Other Stuff Monthly #23!

 With a front cover that looks more like an ad you'd see on the back cover of a videogame magazine, Vortex #0 is the only publication Electrobrain Comics ever put out. Well, kind of. There are two versions of it: the full thirty-two page version, which has a comic story and a strategy guide for the game that shares its title (a Super FX-powered 3D shooting game for SNES), as well as a nine page version that only includes the comic.

 

The comic tells a prologue story for the videogame, and it's surprisingly complex, fitting a lot of stuff in its low page count. The eight planets of the Deoberon system (ruled by Emperor Deoberon) live in peace, with only one of them having any kind of military installations, just in case. Barkahn, one of the local lords, hates this arrangement, and believes the system needs more defence, which he sets out to prove by attacking one of the planets and killing a bunch of people, then trying to take over the whole system.

 

Emperor Deoberon sets his scientists to the task of coming up with a way to stop Barkahn's villainy, and they create a magic computer that sends Barkahn, his armies, nd the four planets they conquered into another dimension. When everything dies down, Deoberon and Barkahn both die, and Barkahn's best friend, Vercingetorix, vows revenge, and his scientists find a way out of the prison dimension, and they steal the magic computer that sent them there. So the game casts you as the ace pilot sent into the prison dimension to defeat Vercingetorix and retrieve the computer. Phew.

 

Then there's the walkthrough, taking the form of lots of captioned screenshots, telling you what's in each stage, and what you need to do to get through it. The way some parts are written makes Vortex seem like a game that would be a confusing bore to get through unguided: "Cany you find all of these hidden keys, bonuses, and tunnels? You can't defeat Darius without them all!", "Don not allow Xerxes to close in on you! He will fire a weapon that will destroy you immediately!", and "You must have four electro bombs to defeat Vercingetorix!", that kind of stuff, you know? Sorry to bring this concept up two posts in a row, but it sounds like the kind of advice sitcom characters give each other when they're all temporarily obsessed with some unseen videogame that's never ben mentioned before and will never be mentioned again.

 

Other than all that stuff, the other items worthy of note are two ads in the inside pages of the front and back covers. In the front, there's an ad for a game I've never heard of before: Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme Skiing and Snowboarding, while more intriguing is the ad in the back cover. It shows neither a title nor any screenshots, only a motorcross biker, and the promse od a hot newe Super FX title from Electrobrain, to be announced in the fourth quarter of 1994. I can't find any evidence of this game being released or announced, nor can I find mention of any Motorcross games from Electrobrain on lists of unreleased SNES games.