A Welcome Back and a Plan For the Month

I've decided it might be worth it to get up off my lazy ass and get working on actually talking about gaming again.  So without further ado, here's what I think my plans are going to be for the next month or so:

Games to Review:

King Arthur's Gold
Terraria
Dead Space 2
Crysis 2
Section 8 Prejudice
Earth Defence Force:  Insect Armageddon
Groove Coaster
Ace of Spades
Minecraft

As usual, I know I'm probably severely late to the party for a good 99% of these.  But, that's just my style I guess.  Anyways, watch this space. 

Just so you know

As far as I can tell, I'm not dead, the same goes for my colleagues.

I have been gaming, that much can be said, but it lacks the same quirkiness of indie titles when I say I'm playing Killzone 3 and Team Fortress 2.

Anyways, one of the more exciting bits of information I can present is that this space will be host to my book launch, so if you have questions by all means feel free to leave a comment.

The book's title is What Wolves Would Come? and it is a short horror novel depicting one of my favorite topics, the apocalypse, sort of.  Anyways, the starting price is four bucks, so you could go without a Big Mac for a day and give my little tome a read.

Or don't, in which case my feelings are just going to get hurt.

Thanks for reading as always guys.

Why I Love Independent Record Labels

A big thanks to Oppressive Sound System Releases for their awesomeness.

A Bit Belated, Interview With Fricitional

It’s been a little while since my last update, but I have been writing a novel and various other things.  I’ve been rocking out in the literary way as well as playing around with Black Ops and the latest Goldeneye.  Expect a few more updates in the coming days. 

Frictional, developers of the ever amazing Amnesia and Penumbra, granted me the ability to conduct an interview.  The actual interview has been long waiting, but without further delays here we go.

1.       When coming up with the initial concept for Amnesia, what sort of inspiration did you draw from?

Amnesia was actually transformed over several years so the initial concept is quite unlike what the final game looks like. It actually started out as a bite-sized horror game, heavily inspired by Super Mario. This was then thinned out over the course of the project and very little of that first idea remains. Over the course of the project we have had tons of inspiration from various sources though and one major is the first 30 minutes of Bioshock. This is by far the best part of the game and showed us that you can make an engaging experience only based on exploration and interesting events.

2.       A lot of the design choices in Penumbra and Amnesia are rather inspired in light of your typical horror game.  Why did you decide to opt out on combat when it’s so prevalent in games these days?

Combat in horror games only result in the player feeling strong and safe as he kills monsters. We avoid combat as we think it increase the notion of danger and horror. We also remove it because normally combat is the main thing that you do in a game, so if you remove it you have no choice but to try and come up with other means of occupying the player.

3.       What’s next on the development cycle for you guys?  Are you planning an expansion to Amnesia or another game altogether?

It will be a new game altogether and it is quite certain that it will not be a pure horror game. It will still have horror elements, but it will not be the only thing it is about. With Amnesia we made the best effort we could to make a unique horror experience, so trying to reset the horror mode and get at it again does not feel that inspiring to us right now. We need to develop another type of game, even if similar, before we can make another true horror game.

4.       How many members do you assign per team?

We are six people in the company, 5 full-time and 1 part-time. We also work with contractors for things like concept art and music. We try to split the team at times, for example when we made Black Plague, some started to work on Requiem while others were still working on BP. Then we did the same with Requiem, as technology for Amnesia was developed during the same time. As we have had a harsh time finishing Amnesia, we did not have the luxury to do it like that this time around, so currently we are doing our best to keep both design, graphics and technology in development as much as possible without getting stuck due to one part not being developed enough.

5.       What are you striving to deliver with your games, what sort of experience and theme do you want to impart on those purchasing the title?

With Amnesia the main goal was to make an experience that did not feel like something you had to win to have done it right. It was more to create a world that would really draw the player in, tell an interesting story and allow for exploration of it. We also aim for evoking more varied emotions and to have deeper and more thoughtprovoking themes. In Amnesia we had the nature of evil as a core concept and Penumbra explored madness a bit, In the future we aim to take this kind of focus even further and to create games that are not just easy-going entertainment.

6.       How has piracy affected your sales?  Has the lack of DRM hampered your overall sales?

Not more than games in general are affected by piracy, sure different type of games might suffer at different levels. We have put a lot of effort into making it a single play-through experience, that you play it one time and the main idea is that the less you know before the better the experience will be. In this case it might be very harmful with piracy, if you pirate and play it one time then why would you later buy it? A sport, strategy or online driven game might have you hooked a long time and offer a replay value that eventually makes you purchase it. Not having this probably affects us a bit more.

We don't really think of piracy as something pure evil, nor do we see it as only beneficial as the pro-pirates so often want to shout. It's a problem that there is a lack of research on the topic, as it makes everyone make claims with little grounds.

