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PACE 8

FEATURES

Hie BsasME Boys 16

Are they ill, aialf‘gTltfsTplain dopes? King Adrock _^p^a«ffSron the Knicks, kung-fu flicks and the pleasures

Hie Cro w

Flux finds out why dead guys always finish fi box office.

HrcadE EM jlieIIe

it’s a jungle out there! A special Flux guide o get pounded at the arcade. ■

^ Vnurig

Rob Liefeld, comic' goes back to the dr,

34

hottest artist, ving board.

Banal q

Glenn Danzig pumps (clap, clap) you up!

Superman its.

Hie Hulk i

Who would win? Who would care? The inside dirt on two new video games based on comic classics.

Hie EmpirE

Slrikss Back i

You'll toss your Wookies when you see our col- f lection of Star Wars memorabilia. PLUS: Stuff Jw you don't know about the new movies.

Hour To Slag e Wire

I Ww /.IeSP? JmM Take the plunge with

SP-Rob iLombiE

' An inside look at Rob Zombie's psycho ft sketchbook.

morlal

linmbal 1! m

W Ladies, gentlemen and dirtbags of all per- \

I suasions — the most anticipated game of \ j the yearl Flux presents an exclusive peek \ ^ at MK2: the home versions.

Pfc Hie ExpErls 42

Way Hie GamES

■Klw Four professionals duke it out against. PKjgm the machine— and fail.

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A new live-action film and video game has NeoTokyo

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"Holy ankle-boots, Batman— my costume blows!"

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TEmplE Pilnls s

What the hell is a Stone Temple Pilot anyway

Top ID Tips EorHii Tup ID GamES

\ Open magazine. Lick finger, j Turn to page 74. Read.

Reuiems

Video Games .

Records .

Comics .

Trading Cards .

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Icomics. Flex is yeoi me,. W, Ink, Ih. keel. . .

■.views, pieviews an. lips, mix in snoak peeks a", comm,

comics an. pielilesolhelailists, a., the inside .n'e" ^

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I Bnlwhykelieve os’ Sole we think Flex is cool we wiele il Why sheol. yen plonk .own yeoi Nan. earn,, cash L yelanetheo mag? Well, lake a long. hai. look al eel llable-el-contenls an. lin. eol. Whal.lhe. magazine ],,s the Slone lem pie Pile's, Rob Zombie. Meilal K.mbal ". [Rob LieleU an. Akiia? . . . can yen loam hew In

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lion an. Ih. sec.el le making yeoi onliie school

smell like Highlciawlei'slosh? Who

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next StaiWaisliilojyania

listing ol the top 100 video game tips?

Flux puts il all together Music. Comics. Video games. No lashion.

What else couli you

ask loi? Pioiably a j hell of a lotmoie — hut we need to save something loi the next issue

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115 BROADWAY,

DOESN

BUATHeSEPULTURA ALBUM “CHAOS A.D.” ON TOUR WITH PANTERA THROUGH AUGUST 20.

■ UlhaVspur

GHfflt?

ularity. In the Eighties, the members of Journey M starred in an arcade video W same in which players had M to get the band to an are-

na— God only knows what ■■

that celebrated . And now, a M new pinball machine gives M arcade-goers the chance to ■ take a tilt at Guns N’ Roses. ■ "It’s awesome, man, ■ [ Says Slash. "I've been ■ [ hands-on with every stage ■ [ of this project— I have the I I original plans drawn out on 1

I napkins." The Guns N' Roses \

pinball project was hatched ,

1 during a less-than -th rilli ng I sojourn at the guitarists I uncle-in-law's home, which I houses a vast collection of 1 rec-room pinball machines.

I “After that, I bought my wife

M one," says Slash. "And the

1 next thing you know, l ve go

machine. Armed with a headfull of ideas,

a*a vT^"^Me and^the^uys fromVDSa East went ini

moled them.' it " the first machine to ever use completed all the different modes, you have a

_tom beaujour

was muideied;1he woman beloved was

If you like eyes that can pop three feet out of someone’s head or hearts that can beat through chests, then The ’ '""A

Mask should be / f

your movie of ]

choice this summer. ■ ■l* Based on the pop- ■ J|||jL ular Dark Horse

comic title, m HBfe The Mask '

^ d u e

out Ju-y centers

on an ancient, 1&, #Hk\ mysterious mask 1 with supernatural i f . I properties. Who- i

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0 , J case, a mild- M

t mannered bank J clerk — is trans- Aj-'S formed into an

indestructible mSm: lunatic, hell-bent on commitingactsofoutra- l geous violence and extraordinary luna- cy — sorta like Tonya ep Harding. The star of the film is In

Color’s elastic funny- ■MijjpJ

man Jim Carrey, best

known as the pyro-

happy "Fire Mar-

shall Bill" and / •. : JJlWjisS

"Ace Ventura, Pet IBS Hnp$

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Bianrion Leeon I he Ciow, Entertainment Weekly

It looks like a pile of multi-colored jellybean vomit, but it's actually a stereogram. These puzzles contain hidden 3-D images and words, and are quickly becoming the rage among non-video gaming enthusiasts. To view our special Flux stere¬ ogram, hold the page against your nose, then slowly move the image away from you. Do it right, and you could uncover the meaning of life.

I an? I've never peeped the butt, but I love the legs. Don't let some pervert's beard scrape 'em all up, Tina. Defi- ' nitely a candidate for legs of the year.

| AND BUTTS ARE HIS GAME|

Seattle rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot is the ~ - « 4* authority on female butts (Remem-

jl'k’fi 1 ^er "Baby Got Back?") Wide butts,

■ small butts, curvey butts, high butts,

■ droopy butts, soft butts, firm butts, butts so big they need two seats on the plane — oh yeah, our man Mix knows all there is about the many varieties of booty. So when Flux decided to assemble the ultimate guide to celebrity butts, we went

straight to the top dog and asked him to rate the following cabooses. Read on, and bow to the master of rear mud flaps.

JANET JACKSON— I like "Rhythm Nation" booty better than "That's The Way Love Goes" booty, but you know me, I love the thickness. It still looks good anyway. I mean, it's not like I would say no. Janet sure is lookin' good on the top half lately. Just when I'm trying to lay off the dairy products.

KIM FIELDS— This ain't no damn Tooty— this is booty !

. Kim is finer dan a muh fuh. The body is perfect from what \ I can see. She’s the main reason most of my homies f watch Living Single. Somebody let me know if she's wearin' shorts in any episode because I'd stop banging Jto see that. Well, I may be exaggerating a little bit.

UHOOPIE GOLDBERG— What in the hell could Ted Dan- n do with this? Nice n' round. It's good she left him.

NAOMI CAMPBELL— Love the lips. Hate the butt. A couple of my white friends think I'm crazy for this one, but I need more juice than that. Of course, she wouldn't like my fat ass, either^gF*

■ VANESSA WILLIAMS— Vanessa is fine, but her I butt's entirely too small for my big ass. This is another I one my white friends will yell at me about.

9E PEREZ — I saw the queen in Do I The Right Thing and believe me, I was (

| sprung. For once in my life I wanted to be 9 a piece of ice. I'd pay Rosie just to cus me I I out. I love a woman with ;

] mouthful of four- | letter words.

OPRAH-

When she's a size 10/11, love it. A lot of j so-called ' comedian won't admit it, but __ when she knocks the" weight off, she looks good. Plus, she's rich a hell.

& BONET — Back in the early Cosby days it looked hella | \ good. But lately she's been wearing big baggy ass pants, so I HH^IJfthe curve is still poppin'.

fMADONN,

f Maybe she sF

■e it not, I've never seen Madonna's butt. I ^strike the pose" so I can do some research, f

TONYA HARDING — Her butt's nice, and yes, I've been looking. The press I can't make me not like this butt. My pole is ready to beat this up. I really I liked it when her skate broke during the Olympics and she put her leg up I on the judge's table. :

NANCY KERRIGAN— Get the hell out of here. I'm an ass judge, not a sweet-little-skating-princess judge. I don't like her butt.

EN VOGUE — All their butts look good and they know it. Round Mounds I of Get Down. They flaunt it, but they don’t give it up. Yeah, make ’em I work for it, baby. Damn, y’all look gooooood.

QUEEN LATIFAH — Never seen it, so I can't comment. But she is a | hell of a business woman. Much props to da Queen!

ANNA NICOLE SMITH— About time! A Guess model I with some curves! I thought the only place I'd see curvy f women are in porno flicks or my house. Love it.

I — When is gravity gonna affect this w<

I SHARON STONE — I didn't know Sharon Stone had a butt. I She ain't happening up top either. Too flat, too small.

REBECCA DE MORNAY — Who the hell is Rebecca De Mor- nay?

HEUER send

each of your friends to a different bathroom at your school. And don't tell them to turn on all the faucets, wait, and then flush all the toilets at the | same time. The architects : that designed the plumbing system in your school prob¬ ably didn't expect every toilet to be flushed simultaneous¬ ly — and pipes can only hold so much water before exploding.

Hmeiica’s Leasl lUanled

Video games have riot only become an entertainment phenomenon - they’ve also become Hollywood's dumping

ground for unwanted talent. If you've been wondering where some former TV and movie stars have been hiding

lately, chances are they're currently trying to regain some of their long-lost popularity in a full-

motion Sega CD or PC CD-ROM game. Here's a few of the recent "l-used-to be a celebrity"

sightings in video gameland. -V&Y ,

1) KIRK CAiUlERON — I he squeeky -voiced juvenile delinquent star of Growing I a medieval costume, grabs a big sword and performs the Heimlich Maneuver like a f new Crystal Dynamics 3DO/PC CD-ROM game, The Horde.

dons in the

2) MARGOT KIDDER — The gravel-voiced actress who played ace reporter l.ois Lane in the Superman film series stars in Access Software's new PC CD-ROM thriller, Under A Killing Moon.

3) DEBORAH HARRY/COREY HAIM— Thebreathy-voiced singer of Blondie and the whiny-voiced hero of The Lost Boy', both appear in the recent Sega CD game, Don ble Switch.

4) DANA PLATO— The

model/Hollywood starlet- go 'CD game, Night Trap.

erdy-voiced star of Diff’rent Strdkes/Playboy nudi -bad strips down to her skivvies in the controversial Seg

Double i

Say it ain't so!

[ Nintendo, the company that swore on Mario's life that hone of their games would ever, ever, ever feature "random, gratuitous and/or excessive violence” or "graphic illustration of death” plans to let the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II fly with as much blood and as many fatalities as the Sega ver¬ sion — and they've hired the Butthole Surfers as their new spokesmen! Hypocrites or not, you I decide — it's just great to hear Nintendo executives say the word "butthole. "

f REBECCA GAYHEART (THE NOXEMA GIRL)

* TIFFANI (PUKE) AMBER THIESSEN

(SAVED BY THE BELL'S

KELLY KAPOWSKI)

Lei’s make H Fake HI

STEP 1. Go to your local Woolworths and have your picture taken in one of those automatic photo booths. While you're there, check to see if they have any laminating materials — that's the two pieces of sticky clear plastic that will give your ID that hard, legitimate look.

STEP 2. Carefully cut out the accompanying card along the dotted lines. Insert the card into the typewriter and type in all your vital statistics. (For "ID," use any 9 numbers.) Make sure you use one of those good, computer- type typewriters. And be reasonable — no

one's going to believe you were born in 1950!

STEP 3. The photo machine should have given you at least three pictures. Cut out the worst-looking one and put it aside. Take the other two, write “I love you" on the back, and give them to your mom. This should soften the blow if forget to take your new ID out of your pocket and she discovers it the next time she does the laundry. Paste your photo on the card in the space provided. (You might have to trim it a bit.)

Weehawken Community College

| STUDENT IDENTIFICATION

ID:'

ISSUED: 12-12-93 .

MAIERIALS [ NEEDED:

Scissors

Paste

Passport photo Typewriter Laminating materials Videotape

1®#93- in Sky- box’s SeaQuesi

WH f Inflr

is some-

the title "The Ocean Floor” The

cru cialing P H 1 II ■

BEFORE MOUNTING THAT MOUN¬ TAIN BIKE, cyclists

should be aware of some rather

ocean floor? Do you see any fish, any plantiife, any divers being caught in a shark feeding frenzy? Of course you don’t (those things ar§ .diffiqulfto see from outer * '** spacel). A better title would have been 'The United Slates From Very Very Very Very Far

A top-quality collection of bendable figures based on f the hit comic book Cyber Force will be available this t August from Top Cow Productions, The set will consist f of four Cyber Force characters — Impact, Stryker, Rip- ' claw and Cyblade (not pictured). Each figure will come r with its own mini-comic featuring original artwork, as well f as a trading card for that character. Cost for each figure will

STEP 4. Grab an old video that you don't care about (your sister's Barney tapes will do), and cut out a 3 1 /2-inch strip of tape. Glue this tape across the back of the card.

stiff penalties. According to the Journal Of Urology's May /June Issue, biking can be hazardous to men's genitalia. The Boston University Medical Center recounts some disturbing bicycle accidents (most involve that blasted horizontal support bar) that damaged blood vessels in the groin area, making erections

impossible— or (better yet) per-

STEP 5. Use the laminating materials to put a hard coating of plastic around your new ID. If you can't find any at your local Woolworths or stationary

store, go to Kinko’s or Pip Printing — they usually have laminating machines.

STEP 6.

Voila! You're done! Now you can show off your new fake ID to all your friends. But remem¬ ber, carrying false identi¬ fication is

unethical and probably illegal in most states. So don't try to use this ID to get in to dirty movies, apply for credit cards, aquire a bank loan, or register to vote. And certainly don't try to buy beer with it.

VIDEOTAPE GOES HERE

This card Is your official University Identification and should be carried at all times. It is to be surrendered upon request to all University Officials whose responsibility authorizes them to seek identification. This card is not transferable and is the property of Hoboken State University. It must be returned to the Security Office upon termination of employment or enrollment. Loss of this card must be reported to the ID section of the Security Department. There is a fee for the replacement of this card. Security Emergency Dial 5-4554 * Escort Dial 5-SAFE

manent. In other words, your

Schwinn can seriously affect your schwing.

Dnn’l take a white Crayon, roll it in chalk dust, and place it in the chalk tray. The teacher will be very angry when he tries to erase

the blackboard.

Featuring "Get 1 Together," "Sabota; and "Sure Shot"

home Alone

“I can't live without my games/’ says Morbid Angel gui¬ tarist Trey Azagthoth. "When I’m not talking to the fans

or jamming on stage. I'n games. I don’t think then games as much as I do. ’ The death metal vir

>n the tour bus playing video ; anyone on earth that enjoys

The death metal virtuoso owns a SNES, Genesis, NES, TurboGrafx and an IBM PC— so he's more than qualified to comment on the; ongoing battle between the SNES and Genesis 1 6-bit systems.

"The Genesis definitely has a few good games,

' but most of them lack the sound and graphics of SNES carts. For example, Streets pf Rage 2 is supposed to be such a great fighting game, but to me it’s just a bunch of hype. The punching sounds are poor and the characters are fuzzy. SNES’s Brawl Brothers just ■( smokes Streets Of Rage 2. Overall, SNES carts are. usually a better value. "

Azagthoth ’s current list of cool games include: i Brawl Brothers {SNES), Road Rash f (Genesis), Final Fight 2 (SNES), Contra (SNES), Biohazard Batik: (Genesis).

. Lightening Force (Genesis), Supesr |§ \

Black Bass (SNES) and R- Type (Turbo •/Graftx).

Although he's a self-proclaimed video game freak, don't look for Aza¬ gthoth in the arcades: "I don't like society, and I don't ■ like people," he says.

world, and people ■ like Chun Li, Slippy Iple Frog and Maki

%> C They come

' '* to life when

1 Play."

Road Rash If your 3DO player, new as it may

I be, is already collecting dust from the lack of quality software, then the recent release of Electronic Arts’ Road Rash for the super-expen¬ sive, super-hyped CD-based interactive machine might just be the kick-in-the-butt the system needs. The high-speed motorcycle rac¬ ing/combat game, which became a huge hit on the Sega Genesis 16-bit platform, has been significantly reworked and enhanced on the 32-bit 3DO system. Road Rash for 3DO offers some truly intense, rubber-burnin’ asphalt action — and two full-screen music videos from j alternative bands Swervedriver ("Duel”) and Paw ("Jessie"). In addi¬ tion, the game comes packed with a separate A&M Records audio disc which includes music from Soundgarden ("Outshined," "Rusty Cage,” "Badmotorfin- ger,” "Superunknown"), Ther¬ apy? ("Teethgrinder," “Auto Surgery"), Monster Magnet ("Dinosaur Vacume”), Ham- merbox ("Trip,” "Simple Pass¬ ing"), Swervedriver ("Duel,” "Last Train To Satansville") and Paw ("Jessie," “The Bridge,"

H | "Pansy”).

I Years ago, DC Comics screwed up its stories so badly that many of it’s comics’ I plotlines required major surgery — which they received in the form of Crisis On Infinite Earths, a miniseries that redirected all of the company's series, established new origins for some characters and killed off others, like

« - —

lm Hour Approaches

The rectangular tiles that make up most school ceilings conceal a small crawl space that's great for hiding things. But never throw a dead fish up there. It'll take them week to discover where the smell is coming from.

HEADED ON DIRECT PATH TO THE

perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the miniseries will be that every DC uni¬ verse August release will be numbered zero to reflect the new sta¬ tus quo and provide new readers the chance to jump on without playing catch-up.

Well, they've screwed things up all over again.

So DC will make yet another attempt to get things straight with Zero Hour: Crisis In Time. This miniseries, out in July, will crossover into each of the compa¬ ny's titles in order to bring some continuity to DC’s universe. You'll see things you never thought pos¬ sible: Batgirl running (hell, heh) around Gotham City, Jor-EI and Lara returning Superman to a Krypton that never exploded... You get the idea.

Zero Hour also promises the deaths of several well-known superheroes and the introduction of a slew of new ones. Though

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THE BEASTIE BOYS HjST MADE THEM

[ MARKETABLE. Best known for their huge, hydraulicfpenis stage prop, the band crashed the Billboard chart party in 1986 Ik with their full-length debut, LICENSED Ho III, and brought 5 million uninvited HBriends along with 'em — knuckleheads ■P and gluesniffers who realized there was more to music than Huey Lewis and the News. The masses found a dim kind of salvation in the slap-happy videos and

Story by John Reynolds

Photos by Ari Marcopoulos

no-brain refrains of "Fight for Your Right (To Party)" and “No the sporting life, going on tour as part of Lollapalooza '94, Sleep 'Til Brooklyn." I and — when it occurred to him — his music. Talking with Horovitz

Since then, the Beasties have, urn, grown up. They've j was very difficult, as the man has no attention span and a train of

become real musicians. But, like a really bad yearbook photo,

Licensed To III just keeps on popping up. “I don't need to hear 'No Sleep Til Brooklyn' again," says Beastie Adam "Adroc'

Horovitz. "Everybody acts like a knucklehead when they’re in high school, and most people can deny and hide their past.

