Forgotten Worlds - Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection

I may be a bit late on this tidbit, but I recently found a website from Namco Bandai that allows you to play the world's biggest game of Pac-Man.  Basically, it's a version of Pac-Man that is swelling with user created levels and continues to grow.  You can even create your own personalized levels and add to the collection.  I created a level based on another Namco classic celebrating its 30th anniversary (as if you need to guess).  Start out with my custom level here, then create and explore this enormous Pac-Man game to your heart's content.

Fans of Ms. Splosion Man who have Pinball FX2, exclusively for XBOX 360, should check out the new pinball table based on Twisted Pixel's explosive valley girl.  Download the trial version for free (Pinball FX2 is also free to download, if you don't have it, yet) and play it for yourself.

Also available, this week, is a collection of one of the most controversial arcade franchises in history.  Mortal Kombat has been showering gamers with blood and gore since 1992 (which means it's one year short of its 20th anniversary).  Since then, the series has had its ups and downs.  Sure, there have been some decent games after the first three, but they couldn't recapture the awesomeness of the original games.  They tried adding weapons, multiple fighting styles, crossovers with comic book superheroes (which was a stupid idea), and even offshoot games (which was even worse).  Nothing could completely win over gamers quite like the original trilogy.

When Midway went out of business, Mortal Kombat seemed to die with it, until Warner Bros. picked up the intellectual property and Ed Boon worked on resuscitating the franchise with a more back-to-basics approach that returned, somewhat, to the original style of gameplay, but pushed the envelope on the characteristic gore and brutality that made the series extremely popular back in the day.

This week, NetherRealm studios (the team that was reborn from the ashes of Midway Games) released a downloadable collection of the first three Mortal Kombat games: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.  Sure, all three of these games have been available in previous arcade classic collections, but this one adds loads more extras, such as new visual modes (including one that makes it look like you're playing the game on a curved CRT monitor, giving you the feeling of being back in the old arcades.  On top of the cosmetic extras, you can play against people online, which seems to be a must for fighting games, these days.

I played the demo of this collection and it brought back memories, for me.  Back in those days, Mortal Kombat introduced a different style of fighting game.  Most fighting games used to be clones of Street Fighter II, which dominated arcades the year before.  Mortal Kombat was different in many ways.  Aside from the obvious, the game used a different control scheme; there were high and low attacks for both kicks and punches, plus a block button.   You had to enter a button combination to pull off the famous Fatalities.  There were secrets and Easter eggs to uncover during gameplay.  It was an entirely new philosophy on how to create a fighting game.

I remember seeing Mortal Kombat for the first time at the local bowling alley and it blew my mind.  I watched my brother and my friends play it (I actually sucked at Mortal Kombat, since I was more accustomed to Street Fighter II).  The game had this irresistible combination of digitized sprites of real actors, uncensored violence and brutality, and a story and atmosphere that reminded me of Enter the Dragon.

Of course, when the game was announced for home systems, my brother and I had to have it.  Unfortunately, there was a reason why arcades were still doing pretty well during the early '90s: ports of arcade games remained inferior to the originals.  Mortal Kombat was no exception.  We got the Super Nintendo version of the game and were extremely disappointed in the result.  All of the awesome crap was watered down.  They changed the blood to look like sweat (though it looked like the characters were bleeding sand) and the Fatalities were heavily doctored.  Nintendo's censorship in their games ruined what could have been a great port.  Even though Sega had no problem with the blood and gore, the godawful graphics and sound screwed up the Genesis port.  It was best just to stick with the arcade version.

1993 saw the rise of Mortal Kombat II, which improved upon every aspect of the original.  Better graphics and sound, new characters, new moves and Fatalities (including Babalities and Friendships, which made fun of the controversy surrounding the first game).  Gone was the storyline of a Shaolin tournament taken over by a shapeshifting mastermind, which was replaced by a fight against an inter-dimensional warlord and his cadre of fighters, sorcerers, and assassins.  By this point, the story wasn't so convoluted and ridiculous yet, so I actually enjoyed it.  The otherworldly aspects of the setting were kind of cool.  Of course, my brother and I got this on the Super Nintendo, but only because they recanted their stance on censorship.  This port of MK II left all the blood and violence in, much to the delight of many gamers.

