Universal Studios Japan 2019 Halloween Roundup

If you've been following the Twitter (@Taurinensis) account you'll know that I've just returned from a trip to Osaka after going to see the Halloween Horror Night at Universal Studios Japan(a while ago now actually since I got delayed posting this) .  I've talked about these nights before on the blog so this time I'm going to just give a quick roundup of all the attractions I saw this year.

Space Fantasy The Ride: Black Hole

Space Fantasy is one of the roller coasters at USJ and puts riders in a rotating car that will twist as the coaster falls and turns.  Usually the ride is all cutesy but entering it during the Halloween event gives you some kind of story with a scientist that is using a black hole to open a dimensional rift or something.  The ride itself is just Space Fantasy but with all the lights turned off.  The exact same ride only this time you can't see shit and there's a voice in the background saying stuff like "Ha ha! I have you now!" and stuff like that.  Maybe if you had never been on the ride before and had no idea what was coming it might be exciting but otherwise it was just kind of "meh"

Area 51

A walk through "horror maze" that was hosted inside the Backdraft ride.  Starts with a guy coming out telling you that there's an alien invasion and that you have to escape through a forest only for him to be gunned down by some woman who then informs you he's been taken over by an alien parasite and now you have to escape to their base at the end.  Interestingly, only half the backdraft ride is used and you get taken out of a back door for the "maze" part of the attraction which has alien dudes following you around the place.  When you get to the base it turns out that it's been completely overrun and you move through alien infested corridors to the exit.  At the end you mash a bunch of buttons with some randos on a panel and save the earth.  Not bad but even it's attempts at jump scares were kind of weak although this is probably by design since the maze opened early in the morning.

Cult of Chucky

A similar walk through horror house to Area 51 but with the intensity ramped up a little bit since it didn't open until the evening, standard fare.

Blood Legend

Blood Legend was a short horror movie in the same "4D" theatre that they host that Shrek show in, 4D being the gimmick of seats moving around and blasting air at you when certain things on screen happen.  The show starts by recanting the legend of actual serial killer Elizabeth Bathory and then plays a movie about two girls who are on holiday in Hungry.  The two girls end up visiting her estate under the impression its some kind of museum and then get chased around a bit.  Fairly standard stuff but I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Bathory is the main villain in Castlevania Bloodlines although I might be mistaken

Biohazard: The Extreme

This was the attraction in particular that I went all the way to Osaka for.  Before you can ride the thing you have to go get a ticket to book a time slot and what I was surprised to see is that there was a "Leon Route" and a "Claire Route" and then whole thing was very clearly styled after the Resident Evil 2 remake.  We did both routes on this trip starting with Leon.  Once again, it's just a standard haunted house type affair but seeing all the scenes from Resident Evil 2 remade for the attraction was kind of cool.  There's a few zombies stomping around that jump at you as you walk through but eventually you get stopped by a staff member who warns you about a creature that's sensitive to sound so you have to be quiet.  You are then led down a corridor with a Licker in it and once out you come to a corridor with a big glass window in it.  This is where the two routes are different as Mr X comes out on one end and then either Leon or Claire will pop out of the other, yell at you to escape and then have a little tussle with the big lad.  You go through some more rooms with some more monsters until you get told that your going to have to fight whatever is chasing you and you are led into a room with a bunch of light(?) guns.  You grab one and start blasting and the enemy on screen which changes depending on which character you are.  I think you can beat it and escape but both times we did it the group didn't do enough damage so it popped up during our escape sequence and we got a "You have died" message.  All in all, a good bit of fanwank if your familiar with Resident Evil but my wife also seemed to enjoy it a fair bit and she doesn't know anything about the series

It may be a little on the pricy side but the Halloween night at Universal is a pretty good time.  I'll probably go again next year when they have more Resi goodness for me.

Torn About Resident Evil 2 Remake

So a remake of Resident Evil 2 got announced and when I first heard the news I was absolutely fucking stoked.  Resident Evil 2 is quite possibly my favorite Resident Evil game and the idea of having a version of it that's all in shiny next-gen-o-vision is a truly exciting idea.  However upon seeing some of the game play footage for it, I'm a little torn.  First let me start by showing you a video of the demo that someone has done that doesn't have any commentary on it so you can just see and process for yourself.

Like I said, on one hand I'm really excited because at the end of the day it's fuckin' Resident Evil 2.  It's the best game in the series made to look all pretty and have modern game play and whatnot but that's also half the problem.

