Looking at: JohnWatts.ca

Recently Ontario held it's municipal elections, where every town voted a bunch of people, and no one really cares outside of Toronto. My home town of Grimsby kept the same mayor we've had for like, ten years, Toronto got rid of the family Ford, and the town of Welland, where I went to school, ousted it's resident asshat Barry Sharpe for the decidedly less insane Frank Campion. The latter of these is particularly interesting, because as anyone from Welland can tell you it's a terrible town. One resident wanted to change all of that, so he put his name on the docket, ran for mayor, and lost hilariously with only 400 votes. That man was John Watt. 

I'll be deviating from my norm of looking at video games or shitty movies because today, we're going to be looking at John Watt's home page of JohnWatts.com. Holy shit. 

I'll be providing screenshots throughout, but to really experiance it you should all go to the source, here. (Link now offline, unfortunately) Everything in Italics is verbatim from his site, nothing has been edited. 

Title Page

We begin with the title page, appropriately named Title Page. He begins with a parental warning that, while there isn't any profanity on his website, there are medical explanations and descriptions of sexual events. He then follows it up with this cryptic statement, that almost reads like a threat:

"Please be forewarned:

Reading johnwatt.ca will surely add to your knowledge, but the sad evils you find will only bring you down."

It's worth noting right away the various issues with formatting his site has. I asked my little brother, a web designer, what the hell was going on and the best he could figure is that John has, for some reason, created a series of text boxes and overlapped them, making it REALLY hard to read. 

"I am typing this myself as Welland Mayoral Candidate John Watt and as Master John Alexander Hay Watt, known to be a Prince of Scotland. "

Not that John's writing helps the readability any on it's own. I don't know what that statement means. Is he a prince of Scotland? Is he a Prince cover band from Scotland? If either statement is true why is he running for mayor of Welland, Ontario?

"Mayoral Candidate John Watt is still walking and talking as a candidate. Working the phones for something to do because I'm waiting around so many, might not seem like a big thing to do, but it became the reason for an Ontario, Canada, Quebec, with Egypt, international change for security reasons, and those were my insecure domain and paranoid Bell business number."

Holy hell, what the fuck even? Settle in readers, I'm going through this entire site piece by piece to try and figure out what's going on here. 

"Degenerate and sadistic behavior at the Welland Hospital is nothing new. The use of new drugs to sexualize men while hypnotizing them isn't new either. That's one of the big reasons I'm a mayoral candidate. 

Dr. Khumaran and his 2 South crew got into me in 1985, when I didn't get to any of the four mayoral debates."

I can honestly say I've never been to the Welland hospital, but I have heard relatively pleasant things about it, as far as Ontario hospitals are concerned. I sure as hell have never heard of "degenerate and sadistic behavior" although, to be fair, if I was a hospital administrator I'd try to keep that under wraps. A quick Google search does reveal that a Dr. Khumaran does work at Welland hospital where he has relatively good reviews from most patients. 

"It's not like me to voluntarily defuse, when just saying a name goes way beyond con-fuse.

But I'm hearing comments that are blaming me, about when others are made to choose,

so being John Watt let's light up what I've got, so here's a meditative poem you can use.

Do you think you have to choose between living in Ward's World or Watt's World?

There is no Watt's World. You don't have to choose.

Don't vote for me and then I'll lose.

If you want to call me a rat, what's that?
I was first being called a rat by the Ward Gang at Fitch Street School.
Every social service agency in Welland has been calling me a rat ever since.

Yvette Ward called the police and got me arrested four times in two years,

for saying they were a crime family, to keep me from handing out campaign statements.

No evidence was presented at all, charges were dropped, before they became Hell's Angels.

I have never called the police on any member of the Ward family.
I say I don't want to press anything against them.

The police don't call Yvette Ward a rat. 

They call her the matriarch of a crime family. Jus'sayin'."

Welland has one of the highest concentration of aspiring rappers I've ever seen. Many of my friends from school practiced the art of amateur rapping, as did a number of normal Welland residents I met while living there. Google once again has the answer as to who Yvette Ward is, revealing that she's the founder of Welland's multicultural center, a lifelong volunteer, and oh yeah, winner of a Govenor General's Caring Canadian Award (thanks goes to the Welland Tribune). Last I checked, winners of volunteer awards don't run crime families or deal with the Hell's Angels. As for the cops refering to Mrs. Ward as the "matriarch of a crime family" no, no they haven't. 

"I'm not typing this just to sound American, like the closing owner of Zeller's at the Seaway Mall. People who write letters of complaint to the Tribune can be identified by facial recognition cameras in the Seaway Mall, and someone could come up to you and tell you not to write letters any more, and say what will happen if you do. Or show you parking lot photos that are enhanced more than you are. I've been told not to use the computers at the library because they can look at their servers to see my Bell domain build codes, having spy options."

I've spent quite a bit of time at Welland's Seaway mall and can say, in all honesty, they don't have facial recognition cameras. The scant security they do have at Seaway amounts to graduates of Niagara College's police foundation program, and a handful of surveillance cameras, circa 1983.

"No, when I finally get a pay-cheque with all that back pay when I'm finally sworn in as Mayor, I'll nominate and second our new Niagara Regional Police Chief as mayor, and then I take the money and travel around. Getting nominated as a political candidate in Welland means paying to fill out a nomination form yourself, $200, so I'll use my own money. Whenever I'm filling out forms like this at city hall I always comment about what it is and how it's being used, and no-one has ever disagreed. "

So your promise is that as soon as you get paid you'll nominate a new Police Chief as mayor, then take the money and do some traveling? Does he think being mayor is a get rich quick scheme? According, once again, to the Welland Tribune, previous Welland mayor Barry Sharp pulled in a little under 90k per year. Not a bad wad of cash to be sure, definitely more then most people, but it's hardly "travel the world" money, and Barry Sharp was so corrupt that the next mayor probably won't be getting that much. As for the last part of this paragraph, no one disagrees with John at city hall because no one at Welland city hall cares about their job. They are the definition of bureaucratic zombies, only there to punch the clock. They just don't have the time or the will to talk to some random crazy person about how the town is spending it's money. 

