Tales from the Crypt DEAD EASY aka Fat Tuesday the lost film

Ages and Ages ago I made blog posts about Tales from the Crypt Presents Fat Tuesday AKA Dead Easy and a few years ago I turned these into a YouTube video.... Basically it was a Tales from the Crypt movie that was planned but never came out..... it was always this sort of lost film with very very little info on it, was it made, was it not, did a tape of it exist somewhere in a vault or did they never film it... Well for the first time in years and years new info has actually come out about it, a full Script has been found and there is going to be a table read of it... For now here is my original Video on it and a link to the info on the table read a new video will soon be following.... I am also hoping to listen to the live table read as and when it happens but currently you have to donate to a set charity and I am having issues with it, I have left the link below for people who might be interested
https://youtu.be/Biw4IVVnhsY


https://how-not-to-make-a-movie.com/2022/12/07/live-table-read-for-charity/

The Retro Gamer U Podcast Episode 2

 

Alien Storm Master System Review

Alien Storm was a Sega arcade game made by Sega's Shinobi Team released in 1990. It was the second game to use the "Sega System 18" arcade hardware. It came out one year after Golden Axe a very well known fantasy based scrolling beat'Em up and has a lot of similarities to it leading to people considering it to be the sci fi equivalent. Alien Storm likes to mix things up a little more than Golden Axe though as not only is it a scrolling Beat'Em Up, it also breaks up the action by occasionally offering up running Shoot'Em Up and Rail Shooting sections.

The arcade game allowed for up to 3 players to take on the role of one of 3 characters, a man, a woman or my personal favourite a robot. One thing I love about the game is that it has a very B-Movie sort of feel to it, and a sense of humour to match.

So you pick your character or characters depending on how many of you are playing and your tasked with the job of destroying the hoards of aliens who are invading the Earth. Many of the aliens are disguised as a variety of everyday street objects; such as telephone booths, oil cans, trash cans, mailboxes, and some of them are even humorously unconvincingly disguised as people. I have to admit that despite having played most of Sega's arcade games back when I was a kid Alien Storm was not one I can remember ever really seeing, as far as I can remember my first experience with Alien Storm was when I got a Japanese import copy of the Mega drive game. So in order to compare the Master System version I had to play a fair amount of the Arcade game via Emulation.

Alien Storm on the Master System tries its best to try and recreate the Arcade experience in the home with far less processing power but in order to do this things had to be substantially cut. Only two out of of the three characters from the arcade are available in this version the Robot and the Guy. The game also has less levels than its arcade counterpart but I will give it serious credit in that it manages to breaks up the Beat'Em Up action by occasionally offering up running Shoot'Em Up and Rail Shooting sections just like its arcade big brother, I honestly thought that at least one of these type of gameplay would be cut so I was very pleasantly surprised that this was not the case.

Obviously the graphics are incredibly basic when compared to their arcade counterpart. For an 8-bit version of this game though with the limitation of this system and the size of the cart they didn't do a bad job at all, the levels look unique, there are detailed, multiple characters, weapons and bosses not only this but everything is well presented. They made very wise decisions when making this game the choice of colours used throughout the game are sensible, everything stands out and there is none of that awful clashing you see in some low powered games. I think the sound in this game is great there are plenty of good quality sound effects but even more importantly Music plays throughout the game providing some very catchy tunes.

The Master system version has Simple yet effective controls one button shoots, another does a forward roll. if you hit the forward roll button then press the fire button you perform a diving attack. Which would be great but annoyingly, the hit detection is a little wonky and on top of this it is sometimes a little too difficult to line up your attacks an enemy will appear to be on the same plane as you yet you'll frequently have to shift a few pixels up or down in order to actually hit them with an attack this makes the game feel far more clumsy than the arcade version. Personally for me at least the parts of this game that are best are the rail shooting Operation Wolf Style sections, I think I would have ramped these up for this version as they are the bit that not only works best but feel the most fun. I would give this game a 5 out of 10 I think it was a valiant but flawed attempt at trying to recreate its arcade big brother which although decent in short doses just doesn't live up to the task.

Looking online a loose cart of the Master System version will cost about £7 which is not the worst price in the world for what it is... If you own Multiple systems then I would recommend that you get Mega Games 3 for the Megadrive a loose cart of this will cost around the same £7 but has the Awesome Megadrive version of Alien Storm on it which I have previously reviewed as well as the bonus of having Super Monaco GP and Super Thunder blade on it.

The Retro Gamer Unofficial Podcast Episode 1

Sega Master System Hang-On Review

So here is my 4th Master System arcade Conversion review, if you prefer the written medium then my written review is below the video 

H

ang-On was an arcade racing game released by Sega in the arcades in 1985 in which you control a motor bike racing against computer-controlled bikes. It was one of the first arcade games to use 16-bit graphics and uses the Super Scaler arcade system board, The deluxe cabinet version also introduced a motion-controlled arcade cabinet, where the player's body movement on a large motorbike corresponds with the player character's movements on screen. Hang-On started the trend of motion simulator games in the late 1980s, which Sega followed up with Space Harrier, Out Run (1986) and After Burner all of which I have already reviewed. The introduction of these interesting cabinets helped the arcade video game market grow during the late 1980s. Hang-On has been recognized as a well-remembered and influential arcade game. Several sequels were later made for arcades, as well as video game consoles. Every time I jump on a Arcade Machine with a bike I cant help but think of this game, not long ago I was on holiday and I played a few Bike related arcade machines including Super Bikes 3 and Moto GP and for a brief time it transported me back to my youth playing Hang-On.

Yu Suzuki began development of Hang-On after deciding to design a motorcycle racing game as a way to use a torsion bar in an arcade game, however in the end this particular item wasn't actually used in the game cabinet. Market research was conducted and the results suggested that GP 500 racing was popular and so this is what the game was based upon despite the fact Suzuki originally wanted to go with Dirt Biking an idea he would later return to.

Hang-On was very popular it was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1986 in both Japan and the United States. It received an overwhelmingly positive critical reception with people being impressed by its realism, its graphics, and the cabinet, it was just amazing at the time controlling the bike on screen by riding the model bike attached to the arcade machine., Apparently there was some initial controversy in Japan over modesty concerns involving female players with the bike cabinet.

