ALAN WAKE: American Nightmare VGA announcement trailer

Welp, guess we know what the next instalment of the Alan Wake series is all about. No longer named night springs apparently. I adored the first, beat it about 8 times last year so im sure i will get this too. Interesting that it features more about mr scratch, an idea in the first game many just dont even know was in their after they beat it. That and new kinds of taken.
All in all it looks like Alan Wake may actually be leaning more towards the survival horror influence of its roots than its action thriller ones.
So lets see how this pans out- and relates to a full retail 'second season',

Well its friday.

So by now you, along with the rest of the world should be aware of the announcement trailer for dead island not being, well, dead.
If you haven't heard of it before it was announced in '05 or '06 and was due in 2008, it had a trailer that has aged terribly. Both in terms of what the game was like and the style of videogame trailers (namely terrible heavy metal music and smash cuts to lots of red text every 9 seconds on a black background) and a couple of videos to advertise its still impressive 'multi layered damage system'.
Then it vanished. Like Duke Nukem Forever and Alan Wake most folks assumed it was dead. A project to ambitious to have seen fruition.

I was pretty surprised to hear an announcement trailer for the product had appeared and was doing the rounds. Even more so that so many people where gushing about it being one of the best trailers ever made for a videogame. So of course, being a horror fan and a filmmaker i had to check this out.

I was not disappointed.



Not only doe's that get me excited for the game but that is, from a technical standpoint, a superb piece of work. In less than 3 minutes with no dialogue we get a narrative about a family vacation that has gone as wrong as it could possibly go and it invokes genuine emotion in its audience.
Sure the choice of music and the focus on the girl is a bit of an obvious, guaranteed heartstring pull but still it remains bloody effective. -pun not intended.

As a videogames enthusiast i am excited for the game without seeing anything to do with how it plays, so it definitely did its desired job with me. As a filmmaker myself i am impressed by it. Personally i feel the edits of it in chronological order have a bit more emotional impact, but still it remains an impressive piece that is easily up there with gears of war's mad world trailer or resistance 3's 'on the rails' trailer as one of the best attempts to sell a videogame as something a little more meaningful than "Bro check it, you will totally be able to kill some dudes in this!". For that alone the creators of such trailers should be applauded.

Valve put up left 4 dead "movie" posters in online store.

So have a gander's, gentle horror loving folken, at the latest addition to the valve store. For those yet to play it each of the 4 stories in left 4 deads campaign mode has a fake movie poster for its loading screen at the start, listing each gamertag in the credits as each respective character they are playing. Now you can grab these from valves online store to go with your companion cube t shirt and lifesize headcrab. at 15 bucks for all 4 im very tempted, but for all i know ordering 4 pieces of paper form the states could cost an additional 10 to 35 bucks in postage costs.

Still, cool thing to frame and put in the studio at least.

-Oh, and rather than get all fanboy...ey and rave about it right after release im holding off on my left 4 dead review till ive played every mode to death.

EDIT- that would have been a good intentional pun to end on wouldn't it?, just a fluke i assure you.

Dead Space: The Review

Developer: EA redwood studios

Publisher: EA

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC

Released: October 24th 2008

Genre: 3rd person sci-fi shooter/ survival horror

So its 3:24am and ive JUST finished dead space. i was really excited about this, which was confusing because ea hasn't made a good game since oddworld strangers wrath in my opinion. so after  couple-a-hour stints is it the next big thing in survival horror?

Honestly? no.

and for once I'm disappointed to admit it. 

I read the comics, did all the puzzles on the site, read all this lore voraciously, i had to know what the plot and back story was. All of that i loved, and don't get me wrong, i love dead space too. but its just a clone of resident evil 4.

So if you don't know already (and if you don't your mother and i are very disappointed in you young man), you play Issac Clarke. An engineer on a small ship investigating a distress signal coming from a dead, silent, drifting hulk of a mining ship the usg ishimura. unfortunately they get trapped there and they find out that, whilst the crews dead, the atmosphere certainly isn't.

cheesy i know but it works.

anyway i cant say much, but what i can say is the story can be wrapped up in 5 minutes, theres a good minute long interesting scene every few hours but all in all i finished the game wanting to know more, not in a sequel, but in back story. i needed it to be explained to me in a more concise and plain way.

Though this is a successful new ip so you know ea is gonna bleed it dry so i expect ill read a novel about it some time in 2009.

-Plus there is an animated feature film that tells the prequel story, so i guess youve gotta buy that to get the full experience. 

bad e.a.

Game play wise its pretty much resident evil 4. remember playing silent hill or resident evil first and then the other and going "hang on, the controls are exactly the same". this is just like that nostalgic 1998 feeling, whether its good or bad i don't know but there we are.

