Crow County

Crow County was sold to me as a throwback to 1990s era survival horror. Immediate buy for me. I've fallen for this trick before, and most of the time it doesn't pay off. (I think notoriously about a game called Back in 1995 that had game ending bugs) Every time there's a new one, I come back to suckle on that which is familiar and comforting to me. 

Crow County takes place completely in an abandoned amusement park. The McGuffin is the park owner who had disappeared and reports of some weird stuff happening at the park. Shortly after entering, you run into the first NPC that has no business being there and not surprisingly, is injured. We're officially hooked. Barry is looking at the blood on the ground and Jill is wandering into the first zombie hallway.

Creepy Games in 2022

Horror games on the PlayStation 1 were what turned me from a gaming hobbiest to an obsessive. They were the reasons I spent long hours on dial up, reading forums about the behind the scenes and rumors about games. They were the reason I spent weeks building an Angelfire site and joining a web ring. 

To this day, I still love them. They are some of the few games that don't tell your standard super soldier story. In fact, the weaker and more flawed your character is, the scarier the game tends to be. 

After completing Elden Ring and it owning March through August, I wanted to play a few shorter games. Horror games lend themselves to this need because the sweet spot for a good horror game is about 5-15 hours. Anything beyond that and the fear has diminishing returns

Top Games of 2021

2021 was a weird year. Things started off much as 2020 did, locked inside, wondering when you would get out. 

But then things started opening up. And I stopped wanting to be inside. 

It was still a year that found studios having a difficult time creating games remotely. PS5's and Xbox Series S were still damn near impossible to find. 

Despite everyone trying to keep me from playing games, I covered a bunch this year. (Mostly thanks to Gamepass which might be the best thing to ever happen to games.)

So the rules are the same, the games did not need to come out in 2021, I just needed to play them in 2021. So here they are, my top games of 2021. 

Spoopy Games: The Early Capcom Horror Games

Capcom went to the survival horror cash cow as often as they could after their success with Resident Evil 1. They were known for their beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds, stiff controls, 3-6 hour games, and campy voice acting.

There was a time where you could argue they were better at horror than fighting, something inconceivable in recent years.

And this, this is where my obsession started. The games weren't enough. I started buying Resident Evil comics (they are all terrible), Resident Evil action figures (really awesome), and even jackets with the Umbrella logo on them.

Resident Evil VII Teaser

I usually stray away from demos and teasers. This is partially because of the very limited hard drive space I have on my PS4 and Sony's complete mismanagement of their download list.

The only other teaser I've downloaded this generation was PT.

I obviously have a soft spot for horror games, so it makes sense, but this is also because unlike a demo, teasers tend to be very different than the end product. It's a part of game history that in 10 years, someone is going to make an off hand comment about Resident Evil VII Remastered and I will tell them about this strange little teaser.

E3 2016

Another E3 hype train has left the station and after catching up on all the videos, I've got some things I'm excited about.

Nintendo did the thing they said they were going to do, they came to the show with just Zelda and Pokemon. I know I wasn't the only one that thought this was a bait and switch and we were going to see the NX.

Microsoft, Sony, EA, Ubisoft, and Bethesda all had OK showings, but there wasn't as much to blow your mind as there was last year.

Resident Evil 0

Played on: Playstation 4
Release Date: January 19, 2016 (November 12, 2002 original)

Resident Evil 0 was always this weird outlyer for me. Resident Evil games sold me on gaming platforms, but as someone going off to college in 2003, I couldn't really afford to have both a Playstation 2 and Gamecube. I chose Playstation.

Much like Code Veronica, I stared at the box art and thumbed through the strategy guides, trying to complete the Resident Evil story in my mind. It wasn't until 2006 when a used game store started selling Gamecubes for $35 a piece that I finally got to play Resident Evil 0.

Most times when I booted up RE 0, I would inevitably stop after 30 minutes and go back to RE-make.

It's been exciting playing, almost like getting a throwback Resident Evil game in 2014.

Editorial: The Things Resident Evil Got Wrong

Resident Evil has a storied history of making people scratch their heads at decisions made. Most of their legacy is seen in the positive, but of course there is the insane fall from grace with Resident Evil 6. Here are some of Resident Evil's questionable decisions.

1. Resident Evil 2 - The Moth
   You've fought your way through the police station, slugged knee deep through poopy-water, and battled William Birkin away multiple times. There's a giant metal blast door staring you down. You ready your customized shotgun, not knowing what creature awaits you. And.... moth. Giant, fluttering moth. In a way it was somewhat creepy and I have to applaud that someone had to design and program the moth for this one room. But once you do research, you find out that unless you are a giant flower, this moth is mostly harmless.
   
