We're almost ready to wrap up October, and we still have a few Halloweeny gems to share. The macabre and the kooky have no doubt caused you to lose some sleep in the last few weeks, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Making sure you never sleep again, we bring three more twisted additions to our weekly gathering of tortured souls. You don't want to sleep, anyhow, right? That's when Freddy'll getcha...
tstitan: Dark Sector
Of the few X-Box 360 games I've played to completion, Dark Sector is one of the standouts...not because it's a great game (it's not), but because it had a ton of potential as a concept and ended up being largely overlooked in the shadow of superior third-person action titles. It featured a grim protagonist (Hayden), a plot revolving around a techno-organic virus, and lots and lots of cringe-worthy violence. Combat centered on Hayden's unique Glaive weapon that looks more like a Chakram or a Boomerang with blades attached. Hayden's Glaive is used mostly as a ranged weapon and for solving environmental puzzles. Hayden can also use firearms, but they're generally not worth bothering, as the Glaive is a far more efficient killing tool. Cool concepts, for sure. Unfortunately, it seems that something was forgotten during development and Dark Sector feels more like what we'd consider a downloadable title than a full-fledged AAA release...
Players find themselves doing pretty much one thing throughout; watching a cutscene, slaughtering rooms of enemies, solving brain-dead puzzles (you know, to mix it up) and then watching another cutscene. It's very cookie-cutter, and the influences from games like Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War are blatant throughout (close-quarter combat that revolves around timed button presses, cover mechanics, etc). Even the plot is largely a combination of Resident Evil and Call of Duty (so, essentially the Resident Evil movies). Despite its attempts to stand out, it's easy to see why most people skipped Dark Sector.
The visuals in Dark Sector are pretty snazzy. You can definitely see where the majority of this game's development was allocated, as Dark Sector can sometimes be seen rivaling other last-gen titles in visual splendor. That said, you aren't going to find a lot of variety in the environment; it's a lot of factory/lab-type settings and some obligatory outdoor sequences colored in many shades of grey. This might be a turn-off for some, but for those gamers that prefer a darker, less flashy world to slaughter people in, Dark Sector provides in abundance. Certainly not a testament to visual variety, Dark Sector nonetheless provides an appropriate setting for it's subject matter, and is a game best experienced by people that like their games on the darker side (both figuratively and literally). The controls are also somewhat difficult to grasp at first, and maneuvering Hayden around the environment is not as fluid as other third-person titles; where this game SHOULD feel close to inFamous or Prototype, it comes across more like a midway point between Resident Evil 3 and 4.
On the positive side, Dark Sector is dripping with tons of subject matter potential. The plot, although predictable and overdone, lends itself to a lot of expansion and carries a sinister feeling throughout as the narrative progresses. Hayden himself is not much different than every other medium-length dark-haired protagonist with an attitude problem, but (much like the graphics) he lends himself to the overall tone of the game nicely. Hayden works as a sort of sleeper agent for the CIA, and while infiltrating a labor camp (of sorts), he's infected with a bio-weapon's grade virus (called the Technocyte virus) that grants him a spiffy new mutant arm and the ability to use the Glaive weapon mentioned earlier. The plot proceeds to follow Hayden as he works to unearth the origins of the Technocyte virus and bring down those responsible. Obligatory double-crossings and (not) startling revelations ensue until we reach the climax in which Hayden is triumphant over the forces that attempt to subvert his efforts. There's mild sarcastic humor sprinkled in throughout, but overall the plot remains gloomy and doomy from start to finish. The darkened color palate coupled with the game's violence and dour plot work to present players with a decidedly morbid experience. The tone of the game is akin to games like The Darkness and (of course) more contemporary Resident Evil games. I was also reminded of Image Comics' Witchblade throughout, with its emphasis on brutal violence and bizarre weaponry. Anyone with any kind of interest in those things will find it easy to overlook the simplicity of the gameplay/plot and enjoy what Dark Sector has to offer.
It's also worth noting that Dark Sector is a f*cking violent game, and brutally so. While perhaps not as unsettling as Manhunt, Dark Sector can stand toe-to-toe with Dead Space in terms of making squeamish gamers shift uncomfortably in their seats. The game was even banned in Australia for a little while thanks to Hayden's colorful methods of finishing off his foes. Make no mistake, this is an M-Rated game, and makes no effort to be kid friendly...which is awesome.
While not exactly a game that falls into the Horror category, Dark Sector has a dark atmosphere that falls into the spirit of the month quite nicely. I certainly won't call it a great game, but anybody that enjoys shades of grey doused in gallons upon gallons of blood will find something to like here. Definitely worth a rental price, at least.
