If there's a single film out there that doesn't deserve all of the hate it gets, it's Alien 3. The film's reputation precedes it to a highly unfair degree: ask anyone about it and there's a It's the poster child for executive meddling, with tales of lengthy reshoots, gaps in production (the entire film ground to a halt for over three months at one point) and more dogging it.

Following the events of the last film, Ripley awakes to find herself on a hellish all-male prison planet, the only survivor following the crash of her escape vessel. She believes at first that she's lost everything, however it quickly becomes apparent that something else survived the crash.

Okay, lets get the obvious targets out the way: yes, it is complete bullshit that Hicks and Newt die in the first five minutes - off-camera, no less. This simple decision is what garners much of the hatred for the film, and rightly so. But, in the context of the film, it actually works. The idea is that the alien has taken everything from her in one way or another - her crewmates in the first, her daughter in the second, and in the third, her replacement family, Hicks, Newt and Bishop. She basically says as much in the film. This is supposed to be a tragedy, a complete 180 from battle-hardened Ripley, breaking in to alien-infested hives with a pulse rifle and flamethrower.

The cast all look the same? Yes, but that's intentional. They're on a prison planet. A highly religious one at that. That alone should clue you in to the themes of rebirth and sacrifice alone. But even beyond that, the idea is that the shaved heads are supposed to de-humanise the characters, further emphasising Ripley's crusade against the xenomorphs. By the end, her single-minded extermination of the species isn't too far removed from the Queen's hatred for her in the last movie. Whether it's intentional or not is up for debate, but it's a nice counterpoint. As for the cast being utterly unlikeable, again, that's kind of the point. Nice people don't get sent to maximum security hellworlds (usually), and while they may not be as likeable, it's perfectly arguable they were able to handle the Alien a whole lot better than the marines in the last film: nice bunch, but the Keystone Kops could've put up a better fight.

The film itself is a mess? Ah, now that's a more difficult one. Practically from Day One, David Fincher seemed to be director in name only. He was inundated with executive orders, demands and missives. At one point, he was due to direct one of the key scenes of the film, only to be told he was not, under any circumstances, to film it in any way. Upon hearing this, he grabbed Weaver and a hand-held camera and shot it before anyone could stop him. That's the kind of backstage fuckery he was encountering on a daily basis. By the end of shooting, he was so disgusted by the whole thing, he asked to have his name removed from the production, and has refused to comment on it ever since. All things considered, it's a miracle the movie has any coherence at all.

The Assembly Print (as opposed to a Director's Cut, due to the director basically telling Fox to fuck off) adds a lot back in to the finished product. Rather than the Alien being birthed from a dog, it comes, as originally intended, from an ox, making the creature's comparative lack of intelligence far more understandable, oxen being possessed of considerably less animal cunning than a dog. Of the other added scenes, the two most important ones are right at the end: in the original cut, Ripley is told she could have the Queen implanted in herself removed, giving her back the life she always wanted. There's a short pause before she continues on her course of action. In the AP, this pause is much, much longer. she actually seems like considering it, before continuing, making the moment much more ambiguous: the Last Temptation of Ripley. Pretty apt considering how she falls at the end. The other is at the very end, with Ripley's closing report from the end of the original film being played over scenes of the prison being shut down. It adds a nice bookend to the trilogy, and adds a sense of finality and melancholy to the end. It's a shame that the one change that didn't need to be made was the removal of the moment of the Queen's birth, as Ripley's triumphant smile in the original was arguably one of the better moments of the film.

When you consider what the film could have been with the Assembly Print, and all that went wrong with it, it's hard to be so critical of the original. If anything, it's difficult to not be more sympathetic towards it. Alien 3 was, in part, trashed because it was a bastardised version of what it could've been, but also because it wasn't a sequel to Aliens. People were expecting more gung-ho marines vs. xenomorphs, and when the film failed to deliver, they hated it. It was an attempt to return to the pacing and tension of the original, but events conspired against it. It's not a bad film, and the Assembly Cut goes a long way to restoring much of what could, and most likely should have been. Even for all that went wrong with it, it's still worth a revaluation. After all, it could easily have been worse.

