Spooky Video Games!
Can I just say how blown away I’ve been by the great responses to the surveys, here? Way to run with the ball, guys. We’re still ironing out some functional/visual kinks with Dino Drac After Dark, but even as we do, thanks for proving that this was a concept worth trying!
Tonight’s topic: SPOOKY VIDEO GAMES.
Which ones were/are your favorites? Which ones legitimately creeped you out? Tell your fellow creatures of the night, in the comments!
As for me, any regular reader has probably picked up on the fact that I’m not a modern gamer by any stretch. And when I say “modern,” I pretty much mean the past 20 years. If it’s not a Smash Bros. game or some bullshit on Facebook, there’s a strong chance that I’ve never played it.
Still, I must admit that the first Resident Evil seriously freaked me out. I never got very far in it — certainly not far enough to hit any of its big moments — but just the whole design of that game, even from the very start, felt like a living horror movie.
I have much stronger feelings about older horror games, namely Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Castlevania, both for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Relive ‘em with these two walkthrough videos, crafted by people who are much better at video games than I’ll ever be.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins is notoriously hard, but since I kinda sucked at all video games, I’m not sure I ever even realized that it was inordinately difficult. The graphics are cartoony by today’s standards, but there’s still something so sincerely Halloweenish about those monsters. I look at them, and all I remember is drawing spooky pictures on construction paper with two markers and five broken crayons. That was yesterday.
Castlevania is more famous and held in higher esteem, and was clearly the superior game. I didn’t get the cartridge until it was completely out of style, so my fondest Castlevania memories are of going to my best friend’s house for sleepovers that consisted of me, him and his big brother trying to beat their game all through the night. Back before we watched horror movies, Castlevania was our surrogate.
Your turn! In the comments, talk about your experiences with spooky video games from the past and present!
Halloween Candy Survey!
Think back to your trick-or-treating days, and answer these three questions:
1) When going door to door, what was your #1 favorite candy to get?
2) What was the weirdest thing you ever received while trick-or-treating?
3) What frequently-distributed Halloween candy did you just outright hate?
My answers:
My favorite candy was really a tie between individually-wrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and those fun-sized Snickers bars, but if pressed, I think I’d have to give it to the cups. Mmmm.
Weirdest thing? Our next door neighbor used to give out loose change (nickels or pennies), but she’d wrap each coin in an almost obscene amount of scotch tape. To this day, I have no idea why she did that. Other neighbors sometimes used tape to string several coins into one manageable unit, but this woman was literally wrapping them individually. It was bizarre.
And as for a common candy that I just plain hated, duh, Mary Janes. If you want a harder answer, I’ll admit that I’ve never liked black Twizzlers, and still can’t eat them to this day. (Seriously, I’ve been on this planet for decades, and I’ve still never eaten one whole black Twizzler.)
Your turn!
PS: If you missed it on the main site, there’s a new episode of The Purple Stuff Podcast! (And we’re also selling a special bonus episode, because we like money.)
Attack of the Giant Leeches.
It’s a holiday weekend and I’m not expecting much action here tonight, so let’s keep it simple and just watch some dumb movie.
Here’s Attack of the Giant Leeches, from 1959. The title says it all, I think.
Public domain horror movies are a tough sell when they’re absent the silhouette of Tom Servo, but I still love ’em in their natural state. I must’ve seen 75+ of them by now, yet I can only remember the particulars from a modest handful. I kinda treat them more as decorations than actual films.
We did that survey about “background noise movies” a short while ago. I can’t believe I forgot to mention all of the public domain horror stuff! They’re perfect to go to sleep to on nights like this. Quiet, creepy, and dim enough to act as nightlights. Try it sometime. (Maybe tonight?)
The Little Things.
Happy Saturday night!
I’m sitting here with my pumpkin candle and a cup of what could only generously be called day-old coffee, blasting spooky tunes in-between rounds of podcast editing.
It’s the little things.
In fact, that’s our survey for tonight!
In the comments, name some of the “little things” that make your Halloween season great.
Midnight walks? Oriental Trading catalogs? Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Everyone has a few!
To me, the little things aren’t so little. Together they become the soul of the season. Halloween is a constant excuse to make something out of nothing, and we should all try to do that as often as we can.
Hell, at this time of year, even a crappy microwave pizza mixed with the right DVD feels like an event:
So let’s hear about your favorite “minor” Halloween traditions. Maybe you’ll inspire other readers to broaden their own horizons! If not, well, at least you have a place to gush about reading those old Fear Street books for the hundredth time.
