Halloween Challenge 2012 Part 1

During the month of October 2012 I decided to celebrate the Halloween spirit by playing games that can be defined as horror or have some feature that could be linked back to Halloween. Overall it was actually a pretty lame experience. I composed a list of 25 of my unbeaten games that fit the mold and challenged myself to beat at least 10 of them. While I met my goal, it was a little bit underwhelming. I'm going to write a little bit about my experience and thoughts on the games I got through, here's the first half. Prepare for a flood of zombie games, I apologize in advance.

Let's Play: Project Zomboid

My wife laying on the bed bleeding to death next to me. I go to the cupboard to retrieve sheets to create make shift bandages. I grab the pillow, by... accident? I hold it in my hands and stare through it at the floor. These thoughts cannot be my own. I fail to abandon it, but push the thoughts aside as I rip up a sheet for my wife's leg. It's not a bite, thank God... or whatever's out there. But an injury this severe. I don't know how we'll... We will persevere. Her smile resurrects my resolve, I love her.

After feeding her some pain pills she nods of for a nap as I go to the nearby shed. This isn't our house, and it won't be our home for any real length of time. Unless... One step at a time. I come back with some wood and nails and a hammer. Enough to start fortifying the home front. About an hour later there's at least a board on every window and door on the first floor of the house. Our of supplies I head upstairs. My wife must have been awakened by the noise. She greets me but I can barely hear her over the roar of my stomach.

She begins to tear up and clutches at my hand. Don't go she begs. How can I say no to her? I brush my hand along her face and agree to wait out my hunger for at least one more night. She shivered and silently cried all night. I think she knew.

As the morning sun breached our bedroom we awoke. Brightness filled our faces as we say each other, but her leg was a swift reminder of the grim reality of life now. I kissed her and quickly got dressed. My stomach needed food. She didn't want me to go, but she understood there was no other option with her leg like that.

I took off towards town. There was a mini mart right next to the home we had claimed as our own, lots of food was sure to be contained within it's walls. I bypassed a zombie, then another. Two zombies no problem. I emptied out the vending machines out front, as I headed towards the doors I cursed my luck. More zombies than helpful supplies were residing in the store. I turned and realized more zombies are suddenly appeared, as if a hoard had swarmed in right behind me. There was no barricade on the back door.

Sprinting through the group, ten, twenty, thirty, I lost count. It doesn't matter. So long as she is safe. She is my world and none of this matters. I made it back. Two were right next to the door, but ignoring it for now. I managed to sneak in, but realized I had no more building supplies with which to protect any vulnerable entrances. It mattered not. I bolted the door then went to my wifes side. Sleeping. So beautiful and perfect. As I kissed her forehead she sleepily looked at me and smiled before drifting back to sleep. A sharp scratching tore me aware from my wife.

They were everywhere. Every window and door being attacked. I felt as though the house would crumble in on itself. Maybe even prayed. I pulled out my hammer, the closest thing to a weapon, and a friend, since arriving at this house. Why did we think it would work? I knew it wouldn't work. No time for that now. The door crashes in and I dive at the group hammer swinging wildly. My wife calls for me, but I'm no longer capable of responding. Everything fades to black as a pain unspeakable spread throughout my body and the horrifying realization I didn't even shut my wife's door in my frenzied state.

Why didn't I just save her from all of this yesterday...? The thought vanished with me, images of the undead heading upstairs reflected in my sad, hollow eyes.

The Many Faults of New Super Mario Bros 2

What a load of shit.

Super Mario Bros should be much better than this. My hatred for this game is a little sad, since it technically isn't a bad game, just what happened to standards? This is such a blatant and awful cash in it's shameful. I'm all about getting more Mario games, but, ugh.

Okay. So what does the game do successfully? Uh. Well, it's Super Mario Bros, more specifically New Super Mario Bros. Recently I discovered an article on one of my favorite game based websites Destructoid.com that discussed the difference between the Super Mario Bros series and the New Super Mario Bros. It's something that when you look at the series it's really obvious but everyone either misses it or only notices it subconsciously. I too didn't really recognize it until the article spelled it out for me. You can read the article here, but it boils down to the New Super Mario Bros being a stop gap series when they're either working on the next big Mario game, or they haven't started working on the next one.

