WTF Did I Just Read? The Spectre #1

The Spectre #1 "The Sinister Lives of Cap'n Skull"
Written by Gardner Fox
Art by Murphy Anderson
Published by DC Comics
Released 1967

Comics sure have changed a lot over the years haven't they? Wow. I really cannot prepare you for the plot of this issue, so I'll just introduce the Spectre. Honestly I'm mostly familiar with the Post-Crisis DC universe, so going back into the Silver Age is definitely different. Needless to say in this version of reality the Spectre seems to be just a ghostly crime fighter who works alongside Jim Corrigan, a police officer. I'm used to him being the vengeance of god made flesh possessing old Jimmy, but the 60's were a simpler time. Mostly appearing in random one off appearances in anthology comics this was the Spectre's first solo series. While it only lasted ten issues, today we are going to talk about just the first.

Double Feature: Hotline Miami/2: Wrong Number

Hotline Miami/Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
Top-down Murder Simulation
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Dennaton Games
Year of Release: 2012/2015
Beaten: March 15th, 2015

I suppose this game warrants a bit of a warning. While this game speaks to me in ways others games can't, I'm sure the message it's screaming at others is quite the opposite. This is a brutally violent game, it has insane characters committing deranged acts and the entire point of the game is to rapidly and dementedly kill as many people as you can. Needless to say, Hotline Miami is a perfect game.

Oh, also the hover text has been replaced with links to some of my favorite songs from these games, so enjoy!

Five Nights of Tedium: Kicking it with Freddy

Five Nights at Freddy's
Stress Simulator
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Scott Cawthon
Year of Release: 2014

I feel like I really don't even need to say anything about this game. For some god forsaken reason I felt compelled to play through this series, though I don't know why as I'm already caught up on both how the game works and the plot behind the games. Honestly that's the only real reason I was even interested in the game. The gameplay looked like (and plays like) shit to me, but the idea of a haunted children's party place is really interesting to me. Plus the fact the developer allegedly made this game out of spite for people who insulted how his characters looked too much like animatronics in his older games makes me respect him a bit more. While I understand why this game blew up in popularity via internet videos, I honestly don't think it's necessarily deserved.

Games You Should (Maybe) Play: State of Decay

State of Decay
Zombie Apocalypse Simulation
1 Player
System: Xbox Live Arcade
Developer: Undead Labs
Year of Release: 2013
Beaten: January 2nd, 2014

In a move risking the integrity of this series in just the second entry I present to you State of Decay, a game you MIGHT want to play. While originally I meant for this series to showcase only truly outstanding games, I'm making a special case for this one due in part because I beat it so long ago and writing it as a "Games I Beat" entry feels disingenuous, more importantly though since reviving this blog I've talked plenty about Nintendo games, and a decent amount of Sony with a smattering of PC gaming getting mentioned too. Aside from other legacy consoles Microsoft was the only one getting the shaft on the console side of things. I've been meaning to make up for that for a while now, I have an unpublished document on here called "xbox games", yeah not even capitalized or anything. The list is... pretty small actually. A lot of the games I truly loved on Xbox were multiplatform, and I didn't want to represent a console based on a game that you can get somewhere else (ironically most of my Sony games are also multiplatform, but I argue that I started off with exclusives!). So we come to the State of Decay, an interesting, though flawed, experience unlike most similar games.

Games I (Mostly) Beat: The Basement Collection

The Basement Collection
Flash Game Collection
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Edmund McMillen and His Amazing Friends!
Year of Release: 2012 (2001-2009)
Beaten: March 5th, 2015

Edmund McMillen has made two of my favorite games of all time. Super Meat Boy is one of the best platformer games I've ever played, frantic yet precise, the game quickly devolves into chaos as obscenities are shouted at the screen and countless meat boys carelessly throw themselves to their death all in the name of true love. The Binding of Isaac is a love letter to the original Legend of Zelda with a rouge-like paint and some possibly heavy religious overtones, though a lot of typically dark subject matter is addressed in the game it manages to handle it well and keep a lighthearted tone and feeling for the most part. Before these games McMillen made a lot of games using Flash that were posted to Newgrounds. I haven't even thought about that site in a long time, I used to visit it all the time. A lot of these games have truly unique ideas (or at least rarely utilized ideas) and for that reason might hold merit, but for the most part I found this to be a really disappointing collection. Also, this is a collection of FREE games that will cost you four dollars. On the one hand, you do get a bunch of extra content, and McMillen is interesting enough to warrant looking into this (if you're a fan), but on the other these are still freely available online. Needless to say that's a little awkward.