Next Time: It Gets Worse

New Megaten game on the DS (Devil Survivor - you see what they did there and you liked it, yes?) is good. A far cry from the other games released so far, unless you're one of those freakish obsessives who have played every game in the series (hello!) and recall a largely forgotten/ignored sub-series called Majin Tensei. First things first, despite what you've probably heard, it is NOT like The World Ends With You: yes it's set in and around Shinjuku, yes it features a 'You must complete this task in X days or you die' mechanic, but that's about it. The battles are turn-based strategy RPG-style, there's about 6 or 7 different paths/storylines/endings with different characters on each one and, sadly, the music really isn't as good. I know, not much of a surprise considering the WEWY OST was phenominal (it could've been 30 remixes of Twister alone and I would've been happy) but even compared to the other games in the SMT series it's not that interesting. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure neither Shoji Meguro not Kazuma Kanneko were involved in this one. Well worth checking out though, especially since we're in for another drought on the DS front. Unless you like Let's Imagine Our Pet Baby Farm Boutique-type games, in which case... well, in which case you probably couldn't care less anyway, since you're too busy irritating everyone within earshot with the most irritating mutant baby noises imaginable. They're called headphones, invest in a fucking pair!

Lunar Legend Tsukihime

12 30-minute episodes

You think you've got problems? Try being Shiki Tonho for an afternoon. for one thing, he's having to move back to the family estate after the death of his father, meeting his sister for the first time since they were kids. For another, there's a series of strange murders going on after dark in the area. And for another, he's just zoned out and awoken in a pile of a girl he doesn't recall dismembering for some reason.

Yeah, I'd say he's got you beat.

Y'see, Shiki is blessed with suck. He has what is known as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. Dumb name, I know, but hear me out. What this does is let him see lifelines as a physical presence. Everything has them - you, me, cats, dogs, chairs, running all over us like scribbles. By running his trusty knife along these lines, he can effectively 'kill' the object, no matter what it is. Still doesn't sound too great? Try imagining what would happen if he tried doing it to a block of steel. Or a building. Or the Earth.

As the story opens, Shiki is trying to get accustomed to his new life with his almost needlessly strict sister and their two maids. While taking some time out at a nearby park, he spaces out as a young woman passes by. When next he wakes up, he discovers he's sliced her to pieces and, unsurprisingly, freaks the fuck out. When there's no news of any dismembered women on the TV, he heads back to make sure it wasn't a dream. He's a little surprised when he not only meets the woman again, but she then proceeds to tell him, in great detail no less, exactly how he carved her up into 17 neat pieces. It turns out the woman, Arcueid Brunestud - Arc for short - is a vampire, and was on the hunt for another before Shiki sidetracked her into little pieces. As penance, she asks him to help her, since there's no way she'd be able to stand up to her quarry in her weakened state, and he is somewhat responsible for her current predicament. Feeling just a little guilty, Shiki agrees, and soon realises that absolutely no one around him is exactly what they seem.

Tsukihime is part of the larger Type-Moon universe. If the name sounds familiar, it's probably because you've encountered it in the better-known Fate/Stay Night series, or the Melty Blood fighting games. Or at the very least, the phrase "A CAT IS FINE TOO' All of these take place in the same shared universe, though, Melty Blood aside, there's very little crossover between them. Tsukihime was one of the first projects in this shared universe, and began life as a visual novel. The game, started as a simple piece of amateur work, quickly gained in popularity, becoming one of the most popular games of its kind, even compared to more professional commercial games. Japan being what it is, the game was swiftly snapped up and a manga and anime produced alongside it.

The original game is renown for two main reasons: first off, there's the plot. Like all VNs, it features a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style form of play, eventually branching off into one of two distinct storylines. The writing, however, is widely regarded as exceptional, with some of the best world-building and character-based moments seen in the genre. Unfortunately, it kinda goes a little downhill when you encounter the other thing the game is famous for: the sex scenes. Y'see, both Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night feature several fully-illustrated and scripted sex scenes, and while, in fairness, they are integrated far better than in most other games (none of this 'Oh, she's unconscious, perhaps loosening her clothes will make her feel better' nonsense here) the writing is, well, painful to read. There is an option to turn these scenes off, but the game will always have a sad reputation as a hentai game, turning a lot of people off.

