Big giant monsters! Ever since King Kong climbed the Empire State Building and Godzilla first rose up from the sea, huge creatures have been stomping all over our on-screen cities. Naturally it wasn't long before such creatures met up to battle each other to find out who was the best, and cause even more destruction! Once video games appeared on the scene, they also didn't wait very long before giving us control over these mega-sized monsters!
This game then is similar to a few other monster beat-em-ups, but it is a very good example of the genre! There are eight characters unlocked at the start of the game, with a few more available to unlock. These characters will look fairly familiar to any fan of the aforementioned sci-fi flicks too, with a giant ape, a giant lizard, a huge robot...you get the idea! The game knows it's target audience and knows what they'll want to see!
Once you've listened to the 50's style music, watched the spinning newspapers of the intro and picked your favourite monster, you can play against a friend in fully 3D environments, smashing buildings, picking up cars or sharp pointy pieces of metal to throw at them, and using your characters unique abilities (radioactive breath, for example) to defeat the other player. You can also add an extra couple of fighters, although sadly these can only be computer controlled. If you can't find anybody else to play with, there is a fairly decent solo mode too, with the added feaature of slightly smaller monsters to battle in between the big fights!
The environments are pretty cool, often hiding little discoverable easter eggs such as extra weapons to use, and the way the buildings fall apart and add more things to lob at your opponent is pretty cool. There are apparently also a few mini-games to unlock, but I've never managed to unlock any of these yet, so can't really comment on those.
It all makes for a pretty enjoyable, suitably sci-fi, beast-filled brawler that's a bit of a hidden gem on Playstation 2. It took me a while to find a copy, but Im really glad I did, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a slightly unusual addition to their collection of fighting games!
Now if you know your horror games, you'll know all about the Resident Evil series..With 9 proper games (including 0 & Code Veronica) and numerous spin offs, HD Remakes, etc...if you've been playing games at all for the past 20 years or so it'll be pretty remarkable if you haven't heard of at least one of them. One that you might not be familiar with though, is this light-gun enabled one on the PS2 !
An Umbrella employee named Morpheus has gone a bit off the rails (what a surprise!) and has nabbed a bit of the G-Virus..a newly modified version of the T-virus that saw Raccoon City wiped from the Earth...and has hopped aboard an Umbrella owned luxury cruise ship to escape, but also decided to use the virus to experiment upon himself and the other passengers!
The American government sends in special Anti-Umbrella Pursuit Investigation Team member, Bruce McGivern, to retrieve the virus and stop the threat. Also onboard is Fong Ling, a Chinese government agent who is also out to stop Morpheus her own way. Cue much tumbling around and flirting from both agents as they have the usual love/hate relationship type thing that always seems to occur in such situations...
Unlike the other Survivor lightgun games in the Resident Evil series, this one allows you to walk around in 3rd person mode using the GunCon 2 or a standard PS2 controller. This helps it feel more like a proper RE game, and makes it far easier to explore and pick up items.
When you do come across the inevitable zombie baddies, a quick press of the trigger on the lightgun sees you enter 1st person mode, and you can blast away the undead numpties at your leisure before popping back into 3rd person to leg it away again.
The game is filled with the usual rubbish, campy dialogue and the environments can sometimes feel a bit empty, but the story does feel like a proper offshoot of the numbered RE sequels, and has the usual increasingly difficult and weird bosses to defeat. It makes an interesting and enjoyable change from the usual Resi stuff, so if you own a lightgun and a PS2 you should definitely get this one in your sights...
Don't you just hate when you nip to the loo after a nice coffee, only to then blackout and wake up having apparently murdered some old guy who was minding his own business and just having a wee?? I know I do, and so does Lucas Kane, who finds himself in exactly this predicament at the start of the game...
You take control of Lucas, and using the two analogue sticks of your controller, hurriedly try to clean up the scene of the crime before a policeman in the diner where the murder took place, enters the toilet and discovers the mess! It's a truly unique start to a game, and has you wondering exactly what type of thing you're getting yourself into...
