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.

Movie Review - Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

I saw a photo in an issue of EMPIRE Magazine several years ago, and it made me wonder: is Gemma Arterton the next Kate Beckinsale?  I sincerely hoped so.  She has a nice face and that deadpan British accent that makes almost anything she says sexy as hell. The photo also helped, as she was clad in tight butt-hugging leathers and holding a crossbow, standing next to some guy (later I found out he was Jeremy Renner, star of The Avengers, The Town and The Bourne Legacy).  The photo was for a movie and it looked like an adventure in the same vein as Van Helsing--the type of movie set in Industrial period clothing but containing anachronisms, like sniper rifles with night-vision scopes or incendiary grenades.  It looked like it might be steampunk, so I checked the name:  HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS.

That already sounded nuts, so I was waiting for a while to see this one.  It was a similar situation when I was waiting for the American release of Solomon Kane: fucking unbearable.  Eventually I got to watch this movie, and I did it in IMAX 3D! So how was it, you ask?  It seems that too much anachronism can spoil what would otherwise be a good fantasy yarn.

"I noticed the script says you're a diabetic, Jeremy.
Are you alright with that?" "No...but says here you
headbutt a grown man with no blood on your forehead
or bruising. You're as pale as a sheet Gemma; how is that--"
"SOUNDS LEGIT; let's do it!"

To start us off, this movie is a VERY loose adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about two kids who find a candy house, are captured by the cannibal witch who lives inside, and kill her in their attempt to escape.  Now these two kids have grown up to be Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and forward-thinking Gretel (Gemma Arterton), bounty-hunting the very supernatural creatures that mentally scarred them: witches.  They have come across several gadgets in their quest to rid the world of witches, like Mossberg pump-action shotguns, Tasers, split-level axial transforming perpendicular crossbows (you have to see it to believe it), folding rifles, carousel-loaded hand cannons, and what may be a Gatling or Maxim gun.  The most interesting part of the movie comes with Hansel and his "sugar sickness." It seems when the witch was trying to fatten Hansel up to eat him, she made him eat nothing but candy which made him sick.  Now in his adult life Hansel must take an injection of serum every few hours or he dies.  This makes Jeremy Renner's Hansel a diabetic hero (the first being Captain Novolin).  It's a good thing to have a weakness for a hero that seems somewhat invincible in the film.  Our heroine Gretel is not limited to such problems, and can fight without any real injury or hindrance.

Tenacious D says "THAT'S CALLED TEAM-WORK!"

Hansel and Gretel (whose makeup never smears, not even the blood) earn the enmity of a witch named...Muriel (played by Famke Janssen of X-Men fame) who wants to save her kind from these traveling murderers by sacrificing 12 souls during the Blood Moon--one for each month--and also needs the heart of a great White Witch to complete the ritual that grants any witch that drinks the brew created from the blood of the sacrifices to become immune to fire permanently.  A witch's enemies can tie her to the stake but she will not burn...totally worth the convoluted plan that can only happen once a year, I say.  Throw in some forgettable characters/love interests and discarded plot threads and you have an action movie for the summer...strangely placed in January.

Cool guys (and girls) don't look at explosions as they
walk away from them. Especially if they caused them.

I don't know what the goal of Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola was when he set out to make this movie, but it would seem he needed to hire a different editor.  If he requested this cut, then he needs to fix it.  The editing was all over the place, and clipped several establishing shots to shorten the running time.  There were some problems, notably in the final battle sequence when Hansel drops his shotgun, Gretel comes in with a weapon and she is struck and drops it.  The next shot is of Hansel's shotgun hitting the ground.  The way that's ordered it looks like Gretel had Hansel's shotgun.  This confused me, but not nearly as much as allowing an untrained person to handle a rapid fire machine gun in a crowd setting.  It's a damned good way to get shot and give the witches what they want, but apparently not in this world.  In any case, I expect a Director's Cut of this film, with all the stuff that should have gone in to fill in any problem issues.  Other than that, a film that had great props and artwork but still needs a shine and polish to be complete.

RATING: 6/10

Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)

(Note: This movie is part of the Dungeons & Dragons Movie Series. For more movies, see the entries for the 2000 movie and its 2005 sequel).