Thankfully/unfortunately, none of this is in the show. I say thankfully, because the sex scenes are, as I said, hard to read. I say unfortunately because much of the character of the game is somewhat absent from the show. Don't misunderstand, it's still well worth your time, just that much of the sparkle from the original source material has been lost in the transition. For one thing, the designs aren't as visually pleasing, somehow becoming a lot flatter. Sure, the original art was a little amateurish, but it had character. In ironing out the creases, they've ironed out the detail and it hurts just a little. As for the writing, that's mainly the fault of it being an adaptation. You're constantly shown tantalising glimpses of a bigger world with more depth just around the corner. Of course, being a linear show, they can't even begin to cover any of it, and with only 12 episodes, even what they do cover is fairly glossed over, vitally important clues and details being given a vague allusion to before being ignored. The pace, on the other hand, I'll cheerfully blame on the writers. After the first main story arc, the entire thing grinds to a halt. Compared to the game, which carried the momentum with its writing and dialogue, it's horribly slow, and compared to the manga, which carries it by being more action-packed, it's positively glacial.

What the series does do that's interesting, is give the proceedings a strange dream-like atmosphere. The show floats along idly, and it made me wish they'd capitalised on some of the weirder moments from the game: the words 'this chair is an eyesore' spring rapidly to mind, as does Arc 'rewarding' Shiki with a visit from one of her minions.

Watching Tsukihime, if you're at all familiar with the parent series is frustrating. Again, it's not entirely the fault of the show itself, though the bland designs certainly don't help. By itself, it's a nice primer to the universe as a whole, and in tandem with the manga, a far less daunting excursion to the series than the game alone would be. As a show itself though, its disappointing. Nothing happens for long periods of time, and it doesn't help that it keeps dropping hints at the bigger picture, making you wonder if you've just seen something significant or not. If you're looking for a basic introduction to the Type-Moon universe - something I'd highly recommend, for what it's worth - this is a decent place to start. If you're looking to watch a solid show, on the other hand, check out Fate/Stay Night or Kara No Kyoukai.

After having finally had the opportunity to play Clive Barker Presents: Clive Barker's Jericho (By Clive Barker - obligatory link to the review I stole that joke from here) I have to say, it's actually not all that bad. Granted, I've always had a soft spot for Clive Barker (Cabal, the book Nightbreed was based on was a favourite of mine as a kid, and the second Hellraiser movie is one of the finest horror films around, no ifs, buts or maybes) and I could devour any kind of horror-themed game the way Cthulhu devours player characters (1d4 per round if you don't already know), so my opinion's probably kinda biased. But I'm about a third of the way through and - shock horror - having fun! Okay, so some bits are needlessly obtuse, like the astral projection/making things explode parts you're forced to do every so often. And the quicktime events happen in the middle of combat, with the markers being on the edge of the screen (rather than, say, blocking off easier paths - developers, use them to screw us out of goodies, not the last 20 minutes' hard work!), but all in all, it's really better than everyone else seems to think it is.

Kinda helps if you take the game a little less seriously than intended - not a problem when you bear some of the dreadful dialogue in mind (exactly how much input did Barker have beyond the basic storyline?). That, and one of the characters you can play as, Cole: a techy girl who can 'hack' reality? A fondness for explosive pyrotechnics? Sounds remarkably like Ty Lee? Have her boxed up and sent to my room, if you don't mind.

If the worth of a film can be measured in how much it's managed to invade the public consciousness, Aliens would rank in the Top Three. If you've played virtually any game in the last 20 years, there's a better then likely chance you've encountered at least one line or allusion to the film. It's easily one of the most quotable films of all time. You all know it, you've all seen it, and if you hate it, it's probably because you liked Alien better. So, in lieu of an actual review, since there's no way I could write anything you don't already know by heart about the film, 15 random facts about the first three movies that you (probably) never knew.

