Zombie Halloween Premium Theme - Theme Review (X-Box 360)

Kinda bad in that I cannot actually find a picture of this anywhere on the Internet, plus my webcam is not working, nor is my mobile phone. For this reason there will be no picture of what the Theme looks like.  As it is coming up to Halloween I thought I would treat myself to Disruptive Medias Zombie Halloween Premium Theme.

The theme is based on zombies rather unsurprisingly.  The Realm of the Dead Theme was based on a zombie street scene.  This one is far more traditional.  The background picture has a spooky realistic looking mansion in the centre.  From the mansion are shambling zombies.  On the left of the screen is what appears to be a giant monstrous tree made up of monsters, a pile of skulls at its base.  The right side of the screen has a old gate leading to woods.  A stone gargoyle stands on the gates pillar, and the trees of the wood has bodies hanging off of them on hooks.  The incidental pictures are quite cool.  These include a legless zombies with a chainsaw sticking out its back, a zombie holding a severed arm, a hung body with its insides spilling out, skeletons and more.

The Theme cost 240 Microsoft points, it does look good, but the Realm of the Dead Theme is the better one.  Still for Halloween I will have this Theme up (need to make my moneys worth on the expensive thing!)  Wouldn't really recommend wasting money on this.

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General update for October - Halloween is coming!

Another month, and I am around 3 weeks from being jobless. On the bright side I will be able to work on my blog more (much much more). Halloween at the end of the month, which is my favourite celebration of the year! I plan to do a blog post on the top 5 (or maybe 10) Halloween films to watch at that time. Also I plan to do a blog post on the Northampton Roadmenders (a nightclub) Halloween party that is being done by Dean Boor of Shock Horror magazine fame.

Now I don't know if you know this, but the UK supermarket Tesco usually has a wonderful collection of Halloween themed items. They have everything from skull shaped candles to masks, laughing skulls, fake body parts, sweets, and fake weapons. The best day to get any of this stuff is the day after Halloween as it all goes immediately to half price. My house is full of this stuff, I pick up a bunch every year (though 2009 was a poor year for them).

In film news; at the moment, or maybe just gone there were a few horror films at the cinema. Devil (which I recently reviewed), as well as Buried have just stopped being shown. Later this month the next and apparent final instalment in the Saw franchise is to be shown, titled Saw 3D. Look forward to that one!

In game news. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was recently released.  It does not feel like a Castlevania game, being a God of War clone, but the music is very epic, and it looks amazing. The demo is available on Playstation 3, and X-Box 360, and mainly sees you as a vampire hunter (voiced Robert Carlyle - 28 Weeks Later) fighting werewolves in a forest. Costume Quest is out around Halloween time. The game is a downloadable role playing game by Tim Shafer that sees you as three children on Halloween night fighting monsters. Should be really good. This Friday (the 22nd) sees the release of Fallout: New Vegas which is the latest entry in the fantastic post-apocalyptic RPG series. Expect plenty of mutants, ghouls, bandits, and crazed wildlife to fight! Dead Space: Ignition was recently released on X-Box Live Arcade, and Playstation Network. This is a prequel to the forth coming Dead Space 2, and is set as a (slightly) interactive comic. Not supposed to be great, but I expect plenty of necromorph violence to be shown.

In non horror news. Sonic 4 Episode 1 is out.  It has been a long 16 year wait between Sonic 3 and 4 but is kind of worth it. The game is super fun, and has amazing music. Only 4 zones, and they are heavily influenced by past Sonic games (respectively Green Hill Zone, Casino Zone, Labyrinth Zone, and Metropolis Zone). The special stages are very similar to the look of Sonic 1's maze.

I am currently working my way through the excellent Battlestar Galactica. BSG is a sci-fi show about the human survivors of a robot invasion (the robots being man made machines called Cylons). Each episode bad stuff seems to happen. Is very exciting, and thrilling due to the nature of the scary Cylons who appear both in the robotic form (a cross between Terminators and Nightrider's KIT), and also as carbon copy humans who are able to infiltrate the humans and cause bad things to happen. When I have seen the entire 4 or 5 seasons I will do a big blog review of the show.

Happy Halloween everyone, hope it is really scary, and cool for you! Oh yeah, it is Day of the Undead soon, a day of zombie films at some place in Leicester organised by Zombie Ed and the Terror4Fun crew.

