The eighth volume in the Sega Ages 2500 series is V.R. Virtua Racing. For those unfamiliar with the series, the Sega Ages line is a collection of classic Sega games (Space Harrier, Golden Axe, etc.) that the company has reintroduced to 20th century gamers by improving graphics and tweaking gameplay, usually for the worse.

Without harping on the issue once again, I’ll only briefly rehash the flaw I have with all the games in the Sega Ages series, and that is the fact that these games have little to no target audience. These are old games with “newer” graphics. The gameplay on most of these games is so simple it would bore even the youngest games of today. And likewise, fans of the classic versions most likely have emulators or even classic gaming consoles to play the originals on.

V.R. Virtua Racing was the first arcade game made completely of polygons. Your car, the track, the trees (lovely green pyramids), and even the people were completely constructed of single colored building blocks (there was no cell shading back then). One of the game’s gimmicks was the ability to choose between four different viewpoints on the fly (cockpit, chase, 3/4 arial and overhead).

Despite being 10 years its junior, gameplay is basically the same as Pole Position. Race around a track. In arcade mode, you get to keep going until you don’t make a checkpoint. In Grand Prix mode, you’ve got to win a race to continue to the next track.

Those who love the intricacy of racing games such as Gran Turismo will be disappointed to find your controls in Virtua Racing limited to gas and brake. For a little added excitement you can pick a manual gearbox, but be warned; shifting buttons (L1/R1) are precariously close to view shifting buttons (L2/R2). I made it half a race because I was dizzy and nauseous, and quickly switched back to automatic.

Indy 500 for the Atari 500 had a game select mode where you could race on ice. Apparently someone at Sega loved the idea so much that they built the entire engine for Virtua Racing around it. Drivers should prepare for turns at least a week in advance, as cars are continually slipping and sliding their way around corners. The way cars handle throughout the game are as funny as they are frustrating, handling more like hovercraft than indy cars. Even slightly touching a patch of grass will instantly drop your speed in half — at least it’s easier to steer on. Touching grass isn’t as detrimental as touching another car. Tap bumpers with another racer and your cars will stop dead in their tracks and spin around in circles. Like the afore-mentioned Pole Position, there is no leeway here when it comes to tapping another’s bumper.

Apparently the programmers spent so much time getting their “gray ice” driving engine to work that they only had time to squeeze in two sound effects: screech one, and screech two. Screech one is played in every turn, screech two appears when you hit grass. Swing a corner wide and you’ll be treated to both of them. Screech one is more like a bad parrot than a sound effect, really. It repeats over, and over, and over, on every single corner. There might have been some other sound effects, but it’s been an hour since I played the game and that’s all I can remember.

The Playstation 2 is quite capable of handling a polygon-based non-shaded game, so why is there pop-up? Like a bad adult website, there are pop-ups everywhere in Virtua Racing. On every corner you will get to watch the grandstands draw themselves one section at a time. Everything else runs pretty quickly and very smoothly, so I’m not sure why the programmers weren’t able to fix the pop-up issues. Hell, they even managed to make the map spin wildly as you race around the track. Your map always has you facing “up”, so on every corner the map whips wildly as you attempt to slide your way to victory. Other than the frame rate, Virtua Racing doesn’t even look as good as many PSX/N64 titles.

Before I click “save” on a review I always like to scan the web for any other reviews to see if I was on target or not. IGN says that if you’re only going to own one game from the Sega Ages 2500 series, this is the one to get. I’d counter that by saying if this is the only game from the Sega Ages 2500 series I could get, I’d pass. Once again, Sega has picked a game that originally had a selling point that no one cares about anymore. A polygon racing game in 1992 might have been big news then, but it was old news by 1994 and not impressive in 2004. Kids these days want games like GT4 and Midnight Racing, games with cars that look real and handle realisticly, not wedge-shaped trianglemobiles with octogon wheels driving around on a gray slip-n’-slide.

If you’re ready for a night of nostalgia and frustration, by all Sega Ages 2500 Volume 8 – Virtua Racing is for you.

In August of 2001, IGN ran a preview of a new, yet-to-be-released Dreamcast game. The title of the game was Propeller Arena, and the game allowed players to fly planes and dogfight in various locations.

