New Games |
- A defibrillator is the only tool you'll ever need
- Sign-ups open for Super Monday Night Combat beta
- Jurassic Park: Cheaper dinosaurs if you preorder
- Indie game Voxatron sees a Humble Debut
- Rocket Raccoon and Frank West 'officially' join MvC3
- The DTOID Show: Resident Evil Goes Postal, It's Spooky!
- Battlefield 3 sells 5 million copies in first week
- The Binding of Isaac: Now with 20% more evil
- MMO Stories: My greatest gaming moment
- New releases: Uncharted 3, Sonic Generations, 007 & more
- Addition of the Bastion narrator makes any videogame sexy
- Sigh: MechWarrior Online is a free-to-play MMO
- Live show: Mash Tactics is back with a vengeance
- Review: PowerUp Heroes
- Bring out your broadsword! Deadliest Warrior: AC trailer
- The scariest videogame moments of all time
- Jonathan Holmes helps Sonic get his 'act' back together
- The Jimquisition: The Ugly Secret of Horror Games
- Buy 2, get 1 free at Amazon, L.A. Noire for $20
| A defibrillator is the only tool you'll ever need Posted: 31 Oct 2011 04:00 PM PDT Freddie Wong may have offered a decent take on the future of Battlefield, but the boys of Corridor Digital know what gamers really want to see. Who knew the defibrillator could be such a versatile piece of equipment in a combat scenario? Shock Troopers [YouTube] |
| Sign-ups open for Super Monday Night Combat beta Posted: 31 Oct 2011 03:30 PM PDT The cast of Super Monday Night Combat as zombies. Cool. Cooler yet? Uber Entertainment is allowing willing participants to sign up for the game's closed beta over here. Though Monday Night Combat had a few noticeable issues, I was pretty into it for a while there and this follow-up title seems to be moving in a solid direction. Free-to-play as a descriptor has come to mean different things -- some good, some bad -- but in this instance, it seems like the former is true. |
| Jurassic Park: Cheaper dinosaurs if you preorder Posted: 31 Oct 2011 03:00 PM PDT Jurassic Park: The Game will be opening its gates and unleashing dinosaurs soon (at least for some people) and Telltale are offering a special discount for those who preorder the Deluxe Edition from their new site. The full price is $49.99 but they are knocking off $10. The game will launch in North America on November 15 on Xbox 360, PSN, PC and Mac with the iPad2 version coming after the holidays. In the meantime you can visit the website and "explore" the island of Isla Nublar and "hack" your way into secret InGen files. You can also watch some videos that make up stuff about dinosaurs. If you like the idea of browsing an educational website about a fictional island, then this will be right up your street. The Deluxe Edition comes with a bunch of extras (as special editions are wont to do):
There's no dinosaurs, plastic or otherwise, but at least you get a letter from a character from a movie. It's sort of like getting a letter from Santa Claus, especially since Richard Attenborough played Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street. |
| Indie game Voxatron sees a Humble Debut Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:30 PM PDT For this occasion, the organizers of the Humble Indie Bundle have dropped the "bundle" shtick -- at least for the time being -- to bring us the Humble Voxatron Debut. Similar to past promotions, this new game is DRM-free, cross-platform, and you get to name the price. Suhweet. Your purchase isn't for a finished product; rather, you're getting future content updates, as they come out, for free. Not everyone is cool with this approach, but I'm quite fond of it myself. I'm also into voxel-based games inspired by Robotron. What else might be in store, given that this is a two-week sale? |
| Rocket Raccoon and Frank West 'officially' join MvC3 Posted: 31 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT
Capcom didn't do a very good job keeping the full roster of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 a secret from the gaming world when they announced the first four of twelve new characters back at San Diego Comic Con. For the sake of today's reveal though, let's pretend that we never saw that and revel in the fact that Dead Rising's Frank West and Marvel's Rocket Raccoon are now officially part of UMvC3's cast of warriors. I got a chance to give the drunken photographer and furry guardian of the galaxy -- as well as most of the new cast of UMvC3 -- a go at a Capcom press event last week and I have to say both these unconventional fighters suite the game quite well. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [Previewed]) As Capcom's Seth Killian put it best, Rocket Raccoon is "f*cking annoying." Like a real life raccoon that is digging through your garbage cans in the middle of the night, this nocturnal mammal is all about getting in close and crossing up your opponent. He's quick, small, can hover and has myriad traps at his disposal that make him well prepared for most situations. Rocket Raccoon's rocket skates are perhaps the best air dash in the game. Using this move will let him, on smaller characters, dash in fast and then move behind for a quick mix up. His bear claw trap -- known as the flapper -- is great for off-the-ground attacks and can be paired with his giant pendulum swing attack for a quick wall bounce. Perhaps my favorite of his moves is his teleport, which is great for a quick hop in front or behind and enemy and if done with the heavy attack actually has the little booger burrow under the ground, making him invulnerable for a ridiculous amount of time.
