GRiG ORiG

Time didn’t fly as a kid

Posted on December 10, 2014 1:10 am by lartens

So I recently completed an Ebay bid for my favourite Zelda game as a birthday present from my mom, much like it was from my brother 24 years ago. Zelda II The Adventure of Link. Sure I had it as a kid but I sold the NES to buy the SNES, but my memory of the entire NES/SNES generation is totally out of whack with the internet facts on releases.

I actually already had the game but I was missing the box and instructions, luckily for Zelda II the map is in the instructions, the first Zelda and The SNES A Link to the Past have a much higher price tag with a map.

My original cartridge was once host to such players as Damo and Chris in his Skeletor phase. I’m also going with Boomer at this stage of my gaming handle, inspired by the fabulous dog boomer from Independence Day.

Let’s begin at the start of my NES, it was my birthday, I was 11, I had the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles bundle of the Nintendo Entertainment System, finally I could play games at the touch of a button. woah, mind blown.

The TMHT game was released in August 1990, this is start our timeline, although Zelda II was released in 1988, the timeline is going to represent what I had and when.

Now skipping to the future, the Super Nintendo was released April 1992, and I had it within the first month or two this I know, I sold the NES for £150 in the friday ad, some dude rang up at like 6:30 in the morning and I had to deal with it, I’m 11 this old dude comes to the bungalow and I’m like this is it, 1 NES 13 games. My dad did at this point get up and a cheque was made out to him. The one good thing my dad did do was buy the SNES before the cheque had cleared I was up and running with Mario World.

So this puts the life of my NES at a year and a half, so which Christmas in boots did my brother by me Zelda? The point of this post, it must have been that first one as he bought me two games, probably because I didn’t have many, the other was Tiger Heli which wasn’t that great and it took me forever to work out how to progress from the endless looping. Zelda on the hand had a gold colour cartridge and box this was obviously going to be a winner from the start, I had no idea what an RPG was at this point in my life, it was 1990, all I knew is it looked different, but it turned out amazing, huge exploration for the time, fun side scrolling action, powerups magic, total awesome. The best feeling is the mechanic on the jump and stab down action, get that on a knight and pass right by, confined to a corridor and even get some cheeky continuous hits on some of the enemies, nice.

Those who lived in Eastbourne in the 80’s and who played games would know that you had like two main sources of video games, Boots, and Rumbelows, who remembers them? I think they even used to do the whole rent a TV thing. I did buy Duck Tales from there, £40 and completed it in an hour, was a nice game, but way to easy.

Right so, where was I, ah yes, what I thought were years with a NES, is a year and a half, I amassed 13 games, Mario bros 3 was definitely another birthday so that’s gotta be 1991, though wikipedia type sites are saying 88 for Japan and 90 for America, what the hell! I have no idea how I could afford the other 9, or when super off road or super Mario 2 fit in. Oh and double dragon 2, which is totally different on the NES than arcade, another favourite of the time.

Moving back(or forward) to the SNES, I thought I’d owned it for a while, then worked with my dad for a week or so in the summer and he bought me the Street Fighter II American import and converter from MegaBytes, a shop on the corner in Eastbourne, again this was a good source of games in the early 90’s, boots was on the decline by then, wait, I don’t actually remember any SNES games in boots, hmm. Again I thought I had the Street Fighter for like a year before everyone else, turns out it was only 4 months, the UK got it in December apparently. In today’s time that’s like half a series of Sword Art Online. I guess 4 months of the hottest game in town was just a big deal to my 12 year old self.

Skip ahead a few more years and I’m mid 30’s and have a special display case just for excellent games of years gone past, queue image

Posted in Games, General, lartens, nintendo | 6 Comments

Sega and Titanic in shock collaboration!

Posted on November 23, 2014 8:00 pm by Dibbs Ahoy

‘Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you, that is how i know you go on’ so crooned Celine Dion back in the late 90’s inspired by the heartbreaking plug-pulling tomgriggery of her favourite console, the Sega Saturn. And go on it has Celine. And go on it has.

But check this out.

When one disaster meets another. Sega and Titanic.

If there’s a finer subject matter for a ticket dispensing, er… thing, then I don’t know what it could be. Depicted in it’s final plunge with stern aloft, the poorly realised Titanic model rotates in the machine while it spews out content from its innards. One can only hazard a guess that the relatives of the victims were possibly not consulted for this items creation or endorsement.

The specs of this machine are clearly to be revered…

With selling points such as ‘vividly coloured’ making the top of their list, the stretch for quality product pointers is obviously far and painful. Still, at least ‘Well lit’ means the machine gets one over on the street outside my house. And to think, this is from the company whose repertoire of arcade products once boasted hydraulic cabinets with futuristic chip architectures throwing around millions of hi res polygons at 60 fps… screw that! ‘Led/dot displays’ for the win!

