New Sailor Moon Italian Trading Figures Review

We don't normally do reviews for things that aren't completely oddball, but we've seen precious little about these new Italian toys on English sites other than a smattering of pictures. So we thought we'd show off this collection cute little figures.

First up the box:

It came slightly less cute looking, but we set up as a display box, just how it would look if we were lucky enough to live near a store that sold them. The box comes with 24 blind figures sealed in individual bags so everyone you get is a surprise. each bag contains a figure, a puzzle card and a sheet showing the full line of figures.

The puzzle cards aren't really cards as such, they're printed on glossy card stock but they're about half the width of a normal trading card and have wavy edges. each card correspond to the figure they're packed with and one side has information about the character along with a small picture (all the info is in Italian so we have no idea what they say). The Back side of the card has part of a larger image on it and when you assemble them all correctly they look like this:

It's not the most exciting Sailor Moon image I've ever seen, but it's cute.

The figures themselves are like Japanese Gashapons. Most come in separate parts and require assembly. There are 12 figures in all (13 if you count luna and artemis as separate though they come together). Here they are in no particular order see them all after the jump:

Manga Review: Return to Labyrinth

So I know that only three volumes of this manga have been released thus far (as of when I read it), so this isn't technically a completed manga review, but given my love for Labyrinth I felt the needed to give this a proper looking at. First thing that I want to get off my chest is this is NOT a manga. With a few small exceptions, Americans do comics, not manga. It just irks me that they need to call this American comic a manga to get it to sell. Anyway, moving on.

I enjoy sequels to my favorite things as long as they are treated like sequels. This seems to me that the writer obviously loved the story of labyrinth and wanted to write a continuation. He seemed to have a few interesting ideas however seemed to get stuck quite often and reverted to reminding the reader of how much it was still trying to connect to the original movie. Which would have been fine of that connection was based on researching the original story, locations and character backgrounds instead of relying on quotes and irrelevant cameos.

This book was written by Jake T. Forbes, illustrated by Chris Lie, with the first three volume covers done by Kouyu Shurei. I felt compelled to pick this book up at some point as I love Labyrinth and this cover art actually does David Bowie a bit of justice ( in my sick Jareth loving little fan girl heart anyway). Now, I was highly disappointed to find that the cover art is just that. The art within the rest of the book looks nothing like this. I'm not sure how you get from

This to this

What is sad is this is one of the nicest shots of Jareth in the whole story and he's probably the best drawn character in the book. The rest of them look like they were done with the help of one of those scholastic "How to Draw Manga" books, you know the kind drawn by people who have never in their lives seen a manga. Had the art been done by the same person who did the cover, I wouldn't have felt so compelled to stab out my eyes. Thankfully they grew back in time for me to write this review.  They also went on to ruin one of the best characters from the movie! What did they do to the worm?!

(credits for this image go to ToughPigs.com)

I have to agree with everything I have seen about this. The worm turned into a soul eating zombie! Seriously. One of the nicest goblin/muppet characters gets turned into this. I understand that he may have gotten a little older, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, getting beyond my hate for sub-par "manga" art, lets move on.

CHARACTERS:

Toby(Sarah's baby brother) - Toby is a rather unlikeable character. He has very little personality, is incredibly selfish, and has very little in the way of redemption. If you were like me you didn't like him in the movie either, but then again I have very little patience for babies, especially in movies. That being said whiny baby Toby is approximately 100 trillion times better than angsty teen Toby.

Sarah - She has turned into the adult every kid is scared they will grow up to be. She has forgotten anything and everything fun and become rather bland and uninspiring. I realize this is part of the story, but it still doesn't help me to like her or feel bad for her. Additionally her character desgn has degraded in to your basic sidekick quality nerd girl. A far cry from the Sarah every girl in the 80's aspired to be.

Jareth - Poor poor Jareth is a pathetic excuse for the witty and sly goblin king he once was. The author tries to portray him as just as cunning as he was before, but failed to capture the feeling of what made him Jareth. Now he's just a generic "sexy" bad guy type character with all the personality of a bowl of pudding who's become he's a whining, sniveling little emo boy because Sarah didn't want to stay in his incredibly awesome castle.

Mizumi -  She is one of the more interesting characters. I thought her addition into the story was one of the few things that actually make this feel like a sequel and not just a poorly written rehash of the first story.

Hana - The usual sidekick. Not much to say about her. She is not exactly likable but not hate-able either. She is just kind of there.In spite of having a stock character personality, she's at least sort of a new creation.

