First gig is this Saturday. Woah.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Beatles, Basterds, and Scribblenautz
Let's keep this concise.
The Beatles were very arguably the last cool thing to happen to the planet, hands down. I've made my stance on this issue no secret for many years, so naturally when I saw this I couldn't help by share my excitement with the world. But isn't The Beatles Rockband just another rhythm game?
Yes and no. While the core of the game is very obviously the same as previous titles in the series, it has a few special things that set it apart. I mean, for starters it's the fucking Beatles. That aside though, as the trailer for the game may suggest, it is a beautifully artsy game. I'm constantly amazed by the lovely design of every aspect of the game, from character models to cut-scenes. What really gets me is that through the creators affectionate love of the Beatles, you really feel like you're a part of the band's experience right from the beginning. It's touching to watch them age with their music and relive an experience that I was sadly born just a little too late to catch the first time around. Only one problem though..
No Elenore Rigby. Maybe someday.
Inglourious Basterds was simply fantastic. I've waited about a month since seeing it for the first time to fully decide that is my favorite film. It gets a lot flack from certain critics for having parts that are 'too slow', like the opening or the bar scene, but my attitude is that if you can't slow yourself down for a minute to try and relate with the characters on screen, then you've got bigger issues. There really isn't anything to say except that you should definitely watch it, as Christoph Waltz is the most amazing villain you are ever going to meet. Ever.
Scribblenauts is the type of game that is just as fun as you make it. If you have an imagination and a knack for words you'll probably love the shit out of it, I know I did. However you can obviously find ways to make the levels easy for yourself, but if you're an honest fellow you'll want to be constantly using different words, meaning never the same word twice. Take that, rocketboot aficionados. With an upwards of two thousand, five hundred words (2500, people) you should never have to use the same word twice. (Now, granted some of those words give you the same object and some objects are useless, but that's kind of what makes it great. I mean, in life certain objects are useless, why should this be any different?)
But yeah. Another game really worth playing, if you have the creativity for it.
Be posting some more art in the next day or so. So look forward to that.
The Beatles were very arguably the last cool thing to happen to the planet, hands down. I've made my stance on this issue no secret for many years, so naturally when I saw this I couldn't help by share my excitement with the world. But isn't The Beatles Rockband just another rhythm game?
Yes and no. While the core of the game is very obviously the same as previous titles in the series, it has a few special things that set it apart. I mean, for starters it's the fucking Beatles. That aside though, as the trailer for the game may suggest, it is a beautifully artsy game. I'm constantly amazed by the lovely design of every aspect of the game, from character models to cut-scenes. What really gets me is that through the creators affectionate love of the Beatles, you really feel like you're a part of the band's experience right from the beginning. It's touching to watch them age with their music and relive an experience that I was sadly born just a little too late to catch the first time around. Only one problem though..
No Elenore Rigby. Maybe someday.
Inglourious Basterds was simply fantastic. I've waited about a month since seeing it for the first time to fully decide that is my favorite film. It gets a lot flack from certain critics for having parts that are 'too slow', like the opening or the bar scene, but my attitude is that if you can't slow yourself down for a minute to try and relate with the characters on screen, then you've got bigger issues. There really isn't anything to say except that you should definitely watch it, as Christoph Waltz is the most amazing villain you are ever going to meet. Ever.
Scribblenauts is the type of game that is just as fun as you make it. If you have an imagination and a knack for words you'll probably love the shit out of it, I know I did. However you can obviously find ways to make the levels easy for yourself, but if you're an honest fellow you'll want to be constantly using different words, meaning never the same word twice. Take that, rocketboot aficionados. With an upwards of two thousand, five hundred words (2500, people) you should never have to use the same word twice. (Now, granted some of those words give you the same object and some objects are useless, but that's kind of what makes it great. I mean, in life certain objects are useless, why should this be any different?)
But yeah. Another game really worth playing, if you have the creativity for it.
Be posting some more art in the next day or so. So look forward to that.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Splattered Homes
Splatter House. Where do I begin?
My very first experience with these games was Splatter House 3 on the Sega Genesis. My memory of it was kind of hazy; I remembered getting lost in a house and punching a lot of weird shit.
After recently replaying it, I can say that it's exactly the same, only worse. The key difference being that I'm of the mind now that I should be able to figure out how the house works, and that there isn't any reason for someone of comparable intelligence to get lost in this fucking house. It feels more like a joke than anything. I can still at this point tell you very little about this game. I can't tell if enemies really respawn or not. I don't know. I don't know what rooms I've been in, ever. I assume sometimes when I've gone through six empty rooms that that means I'm covering the same ground again, but no, don't be fooled by that type of naive logic. Enemies will spawn where and when they want to.
