Happy New Year, Stuffers! Hope you've all had a good festive season! Now that I've munched my way through the chocolate and drunk all the wine, it seems a good time to get back to the blog and get writing again....
The first thing I need to do though is get through a few post showing off my random pick-ups and Christmas gifts and things that I've accumulated since the last pick-ups post! And there are a lot. A big lot......
So let's not waste any more time and get on with showing you guys the things wot I have got!
First up is this weird Super Mario comic I picked up in a charity shop for a pound!
It's a bit tonally weird, with some nasty guy who thinks all beggars should be shot and delights in killing Mario off in Gameboy Super Mario Land acting as a conduit for the evil baddie Tatanga (again from Super Mario Land) to travel to our dimension and take over the world.....
Luckily two kids manage to summon Mario to our world too, and they help defeat Tatanga and save our dimension! Then there's another story where the same weak-willed numpty from the first story again brings Tatanga back, and a little girl manages to get Mario's help again and once more put a stop to Tatanga's evil plans!
It's definitely all a bit odd, but is quite a cool thing to add to my collection! There's at least another 3 books in the series from Valiant too, so I might see if I can track them down at some point....
Next, I found this Droopy book for 50p.......
It tells of Droopy's unfortunate toothache and an odd ballooning adventure that results after he tries to get rid of the offending tooth....Clearly for tiny kids, I picked it up just because I don't really have many things involving Droopy, who is one of my favourite cartoon characters.....
Some video games now, and here's one for original Xbox and one for the 360! Both cost me about £2 each....
Batman Arkham Origins is the third of the Arkham series on 360, and looks to be a lot of fun, but I'm waiting until I get through Arkham City, the 2nd game, as I still have that to finish....
Blood Wake is a boat combat game and again seems like it'll be pretty groovy, but I have so many other games to finish, it's going straight into the backlog......
Playstation type stuff next, and these four were also charity shop finds for between £2 to 50p each...
Shadow The Hedghog is a game that I would like to like, as I think he's quite a good character and the cutscenes are nice, but the game itself is just far too annoying...I can't seem to get the hang of any of the 3D Sonic games, and constantly just run into things and die...In fact, I've never really been a huge an of any of the Sonic games for similar reasons! I mean they're alright, but I've always been more of a Mario fan! I do like Sonic Spinball and the Arcade Sonic though...Oh, and Mean Bean Machine!!
Project Eden is a game I keep buying, somehow selling and then buying back again.....think I must have had it about 3 or 4 times now! It's actually really good and has a nice character swapping mechanic that allows for a lot of variety in the way you approach puzzle and play through the game! Well worth a look....
Gungriffon Blaze also on PS2 is a big stompy Mech game where you stomp around in big Mechs, but seems to be a bit speedier and action packed than a lot of other stompy big Mech games! haven't played it much yet, but it seems decent and I needed a big stompy Mech game to add to my PS2 collection......
And finally, Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX for PS1 is a game I remember playing the demo of and loving when it was released. It's essentially the same as the Tony Hawks Pro Skater games, but with BMXs instead of skateboards...and it's a load of fun!
Back to comics again, and I picked up these two Commando comics in yet another charity shop purely for the reason that they involved spooks! 75p each!
More book finds, and these two Buster Books were a pound each....here's a few choice pages to read.....
And lastly for this first part of pick-ups, is a weird gnome/wizard/green man head that my brother noticed and I picked up from yet another charity shop for about 50p.....
It has really weird looking eyes and you can stick a candle in the back for even freakier night time shenanigans! Anyway it was so weird, I had to pick it up!
So there you are, the first of probably quite a few posts....I've barely scratched the surface! The next one should be up tomorrow sometime, so I'll see you then-ish! Later Stuffers! :)
Here's the rest of my pick-ups from the last month or so! First up is Game On! - The 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time, a book that acknowledges the fact that these are just some of the greatest video games of all time, thus making the title false right from the off! And there's only about 3 pre-16-Bit games mentioned....the focus being stuff released around the time of publication!
Still, what is there looks nice at least...and it's alright for a quick read through!
I never manage to get to Forbidden Planet in time to pick up the Free Comic Book Day stuff, and it's always long gone by the time I arrive...However, I can always rely on some of the comics showing up in charity shops for about £1 each later!
The ones I've managed to find from this year are what you see here...Wonder Woman, Avatar, Riverdale (basd on the new TV series, based on the Archie comics), Hilda/Garbage Night & the one I really wanted to pick up, Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Plants vs Zombies! I might post some of the stories from these at a much later date.....
