Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess: The Ladies Who Launch, They Do So In Style

Posted on July 14, 2015 by geelw

Choosing “Sadistic Torment, Elaborate Death, or Humiliating Demise” as a way to go may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But meet up with the deadly Laegrinna, and you’ve got no choice that to eat up what’s served your way. Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess is out NOW for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita and it’s also gotten added to that long, long (LONG) list of games I need to play at some point. I missed out on Deception IV entirely last year, But as this new installment contains not only that game’s content, but a (not so) nice new character’s story included that adds to the fun at no additional cost. Well, perhaps your LIFE (cue dramatic music). Given the Deception series’ reliance on a mixture of semi-serious dark thematic elements, goofy slapstick violence with a bit of blood spilled and plenty of replay value, this one looks like a sleeper that will keep you up all night.

Just keep your sweaty hands where Laegrinna and new character Velguirie can see them. You’re already doomed to suffer in pain forever once they trap you, so there’s no need to add a big tip to your running tab.

@E3, Sometimes The Treehouse Hides All The Cool Stuff

Posted on June 20, 2015 by geelw

If you had the time and bandwidth this week you could have spend the better part of a few days watching Nintendo employees play a bunch of upcoming games at E3 that were part of their big puppet show press event. You also could have gotten to see at least one game not part of that family-friendly briefing that NEEDED to be given some mention outside the Treehouse Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is coming this year, but you’d never know this if you only watched the main event. Anyway, the trailer is above and some 25 minutes of gameplay from the Treehouse trio is below. Listen for the warnings about the game’s content and prepare to chuckle a bit as the gameplay is a bit over-described yet is still unsettling. “Wetness Gauge” and all the uses of the word “creepy” made me crack up, but the game looks nice and scary where it counts and it’s absolutely not for the kids.

You’ll Be A Bundle of Nerves With This New Bundle Stars Deal

Posted on June 2, 2015 by geelw

More scary and mystery-themed indies games incoming from Bundle Stars? Awesome. Particularly with titles such as Tale of Tales wonderful re-imagining of Red Riding Hood, The Path, the chilling first person horror game Betrayer and more, all at the ridiculously low price of $2.49 with this deal expiring on June 16, 2015. Here’s what else in in this Nightmare Bundle:

1HEART – RRP $9.99
Betrayer – RRP $9.99
Guns n Zombies – RRP $7.99
Kraven Manor – RRP $5.99
Montague’s Mount – RRP $9.99
The Moon Sliver – RRP $2.99
The Path – RRP $9.99
The Samaritan Paradox – RRP $9.99

96% off is indeed a scary great price. You know you’re tempted to slip into something uncomfortable and cheap and this deal is the safest way to do that without any harm coming to your person. Unless it’s a bout of wrist and finger cramping from all that mouse clicking you’ll soon be doing. Get to it, then. This deal isn’t going to last forever, but those nightmares you may have after some of these games? Well, that’s all up to you.

Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess : “It’s A Trap!” You’ll Fall For Over And Over

Posted on May 17, 2015 by geelw

Okay, I’ll admit to being a bit behind in my beating quota. In other words, I still have yet to play Deception IV: Blood Ties on anything it’s been released on. As time, tide and games wait for no man, Tecmo Koei has made it known that there’s a follow-up coming in July for the PS3, PS4 and Vita called Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess. Fans of this long-running series which began on the original Playstation should be dancing around for joy while trying to avoid assorted traps and hazards in their own environments. For the uninitiated, here’s a live-action trailer with a tiny bit of the sinister yet intentionally silly gameplay at the end:

Now if only actual burglar alarms worked this efficiently. Although I’d bet the setup and resetting costs would be a wee bit costly.

Continue reading →

BUY IT! Neverending Nightmares Gets a Halloween Sale on Steam

Posted on October 30, 2014 by geelw

Shhhh. I’ve got a secret! I actually have yet to PLAY Neverending Nightmares, Matt Gilgenbach’s psychological horror game based on his struggles with mental illness. However, I’ve gotten a few friends to buy the game and all of them have thanked me sarcastically for giving them all some pretty wild nightmares. Of course, my response was “Is that good or bad?” or “But, did you like the game?”. And the answer was always the same “Yeah, but…” followed by descriptions of stuff that happens during the horrific journey into side-scrolling madness. So, yeah, I guess I need to grab this soon over Steam, huh?

My problem is my backlog is SO bloody huge that I’m behind on stuff I need to review and I probably won’t get to this one for a few weeks at best. Well, this 25% off sale is kind of twisting my arms (ouch!),so I better make a decision soon, as I kind of NEED my arm. Um, and the other one, too (ouch!)…

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…

Is The Evil Within Any Good? I’ll Find Out (Eventually)..

