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Maximum Letdown: Heavy Metal – Geomatrix (Dreamcast)
by William Talley, filed in Games, Maximum Letdown on May.13, 2012
Heavy Metal is a comics anthology magazine that began life in France under the name Metal Hurlant. It gained notoriety due to its heavy emphasis on sex and violence. It was bought over to the U.S and renamed Heavy Metal in 1977, and was purchased and published by Kevin Eastman. Yes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Kevin Eastman. The U.S version of the magazine featured several news articles that tied it into the Heavy Metal culture. The series spawned two feature films: 1981′s Heavy Metal, a set of story sequences done in different art styles (similar to The Animatrix) and 2000′s Heavy Metal 2000, a feature film featuring a character played by B-movie actress Julie Strain. The game also spawned 2 video games, F.A.K.K.2, a PC game sequel to Heavy metal 2000, and Heavy Metal:Geomatrix, a 2001 Dreamcast/Arcade game from Capcom. Although it uses a gameplay style similar to Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand, various gameplay issues and a lack of content cause the game to fall flat on its face. It doesn’t help matters that the game has very little to tie it in with the comics.
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In the waning months of 1994, fans were packed in at theaters across North America waiting to see the Live Action adaptation of Capcom’s Street Fighter. Me, my mom, and my 9-year old brother were just three of these fans that were packed in at one theater ready to see what was sure to be a silver-screen celebration of the arcade fighting action that we enjoyed for years. What we got instead was a cinematic clusterfuck featuring Jean-Claude Van Damne, Kylie Minogue (before she was hot), and Ming Na (before anyone knew who she was), along with a host of no-names helping the directors obviously cash-in on the host of Street Fighter fans. Although Raul Julia’s performance helped to redeem the film. I’m not saying this out of respect for the deceased mind you (Street Fighter was Raul Julia’s last role as he died before it’s release), but out of all the actors on the screen, his was the most enjoyable to watch. That, and the awesome MC Hammer/Deion Sanders collaboration “Straight to My Feet” helped keep the film from being a total failure. Enough about that however. A few months earlier, on the other side of the Pacific ocean, our Japanese cousins were also gearing up for their own Street Fighter movie. Unlike us, the Japanese were treated to a cinematic masterpiece that bought the characters that we loved into a whole new light, and gave them voices and personalities in a way no other video game adapted work has done before and few have done since.