Real good example of the formatting I was talking about before on the second half of this page. Click the image above to see what I'm talking about. 

"I had complaints about City Manageress Craig Sturtzinger printing out 142 copies of all candidate's material, getting his load up van size, saying that many might run, as he fast-tracked finances. Courteous, and for me, very fresh-faced and pretty, city hall staff later told me they cut that back to four copies."

I had to literally copy/paste that sentence to another document to read it since it was hidden behind another text box. Not that it was worth the effort, since it doesn't make a lick of sense. Searching for Craig Sturtzinger brought me to Craig Stirtzinger, the very male city manager of Welland under Barry Sharpe. 

"Last night, a King Street pizzeria employee and I were talking about how quiet it is, and when I said you must hear more about it than me, she told me about hearing about a King Street business owner and a big police raid. She said the police said it was like a warehouse, and it would take over two days just to catalogue everything."

I assume he's referring to this raid. Drug raids are a pretty common thing in Welland, as is pizza. I imagine this is a pretty normal night for Mr. Watt. 

"During the last election, at a Niagara College candidates meeting, Councillor Paul Grenier came in and sat across from me, making loud grunts and snorting when I was talking because he didn't like what I was saying. At No Frills, I wasn't sure he saw me walking right past him as he stood at the checkouts, looking like he had a wide-eyed blank stare. I was coming back to my cart, getting something while waiting in line, and gave him a little cougar's snarl as I walked by, with no reply."

I'm no political expert, but I don't think snarling at city councillors [sic] is such a good idea. I know it was a bit of a dick move for him to snort and make noises while you were talking, but if your website is any indication, what you were saying was crazy. 

"I received applause every time I spoke, with all the loudest applause. The other candidates received applause less than half the time, and towards the end, none. The first real hostile wave of electoral intent occurred when Mayor Barry Sharpe grabbed the microphone again after his time to explain again what he was trying to say the first time. Councillor Bill Campion saw this obvious distress and obviously decided to play it safe, repeating transparency and jobs a lot. I was waiting for him to imitate Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and say money, money, money, let's save money, but he didn't. And it was about water pressure and ambulance access, what are supposed to be municipal basics."

This actually might have happened. Politics in Welland is pretty dumb at the best of times, so the audience in attendance might have taken poor Watt for a comedian. As for the actions of  Barry Sharpe, he's been known to have outbursts during council meetings before so this is also possible. As for "Coucillor [sic] Bill Campion" no such person exists, and he's probably referring to then councilor and new mayor Frank Campion. 

"It's a good thing I brought a couple of artworks, using two tripod speaker stands to hang them at a nice eye level. There was artwork hanging all around the hall, all of it looking professional, everything from quaint to psychedelic, all works by the residents. All hand-made, I'd like to add. I explained the large cranberry blossoms at daybreak was made with magic markers from Dollarama, on a cardboard pallet divider from No Frills. The orca looking around arctic ice was done with Dollarama paint. I asked the audience to judge the quality of both works against the less than $5 total cost. That got a lot of ooo's and aaah's."

I don't think your supposed to bring artwork to be appraised to a council meeting. I would, however, pay good money to see what kind of artwork he can make out of magic marker and Dollarama quality paints. 

"The longer the question and answer went, the easier it was for me. I might have lost it a little bit, talking about my mother and my brothers picking strawberries, singing and dancing around out there when it was Crowland, shouting out this is my land, yeah, I really meant that. I was feeling it. There wasn't a roof over me, just something blocking out the night sky. The audience wasn't just asking questions any more, they were taking turns behind the mike to make accusations and describe the willful neglect of city hall to all of them. I was just having fun sitting there looking around, people smiling and winking at me."

"Lost it" might be the most truthful statement here, as he clearly regressed into a fantasy world at this point. I don't doubt people were mad about the actions of City Hall, that's pretty normal for Welland, but the people smiling and winking probably weren't directing them at you. 

"Oh yeah! I talked about politicians and priests who have been arrested for sex crimes from my first election, in 1985, to the last election, and how the "most flamboyant pedophile" was sent to run Memorial School as principal, after Crowland was appropriated, and how his grandson is a council member now"

Snarling at councilors and now talking about how one of their grandfathers was a pedophile? That's the way to win elections!

"Yeah! I'm going to sharpen my ball-hockey stick. Hey, hey, that's just in case I have to deflect, not

genuflect. And I genuflect before no man, not even in the arena change room where politicians change, 

or before a woman and her crime family. Never have, never will. "

Hey man, you "genuflect" on your own time. 

"I have attended a few city hall functions there, and use a butter knife from the Sir William Lyon McKenziehouse that I found during a dig, before it was finished as a museum. They said it was too rusty to restore, with a cracked ivory handle, so it was mine as a souvenir. William Lyon McKenzie led a revolt, all those Fonthill plaques about farmers killed, against the "Family Compact", the rich English and French, and created Ontario and Quebec. He became the first mayor of Toronto. What did he do? He brought his own printing press over from Scotland and started to inform the people of Ontario what their political rights were."

Oh, ok. 

Note: JohnWatts.ca has since gone offline, so I'll never get to properly examine the rest of it. 

Looking at: Resident Evil 4

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King of the creeps

Resident Evil 4 is, in my opinion, the single greatest survival horror game ever made. It's also one of my three favorite games of all time, and has remained so for a long time. It's turning ten next year, and has been ported eight different times, more then most games, and is considered one of the most influential games of sixth generation. It also killed it's own franchise and changed the face of survival horror and third person shooters forever. It's Halloween today, so I decided to talk about RE4 and why I still think it's one of the best games ever made. 

