GAMING: STREETS OF RAGE 2

I was going to write a review of Streets of Rage 2 then I remembered I had a video of me and a friend completing the entire game on my laptop. As youtube have been kind enough to allow uploads of over 15 minutes I have uploaded the entire video of us beating each level and every mother fucker that dared to walk on to the screen. 

I am playing as Axel and watch out for the bits where I keep killing my friend playing as Max (pretending its an accident) just so I can annoy the hell out of him. 

Also I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. This will be the last post I do of 2011 and the web shop will be down until then also. I would like to thank everyone who has stopped by, followed and taken an interest in the content here at lost entertainment in 2011. Next year the site can only get better and better. 

Here is the Streets of Rage video

MOVIES: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD REMAKE 1990

So the original Night of the Living Dead from 1968 is an undisputed classic. It made the rules for the format and formula for zombie movies for decades to come. It had the underlying social commentary of what was going on in real life America at that time and all the rest of the really clever things that people take from that movie that might not have even been intended. I just look at the living dead series straight up for what they were and thats amazing zombie movies. Yeah you can look deeper into it that it has a black guy as a main character or you can look at Dawn of the Dead as being satire on consumerism but I personally think as I said before.. they are just cool zombie movies nothing more nothing less and when you put all of that extra stuff in there it somewhat takes the fun away from it all.

I am a fan of the original for what it was and the success it had for being a B-movie made in black white on a pittance of a budget and it was guerrilla film making at its finest. However the original Night of the Living Dead is my least favorite of the series. I am not saying its a shit film but out of the three... (well I will stop there I would say four but Land of the Dead was made soo long after the original three that with its futuristic feel it feels like a completely different film and nothing to do with the rest of the series) but but whenever I watch them in a row the first movie is somewhat of a chore compared to watching Dawn or Day. Some people will agree with me a lot more will disagree but thats freedom of speech for you.

I am not a fan of movie remakes unless its a movie that needs remaking and what I mean by that is if the original movie was a classic but lacking in either budget, special effects, camera shots or bad plot holes. I am not a fan of needless remakes that Michael Bay feeds us on a regular basis of massive movies that didnt need to be remade just to draw cash for no reason what so ever. If you have seen the Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes, Friday the 13th and the list could go on forever of shit needless remakes you will know what I mean.

The Night of the Living Dead remake is different. It was remade by the original crew (plus gore master Tom Savini) with a real budget and this time they could do things with the movie that they couldnt do with the original. Another reason for the remake was due to a copyright fuck up the original Night of the Living Dead ended up becoming a public domain film and everyone involved ended up getting screwed out of the movies earnings kinda the same way that the cast an crew of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre did. So this time round they were going to reboot a classic and reap the rewards.

This time round the zombies are nothing short of amazing and they have more of a presence than the original. In the original you would sometimes forget that you were watching a zombie movie due to the amount of boring dialogue that would go on for too long without seeing any undead. This time round the hands are frequently coming through the windows and they are always around to jump out when least expected. 

This time round Barbara isnt as annoying as the first movie and is not scared of pumping a few zombies full of lead and doesent just sit there being a mong all the time. Ben is played by Tony Todd out of the Candyman and nails the role spot on. I really enjoy this movie and I may be making a bold statement by saying its better than the original but I really think it is. Its in color, the performances are better, hardly anythings been changed story wise,  the performances are better, its full of action and the zombie special effects are awesome. Go watch it!

TOYS: GTA III CLAUDE ACTION FIGURE

Its the 10th anniversary since Grand Theft Auto III was released on the Playstation 2. I cant believe 10 years have passed it only seems like yesterday I was astounded by the freedom of being able to murder everything in a 3D environment for the first time.  To celebrate a limited edition Claude action figure has been produced and it looks amazing. Not only does it come with a shit of guns but it also has real clothing and for a really cool bonus the jail suit.

