Trying out the Godzilla Destroy All Monster Melee Remastered Demo

So as announced earlier on, a demo for the upcoming remaster of Godzilla Destroy All Monsters released yesterday on Steam, i played 1 hour of it (roughly), and since i did boot up and played a bit of the old version on Gamecube couple weeks ago… let’s talk about it.

Also because it will either be delisted or deactivated entirely October 28th, it’s also not clear if the save will carry over from the demo to the full game on Steam.

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[EXPRESSO] Street Fighter (2026) | Human Killing Machine

FIY, i never saw the old 1994 live action adaptation (or the 2006 one).

Still, there is something to be said about modern videogame films somehow failing to adapt the source material, getting lost in bullshit of their own making.

It’s just tiresome to see the new Street Fighter live action reboot catch every rake in the face like Sideshow Bob.

Despite on paper adapting the plot of Street Fighter II, this story focuses on Ryu and Ken being trained together as martial artist, like brothers, until a tragic event sets them apart, but now, with Lord Bison helming the second World Warrior Tournament, they are now bound to meet again….

it’s not bad per sé, but the narrative doesn’t move, as it stumbles drunkenly to setpieces from setpieces for 2 hours, with no focus to anything (we just outright skip big chunks of the tournament), hyperactive editing and weird choices that let you see very little of the otherwise entertaining fight scenes, all leading up to a “stop”, overconfidently setting up the sequel instead of writing a third act.

it has the same kinda of nostalgia (just swapping the ’80s for the ’90s) of the recent Masters Of The Universe film, and the same tone issues, flipping constantly from a quippy comedy where they forgot to put actual jokes in, or being sincere, in a way that neither works, with the actors either sleepwalking their parts or going full ham.

the best thing this movie has, the anime styled flashbacks are cool… just makes you wish the entire movie was made that way.

This isn’t awful, i did enjoy it at times, but it’s on the lower side of mediocre, and i docked the vote down a notch, for similar reasons i already did on the MKII film review.

Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie [MANGA REVIEW] | Warring States Undead (Undead)

Zombies. The horror comfort food, that if an apocalypse actually happened without them, people would somehow make them happen just to not have that Y2K style survival book and mental training for a Walking Dead roleplay go to waste.

After all, we stuck them even in Pride And Prejudice, we had them destroyed by Abraham Lincon, and Sankarea exists to ask questions we shouldn’t really ask.

So of course we were gonna have them mixed with historical fantasy, going basically the Onimusha route but during the Warring States era of Japan (as depicted in popular media like Samurai Warriors more than actual historical drama), specifically reenacting the legendary rivalry between Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda… in modern day.

Mugen Tenshou: Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie is indeed the manga that dares asks: what if Sengoku era zombie samurais happened today, with a darkness castle emerging out ot nowhere, undead warriors of old, and of course Oda Nobunaga emerges as the Demon King that had been planning this while lying in Hell for centhuries?

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The Spooktacular Eight #36: Snoop Dogg House Of Horrors (2006)

I gotta admit, despite everything (and he sure has bought into some questionable shit) i love me seeing some Snoop Dogg bullshitting around, so yes, have him do a ghetto Cryptkeeper presenting and commenting an anthology of short horror stories themed around an American inner-city ‘hood.

So yes, this is basically a Snoop Dogg licensed “Tales From The Hood”, which i discovered only after locking this into the schedule (and i’ve heard it’s pretty dang good), sorry but we’ll make do.

Yeah, there’s not much to say about the presentation, but i was curious when this showed up on Amazon Prime Video and for some reason has an anime-esque style animated prologue… and yes, it’s because it customary for horror anthologies (as this way they also tribute the old horror comics these films often base their material on), but i was also right, because the animated intro and outro are animated by renowned anime studio MADHOUSE.

Kinda funny because this also predates their work on The Boondocks, though these sequences are stylish but they’re not well animated, let’s be honest, most likely as they were done on the extra cheap, which wouldn’t surprise me, since it’s indicative of the production as a whole.

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The Spooktacular Eight #35: The Monster Of Piedras Blancas (1959)

The 50s were the new golden age of classic monsters… and a lot of stinkers, cheesy drive-in stuffers, often made to profit off each other.

This is case for the when Universal created a new monster icon, the aquatic Gill Man, in 1954’s Creature From The Black Lagoon, and while it’s not the more revisited of the classic “50 monster pantheon”, it created an enduring depiction of the “fish man” monster.

Riding the success of the 1954 debut film for the Gill Man, Universal pumped out two sequels the following years, to mixed reception, but when you have a successful trilogy, you attract imitators.

This is the tale of its most infamous drive-in knock off, The Monster Of Piedras Blancas.

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The Spooktacular Eight #34: Violent Shit (1989)

Ah yes, the other German horror director from the age of video nasties, of when video recording technology becoming affordable alongside a cheap and affordable format for home usage led to some people just shooting the shit on the digital camcorder in their hometown on very low budgets.

I will come forward and admit i haven’t seen any of Andrea Schnass films, i’m quite familiar with Jorg Buttgeireit works on the flipside, but i felt it made sense to start tackling his fellow German DIY horror director, starting from his most well known film, the original Violent Shit, which spawned few sequels, and make clear once more than censorship of this kind will be at best circumnvented, at worst will just force fans of the genre to do what many German horror fans did back in the “video nasty” age, just straight started making these themselves in their backyards.

Figures we eventually feature Schnaas, and i don’t think i did fill the “80s German ultra splatter low budget slasher” slot in my bingo card before on this rubric.