OK So now lets talk about the Master System conversion obviously the graphics have been scaled down to meet the capabilitys of the machine, but it is instantly recognizable as being Hang-On. The music provided on the title screen is really good, but unfortunately it's the only music you'll hear in this game. Once you start playing the game you wont hear any music all you are going to hear is sounds of the motorcycle revving, and your tires screeching, I have never been a fan of this sort of sound choice for games,. Ideally I would like music with engine noises and tire screeches lower in volume just there in the background but if that's not possible due to memory constraints or something id sooner have a basic tune and not bother with engine noises and screeching tires if I cant have both.

So the objective of the game is to avoid the other bikers and race against the clock making sure to hit five checkpoints and then reach the finish line. 60 seconds are available per section, although any remaining time is automatically added to your total time once you pass a checkpoint.

The controls are simple Button 2 is the accelerator, Button 1 is the brakes, the d-pad Up/Down directions are used for changing between the three gears and left and right are used to control your bike. It was a long time since I had played this port and when I first started to play it I was going all over the shop, constantly coming of the bike not making it to any check points and on the verge of turning the air blue. After some practice though the game just seemed to click, basically you have to learn to properly manage your gear changes and I would also add you need to learn to ignore the break, what I found myself doing was letting go of the accelerator and then taping it while going round corners or trying to swerve and then putting my finger back on it when on clear straight road, this kept the sliding to a minimal and made sure I stayed on the road and helped me avoid other bikes. Soon using this method I was hitting checkpoints, over taking bikes and beginning to enjoy the game

I think that Hang-On on the Master System is a good conversion, obviously its not quiet up the standards set by the Arcade Version but I think it is a good representation of what this little machine can handle and it provides something that is in the spirit of its bigger arcade brother, I do think you need to bear with it a little and get through some teething pains to get the most out of the game. I would score this game 7 out of 10.

If you want a cart of it, well when I looked around online you were looking at about the £10 mark, at the experience of giving away what a future project might be I would Recommend you grab Mega Games 1 a multi game cart that includes the Mega Drive game Super Hang On as this can be grabbed for around the £3 mark online and includes not only a version of Hang On but 2 other games for far less than this will cost you.

Sega Master System OutRun Review

Here is my review of OutRun the Sega Master system conversion. If you prefer your reviews to be written then my written review is below the video

Out Run was an arcade driving video game developed and published by Sega it was released into Arcades in Japan in September 1986 with its American and European release following before the end of the year. The game was very well known for many reasons including its graphics, its nonlinear gameplay, an amazing selection of selectable musical tracks and in particular for its amazing hydraulic motion simulator deluxe arcade cabinet which was such a sight to behold when I first saw it in the Arcades as a child. I was born in 1981 so the first time I had seen this I would have been a pretty young kid so the machine seemed like this giant shining beacon of fun.

The game was designed by Yu Suzuki, who apparently visited Europe to gain inspiration for the game's stages This sounds like a pretty expensive step in designing a game, on hearing that you'd think Sega had given Suzuki bags of cash and yet he only had a small team to work on the game and they were only given ten months to develop the game. The game was a huge success though both critically and commercially. In fact it was apparently the highest-grossing arcade game of 1987 worldwide not only that though it was also Sega's most successful arcade cabinet of the entire 1980s. So I bet you can guess what this kind of success leads to right? It led to a whole bunch of ports to lots of video game consoles and home computers. Outrun became one of the best-selling video games at the time selling millions of copies worldwide and spawning a number of sequels.

You read the title when you clicked on this though so you know what I am going to be talking about that's right I am going to be talking about the Sega Master System port.

Even though this game might look a little basic by now days standards you have to try to put yourself in the position people would have been in at the time. In 1987 The Master System released in Europe people often compare it to the NES and see it as Sega's response to this but in truth in England at least very few people had even seen a NES, we were mostly weened on various Micro computers some of which even after taking an age to load couldn't display enough colours to challenge the drawings you had done in school at the age of 5 let alone an arcade machines visuals.

In my humble opinion The Master System port of Outrun really manages to overcome the limitations of its hardware to deliver what at the time would have been an absolutely stunning home video game experience, sure its not the equal of its arcade counterpart but it certainly would have felt pretty close to a kid back in those days.

Outrun is at least on the surface a very simple game, it is a driving game where you are not racing against any individual, sure there are cars on the road which get in the way but there not your opponent the only opponent you have is the clock, you have to beat the clock and make sure that you keep on reaching the next checkpoint before the timer hits zero. This basic premise works almost perfectly on the Master System, the game feels pretty much just like it did in the arcade and that's the most important part of any conversion.

The visuals have received the expected downgrade but it is very clear that a whole lot of effort went into providing the same variety of settings seen in the arcade, the game features the same beach track, the same rolling green fields, the same night time driving. this game looks so much clearer than my previously reviewed game Space Harrier. Obviously its a step down from the arcade but enough detail is provided in both the foreground and the background to create a proper game world that you feel more than happy to travel through.

Sound-wise, the music in OutRun on the Master system is great but there is some difference depending on how your playing if you are playing a European copy of the game you will get what they call PSG sound, if your using Japanese Hardware with a FM chip, or hardware modded to add FM in or using an emulator with FM, then things will sound quiet different, in honesty I like both kinds of sound, the music is good no mater how your playing your Master System copy of Outrun, the only thing I am not majorly keen on is the skidding tire sound, its an annoying sound and to be its too loud in relation to the music.

Overall I would give Outrun on the Master System an 8 out of 10, I think its one of the very best arcade ports on the system its only limitations for me come from being based on an Arcade machine. Arcade ports can be a lot of fun but these games are essentially written from the ground up to munch on coins and provide quick thrills so they don't tend to have what it takes to play for hours and hours again and again in a home setting.

If you want a cart of this game then CEX charge £10 for it when they have a loose cart with the copies I can find elsewhere on line going for a little more.

Space Harrier Master System Review

Here is my YouTube Review of Space Harrier, if you prefer to read your reviews a written copy is located directly below the video.

