The Dark Eye: Demonicon Launch Trailer – It’s Not Fellini, But RPG Fans Should Be Pleased…

Demonicon_1While I haven’t played a game in this long-running RPG series in a few years (that would be Drakensang in case you’re asking or even if you’re not and just curious), The Dark Eye: Demonicon looks like something I’d enjoy on a certain level. Sure, I’m not expecting perfection nor a game that’s going to be some sort of instant candidate for a “best of” list at all. But if it’s challenging, has a halfway decent story and a few likable characters, I’m all in for the ride. This one’s out now as a digital download, but I see that consoles are listed on the game’s official site. Hopefully this means the game will be headed to the US at some point in an easier to access for some folks disc form. Hey, not everyone can get into the wonders of the invisible media age as much as these developers and publishers think, wish and want them too.

It’s Geralt of Riva’s Birthday! What Did YOU Get Him?

Geralt Birthday

Okay, okay… some you may not have heard of Polish developer CD Projekt RED or their outstanding The Witcher series of games, but those who know what the heck I’m talking about get to ogle that art above and funny infographic below with a nod and a smile.

Witcher Infographic

If you’re not a fan and that info has piqued your curiosity, feel free to do the clicky-clicky thing with your mouse and read on for some press release action on why six years is so important for Geralt and his future (which is looking quite bright indeed)…

And oh, yeah… I go him a nice pair of socks, as I think they weren’t invented back then and it gets COLD in those medieval fantasy winters! Continue reading

BUY THIS! Adventure Time 3DS Gets A Nice Collector’s Edition. You Want That 3DS Now, Don’t You?

Adventure Time 3DS

Look at it. LOOK AT IT! I said! Lovely, isn’t it. Yeah, I thought so. Uhhhh… hey! Where’s that chorus of angels I hired? Oh, crap – they all flew off to buy a box of 3DS XL’s and now I’m broke because angels do NOT work cheap. Crap and blah. Well, so much for the musical portion of this post. Anyway, huzzah! Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! has gone gold (crowd cheers) and will be… IN. STORES. SOON. Yeah. As far as I know, the PS3, Wii U and Xbox 360 versions get no special treatment and the PC version is on Steam as a digital game so you don’t even get a box (just MAGIC coming through your computery screen!). Yeah!

Anyway, if you’re awake NOW and reading this, thanks for waiting for this very post. Now get the heck to bed so I can go to sleep as well. Keeping me up past midnight, you guys… Now I have pumpkin feet (AGAIN). Pkay, Good to the Night, people… I have a tiger to catch later today or something, growl!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier UK Trailer: Springing Into Next Spring All Over The Place…

Hey, Robert Redford is in this movie. Wait, what? Well… I guess that’s going to be interesting to some people who might not otherwise care, but I guess he needed some company and explosions as stuff after spending all that time alone on a busted boat on the open sea. Well, he’s got plenty of friends in this superhero flick (although it doesn’t look as he’s going to be sporting a fancy cape and boots or driving a sports car off the roof of a high rise here) set to hit theaters in North America on April 4, 2014. I see that this comes out in the UK a week earlier, but I’ll have to look up if this is coming out in Chinese-speaking territories at all and what the date would be. The number 4 isn’t actually a good number there, so I’d imagine both that date and title would get a big change to something more audience friendly. I suggest “U.S. Man, You Owe US A Lot of Debt, Too: Stop Making Such Expensive Movies!” or something shorter, but Marvel won’t like that at all. Not one bit.

And yeah, I can smell the laser-eyed death threats from the crankier and more humorless fans who take these movies far too seriously already. Well, those who didn’t follow that Comic-Con advice about showering before the show each day… Bleargh. Well, I got my soap cannons ready, so come and get it… Just remember to bring your own washcloth and towel.