But when you sell 5 million albums, that is your past, and flux: Yauch said on "MTV Sports" that he'd challenge any band

thought about as smooth and stable as the one in The Fugitive. Plus he was watching a Knicks game at the time. That's okay. He's cool. Twenty-seven years old and still a knucklehead.

Long live the Beasties!

everybody knows it. What are you gonna do?'

Well, the Beasties tried to cover their tracks with Paul's Boutique — a scatterbrained, skate-friendly followup to Licensed, a commercial flop so challenging that it effec¬ tively scared off all of the fake-ass "fans" who only scored the Beasties for their novelty value.

As a result, the band was left with a smaller-but- cooler audience: the behaviorally challenged devotees

to the stuff they do on "American Gladiators." Have there been any takers?

adam horovitz: Uh, yeah. We’re having a big battle with the Counting Crows right now. That’s the band with the song that goes, 'Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm," What's with them? flux: On the new album, the song "B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak" has a lot of golf references. Is this a new Beastie pastime?

Everybody plays golf now. Well, not me — but every-

who'd hooked the Beastie line before Licensed hit the j body else is down with it. I can see its appeal in a way. There's a streets with early releases like their ridiculous "Cookie / course that's near where we live that's like... Wait, what just hap- Puss" single and the hardcore punk EP Pollywog f pened? Oh, they got him on traveling.

Stew (both of which were re-released earlier this flux: What about Mike and MCA? year as Some Old Bullshit ). f Are they big golfers?

Then, three years later, they pumped out horovitz: Just Mike. He's, like, die- Check Your Head, a magically delicious mess / hard now. He's crazy for golf. You of Seventies soul grooves, pothead rock and / know, Michael Jordan plays. I don't hardcore nostalgia trips, recorded predomi- / know what the story is with golf. Every- nantly with live instruments which the I body out here's into it, all the Xtra Large Beasties actually played\ Even dickhead / kids are playing golf, critics and Trent Reznor zombies liked it. flux: Are you ever going to bring the At about this time, the Beastie Boys I giant, hydraulic penis back into the stage started their own record company / act?

— Grand Royal, home of Luscious Jack- horovitz: Actually, somebody stole it.

son — and published a fanzine of the flux: You mean some guy has it hanging same name. Mike D got into the fash- I on the wall of his rec room? ion business. Adroc married superfine horovitz: [ laughs ] I don't know. It was in a actress lone Skye, and embarked on / warehouse in Jersey somewhere. It's in this big his own acting career. MCA— the / box and you'd press the hydraulics and... Oh, other Adam, Adam Yauch — devel- / shit. Damn, I love the Knicks. Whoa, what the oped more than a passing fascina- / hell did he just do? He threw the ball into the tionwith Buddhism. Once widely j crowd!

thought to be one-dimensional flux: "Sure Shot," off the new album, has a line goofballs, 1992 was the year the / where Mike D says, "You say I'm twentysome- Beasties proved themselves to / thing and I should be slacking." The media is all be many-faceted, renaissance j over this slacker thing, and the Beasties are sort of goofballs — inspired and limit- j slacker icons. What's your take on that? less, both musically and per- horovitz: There have been slackers throughout all sonally. I generations of time. I think the last generation, the

The Beastie Boys' latest / one between us and our parents, the Eighties people, release is called III Commu- f were all fucked up. They were so business-minded and nication, and, by Horovitz’s / closed-minded in the Eighties; but the Nineties are dif- own admission, it's "like, / ferent, and it upsets them. The Nineties aren't like the the same thing" as Check I Sixties, and they're definitely not the Seventies— and Your Head— thank God. / they're definitely not the fucking Eighties, you know? Flux recently caught up / Adults are pissed, I guess, and they say, "Ah, those kids

u - - / are no g00cJj igzy " |fs the same shjt they always say. But

kids in every generation are considered slackers. That's what kids are — that's what we are. I think it's just an unavoidable process of human growth. Kids are bums, and that's the way

it should be. It's like, "Leave me alone. Why can't \ he looks around real quick and jumps and does a triple-flip and lands on top of I drink beer and have a good time?" Oh, shit, you « the building that he’s standing next to. That shit is funny. But yo, there are these know what movie just came on? Once Upon A Time \ dope movies called A Chinese Ghost Story. They made three of them, and they’re In The West. This is a dope movie. I not like regular karate movies. They're like these crazy, crazy movies. They're

flux: I've heard you guys are into kung fu movies 1 hard to find, but they have 'em in some video stores, now. flux: Are they horror movies?

horovitz: Now? We've always been into kung fu. ' horovitz: They're kind of like horror movies, yeah, but they're just Jackie Chan's cool, but just get Bruce Lee. He's the man, \ should check 'em out. They're called A Chinese Ghost Story. no question. flux: When it comes to your music, would you rather have the respect of

flux: Do you consider yourself an expert on the subject the hiphop community or the alternative community? of kung fu films? horovitz: We actually don’t get respect from anybody, but I would rather

i : Not at all. I just used to watch them. Every Sat- \ have hiphop than alternative 'cause I hate that word. I'm not down with jrning thev had Abbott and Costello, and everv alternative music. The stuff thev label "alternative music" is non music

urday morning they had Abbott and Costello, and every Sunday they had kung fu movies. I just always watched 'em.

flux: And now everybody's into these movies. horovitz: It's the same thing with Pumas. Everybody's wearing Pumas now. It's like we never left the fifth grade. flux: What do you look for in a kung fu movie?

c: Like, when the guy is standing there fighting, and

alternative music. The stuff they label "alternative music" is pop music. Hiphop right now is also pop music, which is kind of funny.

Alternative music is supposed to be punk rock, and hiphop is supposed to be underground and nobody should want to deal with it, but both those styles are huge, selling millions of records. flux: So what’s underground now? Rave? horovitz: [sighs] Unfortunately, yeah. I'm not really big on the rave l scene or the techno scene.

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don't mean to pat myself on the back, but I'm

pretty good on the pause button. No CDs, horovitz: Everybody I know broke their none of that, and you can't use a mixer — either Alive II records. I mean, I didn't, but tape to tape, or record to tape. Well, you can i everybody broke their Kiss records use a mixer, but it's much better to make break ; when they got over Kiss back in, like, beats from the pause button, 'cause that's ; sixth grade. Right in junior high, people where the skill comes in... Oh shit, Racquel justhated Kiss. Maybe it was the disco Welch just smashed this guy in the head with a song that pissed everybody off. rifle. Wait, that’s not Racquel Welch... flux: I didn't know thatyou had Kiss :

flux: Tell us about the best mix tape you ever in your past, made. horovitz: Who doesn't? What

horovitz: I don’t know, there’s a lot of shit on white, 27-year-old kid doesn't have there. There's this classic thing by a group called Kiss in their past? I'm into Kiss. I

Rark rV»nr a Hnnp ^x/pntipc ia77 trin It'c mean, I'm FlOt, blit I am.

flux: Maybe people will feel the same way about the Beastie Boys in ten years, and they'll start J breaking your records.

: are with the clothes. I'm not trying j to say anything, you know, we just wanted j to check out the look. We didn't buy any- ■ thing. I'm not even disrespecting Barney's. But this old lady is walking by with one of these $4,000 beige outfits on, and she’s got fake Adidas shell-toes with, like, a heel. Like high-heeled Adidas sneakers! Not even plat¬ forms, high heels. And she’s got the tacky make-up and the whole old, Beverly-Hills- lady look. Yo, I was dying off of this lady, it was so funny.

flux: What happens when the flannel look falls by the wayside and people start wearing skinny ties and new-wave clothes again? Are you guys gonna be able to roll with the changes?

flux: Have you been to a rave? | mix tape has some James Brown on it, 'cause he’s the mas- horovitz: Yeah, you know, j ter. And a Richard Pryor joke is always good. "Stand Up," whatever. I have problems with a song by Minor Threat, is also really good for a mix tape, just the music itself. I say "heck j Just styles, all kinds of styles. And "Under Me Slang Tang,” no" to techno. I give it a harder I the old reggae groove from the Eighties that goes [sings] time than it deserves because I | "duh duh duh-duh duh." It's a classic one. It's never don't ever listen to it unless I'm 1 played out, 'cause every time you hear it you get happy, forced to. j Y'know, I don't like CDs. They make me really angry.

flux: There's a line from "Profes- i I'm trading in all of my CDs. I have like 250 CDs and I'm sor Booty" where Mike D says, | getting rid of all of them. I'm just fed up, and I feel like "Life ain't nothin' but a good j making a statement. I've been pushed too far. I'm stuck groove/A good mix tape to put you in the past, I can't help it. You know, if I want to break in the right mood.” Check Your | my Kiss record, I'll feel free to break my Kiss record. Head and III Communication have l What's up with that? Why did everybody break their sort of a mix-tape feel about them. | Kiss Alive II records? horovitz: Actually, we have a lot of flux: Who did that? mix-tape battles. I

horovitz: We just need makeup. flux: Do you think the Beastie Boys have become trailblazers in the fashion ; world?

horovitz: Yeah. Our new look is gonna be crazy, though. You haven't seen it? At Macy's, Bloomingdales? [ laughs ] You know, we have no new look. It’s funny because it's the Nineties, but I still wear the exact same clothes that I wore back in fifth grade. Isn't that crazy? Oh, I saw the funniest thing. Remember last year when everybody wore the platform Pumas and the platform Adidas? I was at Barney's in Beverly Hills 'cause my wife wanted to go — you know how the ladies

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horovitz: You know what? Skinny ties, for flux: Are you looking forward to Lollapalooza? has been out of the media spotlight real, are coming back big. New wave is sol horovitz: I wasn't, at first. None of us wanted disappoint you in any way?

big right now. This is something me and to do it. But then we got to thinking. Lolla- horovitz: [laughs] I've been trying

Mike were talking about. Every new wave I palooza is gonna be kind of dope, actually. It’s to get on the cover of Details and

person is afraid to break out the skinny tie, gonna be good. I didn't want to do it 'cause it’s Paper and all these magazines, and it’s

and we want these people to know that it’s gonna be corny. Lollapalooza is crazy corny, just not working! I guess I’m not that

okay to come out with the skinny ties. You but then, playing outdoors and having parties hot. [ laughs ] It took me a long time to

should look like The Knack. Oh my God, oh all day long, it’s gonna be cool. deal with that, but I think I’m getting

man, they were just doing an eye operation flux: Why do you call Lollapalooza corny? I over it now.

on TV. I got cable now. It’s the cutting-edge, alternative rallying flux: What's your favorite lone Skye

Hey, did you ever see, like, in the early point for the youth of today, right? f movie?

1 920s, they had these old Flash Gordon movies horovitz: Exactly I The big money mar- horovitz: Probably River's Edge. But per-

and shit like that? Don't you think that it’s weird ket... although it's the cutting edge. formance-wise, she was really good in this

that they knew what the future was going to [laughs] It’s all bullshit, really. I just think movie Gas Food Lodging. It wasn't the

look like? Like, you see all these vans now that 1 it’s gonna be a good time. That’s why fastest movie, but she was good.

look like spaceships. How did they know that it ; we’re gonna do it. flux: Ooh, she was naked in that one,

was going to look like that? All the little watch I don't like any of the bands that too, wasn’t she?

computers and the TVs. Pretty soon, you're went out on any of the Lollapalooza horovitz: Well, that’ll help sales.

gonna have the Jetsons shit, where you can look > tours. In theory, it should be cool, but flux: Did that bother you?

at a screen and talk to somebody. 1 in theory, I should like raves, because horovitz: Urn, I don'tthink so. If it was off-

flux: Maybe the people who invent all that stuff l I think it’s cool that 1 ,500 kids can / camera I wouldn't encourage it, but I don't

now just watched a lot of Jetsons when they were i just get crazy and go out in the think I have to worry about that.

kids. 1 middle of nowhere and listen to / flux: [Dinosaur Jr. guitarist] J. Mascis was

horovitz: Yeah, seriously, you might be right... I crazy music, you know what I good in that movie, too.

You know, this can't be Once Upon A Time In The \ mean? But when it comes down horovitz: He’s a great actor. He brings sparkle West because Kris Kristofferson’s on the screen to it, I don't like that music. Lol- to the camera. He's got that twinkle in his eye. right now. It's some other Western. You know, Kris 1 lapalooza is a good idea, but / [laughs]

Kristofferson kind of looks like Eric Clapton now. I ; because of the bands and all flux: Talk about slacker icons. You couldn't love in Taxi Driver when Robert DeNiro gives her the media that surrounds it, it's / slack more if you tried, the Kris Kristofferson record, and he goes, "He's a 1 corny. But I guess you can't horovitz: Appearance-wise, everything. Some- poet, a prophet,” and he takes her to the porno j avoid that. It just happens. J body's got to talk to him about hats, though. No movie, and he's like, "What? What? I didn't know flux: Does the fact that / offense, but give my man a baseball hat or some- you wouldn't like this." [laughs] \ your marriage to lone Skye / thing. Something.

.

MARVEL, SPIDER-MAN, GREEN GOBLIN, WOLVERINE, FREEZE I

I Nq movie set

isneaven,

I but this one was starting to look a lot like hell.

The Crow was; going to be a mid-to-low I budget gothic revenge tale, about a murdered I guitarist who returns from the grave to exact I gut-wrenching' Vengeance: call it Un-Death | I Wish. But the horror seemed to flow off the I screen; an electrician was jolted by 13,000 volts I of live power, burning 90 percent of his body and I fusing his eyes shut. A carpenter accidentally I drove a screwdriver through his hand. A Stage I hand went berzerk, driving his car through set I walls and terrorizing production assistants. An i eerie storm ripped through the set, leaving dis- I aster in its wake. Production assistants jokingly ( talked about a curse — The Curse of The Crow.

But no one was joking on April Fool's Day,

| 1993 — the day a "prop" bullet fired at Crow star I Brandon Lee turned out to be a deadly .44 cal- I iber slug. The staff laughed as Brandon bent over n agony, thinking it was just another one of his | pranks (like the time he showed up for a gore- I packed scene- dressed in a huge Cher wig); when | they noticed the blood, and the fact that Bran- | don wasn't moving, the laughter stopped.

It’s ironic that the cdmic on. which The Crow ! is based was originally written as a way | of dealing with the loss of a loved one.

"I still can't talk about it,” says James i O'Barr, its creator, "Doing The Crow I was cheaper than therapy. ”

Revenge is cheaper than therapy,

I too. In The Crow, guitarist Eric 1 Draven is brought back from the I grave by a dark spirit bird who 1 feads the audience on a guided I butcher's tour of a rotting urban I hell — as Draven knocks off his I murderers one by one.

s Besides writing the

incredibly popular comic book on which film was based — possibly the most popular black and white comic of all time — O'Barr also played a key role in selecting the heavy-duty lineup for the movie soundtrack. O'Barr, him¬ self a musician, wanted to make sure that the film's music complemented its harsh, dark mood. As a result, the soundtrack includes new ] tunes from Stone Temple Pilots, Pantera, The Cure, Helmet and Rage Against the Machine. "We wanted the music to retain the gothic, alternative feel of the comic," he says. “Some of the artists were even fans of the comic."

As it turns out, Brandon was also fan. "It’s funny," says, O'Barr, .“because when first I talked tqj him, he. was so sweet that I wasn't sure he could play a dark, menacing character like Eric Draven. Then he got in there and stole scenes from everybody."

Only six days of shooting remained when Lee was killed. O'Barr says that only special effects shots remained, and that Lee's stand-in was able to seamlessly

r 7 The BEST And ] /I WORST Comic Book ;

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Meanwhile, people are still talking curses and conspiracy theories, claiming, for instance, that Brandon was killed by his father's assassins — martial arts fanat¬ ics who sought revenge on Bruce for daring to reveal ancient secrets. So is there a Curse of The Crow ?

Of course not. Curses only exist in movies and comic books, right? And even if there were a curse, it would only affect people associated with the pro¬ duction, not audience members orwri...

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HOW TO AVOID GETTING YOUR [{{jS

Welcome 1o Ihe Hrcade

1st Commandment

■Thou shall make Ihy I intentions clear.

This is known as the “quarters up" or I "jamming in" rule. To make your desire ■to play a game clear, put your quarter

■ on the little plastic rim that lines the

■ videogame’s dashboard. Then, watch

■ your quarter and wait your turn. Once ■you jam in, don't touch your quarter

■ unless you're going to leave — people

■ are understandably sensitive about

■ people touching their money. “Don't ■touch quarters on a machine,” says

■ Paul Hughes, a player from the Lone

■ star state. "If you value your hands,

■ keep them in your pockets."

Putting up a number of quarters

■ equal in worth to the national debt is bad

(form, as is chunking in quarter after quarter for “contin-

■ ues" when a horde of people are waiting, quarters up,

■ behind you. Also, always be sensitive to the current playei

■ game. Breaking someone's concen- ■tration by reaching across the (screen or over their shoulder to

■ put up a quarter will likely

■ result in a lost life or screwed-

■ up pattern— and perhaps a 1 not-so-gentle lesson in man-

4th Commandment

hou shall not bear fals

Thou shali not bear false witness.

Lying socks Don't do it. You might think it's funny to spread rumors Tout Reptile's “Secret Fatality," in which he pulls out his opponent's I small intestine and knits asmacralme potholder, but someone who I wastes ten bucks trying to follow your stupid fake move list probably | Will not. “I hate nothing more than softie kid in an arcade arguing with me about how there’s such and such move in this game," says John Coleman of Lynchburg, Virginia. "Don't tell any¬ one anything that you can't prove." A prime example is “Animalities" in MK2. They do not exist. Even the programmers have denied their existence, but some people still insist on spread¬ ing rumors about them. ,

It’s also not cool to claim fake initials or v* brag about topping games you haven't mas¬ tered. "If someone has just blown away the high hip that he or she doesn't put [their initials in, do not stroll up as soon as the machine is clear and tap in your own," says 'cad- er Aaron Mandel. “Eventually, you'll be called on it and have

to defend a rep that v isn't yours."

. 3rd

(Commandment

■Thou shall give the ■player room.

Arcades are crowded and noisy. Don't make it worse by inflicting your limbs, voice -or body odor on a concentrating player.

“My number-one arcade peeve is when someone comes up to you while you're playing and starts talking," says Craig Yarbrough of State College, Penn¬ sylvania. "I can't remember how many times I've lost a high score

Thou shall give advice when asked for ilr and only when asked for il.

J iji Players vary widely in ability. One of the best

' things about ‘cading is bonding over the

games by teaching new players secret moves and combinations. However, if a player isn't ask- I ing for advice, it’s probably better to keep your mouth shut. Who knows? He may know something you don't. "One time I was playing Asteroids and upping my by killing saucers instead of finishing the set and mov- n," says Californian gamer Greg Knauss, “and some eager kid was standing next to me, yelling, 'Hit the rocks! Hit the rocks! You're supposed to hit the rocks! Hit them!"

