Manifesting a press kit, or how much I love War of the Monsters…

This is the second to last blog of 2024. Thank you all very much for joining me this year. In fact, thank you for inspiring me to have two highly productive years. I cannot guarantee to keep this manic pace into 2025, but I am going to try. If I need to take a break I will let you know. Today I’d like to share a sort of follow-up to my poster series. I have a massive poster that I want to share, but I think the story of how I got it is even better. The poster immediately below is not the one I'm talking about. This double-sided poster is made to look like a classic monster poster on one side, and on the other it looks like the front page of the Global Observer newspaper. This is included with the game itself. How cool is that?!

I am a big fan of the Sony Playstation 2 cult favorite War of the Monsters. In fact on this blog I mentioned that War of the Monsters is one of my favorite games of all time. The game was designed by David Jaffe, and his team at Incognito Entertainment. It was a collection of some of the best game creators ever. They worked on, or released many of the first generation Playstation hits, including Twisted Metal, and Warhawk. On the PS2 they created Twisted Metal Black, Downhill Domination, and a little gem called God of War. Can you imagine how great the world would be if publishers stopped insisting on sequels, and let developers come up with unique experience. But I digress…

I loved the game so much that I collected a copy of the game demo, and even a copy of the Japanese release of the game. I am trying to figure out how to get my hands on a copy of the Korean version of the game. In addition to playing exceptionally well it also celebrated the golden age of the giant monster films circa the 1950's-60's. War of the Monsters captured a moment of American history much better than games with a bigger budget, or even bigger licensed names like King Kong or Godzilla. If you've never played the game here’s part 1 of my deep dive, and part 2 of my deep dive.

I'm such a huge fan of the game that I tracked down everything that I could get my hands on that featured it. Whenever they made the cover of a magazine I would make sure to collect it. I then started searching for items that would have been used in stores. The Playstation 2 games would sometimes have gigantic boxes acting as displays. I got a copy of the War of the Monsters one.

The hardest things to track down were for press releases. One of which was a ViewMaster, you know those red or black toy binoculars that show you a 3D scene? They had one made up of 3D game screens, and it was mentioned in an old 1UP article. I asked the 1UP editors if I could buy their copy, but they had already gifted it to someone else. I searched high, and low but could never get my hands on it. If you are reading this, and happen to have one in your collection you don't want any more please let me know. I can offer you a fair price, but just a reminder I'm raising a family on a teacher's salary. So money is the thing I'm always short on. Just as rare as the ViewMaster was the press kit that Sony sent out with a demo of the game, an extra disk of assets, and a massive poster.

The album-sized press kit looked like a record but with three claw marks scratching through the center of it. It was a recreation of the opening cinematic. We can see some of the monsters peeking through the scratches. When you pull out the sleeve you can see all of the monsters featured in the game. On the back of the insert was information about the game and two discs. One of them had a demo of the game, and the other had screenshots, and graphics for the media to use in their articles. I was so happy to get my hands on this because I’ve always wanted high-quality reproductions of the loading poster art. Unfortunately not every loading poster was in the assets.

The poster in the press kit was HUGE. Also it featured art that was not seen in the game, or in the magazines. Some people were selling the smaller game store versions of the posters for hundreds on eBay, however the one in the press kit was a “two-sheet” in size or about 40-inches by 60-inches. It’s maybe the second or third biggest poster in my collection. My largest poster is an AND 1 ad featuring the work of Kadir Nelson. That poster is six-feet by four-feet. I believe the War of the Monsters press kit landed in my hands thanks to the power of manifestation.

