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Sam and.
Welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. Although looking at a comic property might be a bit of a stretch of how we're looking at it today. What could I possibly be talking about? I'm still trying to figure that out myself. And today I've got Billy back here to help me figure out what is going on with Heavy Metal Geomatrix. Billy, how are you today?
I'm doing all right. It's a wonderful day.
It is a wonderful day. As we're recording this, me and you, you are both not at work, which is possibly the best place you can be at a time when you would normally be at work.
It's true.
And the reason why I'm saying that it's maybe a stretch to say we're looking at a comic property is that Heavy Metal Geomatrix is not really based on anything specific in Heavy Metal. It's just like, all right, cool. We're going to take the general vibe and world and everything of Heavy Metal and we're going to base our game on that.
Yeah. And honestly, that makes me feel a lot better about not actually recognizing any of the characters.
Honestly, I think not recognizing any of the characters is half the point of this one. You've taken the art from Heavy Metal and just said, all right, we're going to make up new characters, we're going to make up new everything, and, you know, here's a game. And honestly, I mean, it works like I can see all of these in a Heavy Metal issue. It's imaginary, of course, because they're all made up for the game, but I can still imagine a world where they'd exist.
Yeah, they're all very Dreamcast era video game protagonist.
But let's back up a little bit on all of this. What is your personal history with Heavy Metal?
So, honestly, not much. Buddy of mine in high school was read Heavy Metal mostly as a way to learn a bit about how to draw comics for his own goals of becoming a comics artist. So a lot of my Heavy Metal experience is looking over his shoulder on the bus.
Mine is more or less the same Like I've always kind of known and existed. I've known a few people who would look at it, but it's been kind of random on when I'd actually see it. But I do know that for the most part you're looking at short contained stories. Maybe it's serialized over a few issues, but you don't have a ton of these long running things going in it. Also it has a lot of early Peach Momoko.
I didn't know about the early Peach Momoko, but I would have been very early for any Peach Momoko when I was reading.
Yeah, I think it's later thing, like later issues in there. So I want to say she's younger than me, which also makes me feel like an old man because I'm not nearly as accomplished or anything. But I feel like we need to give a little bit of a history of Heavy metal just as a publication because you've got really a weird thing going on. Started off as a monthly magazine back in 1977 and throughout time it got, the publication frequency was changed up a little bit where eventually it was quarterly when it ended this first run. But it has had some big names of people who were working on it.
Oh yeah, a whole lot of people have gotten there, gotten there. If not start at least gotten their fingers in it.
Kevin Eastman owned it for a while. Grant Morrison and Tim Seeley were editors. Michael Conrad is doing things in the newer one. And like I said, Peach Momoco. I mean that's obviously my favorite person who's ever been in it, but I'm biased there.
Well, and there was like. There have been movies based off of it. There was a TV series for a while. It's been, it's been around.
It's surprising me that there hasn't been another game because you have so many little things in there that you could turn into a game. Especially earlier than what we're looking at right here. Because you didn't have to have as much content for the game. You could have just had like maybe not a 2600 game because you would need something a little more visually appealing there. But you could definitely have a regular Nintendo game or a Genesis game or something.
Yeah, it seems like that'd be, I mean get like a. When did the movie come out? Because you could have, could have when the movie came out, you know, had that tie in that, that first movie. I cannot remember when that came out.
First one would have been 1981.
Okay, that might have been a little early for, for a tie in. I could have sworn it was later.
He could have had a 2600 game at that point though. And it wouldn't have been much worse looking than any other 2600 game.
It wouldn't have been any better looking either.
I'm going to choose to see that as a feature and not a bug. The other movie that they made came out in 2000, so that's a little bit newer than 1981. You've got a huge jump there.
Well, wouldn't have been. That wouldn't have been too much earlier than when this came out.
Yeah, because the arcade version here came out in 2001. And I like how I said it like that because the Dreamcast version also came out in 2001. It was just months and months later.
Well, I was going to say because it wasn't that hard because it's a Naomi game. So that's basically a Dreamcast hardware wise.