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• The original head for the Alien in the first film utilised a real human skull in it's creation


• When Dan O'Bannon was asked why the crew don't just shoot the alien on sight, he added the acidic blood, accidentally creating one of the most infamous features of the creature's biology


• The original script for Alien was... well... pretty bad. Also, kinda gay.


• The lasers used in the egg chamber scene were actually on loan from The Who, who were testing them out next door


• The original ending of Alien called for Ripley to die at the end, decapitated by the alien after sending her distress signal. It was vetoed as it would've been way too dark an ending


• Aliens was one of the first films to be released in a Director's Cut/extended edition. This was done partly to woo Weaver back to do a third film as she was unhappy with the original cut


• There was, at one point, going to be a Saturday morning cartoon based on the second film known as Operation: Aliens. It didn't get much further than toys, promotional material and an apparent opening title sequence, Why anyone thought this was a good idea is still, as yet, unknown. The toys, on the other hand, were suitably awesome


• In a surprising turn of events, the 15-minute countdown at the end of Aliens does actually last a full 15 minutes


• Both Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton have the dubious honour of being killed by an Alien, a Predator and a Terminator


• On a related note, Henriksen discussed the scene where he adds Hudson's hand to the knife trick scene with everyone but Hudson's actor, Bill Paxton. Much of his confusion and fear was actually real


• The smooth motion of the power loaders was achieved by having a bodybuilder moving around inside the power loader shell in tandem with Weaver


• The iconic pulse rifles are based around a Thomson machine gun - better known as a tommy gun - and a SPAS12 shotgun


• Michael Biehn (Hicks) was so upset at the plot of the third movie, he refused to allow the producers to use his likeness for two scenes. Eventually, they paid him for the use of his image in one scene. He payout was allegedly more than he received for his stint in Aliens


• Originally, when the 'Bambi' alien crawls out for the first time, they used a whippet covered in foam 'alien bits' to try and simulate a more organic alien/dog hybrid. It worked about as well as you can imagine


• David Fincher was so angry with the interference he received during the filming of Alien 3, when Fox offered to let him recut the movie however he wished with absolutely no executive meddling for the Alien Quadrilogy DVD boxset, he outright refused. He was the only person asked to take part in the set who refused to do so

Next Time: The One Everyone Hates

I call it Rule#72:









Anything set to Don't Stop Me Now automatically becomes 346% awesomer. And, in certain cases, 72% funnier, and 112% wronger.

A


It is the year 1979. Star Wars is already well on the way to becoming an unstoppable cultural juggernaut. Buck Rogers is having shiny spacesuited adventures in the discos of the 25th century. Star Trek is slowly but surely making a comeback, reminding us all that peace, tolerance and Orion Love Slaves are the keys to making the galaxy just that little bit better. Space and the future is, in every way, a bright and happy place to be.

Alien changed all that.

We all know the story by now. In an unspecified future, a crew of glorified space truckers on the return trip to earth are awoken from suspension by a signal coming from a nearby planet. Investigating, they encounter a colossal derelict spaceship of unknown origin that seems to have been there forever. As they enter the ship, one of the crew disturbs an egg pod and winds up with an alien parasite attached to his face.

Hilarity does not ensue.

It's interesting to note that, before Alien, there weren't many horror movies set in space. Sure there were plenty of films in the 50s that used aliens as their star monsters, but very few that were actually set out in the black, and even fewer that stand up today as solid films in their own right. But 30 years on, Alien is still as effective in its shocks as it ever was. The duct hunt is tense, the scene with Harry Dean Stanton searching for the cat is played wonderfully, set to the sound of falling water and chains, and the famous chestburster scene still retains its impact, even after a million billion parodies of the scene.

The future in this universe is a worn down one. While the Millennium Falcon had a warm, almost friendly decrepitude to it, there's no way you could describe the Nostromo as 'homely'. With its cold interiors and identical corridors, it's almost a forerunner to the cyberpunk movement that would come in the following years. The Nostromo is a corporate vessel through and through, and it's a nice touch that it almost subliminally reinforces the idea that no matter what, this is an unfriendly place to be.

