So a game about a deadly hitman working for a shadowy company should be pretty easy to adapt, right? No need for fantasy elements or big sci-fi set pieces, just a simple thriller, right? Well, that’s right! … Sadly, the emphasis was very much on the simple, and less on the thriller. Yes, for a film titled “Hitman” it very quickly became “generic action movie anti-hero loudly gunning people down in broad daylight”. Still, is it worth a look?
I remember playing about with some of the earlier Hitman games, specifically a demo that either came with another game or came on the front of a magazine. They were fun, but I couldn’t be bothered to get into them. Earlier this year (or late last year…) the 2016 soft reboot of the Hitman franchise became free for PS+ users such as myself, and as I knew the first Hitman film was coming up in this marathon I played through this game a short while ago so I can actually have a game to compare, even if the game itself was released long after the film in question. So is it good? Does the episodic open world idea work when you play the whole game as one entity? Let’s find out!
Now I’m not currently covering Gundam, and no longer covering a Dragon Ball series for Anime UK News, I thought it would be the ideal time to continue my deeper dive into the original series. So after the original 13 episodes we enter a training sequence (featuring the debut of Krillin!) followed by a Tournament arc, two staples of the Shonen genre still in their infancy here. This is also where Dragon Ball was still more leaned towards comedy than action, so how does that blend with a martial arts tournament? Well…
With the cast and setting firmly established, it’s time to start teasing a longer narrative for the story arc (beyond being “stranded” obviously!) while still having fun with the new regulars. On both these counts the second half of Stranded 1 does exactly that, making for fun stories that also tease more to come. Want more info? Read on!
Golden Axe was a very early Mega Drive game, and one of the first ones I played. I enjoyed it, but I never got fully into it, the closest being when me and a friend completed it when he slept over (which isn’t that impressive, looking back at how short the game actually is). Still! It’s a scrolling beat ‘em up, so let’s take a look!
Well, as advertised, the new Eighth Doctor storyline gets off to a rather… slow start. Stranded on Earth once again but with no UNIT to distract him, The Doctor, along with Liv and Helen, have to try and blend in with regular life in (a mysteriously COVID free) 2020 London. Does Doctor Who work in a contemporary and sometimes completely alien free setting? Let’s find out!
So after reviewing one of the best wrestling games ever, we get the exact opposite. Thunder was made by the same team who made Nitro, and instead of doing anything to fix the game, they just poured more bollocks into it until it completely broke. The fact this came out roughly a month after Revenge boggles the mind. I feel sorry for those who only had a PS1 back in the day and were fans of WCW. Well… Let’s have a look then…
I went into this film knowing its reputation, hell the posters and DVD/Blu-Ray covers show you what the main “draw” of the film was, but man… it’s pretty awful. I mean by the time this film was released, DOA the game series’ reputation was breast jiggling physics and a volley ball game spin-off, so in reality this film probably did the franchise more justice than a lot of these adaptations, but it was so hard to get through due to the sheer amount of cringe. Let’s get it out of the way and never talk about it again, shall we?
I know, reviewing the original Dead or Alive alongside the movie would’ve made far more sense, but I never owned it, and in fact barely played it (a friend had it and brought it round a few times), where as DOA2 ended up being one of my most played fighting games on the Dreamcast. The main thing I remembered about it were super-fluid animation and controls and it being generally fun to play, but are these things still true in 2020? Let’s find out!
Here we go then! Having brought a kindle and starting to get into the habit of reading a bit before I go to bed, I thought I’d dip into some of the books relating to some of my favourite franchises here and there (probably more there than here, admittedly), and where better to start than with Doctor Who! Sadly, there are a LOT of better books to start with by all accounts, but I’ve had my eye on reading this for many, many years, and despite going into it knowing it won’t be very good, I wanted to finally get that “monkey” off my back. Plus this means I can add a “Books” section to each of the first Eight Doctor’s pages! Hooray! Let’s take a closer look then!