Case 39 (2009) - Horror Film Review

Case 39 sounded like a boring thriller type drama, but watching the trailer there was all manner of screwed up stuff so I decided to give it a go.

Case 39 sees a social worker Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) investigating reports of child abuse at a strange household. The parents of the child are completely weird, and the child terrified to speak out against them. Told by her boss to leave the case alone due to no evidence she instead pursues it.  Luckily she did as she, and a cop buddy (who looks very much like Al Pacino, I believe it is the actor who played 'Lovejoy') burst in on the creepy parents to find them trying to cook the daughter Lilith alive in a giant oven. Taking pity on the child, Emily agrees to look after her until a suitable family can be found. As those she loves start dying around her Emily comes to think that the seemingly benign Lilith might somehow be responsible. With no evidence on hand, Emily sets out to find just what the deal is with the creepy girl and find a way to stop her.

I am so sick of spooky little girl films, I think Orphan (while a good film) was the one that broke the camel's back. Hide and Seek, The Reaping, The Ring et al - stop it! I no longer find creepy little girls in creepy little girl films creepy, they are just annoying, and irritating.  I really wanted to just punch Lilith (played by Jodelle Ferland) in her cocky mouth. Lilith acts nice and sweet around some people, while around others she mind messes with them. She seems to have psychic powers, able to read minds to find out people's deepest secrets, and use them as a form of torture. By phoning the victim she chooses Lilith is able to create extremely vivid hallucinations. One example sees a character attacked by thousands of hornets in his bathroom. They swarm out of his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and is totally disgusting. I really hate insects, ugh!  She uses this power to control people, threatening them with extreme fear if they don't do what she says.

The character of Emily is totally stupid. She starts the film as a real sickly goody two shoes. Each case she deals with she has a real (unintentional) arrogant air to her. Yet with utterly no proof whatsoever she decides this little girl Lilith is a monster and sets about trying to find a way to murder her. It is quite silly how quickly she decides the girl must die when she has no reason whatsoever to think this. The film ends on a kind of positive note, but Emily is in for a hell of a lot of trouble. Good, the lame character deserves it!

I am going to go into spoilers, the film is not very good, so I don't feel bad about ruining it. It is hypothesised during the film that a spirit was reincarnated into the body of Lilith during her birth but retained all its knowledge of past lives, and so is very crafty. Then it is actually shown there is a demon inside the girl, a demon that can ;Jekyll and Hyde; like transform the girl into a lumbering brute. Thankfully apart from a giant arm this monster is never shown, even then it looks totally stupid. My main problem is that this whole film is near identical to a episode of the ace Supernatural. They did the whole plot a whole lot better in a forty five minute episode than was managed here in a hour and a half with a larger budget. 

The film does look good, and it did keep me watching right up till the end. The hallucination inspired death scenes were quite cool, as were some of the effects (though some of those hornets sure looked a tad computer generated)  First film I have seen Zellweger in, she's an ok actress but nothing special.  It also had Bradley Cooper in it, as well as a 'Cylon' actor (from Battlestar Galactica), and the eighties antique dealer 'Lovejoy'.  Not a completely terrible film, just not a very good one.

As an endnote; there was a scene in which Emily had a hallucination that she was being chased by a zombie like woman, was kinda cool I guess.

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Devil (2010) - Horror Film Review

Devil is yet another film by M.Night Shyamalan, he co-wrote the script, as well as produced the film. It is yet another horror, and again it has a twist to it (of a kind). It does feel similar to his other works.

Devil is set in an office building in the middle of a bustling city. Five apparent strangers all get into a lift. The five people include a security guard, salesman, rich lady, middle aged woman, and a scruffy looking ex military man. Soon after the lift starts it promptly breaks down. This is the least of the occupants worries though, as bizarrely people start getting killed off one by one. Yet despite security guards, and Police monitoring the lifts security camera, and despite the cramped conditions of the lift itself it is not apparent which of the five are the killer due to convenient power cuts that plunge the place into darkness for minutes at a time. One of the guards monitoring the situation comes up with the idea that what is happening is a 'Devil's Meeting'; a scenario where guilty strangers are brought together in one location, and then tortured and killed by the Devil in human disguise. As events unfold it is revealed that each and every person in the lift has dark secrets, and have many enemies who would wish them harm. Could it be that was is happening is actually a real Devils Meeting?

