Movie review: The Gamechangers

In the early 2000s, Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, had their biggest success ever with Vice City, but also their greatest controversy when attorney Jack Thompson filed a lawsuit against them, Take Two and Sony claiming they were in-part responsible for Alabama teen Devin Moore's fatal shooting of three police officers. It was possibly the darkest period in gaming's history and despite Jack Thompson proving to be his own worst enemy, the stigma of the tragedy has lingered around Grand Theft Auto and other violent video games ever since. Now, the BBC have made a 90 minute docu-drama about these events, along with the subsequent Hot Coffee controversy surrounding Vice City's sequel, San Andreas.

Clearly, this has nothing to do with arcade games, but I thought I should cover it anyway because I am in a unique position in that I am a gamer, who grew up with GTA, but not a fan. I played the first game a fair bit, because it was unlike anything else around at the time, but I only played a demo of the lackluster sequel and never played GTA III, San Andreas or GTA V. I have put a few hours into Vice City and GTA IV, but they never held my attention. You see, I don't like gangsters. I find no joy in tales of exploitation, violence, trafficking and corruption for personal gain — in fact I find it all abhorrent. As such, neither gangster games nor movies appeal to me. I'm also a father, who has a duty of care to make sure his children only play age-appropriate games; I would not let my kids near GTA or anything else with similar levels of violence. With that declaration out of the way, let's get on with the review.

The Gamechangers stars Daniel Radcliffe as Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser and Bill Paxton as Florida attorney Jack Thompson. The story starts with a completely unbelievable fake news story about the hotly anticipated Vice City and how "Sam Houser's Rockstar Games" have made two top selling games in one year. It also shows footage of Vice City, with lots of random violence and vehicular murder. I recognise that this opening provides the setup most viewers need, but it is ridiculous for several reasons. First, television news never talks that enthusiastically about a video game release and second, the GTA series had not made that much of an impact on mainstream media at the time of Vice City's release — all the attention came later.

The first 10 mins of The Gamechangers alternates between Radcliffe's Houser as he instructs his team about his vision for San Andreas, Paxton's Thompson as he potters around his Florida home, being all homely and Christian, and Devin Moore (played by Thabo Rametsi) as he plays Vice City for hours on end. This eventually leads to Moore's shooting spree in the police station, followed by his theft of a police car (which is shot to look like a driving scene in GTA). On reading in the news that Moore compared life to a video game, Thompson embarks on taking down the makers of "murder simulator" Grand Theft Auto.  It also looks at the controversy San Andreas caused when hackers found hidden pornographic animations on the game disc (dubbed Hot Coffee), which Thompson used to bolster his campaign before his own misconduct got him disbarred. Along the way we get lots of shallow insights into the game making process, including the long hours, dedication and aspiration required of the developers and artists.

The importance of the word dramatisation here cannot be understated, as this is a completely unauthorised script, written without any contribution from either Rockstar or Thompson. It is based entirely on newspaper stories, court documents and interviews with "many of those involved", whatever that means. You'd have thought the powers that be at BBC would have shied away from a script that was simultaneously so lacking in substance and so steeped in potential controversy, but no, they just ploughed on ahead anyway. The result is a film that feels skin-deep and I came away feeling no more enlightened about the situation than I was reading the articles Kotaku and Gamespot ran at the time.

The other big problem for me is writer James Woods's clear bias towards Rockstar Games. By the 7 min mark, the film establishes Houser as a visionary, leading the charge to make serious, forward thinking video games that go beyond anything a movie can do and frames Thompson as a self-aggrandising puritan trying to enforce his vision of what's acceptable on the American youth. The film maintains this bias throughout, so any chance of it being taken seriously as an argument against the notion of violent video games causing violent behaviour is lost. As someone who loves games, I personally found this very disappointing, because whatever my feelings are about GTA, I genuinely do not believe a video game alone can cause anyone, let alone a child, to commit multiple homicides. That is not to say kids should get free-reign to play what they like, because there is still the issue of what's age appropriate.

In terms of performances, Radcliffe is fine with what little character Woods gave him and while Paxton has more to work with, his performance is a little OTT. The rest of the characters are utterly forgettable and we never get a clear insight into anybody's motivations, least of all Devin Moore's (Rametsi has less than a few minutes of dialogue from beginning to end). And finally, while the film is clearly on the side of the game makers for most of its 90 minute running time, it does something at the end which flips that on its head in an utterly stupid and crass way.

Verdict

The Gamechangers handles one of the few game development stories worth telling with too little depth, too much bias and too much fiction for the sake of drama to be enjoyable for gamers or taken seriously by anyone else. It seems the curse of adapting games into movies applies to documentaries as well as fantasies. 

If you haven't seen The Gamechangers and live in the UK, you can see it for yourself on iPlayer for the next few weeks. Here's the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06ccjn9/the-gamechangers

Movie review: Pixels

Hollywood made a movie about classic arcade game characters and I write a blog about classic arcade games, so I had to review Happy Madison Production's new flick Pixels, whether I wanted to or not.

Anybody who calls themselves a gamer, anybody who grew up in the 80s and anybody with kids under 12 will have had Pixels on their radar for the last few months, and the trailers show you everything you need to know about the film. In 1982, NASA sent a probe out into space that contained, among other things, footage of several hit arcade games. Decades later, a race of aliens find this footage and take it to be an act of war. So they launch an attack on Earth using that very same footage as the inspiration for their weapons of mass destruction. Cue Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, Centipede, Arkanoid and a whole host of other classic sprites tearing up city streets around the world as giant, voxel monsters, while Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad and Michelle Monaghan try to stop them.

Galaga kicks things off by attacking an air base

The movie actually starts in 1982, with young friends Sam Brenner and Will Cooper heading to a newly opened arcade on their BMXs to check out the hottest games. Sam, it seems, is a natural, able to spot the patterns that were intrinsic to games of that era and exploit them. Such are his skills, that he and Will enter a national arcade competition, where the pair meet the even younger Ludlow "Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff and the devious Eddie "Fire Blaster" Plant. And this, it turns out, is the source of the ill-fated footage that NASA sends out into space.

Fast forward 30 years and Sam (Adam Sandler) is now a divorced 40-something, installing TVs for a living, despite his promise as a youth, while his chubby best friend Will (Kevin James) is the freakin' president of the freakin' United freakin' States of freakin' America! The only possible explanation for this is that it puts both characters in positions that allow them to be involved in the ensuing chaos. Enter also Violet van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), a hot single mom who's also happens to be a Lieutenant Colonel and weapons specialist. Sam and Violet cross paths when he is sent to her house to set up a new TV and PS4 for her son. Naturally, there is a clash of personalities, with an undertone of attraction, as you might expect from a film like this.

