4th October, 2008 (11:30 am)
The Day I Hated Konami (6)
I hate Konami.
I don’t really. Obviously. They gave the world two of my favourite games series of all time - Silent Hill and Metal Gear - but wtf, the arsing about with the PAL release of Silent Hill: Homecoming has just been farcical. One minute it’s aligned with the US release, the next it’s a week later, the next it’s after fucking Christmas. JUST GIVE ME A DATE YOU BASTARDS. It’s bad enough knowing that my US friends have already ripped the shrink-wrap off of this gorgeous, gross little game, but it’s worse still not to know when I’m going to get the chance to do the same. As I type this, Amazon UK aren’t even listing the game (least not when you search for ’silent hill’ anyways - but then Amazon aren’t overly reliable with game releases), whereas Play.com states 31st October. That seems to be the date sported by most sites, but it pisses me off that I don’t actually know . . . and I’ll kill myself if I get my heart set on the 31st only to find the game pushed back again.
I’ve put in my pre-order for Dead Space though, so I should be kicking the shit out of corpses and aliens within a fortnight. I know I’ve oversold this game to death but seriously - when did I ever lie to you? Didn’t I tell you that the Bee Movie sucked? See - I’d never lie to you. And this game is awesome. Char believes me - you should too.
Methinks that all this senseless zombie killing may be good for my bad gunky - I could do with some cathartic ass-kicking.
Comments: (6)
8th August, 2008 (1:34 pm)
The Day With Dead Space (8)
So. Dead Space.
When this opportunity first came about, I posted over at SHHF, asking for questions, suggestions, ideas etc. on what to ask when I got there. The response I got to my plea? ‘Varied’ barely covers it. EA isn’t typically a studio survival horror fans have much time for, so scraping past the barely-contained hostility (”What the hell is EA doing, touching survival horror?” “Why the fuck are they interested in SHHF anyway?”) I did discover a reluctant interest in the new title. As a collective the Silent Hill Community can be a humourless, hyper-sensitive and hyper-critical bunch who often slate the games they love never mind the ones they loathe (no offense, guys - I love you and I’m one of you, but you know it’s true), but it was clear that many fans have been following the development of the game from when it first hit our consciousness. And whilst others had only possessed a mild interest to date, they were prepared to hear more nonetheless. Enter Vixx.
I had two things in the front of my mind when I accepted the invitation to head off to the EA studio in Redwood City, CA: 1) it’s going to suck if I’m the only female there and 2) I’m not going to say it’s good if it turns out to be crap, even if they are flying me out. I can’t be bought cheaply (well, I can, but not when it comes to gaming) and if I’m going to say that it rocks, it’s really going to have to rock - completely, utterly and equivocally. This meant that I spent much of the flight over in a blind, sweaty panic, wondering how the hell I could phrase OMG THIS GAME SUCKS DONKEY BALLS politely enough not to sever my newly-formed links with EA forever.
I needn’t have worried. Dead Space rocked. (And I was one of two females in the thirty-two strong crowd. Awesome.)
It was hard to know what to expect initially. DS had been touted to me as a Silent-Hill-Meets-Event-Horizon extravaganza, and while that sounded cool enough . . . well, I think I’m the only person on the planet who was bored stupid of Event Horizon. You know I’m a horror girl - I’m all about the jumps and the bumps and the gore. Sc-Fi’s okay but it’s never been my genre of choice, so it was hard for me to imagine being as scared shitless running through a shiny, clean futuristic environment as I am stomping through a dark, abandoned hospital or creepy-ass school. Silent Hill works because it twists every day normality, so how can a game set 500 years in the future possibly engage me in the same way?
It does. It does because whilst the environment is new, what you’re fighting isn’t (check this amazing trailer to find out more). Much like the enemies of SH2, the fact that you’re fighting creatures that, despite their deformities, are of human origin is a truly horrific twist - and there’s something so sad, so pitiful about that. I was drenched in dismay right up until I had my torso sliced in half by one of the necromorphs - funnily enough, I’m now no longer so humanitarian about it all. :p I tell you though, it has been some time since I died THAT MUCH and THAT OFTEN in a game. The enemies are bloody FAST and it doesn’t take much before you’re nothing but a pile of chopped meat.
