Shitty Box Art Round-Up

Skyscraper

Rob: I've always wanted to play a game where the hero is that big.
Brad: Imagine: John McClane
Rob: Wow. Short of setting it at Christmas, it is actually a major rip-off.
Brad: Any idea what sort of game it is? Looking at those arcs of light, I'm thinking that it might be a puzzle game. Like the fireworks one on the original Eyetoy - or, as it's now called, 360Gimmick.
Rob: It seems to be a compilation of games. That's gotta be a first on Wii. In seriousness, I think it's a shooty-shooty game.
Brad: Yeah, I'm thinking third-person shooter. Fully free-roaming...within the confines of the skyscraper.
Rob: Yeah, fully free-roaming would be a fiddly game.
Brad: As opposed to Blood on the Sand, which would be a Fiddy game, right?
Rob: "Gather first-aid kits to nullify the effects of your illness". Being loaded to the bollocks with bullets has never been my idea of an illness.
Brad: A game in which the character is badly ill...has that been done before?
Rob: It's never really caught on in a high-octane action game. Very rarely has Master Chief stopped mid-rampage because of a diabetic hypo.
Brad: Credit where credit's due, it's not a bad idea. I mean, all other forms of narrative art have characters with flaws - why not video games? There aren't many I can think of. Well, Kano had half his face missing, I guess...
Rob: If he is ill, that's amazing. Especially if he's in a wheelchair, that'd give a whole new meaning to the term "on-rails shooter"
Brad: We may have hit a first for the Box Art Review: A game I actually want to play.
Rob: You didn't want to play Imagine: My Secret World by Imagine?
Brad: I couldn't even conceive of it. Score for this one?
Rob: I like the possibility of there being a terminally ill action hero - 7/10
Brad: As good as I think it looks, I don't think the actual game is as good as I'm hoping it is. 8/10 from me.

Ready, Steady Cook: The Game

Rob: Really?
Brad: You can learn recipies from this thing.
Rob: Yeah, but a recipe book is cheaper in most cases.
Brad: Exactly. The Wii is hell bent on lying to people about how beneficial it is. There's all these games that claim to educate your kids, teach them languages, show them the gravitational pull of various sex toys...what people fail to realise is that they're not. They're fucking shitty video games, and you are stupid. I have to laugh everytime someone says, or comments on FaceBook: "Going to get on my WiiFit! Lose some weight! Swimsuit season!". Jesus...it's a fucking video game, not a personal trainer. Go on a diet, go to the gym, come back home from the gym and play some good video games. Jesus...there's something in my beer tonight...
Rob: Whatever, man. If there was a game called Imagine: Zombie Apocalypse, you'd buy the shit out of it.
Brad: I appreciate the point, but in practice, there aren't many zombie video games I like. The first two Resident Evil games, Zombies Ate My Neighbours on the SNES/Mega-Drive and the arcade installments of House of the Dead...that's about it.
Rob: I've really got nothing to say about this game.
Brad: One of the selling features on the press release for this is: "Each cooking session lasts around 4 minutes". Is that good?
Rob: No, the show is like half an hour. They probably couldn't get Ainsley Harriott's likeness. That usually fills up a fair bit of time.
Brad: Can I make a point that will be a nail in the coffin for this game?
Rob: Please, for the love of God, do. Though you and I both know it'll still sell.
Brad: It comes with a free cookbook. You cannot make this shit up.
Rob: Christ. Can we score this and move on? 4/10
Brad: 1/10

Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree

Brad: I have now officially seen it all. Imagine: Class Wars! I don't know who "Calvin Tucker" is, but I have a mightily strong feeling that the much needed sponsorship deal with Jeff Foxworthy did not go as swimmingly as they had hoped.
Rob: Entirely possible. See, I honestly don't understand why this game is being released.
Brad: I get that with loads of games. Films. Books. Clothing lines. Magazines. Prisoners of war.
Rob: The front cover claims that there are "12 Redneck Inspired Events". Interesting format for a Wii game.
Brad: The back cover says that three of those are "Backyard Hunting, Mower Racing, [and] Toilet Seat Throwing "
Rob: "Toilet seat throwing"?
Brad: I'm wondering what the other nine are. I'm fairly sure that Mower Throwing and Toilet Seat Racing has to be in there.
Rob: The only thing I can think looking at this cover is "Wow, he's let himself go since he stopped believing in Hobbes".
Brad: His lady fried seems rather Germanic.
Rob: Dude, it's only the pigtails...
Brad: And the puffy sleeves.
Rob: Okay, fair enough.
Brad: Nyarlathotep is watching from a nearby tree.
Rob: Why is that crow completely flat?
Brad: I'm trying to get a handle on the other nine events. Pipe up if you have any ideas. "Wife Punching"?
Rob: "Beer-hat creating"?
Brad: "Lawn Ornament Shooting"!
Rob: "NASCAR Watching"!
Brad: "Sister Fucking"?
Rob: Creationism Believing?
Brad: I can't lie, I've never met a redneck. I'm just getting these stereotypes from a cocktail of Bill Hicks, Larry The Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy. Score?
Rob: I'm gonna go with 2/10
Brad: If you think that this game will get you fit/teach you to cook/learn another language you might be a redneck: 2/10

