Top Five Helicopters

Helicopters are pretty cool, I don't think too many would dispute that. I doubt many people have actually been in one unless you're in the police or military, or perhaps if you're unlucky enough to have had an accident in a remote location or been attacked by a bear or escaped convict or something. Or maybe if you work for a tour company, or perhaps if you're a reporter in a big city. Or maybe if you're really rich and use one as your general runabout. But even if one of these scenarios is true, you've probably still only been in a boring chopper. Which examples are the least boring, I hear you ask? Well, here are five pretty stonking twirlers I thought of:

5. Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion

This is the only entry on this list I hadn't heard of prior to looking into the subject, but I was immediately intrigued by its unusual appearance and large size. The latter is down to the fact that it was designed as a heavy lift helicopter, and in that capacity it is unmatched, at least in the US military. The most powerful version - the King Stallion - can lift over 16 tonnes! There are loads of versions of it but I think the mean-looking example pictured (which is actually a German one) is the best looking one. Not that that should really be a defining factor in this type of 'best' list but there you are. Unlike all the other helos on this list, the Sea Stallion hasn't been featured too heavily in movies - not surprising really since it's a cargo/troop carrier rather than an attack chopper - but it was featured in The Jackal and one of those crap Transformers movies. That's unlikely to change now, too, since it was retired just over a decade ago, but this workhouse certainly left its mark in the real world.

Top Five Master System Budget Games

I've done a lot of Top Fives here over the years. Most are nonsense, of course, some even embarrass me now, but some I was and remain quite pleased with. Examples of the latter were often the most difficult to compile too, insofar as it being difficult to narrow it down to five and/or determine the order, but I'm not sure I had as much trouble with any of them as I have this one.

For those not in the know, if you were lucky enough to own Sega's wonderful Master System, here in the UK at least (but probably elsewhere too), Sega were apparently well aware that mere school kids couldn't often afford £24.99 for new games, so they had a range of cheaper games that cost, as I recall, from £9.99 to £14.99.

Some of these stank of rhino manure but some were great, and were a valuable lifeline for cash-strapped MS owners such as myself. I had several at the time and have acquired others in the intervening years, but when the idea for this Top Five entered my brain, I immediately thought of 8 or 9 candidates and just couldn't decide which ones to leave out.

I've been back and forth on several of my choices already, and will probably do so again after I click 'publish', but it will be too late then. Behold, then, the current version of this list showcasing the best of Sega's helpful budget range:

Top Five John Hughes Films

If you asked someone old enough to name the best films of the 80s, you would very likely hear names like Ghostbusters and Back to the Future, but I'm confident a majority of the John Hughes filmography would be mentioned too. When I say that, I'm only counting the films he actually directed as well as wrote, rather than the far greater number for which he has only a writing credit. That only leaves eight films, but nonetheless, for many, his films define 80s cinema, especially if you grew up in that decade as I did. Here are my pics for his finest efforts:

5. Sixteen Candles (1984)

I suspect many had a bit of a thing for teen hottie Molly Ringwald in the 80s and this was the first of her 'big three' releases in successive years, but I was only seeing it for the first time here. She stars as Sam Baker who is hoping for big things following her imminent 16th birthday, only to find her family all forgot about it! They are a little preoccupied with her older sister's wedding the day after but even so! Aside from that there isn't too much of a story though. She goes to school as normal where she gossips with her friend, crushes on senior Jake (Michael Schoeffling), gets chased around by geek Ted (Anthony Michael Hall), goes to a school dance, etc. There isn't much more to it really, it's kind of a 'slice of life' 80s high school comedy that happens to take place on and just after the main character's birthday. It's possibly most famous these days for Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), a foreign exchange student whose racially-stereotyped scenes are, frankly, not very funny, but I enjoyed most of the rest of it. Ringwald and Hall are great and share some nice scenes, and the general 80s-ness is wonderful too. Not sure Sam should've given up her panties so readily though - lord only knows what ends up being done to/with them...

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.

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!"

