Category: Uncategorized

Alice: Madness Returns— Dementedly awesome

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Hey all,

Caught in between classes and the many papers, projects and presentations that has lined my agenda. However, that makes this game I recently got perfect in terms of how I’m slowly going insane.

Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to American McGee’s Alice. The premise of the story revolves around Alice having witnessed her family being killed in a  tragic fire. Having to face what she saw, and being the sole survivor, she is filled with the horrors that haunt her every day. In response, she escapes to a place she calls Wonderland, leading others in the real world to believe her mad. This game begins in 1875 and Alice is now 19. She has been released from the mental asylum, and is placed in an orphanage in Victorian London where Doctor Bumby watches over her. She’s getting better, but at the beginning of the game, she is sent to run an errand that accidentally leads her into Wonderland again, causing her to spiral down into her madness once again.

Now if you’re used to Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, you’ll be pleasantly (maybe) surprised. The beginning of the game is absolutely stunning.

alice

The first screen cap I took in game. Couldn’t help myself— it was ridiculously beautiful.

This is not at all to say that the rest of the game is not stunning. I have to say that one of the main things that sold this game for me was how nice the graphics were. You’re moved from the natural beauty that is Wonderland before it starts to crumble in Alice’s mind, to a Steampunk-esque version of the Mad Hatter’s place. There is more (I’m only through the first chapter of the game…actually I’m stuck there, but I’ll explain why a little later on) as the game progresses, and people have hinted to me that it gets more disturbing.

crying alice

Oh look. It’s a statue of me crying.

Screencap borrowed from (x) since I have not yet gotten here yet.

What stood out to me was that at the very beginning of the game you already feel a sense of unease. There are no jump scares in this game (at least not yet for me), but as you wander through the orphanage, you can’t help but be a bit nervous for what to expect at every turn that you make. Psychological horror is awesome.

Now on to what I did not like about this game: it’s buggy. I am currently stuck in the last part of the first chapter because I cannot get my freaking umbrella open to act as a shield. It turns out that I will have to go through my configuration files in my computer to fix this. I also had issues with getting the mouse that pops up when you open the options screen to go away. I ended up with three cursors on my screen as I played the game. I had to restart the whole thing in order to make it disappear. Since this game is about three years old, I’m sure there won’t be any updates to deal with these issues, so if you do get this game, know that this is what you’re getting yourself into. It’s not horribly hard to fix, but it does mess with your game experience since you will have to exit the game in order to fix what is wrong.

Additionally, if you’re very into fighting (I guess I like it, but I understand that not every single game has to be focused on solely that), Alice is quite limited in those terms. The Vorpal blade that she uses is her main attack, and her swinging it is quite straightforward. You press your left moue button. There are a few more side weapons, such a pepper grinder that can be used as a ranged gun, and bombs, but they’re not as prominent.

Overall, I’m pretty excited to squeeze some more time out of studying and invest it into Alice: Madness Returns!

-Karen

Whistler = A Winter Wonderland

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Hey all, I have not been to Whistler for… I’m guessing at least ten years. To be fair, I was actually on another continent for five of those years, but I realized how much I wanted to see it again. It felt like the first time since I barely had any memories of it. It’s reading break and to start off our holiday, two friends and I went to the snow dusted municipality of Whistler. Here’s the thing though: we don’t snowboard or ski– so what is there to do there if you’re both hesitant to slide down the mountain at high speeds, and want to avoid spending a few hundred bucks on rentals? Well, our itinerary was basically the following:

1. Eat

Crepes that looked like it was a paper bag, but tasted delicious
This pie was amazing. Mashed potatoes and mushy peas with a healthy dose of gravy.
Portabello mushroom soup
Mussles in thai coconut soup. I wanted to take a vat of that soup with me
Pad thai cooked without peanuts so I wouldn’t die

2. Toboggan (Would recommend just heading by Canadian Tire and getting your own board. It costs $10 there, and $30 in Whistler)

A pic with some kid who taught us how to properly toboggan :)

A pic with some kid who taught us how to properly toboggan 🙂

3. Skate Photo 2-16-2014, 4 58 29 PM

4. Watch the Sochi Olympics in the square (or in the hotel with a nice can of beer at 9AM in the morning– Yay! We won men’s hockey which was no surprise!) IMG_2846 5. Eat

Those mini donuts are to die for
Fluffliest pancake I’ve had in a while
Tun sandwich = Actual filet of tuna!
Cheese fondue on a cold day is the best

6. Watch shows (x)

Driving around Whistler was beautiful– it looked exactly like a winter wonderland that you would expect to see on Christmas Cards. The snow covered the limbs of trees, framing the green giants. In some areas up there, the snow was so thick and untouched it looked fake! I wish I could bring back the exact image of the environment with me because it was beautiful. But I guess I’ll have to do with just pictures.