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Gameplay: Out For A Scroll In The City Jail…

Amazingly, some really whiny “fans” are griping that this isn’t the same game as the console versions and that’s it looks like a tablet game or whatever. *Yawn*, I say to those folks, most of whom I gather haven’t played some of those old side-scrolling Batman games from back in the day. Blackgate looks good to me, not every Vita (or 3DS) game is going to be blowing the doors off of the last great one and finally, forming judgments without getting one’s grubby to non-grubby paws on the game makes you a typing monkey with an opinion and not liable to be listened to by developers, publishers or anyone else who you’re trying to soapbox out of a purchase. Now, go slip on a banana peel and get comfortable with those cranky comments elsewhere. I’ve got me some bad guys to catch and henchmen to hurt. Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate comes out to-morrow (10/25) on the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS.

Random Indie Game of the Week: Vampire Volleyball? Okay, I’ll Bite…

vv_iphone5_ungerWell, I was in quite an emo mood earlier, as things were quite bumpy on the whole me getting stuff I needed to get done DONE department. So thank goodness for Retro 64’s just released Vampire Volleyball for helping me kill some time with a smile rather than kill my laptop for freaking out for the better part of the day. It’s pretty simple to hop into and good silly fun for a while, those round-headed vamps and their fight to be champs against some foes who don’t all play clean. The nice thing is, the game is out for FREE on four of the six platforms it’s playable on (Windows, Mac, Linux, and Flash) while Android and iOS versions will set you back a mere 99 cents US. At that price (or FREE if you’re luckier to be a “low-tech” kinda guy or gal), it’s a definite must and you may find yourself calling on a friend to give you a fang, as the game supports two players.

Of course, SOME of you too strict sporty-sport fans will note that these globe-domed bloodsuckers and other creeps knock that ball around with their HEADS like it’s a soccer ball (or football in countries other than the US), but who’s going to stop a vampire from doing what it wants? YOU, Van Helsing? Well good luck with that, then. I’ll see you (or at least your head) in the game as the ball being butted over that net for the score, Spike…

What You SHOULD Be Playing This Week (TOO Much Stuff Edition, Part 1):

Okay, I’ll do two or three posts on this week’s best new releases (well, the ones I’ve tried or want to try), as I’m in the middle of a new project and my time to post this week is stupidly low. ow low? So low that I’ll need to edit in all the tags I want to put in later. Yeah, THAT low! Anyway, lets start off with three for now. Here. We. Goooooo!:

Savage: The Shard of Goshen – Yes, it’s an indie PC game and YES it’s an alpha version. But if you grew up playing 8 and 16-bit stuff back in the day, what’s here will get you grinning like Renfield finding a spider’s web packed with lunch and hoping the developer, torborprime can do everything he wants with that versatile Game Maker engine and then some. The combination of a non-linear open world game and classic side-scrolling platforming (procedurally generated, at that!) makes this one unique and closer to a role-playing experience than your typical homage. While it’s not as brutally old-school as the wondrously tough Volgarr the Viking (which I really NEED to review soon!), it’s one of those nostalgic works in progress that comes highly recommended. And it’s FREE! SO go get it, I say! 

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director’s Cut I’d actually forgotten this was coming out and as it was initially a Wii U sort of exclusive, that’s the platform I’ll be snapping it up for. Yeah, I bought a Wii U on day one and have been more or less pleased with the ports for it, but critics have been harsh even when they’ve turned out better because they’re not thinking of Nintendo-ONLY gamers and how they’d react to finally getting to play a game their friends have been bragging about for a while. Anyway, DE:HR DC comes with all that previous DLC plus new elements and that tasty, tasty GamePad support that adds a bit of extra fun in that “sorry other versions, you just don’t have what that GamePad offers and just adding device support is NOT the same thing, silly!” way a good Wii U port does. Yeah, it’s also available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 (and PC owners who already have the original get a HUGE discount), so unless you’re rockin’ that iPad only, you sort of have no excuse to miss this one. 

​Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst CyberConnect2 LOVES its fans, period. How else would you explain this beefed up, blown out, balls-out reissue of an already too big game experience? Every bit of DLC is here, cinemas have been reworked to look even better, new characters, new content and more make an already fantastic Naruto game even more spectacular. Non-fans will of course, shrug and nod off by now, but I say slap a controller into their claws and step back to watch them groove on the game as it hits them over the head with its amazing-ness. You may not get that controller back and have to eject someone from your home, but at least that means they’ll probably buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 of their own so they can play this one. Just remember to NOT toss their contact info, as you’ll NEED a buddy for that epic and insane new boss fight this game has. Seriously, it’s RIDICULOUS.

