Preamble, T1 and T2
I am a hardcore Terminator fan and this rant has been a long time coming.
The original was one of the very first movies I ever saw as a kid of about 6, complete with all the violence and swearing and even the sex scene – none of which made any sense to my child mind, of course. Along with the Conan films which my parents also enjoyed, I suppose it’s fair to say that I was born into being a Schwarzenegger fan, although only in hindsight do I realise that I was actually born into being a James Cameron fan. I was terrified by the dark vision of the future in the film, by how hard it was to destroy just that one Terminator, and how when 1991 came round all the kids raved on about how awesome the sequel was and how the T-1000 in particular was one of the scariest film villains ever, even surpassing the Arnie T-800. T2 lost a lot of its dark edge and replaced it with a more hopeful tale of the value of humanity achieving victory through their inner strength, and it was also the cementing of Schwarzenegger as a true Hollywood icon. But the real star was Cameron, the creator, writer, and director. He had raised his credibility with Aliens (as well as the tremendously underrated The Abyss) in between the two Terminator films, with a vision of exactly what he wanted his story to say. And he chose to end it with just T1 and 2, even shooting an alternate ending to T2 with an old Sarah Connor sitting in a park post-August 29th 1997 but opted instead for a black highway ending which was, looking back, a huge mistake.
I am, not for the first time in my life, currently going through a phase of perpetual Arnie hypnosis after that last blog on The Running Man and the hilarity of Youtube (click for Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 – “trust me”), so here is an entry on the other movie-games he was in! Isn’t it funny how, as a politician, he is now trying to get similar games banned when he himself used to be the master of the gory death/witty one liner…let off some steam Governor.
The Terminator
There are, incredibly, over 20 games based on The Terminator, T2 and T3 (not counting crappy mobile phone games but including the pinball machines for each instalment of the movie series). Over twenty! Not every… Read More
It’s the Arnie movie that had everything: over the top violence, hilarious one-liners, outrageous ‘boss’ characters, Jesse Ventura, a Latino chick, satire on society and television, Yaphet Kotto of Alien fame, a distinct future influence on video games, and Schwarzenegger in possibly his finest form. It’s The Running Man (cue dodgy 80s echo sound effects)!!!
Set in an Orwellian 2017 where free speech is illegal, the story begins with futuristic policeman Ben Richards (Arnie) being set up by the totalitarian government for the massacre of civilians and sent to jail (where he sports a cool-looking beard). He escapes of course, but not without someone having his head blown off first (thanks to futuristic head-exploding collars which, to be honest… Read More
Following my last blog on Schwarzenegger- related arcade games and because several people mentioned it, this new article will be on the classic Alien vs Predator arcade game. No not the rubbish movie, or the Jaguar first-person shooter, or even the recent AvP FPS. This Final Fight-like title was released in 1994 by Capcom and featured fantastic 4-player co-op like the Simpsons and TMNT games back then. It was later ported to the Neo-Geo I think, but honestly how many of us owned one of those?
Story: Pretty predictable – Earth is invaded by the Aliens and four heroes are summoned to save it. Yes, ONLY four. Never mind the armies around the world or anything. And two of them are… Read More
