Escape from the Haunted Room

Escape from the Haunted Room is another Japanese point and click type room escape game from mygames888. In this game you are in a room and you have to search the room to find items and solve the puzzles to escape the room. Good luck and have fun!Note: This game contains creepy scenario so may not be suitable for young players or the faint of heart people.Play This Game

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The hidden joys of buying used

_{[Are you a fan or a hater of used game sales? No matter what side of the fence you're on, you have to agree that bbain's take on the subject is probably never discussed in a publisher's boardroom. Interesting stuff. It's also an example of what happens if your blog doesn't have a header image. Hot dogs for everyone! - Kauza]}

I buy a lot of used games. The act of doing so has become a rather hotly debated issue in the gaming industry lately, but I'm not here to talk about whether buying used games is good or bad for the industry. The point is, it's something that I do. 

Throughout my history of used purchases, I've noticed that there are some things that go along with buying used games that you wouldn't get from buying new games. These things come from the simple fact that used games are just what the name implies: they have been used before. They've had previous owners, and sometimes those owners leave something behind on the game when they go to sell it. The most common instance of this can be discovered before you've even purchased the game, while you're holding the case or cartridge in the store. It doesn't seem to happen as often anymore, but kids who owned video game cartridges back in the day used to frequently write their names on all of their games in Sharpie, perhaps so they wouldn't get their games mixed up with someone else's if they were sharing, or perhaps just as a way of showing ownership. Many of these autographed cartridges end up in garage sales and used game stores and find other owners, but the original owner's mark will always remain as a reminder that the game was once cherished by someone else (unless the new owner bothers to remove the name by some means, but I feel like that probably doesn't usually happen). 



Here is a sampling from my own collection of games that have been signed by previous owners. The N64 cartridge signed by "Ash" actually happens to be Pokemon Snap. I hope the person's name really was Ash, that would be such a coincidence! I also like to think that the owners of Metroid and River City Ransom, "JM" and "DM," might have been related (Justin and Dustin Mathews, perhaps?). Also included in the picture is the power cable to the used NES console that I bought, which came with a delightful sticker featuring a trio of dancing eggs. It's nice because it makes it easier for me to differentiate between the NES and SNES power cables, and it's also an adorable reminder that it was once loved by someone enough to receive a sticker. 

Of course, there are other ways for previous owners to leave their mark which you'll only discover upon taking the game home and actually playing it. For example, many SNES and N64 cartridges came with their own save data, which people usually don't bother to erase before selling the game back. By looking at the save data, you can learn how frequently the game may have been played before, and how far into the game the former owner may have gotten before selling it back. It's also fun to go into the files to see what kind of items they had found or what equipment they had been using, especially in RPGs. Many games also let you name the characters or at least the save file, so you can sometimes learn the names of former owners that way, or find out that they had a sense of humor if they named the characters something crass or ridiculous. 

Unfortunately, with the newer generations of games, it's becoming more difficult for owners to leave their mark on a game. We now use memory cards to keep track of all of our save data, which don't come with the games when we buy them. So starting the game up at home, it might appear as if it had never been played before (obviously it has been, but not on your particular console). It also seems to be much more uncommon for kids to write their names on game cases as opposed to cartridges. 

There are still ways to learn about the previous owners of your used purchases however, but they are much more infrequent. While it's rather difficult to learn anything about the owners of specific games, if you happen to be in the market for a used console, you'll most likely find some interesting things when you finally boot it up at home. All of the consoles that I currently own happen to be used, so I've come across a few interesting reminders of their pasts. For example, my PlayStation 3 was previously owned by someone who seemed to exclusively play sports games and shooters, as indicated by the leftover save data (which is not at all what I use the console for). Even more exciting was when I turned on my used Wii for the first time, and discovered a lovely family of Miis standing around in the Mii Channel. 



Let me introduce you to (from left to right) Tiara, Shontae, Sir Quan, Brandon, Janomi and Lil Wax. Obviously, I've left them all on the Wii so they could mingle with me and my friends and make special appearances in some of our games. Shontae, in particular, really seems to enjoy Wii Baseball, as she somehow always ends up on one of the teams. I also discovered in the settings that the console was named "Mrs. Waters," a name which I've decided to keep. I always hope that one day, I'll be walking down the street and come across one of these people, and instantly recognize them because of their Mii. That would be so strange! 

As I said before though, it's much more difficult to come across a game nowadays and be able to learn anything about it's previous owner. However, just last week I came across a wonderful find which inspired me to write this post: a used copy of Animal Crossing for the GameCube which came with the memory card that it was originally packaged with. The save data was still on the memory card, so of course I had to check out the previous owner's town. One of the townspeople greeted me and welcomed me back to the town of Seattle. Then they asked me what my name was, and I was actually surprised to see what my options were. The former residents had been named Cal, Beanz and Adam. "Bean" just so happens to be my own nickname, and the moniker that I use for almost every game that I play. "Adam" also just so happens to be the name of one of my roommates. Unfortunately, my other roommate is named Josh and not Cal, but if all three names had been the same as ours, I don't know what I would have done! Anyway, I selected Beanz (of course) and arrived in Seattle. The first thing I did was check out Beanz's house. 