There are others, but these are your main annoyances characters.

As the storyline goes, it was a relatively unique concept that could have been very interesting. Toby  has grown up and has been sucked into the same Labyrinth his sister went through many years before. Jareth tricks Toby into tthe labyrinth because he wants him to become his successor as Goblin King. Toby has only mild weak whiny objections before agreeing. He then prepares to become the gobline King by spending a good deal of time within the Goblin City learning of it's history and the way of Goblin culture. Which honestly could have been made really interesting as there's a wealth of Goblin society underpinnings that were never discussed in the original movie. The author could have really ran with things here, but instead choose to stick with the bland mediocrity that characterizes the "manga". 

I honestly wish this could have been if not a good book a least enjoyable one if more time was on the present  than constantly and needlessly rehashing what  happened 18 years ago. Surely in a society that's exisited for at least the last 1300 years, there'd be at least a few other things to discuss. Instead we get random quotes from the first movie that have no real bearing on anything, and what amount to walk on cameos of characters that were annoying and unimportant the first time. That almost completely lack of any original contents just reminds you that this is just some fan-boys' poorly thought out fan fiction.

Overall this is a poor excuse for $10 a book. The art inside is pathetic, the storyline might be interesting but relies too heavily on retelling the original story rather than expanding on it like it was supposed to.The whole thing has a high school notebook doodle feeling to it. If you have any love for this movie don't break your childhood memories with this poor excuse for writing.

~Jen

Retro Review: Legends of Murder 2: Greyhaven

Greyhaven was one of my favorite games as a child, I was so happy to find that my old 3rd or 4th generation floppy of it still functions after 20 years, especially as for years it was not available for download anywhere on the Internet (though last we checked a few sites had it).

Introduction

Greyhaven is a fantasy murder mystery RPG published to Big Blue Disk magazine in 1991 (though the game itself was apparently made in 1990) which was a computing magazine solely for DOS games. It wasn't one of the most notable games to ever by published in Big Blue Disk (Like Apogees Kroz series, or ID Software's Catacomb series) But it is the one I remember most fondly from my childhood.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Opening Screen

Overview

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven OKeys

Controls are pretty simple keyboard controls arrows and simple keyboard controls (IE G brings up the game menus, S searches/looks etc.). They're pretty standard for a dos game of this type. However, the controls are clunky it's easy to get stuck on things and you sometimes have to search around a stationary object 10 times before you find an item you KNOW is there.

Graphics are fine. Graphics while you're moving around the map and interacting with things are quite sparse, graphics on the closeups are better, but really nothing amazing. Honestly though the graphics are a bonus this game easily could have been a text only.

Sounds are nonexistent. I suggest listening to something like Midnight Syndicate to set your own mysterious murder fantasy mood.


Gameplay

You start the game with text explaining why you've come to the sleepy little town of Greyhaven which you've apparently been to before. You are the inspector, a crime solving mage, who's continuing mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations, to investigate the murder of a wizardry School apprentice. You make your way to the local tavern to meet with the headmaster of the school. On the way there you can investigate the town or run straight to the Tavern.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Tavern

Honestly though if you just want to dash through and not read and/or explore this probably isn't the game for you, as it's pretty much the entire game play. When you do investigate you'll notice that things in the town are...a little off. Boarded up businesses, abandoned homes, deserted streets and naturally some unhappy creatures bent on killing you. Eerie! After you've gotten all of your exploring out of the way and hopefully not gotten yourself killed in the process you met up with Baswik the Wizard headmaster for more detailed info on the situation. You adopt the guise of a new apprentice so as not to arouse the suspicions of the other students (and likely murders) and start your investigation.

The entire game is basically you wandering around the map searching for clues, fighting in encounters, leveling up, and reading a lot of text. Without actually going into to everything you do in the game and how you solve the crime, there's not too much to discuss here. Though there are some things for better or worse that set Greyhaven apart from other games from this period.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Telescope

First you can examine just about everything. Personally this is a big bonus for me. If there's painting on the wall (in this case a couple of blue pixels) I want to know what it looks like, if there's a shelf I want to know whats on it even if it's not useful. However this can get you in to trouble because you figure out the crime pretty organically, you don't take special note of the things that are important (or take notes at all) so actual clues can get a little muddled with random information.

