Oh yes, because every bad hand of Scrabble has the chance of becoming a SyFy Original, but only few chosen puns can become a Sharknado spin-off, featuring even Ian Ziering as as a “seal of approval” of sorts. And Phantom from Devil May Cry (along with its many sons) needed a new gig anyway. Continua a leggere “Lavalantula (2015) [REVIEW] | Can’t Stop The Dante”
Cards on the table: it’s an Asylum production, and is both directed and written by Mark Atkins, who brought us Sand Sharks, Planet Of The Sharks, 6 Headed Shark Attack, and Knight Of The Dead, just to lay off the sharks (poor things).
The UK DVD cover art is actually decent, and promises a mindless monster melee between giant squid, werewolf thingies, reptilian monstrousities and one that seems like an Orga rip-off… I love these covers, i do, but often than not they end up being better than the movies themselves, when we talk mockbuster and D-movies powerhouses as Asylum, and like the bottom feeders they are, this time they released Monster Island to steal the breadcrumbs of Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters, which came out on the 30th of May 2019 in US theathers, and this one on the 1st of June, 2 days later. Continua a leggere “Monster Island (2019) [REVIEW] | Some Monsters Mild Aggression Tantrum”
More Neo Geo titles on Switch? YES.
Like most offering in the Arcade Archives-ACA series by Hamster, the game has both the american/international release and the original japanese one, named Operation Ragnarok. Not that it matters, they took names from norse mythology, but you are still in the usual spaceships flying around, shooting mechs, insectoid robots n stuff, as one of three anime styled characters you can choose.
As for why, you’re up against the supercomputer-turned-rebellious spaceship Yggdrasil, not that you’re ever gonna find out if you don’t read the description in the store page or search wikia, because the game itself doesn’t tell you.
MHK’s game delivers a typical but satisfying 2D spaceship shooter, with an interesting feature, as you can (and must) customize the type of main shot, rear shot and missiles (all shot at the same time) at the start of the game, alongside one of the three characters, who determines the ship’s speed. There are power ups that improve each type of shot, alongisde the classic smart bombs, but you mostly gotta work with the loadout chosen at the beginning.
Graphics are nice, nothing impressive for the time, the music on the other hand definitely stands out, with EDM style tracks that i personally dig. Sadly, i don’t think it’s enough to overlook the generic nature and some balance issues, since your ship has a bigger sprite than it should, making it for some cheap deaths, but then again the smart bomb is a bit too powerful, and even without those, it’s an easier (and shoter) affair than usual for the genre.
Good game, still, definitely worth playing for fans of genre hungry for lesser known Neo Geo games, even if flawed and lacking distinguishing features in a sea of more popular (and often better) shmups.
Last year we got two anthological multi-authorial Ghost In The Shell volumes (Ghost In The Shell Comic Tribute and Ghost In The Shell: Global Neural Network, each with many artists and writer tributing the Masamune Shirow’s manga in their own way.
Now we finally got a new anime series, Stand Alone Complex 2045, streaming exclusively on Netflix, with the first season being available from the 23th of April, and the second one planned but with no certain release window, though it will arrive for sure, not just because it’s confirmed, but because the original Stand Alone Complex series had 2 seasons as well, and this is set-up as a continuation of sorts.
In the meantime, let’s look at the first season, directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Shinji Aramaki is set to direct the second season). Continua a leggere “Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2045 – Season 1 (2020) [REVIEW] | Neural Netflix Interface (UPDATED)”
Yeah, why, not, with sales on Neo Geo and arcade titles on the Switch eShop, let’s talk about arcade platformer Ninja-Kid, developed by UPL and now emulated by Hamster, who also brought to Switch and PS4 many arcade classics, including In The Hunt.
And no, this isn’t the american version of that NES GeGeGe No Kitaro game, also called Ninja Kid (without hyphen) for the NA release.
This one isn’t exactly what i would call a “classic”, and i’m honestly glad i bought it on sale. Not because the game itself it’s bad, it’s just that the old god Chronos hasn’t been too kind on this action platformer from 1984, that feels a bit like Ice Climbers (while pre-dating the Nintendo game by 1 year), due to how you have to move to jump or double jump, otherwise you’ll drop to the platform below.
It’s a simple game where you can jump to stun enemies, throw shurikens to defeat them, move upwards the mountain/castle/stage and once you get rid of all the foes, you can proceed to the next level.
There are three backgrounds/stages (and a bonus stage if you collect “three strange balls” without dying), but while enemies become more varied and more dangerous each level, there isn’t any end, it just loops the levels/background and keeps going, but that’s basically it. There is some strategy with approaching the enemies, but still, there’s not much to it, nor there was supposed to be more to it, as this was meant to be played in an arcade in 10 minutes burst at max.