IMG_2860

This was more beautiful in person!

Sure, Whistler is cold, but it’s not too bad if you wear a decent amount of clothing. I was fine with a large waterproof jacket and a sweater inside. I would highly recommend not wearing jeans because any contact with the snow will result in you feeling like you wet yourself. This little three day holiday was refreshing in one other aspect as well: we did not wake up till noon every day. We planned everything quite well and knew when we had/should head out to Whistler Village again, so everyone felt well rested! I mean, it has been a while since we could all sleep in. Most of time during vacations, I am forced to wake up early in order to make the most of my time, but I realize that with proper planning, sleep is an option. Hope other fellow UBC students are having a good reading break so far, and that everyone else is enjoying the slow transition from winter to spring! – Karen

Borderlands 2 Review– A.K.A Where did all my time go?

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Hey y’all,

I made one of the dumbest decisions one week before reading break (which is essentially Spring Break for university students in UBC) and bought Borderlands 2. The week before break is usually when everything is due– papers, midterms, presentations, you name it.

Anyway, I remember logging in and promising myself that I would play for 30 minutes. A very reasonable break duration, right? I finally logged off to hastily finish the rest of my course work three or so hours later.

What I like most about Borderlands 2 is how funny it is. I have not played the first game in the franchise, but I heard its storyline is not as well developed. I also bought the Mechromancer Pack along with the game, meaning I got to play as Gaige and controller her murderous robot Deathtrap. Gaige is a cool female character who is steampunk-esque in her attire (added coolness in my books). She built Deathtrap for a school science fair, but her opponent, Marcy, stole her blueprints and bribed the judges causing Gaige to come in third. However, when Marcy shoved Gaige, Deathtrap identified her as a hostile and killed her. Gaige then went to Pandora to evade arrest. Pretty neat backstory I’d say.

gaige

The reason why my short break turned into a uber long one was because of the storyline as explored through quests.

**Mid-game spoiler**
I was doing the Rising Action quest and I logged in during my “30 minute break” to finish it up and hand it in. Once I submitted the quest, in which I insert a new power core to generate energy for the rebel base called Sanctuary, I was notified that it had all been a trap. Now the inhabitants of Sanctuary were under attack because the corrupted power core hacked through the power shield that was protecting the city. However, there are other heroes in the story (Lilith, for those of you who have played Borderlands, returns as a NPC), and they manage to teleport the entire city into the sky, but accidentally leaves you behind by accident.

Reading the quest description...

Some of the quest descriptions in this game…

This basically meant I had to find my way back to Sanctuary. Which took me about three hours. I was so desperate to get back to the safe zone for rebels and log out there instead of anywhere else. I was quite attached, you see. I felt bad for drastically changing life in Sanctuary, and causing probably a few deaths to civilians in the process. I had to find my way home. In other words, I was hooked.
***End of mid-game spoilers**

Borderlands 2 revolves around the gamer playing one of the six playable characters on Pandora (4 without DLCs). You are a vault hunter, which means you have unique abilities. For example, my character Gaige can control a death machine in the form of Deathtrap as a Mechromancer. Maya, another character, is a siren, which means she can suspend enemies on another dimension. This allows her to do crowd control.

Unfortunately for you, as a vault hunter, the villain Handsome Jack (who is a brilliant villain by the way) is on the lookout for you. His aim is simple: kill you. Vault hunter interferes with his business of gathering the mineral Eridium and ruling the world so he must get rid of you. And everyone else in the city of Sanctuary who are basically the last of the resistance on Pandora.

handsome jack

This is a roleplaying, FPS game. If you’re looking for something fun, I would recommend this. You play this solo, so I sometimes get bored of it for that reason (you can invite a friends for a co-op mode though if they also have the game), but I take a break and I find myself missing it. Very funny, interesting characters (even their NPCs such as Moxxi and Tiny Tina! Google them up, they’re really cool. I may do a post in the future just to explore the characters in Borderlands!), and great storyline. Not to mention, they broke the world record for the most number of weapons in a game: 17,750,000.

-Karen

Steam Early Access: Paying to be an alpha tester?

