I have to hand it to Max Brooks, the man is devoted to forming a believable zombie story. In his second book, World War Z, Brooks expands upon the idea of The Zombie Survival Guide, and gives us the “what if?” scenario of a zombie apocalypse actually occurring, and developing a story through dozens and dozens of survivor accounts of their attacks and roles during “The Great Panic”. The stories span the entire globe, from government officials to army grunts to regular joes who were just caught in the middle of it.

It’s really hard to delve into over 40 stories and analyze which are good and which are not in a short review, since there are a few that drag and others that could easily be stand alone novellas. However, the overall story that the book tells is both compelling and believable. What I think is the most interesting part of the book is that it outlines just how fucked we would be in the case of a massive worldwide disaster. We are just so ill-prepared in our current lifestyles to leave what we have right now and make tough decisions just to subsist. When he says the government denies there is a problem and people buy into fad medicine to “cure” themselves before the problem gets completely out of hand, it sounds like a historical recollection instead of a far-fetched piece of fiction. Brooks outlines the difficulty in which the US has when survivors are forced to farm and learn new skills in new settlement camps, and the difficulty of just how to clear millions and millions of zombies from earth in a way in which the remaining people wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

Also, while the book is rather grim at parts, it gives you a good idea of how bad the panic would be. Massive traffic jams on the highways that end up being easy feasts for zombies, people overloading ships and then falling victim to a single infected person, people holding private compounds and being unable to hold them down, survivor camps in the northern wilderness that end up turning on each other and becoming cannibalistic, etc. It essentially covers the entire Earth too, from North Korea mysteriously disappearing to Russia and China falling apart, to Cuba becoming a booming economic area and strategic safe zone and even people out in space watching from space stations.

What I also like about the book is that it realistically gives a conclusion. A long, messy, conclusion, but a realistic solution to retaking the Earth. It pretty much requires everyone to cooperate and take a similar plan of attack, but as the book progresses, it shows how the safe areas slowly expand, and larger and larger chunks of land are retaken and repopulated with warm bodies. It’s far from a happy ending, as many soldiers are documented committing suicide or getting overrun and there is no total victory, but it is probably the only zombie apocalypse-type story where it doesn’t end with “well, we are fucked.”

I really recommend this novel if you have an interest in zombie stories and especially have a short attention span. The short story accounts of survivors are interesting and each person is written in a different voice, so if one story kinda stinks, there’s always another one in a few pages that could interest you a lot more. Brooks shows a lot of versatility as a writer, as well as a lot of knowledge of a lot of different fields of expertise, from discussing military tactics, to foreign policy, to Japanese and Chinese culture. It’s definitely a fun, leisurely, and absorbing read.

When I first heard about a new Knight Rider show, I was excited. I use to enjoy watching David Hasselhoff and KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) fight crime back in the 80’s. Now I got the chance to relive my youth in a one night, two hour TV special on NBC. Yes, David Hasselhoff is gone and the calming voice of William Daniels has been replaced with that of Val Kilmer, however, the core elements remained. You have a guy with nice hair, a lovely piece of eye candy attached to his arm, bumbling bad guys, and a crime-fighting supercar. What more does one need in a cheesy remake of an already cheesy show? (more…)

Sure, it’s almost March. Sure, I’ve been writing this article since December. Sure, I’m super lazy. Well, screw you.

I love chiptunes, and 2007 was a great year for chiptunes. Here’s the highlights:

7. Virt – Contra 4
Virt is a chiptune artist and game music composer. To be more specific, Virt (aka Jake Kaufman) is an incredible chiptune artist with an obsession for Konami who just so happens to be a video game music composer. How lucky it is then that he was selected as composer by Contra 4 developers Way Forward. Contra 4 pretty much surpassed everyone’s expectations, given the series’ history since the 16-bit incarnations. The game play is classic and so is the music. Virt did a tremendous job at paying homage to the series’ roots in musical form, and I don’t think anyone could have done it better.

6. Blip Festival
I didn’t even go to Blipfest, but it’s making this list because it is that important. Blipfest is a weekend-long chiptune showcase organized by 8bitpeoples and held at The Tank in NYC. Featuring over 30 chiptune artists from around the world, Blipfest is the single biggest chiptune show available in the world (that I know of, prove me wrong!). This year, Blip Festival got press coverage from Wired, MTV, and several other large nerd related publications. Hopefully this sort of success helps to gain the world of chiptunes more exposure, and ensure that it happens again next year, because I am definitely going!

5. Electro Static Discharge – PWN TEH N00B
Electro Static Discharge is a project founded by chiptune artist and Megatwerp founder Spamtron. ESD has taken many forms, but PWN TEH N00B is the form that I believe it was meant to always take. Featuring crunchy guitars, various synth and chiptune techniques, furious and bizarre vocals, and super fast paced energy, PWN TEH N00B is a short ride that doesn’t overstay its welcome, but will always be invited back for more.

