Killscreen Poetry

MadWorld for the Wii: Here Comes Controversy

2008-08-16T11:29:00.010+10:00

The upcoming Sega beat 'em up, MadWorld, is already generating plenty of controversy. It's still at least six months away from an official release, but Britain's Daily Mail has already started drumming up public hysteria over the game's "unsavoury" themes.

MadWorld is a third-person beat 'em up for the Wii. It's also, possibly, one of those most violent games ever created. In fact, it's so violent that the Japanese developer, Platinum Games, openly admits that it doesn't think the game will get a release in Japan. Instead, they're aiming for the Western market - with its higher appreciation for games with blood, guts and gore.

Not much is known about the game apart from a couple of trailers, which shows some pretty ridiculous and horrifying images. For instance, you can slice people up with a chainsaw, rip out their hearts, and use a street sign to impale their foreheads.

But the most striking feature of the game is the colour scheme. Much like the film Sin City, everything is black and white.... except for the bright red blood that gushes across the screen.

As Platinum Games explains on its website, "we decided the best way to convey blood, and thus brutality, was against this black and white backdrop". They go on to mention the themes of MadWorld revolve around "brutality and exhilaration".

MadWorld certainly looks stylish. And fun. And even hilarious... in a morbid, uncomfortable way. But the question remains: will this game ever see the light of day?

A Japanese release has already been ruled out. And there's no way this game will be approved in strict censorship countries like Australia. That leaves the United States and some European countries. And while most of these places allow the release of "adult only" games, there's always the risk that with enough public outrage, the game could be banned, or at the very least, altered.

And because MadWorld is slated for a release on the family-friendly Wii, the chances of this occurring seem highly likely. The Wii is supposed to be a console that the whole family can enjoy - including your grandparents... if this Wii TV advertisement is to be believed:

So how does a post-apocalyptic video game about jamming metal poles through people's skulls, and then throwing them headfirst at a "human dart board", fit into this rosy, Nintendo-coloured view of the world?

At the moment, Nintendo says it's backing the game, stating "the game is not made by Nintendo but by Sega". Still, I couldn't imagine Miyamoto would be too impressed with this release.

It will certainly be an interesting ride come early 2009. Expect some serious parental group fireworks.

Battle of the fighting game geriatrics

2008-06-23T15:34:00.020+10:00

Fighting games are full of clichés when it comes to their characters. Every fighting game features a spiky-haired Japanese guy wearing a headband (Ryu, Akira). There is always a busty, scantily clad girl, who breathes a little too heavily and fights with a fan (Kitana, Mai). And then there’s my personal favourite cliché: the old, geriatric kung fu master.

Every fighting game has one. He’s the guy with grey hair, bad posture, comical facial expressions, and, if it’s a Japanese game, a questionable fixation for female high school students. He’ll normally fight with a cane, or a staff, or at least with a stick. And he usually will have taught or fathered about half the other characters in the game.

The “old guy” really is an essential component for any fighting game. But who is the toughest “old guy” of them all? Tekken’s Heihachi Mishima? Mortal Kombat’s Shang Tsung? Well, Killscreen Poetry decided to put these old codgers to the test, and answer that most pressing of questions: who would win if all these cliched geriatrics were thrown into the ring... together?

The Contenders:

Kliff
Guilty Gear

Kliff is certainly one bad-ass old guy. Not only is he built like a tank, with muscles the size of radioactive watermelons, but he wields a sword twice as big as himself. Supposedly he was involved in the crusades back in his day, but that’s hardly important. The important thing is that his sword is gigantic.

Positives: His sword.

Negatives: He’s technically dead. Unfortunately for Kliff, Guilty Gear's developer killed him off after the first game. I guess that’s a pretty big negative, really.

Raizo Imawano
Rival Schools

Raizo would have to be the strangest "old guy" to appear in a fighting game. This is because Rival Schools is set in a high school, and all the characters, except for him, are children. Still, the fact that Raizo is 40 years older than everyone else doesn't seem to bother him. He's the school's principal - and he beats up kids like a teacher from the Third Reich.

Positives: He clearly has no morals or conscience, making him one terrifying opponent. Particularly if you are a 13-year-old.