Rezident Hazard: The Blob (1988)
This marks the only film in the Suburban Horror setting that is a remake—something I notably deride, but in the 80’s, tended to actually be superior films, even (as with John Carpenter’s The Thing) full-blown masterpieces. It’s also a bit of a cheat as it is less of a suburban backdrop than it is a medium-sized mountain town, but aside from that, it has all the elements of the other films I’ve covered.
The Blob switches things up from its silly 1958 counterpart to head into both a full blown creature feature and gore-fest. It is also one of the first films of scream-queen Shawnee Smith, who made a comeback in the Saw movies as survivor-turned-Jigsaw-crony. The ’58 version starred 30-something Steve McQueen as a high school jock out to save the day and opened with an absurd sing-along song, Beware the Blob. The ’88 version features Kevin Dillon as the high school outcast with a heart of gold joining Smith as a monster-fighting duo. Hilariously, the jock you think is the heroic type is one of the first people to die. Take that stupid horror rules fromScream!
Anyway, a meteorite falls from space, and out crawls a small gelatinous creature, a blob as it were, that is made up of a sticky, gooey, pink stomach acid of sorts. As the blob gradually dissolves and consumes more people, it grows in size and, oh by the way, cannot be killed with bullets, explosions, or fire. The film opens up with some general high school tropes—a football game, a cheerleader, an outcast—all spotlighted as their paths soon cross with the afore-mentioned creature. Sharp viewers will also catch Dale from The Walking Dead as a small-town Sheriff. Remember Dale?
Well, the original blob was just a space mucous that ate people. This one is a little worse. Actually, a lot worse. Pretty soon, shifty government agents and scientists are involved, and as they try to track down and contain the blob, the film goes from a couple teenagers hunting a creature to an all-out action-horror piece as the blob goes on a gore-addled rampage through the town.
The blob features a few moments of less-than-impressive stop-motion effects surrounded by some truly outstanding set-devouring pieces of people-dissolving action. Of all the films spotlighted by me for October, The Blob handily takes the crown in creative deaths, body count, and shocking visuals. People are dissolved, crushed, torn apart, split in half, exploded, squished, and imploded with a torrent of horrible pink goo.
While The Blob may take itself a bit more seriously than the other titles I spotlighted for Halloween, it never-the-less remains upbeat and light-hearted in frequent scenes, as well as taking the time to let us get to know a larger cast of characters before, say, sucking them through a drain in a sink. So despite the large-scale action piece of the second half of the movie, enough character development has been wrapped in to make the horror and disaster continually surprising.
There are few movies out there quite like this, and even SyFy’s latter-day creature crap of “dinocrocs” and “mechasharks” don’t come remotely close to the enjoyment found here. We watch that SyFy sh*t to laugh at it and mock it, and it risks making us forget that there are real monster movies and creature features out there that not only went out of their way to make actualwatchable movies, but succeeded handily at their task. The Blob never feels stupid, the creature and human drama is believable, and the teenagers-turned-heroes are actually people you want to root for. By the way, the screenplay was by Frank Darabont—of The Walking Dead.
Scream now, while you can still breathe!
tstitan: Earthworm Jim Single Track Selection, What The Heck!
Mixing it up in the spirit of Halloween, I've decided to give you guys one of the best songs from one of the goofiest video game soundtracks in existence. Earthworm Jim is one of my most treasured childhood memories, and I still enjoy the hell out of it. It's a video game equivalent of Saturday morning cartoons; fart/poop/belch/booger jokes and exploding heads aplenty along with an obnoxious protagonist and equally endearing supporting characters. The soundtrack is also obnoxious...riotously so.
Though all the levels in the game have stand-out tracks, What The Heck is most appropriate for our Halloween theme; the level takes place in a nightmarish hellscape of fire and brimstone. Jim fends off demonic spectres and briefcase-totting business men while the opening notes of "Night on Bald Mountain" ominously echo over it all. Suddenly, following the iconic intro, we hear a needle scratch, and the track switches over to a decidedly less-ominous elevator song. What is more appropriate for hell's soundtrack than easy listening? Dubbed into this annoyingly innocuous tune are stock screams, hilariously designed to contrast the relaxing nature of the track. This song made me laugh so hard I often got Jim killed after snorting Mountain Dew through my nose. Something about the screams of tortured souls against smooth jazz is hilarious to me...
There's not much else to say about it that can't be better experienced by listening to it yourself...So here ya go:
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Only one week to go, dear readers. CAN YOU HANDLE THE TERROR?! Of course you can. See you next week.
