An interesting 20-minute interview with Junji Ito as he is escorted around the Winchester Mystery House.
I love how Ito’s favourite band is The Beatles!
An interesting 20-minute interview with Junji Ito as he is escorted around the Winchester Mystery House.
I love how Ito’s favourite band is The Beatles!
Death Stranding is easily one of the most hotly anticipated games of recent years. From the creative genius Hideo Kojima, this epic, world-traversing PS4 game is sure to push boundaries and impress in many ways.
What I discovered today, is that there could very well be a cameo by none other that Junji Ito himself. Ito had previously been working with Kojima on the now-cancelled Silent Hills project. (I still shed a tear at the mere thought of what that could have become). But it seems that they have remained in touch.
Here are the images I have found after somebody shared them on Facebook. I have yet to confirm these as being true, but I pray to the gods of horror that they are.
Check out Death Stranding on the PlayStation Store!
I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to open my email two weeks ago and find an invitation to the upcoming multiplayer game Resident Evil: Project Resistance. I had heard it referred to as “Resident Evil but done like Dead by Daylight”. But I’m here to tell you that it is so much more than that.
I’ve always loved the classic Resident Evil games (from the original through to Code: Veronica – I haven’t played any more till Resident Evil 7: Biohazard). Resident Evil 7 rekindled my love of horror games and the Resident Evil 2 Remake rekindled my love of Raccoon City specifically. So when I had heard about an upcoming multiplayer game set in this world I jumped at the chance to enter into the closed BETA access ballot.
I still can’t believe I got in.
You choose from one of two sides when entering into a game — you can be either one of four survivors, each with their own unique traits, or the Mastermind, who is trying to stop them from escaping. I found both sides fun in their own way, but the clear winner for me was playing as the Mastermind — especially when I got to jump into the skin of the Tyrant twice in each game (more on that later).
As one of the four survivors your goal is to make it out of the match with your allies. This means fighting your way across three separate areas of the game map and out of the exit gate, all while the Mastermind throws everything at you from Lickers to Zombie Dogs.
Each time you deal damage or complete objectives you get additional seconds added on to your team’s time to escape. And believe me when I say that every second counts. Each area has a simple puzzle to solve, which essentially involves exploring the environment for each part of a puzzle to unlock the next door.
Each area has a safe room where you can buy extra weapons, ammo and herbs with credits found within the map. These safe rooms can also be used as breathing spaces — The Mastermind is unable to send enemies in there after you.
As the lone Mastermind, your job is to stop the four survivors from making it through those three areas and out of the exit. You can throw anything at them that you have at your disposal, but there is a slight caveat.
The Mastermind builds up a points gauge, about 1 point per five seconds I think. Those points can then be spent to play “enemy cards”. You see, each enemy you can place down in the map is represented by a card within your “deck”. Decks can be chosen before the match but the BETA was limited to a single selection. Those cards then become available on a rotation, allowing you to build up a good varied selection of enemies for the survivors to fight through.
A Zombie dog for example takes 2 points to place down. It is a weaker enemy, but more can be placed down in succession. A Licker on the other hand is worth 7 points but is much stronger. So it will take slightly longer to build up to the points to place one of those down. So it’s all a bit of give and take.
Another power gauge that builds up over time, separate from the card points gauge, is the ultimate weapon metre. The only Mastermind that was available to play in the BETA was “Daniel”, whose ultimate weapon is The Tyrant from the Resident Evil 2: Remake. The Tyrant card pops up once its metre is filled, after which you can place it for free. Once placed, you actually take control of the trench-coat-wearing machine!
If you manage to keep the survivors occupied enough through the match, and their timer runs to zero, a gas will be released killing them all. If this happens then you have won the match.
I have to say that I pretty much liked everything about this game. Even though it was a BETA test, it felt really polished and I noticed absolutely zero bugs whilst playing. Capcom are one of the leaders of the pack when it comes to video games right now, at least in my opinion. I think a lot of what made this game feel so polished for me, was the use of their proprietary engine introduced in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and continued in Resident Evil 2 Remake — the “RE Engine”.
I felt there was a good push and pull between the survivors and the Mastermind. Some games I would absolutely destroy the survivors, whilst in others they would escape with 8 minutes or so remaining. It will be interesting to see how this game gets altered, if at all, after they have sifted through all of the feedback from the testing weekend.
As I said above, I pretty much like everything in this game. If I’m honest the only thing I found slightly frustrating, albeit only occasionally, was the enemy intelligence. I would sometimes see enemies just standing there whilst survivors ran around ahead of them. This happened rarely, but I assume it is one of those things that will get reviewed after testing. That’s what BETA testing is for, right?
