I love the Silent Hill series. Something about how it takes the familiar and makes it perverse is fascinating. I've long believed that video games are a more effective medium than movies in which to portray horror, due to their interactivity: you're not just a passively witness to a murder but an active participant in your own fate.
The final product proved to be a short film reenacting a particular sequence near the game's end — in particular, one of my favorite scenes:
In just ten minutes, the movie captures many of the elements of the game: the darkness, the despair, the creepy motions of the undead. Even the map that James consults looks authentic, though I'm not sure if it was intended as a parody of the game mechanic. Though the lighting (or lack thereof) is also true to the source material, it's often too dark for us viewers to see anything. And we need to see as much as we can: since the scene is set in the middle of the game, those not familiar with the storyline may be at a loss to understand the film's plot. There are also some jarring transitions (both aurally and visually), which I suppose is inevitable when working within such a tight time constraint. Nonetheless, this is likely the best Silent Hill fanfilm I've ever seen and is certainly more ambitious and coherent than this group's last outing.
For comparison's sake, two of the original CGI scenes upon which the above short is based are after the jump: (more…)
The Mortal Kombat franchise has taken some unusual turns over the years — some great, some not so much. Reinvention and innovation are necessary to keep the series fresh … but I never expected anything as drastic as this:
I posited such a union once upon an April Fool's, and had the above trailer been posted three weeks earlier, I would've taken it in the same vein. Though Capcom's crew can combat the Uncanny X-Men, this parallel merger seems unlikely. The vibrancy and lightheartedness of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers combined well with comic book lore, whereas the darker tones of Mortal Kombat don't seem as feasible a match with the All-American Boy Scout that is the Last Son of Krypton. Nonetheless, the promotion seems authentic, and we truly will see the fighters of Mortal Kombat dueling against the heroes of the DC Universe later this year.
Who will be in the final roster? Will we see if a ninja stand up to Superman? Or who is hotter, Scorpion or Etrigan? As long as it is better than the last DC fighting game I played, this showdown might stand a chance. Time will tell!
Ah, April Fool's — a good day to be a gamer. Back in the day, I would write news and reviews specifically for the occasion. I don't have the energy for that anymore, but the industry is still rife with such creative energy.
The wireless helmet is little different from last year's WiiHelm from ThinkGeek, but the rest are drool-worthy. An Xbox Live board game? Why not — it worked for World of Warcraft. A wood grain Xbox 360? It'd go great next to my Atari 2600! And the recon edition 360 may put Microsoft's console in the same league as the Nintendo Game Boy for most invulnerable gaming system. Want!
Everyone's mind works hard to make sense of the world around us — but some minds work harder than others. The result for me was that, around the same time I was getting into Nintendo, I was hearing voices.
Or ambient noise, anyway. We lived in an old house that settled every night, with creaking floors and hissing radiators. My imagination took all these noises and tried to interpret them into something I could understand. Never mind that it was nonsense. I'd learned that it made sense to stomp on turtles and throw boomerangs at fireball-spitting mermaids, so it only seemed logical that similarly nonsensical rules could be imposed on the real world.
So I'm rather relieved to know I'm not alone when I see other people also compelled to apply method to madness, such as in this aural interpretation:
… or at least he'll pay for one, if you want. Various tax rebates and "economic stimulus payments" are headed taxpayers' way, with a minimum of $600 guaranteed. That was the launch price of the top-end PlayStation 3, so when Computerworld asked for suggestions of how to blow this money, I recommended the PS3 and the MacBook Air.
Ironically, I do not own either of these computers, nor do I see myself purchasing such. My reasons for recommending them are true enough — "The PS3 offers all the features of your typical Blu-ray DVD player, as well as access to exclusive PS3 video games… [such as] Metal Gear Solid 4[, which] comes out on June 12." But I don't believe Blu-ray is the next big thing, and for a game console that is flagging in most other respects, $400 is too high a price. I can get an Xbox 360 with its bountiful online network for less, or enjoy my Wii for no further investment (beyond the inevitable WiiWare on May 12th, and Wii Fit a week later).