If your a fan of the game and a collector this is a must have and they are being snapped up fast soo hurry because they wont be around much longer. I hope next year they release a Tommy Vercetti one then that might be a must have for me.

MOVIES:TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Tombs of the blind Dead is a Spanish horror movie from 1971 that I just had to check out. The movie gets a bad rating on online reviews but I thought it was really cool and I really digged it.

The story is about two friends (a male and a female who's names escape me at this hour) who are going for a trip into the countryside when the female bumps into her old college room mate who just so happens to be an old lesbian fling and they decide to bring her along on just for the hell of it. On the train ride the woman gets jealous of the other two flirting so she jumps off the really slow moving steam train and heads off into an abandoned Medieval village. She sets camp up there only to find that at night time undead hooded skeletons (that ride horses really slowly that look cool as fuck by the way) rise from their grave looking for flesh. She gets chased and bitten to fuck and left dead.

The next day the other 2 decide to leave their really nice hotel and go and look for her. This bit puzzled me as if you were that concerned surely you would have started the search the day before and especially before nightfall? Oh well I guess if they would have found her during the day and just gone back to the hotel this movie would have ended up being a porn film as it was leaning that way. After finding the police in the village and finding out their female friend was "murdered in a ritual killing" the plot thickens and they start doing a bit of detective work. 

During their investigation it turns out that the village was ruled by Templar Knights who practiced Satanic rituals and sacrifices in order for them to gain the secret of eternal life. Then we get a cool flashback of some hot chick getting fucked up by these cool knights and are then told the knights were all hung and their eyes pecked out by crows. They return from the grave blind and hunt using the sense of sound so upon hearing all of this they decide to go back there, why? I don't fucking know but again if they didn't the movie would just end there I guess. During this time the body of the woman comes to life in the morgue and kills some weird bloke who likes playing with frogs and chases a woman around a mannequin workshop until she burns. 

The couple then enlist the help of a flick knife wielding smuggler called Pedro (who kinda looks like Earl from my name is Earl) to go back to the village along with some other chick because they needed the body count I guess. When returning to the cursed village there is rape scene involving Pedro and the main character woman which is random and has nothing to do with anything and to top it off after its finished the woman just does her top up and acts like nothings happened. Maybe that kind of thing is normal in Spain or something but it made me laugh more than it shocked me. To cut it short though without ruining the ending the Blind dead return from their Tombs and go on a rampage on al the dickheads who decided it was a good idea to go back there and all hell breaks loose.

In all fairness I enjoyed the movie it had a dark atmosphere and was a really cool concept. The filming locations are spot on and the effects of the blind dead are spot on. Before judging this movie too harshly you must remember that this was made in 1971 and for the time it was made and the resources they had I think they pulled off a pretty good film. Yes there are endless plot holes and lots of bits that make no sense but what other horror movies are flawless in that department apart from a few high budget master pieces. I am at the stage now where I have pretty much seen almost every zombie/horror movie around and now I am just ticking off the list of ones I havent viewed and this was enjoyable. The movie is in Spanish with text subtitles which I do not prefer as I really enjoy the work of shit dub over acting but there isnt that much dialogue as you can imagine. 

After viewing the movie I discovered that when the movie was released for drive in theaters in the US that they re edited the movie and put in an alternate opening sequence from the original to make it look like a Planet of the Apes sequel to sucker in movie goers to watch it. Watch the video to see it

MUSIC; KRISTIANS NEW SHOW

My new show has been renamed from Metal Mayhem to Project Overkill (due to there being already countless shows called Metal Mayhem) and the launch has been held til early 2012 as I am doing lots of live events up until then. Follow the show on face book at http://www.facebook.com/kristianrodriguezofficial I havent joined twitter yet and am still debating doing so. All of the information and shows will be hosted on lost entertainment

ART: CLASSIC WWE ARTWORK

I was messing around on paint and made a few of these up. One of which the Warrior has seen and really digged it and you can find his comments from a past post on here.

