Important message for our Canadian customers regarding free shipping

As some of you are aware the USPS is raising shipping prices to Canada 60-120% later this month. No, that's not a typo, rates are in many cases more than doubling. Mailing a single game first class will cost almost $8, Priority will be $27.40. We've ran the numbers every way we can and unfortunately it is not possible for us to offer free shipping to Canada once these rate increases take effect. We would lose money on most orders.

There is some good news however! Thanks to your support we are currently shipping almost 300 orders a day to Canada. This allows us to work with a shipping consolidator and get discounted rates that cost far less than the regular USPS rates. We will continue to pass all the savings we get on to you (and then some). When you shop at Lukie Games your shipping costs will be 33-60% less than normal. For example while you may have to pay $8 to ship a single game elsewhere we will be able to ship it to you for just $2.95.

The new shipping rates go into effect Jan 25th. If you want a game (or especially a system) order it now while we can still give you free shipping!

Die Hard (NES)

Buy yourself a copy or add your name to be notified here!

Here we go again: the holiday season! You've only got a few days left to wrap those gifts, gang! In order to take your mind off of the holiday doldrums, here's a game that is very peripherally related to Christmas. For some reason that I can't fathom, there really aren't that many games appropriate for the holidays. Aside from the bible games on the Nintendo and the occasional PC game hack or add-on that adds Santa hats to everything from Lemmings to Team Fortress snipers - there really isn't much in the Christmas game department. So here I am plumbing the limited well of Die Hard games to celebrate our snowy season!

So when we last left our grizzled hero John McClane: he was trudging through the original trilogy of Die Hard flicks in 1996's "Die Hard Trilogy" for the Playstation. A game that I recommended only based on the relatively low price point and the fact that you get 3 different games in 1 which was a novel idea and you could tell that the programmers really tried with that game. That game didn't hold up over the years but the NES is timeless, right? Surely this game should hold up much better than the pixelly, polygonal mess of sludgy Playstation-era gaming.

It's no mystery that movie licensed games are hit-or-miss and perhaps no system has more misses than the NES. Lethal Weapon, Total Recall, Terminator, Jaws, Rambo, Platoon, Friday the 13th: these are all games that I hold some quirky nostalgia for, but are ultimately terrible cash-ins. That being said, any of the Capcom Disney games were usually a success and Taito did a decent job with the Hannah Barbera stuff. Hell, even Willow was decently executed. So the question is: can Activision do what LJN, Bandai, or Sony Imagesoft were unable to do? Can they actually make a true-to-cinema representation of Die Hard?

Yes.

and No.

err...maybe.

...and figure out what this buffoon is actually trying to say!

Ok, let's get this right out of the way because it's necessary to put this game into context. This game is hard. I'm not just talking "Nintendo hard," this game is an unrelenting hail of bullets coming straight at your face. When I do these reviews I usually either tackle games that I've already beaten or gotten far enough along that I could easily give you guys and gals the gist of the entire experience. This game is so taxing that I have to admit - I had no choice but to call in the Genie. That's right: I'm a cheap, tawdry, tart in a pink tu-tu. A filthy, no good, down-and-out cheater. You may not respect me in the morning, but at least I got past the first floor. Let's continue.

So many objects on the screen that my NES is having a seizure!

Stylistically speaking, this game is very reminiscent of Alien Syndrome meets Gauntlet. A top-down perspective shooter where it's you versus 40 terrorists. The objectives are such: defeat all of the 40 terrorists, free the hostages on the thirtieth floor, knock out the security computer on floor 5 and defeat Hans the mastermind. So far, so good. The game takes many elements from the film and doesn't add a lot of useless, nonsensical fluff like most movie and tv tie-in games. There aren't pacman ghosts, spiders, dragons or anything that John McClane wouldn't have reasonably faced in the movie. Broken glass is one of the only main obstacles outside of gun-toting thugs and even that has a connection to the film.

