GRAMMATON PUNCH #5 hits the internet July 11th, but thanks to Comixology Originals, Monkeys Fighting Robots has an exclusive five-page preview for you, as well as writer Miles Gunter’s five favorite classic video games!
About the series:
Season finale. If he is to acquire the Grammaton Gloves, which can banish Feeders to the After, Van must survive the horrors of a haunted house ruled by the poltergeist of a serial killing surgeon. It all comes down to this!
The series is by writer Miles Gunter and artist Briane Andan, with colors by Lee Loughridge, and letters by Taylor Esposito. The logo and book design is by Ed Dukeshire.
GRAMMATON PUNCH, along with all other Comixology Originals, is available for purchase on Comixology, and is also free for subscribers of Comixology Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited, or Amazon Prime.
Check out the GRAMMATON PUNCH #5 preview below, and read on for Miles Gunter’s Top 5 Classic Video Games:
Miles Gunter’s 5 Favorite Classic Video Games:
1. Castlevania
“The original 8-bit classic. I still have a vivid memory of seeing this for the first time at Toys R Us. Back when you had to take a ticket up to the front to pay and then go to a Hannibal Lecter style glass pen where they’d give you your game. I’m not sure how many times I’ve played through this one. Probably hundreds but it never gets old. There’s such a feeling of satisfaction when you’ve got that triple boomerang and can basically go God Mode for the rest of the game, unless you screw up and fall in Frankenstein’s dungeon, in which case it’s back to holy water, sucker! This game is so wired into my brain that whenever I’m going up a big flight of stairs I’ll start whistling the theme for when you’re climbing the stairs to Dracula’s tower for the final battle.”
2. Final Fight
“There were many quality side scroller beat ‘em ups back in the day. Double Dragon, Bad Dudes, Streets of Rage, Ninja Gaiden, etc.. but for me the apex of this style will always be Capcom’s Final Fight. The action was faster and harder and the character designs were wilder and more heavily rooted in anime and manga than we’d seen up to that point. This is a game where you got to demolish a car with your bare hands. And it very much laid the groundwork for the aesthetics of Street Fighter II which came along two years later. All of the characters had their merits, but for me, Guy (yeah..I know, real creative name) will always be my favorite.”
3. Sinistar
“Back when arcades were still a thing, you’d occasionally have larger game cabinets where you’d sit inside to play. Sinistar was a space shooter in the vein of Asteroids. A little ship on a screen flying around shooting space rocks and various alien spaceships. But the main adversary of the game was this evil looking machine head called Sinistar. When you put in a quarter to start, a booming metallic voice would announce, “I HUNGER..” As an 80s kid, you’ve been dropped off by your parents at the arcade and the possibility of getting kidnapped is a very real consideration. So right off the bat, this game made you nervous with its ominous predatory vibe. Sinistar would slowly take shape as the game progressed until he would announce, “BEWARE…I LIVE” at which point he made his grand entrance; flying onscreen rapidly while screaming at you. Like literally screaming. At this point you’d either die from fright or fire off a few bombs to damage Sinistar. If you succeeded in destroying him, he would simply respawn and the process repeated. There was a standing version of the game as well but nothing could compare to the seated version with its bordering on unsafe loud volume. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”
4. Revenge of Shinobi
“For me, this game was the apex of the Sega Genesis 16-bit era. It was challenging but not as much as the original Shinobi which was absolutely brutal at times in a way that would anticipate games like Dark Souls. This was a cool full ninja meal without giving you a kiddie ulcer. Gorgeous design work both in the enemies and levels with cool boss fights like Godzilla’s skeleton, Spider-Man (shhh…don’t tell Marvel), Terminator, a bat-winged dude in Z Cavaricci’s (if you know, you know), and an awesome main adversary in Neo Zeed. And the soundtrack rules to this day. I bought the vinyl a few years back because that’s what GenX adults like me do at this point. The sequel Shadow Dancer is also rad as it introduced a wolf sidekick (!!!) into gameplay.”
5. Captain America and the Avengers
“A big part of the arcade experience was playing with others and the four player beat ‘em up games were a blast to experience as a team whether it was with friends or strangers. While there were many great games in this style like TMNT, X-Men, and the Simpsons, this Data East cabinet was my favorite. At the time it came out in ‘91, Marvel stuff in general was entirely confined to the comics and a couple cartoons, although James Cameron was planning to make Spider-Man with Michael Biehn (still bummed this never happened). Data East leaned heavily into the comic book art style and the results were and still are, awesome. You could button mash as Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, and Hawkeye through Double Dragon-style levels featuring bosses like Juggernaut, a Sentinel, the Mandarin, and the Red Skull. It also had voices. “OHHH! I CAN’T MOVE!!”, which at the time was still a new thing in games.”
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