Top Five Systems I'd Love To Collect For... But Won't

Whether you're someone who just has a casual interest in the games of yesteryear or you're a hardcore 'full set' collector, one thing has been increasingly clear for years now - it's an expensive hobby! I sold much of my collection around 12-14 years ago and, like so many that have done the same, now regret it. At least part of the reason for this is that pretty much everything I sold is now worth about four times as much! Accordingly, for anyone who doesn't A), earn a lot, and B), have an understanding partner, collecting retro stuff is not particularly realistic these days.

Sadly, I do not earn a lot and nor do I have an understanding partner, so collecting old games is not something I have really pursued for many years now, aside from the ultra-cheap Xbox games I bought a few years back. I do still have some parts of my old collection, and I do still get the odd Master System game, but that's about it for me. I have often thought about collecting for a specific system though, and was recently thinking about which I would most like to collect for if money and partners were no object. More or less in order, here's what I came up with:

Top Five PC Engine Racing Games

Although it certainly didn't start as such, this has almost turned into one of the old 'comedy' Top Fives I used to do. The main reason for this was down to how difficult it turned out to be to even find five half-decent racing games for this usually-excellent system. I know the mighty PC Engine is hardly known for this genre - its legendary status is more to do with its outstanding shmups and platformers - but I still didn't think I've have as much trouble as I did. So, I guess you should probably instead consider this the Top Five Least Crap PC Engine Racing Games instead!

Special Note: This list does not include overheard/top-down racing games as they are different enough and numerous enough to have their own list.

5. Power Drift (1990)

If I'm honest, I've never been the biggest fan of Power Drift, at least compared to other Super Scaler games, and porting it to the Engine was ambitious, but it's actually not too bad. It does deviate from the arcade version a little in that it basically gives you a championship mode in place of the arcade mode, meaning you have to work your way through the courses rather than just choose any you like. It works quite well though, and it's technically quite impressive, all things considered. It does suffer from the same faults as the arcade version (or what I always perceived to be faults anyway) - namely, the undulating log sections of track often making it hard to see where you're going, and the large cars making it hard to overtake (or be overtaken). But that does at least mean it's a good conversion I guess, and it's pretty good fun to play now and then too. The graphics are probably about as good as you could expect too, although the music isn't so great, but this could easily have been a lot worse, as some of the other versions were.

Top Five Stars

Stars are pretty mental when you stop to think about it - they are basically giant, constantly-exploding nuclear bombs that hang around for billions or even trillions of years - crikey! Just watch a video of a 'coronal mass ejection' to witness the scale of their fury, and that's just our thoroughly average, non-spectacular star. There are billions more out there, most of which we know little about, but some are very well known. Here's a brief look at some of the most noteworthy examples:

5... Canopus

Unfortunately, only those oafs in the southern hemisphere get to see Canopus but I included it anyway as I like its name. It's a white supergiant and is very very bright - over 10,000 times brighter than the sun, in fact, and is also a source of x-rays which means it's spooky too. It's also a bit of a loner in galactic terms, and is not part of any stellar groups. I can relate to that...

Top Five Elephants

Few of the wondrous species that inhabit our increasingly-abused planet are as vital to the continued health and longevity of its ecosystem and general environment as elephants. These colossal trampers have been around since not too long after the dinos got obliterated by a giant asteroid, and they've flourished ever since. Well, until our idiotic species came to prominence and started wiping them out, anyway. Here are the five most notable types to have trumpeted their way across the land:

5... Asian Elephant

The pipsqueak of the elephant family is this smallest-but-still-large variety, averaging around 2.6m tall and weighing in at around 3-4 tonnes. It's found in Asia, believe it or not, and is easily recogniseable in pictures due to its smaller ears. It's often also known as the Indian Elephant but is actually found across much of the Sub Continent and South East Asia, even making it to islands such as Sri Lanka and Borneo. Despite having been exploited by mankind since pretty much forever,as well as being considered sacred by some countries, we are still apparently doing our best to cause its extinction, mainly through destruction of its habitat.

Top Five Streets of Rage Characters

For many, the Streets of Rage name is synonymous with the very finest of scrolling fighting games, even eclipsing Final Fight, the game it was originally created to rival. One of the many great things about the series is its playable characters of whom there are six across the three official games in the series. That admittedly makes this Top Five somewhat pointless as only one of the characters will miss out, but as always it's just a bit of fun. The big question is, who's the loser?