When a US military base is attacked by unknown forces, capable of rendering people, hardware and buildings to little glowing cubes, President Cooper brings both his friend and the Lieutenant Colonel on-board as advisors. On studying footage from the attack, Cooper has a hunch that the aggressor's formation resembles that of the aliens in the Namco classic Galaga and he wants his friend to confirm or deny his suspicions. It's around this time that an adult Ludlow (Josh Gad) is brought into the picture as a "typical gamer", i.e. a 38 year-old virgin, living with his gran, obsessing over fantasy female characters, namely Lady Lisa from Dojo Quest. This is the only non-authentic video game and character portrayed in the movie and also the only circa 1982 video game character to appear as flesh and blood, rather than a bunch of primary-coloured cubes, because bewbs! As well as being a true-to-life representation of us gamers [insert sarcasm here], Ludlow is also a conspiracy nut, who already knows about the invasion and has come to the same conclusion as Sam and POTUS Will.

The Arcaders, Lieutenant Colonel Violet, Sam, Wonder Kid and Fire Blaster.

The aliens then reveal themselves through a montage of 80s icons, such as Madonna and Fantasy Island's Mr. Roarke and Tattoo to throw down the gauntlet to planet Earth. Each side gets three chances or lives, if you will, in a series of battles based on the games contained in the space probe. Only, Sandler and crew had already lost two rounds before anybody had figured out WTF was going off, so the next battle is an all or nothing fight in Hyde Park, London. Here the aliens attack using the Atari classic Centipede. Armed with "light cannons" (developed by van Patten's team), Sam, Ludlow and a bunch of US soldiers battle the Centipede through the streets of London and Earth gains its first victory. The story then continues with a giant game of Pac-Man through the streets of New York. It's at this point that the team break Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage) out of jail to help with the fight, because he was the world's best Pac-Man player. It's a decision that costs them later, as Eddie is not to be trusted. Things soon escalate, with a chaotic showdown that doubles-up as a who's who of classic arcade gaming. In terms of plot, there are no surprises, but did you really think there would be?

The Centipede scenes are genuinely great

Pixels has been mauled by both movie critics and the gaming press alike, but I will say this: the Centipede and Pac-Man scenes are intense and authentic, right down to the movement patterns, rules and colour schemes for each wave. By the end of Centipede battle, I had a big smile on my face and I was willing to go along with Sandler and co for the ride. To be fair, this is probably the highlight of the entire film, but throughout Pixels does do justice to its source material. But there are problems, not just with its cookie cutter plot and characterisation, but also its portrayal of women; they are shown as being either pretty and insubstantial or simply prizes for the men to win. There are other problems too; Sandler and James seem uninterested in the proceedings and Dinklage has very little to work with, other than being a sneaky, diminutive Billy Mitchell look-a-like. Gad's character, on the other hand, is very muddled, alternating between being so obsessed with Lady Lisa that he has written and published his own book on how she could be real, to lusting after the muscular soldiers and touching their asses (as the Americans say) whenever he can. Michelle Monaghan's character is also ill-defined. At one moment she is a strong, confident woman who can hold her own with the big boys and the next she's reduced to crying and drinking in a cupboard because her husband has dumped her for a 19 year-old bimbo. We can only assume the speed at which she falls for Sandler is a classic case of rebound. The movie also wastes the talents of Jane Krakowski, who plays Will Copper's wife and is therefore First Lady, Brian Cox, who plays a typical crotchety US army general and Sean Bean, who plays a British commando who gets shown up by Sandler when the chips are down.

Verdict

Despite all this, I must confess to enjoying the film. There is no denying I got off on all the obscure gaming references and it was great to see Q*Bert getting another moment in the spotlight (he also appeared in 2012's Wreck-It Ralph). I will also admit to laughing from time to time too, but then this is only my fifth Sandler movie (the previous ones being Eight Crazy Nights, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy and Airheads — yep, they are really the only ones I've seen), so his schtick is still relatively new to me. I also got a strong Ghostbusters vibe from this movie, although I won't pretend it's in the same league as the original. They both have a group of no-hopers in jump suits trying to save the world from forces they don't really understand, they both feature futuristic, bespoke guns, designed to deal only with the enemy at hand and the pixel monsters can be likened to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My kids (who are 5 and 9) loved it too and the only video game characters they knew were Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Frogger. So as someone who has had to suffer such kid-friendly dross as the Nativity movies, the Tinkerbell movies and Post-Man Pat: The Movie, Pixels really did not seem all that bad. In fact, I'd happily watch it again and if I had to chose just one kids movie to see this summer, I would chose Pixels over Minions every time. Yes, I really did say that.
However, if you're a big gamer who wishes the medium was treated with more dignity or your're an adult with no interest in video games, you probably won't enjoy this movie at all.

MTW

P.S. They actually made an 8-bit mobile game of Dojo Quest, which is available for free on iOS and Android.

TV Review - Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist

What do video game movies and McDonald's breakfasts have in common? One you can only face when you're drunk and the other when you're hung over. I'll leave you to guess which one is which. Any Street Fighter fan who grew up in the 90s will remember the disastrous Jean Claude Van Damme movie. Superficially, it had lots of promise; it centred around Guile (played by JCVD) and his squadron of marines trying to take down Bison (played by the brilliant Raul Julia in his final role) and his Shadaloo organisation. Throw in Ming-Na as Chun Li (also on the hunt for Bison), Roshan Seth as Dhalsim, Wes Studi as Sagat and a young Kylie Minogue as Cammy and you'd be forgiven for thinking it had a solid mix of physical prowess and acting chops. However, much like the Super Mario Bros movie of the previous year, Street Fighter: The Movie was so poorly executed and deviated so far from the source material, that fans were bitterly disappointed. We had to wait decade and a half for the next live action SF movie, but sadly, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (starring Kristin Kreuk as Chun Li, Taboo off of the Black Eyed Peas as Vega and not much else) was even worse. That said, by its release in 2009, gamers were used to bad movie adaptations, not least because of a certain German director.

When Mortal Kombat and Silent Hill rank among the better movies based on video games, we gamers have had little reason be hopeful about any others. So I was pleasantly surprised by Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist, a budget web series, which made its way to Netflix earlier this spring. On seeing the mock posters for Assassin's Fist one thing immediately caught my attention: it showcased Ryu and Ken, who have been sorely under utilised in any previous live action translation. Before watching it I looked it up online and discovered it was made by the same team that produced the 3 minute short, Street Fighter: Legacy, about five years ago. I did watch the short when it first came out, but it subsequently escaped by memory. If you haven't already seen Legacy, you can check that out here. But while that short showed the team had some physical talent and decent special effects, it was by no means proof they could pull off an actual story. But by being careful and restrained, I think they have done the impossible: make an authentic Street Fighter series that isn't completely corny.

As stories go, Assassin's Fist is a stripped back, bare bones affair. I suspect this was done for reasons of budget, but necessity is the mother of invention, so the result is a focussed tale of Ryu, Ken, their master Gouken and his brother Gouki, who is seduced by the dark power of Satsui no Hadou and becomes the demon Akuma. Although there are a few other characters in the show — most notably the old master Goutetsu and his daughter, Sayaka — there are no other characters from the games. 

Gouken teaches the kids how it's done

The story begins in 1987, with Ryu (played by Mike Moh) and Ken (played by Christian Howard) learning the martial art Ansatsuken (Assassin's Fist) under the guidance of a middle-aged Gouken (played by Akira Koieyama) at a dojo in the remote Japanese countryside. The show spends a little time explaining how the two friends ended up at the dojo, under Gouken's care and training, before getting meaty with the plot. 