The first time I played Resident Evil was in grade six. I was twelve years old and it was a sleepover at my friends house. My parents had never been expressly against violent videogames, having given up around the time my oldest brother bought Diablo 2, but we didn't have RE4 for our Gamecube because my older brother thought it was to scary. My older brother is an idiot. At that sleepover we played most of the first half of RE4, getting all the way to the castle that marks the half way point of the game. I was in love with every second, running away from hordes of enemies, getting my head cut off with a chainsaw, and landing those sweet, sweet headshots with the bolt-action rifle. It was love at first decapitation. 

playing it again almost a decade later I was pleased to find that it completely holds up. I recently picked up the PS2 version of the game, although I had also played through a large chunk of the HD version on PS3. I know sometimes people remember games from their past and think the game is great no matter what, but a lot of times these games just don't hold up as well as they did when we were kids. For example, as a kid I played the hell out of Diddy Kong Racing on N64, but trying to play it now I found it was an aggravating experience and horrible un-fun to play. A lot of classic PC games I find are now impossible to enjoy because the mechanics in these games have been greatly surpassed by modern games. But RE4 is like a painting, never getting old, always being awesome. 

Built like a tank

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Every interaction with my grandmother.

RE4's controls handle...interestingly. The term "tank controls" usually gets tossed at it, and this is pretty fitting. There's no denying it, your character of Leon Kennedy handles like a tank simulation, moving only able to move forward and backward with no option to strafe. You also can't shoot from the hip at all, and aiming your weapon stops you dead in your tracks. The camera is constantly looking forward,  although you have the option to look to your left or right. All of this might sound archaic, but it actually all feeds back into the horror feel of the game. Not being able to see behind you means that enemies can get the drop on you if you aren't paying attention. Having to stand still while shooting means that you have to carefully conduct your combat, firing a few shots, running away, spinning around, rinse and repeat.

What really makes RE4 shine is your interactions with the environment. Not since Duke Nukem 3D have I seen this many intractable objects in a level, all with fantastic animations. The level design in general is fantastic, mixing wide open areas, enclosed arena, and claustrophobic halls all in equal measure. Best of all is that most levels have multiple paths, allowing you further control over how you choose to fend off the hordes of enemies. Part of the fun is figuring out how to utilize the environment to your advantage, finding choke points to set up kill zones and using various objects around the map to thin out the enemy. 

Fight for your life

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The Blind Claw, one of the more interesting encounters in the game.

Combat itself is an interesting beast. I already explained how you need to stop and shoot, but I really can't stress how important proper planning becomes latter in the game. Many of the later levels will toss you up against dozens of enemies at once, and you won't always be properly prepared. Much of the game is made up of improvised solutions, like using a shotgun to blast back a group and picking of stragglers with pistol shots, or using kneecap shots to slow enemies down. Thankfully combat never gets stale, with each encounter differing slightly from the last, and plenty of enemy types mixed in at regular intervals. 

The bosses of RE4 deserve special mention as well, as each of them is memorable and awesome. While all the boss fights boil down to "shoot/stab the weakspot" how you go about that differs wildly from fight to fight. One boss starts off normal and goes all the way to batshit halfway through, while another one starts crazy and ramps up from there.They all require some planning on the part of the player, and they play out like jigsaw puzzles with guns, making the pieces line up just right before shooting them to bits. 

This isn't to say that the common enemies of RE4 are boring. RE4 breaks from it's predecessor by not having zombified enemies. This time around you're fighting the Ganados, villagers from the unnamed European country the game takes place in that have been infected by a mind controlling parasite. The Ganados are smarter then the zombies of previous RE games, able to communicate with each other and operate objects in the world. They can open doors, climb ladders, thrown blades at you, and even use crossbows and explosives. Because of this facing a Ganado is often freakier then the zombies of old, since now they can think and react to your actions. 

Ranging from crazy to insane

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Occasionally, the game manages to up the creepy factor in the level design alone.

The plot of RE4 can best be described as "80's action horror as interrupted by Japan". Think John Carpenter meets Kōji Shiraishi. The setup is that you are Leon Kennedy, survivor of Raccoon City that has taken a job as the President of America's bodyguard. You're first assignment is to rescue his kidnapped daughter from an insane cult in an unnamed small European country near Spain. That actually the primary plot throughout the entire game, and there's very little deviation, even once things start to go really, REALLY south. There's character to meet, places to explore, and enemies to fight, but your purpose is always to find and protect the girl. 

Where it gets weird is in it's presentation. The first third of the game takes place in the villages and farms of the country side, drawing creepy likenesses to films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Children of the Corn. You'll face off against angry farmers, cross snake infested swamps, and kill chickens for eggs. Then it changes quite abruptly when you enter the castle. Suddenly it turns into an escape from the castle, filled with ancient traps, hidden pathways, and at one point, I'm not kidding, a giant stone golem robot. It's a weird shift in tone, but it remains spooky thanks to the feel of being in a haunted castle surrounded by things that want you dead. Then chapter three kicks in and you find yourself in a military base, with a science lab, and there's a chase with a bulldozer, and it's just all very weird and very confusing. You literally escape the game by driving off on a jet ski, followed by a snappy one liner as the island explodes and the sun comes up.

It's constant shift in tone is a bit jarring, but it's not a horror game because it's scary. RE4 is a proper survival horror game, where the horror is your constant survival. There are one or two jump scares here and there, and the infamous Regenerator enemies in the late game are down right terrifying, but most of the horror element comes from you figuring out how to survive every encounter. Even on normal difficulty RE4 is brutal, constantly giving you just barely enough ammo to survive. Surviving a battle is truly rewarding because you feel like you accomplished something. Even better is when all your hard work pays off and you save up enough ammo to go on the offensive, daring the game to throw more enemies at you and you eat through your shotgun shells. It's this constant ebb and flow that really makes RE4 great, constantly teetering between "Oh god, how am I going to get through this one" and "Let them come! I got enough for everybody!".

