And I’d say to you… well. I’ll cry. And then just put up the rest of my article, because I DON’T NEED TO TELL YOU MY REASONS.

FINE, I’m lazy! Is that what you wanted to hear?! You’ve heard it.

Anyways. The game looks really cool, actually. The story is about a girl named Nina who wants to find her dad. You know what, just read the dang story for yourself:

Nina is torn from her day-to-day routine when she discovers that her father has disappeared without a trace. As the police seem reluctant to help her, Nina sets off to look for clues relating to her father’s whereabouts. She joins efforts with Max Gruber, a young colleague of her father who impulsively offers to help the attractive young lady.

Together, they quickly determine that Nina’s father was involved with a research expedition to Siberia in an attempt to reveal the causes of the mysterious Tunguska (look, I Wikied it for you!) catastrophe of 1908. In that mysterious event, a mighty explosion triggered an inferno that decimated the land of Tunguska. Nina and Max soon realize that her father’s disappearance is related to the Tunguska event and the search for answers leads Nina and Max to the most remote corners of the world – Berlin, Moscow, Cuba, China, and the Antarctic. Powerful adversaries are also interested in Nina’s father’s secret. In the end, much more is at stake than just the disappearance of an old man.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? What’s even better are the graphics. But… according to a review from Adventure Gamers, the story is a bit… unoriginal and has already been done before.

You know what I always say? I say it’s always better to create something tried and true than create something original… NOT. Haha, I crack myself up. Then again, I can’t say half my blog posts are entirely original, so LOOK WHO’S CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK!

If you’re a bit wary of buying the game, check out the demo first (crap… it might be in German)… it may make the difference for you. The pictures alone make me want to play the game, as they look mysterious and cool.

[pictures borrowed from the adventure company]

Post from: EveryJoe

Secret Files: Tunguska

I want to take you on a journey of the grueling work that I had to do over the weekend. It was hard, but I do believe I persevered. Now, go and get yourself some Kleenex, for this is a heart wrenching journey… And maybe get yourself a couple bags of microwavable popcorn or your choice of healthy snack. I prefer carrots and celery, myself… but I also usually have carrots and celery with hot wings, so if hot wings makes you happy… well, feel free to get some of those, too.

Okay, are you ready now? IT’S ABOUT TIME.

My first stop of the weekend was to a well known website. I’m sure many of you know it. It’s called TellTale Games. Go ahead and click on the link if you’ve never been there. It’ll be okay. I won’t tell anyone.

I perused the site for the one thing I had in mind… this:

That’s right… I found the Telltale store.

I then decided to take a plunge. I proceeded by clicking on things that would cost me time and money. It’s never good when you click so much, that you lose time and money. What am I? Crazy? Yes I am.

Me… well, I like to shop. Okay, not really. I’m not one of those normal girls who goes all crazy over buying new things. Quite frankly, I like to save my money. I’m smart that way. But not on this day. For this is what I ended up with in my shopping cart:

The cart is filled with dogs/rabbits

Before I clicked on the next button, however, I thought “Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe this is too much commitment for me. I just don’t know if I can handle all this pressure society has placed upon me. What will I do? WHAT WILL I DO?!”

I did this:

Stalkers need not apply…

Yep. I did it. I pushed the “Check out” button and then I pressed the “Please verify” button. And then I pressed the “are you sure you want to do this?” button. And then I pressed the “You know, you’ll be really sorry if you do this” button. I pressed so many buttons, I thought I may go crazy. Finally I arrived to a screen that had the button I really wanted:

YES FINALLY. A freakin’ download button!

You know what I did next? OH YES. I HIT THAT GREEN BUTTON THAT WOULD TAKE ME TO MY DESTINY. My destiny to play a game with a sarcastic dog and an insane bunny.

Then… I got this screen. The screen I knew I would come to dread:

WHY CAN’T DOWNLOADING BE INSTANT?

Yes… it was time for my computer and my internet to work concurrently with one another. These are dangerous times, my friend. Dangerous times. I wasn’t sure what would happen. Would my computer lock up in the middle of the download and crash? Perhaps the cable company would cut the internet connection off right in the middle of my downloading, leaving me to wallow in my guilt and self loathing. Or perhaps… just perhaps, my wireless network would be hacked into, and someone ELSE would STEAL my download for themselves. I KNOW IT HAS HAPPENED. Okay… I know it probably hasn’t happened. But it makes for a good story.

