'Tis Better To Play Silent Hill And Be Thought A Fool

Near the end of the year all sorts of Top 10, 50 and 100 lists start popping up. One of the more interesting ones comes from Wizard Magazine, the Top 50 fictional weapons of all time. A definitive geek list of must have side arms, melee weapons and magic devices from movies to comics to games. Some of them even have props made that you can buy, so it also makes a decent list of props. It's interesting to note that #8 is missing. I guess the weapons invisible and can't be spoken of. Lightsabers are so cool they made the list twice, as did Star Trek with the Phaser and a Sniper Rifle that fires rounds that beam in and out of people's rooms. Why the X-Ray gun from Perfect Dark didn't make I'll never know but it could fire through walls and the scope could pick out people instantly. Between the Star Trek Rifle and Eraser's Rail Gun I guess this weapon became redundant. A couple great classic sci-fi weapons appear, including the TRON's disc and the homing bullets from that chromed-out gun used in Runaway, that other sci-fi movie with Kirstie Alley. The movie was kind of a poor man's Blade Runner, surprisingly written and directed by Michael Crichton. It's a decent enough story but looks like a product of the 80's. Not quite an early Crichton classic like Andromeda Strain or West World. Maybe if the Terminator hadn't come out at the same time we'd remember this movie more. I have the movie poster of Runaway somewhere with Tom Selleck holding the special gun and it always bothered me that it was the bad guy's weapon and Mr. Selleck never fires it. BTW I "heart" 80s Spider Robots.

IGN also has top 100. Of course it's about video games and they are posting the list 10 at time for the rest of the month, damn them. I've only looked at the bottom 20 but I'd like to add my thoughts on their.. uhh... thoughts. 100 thru 98 I never played so I'll jump to number 97: Silent Hill 2. This game belongs higher on the list. I bought it for Xbox a number of years ago and it is everything the first game was and more. The story is more personal and the creatures are even scarier. Maybe its the next gen graphics (since the first game was on PSX) but almost every creature encounter was creepy. The game made you feel uneasy throughout and hit you like a wet brick when the Pyramid Head guy appeared. I almost crapped myself in the movie when Pyramid guy showed up, thanks to this game. He's not to be taken lightly. I never beat it but I left off near the end with some crazy cockroach things eating me or something. I hate the undead and look forward to killing a lot of the during the Zombie Apocalypse if it ever happens thanks to this game. I don't even like nurses anymore, or mannequins, or armless zombies, or little children, or dogs, or static-playing radios, or undead pterodactyls, or my crazy ex-wife in a wheel-chair. No, wait, that was the first game, sorry. I still have issues from that one. And now I hear there's to be a Silent Hill 5?

#96 is Wave Race 64. As a release title it was the other reason to own an N64 back in the day. Water physics were never prettier before the N64 and Wave Race had it in spades. I bought the game during the waning years of the system, but that doesn't diminish the game play. When ever someone plays a game and there's a water fountain or a lake, invariably they try to "play" in it. I'm guilty of this and I can even remember the first time water "wow-ed" me in games. Super Mario 64 had incredible water surface reaction that was just fun to run around in and Ico's water was so reflective and beautiful it made the game even more realistic. But this was just a mild distraction to those games, in Wave Race 64 it was the whole point. You raced on wave runners and had to time your movements with the currents. Brilliant stuff. It actually added strategy to a racing title without the need for "Kart"-racing style offense/defense item collection. There was even stunt mode mini games to add playability, and it had enough reasons to keep playing it until a larger library formed for the N64. It's hard to find a game this good today and it's even available for download on the Wii.

#95 is Bionic Commando. Games used to have gimmicks that totally worked for them because the technology could really only let you do one good thing at a time. This gimmick was the bionic arm that let you move, collect and kill. The arcade was the most fun for me (I'm an old-schooler) but I rented the NES version back in the day and enjoyed it just as much. I don't ever remember being really good at it, but like Ghost & Goblins or Rush 'n' Attack, it was loads of fun. A new version of this now has gone beyond the rumor phase. Now its a serious game where the main character is so badass that his arm is shipped separately from himself. I know how he feels. I wasn't allowed to have Vera when I flew to and from Kuwait. For those that don't know Vera is my Army issue M-16/M-203 grenade launcher. Think Arnold's weapon of choice in the beginning of Predator. That thing's like something out of Aliens.

I never played #94-93 (Ultima VII) but I did play Ultima Exodus for NES which furthered my desire for RPGs on Consoles. Luckily I'm not the only one who loves turn based sword fights. #92 is Wip3Out or WipeOut 3 or W3p3O3t 3 or something with "three" in it. Defining racer for the PSX and showed high-speed polygon "Kart" racing at its finest. I say "Kart" because there were items to collect during the race to even the odds you fall behind. The AI was always a challenge, except on the slowest speeds, and learning to turn/drift/maneuver was half the fun/difficulty. The music perfectly fit as well. This franchise was so well done it has become a defining graphic powerhouse on new Sony systems, like WipeOut Fusion for PS2 and WipeOut Pure for PSP. I found the PSP version a little hard to control but it just takes getting used to. Where's the PS3 version? In the works, but PSP is waiting patiently for WipeOut Pulse next month. BTW nice Euro techno soundtrack.

I also never played 91 so you're just going to have to go to the website to see what I passed by. I did come across a reference to a new Street Fighter game in the works, creatively titles Street Fighter IV. It should probably be Street Fighter LXXVIII but who's counting. The visuals of the trailer are stunning but I wonder how much of that is game play. It sounds to be a 2D fighter but you've got my vote if they keep the visuals in the "Okami" style. Here's this weeks viral video called Italian Spiderman. Tomorrow I will talk of 90 thru 81. See you next broadcast.