That said, it’s a fun arcade oldie, once you get around the responsive but odd jump controls, and there’s satisfaction if you wanna go for the high scores, with the usual extra modes found in Hamster arcade re-releases.
Decent!
Once in a blue moon, D3 Publisher decides to entrust a niche series like Earth Defense Force to a different developer, instead of Sandlot, who curates the main numbered series (which itself tells you that it’s niche, but not THAT niche) since the very beginning and still do nowadays.
Last time Vicious Cycle Software developed EDF Insect Armageddon (which isn’t as bad as most EDF fans make it to be), a spin-off made with the intent to try and appeal to a broader audience, by basically posing the question “what if Americans made EDF?”. The answer being a decent game that didn’t convince many estabilished fans, but did help on making the series more known. An actual ending (the plot just stops at the end) would have been welcomed, though. Continua a leggere “Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain PS4 [REVIEW] | Mechas and Motherships”
I’m doing an Expresso review of this one because it doesn’t deserve a full review.
Coffee Crisis is retro brawler/beat em up inspired by 16-bit classics, as so proudly says in the marketing and description, and sports all the mandatory “indie quirks”, from mediodre-decent pixel graphics, a throwaway story so we can weaponize it as “joke” despite being a lazy and unfunny mish mash of overdone references and cringey exchanges regardless, so bad the writers should tar themselves, but clearly no one is vaguely ashamed.
I mean, we have to shoehorne appearences from Youtubers AlphaOmegaSin and MetalJesusRock (and somehow the legendary band Nile), need something to bait Twitch viewers in, clearly the plot about baristas fighting aliens that want to steal our heavy metal isn’t enough random “for the lulz” by itself.
Thankfully you can skip dialogues by pressing B.
Gameplay wise, it’s so faithful to its ispirations it’s downright obtuse, a prime example of not understanding the very genre you’re trying to serenade, not evolving or improving the combat system, and even badly aping them, with finnicky hit detection making most of the extra weapon useless, blows that don’t stop enemies so they power through your attacks, when they don’t snipe you with projectiles from outside the screen. Most of the difficulty is obtained via cheap bullshit, and it’s unbalanced as well, with boss fights that are usually piss easy and just annoying.
Its main selling point, the random modifiers, are such a liability the game improves when you deactivate them. Sadly you can’t turn off or ignore the password system as the sole mean to continue, and the game also quickly outstay its welcome, continuing on and on instead of ending.
At least the music is decent-good… but 30 years later, Bad Dudes it’s a way better game.
Still.
Disclaimer: i pre-ordered the Kaido Edition, which means i got the big ass statuines (and i mean big ass), and the pre-order bonuses, which consisted of Dynasty Warriors costumes for Trafalgar Law and Boa Hancock, as well as early unlocks of the Vinsmoke brothers, but for the sake of review i didn’t download their “early unlock DLC” (and played on Normal difficulty), so we’re just gonna talk about the base game, maybe i will do a review of the Kaido VS Luffy diorama, but later.
Strap in and get some rum, we’re gonna be at sea for a while! Continua a leggere “One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 PS4 [REVIEW]”
Moments of crisis are what unites us, especially in exterminating space bees and shouting “ EDF ! EDF! EDF! EDF! EDF!” from the safety of our own homes and away from something worse than bouncing giant spiders and ETs with laser guns!
Time to review Earth Defence Force 5, the latest in the main EDF series! Continua a leggere “Earth Defense Force 5 [PS4] REVIEW | Frogs From Planet Space”
Ah yes, one more for the evergrowing subgenre of “shipgirls military slice of life”, less Arpeggio of Blue Steel, and more Kancolle/Kantai Collection, which is obvious as hell as Azur Lane (by chinese companies Manju and Yongshi) came out to fight Kadokawa’s browser game, but actually bothered to give it more actual gameplay, implement less taxing gacha elements (which is akin to say “less rusty gambling hooks piercing my flesh”), and actually made it easier to access worlwide without any need to know japanese, use google translate constantly or set a VPN, just released an app for smarthphones.
And given it performed quite well (even in Japan), it was just a matter of time to see an anime adaptation of sorts, which came out in late 2019…not fully, as two last episodes were postponed to march 2020 after concerns on animation quality. I thought it was due to fans expressing criticisms on social media, but it seems it was mostly the staff itself’s decision in order to deliver a better and satisfying ending to the series instead of rushing it, which is commendable, and gave me time to catch up. Continua a leggere “Azur Lane The Animation 2019-20 [REVIEW] | The Bone Of My Boat”
Wise Cafe (International) 