Shyamalan manages to spin this simple tale into a hour and a half. The premise is interesting, and there is a real chill factor due to knowing one of the five people trapped in the lift is actually a murderer. The scariest moments of the film are when the lifts power goes out, as this usually results in another death. The characters come to really fear the dark. Violence happens in the darkness, for example; one character gets a shard of glass jammed through their neck, another is hung, while yet another has their head completely twisted around. To go with this tale there is a subplot involving a depressed detective investigating a suicide. He gradually gets caught up in the events of the lift.

There is not a lot of mystery surrounding the plot (other than who the killer is). There is some effort to make the viewer question if the events are actually a supernatural event, or if there is a more human explanation. Each of the people's backgrounds are revealed during the film. Each person has done terrible things in their lives, and so give motive for them being killed. To be honest though there is never really any real doubt due to demonic images turning up on the surveillance footage of the lift, as well as a voice over throughout the film which tells of a fable the narrator's mother told him as a child of a Devil's Meeting.

The film is really quite creepy, and had me tearing up a bit towards the end. One of the last scenes when it is just the final survivor trapped in the titchy lift with the Devil is almost too much. Just thinking about that situation sent chills down my spine. There are quite a few violent deaths in the film, but due to the nature of the deaths they are done in pitch black, so only the aftermaths of the killings are shown. As well as the victims in the lift there are also quite a few other characters who end up dead as a result of their efforts to stop the Devil's Meeting from resolving. The plot ends quite well with all the loose ties tied up. The film does have a similar feel, and resolution to many of Shyamalan's other films.

Well worth a watch, Devil shouldn't have enough material to carry it for the length of a normal film, but didn't feel padded out. Quite creepy, though I don't know if that come from the fact that I was watching it in a big cinema totally alone at night.

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'The Hellbound Heart' by Clive Barker - A Horror Book Review

The Hellbound Heart should be familiar to anyone who reads it, as it was turned into a film, quite a iconic film in fact.  The Hellbound Heart is the book that Hellraiser was based on.  Written by Clive Barker (a very famous author whose other work I have not yet read) the book is a Novella, or short story.

The plot is identical to the film based on it.  A married couple move into the husbands brothers house.  It turns out the brother (Frank) was stole away to a Hellish Demon dimension after opening up a magical puzzle box which promised eternal pleasure.  It seems for Frank to return to the World he needs blood sacrifice to rebuild his shattered body.  Blood sacrifice that Julia (Franks brother Rory's wife) is all too happy to provide due to her obsession with Frank.  It all ends with a friend of Rory's (the miserable, love sick Kirsty) accidentally unlocking the puzzle box and summoning a host of Cenobites (Demons) to claim back the escaped Frank.

Being a Novella, and not a full blown book means the tale is quite short, around 125 pages of largish text.  The story is near identical to the film, though is some differences.  I seem to recall that the Kirsty character in the film was Rory's daughter, rather than friend.  The Cenobites are described well, though seem to be more repulsive, and gory here.  In the book there is not a main Cenobite, and it is interesting to note that the character of Pinhead is actually female here, and that she has her tongue full of pins similar to the head.

I never had much interest in Hellraiser (the first film in the series I mean), it seemed too grim, but here it makes slightly more sense.  Frank opened the box expecting extreme pleasure, he had no idea of the pain and suffering the box would bring.  The character of Julia hates her marriage, and regrets marrying someone she did not love, while the Cenobites themselves are not actually from Hell, but some unexplained place.  I found the book easy to read, and enjoyable, some disgusting descriptions, and violence.  Also, I only realised it after reading this book, but Frank is pretty much a zombie!

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Scanners - by Leon Whiteson: Horror Book Review

Scanners is a novelisation of the film of the same name directed by the genius David Cronenberg.  I know for a fact I have seen the film, yet I cannot recall anything about it, apart from the infamous head explosion scene (which the book has a photo of on the back cover), and the fact that Patrick McGoohan is in it (he of The Prisoner fame).  The book I guess closely follows the plot of the film.

