Thursday 30 August 2012

Costume Of The Month

Again my little costume/cosplay spot light! And this month is an amazing ISAAC CLARKE of DEAD SPACE costume!
 
Name: Marco
Age: 26
Where are you from: Italy Rome
How long have you been cosplaying: 6-7 years
 

What did you decide to cosplay this character?: because is a bad ass!
Tell us about your costume:  The suit itself is not very complicated, the most difficult part is for the led (my helmet totally blind my eyes when turned on =/ ) for the gun i ask a friend of mine to make me a perfect replica (is the only part that i diddn't make cause i wanted it to be perfect!)
 
 

Tell us something about the character your cosplaying: He studies engineering to became a butcher!!! sounds good!
Big thanks to this super awesome cosplayer for doing this for me. If you want to see some more of his costume work check OUTLANDERS on DA
 
 
 

Saturday 25 August 2012

AMC The Walking Dead FACEBOOK Game

So as many people have done in the past and present when bored and sick of looking at the same friend spam their facebook 20 times about their every movement or having to read that one friend who only talks about their freaking kids we've all been known to play one or two Facebook games.. while playing LOST BUBBLE I notice an advert at the side for a Walking Dead FB game so I jumped right on that.
 
I like the art style... how ugly it makes Shane which is true to the show to be honest haha.
 
You get to make your own character which is pretty neat, it's better then most FB games where you have very limited choice.. but saying that I think I had about 7 choices for tops, pants, shoes and like 5 for heads? By the way I look nothing like this I just felt this looked the least crap.
 
Also FB kept freezing and I had to keep resetting and making my char like 5 times before it got on with it.
 
Shane and his nose give you a step by step on how the game is played. Your health can be regenerated by giving up your stamina points, 10 a go in fact which is alot when once you've used up all your free shit for starting the game you can only move 28 times.
 
 
Ok now the super awesome fun missions. Most the time they just ask you to kill a few walkers, grab bags of food and water and every single time you risk your life for these assholes they just reply with something crappy like 'OH GUESS THAT'LL DO IT'S NOT ALOT THOUGH' fine do it your fucking self.
 
 
This is cool and I do like games which do it and that is you can level up your guy. You get 10 to start with and then after every mission you get another point to add. Each time you level up a skill the three empty slots become four.. then five.. so it gets harder and harder to upgrade.
 
Also after missions you get money to buy things and upgrade weapons... which can break FYI but like your stamina if you ignore the game and come back to it at the end of the day everything will be back and fixed.
 
 
You can also kill your friends which is abit..... um... not sure how I felt about that to be honest.
 
 
Oh and whats a kicker is in typical FB fashion you have to pay real money if you wanna play the game longer after you have run of of your daily bits and pieces and the free shit they pump you with for joining.
 
 
Every mission is very same-same and you realise that almost right away and to kill zombies you have to wait for a red cross hair to be in the right place and smack them around the head. If fighting isn't your idea of fun you can hide and sneak around them but as easy as it is to kill a zombie might as well do it, extra points.
 
So the game is ok, it passes like.. five minutes... it's easy as anything but least well madeish for an FB game.
 
Gore: 1/5
Scares: 0/5
Plot: 0/5
Overall enjoyment: 1/5
 
XJigsawX
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday 20 August 2012

LIVEScare Saturdays – Let’s Play SLENDER, AMNESIA: JUSTINE and SCP: CONTAINMENT BREACH!

XJigsawX "Review from gamer staff here at FZ Drikanyx"
Recently I’ve decided to try and branch out and play some indie games that are supposedly scary. And a thought crossed my mind – These games are entertaining to play, but even more entertaining to watch people play – so instead of sitting all on my lonesome to test run these games, I invited a bunch of people to watch me suffer.

The first game I played was SLENDER, a simple game centred around the Slenderman myth, in which you are lost and trapped in the woods, and the only thing you have to do is collect strange notes around the area whilst being chased by a mysterious creature.

