Originally released on the SEGA Saturn and PC in 1996 then the following year on the Playstation, Lobotomy Software’s Exhumed was a non-linear FPS set in Ancient Egypt, in the city of Karnak, during the late 20th century.
The plot is pretty straight forward as in the city has been seized by unknown forces, with a special crack team of hardened soldiers sent to the valley of Karnak to uncover the source of this trouble. However, on the journey there our heroes helicopter is shot down and he barely escapes. Taking on the role of our downed Special Forces member you are then sent in to the valley to save Karnak and the World from this ‘unstoppable evil’. Well, unstoppable if you’re not armed with some high powered weaponry. Soon you find yourself battling hordes of evil creatures including mummies, Anubis, scorpions and all kinds of Egyptian demonology related fiends and spirits. The player's course of action is directed by the spirit of King Ramses, whose mummy was exhumed from its tomb by these same evil creatures.
Clichéd, granted, but it’s in the gameplay that Exhumed really shined. Set somewhere between Doom and Duke Nukem, Exhumed was bright, bold and wonderfully rendered with some fantastic real time, dynamic lighting and SFX. Weapons felt meaty, (particularly the M-60 machine gun), and the chance to play with magical weapons such as the Cobra Staff, (where you unleash homing snake missiles), was a joy.
Throughout, the gameplay follows a standard first-person shooter formula; familiar elements from the genre, such as collecting keys to open doors in a level, are present. As the game progresses the player character picks up a number of artifacts which give him new abilities. Such abilities include being able to jump higher, levitate, breathe underwater, walk in lava, walk through force fields and jump further to reach previously inaccessible areas of the maps. In a similar fashion, there are a number of key symbols (Power, Time, War and Earth) that can open sealed doors in previously visited areas.
In the console versions, each map is connected together by a world-overview map connected by a central hub similar to Super Mario World thus allowing the player to return to any previous unlocked areas in levels already explored once certain artifacts have been found or by switches activated elsewhere in the game.
Exhumed is very hard to come by these days, but if you are lucky enough to stumble across a copy on either the Saturn, or more likely, the Playstation I strongly suggest you snap it up. You won’t regret it.
Note: In the vid, the person playing it isn't looking up, down and around. However, like in Duke Nukem you are able to look in any direction and aren't on a fixed camera like in iD softwares' original Doom.
...or perhaps it should be renamed Mortal Komback because this looks ace if not a little twisted.
I doubt it will be as polished as Street Fighter IV, (Mortal Kombat never was to be fair), but as far as the series goes this looks the best yet and if, like me, you've a soft spot for the franchise then surely this will be a must have.
Daigo Umehara (梅原 大吾 Umehara Daigo, born 19 May 1981), is a renowned Japanese arcade fighting video game player. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the west and "Umehara" or "Ume" in Japan.
Daigo is most famous for the dramatic comeback video clips on YouTube, his most famous being the Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike competition at Evolution 2004 held in the USA. Daigo made a dramatic comeback against Justin Wong's Chun-Li. In the final round of match 1, Daigo's Ken was down to his last pixel of vitality. At this point, any special attack would knock Daigo's character out if connected, since special attacks deal chip damage even when blocked. In an attempt to win the round, Wong attempted to hit Daigo's Ken with Chun-Li's multihit Super Art move "Hou Yoku Sen" (鳳翼扇). However, instead of avoiding it, Daigo chose to "Parry," a technique whereby an incoming attack is blocked without the player losing any health, but by doing so requires moving toward opponent's direction in the same time a hit lands. After the move was launched, not only were all fifteen hits Parried, but Daigo also managed to get into a good position to unleash his own Super Art Move thus knocking Chun-Li out instead. This moment was recorded and later spread on the Internet, gaining immense popularity and is now considered one of the greatest video game moments of all time.
Here's the clip: (watch the crowd, in the bottom left hand corner, go insane)
If you know anything about Street Fighter you'll know just how awesome the display of skill on show here is.