A transient;  Cam Vale is recruited by a shady company ConSec who deal in protection.  Part of their business involves a Dr Ruth who trains 'scanners'.  In the world of the book scanners are a rare type of people who have the ability to read peoples minds, as well as control them via 'scanning'  they also have the ability to literally overload peoples brains causing their heads to explode.  Dr Ruth wants Cam to use his scanning gift to track down an evil scanner called Darryl Revok who seems to be power mad, and very psychically strong.

The book is really quite short.  There are around 150 pages, but the writing is very large.  Leon Whiteson (the author) does not seem to branch off into any detail anywhere.  It reads exactly like a film with no additional background, or plot to differentiate from the film.  It is a real roller coaster ride.  Cam is tracking down Revok, but also being hunted by the man, with Revok's soldiers constantly gunning for him, and everyone he comes into contact with.

There is a bit of violence in the book, and the actual psychic violence is well described, with eyeball poppings, head explosions, and bleeding nostrils a plenty.  There is a love interest, plot twists, and action, but it all flies by at such a pace that there is never any room to actually care about any of the characters.

The book took me around 45 minutes to read, was brainless fun really, not remotely deep, it wont leave you thinking, but simply written to ensure its appeal to the masses.

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Doom 3 (2004) - Horror Video Game Review (X-Box)

Doom 3 is a vastly underrated video game in my opinion. Many many people were disappointed with how vastly different it was to the previous iterations. Where Doom, Doom II, and Final Doom were arcady shooters, Doom 3 is a heavily scripted descent to Hell.

The game starts with a small space craft landing at a UAC Base on Mars. Among the passengers is a soldier; you, who has been hired due to a number of fatalities around the Base. Your Boss, 'Sarge' gives you your first assignment - to locate a missing scientist. Soon after finding him chaos descends on the troubled facility. Demons - lots of them have invaded the base and are quickly possessing people by the bucket load, and killing everyone in sight. With pistol in hand you head off to confront this threat. But are you Doom(3)ed?

The game is a first person shooter (FPS) and is very very good.  The location of a Mars research facility is well realised, lots of incidental details such as flashing lights, steam vents, and electronic beeps create a sense of a living, breathing place. Throughout the game you come across lots and lots of PDAs from various staff who worked on the base. Everyone from soldiers, to scientists are represented. Usually each PDA contains a few emails, while some also have audio recordings. These bring lots of life to the game world, and really reinforce the feeling of the Mars base being a (badly run) scientific facility.

The root plot of the game is that during experiments with teleportation the UAC Scientists accidentally opened up a gateway to Hell. Rather than abandon their research, the head of the base, Malcolm Bertruger instead decides to study Hell, and bring back live specimens, and technology. Slowly madness infects most the staff. Berturger is the main antagonist, seeming to have led the Demon invasion of Mars. Throughout the game he taunts you, mostly by just laughing evilly every now and again. Your character has access to a radio, which is where most the plot direction comes from. The first fifth of the game is very exciting as various squads of soldiers communicate with each other via the radio, and die 'live' on air. You are led by Sarge who wants you to send out a distress signal to Earth.

The enemies have all existed in previous Doom games, but are near unrecognisable here. The main enemy to start with are zombies. Staff who have been possessed by Hell and turned into brain dead ghouls. Imps are another main enemy type. These are Demons who can fling fireballs. There are lots of other demon types. There are giant spiders, Caco-Demons, Hell Knights, basically look the same but have various powers such as shoulder mounted rocket launchers, tentacled arms, and plasma balls.  Bosses turn up throughout the game. These are all giant beasts, and introduced via short cutscenes. They all look the same kind of monstrous; lots of browns. Bosses are quite fun to fight, but with the exception of a few don't require any real tactics to take down.

The weapons all feel quite wimpy. The old favourites such as shotgun, and of course the mighty BFG turn up, but it is only really the mini gun which feels like it has much of an impact. Later on in the game you get a weapon called a ;Soul Cube; which basically acts as a smart bomb once powered up. Overall though the weapons are quite lame feeling, though sound the part (well some do). Nearly the whole game is set on the ruined Mars base. The locations are created to feel real, so you have science labs, server rooms mixed in with cafeterias, and toilets. A later section of the game sees you take the fight to Hell. This location is very different in feel to the solid corridors of Mars, and brings a nice slice of variety with it's ever transforming environment. Music is near non-existent, but instead lots of ambient noise is made, as well as lots and lots of screams, shouts, laughs, and explosions.

