Games for Halloween

Halloween is here next week and in anticipation I've put together the ultimate list for scary games.  For extra effect play these by yourself with the lights off, even the oldies will be sure to cause some jumps.

1. Alone in the Dark

The series that started it all, Alone in the Dark is the first survival horror game released for the PC in 1994.  You probably won't be frightened by the pixelated monsters if you can even get the game to run, but Alone in the Dark is a piece of gaming history. If you can't stomach the outdated graphics then you can pickup any one of the multitude of sequels that have been released over the past 10 years, with a new next-gen version slated to be released next year, for next Halloween.

 

2. Resident Evil

Be the master of unlocking.  The original Resident Evil brought B-style horror movies to consoles and marked itself as the greatest source for cheesy live-action FMV quotes. Capcom has ensured that the Resident Evil series maintains a high level of quality making every game in the series worthy of a play through.  Resident Evil 4, the most recent game, is hailed as one of the greatest games of all time, even if it moves away from the traditional survival-horror genre into more action based gaming.  I still recommend playing through the original. Experience the zombie decapitation, the dogs, the licker just like millions did 10 years ago. Again, if you can't take the outdated graphics, or don't have a working Playstation you can pickup Resident Evil: Remake on the Gamecube which has updated graphics and a bunch of new content.

 

3. System Shock 2

A cult classic through and through. System Shock drips with atmosphere and defines creepy as you make your way through the game struggling to survive.  Played from the first-person, but no first-person shooter, you have to immerse yourself in the world, upgrading yourself and working through mind-bending puzzles.  Put your headphones on and play one of the greatest games ever.

 

4. Silent Hill

Why would someone make a town over Hell? I have no idea, but it makes for some amazing experiences. Every Silent Hill game can stand on its own with each one having a unique cast of fully developed characters, with the common theme of the damned city of Silent Hill.  Silent HIll 2 is regarded as one of the best in the series featuring an extremely well developed and mature plot that will stay with you for a long time to come. These games aren't about action.  Silent Hill is about emotion, and putting everyday people in some very messed up situations as they deal with their own inner demons.

 

5. Fatal Frame

The Fatal Frame series isn't nearly as popular or well-known as the rest of the games mentioned here, but it's definitely among the creepiest.  Fatal Frame forgoes the usual tradition of fighting ethereal spirits with everday weapons like shotguns and rocket launchers and forces the characters to use a different kind of weapon: a camera. Scary huh?  I think this is one of the first games to use the phrase Based on a true story so that's gotta be worth something. Plus, in Fatal Frame you're actually the one playing the creepy little girl instead of being terrorized by her.

 

 

6. Condemned

Released for the Xbox 360, Condemned is the sleeper hit that puts CSI in the world of Saw. Play the role of a detective out to catch a serial killer that beats the tar out of a lot of bums.  The next-gen visuals and audio make this an especially immersive experience with great voice acting and cutscenes to carry the story along. Hand-to-Hand fighting is brutal as you use the nearest available lead pipe to bash crazed bum's heads in. It's not all hobo-beating as you do regular detective activities such as investigating murder scenes looking for evidence. If you're on the fence about this one, just download the demo as it gives a very good idea on what to expect.

 

 

7. Dead Rising

Sometimes you don't want to be scared. Sometimes you just want to dismember, decapitate, destroy and demolish and plow through thousands of undead corpses.  Enter Dead Rising. Choose from hundreds of everyday household items like bowling balls and katanas to kill as many zombies as possible.  And I think you're supposed to help people and figure out where all the zombies are coming from as well. But the best part is killing them. All of them.

Major HTML/CSS cleanup, and style tweaks

We released a major update to ProductWiki last night just before midnight, but you may not have noticed that much of a change. That's because the bulk of what was done was under the hood. We underwent a complete HTML and CSS stylesheet overhaul. The end result is much cleaner code, and on average, pages that are about half the size (in bytes, not screen real estate of course).

Boring? As an HTML/CSS geek, I don't think so.

 

While for the average person, who by now has probably already stopped reading, this may not at all seem relevant, it does mean the site responds significantly quicker, and allows us to iterate new layouts and UI improvements much quicker.

If you're a web developer looking for some good resources on some of the more recent developments in HTML and CSS, take a look at this primer for about how to use DIVs instead of TABLEs for layout, and for more in depth research take a look at the Web Developer's Handbook.

5 Ways to Game on the Cheap

$60 game prices, $600 consoles, and a whole smattering of overpriced accessories.  Gaming is not a cheap hobby.  However, with some planning, and a little change in behaviour, you can spend a lot of your time playing games without breaking your wallet.

The most cost effective way to play games is to focus on at most a few titles at once, spend a lot of time playing them, and finish them to completion.  This way you play and enjoy the games you own without having them collect dust over years.  Once you get out of a collector mindset the following steps are easy, and will save you a lot of money.

