Fillum review: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

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Kurt Russell is an awkwardly almost-funny trucker who somehow ends up part of a fight against supernatural Chinese supermen and a very old, almost dead, guy who wants to regain his youth by marrying and then sacrificing a girl with green eyes. The plot has huge holes. Some of it doesn’t even make sense. Lo Pan (the evil old bloke) reminds me of Davros. The acting is rubbish, several of the characters are completely superfluous, the Chinese girl (with green …

Fillum review: The Princess Bride (1987)

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I have a few films to get through, so nothing in depth on these, sorry! The Princess Bride is a film of the same genre, as well as style and era, as such things as Willow, The Neverending Story and Time Bandits. Basic plot: man and woman fall in love, man goes off to find his fortune, doesn’t return, girl is taken as bride for local prince, gang kidnaps girl, girl rescued by mysterious stranger, blah blah. The plot doesn’t …

3D Ultra Minigolf (360)

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For some reason, ny wife decided we should play this today. It’s sad to see how it has aged so much already, although some of it is probably due to how we’ve been playing Golf: Tee Off! a lot recently. Anyway, we played the Explorer course, and I won, getting a score of -8 at the end of it.

Golf: Tee It Up! (360): COMPLETED!

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Played this again for quite a while today. I’ve now managed to come first (and under par) on both courses – hence the “completed”. The Scottish course, complete with Stone Henge, is by far the harder of the two. It seems to have much stronger winds, smaller patches of fairway, and larger (and more) trees. On the other hand, the Caribbean course has lots of water. Which I ended up in for the first time playing my wife. I thought …

Too Human (Demo) (360)

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Amazingly, this didn’t turn out to be pants like I was expecting. OK, so it doesn’t feel like a game that has been in development for, what, 40 years? And it isn’t quite as hack-everything as the previews seemed to suggest. And there’s a story (about technologically advanced Nordic Gods or something) too. Rough edges include the lack of proper camera control, The Kameo Effect on far too many surfaces, and some minor animation problems, but I had fun for …

Assorted XBLA Demos (360)

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Yes indeed – it is XBLA Demo Catchup time! 1942: Joint StrikeAs I’ve said before, shooters aren’t my thing really. However, I’m one for nostalgia and this is a great looking, and playing, remake of 1942. I’m tempted to get it, except I know I’ll be crap at it. I was crap at the demo as it is. SchizoidIt’s like Geometry Wars, only two player, and with no shooting. And you control both players. And it’s pretty good. Go! Go! …

Gauntlet (GBA)

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The other half of Gauntlet and Rampart, obviously. And, like Rampart, it’s an excellent conversion even on a very small screen. I did get stuck on Level 14 though – I had a pocket full of keys (© The Rock) but had to pick up another to progress. But I couldn’t. Thankfully, the old hang-around-for-a-few-minutes trick worked and the walls all turned to exits.

Rampart (GBA)

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Another of the Play Asia package today. This one is actually one half of the “Gauntlet and Rampart” double game cartridge (which, at the time of typing, you can get for a bargainous £5 from here). And? It is, as it always was, ace. I remember I was on holiday with a friend one summer and we walked three miles to the nearest arcade just to play this. It loses a little with just one player, but still plays fantastically …

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (GBA)

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This arrived in the post today, along with some other stuff, from Play Asia. And, since ugvm Retro Week has been extended into this week, it was ideal for playing! Or so I thought. It turns out that in the process of simply porting the original Megadrive Sonic game to the GBA, Sega couldn’t help but rape my childhood memories by making it worse than those shoddy “fan-made” Flash-based Sonic games. It has more issues than a journal library. Par …

Super Retro Weekend Special!

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With it being Retro Week (now extended to Retro Fortnight) on ugvm, and with a guy coming up in a few weeks to interview me about old game systems, I rummaged through the loft this weekend for some old kit. Standout games were: Virus (Speccy)It’s a bit bloody hard, yes? Qix (Atari 400)Excellent, even if the Qix (that’s the multi-line baddie in the middle, yes?) seemed to move at random rather than bounce off things. River Raid (Atari 400)Pretty good, …