In September of 2001, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, crashing them both to the ground and killing thousands of people.

The game Propeller Arena was quietly shelved. Despite being finished, it was never comercially released. Other than by a few lucky insiders and privledged game reviewers, the game was never seen again.

Until this month.

Apparently, one of the original, internal copies of Propeller Arena was sold to a private individual for a whopping $1,500. That copy quickly made its way into the hands of some talented Dreamcast hackers. From what I’ve read, the original plan involved selling copies of the game to recoup the group’s original $1,500 investment. Of course, if you know anything about how the internet works you know what happened next. Before the so-called “investors” got their discs, copies of Propeller Arena hit file sharing programs everywhere. What just a month ago was an extremely rare and sought after game for the Dreamcast became candy for the taking.

Which brings us to my review of Propeller Arena.

Propeller Arena is an arcade-style flying game where one or more players dog fight one another in WWII-style propeller powered planes. Controls are extremely simple to pick up and master. L and R control your plane’s speed. One button shoots while another uses special weapons. Other than fancy, special maneuvers which can be pulled off using stick/button combinations, that’s pretty much it.

Up to four players can dogfight one another in split screen mode. While cruising above towns and famous landmarks, pilots can scoop up power ups which hover in the air — that is, if you have the time. Most of my personal flight time involved shooting others and avoiding (or at least attemping to avoid) being shot.

The third landscape players can choose is called “Tower City”, and yes, the landscape closely resembles a pre-9/11 New York skyline. No, you can’t bring down the towers in the game. Honestly, there’s not much in this game that reminds me of 9/11. You’re flying WWII planes, and your goal is to shoot other planes, not buildings. If the thought of flying over NYC was so bothering, I don’t see why they didn’t just yank the offending level. Again, the focus of the game is dog-fighting other planes. The landscape over which these take place is rather moot.

It’s a shame Sega never released Propeller Arena. I know I for one would have gladly payed for it. The graphics are top notch, rivaling the PS2′s in my opinion. The game also contains some great sound, from a pop-punk soundtrack to constant one liners from both your and other pilots.

If you can find a copy of Propeller Arena, I highly suggest snagging it. It’s a great opportunity to see a great game that almost was.

The biggest problem with NFL Blitz: Pro’s isn’t its graphics, sound, or even gameplay. It’s with the game’s identity itself.

The original line of NFL Blitz games were all about being extreme — so extreme, in fact, that they inspired the short-lived Xtreme Football League. Players on fire, smashing each other into oblivion. Games were short, fast, and wild.

NFL Blitz: Pro has changed its face this time around. The first thing veterans of the series will notice is that each team has eleven men on the field instead of seven, and first downs are every ten yards, not twenty. Sure, the over-the-top bashes and smashes are still there, but with toned-down graphics and gameplay, NFL Blitz is starting to look a lot like all the “other” NFL games.

And that’s too bad, really. Electronic Arts and Sega both make really good football games, and there’s really no need for yet another clone. That’s not to say NFL Blitz: Pro is a straight-up football sim, but is certainly a step closer in that direction from past efforts.

NFL Blitz: Pro manages to keep one foot in the arcade field with features like unlockable characters, stats, and moves, but even with all of those features it still feels like it’s lost it’s “extreme” personality.

IGN gave NFL Blitz: Pro 8/10, but then again IGN runs ads for this game on their website and we don’t. Fans of sims should stick with EA or Sega football. Fans of NFL Blitz should stick with 2002 or 2003. If you always thought, “damn, this Blitz game would be better if there were more men on the field,” then by all means give it a rent and check it out.

Dudes like monster trucks. Dudes like video games. Dudes like rock and roll. Put the three together correctly and you’re guaranteed a winning combination. Monster 4×4 – Masters of Metal combines those ingredients and dishes out thin but fun racing title. If lots of dirt, huge jumps and car crushing sounds like fun, welcome home.

There are three kinds of races in MoM. First up are the legally sponsored arena races, where players race head-to-head against another monster truck, doing laps around a dirt track packed with lots of bumps and jumps. There are also in town races, not unlike Smuggler’s Run. These races will send and five other trucks racing all over town, battling to be the first to reach checkpoints. There are also trick competitions, where players will have to grab huge air and crush the most cars to advance through the ranks.