When Ken starts complaining about the lack of progress in their training, Gouken takes the young men to the dojo where he and his brother trained, under Goutetsu (Togo Igawa), decades earlier. Here Gouken begins to teach them how to produce a Hadou (those annoying fireballs cheap players lob at you constantly). Before long, Ryu's is outpacing Ken, much to the frustration of the American fighter. Then one day, in a boarded up room of this old dojo, Ken discovers a book that explains how to perform the Satsui no Hadou. Gouken is no fool and on seeing Ken's new technique, he realises the boy must have uncovered something that should have stay buried. 

Ooh-ohwa your fist is on fi-yer!

This then leads to a long sequence of flashbacks, where we learn how the young Gouken (played by Shogen Itokazu) and Gouki (Gaku Space) are taken in by Goutetsu, after their father is killed in battle. Like Ryu and Ken, Gouken and his younger brother are torn between their love for one another and their rivalry. This rivalry extends to also winning the affection of Goutestu's daughter, Sayaka (Hyunri Lee). When his older brother proves himself to be the better warrior and the more eligible bachelor, Gouki is lured towards the darkside of Ansatsuken and the poisonous effects of Satsui no Hadou. This story then takes up the bulk of the series, with us only occasionally checking in on the boys in the white and red jammies. Assassin's Fist was originally released online last May as a series of shorts, but for the Netflix version it has been turned into a 2½ hour movie. While I've not seen the serial, I suspect it probably works better in that format than as a movie. For example, we spend a long time in a cave in the woods, as Gouki slowly transforms into Akuma (played by Joey Ansah). This is an important part of the Street Fighter canon, but viewing these slower paced pieces of exposition as stand alone 20 minute episodes may be an easier way to digest them, rather than slowing down an entire movie with scenes where not much is said or done.

Akuma meditates in a cave for much of the film

Overall, the script and acting are fine; they are a step up from any original content cooked up by the SyFy channel and miles ahead of any Uwe Bollocks. Howard and Moh are not the best actors by any means, but the script (written by Howard and Ansah) does not demand too much of them. In many ways, the true stars of the show are Koieyama/Itokazu, Space and Igawa, who benefit from being allowed to act in Japanese. This mix of English and Japanese also lends authenticity to the series, which it might not otherwise have had. Most importantly for fans of the games, the combat is well choreographed, with many key moves well represented - even if the shoryuken looks a little silly. 

What about non-SF fans, will they enjoy it? Maybe my love for the source material is clouding my judgement, but I think they might. It compares well with many of the epic martial arts movies that emerged following Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's release in 2000. So if you enjoyed that or films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers then you may well enjoy this too. The reason I say this is simple: at the heart of it all is a classic tale of love, rivalry, corruption and betrayal, which is are the cornerstones of so many other classic stories.

Highs

• Tight, focussed story that does not stretch itself too far
• Mostly great casting. Christian Howard's Ken is as good as I think we'll ever get.
• Great choreography that does the game's action justice
• Better acting than you might expect from a low budget web series
• The most authentic Street Fighter story to date

Lows

• The Gouken/Gouki flashbacks are a little long and may lose any non-SF fans along the way
• Mix of languages may put off lazy viewers
• Ken's hair piece

Verdict

Proof stories from games can be translated to movies/TV series and an interesting look into the core backstory of Capcom's iconic series. The convincing combat, focussed script and competent acting mean that this really feels like Street Fighter. 

Anyone on Netflix can get to the series using this link: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/80016891

Homage Review - Twin Tiger Shark

Twin Tiger Shark? Was that an arcade game? Why does that name sound familiar?

Perhaps because this World War I-themed vertical scrolling shmup, the latest by indie developers Wide Pixel Games, is inspired by a number of Toaplan's shmups from the late 80s and early 90s. To name just a few, this is a homage to games like TWIN Hawk, TIGER Heli and Flying SHARK. I discussed a number of these games in my A Brief History of  World War II shoot 'em ups article a few years ago and they form an important part of the history of arcade gaming.

However, Wide Pixel's game goes beyond being a mere homage, if anything, this is a clone, almost a bare-faced rip off (in much the same way Locomalito's brilliant Hydorah ripped off Gradius). But do not let that stop you checking this one out, because unlike the dozens of Flappy Bird clones that flooded the iOS and Android markets after the original was yanked, Twin Tiger Shark is a quality product from top to bottom.

While I enjoyed the Twin Hawk/Cobra and Tiger Heli games, I was never a massive fan of the Shark games. They were okay, but they were not the best Toaplan had to offer, nor did they live up to their nearest rivals, Capcom's 194x series. Thankfully, while Twin Tiger Shark looks like Flying Shark, it plays more like Toaplan's other shmups. It features all the key ingredients: three weapon modes, bombs, a squadron of helpers (a la Twin Hawk), a play field that scrolls partially left and right, even medals (in the form of stars) to collect after destroying enemies. The enemies themselves are generic World War-themed bi-planes and tanks, but what stands out are the game's great enemy patterns and tight controls. Despite being hard, it rarely feels unfair, because of those last two ingredients. Mistakes are yours, not because the game is cheap and that only encourages you to keep trying.

All told there are 6 stages, but in true hardcore style, it's very difficult (even in the so called "Easy" mode) and there are no continues, so you have to get good if you want to finish the game. This is something I have not done yet, but that's often the way with these games and its not going to stop them being fun. There is some innovation here too. When you upload a high score it displays a QR code for you to scan with your phone or tablet, which will take you to the web page for the world wide leader boards. It's a nice way of overcoming the lack of built-in leader boards for XBLIG games.

So should you bother with Twin Tiger Shark? Absolutely and not just because it's only around 69p. I have not done a game review since the Xbox 360 port of Akai Katana, almost 2 years ago, but I had to let people know this one is out there waiting to be played. Anybody who knows their stuff will see the connection here (least of all the setting), so it says something that I feel compelled to write about this blatant copy cat. I'll be honest, I actually think this could be a better game than many of Toaplan's shmups from the 80s and 90s. It looks a lot older and it has an old school mentality but there is a quality here, a smoothness and precision, that only modern games offer. It is as tight and rewarding as some of the best shoot 'em ups around and is probably the best indie shmup I've played since Final Form's superb Jamestown. The only serious criticism I have is the lack of co-op play, everything else is great.

Oh, and if you're one of those crazy people who bought an Ouya, you can also get it on that.

Plays like

• Twin Hawk
• Tiger Heli
• Flying Shark
• Anything else by Toaplan

Highs

• Tight controls let you weave through the well structured enemy patterns with skill -- if you have it
• Authentic 8-bit arcade experience. The music is particularly brilliant.
• Arguably a better playing game than some of the games that inspired it
• Innovative use of QR codes for high scores
• Costs less than a Mars Bar.

Lows

• Not for the faint-hearted
• Despite the name, this is not a two player game. 

Twin Tiger Shark is out on XBLIG and Ouya priced £0.69.

