First of all, check this out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you’re gonna say, it’s all in Japanese. But I’d just like to point out a couple things…

We get out first look—er, listen at the new music. I like it so far. It seems more orchestra-based, which is pretty cool. And some of the old music is still recognizable, like the old suspense theme and “Objection! 2004″. However, this does bring up the question: what will Apollo’s objection theme be? The same? I’d feel a bit cheated. It’ll most likely be a remix of “Objection! 2007″.

Also, the courtroom atmosphere is really dark in comparison to previous games, further reinforcing the theme of “dark times for the law”.

According to the comments, there’s a new button on the touch screen that allows you to reread previous dialogues. Helpful for players like me with short-term memory loss. We also see that the health bar system is back, which (at least in my mind) was connected with the Magatama at its inception. Does this mean the Magatama will make a triumphant return as well? We’ll see.

Overall, in my opinion, graphics and animation look pretty smooth. This gameplay footage reveals a lot, all things considered. We even get our first official glimpse of the defendant right at the very end.

Court Records has a scheduled release date as sometime between September 22 and December 21. Very descriptive. Hopefully we’ll get more information on that soon…

In other news, more new and returning characters have been announced, the most prominent being MILES EDGE—I mean, the new detective.

Gouzou Ban is a detective bent on justice, which, ironically enough, is his catchphrase. From a poor Google translate of the official bio on the site, I can infer that he may have a grudge against prosecutors because he believes they create “distortion”.

“Justice!”

Anyways, on to the important stuff. Although an unnamed person (*cough* PAUL *cough*) spoiled this before I was done freaking out, both Miles Edgeworth and Trucy Wright are going to appear in the game. Trucy will presumably have the same/a similar role as Apollo’s assistant, while Edgeworth…who knows?

Looks like Trucy has not lost her affinity for her magic panties.

…No words needed.

Finally, four new characters have been announced for case 2 of the game (which shall henceforth be know as the “Apollo case”). More can be read about that here. So check it out, if you’re curious.

Until next time, faithful readers. I leave you with this…

A cartoon series was produced by Cartoon Network to pander to the Japan-obsessed youth culture that was born around the beginning of the 2000s. It features the likenesses (and includes appearances from) Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura, the two members of the Japanese pop band Puffy AmiYumi. Cartoon Network took the show’s expected (and meticulously calculated) success as a opportunity to release two tie-in video games.

This is the first of two tie-in games released to coincide with the television show. Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped! is a cookie-cutter and grossly repetitive platformer with all the soul of a dried trout. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have merit, but rather that it totally gets super boring quite quickly, which kills whatever it does right. There is a lot more to this game than what I’ve played. Harder difficulties and secrets abound, but I just haven’t got the patience. There’s only so much of this game I can take; like hell I’m flooding any more of my precious time into this.

Having beaten the game, I’ve wasted enough of my life as it is. Just because I’ve been following this band for years doesn’t mean I have to subject myself to all of the side projects and tie-ins. Somehow I managed to avoid watching the series until now, but the show is everything I expected it to be. It’s good fun, has interesting stories and doesn’t take itself too seriously. I cannot say the same about the game.

Based loosely on the television series, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped! sees the two stars of the band forced to travel the world to save their manager, who has been kidnapped by their number one fan. The manager’s name is Kaz, he has been kidnapped, ta-dah—Kaznapped. The name sucks, people!

In this game, you switch between the characters on demand, at least, most of the time you can. Each character has skills that the other doesn’t, forcing you to switch between them constantly in order to complete each level. Ami can use her microphone cord as a whip lasso on specifically placed hooks, to cross over large gaps in the stages. She can double-jump and triple-jump, but she’s useless when it comes to defending herself. For maneuverability, there’s no one better, though.