Second the encounters are completely set. You can walk up and down the same patch of empty street 500 times and you're never going to encounter an enemy. But if you walk into the same trigger corner of a house and you haven't killed the enemy there it will pop up with the same text every single time. This is kind of convenient in that when you're week or simply don't feel like fighting anything you can avoid the encounters until you're ready for them. But annoying because later in the game you'll find that you're too weak to take on the enemies that are left to trigger, but you've already killed the ones you were capable of killing.  Very frustrating.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Skeleton Demon

Third you can only carry a 9 items, this seems like it ought to be enough but it's really not. You find way more stuff than you can carry and have no real way of knowing what you're going to need to hold on to and what you won't and when you drop something it's gone forever. Not being able to pick-up stuff you've dropped is probably the biggest issue with the game play.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven 

Third as I said earlier you figure out the crime in an organic manner, the game doesn't hand you anything. This is both awesome and annoying. The clues aren't obvious and unless you have a completely photographic memory of everything you read, examine, say when you walk in a room and/or hear from someone, you're going to have to write some stuff down and sift through it. Even then though it's tough, when I got to the final showdown it was some trial and error for me to guess the name of the killer (which is a necessity). On the other hand, it's nice not to be treated like you're stupid and makes things more of a surprise at the end. Which is way better than other games where blatant clues often tell you the whole story from the beginning.

Once you've gotten all your information and drawn successful conclusions you'll have your necessary items, and can find the killer. Assuming you're strong enough take them out and not only solve a murder, but save a town in the process. 

Conclusion
I love Greyhaven, I really do but it does have a few flaws. It's short, I'll say generously an hour of gameplay if you know what you're doing. It's got very limited replay value, encounters only happen in specific areas under specific circumstances and there isn't a lot you can do to alter or change your conversations in any way. Pretty much the only time it's worth playing again is once you've totally forgotten everything that happens. That being said it's really a shame more people haven't played this game. It's really a great game considering the time period and that it was a 1 man effort. If you're a fan of the genre, Greyhaven is definitely a game worth seeking out.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review Tuesday: Winter Olympics: Lillehammer 94

If you read our twitter account you'll know that I've been absolutely glued to the television during Olympic coverage (and that I'm late with adding this review because of that addiction). I don't normally care for televised sports much, but for some reason all that changes during the Olympics. I suddenly become the world's biggest fan of athletes I've never heard of and sports that often seem silly. Summer or Winter, it does not matter, I simply must watch any and all televised Olympic events. Since I like to cross my weird obsessions whenever possible, it's only natural that I've been collecting video games based on the Olympics for a long time. So, I thought it a perfect time to highlight one of these gaming gems and share it with the world. This week I bring you Winter Olympic Games: Lillehammer 94.

Introduction

The year was 1993, owners of the Sega Genesis console had not yet been blessed with fantastic gaming achievements such as Clay fighter, Boogerman, and Madden 94 . They were craving some some new action. Something gritty, some real, something unlike anything else out there. Something OLYMPIC! Sure they had a chance at the summer games with Barcelona '92, but they wanted something so cool it was ICE COLD! They needed hardcore realistic sports action and they got it. It was time to strap into EXTREME WINTER EXCITEMENT!!!!!

According to this mao there was one heck of a worldwide earthquake in 1994

Overview

As you'd expect with an Olympic game you compete in Olympic events. You don't get to do all the Olympic events that were available at the time, but you do get to do 10 of them: Downhill, Giant Slalom, Super G, Slalom, Bobsled, Luge, Freestyle moguls, Ski jumping, Biathlon & Short track speed skating.

Wheee!

Controls vary from game to game. In general they're OK for everything that isn't a downhill skiing event. Fairly responsive and easy to use once you've figured out what they are. Admittedly figuring that out isn't always easy, I had to break out my original booklet for several of them. The downhill skiing events have very difficult to deal with controls, it's just the d pad, but even with the ability to change how you want your d pad to work, it's quite a feat to make it down a hill without crashing let alone making a qualifying time or even managing not to get disqualified by missing gates.

Soundwise, It's pretty meh. There are some surprisingly good tracks on a few events, but nothing really WOW worthy. The tracks are actually fairly complex so they don't get too repetitious, which is a big plus for a game of this period.

Graphics are graphics what you'd expect from a game made in 1993. They're not bad but they're not fantastic. You know what everything is suppose to represent and that's good enough. The exception being the bobsled and luge events. Those are actually pretty nicely rendered "3D" style graphics for the time period without any of the weird control issues usually associated with it.

