There are no stats…that actually hasn’t happened in a while.
I finally managed to complete the Speed Racer video game! It’s actually quite fun although it’s the kind of game where you can definitely get worn out with the tournaments. Also be warned that it can definitely induce seizures. It’s rather unique for a cash in and it’s easily one of the best PS2 racing games. I got it for a decent price so I can definitely say that it was worth it and it is one of the final games from my Christmas batch that I had yet to complete. Let’s look at what makes this game cool.
First of all, there is no real story mode, but we do get a tournament mode. That’s a fair trade off if you ask me although I certainly would have preferred a plot. You basically have to play around 30-40 tournaments and each tournament has 2-5 races in them. Unfortunately, a bunch of the tournaments are in the 4-5 range so they can be quite long. That’s my main problem with the game. No matter how fun the gameplay is, staying glued to the TV for 30-40 minutes on one tournament can be quite taxing. Beating the game is definitely a long battle and it will leave you feeling very tired by the end.
The standard rules for the race are set to 2 laps and 12 racers. The 2 laps part may sound pretty great at first, but they still take around 3-4 minutes per track so it still manages to be as long as the average Mario Kart stage..or even longer than those stages. 3 laps would have definitely been too much and even with 2, I think that some of the stages should have been a whole lot shorter. Like I said, the tournament mode basically burned me out so I definitely can’t think about playing this game again for a long time. At least solo, local multiplayer would still make for a lot of fun races.
One of the new gimmicks in this game is that getting to 1st place is only a secondary goal during the race. It’s highly recommended since it helps you get points in a tournament, but staying in the middle of the pack has its perks. You get points by ramming into the other racers and a whole bunch of them when you destroy a car. Every 1000 points gets you 1 real point so if you get 13000, it’s even better than coming in first. The best of both worlds is hitting a lot of cars and still managing to come in 1st, but that’s extremely difficult in the latter stages. I would sometimes come in 11th, but I smashed so many cars that I still got the most points. If you ask me, that’s definitely the best way to go about it. You can juke from side to side to hit the cars or do a spin move if they are right ahead of or behind you. The combat system is a lot of fun to play around with. You also gain energy as you move, which you can use to heal yourself or boost. As for the boosts, you can wait until you have 3 of them and use the ultimate boost.
Be warned that the ultimate boost is great, but it is tough on the eyes. You go so fast that you don’t even need to steer as it just takes you through the course, but the game can’t really keep up. You colors start to turn purple and orange and the screen gets very blurry. You’ll even lose sight of the racers as things start to get loopy and I have a feeling that the developers were just having a little fun there. It’s still something that you’ll definitely want to be aware of if your eyes are weak against flashing lights. They definitely make me feel tired, but my glasses protect me from that kind of thing.
Naturally, this doesn’t speak very well for the graphics. They’re actually pretty decent when they work, but I’ll have to give this area a failing grade. The boosts should not make the screen as chaotic as they do and the game gets way too blurry for me to say that it is acceptable. If not for the graphics part of the game you probably wouldn’t be able to even tell that it is a cash in for the film.
Although, one tip off is the stage selection. Initially it looks like there are a lot of tracks. After all, you are playing on over 100 of them during the tournament mode. The trick is that a lot of the stages are simply recycled over and over again. Some of them are technically different, but just about the whole track will be the same aside from a slight twist. The background and road for most of the stages are identical so there was definitely not a whole lot of effort put into them. It can certainly make the game more repetitive than it would have been with unique tracks. The final two levels are basically the same with the difference being that the final level has opera style music.
Speed Racer’s soundtrack is definitely very good. It’s a little limited to be sure, but it fits the intensity of the races. It’s all very fast and the climatic sounding theme in the final stage is really fun as well. Racing games definitely need a good soundtrack since nobody wants to race with a boring theme playing in the background. Luckily, Speed Racer delivers on this front.
Typically, glitches aren’t a problem in a video game since they are rare occurrences that you may miss when you’re playing the game. That being said, it’s much easier to run through them when you have to play a game for as long as I played this one. It’s not uncommon to just fall through a stage or get launched off the rails. There are many times where you are not supposed to fall off the stage, but you are using your triple boost so you just go flying out of the level. Once I just fell through half of the stage and instantly fell into a big hole over in last place. The glitches still don’t occur too often, but they are certainly noticeable this time.
It’s definitely commendable that the game has so many playable characters. There may even be 50 as I lost count, but you tend to unlock 2-3 per tournament. There are many guys that you’ll never have even heard of here. I stuck with Speed Racer through all of the levels, but maybe you’ll find a character who catches your eye and forces you to change from the famous mach 5. You definitely won’t want to discount the possibility.
