Blogger's note: Minor Spoilers for this movie.

Like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this movie is based on true events...you know, with the characters, location and plot being entirely fictional. Following a marriage proposal that doesn’t end well, Kristen McKay and James Hoylt return home to talk about their feelings for a good twenty minutes, giving me the impression I had mistakenly bought a romance film. Suddenly, their awkward dialogue is interrupted by the arrival of the 'Strangers', a group of mysterious hooded figures who want to terrorize and murder them. Why? Because…there’s nothing better to do on a Thursday night I guess. Actually, considering that Liv Tyler stars in this, I can think of one possible reason. 
 

Hi guys, I just wanted to give a little update. Some people might have noticed that I've been updating a little slower than usual, and well, the truth is I was in a bit of a funk for the last week. I questioned my decisions for writing, and when you're in that type of mood, you don't want to write at all. I think every writer goes through this stage every so often.

Well, the good news is that my temporary insanity is over, and I am back to full writing speed. I have a couple of interviews lined up, and of course I have plenty of reviews to do (I bought a full stack of cheap horror movies I need to go through). From the writing world, I also have two horror novellas I just sent out that will hopefully catch a publisher's eyes. Last of all, expect some changes to this blog soon. Nothing major-just something that should make navigation a bit easier.

All for now,
Natasha

Last week I was looking for a horror game to play, hoping to whittle away a couple of occasional hours of complete boredom, and what I got was a game so awesome that I couldn’t stop playing for four days straight. By the time the game was finished, I was really hungry and I badly needed to do chores. (Although I’m still not doing them until I’m finished this review)

The plot centers around Ethan Mars, the father of a child who has been kidnapped by the critically acclaimed ‘Oragami Killer’. Ethan has only four days to find his son, Shaun, before he drowns in a trap involving rainwater. In order to save him, Ethan must go through various trials, most of which would make Jigsaw from the Saw series blush.




During the game there are also three main supporting characters also looking for the Oragami Killer. Scott Shelby, a private investigator with a sidekick who is also a prostitute, Norman Jayden, an FBI agent whose investigation might go a little more smoothly if he wasn’t also trying to kick a drug addiction (he does have access to some cool futuristic technology as well) and Madison Paige, who um…looks pretty. And has her clothes off most of the time.



That being said, the plot is very innovating, and the voice acting is some of the best I’ve ever heard. In addition, the graphics of the game also look amazing most of the time-again, easily one of the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately there is one aspect of this game that fails-the actual gameplay itself.

From start to finish you will only play the game in Quicktime events. For the uninformed, that basically means that during a movie, you will be prompted to push a button on the controlled. Push the button, you pass, push the wrong button, you fail. This game will forgive you a little bit from time to time if you fail, but both the wrong buttons and choices in the game will affect the ending. For example, if any of your characters die, then the story will continue without them. I know to a gamer that doesn’t really seem like a game, (more like a long movie) but for what it’s worth, there are enough Quicktime events to keep you occupied.




A bit of a warning-this game does start off very slow. After the first hour, however, most of the game will have you on the edge of your seat.

FINAL GRADE: 4 1/2 out of 5. I would love to give this game a perfect score, but the slowness in the beginning is really annoying. Plus there are some scenes that could have been edited out. For example, one character has the very tedious task of making scrambled eggs, and his houseguest doesn’t even eat them! What’s up with that?

Guess I should do some chores now…grumble…hey wait a minute…I still have to play Dead Space…

Ah, Silent Hill 4 The Room. This game has been torturing me throughout the last week, with its horrible controls, sloppy gameplay and little-to-no comprehensible plot. I bore it to the end, however, so I could finally write a review on the game and dish back some of the pain it has constantly given me.

In the town of Ashfield (Yes, not Silent Hill), a man named Henry Townsend wakes up in his apartment to find his door chained on the inside. Worse, he can’t use the phone, and no one seems to hear him screaming from his window. After five days when he’s down to his last chocolate milk and bottle of wine, a sudden hole opens up in his bathroom. That hole is a warp zone to other places in the town of Ashfield.


Let me describe Henry Townsend in one word-he’s a moron. He’s the kind of guy who will literally look at the bloody corpse of a female who’s been ravaged by monsters, and blankly ask if she’s okay. He also has little-to-no personality, and can't manage much more than staring silently at his love interest most of the time, as though trying to remember his lines. He’s the type of guy you would want to get killed off first in a horror movie, and would be embarrassed to be associated with until then.

The only credit I have to give is his love interest, Eileen. Eileen is attacked and almost killed by a serial killer, suffering horrible wounds in the process. Henry then visits her in the hospital, and asks her to follow him through five different worlds invested with monsters. Eileen accompanies him and actually fights with a broken arm and only one working eye. That’s pretty hardcore. Unfortunately, she suffers from a random bout of stupidity towards the end and so does the antagonist, Walter Sulivan, who really got the wrong message when he was an orphan and believes an actual apartment room gave birth to him (yes I am serious).