I had no idea this was in the works, so I was pleasantly surprised when SyFy decided to premiere the movie on its channel.  It cased a buzz in my gaming circle, and I also wanted to watch it as well.  I eventually got to watch it, and it was worth my time, unlike some D&D movies.  The best part of this surprise was the subject matter of the movie: the Book of Vile Darkness.

To be fair, the movie is not about the singular artifact called the book of vile darkness--a tome suffused with so much evil from its human-skin book cover to the foul contents penned in blood that it makes whomever reads it turn evil--but about the quest to stop it from being recreated by a dark cult bent on having darkness rule the lands once again.  This monumental task is taken up by one paladin of Pelor named Grayson Azrael (Jack Derges).

When his paladin order, the Knights of the New Sun, is nearly wiped out save for himself and his captured father, Grayson must go undercover and join a group of evil adventurers:

• Akordia (Eleanor Gecks), a female shadar-kai witch
• Vimak (Habib Nasib Nader), a male goliath barbarian
• Seith (Lex Daniel), a male human assassin
• Bezz (Barry Aird), a male human vermin lord

THE PARTY ASSEMBLED (from l-r):
Vimak the barbarian, Seith the assassin,
Bezz the vermin lord, Akordia the witch,
and Sir Grayson the paladin. That is not a typo.

Sir Grayson braves the depths of depravity while holding up his morality, sleeping with an evil spellcaster (that means Akordia; he's doesn't go boning dudes to save the world), even slaying a red dragon in the process to get closer to the...I'm not sure if I can really say this..."mind flayer" Shathrax.  This strange creature is responsible for trying to recreate the book AND for capturing Grayson's father.  Grayson will travel very far to reach his goal, from his home kingdom all the way to the Elemental Plane of Air--or was it the Plane of Shadow?  I couldn't be sure, but wherever they were there wasn't a lot of ground to work with.  At the end of it all, this movie was a lot better than its predecessors despite being based on the rules for the 4th edition D&D.  I was riveted to my seat for a great deal of the movie, mainly because of the attention to detail about the technical game stuff.

(actual product, written for D&D 3.0 rules)

They got most of the races and monsters right--the fire archon, red dragon, and especially the slaymate (an undead creature from Libris Mortis).  I almost crawled over the back of my chair when I saw it in action.  The mind flayer was no mind flayer at all, but some guy with his mouth sewn shut.  The magic items used were pretty on the nose, like the javelin of lightning, and the collars of obedience combined with the belt of the emperor that Shathrax wore.  Vorpal blades, necklace of fireballs, bag of holding; you name it, it was in there.  The film even had a fun time with the spells, namely invisibility.  And I was amazed.

It can be said that anything worth doing takes time, practice, and a whole lot of stress.  In the case of Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness, the 7 years between live-action projects was worth it.  I recommend this movie, not because it's all that good but because someone had the balls to make another one even after the first two films were critically panned in the theaters and the direct-to-video market.  I hope someone is as care-free to produce and direct the next D&D film, because I will watch it.  And I hope you will too.

RATING: 8/10

Movie Review: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

I don't get to watch a lot of movies in the theaters (mainly because that sh*t is expensive, but you know that already), and when I do, I watch superhero movies with my friend Will and Dacarllo.  When I'm not with them, I use the Internet.  Now, I'm not out there torrenting like the rest of y'all.  I use other forms to get my movies--all of them legal.  Which brings me to my movie review subject: Tokyo Gore Police.

I watched it and I can truly say this movie lives up to its title, as all movies should.  The film (used loosely) is set in a futuristic Tokyo, some time after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been privatized and merged into the former.  Apparently, all Japan is now Tokyo...or not, I am unsure.  Also new to the mix are "Engineers"--a new type of life-form that causes mayhem in the streets and turns ordinary criminals into super-powered villains.
Enter Ruka (played by Eihi Shina of Audition fame), an expert "Engineer Hunter" with the Tokyo Metro Police, who hunts using only a samurai sword.  True to Japanese fantasy tropes, she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and no family lineage is tied to the weapon to explain its unnatural ability to remain undamaged throughout the film as she fights hulking monsters.  She does her best and is celebrated in the ranks of the police department...but off-duty, she is a sad young woman who laments the loss of her policeman father years ago and makes cuts on her left arm for catharsis.  Only with the arrival of a particular Engineer monster does the story begin to evolve from a simple hack-and-slash videogame parody into something resembling a murder mystery.

