The one that sticks out the most in my mind is the song “Cold Contagious” by Bush. I mentioned this whole mess in the Special Place in My Heart – Myst post a good while back — it was 1996 and both Myst: The Book of Ti’ana and Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase were released. My Dad would go into the office he worked in on the weekends to get some stuff done and if I wasn’t sitting around looking at Sailor Moon and Gundam Wing pictures on the internet, I was back in the room of empty cubicles. I remember using my coat as a pillow and curling up on the desk of a cubicle in the back corner with The Book of Ti’ana in my face and Razorblade Suitcase playing on my headphones which of course, were connected to my portable cd player (so fancy!). I occasionally associate the whole album with the book, but “Cold Contagious” always really stood out because it had a certain sound and a certain feel. In the most basic of terms regarding the plot (it is very twisty and complicated but I will try to keep it simple and vague, in case you ever read it): there is a giant society and a giant city and in a turn of events (backstabbing, betraying, she’s so different we’re supposed to be a secret get her out, etc.) this giant city falls and it falls hard. So “Cold Contagious” always brings me straight to that nest I made on the desk and under the cabinets of that cubicle and straight to the fall of a city full of people who could write other worlds. I could be driving, I could be at work, I could be at my sewing machine – but if that song comes on, that’s where my mind goes every single time.

There are a number of David Bowie songs – and this is totally understandable since it was a whole Bowie thing – that remind me of Worlds Chat, which was a 3-D chat program where you picked an avatar and wandered around different areas, chatting to people if you wanted. I would never really chat with anyone. I would make my 3-D avatar as deliciously gothy as I could and meander around all the different areas. There was a cabin or something, and a garden maze type place – but obviously the best section was the David Bowie section. In 1998, David Bowie created Bowienet, which was an Internet Service Provider. It had its own forums, email and so on – it also gave members early access to new Bowie stuff. My Mom is a HUGE David Bowie fan and jumped on this right away. Worlds was included in this whole shebang, which was why they had a whole Bowie area – for all the Bowie fans to congregate and chat. There was a club, a weird intersection in a city, and a few other locations in this section and each one had a different David Bowie song playing. So if I have my library on repeat and the shuffle function decides to stop on songs like, “Subterraneans” & “Weeping Wall” from Bowie’s Low album, I will instantly think back to my tall, goth, fierce (and kind of blocky) babe and wandering around exploring the corners where other chatters didn’t bother to tread. I feel like I want to write a bigger post on this whole thing one day…

Sometime right around the end of the 90’s I was with my Dad for the weekend and we were helping some friends move. The daughter in the family, Jessica, was out of town for a bit so I stayed in her room in the new house the weekend we were there. A few days before all of this – bum, bum, BUM! — I had found a script to The Lost Boys 2 online. I can’t remember if it was supposedly “legit” or fanmade or what (since there were ALWAYS rumors about a Lost Boys 2 until it appeared in 2008). But I printed that whole beast out and stayed up well into the morning reading the whole thing. Which is embarrassing because it was pretty bad. I kept thinking, “THIS WILL GET AWESOME SOON.” Unfortunately, I had “Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)” from the 1998 Deftones album Around the Fur on repeat just about the whole time I was reading this thing. I mean, fortunately, it was the Deftones, and Around the Fur is still a favorite album of mine – but unfortunately, that song now transports back to Jessica’s bedroom (I can still picture it pretty empty except for the bed and a vanity with a mirror cause they were still moving stuff in– BUT THAT SCRIPT I CAN’T–), with my headphones on, talking to the script about how it could be better. My “edits” were probably just as bad. The most vivid thing I can think of though, was the fact that the vanity was right across the room from the bed so as I sat and read, I would look up occasionally, at my reflection and shake my head a la Jim Halpert like, “Can you believe this shit?”

Two things that certainly don’t go together are Spyro: Year of the Dragon and Vapor Transmission by Orgy. But in October of the year 2000, they both came out. I had also just had my wisdom teeth taken out. So not only, do some of the songs on Vapor Transmission make me suddenly feel like I’m sitting on the couch running around as a purple dragon, but they remind me of sitting on the couch, completely out of it on pain medication, running around as a purple dragon. I would turn Spyro down and play Orgy instead. Did Year of the Dragon even have sound? Was Jay Gordon’s voice there? I don’t know because pain medication.

In 2001, I had discovered Adema and their first, self-titled album. I had also discovered the Twisted Metal series with the always entertaining Twisted Metal: Black that had come out the same year. My sister and I would stay up until 4 a.m. on weekends playing TM:B and we loved every minute of it, even if we were both just riding around one of the stages yelling at people and hitting them – we would especially go after the ones on scooters. I have no idea why. If we weren’t playing TM:B then I was puttering around with Adema’s album on – walking to the bus stop, writing, sitting on the computer – always Adema. They always tried to avoid the nu-metal label, which was popular and thrown around a lot at the beginning of the century, I always considered them some sort of rock – but hey, I was a fan of some nu-metal. As long as it wasn’t screaming the whole time and I could groove to it, I was good. Whatever Adema was, I was in love with that self-titled album. Since I was eating that and TM:B up every free moment of my life, it’s obvious I would put the two together now, but there was another underlying reason, I think. The Adema album had its share of angry songs (which I still love to this day – “Freaking Out” is still a go-to song for me and my husband to put on and scream along with ahahhahahahhhah) and Twisted Metal: Black was a very angry and dark game. And I was all about that. I had never played any of the Twisted Metal games before so I had nothing to go off of regarding gameplay, stories, and characters. I just remember starting the storyline with my sister watching, picking Raven as the first story to play through, and demolition derby-ing every other vehicle in my way. We ended up playing through the story mode as every single character to see their storylines. Some were satisfying, like Raven’s, others made us want to rip our hair out and sob… Agent Stone’s timeloop? NOOOOOO. Basically, I can’t hear any song from this album without heading back to Midtown and the residents (and drivers) of Blackfield Asylum.