Gameplay

Once you've gotten past the intro screen you hit the main menu. As far as the play modes go you can choose: Full Olympics and play all 10 games and will see Opening and closing ceremonies, Mini Olympics where you choose just the games you want to play with no ceremonies, or Training where you can train the events.

Before heading into any of the game modes I suggest checking out the options screen first where you'll want to put the difficulty on skill level 1 unless you're a complete masochist. Setting this game to easy does not make it easy, it makes it almost fair. You can also add another player if you feel so inclined in this screen, play with a sound test and show your international flair by changing the language. Just don't forget to adjust the difficulty for your own sanity.

These games are difficult to master even for a veteran gamer so your first stop should be to training to get a feel for them before attempting the Olympics. Once you start either of the Olympic events you can choose the country you want to represent, set your name and set the countries you want to compete against. No matter what country you choose or which name you put in for yourself you will instantly become the greatest athlete who's ever lived able to compete in EVERY SINGLE event offered in these games!

So assuming you're starting off in a full Olympics, in your role Mr. Super athlete (you can actually choose to be Ms. Super athlete but the sprites look the same) you start off on skis doing the downhill course. I really feel this was an unfortunate choice as downhill (and the other events like it, super G, slalom & giant slalom) is one the hardest parts of the game. You're very likely to run into the trees or one of the gates sending your skier sprawling resulting in what the booklet claims are "fatal injuries". It's OK though because you apparently hold on to conscious thought just long enough to see how the other skiers did as well. Very convenient.

Generally going down the mountain on your back is considered poor form

Luckily for those of us who just can't keep our dendrophilia* in check, the Norwegian Olympic committee kept necromancers on hand! So even though you may have died from fatal injuries while skiing down that first hill you can continue your Olympic dream and compete in subsequent events. Pretty much all the downhill events work this way: attempt to ski between the gates, crash into something, suffer horrific fatal injuries, see how much better every other country did, be resurrected, go to next event.

With some practice you can skip the whole crashing into gates and trees bit and just get to the bottom of the hill. However, getting to the bottom of the hill without getting disqualified and while making good time, takes quite A LOT of practice even on the easiest difficulty setting.

The other events on Skis work quite a bit differently than the downhill events and as a consequence are a bit more fun for the average gamer.

Ski jump is pretty much what it seems like it would be. You do a ski jump, that's it. It's got easy controls and is probably the event you'll be the most likely to learn to do well in. As an added bonus it's also the only one that doesn't completely disqualify you for crashing. If you fall on your first run you'll still get some distance points (though no landing points) and have the opportunity to preform your second jump.

Moguls while a little bit easier than downhill are a still hard. You jump from mogul to mogul occasionally trying to land a trick. Tricking looks cool but it often leaves you head first in a mogul. The booklet doesn't list falling into a mogul as fatal so while it will end your run and not earn you any points you can avoid the death and subsequent necromancy hopefully leaving you in a better less zombie-like state before competing in the next event.

The final event on Skis is biathalon, where you ski for awhile and then shoot at some targets. Then you ski for awhile and then shoot at some targets. After that you....well, I think you get the idea. Biathalon I think is impossible to really screw up on, you can just get a really crappy time. The cross country skiing portion controls simply enough but when shooting, your Athlete aims like he's pounded roughly 50 shots of the highest quality grain alcohol available prior to hitting the course. Each missed shot costs you a 1 minute penalty, though aiming one good shot takes about as long. On the upside it's at least not a fatal event.

Ya Dead? Yeah Mon.

But not all of our extreme winter sports are on skis, they're also on sleds! So in come bobsled and luge. Bobsled and luge are probably the easiest to master and most fun events of the entire game. They're additionally the best animated as well. In addition to the cool looking and very innovative for the time period 3d style courses, I personally am a little bit enamored with your butt in the bobsled animation. It rivals the pinky demon bottoms in the original Doom for best but detail in an old school video game.*ahem*Putting that aside, they are easier than the skiing but it's still not easy to win, and you are very likely to flip over on to your head. It's just that it's more of pleasant defeat rather than the soul crushing defeat the other events can offer.

I'm clearly not particularly good at this event

But if you don't like Skis or sleds, you've got one more chance to find your happy place, Short track speed skating. It's a fairly easy to deal with event, button mash and avoid the other skaters who can and will knock you down if you don't move out of their way. Like the others it's nigh on impossible to master, but it's one of the easiest events to successfully complete especially since the other skaters can fall down independently of you and get disqualified.