He seemed to have a similar taste in items as I do. His house was filled with many Japanese items and fruit-themed furniture, and he turned his basement into a sort of aquarium/insect zoo. I also took the time to check out the other guys' houses. Cal seemed to have sort of the same taste in things as Beanz, and also had a lot of Nintendo-themed things as well. Adam's house was the smallest with no basement, so apparently he played the least out of the three. Next I looked through some of Beanz's mail. He had a few letters that Cal and Adam had sent him. 


Apparently Beanz was rather gassy. Maybe that's where the nickname came from. 

Then I took a look around town. The massive amount of weeds indicated that the game must have been sold a long while ago (the cockroaches in the houses were another hint). There were also a lot more flowers around the town than I usually had in my towns, so they apparently enjoyed gardening. They had also put up some signs around town with designs that they had made, so I decided to check out the Able Sisters' shop. 



At the tailor, I found several designs that the previous owners had created (every design in the picture is something that they made, I believe). How cool! I had never made too many designs myself, but some of these were actually pretty neat! After that I went to the museum. They had filled out a lot of the fish, insect and fossil sections, but had only donated two paintings (which makes sense, paintings are pretty hard to come by). I wasn't sure what else to check after that, so I decided to head out of Seattle for the time being and finally create my own town. Luckily I had another memory card, so I didn't have to delete Seattle. I also decided to preserve the town the way it had been, so I could explore it again if I ever wanted to. 

I enjoy buying used games not just because it's cheaper, but also because of moments like these. Everything you buy has a history, but used things tend to have much more interesting histories than new things. I've learned through buying used games that I'm very interested in the gaming habits of others. It's a lot of fun to see how other people play games and to learn more about those people, even though I've never met them before and most likely never will. It would be amazing if I did though. Maybe someone will happen to read this blog and recognize one of these things as their own former belongings. That would be something! How about some of you? Any interesting stories to tell about some of the used games/consoles that you've bought?

 

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Dead Block is finally out for PC

It may not seem like that long ago, but way back in July of last year a little zombie-survival game by the name of Dead Block came out on XBLA and PSN. Now, about half a year later, the Call of Duty Zombie mode-esque downloadable title has found a new home on PC.

Dead Block can't be found on Steam, but is instead exclusively available to purchase on other online retailers such as Amazon and GameStop for only $9.99. Our very own Maurice Tan didn't have too many positive things to say about the game in his review, but your next chance to play a co-op zombie-survival game won't come until Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City launches in March. So, what are you waiting for? It's only ten bucks.

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Minecraft Menu Drops the N-Bomb

An unimaginative, translator-turned-troll managed to add an unpleasant racial epithet to Minecraft's main menu.

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Rhythm Heaven Fever's orgasmic wood people
CONFIRMED

video details and more

Here's a compilation of some footage of Rhythm Heaven Fever, the English language version of Minna no Rhythm Tengoku. How do you think it sounds? Personally, I like the English voice work here, but I think I'll still prefer the Japanese version in the end. Not knowing what some of these songs are about might make them a little better. 

The big news here (for me anyway) is that those little orgasmic wood people flying on a cloud are sounding almost as orgasmic in English as they did in Japanese! It's been my guess for while now that the these two naughty little imps and their magical, rhythmic ride into the sky is supposed to be a metaphor for making sex happen. Some people thought I was crazy for thinking that, but according to this interview with mastermind behind the Rhythm Heaven/Tengoku series, those sounds are indeed intended to be sexy sounds.

The game comes out in just a few weeks. I can't wait to see how sexual it's going to get!

Iwata Asks: Rhythm Heaven Fever - full summary [GoNintendo]

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The Binding of Isaac gets a grotesque retail
edition

It was only a few days ago that online retailer, Merge Games, announced they would be selling a retail version of Terraria, a collectors edition no less. Now another of my favorite indie games from last year is getting a retail special edition, The Binding of Isaac. Wee Isaac's battle to escape his mother's basement will be available from Merge Games on March 16th, but only in the UK. This version of the game comes with a Steam gift key, a DRM-free copy of the game, the awesome soundtrack, a grim poster and a 40 page "Devzine."

No word on pricing yet. Terraria was around three times more than the Steam version, if that's going to be the case with The Binding of Isaac it's still only a tenner. Not too shabby for a fantastic game and extra swag. While indie games and digital distribution sort of go hand in hand these days, I do yearn for tangible goodies like posters and cloth maps, though the latter would be a bit difficult to make for a game with random dungeons.

