Podcast: E.V.O. Search for Eden Game Club
There’s just not much like the game E.V.O. Search for Eden. On top of its ultra rarity that forces most players to use nefarious means, it is a unique title by any definition for the SNES. Fred and Jam delve into a game that is much more action RPG than the creature creator it’s often associated with.
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix Review
Who doesn’t like Disney films? You pretty much know what your going to get: a family friendly film with a few laughs and occasionally some tears. Whether you love them or hate them there’s probably a Disney film you like. For me, I love the Lion King. It still remains one of my firm favourites, closely followed by Robin Hood, an older film in the company’s catalogue that I have a lot of nostalgia for. Kingdom Hearts seemed like a fascinating IP that essentially merges the Disney Universe with a video game.
I originally saw footage of Kingdom Hearts on a demo disc for an unofficial Playstation 2 magazine. The demo wasn’t playable it was an extended trailer with just music. The music from the get go was mesmerizing and still one of the series strongest draws. The footage simply showed a collage of the cutscenes from the game showcasing the main character Sora along with Donald Duck and Goofy. With them visiting various Disney worlds such as Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, Hercules and many more. The footage looked incredibly ambitious from a story standpoint. No gameplay footage was shown and I don’t believe Squaresoft (today now Square Enix) ever released a playable demo of the game. I vividly remember multiple magazine articles being excited at the prospect alone of this game. It almost seemed destined to be a critical hit.
Horror Obscura 2016: Tomb Raider Series
Tomb Raider is a very well known series in fact just recently the series hit its landmark 20th anniversary so it felt fitting to enter the series into the Horror Obscura this year. Many of course will argue that the Tomb Raider series is an action series but lingering in those tombs in practically every entry of the series there are horror themes to be found. So to celebrate the 20th anniversary and talk about some horror it’s time to discuss some of Tomb Raider‘s most memorable scares.
Horror Obscura 2016: Avenging Spirit
When it come to the obscure and horror games I really like to search out the titles you may have never heard of and today’s game is no different.
Avenging Spirit – I have seen this title floating around on the 3DS virtual console for quite some time and decided to recently pull the trigger on it. This is a Game Boy game released in 1991. You play a nameless character who has been gunned down by the mob and who’s girlfriend has been kidnapped. You wake to find this whole mess was your girlfriends fathers fault as the mob wanted to obtain his research on ghost energy. The father now has the balls to ask you to rescue your girlfriend before you fade away into the afterlife. Oh did I mention you’re now an adorable cuddly looking ghost? Yeah the story of Avenging Spirit sounds a lot darker than its appearance would lead you to believe.
Podcast: Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse Game Club
This week Jam and Fred do the game club thing with Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse for the NES. This title was popularized due to its technological leap, overall quality, and the fact that it’s really hard to get to work properly on third party hardware. In this episode they dissect the development, concept, and branching campaign.
Horror 101 Episode 3: Halloween (1978)
For this very special day Jam and Fred have a very special episode of Horror 101 featuring the original Halloween from 1978 and directed by John Carpenter. Our final format has been decided as a commentary to the movie itself, though you definitely don’t have to be watching it to enjoy this episode. If you do wish to watch as a running commentary, queue up your version to the very beginning and put it on pause, we’ll tell you when to start.
Horror 101 Episode 2: The Evil Dead (1982)
For our second episode Jam and Fred dive deep into the woods with Sam Raimi’s 1982 horror cult classic The Evil Dead. Whether it was edited, banned, or hated upon, this is one of the earliest instances of a movie too gory and brutal for many audiences. The original “cabin in the woods” tale about 5 friends who awaken evil spirits and are unable to leave is horror at its best. Listen to the two discuss the film, and its finer points, for nearly the length of the work itself.
The Big Gaming History 101 Halloween Post
Halloween is here! This weekend many of us will celebrate by playing games that scare us, watch horror movies, and depending on lifestyle/age either be getting drunk at parties where people are dressed in slutty outfits or taking kids in much more appropriate outfits out to get candy. To get you in the mood, here are a bunch of items from our archive that you should definitely check out:
Articles
Halloween Rarities: Check out our list of a handful of little known horror titles that we love. Be sure to click on the various links in the article as all of our links are for additional content only found here on our site.
Great Retro Halloween Games That Aren’t Scary: Don’t like to be freaked out and jumpy all Halloween? Here are a handful of themed titles that won’t have you up late at night or turning on all of the lights.