I sat on the edge of my seat as I anxiously waited to see the screen that we had all been waiting for. God willingly with glory and praise, my download ended and I ran to the desktop as quickly as my legs would take me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go far, because I have a nifty little “desktop” button close at hand for any of those tricky visits from my boss that I may have.

Finally, this happens:

God, you can take me unto your holy grounds now.

I had waited years for this very moment. Years of waiting for my favorite comedy duo to hit my computer screen once again. And hit it they did. For many hours in which I was able to play Sam and Max until it’s completion. But that’s a story best left for another time. Perhaps… for a Tuesday Treasure Trove.

I thank you for sitting with me upon this journey. Please, make your exit now… don’t push… and don’t leave your freakin’ trash on the floor. I’m not your mother. I’m just your big angry sister who would happily beat your skull in.

Post from: EveryJoe

My weekend…

NOTICE: It’s in German —–>

For those of you lucky people who got to play Deck 13’s fabulous game, Ankh, there is excellent news for you. And, no… I’m not talking about your mummy coming back to life (Halloween/Egyptian joke… get it? MUMMY!! HAHAHA). Actually, Deck 13 had released a trailer for their up and coming game, Ankh: Heart of Osiris (it doesn’t look like there is an English version of the new Ankh site… I’m sure it’ll be up soon, though).

The trailer is kind of short, and doesn’t even show you a whole lot of gameplay. It does show Thara knocking the head off a statue that I can only assume is important, because it wouldn’t be funny otherwise, right? Hopefully they’ll release a more in-depth trailer soon.

And… I can’t really tell you what the game is about yet, because all the previews I’ve seen are in a language that I do not read well. Or at all. If you can read German, you can go here and take a look. Then you can tell me what it says and I can relate it to my minions.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the trailer on YouTube, so you’ll have to wander on over to Gamershell in order to take a look at the preview.

The game is expected to come out this fall, which is like… right now. It’s fall, people! Where is the game?! Ahhh well.

Edit to say: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Post from: EveryJoe

Heart of Osiris

According to Adventure Gamers, Midway has released a version of Myst for the Playstation Portable. Hmmm, I never realized before now, but Playstation Portable is quite the mouthful. Well, maybe not as big of a mouthful as say… pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, but it’s still quite the word. Maybe that’s why they call them PSP. Hmmm… Something to think about.

Anyways… yes. Myst has been released on that wonderful, yet alarmingly frightening little PSP (I wanted to write PHP here… I’m such a nerd) device that these kids nowadays are playing. Well, more than kids. My dad, who is middle aged has one that’s all souped up with hacks. He’s the biggest kid ever.

The problem with Myst coming out for the PSP is that… well. It hasn’t been released in the US… it’s only been released in the PAL territories, according to Adventure Gamer, so that may put a bit of a damper on your Myst-y activities if you are indeed from North America. Curses. We always get the shaft.

Post from: EveryJoe

My PSP is Myst-y

Good morning, my loyal minions. I hope you all had a lovely weekend, for I know I did. It’s always good when you get to play a little WoW, have a couple of beers, and sit back and relax. AHHHHHH.

Anyways.

I’m sure you don’t care about my weekend, you just want to hear what I have to say about Sierra Classics. FINE. I’ll TELL you.

According to Adventure Gamers, several different packages of classic Sierra On-line games has been released. These releases include Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and King’s Quest. That’s a lot of questing.

But this is great news! I don’t think I’ve even played all the Police Quests, Space Quests or King’s Quests… I have, of course, played all the Leisure Suit Larry’s, but that’s only because I’m a pervert.

What isn’t such great news is that despite the fact that Vivendi has stated that all these games work on Windows XP, there are of course some glitches…. because all the did to get it to work correctly was that they included a retailed version of DOSBox. What a bunch of cheaters. They couldn’t even take the time to figure out a way to make these games work properly WITHOUT DOSBox? Just goes to show you that independent programmers are AWESOME.

Now, what’s pretty cool about all this is that Amazon (this link doesn’t do much but show you one of the compilations. You’ll have to search for the rest, ’cause I’m being lazy today) is selling these wonderful compiliations on their site for $18.98 or $21.98 (depending on how cool the game is… right). So, that’s not bad. You spend $80 and get all sorts of games for your HOURS OF ENJOYMENT. DON’T MISS OUT. MUAHAHAA.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sierra Classics

Himalaya has announced that they will start shipping out the long awaited Al Emmo and The Lost Dutchman’s Mine yesterday, September 5th. Now, you too can be a dorky, Woody Allen like character who takes on the harsh deserts of Anozira. How often do you get to have mail order brides who turn you down and leave you in a cruel cruel western town with guns and cacti and violence??