Capcom is good for so many things like that because when they're making these, they know that they're going to eventually port them over to a home console. So they make it so that future Capcom people are going to have an easier time actually pulling that kind of thing off.
And the Sega Naomi hardware for the arcades was basically every Capcom game of this era. Which is why the Dreamcast version of Marvel vs Capcom 2 is the one everybody wants.
That's the one I found at the flea market. I love it.
I envy you quite a bit. I don't even have a Dreamcast, which made my prep for this a little bit more difficult than usual.
How interested are you, are you in checking out this new rendition of Heavy Metal magazine?
Honestly, I've been meaning to give it a look. I have not had a lot of time recently which peek behind the curtain. We've been trying to schedule this one for a while, but it's something that I'm curious about. I like anthology books. I would like there to be more anthology books because there's something about having these short stories that are more or less free of continuity that, you know, maybe get serialized between two or three issues or, you know, are just standalone things. It feels like a dying art. And it's also just. They make good snacks when you don't have to, you know, read the entirety of 90s X Men all at once.
Honestly, that's one reason why I am a big sucker for anthologies on Kickstarter. Because especially when you're looking at new artists for things, it's always a little bit of a risk when you're putting something together. And if it's an anthology, then it's just, okay, I don't like this story, move on to the next one. Holy crap. They have 25 covers for this thing.
Is that like one for every story in it?
A lot of them are retailer exclusives, but still, that's a lot.
I wonder how many of those copies my father has.
We could call them up right now and ask. Not really, but I'm interested in knowing.
My dad is a sucker for alternate covers. Not because he likes to collect alternate covers, but because he thinks it's a different issue than the one he's already bought. So he buys things sometimes two or three times because he thinks, oh, I don't remember that cover, I must have missed this issue. And then gets home and is like, ah, crap.
Well, the good thing for him is going to be here that there's only eight regular covers. So unless he happens to run into a store that has one that has that or one of the Kickstarter campaigns that somebody did that has a variant for it, then I think you're going to be relatively safe because we're also looking at a $15 issue here, which seems like a lot for a comic, but then when you realize it's a quarterly magazine, then I mean, that works out well.
And it's a fairly thick boy.
Like there's pages you are definitely getting. I mean, this is like a trade's worth of stuff at least in here as far as how thick it goes. But now that I'm saying that, it's probably closer to two or three trades. Plus it's the magazine size pages, so they're fitting more on there.
Anyway, I have mixed feelings about magazine size pages because they don't fit in my long boxes very well. And I've got a whole bunch of those DC Black Label comics that are just. Where do I put them?
Right on the shelf next to your distillery stuff. Because there's more and more people going with the bigger things.
Now, see, you say distillery and I thought you asked me to put them in my liquor cabinet and they wouldn't go well with that.
I think they would go really well reading while you're drinking things from the liquor cabinet though.
This is just like, you know, Wonder Woman Historia. Glenn Fidditch. Yeah, I could see that.
What would you drink while you're reading Wonder Woman Historia? Definitely something classy.
Probably the Glenfiddich. It's the. It's the best. Best I've got. I don't remember what year it is, but it's the best I've got right now.
Meanwhile, with heavy metal, I think I would go for not a bottom shelf whiskey, but something mid shelf.
I do have a bottle of Kraken rum and that's pretty, pretty metal.
Ooh, that would work really well. I do also want to warn anybody who's planning on getting this pulled for them that future issues presumably are going to be smaller. Maybe because they are saying that this first issue of the new rendition of the magazine is a giant sized issue. That being said, I can't imagine how $15 is ever going to be a bad deal for how much I'd imagine you're getting in there for a quarterly magazine.
I mean, look at it this way. It's basically the price of three comics and it's bigger than three comics, so.
You win no matter what. On that note, we're gonna go blast some really good music that has a connection that you'll pick up on in the second half of the episode. Well, I dropped some promos for a few other things. Ever wonder what happens to those child superheroes after they grow up? Find out in Starlight, a new 186 page graphic novel from Overcast Comic book available on Kickstarter June 6th. Explore the lives of Chris and Sarah Sheridan, formerly known as Mighty Boy and the Melter. Now just two normal teenagers navigating the channel Challenges of high school and beyond. That's StarlightKickstarter.com S-T A R L I T E Kickstarter.com hey, welcome to the.