Negatives: Since he’s only ever fought children, it remains to be seen if he’d actually hold his own in a real fight.

Heihachi Mishima
Tekken

Heihachi is a beast of an old man. The 74-year-old has the physique a steroid-popping WWE wrestler. He is the father of fellow Tekken character Kazuya, grandfather of Jin, and adoptive father of Lee. He is also one nasty piece of work, and has tried to kill most of these offspring at one stage or another.

Positives: His hair.

Negatives: Heichachi actually made a cameo appearance in Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis for the Playstation back in 1996. The thought of him holding a tennis racket and wearing tight white shorts kind of destroys the legend.

Jubei Yamada
Fatal Fury

Jubei looks like he is knocking on death's door. The judo master from the Fatal Fury series is seriously frail. But he does have some nasty throws in his fighting arsenal. He’s also the grandfather of at least two other characters in the game.

Positives: He keeps his judo outfit white and clean. So he’s not senile yet.

Negatives: He spends a little bit too much time in the Fatal Fury games getting up to this type of behaviour:

Jubei Yamada's ending in Fatal Fury Special

Shun Di
Virtua Fighter 2

Shun Di is a herbal doctor from China. He is also a crazy old wino who normally fights wasted. He uses the drunken style of boxing first made famous by Jackie Chan in the film, Drunken Master.

Positives: You can make him drink about 50 shots of dirty Chinese moonshine in one bout and his strength with actually increase. So he’s a resilient old coot.

Negatives: Considering how much booze this guy chugs down, it’s unlikely he will be around for much longer.

Gouken
Street Fighter

In the Street Fighter storyline, Gouken is the martial arts teacher of Ryu and Ken - who are probably the most legendary fighters in video game history. A pretty good pedigree huh? Well, unfortunately Gouken has never actually made an appearance in a Street Fighter game himself. The best he’s done is a brief appearance as an official Capcom action figure (pictured).

Positives: He trained Ryu and Ken – so he might be the ultimate martial arts master in the world.

Negatives: There’s an old saying: “Those who can - do. Those who can’t - teach”. Seeing as Gouken has actually never fought anyone, there is a strong possibility he's not very good. Maybe he is just a master of writing martial arts "how to" guides, but not that good at practicing them. Remember, Bruce Lee wrote his kung fu book when he was paralysed. It’s not that hard.

Shang Tsung
Mortal Kombat

Shang Tsung is by far the oldest of the “old guys”. His specific age is unknown, but he has been around for at least 1000 years, give or take a few days. He is a sorcerer, a demon, a shape shifter, and he shoots flaming skulls from his bare hands. Not bad for a retiree.

Positives: Shang Tsung can morph into anyone in the Mortal Kombat universe, making him the T-1000 of the MK series. If he wanted to, he could also play hilarious morphing pranks on other characters - much like the frat guys did in that stupid film Sorority Boys.

Negatives: He can get a bit sensitive about his age. In both MK2 and MK3 he seems to dye his hair black. You would think a demon would not care about such trivial matters:

Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 3

...and the winner is?

Well, it's not much of a competition is it? Most of these old bastards are either drunks or child abusers. I guess the ultimate battle would probably have to come down to Heihachi Mishima and Shang Tsung. Between them, they have appeared in a total of 18 fighting games, making them the most experienced of the lot.

But who would win? Personally, I would put my money on Shang Tsung. Not only is the man possibly the devil himself, but if things got really hairy, he could always just morph into Heihachi and kill him with his own lightening fists.

Plus if Shang Tsung wins, the match would probably end in a fatality. Which is always nice to show the kiddies.

The seven weirdest ways to die in a video game

2008-06-14T09:13:00.034+10:00

There's no point in denying it: killing things in video games is cool. Gamers know it. Game developers know it. That's why so much creative energy is put into designing the most spectacular, ridiculous and gruesome death scenes possible.

But all this death in video games is getting a little clichéd. Guns, explosions, decapitations... sure they are fun, but we've seen it all before. How many times have you witnessed a zombie's head explode from a sawn-off shotgun blast, only to see his headless body move three steps forward and collapse? Too many times, I'm afraid.

This list was created to honour those games that do something a little different. Not necessarily the bloodiest deaths. Not necessarily the most creative deaths. Just the weirdest deaths ever seen in video games...