4. 8bitpeoples
8bitpeoples is a net label that exclusively features chiptune based music. The vast majority of their releases are dance based, but sometimes they put out something from left field, like Phlogiston, Virt, or RushJet1. This year has been top notch from these guys. 8bitpeoples didn’t make the list for the music, though. As good as the music is, it doesn’t compare to what 8bp is doing for the chiptune community. First off, they helped organize Blip Festival, which if you were paying attention, needs no explanation on why it is important. The other important milestone they achieved is commemorating their pseudo-50th release with a 2-disc (and free, downloadable 3rd bonus disc) compilation album featuring 50 different chiptune artists / songs. 8bp is doing more than any other person or organization that I know of to push chiptunes to be more than just a quirky little scene.

3. II (Pause)
II is a new net label with a focus on chiptunes. Unlike 8bitpeoples, II is mostly focused on more heavy hitting and melodic chiptunes. In just one short year, II has featured 9 releases and 3 compilations. Each one is exceptional, and none of them are similar. Norrin Radd’s Melodia di Infinità is pure NES melodic metal, Phlogiston’s Croqel is 16 short songs featuring intertwining melodies, Temp Sound Solution & Alex Mauer’s Blast Portable is a marriage between Alex Mauer’s quirky chiptunes and Shawn Phase’s guitar and drum work, and Goto80’s Bortabra is a collection of strange, glitchy, ambient mixes. The thing with all of the II releases is that they all feel like they belong, even though they all differ both stylistically and by means of which “instrumentation” is used.

2. The Depreciation Guild – In Her Gentle Jaws
The Depreciation Guild combine two great things: chiptunes and shoegaze. Their Nautilus EP left me wanting more, and they finally delivered with a full album, In Her Gentle Jaws. Combining live instruments, specifically guitars, and chiptunes is nothing really new, but The Depreciation Guild differ from the hyper-mode style of Anamanaguchi to create much more droning and slow paced songs much akin to bands like My Bloody Valentine and HUM. The fuzzed out guitars and quiet, raspy vocals are complemented by the low-fi noise channel drums and thick pulse wave bass of the NES. The square waves fill in melody, but never get in the way. The album is neither too long nor too short, and the variety and pacing is very well conceived. In Her Gentle Jaws is nearly the perfect album for the lonely geek. It’s wallflower shoegaze meets reminiscent videogame blips and bleeps.

1. Chromelodeon – The Final Album
To be honest, the only thing that Chromelodeon has to do with chiptunes is that Dino composed some of the songs through LSDJ. These gameboy compositions seep through the mix on their final album. The spirit of chiptunes and videogame-esque composition is abundant, and makes the final album perhaps album of the year. Over the years, Chromelodeon has built a bit of a legacy with the Good-Evil crew. It’s sad to see them finally go, but the final album is probably the perfect send off for them. Now that they are no more, Dino has been doing more pure chiptune stuff on his own as Cheap Dinosaurs.

There you have it. The bests of ’07’s chiptune scene. Hopefully ‘08 is just as good.

WWE produced DVD’s can be either very good, or very bad, so I was very concerned when I heard that they were making a Hulk Hogan DVD in 2002. I was afraid they would not be honest about how much he actually has meant to the wrestling business and to the WWF\E, luckily, this DVD is one of the best WWE has ever put out on the shelves.

“Hulk Still Rules” is a 2 disc, 6 hour feature that tells the story of Tampa kid Terry Bollea, and his hard road to the top of wrestling as the immortal HULK HOGAN. Hulkster himself tells the story of his days in WWF, NWA and so on, and you get to see a lot of old rare footage along the way. We get to see his feuds with Andre the Giant, King Kong Bundy and many other great legends. Birth of now, Hogan’s take on why Macho Man hates him and his opinion on WCW management is also great stuff.

The movie about Hogan himself is excellent, but what’s even better is the extras, there’s LOADS of matches, from his WWF debut from ‘79 to his return match against Flair in ‘94 , there’s 15 matches in all. Nearly 4 hours of extras, segments and promos, many great segments from TNT (Tuesday Night Titans) and you get 2 amazing easter eggs, Hogan and Mean Gene Okerlund playing Tutti Fruity (Mean G singin and piano, Hogan on bass) and, the best thing about the whole DVD, the Real American music video in dvd quality, it’s well worth the purchase for this music video alone

It’s hard to find any complaints on this release, but I do think they should have included his matches with Antonio Inoki, Great Muta or even the mentioned Tatsumi Fujinami in Japan. Even though it’s NJPW, they got the rights to have Chris Benoit’s matches in NJPW, so why not Hogan? That way we all could see a more technical Hogan. And for fun they could have included Vince McMahon’s Slammy Awards performance, where he sings Stand Back, with Hogan on bass and Macho Man on trumpet.

If you like Hulk Hogan or old school 80’s WWF, get this DVD, there’s no reason not to (but you got to remember I cried when Hogan was inducted into the Hall Of Fame, I’m a hardcore Hulkamaniac).

