This week has been a dramatic and upsetting week for the UCHG.

It is not a well known fact but keeping old games and consoles is both fun but extremely dangerous. There are certain consoles that are more dangerous than others and on Thursday night Brad was unfortunate enough to come face to face with the most deadly of consoles.

A Pissed Off Xbox!

This Xbox is particularly pissed off because it has been stored away for many months as the bastard child of the collection. It has already tried to make a break for freedom and has harboured an unimaginable hatred for Brad since he called its controllers fat!

It was late at night when the escaped Xbox chose to strike! Pouncing on Brad’s face it managed to take him down before he could get a shot off. It burst into a violent rage and was only stopped when Steve charged in and kick the shit out of it!

The unprovoked and brutal attack was caught on UCHG CCTV as this chilling still shows.

After Steve had waved cordite under Brads nose, and allowed him to reboot, the extent of the damage became clear. The irate Xbox had struck with such force it had removed a tooth and damaged Brad’s boyish good looks, luckily not forever.

Brad was medevaced to the nearest field hospital where he underwent intense surgery to reconstruct his face and subdue the angry goblin that powers him. It was said that had Brad not been the owner of an extremely manly beard his jaw would have been ripped clean off.

It was touch and go at times but we are glad to announce that the surgery was a success and that Brad has now been fixed and upgraded to version C4.7 alpha.

Back in 2009, the UCHG tackled the classic beat-em-up Streets of Rage. This time, we return to the sequel!

Things to remember when playing Streets of Rage 2:

• slow-punching is the way forward
• signals come in Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and Pimp
• there’s a lot of BEEFCAKE
• fat guys will jack-off behind fences
• look out for Pirate Ninjas

Here at the UCHG we don’t shy away from tough questions and controversy. We prefer to tackle these kinds of things head on and do our best to avoid coming across as sexist, racist, homophobic and sometimes even gingerist. This is why once the question was raised we got Brad straight on it! And so…

Which is better? Home Alone on the SNES or a Basil plant?

Background

Home Alone for the SNES is a game based around the 1990’s film starring Macaulay (name like a sexually transmitted disease) Culkin and Joe Pesci. It was released in 1992 and has you play as Kevin McCallister, or that little blonde twat as I like to call him. The idea of the game is to gather up all of your prized and valuable positions and put them in a safe before the Wet Bandits can get them. This is achieved by simply collecting up the items in your rucksack and dropping them down a chute to the basement. Once all of the items are in the basement you must head down there and avoid the bats, rats and ghosts then defeat the spider king. Oh yes that’s right the spider king, you know, the one from the film!

The Basil is of the culinary herb persuasion and is about 6 weeks old. It is in fact a Sweet Basil plant and lives on the windowsill in the kitchen. Basil is thought to have first been grown around 5,000 years ago and the Romans thought it would only grow if you screamed wild curses whilst sowing the seeds. They also believed if you where to leave a basil leaf under a pot, it would turn into a scorpion! This particular Basil plant requires watering every now and again and has a lovely distinctive smell. The idea is that you pick its leaves and eat them. Or turn them into scorpions.

Game play

The controls in Home Alone are pretty straightforward and make for some smooth game play. You simply have basic movement controls as well as a change weapon button, fire, jump, and crouch. The jump button is probably the most important. It is much easier to just jump over your enemies rather then shoot them with your water pistol. The water pistol is wholly pointless and only makes the bad guys bend over. This leaves you no choice but to jump them. However once you have gathered all the items form the first part of level 1 it does get extremely repetitive! All of the remaining 3 levels, and their bosses, are exactly the same in terms of game play. Yes the backgrounds may change but the relentless and tedious routine of finding items and putting them in the safe continues. There is nothing else to do but make men bend over and put things in a safe. This continues over 4 levels and takes around half an hour to finish the game. It truly has about as much replay value as stepping in dog shit, once you have done it you tend to avoid doing it again.

Basil on the other hand doesn’t really have any controls or game play. It just needs some water every now and again and tends to grow towards the sun. It is however considered to be a great protector in Haiti and some extreme Romans believed that even smelling the leaves would cause scorpions to grow in your brain! It does have tremendous replay value as the tasty, tender leaves grow back and they can be used in a huge amount of various delicious meals.

Graphics

Seeing as it is a SNES game, Home Alone’s graphics were always going to be good. The levels have a nice amount of colour and detail, and the animations are smooth and responsive. The characters have enough definition to be recognisable – although the enemies have more detail then Kevin. The game does fall down slightly with some dodgy pixilated cut scenes between levels and the most hilarious death screen ever! When you lose a life you are presented with an image of a seemingly naked Culkin screaming and holding his face! Why? Who knows… maybe it was one for Michael Jackson?

The Basil has a sumptuous light green color and a fine display of both large and small leaves. It brings a somewhat homely feel to the kitchen and a professional touch to dishes when used as a garnish. What it lacks in animation and effects it makes up for by turning tomatoes and mozzarella into a delightful salad.