I very clearly remember this advertisement in some now-obscure gaming magazine I had picked up. At the time I didn't know what 'non-linear game play' meant, and after playing it I could only assume it meant "You will always be fucking lost, but that's okay, just punch more shit". One thing I did enjoy about this game though, is that you can pick up lots of weapons: strange pieces of wood or cinder blocks, etc. Bashing enemies with them is fun, but my real joy comes from what happens if you drop them. If for any reason you lose the object you're holding a skull will come from the wall and pick it up and carry it away to another room. Sometimes you're lucky enough to grab your object back before the ghostly skull manages to, quite literally, sink his teeth into it, but more often than not you fall just a little short. I found myself getting a great kick out of this. I'd lose my object then have a goal for myself-- find the fucking room where the skull faces (who you can't kill, by the way) were hiding my shit. Even right now I find my mind racing with what they were planning on doing with my whoop-ass objects.
And despite all of that, the game is actually really easy. I know, right? There's a time limit per-floor, and even though I'm constantly lost I always managed to make it to the boss before the time limit was up (kind of), and progress to the next level. Sure, my wife got killed because I ran out of time in the boss fight, and my son was also viciously slaughtered, but it's all in good fun. I'm told the time limit only affect 'things that happen' and doesn't make you actually lose the game.
Good call.
After my run-in with Splatter House 3, I didn't hear of any of them for many, many years. It's funny to think that even as a child after playing 3 I was so uninterested in where it came from that I didn't even assume 1 or 2 existed. Splatter House re-entered my life via the Wii Virtual Console when a (sadly) old friend purchased it. It was the Turbo Grafx-16 version and it was awful. For as bad as 3 is, this is just so much worse. It's only redeeming quality in my eyes is that I love hitting things randomly with planks of wood and watching them explode on the back of the screen. Oh, and guy with chainsaw hands is pretty cool.
I beat this game too, despite it all. I think I just love beating awful games to say that I have, but this felt different. Maybe it's a mix of the fact it's pretty easy and appeals to my love of horror, or something else, but whatever it is, this game managed to pull me all the way through it. So kudos to it and a lost wasted weekend.
After that, I swore off Splattering Houses. I wasn't interested in 2 at all. There was nothing it could do to save this in my eyes.
Randomly one day while running through my arcade box I stumbled on a game called "Splatter House - Wanpaku Graffiti". I was so taken aback that a Splatter House game existed for the NES that I couldn't help myself but take a look. Right from the beginning the game is interesting. It starts with a pretty girl kneeling by a grave crying as lightning crashes in the background. A second later the grave opens up and a man in a hockey mask bearing a striking resemblance to a masked killer we all love (which I have neglected to mention until this point) emerges. The girl looks all kinds of happy, but sadly the grave next to our Jason wanna-be opens up revealing a floating pumpkin! Scary! It picks her up and flies away with her. The presumably heartbroken man (Rick) starts after her and the game begins.
This game is good in a way and for reasons that I just can't describe correctly. For starters, it's much better platformer than the other games in this series by far. But where this game really shines for me is it's abundant horror-culture references, and that's even excusing the obvious Friday the 13th one. For example, the first 'boss' you fight in this game is a vampire who, literally, dances Thriller right in front of you. I am dead serious.
Look at it. Look at it. I couldn't make that shit up; I'm not clever enough. Every second of this game is brought to a new level of enjoyment for these references alone. It pays respects to Aliens, The Excorsist, The Fly, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, House on Haunted Hill, Jaws, and a fuck ton more than I don't even remember. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm just having some fan-boygasm because this game is referencing awesome things. Well, while you may not be completely off-base, this game really is a lot of fun from start to finish. I am forced to strongly recommend it, especially if you only play one Splatter House game.
It actually has a really clever ending too. I really enjoyed this game from front to back. It's more than a novelty.
My very first experience with these games was Splatter House 3 on the Sega Genesis. My memory of it was kind of hazy; I remembered getting lost in a house and punching a lot of weird shit.
After recently replaying it, I can say that it's exactly the same, only worse. The key difference being that I'm of the mind now that I should be able to figure out how the house works, and that there isn't any reason for someone of comparable intelligence to get lost in this fucking house. It feels more like a joke than anything. I can still at this point tell you very little about this game. I can't tell if enemies really respawn or not. I don't know. I don't know what rooms I've been in, ever. I assume sometimes when I've gone through six empty rooms that that means I'm covering the same ground again, but no, don't be fooled by that type of naive logic. Enemies will spawn where and when they want to.
