Saturday Crapshoot: McKenzie & Co
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, it’s a Valentine’s trip to the other side of dating.
Ah, Valentine’s Day. The one night of the year where everyone has plans. Expensive restaurants. Romantic walks under starlight. In my case, sitting on my own in an empty house with a large bag of Malteasers, constantly refreshing Twitter and Facebook to see if all the fake letters from the VD Clinic have done their wicked work on those pesky happy couples. Is there an Aching Solitude Awareness Day equivalent of “Bah, humbug”? Maybe some kind of Fruitella with razor blades in them? I digress.
Last year, we welcomed Valentine’s Day with a dating game called Man Enough, and it was – of course – dreadful. Needless to say, there are many like it for guys – everything from National Lampoon’s Blind Date to assorted German FMV things that take a rather pornier approach. But what vicarious thrills are there for a lonely girl in need of some virtual loving? Well… there’s this. It’s something, right?
Saturday Crapshoot: It Came From The Desert
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, the sleepy town of Lizard Breath has a serious case of ants in its pants… and its farms, mines, and airfield… and a pistol’s not gonna cut it.
Mother Nature is a nightmare, and her spawn nothing but hideous monsters. Nobody knows that better than B-Movie directors, or that the best way to appreciate their true horror is to zap them to Godzilla size. Them! Earth vs. The Spider. The Beginning of The End. Honey I Blew Up The Kid. The list goes on, with special effects ranging from advanced tricks with glass and cameras, to simply dumping some grasshoppers on a postcard and hoping the audience weren’t paying very much attention.
It Came From The Desert brought grammatically questionable horror to the desktop.
Saturday Crapshoot: Private Eye
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, who’s in the mood for something… noirishing?
The inevitable sound of smoky jazz echoes down the dark Los Angeles street. Somewhere, a man falls to the ground with an ice-pick in his neck. A damsel puts the finishing touches to her look of mock distress. A crucial clue is picked up off the floor and torn up by a genre-savvy plotter. And in his dark, cramped office, Philip Marlowe waits to be told the lie that’ll pull him into the middle of it all.
Yep. It’s time to head back to the golden age of detectives and take a look at a game that – while no classic by any stretch – deserves better than to languish in its current obscurity.
Saturday Crapshoot: Superhero League of Hoboken
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, crime meets its match in the streets of New Jersey! Bad guys, meet the world’s baddest team of superheroes! No, wait. Worst. I meant worst.
When evil rears its ugly head, the cry for justice echoes throughout the post-apocalyptic streets! Which brave, valiant, daring, fearless, hardy, indomitable, unabashed, valourous, thesaurus-owning heroes will arrive to save the day? The Superhero League of Hoboken, of course. And if you need to see inside pizza boxes, tread water really well and make robots rust a little faster, then citizen, relax!
(But if you know how to make a mini-Batsignal with a torch, definitely try that first.)
Saturday Crapshoot: Les Miserables
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week… do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a people who have… learned the Hadouken?
Les Misérables is one of the most beloved musicals of all time; a tragic, beautiful piece of work that fills your veins with fire and soaks your cheeks with the softest of tears. From Broadway to London, it’s touched the hearts of millions with its humanity, passion, and unforgettable musical numbers.
So obviously, someone in Japan turned it into a beat-em-up.
Saturday Crapshoot: Pyst
Myst, as everyone who ignores people who are wrong can tell you, is a festering boil upon the gaming industry, found just off to the side of adventuring’s anus, on the itchiest part of point and click’s clammiest buttock. It landed in 1993, with its pretty graphics instantly bedazzling all who gazed upon it, especially those who found a copy stuffed with their first CD drive or nestled in the packaging of their printer for reasons that still escape all comprehension. To this day, it has armies of admirers. Unrelated, there are millions of people whose idea of a good time is watching obese members of the opposite sex bathing in porridge to the tunes of Barry Manilow. Probably. In conclusion, Myst is rubbish.
But did you ever wonder what happened to scenic Myst Island after some four million players had tramped across it? Of course not. But if you had, Pyst might just have been your answer…
Saturday Crapshoot: The Terminator
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. And at the risk of annoying any idiots who think the end of the world is coming in 2012, here’s a slightly more grounded fictional apocalypse to sink your teeth into.
Before The Elder Scrolls hit the big leagues, Bethesda was best known as the company that made Terminator games – though not necessarily the best known Terminator games. The awful platform games, with the infuriating mechanic of having to shoot human enemies in the legs to maintain the second movie’s no-killing rule? Other guys. The for-the-time-impressive light-gun game? Nope.
Instead, with the exception of the deservedly beloved FPS Future Shock, one of the first to combine on-foot action and vehicles, certainly in a way that actually made it fun to jump behind the wheel, none of them were particularly remembered. Admittedly, in the case of the action RPG style Terminator 2029 and Wolfenstein-level teched FPS Terminator: Rampage, that’s probably for the best.
But their first attempt? It’s the only Terminator game that lets you risk destroying humanity by buying Kyle Reese a pack of condoms while protecting Sarah Connor. How did that get forgotten?