Legacy of champions

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The always terrifying Regenerator, still one of the creepiest enemies in gaming.

RE4 was a huge success when it came out in 2005. It revitalized a dying IP, brought some real credibility to the Gamecube as a serious gaming platform, and reworked how we looked at horror games and third person shooters in general. People quickly started aping it, from the direct ripoffs like Dead Space or Cold Fear, to games that just used it's ideas of over-the-shoulder camera and set piece moments like Gears of War or Army of Two. Horror games stopped being about scaring people with spooky moments and became more about asking the player to survive an extra-normal situation with limited resources.

It's truly unfortunate that it's own follow ups haven't exactly been stellar. RE5 was a muddled co-op mess of racism, with half baked ideas and a fraction of the game time of RE4. RE6 is...unknowable, Ranging from second rate to outright stupid in terms of story. RE: Revelations was surprisingly good, so I'm interested to see how the sequel -which isn't getting a 3DS release despite the first one being a launch title- will inevitable screw everything up.

Why can't anything match the brilliance of RE4? Perhaps it was just lighting in a bottle, the perfect mix of new ideas, new gameplay mechanics, and a new plot right when the series needed it most. Now it just feels like every RE game is just trying to hard to be RE4, trying to recapture that perfect mix of awesome and crazy that they had once.

We may never see another game like RE4, and given the current state of survival horror, the chances of anything coming close seem less and less likely every year. It's spirit lives on, most recently in it's own spiritual successor The Evil Within, but RE4 is a time capsule, perfectly capturing the exact moment when, just once, everything just kind of worked. As for the game itself? Well, Capcom seems hesitant to let RE4 slip into obscurity, so they keep reworking it and porting again and again. Most recently we saw an updated PC port, mostly as an apology for the original PC version, often considered an atrocity, and there have been numerous rumors about a new IOS port of the game, as well as an Android version for certain devices. RE4 will live on as the perfect survival horror title, a monument to how it should be done.

Looking at: State of Decay

When Hell is full

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guns are a great way to thin the horde, but can be more trouble then they're worth.

Readers, you may have noticed that I've talked quiet a bit about State of Decay in my last two posts, calling it one of my favorite survival horror games, and also one of my favorite zombie games in recent memory. I feel, though, that a single paragraph doesn't do State of Decay enough justice, and since it's Halloween tomorrow and I'm doing a different article on a different survival horror title tomorrow, I thought I'd expand my thoughts on State of Decay and explain in greater detail why I love this game so much.

As I explained already, I really like anything to do with zombies, often giving otherwise mediocre or even bad games a pass, as long as I get to kill a whole lot of the undead. When SoD was announced for Xbox360, and subsequently PC I was overjoyed. This sounded like the game I had always wanted to make: an open world survival game with a greater emphasis on survival then just murdering a billion zombies. When I got my hands on the PC version it was love at first bludgeoning.

The dead walk

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An average day out in State of Decay.

The campaign for SoD follows a small group of survivors on their quest to escape from Trumbull valley, a huge plot of land encompassing three small towns, a couple dozen farms, and is completely isolated from the rest of the world thanks to mountains on all sides. It's a bit of a dumb reason, but there's so much stuff in the map that you don't really care. There isn't much plot beyond "how do we get out" and most of the story is delivered through your groups interaction with other groups. Like Mount and Blade before it, the best stories in SoD are the ones you create. Like the time I was going for a scouting run and had to outwit a horde because my wooden bat broke and I ran out of ammo. Or the time I was hiding in a house only to be ambushed by a feral zombie and torn to shreds. SoD is great at creating scenarios of pure terror completely by accident and letting you figure a way out.

Obviously, there are zombies. There are a lot of zombies in SoD, and the variety in the zombie models is pretty impressive. It's rare to see the same model twice in a horde. And the zombies are creepy, ranging from recent dead to walking skeletons with meat dangling off the bone. There are a number of special zombies to present unique challenges as well: the armored zombie, immune to bullets; the feral that strikes fast and knocks you down; bloaters filled with poison that damages your health and stamina over time, and The Big Bastard, a giant zombie that takes an enormous amount of firepower to bring down. The fact that all of these can spawn randomly in the world means there's an extra layer of horror in every encounter.

Blood in the eye

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You'll need to learn the land in order to survive.

If there is one thing wrong with SoD, it's that the whole game feels like an indie game in the worst possible way. The idea is there, and it's executed with a decent degree of proficiency, but it's so rough around the edges you'll need a belt sander. Graphically SoD looks... strange. It's running on the CryEngine3, the same tech that ran Crysis 3. It has this weird, psudeo-realistic look to it, but only from a distance, like the devs got a demo version of CryEngine 3 and decided that was enough. What's really strange about it is that it kind of works, especially the game's lighting. Due to the outbreak there's no more electricity in Trumbull valley, so all the interiors are pitch black even during the day. This helps to create a sense of tension, as you'll feel safe keeping your flashlight off, only to suddenly get attacked from a ghoul hiding in the shadows. I strongly recommend the PC version of this game, as it's by far the prettier version. Here's a comparison video courtesy of VideoGamerTV:







What I truly love is that there's a day-night cycle. Not enough games have this these days, and it's refreshing to see. It affects gameplay too, since your flashlight isn't all that great, and vehicle headlights can't be kept on after exiting. You will stumble around in the darkness and it will be terrifying.

They're coming to get you

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Interacting with human factions often leads to the most interesting stories.

SoD offers you two ways to deal with the zombies: Flight or Fight. As you progress through the game there's a balance tip from one end to the other, offering you a tangible feeling of accomplishment as you acclimate to the new world. Just starting off, you'll be lucky to find a gun and a good stick to beat back the hordes. As you progress you'll get braver and better equipped, taking on infestations and roaming zombie hordes single-handily with high explosives and Molotov cocktails. Near the end of the campaign you'll be so adept at killing zombies, that you'll start going out of your way to kill them. The game wisely balances this by making the best items hard to find, ammo scarce, and every weapon is breakable over time. Zombies will attack from all sides, and there's no way to actually clear a zone, so prolonged slaughter is just a waste of ammo and time.