Gamers used to hundreds of options will hate MoM — controls consist of gas, break, and nitro in later levels. There’s one camera angle, a 3rd person chase view which works well most of the time. During some of the dirt tracks it gets a little tough to see from all the dust being kicked up, and it gets a little hard to see your truck if someone is knocking on your back bumper — still, it’s no worse than any other 3rd person view out there.

With so little options, players should have the controls down by the end of the first race. The first thing you will learn is that the brakes seem to turn whatever turf you’re on into ice instantly. Anything more than a gentle tap will send you sailing off the track. Fortunately the trucks lose speed rapidly just by letting off the gas, so there’s no reason to ride the brakes.

I found the graphics to be pretty good. I saw no major jaggies and the framerate kept up despite the terrain. The graphics of the drivers themselves are kind of cheesy, but that just adds to the whole redneck motif. Alongside the graphics are the sounds. The soundtrack consists of nonstop generic metal riffs which reminded me of the old Destruction Derby audio tracks. The truck sound effects are good, but the in game announcer is a little goofy (which didn’t make or break the game for me personally).

Like all games, there are a few annoying quirks you’ll have to get used to. For example, while your truck can smash trucks, buildings, hot dog carts and everything else, trees are immortal. Even the smallest tree will stop your truck dead in its tracks. Another odd thing is how your truck takes damage — or how it fixes itself, rather. While bumping a car out of my way I managed to knock off my front wheel. Seconds later, another wheel popped on. Another time I misjudged a jump and somehow severed the rear axle off my truck. Moments later a new one popped on — I even won the race!

Monster 4×4 – Masters of Metal isn’t Gran Turismo, but then again it doesn’t pretend to be anything its not. I think this game caters directly to its target audience. If you like racing games where you can pick up a controller and win the first few races right off the bat (and smash a few cars in the process), give MoM a shot.

Gundams. Mechs. Shogun Warriors. Transformer lookin’ dudes. Big fuckin’ robots. No matter what you call them, there will always be a group of nerds out there who want to control them. Well, rejoice, nerds! In G-Saviour for the PS2, you get to do just that.

After sitting through a ten minute long intro (I actually went and crapped while it was going, came back, and it was still going), you finally get to choose your robot. Of course, from what I could tell you only get to choose from one, so that’s really not choosing. After that, the game loads for a while, because you know, the game didn’t know which robot you were going to choose. Once the game finally loads up, it’s shoot-em-up city.

If I could find the name and address for whoever designed the controls for this game, I would gladly send them a picture of my cramped thumb. To fly the G-Saviour, you need to HOLD DOWN L3 and also STEER WITH THE LEFT ANALOG STICK. Yeah. So the entire time you’re flying around, you’re pushing down with your left thumb and steering with it at the same time. In only a minute or two my opposable digit began quivering with pain.What’s worse is, you can only fly for about fifteen seconds before having to recharge your hover power. It reminds me of those mini RC cars everyone got a couple of years ago for Christmas that ran for minutes before needing recharging. Except the difference is, these are big-ass military robots. Those wacky Japanese.

Even though you end up flying most of the time, you’ll find that there are some things you can’t fly over, like … oh, the tops of hills. Seriously. Someone built a big fuckin’ robot that can’t fly over a hill? This thing has more weapons of mass destruction strapped to it than all of Iraq, and yet you can’t fly over a molehill? Even more frustrating is that at any given time you can really only control two axis. When you’re flying, you can strafe and move forward and backwards, but you can’t really “turn”. Likewise, when you’re walking, you can walk forwards and backwards, and turn on a time, but no longer strafe. You can use L2 to kind of “hop” in a general direction but it’s hard to do. When I ordered my robot I wanted a Toyota but it looks like I got a Hyundai. This is especially nice when people are shooting at you, and when you want to evade their shots you just end up pivoting and getting shot in the back of the head. This robot ain’t got nothing on Johnny 5.

