Yes! Metal Slug 4! (In order to halfway understand that page you’ll need to stick a Babel Fish in your ear to translate it from Korean to English).

Even though SNK is dead (as of last week, in fact) they handed their Metal Slug property off to a Korean company to make the fourth installment – on original MVS hardware, no less. I just hope that this makes it to the States in a more popular console format. They released Metal Slug X on the PSX a few months back, so why not? Man, I need to pick that one up.

I’d sit here and explain what the whole deal with Metal Slug is, but you’d be better off heading to the nearest bowling alley, pizza parlor, or wherever you can find a Neo Geo cabinet and check it out for yourself.

Or, failing that, get your MAME on:

Metal Slug (1996)

Metal Slug 2 (1998)

Metal Slug X (1999)

The first game was done by a company called Nazca, the second and third ones were done by SNK themselves (X being an expanded version of 2). Metal Slug 3 was released in 2000 and is available in arcades as well as the home Neo Geo formats. It has been dumped but not unencrypted yet. It will be incorporated into MAME in 2002 since MAME ethics require a game to be two years old first.

Metal Slug 4 was apparently announced Thursday, so perhaps its March date will be unaffected by the SNK closing (which was announced right before Halloween.

Anywho, go, go go!

Years ago when I was a child I remember watching Siskel & Ebert. They were reviewing some movie whose goal in life was to be “so bad it was good” but utterly failed at it. They kept referring to something called “Rocky Horror” as what the movie was going for but that “Rocky Horror” had done it better. I of course figured that they were referring to the movie Rocky and were screwing up the name.

A few years after that I remember hearing some hubub about a movie finally being released to VHS. It was called The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I put it together that that was the movie S&E were talking about. I still had no idea what it was but I guessed it was a horror movie and a pretty good one – it would have to be to carry a $79.99 price tag.

At some point RHPS started appearing on television – at first on premium cable channels like HBO and then later on on channels like MTV. I still didn’t know what it was exactly other than it was a bad horror flick. This is about the point I started hearing about the “culture” of RHPS – the late night screenings, the dressing up in women’s underwear, the fact that it was a musical. I knew it was the most successful cult movie (a movie that’s a mainstream failure but is an underground hit) of all time but I still didn’t get why. The topper was that it was a movie where people yelled back at the screen, ala MST3K, but they yelled the same things every time. My brain refused to process this last bit.

Flash forward to 1997. I’ve been dating this gorgeous woman named Wendy for a few months now and we decide to take a man named Stephen Lair (who is in my Corps outfit at the time) on his offer to do a double date with him and his girlfriend to go see a showing of RHPS at The Grove (small outdoor amitheatre on the A&M campus), as put on by the local Sci Fi organization. We go and suffice it to say we had a interesting time. Interesting in a fucked up sort of way. Ironically before we went I had never actually seen RHPS and afterwards I still hadn’t seen RHPS.

Trying to describe RHPS is hard – it defies description. Picture every bad Sci-Fi Ed Wood type of B-rated film you’ve ever seen in your life. Put them together – the horror flicks, the sci-fi flicks, the innocent high school sweethearts. Now mix in some sex and depravity. And just to make sure your point isn’t missed, make it a musical. Got that?

I’ve for some time now been fascinated by RHPS in the same way I’m fascinated by Shakespeare – I’m not so much interested in the content as I am the culture of it all. That the freaks of the world unite to participate in this bizarre ritual. Even more so, the fact that the careers of Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry survived. And of course, being the techie junkie nerd I am, I’m fasinated by the path it took to get onto home formats.

The video with the $80 price tag I spotted was the 1990 VHS release. The movie was filmed and released in 1975, so it was the 15th anniversary of the movie. RHPS was the movie version of a play called The Rocky Horror Show (notice the pun in the movie title) and in with sub-$1 million pricetag, in its efforts to send up cheaply made bad movies it would up being a cheaply made bad movie itself. The movie sported rental pricing – most of the VHS tapes on the shelves of video stores do. While Blockbuster buys lots and lots of movies, they wind up paying through the nose for them. The argument is that the studios lose money on titles people want to rent but not buy so they sell the tapes to rental places at huge prices to “cover the difference” – with any luck this goes away with DVD. RHPS was so popular, some stores figured, it could fetch the $80 on shelves. I guess it did.

A few years later it was released again on VHS and Laserdisc. However, this raised some eyebrows. When RHPS was released in 1975 stereo sound wasn’t prevalent in theaters, so it was shot in monaural (mono) sound. The soundtrack album was released in stereo. However, Fox was concerned that the owners of Laserdisc players wouldn’t be happy with mono sound, so they remixed the movie to be in stereo with surround sound. However this posed a problem because the movie was a musical – the original master tapes would have to be unearthed (apparently they can do a lot with the sound track of a film as is). This was possible but expensive, so they went the next best route – just use the soundtrack album for the music.

