The original Dead Rising film, “Watchtower”, was a good laugh, a B-movie that stuck quite rigidly to the game world it was set in. Sadly, unlike Dead Rising’s second game, its second movie was a step down, and its B-movie charm all but gone and replaced with… I don’t know, dullness. I think they got away with it as a one off, but as they try to expand this live-action spin-off world I think they forgot what made the first work. More info? Let’s look deeper!
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Dead Rising 2 was a pleasant surprise to me. Unlike the sequel film, the sequel game took what worked in the original and built on it while improving or getting rid of the things that didn’t. Sounds obvious, but not all sequels actually manage to do this! I played quite a bit of DR2, and then I brought the spin-off non-canon retelling titled “Off the Record”, which is why I’m including it here. Beyond the retold story and a few small addition, they’re essentially the same, so they’d be little point in doing separate reviews… Anyway, let’s have a look!
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You know, all things considered, Dead Rising: Watchtower has to be one of the better game adaptation movies out there. Now this comes mainly because the original games were pretty much based on cheesy zombie B-movies, so making a Dead Rising film as a cheesy zombie B-movie was a pretty simple task! It also oddly takes place within the game’s universe, referring to the events of Dead Rising 1 and 2 and even featuring game protagonist Frank West in the flesh. So it certainly scores well on the game adaptation front, but how does it do on the “fun film to watch” front?
The original Dead Rising was one of those games that looked amazing: free-roaming zombie outbreak in a mall with loads of weapons, including stupid comedic ones? Yes please! Sadly, upon playing it, the tight time limit and poor companion AI really let it down… At least by memory, what about now?! Has this somehow changed? I am replaying it because of the film I’m reviewing alongside it, or am I doing it because I truly believe something may have changed in the past decade or so? … Yeah. Well, maybe it’s not as bad as I remember? Let’s find out!
Well, that was a quick break! Yes, we’re back to a fighting game adaptation, and on our third attempt at Street Fighter no less, but for the first time the (admittedly small) crew actually decided to hand wave the idea of trying to appeal to a mass market and just make a straight adaptation for fans like themselves. Originally a mini-series uploaded to YouTube (with the first preview being called “Alpha”, which is why I reviewed Alpha 3 along with this…? It’s not, but whatever), Assassin’s Fist was eventually compiled into a film. All that being said, is such a small fan production any good? Does doing such justice to the source material produce a better film? Let’s find out!
We’ve reached something of a milestone here, as this is the last fighting game I’ll be reviewing as part of this marathon, and the final of three Street Fighter games to boot. After reviewing the original with the first film, and Super SFII with the second film, I thought I’d review my favourite Street Fighter game alongside “Assassin’s Fist”, so I went with Alpha 3, the final of the prequels to SFII and a PS1 game I became very addicted too for a while. Let’s take a look!
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve just watched four average-to-awful fighting game-based movies in a row or what, but I enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I mean, the script might not win any originality awards, but it was still an entertaining two hours of adventure that actually uses some imagery and ideas from the game it was based on (that I’ve seen a lot about, but never actually played, hence why I reviewed the original game alongside this instead…) Is it good enough to actually recommend though? Let’s find out!
Yes, I know, I should’ve reviewed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time alongside the film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but although the time mechanics looked fun, I never brought it or even played it. So rather than not review anything at all I thought I’d review the one Prince of Persia game I played, that being the original! Well, the Mega Drive port of the original, anyway. I rented out a couple of times, not because I was good at it, but because the fluid movement and realistic swordplay was cool as hell. Let’s take a look!
So… What on Earth is this? Tekken 2 is no more a Tekken film than I’m a chicken. Beyond three character names and two returning actors it’s clearly another script they just slapped “Tekken 2” on top of. Hell, Kazuya doesn’t even get his revenge in the film, mostly because it’s a prequel rather than a sequel! Even in the confines of what happens to him in this film his revenge goes unfulfilled. Is there any point in mentioning the game series in this post? I felt stupid reviewing Tekken 7 alongside this… Well, ignoring all that, is this clearly stand-alone non-Tekken film worth watching anyway? Let’s see…
So I didn’t know what to review alongside Tekken 2: Kazuya’s Revenge, but given that film turned out to be very… VERY loosely connected to the game series, I guess it didn’t matter! Anyway, this was on sale for a crazy price (probably because the three DLC seasons would cost more than the game did on release… ) so I thought “why not?” I normally buy Tekken games cheap a year or two after release anyway, so here we are! Tekken 7 is a lot of fun, especially the “Treasure Battle” mode, which I got lost in for days. Want to know more? Read on!