Killing targets is pretty simple because the entire targeting mechanism is automatic. Get near anything and it’ll highlight in your targeting system. Then just press R2 and you’ll blast it to bits. If you’re flying, evading incoming fire is pretty easy. If you’re walking you’ll get hit every time. It’s like you robot’s saying, “don’t worry boss, I’ll take this one on the shoulder.” So he does, again and again, and I have to let him while I give my left thumb a rest from holding down L3.

Several of the buttons launch small, short range laser blasts. When you get bored, start hitting O, which launches a Death Blossom style attack on everything around you — which usually isn’t much, enemies are fairly few and far between in this game. But go ahead and hit it because it’s great to watch. Your robot will just start flying around shooting everything in site. There are explosions, missles, fire … it’s like Beavis and Butthead’s dream.

Your cheap ass robot is also equipped with a fancy radar system that appears to have come out of a box of Japanese breakfast cereal. I’m serious, I’ll bet better toys have come out of boxes of Cap’n Crunch. The radar system will show you enemies after you have had a visual on them for five to ten seconds. Yeah. Your line of sight has twice as much distance as your radar. So, the radar is for … ?

While destroying the enemy’s stronghold, gamers are treated to a snazzy little Japanacheezey piano tune I like to call, “Casio #3.” The song is not very long and is very repeditive, so pretty soon you will be wishing the targeting system could be turned toward your PS2 itself or at least the volume knob. The menu songs sound like every song I ever heard in any DDR game.

I beat the first mission and then turned G-Saviour off. There was an option to save my game at that point but I couldn’t really imagine anyone who had played the game before wanting to play it again. Save yourself the trouble; go down to the nearest thrift store and pick up an old used Transformer toy instead. It’ll be twice as fun and half the frustration. And, it’ll be able to go over hills.

Four years after 1985′s Gauntlet stormed arcades, Sega introduced their own “Dungeons and Dragons” themed game. Golden Axe, a simple side-scrolling fighting game, became an instant classic with kids everywhere. 14 years after the original was released, incarnations of Golden Axe are still finding their way to home systems — this time it’s to the PS2, in the form of one of the new Sega Ages 2500 releases. For those not in the know, Sega Ages 2500 are a series of classic games being remade by Sega. Currently the Sega Ages 2500 series of games (including Phantasy Star and Space Harrier) are available only in Japan, meaning you’ll have to own either a Japanese or modified Playstation 2 to enjoy this series. While Sega’s reworking of Golden Axe features all new graphics and sound, the gameplay is undeniably the same.

As with the original, players can choose one of three characters, dubbed by me as “guy with sword wearing blue”, “chick with sword wearing red”, and “dwarf with axe wearing green”. Like Gauntlet, each character has slightly different strengths and weaknesses, but all basically act the same.

Controls are a throwback to the original as well, with one convenient new addition. The original game offered three buttons to players: attack, jump, and magic. Additionally, players could perform a “jump and attack” by hitting jump then attack, as well as a “shoulder smash” by double tapping the joystick in a direction. Like Double Dragon, there was also a “rear attack”, accomplished by hitting both buttons at the exact same time. In the arcade, this was pretty effective, but it’s never translated well to home game pads. While playing the original Golden Axe on the Dreamcast (in Sega Smash Pack), it never failed — while waiting for a baddie to come up behind me, I would prepare to press both buttons, and then WHAMMO! My character would jump facing the wrong direction and begin attacking air, as some evil-doer wasted no time in questioning my somewhat odd behavior while simultaneously attacking me in the back. Sega Ages 2500′s Golden Axe fixes this age old problem by assigning another button to the “rear attack”. Mo’ buttons, less problems.

As previously stated, gameplay is identical to the original. Those of you who have played Golden Axe before (um, everybody?) will be able to jump right in and begin button mashing. Even when trying to be verbose, it’s tough to come up with more than a sentence or two to describe gameplay. “Keep moving to the right, and, uh, kill everybody.” My seven-year-old nephew gaming buddy understood them just fine, as we hacked and slashed our way through several levels.