Double Feature: Gunman Clive

Gunman Clive/Gunman Clive 2
Action Platformer
1 Player
System: 3DS
Developer: Hörberg Productions
Year of Release: 2013/2015
Beaten: February 25th, 2015

Originally released for iPhones to less than stellar success, Gunman Clive got the recognition it deserved after being ported to Nintendo's 3DS eshop. This success lead to a sequel getting made exclusively for the 3DS, after a few delays it finally came early this year. I caught wind of the first game some time before release and it took little more than the trailer to get me excited for the game:

Games I Beat: Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire

Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire
Fucking Pinball
1 Player
System: GBA
Developer: Jupiter
Year of Release: 2003
Beaten: February 17th, 2015

I planned to start this off differently but, if you couldn't put two and two together, I always look up some basic info about these games and plug it up top to look all faux professional. So I found out Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire was made by this team called Jupiter. Having never heard of them I looked into them a bit. These guys are Picross gods apparently having made almost all of Nintendo's Picross titles. Both Pokemon Pinball games were made by them, as well as over half of the total available games for the Pokemon Mini (haven't heard of it? Don't worry about it). There are some other games that I assume are Japan only, but a few other titles really stood out to me. Apparently they developed the Gameboy Camera? Though I'm assuming just the menu's and minigame functions found within. Most shockingly, they are responsible for (the pretty fun) Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, and even did some work on The World Ends With You. How have I never heard of these guys before?

Fangasm: Pokemon Insurgence

Pokemon Insurgence
Monster Collecting RPG
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: the_suzerain
Year of Release: 2014
Played: Still playing!
Download Here

It isn't uncommon to find an unfinished Pokemon fan game. A lot of high concept ideas, grandiose plans and a general overconfidence generally lead to the downfall of many of these projects. I'm not sure if Pokemon Insurgence will follow this trend, but for the time being it seems that work is continuing at a steady pace. If you're at all familiar, this is made with Pokemon Essentials in RPG Maker XP, so certain features and appearances can seem a bit off at times. If you know what you're getting into though it isn't so bad. This game looks to add a multitude of features, many of which I welcome with open arms.

Expanses I've Flown: Race the Sun

Race the Sun
Arcadey "Racer"
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Flippfly
Year of Release: 2013
Piloted: January 19th, 2015

I heard about this game a while back and always wanted to give it a go. Eventually it found it's way into a humble bundle, like most downloadable titles seem to nowadays, so I ended up picking it up. I finally gave it a shot and it pretty much lived up to my expectations, a simple arcade-y experience with a pleasant atmosphere.

Moving Forward 2015

Hullo all! Apologies for the recent silence. I meant to post some more blogs in December but caught up in all the holiday cheer with family and procrastination. Fuck. Thanks for visiting though! I don't get many comments, but I've been getting a steady number of views and I cannot express how grateful I am that you'd stop by to read my thoughts on things. While this is just a hobby, I'm really passionate about games and writing, so it's been a really helpful exercise in getting back into a writing groove.

The thing is though, I started college up earlier this week and I'm not totally sure where that leaves this blog. I certainly plan on continuing to update it, and while my base line goal is to get more entries written than the year prior going forward, I don't know how often that will be. If it seems quiet from time to time I'm probably just busy with school/work stuff, so bare with me.

In most regards 2014 wasn't that great a year for me, mostly due to my own inaction, but the one thing I actually got serious back into was writing this blog. Randomly upon sitting down and emulating fucking Crisis Beat of all things I suddenly got the urge to just write about it. And from there I wanted to write more. I've always loved writing, but post-High School have found myself writing scarcely if at all. So while my audience may be small, or maybe even just accidental, I'm grateful for your clicks! All I can promise is to keep writing and sharing it here for whoever finds it to read.

Worst case scenario I hope to write at least one entry a month (this entry not included), and during break times I assume I'll be able to churn out more. However, I do have a three hour break between two of my classes so maybe I'll end up writing a lot during that time. It's hard to say right now, but I wanted to write something about what's going on this year going forward. I do have at least four blogs in various stages of being written at least. I'm still on the fence on whether to do a Games of 2014 post since I didn't get to play all the games I would have liked to this year. For those curious, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze probably won my number one spot.

I hope you've enjoyed my ravings, and I hope you enjoy whatever I may end up posting here in the future! Thank you, so so much!

-Adam