Frank West is up there with Phoenix Wright when it comes to having layers of moves. Key to making the Dead Rising superstar a powerhouse is the use of his photography. At the onset of a round Frank starts at level one, with a limited move set. For example: quarter circle forward followed by strong attack has him unleashing a powerful baseball bat swing. Leveling up Frank with his photography opens up new moves -- such as a roundhouse kick and Captain America style flip -- and powers up his previous attacks like the bat, which transforms into a flaming spike infused bludgeoning stick. Frank can also drink to help power up his photography potency. Normally it takes three photos to level up, with level four being the highest, but consuming the bottle gives the action journalist a triple shot. Drinking too much does have its side effects -- as it should -- causing him to puke his guts out and thus be left open for a quick beat down. Frank's photography also has one other useful property: it can pull opponents off the ground and be super cancelled. While these two new characters were the main focus for the preview event, I did want to touch on my two favorite additions to UmvC3: Phoenix Wright and Vergil from Devil May Cry. The reasons I have fallen for both the characters are at the opposite end of the spectrum, but both were incredibly fun to play.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is just two weeks away and I for one am getting pretty excited. I know some may feel burnt that Capcom is updating this game already. But at a measly $40, the 12 new characters, Galactus mode, and post launch free Heroes and Heralds mode -- which is bringing over a hundred cameo characters with new art -- should offer fans plenty of worthy action. Now if only this wasn't a supposed Capcom troll. |
| The DTOID Show: Resident Evil Goes Postal, It's Spooky! Posted: 31 Oct 2011 01:45 PM PDT
BOO! Haha, get it? Because it's Halloween. Worms and weasels, what a spooky day! Today, we run down the releases of the week, including Uncharted 3 and Sonic Generations. On top of that, Postal III just got a release day. Didn't see that coming. Then we break down the gigantic pile of Resident Evil news, including Resident Evil: Revelations, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, and Resident Evil Chronicles HD Selection. If that wasn't enough zombies, we took a look at the latest trailer for Lollipop Chainsaw. By that, I mean we talked over it the whole time. (Watch someone on YouTube get mad at us for doing that.) |
| Battlefield 3 sells 5 million copies in first week Posted: 31 Oct 2011 01:30 PM PDT Only a week after its launch, EA's internal estimates say that Battlefield 3 has sold over 5 million units worldwide, becoming the fastest selling game in EA's history. EA's Executive Vice President, Patrick Soderlund said, "It is extremely gratifying to deliver an entertainment experience that delights our fans...This launch solidifies Battlefield as a leading entertainment brand." EA also let the fans in on some other record-breaking stats from this past week, including over 2.5 million "likes" on Facebook and over 200,000 followers on Twitter. On top of that, from the Battlefield 3 games played during this past weekend, there were 73 million savoir kills, 48 million revives and 67 million vehicles destroyed. Truth be told, there is something very satisfying about taking out tank and everyone in it with some C4. While there launch might have been a success, I know more than a few Battlefield 3 players who were a little frustrated over the connectivity issues over this past week, along with video card issues for the PC version. EA has spoken up about this, stating that they will continue to listen to customer feedback and to make daily improvements to the game. Considering that EA has pumped so much capital into this franchise, I'm sure that they won't let these bugs loiter around for much longer. |
| The Binding of Isaac: Now with 20% more evil Posted: 31 Oct 2011 01:00 PM PDT
[Update: The update still hasn't gone live due to server issues, it will launch when they are back up. No word on when that might be, however.] Halloween is upon us, guys and ghouls. For many of us it's an excuse to dress up and wake up in a puddle of vomit next to a slutty nurse or some dude dressed up as Edward from Twilight. But for Edmund McMillen it's an excuse to add some more evil to the world. Specifically, he's added 20 percent more evil to The Binding of Isaac. I think that's a fairly reasonable figure, I mean we don't want the game to spring to life and murder us all. This evil comes in the form of a variety of additions, including new bosses and enemies, new music and lots of lovely, and likely gruesome, items. The biggest additions are a new playable character, Eve, and a new chapter which is unlocked once you kill Mom ten times. I'm rubbish, so killing her ten times seems like a tall order. But one I'm happy to attempt. Here's the full list of additions:
There's also been some bug fixes and improvements to load times. The update went live at 12pm PST Unfortunately the update has been delayed, so go immerse yourselves in evil somewhere else. |
| MMO Stories: My greatest gaming moment Posted: 31 Oct 2011 12:30 PM PDT [Last week I asked you to tell me some of your best stories from your time playing an MMO. Our first promoted blog on that topic is coming from Megakrang, who tells us about a very memorable fight in EverQuest with a very polygonal severed hand, Want to see your own blog on the front page? Write a blog on the current topic: Peripherals. -- JRo] Everybody has had one. In all the years of playing games we all have that one moment that stands out. That one moment that sticks in your memory more than the others. The moment which really means something to you personally, not just in the world of games, but which actually teaches you something about yourself. What I am trying to get at, in my round-about sort of way, is that we have all had our very own Greatest Moment In Gaming. I experienced mine while playing EverQuest. It was around ten or so years ago, and EverQuest was pretty much the only game that I played at the time. "EverCrack", as it was fondly known, well and truly had me in it's clutches. I was thoroughly addicted to this game for almost three years. By the time I experienced my greatest moment, I had been playing the game for a good seven or eight months. My main character at the time was a High Elf Wizard by the name of Zoidberg Zaius. That's a screenshot of him above, showing off and casting a spell, and he's also wielding the staff that played a part in my greatest gaming moment. It's called "The Staff Of The Wheel", and the only way to get it is as a result of a quest called Tarton's Wheel. You have to collect ten "rods" from around the world of Norrath. A few of them are relatively easy, some are quite tricky and you need a group to help you get them, and some are very difficult even with a group. I worked on the quest off and on for a few months, getting help where I could from friendly groups and my guildmates ("The Ancients Of The Realm"), and when I couldn't get any help I would just try it myself. This led me to venture by myself, naked, into the heart of Lower Guk... Now, before I go any further, I feel I should explain something about old school EverQuest. At the time that I was doing this quest, if you died you would be resurrected without any of your equipment at the nearest town that you bound yourself to, along with losing a hefty chunk of the experience that you had gained. This experience would sometimes take many hours to gain back, and you would also have to go on the dreaded "corpse run" to find your corpse and get all of your gear back. All you folks out there who got their introduction to MMORPGs with WoW don't know how easy you have it. EverQuest was hard. It could sometimes be an incredibly punishing and soul destroying game. It pretty much invented "grinding", and yet that addictive grind kept me coming back for more. Okay, back to the story. So, the reason I had to venture down to Lower Guk - the lair of undead Frogloks and various other nasty creatures - was so I could get the very last rod for this quest. It was located on the floor of a room occupied by this guy: Yes, "A Reanimated Hand". Note the fancy ring he's wearing. At least he's a stylish reanimated hand. As I mentioned earlier, I ventured into Lower Guk without any of my gear just in case things went horribly wrong and I died down there. Doing a corpse run down there by myself would have been impossible, basically. The only other option would have been trying to get someone to drag my