So you’re getting your posterior kicked? This is when you need to change to Yumi, who focuses more on the offense. She can’t even double-jump. Although she can ride through the air on her guitar, she still can’t cover as much distance as Ami can. Yumi can instead attack enemies, push boxes and crack open giant blocks. Because each level is filled with hooks and boxes and blocks, you’ll constantly be switching between the two characters. And I mean, constantly.

So we really need this many box pushing puzzles? Do the levels really need to be this maze-like? It’s good, but it’s kind of mundane.

I’m not against a little bit of challenge or some brain-taxing puzzles—but pushing boxes around isn’t “a puzzle”. It’s a chore. Having to switch characters every few seconds to navigate a particular obstacle is a chore. If I wanted to do chores, I’d bloody well do chores.

Apart from the flying stages between each world, which are irritating, there’s very little to change things around. Oh, and there is one stage that takes place entirely underwater. That stage is particularly infuriating. I enjoyed that stage, though, quite ironically, because it has the Super Mario 64 problem where you can heal life-threatening wounds simply by coming up for air.

Despite these little genre juggles and small changes, the game is a slog all the way through. Would it have hurt to make the game a little less monotonous? Who am I kidding; so long as the game works, Cartoon Network really couldn’t be bothered. Cartoon viewers are game buyers.

With unlockable costumes, hidden collectibles and incentive for multiple play-throughs, it’s not like this game doesn’t have enough content stashed away. That content is there for the players who are happy to spend their time getting to it; it’s just that grinding through the game to collect everything isn’t fun.

For a single run, fans of the show or the band should check this game out. It’s got synthesized music that sounds like it could vaguely be like Puffy’s usual output, and the graphics are really appealing and very close to the style of the show. If you’re just a gamer with a penchant for platformers, I’m not really sure I can recommend Kaznapped. It’s dull and repetitive near the end, and I realized that I was no longer playing for fun, but just to be able to say “Right. I’ve beaten it. I don’t have to play it anymore.”

That kind of defeats the point of playing games. It’s for fun, right?

By all means, check this game out. In the first few minutes, you’ll be really digging it. But if you’ve got an attention span like mine, by the point you go back in time to the prehistoric era and run from dinosaurs, you’ll probably have had enough of it all. It is a charming game just short of brilliant, but held back by complicated level-design and repeated puzzles.

“There’s no need to worry,” I said to myself,
“After all, I have plenty of games on the shelf.
I’ll just pick one of these—there’s no need to play—
I know them so well I can just write away.”
Up out of the seat and off to the games,
I quickly but calmly looked over their names.

Shadowgate, Threads of Fate, Front Mission 4;
Soul Blazer, Act Raiser, Secret of Evermore.

Hold on—now wait!
That game would be great!
Right between Soul Blazer and Threads of Fate.
The latest addition
to the series Front Mission,
to prevent omission,
it’s a game I must rate!

The graphics were sweet, or at least pretty good.
It looks how I’d say any modern game should.
Backgrounds and maps and fight animations,
the graphics lived up to all my expectations.
Movement so smooth and artistry clean,
you’d just have to see it to know what I mean!

The sounds, I would say, were as good, if not better!
The sound effects used fit the game to the letter.
As for the music, it was just OK,
but the voice acting here was what saved the day.
There’s voicing for just about all lines of text,
making you wonder just what they’ll say next.
The acting itself also came out alright,
and at least they will not “Fill your dark soul with light”.

But, the thing that made the game great was the playing;
something, once played, that should go without saying.
While most tactics games play out clunky and slow,
this is a game that has a smooth flow.
With link battles, chain skills, and two rounds for one,
it plays very fast and the game’s very fun.
The developers really went out of their way,
to make a tactical game fun to play.

For a quick and cool game whose graphics are fine,
why was this favorite just $4.99?
The only bad thing in this game I can see,
was its method of showing Plot A and Plot B.
Not all games can handle two stories in one,
and switching at cliffhangers isn’t so fun.
When I play a game,
I like it the same,
and switching it up,
is really quite lame.