Movie Review: Wreck-It Ralph 2D

I've been talking about Disney's movie homage to the days of arcade gaming, Wreck-it Ralph, since last autumn, but thanks to the differences in international release schedules, it's only just opened here in the UK. Yesterday, the wife, kids and I decided to go and see it.

Wreck-It Ralph wears its main plot thread right on its sleeve. At Litwak's Arcade, a TobiKomi Fix-It Felix Jr cabinet has been entertaining young gamers for three decades. Every day kids put in their quarters, watch the movie's titular hero, Ralph, smash up the Nicelanders' building, then proceed take control of the game's titular hero, Felix, to repair all the damage. When you complete the level, the inhabitants of the Niceland building grab Ralph, hurl him off the top of the building and the whole thing starts again — just like every great arcade game from the late 70s and early 80s. But bad guy, Ralph, doesn't want to be the bad guy any more, a feeling that's only amplified by the game's 30th anniversary.

Who says it's lonely at the top?

You see, much like Disney's other big video game inspired movie franchise, Tron, the characters inside all of the arcade machines at Litwak's are alive and much like yet another Disney franchise, Toy Story, when there are no players around, the game characters get up and live out a secret, alternative life, free from the rules of their actual game. Furthermore, and for reasons best not explored too deeply, these data people are able to move between games, courtesy of a circuit breaker to which all of their cabinets' power cables are connected. It is by this conceit that older gamers will get their geek and nostalgia overload.

Game Central Station or a circuit breaker to you and me

Any self-respecting arcade throwback will delight in pointing out all of the real arcade machines and their characters, as they enter and exit the train station-like circuit breaker. Q*Bert, Pac-Man, Tapper, Street Fighter II, Mario and Sonic are just some of the classic games and characters you'll see in this film, but they are far from the only ones. In fact, with the exception of Fix-It Felix Jr, Sugar Rush, Hero's Duty and Turbo Time, all of the games referenced in this film are (or in most cases, were) real games. While these references are only skin deep, some of them are so obscure that only the geekiest and oldest gamers in the audience will get them all. Basically, people like me. There's obviously a real love for arcade games here, but they don't over egg it, so non-gamers and kids who think gaming started with the Nintendo DS should still enjoy it. Nonetheless, there are a few gags that will ping right off the heads of most people. I doubt most people will get why Mr Litwak wears a referee shirt in the arcade. Not that all of the cameos are from games. Look out for a famous dubstep star DJing at one point, much like Daft Punk did in Tron Legacy.

Why is Zangief a bad guy? Communism? Is that what you're saying, Disney?

After attending Bad-Anon, a weekly support group for all of the games' villains, Ralph heads home to find the rest of the characters in his game are celebrating their anniversary. So Ralph crashes the party, much to their chagrin. After embarrassing himself, Ralph decides to prove he can be a hero by entering the hot new first person rail shooter, Hero's Duty, and winning a medal for heroism. And, with the setup complete, the movie begins its roller coaster ride through Hero's Duty and ends up in the Mario Kart-style, sickly sweet racing game, Sugar Rush. It's somewhat ironic that the movie actually spends most of its time inside the Sugar Rush universe, as Ralph tries to help an exiled racer named Vanellope von Schweetz finally win her first race.

A mixed-up racing kart for a mixed up film

In terms or subplots and supporting character development, there's actually a lot going on here, most of which is rather shallow and fails to really explore any of the issues they raise. This is partly due to the fact that, like a typical arcade game, there's very little time for the audience to catch their breath, as they are whisked along from set piece to set piece. The one that does work quite well is Vanellope's glitch, which presents itself like a combination between a nervious tick and epilepsy. This cute little character (voiced by Sarah Silverman) is shunned by the other racers because of her affliction, only for it to work in her favour towards the end. As the parents of an autistic child, this resonated with the wife and I, who know first hand both the highs and lows of having such a disability.

Overall, there's none of the depth of your typical Pixar or Studio Ghibli film here, but despite all the gaming references and shoe-horned branding, Wreck-It Ralph does have a bigger heart than, say Shrek, Madagascar or Ice Age. And it's certainly a class above the vast majority of kids CG animated movies. If, like me, you're an ageing gamer with young kids, you and your kids are bound to enjoy it, but I fear some people will be put off by the one-two punch of frequent gaming references in the first act and the multitude of sub-plots competing for attention for the rest of the film.

Oh and one last thing, my son has told me I can no longer eat Clyde when I play Pac-Man. Thanks, Disney.

MTW

Port Review: Akai Katana (Xbox 360)

World War II fighter planes firing lasers, magic and giant ninja swords that are also capable of turning into enormous ghosts of dead teenagers? Sounds like a typical Japanese shoot 'em up to me.

In the 80s and early 90s, Toaplan made some brilliant arcade shoot 'em ups. Tiger Heli, Hellfire, Slap Fight, Batsugun and perhaps most famously Truxton I and II (which I discussed in last January's Classic of the Month) can all claim to be classics in their own right. Sadly, in 1994, shortly after the release of Snow Bros II, Toaplan filed for bankruptcy. 

Thankfully, from the ashes of Toaplan rose Computer Audio-Visual Entertainment Interactive, or CAVE for short. Over the past 17 years, CAVE have been been making a variety of games for arcades, home consoles and smartphones, but they're most famous for their series of bullet hell shoot 'em ups, including Guwange, Espgaluda, Deathsmiles, my son's favourite shmup, Progear No Arashi, and the jewel in their crown, the Donpachi series. In 2010 they released Akai Katana Shin in the arcade, which looks and plays like its the spiritual successor to 2001's Progear (although nowhere do they say that). Now, with the help of publishers Rising Star Games, CAVE have brought Akai Katana to Xbox 360 (minus the Shin for the UK).

Like all CAVE's shoot 'em ups, Akai Katana has a complex back story, but with the exception of a few cutscenes during boss encounters (which are in Japanese with no subtitles) the game does not waste the player's time explaining it, so I won't either. Just know there's a bad guy, he's in control of a fleet of World War II era planes, helicopters, tanks and submarines, which all fire lasers and magic rather than lead and explosives. At the start of the game you get to chose one of three pilot and phantom teams, each with their own plane. Tsubaki and Sumire fly the Marigold, which fires in straight lines; Botan and Kikyou fly the Orchid, which has homing lasers; and finally Shion and Suzuran fly the Sakura, which fires in a spread patten. Like other CAVE games, there are no weakest links in the choice of fighters, which means it's all down to play style. 

There are three modes in this Xbox version: Origin, which is the original arcade version, Climax, which is a harder, widescreen update of the Arcade version, and Slash mode, which is new for the Xbox and by far the best version of the game. Visually the game has a far higher resolution than CAVE's previous offerings, whilst still being clearly sprite-based. It almost looks like a HD Neo Geo game — which is no bad thing in my book. However, as I've already said it looks like Progear, as well as a host of other World War II-themed games, like Psikyo's Strikers 1945 series or even Metal Slug (which is probably I think it looks like a HD Neo Geo game). Conversely, the music and the front menus actually make it look and sound like a Guilty Gear game, so much so that when my wife saw me start it up for the first time, she remarked, "All these games look the same. Like Street Fighter and Soul Calibur?" So Akai Katana is the Megan Fox of arcade shoot 'em ups: it's very pretty, but it doesn't really stand out from the crowd.

