27 years ago The Thing was released in theaters and while it wasn’t as big as E.T. it soon grew a cult following and made it one of the best Sci-Fi horror films of all time and basically is the grittier of the two alien films. Several years ago after the film celebrated it’s twentieth anniversary a game based on the ‘82 horror fest was released on the PC, Xbox,and Playstation 2. It deals with the military going in and attempting to clean up the mess made by the Norwegian team and the American team. The game does feature the last two characters of the film, Childs and MacReady. And the alien life forms from the film are featured showing what their base form is.(Something John Carpenter didn’t want to show) 
The gameplay is built on a fear and trust system reminiscent of how things were in the film with people refusing to go with you unless you give them a weapon to defend themselves. Also the shooting is part strafing and part Resident Evil style stopping to shoot. The game features guns ranging from pistols to shotguns,grenades,and flame throwers to defeat the Thing beasts.
Now that I have told you guys all this how about you get the game and play it. Here’s a trailer for it.
ckstar released the cult classic Max Payne and what followed was the sequel, “The Fall Of Max Payne” which was criticized for it’s length and the lack of replay value. Next was the inevitable movie starring Mark Wahlberg and that movie failed due to bad directing. And in 2010 Max Payne 3 will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3,and PC. So now I am taking a look back at Max Payne 1. If any of you have ever played Max Payne you will know that he is largely based off of The Punisher since he is a cop who’s family is murdered and is hunting the people who took his family away from him. Also rather than having cutscenes most of the story in the game is presented in the style of graphic novels and even film elements. For instance when you are going through a building you take out a group of drug dealers and as you are killing them from afar it goes to a ceiling cam and it shows the bullets hitting them in slow motion.
In Blast From The Past I play an old game and see if it can stand the test of time. Today I am looking at Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex from Vivendi Universal and Travellers Tales the same guys who do the Lego games. Originally the first two games were done by Naughty Dog the development house behind Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot, and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and soon Uncharted 2. Crash 3 : The Wrath Of Cortex places you in the role of Crash Bandicootthe protagonist of the series and your facing off against Crunch who is the “secret weapon” of Dr.Cortex the main antagonist of the series. This game is alot like Mario 64 since you are collecting items and then facing off against Crunch in the boss battle in every set of levels. This game though fun, is not as deep as Mario or Jak. You can beat it easily in a weekend, one of the things this game is good for is the gameplay. Although the graphics are last-gen they can stand up to games on the PS3 and 360. In some cases they look better than a few 360 games and they look better than most of the Wii titles. Another of the things this game does well are the vehicles you operate/use. You go from using Jeeps, to scooters, you use a submersible, and you even operate a mech. Throughout the game you do things that have been done in other games for example you do some dirt racing, you do some snowboarding, you pilot a space ship and you are in an Asteroids like level, and they throw in a bit of gameplay from Super Monkey Ball. Even though games like Hellboy:Science Of Evil and Jackass The Game rip off successful games badly what Crash 3 does is simply an homage to these games. Overall Crash Bandicoot The Wrath Of Cortex is a fun platformer for the last gen systems. For those who may have missed out on this game you can get it on Xbox Originals for 15 dollars, and you can get it for cheaper if your still buying games for your PS2 or even less likely your GameCube.