corpse to the entrance, but that was always a long shot as to whether or not you could find someone to do it. So, I zoned into Lower Guk, all shivering and frightened, and began sending out zone wide calls for someone to cast Invisibility Versus Undead on me. As a Wizard, I had the standard Invisibility spell, but undead mobs see right through this. As nearly all of the mobs down in Lower Guk were undead, the only thing that could help was IvU. Luckily, a friendly Paladin near the zone entrance kindly cast the spell on me, after which I began to timidly make my way to the Reanimated Hand's lair... Another thing about old school EverQuest (I keep saying old school because they eventually did bring in some additional features which made the game ever so slightly more easy, such as your corpse appearing in a celestial graveyard up on the moon of Luclin after it had been left rotting for a week or so which meant you could then recover it from there instead of having to attempt an impossible corpse run) was that that it didn't have a map. That's right, no handy little map in the upper right corner of the screen that points you in the direction of your next quest item. No, you had to do it the hard way, which for me meant printing out dozens and dozens of maps of all of the zones in Norrath. I had printed out a Lower Guk map before attempting this kamikaze mission to get the rod, so I had a pretty good idea of where I was going. Although it was such a long time ago that I did this, I can still clearly remember every little moment. My heart was pounding the entire time. Every time I came across a mob, I would hold my breath just in case it was one of rare ones who weren't undead down there and would see through my IvU spell. There was also the fear of the Invisibility vs Undead spell just dropping for no reason. This actually happened with some spells, they had a maximum time they could last but sometimes they would just drop off early. Luckily, I made it to the base of the Hand's lair without being noticed. To get up to the Hand, you had to jump into the base of a waterfall and then swim up it to get to the top where the Hand is waiting. Weird, I know, but that's how it was. I dove in and successfully swam to the top. I emerged into his domain, and my Invisibility vs Undead spell promptly disappeared. Honestly, I totally began shitting myself. The hand started hammering away at me, along with a Dar Knight who also hangs around in the room. I had buffed myself up as much as possible before starting the adventure, and the friendly Paladin had also cast some buffs on me along with the Invis spell, but my hit points were rapidly disappearing. The awful crunching sound of being hit was screaming out of my speakers. I was frantically searching the floor for the rod, but it was almost the same colour as the floor so it was very hard to see. Finally I located it, quickly clicked on it to pick it up, and then cast my Gate spell to take me back to my bind point in the town of Freeport. I didn't have much hope that it would work, because with both of the mobs hitting me there was a high chance that they would interrupt my casting and then I'd be screwed. The few seconds it took to cast the spell seemed to take forever, but amazingly my casting wasn't interrupted and next thing I knew I was back in Freeport! My hit points were almost down to zero, but I had made it! I distinctly remember standing up and whooping and yelling with joy. It was such an adrenaline buzz. After this, I made my way up to Everfrost Peaks and handed in my rods to the quest giver. This in itself was quite terrifying, because the quest givers in EverQuest were notorious for just swallowing your quest items for no apparent reason and you got nothing in return. Once again I held my breath when I clicked "Combine" on the quest bag I had been given, but everything worked as it should and I was left with this: This, undoubtedly, is my greatest moment in gaming. The sense of satisfaction from completing this quest was just incredible, especially soloing The Reanimated Hand rod. |
| New releases: Uncharted 3, Sonic Generations, 007 & more Posted: 31 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is easily the biggest release of the week. It's getting rave reviews and described as one of the best experiences on the PlayStation 3. Sonic Generations for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC is out as well and we thought it was actually pretty good. Other biggies this week include GoldenEye 007: Reloaded and The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. What's looking sw33t to you? PS3: NCIS, Batman: Arkham City - Nightwing Bundle Pack, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Sonic Generations, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Cabela's Adventure Camp, Jimmie Johnson's Anything With an Engine, Cabela's Survival: Shadows of Katmai, NASCAR Unleashed, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Sonic Generations, Jimmie Johnson's Anything With an Engine, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception |
| Addition of the Bastion narrator makes any videogame sexy Posted: 31 Oct 2011 11:30 AM PDT What if the silken-voiced but incessant narrator from Bastion scored a few gigs working with other, bigger games? Would the simple gameplay exercise of running from one edge of the screen to the other become a grand journey into consciousness? Or would you just try to f*ck with the guy? |
| Sigh: MechWarrior Online is a free-to-play MMO Posted: 31 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT Remember that MechWarrior game Piranha Games was once developing, only to let it vanish off the earth without a trace while they finished work on Duke Nukem Forever, followed by teasing us with images through Twitter? Free-to-play MMO. Yep. The team-based MechWarrior Online is scheduled for the second half of 2012. It's a full-on PC game, so expect it to be more MechWarrior 4 than Mech Assault with first-person views, a possibility for joystick support and all that jazz. You'll be able to do MMO things like forming the equivalents of guilds and 4-player parties (lances), yadda yadda, and there's no singleplayer campaign. PC Gamer has the exclusive on why we're supposed to care about the MechWarrior franchise being turned into a F2P MMO, as well as an interview with Piranha Games. There's some talk about the reasons why the game has gone dark for so long, like the economic downturn and the problem of trying to sell a publisher on a game centered around an IP that won't be owned by said publisher. However, I didn't see any mention of an "epic narratively driven campaign involving Clan Jade Falcon, Clan Wolf and the Inner Sphere" and subsequently went to my hermit shack, brooding over the lack of a new TIE Fighter or Freespace 3 and lighting a candle for the MechWarrior single-player games. I guess this could be an interesting game if you like F2P MMOs, though! Meet MechWarrior Online, Piranha’s free-to-play tactical Mech sim [PC Gamer] |
| Live show: Mash Tactics is back with a vengeance Posted: 31 Oct 2011 10:30 AM PDT
[Not sure what Mash Tactics is? I've included a classic clip to show you just a glimpse of what you've been missing, you daft fool! You can see all of Destructoid's previously-aired live shows in our archives.] Today, Mash Tactics returns from its break and is ready to jump back into action with Batman: Arkham City. After two long weeks, the guys are rested and primed to bat-glide into this Game of the Year contender. Come get a deep (spoiler-free) look at Arkham City, and maybe be swayed if you're one of the few people on the planet who doesn't already have or want this game. Mash Tactics airs Monday through Friday at 4pm Pacific. Watch Jon Carnage and Wesley Ruscher let loose with off-the-wall humor and discuss the issues of the day in the live chat on Destructoid's Twitch.tv channel. Also, there are videogames being played. Join us for your chance to win prizes, talk to industry guests, and witness all of the glorious antics. |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT Like many, I have had my share of superhero fantasies. It seems like a lot of effort to try and save the world, however, and I have been more than happy to enjoy the fantasy through my gaming experiences. Ubisoft's PowerUp Heroes tries to get the player a little more involved in these fantasies, casting you in the role of Earth's savior and giving you an awesome array of powers to do it. It looks like a game made for kids and, in a lot of ways, it definitely is. But PowerUp Heroes is also a rather capable -- if casual -- fighting game that deserves some attention.
