Father K Returns...

Well first of all let me apologise for my lack of posts recently, both the Teutonic Wunderkind Of The Saturn and The Portugese God Of Gaming (that's elend and Nebacha to you and I) have put me to shame!

But there has been some Saturn related activity in Krishnaland and I'll report on it right now...

Firstly, for the princely sum of £1 brand new, I managed to grab Virtua Fighter PC. This in fact a PC port of Virtua Fighter Remix, and is pretty much what you get on the Saturn, but you have to play it with a keyboard (I don't have any kind of joystick for my PC as I don't game on it.) Playing on a keyboard is crap! Unlike the PC port of House Of The Dead 2 (which I got for a quid) and even Sega Rally (which I got for a quid) this doesn't translate very well to the PC.

Still I've sneaked it into the I school work in, so I can slip in a bit of Virtua Fighter on the quiet when I'm bored of educating young minds... I've also got Sonic R (which I got for... you guessed it, a quid!) and they're all part of the "Grab It!" series of PC releases which can be found in the bargain bins of Supermarkets in the UK... Go Sega! They really know how to whore out their back catalogue... Sorry, I meant to say bring their finer videogames to a wider audience. Ahem!

Secondly, I've been playing Umbrella Chronicles on the Wii. Of course this gives a (light gun on the rails revisit) to the original Spencer Mansion we first saw on our lovely Saturns! To see that spooky abode rendered in 21st Century graphical splendour, and to get a lot of revelations about the backstory surrounding it's characters and the Umbrella Corporation has been fantastic. I've all but finished the game unlocking every secret and collectable, but I can't beat the damn final boss! GRRR!!!

During my 'downtime' between levels on Umbrella Chronicles, I've re-played the Saturn original, cleverly squeezed into a tiny DS cartridge, as Resident Evil DS. Using the original graphics, opening and closing video sequences and cheesey dialogue, this is a much more accesable way of playing the first RE incarnation. Plus there's a lot of nice DS features in Rebirth Mode. Using the stylus to hack and slash zombies solve puzzles, rub Jill's chest and even throw darts is a pleasure to treasure! Blowing into the mic to snuff out candles, give CPR to an injured colleague and even blow back vomit into zombies faces is rather gratifying!

Now I know what you're thinking, and yes, I have once played this before, but that was on a secret 'easy mode'. This time I played it on 'normal mode' as Jill and managed to complete the game in an unimpressive nine hours fifty one minutes. This allowed me to unlock the secret 'Masters Of Knifing' mimigame and Jill's skimpy outfit! Hurrah!



Finally, for a mere £3 sterling, I've managed to secure the rather lovely "Formula Karts Special Edition" for the Saturn. A Sega produced game, this takes the magic of hurtling around a race track on a turbo charged go-kart and manages to recreate the feeling rather well!
Very arcadey and an absolute joy to play, I'm waiting for a willing opponent to test out the 2 player option, and I need to try it out with my Saturn steering wheel!



I'll let the good folks at Sega tell you all about it...

"High speed go-karting comes to the Saturn with 8 tracks from around the world. Formula Karts features arcade, championship and time attack modes as well as great driver AI, realistic animation and fast, furious karting action!"
Sounds good? More on this later...


So there you go, that's yer lot! I'm off to sunny Cyprus for a week! Take care my Saturn chums, I'll see you soon!