                                              God Bless Youtube. Video by user ccnipper


So overall, one could argue that the game is a decent film tie-in based on the relative accuracy, the decently rendered cutscene graphics, and the fast action. However, the difficulty level of the game really mars the enjoyment level. Enemies pop out of dark corners from seemingly nowhere and will fire off bullets in all directions like a "bullet hell" style Shmup. They have a seemingly endless supply of bullets and have no trouble hitting you with most of them. YOU on the other hand are saddled with being able to shoot in awkward 90 or 45 degree angles with no real fluidity or finesse. This is predictable and expected of an NES game, but why can't the enemies be saddled with similar restraints. Or better yet, why can't the easy mode be easier? One of the only main differences between the two modes of easy or difficult is the randomization of floors. There are plenty of powerups in the game that can heal your hitpoints or foot power, but getting past the enemies and to a vending machine or medkit can be a struggle in and of itself - coupled with the fact that any corner that isn't in your immediate periphery is blacked out until you reach it.

Monkey statues = awesome

Another main downfall of the game is that the replayability level is relatively low. Unlike similarly oriented action games such as Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Alien Syndrome, Smash TV, or The Immortal: there's just not much variety waiting around the next corner. One relatively stale office room or boardroom after another, filled with tough to kill, generic bad guys, and no real room traps aside from the ability to accidentally plummet out of the windows or run into some broken glass and cut your tootsies up. In all of the other aforementioned games, there's danger, excitement, surprises around the corner. Here, there's a bearded bad guy movie cliche' on a two-way radio that gives you the heads up that more nondescript goons are coming to drain the last of your limited ammo and health.

But all of the gauze in the world won't cure his athlete's foot!

Overall, Die Hard is a reasonably successful game. If a challenge is what you're looking for, you will get that in spades. It doesn't have the deepest plot in the world, but neither did the movie. As Todd Snider once said in his song "Tension," "After the bad guy killed off all of the underdeveloped characters, the good guy put a bullet right through his head." The graphics are definitely serviceable, the music is a little grating at times but not a tragedy of Color Dreams proportions, and the fact that the game sticks relatively close to the film without veering off into the no man's land of nonsense game developer fantasies (I'm looking at YOU Nightmare on Elm Street) all add up to a licensed game that isn't perfect but definitely has promise. It's better than Dick Tracy, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Gilligan's Island, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Karate Kid, Best of the Best, and Platoon, so that's saying something. It's a bit on the pricier side (being an uncommon title) but would be a good action game to have for any NES collector. Happy Holidays and Yippie Ki Yay, Lukie Gamers!

Friday the 13th (NES)

SPOILER: You can’t destroy him because he’ll always come back in the sequel.

In the spirit of the season I decided that I would try out playing some licensed horror games. I thought to myself, “Hey Friday the 13th was a pretty good movie I’m sure they probably made some halfway decent games!” Well I was wrong, horribly… horribly… wrong. I played Friday the 13th for the Nintendo Entertainment System which was published by LJN studios which apparently is a pretty loathed publishing company. I can definitely see merit in disliking games published by LJN as I can safely say that Friday the 13th is an objectively bad game just like a vast majority of other titles put out by LJN. I personally am a big fan of the horror genre and I like to try and play as many games in that genre as possible everything from Alone in the Dark to Amnesia the Dark Descent but this game is something completely different. Very rarely do I find video games bad in the same sense as bad movies but just like how the movie Insidious was an awful sham of a horror film Friday the 13th for the NES is a terrible sham of a horror game.

And live with the memory of having played some of the worst games to ever exist.

 

In Friday the 13th you play as one of six possible Camp Counselors George, Mark, Paul, Laura, Debbie, and Crissy. Any of those names ring a bell? No? That’s because none of them are characters from the movie this game is supposedly based off. The objective of the game is to succeed at not dying for three entire days and nights all the while having to prevent Jason from killing the counselors and the children residing in the camp. In total you have access to six counselors to play as who effectively act as your lives as anytime you die you can just switch to another counselor. After all six are gone you lose the game. There are multiple areas you can travel through each with its own gimmick like how left is right when traveling on the main road, the interiors of cabins are third person dungeon crawlers and how the forest is a ridiculous maze that you should never even consider entering. In order to "win" the game you will have to enter the cabins at some point and you will have to travel along the road throwing rocks at zombies the entire way, but the forest you can totally avoid and I recommend this highly. In several attempts at play-throughs the main reason I lost was because I tried to use the forest as a short cut to get to another area but wound up getting lost  every time as each area looks identical which is a pretty big problem considering the entire thing is broken up into many sub areas that link into one another.

Honestly the kids in the cabins the woods were as good as dead anyway.