If you play our game from beginning to end, or if you play a considerable part of it and have a good time, all we ask is that you purchase it when you can afford it. We often run sales, or stores that have our games have sales, so there are lots of opportunities to get it real cheap if 20 USD is too much. We have even participated in events such as the Humble Indie Bundle, which has given the opportunity to pay what you want.

7.       You guys deliver fairly atypical gaming experiences, what leads to some of the conceptual designs when you’re pitching an idea?

The main thing is probably that we do not start of with some core gameplay, but rather with a feeling and a theme. So instead of first iterating a low-level gameplay mechanic and then come up with a fitting story, we go for a more holistic approach where everything depends on one another. We have tried to start with gameplay first, and this is actually how Amnesia started out, but we felt that it so easily overshadowed the atmosphere and feel we wanted. Instead, we found that focusing on higher level concepts at first enables one to craft a quite different experience.

Thanks again for the interview guys.  To my readers, give me just a little time to gather up some ideas for posts.  Check this space, and thanks again for reading!

Get That Fuckin' Guitar Outta Here! - Zombi

Many self-described "rock-n-fuckin'-roll enthusiasts" curse the day rock artists discovered the synthesizer. Hell, some are still convinced that Rush's 80s material was all a bad hairspray-induced nightmare. However, some would go on to embrace this sound and gain a few fans along the way.

Zombi is a progressive electronic/space rock/prog rock band originating in Pittsburgh circa early 2000s. The band consists of two solo multi-instrumentalists: Steve Moore, the bassist for Krautrock band Titan, and A.E. Pattera, who just released his debut solo album under the name Majeure. While fans of King Crimson, Rush, and Tangerine Dream will hear the influence instantly, film nerds might also notice that Italian horror film soundtracks of the 70s, such as Suspiria and the international version of Dawn of the Dead have also rubbed off on them.

While their newest album, Spirit Animal, does in fact include use of the electric guitar, the rest of Zombi's material employs the use of synths, keyboards, bass, and drums to craft their sound. The synths churn out mellow, yet epic soundscapes, the bass thumps rhythmically along with a strong, distinct tone, and the drums bring the complex and aggressive rocking nature to wrap up the package. It's the perfect soundtrack to that anxious, high-speed midnight drive through nowhere in particular.

Give Surface to Air a spin a try not to pretend you're on a secret space mission.

Gundam Vs. Gundam Next Plus: Robots are still awesome

Giant Robots, Sign Me Up!

As an ardent child at heart, I still retain some fondness for certain elements of my childhood.  These vary from ninjas, samurai, Batman, and bitching guitar solos to the whole grail for my gaming career as a child.  Of course, I’m talking about giant robots.  Now, I won’t claim I’m some anime slurping nerd, I’m more of a comic book fella.  But I’ve always had a certain affinity for their brightly colored robots and the multiple explosions.  Now, at the ripe age of twelve, I was exposed to Gundam Wing, a series that is pretty much just Sailor Moon with giant robots and a lot more angst to go around.

As bitching as they come.

 

When I picked up my PSP this past week, you can only imagine my surprise when I found out that Capcom, the guys behind the amazing Sengoku Basara and Resident Evil, had released a combat game based around the Gundam franchise as a whole.  Gundam Vs. Gundam Next Plus is a portable iteration of the popular arcade series that originated with the Naomi hardware, and it’s a great way to kill time in bursts. 

Holy Shit, Look at the Colors…Ooooh, Pretty.

GvGNP is a dream to look at on the PSP, having a silky smooth 60 FPS and still maintaining a hectic amount of action on the screen at any point in time.  Now, I can tell you maybe who five or six of these giant robots are, but I don’t honestly care.  I adore just how ludicrous the concept is though, they just throw all these giant robots in a pot and make them fight.  Why?  Have you been reading this entry closely?  It doesn’t really matter why, it’s just fucking cool.

Apologies for taking the image, but look at how fucking colorful this robot is.

GVGNP is a technicolor wet dream of gigantic proportions, it’s well suited for play in bursts, and it has machine gun wielding robots squaring off against robots that kung fu each other.  Awesomely stupid concept, and it reads like my failed fan fiction depicting Bruce Lee and Indiana Jones fighting the Cold War in 1950s Moscow.  For the hardcore nerds out there, I can surely agree that there’s probably some greater amount of plot at play here, but I honestly can’t say I care to find out.  The game is fun, I don’t need a story, I’ll play Planescape for that sort of shit.  Or Fallout, or any of the other fantastically smart PC games from the 1990s and early 2000s. 

I have no clue what’s happening, but I can assure you, epicness is taking place

GvGNP controls fantastically, never once feeling like a floaty mess.  This is one of the huge complaints I have to raise against the Armored Core franchise.  Despite the fact that it seems like Japanese Mechwarrior, it just controls like absolute shit, and I cannot stand the fact that building my dream Batman mech is far from being accomplished. 

Holy shit, awesome, thanks Mecha-Master on Deviantart, you were the first result up.

