Comic Book Review: Gammarauders, volume 1 (1989)

Just look at that cover. Everything is
happening at once MAKE IT STOP
and who is that woman in the
smiley-face mask?

This weekend I found the worst comic book I have ever seen, even worse than any art by Rob Liefeld--and that's saying a lot.  It's inconsistent, poorly proportioned, confusing, and altogether bad.  The worst part about it: the artist was trying to mimic the manga style, even going so far as to use screentones for things the artists didn't want to draw.  Unfortunately, I bought them out of the dollar bin.  The comic in question is based on an old TSR tabletop game called GAMMARAUDERS--

STOP. 

Just look at that name. GAMMA...RAUDERS. By all that's holy, this is gonna sting.

For the sake of brevity, it's a comic about dudes piloting giant cyborg mutant animals (called "Bionoids") in the post-apocalyptic future against faceless enemy combatants called "Slugoids".  That's a mouthful, and it doesn't explain why the script is so "all-over-the-place".  We have a few settings like Dodge City, Boom Town, the Big Nada (Is it a demilitarized zone? A nuclear wasteland? An uninhabited stretch of land? I've seen the comic panels and I still don't know) and the Slugoid base, and several factions roaming about these areas like Da Boyz, the Rayzors, and the Friends Of What's Left Of The Earth (F.O.W.L.O.T.E.).  Odd thing: some of these organizations are gangs of post-apocalyptic survivors, not unlike biker gangs.  These people dress in period clothing to mark their gangs: Rayzors dress like Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones", and Da Boyz dress like 30's gangsters--in zoot suits, no less.  Our heroes, the Gammarauders, somehow are the ones that come out looking like fashion victims.

FINAL ISSUE? *yesssss*

To count the Gammarauders, we have our everyman Jok Tadsworth and his mutant cyborg mecha kangaroo named Hoag (the mecha has an Australian accent, but the pilot does not).  He is teamed up with such characters as the green-clad feminist Natasha (who pilots a poorly-drawn cyborg triceratops...moving on), the Aryan-esque all-American Ridley McMann (piloting a cyborg King Kong--that joke writes itself), Jimbo the Black guy (and his cyborg emperor penguin) and Chuck, the other Black guy who's a samurai (and pilots a giant cyborg flying monkey that speaks Japanese. Believe it or not that part actually makes sense.)  There's a plot, but Lord knows it doesn't really make for good reading--it involves a bowler hat, a snow globe, and an obvious pull from "Citizen Kane". 

So far, I've read issues 1-4, 6, 7 and 9 out of a ten-issue series.  There were some highs and lows as I read, where the lows were most of the books and the only high note was knowing that our hero Jok becomes a wanted man plotting revenge on the Gammarauders for the death of Natasha (end spoilers).  It's as if he knew what I wanted to do and acted on it. I suppose if you had a giant cyborg mutant kangaroo at your disposal, you would also take revenge on GAMMARAUDERS, one of the worst comics I've read in a long time.

GAMMARAUDERS volume 1 gets a 1 out of 10, for making sense at least once.

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