A trio of original Xbox games next, two of which are sequels to Crash Bandicoot, who is back in the limelight due to his original trilogy getting a remaster! These games probably aren't quite as good as the first three, but are still pretty decent and fun platformer/arcade adventures!
Aliens vs Predator - Extinction is perhaps most famous for being the game that disappointed everybody by not being a First Person Shooter, but is gaining some love nowadays among Real Time Strategy fans. I've yet to play it, as it is probably another game that once I start playing I'll lose hours to!
I found this old movie-mag for £3 in the same shop as the Cheeky comics in the last post...Fantastic Films is an interesting read, with 2 articles about Superman - The Movie, which show that the development of that comic-book adaptation was almost as troubled as recent DC movies! It seems to be the opposite though, as producers wanted it to be more campy like 60s Batman, whereas Richard Donner, who was the 2nd director after the first had visa issues, wanted a more serious picture!
It also has some amazing 70s artwork, like the poster below that shows Superman, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon!
Then there's another interesting piece on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that covers the original movie, the remake..and the novel that both films were based on!
The Conquest Of Space is highlighted as probably being as important a Sci-Fi movie as the later 2001 - A Space Odyssey...
And there's also a few more articles, including an interview with actress Jean Rogers who played Dale Arden in the original 1930s Flash Gordon serial (see link in the poster comment above)...who shares some rare pictures from her own collection! All in all, a pretty grand read!
Moomins books just seem to be making themselves known to me these days...this is one I found sticking out from below another book in a charity shop, and after forking out £1.50 it came home with me to join the rest!
It's a properly crazy story about the time a comet threatened to destroy everything...which was the same story that featured in the Moomin movie a few years back, and that 'm almost reaching in my re-watch of the Fuzzy Felt-style Moomin TV series I became obsessed with in my youth!
Another trio of Xbox games, but this time for the 360...and two of which star everybody's favourite walking-tree voicer, Vin Diesel! I picked these up from my local CEX for a few quid each...
The Chronicles Of Riddick - Assault On Dark Athena is obviously based on the Riddick films, and also includes original Xbox FPS Riddick game, Escape From Butcher Bay, remastered for 360! Both games are cool, stealth-based shooters...well, I say shooters, but you spend a large amount of time snapping necks and knifing people..so...
The Wheelman is a surprisingly mad, over-the-top driving game, where Mr. Diesel uses the driving skills he picked up in Fast 'n Furious to drive backwards and fling himself over, out-of and in to all manner of vehicles whilst shooting bad guys in the face! A whole load of fun and probably a bit of an under-rated gem!
Inversion is another game that probably doesn't get the attention it deserves, being poo-pooed at the time of it's release as a shameless Gears Of War clone...That's a bit unfair, as it uses a pretty cool gravity/physics engine to shake things up a bit, and is actually has very decent gameplay! I've been having a great time with it so far, and may cover it in more depth some other time...
I also found another Fighting Fantasy Gamebook that I didn't already have in my collection, Sword Of The Samurai! So. come the next power-cut or long train journey and I'll be fighting Japanese demons, ninjas and the like...which is not much different from how I spend most of my time in videogames, but it'll be nice to do it whilst reading for a change!
My Super Mario toy collection is growing too, as I've picked up another few figures for £2 each in The Works....and an old McDonalds toy Yoshi that sticks his tongue out, which I found for 50p in a charity shop!
I think we'll end it there for now! I do have quite a few more video game pick-ups, but I'll save them for next time as I'm going to try and slow down a bit with those so I can actually play some of them! That's the plan anyway, but we all know how well I do with plans, so expect to see more pick-ups soonish, most likely including another 100 games or something...hehe...laters, stuffers!
I'm a bit later than I anticipated with this post , but I'm sure by the end of it you'll see why! ;)
I first saw Evil Dead 2 at about the age of 10, on a loaned pirate VHS from one of our neighbours.. It wasn't my first horror film...I'd been watching old horror triple bills, 50s sci-fi and other random things that had made it on to TV for years...but it quickly became my favourite. Its mix of humour, silliness, gore and proper outright freakiness just seemed to click with me. The fact that the neighbour who lent us the VHS looked slightly like Bruce Campbell in my eyes, and lived at the end of our row of cottages just across from the biggest, oldest tree in the area, helped make the experience even scarier when my brother and I went to return the tape...