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Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini Deluxe

When Houdini's promises of contact from beyond go unkept, his wife comes to you in a final plea to unravel his mysterious passing in Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini Deluxe! When he promised his wife that he would try to reach her from the afterlife, it was seen as the ultimate stunt But after years of sences, Bess was never able to reach Harry in this life or the next, and her spirit has come to you in a final plea to reunite her with her partner!


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Weekend Modder's Guide: Planescape: Torment

We're introducing a new regular feature here on Dtoid for all of you PC gamers. The Weekend Modder's Guide will take a game, usually an older one, and show you how to breathe new life into it. PC gaming has a strong legacy of great games, and unlike consoles you can usually run older software on your new PC. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to a lot of games.

We used to play them at 640x480 with no problem, but now that will make us cringe. Thankfully, good PC titles have a lot of dedicated fans who are willing to keep updating them long after the developers stop. Fan-made patches can add widescreen, add HD textures, fix bugs, finish content that wasn't included originally, and they can even add brand new content.

Planescape: Torment is one of the best RPGs ever made. It focuses on its story -- one that is witty, funny, deep, and engaging -- and pulls this off well. Black Isle wanted to make an RPG where death didn’t stop the game; it's actually part of your character's story to die over and over again. You have the power to resurrect your party too, so you never have to worry about being penalized for dying. This doesn’t mean that the game is easy, though.

Since Planescape's graphics are hand drawn, they don't suffer from the aging of a 3D game made in the same era. In fact, once you increase the resolution and do some tweaks to speed things up, it looks really good. The animations are smooth and detailed, and all the environments are fleshed out and stylized. I'm going to show you how to install all of the mods you need to play this fantastic game in HD.

Before mods:

After mods:

You can grab Planescape: Torment from GOG.com for $9.99, and it includes a whole bunch of extra goodies like the soundtrack, wallpapers, and a collection of artwork. Even if you have the discs lying around somewhere, I really suggest that you just grab it off of GOG.com since they handle much of the back-end tweaking. You can still use this guide for a different version of the game, but you would have to do a bunch of extra steps to make it work correctly.

Trivia:

Planescape: Torment was localized for Poland by CD Project, who later went on to make The Witcher.

The game’s dialog script is over 800,000 words long, which is about the same length as The Lord of the Rings plus A Game of Thrones.

The game was designed by Chris Avellone, who was also designing Fallout 2 at the time. He later went on to work on the Icewind Dale games, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, and Fallout: New Vegas.

The voice actors include Jennifer Hale (female Commander Shepherd from Mass Effect), Michael T. Weiss (Tarzan, from the Disney animated Tarzan television series), Keith David (Commander Anderson from Mass Effect) and John de Lancie (Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation). The rest of the cast have done voice acting for Marvel, DC, Disney, Pixar, and plenty of other videogames. 

All right, let’s get down to business!

Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Beginner
What you need: A copy of Planescape: Torment (preferably from GOG.com)

1. Install Planescape: Torment, but not to the normal Windows program directory. This will help avoid issues with the widescreen mods in Windows 7 or Windows Vista. Just make a folder in the C: drive called “RPGs” or something to that effect.

2. Install the Gibberlings 3 widescreen mod. You can set this to whatever resolution that you want. I recommend that you don’t go too high, or everything in the game will be very tiny. I used 1366x768 and it looks good. Get this mod here.

3. Install Ghost Dog’s UI. This will center all of the UI, fill in black spaces with existing artwork, fix loading screens, and just generally make everything work at higher resolutions. Grab it here.

4. Install Quinn’s Unfinished Business, Fix Pack, and Tweaks. This fixes spelling and grammar issues, bugs, allows you to hear all of your parties banter over the course of the game, and adds back some content that was unfinished and cut from the game. Just install all of the recommended files. You can grab the files and read the instructions here.

5. Look in the directory that you installed the game to for a file called “torment.ini”. Open it up and notepad and change the following: path search nodes=32000 Maximum frame rate=40 This will help characters move around better, and it will make sure that the animation speed is fluid without being too fast.

6. Download and install the DirectX SDK. Once the installation is finished launch the DirectX control panel. Go to the Direct Draw tab and disable hardware acceleration. This will help with slow frame rates and control lag. You can download it here.

7. Launch the game and from the graphics option menu, change all the setting to software rendering -- this will help speed things up and reduce lag.

That's it! You should be all set to play Planescape: Torment in glorious HD! 

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Fashion Advisor Review (Mac)

Gamezebo Rating:

While it?s easy to complain about the over-abundance of scary or spooky hidden object games that have taken over the genre, in most cases they?re at least playable, if clichéd. With Fashion Advisor on Mac, that simply isn?t the case as you?ll be forced to employ trial and error on almost every hidden object, and will find yourself laughing hysterically at the game?s broken English.

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Shuffle Time

Shuffle Time is another point and click type adventure game from Bored. It's Shuffle Time! The time machine is broken and 10 different times were mixed together! Solve puzzles as the Timekeeper! Help return artifacts to the right place as soon as possible! Good luck and have fun!Play This Game

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