I love Ray Harryhausen movies. They’ve always been a favorite since childhood, and the Sinbad films are no exception. Each one is good in its own right and brings something fun tot he table, but no Sinbad portrayal was better than John Phillip Law. And no Sinbad Girl was hotter than Carilone Monroe as Margiana in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
JPL brought a likeable humanity to the character that was lacking in the other films, and he looked the part more than anyone else. It’s impossible not to like this incarnation of Sinbad whenever he’s onscreen. And every time I see Munroe in those Arabian outfits I swoon a little.
So I decided to pay tribute to them both in Mego form! Sinbad’s head is a repainted (thanks Metalhead Minis!) Gideon from the Bible Greats line, and really resembles JPL well. The costume is cobbled together from a variety of sources to match his costume in the latter half of the film, and an Aladdin sword from Mattel rounds him out nicely.
Margiana is a real prize, with a Zica Yvonne body and a vintage Demo Girl head that sort of resembles the actress herself. I added the eye tattoo on her hand myself, and the badass costume was made by O. T. Puente based on movie stills. They look amazing together, and all that’s missing is a monster for them to fight.
Welcome to the Arkista’s Ring series, turning Heretic and Hexen into a sci-fi & sorcery epic with a pulp fiction vibe and a pretty elf with a smart mouth. Each mod comes with a readme file with a detailed breakdown of the story, characters, weapons, items, and lore to help immerse the player in the setting. If Heretic and Hexen feel too stale or tedious, you’ll find this series gives them both a shot in the arm!
This series began as a reboot of the fantasy-oriented NES game of the same name, reinvented into a pulp sci-fi fantasy in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Andre Norton with a hardboiled edge.
Click the link below to download the series in a single convenient package!
Read on to learn the details of each mod, listed in order of release!
For Heretic
Requires GZdoom & Heretic
A hillbilly space elf named Christine is arrested for collaborating with a despotic Shogun who is conquering the galaxy. After having a bomb installed in her skull, Christine is given a chance at redemption by braving a treacherous planet in search of a powerful artifact.
Arkista’s Ring is a nonlinear sci-fi fantasy adventure where you choose your path through the game. Doors open via single-use keys, and some paths to the end are easier than others. Wield a vast array of sci-fi weaponry and fantastical artifacts against the strangest creatures in the galaxy.
A follow-up that turns any Heretic mapset into a space n’ sorcery adventure with ray guns, undead space dwarves, killer robots, and evil winged babes.
Optimum Security visits Jarro, planet of the dwarves, to rid their ore-rich moon of an infestation of ancestral ghosts and rogue robots, which turns out to be the doings of a cult of winged lunatics, led by a former underworld chum of Chrissy.
Other mapsets beside the original Heretic maps essentially detail further adventures on Jarro after the events of DDD.
Requires GZDoom & Heretic
ALSO INCLUDES REVISED VERSIONS OF THE FULL MOD FOR USE WITH
MASTERS OF CHAOS
&
FAITHLESS TRILOGY
(Run the revised mods instead of DDD when playing MoC or Faithless.)
REQUIRES GZDOOM AND HEXEN
A follow-up that turns any Hexen mapset into a hardboiled sci-fantasy epic with new classes, weapons, monsters, textures, sounds, hud, you name it. Unlike Hexen where you have to assemble the pieces of your superweapon before you can even use it, MoM has you collect upgrades for your main weapon to make it more powerful the further you go, so you get an instant benefit rather than having to wait until late in the game. You also can find Arkista’s Ring to power your starting weapon for the duration of the hub.
When they chase black marketeer Schloss the Red to the technophile planet Ydos, Optimum’s leaders Durrante and Chrissy run afoul of an A.I. called Medusa, which acts as the planet’s BIOS and the deity of the brainwashed inhabitants. Chrissy and Durrante team up with Schloss in order to kill the false god and escape the dying world before they become the latest members of Medusa’s mindless flock.
Mapsets other than Hexen’s base maps basically chronicle the trio’s further attempts to escape Ydos.
Also includes music compatibility for Vicerus, Kaiser 28, & Cyrgoth Manor!
Whenever I do signings of my Winter Agent Juno books, I’ll be accompanied by this little cutie: a Pinky Street I cobbled together of Juno, herself! She’s rather fearsome for a little fashion lemming.
She’s compiled from the parts of at least five different Pinky Street dolls, plus an eyepatch I had to make myself out of felt. In the future I may try making a few more and using them in giveaways.
So apparently Congo is a bad movie. I never understood this.
i wouldn’t call it great. It’s not Planet of the Apes. But they set out to make a cheesy tribute to old jungle adventure films, and that’s exactly what they did.
Was it bad because of the ape suits? How realistic were they supposed to be in 1995? Even the dinos in Jurassic Park, while amazing, were still obviously fake. The apes in Congo aren’t far beneath those dinos quality-wise, and they didnt rely on cg at all. The apes move like they should and have terrifically expressive faces. Did none of the critics who blasted those suits see Tarzan and the Lost City? THOSE were bad ape costumes. Getting real apes would be impossible and Crichton knew it. Between that and the fact that he was making a throwback to a genre that was cheesy and fake to begin with, i don’t get what his problem was OR the pretentious critics.
It couldn’t be the acting that puts people off. All the performances range from competent to wonderful. Tim Curry is a bad guy straight out of those old pulpy adventure flicks, and Ernie Hudson steals the show. I can’t imagine a Congo with Sean Connery instead of Hudson.
Is it because it’s not true enough to the book? I don’t see how that’s anything but an improvement. All of Crichton’s characters are unrelatable, unlikable shitheads. His female characters are hardcore inhuman bitches, cos apparently anything less is sexist and weak. I actually like most of the characters in the movie with the exception of the ape whisperer and his nonexistent learning curve. And Amy’s voice wasn’t unbearably annoying. Get over it.
I went into Congo expecting a killer ape flick and was surprised when i got a huge adventure instead. All kinds of crap happens in this movie and it’s almost never boring, with plenty of scenes with Hudson and Linney being badasses.
Maybe I’m just not as enlightened as a film critic. All i know is, anyone who went into this movie expecting high art is an idiot. Congo accomplished what it set out to be: a fun adventure pulp movie.
Mike's Toybox 