I didn't WANT this.  When I first saw someone on my social media post about it I had visions of REMake but it's Resident Evil 2 instead of 1.  That's what I really wanted, just a nice shiny remake of the 2nd game for modern systems.  REMake had some extra content as well in the form of Lisa Trevor and all that stuff so maybe this dream RE2 remake I had in my head would have had some of that too.  Hell, I bet there's a lot of stuff from RE1.5 that could be implemented as bonus modes or as extra content to the main story.

But what we got was the RE6 looking thing that's stolen RE7s interface with all new shit going on.  Of course that isn't inherently a bad thing but I'm having trouble getting over the shock of it not being REMake 2.  I think that one things that long standing fans of survival horror have wanted for a long time is for games to go BACK to that old style because it helps to serve the horror.  I hate the fact that all modern "horror" games have just turned into 3rd person action games with jump scares and gore and that seems to be the direction that Resident Evil 2 Remaster is taking.

Still, I'm not going to completely shit on it just yet since a short game play video and a trailer aren't really enough to form a complete opinion on.  I've yet to see anything of Claire's campaign and I'm interested to see what they do with the plot since I've heard that they've done away with the whole A/B thing that the first one had.  Let's hope they do it justice.

[Mediasplat] Biohazard 2: The Escape

So recently I went down to Osaka and checked out the Biohazard 2: The Escape event being held at Universal Studios Japan!  I wrote about the experience over at Mediasplat so click the link below and check it out!

https://mediasplat.net/identity-gaming-biohazard-2-the-escape/

No spoilers though, I don't want to get in trouble

What Happened To Resident Evil

Resident Evil is one of those series that, among many others, has fallen almost completely into the trash.  This is a shame because despite its absolutely retarded plot and writing, they were amazing games.  

Resident Evil, released initially in 1996 in Japan under the title Biohazard, was the game that arguably put survival horror on the map.  You played as one of the members from S.T.A.R.S, a crack team sent to investigate some bullshit but things quickly go bad and you find yourself trapped in a zombie infested mansion. 

Resources like health, ammo and even saving items were limited so it was all very tense.  Once you progressed and even more horrible creatures started to stalk the mansion things got really frightening, at least the first time round. 

The game later spawned 3 sequels and a prequel that were great and a whole bunch more that aren't so great.  It all started to go downhill with Resident Evil 4 

Now don't get me wrong, RE4 was  great but it caused a shift in the series and arguably the genre that turned it to complete shit.  

The intensity of the first 3 games was gone and we were left with more of an action game with bombastic set pieces rather than a survival horror game.  They still made an effort to keep it at least a little horror but with RE 5 onward it's like they just gave up 

Now we are left with mediocre action games and a series of shit movies.  The originals have been ported and remade out the ass so it's easy to go back but I can't help but feel it's a shame that we will probably never get that old survival horror that we started with ever again 

Biohazard: The Escape

So during my Golden week I went down to Universal Studios Japan and took part in Biohazard: The Escape.  I was supposed to blog about this ages ago but because I'm stupid I forgot to do it.  Just for the record, the people who run the event are very adamant about people not posting spoilers so I'll only be describing what the event IS rather than any of the intricate details.

So one thing that seems to be quite popular in Japan are "Escape Games".  These are games where you are given a bunch of puzzles to solve in a certain time limit and you must solve them all in order to win.  Each game comes with its own plot line to add a little bit more immersion to the whole experience and while they are very challenging (and a little expensive) they are very enjoyable.  The company who run these games do have their own original stuff but sometimes they theme their games on popular anime/movies or whatever.  The last game I did prior to Biohazard was based on a show called Assassination Classroom

I've never seen the show or read it's Manga but that didn't take away much from the overall experience, these things are rather well crafted.

So what about Biohazard?  Well of course, this thing being part of USJ means that it was WAYYYYY above anything that I've done before this point.  At the start all the players are herded into a big room and are given a map, a padlocked box and an iPad.  The basic premise for the game is that you came to a recording studio to see a presentation of a new energy patch put out by Umbrella but during the show the place gets overrun by T-Virus and Zombies.  From there you are told you have 60 minutes to cure yourself and escape the building or, like all classic Resi games, you get bombed to death.

Then the game starts and you are let into a 4 story building in order to solve a punch of puzzles that are delivered to you via the iPad you were given at the start.  If I mention any more specifics from that point onwards I'd be spoiling puzzles so this is where my description ends.  At the end though, all the losers, which comprised 85% of the players were put into a room, told the answers to the puzzles so we could have a collective "are you kidding me!?" moment and then we were bombed to death (room filled with smoke) while I Tyrant ran around the room scaring people.