For some reason — I have no idea how the hell this happened — it just happened to be the right timeframe and place. I got a little tired of listening to the… noise? Music? I can’t even remember — in Yoda Stories. I started listening to the recently (at that time) released self-titled Third Eye Blind album. That’s all I remember about this. Singing along to Third Eye Blind and wandering around with my favorite Star Wars characters. THIRD EYE BLIND = YODA STORIES FOREVER TO ME NOW. I DON’T KNOW.

These are only some of the instances where this happens to me and it happens all the time because if I can manage where ever I am, I will be listening to music. Do you have any songs that bring you back to a book, comic, game, movie, etc.? Let me know on Twitter — I love hearing people’s stories about this kind of stuff, hehe.

One of them caught my eye though. It was called Revelations: Persona and the logo was written in this red, badass font. There were a couple of screenshots and images of a few of the characters. The only one I definitely remember seeing was Reiji (who was known as Chris in the North American translation) and I absolutely fell in love with him right then. He’s wearing no shirt under his school uniform jacket and a collar with a giant chain on it??? HOW COULD I NOT LOVE HIM? Hehehe. Well, Persona was nowhere to be found in my Blockbuster… so I knew it would be my quest to find it somewhere else.

This was before games (and so many other things) were easily accessible (Amazon having everything in the world, Gamestops on every corner, etc.) so I could have ordered it from a few different sites on the internet but I would’ve paid way more than my middle-schooler budget would allow. Fast-forward a couple of months to a vacation I took with my family to Florida. We hit up a giant flea market near the town I was born in and I found a huge table of all kinds of video games. LO AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS REVELATIONS: PERSONA FOR THE PLAYSTATION. I bought it for about $20, which was much more reasonable than what I would have paid online, and when we returned home after vacation, I threw that baby in the PSX and was on my way to Lunarvale! (That was the city’s name in the original NA release okay hahahah)

I adored the game overall, even with the questionable translation issues, the choice to leave out a whole giant sidequest and some of the odd changes they made for the North American version — and I think it’s because Persona was my first real foray into what else games — especially RPGs — could be. I had played Final Fantasy VII, which was my introduction to the genre and had picked some others up here and there afterward, but they all had that sort of “fantasy” flare. FFVII did have some futuristic elements (I LOVE YOU, MIDGAR) but overall it leaned towards fantasy for me and I had always been a fan of things that Revelations: Persona actually pulled into their games. Alternate universes, occult-related backstories, people’s own inner demons…… aaaaand contacting enemies by dancing seductively for them! One of my absolute favorite aspects of the game was the soundtrack. I was used to sprawling epic fantasy-ish tracks — which were always good, but never exactly my taste (that’s not to say I didn’t like them, but I wouldn’t listen to them as much as other game soundtracks). Persona though, I was floored when I heard the music.

The battle theme got a little repetitive due to the number of random encounters (did I mention Revelations: Persona was long and got kind of difficult in spots — when I finally beat it, I wrote on the plastic cup I was drinking out of at the time: PERSONA CUP! And then the date and time I beat the game.) but so many of the other songs made up for it (not to say the battle theme is bad, I love it — but I heard it SO MANY TIMES) and I’ve listened to them hundreds of times by now. They helped to create the exact weird/unsettling atmosphere of the game that I love so much and were just a style I had never heard before in a game — I mean, some of the tracks were downright creepy. Others were positively gorgeous and some made me want to dance — it was just a mix of everything I love. The soundtrack was written by Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Misaki Okibe, and Shoji Meguro (who would continue composing works for the series from Persona 3 on) and is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time.

I asked for the soundtrack for Christmas one year (it was an import so I didn’t expect to get it — I guess my mom realized how obsessed I was with the game) and fell in love with it even more. It had a number of songs on it I had never heard because of the omission of a big sidequest in the North American release so it was like I was hearing it for the first time all over again!

Below are some of my favorite tracks — if I don’t just start linking them I’m gonna go even crazier rambling about how much I love the whole thing and then never get there.

• Opening
• Black Snow
• INVASION (Subway & Nemesis Tower Theme)
• Touching Unhappiness
• Hypnos Tower & Castle Mana Theme
• MAJIN… FOREVER (Police Station Theme)
• Ice Castle Dungeon (yessssss)
• A Girl at the Window (Hospital Theme)
• Monochrome (School Theme 2)
• God Taker
• 1000 of Ri Moles (Karma Palace Theme)
• A City, Sebek
• City 1 Post-Disaster
• City 2 Darkness
• Pandora’s Battle (i still have nightmares about this)
• Hospital (After Disaster)
• Deva Yuga
• Electric Brain Travel
• Thanatos Tower
• Elly’s Theme (*INCOHERENT SCREAMING RE: MY LOVE FOR THIS SONG*)
• Reiji’s Theme
• Yukino’s Theme
• Reminiscence ~ Departure (<3333)

And I couldn’t leave out the Velvet Room theme.

AND SPECIAL SHOUTOUT TO THE PHARMACY SONG TOO, OF COURSE.

When the game was re-released for the PSP in 2009, a lot of the songs were remixed, redone completely, or scrapped for new songs. It was a great soundtrack (and an amazing remake/port of the original game — especially keeping with a lot more of the Japanese ideas/names/etc. from the original) but it never reached the level of love I had for the original soundtrack from the ’96 Revelations: Persona. I think it was because that game and the music had such an impact on me that it will always hold its own special place in my fandom heart.

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

MILD FALLOUT 4 SPOILERS!!! (They’re from the beginning of the game. I wanted to mark them though, just in case.)