One summer I was walking around the Disneyland Hotel with my kid. We were talking about games we wish we had. I mentioned that I have most of the rare games I want, but I wished I could find a copy of the WOTM press kit. My kid wished that there was a Psychonauts sequel (this was before the game was announced). Without missing a beat we turned the corner and walking right towards us was Tim Schafer, the founder or Double Fine. I said “hey it’s Tim Schafer!” He was surprised that I recognized him. We said hello, I got a picture of my kid talking to him, I wish I could find it so I could share it here. Tim was very nice, we said our goodbyes and he went on his way. A few days later the press kit that I was talking about to my kid turned up on eBay for a ridiculously low price. About a month later the Kickstarter funding started for a new Psychonauts game. Ever since that day we believe in the power of manifestation. Speaking of which, I hope to win the Powerball Lottery in 2025. Anyhow, I hope you had a great 2024. I look forward to sharing stories with you in the new year. Take care, and tell me what you are up to for New Years! As always if you like my blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

My favorite Games of All-Time #11: War of the Monsters - Originally published on 1UP - June 9, 2006

When you reach the top there's no place to go but down. I don't think this rule applies to the best game designers out there, certainly not David Jaffe. The 11th spot is held by the best game ever to come out of Incognito (Incog Inc.). Before a good chunk of the team and David went to Sony Santa Monica. I can say with absolute certainty that I enjoyed this game more than God of War. Not to say that GoW didn't deserve to be in my all-time favorite games but War of the Monsters (WotM) pulls further into the details of a great game concept, into the details of balanced fighters and classic monster movies.

If you look at God of War as part of the Incog. legacy you can see where the game came from. The idea of one man versus the world was spawned in Warhawk. The dramatic characters, filled with tragedy and violent backgrounds were undoubtedly inspired by Sweet Tooth and the cast of Twisted Metal.

The massive levels, great particle effects and smooth animations pulled from what they learned in Downhill Domination, the mountain bike racing game. Kratos' final battle with Ares is one of the best ever designed in any videogame. The heart of GoW's fighting engine and the scale of Ares and Kratos at the final battle can be traced back to Incog Inc's 2003 sleeper-hit War of the Monsters.

War of the Monsters is the best brawler on the Playstation 2.

Think about it for a second.

I rank WotM ahead of Urban Reign and Beat Down. ahead of Iron Phoenix, the Bouncer, the craptacular Marvel Nemesis, Naruto, One Piece, Def Jam and every Mortal Kombat adventure game. You name the brawler on any other system and I would rank WotM above it. Lizard Man would not agree with the ranking over the Smash Bros. games. It wouldn't deter me from doing so.

That is because WotM is greater than the sum of its parts. It meets and exceeds my definition of a great game. The graphics are superb, the animation smooth, the fighting engine is balanced, the enemy AI is ruthless, the character design is brilliant, the plot well developed and the story is universally great. WotM is a concept that is executed better than any game before or since.

I must acknowledge a few of the monster games that came out before WotM. The classic computer game Movie Monsters by Epyx, Midway's Rampage and my previous favorite monster brawlers/wrestling games, King of the Monsters 1 and 2 by SNK.

Aside from being a great brawler, War of the Monsters has a certain charm to it. In part because the entire game, from beginning to end, plays like a series of movies. Instantly the game feels like a lost memory of a drive in theater, a rubber suit (kaiju) flick from Japan or a black and white horror movie that you saw when you were a kid. In fact all of the game menus are set on and around a drive-in theater. Check out the official webpage to get a sense of what I'm talking about.

The characters in the game are an homage to many of the classic movie monsters. For example the giant praying mantis called Preytor is inspired by the giant ants from the movie "Them." The giant dinosaur based on Godzilla is called Togera. The Japanese robot called Ultra-V is inspired by Mazinger-Z/Tranzistor-Z. There are 10 characters in the game with four skins that can be unlocked for each. Some of these skins are supposed to represent a completely new monster, making the total count of playable characters at 40.

With a few visual cues, a few lines of text and plenty of imagination the story unfolds. An alien invasion terrorized the Earth. Scientists invented shield generators to destroy the ufos hovering around the major cities. However the downed ships released radioactive waste which caused mutations in animals, robots and even inanimate objects. These newborn monsters began to battle for supremacy amongst the cities.

