First Impressions: I Am Alive (XBLA)

[wpspoiler name=”First Impressions vs. Reviews” ]First Impressions are based on demos while Reviews are based on entire games.[/wpspoiler]

I Am Alive tells the story of a man who spent over a year crossing the ruins of a ravaged country to get back home to his family. He’s practical and cautious, prepared with just enough of the right tools and abilities.

Gameplay is also practical and cautious with just the right amount of badassery.

Ubisoft makes such a wide variety of games from Farcry to Rayman so depending on how you’ve personally interacted with Ubisoft, this gritty, post-apocalyptic, personal journey might be something to add to the deck of awesome or something very unexpected but still very awesome. Continue reading “First Impressions: I Am Alive (XBLA)”

You May Now RAGE on a Mac

Why you’re trying to game on a Mac is beyond me, BUT if you choose to do that, you are now free to play RAGE on your fancy show piece[1. Think someone might not be a Mac person…?].

RAGE is the post-apocalyptic wasteland first person shooter complete with mutants and bandits and dune buggy races, oh my. Bethesda Softworks announced via a press release that the standard RAGE: Campaign Edition will come with features that were previously, on other consoles, only available in the special RAGE: Anarchy Edition:

In RAGE: Campaign Edition you will take on bandit gangs and hordes of mutants with an arsenal of exotic weapons and special items, such as Wingsticks, personal turrets, sentry bots, and remote-controlled bomb cars as you play through the game’s full unaltered single-player campaign. The Mac version will also include bonus equipment formerly exclusive to the RAGE Anarchy Edition, including a Double Barrel Shotgun, the Rat Rod Buggy, Fists of RAGE and Crimson Elite Armor. You’ll also have access to the Wasteland Sewers Missions which feature additional mutant blasting gameplay and looting opportunities.

Luckily for Mac gamers, this isn’t just a port from one system to another. id software worked with Aspyr to ensure that the game was just as good on the Mac as it is on real gaming platforms[2 Why are we encouraging them? They can’t even right-click.].

“Aspyr has been a great partner, bringing id Software’s games to the Mac platform for years,” said Todd Hollenshead, President of id Software.  “We’ve worked closely with them again to offer the amazing graphics and intense combat that RAGE is famous for to Mac gamers.”

It’s a video!

Keeping the (post-apocalyptic) romance alive

With Valentine’s Day being last week and my post about the Love Machine app going up last Wednesday, I’ve been thinking about love and romance and relationships and all that other sappy stuff. And seriously, it’s hard enough keeping up with the romance now, in the pre-apocalypse, when we still have Hallmark and Godiva chocolates for those moments when we screw up.

It’s going to be really hard in the post apocalypse, when we won’t have any of those romantic crutches to help us out. So what are we to do?

I’m going to move forward from here assuming that you’ve already covered the basics. That is, you’ve found a love interest, you’ve gone on your first date, and you’re maintaining a healthy relationship. If you’re not doing these things, then this post can’t really help you, because chances are you don’t have a romance to keep alive. (Of course, I could be wrong, but that’s the general assumption.)

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3 Things I really want to do post-apocalypse.

So, it turns out Tavia really wants to loot your house. I don’t blame her, you know.

I’m a pretty law abiding person, really. Not perfect- I know for a fact there are laws I’ve broken (I am not stupid enough to admit which ones in a public place) but in general I follow the law and have a positive opinion of the police.

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However, I’ll admit there are a lot of laws and rules I keep to simply because I don’t want to get put in prison. 

When the Apocalypse happens, you’d better bet I am going to take the chance.

Continue reading “3 Things I really want to do post-apocalypse.”

The end of the world: There's a magazine for that

Last week I was putzing around Target shopping for clothes for my kids. I took a detour through the books and magazines because this is what I do every shopping trip. I don’t normally find anything–local stores never carry the magazines I want to read (Discover, Astronomy, that sort of thing) and I’m a digital reader (I love my Kindle) so I don’t get many paperbacks.

But THIS time, I struck gold. And because I’m always thinking about the apocalypse in some form or another (usually because I’m looking for possible topics to write about), my brain somehow found this one magazine, even though it was sitting in the back of the stacks.

It’s called 2012 End of the World.

I kid you not.

I’m still trying to find ways to show you guys pictures without getting a copyright violation suit slapped on me and ICoS, so you’ll have to wait a bit for screenshots. I was thinking of doing an end-times collage (using images from this and other magazines)…would that be a copyright violation? It would be a piece of art (and I use the term “art” loosely).

Anyway. I’m going to give you an overview of the magazine. And, you know, review it. Because I read this shit so you don’t have to.

