TV Shows #30 - Part 1

Reacher Season One (2022)
Developed By: Nick Santora
Starring: Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Chris Webster, Bruce McGill, Maria Sten, Currie Graham, Kristin Kreuk, Harvey Guillén

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 42-54 Minutes per Episode, 8 Episodes

Usually I find it somewhat irritating when people complain about a book adaptation straying from the source material. After all, if the screen version is different enough, it just means you potentially have two things to enjoy rather than two different forms of the same thing! One recent(ish) example I remember was Jack Reacher, released just over ten years ago starring Tom Cruise as the titular character. I personally didn't even know there were Jack Reacher books at the time but it turned out there were many, they were very successful, and their many fans were incensed at the casting choice to play their beloved hero. Moviegoers seem to have a bit of a love/hate view of Cruise at the best of times but here he was playing a character who, in the books at least, is 6ft5 and 250lbs. I've always been a fan of Cruise, at least as far as his movies are concerned, but for all his talents and abilities, being 6ft5 and 250lbs is not among them! The film did okay but most Reacher fans stayed away.

NES Shmups #5

Burai Fighter (1990)
By: KID / Taxan Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 121,120
Also Available For: Game Boy

There are an absolute ton of NES games that I've heard of but know bugger all about. This is due to a combination of buying multi-format games mags back in the day such as Mean Machines, and not having an NES and therefore paying little attention to reviews of said games. One of them, you may be shocked to hear, is Burai Fighter. I've known of the name for over 30 years but I wasn't even sure what genre it was until my interest in it was recently piqued by its soundtrack - its most derided aspect, I've subsequently discovered (not sure why though). It turned out to be a (mostly) horizontal shooter in the same vein of Side Arms and Forgotten Worlds, and that's no bad thing since both are at least decent games. It's also a game that, much like the recently-reviewed Dragon Ninja, is named after its bad guys rather than the hero. Indeed, the Burai are apparently a 'race of super-brains' who, for thousands of years, have used their intellectual gifts to conquer the universe. Can't accuse them of lacking ambition, I guess!

Top Five MegaDrive Overhead Racers

As mighty as the MegaDrive is, it's not a system I would associate with overhead (or 'top down' if you prefer) racing games - I suppose there aren't any systems that one might specifically associate with them now that I think about it - but Sega's legendary machine does play host to a surprising number of them. I actually had the idea for this post a good few years ago and did some preliminary 'research' accordingly, only to find my enthusiasm dampened by the general quality of the titles available. I recall not really finding one that I really liked, never mind five! That opinion was mostly confirmed when I returned to this post recently - most examples are interesting and have good points, but also some apect that ruined my enjoyment somewhat too. Since I haven't been too prolific with the Top Fives lately, however, I figured I'd go ahead with the post anyway. So, feast your eyes on what could be more accurately described as the Five Least Annoying MegaDrive Overhead Racers...

5. Combat Cars

I don't remember seeing anything about this one in its day but it got a European release as well as a US one. Oh well, wherever it was back then, I 've spent a fair bit of time playing it for this post and... well, it's a good example of what I was talking about above. I kind of get the impression it's set in a post-apocalyptic world but it's hard to be sure since there doesn't seem to be a backstory. Nonetheless, you can choose from eight characters, each of whom has their own car with it's own special ability (speed boost, weapon, smoke, etc), and it initially looked as though it could be a contender for the top spot here. The slidy-but-grippy car handling is superb and there are a decent number of courses (24) over which to race against the other characters, and there are of course multi-player modes too (just two players but better than nothing), with team or head-to-head options on offer. The graphics aren't bad either and the music is great. The thing that ruins it a bit for me is that it just gets too hard too quickly - you basically have to race nearly perfectly within two or three races or you won't have a chance. I was getting lapped! It's a good game for skilled and/or dedicated players but I'm not sure I'd ever get through it.

Film vs Book #1

I have long been one of those people who loves books, has many books, buys new books often, but doesn't actually get around to reading them that often. The Japanese even have a term for people like me: tsundoku. Short attention span, hand aches from holding book, easily distracted - these are all reasons/excuses for my idiotic behaviour, but I have been improving of late. I also realised I have a lot of books that were adapted into films or were inspired by or related to films, so I've concentrated on these in order to make a few posts here. In pretty much all cases I will have seen the film before reading the book so the emphasis will be on the former. First up is the book that accompanies one of my favourite films, and it had an unusual start.