So, what it boils down to is this is a game well worth importing.  Give it a shot, play the fuck out of it, enjoy it.  It can be picked up here, here, and here.  Comment, follow, bug the ever living hell out of me.  I really would appreciate someone with a pulse to give me a little feedback.  See ya tomorrow.

Interview with Roguedjack

Two weeks ago, I posted my impressions of an indie game by the name of Rogue Survivor, a roguelike taking place during the zombie apocalypse.  Graciously, the one man behind the whole title agreed to an interview, and I jumped on the occasion to ask some questions.  Without further ado, here we go:

Me:  When going through the conceptual design of Rogue Survivor, what inspirations and influences did you draw from?

Roguedjack:  I wanted to mix aspects I like in some games and combine them into something different and fresh.
From roguelikes I took the procedural content generation, tactical turn-based gameplay, and the player as an actor.
The sandox aspect (open-ended dynamic world) comes from strategy/sim games, where you are put against enemies, friends and competitors in a starting setting and the game world evolves from there.
The zombie apocalypse theme is really a side-effect or an after-thought rather than the primary motive for the game. I could have used any other theme or setting. In fact first I thought about a medieval world in a permanent state of war (think Mount&Blade). Then a space/pirate setting (think Elite, Privateer, Sid Meier's Pirates). Then I thought about a zombie apocalypse and said to myself that was the perfect setting. It is a setting people can relate too (your house, your town, your life) with a widely popular theme (zombies!).

Me:  What's in store for the fans of Rogue Survivor?  Any huge ideas or plans for the next releases?

Roguedjack:  Playing as an undead will be the major new feature. This will offer a very different gameplay.
And various improvements such as expanding the plot, demolition weapons and attacking other survivors directly.

Me:  What's the most difficult part about developing an AI for a game of this complexity?

Roguedjack:  Doing the survivor npc AI.
There are a number of conflicting features to balance, respective to the player.
Survivors must be able to survive on their own, but they must not be too good at it as to leave some resources for the player own survival.
I guess I could make survivors AI much better at self-preservation. But then it would be a nightmare for the human player, like a multiplayer cooperative game with players who don't really cooperate with you, only worse. Plus a proper goal-driven AI with planning would cost too much CPU cycles.
When adding new items or features I have to think about the impact on AIs and gameplay. For instance if I add a new powerful weapon meant for the player, what if the biker gang gets hold of one and start using it against the player? I don't want to fordib some items or actions for AIs so I have to handle that as to not make it game breaking.
Then of course there are the usal constraints of maintening suspension of disbelief when the player directly interacts with the livings AIs, and performance tuning which is more of a factor than in usual roguelikes because of the high number of actors active at all time.

Me:  What sort of games do you enjoy playing?

Roguedjack:  Mostly tactical fps, strategy/wargames, football(soccer) management and the occasional relaxing casual game (fighting game, puzzle). The only genre of I don't like are racing games.
I like games that puts you with a dynamic evolving world where you are not the only drive for change.

Me: Given the subject matter of your game, is it safe to say you're a huge zombie film or game fan?  If so, what are some of your favorites?

Roguedjack:  Well in fact not really, I don't like the gore in zombie movies. I like the setting a lot though and I think its potential is not used properly in games.

Me:  What sort of experience have you had as an indie developer?

Roguedjack:  I have made a bunch of other games over the years at various stages of completion, but kept them for me or my relatives. This has always been a hobby of mine.
My first completed game was a text adventure on Amstrad CPC 6128. "Interactive fiction" they call it nowadays. I've written games for Amstrad CPC, PC and a Texas Instrument calculator; in Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, C#; arcade, sims, adventure, wargames.
Rogue Survivor is the first game I release to the public. Well two, if you count a chess engine in C that played vs humans or other engines on FICS (Free International Chess Server).
Writing games is fun. I mostly like designing the rules, doing the AI and composing the music. Graphics are annoying as I lack the talent but I'm learning.
I would more than happy to do that for a living.

Me: What language was Rogue Survivor developed in?

Roguedjack: C# NET 3.5, with Managed DirectX for graphics & sound. I will try to get rid of managed dx as it seems to be a source of bugs.
I could have done it in Java+OpenGL for more portability. I prefer C# for its lambdas and properties. I also find it less verbose than Java, I kinda view it like C vs Pascal in this respect.
Next game will probably be in Java+OpenGL though, for a change, better portability... and less Microsoft annoyances and oddities.

Me: Thanks again for agreeing to an interview, I really appreciate your time.

Roguedjack:  Thanks for your interest!

Roguedjack has released a great roguelike, so please visit his site at http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com and show him some love for a fantastic game.

Rogue Survivor: Fuck Yes

Rogue Survivor caught my attention by pure chance.  I love roguelikes, anyone who knows me will testify to that fact.  There’s just something satisfying about wandering around in these giant arenas, plundering loot, and the waves of death you’ll be facing down.  Rogue Survivor plays off the thought of the ever popular zombie apocalypse and does it magnificently. 