5. Skate - Appeared in SOR2 & SOR3

This little pipsqueak debuted in the second game and is apparently kid brother to Adam from the original. Given his size and age, he would've been fast anyway, but he also has a pair of roller-blades so he is, by some margin, the fastest character in the game. The trade-off is power of course, but despite his speed making him effective nonetheless, he is still slightly unsatisfying to use. He has a nice breakdance-inspired special move though.

Top Five Red Birds

Birds are pretty awesome, even someone as unenvironmentally friendly as Jeremy Clarkson knows that, but here in Europe most of them are a bit dull in terms of colour. Plenty of blacks, whites, browns, etc, but not many bright colours. They appear to be nearly exclusive to the tropics. There it's rare to see a bird that isn't brightly coloured. Here is a look at five of the finest bright red examples :)

5... Red Munia

Also known as the red avadavat, this little finch is found in tropical Asian regions where it lives in fields and grasslands. Only the male is red like this, and even then only during breeding season, but that doesn't make it any less eye-catching.

Top Five Princess Leias

Those of you around my age will very likely have had at least some Star Wars figures lying around your bedrooms when you were growing up, specifically those from the range of 90-ish figures released by Kenner. I certainly have fond memories of them, even if I never quite managed to collect them all, and one character whose figures I seem to remember better than most is the lovely Princess Leia Organa.

This could be because she was one of my first crushes (especially after seeing Return of the Jedi - snigger!), even if none of her numerous figures really looked like her. Not that any plastic figure would be capable of capturing her beauty anyway (simper)! So here's a largely-pointless look at my five favourite Leia-guises and comparisons with the equivalent Kenner figures. Long may her illustrious hotness live on :)

5. Bespin Leia

The first chance Leia had to get out of her skanky Hoth outfit, have a shower, and enjoy a change of clothes, resulted in this arrangement, possibly chosen by the charming/slimy (delete as appropriate) Lando. I was never the biggest fan of this look, worn during her stay in Cloud City, but hey - it's still Leia!

Top Five Heather Graham Outfits

As the few regular visitors here may well know, I've long had a bit of a thing for the lovely Heather Graham. She's unlikely to win an Oscar for her acting, I guess I can concede that, but she's a decent enough actress and has a natural charm that I find very appealing. Then there's her aesthetic qualities which are, frankly, remarkable. Not only that but she looks pretty much the same today as she did 25 years ago! Not sure what sort of witchcraft she practises to maintain those pleasing attributes but, luckily for us, she seems happy to let us continue appreciating them from afar. Here are some of my favourite outfits of hers from various events:

          5... Just Cavalli Soho Store Opening, 2013

Top Five Jennifers

Being something of a film fan (as well as certain types of TV shows) I noticed some time ago the surprising proliferation of actresses named Jennifer, going as far back as the 80's and perhaps beyond. I don't know too many Jennifers in real life - none, actually - so this struck me as a strange coincidence. Nonetheless, such is their prevalence I have occasionally given some thought to which of the many examples were my favourite. Behold, therefore, the fruits of my pointless musings:

5. Jennifer Carpenter

This is a Jennifer I have only recently discovered after watching Dexter all the way through, and her character of 'Deb' is easily one of the best in the show, even outshining Michael C. Hall's titular serial killer himself on numerous occasions. The talented actress brings many qualities to the character but, as fans of the show will already know very well, her most memorable moments are unquestionably thanks to her outrageous potty mouth! It's entirely possible that she's the sweariest character I've even witnessed in any TV show or film, which is quite an achievement when you think about it. Since then she has popped up here and there, mainly on the small screen and notably in the lead female role on the short-lived TV version of Limitless. Here's hoping we see more of her soon though.

Top Five Cars I Remember From My Top Trumps

They might not be videogames but I bet I'm far from the only one who spent a lot of time playing Top Trumps during my formative years. Perhaps their appeal came from their simplicity, with players simply comparing stats on cards featuring all manner of different themes. I had a good few packs, most of which featured motor vehicles of some sort - I had a Formula 1 pack, a rally pack; even trucks and superbikes. One pack was my definite favourite though, although I can't actually remember the name of it now. Sports cars, maybe?

