Review: Gleylancer (PS4/PS5)

Posted on October 26, 2021 by geelw

probably the sole good use of the word “Pow-Wow” these days.

While the SEGA logo is nowhere to be found (they only published the game way back in 1992), Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer looks, feels and plays like it’s 1992 and that’s a great thing. Ever busy publisher Ratalaika Games and veteran developer Shinyuden go above and beyond the call here with a flawless English translation plus a slew of gameplay improvements that range from a horde of video customization options to some all-new game modes that make this an instant buy at its low $6.99 price point (the original Mega Drive version will set you back about $200, and yes it’s solely in Japanese).

The game is pretty story driven with a lengthy opening movie, but in s nutshell: The story follows Lucia, a 16-year-old star fighter pilot in the Earth Federation. A war breaks out between humans and an unknown alien race in the year 2025. Lucia’s father, Ken, a high-ranking admiral in the Federation Navy, is captured after his ship is warped out of the combat zone with 4 alien modules which have the ability of teleportation. Lucia, heart-broken after hearing of her father’s disappearance, decides to hijack the prototype fighter CSH-01-XA “GleyLancer” with the help of her friend Teim and go after her father.

Like any decent classic shmup, a good player will complete the game in under an hour, but a smart player will deep dive this and go back for more and unlock every trophy. The fast but methodical gameplay is also customizable to the point of letting players cheat right off the bat if they so desire. There’s also a handy rewind function that’s excellently implemented and like the cheat mode, optional. The really amusing thing here is very likely, a good deal of modern gamers may not have heard of this until this release and may automatically snap it up for the quick trophies Ratalaika games are known for. My bet is they’ll be surprised at the challenge the game presents on its standard mode.

I have no idea what Shinyuden has planned for the future, but there are a ton of other shooters for the Genesis out there that can use this sort of very proper localization. I can name way too many here, but let’s not go over the moon with wishful, wistful thinking just yet. Recommended!

-GW

Review: Nightmare at Noon (1988)

Posted on July 27, 2020 by geelw

So, if good guys wear black, I guess, uh…

While it’s absolutely packed to the hilt with stunts, thrills, and explosions galore (and how!), Nico Mastorakis’ 1988 flick Nightmare at Noon isn’t exactly the brain food of action movies. In fact, if you go in expecting even a decent plot to speak of, your brain may beat you somewhat senseless about two minutes in and turn itself off so it can enjoy the wild ride without you gargling on about what small amount of plot there is. Basically, if you miss the opening credits, there goes the story, and there’s not much there to begin with (and even less if you’re looking).

All you need to know is a secret scientific agency (or not so secret, as they roll around in two black custom vans with their agency’s name on them!) has chosen a small US town to experiment with some nefarious goings-on and it’s up to a handful of gun-totin’ tourists and local heroes to make things right. So you get Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins, and Kimberly Beck starring with George Kennedy and Kimberly Ross versus that town full of newly green-blooded raging townspeople and a bunch of well-armed bad guys. A strangely silent Brion James kicks the flick off as the mysterious Albino, but despite all his evil machinations, his total lack of dialog actually hurts the film despite the nearly non-stop action that follows. I gather he was paid enough for bleaching his hair and wearing some contact lenses to make him look albino and decided to charge by the word for dialog or something?

(Thanks, ScreamFactoryTV!)

Continue reading →

July Arrows (Or, What Goes Up Must Come Down In Your Blu-Ray Player)

Posted on July 8, 2020 by geelw

July is a pretty busy month for Arrow Video and Arrow Academy – here’s all six releases coming your way this month on Blu-Ray:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

ZOMBIE FOR SALE [Blu-ray] (7/7)

BLACK RAINBOW [Blu-ray] (7/7)

INFERNO OF TORTURE [Blu-ray] (7/7)

HIROSHIMA [Blu-ray] (7/14)

BLOODSTONE [Blu-ray] (7/21)

LIFE IS A LONG QUIET RIVER [Blu-ray] (7/21)

Go make your own fireworks show on Apple TV!

Apple device-owning Arrow TV users are also in for a treat this month, as some of the films here are in this months lineup wit many others they can check out. If that’s you, feel free to check out the channel over at the link provided.

-GW

Capsule Reviews: Ghost Grab 3000/Singled Out (Switch)

Posted on July 6, 2020 by geelw

You can’t be afraid of no ghost when you have the ability to use a nuke as an option.

I’d like to think that Matt Glanville (@crowbarska) has a working time machine permanently set to 1983 he’s not telling anyone about, as his games I’ve played to date all look and play like solid arcade hits of around that time. Switch ‘N’ Shoot is still one of the more thrilling and flawless uses of single-button gameplay I’ve experienced and now you have two more retro-inspired titles to blast away with, both quite good and deceptively simple on their surfaces, but each will have you hooked in for as long as you’re playing.

Ghost Grab 3000 ($4.99) is a nifty shooter that’s a hybrid of bullet hell and strategic shot placement as its lead character needs to line up or gather well-armed ghosts and blast away as many as possible while trying to survive each round. There are a couple of weapons to whip out in an emergency situation, plus a nice upgrade system with over 100 combinations allowing you to tailor your ghost grabber as you like. Part of the fun is buying those upgrades and enhancing your character, as you can create a hero that makes the game easier or, if you want to play with as few upgrades as possible, harder. That’s a bad idea, by the way – go buy and use those upgrades, I say.

Continue reading →

Soul Searching: Going Native (With Dragons on the Side)

Posted on June 30, 2020 by geelw

Make mine a double, please…

In the load of stuff I need to get to in this current crazy time, review code for a little game called Soul Searching popped up in the inbox a while back and you can say I’m intrigued by the project enough to move things around and play for a bit. I’ll get to the main story mode later in this post, but let’s talk minigames for a bit. There are seven ‘Short Stories’ as the game calls them, and they can be accessed from the menu and played in any order you like. but the game will run them consecutively if you start from the first one and complete each minigame.

