Author: Thomas Ortsik

Founder and Kinda-Editor-In-Chief at Twinstiq.
Also known as Dr. Strangethumb

Happy new WRUP

Last WRUP of the year and I almost forgot. Should tell you something about the state Twinstiq has been in for the last couple of months :)

Makes me that much happier to still see some of you Joystiq guys visiting, writing and hanging out in our team chat (btw: if you are reading this and want to join the chat, let me know).

As I’ve said previously (somewhere), Twinstiq isn’t going away. We may not have provided the home most people wanted, but I’d like to imagine that we eased the transition into a Joystiq-less time for some. For me personally it re-opened a previously closed chapter in my life, at a time where, as it turns out, I really needed it. It led to me dipping my toes back into the muddy sewage that is gaming journalism which resulted in my personal highlight of the year: having my work printed in an actual physical magazine (although that’s still a month away) that I subscribed to 10 years ago and receiving the offer to do more paid work for them.
The dream of having Twinstiq making it “big” might be over, but maybe we can still create a home for people who are interested in gaming and who want to do something creative in that space? A tribute to Joystiq not by imitation, but by helping those who want to enrich our favorite pastime? A first step to maybe a professional career? How does that sound?

 

But what about you? What was your highlight this year? Or lowlight, if you’d like to share.

Oh, and what is everyone playing over the weekend of course?

 

  • Greywolfe (Twitter, YouTube): inca's over!  police quest 3 is over!  okami is not!  the hearthstone tavern brawl is pretty shruggy this week.  i just finished armada [which is an ok book.] - right now, i'm just between things.  lots of stuff is going to start up on sunday [a new sierra game!  other stuff!]
  • Scrooloose: Getting a start on Darksiders 2 Dethinitive Edition, I'd forgotten how cool those games are. I really hope the new owners of the Darksiders series (I believe it's Nordic Games) are able to bring out a 3rd installment. As I understand it, the Deathinitive Edition was a sort of experiment in people's continuing  interest in the series. Might also play some Victor Vran, or Leathal League.
  • Thomas (Twitter): No idea if I’ll actually have time for gaming, but if I do, it’s probably going to be DmC. Really not that bad and I really don’t understand all those “Dante is emo now! BOOOHOOOO” cries it received back when it came out.
  • Yoda0VGs (Twitter): I'm also gonna try to hop into some more Victor Vran, really fun rpg looter. I also got Kerbal Space Program as a Christmas gift and have finally started digging into that, tons of fun but hard --I mean it is Rocket Science ;) -- Aside from that I'll prolly play some more matches of Dirty Bomb, had no exposure to this game until earlier this week and it's what I wanted CS:GO to be at launch. So yeah really surprised by how fun Dirty Bomb is and kinda wanna play it now.
  • Trish: Uhhhhh boobs! Boobs and gaming

 

And before I forget it: Happy new year everybody!

WRUP: Two Souls

It’s Black Friday and the war for your Christmas budget is getting heated. Microsoft brings this year’s best exclusive lineup with Tomb Raider, Halo 5 and Forza 6, Sony on the other hand still has the better hardware and… wait, what are their holiday exclusives again? Oh, right, a Beyond: Two Souls remaster, but what is up with that? Read more

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Game: The Movie: The Trailer

We all know the classic story of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, after all it is the basis for countless reinterpretations in all sorts of media, but did you know that it all started with an NES game in 1988? When Japanese film company Toho, best known for its kaiju movies, created the game, they knew that it was too bad to sell by its own merit, so they decided to create an elaborate backstory in an effort to sell the title to unsuspecting victims.

In 1987 Toho commissioned a book based on the games story, but they couldn’t let just anyone write it. Secrecy was paramount and so we meet Robert Louis Stevenson, the supposed “author” of what should become a stable of English literature. But who is Robert Louis Stevenson? If we take a closer look at his name, it becomes apparent: Robert Louis Stevenson is an anagram for Subservient Lone Torso and he was the first Cyborg in human history. Toho created him with the sole intention of writing a novelization of the game, never expecting that he would retain fragments of his former self which would manifest in his writing. We don’t know for sure who the human part of this Robert Louis Stevenson was, some say it was the torso of the recently deceased Liberace, some think it was Andy Warhol’s, but his tale of two souls in one body would act as reminder of the dangers of cybernetic engineering for generations.

And this is how we ended up with two very different works of fiction. One about a guy taking a slow stroll through a city filled with maniacs and demons, one about the struggle with dissociative identity disorder. While the novelization was a huge success, the game never made an impact and so it is no surprise that all reinterpretations were based on the book. This is going to change soon however, thanks to a certain James Rolfe, better known as The Angry Video Game Nerd. Not only was he responsible for uncovering this relic of awfulness, he is also currently working on the first movie based on the original version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, more than 25 years after it was released and we have the trailer for it:

 

Disclaimer: Everything I wrote is of course true, minus the movie thing. It’s a stand-alone trailer, no movie coming. Sorry everybody.

FALLWRUP

I’m back from Copenhagen just in time to get an extended vacation in the Wasteland. I doubt anyone has time this week to read anything, so let’s just get this over with before I jump back into Fallout/Halo 5/Tomb Raider/SW Battlefront.

So what’s everyone playing this weekend? Read more