The game, at the start, wasn’t scary at all. You have a torch, you’re standing in the middle of the woods, and the only noises you hear are crickets chirping. You can wander around the forest for a good while and nothing will appear. This adds to this sense of safety; leading to a rumour amongst people who have played this game.

Slendy can’t get you before you get the first page. This is completely untrue. It is laughably untrue. To see what I mean, you’d need to watch Jesse Cox’s let’s play of the game (youtube.com/jessecox); the event didn’t actually happen in my playthrough.

Now after you get the first page is when things start to get creepy. You start hearing drums. More and more pages mean more and more atmospheric music. The music is designed to make you think you’re hearing things; footsteps behind you, but for the love of god don’t turn around; twigs snapping, whatever is possible in your imagination. Occasionally you’ll hear static. Sometimes your screen will start to get fuzzy. And if you linger for too long, Slendy will start reminding you he’s here, and my god is it shocking when he does.

If you watch your back too often, you might catch a glimpse of a tall figure in the shadows of the trees. The moment you do, he’s following you. The notes are correct; he follows. You can’t escape, only run.

Now the game itself isn’t scary. It’s tense, and it puts you on edge; that’s where the scare comes from. You’re on tenterhooks, trying to look straight forward in the hope that Slendy won’t jump out at you. You turn your head an inch to the left and SHIT HE’S THERE RUN LIKE FUCK runs through your head, accompanied by a very loud sting of music.

Another eerie thing is that you will NEVER SEE HIM MOVE. I don’t know why, but that un-nerves me. One minute he’s standing behind you, the next, he’s in the trees in front of you. Let him get too close, and you’ll struggle to move. Your screen will be very difficult to see.

And when you least expect it is the worst. He creeps up on you. You lose control of your mouse and keyboard. The last thing you see is that eerie white face, tentacles, and then black.

I’m not gonna lie, I freaked. My whole body locked in place, I jumped back in my chair, and my parents were probably jolted awake by a very loud “FUCK!”. Yes. I live with my parents right now. Before you cry “pussy”, I dare you to try playing Slender without even twitching when he sneaks up on you unawares.

The game is pretty much jump scares, I’ll agree. It in itself isn’t inherently scary at all. The graphics are pre-rendered from Unreal’s engine, Slenderman is pretty basically modelled, and you’ll notice broken textures now and then. But the developers worked around those shortcomings, making the game frightening not through what you see, but what you DON’T see.

If you’re a person like me who lives in their imagination, you might get a thrill out of Slender like I did. If you’re an emotionless husk, Slender won’t phase you at all.

A simple concept with simple execution, but it works for countless people. I recommend you try it.
The next game I played was Amnesia: Justine, the DLC from the Portal 2 Potato Sack ARG. Now it isn’t all that different from the base game, so I won’t waste breath reviewing it. You can see my review for the game on the Fucking Zombies Blog circa a month or two ago. I will mention that it has slightly different mechanics to the base game though, so it’s definitely worth playing. Also, fuck that water monster in the ass with a rusty spoon I hate him.

And finally, I rounded off the livestream with a little SCP: CONTAINMENT BREACH. Another indie game made with limited graphics and a small dev team, it focuses on the stories from the SCP Foundation. The first of the SCP creatures you meet will very happily kill you in the opening sequence. Believe me, it got me. Do what the voices ask you to do.

The monster is reminiscent of the Weeping Angels. Those of you who watch Doctor Who will know what I mean, but for those who don’t, I’ll give you the famous line; Don’t blink. Blink, and you’re dead.

Seriously, breaking eye contact with this thing means insta-game over. It’s not as easy as just keeping the cursor over it, either; there is a blink mechanic in place. After a certain amount of time, without the aid of eye drops and other equipment, you’ll be forced into blackness for a fraction of a second.