Each level is prefaced with a movie poster. Classic pulp images and shock graphics herald the golden age of monster movies from the 50's and 60's.The images and titles of the posters (and even the detail of actors' names) help keep the cinema theme running well into the game. The posters even feature fold lines as if they were pulled from a magazine. The graphics on the posters and the levels they represent as inspiring as the classic movies they were based on.

There is no dialogue in the game. The monsters communicate with a few gestures, and very short in-game cinemas keep the pace moving. Your character becomes the star in a series of monster battles. For anyone that's ever wondered what a Godzilla game would be like if it were ever done right, now is your chance. Plus I cannot emphasize that the devil is in the details.

Each monster is about 100 feet tall. The sense of scale is never lost throughout the game. Each level is populated with details. A secret military base has cyclone fence and guard towers that only come up to your ankle. You can even read the warning sign on the miniature fence. Cities have unique billboards, stores have posters in the windows and office buildings have electronic signs. The nine levels in the game (plus a few bonus levels for other game modes) were designed to help give you a feeling of weight and mass. The trees in a park snap and fall as you walk over them. Tiny pedestrians flee in terror and you can actually step on them and see the blood splatters left in your wake. You can pick up cars or trucks, target opponents and let them fly. You can grab helicopters out of the air, topple skyscrapers... well you get the idea.

Despite the size of the characters, they still manage to move rather quickly through the environment. The game has a very rapid, almost frenzied pace. You really can't take too much time appreciating the details because there is always a monster ready to stab you in the back. Like other brawlers, each monster has their own strengths and weaknesses. There are heavy hitters, quick fighters and all-around brawlers. All of the monsters have the ability to perform devastating combo attacks and even fire off special moves. These special attacks vary. All have a close range and distance special moves. For example Kineticlops, the monster made out of electricity with one giant eye, has a special attack that allows a jolt of electricity to pass through multiple opponents. If timed right this jolt can cross an entire level and take out all of the opponents. These special moves often mean the difference between winning and losing a battle.

Using the environments is a must for victory as well. Every level in the game has a secret or two waiting to be discovered. The hilly Baytown (San Francisco) has lots of places to hide, a monster that does enough damage to the city can actually cause an earthquake to completely change the lay of the level. Atomic Island has a nuclear reactor that can be made to vent and burn opponents to death within a few seconds. The Japanese island of Tsunopolis is susceptible to tidal waves... These hidden level triggers were first introduced in Incog's Twisted Metal.

So what about the bosses in the game? WotM would not work without the use of three of the toughest and most original boss characters in any game. Goliath Prime, a massive robot and boss of the secret military base in Rosdale Canyon. Vegon, a giant three-headed plant monster from Atomic Island that can swallow the other characters in the game whole. Last but not least is Cerebulon, the leader of the alien menace and possibly the toughest boss that Incog has ever created. Each of the bosses evolves during the course of the battle. Like all great videogame battles, strategy must be employed if you want to live long enough to see the next level.

People that are into the art of videogames should track down a copy of the game. I talked a bit about this game with Ryan Braman, the artist that did the cover art of the recent Rampage Total Destruction game as well as the Tips and Tricks magazine featuring Rampage. Those fortunate enough to work in the media got their hands on a press kit styled to look like a tattered movie kit.

This kit not only included a demo of the game, but a media cd with video and images as well as a massive poster. If you are one of the lucky people that got their hands on a copy of the media kit and don't want it any more how about hooking me up?

Not that consumers were short changed. The box art from Japan was just as dramatic as the one in the USA version. In fact the details from the game spilled over into the packaging as well. The instruction manual is written like the fictional newspaper used in the game, the Global Observer. In addition to the booklet there is a fold out poster with a graphic on one side and a full newspaper page on the other. I have not been as impressed with a booklet for a game since. Seriously, aside from Incog and Sony Santa Monica, who else takes the time to recreate as much detail in the manuals?