On the other hand, if someone is obviously strug¬ gling, offering a word of advice is cool. And if someone actually asks you to teach them something, do it— if they ask you nicely and you're not busy playing. Keeping a list of Secret Kodz and Moovz just so you can beat everyone is lame. Share the knowledge. It's a karma thing.

ftrfeimandmenl

Thou shall nol be | cheesy.

To be "cheesy" or "cheap" is ti exploit a minor or major flaw in fighting game in order to perform an unstoppable attack on an oppo¬ nent. When the flaw is obviously a major one, there's no question about it: it's cheating. One example | is the “Guile Shadow Throw" in I original Street Fighter II, which allowed him to flip an opponent without touching him, even from across the screen. (Other, less useful |j Guile glitches included the Velcro, which gave Guile

le of my friends or, worse yet, a complete stranger walks up while I'm killing a Boss and starts yappin'. An occasional 'Hey, nice move* *' or Too bad, man!' is fine, but (anything else is very uncouth."

If you can't fit another person between you and the player, re too close. If you’re casting a shadow on the screen, you're too

■ close. If you can smell another player, you're way too close or the

■ player really smells; either way, you're too dose.

“And never ask someone for money, or to play their men,"

■says Chris McBride of Tuscon, Arizona. "That's crass and rude. Once ■this kid asked if he could play one of my men! Of course, I said no. So

■ he just reached over and started pounding on the keys." If you're

■ stuck with a younger kid brother or sister, you're responsible for him or her. Watch them. Or better yet, leave them at home.

“Many years ago, this guy I know was intensely involved I with a 1975 Gottlieb Abra Ca Dabra when a small arcade rat got Ml too close," says pinballer Terry Cumming. “ Now, he was having a bad day and shoved the arcade rat out of the way. The rat

didn't like being pushed, and started goading him. After several

* taunts, this guy rammed the arcade rat's head into the playfield ■glass. He was later arrested, but after an apology, all was well."

It just doesn't have to be that way...

players the ability to cause oppo¬ nents to stick to /k' them like glue and the Guile Shutdown, which was a catastrophic programming error that gave Guile players the power to crash the machine.) In early versions of Mortal Kombat II, a notoriously buggy game,

Sub-Zero could perform part of his fatality while the fight was still on, thus "Perma-Freezing" his opponent.

There is no defense to this, and PF'd players were stuck there until the timer ran out; some cheesy players would get ahead, PF their opponents, and then wait until time expires, winning the round. “That isn't fair, especially because the whole thing is so obviously a glitch," says Aaron Mandel.

Using it at certain points even made the game crash."

On the other hand, what about minor fighting-game “flaws"? In ome circles, throwing — which is generally very hard to defend against and I causes a lot of damage — is considered cheesy. "Throwing is cheap\ " says Internetter Yim Myung Bin. “How much skill does it take to walk up to someone and throw them? The answer is, none. If you think you're good, you shouldn't resort to using cheap moves to win."

A player who relies on throws may be asking for an extra-large por¬ tion of Butt-Kick Casserole. In general, it's safer to ask what the house rules are regarding throwing if you're not sure.

J This would Sf

I understand, right? If you're good, prove it c I the sticks, don't jump around and wiggle your I ass at those who aren't as good as you.

"No one is more hated than a cocky I player," says John Coleman. "If you win, great.

R Big deal. So you've played for longer, or are better I than the other guy. Half the time it's some guy out

■ with his girlfriend looking to waste fifty cents, and he really doesn't I

■ care. Don’t act like a badass and try to embarrass him. He may be I r than you."

Even if you Bare bigger, he ■may have ■friends. "Who ■needs it?" asks ■Coleman. “With ■these games

■ nowadays that ■let you kill the ■other person,

■you rub it in

j enough any¬ way."

7th Cnr

Thou sh

..mandmerii

i not whine, either.

Okay, so you've lost. Big deal. You're down, what, a quarter?

Walk away, or put another quarter down. Failure teaches more lessons than success, so remember how that guy beat you and practice it. Hey, if you don't act like a sore loser, maybe he'll even show you some moves.

And don't call every move cheesy either. "In a well-bal¬ anced game, there should be no move that's so overpowering that there's no escape,” says ‘cader Lee Saito. "Some tactics should be harder to evade than others, but nothing should be completely invincible. It's the people who don't have the skills that cry 'Cheap!' the loudest. Find two masters of Street Fighter II, for instance, and you will never hear one calling the other cheap. Have a mas¬ ter play a rookie, and you'll hear all kinds of whining from the rookie. I've played games where rookies have called every single move I do, ‘cheap.' I guess using the attack buttons is cheap, huh?"

If there's a consensus as to what's cheap, follow it. If there isn't, don't make a ruckus about “cheesiness." Generally, the crowd will complain player is being a jerk, which takes the heat off of you.

Thou shall nol bull Ihv nose in wilhoul mvilalion.

Burn this one on your wallet where you can see it when you reach for change. DON'T ENTER A GAME UNLESS YOU'RE ASKED TO.

If you aren't asked, you should ask first. And if the other player says "no," wait your turn.

■fighting games — cooperative games, for instance — another player suddenly appearing on screen can up a pattern or be very distracting.

"Always, I mean always, ask someone if you can join their game," says Chris McBride. “I was playing a shoot-'em-up game — I think it was Raiden — the kind where the farther you go without dying, the better your

ship is. If you died, you started over with a pea-shooter. Well,

I'm cranking, getting farther

ship than I’ve ever gotten, and this idiot jumps up and sticks a quarter in The distraction of his ship appearing made me lose my ship! I turn and yell at the chump, telling him to ask next time— and I lose another ship!'

[ntnmandmenl

shall remember

ir and tell

aren't so lucky. Putting your fist through a screen will break the machine, but you will also be arrested, sent to the hospi¬ tal— and your peers will think you're an utter hole.

Machines can't hear, either. It's fine to get into a game, and shouts of "Die! Die!" can enhance the 'cade expe- * rience for everybody, but getting verbal¬ ly abusive says more about you than the machine. "Swearing at an inanimate object because of your shortcomings is an indica¬ tion that you are brain dead," says Jonny Farring- don, a transatlantic 'cader from the U.K.

Also, if you have strange personal gaming rit¬ uals, keep them for your home Nintendo — don't inflict i ‘cade games and other players.

"It's not really a good idea to lick your fingers before, after or during play," says McBride. “I've seen this every so often, and it’s disgusting. Imagine that the player before you slobbered all over his hands.

Now you're hammering on the

.. , buttons — and then you're going to stick

machines are not able to feel pain and you ~ b

r ’ your fingers in your mouth?”

|[ommandmenl

■Thou shall riol abuse jthe machines.

■Games these days are pretty great: they ■can talk to you, flash threats at you, do ■everything short of nibble your ■you they love you. What they can't ■is fight back if you physically abuse ■them. A computer opponent ■might defeat you, but taking it >n the stick and cabinet only ■guarantees that the game won't ■be there for you to practice on in ■the future. Games are more deli¬ neate than they look.

"Don't abuse the games," .

■says Aaron Mandel. "Don't whack ■your hand on the glass after a bad ■pinball game. Don't shout 'You moth- ■erfucking BITCH!' at Street Fighter //if ■you lose the first round. Don't assume that ■jamming the joystick against the side of its ■casing will make the game respond faster. ■Nobody likes dropping money into a game ■only to find out that the left leafspring isn't ■ responding."

You should also remember that

them 01

-,ou shall remember it s just a game.

Ignore one through nine; if you follow ten, you're gold¬ en. Basically, videogames are for fun. Even if someone dicks you over in a big way, you haven't lost anything except some spare change and your pride, and the latter is just temporary. Leave the arcade. See a movie, hang with your friends, heck, read a book if you have to. Next time you go, it'll be like nothing ever happened.

"If your opponent pulls off a difficult move, or counters a seemingly impossible combo, drop a compliment," says John Coleman. "You won't have him pissed off if you beat him, and he'll generally be nicer to you. If you lose, he may be men ful, and let you win a round. You'll proba¬ bly make a friend, too." Or at least you won't make an enemy.

Some strange creatures hang at the ‘cades, and you don't want to have a in with them. "I was playing Mortal Kombat in this mall," says an anonymous gamer from Sub-Zero, and I was fighting the computer, which in this round was a female character, Sonya. As the game began I discovered that half of the buttons on the machine didn't work, so, needless to say, I got battered rather badly.

Some guy walked up and said, ‘She's really kicking your ass.

You must be too much of a gentleman to beat up on a lady.' After I reassured him that 1 would very much like to do a better job of fighting if only the buttons worked, he seemed to become overly concerned with the injustice of a broken video game. 'That's so unfair,' he said. ‘That's really just not right.' Seeing that my game was about to end, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a 9mm handgun. 'Shall I blow her away for you?' he asked excitedly. Strangely enough, nobody in the packed gameroom seemed to notice a man pointing a gun at a machine. I tried to persuade him that it was okay, I didn't really mind losing, but he insisted. ‘Really, I think I've gotta blast her," he said, “I mean, it's just not fair.' At this point, the game ended and he seemed to lose interest. ‘Well, maybe next time I can help you,' he said as he moved over to get some tokens from the money changer."

^ Hey. It's just a game.. .right?

Baltimore. "

GALAXY

list ROB LIEFELD injects

into his hottest title.

RULES:

Bad-boy a new blood

: YOU'RE A COMIC BOOK ARTIST,

E ARE THE

"Don't go out and

■completely torque a big-money title like X-Force.

S Don't start your own comic company. And fer

■ cry in' out loud, don't do a commercial for Levi's 1 501 Blues.

But artist Rob Liefeld was never one for (rules (or Marvel's artist guidelines). As ■founder of Image Comics, he and a bunch of (fellow renegades created a company that — out Hof nowhere — turned into an industry two-ton

■ gorilla, largely thanks to Youngblood. That ■title, which elicits praise from comic fans and ■scorn from comic purists, continued Liefeld's (artistic legacy of in-your-face composition,

(Japanese-inspired stylistic quirks and high- jp powered killer kombat scenes.

J Since its debut more than two years ago,

I blood has remained one of Image’s most popv

■ comics. Despite the book's incredible ■cess — or maybe because of it — Liefeld

■ recently put down his pencils and took a

■ mysterious extended break. b I took some time off to clear my

■ head," says Liefeld. “I realized that all we ■were doing at Image was action-adventure I stuff, and that too many of the books imi¬ tated each other. By the time I did the last (few pages of Youngblood: Strike File issue ■three, I was like, Tve had enough of this.'

While on hiatus, Liefeld spent some Btime in Hollywood, wheeling and dealing '

■ in an effort to turn Youngblood into ■Saturday-morning cartoon. But, as he ■explains, handing his prize creation ov ■to a network conglomerate was not (his, or the comic's, best interest.

11 CBS is just too conservative for my (tastes," says Liefeld. “When you goto ■the mass market, you run the risk of

■ killing your property. The Flash, Fish ( Police and Cadillacs And Dinosaurs

e all primo examples of that.

So Liefeld is back where he (belongs, behind the drawing board,

■with plans to relaunch a new and

■ improved Youngblood later this ,

(month. "When I first started doing,

1 Youngblood, I didn't even have a,

(game plan," he says. "There was a ( definite neglect of character through- j (outthefirstissue. The newissues, how- (ever, will feature much more character devel-

_ opment. What does this guy eat I dinner? What does he do when he goes home 1 night? What are his motivations, his phobias?"

Great. But will there still be fights?

"Of course," snorts Liefeld. "It's a comic book.’

^7T1 IHgaEM

Rub’s herns: _

1 Jack Kirby: "I

I always admired his 1 # / ability to efficiently

a# * move the camera around

' in his artwork and tell a jP# good story. He's my num¬ ber-one artistic influence."

2 Arnold Schwarzeneg¬ ger: " He's got a lot of T drive and personal charisma, 1 dm and is a great salesman for what- | ever he does.”

3 Michael Jackson: ' I always appreciated Michael's ability to WMM reach the top, then work extra hard gjfto reach an even higher level. He has 3 If the ability to handle a problem or diffi- §r cult situation." T?:

PHOTO BY MARCUS CUFF

5H00TYZ

GROOVE

JAMMIN IN VICIOUS ENVIRONMENTS

IN STORES JULY 12

i city with Hulk

© 1994 Marvel, Mtertainment Group, Inc. Aiyppts reserved..

I and Game Gear are trademarks of Sega Entftpg ltd. Suptolintendo Entertain*! System and the Official Seatsai

of America Inc. © 1991 ggntend America Inc. © 19Q3 tf,|jp§pld,

*■	FJ

FLUX What's more jammin' than music

& video games. FLUX brings you the lets you hottest new tides. Send this in . . for a jammin ' cassette with 2 tracks

J ^ ^ ^ ^ from Shoolyz Groove's "Jammin' in

VlCiOUS ^ICI0US ^nvironmenfs" and a woous

video preview of the Incredible Hulk

environments! *>9“

Send this NOW to: FLUX VICIOUS JAM, 2-40 Bridge Ave. Red Bank, NJ, 07701

Name: _

Address: _

City: _

State _ Zip _

^ i

ROB

ZOMBIE

IS ONE

FUNKY

LOOKIN'

DUDE:

Tattered clothes, government-issue shades, multiple tat¬ toos, that crazy hat... And jejg-p'' those ratty dreads With a tough-as- nail look like that, you know he's got- 1 ta be a musician, S an artist 01 backwoods psy- g rc|otic that eats | bark. Well, two out * j of three ain't bad.

As the front- White

after we finish an album is. ‘This sucks.’ I guess the reason I keep doing if is because I’m never happy — I always think I can do it better. If I was p 5=?®?® really "" = happy with

something.

"Eueru little kid drams

Most kids give it up after a certain point, but I never did— although I never really took it seriously, either. Only recently have I begun to take drawing more seriously.” "The band

" ll these new comic artists are really good, but I’m not really into them because they all look like guys who learned how to draw from reading comics. Their stuff is so stylized in a comic book way. ! prefer the old DC guys because they were just a bunch of free¬ lance illustrators who decided to draw comics, and they all had a really cool style. The guys today seem like they just learned how to draw from copying their favorite artists, and i’m not into that."

pretty much takes up all my time, so I never really dram just lor the hell el it. There’s usually a purpose, like the Cannibal Cards, or a t shirt, or an album design, or the stuff S did lor you guys. I just don’t haue enough lime to sit there and sketch. Plus, I’m pretty unmotivated when it comes to draining, so I need a real job mith a deadline in order to gel something donent pushes melomork.”

"To me, the artwork was always the most

important thing in comic books. To tell you the truth, the wiiting in most comics pietty much slinks. I would always buy a comic with good art and never even read the thing.

I never had any interest in what was "I’Hl going on in the story."

guys: Chuck Biscuits from Danzig and Otis Link, who did the first serial killer trading card set.

Each one is the size of a postcard, and they’re ilike recipe cards for human stews and stuff like that. There are about 20 different cards, and each one’s about real cannibal like Ed Gein, Richard Chase or Jeffrey Dah- mer."

wilh anything I do. Even with the band.

Hip firsi thinn I sa v

woman 1 do it anymore.”

and I mas no different.

Get

THE FINAL DECISION Home Video and

watch their greatest challenge ever!

JhB FINAL

decision

: :

Then get ready for more in the Fall!

Available at Kmart

In September, Mortal Kombat II hits Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy and Game Gear systems —hard . The original Mortal Kombat set a new

record by selling over two million car- -w .A ,

tridges in just a few months. So, as the x ' j

world waits for MKII to come home, Flux f

went straight to the source — Acclaim's MKII producer, Rob Leingang — to find out what to / expect from the most anticipated release of the yearA

flux: How many of the fighters will appear in the home games? \J rob LEINGANG: The Super NES and Genesis versions have all 12jj with his or her own finishing moves.

flux: Mortal Kombat is involved in huge controversy over viol#ncel| video games. In light of all the public and governmental outcry, will the howe ver¬ sions be as violent and bloody as the arcade game? How strong a ratinjj the games earn?

leingang: The rating for Mortal Kombat II will not be determined until ver¬ sions are submitted to Nintendo and Sega for approval. The home versions will be as true to the arcade as possible. [Ed. Note: Flux recently discovered that the SNLS version will have blood and fatalities I] flux: The arcade version of MKII is full of secret stuff. How many of the secret characters, like Jade and Smoke, will make the jump to the small screen? Will the hidden hong game be included?

leingang: All four versions will have hidden characters, but it has yet to be decided if the Pong game will be included.

flux: The original MK.took 16 megs for SNES and Genesis. How big will MKII be? leingang: Both the Super NES and Genesis versions will be 24 megs,

m flux: What was the most difficult thing about programming MKH1

igang: The biggest obstacle to overcome was trying to condense a giant arcade 1 game into a home system. Sometimes we're unable to include minor details like sound or the detail of hidden items.

- flux: What did you learn from the original home versions of MK that you were able to use on MKII 1 leingang: UVe learned that the human body can survive for up to two weeks 1 without any sleep [laughs]

home

IT BEGINS IN

GENERATION NEXT

UNCANNY X-MEN #3 16-317 X-MEN #36-37 _

AND CONCLUDES IN

FINAL SANCTIC

CABLE #16 WOLVERINE #85,

NBA star a martial arts instructor a police officer and a mortorcycle racing champi¬ on -hit the arcade to tackle four of the most popular coin-ops: NBA Jam, Mor¬ tal Kombat, Lethal Enforcers and Suzu- ka 8 Hrs. Flux wanted to know whether real life veterans measured up to the average coin jockey. Do hours of pain-staking hoop-shooting, board- |j breaking, bullet-dodging, rubber- a burning work prepare one for the enemy in the machine? Does hard work in the real world prepare one for the nanosecond, decision-making skills necessary in negotiating today’s most popular games? Here’s our results.

n sharpshooter

EnForcERS

@ Mackbell

& Mortal

IF

rsk any junior I hot rodder l what the bad- dest motorsport arcade game is and the answer is always the same: Namco's Suzuka 8 Hrs. Motorcycle Grand Prix. This wildly popular and physically exhausting game is based on the annual Suzuka 8 Hour Endurance race in Japan.

With that in mind, we enlisted the racing skills of veteran biker Dwayne Chung, 1993 Champion Of The American Federa¬ tion Of Motorcyclists, giv¬ ing him the chance to eithe flail in a Suzuka 8 Hrs. comf

Like real motorcycle Suzuka 8 Hrs. is very p Dwayne, dressed to the h racing leathers, climbed abc of the four model Superbi gunned the throttle. We v Dwayne, despite never played the game, was slam bike down into sharp turns, the gas wide open and grs handful of brake at the last second. We raced four times and, somehow,

Dwayne kept finishing dead last.

"There must be something wrong with this game," said Dwayne. “It must not be programmed right."

