MegaDrive Shmups #11

Super Fantasy Zone (1992)
By: Sunsoft / Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 73,200
Also Available For: Nothing Download For: Wii Virtual Console

The dazzling Fantasy Zone series is awesome, everyone knows that, even the people that don't know that, but for some reason its name immediately makes me think of the Master System despite this, the last proper game in the series, only appearing on the MegaDrive. That should, potentially at least, make it the best, surely? I guess we'll find out but it certainly has by far the best presentation which includes an opening sequence depicting the fate of Opa-Opa's father, amusingly named O-Papa. The action is set in 'the space year 623X' when a 'gravitating phenomenon' is discovered near the planet Menon, home of the evil creatures that caused havoc in the previous games. When a space patrol is sent to investigate, it is attacked by a 'Dark Menon Force' who repel all attempts to stop them, including a counterattack led by O-Papa. Startlingly, this means you must help Opa-Opa seek revenge and cleanse the Dark Menon filth.

Atari 5200 A-Z

Atari's VCS has gone down in legend now, but it was starting to look a bit old next to the ColecoVision and Intellivision. The 5200 was Atari's answer. Did it succeed? No, but that's more likely down to the 'great videogame crash'. It therefore didn't receive too many releases, so here I will be able to take a look at all of them. This is one of four posts to that end and features all games beginning with letters A through G:

Activision Decathlon, The (1983)

A bit of a Hyper Olympic rip-off in the eyes of some, this one, but it's not a bad effort, mainly due to how many events it has - an impressive ten. Some are similar, admittedly (100m and 400m), and it might wreck your joystick (waggle left and right to do stuff), but this is a decent multi-eventer for its time.

TV Shows #27

Night Sky (2022)
Developed By: Holden Miller & Daniel C. Connolly
Starring: Sissy Spacek, J. K. Simmons, Chai Hansen, Adam Bartley, Julieta Zylberberg, Sonya Walger, Rocío Hernández, Kiah McKirnan, Angus O'Brien

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 55 Minutes per Episode (approx), 8 Episodes

New sci-fi shows always get my attention, but one starring J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek? Yes please! The former is always great, or in every role I've seen him in at least, and the latter has recently impressed me greatly in Castle Rock, so the prospect of the two of them leading the cast of a mysterious new sci-fi show was a splendid one. They are Franklin and Irene, an old married couple still masking grief over the sudden death of their son some years before, but who also share an amazing secret known, as far as they know, not to another soul. Namely, that lying hidden beneath their shed is a spooky device that allows them to visit... an alien planet - crikey! The planet in question is just a barren, rocky world with no discernable settlements and the atmosphere is assumed to be unbreathable for humans, but there is a nice viewing chamber that allows them to sit, relax and marvel at the sights beyond, including a spectacular spacey sky.

MSX Games #2

Mr. Ghost a.k.a. Yuurei-kun (1989)
By: System Sacom Genre: Action/Shooting (kind of) Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: MSX2 First Day Score: 21,250
Also Available For: Nothing

Ever since starting this blog, I have kept a list of games I want to play and review at some point. Many, I will probably never get around to, but some I'm happy to say I will. Mr. Ghost is unsurprisingly such a game; one that has lain dormant on my list for around 8 years, I estimate - jeepers! My interest in the MSX systems was recently reinvigorated though, and this was the first title I thought of. It looked quite simple from what I recalled of it, so I actually thought it was an MSX game, but it's a later release for the MSX2. It stars a floaty white fellow who probably has a proper name, but as far as I can tell from the story (which is told via various static cut-scenes, in Japanese of course), he woke up one day as a ghost and can't remember anything from before that. So for now at least, he is known as Mr. Ghost, and it's your job to help him venture forth to discover who and what he is. Or was, as the case may be.

First Look PC #7

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge by KT Racing / Nacon (2018) - PC

As much as I enjoy driving/racing games, there are two types I seldom seem to encounter - really fast examples, and motorcycle-based ones. A good while back on YouTube I happened upon a video of a racing game which was very evidently motorcycle-based and also one that looked very fast. This was enough for me to add it to my Steam wishlist and lo, before much longer I found it on sale (does anyone buy Steam games at full price?). Unusually for me (and probably most people), I immediately installed it and gave it a go. What I found was a game that looked just like the one in the video I had seen, but what that failed to portray, and what I forgot to consider, was the implications of a really fast motorcycle game, particularly one based around the Isle of Man TT course.

Film Review #122

Bruised (2020)
Director: Halle Berry Starring: Halle Berry, Shamier Anderson, Adan Canto, Sheila Atim, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Valentina Shevchenko, Adriane Lenox

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 138 Minutes

Tagline: "From hero to zero and back to reality."

I've never really been a big social media user, and the more time that passes, the less appeal I find in it, but there was a brief period a few years back when I even joined Instagram. My main reason for doing this was to follow various celebrities that I like and marvel at the delightful imagery they oft choose to share with us. One such celeb I followed was Halle Berry because... well, she's really hot and she went through a phase of posting some rather saucy pics such as this one (snigger!), but for much of the time I followed her, she was mainly posting pics and vids of her doing hardcore workouts and sparring sessions in MMA-type gear. I was slightly startled by this until I realised it might be for a film. A short period of research later and I found that it was indeed for a film, her directorial debut, no less, and in it she would be playing... an MMA fighter - gadzooks! Suffice to say, being something of a fan of both Halle Berry and fighty films, I was rather looking forward to it.

Arcade Platform Games #6

Karnov (1987)
By: Data East Genre: Platform/Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 84,590 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

The gaming world has seen a lot of unusual characters over the years and this is one that stands out, to me at least, as being an overlooked example. I mean, he's a human which certainly isn't unusual, but he has very specifically been made as hailing from one of the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics. Not only that but he's a fire-breathing, ex-circus strongman. He has even been given a full name - Jinborov Karnovski, or Karnov for short. I wonder what prompted Data East to conjure this fellow up. I'm not even totally sure he's a good guy either. He appears in several later Data East games as a villainous character, and your objective with him here is find pieces of a lost treasure map so he can plunder the resultant booty. Perhaps he's stealing the ancient heirlooms of a long proud and honourable civilisation? Oh well, whatever possibly-nefarious motivation the muscle-bound brute has, it's your job to guide him through nine side-scrolling stages, each brimming with innocent locals trying to resist the interloper.