So on to the game play. If you've never played Akai Katan before, what you think of its game play could be affected by which mode you play first. If you decide you want that authentic arcade experience and choose Origin mode, you may think it's game play is as run of the mill as its artstyle; if you play Climax mode you may think the same, plus it's frenetic and hard; if you play Slash mode, you may be left dumbfounded by what's going on at all, because Slash mode is a very different beast to the other two modes. The arcade original was good, but no better than anything else CAVE has offered. If you're a shmup fan you'll still enjoy it, but it may not leave a lasting impression. If you chose Slash mode, take the time to watch the lengthy tutorial video and maybe read the user guide — yes, for a shoot 'em up — you'll find that by tweaking the game's rules, CAVE have made Akai Katana into something very rewarding indeed. You see, in Origin and Climax modes, you fly around, collect energy from fallen foes and use it to switch to phantom mode, which allows you to deflect bullets and provides more fire power, but that seems to be all there is to it. In Slash mode, you have to collect energy to charge up your phantom, but also steel to arm it. You control how you collect these two resources by switching between defence and attack mode. Thankfully, that's all done with one button (although a second can be used if you want). Tapping the shot button fires your general weapon; holding down the shot fires a more powerful weapon, but at the cost of your speed. It's a mechanic that CAVE have employed for years, but here it has more application than previously. As you collect steel red orbs appear around your fighter. When you switch to phantom mode the steel orbs turn into katanas, which float around the phantom and will be unleashed when you switch back to fighter mode. This is key to both destroying mid-bosses and end of level bosses, as well as netting high scores. It means that you can conjure the most powerful attacks in the game when you want, rather than when the game decides to give you a power up. However, that is only part of the Slash's mechanics — there's much more to it than that, but I'm still learning the rest of the game's subtleties and nuances. How many shoot 'em ups can say that?

Between Xbox Live Arcade and all the CAVE ports, the Xbox 360 has a lot of great shoot 'em ups. This is where Akai Katana's £25 asking price, however cheap compared to other boxed games, seems less appealing. For that price if you wanted some classic arcade bullet hell action you could buy Treasure's classics Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun, plus CAVE's other classic, Guwange. If you're open to some modern bullet hell action you could buy Sine Mora, Omega Five and Strania. If you're really open minded (and patient), you could buy about 20 Xbox Live Indie shmups for that price, such as the brilliant Platypus, Shoot 1-Up or Vorpal. This all sounds like I'm trying to talk you out of getting Akai Katana, but I'm not, I'm just trying to provide a balanced review. I guess it all comes down to how much a shmup nut you are. If you're like me, you'll probably own everything I've mentioned and are looking for something with that bit more depth. Many of the games I mentioned above also offer that, but for me, Akai Katana scratches a very particular itch and I cannot stop scratching. Err... yeah, that's not the best metaphor in the world. Let's just say I love it.

Highs

• The best looking CAVE port to date and looks great on a big HD TV.
• Three versions of the game in one, each with its own subtle differences.
• At less than £25, this is a budget price for a new boxed release.
• Switching between attack and defence to collect energy and steel respectively provides plenty of scope for tactical, rewarding gameplay.
• Slash mode makes this one of CAVE's most satisfying shoot 'em up experiences to date.

Lows

• At £25, it is not the cheapest slice of shoot 'em up action on the Xbox this year. 
• Could get lost in the crowd.

Akai Katana is available for Xbox 360 from all decent retailers for around £25.

Homage Review: Sine Mora (XBLA)

King of quirky game development, Suda 51, lends his talents to a new Xbox exclusive shoot 'em up, but can it deliver on its promise to revitalise the genre?

The Xbox 360 has become the console to own if you like shoot 'em ups. As well as numerous arcade classics, ranging from Defender and Millipede to Radiant Silvergun and Death Smiles, it has several original titles, including the brilliant Omega Five and Geometry Wars. You can now add Sine More to that list, a traditional sidescrolling shoot 'em up, which is reminiscent of arcade classics P-47, UN Squadron (AKA Area 88) and, in particular, Cave's sublime Progear (a game a PlanetMGC forum member first switched me on to).

For a shoot 'em up, Sine Mora has a surprisingly dense plot, which is told in non-sequential chapters for reasons best understood by developers Grasshopper Manufacturer and Digital Reality. The gist of it is that the planet Seol is being ravaged by civil war, one that is seemingly without end, because the anthropomorphic animals that inhabit the planet can manipulate time. The story is delivered through lots of screens full of text and dialogue bubbles, which often pop-up right in the middle of you dodging flak. As you play through the game you take on the role of different pilots, each with their own weapons and upgrades. Unfortunately, in story mode your power-ups do not carry over from level to level, because you are constantly jumping between protagonists.

Sine Mora is Latin for "without delay" and this is a reference to the various ways the game plays with time. The central conceit is that instead of lives or a shield you get a timer, which is constantly counting down. Taking damage knocks off bigger chunks of time and if you run out of time altogether, it's game over. You can earn time by shooting down enemy aircraft; the bigger the enemy, the more time you get back. While this reduces the chance of a one-shot death, it also means you can scrape through a mid-level boss encounter, then die a few seconds later because there's no enemies around. This can make hard-fought victories into something to resent, rather than celebrate, as you are at risk of dying without making any further mistakes.

You can also slow down time for a limited period, which can be used to avoid complex swarms of bullets or focus your fire on a boss's weakspot. This is a mechanic that has been used in games for over a decade, going back to the Matrix-inspired bullet time of the Max Payne games and it's still used today, with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim having a bullet time perk for shield bearers. You can also slow time in the Xbox indie shmup, Redshift, which actually came out about a month before Sine Mora.  Again, this idea puts me in mind of Progear, which slowed your fighter if you held the fire button, allowing you to move through sprays of bullets with more precision, even though nothing else slowed down. Combine all this with the artstyle and you would be forgiven for thinking footage of Sine Mora was actually footage of a Progear HD remake -- if only that were true. Sadly, there are other problems that blight what could have been a great game. Although most of the bullets are bright and colourful, but there are some dark-coloured missiles that are hard to see, even on my 37" plasma. Likewise some of the fighters themselves blend into the background at times and there are also times when the scenery blocks almost half the screen, such as during the tunnel sections on the second level. Finally, Sine Mora's weapons take far too long to power up, so you spend most of a level with what feels like a pea-shooter. This is in stark contrast to, say Satazius, which manages to make you feel powerful from the get-go and still provide rewarding upgrades. And once you do get powered up, the level ends, you jump into the shoes of a different pilot and have to start from scratch -- argh!

I was so excited when I first saw footage of this game, because it is gorgeous. In fact, it is without doubt the best looking shoot 'em up ever made. However, once I played it my enthusiasm started to wane. It's not a bad game, but it is so similar to Progear that it's difficult to play Sine Mora without comparing it to Cave's classic -- and it's the older game that comes out on top every time. If you think that is just rose-tinted nostalgia talking, then I have a confession for you all: the first time I played Progear last year, when I posted A Brief History of  World War II shoot 'em ups.