Pressing space will make you blink prematurely and refill your blink meter. It’s a very important mechanic to get your head around, along with the inventory system; something I failed miserably to do. Whoopsie.

Of course this guy isn’t the only one you’ll encounter. Many of the other experiments roam the randomly generated halls. I unfortunately didn’t encounter any others, but maybe you’ll do better than I would.

Now this game is not completely different to Slender.But scary? not in the least. Personally, I found it frustrating; mainly due to the fact I didn’t fully grasp the controls. Many people have told me that this game is nail-biting. I got fed up with it incredibly quickly.

It follows the same jump scare vein that Slender does, however there isn’t as much atmosphere; only dark rooms, long corridors, and way too many doors. The fact that the experiment is able to trap you in a room from which there is no way to progress without passing it, which in turn will make you look away from it, is very annoying. The concept is great. But in my opinion is more poorly executed than Slender was.

Maybe I’ll try the game in the future at some point, maybe get a better grasp on it and write another review. But at this point in time, SCP: CONTAINMENT BREACH was not an enjoyable game. Sorry, creepypasta fans, this guy is out.

~Drikanyx

The footage from the livestream is available to watch at http://twitch.tv/Drikanyx and spans two videos, 3 hours approximately in total. Be warned, there’s a lot of “doing nothing” time, as I wasn’t fully to grips with my software.

Friday 17 August 2012

Paranormal Witness

(2011 onwards)

So far this TV show has aired a full first season containing 6 episodes and is airing season two at the moment with two episodes already in the bag.

I found this by having nothing to watch last night and even though it was on a channel I link with fucking awful shitty TV [REALLY?] I thought that sounds good! I only missed the first three minutes which always seems to be a small portion of up coming clips anyway.


Most eps without adverts are around 45 minutes long and contain two stories, though in some cases the main story is so long it needs it own episode. So you get a big long story then normally a little ten minute one at the end.

The acting is really good for something you think would be corny. They get the real life people to tell us of their real live accounts of the paranormal while we watch reenactments of what happened on the screen. Between each piece we see the people and how they react while telling their stories and the first one I saw about the little girl with her 'friend' Emily you could tell it had been killing the mother and father.

I'm a sucker for the paranormal it has to be said, I am a believer though movies like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY don't scare me as I know it's all Hollywood bullshit but when it's like this? in a real life kind of vibe? like a documentary it does freak me out as I have seen and felt things of a paranormal nature and to me they are real.


So the first ep is about a mother and father who bring their little girl to a new home and make it all nice, you know the typical American dream kinda lifestyle and they soon notice their little girl talking to this 'Emily' as the ep goes on we soon realise that Emily isn't just the young girls mind but a nasty spirit who starts to show it's true form by moving things around, smashing things and even dragging the girl down the basement stairs.

After getting a Medium in things get even worse, we realise the spirit is of a male and they even start to see him after they confronted him.


Things just get worse and worse and the fear builds and you can see on the parents faces they are so near breaking point and so scared for their child but are unable to move out due to money reasons and have to deal with this shit head spirit who seems to hate seeing people happy..


Bit of a jealous asshole if you ask me
.. he also announced he wants the parents out but the little girl can stay... so now the spirit is a pedo?

I liked the story it had me gripped and the raw feelings on the people paired with the 'as it happened' type footage makes for a good story even if you don't believe in it.

Next small story is about a girl who died in a car crash and her ghost morns her tragic loss of life.

It's well acted with good stories.


Acting: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Scares: 4.5/5
Gore: 0/5

Overall: 4.5/5

XJigsawX




Monday 13 August 2012

WIN! A movie night on us!

That's right another contest one I've wanted to run for awhile! For your chance to win everything in the picture simply re-blog this or retweet! for every retweet or reblog it counts as a go. Names will be put into a hat later on and the winner will be sent this lovely large lot of stuff!!

2 Soda's
One box of three lots of sweet popcorn
4 Refershers bars
3 Maoam bars
3 flumps
1 bag of jelly beans
1 bag of red laces
1 bag of sour laces

And a brand new sealed horror movie!