I very clearly remember this advertisement in some now-obscure gaming magazine I had picked up. At the time I didn't know what 'non-linear game play' meant, and after playing it I could only assume it meant "You will always be fucking lost, but that's okay, just punch more shit". One thing I did enjoy about this game though, is that you can pick up lots of weapons: strange pieces of wood or cinder blocks, etc. Bashing enemies with them is fun, but my real joy comes from what happens if you drop them. If for any reason you lose the object you're holding a skull will come from the wall and pick it up and carry it away to another room. Sometimes you're lucky enough to grab your object back before the ghostly skull manages to, quite literally, sink his teeth into it, but more often than not you fall just a little short. I found myself getting a great kick out of this. I'd lose my object then have a goal for myself-- find the fucking room where the skull faces (who you can't kill, by the way) were hiding my shit. Even right now I find my mind racing with what they were planning on doing with my whoop-ass objects.
And despite all of that, the game is actually really easy. I know, right? There's a time limit per-floor, and even though I'm constantly lost I always managed to make it to the boss before the time limit was up (kind of), and progress to the next level. Sure, my wife got killed because I ran out of time in the boss fight, and my son was also viciously slaughtered, but it's all in good fun. I'm told the time limit only affect 'things that happen' and doesn't make you actually lose the game.
Good call.
After my run-in with Splatter House 3, I didn't hear of any of them for many, many years. It's funny to think that even as a child after playing 3 I was so uninterested in where it came from that I didn't even assume 1 or 2 existed. Splatter House re-entered my life via the Wii Virtual Console when a (sadly) old friend purchased it. It was the Turbo Grafx-16 version and it was awful. For as bad as 3 is, this is just so much worse. It's only redeeming quality in my eyes is that I love hitting things randomly with planks of wood and watching them explode on the back of the screen. Oh, and guy with chainsaw hands is pretty cool.
I beat this game too, despite it all. I think I just love beating awful games to say that I have, but this felt different. Maybe it's a mix of the fact it's pretty easy and appeals to my love of horror, or something else, but whatever it is, this game managed to pull me all the way through it. So kudos to it and a lost wasted weekend.
After that, I swore off Splattering Houses. I wasn't interested in 2 at all. There was nothing it could do to save this in my eyes.
Randomly one day while running through my arcade box I stumbled on a game called "Splatter House - Wanpaku Graffiti". I was so taken aback that a Splatter House game existed for the NES that I couldn't help myself but take a look. Right from the beginning the game is interesting. It starts with a pretty girl kneeling by a grave crying as lightning crashes in the background. A second later the grave opens up and a man in a hockey mask bearing a striking resemblance to a masked killer we all love (which I have neglected to mention until this point) emerges. The girl looks all kinds of happy, but sadly the grave next to our Jason wanna-be opens up revealing a floating pumpkin! Scary! It picks her up and flies away with her. The presumably heartbroken man (Rick) starts after her and the game begins.
This game is good in a way and for reasons that I just can't describe correctly. For starters, it's much better platformer than the other games in this series by far. But where this game really shines for me is it's abundant horror-culture references, and that's even excusing the obvious Friday the 13th one. For example, the first 'boss' you fight in this game is a vampire who, literally, dances Thriller right in front of you. I am dead serious.
Look at it. Look at it. I couldn't make that shit up; I'm not clever enough. Every second of this game is brought to a new level of enjoyment for these references alone. It pays respects to Aliens, The Excorsist, The Fly, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, House on Haunted Hill, Jaws, and a fuck ton more than I don't even remember. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm just having some fan-boygasm because this game is referencing awesome things. Well, while you may not be completely off-base, this game really is a lot of fun from start to finish. I am forced to strongly recommend it, especially if you only play one Splatter House game.
It actually has a really clever ending too. I really enjoyed this game from front to back. It's more than a novelty.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Pinball
Something I've been meaning to upload for a long time: photos of my pinball machine. Decent photos. Sadly I find myself completely inept with a camera, but I'm lucky enough to be friends with a photographer I really admire, and, while he lacks my deficiency for pinball, he shares my amazement with flashing lights and bright colors.
(This one is secretly my favorite ^)
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wet boi
More gay stuff, sorry. It's like, who I am and stuff. (But don't tell my mom)
This is the kind of piece I would have normally painted, but since I'm still fighting the Cintiq for decent color I was stuck with the "Pen on Napkin" look. Fairly pleased with this one, actually. Becoming more and more acquainted with teeth in a semi-realistic setting recently. Fun times.
This is the kind of piece I would have normally painted, but since I'm still fighting the Cintiq for decent color I was stuck with the "Pen on Napkin" look. Fairly pleased with this one, actually. Becoming more and more acquainted with teeth in a semi-realistic setting recently. Fun times.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Fire 'N Ice
I get lost in puzzle games quite a bit, but I haven't been so smitten in quite a long time. To be frank, I really thought that I had played and beaten the best of them.
Christ, did I ever miss one.