The biggest difference between this version and the original are the graphics. In a world where 2D games just don’t seem to sell any longer, the sprites in Sega Ages 2500 version of Golden Axe have received a facelift. Not a big one, mind you — each of the old characters are still recognizable, but everybody looks “thicker”. It’s not as blatant as when Homer Simpson turned 3D; while the characters may now look three dimensional, you’re still playing in a 2D world.

Sega Ages 2500: Golden Axe has brought a game from the 80′s into the 21st century by updating the graphics engine but leaving the gameplay alone. I don’t know how well younger gamers will take to this game, but then again, I don’t think it was made for them either. Kids who have grown up on Quake and the like will probably find this new version of Golden Axe boring and repetitive. Those of us who grew up pumping quarters into the original arcade machine as well as spending hours playing Golden Axe on Sega consoles will appreciate the bone Sega is throwing to us old timers. Sega Ages 2500 Volume V: Golden Axe is a great way to kill a rainy Saturday without having to sweat (or think) too hard.

The first Fire Prowrestling game I ever played was on the Super Nintendo. Despite all the graphic improvements made over the years, this old, 2D wrestling series is still one of my favorites. Fire Prowrestling games have appeared on several different platforms over the years, and have finally made their way to the PS2.

Unfortunately, what it hasn’t done is made its way the US market yet, and probably won’t. If you want to check out Fire Prowrestling Z, you’re going to have to wade through a lot of mostly Japanese menus. A lot. Fire Prowrestling Z is one of the most configurable games ever. Pretty much every type of match and option is available in this game somewhere, hidden in a Japanese menu.

Although the game contains no actual licenses, you will see a lot of wrestlers that oddly enough look VERY SIMILAR to other wrestlers or shoot fighters you might know or remember. And when I say there are a lot of wrestlers, I mean there are a lot of wrestlers. Like, several hundred to begin with, and even more unlockable. It will take you five or ten minutes the first time through to look at all the leagues and available warriors.

Once in the ring, my match quickly turned into an encyclopedia of every wrestling move known to man, performed on my little green-masked wrestler. There were body slams. There were pile drivers. There were leg locks. There was the abdominal stretch. There were leaps off the rope. I think he might have even shot me once or twice, I’m not sure.

Each wrestler has three attacks which correspond with three different buttons (handy, eh?). In that respect, it feels more like a Neo Geo fighter than most US wrestling games. The grappling system is involves walking into your opponent, and then pressing a button/direction combo. I lost every single grapple my first two games.

After getting my ass kicked I decided what I needed was a new wrestler. So, I headed back to the main menu and went into the create-a-wrestler mode. It was a little hard to get through with all the Japanese text, but I ended up with a guy who looked a lot like the Missing Link and I headed back into battle with him. I got my ass kicked using him too, but at least I felt like I looked good while I was handed my beating.

Fire Prowrestling Z hasn’t evolved much in the graphics and sound department over the past few years. Despite being a simple looking, two dimensional wrestling game, it’s still fun as hell. If you take the time to get over the language hurdle, there are enough options, modes and wrestlers here to keep you busy for a long, long time. Let’s hope Fire Prowrestling Z finds its way to the US market eventually.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the PS2 blurs the line between television and gaming more than any game I’ve ever played.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You may have read the comic books, watched the cartoons, seen the movies, even played the NES, SNES, and arcade games, but I can guarantee you, you’ve never seen anything like this.

Assuming that everyone already either knows (or doesn’t care about) the back-story, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) begins with a completely television-quality cartoon of the turtles fighting random adversaries. After the introduction and theme song are over, you get to choose which of the four turtles you will play. If you are willing to admit to a friend that you play kiddie cartoon-based video games, they can join you in some 2-player mission action. Don’t tell your secret to too many friends though; there’s no four-player mode to be found.

Once you’ve picked your turtle(s), it’s on to the story. In the first level, you’ll find yourself back in familiar territory — home sewer home. The enemies on the first level are little mechanical chompers. While they don’t pose much of a threat, fighting them is a great way to learn the controls. Each turtle has three hand-to-hand attacks: a fast attack, a hard attack, and an uppercut. The uppercut can also be used on fallen enemies, which is handy when you’ve just knocked down five or six opponents and want to inflict some additional damage. In addition to that, you can also jump, throw shruiken, and dodge attacks with a turbo-like maneuver. The shruiken aren’t as handy as they sound. While they’re overly simple to use (aiming is automatic), it takes four or five of them to kill an opponent, and you only get ten of them. Most of your enemies will be dealt with knuckle-to-knuckle.