Aside from two plots and their switching, however,
the rest of this videogame is quite clever.
If you aren’t so bothered by that small distraction,
you’re bound to enjoy all the battles and action!
This game is a favorite of mine and I say—
if you see it, then buy it and play it today!

Finally, the mystery Yellow Coat girl gets a name.

For those too lazy to watch the video (watch the video, seriously), her name is Athena Cykes, she’s a specialist in analytical psychology and she’s a…defense attorney? Then wait, why is she helping Phoenix? Doesn’t she have her own cases… Whatever. She’s apparently the “Bringer of Revolution”, so I look forward to hearing her backstory, I suppose.

Also, Payne’s brother’s name was confirmed as well: Gaspen. Yes, Gaspen Payne, or more appropriately, Gasp In Pain. Yeah. The puns are already being laid on pretty thick.

Secondly, Phoenix’s new voice actor is going to take a bit of getting used to. Does anyone else think he sounds a little bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (a spiky-haired defense attorney, not Lord Voldemort…oops)?

The graphics look really nice, but like I just said, I think they’ll take some getting used to for hardcore fans of the series. In fact, I think the entire game will be, as here’s another shocker: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies will only be available as a digital release on the Nintendo eShop.

According to Diana’s research, the game is slated for a Western release this fall on the eShop only, which is kind of a let down to a fangirl like me. But according to my good friend (or maybe not-so-good, now) Christian Svensson, Capcom USA’s Senior VP, it’s always been difficult to attract an audience for Ace Attorney, and releasing it only on the eShop will allow as many people to enjoy it as possible for the longest amount of time possible. Details on price will be confirmed in the not-so-distant future, “which I hope will also shed more light on the strategy at play here”.

…I’ll be waiting.

I mean, come on! I want a figurine too!

…They already cheated me out of the Miles Edgeworth one.

The most interesting thing for me concerning Konami Krazy Racers is that it even made it out of Japan to begin with. I’m sure the only reason it did was because the Game Boy Advance was in dire need some games.

As mascot racers go, the game is as predictable as you’d expect. Characters compete in races to win trophies—pelting the opposition with inane weaponry and navigating awkward turns in the process.

Where this product shines is in the graphics and sound. Krazy Racers was released on the Game Boy Advance launch in Europe and North America. From the immediate outset, it showed gamers just what the Game Boy Advance is capable of—and alongside games such as Rayman Advance and Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, it helped build up a formidable launch line-up for the system.

In retrospect, there’s a lot this game could have done better. At the time, players were amazed by the presentation. Perhaps, however, the novelty of the having a decent grade mascot racer on a handheld system overshadowed some more poignant issues?

Indulge me in a game of Devil’s Advocate here for just a little bit.

I like this game as much as the next person. However, I have some complaints with the implementation of some of the features.

What problems? Well… What about being required to complete tests to obtain better grade licenses? I know methods of padding out a game when I see them. You can only drive in more difficult tournaments when you have obtained the next license, which means clearing awkward time trials with very strict and challenging criteria. Surely getting a particular trophy is already evidence that I can try for a harder one? Why do I have to prove myself again?

If these were my only gripes, I wouldn’t have felt the need to write a whole review, so here’s some more.

Lacking a decent drift function, the controls can be quite unresponsive. Often my racer careens into the wall, with an almighty thud. I’ve played enough kart racers to know how drifting works, thank you very much. A little drift would go a long way. Steering is rather unresponsive, too. It’s like trying to turn in a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game with tightened trucks. Only an idiot plays with their trucks set to anything but loose.

Because of the awful physics, I make a meal of almost every corner in Krazy Racers. Sometimes other racers can drive straight past me with no explanation. What, are they just faster than me, or did they just magic a boost out of thin air?

Other times, I’m winning in a race without any challenge whatsoever; I even manage to over-lap some of the racers who are in last place. It’s topsy-turvy, without a clear boundary to the difficulty. Sometimes I feel like I’m not winning because of skill, but because the game has decided to let me win. I can’t get my head around it at all.

