Monday Bundles Make That Mundane Monday All Better…

Posted on October 27, 2014 by geelw

Some scary and not so scary options in this week’s set of bundles. This week’s IndieGala Every Monday Bundle has seven games for $1.89 (nice!), 24 hours until that price goes up.

This week’s Humble Flash Sale is an all-horror themed bundle that will run you a few more bucks for the good stuff, but it’s worth every penny you’ll spend. And you’ll definitely do that spending more than a penny part, I’d say.

Finally, Bundle Stars wants you to learn to like the Kalypso. The Kalypso Games Bundle, that is (oh, I’m SO funny today!). This particular deal will only set you back $3.99 and nets you TEN complete games and 14 DLC packs (yikes), meaning it’s the winner today if you’re into sheer content versus cost. Yes, it’s a shorter than usual post this week, but that’s because I’m in the middle of a review and need to keep it brief. Back in a bit – go get yourselves some games!

MAN CRATES Wants to Check Your Horror Scenario Survival Skills. There Just May Be a Test Later…

Posted on October 27, 2014 by geelw

Photo: MAN CRATES

Okay, given that the world is both looking like and turning into a real-life horror movie, it’s best to be well prepared for all sorts of emergencies. Fortunately, we have the fine folks at MAN CRATES (which always needs to be spelled in BOLD caps when written and yelled out loud when said, by the way) to help out in a pinch.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m not very much prepared for any disaster because I tend to avoid them by curling up under a few blankets and not looking out the window until it’s SO quiet that I hear nothing but the butterflies flitting by and the morning dew drying on the leaves seven floors below. But that’s no longer an option in this age of potential panic situations popping up without so much as a moment’s notice.

MAN CRATES to the rescue? Oh, yes indeed… Continue reading →

Spooky’s House of Jump Scares: Oh, It SURE Looks Cute At First…

Posted on October 27, 2014 by geelw

(Thanks, Akuma Kira!)

Ha and double ha. For a while, Fridays over at Desura have been interesting thanks to the site dropping four free indie game downloads for all in their Freedom Fridays promotion. Some of these games have been clunkers, others have been classics and a few defy a proper description because they’re so weird or unfinished or both that they feel like experiments that have taken a life of their own, bumped off their programmers and just forced themselves onto the site leaving a trail of corpses in their wake. Thankfully, Lag Studios‘ unique Spooky’s House of Jump Scares doesn’t fit into that latter category.

As you can see from that trailer above, the game starts off cute and simple-looking with cardboard monsters popping out of walls to maybe make you jump a little. But at some point during its thousand rooms, things take a decidedly dark turn as actual monsters drop onto the scene and give chase to your nameless character, a plot of sorts comes into play in the form of discovered notes and all of a sudden, the game with the dopey name you got for no money is freaking you out and you have to keep playing just to see what horrors that next room reveals. Okay, it’s no P.T. or Outlast, but the game will run on nearly anything and has enough tricks up its sleeve to be a nice little Halloween surprise. Anyway, go get Spooky and let her get under your skin. Hey, even if it doesn’t scare you at all, it’s FREE and you can’t be afraid of that price point at all…

Microsoft’s Temporary Xbox One Price Drop is a Tempting Tease…

Posted on October 27, 2014 by geelw

If you were holding off buying that Xbox One because of the price point (despite the recent price cut to $399), Microsoft is making things a lot more tempting. While ACTUAL sales figures for the console (and yes, all other consoles) is a bit tricky to track down, those in the know know that Sony’s PlayStation 4 has sold at least 10 million units worldwide (a solid start, but that also means a lot more millions still own and play games on the PS3, particularly in Japan where the PS3 still outsells the PS4). Both Sony and Microsoft have to deal with one core factor with their new-generation systems in the fact that both the PS4 and Xbox One absolutely require a broadband connection in order to function out of the box if players want to take advantage of any online features… Continue reading →

Review: TRI: Friendship and Madness

Posted on October 26, 2014 by geelw

Platform: PC

Developer: Rat King Games

Publisher: Rising Star Games

# of Players 1

ESRB Rating: N/A

Official Site

Score: A (95%)

It’s very hard to believe two people (Jana Reinhardt and Friedrich Hanisch) programmed the stellar TRI: Friendship and Madness, but that’s what it says on the official site and in the game credits. This family-friendly first person puzzle game plays like a hybrid child of Portal and a very well made Minecraft mod where you soon find the only limitations to solving the increasingly challenging levels are your imagination and sense of exploration. The game starts off small as a simple, somewhat straightforward Point A to Point B “find the keys to clear the level” experience, but once you get to drawing triangular platforms that can send you almost anywhere on a map, the game opens up into pure brain expanding territory.