Quite what relevance the dispensing of tickets has to the Titanic I don’t know, other than having needed one to get on it. But it’ll take more than a lucky hand at Poker to be making off with produce from this beast, as with Titanic fever gripping the late 90’s/early 2000’s Sega made darn sure that was one money-making and similarly doomed ship that wasn’t gonna sail without them back in 2000!

For much like the allegedly unsinkable behemoth, ’twas not long after the maiden voyage of this contraption that what seemed a watertight step in the right direction for their home console aspirations, the Dreamcast, also foundered. Buh. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide. Course Sega probably would’ve happily taken a bit of iceberg damage instead of Sony’s VILE LIES… but obviously time has healed those wounds. Sob.

And yes. This dribbling post was indeed for no greater purpose than to ensure that we have something in the November Grig Orig archive, just in case.

Anyhoo, I’m off to start hash tagging ‘Grig-gate’ in a bid to garner interest for our blog. It’s a bit like Gamergate, except people actually know what it’s about – namely the Grig having been locked up in Grig Towers basement for the last three years. Sort of like a more creepy version of Elsa from Frozen, but with no happy ending, no singing, and definitely no hot sister. And somehow, probably sexism. No, definitely sexism. Laters.

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Make Like A Leaf, and Tree

Posted on October 22, 2014 8:21 pm by bedgell

OK, OK, so it looks eeeeeeeeever so slightly limited but … whoop! THE HOVERBOARD IS HERE!

Sadly, though, that sentence kind of sums things up. Because the first words out of our collective mouth should have been crafted from pure excitement. Thrills! Whoops! and Hollers! You know – maniacal gibbering at the sheer, unbelievable wonderfulness of it all. After all, the hoverboard is man’s ultimate destiny. The true goal of the renaissance, the reformation, the rebellion and, well, probably Buddha. At this news, this VIDEO, our world should have simply IMPLODED with happiness.

But it didn’t. It was “Oh. I couldn’t ride behind a pickup to try to steal back my sports almanac.” And until that day, we’re not quite there.

Until then, though, at least it hovers! And just like the real thing, it won’t work on water! I mean, it won’t work on almost anything, but hey! That’s score one for the inventions from our past team! Go, accidental successes!

Posted in Tech | Tagged back to the future, hover board, kickstarter | 2 Comments

All Quiet On The Western Grig

Posted on October 17, 2014 12:35 pm by bedgell

So I noticed that we’ve posted on the Grig every month this year up to September – but got grooning close to missing October!

Well not on my watch Griggateers! For here is a totally pointless post on Alien Isolation! Hurrah!

Basically, should I get this sucker? And let’s think practically here. I love Aliens, and all things Nostromo / Ripley / concentrated acid for blood. And I love gaming. But I also have a very limited attention span and even less time. So I love gaming if it fits into random five minute sections on a lonely Thursday night. So, Ni No Kuni sits unplayed after only a few hours, the Last of Us likewise – though that was at least partly due to its mega glitches on my PS3 – and I’ve not even loaded up the Battlefield game I got free with my eBay Playstation…

So would Alien Isolation ever get a proper run through?

Quite possibly not. But does it matter? Let’s assume I can get it at some ok price of around £35 dibbers. Just being able to boot up and exist in that world whenever I want, in 55-inch HD no less, might be worth it all on its own. I remember that I played Alien 3 on the SNES a lot more than its awkward controls and volatile difficulty settings really deserved – just to hear the motion detector beep, and the Alien scream, and feel the joy of a much loved franchise. (ironically true, given that game’s abandonment of the third film in favour of IP from the second…)

So it’s a conundrum! Answers on a postcard if you very much please…

Posted in General | 4 Comments

Make Mine A Craft

Posted on September 16, 2014 9:37 pm by bedgell

I’ll be the first to admit it – I’m not the best at Minecraft. I got as far as building an oven once but then I couldn’t work out how to make muffin mix so dug a huge hole instead. Which isn’t so fun without Chandler and Monica knocking about around you. Had to wee on my own foot.

(Well. I say “had to”…)

So my admiration is pretty easily won. You’ve built a house?! WOW! A really long tunnel you say?! CRIKEY!! A pile of bricks that looks a bit like a turd if you squint? WHO ARE YOU?! JESUS??!!

And this makes it almost impossible for my brain to comprehend the truly ambitious projects. I get bits, but not all. I can kind of imagine people dedicating the immense time to it. I’ve lost days to games many a time. I can grasp that gamers find ways to impose their creativity on the static world of games. Hell, when I tired of whupping ass on Mario Kart I would often stop to make murals of the green shells and banana skins. (Admittedly they start to disappear after you’ve laid about three so…)

But there’s a gulf between me and an understanding of the things you can make in Minecraft. How do you take such humble, simplistic blocks and make such intricate, living things out of them? And these ones…? These ones have simply done me in.