Doom 3 still holds its own nowadays, looking good, and is still a joy to play. Sure it is nothing like the previous Dooms, but the atmosphere is fab.

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Jelly Baby Zombie Apocalypse

Once upon a time at work I had some Jelly Babies.  Unknown to me there had been a Zombie Apocalypse in the Jelly Baby bag, I managed to take a few photos on my phone before the Apocalypse ended with my divine intervention (the zombie virus thankfully cannot be transmitted between Jelly Babies and Humans!).

The series of pictures shows the last Jelly Baby survivor surrounded against a stack of paper by the zombie hordes.  It all ended well (for me anyway!).

Resident Pico - Zombie Horror Videogame Review (PC)

There seems to be a load of games covering different genres all involving a ginger haired kid named Pico.  I played one called something like Pico at School which involved a group of murderous Goths butchering his school.  That was a really short, yet fun point and click game.  Resident Pico is a mouse controlled single screen shooter.

The game starts with a girl informing Pico that there is a zombie invasion.  Pico offers to protect the girl, but she says she would rather take her chances, and then runs off.  Soon after zombies enter the screen from left and right and the madness begins.

You move Pico via mouse, where ever the mouse goes Pico goes.  Holding down the mouse button fires Picos machine gun.  Zombies enter from left and right.  All look an identical grey colour and all die in the same way, they fall to the floor with their intestines being puked up.  After a while a hulking giant zombie shows up, he struts menacingly towards Pico wherever you go.  After a lot of shooting the uber zombie explodes.  Pico starts break dancing and that's that.

A very short game, looks great, but is quite boring, and not at all challenging.

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Darksiders (2010) - Action Videogame Review (X-Box 360)

Darksiders is an action adventure game set on post Apocalyptic Earth. The game drew many comparisons with the Zelda series, and was described by some as 'mature Zelda'.

In Darksiders you play as one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse; War. An ancient pact existed between the forces of Heaven and Hell that dictated that they could not go to war with each other until mankind had advanced far enough that they could survive the war. To enforce this seven magical seals were created. Only when these seven seals were broken could the war begin. The game starts with the Apocalypse starting. Meteors crash down all over the Earth with the forces of Heaven and Hell emerging from the remains. One such meteor releases War who has heeded the call of the Apocalypse.  During his battle with the forces of good and evil he is slain. A hundred years later he is resurrected by The Charred Council; beings who keeps balance between good and evil. The Charred Council reveals that the seven seals had not been broken, and that War has been blamed for starting Armageddon too early, which has resulted in the total extinction of the human race. War is tasked with heading to Earth in a bid to clear his name and discover who really was responsible for cheating The Charred Council.

You play as War, a red robed beast of a man armed with a giant sword. As you progress your weapon gets experience points that level it up to make it more powerful. You get access to a few additional weapons as well. Much like Zelda a majority of these weapons are discovered in temples. You get access to a boomerang (here a shuriken type weapon) that can be used to help solve puzzles as well as fight with, a hookshot that lets you grapple to swing points and enemies as well as a load of other item types such as a scythe, power glove, and even a pistol. In another nod to Zelda you later get access to Ruin; Wars horse. The horse controls a lot like Link's horse Epona.

The layout of the game feels very similar to the underrated Soul Reaver games. The game world is all open ended, no load times at all which is really cool. There are shops run by a friendly demon. At these shops you can buy upgrades to your weapons, as well as magic upgrades (you get access to four different types of magic attack, all pretty pointless), and items such as health potions. Though there are lots of potions I never actually had the need to ever use one. Also at the shop you are able to warp to different points in the game world, much like the gates in the Soul Reaver games. A final nod to Soul Reaver can be seen in the ethereal wings that War has, he can use these wings to glide across gaps.

Most the enemies you fight in the game are demons. These come in all shapes and sizes, from lumbering beasts, to humanoids, to insectoid ones. Throughout the game there are constantly new enemy types, though there is a lot of palette swaps rather than entirely new ones. You also get to fight a variety of angels. These all come in the form of winged humanoids, but are armed with a variety of different weapons. Bosses are a real highlight of the game, each requires a Zelda style method to kill, requiring the latest weapon or tool you have collected to defeat them. The bosses are mostly massive and real fun to fight, such as a teleporting spider queen, a giant sandworm, and a hulking great car throwing demon among others. The lowest level of monsters include reanimated human corpses; zombies! woop.