The survivor AI is probably the crowning feature of Rogue Survivor, and it shines at all times as you go through the paces of finding shelter and other things.  Survivors are smart, barricading themselves inside buildings and offering up supplies in exchange for other materials.

Rogue Survivor is deliciously done though, extremely difficult, and is one of the rare roguelikes that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve seen it all before.  Screenshots won’t do the game much credit, but believe me when I say this is the sort of game you need to give a shot at least once. 

Wonderfully done, Roguedjack deserves a lot more support and fame than he’s getting.  So spread the word, plunder supplies, try to live through the night, and pray zombies don’t burst through your barricades in the night.

Nation Red: Holy Shit, Zombies are Badass

I picked up Nation Red yesterday thanks to the magic of Steam’s latest sale.  For a paltry $4 I got a game that’s high on challenge, even if it’s lacking a little in content.  There isn’t anything more satisfying than blowing away tons of zombies with an AA-12 while weaving in and out of them. 

One of the most satisfying bits about Nation Red is that it tries way too hard to be metal, and the crunchy goofy soundtrack lends some odd charm to it.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out then:

So much fire, it’s amazing.

Despite sounding like a Megadeth B-Side at all times, Nation Red is wonderfully satisfying to play.  The blood and guts flying all over the screen just get some stupid ass grin out of my face while I’m mowing through legions of the dead.  All in all, even though it’s back to full price, Nation Red is a wonderfully fun game.  It’s absurd in how goddamn grim-dark it tries to be, but I have the feeling that if it were a little cheekier it wouldn’t work. 

Also, if you’ve got the time, check out Foreign Legion:  Buckets of Blood, I thought it was wonderfully absurd in just how many shooter tropes it plays with.  Pretty simple castle defense game, but I love these absurdly simple experiences.  Beats out on the nasty grim shit like Gears of War. 

Got a suggestion for the next game I review?  Give us a shout in the comment box, we’d love to hear from you….handsome.

System Shock 2: Hail to the King Baby

Gamers love Bioshock if Metacritic is to believe.  The eerie atmosphere, the phenomenal writing, and the crushing isolation make for a compelling game.  System Shock 2 did the same thing, and did it to masterful effect years earlier.  You awaken in the Von Braun, after a brief tutorial, and you’re plunged straight into the hell awaiting you.  While, the game itself is dated, the overall design still makes for a scary fucking experience.  The ghosts, the logs, The Many, and so much more just sow the fervent paranoia of the diligent player hard in their skull.

You see that gun?  Be prepared to shit yourself when it breaks.

Masterful sound design do much to make us forget the dated graphics, and a superbly told story really pushes it past the usual idea of monsters, blargh, fuck!  System Shock 2 is probably the finest example of a horror game ever made.  It broke down doors, standard conventions of gameplay just brutally subverted in one of the finest twists in gaming history.  The notion it created back then has since been reconstructed, deconstructed, and enjoyed life as a cliché of sorts.  But at the time of release, System Shock 2 was incredible for what it did.

This isn’t full of jump scares like Resident Evil, or the psychotic imagery of Silent Hill.  It’s paranoia tempered with a fine coating of fear, and for that System Shock 2 succeeds in areas where many have failed.  Dead Space and Bioshock both fail in many regards, but this is just due to chasing the wake System Shock 2 left.

Words cannot do the awful you’re about to witness justice.

So, why haven’t you played this?  And if you have, you know why it is among the greatest games created.  System Shock 2 is just as sexy to play as Deus Ex, but you may very well end up huddling in a corner when your shotgun is out of shells.  There’s a few naggling features sure, but I’d chalk it up to the limitations of the era.  For what it is though, System Shock 2 is the sort of bonafide classic everyone needs to get a taste of once.  Don’t mess with the retexture mods, they turn one of the most unnerving enemies you’ll face into a big titted supermodel from hell.  Take it as it is, a document of design long since lost upon designers.  A testament to the strengths of a young studio who has since found great fame as it were.  Irrational may possibly be my favorite American studio, they gave us System Shock 2 and Freedom Force.  They made Bioshock, and gave us the excellent SWAT 4.  SWAT 4 is more of an heir in my opinion than Bioshock, if for the simple reason that your assumptions about your environment will lead you awry. 

In System Shock 2, you’re a marine in space, silly worn out trope of gaming these days.  Silly worn out cliché back at release.  Despite all your military prowess, it won’t steel you for what comes inside the Von Braun.  It doesn’t make the awful any less horrible to see.  When you awake, it’s just you in this vacant ship, traversing it to find out just what happened.

Like a Star Wars character with an extra dose of grade A nightmare fuel. 

Looking at the stills of System Shock 2, it’s a little hard to imagine what made it so scary.  But the voices of The Many, the metallic tinge in the Midwives, and the blistering steel of a vicious AI all but make up for it.  To hear a legion of voices in the dead of night with your headphones donned is terrifying, but to realize your down to a wrench and low health makes it pants shitting at times. 