In PowerUp Heroes, you play as yourself in so far as you are your Xbox 360 avatar. Granted a powerful suit of armor by a fallen hero, you must save the Earth from the evil robot Malignance and his army of warriors. It's a fighting game and contains the appropriate amount of plot with the occasional cut scene to remind you who you're fighting but that's not really why we're here. The campaign consists of sixteen, "best of three" battles. That seems like a healthy number, but at the halfway point of the game you're faced with upgraded versions of the last eight battles you fought. They do have differences, being more powerful, more aggressive and having some unexpected surprise in their arsenal but you basically fight everyone in PowerUp Heroes twice. This is acceptable for two reasons. First, the difference in the difficulty between fighting the first wave and the second is dramatic enough that you may as well have been playing a tutorial until you hit the "X" versions of the enemies. While the spiking in difficulty isn't too severe, it does crop up again in the final encounter which fails to avoid the all-too-common trap of the over-powered last boss. But even that is excusable for the other reason; the combat is genuinely fun. When in a battle, the game is presented in an over-the-shoulder perspective. As basic attacks you can punch to fire projectiles at your enemy or kick to move into close combat and deliver a combo consisting of punches and kicks. Incoming attacks are dodged by leaning to one side or the other. Your suit also comes with three super moves, limited by recharging between uses, and every move has its own gesture to perform. It's not complicated, which makes it easy to fall into the rhythm of fighting. Every move has a counter of some variety, whether it's interrupting your opponent's incoming melee attack with a quick kick or firing off a projectile to stop them from tearing open a hole in the fabric of time and space, and the balance is based on the ease of countering attacks and the length of time it can take to perform some actions. Special attacks might be as simple as raising and lowering an arm, while the game's more devastating powers require lengthy charge times, so there is a bit of strategy to them. Defeating your foes gives you access to their suit for your own use. Once you've earned your second, you can take two suits with you into a match and swap between them by raising your left arm. Having the two suits opens up powerful combo opportunities, allowing you to combine multiple moves using stun attacks. Once you find a pair of suits that work well for you, chaining together these motions feels natural and the game does a pretty good job of keeping up with your actions, though you can get a bit ahead of yourself if you're trying to do too much too quickly. A little further depth is seen in unlockable power-up items, one of which can be taken into a fight and provide an assortment of damage, speed and defensive bonuses. All that said, the fact that nearly half of the suits are just slight variations on another of its type does limit the game somewhat. It's nice to be able to have a pair of suits that use similar attacks for ease of use, but players who do this may find themselves at a bit of a disadvantage when going up against tough opponents by using a lower-level suit. When you're feeling competent, you can take the battle to your friends locally and online. Local play presents a split-screen view that's compact but serviceable and the game has no trouble detecting the actions of both players (but does seem to need a bit more distance from the sensor than other games -- make sure you have some extra space). Online, you can engage in matchmaking sessions or ranked battles and I had no trouble whatsoever competing in the online space. PowerUp Heroes uses your Avatar and, thus, everything has the same kind of soft, cartoon feel to the visuals to complement them. The visuals serve the action decently but aren't anything to write home about. The audio does a lot to enhance the experience, with a lot of booming explosions that sound great on surround sound system. It sounds like you're in the middle of an epic confrontation, which is exactly what you want when that's what you're doing. The tragedy of PowerUp Heroes is that it's actually a rather good game, but one that lacks any memorable characters. Ubisoft does toss in some references to their other properties, with suits based on the Rabbids and Assassin's Creed unlocked by defeating Malignance, but not being a publisher known for producing fighting games makes this a title likely to be overlooked. That's a shame, because the combat mechanics in this game are perfectly suited for Kinect and could be utilized very effectively by other fighting game franchises looking for a good way to translate some of the more fantastical elements of their series' into a game which uses the system. |
| Bring out your broadsword! Deadliest Warrior: AC trailer Posted: 31 Oct 2011 09:15 AM PDT
Looking for that perfect present for the domineering and bloodthirsty war monger in your life? Well, Spike Games has the answer to your prayers in Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The retail game will actually be a compilation of the previous downloadable releases on XBLA and PSN, Deadliest Warrior: the Game and Deadliest Warrior: Legends. Included on the disc will also be all of the currently available content packs for the games, as well as some exclusive content that can only be found on the retail copy; such new game modes and new weapons. To the best of my knowledge, I don't believe that the previous two Deadliest Warrior titles did all that well on their own. But bundled together in this pack and releasing in December, I'm sure this will make the holiday wishlist of at least a few fans of the show. |
| The scariest videogame moments of all time Posted: 31 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT Ahhhhhh, velcome to the most terrrrrifying veature you vill ever read. Velcome to ... THE SCARIEST VIDEOGAME MOMENTS OF ALL TIME. I am your host, Dracula. You may know me from such games as Castlevania, Castlevania II, Castlevania III, Castlevania IV, Castleva ... vell, you get the idea. I have been in a lot of vreakin’ Castlevania games. BUT NOW I AM HERE TO TERRORIZE YOU, not that stubborn fool Simon Belmont. What a miserable little pile of secrets ... In this veature, all the delicious, varm-blooded Destructoid editors picked their scariest videogame moments of all time. Vhat videogames have scared them the most? Vhich have turned their hair vhite? Vhich have left them frozen in fear? Enjoy ... and make sure to keep one eye open vhen you go to sleep tonight. It is Halloveen, after all. The most appetizing day of the year. I vill be vatching you ...