- ATOMIC BOMB REFERENCE LOL -

There are a lot of counter-culture elements, sexual elements, dark humor (i.e., cutesy wrist-cutting devices that "make the blood sweeter"), and alternative lifestyle choices on display, which pale in comparison to the main event the movie puts forth.  When a person talks about themselves as an expert and says that "[Insert field of expertise here] is my middle name", they want you to believe that they were born with an intense knowledge of the field.  The same holds true for Tokyo Gore Police.  GORE is its middle name.

There were a lot of moments when I had to stop watching--not because I was gonna throw up, but...  Y'know what?  I'm lying.  Lying, and lying so hard.  I was gonna throw up so many times while watching, because I had just eaten dinner and there was so much gore for the sake of it.  Characters who could have just hit their opponents in the head with a bottle and stopped there, chose to jam the broken bottle into their opponent's face and use it to cookie-cut the flesh and bone from his skull.  What does that do? He dead!

The worst part of the movie for me was when I was watching it, I began to get used to the simulated carnage--the watery blood, the churned-up whatever they were using to simulate destroyed flesh, the ever-increasing attempts at body horror, etc.  Each special effect kept taking me out of the story.  At the end of it all, I was more concerned with the story than the poor tries to keep my attention with special effects.

Normally, I give Japanese films a pass when their story surpasses their special effects (STACY, Mechanical Violator HAKAIDER), but this movie is on its way to becoming the next Death Trance.  What's Death Trance, you ask?  Exactly--you probably don't know.  That's how bad it sucked.  I truly wish more time was spent developing the characterizations of Ruka and the bar owner--ESPECIALLY the bar owner.  Instead, we have a fine revenge story and a great fantasy world that is undercut by its own special effects.  For shame, Japan. For shame.

Movie Review - Conan the Destroyer (1984)

When I think about the person I am today, I can definitely say that the world of the 1980s has shaped me a great deal. There was a bunch of good stuff on TV then, and you can find any of that stuff on the Internet on any old 80's webpage. What really sticks is the films of the day. I remember a lot of the movies that ushered me into being a big sci-fi and fantasy fan. I'll eventually end up naming them all at some point, but I want to focus on the fantasy films of the time that influenced me the most.
Many films fall into this number, but a choice few stick out as really good. Of this number, two of them star the Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwartzenegger.  One of the two is a sequel to the character movie that made him famous: Conan the Barbarian. The movie I speak of is Conan the Destroyer.

A lot of people think that Conan the Destroyer (callin' it "Conan 2") is crap and that it brings down the first movie, a grand work on its own. I have to disagree; this movie is the perfect spot for someone NOT familiar with the exploits of the Cimmerian to get acquainted INITIALLY. For those of the 'happily ever after' set, this was a believable hero on par with violent 80's hero Rambo. This was a vehicle in which Conan could be the 'good guy', be violent and do what good guys do: SAVE THE PRINCESS. With my previous sole knowledge of stories of heroes existing to save the princess, I was sold. After reading the last paragraph, I think it's time to give a brief synopsis of the movie Conan 2.

Conan and his thieving sidekick Malak (Tracy Walter) are captured at the grave of Valeria by soldiers of Queen Taramis (character actress Sarah Douglas). She hires the barbarian and his friend to escort one Princess Jehnna (a young Olivia d'Abo, in her first movie role) and her bodyguard Bombaata (basketball star Wilt Chamberlain) to find a jeweled horn for some kind of ritual. Upon mention of possible treasure, Conan agrees to take the job. On the way to find the jeweled horn, they meet the warrioress Zula (supermodel Grace Jones) and team up with the wizard Akiro (Japanese actor Mako) to make the job easier.
They'll fight many minions, wizards and insurmountable odds to reach their goal. Many in the party will level up from this mission, but will a prestige class be worth having to watch Arnold doing the grandest phallic flexes since Pumping Iron?
This movie introduced me to the concept of not having to be a knight to save a princess as well as not having to accept what anyone gives you, no matter how prestigious. This movie also taught me that princesses are ALWAYS naive and allowed me to form an opinion on women warriors before Red Sonja or Xena ever came around. This movie, a Dino de Laurentiis production, has not diminished with time; I still get goose bumps when they swim through the icy waters of the wizard's castle. It's a great movie that'll entertain even when the world laughs at the primitive special effects of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

...but that is another story...

