Amnesia: The Dark Descent can be seen as one of the most terrifying games released in the past few years and rightfully so. Now a few weeks ago Valve ran what they called a Potato Sack promotion and allowed Steam users to gain access to the Justine expansion pack of the title, which allowed players to make their way through a number of test chambers, though if you failed someone died horribly.
Now this DLC is available for everyone and is available as an update called 1.2 and can be downloaded from Frictional Games’ website. Besides the extra content there will also be five short stories included by Amnesia’s main writer so it is definitely a plus. Also released today was the soundtrack for the game. If you happened to pre-order or buy Amnesia directly from Frictional themselves then you don’t have to spend a dime, otherwise you will have to purchase it from their store. This way you can listen to psychological horror background music while trying not to freak out on the highway or something like that.
The Curse of the Black Spot is the third episode in the 6th series of the resurrected season of Doctor Who. The episode takes place on a pirate ship that’s stuck out at sea and is haunted by a deadly sea-siren. It’s up to the Doctor and a crew of pirates to solve the mystery behind the siren and the black spot.
Yarr, me ‘ardies!
Plot
The plot of this episode involves a pirate ship, it’s crew, a sea-siren and a black spot… or rather, many black-spots.
The TARDIS crew land aboard a mysterious pirate ship out at sea and quickly find themselves at the mercy of the ships captain. Though, he isn’t really all that merciful at all, it isn’t until one of the crew gets gashed that he starts to back down to be more lenient with The Doctor and his companions. You see, this is also where we find out the main danger in this episode, which is a black spot that appears on any wounded persons hand. I would also like to point out that it is in a similar position to where the transmitter-communications device thing that The Doctor installed into everyones hands in the last episode.
The main villain is, of course, a sexy sea-siren who uses the spot to mark her victims before taking them into the netherworld. Of course, there is a major twist to do with the siren in this episode; and you should have worked it out, or at least had a decent theory made up, by the time Rory gets taken by her.
Take her hand, you know that you want to.
Personally what I liked about this episode, is that The Doctor always seems to be one step behind the monster until towards the end. Every time he thinks that he has it worked out, something else happens and he has to react to it, he can’t work it the cause until after something bad has happened; and this makes it great. Seeing The Doctor without all the answers is really awesome and I would really like to see this concept come about more often in this series.
Another interesting thing about the plot also involves Rory. He becomes, kind of almost dead and leaves it up to Amy to have him resuscitated, he does this in a pretty witty way by telling her to do it the way it’s shown on TV. And just like on TV, there’s a moment where it doesn’t seem like she has made it, but then when you least expect it; BOOM! He’s alive and it’s all incredibly dramatic.
The one thing that I really, really like though, is that the ending sets up that the pirate crew may be able to return in a future episode by giving them a spaceship. Maybe this will link into the season final? I don’t think it will personally, but it would be cool if it did. I should probably have mentioned somewhere that the siren was a medical program who was marking her patients and stuff. It’s all pretty cool like that.
Audio
The background audio as well as sound effects are all beautifully integrated in this episode, and this gives you an epic feeling of whats going on.
The background tones in this particular episode are mostly ominous as well as luminous. They create this feel of intrigue and mystery, especially with the sirens song. Even the more triumphant tracks in the episode keep this feeling and tone and this helps to keep with the general gloomy atmosphere of the episode.
Amy Pond had just bested an entire crew of trained pirates.
This episode probably has some of my favorite musical moments in the season so far, you can listen to it in the background while typing a review on it and get the perfect impression as to what’s happening in the story. This is incredibly great as it allows viewers to keep in tune with the episode should they need to leave the television for any reason. I mean, I can feel the startle from the background music, how awesome is that!
Believability
For some reason, I didn’t like the way the show opened; it just didn’t seem all that dramatic or believable. Like, right at the beginning of the episode, they had a perfect moment to cut into the intro with a perfect kind of cliff-hanger moment, but instead opted to have it much further in at an incredibly awkward moment. This almost completely removed me from the episode, but luckily, I was able to get back into it soon after the credits played.
This episode is full of unbelievable moments for me as well, like when Amy was engaging some of the pirates in a sword fight. They just didn’t seem menacing or blood-thirsty or even cutthroat enough to be pirates. I mean, sure they could have been too scared to engage, but it really didn’t feel like that at all. It was painfully obvious that Amy had no idea how to use the sword correctly and I’m pretty sure that at least one of the pirates would have had some idea on how to disarm a sword without causing much damage.
This will make a great wallpaper.
All the unbelievable moments in this story are in the beginning moments and the episode does steadily become more and more real once the pirates and The Doctor’s crew begin to work together to survive the wrath of the sea-siren. By the time you have reached the 30% mark, you’re completely drawn in and it becomes classic Doctor Who.
Overall
This episode of Doctor Who seems pretty weak when placed next to such a strong opening to the series. But! It is also an incredibly entertaining story and one that is full of mystery and all kinds of problems that need to be solved. The characters develop a little and we get to see a side to The Doctor that we rarely have ever seen, the side of him that is always one step behind and that is quite cool to experience. It’s an incredibly fun run and this episode certainly lends itself greatly to the series as a whole.
Considering the nature of the series we will not issuing a score, but rather a recommendation. There may be more reviews for this show in the future and possibly one when the series ends or the box-set is released.