WARNING: HERE BE SNARKERY. AND LENGTH.

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Non-Essential But Awesome Skills To Learn Before The Apocalypse

I have mad skills when it comes to Microsoft Excel. I can cook a mean dinner. And, I’m somehow capable of folding a fitted sheet without using curse words or outside tools. None of these skills will help me survive anything outside of a housewifeing contest or the cubical wastelands — everyday life.

I was watching Ninja Warrior and I realized, there are some serious skills that are mostly useless in everyday life but would be insanely useful in apocalyptic life. Continue reading “Non-Essential But Awesome Skills To Learn Before The Apocalypse”

Marvel Zombies Issue #1

Marvel Zombies Issue 1Marvel Zombies issue #1 was surprisingly pretty boring.

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It wasn’t the most boring thing I’ve ever read or watched about zombies but there sure was a lot of chatting for a superhero-zombie mash up.

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The issue was mostly chatting actually.

All the zombie superheroes literally just sit around discussing their zombiehood: what it means for their powers, how it impacts the world, how they might survive, who else might have survived. For pages, they just casually converse with almost the exact same personalities and intellect that they’ve been known for. They might be slightly dumber and extremely hungry. That’s also a big conversation subject; everyone is so very hungry all the time.

The thing is, due to their intellect and the casual way they go on and on about their hunger, they come across and whiney and lazy. Continue reading “Marvel Zombies Issue #1”

Arming the children

So last week, I talked about post-apocalypse gift ideas for children. Because, you know, Christmas is coming up, and I’m sure everyone has thought about buying gifts at some point in the last couple of weeks. Those who haven’t will think about it sometime soon, but probably not until Christmas Eve, because everybody knows that’s the best day to go Christmas shopping. Particularly at 4:57 p.m., but only if the store closes at 5:00. (Yes, I used to work retail. On Christmas Eve. And Boxing Day.)

Anyway. Torture of salespeople aside, let’s think about gift-giving in the post apocalypse. Well, let’s think about it again.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve given ideas about basic, and hopefully practical, gift ideas. What I haven’t really covered are the really important things. Like weapons (I’m not even going to touch food). I’d say you could give any of the weapons I’ll list here to your children. In fact, if you don’t want your kids to be hauling assault rifles around a post-apocalyptic landscape (I sure as hell don’t), these might be the great alternatives.

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Gifts for the post-apocalypse

I’m not going to comment on the sanity (or lack thereof) of the Black Friday shopping madness, and I might be a relatively new resident of the U.S., but I think it’s pretty safe to say that the holiday shopping season has begun. (Typed as I sit at my computer, switching back and forth between this document and Amazon.com’s Cyber Monday Deals Week page. See? Even my Canadian self isn’t immune to the post-American Thanksgiving shopping hype.)

What does Black Friday have to do with the apocalypse? That is, aside from possibly causing the world to collapse in on itself under the weight of a million rioting shoppers, thus causing the apocalypse? Nothing really, other than the fact that it had me wondering what gift-giving will be like in the post apocalypse.

I’ve seen a few of the gift-giving guides that pop up this time of year, and I thought to myself, “Hmm…there should be one of those for the post-apocalypse survivor!” I mean, at some point in time people are going to start celebrating birthdays, apocalypse survival holidays, the rise of the dictator days, etc. etc. It’s best to be prepared with a list of gift-giving possibilities, right?

Of course, most of these items come from apocalypse survival gear lists, but seriously, they make great gifts, too. Sure, the average survivor will probably have most of these already, but things wear out and break. Other things get lost. Other things will get stolen. So when your favorite people need replacement survival items…it’s gift-giving time! (Of course, I highly suggest stocking up on these items now, while we still have time.)

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The post-apocalypse dinner party

As most of you probably know, American Thanksgiving is only a few days away. This is my first Thanksgiving in the U.S.; it’s also the first Thanksgiving where I’m required to do the cooking myself (sadly, there’s no one around to do the cooking for me, since my family–namely my mother–is still in snowy, wintry Canada).

Now that I have to think about making a slightly fancier dinner for my hubby and kids, I (of course) got to thinking about dinner parties in the apocalypse. What will those by like?

Obviously, I’m not saying that survivors will be hosting dinner parties immediately after the world ends. No, no. I don’t think people will have get togethers like these until, oh, I don’t know…

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Not until people are settled into survival camps and a defensive perimeter is set up, anyway.

But at some point, someone’s going to want to play with a zombie pinata (and so will other people), so you might end up with a dinner party anyway. And it might become a Thanksgiving dinner, though not because of the arrival of the first pilgrims. You’ve got something else to be thankful for now–you surivived the apocalypse!
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