Classic Undertaker and Paul Bearer

Warrior in Parts unknown

I am going to be doing some more with Ric Flair, The Legion of Doom, Macho Man, Jake Roberts and many more!

MOVIES: INSIDIOUS

After hearing lots of hype about this movie that its some fucked up shit I gave it a go this evening. Its not a bad effort for a new horror movie but its kind of like a mix between Paranormal Activity, The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors, Poltergeist and Amityville Horror. 

The movie is about a family whos young boy goes into a coma and strange shit starts to happen with ghosts and demons around the house. After moving house and still shits going on they get the help from the paranormal team which includes two science nerds and an old woman with a gas mask (who turns out to be the evil mother from Detroit Rock City and the filthy landlady from kingpin) and they have a seance to bring the kid back. It turns out the kid has been travelling to fucked up dimensions in his sleep and is a prime target for possession by a demon which looks like a poor Darth Maul. 

There is hope as the kids Dad turns out to have the same power but he blocked it out until this point, so now with his regained power he can delve into the evil dimension and save his son while under hypnosis. I am not going to do any spoilers here I am just telling you what the movie is about and what its like.

Its not bad to watch and has some decent scares. The make up and ghosts look cool and the budget was used well. The atmosphere is pretty spot on as well with creepy shit going on with baby monitors and stuff like that but I do feel the movie is lacking somewhat. I preferred the demon in in the Paranormal Activity movie because it had the Jaws factor of not seeing it made it scarier and leaving it to the imagination is one of the best things to do. When the Demon appears in this movie it is pretty laughable its the most cliche Demon devil and kinda makes it all lose momentum considering all the other ghosts in this movie look pretty terrifying especially the old woman ghost. Also I dunno if I missed something but did they leave the baby and the other kid in the old house when they moved because you never see them ever again?

All in all its a good watch but not as ground breaking for the new decade of horror as it had been hyped to be 7/10

TOYS: COOLEST MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE FIGURES!

Back in the early 80s a cartoon was released which served as more of a sales pitch for Mattel action figures. After the success of the Star Wars franchise He-Man and co were next in line to dominate the toy markets for almost an entire decade. A live action movie (which will be reviewed here at some point) was made and He Man fever was a global phenomenon. What was cool was how they made up new characters in the cartoon just for an excuse to make them as toys. 

The characters were colorful, the stories had good moral value (if not somewhat homo erotic at the same time) and the possibilities with the toys was endless. I had most of the figures and playsets not all of them I know some kids that did but it was hard going getting everything. So here are some of my favorite figures of all time.

Beast Man

Beast Man was Skeletors dumb ass side kick who used to just hang around a lot doing nothing apart from listening to Skeletors racist jokes! Dont believe me? check this out

Beast man was really cool for kidnapping the female action figures and holding tbem down while Grizzlor interfered with them. Beast Man stars in one of my favorite CKY sketches along with his master Skeletor check it out

Grizzlor

Grizzlor was a member of the evil Horde who were the badass crew that even Skeletor was shit scared of. Grizzlor was just like a really ball of fur with fangs. He survived after going in the bath so this guy is a winner!

BLADE

Blade was from the He man movie and was then made into an action figure. Blade was one of the coolest guys in the movie with his eye patch and double sword wielding skills he was a bad man. The action figure was cool as fuck with spinning action so his swords would tornado anyone out of the room. A top contender for lead bad guys in your action figure adventures. I turned him into a good guy once after seeing the error of his ways and he became allies with He Man. However this didnt last long after he found out Greyskull wasnt as cool as the Snake mountain or hordes playset so he went back to being a cunt!

HORDAK

Hordak was like the main bad guy from Masters of the Universe. He kicked Skeletor out of the horde and Skeletor was just his bitch (just a small fact that many people didnt know) and they used him more in the She Ra series than they did He Man. She Ra should never have fucked with the horde she would have got raped and all kinds of fucked up coz shit these guys wernt playing around they meant business!