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

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

Video Game Review - Street Fighter III: Third Strike (1999 - Sega Dreamcast)

This game holds a special merit in my life, due to the fact that they got a fighting game right on the money. Let's start with it's name of Street Fighter III: Third Strike.
Street Fighter III: Third Strike is nothing more than an attempt by CAPCOM to wring out another buck of its top man-whore, the wandering brawler Ryu. From the first Street Fighter to all of the modifications made on its sequel and passed off as brand new games, to the Street Fighter Alpha prequels that beat out the Star Wars prequel trilogy by 5 years, and through the psychotic Marvel branch-offs, Ryu has seen it all and has changed very little. Unfortunately, neither have his enemies. Same ol' Bison and Vega, Barlog and arch-nemesis Sagat. The stage music hasn't changed much and is even harped upon in other games. That all began to change with the original sequel to Street Fighter II, sequentially titled Street Fighter III.

The original Street Fighter III brought over the usual suspects of Ken and Ryu, but with better animations, new characters altogether, new stages and a new art style. There was a catch to all this cool stuff: you only had the choice of ONE Super-Art (the Super Attack from previous games) out of 3 to choose from. That made it hard to trip up your enemy, but they made the Super-Arts work at different levels on the Super Meter so that one Super-Art can be used 3 times with good damage, while a Super-Art that uses up the entire bar will cause massive amounts of damage. There are moves that I wanna talk about, but only within the context of Third Strike, because those same moves can be found in Street Fighter III and its sequel, Street Fighter III: Second Impact.

Third Strike, the third "sequel" to the third sequel in the Street Fighter> series (read that last sentence back and you'll understand how ludicrous that is to everyone else, but not to CAPCOM execs) brings back some characters from the Street Fighter III series, adding new ones and one revamped old-school character. The formula would seem to say, despite its features, that this is nothing but an old retread of the other Street Fighter III games. That's where Third Strike changes it up with a very significant change to the music.

CAPCOM went straight hip-hop.
It was a shock when I played the game and heard hip-hop beats blaring as I beat my opponents and  in the menus. It also allowed me to get deeper into the game than I ever wanted to. There are several instances where Street Fighter gets me and keeps me playing. Example of that are:

• Ken getting 4 hits for his Flaming Dragon Punch (Street Fighter II: The New Warriors)
• Ryu and Ken both fighting an insanely hard Bison--together (Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior's Dreams)
• Fighting Shin Akuma at Ayers Rock, Australia (Street Fighter Alpha 2)
• Ken's gets an Air Hadoken (X-Men vs. Street Fighter)
• The VISUAL strike effects (Marvel vs. CAPCOM: Clash of Super Heroes)
• The introduction of Captain Commando with the other 3 members of his squad as backup (Marvel vs. CAPCOM: Clash of Super Heroes)
• The option of using 2 characters (Marvel vs. CAPCOM: Clash of Super Heroes)
• The option of using 3 characters (Marvel vs. CAPCOM 2: The New Age of Heroes)
• Three characters combining their Super Attacks together (Marvel vs. CAPCOM 2: The New Age of Heroes)
• Star Gladiator's Hayato introduced as a 2D character (Marvel vs. CAPCOM 2: The New Age of Heroes)
• The introduction of Sean and Elena, two dark-skinned characters of African ancestry that don't suck, are evil or boxers (Street Fighter III: New Generation)
• Street Fighter III: Third Strike. The whole thing.

It took me long enough to say, but this game is awesome. The music is so great and makes you wanna go. The characters are good, especially new additions like Makoto (a karate mistress with exceptional power and spirit), Remy (a Goth version of Guile & Charlie), Hugo (a refugee of the Mad Gear gang from Final Fight) and Q (aka "the Unknown", neither man or machine). The most significant addition to the Street Fighter III character lineup was the re-introduction of the first female character in Street Fighter, Chun-Li Zhang.