The problem with this approach was, as it turns out, the soundtrack album was constructed from entirely different takes of the songs, so the words didn’t match up. Also, the stereo effects on the album didn’t match the spatialness of the movie – Janet sings on the right side of the screen when her sound comes out of the left channel, etc. The bottom line, though, was that it upset the purists – they wanted the movie the same way it was in theaters, not “butchered” like it was. I can only imagine what it would be like if they had tried to apply a Star Wars like CGI treatment to this film.

1995 saw the 20th anniversary of the film, so it got released on Laserdisc, this time in widescreen with tons of extras. It also had the two deleted scenes, one of which was never in the film, the other which was cut from the original showings, since it was deemed “too dreary” for audiences (though it got left in the UK versions). However, the movie was still using the bothed stereo mix, as did subsequent VHS and Laserdisc releases. It did have a mono mix, but it was just the incorrect stereo mix composed in both channels.

Last year Fox started soliciting suggestions for what people wanted on the DVD version. Immediately petitions to fix the sounds started. Although the rumblings were that it was still too expensive to do a real stereo track and that the original mono soundtrack was lost. However, this proved to be false, not only did the DVD have the original mono soundtrack, it also had a brand new stereo mix using the music from the album but the vocals from the original movie. RHPS fans were happy, to say the least. This DVD also had a commentary track from the producer of the movie and an actress, as well as a track featuring the audience yelling back at the screen.

So it’s been a year now with a proper RHPS release on a home format – a feat which only took 25 years. And why do I mention this? Simple – it’s Halloween, it seemed appropriate. Happy Halloween. 🙂

Well I finally got my Bleem discs in the mail. For the skinny on the contents (just short of using them to run games, of course) check my little review dealie.

CNN.com – Justices refuse to revive Indianapolis arcade law – October 29, 2001

I see what the law was supposed to achieve and I can’t say I completely disagree with it, but I do disagree with the notion of making it a law. Laws aren’t the answer to everything.

I can’t figure out how Michael Jackson spent $30 million on this album. Then again I can’t figure out how John Romero spent $30 million making Daikatana.

Picture this – you’re a horror writer. You write about all kinds of crap, the end of the world, a cemetery that revives pets (and people) and killer clowns in sewers. And cars. You keep writing about cars with demonic souls that run people over. Then one night you’re out walking and you go off the side of the road to avoid an oncoming car and *BAM* it hits you. While you’re in shock near death are you thinking – maybe I shouldn’t have pissed off the cars?

Well if you’re Stephen King you turn right back around and write about people getting hit by cars. It didn’t hit me until I finished Dreamcatcher that one of the main characters gets hit and nearly killed by a car. In fact died and got revived. His next book, From A Buick 8 is about – you guessed it – a killer car (caged in a barn, no less). Oh well, I guess it’s better than burying your demons.

Hopefully my Bleemcast discs will roll into the mail today – not that it means much – I don’t have the games yet.

Oh, and I acquired the new Michael Jackson album Invincible, though I haven’t listened to it. I have something of a morbid curiosity as to what it will sound like and what a $30 million dollar album sounds like. I’d almost like MJ to make a “real” comeback, since his last comeback, 1996’s HIStory was more of an angry “I didn’t touch no kids” rant than a comeback. Note to MJ: quit being pretentious. Talk to people. Be on TRL. Do a Behind the Music. Let people Interview you who are not named Oprah or Sawyer. Come up with some good joke comebacks to child molester jokes. Don’t show up in public looking like a freak and put on some dark makeup.

Well not only did I get my confirmation email that my Bleem discs are in the mail, but I am now the new moderator of DCEmulation.com’s Bleemcast forum. I am so cool.

And apparently I AM 40% GEEK.

I probably work in computers, or a history

deptartment at a college. I never really

fit in with the “normal” crowd. But I have

friends, and this is a good thing.

Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com!

If you’re a DVD nut without much money, October is hell. It winds up being the perfect point – it’s far enough from the summer to release the summer blockbusters (The Mummy Returns), and it’s in a prime location to get initial sales flurries (and possibly shortages) out of the way before November – Christmas shopping season. Plus, it’s the month for Halloween, so all the good horror flicks come out (like the annual release of two old Friday the 13th films – up to six now).

The main thing is, of course, the release of all the high profile titles that before now had not been on the format. DVD is in a nice little spot where the vast majority of the movies ever made have not graced the format for the simple reason that no one has gotten to them yet. The title gets re-released on DVD but if the producers are smart they don’t settle on some VHS rehash, they give it the bells and whistles 2-disc treatment. Not only do you get to go and rediscover old titles, but you get to play with all the new crap and the pristine transfer a good DVD can deliver.

