Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has revealed the Nightwing Bundle Pack for their upcoming Batman: Arkham City. The DLC pack will cost 560 Microsoft Points ($6.99) and be available on November 22, 2011. Batman: Arkham City is due out on October 18, 2011.
Paradox Interactive is currently accepting sign-ups for the closed beta phase of its upcoming startegy title, Crusader Kings II, which is due out in early 2012. You can sign-up for the beta at the game’s official website – applications are being accepted until October 17, 2011.
Reto-Moto, a studio created by the creators of the famed Hitman series, comes the announcement trailer for the upcoming MMO wargame Heroes & Generals.
Square Enix has released a new video featuring 17 minutes of Hitman: Absolution gameplay. Bring a towel. ‘Nuff said.
CCP Games and Sony have released a new trailer for the upcoming shooter-portion of the EVE Online universe, DUST 514.
Netflix has announced that its idea to separate the online (streaming) and physical (disk) into two different accounts has been overturned. However, their new pricing plan which charges users for each type of service is still in effect.
It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.
While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.
We’re constantly improving our streaming selection. We’ve recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.
We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.
Respectfully,
The Netflix Team
2K Games has released a series of new trailers for their upcoming shooter, The Darkness II, which is due out on February 7th of 2012.
In 2010, the Queen Mary introduced Southern California to its Dark Harbor haunted attraction. With five haunted mazes, live music, and a nice bar area the event was a force to be reckoned with on the haunted attraction landscape. This year, Dark Harbor is back with a new line-up of live music as well as some refinements to its inner-workings and haunted mazes.
We were invited to their opening night to checkout the park and were instantly impressed with the much more efficient security checkpoint. Last year, the lined clogged up quite a bit as pat-downs went on and people were questioned. This time around, the security staff moved quickly and people poured into the entrance area. After making our way through the cool cargo container scare zone, we found ourselves right in front of the Nightmariner’s Bar, where patrons can grab a drink or two and enjoy some live music from various local bands. This year’s list of live music is quite the line up and patrons are in for a treat, no matter what night they attend the event.
The first maze on our walk-through was The Cage. Last year, The Cage felt like a lawsuit waiting to happen as guests tried (and often failed) to navigate their way through the maze. While still a bit winding, this year’s The Cage features a much better layout and some great rooms, like a hallway of hands… You will see when you go through. The talent was very excited to be working the maze and we definitely got more than our fair share of jumps and scares. Also of note is that the staff on-hand quickly and efficiently got us a supervisor for our video walk-through (see below).
Village of the Damned was our next maze of the night. The maze sends guests through various parts of a small hamlet under the control of various creatures and monsters. This maze also introduced us to the first of two featured monsters – actual performing talent. In this maze, it was the Mayor of the Village of the Damned, petitioning us to vote for him in their upcoming election. The overall maze design seemed the same as last year and, like The Cage, the talent really stepped up their game and worked for their scares.
Containment was the first maze to take us aboard the Queen Mary herself, in a ward looked after by the dreaded Doctor. All the talent worked into their roles as patients of the doctor and were very vocal in expressing their fear of the character. Featured in the maze were some very cool and bloody props that inspired not just disgust, but also awe in their design. The doctor character was well animated and performed his lines with a natural cadence. More haunted attractions should incorporate features characters like this, where appropriate.
Hellfire saw us delve into a ship ablaze. The maze made great use of fog effects and told a story of people committing arson inside the ship, which ends up claiming many lives. The design of the maze was incredible, with a lot of singed props and draping about to set the mood. The talent, like those in the mazes we already spoke of, was incredible and should be commended for their opening night performance. Hopefully, they will be able to keep up this intensity throughout their run. Hellfire did have one thing that left us wanting. Last year, the bridge across the boiler room had guests looking down upon some very cool projected flames. This year, guests are treated to a few spark throwers below, but the effect feels too far away and limited in scope to be effective. I hope they bring the projection effects back for next year’s offering.