   
2. Resident Evil 0 - Opera Singing Leech Doctor
   
   Leeches creep me out. So it should have been one hell of a scary edition. Unfortunately, from the moment I saw Dr. Marcus singing opera on a mountain top to call the leeches, I realized this is when the series was going to lose some of it's luster. And it did.
3. Resident Evil Survivor
   
   Underneath all the terrible design decisions, Resident Evil Survivor has a pretty OK story. There's no way to save, you couldn't use a light gun in the North American version, and when you died, there were no checkpoints. The rage I felt when I died during the last tyrant battle and saw the title scream cannot be described. New curse words would need to be invented.
   
4. Call of Duty: Resident Evil 6
   
   There were several issues with Resident Evil 6. The couch co-op is great. My wife and I really loved playing through Resident Evil 5 together. Issue with 6, on the PS3... well that second player couldn't sign into their PSN profile or upgrade any weapons or upgrade anything. That made an already death filled game harder. The inventory system was terrible, there was no way to pause the game, and I still don't really understand how herbs work. On top of that, Chris' campaign might as well have been the new Call of Duty. Run and gun through eastern European towns with the arm-swollen Chris.
5. The Resident Evil Magazines
   
   The Resident Evil Magazines were comic books that came out in 1998. The first two comics were actually pretty great, covering the events of the first two games. But beyond that, they suffered from lazy writing. Essentially, "Ummm... an Umbrella facility has an accident... in South America... and here's Barry."
6. Resident Evil 5 Boss Battles
   
   Part of the tension of the Resident Evil series was the battle between your character and the bosses. They were chess matches of firing a few shots and running like hell. In Resident Evil 5, most the boss battles involved you jumping on a mounted machine gun and firing away.
   
   The height of the RE5 boss battles was the first one, the executioner. And you know why? Because it felt like an old Resident Evil boss battle. I didn't get a quick time event every 45 seconds so that a giant didn't punch the jeep I was holed up in.
   
   

Official Playstation Magazine Demo Disk No. 5, February 1998

For a kid that didn't get much of an allowance, sometimes demo disks were the only way for me to enjoy "new" games. It was better for me to plop down $10 for a magazine, demo disk, and mall pretzel with cheese rather than save for six months and buy a game that I might not end up liking.

I recently found a bunch of my old Official Playstation Magazine demo disks. I've had emotions bouncing back and forth between, "I own most of the full versions of these games now and this could be the worst way to waste time" and "wow, this could be a really cool look into gaming history."

I had some time to waste, so I grabbed the first disk I saw in the binder, OPM No. 5, February 1998.

For those of you that don't know the format, OPM would send out a demo disk that generally had half playable demos and half teaser trailers with each of their magazines. This is an especially solid disk.

Resident Evil 2 (video)




The first thing I noticed was how terrible the compressed PS1 footage looked on an HD TV.

Second thing I noticed was that Capcom has had a hard-on for action oriented survival horror games since 1998. They might not have fully implemented that until Resident Evil 4, but this trailer shows no less than 6,000 gun shots.

Pandemonium 2 (Video)

Pandemonium was one of those games I always remember sitting front and center on the shelves for cheap. I always held it in my hand, read the back, looked at the pictures, and then set it back down. I could never figure out exactly what it was. I liked the colors, but that was about it.

I watched the 2 minute video with gameplay footage and I still don't know what it is. Anyone know if it were any good?

Tomb Raider 2 (Playable Demo)

All of my Tomb Raider instincts came back to me. I battled the tigers with the backwards strafe and fire (with the occasional roll) and the importance of walking when near edges. The one thing I forgot was how often my finger found R2 and I lit a flare. I burned through them all in the first minute or two.

I remember the demo. I played it over and over again doing speed runs, finding all the secrets, trying to do it without killing anything when I was a kid.

There were two things I noticed that were different from the final version.

Tigers seem to endlessly spawn in the opening area every 90 seconds or so. Also, there seemed to be more keys needed to open doors than I remember in the final version.

Crime Killer (Playable Demo) 

I don't remember this game. I tried to find more information about it because it just seemed like a weird game. I found a 15 year old IGN review (3/5) and a Gamespot review (6.8/10) but nothing else on the game. It's some sort of take on car combat where you drive around police vehicles and shoot down enemy cars.

The demo itself was a mess. Textures were dropping, the cop car handled like a pinball machine, and there were hundreds of aircraft firing missiles and lasers onto these city streets, but not really hitting anything.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert (Playable Demo)

No! RTS games do not belong on a console. Just NO!

C&C has similar problems to Warcraft 2. Huge frame rate drops, terrible controls, and everything looks like a messy blob.

2 disks of fun and mouse support were bullet points on the splash screen. That should say a lot when two bullet points were hardware related.