So what is the plot of Violent Shit?

A boy, Karl, comes home a bit late, he gets beat up by his mother, then in revenge murders her with a cleaver.

20 years later, Karl is being moved from his prison to somewhere else by the police, but kills the officers, manages to escape, and with a cleaver (which i guess is a thing growing wild in the Gothic II forests) he goes on a killing spree on the West German countryside, indulging himself in some cannibalism while he’s at it.

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The Spooktacular Eight #33: Spawn (1997)

2004’s live action Devilman, consider yourself spared, as this year (due to recent events contributing to schedule changes) we’re doing instead 1997’s Spawn.

I did got the Blu Ray release by Arrow Video, and it was still in its factory wrap, so time to…. actually visit for the first time, i never saw this in theathers or TV, i was too young back then, my first time seeing Spawn at all was when Soul Calibur II console ports released and the X-Box version got him as the console exclusive guest character.

But it was hard not to hear about in the 2000s as one of the worst comic book films ever, an infamous reputation so widespread and radicated, a stink to it that even The Venture Bros couldn’t resist throwing a jab at it in late 2009-2010, a foul reputation that never really went away.

And just putting this out, i wasn’t aware until i decided to swap this into the 2004 Devilman‘s slot that they’ve been trying to reboot the brand with a new film for decades, and apparently this time around it most likely will happen, we got recent news of the reboot coming along… or maybe it won’t, as the superhero genre is well past his peak in terms of popularity.

I will not claim any responsability over that either way.

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PO’ED: Definitive Edition PS4 [REVIEW] | Mein Soufflè!

I have played a few FPS in my days, not too many, but sure as hell i never played PO’ED, never even heard of the frigging thing until the AVGN episode about the 3DO, to be honest, as i never knew anyone growing up that had that thing (which i assume is the case for almost everyone else), and i never even stumbled upon the PS1 port.

So i was curious, realized that Nightdive did actually do a remaster in their KEX engine for this oscure mid 90s FPS, and i got during a PSN sale.

It just called to me, as the forgotten weird ass FPS where you play as a chef and use frying pan to kill alien ass monsters, i knew i had to play it.

The story is all explained in a letter text dump where the protagonist, a chef named Ox, writes to his mum how that sweet paying gig on a spaceship …didn’t go as planned, as aliens infiltrated the ship, killed all the mercs, so he’ll have to take on some fresh meat.

And he’s indeed – title drop – Pissed Off, as he writes in the few text scrolls/letters.

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Platformation Time Again update plans

I have more updates about the blog to share in the future, but let’s start with something i can confirm right now.

Platformation Time Again not only will keep going as usual (if I could i would make it even more recurring of a rubric), but alongside the EXTEND addendums, a will be dedicating a sub-rubric to collections, compilations, and so on, especially due these are becoming more and more widespread as the industry is really scraping about everything in their back catalogue, and platformers (alongside beat em ups) are a big part of this surge of “new money for old rope”.

Specific rules are being written as of now, but it’s 100 % a thing that will happen regardless.

A couple new EXPRESSO reviews will arrive very soon, in the meantime, and you can read my review of the recently released Heart Of The Beast of you so desire.

See ya.

Platformation Time Again #10: Donkey Kong 64 N64 | NSWITCH/NSWITCH2

HISTORY

I don’t think i need to explain who Donkey Kong is, heck, you wouldn’t need to do so even back in 1999, as the reboot of the series by british developer Rareware proved to be incredibly successful, reinvigorating DK for a new generation by updating it, and other phrases i’m probably gonna repeat when i eventually tackle the Country games, so i’m just stopping myself here.

Plus its not like DK became this niche Nintendo franchise fans spend years begging for a sequel that they most likely ain’t gonna get.

But for today, let’s pretend we don’t know what Bananza is, or even what Conker’s N64 game would turn out to be, for that matter.

After wrapping up the SNES trilogy of DK games with Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie’s Double Trouble in late 1996, a team of Rare employees were put to work on a Donkey Kong game for the N64….allegedly it was intended to launch for the then new N64DD add-on but most likely it was an idea by producers that quickly died when the add-on sales were shown to be exactly as low as they were expecting, after years of delays to debut into a market where the Compact Disc was indeed becoming the new norm and making cartridges obsolete.

Curiously it wasn’t even intended as a full 3D platformer, but instead as 2.5D platformer more in line with the Country series , though this version spend 18 months in developments, was ultimately scrapped (if anything of that version survives to this day, it’s being held secret by either old Rare and-or Nintendo staff, there’s no images of it circulating at the time of posting,), a lot of people that worked on Banjo Kazooie were brought in, and the game was reworked into being a typical 3D collectathon platformer in the vein of BK and it’s sequel, Banjo Tooie.

There’s a bit more to the production history of Donkey Kong 64, but it was mostly Rare doing their thing as usual by then, there’s no major scandal, but i would be a fool not talk about about how Nintendo staff checked-in to see the game early on, leading to a terrified Shigeru Miyamoto seeing DK given a realistic double barreled shotgun (producing realistic gun sounds) as a weapon to shoot cartoon beavers with, only for him to quickly sketch up a less alarming, more child friendly and less problematic weaponry, adding leaf branches, a more wooden design, the now iconic “coconut gun”, which was immediatly implemented in the game.

All of this just because the realistic gun was a placeholder Rare absent mindedly left in.

For reference, this review is based on both my old playthrough of DK 64 on original N64 hardware and a fresh run of the version released via the N64 Classics app/service on Switch 2 (as all N64 games, it can run on the old Switch 1 consoles as well).

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