The final maze of the evening was Submerged which shows a ship in distress, taking on water. The use of pumped water effects in this maze was brilliant and disturbing. Water on a boat is always a bad sign… While this maze did not have a featured character in the way the others did, a small-in-size woman playing a child looking for her “mommy” was eerie and she did a great job of playing the role.
Overall, the Queen Mary’s 2011 offering of Dark Harbor was a lot of fun and we would recommend it to anyone looking for a haunting good time this month. It has more than enough scares for the younger crowd and plenty of adult-oriented fun for us “older” folks. Checkout their official website for ticket info and more.
Brief Clips
The Cage
Village of the Damned
Containment
Hellfire
Submerged
The Undead have taken over at Six Flags as the 20th annual Fright Fest has begun. This year’s event features a couple new attractions so let’s get right to it.
Overall the park’s been decked out for the season with spider webs everywhere, a blood red fountain, purple colored streetlights, gravesites abound, and a myriad of other details scattered about in store windows and around landscaped areas. At 6pm the park comes alive with ghouls courtesy of ‘The Awakening’.
‘The Awakening’ is each night’s kick-off event of Fright Fest which begins at 6pm and introduces the “fright by night” as the undead are released into the park. The show is about 10 minutes and builds up quite the crowd, I’d say about 200 or so folks were gathered around by the time it got started. The Ghoulmaster summons his servants and brings Dr. Fright to life and the obligatory ‘Thriller’ plays as a handful of zombies dance. My initial thoughts were how amazingly great ‘Thriller’ and Vincent Price’s VO still is, but I felt a little weird enjoying it with all of the real-life drama going on around MJ’s murder trial. All that said, the choreography will be familiar, the ghoulies all look great with tremendous makeup and wardrobe. After the ‘Thriller’ sequence the Ghoulmaster heads out and the ‘Dead Man’s Party’ show begins.
‘Dead Man’s Party’ runs a couple times a night and features a crew of 8 undead dancing and singing to some appropriate songs like Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life, KC & The Sunshine Band’s I’m Your Boogieman, and Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz. All in all, the 25 minute show goes through about 10 songs with different undead each taking a crack on leading vocals. It was well done and again, the dancing and chorography were great. There’s OK special effects as well with fog, fire and small-scale fireworks. After the show the talent sticks around and talks and takes pictures with anyone who’s interested. You can get a nice up-close look at them and really appreciate the make-up work.
We headed over to ‘The Ghoulmaster’s Ghosts’ show following ‘Dead Man’s Party’. This show takes place in the theater so it accommodates a couple hundred folks. Now this was our first Fright Night experience, but apparently the Ghoulmaster seems to be a local favorite as there were kids abound that could not have been more excited to see him. Overall, the show is just about average. Some dance numbers and what seemed like a rather forced story/character development layered on top of the 25 minute show. The real highlight here is the production value with a nice set, great costumes, and a very cool dance routine with a movie screen backdrop routine about halfway through. [SPOILER] There was great comic relief too with an old man who enters the theater prior to the show and makes a scene ‘Jackass’ style and then gets incorporated into the show later on. The biggest miss was the lip-synching, when sitting up close it was painful to watch them mouth all the dialog.
Next we hit up the terror trails. In general these trails are the highlight of Fright Fest. There always seemed to be lines to get in, with waits ranging from 10 minutes to over an hour. There is an extra charge to walk the trails as well, with prices at $7 per, or a pass for all of them for $15. There is also a Scare Pass which is $50 that gets you entry and allows you to bypass the line. All of the trails have groups of about 10-20 people walking through pathways and set pieces as the ghouls try to give you a scare. Walking at an average pace, it takes about 10 minutes or so to get through. Highlights for us were definitely the reactions of the other folks in the group, many of which seemed to be absolutely petrified. We should note we weren’t allowed to take pictures or video on the terror trails so we’ll just give you an overview of each, though it’s the visual, visceral experience that makes it worthwhile.