It turns out that Lucas wasn't exactly himself when he commited the crime, and like a few others in New York, has seemingly been possessed by a serial killer carrying out the murders using other folk as deadly puppets. Unlike the others though, Lucas has had psychic visons since childhood , and it seems he is destined to play a much bigger role than the murderer intended in this weird plot, that just keeps getting weirder!
Fahrenheit plays like some sort of rhythm-action interactive movie, and a surreal one at that. It's full of big action sequences that look like something from The Matrix, but the plot has you doing everything from mopping the floor to playing guitar to seduce ladies to fighting weird shadowy angel type monsters and dodging giant bugs in your office! Oh, and meeting a Kung-Fu master in a library and playing basketball, not to mention the naked sex scenes that seemed to upset the anti-videogame crowd more than the murder at the start.....
The best thing about it is the way it remembers what you've done as Lucas, and when you get to play as Tyler and Carla, the detectives trying to work out who the murderer is, your choice of where to hide the murder weapon, wash your clothes, etc. will have an effect on what they discover during their scenes...
It can get a little fiddly at times with the controls, but the bizarre story and innovative gameplay should keep you intrigued enough to see it through to the end! And then you'll probably want to play through it again to experience how different choices will affect the game...
Definitely one I recommend! The story in this one is definitely best experienced by yourself, and even the stuff I mentioned above is only a tiny taster of the weirdness you can expect...so do yourself a favour and pick this up!
Another game I'm just getting to grips with next.....This is a 2001 survival horror title developed by some members of the original Resident Evil team, and you can see the influences a mile off, as its filled with bad voice acting, key cards, locked doors, etc..... but all ends up being rather groovy despite its shortcomings!
You take on the role of a Marine Special Forces Operative named Dennis Riley, as he and his buddies go on a rescue mission in Antarctica. Needless to say, before long you'll realise things are a lot worse than people imagined and some sort of viral outbreak is turning people into big gloopy purple mutants that want to infect everybody else! Naturally you also soon find yourself facing this threat alone...at least until you meet one of the shadowy, suspicious characters that populate such games...
It actually reminds me of John Carpenter'sThe Thingwith its plot, despite there being no hint of any alien influence so far...but we'll see how it pans out! And as I said, it also owes a lot to Capcom's zombie horror series....but it does have a few interesting additions of its own to the survival horror genre!
For a start, your gun is really customisable...and instead of lugging loads of weapons about, it's just a case of finding the right additions to it to boost your firepower! I believe their are other weapons you can pick up later, but so far the one I started with is all I need! Well, that and my handy knife which comes in handy when there's a padlock needing smashed or one of the annoying little worm beasties is leaping at my face and I'm low on ammo.....
And unlike the early Resi games, if you get attacked in this game it's very easy to become infected by the virus, meaning that you essentially have to worry about two health bars..your general health and your infection level! You'll get progressively more infected as you battle the enemies, and eventually if it's left untreated, you'll need to rush to special machines to put a stop to the infection before you become the latest gloopy grunt...
This helps adds to the tension of the game, and can really get you panicking when you realise you're miles away from the nearest machine...and of course you'll need to have a special pack so you can use it on the machines too!
Other than that, it seems to be a rather enjoyable but pretty standard jaunt, with some of the usual faults.....an annoying save system that can mean you have to go back quite a bit when you die, lots of trailing backwards and forwards finding keys to unlock doors at the other side of the map....you know, the usual!
But it is a rather under-rated title that deserves a lot more love than it seems to have received, and it can be found quite easily for a very low price....so you should probably give it a go if you're like me and need a good fix of hilariously bad dialogue and crate smashing every now and then! And who knows what delights I've yet to discover, lurking in the later parts of the game......
