Thursday, March 15, 2012

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - 0/1


Amnesia: The Dark Descent – 0/1 – Henry Arrambide

This cover is deceptively intriguing. 

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is, in the most literal sense, a fool’s game. In order for the player to be drawn into the haunting atmosphere of the game’s abandoned castle, a great deal of intelligence must be sacrificed. While most horror games do this effectively by creating a sense of tension and self-doubt within the player that undermines the player’s trust in their own intelligence, Amnesia robs the player of an element of choice which allows that kind of tension to form organically. 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Good or Blog 29

New time slot, new problems! This is:

You talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded.

Kicking off the new semester on a Sunday of all days, Me, John, and newcomer Arman kick off the semester with some OLD releases bunched in with the new ones. The winter season is upon us my friends, choose your purchases carefully. Adam (my boss who can take me off air at any moment) provides a bit of distraction early on and then we promptly move into some recent upcoming game announcements.

After the break we talk about an awesome old free shmup from the ghost of Gears of War's past. Then Star Wars. After that everyone dons their weaboo hats and we discuss the merits of Eastern style video games versus Western pandering. This devolves into everybody hating everyone else's opinion. John, I'm looking at you.

We cap the show off, as always, with a short but sweet music segment. Stay tuned to hear John flip his shit and mash sound board buttons like a child!

Oh yeah, we also have new sound effects.

The episode awaits here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?y19r3237rpsgupo

And the compendium of previous episodes is likely to devour you here: 

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Good or Blog 28

The end of an era marks the beginning of another, this is:
Gotta say bye eventually.

Taylor is moving to Austin, but we refuse to let this be a somber event, talking about video games, music, and fisting. We get things started by recapping the summer and talking about the likes of Kane & Lynch 2 and the recently released Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Then we get into a modicum of news and discuss the membership benefits of the PC gaming master race.

In segment 2 we talk a bit about game trailers as well as cheap and/or free video games. In particular, Spiral Knights is quite the catch! (spoilers) Finally we get around to the farewells proper, and Taylor espouses what it means to be Taylor. Cue the sad music and turn down the lights.

The third segment begins with our amazement at receiving an actual caller! From there we talk a bit about music and cap off the evening with previews of what’s to come and thanks for what has gone. Trust me, it’s hilarious.

The episode can be gotten here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ow0h03clvzh277m


And the compendium of previous episodes lies in wait here: 

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Final Fantasy XIII Review

When it comes to Final Fantasy XIII, everyone has an opinion. Those opinions usually begin with “I’m a huge fan of Final Fantasy...” and end with “...but this game is a complete piece of shit.” Well I have an opinion about Final Fantasy Thirteen, and it includes neither of those phrases because it turns out I actually really liked the game.

Callbacks!

A while back (actually exactly a year ago: weird) I reviewed Final Fantasy Twelve and proclaimed that I didn’t “get” Final Fantasy. I don’t think that’s changed. I probably still don’t get it. But perhaps Final Fantasy has started getting me. I honestly expected myself to absolutely hate the shit out of Final Fantasy XIII. I mean, all I had ever heard about the game was that it was boring, a straight line, and had an incomprehensible plot. To the world it was a cash-grab where Squeenix watered down its works for the masses. Everyone told me it was an insult to video games and the people who played them. Everyone told me it brutally murdered and raped years of fine RPG tradition then spit on their graves, and that the art of the JRPG was truly dead now that a series so heralded as Final Fantasy had sold out to the casuals. Everyone told me that Final Fantasy XIII was a Bad Game.

Everyone lied.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Sean Games: The Best of the Worst

Let's be honest, we all make some pretty poor purchasing decisions from time to time. I remember saving for months - mowing lawns, pulling weeds, and babysitting spoiled brats that watched Tom and Jerry and ruined Lego creations - just to buy Scooby-Doo Mystery for the SNES. It was a poorly designed licensed game that controlled like garbage, had around three songs and four levels. I liked Scooby-Doo and was also eight, not exactly in the prime of my consumer decision making abilities.

Now imagine if all the purchases you made were bad decisions. Imagine seeing a deal on marked down video games, twenty dollars each say, and going ahead and buying five at a time. You will probably never play them, and you probably won't enjoy the ones you do. Sooner or later you can't even remember what a good game feels like. Everything you buy, all the games you play begin to oversaturate the thought-space you've set aside for video games until all your experiences become simple manipulation of the neurons in your brain. Can you imagine never getting that taste - that taste of bland, of average, of the poorly programmed and the poorly designed, of the lazy - out of your mouth? Can you imagine living in the boring haze of the cheap, picking the bones of the dying for every tiny achievement and every scant five minutes of enjoyment? Can you imagine being my friend, Sean?

You see, Sean's life is full of the poor purchasing decisions the rest of us have come to regret. I figure he just has no sense of regret, but the point is that Sean no longer has any concept of what a good video game is, which is strange because he owns more video games that almost everyone I know. He just happens to be a frightening statistical anomaly in that nearly all of them are bad. So I was not expecting much when I stole a few games from him while staying at his apartment in Houston during Spring Break.

I was still disappointed.

Darksiders
"How's this... Darksiders?" I say, holding up the case so my friend Shawn can see. We're sitting in Sean's apartment (yes that gets confusing), on the floor, rifling through a pile of his games that we've shoved off a swiveling case next to his TV.

"Meh." Shawn replies. The sun is setting and we're all ready to leave, facing an hour and a half drive back to College Station to drop me off then a 12 hour drive to El Paso for everyone else. It's a weird twilight that's sort of dark but the pools of light burned into the rug eliminates the necessity for ceiling lights, so everything is darker than it should be. All my other friends - including Sean - stand around us and impatiently wait for us to finish our thievery.  

"I like the sound of that. What's it about?"

"It's metal Zelda."

And so it was.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Good or Blog 27

I am in tears! Good or Blog Amazing Fantastic Audio Program comes to an end for the foreseeable future in:

He sure seems surprised.

For the last episode of the semester we take things easy, just have a slow going, relaxing, run of the mill program. EXCEPT NOT REALLY. The whole gang joins for a final blast of hilarity in the form of a clip show. But before that we discuss The Art of Video Games, and some quick new releases.

We end on a somber tone this week as the Amazing FAP comes to a close. Could this be the end of GorBAFAP? Listen to find out!

http://www.mediafire.com/?9q5v6lflitsa7au

And here is the compendium: