halloween
Latest
Oneechanbara R: a revolution?
GAME Watch is referring to D3 Publisher's Oneechanbara R as Oneechanbara Revolution now, solving the mystery of what the R means. We sort of assumed that it was "Remake," ourselves. Does this mean that the new Oneechanbara game takes significant steps forward toward becoming more than a ridiculous novelty game?Probably not. The title is probably just a reference to the Wii, once called the Revolution itself. Oh, well. Let's not let the supposed terribleness of the games bring us down. Today is the best day of the year for browsing a bunch of screenshots of bloody zombies, and GAME Watch has obliged with a large collection of new screens. Their post also reveals that the game contains not just the cowboy-hat-and-bikini-clad Aya, but also Saki, the other playable character from the first Oneechanbara game, just in case you'd like to choose which underdressed girl with whom to slash monsters.
Let Jared serenade your trick-or-treaters for Halloween
It's Halloween again and nothing says frightful quite like a bodyless animated head singing dreadfully on your desktop. Yes, Freeverse's digital Jared makes the perfect workspace companion for a spooky day like today. Let him serenade you...and frighten away all your annoying visitors. Keep some ibuprofen on-hand--and check out Jared's Wikipedia page.
Dementium: The Launch (filed from Austin, TX)
While we were putting the finishing touches on our Portal Halloween costumes, friend of the site – and games business journalist – N. Evan Van Zelfden made his way to Gamecock's Halloween-themed Dementium launch and filed this report: An art-house theater in Austin, Texas was the location of last night's launch party for Dementium: The Ward, a survival horror game for Nintendo's DS which goes on sale today. Made by three guys in a garage – each had over a decade of development experience – Renegade Kid signed with Gamecock in May of this year, and the game was gold by the end of October. "The game technically releases tomorrow," Gamecock's Jason Livergood told the audience of developers, adding that this hadn't kept some retailers from releasing it a few days early. Not only have people started buying the game, they've started writing the publisher.%Gallery-9531%
Halloween is serious business at the Pokemon Center
Halloween in Japan is apparently pretty cool, at least in terms of the corporate response. Brian Ashcraft from Kotaku showed off this trick-or-treat bag from the Pokémon Center in Osaka. Of course, it's quite a nice bag, with full-color, completely original Pokémon art covering every surface.But what's really cool is that the bag is filled with Pokémon-branded candy and treats! We find that kind of dedication impressive. It's also just plain nice of the Pokémon Center to hand this stuff out, even if it is a tactic to bring people in. We imagine that most places would give out a plastic bag or a single piece of candy at most.
Reminder: play undead Halo 3, get achievements
Just a quick Halloween reminder. Today (and today only) Bungie is hosting a special Halloween playlist on Halo 3. It's an all Infection playlist, because, you know, today is all about zombies. The various members of X3F are likely to be playing some today, so be on the lookout for us and feel free to send invites our way. Oh, and don't forget that multiplayer achievements are active in the Living Dead playlist. You should probably also be aware that the default secondary weapon for humans in the Spartan Laser. So yeah, that should help you nab that Two For One achievement in no time. We managed to do it on our first game today. No, seriously. Happy Halloween fanboys, and happy hunting. Oh, and remember: the zombies always win.X3F Gamertags:Richard Mitchell -- SenseiRAMDustin Burg -- SuperDunnersDavid Dreger -- Knuckles Dawson
Hellgate: London opens to online dungeon crawlers
This Halloween is full of treats, but if you can tear yourself away from the festivities in all the other online games, you can now roam post-apocalyptic London in search of weapon upgrades and experience points. Hellgate: London's public servers have gone live and are awaiting demon-slaying heroes and heroines.Flagship Studios' Bill Roper posted a launch announcement on the game's official website, and took the opportunity to thank the community, the publishers, and the friends and families of the development team for their support over the past four years.The single-player and multi-player 3D action RPG comes from a studio that includes some of the same developers who gave us Diablo way back in the day. If you haven't bought the game yet, you might want to check out our demo impressions or download the demo to check it out for yourself, but beware of possible in-game advertising if that sort of thing irks you.
Wii Warm Up: Hallowii
Happy Halloween to those of you who are into costumes and candy! To the rest of you, have a delightful Wednesday. Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and the one we'd be most likely to hold a party in honor of (if only the cats would keep their costumes on.) So we thought that today would be (a few days later than) a good time to discuss possible ideas for a Halloween Wii party. How could you add a layer of spookiness to a Wii-centered get-together? We would attach all the Wiimotes (securely, with wrist straps) to some fake disembodied arms and force all our guests to play that way. Or we could sit around and make up spooky alternate plots for Virtual Console games! Uh, or we could play Pac-Man ... and, uh, Samurai Ghost. Those have, you know, ghosts.What kind of ghoulish twists can you think of? And before you admonish us, we realize that people don't need to play games all the time and can have social gatherings without them. It is just a fun thing to talk about.
