Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark: Buy It For The Title Alone, I Say

Posted on April 29, 2015 by geelw

A game with a name like Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark just SCREAMS out “Shut up and BUY me, Meow!”* and even if it’s the crappiest game with Schrödinger’s Cat in the title, it’s probably still more than worth the $14.99 asking price on Steam because it’s probably better than you’re thinking. Yeah, this logic puzzle of a post has been brought to you by Wednesday because it’s not yet Thursday and by Friday you’d have moved on to something like “Hey, what’s for dinner two weeks from next Monday?” or something like that.

Developer Italic Pig seems to have done their homework here as the game looks nice and amusing and yes, a bit of quantum physics come into play as they usually do when you have a cat who may or may not be very dead or very alive. The Particle Zoo is in chaos with Leptons, Gluons and Bosons all running amuck and only ONE cat can tackle the problem in his interestingly quark-y manner. Of course, it’s a sure bet that most people won’t appreciate the humor in this one unless they’re ready to do some reading or already know what’s up with the figgy Newton-ness of a clever developer doing it’s thing. Hmmm. I wonder if the dev team gave that cat nine lives, one or none for the entire game?

*(of course, if the cat is dead, this game doesn’t exist and renders this post completely null and void. The cat was alive when watched the trailer three times, so it’s a safe bet the game is real as well).

IndieGala Hump Day Bundle: Your Camel Will Not Work Today If It Reads This Post

Posted on April 29, 2015 by geelw

It’s probably a good thing that camels don’t play videogames for a few reasons. For one thing, that would just be too weird a sight. I’d also imagine monkeys and any other non-human animals with opposable thumbs would be REALLY pissed off. Finally, if they had any work to do today, they’d not get anything at all done because they’d all be downloading today’s IndieGala Hump Day Bundle before camping out at home to play some games. Do yourself a huge favor and keep the camels offline by buying up a bunch of these bundles and gifting them around. Pay a buck for three games or pay $2.89 for thirteen games, your choice.

There’s an odd mix of first-person puzzle games, family entertainment studio stuff, a bit of horror and even some platforming with samurai kitties and a 3D brawler tossed in for good measure. Um, you’re NOT showing this post to your camel, correct?

Anyway, stop reading and start downloading. Well, once you pay up, of course. Just send the camel to the furthest store with a big bill, tell it to buy something for itself with the change and you’re good for at least a few hours. Camels tend to get a bit confused when shopping for themselves (well, that’s what I’ve read).

Konami Kills Silent Hills; P.T. Probably Gone For Good

Posted on April 28, 2015 by geelw

If you own a PlayStation 4, love horror-related games and have yet to play P.T., get ready for a little shock. You only have a few hours before that title (which stands for Playable Teaser and was actually a concept demo for the Guillermo Del Toro/Hideo Kojima Silent Hills project that was to feature The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus as the lead) is probably gone forever.

Konami has canceled the project entirely and will be yanking the demo off the PlayStation Network on Wednesday the 29th. The company still plans to keep creating games in the long running Silent Hill series in the future, but the loss of this demo comes as yet another blow to fans of Mr. Kojima’s work. This latest business decision comes not too long after both Kojima and Kojima Studios’ name were removed from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain after still unrevealed disagreements between the creator and company. Both his name and his studio’s name were also chopped from the P.T. demo site in Japan and it seems that once the free demo is gone, it’ll not even be available to download even if it’s been placed in one’s PS4 queue for play at some point in the future.

As a bit of a gaming historian and big (but sometimes easily rattled) horror fan, this irks me to no end as well as shows how lousy digital distribution really is in terms of preserving content. Pulling a game demo may not seem like a big deal to many of you and it’s not really a huge deal at the end of the day. That said, given that P.T. showed off more creativity and genuinely freaky scares than some completed games, not having the demo around to show off in the future doesn’t bode well for any other demo or full game deemed disposable by companies who want to erase the past. Foo. Hopefully Konami will reconsider and at some point make the demo available at some point down the road. However, given the company’s kicking Kojima to the curb so abruptly after decades of service (no matter the reason, it’s a shame how things seem to be ending), it’s a bad sign of things to come if other games deemed doomed get dropped on the chopping block.