YES… I can’t wait. I don’t get enough of that here in my hometown… which is in the harsh deserts… with guns… and cacti… and violence… OH CRAP. I’M LIVING AL EMMO’S LIFE.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?!

Okay, first… I won’t order a mail order bride. And I definitely won’t let some dame trick me into falling in love with her and following all around the state. And I definitely won’t pick up a rattle snake. Nope. Won’t do that. Or touch a spider.

Now, I’m not saying that all of these things happen in Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, but I’m sure SOME of them happen. Because that’s what goes down in harsh desert climates.

Harsh desert climate.

Did I say that enough?

GOOD.

Post from: EveryJoe

Al Emmo Released!

In zee article (some times I have a French accent in my head and think that I can replicate it here. It doesn’t work, I know, but it entertains me), Bill talks about what a big pain in the butt it is to find someone to publish an adventure game. Even though an adventure game has a great story, awesome graphics and good music, publishers feel a little whoozie putting out a game that might do as bad as 50 Cent: Bulletproof, which isn’t even an adventure game, but a game about gangstah’s shootin’ the Fuzz.

Bad Brain was going to publish A Vampyre Story, but thought better of it. Bill Tiller couldn’t understand why everyone was so afraid of adventure games, because he saw numbers while working for LucasArts on a different adventure games they had published and they did good financially.

Publishers are weird.

The great thing about having a publisher now, though, for Mr. Tiller is that he was able to double his staff quickly. This is good, because… well… they can get the game done faster. What was taking Bill and his previous staff a week to do, could be done in a matter of a day. So, why the 2008 release date? It makes me cry, I tell ya!

Also, the game is getting a lot of excitement over in Germany. I wonder why? OH BECAUSE GERMANS LOVE ADVENTURE GAMES.

And also, according to Bill, the artists who are working on the graphics of A Vampyre Story are also the same artists that worked on Curse of Monkey Island and The Digg. So… yes. The graphics WILL BE AWESOME.

He also reveals a basic plot to the story. Mona, who used to be an opera singer, becomes a vampire unwillingly. She hates being a vampire at first. Her master, Shrowdy (what an INGENIUS name for a vampire), doesn’t teach her anything about being a vampire in hopes that Mona will become completely dependent on him. Once she leaves old Shrowdy, she slowly begins to hone in on her black magic skillz and starts blowing crap up with her awesome mind powers.

Okay, they didn’t say anything about explosions, but wouldn’t that be awesome?!

Especially since the interview says that Mona is a good girl, trapped in a bad girl’s body and she just doesn’t want to hurt anyone with her wicked vampire ways. Oh, and she also has to suck blood. She doesn’t like doing that, but if you’re mean to her, she’ll happily suck your blood until you pass out… Riiiiight…

Sadly, Autumn Moon only has so much money to spend on their creative artists and musicians and they have decided to aim for a quality game that isn’t extremely long, but just long enough so that people feel that they’ve gotten their money’s worth. I guess that’s how most adventure games are, though, with the exception being THE LONGEST GAME EVER. Man, that was a long game.

You can view the article in its beautiful entirety here.

Go read it… fill your head with delicacies and love. Now, don’t get too lost into Working Title’s website. These guys are German, so most of the page is in German. I really need to pick up German, because there’s like a billion adventure gaming sites out there… but they’re all in GERMAN. I am a fool!

Post from: EveryJoe

A Vampyre Story Interview

Yes… I finally did it… I finally finished my longest journey EVER. Actually, I think this was one of the longer adventure games I ever played. Who ever heard of paying full price for an adventure game and be entertained by it for more than 10 hours?! That’s just LUDICROUS, I tell ya… LUDICROUS.

So, yes… My longest journey ever just so happens to be The Longest Journey by FunCom. This game came before another game I previewed called Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and man… was that good. I had some very high expectations for this game and it totally met and rose past them.

Let’s get this party started, homies!