Castlevania Retrospective: Are you familiar with the Belmont family and one of Konami’s most beloved franchises of all time? This article will get you caught on up on the origins, the titles, and even offers sub-articles on each game.
The Countdown Horror Obscura: Jam runs through a bunch of obscure horror titles you may either not be aware of or don’t necessarily consider of the horror genre. Learn about a bunch of games you may have never heard of.
Podcasts
Silent Hill 2 Game Club: Fred isn’t great at re-telling this story, as many fans have justifiably pointed out. Despite this fact, listeners claim this is a great club to listen to because it’s purely from the perspective of a person who had never played Silent Hill 2 and was recounting it’s effective moments fresh and for the first time.
The History of Survival Horror: Learn the roots of probably the strongest gaming horror genre.
Obscure Survival Horror: You’ve played Silent Hill and crushed Resident Evil, but have you ever played Overblood? This and a handful of other more obscure survival horror titles are accounted.
I Have No Mouse and I Must Scream: We bring in guest Kole Ross from the Watch Out For Fireballs podcast to discuss point-and-click horror titles.
Scared Stupid: Games that scared the s**t out of us.
Videos
Retro Game Night – Splatterhouse: A 2D brawler platformer set in a haunted house where you play as basically Jason Voorhies? What, there’s also a chibi version for NES? Check them out.
Retro Game Challenge – Ghosts’n Goblins:Fred tries to beat Ghosts’n Goblins for the NES, one of the hardest games on the console. Can he do it?
Condemned: Criminal Origins Longplay: See the entire game, commentary free, in 1080p.
Resident Evil 2 Version Comparison: The most popular Resident Evil title is dissected in its many ports.
Let’s Play Michigan: Report from Hell: Developed by Grasshopper Manufacture, led by Suda51, and exclusive to the PS2 only in Europe and Japan. This ultra rare title has some unique ideas.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Review
I remember the first time I read Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. I had come to it thanks to the Metallica song of the same name off the Ride the Lightning album, which intrigued me because the song had no lyrics despite being based off of a work of writing. Some had touted it as a quintessential bit of horror fiction to rival even the strongest authors of today while others made the predictable claim that it was too disjointed from contemporary times to be relevant, let alone scary. I came away feeling a bit of both. Much of the concepts of the work are for your head to create, but that’s also what made it so horrifying, it was indescribable. Dark Corners of the Earth tries to bring an author and storyline that has dodged popular culture, widespread film, and of course video games for so long. It’s one of the first instances where an interactive medium has attempted to bring Lovecraft’s world to life, no easy feat. It’s not even based off of the main story Call of Cthulhu – although Lovecraft fans are used to the co-branding for various alternative works – but rather the novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth that details a town in New England that has isolated itself from the US. Ultimately the town is inhabited by sea creatures and ancient beings, which is now brought to life with a twist in an unreliable narrator that wavers in sanity. While Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth bites off a bit more than it can chew in overall design, not to mention the odd breaking point in the middle where it literally shifts genres, your ability to keep pace with it results in what could be one of the strongest horror video games of all time.
The Horror Obscura 2016: Part 2
Rise Of Nightmares
The Xbox Kinect 1.0. Yes I’m talking about Microsoft’s first attempt at motion controls on the fantastic Xbox 360 console. The device actually sold pretty well to begin with people seemed to buy into Microsoft’s marketing for the device for about 5 minutes and then people left it on the side lines only to pull it out from the dusty corner of the living room when a new entry in the Dance Central series released. Then Kinect 2.0 happened and no one cared, so the real horror here is Kinect’s failure to capture an audience. Of course you’d have seen the title and you know that’s not what we’re here to talk about. No horror fans, today we are going to talk about the reason I kinda wanted to buy a Kinect for the Xbox 360 in the first place a little Sega title called Rise of Nightmares.
Rise of Nightmares to me is House of the Dead for the Kinect. Now I know that’s an incredibly bold statement to make since the House of the Dead series is just light gun zombie shooting bliss and Rise of Nightmares, well its a Kinect game and that just makes people just groan generally. We’re gamers right? we don’t like standing up and flailing our arms around we like to sit on sofa and be lazy. Unless of course your like Fred and you stand up to play games anyway in which case buy this game and enjoy.
Gaming History 101 