Saturday Crapshoot: A Very MUGEN Christmas
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, have you ever wanted to see Santa fight GLaDOS? Of course you have! And that’s just one of the unofficial brawls you can arrange with this…
Twas the night before Christmas, and all round the net
At least a few writers weren’t quite this desperate. Yet.
They refused the cliche, the call of something so trite
As giving this old poem its millionth rewrite…
“Ah, sod it,” thought Santa, “It does fit the mood.
And ignoring Christmas would seem somewhat rude.
But where are the games celebrating the season?
There’ve barely been any! There must be a reason…”
Saturday Crapshoot: Click Video Magazine
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, if you want to know what to play, press Play!
Back at the start of the 90s, the PC was still at war with both the Amiga and the Atari ST, nobody yet felt like roadkill on the information super-highway, mullets were finally an endangered species, and simply adding the word ‘cyber’ onto a word made it the most proto-radical thing since, like, something totally triumphant. But on the plus side, Gremlins 2 was brilliant and some other things were okay.
Click isn’t simply a nostalgic glance back at those days. It’s a video time capsule that lasted just two issues, largely I suspect due to the difficulty of persuading stores to fill their shelves with VHS tapes, and its then-staggering cost of £5. Let’s crack it open and take a peek at its secret juice.
Saturday Crapshoot: Bert Higgins: The Man From HELL
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, we’re holding out for a hero. Sorry, wait. We’re holding our hands over our mouths to avoid hurting his feelings by sniggering too loudly.
In the not too distant future, a world oppressed by the shadow of Terrorism cried out for its saviour. And the counter-terrorism task-force known only as HELL listened. Its best scientists gathered and forged a plan. They made a prototype warrior; the first of many capable of doing what no mere flesh and blood man ever could. They made him strong. They made him heroic. They made him a living god.
Then they made one big mistake. They named him Bert Higgins.
Saturday Crapshoot: Biing!
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, sex may sell… but can it cure appendicitis? And can it ever hope to take over from Google as your search engine of choice?
Biing’s intro begins in the year 2156, with mankind facing extinction at the hands of an intergalactic evil in a time of dread. As civilians scream and run in terror, a fleet of battlecraft called X37-2-in-1 Strike Ships close in on their goal… EARTH. The evil Athros, Ruler of the Universe appears in all his cloaked majesty, kicking off an apocalyptic attack, and more importantly, kidnapping the beautiful anime-style Princess Pinkcheeks. But! The last remaining Earth hero steps forth, fighting back in a 2D battle that looks at least a little like the old NES shooter Lifeforce. Will he be able to defeat his foe?
No. No, he won’t. Because Biing is an erotic hospital management sim.
Things get considerably stranger from there.
Saturday Crapshoot: The Unicorn Killer
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, we head out to catch a real criminal!
In the world of PC gaming, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and casual gaming companies willing to churn out games about some staggeringly inappropriate things. Like this – a casual game based on a real-world killer, currently serving his time. Fun! His name is Ira Einhorn, and he evaded justice for 25 years after beating his ex-girlfriend Holly Maddux to death and stashing her corpse in his closet to fester. Yes. Really.
This is the story of how he was captured. According to Real Crimes: The Unicorn Killer.
Saturday Crapshoot: Jurassic Park: Trespasser
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, he’s sorely in need of a palate cleansing after five hours of tedium. And you know it’s bad when you resort to this to wash away unwanted memories.
On a day with Skyrim, Saints Row 3 and the Tribes Ascend beta on my PC, do you know what I wasted about five hours of my precious existence playing? That’s right – the new Jurassic Park game. Well, it claims to be a “game”, though I argue that “Jurassic Park: The Vaguely Interactive Machinima That’s Suspiciously Like Aliens For Some Strange Reason” would have been almost as snappy.
Did I like it? I did not. Do I recommend it? Only if you’re planning a time capsule full of warnings to the future. Honestly, we sent this kind of interactive movie the way of smallpox for a reason. Instead, how about taking a look back at something a bit closer to what the Jurassic Park movie deserved. Something innovative. Something ambitious. Something not shit. Trespasser is definitely two of the three.
See if you can guess which two…
Saturday Crapshoot: The (Lost) Elder Scrolls
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, he’s busy cursing empty, yet surprisingly detailed threats at Bethesda for thinking a tutorial was a good place for giant spiders. GRR! But also…
Skyrim! It’s here, it’s awesome, and you’re probably playing it right now, aren’t you? But here’s something interesting you may or may not know – while it’s officially The Elder Scrolls V, it’s actually the seventh game set in its universe – not including expansion packs like Shivering Isles and Bloodmoon, or a set of mobile games for N-Gage and cellphones. Somewhere in the middle, two went missing – and their names are Battlespire and Redguard. What happened to these lost adventures?
Saturday Crapshoot: GTA: London 1969
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, a trip back to where the legend that is Grand Theft Auto first started… give or take a few thousand miles and a quick expansion pack…
Liberty City. Vice City. San Andreas. Since the first Grand Theft Auto back in 1997, they’ve been our explosive playgrounds for criminal activity, casual murder and annoying the crap out of the Daily Mail. In GTA V, we now know we’ll be heading back to the third. But what of the city the series forgot? No, not the weird future one from GTA2 that nobody remembers. I speak of course… of London.
