Archive for Video Game Review

Left 4 Dead 1 & 2

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2017 by Lilliandra Winters

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Dev/Pub: Valve
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox360
Released: November 17th 2008 & November 17th 2009

Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 are by far two of the best games out there, in my opinion. I’m shocked I haven’t reviewed it as of yet. I’ve played the hell out of this game and just have some achievements to work on.

727f9a52112d14ec1d07dd712fe2d9b0f36e306b_hqNow here we will talk about that line of what people consider horror. Horror purists will say that it isn’t a horror game if you can fight back. They prefer game in which you can’t fight back, like Outlast, and will argue that if you can fight it is action and not truly horror no matter what you are fighting. I say, fuck that. If a zombie, demon or crazy lost wife in some backwater hillbilly mansion is trying to rip your intestines from your body, it’s horror.

Now, back to the game. Each episode has a movie poster and you are starring as one of four characters. In the first game it’s Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey. In the second it’s Coach, Ellis, Nick and Rochelle. I will point out that in the second game you (at least on PC) you have access to all of the episodes from the first game and it’s characters. However you can only play the characters appropriate to the mission, meaning you can’t play L4D characters in L4D2 episodes and vice versa.

left2b42bdead2b22bmonsterSo the story, it’s the zombie apocalypse, you’ve met 3 strangers and have banded together to try and make it out alive. This is a FPS survival horror game. You are equipped with a pistol that has infinite ammo and you can pick up various weapons you find. The weapon list isn’t long but can be entertaining. You have machine guns, rifles, machetes, frying pans, grenades, Molotov cocktails and more. However, any gun that isn’t a pistol has a limited ammo supply.  You have first aid kits, pain pills, adrenaline shots and even defibrillators to keep your character going. All this with a variety of dead things to attempt to kill you. From your normal zombies that run to your specials. Tank, Smoker, Boomer, Jockey, Spitter, Hunter, Charger and the damned Witch that will ruin your day fast. All of them horrible and deadly in their own right but when these bitches gang up on you while the normal zombies keep coming, it’s down right infuriating.

Now this is a game without end, sorry for spoilers but it’s literally about surviving. This isn’t looking for the cure or the reason it’s just surviving which is one of the reasons that I love it so much. It’s you verses them, that’s it. Get you and your friends out. I’m sure that doesn’t sound exciting to everyone but they add so much to such simplicity. It’s hard to get everyone out alive when a smoker has your buddy dangling off the edge of a building, strangling them while you’ve got a zombie hoard at your back that the AI or your friends is trying to deal with. It’s constant team work or cursing at the AI for being stupid. You always have a full party of 4 with you and if it isn’t your friend it’s the computer.

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Bottom line, it’s an amazing game that immerses you. I always get caught up in it and

find myself yelling, laughing and dying often. Oh and if you thought that the game was over once you did all the episodes, you are mistaken. After that, you get to go into verses matches. Play maps as the survivors or the special zombies mentioned above. Great for up to 8 people. Trash talking strongly encouraged.

What do you think? Have you played it and loved it, hated it? Interested? It’s available on Steam.

Huge Left 4 Dead Fan? There is a Fan Movie Left 4 Dead – The Movie, I’ll review that soon.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/112665788

 

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Review: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Game by: Michael Lutz
Platform: PC

The Uncle who Works for Nintendo is a weird choose-your-own-adventure horror indie game. Unlike most games that I adore, this is visual novel. I avoid these like the plague since they’re not as interactive as I’d like video games to be.

What’s it about?
Diving into it, you are a kid sleeping over at your best friend’s house. You have dinner with his parents, play video games with your buddy and unravel the weirdest tale possible.

What did I think?
The artwork is sketched backgrounds, beautifully simple and effective, with a few sound effects and some creepy atmosphere that only intensifies the incredible story. A story about a night at your best friend’s house and their uncle who works at Nintendo.

I’m not going to go into the story, but it’s perfectly written and free, so I urge you to play. It has 5 endings and a hidden one that takes some work to get to, but I have faith in you. You’ll get it.

It’s incredibly creepy, completely worth your time and very, very creepy pasta.

Maybe I need to stop giving visual novels a bad wrap?

Do I recommend it?
Play it, thank me or yell at me. Tell me what you think.

WintersOver4

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Review: My Bones

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Dev: Mamedov Yuriy
Platform: PC

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My Bones is an interactive horror game where your choices matter. You are a very confused man who wakes up in his own grave and must determine good versus evil… or, at least, that’s what I think it’s about.

Before I say anything, I will give props to anyone who has the skills to make a game because I lack those skills. I do have an understanding about how hard it is.

That being said, the graphics, ambiance, and sometimes extremely loud sound effects were all pretty awesome. However, its obvious butchery of language and horrific storyline left me wanting that time back. The story lacked sense and the absence of a writing editor made it even worse. I shuddered each time I had to read something. This game had so much potential, but it quickly went down the drain.

Don’t buy this game; it’s a waste of money. I wasted my time, so you don’t have to.

WintersOver4

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Review: One After Another (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Dev: Elisha Ramos
Platform: PC
Status: Complete

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Pixelated horror can be pretty damned intense and this game falls into that category. One After Another is a beautifully designed panic fest. The best part of 8-bit games is that the last thing you are worried about is the graphics and you pay attention to the game play and the story, which, when you come down to it, is the most important aspect.

