SLAPDASH - 60 MINUTES WITH DEVIL DAGGERS

Personally, I enjoy the aesthetic of the upcoming Doom game, set to release May.13.2016, and yes that's a Friday the 13th. Good one id Software, a bit campy but what else would you expect? The impression that the latest trailer left me with is that id Software is upholding the core values from the dawn of the Doom series. The original games, Doom, and Doom 2 focused on frantic circle strafing run and gun action in big open hell-scapes teaming with heaps of demons, big fuck off guns, flaming skulls and color coated key cards. As opposed to the bland corridor heavy space station shooter they gave us in Doom 3. The one constant being the oppressive atmosphere. In our current age of gaming, the Doom reboot looks like it could be a welcome change from the heavily scripted 'on rails' set piece shooters that clog the digital landscape and dominate much of the market. That being said, I cant help but wonder how it will be received by today’s gamers who grew up on COD and Battlefield. Simply put, developers aren't really making those shooters anymore. The FPS market has been dripping with carefully constructed blockbuster movie-esque titles for so long, the current generation of FPS players could very well balk at the simplistic, over the top style of game play that Doom is traditionally famous for. If only there were some way for the new breed of gamers to test the waters without having to dive in headfirst….

Enter Devil Daggers.

Devils daggers is a $5, “endless” first person shooter, set in a what is assumed to be a small infinite pitch black plane of someones own personal hell. I put quotation marks around 'endless' because no one has survived much past the 8 minute mark. It could have an ending, though I sincerely doubt it. And it doesn't really matter, as the goal is to stay alive as long as possible, and the average player (myself included) usually peaks at about 45-60 seconds for the first hour or two. Why so difficult? Well, the foes are as agitated as they are lethal, and much like a bad burrito from Chipotle, they can seal your fate quickly, with just one erroneous decision.

This shit was cutting edge in 1994!

Devil Daggers' core mechanic is circle-strafing fast paced first person shooting, and it feels incredibly fluid. This is due partly to the fact that the games engine and art design is very old school and strikingly similar to a higher resolution version of the original quake, albeit with slightly more complex visuals. This allows most PC's to easily run the game at 60+ frames per second, which is key, as everyone on the leader boards is theoretically on the same playing field regardless of the rig they have. Devil Daggers' descent into madness starts in a dark room with a lone dagger floating in front of you. Once you take hold of your basic weapon it multiplies, streams of red daggers spew from your hand, immediately plunging the user into dubious peril. The daggers can either be shot in short bursts, like a pump-action shotgun or can be spit out in a steady, viscous stream like shooting the Devils' sandblaster.

Evade Gismo's Kevin McKenzie demos Devil Daggers

As you begin to acclimate yourself to the oppresive surroundings, it becomes obvious you are walking on a small plane of stone or concrete, with a sudden drop-off around the edge that will send you plunging into dark nothingness with one misstep. Then, suddenly you hear a sound, it's coming from behind you – a gurgling, sinister spawning noise that could only mean that terrible is on its way. Abruptly, as you try to focus on the area the sound came from, a spire forms out of nowhere and releases a series of skulls and demon heads into the dark, and will continue to do so, until you erase it from existence by shooting at its rotating weak spot. Then another will form, and another and so on and so on. As time goes on things get more and more hectic with different enemies spawning in random locations at preset timestamps. The key to survival seems to be in directing your focus on the spawning spires, while at the same time managing the wave of floating skulls and demon heads chasing you down, but that knowledge itself will only get you so far. The game play feels as fluid as it looks, and you are always just a quick tap of the R key away from an instant retry, which really supports the “just one more game” feeling you are left with after any given run.

Certain enemies drop gems that power up your weapon when killed, allowing you to spit thicker, faster and more powerful streams of magical daggers as the frenzied action carries on. These power ups are very important not only to your progression past that elusive 60 second mark, but to your confidence as well. They will help you to dispose of the waves of enemies with greater ease, allowing you to free your focus to deal with more pertinent demonic apparitions. Like, say, the giant evil spider that sucks up your treasured power gems before you can get to them, or perhaps the twisted, flying Ogopogo-like entities that swoop through the air with equal parts grace and death lust... all while the super spires keep launching skulls for you to fend off … Yeah, she's a bitch, but its that kind of addictive action that keeps me in front of the screen for much longer than I originally intended to be. 

