Friday Night Party

I’ve been meaning to share a few more music videos here and tonight is the night. Something pretty and with a beat. Some of the videos contain material deemed unsuitable for underage people.

Kickstarting Psychological Horror

Once again there are several promising games looking to be funded through Kickstarter. I checked some of them out and will give a few short recommendations here. These titles are united by a dark horror themes and are meant for mature players. They are being done by people that aren’t native English speakers so the language might not be perfect in all places, but I consider the artistic vision and atmosphere more important anyway.

The Cat Lady

Score: 10
(18+)
2012

I used to be a much bigger horror enthusiast when I was younger. In the last decade or so I had turned into a scaredy-cat really. The pop culture representing horror mostly with unnecessary gore and jump scares and the horrible overuse of zombies just made me less drawn to the genre. But recently I’ve found horror again with the help of some surreal and aesthetically interesting experiences, focusing on the psychological dread rather than running away from axe-murderers. And I find things like the TV show Hannibal and this indie game something very artistic and beautiful even in their more grotesque parts.

No, Thank You!!!

Score: 9.5
(18+)
2013 (2015 English release)

I finally got my hands on this new Japanese boys’ love visual novel, this time officially translated to English and sold by MangaGamer (this title being their first BL project). I have not paid 40 bucks for a visual novel before but it was totally worth it.

The best thing about the game is – hands down – the protagonist Haru. He is a complete airhead, forgetting names, places and even his things, while maintaining an incredibly positive attitude towards everything. He’s also a little perv, constantly coming on to the other characters. Haru is charming and hilarious, and the funniest protagonist I’ve ever played.

The Best Games I Played in 2014 – Part 2

Going through the list was a lot more work than I originally thought. I didn’t have a thing written down most of these games and I only started taking screenshots quite recently, so I had to go back to some of the titles just for that. And then I didn’t even have savegames for all of them. Well, these shots should give some kind of idea anyway.

The whole top10 ended up being rather traditional adventures, visual novels or hybrids of them. I did play some other type of games too but I’m not sure I finished any (not that they were bad, they’re just longer). I can’t really anticipate what my top10 for 2015 would look like but at the current rate it’s probably going to have even more visual novels.

My top5 or 2014:

The Best Games I Played in 2014 – Part 1

I’m not one of those people who immediately plays every promising looking game when they come out. Because I’ve been absorbed in The World of Warcraft the last ten years, I’ve skipped so many interesting games that I’ve lost count. So I always have a couple of hundred titles on my backlog. Then I just pick something I feel like playing and go for it. So my top games for any year, or game reviews in general, will most likely not be about brand new titles. That being said, I noticed that my best games of 2014 all ended up being titles from the last few years anyway.

I’m probably going to write a bit more about the top 5, but first, here’s the titles from 6 to 10:

Hadaka Shitsuji – Naked Butler

Score: 8.5
(18+)
2011

Hadaka Shitsuji is definitely an interesting visual novel. The whole plot is ludicrous: you play as Tomoaki, a young guy in a pinch who suddenly gets offered “a job” which is playing a master of a mansion for a month. The mansion in question is of course filled with handsome butlers. From there it’s rather easy to deduce where the story is going. The game is incredibly funny and twisted, and most of it is pornography. I would not recommend the game to anyone who thinks they are unable to find their inner sadist or to enjoy particularly perverse humour.

Togainu no Chi

Score: 9.0
(18+)
2005

Togainu no Chi is another Nitro+Chiral visual novel. It has plenty of violence and quite a bit of x-rated sexual content too, and it all happens between men. Like in the other N+C titles there really isn’t any women around, though in this game it’s rather believable. Chi means blood and I totally get the meaning of blood in the game – anyone will – but for the love of god I can’t think what that Togainu means exactly. Not that it bothered my game experience.

Sweet Pool

Score: 9.0
(18+)
2008

I started playing Sweet Pool last year and played it through the New Year. I think that was the way I spent my New Year’s Eve. Not that I complain. Anyway, consequently it was the first game I finished this year.

Sweet Pool is a Japanese BL visual novel with a supernatural horror theme. You play the game as Youji (the black haired one), a somewhat frail young guy who’s been hospitalized for a while and returns to school. But it doesn’t take long to notice that not everything is normal.