Again for your chance to win retweet, reblog or share link on your fb!

CONTEST ENDS 9TH OF STEPTEMBER SUNDAY AT 6PM

XJigsawX

Sunday 12 August 2012

GAMERPRINT - REVIEW - Horror Games

Ages ago I bought a T-shirt from this company for my partner and loved it so much I later got myself one. I bought the 'BEWARE NECROMORPHS' from the DEAD SPACE franchise.

My T-shirt

So I bought it for £18 which is abit for a T-shirt but the colour was awesome and I fucking love DEAD SPACE and don't see enough of it. The company do loads of nerdy T-shirts, hoodys and prints and if you've seen them at conventions in the UK and been curious as to what they are like..

Well here's my review.

On the site I'm not confident that the images of the design are true to colour as my above T-shirt is clearly a darker blue then the sample image.


The sizing is good I bought a L for my M-L partner and it's comfy and nice fitting and I got mine in an XL as I like to wear my T-shirts as night clothes at conventions and just slumming around wear and it's so comfy I could live in it forever.

I've had mine washed alot on a normal wash and it still looks brand new. No colour fade, the crackled white background hasn't become any more or less tatty effected or damaged via alot of wear so it's very worth it's cash.

They do the DEAD SPACE one and DEAD RISING 2 horror related items.


Along with T-shirts and hoodys they also do large wall poster for £15 which I do find is abit much for a poster.


But all in all the colours may vary from real life to sample image the sizes are good, they are comfy and they last really well so if you have any doub't about them when you see them at a con, don't and go for it!

Want one of these but don't go to cons?


9.5/10

XJigsawX




Thursday 9 August 2012

Jigsaw Photoshoot

Well while I was away for the weekend I had a small photoshoot in my Jigsaw costume by a very awesome lady who's work can be seen here Zomtography





Doing the cosplay contest



The whole costume is a normal T-shirt, boots, my work uniform trousers of all things, leather gloves. I made the coat from red fabric, red felt and attached all of it too the coats arms and the trim around it. The coat used to be an old grim reaper cosplay. I bought a mask on ebay and added a wig on top of it as the hair that was already on it.. wasn't great.

So there we go!

XJigsawX

Tuesday 7 August 2012

MPD Psycho

Multiple Personality Detective Psycho
(1997)

So back to another Japanese manga in the horror genre for us but about as horror as 'SE7EN' where as horrid deaths and crime related things as apposed to full on horror but hey, gore is just as good right?

I just started to read it the other night and damn it's long but at least it's completed and pretty good going so I will be reading the rest.

So it's about a very good, very handsome, very smart detective that works on  gory case about a man who decapitates bodies and is abit of a messed up person and our main guy with his team are hot on his trail but all is not well in perfect looking man world!

He gets a package sent to his office and inside he finds his girlfriend still alive but chopped up, missing all her limbs and naked.


And he hunts down this sick mother fucker and manages to kill him which gets him in alot trouble and chucked into a nut house due to this sudden trauma with his girlfriend the way she is and the surge of pure anger the main guy has a break down and developed split personalities.

But years pass and a woman who he used to work with leaves the the force and makes her own business and hires the newly let out main guy to help her with future cases and he seems happy enough to do so and has a place to live.

So more gross killings come along including the most well known one. Woman being kidnapped and being turned into flower pots.


The manga is good, it's gory and interesting if not a fair bit confusing at times as he goes from having two people in his head to like four people in one head.. so it's a pain when they all have their own names and not just one name each... but a full first and second long Japanese name so unless your fab with names you might just gloss over like I did.

So the main guy has no memories whenever he turns into another person and this means the switch flips from time to time and he gets into some messy situations.

A TV show was made from the manga and directed by Takashi Miike who is a great film maker.


