Ghost Rider - Playstation 2 (PS2) - Review

The other day my wife brought us home a surprise gift: The Ghost Rider Playstation 2 game.

And quite a surprise it was. As much as i like the Ghost Rider comics, I didn´t really paid attention to the recent movie, and the game sure wasn´t a priority to acquire. The working word in here is "surprisingly good".

So, the main character is Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcycle rider daredevil, which made a deal with the demon Mephisto to save his father´s life, and became a demonic flaming-headed motorcyclist with supernatural powers, but instead of serving hell, he decides to fight evil, which makes for a good excuse for a beat-'em-up game. :)

At first glance, the game it looks like a "Devil May Cry" clone, and at a second glance, it still looks, but guess what, I found the Ghost Rider even more controllable than Dante himself.

So, In "Castlevania" style you can whip the incoming bad guys with your flamin chain from hell, and you can collect their "soul orbs" from the ground as you would collect Gil (money) in the "Kingdom Hearts" game series, and you can use these souls to buy new attack upgrades in RPG style.

The graphics are really good, the backgrounds are nicely designed and detailed, which reminded us of "DIABLO" in the hell sequences, and "Desperados: Wanted dead of Alive" for the desolate "Western" like scenarios.

But what really took us by surprise was the sequences in which he was riding his bike, the Hell-Cycle. You control that amazing bike in roads in hell (ROADS, with good traffic signalization hehehe) in vast scenarios in hell, and later on, on Earth, facing obstacles to jump and dodge and shooting flame balls in your adversaries or whipping them with your chain.

Those road sequences were jaw dropping to us and granted us both a good laugh for long hours, and those obstacles really had us to really focus and pay attention when to dodge and when to jump.

In short, a great game, surprisingly good for movie-licensed game worthy for any gamers collection.

The Essential Fantastic Four Volume 1 (Paperback)

I grew up reading the Fantastic Four comics by John Byrne, on his legendary run in the 80´s.

John Byrne grew up reading the Fantastic Four comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 60´s.

John Byrne filled his Fantastic Four pages with references of those early comics made by the king themselves.

So, the archeologist in me followed his natural curiosity, and went to look for those ancient gems in the 90´s, just to get
those references, to witness these events often mentioned.

There was a hardcover collection, named "MARVEL MASTERWORKS" back then, it was shockingly expensive, enough to scare my student self from it. Even years later, when I could obviously afford it, the "ghost of expensiveness" was still floating around.

Then came the internet, and with it, scans of comic books, and while drunk by the novelty, I was still a collector of tangible comics.

After all, when you buy a collectable of a movie, you´re buying a tangible souvenir of that movie experience you just had. Something you can touch, to help assimilate that as a real thing. Well, in the comic book world, sometimes the comic itself is proof enough of that world.

So, Marvel on its smartness, launched cheaper collections of his early comics, reprinting their classic tales in black and white in a "phone book" format, featuring, like the cover says "over 15 comics in continuity".

It´s hard to describe the sensation of reading it for the first time, it´s like reading the old testament of Marvel comics, a real time travel. Jack Kirby illustrations on its prime depicting Stan Lee´s solid storyline laying the foundation of the Marvel Universe.

Gosh, to witness the origins of the Fantastic Four, and its allies and enemies, the first appearance of Dr.Doom "the World´s most fearfull super-villain", it´s almost as if you could warn them of what´s to come. Ykes! There´s Dr.Doom, Namor, MoleMan, Puppet Master, the Red Ghost, Impossible Man and others.

Really, "Fantastic Four" is the Star Trek of comics, even more than the "Green Lantern", each edition presented new imaginative discoveries, new realms to explore, and situations that would be rehashed and copied countless times over the years. Too bad the "Coming of Galactus" storyline isn´t featured here, but you could feel it was going steadily in that direction, with each dangerous situation leading to another even more dangerous.

And it´s delightful to compare these first editions with later adaptations, like the two recent movies, which i found entertaining by the way, the classic Hanna Barbera cartoons, and the amazing recent Fantastic Four TV series (2006) by french animation company Moonscoop.

The episode "Impossible", from the latest Fantastic Four cartoon, featuring the hyperkinetic Impossible Man, was particularly hilarious, and quite close to the original version. Surely, this cartoon deserved much more than just one season. My best guess for it´s cancellation? Excessive quality.

Well, returning to this paperback edition, if your a Marvel fan, you've gotta pick this up, it is (paraphrasing a well known science fiction character) fascinating.