For replay value, there really isn’t a whole lot to be found here. Once you beat the game, you do unlock mirror mode so you can play a bunch of tournaments in reverse. You’ll probably find that you’re way too tired to do such a thing after the main mode, but it does add to the game’s length I suppose. After that, you’ll want to hope that you have someone to play the game with since there will be nothing left to do. The multiplayer option is the main reason why I ended up giving this game a 7 over the 6 after all.
Overall, Speed Racer is a pretty fun game. The actual gameplay is really a blast and it really says something about how good it is when you consider how many levels I had to play in this game. The stages are just a little too long, but the tournaments actually do auto save so you can turn the game off in the middle of one if you need too. Knowing this, that actually helps the game a whole lot, but I didn’t find out until the end. It only minimizes the problem though as the stages really should be shorter. The graphics look very sci fi esque, but they’re still too crazy and blurry. The music is good and the character roster is very impressive. If you are by yourself, I recommend the game, but it’ll be a shorter experience. If you have someone to play it with, then this game is definitely one of the ultimate racing titles and you’ll really want to play it. Just watch out for those glitches!
Overall 7/10
This series is only three volumes so it’s definitely pretty short. At least we can call it a trilogy now right? It’s not bad, but it’s one of those series that definitely takes a major hit because one of the main characters is unlikable. In a small series like this, you definitely want to like all of the recurring characters. It’s a decent manga, but you can see why it was shortlived.
Nanaki was having fun being an ordinary teenager when he dies in a dream and gains ESP abilities. He’s an “attack” type so all of his abilities are related to fighting or ones that can help in combat. He can teleport and blow things up from a distance. Basic mental resistance to telepathy users and levitation are also granted to him. An agency quickly forces him to join so that they can keep an eye out for him. After all, they don’t want people with psychic abilities running lose right? Nanaki is paired up with Aoi, a healing type whose abilities are purely defensive with the exception of his ability to transform his metal stick into any object that he wants too. Given time and practice, that ability should be able to evolve at some point.
They have a few one shot adventures before the series is already in the final volume. The author quickly decided to do a mini arc that takes up the volume so that’s pretty neat. A vampire has appeared and he wants to take Aoi down. If he destroys him, he may be able to become immortal and gain absolute power. Well, Nanaki isn’t going to have any of that and the ultimate battle for survival begins!
So, it’s a decent series. It’s fairly interesting, but you could never call it a page turner. A lot of the stories feel a little generic and you can’t help but feel that there isn’t much of a point to the agency. They help out once in a while, but nobody takes them seriously and it sounds like they barely get any work. Supernatural occurrences must be rare and even when they do happen, the agency seems outmatched. I don’t know how they survived for so long without Nanaki since they are sorely lacking in offensive power.
Of course, that goes into one of the plot lines that is never developed. Aoi had a partner who was actually pretty tough like Nanaki. Unfortunately, he went over to the dark side and became a freak. “Freak” is an interesting way to say villain, but it’s the official name for what happens when you go from a hero to a villain in this series. The sad thing is that the guy never actually gets to appear aside from flashbacks and that was a fairly huge plot. You could tell that the author was leading up to a big fight between him and Nanaki, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The commander also has a sob story that never gets to appear about why he can’t fight that much anymore. Aoi obviously has a troubled past and the other members probably have stories to tell as well.
This is why you always want to start a series out strong. You’ll never be able to get to show everything that you wanted too if you don’t take the opportunity when it arrives. The author made the mistake of thinking that an episodic beginning would be enough to capture the attention of the readers and he paid for it with his series. Starting the series off with some big battles and Nanaki being told what the situation is as he goes would have certainly helped.
Nanaki is a pretty decent/good main character as I’ve mentioned. He’s hot headed and he never backs down from a fight. The hero shows nothing but contempt for the agency as he still does what he wants whenever he pleases. Naturally, he was sounding too good to be true so the author also made him a flirt. He will flirt with someone even if he knows that she’s evil and it goes way too far. He failed the same simulation three times because of this and it’s a computer simulation!! His abilities are impressive, but also hard to deal with since his abilities will typically destroy an opponent. It’s hard to blow someone up without fatally injuring them so that may have gave him some fun morality questions to solve at some point. Either way, Nanaki is easily the best character in the series and he proves himself to be a loyal ally through thick and thin.
Aoi is the cool and collected rival figure for the series, but he just doesn’t do a good job in this role. He is constantly sarcastic to the point where you just want him to stop talking and he’s exceptionally weak. Nanaki has to constantly save him and Aoi still acts as if he’s in charge. He starts to befriend Nanaki as the series goes on, but his character development never gets a chance to go anywhere and he looks downright terrible in the final volume. He’s a character who will certainly get on your nerves in just about every scene. Aoi’s too full of himself for his own good and he never really helps in any of the fights. He’s simply too powerless and he’s naturally not good at the whole teamwork thing. Rivals need to be strong and independent. Aoi just doesn’t fit the bill and he certainly hurts the series since he is constantly on screen.