The controls in this game are so bad they are almost unplayable, and this is especially true in the first five minutes when the game will jump in and force the player to turn a certain way, in a not-so-subtle attempt to look at something. Every time you do look at something, however, the eye icon will be just above and to the left of an item, giving the impression that you’re looking at the wrong thing. You will tend to struggle with bad camera angles and a buggy fighting system. An actual tutorial system might have also been helpful, as it took me some time to realize that I can’t kill some enemies.

Silent Hill 4 the Room is also very repetitive. You essentially go to five worlds-Subway World, Hospital World, Apartment World, Building World, and Forest World (yes, that is their real names. Imaginative, isn’t it?). And after completing those worlds, you get the fun chore of going through those worlds again. You will also go to your apartment a million times, as messages are often left there.

If you get past the game’s faults (which is a pretty big assumption) the game does have a few genuine scary moments, especially in hospital world. The game also has four different endings, depending on how you took care of your apartment and Eileen. No UFO ending, unfortunately, which is generally tradition with Silent Hill games. But this isn’t a Silent Hill game either.

FINAL GRADE: ½ star out of 5. It’s easily one of the worst games I’ve played for a long time.


If I were Henry Townsend, I wouldn’t count on getting my deposit back…

To celebrate the release of War of the Soulites 2: Ouroboros, I am holding a contest. All you have to do is comment on this post and you will be entered in a draw for a free copy of my e-book! The contest will run till Friday, April 9th, 9 p.m EST!

Synopsis: The new spaceship Vigilant is in bad shape. Although plagued by constant malfunctions and no supplies, the ship's captain, Renolds Osirus, has reason to celebrate. They have located the survivors of the first Vigilant...and have discovered a way to destroy the enemy Soulites.

But to use it, Renolds might have to sacrifice the lives of his crew.

At the same time, the program in Marcus Collingway's mind is breaking down, letting his dark side loose to reveal buried secrets. As his two personalities clash, his answers might lie with Elizabeth Dawson. But his troubled love for her might not survive the changes he's going through -- or what's happening to her.

War of the Soulites 2 is available to buy here: http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_23&products_id=225 

More details at http://www.warofthesoulites.com.

Blogger's note: Spoilers for Highlander 5.

In Highlander 5, A group of both immortals and mortals decide to search for ‘The Source’, the original of all their power. Among them is Methos and Joe Dawson (from the t.v show), Anna (Duncan MacLeod’s 9th billionth former love interest number), and Reggie, Givovanni and Zai, your local cannon fodder ready and willing to serve you. Duncan doesn’t really care about the plot, and would rather sit on rooftops either pretending that he’s batman, or moping about the fact that Anna broke up with him because they can’t have children together.



Oh lookie a Highlander rule that hasn’t been broken yet. I wonder how this will turn out.

All of that changes when a mysterious Guardian of the Source turns up and proclaims that 1) Anna will find the Source through mystic visions and 2) He is disappointed that immortals could have been Kings, and they threw it all away.

And you know what? The Guardian is absolutely frigging right. The idea of a tournament is useless as proven in Highlander 4. There is no reason why a group of immortals couldn't have banded together and made the world something better instead of the apocalyptic wasteland it apparently has become. But hey, I’m sure they’re doing more important things. Like sitting on rooftops.

If I talk about every flaw and gripe I have about this movie, this will be a very long review, so I’ll try and sum up as best as I can. Mopey Macloud and the rest continue hunting for the Source, progressively becoming weaker to a point of becoming mortal (Gee, I wonder if now would be a good time to quit). They face cannibals for some reason, Anna gets kidnapped, most of the actors have fled the movie at this point, until finally only Doopey Dunacan is left.

So let’s talk about the climax of the film. In fact let’s talk about all the fight scenes in Highlander 5, which is actually pretty easy. There are none. No matter how bad or good the rest of the Highlander films are, they at least have some decent sword fighting. With the exception of some cool guy called Zai and 30 seconds of martial arts, we get either special effects or guys bumbling around who don’t know which end a sword is pointed. Duncan, you were in the Highlander T.V show for six years. Shouldn’t you have picked up something by now?

Anyway, Duncan defeats the Guardian, but since the Source is about life, not death (you know, despite all the main characters ha ha, dying) Duncan spares the Guardian’s life and condemns him to a cursed existence forever. Nice.

So now we get to the Source, and I’m psyched. It’s gotta be some kind of solution to the apocalypse problem, right? Or maybe the Source offers some fresh new insight on the immortals that will change everything and breathe new life to this series. Or it could be Duncan and Anna stripping down and getting jiggy with it. Guess which ending it is.

FINAL GRADE: 1 1/2 out of 5. The only thing that surprised me about this film is that they got Josh Groban to sing the soundtrack. What, did they kidnap the guy or something?

I absolutely love the intro to this movie: 'The world has fallen into chaos and decay. There is no law, no justice. Only death and destruction.' And then a cop car pulls up and a criminal runs away.