Yeah. Sure, Dwayne.

flux: For a first-timer, what are your first

INTERVIEW BY STEVE ENGELBRECHT

impressions of Suzuka 8 Hrs .1 dwayne chung: I really like that the game has more than one bike — the competition puts an edge on it. It's also cool when you start out because the rear wheel spins and leaves a black stripe on the pavement, just like my Superbike does in real life. You don't shift gears like a real racing bike, but if you throw it into a corner too hot, it slides both ends — pretty authentic. flux: Do you find yourself racing more aggressively with the absence of risk? chung: Dirty riding is at an all-time high with this game. I think it would be more realistic if someone stood behind you and hit you on the head with a hammer every time you crashed.

flux: How does the level of com¬ petition com¬ pare to the track?

CHUNG: Real

road racing is fierce. Your life is at stake. There's a lot of contact out there on the track, and we run into each other. I've had plenty of injuries — luckily

nothing permanent. flux: So, Dave — you haven't won a race all day. Is the Suzuka 8 Hrs. game like the real thing?

: Man, I've never seen guys ride so hard and never let up off the gas in my entire life. Maybe the more time you spend on the real track, the worse you do on this thing because you know how bad it hurts when you crash for real.

BY DAVE DUPREE

INTERVIEW BY DAVE LEWIS PHOTOS BY HARRY HELEOTIS

Every day after school during his last semester at St. Raymonds in the Bronx, future NBA superstar Kareem Reid prac¬ ticed his super slam dunks, three-pointers and some good, ol' fashioned, knock-down, drag- out defense — on the NBA Jam court, that is. We caught up with Reid at "Goodfellas," a local pizza joint in the Bronx, where he sunk quarter after quarter into his favorite game, NBA Jam.

reid: I can choose my favorite player— it has all the good players in the NBA. I also like the way they jump and jam and shoot the three. And the blocked shots are fierce.

flux: Who is your favorite character?

Anderson (New Jersey Nets). Peo¬ ple compare my style of play on the court to Kenny and Nate Archibald. I like playing as the Nets. I also play as Seattle a lot. Kemp and Payton are the real thing.

flux: Have you played NBA Jam Tournament Edi¬ tion?

rsid: That's all I play. The place where I play only has Tournament Edition.

flux: How often do you play? reid: Every day. I don’t know how many quar¬ ters I've sunk in, but it’s been a lot. flux: Do you ever play any secret characters, like the cheerleaders? reid: No way. That's cheating. flux: With the super dunks and “on fire" powerups, NBA Jam is hardly a realistic bas¬ ketball simulation. Does that matter to you? reid: No. It's fun. Guys are doing jumps and somersaults, but it's cool. Older games are too boring.

flux: Is there anything about NBA Jam that does feel realistic? reid: Oh, definitely. When I move the stick, it’s like when I move. When I juke, the char¬ acter jukes. It's like I'm there, out on the court, dishin' and shootin'. flux: Do you have the home game?

reid: No. But my friend lent it to me. It was pretty good. I don't think I'd buy it. I like the arcade version.

flux: Do you play any other basketball video games? reid: I play NBA Showdown (Electronic Arts). It’s not as good as Jam, but I'm into it. flux: Would you ever want to be a character in the game?

REID: Oh yeah! Def¬ initely. If I had a character it would have my initials: KAR.

flux: What do you like the most about NBA Jam?

Regarded as one of the best point guards in the country. School team, St. Ray- (Bronx, NY) won City and

lames EHII

1 PLAYS LETHAL ENFORCER

if Officer, Newark, New Jersey Police | Department

if Valor rewards for performace above I and beyond the call of duty i H uarters are all you have at stake in video II game showdowns. On the streets, howev- ij-J er, the consequences are slightly higher, j "Arn't nobody gonna put another quarter in there I so you can get up again," says Officer James Hill I of the Newark Police

game are taken from our simulations. It's almost identical. Even in the simulators, when you shoot bystanders, you don't get any points. flux: Under what circumstances would you shoot someone?

hill: If someone points a gun at me, I can shoot them. If someone uses deadly force on me and there is no other means to stop them, I'll shoot them. I shot at somebody once, but I missed him because kids nowadays wear oversized clothes. He was a skinny guy, and the bullet went through his shirt. I pray to God I don't have to shoot. flux: Have you ever been shot at? hill: Once, when I was a rookie, as soon as I got on the force. There was a shootout in Newark. We didn't catch him — he got away. It's a scary feeling.

flux: How would you improve Lethal Enforcers to make it more realistic?

If you get shot, you should feel something— even if it's like a zap in the gun or a sting or something. It should remind you not to get shot, d also make the gun more realistic.

The guys in the games have real guns, so why am I shooting with a big plastic pink thing? The pink and turquoise guns are cumbersome. Kids like realistic looking things.

In addition, as I've said earlier, kids wear oversized clothing. Maybe they could change the game so that baggy-clothed villains have to be hit dead center or else they get back up. flux: How would you compare the anticipation players experience in the game with your experiences on the street?

When you're playing a game, you're playing for points. When you're out on the streets, you're not playing for points anymore. You have to separate your¬ self from the fantasy and the reality of it. It's not for points anymore — it's for real. When you get shot, ain't nobody going to put anoth¬ er quarter in there so you can get up again.

But then again, even on the streets, everything you do is a game. I try to win my game and he tries to win his game. If I get hit, he wins. If I shoot him, I win. But, believe me, when I'm out on the streets, I'm going to win my game, get the high points and go home that night. I don't play to win, I play to live.

INTERVIEW BY KENNETH LI PHOTOS BY JOHN DOLAN

•^Top ranked (#1) competitor in the open forms division of the North American Sports Karate Association (1990, 1991, 199Z199T1

Chris Casamassa

PLAYS MORTAI KOMRAT

f:

’ r

INTERVIEW BY KENNETH LI PHOTOS BY IUIARCUS CUFF

flux: How did you fare in the game?

CHRIS CASAMASSA: I do okay. I'm better on my Sega Genesis home version than on in the actual arcade game. My favorite character is Raiden.

FLUX: Why?

casamassa: He's got a lot of cool moves; he’s got the lightning throw, he's got the torpedo dive, jump¬ ing thrust kick, upper cut. His character uses a com¬ bination of many of the game's moves, plus he’s got that mystical thing. It's kind of neat. flux: What did you think of the game? How real¬ istic is it?

casamassa: It's pretty realistic in the martial arts aspect. Many of the moves that the characters do are actual martial arts moves. They used real life characters dressed up in costumes to do the moves and then just copied them into computer graphics.

I know a couple of the guys they used as models for the game, Daniel Pesina and Ho Sung Pak. flux: What kind of styles do they use?

The styles that Daniel and Ho Sung use are an eclectic blend of Wu Shu, which is a Chinese- style of martial arts, plus some Korean Tae Kwon Do. Many martial arts moves are common to a lot of styles. For example, a front kick can be found in a Japanese-style, a Chinese-style and a Korean-style. There are certain moves in particular that certain styles have that others don’t. For example, Tae Kwon Do has a lot of jumping kicks, whereas the Japanese style uses more punches and elbows. The Chinese influence shows up in circular redi- rectional blocks and some of the swinging strikes. flux: Have you ever competed in real life against Daniel Pesina?

flux: How about in the game? CASAMASSA: No. In

the game, he kills me every time. flux: How does it feel?

CASAMASSA: Well, I just keep putting trying to best him,

but it’s hard.

flux: Have you ever competed with Ho Sung Pak?

Yes. I think I only beat him once out of the seven times that we met in competi-

Would you like to be in the next Mortal Kombat ? CASAMASSA: I'd love to be in the game. I'd like to be a Red Dragon fighter. Fire¬ breathing could be one of my special powers.

THOSE OF YOU

who remember Akira from its first theatrical release in 1991 are proba¬ bly still reeling from the wreckage. Over two hours in length, this Japanese animation — which required the devel¬ opment of new technolo¬ gies just to produce — featured scenes of de¬ struction not matched in any movie, animated or live action. Now Akira is back in full force, with a new full-screen video release, a video game and new comic books and trading cards.

Set in the not-so-dis- tant years following World War III, Akira takes place in a rebuilt but unim¬ proved Tokyo— where teenage motorcycle gangs, wired on adrenaline and ultravio¬ lence, battle for turf and honor, where the govern¬ ment performs horrific experiments on children to release their dormant mental powers, and where fanatical cultists,

desperate for even the most fleeting chance at a future, await the second com¬ ing of a psychic messiah known only as.. .Akira.

Into this background of urban decay and technological menace comes Tet- suo, a young motorpunk whose hidden psychic powers bloom as the result of a run-in with a mutant runaway. Kidnapped by the government, Tetsuo's powers grow until not even he can control them. Soon he begins to strike back at a world that has abused him since birth, moving towards a final conflict with the hiber¬ nating Akira — a conflict that may mean the end, not just of NeoTokyo, but of the Universe. Kay, a cute young rebel, and Kaneda, Tetsuo's former best friend, are all that stand in his path. Place your bets.

Home video fans can check their local video store or comic shop J/Nt for the Akira video (which features new, cooler packaging). Andlaterthis

year, video game makers THQ will be releasing Aki- The Game — a true-to-the-movie arcade-style adventure that puts you at ground zero of the film's psychic holocaust. The game gives you the opportunity to play most of the movie's major characters. Kaneda the motorpunk goes head to head and cycle to cycle against his archrivals, the Clown Gang; an injured Tetsuo must escape from a military hospital; Kaneda and Kay race against time and their enemies in a thrilling air-sled battle through the sewers of NeoTokyo; and, finally, the climax — Tetsuo

HnimE "musT sees”

FEATURES:

.Akira

The Wings Of Hon neamise NausicaS Of The Valley Of The Winds Laputa '

Arion

Macross The Movie (Obuete Imasuka)

Harmageddon

Lensman

Supernatural Beast City Venus Wars

ORIGINAL VIDEO ANIMATION:

Ranma 1/2,

Bubblegum Crisis J

Gal Force {'

Vampire Hunter D

Those Obnoxious Aliens (Urusei Yutsura Guyver Project A-Ko Iczer I

Rragon Ball

Grave Of The Fireflies /

don’t have to beat the shit out of them and watch them bleed to death."

Akira: The Game will soon be out for both the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and will be released on Sega CD by Christmas and IBM CD the fol¬ lowing spring. "The CD versions will use actual footage from the film, with subti- f ties and digitized voices and so on," says Siegel. "They'll have the actual sound¬ track from the movie, and a few more lev¬ els of gameplay. We expect them to be vastly superior."

Meanwhile, for you videophobic Akira fans, Epic/Marvel Comics will tie up the loose ends of its English-translated series with a string of releases that will finish off the 1800-page, 38-volume trade paperback compilation — culminating in a special 39th tribute issue next March. In addi¬ tion, Cornerstone will simultaneously

_ 1 put out a set of full-color trading cards

with scenes and information from the film, including never-before-published, behind-the-scenes cells and sketches.

This all should appease the A/dra-obsessed until the next infusion of psychopunk horror — a live- action version of the film, currently rumored to be in the works. How many times can one city explode, anyway?

battles the army, Kaneda battles mutant creatures. ..and Akira? Akira obliterates everything.

"When I first saw Akira, I fell in love,” says THQ vice-presi¬ dent Larry Siegel. "I thought it was the best animated produc¬ tion I'd ever seen — and it had 'video game' written all over it. Our game will offer an enor¬ mous variety of play elements, and it will have a Japanese ani¬ mation look and feel, which we thought was critical."

Also preserved is the in- your-face violence of the film — at least in the Sega ver¬ sion. “The Sega version will go out with a warning: MA-13," says Siegel. "Nintendo oper¬ ates on more of a censorship system, so it'll be a tamer ver¬ sion. Our interest was in mak¬ ing a good video game, not a violent one. For a game to play well, you clearly have to hit the bad guys, but you

SCIENCE FICTION CONTINUUM

Catalogue of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Honor

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STANDARD STAGE

MANE UVER S

UU

Arm tor a tor ge bote Vc\ toe WOWd OT some¬ where oft to toe extreme s\de.\Nberr J you tot toe T\ooy, grab toui \ett \kr\ee, start cryrrrg and

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\nto toe crowd r'rght betore toe song's crescendo. Mu\\

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headhrstrnto your g\rd\e \nto the bobbytt tuck.

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| enough to have a few moments to spare, try and do as much damage as possible. Step on effects pedals, crash into a rack mount, spill a Cherry Coke into the synth stack, knock over the kick-drum mic, and, if you wanna have some real fun, knee the bass player in the balls. This is guar¬ anteed to make a lasting impression on any band, as well as on your forehead and stomach when that malevolent road¬ ie actually catches up with you.

To achieve maximum altitude, use the front monitors to launch. Most vocalists consider this a violation of their personal space and will offer an unsolicited boot up your ass to make this point clear.

4)»

If you're a beginner and haven't perfect¬ ed the right-shoulder rollout, do not dive head first. After you've had a few skull/concrete impact craters, you will eventually learn that, while it's cool to let everyone see your love of music etched deeply and permanently in your kisser, it is also quite painful.

5) >

_ f STUDY THE PROS.

If you see the same dude making it to the stage six or seven times during the same song, pay close attention. He obviously knows what he's doing. Oh, sure, security will probably beat the living hell out of him when they finally catch him, the annoying fuck. But, hey, stage divers aren't motivated by anything but glory. Also, it has been scientifically proven that chicks dig that kind of thing.

A FEW FSISAI. TIPS! while onstage, do not try to shake hands with the guitar player. He's busy. And don't try to accompany the singer in a duet. That's what the rest of the band is for. Also, keep in mind that stage diving is not an Olympic competi¬ tion, so unless you're a seasoned veteran with 12 mangled Slayer shirts, a perma¬

nently concave forehead, and at least! three barricade scars to prove it, don’t try j anything too artsy. No double somer-| saults, no jackknives, no Swan Lake ; justl get up there, do your thing, and jump! off — preferably feet first. This way, if you! manage to land on some guy's girlfriend, | at least you’ll have a running start.

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I £HFrC CAfF IT* w^ether you're a friendly neighborhood webslinger or a sLlU 1 ^ l /VV>C II* grim and gritty crusader of the night, if you're a superhero, YOU ARE WHAT YOU WEAR. It doesn't matter how much adamantium you have in your bones, how powerful your optic blasts are, or how quickly your urine eats through sheet metal: If your costume sucks, you won't get the super-respect you deserve. And you probably won't be asked to join any cool team-ups, either. (Maybe a one-shot crossover with Captain Planet and the Planeteers, if you're lucky.)

Comics, decides to revamp the concept and re-release it— this time turning Joe Mamma into a dark anti-hero, hell-bent for blood and revenge:

Now Joe Mamma is a Vietnam vet, subjected to grotesque experi¬ ments by military scientists seeking to create an indestructible super-soldier: a human Twinkie. Fleeing the experiment, which involves giving him a radioactive-cream enema, he makes a vow at the grave of his World War l-vet father to hunt down his corrupt former superiors — and anyone else who gets in his way — as Doughboy the Vigilante. His costume consists of a sleek black bodysuit, crossed chrome bandoleers, a heavy leather jacket with lots of useless buckles and zippers, knee-high combat boots and a carbine the size of Mt. Rushmore. First ish, "Butcher, Baker.. ..Life Taker" sells out in regular, premium, and unleaded editions. Barbell instantly begins merchandising action figures and a movie adaptation.

Clothes make the man. Let’s face it, if Aquaman were introduced today, his costume would be the kiss of death. His powers are already somewhat crappy: he can summon dolphins and swim incredibly fast, both less-than-useful skills in your typical urban setting. And the guy wears a sequined, skin-tight orange shirt with a wide neckline that just screams "Disco is my life!" Plus green tights. He looks like the poster- boy for Tropicana orange juice. And like most other male superheroes, he has no visible bulge at his crotch. On him, however, it seems appro¬ priate.

So what is it that makes certain superhero costumes crucially cool and others lamer than a broke-leg dog? Here's a list of basic criteria:

1) In most cases, simpler means better. If your costume looks as if you spend more time trying to put it on than actually fighting crime, think again.

2) Originality helps. Just because Superman has a cape doesn't mean you have to have a cape. If Superman jumped into a black hole, would you do it too? Also, funky accessories help: a flaming sword, a bazooka, a live serpent draped around your neck like an aviator scarf, etc.

3) The mask thing. Go with a full-face mask (like Spawn, the Black Panther, Iron Man) or no mask at all. Half-masks with cowls that expose your brutish, lantern-like (or vixen-y) jaw can work for some — Batman, for instance — but this is the exception, not the rule.

What about a little Lone Ranger eye-mask (Green Arrow and Green Lantern, which explains a lot)? NO! NO! NO!

3a) No ankle boots.

4) Be classy. It's fine to ignore the laws of physics — hell, the Puzzling Gravity-Free Boob Factor (PGFBF) is one of the things that makes comics truly meaningful — but that doesn't mean your heroine should be forced to fight crime in a pair of metallic pasties and an artfully placed postage stamp. Not all grim 'n' gritty male heroes require permanent five o' clock shadow. And exposed chest hair is disgust¬ ing and a fire hazard.

Of course, this isn’t an

exact science. There's a je | ne sais quoi, a savoir faire, f a jean luc picard sur- f rounding the very coolest | costumes. But the best I way of demonstrating the I above points is, as always, f by example. With that in I mind, we sifted through | our extensive comic book collections and picked out the good, the bad, and, of course, the ugly. Here they are: j 10 best — and I

1 worst — superhero cos- | tumes in comics history, j

ThC BEST

IQ} SPAWN — Costumes all too often fall into the dreaded 1 u f "mix 'n' match" trap, in which underpaid artists who've inhaled too much aerosol spray glue simply toss together a tried, true and tired set of accessories, scars, tattoos and body parts. Presto! Stamp that sucker in gold foil. The results can be horrif¬ ic — Dress-Up Barbie on- anabolic

steroids — or they can be, well, kinda cool. Spawn's ‘drobe is in the latter category: classic Superhero™ red and blue tights, a big ol' Dr. Strange cape, Ghost Rider's chain- and-skulls kit — it works, and you won't con¬ fuse this homeless advocate from hell with any other hero.

Q | DAREDEVIL— The Man Without Fear has changed his / * costume for only the second time since his creation more than three decades ago. Too bad. His classic red-tights-and-teeny- horns outfit was ironic and streamlined — the devil as defender of the faith, a circus acrobat with ass-kicking potential. It was one of the simplest and most craftily symbolic costumes in Marvel history, and it will be missed. Although, to be sure, the guy's blind— he could have been wearing a Flopsy the Clown outfit and not known it.

Q | SABRETOOTH— Not many people can wear a fur ruff and carry Of it off (not to mention mutton-chop sideburns); Mr. Tooth does

it with panache, proving through sheer, red-eyed menace that this former villain and current X-Man is more than just one in an army of Wolverine clones.

