September the 27th (Friday the 13th)...Eat Flakes For Now

So usually when you come across a hack (altered version) of a classic video game on your favorite ROM/emulation site, it's a nudie version of the game, such as Nude Punch-Out!! . "Ha ha ha, Piston Honda's flaccid, the humor is interminable." But there comes a time when nudity becomes boring (no, it does), and you need something a little more interesting in your bastardized classic gaming. I know we did.  Luckily for us, one day long ago I stumbled across September the 27th on Rom-World.com, a hack of the notoriously difficult Friday the 13th game for the NES. And I can say without exaggeration that this is truly the best hack ever.

The premise of this particular hack is that you are a group of doctors and nurses at Battle Creek Clinic and Sanitarium, pushing Dr. Kellogg's (previously camp counselor Mark) agenda of cornflake-based health. However, this radical way of thinking has gotten the attention of one truly sinister being - Wilford Brimley. Oh yes, the ex-Quaker spokesperson has put his crusade against "Diabeatus" aside to reclaim the breakfast throne in the name of oatmeal. He has all of the blood lust of Jason with much of the terror. And he will use his fists, machetes and hairbrushes axes to slay all of those who dare to stand against his malevolent goal.

 You're going to notice some subtle differences from Friday the 13th in this version of the game. First of all, instead of a knife going through the eyehole of a hockey mask, you'll see a spoon being slammed into a bowl of what I think is supposed to be blue oatmeal.

Your characters clothes are now lengthened down to their ankles to reflect their status as medical professionals. All of the female characters have had their names changed to Nurse 1, Nurse 2, and Nurse 3. As I stated earlier, Mark has now been replaced with Doctor K. with an altered mug shot on the map screen, which now features a bald, stern, almost alien-like individual. However is "face" is unaltered during actual gameplay. George and Paul get to retain their names in exchange for having to wear gowns. After choosing a character, you are informed to "use the torch to cook the cornflakes" before you begin your mission: destroy Wilford...if you can!

    Yellow and blue Quaker men rise from the ground to...devour your flesh, perhaps. You flash when they touch you, that's all that is certain. Basically they hold their arms up in a constant showing of a completed field goal while stamping their feet up and down. For added fun, try to get a couple of them grouped together to make a hyrbrid Quaker Man and Octopus, or as I like to call them, a Quaketopus.

    Much like with Jason, you will be warned if Wilford is attacking one of the doctors or the "patients" (formerly known as children) out on the lake, still a similar size. Upon meeting Wilford, you may be too distracted by what may be a sweater or possibly a brown jogging suit to evade his attacks. If you manage to fend him off, a message will appear urging you to "Eat Flakes For Now." If you can drain his entire life bar, you'll move onto the next of three days.

In the cave, Jason's mother's head has taken some R and R and is replaced with a giant, mean-looking Quaker head. His angry eyes and fierce black hat strike fear into any who dare to enter his lair. Adding to the terror he changes his color palette daily shifting from pinkish putrid flesh to a charred visage of horror.

Defeat him to get a hold of some goodies. On day one it's a machete as usual, and day three's pitchfork is intact. However, the sweater which protected you from half of the game's attack damage and served as the prize for defeated Jason's mother on day two has been replaced with, yes, cornflakes. The graphic is little more than text that says "Cornflakes" someone reminiscent of the way it appeared on the box. Like the sweater it protects you against half of all damage you sustain. No sugar here, Dr. K likes his flakes pure!

So it seems obvious why we feel this is the greatest hack the internet has to offer. It gets played nearly as often as the original Friday the 13th here, and considering my love for the game, that's quite often. I don't know who the individual is who created this beautiful gem, but I think I speak for everyone on this blog when I say that I would like to buy them a bowl of Kellogg's cornflakes, part of a complete breakfast.


    ~Richard


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In Honor of Friday the Thirteenth: Friday the 13th NES Game Review

This was originally posted back in 2009, but we felt it should be revisited and revitalized a bit in honor this auspicious date.

Enjoy

INTRODUCTION

Nearly thirty years ago, Paramount produced a movie that would forever staple the "Summer Camp Horror" cliche into our hearts. Only a very special film company can turn a story about a vengeance-seeking homicidal mother of a dead mentally retarded boy into a never-ending series about an undead, invincible, hockey-masked super-human killing machine. It takes a very, VERY special video-game development company to turn this killing-machine into an 8-bit, blue-masked-purple-jogging-suit-wearing juggernaut squaring off against six faceless "counselors", while at the same time turning this into a zombie invasion. Can such a video game really exist? Why yes, it can. What can you do to be a part of the magic? Well, first you can read this ironically elaborate review.

OVERVIEW


Sarcasm aside, let's get this straight...it's an LJN game, it's terrible. That aside, it is actually one of LJN's better put-together titles, and one of the first-ever survival horror games. The game actually manages to "scare" you, when the masked maniac suddenly appears on screen with little to no warning, in many instances. And let's not forget the game's infamous difficulty.

Oh No! It's Jason and he's got a purple jogging suit!

Once the game is started, it goes right to a well-rendered intro sequence, which is an animated throwback to the famous cover design of the Part IV movie case, where a knife flies in from God-knows-where and sticks into the eyehole of Jason's Hockey Mask. Then the screen flashes violently. It's easily the most graphically impressive part of the game. While you sit there, noting how they must have blown their entire budget for the game on that opening sequence, the title screen will appear. You push start, and after it tells you to light the fire places, you select your first character.

Your goal in this game is to destroy Jason before getting all six of the counselors killed off. Likewise with the fifteen children, whom were looking forward to an enriching summer of hiking, rowing, singing, not getting slaughtered, and fishing. You kill Jason by using six different weapons of differing strengths and uses (and by uses, I just mean strength.) When you hear the alarm, indicating to you that Jason is either attacking a fellow counselor in their cabin, or the campers, you race to the cabin, and have one of many, many battles with the Demon of Crystal Lake, until you finally put him down once and for all (or, at least until the next sequel).

Graphically the game is actually pretty well rendered. The backgrounds even change, in the distance based on your location, IE: changing to trees when you're getting near the woods, rock when you're near the cave, and water when you're approaching the lake. They are rather simplistic, but get the job done as far as clarity of the situation, except for Jason of course...nobody's ever going to understand that.

Sound wise the effects are pretty crisp, although nothing resembles anything close to a realistic sound. All of the sound effects are your standard, classic beepy-boopy electronic sound of some sort .Though notably missing is Jason's trademark sound (if you're familiar with the movies you know what I'm talking about.) The music is like most any other NES game, it is obnoxiously repetitive yet strangely intoxicating. The music that plays while inside of a cabin is especially notable, for its distinct sound and ambiance.


GAMEPLAY


-Characters-

I could get extra analytical about this and scout each and every character's strengths and weakness. Instead, I could just put it like this - use Mark. Crissy and Laura are okay too, but Mark is who's going to do this for you. Avoid doing anything with Paul, Debbie, or George. Eventually it will become a necessity to use these three, but until that time comes, put them away in the closet, and take care of Mark and his girls. Though for those of you who WANT something more analytical, read on.

If you going to lay out a kids camp in such an unsafe fashion you kind of deserve a masked maniac

Mark - Moves fast, rows fast, jumps high, he's your guy.Take care of him so that you may make him last for the entirety of the game. Make sure he gets all the potions he wants and give him the Sweater (both of those things will be discussed, below).

Crissy - Also moves fast on land, jumps high, she's just about the female equivalent to Mark and you should also take care of her, as well.

Laura - She moves quickly, but sucks at jumping. She's still a better choice than George, Debbie, and Paul but only because of her speed.

George - A useless cretin, he excels at absolutely nothing. Also, he's also the least attractive one, so it's a pretty standard notion than you want nothing to do with him.

Debbie - She's pretty much just female George, although when he throws a weapon, she really whips that thing. Still, with a name that even SOUNDS slow, Debbie is definitely on the reject list.

Paul - Paul's only better than Debbie and George because he's black. But even so, how black is he REALLY? His name is Paul, for crying out loud and he can't run OR jump. But you have to cut him some slack - he's the one most likely to die in this situation.

-Playing the Game-

You wander Camp Crystal Lake, wondering how a place that so frequently experiences mass murders can STILL be a problem, looking out for goodies and Jason. To keep you busy while Jason's deciding who to kill, you battle yellow and blue zombies, who even walk with the outreaching arms. They are the most annoying part of the game, however, killing them will give you the invaluable lighter (which the game refers to as a "torch" ...perhaps LJN are a bunch of bloody wankers from England?) and killing enough of them may even grant you a special weapon.

Just havin' a friendly chat

Every now and again, Jason himself will appear right on the screen without warning. He has a bit of tell though, generally indicated by whatever zombies that are on screen walking off the screen and by the screen halting its scroll, as you move. When Jason appears he will throw spinning axes which are rather hard to dodge. Hit him enough times with your weapon, and he will run away. The game is slightly realistic in the sense that if you follow him you will likely end up fighting with him again in a moment. Also, if Jason leaves and suddenly the alarm sounds, it will probably be very close to where you two just battled.

Once the alarm sounds, you look to the status bar atop the screen, and see which indicator is flashing. If it is the Counselor Indicator (The one next to the potentially changing number of unhappy-looking faces) you then press start to see which cabin it is that Jason is occupying (it will be green and flashing). A timer will appear next to the flashing indicator, giving you sixty seconds to reach the cabin. It is pertinent that you get over there as fast as you can. The longer you take, the more Health the counselor inside loses and you may need to use this counselor at some point. If you're dawdling, indifferent, or more likely - lost in the woods, and time expires, Jason will slay the counselor inside, effectively costing you one life, and the use of that character. GOD HELP YOU if it's Mark. If the Children Indicator is flashing, then you've got slightly more of a chore to deal with, as the only way to reach them is to row your boat across the lake to their cabins, all the while getting attacked by zombies, birds, and  Jason himself,  who's attack you can do virtually nothing about other than wonder how it is that he's in the water attacking you while simultaneously  killing the campers. The more time you spend dawdling on the way to the campers the fewer of them there will be. Once Jason has wiped out a cabin full of children he will move on to the next cabin when he strikes again. If all your children are wiped out it's game over so as much as you might like to, you can't ignore them.

Thank goodness the quintuplets are safe

Once you've entered a cabin, the screen switches to a pseudo "3D" screen, with very limited movement and excruciatingly slow progression. If there is another counselor in the cabin, you can switch weapons with them by pressing select and choosing the "PASS" option. Though leaving them with a weapon, no matter how nice it is, doesn't seem to help them fend of Jason's wrath without your help. You can also switch places with each other with Select-CHANGE. If you having a potion, cure them with Select-CURE. If you find a weapon or note on the cabin floor, take it with Select-TAKE. If you're in an empty cabin and press start you can choose a new character and you'll start from their cabin, if you do this in an occupied cabin, the cabin's original counselor will move to an unoccupied cabin.

Occasionally you will enter a cabin that Jason is randomly occupying, even if there's no alarm. While in a cabin, you can tell if Jason is there with you because his life bar appears at the bottom of a screen. If you are attacked by Jason in a cabin, you square off with the purple-suited psycho while he attacks with either his fists, a machete, or what looks like a hair brush, but is most-likely an axe. You throw the weapon you have at Jason with the B button. By pushing down and over in any direction on the D-pad, you can dodge Jason's attacks when he steps in front of you. Sometimes Jason will attack you twice in a row without moving, so stay on your pixelated toes. Once you've hit Jason enough times, like any other NES sprite he will flash and disappear and a message will display on the screen, reading "You win...for now." Ominous, no? Meanwhile, Jason will wander off to continue his murderous rampage.Jason's Health Bar depletes over the elapse of several different battles with him, so depleting it entirely can take quite a while.

Sometimes though, if Jason's Health Bar is low enough, he will fight you until it depletes entirely, something that really sucks if you only have one of the first two weapons. Jason may also try and fight to the death when he attacks you on the path, but here, you cannot see his Health Bar, so you just have to keep fighting until he flickers.

Once you've totally depleted Jason's Health Bar, you get a less-than-congratulatory message, and you will find yourself having to kill him again - only now everything's harder.

-Days-

The game spans three "days," each new day starting when you deplete Jason's health. Each day follows a cycle, starting off in daylight, turning to dusk and then night, the progression being completely dependent on how often you enter and leave a cabin.

Day One - Everything's standard, Jason's at normal speed, takes off normal health, zombies are at normal speed...it's normal.

Day Two - Zombies are faster, and Jason is stronger and every now and again takes a snort of crack and starts really flying, making his attacks nearly impossible to avoid, completely.

Day Three - Zombies are still fast and possibly more frequent,  and crows appear on all the roads. Making matters worse it that Jason has become a non-stop speed-demon making every encounter with him a real labored attempt.

-Areas-

Aside from the cabins, there are four different areas to scroll, each of them exhibiting their own special traits and enemies.

A lovely day by the shores of Crystal Lake

Road/Path - The normal screen of the game, you can use the map to navigate this and see which cabins are where,though  often the implied distance is far from accurate. If you happen upon a new, alternate path leading into the horizon, or one at your feet, you can press up or down to travel them, which may lead you to the perimeter of the cave or lake, into the woods, or into the cave or lake.

Whoever established this camp hates kids & counselors, why are there no trail markers?

Woods - Taking on Labyrinthine qualities, it's very easy to get lost in both wooded areas, traveling up and down paths that don't always lead to the same place twice. However, the Woods do hold secret cabins housing secret items and they also yield an abundance of potions. So occasionally venturing in can be very worthwhile.

Not sealing off this cave is a lawsuit waiting to happen

Cave - Dark and...scary? This area has bats and holes for you to fall down and die in. It's a bit hard to tell where some of the alternate paths are (the ones in the backgrounds are almost invisible their location hinted only by the crumbled rocks on the ground in front of them, among the other rocks), but once you collect the flashlight, it's much brighter and the paths are easy to see.

You can tell it's a water zombie because it's blue, wouldn't want to mix it up with the land variety

Lake - Here, you row to wherever you're going, the camper's cabins being the only non-pointless destination.  While boating you try to avoid zombies jumping out of the water, birds, and Jason. It takes a little while for your character to accelerate to max boat speed, and the maximum speed is dependent on the character you're using.

-Weapons-

All weapons are projectiles. Nice that picking up just one gives you and endless supply.

Stone - Your default weapon, it takes five hits of these useless things to take off a single pellet of Jason's life...Jason having thirty-two, randomly-numbered pellets in total. (I don't mean to mention crack again...but these ARE big, white rocks...)

Knife - You get this, along with many other items, by jumping in certain areas. You are guaranteed to have at least once instance where you accidentally lose a great weapon by picking up one of these by mistake. Four hits to a pellet, it's not a whole lot better than the Stone but it's still an improvement.

Machete - You can get this either by defeating Jason's mother in the Cave, finding it in a cabin in the Woods, or killing fifty zombies. Usually when you earn this via zombie-death, you're not ready for it, and either would have to downgrade your weapon to get it, or gain nothing, having already acquired a Machete. It's too bad to see it go to waste, as it kills zombies in one hit, and takes only three to take off a pellet of Jason's life.

Thank goodness a class in advanced knife throwing was offered at the camp before things went sideways

Axe - A strong weapon, but slower compared to the others. You throw these spinning, just like Jason does on the road. This can only be acquired by defeating Jason's mother under certain circumstances, or finding it in a secret cabin in the Woods. One hit for zombies, Two-per-Jason pellet.
Torch - The most useful weapon in the game, this one can even be used to hit Jason in the Lake, making those attacks just a bit more fair. This weapon drops to the ground when you throw it, burning for a second, and killing zombies that absent-mindedly run into it. It also takes a health pellet from Jason per hit. It is acquired by lighting certain fire places and then finding it in a cabin by the lake, or by getting it from Mrs. Voorhees. It may also be available in a secret cabin.
Pitch Fork - The hardest weapon in the game to acquire, it is only available by killing Jason's mother on Day Three. It's very fast, passes right-through zombies, killing them instantly and takes off one pellet per single hit on Jason.

-Items-

Items can only be collected by coming into contact with them while jumping. It sounds dumb, but it actually makes it a little easier to avoid collecting unwanted pick-ups. However, it frequently threatens to do the very opposite for you while you're jumping to avoid an enemy.

♫ ...am I only dreaming?

 Is this burning

 an eternal flame...♪

Lighter - Use this to light fireplaces in big cabins.
Potion - You can use these to regain a small amount of health or to heal your fellow counselors in need. If you're carrying one of these when your Health Bar depletes, it will automatically be used and saving you for the time being.
Key - These are used to unlock the doors of secret cabins and the door to Jason's mother's lair. One key can open everything without seemingly disintegrating in the lock,  unlike so many other games.
Flashlight - This is found when certain fireplaces are lit. It appears inside the cabin instantly after you finish the fireplace so don't leave the area or it's gone. You can use this to light up the cave and reveal hidden paths, though it's rather useless once you know what to look for.
Notes - Random notes are left for you in large and secret cabins. They may hint on to where you may find a special item, or they may just tell you to go into a random cabin or into the woods.

-Enemies-
Zombies - The standard enemy of the game, they basically give you something to do while Jason's inactive. Easy to deal with, but you get tired of it real soon.
Lake Zombies - These jump out of the water while you're rowing the canoe. Rather annoying, but weaker than normal zombies.
Birds - Maybe it's a crow? Either way, it appears after about 10 zombies come and go, takes only 1 hit to kill, but it's pretty annoying to deal with. Seen both on the road and over the lake.
Wolves - Appearing in both the Woods and the Cave, (colored baby blue while in the cave for some reason) they're very hard to deal with. They're fast, they jump, and they're very tough, sustaining a lot of damage before being eliminated. It's recommended that you just run away from them.
Bats - A weak enemy that appears only in the cave. Not a huge problem.
Jason - The Hockey-Masked killer we all know and love is done less-than justice, in his sky-blue mask, skin of the same color, and purple jogging-suit. However, his admittedly hilarious look is no reason to take him lightly. Very strong and very fast, as is right, if someone's gonna get ya, it's him.

This looks like it's gonna be pleasant, surely nothing bad will be behind that door.

Mrs. Voorhees - Jason's beheaded mother, she floats up from her candle-lit alter and basically headbutts you with the remains of her body. You can battle Mrs. Voorhees once on all three days, enjoying her shifting of color for each. Her location is obscured, but if you defeat her, you will be granted a special reward, depending on the day it is, and/or the weapon you are carrying:

Day One Prize - Machete. If you already have one, Axe. If you already have that, Torch. Already have that? Axe again.
Day Two Prize - Sweater. In the movie series, the sweater played a notable part in Part 2. It was blue then. Here, the Sweater is a neon pink and yellow...yeah. Upon getting it, your current character will sustain only half the damage he or she receives. You will also flash from your normal color to green, making you feel extra special.
Day Three - Pitchfork. As stated earlier, very strong, very nice. Beware, though...Mrs. Voorhees is a real problem this time around.




CONCLUSION


So, there you have it, poor Friday the 13th didn't wait long enough to have its video game spin-off made...competently. But you know, thinking back to how "competently" the films were made...this seems right, in a way. It must be doing something right...I've spent hours and hours playing and beating this game over and over. It must be stressed again that this is no small feat. This game maybe bad, but it's also insanely difficult, beating it ranks you right up there with the Gods.

 

~Richard

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Collection Update: Signed Revolutionary Girl Utena Promo Poster

We haven't done a collection update in awhile basically because we've been so busy with other things we've hardly had time to focus on curating our own collection.  We're still a little time short so this is a single item update, but it's a good one.

A promo poster for the English release of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime Signed by both  Chiho Saito & Kunihio Ikuhara ( the creator of the show and director of the anime if you don't know) at Animazement in 2000. Utena is Jen's favorite series after Sailor Moon, so it's a pretty exciting  item for her. We've actually had it for about a year, but a local frame sale inspired us to take it out of the closet and frame it.

 We haven't hung it up yet, but soon it will be sharing wall space with this Furoku poster from Newtype 1997. Both will be hanging in our stock room/office, which due to the rarity of most Utena merchandise, contains a tiny tiny amount of Utena stuff for sale. Given the aforementioned lack of readily available Utena merch we're really happy to have such a unique piece in our collection.


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The strangest Sailor Moon bootleg ever, Jupiter Skateboard Water Toy

 Last night we lost an auction for quite possibly the oddest Sailor Moon bootleg ever. Now granted there's a whole host of crack Sailor Moon Items both official like this vanity, and not so official, like this crazy pencil box. But this thing really goes a step beyond:

 Judging by the seller's description and the photo, it's apparently a skateboard with water game embedded in a color confused Sailor Jupiter's stomach with "Baby" thrown on it for extra flair...

Just think about the many facets of that for a second. First someone had to think up the concept of a water game skateboard, and then decide to put  a knock of Sailor Senshi on it. How/when/why does that come up? Worse yet how to someone else then decide it's not only a perfectly reasonable idea but a perfectly reasonable idea that they should utilize factory equipment to produce?  It boggles the mind.

Normally this is just the sort of insanely stupid poorly thought out item that would we love to add to our collection, but as I noted before we lost it. We're a bit sad about that it's true, especially as we've never seen another, but it ended at $13.50 before shipping which is approximately $13 more than it's worth. While it would have had a place of pride among our other oddities, I think paying that much for such a clearly awful item, would have left us feeling a bit ashamed of ourselves so it's probably for the best. We hope the auction winner appreciates all it's oddness and awfulness and likes it as much as we would of.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review: Daria's Inferno PC

 I loved Daria when I was in high school and watched it religiously. When I got the DVD sets a few years back for my birthday, I was thrilled and commenced to do some hardcore Daria watching. This totally rekindled my love for the series and I found myself googling Daria in the vain hopes there might be something more I could be finding, watching or otherwise being entertained with. In my searches I found that there was a PC game that came out in 2000, and as a gamer and fangirl I knew I needed to get it asap. It took me awhile to track it down, but here are the fruits of my fangirling.

Introduction

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture a completely unimportant and self indulgent review of a game no one will care about.

The Concept of Daria's Inferno is a  retelling of Dante's Inferno taking place in Daria's twisted nightmare version of  Lawndale.

Oh Joy there's more to read after the jump, I'm so happy I could cry.

Collection Oddities: Zelda Bootleg Crossbow Toy

 Let me start off by saying this is NOT an official Legend of Zelda item. It is in no way associated with Nintendo or any other company that owns a license for making Nintendo products. Normally we do not support companies or individuals who deal in "unofficial" merchandise, but occasionally we see something that's completely unlike anything available officially (often for good reason, see the Sailor Moon Car Pencil Box) and we add it to our collection.

That in mind we bring you the Crossbow Training Crossbow.

Completely Generic (wink,wink) Crossbow Training!

 Now with the above "this is a filthy dirty nasty bootleg" disclaimer in mind, you do have to give this a bit of credit. It doesn't actually have the audacity to claim it's in any way associated with the legend of Zelda franchise. It just happens to have a blonde elf like young man in a green suit on the package, who just happens to be posed similarly on the official product. Most of us have probably encountered someone's Original Character creation who looks surprisingly similar but absolutely IS NOT LINK. (Kind of like how this character absolutely NOT Vincent Valentine from FFVII) It could also just happen to use the same lettering as the official release of Link's Crossbow Training on the Wii. So it's possible that the link between this item and the Legend of Zelda franchise is all our heads...but probably not. Regardless it's time to take it out of package.

Gun + Bow = Crossbow!

So here it is in all it's glory along. Though I forgot to take a shot of it with it's "quiver" of arrows, but there's not a lot to see there, it's a piece of plastic that holds plastic arrows yay! There was some assembly required, but it mostly consisted of turning the bow part sideways and sticking it onto the gun part. There was also a piece to help keep the bow straight on the gun, but I broke mine trying it put it in. It didn't seem to effect the performance at all though.

It's made of super lightweight cheap plastic with a weathered bronze metallic finish. It has surprisingly detailed and attractive molded designs all over it. Though as a point for the "this is an original creation, completely unlike Zelda." argument, the designs look like some sort of low brow steam punk knock off rather than the Crossbow link actually uses in the game:

Link's Official Crossbow

Functionally speaking it works, but it's not great. First to set an arrow you have to hold the trigger pull back the bowstring and the release the trigger while you're holding the string back to lock it into place once you've done that you can slide the arrow in, just make sure it's completely in it's proper groove or it will split the bottom and top pieces of the gun, like you'd expect with any quality piece of craftsmanship such as this. Once you've carefully set the arrow, you have to hope that all that nonsense about arrows being useless at point blank range is completely fabricated because you have about a 5 foot range and even then it flies pretty slowly, so you'd probably have trouble taking out anything stronger than a Keese made of paper. On that note, for a crossbow "training" toy, it's conspicuously devoid of targets or other training aids, so you probably will be making those paper Keese. Or you could always shoot at your friends and loved ones provided you aim away from the face and they're willing to stand approximately 5 feet away from you.

Locked and loaded for point blank mayhem!

Overall, it's an interesting oddity, but once it's out of the package it has zero identifiable connection to the Zelda franchise or link. Leaving you with a so/so cheap plastic toy. These have been floating around eBay lately for cheap, so if you're enchanted by the novelty of a Zelda bootleg that's not just a crappy rehash of an official item, get one. For most collector's though, it's not going to be worth the space it takes up on your shelf.

~Stephanie

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Why we're not Friends with the PS3

I originally wrote this post for my personal blog, but thought a wider audience might enjoy commiserating. I also I added pretty pictures to this version.

For Christmas my mom bought us a Playstation Move in a bundle pack (the Mayhem Bundle for those who are curious) with 2 games and a gun as well as one additional game. We didn't particularly want a Move because we have a Wii that takes care of all our motion gaming needs, but we've been wanting to get the House of the Dead Overkill: Extended Cut that's PS3 only, and we like shooting digital things and it was already there, so we decided to keep it. We played the separate game, Everybody Dance,  right away after Christmas and it was fun enough, but after that initial trial run though we've been ignoring it. My Mom has been asking me if we tried the 2 bundled games yet and I've been tired of telling her no, so today while everyone else in the household was occupied and I wasn't doing anything better I decided to try one. Only that's not at all what happened.

First I had to try to set up the little Move motion camera, as we'd kind of fudged it when we used it at first. The Move it doesn't work without that so it's sort of an important part. Unfortunately because of the aforementioned Wii we already have a little gaming doodad on top of our TV See hand Illustration:

My MSN Paint Skillz are AWESOME (though I didn't actually make this in paint)

Two gaming doodads trying to be in the center of the TV just wasn't working out.  After several attempts of shifting, twist tying,  and sticky thing-ing, I admitted defeat and just sort of fudged it again by wrapping it around the Wii bar and letting it sit a little bit precariously off the TV.

My Skills are still lacking but I used a nicer arrow this time.

Then, I got out the gun. The Move Gun we have is called the sharpshooter and it is a big ugly mess of a thing.

In spite of the name probably won't help you get a high score in Hogan's Alley

It might be fine for men with longer arms and no pesky breasts in the way, but for me just trying to hold it was difficult, and gaming with it seems like it might be borderline impossible. The Wii zapper is a much much better design. In any case, in spite of my disappointment with it's size and unruliness, I decided I'd still try it in game.  I popped in the game disc and naturally because it's a PS3 game it had to update.

I was expecting this update because I think I've had maybe 1 PS3 game ever that hasn't wanted to update immediately when you put it in, it's one of my biggest peeves about the system as a whole. But this game (Resistance 3 if you're curious) had not one, not two, not even three updates it wanted, it had four mighty updates that we had to install to play the game.  If you've never had to go through this experience on a PS3, one update is usually enough to make you give up any hope of playing the game you're interested in. They've take anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour in our experiences and that's just for one! So we decided to let it go ahead and do it's dirty downloading while we did other things. Approximately an hour and 15 minutes later, it was finally done. (Amazing that our XBOX360 also demands to update games but can do it in a fraction of the time)

Over and hour is a completely reasonable amount of time for an update download isn't it?

By this time Jen had finished the paper she was working on, and I was the one looking over it so I decided she could try the game. She wakes the controller/gun back up (they go to sleep after a period of inactivity) and navigates to the game start only to discover she has to calibrate the controller before she can start. This is normal with any motion controlled game and really a good idea, but most things let you point at the corners and center of the screen and call it a day. Not the Move, the Move wants you to swing the controller around your feet while standing on your head and facing due North...OK I may have embellished that part slightly, but it was much more involved than any other motion controller/console I've played with. So Jen tried unsuccessfully to complete calibration with the controller still strapped into the gun apparatus, naturally, it refused to work. So she took it out of the gun (not hard necessarily but still sort of involved) and finally got it to work.

So finally she starts the game again and it has to install...That's right it needs to download itself to the hard drive so we can play it which for some reason it didn't do when it was doing all that other downloading an installing. Back in my day console games ran from a disc or cartridge with very little of this crazy downloading business *shakes head*. In any case the little install bar took about 15 minutes to finish, but that alone wasn't enough then it also had to install it's trophies so we could rub in our friends faces exactly how many hours we spent killing an unreasonable amount of digital creatures in new and exciting ways and gaming isn't gaming without that!  But after about 5 minutes of the trophy loading we realize the game has frozen and that was the last straw. Jen turned off the PS3 and played GTA IV on the XBOX360 instead.

This is all we've been able to see of Resistance 3

Whenever I hear someone talking about how much they LOOOOVVVEEE their PS3, I can't help but wonder if they've ever played another console.

~Stephanie


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Notes on Demise from Zelda Skyward Sword

There are totally spoilery things in this entry, but if you've read anything about Skyward Sword you've probably seen anything that's going to be covered here as I don't plan on going into too much of the plot line.

I'm aware that I am totally late to the "my thoughts about Skyward Sword" Party. I had the game pre-ordered and got it right away and started playing it right away, so theoretically, I could have done this back whenever every other Nintendo fanboy/fangirl  was doing it, but I didn't because I kept getting bored with the game and finding other things to do, I've gotten to the end finally so I feel like I can appropriately make my comments now. I'm not going to go into all my various grievances with the game as a whole (at least not right now), I just want to talk about one little element, Demise.

Demise is your main antagonist in the game and while he has the common decency to stay in one spot and start trouble rather than following you from temple to temple, it pretty much always comes back to demise. Now my problem with this is that demise starts off as  The Imprisoned. As far as I'm concerned, it's cute, not terrifying. I mean look at this thing:

The Imprisoned

Sure he's got big pointy teeth, but they just add to the cuteness. I mean look at those little wiggly toes. My first encounter with him, was not upsetting, it just made me giggly. In spite of their obvious design differences his armless largely faceless appearance reminded me of the Mome Raths in Alice in Wonderland. While the Mome Rath thing might just be me, clearly it's not just me thinking it's cute, if this plushie and it's responses are any indication.

The imprisioned form of Demise does go through a few "upgrades" and while once is grows arms it does remind me less of a Mome Rath, it does not get any less cute. In fact it's arms are so gangly and silly looking it might actually be cuter.

The Imprisoned 2nd form

 Later on it even flies, but it's basically as the same as the arm one only with a halo.  In spite of the fact that each of these subsequent incarnations causes bigger and more annoying problems for Link, it was hard to take him seriously at any point. That being said I could live with demise being perfectly silly after all the game take great pains to let you know that he isn't at full power in any of those incarnations. So basically that it's an adorable big bumbling monster, is something to be thankful for, not mock.

However as one would expect that's not the final word on Demise. Eventually Demise gets all his unimaginable power and becomes Akuma from Street Fighter.

Demise from Skyward Sword

Now it's possible you've been living under a large rock for awhile and don't really know much about street fighter or Akuma.  This is Akuma:

Akuma from Street Fighter

Still not convinced? Here's the handy split screen version:

Demise and Akuma are totally the same guy

I think the Split Screen version is pretty irrefutable evidence that Akuma got tired of being Dragon Punched and Cannon Drilled and decided to take out his demonic rage on what would become Hyrule. Which if it were the official story of the game, I personally would enjoy. But there's a whole contingent of people who argue, sure maybe he kind of looks like Akuma, but it's clearly supposed to be a precursor to Ganon/Ganondorf. I admit the game certainly makes it seem that way, except well, this is Ganon:

link to the Past Ganon

And if you're not as old school, this is Ganondorf (different from ganon if you buy into the human beast form having 2 different names thing):

Ocarina of Time Ganondorf

And this is Ganon, and this is Ganon even this is Ganon, and well I could go on for quite awhile, but I won't because the point is the Demise to Ganon thing doesn't work for me. Demise is clearly an Akuma who wandered into the wrong game universe.

So basically Nintendo brought me and the other Zelda fans an antagonist who starts off cute and becomes an escapee from another game franchise. This would be annoying in any game, but Skyward Sword was touted as the definitive back story of the whole Zelda saga, making it especially heinous. Would it really have been so hard to create a legitimate demon precursor to one of the most important and well known characters in all of gaming History?

I don't say this that often, but I'm really disappointed in you Nintendo. I feel like you've done a great disservice to the franchise.

~Stephanie

[NOTE]

Since it came up in a comment, I'd like to point out A) I don't actually believe Nintendo stole Akuma's character design, I think it was more giving him a generic "demonic" character design. B) I'm aware of that particular generic design has some roots in Japanese folklore. For more on either of those things I left a pretty lengthy reply to anon comment to this entry.

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