Last Comic Shop Podcast.
A comic book podcast that actually talks about comics? Yep. Each week we open the shop up and read and discuss a comic. Sometimes we pair that up with comic book movies or TV shows or not. Lots of times it's just comic books and sound effects.
Oh yes, definitely lots of sound effects.
So tune in on all the major.
Podcasting platforms to the Last Comic Shop.
Podcast or check out our library of evergreen shows@www.lastcomicshoppodcast.com. those are some great things to check out. But first let's finish up here. So Billy, we've kind of spilled a little bit of the beans. Heavy Metal Geometrics is a game that came out in the latter part of 2001. As far as home releases, only the Sega Dreamcast made and published and developed and everything by Capcom because they are just amazing and we love them.
They are definitely, definitely in this era, really in their peak.
For anybody who hasn't gotten to see or play any bit of heavy metal Geomatrix, I have explained it to my wife as what if Super Smash Brothers Was a full 3D arena fighter?
People keep comparing it to Power Stone and it doesn't really look like Power Stone to me in practice, but it does look like Virtual On's like, kind of drunk cousin, and I'm in for that.
This one's a little weird to throw comparisons to because I feel like you could compare it either visually or gameplay wise, but I don't know of anything that really fits both. Like Power Stone gameplay wise. Yeah, you have your 3D arena fighter there. But Power Stone is, I hate to say it like this, but it's just way too cute to, I think, be compared to Heavy Metal here.
It's got kind of a different perspective too. Like, it's Power Stone is not nearly so much. You could call Heavy Metal Geomatrix like a third person shooter and be kind of close ish. But Power Stone doesn't have that nearly as much of that gun focused vibe, which is kind of why I went to Virtual on for sort of the dashing around in the air shooting things in a 3D arena and to defend.
My Smash Brothers pick. That was purely because Kaylee knows Smash Brothers well.
Yeah, it's a good. It is a good comparison. It's a bunch of disparate characters thrown together to beat the crap out of each other.
The disparate characters here, I think are. They're really cool. And they're not even one of the best things in the game just because other things are so, so cool. Like, the soundtrack on here is very much. Hey, Chris, if you're gonna just mute the game and play your own music, what are you gonna play?
They definitely went all out for the soundtrack. The characters, honestly, are fine. Like, nobody's jumping out at me as like, mega iconic, but you've got like a dude who looks kind of like the Joker. You've got a guy with like most of a medieval knight's armor on. You've got whatever the hell Mayfly is. She's got a look and she doesn't really look like she fits with the rest of the game, but I guess that's kind of part of the charm of the game. So there's 12 characters that are separated into four teams of three, and each team kind of shares an aesthetic a bit. A bit that's not always true, but they range from basically the prototype for Tracer, from Overwatch to Final Fantasy protagonists, to what I'm pretty sure is just actual Fred Durst wearing metal boots.
And I think maybe the best thing they did here was make completely new characters because I mean, like you said, nobody really stands out in here. I wonder how that would have changed if they had made more games to follow up on this and being able to bring some of these characters back, bring in new ones, anything like that.
Yeah, there's one character dis, I believe, who kind of looks the most like what I think of when I think of Heavy Metal, but also looks very much like an early 2000s video game protagonist. Sort of like if Heavy Metal were to make a early 2000s video game protagonist. But the thing that I like most about the characters is one, they are very well rendered for the time. They look good. They all have very distinctive silhouettes. So you've got a pretty good idea of who you're going up against at any given time. And they all look like it's. It looks like a greatest hits of off brand video game characters from 2001.
I think the worst thing that ever happened for this game was that this is the only one that came out because this could very easily be at least like once a console generation kind of thing. But instead we get nothing.
Yeah, I mean people love virtual on and this is very virtual on adjacent. I heard people comparing it to that spawn in the Demon's Hand game that you had on a while back. So much so that I actually went back and listened to that episode and made a point of skipping my order catching up to listen to that episode to see what people thought of that.