And, of course, how could we forget the real star: over six feet of relentless death and merciless instinct. I am, of course, talking about Sigourney Weaver the Alien itself. Ascribe all the rape and Freudian metaphors you want, the alien is one of the most terrifying creatures ever to stalk the screen. The director, Ridley Scott, wisely chose not to show the full alien at any point, always hiding it in shadow or closeup, and it becomes all the more terrifying for it. Even with more recent films seemingly doing their damnedest to destroy the mystique of the beast, the original maintains an inhuman menace few other movie monsters have ever managed to achieve. H.R. Geiger has been repeatedly screwed over by Hollywood in the decades since, which is a shame, since the potential to see more monsters and landscapes based on his art would've been like mainlining pure nightmare fuel.

The Director's Cut doesn't add or alter as much, compared to the DCs of the other movies in the series. There's a few extended scenes, a couple added, but more interesting is that some scenes have actually been trimmed or outright deleted. Granted, most of these are just people walking around, staring intently at things, that kind of nonsense. It's a shame that the DC doesn't add as much as I'd like, but maybe it's a testament of sorts to the movie that it doesn't really need it. Everything's already there to begin with, padding it out any further is superfluous.

Alien is a classic, not just of the genre, but full stop. While the series would eventually take a slightly different turn into outright action over the years, the slow-burning tension is, without a doubt, the perfect introduction to the series, and as it stands alone, one of the best horror/thrillers ever made.

Next Time: That One Film Everyone Knows

Simon Clark - Blood Crazy

397 pages

I've always had a fascination for the end of the world. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see the world destroyed - it's where I keep all my stuff - but the images, the iconography, all of it captivates me in a way nothing else does. I first read Blood Crazy at exactly the right time. The hero, Nick Aten ("Rhymes with Satan" as he likes to inform us) is 17, the exact same age I was at the time. He awakens one Sunday morning to find that the whole world has gone mad. Well, half of it at least: the adult half. Overnight, the adult population has somehow managed to convince itself that everyone 18 and under needs to die, painfully if at all possible. Nick swiftly finds himself in a community that, at its heart, has good intentions, but when things start to go wrong, they go wrong badly, and he finds himself having to cross the country to try and save everyone there from the oncoming horde of adults, and each other.

When I first read Blood Crazy, it was the best book in the world ever. I wouldn't credit it with kickstarting my interest in armageddon (which would be the best publishing blurb ever if it were true) but it was, most likely, one of the first. The problem is, my horizons have expanded since then. I've seen and read and even played more and more, raising the bar appropriately, and going back to revisit the book feels like just that - a step backwards. Right at the beginning, we find out that the book is being written by the main character, who promises right there and then that there will be no flowery language or purple prose. Then mentions casually how it's snowing like someone's torn a hole in the sky. Hmm. The book falls into the usual trap of Teenagers-Don't-Talk-Like-Thatism, but that's nothing unusual. The dialogue that never quite gels and prose that hits the wrong side of purple, on the other hand, could've been done a hell of a lot better.

The single worst fault in the book, however, is the exposition/explanation moment. Throughout the book, everyone has their own theories on why all the adults went mad, from EM radiation, to a biological attack from an enemy state to aliens to God smiting the wicked. In fairness, no theory is ever truly discounted as being completely lunatic, and some of the wilder ones are actually given a degree of credence, leaving you to come to your own conclusions. Then, towards the end, we're given something like a 50-60 page infodump that, despite an lack of actual, 100% honest-to-God explanations as to what happened, immediately becomes the most authoritative conclusion on how it all happened. Nothing wrong with that, though I preferred the idea of leaving it all up to you to decide the truth, it's how it's presented. For one thing, it takes too damn long to actually play out, for another, it's literally two people sitting in a room talking to each other over the course of a couple of days. Not the most thrilling of setups, by any standards. As for the big revelation itself? Go crack open a couple of books giving you in introduction to Carl Jung. That's pretty much got you covered. 'Underwhelming' is not the word, though considering what happens after 'deus ex machina' certainly applies.