The only gripe many people have was the length of the game. Even after you unlock all of the 2-player mini games (whose load screens look an awful lot like Colecovision titles) and character skins, the entire experience wraps up too quickly. We are left with a feeling that this game could easily have been twice as long. We only caught a glimpse into the minds of Incog and David Jaffe. For what it's worth I still say the adventure was still worth it.

There were enough details in the game for people like me to obsess over and enough replay value for those that long for a great monster brawler. War of the Monsters is what the recent Rampage should have been. War of the Monsters is what every Godzilla game could have been. But rather than lament the games that could have and should have, we are left with the one game that is. This is the greatest monster brawler ever created, and one of my favorite games of all-time. Believe it!

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Learning how to tell a story from movies, and the studio that sold the Playstation to me

We’ve been going through a bit of personal history in the past couple of blogs. I’m going to keep digging in because these things definitely helped shape what I enjoy in my favorite forms of entertainment, and will tie back into my love of the God of War series. Bear with me please. All through my childhood repeatedly consuming games, comics, and movies made me aware of the types of stories I enjoyed. I learned the techniques that writers used to help shape a story thanks to my English teachers. I copied my favorite artists work hoping that I would pick up how they see the world. I’d rewatch movies on VHS, and later DVD to pick up how sometimes movie studios got things right, and sometimes they missed the point. It was easier to figure out what worked best when creating big budget projects. When movies were at their best it seemed almost easy to make a sequel. There were a lot of amazing sequels that my brothers, and I grew up with. I didn’t always believe in trilogies, and often wished that some stories ended sooner.

There were a few things that I thought made up great sequels. First is that the stakes had to be much higher in the next movie. It couldn’t simply be more of the same thing. Yes there had to be familiar elements, but the challenge had to be cranked up tremendously. From Alien to Aliens for example, Ripley went from surviving a single xenomorph in a horror film type setting to being an action hero against an army of xenomorphs. In Back to the Future II the original villain Biff completely changed history. It was up to Doc, and Marty to restore the timeline. In Terminator 2 the killer T-800 cyborg was sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor from an even more dangerous robot. Terminator 2, Aliens, and Back to the Future II were almost a complete reversals of the original movies. Audiences loved it, and to me the film series could have wrapped up then. My favorite blockbusters created heroes, and villains that I wouldn’t mind seeing for a movie, or two. Ripley, Sarah, or Marty would be fun to follow for a few adventures. However at some point I thought their story should wrap up. There were a few characters that seemed better suited for a series of adventures. People like Indiana Jones, or Rick O’Connell (the Mummy 1999) were the types of heroes that I thought could easily carry a series of films. The sequels could raise the stakes in unique ways, such as Indy being a father figure in the Temple of Doom, or helping his own father recover the literal Holy Grail in The Last Crusade. The video game equivalents of Laura Croft, and Nathan Drake were adventurers that we’d be happy to follow along with as well.

Then there were some films that I thought worked so well that they didn’t need a sequel. I’m forever grateful that E.T. never got a sequel despite calls to do this from the studio. That film wrapped up so well that there was nothing else that needed to be said. The pressure to revisit the property was tremendous, but thankfully Steven Spielberg stuck to his guns. He wanted to focus on original stories. Then there were films that didn’t really need a sequel. The Jaws films for example were nothing more than cash grabs from the studio. The most interesting characters in the original film died after all, those being the shark, and the shark hunter Quint. Even if Police Chief Brody, or ichthyologist Hooper turned up in other movies the plot, and chemistry couldn’t repeat the magic of the original. I applied what movies had taught me to the games I played. Did some games deserve a sequel? Or were they better as one-off experiences? If they did get a sequel then how did they raise the stakes, or completely rewrite the direction of the franchise? The leap from 16-bit pixel games, to the early stage of 32, and 64-bit polygons helped make sequels much stronger. Developers had a chance to expand on the worlds they wanted to create thanks to a bump in storage capacity, audio, and graphic technology.

