Review: Sound of Drop – fall into poison –

Posted on November 9, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PC
Developer: aeuio Kompany
Publisher: Sekai Project
MSRP: $12.99
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: N/A
Official Site
Score: A- 90%

While it starts out somewhat slowly, Sound of Drop: – fall into poison – ends up a strong cup of horror thanks to some unsettling imagery and about 30 endings to uncover, most of them bad. When junior high schoolgirls Mayu and Himeno decide to find out if Manten Aquarium is indeed hiding a ghastly urban legend, they get more that they bargained for when they decide to investigate something fishy during a full moon. In true visual novel fashion, the plot is a few wordy hours of text packed to the gills with exposition and splashes of humor. Once it dives into horror, things take a successful turn for the weird and creepy, working quite well enough to keep you hooked in for the long haul.

Thankfully, the game shies away from some of the common trappings of many mature visual novels such as “romance” angles and gratuitous underwear shots. The game’s dive into horror comes off much better without those fan service distractions and with close to 30 bad endings and four “good” ones to discover, the replay value is off the scales. Even if you manage to get every possible ending, the experience of playing the story out and seeing all the horrific fates that befall poor Mayu and some of the people she meets will cling to your brain like an ancient barnacle. Continue reading →

BUY IT! Think Geek Wants The Last of Your Caps For Some Cool Fallout 4 Swag

Posted on November 9, 2015 by geelw

So, you tracked down one of those super-hard to get Fallout 4 and expensive (and out of stock) Pip-Boy Editions or bought that Fallout Anthology for a pal in order to introduce them to the wonderful post-nuclear apocalypse world of Bethesda Studios’ new RPG (on sale now, by the way!). You’re broke and happy after all that impulse buying but guess what? You’re not quite done spending yet. Think Geek wants your last (or not last) hundred bucks (and nope, they’re not taking bottle caps) for an exclusive set of items that’s actually a darn good deal.

Available as we speak, the Fallout 4 Mystery Bundle is only a “Mystery” if you’re reading this post with both eyeballs covered. Actually, it’s called both a Vault-Tec Vault Dweller’s Orientation Kit and a ThinkGeek Fallout 4 Vault 111 Loot Box on the Think Geek site, so perhaps the “Mystery” is why the email I got calls it one in the first place. Or maybe that’s supposed to stay a mystery?

Anyway, inside that box you’ll get once you place an order are on each of the following items:

· 7” Intelligence Bobblehead

· Nuka-Cola Shot Glass

· Vault 111 Hoodie

· Full Size F04 Flag

· Vault 111 Backpack

· Vault 111 Keychain

· Vault 111 Lunch Box

See, that’s definitely worth a Franklin, right? Granted, all you’ll do is sit inside and wear all the stuff that’s wearable, stack everything else around where you’ll be camped out playing the game and keep some food and beverages handy because other than trips to the restroom, you’re not going anywhere soon.

Review: The Park (PC)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PC
Developer/Publisher: Funcom
MSRP: $9.99
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Official Site
Score: B (80%)

Although it’s set in The Secret World universe, no previous experience with that MMO is needed to get a jolt or two from The Park, Funcom’s short psychological horror adventure that’s both a nice looking and eventually haunting game experience. It’s not without flaws that make parts a lot less immersive than they should have been and as an experiment in storytelling it relies on too much inner dialogue from the main character that makes her sound more like a writer working on a short story in her head more than a worried parent. That said, if you’re in the right mood on the right dark night, the game will eventually get its creepy points across and right under your skin.