So the one year anniversary of Fallout 4′s release date is coming up soon – coincidentally so is my one year wedding anniversary. I got married to Nate, the other half of zhobot.net, on October 31st of 2015 and during our honeymoon, Fallout 4 was released.

I had been waiting for the announcement of Fallout 4 for so long, with every hoax concerning it breaking my heart a little more, and when it was finally officially announced in the summer of 2015 (with a release date of ONLY MERE MONTHS LATER) – I, of course, flipped the hell out. Nate asked repeatedly if we should change the dates of our honeymoon so that I could be home to play the day it was released. We had already booked just about everything so as much as I wanted Fallout 4, I knew it would be waiting for me when we got home – plus changing all that shit would’ve been a hassle/added fees/etc. so a few extra days of waiting would be okay since I had already been waiting however long.

Anyways, while we were in California (this is where we honeymooned – I had never been and he had only been a couple of times for short business trips), we saw Fallout 4 billboards constantly and it just served to get me hyped That Much More. Then we got home AND THERE THE BOX WAS, WAITING.

The main idea behind this post though: I read a number of reviews that said it was kind of questionable and/or odd that we were supposed to care about the spouse of our character, who we watch get killed in the first few minutes of the game. Sure, there’s some cute banter between them at the start, yadda yadda, but whatever, right?

I can safely say that I was just about mortified watching what played out in Vault 111. That might have been different if it had been released any other time.

I’m not gonna get into any ~teh power of luv~ and shit on that level, but I had just returned from my honeymoon, which had followed a wedding where I married I dude who I felt something for that I had never felt in my life. I don’t know where I’d be mentally, physically or emotionally if I had never met Nate and to watch my player character – who I named Heather – wake up from cryosleep to helplessly watch her son get kidnapped and her husband (who is named Nate by default) get shot – PARDON MY LANGUAGE: but it fucked me up a little. It also happened near Halloween (which was mentioned in their cute banter before Shit Went Down), which – like I said above – was the day we got married. MY FEELINGS.

So I totally understand why people say that being able to care for your character’s spouse in such a short period of time before they’re killed might not work that well, but Fallout 4 came out just at the right time in my life for me to really care and for that part to rip out my heart and shred it to bits while it cackled the whole time.

Plus, when your player character wakes up, you can open the cryopod your spouse is in and get their wedding ring (I kept both of them in my inventory the whole time – they are both still there and Heather is still wearing hers). And you can visit Vault 111 whenever you want and still see their body. In fact, companions will comment on it when they’re with you and you go to the cryopod.

Nick Valentine’s “Now that’s not… oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.” RUINS ME EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME.

And to rub it all in, Nate said if he got killed in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, he would be fine with me and Nick Valentine being a thing.

BUT I STILL. CAN’T. ROMANCE. NICK VALENTINE.

FALLOUT 4, PLEASE? I NEED NICK VALENTINE.

So in closing, Fallout 4 gives me feels and that is why. There we go, that felt good to ramble about, haha.

(P.S. I would love to go to Nuka World for real. Well, pre… everything.)

A game that has quickly shot to the single digits of our TOP GAMES EVER list, Layers of Fear is an atmospheric and detailed romp through a man’s manor and mind as he tries to finish painting his magnum opus. Today marks the release of the first story DLC for the game (the actual first one — which was more an event than a DLC — was an amazing Halloween addition that was only up for a little while), entitled Layers of Fear: Inheritance, which follows the painter and his late wife’s daughter. We’ve only watched the trailers that have been released and even though spoilers are everywhere right at this moment, we’re waiting until tonight to fire the DLC up for ourselves. We figure while we wait for the sun to set, we can share why we love the base game So Damn Much.

Nate: I love this game, plain and simple. Some claim it’s a rip-off of P.T., but you could only get that impression if you watched half of the trailer while doing something else and/or not paying attention. Yes, it clearly takes inspiration from P.T., particularly in the appearance of the main antagonist (or is she???). But like the name of the game suggests, it adds layers upon layers of rich storytelling and visual artistry to the P.T. “formula”.  There is an excellent balance of sad, strange, and endearing moments to balance out the moments of pants-shitting horror. But you have to work for these, they won’t be doled out on a silver platter. You’re rewarded for exploring every nook and cranny, picking up every item, and just observing the situation without mindlessly bounding on to the next room. In fact, some of these observations are what lead to the most pants-shitting moments of all, in my opinion, versus some of the more obvious jump scares.

Heather: This game intrigued me because I was still bitter and sad about the loss of Silent Hills (I always will be) when I first heard about it. We got the game during early access and finished the part of it that was available then, both of us really pumped for the whole release afterward. It didn’t disappoint and we’ve played it four times now, finding new things each time we do. I love that the basic story is there, on the surface, but to get the details you actually need to dig. You could skip right over so many of the letters to and from the main character to others (publishers, friends, companies, etc.), but more importantly (and friggin’ HEARTBREAKINGLY) you could easily miss letters between the painter and his wife (or are they?)… It’s in these pieces you collect where the deeper issues of the story show themselves. You can see the downward spiral that this relationship spins into and how it takes everything around it with it to hell. Below are some of the things you can find here and there. I used some of the tame ones before things really went south. ALSO, THE SHOPPING LIST. GOODNESS, SON.

Nate: Let’s talk about jump scares for a bit, as they are one of the more polarizing features of horror games. Lots of games do this wrong by making them seemingly random, not drawing out the tension for long enough, making improper use of sound, or hell, just having TOO DAMN MANY OF THEM! Layers of Fear mostly avoids this trend by using them sparingly and uniquely throughout your playthrough. I’d love to give examples but that’d be spoiling some of the fantastic firsthand experiences.

Heather: And when they are used, it’s not just for fun or for the hell of it. This painter’s mind is not all there so you expect lots of things when nothing happens and then when you think you’re safe, that’s when things happen. I also appreciate that one of the endings to the game steers you directly into the path– directly into the arms of the jump scares and even when you know it’s coming, it’s still creepy. You have to have the painter willingly torture himself with this to achieve one of the three endings and I appreciate the crap out of that, especially because it reminds me of one of my all-time (actually my #1 of all time) favorite games, Silent Hill 2.

Nate: Putting the horror element aside for a bit, the game stands on its own as an excellent surreal adventure game as well. The world around you is constantly changing, often before your eyes! This is one of the most unique things about the game: it can range from entire room transformation to subtle inception style visual tricks. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to take hallucinogens in the Victorian era, good news, LoF simulates this quite well!

Heather: I’m hyped for this DLC, especially since it should answer more questions about the story! Even with all the letters and things that we found in all of our playthroughs, there are still some unanswered questions that could have a little light shed on them. I was always curious about what happened to the daughter, so this should at least answer those! (And maybe the Halloween update will be added again this year!)

Basically, if you’re a horror fan, this game is a great addition to the genre and you should check it out! We’ll go crazy and paint with things that are not paint and possibly might come from a human body and freak out play the DLC in the meantime.

We were finally able to finish up the last details on our Hotline Miami 2 costumes and bring them to MAGFest Classic! We got some awesome photos– in the heat! And humidity! Really, it was so effing hot but we adore all of the photos that came out of this shoot so it was worth it. I also got a leg workout while holding an ~almost action pose~ (it was done both with and without the mask and she could feel sweat dripping down her face SERIOUSLY IT WAS HOT ALSO LONG PANTS AND JACKET WHY COREY HOW– YOU ARE A GODDESS). You can see those and more shots from this set on our Hotline Miami costume page!

Thanks to Denis for getting the photos above and Roger of Monki Makr for getting the one below!

Yes, it’s true. It’s finally true. At E3, there was an announcement that Final Fantasy VII was getting a remake. There’s always the rumor every year and this year it can no longer be a rumor. I loved the reactions from people almost as much as I loved the announcement and I actually reacted way more strongly than I thought I would. I kept looking at Nate through the first 80% of the video saying “It can’t be. No. Nope. Not getting my hopes up nope.” and when I could see Barret’s arm and then Cloud’s buster sword and magical hair I basically flipped my shit and started shrieking something unintelligible. I had already gotten the Fallout 4 announcement which was an overload of YES PLEASE and now this? YES PLEASE, BRING IT.

As much as I love the other Final Fantasy games I’ve played, I think Final Fantasy VII actually has to be my favorite. IX is a very, very close second. But when I think about it, VII is always the one I mention first in conversations about the series.

“Ugh, gross. VII is everyone’s favorite.” Yeah, jump on the bandwagon, yadda yadda yadda.

“It’s really not that good of a game. Go back and play it without your nostalgia goggles.” You know, I might try. But I can’t take my nostalgia goggles off for this game. It’s not just the actual game I love, but Final Fantasy VII was a turning point in my life and also made me realize a lot of the sort of things I loved aesthetically. “Turning point? For what? Liking crappy popular games?” I’M DONE ARGUING WITH YOU, INTERNET-SELF. STFU.

Let me start by sharing the personal significance of this game. When FF7 came out, my father and stepmother were living up in Virginia (they moved to Florida when I graduated high school) along with my stepbrother and little stepsister. I would go and stay with them every other weekend and was in my early teens so I was in that phase of, “DON’T TALK TO ME I JUST WANT TO BE ON THE INTERNET, JEEZ” – although I guess I’m still in there so it must not be a phase. ANYWAYS.

My stepbrother, Josh, was about 9 months younger than me – give-or-take a day or two – and we were both into things of the geek-type but no geeky interest really crossed over to both of us. I had played a lot of computer games in the 90’s (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, Kings Quest, etc.) and there was a Nintendo in my household when I was younger. I loved that Nintendo and I loved everything I played on my best friend’s Super Nintendo but I never had or played a console after that. I knew about them, was mildly interested in them, but was still all about my point-and-click adventures — which, don’t get me wrong, I still love today.

I remember being in some chatroom on AOL (Myst chat, some random RP chatroom, it was usually something ridiculous with me, of course) and then deciding that I was hungry. I remember saying bye to all the internet pals I was chatting to and leaving the room the computer was in, which exited into the living room. Josh was sitting on the couch with his Playstation on and was completely engrossed in whatever he was playing. When I looked at the screen, I remember seeing a green expanse for a moment before he got in a fight with some giant snake thing (that was the Midgar Zolom, by the way) and was ready to head towards the kitchen when I heard, “Hold up. You gotta see this.”

I remember sighing and looking back at the television. He had Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris in his party while fighting the giant snake thing Midgar Zolom (don’t test me, I know my ZOLOM). “What do I have to see?”

“See this chick in pink? She’s kind of annoying. I think you’d hate her.”

“So? What do I have to see then? Why would I want to see something that annoys me?”

“She dies in the game later. So…”

Josh knew how I felt about things that really annoyed me. I was also intrigued by the fact that this magical, pink-clad healer lady with the shiny, pretty stick and the giant fabulous bangs was gonna bite it. Would a game really kill a character like that?

I had nothing else to do except grab a snack so I got something and planted my ass down on the giant sectional that took up most of the living room of the townhouse they had lived in at that point in time. The sectional was light grey with speckles of black and splotches of pink, green and blue. Do you know how I remember this? We spent hours (added up to days) on that thing – him playing and me watching. We dropped so many crumbs of all kinds of unhealthy but amazing snacks in between those cushions. He started the game over that first day I sat down so I could see Midgar.