Course obstructions, such as baseballs or lightening bolts incapacitate me for far too long! I’ve gone from 1st to 6th in a matter of seconds thanks to a stray obstacle. Why do I never see the computer get hit by these?

As with all mascot racers, the allure wears off pretty quickly. After I’ve played as most of the characters and raced a majority of the tracks, I then know what to expect. By that time, I’m losing interest in unlocking everything. There’s a fair bit to unlock, but no satisfaction for doing so. No real reward for it, in the long run.

The beautiful presentation and sound design are the only things that draw me back to the game. The music tracks are remixes of famous Konami pieces, and the graphics are drawn in a cute and appealing bright, colorful style. The backgrounds and courses are stunning. The character sprites may be basic, but they animate nicely and contain the expression and charisma that the characters have in their own respective franchises.

Konami has a history of bright and interesting characters, and the playable roster gives many of the heard and unheard a chance to shine. While it is odd to have the Castlevania series represented by its lead antagonist, the inclusion of Beartank from Rakugakids makes me relieved to know that Konami considers their one-off cartoon fighting game to be worth a respectful nod. His inclusion in this game is a tribute to their less well-known though equally as awesome franchises.

There’s a lot to love in Konami Krazy Racers, but as with all mascot racers, the allure soon fades. The title is still impressive over a decade on from its release, having aged considerably well. Fans of the genre are going to find something about this game that they are going to enjoy. I really doubt it’s going to be the mechanics, though.

Can’t be arsed to track this down? There’s also the remake available for the iPhone.

Anna Bryniarski, Diana Gray, Michael Gray, Alex Jedraszczak, and Sean Laurvick get together and read these stories:

• “What If?”, a fanfic starring a girl who looks like a boy. She falls from a 25-story building in New York, which makes Edgeworth very sad. (00:00 to 7:04)
• “Visiting April”, a fanfic in which Maya Fey falls in love with April May. True, April May helped kill Maya’s sister, but that doesn’t mean the two of them can’t find each other incredibly attractive. (7:04 to 13:25)
• “phenix wright vs godot” and its thrilling sequel, “phenix wright vs godot 2: enemies become friends”. In these fanfics, someone named phenix wright battles miles edgreworth, as well as run-on sentences without capitalization. (13:25 to 20:45)
• “PHOENIX WRIGHT AND THE HORRIBLE DAY IN COURT!” by NekoJessica. Phoenix has a horrible day in court, when he goes up against legendary persecutor NekoJessica, who is beautiful and sexy and has a Russian accent. (20:45 to 29:17)
• “Phoenix Wright READ THE STORY TO FIND OUT”. Phoenix is in high school for some reason, and a girl with the same name as the author has a crush on him. (29:17 to 37:26)

But that’s not all! We had so much fun with NekoJessica that we decided to read two more of her stories. First is “The Untold Tale of Dennis the Menace”, which explains how Dennis got his name and embarked on a quest to destroy the world (37:26 to 44:09). Second is “troubled times in spiral mountain”, a Banjo-Kazooie story in which Kazooie turns evil (44:09 to end).

Hacks \’n\’ Slash 3

Are there any stories you want us to read on a future podcast? Is there a particular game or genre you think we should cover? Let us know in the comments!

Sample Quotation: nekojessica did a raelly cool animation and pointed at maya and said “You have no defense you pathetic lawyer!” and phoenix said “Objection!!!!!!!!” and everyone clapped and phoenix said “I have a defense” and she said “oh” and the judge looked.

Clocking in at a single dollar, Ninja Chop!! is inexpensive. The image and concept seemed loosely appealing, and I had leftover points, so I made the commitment. I found myself in control of a ninja lady. I was tasked with chopping down a line of bottles with my bare fists. Bottles of what, you do ask?