Anyway, if indeed the demo does disappear forever, there’s always YouTube for watching videos of people playing it. Konami’s official P.T. clips on its Japanese channel seem to be already gone, which is annoying because there were some reaction videos featuring gamers and non-gamers that were flat out hilarious. Oh well. Life goes on… but with a little less great scary as hell stuff to share with like-minded folks.

What a shame.

Tuesday’s Off: You Should Be Dancing, Yeah II

Posted on April 28, 2015 by geelw

(thanks, Aleksandrs Vorobjovs!)

Blech. Today’s off to a crappy start thanks to some idiot who needs to wake up and smell the coffee doing something he shouldn’t have that burned down all the bridges around him in one swell foop. Nope, it wasn’t me this time. It’s not fun at all watching someone lose his mind like that. But he’s old enough to know better yet still blames others for his misfortunes, vices and flaws. I don’t need that nonsense around me, so steps will be taken to remove said pox from the vicinity. Anyway, let’s all go dancing today just to keep things light. Whee! No more of this as it develops because it’s not important in the grand scheme of things. Some people just vote themselves off the island is all you really need to know.

(thanks, docludi2!)

DiRT Rally: Codemasters Kicks It Old School In Its Early Access Racer

Posted on April 27, 2015 by geelw

Awesome. I haven’t even played DiRT Rally yet but I already know it’s going to make a LOT of rally fans very happy. No crazy Gymkhana mode, no “celebrity” drivers, ALL rally all the time and with more realistic controls and car damage? Sign me up, stat! I checked out the Steam page for the game just now and the overwhelming positive response to the game even in its early access state is so positive that it seems Codemasters has gone and made people who are completely new to rally games appreciate the intensity and high difficulty curve (pun intended) not seen in years from the series.

Of course, Codemasters surprised plenty of folks by announcing the game was out now (again, as a work in progress). So I’m betting they’re using all that early feedback to make it a lot better before (hopefully) announcing some console versions. As long as the final version is pure rally and isn’t packing any X-Games style nonsense, I’m in for the long haul.

Today’s Mystery: The Case of the One-Winged Chicken

Posted on April 26, 2015 by geelw

One more reason to cut certain foods out of the diet, I suppose. But also a big little mystery that needs solving, so I’m (kind of) on the case. I defrosted a whole Purdue chicken and put it in a simple salt water brine overnight. As I tend to handle raw proteins as little as possible, I didn’t realize until this morning that the chicken ended up in the store sans one wing. Eek. From what I recall, chickens don’t fly very well at all, so this couldn’t be the result of the one I was about to cook being gimped because it wanted to go all Freebird from wherever it was raised.

“It’s a factory second!” was a guess tossed into the hat I wasn’t wearing. But that wasn’t the case, as it was a full price chicken with a clipped wing and someone out there walking around with it in a pocket as a good luck charm. Or something a lot less disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, as soon as I saw that missing wing, I had a serious Eraserhead flashback. You know the scene: “Just cut them up like regular chickens!”:

Yuck. Anyway, a coin was flipped and it was decided to not waste a good and already brine-soaked bird. So a bit of Madras Soul (TM!) spice blend and a good shake in a plastic bag later, into the oven it went. As it’s meant to be split with a friend going through some bumpy times of late, I decided to keep the wingless half for myself. There’s nothing like having to answer questions about what happened to that missing flapper on a gift half chicken. Some questions weren’t made to be answered without a legal team handy. Or at least the Scooby Gang. Anyway, it’s a sunny Sunday and too nice outside to dwell on a dead (now twice dead) piece of poultry. That said, guess who will be pickin’ chickens a lot more carefully from now on. Or a lot less carefully because I’ll have changed my dining options.

Then again, having tried faux poultry on a few occasions, I can very safely say that every one has had missing wings, legs, thighs and bones. That’s not a mystery at all other than why some of those ersatz birds sometimes end up in assorted poultry shapes. Then again, if it were a tofu bird with a missing wing? Well… THAT would be even more creepy.

More From The Vaults: Found Object Fridays

Posted on April 25, 2015 by geelw

Hey there- here’s some more random stuff I unearthed from the vaults while my PC was out of action for a few days earlier this week. I ended up making more of a mess “cleaning up” than I did when I left all those bins and boxes alone. But I did find some nice things I knew I’d kept for assorted good reasons. Enjoy the quick trip down memory lane!