(An aside here – I absolutely am in love with Midgar. The look of it, the idea of it, the Sectors, the Plates, Shinra – everything. And shit, that place was horrible. But those little touches of life and hope around it elevated it to this place in my head. That was the kind of universe I wanted to read about. That was the kind of universe I wanted to write about. That was where my love affair with all things dystopia began. To this day if you ask me my favorite place in a video game I will tell you right off the bat, “Midgar, Silent Hill, Rapture, The Capital Wasteland, Los Santos and Myst Island — did you want more than that? Oh, you only wanted one? Sorry, my bad.”

Not only did I love Midgar, but I zoned in on Wall Market – also Shinra’s HQ GOODNESS GRACIOUS BE STILL MY HEART, YOU PRECIOUS JERKS. But everything about Wall Market – Cloud in a dress, the Honeybee Inn, The Golden Shiny Wire of Hope, doing squats, EVERYTHING. And one of the things I hope with this remake is that a lot of that is still included. Reading interviews and such, it seems like there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing some of this. Which basically just makes me more excited.)

I remember one night – or early morning, as it was somewhere around 3am – we were so furious at Chocobo breeding that we were cursing up a storm. Now, if my father and stepmother heard us we’d for sure get a look and possibly a, “Hey now, come on. Language.” But they were asleep so it was chugging soda, eating chip crumbs and cookies and throwing out, “ANOTHER FUCKING BLUE CHOCOBO? DAMN IT RESET THE GAME, FUCK THIS.” When we woke up well into the afternoon and were asked why we were still so tired my answer was just a hiss, “Chocobos.” My dad had no idea wtf I was talking about. CHOCOBOS, DAD. CHOCOBOS.

We went through Midgar (“NO, NO. YOU NEED CLOUD IN THE BIKINI BRIEFS.”), the beginning of Cloud’s backstory (OR IS IT?!!*(!^#@*(@!), all the fabulous riches of Junon like the Parade mini-game, THE GOLD SAUCER (if Midgar wasn’t in this game you would be my number one, baby), Red XIII’s beautiful Cosmo Canyon home, Nibelheim (yes thank you Josh for bothering to get Vincent – he knew I would like Vincent – VALENTINE WAS OUR MAN), Sit your ass down in that chair and drink your goddamn TEA!, the END OF DISC ONE (he was right too – I was not really a fan of Aeris and Josh made sure to catch my expression when Sephiroth delivered the blow), oh my god do we have knights of the round yet?, did I just get my materia stolen?, snowboarding, the second round of fabulous riches in Junon like the slap-fight, Chocobo racing, running away shrieking from the Ruby/Diamond/Emerald Weapons, oh my god do we have to sit through this knights of the round cutscene?, sure yeah let’s jump in this crater, where did his shirt go?, listen to this kickass song, he’s doing some attack– ohhhHHH DO WE HAVE TO SIT THROUGH THIS CUTSCENE EVERY TIME TOO?

I mean, we dumped so much into this game. We weren’t sure what to do when we finished it.

I asked my dad for a Playstation and FF7 for Christmas that year cause I wanted it in my life forever. To my surprise, I actually got a Playstation for Christmas! He got me Sim City 2000 instead of FF7 though. “THIS ONE CAN BE SLIGHTLY EDUCATIONAL. …MAYBE.” He bought Sim City 2000 so he could play it but he didn’t. I got my own copy of the game when I could afford it and it still sits on my video game shelf today. Bright and shiny, all three discs… and that giant instruction manual. I bought the PC version later too. I don’t even remember why but I played through that too. And the box was shaped SO KEWL (sorry, talking about the 90’s brought me back to the 90’s)…

We took occasional trips to visit my Dad’s siblings in Florida and I brought my Playstation with us. Josh and I would play other RPGs – I remember us taking turns level grinding in Persona while sitting on the floor of my aunt’s living room. It wasn’t all fun and games with us though – we were stupid teenagers and we occasionally got on each other’s nerves. Siblings are like that sometimes. I remember coming back from a trip to Florida where he stayed home and hadn’t tagged along with us. Me, my dad, my stepmom, and my stepsister – we got back in the middle of the night after the 14-hour car ride and were all beat. The house was kind of a mess and Josh was nowhere to be found. He also let one of his friends sleep in my bed which was a giant OH NO YOU DIDN’T, THERE IS A FIRE IN MY EYES, CHILD. But most weekends were video games. Video games and going with my dad to his studio to sit on the internet and read about video games and send each other links about video games.

After that, consoles were a thing in my life. Josh and I would talk about video games and that shifted to movies and books and all other glorious geek things. We almost started a Vampire: The Masquerade game. We both had clanbooks – me, Toreador (later Tzimisce, come on, y’all), and him, Assamite. When my dad and stepmom moved to Florida in 2003, so did my stepsister and Josh. We would continue to nerd occasionally about things on AOL when we were both online – sorry, America Online for people who are still wondering what the hell I meant with AOL earlier in this ramble. Although, it might have been AIM (AOL’s jump to straight-up instant messaging) at that point.

In January of 2005, I remember sitting in the basement of my house with my sister. We had all the lights off and we were playing Knights of the Old Republic (we needed a CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE) – I was playing and she was watching. I had my awesome Jedi on the screen in the middle of a conversation when the phone rang. I answered it. It was my dad and he was calling to tell me that Josh had died in a car accident. When I got off the phone with him, I told my sister and went right back to playing Knights of the Old Republic. I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I know I didn’t catch and/or process any of what was going on in Knights of the Old Republic for the rest of the night though.

Every single time since then, when I play a game that hits me particularly hard in some fashion, I always wonder if he would’ve liked it too. BioShock, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Persona 4, Portal, Hotline Miami, Grand Theft Auto V. I don’t know how long I would’ve stalled before jumping into consoles if it wasn’t for him. What kind of games would I be playing today? Would I have crapped on Japanese RPGs because they’re too long or there’s too much grinding?