7 k NINJAK — Valiant has come up with a lot of / * mediocre costumes, several really boring ones, and a couple that were truly awful (see the next page). Recently, thanks to artist Joe Quesa- da, they've struck gold with the first really classy rendition of the "bad-ass ninja superhero" look — something that Image and Marvel have been trying to perfect for years. With Ninjak, Valiant beats them to the punch.

/k AZRAEL— Another Quesada triumph,

0 f even if it is a little overwrought. The mys¬ tery, symbolism and sheer visual power of Azrael's costume makes one hope that, if (when!) Bruce Wayne finally takes up the man¬ tle of the Bat again, Azrael will pull his original outfit out of cold storage, too.

P [\ MYSTIQUE — Okay, so she's notexact- 0 f ly a heroine. And she doesn't exactly have a costume. But her look projects a certain sexy arrogance that puts her head-and-bare-shoulders above the competition Basic white works better for her than anyone in the vel Universe, and her skull motif is understated and disturbing. If we had to date someone's mom, we’d choose her. Are you listening,

Nightcrawler?

/k RORSCHACH— Not a costume so Ajf much as an attitude and a nasty smell, Rorschach's “Will fight crime for Prozac" outfit hearkens back to the trenchcoat-and-fedora ‘drobes of ‘40s pulp crusaders,

dark and brood¬ ing types like The Shadow.

What makes Alan Moore's Watchman antihero spe¬ cial, however, is his mask.

Shaped from an experimen¬ tal double-lay¬ ered material filled with some kind of moving colored gel, it transforms his face into a con¬ stantly changing splatter of black on a field of fea¬ tureless white — like the cards in a Rorschach test, hence the name. (Duh.) Another great mask is that of DC's The Question, which leaves him with no face at all.

Ok DOCTOR

JF STRANGE— Far

from simple, the footsie pajamas and puffy blue smock worn by Doctor Strange are, instead, a reflection of his grave importance within the Mar¬ vel Universe. Is it the slash of white at his temples or the pencil-thin mustache? What¬ ever. Combined with his Eye of Agamotto, his Cloak of Levitation, and his swashbuck¬ ling red sash, Dr. Stephen Strange, Mar¬ vel's Sorcerer Supreme, cuts a figure far more enigmatic and dashing than a dozen other randomly selected leotard-wearing super¬ beings. "Dark Strange" wore a terrific, twisted version of this costume at the end of the “Siege Of Darkness" Midnight Sons crossover.

9k SUPERMAN— When L f Siegel and Schuster first unveiled Superman's red, blue and gold tights and cape, they probably didn't realize they created something more than just an outfit — they tapped into a need in the collective unconscious for an icon of truth and justice.

They also spawned ai immensely profitable mer¬ chandising bonanza, products from lunch boxes to

Underoos now bearing the gold and red stylized S" of the world's \ most famous illegal ; alien. Sure, he's an • overhyped goody- j two-shoes; but his ; simple and power- i ful look has sur- ! vived fiftysome¬ thing years, setting the standard for genera¬ tions of heroes since. And luckily, a stylistic hiccup that gave one of the post-Resurrection Supermen an annoying, Danny Terio-of-Dance Fever hairstyle and grim 'n' gritty black outfit was gently and quickly forgotten.

Ik BATMAN — The shadow of the I ) Bat. Drawn starkly across the night sky, the silhouette alone — as much a part of the city as the scum in the gutters and the rats in the attic— is enough to make evildoers quake, and the citizenry look up in awe and cau¬ tion. Unlike Superman's sunny, patri¬ otic outfit, the costume of the Batman refuses to comfort: it chills even those on the right side of the law. It is a sym¬ bol of eternal vigilance and icy revenge. The one, the original Dark Knight is more fearful than any num¬ ber of gun-wielding self-styled vigi¬ lantes, and more than anything else, it’s the cos-

THEMDR5T

ink DEATHSTROKE— Three words:

I U f boring, boring and boring. 'Nuff said.

Qk THE HULK — Top scientific minds 7 f are still working on the question of why an overdose of gamma radiation causes the mysterious side effect of turn¬ ing any outfit worn by the victim into a pair of raggy purple pants.

Ok AQUAMAN — As we mentioned 0 f before, Aquadude's duds lack imagi¬ nation, class and, of course, masculinity — which is saying a lot in a genre where 90 percent of the male characters prance around in long underwear. Did he rob an underseas Salvation Army? Is Atlantis stuck in some sort of bizarre ‘70s time warp? Who knows? Of course, the character he’s a pale ripoff of, Marvel's Sub-Mariner, fares no better, skipping around the globe in nothing more than oversized armbands and a green Speedo gets smaller every year. And it's lucky he proportionate strength of Shamu the Killer because by all rights those little ankle wings are enough to make Galactus collapse in a fit uncontrollable giggling.

Tk ROBIN — The best thing about the third / f Robin, Tim Drake, is his pants. Anyone who tells you anything else is lying. It’s no wonder that the earlier versions, with Speedos that would make Namor cringe, skinny little legs, and, yes, ankle boots, invited speculation as to the Batman's relationship with his "ward." Never mind the narrow-minded whispering. We're more concerned with the fact that the costume was bad, ugly and stupid. And not, we might add, exactly the cutting edge in protective ci ering, either.

/k DOCTOR MIRAGE — Valiant has done fairly well 0 f in the costume category, but we just can't let Doc¬ tor Mirage swoop by without screaming in horror. This costume sucks! Granted, superhero costumes have been copied from odd sources before, but this takes the cake. Consider: Valiant has a superhero dressed in a trendy ski suit and ski boots, and they actually admit it! Go figure. Ck CABLE— f or the same reason Superman made the "Best" list, Cable shows up here: influence. In the world of superhero costumes, Cable is the root of all evil. Or lots of evil, anyway. So many characters, at every publisher, have since been infected with Cable Disease— the symptoms being huge guns, giant shoulder-knee-elbow pads, form¬ fitting armor, one-eye sparkles, and facial scars— that fans would be hard-pressed to find anything original left in Rob Liefeld's character design. And it's partially his fault, because he himself cannibalized the look for a whole stable of Image characters. A quick scan of comic-shop shelves would convince a rookie reader that Cable outfits are available at an interdimensional Kmart somewhere, on blue-light special. The look has moved beyond tired, into exhausted.

IRON FIST— Of all the lame costumes of the '70s, none was more unwelcome upon its return than that of martial-arts whiz (and fashion victim) Iron Fist. The character is bur¬ dened with an open-to-the-navel, ugly, yellow-and-green sashed number with a collar so high it's got to impede his peripheral vision. The doo-rag he wears over his head and eyes makes him look like he’s recovering from a bad cranial injury. And jeez, the guy wears slippers. Even the awful blaxploitation costume his partner, Luke Cage, wore back in the days of polyester isn't as bad. And that's saying a lot.

MAJOR VICTORY — The leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy has gone through a series of increasingly unfortunate costume changes. First of all, the Ramboesque headband has got to go. (Summers patriarch/Starjammers leader Corsair, take note.) Second, the jacket/vest thing makes him look like Liberace Jr. in 21 st century Las Vegas. Finally— and this is really annoying — underneath it all it'sjust Captain costume! Even lifeless Cap-clone has his own costume! Does Major buy secondhand, or what?

ROTH ER VOODOO — In the '70s, the double entendre of his name might have been thought painfully clever. Today, of course, it's merely racist. But the name isn't half as embarrassing as Jericho Drumm, Ph.D.'s superhero/voodoo priest, African-pajamas- with-suspenders outfit. In fact, though there is quite a bit of untapped potential in the funda¬ mental character, the name and costume have made Brother Voodoo one of Marvel's great cringing embarrassments. Editors there don't even like to discuss him.

1 k DAZZLER— it was a sign of the times,

I f from a decade that brought us John Tra¬ volta, disco, roller boogie, Saturday Night Fever, and a host of similar horrors. But some things are just plain unforgivable, and Dazzler's original costume is one of them. Sparkling white and light blue, with bell-bottom pants, weird translucent eye patches, and roller skates, this costume should have spelled her doom — but somehow, mutant/Barbie clone Dazzler survived. Rumors that the costume's original designer was flogged to death with a copy of Olivia Newton John's Xanadu have, unfortunately, been exposed as false. Still, every artist in the Marvel bullpen should be forced to wear this outfit for one day out of every year as a reminder of the truly awful crimes that can be perpetrated in the name of superhero style.

MARC SILVESTR!

. RIGHTS RESERVED.

[ ©1994 TOP COW PRODUCTIONS,

CYDERFORCE™ AND ©1934 TOP COW PRODUCTIONS, INC. ALL I

«| Mortal Kombat. Aladdin. NBA Jam. You got : i 'em, you play 'em, you love 'em. And no doubt 1 you've found, shall we say, a few-less-than ethi- | cal ways to beat these and your other favorite j video games. To the hard core, the following slew of codes, tips and tricks may be common S knowledge. But common knowledge isn't j : ; r l I always so common. And all this juicy info has never been put together in j one handy list. So read on and see if you really do know all there is to .j know about these ten modem gaming greats.

MORTAL KOMBAT

| SNES/Oame Boy (Acclaim), Genesis/Game Gear (Arena)

1- The “DULLARD" code (Genesis/Sega CD): At the Game | Start/Options screen, press Down, Up, Left, Left, Button A, I Right, Down. The words "Cheat Enabled" will appear, allowing I you access to the hidden programmer's screen. Flags 0 and 1 j make easy victories for players 1 and 2, respectively. Flag 2 turns ; on the Reptile beacon moon characters; Flag 3 puts a mysterious | face and the initials BYC on the moon instead. Flag 4 turns on the Reptile's cryptic messages, Flag 5 gives you unlimited contin- K ues, Flag 6 turns on computer fatalities and Flag 7 keeps the fight in The Courtyard.

The Sega CD flags , labeled as to what they do, but Flag 3 — ’’Dads" — changes the names of the players each round, and Flag / activates a Turbo speed option. The 1st Map option chooses your starting back- I ground, Demo lets you ij view the bios and end- 0: ings for each character, ji and 1 and 2 “Play H g Chop" controls how often you get to “Test Your Might.”

2. As Scorpion, throw a harpoon, uppercut, teleport punch, foot ; j sweep and repeat. This can wear your opponent down fast!

3. To call Reptile out for a one-on-one match, beat any comput-

I er opponent on the Pit stage (without pushing block) and exe- fj I cute the finishing move. If you score a "Double Flawless" victory H V; (meaning you don't get hit at ALL during the match), you’ll get 1i | to fight Reptile. You can play at any skill level, but if your ;! I favorite character uses block in their fatality, you'll have to j choose another. If you're good enough to pull this off (the i | “DULLARD" Genesis/Sega CD code makes this easy by turning i\ | Flags 0 and 2 "on" and choosing the Pit as your 1st Map), you'll j j rumble with the Reptile in the bottom of the spike-filled Pit.

4. Blood (SNES): Game Genie (GG) code for red sweat: BDB4- | DD07

5. Play as Goro (Game Boy): When you defeat Shang Tsung and

n the game, wait for the credits to roll. When “THE END'

8. Remember, both Goro and Shang Tsung are impervious to

| foot sweeps, and Johnny Cage can't use his Split Punch against Sonya or himself.

9. Game Gear: GG code 004-2D6- 19E gives you infinite credits.

10. It's more a glitch than a tip, but if you fight the Reptile in an Endurance match, you'll get to fight a second “Reptile." Whichever warrior was the second

1 fighter in the Endurance match will appear after the proper Reptile has been defeated. They'll look all j mangled and green, but, like the ! real Reptile, they have the abilities | of more than one fighter. To see what these “second Reptiles" look j like without actually playing the : match, hit Start on the other con¬ troller during a Reptile fight. The j characters will be covered in green : garbage at the Player Select screen.

arcade designer Mark turmoil — the strongest p : player in the game— enter the initials M and J normally, then enter the T while holding Start ; ' and A on the Genesis, or Buttons L, R and Select on the SNES. Turmell can do all the dunks and is super-quick besides.

4. Legendary Parliament /Funkadetic bandleader George | “P-Funk" Clinton is another I secret character — enter D and I, I, then enter S while holding Start j and C on the Genesis or L, R, 1; Select and X on the SNES.

5. The other Clinton, Bill, is a pret- : ty good three-point shooter. Enter ; A and R, then the letter K using the above entry methods with. A j for Genesis and X for SNES.

6. Oilers Q-back Warren Moon f;; pops up when you use the same p formula, but with the initials UW_ i (space). Enter the space with but- I ton A on both systems.

7. To see the shooting percentage for each field goal or three-point¬ er you launch— crucial to master- ' ing individual characters— press it any button once then hold Down,

A and B on both SNES and Genesis. A small percentage will : appear in the lower right corner of L: the screen, and you can find the ; court's hot spots where you shoot j ; the best.

8. GG Powerup Fire: D6E9-CD18 I j (SNES) or BWPV-4A7C (Genesis) j-)

9. Juice Mode: Have a need for speed? At the Matchup screen, hit any button 13 times, then hold B

NBA JAM

. SNES (Acclaim), Genesis (Arena)

1. Powerup Fire: At the Tonight's Matchup Screen, press B seven times then hold Up, B and C on the Genesis or Up, B and Y on the SNES until the tip-off. This puts you on fire the whole game!

2. Powerup Turbo+Dunk: ~ n/9, Z

button 12 rotating and C on Genesis Y on SNES. powerup both Turbo + Dunk, giving you unlimited turbo speed and dunks from half-court.

3. To play as NBA Jam

aPPe^rs' bo^ the D-pad to the upper left corner while holding Select ; I into “Juice Mode," where everyone moves twice as fast.

and X for the SNES and B and C for the Genesis. This puts the game

and button A. When you're asked to enter your initials, put ... _

gle “A." Then press Start when the high score table appears. The screen will show Goro with the message “Goro Lives. ..As You..." and all your opponents will have new names!

6. Blood Code (Genesis/Game Gear): For a bloody good game, enter the buttons A, B, A, C, A, B, and B on Genesis and 2, 1, 2, Down and Up on the Game Gear at the Code Of Honor screen.

10. Become versatile with a number of squads, not just the Hornets f and Knicks. The oft-maligned Dallas Mavericks have the best defense in the game, plus Jackson is great at shooting threes. If you're looking i for a good offensive drive, try the Sacramento or Denver By using less ■ popular squads, you'll be able to surprise other players into defeat! j

ALADDIN

|7-A simple strategy for fighting Shang Tsung: At the open- j SNES (Capcom), Genesis (Sega/Virgin)

~ Lng ^ ( r0Vnc*' buck anb 'et bim shoot fireballs over your I i. Debug Mode (Genesis): From the Options screen, enter A C A C I head. After three or four, Tsung will charge you. Uppercut A, C, A, C, B, B, B, B on your controller. Aladdin will say "Yeah'’" and f!m[ Iff shoul° be able t0 keeP the advantage through programmer David Perry's digitized face will appear with the words

“Ah, David Perry, what is your wish?" From here, you can try any

the rest of the match.

10

I inevitably run out of apples and need I Fire what you've got on you at Jafa I jump over him and grab four more | on the other side of the screen. If Jafa I trying to control you with his staff I jumping away from him,. toward the : turns into a snake, no place is safe 1 I grab the apples and keep moving. T | hurdle the licks of fire, and nail Jafar E your labors. With patience and practi I eventually.

3. Level Skip (Genesis): Pause the

4. Extra Life (Genesis): Locate the Mickey Mouse ears.

1 on the clothesline in The Desert and, stop. When you're I not moving, Aladdin will lean and look both ways. If you I can position Aladdin so that when he leans, it looks like I ire's wearing the ears, you'll be rewarded with a 1 -Up.

5. Access Level 7 (SNES): Go right to the last level with I the following password: Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, Sultan

6. Free Lives (Geriesis/SNl.S) On Genesis, the icon | after' Jafar is usually a 1-up., so hit the button when I you see Jafar. In the SNES version, hit the button when I the Genie blinks.

7. GG Infinite .Lives: C221-4FA5 (SNES) or RGJ.B-Y6Z8 I (Genesis).

8. GG Invincibility (Genesis): ATCB-0A24.

9. GG Unlimited Apples (Genesis): ATBV-0A5L— great - I for when you fight Jafar!

10. Extra Life (Genesis): Don't forget to check your ( back n f he Desert, Level 2 — head to the left instead of I the right to find four apples and a 1 -Up.

ETERNAL CHAMPIONS

I Oegmb (Sega)

1. Trident Overkill: In the background, you'll see ,a. I rock on the left and a mermaid statue on the right.

| Position your opponent in front, of either object and 1 attack from the outside (hitting them toward the cenr I ter of the playfield) with C or Z Tentacles appear I from the deep waters, wrapping around your oppo- I nent and pulling them under,

1 leaving only a pool of blood, j

2. Midknight's Overkill: Place J where they burn to a I your opponent's knee on the || off, too.

I right side of the doorway I 9. RAX Overkill Positi fc frame on the left-of-center § left spotlight shining I shed ; your victim should be and press C or alp

to the first set of windows on either side :i of the fan. Hi; C or Z to send your oppo- I went. backwards into the fan; when they hit, a small item from their character is : spit out onto the floor.

6. Slash Overkill: On the left side of the I screen, there's a small rock with a flat I surface on one side of. the top. Align I your opponent with that rock and hit I them from the right with C or Z, A large I dinosaur appears Loin the left to snack

I Overkill, a token of the now-deceased I character will be spit out by the dino

7. Larcen's Overkill: Line up your opponent with eSigFthe ”CH" or the "ER" in the

I phrase "CHICAGO THEATER.” Hit them 1 with C or Z, arid a car will drive by and I open fire on your unfortunate adversary.

8. Xavier Overkill: Align your opponent I With the corner building in the back- I ground (that's the lightest-colored build- :? ing, closest in perspective to the action, I either safe). Yolk opponent should be I ‘iR.Ijna inside, closest to the fire. Hitting I C or Z sends them into the flames, crisp. Oh, and watch for their skull to fall

;ree angles, what's the point? stand up. Yes! Stand, you lazy bum! j addition to retaining the feel of the I ade game, your accuracy will be atly improved. If your TV is low to the ground, kneel.

4. In two player games, stick to your side of the screen. If both players are go after every enemy,

p you'll both get nailed in a hurry.

5. Shooting at the car tires on Level 1 is fun, but the cars don't j go away with blown wheels — they ; keep going, but now they bounce I up and down, making your targets harder to hit. So don't do it.

i 6. Enemies on the edges of the screen are hardest to hit; instead of j aiming with your wrist, move your i ' upper body,) keeping your arms straight, and use the gun sight.