We were blessed to have the several consoles while growing up. Our parents sacrificed a lot of time, money, and sanity making sure that they could keep their three boys happy. Starting with the Atari 2600, then every few years another console. The NES, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Saturn, GameCube, and Dreamcast to name a few. After the Genesis our parents made sure that my older brother, and I worked (part-time) to pay for our own games, and consoles. My younger brother was able to get out of that rule for a few more releases. None of us ever believed in console bandwagons. We knew that great games were on every platform. Nobody could claim to be the absolute best. We also knew that the best developers made the best games, regardless of hardware. Sony was the newest entry in the console wars, by having Namco bring arcade hits Tekken, and Ridge Racer to the Playstation helped us decide if we’d be spending money on it. Remember that 3D games were still relatively new for home consoles. Seeing polygons with textures, and higher frame rates than we had seen in the past was revolutionary. Although near arcade perfect adaptations helped sell the PS, it was actually original hits by independent studios that made the console matter to us. We started to notice that some studios really spoke to us. As if everything they did was gold. One of those was SingleTrac.

Three of the first games they released for the PS were amazing. Jet Moto, Twisted Metal, and Warhawk. Each of these games was an original idea, something new to the genre, if not carving out a new niche altogether. Jet Moto was a sci-fi racing game, Twisted Metal a vehicle combat game, and Warhawk an air combat game. Many early PS fans would remember WipeOut as Sony’s response to Nintendo’s F-Zero, but that wasn’t the only futuristic racer on the console. Jet Moto was as good, but at the same time a different kind of beast. The flying jet bikes went over land, and sea, allowing it to play like the best parts of Namco’s Ridge Racer, with Nintendo’s WaveRace 64. Warhawk was a futuristic air combat game, with a plane that could both fly, and hover. It found the balance between fighter jet, helicopter combat, and third-person shooter. Twisted Metal was a post-apocalyptic vehicle combat shooter. Of the three it was a breakout hit for the console. The graphics, control, sound, characters, levels, game play, and storyline were brilliant. They were a far departure from the mascot-driven games of the late ‘80s, and early ‘90s. The crazed contestants of the Twisted Metal tournament could never be mistaken for the friendly faces of Mario, Pac-Man, or Sonic. If there was something that SingleTrac understood better than their contemporaries was that audiences was getting older, and looking for more mature themes in their gaming.

Twisted Metal, the most recognizable character Needles Kane, and his Sweet Tooth ice cream truck became synonymous with the console. For a while many fans, including Sony, considered him a mascot for their platform. The studio had a hit, and the sequel was even more amazing. New characters were introduced, the story was fleshed out, and every element of the game became better, and more polished. What happened next was Sony shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how important it was to have a studio capable of cranking out so many memorable first generation titles, and all original so that Sony didn’t have to pay for an IP? You would think that Sony gave SingleTrac a massive budget to continue building hits. What actually happened was the publisher turned around, and gave the property to 989 Studios. 989 released the dismal Twisted Metal 3, and 4. The backlash against the game was almost instant from critics, and gamers. My brothers, and I could tell that the new studio was not at the same caliber of SingleTrac. We were sorely disappointed in what happened. Their version of the franchise was a sluggish, and ultimately forgettable mess. I talked about it extensively on an earlier blog when I compared what Sony did to Twisted Metal, to what SCI did with the Carmageddon game. In the end SingleTrac broke up, but from the ashes an even more amazing studio named Icognito Entertainment was born. Sony went back to the game creator, a guy named David Jaffe, and asked if they could develop a new Twisted Metal for their follow-up console the Playstation 2. David said yes, as long as they would get more creative freedom. Sony agreed, and the rest was history.