Space Harrier is a third-person arcade rail shooter game which was both developed and published by Sega hitting the arcades in 1985. Originally Sega's idea had been to make a realistic military-themed third-person game which would feature a fighter jet, but technical and memory restrictions resulted in Sega developer Yu Suzuki deciding instead to go with the idea of a jet-propelled human character flying through a fantasy setting. 2 years later Sega would return to the military Jet Fighter idea and we would get After Burner a game I have already reviewed.

The Space Harrier arcade game is controlled by an analogue flight stick as well as featuring a simple stand up version the game also came in a deluxe arcade cabinet which featured a cockpit-style hydraulic motion simulator cabinet that tilted and rolled during play, this probably sounds very familiar if you watched my After Burner Video.

Space Harrier was a highly commercially successful arcade machine leading to the game being ported to over twenty different home computer and gaming platforms, some of which were done by Sega with others being handled by outside developers

Ok so on to The Master System version now how does it fair? Well I certainly think that Sega put a lot of effort in to trying to downscale this arcade game on to a Master System cart but I do have some issues with it, lets put it this way it in some areas excels but in others its problematic.

The most obvious thing to grab you is that the graphics not only are a serious downgrade but they also don't fully work, the limited colour palette, and the lack of proper backgrounds are to be expected and wouldn't really hurt the game, my biggest issue is the incredibly blocky edges around both enemies and obstacles they don't look like they are part of the actual game world, they look awful and it really breaks my immersion, it actually makes the game look like it was never properly finished. When you get to the glitchy first boss swirling round you will wonder if there is a problem with your cartridge, trust me there is not this is how the game was programmed.

This graphical issue is an absolute crying shame, because if you can get past this then the gameplay in this version is not too bad at all, your characters movement is good firing feels right, its not a bad game to play at all, its fun if you can push past these issues.

For me the best thing about this Game on the Master System is the sound. The music has been ported across from the arcade game wonderfully, the music is awesome and it really meets the fantasy feel of this game.... Maybe it has something to do with my Dad watching a whole lot of reruns of Blakes 7 with him but one of the Tracks in this game really really sounds like a remix of the Blakes 7 them but maybe that's just me. I also have to point out that they did an amazing job of porting two of the Arcade games voice samples across, you will hear both the phrase, “Get ready!” as well as the main characters death cry. Sure there are other voice samples which are missing from the arcade machine but the ones that are here are done brilliantly and really add to the feel of the game.

If I was to give this game a score I would give it a 6 out of 10, despite the fact Sega Used a large Master System Cart they just didn't manage to do quiet enough in my opinion, if only they had found a way to iron out some of the jagged graphics this would be better.

If you want to get a copy of this for the Master System well copies seem to be a bit thinner on the ground than they were for After Burner... Apparently CEX sell it for £4 for a loose cart but at present there are no copies of it available. the cheapest copy I could find online anywhere was a boxed copy missing its manual for £18 including postage and that's not a price I would recommend people to pay for this game.

My After Burner Sega Master System Review

Here is my YouTube Review of After Burner for those who prefer it there is a written version below.

After Burner is an arcade Jet fighting combat game developed and released by Sega in 1987. The player takes control of an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, and must clear each of the game's stages by destroying incoming enemy jets, using a machine gun and heat-seeking missiles. The game used a third-person perspective the same as Sega's earlier games Space Harrier (1985) and Out Run (1986), and runs on the Sega X Board arcade system, It was the fourth Sega game to use a hydraulic arcade cabinet, in this case the cabinet is made to look like the insides of an aircraft cockpit, with flight stick controls, a chair with a seatbelt, and hydraulic motion technology that allowed it to moves, tilt, roll and rotate the cockpit in sync with the on-screen action.

Obviously this kind of arcade machine was a real show stopper, the sort of thing that kids and adults alike would flock to. In the old days it was always hard to try and bring the arcade experience in to the home with the fact the most home consoles had no way near the power of an arcade machine, this was what made arcades popular you could experience games that simply were not possible in the confines of the average home.

The master system version might have lost the fancy cabinet, ditched the flight stick for a joypad and lost a whole lot of power but it still has a lot of heart. What you have here is Sega trying its darn best to ram this massive arcade machine into the confines of a tiny Master System Cartridge and in all honesty I don't think they did too bad a job of it. Sure the Graphics had an obvious downgrade but they seemed to be able to maintain a good sense of speed which makes the game feel just as action packed as the arcade version and given the power on hand I feel the graphics are respectable. As for the sound well its all very basic but its pretty cool when you take off to hear the game say ''get ready''. Although the music is not as good as the Arcade machine I still feel it is very catchy and matches the game well.

If you play this game today out of its historical context then its probably not going to blow your socks off but I still think its a fun distraction, if you look at what they managed to achieve at the time scaling what was advanced hardware down on to the humble little Master System I think they did a fantastic job. Over all if I was to score this game in comparison to what is available on this particular system then I think I would give it a 7 out of 10. Having a quick look around online you should be able to get a cart of this delivered for around the £7 to £10 price range.

CreepShow Horror House Review

I have written about Creepshow before as its a film which is very dear to me, both of the main guys responsible for it Stephen King and George Romero are absolute horror legends but I figured not everyone feels like reading great big walls of text so it was about time that I made a Video Review of it, one that you can watch here.

The start of how I learned to live with my PTSD and carry on with my life

I wrote this its very long and a bit like an essay but I do eventually intend to turn it into a video but I need the time and energy to read all of this out so if you dont fancy reading this much then a video will be coming at some point.

I have previously talked about how I got PTSD and I have maybe touched a little bit on how I got it under control and managed to carry on with my life, but that's a subject that I want to go into further depth with. I want to make clear that although I have a degree in Social Sciences which includes both Sociology and Psychology I am not a therapist what I am giving here is the personal story and the opinion of someone who although not a lay person is also in no way a qualified councillor. My recovery started with a breakdown which probably sounds strange but I guess a lot of the time you don't get help until you reach the end of your teether.