Publisher nakana.io has released a few unique titles so far where its different developers’ personalities are on full display in each work, so there’s a lot going on in each game, from the art styles to the approaches to gameplay. Soul Searching is brim full of weirdness as the simple pixel-heavy art in the main game gives way to some rather intense slices of mind from its developer in minigames that feature assorted visual styles ranging from simple childlike scrawls to vector graphics and crude polygonal characters. In those brief segments, you almost get a sense that indie developer Kayabros (Talha Kaya) is working through some of life’s problems and you’re along for the ride for better or worse.

(Thanks, Nakana Games!)

Continue reading →

Review: Demon’s Tier (PS4/Vita)

Posted on June 23, 2020 by geelw

Instructions for real life, as well.

Nostalgic is the good word here.

The latest pairing from COWCAT and Diabolical Mind, Demon’s Tier+ ($9.99, buy it!) is an excellent example of a really good game that got much better with a slew of quality of life improvements. While the game follows a clear Gauntlet meets Diablo style of play, a strict time limit and intense difficulty combined with randomly generated levels make for quite the thrilling, replayable ride.

This isn’t a simple “one and done” trophy hunt at all. Rather, the game is an equal to Diabolical Minds’ other retro-inspired pixel-packed releases, Riddled Corpses EX and Xenon Valkyrie+, two other solo or two player co-op team-ups worth a look. It almost feels like the developer has captured a trio of long lost late 80’s arcade machines in these three titles, all of which demand practice and patience to master, just like the old days.

Story:

Thosgar, a hated king attracted by demonic rituals, turned into a dark and diabolical being… destroying almost all of humanity and flooding the world with monsters. This story became a legend and peace returned to the land.

A thousand years later, a mysterious pit appears in a village after a huge earthquake where an evil aura emanates from…

Will you be the hero to save this world?

Don’t you hate it when that happens? Well, good. Grab your PS4 controller or Vita, and let’s send those demons back to where they came from, pronto.

Continue reading →

Ghost Grab 3000 + Singled Out Coming to Switch in July

Posted on June 17, 2020 by geelw

(Thanks, Matt Glanville!)

Here come two more fun little arcade style titles from Matt Glanville, the maker of Switch ‘N’ Shoot, a cool and challenging single button retro-inspired game you should also get, by the way. Ghost Grab 3000 is a game where you trap and zap ghosts while trying to avoid their shots and get that high score. Singled Out has you identifying and neutralizing Galactic Supercriminals with a sniper rifle and yes, there’s a family friendly mode where you can cage those goofy-looking space aliens instead. Both new games are now available for pre-order on the eShop with a limited 10% discount and a July 2nd street date for both, but if you already own Switch ‘N’ Shoot or any of Matt’s games on the eShop, that discount becomes 15% off.

Go get these, I say. I’m playing through both games as we speak and can report they’re both fun little games that play and feel like they’re been transported from the 80’s, but don’t try and look for a coin slot on your Switch.

-GW

Presents of Mind II: Some Gifts Just Speak for Themselves

Posted on June 12, 2020 by geelw

Uh, would you like something to eat, game?

…And some gifts just sit right down on the nearest loveseat when they walk out of the box. Yikes. I saw this Death Stranding Collector’s Edition on sale at a local shop when I was poking around on ebay listing a few games I’m selling and yes, the price was right, so I bought one. The shop actually wasn’t the lowest priced one I saw, but Best Buy RAISED their crazy low price of $89.99 before I could buy it. I literally slept on the deal and thought about it, decided it was a go the next morning, but I was surprised to see them jack the price back up up to only $30 off the original 199.99 MSRP. Oh well. Adorama, you have my thanks for keeping your deal where even with tax, I made out all right and got free shipping in the process. Oh, and a LOT or air packing bags in the rather huge box, too.

I still need to find time to play this, but with a copy now on hand, it’ll happen sooner than later. Actually, I need to find a space for the box as it’s so huge, it takes up more room than I thought it would. At least Sony put the steelbook right on top so when the box in opened, it’s separate from the other goodies inside. Back in a bit – I need to go find out where I’m going to put this thing.

-GW

That PS5 Reveal Made Me Hungry

Posted on June 11, 2020 by geelw

(Thanks. PlayStation!)

So yeah. The PS4 looks like an overstuffed fancy sandwich on Wonder Bread, there’s no way to get around it. Well, it also looks like it can hold the Eye of Sauron when it’s standing upright, or it looks like a building in a big city (Dubal, as a friend suggested). No price was revealed for either the disc-based or digital-only model, but the disc-based model I’m looking as as we speak also looks like it’s about three months pregnant and showing. Fortunately, it can lie on its side. where it looks like an over-baked pastry still three months pregnant:

Continue reading →

Evan’s Remains: Logic Dictates This Will Be a Nifty Puzzle/Adventure

Posted on June 11, 2020 by geelw

If you’re into some games that don’t rely on pure horsepower or an overdose of visual flashiness that shows off every graphical trick in the book, don’t let games like this get buried under big console announcements. Whitehorn Digital has what looks like a sleeper hit in Evan’s Remains, a game that’s also on PC, Xbox One, and Switch. I’m in the process of playing and so far, it’s quite a lovely experience with some stellar hand-drawn pixel art and a relaxing soundtrack. I won’t go into details about the story, as I’m not far along and there seems to be a few surprises I won’t spoil, but I’m truly enjoying the game so far. I’m going to shut up here and try to get more time in before the PS5 reveal, but yeah – go check this one out as soon as you can.

-GW