Zombie Apocalypse (PSN / XBLA)

Zombie Apocalypse

Nihilistic Software

Konami, 2009

I'm running a little behind this Halloween season finding games to play, but for some reason this twin stick shooter from 2009 (available on both XBLA and PSN) came to my mind. According to the Achievements I've unlocked in the game, I don't believe I've played this since 2009!

At the beginning of the game you get to select one of four playable characters. As far as I can tell, all four play and control the same. Your basic weapon is an assault rifle that has unlimited ammo and your secondary weapon is a chainsaw. The chainsaw has two forms of attack...standard "hack 'n slash" and execution. The latter attack grants you more scoring multipliers, but leaves you open for attack.

The left analog stick controls your character while your right analog stick fires your weapon. You can wield your chainsaw using either the left or right triggers. The left puts the chainsaw in execution mode, holding it above your head until you drive it right down onto an enemy. Holding in the right trigger you can run around with your chainsaw running at full speed.

Periodically other weapons will drop that have limited ammunition. Shotgun, twin pistols, molotovs and mini chain guns have all dropped during my gameplay.

Survivors will also appear from time to time and if you can defend them while a helicopter flies in above and drops a rescue ladder, you'll be rewarded with a large chuck of points as well as a bait. The bait is none other than a stuffed teddy bear. Throw it and you'll hear the beat say "I'm full of love...and C4"...then explodes. These come in handy when you've overwhelmed or if you need to divert the attention of a horde while you are trying to rescue someone.

I should also mention that while you don't have a life bar, it's not instant death if you are touched. You can spin the left analog stick if a zombie(s) grapples you and if you're quick enough you can escape their grasp.

There are 7 different areas and a total of 55 levels. You'll fight in a graveyard, an airport, a small town, carnival, vehicle junkyard and an industrial plant. Each level has a hazard of some type that if you can get zombies close enough to and shoot them into that direction results in more points and a bloody death.

As you advance through the game the difficulty ramps up. You are faced with hordes of special zombies mixed in with the regular zombie fodder. They may be big construction workers that you can escape their grapple, or an old granny zombie that flings knives at you. Get hit with a knife and it's instant death.

The game plays and feels like Robotron 2084...with zombies. It's a fun game in short spurts and I'm sure it's even more fun playing co-op or online. My Xbox Live subscription isn't active, but I can almost guarantee that this game may be getting some play this evening for Halloween.

Despite the different playable characters, different weapons and zombie types in the game I find that there just isn't enough in this game to keep my attention. Once you get 15 levels into the game it's just more of the same. The daylight may have been replaced with night where you have limited sight, but it's still the same game. If you like twin stick shooters, zombies or bloody games then this may have something to offer you, otherwise the game just falls into obsecurity in a crowd of better horror themed games. The game did get a sequel, Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone, but it doesn't appear to be an active download in the Xbox store.

d_skin Protective Disc Skins

Growing up in the age of video game cartridges, you really didn't worry too much about damaging your game. Yes, you had to keep the cartridge contacts clean and I can remember the various cleaning kits that used to be on the market.

Then ushered in the age of video games being on compact discs. While this afforded many advantages when it came to the games, it also brought along new worries of your games being damaged easier.

Long before I ever heard of disc rot I was worried about scratching my discs to the point where the game would mess up or just not load all together. When I started down the road of importing games from Japan for my Sega Saturn for instance, I paid good money for some of the titles I still own in my library. While I'm generally really careful with my games, I was still worried about scratches and was looking for something to help me out.

I honestly don't remember where I first came across the company called d_skin (this was before social media was the norm), but they had a product that I thought was too good to be true. Protective Disc Skins, a piece of plastic that had a semi-rigid plastic edge that clipped onto your discs. If the protection was enough, d_skin claimed you could leave the skins attached to the disc while you played it in your DVD or game console. Was this true? I had to find out for myself.

The skins were sold in various quantities at most major retail stores. I only have a few so I'm guessing I must've bought a 5 pack when I first tried them out for myself. I really thought this product was too good to be true. I had to give it a try first hand for myself to see if they lived up to how they were advertised.

I don't know of all of the skins had a bright, neon orange edge to them or not. Upon taking the sleeve out of the packaging I thought it looked pretty cheap and fragile. The plastic in the center does appear to be thin and if not careful I would imagine would wrinkle pretty easy. There is a hole in the center that perfectly aligns with the center of the disc. The edges are about as thick as a CD and easily clip onto the edges of the disc. That's it. That's all they do...they clip onto your disc. 

Once attached to your disc, I have to say the skin looks pretty good. I would have preferred the edges being a differnet color...white, black or just clear...but the orange has grown on me. The skin comes off just as easy as it went on, but I don't see it just falling off the disc on it's own.

I've used these skins on both DVDs and games and in each case found zero issues. The DVD movie played fine in a few different players and the Saturn and PS2 games I tried played w/ the skin with no problems.

Truth be told I really forgot about this product. At the time I discovered them I didn't own many games that I deemed necessary to protect. Like I said early, I'm pretty careful with my stuff and just didn't see the need. However I recently came across some games in my library w/ these skins on and it got me to wondering if I should invest in more of these or something similar. I've added several pricey (import) games to my ever growing library that I would be devastated if something were to happen to them.

So, what's your take on this product? 1) have you ever seen them before? 2) If yes, how well did they work for you? If no, would you be up to using a product like this? I'm not sure if d_skin is even in business anymore. I could only find a few Amazon sellers that had this product in stock so I'm going to guess it didn't sell very well and has fallen to the wayside. Would you use something like this on your more expensive disc based games in your collection? Why or why not?

