Some Cool Bundles Because You Need A Winter Break…

Posted on January 9, 2015 by geelw

Okay, I’m behind in stuff thanks to this week’s repair shenanigans, but let’s play catch up for a bit, shall we? First off, IndieGala is now running Friday bundles! Awesome. This first one of 2015 just so happens to contain some really great games all at a can’t pass it up price. Did you miss out on the Five Nights at Freddy’s craze last year? Well, you can now get that one-room horror game plus one of Scott Cawthon’s excellent role-playing game hybrids, The Desolate Room. There are also some other cool titles in this bundle, but I’ll let you see them for yourselves…

Meanwhile, over at Bundle Stars, there’s the Bloodshed Bundle to keep you warm on this cold weekend (and a lot more cold weekends, as there are a lot of games here!). I’d say Blood Knights and The Dark Eye: Skilltree Saga are worth the $3.49 alone, but you also get To The Moon (which is a bit of an odd choice for this theme, but it’s a great game nonetheless), Volition’s flawed but decent old RPG Summoner and a few others make this one a total steal.

Okay, you know what to do. It’s going to be freezing this weekend (hell, it’s freezing now at the library I’m in typing this post up) and you don’t want to be caught off guard with nothing to occupy your time except TV Land reruns. Get to it, then!

Brandish: The Dark Revenant – Whip Out That PSP One More Time!

Posted on January 8, 2015 by geelw

I was going to use the word “Brandish” twice in that title, but my brain is all fried up from today’s rather mind-boggling “finale” to the kitchen repair job that still has me reeling. They’re done… but NOT done. I give up! Well, not quite yet, but man… am I wiped out from all this nonsense.

Anyway, next week (January 13) sees Nihon Falcom’s remake of its classic Super Nintendo RPG Brandish land on PSN for the PSP and Vita rechristened as Brandish: The Dark Renevant. I need something nostalgic like this to keep me sane, so it looks as if it’s going in the queue. Xseed Games deserves props one more for keeping the PSP alive after all these years,but as noted, the game will also run perfectly on the Vita as well as PlayStation TV if you’ve committed some money to that newer device/service. $19.99 is the MSRP and the game promises some old school challenge just like the original (but harder!).

As for what the game is all about, a peek below the jump should satisfy your curiosity… Continue reading →

Holding Patterns: While You Wait, Shall We Dance?

Posted on January 7, 2015 by geelw

Well, today I’m working on some CES and other posts for the other site I’m writing for, GamerFitNation, but I don’t want to leave you all un-entertained here while I get stuff done elsewhere. Here’s a fun sequence from 1944’s The Canterville Ghost to watch and grin over. Just track down the complete film and watch it, as it’s a pretty amusing take on the old Oscar Wilde story you may or may not have read in grade school. Or seen on a small or large screen, as it’s been made into a few TV movies and films over the years. Alrighty, I’ll be back in a bit…

Random Art: A Minor Cure For Some Major Madness…

Posted on January 7, 2015 by geelw

Well, I was going to post more pictures yesterday of the kitchen, which has been partially painted despite a rather glaring repair omission that sticks out like two sore thumbs thanks to that fresh coat of paint. But this whole mess of ass-backward insanity that should have taken maybe a week or less according to This Old House rules has sucked up too much of my energy and is affecting my workload. Blech. Anyway, I’ll probably post some pictures in a few days, but here’s something to look at in the meantime. My poor mind is boggling over how such a straightforward job anyone else would do or have done in a specific order has gotten so surreal. Thursday should be interesting, as it’s when we see if the next guy who shows up to do some work actually figures out what the hell it is he’s supposed to do and gets it right the first time.