Bottles of milk, of course! I wonder what that’s meant to symbolize. Of course, the game has to go one step further and make things more awkward, so I’ll humor you by saying what happens next.

Every time that I successfully chopped a line of bottles cleanly in half, the ninja lady was covered in “milk”.

Controls are relatively simple—they’re practically a single button. As the small cursor lines up with the specified point on the gauge, the player has to press the button. If successful, the bottles of milk are successfully destroyed and experience points are earned. The longer the combo of successful bottle chops, the more experience points are gained.

As levels increase, clothing options are unlocked. Options such as a china dress, or a schoolgirl outfit.

Don’t worry, you’re definitely going to Hell for playing this.

Occasionally, bonus challenges appear such as dominoes, multiple-headed dolls and larger bottles. These stages require much higher precision with barely any improvement in terms of experience points earned.

Recently, as in after I played the trial years ago but before I bought the game, Zombie Mode was added. This is the kind of humor that saves Ninja Chop!!. In the Zombie Mode, instead of milk bottles I was required to chop off the top of severed zombie heads. Instead of being soaked in “milk”, the ninja became drenched in blood. In the large bottle challenge, the bottle is also replaced with a zombie head, almost as large as the ninja herself. Whenever I chopped a zombie head in half, a blood curdling scream echoed out.

Well played.

In all fairness, despite the sickening though mildly amusing subject matter, Ninja Chop!! is a good game for blowing a few minutes that could have otherwise been spent productively. In fact, isn’t that the nature of most Xbox Live Indie Games?

The game is short, however. I fully completed it in just over 40 minutes, unlocking every piece of clothing. By the time I’d done that, I was finished with the game anyway. I might return to it in the future for a laugh or two, but my mad desires to see a female ninja soaked in “milk” have been fulfilled and I have no further interest in playing any more.

Worth the dollar and the time.

The “milk” is meant to represent semen, by the way.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That about sums up this game. And no, it’s not supposed to be funny. This game is funny the way the movie Terms of Endearment is funny: unintentionally. And I’d like to go ahead and throw in this disclaimer lest you all think I’m lying: I swear I am not making any of this up.

Anyway, Virtual Hydlide has been sitting untouched in my Saturn collection for years, rubbing elbows with games that wouldn’t take five seconds out of their busy days to kick its ass. Shit, I caught Drake of the 99 Dragons giving Virtual Hydlide a wedgie after gym class, and that masterpiece claims a spectacular 21% on GameRankings.com.

But wait! Not unlike Manimal (google it), this train-wreck is so ridiculously abominable that you find yourself—gasp!—actually sort of enjoying it. In a stick-your-thumbs-in-your-eyes-until-you-tickle-your-brain sorta way.

So, for you, loyal readers, I will present my experience with this award-winning gem step-by-step

Friday, May 13, 2005 8:00 pm: “Okey dokey, time to review this game for GameCola,” I say to myself. I take the disc out of its standard oversized Saturn case and look at it. It certainly doesn’t look evil. I throw the game in and hit power.

Immediately, I realize I must have put in the wrong game, as what appeared to be a Meatloaf music video begins playing. We see an ancient, foreboding castle with lightning crackling outside, its shadows flittering demonically across the walls after each strike. A comely maiden with hideously crimped hair piled atop her lovely plastic tiara runs through this structure, holding her dress off the floor with one hand while looking anxiously over her shoulder. It does no good, however, as a cardboard cut-out of Satan turns our lovely Mötley Crüe sycophant into three tiny fairies. Inspired, I sing along; “I would do anything for love, but I won’t…do…that!“

You begin in a field that has been randomly generated with trees (that you can walk directly through) and…well, your guess is as good as mine. Just toss some random words out there. Green boulders? Sure. Three-legged jellyfish monsters made from tennis court nets? Why not. You realize you have never seen pixelation this bad before. SNES Doom was sharp as steel compared to this. My eyes actually asked if they could leave my sockets and go play some Jaguar games in the other room. They said they’d rather play Aircars. Aircars.