7. Only shoot the weapons j powerups if you need them. If you ■ reload your gun between every I- shot, don't bother with the auto¬ matic. If you're not too accurate, J jg the rifle isn't the best choice — with 1 each trigger pull, it scatters three | bullets in the general #cinity of •§ your target (not a good idea for stages with hostage situations!). Conversely, weapons with larger ; . impact points, like the Magnum or I ; shotgun, will help the less-accurate marksman nail targets with ease, t 8. After the first level, don't believe : everything you hear — from either

i . the attackers or the victims. Some I of the bad guys cry out for help, then shoot you.

t 9. Save the automatic powerup on the Level 2 subway train until the end. II doesn't: disappe.il, and , you'll need the multiple bullets for

; to your right.

I helicopter will fly by, launch l a rocket and blow you# : I opponent to tiny, grisly bits,

3. Jetta Overkill: Position your i opponent's bead directly in

I front of either of the red columr : Z and the ground opens up to si

4. Shadow Overkill: Standing t I nent with the center neon left I knocked into the second neon I of like an “L") and you get t< I Watch for the eyeball to fall out

5. Blade Overkill Position youi

till: Position your opponent in the middle of the large . shining on the floor. Stand to the opponent's left fl or Z Little robots fly in to freeze disintegrate and , remains of your opponent.

ers can play as the Eternal Champion himself by 1 I-GAD4. Choose Itim w 111 the left button.

LETHAL

ENFORCERS

enter. Hit C or 8 SNES/Genesis/Sega CD (Konami) I a fpg i. At the end of each level, aWt I

;n your oppo- j§ for the boss:' gun or hands that I and they'll be p way your stop his profftcJjS&s I hat looks kind before they're launched, and. you |

> closest to the center. Hit C fallow your fallen, fog:- .: ■' ; i their right, align your op it Kut C or Z, and they'll

eady but your pistol shoots at 90

the boss.

10. If you're really desperate and need to cheat,, press pause when each enemy appears. Get a bead on , them, then unpause and shoot. It's time consuming, but it will get you to the next level If you're stuck.

SONIC 3/CD/ SPINBALL

Genesis/Sega CD (Sega)

1. SPINBALL: Collect all the rings on any level, then look for the familiar large end-of- stage sparkling ring to get multi-ball!

2. SPINBALL: Game Genie code AXBA-4A4T gives ybu infinite lives.

3. SONIC 3: At the beginning. of the Launch Base Zone, Act 2, drop down to the pipes and go right until you're in the water. To your left you'll find a Special Stage Ring.

4. SONIC 3: In the final battle against Robotnik, the Doc will appear in a domed, rocket. Hit the dome with a Super Spin Attack four times, and one stage of the rocket will be destroyed. Super Spin Attack four more times and the rest is toast. When Robotnik enters the spike-covered ship, carefully Spin Attack the dome a few times to finish him off.

5. SONIC 3: Infinite lives are yours with the Game Gear password AJ3A-CA7A.

6. SONIC 3: With the GG code AWHA-CA92, Sonic won’t lose his rings when he's hit.

II

7. CD: At the Main Menu, press Up, Down, Down, Left, Right and B for a Stage Select menu.

8. CD: Also at the title screen, hold A and press Up, Down four times, and Up. Controller 2 lets you alter the horizon and clouds.

9. CD: Press Down 3 times, Left, Right and A to access a Sound Test. Enter 07 for each of the three items and press Start to play a Secret Special Stage. Enter FM 46, PCM 12, and DA 25 and press Start for a strange mes¬ sage in Japanese. And entering FM 42, PCM 04 and DA 21 plus Start lets you view a buff humanoid Sonic!

10. CD: Beat the Time Attack mode in 37'27"57 or better to get the "D.A. GAR¬ DEN" option at the main menu., which lets you play around with the soundtrack and the planet. Beat it in 30'21 "05 or better and press Left, and you II have access to a Special Stage Select If you can defeat the Time Attack in under 25'46"12, then the "VISUAL MODE" option is yours, where you can view the game's endings and the Pencil Test demo.

STREET FIGHTER ll/SFII SPECIAL CHAMPION EDITION/SFII TURBO

I SNES/Genesis/arcades (Capcom)

1. ARCADE: On many of the SFII machines 1 (any version), put in Up, Up, Down, Down,

:| Left, Right, Left, Right, Strong, and Jab with K” Player 2's controls while a DEMO

{SB fight is going on. Unless the arcade H&!| IBig operator has turned this option off,

* ggSJ, 16 four-digit numbers will appear “"iSE! at the top of the screen:

_

■i Ton |

0001 - Probably Piayer i's ‘‘experience points." 0002 - Total coins put into the left-hand slot. 0003 - Same as 0001 , but for 2nd player.

. 0004 - Total coins put into the right-hand slot. The following numbers show how many times each of the following characters have been used on that machine:

0005 - Ryu, 0006 - Honda, 0007 - Blanka, 0008 - Guile, 0009 - Ken, 0010 - Chun Li, 001 1 - Zangief, 0012 - Dhalsim, 0013 - M.Bison, 0014 - Sagat, 0015 - Balrog, 0016 - Vega.

2. SNES Classic: When you see the Capcom logo appear on-screen, quickly enter Down, Button R, Up, Button L, Button Y, then Button B. If the code works, you'll hear a chime. Now you can play the same character against the same character.

3. SNES Classic: To play in Champion Mode on the original SFII, enter that same code at the Capcom logo. It turns blue to let you know you've done it right.

4. SNES Classic: GG code 1C65-DF00 allows turbo speed on the original SFII.

5. SNES Turbo: At the Capcom logo, enter Down, R, Up, L, Y and B on controller one. Then set the difficulty to one star, whip the game and get one of the cool advanced end¬ ings for almost no work!

6. SNES Turbo: On controller two, enter that same code at the black screen just before "TURBO" scrolls across. This increases your turbo speed even faster, up to 10 stars.

7. SNES Turbo: Instantly do charge moves with the GG code D071-E460

8. Genesis: Press Down, Z, Up, X, A, Y, B and C (Down, C, Up, A, A, B, B, C for three-but¬ ton folks) on controller one after the buildings fade at the opening. This allows up to five stars of speed.

9. Genesis: Enter the above code on controller two at the Battle Mode Select screen.to play same player vs. player in the VS. Battle.

10. All versions: Who’s the best? Ryu might be the most popular, Zangief the largest and Chun Li the cutest, but overall, Guile has the most muscle and best chance of winning.

SISIBBL USSfllfLY

IBM PC & compatibles (LucasArts)

1 The passcodes for Mission 1 are (easy, nor¬ mal, hard) FALCON, BIGGS, ACKBAR.

2. Mission 2: ANOAT, KAIBURR, FORNAX.

3. Mission 3: YUZZEM, MYNOCK, BESPIN.

4. Mission 4: BRIGIA, DAGOBAH, KESSEL.

5. Mission 5: GREEDO, MIMBAN, ORGANA,

6. If you're having trouble with garbled sound, try setting your soundcard to use the same DMA channel for both 8-bit and 16-bit sound.

7. Cheat mode: at the spinning LucasArts man, press up and fire, down and fire, left and fire, right and fire. You should hear the game clank and then say "LucasArts!" Now you can use the "ESC" key to skip levels.

8. In cheat mode, the “+" key recharges your shields.

9. Use 1-0 and A-E to go directly to any level in cheat mode

10. LucasArts has a patch available on most on-line services that's supposed to fix the mushy joystick problem.

SUZUKA 8 HOURS/ SUZUKA 8 HOURS 2

SNES/ arcades (Namco-America Inc)

1. To get off the starting line faster, don't max the throttle. 75-80% is best. Perfect starts will pop a wheelie on the

Green Hill and Bay Side circuits.

2. The courses in order of difficulty (from easy to hard) are: Green Hill, Bay Side, Suzuka's, Devil's Canyon.

3. Bikes behind the leader enjoy a boost in speed and handling. The further behind you are, the faster and easier you can han¬ dle the corners.

4. Skid marks indicate best acceleration. Lift the bike out of the corners to burn rubber.

5. Brake into hard turns, but don't release the throttle in the hairpins and chicanes.

6. Use the Warning Tracks (red & white or green & white) for extra road in the corners. Beware: they may end abruptly and slow you down on the dirt.

7. Brake as you pass the blue turn sign in order to get through the chicane on the Suzuka Circuit. Negotiate the turns — don’t over¬ steer! — and accelerate into the final stretch.

8. Turning the bike slows you down. Try to steer as straight as possible.

9. Get a rhythm when you go through the S- turns. Remember, the straightest line is also the fastest.

10. Anticipate corners by using the map. Plan ahead.

super mETmm

SNES (Nintendo)

1- When in doubt, blast it in the mouth! Many boss characters are susceptible to mis¬ sile tonsillectomies.

2. If you use up all your missiles, use your Charge Beam to finish off bosses. The Charge Beam blast has the same effect as regular mis- j siles.

3. Look for an energy tank in the ceiling of a j cavern in Brinstar. You'll need the High Jump I or Ice Beam to get it.

4. Use a turbo controller! There are many j places where you have to go straight up with- j out ledges. If you use Turbo on your Bomb ! Button, you can blast yourself as high as you j can go. Use this method to reach a hidden tunnel in the high cliff-face to the left of [ Samus Aran's ship.

5. Defeat Draygon in Maridia using your j Grappling Beam. First, blow out the four l power units on the walls. Then, let Draygon } grab you and fly around the room. When I you're in line with a power unit, fire your \ Grappling Beam into it and fry the boss.

6. How do you see an invisible hole? In Norfair, use your X-Ray Scope to view all the I;; walls, but also try walking straight through : rock. At the top of the shaft where iron balls roll down at you, walk left though solid stone into a hidden area.

7. If you have at least 10 Missiles, Super Missiles and 1 1 Power Bombs, you can refill your energy with this trick: Select the Power Bomb icon, roll up into the Morph Ball, press ( and hold the L and R Buttons and the Shot Button while holding Down on the control | pad. Samus will absorb the energy and get p refilled tanks.

8. Higher isn’t necessarily better. In certain j: areas, turn off the Hi-Jump Boots in order to \\ leap a little further horizontally or to avoid ii enemies clinging to the ceiling.

9. Use the Ice Beam to freeze Zebesian crea- !j tunes Jf you don't blast them to frost, they'll ;j stay frozen long enough for Samus to use jj them as platforms.

10. Use your Space Jump and Space Spin to : go spinning over the lava lake at Norfair and i'j escape the area.

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JA RACING

GENESIS SEGA

Sega’s Virtua Racing deluxe coin-op is the be-all, end-all of driving games — second to none when it comes to death-defying speed, sensational realism and white-knuckle intensi¬ ty. Crouching down in that miniature Formula One car, gripping the steering wheel as though your life depended on it and puttin' the pedal to the metal can turn a pencil-neck geek into Bobby Rahal in the time it takes to plunk |n a few quarter's. Virtua Racing’s cheap thrills and awesome spills leave all other driving sims in the dust, no question.

Wouldn't it be great to have such hand¬ cramping, vision-blurring, bed-wetting "action right in your house? Sega thought so, and have done their best to bring Virtua Racing to the home front with their new Genesis cart. This 16-megger (which fea¬ tures Sega's highly-touted super-duper SVP chip, whatever that is) is a pretty faithful translation of the coin-op, but something unfortunate happens when you play Virtua Racing from your living-room couch, hold¬ ing a joystick and watching the action on a standard television. Unfortunately, the rac¬ ing effect that made the arcade game such a powerful experience is lost.

The main problem with the Genesis ver¬ sion of Virtua Racing is that it just doesn't look right. Granted, the use of polygon graphics, enables the game to be faster and smoother — but when your car has clunky, rectangular wheels and the roadside moun¬ tains are giant, squared-off blocks, the game doesn't exactly' scream realism. And, because of the Genesis’ graphic limitations, even tf

make the action more difficult to follow. The game just doesn't feel fast, nor do you get that sense of defying gravity along the high outside walls you experience in the arcade — which sort of defeats the purpose of owning a Virtua Racing cart.

Like the arcade, when a Virtua race is over, the game is over. A few races and you've seen and done it all, pretty much eliminating that element of future-level surprise possible with other rubber-burnin’ games like Road Rash and Rock N' Roll Racing (SNES). You probably won't be spending extended amounts of time with this one (rent it for a weekend and you'll be happy).

Of course, this isn't to say that Virtua Racing doesn't have flashes of brilliance. Being able to change your perspective all the way from first-person, behind-the-wheel to high-above, hird's-eye view (with a sweep¬ ing, continuous camera motion) is one unique trait that keeps the gameplay from getting stale and puts Virtua Racing in a class all its own. And the instant replay option lets you review the race via cameras positioned in various locations around the track— a cool addition not found in the coin¬ op. As for the features present in the arcade version, most are intact, including course selection (Big Forest, Bay Ridge or Acropolis), choice of manual or automatic shift, pit stops, car-flipping crashes and dizzying spin¬ outs. True to the arcade, yes — riveting, no.

The choice is yours: you can buy Virtua Racing for the insane price of $100 and be able to play whenever you want, or you can cruise the coin-op about 133 times. Hmmm...what time does the arcade close?

RATING: 7.9

— JEFF KITTS

MORTAL KOMBATCD

sell your Mortal Kombat SNES or Genesis ’ cartridge to buy the new Sega CD version? The answer: It depends on how disappoint¬ ed you were with the 16-bit carts.

Senator Lieberman will be pleased to hear that the blood is back to arcade proportions on the Sega CD, with no special code nec sary (hence the MA-17 rating); even corpses have returned, gleefully stuck to the crimson-colored spikes in the Pit stage. The original arcade music and voices have also been restored, but inexcusably do not sound digitally crystal on CD. Many graphic changes have taken place, most notably the inclusion of more frames of character ani¬ mation (for smoother fighter movements) and enhanced, detailed backgrounds. The debug "D.U.L.L.A.R.D." code, originally dis¬ covered for the Genesis version (that's Down, Up, Left, Left, A, Right, Down at the Start/Options screen), is also in the CD ver¬ sion, giving you various programmer options

to screw around with, including one called "Turbo," which sends the speed of the gameplay into uncontrollable hyper drive.

If only the Sega CD player spun as quick¬ ly. The main problem with Mortal Kombat CD is the access time. Before each fight, gamers are treated to a silent, black screen with an annoying "Loading..." message, sometimes for up to seven long seconds— hell, you could rip out a spine in that amount of time! Shang Tsung's morphs liter¬ ally stop the gameplay as the Sega CD grabs the next image from the disc. The opening commercial montage is cool— but not that cool— and it features gameplay footage from the SNES version. What's most disturb¬ ing about Mortal Kombat CD is that there’s still plenty of room on this disc for more data — why not include some behind-the- scenes, making-of footage from WMS Industries (makers of the coin-op) that Kombatants would kill to see?

But despite such problems and disap¬ pointments, the game looks and sounds better than either 16-bit cartridge version and is the closest thing to the arcade you're going to get on a home system.

RATING: 8 —DAN AMRICH

BUBBA & STIX

GENESIS TENGEN

With a name like Bubba & Stix, we w completely jazzed to write off this Genesis cart as just another wander-around-and-hit- things “adventure" and then feed it to Boss Garbage Truck, ridding the earth of its pres¬ ence forever. But then we gave it a try.

. It pains us to admit it, but Bubba & Stix is I actually quite good. Silly — but not simplistic.

KING OF THE MONSTERS 2

SNES TAKARA

Like the low-budget Japanese films that inspired it, the original King Of The:: Monsters became something of an under¬ ground cult hit on the insanely-expensive Neo Geo system. Its campy wrestling match between movie monsters (using entire cities as the ring) was a fresh take on fighting games, and the bizarre but exciting game-

1 2-gauge — Rock N' Roll Racing, Crash & Burn and RoadBlasters, to name a few — it’s no wonder that the genre was bound to have inferior copycat titles.

Behold, Combat Cars, Accolade's truly horrendous Genesis entry into the Firepower 500.

For starters, the graphics are barely worthy of an 8-bit system, let alone a 16- bit. The distant, overhead view of the racetrack (we're talkin' Goodyear blimp height) combined with the lack of a visible

e Bubba, dim-witted hick teen strand- . ed on an alien planet. Armed only with your i extraterrestrial pal Stix— an animated piece i of driftwood— you must escape the planet

I

and take out a few interstellar nasties along the way. Pick up the easy three-button con¬ trols and go to it.

But it's not the gameplay that sets Bubba & Stix apart— although there are plenty of obstacles you must overcome by using Stix in a various creative ways — it's the game's humor. All the graphics are bright, cartoonish and. ..well, cute. But not in a stupid Barney way. Humorous touches abound, from the sneaky, tip-toeing trees to Bubba's collapse upon defeat. Funny and funky, Bubba & Stix has all the makings of a cult hit. RATING: 7 : —DAN AMRICH ;

COMBAT CARS

GENESIS ACCOLADE

With the recent abundance of violent rac-

track layout doesn't allow you to see the track ahead or give any indication of how sharp the turns are, putting you at an automatic disadvantage. Maybe that's why the controls are so damn sensitive— by the time you see a hint of a curve, you'll have to steer immediately or find yourself skid¬ ding wildly into the wall. It sounds like; fun, but it’s not.

The game's other aspects are equally dismal, if not worse. Sub-par sound, lifeless characters, standard weaponry, limited options, and impossibly twisty tracks are only intensified by the 2-player split-screen game, which squishes the screen and makes racing even more impossible than it is player mode. Of all the good racing g

on the market, Combat Cars isn’t or them. A shame, considering Accolade’s tastic effort with Hardball '94.

RATING: 2 —-BRIAN CARNEGIE

GAMING NEWS & NOTES

^►ttfs official— WAAS Industries, creator Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II a NBA Jam- cQirkopS',, is currently workr on Mortal Kombat III for the arcadi Watch for ifKr the end of '94 or ea •95. .

•Sega's new Genesis upgrade, called t - Super 32X (code- named Mars) will be c " this fall. The $149 attachment will grea enhance the graphic capabilities and Ov ail speed of the Genesis, but will fad sh .. of the awesome power of Sega's upco . ing $400 super-system, the 32-bit Satu The first game to be released for the. M will be a Star Wars cart, currently bei ' developed in Japan. The second title,, d fob release in September, will be Se Sports'. Mario Lamieu'x ‘94 Hockey — t don't worry, it won't be anything like I pitiful Cenesas original Sega Sports film

• much of the footage for the game duri hockey season at Toronto’s Maple t.i Gardens, home of the NHI’s Maple mi The arcade smash Virtua Fighter f low, with Batman Forever coming Gc

• Acclaim .in 1995. .

seems that Nintendo 'ts-fmalJy-comi . out of its denial stage Thegompa .. plans to use the rest of the. year to try recapture the top spot from Scu Programmers, at the big N are worki on a new 16-bit Mario Bros title tl

: releases available via the Sega Chanr ' in order to give retailers' a chance to off their stock. However, Subscribers the Sega Charnel wit be able to p one-level previews of new games.