Buy This! Bundle Stars’ Abstract Bundle Makes The Odd Oddly Comfortable…

Posted on January 6, 2015 by geelw

Bundle Stars, you rascals. Getting out another great deal on this cold and snowy day and me, too damn busy to play anything thanks to poring over CES news. I shake my press release filled fist at thee, then realize this deal goes on for two weeks. Oh, okay. Well, for the rest of you with time enough at last on hand, if you have $2.49 burning a hole in your digital wallet, you should get the Abstract Bundle not because it’s dirt cheap, but because of the nicely weird mix of games this time out. Me, I’d drop that loot just for the chance to play Vangers again after too many years. This 1998 open world driving/sci-fi RPG hybrid is just too offbeat to describe other than to say it’s like a cerebral version of Mad Max as re-imagined by some talented Russian developers who worked in a free-form style of storytelling and gameplay that’s still unique. Intentionally tough at the outset and vague if you’re not reading dialog and thinking about what was said, the game is strangely addictive and those voxel graphics give the game a strangeness that still works in its favor.

The other game well worth that money is Knights of Pen and Paper, a double throwback that references the good old days of Dungeons and Dragons plus some of the classic console RPGs from the 1990’s. This one’s less tricky to describe but still going to be weird to some new to the experience. I’ll let the game page description take over here:

Take on the roles of in-game players taking on the roles of their characters in a traditional pen and paper RPG session in the ultimate meta role playing experience.

Yeah, it’s that quirky, but quirky is good in this case. There are eight other fun games in the bundle from “old” reliable hits like the two PixelJunk games to more recent oddities that will bring a big grin to your face once they click with your smarter parts. Anyway, I’ll shut up now and post this so you can grab this deal and get your own game on. Play a little for me, please. I may not be coming up for air in a while…

DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition – Dante’s Return-O…

Posted on January 6, 2015 by geelw

Oh, I kill me with these puns, don’t I? Um, don’t answer that. Anyway, both Capcom and the supremely talented development team at Ninja Theory took a tremendous deal of grief and worse from some gamers when DmC was announced and that very different Dante graced that mockup mugshot poster. While the fanboy ire raged and internet fires blazed up on message boards, the game’s development continued as developer and publisher pretty much ignored the haters as they made the game they wanted to make. For the most part, the new game was solid, fun to play and like every other game out there, not without its flaws. Still, it must have moved enough copies to warrant a major upgrade to new consoles as PS4 and Xbox One owners are soon going to see DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition smash onto those consoles in March.

For some gamers who’ve already played this one on the older consoles, the idea of shelling out $39.99 to play it again may seem like a not so hot idea. However, Ninja Theory and Capcom intend to deliver to old and new players buying in a game that’s vastly improved over the previous version… Continue reading →

Movies I (Still) Need To See #1: The Power

Posted on January 5, 2015 by geelw

As I watch a wee bit too much of TCM when I’m not doing anything constructive, I’ve ended up with a mighty long list of films I need to see before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Not all of these films are important or even good, mind you. But I feel it’s my civic duty to entertain myself as much as possible. Or, to quote The Police: “When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around”. Anyway, I figure I may as well kick of another series of articles about films I haven’t seen yet in the hope that some of you get the idea and start bucket-listing flicks you’d like to see. Anyway, kicking things off is The Power, the George Pal produced 1968 sci-fi thriller that I’ve only seen in the 1967 MGM Lionpower promo feature that pops up from time to time on TCM.

That footage made me laugh because the film predates David Cronenberg’s 1981 classic horror/sci-fi hybrid Scanners by 13 years and almost comes off as an influence in a few ways. Granted, Cronenberg’s films stand up well enough on their own. But this oldie looks like it would make a nice companion piece to the newer film (and should certainly be better than the pair of non-Cronenberg directed Scanners sequels that sunk whatever franchise rights the first film had. Not that it needed a sequel in the first place, mind you. Anyway, that’s the first film I could think of, NOT the first one on my list of films. That’s just how I roll, people… randomly. Which, by the way, is a habit I’m trying to break. Back in a bit…

Random Films: Robo Vampire Makes My Monday More Tolerable…

Posted on January 5, 2015 by geelw

(thanks, andybluefox!)