I haven’t been able to play all the way through Final Fantasy VII since then. Every year I hear the rumor about the remake and hope it’s true and now that it finally is, I’ve realized how damn bad I wanted it – how bad I needed it. I really wish he could play it too though. Hell, I wish he could see how far video games have come in the past ten years. I’d be able to play video games online with him – we could curse up a damn storm at things like zombies and griefers without getting looks from the adults because we would be adults too.

So yeah, I do have perma-nostalgia goggles when it comes to Final Fantasy VII. I know parts of the story are a big what?, some of the translation was off, there are some plot holes, some weird parts, grinding grinding level grinding — but we had so much fun with that shit. The wonky parts, the amazing parts — the whole game. Whenever people ask me what my favorite Final Fantasy is, I usually answer IX. Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly colorful that day I might even say VIII (that game and my love for it is a whole ‘nother story). But after the question, right away in my mind, VII always comes up first. It may not be what decides to come out of my mouth since there was (is?) that whole “VII is so overrated” period. Yeah, it may be a little overrated but really if you judge someone because they like an “overrated” game then go sit in the corner, you’re in time out.

Wow. I really didn’t mean to go on this long and I really didn’t mean to be all over the place with this but my excitement for the remake isn’t just because it’s going to be REALLY PRETTY (when I saw Midgar in the video I wanted to pass out, my precious) and we’ve been waiting for it so long. But this is one of the main games that helped make me like what I like and maybe even helped a little to make me who I am today. (When I see trash on the ground and pick it up and put it in a trash can I know AERIS WOULD BE PROUD OF ME OKAY? lolololol)

But as an extension of that, it was thanks to Josh (or all his fault, hahaha) that I even saw this game in the first place. Maybe with the remake I’ll finally be able to get through the game again.

The first weekend in March was PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts. We missed 2014 and weren’t planning on going this year (since tickets & hotel are so hard to get) but our friend Roger managed to snag Friday and Saturday passes for all three of us and another friend of ours, Denis. You might’ve seen them in such things as Animal Crossing & Saints Row costumes with us. I managed to get a room close to the con center once he told us about the passes and suddenly we were going to PAX East!

I want to apologize, first off, for the photos I have in this post. I didn’t bring my camera so all of these photos were from my phone. Last time we went up to PAX East, we drove – this time we flew up so we tried to not take a lot of luggage. Which also meant no costumes.

Just because I didn’t have my camera and we didn’t have any costumes didn’t mean we didn’t have fun though! We saw a ridiculous amount of interesting looking games and are very excited about a lot of the ones we saw and got to try out. At the bottom of this post will be a list of our favorites, why we loved them, and links to more information about them!

Amplitude! Rock Band 4! Hard Rock party!

One of the highlights of the weekend besides all the games we got to see was the Harmonix party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Actually I should change that highlight to just Harmonix in general. They had the latest build of Amplitude at their booth, they had just announced Rock Band 4 and they threw a kickass party at the Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday night. It was a definite treat to see all the HMX people we met at Pax East 2013 again. In fact, you might remember from the PAX East 2013 con report where we talked about how we met HMX artist Jamie McKiernan while wearing our Dance Central 3 Glitterati costumes – we saw her at the party and talked to her about all kinds of ridiculous things. Seriously, that company is full of talented and extremely kind people. Everyone at the booth was pumped about Amplitude, excited about Rock Band 4 and their Hard Rock Cafe party was sold out — they had an AMAZING con this year.

The other highlight was stumbling across a booth for a game called Enter the Gungeon, by Dodge Roll Games (and published by Devolver Digital, who we always trust). I was drawn to the fact that it looked like it was ridiculously fun to play and holy my goodness everything is adorable in the best and most badass way. As I was leaning over to grab one of the business cards so I could look into it more later I heard someone say my name – now, I knew Nate, Denis and Roger were to my right so when I looked to my left to see where my name had come from I was met with a face I hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Apparently, one of the developers of Dodge Roll Games is an old high school friend of mine. I flipped out, naturally. He was a grade below me and I was standing there explaining all of this to Nate and Roger (Denis also went to the same high school and kind of remembered him) and repeating, “OMG PRECIOUS DAVID CHILD LOOK AT HIM I’M SO PROUD.” That’s what I was saying also when I was taking that picture up there: “I GOTTA GET A PICTURE OF HIM SO I CAN TWEET TO SHOW THE REST OF THE HIGH SCHOOL PEOPLE LOOK AT DAVID ALL GROWN UP. LOOK AT HIM EXPLAINING THE GAME.” So besides Enter the Gungeon looking like complete crazy fun, I got to see an old friend too!

But really, I’m not kidding, keep an eye out for this game.

So with that, here are five games we had a blast playing/seeing/experiencing – we picked five to ramble about but there are more. We are so pumped about so many of these. There is a ton of talent out there.

1.) Enter the Gungeon (Dodge Roll Games) – SELF-EXPLANATORY IF YOU READ THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPHS.

2.) Monsters & Monocles (Retro Dreamer) – The four of us went back to this game three times. If you like co-op games (in the vein of Castle Crashers – 4 player kick-everything’s-ass kind of co-op!) then you will like game. We’re always looking for 4 player co-op games that we can all play in the same room and we are so excited for this one. The sprites are extremely badass and cute at the same time (I always picked the robot when I could okay) and the weapons were the right balance of useful, crazy and funny (Crumpet Cannon ftw) and there’s a great sense of humor about it. The tagline on the website is, “A tale of comrades, ballistics, and high tea.” –and there’s A ZEPPELIN. COME ON. I need this game yesterday.