Malaak: Angel of Peace Part II - Graphic novel review

Lebanon´s first ever comic book heroine is back for another action packed and emotional ride.

I must admit I haven´t seen a comic book character being fleshened out with so much substance so fast. It´s like the skinny girl next door that suddenly blooms into a full woman without you noticing and you´re like "whaaat? when did this happen?".

And it´s like this in this gorgeous and utterly compelling gigantic graphic novel, the author takes you by the hand like the clueless tourist you are and take you to visit secret and fascinating places you didn´t know existed and suddenly, you´re part of there, like a wide eyed witness of events unfolding in real time right before your eyes.

This is the real Beirut, presented to you not unlike Amelie Poulin´s neighbourhood, with it´s real people, staircases, windows and local expressions and slangs you´ll find yourself repeating.

Part "slices of life", part "action movie serial", this second edition chronicles the ascencion of local superheroine Malaak into "stardom" as she easily defeats the evil Jinn, spiritual perpetrators of the ongoing war, until she meets a sudden forced stop as she meets a "Boss" she wasn´t yet prepared to meet.

A regular comic would only present the hero grit their teeth, present a little blood in the corners of the mouth, laugh a little bit, present a maniac smile "Is that all you can do idiot?" and then that hero in question would give a ultramegapowerful blow in a splash page (just after the candy bar add), just to show how badass he is. Not in this case.

Malaak takes a hard beating, experience fear, flees and scapes to the arms of her friend and confidant Adrian. She is tired, overwhelmed, injured, patched up, and take days to recover, lick her wounds and figure things out. I wonder when was the last time a superhero is really shown as a normal human being, even the low powered ones.

We all take beatings out of life, and we all need time to breath and recover our strenght. It is sort of a relief to know that we are allowed to feel confusion, to acknowledge that our mutant healing factor is kinda slow, and that we all need time to find again that drive to guide us out of a messy situation, paraphrasing the Beatles, "with a little help of our friends". And that´s Malaak does, as she gather her mind and spirit together in an admirable comeback trail.

This book is beautifully rendered in a glossy paper, and it´s bigger than it looks in the photos. Buy this for great work of art it is and the treasure hunter inside you will be very pleased I assure you.

How Lara Croft saved Captain Kirk

I was playing Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation when i started to associate ideas.

Lara Croft is a busy character, an athletic woman solving puzzles while running against time through ancient temples trying to save the world from former Atlantean queen Natla.








This game inspired german movie maker Tom Tykwer to direct the amazing cult movie "Run Lola Run" which featured LOLA (Franka Potente), an athletic woman with red tinted hair solving puzzles while running against time through Berlin trying to save her boyfriend from being killed by mobsters.









This movie inspired director J.J.Abrams to produce the hit tv series "ALIAS", which featured an athletic spy Sidney Bristow (Jeniffer Garner) wearing a red wig (or blue, depending on the occasion), solving puzzles while running against time through enemy bases trying to save the world from other spies.










This TV series proved to be a enormous hit, enabling J.J.Abrams to produce other tv series, until he was called to direct "Mission Impossible III", which featured spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), solving puzzles while running against time through foreign cities trying to save the world from other spies.









Thanks to that movie now we´re able to watch STAR TREK again on the big screen, with a new movie directed by J.J.Abrams, with Captain Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Chekov solving puzzles while running against time through the corridors of the Enterprise trying to save the world from vengeful romulans.

In short, Lara Croft saved Captain Kirk. :)

Indiana Jones Omnibus Vol.1 - Graphic novel review

INDIANA JONES OMNIBUS VOLUME 1 WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS (W), DAN BARRY (W), LEE MARRS (W), DAN BARRY (A), LEO DURANONA (A), KARL KESEL (A), ANDY MUSHYNSKY (A), and more 352 pages $24.95

Back in 1992, I was still fresh from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", the movie on teathers, and fiercely playing
"Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" on the computer.

I remember stopping by my favourite comic shop, my mecca at the time and buying a edition of "Comics Scene 18" magazine,
one portraying John Wesley Shipp on the cover as "the Flash", the one from the live action tv series. It was one of the few "Comics Scene" which would arrive here in Brazil.

One of the previews were the "Indiana Jones" comic book series, to be produced by Dark Horse Comics. It featured the interview
of illustrator Dan Barry, presenting an black and white art reminescent of the ancient Russ Manning´s Tarzan comics. A new born classic, I´ve had to get my clutches on it. The first one would be the adaptation of the game of the same name "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis", featuring that fascinating story of Indiana Jones and Sophia Hapgood in a race against the nazis to find the lost city. Even by that time, there were quite a few options of Adventure games to play with, guess the difference was is that one would take time to savour it as it deserves.

