Friday, September 30, 2011

Deadly Premonition returns?


Looks like we might be seeing more Deadly Premonition in the future. If you haven't spent any time with this gem, I hear its pretty special. I confess I'm not up on the HD gaming scene, not that I don't have opinions about it, but damn do I want to play this one. Anything reminiscient of Twin Peaks is a win for me, and I still love awkward controlling, PS2 gen, survival horror more than anything (except for a good FPS).

In an interview with GameCentral at metro.co.uk, the game's creator, SWERY 65, says he has plans to both re-release the original game in a Special Edition, as well as wanting to put together sequels and prequels. Maybe this time around SCEA will consider a US release for this quirky title. Click over to read the original interview with SWERY 65.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The voices are back


The always reliable Rely on Horror has reported that Guy Cihi, along with the rest of the original voice cast of Silent Hill 2 have come to a settlement for licensing their voices for future use. This ends a long running near-feud with Guy and Konami over the use of his voice for James Sunderland.

Initial fan response to the new voice work was a little cold at this years Gamescon 2011, so this is viewed by many as a good thing. I think it is more fascinating to watch how Konami continues to recognize the importance of audio work, especially voice work in its games, and is making effort to preserve the original work of its artists. I hope the new actors who intended to replace the old ones get a decent kill-fee for their work.

Click on over for more details, and to view a photo of the signing that "used to be" on Facebook (I'm sure there is a whole story to that too).

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

8 bit Twin Peaks


No, it's not the latest Deadly Premonition game. Rather, Black Lodge 2600 is an 8 bit style Twin Peaks homebrew game put together by artist and musician Jak Locke. For both PC and Mac (thank you!). Black Lodge 2600 is reminiscent of the Atari/Intellivision era of games, complete with a faux Atari manual and label. The only thing missing is an Atari compatible ROM that I can drop into my Atari emulator of choice--but who can blame him, as programming in batari Basic is not for the feint of heart.
You can read more at WelcomeToTwinPeaks.com, or just click on over to download and play the game yourself.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Vampires, Zombies, and Plague, Oh my!

Image credited to Chris Read and shamelessly swiped from Discovery.com

By now this story has circulated the internet pretty widely--if you haven't read it, some ancient gravesites in Ireland have received some attention because some of the corpses were buried with large rocks forcibly inserted into their mouths. The ritual was likely related to the fear of Revenants, vampires, and the plague.

Its worth your time to click over and read the article and ponder the fear of death, and how man has tried to make sense of the world around him for these past few centuries.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Happy Wax Monster Candy

photo by earthboundtimelord
This photo makes my ridiculously happy. As an October baby growing up in the mid-70s, Halloween was always a huge deal for me. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was way cooler than Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (who didn't have a crush on Miss Jessica), especially if it aired on my birthday.

Having kids allows you to rediscover what makes holidays like Halloween fun--but, trying to explain things like cheap plastic Halloween masks and candy that just doesn't exist anymore can make you feel old. One thing I have had trouble digging up information about was Monster Wax Bottle Candy. Made just like Nik-L-Nips, these monster shaped bottles contained a sweet syrup that you could suck out of them, and then you could chew the wax like gum. I never chewed the wax myself as I liked the monsters way too much. I have looked all over the internet for any info I could find on these over the years, and the most I could find were a couple of forum postings, but no details, until I stumbled across these pictures. Aren't they beautiful?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Thing That Drifted Ashore


Junji Ito always brings the scares to manga. His work is consistently unsettling. Fortunately for us, one of my favorite blogs, Monster Brains, brought us one of his creepy stand-alone stories, Thing That Drifted Ashore. Prepare to be unsettled.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Racket horror

I love Racket Boy. There, I said it. If you don't know what I am talking about, click over to RacketBoy.com for one of the best sites on classic gaming.

You won't find ROMs. You won't find emulators. What you will find are piles and piles of articles on classic gaming, classic consoles, and some incredible podcasts. What brought me to Racket a couple of years back was my search for games on platforms that I never owned, but adopted later in life: specifically Gamecube and GBA games. Racket Boy's guides to gaming on the cheap, and hidden gems really helped me find the Nintendo games that I never played but should have.

Today, Racket Boy posted an excellent article on The Playstation 2 Survival Horror Library, and what an article it is. They dug through everything, absolutely everything, to remind us how much there actually is to play on the PS2. Over 70 games make the list, including PAL and Japanese games that never made it to those of us in the US of A. I don't want to claim this is the most comprehensive retrospective of Survival Horror on the PS2 ever, but I can't imagine that they missed much.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Dino bites


Funny how this generation of downloadable games can bring attention to some of the forgotten gems of the past. Capcom's Dino Crisis was a venture into survival horror beyond their usual zombie fare, and an experiment for Capcom using 3D rendered environments as opposed to the pre-rendered visuals of the Resident Evil series. Debuting 12 years ago, Dino Crisis was revived this Spring as a downloadable title on PSN, giving us a chance to relive some of the scares this game has to offer. GGSGamer.com gave a nice overview of the title in its original incarnation in January, complete with PS1 era graphics which received a sight update for their most recent release.

If you never played the game, click on over to read what GGSGamer has to say about it. I was always  fond of Dino Crisis, but I never finished it, abandoning it in frustration with its typical Capcom-obtuse-inventory-management-system.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Women play too

 

The always inquisitive Destuctoid published a piece on Harry and the burden of men in Silent Hill a couple of months back, and now Rely on Horror asks us to look forward to the women in town. The author, CJ Melendez, contemplates our lack of playing in female shoes beyond Silent Hill 3. Its a short, but interesting read, so click on over.

I believe the original three Silent Hill games strongly reflected the psyche of the male dominated Team Silent, with the natural conclusion to the tale being the introduction of Heather as a protagonist, especially after exploring Silent Hill through the eyes of Maria in Born from a Wish, and the gameplay opportunities it presented with a woman caught up in the horror. One can only imagine the discussions that happened within Team Silent between the men and women who created these games as the direction beyond Silent Hill 2 was charted.

Friday, September 2, 2011

I love an abandoned amusment park


Retronaut, the keeper of all things cool gives us a great photo essay of an abandoned amusement park in New Orleans. And this one comes complete with creepy clowns. What more does anyone need?
 
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