They’re Making A Deus Ex Movie? Shoot Me Now…

Posted on July 10, 2012 by geelw

Better yet, get Terry Crews (seen above, promoting Ubisoft’s upcoming Expendables 2 video game tie-in) to hit me in the face with a pie after busting through a wall in my house like Kool-Aid Man, but dressed as a bottle of Old Spice Body Wash or something. Ugh. I can tell that this is going to be a disaster, as what makes a Deus Ex game WORK isn’t the action and some big name actors strutting about pretending. For me, it’s all about the writing and choices available to the player over many hours of each game in the franchise, all of which will be condensed into two hours and probably nowhere near as good as any of the games. Meh, whatever – I hope Warren Spector gets a cut of the profits somewhere along the line. Only Hollywood can stop itself once it gets rolling on something like this, but like any video game movie, it’s not going to be pretty at all. I’ll go hide in a closet somewhere – wake me when the movie hits cable…

Er, wait…. they made an Expendables 2 video game? Holy crap, Ubisoft… maybe you should have showed THIS instead of Watch_Dogs (har har)…

Atlus Wants YOU To Win This Cool Persona 3 Artbook…

Posted on July 9, 2012 by geelw

Hooray for free stuff, as it’s a nice Monday brightener! Atlus is going to be making 25 lucky, lucky random winners across the U.S. of A. (only, sorry overseas folks!) VERY happy with this lovely Persona 3 Official Design Works book published by Udon Entertainment (a $39.99 value!) simply by signing up as a new member (or already being a current member) of the Atlus Faithful and keeping their fingers and toes crossed when the drawing is held on July 16th.

I’d have my own fingers and toes crossed, but I need to type and I also have to go to the bathroom as soon as I finish posting this.

Phantasy Star Online 2 Headed Westward (Hopefully, With Some Sort Of Offline Mode)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by geelw

As happy and grateful as I am that Sega is wisely getting PSO 2 to North America next year, it WOULD be really nice to have some sort of offline mode for those of us who don’t give a hoot about MMOs, live in areas with no or spotty broadband connections or hell, just like to play our games solo with no intrusive DRM and data mining going on behind the scenes. Of course, no one listens to an old coot like me anymore, so I guess I won’t offer any more suggestions about this sort of thing. THAT said, the Phantasy Star legacy demands that there be a game that’s playable for us lone wolf types. Hopefully, someone at Sega somewhere in the world has realized the same thing and does something to honor the series long history instead of just shoving yet another lovely-looking MMO out the door and hoping we all jump on board with nostalgic blinders on.

Random Film Of The Week: The Flesh Eaters

Posted on July 9, 2012 by geelw

An old favorite of mine from the days when it was in near constant rotation on Chiller Theater (on Channel 11, WPIX), The Flesh Eaters manages to mix campy humor and skin-crawling (albeit cheesy by today’s standards) shock effects. The script, by DC and Marvel Comics writer Arnold Drake, manages to be weird, funny and unsettling as it tells the tale of three people stranded on a small island after their small plane flies into a bad storm and is forced to land. They meet a German-accented mad scientist working on a rather nasty little project in the form of a massive bacteria colony that can dissolve flesh within a few seconds of contact. Unfortunately for the travelers, the doc has unleashed his experiment into the water around the island, making enjoying a quick swim kind of a no-go.

While the trio is trying to figure out how to get off the island and the doc is scheming away, they run into a shipwrecked beatnik who adds some comic relief to the proceedings. He’s also the victim of one of the surprisingly gory (for the time) death scenes, but I’ll let you check that out yourself. Anyway, things come to a head as the survivors need to deal with the mad scientist AND getting the hell off the island as one of their plans to destroy the microbes actually make it much stronger. Memorable cinematography and extremely well composed scenes give the film the look of a horror comic book, and at a relatively quick 87 minutes, this is one of those films that’s worth checking out if you’re curious about “B” movies of the era, the evolution of special effects or even how well a comic book author could do at scripting a film.

Catching Up (Sort of)…

Posted on July 9, 2012 by geelw

OK, after a bit of delay thanks to a few aches and pains (creak, groan!) plus the stupidly HOT weather we’ve been having, I’m back to working on some previews that should go up this week: Resident Evil 6 and Street Fighter X Tekken (Vita) from Capcom’s press tour, Some fun EA stuff (The new Medal of Honor, Need For Speed Most Wanted, A few Sims games) and one or two others. I’ll probably post some reviews I started a while back, but I need to finish the games and go over the notes I’ve taken, as I like completing games before I write final impressions. Um, that is all. Maybe. I still have to think of what Random Film to recommend this week…

Random Indie Game of the Week: Hellion: Diablo Meets Dragon Quest (And It’s A Blast)

Posted on July 8, 2012 by geelw

I found this cool little indie RPG quite by accident a few days ago while looking up something entirely different, downloaded it and got an immediate grin going when I fired it up. One of a few very awesome NES-inspired RPGs made by a a user called kentona (with Enterbrain’s wonderfully retro RPG Maker 2003), Hellion plays like bits of Dragon Quest, Diablo and Final Fantasy dropped into a blender and mixed up just right. Basically, you choose a character class at the beginning, assign some skill points and set out to tackle the dangerous multi-level dungeon under the town you start the game in. There are random monster drops, traps and chests to disarm, a bunch of side missions to tackle and more.