I've seen that in a lot of places and it makes sense to me. You know, you've got your third person thing going on. It's a similar time frame for when it came out. So yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Game wise it's call it a third person shooter, but you're not really being judged on the accuracy of your shooting. You've got a built in lock on that's basically always locked on to somebody. So a lot of your shooting is getting the timing and reading when your opponent's gonna dodge to be able to fire off whatever weird gun or weapon or sword or thing that you have that all have very specific firing patterns. So it's less of like how do you. A lot of the skill of the game comes from. Well, I have this weapon that shoots like this, so I have to make my timing go so that I can get them with the full burst of the gun. Or you know, I've got something that's somewhat homing. So maybe I don't need to worry about that as Much. But also, you know, how do I shoot it around corners correctly or something?
Meanwhile, I'm over here thinking about it as a 1v1 fighter and just, okay, like, eventually my bullets are going to run out and I'll have to throw this gun away. But then I'll just go find another item box and I'll get another one.
Yeah. And then you have to learn how that gun works.
And the best part is, I think both of those ways of looking at it are correct. As long as that's how your brain.
Works, it fits in kind of that virtual on space of this is a fighting game, but it's not really, really a fighting game. You're doing a lot of the fighting game things. You're managing spacing and timing and, you know, all of those things that are going on behind the scenes that, you know, people are actually good at fighting games do. But you've also, like, your character choice doesn't quite matter as much because it mostly determines your movement speed, your hit points and your starting weapon. But you're gonna be swapping weapons through the whole because you're going to run out of ammo, you're going to run out of sword durability or whatever. So you're going to have to be learning and adapting to how every different weapon you find functions. And that's really cool.
It's almost like how Bushido Blade works in that aspect, because your weapon is the most important thing that you've got going on.
Unlike Bushido Blade, you don't just get one shot if somebody hits you in the right place and you probably don't lose limbs. God, I love Bushido Blade.
It's so much fun, so clever.
What if we made a sword fighting game where swords actually do what swords do?
Speaking of swords not doing what swords do, do you know who was the publisher of Heavy Metal while this was getting made?
I do not.
It is somebody who has a connection to swords, but also Stavs and Dunchuks and Psy. Because it's Kevin Eastman.
Oh, this was the Eastman era.
Yep. So Eastman was on here as a creative consultant. You had Simon Baz coming on, doing a lot of the character design and everything. Like, everything in here was touched by people who were actually working on Heavy Metal. So even though they weren't really trying to make sure that they connected with any specific lore aspects of stuff, they still had people who could get just the feeling of Heavy Metal into this game. And I think they did a wonderful job.
Yeah, it's one of those things where, well, that's jumping ahead on your bit, but I don't know that I would recommend it to someone as an intro to Heavy Metal because they can't even do the fighting Game thing of, oh, I like this character. I'm gonna read more about them. But it definitely captures that vibe of here's a whole bunch of stuff, and the only thing tying it together is that it's gonna be awesome.
I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, I was fully prepared to skip all of those questions anyway because they're specifically not looking at anything that is Heavy Metal. And Heavy Metal is just an anthology series anyway. So, like, you can't even really say something is right or wrong because it's right or wrong for this one specific story that you're looking at. But then you look at a different story and it's a different story. So there's a whole nother set of things.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much that.
Like, I would. I think I would give somebody this game if they wanted to get into Heavy Metal, just because it's a good game and there's nothing inherently wrong about it. And, like, if. If they like this, they're going to find a story in the history of Heavy Metal that they like, and if they don't like this, then they're probably doomed. And I don't know why I'm friends with them.
Honestly, watching videos of this game mostly made me want to play Virtual on again, but most things make me to play Virtual on again, so that's not really weird.
We also need to fix your lack of a Dreamcast problem if you find.
One at the flea market.
I don't even have to do that. I can probably find one in my house.
The life of a technology scavenger. Yeah, I think I got one of those lying around.
I'll have to make sure it's an American one and not a Japanese one, but other than that, yeah, no problem.
I'm pretty sure there's not actually any region locking on the Dreamcast. Pretty sure.
No. It's mostly because I only found a couple Japanese ones, and I want to make sure that I have one for me that works, because I just think it's cool having a Japanese one.