Once you've finished the competition you'll get to see your standings as compared to the rest of the competing countries and then be treated to a medal ceremony (if you did well enough in all the sports to earn one) and the closing ceremony. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

Conclusion

Being that I go out of my way to purchase and play games based on the Olympics I know that this isn't really a bad example of one. It's actually better than most of the vintage ones I've played. However, most people who attempt to play this game aren't going to see it that way. It's impossibly hard and doesn't really inspire you to take the time to master it's more poorly planned out games *cough* downhill skiing *cough*. That being said the not so poorly planned out games can be a lot of fun especially if you're playing head to head with a friend. While it's nice to play a sports game that isn't just a generic baseball, football, basketball or soccer clone, sadly there isn't enough going for it make this game something I'd really recommend. It is an interesting novelty title though and quite a challenge. So it's worth picking if you consider yourself a hardcore vintage gamer. Anyone earning the gold here would certainly earn my respect.

~Stephanie

* love of trees

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Retro Review Tuesday: Haunted House Atari

Haunted House was a serious contender doing during our October, Halloween themed games. We didn't have the space for it then, but it's still a great game and deserves to be highlighted so we thought it would be perfect for this month.

Introduction

Haunted House is one of the first survival horror games to ever grace a home console. The concept, like most for games of this period is a bit thin, but it simple enough. You've come to the dark dusty mansion of the deceased Zachary Graves searching the 4 floors for 3 pieces of a precious urn. The catch being of course that the house is dark, scary, filled with bats and spiders and is of course haunted. It's not Silent Hill, but it does a surprisingly good job of keeping you on edge.

Overview

This is a standard joystick game so the controls are simple. You move around the house with the joystick, light matches with the button. When you encounter items you simply touch them to pick them up, you can only hold one item at a time (other than the urn) so you will automatically switch when you run into a new item. You can drop items as well by hitting the button if you've already got a match lit.

Graphically it's just there. Not the best looking game and not the worst looking game, it gets the job done.

Sound wise there's not a lot going on there's no music and what you do get is a few atmospheric sounds. They're primitive, but effective. As you travel around you hear the sound of your own footsteps and the sound of entering a new floor. When an enemy is around, you get the wailing of a ghostly chilling wind. Should you happen to touch that enemy you hear cracks of thunder while your eyes roll around in fright.


There are only three items but in typical Atari fashion you'll have no idea what they are without a little info.

Magic urn: It's broken into to three pieces which on their own don't really look like anything so if you pickup something weird looking it's probably the urn. It's the whole reason you're traipsing around a dark haunted mansion infested with rabid bats and poisonous spiders. What sort of magic does it hold? Who knows, but you can find out once you've got it all together and escape. (My guess is some sort of hallucinogen given the way the whole house color shifts when you win)

Magic scepter: A completely mysterious relic that keeps ghosts, bats and spiders away from you so long as you're holding it. This sounds a lot more useful than it really is, the holding one item at a time thing means you'll almost never be holding this.

Golden Key: First off let's get this out of the way, I know it's green, but the booklet claims it's golden. We'll just assume it's gold plated copper and has gotten a nice patina over the years. Basically a skeleton key, it opens any locked doors you find. This is a must have item in the later levels and not remembering where you left it is likely to get you killed.


Gameplay

You start off at the front door they only part of you character visible is the whites of your eyes and your pupils, A pretty familiar darkness scenario if you believe in the validity of old cartoons. If you're playing on the first difficultly level you can see the basic layout of whatever floor you are current on. You can go either up or downstairs by exiting up, down or to the left or right. To find the urn pieces and other helpful items you'll need to light a match otherwise it's too dark to see. Matches only last for a set amount of time before going out on their own, but you've got an infinite supply of them so you can light all you want. The only caveat is that the number you use affects your score at the end, but unless you're playing it tournament style with a bunch of geek friends there's no reason to be particularly concerned with that.

Occasionally while you're searching you'll encounter an enemy, or several as sometimes more than one appears at once. When this happens there will be a flash of lightening and a howling wind will come up to blow out your match you'll have to run out of the room or you'll lose a life as soon as they touch you. Usually they won't spawn right on top of you so they should be easy to avoid. Unless it the ghost of Mr. Graves, which is significantly faster. If you're near him when he pops up, you can pretty much kiss that life goodbye. If you can avoid the ghost of Mr. Graves, getting the urn and getting out is pretty simple given you've got 9 lives to work with. It's when you up the difficulty that things get interesting.