The game is very violent, enemies literally ripped to pieces when killed. They get limbs pulled off, gutted, heads decapitated, and sliced into pieces. Lots of blood, and extreme fantasy violence. One highlight involves a scene which sees War teleporting into a giant monsters head, and then ripping it to pieces from the inside. When enemies are nearly dead they go into a stunned state which sees one tap of the B button to do a bloody automated kill.

The whole look of the game is very good, the graphics while not outstanding are fantastic. The game is set on Earth a hundred years after mankind's extinction. As such there are many real life style locations that feel really unique in an action adventure fantasy game. One of the dungeons is set in a subway system for instance, while others are set in a cathedral, a housing estate, and a freeway among others.  Bodies of humans are everywhere, as are machines such as cars and trains. The dungeons themselves are very Zelda like. A load of puzzles litter the places: block puzzles, water based puzzles, as well as others. Quite cool with the exception of one dungeon; the Black Tower which is basically one giant puzzle, I was damn glad to be finished with that!

I was impressed with this game, and had quite a lot of plot, with quite a few decent length cut scenes.  Definitely set itself for a sequel with a slight cliffhanger ending, and unresolved plot points. It took me around twelve hours to complete on normal, a decent length that never got boring despite a fetch quest at the games end that saw you having to go back to all the locations in the game world to gather specific items. Going back to earlier sections allows you to use new weapons and tools to reach otherwise unreachable chests (that contain experience points (souls) as well as health, and magic upgrades).

A mishmash of Zelda, Soul Reaver, Shadow of the Colossus, and even Portal (!), Darksiders shows that stealing the best bits of other games rather than coming up with anything new can actually be a good thing.

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The Insanity - Horror Videogame Review (PC)

I kinda played these games out of order, having done the second game in the series yesterday I decided to seek out the first.  The game is quite similar to The Insanity II, though not as good, or interesting, and also a lot shorter.  Again the game is a static screen point and click.

You wake up in a box with no memory of how you got there, or who you are.  Breaking out the box you find that you are in some nightmare house populated by animal headed mutants.  By speaking to some of less violent monsters you learn that the house is owned by a mad genius Dr Friendly, and that the only way to get out of the place is via a secret door in the basement.  With hammer in hand you head out to escape.

The game is a lot simpler, and easier than it's sequel.  There is only one file to read, only a few puzzles, and all the combat is done in the same way.  When you encounter a violent mutant you have to attack by clicking on red hit boxes that appear around the fight screen.  You must hit a certain amount of hit boxes before the time limit runs out.  Very simple, but later fights sees the hit box much smaller.  There is no real story of note to this game, with little explanation for anything. The game is creepy, and Saw like again, and not a pleasant experience due to the sense of depressing dread surrounding the whole thing.  It is kinda interesting that all the characters here appear in the sequel, but operate in a different universe; having no connection at all other than similarities in names.

The game is around 20 minutes long, and can be found easily enough by searching on Google.  Not bad, but the kind of mood I am in was not ideal.  I really need something bright and cheerful to play.

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The Insanity II - Horror Videogame Review (PC)

Another free PC flash game.  This game is a horror point and click game that takes place over static scenes (think Myst).  It brought to mind Saw, or House of 1000 Corpses in it's atmospheric terror trip.

You play as Peter Langdon; a reporter doing an investigation into a series of videos uploaded to various websites.  The Web videos seem to show horrific surgery involving animals and humans, as well as living results of these splicings that the videos purport to be by a Dr Friendly.  Following a tip-off you send a crew to a abandoned house, and promptly loose contact with them.  Days later you head to the mansion yourself to find out what has happened to your crew members.  What you find is more horrific than you ever imagined, the web videos were no mere prank.  Even more scary is that it seems the alleged Dr Friendly planned for you to turn up, and has turned the house into one giant death trap designed to test you.  Can you escape the horrors of the house, or will you succumb to the insanity?