Storywise, this survival horror title is a direct sequel to the events that transpired in the 1982 John Carpenter film, and has you filling the boots of Blake, leader of a team sent to find out what has happened to McReady and the other characters from the film...Needless to say, it doesn't take long before you find out.....
Wandering around outside in the snow, your health bar will continually deplete as the Antarctic weather takes it's toll, so you'll need to quickly get indoors again or at least find a heat source so you don't end up as a snowman...
The Things that you come against vary from little spidery things which can be dispatched with pistols, to massive bosses with loads of tentacles and teeth...some middle sized ones will require you to pump them full of bullets and then finish them off with a flamethrower..and just like in the movie, members of your team may secretly be hosting a parasitic alien, and suddenly change into a Thing and try to have you for lunch....
Lucky you have the test kits to help you out, then! You can use these to discover if someone you think is acting a bit suspiciously is hosting a parasite. Just be ready with your gun in case they are! This is actually a bit of the game I found to be a bit disappointing though, as on more than one occasionI had just tested someone who passed as not hosting, and then two minutes later they had mutated and were trying to eat my face....
What works a lot better is the Trust system...all the members of your team have the ability to get scared or start distrusting you. If an area becomes too scary for them, they'll start panicking and if you don't order them to go somewhere where they can relax, they might start shooting at you or even end up shooting themselves!
You also have to keep the team's trust, as if they suspect you to be a Thing (like if say, you shoot someone who acts odd without testing them first) then they'll stop obeying orders until you can win back their trust by killing mutants or giving them extra ammo or something....
Generally, the team are pretty handy to have around, as they all have certain skills....engineers can fix fuse boxes, medics can keep the team healthy and the soldier can give you some extra firepower when things get tricky! But as you'd expect, you'll go through a few team members before the game is finished, so don't get too attached....
It all makes for a rather excellent adventure and a worthy sequel to the film...it has loads of little nods to it's source material, with references to things that happened in the movie and of course comes with a similar moody soundtrack. If you're a fan of The Thing, this really has to be played...if not, then you're left with a pretty damn good survival horror to add to the collection!
Another game based on literaturenow, this time based on Osamu Tezuka's manga series Dororo! It tells the tale of Hyakkimaru, who due to a deal with demons his father made before he was born, is now comprised of mainly prosthetic parts...The demons each demanded a part of Hyakkimaru in exchange for "bringing peace back to the land", and now rescued by an old inventor and all grown up, Hyakki decides to hunt these fiends down and retrieve all 48 body parts that were stolen from him.......
He soon meets up with a young thief named Dororo, who decides to accompany him on his quest, and at various points in the game you give commands to Dororo, or even take control of him at certain points....The game plays as a standard third-person action adventure type affair, with Hyakkimaru hacking, slashing and blowing up demons using his prosthetic arm-swords and knee cannons...and occasionally you'll be required to solve some puzzles, especially in the sections where you take control of Dororo as these are less combat based....
I've really only just started playing this game, but so far I've noticed a few things that really make me want to continue playing this game right the way through...Firstly, it uses the lost body parts thing really well! At the start of the game, everything is in black & white...and it stays that way until you recover your eye from one of the demons, which then lets you see the game in colour! Every part you recover adds something new to the game with your nose allowing you to sense demons for instance, which vibrates your PS2 pad when one is near! It's a really cool game mechanic, and I like it lots....
Second is the plot! The storyline is crazy, and will make you want to stick with the game just to see how it all pans out...and playing through has made me want to check out the manga series too! There's even a live action film I'll need to try and find an English subbed version of that looks pretty good too....
(original Japanese trailer has vanished and I can only find the spanish trailer now, so...)
But by far my most favourite thing about Blood Will Tell is the freakish enemies you'll have to fight throughout the course of the game...some look creepy, some look weird..all of them are wonderfully bizarre and Japanese and some would provide great inspiration for some totally mental Halloween costumes!
It does have problems...the camera can be really annoying and fiddly at times, and it can get a bit repetitive...but so far, the story, enemies and fun of unlocking new stuff with every body part has got me hooked! I definitely recommend it for monster lovers or fans of manga!
Since I originally posted this, I've also discovered a cartoon from 1969, and another newer colour version, so here's an episode of each of them for you to watch too! Enjoy :)
Freak Out (Stretch Panic-US, Hippa Linda-JPN) (PS2) :
More utter insanity now, but this time from Treasure, a company who excel at making great games that nobody buys! And even a lot of Treasure fans seemed to not give this one much notice...
Freak Out tells the tale of Linda, a girl who has to deal with 12 rather vain sisters who constantly mock Linda's fashion sense and love of her scarf, which was gifted to her when she was six by her now deceased father. One day...whilst Linda is off picking up the weekly cosmetic shopping for her self-obsessed sisters... a mysterious package arrives on their doorstep. Possibly thinking it has come form some secret admirer, the sisters open it.....and unleash 13 scary vanity demons looking to punish pretty types!
12 of the demons possess the sisters, but the 13th only manages to attach itself to Linda's scarf... thanks to her lack of vanity. Despite her obvious annoyance at her stupid siblings, she decides she better get to the task of saving them from the vile Zakos, for that is what these demons are called! Because Linda took good care of the scarf, and with it's magically gained sentience it agrees to help Linda rescue her sisters, and let her utilize its newly acquired powers of stretching... that turns everything it touches into elastic!
Each of the sisters has been zapped off to a seperate dimension, and these are accessed through various different dimension doors. In order to open the doors, Linda must first defeat some more vanity demons...ones named Bonita Zakos!
These rather large-breasted baddies can only be defeated by pinging their heads or bums, which can be tricky to grab hold of as their bulbous boobs block your aim! Once you've managed to get a few of them to explode though, you can access one of the doors to the other dimensions..
Here you'll face one of your possessed relatives, and have to work out exactly what needs to be stretched and pulled in order to free them. Once..well, if... you've managed to do that, your sister will be saved and she'll be added to the Gallery Of Shame...a place you access by pinging a bell in the hub world and that lets you mess around with your families features and textures later in the game! And you set off to blow up more Bonitas and rescue the next victim of vanity!
It's truly a weird little game, and won't be for everyone. It has a sort of odd Tim Burton-esque atmosphere, but probably has just a touch too much colour in it to be really classed as such. Still, I think it looks rather groovy but I can see how some people might find it a bit too strange...
It was one of Treasure's first 3D titles, and you can see they haven't quite mastered how to make a good game camera, with it spinning around and not letting you see what you need to see sometimes.
It can also be tricky to judge exactly where your scarf is in relation to things, and the controls for using it take a bit of getting used to too. And I've had to refer to an online guide more than once to work out exactly how to defeat the bosses...But having said all that, I still enjoy it every time I restart it to try and play through again, and if you're looking for something very different from the type of things you normally play, then this could be a good place to start!
Never being ones to shy away from courting controversy, 2003 saw Rockstar Games launch Manhuntto a games playing public hungry for more GTA-style shenanigans after the wonderful Vice City...the public would soon discover that this game would take inspiration from a rather darker side of the eighties though...the video nasty!
As Death Row inmate, James Earl Cash, players awoke to find themselves escaping execution thanks to the mysterious Director... a strange chap who communicates with Cash via a headset and keeps an eye on him with various cameras positioned throughout Carcer City, the dark and seedy backdrop for what is about to become a really bad night for James.....
The Director informs us that we can only be free if we indulge his sick taste for snuff movies, and roam through the streets assassinating various vicious gang members who similarly are all out for Cash's blood! Not having much choice, he (and therefore we!) are forced to hide in the shadows, popping out every now and then to bump-off a baddie and try to find some form of escape from all the madness....