In the harder difficulty levels things get a lot harder for you. The mansion is now so dark you can't see the walls unless you light a match. You can no longer pass freely between all the rooms, you'll have to find a key. Additionally as you'd expect the enemies spawn faster and more often. This combination of factors can get you running scared when the vengeful spirit of Mr. Graves blows out your match and you find yourself running away blindly into a locked door or unseen wall. Making matters worse is that they can and will switch floors and rooms to come after you. It's never really scary but it can definitely give you a shot of adrenaline.

Conclusion

Haunted House brought a lot of new concepts to home gaming, scrolling corridors, multi-screen playing field and a whole new genre, survival horror. As I said before it's not quite something in line with fatal frame or a resident evil, but it's stood the test of time admirably, it is still a very playable and very enjoyable game. It's really a bit of a hidden gem, it should be regarded as a gaming classic and should be in every Atari fan's collection

~Stephanie


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Uzumaki Horror manga review

First off let's get one thing straight, Uzumaki has nothing to do with a certain blonde spikey
haired ninja, if You're looking for that you'll need to go elsewhere. If you're looking for one of the best horror themed graphic novels you can get your hands on, you'll be right at home.

Uzumaki isn't what most Americans would think of as your typical Japanese Horror manga. There aren't long haired shrine
maidens, no forbidden rituals, haunted video tapes, or vengeful ghosts, in fact pretty much no religion and no hauntings. What is does have though, is disturbing imagery, bizarre paranormal events and a complete descent into to madness.

Uzumaki translates into Spiral and tells the story of how an entire town becomes fixated, contaminated and possessed by the evil of the spiral. The concept seems completely silly at first, barring the hypnotism angle, spirals seem pretty benign. They are among the common and most primitive of human symbols Additionally, if you believe in Fibonacci's Spiral the entire world is possessed by spirals and most of us to seem to have gone crazy yet. But Junji Ito really pulls it off and while you may not be quaking in your bed after reading it, you should definitely be feeling some mental discomfort.

The story is told through the main character, Kirie. A pretty young girl who lives in the town with her parents and younger brother. One day she comes across her boyfriend's father staring at a snail shell on a wall, she attempts to talk to him, but he ignores her and she chalks it up to a case of mistaken identity. She tells her boyfriend, Shuichi about the incident who is sure that it was his father and that lately he has becomes completely obsessed with spirals and has been collecting them. Shuichi also confides in her that he feels that there's something wrong with the town, something that will drive them both crazy if they stay there. His father's obsession becomes worse and worse, until he decides he no longer needs the spiral collection, because he himself has the ability to become a spiral. This culminates in a particularity disturbing scene of his death. Stranger still, he is when cremated a column of black smoke spirals into the sky before spiraling down again into the dragonfly pond in the center of the city, and right next to Kirie's home. Shuichi's mother is driven mad after her husbands death and fears spirals. She becomes determined to rid body and environment of them, dying in the process. When she's cremated, the same smoke incident occurs and that's just the beginning.

Soon the towns people become stranger and stranger. More bizarre events and unexplained deaths begin happening and with every death and cremation the column of smoke spirals into the sky and down into the pond. Shuichi tries to convince Kirie that the town is contaminated and possessed by the spiral, things happen there that don't happen in other towns: swirling of the clouds, whirlwinds, whirlpools, and curled plants and begs her to leave with him before it's too late. Naturally Kirie believes he's just stressed after the deaths of his parents, but soon she founds out he was right and she and her family become contaminated by the spiral, but it's too late to leave.

The story gets progressively darker and more disturbing chapter by chapter as the true madness of the "spiral contamination" really starts to grip the town. As you follow the characters, it very easy to like them and really feel for their plight. Their circumstances are completely fantastic and not something we'd every really expect to see, but the character themselves react in ways that are human and normal. You believe that these people could really exist, they just happened to have been caught in a wave of bizarre and frightening circumstances. Which is exactly the sort of thing that scares us the most. That being said I do think a couple of chapters were missteps. Medusa in particular was just absurd as far as I'm concerned and really broke the mood. Having a hair battle isn't scary, it's funny. To be fair there's a bit of dark humor throughout, but a whole humorous chapter (if even that wasn't the intent) definitely breaks the suspense. I wasn't a big fan of the "mollusk people" either, it seemed to be going for something Like Kafka's Metamorphosis, but instead of conveying the sort of bleak misery and desperation of that story, the mollusk people just seem silly.