The agency randomly gets two other members who appear at one point, but they get even less of a role than the other characters since they appeared late. One of them can kind of see into items to view their past while another one has basic super strength. The super strength girl is all right I suppose, but that power is not going to cut it against a telekenesis user. She’s also a little too antagonistic at first. The other character is definitely not good in combat, but she’s definitely a more likable character. The commander is starting the series off on the right foot, but he’ll never get a chance to fight so we’ll just have to buy the hype for now. He seems like he would ultimately have a role that’s pretty similar to Kakashi from Naruto, but it’s all speculation at this point.
Nanaki’s art is pretty decent. It’s not great so it won’t be winning you any awards in the near future, but it works for the characters. The fights tend to be a little blurred so it’s hard to tell what is happening though. That is definitely its weak point. The art is certainly rough and it looks like an early work by the artist. I’m not crazy about everyone’s eyes becoming squints when they’re playing the straight man in a joke or just doing the joking, but it’s not as bad as other gimmicks that I’ve seen in the past.
Again, this is an aspect that could have been better and I’m talking about the volume covers for the last book in particular. It’s a cover that doesn’t make you curious about the series at all and you would likely just pass it by. The first two weren’t bad, a little generic of course, but they weren’t bad. The third one is a turn off though and it doesn’t do a good job of representing the series. An action packed cover is what we expect to see and that just doesn’t happen.
Nanaki will definitely be over before you know it and we’ll remember this series as one that showed promise, but ultimately ended too soon. What keeps it from a 7 is that it’s not quite as fun to read as the other mini series like Legends and Yugioh R and we don’t get enough action from the series. I can certainly see why it was cancelled so while I may sympathize with the author, I would have canned it as well. It simply wasn’t good enough to keep afloat.
Overall, Psychich Power Nanaki is a decently fun manga to read. A little less flirting from the main character with the clients would be appreciated. Aoi is also just not a good character and I don’t think that the author knows how to write the banter between him and Nanaki effectively. That certainly limits the series potential and we do have a lot of loose ends that don’t get wrapped up. It’s the kind of series that may have gotten better as it went on, but it never got a chance. Well, it’s a decent read if you want to see some action, but you can probably find better titles as you go on through the manga world. Check out Black Cat for a main character who looks similar, but is a lot cooler.
Overall 6/10
It’s time for what many believe to be the ultimate horror film. Ultimate and Horror are two words that typically don’t belong next to each other and I definitely did not become one of the film’s many fans. I’m guessing that it probably did start a lot of the horror tropes, but it shows that the 80’s feel can’t work for everything. It certainly is better than A Haunting in Connecticut, but I can’t say much else for it.
A family moves into a new house and things start to get supernatural. Their chairs seem to move by themselves in the kitchen and they can even defy gravity as something seems to push them. Unfortunately, the disturbances begin to grow more and more violent as the days go by and the family begins to fear for their lives. They are still holding out of course, but then their daughter is kidnapped by these ghosts. The heroes reluctantly call in “The Experts” and now it’s all a matter of finding their daughter before they are destroyed.
Well, the plot certainly didn’t help this film’s case. In superhero flicks, I never like when innocent bystanders are dragged into the mess and it’s naturally worse when they are actually hurt. Even worse than that is when a kid is thrown into the mix and that’s what happens here. Like Insidious, the film decides to up the stakes by putting the children in peril and that’s just not a good idea. The little girl is stranded in the demon world for quite a long time and the situation is just way too grim. She doesn’t remember what happened in the demon world so that should keep her psyche from collapsing, but it’s still a fate that should not have happened.
A simple way to fix this problem would be to have the main hero be kidnapped. It would be a sad plight for him, but one that isn’t quite as bad since we know that he can fight. That being said, kidnappings are simply not the best plot device to use, but they can work if used effectively. The film just didn’t do this and they were trying a little too hard for an emotional feeling. Because of that, the main characters are feeling pretty gloomy for most of the film. There are no big speeches or heroic comments to be found for quite a while.
The experts who come in to help are naturally not that good. Then they call in the ultimate expert and she rubbed me the wrong way from the start. Her first big statement to the heroes is basically “You have to promise to do whatever I say even if it goes against your beliefs as a Christian!” “Lol no” is what I would have responded and they should have told her to skip the intro. Instead, they instantly agree and of course they do want her on their side, but she definitely seemed like a pretty terrible character right then and there. She never went back up for me from there and some of her actions just didn’t make sense. “Go to the light…go away from the light…back to the light” insert and repeat many times. She was better than the former leader of the experts though.
