IAmSinistar: On this very night. One year ago.
Worst accident I ever seen. I mean, I joined GOG. So, to mark this occasion I thought I'd do a giveaway. (
Quelle surprise, eh?)
A little bit different this time around. To enter, please post
the game you were most happy to get on GOG, and why. A game you've always wanted to try, or which you wanted to play again and had lost your copy of, or one which surprised you in some wonderful way, or whatever other reason the game stands out for you.
Also post
which game on GOG you most want to try. This will be the one you receive should you win this this event.
This will be a short giveaway, about 24 hours, so that it essentially starts and ends on my anniversary period.
Regale us with your best game anecdotes!
My story is about Blood. And my Blood story is the story of why I came to GOG.
I love Horror. Most horror is crap. but good horror is a thing a beauty. I got into film thanks to a horror movie, Hitchcock's Psycho. My love of film has shaped who I am. My love of film helped me decide to become an animator one day. So now I am at art school.
Around 2010 I saw Linkara's review of the dreadful Silent Hill comics. Not being a gamer back then I hadn't heard of horror video games. The idea of a new medium for horror that I hadn't exhausted appealed to me. I gave some games a try.
Bioshock, Portal and Half-Life 2 made a gamer out of me and soon I was playing Doom 3, Clive Barker's Undying, Darkfall 2 and Barrow Hill. As well as other FPS games like Unreal, Halo and Prey.
Up till then I bought my games on disk Then I found a top 40 horror games list and that led me to Blood.
I have a "Pinkie sense" that let me know if I have to read/watch/play something, Blood set off a clackson for me. But disk copies where rare and probably too old for my machine. Then I heard about a site called Good Old Games from Angry Joe. The man being interviewed said they were trying to get System Shock 2, a game I dreamed about being able to play (literally). So I gave them a look. And low and behold they had Blood on sale for less than £5. I'd never even considered downloading a game before. But I decided to give it a shot.
Blood was the first game I bought on GOG (well actually one of a 13 game bundle) and it surpassed my expectations.
People say Blood is a funny game. While it has jokes I can't call it a spoof. Blood has the purest gothic atmosphere I've found in a game. It's simple but detailed sprites and mish-mash of horror tropes ideas and creatures do something that only the best horror does. It invokes a feeling of being halfway between the waking world and the world of nightmares. I've spent many lonely nights getting lost in it's terrifying but strangely sad world. Sometimes with a Stephen King audiobook for company. And it can get pretty frightening when no enemies are around to break the tension.
Plus the game is just plain fun. Caleb's arsenal is one of the best in FPS history. Finding secrets is fun. The level design is never (with one exception) overly complicated (a rarity for the time) and instead of feeling samey like most FPS games then were Blood offers many different environments, often biased on famous works of horror fiction. Each episode has a distinctive feel to it. Enemies come in all sorts of forms, again often biased on classic horror fiction. The Game looks like a horror comic thanks to it's 2D engine. It's a great way to blow of steam when feeling psychotic. It has great gore. And yes, it can be funny at points.
Despite all the hours I've put into Blood I've never finished it. I think I'm saving the last two episodes for something special (I have finished Cryptic passage however). Some games you just don't want to finish.
As for the game I want the most available on GOG? The answer to that is probably Ether One. Not a horror game I know. But an art student the games-as-art "Walking simulator" movement fascinates me. And you've probably guessed that first-person games are my favourite kind. Plus it was recommended to me by JudasIscariot.
If that's too expensive then my second pick would be Harvester >:D
Thanks for the awesome giveaway IAmSiniStar =)