For those who haven't seen my previous video or read about my experience before I will give a very brief version, essentially I was beaten around the head with iron bars and then held hostage during a robbery at the place I used to work. After this experience I was only off long enough for my physical wounds to heal and I returned to work quiet quickly, the breakdown did not come until around 8 years later. The breakdown was not totally down to the PTSD I was suffering, I was experiencing both visual and audio flashback, I would sometimes see scenes from the robbery playing out in my head like a bad video I just couldn't stop playing, sometimes I would simply hear the sounds of the iron bars hitting my head and at other times I would have the most realistic nightmares, nightmares which at the time would feel so real it was truly like I was relieving the event. This was something I was managing though, I was pushing through and continuing to work and continuing to look after my young daughter. I was progressing at work, managing to climb up the ranks even though sometimes when my stress would get too much I would purposely fail exams in order to slow down my progress as I didn't feel capable of taking on more responsibilities. I had a very unsupportive partner who was doing very little towards raising our daughter leaving the majority of it up to me with help from my parents. I didn't have my breakdown until I was the deputy manager at my place of work, my manager kept taking a lot of time off and leaving everything up to me, and two people below me started a sort of work based war, they hated each other and they were at each others throats and I was having to deal with this. Add on to this the fact that at this period in time I kept having to throw violent drunks out of the business, usually after they had attacked me and the pressure just mounted and mounted.

The final straw which broke the camels back was that we got a new area manager and my boss kind of went crying to him claiming no one underneath her was carrying there weight. The robbery incident had happened on a Sunday night after the business had closed and when I had become a manager I had basically negotiated with the area manager at the time that I would work any shift at all except a Sunday night as the times I had worked a Sunday night after the incident had led to me having extreme anxiety and panic attacks. My boss got the new area manager to tell me that he didn't care about my issues or problems if I wanted to continue working in the business I would have to work whatever I had to work and that was it. When the new rota's were put up there I was put down to work long shifts on Sundays closing the pub and this was what plunged me into a very dark place. I carried on going to work but as my first Sunday in a long time approached I simply found myself loosing it. I made a Doctors appointment one for which I had to get cover and go to during the middle of a shift, and with the way this appointment went I ended up being signed off and going home instead of returning.

In the Doctors office I explained everything I could to the best of my ability, I cant remember everything that I said but I remember one thing and that was I said something on the lines of ''I just cant do it, I cant work till close on a Sunday, If I have to do that then I am just going to throw myself down the stairs leg first, so that I can break my leg and not have to go to work'' It was this comment that got me the help I needed, the Doctor contacted what is called Crisis Team they are a group of mental health professionals who will visit people in there homes to assess them and to try to get them the help that they need. I remember the first thing they asked me after introducing themselves was why had I told a Doctor that I was going to try to kill myself, I explained that I hadn't said that and that what I had said was that I was essentially contemplating trying to break my leg so that I didn't have to go to work, I had no desire at any time to kill myself, I love my daughter far to much for that, and I love my folks far to much and I had things I enjoyed and looked forward to, I just couldn't deal with the idea of working those Sunday nights because something inside me told me that If I worked a Sunday there was a strong possibility that a robbery would happen again and that I would have to live through that experience again or that I might even end up being violently killed. I knew statistically that the chance of a robbery happening was no different on a Sunday than any other day of the week in the rational part of my mind but there was this irrational part which felt certain that working a Sunday would lead to horrible consequences.

This led to me getting sent to a few therapists, in the first couple of cases I would have one very short appointment where the therapist would learn that my issues were related to trauma they would then inform me that although they were a therapist they were not a trauma therapist and therefore did not feel that they were qualified to help me and that I would need to see a trauma therapist. Eventually I began to see a woman who was a Trauma Therapist, my Dad was amazing he would drive me to the appointments and he would help try and keep my spirits as high as possible. During my fight to get better there was another fight going on one that my Dad was also deeply involved in. I was handing in sick notes but my work kept contacting me, they wanted to be kept up to date on my mental health progress, they also did all kinds of things to try and squeeze me to either return or to quit, they messed around with my pay, one month I literally got about £10 for the month as they told me on my payday that I had run out of sick pay allowance, they also tried to deny that the robbery ever happened, I had to contact the police and get the crime report to prove that it actually happened and that I was present. It was awful and there meddling actually was affecting my healing... Eventually they fired me for being off sick for too long, I didn't complain though as they paid me holiday pay and a final pay check at the end and I had already enrolled myself on to a course which came with its bursary and would help me train for a new type of employment.

My therapy lasted around a year. As well as just talking about stuff the therapist used what is called Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) which is a type of psychotherapy particularly used for treating post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD. so what is EMDR well its a technic which uses a patient's own rapid rhythmic eye movements to try to dampen the power of emotionally charged memories of past traumatic events. Basically the therapist will move their fingers back and forth in front of your face and ask you to follow there fingers with your eyes while they have you recall the disturbing event which caused you to have PTSD. This will include not only what happened but the thought that were going through your head at the time as well as the emotions and sounds and sensations that you heard and felt.

Gradually, the therapist will guide you to shift your thoughts to more pleasant ones. In my case this involved you having to tell the story to the best of your ability remembering as much of it as possible in as deep as detail as possible finishing off by moving yourself to some kind of mental happy place. Your happy place is something that you pick for yourself, you can basically pick any place and then you will fill out the details of this place and talk about it to kind of ground yourself back down to earth and let the negative feelings go away. My happy place was in my childhood bedroom playing Super Mario World on my Super Nintendo knowing that my family were around me and I was safe.

I find it hard to know how much the therapy helped me, I do know that it got a lot of details I had forgotten about the robbery to come out of me, I remembered things I had forgotten and I am told that remembering everything as painful as it is is all part of helping your mind file it away and put it to bed. You never forget what happened but as time goes on you kind of find yourself more able to talk about your experience without falling apart. I think one of the things that helped me the most in the end was getting fired by work, knowing that I wouldn't have to return to that environment again, that I wouldn't have to deal with the people again who had been so unsupportive who in my opinion had known they were breaking me was just such a big relief it felt like I was getting a large part of my life back. All of this was only the start though and it took me years and years to rebuild myself. I am happy now, I am a survivor but I also know that I am a very very different person to the one who was held hostage that night, whether that's for the better or the worse would probably depend upon who you ask.

X-COM: UFO Defence AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown Games Room Review

This is a review I have wanted to do for a very long time, but it took me awhile to get round to it mostly because I wanted to record my own footage for the review and for some unknown reason every time I would try to record it something would go wrong making the footage unsuitable, but here it is complete and finished, for those who prefer to read reviews instead of watching them the written version is below the video.

