Shockwave A.K.A. I.A. Assault (2006) [REVIEW] | Wynorski’s War Of The Worlds

I didn’t plan to do a Jim Wynorski-A-Thon when i accidentally started watching movies in my saved list that would soon abandon Amazon Prime Video (or gate themselves beyond another paywall), and i’m tired having to preface this already, but i can’t say i really wanted to see this movie that much.

Then again, i did put in the “watch for later” list because the robots in the thumbnail looked like the martian war machines in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds.

Plot is sadly not as interesting, with a couple of experimental robots sporting advanced IA being carried on a plane over a desert Pacific island, plane crashes, and Navy Seals (because the OSI is busy learning not to plug the entire mainframe into a single wall socket) are sent in to recapture the robots, as they turned against the humans, and they’re getting smarter and smarter….

Script convenient criminals also happen to be arrive on the island, as they manage to get the helicopter stuck there after robbing 2 milions from a passenger cruise, but then again, the Navy (Such As) Seals might as well bring nerf guns, despite knowing the “supah” robots can be harmed only by a specific weapon. And they know because the scientist’s daughter, also a scientist and carrying on her father’s work, told me it is so.

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Dino December #4: Jurassic Galaxy (2018)

So, either someone really liked Dino Crisis 3, or more likely was “inspired” by the Godzilla animated trilogy, which i feel it’s really underrated and often quite maligned just because the 3D CG looks kinda ass…which it does, but the script by Gen Urobuchi is quite good, so much it makes the trilogy worthy of being seen, i’d say.

While it isn’t the case, i find it hard to not think of it, since the premise still see the main crew of interstellar explorers landing on a planet full of dinosaurs, but it lacks the whole patriotic drive of “conquering back the motherplanet Earth” (this isn’t Earth), or the social tensions forming between the different groups and races on board of the ship. Still, space dinosaurs is still quite the proposition that could do for some good b-movie entertaiment, and isn’t exactly a sub-genre….yet, this isn’t even the only “dinosaur sci-fi in space” flick released in 2018.

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Dino December #3: 100 Million B.C. (2008)

While this isn’t the only “dinosaurs and time travels” exploitative mash up, the premise of Navy SEALs travelling back to the prehistoric times in order to undo another time travel accident (basically implying this what happened as a result of the “Philadelphia Incident”), accidentally unleashing an abnormally large T-rex in modern Los Angeles, it’s at least more interesting and shows a modicum of effort, needed to stand out in the overpopulated dinosaur-xploitation market of cheap raptors and TV movie budgets.

Then again, since is from the director of Swamp Shark, Arachnoquake and Ghost Shark, Griff Furst, credited here as Louis Myman, i guess his favorite pseudonym, since he used a nearly identical one later for Ragin Cajun Gators. Not encouraging that a director “Alan Smithee-s” himself, even more because he’s – more or less – properly credited in his other directing and acting roles.

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[EXPRESSO] Zed Blade/Operation Ragnarok NSWDDL | Norsemech

Zed Blade NSWDDL.jpg

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.

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