Eternal Darkness: Hallucinations that Steal Your Sanity

Remember the good old days of the survival horror genre?  Back when quick time events weren't considered a necessary feature, and Resident Evil games weren't Gears of War with zombies?  Those were the days.  Today I thought we could take a trip down memory lane to a survival horror game on the Gamecube called Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.  But rather than covering the plot of the game, let's take a look at the game's defining feature: sanity effects.

In Eternal Darkness, you are bestowed with a sanity meter, which fills up mainly by executing finishing moves on enemies.  However, this meter has a tendency to drain when you encounter said enemies, and once it reaches a critical level of emptiness you get to experience the game's sanity effects.

Sanity effects are events that occur to screw with your head, such as moments when you'll be exploring a room and spontaneously the sounds of screams or footsteps will be heard.  As your character's sanity further disappears, more extreme events will occur.  On occasion you might enter a room which appears to be filled with monsters all rushing to attack you, only to find that they vanish when you begin to fight back.  Other times you might suddenly find your character walking upside down on the ceiling, or even dying for no reason whatsoever.

The developers even went so far as to include sanity effects that will have you rushing to your Gamecube to check for actual hardware problems.  One of the more devious effects has you entering a room filled with monsters, only to have no control over your character while a message flashes on the screen telling you that your Gamecube's controller is unplugged.

Also brutal is when the screen goes completely dark, as if you had turned off your TV.  There is even a sanity effect that will nearly give you a heart attack: it pretends to delete all your saved games.

No matter what you choose, it still says that all saves have been deleted.

Thankfully all sanity effects are temporary, and upon completion of the event you will restart in the last room you entered, with no damage done to your inventory/saved games/Gamecube.  Truly this is a unique and unnerving feature, and one I much prefer to the button-mashing quick time events that seem to have become a staple in survival horror (if you can even call the new Resident Evil games survival horror these days).  If you've got a Gamecube, and you want to lose some sanity, definitely check this one out!

QWOP - The Flash Running Simulator From Hell

Hello everybody!  It's been an awful long time since the last update, let's just say I had a rotten 2012.  But now it's a new year, and it's time to get rolling with the strange again!

Today let's take a look at one of the most difficult flash games in existence: QWOP.

You'll spend the majority of your time at the starting line.

The objective of the game sounds simple enough: controlling only your character's thighs and calves, run 100 meters.  Piece of cake right?  Wrong, oh so very wrong.

Thighs are controlled using the Q & W keys, while the calves are controlled by the O & P keys, and it's up to you to time the movements of each limb segment perfectly in order to propel the runner forward.  It is insanely difficult just to keep the runner balanced, and in my case, I ended up falling backwards multiple times for impressive finishes such as -2.4 meters.

Standing upright has never been this tough.

 File QWOP under one of the most deceitful concepts for a game, something that sounds so easy yet is so frustratingly difficult.  Don't believe me?  Well try out QWOP for yourself and let me know how well you finish, maybe you'll even get to 100 meters and finish the game.

Introducing Blog Achievements!

Seeing as everything these days has some form of achievement system (Xbox 360, Steam, social networks, etc), I've decided to implement an achievement system for this blog (they can be found using the title bar at the top of the page).  It's just something silly, but it'll be fun to keep track of certain milestones.  If you guys have any ideas for achievements I should shoot for, let me know, and I'll add them to a "currently locked achievements" section.

The Birthday Cake is a Lie (and Poisonous)!

Amazing how time flies, today is the one-year anniversary of the first "Strange Moment in Gaming History" post on this blog!  Many thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my posts!

So why don't we celebrate with the cake from Portal?

Before you dig in though, you might want to read through the list of ingredients for the cake, which contains some inedible items, such as "fish shaped solid waste" and "fish shaped dirt."  If you feel that your stomach can handle GLaDOS' stomach-dissolving cake, well then enjoy!

The Dark Side of Voice Acting in Games

Voice acting in videogames always seems to be hit or miss. The voice actors either do a fantastic job, which immerses us into the story, or they fail spectacularly, leading to years of Youtube memes and bad jokes on gaming forums.  In the past I have written about some of the most famous instances of laughable voice acting, so today I'd like to try something different.

If you're a geek like me, you enjoy looking up game voice actors on IMDB in order to see all the various game characters they've voiced throughout their careers.  There's no doubt that while they may be proud to have voiced certain characters, they most certainly harbor deep feelings of shame at the thought of some of the other pixelated bozos they were suckered into voicing.

Take for instance John DiMaggio, the voice actor for Marcus Fenix of the Gears of War series (as well as roughly one billion other game characters).

As hard as it is to believe, the voice actor of the chainsaw-wielding bad-ass is also the same guy who voiced the goofy hairstyle-challenged Wakka from Final Fantasy X.