X-COM: UFO Defence known as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe is a science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and published by MicroProse in 1994. It came out on PC, the Amiga the CD32 console, and the PlayStation. My first experience of it was on the Playstation. I loved it from my very first go, it was quiet simply unlike anything I had ever played before and I found myself constantly returning to it just because it was so different to everything else in my collection, it was also one of those rare games which a lot of my friends also seemed to get into. Every so often there would be a game which my whole friend group would seem to buy and this was one of these games, we would all play it separately but kind of come together to talk about our in-game adventures and our tactics it kind of made the game exist beyond the confines of the screen.

Ok so to explain X-COM UFO Defence as a game to anyone who has not played it or heard of it before well it’s a game which basically mixes a real-time management simulation game with a turn-based tactics game. The player takes on the role of commander of X-COM – an organisation which is an international paramilitary organization which exists to defend the Earth from aliens.

So, when you play the strategic part of the game you are in charge of the research and development of new technology, you’re in charge of building and expanding your home base, with the choice of also building additional bases, you’re in charge of the organization's finances and personnel, and alongside growing your organisation your also in control of monitoring and adequately responding to UFO activity.

When you respond to UFO activity by sending your men to a crashed or landed UFO then you enter the tactical section of the game, as soon as your craft lands you are tasked with issuing orders to your individual X-COM troops, you tell them where to go and what to do. You can only see enemies on the map when they are in view of one of your units. At the start of the game your men will have conventional weapons, pistols, rifles and grenades and you will be fighting with Aliens who have Plasma based technology. This is where the two game types connect, if you want to have better equipment in the field then you need to research it and develop it, if you can either kill all of the enemies on a map or pick up a defeated enemy’s weapon and then retreat then you will be able to take their weapons and equipment back to your base and start the process of researching this otherworldly technology.  Obviously having a working team of researchers and other staff requires money, and how do you get money well you answer to a council made up of members from the various nations, if you help to keep their airspace clear and to eliminate aliens who land on there soil or conduct terror attacks on there cities then they will fund you, keep failing them though and they will withdraw their support which will lower your funding.

The game received strong reviews and was commercially successful, acquiring a cult following among strategy fans; several publications have listed X-COM: UFO Defence as one of the best video games ever made, including IGN ranking it as the best PC game of all time in 2007, the game has directly inspired several similar games, including UFO: Alien Invasion, and UFO: Extraterrestrials. The game had many sequels its first sequel was very similar to this game but was set under the sea, but after that for my taste at least the games strayed too far away from this formula the third game was overly complex and none of them captured the spirit or the fun level of the first two games.

IN 2012 there was a remake of the game called Xcom: Enemy Unknown created by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. While this remake is a fantastic game that I would heartily recommend I wanted to show the original game and review it as I don’t think the original should be replaced both of them are brilliant games which deserve to both stand tall.

By today’s standards X-COM: UFO Defence has incredibly basic graphics and sound but the core gameplay is still incredible, it’s a great example of a deep tactical game which can literally eat away days and days of your life, if you get into it the game all of the basic graphics just cease to be an issue. Sure, the remake is fantastic in its own right but I would argue that this version is possibly a deeper tactical game, there are things you can do in this game that you can’t do in the original, for example you can shoot walls to destroy them, you also take far more men out in to the field which I think gives the game a slightly bigger feel. I am not putting down the more modern remake both of these games are very rare cases of games which I would score with a solid 10 out of 10.

My Review of Fall Guys

 So as the game Fall Guys went free to play and found its way on to more platforms I decided that it was time for me to check it out, this was also helped by a certain few factors one being that I knew GamePass users were going to get some kind of freebie for the game and I had also heard that there would be some kind of cross promotion between Fall Guys and Fortnite leading to unlockable stuff, so I figured why not give this title a bash and then review it. Here is my Review of Fall Guys I hope you enjoy it

My Review of Fortnite

So I kind of missed the boat on the whole Fortnite thing, I didn't pay much attention when it initially launched nor did I pay that much attention when people started talking about it. My own daughter told me how good it was but as she was a late teen/early adult I kind of just thought hey this is one of those things for the young folks. It wasn't until I was babysitting my nephews and they played it infront of me and started asking me for my help that I reluctantly picked up a pad and had a bash at it. This bash turned in to me downloading the game myself on both my Xbox and Nintendo Switch and then piling a whole bunch of hours in to it. So big apologies to my daughter I should have took your advice and tried this a long time ago.... With that said here is my late 41 year olds review of Fortnite a game I had always viewed as a kids fad.

My Review of Obi_Wan Kenobi

Star Wars has always been a big part of my life, I cant remember exactly how and when I first saw it but I do know that it was very early and it made a big impression, I think I can limit the way I first saw it down to one of two scenarios I am just not sure which came first. Ok one way I saw them was on TV. When I was young the original 3 Star Wars films were always on the TV around the Christmas Holidays, it would be something like Star Wars would be on at some point on Christmas day and then you'd get Empire on Boxing Day and Return of the Jedi on new years eve or some variation on this theme.  So watching it in this sort of way might have been my first experience of Star Wars but I also remember my Dad owning a Super 8 cine film 42.5m film reel which showed a sort of condensed around 8 minutes version of Star Wars which my Dad would show me by using his Super 8 projector to project this on to a small roll away cinema screen. This wasn't the only film my Dad would show me he would show me all kinds of cartoons and Black and White horror films via projector, it really is something which helped a real love of film to grow within me, from a young age I was able to set up a cine film projector and screen and thread the films into the projector and play them. I must have watched this 8 minute version of Star Wars thousands of times, my Dad has given it me and I still own it to this very day. My dad was my big introduction to the world of Science Fiction and to this day I still love watching stuff with him. Every time a new Star Wars film has come out I have had to run out and see it as quickly as possible. 

So with this in mind I had to watch Obi-Wan Kenobi and I had to make a video giving my thoughts on it.

My Retro Game Purchases June 2022

Ok so here I am back again with another retro purchases monthly report. I am not going to add up the value of the stuff as a lot of it is debatable whether its retro or not, if its not the current gen or the gen before that then I am calling it retro, same with something i am using for retro purposes If I am using a modern pad to play retro games then I am going to talk about it here.