The merchant is replaced by a machine, but you still get loot and ammo from enemies, which you can then use to buy new guns and upgrade them and stuff. but like resi 4 you cant upgrade it all in one play through. theres logs, over the right shoulder aiming. in fact its pretty much resident evil 4 with a new skin.

though thankfully they've got none of those damn quicktime events. everything, including being dragged by a tentacle across a room and having to shoot its week points to escape is real time relying on you, not pressing a a lot. 

unfortunately i was drawn in with comparisons to bioshock. lets be clear. - THIS IS NOT BIOSHOCK. this is resident evil 4 by a mile between the two games. the problem with that is that the ishimura has no character, if you go in expecting rapture type world that's full of character you in for a disappointment. instead you get something more akin to the mars base from doom 3. 

-anyway I'm going off on a tangent here, but the point is, rapture felt like it had a history, like you'd joined a game halfway through the worlds narrative. but in dead space all you've got is a blue line leading you in form an airlock to set pieces which seem to have been waiting for you.

Which neat leads me to the fact that this is not open ended, its funneling you down a path half life 2 style. only with back tracking for the final 3rd. it lacks character, you go here, do something, get told to go to the next point and follow the path. Which is lame but how its done is neat. issac uses , when clicking the right thumbstick, a hologram that beams along the ground to your next destination. in theory its really disappointing but its cool and different.

Speaking of which. theres no hud, well there is, but it not in your face. issacs spine is his hp bar, he gets a holographic inventory and display above weapons for ammo. its real time and immersive but unlike alone in the dark its not adding to the fear its just a neat factor. 

overall i got used to the hud instantly, you can still pause, but it just feels like an interactive movie at some points.

only trouble is its less aliens and more jason x.

to sum up the controls its responsive and easy to use, but its overcomplicated by combos. left trigger plus x is stasis freeze, x alone is health packs, which is a poor choice when you might need to freeze a fast enemy, and use your last health pack by mistake and then get badly hurt because you didn't freeze it in time and have no health pack.

However, i can ignore most faults because of the dismemberment system, i got used to so much shooting out legs and arms off that i tried another game in the same vein and kept missing headshots because i aimed for the joints.

its fun, but its never implemented any more than you see in the first fight and it had more potential i think.

You can also upgrade weapons with a system reminiscent of the sphere grid from final fantasy x. you gain power cores across grids to upgrade the powers of your suits and weapons. its a nice touch but unlike resi 4 you may have to level up two blank spaces before you can gain any actual power ups.

Graphics wise space is beautiful. an orange ether permeates the sky and rainstorms of meteors flow past like a stream. However inside its, well, like i said, its doom 3 all over again. its not very easy on the eyes, theres jagged edges were there should be smooth surfaces, edges are grainy and cloudy and the colour pallet was uninspired. Again I'm going to compare it to rapture, but also the starting areas of resident evil 4, either Spanish woodlands or the art deco of fort frolic and its just bland in comparison to either. the game lacks character. the hero is iconic, but the levels and creatures leave a lot to be desired. it never detracts from the gameplay though, i had a blast. but in retrospect i think "yeah, at the time i didnt notice it but-", and im getting this a lot as i write this review. i enjoyed myself, but i can pick so many nits with this game. though possibly i am just being biased due to my poor previous experiences with ea?

Sound wise i was really disappointed, its poor and buggy and all in all annoying at times. there can be a creature in the next room but its so close to the door that tension building music is playing. but i would just be browsing the wares in the store and i noticed that after 30 seconds it stops instantly and then restarts. i cant think of that many items but i can say that its barely even ambiance, they couldn't feasibly release a soundtrack to this like obscure or alone in the dark.

i could go on about the factors that bugged me, but these faults, though they number in the good dozen or so, never mess with the experience, because honestly its the scariest game Ive played in a long  long time. which surprised me. though like many games this does lessen as the game goes on but all in all i enjoyed it, it inst very good in the grand scheme of things but for 10 hours of horror gameplay id say its worth a rental but a full purchase buy?..... maybe, for once I'm indecisive, some of you will love it and disagree with me, saying I'm too harsh, others will hate it and say I'm too lenient but id say give it a try.

on one hand you will have a great time, on the other you will not care about it at all 1 year from now.

so i give it a loose-

SCORE: [6/10]

SCARE FACTOR: [8/10]

Remedy wakes up from slumber to release new trailer

Too cheesy?, yeah i thought so too, but im lost for good titles right now , gimme a break!

anyhoo, horror fans prepare to go nuts for the new alan wake trailer!, 'nuff said.

Bioshock 2: Sea of dreams PS3 easter egg trailer

A little late on the uptake i know, but i think ive got it.

So theres a lot of speculation on this, and my first thought was rapture rising from the sea, but i think ive got it now.

The girl is one of the little sisters, now in her teens, that jack saved from rapture in the good ending. only instead of living normal lives like the others she went all "carrie" and has similar plasmid abilities to jack and the splicers. maybe jack made the big daddy doll to give her something familiar to attach to when she was little and now its bringing back these long blacked out memories or rapture and she is unconsciously shaping the sand behind her to the images in her head as she looks out at the sea.

