That’s It Man, Game Over, Man! Game Over! [tech]

Thinking back through our lives to early childhood memories, we all have moments of clarity that jump out vividly amongst a sea of hazy images and vague recollections. For us here at the GP, and probably quite a few of our readers, many of those crystal clear memories are scenes from movies we watched as young children (and probably should not have). I remember Schwartzeneggar throwing a circular saw blade into a man’s skull in Commando. That guy getting melted by toxic waste and then splattered by a van in RoboCop. But one of my all time favorite scenes was the sentry gun hallway scene from Aliens.

For many years, I wondered if I had been imagining this scene. As a kid, I went to a friend’s house for a sleepover and we stayed up late watching Aliens on TV. My favorite scene was when the marines setup four automated machine guns in the hallways outside where they were bunkered and the guns ripped the hell out of the attacking aliens. It was very tense, with loud gun firing, rapidly depleting ammunition, everyone crowding around the computers as the remaining ammo number dropped and dropped, and all the while the gunsmoke filled hallway exploding in dying aliens. Loved it!

Years later I bought the movie on VHS and I was excited to finally have a copy of my favorite violent movie scene. Except it wasn’t there! Did my childhood mind make up the whole thing? Surely not, right? Several years later I bought the DVD…..again, no hallway scene! It wasn’t until they released the directors cut of Aliens that I finally saw the sentry guns again in all their glory and I sighed happily, knowing I didn’t just make it up.

What’s the point of this post? Well, I’ve always wanted one of those sentry guns. Silly, I know, but still….I loved em. Now, thanks to the power of the Internet, mankind’s creativity, and a full automatic paintball gun, my dream will soon come true.