Note: The staff at Powet.tv is neither anti-christian nor anti-religious, just anti-crappy video games.

Left Behind 3: Rise of the Antichrist is the third in a series of RTS video games based on the book series of the same name. Left Behind takes place after the Rapture. For those of you who slept through Sunday school, that’s the day when god comes to take all good Christians to heaven to be with him, leaving only their clothes behind. Naturally panic and fear set in, with people’s loved ones disappearing out of the blue. A man named Nicholae Carpathia steps up and takes control of everything, reorganizing the U.N int the newly re-christened Global Community Peacekeepers, so now order is restored to the world. Only one problem: Carphathia is the antichrist. Now it’s up to the Tribulation Force, a ragtag group of new Christians, to stop them and spread the lord’s word. It’s out there, but it’s not like it’s the strangest premise in video gaming. I mean, this week’s $20 Game of the Week has you playing as a sentient blob of meat out to rescue a girl made of bandages from a fetus in a tuxedo for crying out loud.
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Normally, I don’t do Maximum Letdowns (or for that matter $20 GOTWs and Lost Classics) on games that haven’t been released yet, and since I don’t normally purchase bad games just to smash on them, I concentrate on older titles (along with the occasional dud I find as a download). However in this case, I think the premature bashing is more than warranted, as one of my all-time favorite gaming franchises has been ruined.

Ever since it’s origin on the Japanese PC Engine, the Fire Pro Wrestling series has been notable for its huge list of wrestlers (many of which are based on real-life personalities), huge amount of customization options (allowing players to customize everything from wrestlers, to match types, to ring logos), and its realistic (well as realistic one can get for a scripted sport) simulation-like quality. Not anymore. Thanks to Microsoft, the Fire Pro Wrestling franchise is going to become less than a shadow of its former self, and the upcoming iteration will be a complete mockery of the wrestling franchise I once loved.
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During the 16-bit days, it seemed that alongside the Sega vs Nintendo console awards, there was another video game war brewing as well. Ocean was competed directly with Sony Imagesoft and Acclaim to see who could make the worst movie tie-in video game. Or so it would seem that way, as all three companies dumped crap after crap after crap on our consoles with each popular or semi-popular sci-fi and action flick that hit theaters. Every once in a while, there was a gem, like Sony Imagesoft’s Hook, or at least something resembling a gem, like Acclaim’s Stargate. Sadly, most of the product that the three companies collectively produced was only a few steps above of Atari’s “classic” E.T. game. One of the missteps was Ocean’s Lethal Weapon. In this SNES game, you take the role of super-deformed cartoon hunchbacks vaguely resembling Danny Glover and Mel Gibson (before he became an anti-Semite douchebag) as you ice skate through nondescript locations and battling generic looking enemies, all the while overcoming your inability to fire while crouching. Released around the time of the Lethal Weapon 3 movie, video games based on Lethal Weapon also hit the NES, Game Boy, Amiga, and other systems, but this Maximum Letdown focuses on the SNES game. Although I’m sure the other systems have an equally crappy (or worse) Lethal Weapon video game.
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First of all, I want to apologize, as I know I promised this last weekend, but I was too busy. Besides, Christmas isn’t the only holiday for beat downs you know. Get together with the guys on New Years Eve, and next thing you know, someone hits the eggnog a little too hard, and then next thing you know, this happens:

But why waste time and energy (and risk going to jail) by getting into a real fight when you can enjoy some not-so-classic video game beatdowns? Click after the jump to see some of the worst of the 90s fighting scene.
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Now that the Thanksgiving turkey is digested, and your Black Friday shopping is finished, it’s time for a special 3-in-one edition of $20 GOTW, Lost Classics, and Maximum Letdown! Our first two games on the list are available either at or below the $20 mark anywhere you buy video games, so you don’t need to wait until after any holiday, camp out in front of the store, stand in line at Best Buy, or fight through the parking lot to cash in on these savings. The third game, not so much, but it’s a Maximum Letdown, so chances are, you aren’t gonna want it anyway. Anyway, click below and lets get started!
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From the ‘so bad it’s good’ department comes Blood Warriors. Developed by Japanese company Kaneko, Blood Warriors was one of the many fighting games that sprung up during the 90s that attempted to cash in on the popularity of Mortal Kombat. Now granted, it’s still a pretty crappy game, but it’s like Super Street Fighter 4 compared to games such as Way of the Warrior and Survival Arts. It does the “digitized actors and bloody graphics” routine as expected, and of course the localization, to say the least, is lacking. Playing as one of 9 stereotypical Japanese warriors (the cast features such ground breaking character designs as a samurai, a ninja, a female ninja, and a Kabuki Warrior, who, like all other Kabuki Warriors in fighting games, attacks enemies with his hair), you beat the crap out of each other in 2 rounds. If you win the match, you can pull off a fatality by the press of one button! Hay, one-button fatalities! That’s one improvement Blood Warriors has over Mortal Kombat! Too bad there isn’t much else to rave about. Well, the character costumes are improved over all the other Mortal Kombat ripoffs at the time. That’s not saying that they are very good, but at least they are better than say, Blood Storm’s mongloid Running Man characters. It’s one of the rarest arcade games in the world, so however you can play it, you should play it. It’s almost like the fighting game equivalent of an Ed Wood movie.

Halloween is tomorrow, and who better to celebrate it with than two icons of horror, Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees? This weekend we’ll have a special Lost Classic and Maximum Letdown. Oh yeah, and we got the $20 Game of the Week too.
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Before Final Fantasy VII, the role playing game genre just wasn’t that popular. Playing a turd like this, I can see why, as this must have been what games like Dragon Warrior and Zelda must have looked like to most gamers. Believe it or not, this was actually a very popular RPG for Japanese computer systems. It was regarded as one of the first console RPGs. However, it wasn’t bought to America until a few years later, and it’s ‘innovations’ had already been done by other games, most notably the awesome Legend of Zelda. By it’s release, not only were the graphics sub-par, the story was virtually nonexistent and the gameplay was a serious and boring pain in the ass. With stupid looking enemies, a nonsensical battle system, and boring gameplay, this early NES game would turn anyone off to the genre. For years to come, this game’s pitfalls caused mainstream gamers to sleep on quality titles such as Lufia, 7th Saga, and Final Fantasy 2 – 6, or at least that’s what I think happened. After all, who’d want to play this crap when they could be playing Double Dragon or Castlevania?
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