3.) Homesick (Lucky Pause) – I have always had an extremely soft spot for point-and-click games (Myst, Phantasmagoria, Shivers, etc.) and you know how I love creepy games – not necessarily jump scare types, but the ones that really get to you and have an absolute slow burn about them. Homesick looks like something I am prepared to fall in love with. I’m preparing myself for massive amounts of feels. This game looks so pretty and so unsettling (and I mean that in the best way – I love games like this) and I cannot wait to dive into it and see what the whole story is with it.

4.) Tumblestone (The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild) – I will admit, I was ready to pass this off as “another puzzle game” until I was called over by one of my pals to play it. All four of us ended up playing on one screen against each other and had an absolute blast. You might think there’s no other way a puzzle game can be done, or “that sounds too easy”, maybe “that’ll get old fast” — whatever you’re thinking, Tumblestone deserves a shot. ESPECIALLY with three friends. It’s fast-paced, clever and the game description even says you’ll always pull a “just one more round” — this is true. We wanted to keep playing but there were people waiting so we had to tear ourselves away from it.

5.) Z’Isle (Miscellaneum Studios) – I know some of you are worn out on zombies and that’s understandable/cool/whatever but I was intrigued completely by this game. They had just started building it – we were told this when we ran into a bug while playing. This was no big deal though, for having just started what we saw was impressive. The game is based off a comic book series set in Montreal seven years after a zombie apocalypse. One of the main things that pulled me over there was the weapon one of the people at the booth was holding. It was made out of bike parts and it looked effing cool as hell. The picture I snapped with my phone came out like utter crap so here is a picture off of Z’Isle’s Facebook page. Give them a like and check it out. I got the first issue of the comic while I was there and it’s a great read!

Also, check out these games we don’t have room to ramble about!:

• Dog Sled Saga (a very darling game where you, a new-to-the scene musher, puts together and takes care of your own little set of sled dogs)
• Albert & Otto (a very smart and very engaging game where you play a boy who takes his magical bunny with him on a journey – Nate played this for such a long time, we didn’t realize how long we were there!)
• Dead Years (an open-world survival story with action RPG elements and A DOG! <3)
• Never Ending Night (THIS GAME LOOKS SO PRETTY oh yeah also it’s “a 2D side-scrolling, physics-based exploration game”)
• Kwaan (i am sobbing over how cute and perfect everything in this online adventure game is LOOK AT IT)
• Dead Secret (A MURDER MYSTERY :D!)

Overall, even without my camera and any costumes, PAX East was a blast. And to close this post out, here is a picture of video game YouTuber Markiplier (and the guy whose fault it is that we like Five Nights at Freddy’s so much) who was at his table meeting fans and someone left him hanging when he tried to shake their hand. He just stood there and looked at them. How could you leave Markiplier hanging people, he’s always so supportive of you.

We don’t know when we’ll be at a PAX convention next, but one day we’d like to go back again!

Twenty years ago on that day, Myst came out in stores. I didn’t get it right away and by “me” I mean my mother, who was getting into computer games at the time. I had a Nintendo and I would play Super Nintendo at my friend’s house. When my mom got Myst and started to play it, she’d call me in the room because she thought I would like it. I was eight years old and instantly pulled in by how pretty it was, not to mention the music and the sound effects. Everything just came together in a way that absolutely hypnotized me. I had started playing on my own and had to fall back on a strategy guide for some of the puzzles, but I didn’t care. I mostly just wanted to get to every single corner of this universe and explore. I would stop and listen to the birds on Myst Island or the sound of trickling water in the Channelwood Age.

My favorite was the Mechanical Age, followed closely by the Stoneship Age. The Stoneship Age never jumped to #1 because I was terrified of the compass and the lights going out when you were underwater if you hit the wrong button. I knew there was nothing in the water but I was always afraid there would be something there. I was a bit of a wuss, and I was a bit of a wuss with a phobia of being underwater. :\

I couldn’t get enough of the characters either, and you rarely saw any. Sirrus and Achenar became staples of the geeky section of my brain and I thought it a little weird that I kind of had a crush on them as I continuously went back to the game in the years following its release. Their rooms were filled with all sorts of nasty (but nasty in such an amazingly creative way) and they obviously didn’t want to be your friend. But my first crushes were Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bart Simpson, so I didn’t think too much of it. There was something so intriguing about them, and about Atrus and his kidnapped wife. How did this family get this way? How did the brothers become so corrupt and so horrible that their father basically put them in prison? I wanted to know these things. I wanted more.

Besides the family, there was this whole idea and skill introduced in the game – certain people could write books that opened gateways to different places. Completely different worlds that you could reach by placing your hand on the moving panel in the book. How many worlds were out there that had books written to take you to them? Only the ones on Myst Island? Were there more? Hundreds? Thousands?

Everything about this game completely captivated me. I had played video games before, but nothing like this. Nothing that I wanted to be a part of, nothing that I wanted to visit. This was different.

They released three novels that went through different parts of this family tree – I read them all when they came out. There was a comic book about Sirrus & Achenar’s childhood (and eventual corruption) that was released and then canceled after the first issue – I still have my copy safely on a shelf. There were subsequent games – Riven, Exile, Revelation, URU, End of Ages – all of them good (Riven was especially wonderful). I always come back to Myst though. Sometimes I’ll load up a new game, make my way to one of the Ages and just look around a bit. It’s kind of like visiting your childhood home, in a way. There aren’t many games that feel like that to me. (And you know how I feel about video games. <3)

I remember getting the From Myst to Riven book for Christmas in ’97 when it came out and I remember reading it all in one sitting. I remember sprawling out in an empty cubicle at my Dad’s office when I went into work with him on the weekends and working my way through The Book of Ti’ana. I was obsessed with Bush’s album Razorblade Suitcase and still to this day I can’t listen to the song “Cold Contagious” without thinking of Ti’ana & Aitrus. I always associate that album with that book since I was taking in both at the same time. There are all of these little things that remind me of how this game has trickled its way into my brain. Songs, sounds — even the weather. When it’s a cool Spring or Fall day and there’s a slight breeze it makes me think of the dock on Myst Island.

