Resident Evil is one badass game!

So, I finally finished Resident Evil this Halloween and I have to say that I didn’t think I’d love it as much as I do. It’s truly scary, very claustrophobic and immersive.

The story, while a bit narrow, is good. It really unfolds in a great pace and is sure to keep your attention all the way to the end. It picks up intensity exactly when it’s needed. The story isn’t the game’s strongest point though, and combined with way awful voice acting and script, can make you giggle at times.

However, right after the cut scene ends and the game once again overwhelms you with it’s haunting atmosphere, you surely won’t be giggling much longer. It gives a strange sensation but never take away from the horror. I’ve read somewhere that they intended to make the game like a cheesy low budget horror movie and that does explain the dialogue for sure, if its true. But I’m glad that doesn’t show anywhere else in the game.

One thing however that I found extremely hard to get used to in the beginning is the static angles and the controls. It didn’t take to long however to used to and now I can’t see a Resident Evil without it. Most people seem to dislike the style in which the early resident evil is made on. I think it’s great, and I’m glad I’m not like people. You can’t switch the camera angles yourself at all, which puts you at the games mercy and preset angles completely.

This may sound like a bad thing and it would be, if the game wasn’t so awesomely designed. The thing is, this only make the game even more claustrophobic, and the designers have really put great care in making the angles very creative and creepy. They show you just enough sometimes to get your heart pounding and just enough so that you won’t know exactly what is coming up. Sometimes they show the area you’re in from a perspective so you see some extra creepy ambiance at the expense of your own visibility. But this isn’t bad and the fact is that it’s done intentionally, and very well at that.

Sometimes you will walk into a room and be at such a narrow angle that shows just about nothing until you dare to step out into the room. But do you dare to step into it? What if it’s something there? Well, then you better use your ears. Combine that with the fact that the game gives you limited saves and a very limited inventory, you truly feel like you are struggling to survive. But it never gets annoying, it’s just part of the great atmosphere.

I mentioned the controls earlier and while they do feel strange at first, they really are good and simple and you realize that with this games unique “angle system” there could not really be any other way to control the character. The combat can be a bit clunky for sure, but in the end, this is not necessarily a combat game and whenever you do fight, the clunkiness only enhances the survival feel of the game. It also can give you panic in certain moments.

The game itself is fluid. No slowdowns, no glitches and the replay value is pretty high too, considering you have two characters that you can play as, however they actually alter the gameplay and progression quite a bit. It also gives you different supporting characters for each. If Chris Redfield, you take the harder path, while Jill Valentine is the easier one and she also has a lockpick which is really useful in my opinion.

The backgrounds and characters are all amazing and much more creepy than I imagined they would be. There are a lot of ambiance everywhere and the mansion just brims with grittiness in a way games doesn’t capture today. The sometimes smudgy graphics on the ps1 only helps with the feeling IMO, but not even once does the graphics look bad. The designers really did the best out of the hardware they had to work with back then and the result is really uniquely terrifying.
On top of all the great stuff, it also has multiple endings and even some “roleplay esque” choices which will determine some peoples fate in the game. The game is also truly non linear so you can explore the game in whichever pace or order that you want. It has a good difficulty, its not too hard but not too easy either. The puzzles are involved and elaborate and also helps the games creepy atmosphere a lot. They make the game even more claustrophobic and gives that mystical sensation, but at the same time they aren’t annoying. Well designed all in all. It’s different from today’s games in the sense that you can often not solve the puzzles right away, but instead they continually loom over you and progress in a very natural and immersive way. This really adds to the horror value and makes the game much more interesting. They don’t make genes like this anymore.

Also, the music is great. There usually isn’t any music in the game at all, but when there is, oh shit. When the music plays, you really know something terrifying is going to happen. The games sound design is actually pretty amazing. You constantly have to listen for footsteps to keep track of monsters or other creepy stuff because, as I’ve mentioned earlier, you can’t see them properly at all times. This keeps you invested in the sounds at all times and you are constantly listening for anything suspicious. And sometimes you will think there is something there (or could be something) because you keep hearing some rattling trees or howling wolves, and then you enter another room and it’s just dead silent, which in this game is equally haunting. It really keeps you on your toes. The game uses sound as a pretty effective horror mechanism, and it really works. Damn.