Don't get me wrong, there's some excellent moments and scenes in the book - the causeway made of people, the attack on the convoy, motorway full of the crucified - but the book is damned by nostalgia. Revisiting it, I'm sad to say it's really not as good as I remembered - not a bad book, not by any stretch, just that, in the years since, I've read and seen so much better, a revisit would never have stood a chance.

No, I don't know why I thought this was a good idea either

PC*

13 hours 32 minutes

It was the marines who'd started it. In their zeal to cleanse the city of infection, they didn't care who they opened fire on. Here, on the outskirts of the infected zone, most of the people fleeing were still healthy, not that that mattered to the military. So they were surprised when someone not only fought back, but did so by throwing at wrecked taxi at them. Before they could get their bearings, I charged up the side of a nearby building, got to about 50 feet up, then gracefully backflipped off the side. I aimed right for the chest of the one in the middle, hit him squarely, killing him and causing me to slide back on his corpse a good 20 feet. Before the other two could react, I picked up a nearby garbage can, forced all my strength into my arms, bulking them up considerably, and hurled it with the force of a tank shell. The effect was, to say the least, explosive. The third I picked up by the throat, threw him up into the air and dropkicked him into the side of the nearby gym. He exploded on impact. The whole thing was over in less than five seconds. Not bad for a guy who woke up on a slab with only a name - Mercer, Alex J - and nothing else less than a week ago.


Allow me to describe the plot of Prototype in one sentence: Alex Mercer Saves The World From An Alex Mercer Fuckup. Our 'hero' Alex Mercer, wakes up in the mortuary with three main problems: first off, he should be dead. Very dead. Second, he has no memory. Third, he quickly discovers he's capable of running at high speed, far faster than any human should be able to run, can lift cars with no effort at all, able to run horizontally up the sides of buildings and, oh yeah, can devour and absorb people wholesale, gaining access to their memories. Escaping from the labs of the Gentek corporation, Mercer starts off on a relatively simple quest to recover his memory.

Anyone wanna guess how long it takes to go south? I'll give you a hint: it happens within the first 5 missions of the game.

We start off with the mandatory tutorial mission, because no one who buys games these days is capable of reading manuals, apparently. But wait: what's this? We're starting out on day 18? The sky's blood red? The army's fully mobilised on the streets and firing at anything and everything that moves, and there's tanks and genetic atrocities and awesome music and oh dear lord, did my arm just transform into a giant fucking scythe blade? No, wait, back the fun bus up a sec - did I just elbow drop a fucking TANK?! If you're not saying 'holy shit, did I just do that?! That was fucking awesome!' every 30 seconds, you're playing it wrong. Radical know exactly what the strengths of this game are, and they show you exactly what's waiting for you later the second you start up the game for the first time: complete fucking anarchy. It spells the game's intent right from the off: this ain't your daddy's free-roaming sandbox game. This isn't even an action game with fancy moves. This is how the end of the world looks at ground zero, and you're the one thing standing between it and the rest of humanity. This is Armageddon in hi-def and you've got frontline tickets. And, as an opening gambit, dear Christ it works. The tutorial (you almost forget it's a tutorial stage, you're having that much fun) only lasts about ten or 15 minutes tops, but for sheer impact, it beats the hell out of any game I've ever played.

How do they follow that up? By dialling it back down to Day One and showing how things get so bad over the next two and a half weeks. It's a complete mood whiplash, but by that point, you either hate it or you're hooked with a pathological need to find out how you get from a quiet and ordered New York to open warfare on the streets of Times Square.

I had invented a new game. I called it 'Climb A Bigger Building'. See, what you do, is you pick a building. Any building will do. And you run up the side of it. Then you look around and find a bigger building. Then you glide over to that one from the top of this one, and run to the top of that. Then you look around, find a bigger building and repeat the process. If you ever find yourself with superpowers, you should give it a try. This time, I was standing on top of the lightning rod at the top of the Empire State Building, looking around. I could see for miles in every direction. I was taking in the sights when I remembered the SUV I was carrying over my head. You tend to forget about these things after a while, y'know? I looked about and saw a tank driving past a street or two away. That gave me an idea. I hurled the SUV as hard as I could, then jumped after it, following the trajectory I'd thrown it in.

The SUV bounced off the heavy armour of the tank. Me, less so.

As the tank exploded behind me, I sprinted down the street, easily outpacing even the fastest cars around me as rockets and gunfire exploded at my heels. I vaulted over a couple of buildings, ducked into an ally, shifted my appearance to that of the Blackwatch soldier I'd consumed earlier and walked out, no one any the wiser.

Sometimes, random destruction was almost fun.

Manhattan Island is your playpen, and you are free to enjoy it however you wish. Want to spend your time taking in the sights, collecting the 250 TACOs (totally arbitrary collectible objects)? Have at it. Want to see how far you can fly or run? There's the financial district over there, pick a building and jump from the rooftops. Want to wreak a bloody trail of havoc from Harlam to Central Park? Grab a taxi, grab a pedestrian and combine the two til one or the other explodes. Want to hijack a tank, take out every military base and viral hive on the map and make a daring escape in an attack helicopter, all while disguising yourself as Aunt Martha from Delaware? Try to keep the maniacal laughter to a minimum, people are starting to stare. You can't enter buildings, unfortunately, so introducing the interior of the Met to the remains of a thermobaric tank isn't an option, alas, but pretty much every other famous landmark in the city short of Lady Liberty herself is yours to see, climb, jump off and shoot at. Navigating it is simplicity itself once you get a grip of the controls, which is easily done within a few missions. Tearing through Soho on foot gives a feeling of speed greater than anything the GTA series has been able to accomplish in a car. Bombing down a road, jumping from car to car, like any number of action movie heroes gave me a feeling of sheer joy I hadn't seen in ages. It's a simple thing, to entertain those superhero fantasies of rooftop running and the like. To see someone take those fantasies and present them to you and say 'go wild' is another thing entirely.

The beast in front of me was called a Hunter. One of Elizabeth Greene's deadliest, twelve feet of muscle and murderous intent. It let out a roar to shake the skull. Even the Infected were backing off from this one, and I'd seen them charge heavily armed marines bodily. I sized up my options. Running wouldn't do me much good, these things were as agile as I was. I could pop my claws, but those were better suited to fast flurries of damage. My whip arm was good at a distance or with crowds, but here it would be next to useless. Right now, that left me with one option. I forced the biomass that made up my body into my arms, bulking them up considerably as I smiled grimly. Time to go toe-to-toe with the son of a bitch.

At the heart of the game is combat, and Prototype is no slouch in this department. Over the course of the game, you'll unlock over a hundred forms, skills, moves and abilities, from extra health, to faster running speed, to increased jump height, to dozens of combat moves. You do this with experience - Evolution Points in this game - earned from killing enemies, completing missions or beating bonus challenges. New upgrades are made available periodically, usually at the end of every block of stages, usually with a fairly hefty pricetag attached. You don't have to go grinding EP for them, since end-of-mission bonuses are pretty generous, but considering how creative some of them are - one word: Bodysurfing - you'll find yourself wanting to just to see how you can mutilate your enemies this time. Combat, like the rest of the game, is frantic and fast-paced, and you'll often find yourself running like a lunatic just to catch your breath and acquire a health refill from any nearby enemies, consuming being an instant kill for all humanoid foes, and also boosting your lifebar. Boss fights are similarly hectic, despite everyone on the internet seeming to think that the rules have changed just because it's a boss. Of the three fights, the second, an encounter with a colossal monstrosity known as 'Mother' stands out - rather than being in an enclosed area, all of Times Square is your battleground, and you'll need every last inch of the surrounding area to survive. The only thing really missing is that she's sadly stationary. The sight of a beast like that chasing you around the cityscape is something that has to be in the inevitable Prototype 2.