BUZZ OFF

Buzz off was a cool figure to have and had moveable wings. I always thought it was strange that he was a good guy just look at him he looks like a baddie. I know I will get people saying that Bee's are misunderstood good guys of nature kinda like great white Sharks and Zebras, but I dont eat Honey, I hate flowers and I got stung by a Bee once so fuck them they are cunts!

DRAGON BLASTER SKELETOR

This was the Skeletor I had as a kid as I never had the normal one. Skeletor comes complete with battle armor which has a dragon water pistol attached. I used to squirt it at He Man and he would just be like "a water pistol? fuck off!" and then bash Skeletors brains in. Skeletor when you think about it was a really toss bad guy. Nothing he ever did ever worked yet no one questioned his leadership so he's kind of like John Terry in his role as England captain!

FISTO

Here with a man called Fisto... whether hes gay, straight or swings both ways that iron fist is gunna hurt more than a pineapple. His arm would punch if you pulled it back. But Fisto? really? no other names Mattel? what next rim job? 

HE MAN

Ah yes the main man himself! The thing that has always bugged me (well amused me more) is that in the cartoon He Man was ginger.

SEE these locks are more orange than Beast Mans nut sack!

Yet the action figures and comics made He Man blonde. You can kind of see what happened there though. Mattel marketing meeting someone brings in the prototype He Man figure and one half a second later the other company bigwigs are saying "ITS GINGER! REPAINT IT!" " HOW WILL WE SELL THAT WITH GINGER FUCKING HAIR" so thats why I think He Man got a blonde make over. 

PRINCE ADAM

Prince Adam! He Mans secret identity.. even though He looks the fucking same as He Man and is still a brick shit house. Not even a pair of glasses or a mask nope just looks the exact fucking same but with a white jumper. Maybe the people of Eternia are complete spastics or that its such a good disguise that it actually works. I will try robbing the off license at some point dressed like it and see how I get on.

MOSS MAN

Moss Man is a cool figure and has a furry body. He looks really immense even if his get up is he is a damp  garage roof! The moss on my moss man didnt survive the bath so thumbs down fucker!

JITSU

Now this is one cool as fuck guy. Looks like a young evil Mr Miyagi and just looks badass as fuck. Unlike Fisto Jitsu didnt have a sketchy iron fist no no he had a gold hand with karate chop action. Jitsu is a badman!

LEECH

Leech is about right because this figure sucked literally! It had a rubber suction face with a button on the back and when pressed up against a flat surface like a window it would stick to it. It had hand suckers also but pretty pointless just a gimmicky toy from when the line was drawing to an end and they were just releasing anything as they were running out of ideas. This toy is ideal to give your self love bites with and then go round boasting to everyone you have a real life girlfriend with a head and everything!

MAN E FACES

Man E Faces was a figure that had a face you could rotate round and why would you want to do that? because it was kinda fun! this was one you could turn into good guy and bad guy all the time. He was the most mentally unstable of my figures with which side he was on it got ridiculous by the end no one wanted to hang out with him by the finish!

MEGATOR

Megator was a giant figure that was like 4 times the size of the rest and bigger than castle Greyskull. This is like the Holy grail of He Man figures and is ultra rare. I was fortunate enough to have this but by the time I had it Masters of the Universe was out and Turtles was in so it didnt get played with much. I never knew what happened to it which makes me mad because these go for absolute fortunes on ebay.

MER MAN

Mer Man was one of Skeletors more colorful sidekicks who used to spy on people from lakes. He told Teela she was adopted in one episode the guy is funny as fuck! 

RIO BLAST

Rio blast was a country and Western type guy (yes I guess there is a scene for that shit in Eternia to sadly) who really looks like Jesse Ventura from Running Man

and Rio Blast then became Captain Freedom!

While I am on the subject Jesse Ventura also looked a lot like fisto in that movie as well! Brilliant!

