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Written by The Easy Mode Staff
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Thursday, 27 May 2010 04:05 |
We here at Easy Towers TM love user submitted content, and so it gives us great pleasure to present Dirk Davie's review of Episode 1 of Alan Wake.
If you would like to submit any work, you can do so here.
‘A psychological action thriller indeed’.
Throughout the first episode, I found myself grasping the controller, looking intently at the screen … and jumping out of my skin when my dog barked next to me.
Alan Wake was developed by Remedy studios, and has been in development for many years. It is a third-person shooter/mystery following Mr. Wake over a campaign that is split into episodes, much like a TV series. Without giving too much away, its storyline will keep you hooked till the end with intelligent writing and collectables.
During playtime, the faults of Alan Wake became obvious, somewhat mocking the player with predictable ‘Taken’ encounters and absolutely one of the worst voice animations in a game to date. To put this in context for you, picture an old Chinese martial arts film. Now remember what happened when they dubbed in English voices; the same result occurred in the game – twenty mouth actions to say hello.
But enough with pointing out its bad side, as episode one of Alan Wake does exactly what its meant to, which is to hook the gamer with a thrilling and mysterious campaign that honestly makes the void between episodes seem like an eternity. Throughout this episode, the gamer is introduced to the main characters, back-story and storyline in a clever and compelling way. The tutorial game mechanics though, were told in a way that made me say WTF just happened (if you haven’t played the game you’re probably thinking what does he mean?). Basically, you are dreaming, and well, a big light from the sky (maybe its Jesus, who knows!) teaches you the basics of survival, combat and the enemies you shall face.
Stay tuned for further reviews “coming to a website near you”. |
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Written by Krisztian Tefner
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Thursday, 06 May 2010 16:00 |
Spacework is a space design-game. It's about a fully artificial, synthetized environment with controlled machines, robots, spaceships. This is not about the simulation of the reality. This is a future-retro design product.
The surface of the Titan is soaked by acid precipitation. You receive alarm-signals from the inhabitants. They have also mentioned a Monolith having disappeared not long before this strange substance started to fall. You and your team set off to investigate the situation and organise the evacuation of the Titanians. On your way, the team is attacked, and you are the only one who survives. The attackers take you and your ship to their planet, the Triton and leave you alone in a zone under control. You want to look around, but you've been locked up...
Your mission is to find and regain the Monolith.
Spacework has two version: Red Edition and Orange Edition. The difference is only the main color. Why these are separated? We like stuffs that has only one way to use. No options, no settings, only the original idea in it.
The game is available for Mac OS X and Windows. |
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Written by Mark Hill
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Saturday, 17 April 2010 11:13 |
Today, Tyler and I will be at the Anaheim Comic-Con. Sure, it's not the San Diego Comic-Con, but whattryagonndo? If you go, stop by the Verne Troyer booth (yes, srsly), say hi, and get some free stuff*! See you there.
"Stuff" = hugs.
"Free" = $10.
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Written by Russ Crandall
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Saturday, 10 April 2010 22:16 |
It's a war that's been waged for eons, which started with one simple question - "What are better, books or film adaptations of books?" - and to this day books have won almost every time. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, and by that I mean films like A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, Jaws, and Trainspotting. That being said, I recently found out that a favorite book of mine, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, had been adapted into a 1999 film called Instinct that I neglected to see when it first came out for obvious reasons. The obvious reasons, obviously, are a) the film looked like garbage and b) the film is probably garbage.
I decided to watch it, if only because I was curious to see how the film handled Ishmael's philosophical take on our world. It's not every day that a Hollywood film tries to tackle such subjects as mankind's role on this planet, overpopulation issues, and the end of our civilization. Turns out they didn't really know how to tackle it. The film spends about five minutes discussing some of the issues raised in Ishmael - mainly, our move from tribal societies to civilization - but barely skims the full breadth of Daniel Quinn's novel (and two sequels). However, I still found it to be a fairly entertaining film, and my wife really liked it.
Looking back, it's been ten years since I first read Ishmael and its message, while overly Darwinist at times, is something that everyone could stand to read. I won't get into the book's details because it's a discovery you should make on your own (however, there is this thing called "Wikipedia" if you're really curious). I'm glad that somebody at least tried to bring Ishmael to a larger audience; I just wish there was a little bit more of it in the actual film. |
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Written by Russ Crandall
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Tuesday, 23 March 2010 19:20 |
Global Frequency was a 12-issue series written by Warren Ellis, with each issue drawn by a different artist. The series ran from 2002-2004. It follows the story of an organization named Global Frequency (how apropos) that consists of scientists, agents and experts from all over the world that provide their skills to solve crazy emergencies. Each issue is its own self-contained story, with only two characters - the leader of the Global Frequency, and her techie sidekick - that tend to show up in each book.
The issues range from pretty good to really good, and each story and tone is drastically different. I liked the range within the series for the most part, although the extreme variety sometimes fails to keep the whole series tied together cohesively. Luckily, the inventive storytelling was more than enough for me to see the series through to the end.
There was a pilot for a TV series filmed in 2005 that loosely follows the first issue of the comic. It never got green-lighted, but you can find the episode online if you're file-sharing-savvy. |
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Written by The Easy Mode Staff
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Tuesday, 02 March 2010 11:42 |
Now this is what we're talking about. Reader Moray_G had a chance to play a game we haven't yet, Darksiders, and humbly submitted a review for us to feast on with our eager eyes. Thanks Moray_G, for doing our work for us!
Click here to submit your own post.