I'll give the game credit in that the controls are fairly responsive but the gameplay itself is horrendous. The player has two different ways of avoiding being horribly murdered by the hordes of undead, a jump, and the ability to throw rocks these would be great if they were useful. Now bear with me for a moment. One would assume that its hard to flub something as simple as giving the player the ability to jump and attack enemies but LJN messed that up. The starting weapon is a rock that does barely any damage and makes fighting zombies let alone Jason an impossibility as it does so little damage and lacks any sort of stun ability that it might as well be the cane in Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. The jumping despite being fairly responsive is pretty useless as the zombies operate on Ghosts and Ghouls logic where they will pop-up underneath you and in proximity of wherever you land after jumping. Once you get inside a house everything changes into a round of dungeon crawling ala Wizardry where you navigate cabins and pick up and use items in order to further objectives and prevent Jason from killing you.

George + Knife = Happy Face? Maybe he’s the real killer.

I’m going to level with you. This game is so god awful I wouldn’t recommend it by any stretch of the imagination to anyone but a collector or the hardiest of retro gamers. It is likely that there are some features that I may not have discovered during my playtime of Friday the 13th despite having played the game to completion once and having played to failure a plethora of times having admitted this I want to assure you all that I found this game to be terrible in all regards, but it is playable. If you try hard enough and you make sure you draw out a map as you travel through the forest or the cabins then your chances of beating the game grow exponentially. I’d recommend that if Jason pops up as you are traveling from cabin to cabin that you run as the likelihood of you beating him without having picked up the knife is pretty low. Remember kids, LJN is bad and they should feel bad.

Especially because they apparently can’t comprehend that animals aren’t blue.

Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama (Genesis)

Buy it NOW! If you're man enough...

Anyone who's been following my game reviews up until this point would notice that I really dig the obscure, oddball, under-the-radar, so-bad-they're-awesome types of games. After all, I even recommended Power Piggs of The Dark Age, which by all accounts is a less than perfect platformer with a ridiculously oddball premise. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have rented and owned some very goofy games in my time and the Sega Genesis kept me busy with plenty of strange games with off-the-wall plots. So if I tell you that there's actually a Sega Genesis game called "Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama"; it should not only come as little surprise, but that I've certainly played it before.

Back in 1994, Electronic Arts released Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama. The premise is this: you play as Normy the beach bum who has to travel through space and time (with the help of your trusty magic suntan lotion - don't ask...) to save all of the hot beach babes from space aliens. Oh, and your beach is going to get turned into a Toxic Waste Dump. In the immortal words of Duke Nukem: "Nobody steals our chicks...and lives!" The game is a standard platformer (that plays much like Bubsy) where you can run, jump, and attack with wacky weapons like a boxing glove mallet, a chicken (I kid you not,) a beaver,  and other crazy items. You travel to different time periods/locales such as BC-era Jersey, Medieval London, and even travel through Hell (with the cutsier, less offensive title of "Heck.")

Get Away From Her, You...err...Mean ol' Aliens.

For a relatively unknown game by small-ish developer Realtime Associates, the graphics are surprisingly good. They fall somewhere between the aforementioned Power Piggs of the Dark Ages (mostly in style,) Awesome Possum, and the Beavis and Butthead games (of which Realtime Associates made the Super NES version!) Funny and fluid animations, colorful characters and great use of shading - this game does a good job of representing the cartoonier graphics the Sega Genesis was known for. The music and sound effects, however, is just a little more lackluster. The intro music is actually well done, but the level songs are a little less developed - just chirpy synth music that kind of gets grating after a while along with the distorted sound effects. Sonic the Hedgehog this ain't. That being said, I've heard a lot worse sound from games with bigger budgets so I'll give it a C+ for effort.

We are the Knights that go - meh?

One of the only main complaints I have with the game outside of the sound is the controls. Sadly, they are a little stiff. The game is far from unplayable, but the controls feel a little slippery/imprecise (ie: Taito's Flintstones/Jetsons games for the NES, the aforementioned Bubsy, etc.) Sometimes you'll swear that you cleared a jump but find yourself just shy of it. The run mechanic sometimes got me into more trouble than it helped, but overall the game is very playable. I actually want to hand it to the developers for their clever weapon choices and the effectiveness of the attack. I often didn't expect my hit to connect against an enemy and it did: which is more than I can say for a lot of other obscure, lower-budget platformers.

Power Pigg? Wrong game, buddy!