When her child, Callum, goes missing during a trip to a shuttered amusement park with his single mother, Lorraine, she heads into the gloomy, deserted venue in order to track him down. That’s the simplistic way of telling the story without spoiling much because the game experience is actually fairly short, clocking in at about two hours if you take your time and do as much as possible. As Lorraine makes her way around the park calling out her son’s name, she ends up making the rounds of the few rides and attractions while talking to herself (internally and externally), finding newspaper clippings and other notes that detail the park’s not so safe past history. Continue reading →

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut: No It’s Not Deja Vu – It’s Finally Coming Out

Posted on November 2, 2015 by geelw

It looks as if the wait is just about over as NeoCore Games is finally getting its beta-tested, gamer approved version of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut out and about to put the bite on your Steam Wallet on November 5. There are three ways to get the game, but you need choose only one. If you’ve already bought the first three chapters, Final Cut will unlock automatically and you can download it once it’s up. If you haven’t bought the trilogy yet and want to play them or just own separate downloads, you can (and should!) grab The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Anthology from Steam, which also unlocks Final Cut for free. Even better, Anthology is going to be on sale for a limited time for 66% off ($25.49), AND you’ll get every drop of DLC from the three games, a FREE copy of Deathtrap, the tower defense game that will make you like tower defense games again.

The third way to get the game is to buy The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut itself for $44.99, which nets you one download with the trilogy and the Final Cut content that includes a new endgame and plenty of other cool stuff. I’ll leave it to you to flip that coin and decide what’s what. Me, I need to go clear out some space on my hard drive and figure out how to get a lot more time to dive into this one. It’ll get played to death, fear not.

Gone Fishing, Thanks to Sekai Project

Posted on October 28, 2015 by geelw

Well, lookit! I got a FREE ticket to the Manten Aquarium from Sekai Project. Nice, and THANKS, guys! I haven’t been to the aquarium for quite a while so I hope I have a REALLY good time.

Hey, as long as those little and big fishies stay in their tanks and there’s no shenanigans going on involving a bunch of visiting Japanese high school kids going missing and having horrific things happening to them, I bet I’ll have a blast.

“La, la, la,laaaaaa…” Oops:

*Sigh…* Once again, this is why we can’t have nice things. Officer, I didn’t see a thing, sir.

Sound of Drop — fall into poison — is out on Friday, October 30 for PC via Steam. You’ll find out about my trip around then. Er, if I make it back in one piece…

THE PARK: Fear Rides The Fairway in Funcom’s New Horror Quickie

Posted on October 28, 2015 by geelw

A trip to the amusement park really goes off the rails in Funcom’s new short first-person psychological horror experience, THE PARK, now available for PC on digital platforms Steam, Humble Store, NVIDIA GeForce Now Store, Green Man Gaming, and GamersGate for $9.99, a 23% savings on the game’s $12.99 MSRP. If you’re like me and thinking “Hey, doesn’t Funcom only make big-budget MMO experiences these days?” Well, you’re not 100% wrong there. And you’re not 100% correct, either. Funcom wants you to know they’re not all about those expensive to produce and addictive online time-sinks these days:

“Thanks to similar games in the narrative space, such as ‘Gone Home’, ‘Dear Esther’ and ‘The Stanley Parable’, we are confident that there is a place in the gaming industry for shorter, intense experiences,” says Funcom creative director Joel Bylos. “Technically, it explores the limits of what is possible for a team to achieve with a small budget, short deadline and a strong focus.”

Aha. Well, short and horrific seem to be selling well these days, Funcom does have the talent to make it work and hey, at ten bucks… that’s less than a movie ticket and you don’t just get to sit there and get scared while choking on your popcorn. THE PARK seems like a game that while brief, is going to get people talking. Or in this era of social video site streaming, sitting down in front of their monitors watching someone play and freak out. Hmmmm. You can probably have someone feed you popcorn while you play this one. Just don’t be surprised at all if that a piece of that slimy “buttered” junk ends up shoved into a nostril at some point because Fatima peeled out of the room in fear an stuck that corn in the first orifice he or she could reach.

Sometimes, it’s best to experience certain types of horror alone. Or at least after you have your popcorn.

