Random Indie Game of the Week: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Storms Onto Steam…

Posted on May 22, 2013 by geelw

No game is perfect, but the only thing I can see here that I don’t like is the title of NeoCore Games’ great-looking Action/RPG. Call me crazy (please do!), but The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon series that pops up too early to catch on a regular basis. Anyway, snark aside, that video above and screens below show that this one looks pretty awesome. I just need to carve some time into my schedule to play this one and let you know how cool it all is. What? You’re STILL not convinced? OK, OK… here’s another video, you cranky skeptic, you:

Yeah, I thought so – now keep it down back there and check out these screenshots:

Even better, the game has launched today on Steam and is available at a 10% discount ($13.49 instead of $14.99), so I say take advantage of this launch day deal and snap up a copy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to grab a good knife and go find my cuckoo clock. It was on the wall, but seems to have scampered off somewhere (I think I’ve gone after it a few too many times with sharp objects in an attempt to make more hours in a day)…

Random Film of the Day*: Sinbad and The Eye of The Tiger

Posted on May 21, 2013 by geelw

*For the next few days, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away on May 7, 2013 at age 92 in London and yes, the film world has lost a true giant as well as a fine and talented gentleman…

Sinbad & The Eye of the Tiger When I was much younger, I wondered why Ray Harryhausen didn’t make more films until I found out how long it took him to design all those characters from drawing and painting some outstanding concept art to the construction and creation the visual effects. Let’s just say the man gained all the respect I had after that. That said, 1977’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is an example of what happens when a movie studio decides to rush things a bit too quickly, as it’s not his best work of the decade on display.

Yes, there are some major showpiece moments, but between some awful matte shots and a few creatures missing Harryhausen’s trademark expressionism, the film suffers a bit from a “by the numbers” look that’s noticeable to the point of distraction. Then again, that the film arrived in theaters a few months after Star Wars opened and was still generating a huge amount of money. I’m sure to many viewers blown away by George Lucas’ epic, Sinbad seemed almost like a relic from another decade…
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Man of Steel “Fate of Your Planet” Trailer: (Even More) Seriously, Now…

Posted on May 21, 2013 by geelw

Well, well, well… THAT’S how you blow an audience away. Taking Superman’s former camp value from those old films away and giving fans a serious to the point of “yeah, I need to see this twice on the first day” status is a damn good thing. I was thinking we wouldn’t see a more dynamic trailer like this one for a few more weeks closer to the film’s launch, but the gloves have come off (as in Warner Bros. and DC yelling “Take that, Marvel!” POW!!) and it looks like this one will be the Superman flick that gets remembered this generation. Well, provided it has a solid finale that sets up something without leaving a ton of plot holes open or feeling like it needed ten more minutes to make a scene or five better. As usual… we shall see…

Now Playing: Resident Evil Revelations – Jill Valentine’s In Ship Shape, That’s For Sure…

Posted on May 21, 2013 by geelw

I got a review copy of Resident Evil Revelations on Friday evening, but just got around to firing it up on Sunday night thanks to me needing to get my Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut review up and some other stuff. Anyway, so far, so good – Capcom has done a great job with this (DO NOT call it a simple “port”, as that cheapens the effort that went into this game) and it’s really fun to play, as they kept the short maps from the 3DS game, meaning you can dive in for 15 to 30 or so minute chunks, hop out to do something else and come back to the game without having to figure out where you left off. OK, shutting up and going back home to play more – expect a review later in the week…

Quantum Break Trailer: Remedy’s Xbox One Mystery Trailer Leaves A Lot Hanging…

Posted on May 21, 2013 by geelw

Xbox One

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more “meh…” gaming press conference than the one Microsoft had for the new Xbox One console. Sure, they did the ABSOLUTE smartest thing of all three major game companies by ACTUALLY showing their console (+110 points!), but every reveal after that was either predictable (EA Sports is making their games and DLC exclusive to the One first, we’re getting all new game engines for their core sports titles, there was no actual gameplay footage shown… -40 points!) or underwhelming (Forza Motorsport 5 looks like the last Forza unless you slow it waaaay down and see stuff you’d expect like better lighting and more textures in a game series that already looks fine, thank you. – 15 points!).

Not to mention the first 25 or so minutes being saddled down by talk about too many features core gamers could care less about (well, the more servers thing adds 20 points because without them, Xbox Live would turn into rush hour traffic on the L.I.E. every day. Hmmm… making me sleepy and not care about the new Kinect functions that SHOULD have worked like that in the first model? Yeah, that’s a nope. (and -30 points!). Oh, and Call of Duty: Ghosts getting a new graphics overahaul is a no-branier (but only worth +5 because it has a dog in the game who’s an active squad member {woof!} and the fish in the water move out of your way… but you’ll be too busy to notice that, I bet). As for the interactivity and character customization now possible in Ghosts’ multiplayer? Um… Whee? Other non-FPS games have done both for a while, but whatever (annnd that’s a -10 for trying to pass off those new features as innovations)…

(Trailer from HDPLAYR)

The only highlight for me was the announcement of a new Remedy game, Quantum Break (+20 points!), but the trailer was disappointing because it used live-action footage that switched unconvincingly to in-game visuals that, while impressive, really didn’t show off much other than the game has a big sea tanker smash into a bridge and cause a hell of a lot of chaos. Um, OK? I guess E3 will be the big reveal for the actual games they want to show off, because what they DID show at this reveal wasn’t very revealing for actual gamers that I know… Well, with that “later this year” release “date,” we’ll all see soon enough, right?

