this isn't soul train, honey. back it up!

According to Pounce Teazle, "Donaudampfshifferkapitaenspatent" means Danube steam-engine powered patent boat". Oookay. That's not quite as long as Llanfair, Wales--to be more precise, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which translates to "the church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave"...but it's darned close.

More haunts, more ghosts, more ghouls. We went to Raithal Academy's Hallows Hill build. And I died.



I got better.



Raithal's an interesting build. It definitely has cornered the market on abandoned power-plant action. Everything is decayed, rusted, broken, twisted, doors tilting off hinges, damaged wire and concrete....you can almost catch the scent of oilfires burning and hear the spark of broken power lines.



Once inside, though, things get a little...odd.



I'm sorry, did I say 'odd'? I meant FREAKISHLY INSANE.



And believe me, I'm a tolerant person, but um...I don't even want to know what these two were doing when they died.

For Raithal, if rusty metal, crashed vehicles, insane zombies, and stained walls are your thing, boy, are you lucky. And don't forget the graveyard in the back! You might even get hit with a femur!

From there, we ended the evening at Dead by Dawn on Publishing Island. We'd been waiting for this one with bated breath based on the sheer look of the exhibit, and their excruciatingly faithful reproduction of the abandoned cabin from Evil Dead I and II.



Based on their displays, it made me think that Halloween 2008 is going to be the Year of the Tortured Noob, but also, they had so many extremely creative ideas, I just couldn't wait for their haunted house to finally open!



Finally it opened, and off we went--a four-pack of intrepid adventurers, set to conquer the night haunts! But there were unanticipated problems.

First, you have to catch the cars flying past you as you stand by the door to the haunted house. That's a bit irritating. Right-clicking and holding in Edit seems to hold them long enough for four people to get in a car.



Unfortunately, once you release the car from Edit, it goes haywire. This one tried to leave the tracks multiple times, got us nibbled by a giant devil head, and flung us into a tree.



See? Tree.

But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem--and this is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING--is the inside of the haunted house.



This is it.

I'm not kidding.

The entire haunted house, inside, is one long room with a track and animated blood textures. And that's IT.

I feel cheated.

By all means, if you're a Bruce Campbell fan, go for the cabin--the SLUrl drops you off there. And they have some inventive Halloween props to buy.

But if you want to go for the haunted house? Pass Publishing Island right on by, because they don't have one. At ALL.