If I recall correctly, this sketch was gotten in a rather oddball reverse double back-flip manner at a Creation Con back in 1981 or ’82. I was minding a friend’s table at the show while displaying some of my (lousy) artwork and a man walked up and started looking through my stuff. We chatted for a bit about comics and when he told me his name was Al Kurzrok, I was thrilled because I remembered the outstanding lettering he did for Marvel on Doctor Strange back in the late 60’s. When I noted that to him and asked for an autograph, he asked me for a sheet of paper and did this quick sketch. That was a big day-maker for me back then.

Heh. Back in 1981, a dot matrix printout sure looked “futuristic”, so here you go: The press kit for Peter Hyams‘ sci-fi flick OUTLAND. The film is basically High Noon in outer space with Sean Connery playing the Gary Cooper part. High Noon is a better film by far, by the way. That said, it does have some suspenseful moments (and a few exploding heads, eww), Frances Sternhagen gets the best part and lines in the film and there’s a great Jerry Goldsmith score worth tracking down.

All that and like many of Hyams’s best films, there’s a nice foot chase that perks things up at just the right moment.

I have a lot more ancient history here, but I’ll pull the plug on this installment before I end up making an even bigger pile of stuff in the home office. No need to have to sleep curled up in a closet because there’s way too much stuff on the bed and floor, right?

Godzilla The Game PS4: There Goes The Neighborhood, Toho Style!

Posted on April 25, 2015 by geelw

Sure, it’s all fun and games, but YOU try and get some decent sleep when there are a bunch of over-sized rubber suits banging away on the buildings on YOUR block. BOOM! ROAR! CRASH! “Hey, keep it down!” just doesn’t work on a pair or more of bent on destruction giant beasts like these, you know. Fortunately, all that glorious wreckage is only on the PS3 and PS4 and not for real, as I can see real world property values sinking but also growing back after a short while. You know people would probably move in JUST for the monster battles because humans are dumb and love to watch any sort of fight (provided they don’t get hurt).

Oh, and as for that “Hollywood Godzilla” pre-order bonus, I laughed out loud because for some reason I thought of this film clip when that image and text popped up onscreen. Yeah, I’m a nut. I know, I know. Hey, I didn’t make that old and too loud film. But I did pay good money to see it when it came out (and still want my five bucks back, Mr. Spielberg!).

Project CARS Update: Three Out Of Four Isn’t Bad, Unless You Only Want One

Posted on April 25, 2015 by geelw

Ha. So Project CARS has gone gold and is coming out on my birthday… at least for PC, PS4 and Xbox One owners. For some reason, the Wii U version has dropped off the radar in North America and I was worried that it was being silently killed off. However, thanks to Bandai Namco Europe posting these newer trailers that at least note the Wii U actually exists, my hope meter just coughed back to life. Of course, a careful eyeball or two will see that there’s no box art for the Nintendo version at the end of those trailers. That could be due to the game being a download only eShop title (he noted hopefully). I guess I could bug someone at Slightly Mad Studios to see what’s going on or even one of my PR contacts at Bandai namco here in the US. But I’ll hold off on that and just stay focused on more urgent matters.

Of course, if it IS a download only game there’s the distinct possibility that the game will be larger than the insane 15GB One Piece Unlimited World Red was. Eeek. Given that the only two hard drive sizes for the Wii U are 8GB ad 32GB, I’m predicting a lot of 64GB SD card sales should the Wii U version ever get a release. Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best, as it seems no news isn’t exactly good news when it comes to some games these days. Delays don’t bother me at all, mind you. It’s just hearing nothing and seeing less that gets me fretting away.

Mad Max Gameplay Overview: We DO Need Another Hero!

Posted on April 24, 2015 by geelw

If there was any doubt that Avalanche Studios could do Mad Max justice as a game property, well.. let’s just say some mind erasing has just taken place with this new video. The game is set to land on September 1, 2015 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC and that means a bunch of gamers will finally be upgrading to something they can play this on. I’d write more, but there’s the matter of that puddle of drool I need to clean up before someone slips in it. Yep, I do need this game, folks. If the film and game are as good as they look, I’d say we’ll be seeing more of the man himself sooner than later.