Mark LoProto
Bio
Writer | Avid Gamer | Horror Enthusiast | A Voice for All Industries
Writing and building communities are my passions
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'Phantom Halls': Indie Horror Gets the Comedy Treatment
The dim beam of your flashlight is barely enough to illuminate your way through the darkened mansion. Floorboards creak and the walls whisper a haunting song as you and your ill-equipped squad search for an escape from the living nightmare. As with the horror movies we've grown so used to watching, everything starts off quiet—that is until you cross paths with that first deadly ghoul that sets the tone for your haunted adventure.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Shockwork Games Focuses on Strategy for Horror Title, 'Alder's Blood'
Nature can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be molded into whatever we want it to be, even if that means twisting it into disturbing imagery. The towering emerald canopies of a forest can be both magnificent and nightmarish. Do the shadows they cast hide terrors or cause unease to those they fall on? Is there a danger hidden within them, something rooted in the rotten core of Mother Nature? We can explore our surrounding environs in a myriad of ways, but it’s through horror that the team behind Alder’s Blood aimed to view the natural world.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Celebrate Love with Your Favorite Video Game Romances
Ah, love. Even gamers can recognize the joys of finding that special someone. Heck, some of us even find that spark in our greatest online adversaries. In fact, it was the wise Solid Snake that one said: “I believe at any time, any place, people can fall in love with each other.”
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Walking Through a Monster Wonderland
I had never felt so out of place in a game before. I mostly stomp ineffectively around Call of Duty maps and waste space on MMORPG servers, but when it came to the Monster Hunter series, I might as well have just thrown the remote on the floor and hoped for the best. I’ve read the elder scrolls, been a part of so many final fantasy’s, and romped in more than my fair share of fallout, but when it comes to RPGs, the Monster Hunter series has always been the one I awkwardly stumbled through.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Dreamlords Digital Promises Heaven and Hell on Earth in Upcoming Turn-Based RPG, 'Graywalkers: Purgatory'
Fires rage throughout abandoned cities, threatening to level the once-lively buildings lining now empty streets. As you walk through another desolate metropolis, a scream echoes in the distance—a soundtrack you’ve grown used to hearing.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Four Adjustments That Could Improve Metal Gear Survive
It’s clear that Metal Gear Survive isn’t going to go down as the best-selling game sporting the Metal Gear title, but it’s also a far cry from the terrible experience many preemptively claimed it would be. Hung up on the “Metal Gear” portion of the title, fans of the original series couldn’t quite connect the dots between a zombie-survival base builder and the story-heavy series. Metal Gear Solid may have always been known for its fantastical elements, but the pitch to use the series as a launching point for this kind of game must have been a wild one.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
'Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle' Review
I remember the first time I played through XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was a solid game, but one that caused my stress level to increase tenfold. There never seemed to be a moment of reprieve, even while I was tinkering around in the underground headquarters. Was I making the right decisions? Would they come back to bite me on a future mission? It was a never-ending game of second-guessing myself, yet somehow still enjoyable.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
The Ghost and the Switch
Accountability. Without it, my credibility as a writer and, dare I say, a journalist, is left with an aura of decay. That festering cloud will continue to rot and grow until I’m little more than a tabloid artist, spinning improbable tales for the bored and the unemployed. It’s not a future I want for myself, and so I aim to hold myself accountable for my actions, thoughts, and words.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Indie-Developed RPG 'Bevontule' Hitting Kickstarter on January 29
Welcome to the continent of Onich, a once vibrant land that’s since been touched by decay and riddled with deadly foes. Over the 1,500 years since its discovery by refugees fleeing from a devastated homeland, the continent’s dark history slowly started to surface, its provinces falling victim to the ravenous Kelvari. The network of evil is responsible for breeding “Rootsouls,” the fierce creatures that have claimed parts of Onich as their own.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
'Metal Gear Survive' and the Developer's Quandary
On September 21st, 2016, I went on a little rant, calling die-hard Metal Gear fans “dramatic,” claiming that they put the series on “such a high pedestal that any deviation from the source material is viewed as a black mark, a cancer that will only serve to destroy all they’ve grown to love.” All of this, of course, was in response to the reveal of Konami’s Metal Gear Survive, and was part of a piece explaining how the title wasn’t the end-all for the series.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
The Plight of the Indie Developed Survival Video Game
More than a decade ago, the concept of an open-world game built around the struggles of survival in a cruel environment was new and fresh. It may have seen its first inception in the early 90s with UnReal World and later again in 2006 with the Java-released Wurm Online, but the genre didn’t really become a genre until 2009, with the release of Minecraft.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review
I came out of Resident Evil 6 with one feeling – regret. Why had I suffered through three pointless campaigns filled with bland set pieces and monotonous firefights? What was so important about watching Leon Kennedy turn into an action hero or seeing Chris Redfield’s spiral into alcoholism? It took a second dreaded playthrough for me to realize it was all nostalgia-fueled hope that Capcom was ready to deliver Resident Evil in the way I had remembered it from umpteen years prior.
By Mark LoProto6 years ago in Gamers