“Attention carbon units/what would you do/if you had to save the earth/from something attacking you…”
Well, you’d probably want to at least be decked out looking somewhat Enterprising for the occasion, particularly if you know where that quote above has been transported from. Anyway, with San Diego Comic Con rolling up, thanks to The Coop and Entertainment Earth you Trekkies and Trekkers are getting some really cool stuff to send some of that disposable income on. Of course, you don’t need any sort of convention to snap up anything in this post if you’re a fan who wants to show off your love for all things Trek. Continue reading →
The more I see of SOMA, the more I want to play it and hear about others playing it. This slow-burner of a sci-fi horror game from Frictional Games looks fantastic and as you can see, has atmosphere to burn in spades. I do love that the game builds up to what’s in this 12+ minute video and will most likely leave viewers interested in the game wanting to grab it just to see how everything falls into place. It seems that players will be in for an excellent blend of adventure game search and use, environmental hazards and one pretty oddball opinionated machine. Iie arigato, Mr. Roboto! Yikes. Anyway, SOMA is out September 22 on PC and PS4.
For those of you who’ve served, thank you for your service. For those of you who remember the late, great Bob Hope doing his part for those who’ve served or want to know what some of the fuss was about, courtesy of MVD Visual here’s a Memorial Day buy that’s not some condescending mattress, car, food or other product not worthy of the holiday. Back tomorrow with some updates.
So. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is out and yes, you SHOULD buy and play it if you like action/RPG’s with a sense of humor (and optional gore), loads of random loot drops and probably closure as NeoCore Games finishes up its trilogy. That said… oh, for the days of the retail review disc arriving in the mail! While 20GB may not seem like a huge file to download in this era of “everyone” having a high speed connection, the best I can do around here is roughly 11 to 36 mbps. And that’s WITH connections dropping out from time to time adding more time to the download. 11 hours to download a game (which would be closer to 5 or 6 if the speed is consistent and there aren’t any connection drops) is way too long for me and while I’m not impatient, I have no idea how people put up with this sort of thing with larger game files.
Yeah, yeah, it’s something we’ve “gotten used to” as the digital age has beat retail over the head senselessly as a “superior” option. But for folks like me who fail to see the speed difference when having a disc means you get into those games you want FASTER and with only any day one (or later) patches to download, this digital divide is more “haves” versus “have nots” stuff I see some game companies no longer addressing. Boo. But hell, I won’t take this minor annoyance out on NeoCore games and all their hard work at all. Although it WOULD be cool to see them get their trilogy out on consoles at some point so even MORE people could enjoy it. Eh, we’ll see. In between the ongoing strife here I need to fit my Sunday around getting this game onto a hard drive here, so it’s an early night for this old fart. Back in a bit.
One of those wild Japanese films packed with striking imagery and offbeat performances, Teruo Ishii’s 1970 hybrid Blind Woman’s Curse makes for another excellent Blu-Ray release from Arrow Video. It wraps up action and revenge flick aesthetics with a creepy tone, loads of late 60’s era sexiness and violence with a solid performance from beautiful Meiko Kaji. She plays Akemi, the head of a yakuza clan sometime during the 1920’s who’s been released from prison only to find there’s a pretty efficient pair of assassins as well as other folks after her and what remains of her loyal gang.
The main assassin (Hoki Tokuda) happens to be the sister of a rival boss out for her own revenge. Akemi accidentally blinded her during the fierce and beautifully shot sword battle that opens up the film and she now she’s somewhat hard to stop as she whittles down Akemi’s gang. Her assistant, a muttering and really creepy killer with wild hair (Tatsumi Hijikata) is one of those characters who gets under your skin and remains there from the moment you see him. Both he and the black cat that appears during the film lend a supernatural tone to the proceedings that lend the film a nice horror vibe. That said, if you pay close attention, you’ll see that the film tends to toss a lot at you with expectations that you’ll keep up.
Like a worn pair of favorite jeans you’ve had in your possession for years or a good leather jacket, NeoCore Games‘ throwback action/RPG The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has been one of those reliable standbys that feels as it’s been around a great deal longer than it actually has. This is actually a good thing, mind you. NeoCore’s click and slash series is up to its third installment which is coming to Steam on May 22nd, so here’s a look at what to expect with that set of tease-packed videos above.
Diehard players who still have a death grip on their older Windows XP-powered computers will be glad to see as with the other two installments, Van Helsing III will run on their creaky old systems. Neocore doesn’t own them that at all, mind you. But it’s great to see a developer not ditch those players who bought that first game at all and continue to support them with all three parts of the series working on what they currently own. While the ability to use an Xbox 360 controller to play the game was a patched in addition to Van Helsing II, the game is still superior with the standard keyboard/mouse setup.