Let's go kill some Locust, ya?

Ouch right?  That's not even the worst case.  Remember our good buddy Grunt from Mass Effect 2?

This unstoppable tank of a Krogan was voiced by Steve Blum, who just happens to be the same guy who voiced the super-creepy Yellow Monkey in Ape Escape 3.

Tingle's got some competition in the creepiness category.

Hearing Grunt talk about killing things just won't be the same after learning about this unfortunate connection to the Ape Escape franchise.  Anyway, now we move on to what I consider the most tragic story of all: Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem.

We've all heard the awesome one-liners, and we've all witnessed the 80's action-hero badassness that is Duke Nukem (ok not so much in his latest outing, but we can look past that because he's the Duke!).  But did you know that Jon St. John is also a voice actor in the somewhat recent (Dreamcast era to present) Sonic the Hedgehog games?  If the knowledge that Duke's voice actor is present in the Sonic series didn't make you run from your computer to go cry over your copy of Duke Nukem 3D, then maybe this will:  Jon St. John voices Big the Cat.

No you didn't read that wrong, the idiotic, annoying, clumsy blob Big the Cat shares the same voice actor with Duke Freaking Nukem.  It's painful isn't it?  I had to emulate a copy of Sonic Adventure just to verify it and witness the horror for myself.  Curse you Sega!!

And that wraps up this quick look at the dark side of voice acting.  Have you ever had any funny/shocking moments upon discovering the various characters a voice actor has...um...voiced?  Let me know, I'd like to hear your stories!

E3 Aftermath, and Halo 4: Master Chief Rides Again

Another year, another E3 come and gone.  I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the show this year, I was expecting the Wii U to have a stronger presence.  It would have been awesome if Nintendo came along with a new Mario game (New Super Mario Bros doesn't count!), Zelda game, and Donkey Kong game, and really showed us how the gameplay can be fresh and exciting with the new tablet controller.

Doomed to be a gimmick? Let's hope not.

Also I'm a bit angry with Valve for not making any announcements.  A couple months back, Gabe Newell (the co-founder of Valve) said that Valve would be announcing "all our favorite things" at E3, including a game with a '3' in it.  Those of us who have been waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (or just Half-Life 3) were pretty much jumping for joy at this point.  A couple weeks after this exciting statement, Newell followed up by saying he was pretty much lying through his teeth: Valve would not be making any announcements at E3.  Even after hearing this, I still held onto some hope, but alas, no announcements.

What surprised me the most at this year's E3 was the trailer and gameplay demo of Halo 4.  It did something I never thought possible: it got me interested in the Halo series again.  After playing the disappointing Halo 3: ODST, I vowed never to buy another Halo game again.  However, the trailer for Halo 4 appeals to my inner sci-fi geek; it looks like the game might actually have a strong story!  I'm very interested in learning about the world the Master Chief is stranded on, which appears to be populated by Forerunner-created AI.  Also I'm wondering why the Elites are an enemy again (make up your mind guys!).


What were your favorite moments of E3 2012?  Is there anything you're especially excited about?

The Unexpected Non-Rock Songs of Rock Band

I still remember the music videogame craze, the time when everyone wanted to own a set of plastic musical instruments.  Those were the days.  I was one of the many gamers who picked up Rock Band on the day it launched, and looking back at all the hours I've spent on the game (and Rock Band 2, and The Beatles Rock Band), I don't regret it at all.

Now in a game called "Rock Band," you expect the soundtrack to consist entirely of rock songs right?  This was not the case; for example the game shipped with a Beastie Boys song, and as the DLC rolled in, we were treated to music of varying genres.

Speaking of the DLC, some really questionable songs managed to make it to the download store, including music by this fellow right here:

Why Harmonix, why??

Yes I kid you not, there are songs from Spongebob Squarepants available for purchase in the Rock Band download store.  I guess Harmonix was trying to appeal to all ages?  Whatever they were thinking, these songs are extremely out of place in Rock Band, and if you still don't believe that Harmonix has committed such an atrocity, see for yourself:




Another questionable inclusion is a South Park version of Lady Gaga's Poker Face (the original Poker Face is also available for download, and it has no business being in Rock Band either).  Truth be told, this song seems even more out of place than the Spongebob music, seeing as it's a non-rock song being covered by Cartman from South Park.




Lastly we come to an out of place and extremely awesome song for Rock Band: Still Alive from Portal.  This song was originally released as April Fool's Day DLC, and even though you get some laughs from seeing the in-game singers performing with GLaDOS' voice, you can't help but love this song no matter what game it makes a cameo appearance in.




That wraps up our look at some of the non-rock songs in the Rock Band DLC.  Out of curiosity, did you guys make any questionable download decisions in the Rock Band download store?