Posted on October 14, 2014 by geelw

Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks’ horror game The Evil Within is out today, and I know publisher Bethesda Softworks is anticipating good numbers for this psychological/survival horror/action game hybrid. While PC and “next-gen” versions are going to get the critical love or hate, I’m more interested in the older console versions because they’ll be ignored for the most part by critics despite MORE people owning hardware those versions can be played on outside the PC game space where no game is guaranteed to move as well thanks to assorted factors outside the control of the publisher. Mikami’s name will move copies to fans of Capcom’s storied (but bumpy since he left) Resident Evil franchise, but those new to the man’s work will probably play the waiting game until they have enough pals playing to convince them to drop some cash on this new IP.

Sure, I’m betting the PS3 or 360 versions don’t look as good, may have issues with frame rate and/or screen tearing compared to the spiffier new consoles and so forth and so on. But I don’t care about that at all in any game if I like the story, characters and gameplay. We’re at the stage where games are picked apart for too many things that at the end of the day, don’t really detract from the overall experience at all. There are too many amateur internet critics that think because they’ve read other (and better) reviews and have picked up a few buzzwords, they can toss them back at EVERY game like they know what they’re talking about. Sadly, most of the time they’re wrong or just being picky to justify not liking something most others would overlook. As for me, well, I have to hold out for a bit thanks to my disposable income being less disposable of late, but it’s a ride I do want to take at some point…

The Evil Within Looks to Scare You Sillier Than You’d Like to Be Scared, So Get With the Program!

Posted on October 6, 2014 by geelw

Let’s see now: one part Resident Evil, one part Silent Hill, One part F.E.A.R. and a lot of what’s inside Shinji Mikami’s head certainly go a long way in his latest game, The Evil Within. Set for an October 14, 2014 release on PC, PS3/PS4, Xbox 360/Xbox One, this survival horror game marks Mikami’s return to the genre that made him a master to legions of horror game fans. I’m holding out until I play this one, but from all those trailers and behind the scenes videos that have been popping up, this one looks as if it will deliver the goods to those who can take what it throws at them. Granted, if you’re one of those jaded types scared of nothing and think this game is “dull” when you haven’t touched a controller connected to a console or PC running it, then Bethesda Softworks and Tango Game Studios more than likely have no use for your commentary on some message board where you’re all anonymous and filled with bile for some reason or another.

I’d bet they’d LOVE more constructive and useful criticism from people who may run into something that keeps the game from being what it needs to be (but that doesn’t include being a direct Resident Evil clone, I’d bet), so maybe go PLAY this before you go online and whine expecting for someone to back you up when the developer and publisher would rather see you fall off a cliff onto something sharp. Or something like that. I’m betting Bethsoft and Mikami don’t care what anyone who hasn’t played this thinks because at the end of the day, those people are wasting their time rambling on about themselves and speaking for others when they should just shut up and maybe play some of those games they hate on for no reason. Just a thought…

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Kickstarter: Senscape Making This One for the Love of Craft…

Posted on October 3, 2014 by geelw

Ha and ha-ha. I had to get in ONE cheap pun because H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward hasn’t got very much at all in the way of “amusing” content in it. It’s a nice and unsettling short novel and a neat read that sinks into your bones as its mysteries unravel. Anyway, veteran adventure game developer Senscape is making a PC game based on the book and like a lot of cool game ideas in progress, they’re reaching out via crowdfunding and hope people like you and I will kindly spare some coin (or more than a few coins) to get their project on the way to digital and physical life. Senscape has done a few successful PC adventure games in the past (Scratches, Serena, Asylum), so it’s quite clear they know what they’re doing with Lovecraft’s work and are certain to make this one a memorable and unsettling experience.

Anyway, enough rambling from me. Run, don’t walk like mister Dexter is doing above over to the game’s Kickstarter page, read up and pledge! Be lucky it’s not a Cthulhu game, as I’d imagine cash wouldn’t be accepted at all, but blood and souls and stuff like that? Yeah, they’d come for you even if you clicked on that page and didn’t contribute. ESPECIALLY if you didn’t contribute. *Gulp!*

Hmmm. Now, I won’t sleep at all tonight… Yaaaaah.

Silent Hills: No Scare-City of Screams In This Soon to Be Horror Hit…

Posted on September 27, 2014 by geelw

Now that a possible few million people have been scared half to death or so from that P.T. demo which has since been revealed as a teaser for the latest Silent Hill game, I’d say Konami, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro have got the attention of horror fans as well as curious folks who just so happened to be handed a controller just to see what happens.

Naturally, the reaction videos here are priceless, but Konami proves it’s not sexist at all because below you get to see a bunch of guys and gals at this year’s Gamescom nearly peeing themselves while trying to play that demo. Yeah, I wasn’t there, but I did play it at a friend’s place and yup, it gets pretty effective at times. Of course, part of the scare factor is the looping around the same map that changes so randomly I’ve yet to hear of two people having the exact same experience.

With all that looping around, crazy changes to the area and yes, those incredibly realistic visuals that play with your fears (if you hate cockroaches, darkness, messed up ghostly faces filling your screen and a few other things, break out the adult diapers), it’s clear that Sony and Konami have got a pile of money coming their way once this game is released… Continue reading →