There are many videogame moments that have scared me over the years: The zombie dog jumping through the window in the original Resident Evil; the spine-chilling Phanto chasing me through Super Mario Bros. 2; the evil wizard Manannan randomly appearing and killing main character Gwydion in King’s Quest III. As scary and traumatizing as these moments are, nothing will ever top the most terrifying videogame sequence I have ever experienced: one that occurs in Resident Evil 4. I will never forget the specific moment. I had just purchased Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube. I brought the game home during the day, but decided to wait until late at night to play it. It was a Resident Evil game -- and a revolutionary one at that! -- and I wanted to experience it the way a Resident Evil game should be experienced: in the dark with all the lights off. I sat down with the GameCube controller in my hand, started up the game, and was ready for an amazing, chilling adventure. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. When I first started, I was impressed by the game’s incredible graphics and vastly improved control scheme. As I journeyed through the woods in the game’s early moments, I was tense, as I knew something was most likely waiting around the corner. Then I entered the small, European village. Once I saw the deranged villagers burning a body, I knew something bad was about to happen. Once they started chasing me from all angles I started freaking out. What terrified me the most was that there was nowhere to hide. If I climbed onto a roof, the villagers would follow me. If I barred a door, they would climb through a window. Everywhere I ran the villagers would chase me, never letting me rest for a second. As much as this scared me, it was nothing -- and I mean, nothing! -- compared to what happened to me once the chainsaw maniac Dr. Salvador was unleashed. Once Dr. Salvador started coming for me I could barely breathe. I will never forget hearing the chainsaw in the distance, getting closer and closer and closer ... When I ran somewhere to hide, he would find me. And, unlike the villagers, Dr. Salvador has a giant chainsaw that could kill me with one swift swing. Then the moment happened. If I wasn’t traumatized enough, there I was, trapped in a house, nowhere to run. I quickly jumped through a nearby window and ran around a corner to get away from the attacking villagers. As I turned the corner, Dr. Salvador was right there. Before I even had a chance to react, his chainsaw swung forward, ripping the head off main character Leon Kennedy. I screamed. Like, really screamed. As Leon’s bloody body fell to the ground and the words “Game Over” appeared on the screen, I was somehow standing up over my chair and breathing hard. I was noticeably terrified. I was shaking. I had never had such a physical reaction to a game before. I actually had to put the controller down and leave the room. The way Dr. Salvador just surprised me. The way the chainsaw came out of nowhere. The sound it made as it chopped Leon in two. The blood. Oh God, the blood. It was such a visceral, frightening experience for me -- one that I will never forget for the rest of my life. I have played Resident Evil 4 many times since, and still start shaking every time I am about to enter the village. It is the scariest videogame moment I have ever experienced.
Friday The 13th on the Commodore 64. No joke, it's one of the scariest games I have ever played. If you've never played it, the idea is to rescue all the Crystal Lake kids before Jason Voorhees murders them. In a rather stretched case of artistic license, Jason is in "disguise" as one of the kids so you don't know who the killer is. It's all fine and dandy as you get kids to follow you to a safe house, but if Jason gets to one of them before you do, he offs them. When he does this, there's a digitized shriek which, thanks to the aged technology, is one of the most blood-curdling and horrific sounds in the world. Even worse, some of the deaths are randomly accompanied by intricately (for the time) detailed images of heads with machete's going into them and skulls. So, you have this game in which there are vague collections of blocks made to look like people, and every now and then the game will FUCKING SCREAM AT YOU while an image that's a hundred times more detailed than the rest of the game is shoving DEAD HEADS AND SCARY SKELLINGTONS IN YOUR EYES! GOD DAMN IT JASON, YOU'RE HORRIBLE!
My scariest videogame moment has to do with Resident Evil. Now I could just claim that classic "zombie dog through the window" bit, but it’s actually a moment in Resident Evil 3. Up until this game, I was confident in the knowledge that if a room in a Resident Evil game looked like too much trouble, I could just go back through the door and have time to strategize a bit before continuing on. And then I met Nemesis. I remember encountering him for the first time and being freaked out hearing him yell "STAAAAARS" that I immediately went though one of the doors. I naturally assumed I was safe, but then as I continued on in the room I heard the infamous Nemesis music play. HE KNOWS HOW TO OPEN DOORS?! WTF?!?! I ran as far as I could through door after door, never looking back, and he continued to follow me. It appeared that nowhere was safe, until I finally reached an area that he didn’t follow. I still remember that as a moment when I realized Nemesis was an all new enemy. I went throughout the rest of the game in fear of him.
Fatal Frame. I like having control and mastery over my virtual environment, so any game that has respawning enemies, invisible enemies or the like just scares the crap out of me at a very basic level. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth had a really tense sequence where you had to escape through a hotel in Innsmouth, not having any real tools to survive the mob if they caught you. In Fatal Frame, though, knowing you had to go places and that there were scary ghosts that could hurt you on the way, and THEN having to use a camera to dispatch of them instead of being to shoot them in the face, that was enough for me to go "Ok, yeah this is great but I'm just going to watch something less scary like Ringu now." Nowadays I can rationalize the scary factor of bosses or survival horror enemies in games away with a simple "Oh this is just an annoying design decision to put this in here" or a "Well that boss seems to have a pattern so he's not that scary if I see him as a box with scripts I can work around." Fatal Frame will always be that game I played for an hour and never finished, and probably never will finish. Well done, Fatal Frame.
Underwater sequences in videogames scare the crap out of me. I have no problem with swimming underwater in real life, but put a game character underwater with a little air meter on the side and I freak out. I can pinpoint the origin of this crippling fear with one of my first 3D games, Banjo-Kazooie. After two levels featuring relatively harmless water, the third level forced the player to swim underwater most of the time for the items they needed to reach the next level. "Clanker's Cavern" was drenched in dingy water lit by dim lights, with a giant, grinning, terrifying (albeit friendly) mechanical shark sitting in the middle of the main water pit. As far as my younger self was concerned, there was no telling when Clanker was going to drop the act and chomp down on me with those giant metal teeth! But the always-present threat of Clanker wasn't enough to scare me. No, the jiggies I needed for the next level were always at the very end of a long swim, depleting my precious supply of air. Hell, one of them was at the very bottom of an extremely deep hole in the cavern that you could just barely make it to before your air ran out! Sure, there was a helpful fish that made air bubbles to replenish your breath, but when you figured in the iffy underwater controls, it was too easy to miss those bubbles, never mind maneuver yourself through a key three times. Suddenly, I panicked. I wanted out. I started swimming towards the surface that looked prohibitively far away at the moment, becoming more and more frightened as my air slipped away. It finally ran out, and all I could do was watch as Banjo and Kazooie suffocated what felt like miles below the surface, alone. (Of course, Rare would have guessed at my fear and decide to make things even scarier in Banjo-Tooie with a level that, beyond a few buildings, was entirely underwater -- "Jolly Roger's Lagoon" -- but at least they had the courtesy to turn the water breathable for that level.)
System Shock 2 is a pretty terrifying game, but it’s 10x scarier when you suck at it. The atmospheric hum of the ship, cautionary signs, desolate living quarters, and grotesque “humans” on-board the Von Braun starship disturbed me more than any other game at the time. It’s important that I highlight just how unsettling the hum of the ship can be, especially with a proper setup. I had just received a surround sound, 5-piece speaker set for my birthday which increased the detailed, haunting sound design by a great measure. There is one moment that I remember from the game that I will never forget and, no, it’s not that moment. It’s one that organically came about through the game’s environment. I was a good four-to-five hours into the game, lost in some sort of cargo area with no ammo. I had already cleared the area but was completely lost. Not exactly the proper setup to impress a friend/console-gamer. Despite this, my friend Jeremy was into the game and my journey for an exit. I eventually came across an elevator in one of the cargo rooms. “Finally! Press the button!” Yet, nothing happened. No elevator came down. Instead, I received a text response stating: “Maintenance will arrive shortly.” I tried a couple more times but nothing happened. We decided it was just one of those meaningless messages games sometimes throw at you for atmosphere. There is no maintenance and this elevator will never work. No one was coming. Right? So, we continue to walk up, down, and all around the cargo room in search of something. Anything. All the while, we hear a strange noise in the distance. At first, we think it’s a figment of our imagination or a random sound bite in the soundtrack. But, it grows louder and louder still. “Maybe the elevator is back.” So, we make our way back to the elevator. The noise now is deafening. It’s the sound of cogs twisting and turning, grinding metal. It’s like nails on a chalkboard played through an amplifier. The sound is unbearable and the bass is shaking my entire computer table. And … “Oh, no. The door is … closed.” As we stare at the shut elevator door, we notice the deafening noise had ended. Something has arrived. Something? We turn around and before we can even get a good look at it, a towering maintenance bot -- which looked very much like the one Ripley powered at the end of Aliens -- smashes us with a single deathblow. The noise its attack made was the most unnerving sound of all. We were so caught off-guard by the sound and sight of the robot that my friend had dug his fingers into my shoulder and I fell backward in my chair. It seemed like a good moment to look at the FAQ.
Since I reviewed Amnesia: The Dark Descent and called it one of the scariest games in years, I'm practically obligated to talk about that, aren't I? Anyway, one of the best parts of that game was the "flooded hallway" sequence from that game, which is scary and great because all the way up to that point the game's mechanics all contribute to the scariness of the chase, making up a kind of "perfect storm" of fright, where everything makes everything else better. Where light is the one thing that keeps you from going crazy in Amnesia, there are no torches in that area, and you've probably used up all your lamp fuel solving the puzzles that came before that point. Where just looking at the monsters might make you crazy in Amnesia, you cannot see the monster chasing you, only able to hear it breathing and snarling (and I swear that I heard it muttering at some point) as it chases you around. The game's movement-based interaction also made the section extra-frantic. Because you have to open a door in Amnesia by "grabbing" it with your mouse and "dragging" it open, the fact that all the doors in that area open inwards makes you dread opening any room, because you feel like that guy in a horror movie who runs into a door and struggles with the knob until the monster comes to eat him. You've been learning how to play Amnesia all the way up to this sequence, only to find out, to your horror, that the end result is not success, but a reaffirmation of your helplessness and the hostility of your environment. It's like teaching yourself to read the text on a sign, only to learn that the sign says "Dude, if you can read this, you are SO boned."
My scariest videogame moment comes from an arcade title called Chiller. Chiller is a light gun game from the ‘80s, before the ESRB existed, before people gave much thought on what violent videogames might do to a child's mind. Being a child at the time, I was quite concerned about what videogames might do to my mind, as there was one particular game that would freak me the fuck out to the point where I couldn't even look at it. Chiller was a blast of sexually charged, ultra violent anarchy that completely shorted out all my brain cells. The fact that the game even existed scared me. You know how when you're wandering around in a dark cave, and you see a skeleton, you immediately pee your pants with fright? That's what Chiller did to me (sans pee pants). The skeleton itself isn't a threat; it's the fact that it's there that's scary. Where there is a skeleton, there is something that kills people. That means you could be next. Come to think of it, Chiller was worse than a skeleton. It was like a dead child's naked body, but in videogame form. Chiller is a game where you shoot at things. The way I remember it, you get points for everything you shoot. The things that you can shoot range from ghosts, bats, rats, and COMPLETELY NAKED MEN AND WOMEN THAT ARE BEING TORTURED. You can shoot the implements of torture to activate them (shoot the rack to make it pull a man apart, shoot the vice to make it spin and crush a woman's head), or just shoot the people themselves, blowing their arms, legs, and even faces clean off their bodies. It's pure sadism. The people are totally vulnerable, totally defenseless. The fact that they are mostly naked only adds an additionally perverse, revolting twist on the whole thing. The game was so disgusting to me that, after my first morbidly curious play of the thing, I wouldn't even let myself look at it. I memorized its location in my local super-arcade, and refused to even walk close to that area of the floor. Part of me was scared of the game, another part of me was scared of the people that were playing the game, but more than anything, the fact that this game even existed made me afraid. Even as a child, I understood that it was the responsibility of adults to protect children. The fact that this game was created, bought, and displayed in a public place largely inhabited by children showed me that adults did not always do their job. If this purely evil game was allowed into the arcade, what other things would be allowed? What other terrible experiences would the adults permit me to have, or worse, what would they permit others to do to me. I still can't play a game of Chiller without having the urge to throw up.
The last thing I remember REALLY creeping me out was the part in Limbo when the giant spider slowly follows you through the cave. To be fair, I was playing it projected on a wall in a dark room, with surround sound, and that game has incredible sound design. Also, I'm a gigantic baby and spiders are scary.
Last year, I made a list of eight videogames that frightened me with the caveat that none of the games could technically be categorized under horror. Consider the following an addendum to that piece. The Battletoads series is best remembered as being brutally difficult -- sometimes unfairly so -- yet with just enough leeway to entice players to return again and again. It stands to reason that failing and replaying the same challenges ad nauseam would mess with your head. If you stare up at a wall long enough, eventually you start to fear that wall. For me, that fear exploded into full-blown terror during my time with the Game Boy version of Battletoads. In the fifth stage, you have to race through the seemingly endless intestines of a river serpent while a giant ball of brain matter tries to flatten you. It is a sick and sinister course that twists, turns, and doubles back on itself. Should you make even the slightest miscalculation in your jump or turn just a smidgen too early ... BAM! Toad tostada. I wouldn't have been so frightened had my pursuer been an Indiana Jones temple boulder, but a sentient organ that bounces instead of rolls? That's the kind of B-movie horror that's just campy and irrational enough to tuck itself somewhere in your mind, only to return should you make the mistake of allowing your imagination to wander even for a second. Just remembering the sound that thing made and how the ground would shake as it bounded along, even while it was out of view, fills me with dread as I type this. But the worst part is the very beginning of the level. The trial is set up like a race, and naturally, the race won't begin until you cross the start line. The brain is right there too, hopping up and down in anticipation but otherwise doing nothing. You know that the second that you cross that line, the temporary truce that you and the brain had established will end. The longer you stand there, the more your confidence will wane as the anxiety gnaws away. The brain even has the balls to give you a head start, only to freak the ever-loving shit out of you when it tears into view from beyond the screen border. Watch the longest two minutes in gaming here, then imagine failing and retrying this nightmare until your thumbs crumble from sheer attrition.
Silent Hill, the original. I was a mere child at the age of the game's release, and I had borrowed the title from, let's face it, the coolest high school math teacher ever. My mother didn't know, my father didn't know ... no one knew what I was doing. Alone in my room. Door locked. Furiously paddling my joysticks. The game was eerie, no doubt. And I wouldn't come to understand its sublime take on fatherhood and familial distress until much later in life, but it wasn't exactly scaring me just yet. I was unnerved, but not terrified. Skinless pterodactyls crashing through diner windows would make my heart skip a beat, but that adrenaline quickly boiled over to rage with Harry's inability to fire a fucking pistol. Shoot. Just shoot. Shoot STRAIGHT. He's right in front of you. Shoot! SHOOT! JUST SHOOT THE FUCKING THING, GOD DAMN YOU HARRY!! Finally though, the game got me. And it got me good. Why? Because it knew how to take its time with this lady. Foreplay, gentlemen. Horror foreplay. Walking around an abandoned school creeped me the hell out. It just plain did. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a teacher. I spent plenty of late nights with them working, and I knew exactly what it was like to walk down darkened halls, absent both of light and life. So when Harry entered the locker room (which ought to have been terrifying on its own - SPORTS!!) I was on my toes. A banging sound; but from where? Around the corner there, a small door. Rattling, clanging, groaning as if something inside furiously yearned to be free. Harry reached out with slight hesitation. Was this a good idea? A cat burst from the locker, sprinting and clawing feverishly in its attempt to escape. A sharp yelp from just outside the room. And then, silence. Later, Harry would re-enter a twisted, hellish version of that same locker room, only to hear that same distinct twang of metal on metal as the same locker door banged heavily again. But how was this possible? Had Harry traveled back in time? Or was this some nightmare, reminding me of the jump in my chest that had happened just a few short minutes ago? Harry reached out with that same hesitation, more unsure than ever if he should open this cage. His fingers touched upon the door and... stillness. The locker turned limp; lifeless. No more banging. No more noise. The door swung out with its hinges squealing, revealing an interior caked with blood and gore. Having grown up on a farm, the smell of dead animal was a familiar one. My nostrils flooded my brain, reminding me of the stench. My stomach lurched as the adrenaline from anticipation began to settle. Harry turned to walk away, nothing more to be found here. He took two, maybe three steps toward the exit. Another bang, this one even louder than before, as a blur fell before him; a corpse, twisted and mutilated, its face twisted in tortured agony. While my virtual avatar of Harry Mason only reeled back in horror, I ran screaming from my room, tears in my eyes. Or at least I would have, had I not forgotten I'd locked that door. *WHAM!*
I could go on for forever talking about the scariest moments in videogames. I seek scary games out, and I'd like to say that I've played them all. Maybe that's why my scariest moment came from my imagination. It happened while I was playing the first Dead Space. I was marathoning it for work, so that meant I was playing it for hours a day, late into the night. One night I had a nightmare that fused all of my survival horror gaming memories into one that I WISH would somehow turn into a real game. I still remember a bit of it. It was definitely a Dead Space world, but it was set to music that sounded like it came right out of Akira Yamaoka's head, meaning that there was a lot of rhythmic metal clanging and screeching. I was running from something that I was sure would be the flat, headless, floor-crawling things that would bite your legs but you'd never see in the later Silent Hill games. I felt hopeless in moving around, like in Fatal Frame, but of course, my movement was somewhat hindered like they are so often in dreams, like the first Silent Hill game. It all came to a head when I was trying to move, but running slow as molasses, and then got caught in Dead Space's sliding bookcases. I fucking hated that part of the game, and now it was in my nightmare! If this didn't do it for you, I have a runner-up: The Pyramid Head rape scene from Silent Hill 2. I remember walking into that room and being so surprised that it really scared me from that instant. I thought, "What...is that really what I think it is?!" It was humorous for a second, and then shocking. And then, hiding in the closet, peeping through the slats in the door, made it somehow worse. What would this thing to do you if you saw it? What really brought it home is that I tried to play all of the Silent Hill games while keeping mindful of what each scene and character might represent as symbolism. It reminded me that I was right inside the messed up head of James, and that the scariest things, just like my horror game dream, come right out of our heads.