Tabloid admits it didn't check accuracy of story, pays damages to Rockstar:
The Daily Star has apologised for its recent claims that Rockstar was working on GTA: Rothbury.
The tabloid admitted it didn't even bother checking whether or not the game was real, and didn't contact Rockstar - but apologises for contacting a grieving family member for comment.
Biting further into its slice of humble pie, the paper even apologised for not questioning why a "a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event".
In addition to the apology, the Daily Star has paid damages to Rockstar, which will be donated to charity.
The original story ran earlier this week, 'revealing' the cover art for a Grand Theft Auto game based on the recent Rothbury shootings, with the journalist who penned the piece later defending himself on Facebook.
Here is the Daily Star's statement in full:
"On 21 July we published an article claiming that the video games company Rockstar Games were planning to release a version of their popular Grand Theft Auto video games series titled 'Grand Theft Auto Rothbury'.
We also published what we claimed would be the cover of this game, solicited comments from a family member impacted by the recent tragedy and criticised Rockstar Games for their alleged plans.
We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.
It is now accepted that there were never any plans by Rockstar Games to publish such a game and that the story was false. We apologise for publishing the story using a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member.
We unreservedly apologise to Rockstar Games and we have undertaken not to repeat the claims again. We have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity."
Unless MCV is hugely mistaken British tabloid, The Daily Star, is actually claiming that a Raoul Moat game is in the works.
In what could possibly be the most outrageous piece of video games reporting in a national UK paper, The Daily Star has today expressed its “fury” at news that a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto is in production.
Apparently “gaming websites” (though obviously not the ones we read) have shown the cover of “a version of the XBox hit Grand Theft Auto”, supposedly called GTA Rothbury, that’s based on the recent Northumberland shootings that dominated the news earlier this month.
“It is sick – it’s blood money,” the sister of Moat’s ex-partner Samantha Stobbart told the paper. “The game is beyond belief.”
MCV’s guess? Someone somewhere in a dark corner of the internet mocked up the cover (pictured). Somehow this came to the attention of a sorely uneducated non-gamer at The Daily Star. The rest, minus any fact checking or common sense, is history.
MCV has contacted The Daily Star for comment.
UPDATE: It seems that The Daily Star has removed the story. A moment of sense, presumably. We're still awaiting comment.
Click on the screen grab below then magnify for much hilarity.
In the west where ultra realistic graphics, engaging storylines and guns and explosions are considered the quintessential ingredients for success in the vast majority of today’s video games its no surprise that many a game that doesn’t sport these features often receive a lukewarm reception at retail level or is snubbed by the masses altogether. Enter stage right BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger; a two dimensional beat ‘em up brought to us by the talented Japanese team of developers behind the Guilty Gear series, Arc System Works. The fact alone that BlazBlue is a 2D video game will have many a hardened Modern Warfare fan reeling in disgust and while the it may have garnered some success amongst hardcore fighting fans and seen favourable reviews across the board both here and in Japan, it never really struck a cord outside of its native homeland.
Like so many games before it that have succumbed to the sheer marketing might of ‘the next big thing’, its shame that the game wasn't as well received as perhaps it should have been because for those who were willing to put down their virtual AK47 and step outside the box and try something a little different were rewarded with perhaps one of the most visually stunning and technically brilliant 2D beat ‘em ups ever produced.
From the intricately detailed, pseudo-3D fighting arenas, the lavishly designed selection of fighters, right down to the spectacular visual effects there is absolutely no doubt that BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a beautiful game to behold. Character animations are slick and fluid, backgrounds throb and pulsate with a life of their own and should you manage to pull out of the bag your chosen fighters ‘Distortion’ finishing move the screen explodes in a brilliant flash of colour and sound. Combined with a solid fighting mechanic, all these elements wonderfully capture all the hallmarks associated with Japanese Anime to deliver a fighting game of sheer excellence.