Still no muffin mix though.

A working 16-bit computer

WHAT?! How would you even make that in real life without silicon and lasers and some clever Japanese people?!

A working hard drive

Considering none of my FOUR REAL HARD DRIVES works, it’s quite a lot to grasp that some pixelated knock-up is working out better. Obviously, the question is whether they’ve put porn on it. But at a storage capacity of 1KB, that might be less exciting than it sounds. Enough for a nipple?!

The whole world from Game of Thrones

This is a bit more understandable. But only a bit. Because a little mocked up castle or something seem doable. You know, a couple of turrets and maybe Sean Bean’s face made out of wooden cubes. But this?! If this is an actual screenshot, they appear to have even got the lighting correct… Cripes.

A playable guitar

Hmmm. Playable, how? Because how do you make sound out of little blocks of mud?! Admittedly, a question I should have asked before I bought that Squier Strat from Bonners. Hey , maybe this guy could have cured my buzzy fret? This one only plays ten chords, but that’s still more than mine did.

An entire city

More typical fare from our Minecrafting buddies here – but typical only in the sense of I at least understand that cities can be made of blocks. I get things that are made of blocks. But the scale?! The SCALE?! There’s nothing typical about making an entire sprawling city piece by tiny piece…

And I didn’t even tell you about the people who’ve recreated the whole of Denmark.

Still. These jokers should try building an entire country out of green shells and banana skins that disappear every twenty seconds. That’d sort the men from the boys…

Ps you can read more here

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Qix-tastic!

Posted on September 12, 2014 8:34 pm by bedgell

So I’ve been playing Qix on the Game Boy emulator on the 3DS. It’s surprisingly hard – I mean, viciously unpredictable enemy AI, endless traps and ways for you to die, no continues and only 3 lives… And it’s also a weird, darkly futuristic game with its menacing techno soundtrack and odd, vector styling that seems really out of whack with the cutesy, cuddly style of the Game Boy and most of its flagship games.

So it was a bit of a surprise to get a few levels in and get this weird little victory screen. First, 8-bit grayscale fireworks over that broody cityscape and then… a Mexican playing guitar to his dancing vulture.

Ohhhhhh-kaaaaaaay….?!

Good though, isn’t it?!

Posted in General | Tagged Game Boy, qix, Retro | 2 Comments

Tomb Raidin’ tomfoolery at it’s finest!

Posted on August 17, 2014 8:22 pm by Dibbs Ahoy

So is everyone enjoying the Tomb Raider fun and frolics this week? Been entertaining, huh? Well, as someone who enjoyed the first game, I’ve been particularly interested in Crystal Dynamics Rise of the Tomb Raider. But it’s not exactly been the content of the title that’s been getting everyone talking lately, oh no.

In a brief nutshell, since the initial ‘is it/isn’t it exclusive?’ fiasco that’s swept the Internet after what was clearly an intentionally ambiguously worded statement that Microsoft wanted everyone to think meant the new Tomb Raider game is only going to be on Xbox consoles, further information has come to light. Mainly because the Internet exploded and the majority of the Tomb Raider community flew off the handle resulting in Microsoft having to begrudgingly admit the deal they’ve paid for only covers a period of exclusivity with a limited duration. So basically they’ve paid to block the game from it’s fans on PS4 for a bit. Bit of a shame, as if the recent Tomb Raider Definitive Editions are anything to go by, the PS4 version will be superior as they failed to get the One to keep up with it’s rival console in several aspects, so fans will now have to wait for the likely better version. Some think it’s a low-blow from Microsoft. Some think Crystal Dynamics/Square have sold their soul. Some are crying ‘boycott all Squeenix products!’. But I’ll leave that at the wayside for now. After all, nobody said console wars were gonna be pretty I guess.

But what’s the deal with this current-gen-news-fandangoing, I hear you cry! Skirting a little close to matters of relevance, don’t you think? Well don’t worry my Grigadiers. There’s a retro-shaped edge to the tomgriggery afoot here.

Y’see, all this hoo hah has reminded me of the sly dealings of Sony back in the days of yore. Something seemingly lost on the whippersnappers of the day who declare Microsofts underhand tactics as being proof in convicting them as the scum of the earth. Let’s take a perusal at some of the wonderful comments the youngens have been scribing from the message boards of the web.