Fire 'N Ice takes place on COOLMINT Island, which just may be the coolest (and mintiest) fucking place I've ever been. You play as Dana, who I thought I was led to believe the entire game was a girl. I was not alone in this assumption, as everyone else in the room cheered at the idea of a female lead. Of course, hours after everyone drifted to their respective rooms for sleep, I neared the end of the game almost alone, save for one other person. The game became incredibly amazing in those last moments as Dana starting making out with a princess super hard. We were beside ourselves with incredible amazement. Then, of course, the old lady who had so kindly been telling the story informed us that Dana was actually a dude, so it became a little less cool, though retainted it's minty after effects.
The game itself is rather simple though; all you're doing is putting out fires with blocks of ice. There are 9 worlds, moreorless, via a SMB3-esque mapscreen, with 9 levels per world plus a "boss" fight. The bosses are either A) Kill all the enemies on the screen (which is no different from every other level, except that the enemies move) or B) Put out all the static fire on a screen that slowly moves upwards and loops, which can be a pretty daunting task later on. The only thing you have to aid you is a wand that will create or remove a block of ice to your lower left, or lower right. No where else. It can be quite the bitch.
I think one of my favorite things about this game is the way the fire changes from world to world. It never gets any harder to put out, meaning it's always just one block of ice to remove, but the fire gets cooler. In the first world it's just fire. In the ninth world it's fire with a smile and a pair of shades on, as if to say "Yeah, Fuck you Dana". It's absolutely fantastic.
Another interesting thing is that the story of the game is being told by a grandmother to her two grandchildren. It reminds me a lot of 100 World Story, except at the same time it makes you kind of sad thinking that your character is probably already dead, kind of similar to FFX, except in this game there's more to care about. Coolmint Island > Zanarkand.
After beating this lovely game I went to get myself something to drink. Upon returning to the living room I noticed a lady's face on the TV telling me that my quest wasn't over yet! All I have to is hold select and press B ten times to play levels 101-150. ..Which I may do, tomorrow.
The funny thing about me and puzzle games, is that I usually only find myself playing them when I'm depressed or feeling kind of bad. I use them as a distraction that I have to focus on. Anything that's bothering me won't come back into my mind until I'm done, where as with a game that's more action based may have a lull in it that makes me remember I'm still just a worthless bum. Fire 'N Ice did the job of distraction perfectly, second only to a rousing game of Go.
So yeah, go try it.
Christ, did I ever miss one.
Someone is in a great deal of trouble with me for never even mentioning this games existence. It is apparently a prequel to Solomon's Key, which makes me even more upset about my nescience, although I have to say this game gave me more of a run for my money than Solomon ever did.
Fire 'N Ice takes place on COOLMINT Island, which just may be the coolest (and mintiest) fucking place I've ever been. You play as Dana, who I thought I was led to believe the entire game was a girl. I was not alone in this assumption, as everyone else in the room cheered at the idea of a female lead. Of course, hours after everyone drifted to their respective rooms for sleep, I neared the end of the game almost alone, save for one other person. The game became incredibly amazing in those last moments as Dana starting making out with a princess super hard. We were beside ourselves with incredible amazement. Then, of course, the old lady who had so kindly been telling the story informed us that Dana was actually a dude, so it became a little less cool, though retainted it's minty after effects.
The game itself is rather simple though; all you're doing is putting out fires with blocks of ice. There are 9 worlds, moreorless, via a SMB3-esque mapscreen, with 9 levels per world plus a "boss" fight. The bosses are either A) Kill all the enemies on the screen (which is no different from every other level, except that the enemies move) or B) Put out all the static fire on a screen that slowly moves upwards and loops, which can be a pretty daunting task later on. The only thing you have to aid you is a wand that will create or remove a block of ice to your lower left, or lower right. No where else. It can be quite the bitch.
I think one of my favorite things about this game is the way the fire changes from world to world. It never gets any harder to put out, meaning it's always just one block of ice to remove, but the fire gets cooler. In the first world it's just fire. In the ninth world it's fire with a smile and a pair of shades on, as if to say "Yeah, Fuck you Dana". It's absolutely fantastic.
Another interesting thing is that the story of the game is being told by a grandmother to her two grandchildren. It reminds me a lot of 100 World Story, except at the same time it makes you kind of sad thinking that your character is probably already dead, kind of similar to FFX, except in this game there's more to care about. Coolmint Island > Zanarkand.
After beating this lovely game I went to get myself something to drink. Upon returning to the living room I noticed a lady's face on the TV telling me that my quest wasn't over yet! All I have to is hold select and press B ten times to play levels 101-150. ..Which I may do, tomorrow.
The funny thing about me and puzzle games, is that I usually only find myself playing them when I'm depressed or feeling kind of bad. I use them as a distraction that I have to focus on. Anything that's bothering me won't come back into my mind until I'm done, where as with a game that's more action based may have a lull in it that makes me remember I'm still just a worthless bum. Fire 'N Ice did the job of distraction perfectly, second only to a rousing game of Go.
So yeah, go try it.
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