Shonasof, Author At Otaku No Culture

Shawn’s Dreaming of Spooky Gaming Hijinks

Presented in no particular order in what spooky gaming products are good includes:

Halloween is my favourite time of year! The weather is cooler, the days are shorter, and this special day is approaching fast. It’s a time to enjoy the spookier side of life, and with that in mind here are ten recent and classic games and franchises to fit the mood.

Presented in no particular order in what spooky gaming products are good includes:

Silent Hill

Before this game even became a franchise, the original Silent Hill had you searching a small town of perpetual fog for your missing daughter. The mountain town of Silent Hill seems quiet, serene and surprisingly deserted. If you’re a fan of the recent television hit, Stranger Things, you couldn’t be blamed to think that Silent Hill was one of its inspirations.

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Final Fantasy Returns to Ivalice in HD on the PlayStation 4

By Shawn Trommeshauser
(Dreaming in Digital)

Final Fantasy XII (FFXII) was originally released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2 and it is one of my favourite entries in the legendary series of role-playing games from Japan. It’s getting an update, titled Final Fantasy XII – The Zodiac Age, and the announcement of its availability on the PlayStation 4 was made today. There are currently no mentions of other consoles or the PC — which is unfortunate — but these days Square Enix has had a good track record of PC support so I would say it’s just a matter of time.

This was the first single player game in the series to truly begin moving away from the style that the classic Final Fantasy titles were known for. This shift has become exceptionally controversial with the newer games in the series, but I feel that this game struck a great balance between the older turn based party combat and more modern action RPGs that allow autonomous party members and dynamic movement in battle. This battle system was further refined and anyone who enjoys Final Fantasy XIV (available on Amazon) would be able to see the foundations laid in FFXII.

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Impressions of Austin Dragon’s Cyberpunk Detective Novel, “Liquid Cool”

I enjoyed finding the undercurrent of dark humor in Liquid Cool, and discovering the way a web of seemingly separate events all comes together in ways I wasn’t able to predict.

Liquid Cool By Shawn Trommeshauser (Dreaming In Digital)

I’m not usually one for detective novels, but the cyberpunk angle convinced me to give Liquid Cool a read. The setting brings to mind the scale Judge Dredd’s Megacity, and the colors and flying cars of The Fifth Element’s New York. Here, the city is called Metropolis and it is populated with colourful characters who tend to go by odd nicknames such as Run-Time, and China Doll. They live life alongside the fringe elements in the city because the police don’t have the manpower or resources to properly deal with everything the city throws at them.

“Liquid Cool” is a world of rainy skies and neon lights. Hoodlums are everywhere on the street and crime lords are living large. Even the police, such as Officer Break, are forced to deal with the underground simply to force his superiors to prioritize a young girl’s kidnapping. Here is where we find the eccentric main character, Cruz, a private investigator who drives an old Ford Pony. Not investigating the scene at a business that had just been shot up, but trying to put off meeting his girlfriend’s disapproving parents for the first time.

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I enjoyed finding the undercurrent of dark humor in Liquid Cool, and discovering the way a web of seemingly separate events all comes together in ways I wasn’t able to predict. I always appreciate when a narrative can surprise me without going completely off the rails into deus ex machina. If this were adapted into a film or a TV miniseries, I wouldn’t hesitate to spend more time in this world.

If this sounds appealing to you, then I would suggest checking out ‘These Mean Streets, Darkly’ It’s a short prologue to “Liquid Cool” and is freely available. I would recommend it if you’re a fan of either detective or cyberpunk stories.

These Mean Streets, Darkly – http://www.austindragon.com/books/these-mean-streets-darkly-a-liquid-cool-prequel/

Liquid Cool – http://www.austindragon.com/books/liquid-cool-cyberpunk-detective-series/

The Force is Still Strong with the X-Wing Series

By Shawn Trommeshauser
(Dreaming in Digital)

X-Wing — the word alone brings back a flood of memories and nostalgia. It’s also the name of a series of four games developed by Totally Games and published by LucasArts that, despite their age, are still the best Starfighter games set in the Star Wars universe. Putting you in the pilot’s seat of ships from both the Rebel Alliance and The Galactic Empire, the X-Wing series has you flying missions during the Galactic Civil War and are my favourite Star Wars games ever made.

I’m certain many people will agree that Star Wars was one of the defining entertainment experiences in our lives. The exotic worlds, the aliens, the lightsabers, any one of a hundred reasons George Lucas’ world latched on to our imaginations. For me, it was the starships. The X-Wing Starfighter is only a small step below The Millennium Falcon itself in fictional vehicles I’d love to have parked outside my home (slightly above a Light Cycle).

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Retrogaming with the Original Intellivision

Many Intellivision games are still available in collections such as Intellivision Lives! for the original XBOX, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, and Playstation 2.

Intellivision Original Logo The Intellivision was released in 1979 by Mattel Electronics and sold over 3 million units in its lifetime. It was an ambitious video game console and its developers tried many new things that still influence game design even today. While the much more famous Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) would later resurrect the dying game industry and bring true mainstream appeal to the hobby, there were many other consoles released before Nintendo took over the world. Among them were such notable examples such as the ColecoVision, the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision which I am focusing on. It was the system I played the most as a child.

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Gamers against Cancer is Racing Now till the 10th!

Awesome Games Done Quick is a yearly showcase event that began in 2010 and it takes place early January (taking place now till the 10th in 2016) to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Awesome Games Done Quick is a yearly showcase event that began in 2010 and it takes place early January (taking place now till the 10th in 2016) to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Its sister event, Summer Games Done Quick, takes place in July and supports Doctors without Borders. Anyone can apply, and there are even prize draws and bonuses that viewers can affect simply by donating. The best and amusing gamers are chosen from the community in the months leading up to each event.

These week-long marathons have gamers play in speedruns. This approach spotlights the player (known as a speedrunner) using almost every method at their disposal to complete games as quickly as possible. Everything like abusing game-breaking bugs, practicing tricks that have as little as a sixtieth of a second window to perform, and using technical knowledge of how the games are programmed are exploited.

Approximately 2.8 million dollars was raised in both of these events in 2015. The gamers who gather at these events show off a level of skill in video games that the average player can only gawk at.

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