If I was going to spend 1200 on an XBLA shoot 'em up, I would spend that money on Radiant Silvergun or R-Type Dimensions before Sine Mora, although I would buy this game before Raystorm HD or Trouble Witches Neo. I feel it's only fair to point out several top game magazine's have raved about Sine Mora; IGN, Games(TM), Destructoid, Joystiq and Eurogame all awarded it around 90%, which I think is a little generous. I don't do scores in my reviews (I'd rather people read the text), but if I did it would not be nearly that high. There is a demo though, so download it and check it out for yourself. Oh and if you can, use an arcade stick, it really helps.

Plays like

• Progear
• P-47
• UN Squadron/Area 88

Highs

• Gorgeous 3D graphics.  This could be the best looking shmup ever!
• Tries to inject some life into one of gaming's oldest genres.
• Plenty of options for fighters and pilots.
• At around two hours to play through the story mode, this is a good deal longer than most.

Lows

• The weapons feel weak, do nothing interesting and in some modes do not carry over between levels.
• The heavy-handed story telling gets in the way of the action -- often literally.
• Poor visibility leads to frequent frustrating deaths.
• Dying because there's nothing to shoot to top up your time/life just plain sucks.

Sine Mora is out on XBLA now, priced 1200 Microsoft points.

Homage Review: Satazius (PC)

Capcom enters the indie scene by backing a cracking Gradius homage.

The indie game scene is thriving these days and it's not surprising that most of these bedroom developers are making modern versions of classic arcade games. One genre that is benefiting the most is the shoot 'em up, which is great, because I love a good shoot 'em up (in case you didn't know).  Now coin-op legends Capcom are promoting these small, independent developers and one of the first games they've published is Gradius-inspired shmup Satazius, by Astro Port.

The set up for the game goes as follows: The battle cruiser Agano is on patrol near the planet Satazius when it's attacked by pirates, intent on stealing the assault ship 'Trafalgar' being transported aboard the battle cruiser.  As the Agano crashes to the surface of Satazius, the Trafalgar blasts off to take out the pirates.  While that's not much of a plot, it's all a game like this needs.  There are bad guys in spaceships, you have a flying cannon, so get out there and blast 'em!

The presentation in this game is a bit of a mixed bag.  The audio is spot on, with its hyper-active, melodramatic music, sizzling laser blasts and shuddering explosions.  However, the game has 16-bit art style and a native resolution of 640x480, which, when stretched out to a typical modern resolution, really does not scale very well.  Astro Port would have been better either upping the resolution of the artwork or just going full-on retro and create something that looked more 8-bit.

In terms of gameplay, it may not be particularly innovative, but it is very well done.  A rarely-seen feature of Satazius is that the weapon load out you choose at the beginning of the game (a la Gradius) you get to keep all the way through, even if you die or continue.  Instead of changing weapon types mid-game, each one can be powered up 8 times, with death taking each active power up down a notch.  When you continue you get to reselect your weapon load out, which means you can either choose something different and or use the same load out as before, which may still be partially powered up.  Unlike a lot of these games, you still feel powerful with a basic set of guns.  Don't take that to mean it's easy.  It's actually really tough, but it's not a bullet hell shooter in the vain of a Cave or Treasure game.  Instead it's challenge comes from great level design and an emphasis on environmental obstacles, much like the game that inspired it. Likewise the boss encounters will be familiar to anyone who's played a Gradius game, although generally speaking you do not have to target a "core" as you would in the Konami games.

In summing up Satazius I find myself in a tricky position. There is very little originality to be found here and if you're the sort of sneaky person who plays arcade games on MAME you will find better games, however there's a charm and accessibility here that find highly appealing. There's a demo available through Steam which will give you the first level, so give it a go, you may be surprised.

Plays like

• Gradius 
• Darius

Highs

• Having a full arsenal from the get-go is incredibly empowering and encourages you to keep playing even after you get a kicking.
• The combination of unlocking and upgradable weapons eggs you on too see what else is available and how new weapons will then work on subsequent playthroughs.
• Gameplay focuses on environmental obstacles and does not resort to cheap bullet hell tactics.
• Incredibly satisfying shoot 'em up action.

Lows

• Native resolution is only 640x480 and the artstyle means it does not scale well.
• Only support analogue joypad input, despite ship movement being digital, but this can be overcome using JoyToKey.

Satazius is available from Steam priced £4.49.  For more info check out Gamespot's review.

MTW

Homage Review: Renegade Ops (Xbox 360)

Sega backs a beauty, with this over-the-top, explosive vehicle-based shoot 'em up.  

When I think about old arcade games, I think of either specific games I loved or just the overall bombastic, explosive action so many arcade games offered. Games like Narc, Mercs and Smash TV. It is in the spirit of such games that Sega, along with developer Avalanche, give us Renegade Ops.

The plot is suitably cliché and dumb. A megalomaniac mad man calling himself Inferno is blowing up cities, much like every megalomaniac mad man in every cheesy action movie ever. Rather than deal with Inferno using force, the world's leaders decide to negotiate a truce, because frankly, they're a bunch of p***ies. Thank God for General John Bryant, who throws his dog tags and accolades on the floor of the situation room in disgust and decides if the people in power won't kick Inferno's arse, he and his team of four renegade soldiers will just have to do it instead. Let the wanton destruction and arse kickery begin - and let's make one thing clear, if there's one thing this game does well, it's wanton destruction.

The renegades, from left to right, Armand, Diz, Gunnar, Roxy and John Bryant

You start the game by choosing one of the four renegade, each of which drives a different vehicle with different abilities. Armand's can hunker down, tortoise-like and deflect most flak for a few seconds, but leaves you unable to fire back; Diz has an EMP, which can disable all enemies within a limited range, but only for a few seconds; Gunnar has a cannon, which is very powerful, but can only be fired when stationary; and Roxy can call in a limited number of air strikes, which take a few seconds to wind up. Which ability suits you depends on the kind of player you are and they each have a down side. I favourite Diz, because the EMP was quick and bought me time to either lay down some suppressing fire or get the hell out of any immediate danger.

Each level is set in a different zone and consists of a number of objects (highlighted by a red arrow on the HUD) and challenges (indicated by a white arrow). You usually have one of each to tackle at any given time and generally speaking you are free to choose. After each mission you get to assign points to a skill tree, allowing you to unlock more powers, additional weapons and so on. Thankfully, you are not suck with the powers you unlock, only the one you choose at the start of each mission, allowing for plenty of experimentation.

Aside from how wonderfully everything blows up, the best thing about this game is the controls. Within no time you'll be whipping your little jeep or armoured vehicle around like a 4x4 in "Iron Man" Ivan Stewart's Super Off Road. While we're making comparisons to old arcade games, the most obvious one is Konami's Jackal, to which Renegade Ops could easily have been a 21st century remake or sequel.