Unfortunately combat in SoD, like it's graphics, asks that you remember it's an indie game. Animations are jankey, and you can often see individual animation frames processing. There's also a very limited number of animations, so be ready to see the same ones play out a thousand times. Zombies have a tendency to act weird too, glitching through walls or killing themselves on the environment. Perhaps worst of all is that the collision detection can sometimes bug out, and attacks, both melee and ranged, just won't connect for no real reason. All of this is manageable, and never really breaks the game, but it is unfortunate to see, especially given how good the game is as a whole.

That's really the big thing with SoD, is that it's really good as a whole, but the individual parts don't always spin the right way. It's great that it gives you so many different weapon options, but they all operate the same way making combat repetitive. It's great that the game dynamically creates drama within your group of survivors, but there's only maybe ten voice actors all delivering the same lines of dialogue again and again. It's great the game requires you to scavange to survive, but there's almost never a penalty for taking to long to gather food or medicine. Don't stare to long at one particular section of SoD, lest you loose the magic of the game.

Expanding infestation

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Sasquatch, one of the more interesting Lifeline characters. 

As of this writing, SoD also has two DLC expansion packs I feel are worth talking about. Both of them bring something new to the game, and if you enjoy the base SoD I strongly suggest getting these.

The first DLC is Breakdown, a sandbox version of the main game. There's no story to Breakdown, rather it progresses like an arcade game. You are plopped down on the map with little direction and only two objectives:
1) Survive
2) Escape
You'll need to find and repair an RV, then you get to level up, taking only six survivors and a handful of supplies with you. Leveling up resets the map, but ramps up the difficulty, spawing more zombies, more special zombies, less weapons and fewer vehicles into the world. You can level up six times, each time getting harder and harder, and see how long you last after that. There's special rewards for accomplishing certain tasks, meaning that your never completely out of things to do, and it's a great way to experience the best parts of SoD without putting up with the crappy plot of the main game.

The second DLC is Lifeline, which sees you as a military operation sent to retrieve data about the infestation in the new area of Danforth city. Lifeline introduces some neat ideas, like starting out with an armory of equipment that drains overtime, and the sieges, massive base defense missions against the largest hordes available in the un-modded game. The new map of Danforth's outskirts is also a pleasant change, swapping the open fields of Trumbull Valley with cramped streets and deserted highways. It's unfortunate that you never get to enter Danforth proper, but the idea of having to constantly skirt around the edge of the map helps reinforce the claustrophobic feel.  Lifeline also has a better plot then the base game, sticking you with just a small handful of recognizable characters rather then randomly generated ones, and giving most of them actual personality. Overall, it's a great addition to SoD and well worth the money.

Save the last bullet

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Plumbing has never been so useful.

State of Decay is a fantastic game, standing head over shoulders above most other zombie games. It's ability to organically create horror, coupled with the complete freedom it gives to the player mean that it's worth playing again and again, just to see how things can be different. Brutally difficult, but well balanced, and really rough around the edges, this is certainly a game any fan of zombies should consider getting, if they somehow don't have it already.

Looking at: Zombie games

I like Halloween. It's not my favorite holiday, since the idea of favoring one day over another seems kind of stupid to me, but I do like Halloween. I have fond memories of it as a kid, and as an adult continue to reap the rewards on Nov. 1st when every retailer has candy for ridiculously cheap because they have to make way for the Christmas crap.

I also like anything to do with zombies. I know they've become so overdone in gaming, and it's been a while since there was a zombie game worth playing, but I still really enjoy anything to do with zombies. Hell, it's the reason I keep watching The Walking Dead, despite me admitting time and time again that it's not that good of a show. 

Zombies games have stagnated, much like their subject matter left out in the rain, but there are a few games worth playing. Below are some zombie games that I don't hate, in no particular order. Please note, some of these games are not that good, and I like them only for reasons known to me, take each game with a grain of salt and decided for yourself whether you'd like it or not. 

State of Decay

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State of emergency.

Easily the best zombie game in recent memory. I won't spend to much time on this, as I already wrote about it in my last post, but it's worth mentioning again. State of Decay is an excelent idea of what a zombie game should be, mixing stealth, survival, resource management, and a whole lot of zombie killing together in an awesome budget cake. I strongly suggest the Breakdown DLC that does away with the bland story and lets you craft your own tale of survival. The Lifeline DLC also offers a cool new map with some interesting ideas, but it's only worth it if you groove on the base game and want some more. Definitely worth getting for any serious zombie fan.

Day Z

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people suck.

I'll admit, I haven't had a chance to play the standalone version of the popular ARMA 2 zombie mod, but I do have a few dozen hours logged on the original mod, and I've been informed there's not that much different in the full game. This is a good thing, since I think Rocket Hall nailed the idea of Day Z on the first try. Day Z isn't about the zombies, it's about the people. A reoccurring theme in zombie fiction is that man is the true monster, and the undead are just a reflection of our most basic selves, empty husks that only seek to feed on others. Day Z is the first game to get this idea right, removing all NPC interaction and letting the players have the run of the place. There have been plenty of stories to come out of Day Z that prove that just letting people go nuts can create better ideas then the best head writers at a dozen AAA developer teams. 

A caveat: Day Z is still in Alpha, meaning that there's a long road ahead before this is fully released. A recent interview with Rocket Hall, Day Z's creator, has revealed that the game will be moving to a new engine, so clearly the full release is a LOOOOONG way off. 

Dead Island: Riptide

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Almost as hard to recommend as it is to play.