Using plastic bags, shards of glass, baseball bats, crowbars....basically anything with at least one pointy end...you sneak up behind one of the low-life gang goons, lock on with one of the shoulder buttons and let go to unleash an execution. Each weapon has 3 different attacks, depending on how long you hold the button down....the lock-on cursor changing from white..through yellow..to red, with that being the gruesomest execution and therefore the one that bags you the biggest brownie points from the Director!
You have to stay in the shadows though, as walking out into the light sees load of enemies all ganging up on you, making it very difficult to fight back unless you can run away quick enough to find more shadows to hide in! It's this lurking in the shadows that takes up the biggest part of the game, and means that people with no patience won't do very well with this, as sometimes you'll need to learn the enemies paths for the best way to kill them and this can take ages....
Thankfully, being a Rockstar game, all of the enemies are blessed with some great dialogue, and whilst they seek you out you'll hear them complain about being hungry or losing their shoes or what they're going to do to you when they find you for making them stand in the cold for so long! You'll encounter quite a few different gangs too...from the racist Skinz to the totally bat-shit crazy Smileys, all with their own relevant rantings to keep you entertained while you wait for the opportunity to bash their brains in....
About halfway through the game, just when you've got used to sneaking about using the bats and knives, guns are introduced and you discover just who it is putting you through all this craziness, and decide to go pay them a visit! Having hold of these weapons changes the pace of the game slightly, meaning it never gets too stale and keeps you interested!
One extra element people sometimes forget to mention when talking about Manhunt, is the ability to use your Playstation's headset and mic to influence the game...Plugging it in, you hear the Director's voice directly in your ear making it feel like he's actually talking to you! And, any cough or sneeze you happen to let slip during play will actually alert the hunters in game, and have them coming to find the source of the noise! So best not to play this way if you happen to suffer from allergies, but it's an awesome addition to an already impressive title....
Understandably, all this murder and mayhem had various censors and retailers worried about putting the game on shop shelves...this was made even worse when the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah, although it was later noted that it was Stefan who owned Manhunt and not his murderer...
Back in 2004, I was working in the Virgin Megastore's game department, and was told to take Manhunt from the shelves and place it under the counter...We were still allowed to sell it, but only if it was specifically asked for! Needless to say, the publicity from the tragic case above... and the fact it was banned in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany...only helped sales of the game, and almost every 5 minutes I had people coming in to the store asking if we had any copies left....
It's a game that's definitely not for the squeamish, and it is very graphic in its display of violence...but as usual, the media surrounding its release made it seem far worse than it actually is! Although not for everyone, I recommend you give it a try though, as it's one of the best stealth titles out there...and having to hide in the dark as some psychopaths from the local asylum try to hunt you down and poop down your neck makes for some of the most truly suspenseful and scary gameplay in any of the games on this blog!
When a child turns 3 years old on Planet Mischief, they must travel to another planet and hone their skills in the art of mischief making. If successful in inducing mass panic on that planet, they will be awarded with praise and be ready for their lives as adults. However, the star of this game, Cosmi, will have his work cut out as he is being sent to Earth...a planet that no other alien has ever managed to conquer! If he manages to make mischief here, he'll become a hero!
On his way to Earth however, Cosmi crashes into a TV station satellite, and ditches his craft near Coco Town! Thankfully, Earth's Mischief Master, Master Itazura, finds him before the earthlings and whisks him off to the Dojo to train for survival...
After learning a few of the tricks of the game in the Dojo tutorial, you're unleashed upon Coco Town as Cosmi, where you'll be competing with another alien to collect the most coins. Or sometimes you'll work together to collect as much money as possible! All this is done by playing pranks on the inhabitants of whatever level you happen to be on. First however, you'll need to use your hoover gun to capture a human that you can disguise yourself as!
After nabbing your human, head to one of the flying saucers dotted around the level, and you'll be able to disguise yourself as that person. Once disguised, you can use that humans items to prank your victims. There's loads of items to use, such as bowling balls to knock people over, microphones that you'll use to sing Karaoke and assault peoples eardrums and cannons to fire yourself from and splat people with!
