In what has to be the fastest overall series of polls from the annual FANtastic Exclusive event brought to us by the Four Horsemen, the final round is upon us! After the first round of elimination featuring 27 different character designs, each round has gotten successively shorter. The final three rounds have been about a week each so far, with this final round possibly lasting a little longer due to a tight race! We are now down to two designs with the winner getting its own toy and series of variants available exclusively to partnered retailers.

The final four bracket consisted of Vampire Lady vs. The Ministry of Hunters and Wolfbat vs. The Raven. While the Ministry won out against the Vampire Lady, it has been said the margin was as tight as 5 votes!
The Four Horsemen’s last announcement on the FanEx forums stated just days after the final poll began:

“We’re now over 500 votes, and the gap is only 43 votes. Every vote counts. -FH-“

Make sure you make your voice heard on what design you’d like to see win!

Go here to vote and check out the active thread discussion on our very own Powet Forums, here.

Developed by Spanish developer Gaelco (not to be confused with Jaleco), Big Karnak is an arcade game reminiscent of early Capcom hack and slashers such as Trojan and Ghouls & Ghosts, but it takes place in an Egyptian setting. You play as an Egyptian warrior whose lady love has been kidnapped by the god Osiris. You (and a friend if playing co-op) set out to rescue her throughout 4 stages. In each level, you gain a new weapon. This game didn’t have much to separate it from other platformers of the day, but the action took place on 2 planes of movement which you can switch between at certain times to avoid certain hazards. There are bosses which require some strategy to defeat. There isn’t a whole lot to this game, and although it pales in comparison to later games of its type, Big Karnak is a solid early 90s coin-op title. It could have taken off even further if the game received an SNES or Genesis home port with extra features, characters, or extra stages. The host company is still around, but I doubt you’ll be seeing this title pop up again anywhere soon , so if you happen across this cabinet, pop in a few quarters. It’ll be well worth it.

So Nintendo Power has a big front-page splash for a new Silent Hill game that’s coming out for the Wii. GoNintendo elaborates;

“This is a reimagining of the first Silent Hill,” explains producer Tomm Hulett. “It’s not a remake or a port. That’s an important distinction. It really feels like a new game.”

Apparently the story is the same, concerning Harry Mason as the main protagonist and him searching for his daughter Cheryl after she gets lost in the surreal town of Silent Hill. However, certain things have changed. On top of challenging puzzles, you now can find ways to access every room presented to you, rather than some rooms being locked in one phase of Silent Hill and others being unlocked in another phase. No load times have been announced, the Wii control stick and remote are used for separate actions, such as walking and using the flashlight respectively. We’re also told there will be no combat in this new game, and that you can only run from your enemies.

Ok, no load times and more in-depth controls seem like a good deal to me. The issue concerning the locked doors is nice, but takes away a bit of what made the other Silent Hill games different, even if in a frustrating way. However having no combat whatsoever and only being able to flee? How does that make the game any better? “Survival” isn’t just about running away from the threat; it’s about keeping yourself safe from harm. Sometimes you can’t always run and need to defend yourself, even with a crappy knife or wrench you picked up. I hardly see how removing combat makes this game more “survival horror”, but that’s me. I’m sure we’ll hear more about it in the near future.