Hmm, anyway, whatever it was called it featured some cracking cars through the deck - mostly sports and supercars from the late 70's up to about the mid 80's, and there were also some crazy customised 'normal' cars included - I particularly recall some insane VW Golfs - but there were a certain few cars that have become iconic for me, simply because of the game and how often I used to play it, usually with my good friend Luke who I suspect will also remember it well. Out of all the wonders included, these are the five that have stuck in my mind most firmly:

5 - Lamborghini Countach

This sleek black speedster looked more like a spaceship from some far-fetched sci-fi film back in the 80's and it moved about as quickly as one too! It was just as notable for us Top Trump players - whomever had this card held a big advantage for the rest of the game thanks to its amazing stats. As I recall, it was the fastest car in the whole deck at a mind-blowing 188mph. I don't think it was quite that fast in reality but it's still a highly memorable car for all kinds of reasons...

Top Five Bob Wakelin Arts

If you grew up in the 80's here in the UK and were the proud owner of an 8 or 16-bit home computer, there's an excellent chance your eyes regularly glanced upon the splendid artwork of Bob Wakelin, even if you didn't know it at the time. His work was most often found in the form of adverts and cover-art for many of Ocean Software's releases and was among the most iconic and recognisable around.

As many of you may well have heard by now, Bob sadly passed away recently after a long illness. I didn't know him personally but many did as he was active in and very popular with the retro gaming community, and was regularly seen at various retro events. He leaves behind many happy memories for some of us but even those who didn't know him can still appreciate his wonderful artwork which must've surely helped shift a fair few copies of the games it adorned all by itself.

His style was varied and could be found in most games magazines from the mid-to-late 80's as well as on store shelves all over the country and beyond. I love most of his work but, while everyone will have their own favorites, these are in my view his finest efforts which lit up my early gaming years. Rest in peace, Bob...

5. Where Time Stood Still (1988)

This game was notable for being one of the very few 128K-only games for the Speccy which was, to my great pleasure at the time, deemed to be the only 8-bit system that could even manage a version of the game at all. Something else the game was famous for, though, and not just the Speccy version this time, was the splendid artwork that adorned its various covers and magazine adverts. The cynical among you might highlight the flimsily-clothed hottie who stands (almost) centre stage as being the reason for that but the rest of it was fantastic too - the heroic pilot stood next to the blonde stunner, his crashed plane, the scary dinosaurs and angry natives, and that large bold title seemingly carved from ancient rock collectively did an amazing job setting the stage for this epic and memorable adventure.

Top Five Mode 7 Games

I think we can safely assume the Super Famicom/SNES would've been a big success no matter what it was like - the overwhelming dominance of its predecessor in most territories guaranteed that - but that didn't stop Nintendo from kitting it out with a few bits of special new tech that might end up converting a good few non-believers as well. Undoubtedly the most impressive of these was its 'Mode 7' graphics which even managed to tempt me into a brief foray into Nintendoville from the long-held safety and comfort of my firmly established home in Sega Land.

Many games featured the odd use of Mode 7 here and there, from the new system's launch right up until its demise. Often it was just used for scaley special effects as with Contra 3, Super Aleste, and Super Mario World, while a certain few other games had Mode 7 sections like the vertical stages in Axelay, several stages in the splendid Super Star Wars series, the mine-cart stage of Super Mario RPG, or the overworld areas of various RPG's, and it worked very well, but where I've focused my attention for the purposes of this post is on games that were based around Mode 7 as a whole. There were a few of these and most were racing games. This makes perfect sense of course, as the scaling abilities of Mode 7 were ideally suited to such a genre - simply draw a road in 2D, flip it over, and scroll it really fast! It seemed like a revolutionary step in home racing games but, surprisingly, it wasn't used as much as you might expect. Nonetheless, I've still enjoyed several such games, and have discovered a few previously unknown ones since starting this post as well! Here's a look at the best ones in my view, but which was your fave?

Top Five Movie Moments #8

#8 - Independence Day (1996)

You know, if you stop to think about it, there really aren't as many alien invasion films around as you might think. There are probably many reasons for this - the need for a sizeable budget, for example, but just as important for me are the need for a tense build-up before the inevitable invasion, and human characters that you actually like and can engage with. I imagine it's difficult to strike the right balance but one film that seemed to do just that was Independence Day.

