Man on tram

This guy was on the tram, he likes the Dreamcast more than you do, in fact he likes it so much he's wearing he Dreamcast suit out. He should get together with the guy who looks like a hard Twikki for maximum awesomeness.

Double Dragon 3 - Random Arcade Review

Remember when Double Dragon was released? No? Well bugger off and steal a Delorean and find out then. It was something of a revelation. Okay so Renegade came first but you never saw the arcade game (apart from the arcade in Canterbury which became the Penny Theatre). DD was two player as well and featured the now legendary "Billy Elbow", which you could finish the whole game with. Final Fight came along later and Double Dragon was forgotten. This game is probably the reason why.

So Billy and Jimmy are tasked with finding the Shankra stones by a little yoda-like Chinese guy. Unfortunately they're not really up to the job. They move like geriatric pensioners, their two frames of animation showing that they probably have arthritis or rickets or something. Shame as they were so quick and nimble in the other games. The generic bad guys move much faster even the Meatloaf lookalike moves faster. The bad guys change with each level, great you might think but think again. Level 2 has straw hat wearing chinese guys and Bruce lee as a boss (its a chinese level you see), level 3 is in Japan so it's all samurai. And probably ninjas but to be honest I really couldn't be bothered beyond the 1st screen of this level.
Something that is different is a that each level has a shop at the beginning. So you wander inside and the girly shopkeeper (not as good as the one from Forgotten Worlds) squawks stuff at you. I think it's english she's speaking but it's hard to tell. The shop sells power-ups, weapons, health and men. Yes that's right it's a front for white slavery. Problem being that there seems to be no in game currency so how the hell do you buy this stuff. The answer is simple. With REAL money, you have to put another credit in after you've paid to play the game to get one in-game coin. The game is so Gil-Gerard-hard that you HAVE to buy at least the power-up. Then I found that when you buy a man you get, guess what, an extra life, which is stupid as you only get one per credit anyway. So why not use the continue function? What is the point of paying for a life in the shop if you can continue anyway? Why were Billy and Jimmy resurrected to find these stones? Why am I still here? WHY?

Golden Axe, Beast Rider Review

Golden Axe Beast=Rider is one of those games that was largely ignored on release, but it had quite a nice box and a good gaming history so I thought would be worth getting when it was cheap and now is the time of cheapness.

At first glance it sems to have nothing to do with proper Golden Axe, no dead friend Alex or anything, but on closer inspection theres actually quite a lot of Golden Axe in there but it's hidden under a lot of gushing blood and repetative scenery.

In fact if Hollywood were to make a movie of Golden Axe this is what the movie would be. It looks like a realistic Golden Axe, stuff happens like it would in Golden Axe, yet some how it entirely misses what Golden Axe should be.

I never thought I would hear Gilius Thunderhead Say "By my balls!" but thanks to Bast=Rider I have.

All the levels involve running a long a bit, killing some enemies then moving on to the next bit.

Every level is a wasteland, wilderness wasteland, desert wasteland, castle wasteland, you get the idea.

The scenery is decorated by badly drawn strung up naked corpses. A 14 year whose only possesion is a pirate VHS copy of Conan would think it's cool.

Golden Axe, Beast=Rider has for some reason decided rhythm action combat is the way to go.

The combat involves lots of dodging depending on the colour of the enemies sword glows, after your dodge you get an extra strong attack which is a pain if you are ryhtmetically challenged like me.
It can also mean standing around waiting for someone to try and hit you so you can use your strong strike back.

Riding beasts is actually good fun, but the problem is the mighty beasts are very fragile, and they tend to explode in a fountain of blood after bumping into things, or using a special move.

You can only have one beast at a time so this means after your beast has stubbed its toe and taken a load of damage the best thing to do is to jump off it and then lop its head off, and run back and get a new one. Tyris flare is no friend of endangered species thats for sure.

Despite all this the game is kind of compelling, just to see whats going to happen next or at least unlock another Tyris Flare costume, I have spent more time on this than MW2 singe player, Infinity Ward are probably kicking themselves for not including more semi naked desert warrior women in MW2. I know I am.


Overall - Nobody tosses a dwarf

Adventures of Sid - Xbox 360 indie game

Tomatoes are a fruit. Not a vegetable. This means they mince around town like a little teapot. Not like vegetables. They sit lifelessly in a chair dribbling. Sid is a tomato, but rather than prancing about like Gok Wan, he resolutely trudges about a 2 dimensional landscape (his footsteps sound like the sound effect from trudging around Animal Crossing) gunning down snails and bumble bees. He comes armed with a flamethrower, grenades and some dynamite. The explosives come in handy not only with blowing up the local wildlife but also in destroying the scenery. which leads us to the level design. Which is pretty clever with loads of secret areas with handy switches to open them up. One level has underwater bits (in which the music changes like in R-Type Delta - but makes you think your sinuses are blocked) and obligitary slidy bits and frozen walruses. When Sid gets hit by a bee or a patch of spiky things he looses health, which can only be regained by devouring what looks like Tomato ketchup. I find this slighty disturbing. Sid gets more health by drinking the liquidized remains of his fallen brethren. That's practically cannibalism. Sick
On the whole this game reminds me of Bullfrog's game Flood which us in need of a serious update. If you don't know it, look it up. Well I guess it's more like Fire & Ice. Look that up too.
Word has to be given to the guys who made it from bits of their own flesh and bone (or something) Give it a download, the demo's free and the game is 240 Microsoft dollar.
clicky here to have a look