At the top of this review I said this game was in the spirit of classic bombastic arcade shoot 'em ups and that was no exaggeration. This is one of those games that leaves you feeling pumped up and ready to tackle anything. However, add in a few friends and you can also start to apply some strategy to how you play, partnering up to support and complement each vehicles strengths and weaknesses or simply making sure as many of the mission objectives and challenges are completed in each level.

If you want a modern game with the heart of a pure, classic arcade game, don't look any further than Renegade Ops.

Plays like

• Jackal
• Speed Rumbler
• "Iron Man" Ivan Stewart's Super Off Road

Highs

• Fast, furious and explosive action.
• Smart mission structure.
• Character levelling and progression add depth, but without tying the player down to set configurations.
• Multiplayer (local or online) co-op opens up new possibilities for tactical play.

Lows

• Some technical issues with the online multiplayer
• Not a lot of variety in the gameplay or missions.

Renegade Ops is available from tomorrow on PSN and Steam priced £10.99 and Xbox Live Arcade for 1200MSP.

Homage Review: Orbitron Revolution (Xbox 360)

The grandfather of rock-hard, high-speed gaming, Defender, gets a modern make over in this high quality indie game for Xbox 360.

There's no denying Williams' Defender is one of the all-time greats of arcade gaming. There's also no denying it was an incredibly punishing game, with borderline oppressive difficulty and less than ergonomic controls. It was also very fast paced compared to other space shoot 'em ups of that era.  This new homage to the Williams classic manages to capture some of qualities and thankfully uses far more natural controls, but does it beat the old stalwart at its own game?

Orbitron Revolution from FireBase is an Xbox Live Indie game that stands head and shoulder above the competition in terms of visual quality and production values. The marketplace has plenty of ironically old skool-looking games, it also has far too many games that look like they were drawn by an 8 year-old in MS Paint, Orbitron Revolution, on the other hand, looks gorgeous and professional. It's up there with the likes of Omega Five and RoboBlitz in terms of graphics, but of course people don't love Defender because of its graphics.

The setup for the game is basically the same as Defender, in that the play field wraps around and you have to patrol this area, blasting aliens and defending key points. In Orbitron, you pilot a space fighter around the perimeter of a circular space station, blasting the aliens who are trying to destroy the ring by drilling one of four sectors. As well as destroying the alien drillers, you also have to to fend off the aliens protecting the drillers. Each driller you destroy initiates a new wave of aliens, which multiply in quantity and variety with each wave.

Defend the ring's four sectors with your life

Orbitron Revolution has three game modes. Guardian mode is the meat of the game. It's in this mode you have to defend the ring from drillers, as well as the other aliens. In Countdown mode ditches the drillers and just challenges you to survive for 3 minutes. Extra mode is the same as Guardian mode, except you only get one life. Given this mode is only unlocked if you can survive in Guardian mode for 3 minutes, you can imagine how challenging it is to make any progress in Extra mode at all.

In terms of progress, the game only has the one level. The aliens will keep coming, wave after wave, with very little variety, truth be told. As soon as all four sectors are destroyed, it's game over. So there's no end of level screens, no mid-game score totals, it's just a constant assault on the reflexes. Thankfully, you get a number of tools to help you survive. As well as your main laser, your ship has a Boost mode to help you travel between the sectors, a area of effect Wave Bomb and a linear Power Shot. In order to use any of these you need to collect the power cells that are dropped by the aliens when they're destroyed, which fills up a two-stage power meter. You can use the Boost whenever there's power in the meter, but you can only use the Wave Bomb when it's half full and you can only use the Power Shot when it's completely full. This presents its own challenge, as there are certain aliens, such as the Sword (which has rotates slowly around the ring with two laser beams emitting from either side of it) that can only be destroyed with Wave Bombs or Power Shots. There is one other tool at your disposable though: the Warp Gates. There are two Warp Gates on the ring, which, when entered, send you hurtling a quarter of the way around the ring at high speed, destroying any aliens you collide with on the way. This can be used tactically to destroy the tougher drillers, as long as you can aim your fighter.

Orbitron is a mixed bag. It looks great and feels the closer to Defender than any other game in recent memory, but the space fighters also feel rather too sluggish to do the job well. When surviving more than 3 or 4 minutes is a challenge, it might surprise you that travelling all the way around the ring can take 30 seconds or more if you don't use the Boost or Warp Gate. Which is a shame, because the controls are natural and tight. There's also so little variety, with only one level and only a handful of alien types, that if you don't enjoy the game's core mechanics you will get bored very quickly. Personally, I like it, but it's one of those games that I can play for 20 minutes, constantly trying again and again to beat my highscore, then I won't want to touch it again all day. But then Defender could be a bit like that too.

So this game looks good, play well enough and manages to be as challenging as the game that inspired it, if for slightly different reasons. Fans of Defender (or Juno First for that matter) could do worse than to check it out, especially when it costs a little over £2.

Plays like

• Defender
• Star Gate
• Juno First

Highs

• Proof Xbox Live Indie games can be made to the same high standards as the best of Xbox Live Arcade games.
• Challenging gameplay, with that "one more go" quality all the best arcade games have.
• Worth the 240 Microsoft Points if you're a fan of Defender or Juno First

Lows

• Very little variety.
• The fighter craft feel sluggish.
• No multiplayer.

Orbitron Revolution is available on Xbox Live Indie Games prince 240MSP (£2.04).

Homage Review: Jamestown (PC)

One look at Final Form Games' PC indie debut Jamestown: The Legend of the Lost Colony will make you understand why it's got an old skool shmup fan like myself excited.  

Set  in the year 1619, Jamestown is based around the legend of the lost American colony of Roanoke.  You are cast in the role of one of four historic figures, Walter Raleigh, Virginia Dare, John Smith and Joachim Gans, fighting against a combination of the Spanish armada and the natives in the hope of discovering what happened to Roanoke.  Hang on a minute, I hear you say, isn't this a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up?  Why, yes, yes it is.  You see, while the game is set in the 17th century, the location is Mars, so those natives are not Cherokee or Navajo, but bug-eyed Martians!  It seems Raleigh and his team of adventurers have all built fighter crafts, referred to as Conveyances, each with different weapons and play-styles.  Raleighs fires in a spread pattern and has a powerful beam as its alt fire; John Smith's has a basic forward shot, but its alt fire can be directed by the player; Dare's Conveyance also has a basic forward shot, but has a powerful charge shot for its alt fire; and Joachim's Conveyance can detonate its bullets mid-flight.

The game is a little devious with its difficulty settings. There are five levels and five difficulty settings, Normal, Difficult, Legendary, Divine and Judgement. You can only play the first three levels at Normal difficulty, to play the fourth level you have to up the setting to Difficult and to play the fifth and final level you have to play all of the previous levels on at least Difficult and the final level itself on Legendary. If you want to challenge the highest difficulty (Judgement) you must first beat the entire game on the penultimate setting, Divine. I'm not sure why Final Form did that and in some ways it feels a bit of a cheap way to extend the game's longevity, but it is in keeping with its bullet hell aspirations.