Graphically this manga looks older which might be a turn off to some readers. The character themselves remind me more of old shoujo characters than the sort of gritty style that I'd expect to see in horror. And there's it's not the same slick heavily shaded gore you'd find in something like Battle Royal. However, the imagery is fantastic, it's dark, detailed, disturbing and highly effective. The Mosquitoes, Jack in the Box and Black Lighthouse chapters in particular have some of the worst (the image is from black lighthouse). I won't post it here but there's an image in the mosquitoes chapter that gives a particularly warped and disturbing look at at childbirth and motherhood, probably one of the most disturbing images in the entire series and one that will stick with you long after you've closed it. The characters are extremely expressive, Ito does fantastic job of showing their wide range of emotions. Fear, disgust, horror, sadness, concern, determination and even love are all portrayed with accuracy and believability.

Uzumaki deserves it's place among horror classics, it's go great writing and fantastic imagery. Even if you're not interested in "traditional"J-horror, anybody with even a passive interest in the horror should read this. I've read a lot of horror comics and I can say this is one of the finest examples of the genre, from east or west.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review Tuesday: Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Atari

Today's retro review will be an extra special super vintage Atari double feature dedicated to the two releases by the short lived games division of Wizard Video, Halloween and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Introduction

It's a common cliche. "It's so bad it's almost good." Maybe that's not quite what describes Halloween on the Atari 2600. But something makes us keep coming back to it. Perhaps it's the repetitive music, the amusing death scenes, the character designs or maybe just the captivation of seeking an end to one of an entire generation of games not exactly known for having one.

Overvew

Michael Myers is loose in the house. You must run from this pixelated maniac and avoid his "attacks" until you can find the weapon and...well, you don't really stop him, you just...poke him and he...runs away. Then he comes back. Faster. Perhaps you...shouldn't have done that.

The controls are simple. If you're lucky enough to be enjoying this piece of work with a joystick then it's as simple as push up to move up, pull back for down, left goes left, right goes right and you can even move diagonally, Fancy! You can push the button to perform actions like controlling and using the weapon or drag one of the kids along as bait. (If you're on an emulator then it's whatever you set the controls to) Overall, the function doesn't seem to be too bad.

The graphics of the game are Atari graphics. What else can be said. Your character does manage to be clearly female, however, and everything is reasonably distinguishable. You can even tell that your lives are represented by what are supposed to be pumpkins.

The music is...yeah, get used to the music. The classic score from the Halloween series plays every time you see Michael Myers on the screen (And you'll see him on just about every single screen). Although when he's not yet present the lack of music can almost be seen as...eerie?

Gameplay

You start off inside the corridor of a "house" consisting of a random collection of hallways. Right away, Michael will come after you, just stabbing his "knife" over and over. Contain your laughter, (although, really...just look at that) and run to either end of the screen to switch areas. Unless you're at the end of a hallway, Michael will appear in the next area and just about everywhere you go. Some areas will have a "door" you can run through to change areas of the house or you can change floors by going through the doors at the hallway ends. Some uppers rooms flash from light to dark, blinding you to your own whereabouts and the position of Michael, often proving to be problematic for you, if not fatal.

The game can actually manage to "scare" you since Michael doesn't always appear at the same time, or from the same areas. He can appear from the right, from the left, or even from a doorway, and this can cause you to jump a little, especially if you're heading in that direction. It's especially bad in flashing room where it's difficult to tell where your own character is.

Ultimately the goal is to lead the children you're babysitting to the safe rooms, the ends of the hall. The truly glorious thing about this is that Michael seems to be more interesting in killing them than you. Sure, perhaps that's not how it works in the actual series, but who's to prove if your character is even Laurie? Frankly I've taken to calling her Connie just for the hell of it. Maybe it says for certain in the booklet who exactly Connie/Laurie/Ms.Feminine pixels is, but I don't have that luxury. Anyway, by pushing the button, you can take children with you or just use them as bait to distract Michael while you haul ass out of there. This becomes especially useful the further you get in the game. When Michael touches them, he decapitates them so you lose a chance to save one but it's better their heads than yours. The hardest part will be trying not to laugh, and leaving the area.

Additionally, you're looking for the "weapon" to use against Michael so that you may gain points. What kind of weapon is it? Who knows. Maybe you see a knife. Maybe you see a hammer. Maybe you're something of a cynic and just see a collection of black pixels, but at any rate, when you find this item, you push the button while standing over it to pick it up. Then, once you encounter Michael again, you wait until he's just about on top of you, and push the button to "thrust" your weapon, giving him a real mean poking, and he'll run away until...you change rooms. Do this twice or save enough children and you'll go up a level. Meaning when you see him again, he'll be faster. Eventually, he'll get so fast that he matches your speed and you can no longer outrun him, just avoid touching him.