By the way, one of the first things I discovered while screwing around with my in-game buttons was this: if you use the L and R triggers to side-step, your chubby little Meatloaf will immediately go bowlegged and turn his head directly profile to whatever direction you’re going and prance from side-to-side.

So, I consult my map and objectives and see that I am tasked with finding my way to the graveyard. Exiting said map, I turn my hero to the direction I’m supposed to go and notice that any time I move my fatty one way or the other the environment grinds to a screaming halt while the CPU tries to puke up some new pixels that seem to indicate landscape. I started off—a little seasick—ambling slowly towards my destination. After screaming at my on-screen overweight slowpoke to hurry the fuck up for ten minutes, I finally figured out if you hold the X button down he breaks into a huffing kind of lard-sprint. Let me tell you, friends, it was a shock to me as well. Who knew Meatloaf could run?

So my alter ego—Corporal Baco Fruity McCheeseHead—makes it to the graveyard at last, and after leaning over and catching his breath for 20 minutes, we’re ready to enter. It’s upon entering that things start taking a turn for the truly bizarre.

See, this is supposed to be three-dimensional game, meaning that all objects can be viewed from all angles in real-time at any point. Well, drop your acid now, because the truth of this misnomer stood proudly front and center during this section. There are four gravestones in this area that you need to walk up to and interact with to advance. You can clearly see them above the pixely oatmeal world around you as they stand eight feet tall. I cautiously walk up to one, and then have my MC Meatloaf saunter sideways around it, promptly noting that the face of the gravestone rotates with me. Yes, dear friends, in this world there is no such thing as “sides” and “the back of something”. With this newfound information grasped triumphantly in my chubby fist, I wobbled over to the skeletons vomiting themselves out of the ground with disgusting splorking noises. I approached one, drew my mighty Useless Dagger of Shit, and then slowly (as in around 5 FPS) rotated around him to score a hit from behind. He matched my nefarious plan by rotating with me step-for-step. I left him and tried the same thing with the trees, bushes and assorted clumps of whatever. The truth hit me like a ton of bricks:

I…I was living in a work that had no back-side.

That meant no sneaking up to slit the throat of some unsuspecting dirty Cobra soldier (go Joe!). No piggy-back rides. No “guess who”. No wheel-barrow rides at the company retreat (who will hold the legs, smart-guy?). Speaking of corporate retreats, no more “trust falls” either because none of your co-workers could get behind you. I don’t think I need to tell you what a world without trust-falls would be like.

So, I saved my game, went into the bathroom to scrape the top three layers of my cornea off, and went to bed, determined to finish up what was turning out to be quite possibly the most creative thirty car pileup in the history of video games in the morning.

Saturday, May 14^th, 2005. 11:14am: I return to my game and discover that somehow my previous days’ saves have been erased. I will have to start over. This makes me unhappy.

Oh, but it gets better. When you boot up this game, it first gives you the option of “Internal Save” or “Cartridge Save”. Neither shows I have a game saved, so I exit out to the Memory Manager section of my Saturn. Hmm. It shows I clearly have a saved data block for Virtual Hydlide that is uncorrupted, but it’s simply not there when I go to load. I take this news calmly. Virtual Hydlide is trying to break me. I know this game can be beaten in a few hours; all I have to do is be a man. Buck up. Show I’m not yella. I restart.

This time, I put in the code that will give me the famed Fairy Armor. The code is FAIRYPLATE. What this code did, besides boosting my defense stats considerably, was to cement in any doubt what-so-ever you may have had about your character’s sexuality. I’ll save you the suspense: he’s gay. The fairy armor may be strong, but Michelle Kwan sure is going to miss it at her next ice-skating event. Say what you will, but while battling away green blobs and frothing, teeth-gnashing trees, at least my hero is going to look fabulous. So that leads us to ask why, exactly, he’s spending all the time and effort to save this 80’s butt-rock princess if he’s a homosexual. I dunno, maybe she owes him money. Or, he’s trying to get her to the Whitesnake video shoot in time. God, this review is already too long and I haven’t even mentioned the Vampire’s Castle with its trans-dimensional furniture, various lava caves or the trippiest last stage this side of opium.