As with many games in the genre, BlazBlue’s combat is a simple case of randomly pressing buttons to unleash a combination of light, medium and heavy attacks as well as a handful of super combos and on easier settings adopting a button mashing approach will see you through the most part of the various modes on offer. However, crank up the difficulty level and-like many 2D beat ‘em ups-you’ll soon discover that to achieve results and get the best out of the game will require you to dig just that little deeper and discover all the nuances that separate BlazBlue from many of it’s peers. Like Capcom’s and SNK-Playmore’s fighting games, Arc Systems Works’ title has an incredible amount of hidden depth and character to the combat and should you take the fight online its having an intricate understanding of these characteristics, (from barrier breaks, counter strikes, distortion drives etc), that will see you win the day-or at least stop you from getting repeatedly battered by other players.
Along with large range of attacks every character has two types of block. One is the regular block that can be broken with a "Guard Crush" that can be achieved by pushing the "Guard Libra" gauge all the way to the opponent's side through repeated attacks. If the opponent keeps blocking, then their guard can be broken, leaving them open for attack. The second type of block is a barrier block, which is initiated by blocking while holding the "A" and "B" buttons at the same time. A barrier block cannot be broken like a normal guard, but there is a limit on how long one can be held, which is indicated by the barrier gauge. If the barrier gauge empties, then the player will receive 150% damage until it regenerates to half-full. The heat gauge, (found at the bottom of the screen), can be filled by either dealing or receiving damage. When at a certain percentage, special moves called "Distortion Drives" can be performed. When a distortion drive is successfully performed and connects with the opponent it deals massive amounts of damage to spectacular visual effect.
While many of these features can be found in most 2D fighting games the more you play BlazBlue the more of its hidden depth and how to combine all these techniques will come to light and in time you’ll be experimenting with a myriad of different ways to defeat your opponents; whether online or offline.
Additional to the arcade, survival, training and online modes the console versions has an exclusive “Story Mode”. Sadly, while not terrible as the excellent combat does hold it together, this is the games weakest element. The tale is of little interest and even for an Anime it’s very convoluted and of little sense. The main body of the tale is presented in a selection of [albeit beautifully drawn] uneventful stills with reams of text that you have to repeat several times in order to 100% complete each of the ten available characters personal stories. To add to frustration, on losing a bout of combat instead of just hitting a continue button to resume your progress one is forced back to the main story selection screen where you then have to re-load the story and forward skip each scene until the moment of combat. How Arc System Works got this element of the game so wrong when everything else is so right is anyone’s guess. The only bonus to be had from completing each story mode is the sheer amount of un-lockable goodies to be had which consists of original art work, animations, music and other additional content.
Thankfully though the online mode is near flawless with each round of combat having little to no lag; in a genre that demands pixel perfect timing to work best it’s quite the achievement. Arc System Works can proudly put their fighter alongside the likes of Street Fighter IV and the ‘few’ others that have accomplished the once impossible task of delivering an online beat ‘em up that actually works. Whether or not you’ll be a success online though is clearly down to you and how much time you’re willing to put into learning all the intricacies of this furious fighting game.
Story mode aside, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a truly fantastic beat ‘em up and living proof that not every game has to involve guns, grenades and the threat of terrorist attack to be entertaining. 2D fighters aren’t a new concept in video games, but they are a genre that has endured through the years by being straight forward, good, solid fun and if you can find the time to pull yourself away from the browns and greys of the next big shooter on the horizon it’s well worth a look. Or you could wait until its sequel arrives later this year… BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.
Throughout, the gameplay follows a standard first-person shooter formula; familiar elements from the genre, such as collecting keys to open doors in a level, are present. As the game progresses the player character picks up a number of artifacts which give him new abilities. Such abilities include being able to jump higher, levitate, breathe underwater, walk in lava, walk through force fields and jump further to reach previously inaccessible areas of the maps. In a similar fashion, there are a number of key symbols (Power, Time, War and Earth) that can open sealed doors in previously visited areas. 