Xbox One? So Far… Eh, I’m Not (Too) Impressed…

Status

Well, the Xbox One DOES turn on when you ask it to thanks to the new Kinect sensor integration (that seems to be REALLY fluid), but that just means that mute gamers can save their money. And yes, it responds to arm waving commands as well, so yeah, if you’re a gamer who can’t wave both arms around, you get to buy another console as well. I also HATE the not so subtle privacy violating going on here as the expectation that EVERY gamer wants to be “connected” is the biggest lie in plenty of cases.

Xbox One

Eh, this conference is practically nothing to me until I see some GAMES… 27 minutes in and it’s all about features. Oh, and it’s cloud-based, which screws anyone in a low-bandwidth area… Boo to enforcing “evolution” in this manner. Between this and the need for a smartphone in order to use some features (bleh), this will appeal to those who can afford all the services out of the gate and those who want all the fancy functions PURE gamers like me hate. Oh well… I’ll hold out for the rest of this conference just to see what first-party content is coming. I have the feeling that this may be the first new console I don’t buy…

Video Game Appreciation 101: Drakan: Order of the Flame (Or: The Return of the Odd Couple!)

Posted on May 21, 2013 by geelw

Drakan PC 1 Yeah, yeah, Microsoft is revealing its fancy new Xbox in less than an hour (*yawn!*)… I’m MORE excited that I managed to score a boxed new/sealed copy of Drakan: Order of the Flame, a game I’ve been wanting to play since it was released back in 1999. Amusingly enough, I worked in a game shop that had a copy, but I didn’t pick it up back then because I wasn’t into PC gaming as much back then. I’d played the demo on a friend’s beefy gaming rig and liked it, but didn’t want to dive into something that would require me buying an expensive 3D card (well, a better PC, because mine was a crappy model that could only run a bunch of DOS and early Windows 95/98 games).

Anyway, yes indeed, it installs and runs perfectly on the laptop (so far), but I hear from the grapevine that I need to grab a patch or two because the game has at least two major bugs from what I’ve read. The late Surreal Software whipped up a solid action game with light RPG elements starring two unique characters in Rynn, a young woman who finds out she’s bonded to an ancient dragon named Arokh after her tiny village is destroyed by an army controlled by an evil sorcerer…
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Random Film of the Day*: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

Posted on May 20, 2013 by geelw

the golden voyage of sinbad Ha! Motivation-killer flu, you can’t keep me from posting! Anyway, onward! It took Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen fifteen years to follow up their classic fantasy film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad with the second of three movies starring the fabled sailor and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad both looks and feels almost as timeless as that first adventure.

Much better casting for some of the principals in this “sequel” meant more engaging characters, Ray’s animation and effects work were mostly superb and composer Miklós Rózsa contributed a truly outstanding and memorable score that’s one of his best works of that era. As with the other Schneer/Harryhausen family films, this one’s not just for the kids and it’ll bring a nice Saturday morning smile to your face if you haven’t seen it before…
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Game of Thrones Could Use a Little More Chuck Barris, I Say…

Posted on May 20, 2013 by geelw

Around an hour or so after last night’s episode, I had a really good laugh when out of the blue, I thought up a weird hybrid of GoT and that great old Chuck Barris game show (and one of the beginnings of what became modern “reality” TV, The Newlywed Game. Given the marriage fever going around this season, I think it would be hilarious to see all the couples (and potential couples) pop up in a video that pokes fun at both shows for what they’ve brought to pop culture. Of course, the chances of this happening are slim to none unless someone animates it or does some other cleverly creative interpretation (break out that old Renaissance Fair costume from the mothballs and do some quick refitting!). But I’ll leave that to those of you who have time and money to play around with.

As for questions on that fake game show, well… geez, there are PLENTY you can think up if you’re a GoT fan or know the Newlywed Game inside and out. So get on it and get back to me at some point. Hey, if you become world famous because I’ve inspired you, I only take 6% of the profits (it’s in that contract you signed the other week at the bar)…

Pacific Rim TV Spot 1: Maybe Mayhem Isn’t Such A Good Thing In Some Cases…

Posted on May 20, 2013 by geelw

Can you imagine the insanely higher insurance premiums in the future if we DO end up with giant robots, big sea monsters and all sorts of unplanned property damage that comes from them duking it out on the streets of any major (or minor) city? Well, considering that we probably don’t have flying cars because of the potential for humans causing MORE damage than any giant monster (although, all that texting/doing makeup/eating/et cetera while flying will clean up the gene pool rather quickly), this is probably a blessing in disguise or something.

Yes, ladies and gents… just forget about applying ANY rules of reality or actual science to these films (I mean, who in their right minds goes to a science FICTION film to complain about the SCIENCE afterwards anyway?). In reality, unless those robots were made of super-light materials (yet could still back a punch) your heroes and those monsters would go tumbling into the huge hole they created when they tried to walk on some of those tunnel-filled streets certain cities have. Well, maybe they’d do better in Vegas, what with that desert nearby and no big sewer system or subway to worry about crushing tourists and citizens in…

Anyway, just sit back, try not to go into a sugar and salt-induced coma from that half-gallon of soda and way too salty and greasy popcorn (that’s NOT butter on it, by the way – butter isn’t highly combustible or that overly golden orange in color, last I checked) and enjoy the show. Or not, if you’re worried about some big wet foot stomping on the theater while you’re watching this epic… eek.