I give the Dead Island series way more credit then it deserves. These are the "not good" games I mentioned in my introduction paragraph, and I'll repeat it. The Dead Island games aren't that good. Between the two of them I chose Riptide because it is, sort of, the better game. It actually delivers on the promise of an open world, there's a greater variety of weapons, and it doesn't even pretend to be serious, instead going for a schlocky low-budget horror movie vibe, complete with god awful dialogue. Dead Island prides itself on it's melee combat, but it probably shouldn't because the melee combat barely works. It's hard to judge distance between yourself and your target in the space of a video game because there's no real depth to what your looking at. It's a 3d world on a 2d monitor. Dead Island can be fun, especially with friends, but I really don't suggest paying full price for this, and you have to be in the right headspace to actually enjoy it. 

ZombiU

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the best game no one played.

I'm constantly disappointed that Ubisoft decided to drop the ZombiU IP to focus on other series. I don't want another Watchdogs, the first one was awful. I'd rather they spend some time and make a proper sequel to this surprise WiiU launch title because there's so much good about it, it just needs a second go to get it right. ZombiU is still one of my favorite WiiU titles, taking cues from the likes of Metroid, Silent Hill, and even Dark Souls. You'll suffer through authentic London landmarks in your struggle to survive, saving bullets for precious headshots and learning to control the horde. Brought down by a boring story and some boring repetitive melee combat, this is truly the most saddening game on this list. 

Left 4 Dead 2

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A good time for friends and family.

Left4Dead doesn't try to be anything else. Where other zombie games try to crowbar in a plot or even a message, L4D is just happy to let you slaughter and massacre your way through literally thousands of crazy fast zombies. I decided to pick L4D2, since the PC version now contains the entire first game anyway, and the numerous additions it made like melee weapons and special ammo make it a better package then the first game. L4D is perfect for killing an hour or two with friends, and it's barely connected campaigns mean you can pick and choose whatever fits your taste. A nearly flawless co-op or competitive game with a wide selection of game modes and modifiers to keep you coming back time and time again. 

Dead Rising 3

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Sledgehammer...fireaxe.

Any of the Dead Rising games would've worked, but DR3 is easily the best. It's story is simpler then the previous entries and it's ability to through thousands of zombies on screen is truly commendable. There's a simple, cathartic pleasure in the Dead Rising series, a pleasure that only plowing through 150 zombies with a sledgehammer/fireaxe hybrid can bring. The third entry is the best because of it's numerous additions to the series, namely the craft anywhere ability, vehicles, and a truly open world free of load times. And now, thanks to Capcom's very loose definition of "exclusive" you don't even need an Xbox1 to play it, so there's that too!

The Walking Dead

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You can't save everyone.

No, I'm not talking about The Walking Dead: Survival instinct, although rest assured one day that game will feel my wrath proper. Of course, I'm talking about the award winning and heart wrenching Teltale series of point&click adventure games. I won't talk to much about them since I don't want to ruin anything. Both seasons are exceptional, for different reasons, and replaying through the series again and again is a wonderful experience. I strongly recommend bringing tissues for the season one finally, and a strong stomach for most of season two. 

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

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The Good, the Bad, and the Weird.

Red Dead Redemption is one of my all time favorite games, so when they announced the zombie themed DLC I was somewhat skeptical. "What if they ruin everything good about RDR?" I wondered. Boy was I wrong. Undead Nightmare takes everything great about RDR and makes it zombified in the best way possible. There's still a massive open world to explore, a host of interesting characters to interact with, and a never ending flow of side quests and dynamic world events. The story is appropriately stupid, casting RDR's stoic hero into yet another situation he barely understands, and brings back many of the best RDR character to see how they would survive in a zombie apocalypse. There's new weapons, enemies, and side quests, and even some new mutliplayer modes. Enjoyable either as a standalone, or packaged with the already perfect main game. 

And the rest...

That's my not so short list of zombie games that I liked. There's a lot of games not on that list because I didn't feel they accurately represented the zombie genre, so I'll list them here in quick succession:

Resident Evil 4 - not zombies, it says so in the game
Last of Us - barely about the zombies, more about the people
Dead Space - Not zombies

Train Sim - way to weird, even for me

Minecraft - not about zombies
Contagion - fun, but a budget ripoff of Left 4 Dead
Killing Floor - really fun, not really zombies
System Shock 2 - technically the enemies are zombies, but not really

Space Pirates and Zombies - takes WAY to long for the zombies to even appear

Typing of the Dead - edutainment done right, but not quiet good enough for the list

Zombies ate my neighbors - Old school co-op, but doesn't always hold up

I have my hopes for the future of zombie games, and I love seeing what devs will do to try and make them relevant again. Dying Light and Dead Island 2 might not be as terrible as they both look, and Day Z has a long road ahead of it, so maybe one day we'll all get that zombie game we're hoping for. Until then, I'll just keep bashing brains till it stops being fun.

Looking at: My favorite survival horror games

I love survival horror games. Being a damn near sedentary human being, they allow me to experiance thrills and horror, without any of the danger of having my spleen ripped out. Today I'll be discussing some of my favorite survival horror titles and explaining what I love about them. In no particular order:

Resident evil 4

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flawless execution. 

Resident evil 4 is part of the trifecta of my favorite games, tied with Red Dead Redemption and Morrowind. It's nearly flawless in my mind, and this isn't a case of rose tinted nostalgia, RE4 is still as awesome a week ago when I played through it again as it was that first time I played in in grade 6. Everything about it is perfect, even the things that don't completely work. People have complained about the camera and the "tank controls" that restrict movement sightlines. RE4 doesn't have a full 3d camera, rather you can only see what's in front of you and to your sides. I say this adds to the horror and tension, knowing that at any moment you could be ambushed from behind. People have complained that it doesn't make sense for a merchant armed to the teeth to not sell ammo, but that would ruin the balance. Fights wouldn't have any weight to them if you could just fill up on ammo and plow through every encounter, instead you have to suffer through, earning your victory.