‘The Tomb Raider brand is now stained with unforgivable betrayal and greed.’ – Justerthought, CVG

‘I hope they burn.’ – Kiddoblivion, CVG

‘A franchise that was born and bred on playstation is now an exclusive on the inferior console! Microsoft obviously paid big bucks for this! Way to be loyal to Tomb Raider fans Crystal Dynamics! You’ve just alienated most of your fan’ – SilentJoe68za, Eurogamer

‘Where did Tomb Raider begin? Traitors! Also, Xbox One is doing awful… bad move Crystal Dynamics and Square, bad move!’ – DC_igloosmile, CVG

‘I can see the death threats and what not actually making them re-think their decision and make it into a multiplat.’ – Gamermania, Kotaku

‘f**k them as a life long tomb raider fan since the PS1 they can go f**k themselves. I hope it fails, money talks and MS have a s**t load of it.’ – Fenbobs, CVG

Entertaining stuff, huh? And don’t get me wrong – I’m as much of a non-fan of Microsoft these days as the next man, especially after 360 afforded them an inch and they tried to take a mile over the One’s initial policies. But MS have stirred up a bit of an eyeopening hornets nest here. I’m just enjoying how short the memory is of Playstation fans who once upon a time found hilarity in Sony hand picking big games for exclusivity on their machines. Or in fact, the surprise that it may be to todays gaming youngens who might not remember the distant likes of 1997, that this is not the first time this has happened with Tomb Raider.

Respect to da lens flare! The staple of any good 90’s artwork!

For indeed, what this all harks back to for me, is the console war of the mid to late nineties. Saturn vs Playstation.

‘Twas a time of excitement! Of youthful hope! Of Merrydown Cider for £2 a bottle! Of vomiting! Those last two went hand in hand. But even more excitingly, the dawn of a new generation of consoles! That’s always a fun time…

Or it was. Until Sony had to RUIN EVERYTHING!

Y’see, Sega, much like Microsoft, were coming off the back of a very strong showing from the previous gen, sorta like 360 for Xbox. They thought this allowed them to do what they wanted. It didn’t. Sorta like the One for Xbox. Everyone flocked to Playstation and ignored the competition. Sorta like the One for Xbox. Sega’s machine kinda fell on it’s ayne. Kinda like the… well, we’ll just wait and see.

Part of the success Sony had in capturing the majority of the industry was down to the games they managed to secure. Wipeout, Final Fantasy, Ridge Racer, Tekken and more relevantly, Tomb Raider, all ticked the right boxes with the gaming masses. Most of these big hitters were only to be found on Sony’s machine… except for Tomb Raider. The game was afoot.

Lara Croft, contrary to what the youth of the day seem to be spouting on message boards far and wide, began her gaming life on Sega Saturn… three months ahead of the PSX version.

Lara circa 1996: pointy

With the finest set of triangular knockers that gaming had ever seen, it was not long before Crofty was winging her way to becoming a household name. Overseeing proceedings, Sony with a wicked glint in it’s eye, then saw fit to play a merciless hand.

Tomb Raider 2.

As mentioned, the first game found it’s way to both rival 32-bit machines. However, after a few disagreements with Core Design, tensions with Sega were beginning to swell. Cue Sony approaching Core with a bit of an idea. The idea being a fine looking fee that ensured the developers put the Saturn version of the sequel firmly in the bin. But it’s only now that they’ve shafted Sony that they are traitors you say? Hmm.

This was one of the first shots released of TR2. I actually remember this pic from CVG boasting a caption along the lines of ‘Apparently Saturn can’t do this’. Buh!

Even worse, the companies put word out that the cancellation was due to the Saturn being unable to handle the game, thus damaging the image of the flagging machine even more. Since the Saturn version of the original was undoubtedly less swish than the PSX version having been rushed out to get a head start, and missing a few parts of the game in order to make release, this was something people saw as believable. Perhaps it was. Particularly as many developers struggled to get the most out of the Saturn due to it’s strangely designed architecture. Maybe Core did lack the ability to get the results they desired. I guess we’ll never know now. But let’s face it. It’s more likely the money from Sony.

As stated by one gentleman, Calvin Gill on Kotaku, seemingly swimming against the tide of cluelessness, the following truth-fuelled quote he sought out and proceeded to decree.

‘In September 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America signed a deal with Eidos to make console releases for the Tomb Raider franchise exclusive to the PlayStation, preventing the Sega Saturn or the Nintendo 64 from having any Tomb Raider game released for it until 2000, a deal that would prove very beneficial to Sony both in terms of revenue dollars and also in further cementing the PlayStation’s growing reputation as the go-to system for must-have exclusive titles.’

If you may remember, it was with the expiry of this deal that Core then released a conversion of Tomb Raider Chronicles on Dreamcast, shortly followed by Tomb Raider The Last Revelation.