. ‘Batman, Superman, Flash, Aquam Wonder Woman, Green 'Arrow and; other members of the-Justipg League ' the . teaming-up for a game, to be p ducecl by- Su nscft and released-in Janu : 1995. The 16- meg' cart, titled Just League Of Amerrca,-* wilUIflow -gainers

amerce

play warranted a few replays. But this new mutation, King Of The Monsters 2, while mildly amusing, fails to capture the player's imagination like the original did.

The basic building-throwing, village- stomping, one-on-one grapplefest is here, but with only three fighters — Astro Guy, Cyber Woo and Super Geon — and no power i lines to throw your opponents into. Instead of enhancing the original aspects, they've been cut back in favor of a 2-player Double Dragon- style option, which offers seven lev¬ els of seen-it-already action. Most gamers can finish the game and see the extremely lame ending the day they purchase the cart.

Still, the two player competitive game is silly fun, if only for a day or two. And again, just like the creature features it's patterned after, King Of The Monsters 2 is somewhat j pointless, no great contribution to the medi¬ um, and kinda crummy — but likable nonetheless. Besides, the sequel's never as good as the original. RATING: 6

—DAN AMRICH

SATURDAY NIGHT SLAM MASTERS

SNES CAPCOM

As gamers gear up for the home version of Super Street Fighter 2 , Capeom attempts to tide them over with Saturday Night Slam Masters, a wrestling game that, for all practi¬ cal purposes, should have been titled Street Fighter II & 1/2. Luckily, this game has more going for it than just a famous association; it's a solid grapplefest in its own right.

ers, those similarities might make Saturday Night Slam Masters a worthy beat-’em-up before the home arrival of Super Street Fighter 2. ratings

—BRIAN CARNEGIE

THE TWISTED TALES OF SPIKE McFANG

SNES BULLET-PROOF SOFTWARE

Those who wonder why the Sega Genesis continues to blow the doors off the Super Nintendo need look no further than The Twisted Tales Of Spike McFang. We're talk¬ ing cutesy adventure in Fairyland here, as

Capeom used 24 megs to bring Saturday Night Slam Masters to the 16-bit platforms, and those megs have been used wisely. Pretty much everything from the arcade has stayed intact in the home translation — eight controllable characters each with special moves and pins, a four-player Battle Royal option that supports controller multi-taps, fast action, stereo sound, and large, detailed sprites. Unfortunately, the giant black bar at the top of the screen— seemingly designed to give the game that real arcade "feel"— is a serious distraction.

On the other hand, fresh ideas don't exactly flow through Slam Masters. References to SFII crop up all over the place: King Rasta Mon performs Blanka’s head-bite as a special move, Gunloc is "rumored to be related to a famous street fighter” (since he's got a Sonic Fist attack, bet on | Guile) and Biff is pals with Zangief. I Plus, the combos, dizzies, announcer | and global tournament setup feel I awfully familiar. But for some play-

sweet Princess Camelia looks to our hero. Spike McFang, for help in defeating the evil General Von Hesler. Okay, so it's not exactly the concept of the decade, but Spike McFang is still a decent game for youngsters or those who simply don't enjoy a good 16-bit killfest.

Spike McFang' s perspective is all three- quarter overhead views, and the graphics are very cartoonish. The game play is extremely simplistic — see Spike and his big blue hat and really red cape walk around as the background scrolls. See and read a few word balloons. You get the idea.

Occasionally, though, you do get the chance to actually do something, like prac¬ tice your Spin Attack (does Sonic know about this?), toss your hat like a boomerang and jump over obstacles. Most of the time, however, is spent meandering through strange towns filled with helpful folk who will sell you various items and sometimes give you free info. And, of course, there are the obligatory fully animated fighting sequences with all sorts of horrific creatures.

Basically, Spike McFang is one of those “non-violent SNES Legend Of Zelda role- playing" things, with a definite Japanese bent to the graphics that's kinda cool to watch, if not to listen to (the background tunes are pure muzak hell). You need to be very young to really enjoy this game.

RATING:?

—MARSHAL M. ROSENTHAL

SUPER PINBALL: BEHIND THE MASK

SNES AMERICAN TECHNOS

Shocking but true: since the system's intro¬ duction in 1989, the Super Nintendo has been without a pinball game. This might not be a void you're particularly worried about filling, given the rather lame track record of video pinball games. But American Technos fills it

with style and common sense with their latest | release, Super Pinball: Behind The Mask.

Even if Super Pinball wasn't the only pin¬ ball game available for the SNES, it would I still lead the pack. This game really does capture the feeling of real pinball by giving you the same view of the playfield you'd have if you were standing in front of an actual pinball machine. Choose from three different tables, each complete with practi¬ cally everything found in modern pinball machines — sound effects, skill shots, multi¬ ball, even the danger of tilting. The only ele¬ ment missing is the smack of the ball against the glass on particularly violent shots. If you have three other friends, they can join you for a combination game of pinball pass-the- controller; if you're a "Nintendo, No-friend- | o" loser like most us, a one-player "con¬ quest" option lets you battle the computer.

Despite cheesy music that sounds like it was left over from Piiotwings, the colorful graphics, easy controls and challenge make this one of the best video pinball games — on any system— to date. RATING. 9

—BRIAN CARNEGIE I

[ SUPER BATTLETANK

GAME BOY ABSOLUTE The Gulf War could have made an excellent I game, but, unfortunately, this isn’t it. In Super Battletank — formerly a crummy SNES title that's now available for Game Boy — you prowl the desert wastes, hunt down everything that isn't you and kill it. Nail enemy tanks with antitank (duh) shells, ven¬ tilate them with machine-guns, or take them out with a "Fire-and-Forget" missile. Switch to your tactical map to locate enemy armor, helicopters, SCUD platforms, mine¬ fields and installations, then back to gun- ner's-eye view as you come within striking I range. No fluff here, just some good old- time search-and-destroy wartime violence. You can refuel and rearm at Allied depots, but watch that fuel gauge like a hawk (run¬ ning out of gas in the middle of an occupied I territory is a pretty stupid way to lose a war).

The graphics are excellent, and the con¬ trols are top-notch. But while Super Battletank has some fine moments, certain parts of the game seem to have been thrown together at the last hour, like the depressing sameness of the engagements or the strategic map that comes up between battles but doesn't show your new objec-

- WZ -

tives or mark the progress of the ground j war, or change in any way, ever. Lame.

Sadly, the game is devoid of any save o password feature — which essentially means j

: ; you either have to beat this sucker in one fell : swoop or pause your Game Boy and watch it j die a slow, miserable battery death. Still,

I there are worse ways to spend a train ride I than chewing your way through hordes of I Soviet-made war machines with a ridiculous¬ ly outnumbered but vastly superior American tank. And let's riot forget the patriotic tingle that you can get from sending a SCUD mis¬ sile launcher to Hardware Heaven with a laser-guided missile. Oh yeah. RATING: 7 — CHRIS HUDAK

Make sure you find the fuel power-ups to refill your engines, or you're sunk.

While its lush, colorful graphics and impressive sound make Sub-Terrania a feast for the senses, learning to control the ship's

thrusters is half the battle. The other half, | then, lies in solving the logic, puzzles o each level — firepower alone won't get you through this game alive. Since brain out¬ weighs brawn on some levels, intellectuals |

SUB-TERRANIA

I GENESIS SEGA

While the comparison might not be com- J pletely fair or immediately obvious, folks who j describe Sub-Terrania as “Ecco The Dolphin j with a gun" aren't that far, off. in both games, players float around, outwit aliens in underground caverns and get lost an awful lot. And both are pretty good examples of what the Genesis can do when some compe- tent programmers get’ down and dirty.

In Sub-Terrania, gamers pilot a small | fighter snip through nine underground- underwater levels, looking for survivors of an alien attack. It's a tense situation with a lot of gravity: thanks to Newton's law, your 1 ship is forever being pulled downward.

SUPER NINTENDO GENESIS NEO GEO JAGUAR 3D0 SUPERFAMICOM MEGA DRIVE PC-ENGINE SEGA CD

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Aero The Acro-Bat ) have licensed the Pirates Of Dark Water characters and situa¬ tions for a multilevel platform action-adven¬ ture that actually rocks!

Ignore the tired plotline, which has you playing one of three heroes (Ren, the prince — where's Stimpy?, loz, the bald guy, or Tula, the chick) in an epic quest for the so-called Six Treasures of Rule. Most of the action is straightforward jump ‘n’ stab ‘n’ shoot, but the baddies are feisty, the swash is buckling, and the backgrounds are extremely well rendered, with nice sublimi¬ nal details (if you jump into a bunch of foliage and whip your weapon around, leaves shred and flutter to the ground — things like that). One stage, at a haunted fortress known only as "The Citadel," is eas¬ ily the eeriest spook-shoot this side of Castlevania, with animated skeletons, barf¬ ing zombies, and other creeps running inter¬ ference in a landscape of lightning-shot rub¬ ble and stonework.

There's a certain amount of actual RPGing involved in Dark Water. You have to interact with denizens of the Dark Water world, brib¬ ing or charming your way past traps and through entries; you’ll also have to use your head as much as your trigger finger, because certain items are necessary to get past cer¬ tain stages — and not having, say, enough Minga melons to feed your pet monkey bird Niddler could really screw you over.

All in all, a game that rises above an incredibly cheesy merchandising premise to score as a standout in its class — it’s a cart no scrolling-action fan will want to be without.

RATING: 9 —JEFF YANG

•jit/Al I

MMMl

looking to blow things up should find them¬ selves in underwater heaven here.

Sub-Terrania is a challenging, above- average shooter. The addition of strategy to the standard weaponry is a welcome twist on a stagnating genre. RATING: 8

—DAN AMRICH

SNES ACCLAIM

Here in the U.S., soccer has never gotten the kind of attention that “Amurrican" sports like basketball, baseball, and football have, and virtual soccer is no exception: check the shelves of your local video bou¬ tique and you’ll see a baker's dozen of each of the big three, two hockey games, and — maybe— something cheesy, like Snoopy's Beagle Buddy Soccer, or whatever.

So: As someone who still vaguely and fondly remembers the Atari 2600 soccer game (in which your medium-sized blobs try to punt a small-sized blob towards a “goal’— i.e„ a large-sized blob), I plugged in this SNES futbol simulation with a certain amount of anticipation.

I wasn't disappointed. After the less- than-exciting opening cinema (an announc-

CHAMPIONS WORLD CLASS SOCCER

MARIO

ANDRETTI RACING

GENESIS ELECTRONIC ARTS

I'm still looking for New York Cab Driver, a driving game that'd really bump johnny- come-slowly sims like Pole Position, Outrun and Turbo into the hazard lane. Imagine speeding through Manhattan traffic at Mach 5, ignoring signals, grinding pedestrians under wheel for better traction, jousting for street space with bike messengers and delivery boys, picking up fares and taking the loooong way Uptown. Now that's a challenge.

Meanwhile, we have stuff like Electronic Arts' Mario Andretti Racing. EA is justifiably known as the best creator of digital sports sims, bar none — from original classics like One On One to current hits like NHL ‘94 and Madden ‘94. Now, stepping away from the team sport genre, EA has created a dri¬ ving game that's.. ..not bad. No, really, it's quite good. (Any resemblance between Mr. Andretti and a certain mustachioed plumber is strictly coincidental.) Andretti gives you the option of driving three classes of cars— Formula, Stock and Sprint. Formula is the fastest and Stock is the easiest to handle, but all three somehow seem to ride at about the same screen-speed, despite odometer readings that vary at max from 210 mph for Formula and 130 for Sprint; even at 210, we're not talking white lightning here. (Somewhere between sticking-a-fork-into- an-outlet and static cling would be about right.) You have the option of pick- |jj|§ ing a color and number for your car, manual or auto transmission, and a Sga plethora of tracks; once you've set §H|| your options, you belly up to the line

for a qualifying run (in a two-player game, the screen splits into two vertical windows, so you're qualifying simultaneously), and then are given a starting position. There's no on-your-mark-set-go, however; jam your engine into gear as soon as you appear and try to advance. The manual for this sucker is thick with strategy tips, but honestly, jump¬ ing right in is fairly easy; the only thing to be aware of, and this is the game's most dis¬ tinctive feature, is that both your fuel and your tire treading burn down as you drive, especially if you're a dangerous maniac. When you're on red in either category, watch for the pit lane and slide in; the longer you sit in pit, the better off your car will be, but the more time you'll be losing to the exhaust-sniffers on your tail.

All in all, a decent game from a terrific company; toss expectations to the wind, and you’ll enjoy Mario Andretti. RATING: 6 --JI.FF YANG

PIRATES OF DARK WATER

GENESIS SUNSOFT

There's something insidious going on here. Pirates of Dark Water is a Saturday morning animated series that sucks raw oysters — poorly rendered, unoriginal, and— worst of

all — it tries to be educational. It's one of those shows that parents actually don't mind their kids watching — which just about says it all. Meanwhile, however, the folks at SunSoft (makers of kickass SNES scroller

mmm

Gatorade Q 2	Snapple
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order/catalog in the past year?	68
yes □ 1 no □ 2
8. If "yes", which of the following
have you sent for:		69
trading cards Q	1 records/tapes/CD's	□ s
video games 0	2 comics	□ 6
computer software O	3 music videos	□ 7
computer hardware □	4 clothing	□ 8
9. Where did you buy your copy of FLUX?	70
newsstand □ 1	game store	□ s
record store O 2	drug store	□ 3
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clothing store O 4	read someone
	else’s copy	□ a
10. How many people, other than you,
read or have looked at your copy
of FLUX magazine?
# of males 71	# of females	72
11. What are your favorite sports?	73
basketball Q 1	martial arts	□ 7
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skiing □ 4	football	□ ,»
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regular basis (3 out of 4 issues)?	74
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Twice a week		Q.
Once a week		□ 2
Twice a month		Qa
Once a month		04
Never		Qs

imwm

1. Are you: 76

Male □ i Female Q 2

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under 16 Q >

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Other _ 5

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you have completed? 79

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-3-

er who looks suspiciously like Jimmy Connors waggles his lips as pre-game com- | mentary scrolls in a window at the bottom of the screen) came the best soccer-in-a-box i I've seen to date: bicycle kickin', head-ballin'

! action complete with a coin toss, shootouts,

I instant replays — everything except post- ! game riots. Cameplay is smooth and con- ! trailer action intuitive, though keeping track I of which man you're playing can be confus¬ ing in the melee. One feature which j would've been nice: compatibility with the ! four-player Multitap. As it is, World Class | provides a neat head-to-head challenge (in | one-player mode, the computer tends to get I away with cheap shots at your expense) — worth the purchase for both hardcore fans | of the black-and-white and turf-chomping i novices alike. RATING: 7

[-■ Y:'” / YY- Vi V,; —JEFF YANG

SPACE ACE

j SNES ABSOLUTE

er liked the arcade version of Space Ace ,

I A mediocre attempt to cash in on the inex¬ plicably successful Dragon's Lair, Space Ace’s I choose-your-own-adventure action discount- | ed every gaming skill except reflexes. And [ after blowing all of two dollars on Dragon's [ Lair and discovering the limited fun of press¬ ing a button at the right time, I wasn't about | to get stiff in the nipples over a sequel.

| However. Space Ace for the SNES is not the Ace I knew and loathed.

[ In fact, it's much, much worse. The origi- | nal, like Lair, was a laserdisc-based game | whose greatest strength was the clean ani- j mation of Don Bluth's wacky character designs. Absolute's cartridge-based adapta¬ tion substitutes rasterized images for the ! animation, which look a little ragged around the edges, like they've been subjected to .electrical shock, and which move as | smoothly and seamlessly as a Pong paddle.

Meanwhile, in seeking to duplicate the ! "look and feel” of the game while translating it from a reflex test into a scrolling action game,

| Absolute has only succeeded in making a game | that is just as un-fun as the original. Suffice it to say that you, as Dexter, have been turned into [ a gangly adolescent nerd by the evil space vii- I lain Borf, evidently named for the regurgitating | sound most purchasers of this cart will be mak¬ ing. Your alleged goal is to run around for a I while and look for your girlfriend Kimmy (a j dead ringer for Dirk the Daring's girlfriend 1 Daphne). You begin with no weapons. You can find one along the way, but the instructions warn you that using it will make the game harder. Your immediate objective, then, is less to find Kimmy than to run away as fast as pos- | sible from stuff that's trying to kill you. The first | screen is objectionably difficult until you realize ' that there's NOTHING for you to do except j dodge Borf's laser blasts. He then flies away, and you go to the next screen to dodge other ! people's laser blasts. Let's see: a gangly, utterly j defenseless adolescent nerd, chasing some ide- | alized fantasy babe while dodging the blows of | threatening bullies and bosses.. ..seems to me | like Space Ace hits a bit too close to home for I Absolute's core audience. Toss this mutt and find a better scroller to play — say, for instance, I PiratesofDark Water.

- " - , ' '■ • ’ RATING: 3

All

HARDBALL '94

GENESIS ACCOLADE

Last year, Accolade revolutionized the 16-bit baseball market with Hardball III (Genesis), a stunningly realistic simulation of America's favorite pastime. The cart featured crisp graphics, fluid gameplay and the best damn play-by-play commentary ever in a 16-bit

sports game (courtesy of veteran broadcaster Al * Michaels). The only thing missing was an MLB (or MLBPA) license— but that was a$, minor gripe.

There's not much more Accolade could have done with this year's installment,

Hardball '94, except maybe add a cool license or spiff up the graphics a bit. So they've done just that. Unfortunately, the cost of th MLBPA license caused them nix the Al Michaels tary! Now, I ask you, would you rather real players’ names in your roster (not teams, though) or a live-sounding from one of the gan best announcers?

names can be found in just about every other baseball sim, but good play-by-play is hard to find. Accolade had it last time, but. they've tossed it. Shame.

Bitching aside. Hardball '94 is still one of the best Genesis baseball games around, even with tough new competition like Sega’s World Series Baseball and Sony Imagesoft's ESPN Baseball Tonight Hardball ‘94 features 700 real-player stats, plus the new division re-alignment and '94 playoff format. The graphics have been tweaked a bit, and the player's movements are far smoother and more life-like than before. Another feature unique to the Hardball series is the option to view the game from either behind the batter, off the mound to the side of the pitcher (actual television per¬ spective), or both. Switching viewpoints is a wonderful way to keep the gameplay fresh (compared to ESPN Baseball, which offers the same camera angle for the whole » game). Other features that make Hardball ‘94 a winner is the bat- cd ting practice/home run <hj derby option and the

% inclusion of all 28 I Major League ball¬ parks.

.gj On the downside, the * sounds and music are « pretty lifeless (the home run tune is the most ^ ^ pathetic thing I'v heard) and th screen announcements like % '‘doubler' and "triple!" k awfully cheesy. Aside from it, Hardball '94 offers just about everything one could ask in a baseball simulation. If you already own Hardball III, then ‘94 might not be worth it. But if you're still looking for that all-in-one Genesis baseball game, Hardball '94 is a safe bet.