Eventually I saw the original Evil Dead, which was even scarier despite having plasticine entrails and things wriggling around the place...and I waited patiently for a new sequel. Then Army Of Darkness appeared, and was disappointingly more fantasy orientated, but still had enough charm and groovy-ness to make me want more of Ashley J. Williams adventures against the Deadite hordes....
Of course, if you're a fan of the Evil Dead series, you'll know that we've been waiting for more adventures on film ever since, and that until the reboot and soon to be screened Ash Vs The Evil Dead TV series, the only way we could get our Deadite dose was by playing the severed-handful of Evil Dead video games.. (Well, apart from the comics, T-shirts, books, references in other films, tv shows, etc....look, just go with me on this, okay?)..
No.28 - The Evil Dead (C64 / ZX Spectrum / BBC) ~
The first of these video games was based on the original film, and appeared way back in 1984 on Speccy, Commodore 64 and BBC Micro. The Speccy version never actually got a proper release, coming instead as an added extra on the B-side of another Palace Software game, Cauldron....
Playing as Ash, you've got to run around the cabin in a top-down view, closing all the doors to keep the Deadites at bay and picking up any weapons you can find lying around. If the main Evil baddie gets in, it can possess one of your friends turning them into an enemy you'll need to defeat as well! If it touches you, it's instant death...
After you've fought through loads of baddies and slammed lots of doors, the Necronomicon will appear (see pic below) and you'll need to grab that, take it to the fire in the first room and fling it in! This supposedly stops the craziness, but all it actually does is give you more points and the game continues exactly as before...
There's really not too much to this tricky little game other than that, and although fun for about 3 minutes, it's a bit boring and difficult to spend very much time playing. Of the two versions I played, the C64 is slightly better than the Speccy effort, but none can really be recommended. A disappointing start to the Evil Dead's videogames....
No. 27 - Evil Dead - Hail To The King (PS1) ~
It took 16 years for the next Evil Dead game to show up, with this one being a sequel to the movies! Taking place 8 years after the events of Army of Darkness, Ash is settling back into life reasonably well...he's got a new girlfriend, Jenny, and is back working at his job in the S-Mart. However, Ash is plagued by recurring nightmares of his previous run-ins with the Deadite hordes, and Jenny decides to try and help him by taking him back the cabin in the woods where it all started.....
This of course, is a bad idea...but Ash has never been known for his cleverness, and so they make the journey to Professor Knowby's cabin. Once there, Ash meets up with someone he used to be very, very close to indeed...his self-severed, demonically-possessed hand! It flicks on the old tape of Knowby's incantations, and before Ash can stop it, the ancient evil is back with a vengeance and wastes no time in kidnapping Jenny! Grabbing an axe, Ash is suddenly attacked by his evil twin from the mirror and falls into unconciousness...
And so when he wakes up, control is passed over to you as you search the cabin for Professor Knowby's notes, in the hope that they'll be able to help you stop the big bad and rescue Jenny! And it's here that your hopes of getting a decent game quickly disappear. Clearly inspired by Resident Evil, Hail To The King manages to completely ruin what could have been a great game with messy graphics and irritating combat.
There's just too many enemies, they respawn in seconds after you kill them and the controls are far too awkward to fight them effectively, so you end up getting frustrated very quickly. Quotes from Ash, voiced by Bruce Campbell himself, are wasted as you end up hearing them too often....mainly because the game awards you extra items from chainsaw kills where a quote has been uttered before you slay the enemy, and you'll be losing so much energy that you're pretty much forced to try and get those extra items by using this kill/quote feature!
It's a shame, as once you get a bit further in to the game, the exploration becomes a bit more fun, and the plot twists of the story make things interesting.....but you need to battle with the never-ending deadites and the broken controls to see the okay stuff, and all it is is just okay so it's not really worth the hassle...
I did complete this when I picked it up for my PS1 years ago, but I kind of felt like I'd been through almost as much pain and trauma as Ash would go through in one of the films to see the end of the game. Hail To The King is a real missed opportunity, and now that you can see the cinematics on Youtube, there's really no point in playing it unless you're a massive fan of the series. Another disappointment!
No. 26 - Evil Dead - Fistful Of Boomstick (PS2) ~
Playing again as Ash, voiced by Mr. Campbell once more of course, you'll battle your way through yet more Deadites in this arcade-adventurey-shooty-shooty-bang-bang-type game, which plays quite a bit better than the previous two...