No.7 - Wonder Boy
Death by Rock

Starting off our list is the 1986 Sega platformer, Wonder Boy. In this game, you play a slightly camp looking Tony Hawk wannabe who is off to rescue his girlfriend (what else could an 80's game hero possibly be doing?). Over the course of your adventure, you come across all manner of beasts and nasties. But one of your first challenges, at the very start of the game, is this:

Yes, it's a rock. Not even a very large rock either. Just a small, stationary, inanimate pebble. But don't get cocky now. This rock can kill. Observe:

Wonder Boy approaches the rock.

The rock kills Wonder Boy.

It's certainly a strange death. At least to the naked eye, the rock seems to stay completely stationary. All Wonder Boy does is touch it. But something more must be going on, as this rock is one relentless killing machine.

Either that, or this rock is the lamest and most uncreative "baddie" to ever appear in a video game.

No.6 - Leisure Suit Larry
Death by STD

Leisure Suit Larry is another 1986 classic, but of a very different gaming ilk. As Larry, you play a sleazy virgin dude who just wants to get his rocks off. But living the life of a pick-up stud isn't all fun and games. If you don't play it safe, you can end up with some nasty downstairs surprises. Observe:

Larry approaches a dirty, diseased, and quite pixellated prostitute.

The two get down to business, but Larry can't shake the feeling that he's forgotten something very important.

Larry wakes up like this.

What Larry has just done is have sex with a prostitute without using a condom. His punishment is an unnamed STD that makes his crotch flash bright colours. As the text on the screen happily informs you: "It appears the hooker gave you a little more than you bargained for!".

Larry dies about five seconds later.

This death makes the weird list simply because it's a bit too realistic for a video game. Sure, the death occurs in seconds, and features flashing bright green private parts, but it's still a way we could all get into trouble.

This "safe sex" warning is also a very strange safety message for a game. How many racers do you see encouraging seatbelts? How many shooters feature guns with safety switches? How many beat 'em ups warn you about the dangers of eating food that has been lying on a dirty street?

Who would have thought Leisure Suit Larry would have had a redeeming moral message.

No.5 - The Sims
Death by Starvation

This death is possibly the most evil and degrading death scene ever created. The Sims is supposed to be a family game. You feed, clothe and entertain people... and do other boring, girly stuff like that.

But if you feel the need, it's also possible to murder your sims in the cruelest of ways: by starvation.

To do this, you need to place one of your sims inside an empty room, and then remove the door. You then sit back, relax, and watch the slow and morbid process of human disintegration take place right before your eyes.

Your sim will squirm in agony, plead for help, and will probably even pee himself. Eventually he will clutch his stomach, beg one last time for your mercy, and then die in a most horrible fashion:

The entire dying process takes about four days. And to think The Sims is one of the highest selling, "family friendly" games out there. Makes Postal look like a little-girl's tea party.

No.4 - Theme Park
Death by Rollercoaster

Theme Park is also supposed to be a light-hearted, family-friendly game. It's about building a theme park and making little children happy. Or so you thought...

But it's also possible to kill the kids at your park. The first step is to build a stupidly dangerous rollercoaster - one that would make even Evil Kinevel shit his pants (yes, even after he's dead). A rollercoaster with at least six dangerous drops like this should do:

If everything is done correctly, then the kids on your rollercoaster will just fly off into the air, never be seen again. Like this poor chap:

What makes this death even more bizarre is that your rollercoaster carriages will return to the start of the track with no passengers, and yet no-one seems to care. The kids will still queue to get on, oblivious to the fact they are only minutes away from death.

Weird serial killers should take note of this: you could easily kill thousands of kids a year using this practice.

A little disturbing hey? Actually, come to think of it, both Theme Park and The Sims were made by Electronic Arts. There seems to be a pattern emerging here.

No.3 - Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Death by Brutality

Mortal Kombat has a well-earned reputation for pushing the boundaries of creativity when it comes to killing people. The series has a lot to offer: fatalities, friendships, babalities, animalities… but one death takes the cake: MKT's brutality.