Perhaps what I like most about RE4 is it's sincerity. It doesn't have a heavy handed plot, and it's main cast consists of only a handful of memorable characters. Halfway through it turns into a weird 80's action-horror with you fighting your way through a castle and it just doesn't seem to care. It's goofy and strange, but it's a damn good time, and usually the first game I recommend when people talk about survival horror.

State of Decay

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Indie team showing how it's done.

This game came completely out of left field for a lot of people. The term "open-world-zombie-survival" is used way to much in gaming these days, but State of Decay absolutely nails it in every way. It doesn't try to have an particular emotion punch like a certain OTHER zombie game, but rather contents itself with the shotgun approach, mixing interesting characters, organic horror stories, and the glory of slaughtering thousands of zombies all at once. It's far from perfect, with only a handful of voice actors delivering the same lines of dialogue over and over again, and possible the jankiest looking animations ever, but for a relatively small price this game has a ton of content, and it's focus on group survival rather then just clearing the horde is an interesting departure from the norm.

System Shock 2

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No one will hear you scream.

The progenitor of sci-fy action horror, System Shock 2 is the scariest game set in space, period. You are a soldier aboard the Von Braun, a research vessel in deep space, that's in deep shit. There are mutant zombies walking around, crazed psychic monkeys, malfunctioning robots, and strange orders coming from an unseen voice. The atmosphere of tension and horror is complete, never once giving you a moment of peace. Weapons break and ammo is limited, meaning that your rarely comfortable taking on enemies. System Shock 2 earns extra points for being directly responsible for the Bioshock series, as well as a large source of inspiration for the Dead Space series as well (barring the third entry).

Dark Souls

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Prepare to die.

Some people will tell you Dark Souls isn't a survival horror. These people are wrong. Dark Souls is all about slowly and methodically progressing through a world filled with things that want you dead, with only limited support available. The levels are cramped and dark, and death awaits around every turn. With an intuitive multiplayer system that allows for co-op or PVP seamlessly, other players may help or hinder you at any time. Dark Souls does loose it's horror value with multiple playthroughs, espcially when you become so proficient at the game you begin toying with it, but for first time players it's a wonderfully frighting experience sure to leave a mark.

Metro 2033

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The Mad Russian.

Metro 2033 is a cold, somber, and lonely game that constantly reminds you of the horrors mankind can sow. Taking place twenty years after a nuclear war forces the residents of Moscow underground, you play as a young man that must save his home from the forces of evil. Along the way you'll be faced with terrors of both the physical and psychological kind as you delve deeper into a world living on borrowed time. I highly suggest playing the 2014 Redux rerelease, as it balances the game out, updates many of the textures to HD, and comes packaged with 2033 more action slanted sequel Metro Last Light.

The Last of Us

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Save the girl.

The only console exclusive entry on my list, this PS3 masterpiece comes to us from the masters of story telling at Naughty Dog. While the Nathan Drake series is often lighthearted and witty, TLoU is a decidedly darker game, examining humanity in a broken world, and what one man is willing to do to survive. Joel and Ellie are easily two of my favorite characters ever written, and their story is one of sadness, loneliness, pain, and suffering. TLoU is a brutal game in every sense of the word, from it's heart wrenching story, to it's visceral combat. There are no heroes in TLoU, only survivors.

STALKER: COP, Misery mod

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The warning's in the name.

I already wrote about the STALKER series here, but I wanted to make special mention of the MISERY mod for Stalker: Call of Pripyat. A massive overhaul of the base game, MISERY makes ammo scarce, money hard to come by, and the AI way more aggressive. It also offers a few new ways to play, allowing you to select a class with strengths and weaknesses before entering The Zone, or entering empty handed in the new Black Road option. Success is secondary to survival, and you'll find yourself doing whatever it takes to stay alive just one more moment. MISERY doesn't love company, because it doesn't love anything at all.

And the rest...

This is just a short list of some of my favorite survival horror games. I know I missed some, like Silent Hill 2 or Fatal Frame, but honestly I haven't been able to play those games for one reason or another. There are also so newer entries into the genre that didn't make the cut, so special mention goes out to:

The Evil Within
Dead Space 1&2
Resident Evil Revelations
The Forrest
Day Z
Outlast
Five Nights at Freddy's

All of these games are certified survival horror gold,  but just weren't good enough to make my list.
This should be enough games to get anyone spooked this Halloween, and keep you terrified long into the cold darkness of winter.

Looking at: The S.T.A.L.K.E.R series

Horrors from the East

Halloween is almost upon us (assuming I post this before the 31st) and like every other site right now I'll be taking a look at one of my favorite horror franchises in gaming: The STALKER series. This series of open-world-rpg-shooters has conjured up some of the scariest, and most organic moments in my gaming career, and I feel like sharing them with you all.

There are three games in the STALKER series, four if you count the fan made remake of the first game. I'll be taking a look at each of them, and discussing what I love, and hate, about this fantastic series of unconventional horror games.

From the Nuclear Ashes

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Man made hell.

originally announced in 2005 and released in 2007, the first game in the series is Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. Set in an alternate universe where a second Chernobyl explosion occurs and rather then obliterating everything, it creates an ecological wastelands known as The Zone. The Zone serves as the only location for the entire series spanning 60km around the ruins of Chernobyl. Filled with treasures to sell and monsters to hunt The Zone quickly attracts people from every walk of life to come and explore it. These explorers are refered to as Stalkers (Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber) and they've split into factions based around they're various ideologies concerning the Zone.

You play as The Marked One, a survivor of a truck explosion who wakes up with amnesia. You have only one objective at the beginning of the game: kill a Stalker named Strelok. In order to do so you must complete a number of tasks for the various factions in order to gain intel and access to various areas of the Zone. The story is a little hard to follow at times, not helped by some questionable translations and nonsensical cut scenes that don't reveal that much, but there is one twist, and it's pretty great.