So… the backstabber returns huh? Well who needs you. Oh yeah. I own this game. But I only played it for half an hour despite paying full price, so the joke is on you! Sigh…

Amusingly now, I considered these releases as Core finally removing the knife from Sega’s back. I guess I’d have been lighting up the message boards with rage on the Internet had I had much access to it back in those days!

But what other games fell into Sony’s financial trappings? Let’s have a butchers…

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

The first recollection I have of the dreaded limited exclusivity deal, was Mortal Kombat 3, held back 6 months on the Saturn by Sony’s lowbrow deal wrangling. Actually, I’m glad to document this as it’s one of those recollections that’s incredibly hard to find any other information on and is in danger of becoming lost to time. Either that or I just made it up and am talking buh and that’s why nobody else remembers it. But I swear it’s true!

MK3. Probably. I actually don’t know that game well enough to know that this is actually it as I was busy playing SF Alpha in the 32-bit days which was infinitely better.

Mortal Kombat 3 released early in the life of the PSOne, and with the series still commanding a high level of interest and praise, was a great coup for Sony when they secured a 6 month exclusivity period. Whilst this was a tough blow to take, even though I thought the game was garbage and nothing compared to Street Fighter, the Saturn, along with Playstation as well, was only served an aged Kombat scraping in the form of a conversion of Mortal Kombat 2. Fair enough. But the whole thing had a sense of being disadvantaged at the hand of Sony who were not just doing fine work in ensuring their console had all the top new games, but were making it so that us paupers on Saturn did not. Grig!

There was a brief bit of reprise when the Saturn version launched sporting all the updates from the Ultimate edition whereas PSX only had bog standard MK3. But by this point, with the advent of 3D fighting games like Tekken, Mortal Kombat was becoming increasingly irrelevant as punters far and wide were being wowed by the polygon pushing power of Playstation, and anything 2D was being considered old and crap as ‘the camera doesn’t zoom in’ as I was reliably informed (sarcasm) by a classmate at the time.

Ghostbusters.

Whilst not a particularly old game, ’twas only last gen that Sony were still plying their hands at the ol’ limited period of time exclusivity shenanigans. This was a bizarre one, as it applied only to the European market and was frankly a bit pointless. But still they doth persist!

Wait… why didn’t J. Edgar Hoover appear to destroy them again?

After a glut of interest swelled across the ol’ www after an unlicensed Xbox 360 demo from Zootfly hit YouTube (in very bad quality video), gaming bosses hit upon a profound revelation – that people wanted a Ghostbusters game. You don’t say. Featuring the Ghostbusters looking more like the marines from Aliens, their proton pack wands were akin to huge chain gun kinda things. An interesting take on things, and possibly one to appeal to the growing dude-bro COD crowd that was gaining momentum. Urgh, I hate that term. Anyway, ’twas not they of the tech demo fame that got to ply their hand at the full release.

Another game that never was! Man this is a bad shot. Alas the video is so ropey this is the best I got. Seemed to be taking it’s cues from the fairly new at the time Gears of War. I was hyped for this!

Ecto-…2? Who knows. But this is certainly not the car we know and love, so I’m glad this vehicle never blighted the series. Ugly little spud.

What could have been the Ghostbusters in 2007. Had they actually acquired the official I.P. Which they didn’t. A good thing? Guess we’ll never know now!

But i’m getting off topic. Back to the Ghostbusters game that actually did come out. Terminal Reality handled the ‘next gen’ version, whilest Red Fly Studio dealt with the characature-esque more cartoony version for PS2, Wii, PSP with Zen studios making a DS game.

‘Yes it’s true. This man has no pee pee.’ Well it is the kiddie version after all.

Sony struck up a deal that bought them a six month head start on the PS3 version in Europe, which at time really ground my Grig as the PS3 version was markedly inferior with oodles of screen tearing abound, sub par frame rate, and not even technically being HD with it’s 960×540 resolution. All in all, it was buh. Which, by the way, was particularly hilarious when the dev teams started slating the 360 as some kind of inferior-to-PS3 pile of junk during the development process… before releasing the superior version on that very machine. More Sony influence at play? Get Jessie Ventura on these conspiracy theories! Anyhoo, so the PS3 version was what we had to stomach, at least for a while. Thanks Sony.

PS buh! A sub HD Marshmellow Man scaling Terminal Reality towers to get to the bottom of this catastrophe yesterday.

Of course, everywhere else in the world received the game at the same time, so it felt distinctly like we were getting the shaft again. In fact, at one point it was very hazy as to whether Xbox 360 was even going to get the game in Europe at all due to some vague communications. But at last, we received the better version on 360, much to the delight of nobody who cared since fans had probably imported the U.S version months ago. But hey ho! Such is the buh you have to shovel when these things happen!