The game is made up of the rooms of the mansion.  Each room has various points of interest, such as newspaper clippings that give back story to the events, as well as items to collect, and puzzles to solve.  Starting off in the entrance hall way you have to explore the house, eventually leading to the basement.  Along the way you discover the fate of your missing crew, as well as meet, and defeat the various mutant freaks that populate the house.

The puzzles are for the most part simple, but fun enough to do, and not too easy.  There are not a lot of items to collect, and all are obvious in what they need to be used for (such as putting sulphuric acid into the water supply).  Quite a few locked doors require tile matching puzzles to be solved, while others require combination locks, or keys.

You can die in the game, and probably will do so frequently.  Failing a puzzle usually leads to a bad looking, but suitably gory death replete with lots of blood.  The freaks of the house must all be defeated in different ways, a particular highlight saw you having to rapidly click the mouse button to escape an approaching freak, the screen split in half to show your perspective, as well as show how far the freak was from getting you.

There are quite a few characters in the game as well, meeting these leads to lengthy dialogues that help to split up the exploring.  The game kinda feels like a Saw type film.  Gritty, violent, bloody, and an ever present sense of dread permeates the experience.  Sound effects help to make the atmosphere tense.

The game took me about an hour to complete, can't recall the site I found it on, but it should be easy enough to Google.  Another free game.

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The Breach - Horror Videogame Review (PC)

My life has taken a turn for the horrendous, real life horror sucks.  I intend to try to get the energy to throw myself into my job (my blog, not my soon to be ended wage earner) so expect to see lots of posts. The Breach is a free to play flash game that can be found at Kongregate Games.  Made by Berserk Studios it is a Sci-Fi Horror that has many similarities to Metroid, Doom 3, and Dead Space.

You play as Sergei, an Engineer who has headed to The Hermes; a Space Hulk that has had contact lost with it.  The Hermes had an experimental warp drive that could drastically reduce the time it takes to travel through space.  It does this by warping to different dimensions other than our own, before warping back, cutting journeys down.  Sergei finds the ship deserted, with power out on many levels.  He soon discovers a corpse that suddenly comes to life; a zombie!  Having had his entrance blocked off, Sergei decides to head deep into the ship, not only to find an escape, but also to find out what has happened.  Crippling headaches complete with horrific visions of an Alien world reveal that the dimension jumping Space Hulk travelled to a dimension of evil yellow insectoid Aliens, who have slowly possessed the crew, and brain washed them.

The game is a lot of fun to play.  It is a 2D platformer in a Metroidvania style.  Large levels complete with platforms, locked doors, key cards, and weapon upgrades.  Sergei gains experience as he kills, leading to him levelling up which improves his health, shields, and weapon damage.  Logs give background to the crews plight, in many ways echoing the story of Dead Space, while the whole dimension jumping aspect brings to mind the plot of the under rated Doom 3.  The game like Dead Space is split into levels.  There are around 6 areas, ranging from Crew Quarters, to the Engine Room, and Medical Labs.  Each level ends with a boss fight introduced via a charming flash cartoon intro.

There are a wide variety of enemies that share many many similarities with Dead Space.  The most basic are the zombies; crew members turned into vegetables by the Yellow Evil.  Hanging from walls, and ceilings are mutated crew members, these vomit yellow energy balls at you. A lot of the enemies are insectoid in nature, from flying yellow butterflies, to spiders that comprise of a human head with legs, as well as floating exploding bugs, and hulking bull like things.  Most can be killed quite easily, especially with the generous levelling up system.  The bosses are all unique, mostly comprising of some completely mutated monstrosity, such as a floating blob that flings out tentacles at you, a giant shape attached to a wall with a crew member erupting out of it, as well as the Yellow Evil itself.

The game is very easy, it took me around 45 minutes to get through, and only died once (not including the end boss).  The game is controlled via the arrow keys on the keyboard, with Space used to fire your gun, and read logs.  For such a short game there is quite a lot of plot pushed through.  Sergei frequently has internal monologues, and dream like sequences sees him interacting with some of the doomed crew.  The music is very atmospheric, and creates a real feeling of fear to the game.  There are no sound effects which is a bit of a shame.

I really enjoyed this.  It looks great, sounds great, and while very short and easy is fun to play while it lasts.  Plus, it is free.

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