Contact (1985 - book, 1997 - film)

Book By: Carl Sagan Film Directed By: Robert Zemeckis Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett

Certificate: PG Length: 144 Minutes / 429 pages

Tagline: "A message from deep space. Who will be the first to go? A journey to the heart of the universe" (film) "We are not alone" (book)

I'm usually slow to adopt new technologies - I fear change, I guess, to paraphrase Garth from Wayne's World - but one notable exception was DVDs. I forget the year now. It must've been 1997 or 1998, but whenever it was, I was almost immediately taken by the new movie format and spent a fortune (credit card, of course) on what was probably the best player available at the time, the Sony DVP-S715. At the time there were only about 20 films available on the format and not too many interested me, but the shop where I bought the player had three titles that looked acceptable - Face/Off, Assassins and... yes, that's right, Contact! I didn't know much about it prior to buying it, I just wanted a few new films to play on my shiny new player and a sci-fi selection is usually a safe bet for me. Plus, you can rarely go wrong with Jodie Foster, right?

First Look PC #8

Victory Heat Rally by Skydevilpalm (202?) - PC

As someone for whom retro games hold great value, one of the best things about the indie scene for a good few years now is the number of 'homages', or games inspired by other famous old games. There are tons and more turn up seemingly on a weekly basis. This one caught my eye quite a while ago (I believe it has been in my 'games to review' folder for about two years now) as it initially looked to be a Mario Kart-inspired racer. Upon playing it, however, I soon realised it has much more in common with Power Drift and even Out Run 2! There is only a demo so far in which you can choose between two racers and then race over three courses, and it's these that remind me so much of Sega's buggy racer as they are twisty-turny with sharp turns and elevated sections, just like AM2's classic!

MSX Games #3

Knightmare (1986)
By: Konami Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: MSX First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing

Not the most exciting title screen...

Back in the 80s which, as everyone knows, was the undisputed king of decades, there was a children's adventure game show here in the UK called Knightmare. Episodes featured a team of four youths, one of whom would don the vision-obscuring 'Helmet of Justice' and is then placed into a fantasy medieval environment while the other three attempted to guide him or her through obstacle and puzzle-filled dungeons. It was rather ahead of it time too, featuring some CGI and even some virtual reality bits and was pretty cool. More recently, word reached me of an MSX game called Knightmare too. What was a game based on a British adventure game show doing on a Japanese home micro? As it turned out, it wasn't. It appears to have nothing to do with it, in fact. Naturally, this both confused and intrigued me considerably so I immediately (i.e. a few years later) sought to find out what the devil it actually was.

Splendid Arcade Music #3

Slap Fight (1986)

It has been many moons since I reviewed Slap Fight here but, despite liking it, I have failed to play it since. That is until last week when I got a sudden, unexplained desire to give it another playthrough, and whilst doing so I ultra-remembered just how catchy the first in-game theme is! Not sure how I forgot to be honest, but now I keep playing the game just to hear it and, if anything, I like it even more than I did! It doesn't have a proper name as far as I'm aware - it's merely listed as BGM#1 on the soundtrack - and accordingly it's the first in-game music you'll hear. Enjoy it while it lasts though, which is little more than a minute (unless you keep dying).

(full Slap Fight review here)



Special Note: I didn't record this great tune myself, I'm just an admirer, so all credit goes to the original composer

TV Shows #29

Treason (2022)
Developed By: Matt Charman
Starring: Charlie Cox, Olga Kurylenko, Oona Chaplin, Ciarán Hinds, Tracy Ifeachor, Danila Kozlovsky, Alex Kingston, Beau Gadsdon, Samuel Leakey

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 37-44 Minutes per Episode (approx), 5 Episodes

I was thinking about spy/espionage-related films and shows recently and realised they must be not only one of my favourite genres but one of the most popular generally too, considering how many of them there are. Is it more of a recent thing or have there always been so many? Most of the ones I've seen are of course based around the CIA or some other secret American government thing but I don't recall seeing many British examples involving MI6. Well, not counting James Bond of course (guffaw!). But in recent months I have stumbled upon not one but two examples - crikey! The shortest of the two is Treason, a miniseries (or 'limited' series, as they are now apparently called) consisting of a mere five episodes which take place during the race to determine the next Prime Minister. It starts right at the top too, with the chief of MI6 known as 'C' - Sir Martin Angelis (Hinds) - using kompromat to blackmail a supreme court judge, only to find himself a target.