Sure, it wasn't terribly realistic and many outside its home country disliked all its jingoistic flag-waving 'America saves the day' cheesiness, but what's wrong with that? It's an American film for goodness sake! Its teaser trailers did their job superbly leading up to its release and when the time came to actually watch it, we found likeable stars, some appealing support characters, and of course those ground-breaking special effects, and the result was... aweeesoommmeee!

Well, not everyone thought so I guess - there are always a few spoilsport buffoons who moaned about the story and the plot-holes and the blah blah blah, but for most of us it was a dazzling visual spectacle and enormous fun with plenty of memorable scenes and set-pieces. Here are the five that stand out the most to me:

Spoiler Alert: the Top Five Movie Moments featured here obviously assume that you've seen the film in question or don't mind knowing about its most prominent moments so don't come whining to me if they ruin a film that you haven't seen yet!

5... "They're using our own satellites against us."

Obviously we are expecting the aliens to be evil malevolent exterminators, you know they're going to attack and bring mankind to its knees - the producers of the film did absolutely nothing to hide this, but this scene was the moment in the film when most of the characters found out too! David (Goldblum) had already worked this out but he had to use his ex-wife's influence to interrupt a presidential conference before he could make the leader of the free world aware, and the rest of the US by extension.

Following an amusing conversation between David, his ex-wife, and his father about how the former once punched the President (but he wasn't the President then so it was okay) while they're waiting for him:

President (entering the room, seeing David): "I don't have time for this."
Constance: "Two minutes, Tom."
David: "I told you he wouldn't listen."
Constance: "David, you have to tell him... DAVID, TELL HIM!"
David: "Uh, I know why we're having satellite disruption."
President: "Alright, go ahead."
David (drawing a crude diagram to illustrate his point): "Let's say that you want to coordinate with spaceships on different sides of the Earth. You couldn't send a direct signal, right?"
President: "You're talking about line of sight."
David: "Yeah, that's right. Exactly. The curve of the Earth prevents it. You'd need satellites to relay that signal in order to reach each ship. Well, I found a signal hidden inside our own satellite system. They're using our own satellites against us, and the clock is ticking..."

(David turns his laptop around to show a clock counting down ominously...)

Top Five Amy Adams Outfits

I seem to have found myself on a bit of an Amy Adams kick lately. Not due to her aesthetic qualities you understand - she's a very talented and engaging actress and most of her films are pretty superb too, generally - but it's impossible to avoid acknowledging that she's also a very beautiful woman. I also, coincidentally, found myself accidentally perusing pics of her online (chortle!) and noticed that she often has a tendency to wear somewhat eye-catching attire to her various premieres and award ceremonies and the like as well. Here are (possibly) the five best:

          5... Vanity Fair Oscar Party, 2015

Top Five Films For 2017

Deary me, I'm a bit late this year with my now-tradition look at the five films I'm most looking forward to over the coming year. So late, in fact, that one of them is already out (only just though, and I still haven't seen it) - oops! Well anyway, it's looking like a pretty good year, especially for comic/superhero fans with two DC efforts and three from Marvel. Will the DCEU finally be able to make up some ground on the relentless Marvel leviathan? There are also a few good (looking) sequels, remakes, and even some all-original films on the way. It should be an entertaining year for film fans anyway, with a lot to choose from. These are probably the five I'm most looking forward to seeing. What are your choices?

5. Alien Covenant (May)

The franchise remains a treasured one for many but the Alien series been through the wringer a bit over the years. It's still only the first two films that are really good isn't it? I rather liked Prometheus too, personally, but many didn't so I imagine this sequel may well be approached with caution by them. I'm looking forward to it though, especially as it sees Ridley Scott's return to the series for the first time since the original, waaay back in 1979. It looks quite similar to that classic too, except it mostly takes place on terra firma: brave explorer finds room full of eggs, face-hugger says good morning, alien bursts out of chest, many others get picked off one-by-one, etc. I can't imagine too many were expecting much else though, and as long as it's done well I'm confident it will be spiffing. (see official trailer here)