That lady decided to talk with the main heroes for way too long. It was the one part of the film that definitely dragged on a lot as you would wait for her to finish. Her two underlings weren’t great even if one of them was pretty confident. They let their mind wander far too often and they act like this is some kind of hobby for them instead of something that they take seriously. I don’t blame one of the underlings for running out of the house though since things were definitely getting pretty dangerous.
Naturally, I’m sure that we all remember the rating controversy from back in the day. After seeing the film, I can definitely say that the MPAA was correct in their initial response of an R rating. Since there was no PG 13 at the time, it was definitely the right move since this is much closer to R than PG. Spielberg and the others got them to bring it down to a PG later, but it’s one of those changes that I definitely don’t disagree with. The film is surprisingly intense for an 80’s film and it can feel like Alien at times.
I definitely wouldn’t say that the film is scary, but it compensates with violence and the gross factor. One guy’s face literally starts to peel away and it’s easily one of the worst scenes in the film. Another scene shows a piece of meat getting torn apart, but with extra effects to make it seem more like human meat if it was being ripped apart. Those two scenes alone make it unsuitable for PG. We also get to see how the humans look once they are spit out of the demon world and while it looks like jelly you can also easily mistake it for more violence. The ambiguous work makes you wonder if the effects just didn’t age well or if you’re misinterpreting it. Either way, it was definitely pretty gross.
The film also brings back the horror trope that I had actually manages to avoid for a while. The main heroine bath scene. You’ll feel like sighing when you see her turn on the faucet because you know that this scene was clearly not needed. There is literally no point as no ghost appears to attack her at all. It’s simply a very long, boring scene of her taking a bath. That’s another big shot against the film and we definitely did not need any more at this point!
Let’s quickly look at some of the positives. The ghosts are actually pretty tough and they do get designs. There’s a 4 legged creature that looks like Clover and he seems to be the main villain. His physical strength is underwhelming, but the design is what counts and he may have some kind of electrical ability at his disposal. The enemies can possess objects so they turn one of the clowns into a weapon of mass destruction. It still only has the strength of a toy though so it’s easy to overpower, but it’s great as a distraction. The tree scene was definitely one of the more intense ones since it really comes out of nowhere. At that point, you weren’t really expecting anything quite like that so it definitely popped out. The various monsters definitely added some action to the title.
The bystanders who are around can definitely raise a few questions though since nobody seems to really do anything. The neighbors notice that the spirits are messing with the heroes and they decide not to help. The house starts to explode along with the neighborhood and the onlookers only appear to be shocked. Some of them have enough energy to start running, but they all felt pretty hollow. This was more of a personal problem for the family though so I guess it’s all right. It’s not a huge idea.
All right, let’s quickly go back to the negatives. The film performs quite poorly when it comes to the animal life. A bird dies in one of the opening scenes and that should have been cut out. The main girl then buys two gold fish even though we know that they probably won’t survive the house exploding. The dog lives and I’m glad about that, but the film shouldn’t have introduced the other animals. It doesn’t serve a purpose and it feels like the film is just trying to get under your skin with how gritty it is instead of trying to be a quality film.
The main characters aren’t bad, but they’re not very m memorable either. The main guy seems to overreact with the boss considering that the guy seems to have been amiable to him in the past. Their teenage daughter isn’t that good though as she really overreacts with the neighborhood is hit and she almost jeapordizes their chances of escape. The other two kids are all right and don’t get a lot of character either way since they’re too young. One scene that will probably make you wince is when the main characters decide to go talk to their neighbor. They can barely talk because they’re laughing so much and it’s sad for them. I just figured that the ghosts were keeping them from talking, but their dialogue afterwards confirms that this simply isn’t the case. That just makes you wonder and while they were naturally embarassed, it was just too much of an overreaction on their part.
The best part of the film is easily at the beginning when the heroes are trying to watch a football game. The only problem is that they get the same feed as their next door neighbor so they quickly fight with the remote. A whole film could easily be made out of that concept and I have a feeling that it would be more fun. If the whole film was like that, I definitely would have had a blast with it.
There isn’t a twist ending this time, but we still do get one last climax after the film seems to have ended. I suppose that will have to do and we deserve a happy ending for the protagonists once in a while right? It works as a change of pace and we see that the ghosts definitely don’t go down without a fight. They tricked one of the “experts” so I give them kudos for that.
Overall, Poltergeist is not the ultimate horror film and I’d say that it’s not even a good one. Relatively speaking, it probably holds its own to most of the other horror films, but I didn’t dig it. The main reason is that everything’s happening to a little kid and the film just has too many gross scenes. The fanservice doesn’t help either and the film will definitely need to rethink a lot of its areas before trying to give us another big film. The scenery is good and you’ll like the son’s room, but the film tends to fall apart after that. If you want to see a film that’s nice and scary while still keeping it real, check out Scooby Doo Zombie Island!
Overall 2/10
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