Twisted Metal Black was one of the darkest games seen in any generation. At the same time it was also one of the best PS2 games ever released. Jaffe, and the team knew better than most Hollywood studios on how to craft a sequel. They kept their content fresh, even when revisiting familiar themes. They added new faces to the lineup, upped the challenge, but made sure the game was still easy to pick up, and play. You didn’t necessarily have to have played the previous versions to get the most out of it. The studio once again demonstrated that they had the pulse of the audience. More so than just about any other studio in the industry. The Gen-X community that made up a huge portion of the video game market was entering adulthood, and they wanted their games to mature as well. Yes they still wanted a challenge, and they still wanted a diversity of traditional gaming experiences. But they also wanted the serious games to become more serious, or in the case of Twisted Metal, to become more over-the-top with the violence, and carnage. Incognito Entertainment was the second coming of SingleTrac. Every title they developed was completely new, and unique. They didn’t bother with nailing down an IP from any movie, or comic book. They didn’t copy what other studios were doing. The proof of was in their other PS2 games.

War of the Monsters was one of the greatest games for the Playstation 2. It showed off what the hardware was capable of from an animation, graphics, sound, music, and control aspect. It was easily one of my favorite games of all time. It was almost criminal how little buzz it generated from audiences, and critics. Jaffe, and the studio created a giant monster fighting game that played better than most 3D brawlers, and believe me when I say I’ve played almost every brawler that’s ever been released. None were as smooth, as memorable, or as addictive as what Incog Ent. had delivered. You might think a game without licensed giant monsters wouldn’t be any good, but by the lineup was inspired by a mixed theme of creatures from the golden age of monster films. We’re talking gigantic baddies from the ’50s, through the ‘70s. The studio was able to deliver archetypes from the US, the UK, and Japan. Yet somehow they all managed to work well together. It’s one of the few games that I sorely wish had gotten a sequel. It wasn’t the only critically underrated game that Incog developed.

Downhill Domination was an arcade style mountain bike racing game. From a visual standpoint it was one of the best-looking PS2 games ever released. Players took riders down several mountain stages scattered all around the world. Incog got a chance to show off all the tricks they had been learning with the hardware. Every stage had a mix of different elements, terrain, and even weather. This included snow, gravel, dirt, grass, rocks, and even lava. Tracks were set along ski courses, they had waterfalls, and rivers running through them. You'd have to watch out for hikers, and wildlife scaling the mountain. There were tons of lines to find, and hidden paths down the courses. There was nothing as amazing as racing side-by-side with another maniac while trying to survive a lightning storm sparking a forest fire in your path. As if racing down a mountain wasn't challenging enough the computer opponents could kick, and punch you. You could return the favor, and earn upgrades like sticks, and bottles of water to throw at them. In order to earn better weapons, and sponsorship money you could perform freestyle tricks while racing. The enormous leaps you had down precarious cliffs gave you several seconds to perform all sorts of freestlye moves. Incognito had approached the racing genre with the same sort of creative freedom that went into JetMoto. The best way I could explain the brilliance of Downhill Domination would be to say it took the racing combat of Road Rash, the BMX freestlye tricks of Matt Hoffman Pro BMX, and the fun characters, and massive stages of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. It didn't do these things okay, in many ways it did these things better than the aformentioned games.

I was in awe of how wonderful each game the company developed turned out. The diversity, and game play they created over the years should never be understated. When I heard the studio was absorbed by Sony I was heartbroken. That meant I'd more than likely never see another War of the Monsters, Dowhnill Jam, or any other original idea. It would probably all be licensed IP, or sequels to other hits. I wouldn't mind the team creating another Twisted Metal, but that was up to the publisher now. I had little faith in Sony. Thankfully they proved me wrong with what they were working on. David Jaffe, and many of the team members he had worked with in the past were cooking up something new. It would be an action fantasy game the likes of which had never been seen before. The game was called God of War. I was not ready for it. We'll talk more about it in the next blog. Did you ever play any of the SingleTrac, or Ingonito Entertainment games? Did you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!