She's dropped her Street Fighter Alpha tracksuit (so sad...T_T) and is back in her traditional costume. Her fighting style still has the high jumps and quick kicks, but shows a bit more grace in its animations. Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick has been changed so it doesn't look like she's doing a HEADspring and then spinning, but using a spinning momentum to get off the ground; so fluid it makes me happy to see it. She doesn't have a Kikosho, but her other supers are mean. Even her win poses are smooth, living things: Miss Zhang bows upon entering and the "V for victory" win pose is changed from static female-looking sprite pointing fingers upward to an excellent representation of Chun-Li having a silly moment.

On the antithesis of silly (i.e., serious), I present to you Ryu's Super-Art moves, starting with the Denji-Hadoken. An upgrade from the Shinkuu-Hadoken, Denji-Hadoken gives you the option to CHARGE the already powerful Shinkuu-Hadoken, much like Sakura's chargeable Hadoken in Street Fighter Alpha 2. The obvious drawback is that people can already prepare themselves for or act on the creation of a Shinkuu-Hadoken. The benefit is that it's UNBLOCKABLE. 'Nuff said for turtlers. That's not the end to his strength, for he also has the baddest move on top of that: the Shin-Shoryuken.
Normally, Ken is the better of the two when it comes to the Shoryuken, pulling off more than the single hit Ryu is capable of. Ryu has come back with a vast improvement over Ken's Shoryu-Reppa and Shin-Ryuken, called the Shin-Shoryuken. This Super-Art is so strong, it has a backup plan for when it misses its initial ground strike. On the ground, the Super-Art only gets three hits. It also knocks off an amazing 50% of health from the life-meter. The real gem is when the three strikes go off in sucession: Ryu hits with the first hand (a "closed body" camera shot), then the camera gets a close-up of the opponent's mid-section for a second hit (an "open body" camera shot) and ending with Ryu sending the opponent skyward with a rising uppercut. It may seem tedious to you, but to me it's ballet.
Lest we forget that if he misses the ground strike, Ryu has a chance to make a 15-hit aerial combo. It's impressive, but it doesn't pass Sagat's 21-hit Tiger Genocide from Street Fighter Alpha 2.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike is a milestone in gaming for me; it put almost everything into a fighting game AND not a lot of people hogged it up at the arcade. When something like that happens to a fighting game, that means there's something in it for me and will probably earn a high mark with me.

RATING: 8/10

Video Game Review - PowerStone (1999 - Sega DreamCast)

CAPCOM's melee fighter game Power Stone, I can safely say, has taken advantage of one of my favorite time periods in world history: the years spanning from the late 19th century to the years prior to World War II. This time period had great discoveries in science and archaeology abound, with the invention of the Atom Bomb just ahead of us and the Haymarket Riots behind us and the Bolshevik revolt somewhere inbetween. Electricity, the invention of the automobile, manned flight, the excavation of the Pharaoh's Tombs, the initial concept of the computer and the atom, ideas on human evolution; all were found and reported on in this short period of time.

Other things came from these years, namely the stories, books and legends of the early 20th Century. The Red Baron, the mystics of the British Raj, the curses of Pharaohs and many more legends were competing with the more contemporary writers of the times like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burrows, Mark Twain, H.P. Lovecraft and several other authors who made strides to preserve their past--and visions of the future--in writing.

Most of these stories involved scientific marvels that had a basis in reality, and only had to be invented; thus the stories were called "science fiction."

sci•ence fic•tion. n. fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component[date:1851]

Motorized tanks, submarines, spaceflight, robotics, time travel, television, first contact with extraterrestrials, computers and the visit to another heavenly body (usually the Moon) all fall into the wishful writings of science fiction.The adventures completed during these science fiction novels in exotic locales served up exotic peoples-- mostly beautiful women, great treasures to be found, cunning foes and dangerous beasts (some of conventional design and others of radical or impossible biologies). These novels served to pump the blood and excite the imagination, awakening the heroic (by European standards), adventurous being in all males.
The same things can be achieved my almost any video game, rendering most books obsolete and almost all gamers somewhat illiterate. If you took the time to read the works of the aforementioned authors, you'll see the great influence that written science fiction had on the creative staff of Power Stone.

