Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Kingdom Hearts III is Out Now

 Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with: , ,
Jan 302019
 

My copy of Kingdom Hearts III arrived yesterday, and so far I couldn’t be happier.

Four years ago, I hadn’t played a single Kingdom Hearts game. That changed when I gave the first game a try and fell in love with it. My love for the series only grew from there.

After catching up on the series, I couldn’t wait for Kingdom Hearts III to arrive. It is my most-anticipated game of the year, and I had so many theories about it, I started up a separate site for them.

Right now, after having played for a bit over four hours, I couldn’t be happier.

(All right, so that one early-game thing I’d hoped would happen hasn’t happened yet, but we can’t have everything.)

Kingdom Hearts III feels like it’s set up to answer all the questions I’ve had about the saga and bring the story to a fulfilling conclusion. It’s already done so many exciting things, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

It also brought back the sense of exploration I missed from the first Kingdom Hearts. The other games never quite got back to that until 0.2, and I was thrilled to see how much exploration was available in the first world. I hope the other worlds keep it up.

Heck, I even had fun in the Gummi Ship, a sentence I never thought I’d write.

So in short, Kingdom Hearts III is out now, I’ve been playing it since yesterday, and so far I have high hopes that it will be exactly what I wanted.

NIS Announces Murder Detective: Jack the Ripper

 Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with:
Jan 282019
 

Nippon Ichi Software has announced a new game for the PlayStation 4 and Switch called Murder Detective: Jack the Ripper.

When it was first revealed, it was a bit unclear if you were playing Jack the Ripper or a detective trying to stop Jack the Ripper, but now the answer appears to be… sort of both.

According to the details translated by Gematsu, Detective Arthur Hewitt is investigating a series of murders in London when he discovers a “phantom” inside himself called Jack the Ripper.

It is a visual novel with choices that will lead you toward either the “Detective” route or “Murderer” route. There will also be sub-stories and bad endings.

This sounds like the sort of game I would enjoy, an investigation-based mystery game that also has this dual personality morality angle to it. Murder Detective: Jack the Ripper will be out on April 25 in Japan. No English release has been announced yet, but I hope we hear localization news eventually.

Void Beckoning Cover Revealed

 My Stories, Writing  1 Response »  Tagged with:
Jan 232019
 

If you follow me on social media, you might have already seen me post about how my short horror story “The Rings of Khal’Uth” was accepted for publication in Gehenna and Hinnom’s Void Beckoning chapbook. They’ve now revealed the chapbook covers, so here is what Void Beckoning will look like:

I think it’s a great cover, especially for the sort of cosmic deep space horror the chapbook covers. Four short stories, including mine, will appear in this chapbook:

  • “The Rings of Khal’Uth” by Samantha Lienhard
  • “Apparition” by Dennis Mombauer
  • “The Albatross” by Justin Coates
  • The Douglas Account” by Tom Lund

The announcement also includes the other chapbooks and their covers, as well as information about the upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

In eight days, the Kickstarter to fund these chapbooks will go live. If you enjoy horror and want to support these stories, please spread the word!

Speaking of space, I almost used today’s blog post to discuss how EA reportedly won’t let BioWare make new Knights of the Old Republic games despite them wanting to… but the rumors seem to hinge on nothing more than Kotaku’s Jason Schreier saying BioWare has “tried to make it happen” but that no KotOR game is being made.

It’s definitely possible to interpret that as EA not allowing BioWare to make a new KotOR game, but it doesn’t seem quite as solid to me. Still, I’d love to see a new Knights of the Old Republic either from BioWare or Obsidian, so I hope these rumors aren’t true.

What do you think of the Void Beckoning cover? What about the KotOR rumors? Let me know in the comments!

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