SCARE GLOW

Scare Glow was a rare mail away figure which made a good contender for top guy if you questioned Skeletors place on the throne. He glows in the dark and in the 80's anything that glows or was of the hologram nature immediately becomes cool. It was the rules back then!

SPIKOR

Spikor had a retractable fork thing and was covered in Spikes (maybe thats how he got his extremely creative nickname?) so he was really dangerous. This meant he must have been a hit with the ladies as women love danger and a man covered in Spikes must make them go weak at the knees and if he has got a few quid then well.. its a promise!

STRATOS

Stratos was one of He Mans cool buddies who could fly and had a grey beard which covered his entire body. Nuff said!

CY CLONE

I cant remember his back story but this figure ruled. It had spinning helicopter like action and had an awesome motion sticker on his chest. Up there with the top boys for me!

TITUS

Titus was another giant figure but he was one of the good guys. Extremely rare and valuable with real hair.

WEBSTOR

Webstor was one of Skeletors mates who liked nicking stuff and spying on people. He had Spider powers and was a complete cock. Was cool to let your other figures beat on though!

"Me as child playing with Masters of the Universe and Thundercats stuff"

So that brings this article to an end I hope you enjoyed it and it brought back some good memories or that you learned something. I will be back soon with more nostalgic bullshit for you to enjoy including a review of the movie.

MOVIES: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Normally I dont do this and I normally write about things I enjoy and would like to share with you so that you can enjoy the same things as I do. However after just watching this movie I have never felt the need to say "DONT WATCH THIS PILE OF CUNT" more than now.

After seeing the trailer this summer in the cinema I was looking forward to this! I really enjoyed the first movie and really enjoyed the way it pulled on the tracks of the emotional roller coaster in the same way Jaws does by having an antagonist that you never see coming until the last second. I thought the first movie was innovative and believable in the sense that with todays technology if there was a ghost in your house you would try and document it.I enjoyed the characters the effects and the atmosphere. I never cared much for the theatrical ending but oh well.

I sat through the second movie after being told it was the worst film ever. To be fair the people that told it was the worst film ever I value their opinion about as much as I value the rest of the united kingdoms general public opinions on things which is zero.
The second is watchable if you fancy a few scares and adds a tiny bit of depth to the story of the original but all in all its a cash in and doesent hold a candle to the first.

Now onto the third which is actually the shittest film I have seen this year. All of the decent footage we have seen in the trailer is non existent in the actual movie which makes you feel after watching it if you saw the right movie. There is no continuation of the baby kidnap cliffhanger from the last one and just soo many pot holes its easy to pick this fucker apart its hard where to even begin.

This movie is a dumbass prequel which isnt even necessary. Its set in 1988 and is about the two sisters during their childhood and surprise sur-fucking-prise their step dad (or maybe hes just some bloke who hangs round in the basement and bangs their mum?) only happens to a junior paranormal investigator who has loads of cameras and editing equipment just like every other male lead in this series!

So yeah things start happening furniture moves about, loud bangs, baby sitter gets freaked out, couple of cheap scares all are now on tape. The movie makes a nod towards Poltergeist as the mum and dennis (I think that was his name I dont really give a cunt if I am wrong!!) smoke a doobie in the bed. This time round the ghost can cause earthquakes to the point where everyone has to leave and go Grandmas house.

Only thing is Grandma turns out to be some witch bitch who has weird old ladies in her shed, mum levitates and flies around the house, Dennis gets snapped in half by the ghost (which is fucking jokes) then the kids follow nanny up stairs and the movie cuts off.

For this being the "prequel" there is nothing mentioned of any of these events in the other movies apart from the fact they were haunted back in the day. No mention of bent in half dudes or crazy grandma! The only thing that is mentioned in the other movies is that there was a fire which doesent even happen in this movie so they fucked up there again.