This game is basically one part Leisure Suit Larry, two parts Bubsy and a sprinkling of Power Piggs and Green Dog for good measure. The graphics and humor are the high points of this game and I recommend it to anyone who likes slightly obscure and totally bonkers games for the Genesis. The controls and sound are passable but wont wow you - but if you're looking for a fun platformer that doesn't require a lot of upper-level thinking, this is the game for you.

"Come Sail Away! Come Sail Away! Come Sail Away With Me!"

Terrifying Terrible Terrors: Ren & Stimpy: Buckaroo$ (NES)

It was a Halloween night, much like this one.
A horrible night for a curse.
But that's exactly what it had in store for me.

I was around 13 years old. I'll be the first to admit - I was starting to get "a little old" for trick-or-treating. However, my little brother really wanted to get his sugar fix and my folks wanted me to take him around a couple of blocks in our neighborhood. Most of my friends ditched me to go to Jeff Davis' Halloween party anyway. His folks were loaded and they always threw these ridiculous Halloween parties with a make-shift haunted house in the backyard, bobbing for apples, games, pizza and more. He also happened to be the knob who made out with my ex-girlfriend after second period P.E. I hate Jeff Davis.

So instead, I'm hauling my little brother (dressed as Felix the Cat) around my neighborhood.

Oh well, I guess I could steal a few of his Reese's peanut butter cups while he's sleeping anyway.

Sadly, it was beginning to look like a bust. We got out a little late and the first two attack squadrons of kids picked the flesh off of the rotting carcass of candy and we were stuck with the tootsie rolls, smarties and dum dums. Oh, and those ridiculous Mexican honey wafer candies that get stuck in your cavities. I could read the disappointment on my brother's greasepaint smeared face and figured it was time to cut our 5 block neighborhood tour down to 3. That meant a couple more houses and we were going to head back from the battle, tail between our legs and head down in defeat. Cryin' to mama through cloudy, black and white cat tears.

Suddenly, there we were. Right smack dab in front of Jeff Davis' house.

Aside from the aforementioned treasure trove of Halloween goodness within and behind his house, his front yard was decked out like a Party City on steroids. Animatronic zombies spring to life from shallow graves, Bats hanging from strings that would make "Squeeeeeeeek Squeeeeeeek" noises when you stepped close enough, his dad; dressed like Leatherface, would run around the yard with a chainless chainsaw, revving it up and scaring the sweet baby Jesus out of any unlucky kids who happened to get to close to the front porch and reach into the plastic pumpkin labeled "Take One and Leave!"

My brother was a petrified stone that I had to roll up the driveway, knowing damn good and well that the Davis' had King Size Snickers and Reese's 4 packs in that plastic pumpkin. I was NOT going to go home empty handed from this otherwise depressing jaunt around our neighborhood. Even if it WAS candy that had been in the grubby, filthy, evil hands of the Davis family. Screw it. I'm gonna take FIVE and bolt.

However, no sooner did I get past the bats, the cobwebs, the cackling witch in the rocking chair and daddy beef jerky face with his functionless yard utensil than did Jeff himself show up at the front door, dressed in a vampire cape and a Bill Clinton mask.

"Hey - 'Sup?"
"err - my little brother is going around trick or treating and..."
"So do you wanna come in?" He asked.
"Nah - he's getting tired and..."
"Hey, wait a minute..."

Jeff stepped away and left me to my odd, awkward, teenage shame.
There I was, at the house of my nemesis and my friends were clearly having more fun than I was. To top it off, I'm waiting at his stoop begging for candy for my brother. God, I hate Jeff Davis.

"Here ya go!"
He plops a handful of candy into my brother's bag and something square and made of hard plastic into mine.
"Happy Halloween, Chris!"
"Yeah...Happy....Happy." I muttered.
We headed home and the entire time I was completely and absolutely confused. "What the hell did Jeff stick in my bag anyway?" I wondered. My brother was certainly in a much better mood as he thumbed through the bottom of his bag, doing a rough count on his spoils of war.

"Wow, Chris! THREE Snicka's Baas!"
"Yeah, that's great Joe..."
I couldn't help but be eaten up by curiosity...what was it? What could it be?

When we got home I ran upstairs to my room without so much as giving my parents a cursory "hey...sup."
I dumped my bag on my bed and out plopped a small mountain of various crap candy and the mystery item that Jeff handed me.