Power Stone is set in the late 19th Century amidst the search for the legendary titular item. Said item has the power to make one wish--any wish--come true. Those that search for it will resort to fighting each other tooth and nail to get it. Luckily, there are MANY weapons lying around to hely the combatants fight each other for the best 2 out of 3 rounds for a win. The contenders for the Power Stone come from all over the globe, bearing with them great will and skill, multiplied several times over when in contact with pieces of the Power Stone. Let's take a look at our candidates:

FALCON

FALCON
Falcon is the son of Pride, a legendary aviator and treasure hunter. He could be the best bet for winning the Power Stone. When in contact with the Power Stone, he transforms into a red metallic, flying superhero that looks like "The Rocketeer".
The German flying ace Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (aka "the Red Baron") may have been the inspiration for Falcon.  The name Falcon, however, may have come from the type of plane the Red Baron flew during World War I: a Fokker Dr.I triplane. A guess as to why he's called "Falcon" as opposed to "Fokker" is a dodge against reviving Nazi ideology (the Union Jack on his shoulder would probably be an Iron Cross). Given that the German combatants were not Nazis during WWI, this has yet to be made clear.

ROUGE

ROUGE

Although One Thousand and One Arabian Nights was written well before the age of science fiction, it was re-explored by the people of the 19th Century. Rouge brings it back as a mystical, exotic woman. Touching the Power Stone turns her into a type of genie called an Efreet (more commonly known as an Ifrit). All fire and brimstone, she's a dangerous character to play against. In a nod to the myths about the area encompassed by the British Raj, Rouge enters on a flying carpet.

WANGTANG

WANGTANG

Yet another sendup of the Monkey King Sun Wukong/Son Gokuu of the Eastern epic Journey to the West (aka Saiyuki), this Asian boy bears the swirling crown symbol of Son Gokuu proudly as his belt. When he touches the Power Stone, he's more of a reference to Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball Z's Super-Saiyans than anything else. Another nod to the Monkey King comes in the form of an extending weapon found in the game called the nyoi-bo, more commonly known as the Power Pole. 

GALUDA

GALUDA
A representative of the Native Americans, Galuda is frickin' huge. He is a note to the slowly disappearing Old West. Touching the Power Stone allows him to turn into a totem statue of great power. I refer to him in this form as the "wooden Optimus Prime." Twisting stereotypical ideas about native American weapons, Galuda can fire giant shining arrows at his opponent. Oddly enough, Galuda is another way of pronouncing Garuda, a name for a winged bird-like creature of Hindu (read: Indian) mythology.  The Indian may have been a mix-up with feather Indians and forehead-dot Indians, but Native Americans have been known to give great importance and spiritual significance to the eagle.

RYOMA

RYOMA

Fulfilling the necessary convention of having two representatives from Japan in a fighting game, enter our ronin samurai hero Ryoma. You'll see he's the most efficient fighter in the game because he brings his own weapon to the fight. The Power Stone transforms him into a super samurai in silver beetle armor, a character I sometimes call "Mushido" but am apt to mark as the X-Men villain Silver Samurai. One of his moves allows him to make several slashes in the air that home in on its target.

JACK

JACK

Jack was based on the mutilating murderer Jack the Ripper. The basis is changed some to reflect Japanese influence: Jack behaves like a ninja, yet his image incorporates ideas of the Pharaoh's mummies. Nonetheless, when he has the Power Stone, Jack turns into Robo-Jack, capable of rending the flesh from his opponent's bone in the span of a match.

AYAME

AYAME

One would think that she's a geisha in training, but her behavior is anything but geisha-like! Ayame  is a fun little girl who can do just as well as the boys can. Contact with the Power Stone transforms her into a ninja dressed in pink...with the largest shuriken ever on her back. Her specialty is throwing the large shuriken about, hoping it hits. It will indeed hit, and for 9 hits at that. Looking at her makes me think of the Pink Ranger from Power Rangers.

