C'mon -- the 'stache, the black rimmed glasses, the beret. Is he rocking a soul patch? This guy has got his look down pat. Sadly, my own heritage precludes me from ever growing such a mustache, so Decker's look is more of an unobtainable ideal.
What this is all leading up to, is that Chrontendo Episode 31 will be featuring, along with 14 other games, Konami's classic drive-'n'-gun Jackal. It's sort of like Capcom's Commando, only you get a Jeep and unlimited grenades/missiles.
Naturally, the name Jackal, and those thick rimmed glasses, remind me of the most famous Jackal.
Did it ever bug you that one of the world's most notorious international assassins/terrorists looked like this? I always thought assassins would look cooler. Take away the shades, and he's the guy behind the counter at your local deli. Though in real life, Carlos was not a very good assassin, regardless of what the Bourne novels or Far Cry 2 may have led you to believe. Maybe Golgo 13 is wrong about the life of a professional assassin being glamorous.
6 comments:
That's not the most famous Jackal. The most famous is Edward Fox!
Now Ed Fox is more like the model assassin: cool, suave, master of disguises. Carlos is just the sad reality. Apparently, hit men don't actually make huge amounts of cash in real life, either. Even a hit on a very high profile politician like Galina Starovoitova apparently only cost around $150,000 in 1998, and it was split among numerous individuals.
The Jackal is a look at what would happen if Elvis Costello's life had gone very differently
Yeah I don't understand why there's so much fantasy around "the assassin". People really fetishize killers in a society where there are plentiful strictures against this behavior is all I can come up with. "Transgression as ascension". Look also to the fascination with serial killers, death row inmates and genocidal military figures.
Helm - certainly glorification of killing goes waaaayy back, at least as far as your home skillet Homer. And there is a certain appeal to the whole James Bond/Day of the Jackal/Golgo 13 type of international jet-set dude who pretty much live outside the rules of society. Who wouldn't want to leave behind your desk job and mortgage and instead run around doing whatever you want? It's just another form of pop culture escapism. Though I would say that the who fascination with serial killers, murderers, cults, fascism and atrocities that were once so popular in the some subcultures, like the industrial and metal scenes are a bit more disturbing. At least here in the US, that seems to have died down in the late 90s, I think? I don't recall the last time I actually saw a dude walking around with a Manson shirt.
Also, the Jackal in Far Cry 2 wasn't much of an assassin, unless you count how he brutally murdered the respect of the audience by quoting Nietzsche as his introduction and the tragic credibility bombing of the absurd plot twist of a game that had you burning down a malaria medication plant for the ostensible greater good.
While my initial reaction to that game (The Last Starfighter for Blackwater) was wrong, I was still closer than I'd like to be.
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