It was a Nintendo game!

"Wahhhh! Man, that's kinda...cool?!"

Not just any game, mind you - a game based on one of my favorite cartoons of all time: Ren and Stimpy! It was Ren and Stimpy: Buckaroos! Maybe that Jeff Davis wasn't such a jerk after all. I mean, sure he kissed my girlfriend but girls come and go - Nintendo games are forever!

I pushed it into my console and started it up with pride.

"Ehh...ok. That KINDA sounds like the theme to Ren and Stimpy."

It did too. Sort of. Only it was garbled up and half of the notes were in the wrong key. It was kind of like when someone is paid to do a "sound-a-like" for a commercial. Sure it's not ACTUALLY that U2 song you've heard all summer, but pretty close. That sort of thing.

"Hey! A cutscene - cool!"

Yup, this game made you a bunch of money,THQ. But at what cost?!

It was sort of, kind of, not at all like the cartoon. The characters were vague representations of Ren and Stimpy, but almost looked too clean in their lines. It's kind of odd saying that they look "too good" and that's a complaint - but it kind of is. They weren't edgy or wacky at all. Where's the oddball close-ups? I know that Nintendo games are capable of this sort of thing. And why is the dialogue so stilted? You can always tell when a team of programmers are writing a licensed video game instead of the original writing team because it always sounds like an alien's approximation of what a character would say. Just putting in the line "You eediot!" doesn't quite capture the Je ne sais quoi of Ren - it just sounds like your moronic cubical-mate at work doing a poor Billy West impression.

"Oh....Oh no!"

Our...heroes?

Now the horror commences.  The game has started. My mission is to play as Stimpy and to somehow launch Ren over the warp machine and to the end of the level. The room is very small, so this should be a piece of cake, right? I mean, they give you practically all of the items you need right at the jump.

"Jump...oh that jump!"

That's right. Neither white men nor Stimpys can jump. Stimpy turns into a slimy wet noodle every time you hit the jump button and he spastically falls short of wherever you want him to land. Sometimes you can get him to vault up to the power-ups and items above him, but mostly you'll just watch him flop around the room like a dying fish. Like a fuzzy red, bloated, white bellied, dead-eyed bass. Ren just keeps pacing back and forth, stopping only occasionally to have a Tourettes fit and start pounding his head.

Wait - wait...What's happening here? That's not right.

And then one of two things happens:
Either
A.) You have a pickle of a time figuring out what to do and accidentally wind up in and out of the teleportation machine yourself without getting Ren to move anywhere.
or
B.) You launch Ren over the teleportation machine, enter it - then eventually come out to accidentally launch his Chihuahua butt back OVER the machine once you reach the other side.

Either way, you're going to have to endure the space minigame more than once. This is about where I shut the game off every single time.

"Sweet mother of Mario - what is going on?! Why does everything control like it was underwater and I had my hands chopped off for stealing an apple in Saudi Arabia?"

It's like playing Gradius blind. And with no thumbs.

The space minigame is nothing short of an atrocity. Do you want to know why that Jerry Lewis movie "The Day the Clown Cried" has never been released? It's just an endless loop of this crappy space shooter. I kid you not, I have played Color Dreams/Bunch games that were better programmed, with sharper controls than this. The stage is pedestrian, the graphics are ugly (but not in that kitchy, Ren and Stimpy way - just gross,) it's repetitive and I've honestly played D-level Atari games with 100% more replay value than this monstrosity. If you ever want to replicate this experience without having to subject yourself to eye-strain, huff a bag of paint and bash your head with a brick - then chase squirrels into oncoming traffic.

On second thought, don't do that.

Just that moment, I ripped the game from the console and flung it against the wall. The plastic cover split into two pieces and it lay defeated on my floor. I made sure to stomp on it a few times and then fling it out of my second story window just to make sure it was dead.

"I hate you Jeff Davis" were the last words I said that whole evening. I went to bed without even stealing a single candy bar from my brother's bag...





...Ok, so none of that actually happened. But I could only imagine that would have been my reaction to receiving Ren and Stimpy if I had not been properly warned before that it's more than a little awful. That being said, if you're a hardcore collector like me, it belongs somewhere in your collection. Preferably stacked behind a bunch of far better games where you can't really reach it unless you had to pull a handful of much better titles out first to get to it. You'll be so tired and frustrated that you'll settle for Castlevania III or Mystery Quest instead of this game. That being said, if you want to add it to your collection: just add it to your wanted list on Lukie Games here!