Top Five Sega NES Games

Back in the 8-bit days I think most would agree that Sega suffered a little when it came to challenging Nintendo's dominance in the console world. Sure, the Master System was popular here in the UK, in Brazil and a few other places, but in most places, including the two most important, the NES/Famicom was king.

Part of the reason for this was the sheer number of titles available for Nintendo's machine owing to extremely strong third-party support. This was an area the Master System greatly lacked in. In fact, I often remember thinking back then that Sega were lucky they had their own arcade games to port over as well as numerous other IPs and in-house games or the MS might not even have any games for it!

It therefore came as something of a surprise when I found out that some of Sega's games did appear on the NES/Famicom. That didn't make much sense to me but I guess Sega must have had their reasons. I've never played any of them though, and upon recently realising this, I was ultra-intrigued as to what they were like. How did they compare to the Master System versions? Let's find out, shall we?

5. Space Harrier by Takara (1988) - Japan Only

I've always enjoyed this landmark title in the arcades whenever I've been lucky enough to find it but I've never really spent too much time with it at home. I have played the MS version though, and know that it's pretty good. In fact, I think the only thing I don't really like about it is that it uses background tiles for the sprites which makes the graphics look a bit whiffy now and then. As would turn out to be the case with most games in this feature, this NES port has smaller sprites and slightly washed out colours, and slightly worse (though certainly recognisable) audio, but is for the most part pretty similar. It's not an easy one to call actually. Neither version is particularly fast and both are about as smooth as you could hope for, all things considered, so I suppose it's more about which visual style you prefer - big sprites and bright colours but that distracting tiling effect, or... well, as I said, smaller sprites, duller colours, etc. To be honest, I've enjoyed both versions so if I had to choose, I would say the MS, but that's only out of loyalty. And the fact that the NES apparently can't do the "Aaaahh!! Get ready!"

Scrolling Fighting Games #17

Dragon Ninja a.k.a. Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja (1988)
By: Date East Genre: Fighting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 52,900
Also Available For: NES, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II
Download For: Nintendo Switch

I've never been particularly skilled at videogames. As if to illustrate this, most of the times I've actually managed to complete one without cheating are lodged firmly in my memory. One of them pertains to a certain fighting game with a very cool name, here in the UK at least. Yes, that's right, it's Dragon Ninja! American gamers knew it as Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja of course, and it's actually almost acceptable as US name-changes go since, to the eternal disappointment of both younger and current me, you don't play as ninjas but fight them. Many of them. I first discovered this on my trusty Speccy, for which I had the game (on +3 disk as I recall), and I enjoyed it a lot, black and white graphics and all. So much so, in fact, that I actually kicked every arse in the game and finished it! I'm extremely confident I couldn't repeat that nowadays but I did recently find myself reminiscing about the occasion and the game generally, and was then wondering if the arcade version is much harder, as is usually the case.

TV Shows #28

Goliath (2016-21)
Developed By: David E. Kelley & Jonathan Shapiro
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Nina Arianda, Tania Raymonde, Diana Hopper, William Hurt, Maria Bello, Ana de la Reguera, Dennis Quaid, Julie Brister, Olivia Thirlby, Molly Parker, Sarah Wynter, Mark Duplass, Matthew Del Negro, Amy Brenneman, Beau Bridges, Julia Jones, J. K. Simmons, Jena Malone, Lenora Crichlow, Bruce Dern

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 38-65 Minutes per Episode (approx)

I'm not quite sure when or how it happened but it seems that Billy Bob Thornton has become one of those actors whose mere presence in a film is enough to provoke my interest in it. When I saw Prime Video spamming his face in close proximity to the word 'Goliath' then, I duly investigated and found that it's not a film at all but a show. Not only that but it's a legal drama too - those can often be great, right? It sounded like the perfect role for Thornton too, and not just because the character shares his given name. The synopsis for Goliath, you see, invites you to join Billy McBride, "a down-and-out lawyer as he seeks redemption. His one shot depends on getting justice in a legal system where truth has become a commodity, and the scales of justice have never been more heavily weighted toward the rich and powerful."

