Spooky scary train station and the saga of the Scottish tenner comes to an end...

Some pictures from The Evil Within for today, a sorely underappreciated gem of a game, which brings us to my reason for posting this today: At time of writing, it's on sale on PSN, and it's £4, so if you like survival horror and fancy something a bit different, I'd definitely recommend giving it a go at that price. This is genuinely one of my favourite games and I have a hard time finding other people who share the same enthusiasm for it, so it would be nice if more people got to know and appreciate it in all its oddball gory glory.

Now, I am working on a proper write-up of this game, so I don't want to run out all of my planned talking points here and wind up repeating it all in the main post, but in summary: it's a rough diamond, presenting a very stiff challenge, but you're rewarded with varied, strategic combat mechanics that give you room to experiment and get creative (and axes which can one-shot enemies - lovely!) It also has an absolute chaos-gremlin plot involving grindhouse influences rubbing shoulders with medieval stuff for some reason but there are also sci-fi elements, zombies, some proper built fucker with a safe on his head, a little bit of Japanese folklore and sunflowers (this game is fucking bizarre, and I mean that as a compliment) and some truly gorgeous environment design, which is what we're having a look at here, in one of my favourite parts of the game.






Serpent Road. I approve of this name.



Mmmm, sumptuous!

As for the Scottish tenner that came up a few weeks ago, I tried doing some detective work in an effort to identify the mystery sender, with a view to returning the package, but no such luck. Yesterday evening after work I just went "sod it" and spent it appropriately, on a little bottle of Famous Grouse, one of the lairy square fuckers. If any Scottish people are reading this and want to weigh in on my choice of whisky then by all means, feel free, but that was all I could find within the allocated budget (there was Glenfiddich but that was in the big bottles that are beyond the capabilities of a Scottish tenner.) I also picked up Alien Isolation in the sale, finally decided to give that a go (it's only been out since bloody 2014!) So that's my Saturday night sorted: tucking into some scotch and probably getting bashed on by a xenomorph. Magic!

Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. Have a safe and sensible weekend, everyone. ðŸŒŸ

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Further rambling

Twa Thousand Corbies

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Going to start this post with an illustration, because of this blog layout, posts lacking images tend to look a bit pants. The art here is by G. Howell-Baker. A while back, I was joking about gathering together as many versions of Twa Corbies as possible, and finally, here we are. This is going to be a continually evolving list, so if you know of a version that needs to be included, or if you've recorded one of your own, then by all means, let me know. You can put a comment here or e-mail me at looksinnocuousnenoughchaps [at] gmail [dot] com. Part two, with versions 50-100 can be found here . Let's begin! 1.  Folly Bridge - My personal favourite, performed completely a capella with some beautiful, eerie harmonies. 2.  Hamish Imlach - A live version, and a very close second favourite. Hamish's distinctive voice works wonders here and we're treated to some elegant sitar as well. 3.  Ayreheart - This one features the lute and a passionate vocal performance, it's qui...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Some doodles from last night

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I went on a bit of a spree last night, trying out some different brushes in Rebelle 7, trying to work out what approach I might want to take for reviving Facts About the World, and here are some of the resulting doodles. First, a swoonicorn investigating Blarglflorp, the tiniest comet in the cosmos. Ara, done entirely using ink brushes with varying degrees of water. It's been a bit of running joke that their markings are different every time I draw them, and this time is no exception. (They were initially based on a striped dolphin but at this point, it's anyone's guess. Cynosure was a futuristic thing with cyborgs anyway, so what kind of dolphin Ara resembled wasn't exactly a pressing logical concern.) And one from the end of the night, which didn't end up being coloured because I'd been up since 3am again and needed to go to bed.
'Ave a gander 'ere

Fridayposting

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It is Friday, continuing the theme of the spooky video games, I'm currently revisiting Still Wakes the Deep and trying to finish up the blog post about that (it's a good job this isn't an audio effort because noone needs to hear yours truly going "Fuckin' 'ell, McLeary!!!" in an incredibly questionable Glaswegian accent whenever the mood so takes me.) Sod's law, I completely forgot to actually get the pictures off of Mariner... it was late at night. For now, it's time to return to the comfy slippers of The Callisto Protocol, not in chronological order and not really with a theme in mind either, just a bit of fun for today. Starting with these artfully arranged Crunchy Creatures, with a bit of an HR Giger kind of vibe. I also appreciate the elegantly flowing mist around here. Hmmm . (This one's off the PS4 version, I redid it on the PS5 but a big cloud of mist was obscuring one of the monsters and we can't have that.) This hexagonal effort...
'Ave a gander 'ere