The game starts off with this crazy old lady sitting around in a rocking chair telling stories to these two young whipper snappers. They ask her “Please tell us about the story of how the Balance was saved and how monkeys attacked the space station with the skeleton sword.”

Okay… there were no monkeys or skeleton swords. But there was a space station, oddly enough.

Anywho. The old woman, Lady Alvane, starts to weave her tell and we start our game off. Throughout the game, we learn just exactly what the “Balance” is. Stick with me and you’ll find out, too.

Lady Alvade talking to April.

Xena references. I like Xena.

The main character is April Ryan. You get to play her throughout the game. She’s a smart assed college student who is majoring in art. She left her home on bad terms and she seems to dislike her dad.

Why do I think she doesn’t like her dad? Because she said she’d chainsaw his head in his sleep if she could. She is sadistic, that April Ryan.

Okay, she didn’t actually say ANYTHING about a chainsaw, but wouldn’t that be cool? If I didn’t like my dad, I’d chainsaw his head. Maybe that’s just me, though.

April doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life at the beginning. She’s kind of restless and can’t really focus on her art. She’s suppose to be in an art show in a few days and just can’t find the energy to finish her project. She’s afraid if she does finish it, it’ll be half assed.

Don’t worry, sister… that’s going to be the least of your problems by the end of the game.

FunCom sure does like having girls run around in their undies.

April also has a job as a waitress. Her boss is a real a-hole… he also happens to be Russian. I work with a Russian and she can be a real a-hole, too. I wonder if it runs in the country. Anyways… There’s a job… there’s school, but still, something is missing.

As you progress in the game a little bit, April meets this freaky guy named Cortez. Everyone says he’s crazy and at first you think he’s crazy, too. Cortez tells April that she’s been put on the Earth to save the world. That it is her destiny. April things “Umm, WTF. I’m an art student and I’m 18. I can barely comb my hair in the mornings. I can’t save the world.”

See, the problem with Cortez is that he’s so weird, that April doesn’t really want to listen to him. Cortez basically tells her that there is two parts of the world they are living on. There is a scientific part, which is called Stark and that just so happens to be where April lives. And then there’s the magical part called Arcadia. Now, the Gods long ago seperated the two parts of the world for reasons I can’t remember. Something about balancing out the world, because people were doing bad things with Science AND Magic all being together. Blah blah. So, the Gods appointed 4 guardian dragon things to make sure magic stayed in Arcadia and science stayed in Stark. The guardian dragons were each given a jewel which was a key. Then there’s the Guardian. This poor person is elected to spend 1,000 years in the middle of the two worlds to keep them balanced out. Well, the Guardian has been kidnapped and now stuff is happening that shouldn’t be.

April being a biotch.

One of the things that happens to April that makes her believe in all this crappin’ mumbo jumbo is that this weird little alien looking guy jumps out of the juke box at work to play the flute for everyone. Everyone stops in their tracks as they watch this weird little beasty dance about.

This guy helps April a lot. He makes an Evil Dead reference. I like Evil Dead.

A gay cop. He’s very out.

Yeah, that ain’t suppose to happen in Stark.

Also, April’s landlord tells her something weird happened on her tv that just creeped her out. She said it seemed magical and stuff.

Right.

So, April goes back to Cortez and she believes him finally. He tells April she is what they call a shifter. A shifter happens to be a person who can jump between the two parts of the world at any time. At the beginning, she cannot control her shifting abilities, but as the game progresses, she finally gets to become ULTIMATE SHIFTER. Since her shifting powers suck at first, Cortez helps her go to Arcadia to find out exactly what’s going on, now that’s she’s the savior of the worlds and crap.

While in Arcadia, she meets a whole slew of weird and interesting things. She meets mole people, a woman who likes to cannibalize other people (delicious), people who have blue skin and weird ears, people who have no idea what time frame they’re in, so they use every single word tense that is possible in one sentence (very confusing, I know. I played the game and I’m still confused), a race of people called darkmen who collect every single word ever written and then archive them, stonemen who were made into stone from a crazy wizard named Klack you also have to defeat, stickmen who talk, a giant, people with crabs… erm, I mean crab people… mermaid people and people who fly around like bats who are at war with the mermaid people. Of course, you have to help these two groups to love one another, so that’s always a task… (longest run on sentence I have ever made. SCORE)

Oh and there’s a bird who talks. He becomes your buddy and you name him Crow. He helps you throughout your stay in Arcadia.

