Dark Souls II Now Available: You Come Up For Air When You’re Good And Ready. They’ll Wait…

(thanks, Game Banshee!) 

“They” meaning all the things that want you dead, as the AI in the game is set on “pursue to the ends of the earth” and “puree” and not necessarily in that order. Anyway, PS3 and 360 owners get theirs now, PC gamers get a while to wait, but should just feel lucky they’re getting this game at all because a bunch will just hex hack up some cheats before they actually experience this one as it SHOULD be played. Eh, whatever. I take my Dark Souls II straight up and run from the room screaming hard, no chaser, as there will already be stuff coming after me clogging up the hallway. Yaaaah. Prepare to LIE your way out of work if you’re one of those people not playing Titanfall at all (I’m one of those people). Yes, I’ll replace this trailer with Namco Bandai’s once they get around to posting it. They tend to run a bit late with the US stuff. There’s one up now, but it’s unavailable (boo!), meaning it’s probably going to be let loose tomorrow morning around 9am.

Dementium II HD Behind the Scenes: A Whole Lot Of “Nope” Means This Needs To Be Played…

DEMENTIUM II_HDSo, yeah… Dementium II HD. Digital Tribe and Memetic Games’ PC version of Renegade Kid’s super scary Nintendo DS exclusive looks like an even more complete freak-out, although there’s definitely something to be said for the original game’s defying the hardware it was made for and offering up a frightening portable thrill ride that’s still the best horror game on that old handheld. Anyway, this update looks pretty darn jump out of your underwear freaky on a few fronts, but I’m brave. I can take it. Maybe.

Let’s see it in action (go hide the kids and pets in a closet, folks – this probably isn’t pretty):

Yeah, there’s a whole bus load of “Nope!” going on there, as in “Nope, I’m not going to open that door… TOO LATE! Gyaaaah!” and so forth and so on. Digital Tribe has done well with this frightening little gem and since I missed posting them, I’m going to run all four behind the scenes videos so you can see how the game was made. Pleasant Dreeeeeeams, now…

The other two making of videos are below the jump. Why? Because I like you… M-O-U-S-EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!
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Orphan Black Season 2 Trailer: Nope, No Musical Crap Here. Just Damn Great Acting!

 
How great is Tatiana Maslany in this show? Let’s see now: I’d gotten a friend to catch up with the first season with his wife and after a weekend binge they both thought it was multiple actresses in some scenes where it’s just Maslany and her CG clones doing their er, her thing. Yes, I’m still cranked up that some kooky fan would dare to suggest a musical episode, so sue me. As noted earlier, I’d say that would kill the show in its tracks even as a dream sequence unless it was so well integrated into the plot that it made some kind of sense. On the other hand, if this were an anime, I’d bet we’d see a musical sequence every other week if not the show getting an opening and closing song. And nope, I don’t even want to imagine that happening either. Yeah, I like my pizza plain cheese, my ice cream vanilla and my favorite shows unmarked by pop songs and other fluff that take away from what they’re meant to be.

Midnight City Gets Two (More) Big Indies to Publish…

 
DoubleFineLogoOkay, since my stupid spam filter was eating their emails until recently, I’ve missed Midnight City‘s fun press releases and videos for the indie titles they’ve published (and a few review opportunities as well, boo!). Anyway, with that little problem now solved, here’s what’s up from these guys this week. Costume Quest 2 is coming! Hoo-ray! Double Fine’s sequel to its Halloween-centric, candy filled role-playing game is indeed getting a release on PC as well as consoles (yes!). As you can see below, even Double Fine’s Grand Poobah, Tim Schaefer is in on the fun in this goofy Midnight City team promo video below the jump… Continue reading

Random Film of the Week: The Colossus of New York

the colossus of nyThe first time I saw Eugène Lourié’s The Colossus of New York, I think I was about ten or eleven and stayed up all night on a Friday or Saturday just because it came on at something like 2 or 3am. I recall falling asleep somewhere in the middle and waking up for the ending, disappointed that I missed whatever robot rampage the cloaked metal man went on. It turns out that I didn’t miss much of a “rampage” at all, although the thing did wreak some havoc on some poor important folks down at the United Nations before getting shut down for good without the military blowing it to scrap metal with a bunch of rockets.

Anyway, featuring some fine performances and an brilliant (and sometimes unsettling) piano score by Nathan Van Cleave, this is an interesting albeit flawed sci-fi film with a more human side to its fantastic bits thanks to the internal conflict of Jeremy Spensser (Ross Martin) who finds his brain in that bulky cyborg after he dies in an auto accident and his genius dad (Otto Kruger) and second genius (but somewhat devious) son (John Baragrey) decide to keep him living in that metal shell… Continue reading

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II: If You’re Hungary For More, Come Get Some!

VanHelsingII_BoxArtOkay, I’m late to the mad monster party thanks to such a massive games backlog that I won’t be seeing some of the bigger titles I downloaded last year until late this year (or next year!), which is pretty sad. But I understand quite a lot of people have this problem thanks to too many bundle sales and low prices on single games that are way too hard to pass up.

Anyway, I bumped up the demo to The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing a few weeks back to “PLAY IT!” status when I was cleaning up my Steam library and realized I’d downloaded but not played it. It hooked me in right away and made me wish it was on more platforms because as great as Steam is, not everyone who’d love this fun and funny action/RPG is playing it.

Of course, me being late to the party means Hungary-based Neocore Games has been a hard at work on a sequel that’s going to be even bigger than the original and they want you to climb aboard the even more comedy-laced monster killing train early:

What was that? You say things were moving too quickly and you want screenshots? Um, okay – here you go:

VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_01 VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_02 VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_03 VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_04 VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_05 VanHelsingII_Pre-orderScreens_06

Feel better now? Good. But wait, there’s MORE… Continue reading

Motivation For A Monday, Courtesy Of Woody Woodpecker…

(thanks, toon me!) 

Hahahaha-ha! My nightmare is now yours! This popped up in a dream I had early this morning, so I’m sharing. I know some folks hate that laugh (the list is fairly large as far as people I know), but it’s a KNOWN fact that everybody likes a good polka even if they don’t think so. Am I right? Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, get up and get moving, people. Monday is here and ready to get beaten up by you Daylight Savings Time sufferers (of which I am one, bleh). Get up, get out and get it done or else that damn woodpecker will be dancing on your head as he looks for a spot to start drilling for worms.