PS4 Purchases #13

Children of Morta by 11 Bit Studios / Dead Mage (2019)

Many of my PS4 games - about half I reckon - were kindly given to me as Christmas or birthday gifts by my wife or family but I haven't received any for a good while now. In fact, I believe Children of Morta was the last one and I received it at least two years ago. Yes, that's long it takes me to get around to posting about stuff! I have finally been playing it a bit lately though. Unlike some other games in my collection, it's a no-frills package - just game and disc - but the game itself seems to be pretty good. It's an isometric action RPG, and a pretty simple one too, by genre standards. This is good for me since I'm hardly a veteran and find some RPGs more than a little daunting. Here, you get a little of the story (something about clearing the land of an evil called the Corruption), then you're off to to explore the area and chat with locals. There are several playable characters, all members of the same family, and procedurally generated dungeons full of monsters to vanquish. There's a bit more to it than that, of course, but it's looking great so far. Literally, in fact, thanks to its lovely pixelly graphics as well as moody music and excellent voice acting. I'll need to spend a lot more time with this one. Look out for the review... one day.

Run 'n' Gun Games #9

Assault Suits Leynos a.k.a. Target Earth (1990)
By: Masaya / NCS Corp Genre: Run 'n' Gun Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PS4, PC

I played rather a lot of games on my Mega Drive over the first half of the 90s and even knew all about the ones I didn't play too, thanks to the magazines of the day, but there was of course the odd one or two that slipped through the net. One of these, if you hadn't already guessed, is Assault Suits Leynos. It was released in Japan, and also in the US under a different name - Target Earth (actually not a bad alternative name for American standards) - but for some peculiar reason our humble territory here in Europe was apparently bypassed. Nonetheless, I still often knew about other import-only games and owned a decent number as well, since some of our magazines covered them, so why did they ignore this one? I don't remember seeing a single mention of it except in the listings of mail order companies. Oh well, time to once again educate myself I guess!

Film Round-Up #40

It has somewhat startlingly been well over two years since I last posted a selection of Tom Hanks films. The challenge then was to find one that wasn't all that great since up to that point, all his films that I had seen had been good. That previous selection did yield one example that I wasn't too enamoured by, but it's still usually a safe bet to watch his films, so why not watch some more? None of the films chosen here were previously unseen by my eyes on this occasion (unless you count parts of the first one) but I hadn't seen some of them for many long years. Had I managed to find another non-great one in his filmography?

Big (Extended Edition) (1988)

Yes, I've already looked at Big in a previous Hanks round-up, but that was before I discovered there was an Extended Edition which I didn't know until very recently! I wouldn't normally bother with such releases except with my ultra-fave films, but an excuse to spend more time in prime 80s movie-land was one I couldn't pass up. I was somewhat concerned I might not even notice at least some of the new stuff - it's not like I've watched the normal version of the film dozens of times - and indeed, I hadn't noticed much for the first hour or so, but from the point when Josh and Susan have their trampoline session there are lots of extra scenes, most of which feature the two of them having dates and working together. They appear to be having a full-on relationship here, most of which was apparently cut from the theatrical release. I guess I can understand why too, but it's not just them - there's some 26 minutes of new stuff in total including lots of other extra bits and pieces, and for most the end product is probably even more enjoyable overall than the wonderful original... 9/10

PC Round-Up #1 - Part 2

After perhaps world record levels of procrastination (I started this post two years ago, which was itself some five years since my first 'Catacomb' post!), I've finally gotten around to resuming my coverage of first-person shooters... which never even started to begin with. This is due to my mild-yet-prevalent OCD which dictated I review the first FPS before looking at the later, more well-known ones. This led to a problem: what was the first FPS? My initial research into this subject has yielded several answers. Many might say Doom; oldies like me will remember Wolfenstein 3D; but the answer lies even further back than that - Catacomb 3D and its sequels.

Catacomb 3D: The Descent (1991)

Also known as Catacomb 3 to tie in to the 2D games and also known as Catacomb 3D: A New Dimension to emphasise the added dimension, this possibly first ever first-person shooter by the now-legendary id Software casts you in the same role as before - that of wizard Petton Everhail who must save his friend from the evil lich Grelminar. This seems to involve wandering around various mazey stages shooting lots of monsters with fireballs from your hand as you try to find the portal that takes you to the next such example. I was expecting an ugly, clunky, unplayable mess to be honest but I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, the stages are all flat and there's not much variety but movement is smoother than I thought it would be which includes a helpful strafe button, and there are plenty of scary monsters and stuff to collect, and even some secret areas! Frankly, I was just going to play it for long enough to grab a screenshot and get a reasonable impression of it but I kept playing simply because I was enjoying it. Okay, it's very basic and repetitive (especially the music) compared to later examples, but it's not at all bad, all things considered... 6/10