Halloween Sales Are Here

In today's Store Update, there's, among a lot of other things, a rather large sale based around the Halloween season, putting a grip of Horror-themed games on sale for scary low prices.  (Yes, I fucking went there, no, I didn't have to)  From Resident Evil in a few different iterations, to Dead Island to The Walking Dead and even including The Last Of Us (which is a very specific sub-set of horror, I'm sure), there seems to be a little something for everyone no matter your tastes and all of them seem like good picks to get into the holiday season, as it were.  There are two games in the sale, however, that stand out a little more than the others to me, and it's because of some very specific reasons.

Corpse Party and Corpse Party:  Book of Shadows for the PSP (Vita-compatible) are both on sale for half-off the normal price ($10 instead of $20) and are both definitely something you should look into.  Brought over to American shores by the always-wonderful XSEED Games, Corpse Party seems to invoke little else but disinterest when one looks at the basic sprites and presentation, but looks are quite deceiving.  Encapsulated in Corpse Party is one of the tensest, most fucking frightening experiences I've ever had in a video game and it's due in no small part to the minimalistic presentation (aside from the Visual Novel-esque full art static screens) and the Voice Acting.  To keep costs down, as well as hold true the actual mood of the game, the Voice Acting in the game is all the original Japanese and it...well...Nobody can do Horror like the Japanese.

I'm going to be honest with everyone here - I bought Corpse Party on a Halloween Sale last year and I was determined that I was going to enjoy the experience as everyone suggests.  Played on the Vita (for the crisper visuals, if just slightly), in the dark (to set the mood) and with headphones (to truly enjoy and experience the voice-work and the directional sound design) is supposed to be the key environment for some Corpse Partying.  I was doing that.  Here's a little useful tip:

Don't do that.

Well, actually -do- that, just don't be surprised when you find yourself in fear for your fucking life.  I played the first chapter of Corpse Party and got all three endings for it.  That was all I could do.  The chapter was not very long, but I still required three different sessions of gameplay to complete it because I got so tense and out of sorts that I just literally could not function.  It doesn't help that one particular scene is burned into my brain so that I can perfectly recall it at any given time, mostly thanks to the VA because nobody screams like Japanese women.  I should state that I do not regret my purchase at all - in fact, I encourage yours and I know I'm going to drop $10 on Book of Shadows as well.  However, I do so with full knowledge that I will likely never play it because it is fucking terrifying.

So basically my point is that Corpse Party and Book of Shadows are perfect for this time of year because the whole point is to get scared shitless.  There are few things that are $20 or less that will offer quite as many scares.

seriously, hearing that screamed line is never a good thing and it happens all the time and goddamnit brain -stop doing that-

Heads-Up Quick Post

Since it seems like the Twitter gadget is good and broken, likely because Twitter is upgrading, I'm using an old Blogger layout or some other nonsense, I really don't think I can rely on it to deliver updates for me when I might not be on to make a post.  I mean, maybe I just have to take it off and put it back on or something simple like that, but I'm not going to pretend that it's even close to working currently, and that's really goddamn infuriating.  Since I don't want to do that whole "Hey, follow me on Twitter for all sorts of updates!" because honestly it's about 70% me talking about random things (most of it K-Pop) and 30% actually talking about anything of relevance to Kupowered at all.  I mean, if you -want- to follow, then hey, that's totally cool, but don't say I didn't forewarn you because I totally did.  Just right there.  That was me warning you.  Also telling you that I warned you is kind of warning you.

Speaking of warning you, as no doubt some of you might have noticed, and this is the main reason why I'm doing this post - Hurricane Sandy, the Frankenstorm or whatever nonsensical title it's been given is heading up the East Coast and then projected to move inland to be a giant sandy bitch.  That's a broad area, I realize, and that area contains the area where I live, meaning I may just be affected by it, whatever it ends up being.  It could do anywhere between raining a little bit and, like....rampant destruction, so I'm just going to cover my bases appropriately.  What that means is, if I'm completely unheard of for a day or so, then that means that the power has gone out or something and it'll likely be....well, a day or so before I can get back into things.  I'm not exactly predicting ultimate issues or anything, but losing power for a couple nights is certainly an option because it happens all the goddamn time apparently.

Don't worry though!  I have my gaming bases covered at least, in that I'll have a fully charged Vita and DS should the need arise and between those, I've got enough to keep me busy for a while, provided I can maintain a charging program.  Which, well, I -can- through the magic of generators if needbe.  For reasons that are far, far beyond me, I actually did start Corpse Party and it is....well, it is very, very frightening.  I am a sucker when it comes to atmospheric horror, as most noted by my attempts to play Dead Space, and Corpse Party likes to touch all of those buttons over and over again.  Of course, being a complete, total and absolute idiot as I am, I have been playing the game with headphones as is recommended.  This is, of course, going to go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes anyone has ever made, but I'll just have to rol with it I guess.  Gotta get the 'full experience' and all.

With any luck, this is all going to pass.  Pass without complications, that is, since regardless, it's going to pass.  That's kind of what nature does.  I mean, it'd be weird if the storm just started to hover in a single spot for absolutely no reason.  But in any case, I like giving warnings whenever something like this is looming mysteriously over the horizon, and since I can't just give a quick tweet and -know- that it's easily accessible on this site, I figured I could go a little in-depth into the thoughts about it and what I might be doing in the meanwhile.  So you can possibly know what to look forward to when I come back if I actually have to -come back- at all instead of just...you know.  Doing this.  Like normal.  Because if I get to do this like normal, then nothing's gone wrong!  And that would be a good thing.