So Disney delivers the first of its ten reserved Platinum Titles collection, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Need to get that. Coopola releases a five disc Godfather collection (the second movie takes up two discs, the bonus disc is the fifth one). Might get that. And at the top of the heap is the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I really wanted this one badly.

However, money is tight (as always), so I’m limited as to what I can afford. Thankfully, my mother in law bought it for me before she even really knew I wanted it – she’s cool like that.

Of course there are those who say I’m foolish for wanting/getting it on DVD. After all, I already have the VHS version of Episode I. The widescreen version, so I got hosed into buying a $30 box with useless crap in it in addition to the video. I wasn’t like my friend Jon who was holding out for the DVD version – I was convinced there wasn’t going to be one.

In addition, there’s the fact that even the people out there like myself who liked Episode I will concede it’s the least favorite of the Star Wars films. However, it’s still a Star Wars anything on DVD, and that’s cool enough to merit a purchase. I believe Episode I will be a much better film once Episode II (Attack of the Clones) and Episode III are released.

George Lucas treats Star Wars like his personal baby – I figure I would too if I were him. DVD did not hit North America until 1997. In 1999 when Episode I was released, Lucas indicated that the original three Star Wars films (Episodes IV–VI) would not come out until the prequels were finished, no DVD until Episode III – 2006 or so. In fact, no Star Wars on DVD until 2006. The reason was that Lucas wanted to do something special for the discs (read: lots of cool special features) and all his resources were tied up until Episode III was finished.

Of course this set off some of the consipracy theorists. They figured Lucas had already planned to come out with a DVD release and hose the consumers a second time (ironically, this is what wound up happening). Some said that he’s staggering the releases of Star Wars related items to keep people’s interest, and the separate VHS and DVD releases were part of that. Some theorized that since Lucasfilm bought into the original incarnation of Divx that they were so miffed once that deal went under that he was keeping Star Wars under wraps out of spite. Still others theorized that Lucas was holding out for whatever the DVD successor was.

Some theorized that Lucas got screwed in the Laserdisc deal. Star Wars movies have been released on Laserdisc, at one point a 9-disc set with each movie on four sides (with a third disc per movie for special features). However since Laserdisc never had much of an installed base, the amount of money it took to make the set divided by potential consumers made for an expensive ($250) set. In 1999 there were fewer than four million DVD players out there, so there wasn’t much point to it (as opposed to the 80 million VHS players in North America alone). However, as of September there are over 21 million DVD players in the U.S., so the acceptance rate dwarves other formats, like CD or VHS four years in.

In late 1999 Lucasfilm announced that Episode I would be available in April 2000 on VHS only. A Laserdisc version was released in Japan only. In the Asian “Tiger Countries”, where VHS and DVD are shunned for some reason in favor of VideoCD, a VCD was released – I almost imported one of these for the neato factor (the original trilogy is on VCD legit there as well).

Websites The Digital Bits and DVDFile put together a petition to gain signatures for putting Star Wars on DVD. Thousands of signatures were collected, but there was basically silence from the Lucas camp on the issue. They did, however, release a re-issue of the classic trilogy on VHS with the new logo theme (the roman numeral behind the “Star Wars” logo) and some blurb about Episode II.

However just after everyone gave up a California radio station spotted George Lucas walking in public somewhere and they started ribbing him about needing to finish Episode II, put Star Wars on DVD and stop shopping. Imagine their surprise when Lucas called in to the show. He was laughing about what they said and just mentioned that he was in town to drop by on the studio producing the Episode I DVD to see how it was going.

So ever since then we’ve known that in fact Phantom Menace has been headed to DVD. The plan now is to release Attack of the Clones and Episode III on DVD as soon as possible after the VHS (maybe even the same time as the VHS) and to follow that up with the original trilogy.

In the first week of its release Episode I sold 2.2 million copies, meaning that over 10% of the DVD player owners out there bought it within a week. And how is it? Well it kicks ass. I haven’t listened to the commentary track or fooled with all the extras, but it’s a pretty kickass production, and it almost even makes the movie seem better as a result of all the stuff they put into this one. Overall worth the wait – I just hope 2006’s release can keep up.

So I’m reading this Stephen King novel Dreamcatcher and the majority of it takes place in a man’s head when he’s “at” three different places and I’m thinking this is so fucked up they could never make a movie about it. Well, looks like I’m wrong.

And if you’re interested in knowing how it must have felt to play Dungeon (aka Zork I–III) on an old mainframe system (complete with FORTRAN compile info), check this rather interesting 404 Error Page.