The mix of action, horror and humor elements is something that sets the game apart from the more deadly serious to much sillier Diablo-style games on the market, as is NeoCore’s attention to more “realistic” detailed environments. Granted, the mix of steampunk, classic monsters (werewolves, vampires and such) and other fantasy bits keeps things fresh throughout. One thing the game will need to be is extremely optimized and as good as can be at launch. VHII had some pesky launch issues that were resolved over time but probably soured a few gamers who tried it out and found it lacking in some areas. From what I’m seeing so far it seems that the third time’s the charm. We’ll find out in four more days.
Two things you’ll absolutely require when playing Kosmos Games’ Dimension would be an absolutely flat level table and friends not prone to elbowing you in the body anywhere while you’re racing to stack colored balls while reading cards that tell you how to stack them. Once you have those all sorted out it’s all fun and games and no one is getting hurt. Dimension is a really interesting hybrid of spatial puzzle and fast-paced ball placement for 1-4 players that will test even the most skilled minds with following a handful of simple rules. All you need to do is stack 15 colored balls as you can while paying close attention to the precise instructions set forth by the rule cards laid out for each session.
Blue can’t touch orange, you can only have two black balls on your tray, none of those colors can touch a white ball and so forth and so on. All of this while a timer is ticking away and someone is probably trying to pull off a cheat that won’t work under any sort of scrutiny because they’re LAME! Yeah, I’m talking about you, you know who. Anyway, Dimension is simple to set up and you can get playing in about five or so minutes. However if you buy this game specifically to play with younger kids, make sure you or some other adult does the assembling. If you just whip out the box on your jaded brood the kids will probably end up just rolling the balls under the couch with the cat chasing after them and call it a day. I say dazzle those kids with some freshly baked cookies or other treats while you put the game together in another room before surprising them with their soon to be new obsession.
If you were around during the 1980’s and owned a VHS player a trip to the video store was probably something done a few times a week in order to check out some good to awful films you hadn’t seen previously or had caught in a theater and wanted to experience all over again. The better video rental shops were part museum, offering up box after box of wildly re-imagined art that didn’t always match what was on those tapes you wanted to rent. From scantily clad ladies beckoning you to pick up that case to painted explosions that guaranteed at least if the film was atrocious stuff would blow up really good, it was a boom time for “B” movie fans. Over in the UK, movie fans got even wilder cover art to ogle from a wide range of artists of assorted talent covering genres from sci-fi and horror to comedy and assorted exploitation flicks.
Whether you’re a fan of the period or just want a great art book to show off to friends, Schiffer Books’ VHS Video Cover Art ($34.99) comes very highly recommended. Compiled by Tom ‘The Dude Designs’ Hodge (a great movie poster artist inspired by this period), the 12″ x 9″ hardcover book is 264 pages of eye-popping artwork. Some of it great, most of it cheesy to an extreme. Here in the US that cheese factor is most likely going to be the appeal to many buyers who may only know some of these films through their western movie posters and/or VHS cover art which was more often than not straightforward studio commissioned art and photos.
A few weeks back I got a few samples of UPTIME Energy Drink and a bottle each of Original and Maximum Energy Blend Tablets to take for a spin. I didn’t want to just toss them back over the course of a few days, get a quick buzz and blaze away for a bunch of hours on an energy wave at all. Instead, I decided to hold off on testing them out until I had a reason to require that boost the products offered.
Of course, life has a way of hitting you on the head with stuff that requires excess energy caffeine and its resulting crashes can’t handle. Let’s just say that when used correctly a little bit of UPTIME can really make a difference in your day.
UPTIME looks to distinguish itself from other energy drinks on the market with cool (and resealable) 12oz (355ML) cans, less ingredients than other energy drinks and a cleaner, no aftertaste finish that’s light and pleasing when all is said and done. There are two varieties, Original (sweetened with real sugar) and Sugar-Free (artificially sweetened) for those who want less “guilt” with their boost. For the record, there’s about a cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine in a bottle. So if you’re averse at all to it you’ll want to seek your energy boosting through other means. Personally, I preferred the Original over Sugar-Free as I’m not fond of artificial sweeteners in anything, but the latter wasn’t bad at all. Saving my samples for a few brainy days was a good idea as I got slammed with a few things that required a bit more focus than I’m usually used to.
Well, wow. Of course, it’s not REALLY a $9 computer if you have no idea it requires more than taking it out of its tiny box and plugging it in before you realize that you probably need a monitor, keyboard and a decent connection to use it. Also, Bluetooth controllers aren’t cheap the last time I checked. So if you get this for game playing purposes and haven’t an idea of what a decent controller costs, look that up first before you grab your own Chip.
But there’s little doubt that a LOT of those 20,000+ backers on this Kickstarter project know these facts. That and there are a few Chip models that cost a bit to a lot more than $9 that come with that screen, keyboard and monitor. I’m highly intrigued by this particular project, but as I’m always broke, I won’t be nabbing one of these until it’s ready for retail and all the bugs are flattened out. It’ll likely be used for games and maybe learning to program stuff (something I’ve always wanted to do because I have game ideas not thought of or done right yet). Anyway, these are exciting times aren’t they? Unless you’re lazy and want everything handed to you on a silver platter, of course.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 