Ash's girlfriend Jenny from the previous game was apparently killed in a bus crash, and he has apparently spent a lot of time drowning his sorrows in local bars. This is where we find him watching TV at the start of the game, as journalist Trisha Pettywood interviews a Professor Eldridge, who has written a book about the Necronomicon. Somehow, Trisha has also managed to get her hands on the original tapes from the cabin, and to Ash's obviously well-founded horror, starts to play them over the airwaves...
Obviously things go from bad to worse for our hero, as he sets off once again to try and put things right. Unfortunately, despite this being better than the other games so far, it's still not quite the game Evil Dead fans have been after. Developed by VIS Entertainment, this uses the same engine as their previous game State Of Emergency...an engine that was primarily developed to allow huge numbers of onscreen enemies to appear on screen at once!
And so it's strange that, to begin with at least, the numbers of enemies here are pretty thin. It's not necessarily that bad a thing, as we've seen that too many enemies can ruin a game...but it just seems like the graphics and gameplay could have been improved if it had had its own engine developed. As it is, it plays like an average hack 'n' slasher with slightly annoying item fetch-questing, and feels like it can't quite make its mind up what type of game to be!
Combat this time is initially a bit more satisfying though! Ash will deliver his famous quotes and aim over his shoulder to show off his trademark come-get-some shotgun moves, and there are spells you can learn to throw a bit of magic lightning and the like around. Sadly, due to the nature of the game, this gets a bit repetitive after a while too..
I often found myself not knowing where to go too, due to not knowing where to use a specific item. I eventually worked it out, but it's just another part of the design that taints the game. But at least with this one, I can actually recommend playing it if you're an Evil Dead fan, as it is fun to run around as Ash....and if you pick up the original PS2 release you'll get a copy of the Evil Dead II DVD to watch as well...so it does feel like a step in the right direction.It's just that it's still not the best game that an Evil Dead game could be..
No. 25 - Evil Dead Regeneration (Xbox) ~
Disregarding the previous Evil Dead games, and even most of the second and all of the third film, the plot of this game plays as a sort of 'what-if', with Ash getting sent to an Asylum after the events of The Evil Dead... After a brief tutorial section that takes place in the cabin, we learn that Ash's lawyer Sally has just discovered that he has been telling the truth about the horrors he has faced. She found this out by paying a guard to bring her Ash's file from his doctor's office, the file also containing Professor Knowby's notes....
Ash realises that these notes were right beside the Necronomicon in the cabin, and wonders why Doctor Reinhard would have them. Meanwhile, Reinhard is in the basement researching the Necronomicon and experimenting with its powers...however, with Knowby's notes missing, he accidentally unleashes the evil back into the world, and it rushes through the asylum possessing people, causing mayhem and luckily, freeing Ash!
Filling Ash's shoes once more, we get to finally play a game that's a pretty good use of the licence! The controls finally feel as they should, and finishing off the enemies with special moves is really enjoyable! Sure, these become repetitive, just as they were in the previous games, but somehow they're nowhere near as annoying.
It's not long until we meet up with one of the results of Reinhard's experiments...a living-dead little person called Sam ( voiced by Ted Raimi ) who as Professor Knowby's spirit tells us is integral to stopping the crazy doctor! As Sam can regenerate, Ash can kick him into mechanisms to open doors, onto enemies backs to control them, or into the many portals that need to be closed in order for Ash to stop Reinhard. He can also be possessed by Ash and used to access areas to small to usually progress through! Naturally Sam isn't a huge fan of this idea, and his complaints help add a little humour to proceedings....
Also helping Ash out this time, is his ability to control when he can turn in to Evil Ash after being possessed by a spirit. This works by killing enemies to fill up a rage meter. Once the meter is full, Ash can bring out the badness in him and go on a rampage until the meter runs dry again.
As you can probably tell, this game just feels more finished and enjoyable than any of the previous Evil Dead games. The only real complaints are that it can be a bit buggy or glitchy every now and then, and that some of the platforming sections could have played a bit better...but all in all, it's not a bad game at all.
Even Bruce Campbell seems more pleased with this game, giving a voice performance that feels a lot more natural than in the other games! So there you go, we finally have an Evil Dead game that although not perfect, manages to at least almost do the series justice!
There's still room for a proper, scary, less humorous take on it though! Oh and there are a couple of other Evil Dead games that I can't comment on as I haven't played them.....
There's the free Army of Darkness Defence for iOS which seems like it might be quite fun...
...and then there's this.....
And then there's other things that aren't official games at all, like my brother's game Dead By Dawn that I reviewed in this previous post..... and then there's things like Duke Nukem.......but I think that's enough to be getting on with for now! So much for my shorter posts this year! Hehehe.......