Blu-Ray Review: Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats

Posted on October 25, 2015 by geelw

What’s black and red and giallo all over? Ha. If you’re still reading this, you’ve just survived a pun to the head without any ill effects. Anyway, arriving just in time for Halloween, Arrow Video’s Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats: Two Adaptations By Sergio Martino & Lucio Fulci makes for another fine Blu Ray/DVD set to add to your collection.

The two films, Sergio Martino’s sexy/scary Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), and Lucio Fulci’s flat-out weird The Black Cat (1981) are two more variations of Poe’s popular horror tale that’s been the subject of a number of horror films and anthologies. The interesting thing about all the Black Cat films throughtout cinematic history is how different they all are and how each director takes the parts of the story they (or the screenwriters) felt worked for what they were attempting. Continue reading →

Corpse Party: Blood Drive – What’s A Little Death Between “Friends”?

Posted on October 21, 2015 by geelw

And you thought your school days were insane. The survivors of the certifiably unbalanced and/or genuinely terrified for their lives students of Kisaragi Academy’s class 2-9 are baaaaaack. While you can fully enjoy their new exploits in Corpse Party: Blood Drive on the Vita (out NOW!), if you want the full gory story, you’ll need to snap up the two previous games (Corpse Party and Corpse Party: Book of Shadows) on the PSP (and yep, they DO run fine on the Vita) so you can play catch up before this new game freezes your blood and spine solid.

All three games are guaranteed to scratch that horror/mystery itch you’ve got going under the skin, but expect things to get bloody before you know it. That EverAfter edition of Blood Drive is the perfect way to dive into the third chapter if the first two float your boat, so feel free to grab one while they last.

Blu-Ray Review: Stray Cat Rock: The Collection

Posted on October 7, 2015 by geelw

As a slice of Japanese cinema of the early 1970’s, the five films that make up Arrow Video’s Stray Cat Rock Collection make for quite a quintuplet of quickly made flicks influenced by American biker films of the previous decade. Directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and Toshiya Fujita, the films feature the same cast members but are actually mostly unrelated other than in their thematic elements.

“Youth gone wild!” and “Crime Doesn’t Pay!” seem to be the orders of the day here as the series was created by Nikkatsu to compete with rival Toei’s popular Delinquent Boss films. So there’s male and female gangs, exploitative violence, not as much sex or nudity as you’d think (but it’s certainly there), a bit of slapstick, a random concert and more. While there’s plenty of seedy and salacious content, some of the trailers included advertise the films partially as comedies, which is amusing in and of itself. In other words, some viewers will need to approach this set with a wide open mind because what constitutes “comedy” here might seem a bit humorless or just plain strange outside of its home country. This is a good thing at the end of the day as expanding one’s cinematic horizons is a core reason to watch films you’ve never seen previously.

The overall tone of the films will probably seem scattershot to some viewers used to movies that stick to a certain predictable style from start to finish. For all the raging delinquency, drug use, wild dancing, sex and violence on display there’s also a lot of karmic retribution and negative actions leading to more and worse reactions for some characters. This makes the collection a really intriguing set of films that, warts and all make for some pretty cool “B” movie bliss. As usual, some excellent transfers and nice bonus material round out this Arrow Video release and make it a must for collectors. Continue reading →

Van Helsing Final Cut Slips Into October (But This Is A Good Thing)

Posted on September 23, 2015 by geelw

While game delays are always bad news, in this case it’s a case where the developer is trying to make a one-size fits all release work across multiple digital delivery systems in order to get the game in question into the hands of as many people as possible. Go read the very informative blog post on the official site for details. In a nutshell, NeoCore is working hard on getting Steam and GOG.com buyers the same deal where buying the trilogy nets those folks The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut for free even if they buy one of the original games at a later date or buy the trilogy across the two different digital stores.

That’s hard enough to rig, but Final Cut is also going to be doing some additional testing and polishing of the game to insure it’s their best and most polished game to date. Hey, I don’t mind the wait if it means the end result makes me not want to stop playing it.