Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Hallowe'en 2012!

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! Hopefully you're enjoying it! I've not posted on here in absolutely ages so let me brush some e-cobwebs off the site and do a little blog post once again! I've been quite busy at university, now into my 3rd year of the Optometry degree I'm doing, so its getting more intense now. Getting close to the stage of having real patients in for eye tests...I've also been doing one day a week at work back with Boots Opticians back home. I've been playing the odd game, but not really focussing on any one thing... I've got Durarara that I need to get back into finishing, I got about 5 or 6 episodes in and got a tad sidetracked by other things like podcasts, reading the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson (its taken me ages to get through, but its a good series) and the odd bit of gaming.

Ill just quickly run through some of the games I have been playing, and some impressions before I get onto the main idea for the post. Last year I tried to play a couple games with creepy atmospheres or themes (it turns out I don't really have a good selection of horror games)

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (3DS) - I picked this up cheaply and was really impressed with it. I put a fairly large amount of money into the DLC as well...I think I got about 15 or so songs, out of the 50 odd they have available...there is way too much there, at a £1 each. Anyway, the game is really fun, especially when you get to the Dark Notes and can do some multiplayer with friends (they are quite fun single player too actually) I was definitely happy with this game though, a fanboy's dream, even if you aren't the kind of fanatic SE fan who buys all the OSTs. I thought it would have more content, similar to the Dissidia games (forget about 100%ing them, seriously..)

Dark Souls (PS3) - turns out trying to get back into this after ages of not playing is pretty difficult...I wanted the DLC but want to get to the stage where I can actually try it out before I buy it. So I had the option to either continue on with my NG+ playthrough (I'm just finished Blighttown, but even getting out of there is difficult...) or carry on with my save files at the start of the game. One is right at the start just at the first  bonfire in Firelink Shrine and the other is at the Undead Parish. Its bloody difficult to progress without putting in a lot more time than I did though, so I didn't really get far...the DLC can wait unfortunately...I'd wanted to try it immediately =(

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP) - Me and a couple friends in uni got back into playing this for the first few weeks of the semester, and picked up from where we left off at the end of High Rank. We worked some of our friends who were further back in the game up towards High Rank, and did quite a few Alatreon quests one of the days (we don't have the quest unlocked, but one of us not at uni does, so when he came up, we could do that quest) and got some of the endgame equipment. Really fun game, but I still think I prefer the content and brutal difficulty of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. I mean, my first time fighting Alatreon went really really smoothly. That kinda shit doesn't happen against Fatalis XD

This year we've decided to have a kind of October Hallowe'en horror movie marathon. Not exactly like a non-stop sort of marathon, but just a selection of good horror/thriller films over the course of today (30th) and tomorrow (31st) as I write this.

Tuesday 30th
Severance
Saw

We watched these ones, me and my girlfriend had seen both of them before but ages ago, and we thought these would be some pretty good starting points. Starting off with Severance, that one is a really weird movie, its got a kind of dark British humour to it, and its got its brutal parts in there. There are some pretty nasty scenes, like the bear trap bit XD you'll know what I mean if you've seen it. Its filmed quite well in places.. we picked up on stuff this time that I hadn't noticed at all first time round. Like the relevance of one of the characters eating cheese just before he went to sleep. Anyway, its a pretty good film if you liked stuff like Dog Soldiers and Shaun of the Dead (kinda british 'zom-com'/horror-comedy type films)
I really liked Saw the first time I saw it (urgh, how to reword that...) It has its good share of twists you just really don't see coming...It started a whole wave of similar uber violent films from what I remember, with stuff like Hostel and Untraceable taking a lot of ideas from the Saw films. I don't really want to get into the whole sequel thing with Saw but...I watched the first few and then fell behind a bit because it seemed like they could only do so much, they all start to blur together when I try to remember them. The first one really has some surprises though, check it out!

Wednesday 31st ~ Hallowe'en
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
Saw II-VI
Shaun of the Dead
Dog Soldiers
Se7en
Paranormal Activity
Beetlejuice

I would normally finish early on Wednesdays, but this week I'm in till 5 I think, so it'll be a small selection of those films above, thats what we're picking from. I've seen a good few of them, so we know some on there are good films =p

A couple more that we don't have immediately but might be able to get before tomorrow evening;
The Alien series
The Thing (although we watched this recently)

If theres time, I might pick up some of these games for a bit;
Limbo (Steam)
Binding of Isaac (Steam)
Plants vs Zombies (IOS)
Persona 3 FES (PS2)
Shadow Hearts (PS2)
Dark Souls (PS3)
They have some pretty interesting dark themes and game worlds, and should be good games to play on Halloween =D I'll post a bit more tomorrow when we've watched some movies and played some games. Totally boring, I know! =p Next year I will make an effort to make a costume and go out for Halloween!
However you're spending it, have fun!