29 May 2013

GAMING: TERMINATOR 2 FOR THE NINTENDO GAME BOY

On my 9th birthday in 1993 I received Terminator 2 Judgement Day for my Nintendo Game Boy. I had been counting down the days for a long while before hand.

However when I got the game and played it I realized just how much disappointment could ruin the best day of the year. The game absolutely sucked.

Back in the day when a good movie came out a video game would follow. However most movie licenses were given to a company called LJN who would then make god awful video games which 80% of the time where beyond unplayable.

You see LJN was a toy company which made the ultra awesome WWF rubber figures back in the day. In fact most of the video games were made by toy companies back in the late 80's and early 90's. THQ which is still around today stands for the Toy Headquarters. Video games were classed as toys so thats how it all came about. Making toys and figures is one thing but programing computer games (and good ones at that) was an area they flopped at every possible opportunity.


Compared to the other Terminator 2 games (except the arcade shooter which was pretty cool) this one is not too bad. But when you remember that the other games were pretty much unplayable and almost impossible to enjoy it's not that much of a plus.

The Game Boy game focused on trying to make this game as realistic to the movies storyline as possible and thats its main downfall.




In the first level you are in the future war and you have to blow up these communication towers in height order. Sounds easy enough but the fact you are not told to do this means you will constantly get game over screens. It was only after a day of trying everything that I eventually figured out that was what I was meant to do.

 
Next up we have to go inside the lab to reprogram a Terminator to send back in time to save John Connor. It's at this point I must point out that you only have one life in this game. Yup one life to go through some of the hardest most tedious shit you can ever go through in a video game. If by some miracle you can get past this bit you will then have to go through some real proper bullshit.


Now you have to reprogram the cyborg computer. Now I wasn't the cleverest of 9 year olds and hell I am not even that clever now, but this was fucking hard. You had to make sure all the wires were organized perfectly in 35 seconds. You can't even pause the game to have a look. You have to do this shit first time or it is back to the game over screen. I never got past this part of the game.. until recently. I would also like to point out that this actually takes up most of the gameplay time. Kids buy games about robots with guns because they want to blow stuff up. Not to fuck with shit circuit boards!


After that is out of the way it's pretty smooth sailing towards the end. You become Arnie and get to shoot at stuff, which was what you wanted anyway right? The strange thing about this game is the fact the difficulty decreases as the game goes on which is the opposite of what is meant to happen.

So after that theres a level where you have to destroy Cyberdine (just like the movie) and then we go to the final level which is the showdown with the T-1000 in the steel mill.


This level is pretty simple, just keep shooting the T-1000 until he falls into the lava and it's good night sweet heart. So after 20 exact years of trying to beat this game I finally did it and here was my reward..


20 FUCKING YEARS AND ALL I GET IS SOME SHITTY FUCKING TEXT WITH NO IMAGE? WHAT THE FUCK?!!!!! This is beyond an outrage, oh wait..


That makes it all better I guess. After reading this article I wouldnt advise playing this game you don't need to. I have done it for you.. for 20 fucking years!!

23 May 2013

THE MAKING OF THE BOOTLEG SUPER SECRET WARS

The Bootleg Super Secret Wars are finally over and available to read for FREE online. I can easily say this has been one of the most fun and rewarding projects I have ever undertaken since opening Lost Entertainment.

I got to play with some of the coolest action figures ever made and it was still classed as "work" (god I love this job).

How did it all start you may ask? Well to start with I would have to say a few action figures and a big bag of weed were fundamental elements which got the ball rolling.

 
Although they were key elements the main catalyst for it all started when I purchased this shitty bootleg Superman figure from ebay. I wrote about this little guy in this previous Lost Entertainment article (click here to read) a few months back. When I was a kid growing up in the 1980's all I ever wanted was a Superman figure and I could never find one anywhere. The only thing I could get was this shitty bootleg rubber Superman doll from the Roman Road market in East London. The only DC figures around were the Batman ones and Aquaman. They sold Lex Luthor in the UK just to piss me off (I think). You might have been able to get a Superman from somewhere else but all I know is that I couldn't get one.

So recently on ebay I was surfing round buying shit I don't need like usual, when I saw this guy and all the memories came flooding back. I won him and he arrived a few days later. After he arrived I grew quite fond of him and almost pitied him in someway (just like Mr T) as he looks like a zombie but he does have a certain kindness in his eyes.


Soon after I got lucky and won an auction on a set of DC Super Powers figures and finally got the Superman toy I had always dreamed of along 4 other amazing figures. It was around this time I got the idea to make a photographic novel about these guys for the website. I decided that as I had grown fond of the bootleg Superman I was going to give him his own 5 minutes of fame and make him the star of the show.


To make the comic work I would need more figures and thats when the evil bootlegs were brought in. This bundle of figures is very common on ebay at the moment and can be picked up for £10 or above. In the picture these look like great action figures but up close they have dodgy painted crossed eyes and lasers on their chests for no fucking reason what so ever. I decided that these evil clones would have the same powers as the real heroes they represent and the laser chests would also be a key factor.

These guys would also need a leader and I used a mini Joker from the Dark Knight action figure collection. I also decided we need a jail so I built one in a book shelf and placed all my adult marketed figures in there like Tony Montana, Jason Voorhees and all the other bad guys from the movies.


During filming I got lucky again with some original official DC villains in a set and decided to replace the Dark Knight Joker with the original Joker toy from 1989. The el Hulkio figure was found when I helped some friends decorate their kitchen and found him down the back of some kitchen units. El Hulkio is one of the most powerful bootleg figures I have ever seen. Hulk Hogans head with Batmans cape along with an armoured chest, this guy was top villain materiel.


When I first started shooting there was really no plan whatsoever. All I knew was this was going to be epic and Bootleg Superman would save the day in the end. From unboxing Bootleg Superman to the super heroes chillaxing playing dominoes, there was no plan at all. The story simply came to life on its own and pretty much wrote itself. Seeing as this was my comic I decided that this was my universe where anything could happen and anyone could turn up.

I think that was most of the appeal with this run that anyone could turn up and anything could happen.


The final battle took the longest to shoot and was shot on the cooker of my kitchen. This shoot took up like half a day , because with each shot every figure had to be rearranged in different poses to make it look more realistic.


The Aquaman figure which ended up in the toilet was in fact a stunt man! Yes its true I could not bring myself to toss my recently purchased Aquaman down the pan so I used a broken spare I had laying around in the store. How Hollywood is that?


The editing of the comic was the longest and most time consuming of the entire project. The speech bubbles and other shitty special effects took forever. Not to mention the actual uploading of the comic online as well was a real pain in the ass.

So what next? Will there be another? The answer to that is there will be a sequel on its way but this time round has been pre written and cast. I am not going to give away anything but I can show this as a taster;


Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed my shitty online comic! 

22 May 2013

COMICS: BOOTLEG SUPER SECRET WARS ISSUE #4

In order to read this online comic you must click the first image and then press the left or right key to turn the pages. On ipad and other tablet devices do the same and then turn the pages using your finger.

*NOTE*