This game will have you seeing red.... often... 

If the early sales performance of Devil Daggers is any indication, the millennial crowd might just be interested in the style of game play after all. In its first 5 days, Devil Daggers has over 12,000 copies “sold” on steam through world of mouth alone. That's a strong start, especially in this day in age. Though difficult, this game is immensely rewarding in the same way that arcade shooters have been since the inception of the genre, with shooters like Robotron 2000 and Smash TV, with a wonderful first person twist. I can confidently say that Devil daggers is the love child of Doom, Quake and Geometry wars in the best possible way (video game relationships are complicated, okay?). And if that intrigues you, I suggest you pick it up.

Go to hell, have fun.

Devil daggers is out now on steam. 

Once you beat this score (you will) your better than me

----------------------------------------THIS JUST IN: TRISTAN BREAKS KEVINS SCORE!--------------------------------------------------

Sorry pal, i gotta say this game jacks my heart rate to an unhealthy level and i love it! It is as you said: very Intense and rewarding.

I guess i am better than Kevin...

Oh sheeit son! i did it again!

----------AND AGAIN! I'm not sure I can do that again though. So intense; had to calm down after this one. Hands were shaking a bit heh.  

'ALRIGHT YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS LISTEN UP'

  SPOILER ALERT. SPOILER ALERT. AWOOGA .THIS WILL RUIN THE SHOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET.

Ash vs Evil Dead could be the most flawless, badass show on tv right now. I'm only done the 3rd episode as of last night and had to jump online to write about it with all the enthusiasm of a rookie cop, or that UPS dude from Mad TV. I'm tripping over myself searching for convincing words for you and have no doubt at all that it's the best show of the year already. Yes it's presumptuous, brazen maybe even slightly audacious, but this show is so fucking good that its amazing that your reading this blurb instead of watching the show right now.

I'm reeling in a bloody pool of mixed nostalgia and disbelief- this show shouldn't exist. It's a miracle that it was ever made at all. Its out of its feature film habitat. 30 years later, a cult horror movie that was a student project of a young enthusiastic- very hands on filmmaker and a b grade lead actor. Well B+. It's like the Mad Max of TV. A project that by rights has no business existing but does, It not only exists, it flourishes.

So what the hell happened?! I mean a great show on tv is like finding a Leprechaun, I feel like I can't even breathe too hard or the show will blow over. It's a fragile and delicate thing that must be protected and studied. This is how fan service is done. Having something turn out so well and exceed all expectations is so very rare. Ash vs evil dead comes across so authentic.

The first thing an Evil Dead fan might notice is how Ash vs Evil Dead seems to totally disregard the last film in the series. At the end of Army of Darkness he's sent back in time to s-mart, fucks up the words again and fights more Demons that somehow caught up with him. In the pilot episode he just has the book already and drunkenly reads passages from it to impress a girl. That whatever attitude from the writers is exactly the spirit of what evil dead is. So ash has the book of the dead now and the fans are fine with that, if your an Evil Dead aficionado and you don't have a sense of humor then you must be dead already. If all the sequel ducks were in a row here then they would have to explain how he got the book back which would bring up the medieval timeline and kind of ruin the story, not to mention the budget.

Which brings me to the writing. "I hear a lot a yappini'n and not a lot a happeni'n'" or "The first thing i gotta do is see a guy about a book. The other first thing i gotta do...is some cardio, cuz my hearts jack hammeri'n like a quarterback on prom night." are probably my favorite phrases since 'Wu peed on my rug.' Its written with love and a blase' attitude that made the show perfect all those many years ago- creative, not very PC and the best one-liners around. My epiphany was realizing, I guess in episode 3, that  the audience has never really had the chance to explore the Necronomicon ex mortus by itself. All we've ever really seen is the same couple of pages over and over again. There's a whole show just in the book. In episode 3 we got a taste of whats possible. Summoning crazy boss daemons. It's like pans labyrinth had dirty demon sex with a hologram and its fucking badass!

"Ya know, you don't look anything like your picture!"