The crimes are well done, gory and nasty but all seem to have a very sexual element to them like the naked woman and the bondage type wear. Also alot of males seem to be very gender confused and feminine.
So far I have read about a cannibal, the flower pot woman and teen suicide cults and look forward to seeing more strange and odd cases for Mr overly handsome mental man to solve.



Art: 5/5
Gore: 4/5
Story: 3.5/5
Overall enjoyment: 4/5

XJigsawX



Monday 6 August 2012

Birthday

So I love Koji Suzuki's work and have almost read all of his works and just finished BIRTHDAY which is alot like DARK WATER in the sense it is a collection of smaller stories in one book only all the small stories in this one relate to the RING story.

            (1999)

We have three stories in BIRTHDAY which go into more detail of things that happened in the other books.

COFFIN IN THE SKY
Is about what happens to Mai Takano the student of Ruji in the first book, what happens when she vanishes and can't be found. It's a grim and sad little story about the pretty young woman's fate but a gripping story, the shortest of all three I believe but very much my favourite.

LEMON HEART
Is about Sadako's adult life when she was part of the theatre group soaring which is touched lightly upon in RING and is the story line of the movie RING 0. It goes into alot of detail about the woman who know as Sadako, how she lived in her later life and more about her. Another good story and it gives us more feelings towards her then the movies give us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Goes into detail about the wife of the main man in LOOP and about her and the child in her belly. I think this was the longest story but also not the best one. It's not creepy in anyway it's just a nice soft story that yet again fills in the blanks not mentioned. It is also the final conclusion of the RING universe story.

I think you need to have read the other three to enjoy this book, it's very much not a stand alone book like you could say for SPRIAL or RING. It's good at tying up loose ends not mentioned in the other three novels it's also not clustered or dragging like some parts of the other novels it's more to the point and gets to heart of it better as sometimes I find with Koji's work it can be a little waffling on.

So out of the three COFFIN IN THE SKY was my most liked one and the least interesting was HAPPY BIRTHDAY but not one of them was bad. It's a good book and again well written and gripping enough to keep you reading but casual enough you don't feel it's a task.

Plot: 4/5
Scares: 0/5
Gore: 1.5/5
Over all enjoyment: 4/5


XJigsawX

Thursday 2 August 2012

Costume Of The Month

As everyone knows I'm bloody nuts for Horror [duh] and costumes/cosplaying so I decided from now on I'd hunt the corners of the net and pick my fav horror related cosplays and get them to do a little piece for the blog and this month [as new as it is..] is a BIG DADDY from the BIOSHOCK games.



Name: Adam Singer (aka ChrowX)
Age: Current 24, at the time of making the Big Daddy costume, 20
Where are you from?: Illinois, USA
How long have you been cosplaying?: 9 years, currently (started in 2003)
What did you decide to cosplay this character?: Partly because it was a challenge and partly because it was part of a group I was doing with friends (one as a Little Sister, the other as the Rosie Big Daddy)



Tell us about your costume: This thing was VERY heavy to wear, but after I finally wiggled my way free from it, I felt like I had a thorough understanding of what it felt like to be a Big Daddy, mostly because I had to move very slowly, stomping around in those huge boots, and stop every so often to scan my surroundings through the tiny portholes which I could barely see out of.



Surprisingly, most of the costume is made out of cardboard, built around a wireframe structure and layered in paper mache. Because of this, most of the cost of the costume went into glue, duct tape, and spray paint, making the whole thing surprisingly cheap.



Tell us something about the character your cosplaying: The Big Daddies from Bioshock are actually convicts, political prisoners, and homeless people taken off the streets from Rapture who were subjected to numerous painful surgeries and genetic modifications that left their organs and flesh fused to the insides of their heavy diving suits, leaving them as mindless protectors for the Little Sisters.


To see more of this guys awesome work then vist his DA PROFILE HERE

Big thanks to him for allowing me to use his images and to be part of my blog.

XJigsawX