The Known Universe – Video
By Ricardo | February 7, 2010
This video pans out from Earth all the way out to our solar system and beyond. It blew me away when I saw it, made me think we are all unimportant. Enjoy:
Topics: Entertainment | No Comments »
Paranormal Activity
By Ricardo | February 2, 2010
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Paranormal Activity’s about a couple who shares a big ass house with an unknown entity. Because of the recent activity, the boyfriend decides to set up a video camera to record in their room during the night to see if they can catch any of the weird shit on film.
This is another one of those “found footage” movies where everything’s recorded on one camera and the film is cut and presented as a movie. I don’t know if the style can get played out but it really fits this film and really makes it feel more realistic. There’s an aura of creepiness as you see shit happening during the night while they’re asleep… and that’s the best part of the movie. It is all very believable, stuff you’ve heard people say they’ve experience, stories you’ve heard on TV regarding ghost activity. The fact that it happens while they’re asleep makes you realize how voulnerable we really are during the night. You can set alarms for intruders and break ins but you really have no control over the super natural.
It’s a cool movie, I’d say watch it with an open mind and take it for what it’s worth. I had some adjusting to do because we’re used to seeing shit like The Grudge and The Ring that when you see something without the over the top stuff it can take a while to appreciate that it’s working it’s horror magic through other means. I don’t know… after I watched it I was thinking it’s a 4 but after it lingered a bit in my mind I thought 4.5. Fuck it, watch it.
Topics: 4.5 Stars, Movie | No Comments »
El Chivo – Finalizando “En Mis Venas” Video
By Ricardo | January 30, 2010
That song sounds sick, can’t wait to hear the others.
Topics: Music | No Comments »
Dead Space – Developing The Story
By Ricardo | January 22, 2010
This is developer diary #2 where they talk about the story to Dead Space. It’s nice to see that they’ve taken great pains to flesh out the mythology to it. I know we’ve seen this scenario many times before so it’s easy to write off the “something went wrong and we’re there to see what happened” story but hey at least they’re aiming to refine it.
I really have to agree with them here. “Sience fiction sort of works against horror, you kinda have to keep it in check if you want the horror to come out.” I see that they’ve tried to keep the sci-fi to a minimal but ironically this is one of the few games where the sci-fi is believable. The technology you experience throughout the game makes sense in the game world, I have no problem believing it. The video feeds from other survivors on on holograms, the plasma gun is fucking devastating. It blows limbs off like a fucking shotgun. The first thing that came to mind were Halo’s plasma guns and how relatively low damage they inflict. This is hot molten fucking plasma we’re dealing with.
It’s also cool how the story is told through Isaac’s perspective. You don’t know any more than he does and whatever you encounter is as new to him as it is new to you. I went into this blindly so I didn’t know much of what awaited me and that made everything even better.
Topics: Survival Horror, Videogames, xbox360 | No Comments »
Cartel de Santa – Saludos Volumen 5
By Ricardo | January 21, 2010
Check out this bad ass video Babo just whipped outta nowhere. Looks like he was itchin’ to throw a freestyle out there before their new album Vol. 5 is released in March. He came off hella sick on the Kinto Sol beat, I wonder como les va a parecer a esos vatos.
Topics: Music | 4 Comments »
Wall of OTFABS
By Ricardo | January 20, 2010
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Topics: bien verga, otfabs | 19 Comments »
Condemned: Criminal Origins
By Ricardo | January 18, 2010
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Condemned was an Xbox 360 launch game that offered something different. It took a twist on the survival horror genre by creating a FPS experience having you play a fugitive cop trying to prove his innocence. Even to this day it looks pretty damn good (except for the character models). The whole game you’re running through abandoned buildings looking for a serial killer and you come across bums that have been affected by some phenomenon that has turned them hostile. It can be some creepy shit, you hear noises around you and desperately turn to see if you see something only to have some fool with a pipe lunge out of you from the shadows.
The main character has been accused of murder and the cops are after you. So what do you do? Go after the serial killer yourself and pick up some weapons to defend yourself along the way. That’s basically it. If you’re looking for more details I’m afraid I’ll have to start making stuff up.
As you can see in the trailer the game looks pretty bad ass. These are the same guys that made F.E.A.R. so they’ve got experience on this shit. So why the 3 stars? It just failed to become anything special. You’re a crime scene investigator so you have all of these forensic tools at your disposal to look for clues. The problem is that once you come across evidence that might have prints, some broad on your comm will tell you to use your fingerprint kit on it. This translates to you going up to the item and pressing a button that pops on screen. You don’t search, you don’t try to find stuff to use your tech on. The broad tells you what to do which kills an aspect that could have made this game a lot deeper.
Yes another reason it didn’t get a higher score is that it’s just not a very deep game. You go around buildings looking for your way and the closest you’ll come to solving puzzles is finding a wrench/sledgehammer/crowbar to open a certain door. They’re usually lying around near by or an enemy is wielding it so you have to take him out before you can move forward. I don’t mind simple gameplay but damn there needs to be some variety to make it feel like I’m making progress.
The best thing Condemned has to offer is the combat system. You pick up firearms here and there but the ammo is non-replenishable. So once you’re out of ammo you have to ditch the gun so most of the time you’ll be fighting hand to hand with 2×4s and pipes just like your enemies. They come rushing at you and you have to decide whether you’ll strike or block their attack. This had me blocking like a twitching fool thinking I was going to counter, only to have them smack me when I was getting out of the block. Still, you can only fight so many enemies before it gets old. I’ve read that the sequel has beefed up the combat and is an overall better game.
Anyway, I got this for like $4 on Amazon and it was cool for the bit it held my attention. It just felt like more a tech demo. The story was mediocre and the gameplay wasn’t deep but it definitely scores in the atmosphere department. Yeah I’m gonna get part 2 eventually. I liked the idea of this game and there’s a good chance they did much better the second time around.
Topics: 3 Stars, Survival Horror, Videogames, xbox360 | 2 Comments »
Dead Space: Dev Diary – Getting to Green Light
By Ricardo | January 18, 2010
Very interesting video from the creators of Dead Space. They talk about how they actually convinced EA to give them a shot and create a whole new IP. I gotta give it up to them, I thought it was going to be a mostly derivative survival horror game but from what I’ve played of it I have to say it’s my favorite one so far. It’s very polished and you can tell that it was made by people who loved working on it.
Topics: Survival Horror, Videogames, xbox360 | 6 Comments »
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