Years passed, and only a few original editions here and there would arrive here in Brazil, "Young Indiana Jones" particularly. Dark Horse would launch other movie related comics, the terrific and terrifying "Star Wars: Dark Empire" series, ALIENS, Predator, Rocketeer and James Bond. All of them offensively good. How dare them to be so good, it was so good it hurts.

The good thing about DARK HORSE handling all those movie licenses at the time was the fact that they actually took the time to develop good, well planned and well executed comic books out of those movies. Apparently there was no rush on it. It would be months or years of interval between one series and another, it wouldn´t feel like a rushed afterthought, like draining a poor slave overnight by a last minute movie tie-in.

Did you ever read a comic book adapting a movie? I mean, straight out of a movie? Did you ever read the "X-Men The Movie Adaptation"? The poor brazilian who drew it didn´t even had access to the actual likeness of the bloody actors on the movie! Rogue, was portraied by Anna Paquim on the movie, and the illustrator didn´t even knew that, and drew Rogue in the comic, like a regular "grim and gritty" tall Rogue from the 1990´s. It was pitiful. Makes you wanna hang the suits and bean counters behind this crime.

Did you read the "Daredevil" comic adaptation? It was a sin punishable by death! The original Daredevil movie was based on a few selected comic series, mostly by John Romita JR "The Man without fear". THAT was a sensitive work of art. The movie adaptation? It was like a pizza squashed on the pavement with pieces of beavers on it.

I won´t even mention the...no...i won´t mention.

Well, where were we? Oh yes, the "INDIANA JONES" comic book series. Well, one of the good things brought in by the recent Indiana Jones movie "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"... no, it wasn´t the fridge scene, no the monkeys scene or the flying saucers scene, one of the GREAT things about this movie was the fact that led blessed DARK HORSE to open their comic book catacombs and publish a massive compendium of the Indy comic books launched during the 1990´s. Why bother in making a last minute, rushed comic book adaptation of the movie made by an uncaring, underpaid starved team that just couldn´t care less for the source material,when they had hundreds of high quality long-out-of-print substantial stories on their archives?

OH WAIT, they actually did published a movie adaptation of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" which sucks badly, they were like, why break the tradition, right? Let´s make a last minute thingie just for the sucktivity of it.

But let´s forget about it also and focus on this buried treasure.

The book i´m talking about is the "INDIANA JONES OMNIBUS", which collects the entire "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" miniseries, plus "Indiana Jones and the Thunder on the Orient" and "Indiana Jones and the Arms of Gold".

Finally after 20 years I could read this entire storyline, my favourite one: "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis", with it´s beautiful art, clever adaptation of the game, and a good piece of pulp fiction on its own right. The bickering and bantering between Sophie Hapgood and Indiana Jones is priceless. 103 pages of quality substantial art.

"Indiana Jones and the Thunder on the Orient" is almost as good, but the coloring leaves a little to be desired, the color palette was a little too yellowish.

"Indiana Jones and the Arms of Gold" featuring Indiana Jones in the peruvian alps. Good to see the script lived up to the actual likeness of the country they were trying to portrait, and I actually visited. They even had good spanish! a miracle!

I bought this omnibus edition on the library. It was 350 pages of real, exciting satisfying treasure that deserves the vault!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance - PS2 game

A few weeks ago we spent two entire days indoors playing "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" on the videogame. It was a two player PS2 action rpg game, in which basically you go around with your classic Marvel superhero punching bad guys inside some corridors. I choose to play with "Thor" and she would be "Storm".

It would be a very generic, even boring gameplay (hey, we were just fresh from beating Final Fantasy X, hard to compete with that) at first glance if were not for the fact that the
writers did a wonderful job with the characterization, adding layers and layers of story and dialogue true with 40 years of Marvel Comics. Continuity and adherence to chronology is something of a commodity these days, with the plague of "reboots" and "dumbing downs" infesting all areas of entertaining. Not here at least. I was led to nerdy tears of joy with the references of the Shiar Empire, from the 80´s X-men comics, Galactus, Asgard, Atlantis, Dr.Strange´s Sanctum Sanctorum, and countless elements which would not impress who was born yesterday.

The ASGARD scenario was particularly beautiful, it was like playing Diablo, but with Marvel heroes. By the end of that sunday, we both fried Dr.Doom together with our combined lightnings. Our thumbs and arms were in pain. It was a well spent victorious weekend. :)

Now, though, the quest for 2 player games in cooperative mode continues.

