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 →

BUY IT! Dragon Fin Soup Looks Like A Tasty Bowl Of Pain

Posted on November 7, 2015 by geelw

Based on the absolutely gorgeous artwork by Randis Albion alone, Grimm Bros. first game, Dragon Fin Soup is worth a buy. The game is, according to the developers: “half story-driven tactical RPG and half high-stakes roguelike, with a pinch of crass humor and a heaping helping of murder & madness set in a procedural generated fantasy world.”, which is right up my alley lurking with a +2 Club of Timesink waiting to konk me on the noggin.

Even better, the game is now available on PC via Steam or the Humble Store as well as a cross-buy for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita in North America and Europe at not much more than the PC version costs. If you happen to be a PS Plus member, guess what? DFS is a FREE download this month! Gorgeous, hard as hell and somewhat inexpensive (or FREE if you’re lucky) is a fine and dandy way to spend a lousy weekend. Or any weekend, for that matter.

Review: Poncho (PC)

Posted on November 4, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PC/PS4/Mac/Linux
Developer: Delve Interactive
Publisher: Rising Star Games
MSRP: $14.99
# of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Official Site
Score: B+ (85%)

With pixel-packed “retro” games showing no signs of stopping, it’s great to see Delve Interactive shake up the scene with Poncho, a game that’s both new and nostalgic with a side of super challenging for good measure. The open world side-scrolling platformer features multiple layers of parallax scrolling to hop in and out of in order to progress and this is both excellent and a tiny bit frustrating until you get your sea legs. The game’s depth also extends to the minimalist but somewhat deep story of Poncho, a cute little robot who finds himself going where no man has gone before because there aren’t any humans left in the world the game takes place in.

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.

The Last Crown: Midnight Horror – Iceberg’s Happier Halloween Adventure Looks Like A Winner

Posted on October 30, 2015 by geelw

You should SEE my backlog, ladies and germs. It’s huge and scary like a mountain and just as hard to move. That said, Darkling Room‘s new game The Last Crown: Midnight Horror looks really fun. I’d never even heard of the developer until I got an email about this one and how it’s a lighter fright game that’s also an in-between chapter of The Lost Crown and the still in development The Last Crown: Blackenrock, two adventure games I now need to also play at some point. No experience with the first game is needed here as the game’s Halloween theme makes it a standalone “between cases” experience.

Take a gander at the trailer and screens below the jump and if you like what you see, you can grab the game on Steam for a mere $4.49, 50 cents of the normal price of $4.99 (a total BARGAIN for such a cool-looking throwback). Continue reading →

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.

Shadowgate on iOS: Castle of Doom Goes All Touchy-Feely

Posted on October 26, 2015 by geelw

Oh joy! Or should I say Zo-Joi! Shadowgate is now available on the iPad. $4.99 gets you this revamped classic that was a PC exclusive now on your tap and slide tablet of choice (well,if your tap and slide tablet of choice happens to be an iPad 3 or better). While not a “horror” game per se, exploring the gloomy deathtrap that is Castle Shadowgate can be a bit frightening at times. Hey, when you walk into a room filled with treasure and see that rather pissed off dragon eyeballing you, you’ll either get smart and get lost or get greedy and roasted up but good. Unless you have a certain item that can withstand a blast of fire or two. Yes, that was a free game tip.

The beautiful artwork in this remake alone is worth the five bucks you’ll spend. Fortunately, Zojoi has made the new version of their 1987 classic every bit as devious and challenging as the original with even more to do and some super-challenging difficulty options for you adventure game masters out there. As if this wasn’t a good enough deal, Zojoi has also gone and made iOS versions of its four original MacVenture Series games. For $1.99 each you can play the classic Shadowgate, The Uninvited, Deju Vu and Deja Vu II.

And yes indeed, The Uninvited IS a horror game (and a good one at that):

I shall leave you with the lovely lady in red above (that’s blood, by the way… YOUR blood!)- go get some yourself cheap classics today and have yourself an adventure (or four).