Look, humor is my weapon against games like this, but let me make one thing straight: I truly appreciate this game for what it is. I’m sure I would have been supremely pissed if I would have bought this for $50 just for a next-gen RPG at the time (*cough*King’s Field*cough*), but I didn’t. Think about it: Would you rather watch a schlock splat like Leprechaun in the Hood or sit through “legitimate” cinema like The English Patient? I don’t know any friends I could call over to watch English Patient just to make fun of it.

No, when my friends come over I take them to the other television, in the back bedroom. They look at all my shiny Xbox and GameCube games and wonder where we’re going. I pop open a beer and hand it over.

“Friend,” I say, “Meet Flamboyant Meatloaf. Flamboyant Meatloaf, meet Friend.”

Take these scores with a grain of salt, and if you ever pick up this game for god’s sake email me and tell me about your experiences.

Catch A Cold

Crazy Taxi: “Catch” a Ride has certainly “caught” something. That something is a series of crippling bugs, if you know what I mean. The project was handed out to Graphic State Games, who would have been the very last people I’d trust at all.

What is immediately apparent, through the implementation of the game itself, is that the Game Boy Advance quite clearly isn’t powerful enough to cope with a game world the size of Crazy Taxi’s. If it copped out and used Mode 7 graphics instead of complete 3D, there wouldn’t be a problem.

When the core game itself chugs along at a fourth the usual speed, there is very little that the game can do on top to make anything better. Which is actually a shame, because had the game ran at a more suitable speed then I would have been able to praise the scope of the project and the attention to detail with sound, graphics and controls.

This is a shocker: the controls are almost perfectly reconstructed. Even the techniques are properly integrated into the game. The core mechanics are very close to the original game’s. I wouldn’t call them flawlessly copied, but I can say that Graphic State had upped their game this time around.

Big Yellow Taxi

Unfortunately, when the game crawls at three miles per hour, it isn’t easy to appreciate the attention to detail.

The Game Boy Advance was never supposed to be pushed so hard. Although the back of the box claims the system to be a 32-bit handheld, the truth of the matter is that the processor isn’t really up to much at all. While 2D games cruise along sweetly with little to no problems, any instance of textured 3D is going to lag no matter how you go about presenting it on the system.

During gameplay, many vehicles appear on screen. The city is fully textured, and there are even pedestrians dotted around. There is a lot of detail, but it comes at the cost of a sluggish frame rate no better than trying to stream a low-quality Internet video on dial-up.

Music isn’t Graphic State’s strongest skill, but the soundtrack plugs a hole. The crackling discount speakers of the Game Boy Advance are quite suited to the distressing squealing of a synthesizer pretending to be a guitar. Presentation is gritty, but given the nature of the hardware, it’s an achievement nonetheless.

You “Drive” Me Crazy

This ambitious game has two whole cities from the original Crazy Taxi, which are very accurate when placed aside their arcade counterparts. All of the driving techniques are present, and even the Crazy Box mode containing nine minigames is available to play.

The only “crazy” thing here, however, is that someone actually thought that Crazy Taxi could work on a limited platform such as the Game Boy Advance. This game wrangles the absolute most it can out of the processor, but it ultimately falls short because of the one glaring issue.

The Game Boy Advance just isn’t powerful enough. That said, the game itself is playable, has a lot to offer considering the platform, and really stretches the system to its limits. I can’t give the game a low score based on just one major problem, right?

Wrong.

