Eldritch Gaming

On the day before yesterday, i.e. Saturday, I grabbed a copy of Eldritch from Steam. At first glance I thought it was a Minecraft clone or at least some kind of spin-off mod. Something like that anyway. The reason is the similar graphics. It has a very blocky 3D style to it's graphics, not unlike the famous mining game.

But Minecraft it is not. What we have is a fun little indie game set in the 1930's Lovecraft-verse that my readers know I'm so fond of.

Eldritch is incidentally created by David Pittman and his brother J. Kyle Pittman. They've previously worked on titles like Borderlands, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Bioshock 2, so we're talking experience here.

Now the object of the game is to collect three souls from three realms in order to avert the familiar “The Stars Are Right” scenario. (At least I think so, the game is not too bogged down by story). In order to do this you have to traverse said realms and either avoid or defeat the squamous denizens that dwell therein.

There's nothing too revolutionary about the game as such, apart from one feature I haven't seen before. If you loot a dead enemy, it'll respawn. If you don't, it stays put as well as dead. This leaves you in the position to judge whether you need the resources badly enough to risk encountering the enemy again later. You are very squishy in Eldritch and you go down fast if an enemy gets the drop on you.

The first realm, The Temple of Dagon, was pretty easy, so I was completely unprepared for how hard the Realm of Nyarlathotep was, and I died pretty fast. When you die, you can resurrect in the Library, where the game starts, but you loose all your gear except for any artifacts you have stored in your chest. Only artifacts can be squirreled away, so I lost my gun, all my ammo, my boots of jumping and my compass. Ah well, back in the saddle and off you go again.

I really like this game. It's suitably tense without being stressful. But that said, expect to swear a lot when you die over and over again... Unless you're a Lady (who don't swear) or a better gamer than I am.

In my opinion well worth the about 10€ it costs on Steam. Check it out.

This is the end

A few nights ago I sat down and enjoyed This is the end, the new movie by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.

I first became aware of this movie from the most natural source there is, it's trailer. This trailer in fact:

Since I'm assuming you just watched that, I don't think I'm in too much danger of spoiling anything, so here goes.

The whole point of the movie is that all actors play themselves in an apocalyptic scenario. Usually I'm a bit leery of that concept, but here it works pretty well.

Now if you were to accuse the creators of this film of tooting their own horns and bragging through out, I couldn't really fault you for it. Nor could I blame you if you complained that it's Christian propaganda, since these accusations are technically a bit true. Can something be a bit true? Eh, just go with it.

These points are valid, but it would be pretty damn unjust to leave it at that, since it's not all This is the end is. Mainly it's a really funny movie. I laughed heartily several times and chuckled even more.

But why are these accusations true? Well the actors keep talking about the stuff they've done previously and it gets a bit much, but what would you expect actors to do at a Hollywood party? Exactly that! So I suppose we'll have to forgive them.

Then there's the religious bit. Maybe a little spoiler, but the trailer does show all the necessary clues. The apocalyptic bit is the Rapture. Now the bible does talk about the Rapture, but the version showed here, and that's so popular especially in the U.S. was invented in the 1830's, and it annoyed me a bit that they couldn't have used another apocalypse. Maybe it's just me.

Either way, this is the route they chose to go down, and the movie as a whole is good enough that I didn't really care too much. At least it wasn't zombies. We've had enough zombies for a while right?

In the end, This is the end is a funny film with good effects and decent acting. If you're looking to just relax and have a good time, check it out.

Anno Primus

Eccentric Spheres was born on 16^th October 2012, which means that this Wednesday is it's first birthday!

To mark this special occasion, I'd like to share a few facts and stats with you, my readers, about you, my readers.

First off, the total page views as of this moment is 1388. Not that many, but I'm happy with each and every one of them.

The post with the single highest page view count apart from the “Welcome to Eccentric Spheres” is the one about Ripper Street, with 59 hits.

Now the blogger stats page is a bit wonky at times, and unfortunately I can't get a proper break down of all the countries that my readers – you – hail from. However the top ten are available, and they read as this;

Finland 664 (no surprise)

United States 271

Germany 111

Russia 95

The UK 64

Netherlands 16

Poland 16

Ukraine 13

Portugal 11

Czech Rep. 7

This adds up to 1268 views which leaves 120 views from other countries I can no longer access, but I seem to remember Australia, Hungary and Saudi Arabia amongst the readers missing from the list.

So a big Thank You to you, the people who inspire me to post week after week all year long! Not a single week have been missed so far, even though I've “cheated” a couple times.

I hope you will all stick around for another year, and perhaps if you feel it's merited, bring new readers to Eccentric Spheres.

It takes guts to do this

Most of only know Stephen Fry as a comedian, but in this clip you wil lsee him in a new light.
to stand in front of a large group of not only Catholics but also Catholic Bishops and with no hestiation tell them they are full of it - and with such eloquence - is not something I think many could have pulled off.

The truth hurts.