Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: The Horror Continues

Out with the old, in with the new!

So you probably have already heard that a new Five Nights at Freddy’s game was released last Tuesday. I’m sure the internet has gone insane for it over the week. As for me, I was so happy to hear that this game was getting a sequel, especially so soon after the original. To tell you the truth, I was really surprised that the full version came out just after the release of the demo.

I’ve also written about the first game. You can read that post here.

In this particular installment many things are changing for Freddy and friends. It’s a new and improved Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizza! A bigger location, and brand new robots to entertain children and adults alike. The future seems bright for the pizzeria and all who attend there.

However, we all know there is more to this family restaurant than meets the eye. Again, you take the role of a new night guard at the location and must protect yourself from the murderous tendencies of familiar foes and their new cohorts. Some new additions include a murderous puppet at the prize corner and a balloon boy that gets in the way.

Those interested in FNAF lore will be pleased to hear that the game expands on the tale, though not in the way one would expect. I’m not going to spoil it here for the uninitiated, but I plan on discussing it more in a different post. I will say these developments are both intriguing and imaginative. I really have to hand it to the developer!

You may be wondering about my own experience playing the game. I wish I could share more about that but sadly I cannot yet. Don’t worry! I did get the first game a while ago. I’ve just been busy with my new job and haven’t had the chance to finish it, but I will! I definitely plan on getting the second one as well. Perhaps I’ll take my experiences from both games and write about them here.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is available on Steam. I know I’m getting it, how about you?

Have a great week guys, and remember to stay scared!

 

Weird Video of the Week

I’ve got a very special WVotW for you all! A YouTuber by the name of Rob Dyke started a contest for people with more modest channels. The winner will receive new equipment to help make their channel better.

For my entry, I not only talked about how I would use the prize, but I also give a small tour of Lakewood’s Fort Stilecoom Park – once a part of Washington’s Western State Hospital, an insane asylum that still exists nearby. I hope you all enjoy and with luck, you’ll be seeing more videos like this!

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Don’t take your kids here.

So it seems that another indie game on Steam is going viral, and deservedly so! It takes our fears of creepy dolls and robots takes it to a new level. Made by Scott Games, this title feels like Slender: The Eight Pages on serious steroids.

Unfortunately I haven’t played this title yet, but I plan to do so soon! I’ve only seen gameplay through YouTube. Right now I’m recovering from surgery and I don’t want to put myself under any more stress than necessary. Scaring myself while on heavy painkillers probably isn’t a great idea. Perhaps I’ll write about my experiences with the game in the near future.

So here’s the gist: You are Mike Schmidt, the new night watchman at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza: a Chuck-e-Cheese style restaurant with cutesy animatronic entertainers – Freddy and his friends. You’re supposed to just sit in your office and keep an eye on the security cameras. The previous watchman leaves advice on how to get through the night and assures you everything will be alright. If only it was.

Something is terribly wrong with Freddy and the other robots. They wander the halls all night; always moving when you’re focused on another camera. Slowly making their way towards your little office. The Phone Guy explains if they find you, they’ll mistake you for a robotic exoskeleton, and stuff you into a spare bear suit full of animatronic gear, which would crush you to death.

In order to survive the night you must remain watchful of these robots, shutting the doors to the office when they get too close. Why not just shut the doors indefinitely, you ask? Well, the office doors, cameras, and lights all run on a limited amount of power. Apparently management is incredibly cheap these days, so if you use up the allotted amount everything shuts down and you’re left a sitting duck.

But there’s more to this story than a bunch of confused, murderous robots. The restaurant has a terrible past as well. Keen and persistent players will find old news clippings about a series of murdered children whose bodies were never found, reprimands for the ‘unsanitary’ conditions of the robotic characters, and the restaurant’s reputation fatally wounded. There’s really more of a supernatural issue here than one may realize.