This death requires a 10 hit button combination. The result is that your opponent explodes with a pink burst of blood. Doesn't sound that strange? Well, the weirdness is not in the manner of death, but what comes after it: an explosion of gore that often includes three skulls, four rib cages, and at least twelve limbs. Just check out this carnage:

One man cannot produce that many bones. Not even a Siamese twin could produce that many bones. I guess that's why the brutality is so brutal - it's death at its most physically impossible (to see the brutality in action, click here).

No.2 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Death by Purple Dildo

This death really needs no explanation. In GTA: San Andreas, you can kill people using this 12-incher as a weapon:

It's weird. What more can I say?

No.1 - Space Quest III
Death by... Sharp Metal Sheet?

And so we reach the weirdest death to ever appear in a video game. The honours go to the 1989 text-based adventure, Space Quest III. The weird thing about this death is that it literally makes no sense whatsoever. And for that reason, it's legendary.

The game starts off with the main character emerging from a crashed space ship. To the right of screen lies a grey metal sheet. There doesn't seem to be much else for your character to do, so most players will initially go and examine the strange metal sheet. But then this happens:

Confused? So is everybody else who has ever played this game. The following text appears on the screen soon after you die to offer some kind of explanation: "It's obvious that the metal sheet was sharper than you".

Well, that's certainly open to debate. To me, the sheet looks quite blunt really. What's more, your character never even touches it. And the sheet somehow manages to cut you in the stomach, almost slicing you in half, without even moving.

What kind of crazy, psychotic metal sheet is this? It remains one of gaming's biggest mysteries.

It's also a weird, weird, weird way to die. And a weird death that is hard to top.

MMORPG Outrage: Age of Conan gives players a breast reduction

2008-06-02T22:19:00.013+10:00

Sordid sex stories are the bread and butter of entertainment journalism. It’s what celebrity tabloids thrive on.

In videogames, however, sex controversies don’t seem to pop up that much. Aside from your occasional hot coffee debate, there really isn’t much going on out there. It's assumed most game players don’t have girlfriends (if they did, why would they be up all night questioning the sexuality of “newbie” players in Counterstrike?) and so the topic is rarely written about...

Until now. Killscreen Poetry, being the sordid publication that it is, has decided to lift the lid on what is possibly the biggest sex controversy to ever hit the MMORPG world.

According to gamers on this forum, the developers of Age of Conan, an online MMORPG, recently decided to place limits on the size of its female characters’ breasts. That’s right. LIMITS (I can already hear 14-year-old male readers groan in hormonal anger).

Until a couple of days ago, Age of Conan players allegedly had the ability – some are now terming it the “right” – to select the breast size of their female avatars. This ranged from small sizes, to the stupidly huge, Dead or Alive sizes of endowment I like to call “boobage elephantitis”.

As of a few days ago, however, players can now only select a small, some would say “more realistic”, breast size.

Follow these links to see the alleged evidence: before and after shots.

Suffice to say, it has sent the Age of Conan forums aflame with controversy. Some players are calling it an outrage. Some are even threatening to quit the game altogether – and, I assume, join MMORPGs where a players’ need for female characters with back-breaking frontage is respected.

It’s shaping up to be the biggest controversy the video game world has seen since the Night Trap Senate enquiry. Hell, it could even possibly trump the Monica Lewinsky scandal if it gets enough momentum.

Of course, most of the angry gamers have glossed over the fact that it’s only male players, with female avatars, who seem to be complaining – raising a number of concerning and gender bending questions.

It also seems that, from most reports, the original breast size of Age of Conan’s female characters didn’t even fit into their armour, so a reduction was probably necessary.

Still, the changes now mean that any single, lonely Age of Conan player, who’s just burned through an 18 hour marathon session, and is all jittery and crazy from HP-PTSD (hit point post traumatic stress disorder), and the only thing he needs to recover is just a quick glimpse of a poorly rendered female Elf character with a size 84F cup.... well, he isn’t going to have that opportunity anymore.

And, readers, such an image just tugs on the heartstrings a little too much. Bring on a petition I say. Let’s fight this.

Why Street Fighter One sucks

2008-05-27T17:27:00.027+10:00

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming release of Street Fighter 4, I thought it might be a good idea to look back on how the series began... and how god-awful it was to begin with.