Perhaps it doesn't even take place on rapture, and this is just the catalyst for it, im definitley getting a carrie/ring vibe of the girl, but only time will tell. aside from a terrible endgame boss bioshock was almost perfect, maybe it could have used some more period music but the art deco style just captured my imagination. So needless to say i cant wait for this.

But seriously folks, the trailer, whats your speculation about it?

On the topic of homcoming

Now since pj doody was kind enough to give me an interview for the site ive gotten about 200 emails if i knew when it would come out in Europe. also comments on here, pms to my xbox account, i was once even asked in a game of lone wolves in halo 3!

well i asked pj because a lot of people are getting different dates , most commonly october 30th and november 13th, he was a great guy and asked about it and its still sketchy but apprently no we in the uk and europe cant expect it this month, im guessing novembers 2nd or 3rd week. so it doesn't have fable or dead space or the like to compete with. but that just a guess on my part.

not to exact i know, but please, enough wit ze emailzzzzz!!!

There WILL be a left 4 dead demo coming for the xbox and pc.

So make with the clicky-clicky here For the info about it. its been confirmed for co-op play too.

Now this bugs me a little.

Its what?, 4 or 5 different areas? in total?, im not sure how this demo is going to come about myself. You can give the player a level to try, like the city one weve seen a  lot of, and whilst the a.i and director engine will make every demo experience different, by the time the levels over they will have experienced a 5th or a quarter of what the game has to offer.

maybe it will be in one barricaded building and one stand off to survive or just a set 15 minutes of gameplay which pisses me off. but its a good way to give you enough.

honestly i dont know, but im a long time fan of zombie films, novels and games so im sold from the first minute after i heard the premise, but this doesn't seem like a demo-able game to me.

-On that topic

Time for a recap on alan wake.

So there's the two trailers again. Im imagining that if you've not heard of alan wake, but being a horror games fan visiting my humble little site that your excited now?

yeah, i thought as much.

In some ways the graphics are showing there age a little, compared to alone in the dark, but the thing is this is early build footage from YEARS ago.

its really been that long. for those who dont remember or are new to wake. The game is about a struggling writer who is grieving for a lost loved one and heads to the town of bright falls to clear his head and find the peace he needs to right his new novel.

its all very stephen king and i dig that.

The enemies are wakes nightmares made flesh, there only weakness being the light, so they only attack wake at night.

so when alan sleeps he has to set traps, like a trip wire that sets off a lamp flooding a hallway with lamp to ward off the raincoat phantoms.

though they can break the lamp and stuff so youve really gotta think carefully.

the weather ranges from sunny, windswept or rainy to thunder storms or full blown, terrain destroying tornadoes.

i could go on and on but this really is a must own game for any 360 owner, horror fan or not.

Wake up!

So there's been a rumor doing the rounds that Alan Wake, my most anticipated horror game yet to be released, from the creators of the pieces of art that is the max payne series were going to finally show some new information about wake at the 2008 Tokyo game show (http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/english/) and for those not in the know, there hasn't been any major wake news since the bloody jaw dropping weather engine tech demo which was staggering in its grandeur.

... Unfortunately these rumors have been quashed by the site bright falls.net a very reliable fan site for news on alan wake. Apparently this is VERY old news from last years tgs event.

Well im disappointed now, but to be honest the longer remedy works on improving it the happier i will be. so take your time remedy, i know it'll be bloody brilliant regardless.

and include an address unknown easter egg!

Monter Madness: The Battle for Suburbia - The Review

Developer: Artificial Studios/ Immersion Games

Platforms: Xbox 360, PC, (Soon to see a PS3 release as monster madness: grave danger)

Released: June 28th 2007

Genre: Arcade horror shoot-em-up 

.....I know, i know. you screaming "Danny, what'chu been smokin', this aint no horror game!!1!oneone!". 

Well if you look back at my early posts i said i was blogging on my passion for horror themed games. They don't have to be inherently scary. This falls into the category. Its not scary, but horror fans will most definitely dig it. 

Basically i bought this dirt cheap for £5 in gamestation, my usual bargain haunt. It looked interesting enough to hold my attention, a gauntlet style romp through a suburban setting in the middle of a zombie outbreak. How could i not like that?

So basically its gauntlet meets zombies ate my neighbors, a lucas arts classic on them thar early consoles. you run around, with 3 or 4 dozen zombies around you and you have dual nail guns.

Danny like.

Its mindless carnage, and the live multiplayer is just as good. The soundtrack and overall art direction is nice, but nothing memorable. The characters are cliche' the nerd, the slacker, the prissy cheerleader and the goth girl. but there meant to be so its all fine and dandy with me.

From start to finish its a homage to all the good old horror flicks of yesteryear and i really enjoyed it, the controls are simple, if a little buggy in the vehicles (including giant mechs i shit you not). 

Overall its a simple, but lengthy game, and i can only criticize its lack of co-op gameplay on xbox live, whilst this is being done in the upcoming playstation 3 release, a patch for the 360 version would be most welcome.

SCORE [6/10]

SCARE FACTOR [0/10]