Well, the plasterer is at lunch for an hour (yes, he left before noon!), so there’s a pause in today’s nightmare. In the meantime, after taking some more pinup photos of the wreckage in the kitchen, to keep my sanity level somewhere close to normal I’ve been catching up on some bad movies. Godfrey Ho’s 1988 howler Robo Vampire made my morning thanks to it being even worse (and much funnier) than its title suggests. Swiping badly from Paul Verhoeven’s stellar Robocop is bad enough to dismiss this without even watching it. But toss in hopping ghosts (wait, how does a cyborg fight ghosts outside of some seven-year old kid’s notebook scribbles?), mercenaries, long water torture scenes and slow, dull “chases” and editing that makes the film seem like three or four movies spliced together and you get an instant classic. Well, “classic” in that “How the hell did this ever get made?” manner. Seriously. I’ve seen student films with better quality EVERYTHING than this clunker.

Ah well. Everything exists for a reason, I suppose. This crazy flick just kept me laughing through the continuing (and seemingly never ending) mess that is my apartment. I suppose I should thank Mill Creek Entertainment somewhere in all this because I’m too lazy and busy to seek out and download all those public domain flicks I paid ten bucks for and still consider that a steal because that’s time and bandwidth money I didn’t need to waste. Back in a bit…

Kitchen Nightmares, Part Whatever: Everything AND The Kitchen Sink?

Posted on January 5, 2015 by geelw

Wait, what? Hold on a minute. When last we left the nightmare, the inspector was here and mumbled something at the end of a long bit of other information about the ancient, sturdy and fairly indestructible sink (that’s been in the apartment since the complex was built back in 1939-40) needing to “come out.” My eyebrow went up, but nothing further was said about it and no one from the office called and told us to be prepared to maybe move stuff from the drawers and cabinet next to the sink, as it’s a big deal removal job. Guess what happened this morning?

Yep, a bunch of guys roll in here (as in everyone that SHOULD have in the first place), and some start banging away at the old wooden counter top next to the sink and another guy gets under that sink and start in on the pipes. Of course, I’m happy to see people working in that kitchen who seem to know what they’re doing. However… it would have been nice to know I should have l should have moved everything that’s not covered in plaster dust, tiny bits of wood, well-aged insect egg sacs and who knows what else. Wonderful, and unless there’s a new sink in and working by the end of the day, stuff will need to get gently dumped into the bathtub to be cleaned.

Oh, and what’s this? They decided to remove the wooden counter ACROSS from the sink for some reason? Great. Now all my tableware and whatever else is in the cabinet below are covered in that crap as well. Which is doubly annoying because I cleaned out those drawers and washed everything about two or so weeks back. Yeah, it’s going to be a looooooong day, ladies and gents. On one hand, I shouldn’t be mad at all this because it’s all getting done. But the whole not being told what’s being done until it’s happening with no time to move stuff is kind of a pain in the ass.

Well, so much for a two day job. That and the place still needs a paint job. And the leak in the pipe in the back is back. And the bathroom needs to be done now that they’ve finally noticed the cracks in the wall that have been pointed out to them last year have gotten a bit longer. And so forth, and so on… Gyaaaaah.

Sunday’s Cool: It’s A Damn Fine Day For Cleaning…

Posted on January 4, 2015 by geelw

Good Homekeeping Tip #12: Yeah, you should kind of vacuum those rugs more often, people. If not, they tend to spring to life and wreak havoc amongst the citizenry. No important posts today, thanks to me getting some stuff ready for tomorrow’s return of the kitchen killers (aka: the “plasterers”) and my deciding to pretty much veg out and watch too damn many bad movies today thanks to the crappy weather. I sometimes do the rugs here twice a week, by the way. That’s due to a lot of traffic in and out of here more than an OCD or anything. Alrighty – I’ll be back tomorrow in a more productive mood. Or at least I better be, ha and ha-ha…