It is called Whatever Happened to Kevin Kane?. Here is the synopsis, if you are debating reading it (which you should). The synopsis is not very good, but at the time of writing it (read: 9AM) I was very tired and pulled it out of my ass. Cut me some slack.
This is his story.Remember that one guy at your school who was really smart but then everyone forgot about (well, except for you, if you were friends with him)?
I hope you enjoy this tale of mystery and intrigue.
Other news: Flower, Sun and Rain (E) was finally released on ROM sites. Character models look awful. Gameplay will not be everyone's cup of tea, no sir. But this game's wonderful and I'm glad I held out for the English version. There's just fucktons of reading. A full review coming soon, maybe.
I failed hard last year because my computer died and I didn't make up-to-date backups of my story. I don't think you're allowed to reuse ideas, so I've got a new one up my sleeve.
Wish me luck.
(Maybe not... but I have! I'm ecstatic.)
Fast forward a year later and Transformers Animated is all the rage, despite the fact that we got the series about eight months late. So of course: HEY, LET'S PUT SOME TOYS OUT! Of course, after deeply regretting not getting a Clone Wars toy (despite my scathing opinion of it), I bought one. The lineup was different from the American one (ours includes Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron and Ratchet), which kind of sucks. Decepticon faggotry for kids? Hell no.
Anyway, I nabbed Ratchet, the new Ironhide. His vehicle mode looked decent, although he didn't have that pull-back function that for some reason, most cheap toy cars have. Yes, I was pretty pleased with Ratchet!
Until I transformed him. FRET NOT! He does actually transform, unlike that goshdarn excuse for a Camaro. But the results are less than spectacular:
Those arms are not very efficient. Ratchet, need a hand? I guess you could just fix yourself up, but jeez. Seriously. And those... those aren't even legs! Enjoy hopping away.
Long story short: TRY HARDER, MCDONALDS. Especially with legs. (Shut up, I know these are terrible, cheap toys. Let me have my fun.)
BONUS FUN PART
Oh goodie, it's my birthday! Here is a toy to grace my collection: TFA Blitzwing. I love this dude so much. The toy is pretty much a perfect representation of my three moods too: Icy, RAGE and BATSHIT INSANE. I am going to put him on my desk and switch his face around according to my mood.
Now I'm just holding out for Longarm Prime, Wreck-Gar, Galvatron and Cyclonus. Possibly TFA Prowl since I love that crazy gay Autobot ninja. It's going to be an overwhelming Decepticon victory on my shelf, the way things are going.
AND ALSO, The Witcher Enhanced Edition, fuck yes. I've been waiting over a year for this version to come out (FEATURING SHORTER LOAD TIMES, RETRANSLATED DIALOGUE AND A FUCKTON OF ROLE-PLAYIN'). I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it in the shop. It's like, it comes with all the shit (Making-of DVD, soundtrack, game guide, game manual, original story) that usually comes in a collector's edition? FOR SEVENTY BUCKS? Sign me up, Captain! And also a map.
Screw witty pop-culture posters, I'm putting maps of videogame worlds on my wall.
If this is real, I will... oh my god. Yes. YES! OH GOD YES!
Title: Zombie vs. Ambulance (aka: Zombie Virus)
Developer: Vingt-et-un Systems
Publisher: D3 Publisher (JP), Essential Games (EU)
Year: 2006 (JP/EU)
Oh, Japan. You’re the zaniest country a lover of the bizarre like me could ever hope for. Sometimes I love you. Sometimes I just want to strangle you. Sometimes I want to have sex with you WHILE strangling you. This is exactly how I feel in the case with Zombie vs. Ambulance.
In Zombie vs. Ambulance (or Zombie Virus, if, like me, you got the PAL version), you’re a medical student who has survived a zombie apocalypse. Somehow. Realising that there could be survivors out there, you hop into an ambulance and rescue them. While running zombies over in large groups. With a female cheerleader voice urging you on. It’s one of those games that make you either go ‘That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard of’ or ‘My god, that is pure genius’.
I’m not going to say what my opinion is because quite frankly, I don’t know. Ok, you know what? I’m going to give this two scores. One of these scores starts with a ‘T’ and ends in a ‘En out of ten because this is a fucking cool concept’ and the other starts with a ‘T’ and ends in a ‘Wo out of ten because GODDAMN EVERYTHING ELSE IS SO TERRIBLE’.
So, let’s get on with the review. As I have made clear, you drive an ambulance around in order to:
A) Run zombies over; and
B) Rescue people.
This is where it starts getting complex. All at the same time there are like several things you need to keep an eye on.
One is the ‘Morale Gauge’ – an indication of how your survivors are doing back at the hospital. This slowly drops over time. When I say slowly, I actually mean RIDICULOUSLY QUICKLY. Well, I’m sitting here now thinking that maybe, ok, in an actual zombie apocalypse type of situation, people would lose out pretty fast, go insane and all that jazz. So what, this game’s being realistic about a zombie apocalypse situation? I guess now’s a good time to insert a disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying that a zombie apocalypse MOST DEFINITELY IS NOT POSSIBLE. I’m just saying that chances are slim.