This was one of the questions on the feedback form and it really got me thinking about what I’d love to see in the final game. The DLC options here are almost limitless, but here are a few things I’d love to experience:
I’d love to be able to play through a bunch of locations from the Resident Evil universe. Even the Baker House would be a cool one for me. I think you could probably get about five or six maps from each Resident Evil Game.
Some of my absolute dream maps would be:
Different enemies from across Resident Evil’s history would be so awesome. I could imagine putting a bee hive in the corner of a room, with the lights turned off, to be very annoying to survivors. 😀
Some enemies I’d love to be able to place down:
I think the idea of each survivor player having to choose a different character is an interesting one. But what I’d love to see would be for players to earn, or maybe purchase?, skins. So they still play the roles as either tank, damage, hacker etc but each person can go in looking like characters from the Resident Evil universe.
Some characters I’d be super hyped to play as:
I absolutely loved playing this game over the testing weekend and can not wait for it to be released in full. I will be buying it on its day of release.
My first thoughts when hearing about its asymmetrical structure was that it would basically be Dead By Daylight but in the Resident Evil universe. But I am happy to say that this is not the case. Project Resistance is a game that sits on its own, taking interesting elements from different games. It has the puzzle solving aspect from its own world, it then takes the asymmetrical nature of other multiplayer games whilst putting its own spin on it. Mix those with the card point system from games like Clash Royale and you’ve got an interesting game that I’ll be playing the hell out of when it’s released.
I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank Capcom for accepting me on to the BETA testing weekend. I managed to make a few friends jealous, as well as having some of the most fun moments I’ve had on the PS4 for a while.
You could tell from the huge grin across my face for the entirety of the first episode of AHS: 1984 that I was in heaven.
I have just come across this awesome artwork by an artist called Jack Batty. He has drawn a number of really cool Junji Ito inspired pieces, which I definitely think you should check out.
I really love his style. He even manages to make someone like Fuchi from Fashion Model look… well… cute.
Enjoy!
Original link. Imagine having the master himself drawing on to your back like this (or on a t-shirt more precisely). Imagine the look on this very lucky fan’s face as he does it. She must be over the moon. 🙂
I have always tried to maintain the belief that reading novels from physical books is always the best way to go. And whilst there is something to be said about a physical living breathing book that can’t run out of batteries, I have found something interesting with my kindle.
When im reading a book, I always tend to see how big a chapter is before I start it – even if I have plenty of time to hand to read. And the size of the book tends to begin intimidating me when it is over a decent size.
But with the second book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, The Drawing of the Three, I have whizzed through 60 pages out of the 513 total. And it didn’t feel like it.
I think it takes 2 to 3 kindle pages to equal a page in the physical book with my current text size settings. And I think because of that — and the fact I’ve not had the rest of the book sitting in my hands daring me to put it down for a bit — I have just read with a much greater ease.
I think my kindle could be my default method of reading moving forward.
Only yesterday I started on IT, but have decided to keep my concentration on The Dark Tower series. I really wanna see where this series goes.
One of the earliest films I remember seeing was the 2-part mini-series of Stephen King’s IT. IT scared the undying crap out of me when I was about 6 or 7.
Now, many years later, I have decided to actually read the novel before part 2 of the new 2-part films is out.
HERE GOES…
…TIME TO FLOAT…
Edit: After reading 50 pages, although enjoying it, I have decided to concentrate on The Dark Tower series for a while.
Some thoughts of mine after finishing the first book of Stephen King’s epic series ‘The Dark Tower’.
It took me to my second attempt to actually read this book to completion. And although it started off as a bit of a chore, by about a third in I found myself drawn in to the Gunslinger and his pursue of the Man in Black.
I found the story to be a slow burn — an ongoing pursuit interspersed with necessary backstory of the titular character. And I mean that in a good way. I have the feeling that this is going to be a build up over a long time — especially knowing that how many books there are now in this series.
I found it really intriguing how the Gunslinger and the boy he finds, Jake, interact. Their relationship seemed to be building into an interesting one and really hope that it can somehow be explored further. Somehow.
And Jake’s history too. His origin that spoke of New York in some other world, or that’s what I presumed. Yet the world in which we follow the Gunslinger seems to be in some post-war-ravaged, desolate future of the very same Earth.
Whatever ends up happening, and however this crossing at the nexus of realities is explored, I’m looking forward to the ride it brings.
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