Fuss from the bus, pain from the train… Public transport? It’s a load of monkey business

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble (1996)

Life without a car suits a recluse like me down to the ground, you know, but it is quickly getting impractical. I never much liked driving anyway – even though the car I was driving was worth precisely nothing, naught, nada, I still felt I was only ever seconds or metres away from a cash that would have bankrupted me, or at least made the insurers laugh at me down the phone like when Patrick Bateman tries to book Dorsia.

Actually, it wasn’t just the money, or even the aggravation associated with trying to swap insurance details with a not-particularly-law-abiding chap twice my size. No, if I’d gotten into a wreck with that car, it would have opened up like a tin of beans. From that day forward, I would become half-metal, half-man, or more accurately I’d need a coffin shaped like a swastika to be able to fit inside.

Continue reading “Fuss from the bus, pain from the train… Public transport? It’s a load of monkey business”

Trust me when I say, there’s no reason to time-travel back to ’93

Mario’s Time Machine (1993)

There’s one very simple, selfish reason why I don’t want time-travel to be invented; because it just wrecks all credibility in any given story. Honestly, if fiction has taught us anything, it’s that if you introduce time travel to your book, film or pornographic magazine, there’s no coming back from it. They did time travel in Harry Potter, and it was a nonsense, all kinds of new plot holes everywhere until J.K. Rowling sensibly had the Time Turners destroyed entirely.

They brought time travel into Artemis Fowl as well, although this was a few books after the initial craze had died down, and the Disney-backed film was so badly thought out that time travel may even have saved it, if we could have only gone back in time and destroyed the workprints first.

Continue reading “Trust me when I say, there’s no reason to time-travel back to ’93”

Yes, she was Luke’s sister, but that gold bikini…

Super_Return_of_the_Jedi_(USA,Europe)

Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1995)

I’d always felt that Star Wars: Return of the Jedi got a bit of a raw deal. There was no Internet or any other poison like that in 1983, but I still can’t imagine what kind of hype must have been bubbling for this film, a film tasked with bringing the Star Wars series to a boil, after A New Hope stuck the kettle on and The Empire Strikes Back turned up the heat.

You’re trying to wrap up two films that floored viewers when they came out, and you’re tasked with bringing everything to a close. The audience will naturally be disappointed by the film’s presence itself, in that it’s the last one and there’s not gonna be any more Star Wars. So much for all that, eh?

Continue reading “Yes, she was Luke’s sister, but that gold bikini…”

A sword on the ground, a God in the clouds, a pox on the populace

actraiser

ActRaiser (1993)

I’ve had manys a job in my time, you know. I’ve managed a theme park, briefly. I swear, you bring in thousands of children a week without getting a hint of recogition, but five or six go missing and suddenly the newspapers can’t get enough of it – not for me, thanks. I followed that up with a stint in town planning, but I had to knock that on the head as well.

Those citizens were driving me up the wall, going on about open sewers or something, and they kept opposing my plan for a downtown public incinerator. Once I began emblazoning my face on every billboard, poster and bus-stop I could find, and announced my intention to create a Ministry of Truth, the game was up.

Continue reading “A sword on the ground, a God in the clouds, a pox on the populace”

A man and his dog is a bond that lasts forevermore

Secret_of_Evermore_Logo

Secret of Evermore (1996)

Although I do like cats more, I definitely agree with the assertion that dogs are a man’s best friend. Yes, I know there’s some dogs out there that are specifically trained to kill on sight, and won’t even consider easing their jaws until you’ve become dead meat. Well, those doggies aren’t your friends. But you know those lovably dumb dogs that follow you everywhere, always want to know what you’re doing, and get all over-excited when you come home. You couldn’t invent a better pet if you tried, could you?

Continue reading “A man and his dog is a bond that lasts forevermore”

You’ll need the balls of Han Solo if you’re going to take on the whole Empire yourself

super empire strikes back

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1994)

I remember it well: I was an ignorant young child of about six or seven years old, doing pretty well on Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for SNES until hitting a wall in the Battle of Hoth level – or hitting the legs of the Imperial Walkers, more likely. There I was, shooting a million laser blasts into the things, and getting absolutely nowhere.

It really could have been a million laser blasts I fired as well, because I didn’t do anything else as a child except play games. Only a child could have that level of patience and determination. Thoroughly defeated, I asked that font of gaming knowledge, my older brother, for some help. And he told me that I had to use the tow cable to bring the big daddies down, just like the movie. To which I replied in utmost shock: “There’s a movie?!?”

Continue reading “You’ll need the balls of Han Solo if you’re going to take on the whole Empire yourself”

Been spending most their lives, living in a Blazer’s paradise

soul blazer

Soul Blazer (1994)

Picture the scene: it’s a lovely summer’s evening and you’re having your usual merry walk or Sunday drive. But hold up – something’s spoiling the beautiful view. Yes, it’s worse than those roadworks that never, ever seem to get finished.

They’re more unsightly than those rent-a-scrote apartment blocks that were planned, designed and vomited into your town’s landscape in a mere two weeks. And they’re even more abundant than the seven hundred road signs contradicting your driving every five seconds. Yes, it’s the dreaded election posters, and that means there’s change abrewing in the government.

Continue reading “Been spending most their lives, living in a Blazer’s paradise”

They were the best days of your life, so long as you kept your panties clean

kirbys dream land 3

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (1997)

So they say school days are the best days of your life, do they? Hmmm, I wonder. It’s a lot less responsibility, that’s for sure. And you were able to get away with a lot more immaturity back then, but that’s a silly argument. Both you and I still find farts funny to this day, right?

And the adult world might seem pretty scary and confusing at times as well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean school is a walk in the park, especially if you were a bit of a dumbo. Or a bit ugly or a bit ginger or a bit bespectacled or a bit fat, or in the most hopeless cases all four.

Continue reading “They were the best days of your life, so long as you kept your panties clean”

SquareSoft aren’t clowning around anymore

final fantasy 6

Final Fantasy VI (1994)

It’s not uncommon to want the villain to win, you know. I suppose people might look at you funny if you cheered the bad guys in Schindler’s List or Downfall. But what about Mrs. Doubtfire? They fronted Pierce Brosnan as the homewrecker villain in that one, but what about Mrs. Doubtfire him- or herself? Lying scumbag he was, exposed himself in front of children and everything.

Then he tried to kill the so-called villain via a spicy ensemble specifically designed to attack Pierce’s allergies. Not content with that, he finally goes the whole hog and ruins his ex-wife’s birthday by humiliating her in front of everyone. Christ, it’s no wonder she was reluctant to give him any sort of custody of the kids, until he had a hit-show on his hands and some good dough rolling in. Some bad guys just always win, don’t they?

Continue reading “SquareSoft aren’t clowning around anymore”

A trip back to the wild west, before undergoing the trials of social media

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana (1995)

If you asked for me twenty years ago, any day of the week or time of the day you would have found me on a Windows Millennium Edition computer, playing emulators using a keyboard, or perhaps watching Love Hina on Winamp through my dialup internet. If not that, then I would have been whiling away my precious preteen hours on AIM and IRC. An absolutely pathetic way to start puberty of course, and yet, would you trade internet nostalgia for the world?

Continue reading “A trip back to the wild west, before undergoing the trials of social media”