Tormenting Crow

While in Arcadia, she has to find all sorts of stones and keys and disks to put the world back together how it should be. These stones and jewels are keys to the puzzle that are the Guardian.

Along the way, she is being stalked by the people who stole the Guardian in the first place. Apparently, this is a group of people who know all about the two worlds. They want to make the two worlds one again, because then this group can have the ultimate power of EVERYTHING, I guess. The leader of this group is a guy by the name of McAllen. McAllen is a bit of an a-hole, you see. He has stolen the Guardian with the intention of putting his own Guardian into place to bring the worlds together. He wants everything you have gathered throughout your adventure to fix the world. He’s planning on using it for his own evil deeds of doom. He’s also captured Cortez, because Cortez has been talking too much. He always was a yapper.

Now, April has a map that tells the location of where the balance between the two worlds is. She, of course, does not want to tell McAllen about this place, so to change her toon, he throws her in a room with an evil mutant monster that looks like he has his intestines on the outside of his body.

Yummy.

Of course, April escapes his clutches, but not without some mystical help. Cortez comes to the rescue, zaps the bad guy. McAllen finds out about this, rushes to where you are and encounters Cortez.

It turns out, Cortez and McAllen are brothers…. and not just the normal kind of brothers, either. They both so happen to be the Dragons who were sent to Stark to protect it. Interesting turn of events. Freaking Cortez is a freaking dragon.

Cortez takes McAllen out and that’s the end of Cortez and McAllen, because of course they both fall to their deaths together. Just like siblings should.

Eventually, April will find the Guardian, Adrian. They go into a space station, and find the rift between the two worlds. Adrian is almost done with his tenure as a Guardian and tells April she is to be the next Guardian. Turns out everyone was wrong.

April gets some lovin’ pills from the men’s bathroom on the space station. Why is she in the men’s bathroom? Because the women’s bathroom was locked! Jerks.

April spikes a guard’s drink on the Space Station with some lovin’ pills.

April leaving the space station. Save April. Save April Ryan.

It isn’t April who will Balance the two worlds. She’s just a stinkin’ pawn. Another guy, one of McAllen’s henchmen, who McAllen stole as a child, is to become the next Guardian. This guy, however, is not balanced. He has a chaotic side that’s roaming around free in the two worlds and then there’s the cruel, calculating side. The henchman attacks Adrian and April must put the two halves of the henchman back together to make him whole.

April’s dad. She has to forgive him to get past a trial.

Of course, she does that. And now a new Guardian is born and the world is whole again.

MAN. That was a long review. But, I sure did have a lot of fun playing this game.

It had a great story, in my opinion. I loved how you had to go back and forth between the two worlds using your scientific brain in one world and your fantasy, magic brain in another.

Now, I’ve heard word that The Longest Journey was a far better game than Dreamfall. I, myself, found them to be equally entertaining. That is why I’m going to give The Longest Journey the same amount of pirate hats that I gave Dreamfall.

It gets a 5 out of 5 hats.

Oh yes. It was awesome.

Post from: EveryJoe

Tuesday Treasure Trove: Numero VIII

What’s great about this new company is that according to the Game Info, it is created by a staff made entirely by former LucasArts employees! THEY LEFT THE DARK SIDE! Good for you, Autumn Moon, staff!

The game sounds pretty darn cool, too. Apparently, you take on the roll of Mona, who happens to be an opera starlett. She was kidnapped by Baron Shrowdy Von Kiefer, who I’m guessing is a vampire, because after he kidnaps her, she slowly turns into a vampire herself. As she tries to get away from her captor, she’ll have to learn how to deal with such things as turning into a bat, drinking human blood and turning into vapor.

Now, I wouldn’t think turning into a bat or vapor would be particularly bad. I mean… You can get into ANYTHING if you’re vapor. That’d be so awesome.

With the help of her sidekick bat, Froderick, she’ll conquer the vampyric world.

Using both 2d and 3d aspects to create the game, you get awesome screenshots like this:

According to Adventure Gamers, Autumn Moon has finally found a publisher, a German company Crimson Cow, to publish the game to PC. This is great news, because… Umm… I like PC adventure games. They RULE.

It sounds like the game will be published late next year. It so far away! Ahhh well. At least we have something to look forward to IN A YEAR AND A HALF. Cripe.

Keep checking back here for updates.

Post from: EveryJoe

A Vampyre Story