So on the first of the month I grabbed a Nintendo Wii for £25, its far from the first one I have purchased but if you look at the following picture its probably easy to see why I grabbed it.

As can sort of be seen it included a balance board, 2 official Wii-motes, 4 official nunchucks , 2 official classic controllers, 1 official classic pro controller, the sensor , power supply, the standard TV lead, a better official composite lead, the sensor bar, the stand, a bunch of those silly attachments, a 2Gig SD card inside it, not in this picture are an unofficial stand complete with a charging dock in it with chargeable batteries for 2 Wii-motes. I very much purchased this console for all of the equipment that came with it as by CEX/Pawn store standards there was around £100 worth of controllers

On the first of the month I also got 6 Japanese GameCube games for £30

These are

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen ,the disc the plastic case and manual no card cover

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2, complete

Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3, the disc the plastic case and manual no card cover

Gash Bell!! Yuujou no Tag Battle, the disc the plastic case and manual no card cover

Donkey Konga ,complete

Groove Adventure Rave: Fighting Live , complete

Other than a Japanese Baseball game I grabbed last month these are the first Japanese Cube games to enter my collection, I love the size and shape of the plastic boxes for them, not so keen on the carboard covers

I then waited till the 14th of the month when I got another Japanese Gamecube game complete for £8 (Mystic Heroes)

I also got a joystick for the C64 Mini boxed for £5, sure its a modern item but its retro themed and will help me to play more retro stuff, not only can I use it on the C64 Mini I own It would also be cool for using to play games from that sort of age on my laptop C64 and Spectrum etc

On the 15th I managed to get a loose SNES cart of Tiny Toons Adventures Buster Busts loose for £4 its not in perfect condition but its a good game so I was quiet happy to grab it.

On the 17th I grabbed two things one of them was this loose cart of Quackshot for the MegaDrive for £5 this is actually one of my top twenty games on the system, if you haven't played it then I highly recommend it particularly if your a Duck Tales fan.

The other thing I grabbed was Arc Twilight of the Spirits for PS2 I grabbed this for £5 it's missing it's manual but I'm happy. I didn't realise there was an English Language Arc The Lad game on PS2, in fact when I saw it I did a quick google search to see if it was an Arc the Lad game. Arc the Lad was a game that formed a piece of my teenage life, you see I had a friend who was so in to his RPG games that he couldn't get enough of them to the degree that he started buying Japanese RPG's that had not come out in England and trying to play his way through them despite the language barrier and the main ones I remember him playing are Arc the Lad and Arc the Lad 2.

On the 18th I got Little Big Planet for the PS3 from a charity shop for 50pence, it was just nestled in with the kids DVD's, not every retro game needs to cost the earth and its a great game.

On the 22nd my favourite pawn store closed and I had a last visit to say goodbye to the staff who have helped me with so much stuff. Grabbed this little pile of stuff for £20, my final purchase from a great shop and a great bunch of guys. As can be seen there are 3 sealed wired Joypads for use on PC or PS3 should be great for retro gaming, theres also a PS2 pad with an adaptor to allow me to use it on a PC (great for emulation), then there is a PS3 Blue Ray remote and a broken laptop.

I got that Laptop up and running its a Dual Core 1.7ghz processor with 1gb of ram and a 120gig Hardrive (which I have since upgraded to a 500gig Hardrive) and I bet you can guess just what I have done with it.

On the 25th I finished the month of by buying a whole bunch of stuff

Grabbed these 4 original XBOX games for £1 each.

These PS3 games for £3 in total

These 3 games for a total of £2

This lovely looking 2DS for £30 it's in great condition, came with official charger and a 4gb SD card, also had Tomodachi life on it. I have since hacked it, hey if Nintendo are going to shut down there online shop and stop me getting all the patches and stuff I might need in the future I am going to be ready for it.

And here are the last of that days games that I grabbed, Super Street fighter 2 American for £8 ,ECW hardcore for GBC for £1 , Stunt Race FX for SNES for £4, Microsoft puzzle collection for £1, and JaJa Maru for Famicom for £3

The GunnKiss Murder Mystery Channel: The Murder of Theresa Pamela Jacobs.

 

Welcome back to another GunnKiss Murder Mystery post, I’m here today to talk about the Murder of Theresa Pamela Jacobs. If You would like to listen to me tell the story and comment on it rather than read then check the YouTube link below these words, if you would rather read about it then scroll past the video.

The thing that made me want to touch on this murder the most was the fact that a fire arm was involved, you see most people tend to think that the UK does not have guns and while it is certainly true that we don’t have the amount that America has they certainly are in this country.

According to the most recent figures for England and Wales, there are 156,033 people certificated to hold firearms and they own 617,171 weapons. These are just the registered weapons though according to research it is estimated that in 2018 there were 978,000 unregistered firearms in England, Scotland and Wales, and 53,000 in Northern Ireland.

These might sound like high numbers but if you’re keeping your nose clean and don’t happen to know any farmers or game keepers then you are highly unlikely to ever see a real gun anywhere other than in the arms of a specially trained fire arms police officer and to be honest you don’t even see these officers often.

 I myself have only seen a real gun in the arms of someone who was not a police officer once and that was a very surreal experience…. I saw a young child carry an uzi to his father who then waved it at some guys in a car while screaming that he would kill them, this was back when I was around 16 and I have never seen anything like this since.

Ok so now I have explained the availability of Fire arms in the UK let’s get back to the case at hand

Theresa Jacobs was gunned down outside a Nottingham club and according to the police she was a deliberately targeted victim of the city's drug trade. Theresa Jacobs had apparently been to the nightclub with a male friend and it was when leaving that the crime happened.

33-year-old Mrs Jacobs, of Courtleet Way, Bulwell had left the club in Radford only moments before she died of a single bullet wound to the back of the head at point blank range, it was a Saturday morning at about 2.30 and the club she had just left and been murdered outside of was the Drum Club on Ilkeston Road in Nottingham it was the 9^th of November in 2002.