Final Fantasy, a newcomer's point of view.

Or, what is the fuss about? Like every other cultured nerd next door, i love an inside joke. I love when the movies based on books or comic books pay homage to the fanbase, winks that only those "in the know", inside jokes that only 'those who are worthy" will get and will giggle to themselves. The more obscure the better. Like in that book of wizards, a wizard is someone worthy of that knowledge because he studied and fought for it. Like in any Alan Moore
work, when he fills the pages with references, talking to those who enjoyed the things the same way that he did, celebrating them.

So for me, it was this way with several science fiction books and movies, graphic novels, and even some countries. But something that always eluded me was the "Final Fantasy" series, or, what was the fuss about? I like being "in the joke" as much as the next science fiction convention dweller, but I was like. "What, come on, it can´t be THAT good". Well, I remember playing an old SuperNes game, probably "Final Fantasy VI", in which you have your party, and you wander around and then you face a monster and you attack him and then you have to wait for him to attack you, and only when it´s your turn you can strike him back. Yawnn. Then I remember the 2001 theatrical movie, the first presenting realistical life like computer graphics, for an entire movie. I was like, wow, nice, about the imagery. Gorgeous animated hair for Dr.Aki Ross, and hell, that Ben Affleck like fellow with its giant forehead was distracting, as his movie lines were, like "let´s get the hell out of here", which was repeated ad nauseum. The scenery was a little derivative from James Cameron "Aliens", and well, that was it. Nice movie, nice soundtrack, which i bought, being a nice good collector of movie soundtracks, and this one was fresh from Elliot Goldenthal, which wrote the chilling "ALIEN 3" soundtrack. So, so much reflexes from "Aliens" in that first "Final Fantasy" movie. But i liked the movie, but it seems most of the fans hated it, as "it´s not like the games,you know with Cloud and Tifa and the others".

I didn´t get why he would be so passionate about it, as i saw the designs, a boy with giant sword and spikey hair, like Goku in "Dragonball Z", well, I was stoic about it.

So, a few years later a second movie came out "Final Fantasy Advent Children". As i live in Brazil it meant that someone had just downloaded it, as it would be years of waiting before it would be officially arriving here. I was working at the advertising agency and some colleague had just downloaded "FFAC" and saved me a copy. So I was on the computer, having my sandwich in my cubicle, trying to read the little subtitles on it. I tried hard, but atfer 15 minutes I was sleepy on the keyboard,and I was like "they´re gorgeous people, why are they so mad about?". ZZZ.
My two colleagues were like "Wake up, it´s the characters from the game" "Which game?" "Final Fantasy VII, have you never played?" "Well, no".Faces of disbelief. Poor soul, was I haven´t played Final Fantasy VII. Well, i didn´t had a Playstation, i play games on thwe computer, i play Counter Strike and Tomb Raider, do i have to play this game to enjoy the movie? Hell, yes, i had to! Not only that, i had to go back in time from 2005 to 1997 and played at that time when it was launched. What a poor clueless soul was I.

But once again, i liked the soundtrack, and as the CD was nowhere to be seen, i had to to happy with the mp3, which felt strange and wrong too. I downloaded "Final Fantasy Piano Collection" and enjoyed it. But i felt something while listening to Seiji Honda´s piano rendition of "Tifa´s theme", (whoever this Tifa character was, ah,oh yes, it was the girl in black fight that guy in the church) and boy, what a heartfelt track. But something deeper i felt with "Aerith´s theme". Something that ressonate inside, like when you first listen a John Williams theme when you´re a child. (who´s Aerith??) Again, time passed, other soundtracks came and that was forgotten for a little while.

Later on I bought a playstation 2, and with it, "Kingdom Hearts" and "Final Fantasy X-2", played them with my wife, and what a gigantic and joyful experience it was. Guess I wasn´t prepared for such majestic worlds built with so much artistly. We spent a pack of kleenex in the final cutscenes of both games. The fanboys were right, it was all that. That reverence was justified. It is too much real emotion.


Then I started to play the other games, backwards, first the overwhelming Final Fantasy X, then VIII, and then the legendary VII. and then i could finally listen those soundtracks, mostly the ones composed by composer Nobuo Uematsu in their gorgeous and cute original game version.
It´s too much to tell as each game deserves a whole book to be written about it. So i´ll just be cheap and short and say it´s a fantasticly generous experience. :)