Then came Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (which became the definitive version), which felt like a step down, in some ways.  A lot of things changed in the two years since MK II.  The game became extremely dependent on doing combos, which kind of distanced me further from the fighting engine.  Even more characters were added to the roster, which tangled the storyline with a bunch of subplots.  The graphics were better than the first two, but the stages and new characters felt uninspired.  I'll admit, it was still enjoyable to watch, but it wasn't as fun as the first two games.

After Mortal Kombat 4, a lot of gamers abandoned the series.  By this point, the story was too involved with too many characters that it was not worth following.  It also didn't help that things were getting stale, gameplay-wise.  I've played some of the console sequels, like Armageddon, but it just wasn't the same.

That's why it's refreshing to have this collection of the first three games available.  While I still suck at them, it does remind me of a young gamer who used to ride his bike down the street to play all the new arcade games.  The hell with Quan Chi and Shinnok, screw the DC crossover, and Bo' Rai Cho can suck it.  Give me the classic MK trilogy any day.

Flick Picks 24: Meridian

Hello Again, Streakers! Boog here, with part two of a four part review series, focusing on horror film company Full Moon Entertainment. From 2006, we go back to 1990, and one of Full Moon's first feature films, Meridian. Also called Kiss of the Beast. Warning: The trailer link, while not showing any naughty bits, still features nudity, as the film has a good amount of nudity in it. Also, SPOILERS! Now, I must say, as someone who has seen a few Full Moon features, I will admit that there is only one of the four films I'm reviewing for this series that I have seen previously (Demonic Toys), and that one I watched once about 6 years ago. This film, is far better than most Full Moon pictures, as it has somewhat decent acting talent, a great locale, and some decent behind the camera work, especially in the music department. However, this also one of the deplorable films I have ever had the displeasure of watching. Seriously. This film, based on one scene, made me want to actually hurt something. Then, this film had the balls to try and make that scene a freaking plot point.

Flick Picks 23: Evil Bong

Also, This is a lie. Chong has 10 minutes on screen, tops.

WARNING: The following review contains references to drugs, drug paraphernalia, and drug use. Potentially NSFW. Got that? Good.
Hello, Streakers! Boog here, having taken nearly a week to get my shit together again(sorry!), bringing you another Flick Pick, the first in a series of four, that, all things being kosher and awesome, will conclude with a retrospective on the man behind the films, and his myriad of companies required to get them funded (I know of about six, I think, at the time of writing this article.).  Now, on to the SPOILERS! The first film I'm reviewing this week, as evidenced by the DVD ad beside me, is 2006's Charles Band's Evil Bong. Yeah, the director's name is actually part of the title. That should clue you in. Also, that trailer is the nicest one I could find, but still features scantily clad women. You have been warned. "But it has Tommy Chong on the cover! Holding a chainsaw! And the rest of the title is Evil Bong! It's obviously dumb, so just sit back and enjoy!" You might say. But then the opening credits start, with "visual effects" that look like they were thrown together by a five year old using a back alley copy of Photoshop 2. The song playing over it is actually pretty good, though, and proper, considering the film doesn't even try to say it's a horror film. It actually wants to market itself as a comedy, but the problem here is, it's not, really.

Games You Should Know About... XBOX Live Indie Games 3: Dream Warriors

This just in: Thursday is the new Wednesday.  We now return you to your irregularly scheduled blogram.

A couple of video game classics are celebrating a birthday, this August.  The Super Nintendo turned 20 this week and Metroid turned 25 earlier in the month.  You know, so many damn games and systems came out 20-25 years ago.  Then again, a lot of games also came out 30 years ago, so I've got my work cut out for me.

This week, though, we're donning the scuba gear and hazmat suits again.  It's time to go back for another spelunking mission into the hellhole of XBOX Live Indie games.  I've brought two new games up to the surface, plus I'll be revisiting two games that I've mentioned before.  As always, these games have that classic video game feel that I love.

Wizard World Chicago

Yes, I know it's Thursday and I was supposed to post yesterday.  Better late than never.

So, a bunch of us went to Wizard World Chicago, which is a comic book convention in one of the biggest cities of the Midwest (or, at least, in its suburbs).  We all had fun and have fully recovered from our four day excursion.  So, what did we see and do?  Do tell, Anacronus, do tell.

