Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the discovery of zero. Today we’re going to look at Shatter Special issue 1, a sci-fi adventure published in June 1985 by First Comics, and billed as the “first computerized comic book.” Set on a gritty, futuristic version of earth, Shatter follows the exploits of a freelance security contractor named
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Welcome to the dark, shadowy underbelly of London Gothic,* where mysteries and magic abound. Here, hidden in the shadows, there is a secret battle being fought between an underground organization known as the Tuttori and… erm, the bad guys who worship demons. To be fair, they’re called the brotherhood of Sinistre, but you’d only know that if you read the back
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since bacon. Today, we’re going to take a look at The 3-D Battles of Worldrunner (aka 3-D Worldrunner), a game published by Acclaim for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. Developed by Square before they started making good Final Fantasy games, then bad ones, then good ones
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Surveillance: noun: close observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion We live in a world where constant surveillance has been weaponized by overreaching technocratic dictatorships, projecting the right to privacy as a necessary sacrifice to ensure safety and security from both foreign and domestic threats. Observation devices are purchased at-will, sometimes worn on our wrists as status symbols, and other times installed in our homes
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of everything 80s. Derp. Despite being primarily famous as a 90s console the SEGA Genesis (aka Mega Drive) was actually released in 1989, so the launch games and other early titles can still lay claim to being entertainment artifacts of the 80s. One such launch game is Thunder Force II. I know what
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Independent comic book creator Ryan Drost recently completed a crowdfunding campaign for the second issue of Stealth Hammer, a sci-fi fantasy superhero book starring a spunky teenage heroine. We were fortunate enough to get a chance to discuss his Stealth Hammer campaigns, and his plans for the future of the series. As always, the answers below are represented as closely to “as
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the chicken laid the first egg… or, wait… Today we’re going to look at Chack’ N Pop, an arcade puzzle platformer released by Taito in 1983. A horde of monsters has stolen all of Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man Chack’n’s hearts, so now they don’t love each other, or something
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While we typically use our 80s August event to focus on entertainment produced during the 1980s, there is also room for covering things that are inspired by the era, too. That’s why today, we’re looking at The Mighty Mascots issues 4-6, which is published by Alterna Comics.
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Konichiwa! Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the development of opposable thumbs. Today, we’re going to take a look at Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, an arcade style 2D action game developed by Jaleco and released for the Nintendo Famicom in 1985. Ninja JaJaMaru-kun stars the young hero JaJaMaru who must come to the rescue of Princess Sakura, who has
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since movable type. When I was in elementary school, one of my friends had a computer in his bedroom that we would stay up all night playing around on. He was the only person I knew with a computer, and coming from a household that only gamed
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the chicken laid the first egg… or, wait… Today we’re going to take a look at ATARI Force issue one published by DC Comics in 1984. Written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by José Luis Garcia Lopez, the DC ATARI Force series actually serves as a sequel to five mini comics that
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Konichiwa! Today we’re going to take a look at My Deadly Beloved by Jean-Paul Deshong.* Set in the beginning of Japan’s unification period (approximately 250-500 AD), My Deadly Beloved is a girthy, nearly 200-page, mostly black and white graphic novel. I say “mostly” as there are moments where splashes of color are used for mood or to highlight certain parts
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Welcome back to another Crowdfunding Review here at The Splintering. Today, we’ll be taking a look at Jawbreakers: Grand Bizarre, which contains three separate stories by different creative teams. For those of you not familiar with our review format, we grade a crowdfunding campaign on four distinct categories: Book Content and Quality Communication and Fulfillment Packaging and Shipping Stretch Goals
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the breakup of Pangea! Since the original RoboCop film was released in July 1987, that makes this year an anniversary of sorts. To celebrate, we’re going to pick apart RoboCop for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Published by Data East in 1989, RoboCop is for NES
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Upon first hearing about Avenging Spirit, I immediately thought of an old GameCube game called Geist. Ever play that one? Well, the gist is, you play as a ghost who possesses enemies and then uses their individual abilities to progress. Definitely a similar concept to Avenging Spirit, but after playing through it, I am more reminded of the old SEGA Genesis game, Kid Chameleon.