I also never realized what an idiot ash is. I mean yeah he forgot some words way back in the 90's. Now he's single, over weight,  lives in a trailer and is still a stock boy at not S-mart. He reads the pages again and  So he's got absolutely nothing to lose so the show has room to just not waste our time and get movi'n. But he's so oddly likable and sentimental and has a strange courageous charisma that only seems to reveal itself when the demon blood's flying. This character is so iconic that even the Millennials must know who Bruce Campbell is. 

The camera angles and the gore are exactly what I was hoping for. Writers and filmmakers these days are so concerned with being creative that they totally forget that the source material was perfect just the way it was. Just re-create that and shut up, stop thinking and simply re-purpose the old goofy shit! Garden hoses of monster blood is just fine with everyone, trust us Starz. Even the demons look the same, it's the exact right amount of nostalgia with a fresh episodic vigor that should support the show all by itself.

The Icing generously slathered onto the cake is that it's only episode 3 and the momentum seems to be in favor of a very promising and hilariously entertaining story. Let's hope they don't fuck it up.

Oh yeah ans Xena is on it. Remember the last time you saw those two together!? Damn shes hot, i think she was my first crush. I also remember the strange Lesbianish relationship she had with that red headed maid girl she was with all the time. 

CARPENTER LIVES

I know, i know, were a little late to the Carpenter game here. But who dies anymore really!? If you happened to be a major player in the entertainment business there is a good chance your soul is indelibly immortalized within the very fabric of the internet. Since he passed away i've been learning all sorts of things about the Master of Horror. For some reason i thought the actor Jennifer Carpenter was his daughter, to my dismay this is not the case. Shes still hot though and her performance in Quarantine was exceptional. She can scream a block down though, that's certain!

Reading through his filmography its difficult not to assume that this man was a babysitter. I know he was for me when i was a brat. No he didn't come to my house and he certainly did not tuck me into bed, the opposite really. He kept me very awake at night. So it seems he was the worst babysitter of all time, but his films left me dreaming. Which is the greatest gift of all.

Also he was a badass music producer. He created many of the film scores of the projects he Directed and Wrote. This i had just discovered today and it deserves a listening to. Its a lost mix of scores he never released. I don't typically do this but "Thanks internet. Today you have been good to me."

Please enjoy

EXPLHORROR 3: NOPE! NO MORE...I'M DONE HERE.

Nancy Regans 'Just say no to drugs' campaign in the 80's was the supposed retaliation and answer to the 'war on drugs.' A fitting retort, and a new exclamation to all the would be 12 year old boggie sugar users and nerduels contemplating a tasty  joint being dangled in front of them by the same country supplying them with said narcotics.

Here, today, on Halloween were not dressing up like Nancy Regan, were replacing the word drugs with Outlast, Metro, Dreadhalls, Vanishing, Resident Evil. That phrase campaign is just as relevant today as we want it to be. I didn't say no to anything in the 80's and look at me now. A popular adage in the improv game is 'just say Yes', which i have been living by for years. But we all have friends who just have to 'say no to horror games.'  

Click the image or here for some more snarf worthy chilling tracks for Halloween.

Saying no to a great Horror game is really hard for me. Especially with all the great indie titles being released in the past years. Although many of them fall flat they are just as important. At the very least, we learn what doesn't scare us so we can streamline our terror and tailor our experiences for a truly personal exercise in fear. That's not crazy right? The more i play the more i realize when to put my severed foot down, what i just can not allow into my horrorscape any longer. This includes 

Rape: I've seen enough of this for a lifetime of celibacy. I'm done with rape and I get it. I don't need to see that anymore. In games it's pretty rare to walk into a huge rape scene (Tomb Raider, Hotline Miami 2). But with film its rampant, Usually its pointless and only serves the viewers discomfort. The power of rape on screen is that we are helpless as a viewer to do anything about it. I have a FF button and eyes that i can close but that's about it. There is nothing new or inventive to be done with rape scenes anymore and there is nothing to be gained by it. Of all horror i'm the most uncomfortable and annoyed with rape and one other exception.