Sound

In a word bollocks! The music in this game makes you want to die. Its irritating simple little tune repeats over and over again. The only variation you get is when you enter certain rooms the music does change but you are only in these rooms for mere seconds. The only good sound effect in this game is the noise made by Marv when he falls over some toys! But that is still not good enough to save it. If you can make it past the second level without violently striking the mute button you are a better man than I!

By comparison the Basil is a very quiet plant. It does rustle if the wind picks up but being inside this is very rare. However if you place it next to some speakers loudly playing a Disturbed album it sounds awesome!

Conclusion

If you are looking for a simple but well executed side scroller that you will only play once with no sound, then Home Alone is the game for you. If you want something that will provide you with a tasty ingredient, turn into a scorpion and protect you from evil then you need Basil.

Overall the Basil is far superior to Home Alone. It is far less irritating, it sounds much better and it can be mixed with tomatoes and garlic to make pasta sauce. Home Alone sadly has nothing to offer this world and should be dragged behind a fast-moving car until it is no more.

To sum up let me put it like this.

If a Romanian girl gives you a copy of Home Alone are you engaged? You are if she gives you a sprig of Basil. I rest my case.

Imagine what it would be like if Tony Jaa, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Woo and Keanu Reeves made a first person shooter.

Schwarzenegger would bring the weapons – guns, knives and grenades. Jaa would deliver some face breaking sick martial arts skills and the very real possibility of an elephant. The Woo would make levels like film sets and throw down some slow-motion dual wielding gun fights, and Keanu would roll around on the floor shooting into the air and shouting!

Sadly this epic, hollywood-esque, slow-motion bullet fest is nothing more than a dream. However back in late 2002 a Half Life mod was released. A mod that stood so close to this gamers wet dream of a shooter it could almost have been done for sexual harassment!

This is The Specialists

The Specialists is a first person shooter, multi-player death match that features everything we could ever want! It is intended to play like a generic action film with slow-motion, stunts, bullet dodging and Kung Fu kills galore!

Stunts and slow-mo sit right at the core of The Specialists. You are rewarded more frags for diving, sliding and stuntman kills. There are even throwing knives to add to the carnage and the option to play with Kung Fu only!

The game has a fine selections of levels such as the Lobby from the Matrix, a multi-story car park for epic shoot outs and Dietrich’s pad from Face/Off. The action is fast paced and fluid thanks to the fact that accuracy is not effected hugely by movement and the vast amount windows available for you to throw yourself through.

Power ups in The Specialists come thick and fast respawning very much like Mario Kart. They come in two types and are found all over the maps to be picked by diving into or running over them. There are ones with a single use and ones that last untill you get your face blown off in slow-motion by a diving Gordon Freeman in a long leather coat!

The single use power ups include 3 seconds of slow-motion, slow pause for that added matrix bullet trail madness and rapid fire mode. The more permanent power ups cover super jump and a more powerful Kung Fu for when you just need to kick someones face off!

Although it is based on the old Half Life engine The Specialists is still a truly outstanding mod. Fast paced, easy to play and as over the top hollywood movie as you can make it!

Just remember… There is no spoon

After watching the routine defeat of the English football team at the hands of the evil Germans the question was asked.

Is it even possible that England can beat Germany?

Well there is only one way to find out…

It was decided that England shall play Germany in every football game the UCHG owns on all formats!

The rules were simple.

1) The games must be played in order of old to new

2) The games will be played in order until England win

3) All matches will have 10 minuet halves and be played on medium

4) Rob Green will not be in goal… ever again

First up was good old FIFA 95 on the Sega Mega Drive. After wrestling with only 3 buttons to execute over a million different actions, and the players obsession with overhead kicks, this encounter with Gerry lead to a rather embarrassing 6-0 defeat.

Next up it was International Superstar Soccer 64 or ISS 64 or Incredible Shity Soccer 64. This game features such great commentary as “defender passes to forward” and possibly the worst control setup in the world ever! How do you cross? can you even cross? and why are Germany so good in this? After a 20 minuet battle the score was a nail bitingly close 4-2 to Germany.

With Germany now winning 10-2 on aggregate the task of delivering an England victory fell into the hands of Pro Evolution Soccer 2 on the PS2. It could have been worse it could have fallen into the hands of Rob Green. England rained shots down upon the German goal and pulled out a 1-0 lead before the half time whistle. It was however not enough and the Germans, fueled on half time oranges, stormed out in the second half scoring 3 goals. No mater how hard they tried England could not get Seamen on the ball and the final score was Germany 3 England 2.

Now tired and beaten down Brad and Ross were beginning to wonder if it was possible to beat the Bosh and pull out that much-needed win. Turning to PES 2008 on the PS2 things were starting to look up when Peter Crouch appeared in the line up! At half time England were 3-0 up and had 22 shots over Germany’s 3.

During the second half the barrage of shots continued and England won the game with a mighty 5 goals to 1. The Germans were defeated!

So it would seem that if England ever wants to beat Germany they should just play them at PES 2008 on PS2 it even comes with internet play so they will save money flying abroad to get thier asses kicked.