First off, let me say that Wizard World Chicago was both bigger and smaller than the usual convention I attend.  What I mean by that is while there was plenty in the way of quality, the quantity was severely restricted.  Let me elaborate on that: quality-wise, there were lots of celebrities from the realms of comic books, fantasy art, television, webcomics, even pro wrestling, as well as a lot of dealers selling a plethora of items (for way too much, I might add).  However, the convention was only held in four rooms - that's right, four rooms.  Granted, one of the rooms was huge, but the other three were much smaller, in comparison.  The other thing that was small was actual convention time.  I'm used to conventions that open on Friday and close on Sunday - a continuous three day event.  This convention closed every night, early, no less.  I can understand the dealer room needing to close at a decent hour, but that kind of puts a damper on things when almost everything was happening in the dealer room.  Just about everything was happening at the dealer room.  We were kind of left entertaining ourselves almost every night.  There were a couple of things to do after the dealer room closed, but those usually let out around 9 or 10 p.m., so we, more often than not, just went to bed early.

Despite this, we did get to meet some cool people.  I got autographs from the stars of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (a show as old as I am).  It was great talking to Gil Gerard (he's just as glib and smooth talking as he was in the show - I mean that in a good way), but I totally embarrassed myself in front of Erin Gray (my apologies, Ms. Gray, for being a socially awkward moron).

On Friday, my wife and I were dressed like Luigi and Princess Daisy.  I left my felt mustache at home and one of the booths in the artist alley was giving out these paper mustaches attached to wooden tongue depressors.  So I picked up one of those.  When a lot of people took our pictures, they thought it was awesome when I "pulled out my mustache."  I imagine that booth got a lot of attention, because of that.  Also, Felicia Day told my wife that her costume was really cute.  Yeah, Felicia Day, no foolin'.

My wife and I also got to meet Steve Bryant, who is the artist and creator of the comic Athena Voltaire, which the eponymous character is this pulp heroine who has amazing adventures fighting Nazis, vampires, and esoteric societies.  She's a heroic woman who doesn't have to resort to the common trope of T&A, which my wife found refreshing.  Steve was a really nice guy and even signed both trade paperbacks that my wife bought from him.  If you like pulp action with a touch of supernatural, check out the Eisner nominated webcomic here and, if you are aching for more, go buy the graphic novel "Flight of the Falcon" and a TPB of the collected webcomics here (just scroll down to see them).  Steve's also finishing a third TPB, "Athena Voltaire and the Volcano Goddess," which, hopefully, will be coming out soon.

My wife and her friends also spent a lot of time (and money) at the Interrobang Studios booth.  She bought some art cards with the characters from the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.  The group also commissioned four drawings from them.  Needless to say, I think they made some new friends.

On top of the celebrity autographs, dealer tables, and artist's alley, the main room had a gaming area.  Gaming storefront Troll & Toad was running it and it featured a couple of games, such as the Castle Ravenloft board game for D&D, the Back to the Future card game (I talked about that one, before), and this interesting board game called Chaostle.

The other thing worthy of mention was this movie called Unicorn City, which was shown three out of the four days of the convention (it was one of the very few things to do during the convention at night).  It's about this guy who creates a sort of fantasy-rpg-LARP-camp-thing in order to get a job with an rpg publisher.  It's an extremely funny movie.  While a lot of its humor is based on role-playing games, I think anyone would get a lot of laughs out of this movie.  It actually won top prize at this year's Gen Con film festival.  Check out their website, like them on Facebook, do whatever it takes to make this move available in your town, then go see it.

So, that's Wizard World Chicago, in a nutshell.  We had fun, but I don't know if we would go back next year.  Surprisingly, we're all talking about going back to Anime Iowa next year.  That's not exactly set in stone, but we'd have to have a real good reason to go back to Chicago for next year's con.

Terribly sorry

Hello streakers. Boog here, with an update on myself. Like Anacronus, I had my own internet-less period, of about a month and a half. I just got it back last week, and have been putting things together for a good string of posts to make up for my lack of writing up to this point. While being without internet, I rediscovered a company I love for horrible films, and it's Lord and Master, Charles Band. I'm talking of Full Moon Pictures, the company behind the Puppet Master films. I'll do a proper retrospective on the company itself later this week, on Saturday, and every other day this week, I'll do a Full Moon Picture review, starting tomorrow with Charles Band's Evil Bong,a movie that has a bong, some evil, and Tommy Chong. If you don't who that is, go Google Cheech & Chong, right now. I'll be doing some of their movies early next year, as part of a planned 'Stoner Comedy' theme month. Oh, and no convention news for me, as my new job at the largest liquor store in my town has left no time to go anywhere for them. Until tomorrow, Streakers.