Dark Energy Digital, much to their delight, has announced that its new Darknet developer feedback system has exceeded the developers expectations. Darknet launched in Hydrophobia Prophecy on Steam last week, and thousands of players have since submitted their feedback using the system, which automatically uploads contextual data for Dark Energy Digital to analyse.
Using the data collected, Dark Energy Digital have now set to work on playing through the game, picking up on feedback denoted by icons scattered around the level based on the response from players.
Pete Jones, Director at Dark Energy Digital had this to say: “We were expecting a slow burn with Darknet, so when we switched on InfiniteWorlds the day after launch and the whole game map lit up like a Christmas tree, we were really surprised. People really seem to be embracing the connected development philosophy behind Darknet.”
“It’s a mind blowing experience to play back through the game you created and see what the community thinks about the different elements. You see clusters of positive responses around cool moments and you can analyse the map area by area to see which are most popular. But the main idea of course is to actively improve the game, and this is already happening. Thanks to Steam Cloud we’ve already delivered several micro updates to address frustrations flagged up by Darknet, such as adding extra checkpoints to alleviate concentrations of frustration data points.”
According to Dark Energy Digital, they have big plans for Darknet and are already listening to the community about the features they want to see added in future.
Those awaiting the highly anticipated DSiWare release of 99Bullets can now have a date to look forward to as EnjoyUp Games have announced they will be releasing the shooter on the DSiWare next week on May 23rd. I have mentioned in the past that from what I had seen at the time, I got a Rez vibe mainly due to the human-shaped figure (which goes by the name of V-99) that is used to actually shoot as well as the vivid colors and scenery.
I can now say after seeing the launch trailer for the title (which you can check out below) that 99Bullets really looks to stand on it’s own though as the actual gameplay appears to mix elements of new and old arcade shooters together, which looks to be a fantastic combination. EnjoyUp have also priced the game at nice and surprisingly low 500 points.
Two words – Chrono Trigger…Hailed as one of the greatest video games of all time (of all time!), the critically acclaimed RPG has finally made its way onto Wii’s Virtual Console. Originally released more than a decade ago in 1995 for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Chrono Trigger is still regarded as a hallmark in role playing video games. Revelatory for its time, Chrono Trigger brought game changing features in gameplay, storyline and presentation. Its effects on the gaming industry can still be seen in today’s modern RPGs.
Chrono Trigger is available right now on Wii’s Virtual Console for 800 Wii points.
The causal iPhone game ‘Air Penguin’ has proven to be a worldwide hit with Gamevil announcing that the game developed, Enterfly, has sold over one million units and as a result has made one million USD in revenue. The game itself has only been out for a month, sold on Apple’s App store Air Penguin has become one of the fastest selling apps ever.
The game has reached No. 1 in the paid app chart in multiple countries around the world including America, France, Germany and Netherlands. In Air Penguin, players control a penguin using the iPod Touch or iPhone accelerometer across Antarctica while avoid hazards and obstacles. A new update is on its way with more levels and characters.
Air Penguin is available on the App Store for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad for $0.99
Rockstar has just announced the launch of the L.A. Noire Official Soundtrack page, where players can go and listen to recordings and classic songs from the game.
The page houses the audio of special Soundtrack selections including Hard Bop Chase, and Theme to L.A. Noire. It also includes information on the making of the in-game score. However, the most exciting inclusion on this page is the L.A. Noire Verve Remixed Project, which features six jazz classics from the game’s soundtrack which have been remixed by DJs such as Dave Sitek, Dj Premier, and Truth and Soul.
With the arrival of L.A. Noire in stores, what better way is there to welcome it than to release another short story for the L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories anthology?
The latest arrival in this collection of stories is “See The Woman”, written by Lawrence Block. Block is an award-winning crime fiction writer who is known for other works such as the Matt Scudder series, featuring titles like “Eight Million Ways To Die”. The short story looks at domestic abuse and the effects of this on the life of a now-retired L.A. cop.
The story debuts here on MulhollandBooks.com, and will soon be available in downloadable PDF and online reader formats. Previous short stories in the collection include Hell of an Affair by Duane Swierczynski, and What’s in a Name by Jonathan Santlofer.
You may remember that a long time ago Gearbox and 2K Games said that First Access Club members, who were only able to become members after buying Borderlands Game of the Year Edition would gain access to the Duke Nukem Forever demo before anyone else. Of course when that news was first spoken of there was still some skepticism about whether or not the title would actually come out.
Though now that it has a set release date, so does the demo for First Access Club members, and that date is June 3rd. Unfortunately the platforms for which the demo will be available on were not mentioned and neither was a time for a demo for those who are not able to obtain early access. Alongside this announcement was a quick video from Randy Pitchford going over the information and confirming that Duke Nukem Forever is in the final stages of going gold.
Remember the Kirby game we told you about months ago that was announced for the Nintendo DS? Nintendo of Japan have officially dated and named the newest entry in the chain of Kirby titles for the handheld, which is called “Atsumete! Kirby” and will be hitting shelves July 7th.
This Kirby title looks to have the standard fare for everyone’s favorite pink fluff, but will have the player controlling up to 10 Kirbys with the stylus. No other information has been given at the moment as far as plot goes, but since it is Kirby (a series that includes a lot of spin-offs that spin in many different directions), the possibilities for this title’s narrative could be endless. No date has been given for any other country at the moment, but I would expect this to be one of the many cards Nintendo has up their sleeve for this year’s E3.