‘Escape from the Asylum’ was the first one we hit up. As the name suggests, the theme here is a mental hospital with many of the talent running around in straightjackets and being completely loony. Lots of fog and hospital gear lying around. There is a sequence with strobe light and chainsaw wielding monster that was very well done. There were a couple jump-out scary moments with the baddies hiding around the next corner and catching you by surprise.
We then went across Movietown to Adventure Screamport and checked out ‘Demented Forest’. Set up with a nice variety of outdoor and nature-centric areas that you pass through, this trail seemed to have the ghouls sneaking up and breathing down your neck. The tribal area with heads on spikes looked great, the deserted playground was indeed creepy, and there were even some very interesting killer clowns and tree people milling around, all this concluded with a tense corn maze (though there was only one path so not technically a maze).
Before heading over to the final terror trail we went and did ‘The Haunted Heist’. This is their laser tag area which has been redone for Fright Night to mirror the famous scene with Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment. The room is about 40’ x 15’ and when you go in you press the start button. Laser beams shoot out from the walls and you need to make your way across the room trying not to interrupt the beams. There are a couple ghouls in the room as well making things a little tougher. But we crawled and rolled our way through the room. It was a fun time for sure, though definitely not worth the $5/person price tag. All in all, the whole thing probably takes 30-60 seconds.
We then checked out the Demon Barber of Main Street who comes out and sings some haunting showtunes, including tunes from Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd. This was the first show of the evening we saw that was performed live (no lip-syncing) so credit due there. There was one ghoul performing this show and he was decked out nicely, sang well and interacted with everyone in the crowd watching. Good for him and a nice little break if you’re looking to sit down.
On our way to the final terror trail we watched a bit of the Fright Fest Freakshow which featured a fine showman and his beautiful assistant. They seemed to have some real talent breaking spaghetti with a whip, juggling some very sharp objects, and other craziness. All of this while entertaining the assembled crowd with witty banter and some quick humor.
The final stop on our Terror Trail was the ‘Project XI’ which is a new attraction this year. This was the best of the three trails we visited. It was paced very nicely. The path was built through some temporary walls which created a narrow passageway and rooms filled with funeral parlor objects. Some great effects throughout the trail and good amount of ghouls scattered about to put a scare into anyone daring to walk through.
On our way out we visited the Lakefront Graveyard. This was set-up similar to the Terror Trails; however there is no charge to walk through here and you’re free to just go through at your own pace. They had some great graveyard stuff scattered about, including beat-up cars and tombstones, as well as tons of undead running around scaring folks. It was nice and open so lots to look at. You needed to keep your wits about you at all times as the scares come from every direction. At one point a girl walking in front of me actually turned around and grabbed my arm, making me walk her through about 20 yards of trail until she could regain her composure. The final bit worth noting on the Fright Night front was the Local Music Showcase that has local bands playing a stage by the lake. Good to see some real live music going on. And all of the ghouls, when not scaring someone, could not have been friendlier as they stopped for photos and interacted with park-goers.
For gamers, there is a SEGA Game Zone over at the boardwalk where you can go play (for free) Sonic Generations, Rise of Nightmares or House of the Dead Overkill – Extended Cut. And, aside from the Fright Fest festivities, be sure and check out what has to be one of the best coasters in the world, El Toro (not sure if it was because Fright Night was going on, but we walked onto the coaster with no wait). And we were also able to check out the Houdini ride/attraction, which we’d always bypassed on previous visits to the park, but it was actually extremely cool! Highly recommended.
A special thanks to Six Flags Great Adventure for the opportunity to visit the park and allowing us access to the Terror Trails. Be sure to checkout the official Six Flags Great Adventure Fright Fest website for ticket information, park hours, and more.
Lexis Numerique has released a new trailer for its upcoming survival-horror title, AMY. Due out on the PC, XBLA, and PSN platforms later this fall, AMY puts players in the role of a woman who must get a small girl to safety in the wake of a gruesome apocalypse.