We're Back!

Okay, sorry for the impromptu, summer hiatus. But it ends now! We're back from the convention, Anacronus no longer will be the only one posting on this blog. Thank god one of us had the sense to do so.

We'll probably have a lot of posts about the con coming up, mostly reviews about awesome stuff we found, or awesome cosplayers we saw, etc.

Oh and for the most part we're getting rid of our post on a certain day schedule. We'll try not to overwhelm you with a bunch of posts on one day, but it was just to restricting for some of our members.

So I'll see you soon.
Thanks for sticking around.

It's Convention Time!

First off, taking a week off when you write weekly features for a blog only makes it harder to get back in the habit.  I doubt anyone will read this post (does anyone read any of my posts, anyway?), but I need to write something, or I'll never get back into it.

So, tomorrow, I leave for Wizard World Chicago, aka Chicago Comic Con, which is the first big convention I've been to in a while.  I guess I've been going to conventions for the past 10-12 years, so I'll recollect what memories I have of the conventions I've gone to.

My first convention was a tiny ass fantasy/sci-fi con in Louisville, KY.  I used to work at a comic book and gaming store, so I sometimes got the "privilege" of going to cons with the boss.  Let me tell you, you don't get to do very much when you are a dealer except sell shit.  Sure, I got to play a bunch of Diablo in the gaming room and I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time (a low quality fansub copy, before the Disney release), but that was it.  In hindsight, that convention kinda sucked, but it was my first one and I still remember it.  I found out that the convention died the next year - no big loss, really.

My second convention was more exciting.  I got to go to the Mecca of gaming conventions, Gen Con.  Right now, Gen Con takes place in Indianapolis (in fact, it happened last weekend), but I went back when Gen Con was at MECCA (Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center & Arena) in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The boss took me and the girl I was dating (we both worked there) up there.  During the day, we peddled crap, but we did get a chance to actually partake a little in the convention this time around.  I purchased a metric buttload of AniMayhem cards (a card game that I may discuss in the future), got roped into playing the Spellfire card game (which I will never discuss, because it sucks), went to the Safe House (a fun, spy themed restaurant and bar -- if you're ever in Milwaukee, try it), ate at an excellent German restaurant, got to meet some writers and game designers, etc.  All in all, I had a good time, there.  It's a shame I haven't been back there since (more so that it's not in Milwaukee, anymore).  One year, I'll head up to Indianapolis with a few of my rpg buddies and experience Gen Con again.

After Gen Con, I didn't get to go on many conventions for work.  The boss left me at the home store while he went out for convention season.  My next convention wouldn't happen until I met my wife and we started dating.  As everyone was interested in anime, we decided to try a little convention, Anime Iowa, which wasn't that bad of a drive from St. Louis.  We've been going there for years, though a lot of us feel we've outgrown the convention and it's just not as fun for us, anymore.

We did go to one big anime convention, A-Kon in Dallas.  While I did enjoy the bigger production of a larger con (hell, they had arcade games), the two day drive didn't suit me.  On top of that, I will never stay in Muskogee, OK again (unless it was that decent hotel that gave us a room for $20 and had the Golden Axe cabinet).

So, that's about the breadth of my con experience.  I know, it's not much.  I wish I had the time and money to attend more conventions (I usually have one or the other, not both).  As far as Wizard World Chicago is concerned, I'm probably going to end up finding a couple of panels to go to and wishing I had more money in the dealer room (as it stands, I have none).  There are some celebs showing up that are of interest to me, but I'll probably just walk by their table, since I can't afford an autograph.  Maybe I'll have pictures to show -- we'll see.

Man, being poor sucks.

I know this post is a bit whiny, but I'm tired of writing it and you're not going to read it, so what do I care?

Um, experiencing technical difficulties...

So, for the past week, I have been acting under "radio silence" (aka: my internet was shut off until some kind Samaritan friend helped me and the Mrs. out -- thank you).  As it stands, I didn't think of anything to write for today.  In fact, I haven't been doing anything but playing Fallout 3 (I've had it for two years, but never got very far until recently).  So, consider this my week off.  I'll get back into it next Wednesday.  Sorry.