A full write up, including details of my interview with the development team (they’re all big fans of Silent Hill, and are clean and open about the fact that if they want to make the most frightening game to date, they know that it’s Silent Hill they need to top) and my gameplay experience will be posted on SHHF shortly - along with the TRULY nerdy stuff that I tried to suppress here - but suffice to say, it was badass. The lack of HUD didn’t bother me - survival horror is all about being immersed into the gameplay anyways - but the fact you can’t pause the action when you’re in your inventory or map (i.e. no respite from getting your ass kicked) is pure revolution, as is the holographic ammo display when you arm a gun (essential: ammo is SCARCE) and your protagonist, Issac Clark’s, life metre, which runs up his spine. There are no cut scenes or movies - that’s right, all the screenshots you’ve seen to date are in-game - so NOTHING takes you out of the game and the player retains control of the character for 99% of the time. Strategic dismemberment means that you not only need to shoot sparingly but also accurately, and learn as much as you can about the enemies in order to dispatch them quickly and effectively. There’s no point holding the gun up and firing randomly; if you don’t shoot smartly, taking out limbs and tentacles strategically, you’re going to do nothing but to piss off some of these bad boys . . . and you really don’t want that.
My final tip? Stamp on every motherfucking body you see, alien or not. Trust nothing and no-one, as anyone of them could be infected and bite you on the ass the moment you turn your back. Literally.
Comments: (8)
14th April, 2007 (10:59 pm)
The Day I Found Some Things (3)
Creating a WP theme didn’t finish me off, I promise. It’s just that life’s been getting in the way of the ‘net these days. I’ve been soooo chuffed with the response to my first theme, though - 200+ downloads in less than a week? Yay!
No, the reason for my silence is neither surprising, nor particularly interesting. Going back to work has almost flattened me. I don’t think that I knew how hard it was going to be, nor how, in all actuality, going back to work before my body was ready has truly affected me. I’m trying really hard to get back into the swing of things, but I’m tired all the time. Not even going to bed at 9pm is helping - regardless of how much sleep I get, by 2pm I’m ready to drop.
Anyway, I’ve been having a bit of a SH fangirl day today. Weird, really. I bought a kickass japanese boxset of the film the other day from eBay, and I suppose that that got me to reminiscing a bit about the game, and the music and everything else. I went to put on the OST for SH2 when I realised that my music files were still in a bit of a mess following my iPod rip, and then - with a heavy heart - remembered that I lost GBs and GBs of SH bits and pieces along with everything else when my PC died.
So I dug out my SH stuff and lo and behold, I happened across some very old, but very wonderful, back-up discs that I’d forgotten that I had. Containing almost all of my SH2 pics (the most important ones to me), along with the discs Dusty and Dave had sent me over the years. All in all, not including music, it’s almost two gigs worth - and that, my friends, makes Vixx a very happy girl.
More amazingly still, checking for that disc I also found a huge pile of photographs that M and I had had developed, including S’s 1st and 2nd birthday, his first Christmas, first holiday and a heap of other things that are simply fantastic. So even if I end up not being able to claw a single image back from that defunct HDD, at least I still have something so that when he gets older, sports eyeliner and starts routinely telling me that he hates me, I can also be reminded of how gorgeous my little man was. Yay!
Comments: (3)
28th August, 2006 (11:57 am)
Random Thought #69 (3)
I need to replay all of the Silent Hill games. Seriously.
V xx
Comments: (3)
26th April, 2006 (6:17 am)
The Day SHHF Blew Up (1)
Well, not really. But you have to admit, it makes a snappy title.
We’ve encountered our first bandwidth problems since the forum was relaunched six months ago. I’ve contacted our support team and I’m working on getting the forum back up ASAP. Keep an eye out on the SHHF LiveJournal Community for the latest news - and feel free to use the SHH LJ to post those burning posts in the meantime!
[Edit] We’re back now, baby!
V xx
Comments: (1)
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