The police said that she was deliberately targeted in part of a drugs war in Nottingham and that is why she was shot at point-blank range in an execution style killing. Detectives claimed that it was part of the ongoing battle for lucrative control of hard drugs, apparently, she was said to have been a dealer of crack cocaine. Despite such a point blank shot she did not immediately die she was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre by ambulance where she was stabilised and emergency surgery was carried out, but she died later that day in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Police used a press conference to appeal for witnesses, there were said to have been about 40 people outside the club at the time yet only a handful of witnesses came forward and what information they came forward with was not enough.

Detective superintendent Michael Ward told a press conference at Nottinghamshire police headquarters in Arnold the shooting was a "tragic loss of life." He went on to say that

 "This loss of life of a young woman is very sad but from the evidence so far I can say that we believe she was the intended target.

"She was shot at the closest possible range and it has the hallmarks of an intended killing possibly linked to the drugs supply network in Nottingham.

"In the last year we have seen an increase in shooting incidents linked to competing drug supply networks in the city.

"Now we have seen this tragic loss of life of this young woman.

"The world has changed in the past three years. People are willing to settle their disputes by the use of firearms.

"It is quite obvious that the person responsible intended to have the most effect from the use of this weapon."

Mrs Jacobs' killer was described only as a man wearing a hooded garment, he approached his victim from some industrial units which were located near Bulwell Road and he left the scene of the crime running heading towards the city centre. A Jamaican national was charged with her murder at one point but the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence and the case collapsed.

The murder inquiry which was launched was part of something called Operation Stealth, which was set up to tackle drug related-gun crime in Nottingham. The Information I found on Operation Stealth showed that in the process of it the police dealt with almost 20 drug-related firearms incidents and arrested 114 people, a substantial number of whom were charged with serious offences. They also recovered 28 firearms, 130 rounds of ammunition and around £200,000 of class A drugs.

The GunnKiss Murder Mystery Channel: 1837 Baseford Murders

 Part 1

The Murder

Part 2

The Court Case

Part 3

My thoughts on the matter

You Are Not My Mother Horror House Review

 

I was flicking through the various movie streaming services I pay for looking for something horror related but a little bit different, I put the trailer on for this film and instantly decided that this was something I needed to see.

The film starts with a baby in a stroller. A woman takes this baby into the woods and places her in a circle and then starts a fire around it. The movie then shifts into the present day. A teenager called Char has overslept and asks her grandma for a ride to school as she is going to be late but her grandmother says that she cannot do it because her legs hurt too much. Char’s Grandma suggests that she goes and asks her mother to see if she can take her.

This drive to school is awkward with Char first asking her mother how she is before asking if she can go to the store after dropping her off to get some food as there is nothing in the house. The mother Angela says she is tired but, in all honesty, she seems like she is worn out and barely holding on. Given the title of the film this made me instantly start to wonder if there was a problem with Char. Was this girl some kind of demon spawn was that why we had seen her placed in a circle of fire at the start was this an attempt to get rid of her, and is the mother tired and mentally worn down because this demon child was somehow draining her?

Following Char to school we find out that she is a real outsider, she has no friends and is being bullied by a large group of girls but it gets even worse for her after school, when she is walking home, she sees her mother's car left abandoned. Later that night her mother returns home. She isn't acting how she normally does though.

I can’t really say much more about this film without spoiling it, for me it is one of those films where you need to be pulled along and kept guessing to truly get the most from it. If you are anything like me then you will question the situation is this a film about mental health or the supernatural? I enjoyed the film but if your into action based horror this is not going to be your thing it’s a slower more thought provoking piece if you want to see buckets of blood this is not the film for you, if you want to watch a very talented actress play a woman who is either possessed or very mentally ill while you try to weigh up all the options in your mind then you will love this film Carolyn Bracken deserves series credit for making this film what it is and being scary as hell. I would give it 6 out of 10, its worth a watch but its not a classic that you will find yourself returning to again and again.

 

So, what we have here with The Furies is an Ozploitation flick, a relatively low budget horror film made in Australia. The one thing The Furies isn't is original: it's a little bit Hostel, a little bit Hunger Games, and a lot of 80’s style slasher But despite its lack of originality if you like your Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers flavoured films then I am sure that you will find this film to be an absolute hoot the director Tony D'Aquino absolutely douses the screen in blood in this film his debut feature but he also kind of managed to stick two fingers up at many a copyright and gets away with it.

The film opens as two friends, Kayla and Maddie, are abducted, they are then rendered unconscious. Kayla wakes up inside a wooden black coffin like box in the middle of a remote forest with her friend Maddie nowhere to be seen. It doesn’t take long for Kayla to discovers that she and the other young women are being hunted by a group of masked killers, a bunch of masked killers who look like low rent copies of Leather Face, Jason and various other classic slashers. Each of these maniacs is armed with the kind of grizzly sharp weapons that you would imagine. I don’t want to give every single bit of the plot away as it kind of turns and winds while constantly throwing cliches at you, but what it offers on an equal level to cliché is gore, this film is an absolute gore hounds funfest. If you want to see things slashed, smashed ripped and torn in a spray of blood then this is most definitely the film for you.

None of the cast were people that I recognised in the slightest but I have to admit that Airlie Dodds is a very good leading lady and it is very easy to find yourself rooting for her. The gore is great it all looks very real, lots of lovely practical effects here no dodgy CGI to cringe over but most importantly in my opinion is the films pacing which is absolutely on point, the film is around 80 minutes but it really feels like it is constantly racing forward never stopping or slumping and ending at a point which feels like a natural ending but also leaves you wanting more and hoping for a sequel.

If you like gore and 80’s slashers in particular then this film will be right up your alley. Like I have said it is far from original the film is made up of all kinds of bits and pieces of plenty of films you will have seen before but I think what is there is pieced together really well to make a fun and interesting film which I can’t help but heartily recommend, to this end I find myself giving this film an 8 out of 10, sure its not going to change the world but it is a good fun film full of interesting if not original ideas and grizzly deaths.

The Silence Horror House Review

 

So, what we have here is a film which is basically about little monsters that can basically be described as prehistoric cave gremlin bat hybrids. On their own one of these creatures would be a serious pain but the real problem is that they don’t arrive on their own they tend to arrive in swarms, it’s like what if we remade Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds with what H R Giger drew while smoking weed and looking at bats.

