The second film on the Icons of Horror: Hammer Films is a disappointment. It’s completely devoid of any suspense or tension build up. Somewhere in here is a good story, but it takes way too long to get to the killing and spends too much time showcasing the Egyptian props. There is a rather gruesome hand dismemberment scene near the beginning of the movie though.
One of the best DVD sets I own is the six movie Hammer Films Icons of Suspense Collection. Although I not a big fan of Hammer’s horror movies I went ahead and bought the Icons of Horror Collection based on the quality of the suspense collection. This adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was first of the four films I’ve watched from the set, and while the film was entertaining, it didn’t really deliver the goods on the horror. Its redeeming moments consisted of an exotic snake dance, lots of drugged out debauchery with Chistopher Lee and the cheesy make-up and voice modification on the actor who played Dr. Jekyll.
This is an incredibly creepy thriller about a town that defends an elderly pedophile who is a member of a wealthy and influential family. The matter-of-fact depiction of child endangerment is hard to watch and makes for a really intense film. Another film from the excellent Icons of Suspense Collection.
This is a slasher movie with a twist. The unique thing here is that the twist is revealed in the first three minutes of the film. Sure all the clichés are there, but they are self-aware and ironic. What keeps this film interesting is the desire to find out why these kids are being put through these motions by external forces. The film isn’t scary at all and there’s a bit too much CGI gore but the witty dialogue and horror movie references made it fun to watch all the way to the end.
Despite their flaws, I have enjoyed playing all the games in the King’s Quest series up until now (I ,II, III & IV). Unfortunately, I can’t say that I liked King’s Quest V.
This is a game that I have apparently owned for Macintosh for years, but never knew it. When I tried to install it on my ancient Mac Power PC it would not run and then promptly sold the game off on eBay (I think I got thirty bucks for it). I still wanted to the play the game, especially after finally completing King’s Quest IV. So, when it went on sale at GOG.com I promptly purchased it as part of a KQ 4-7 bundle for $3.99 (I’m still up $26.01!). As an aside, I love GOG.com, but this shopping experience was pretty bad. Firstly, their shopping cart froze when I entered my credit card info and tried to click the checkout button. I was forced to use PayPal for this purchase. Secondly, the game ran like crap within their DosBox shell. I tried tweaking everything but nothing helped the choppy sound and video. Fortunately, it also runs on ScummVM without any problems.
This is an SCI based Sierra adventure game which means improved graphical resolution and sound. The copy I bought was the CD-ROM version featuring recorded voice acting rather than text dialogs. I can’t say that it was an improvement. The voice acting is terrible. The voice of the narrator is okay, I guess, but the sound quality is on par with the garbled “Valkyre is about to die!” voice from the Guantlet arcade machine. The rest of the cast is just awkward and amateurish.
The one area where this game does shine is in its art and graphics. The images are all hand-drawn and have that lovely, blocky DOS-era look. There are no crappy 3D models or full-motion videos, just lush pixely environments and animations.
Unfortunately, the actual game play is frustrating and bad. The puzzles make no sense at all. Why is a cauldron powered by moldy cheese? Why does a tamborine make a snake slither away? I know, I know: spoiler alert! But believe me, by the time you decide eventually to play this, you will have filed these spoilers deep in your subconscious. When, forgetting you ever read this, you magically solve these puzzles, that will make two out of 260 points you didn’t need a walkthrough to achieve. Thank me later.
Also, I know dying is part of the fun of Sierra games, but the ways in which this game will kill your character are just plain unfair. There’s a desert maze which can only be passed by trial and error and dozens of deaths. There’s a boat that will sink if you don’t fix it, but nowhere in the description of the boat is there even a slight hint that it may not be seaworthy. Click the wrong spot on the screen and your character will walk off of a cliff and give you a “watch out” warning as you fall. Worst of all, it is possible to put the game in an unwinnable state very early on. These types of design decisions are what killed adventure gaming in the nineties.
Now, on to King’s Quest VI! I hear it fixes everything I just complained about above. We shall see.
While technically I could say that my love of surfy, guitar-based instrumental music started when I would listen to my parents’ old Duane Eddy 45s on a cheap turntable in our basement back home, this record is the real starting point in my love of the genre. Shadowy Men had a way of taking fairly simple but catchy songs and infusing them with tons of energy and fun. While the playing is top-notch, this is a band that really excels at arrangement. Every guitar tone, found sound or “woo!” comes together perfectly. The resulting music transcends the “surf” label that they were often given and in my opinion remains unmatched (with the possible exception of Laika and the Cosmonauts who come pretty darn close to Shadowy Men quality instrumental rock).
Another solid Discworld novel with lots of vivid characters and humorous situations.
Fresh off of completing Broken Sword, I decided to continue my point-and-click adventure gaming with The Longest Journey. Like Nico from Broken Sword, April Ryan of TLJ has one of those early nineties reverse mullet hairdos, short in back and long in front, but that’s about where the similarities between these two games ends. TLJ is far more epic in scope with your standard video game “you must save the world from certain doom” plot. The game is massive, but it is broken up into smaller digestible chapters that could generally be completed in one sitting. Early on in the game I got stuck a few times and had to turn to the ‘net for hints, but once I got a feel for the type of puzzles to expect I was able to get through most of the puzzles on my own. The biggest help came when I realized that by hitting the ‘A’ and ‘S’ keys, I could cycle through my inventory without having to navigate through menus and icons. There were still a few times when trial and error were all I had to go on. In hindsight, I’ve really come to appreciate the subtle built in hinting system in Telltale Games’ titles like Sam & Max.
During game play, April and the other on-screen characters are low-polygon 3-D models set against pre-rendered backdrops. They must have only slightly upped the poly-count for the cut scene animation because April still looks and moves like a textured balloon animal. Grim Fandango predates this game by a year or two, but, because of its character stylization, looks leaps and bounds better.
Graphical shortcomings aside, The Longest Journey managed to engage me the whole time with its fantastical story telling and likable characters. I didn’t quite understand the need to insert F-bombs and other adult language into what should have been a safe PG-rated game. I thought it didn’t quite fit in with the dragons and whimsical tree people, but I guess that supposedly makes the game more serious and mature?
