Overview forgames

PSX 2015

How 'bout that PlayStation Experience, huh? Lots of cool stuff was announced there including the deets on Street Fighter V, the remake of Final Fantasy VII, and a whole butt load of information about PlayStation VR. The biggest treat from that was hearing that Rez would be coming out for it called Rez Infinite! And bigger during the stage demo was seeing that Tetsuya Mizuguchi was the one playing the game in a fancy jump suit that’s essentially the 2.0 version of the Trance Vibrator. So that’s what he’s been up to recently.

But unlike a port of the game like Rez HD was for the 360, it will supposedly include a new level called area X. This is all so cool and probably the reason why I’ll now need to buy a PlayStation VR when it comes out.

Also at the event, Tim Schafer dropped by to show what they’ve been working on for the Day of the Tentacle remastered version and then announcing another one of his adventure games from the LucasArts days is going to be remaster soon as well: Full Throttle. THEN he noted his crowdfunding campaign for Psychonauts 2 and how there will be a Psychonauts game for the VR called Rhombus of Ruin.

There was more, so I suggest checking out the stream if you want to see the rest of the announcements. Lots of cool stuff is in the works for PlayStation and here’s hoping 2016 is just as good as 2016 is/was.

Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.

Wow, this mod for Star Wars Battlefront is insane. It adds a filter to the game that makes the terrain look incredibly real. When I first glanced at the screenshots of this mod, I totally thought they were photos taken from a set. As dopey as that sounds, it’s true!

Greatly named the “Toddyhancer” mod, it was created by a dude named Martin Bergman who previously made a mod for GTA V that made the game look more lifelike, too. With that one it made the world look like you were viewing it through the lens of a camcorder, but Toddyhancer makes it look like you are actually there. Well, at least to my peepers it does.

It’s an unofficial mod and I heard it drops the frame rate considerably by like 40 frames, so in action it probably looks terrible, but with just screenshots, boy does it look good. With this tech, we can finally make a Rebel Assault 3 that doesn’t need to have sets or actors to make the scenes because the tech is good enough now so we don’t have to deal with real stuff like those anymore. Yeah, RA3. SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO THIS!

Black Mamba has spoken

Earlier this week Kobe announced that he would be retiring at the end of this season. This marks an end of an era for the Lakers as he’s been with the team since 1996. That’s a long time. To put this timeframe in perspective, he started playing for them shortly before Space Jam was released in theaters. Oh my!

Anyways, whenever I think of the Lakers from the ‘90s, I always think of this magazine ad for NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant for the N64. Kinda sad that the joke in the ad became the reality of today, but I guess that’s expected from someone who’s played a high impact sport for over 19 years.

Also, I forgot he used to sport a mini afro back in the day.

Listen

I’d like to point out how awesome the Dreampod podcast was this week. They had a special guest from Retro Sumus to discuss the deets regarding their current project and future ventures. Towards the end they gave the Dreamcast Junkyard an exclusive on something they have in store for a special release for one of their games. Super cool stuff.

Tales from a scaredy cat

It’s Halloween, so I figured I should get into the spirit of today’s festivities by writing about the top three most spooktacular games I have ever played. Games that kept me up at night questioning if every noise I heard was coming from someone -- or something -- that was shuffling their way around the house, slowly making their way to my room.

Dark Seed

This one gave the creeps. PC games were still foreign to me at the time and a lot of them seemed to have horror themed stories. Dark Seed was no exception. My cousin’s dad had this game on his computer and showed it to me when I think I was 12, so I was at that point in my life where things like this shouldn’t be scary so I was putting on an act that it wasn’t, but on the inside I was terrified. I think the most unnerving thing about Dark Seed was my cousin telling me that you die on the 6th day (the story takes place over a period of a few days) by seeing your character wake up and then getting stuck on the ceiling, having the game be in an unwinnable state where you would have to restart from the beginning. I don’t know if he was lying or may have noticed a bug in the game, but just the thought that your death was imminent within just a few days gave me chills.

Blood

A game full of dark humor, but I was unaware of it all when I was playing Blood. I was taking it all in face value and being frightened by seeing a mass of zombies, occultists, and gargoyles running towards me with their axes, Tommy guns, and sharp claws. I will admit I only played the shareware version, but couldn’t even finish that because Blood scared me enough that I had to stop playing and I never got around completing it. And that’s a real shame because that game was so cool with all its weapons and level designs. Take for an example the flair gun. Shoot it at an enemy and nothing will happen at first. Only sparks will be firing out from their chest. Soon after they will combust into flames, running towards you screaming until they drop and turn into a pile of smoldering ash. Scary, but efficient since it’s a one hit kill. Levels were fun to explore and involved running around places like a train station, a moving passenger train perfectly named the Phantom Express, and a carnival.

Silent Hill 3

Of all the games I’ve played throughout my life, this is the one I was forced to stop playing because the palms of my hands would be so sweaty from fear that the controller would slip out from my grip. So I would have to rest for a bit, dry the controller and wash my hands before I could continue on. I don’t’ know. Maybe the reason it was so scary to me was because the level designs were so great with details that the world looked incredibly real to me. Couple it with the fact that the locations you visit are more in line with actual places you would go to like a mall or an office building, then it has a stronger ability to resonate with you and pull you deeper into its world. Check it out yourself. That game came out in 2003 and graphically it’s aged pretty well.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Feelin’ it at 150–180 bpm

I fell into a pit recently, listening to video game soundtracks that have DnB tracks. More specifically, I’m focusing on games from the latter half of the ‘90s when that genre of electronic music was fresh and popular.

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit - Romulus 3

Rage Racer - Lightning Luge

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Psyche Out

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit - Pi

Wipeout XL - Photek - The Third Sequence

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Psyche Out