The Jabberer

My first exposure to modern horror films came in the form of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining , based upon the Steven King novel of the same name. It's unabashedly a very different film than the source material, and having a drastically different set of themes than the book, and of course it's still a fantastic film. It's a quiet film, notable for removing the safety of daylight and isolation of the setting, in addition to maintaining secrecy, and thus maintaining fear in the narrative. I would argue that it's all the more exceptional today among modern horror films as we seem to be stuck in a rut of spiritual horror flicks. Danny's tricycle-bound exploration of The Overlook are one of the few less-tense aspects of the film, offering a brief sort of respite from dread and terror, but there's none to be found in the jaws of The Overlook.  We all know the story of The Shining film at this point. A man and his family are hired by the manager of the Overloo

The opening of the story sees you fleeing Earth to the stars away from some deep-space horror, unfortunately there aren't many cinematics, they are very nice to look at. When it was first released, Starbound , like many sandbox exploration games of the time, was compared to Minecraft , but was even more closely compared to Terraria ('Terraria in space'), often being called a ripoff of it. It was a fair comparison to make, especially as both were side-scrolling exploration sandboxes with a vaguely similar art style that had some shared elements. However, like the comparisons between  Terraria and Minecraft before it, both grew increasingly differentiated from each other as the 2010's progressed, and now the two are pretty dissimilar from each other in nearly every way. I've played a decent amount of Starbound over the years, and while it's undeniable that I've had some fun moments traversing the stars, the experience has always felt off somehow in a

This last weekend I was able to finish playing 2014's Thief , and much to my surprise, I enjoyed playing it even though I'm not very much into stealth games (I personally prefer the loud approach). This was the first time playing any of the Thief games, mostly because stealth and that era of games seems to mix like mayonnaise and peanut butter. However, while at times I couldn't understand its lukewarm reception five years ago, other times it seemed very much understandable. On the whole though, Thief is an interesting and adequate game, one that utilized the strengths and atmosphere of its predecessors to craft a Thief game that feels less a gritty reboot and more a modern entry in the franchise, though the execution leaves much to be desired. I really didn't like the trend of brooding, Batman-like protagonists, and unfortunately our master-thief is no different. At least he sounds the way he looks. The story of Thief is, well it's bland and uninterestin

On top of just looking kick-ass, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition has a good bit of extra reading, references, and a lengthy background introduction that's pretty darn educational. Marco Polo was one of my heroes growing up, I mean how many people in all of history had an opportunity to journey to a place shrouded in mystery, potentially never to see home again? So obviously years later when I learned that he had written a book of his travels once he arrived back in Italy (well more was hauled back, but I'll get there), I had to buy and read it. Well I finished it, and I must say that I've never read anything so insulting in a long time. You see, the insult isn't to myself as a person or reader, it's in fact directed at the author by his co-author, a professional romance writer by the name of Rustichello of Pisa. Effectively this romance writer managed to transform Polo's journey that lasted from seventeen until he was forty-one into a fantastical jo

Kingdoms and Castles is a base building game that I really wanted to like. I like base-building games, a welcome escape from my normal fare of action and adventure, and where else could I build a tower so high that it could target almost the entire map to defend my kingdom from dragons and vikings? Alas, while this is a fun aspect of the game that feels somewhat rewarding, the entire game can't help but feel bland and tedious to play, with every playthrough being played the same way. Even though my funding and happiness woes were a constant source of frustration, it was always nice to take a moment to overlook my functional-appearing kingdom in it's stoic glory. Pay no attention to the deserter notices. The core gameplay of Kingdoms and Castles involves you, a monarch of a secluded island kingdom setting up your own kingdom in the fringes of the known world (but that's not important because you don't ever interact with other kingdoms). It's your job to buil

Though it is one of my friends' favorite films of all time, I only got around to watching 2000's American Psycho just last Friday. I must say, I really liked it as it was, a psychological thriller satirizing the yuppie scum mentality of the late nineties. On top of this it manages to blend together multiple tones and most definitely succeeds in telling an entire separate story through just its cinematography. "Hip to be Square" is essentially Bateman's motto, and is the source of his inadequacy. He's not an original, being a mere copycat, never being 'square' enough to feel like he fits in. The story of American Psycho is basic, essentially showing us a stressful week in the life of titular psychopath Patrick Bateman, a wealthy stockbroker who works at Pierce and Pierce brokerage firm. He's a man of routine, waking up early, following a rigorous routine of exercise, and so on before arriving at work where he and other brokers work less and

"Technical glitch", my ass, There's clearly a ghost T-posing on you man. Scanner Sombre is a game that I avoided playing for a long time, mostly due to the fact that I thought that it was a VR title, but it's not. It's actually a walking simulator, and a pretty short one at that, clocking in about two to two and a half hours for a first time playthrough. Ordinarily I would have felt somewhat cheated, but I got it off a humble bundle and for what it does, it's a decent experience that is closer to an art piece than a game. There isn't much of a story to Scanner Sombre , keeping with the short game length. Essentially you wake up alone, in the dark, in the dark recesses of the earth. You were on an excursion to survey the caves as part of your apparent obsession with the history of this particular cave. A problem quickly presents itself, and that is that you have no way of lighting up the cave, so you're effectively blind. The solution to this ni

  The R rating again really lets the material (even fabricated) again shine. We also get to see more peak Pennywise, this time preying on the empathy of a child, which is somehow even more disturbing.  I like Steven King horror, and always have, which is weird coming from the guy who got a night terror from hearing the Jaws theme for the first time and threw up so that's how I missed my first day of third grade. Though I've always been something of a scaredy-cat I've warmed up to the genre as a whole in recent years, but my favorite example to this day hasn't been a movie, or TV program, it's been a book. IT . As established in my review of the first part of the work I adore the book (weird bits notwithstanding), and was overjoyed to watch the reboot, which covered the first part of the book. With a sequel all but confirmed, my levels of excitement were through the roof, and I have to say, after seeing it on a slow Thursday night, it was definitely worth the

Alex and Ash are swan-masked combo gods, and who says that women can't be the chainsaw-wielding half of the equation? How does one add to a game that pioneered a sub-genre? Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number had some pretty big shoes to fill, but I never would have expected that I'd love the second outing of the franchise so much. I'll freely admit that I've played this game a lot, completing the normal mode at least three times before now, and this game feels twice as long as the first (at least). It's my go-to mouse and keyboard rainy day (more weekend) game. In almost nearly way a step forward, Hotline Miami 2 is a rare sequel that addresses the limitations of its precursor in addition to adding and tweaking aspects in order to create one of my favorite games of all time (frustration and all). Hotline Miami 2 also gives us a much more fleshed out backstory, though it doesn't help understanding the timeline of the first game at all, it does set certain

Though the cover isn't the most pertinent to the story of The Naked Sun , it's still really cool not gonna lie. Now I want the whole seven-book series. A couple of days ago I finished reading my first Asimov novel while sitting through a forty-five minute commute, and I have to say, I can definitely see why so many people liked his work. Though The Naked Sun is something of a sequel, being the second outing for Plainclothesman Elijah Baily (and his robot partner Danieel Olivaw), I didn't have any trouble following the events within or understanding the characters, so you could start here no problem. Offering not only an interesting and surprisingly logical whodunnit in addition to philosophical discussions on topics like the fallibility of the Three Laws as well as a transformative arc for our protagonist, I definitely liked The Naked Sun in all of its bizarre futuristic glory. Though this isn't the grimdark future of the forty-first millennium, the future of T