So there we go. A brief foray in to the world of a few exclusive dealings. Whilst Sony was the bigger boy bullying all the other kids in the playground in years gone by, it’s interesting to see the reaction now an even bigger boy has entered the fray and started throwing his weight around. Of course, the instances I’ve listed above are only a small snippet of these type of deals from Sony. History contains all the big hitters being involved in trying to secure big names exclusively for their machines over the years. Just look at when Resident Evil went Gamecube exclusive. I mean, that only set the series back about ten years and lost most of the public interest in it while shifting literally dozens of Gamecubes, so that worked out great. Tssk!

Good luck Lara. You’re gonna need it.

Posted in consoles, Dibbs Ahoy, Games, General, nintendo, PC, PS3, Retro, Sega, XBox 360 | Tagged Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider | 2 Comments

Sword Art Online II

Posted on August 10, 2014 7:35 pm by lartens

Sword Art online II

As we count down the days for the Vita release of Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, a second series of the anime has started. As of writing episode six is available on crunchy roll, they have an app and if you don’t mind adverts it’s one of the many titles available for streaming hurrah.

You may be thinking, yeah but how can they do more of the same? well without too many spoilerifics, it’s actually pretty neat, there are some real world scenes with Kirito, Asuna, Silica, Lisbeth and Suguha about a year after SAO which is nice to see, and they also still play ALfheim Online with Klein and Agil. But because of the seed there are many more emersive VR games now only without the whole you’re trapped until you beat the game or dying is real thing.

Gun Gale Online (GGO)

One of the new VR games is Gun Gale Online which focuses on gun combat, here we get introduced to new characters and combat styles. Kirito is asked by Kikuoka Seijiro of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Virtual Division to join the game using his stats from his previous games as a converted player. The hope is to find out more about the character ‘Death Gun’ who shot a highly skilled player in game but at the same time they disconnected and were later found dead from heart failure. Seijiro and Kirito are 99% sure its coincidental, but that remaining 1% takes us into new worlds following Kirito once again with a new spin, new characters, forming new bonds. It does work and so far is a welcome addition to the series.

The only downside so far is that Kirito is a little feminine looking, so I think I’ll pass on a figure of him from season 2, though the new character Sinon does look pretty cool so a figure of her could easily end up in my collection.

And a google search later reveals a rather naff looking figure coming to forbidden planet but ebay sellers already offering a pre-order of quite a well made 1/8 figure.

Potentially lame version of Sinon

Good version of Sinon

Posted in Anime, General, lartens | Leave a comment

Eight Days And Counting

Posted on August 8, 2014 7:07 am by bedgell

It’s right here, Ray. It’s looking at me.

Hurrah for Fridays! Bastion of Infinite Possibility! Guardian of the Weekend! Harbinger of Funtimes! Friday is the Gatekeeper to a nether world of joy and you? You, my friend, are the Keymaster.

And most importantly, THIS Friday means we’re on the countdown to the Ghostbusters / BTILC spectacular. Woop!

He’s an ugly little spud, isn’t he?

And while eight days is not your usual countdown kicking off point, we’re nothing if we’re not egalitarian here at the Grig. And why should Seven get all the action? Seven already gets all the movie titles, the mystic lore, and the prime spot on Sesame Street. What about poor old Eight?

I think he can hear you, Ray.

Call this the fight back. Oh, no, wait. Call this the Countdown. Oh I’m so confused.

Anyway, next week film fans! Next week!

Posted in General | 5 Comments

The game that never was: Akira

Posted on July 29, 2014 11:31 am by Dibbs Ahoy

Grigadiers! So following on from Lartens majestic one anime article thus fulfilling the promise that Grig Orig was going to become an ocean deep resource of news and info, I take up the challenge and focus my attentions on things of an Akira-shaped variety!

But this is no breaking bombshell on the nonexistent likes of Akira 2, no sir! This is a nugget from the gaming mines of yesteryear that is close to becoming long forgotten in time, save for my hazy recollection, and what turns out to be the memories of a couple of other gaming veterans. Sort of like a videogame version of Jack from Titanic.

The SNES videogame adaption of Akira immediately grabbed me upon perusing news articles about it, and I recal screenshots of a side-on view of Kaneda aloft his cool red bike in one of the magazines of the early to mid nineties – from my research, the closest fit to my memories are screens from an Amiga adaptation, so my memory obviously isn’t that good. Coz that wasn’t anything like the SNES version. And now I’m confused. That teaches me for being a Grig head and getting rid of about 95% of my retro magazines so I can no longer check. D’oh!

This is sort of what I remember. I never really had much wrangling with the world of Amiga, but perhaps an example screenshot was used in the news article I read? Who knows.