Environmental group Greenpeace regularly rates corporations on how environmentally friendly their products are. Instead of encouraging the practices of green companies, these ratings are more often used to publicize their competitors' poor policies. Perhaps the best-known such slam is against Apple, and Greenpeace recently issued a warning against a company Apple is often compared with: Nintendo.
Though Greenpeace says Nintendo's response to their score is "pretty lame", what I think is truly lame is the reason for the negative score: not lack of compliance, but lack of information. It is true that Nintendo was given several opportunities to provide Greenpeace with the information needed to assess its greenness, and that Nintendo for whatever reason chose not to. But, with little to judge them by, Greenpeace nonetheless ranked Nintendo, issuing as low a default score as possible,
That's a rather heavy-handed approach to earning a company's cooperation. But then, when has Greenpeace, for all its laudable intentions and goals, ever been accused of playing well with others? We already know that the Wii has lower power consumption than any other current-gen console. Did Greenpeace ignore this fact because it was not confirmed by Nintendo? Or were they assessing only the materials used in console production? Even Sony, which topped their rankings, gets picked on in this amusing video:
With millions of consoles being manufactured every year, ensuring a minimal environmental impact is essential. Putting a bad rap on companies that have not been confirmed to be environmentally irresponsible puts the blame on scapegoats instead of actual polluters. It's time Greenpeace amended their ranking methodology and focused on the actual villains.
I've already explained on my book blog what PostSecret is: a Web site that shares works of art that declare or represent the artist's secret. Sometimes funny, often dark, it's a side of humanity that we all have within us but rarely see in others.
The site is updated with 20 new secrets every Sunday, and yesterday's secrets include something with which the video game community can relate — for better or for worse. One friend of mine commented, "It would be funnier if I didn't wonder if [my spouse] sent it in."
Does this secret reflect on a person's confused emotions? On his or her partner's talents? Or is it as simple as noting that this secret came out the same day as Super Smash Bros. Melee?
Really, the postcard is understandable. I don't know the gender of the artist, but as a man, I can think of at least ten reasons why video games are better than women:
Packaging doesn't matter.
Can be muted.
In the event of an emergency, reference the manual.
$50 one-time purchase fee; as a long-term investment, is cheaper.
Video game women are well-endowed, scantily-clad, and often in need of rescuing.
You can trade with friends.
You can have as many as you like.
You can put one down for weeks, then pick up right where you left off.
You always know which buttons to press to turn them on.
The newer, the better; no waiting 16 years.
Of course, such a list could come only from someone who doesn't have a choice between the two outlets. May those of you who are able enjoy whichever hardware you can.
Though Gamebits is a video gaming site, the impact Mr. Gygax and D&D had on all forms of pop culture cannot be underestimated. In Dungeons & Dreamers, the seventies are noted for giving rise to three fantastic media: the D&D game; the popularity of the Lord of the Rings novels; and personal computing and its electronic games. I discovered two of these pastimes in the early eighties. I am a product of this confluence, as my imagination, spurred by the digital realms of my Apple II computer, led me to spelunk my own family dungeon. It was there in the basement that I found a box of basic rules for D&D. Reading them, I couldn't imagine what kind of game it was: computer? board? something else? My mind was awhirl and stayed spinning even throughout the years it took before I finally got a chance to play D&D, by which time I was fully immersed in the fiction of R.A. Salvatore and the Forgotten Realms.
It's been years again since I last played D&D, but I am still an avid consumer of the genre, and my dissertation on youth culture, which has a 3,432-word chapter on D&D, is still one of the most visited pages on this site (thanks to Wikipedia). Clearly, Gary Gygax's legacy is as immortal as that of Steve Wozniak or J.R.R. Tolkien.
Thank you, Mr. Gygax, for your impact and influence on the lives and hopes of generations past and to come. You will be missed, but D&D will be with us always.