Levels follow the cartoon series pretty closely; none of the missions take place on the moon or anything. No, as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, your battlefield is the city. Game levels take you through sewers, streets, buildings, rooftops, and beyond. Throughout these levels, you’ll meet a multitude of enemies. From mechanical chompers to gang members to other ninjas to … worse. Don’t expect any fair fighting from these guys either. Usually they travel in packs of four or five. Fortunately you’re equipped with some “Turtle Radar”, which shows how many enemies are coming, and from which direction.

Never before has a game been more perfectly designed for cel-shading. Cel-shading is a technique used in games to make them look more comic book-ish (think Jet Set Radio, or Auto Modellista). The backgrounds, objects, and characters are all cel-shaded, making the game look and play like a living comic book. To accentuate the game’s comic book roots, each attack is accentuated by a pop-up “crash”, “pow”, or “thwak”, just like the old Batman television show. Sometimes this is a nuisance, especially when you’ve just smacked four or five guys in a row and now can’t see anything from all the pop-ups. Each of those attacks is also accompanied with a sound effect. With each attack your character utters one of about four randomly chosen quotes (“don’t get up from that one” and “cowabunga” seemed pretty common in my game). These get old pretty quickly, and continue the entire game. Fortunately, no one ever hollars, “Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!”

While I guess over time one should develop some sort of strategy in the game, I found the “button-mashing” technique got me pretty far. When it worked, it worked, and when it didn’t … I pressed continue. Several times the game would award me bonus points for combos. Then I would say, “who, me?” and the game would say, “yes, you!”

One of the most annoying things within the game itself is that it seems like half of the town is explosive. I’m 30 years old and I’ve never actually seen barrels of explosive material sitting around on the sidewalk! And yet they are all over the place in TMNT, waiting for you to accidentally bump into one of them. Half of the damage I took seemed to come from me killing someone, who flew into something else that exploded, which in turn hurt me. Shouldn’t you have some kind of explosion-immunity if you were the one that instigated the chain reaction? The worst part is, the little mechanical chompers you fight throughout the game are ALSO explosive. More than once I ended up flame-broiled because I killed someone, who landed on a chomper, who exploded into a barrel, which ALSO exploded, which killed me. Fortunately, there are power-ups stashed throughout the levels (some hidden in crates) to boost your health back up — and yes, they’re still slices of pizza, hamburgers, and shakes.

Other than that one minor annoyance, the game is a blast. The turtle-radar and occasional directional arrows keep you on track. Not once did I get lost, or wander around wondering what I was supposed to be doing. Sure, a platform beat-em-up isn’t going to win “innovative game of the year”, but it might be a contender in the “most fun”, “best graphics”, and “easiest to learn without a manual” categories. The levels are interesting but not complex, and the camera-angles (for the most part) keep things positioned where you can see the action. The bosses at the end of each level are another nice throwback to the “old” days.

Gamers who tire of the story mode can also launch into a vs. battle mode, where each of the different characters can fight one another. I tried it three times with three different characters and had the pleasure of having my ass kicked in three different locations by the CPU. With a very simple fighting engine devoid of any combos, strategy or even the ability to block, any fan of any other fighting game ever will get bored with TMNT’s vs. mode very quickly.

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Graphics: 8/10. This game is gorgeous, and really does look like a comic book come to life.

Sound: 5/10. Nothing great and nothing offensive. The voice-over work and introduction are great, but are cancelled out by the repetitive catch phrases and background music you are subjected to throughout the game.

Gameplay: 7/10. It’s not rocket science, but then again, I don’t WANT rocket science when playing games. Easy to pickup and learn, tough to beat. The two-player mode and overall game play simplicity make TMNT a fun game to kill some time with without having to spend a weekend learning the controls. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a retro game updated to the next generation of consoles.