Wait until you hear her speak.  Good luck seeing babies the same way.

In short, System Shock 2 is a phenomenal game.  I would regard it as more important the original Half-Life for a thousand reasons.  Half-Life did much in terms of advancement and immersion, but System Shock 2 never imparted the same feeling of badassery a certain bespectacled MIT grad gave.  Despite the guns, the cool psychic powers, and even years of horror games in my wake, System Shock 2 still is unnerving.  Still potent, and just finely aged, sort of like some whiskey that makes voices whisper in your head. 

Search container?  Well, what’s the worst that can happen?

In short, just buy it.  It’s worth the huge price used.  It’s a damn shame this franchise has gone without a worthy heir.  Now, if I’m to believe things System Shock 3 is in the spanners, which is a bit like saying the third Blair Witch is coming.

Happy Halloween guys and dolls, tune in tomorrow for a look at one of my favorite indie titles.

In parting, here’s one of my favorite animated shorts.

Gotta love that hissing noise.

Cursed Mountain: Buddhists, Ghosts, and Snow

A Trip Into Some Snowy Hell

Cursed Mountain is a survival horror title that didn’t get a whole lot of press.  Released for the Wii and PC, Cursed Mountain follows protagonist Daniel on his trek through the Himalayas in the 1980s to find his brother, who went missing on a climb of treacherous means.  Cursed Mountain isn’t by any means what we’d call a great survival horror game, but it takes a unique premise and couples it some rather interesting gameplay mechanics. 

Half the time I was controlling Daniel, I was wondering why on earth he moved at such a slow clip.  Much like Fatal Frame, Cursed Mountain urges the player to avoid jogging so ghosts aren’t alerted.  The early scenes do a great job of depicting tension, and the setting is certainly a welcome one compared to the cramped mansions, hospitals, and other stock settings of most horror games.

Where Cursed Mountain fails is when it starts implementing combat.  Combat is one part aiming your mystical pickaxe, no joke there by the way, and adding gestures as per most lazy Wii developers.  Now, if there was some compelling reason as to why you need to blast things with your scyred pickaxe I wouldn’t be docking it.  However, what has the potential to be a sleeper hit turns into a bargain basement horror game while completely saying fuck you to the setting and ideas.

How can you fucking see in this game?

The sound design is wonderful to a fault, I found myself loathing Daniel’s voice actor and moaning aloud when your monk mentor instructs you on how to swipe at things to use them.  Daniel sounds like an effeminate Malcolm McDowell, the odd accent and lisp doing absolutely no favors to make me feel immersed in the game.

I feel about the same towards Daniel, truth be told.

Now, the ordinary gamer will be slightly annoyed by the visual filter that saturates everything when you attempt to defend yourself.  As depicted in the screenies, it’s this nasty black stuff that just swarms all over the place.  The first time was pretty cool, added a little bit to the overall feel, but then I found myself having to do it constantly. 

I was instantly reminded of Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves of course, and the nasty look Hell had in that film.  Playing this game is a bit like watching Constantine, great concept with a shitty execution. 

Another five dollars I’ll never see again.

Now, while I can at least excuse Keanu for the simple reason that he’s a pretty cool guy, Cursed Mountain doesn’t get the same excuse.  It’s a great concept, sure, but the oversaturated visual effects, uninspired gameplay mechanics, and creepily voiced main character just kill whatever great things I felt about this game going in.

Within ten minutes of fighting my first enemy, I went from going, “Hey, this is pretty cool so far,” to “Why can’t dying just end this?”  Developers take note, a good horror game doesn’t need to rely on combat, just take a look at Amnesia or Penumbra.  Both stellar games, both really fucking scary, and you don’t have a singular weapon on you the entire time.  Both are going to be looked at quite extensively in the coming weeks by yours truly, and hopefully I can will myself to play for more than a half hour at a clip. 

Am I shooting this in the dick?

I won’t lament things though, I only spent five bucks on this turgid piece of shit.  So, really, you get what you pay for.

As a parting note, take a look at a little gameplay from Amnesia by Frictional Games.

I guarantee you, you’ll be running a lot.

Get That Fuckin' Guitar Outta Here! - Lightning Bolt

I don't think anyone is quite prepared for what Lightning Bolt has to bring on their first listen. The guys look tame enough; two pale, skinny white boys named Brian from Rhode Island who cite avant garde composers should be fairly harmless, right? My incorrect preemptive judging of the band only furthered the positive impression they gave me.