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Astral Ticket and independent comic book creator Isaac Fox recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for Cremisi issue 2, a sci-fi fantasy adventure book. We were fortunate enough to get a chance to discuss his latest Cremisi campaign, which is available to support here. As always, the answers below are represented as closely to “as written” as possible with only minimal edits. The Splintering:
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Originally published by Hanako Games in 2013, Long Live the Queen has recently been re-released on all next gen platforms.* The game is a visual novel that revolves around a young girl named Elodie who is training to become the next queen of the land. She has forty weeks to prepare because on her 15th birthday she will be coronated.
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It’s 1996, and Nintendo’s Super Mario RPG was released only four months before Super Mario 64. Super Mario RPG on May 13, and Super Mario 64 on September 29. Also in 1996, cows were big mad about something… I don’t remember what. 90’s Nintendo Finance 101: Mario = $ // Mario x 2 = $$ Nintendo was not wrong. Both
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Following up on their recent retro revivals for Ninjawarriors and Wild Arms, developer Tengo Project are back at it trying to breathe new life in a latent Japanese franchise with Pocky & Rocky Reshrined.* Unless you are a seasoned Super NES veteran (or a connoisseur of rare Game Boy Advance curios), it’s very likely that you’ve never played Pocky & Rocky game. Originally developed by
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If you are old enough to vaguely remember your parents panicking over Y2K, then you are old enough to remember a time when the FBI was cool, tossing plastic waste into the trash made it disappear, and being a conspiracy theorist was not only associated with voting for (non-descriptive color and political animal mascot). However, if that does not sound
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My personal Wonder Boy Collection is already complete, as I like to think of myself as one of the Wonder Boy series’ biggest fans. My very first game (outside of the pack-in Hang-On/Safari Hunt) was the original Wonder Boy for the Sega Master System. While my brother picked up Alex Kidd in Miracle World (wise beyond his years), and my
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Konichiwa, bitches. Today we’re going to take a look at Samurai Riot, an co-op, arcade-style brawler developed by Wako Factory and published by Hound Picked Games. Enough setup! Ikso! (いくそ！) Samurai Riot takes place in a time of political unrest. You play as one of two warriors loyal to the master: the Tsurumaru (つるまる) the samurai and Sukane (すかね) the kunoichi (くのいち). Sorry readers,
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The first Jurassic Park game was a huge blockbuster on the Genesis, and SEGA quickly tried to recapture that success. Not content with waiting for a true movie sequel, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition is a “what if” type of story which takes place in an alternate timeline picking up immediately after the events of the first film. Rampage Edition is
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Have you ever played R-Type? That’s what I thought when I first saw Remote Life.* However, other than the fact that it is a horizontal-scrolling shooter with space ships, Remote Life offers up a pretty different experience. It also does quite a lot of things right, but the mechanics don’t quite stick the landing (even in zero gravity). But first, the
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Welcome back to Monochrome May, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things chromatically challenged. Today we’re going to pick away at Fiendish chapter one, a 46-page comic (more if you count chapter 2 preview pages) written and illustrated by Irene A. Strychalski. Set in the cold lands of Northern Europe, Fiendish is a horror/fantasy book strictly intended for a mature audience. The project
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Alleyway was probably just fine for 80s and 90s kids looking for a simple game to play with their new Game Boy. But is it worth a pick up today?
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Welcome back to Monochrome May, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things spectrum impaired. Today we’re going to look at A High School Girl in the Crusades, a 22-page comic that was successfully crowdfunded earlier in 2022. Written by Jon Del Arroz (Deus Vult) and featuring artwork by Dachul Akamoto, A High School Girl in the Crusades is a comedic adventure intended to parody the Isekai
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Welcome back to Monochrome May, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of all things weiß und schwartz. Today we’re going to do another Silent Movie Review, this time looking at one of the early Sherlock Holmes serials. Based on the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man with the Twisted Lip is a silent film directed by Maurice Elvey. It was created in 1921 as the eighth of the Stoll
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I can remember seeing the original Cotton in game magazines back in the early 90’s, and thinking how it looked like a game that I would probably enjoy. My favorite games were typically shooters (shoot ’em ups, in modern terms), and I thought the premise of a witch flying around and shooting on her broom sounded like a fun idea.
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Groken was on my radar for a long time before the campaign launched. Kenneth Rocafort (Superman, The Ultimates, Red Hood and the Outlaws) is no stranger to comics. His prior work with the “Big Two” had given him a fan base that eagerly awaited his independent launch. I was one that was counting down the arrival of January 29, 2021,
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