Scary Ass Video Games: The Last of Us

One of the biggest exclusive titles for the PS3 dropped recently. A game that was rated so high, it has my buddies who own Xbox’s, God bless their little souls, wanting to rent my PS3 and the game for $40 for the weekend. This is a no brainer. You get to borrow it for $40.  The game title you ask?

A little background. I for one have never been a fan of the zombie genre of video games because I get too damn stressed. Yes I said it. I get scared like a little bitch. Like Drake fighting a 15 year old bare knuckle or like chickens fear The Colonel. They give you 3 bullets, 9 zombies and herky-jerky controls that make it almost impossible to stop that brain thirsty mofo from flanking you and enjoying a nice neck sandwich. Compliments of my avatar. Shit ain’t for me. I remember the one scary game I sat down and was like, “Dude, don’t be a chicken shit!” was Resident Evil Nemesis.  This was the wrong one to try. Why? Because this big ass super zombie chases you the ENTIRE time you’re playing and you can’t kill him. He just keeps coming and tries to kill you when he catches up. That nigga was like herpes. Just when you forget it exists, it pops up. I fear that big ass zombie in the game and I fear herpes. 

I’m not a fan of being chased in real life or in video games. I’m a fighter not a flighter. The Last of Us gives you the element of surprise and you get to be the aggressor. Much better in my opinion. I feel like a lot of scary games make you the bitch and make you all but helpless in order to get cheap scares. Not a fan.I’ve heard Dead Space is a scarier game, but I digress.

The last of us, although I’m only about 4 stressful hours deep out of 12-16 hours of game play, is a fantastic game. It’s a beautiful creation and is probably the most realistic zombie apocalypse game to date.  You have limited ammo, so no run and gun, and you have to assemble your supplies like healing kits, for example, and heal yourself which takes time. No more running, munching on a magical pill and getting 75% of your life back. You have to find a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some rags to make a disinfecting bandage. So real. Your dude gets shot like two or three times in the body, he’s dead. One to the head and hit that restart button.  Joel, the character you play, is no superman either. This nigga can’t jump high or far, nor is he super fast or strong. Just a regular ass white dude that been through some ish, so he don’t play games. I’m not going to spoil the game for you because I’m sure you ALL are going to play it (sarcasm), but the object is basically navigating the world of zombies for a very specific purpose. Beware of the damn clicker zombie. He’s the one with his head busted wide open in the back on the left.

Ok, so after a not so brief intro to the gaming genre and The Last of Us, I’m going to give you my take on these games.  For me, its about not being a punk ass and beating the game, and on the hardest setting. Its not that damn fun. I don’t want to do like a lot of gamers and play it 3 or 4 times through, I just want to beat it on the ultimate setting once to say I did it. I love scary movies, but all I have to do is watch and be a little nervous. In these games you have to survive yourself. Nerve-wracking. The controls from this game are MUCH better than the Resident Evil series so that helps. It feels very much like the Uncharted game series, but your guy is much more “normal” and not an athletic gawd. This genre of gaming is always gory and I seriously would never let my kids play them. Thankfully growing up my parents didn’t know much about the gaming world.  

All in all, I WILL beat this effing game. I have to will myself to play it everytime to keep my thug status. Haha. Hardly. Either way, that $60 I spent on the game won’t go to waste because I’m more frugal then scared. So is it really about having fun? To me its about the challenge and overcoming. Got to prove to myself that I can survive a zombie apocalypse. I must really have issues if I’m paying to do something that I don’t think is a ton of fun. Pray for me.

Oh, PS… Reserve your PS4 people! Don’t miss out! NERD STATUS BABY!!

Paranormal Activity, A Must See

I’m a huge horror movie buff. I’ve probably seen 90% of the scary movies to come out in the last 4 years. They sucked.

Horror movies in this day and age attempt to establish some evil being or force and stop them all within 94 minutes only to find out that the evil still exists. If they got enough box office attention then they can have the sequel. The sequels are worse. Yet my dumb black ass always views a commercial and says, “This is it! This is the one that will be good.” This happened with Mirrors, Shutter, and The Eye just to name a few. I get dooped once again. I walk out of the theater wanting 9 bucks back, even though I only paid 8 cuz of that student ID.
I’m no Gene Siskel. I’m no Roger Ebert. But this is a movie review and if you made it this far you might as well hear what I gotta say. Read on.

**There are some spoilers so read slowly if you haven’t seen this movie and plan on it. But hell I’d watch it again. Also, we, the horror movie lovers of America, are tired of sick fuckers like Rob Zombie making some straight doo-doo chowder movies. And someone, please kill Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees (and all his family members), that lil bitch from the Grudge (all those Asians), Freddy Kruegar and all of the other “horror icons”. Alien, Predator and any epic battle the big headed bitch and Rasta wanna have, fuck it all. Let’s be creative Hollywood.**

First of all, if you missed the marketing campaign for this movie, you missed a very articulated and masterfully performed media blitz. The campaign rarely depicted images of the movie, and after watching the movie, most of the commercial scenes were not actually in the movie. Brilliant. Cuz the whole time I was waiting for this one scene to make me jump, and it never came had me on the edge the entire time. The campaign also showed people in the theater freaking the fuck out. The campaign was very risky. This part was genius to me as a marketing major in college. The commercials promised that they would only bring the movie to a certain area if a specific number of people requested it. You had to actually go on the website and sign up and vote for it. Of course you would get spam in your email, but as a scary movie enthusiast you would do anything to have a movie of worth.

I requested it. But did I watch it in theaters? Nope. I found it online in HD. Seek and ye shall find. My roommate works for the gov’t and I’m afraid I might go to jail if I put the site.

This movie was not done in any special way. There was no elaborate evil to explain. There was no blood (well not really). There was no nigga in a mask or painted up, the vision of some whacked out dude. It was done from the aspect of a home video camera, kinda like Blair Witch Project, but not as hokey or cheesy. It was executed brilliantly and there was none of the jerky headache created like in Cloverfield.


Most of the movie is shot from the angle in the bedroom where you can see the couple who are being haunted in bed and a barely lit hallway. This took me, and I’m sure others, to a time when I was young and looking down a dark hallway was terrifying. The movie is shot exclusively in the home of the couple and you are consistently on edge.

The actors in the movie, yes this is not an actual story, are surprisingly good considering the role and the magnitude of this film. They are unknown to add to the authenticity. The couple work well together and the fear in them is transferred to the viewer tenfold, or so I felt it.

The conclusion of the movie is mad crazy and unexpected. It’s led up to by a crescendo of encounters with the demon spirit that causes havoc for the couple. To end this review, I’m a large black male and my palms were sweating watching this movie. It is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen and DARE you to watch it alone in a dark room. I did. I slept alright, but not really. Highly recommended and a great movie. Fellas, make your lady friend watch it, she’ll hate you but if you play your cards right, fearful spooning can turn into fun-filled forking.


L’Chaim… P!ed P!per