Chippendale is perhaps the perfect embodiment of Animal (the Muppet). If anything, the man does something the creator of the character, whose exaggerated, unparalleled hyperactivity made him an iconic puppet, could never begin to fathom. People falling and holding on to his drum set for dear life is something this man simply brushes aside. His spastic playing has convinced some of his fans and onlookers that he's simply not human. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Don't let your friend who's been playing in that Three Doors Down/Kenny Chesney cover band for three years fool you, this man uses a bass guitar equipped with a couple banjo strings, numerous pedals, and nothing else. Chippendale's seemingly random, ADD-fueled clamoring is made sense by Gibson's heavy, noisy goodness. Live, it seems he is the calculated, controlled method behind his co-conspirator's blind rage.

Together these noise makers have a wide variety of unconventional venues, the oddest most likely being in a small kitchen in a Texan house. Like a small handful of other bands, they perform guerrilla-style - right smack dab in the middle of the floor - almost always forgoing any traditional stage. Their albums are recorded live in-studio, only furthering the potential chaos these two deliver.

This band may appear to lack members, but they are sure as hell full in sound.

Fatal Frame 4: Cute girls, Awful Ghosts

Fatal Frame, or Project Zero for you filthy diehards, is one of those rare series in horror that maintains a great consistency in terms of atmosphere, scares, and overwhelming dread.  I’d dabbled over the years with games like The Crimson Butterfly, but usually my rental time would be up and I would be forced to go get something else.  I dunno why, seeing as how my library has always had at least one Silent Hill and one Resident Evil amongst the other titles, but I just sort of avoided Fatal Frame for whatever reasons.

Well, all that changed last week when I procured a copy of Fatal Frame 4 for the Wii.  An import only sort of affair, Fatal Frame 4 is a stellar game that I’m honestly a little appalled will never be making it to our fabled American shores.  Now, this isn’t to say it’s unplayable because the filthy pirates amongst us have devised a translation patch and get to play this gem in a manner similar to watching a subtitled film.  I however don’t get such luxuries and as such I’ve had to use a combination of Wikipedia and various guides to play. 

Gah, someone needs some moisturizer.

Initial Impressions

Upon my booting up of Fatal Frame 4, I was amused by the fact that the game doesn’t fuck around by throwing you right in the middle of a spooky ass place.  Your opening scenes are spent in an abandoned facility, and the echoes of your footsteps only underscore the simple fact of the absolute silence surrounding you.  One of my biggest complaints about modern horror games is how they underscore every little bit of the score with a musical motif.  Fatal Frame 4 doesn’t afford it self such nasty little amusements.  This may be in part of Grasshopper Manufacture’s involvement.  As any gamer that loves some of the more esoteric titles know, Suda 51 doesn’t trifle with cheap scares.  Fatal Frame 4 follows three young girls who return to the place they were kidnapped, and it’s a game rife with various nods to Shintoism and a decidedly different take on the occult. 

If you’ve lived under a rock for the last ten years, you’ll know that Fatal Frame’s combat isn’t quite the shotguns and explosives of Resident Evil.  You have to use a supernatural camera to damage your enemies and your efforts are greatly rewarded by them getting in really close.  The ghosts in this game are rather nasty, looking far more disheveled than I was expecting.  You really feel bad for these girls as they traipse about this place, well except for the bitch in the opening.  Nothing good ever comes of walking off with no one following.

Someone needs to tell Ke$ha to get a new publicist.

I love the fact that Fatal Frame doesn’t necessarily need the standard elements of making you jump in your seat.  By using a smart combo of isolation and dread, you can really feel like you’re completely alone in the world.  This is my first entry proper into the series, as I lack the hindsight to account for my lack of playing Crimson Butterfly through to completion.  You aren’t some boulder punching madman fighting a dude in sunglasses though, you’re a small and frail girl navigating a hellish maze littered with the souls of the dead.  You’re urged to keep pressing on to find your companions, you’re urged to keep going deeper and deeper into the black abyss.  Fatal Frame succeeds where a game like Dead Space fails, and that’s by making sure you’re not some hardass engineer with a master’s in asskicking.

Is she wearing a French Maid costume under there?

Go Buy It Plebes!

There’s the very real possibility that Fatal Frame 4 will never make it to our shores, which is a crying shame.  However, you can make sure you need brown pants on a permanent basis by ordering it now.  It seems to be sadly out of print so it looks like your best bet is eBay.

Hmm, so much for sleeping.

Dead Space: It’s Resident Evil 4…..in space!

A Look At EA’s Hyped Horror Game


I suppose I came to Dead Space about two years too late.  After a 2008 release to critical success, the survival horror game from EA’s Redwood studio apparently set some high marks.  Now, after having played it to completion I can say that’s it’s decent, but not quite the horror fueled nightmare I was expecting.  The simple fact that our hero Isaac is quite possibly the most badass man in a technical position since Gordon Freeman may have something to do with it.  The plot is rather simple when the game thrusts the gamer into the midst of it.  Isaac Clarke is sent to the Ishimura to get systems back online.  Isaac’s an engineer, which you really wouldn’t guess during your playthrough of this game.  Most of the engineers I’ve met aren’t hardly the type for scrapping, their more concerned about running a raid on Naxx to the utmost efficiency and complaining about how majoring in English was a bad choice. 

