guys? Rashad? Wyle?” Jollum stood outside his foreman tent and shouted ”If you’re going to talk, talk AND work or talk on your break! How hard is that?”

“Yeah, twerp,” Cyan punctuated by a slap in the back of Rashad’s head, “get to work already.”

“I’m really beginning to hate that guy,” Rashad said. “What’s his deal anyway?”

“He’s just riding you, remember?” Wyle said. “Anyway, we’ve got to unload this cart before the day is out.”

“Right,” Rashad said and grabbed a brick. He headed to the slate deposit and placed his brick down. He looked about and marveled at the amount of stone, thinking how much work must’ve gone into cutting and mining from the rock quarry. He was lost in thought when a thunderous crash shook him from his musings. He looked over and saw that he was near a support post for the town hall, on which Barcrab was putting the stone rings.

Thirty feet in the air on strong scaffolding, the Enigman Barcrab took the other stone ring and placed it over the support post. With gravity taking over, the huge piece of slate dropped down and crashed against the proceeding ring. Barcrab looked down to see Rashad and waved a big red claw in greeting. The Enigman yelled down to him, “ARE THEY STRAIGHT?”

Quickly glancing at the short stack, Rashad shouted, “Yes they are straight!”

“GOOD. I’M COMING TO GET MORE,” the Enigman bellowed. Rashad watched as the Enigman tromped down the service ramps from the aspiring roof to the ground floor. The Enigman strode over, red carapace gleaming in the sun and his eyestalks waving ever so slightly in pleasure. He picked up two more slate rings and said, “THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK I DO; HEAVY-DUTY WORK. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS JOB, RASHAD?”

“Oh, uh…” Rashad was very busy thinking of how he could make the date work tonight and was seriously considering the roof as the place when he said, “…the fringe benefits.”

Movie Review - The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines or Clash of Empires: The Battle for Asia (2011)

I rented this movie, Clash of Empires: The Battle for Asia, because the cover looked so cheesy.  It brought me back to the old days when I reviewed movies on the previous Gedren's Peak website just because they were bad--movies like Bog and Robot Ninja.  This movie went and pulled the wool over my eyes, because this is a great movie despite technical failings.

The story reads as an account in the Kedah Annals ( I had to look that up on Wikipedia) by a Malay king of his far-removed ancestor, Merong Mahawanga (indeterminate South Asian actor Stephen Rahmen Hughes), descendant of Alexander the Great, future founder of the Malay Dynasty and future ruler of Langasuka.  The story speaks of his earlier vagabond life and how he came to prominence by helping out a foreign prince from a faraway empire of the world--the Roman Empire.
Prince Marcus Carpenius (Gavin Stenhouse) of Rome is to be wed to Princess Meng Li Hua (Chinese actress and model Jing Lusi) of the Empire of China in the days of the Han Dynasty, placing the events around 120 AD/CE.  The meeting place between the two empires is a well-known trading place and not ruled by any king.  It is populated by several indigenous tribes, one of which has taken to piracy called the Garuda.
The barbarian Garuda--known for murdering every man, woman and child in a village under plunder--are led by the shaman Taji (W. Hanafi W. Su) and his successor, the wily Kamawas (Khir Rahman). They have decided to kidnap the Chinese princess and her clever handmaiden Ying Ying (Nell Ng) and ransom the princess for 1000 taels of gold and sovereignty.  In the ensuing battle, the Roman prince is lost and our main character Merong fights on despite his wounds causing him to faint.  It is Merong's that triggers the meeting with his teacher Kesum the guru (Rahim Razali) and his future wife Embok (Ummi Nazeera).

But I am getting ahead of myself...

Video Game Review - Streets of Rage (1991 - Sega Genesis)

And now, I recite the lyrics to the old TV cop show "Car 54, Where Are You?" as an opening to my review of the Genesis game, Streets of Rage:

There's a holdup in the Bronx,

Brooklyn's broken out in fights,

There's a traffic jam in Harlem

That's backed up to Jackson Heights.

There's a Scout troop short a child,

Khrushchev's due at Idlewyld--

CAR 54, WHERE AAAARE YOUUUUU?

Car 54 is providing backup to the only 3 cops who give a damn about their city, with the best firepower available to the local police force. More on them later. Let's focus on why the city is in the grip of terror...and the three brave souls determined to save it.
Mr. X, a crime lord of unparalleled aims, is taking over the city. He's flooding it with drugs, thugs and psychos. It's not safe in the daytime, and you'd be insane to leave your home at night for any reason. The police are doing something about it: taking bribes from Mr. X to look the other way. A few cops are fighting back, but many of them are fired or killed in the line of duty before they can go into action. Three cops decide to play by Mr. X's rules and take it to the streets!

The three people who fight a private war against Mr. X are:

• Adam, a former boxer who is leading our trio
• Axel, a brash young police recruit that treats every battle like a video game
• Blaze, a female martial artist that doesn't take no for an answer

Each of these cops has pledged to fight Mr. X anywhere and everywhere he holds sway until his army of hoods and killers are off the streets. The three realize they ARE up against an army, so they have backup units. When summoned on the walkie talkie, the police cars pull up and fire either a bazooka or a gatling napalm in the general area, injuring many enemies. They have a limited amount of rounds, so our heroes call them only in times of dire need.
The army of Mr. X is legion, with some members more outstanding than others. With boomerangs, clawed gloves, super-strength, martial arts and the ability to breathe fire at their call, our heroes have their work cut out for them. Despite these forbidding opponents, the trio fight their way into Mr. X's penthouse suite and confront him. At one point, Mr. X tries to turn the cops against each other with the promise of riches and prestige. The act was all for naught, because the heroes want only one thing: to get JUSTICE for their city or die trying. Mr. X is more than happy to oblige them as his goons rush the heroes as Mr. X fires at them with his machine gun.