 

1.  Rent don't Buy

The average playtime for single player non-RPG games is in the 10-20 hour mark.  This is short enough to beat the game within a 1-week rental period.  And yes, rentals are way more expensive now than when we were kids, but you have to remember that renting is still a lot cheaper than buying.  Rentals are also a great way to introduce new multiplayer games to your friends. 

If you rent a game and it becomes one of your favourites there's nothing from stopping you from buying it.  This is especially true with online rental services such Gamefly and Gameznflix.  Online rentals are really great because you're not under any time obligations, so even if you pick up a game like Oblivion that'll take you 2 months to complete, you're making effective use of your subscription.  But remember: the more games you play within a month the better use you're making out of the service.

Sometimes the online rental services don't satisfy your instant gratification because you live too far away from a distribution centre, but you can still get a similar service at your local Blockbuster.  Ever since Blockbuster introduced their No Late Fees policy you can treat their rentals as being a month long.

This site has a list of the best online rental game services.

Here is a list for Canada.

 

2.  Buy, but Sell Too

Maybe you don't want to rent for whatever reason, I personally don't like doing it.  However, buying games can just be another more freeform way of renting if you sell your games after you're done with them.  The key to selling successfully is two-fold

1. Don't sell to stores like EB and Gamespot unless they're running a trade-in promotion
2. Don't wait too long so that the game becomes worthless

If you're selling games you need to know how the trade-in market works.  Just like most things in life, the longer your hold onto a game the more its value depreciates.  There are some exceptions like rare titles that increase in value, but it's difficult to know which game will follow this trend, so there's no point in banking on it.

The depreciation on games usually isn't linear either, but instead follows large jumps, the key is to sell of the game before its value jumps down.  There are a few events that occur to make a game jump down in trade-in price

1. sequel is released
2. official price is lowered
3. sudden influx of trade-ins, which usually happens when the game becomes part of a bundle
4. 3 months have passed since the game released (for unpopular games)
5. 6 months have passed since the game released (for popular games)

If you buy a Splinter Cell or Tony Hawk game that has yearly versions, don't wait for the next version to come out before selling your copy.  If you've had the game over 6 months so it's already experienced a price drop, at least get rid of it within the next few months so it doesn't experience another jump down.

 

3. Buy Used

Ebay, Amazon are both great sources for cheap and used games.  If you're part of a forum, especially a gaming one, there are often buy-and-sell discussions or even whole discussion areas, take active part in these and you'll get some great deals.

There's no point in selling a game to Gamespot for $35 and then having someone buy that game for $65.  You could have sold that game directly to the person for $50 and you'd both be better off.

One of the stigmas against buying used games is that a lot of time the games aren't kept in good condition, there's scratches on the disc, weird sticky parts on the manual and the case is all marked up.  I'd like to take this moment to implore to my fellow gamers to take better care of your games.  If we all treated our games well, then we'd all feel a lot more confident in buying used games.  Japanese gamers are famous for the immaculate condition they keep their games, and often times you can't tell the difference between a new and used title.  It should be the same here in North America.

 

4.  Video Game Deals!

There are tons of deals happening all the time, whether online or in retail stores.  The best sites to stay on top of game deals are CheapAssGamer, FatWallet, and in Canada RedFlagDeals.  Fat Wallet and Red Flag Deals both have a lot more deals than just video games and are fantastic sites to check on regularly.  Cheap Ass Gamer deals mainly with video games and are usually the first source for any kind of deal.

Other than those websites there are a few permament deals with certain retailers.  Fry's Electronics, which only exists in California, often sells brand new 360 games for $45 instead of $60 on the day the game releases.  If you don't have a Fry's very close to you, you can always price match at a Circuit City or Best Buy.  Best Buy also has gamer gift cards, these are gift certificate cards for gamers with the benefit that any game item purchased with the card over $20 gets $5 off.  Well, that just means instant $5 on any game item, just put the money on the card first, and then buy the game or accessory with the card to get $5.  For $20 things like Greatest Hits titles, it can be quite a significant amount of savings.

Another lesser well known fact is that sometimes games can be had for cheaper when imported.  This is definitely true with Xbox 360 and importing from asia.  It works like this:

• Pick up an Asian or Japanese 360
• Buy Asian versions of games from Play-Asia for $40.

Both of these things can be purchased at Play Asia.  The best part about this is that most asian versions of 360 games are in English, and you can play American games anyway.

 

5.  Just be Patient

If you can get over the excitement of owning a game when it first comes out, then the longer you wait, the cheaper the game becomes.  Right now you can pickup a PS2, Gamecube or Xbox and spend the next 5 years playing a ton of great games for ridiculously cheap.  Not only are the games cheaper, but you have the benefit of picking the best games of the past generation.  Istead of paying $150 for each individual Devil May Cry game, on October 24th you can pick up DMC1, DMC2 and DMC3:SE for $30.

Of course you don't have to take it to this extreme, as you can see that most 360 launch titles have undergone price drops, and Microsoft is introducing the 360 version of Platinum Hits where the games will retail for $30.  Ridge Racer 6 (which is one of my favourite racing games ever) can now be bought for $20!