The first movie is awesome, the second is watchable and the third is soo fucking shit you want to tune out ten minutes in. How I survived the whole thing I do not know. Please do your self a favor and dont bother buying renting or even watching this. I give all movies a chance and I enjoy shit films as I like to make jokes the whole way through them but this is just dire shit! The most shocking thing is this movie made over 80 million!! So I'm sure the producers couldnt give a fuck. What a finger to give the audience!

GAMING: WWF WRESTLEFEST ARCADE

Back in 1991 it was a great time for coin op gaming. There were soo many cool titles and back then you got a loat more for your coin than you do these days. I hate arcades these days with the lack of machines and the greed of the presets. You walk in any arcade now and you just have your bog standard house of the dead shooting game which you get one credit for a pound, a shit dance machine along with maybe a crap driving simulator. Back in the early 90s arcades had Street Fighter, Simpsons, Mortal Kombat, Punch Out, Terminator shoot em ups and cool pinball machines. As a child you could spend an entire afternoon in one going from game to game playing a few levels on each. Now you cant be in there more than 10 minutes without running out of change unless you're a dab hand at playing house of the dead without dying or you have a £100 to feed in the machine. I found as gaming has advanced to the stage it has with xbox 360 and PS3 we are at a junction where nothing is impossible but coin op has kinda been left behind which is a real shame. 

Anyhow this is about a game I love so I will stop ranting about the decline of arcade gaming in the 21st century (although I'm sure its something I will bring up again at some point) and talk about WWF WRESTLEFEST. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time hanging out at a bowling alley just outside of Romford called Roller Bowl. It was a cool place and most of the birthday parties were held there from school as there was a Quazer and a kick ass adventure playground thing as well. I used to spend a lot of time there with my friends as it was a safe place to go and above all it had the coolest arcade floor next to the bowling alleys. It had all the above mentioned games and pinball tables but the one thing it had which kicked the most ass was WWF Wrestlefest.

  Wrestlefest was a sequel to a previous WWF arcade game called WWF Superstars by Taito. Superstars was a game where you had to go at it as a tag team to take on Million Dollar Man and Andre the Giant after beating 3 other tag teams. Superstars was very empty and the ring was the size of a football field and it doesent play to well but its an early effort from the late 80s so I let it off. Its not half as bad as the Nintendo games they were releasing at the time which if you would have filled your nes console with cat shit and pressed the power button you would have had more fun than playing them!

Wrestlefest improved on the last games flaws with better graphics, up to four players can join, better game play, better sounds, an Royal Rumble game mode, the ring looked better and all in all the game captured the atmosphere of the WWF programing at the time.

Before playing this game I stood in awe watching the insert coin screen with amazement it was just so fucking cool. Dont believe me? Take a look!

The "Winners dont use drugs" message at the beginning is kinda confusing, if winners dont use drugs then how comes Hulk Hogan had the belt for like 4 years? Anyway after that you would insert your coin and go to the character select so lets see who was available.

Some top guys in here which made it that little bit more awesome. Playing this on four player used to be great as there wasnt any arguments as there was always someone decent if Hogan or Warrior had been picked.

Royal Rumble was the most fun between four and was the most fun to play alone I found. The tag team mode was good if you were in a pair and the tag team mode show cased a different arena with each match including one with the old school blue barred cage.

The game play was pretty much button bashing out of grapples and stomping people while they were down. All of the wrestlers had their own finishers just like in real life and they play off really well. The tag team mode goes on until you ultimately face the legion of doom.

The Legion of Doom are relatively easy to beat compared to the previous game where Andre the giant was cheap as hell and killed you every time he touched you. 

The game has some cool weapons if you go to the outside like cameras, chairs and steel steps. 

If youve never played this before and your a wrestling fan then go play it. Dont get me wrong its no WWE 12 but its hell of a lot of fun and it ties in with that period of time so well.

PS. Roller Bowl still exists and is now called city limits and the arcade is still there. However it is now one of those ones that has a house of the dead machine and all that crap. There is no longer a Quazer and its not a very nice/safe place to go. Its a shame really!