What SoC does excel at is building it's world, and populating it with pure terror. The Zone is one of the most completely realized worlds in gaming, with every inch of it intricately mapped out. There's not one object out of place, and it all feels very surreal when looked at as a whole. It matches the familiar with the alien and creates a sense of unease as your mind tries to understand what you're looking at. A familiar looking factory torn apart by a swirling gravity well, or an average underpass literally spitting flames from no where are just some of the strange landmarks you'll run across. It's a somber and lonely place, with danger around every corner and no-one to help you out. The sun rarely shines in The Zone, and when it does it only illuminates the sadness.

Gameplay wise SoC, and the series in general, is a mix between traditional shooter and RPG. You'll shoot guns at things, that much is true, but there's a lot more to how the game handles your shooting. There's no skills to level up, but each piece of equipment can have an effect on your stats, meaning you'll have to balance out every gun, suit of armor, and buff item you find. The latter, in particular is interesting. The Stalker series contains items called Artifacts, strange alien items spit out by The Zone. These items can be used to buff your character, but often come with side effects. You can run forever, but a single zap of electricity will kill you; you can withstand a shotgun blast, but you constantly build up radiation poisoning. Trying to balance these can be tricky, and it's rewarding when your work pays off.

"Get out of here Stalker"

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maybe steer clear (sky) of this one.

Despite various bugs, and failing to live up to expectations, SoC was a success. A little more then a year later came STALKER: Clear Sky, a prequel to SoC that went more into the early days of The Zone. Unfortunately, you can't make a good game in that time, and Clear Sky was no exception, shipping in a barely functioning state, and filled with bugs for years to come. Often regarded as the worst entry in the series, Clear Sky does have some interesting ideas that largely fall flat. It's big gimmick is the Faction Wars sub-game, in which you can align yourself with any of the game's four "friendly" factions and help them to achieve dominance in The Zone. It's a fun little diversion, but doesn't pay off in the long run. Clear Sky also overhauls the game's human AI, allowing them to take cover and use grenades, making combat a little more hectic. Overall, it's not a horrible game, especially now that it's had upwards of 15 major patches, but probably not the best representation of Stalker available.

Back to The Zone

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Not pictured: abject horror.

After Clear Sky no one knew what would come next for the series. Then, in 2010 Stalker: Call of Prypiat was released, and boy was it ever good. This was finally the game we'd wanted from the start, a huge open world, quests with mutliple decisions, and a simple, easy to follow plot. CoP is, hands down, one of my favorite shooters and an awesome example of an interesting idea done right. Building on the foundations of the previous two entries, CoP doesn't add that much of it's own, but rather is satisfied with fixing the issues of the old games. There's only three levels this time around, but they're massive and filled with secrets to hunt out. This gives the game a much more open feel, and contrasts great when it does throw you into tight quarters. There's fewer sidequests, but each of them is more engaging and all of them have an effect on the world at large. For the first time in the series you get to make choices about where the story is going to go next, and it's a refreshing change from the linear progression of the old titles. Best of all CoP is stable, much more so then the previous games. There's still bugs, but the game rarely crashes, and progression is almost never broken. It's a huge step forward for a game renowned for poor QA.

The expanding Zone

All three games are great, but what really stands out for the STALKER series is the fan-made mods. Not to say that the games aren't good vanilla, but all three of them have exceptional overhauls that create truly amazing experiances.

SoC is enhanced by one of two major mods: either the Autumn Aurora or LURK mods will change the way you play SoC. Autumn Aurora is my personal favorite, overhauling the graphics, adding in new sidequests, and tweaking the AI to be more challenging. LURK, on the other hand, focuses on immersion, removing most of the HUD, giving all weapons their real-world name, and removing artifacts completely. Both are good and it's up to you to decided how you want to play.

When it comes to Clear Sky, the only mod worth talking about is the Road to Limansk collection. This takes all the most popular Clear Sky mods and makes them play nice with each other, adding better graphics, AI, more weapons, and a metric tonne of bug fixes to the game. I highly recommend playing Clear Sky with this rather then vanilla.

My favorite mod for CoP is the MISERY mod. If the name didn't sell it, this is a hard core survival mod, making food a commodity, and combat something to be feared. MISERY is as close, I believe, as we will ever get to a Dark Souls first person shooter. Alternatively, there's also CoP: Reloaded, a more traditional mod that adds new gameplay features, but retains the overall feel of the original game.

Finally, when talking about STALKER mods, a special mention goes to the Lost Alpha mod. What started out as a simple re-addition of promised game features has now spun-off into an entire stand-alone game. It's completely free, thanks to the STALKER IP being in limbo, and if you're thinking about trying out the series there's no better way. Aimed at being what the original version of SoC was, Lost Alpha is a great way to see the world of STALKER and experience the games on a budget.

The horror of being alone

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There's also the horror of being eviscerated, but that's less pervasive.

The STALKER series has always been one of my favorite horror series because of the way it organically creates it's horror. There are no intentional jump-scares in STALKER, only coincidence. STALKER is a true survival horror, in which your survival is one of being constantly scared. Every second could be your last, and every enemy could be your own personal grim reaper. I recommend playing the games on their hardest difficulties, since this really gives you the sense that you could die at a moment's notice. Overcoming this fear is great, but even with a maxed out assault rifle, 1000 rounds of ammo and more grenades then you can shake a pin at, you'll still be frightened by every sound you hear.

More terrifying then the various bandits and beasts that plague you is The Zone itself. There's a feeling of loneliness everywhere you go, and even when your surrounded by other Stalkers, you'll be alone with yourself. The Zone and it's people reject and ignore you, and you're own your own to persevere. You will likely die alone in The Zone, and it won't even register your name.

The STALKER series is far from perfect. Each of the games have some pretty substantial stability issues, and patches and mods only go so far to fix them. At time the AI is goofy, they're hard to understand, and none of the weapons are particularly accurate. What the STALKER series is instead, is unique, terrifying, and brilliant. They're not for everybody, hell, they not for most shooter fans, but people willing to look beyond will truly find some treasures hidden in The Zone.