Blam! Machinehead

The machinehead virus is nano-technology gone wrong, a man-made viral strain with the capacity to reproduce at a rate that would put a Catholic rabbit to shame and which has eradicated almost all human life on the planet within 48 hours. Hearty congratulations for this are due entirely to the efforts of one man, an extremely stupid former employee at the nano-technology factory (a sort of futuristic Homer Simpson) who has been taken over by the virus himself and now exists as the Machinehead core, bringing into being his every twisted thought.

Doctor Kimberley Stride, top scientist and therefore habitual white coat-wearer, is working in a sealed underground bunker on a self-guiding machine which will transport a nuclear warhead into the heart of the Machinehead and destroy it. Her plan is to introduce elements of her own intelligence to guide it. Unfortunately, her perverted assistant, Orville The Geek McArdle, has other ideas. Before she can say, Don't touch that until you've washed your semen-encrusted hands, he cracks her over the head and straps her bodily into the machine instead. Getting into Stride Doctor Stride has a kind of disinterested but charming southern States delivery that reminds you of Sissy Spacek in Badlands.

She also has

enormous breasts which are only barely contained by her clothes. They look like two Volkswagen Beetles trying to park side by side under a bin-liner. Apparently, someone once made a computer game with a female with small breasts in it. but the families of all the developers were wiped out in a freak accident and it's now considered bad luck. Anyway, you are Doctor Stride. And since you're now wearing some kind of pvc bra and hold-up stockings combination, it means Orville must have dressed you while you were unconscious. Orville has a copy of a magazine on his desk. It makes you feel unclean, doesn't it?

The game

What we have here is a first-person viewed shoot 'em up which started life as a PlayStation game. Unfortunately, even with an svga mode, the texture mapping on the backgrounds looks pixelly and garish. The explosions are cool, though - stuff flies everywhere, flames flare up and die down, and the whole thing moves smoothly apart from the odd pause. Despite the gaudy backgrounds, I quite like it. The background music is a selection of pretty good techno-y sort of stuff, the sound effects are good, and it's challenging enough, even on the easiest setting, to keep you playing for a while. There are one or two annoying things - the manual's crap, going for design over helpfulness (even some of the command keystrokes are incorrect); considering you're supposed to be in a hovering machine, it's really annoying that you can't get over two-foot high objects; and your craft can get a bit out of control at times. Generally, though, it's not bad. The problem is, there's a lot of first-person viewed action on the pc already, and it's certainly not up there with the biggies. But it's still an enjoyable blast - certainly better than the likes of Krazy Ivan, or Core's other psx conversion. Shellshock.