Whatever, what I recall as a SNES game, turns out on further inspection, to have been a game THQ worked on after acquiring the Akira licence that was planned for SNES, Megadrive, Gameboy, Game Gear, and what would have been excitingly, Mega CD, what with its FMV capabilities.

Akira, just to give it a brief introduction to any passing Greaders not of the era, was an epically vast Manga that was then adapted into a movie. Concentrating on a gang of Japanese biker dudes who get entangled with Government experiments giving kids all kind of weird city-levelling destructive powers, ’tis only just slightly less eventful than the kinda buh The Grig gets into on his average Sunday afternoon drive when taking the Grig-bike for a spin. At least if the reports on Crime Watch are to be believed. But I digress.

Upon a brief foray into the foggy gaming recollection I had via the power of a Griggle search, I found that there were few that had gone before me on this one. Seemingly this game was not on the radar of many, and others memories and interest in what happened to this game was not to be overly forthcoming. But the more I dug, the more started coming to light from a few similarly curious fellows who had dug deep into the mystery of Akira. And although there is still very little in the way of a wealth of solid content to go on, it all made for very intriguing reading. And I love me a good gaming mystery!

Very few Akira screenshots exist, and no ROM’s, unfinished or otherwise, have ever made their way to the net in any capacity, and code/asset archivers from the now defunct THQ don’t even know what happened to the content that was created. All that these employees have been able to confirm, was that they didn’t have the game. All leaves for not much material for an article. Luckily this is Grig Orig where we won’t be deterred by nonsense like lack of source material, so let’s have a look at what we do know/have of the various versions of Akira!

SNES/Super Famicom

The SNES version of this game, which to my original memory was the only adaptation I knew of, was planned to be a beast of a game that sounded very ambitious and awesome.

It had a box! Surely it must’ve been close to retail! Or… some fan just stuck this together in about thirty seconds in photoshop. Does kinda have a felt tip pen type texture on the black parts of the box. Hmm.

The game was an action platformer at heart, with some Mode-7 powered biker gang driving sections throwing in some added flavour to proceedings. With some unique hardware-pushing tricks, the game allegedly featured huge play areas as the games creators looked to push the envelope on the current expectations of the day for the 16-bit machines. All sounds so promising!

Is this the SNES versions platforming section? Could be!

There were even FPS screenshots as you controlled Tetsuo exploring a government lab, hand held aloft poised ready to zap anyone who crosses his path, but it later transpired this shot was from the Megadrive version which was sometimes mistakenly shown labelled as SNES. Oh. It’s assumed the THQ PR departments released promo material without being specific on format leading to confusion. But we’ll get to that part in the Megadrive section later.

SNES huh? Why you lying son of a Grig…

Rumoured to have been finished and even had review copies sent out to journalists, the dream of the game being alive and well was shot down when it was confirmed that although several sections had indeed been completed, it certainly hadn’t been distributed for review or even put on a physical medium of any sort. Quite what the location of the code is now remains a mystery. Eerie. If you get scared about games that is.

Bike section ahoy! Cited as being most likely from the SNES version. Oh the uncertainty!

Megadrive/Genesis

The Megadrive version is probably the most known iteration of Akira, what with it actually being shown at the pre-E3 CES shows back in the day, allowing actual gamers in attendance the chance to play it. Unlike the SNES version, the game was a multi-genre retelling of the movie and a very different game to it’s Nintendo stablemate.

Likely a level from the Megadrive, flying the green hover… thingy. This was a great part of the comic!

The premise for the Megadrive version went thus: each stage was set to feature a new gameplay element in its recital of the movie. From traditional platforming sections, to Hang On-esque (or I would image, Road Rash, what with battling the Clowns) Motorbike sections, scrolling beat ’em up (sorta reminiscent looking of Last Battle/Fist of the North Star on Megadrive) and isometric shooting parts, it all sounds like it was going to be a hotpot of gaming rompery of the highest calibre!

Can’t really make this one out. Is it Tetsuo on the bridge he destroys? Hmm… Looks nice though.

Of the mix of styles, one of the standout elements was their crack at a first person viewpoint where you take control of Tetsuo as he meanders around the Government labs post-experiments. With his powers in place, he emits a phsychic pulse from his raised hand, sending any would be assailants well and truly packing (excuse my language).

That pic again. Lie omitted. This was allegedly only in the Megadrive game. Looks ok. Bet it doesn’t in motion though.

Quite how it ran I guess we’ll never know, although Corporation had a decent go at this gameplay style, but as one of the people who played it at CES said, ‘this stage was about as impressive looking as a FPS could look on the Genesis.’ I guess you’ll just have to make of that what you will.