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Hey everyone,

I’m pretty new to Steam– I used to get my PC games at Gamestop/EB Games or directly on the game’s official site. Anyway, Steam came out with their Early Access games last year, allowing game developers to release their games in their alpha stages so players can get in on the action early. Sometimes, these games are free. Players do have to deal with a lot of bugs or unfinished aspects of the game. At the same time, the developers are very conscious of the feedback provided by these early alpha testers, and will constantly release new updates that improve gameplay.

Why am I so interested in all this? Well recently, I’ve been intrigued by a game called DayZ. It was a mod for ARMA 2 (no idea what that is), but is now being released as a standalone game. DayZ opened itself up to Early Access on Steam last month and the developers were really hoping to get a quarter of a million in sales ($250,000/ $30= 8,333 copies sold)– if they achieved this, they would have considered it a success. Little did they know that they would sell a million copies of the game within the first month of Early Access.

Image

What is DayZ? It’s a survival multiplayer game in an open world. As a character in game, you must loot houses and defend yourself against zombies. What’s special about this game is how real it is. And I don’t mean graphics wise (though they are not at all lacking in that department), but in gameplay. You must keep yourself fed and quenched amongst other things. If you die, you basically die. You do not have extra lives. You must restart as a new character in the world of DayZ, losing all your inventory and stats.

This leads to an interesting twist in the game. As a player, you are more conscious of what death means, and will try harder to preserve yourself. You may find yourself killing another player simply for a can of beans. At the same time, you may want to save your health and supplies and calmly tell the other player to drop all their things and leave if they don’t want to die. Some people say that running into other humans (players) is scarier than running into zombies. There’s a psychological aspect to the game.

At the beginning of the game, you start with very little. But as you progress, you may find yourself being able to restore an abandoned car and drive off with it. Of course, I imagine that will alert all the nearby zombies, but you know– you get a snazzy car. Another realistic aspect of this game it that its day and night cycles follows real time. If it’s night in Vancouver where I am, and I’m in a server in my region, the game will be pitch black when you log in. There is no electricity in the post-apocalyptic world, so your screen is simply black. However, this problem can be fixed with flares and a flashlight. There are advantages to playing in the dark.

Some reviews of DayZ in its alpha stage on Steam

I’m intrigued by this game and I really want to buy it, but at the same time, in its alpha phase, I will have to deal with a lot of issues in game. Apparently, as of now, the spawn rate for food and supplies are almost nil– they only respawn when the server gets reset. There are other issues of course since its in development. As a game, there are also problems with how easy it is to grief other players. Do I want to pay $30 for a game that hasn’t even reached its beta phase yet? Or do I want to wait till it passes testing, but will then have to probably pay around $60 for the full game?

-Karen

Dine Out Vancouver Festival 2014 Kickoff!

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Hey everyone,

So not sure if any of you Vancouverites checked out the kickoff event at Granville Island for Dine Out Vancouver 2014, but it was interesting. I mainly went because my friend and I were going out for lunch anyway, so we just decided to meet at Granville Island instead so we could catch a glimpse of the thing.

The kickoff event was basically FREE SOUP!

The sketchy sign leading me to free soup

The sketchy sign leading me to free soup

They invited 50 chefs to come in and contribute an ingredient for the soup, ending with 50 different ingredients. However, upon closer inspection of the sigh, the 50 ingredients sometimes were quite similar to another one on the list.

I took seconds, since the line had died down a while later. The soup was interesting in taste. It had a tang to it, but there was plenty of stuff to munch on in my cup since they had so many ingredients. I distinctly tasted chorizo, but the other ingredients got lost and muddled together in taste.

While waiting in line, we were serenaded with some live music. I thought this was a neat little event to start off Dine Out!

If you’re in Vancouver, I’d seriously suggest doing Dine Out while it’s happening! It goes on till February 2nd. Restaurants that you otherwise may never think to go into is offering a set menu (well, limited choices anyway) for a fixed price. So you could be dining at Cloud 9, and instead of paying the usual $40 for an entree, you can get a 3 course meal for $28!

The starters

The starters at Whet

Entrees!

Entrees!

I went to Whet on Granville Island last Thursday for Dine Out, and will be going to Hapa Izakaya. When my friends and I chose Whet, we were hesitant. The menu looked so darn good, but their reviews said they had pretty bad service. We took the risk and the dinner and service turned out to be a-ok. I was surprisingly full after the meal!

 

– Karen