Torture:  Nails  torn free from hands, knees stabbed slowly, eyes pulled out, you get the idea. We've all experienced torture in some way. I don't mean that 'friday can't come fast enough' kind of pain but real helpless, nightmary agony. I just can't take it anymore. The last torture anything i saw was Wolf Creek 2. This villain is amazingly well done. With John Jarratt playing the role of Mick Taylor. Hes essentially the protagonist of the story as well. You can see his face, he shows up at the beginning of the movie. He simply hates people and does very Snarff worthy things to innocent travelers.  Maybe its watching someone tied up in a chair, or the screaming, or the sound of the skill saw whirring at 1200 RPM. or the blood mist covering the body parts. It captures my imagination so well that i cant help but kick and squirm when i watch it because i can easily assume the role of the victim. It a very powerful device horror uses and something i just can't do anymore. Fuck, i had a hard time with watching Snake in Metal Gear 3. It physically effects me. My heart is jacked, my hands are sweaty and my mouth gets really dry. I respect the power of torture in a story but i just have to say ' Nope, fuck this' pause, menu, quit.

An interesting conversation i had a few weeks back with some friends involved rape vs torture. See i learned that for women Rape is a mans version of Torture. A man watching Saw should stir up the same reaction that a woman might have to a rape sequence. Except for us men, were not continuously thinking about possibly being overwhelmed and tortured as were walking home alone late at night. It was a great conversation that had me really realizing how women feel about rape and how ubiquitous those thoughts for women are. 

That being said the real reason we can't turn on our PC's and consoles at night is the tried, tested and always effective jump scare. What a cunt these things are. I feel like every time it happens to me i loose about a week off of my total life span. Incredibly cheap yet effective. They are here to stay and will be forever be keeping us on our toes.  

NYCC RECAP

A gods eye view of 'the block' section of NYCCC

Comic Cons are no joke. They are usually arduous in a way. If done properly your whole body should ache. Your heels should be throbbing in your shoes or goofy sized Anime boots, your lower back should be screaming for any horizontal action it can find. This last weekends New York Comic Con was no exception with upwards of 170,000 attendees it was a nerd army the likes of which the east coast has never seen before and Evade Gismo was right there in the shit! Even our wallets were hurting.

This was a new year for us. Usually myself and my wife are in the artist alley waaaay the fuck away on the other side of the con. With all the cosplayers;  Deadpools and Sith lords in the way it mid-as well have been on the other side of the city. If Spider-man was actually there no one would ever know. So usually we don't get much of a chance to go exploring. But this year we were on the front lines. "The Block' is the designer toys and small indie company wing of the con and it was busy as all hell this year. Thankfully we were a D-20's throw from the bathrooms and hotdogs. I barely had time to run off and 'work' for the blog. But i did manage to wait in line and play a few demos to share with you. 

Getting there was not easy or quick and the distractions along the way were numerous and went as follows

"30 seconds no more Dick"

Dick fucking Tracy was there...finally. I've seen hundreds of thousands of costumers but never Dick Tracy. I let him know how impressed i was and got a fist bump out of it. Now where are those videogames?

Fool Marty!!

Morty? I mean Marty? I mean M.J Fox? Is that you. I seriously had to look really close at this guy. From a distance he looked exactly like McFly. As i approached for a closer inspection i noticed that he was actually posing still. So NOT Michael J Parkinsons....i mean Fox. Doc didn't look so terrible either. See they were promoting the 30th anniversary of the film and the date that was entered into the Delorean all those years ago. October 21 2015. In celebration the promoters were giving away those future Pepsi bottles from the second movie. I wanted one, and i don't even like Pepsi. Of course, i couldn't have one. Despite my immaculate Marty impression i was not dressed in a life preserver or resembled Marty in the slightest. To get a Pepsi you had to dress like Marty McFly and wait in line for hours. 

Still no games in sight so i kept moving. But whats this?

James Jeans Ninja Turtles 

And some more awesome shit that i don't need . These Ninja Turtles from the 'Good Smile Company' were so badass that i almost bought them all right then and there...but i didn't cuz it would have cost me $520 turtle bucks. They were non articulated figures but so awesome anyways. There was motion and style all over the place here. The poses had attitude and the colour of the skin was an awesome teal blue/green. One of our favorite artists did this image that the toys were designed from. Still no games though.

But so close. I was about to walk by this but im glad i didn't. Audible had a booth demonstrating there new interactive comics software. If you havent read 'Locke & Key' do it. Its a great series and was written by Stephen Kings son under the pseudonym Joe Hill. The line was short and i got to check out the first chapter of the story. The Oculus dev kit 2 was the vehicle for the story. The headsets were being stressed to the max so the screen tearing was pretty bad and the frame rate was shit- almost unwatchable. But the demo was so engrossing and cool that i stuck it out and really enjoyed the experience despite the shortcomings. Below is a video that was captured from my experience. Naturally i look like a jackass doing it. Deffinately a memorable experience. When i get my headset i cant wait to experience stories with the VR medium. 

Inevitably i stumbled into a few game demos on my way back to the booth. I got to play 'Dark Souls 3' and 'Mirrors Edge: Catalyst' both were underwhelming and had me questioning the whole sequel thing.

MIRRORS EDGE: CATALYST

I didn't play the original when it first came out in 2008. I was told and told to play it by friends but was never really inticed to try it or just never found the time. Well i did get around to playing it on Steam last year and had a really good time. The story wasn't for me so i didn't really care much for the characters but the visual style was beautiful. When i got my Oculus Rift DK1 in the mail a few summers ago i setup Mirrors Edge and realized way too late that this game and vr = barftown. After a big jump Faith will dive roll out of it and keep the momentum forward. During the dive roll the entire world spins out of control and i could feel the sweat beading and my salivary glands squeezing. Barftown.

So i was willing to endure the one and one half hour lineup to try the sequel Mirrors Edge: Catalyst. It was a fifteen minute demo, which was nice, and we got a small demonstration by ipad while in line which setup the demo and story so far. This was a surprise as most companies are not willing or even consider preparing a user for a quick gaming experience. The demo wasn't my favorite thing. All i wanted to do was fuckup a few security guards but i didn't manage to get that far. During the tutorial my game locked up 5 min into the demo and i was more or less exited from the experience. It looked amazing! Keeping the same aesthetics as the original game. One thing i noticed was that the movements were sluggish. Faith is a bit out of shape here and i found myself leg twitching as i held the run button for her to just hurry up and get to the next wall run. Of course its just a demo and no one should ever judge an incomplete title. I wont buy it on release day but i will be playing this come next year. The schedule release is February 2016.

On my way to the Bandai/Namco booth i found the myth himself. He seemed not very interested in moving all that much. Way to slip into the roll. 

DARK SOULS 3

The simulated nightmare of Dark Souls 3 was calling my name from the end of a very long lineup. Usually the conversation in the lines i wait in it quite lively. I was waiting in line with a friend and fan of the series; talking about the game and how i love and hate it. Usually this is when you might get a few thoughts from the fans in lone ahead and behind you. Often all at once. But here. Nothing. Nobody said shit and when it was my turn to play i tried my very best. 

The guy ahead of me had done this before. The girl at the booth commented: "oh, you again huh?" Why would you play the same demo twice? and wait in line hours to do it? Fans of this game are literally fanatical. I watched him play before my turn; he chose the knight class and bombed through the entire thing just so he could have a run at the boss. Which, spoiler alert, was a giant skeletony ethereal monster with a flaming sword and semi predictable albeit terrifying attack pattern. He died. Just like i did about 11 times.

Me, i just trotted along trying to remember how to block and counter. I played 'Bloodborne' in the summer and i loved it so. It's greatness caused me to forget Dark Souls entirely. So needless to say i sucked bad at this demo. But i did notice how beautiful it looked. So pretty; shiny armor, amazing views and an impossible labyrinth of undead monks. It must have been very painful and boring to watch me play. I parried a few attacks and had a lot of trouble with the camera angle. If you weren't positioned behind the character then he wouldn't hit the way you wanted him to. Most likely a user error. One thing i did notice was that it was strikingly similar to the last game and the one before that. Its the same shit. Its hard, really pretty and frustrating as hell. If your willing to work your ass off just so you can stab a boss in the ass 20 times to win then this game is for you. I really appreciate this series but i don't think i need to do this again, and so soon after there last game. I would love to see a few new mechanics that would reinvent the game though. 

In short i saw what i expected to see. Sequels that retained 80% of what made them popular from the start. I can't fault a publisher for maintaining consistency but i'm no longer content with the expected. 

Thanks New York for another eventful year. I hurt all over, got a nerd flu and fell asleep for 12 hours when i got home.