In entertainment, works are considered to take place in their own separate universes which other, unrelated, works are generally not a part of. Sometimes it can be revealed that two works exist in the same universe, like Spider-Man and X-men in comics, Commander Keen and Wolfenstein in games, or Machete and Spy Kids in films. For this reason, it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary if Spider-Man found himself tied up at the mercy of Venom only to be saved at the last minute by Kitty Pryde. It would, however, be a bit surprising if he suddenly ended up being rescued by Archie Bunker from All In The Family.

What if all these years Silent Hill wasn’t set in its own universe, but actually existed in another universe that came before it? What if the city of Silent Hill, Maine, was actually a bit closer in resemblance to Astoria, Oregon? Well, its elementary school, anyway.

Believe it or not, popular internet theory is that Silent Hill is part of the Kindergarten Cop-iverse. Now, yes, I’ll grant you that other popular internet theories include such mind-numbing insanity as “NASA faked the moon landing”, “Reptilian Illuminati shapeshifters rule world governments”, and “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is watchable”, but there’s actually some good points for this one.

Many settings and set pieces between the two are strikingly similar. Let’s take a look:

This is definitely a similar archway design, the same two wooden doors, short staircase with middle railing, similar style sign above the doors, and even the same mounted torches. Though, still, it’s a reasonably standard elementary school design.

Yeah, the poster on the medicine cabinet has a red cross on it, but that’s very standard imagery for a medicine cabinet.

That is clearly the exact same anti-drinking poster in the two frames. Though these were pretty common—in fact, I think they had the same poster in my elementary school.

Now, this one is a bit more compelling. The poster seems a bit more non-standard. Still possibly a stock classroom poster, but not incredibly common.

A red-background, happy bulldog poster with a white blocky-text phrase above him? This could be another stock classroom poster, but it seems a stretch that the game has two obscure classroom posters that were both found in the movie.

It may just be a school bus but, believe it or not, I find this image to be the most compelling. The Silent Hill bus may be missing a detail or two like no side mirrors, no air horn, but really that can be written off as limitations to the PS1’s graphics processing capabilities. They have two significant things in common:

First, there are many types of school bus chassis but these two are both Ford chassis. Specifically, they are both based on the Ford B-Series line of buses. To put an even finer point on it, different model years for the Ford B-Series had slight aesthetic differences. For example, some models had a separated grill with the Ford logo in the middle, like the buses shown above, but many models didn’t.

Secondly, they are suspiciously both bus #7. How significant is this? How high do those numbers get? Well, in elementary school I took bus 56. In high school I took bus 93 and if you take the Ford B-Series bus below, you could have taken bus #9611.

So, for both Silent Hill AND Kindergarten Cop to have all of this in common by chance seems very unlikely.

I’m the pahty poopuh

Ok, those are interesting pictures, but lets face it—the intention of these design choices was not to insert Silent Hill into the Kindergarten Cop universe. I’m not even saying that because I don’t think they’re crazy enough to do that—I DO believe they’re crazy enough. Hell, this would probably only tie the craziest thing in the Silent Hill games.

Seriously.

Now, just because I don’t think they share the same universe (and let’s be honest—almost nobody really thought that) doesn’t mean I don’t think this stuff was actually taken from Kindergarten Cop. In fact, I absolutely DO think that. Really there’s just too many similarities for that not to be the case.

Let’s pretend you’re making a game that takes place in a Japanese high school. Presumably it will probably look at least a little different than a western high school, so you need a model to go off of. You could drop a few grand, hop a flight to Osaka and snap some pictures, or you could look for pictures through other means. A film that takes place in one would be a great resource to you. You’d get the exterior, interior and some ideas for set dressing as well.

100% accurate representation of an average Japanese high school.

So, taking a high profile movie set in an American elementary school and using it as research for architecture, set dressing, and even local transportation seems like a pretty natural choice. Also, it’s understandable because Arnold is pretty popular in Japan, as you can see from this demonic fucking nightmare commercial.