Mega CD

Not much is known of the Mega CD version, other than a few screenshots that were released sporting the format in the caption description. Were they just going to port the Megadrive version and fill the rest of the disc space with FMV from the movie, as tended to be the way of things with other games back then? Who knows. Although I’ve seen people describe the screenshots as being ‘doubtful’, there is a bit of a Batman Returns driving section-feel about one of them which gives some credibility, if only in my mind at least, that there is some possibility of authenticity.

I’m definitely getting dat Bat feelin’. This could’ve been fun! Sigh…

Platforming fun for all the family. Printed in a magazine declaring it to be from the Mega CD version, though others dispute this.

Gameboy

The Gameboy version is basically unknown, and certain articles I read wondered if there was a possibly that the work done for Akira was reskinned and converted into another game that perhaps did make it to market. This is based off of an admission that the Gameboy version itself was originally another game before it had the Akira licence slapped on it and was adapted accordingly. Alas, since nobody has ever seen or heard anything of the game, if the game was then further altered and released as something else, quite what it could be is yet to be unearthed.

Game Gear

Can ya guess? Yep. Not much is known about this version of Akira. However, unlike it’s Nintendo portable friend, there is a screenshot of it, confirmed as genuine by one of the dev’s too! Thus, from a gameplay perspective, we can at least know that there were some action platformer related shenanigans in the pipeline.

Confirmed: Game Gear version! Finally some gaming-imodium to solidify a shot as correct!

Apparently, these parts were to be broken up with sections featuring Tetsuo riding his bike from a 3rd person perspective. Coulda been good!

However, perhaps even more intriguingly than the game itself, a bizarre fate seems to have consumed Heir Gears iteration of Akira, as it has been described by the developer as being ‘destroyed’. They must’ve really not thought too much of the fruit of their grafting! Apparently, the lead programmer upped sticks around 30% of the way through the project… and then that was it. Nobody else picked it up. Sounds kinda weird since I assume there was more than just one guy making it, but hey ho! So say the developers, so who are we to dispute?

So there ya go. Akira, the game that doesn’t exist. Almost makes it even more desirable, huh? But while these games never made it out of their developmental shackles, there were two that flew the coup, albeit from other developers at other points in time. Let’s go!

Amiga/CD32

Brit-based developer ICE (interestingly the same company who were due to handle the Gameboy version… unless it’s a coincidence and it was the other software developer called ICE from back then) had a killer licence on their hands when they got their mitts on Akira, but somehow managed to churn out what’s regarded as one of the worst games on the format. Quite what happened to this I don’t know, but judging from videos, it does indeed look complete toilet. Taking the dramatic, speedy and exciting motorbike element from the movie and turning it into some mundane, plodding gaming catastrophe is not what I’d have had in mind as a youngster. Apparently you had to collect every can of fuel on your way to avoid your bike clapping out before the end of the level, which sounds buh, and throw explosives at road blocks, which almost sounds good… until you have to slow to a snails pace to do it.

Akira on CD32. Looks like buh. And if you get real close to the screen and inhale, it actually smells like buh. Strange.

The rest is your standard action platformer type affair, alternating between a couple of the main characters. More interestingly, these sections were so riddled with design flaws that some levels were actually impossible to finish due to platforms being placed outside of your characters jump range. Sounds like a corker! Still probably better than most EA games mind.

NES

Only released in Japan, the 1988 Taito developed NES game was an interactive visual novel kinda game. Featuring Snatcher-style interactions such as look, talk, and so on, it’s hard to tell how far your actions or what you say can deviate from the path of the established story, but it at least seems a fine amount of effort has gone in to the artwork. Seems to have a fan translation from YouTube videos that I’ve seen, and could be worth checking out for budding Akira enthusiasts.

Kaneda rattling the bars of the Grig Orig basement demanding to be let out less than two minutes after he went in to have words with The Grig about sorting out his behaviour. We tried to warn him.

Bonus game: PS2

Now this could have really been something, and probably would have had me soiling my under crackers at the thought… until it turned out to be an Akira Pinball game. I don’t even need to go into this one, the crushing misuse of the licence means it wouldn’t matter a jot if its the greatest pinball game of all time. It’s an Akira pinball game, and it shouldn’t be, therefore it’s crap.

Akira… pinball. Great. How about Half-Life 3 Pinball. Or Shenmue 3… PINBALL! Of all the uses of the licence! Grig!

Well, that’s your lot. If you are at all interested in this topic, I would recommend reading this article by a chap who has dug deep over years of research on this one, even to the point of tracking down members of the original development teams, and he has a ton of great info on these games. It makes for a far more interesting article than my dribble here, not that that’s saying much, so I’d go and check it out. Dude deserves some credit! It’s a fascinating insight into what happened with these games, and the processes that lead to their creation and ultimate demise.

Salute to my Grigs, and I’m out!