That's fair.
I think the biggest question with this one, since we kind of have to skip over the right and wrong and everything else, is if you were going to take some Muppets and put into this game. Which Muppets are you putting in here?
Let's see. Who are the most Heavy Metal Muppets? Well, the Electric Mayhem.
I mean, that tracks perfectly. Plus, it includes Animal, who is, I think, the super obvious choice.
Yeah, I think you go for the Electric Mayhem. And Sweden's Sweedums would be, like, the team's big guy, because each of the four teams have three people. They're like a small, medium, large setup. Swedems would be the team's big guy.
Who would be the medium guy. Because for some reason, I'm imagining Animal is the small one.
Dr. Teeth, maybe.
That's what I was thinking. I think he's crazy enough to do it. Maybe the saxophone player.
Yeah. I feel like every team has a girl on it, though, so maybe we need to get. Oh, God, I've forgotten her name.
Oh, that's right. We would need Janice then.
Yeah. My brain kept saying Janis Joplin and was like, no, that's an actual person, not a Muppet.
But for all I know, it's why she's named Janice. So somebody call me out on that if I'm wrong.
Pretty sure it is why she's named Janus.
I think the short summary is. Okay. Heavy metal. It may or may not have something to do with heavy metal Geomatrix, but it's a fun game anyway, so go play it.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much that.
Also get a Dreamcast, because the Dreamcast piracy protection was. People didn't own CD burners back then.
Yeah, and that worked really well until they did.
Well, Billy, it has been great talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you around the Internet?
They can't, really. I've got some very old articles now on commandercast.com but I kicked that habit, and now I don't really do anything on the Internet except occasionally talk in your ear.
Well, we'll have links to that stuff down in the show notes, because another peek behind the curtain. I copy and paste a lot when it's return guests, and it's easier for me to have those old links in there.
Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I may not be Kevin Eastman, but I'm a decent backup guest.
To be fair, I would have taken you anyway. It would have been, oh, hey, Billy, we're gonna have to have a third person on. Hope you're okay with also having Kevin Eastman.
I would try not to die.
Oh, I would be right there with you. Don't worry.
So much of my childhood is Ninja Turtles. I don't think I'd be able to. I don't think I'd be able to.
Keep it together as Always. If you want to hear more from me, the best way to do that is to head over to playcomics.com where there's links to all the social media things, which is basically blue sky because I'm old and lazy and always go to the same place because I get set in my ways, which is why I order the same thing at restaurants all the time. If you want to be on the show yourself, then there's a link down in the show notes to a list of the things that I'm looking to get booked the soonest. You can also sign up for a newsletter there that comes out, you know, at the most once a month. But you know, pretty much like as I'm needing to get guests. So when things are added to that list, you can see before the general public that things are added to the list and what those things are. You know, just as kind of a thank you for caring enough to want to look into the future and pick something if you want to help support the show. Because making a podcast unfortunately costs money. But you know, you can help offset that a little bit by being like Dan McMahon and oh no Light Class and give the show money, or you can just share it with friends and enemies and family members and random people on the street, all that kind of thing. Don't forget that Play Comics is a part of the Gunageek.com network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of Shield where we are continuing to look at things in the greater Marvel universe. Carrington and I are badging things up for Sugar spite and everything is fine. It's going to be like a loose season thing on that. So we're going to get a few more recorded, get some stuff edited before we put them out, but I think you guys are going to be really excited about that one. And if you like the music that I'm really talking on top of right now, head on over to backing track GG to check out all the great music over there and maybe use some of it for your own project. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics and go find yourself a new favorite character because you've taken some art from the dude's name is running away from me. Sega is good for so many things like the Dreamcast and the Saturn for that matter, are very largely their arcade cabinets. Why did I say it like that? Because it's Capcom. I do not want anything compared to Spawn in the Demon's Hand. I get it, but that game is garbage.
Are you confusing it with one of the other spawns. Like Spawn Eternal.
Yes. Yes, I am. So I'm going to take that whole thing out. It's almost like Bushido Blade. Did I say that right this time?
That is how you pronounce Bushido Blade.