DS Daily: Favorite horror game?
Even with Dementium out, there's not much in the way of horror gaming on the DS. In fact, there's just that, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, and, we guess, Touch the Dead. However, since we really wanted to talk about horror gaming today, we think we'll go outside the boundaries of the DS library for today's discussion.There's a pile of Resident Evil games, of course, and Silent Hills, as well as other survival horror classics like Clock Tower, Fatal Frame, and Siren. Not to mention the House of the Dead series, and its precursors Chiller and Corpse Killer. Castlevania is at least horror-themed, if not all that frightening. From Night Stalker to Phantasmagoria, games have been trying to scare us since the developers realized we could care enough to get scared. What is your favorite horror game, and why? Is it because of the presentation or the gameplay? In our minds, horror is one of the few genres of gaming in which lackluster control schemes and not-so-great combat are less important than telling a good story and setting atmosphere. Which is why it should be no big surprise that Silent Hill 2 is our favorite game in the genre.
EverQuest Halloween event live today -- late start due to fires
By now you will all be aware of the wildfires last week in San Diego, and that the Sony Online Entertainment offices were affected by them. Now that everyone is getting back on their feet, the EverQuest team are able to launch their Halloween event, "The Haunting of Norrath". Whilst it is being implemented a little late, the event has been extended and runs from October 30th to November 4th -- fans of Halloween will get to cling on to their favorite holiday for just that little bit longer.The Haunting of Norrath will feature a generous helping of Halloween quest-lines (with the event's homepage filling you in on where to get started). There will be merchants selling candy and costumes, and a number of other things to do including trick-or-treating, bone-collecting, and -- my personal favorite -- a hungry halfling event. Players are advised to seek Zigand Ribshard in the Plane of Knowledge to find out more, and be sure to visit the link below for other Haunting of Norrath details.
Found Footage: iPhone costumes
These guys didn't actually send these costumes in for our Halloween costume gallery, but if they had, we would definitely have put them in it. They actually have LCD TVs strapped to them (using PVC pipe and ratchet straps), and apparently those TVs are hooked up to real video iPods-- they edited the display video themselves. The suits also weigh about 60 pounds, which is about how much candy you'll probably be able to get if you really do go around the neighborhood in one of these.And it's a pretty good representation of the iPhone, too, even if it is a little... bulkier than the real thing. These guys are award-winning, too-- one of their Myspace pages brags that they've won the "Guavaween costume contest," whatever that is. Congrats![via Neatorama]
Last weekend for Trick or Transmutation event in Lineage 2
This past weekend saw the first round of key drops for Lineage 2's Halloween event, this year called Trick or Transmutation. The event, which tasks players with hunting down lost keys to mysterious treasure chests, is a loot-centric affair with some quality rewards.Players must find keys dropped by monsters, which can then be used to open treasure chests containing special crafting items. These items can be combined to create Philosopher's Stones, which in turn hand out unique rewards like scrolls, potions, and special hats.Killing monsters to obtain the keys is the first step, and if you didn't participate in the event last weekend you're going to want to jump on it this week. The second 'key drop period' begins on November 2nd at 7:00 PM EDT and ends on November 5th at 12:59 AM EDT. The Alchemist's Servitor NPCs that are integral to the event are only around until November 6th, so don't wait if you want a chance to get one of those swanky hats.We mentioned this event along with the rest of NCSoft's Halloween events a few days back.
Halo 3's undead Halloween treat revealed
Bungie revealed last Friday that they had a special treat in line for Halo 3 players this Halloween and now Frankie has made the treat known to the slavering masses. Fitting in with the season, the Halloween treat is a special 27 hour playlist in matchmaking that involves (what else?) zombies. The playlist features nothing but the Infection gametype and will be available starting October 31st at 12:01am PST and ending November 1st at 3:00am PST. The playlist will use Forge edited maps created by Bungie. These maps feature special changes that benefit the Infection gametype, things like fortifications for the human team. Perhaps best of all, the playlist will be ranked and players will be able to unlock multiplayer achievements inside it. Let's think about that: four players all rushing you, staring down the business end of your rocket launcher. Hello Overkill Achievement. Hit the "read" link for all the dirty details.
Your chance for a live chat with Hellgate developers on Halloween
If you're anticipating Hellgate: London amidst its recent controversy, and want to find out more about the game, why not just ask the developers? 1UP.com has posted news that Xfire is hosting a live chat with a team from Hellgate developer Flagship Studios. Listed on the Xfire site, the developers participating in the event will be: Bill Roper, CEO Flagship Studios Aletheia Simonson, Art Producer Bill Manegold, Game Programmer Amir Ebrahimi, Graphics Programmer Guy Somberg, Audio and Gameplay Programmer To be in with a chance to talk to them, visit Xfire's website and enter your email address. If you're lucky enough to be selected, you'll receive an email from Xfire giving you the details of the chat. It is scheduled for 6pm EDT on October 31st, which as 1UP notes, is the actual release date of Hellgate: London, so chances are if you're a die-hard fan, you will have already been playing the game all day. Oh, and I guess October 31st is Halloween too.
DS Daily: Carvings
Joystiq's pumpkin-carving contest got us inspired -- now we're dying to carve something game-themed into pumpkins of our own. That seems to take some artistic ability, however -- something we're not sure we've got a lot of just lying around. Of course, then we have to decide just what to imprint into the rough orange flesh of our chosen gourd, and that's where things get tough. We could go scary, of course ... but there's just something about the awesomeness of Contra 4 that makes us want to carve some bad dudes into a pumpkin or two.How about you? Have you ever carved a game-themed pumpkin? If so, what was it? If not, have you considered it? What would you choose?
Trick or treating in CoX
I have been having an unhealthy amount of fun Trick-or-Treating in CoX these days. Admittedly, this might be because it's the first time I actually have every participated in this Halloween ritual. In any case I spent several hours the other day knocking on doors and awaiting my fate. I got a treat about one fifth of the time, so the ratio is pretty high. I currently have seven different temporary costumes, ranging from the Goldbricker to my favorite the Freak Zapper. These last a few minutes, and enable me to get a taste of what it must be like to play a hoodlum. I also got two costume salvage rewards, but when I went to Croatoa to turn them in, not only was I not able to find Annah, the place was infested with armies of Streng so I thought better of my attempt and figured I might just keep them in my inventory as mementos of all the fun I had.
DS Daily: A practical Halloween
Dressing up for Halloween is fun, but looking like H.R. Pufnstuf is bittersweet if you can't get in a couple of minutes of Face Training in under the mask between parties. To that end, we'd like you to get creative. What are some possible Halloween costumes into which you could integrate some cleverly concealed DS storage space? If you've already got a costume picked out, how could a DS-able pocket be added to it?Alternately, should you decide not to bring your DS, the space in question could be filled with candy.
Ready, set, carve! GoW pumpkin carving contest
So, you've tried your hand at carving Xbox 360 pumpkins and now you need a new challenge. A challenge where, if your artistic talent shines, you'll be rewarded with gaming prizes. If that's the case, then the Gamerscore Blog has what you want with their Gears of War pumpkin carving contest.From now until (presumably) Halloween, the Gamerscore Blog is accepting entries into its GoW carving contests where they want fans to unleash their creativity and carve the most gruesomely awesome Gears themed pumpkin. Winners will be awarded with various prizes including Gears of War PC and posters, but in reality everyone is a winner when GoW carved pumpkins are involved. Make the jump for full details and submit your pumpkin entry. And, truth be told, we were going to make a bad joke about chainsaws and pumpkin carving, but Mr. Paladino already beat us to the punch. Darn you Paladino!
Flickr Find: Mac-O-Lantern
Halloween is just around the corner, and you know what means: spooky Macs! Tim emailed us to share his instructions for making a Mac-o-lantern out of a Mac Classic. Some tape, a can of spray paint, and a graphic later you have the geekiest Halloween display I have seen all day (though the day is still young, my friends).Don't forget to send in pictures showing off your Halloween costumes for our gallery on Wednesday.
Dressed up right for Leopard release night
We asked for it, and even though I'm kind of regretting it, we got it. On the left is young readers Ben and Austin, dressed for the part (I can't believe no one threw red paint on them) at the Leopard launch this afternoon in Holyoke, MA. And on the right, in the, errr, eMac, is reader Geir Arne from Norway. Boy, do they loves them some hilarious Mac costumes in Norway, because as of this posting, he's on the front page of one of their biggest tech news sites.Oh man, I can't stop laughing, not just at how crazy these guys look, but just at how extremely happy they are to be dressed up like that and buying Leopard. You guys crack me up. All of these guys (and you, if you send us a picture) will be sure to appear in our Halloween costume gallery on Wednesday, so keep sending those pics in! Sure, you could spend hours on a great costume and show it off to one Apple store in the country, but why not take a pic, send it here, and be seen by all the world?
Let's see your Apple-themed Halloween costumes
Leopard isn't the only fun we'll have this weekend. Wednesday is Halloween in the US, and Apple lovers everywhere will spend the next few days constructing their Apple-themed costumes. If you're planning to make one, we want to see it!Will you be "iPod Family," with poppa iPod Touch, Mom iPod Classic and nano kids? Maybe you'll grab a black shirt, jeans and New Balance sneakers. Perhaps you'll be a giant Sad Mac or a vintage bomb icon. So scary!Whatever you create, send a photo to us at the address below. We'll pick our favorites and post a special gallery on Halloween (Oct. 31th). Now get busy! We can't wait to see what you've made.PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to read and complete our little photo release. Complete "rules" (this is not a contest or giveaway of any kind, but we still gotta have some rules) after the break.