 

GUNROCK

GUNROCK

I'm not sure whether this guy is supposed to be a nod to Pancho Villa, but he's a big ol' Mexican dude who will hurt you if he gets you in a corner. In Power Stone mode, he turns into an earthen golem creature that bears a strange resemblace to the Fantastic Four superhero, the Thing. There's a lot of industrialization in Gunrock's stage; I wonder if it has anything to do with the industrialization of Mexico as seen by the eyes of Mexican artist Diego Parra.

These 8 heroes are all vying for the Power Stone, but undesireable forces would have them first. Such villains have set up shop in the lost city of what looks like Atlantis. Needless to say, the battle is on against the villains in all hope to save the world. Such grand goals from people across the world appeals to me at the basest of levels.
The control for this game is a bit hectic and rushed. It takes a while to get used to the craziness. The transformations are cool, their supers are cooler and the whole vision is absolutely wonderful. With all these benefits, could there be a problem? Not at all. 

RATING: 9/10

Video Game Review - Eternal Champions (1993 - Sega Genesis)

When I first heard the buzz on this, I was glad. Not everyone is on Street Fighter's jock. Then again, this was during a time that people were marveling at the new level that video games had come to with Mortal Kombat. So, many video game companies decided to do just what they did before with the popularity of Street Fighter II: they released a glut of fighting games that tried to copy Mortal Kombat. The arcade game TimeStoppers surpassed the mark set by Mortal Kombat, by allowing dismemberment for dismemberment's sake. Eternal Champions failed in that respect because it ended up being more original than an ape of Mortal Kombat. The only thing the two games shared was their need of cool fatalities.

The story goes like this: Some warriors from across the span of Earth's history were brought to the temple of the Eternal Champion, a spectral being obsessed with honor and battle. He pits the warriors against each
other with the promise that if they emerge victorious against their peers and himself, they'll be able to go back and prevent their premature deaths. Each of the warriors are masters in their respective martial art, and the Eternal Champion is master of them all! Who could best the Eternal Champion?

First of all, Eternal Champions' characters have endeared themselves to me due to the circumstances that brought them to the attention of the Eternal Champion:

• Blade: a bounty hunter from the 26th Century and master of Kenpo.
• Shadow: a female Koga ninja assassin from the 21st Century and  mistress of ninjitsu.
• R.A.X. Cogswell: cyborg Muy Thai kickboxing champion from the 23rd Century.
• Xavier Pendragon: warlock from the 17th Century.
• Slash: Caveman from the birth of time.
• Trident: Merman gladiator from ancient Atlantis. Master of Capoeira.
• Jetta: French gypsy acrobat from the 18th Century. Mistress of French Savate.
• Midknight: scientist from the late 20th Century transformed into a vampire by Agent Orange. Master of Jeet Kune Do.
• Larcen: Cat burgular from the early 20th Century. Master of Praying Mantis Kung Fu.

One of these men is a Kool Moe Dee impersonator;
the other slapped Michael Jackson. Both of these
men share the name Blade. No word on whether
Kool Moe Dee has slapped Michael Jackson.

All of these characters could be comic book characters easy, yet they were developed by Sega stateside. With the detail that went into each character's backstory, I'm not surprised if they stole the idea wholesale from an aspiring comic artist.
Rated MA-13 (remember that, folks?) for its gruesome fatalities, it shouldn't have been. Those fatalities (called Overkills to avoid a Mortal Kombat lawsuit fatality, also called a "LEGALITY") had to be activated by landing your opponents in a specific area of the stages. If your opponent bounced in his/her falling, s/he must fall in the area required. Hard as fuck to pull off when you're beating the crap out of someone. Another interesting quirk in this game is the win count option. Your fights can go for the standard best 2 out of 3, but they can also go 4 out of 7 OR reach the maximum match point of 11 out of 21. That's a whole lotta scrappin'.

This game had a great potential to be one of the best fighting games out there, even with its difficult controls. Hey, if Tekken can have you punching out Morse code to do a simple backfist, then why couldn't this game rule? I have no idea. Maybe Street Fighter II: Championship Edition really was all that & a bag of chips; so much that it eclipsed any and all challengers. It's really sad that the only way people of the Internet Age will know of Eternal Champions is through this webpage. That's all I have to say about a game featuring the ten fallen heroes who will always be--ETERNAL CHAMPIONS.

RATING: 9/10