Chapter 1: The most spectacular thing ever!

The best alternate world from a video game to visit might be the 2009 game Brutal Legend.



I didn't hate Brutal Legend. I just didn't love it. Maybe I did love it, but I didn't love the game parts. The coolest premise ever that fails in the most spectacular way possible at being a game. If this had been a movie, if it had been a cartoon, if had just been a comic book like a Lobo or Deadpool, I'd have loved it! But no. It was a real time strategy video game, but as such it was one of the coolest alternate realities ever. Not that I particularly hate the genre, I love it actually. But the way it was executed and promoted as being more like contemporary action games, even so much so that a demo released contained not even a hint of the strategy elements, that myself and a lot of people were let down by it.

This is sort of cool, but it didn't matter.


In the game you're just a roadie for some punk pop metal act, not unlike a Fallout Boy or something like that, and I got the feeling your character hated it tremendously. Suddenly and all at once, the band is murdered in front of you and you're transported to a mystical land that feels like every Heavy Metal music album cover. Near the start, you ride down a mountain of skulls on a spider. You get a vehicle to cruise in that looks very dragula like, and as you cruise around with some gothy chick, Children of the Grave from Black Sabbath plays as you hit the turbo boost over hills making jumps that would put the Dukes of Hazard to shame. I said out loud "this is one of the coolest things ever." And then the game instantly started with the army building bullshit. Literally minutes after where the demo ends, you're forced to start creating and maintaining armies, which made me feel like no matter how cool or powerful my character was suggested as being, he couldn't win the war on his own. I'd rather do that.



You know what alternate reality I'd really want to be in? Den. Ever see that movie Heavy Metal? It was mostly known for the big tits and sword stuff in the last cartoon, but I always remember it for Den. Den is the story of a young boy, a geek voiced by John Candy, who finds the glowing meteor that transports him to a world even cooler than that of Brutal Legend. And unlike Brutal Legend, you're not Jack Black as Jack Black in a video game, you're John Candy as a muscled up black dude on this crazy violent cartoon planet, where everywhere Den goes something cooler than what just happened happens. I'd go as far as to say I've seen nothing as cool as this cartoon in my entire life. Nothing. Not even the Children of the Grave and turbo boosting, and not even a Predator reaching into a mans back and pulling out his entire spinal column with skull attached holding it in the air and screaming is as cool as what couldn't be more than twenty minutes of a cartoon from the eighties, based on a comic book that was coming from of all the places in all the world France!

If I could pick an alternate world to wake up in, where everywhere I went chicks wanted to bang me, I had monsters to fight - and somehow always win against, and there were just really crazy things like giant bugs to fly on everywhere I went, I'd love it. I'd reveal in it. He literally That's not just cool, that's fucking cool. I said during Predators that the coolest thing I'd ever seen was a Predator reaching into a man and pulling out his spine and skull, wrong. The coolest thing I've ever seen was Den, and I want to be Den.

After watching this again, I've decided I've lived too long without reading the original Den comics in Heavy Metal magazine and subsequent comics released. I looked it up on Wikipedia, the source for all information nobody cares about but nerds, and of course it had plenty to tell me. It holds up every bit from the first time I saw it on late night Cinimax as a kid. The fantasy still lives on in my head, and if they ever make a game that captures an eighth of this game, I'll be down for it. I'll even go as far as to pay for the development of such a game, even if it was just a beat em up that sort of captures the feel of this segment of the movie.

For those of you that haven't seen it, I highly suggest you watch it. If you have netflix instant stream, Heavy Metal is totally on there. Den is the second segment, starting at the twenty minute mark. I've highlighted a few screen caps from the movie for those that insist on not watching it. See if you can figure out why I think this is as cool as it is and why it is the ultimate fantasy. It couldn't be a more simple premise or a more simple idea, but the way it was executed speaks to my very soul. Of all the things that would be awesome, living in a world where at every turn is a war and buxom women, that is a world that far outshines stocking cereal shelves all night and writing for blogs all day. I dare say it would be the ultimate alternate reality.

Take a look at some photos!

This is the geeky kid, conducting geeky kid experiments.



Suddenly transported, bare ass, into an alternate world!



Here he realizes he has a bigger penis than he used to as a geeky kid.



Here are some monks or something praying over a pool of blood.



Den says "she had the most beautiful eyes" after watching her tits literally flop left and right.



He totally bangs this chick after a minute long conversation.



You know what? I think I'm ruining how awesome it is commenting on it. So I'll just pick more screens to show. It might be better without context, there is partial nudity in some of these!























I've seen some people get killed in things before, but this poor bastard really gets killed!







"But Den, with the locknar you could have returned to earth!"

"I like it better here" he says out loud with his man voice

Then from the geeky voice over,

"On earth I'm nobody, but here - I'm Den!"

That is the thing about a good alternate reality, you go somewhere else to become someone not necessarily better - but someone who is all the things you're not. In my "if I could be in one thing" fantasy is Den as Den. Nothing is as cool, even Conan, which is one of the coolest things ever. Den has it all. I'm buying the comic books today and I love you guys.


Introduction
Chapter 1: The most spectacular thing ever!
Chapter 2: Hell on wheels!
Chapter 3: Back to reality.
Chapter 4: Popping with robots and negativity!