E3 2002: John's Livin' in the 80's PS2 Picks Special @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on May 30, 2002

Special: Can a remake of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker be far behind?

I am a child of the 80s. Odds are, most of the people reading this are also children of the 80s. The rise of the home video game console is basically our claim to fame. The greatest thing to come out of Russia in the 80s was not the end of Communism. No, it was Tetris. And now like all great fads, the 80s are coming back. Call something retro and the world will buy it. Of course since these are video games, they'll be polygon pushing three dimensional behemoths. So with that, let's watch as E3 takes us back to the future...

1982: Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick
Sam Raimi's cult classic has spawned two sequels, posters, shirts, action figures, about 30 different DVD versions, and a video game (Evil Dead: Hail to the King). Now the good folks at THQ are reading from the Necronomicon Ex Mortis again. Our groovy hero Ash has traveled to the town of Dearborn and finds it overrun by Deadites. So what's an ass kicker like Ash to do? Why gas up the chainsaw and load up the shotgun of course. This is my boomstick!

A Fistful of Boomstick is being developed by those sadists behind State of Emergency: VIS. And on first glance A Fistful of Boomstick looks a lot like a zombie soaked version of SoE. Word from the show floor though says it plays a lot more like the recently released Hunter: The Reckoning for the Xbox. Either way, a game that promises up to 50 Deadites on the screen at one time and features the great Bruce Campbell lending his voice to Ash is a game that I want to play.

A Fistful of Boomstick is still very early and its tentative release date is early in 2003. Hail to the king baby!

1984: Terminator: Dawn of Fate
Is there really a better scenario for a game than James Cameron's 1984 classic The Terminator? A murderous robot is sent back in time to destroy the hero of the resistance from ever being born. "He'll find her. That's what he does. That's all he does!" screams Kyle Reese, hero of The Terminator and the upcoming Terminator: Dawn of Fate. Dawn of Fate chronicles the few days before Reese is sent back in time to protect Sara Connor, the mother of John Connor, and mankind's last hope.

Infogrames kept the lid on Dawn of Fate mostly, just releasing a few new screens and basically showing us stuff we've already seen. But what we have here looks sweet. The game will tell the story of what happened before the first Terminator movie. You Kyle Reese must work your way across the scorched Earth to SkyNet headquarters. Along the way you'll be helped by two new heroes: Katherine Luna and Luther Perry. Dawn of Fate is shaping up to be a pure action game as you run rampant over the Terminators, Hunter-Killers, and other bad bad robots.

The groundwork for the entire Terminator saga is being laid down by Paradigm Entertainment (now forever linked to their game Pilotwings).This new version of the future history has got me just drooling for the June 26 release. I'll be back with more.

1988: Contra: Shattered Soldier
The last Contra game, to put it mildly, was not good. After four long years though it appears that Konami has seen the light. They have taken the reins of the franchise away from Appaloosa and given them back to an internal team. They have realized that fans of Contra don't want a 3D update. That's right, Contra: Shattered Solider is a 2D only affair. And then they rejoiced!

From the early screens this appears to be vintage Contra. The aliens look really cool. A hulking lava boss stares you down as you pump shot after shot into his gut. Other shots show giant flame throwers trying to turn our Contra hero extra crispy. And the perhaps the best shot of all, the mutant mosquitoes from part III have returned. Let's put another skeeter on the barbie.

Basically I'm just foaming at the month at the prospect of a fully 2D Contra on a next-gen system. It's almost too good to be true. Konami has also said that they are bringing back 2 player simultaneous play. So that's just one more fantastic thing Contra: Shattered Soldier has going for it. About the only attempt at modern technology Konami has planned for this game is the inclusion of several 2 1/2D sections in the game. Think the boss fights of Klonoa 2 where you circled the boss in quasi-3D to shoot it. If they work like that I'll be more than happy.

Konami is keeping extremely tight lipped on the rest of Contra: Shattered Soldier. Aliens, robots, "a lot" of levels, 2 player play, that's about all they're saying right now. It's scheduled for a November release date and you can be guaranteed I'll have more on Contra between now and then.

1989: Simpsons Skateboarding
Starting at the tail end of the 80s, The Simpsons is the longest running prime time cartoon in history and one of my all time favorite shows. As it's well known in the gaming world, good Simpsons games are few and far between. After mostly failing with their Crazy Taxi inspired Simpsons: Road Rage, EA has now turned their attention to Simpsonizing Tony Hawk. Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa, Nelson, Krusty, Otto, Professor Frink, and a slew of hidden characters are taking to the streets of Springfield. All of Springfield has become a skate park including Springfield Elementary, the Nuclear Plant, the Kwik-E-Mart, and Sir Putts-a-Lot Golf (which hasn't been seen on the show in roughly eight years).

The Simpsons Tony Hawk it up as the entire town has become skateable. Benches, curbs, the lights on a police cruiser. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they turn the Nuclear Plant into one big halfpipe. The first screenshots look pretty good, but word on the floor was not kind to Code Monkey's latest effort. The word is that right now the framerate is so slow it hurts and that the backgrounds look like, well, in the immortal words of Krusty: "I could pull a better cartoon out of my a.... Hey hey kids!" Of course this is still an early build and there's plenty of time between now and the Summer to iron everything out.

Word To Your Mother
So our 80s odyssey has come to a close. It's time to hop back in that Delorean and return to the more normal early 2000s (I still don't know what to call this decade). These four games are certainly putting some good old school hope on the horizon and gives me plenty to want in the coming months. We'll have more on all these games in the coming months.