And finally, we come to the story. The tale, as its presented, is admittedly flimsy, little more than a compass that points you in the direction of your next victim. The real meat lies in the Web of Intrigue, 131 targets you have to track down and consume to gain their memories, and the heart of the story. It's weird that the game should be upfront about everything else, but make you work for the detail. The story missions themselves are surprisingly varied, and even those missions we all hate are made awesome within the context of the game: enforced stealth missions? Sneak into an army base, eat everyone, you won't blow your cover unless you actively attack anyone, no matter what you do (and that includes running vertically up walls). Escort missions? We do it with tanks around here, motherfucker! Protect missions? Armour up like the Guyver, pop your sword arm and watch the organs fly! If there was an underwater stage, you can bet they'd even find a way to make that a thing of wonder.

Prototype is, without a doubt, the most fun I've had with a game since Devil May Cry. I swear the thing was catered specifically to my tastes. There's very little in the game I'd change - perhaps a little mercy invincibility while the military rectally violating your lifebar with missiles would be nice - but lots I'd add. The feeling of the army and the Infected escalating to deal with the growing threat represented by yourself is good, but it doesn't go far enough. The most powerful units in the game, the thermobaric tanks are only seen a handful of times, and on one of those occasions, you're piloting one! More variation would be a welcome sight. A reason to care about the general non-infected populace would be good to see as well. I'm not saying we have to implement a badly-designed morality system, just give us more to do with them beyond eating them, slicing them or picking them up and hucking them at things. Make them more than health packs on legs. And maybe a branching storyline, one path helping the military, the other spreading the infection, with different storylines and upgrades available on each (oh dear, I've accidentally described inFamous, whoops!). Other than that, give us more of everything and I'll happily see you next year for Prototype 2.

There's monsters in Central Park. Something evil and obscene lurking under the streets of Times Square. The skies have turned a sickening orange, the colour of oblivion. The screams of the dying mix with the cries of the carrion birds, the only real victors of the viral outbreak. These are the end times. And I'm the only one who can keep things from getting worse. I know the men responsible for this. They'd better hope whatever they have between them and me is enough, because I'm just getting started.

*Staticnote: since the release of this game, Activision have announced that they will not be supporting the PC version of the game. A bad move considering that, for a lot of people, the game has a lot of flaws and bugs, chief amongst those being a lack of proper graphical options; the game failing to register any attached pads or controllers at startup, including official 360 pads; and a game-breaking issue with the sound, which not only ruins all cutscenes and voices, but also cripples the performance of the game, rendering it all but unplayable. By contrast, the PS3 version had a minor problem with optional installs that was identified and patched within 3 days. The lack of effort shown by Activision has been, in a word, atrocious, with all of the fixes being discovered by the community at the technical support forums, rather than any official channels. While there are hacks and workarounds for most of these, I cannot, in good faith or judgement, recommend the PC version of this game to anyone. The game itself is wonderful, easily the single best game I've played this year, but for the love of God, please, don't bother with the PC port.

My thoughts on the fact that the PC version has a horrible bug that completely wrecks the sound and gameplay:



And my thoughts on the media res intro stage:




If the game has even a tenth of the atmosphere shown in that intro (you can't tell from the 10 or so seconds of gameplay at the end, but trust me, it's fucking awesome) when we finally get around to it, I'll be happy as all hell. I've been waiting for a game with an atmosphere like this since I played Abomination: The Nemesis Project (obscure realtime XCOM-lite game on the PC - shallow, but fun as hell, and with a similar vibe to it).

tl;dr This game, it was made for me drr... drr...

Now, if only they could get rid of those glitches that've been plaguing everyone...

Describing the intro of Super Robot Wars: Endless Frontier to the unwitting

So there's a cowboy, with, what can only be described as a Swiss-Army FAMAS. And his partner is a kung-fu android with a split personality. And while exploring the ruins of a crashed spaceship, they encounter the scantily-clad princess of a land that's pretty much the living stereotype of feudal Japan, with cherry blossom and ninja and torii gates everywhere. The princess is completely oblivious to any and all jokes about her gigantic breasts. And somehow, it's all a sort-of sequel to Namco X Capcom. And a little bit for Xenosaga as well. And don't even get me started on how it ties in to the SRW games or we'll be here all night. This is all within the first two or so hours btw, it somehow manages to get weirder later on.

Did I mention that, for a 2D game, it somehow manages to have jiggle physics? Kinda impressive if you think about it.