Blogging Morrowind 2012

I know no one checks this blog, however, I wanted to comment on this yet again because, yet again, Morrowind has drawn me back in. After beating Skyrim I wanted to play something else. And that something else ended up being Morrowind. This time I'm armed with the knowledge of not playing too far ahead otherwise I get so overwhelmed with info to update the blog with it just falls flat. However, this is turning out to be a problem in and of itself as now my problem lies more in actually writing the posts, which in turns prevents me from playing and I disconnect with the character more. I'll figure out a system which gets me writing more eventually.

It's pretty astounding how much I've written about Morrowind over the years. It's one of my favorite games, obviously, but without talking about the game directly, just basically writing the equivalent of fan fiction for it, sadly, I've managed to write well over 6682 words, and that's not including my 2007 attempt at blogging about the game. I think some time I'll do a review of it. Maybe even cover a couple other Elder Scrolls games? I don't know. I want to cover a couple of series. Though I think I need to find a way to do videos. I would really like to make some stuff like that.

Anyway, this time I'm playing an Orc. Orc's are typically brutish creatures, and this one is too no doubt, however he seeks redemption. I don't know where I'm going with this character, but I want to finish the Temple, the Main Quest and Tribunal at least. Hopefully I manage to keep up this time. As always Blogging Morrowind is right here alongside It Is A Title. I'm determined to make it good enough to actually forward it to friends and other places. I don't know if that will happen. I still need to work on restructuring this blog for what I want it to be. A hub of all my thoughts on media so I can get them out of my head for extra room for more thoughts on more things which will in turn need to put on this blog. Eventually, I hope, maybe. One day.
-Malons

Where the Wild Things Are Interpretation

So right from the get go we're introduced to Max and he's relatively crap life. His tween/teenage sister is starting to ignore him for DRUGS AND PENIS so he feels distance and no longer has a real constant person to play make believe with. His mum is too busy for him most of the time either with work or flirting it up with his new replacement daddy. So he's getting all pissy and as a little kid he doesn't know exactly how to vent his rage and sadness. So naturally he throws a temper tantrum and runs away due to his emotions collapsing inward on him.

Blogging Morrowind 2011

I enjoy Morrowind a hell of a lot. If you know me well, you know this as a fact. Back in 2007 I attempted to "blog" my experience with it, however I failed to keep up with my duties and flattered like many other "blogging" attempts.

Skip ahead four years, I'm inbetween High School and College currently AKA lots of free time. So I've decided it was about to time to actually try and successfully blog Morrowind, and hopefully Bloodmoon and Tribunal as well. It's been fun so far, and I think I'll manage to get at least a decent way into the game before my posting habits die off. Or at least my note gathering does.

It's not like anyone reads my blogs regardless!

You can check out Blogging Morrowind Here.

Undead Nightmare

I liked it a lot. It was short, and it's an elseworlds title, but I think it represented John's hell. I don't think it's really a what if between when he rescued his family and when he died. I think it takes place after he died. He went back to the moment when his life is finally in order and all the problems he solved come crashing back to Earth.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

Why do I enjoy the Kingdom Hearts games? They offer very little difficulty (aside from a few key battles), their story is not only fucking stupid, but incredibly convoluted to the point of being nearly indecipherable, all the main characters are morons usually, and they reuse the words Heart/s, Light, and Darkness WAY TOO DAMN MUCH. I mean it's really neat seeing a bunch of Disney and Final Fantasy characters kicking it (even if this one had only Zack as far as I can tell), and the fighting system is usually really fun, but.. I don't know where I was really going with that.

Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse

I don't know if this game is easy or hard. It's incredibly easy to die, or I just really suck, but death doesn't really mean much. You have three lives, and each time you die you start the level over. Though once you hit the game over screen you have two options, continue, or don't. If you hit continue its as if all you did was just lose a life. The only hitch is that you lose your accumulated score, but since when has anyway one really cared about that in a non-competitive setting? Since never.

Twilight Zone Episode 17 - The Fever

"Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Gibbs, three days and two nights, all expenses paid, at a Las Vegas hotel, won by virtue of Mrs. Gibbs' knack with a phrase. But unbeknownst to either Mr. or Mrs. Gibbs is the fact that there's a prize in their package neither expected nor bargained for. In just a moment, one of them will succumb to an illness worse than any virus can produce, a most inoperative, deadly, life-shattering affliction known as 'The Fever'."


This episode is a perfect representation of the two extremes of The Twilight Show. The realm of complete ridiculum, and a genuine problem.