During the event, there were a number of actors dressed up as Zombies who were lurking around the venue in order to scare the pants off you.  They absolutely weren't allowed to touch you but they did an effective job.  They would move around, hide, act erratically, my hat goes off to the people they brought in to do that, great job.  Overall the whole thing was awesome and it was a truly memorable experience.

I'm already excited for my next escape game, I'm just surprised one hasn't been Layton themed yet.

The New Resident Evil Is a Little Pointless

One game that was released recently was something that I have dubbed ReREMake and while I'm not entirely complaining about it's release I can't help but feel that this is another pointless re-do of a game that didn't really need remaking/porting anymore.

For those that don't know, back in 2002 Capcom released a remake of Resident Evil 1 for the Nintendo Gamecube and it wasn't just a straight up port of the original game, oh god no.  Resident Evil on the Gamecube, which people used to called REMake was Resident Evil 1 on fucking steroids.  The graphics were overhauled like crazy and looked fucking beautiful and they tweaked the game play a little bit for the new version.  On top of that they added a bunch of extra shit to the game so even veterans of the PS1 classic had something new to experience, it was awesome.

So then ReREMake comes along and while I'm not particularly angry about it like I was with The Last of Us Remastered, it still seems completely fucking pointless.  It's not too expensive but on Steam ReREMake will set you back £15 which is a fair price I guess for a game like this.  That said, Amazon UK have the Gamecube version going for prices as low as £6.50 and nearly every motherfucker I ever met had a Gamecube so why not just go dust that off and save yourself £10.  For me in Japan, I can walk round the corner and get the PS1 version in any used game shop ever for 100 fucking yen so trying to justify a £15 purchase for a game I've already played a million times is kind of hard.

Still though, while it seems a little pointless I'm not mad about it for a few reasons.  First, even if every motherfucker did have a Gamecube that doesn't mean they kept it so those who are lamenting their stupid decision finally have a chance to give REMake another go, the game IS 13 years old to be fair.   The second reason I'm not angry is that if ReREMake does well, I hope it sends a message to Capcom about the kind of Resident Evil people want. 

Capcom have had a bad habit for a good while of just taking Resident Evil and making it progressively worse by releasing shitty versions of Resident Evil 4.  I'm hoping that this will send a message not only to Capcom but to other developers is that the kind of survival horror games that real fans of the genre want is shit like this.  None of this Amnesia-esque no combat bullshit, real survival horror games like we had back in the day.

Admittedly I'm going to buy it because my Gamecube and copy are stuck at my family home and I'm halfway across the world so thanks, I guess.  Still though, it does feel a little like a shitty cashgrab by playing on nostalgia but I guess I'll forgive you this time.

Speed Running

With the end of the great Speed Demos Archive charity marathon, I thought I'd take a brief moment to talk about Speed Running.

Even though this sort of thing seems like basic knowledge to me, I know a staggering amount of people who don't really know what speed running is all about.  Speed Running, as you can probably tell from the name, is the art of beating a game as quickly as possible.  Some people have asked me "how can it possibly be fun to play a game like that?" Well, it's not exactly the kind of thing you can do the first time round, so you still get to experience the game as is on your first go.  The fun comes from trying to figure out tricks to shave that time down.  It might be something as simple as finding the most efficient way to move the character, or something really awesome like going out of the game boundaries.

The most awesome thing I saw on the stream was a guy who beat Ocarina of Time in 22 minutes by fooling the game into placing him in the final encounter after the first dungeon.  It required an immense amount of technical knowledge and it was super impressive to see pulled off right before my eyes.

My Speed Running experience however, is rather limited.  I tried to put one together for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, but gave up due to my move to Japan.  That said, I've been thinking about putting a run together on Biohazard with a friend just for the funsies, so maybe one day you'll get to see how that turns out.

In short, speed running is awesome, look up some videos!

The Universal Studios Halloween Thing

Well after spending about a day recovering from the walk-a-thon that was my trip to Osaka, it's time to start telling you good people about what this stuff was like.

So I figured since this is a gaming blog, and not a Japan blog, I'd start with the Resident Evil themed stuff and do the other stuff later. 

So first lets start with some bad news, I missed the Resident Evil show thing.  Now this doesn't mean I missed everything Resident Evil related, there was plenty of that going on, but they had a show scheduled to start at 6pm inside the building where they do the Terminator 3D movie thing.  So I rolled up about 30 mins early, thinking I'd get in line for it before other people, and by the time we got there, it was full capacity, and they only do 1 show a day.

