Oh, Turok.  You were so good to me back in the 90’s.  Well, a little bit good.  You were an indian, and you fought dinosaurs. Not only that, but you did it with weapons which I had never seen before.  In my youth we spent countless afternoons together shooting exploding arrows into the heads of soldiers and dinosaurs, and we enjoyed it.

Now times have changed. You’ve had some terrible games in the last 7 or 8 years, and by this time I had pretty much forgotten about you, and not really minded.  Fast forward to 2008, and you have a new game coming out.  I guess I was excited, but more so in the way you get excited before someone punches you in the balls. What, only me? 

So after spending some time with the demo today, I compiled a list. I like to call it: 

10 Things I Hate About You, Turok Demo!

Number 10: Shut the fuck up, teammate guy.

Number 9:  While I’m not one to scoff at spelunking; these dark, windy, cave levels in all games have to go.  Demos are supposed to be fun, this is not. 

Number 8: Turok, you’re a super space solider guy.  I’d love it if you could just try running instead of that light jog.

Number 7:  This whole dodge mechanic is retarded. Sure I can avoid that first strike, but I can’t freely look or fire when I do, and by the time Turok is getting back to his feet, a Raptor is already biting his face.

Number 6: Shut the FUCK up, teammate guy.

Number 5: Why is my knife the most powerful weapon in the game? I mean, I know it has Indian magic, but come on.

Number 4:  These Dinosaurs seem to not really notice they’re being shot until they die. It’s 2008, where’s the realistic dino-damage system?!

Number 3: Back on the knife subject, when I come to a section of the demo where I am told to take out as many enemies as silently as I can, why are there literally no stealth elements to be found? I appreciate you including lush, thick grass, but if I can’t crouch and hide from enemy view in it, I really have no use for it. 

Number 2: The Dinosaurs in this game are pointless. They act and feel no different from any other monster enemy in any other First Person Shooter. You get to make a game about fighting Dinosaurs in the future, guys! That’s why people want to play this game. I really feel like they blew it, especially with the technology we have for AI in 2008.

 Number 1: Why does everyone have to look like they were in a deleted scene from Gears of War now? Give Turok his bone shield and blue sweatpants back.

Game: Musashi No Ken
System: NES
Genre: Action/Platformer
Developer: Taito
Year: 1986
Country: Japan

Anytime the luck of the draw bestows upon me an older game that was never released in America, I begin to get that glimmer of hope that I may be playing an unknown gem; a classic that was kept from American audiences for reasons unknown to us jaded gamers. Then I realize that, although some games were unfairly kept from our golden shores, others were kept away because, well, they sucked floppy. 80% of the time it is just fucking mahjong anyway, or some indecipherable “Guess Your Fortune” nonsense. Other times it is a game like Musashi No Ken, a game so bland and lifeless that you can’t help but hope it wasn’t very popular, for the sake of the children.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been known from time to time to digress away from the review of a movie in order to rant about what I perceive as absolute unforgivable idiocy within the current crop of movie “journalists” and “experts”. This is certainly going to be one of those times.

After months upon months of brilliant marketing and less brilliant speculation, I give you Cloverfield.

It is alive, and it is huge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello dear readers. This was the name that was e-mailed to me that I liked the best for this column. I felt that “Retrograding” was probably taken somewhere else at this point, and calling it the “Rom-A-Day” was pretty much a blatant lie, so here we are. MalestROM. It is just dumb enough to work.

Anyway, todays game? Dark Lord.

Dark Lord
NES, JPN
Data East
1991

Read the rest of this entry »

Surprise, surprise. Four months after the last update, I return for no apparent reason whatsoever. I won’t speak much, but IAC will be seeing a format change in order to make for more content and more variation. Although we will still be keeping our ‘for geeks by geeks’ style, a broadening of subjects and content is on the horizon. Maybe. I might get bored and never do it. I apologize for my flighty genius.

Anyway, on to the show;

Read the rest of this entry »