This seems an awful lot like some happy psychology hating church


When you first boot up Dead Space you’ll be struck by how damned pretty it can be.  The nasty bloody environments are gorgeous and it really shows what the power of a huge production studio can do.  It’s like discovering that a chicken in a can isn’t as tasty as that made by a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu.  Having a whole chicken in a can is a whole different sort of horror when you consider exactly what your digestion track may be doing after cooking the fucker.  Dead Space is a pretty game and greatly benefits from all the major production behind it. 

Buh, how did they make space look so neat?

Major productions, as my esteemed colleague points out, don’t benefit from the sight of what makes something truly scary.  So we’re left with the simple fact that our mute Mr. Clarke is a badass.  I don’t mean badass like Batman, but more or less Ripley from Aliens with a dick. 

Isaac, it just has some indigestion from all the yummy flesh.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t complain about this.  Leon S. Kennedy made having a foppish hair cut and spouting out dumbass phrases a lesson in badassery.  He looked stylish while doing so, this may be in part because Capcom really had to use a French model to make Leon into the envy of every man and make girl parts’ a-quiver.

I’ve been figuring out how to get my hair to part like that for six years.

Dead Space does tie into the notions of abandoning the survival part of the survival horror genre.  You don’t really feel like you’re fighting for your life, but just sort of blasting ugly things nonstop as you go through the motions of it.  Simple thanks to EA for making it seem like engineering is a great career choice.  Now, I can’t really say too much on the plot because it was beginning to make my head hurt, also spoilers are bad.  Dead Space does terrific things as far as immersion and making nasty baddies go.  Demon babies, bladed arm things, things that jump a lot, and something that looks suspiciously like a vagina and a burst boil had sex are all present and accounted for.

As pictured:  Da sexy

In short, Dead Space is the sort of game that should really end up in most gamers’ libraries.  It can be picked up at your local game store and can be picked up if you don’t live in the stone age on Steam, Direct2Drive, and a few others I’m sure.

Next up is a retrospective look at my favorite sci-fi movie of all time, that other movie directed by James Cameron about aliens.

Streamlining and Working Out Details

Well, thankfully Windows offers a desktop solution for my needs.  I’ve consolidated down my workspace to just my browser and a few other desktop based applications instead of choking my computer down with tons and tons of tabs in Google Chrome.

My co-authors should be posting soon, so hopefully warm welcomes are in order.  Thanks again to my readers currently.  For a site that started just last week, this is already starting to grow.  So I guess I just need to keep with it.

Folks, this is what nightmares are made of

I can't help but feel that the mainstream horror film producers of today have become completely oblivious to what is considered "scary". Envelope-pushing gore, mediocre remakes, and supernatural happenings tend to be all the rage nowadays, something that, while I enjoy, has left me feeling a bit disenfranchised due to the borderline plagiarism that seemingly occurs through the repetition of mediocre plot devices.

Pictured: Shit sandwich. Take a bite.

This Halloween season was looking rather grim for new mainstream horror flicks, and not in a favorable manor. However, it seems that one company, Mars Inc., is on the ball this year.


The sense of dread this commercial fills me with is unparalleled to any popular horror/thriller I've seen in quite a while. I feel as though it is a legitimate work of art, really, as opposed to most run-of-the-mill advertisements. The costume itself is undeniably eerie and the odd situation adds to the uneasiness one feels after watching the ad. If there's one way to describe it, it would have to be "subtle". The complete lack of music causes this commercial to lose any potential forced tone and allows the viewer an unobstructed window into the queerness of it all.

I don't need gore, big-budget production values, and certainly a contrived, overused plot. Simple and unsettling works just fine. Worked just fine for Mr. David Lynch.

Film studios, take note.

Exciting News, or something

I'll be getting some co-authors today I do believe.  They'll be bringing in the hot fire with his tastes in music and the like. Eventually we'll be something that's a little more than just a blog that focuses on my decidedly awful tastes.  Alright, back to work for a few hours.

A Look at Silent Hill

If you're a gamer, you've no doubt heard of Silent Hill.  Konami's franchise is probably the keyword to most horror gamers these days.  Killer soundtracks, freaky villains, and a twisted setting have made the franchise rather memorable.  I've been sloughing through the second game thanks to the holiday that's impending and would like to just take today to take a look back on Resident Evil's far scarier cousin.

Silent Hill

Oh, Harry Mason, you really are the archetype for the everyman in gaming.  You suck with a handgun, you have to go into filthy dingy locales, and ultimately you fail to recognize when to run away from a scary as hell sort of place.  The original Silent Hill follows Mr. Mason on his little quest to find his adopted girl, along the way he wrecks his car and ends up in Silent Hill.  Now, Silent Hill isn't full of your standard little denizens.   There aren't the quaint shops full of knick knacks and the local fairs. Silent Hill is a nasty ugly place that freaks normal people out.  For good reason too.  If you looked at a place like this, you aren't thinking warm and cozy.  Here's a few screenshots for nostalgia's purposes.