You wake up in an abandoned facility with no information, shirtless and alone. As you begin your adventure, you quickly run into traps that kill you and monsters to hide from. I never knew 8-bit monsters could look so terrifying. Intense music combined with flickering lights helps exploring the unknown as suspenseful as you can imagine.

However, the ending is more shocking than I could have predicted. One After Another is a masterpiece of a horror story. You simply have to play, this is by far one of the coolest games ever.

WintersOver4

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Review: The Plague (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2016 by Lilliandra Winters

Dev: Slothy Games
Platform: PC
Status: Early Access

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It’s the 17th century and the Great Plague of London is running rampant. You are a child who wakes up in what looks like a church to find someone in a doctor’s mask eating another person.

This game is pretty simple. You are stuck running around a graveyard, collecting pumpkins to keep your candle lit. You are looking for a key to unlock the gate and following signs to escape. While you are running around, you have to avoid the “Plague Doctor,” who is hunting you.

The Plague is a fun, quick game. The graphics aren’t great, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. Sometimes simplicity is the best. The fog, weird blinking and the chance of your light going out is enough to freak you out. It reminds me of the Slenderman games, where you’re running around hunting for things while trying to avoid the big bad.

If you like quick horror games, then you should definitely give this your time.

WintersOver4

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Continuous (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2015 by Lilliandra Winters

Continuous & Continuously
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Continuous
Continuous is another loop-style horror game very much like Silent Hills PT. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Silent Hills PT was impressive, frustrating and chilling.

I was impressed by the graphics. They were better than I expected them to be in Continuous. The hallway was pleasant and looked like any hallway in any home with paintings on the wall. The hallway light flashes as you pass. The hall has a nursery, a storage room and a bathroom. You obviously don’t access all of these rooms immediately. The last door leads into the hallway again.

This game is much less puzzles and much more anticipation. Lots of sounds, red lights, black outs. Of course, there is a creepy baby crying and no baby to be seen. It has zero story and what I can only assume is the end is… well, it’s a guess that it’s the end of the game.

I think it was fairly awesome. It screws with you a lot, which is the point of horror games. If I understand correctly, this is their first attempt at a game and it was well done and part of a process.
Continuously 
The second installment was much different. This time, you have a stairwell for what looks like an office building of some sort. The graphics felt about the same, however this time there was a story to follow… sort of.

The story explains that a young girl was seen going into this room (I assume the room on the second floor) and was found dead with no explanation as to what may have killed her. They didn’t say how she died either, so I have to assume it was messy. The only thing out of place was a dark shadow near the windows.

The only thing I came away confused about was the whole lamp thing. “I just wanted to buy a lamp to brighten up his room.” This makes no sense in the story of what’s going on and seems kind of thrown in last minute to explain all the lamps you keep running into. You can only assume that “his” is a reference to the thing trying to kill you, but it’s never made clear.

Honestly, if I could combine both the games into one, I think it would be pretty solid. I enjoyed the area of the first one much more, but loved the fact that the second one actually had a story and, better yet, actually had an ending.

I would like to see what more they have to offer in the future. The improvement from one game to the next was impressive and obviously showed advancement. I hope this turns out to be a trilogy. It would be awesome to see if these two games were linked in some way.

Both games did what they were made to do: kept you at the edge of your seat and made you reluctantly continue, hesitating at every turn.

This is definitely worth playing.

WintersOver4

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Review of The Park (Video Game)

Posted in Review with tags , , , , , , on November 6, 2015 by Xander Woolf

Release Date: 10/23/2015The_Park_Screenshot_5
Publisher: Funcom
Platform: PC

Reprinted from Frags & Beer.

As a horror blogger, I’m sad to say that I don’t play many horror games. I’ll watch horror movies until the world ends, but there’s something about being an active participant in horror that’s absolutely terrifying. This game was no exception.

What’s it about?
Based on a portion of the game The Secret World, also published by Funcom, The Park is a one to two hour first-person horror game that is set in a dilapidated amusement park called Atlantic Island Park. The game follows Lorraine, a single mother who is searching for her lost son Callum and finding nothing but horrifying sadness.

Here’s the trailer:

What did I think?
I was able to play through the whole thing in about an hour and fifteen minutes and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. You enter the park, then follow notes, copies of incident reports and newspaper clippings, all of which detail dark energy, murders and how creepy Chad the Chipmunk is. You can hop on the different rides in the park, but be prepared for horrifying images as you fly by. It’s all very typical of horror games, as far as I can tell.

The graphics are about the same as The Secret World. They’re dark and creepy, giving off just the right vibe for a horror game. The graphics along with the soundtrack were enough to make me stop to gather my courage a few times before moving forward. There were quite a few points when I muttered “I don’t wanna” or “NOPE.” Somehow, I was able to carry on. I was almost in tears by the time the credits were rolling.

As the game progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that the underlying theme is about parenting. It’s less about the monsters in the park – a tall man-like figure referred to as The Bogey Man and Chad the Chipmunk – and more about Lorraine, her mental illness and her feelings toward Callum. This is the type of horror story that I love, to be completely honest. While the monsters in the park are quite frightening, the demons within Lorraine are much, much worse.

Do I recommend it?
Yes, very much so… if you’re not a parent. If you like dark games that make your heart beat fast with anticipation and suspense, then this is definitely the game for you. Currently $12.99 on Steam, The Park will be sure to leave you with a sick feeling in your stomach, which is the sign of good horror.

Watch me play through it here:

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