The battle was deadly and raged into the dawn. The sun rose just as Mr. X fell and surrendered. Justice was served and the streets of the city were free for its people. Adam, Axel and Blaze were commended and smiled great smiles as the sun beat down on their shoulders, relieved of the burden that were...the STREETS OF RAGE!

Our heroes (l-r, Blaze, Axel and Adam.) look out
over their city in "GOOD END."

Streets of Rage (titled Bare Knuckle in Japan) was basically a modernized version of a favorite game of mine, Golden Axe II. The characters in Streets compared to Golden Axe had similar traits, such as the case of the female character Blaze and her ancient counterpart Tyris-Flare. Both wore red, had excellent control of their movements and wore next to nothing. Axel and Axe-Battler had somewhat less in common; both wore blue, had the word "AXE" in their name and were musclebound lunkheads, yet Axel proved to be more useful than his earlier incarnation. Adam and Gilius Thunderhead, on the other hand, were not that similar. Both were wise, had powerful moves and a good reach, yet Adam was a 6-foot tall Negroid in a yellow tank top and that contrasted visually with Gilius' Dwarven stature and green clothing. The magic aspect of Golden Axe was replaced by the weapon-bearing police cars. But with all of these slight changes, one thing stayed the same between these two games: they were both extremely therapeutic.

The whole game was based on beating the ever-lovin' crap outta the bad guys. When you beat one up, there was another waiting, or more than one would challenge you. Once you got done with them, there was a stage boss to defeat. After 7 stages, the eighth and final stage forced you to fight every boss you already fought once again in order to reach the final boss. I always expect him to be hard as shit, and he never fails to disappoint. If I didn't beat it, I'd vow to fight the forces of evil much later--and win. When I did beat a game like this, I'd breathe a sigh of relief and revel in the credits and the feeling of a job well done.

This game's good, yet it could be better.  And that's why its sequel blows it out of the water.

RATING: 7/10

Movie Review - Lost in Space (1998)

When I was younger, I favored The A-Team, Airwolf and Knight Rider over most of the shows of yesteryear. I gave some concessions to old comedies, and approached old sci-fi with an open mind. That's how I became a closet Trekkie/Trekker. While I did enjoy The Outer Limits and Wild Wild West, one sci-fi show never caught my attention: the Irwin Allen TV show Lost in Space.
I know the story of the show: a family of astronauts in the future of 1997(!) took a trip to space to do something and they got lost with a weirdo in their backseat. Oh, and the little boy in the show has a robot. They meet aliens and whatnot, and have a general family existence while being... LOST IN SPACE. Perhaps it was the corny robot talking about DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER all the time and the generally boring stories that filled the scripts of the show, but without Dr Smith's alliterations the show "Lost in Space" would have been extremely unbearable. Thanks to such a villain, the memory of the show lasted well into the 1990s and remained favorable enough to allow a movie to be made about it.

The movie starts out pretty much the like the show. The difference is that they take a great deal of time and energy talking about each character and their flaws. Such an effort pays off for the plot, which depends heavily on these character elements. With the new translation of the Robinson family journey comes a new interpretation of the characters and new actors to play them.
Our patriarch is Prof. John Robinson (William Hurt). He's a man with a need to see the world at peace, yet he cannot escape his warrior father's shadow. The professor has tried to stay away from war his entire life and retreats to science for solace. He finds that the world is polluted beyond repair in humanity's lifetime, so he sets his sights on a pristine planet for colonization: Alpha One. To get there would take 10 years in cryo-stasis, so he devises a plan to make that trip shorter for future colonists by making a "hypergate"--a device that works like a space wormhole--on both Alpha One and Earth that would bridge the time gap. Prof. Robinson has to get to Alpha One  before this can happen and he needs a crew to get there in the experimental Jupiter 2 spacecraft.

Enter the professor's wife, Dr. Maureen Robinson (Mimi Rogers) as the ship's doctor, his single-minded grown daughter Judy (Heather Graham) as the science officer and fighter pilot Maj. Don West (Matt LeBlanc) as the ship's pilot. The professor decides that it's not best to leave the children behind, so he brings troublesome young Penny (Lacey Chabert) and little genius Will Robinson (Jack Johnson). The more people that get on this ship, the more it begins to look like a family outing instead of a scientific mission. All that changes as an unknown entity gets aboard the Jupiter 2 undetected.
Said entity is Dr. Zachary Smith(the wonderful Gary Oldman), an agent for the global seditionist group that is at war with the current government. His mission is to turn the onboard robot into a killing machine to wipe out the Robinson family. He doesn't get very far and has to help the Robinsons and the Major stop the robot. By the time they do that, the ship's already off course and headed for the sun. The Jupiter 2 can't escape the sun's gravity and the only way to get away is to go through the sun--via the onboard hyperdrive. There's no way to navigate in hyperdrive, so they take the chance.

That's when the movie begins to get interesting.
The scenes and sets up until this point have been great, but from here on out it's absolutely amazing. Against the backgrounds there's action, adventure, science and mystery. At the end of the entire story, there's a lesson to be learned and more adventures to experience as the credits roll. It leaves you wanting more than what's given. For me it goes beyond the movie's contents because this movie is yet another glimpse into the future that will never exist.
A sad thing these movie futures; so grand in their scope while so alluring in their promise of prosperity. Yet I know that the movie was a work of fiction beyond any shadow of a doubt, because the government actually listened to--and backed!--a scientist with a halfway decent idea that didn't involve killing another person.

If this movie took out Titanic at the box office, then it's worth seeing.