Back in a bit with more. recommends. Duty calls! Er, no, I’m NOT playing that new Call of Duty game (yet)… don’t read too much into my sign-off there!

Waaah! Good News Is Like A Brick Wrapped In Too Many Marshmallows.

Ignatz and Brick and KatPOW! So, I got a nice surprise to-day in the form of temporary freelance gig doing something many people despise but I find really relaxing. “What could it be, what could it be!”, the mob, they cry out – they want a decree. But I cannot say, for it’s not yet quite set. So I’ll ruin it not (well, not just quite yet)…

More on this breaking noose once some logistics are worked out. But if things go well (and it looks as if they should indeed), I’ll be making a little extra money and maybe getting some stuff taken care of (BRAAAAAAWWWNNNNN!) that I need to get done but haven’t because I’m just that broke. One step at a time, watch out for puddles and that’s a hell of a lot of marshmallows on that brick I got hit with. If you guess what the gig is, you don’t get a prize at all – you’re just faster on the draw than some other readers, is all.

No animals were harmed during the making of this post. Don’t throw real bricks at cats or try to get a mouse to do so. If you DO, however, post it on YouTube and make sure you disable comments or have a VERY thick skin. In theory, the mouse will get a hernia from lifting the brick, the cat will eat the mouse and the brick the mouse was lifting will hit the cat on the head. Maybe. Oh yeah, wrapping a brick in marshmallows? Bad idea unless you want an ant farm in your home. That and you’d go broke buying bag after bag of them… unless you made your own marshmallows. Or even better, marshmallow Bricks (which are very terribly NON-aerodynamic)…

Digital Dilemma Day (or Slow As S#!t Is the New Black)…

(thanks, upwithgravity!) 

Bleh. One thing that cracks me the hell up is reading industry sites and speaking with some folks in the tech sector who (very) blindly and (all too) cheerfully think ALL is nothing but well when it comes to the US and the rest of the civilized world having the best and speediest internet connections so we can all happily buy those new toys and get content with the same lightning speed wherever we go. Well, Crom laughs at your four winds, digital gurus. I say the bulk of these wealthy innovators have NEVER used local wi-fi, been stuck with a dial-up connection or had any major problem they couldn’t buy their way out of by tossing that old device in the trash and buying a new one or having an employee come up with a free fix (or come up with one themselves).

I’m also betting that if some of these SUPER geniuses were to step away from their hi-tech caves they’d see the rest of us poor peons not only have crappy connections, they’re slower than Kraftwerk playing their paradoxically languid classic pop song about that famous highway with no speed limit. Granted, it’s a great and memorable tune, but some of you folks may find it supremely soporific if you were expecting something along the Blurred Lines…

(thanks, Ras Putin!) 

Okay, now… hey, you in the back… WAKE UP! That’s better (I know I should have used the shorter single edit!)… Continue reading

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Poster (Or, It’s Not Winter In April, You Know!)

captain_america_the_winter_soldier_ver2_xlg

Ah ha ha, but that’s what I immediately thought when I saw that 4.4.14 release date. Ah, Hollywood… trying so hard to be clever when I’m all that much funnier than you are. Oh, you’ll learn one day, I suppose. Well, I guess releasing this in the winter might be a bad idea, as one can’t go to the cinema with eight feet of snow on the ground. On the other hand, even if they did release it and there was no snow on the ground, I currently have NO movie theater around here to go to (bough-hough!) until that nasty asbestos issue is taken care of. Hmmmm. maybe I can find someone to sue for that problem, although I haven’t been to that particular theater in ages and I’m not one for randomly suing people or getting caught up in a class action suit. Besides, I’d probably win popcorn and soda for life (which, given that’s in either these days means that “life” would be cut short by salt, fat, artificial flavors and colors galore. Yum!)…