In the years following Myst’s release, I remember sitting and waiting for the dial-up to connect so I could sign on AOL and talk to all the friends I made in the Myst chatroom. We would talk about how awesome it was that these two brothers, Rand & Robyn Miller, got together and created an always expanding universe. We would talk about how awesome it was that they played Atrus (Rand), Sirrus (Robyn – who also did the music) & Achenar (Rand) themselves and quote the brothers and share puzzle ideas. I would sit in that chatroom for hours until it was bedtime (or well past it – whoops).

Out of all the video/computer/etc. games I’ve played, whenever people ask me for my favorites there’s usually a rotating list depending on what I’ve been in the mood for lately. But Myst is always on the list. And the older the game and I get, I still can’t see it leaving my top five. It drew me in, inspired me and it always calls me back.

I know it’s a little late, but Happy 20th Anniversary, Myst. <3

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

So welcome to the first post of the SPimH tag/category. I needed to talk about my love for waist capes – or buttcapes, asscapes, halfcapes – whatever you want to call them (I usually favor asscapes; IT JUST ROLLS OFF THE TONGUE) so here is the Special Place in my Heart tag and here are the asscapes.

I have always thought regular capes looked really slick, but wow okay, a half cape – a cape that hangs over your lower backside instead of upper where it can possibly restrict your shoulders. You still get the cool, flowing action just in a different place. I DON’T KNOW WHY I LOVE THESE SO MUCH.

I’m not sure when my love for them began. I feel like it was in 2000 when Vagrant Story came out for the PSX and the main villain, Sydney Losstarot, sported a super-fab waist cape. That was the first time the word asscape came about in our house. I was looking at him in the game and saying, “What would you even call that thing?” My sister almost instantly went, “Asscape?” And we both chuckled like the mature adults we never will be and that word has lived on in my vocabulary since then.

Next up, and during that same year year of the asscape? was Kuja from Final Fantasy IX – SO STYLISH, SO EVIL, SO… FLOWY AND MAGICAL AND ATTACHED TO UNDERGARMENT BITS? I think the asscape with the super tall boots is rad though, so rock it, Kuja.

Then I played the first Kingdom hearts game in 2002 and gasp– do I spy another asscape? Squaresoft/Square Enix (whatever they happened to be way back when, still Squaresoft? It’s been too long) just loved handing me asscapes. It’s like they knew. Riku (while in Heartless/Dark Mode) wore a pretty awesome asscape complete with some belt action. WHO DOESN’T LOVE BELTS not Tetsuya Nomura!

Galerians: ASH came along in 2003 and a favorite Galerian of mine, Nitro, happened to be sporting an asscape. Now, it started higher than some others but still fit the criteria. As long as it didn’t start at the shoulders and covered the region of the backside I loved it. Still can’t pinpoint why. This is also when I noticed that most of these characters that I loved with these draped lower backsides were villains in some form or another. Perhaps having an asscape makes you evil, who knows. Is it the wonderful butt fabric’s fault that Riku went into Dark Mode maybe it is. Fabulous accessory for being evil though. It must be up there with a curly mustache to twirl and amazingly arched eyebrows.

I started subconsciously putting my love for asscapes into costuming. Miss Tenel Ka Chume Ta’ Djo (there’s a mouthful) of the Star Wars: Expanded Universe has been a favorite character of mine since I got into Star Wars (a long time ago in galaxy far– you get the drift) and she only has a few official images of her, most of which are from the shoulders up. So when making costumes and outfits of hers, I got to throw in some of my own ideas to round out the whole outfit. She’s not really a fancy-dress-up type (even while she’s the Queen Mother of a 63-planet consortium) so I brought asscapes in to make it somewhat fancy while still keeping it functional in case she needed to fight. Like a boss and all that. First was the Legacy of the Force: Tempest cover (which I’ve made a couple versions of a waist cape for). Then I ended up bringing a different butt cape – technically one that went on the side! SIDECAPE? – in to a costume I threw together for a younger (two-armed, pre-Lightsabers!) Tenel Ka in a week before Katsucon 2012 (you can see I reused the sleeves from the Tempest cover Tenel Ka – was not gonna sit and scale a whole new set of sleeves together NOPE).

Also with a BioShock costume I made – Jasmine Jolene – I saw another opportunity for a fabric tail. There isn’t much official art of Jasmine so I ended up looking for inspiration from a few pieces of fanart of her and also realized I could buttcape the outfit up SO WHY NOT? I thought it worked with the setting she’s usually in and gave a new dimension to the outfit instead of just being the corset and shorts.

In October of last year, Dance Central 3 came out and it was like the heavens parted and light happened to shine all over my face and someone was singing something somewhere because my favorite Dance Central character, Jaryn, was… wait for it, wearing an A S S C A P E.

It was a sign! I mean, we knew we were going to costume as the Glitterati in their DC3 outfits (if they were in it, which they are, so YESSSS!) but after I saw the asscape, I knew it was meant to be. It was a pleated asscape too. Extra fabulous.

I’ve been fiddling with making some of my own waist capes (I’ll be proper and use the correct[?] term now, sorry) and have been getting a ton of different ideas for fabrics and patterns and so on, so you might see another post on these in the future! I just had to share this to start because these hold a special place on my backside in my heart.

What characters with butt capes have I missed? Let me know on Twitter (because I know I’m missing some)!

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.