As a conclusion I also have to mention how cool the various real life video sequences are in the game. They have real actors that looks like the characters in the game. I just love that. So, if you haven’t played this game yet, you absolutely should!

Happy late (as per tradition nowadays) Halloween 2017!

So, this year our Halloween celebration went from a Halloweekend to a Halloweek. From Saturday the 28th Oct all the way to Sunday the 5th Nov. Filled with tasty food, horror movies and horror game. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just as last year, we went to the zombie run again to start off our Halloweek, it wasn’t as cool as last year but it was still really fun. I brought my vampire teeth along again.

Last year I said that I was playing through Resident Evil for PS1 and that it was taking longer than I expected. Actually, it took me until this Halloween to finish it up. Life happened. So, anyhow, this Halloween I finished it up and damn what a ride. I really like the game but I’ll put that in another post entirely. Too much to say!

This year we thought we’d watch some “classics”. The movies we saw were Alien and Halloween. They really weren’t any good and really fell behind among the other movies we watched like 31, Boo and All Hallows’ Eve.

Also this year there weren’t any meat head nor pizza mummies. Instead there were purple/black potato gratin made on blue potatoes, skull shaped sausages and spook shaped chicken nuggets among some other tasty treats.

I didn’t dress up this year per se, though I dressed up as a witch for work.

This year was a big success and hopefully it’ll be even greater next year! If anyone got some other tips on what to cook for next Halloween, share!

Happy (yet again) late Halloween 2016!

So, this years Halloween has come and gone, and I have to say that it was a success. We even made it into an Halloweekend and had creepy food both Saturday and Sunday.
All the food I made came out perfectly, if I can say so myself. Even though I forgot to put eyes on the small pizza mummies. You learn as you go along, right?
In the end, I ended up with a few more dishes than we really could finish. I felt so creative. Horror themed food maybe should be something I do every time I cook.

This year, my town decided that it would have a “zombie race” of sorts. You could sign up as a runner, and there were an entire course filled with different obstacles for you to get through, along with zombies that wanted your brains. You had three lives, if you managed to get through the whole thing without losing any, you were rewarded with a “survivor badge”. If you lost them all, there were an “infected badge” waiting for you. I didn’t run, but I did see that you could sign up as a zombie as well but I was to late to the party.

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Also, this year I actually figured I’d hand out candy (for once) to the kids that comes by every year. But apparently kids around here has grown out of the dressing-up-phase so I refused to open. Boring kids. Thinking they can just walk up to my door with their small, greedy bags to just get candy for no effort what so ever. No way!

On top of all the epicness, instead of watching horror movies, we thought we’d play a good old horror game instead. So, we settled for the original Resident Evil for the PS1. I thought I’d post it as my Retro Weekend game, but apparently it took longer than two day to finish, (it’s longer than I thought), so that review will come up later. Overall, it is a rather intense and creepy game, so it fit perfectly. It’s actually better than I thought it’d be.

However, this year I didn’t dress up, but I did go to the “zombie race” wearing my all faithful teeth that I love so damn much. They are a really good buy and have already served me well a couple of Halloweens now, and will hopefully continue to do so.

Happy Halloween everybody!

What are you serving on Halloween?

So, Halloween is almost just around the corner, and I’m planning to do some cooking. I know I haven’t really talked about food in this blog outside the yearly Halloween posts, and then it’s seldom food mentioned there anyhow.

As I do love to cook, I have scoured the internet to find some tasty, but fitting recipes for my Halloween celebration. Most I’ve seen have been for a big party, to kiddy/candy-esque or just different creepy drinks. What I want is a spooky dinner/buffet for two, that would be perfect.

I actually found a few tips and ideas on a few sites that could be made both to a couple or a small party that is proper food rather than candy or such.

The Mac-O-Lantern is a simple Mac-n-Cheese recipe, that includes ground/minced meat. It might be a bit on the cuter side but still a fun edition to the table. It can be applied to your own recipe as well.

Found this on Pinterest. Credit goes to the maker.

This mummy meatloaf, covered in bacon, is something I’ve just seen pictures of around Pinterest, but it piqued my interest nonetheless. With a regular meatloaf recipe covered in bacon, this is a perfect addition to the dinner table.Maybe serve this meatloaf with a couple of these Boo-tatoes. Maybe make them straight on the plate or place them in the oven for a short while to get a more crispy spook.