Jamestown support up to 4 players in simultaneous local co-op and Final Form have been considerate enough to support every possible control option. So, if you like you can all use the keyboard or you can each use a differently-configured joypad or even the mouse, which works better than you might expect. It's just a shame that it didn't support online play, but then that's not how you'd play an arcade game.

The star of the show though is the Vaunt mode.  As you destroy enemies you collect golden cogs and nuts that cascade down the screen. Collect enough and you can press the Vaunt button, which acts as a temporary shield but also doubles your points.  Although the shield is temporary, the multiplier remains while ever you keep collecting the gold, but if you find yourself in a tight spot you can activate it again, cancelling the point multiplier and reengaging the temporary shield.  In multiplayer mode, if you're well organised, you can effectively shield each other, but that requires a high degree of discipline. Nonetheless, it's a clever system that gives the game a feel of its own and separates it from the games that inspired it.

As you can see from the video below, it has a brilliant steam punk pixel art aesthetic. Final Form say their main influences were Cave's bullet hell shooters and the art style of Studio Ghibli films Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Laputa: Castle in the Sky.  However, I also get a whiff of Capcom's Gunbird series from playing it.

Plays like

• Gigawing
• GuWange
• Gun Bird
• Progear (stated influence)

Highs

• Beautiful pixel-art
• Fantastic orchestral score.
• Unique and amusing setting.
• Four-playing co-op action.
• The four ships cater well for different play styles.
• Vaunt is a clever and unique risk/reward system.
• Lots of bonus content.

Lows

• No online multiplayer.
• Later levels are only available if you increase the difficulty, which is a cheap way to extend a game's life.

Jamestown: The Legend of the Lost Colony is available from tomorrow on Steam, Direct2Drive and Gamers Gate, priced £6.99.  And if you buy it during the first week of release, all three vendors are offering a 10% discount.

Movie review: Tron Legacy

The Tron arcade game was one of my formative arcade experiences. I first played it in a neon-lit arcade on a caravan site by the sea when I was 9 years-old. All the other games in the arcade were great, from Centipede to Pac-Man to Time Pilot, but Tron looked like something straight out of my sci-fi fantasies. It was a perfect storm of age, imagination, atmosphere and location. Despite seeing the trailers, I didn't see the film until a few years later. It didn't disappointment and much like Last Star Fighter it felt like a glimpse into the future of gaming. Now, almost 30 years later, Disney have released the long-awaited sequel, but in a world where high definition gaming and 3D movies are common place, has Tron lost its edge? Given I don't normally have an excuse to review movies, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Bruce Boxleitner, still a
handsome SoB

The plot to the original movie film was little more than window dressing and the same can be said for the sequel. Following the events of the first film, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) takes over ENCOM International and makes it the most successful software company in the world, partly due to his games, including one based on the heroic Tron program, who helped him escape the binary clutches of the errant Master Control Program. Despite his success, he continues to visit the computer world within the company's mainframes. With help from Tron and also his own CLU program, Flynn builds a grand new world inside the mainframe. Then then one day in 1989, he mysteriously disappears, leaving his friend Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and his young son, Sam (Owen Best/Garrett Hedlund) behind. As the decades roll by, Alan and Sam take a back seat in the running of the company, but it's clear neither of them have forgotten about Flynn Senior. So when Alan gets a message from Flynn that apparently came from his old office at the (now abandoned) arcade, he sends Sam to investigate. Sure enough, the arcade is empty, but when he goes to play a Tron machine, Sam discovers his dad's old tales of the world of Tron were real.

Flynn's Arcade, mothballed like most arcades these days

And so, as you might expect and have probably worked out from the trailers, Sam ends up in that same world, which is now under the control of Kevin Flynn's doppelganger, the program known as CLU. This is a bigger, brasher adventure in the world of Tron, starting with a gladiatorial battle which makes the games in the original seem... well, like Gun Smoke compared to Call of Duty. Sam is not alone in this world and soon meets a program called Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who is your typical free-spirited femme fatale — and rather pleasant to look at in her tight, black plastic leggings. Ahem. Together they battle CLU's drones and uncover the plot that lead Sam into this world and the mystery behind Kevin Flynn's disappearance.

Sam and Quorra go for a drive in one of Legacy's many new vehicles

The first thing to be said about this film is that it looks gorgeous — even when Quorra's not in shot. There are no Star Wars prequel-like redesigns, that effectively ret con the whole aesthetic of the original. Instead, it looks precisely like a HD version of the original, with the changes to things like the light cycles being respectful towards their ancestry. What is disappointing is the 3D. In a world of such stark contrasts, it seems the 3D technology fails to provide much depth perception. Basically, there's no enough detail to actually give the scenery and characters much visual depth, unlike Avatar, which is a rich, colourful and densely populated world. What's even better than the visuals is the music, provided by French house masters, Daft Punk. They even make a cameo, in what for me is the best scene in the film.

When Flynn makes an opportune appearance in that same digital night club, just as Sam and Quorra about about to get their hides tanned, I genuinely had a little bit of a nerdgasm. Overall, the acting is a little flat; Hedlund is your typical pretty-but-bland Hollywood actor, who is outshone by every other actor in the film, including Wilde. The best performance is probably given by Micheal Sheen, who plays club owner Castor, but then Sheen is one of those actors who always delivers the goods.

If you're going into this with a love of the original, but at the same time accept that it was a rough diamond, I reckon you'll enjoy this follow up. It's far from perfect and could actually be accused of being a little unambitious, but it isn't the sort of train wreck we've seen in recent years when people have tried to cash in on classic films (Lucas, Wachowski brothers, I'm looking at you!). For everyone else, it's one of those films where the trailer tells you everything you'd need to know, both about the world of Tron and whether or not it's for you.

And because the soundtrack is so brilliant, here's Daft Punk's single from the OST, "Derezzed".

MTW

Homage Review: Hydorah (PC)

Gradius was never released on PC, but if a version had been it might have looked something like this.


Hydorah, a freeware indie shmup that was released a couple of months ago.  I know this is meant to be an arcade blog, but with new arcade games so few and far between, us old school gamers have to seek out arcade-like experiences where we can - and few modern games capture that feeling quite as well as Hydorah.

Visually it looks like an late 8-bit or even early 16-bit game; sonically, Gryzor87's brilliant soundtrack sounds like something from a late 90s CD-based game, but with an evocative chiptunes aesthetic.  The gameplay is not at all original, but let's be generous and call it a homage to classic shoot em ups.  What's important is that the levels design, enemy patterns and weapons are well thought out and the controls are as tight and responsive as you could ask for.  When you die in Hydorah you know it's your mistake, not the game being cheap or flaky.  I highly recommend it and since it's free you have nothing to lose.

Plays like

• A lot like Gradius

Highs

• Beautiful homage to retro graphics and gameplay.
• Great balance of design and challenge.
• Fantastic sound track.
• Free! 

Lows

• Poor controller support.

Download the game for free here: http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_hydorah.php. If you like it, please donate so Locamalito can continue making these brilliant little games.
Also, check out Gryzor87's fantastic soundtrack, which is also available as a free download from Bandcamp.com here: http://hydorah.bandcamp.com/album/hydorah-original-soundtrack.