The SNES game is different, and while I won't call it a masterpiece either - it's at least better than this one!

Happy Halloween!

Of Ghostly Ghasts, and Video Gaming Specters

Full disclosure, I was very uncertain whether or not I would post this as it doesn’t directly involve video games. This is a true story as I did experience the following events and my parents and friends definitely know I complained about at least one of them while keeping the other one to myself for obvious reasons that involve staying out of the nut house. So in the spirit of it being Halloween I present to you the story of a potential ghost thing I encounter when I was young.

---

Growing up the game room in my household was always the basement and to this day the game consoles are still placed in the basement at my parents homes. When I was nine my father brought home a PlayStation that had been given to him by my Uncle who never managed to hold onto games or game systems for very long. After bringing it home my dad and I went to the nearest Funcoland and picked up Gex and a few other games. That night we both sat down and played it but from then on it would just be me spending several hours a day in the basement playing the PlayStation or the NES that we had setup.
One day my parents had gone out taking my sister with them and I decided the best possible way of spending this time would be by huddling up near the TV and spending the entire time playing Rayman. One of the few things I remember most vividly from my childhood is this moment, in the middle of playing Rayman I began to hear my name whispered, “Michael… Michael… Michael…” It was a female voice that I didn’t particularly recognize. My first reaction was to look around the room to see if anyone was hiding like if my parents had come home and were trying to trick me (that’s a normal thing for parents to do, right?) I also knew the neighbors at the time and none of them were named Michael or any variation of that. For the record the way my house is setup in order to get from the basement to the first floor you have to pass the laundry room which you can see into from the hallway leading to the staircase. When I became fed up with searching for who may be hiding in the room I got up and began to make my way to the stairs as I looked in the direction of the laundry room for about a split-second I saw what appeared to be a person (but I didn’t get a good enough look to catch any discerning features), just staring at me, then as soon as I saw it it disappeared. I ran back into the basement and refused to go near the stairs until my mom came down to force me to eat dinner and for the first time in my young life I was more then happy to eat my damn vegetables.
When I was eleven a similar instance happened, I was spending time playing video games in the Basement and got so into my gaming session that I decided I’d sleep on the couch in order to maximize my gaming time. Around 11PM I passed out until I was awoken by the light of the TV’s static as somehow it had managed to turn itself on. So I tried shutting it off using the remote to no avail, I presumed the batteries were dead and went and tried repeatedly to use the power button on the television to turn it off this tactic failed just as much as the previous and I chose the most drastic option and unplugged the TV from the wall. It remained on. It was at this point I began to get a bit unnerved, as I backed away from the TV and went to gather my blanket and pillow under the impression that I would just get the hell out of there and hope everything went back to normal at a later date I heard it. I heard “Michael” whispered ever so softly. I just resigned myself at that point and buried myself under my blanket and in the cushions of the couch trying to fortify myself from whatever was doing this. I eventually fell asleep and when I woke up everything was back to the normal, the TV was off and unplugged and I was very much alive. I considered it a victory at the time.
Fast forward to when I’m sixteen, by this point I was forced to move into the basement armed with a with a PlayStation 2, GameCube, and NES and I made the best of a fairly shitty situation. One day during the summer the basement grew suddenly cold or more specifically the area around where my game systems and TV were. Even though every other part of the house was being kept at a nice 70-80 degrees that one spot far away from any vent but right next to a window which should have been oozing in heat into the house. I attempted to rectify the situation by opening the window and the backyard door but the spot remained quite cold while the rest of the room slowly grew warmer. This wouldn’t be an isolated incident and it would occur randomly throughout that summer, which led me to believe that it wasn’t just a place where all the cold air from the house was collecting. One night during early September this occurred and I initially thought nothing of it as I slowly grew accustomed to it over the summer but that night I heard something that sounded familiar. I heard my name whispered ever so softly, “Michael” only this time it was accompanied by a full sentence, “Michael where are you?”. I panicked and wondered if there was some sort of stalker in my house so I grabbed my crowbar that I kept under my bed (seemed like a pretty normal thing at the time to have at the time) then I heard it again only it sounded closer but I could make out that it was a woman's voice, one that I had never heard before. I was sitting on the couch facing the television and I thought I noticed movement behind the couch through the reflection of the television. I leapt up and looked behind the couch brandishing my crowbar ready to attack. There was nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something white move towards the laundry room, I rushed towards the laundry room and just before I reached it I saw what looked like a womans’ head poke out from the side and stare at me then duck back in. I rushed into the room to face whomever was trying to scare me and was greeted with nothing but an some dirty laundry and cleaning supplies. At that point I abandoned all hope of understanding what had happened and simply moved on while remaining wary of any subtle changes in the basement.
I have never encountered these phenomenon since then. Once I graduated High School I moved out and never looked back until recently when I was forced to return due to financial reasons (read: I’m bad with money). It wasn’t until a week ago while I was sitting in the basement of the house I grew up in and just remembered all of the weirdness that occurred down here. As I’m writing this I feel slightly unnerved having experienced things that I can’t quite explain, I’d like to chalk it all up to psychosis but that doesn’t explain the physical situations like the TV or the cold spots. Maybe this is all in my head or maybe I’m just a pretty unlucky guy who happens to live in a room with an undead roommate who doesn’t understand common courtesy. I could probably market that idea.