Should you let ol' Stabby get too close, before you know what could have possibly actually happened in your altercation, you'll find yourself headless, with delightful little "blood" pixels erupting from your neck. Not unlike a beheaded chicken, you run away, seemingly in distress, off the screen. You've now lost a life. .You repeat this process until you lose all three. Then the game is over, and there's nothing else to do now but reflect upon this interesting little experience. If there's an end other that to this game, most people, including us, wouldn't know about it.

Conclusion

If you're a horror fan, a retro-gaming fan, or like me, both, then honestly, this is a must have for your own Collection of Geekery. However, this game is incredibly rare, and expensive for just a used, boxless copy. So it would be unrealistic for me to tell you to go buy it. However, if you've got a computer (and I have it under decent authority that you do) you just may want to download this oddity. It's certainly one hell of a novelty, and it's hard not to somehow enjoy it.

~RM

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Introduction

Even back in 1983 companies were trying to bombard consumers with different incarnations of their franchises by marketing shoddy poorly conceived merchandise. Wizard Video was no different. Being the original home video distributors of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre they thought it would be a great money maker to introduce their film and themselves to the budding video game market. The result was not well received by most consumers but it was innovative. It brought the first horror video game into the home market, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Overview

In a role reversal from most of the survival horror games of today, you play as Leatherface, the terrifying chainsaw wielding nutjob. Your goal is simple, to kill as many screaming Texan women as possible before you run out of gas.

Controls are simple, it is an Atari joystick after all. But, it's still got everything you need to be a killing machine. You move up down left and right with the joystick and run the chainsaw with the button.

Soundwise it's pretty standard for the Atari. There's the sound of Leatherface walking, the sound of firing up your chainsaw, the shrill beep (scream) of a potential victim and the sound of a triumphant kill.

Graphically, once again, it's an Atari game, you can't expect much if you're used to all sorts of newfangled 3d rendered perfectly polished games. But for the time period they were pretty good. Everything is easily recognizable from the girls, to the cow skulls to the truck in the background. There's even enough detail on Leatherface to give him a grimace. My only real complaint here is that Leatherface's chainsaw is the saw color as his body leaving things open to some rather unwholesome conclusions.

Gameplay

The game starts of with you as Leatherface out in the Texas countryside looking for fresh young victims. You can walk either left or right seeking your prey. You'll know you've found one when you hear the extremely shrill beep to signify their screams. You're faster than they are so if you just keep up the chase you'll eventually get close enough to use the chainsaw leaving a bloodied corpse in your wake. Though you'd better enjoy it in the moment because it disappears pretty quickly leaving you to wander off looking for another victim to quench your blood lust.

This sounds pretty easy so far, but it wouldn't be much of a game without a few obstacles to overcome. The first of which is gas, your chainsaw uses a bit of gas while you're just standing around letting it idle and it uses considerably more every time you fire it up. Leatherface can only carry enough for three refills so no matter how important it makes you feel, it's best not to leave the chainsaw running when you're not using it on some poor woman.

The Second problem is that on your way to the fresh meat you'll have to avoid fences, bushes cow skulls and wheelchairs (one has to wonder if the developers of the silent hill series started off their young lives playing this game). If you run into one of these obstacles you'll have to use your all purpose handy dandy chainsaw to cut it out of the way using some of your precious gas in the process.

The final obstacles is your victims themselves. The women will try to dodge you when you get close and will change directions, suddenly appearing on the other side of you This is not only annoying, but a big gas waster. The women in pink seem to be slightly more prone to doing this effectively.

Once you've used up all your gas by either slaughtering victims or cow skulls, the screen goes black and Leatherface is left with a useless chainsaw. Meaning Leatherface himself is totally powerless. While a stationary useless Leatherface sits on screen grimacing off into oblivion one of his potential victims comes up behind him and gives him a sift kick ending the game.

Conclusion

While wantonly killing is fun and a great stress reliever for a short period, it gets pretty old pretty quickly unless you've got friends to play and compare scores with. Playing it makes it pretty clear that it wasn't ever supposed to be a great video game, only a great marketing ploy.
However while not the best Atari game you can play, not by a long shot, this game has earned is place in the annals of classic gaming for it's unique "killer perspective" and bringing video game horror into the home.

~Stephanie

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