Credit goes to the maker.

Another perfect thing for the table is these small mummy pizzas. Variate the topping as you like, as long as those bandages cover some of it up. Also, there is lots of other fun Halloween stuff to see on her blog as well so be sure to check it out!

I find it fun to experiment with food, and as I’m a lazy Scandinavian person, these English/American recipes most often just inspire me as I seldom follow it other than the look and/or ingredients. Mainly cause I don’t use that measure system.

On top of those recipes, I have my trusty “The Snacking Dead” cookbook that I will be looking through for any other zombielicious things to do.

Hopefully it’ll go well, and this food will be a tasty success. I’ll post a couple of pictures later on how it went. Wish me good luck!

Happy (late) Halloween 2015!

Happy late Halloween everybody!

Here are some pictures from this weekend, this year it was a sort of zombie costume for Halloween. I fell in love with the lenses I used, looking almost all white.
Also the little pumpkin that I carved, we placed on the local playground, sadly it didn’t last long. Some kids used it to play football.

Hope you all had a perfect Halloweekend!

Happy (late) Halloween 2014!

I know, I know, I am doing a late post for Halloween. Thanks to me spending almost the entire weekend being sick, things wasn’t able to get out as fast as I could. Sadly, I didn’t dress up this year besides using my beloved fangs and some new lenses, but I had a beautiful “horror” dinner in its stead. It was all so beautiful and tasty and watched a few horror movie to it as well.

There were eyeballs in the water, or at least I tried to make them look like it (or something close to alien eyes maybe…?), some bloody sausage dish and tasty things with that. I got the candles idea from some place on the internet and I loved it, so I fixed them myself. We lit, what felt like, a million candles, and also decorated the table with dried chestnuts and it was beautiful.

(Sorry about the pose…)

I carved two pumpkins for this year as well, two smaller ones with a sort of a Pucca theme, maybe not that visible.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2013

So this year, me and my friends went out on Halloween for drinks, talks and costumes and this time I was dressed as a simple devil. I fixed the little horns, the black and red outfit that I thought was fitting and had a really good time.

Look kinda pissed, my boyfriend took pictures while I was being stressed!

Halloween 2012

So for this Halloween, I had to come up with a costume quickly as it wasn’t as planned as the other years.

My outfit for this year became a pirate vampire. I had the fangs from last year, the clothes in my wardrobe and all I needed were new lenses.

Here are some pictures of it all!

Hope you all had/will have a wonderful Halloween as well!

Halloween 2011 pt. 2

This years Halloween were pretty fun, and the costumes were really cool, and the pictures are here!

So!

And just cause its so sweet, I will put out a picture of our pumpkin for this year!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

So here comes all of the pictures from this years awesome Halloween, I can’t wait for Halloween to come back next year again.

Therese >< Me

Jonny >< Johan

Fanny and Therese

The bar that we went to with a gigantic dance floor.

 And some nastiness that I brought with me to eat at the party… they were NASTY!

Halloween 2011

So, Next weekend it’s celebrating Halloween for me and my friends, as we always dress up every year. This year I was thinking about going as Jeanette Voerman, from the game Vampires: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. It’s one of the first games that got me into the RPG genre and I love it, Vampires is a truly awesome game. If you haven’t played it I think you really should, the world as well as the characters are unforgettable! And the story is interesting and unpredictable.

> JeanetteTherese <

So me and my friend is dressing up as Jeanette and Therese and it’s going to be epic, though I bet that no one will know what we are when we go out clubbing.
Last year I went as a Silent Hill nurse and it was a hit, got many comments as well as looks as I passed by! It was really funny!

Here is a couple of pictures of my costume that I wore last Halloween.
The outfit was rather easy to make, it all includes:
– One nurse outfit or white dress, I used a nurse outfit with a little nurse hat.
– White gloves, preferable textile, to be able to stain them.
– Bandages, I used two, one for covering my hair and the other for my face.
– White pantyhose/tights.

I stained my clothes with a mixture of stuff like, water and cocoa and such, I can’t really remember it all but it’s just to mix things that look good.
I put my dress in tea first to make it look old and stained (to see how you do it, google silent hill nurses.) I also used white and blue theater paint, to get white and  paint veins all over my neck.

Then its just to get dressed when it’s all dried. I went around and smelled chocolate all evening ❤