But, since it's in the Terminator building, I can go and assume that it's a 3D movie, that involves actors on stage, probably fighting a Tyrant.  If anyone knows EXACTLY what goes down in there, put it in a comment or throw me an e-mail or something, I'd like to know.

The closest I got

Well, albeit a little disappointed, all was not lost.  Not getting into this thing meant we were able to hit the queue early for the restaurant nearby that was doing the Resident Evil themed menu!

I'll put up some more pictures of the food at the bottom of the post, but it tasted pretty good.  I ordered both the drinks as well since I had to try everything.  The mixed herb drink was this soda water thing, where the staff gave you a vial of red herb and let you choose between another vial for a green herb or a blue herb.  Being really tired at that point from the day at the park, I went for the green herb and it tasted pretty good, was sort of fruity.  The Berkin G drink was a whiskey highball (whiskey and soda water) that had a piece of liche in it, made to look like William Berkins eye after he took the G virus. (More food pics at the bottom)

This is where the whole eye in the drink thing comes from

Once we had finished eating and got back outside, shit had popped off.  The area of the park near the restaurant had become this Resident Evil themed show type thing, with various monsters such as Nemesis and a Hunter walking around on a stage.  There was also zombies shambling around the crowd, scaring the shit out of unsuspecting onlookers.

Occasionally, the on-stage monsters would hop down and start terrorising people too

The zombies were all over the park, changing attire as you got near the different rides, so near Waterworld they were all in scuba gear and so on.  This idea for a "show" or was actually pretty good, since the zombies were in the crowd, people would start panicking when accidentally bumping into other guests, so the whole thing was really fucking with people.  On top of the zombies, there was a RE2 Claire Redfield running around too trying to gun down would-be attackers of the crowd

The last thing to mention about the Resident Evil stuff was the big projection they had on one of the walls.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the city area from the start of Resident Evil 3. 

So that's about it really for the Resident Evil stuff, there was some other stuff going on around the park but that was all full capacity too and the wait times for the "horror versions" of the rides were insane, and riding one of them would have resulted in us being late for the Shinkansen.

I'll throw up some more pictures, and right at the bottom I'll put a video up too! Enjoy!

Jill was milling around too

The Berkin Drink

Full HP

Supposed to be a brain

Hunter

Licker, Really hard to get a good picture due to distance and crowd confusion

 VIDEO!

Going to Osaka! and some more Panzer Dragoon!

OK! So tomorrow morning I'm going to be getting up bright and early and fucking off to Osaka for a while.  While I'm gone, I don't think I'll have access to an internet connection so I won't be able to make posts for about 2 days, but when I get back you can probably expect pictures and stuff.

While I'm there I'll be hitting up Universal Studios where they are doing their super scary Resident Evil thing

This should be interesting, so even if you give zero fucks about Osaka, there is still going to be something gaming related upon my return!

Also, I have 3 new parts of my Panzer Dragoon Saga Playthrough but there is some audio syncing problems.  Basically,  FFSplit, the recording software, got an update and started recording in MP4 instead of FLV.  This, for some reason, caused everything to fuck up and now it's all out of sync.  I spent a while working on it to re sync it, but I couldn't get it perfect in the end, I'm just not good enough at editing yet.

Well, here they are anyway, it's not THAT bad.

Resident Evil 6, What The Hell?!

I love me some Resident Evil, but never have I seen a game have such polarising scores across so many different websites before.

So I'm going to make one thing clear, I have not yet played this game, so this isn't a review, this is merely speculation from a fan after seeing all the crap that's being thrown around.

After watching a review and scouring youtube for some gameplay footage, to me, this game looks pretty bad.  It's not completely bad, but from what I've seen it has QTE's and cutscenes coming out the arse which is already a bad sign, but what really makes it look bad is the vastly different gameplay styles between the 4 campaigns. 

Note: I don't think games with cutscenes are bad, it looks like RE6 has a few too many though

Just in case anyone doesn't know, the game follows 4 different lead characters, and each lead has a different style of gameplay.  For example, Leon's campaign is more survival horrorish, which Chris's is a bit more RE5 style military shooter type thing.  The problem with this is that it looks like the game has spread itself too thin and delivers 4 mediocre experiences rather than just 1 really fucking good one.

But that's just how it looks to me, a couple of publications have given it really good scores, and a couple have given it really bad ones.  The user scores on Metacritic are something like 0.4 but I wouldn't say that they were the most reliable things in the world to be honest with you.

I'm still going to pick it up (and Racoon City, even though I know it's pretty bad) and judge it for myself, I'm not one for blindly trusting scores on the big websites, but after seeing some gameplay footage and reading the reviews, the excitement is all gone.