Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Let's Play Calling Part 1: Cutscenia

          Hello to those of you who have stumbled upon or decided to seek this blog. You will be one of the amazing human beings blessed with the privilege of observing my first Let's Play to be posted here. "Calling" is a 2009 horror Wii game developed by Hudson Soft, that, to put it bluntly, had a pretty terrible reception. I'll reserve judgement until I complete it, and I'm hoping I have the kind of brain that allows me to give it some appreciation. So, without further ado, let's get this started.
          After getting the disk in the Wii, things look okay. The title from the Wii menu seems at least okay. Then, I actually start the game and see the ESRB rating slide. Oh dear.




          This does not bode well for the game's quality. Maybe I'm just a cynic, and there's an explanation for this other than some sort of error. Maybe "Calling" is just EXTREMELY VIOLENT and this is an attempt by the developers to ward off any soul who may not be troubled by the sight of one dose of T rated violence, but retches at two. I haven't even gotten to the title screen yet and things look grim. Let's think positively. At least this will probably manage to outdo anything else we see before the first menu appears. Show me the next screen game. Let's go.




          That is not the logo of a creator of horror games, Hudson. That is Hudson, the magical mustachioed bee. He does not spread fear. He spreads love. You should know this by now. Please title screen, save me from this nightmare. Or lack of one.



          Okay, this is getting better. Visual pun with the Ls and the I, fairly creepy backdrop and some shadow hands going for a cellphone. Greener pastures may be ahead. The game begins with a chatroom, oddly. Someone has entered as an Anonymous user.



          This is nice. Mystery, I like it. Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous seems sophisticated. Maybe this is some sort of haunted chatroom... full of phones... that call people... through the chatroom... or something. The fact that people seem to be typing into a computer-based IM using exclusively their cell phones doesn't really seem like much of an issue. So let's see what our plot is building towards. 




          Goodbye, possible fear, LOL.




          So in a development that would take way too many screenshots to fully document, it becomes clear that this is a chatroom full of people looking to speak with the dead... or something. I was a bit too busy trying to figure out how they were typing at normal speed with normal keyboard-less phones to actually pay all that much attention. Somebody mentions some high school girls' deaths. Then somebody named Kuroneko logs on, says hello, and the phones of all of the chatters ring. We see one girl picking up her cell. This does not sit well with the blue, out of focus child standing behind her. 




          Blue out of focus child (who shall henceforth be referred to as BOOF) title fades this girl to death and we see her personal kill count dial increasing. Evidently BOOF is on the forgetful side, seeing as she needs some sort of rusty spinning score counter to remind herself of how many chillin's she done ate. 




          I have a feeling kill number one thousand is going to be extremely major for some arbitrary reason. Anyway, we continue down exposition lane and away from gameplay town when some bodyless and characterless voices speak to each other about some lady whose husband and daughter have died.




          The conversation between faceless 1 and 2 continues. (I secretly believe these two are actually one person who's extremely lonely and talks to themself about other people's suffering in order to ease the pain. They're probably named Herbert.) After some generic conversation about how sad it all is, Herbert 1 drops the word I was hoping I wouldn't have to hear (or read) in this game.




          DOLLS. I was beginning to doubt this game was going to scare me. This might just end up destroying  me after all. This is only my first part of my first Let's Play! I will move on. I can survive this! I CAN SURVI




          Someone please stop this. Well, this cutscene has worn out my writing fingers. I suspect I'll post some actual descriptions of the gameplay soon, but until then, get pumped and destroy any doll you may see. For my sake.

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