Most people are aware of the meteoric success of Street Fighter 2. Released in 1991, it was an instant arcade smash, and went on to spawn countless sequels - most of which included the indistinguishable words "hyper", "turbo" and "super" in their titles.

But the Street Fighter brand wasn't always such a mega-success. The original Street Fighter, released back in 1987 was... well, it sucked. It sucked big time. Indeed, it sucked even more than Balrog sucked as a playable character in Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition.

This might come as a bit of a shock, but it's true. The first Street Fighter only featured two playable characters, Ryu and Ken. And both had an identical moveset of three moves. This gave the game a total moveset of, you guessed it, three moves.

To its credit, SF1 did have some pretty graphics. But the gameplay, unfortunately, was atrocious. The controls were clunky, the character movement was jagged, and the single player mode was so insanely difficult that it was hard to beat the first couple of opponents, let alone win the championship.

The original Street Fighter arcade board also shipped with buttons that reacted to different pressure (ie. a hard button press would equate to a hard punch). A good idea, but the boards were poorly built and the buttons broke. A lot.

To cap off all these problems, the Ryu of SF1 had red hair, and was therefore a whimp.

But, you may ask, if the game was really so terrible, why did it go on to spawn the biggest fighting game franchise in history?

This is the tough question. Looking at some of the other games released in 1987, many of them went on to spawn famous gaming series. Games like Zelda, Metal Gear, Double Dragon, Contra, Final Fantasy, Mega Man and Phantasy Star all had their humble beginnings in 1987. The difference between these games and SF1, however, was that for their time, they were pretty good games (except for Final Fantasy... which sucked as well).

So what happened? How did Street Fighter 2 ever get made? It's hard to imagine Capcom, buoyed by the failure of SF1, would have been keen to finance a sequel. But that's exactly what happened. It's like the following conversation transpired in the Capcom offices:

Mr Mushi (Head of Capcom Development): Mr Tanaka, I want to talk you about that game you created earlier this year. You know the one? Street Fighter.

Mr Tanaka (SF1 Developer): Uh, yes, Mr Mushi.

Mr Mushi: Now, let's not beat around the bush here. That game was a pile of shit. I mean, it wasn't fun. It wasn't playable. And from my understanding it only featured three moves. THREE MOVES. What were you thinking? Franklin Roosevelt had more moves than that, and he was in a wheelchair.

Mr Tanaka: Uh, I'm sorry Mr Mushi, I'm Japanese and I don't know who Franklin...

Mr Mushi: Everyone hated your game. Everyone. Reviewers, gamers, our shareholders. I'm surprised Capcom is still financially afloat after your retarded game, to be honest. I even heard gamers were bashing the shit out of our machines in arcades because they hit the buttons so hard. Literally bashing the shit out of the machines and breaking them. What does that tell you about the game?

Mr Tanaka: Uh... Well... that Street Fighter isn't very...

Mr Mushi: That Street Fighter deserves a sequel, that's what it should tell you. That's what it tells me. Good work Mr Tanaka. We're making a sequel. It'll be called Street Fighter 2.

And I guess that's how SF2 was created. Maybe game developers should follow this process with more crap games? Just like SF1, they could spawn awesome sequels.

Zhengtu Online: Video Game or Chinese Casino?

2008-05-17T14:42:00.030+10:00

The other day I stumbled upon a news item reporting that a Chinese MMORPG, Zhengtu Online, had become the first game in the world to have more than two million players logged on at the same time. Two million people.

The number of Chinese with internet access stands at only about 220 million. This means almost one per cent of people who can use the internet were logged onto Zhengtu Online at exactly the same time. That's insane.

What's even more insane is that the developer of Zhengtu Online, Giant Interactive, is now one of the richest IT companies in China. Giant founder, Shi Yuzhu, is the 24th richest man in China. And Zhengtu Online, or ZT Online for short, is Giant's only game.

So what's going on? Why is ZT Online getting so much attention? It wasn't until I found this article at danwei.com that it started to make sense. ZT Online isn't really a game. It's more of a dodgy slot machine parlour - with all the addictive and murky elements that comes with it..

You see, ZT Online is much like World of Warcraft - it's about heroes, monsters, and a lot of young male nerds pretending to have in-game "girlfriends" who are really just older male pedophiles. But there's one key difference: while WoW rewards players' skill, practice, and time spent playing, ZT Online rewards only one thing: money. Real-world money. This means you buy your experience points, buy your equipment, and buy your powers.

The best players in the game are therefore also the richest, while the worst players are the poorest. It's like a monetary "survival of the fittest", and is a massive cash-spinner for Giant Interactive. Gamers who want to perform well in the game need to spend tens of thousands of yuan just to keep step with the top players. You could call it Donald Trump's dream video game.

But, of course, the game has a fatal flaw: it doesn't really appeal to those without much money. Poor players just get their asses kicked all the time by rich players. But, realising this, Giant devised an interesting solution: gambling. Basically, poor players can buy treasure chests which have a small chance of containing expensive weaponry. Each treasure chest costs one yuan to open (about US$0.14), and operates similar to a slot machine. It's an addictive concept, as the danwei.com article illustrates:

Lu Yang recalls that during her craziest period she was like a gambler in a casino. She would shout at the screen the name of the item she wanted, like "ebony, ebony," or some high-class material, but ultimately she would obtain nothing but a pittance of experience.

These Casino-like elements of ZT Online not only make the game a thoroughly evil enterprise, praying on the weak and the vulnerable, but also make it turn a tidy profit. People get hooked. Poor players think they can compete with the rich players, only with a little luck.

So why would people even begin playing this dastardly game? The fact that the game is free to join probably has something to do with it. But it also has a lot to do with ZT Online's founder, Shi Yuzhu.

According to China Daily, Shi spends 10 to 15 hours a day gaming. He knows MMORPGs back-to-front, and knows how to attract gamers. He's hired a marketing team of 2500 people to promote the game in China's popular internet cafes - through word-of-mouth, advertising, and strange tactics involving beautiful women, like this:

Shi is also hiring a number of attractive female players to play in Internet cafes. "We are giving them virtual golden coins worth 6,000 yuan per year, which are equal to 500 yuan in the real world, to encourage them to play and stay in the games," he says. His ultimate goal is to make the game more fun and lure more male players, especially first time gamers. "In fact, in China's cyberspace many male players are very willing to pay the bills for their female counterparts", he says.

Hmmm........ good idea, but I still don't get why this game is so popular. It seems like Shi is the evil king, he oppresses millions of his subjects, and yet still more are flocking to his kingdom. Why? To me it looks like the most boring and repetitive game ever created:

But the more I think about it, I think I've got it. Gambling in China is illegal. But it has a long history in the country, and underground gambling is rife. Could ZT Online just be filling the void? Is this plausible?

How else do you explain two million gamers at once. Two million. And growing.

The Gayest Video Game Ever

2008-05-12T18:40:00.019+10:00

It's a dark evening in inner-city New York. The alleyways are full of trash and graffiti. Criminals are lurking everywhere – junkies, gangsters, even murderers.

You take a wrong turn down a shadowy alleyway, and soon find yourself surrounded by a gang of thugs. They don't say anything, they just set upon you.

It's a frightening scenario, and sets the scene for just about every side-scrolling beat 'em up released in the early 1990s (think Final Fight, Double Dragon, Streets of Rage). In fact, the market was so flooded by these cliched fighters by 1991, it was difficult to tell them apart.

But Sega came up with an originnal concept for the genre. They decided their own New York-style beat 'em up, Riot City, would keep some of the cliches (dirty subways, knife-wielding thugs, etc.), but would also add something new to the mix: gayness. That's right, gayness.

Now, let's clear this up so nobody gets confused. I'm not describing Riot City as "gay" in the South Park sense of being "lame". No, I'm talking fully-fledged, black leather, glory hole, "there's nothing wrong with that", F'd-in-the-A, kind of gay.

Need proof? Just look at the two main characters, Paul and Bobby:

Just friends? I think Paul's gaze suggests otherwise. Here they are in action together:

I'll leave you to ponder what they're doing in that one. Suffice to say, the main characters of Riot City don't come across as the straightest knives in the kitchen. But Sega didn't just restrict the gayness to its main stars. No, they made everything gay. Just look at the bad guys:

The first guy kind of resembles the bikie from the Village People. The second looks like Freddie Mercury. And the third looks like a decrepit, overweight Heath Ledger from Brokeback Mountain (OK, so that's a bit of a stretch. But he actually does look identical to an Australian gay music icon, Molly Meldrum).

Most of these baddies also feature names like Hans, Rod or Hung. Seriously. But the gayness doesn't stop there. The ultimate homo-awards go to the bosses who wait at the end of each level:

And that's still not all. These are the "power ups" your characters go around collecting:

No baseball bats or semi-automatic rifles for these "tough guys". Just beauty products and fashion accessories. I ask you, what kind of self-respecting, underworld bad-ass patrols the streets of New York picking up pink mirrors? Clearly a guy who also gets into situations like this:

I could go on forever here, but I think you get the point: Riot City, like the Teletubbies, is a little bit on the gay side. The only question that remains is why Sega ever thought melding a side-scrolling beat 'em up with a Village People film clip would be a good idea. Surely the homosexual side-scrolling market wasn't that lucrative back in 1991. Or existent.

It all remains a baffling mystery. It's also very hard to find much information on this most bizarre of games. As far as I can tell, Riot City was largely unsuccessful. It didn't get a release outside of Japan, it didn't make it to any consoles, and, unlike every other sidescroller ever created in the 1990s, it didn't spawn a sequel.

One thing we do know, however, is that one year after releasing Riot City, Sega followed up with two new games: Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racer. Neither of them featured Freddie Mercury, and both were far more successful.

Portal Exposed

2008-05-07T22:13:00.003+10:00

Portal was considered one of the videogames of 2007. Reviewers and gamers alike just couldn't get enough of Valve Software's strange take on the FPS genre. Many reviewers called it the most original game of the year. Some said it was the most original game of the decade.

But Killscreen Poetry is here to tell you otherwise: Portal is a massive rip-off. And not just any old rip-off either. We're talking Thailand-scale copyright infringement here.

Let me explain. The game involves a very basic idea. You have a gun. It fires two types of portals. One is blue and the other is orange. You walk through one of these portals and come out the other, like so:

An "original" idea? Never been done before? Well, prepare to be shocked.

After scouring the history of videogames, I stumbled upon a little Atari 2600 gem called Adventure. Released in 1979, Adventure not only features the most original title ever created for a video game, according to Wikipedia it was also "the first action-adventure game" in history.

If that doesn't impress you, this screenshot should:

In case you're wondering, the bright green square towards the left of the screen represents your character. The other brown and grey squares, and that strange black line, represent your "adventure". It is, quite literally, 4096 bytes of pure gaming fun... meaning this highlighted text takes up more hard drive space than the entire game.

Admittedly, on first impressions, it might not seem like Portal and Adventure have much in common, apart from the fact they both feature a colour palette of more than two different colours.

But there is one small aspect of Adventure that seems to have made its way into Valve Software's blockbuster. Examine the following screenshots closely:

Screen 1: As you can see, the hero of Adventure (now a fuzzy blue square) clutches a black key (well, more accurately, a key hovers near him). He needs to get past the blue wall in front of him so he can "adventure". How can he do this?

Screen 2: Easy. The hero, using the strange purple contraption hovering above the blue wall, enters into the wall.

Screen 3: The hero then emerges safe on the other side.

What you have just witnessed is the hero using a portal. That's right: a portal. In Adventure, the portal is a strange and unimaginative purple contraption that doesn't really make sense. In Valve's Portal, it's a gun.

What's the difference? Absolutely nothing.

Valve has completely ripped off the very idea of a "portal" from Adventure. They have copied the "portal", removed the charm of fuzzy squares and unnecessary black lines, and then tried to pass it off as their own idea. Sure, Valve may have added a few "bells and whistles" like an extra one-hundred thousands colours and real world physics, but in the end, it's still a portal.

And what's more, the world fell for it. Including you.

I can only assume that the makers of Adventure are right now considering legal action. This type of gross plagiarism could result in the quality 1979 Atari game becoming unprofitable. Indeed, Adventure could potentially lose its entire market share of portal games, which, until Portal was released, probably stood at 100% of all portal consumers.

Shame on you Valve. Shame.

Screen of the Week Archive

2008-05-01T13:08:00.001+10:00

Click through to see Killscreen Poetry's famous screenshots of the week....

August: