And there was much rejoicing.

Looks like the ideas of a live-action Castlevania movie have been saved from the horrors of bad directing this time around. Bloody Disgusting reports that the movie, originally handed to AvP and Resident Evil director Paul Anderson and more recently thrown to Stomp the Yard‘s Sylvian White, the script for the movie has been pretty much put into the category of “development hell”, halting any further progress. While not declared legally dead as of yet, the thready pulse of the story meant to be the tale of Dracula’s origins in facing the Belmont Clan has seemingly been put into a consistent catatonic state of which there seems little recovery.

Of course, this is far from where the development was taking it in the first place, so really this change of course simply keeps the corpse of the screenplay from being utterly raped, and instead will more than likely pass into blissful death quietly.

Whenever a lot of people often talk about how cool the old-school Ninja Turtles games were, they usually talk about the first arcade game and Turtles in Time. How come no one hardly ever mentions this game though? It’s just as cool as its arcade counterparts, even if its graphics aren’t as nice as they are. TMNT 3 was the third NES game based on the TMNT franchise (with the first being a horrid platforming game and the second being an NES port of the arcade game). Although it wasn’t based on any arcade game, it took it’s basic gameplay from the arcade titles while presenting all-new bosses and areas. Like the arcade games, the game did a good job of showcasing what people loved about the franchise at the time while providing fun cooperative gameplay.
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1985 saw the release of one of the most influential arcade games of the past few decades. It was quite popular for its time. Matter of fact, you might have even heard about it, or if you’re old enough, you may have even played it. In the game, you (and a few friends) teamed up to smash a never-ending (well, at least until you destroyed the generators) stream of orcs, goblins, and other monsters in a fantasy setting. Your character’s health constantly ticked down, so grabbing food was a must. Also, there were several items spread around that could enhance your player. Players could either choose to cooperate with each other, or could work against each other to get the food and the high scores. This game was made by Atari and was known as Gauntlet. Though it’s simple by today’s standards, Gauntlet’s influence helped shape many other action RPG games, from Square’s Secret of Mana to Blizzard’s Diablo. However, a year after the release of Gauntlet, Konami released this game, Dark Adventure. While it had many similarities to Gauntlet, its high quality graphics, large sprites, and quirkiness made this game even better than Atari’s classic. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it should have been.
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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.

Last year the Mega 64 crew made a big splash at the Game Developers Conference when they did New Super Mario Bros with the twist ending.
This video is even better. Enjoy.

Keep Playing: Rewind is a new sub-segment from our own Keep Playing series of game reviews, focusing on games of the 8 and 16-bit era and the like.

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The second of my twin reviews on the recent Castlevania games released, this one about the Wii game Castlevania Judgment, this one being not quite as lenient as it’s brother. Be sure to check out that review also if you haven’t already.

Ending Music: Dracula’s Castle Remix (Alucard’s Theme)
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A step that has not only been high on the wish lists of not only Konami fans, but oldschool NES fans in general, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was released today for the Wii’s Virtual Console for the low purchasing price of $5 US.

Favored in the series for its early take on RPG elements and a vast array of stages and a varied cast of playable characters to be unlocked beyond top-class Belmont whip-toting compliments of Trevor Belmont, Dracula’s Curse has not only been desired for a VC release, but also has been highly demanded by fans to be the next installment in the “Chronicles” sub-series. At the very least, now we have the 1st part of that request. Here’s hoping the 2nd will be in the near future. For now, we have one more installment of classic Castlevania NES goodness to tide us over. REJOICE!