While the established lore is a great story by itself, I’m still left wondering about Schmidt’s character. What kind of person would spend -not one, not two- but five nights risking their life, under threat of a horrible death by robotic children’s characters, all for $120? Is he that desperate for cash? Is he completely insane? Or perhaps there’s some other kind of explanation? If there’s going to be a sequel, I hope they expand on the protagonist’s motives.

Five Nights at Freddy’s is available on Steam for a reasonable price. I know I’ll be checking it out soon! How about you?

Dead Air Part 3

I was unnerved by his attitude, but kept my composure. “I’m very sorry sir, I’m having some difficulty hearing you so you’ll have to speak up. How can I help you today?”

At first there was nothing I could really make out aside from some strange whispering, but finally the same deep voice began to speak. “Do you believe in evil?”

“Yes…” I answered, somewhat confused. “Is there anything I could help you with?”

“It’s good that you do. I’ve been trying to contact the outside world for some time now with little success. You could certainly help me with getting out of this retched place.”

While the anger in this man’s voice had scared me at first, his newfound relaxed tone was surprisingly warm and charming. His vocabulary and confidence left me with the impression that he was intelligent and articulate. Even though I still had no idea what he wanted, he left me with a little hope that this call would be over soon. Intelligent people are so much easier to deal with.

“So let me see if I understand you correctly,” I said, trying to make my voice sound less tentative than I felt. “You’re stuck or trapped somewhere very unpleasant, and choose to call your wireless provider for help? Where are you? Are you locked in a room or perhaps a basement?”

“Think deeper, my dear,” the voice said. “I’ve been trying to contact anyone with a pulse for eons now, through all kinds of means,” he explained. “It’s not easy contacting the living from another plane of existence, especially in the way communication has changed in the last century or so.”

Now I was wondering if I had some kind of crank-caller on my line. The center doesn’t get too many of these types of people, and this would be my first experience with one. My mind raced to figure out how I could get this idiot to hang up as soon as possible. He was wasting my time and there was no way for me to hang up on him or call him out on his bullshit. Another addition to the long list of rules for working here.

I didn’t even want to think about the possibility that he could be insane. That was something that I really had no clue how to deal with.

“Sir, if you’re having some kind of emergency I recommend hanging up and calling 911-”

“Don’t hang up on me again!” the caller screamed, it was so loud that I jumped in my chair and my ears began to ring. My visible shock made my neighbors in their small cubicles stare at me in confusion. I smiled and nodded silently to assure them I was alright and still in control of my call. No way was I going to let them think I couldn’t handle it. I quickly began talking again in order to regain some sense of control.

“Sir I realize that you’re in some sort of predicament, but this center is intended to assist our wireless customers. If you are a customer, I can help manage your account or troubleshoot problems with your phone. If you’re trapped or stuck somewhere, there’s not much I can do to resolve that problem. Your best bet is to contact your local authorities.”

Dead Air: Part 2

Read part one here.

“Hello, thank you for calling customer service. How can I help you today?” I repeated. We’re always supposed to give a caller ample time to reply.

Still nothing.

“I’m very sorry, but unfortunately I’m unable to hear you at this time and I will have to release the call. You can always call customer service again if you have any further questions. Have a nice day.”

With the press of the release button, I disconnected the call and that should have been the end of it.

Time is of the essence in a call center. It just a few seconds, I was ready to take care of the next customer to contact us. When it did, you can only imagine my surprise when I recognized the number: the same one as before.

In all my time working at my call center, this is the only time this has ever happened. No one I know of has ever talked to the same customer twice. With the number of people who call in, the number of agents here, and at other call centers around the country, the chances of speaking with the very same person on the same day are so astronomical it’s almost impossible to occur. Not only was this caller able to beat those odds, but also manage to contact me again right away.

For a few moments I sat there in stunned silence, unable to say anything. I quickly managed to pull myself together and once again begin my regular opening.

“Thank you for calling customer service. How can I help you today?” I asked again.

No reply. There wasn’t even any background noise to make out.

“Thank you for calling customer service. How can I help you today?” I repeated. I began to wonder if there was some kind of strange glitch on my phone or in our system.