Interval

Brad: I'm trying to find a shitty game not on Wii. Do you have any idea how hard that is?
Rob: I've just been trying, too.
Brad: Decent baseball games are hard to find. I might just buy a cricket game and pretend. There's a Highlander game coming out for PC at the end of June. Epic win.
Rob: Really? Are you sure it's not the other thing? "Lame"?

Pro Cycling Manager: Season 2009 - Le Tour De France

Brad: "Pedal! Pedal more! Keep pedalling!"
Rob: Surely you can do that one of only two ways? One's gonna wear out your thumbstick, and the other's tedious button-mashing.
Brad: Take the piss out of Track & Field all you want - if someone offers you a game, you can't refuse.
"Choose their secondary sponsors" - As for their primary sponsors: Fuck you.
Rob: Where is the secondary sponsor space on a cyclist? Nips?
Brad: "More realistic cyclist behaviour" - What were they doing in the previous installement? Driving a car?
Rob: Wouldn't this box be ten times more awesome if one random cyclist had a Hello Kitty helmet?
Brad: You know what would make it a hundred times more awesone?
Rob: Ten Hello Kitty helmets?
Brad: If one random cyclist had PyramidHead's helmet.
Rob: I would buy a PSP if it was called Silent Hill: Pro Cycling Manager Season 2009
Brad: There's not many games that wouldn't be improved by a Silent Hill license. Grand Theft Auto: Silent Hill would be a little weird I guess.
Rob: That'd make for an interesting open world though
Brad: Score?
Rob: I'm gonna say 5/10
Brad: 5/10 here too. It's probably very good at what it does - but what it does isn't very good.

Walk With Me!

Rob: Ahhhh, one word away from being a Twin Peaks licensed game.
Brad: I'm thinking that the only way Nintendo can keep getting gayer would be if they just gave in and released a game called Imagine: Jerking Off Some Guy In A Public Toilet. It's the pretence that this shit is good for you that bugs me.
Rob: Why do you need 2 pedometers? Are they under the impression that you need one for each leg?
Brad: To finish up, I'd like to include a customer review from an on-line shopping site: "i would not buy this product as it is very disappointing". So...Did he buy it, or didn't he?

Book Review: Let The Right One In

Let The Right One In
John Ajvide Lindqvist
Quercus Books

Let The Right One In is a strange novel. Equal parts The Catcher In The Rye and Carmilla*, it tells of a poor, bullied and rather eccentric teenager, Oskar, and his friendship with their new next-door neighbour, Eli. Along the way, their story crosses over with a tragic group of alcoholics and another young boy struggling to cope with his mother's new relationship.

The three main storylines are all riveting in and of themselves, but what is amazing is that they are all majorly independent of each other, only crossing paths occasionally. What happens when they do, however, is always significant. As you read, you will find yourself wondering how all the characters will end up having an effect of some kind upon the others - and what kind of impact these coincidental meetings will have.

Lindqvist is an amazing descriptive writer, and I would love to read more from him. Some of the scenes that he conjures up are truly memorable - many of them may stick in your head for the rest of you life. The twist of the bizarre and the cinematic that infuses his writing is (and, God, I hate using terms like this) captivating.

Gosta pushed past both of them into the living room and using Lacke's glass poured Virginia a drink. Lacke managed to get Virginia in, let go of her and placed himself in the doorway to the hall, like a sentry.
He licked a little blood away from his lower lip.
Virginia was standing in the middle of the room, tensed. Looked around as if she was looking for a way out. Her eyes stopped at the window.
"No, Ginja."
Lacke prepared to run over to her, to grab her again if she tried something stupid.
What is it with her? She looks like the whole room is full of ghosts.
He heard a sound like when you crack an egg into a hot pan.
Then another.
And another.
The room was filled with more and more hissing, spitting.
All of the cats in the room had stood up, their backs curled and tails bushed out; looking at Virginia. Even Miriam got clumsily to her feet, her belly dragging on the floor, pulling her ears back and baring her teeth.

Unfortunately, the pace does flag at times, sometimes to the point of stagnation. At times where the narrative would have done well to switch perspective, we're treated to a few pages of a character sitting around and waiting, staring, playing with a Rubik's Cube, etc.