Did I mention that when the Morale Gauge runs out, it’s game over? Yeah, you’ll be seeing a lot of those in this game. The thing I don’t actually get about the Morale Gauge is that it’s present in the very first mission, when you haven’t actually rescued any survivors. Well, ok, there’s your sexy friend and a couple of other sexy women, but they don’t do shit – they just stand there and look sexy. And report your statistics to you. And save your game.
There’s the ‘Survivor Icon’, which are little outlines of people on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Of course, the number of survivors you have with you is relative to how many of these icons you have. These slowly fill up over time because guess what? They gradually turn into zombies! In your ambulance. When this happens, the only way to get rid of them now is to crash into a wall at fucking high speeds, otherwise they damage… you? Your ambulance? Anyway, let them stick around for too long and you die. Game over.
The only way to prevent survivors from turning into zombies is by getting them back to the hospital, pronto. (Oddly enough, even though all your survivors back at the hospital are fighting off the zombie hordes, there’s always someone on hand to make these people all better. I learnt in movies that you can never undo zombification! Well, maybe those sexy friends of yours has something to do with it.)
Match all this up with the fact that the controls, well, suck, and holy shit is this game frustrating. Not difficult, mind you – I’m sure if I invest more than half an hour I’d be able to get a fair way into the game – just very, very frustrating. Shaking zombies off (the zombies who are already roaming around and attack you so fucking aggressively when you slow down for like one second) by twiddling the left and right analogue sticks is just plain awkward, especially while racing around corners at high speeds without crashing while looking at the map, trying to get back to the hospital, all while trying to run over as many zombies as possible so that you can keep your kill combo up, so that you can keep hospital morale up, so that you don’t get a game over, but HAVING to crash into walls at high speeds in order to get your zombified survivors out of the ambulance so that they don’t damage your vehicle so you don’t get a game over.
You see how long that sentence was? Trying to process my run-on sentence is exactly what the gameplay in Zombie vs. Ambulance is like.
So despite everything bad I’ve said about this game, there are probably some people shouting ‘But it’s a game about running zombies over! In an ambulance! How else should I spend my hard-earned thirty bucks?’ Congratulations, feel free to run out and buy it. Don’t say I didn’t tell you it had fucking terrible gameplay.
Honestly though, much like seeing The Clone Wars in the cinema for $5, I’m happy I have this game on my shelf. It’s one of those games that’s so bad, it’s good and has the coolest (yet the worst) concept ever. So to repeat what I said earlier:
[10/10] – OH MY GOD I’M RUNNING OVER FUCKING ZOMBIES.
[2/10] – It’s like I suddenly can’t drive all over again.
The basic premise of Clone Wars is that Jabba the Hutt's son (!) is MIA and that Anakin, along with some new Jedi apprentice chick named Ahsoka (!!) have to go save him. If not, the Republic pretty much lose the war because Jabba the Hutt closes off some trade routes. Seriously.
So, pluses and minuses.
PLUS:
- Clones. I love Jango Fett. I love Boba Fett. I. LOVE. CLONES.
- DEE MOTHERFUCKING BRADLEY BAKER voices many, if not all, the clones.
- SAM L. JACKSON! ANTHONY DANIELS! CHRISTOPHER LEE!
- Holy crap, is that KIT FISTO in the intro? AND HE TAKES UP MORE THAN A HUNDREDTH OF THE SCREEN?
- It's, um, Star Wars?
MINUSES:
- It plays out like incredibly bad fanfiction. No wait, it IS fanfiction.
- Ahsoka is such a Mary Sue. I expected her and Anakin to lean in and kiss at any minute, despite the Padme factor. She kind of got away with more than anyone other apprentice would have been able to. Also, her personality was so annoying that she made Anakin look cool in comparison. I hate Anakin.
- Everyone is so out of character that it's stupid. Anakin's no longer the hot-headed, supposedly badass guy you once knew in Episodes 2 and 3. Suddenly, he is wise and not reckless. Then Obi-Wan, who I thought would be ok at first, but turned out to be sarcastic and wise-cracking (not to mention kind of sleazy). Then Dooku, who really just seemed more petty than strategic. TL;DR - EVERYONE IS OOC EXCEPT FOR C3PO AND R2-D2.
- Actually, I don't know if this is more a minus than a plus. But whatever, it goes here. A single line from Anakin contains more character than he ever had in the Prequel Trilogy. That is how bad Anakin is.
- The score, oh god. The score was by some dude named Kevin Kiner, who, instead of the orchestral music you traditionally hear in the films, threw in a whole bunch of tribal tunes. It really did not work. John Williams would be turning in his non-existent grave. Or spinning around in his house.
- A minor sort of gripe, but did everyone's eyes have to be so fucking big?
In short, while I don't exactly regret spending $5 to see this film on a 25m screen (remember though, Star Wars faggot), it was not a good movie. You should not see this movie. Unless you really like Star Wars. And then you can just rage at how it has fucked up the continuity.
[2/10 (one point for Clones and Kit, one point for... some voice talents.)]
'No More Heroes is a game by Suda51. It is not as pretentious as Killer7 (EVEN THOUGH I LIKE PRETENTIOUS, BUT NOT TOO PRETENTIOUS) and also does not have as much of a storyline. You are an otaku assassin. You eventually reach number one but not before being cruelly disappointed. Namely because of the shitty graphics.'
... Well, not quite. The actual review was kinder. EIGHT LAUGHING SUDA FACES OUT OF TEN.