Most movies can by summed up with a genre and a short one or two sentence description. While these short summaries wont necessarily tell viewers if they are going to like or dislike the movie, they will at least give them an idea of what is in store for them. Zoo, the 2007 documentary, tells the true story of a man (Mr. Hands) who died after having anal intercourse with a horse.

That should rule out about 99% of you.

And no, Im not kidding. Zoo delves into the world of Zoophiles, people who prefer relations with animals over ones with human beings. Specifically, the documentary covers a group of fellows who met via the Internet and migrated to Washington State. As of the time of the incident, Washington was one of around twenty states where bestiality is in fact legal.

Throughout the film, viewers meet characters with names such as The Happy Horseman, Coyote, and Mr. Hands, all fellows who made the trip to just outside of Seattle where they met with Mr. H., a ranch hand with access to horses. On a regular basis these seemingly normal people would make weekend trips to the ranch where they drank beer, danced, partied, chatted and ultimately had sexual relations with horses.

Although the film is presented as a documentary, Zoo contains no authentic footage of the actual participants from the actual meetings (thank goodness). While one or two of the original participants appear in the film, the majority of the people in the film are actors. Much of the film is peppered with audio taken from interviews with actual people. Because all the footage is new, it doesn’t have the look of the average documentary. Much of the film contains beautiful shots, occasionally making one forget about the darker subject at hand.

Surprisingly, my biggest complaint about Zoo wasn’t the subject matter but rather the films pacing. I could sum the entire film up in five minutes without leaving out a single detail. Many of the scenes are unnecessarily stretched out in length. I continually got the feeling that the filmmakers only ended up with 40 minutes worth of material, which was been stretched into an 80 minute runtime.

The films biggest hurdle, and one I’m not sure is ever completely overcome, is its inability to make viewers empathize with people who like to have sex with horses. Thats not to say it doesn’t try; multiple times it is explained that these people care for and actually feel as though they have a relationship with these animals, but I’m not sure 80 minutes is enough time for viewers to go from “eww” to “aww”. I’m not sure 80 million minutes would be enough time, to be honest.

As a kid, one of the books in our home library that I remember thumbing through over and over was one called “Four Days”. The book covered the four days between John F. Kennedy’s assassination and his burial, including Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest (and murder), and Jack Ruby’s arrest for the murder of Oswald. “Four Days” started me down the road of a life long fascination with the murder of a president and the conspiracies surrounding that day’s events.

The single most important piece of evidence in the Kennedy assassination (and arguably the most important piece of video ever recorded) was Abraham Zapruder’s 26 seconds of home video 8mm footage he shot. Zapruder’s film, while shaky and raw, shows in graphic detail the death of a president.

Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film is a documentary about the actual Zapruder film itself. It begins by explaining how Abraham Zapruder came to be standing where he was with his camera (which incidently he had left at home that day, before coworkers persuaded him to go home and retrieve it).

The documentary follows the trail of the film — from having it processed, to selling the rights to LIFE magazine (for $50k) and eventually the motion picture rights (for another $100k), the sale of the film back to the Zapruder family for $1 (after Abraham’s death), the movement of the film to the National Archives for preservation, the first time the film was shown on television (by Geraldo Rivera, in 1980) and the restoration effort spent on the film which culminates in the copying of the film frame by frame from 8mm to digital media, where it was eventually cleaned up.

The highlights of the disc are the several versions of the Zapruder film shown. From worst to best, you get all known qualities — second hand copies, a view of the original, and the beautifully redone digital version. The 1998 digitally repaired version shows amazing detail, and that version is shown several times, once normal, once at half speed, and once at half speed and zoomed in tight. This is probably the best quality version of the Zapruder film I have ever seen. With digital editing, the crew was also able to “stabalize” the picture, providing a completely clear vision of those 30 seconds in time. It’s awesome and disturbing at the same time.

Those of you looking for insight into Kennedy’s death or the many theories surrounding it will be disappointed in this film. This DVD presents very little evidence for either side of the fence (lone gunman vs. conspiracy). This movie focuses solely on the life of the film itself.

Worth the price of rental just to see the remastered version of the Zapruder film. Those interested in learning more about what happened that day should either head to the public library or keep an eye on the History channel. Those looking for some interesting fiction should rent Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK.