Insanity

Afterfall: InSanity is an indie shooter horror post-apocalyptic (it actually started as a Fallout mod) thing developed by Intoxicate Studios. It's set to be released on the 25th of November. Here, have a trailer!

Looks decent. Nice production values, particularly graphics, especially for an indie game, and the enemy design has certainly piqued my interest. That's not the most interesting thing about this. What is intriguing about  this game is the way it is being marketed, and sold.

Right now it's being sold at (as opposed to the 'real' price, which falls just short of 35 bucks) $1. That's not a typo - one dollar is the price. And some of it is going to charity. A single dollar for a game that looks to be somewhat entertaining at the very least. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, it is. There's a fairly major catch here. The developers are aiming for 10 million preorders, 10% of which will go to charity (every additional sale from then will be split 50/50 between developer and charity)., and the $1 preorders are fine and valid. However, if they don't meet that target, all the money goes to charity and the game is then released for a one dollar discount (between thirty three and thirty four dollars). And those preorders you made? Gone. Perhaps this video, from the developer, can explain it a bit better:

It's an ambitious goal. Mainstream titles across multiple consoles rarely breach the 10 million copies sold mark, never mind preorders (read: not sales) of an obscure indie horror title limited to the PC. If they somehow make this mark, it will be the 5th best selling PC game in the history of gaming - falling just behind the first two Sims games, World of Warcraft and Starcraft - and will be up there as one of the best-selling games of all time. Let's put things into perspective a little more, shall we? Minecraft, undoubtedly one of the most popular indie titles out there, reached the 3.5 million copies mark recently. Yes, InSanity is only a dollar, but is that enough to balance out its obscurity, genre (horror games tend to either be extremely popular or complete unknowns, with little in-between), and the fact that this desired 10 million is in preorders?

But what if the developers aren't just being optimistic - what if they have a more cynical reason for this. Imagine, if you will, they hit their target. That's nine million dollars for them, another one million for a thus-far unannounced charity and a massive playerbase for whatever sequels (though not DLC, which they claim will be free) the devs produce. And if they don't reach it? Well, that's a bunch of money thrown to charity and the game being sold for a substantially more profitable amount. And the playerbase will still be there. Not all those who preordered it will fork over 30 dollars or so, and there will be some outcry but with the publicity this will, presumably, generate, and the act of giving a lot of money to charity hardly counts as negative publicity. So, it's a win/win for the devs.

So, what do you think? Is this pushing the envelope? Baseless optimism? Or cynical publicity generation?

ISAAC!

You know how I mentioned I'd work on something substantial over the weekend?

Yeah... about that...

You see, there's been something that's been eating up my time. It's called the Binding of Isaac and it is bloody awesome (with some emphasis on the bloody). For those who don't know, this is a vaguely roguelike-shooter-hybrid-thingy made by Team Meat (or one member of it, at least). It has a few... unique and interesting features.

On each level, for instance, there are various items that give you various buffs and debuffs. Damage boosts, speed boosts, additional bombs, so on and so forth. Standard stuff. Except, interestingly, when items are picked up and equipped, they cause a visible change to occur in the eponymous protagonist. This is where the horror sets in. Your skin cracks and bubbles, poison flowing where blood should be, horns tearing open the skin of your crown, a coat hanger rammed through your vaguely foetal head. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is one of the most surreal, nightmarish games I've seen recently. The enemies - from skinless freaks with demented eyes to crying children whose heads have become hives for overgrown flies - are a truly horrid gallery of monsters. There are a number (at least 50), with various different behaviours and tactics. The bosses are just as varied, interesting, and ungodly - examples include the likes of a huge mountain of flesh and muscle which causes pustules to grow around the boss room, and conjoined twins, one of whom chases you around the room while the other floats behind firing balls of blood at you. A lovely bunch of folks.

The mechanics feel good, the aesthetic style is wonderful and, even better, the game is insanely addicting. I've been playing it for several hours and have yet to reach, never mind beat, the endgame boss. And I'm not frustrated. If anything, I'm even more incensed to continue, to find new items to use, new combos to fight with, new monstrosities to destroy. There are some problems, sure - the reliance on luck might annoy some, and there is a strange amount of lag for a flash game - but you will get so many hours of joy out of this it is well worth the price. It's on sale on Steam until Wednesday - give it a look.

Cash Cows

So, apparently Activision have announced that the next Call of Duty game is to be released this year. Yeah, yeah, I'm a bit late to the party.

I have to admit, I'm not surprised - this seems to be how they operate now. Surely they would have learned their lesson, though, especially considering this information comes to light so soon after they cancelled Guitar Hero. It's particularly annoying when you consider that Guitar Hero was cancelled due to an over-saturated "rythm-action" market, which was primarily caused by Activision releasing a new game every few months! Their business strategy that's allowing them to bathe in profits - release a new game at least once a year, with as few technical changes as possible to cut down on costs, and then charge too much for pointless DLC - is the same reason they are both so reviled by gamers, and so likely to face major backlash some time in the near future.

They do it with practically every series they are involved with. Rather than take time to create a polished product, they rush it out in a year, with nice new graphics and fuck-all in the way of actual gameplay improvements or (whisper it) innovation. Then, once a series is well past its peak, you can sense them grasping at straws - Warriors of Rock's 'back to basics' approach, or Tony Hawk's failed experiments in skateboard peripherals, for instance. I don't think Kotick, or his cronies, understand that mediocrity and complacency do not breed long term success.

So, back to the original topic, a new COD game. Personally, I don't care. I played Modern Warfare and enjoyed it a bit, Modern Warfare 2 was sort of meh and I didn't care much for the other games in the series. The series definitely doesn't deserve to be the biggest videogame series in existence. The storylines are generally B-movie schlock, the gameplay never changes and is completely bereft of anything unique, the community consists mainly of idiots who are more prone to swear than to breathe, and the company who oversees its creation are tyrannical, greedy, pricks.

I really don't like Activision (though I have a soft spot for stating the obvious). The people who run the company are helping to damage the public opinion of videogames, making it seem, through their pointless tirades of hype and the nonsensical action found in the games themselves, that they are simply toys, without any potential for artistic merit or emotional involvement. They keep franchises alive, slowly destroying them (I am totally not bitter over the destruction of the Tony Hawk series, nope, not at all), then discarding the barren corpses once the cash cow runs dry. Even their approach to downloadable content is infuriating - they had the audacity to admit that they plan on removing content from the next game to sell as DLC. What. Surely that is reason alone to demand their heads on pikes?

I... I guess this rant was less about Call of Duty, and more about by undying hate for Activision. I had originally planned to be less... spiteful towards the company, and focus on the series instead, but we can all see how well that turned out. I don't know how to feel about that, frankly.

Welcome to my Reality

It took me forever to finally get off my ass and start this blog. It took me longer to do that than to think of a name for it, which took me about two days of walking around, staring at things with a vaguely puzzled look on my face, as the creative part of my soul shot itself in the head. Ah well, if there's one thing I lack, it's motivation to do anything that requires effort, and, apparently, a blog requires effort. So, anyway welcome my in(s)ane ranting! I hope my terrible attempts at humour don't scare you away.

This blog will essentially be my views on things. Let's get one thing straight from the start - I'm a nerd. I love gaming, and by gaming, I don't mean Call of Duty, I mean things like RPGs (both pen and paper, and videogames), MMOs and strategy games. I love literature, with particular soft spots for fantasy and horror. I enjoy listening to power metal and prog. I have just alienated the vast majority of any potential readers with four simple sentences (okay, half were simple, half were complex, but shut up). I'm no social pariah, but I'm hardly Mr. Popular. So if you found this looking for a blog on football, firstly, congratulations! You managed to break Google. Also, this blog is not for you.

I also have a tendency to ramble, as if you hadn't noticed by now. Don't worry, it's not going to get any better.

This blog doesn't exist to spread any message. I don't plan on becoming an internet celebrity (have you seen the? Most of them terrify me!), and I didn't start this for the sole purpose of making money, as I have seen others do. It's an outlet, for my feelings or thoughts on certain issues, be it a review of something (an album, a game, an unappreciated band, a... I don't know, a loofah?), or my opinions on a current event. I could post this shit on a forum, I could rant to my friends, but a blog gives me more freedom.

Another thing. I am terrible at getting ideas for stuff like this (probably due to the aforementioned lack of motivation) so, if you have anything you want covered, either add it as a comment, or send it to me via email. I eagerly await the two sincere suggestions in a flood of ads for penis enlargement and sex adds.

So, yeah. That probably came out worse than expected, and it most likely sounds like some 14-year-olds inane prattle on LiveJournal, but it'll have to do. I plan on updating the blog at least once every two days, a schedule which will probably slip due to the my terrible (all together now!) mo-ti-vay-she-un.