Tag Archives: Post-nuclear bandits

Desert Law: School Bus Mounted Howitzer

Desert Law HeaderMy Steam library is filled with post-apocalyptic games. Generally, I’ll pick up (or at least wishlist) any apocalyptic game I come across. Desert Law, a real time strategy game, has been in my library for about two years. I picked it up on sale, played it for 10 minutes, and then uninstalled it. However, enough time has passed that I thought the game deserved another chance. Unfortunately, the game aged about as well as a bloated corpse in the wasteland sun.

Desert Law’s narrative makes Wasteland Angel look complex by comparison. After the apocalypse, tribes of road warriors kill each other over booze and car parts. What kind of apocalypse is this? We don’t really know. The entire world is a desert and some places are populated by angry sentient zombies napping beneath the sand.
Here’s the story: Generic wastelander Brad wants to woo a girl for mating season, but rival tribes of gangsters and pre-apocalypse military keep mucking up his plans. Brad convinces his tribe to kill everyone in their way until Jane (the love interest) notices him. Continue reading →

Cult Classics: Warriors of the Wasteland

Wasteland Warriors Car

Following the success of Mad Max 2 was a handful of post-apocalyptic B-movies. Among those was The New Barbarians (aka Warriors of the Wasteland), a dirt-cheap Italian knock off. Despite a slow start, this movie actually isn’t terrible, it just has low production values. However, I noticed a lot of similarities between this film and She Wolves of the Wasteland. Both have alternate titles. Both have promising, but underdeveloped plots and concepts. Both suffer from poor editing and a lack of closure. For that reason, let’s use a similar four points system as She Wolves, with one exception.

  1. The Plot
  2. Interesting concepts
  3. Editing
  4. Characters

The Plot

The story begins nine years after the nuclear holocaust of 2010 (thanks, Obama). We open on a small caravan who has just discovered “The Signal,” a mythological radio frequency supposedly centered on Earth’s last city. Unfortunately, before the tribe can decipher the coordinates, they’re attacked by a rival tribe of motorized marauders called “The Templars” whose only goal is to destroy all human life…because reasons.

New Barbarians Templars

The Templars crush their enemies with a mixture of explosives and laser guns. At night, timid humans wrapped up in white rags scurry around the wreck, looting all they can. We never learn who these scavengers are, but they have a striking resemblance to the Buzzards from Mad Max: Fury Road.  Before they can divvy up the loot, a muscle car with a glowing green roof roars out of the blackness. Enter our hero, Scorpion. Continue reading →

Rivalry

You’ve got to be kidding me…

I was escorted through the tunnels by Gray and that spider woman. On our way out, I spotted a clearing full of supplies, tables, and sleeping bags. A tribe of mean looking women were gathered around a soft electric lamp, enjoying some canned food. At first I didn’t think anything of it. Then I realized that my backpack (and everything in it) had been stolen during the attack. I had nothing but the clothes on my back.

Once we returned to the surface, the spider woman (who Gray called Tarantulanna) quietly slipped back into her hideout. Gray started removing the spider web residue from my body. At first I thought he was helping me, but then he packaged it into a puck shaped tin. I pleaded with the Australian that I needed my gear back. Gray pulled on his hat and pointed me back toward Abundance. I slapped my forehead. I didn’t have anything to trade with; even my dog-tags had been stolen.

The bushman just blinked at me and said, “Such is life in the wasteland.”

I can’t believe this guy. He has so many tags that he clinks and jingles with every step, but he won’t even give me a handful out of charity. He said it was my fault for trespassing, but how was I supposed to know? The mine looked abandoned from the outside!

Worst of all, before leaving, Gray mentioned that he couldn’t help me because he had to find a water source for Abundance and some General. I told him that I had traveled into the wasteland for the same reason and asked if we could team up. He shook his head and started toward the mountains without another word.

I’ll show him.

-Joe Junkman