Well, I think it's safe to say it isn't custard, marmalade, or corn syrup Harry.

Very few games will make you wish quiet was all you heard.  Lots of ambient nastiness.

Wrong, a gun with no bullets is better than nothing.  You're asking for monster rape.

Silent Hill received rave reviews for turning Resident Evil's concept on its ear and taking heavy inspiration from Jacob's Ladder.  The next game in the series would turn out to be by and large the best to come.

Silent Hill 2

God, what a game.  You never really feel like you're safe, and there's a dude in a pyramid mask that loves to rape other monsters right in front of you.  I wish that was a typo, but you really can't mention Silent Hill 2 without paying some sort of nod to the main baddie, Pyramid Head.  Silent Hill 2 upped the ante in many regards and made the series into a classic franchise.  Now, this followed in Resident Evil 2's wake, which somehow dictated that a horror game's sequel needs to be awesome beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Well, Konami delivered.  You play as James Sutherland and you get beckoned to the eponymous town by your wife Mary.  Full of psychosexual imagery and dread, this is the sort of game you want to play during the middle of the day with friends who can snuggle you when the bad men come.  Here's a few screenshots to hopefully conjure up some wishes for the brown pants.

The graphical leaps for this game really took everything up a notch.  The constant ambience too.

Ah, Pyramid Head, very few implacable men in gaming can claim to be more terrifying than a busful of clowns come midnight.

Remember what I said about psychosexual imagery?  These nurses have the curves, but the bloody sacks are a little offputting.  Unless you're into that.

Sadly, I'm sort of lame in the respect where I've never sat down and played the newer games in the series.  I eschewed for Silent Hill 3 for the pure and simple reason that nightmarish hospitals sound awful to me.  Silent Hill 4 and later entries were less critically renowned.  Apparently the Western treatment of the franchise really rubbed critics and gamers alike the wrong way.  However, the series as it stands with the first three represent a golden era in gaming to some.  I remember switching off Silent Hill 2 in the middle of the day because I could hear shit scuffling against the ground.  That isn't the sort of thing you really want to test though.

In the future expect a bit of an analysis over various other horror greats as well as some of my favorite classics.

Awesome Shit To Play: Super Mega Worm

Have you ever played a really badass iPhone game?  I mean like the type you just sort of go wow at.  If not, you really need to check out Super Mega Worm.  Super Mega Worm is quite possibly the candidate for game of the year.  You jump around as a giant death worm and you crush and eviscerate all the pathetic humans in your wormy path.  Bonus points go to the decidedly retro design.  Anyways, I discovered this a couple of weeks ago and thought it was pretty fun.  So, I decided to give everyone a little heads up and give it a shot.  Here's a few images for your approval.

If you have a pair of eyes, it's pretty easy to see that Super Mega Worm is the hotness incarnate for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  I've wasted a lot of time playing this game and trying to see how much gore I can cover my screen in.

The Revenge of the Zombie Game!: Remembering Resident Evil

I've been playing a lot of the original Resident Evil as of late, mostly to get myself prepared for the Halloween season.  Despite the absolutely atrocious voice acting, it's sort of creepy still, the dated visuals not withstanding.  I still get transported back to the days of my youth when this game was released.  My father booted it up to see what all the fuss was about, and then we were treated to this iconic image:

Now, when I was ten this was quite possibly the scariest thing I had ever seen.  I felt unnerved seeing this nasty looking zombie turning to face Mr. Redfield.  Fast forward thirteen years and I've been a little seasoned as to horror fare.  I thoroughly enjoy Silent Hill, Dead Space, and others but Resident Evil still holds a special place in my heart.  Maybe that's because of the inherent campiness of the dialog in the first game.  Or maybe it's because one of the first Playstation games I ever beat was Resident Evil 2.  I dunno what the case for my love of the series is, but I can't really imagine the gaming landscape without it.  At it's base level it exploits our fears, not so much in psychological sense, and it works pretty splendidly still.  It reads like a log of some nasty event, like walking in on a roommate in the middle of masturbation, and it just gets worse from there.

So, while I enjoy the concept of blasting away at the undead, there's a primordial dread about the first game.  You've got guns galore, but you have a smattering of bullets to hold you over.  You could blast the first few zombies that come your way, but you'll be properly screwed when you do.  So despite the nigh impossible nature of the game at times, it still maintains some realism in that fact.  Resident Evil 4 and 5 did away with the scrounging of ammunition and made you into an unstoppable badass that takes time to punch boulders and suplex baddies.  Invigorating yes, horror filled not so much.

Anyways, I heartily recommend the series to anyone wanting to get their feet wet with the horror genre of video gaming.  After all, you can never have enough games where they talk about Jill sandwiches.