Like beat-em-ups, the light-gun shooter is a genre that gained most of its popularity during the 8 – 32 bit generations of gaming. However, as the mechanic is quite simplistic, the shooter genre has slowly been losing its appeal since its arcade heyday, just like the beat-em-up. Moreover, most light gun shooters can be completed in less than half an hour, making them shallow and light on content. To truly gain the attention of gamers, light gun games have to do something innovative and eye-catching. House of the dead featured zombies and showers of blood. Time Crisis featured a duck pedal, allowing players to seek cover and catch their breaths. Silent Scope featured a sniper rifle, and relied on precision and calculation rather than being a simple blast-a-thon. Police 911 (which really should be bought to Wii using the Wiimotion plus and maybe the balance board) translated player’s motions into onscreen action, getting the player’s body involved in the game.

The SuperScope, probably the most beloved of the home console light guns, demonstrated plenty of potential for innovation in the light gun genre. Heck, the 6-game pack that came with it featured a puzzle game and a variation on whack-a-mole. It’s buttons and unique shape gave developers some unique options on to use for gameplay. While most games for the SuperScope never moved far away from the usual Operation-Wolf format, there were a few unique games using the peripheral. One of these games is Metal Combat: Falcon’s revenge.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Zero joins me in the movie hotseat this week as we over examine the most mindlessly fun movie this summer.

GI Joe collectors will be gathering this weekend, August 13-16th in Kansas City, MO to celebrate, among other things, the new GI Joe: Rise of Cobra movie. Sure to be a huge boon to the franchise, the movie will be a topic of great discussion at this year’s convention. And what Joe convention is complete without exclusives?

Read on for a look at whats to come!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

While playing this weeks $20 GOTW, I’ve come to realize something. There aren’t nearly enough games that allow you to step into the shoes of a criminal mastermind. Yeah, Grand Theft Auto and Saint’s Row allow me to craft a criminal empire and run a city, but even then I’m just playing as a gangster with a heart of gold. I wanna build a secret island base, chock full of henchmen that will lay their lives down for me on my say so. I wanna send my soldiers out to put in work across the world. I wanna capture, interrogate, and kill civilians and secret agents who snoop around my base. I wanna have a badass second-in-command who swears complete allegiance to me. I wanna instill fear in my workforce by killing one of my more incompetent workers right in front of them, Saddam Hussein style. Thankfully Elixir Studios recognizes the void of villain simulators. In 2004, they released this title, which places players in the wold of an evil genius as they try to achieve world domination.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

This is the first in a short series of articles covering a number of serious missteps that Mattel has made concerning some of their top properties.

Today I wanted to take a look at the Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) Club Eternia 2010 Subscription. First let me explain what this subscription is.

Currently, once a month, at noon, a MOTUC figure goes up for sale on MattyCollector.com. Most months, the figure has sold in about one hour, despite continually increased production numbers. This has angered many fans of the line because of the inconvenient time of day to order and the inability of Mattel to ensure better availability.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Before the Sci Fi Channel (or “SyFy”, as it’s now known) decided it hated science fiction fans, it was dedicated to bringing original science fiction content to the masses. The network didn’t always do this well (see Mission: Genesis), but in the late ’90s it would do this often. The first original series to catch my eye that wasn’t a total bomb was Farscape.

Farscape tells the story of IASA scientist and astronaut John Crichton, who is flung unwittingly across space via wormhole to try to survive in a much more advanced society that, due to his many other misfortunes, finds excuses to seek his complete and utter destruction. In true Douglas Adams fashion, we quickly find that Earth (“never heard of it”) is a truly backwater planet, leaving our hero stuck in the middle just trying to figure out what’s going on. Unlike other protagonists stuck in this situation, however, Crichton is able to bring his full knowledge of year 2000-era science fiction pop culture to bear in order to make sense of the things happening around him, to him, and without him.

For these and many other reasons that we are about to explore, Farscape wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill low budget hack writer’s fantasy. It was a hack writer’s fantasy with heart, drama, love, death, and re-death. And lots of sci-fi in-jokes. Come with us as we explore the Powet Alphabet’s “F”.

…what, you expecting Famicom?

[Read the rest of this entry…]

I love a good beat-em-up. I know they get looked down upon these days, but few things relieve stress better than beating up busloads of thugs, mutants, mobsters, robots, ninjas, samurai, terrorists, dominatrices, zombies, hippies, republicans, and god knows what else. From Final Fight and Double Dragon to Streets of Rage and Sengoku, the beat-em-up genre has seen scores of great titles. One of the best and most unknown entries in the genre is this little known title from Neo-Geo developer Noise Factory. Taking control of one of 5 characters, you make your way through a post-apocalyptic world, battling demons and mutants. While it doesn’t do anything that hasn’t already been seen in the genre, it has some excellent graphics and a awesome soundtrack. While there is little chance of this game showing up on any home system anytime soon, this is definitely something you’ll want to pump quarters into if you come across it in the arcade.

For full Transformation video, see more after the jump.
[Read the rest of this entry…]