While I’m only three floors in, I like the ability to hire up to three party members, the alignment system that changes based on your choices during the game (some NPCs and potential teammates won’t deal with you if you’re too goody-goody or too much a total jerk), the level of challenge right from the start and more. The game uses graphics and music lifted from the DQ series, but I like the 8-bit visuals and tunes because of the nostalgia value. That and it’s actually more fun than Diablo III because you don’t need to be always online to play or have to deal with stupid stuff the DRM in that game was supposed to stop from occurring. Anyway, go check it out and while you’re there, take a peek at kentona’s other works as well as some of the other great games on the RPGMaker website.

Gallery: US Sega CD/Sega Saturn Library

Posted on July 7, 2012 by geelw

Or more precisely, what’s left of both after the great “I Need Money!” sell-off of a few years back. The three PAL Saturn titles I think I posted already last year, but I’m too lazy to go look up something on my own website (wow, that’s bad!)…

Anyway, While I do miss the stuff that’s gone and harder to find (and even more insanely expensive these days), I have my fingers crossed that one of these days, Sega will find a way to get some of their first-party Saturn games back into gamers’ hands in SOME reasonable manner. Oh yeah, I added in a picture of my Mega mouse just to show that the thing actually existed and yup, works fine for the games that use it. The disc-only games (which I normally don’t collect) came in a CD wallet that was part of a giant box of stuff I traded for a long time ago. All of the games worked fine, but some needed a lot of cleaning (and a bit of Perma-Spin action – that stuff is awesome!).

Of Orcs & Men Summer Trailer: Looking Great With Two Months To Go…

Posted on July 6, 2012 by geelw

Here’s the latest trailer for this intriguing Cyanide Studios/Spiders developed RPG coming in September for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 from Focus Home Interactive. It’s certainly got the looks of a sleeper hit and the nicely quirky twist of playing as an Orc/Elf team setting out against humans in a rich fantasy world setting is appealing. That means it’s all up to the gameplay, which I’m hoping is solidly action oriented and as bug-free as possible. Go pop over to the game’s official site to check out more gorgeous screens and art and keep this one on your radar, as it’s looking pretty good.

EDF 3 Portable Trailers: Start Bugging D3Publisher of America For A US Version, I Say…

Posted on July 5, 2012 by geelw

OK, not only is this port packing in much more content than the original Xbox 360 exclusive (including a four-player co-op mode), I just found out from watching video #2 below that Pale Wing is making a return (faint, thud!). For any longtime EDF fan who knows what I’m talking about, you’re also picking yourself up off the carpet, I’d bet. This changes up the gameplay considerably, as her jet pack and energy-based weapons add a completely different approach to some of the tougher levels in the game. That and EDF 3 (or EDF 2017, to 360 owners in the US) recycles parts of a few maps from EDF 2, meaning playing them again with Pale Wing will see some of those old strategies coming into play more effectively than with Storm 1. Lucky Vita owners in Japan will be seeing this sometime in September of this year. As for everyone else… that’s hard to say.

Now, I know D3Publisher of America is busy putting out a small line of licensed games based on popular kid shows (Ben 10, iCarly and Victorious), but I think they’d be making a huge mistake if they ignore this exclusive. Warts and all, they ought to embrace this intentionally campy and massively awesome run ‘n gun game to the fullest (the company started life in Japan as a publisher of a budget-themed games line), market the hell out of it though viral videos and a bunch of hands-on previews (my fingers are itching just typing that) and get it into stores sometime next year. This should give them time to get the word out that it’s coming and will be a Vita essential for the potential of at least 40 hours of bug-blasting action. Then again, I spend something like 150 playing EDF 2017, so I know I’ll get as much or more time out of a Vita version…

Thanks, Sega!: NiGHTS into dreams… Makes A Welcome Return (Which IS Excellent, But…)

Posted on July 5, 2012 by geelw

Hey, Sega! Longtime supporter from the arcades to Dreamcast and beyond here. While I’m loving that you’re finally getting NiGHTS onto XBLA, PSN and PC soon enough, I’m also one of those crazy people that has the original game in it’s box with the analog controller, the Christmas NiGHTS disc (I have one each here for the US, Japanese and UK Saturn), the excellent Wii follow up and yes, that means I’ve played the game to death and will do so once more when this HD u[date hits. That said (dot, dot, dot)

Not to be a pest (again), but I’m just wondering when we’ll start seeing some of those other first-party Saturn titles get the same HD or remake love. The Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III (including all the content that stayed in Japan), Burning Rangers, stuff like that? It’s not as if I’m screaming about BUG! or Clockwork Knight not getting HD remakes here (you get what, one email a month about those, right?). I’m just a little bit concerned about Sega of America ignoring some of its best games on a console that’s been HUGELY underrepresented since it died. That and while they may not have sold in spectacular numbers on the Saturn, the games I listed might do even better today if the time was taken to bring them to gamers in the best possible manner.

Hell, I’d bet a Panzer Dragoon Complete Box Kickstarter would see money raining from the heavens…