So I was taking a quick look around my local game store, looking at the PS3 games and trying to see if any of them were worth dropping some cash on. Then an overeager young sales assistant came bounding up to me and proceeded to interrogate me about what games I like to play, what the last game I bought was, and what game I was looking at. Now I’ve been in this situation many times before and a quick reply of “I’m just browsing, thanks” is normally enough to end the conversation and give myself enough time to decide to buy or not; however, this guy was not at all discouraged and continued to ask questions and managed to extract the fact that Dragon Age: Origins was the last game I bought. This then led to a series of question about whether or not I like swords and magic, which I really don’t know how to answer. How does one really answer that question?! I then got to the point that I was uncomfortable enough to grab the first game which I recognised by title, which happened to be Darksiders. With a quick shout of, “I think I’ll take this one!” and a sprint to the cash desk, then out the door I was free.
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Written by Tyler Miller
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Saturday, 27 February 2010 14:59 |
Woops. Looks like we forgot to actually post the story that won our contest. It's witty, it's poignant, it's true. Sorry about that Steve Kielce from New Jersey. Better late than never, eh?
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Every day I show up to work at the same time and follow the same routine. And every day, regardless of the weather, the farm behind my job is always watering the fields. Snow, hail, rain, or shine, the sprinklers are going off. I first thought that they were broken, but after 15 years of the same thing, I became suspicious. One evening when I was leaving work particularly late, I heard a moaning coming from nearby. As I peered through the mist to the field in the distance, I saw mounds of dirt starting to move. I looked closer and realized that zombies were rising out of the ground. That's when I realize that the farmer wasn't watering the fields of grass or wheat, but of zombies! I bolted to my car, which thankfully started on the first try, unlike some of those typical zombie movies, and I sped out of the parking lot. The next day I read in the paper of a strange disturbance that the neighbors were complaining about the night before and of a loud rustling. As I put the paper down, I promised myself that I would be the only one to really know what happened that night... |
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Written by Tyler Miller
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Tuesday, 09 February 2010 05:24 |
As we transition from our old site to this new one, we've decided to bring along some of our favorite posts as well. Enjoy our trip down memory lane.
For a very short time I worked in a white tablecloth restaurant that could be called "fine dining". It was known for its high quality dry-aged beef and took special pride in the wine pairings. For anyone who's not familiar with it, the goal of pairing is to find the right wine for the right steak. E.g.-- Cabernet Sauvignon ages well in oak and often has a sweet, smokey taste. This flavor goes perfectly with red meat but not so much with poultry of fish (which are usually paired with a white wine).
Why is this important? The idea of pairing is that by combining two ingredients the attributes of each will compliment the other and turn a plate of food in to a one of a king meal. Let's see how this applies to video games.
A few months back I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. At about that same time I also dove back in to the Capital Wastes with the new DLC for Fallout 3. I was halfway through this bleak, depressing book when I loaded up my old save and-- The Pitt never looked so full of despair. It was like I'd been playing the game with blinders on up until that point. As much as I love playing Fallout, my mind can drift when I play it (specially during the long treks to those un-quicktravelable locations). At the same time, whenever I let my mind wander - in traffic, at work - it was always The Road that I thought about.
We've all read a sad story, or a tense chapter and felt affected after we put the book down-- it's the same as playing too much Tetris and seeing falling blocks everywhere. Perfect example; pull an all-nighter with Left 4 Dead, then read some of World War Z and tell me if the next day you don't absent-mindedly examine your workplace for prospective safe houses. A good book will refuse to let you keep your mind off the story after you close the cover, and a good game will refuse to let you take your eyes off the screen while you play it. The Road had put me in the headspace of characters in a post-apocalyptic world. By doing that it gave more of an impact to playing Fallout. I guess I started taking the game a little more seriously.
After that I turned the difficulty up a little to make it feel like there was more risk to my actions. I started playing it smarter, like the Father character in the Road. I checked 360 degrees every few paces conserving as much ammunition as I could and bypassing every enemy that didn't detect me. Instead of seeing Fallout from the perspective of "I can do anything to anyone and just reload the game", I saw it closer to "anything can happen to me, I should be careful".
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Written by Russ Crandall
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Monday, 08 February 2010 00:00 |
At the time of this writing, I've read about 25% of Warren Ellis' written works, and Black Summer is probably my favorite. This seven-issue series, first published in 2007, tells an intricate tale of a disbanded group of superheroes. In the opening moments of the story, the most powerful of the heroes assassinates the US President and most of his cabinet, and then immediately goes on camera (still wearing the President's blood) and tells America what he's done, why he's done it, and what he hopes America will do about it.
It's a startling and exciting start to a series that never lets up on the action. In seven short issues we're given the entire backstory of these former heroes (echoing Watchmen while still remaining fresh) and it kept me interested all the way to the end. I love the idea of diving into a superhero story and not needing to know any of their backstories beforehand - this is one of the reasons I tend to stay away from the typical DC/Marvel superhero comics, they're too entrenched in a history I only vaguely know. Black Summer succeeds in keeping us all up to speed at the same time, and keeping the story contained in one thought-provoking series. Although it won't go down in history as a great work of art (or a deep social commentary), it's still a must-read. |
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Written by Russ Crandall
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 05:11 |
As we transition from our old site to this new one, we've decided to bring along some of our favorite posts as well. Enjoy our trip down memory lane.
Since this is a blog by nerds for nerds, I thought I would have our first "My Faves" post concerning books (without pictures) to be about sci-fi books. I'm not a very big sci-fi fan, so my collection falls more under the mainstream, social-commentary sort of novels:
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