Also, the ending is rather unsatisfying. Whilst reading it, I found it to be fast moving, tinted with sadness, yet also full of dramatic suspense. It was only after I had finished reading the novel and had thought about it for a while, that I felt it was a little "Hollwoodised". Not bad, but somewhat at odds with the rest of the novel.

The Emotionally Fourteen Rating:
Violence: Lots of blood, splatter, gore and zombies

Sex/Nudity: Some mild sexual scenes. An erect penis. Several mild allusions to paedophilia.

Swearing: A realistic amount. Present, but not excessive.

Overall: A strong horror novel, with several very emotional moments. This book will still be being read and talked about years from now, but this doesn't mean that it's without its flaws. - 7/10

* Currently being made into a movie starring Jennifer Ellison and Rik Mayall. I wish I wish I wish I could be making this stuff up.

Like the sound of this book? It's available in the Emotionally Fourteen Store priced £2.99!

Vampires: A Spotter's Guide

Vampires seem to be in the vogue at the moment. The recent success of novels such as Stephanie Meyer's Twilight and John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In (and, of course, the movie adaptations for those of you that can't be bothered to pick up a fucking book once in a while) have forced them back into the spotlight. And it's about time. Vampires deserve to be in the spotlight (unless it's an UV bulb...they don't tend to like them so much), somewhere they haven't really been since the end of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer television series. However, in the 112 years since Dracula was first published, many different types of vampire legend have arisen. So...here for you is the E14 Vampire Spotters Guide!

Golden Rules of All Vampires:

• All vampires are destroyed by a stake through the heart, decapitation and/or burning.
• No vampire can go out in sunlight, unless the narrative calls for it.
• Vampires appeal to overweight and/or unattractive fifteen-year old girls. Seriously. They're like catnip for Marilyn Manson fans.

Sympathetic/Emo Vampires
As seen in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, White Wolf's World of Darkness RPG campaign settings, MySpace Layouts, all shitty vampire stories

Back in 1976, Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire was published, and in celebration, all the vampires in the world agreed that this super-power-and-immortality gig was rather all too much, and they'd be much happier wearing lace and sighing.

These vampires grow weary of the years of endless existence, hate themselves for killing humans, and/or actively refuse to create more vampires. This raises the question of why they don't just walk into the sunlight if they're that fucking miserable. You would never get this shit from Mr. Barlow.

See, Interview with the Vampire isn't a bad book. The trouble lies in the legacy that it spawned, completely sucking all the menace out of the image of the vampire for...well, it's still happening now, to be honest.

Monstery Vampires
As seen in Bram Stoker's Dracula, John Carpenter's Vampires, From Dusk Till Dawn, Salem's Lot, The Blade Trilogy/comics, all good vampire stories.

This is the good shit. In a perfect world this is what all vampires would be like: fucking monsters.

It all starts with the original Dracula. In this, Count Dracula isn't the charming aristocrat he is in the Tod Browning movie, or the doting war-monger-turned-love-struck-beardie from the Francis Ford Coppola version. In the book, Dracula only has his mind turned to death and destruction in a new country. The creatures in From Dusk Till Dawn are only about titties and gore. Mr Barlow in Salem's Lot doesn't sit around moping in an Anne Rice induced fog - he bitch slaps priests.

I hope, and I pray, that vampires eventualy come back to this.

High School Vampires
As seen in The Lost Boys, The Twilight Saga, Vampire High

Vampires in High Schools tend to be "bad guys". Back in the 80s, this meant drinking, dressing in denim, listening to Jim Morrison and being related to Donald Sutherland. By the time Stephanie Meyer published Twilight, this already frankly unintimidating behaviour has been reduced to acting like stuck-up douchebags in the canteen. Scary stuff.

I blame Anne Rice.

Lesbian Vampires
As seen in low quality Italian horror movies, MySpace layouts and all alledgedly "erotic" horror.

Heh. These are awesome.

Pre-Watershed Vampire
As seen in Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV Series
In the original legend of the vampire, the destruction of such a creature required a stake through the heart, decapitation, burning of the head, and the burying the body beneath a crossroads. As time went on, people got lazier and discovered the just staking them seemed to work just as well.

The trouble with staking vampires through the heart is that they do tend to make a little bit a mess. Blood tends to shoot at in alarming force and volume.



A pre-watershed vampire is subject to being killed via contact with silver. This allowed the creators of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv-show to get on the pre-watershed schedule by making contact with the stake be enough to kill the vampire. No penetration, no gore, and no way I'm watching this shit. I was at high school sixth form when the show was at its most popular, and used to get endless fun from pointing out to fat, ugly girls the amazing similarity between their favourite "horror" TV show and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Obsessive Compulsive Vampires
As seen in "Sesame Street"