Despite the often high level of challenge in reaching some really out of the way items, once you get the hang of things, the game is always a joy to play, particularly when you’re making your own route around the expansive and often gravity defying maps that have you moving around at seemingly impossible angles… Continue reading →

Sunday Gives Me Both Barrels, But I’ll Be Quite Alright…

Posted on October 26, 2014 by geelw

(Thanks, John Thomas!)

And how was/is YOUR Sunday? Mine is pretty lousy at the moment, but pretty much everything’s fixable with some time and a bit of money. My home PC decided to flip out and not want to boot up properly, my backup solution isn;t working (thank goodness for the laptop), the connection today is super-slow, I accidentally broke the paper holder on one of the printers here (nothing a little glue can’t fix, but it was a total “DUH!” moment when it happened), my Logitech G15 finally died, I can’t find the driver CD for my gaming mouse, some of the plants I was growing decided to keel over thanks to the temperature changes this past week and I still need to get to that pile of laundry I was supposed to do last week, but kept putting off because of so many games coming in and me needing to get to them. Yaaaaah. There are a few other things going on as well, but those are for me to know and you to not find out.

(Thanks, DreamWorksTV!)

Eh, small world problems, but all happening around the same time makes for a REALLY annoying day. Eh, here’s a little laugh for you while I get back to trying to actually be something resembling “productive” today. Back in a bit…

Do Your Eyes Need a Workout This Saturday Night? Well, Here You Go!

Posted on October 25, 2014 by geelw

(Thanks, GoodOldDaysReturns!)

As for me? Well, I’ll have to pass on these sassy eyeball exercises, as Dungeon of the Endless and TRI: Friendship and Madness have both been giving them quite a wild time this week. That’s a good thing in terms of their overall scores, by the way. Anyway, I’m in the midst of some innnnnnteresting changes on the work front, but no reveals yet, people. I’ll let you know what’s what should what happen and if it somehow doesn’t happen, I’ll be all “Wha’ Happened?”:

(Thanks, MovieClips!)

Random Film of the Week(end): Adrenaline Drive

Posted on October 25, 2014 by geelw

Shinobu Yaguchi’s films always make me smile because they’re consistently fun to watch even if they don’t achieve everything they need to over the course of their running times. 1999’s romantic (and slightly black) comedy Adrenaline Drive does make the most of its hilarious plot and energetic cast although it takes a slight misstep later on with a very short burst of violence some viewers may find slightly sours the experience. On the other hand, given the character in question dishing out that brief bit of ouch time, it’s a sort of cathartic moment for him after all he’s been through… Continue reading →

PlayStation Store’s Sale of the Dead Brings You Some Scary Good Bargains…

Posted on October 25, 2014 by geelw

(shakes fist at monitor)… Stupid Sony. Having another PSN sale on some stuff I might want just when I’m poking around for something light and kind of fluffy to play between bigger games. Yeah, I got Dead Nation (finally) for under 4 bucks, but stopped there because I do have some things to take care of here outside the gaming sphere. Anyway, check out the long list of games, movies and TV shows (okay, mostly movies and TV shows, as the game presence is a bit limited this week) for some decent deals if you’re looking to stock up on content for one of your consoles or that Vita you’re not telling anyone you own for some oddball reason.

Or, hell… at least get Dead Nation if you own a Vita. It’s a ton of fun so far and I just may want someone around to hop online with in the not too distant future…

Bayonetta 2: A Few Firsts for Nintendo to Celebrate…

Posted on October 25, 2014 by geelw

I got a nice and hearty laugh yesterday thanks to the following email header: “A sexy, all-new action game available now” and that’s because it was an email from Nintendo. I don’t think any of their in-house advertising has previously used the word “sexy” (feel free to correct me here), so that’s what made me laugh so much. From now on, I want Nintendo to find any way to squeeze the word into EVERY game they produce. Let’s see Bayonetta outfits in that next Metroid game (whenever it gets made), the character herself pop up in the new Smash Bros. game, an Amiibo figurine just because she needs one and what the double heck, why not get Princess Peach out of that pink getup and Zelda out of her usual fantasy schmatta and into something more… ~~sassy!~~ er, SEXY!