Demon's Crystals (Playstation 4 / PSN)

Demon's Crystals

Badland Games
Badland Games, 2017

I'm not a huge fan of digital download games, but while setting up my PSN account on my somewhat newly acquired PS4, I browsed the store before I powered down the console to see what games were available. I ran across Demon's Crystals in the sale category. It was only $2.49 and when I realized it was a twin stick shooter, I decided to give it a try. Having the 1 TB model PS4 I'm not as concerned about downloading games as I am on my Xbox One that has a smaller (already full) hard drive.

The game plays like your average twin stick shooter. Think Smash TV or Robotron 2084...just controlling a demon girl with a graveyard or castle level design. You get the chose from 1 of 4 different characters...

I initially chose to play as Adora, hence her level is much higher than the others. At the time I didn't realize your character would level up as you play the game. I find this to be a nice addition as it'll add to the replayability of the game. I noticed there was a trophy/achievement for getting all 4 girls to at least level 30.

Each "world" consists of 10 levels, with each level having 3 rounds. The first level takes place in a graveyard. The goals for each round vary, from destroying a set amount of enemies to collecting a set amount of diamonds to both requirements.

The left analog stick controls your character, while the right analog stick fires your weapon. If you've played any twin stick shooters, then this control scheme should be familiar to you. During the game, additional weapon icons will appear. I picked up spread guns, homing bullet guns, rocket launchers and a freeze ray. Other items will also randomly appear such as screen clearing attacks like lighting or hellfire as well as hour glasses that give you additional time to meet your objective(s).

The environment on each level is somewhat destructable. I'm not sure the purpose of this, other than each destroyed building, etc. nets you a small amout of experience points. Once you destroy say a tombstone, the rubble is still there and you must navigate your character around this otherwise you will run into it and your motion will halt.

The 10th level was a boss fight. The first boss (and only boss I've fought thus far) was pretty cool. Not overally hard once I figured out his attack pattern.

As you kill your enemies, you are awarded a certain amount of experience. I found as I leveled up my character I was plowing through the enemies in the 1st world. However the difficulty took a big step forward with world 2, a castle.

Demon's Crystals doesn't really bring anything new to the table. However at only $2.49 (normally $4.99) during the month of October (at least on the Playstation Network), the theme fit the month of October. My 6 year old daughter enjoyed playing the game too, though the controls did throw her for a loop a bit.

The game offers co-operative play online, as well as a survival mode where you compete to see who can stay alive the longest and rack up the highest score. I haven't tried those modes yet, but I do plan on checking them out. In the mean time, I'm going to keep coming back to this game - trying to level up the other characters. This is one of those games that is perfect to play when you don't have a lot of time to sit in front of the TV. If you're a fan of twin stick shooters, you may want to give this one a look.

Retro Store Visit: McKay's - Greensboro, NC

McKay's, formally known as Edward McKay; this second hand store pretty much sells everything a media junkie would be interested in. From books, music (cassettes, CDs and vinyl) to movies (VHS, DVD, Bluray) to of course video games. That's why you're here, correct?

While I visit Greensboro, NC a few times a year for work I've never taken the time to visit this location in the past. A month or so ago I found myself grabbing a bite to eat across the street at Kickback Jack's and had time to browse the store before they closed. Let's take a look at their video game corner shall we?

Immediately after walking into the store, there are glass cases on both sides of the door. This is the case to the right of the door. Here you have a selection of consoles for sale, mostly 6th and 7th generation stuff. Some of the more pricey or sought after games were in this case too. I only briefly glanced in the case, deciding to head down to the next level of the store. There was another section that had some really common and inexpensive retro games on the wall near the entrance. I didn't take a picture because the selection was really sparse on my visit. Mainly loose Game Boy, NES, SNES and Genesis carts.

There is a ramp that takes you down to the lower portion of the store and you are greeted by a sea of bookshelves. This is where I'm sure most people spend the majority of their time browsing and shopping. There is so much stuff to look at you have to give yourself a good hour to make it through everything. I noticed the games were all situated in one corner of the room so I made my way back there.

The far wall was lined with so many original Xbox and Playstation 2 games. They had a lot of duplicate titles, especially of sports titles, but I was amazed by the sheer volume of games. I believe this was their "mark down" section as a lot of these games were really cheap too, we're talking $5 or less. I grabbed Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball for $4.

On the opposite side of the marked down area was a section of shelves that housed their Playstation 1 games as well as Nintendo DS, 3DS and Sony PSP games. There were a few straggler Dreamcast games above the Playstation games.

There regular OG Xbox section was about 4 shelves full and had some good titles to choose from. Most were below eBay pricing, which was refreshing to see. I grabbed a copy of Dragon's Lair 3D for maybe $6? Their selection of GameCube games wasn't as large and sadly I didn't see anything that I wanted.

Up until recently I really haven't paid much attention to the Wii, however that is starting to change a bit. As you can see they had a good selection of Wii games, but again nothing that I wanted.

Lots of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 games to choose from. I've got a decent sized 360 library already so there isn't much I'm looking for that I don't have already. I was hoping to find something for the PS3 that interested me, but I was starting to run low on time and I still had more to look at.

The more current stuff was grouped together into one section. I've haven't owned a PS4 for long so I'm still trying to figure out what I need to keep an eye out for. I was really hoping to find something cool for the Wii U. Despite it being a commerical failure for Nintendo, I have to say it's one of my favorite gaming systems. I'm always looking to expand my Wii U library, but the offerings here were slim pickings.

I didn't walk away completely empty handed as I bought two OG Xbox games as well as a vinyl album. I quickly flipped through their records before leaving and found Stryper's In God We Trust and I simply couldn't leave it behind! Now that I know where McKay's is located in Greensboro I will most definately have to pay them another visit next time I'm in the area.