Be careful though as one hit from an enemy will see you running about in your undies and arousing suspicion from the townsfolk, and another will make you lose the disguise and a load of coins and have you rushing back to the nearest UFO! Just remember to have sucked up another human too, or you won't be able to change into someone else!
Whoever has the most coins at the end of the timed level wins, and progresses to the next area. There are 8 areas in total, and each has a different theme. Frontiersville is a wild-west themed town for instance, whereas High Stakes Hills has a Casino theme. As a nice surprise there's also a level based around Raccoon City from Resident Evil, where you have to steal coins from RE3's Nemesis and you can disguise yourself as Jill Valentine!
At a certain point in the levels, Panic Time happens, where things get even more crazy for a while...like rush hour in Coco Town or Death being unleashed to claim souls in Pranksylvania! You'll need to work extra hard during these periods to hang on to your coins, as the panic is hard to avoid!
There's a versus mode so that you can compete split-screen with a friend and a co-op mode that can be unlocked so you can both attack a level together, so it's worth finding someone to play along with! Some of the levels can be a bit tricky, and the camera is one of the games biggest flaws, as often your view will get totally obscured by the masses of people you've just pissed off by flattening them with a giant cheeseburger....
But these are minor niggles and it's all massive fun, and has that insane feel that only the Japanese developers can seem to get right! Released in October 2004, the game has just turned 12, and it's a shame that it's never quite had the following it deserves....so it's the perfect time to seek it out and give it some love!
When the evil Max D. Cap and his minions rise up from the Underworld to wreak havoc, Professor Frank N. Stein sends out his latest creation, Chuck D. Head to put a stop to Max and his cronies! Chuck is a headless mummy....wait, no..actually he's not headless! His head just resides in his stomach...and he can force it out using his intestines or something in order to bash any baddies that happen to get in his way...
As Chuck, you can also get the help of Head, a skull you'll find lying around the levels. He'll attach himself to your torso, and you can lob him at enemies or statues or whatever, with him zooming back to you boomerang style! He'll only stick around until you take a hit though, so it's worth trying to avoid trouble...
Also helping you in your quest are various power-ups hidden away in little gargoyle-type statues..(this is also where you'll find Head should you lose him)...These power-ups don't activate immediately though! They get stored in your inventory, which you can access via a button push and receive helpful information about what each power-up actually does from the Prof. and his assistant Igor...
The levels take place on various parts of a skeleton-shaped island that has been split into various different sections. Every few levels you'll reach the end of that particular section and face an inevitable boss...but even when you defeat them, you might not be quite finished with that section yet, as you have to find a special item on each stage..and if you haven't found it yet, you have to go back and search the level for it!
Vic Tokai's Decap Attack is an enjoyable platformer, with my favourite bits being the groovy graphics and funky spooky music...I would prefer it if the baddies followed suit though, as only a few of them appear spooky enough for my tastes! Also, it can be a little tricky getting used to how Chuck handles to begin with, but if you stick with it you'll soon have no problems...and maybe that's just me being a bit poop!
Overall though, this game should keep you happy and comes highly recommend...Oh, before I move on, I should probably let you know that it's also a port of a Japanese game called Magical Hat Flying Turbo Adventure which has totally different graphics, music and level design..with only the gameplay remaining similar...
And just one more question...How exactly did Chuck come to have a head in his torso anyway? Isn't that a bit odd? Well, thankfully Nigel Kitching gave us the answer when he did the Decap Attack strip that appeared in Fleetway's Sonic The Comic in the nineties.....
Oh, and even if you don't have a Megadrive/Genesis you can play the game on modern consoles and PC by picking up one of the various Sega Megadrive Collections, which come with loads of other groovy games too! So now you've no excuse not to play.....well.....unless you don't own any of them either......