I continued, “I’m very sorry, but unfortunately I’m unable to hear you at this time and I will have to release-”

“Don’t hang up on me again,” a deep voice interrupted. It was barely audible and perhaps to the untrained ear indiscernible, but it was loud enough for me to make it out. For what I could tell, the voice was male and sounded angry.

Dead Air

I should start by saying that I work in a call center for a major wireless company. I won’t be naming which one it is, but I will say it is a major carrier. When you call in with questions about your bill or changing your service plan, you’re talking to people like me.

I know how that sounds – and yes – there are definitely more glamorous jobs in the world, but it’s the way I get my bills paid. It sure beats the hell out of working in a retail store.

The difficult thing about working in customer service is people aren’t calling because everything’s fine and happy – they’re calling because they’re ticked off about some problem they’re having with their service. Most upset people take it out on the poor grunt on the other end, and it can take a lot of skill to calm someone over the phone. An agent will burn out in no time if they don’t know how to handle it. Those who have worked here a long time have their ways of dealing with all the frustration.

The most common method is to see the humor in it all. Agents will find they can look back at many of their most stressful or upsetting calls, and laugh about it later. There are a ton of hilarious calls that are saved within our system that we use to help teach new agents. There are callers who have made strange, animalistic shouts and yells in their anger, amazing insults that will impress even the most cynical, and of course the few lewd callers with weird fetishes. We laugh at all these people for their ridiculous behavior and pathetic attempts to get us down.

However there is one call in my experience that still chills me each time it comes to mind. It’s become something of a legend amongst my coworkers and me; a call that no one in our center can explain with any certainty.

It happened very early on a Saturday morning; just past four o’clock. Our center runs 24/7, so there’s always a graveyard shift running for the handful of late-night callers looking for some troubleshooting or emergency support. A lot of our more interesting calls come in at times like this, and that night was no exception.

I had already been working for about two hours before I got that strange call. Before then there had been nothing out of the ordinary: a guy that needed to update his iPhone to fix some texting problems, a woman who was upset about overage charges on her bill, and a bunch of people asking to defer their bills for later in the week. All of these issues are very mundane, routine stuff.

I nearly had to wait five whole minutes to receive that fateful call. When it did come in, I could tell that the number was quite distinctive. It was all a bunch of sixes.

I found the number odd, but I’m no a believer in demonic adversaries, so I remained unfazed. “Hello, thank you for calling customer service. How can I help you today?” I said. This is how I always begin a call. It’s become such a habit; I could do this all in my sleep.

This time however I was met with no reply. No muffled talking or jostling sounds either, just complete silence. A dead air call.

This may seem strange to you, but it actually happens all the time. Sometimes people accidentally call our customer service line when their phone is in their pocket, or maybe their toddler started playing with the buttons. They’re also known as ‘ghost’ calls, and I get at least one of them a day.

Read part two here.

Weird Video of the Week

Since this week’s video comes on this ridiculous day of forced romance, I am culturally obligated to provide you with a Valentine’s Day themed story. I hope it makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside in all the wrong ways! Have a great weekend.

Weird Video of the Week

Finally, I’m back to making some of my own videos again! This is a narration of a great webcomic from a South Korean artist. I highly recommend checking it out, and be sure to scare your friends with it too! Have a great weekend!

Weird Video of the Week

This week’s video is another one posted by yours truly! I really love how the literature classes up the place. Enjoy.

If you’ve got a video of your own that would be a great fit here, don’t be shy – send it to me!

Halloween Extravaganza!

It seems I must apologize again for the recent lack of posts. The Halloween season is a pretty insane time for me and I’ve found it engulfed by costumes, parties, haunted houses, and work. In any case, I hope that this little surprise on the creepiest day of the year will make up for my absence. I’ve actually gotten around to making videos of my own! Please enjoy and have a happy Halloween!

As an added bonus, here are some Halloween-theme songs from my childhood. Pretty goofy but still fun.