Dexter and Dexter: New Blood

Everyone's favorite serial killer.

Mild mannered Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is an excellent blood splatter analyst working for the Miami Metro but also moonlights as a serial killer who takes out criminals that managed to evade the justice system, then chops them up and makes their bodies "vanish". Ok I lied. He is actually a serial killer that moonlights as law enforcement and somehow manages to stay under everyone's radar most of the time through 8 seasons, +1 with Dexter: New Blood which takes place after the first series. He is always fun to watch and each season brings a new nemesis.

Sometimes it gets messy.

Obviously as a crime drama, there is a bit on the drama side too as on top of all of this Dexter tries to balance family on top of everything else. It's a little annoying at times, but still works for the story. Great plot magics also take place from time to time that either see the usually meticulous Dexter goof up (to let bad guys continue in the story) or more often the law enforcement representatives miss obvious steps or procedures that surely would have caught on to crimes (to let both Dexter and the bad guys continue in the story). Still a very good show, but maybe not for those that dislike some gore (usually implied but sometimes visceral). Recommended!

Damned (Alpha): Splitting Up is a Valid Strategy

Damned is a semi-coop indie game available on steam where in up to four people form what I call the "scooby gang", a group who find themselves stuck in haunted and dark locations like asylums or old mansions and are simply tasked with getting out. Armed only with flashlights they need to locate items scattered throughout the level to achieve this goal. Opposing them is the one player being the bad guy, currently either a spectral thing or a large, skinless humanoid. The dude playing the monster only has one goal, to kill everyone else.

Yeah, you're dead.

Being in Alpha, help or information about controls is quite limited in-game. You won't realize that as a survivor you need to hold down the left mouse button to drag doors open and closed, or that the furniture sitting around is all interactive. Desk drawers, cabinets and stoves are all openable and valid places for the game to hide things you need. As the monster you exist in two states - one in the bright grey world of spirits where you can sprint around really fast and move through all doors but cannot see the scooby gang or you can manifest in the "real" dark world and be a slow, lumbering, terrifying, one hit killer who cannot open doors. There's a hidden cool down that prevents you from spamming the transformation states to give the humans a chance.

I must admit the concept itself is really cool, and when the music strikes up letting everyone know the monster is manifested really gets the heart racing. The biggest downside to it that it doesn't handle player elimination well. By that I mean that if you die first but the rest of your team is good at eluding the bad dude you could be idling for many, many minutes and often results in me dropping from the game out of boredom. If they add a way to drag your allies corpses to some sort of respawner or otherwise give them something to do while dead and add a how to play section in game it would go a long way. As it currently stands (remember, it's still in alpha) I can only give it one skull out of five. Worth keeping an eye on but not getting, just yet.

Got Bartled

According to the Bartle test there are four main types of MMO gamers.


Good summary.

I've known about it for awhile but only decided to take the test recently - ironically only because Bhagpuss just posted his less that positive view on it. Still, I enjoy silly things like this - though I do wonder what category gold farmer robots would fall under. Is there a fifth hidden type, "the enemy of man" or something?

Close enough, it even comes with some feel good text.

 

"Explorer Socializers are the glue of the online world. Not only do they like to delve in to find all the cool stuff, but they also enjoy sharing that knowledge with others. Explorer socializers power the wikis, maps, forums and theory craft sites of the gamer world."

While it's probably just as trivial as the "which DBZ character are you!?" test I think it would be interesting to see what everyone else (at least those that comment here) got too, if you're willing to share? :)