My moment also came from Silent Hill 2, but since that's a story most of us share I'll lend you my only scared-shitless retro moment. After weeks of wanting to rip my eyeballs out of my face and cursing Mother Russia I had finally arrived at what I believed must be the last boss at Karnov. This weird ass music starts playing in front of these cave-like windows and there's like a 30 second period where nothing happens and you're just standing there, big bellied in a dark blue room, freaking the fuck out. I had no shields remaining so my adrenaline was going insane. I was sweating and pumped to beat this stupid game once and for all so I could return it to the video rental store. If not, I'd be out yet another dollar for being late. The stakes were high. I was fixated on a demon statue in the middle of the screen that I thought was going to come to life like the dog-demons in Ninja Gaiden, but instead these beady little green eyes suddenly lit up from one of the caves directly above me and then suddenly this dick-like dragon immediately beams out with this horrible metallic cry and fucks me in eye! It caught me off-guard so bad that I literally fell backwards from my borrowed patio chair, yanked the controller cord, and the console got unplugged and fell on top of me. The screen goes blue and blinking, and I just stood there looking at the little red power light blinking on the console. I wanted to kill myself. I was so pissed I just ran out screaming ... which got me yelled at by my parents ... at which point then I ran back and pulled out the cartridge. I lost it, sending burning eyes of hatred deep into his stupid mustache, but he ignored me because he was busy yelling at a pterodactyl already. I felt like one of the monkeys in the background. I beat the game later that night with rage and revenge and spite, because video games are FUN. The icing on the cake: do you know what the motherfucking ending is to Karnov? A black screen that says "Congratulations. The End." FUCK YOU, DATA EAST! FUCK YOU IN YOUR GRAVE WITH A DRAGON PENIS!
----- Now it’s your turn. All of the editors have shared their most terrifying videogame moments of all time. Vhat is yours? Is there any character more frightening than me, DRACULA?! BLAAAAAH! <turns into bat> |
| Jonathan Holmes helps Sonic get his 'act' back together Posted: 31 Oct 2011 08:45 AM PDT Those who tune in to Podtoid will recall that Jonathan Holmes' is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He helps the drug-addled and mentally unstable to, if not necessarily return to active society, at least become less of a danger to themselves and others. For years, Sonic the Hedgehog has suffered deeply from being unable to achieve the once dizzying heights of his youth. This has sent him into a tumultuous downward spiral, the depths from which no one thought he could ever emerge. Not Holmes, though. Holmes was there every step of the way to lend a sympathetic ear to one of gaming's greatest icons. His assistance helped Sonic to recapture some of that old spark with Sonic Generations, though we can never rule out the possibility of a relapse. The above portrait, inspiring yet heartrending, is the work of community member MrNorth, a frequent contributor of Destructoid fan art. He captures an essence that can barely be contained in two-to-three paragraphs. Observe and FEEL. Sonic Needs Help by ~MrNorth [deviantART] |
| The Jimquisition: The Ugly Secret of Horror Games Posted: 31 Oct 2011 08:30 AM PDT It's Halloween, the day that St. Spooky was born for our sins. On this haunted occasion, I discuss what truly makes a horror game scary and decide that the worse a game looks, the better it is at frightening you. With less impressive graphics, developers need to be a lot more inventive and work harder to create a creepy atmosphere. More importantly, low budgets and low-end visuals can create something that is both believable and thoroughly alien all at once. The Jimquisition explains how! |
| Buy 2, get 1 free at Amazon, L.A. Noire for $20 Posted: 31 Oct 2011 08:15 AM PDT Amazon has another fantastic batch of deals for you to take advantage of this week. They're running the ever-popular "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" sale on videogames, with a huge range of titles new and old available in the promotion. On top of that, you can nab L.A. Noire (360) or Homefront (PS3 or 360) for one of Andrew Jackson's grim portraits ($20). The daily deal is Call of Duty: World at War, knocked down nearly half at $15.99. I officially start Christmas shopping tomorrow, which means this is the last chance I have to buy a few things for me and not feel guilty about it. So, I grabbed Batman: Arkham City and El-Shaddai with ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection as my freebie. What are you thinking of saving some cash on? Video Games Deals [Amazon] |
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