We follow the Andrews family which consists of Hugh Andrews, his wife, his son, his mother-in-law and most importantly for the story his daughter Ally who suffers from acute deafness, and communicates in sign language, now not to give too much away but this is something which you would think would be a weakness but actually turns out to give the family a useful tool.

The Silence very much feels like a hodgepodge of ideas from other films, it feels like there is a sprinkle of The Mist here and a pinch of Cloverfield there. I think with the deaf daughter it feels like it has this one idea that it really wants to lean heavily into and to hang its hat off, it feels a little bit like a one trick pony at times. What the film did well for me at least is to establish its characters well giving them enough time to develop effectively which in turn helps you to care about them and their fate, I think the film does a pretty good job of making them feel like a real family with multi layered relationships within it, you not only know who these people are but what they all mean to each other and I would put a lot of this down to very good acting.

I especially have to give props to Stanley Tucci who provides a strong lead, I think the film did a good job of setting up its post-apocalyptic world but later on the film seemed to lose its step a little, I don’t want to talk about the plot piece by piece but there’s a point for me where the story just swerves off, add to this that for me the film ends rather abruptly. Part of me feels that this would have worked better as a short mini series with a few ideas expanded upon and a more definitive ending. I think the film sets up the potential for a lot of ingesting ideas but doesn’t see enough of them through but I suppose at least it doesn’t outstay its welcome the very fact I wish there was a little more is a lot better than getting to a point where I keep looking at my watch praying for it to end.

For me this was an enjoyable but equally forgettable film, it happily filled an hour and a half of my time and I liked it but I also don’t feel like I will feel any urge to return to it in the future but that’s ok, not every film needs to be a stone-cold classic, I would give it a 6 out of 10.

My Retro Game Purchases May 2022

Well it has been awhile since I have done one of these posts based on what Retro games I have purchased in any set month but I figured why not rectify this by offering up one now. I suppose I should start by saying that during the last 2 years and a bit since doing this kind of post I have purchased lots of stuff some of which I will have chronicled on my YouTube channel but falling upon my old blog I realised what a fun record it was for me to look back on showing what I spent on what games and equipment and when I spent it and hopefully other people who read this will enjoy it as well.

This was a very slow retro month for me in fact I only purchased stuff once during the whole month and it was on May the 28th I went to visit a guy with an Indy store and splurged £95 on a bundle of games, some of its retro and some is new but thought id post it here , it was one of those keep slapping things on the counter and ill name my price deal so cant say what I paid for individual things.

Magical Taruruuto-kun Magic Adventure cart only for the SNES JAPANESE

Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 9 (Konami baseball) for GameCube complete JAPANESE (My first Japanese Gamecube game)

Arms complete for Switch
The Survivalists Complete for Switch
The Legend of Zelda Links awakening for Switch

Fire Pro Wrestling World complete for PS4

Everybodys Golf complete for PSP

Disney Planes for 3DS complete
Mensa Acadey for 3DS complete
Phonics fun Volume 1 for 3DS complete (going to give this my daughter as she's doing a teaching course and wants these)

Kirby's Pinball Land cart only for Gameboy
Dr Mario cart only for Gameboy
Pac Panic cart only for Gameboy

Its a good Job I don't do this kind of thing often
Magical Taruruuto-kun cart only for GameBoy JAPANESE
On the Tiles cart only for Gameboy


This was it my entire retro purchases of the month in one visit, and what part of it did I like the most, well I found it really cool to get my first Japanese GameCube game its neat to see the different style of box and it really left me wanting more. I guess we will see next month if I spend more or less on retro gaming.

KERR9000 Horror House Review SCREAM (AKA Scream 5)

 

I was always a massive Wes Craven fan, I loved the Original Nightmare on Elm Street as well as The Last House on the Left, the Hills have eyes, in fact I would go so far as to say the man was one of the true Masters of Horror. When the original Scream first came out it was in my humble opinion a great movie because it took Wes Cravens brain for horror but added in what at the time was modern technology and fresh ideas. Craven directed all 4 of the Scream films up to this point but with his passing the question was who would be at the helm for the 5th film and would they be able to live up to the high standards set by a Master of Horror like Craven.

I am very happy to say that this fifth film in the SCREAM franchise went way beyond my personal expectations, I was really worried that without Wes Cravens influence it would miss a step and just become a hollow cash grab hollowed out corpse lacking all its former glory but that is not the case at all


This new film finds the franchise returning to its former glory, the film kept twisting and turning and keeping me guessing with what I would describe as a smart script that pays just enough tribute to the original 1996 movie whilst also managing to present new and unique ideas of its own. The original Scream felt like a love letter to slasher movies, part slasher film, part parody, but also very aware that while it was pointing out clichés it was also committing to a few itself. This Scream Movie does to the semi sequel semi reboot crop of current Horror movies exactly what Scream did to slashers, it discuses these new requels as it refers to them, it lays out the tricks they pull the rules they follow critiques them, sometimes pokes fun at them but ultimately sets out to to also try and be the best darn example of this genre that it can possibly be.


This film has a great cast, which not only includes plenty of characters from the earlier films, but also plenty of new and talented actors. It is great to see so many of the classic characters and where they are in there life, how the events of previous movies have affected them but the film doesn't linger on them too long either it helps set up the new characters equally well. If your anything like me you will soon find yourself not only deciding who you care about and who you want to see survive, not only will you pick your favourites though you will also start making guesses about who to trust and who not to.


There are lots of bits of this film that I would like to talk about things that I personally think are really cool or are neat little touches but I think the film works better if you go in to it fresh and discover these for yourself so I would rather keep this review spoiler free and in stead talk about the general spirit and feel of the film instead of run it down scene by scene. I think its the ideal film to discuss and ruminate on with friends though, particularly if you have all seen the earlier films in the series, so grab a pizza, grab a buddy or two and give it a go.

It's bloody at times its also funny it's tension-filled and has a fantastic payoff, without giving too much away this film has a surprisingly intelligent connection to the original. Overall I would give this film a 9 out of 10 and call it a must see Modern Horror, its a fantastic Tribute to Wes Craven the Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett should be incredibly proud.