Hypno's Lullaby

Safe and happy you will be
Away from your homes, now let us run
With Hypno, you'll have so much fun

Oh, little children, please don't cry
Hypno wouldn't hurt a fly
Be free, be free be free to play
Come down in my cave with me to stay

Oh, little children, please don't squirm
Those ropes, I know, will hold you firm
Hypno tells you this is true
But sadly, Hypno lied to you

Oh, little children, you mustn't leave
Your families for you will grieve
Their minds will unravel at the seams
Allowing me to haunt their dreams

But surely, all of you must know
That it is time for you to go
Oh, little children, you weren't clever

N̏ͥ̉͝ͅo͙͖̞͇̬͓̖ͪ̾ͦ̈̔̓̎ͪw̲͗̋̈̚͡͡ ̶̡̖͇̦̮̜̻̳̣͉̔̊͑͒̀ȳ̢̱̪̝̪̮͙̪̆͑ͭͩ̚o̮̰ͯ̂͂ͮ̌͊̆͞ŭ̖̻͙̯̯̩̺͍̹̊̈̋̑ͤ͠ ̵̶̤͕̜̅͂͗̓͐͛̋́ͅś̥̙̲̻̘ͫ̿ͮ̋h̪͚̦ͫ̒͌ͥ͑̐ä̤̩̰͓̘́ͯl̸̤͉̖̣͕͔͎͆̅͐̍͗̇̃ͦ́l̡̲̤͉͕̯͚̟̝͗͂ͩ̉̇ͨ͛ͤͮ ̯̞̺͍̱̫̂̊̌̑̇͂ͬ́͞s̺̱̼̳̳̯̠̟̻ͥ̏̅ͨt̔ͨ͗̐̇͆̎̎̿͏̴̘͎a̸̼̅̈̒̈́ͩͬ̿ẙ̹͚͓̭͈͉͕̽̓̀̎͒͂̊ ͎͖̙ͧ̈́̓͑ͤͥw̴̖͚͍̥̥̥̫̄͌̔͟͟i̶̮͓̙̜̓̂ͦͬͬ͑͘ͅt͗̔̎ͨ͏̴̝͚̮̬̹ḩ̢̻̝͕̌̋̆͋̆̓̍̚ ̷̱̖̘͓͈̠͈̥͙̀͊͌ͦͥ̕͘m̖̫̹̮̻̣̯͇͑ͦ͒̎̊̾ͦͪ͗ͅe͒ͥ͐͑͛͗̂̚͏̤̟͓͕͎̳̝͕̯̕ ͕̞͔̥̦̮͖̌͒͊̐̓ͬ̕͞͠f̼̪̞̲͉̼͇̣͚͒ͭ̎͛̉o̎͐̊̅͋ͭͯ̾͛҉̱͈̼͚͚̲͖r̂̀͗ͨ̔̌ͬ̏͢҉͈͟ẽ̸̸̳͙͈̖͖ͭ͆̒̎͊̅v̖̩̳͕͓̩̝͐̿̓̂͋̊ͮ̀͘e̦͔̱̘̤̮͆r̵ͮ̑ͨ̍ͥ͒̚ͅ ̺̻̫̪͋͊̚

picture sources.