RATING: 8.5

.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS

PURPLE Atlantic

While critics were busy dismissing Stone Temple Pilots as mere Pearl Jam copycats (even as their debut album. Core, sold over three million units), they seemed to overlook one small but important thing: these guys write good songs. While you could argue that "Plush" and " Creep” were derivative of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, respectively, the fact is that they both were aggressively infectious singles. So it's no surprise that Stone Temple Pilots' second album, Purple, finds them delivering more solid material and further defining their sound.

The band has moved away from the large production of Core, and with the help of producer Brendan O'Brien, they realize a tight, stripped-down, earthy sound and live vibe. Songs like “Interstate Love Song" and “Kitchenware And Candy Bars” feel more introspective and intimate than the band's previous material. Frontman Weiland sings in a higher register than before, moving away from the fower tones that inspired many Eddie Vedder comparisons.

The upshot of these changes is that Purple is a more personal album than its predeces¬ sor; it almost makes you feel like you're sit¬ ting in on private sessions. There are draw¬ backs to that sort of coziness, as in "Vaseline" and "Army Ants") both feel somewhat hurried and incomplete. (The album itself was recorded and mixed in under I four weeks). But “Lounge Fly,” with its I strange effects, touches of psychedelia and I Eric Kretz's relentless tribal drumming, is one I of the album's best and most insistent rock- [ ers. "Meatplow” and “Silvergun Superman" take the same route, yet add even more I heaviness to their subtle hooks. Most startling [ is "Pretty Penny," which starts out like a mel¬ lower “Four Sticks” (Led Zeppelin) and ends like something from the later-era Beatles. Like Soundgarden's “Black Hole Sun" ( Superunknown ), "Pretty Penny” is a com- I plete and successful departure for the Pilots.

Much of Purple seems to be about | searching, whether for perspective or love or identity. One thing this wry, dynamic second album should immediately find is respect.

RATING: 8.5 —DON KAY*

ALICE COOPER

THE LAST TEMPTATION Epic

It would be so nice to report that Alice I Cooper has recorded a kick-ass album of highrenergy ro;cj?ers thatlrecalls the glory /s of hisllpy Seventies prime. It would a thrill to say that the songs on The Last | Temptation are as strong as I "School's Out,” “No More Mr. Nice I Guy' and "Eighteen," classic rock I anthems Cooper still performs in his

highly theatrical stage show, in between boa constrictor and guillotine bits.

It would be nice, but dishonest.

The ten songs on The Last Temptation are lackluster, half-hearted efforts that even Wayne and Garth would have a tough time headbanging to. There isn't an ounce of punch on the whole record. Ostensibly, this is a concept album which will accompany Marvel's new series of Alice Cooper comic books — but what that concept is, is anyone’s guess,

Chris Cornell of Soundgarden wrote "Unholy War” and co-wrote “Stolen-: Prayer" with Alice, but not even Cornell can lift Cooper or his band out of the muck. For Cooper diehards only. RATING: 3

—GARY CEE

CATHEDRAL

COSMIC FUNERAL Columbia/Earache This new four-song EP from England's mod¬ ern-day Sabbath revisionists is comprised of something old, something recent and two new tunes, "Fountain Of innocence” from The Ethereal Mirror, Cathedral's last album, showcases a more melodic, psychedelic side of the band, with an extended jam at the end that could've come right off any early Sabbath album. "A Funeral Request- Rebirth,” a new version of a song from the band's debut. Forest Of Equilibrium, is cer¬ tainly more raw in its overall arrangement, but lacks the catchiness and melody of their later material.

entries. The former is a furious

exercise in powerful, doom-laden metal, alternating tempos between fast and slow and piling on super-heavy riffs. Only the coarse production (by singer Lee Dorrian and guitarist Gaz Jennings) harms it slightly. They do a better job on “Cosmic Funeral," which has a clearer sound, but is a spacey, slow track that strains to hold one's interest until mid-song, when it picks up speed. Both tracks once again show blatant Sabbath influences, especially in “Cosmic FuneraT's double-tracked lead solos.

Ultimately, Cosmic Funeral is little more than a stopgap for Cathedral, a respite between more serious full-length efforts.

RATING: 6.5 —DON KAYE

DROWN

HOLD ON TO THE HOLLOW Elektra

Any pimple-faced college doofus can start a successful "industrial" band these days; all that's needed are a couple of bottles of JSger, a crummy but serviceable synthesizer and drum machine, and some trivial issue to gripe about (like a pathetic grade point average or no more beer in the fridge). Sure, you're bound to turn out a few angst-ridden originals in the Skinny Puppy/Godflesh vein, but more often than not you’ll just paint it black by the numbers and hope that nobody will notice.

L,A.'s Drown is a pretty crafty combina¬ tion of both art and artifice— and even though Skinny Puppy band leader Dave Ogilvie is credited as producer, Drown dig a fairly shallow grave for themselves with Hold On To The Hollow. Initially, titanic

"Beautiful": “Ugly I feel/My body's inside you/Tongue in/Tongue out." And right about then you start shifting uncomfortably in your seat, thinking whether or not all this anger was plotted neatly on a piece of cal¬ culus-class graph paper. But until the next truly miserable artist stumbles tearfully along, Drown will have to do. RATING: 6 —TOM LANHAM

GANG STARR

HARD TO EARN Chrysalis After embarking on some individual projects, Gang Starr's DJ Premier and Guru have put it back together for another set of sucker- slayin’ beats and rhymes. Hard To Earn is, first and foremost, Premier's finest, most rugged hour. He pioneered the now-fashion¬ able jazz-hip hop approach years ago, but there's more to his production style than fly horn licks. Load up track no. 4, "Brainstorm," drop to your knees and wor¬ ship the ferocious drum track and head-spin¬ ning sonic trickery. Let the quirky sample col¬ lage of “The Planet" confuse and astound your senses. Nod your unworthy head to the ill guitar riffage on "Blowin' Up The Spot.” Yup, Premier's the man, no question.

Once again, Guru's lyrics are dominated by endless complaints about phony rappers, which— no disrespect intended — get exhaust¬ ing. Fortunately, his delivery is always mes¬ merizing, and he hits his targets between the eyes nearly every time, particularly on "Mass Appeal" and “Suckas Need Bodyguards." ("I hate fake MCs/They always act hard/But won't walk the streets without their body¬ guard.")

Actually, Hard To Earn's most memorable

MEDIA NEWS & MOTES

•A live-action feature film based on X-Men is currently in production at Twentieth Century Fox. Fox hopes that the movie will be the first ins a series. The 1994 Fox slate also includes an Oliver Stone 'remate -of Planet Of The Apes and Allen 4.

•Watch for an animated series based on ludge Dredd. apparently coinciding with the release of the film version starring Sylvester Stallone.

•Hulk/X-Men/Spider-Man creator Stan Lee will host an animated sends called Marvel Action Hour. The weekly series will feature a half-hour- Fantastic Four episode, Mp a half-hour Iron Man show, which will feature War Machine and several members of Force Works as supporting characters. •Upcoming Warner Bros, releases: Interview With The Vampire, starring Tom 'Cruise, Richie Rich, starrmg Macauley Culkin; and The Specialist, starring Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone.

•While the search for a "Robin" continues, it looks pretty solid for Jim Carrey to play the fiddler in Batman Forever, the- third installment in the blockbuster film trilogy. Apparently both Tommy Lee Jones and John Malkovich have been approached about playing Two-Face, Michael Keaton will once again play Batman.

•Starting this, fall, Fox's Saturday morning line-up will include X-Men, The Tick, Spider Man and The Adventures Of: Batman And Robin (formerly titled Batman: The Animated Series— it will no longer run on weekdays).

•CBS’ new Saturday line up will,iHZIude animated series based Jim Lee^sC^Tf- book series VyildC.A.T.S. and the upcom¬ ing Jim Carrey movie, The Mask.

•Three Ciivc Barker movies are on the way, Hell raiser W, Candy man 2: Farewell To The Flesh and a big-budget animated film based on his children's book, The Thief Of Always.

•Cast members for the upcoming Sf&r, Trek: Generations movie include W. Shatner, P. Stewart,, Malcolm McDowell, J. Doohan, W. Koenig, J. Frakes, L. Burton,

M, Dorn, G, McFadden, M. Jffttfs and B. Spmer Who elselwill bexonTsheftirldge is still a mystery

•Future films include: Casper, The Little Rascals: Lawn mower Man //; Drop Zone, starring Wesley Snipes; a SCO-million sci-fi epic entitled Waterwortd , starring Kevin Costner; God/illa: Mortal Kombat ; Spideo Man: Fantastic Four: Junior, which fea¬ tures Arnold Schwarzenegger as a preg¬ nant man; and Th‘c Brady Bunch Movie.

•Capeom's popular Mega Man charac-' ter will be -the sub- ..jeefSfjHa syndicated, . animated television series this fall. .

•'Jean Claude Van Damme will play Guile in the upcoming Street Fighter 2 — The Battle For Shadowloo film. Raul Julia, star the the Ad dams Family movies will I play Bison, and Ming-Na Wen, star of the Joy Luck Club, will Bids butt as Chun-Li. The film, which has a budget of $35 mil- j lion, will be released in December '94.

fbrii^P

"Pieces Of Man" sound no different from I songs on Nine Inch Nails' recent doomfest, The Downward Spiral. Lots of prickly synth pears being sliced open by machete-sharp guitar riffs, with just the right layering of singer Lauren Boquette's pit-bull adrenaline. Listen closely and you’ll hear Drown's secret— these guys lacquer more cheesy Seventies rock hooks into the mix than Lynyrd Skynyrd, and temper it with surreal touches of Tangerine Dream. A nice approach, but it begins to wear thin after repeated plays.

Okay, Drown's angry. But at what? "I self-destructed/I reconstructed/I owe this all to you," Boquette screams on "1 Owe You," | and then tones it down to a surly snarl on

track, "Aiight Chill...," doesn't even have Guru on it. It’s just five minutes of Premier's answering machine messages laid over an obese beat. It may be filler, but it's stellar wacky-mix-tape material. RATING: 7.5

—JOHN REYNOLDS

HELMET

BETTY Interscope

When Helmet first rose to popularity so two years ago,, frontman Page Hamilton went to great lengths to prove that his group was absolutely, positively not a heavy metal band. He flaunted his short hair and GQ looks. He stressed his punk rock upbringing. He explained how he drew inspiration from jazz artists like Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis as well as avante- garde performers like Glenn Branca and Sun Ra. But for all of the dropped names and close shaves, Helmet's impenetrable wall of musical muscle had a lot more in common with Black Sabbath than it did with Black Flag or Miles Davis.

On their new album, however, Helmet breaks out of its metal mold by loosening its muscles just enough to demonstrate their musical diversity. The New York City outfit still rely strongly on jagged, repetative guitar riffs and powerhouse drumming, but their delivery is now augmented with experimen¬ tation, melody and a touch of vulnerability. Hamilton's vocals are no less rage-stricken. He's much more emotional, and provides a tuneful path for the punchy rhythms that follow. The guitar passages are more daring and dynamic than those on Helmet's last effort, Meantime.

Songs like "Tic" and "Rollo" layer white

8 b

noise under precision guitar, while “Beautiful Love" opens with a sensitive jazz passage j before being slashed in half by extempora¬ neous explosions of volume. Other songs | like "Milquetoast," "Wilma’s Rainbow" (the I band is obviously on a Flintstones kick) and "Biscuits For Smut” are more groove-orient¬ ed, but in a brutally heavy way, appealing to metalheads and alternative fans alike. Strap on your helmet, it's gonna be a rockin' ride.

RATING: 9 — JON WIEDERHORN

I JACKYL

PUSH COMES TO SHOVE Geffen Jackyl hail from the deep South, where I there's not much difference between a chain- n and a guitar. So when there are no more trees left standing, you do the next best | thing: form a band and make some records.

Push Comes To Shove continues in the ime simple Southern-fried spirit as the j band’s highly successful debut of two years I ago— and if you can stomach singer Jesse | DuPree's caterwauling, it really is a fun I album. Jackyl wail passionately about many

V-

towards soothing the anguish of disappoint¬ ed fans. Not that there aren't some misses here; ironically enough, the least compelling performances are those by the only standard hard rock bands on the bill; Anthrax ("She") and Extreme (“Strutter") both turn in disap¬ pointingly lackluster performances.

But the rest of the artists all glitter tike gold. Lenny Kravitz, with a little help from Stevie Wonder on harmonica, injects some serious solo into “Deuce.” Rage Against The Machine, Toot and Faith No More do a heavy number on "Calling Dr. Love"— updating the tune with a rigid, Nineties gui¬ tar attack that cuts to the quick. Country king Garth Brooks treats "Hard Luck Woman" with the kind of love he probably reserves for his own songs. And the Mighty Mighty Bosstones squeeze every last drop of energy out of "Detroit Rock City"

The high points of this compilation of high points are also the album's most ambitious arrangements: Toad The Wet Sprocket’s suc¬ cessful twisting of “Rock And Roll All Nite” into a lamenting waltz and a bizarre classical rendition of " Black Diamond. ” RATING: 9 —GARY CEE

I MACHINE HEAD

BURN MY EYES Roadrunner This is real metal. As the world overflows with the vilest of derivatives, from alterna¬ tive metal to rap metal to who knows what, Machine Head has burst out of San Francisco’s legendary Bay Area — home of Metallica, Testament and Exodus— to carry on that region's proud legacy of brutal : power metal.

Led by the corrosive vocals and acidic guitar of ex-VioIence shredder Robb Flynn,

Machine Head unleash a devastating volley ! of bruising, crushingly heavy riff-monsters on Burn My Eyes, their debut album. There’s the mid-paced opener, "Davidian," which slowly descends into hell halfway through

things — their beloved Dixieland, hell, road stories from Chinatown and the secret of the bottle (Secret? What secret?). While we all got a chuckle out of last year’s “The Lumberjack Song" (and winced during the chorus of "She Loves My Cock”), this time around Jackyl save the goofiness for encores and head straight for the barn with barbe¬ cue-hot riffing and tractor-pulling basslines. They may be hillbillies, but they sure ca kick up some rock *n’ roll dust. RATING: 8

—JEFF GILBERT |

VARIOUS ARTISTS

KISS MY ASS Mercury This patchwork collection of Kiss songs, rev¬ erently arranged and recorded by a group of wonderfully diverse artists, proves what Kiss fans have known since 1974: that, under¬ neath the greasepaint, the fire-breathing tricks, Paul Stanley's cock-of-the-walk postur¬ ing and Gene Simmons’ mile-long tongue lies a sure-footed canon of sturdy-as-steel songs.

Pre-release reports that Kiss My Ass would feature recordings of Kiss songs by more than forty artists proved to be so much hype. But the IT tracks here should go a long way

with an ironclad riff of fearsome power. This is followed by “Old" and "A Thousand Lies," devastating tracks fueled by killer chords. Bum My Eyes has much to live up to after that opening triple blast, but Machine Head successfully sustain their aggression, delivery and catchy songwriting throughout, particularly on later crunchers like "None But My Own” and "I'm Your God Now.”

Colin Richardson's production is crisp and

fat, bringing the full power of the band to ] the forefront. The result is an album that sounds like Pantera meets Alice In Chains meets Ministry. Burn My Eyes is not only the best debut of the year so far, it’s a real contender for the most electrifying heavy metal release of 1994. RATING: 9 f

—DON KAYE j

SIR MIX-A-LOT

CHIEF BOOT KNOCKA American

Like Nigel Tufnel said in This Is Spinal Tap,

"What’s wrong with being sexy?”

On his fourth album, Sir Mix-A-Lot I makes the distinction between "sexy” and f

"sexist” no less than three times, and | although he's unquestionably a dog, he's < smart one with a deep understanding of the I politics and humor of boy-girl relationships.

There are several songs about money here, and one track about Mix's bad self ("What’s Real"), but the album's primary order of business is mixing crazy horniness and arrogance into something fun and posi¬ tive. Mix is sometimes tasteless (like the titty ode, "Put ‘Em On Da Glass”), always clever, I but never mean-spirited. His talent for I inventing different ways to express the joy I of laying pipe is truly impressive. j

As usual, the big man’s tracks are pretty I adventurous and come in assorted futuristic- funk flavors, although the album could use more of the feel-it-in-your-spleen stuff like I "Monsta Mack,” "Just The Pimpin' In Me” and "Sleepln* Wit My Fonk” and less of the “Whoomp! There's My Butt” party disco.

RATING: 7.5 I —JOHN REYNOLDS |

NAS

ILLMATIC Columbia Considering the list of veteran producers that hooked up the tracks on this solo debut from Nas— D.J. Premier, the Large Professor, Pete I Rock, Q-Tip — it’s no surprise that the beats I are brutal, jazzy and New York to the core.

The real surprise is the scary talent of Nas j himself. Violent on the vocab, this j Queensbridge kid has a complex verbal flow 1 and so many ideas and insights that his rhymes can barely contain them. He flips lyrics like flap- jacks on “N.Y. State Of Mind,” "Life's A Bitch" and “Halftime,” and even though the outlook I is positive, it ain’t no party, and it ain't no disco.

If dark, honest poetry about the streets of the Rotten Apple, the hustlers and survivors that I

Sonic Youth was writing more cohesive materi¬ al, relying on heavily distorted guitar riffs and pummeling rhythms — in other words, the band was rocking, and rocking hard.

With the release of Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, Sonic Youth veer away from their recent stomping excursions and head back toward their art-rock roots. This record isn’t as self-indulgent as early albums like Sister and Evol, but it's not the kind of disc you’ll want to hear from the center of the mosh pit. Operating on a more subtle and disturbing level than most hard rock albums, Experimental Jet Set confus¬ es and haunts the listener with strange guitar sounds and moaning, strung-out vocals for minutes at a time before lashing out with full- fisted torrents of noise.

For those who like their music harsh and heavy all the time, Experimental Jet Set may not be your cup of napalm, but for listeners who are tired of _ ^

predictable, stag-

nant rock, this m V '■■J album proves to I

be both refresh- M lSk fj

ing and mind- ft » lljL expanding. ML r W

RATING: 8 \

-JON WIEDERHORN 0

like two-timing chicks ("Liar"), the virtues of

_ hard liquor (their minor hit "More

IJpSSj Wine Waiter Please") and doing the town ("Downtown”).

I mITt While it’s somewhat refreshing to hear a band not take itself too seri-

SHOOTYZ GROOVE

JAMMIN IN VICIOUS ENVIRONMENTS

Mercury

Rap vocals and rock music can make for an explosive mix, as Aerosmith and Run-DMC, Anthrax and Public Enemy, and most recent¬ ly — and most eloquently — Rage Against The Machine have demonstrated. Like Rage's self-

ously, ultimately The Poor don’t hold up. Their sound is raw and driving, but their songs never rise above the most hackneyed, formulaic stuff — with tired lyrical phrases like "Put the pedal to the metal, I’m going downtown" and riffs that sound like worn-out