“Last Action Hero” for the Super NES is quite possibly the worst video game I have ever had the misfortune of playing. To some it may seem pointless to bitch and complain about a game that was released nearly fifteen years ago, but we’re living in a time where retro is “in”, and a lot of people seem to be all about “classic” video games these days. Well, this one is far from a classic! I’m pretty sure that no game has pissed me off this much since the first time I played “Back To The Future” on the Nintendo Entertainment System as a kid (perhaps I should’ve learned then that it is usually a bad idea to play games that are based on big Hollywood movies). I have to say thanks and give a big “fuck you!” to my good friend and fellow Good-Evil contributor Audun Sørlie for ever recommending that I play this piece of shit.

But anyway, onto the review. “Last Action Hero” at first appears to be a fairly traditional Beat-’Em-Up type game, but early on in the first stage you discover that something went horribly wrong during the development of this abomination. The best way I can describe it, is that it is like playing “Double Dragon” with a broken controller. Whenever you encounter an enemy, you can try to attack them, but most of the time you are too busy getting your ass handed to you to even land a punch! The controls are not at all responsive, and on top of that, the difficulty level is what I would call “batshit insane”. I’m fairly sure that it is completely impossible to kill any of the bad guys without losing at least a quarter of your energy in the process.

There is however a fairly useful cheat that you can access early on that makes the game at least slightly playable. At the beginning of the first stage, if you walk up to the first police car that you encounter and punch the trunk seventeen times, you can refill your energy bar any time you want by holding in the R button on the SNES controller. But even using this cheat, I still haven’t had the patience to get past this first level. It’s just not worth it. I cannot find anything positive about this game, no matter how hard I try. The graphics are mediocre at best, the soundtrack is truly pathetic, but most importantly, the gameplay is completely cheap, and simply put, total bullshit. I honestly hate myself for ever giving this awful fucking game a chance.

Aside from the SNES version, “Last Action Hero” was also available on the NES, Game Boy, Genesis, Game Gear, and Amiga systems. Some were direct ports of this awful piece of shit while others were entirely new games, and while I’ve only had the misfortune to play the SNES version, I can’t imagine that any of the others would be very good. My recommendation is to stay the fuck away from any game that has “Last Action Hero” as the title.

And as Audun himself famously said, “I got that game for 90 bucks which was the price, my entire savings that year in my young life. It is to this day, the only time regret alone has made me openly cry for hours.”

(This review is from the old G-E, I’ll the reposting them over the next few days and update a few of them)

Every now and then, We humans get some divine gifts. We got Vikings, ninjas, the black plague, the wheel then we got Jesus, and then, we got Hulk Hogan.

Now Hulkster is arguably the greatest gift humanity has ever gotten. He is a model of men, a sign of strength, a symbol of sex appeal, and the best recording artist ever to walk on this filthy planet, which he purifies. In 1995, Jimmy Hart and Hulk Hogan sat down and made the groundbreaking album Hulk Rules, getting The Wrestling Boot Band and Hulk’s wife Linda to help out. The results are breathtaking, from the moment you press play, you are taken into a world where you cry, you smile, you laugh and you soil your pants. Hulk provides the vocals and bass for this album, Jimmy Hart on keyboard , J.J. Maguire on guitar and drums and Linda on piano (vocals on track 8). Now let’s run through the tracks quick:

1. Hulkster’s in the House – A solid rock song about the Hulkster, although Hogan only joins in the chorus, it’s quite good, Very catchy and a good opening track

2. American Made – Hulk’s WCW entrance theme, great patriotic song that gets the blood boiling. No vocals from Hogan though, but amazing lyrics, but somewhat stale in comparison with Real American

3. Hulkster’s Back – A great rap song from Hogan. He really shows off his vocal talents as well as rapping, he could easily give rap masters such as Vanilla Ice and Snow a run for their money, he is light years ahead of Eminem.

4. Wrestling Boot Traveling Band – Quite a catchy tune from Jimmy Hart, great for quiet summer nights.

5. Bad to the Bone – Amazing rock tune with Jimmy Hart, This is how rock should be, always.

6. I Want To Be A Hulkamaniac – If I was in charge of this country, I’d get this as the national anthem, this song has amazing beat, great lyrics, good rapping from Hogan, and morals! I suggest playing this once a day, to keep your mind pure.

7. Beach Patrol – A good rap\rock song about Hogan being on the beach, it makes you wanna party party party!

8. Hulk’s The One – Ah yes, Linda Hulk’s masterpiece, everyone should be able to bond with the lyrics in this one, catchy tune with good vocals from a sex-ay lady.

9. Hulkster in Heaven – A lovely ballad from Hulk, if this song doesn’t make you cry, you might as well just start a kitten\puppy killing business, you are that cold hearted.

10. Hulk Rules – Oh yeah, The Hulkster does indeed rule, and this song about him is proof of that, great lyrics and some awesome sax work in the middle of the song. Great way to wrap up this masterpiece.

Get this, you owe it to yourself, your brain needs it.