Random Art: Darn Kids And Their Subliminally Cheesy Requests!

string trees 

Ha. So, the library seems to be slipping in it’s “shut the hell up” policy, as lately, I can’t spend a few hours there writing without someone yakking on and on about stuff no one needs to hear about. Between the guy yelling out his credit card numbers and such while ordering personal care supplies, the geeky teenage guy with the whiny voice hiccuping and burping while sexting and chatting too loud with his sweetie for something like three hours non-freakin’ stop (I swear, if I hear him kiss his phone one more time, then hiccup and burp, he’s going to need a lip cast), I’m about to go postal in public. Of course, every now and then I get treated to something that’s actually hilarious like the kid today who kept begging his mom to take him home so he could have some string cheese. As he kept hitting the resend button on that vocal tweet, my brain kept hearing string TREES, so I stopped working on the article I had been trying to complete and knocked this piece out. Thank you annoying child and his mom who finally went home after something like a thousand requests for processed dairy product!

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II Beta Hands-On: It’s The Reckoning For That Hunter…

VHIIaThanks to the fine folks at Neocore Games, I had the opportunity to take a beta version of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II for a spin and am happy to report it’s looking like a bigger, badder, meaner and harder game than the first one, especially if you’re hopping into it with your saved hero from the original. I hadn’t played the first game save for some hours with the demo, but Neocore also sent me a code for the Complete Pack, which got a marathon playthrough over the past week or so (and me a nicely maxed out Level 30 Hunter by that cliffhanger ending).

The new game starts off with a rather massive siege on a factory by many enemies being airdropped in capsules and a large army of civilian soldiers assisting Van Helsing and Katarina, his ghostly (and snarky) AI companion. Granted, one could play the beta using a few default high level characters in a few classes, but after trying out a few of these overpowered guys, I decided to take the longer, tougher (yet highly enjoyable and rewarding) route and go through the first game just to have a more personalized experience… Continue reading

Random Art: It’s National Crayon Day? Okay, Go Celebrate!

one_crayon_revenge_by_megadas-d66vhwwWah! I did not know this, but it IS! As I just found out about this and am at the library, I have no crayons to scribble this post with or do a fast sketch to post. On the other hand, I do just so happen to have an old piece I did on my deviantArt page that LOOKS as if it was drawn with a crayon, so here you go. Anyway, time to get learned a little!

Here’s some handy info for you fresh from the fine folks at Crayola:

Did you know…

– The first box of Crayola crayons was introduced in 1903. It sold for a nickel and included the same eight colors available today: red, blue, yellow, green, violet, orange, black and brown.

– Crayola produces nearly 3 billion crayons each year, an average of 12 million wax sticks daily. That’s enough to circle the globe 6 times!

– The average child in the United States will wear down about 730 crayons by his or her 10th birthday (11,464 boxes or 7 lbs of crayons) enough to cover an NBA basketball court!

– According to Christian Science Monitor, parents buy enough crayons in a year to make a giant crayon 35 feet wide and 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty!

Crayola_24So, yeah, let the kid(s) get away with that wall decorating to-day. Who knows, you could have the next Van Gogh “ruining” your formerly freshly painted walls or other surfaces!

Dark Souls II TV Spots: Oh, The Places You’ll Go (Just To Die Over and Over)…

Heh. I get a phone call during The Walking Dead finale from a friend asking me “So, what’s this Dark Souls II all about?” right after this ad airs. Whee! Of course, I had to tell him to ring me back in an hour or so or just wait for a quick email. He’s not a gamer at all, so I’ll give Namco Bandai props for getting an ad out that gets people not into the hobby all hot and bothered. Amusingly enough, I actually don’t have a copy of the game yet – it’s in my backlog of stuff to grab for the PS3 once I make a bit more money. I’ve played a bit of it already thanks to walking another friend through the first two or so hours of the game as he grabbed it on launch day and was having a hard time because yep, it was his first time playing something that difficult. Anyway, I got to play and he got to keep the character I made, so that’s a fine trade off, I’d say. Naturally, he got the poor guy I created killed a few times since, but my tech support ends when I leave the premises. Otherwise, I charge a flat fee (and it’s not cheap), heh…

Game of Thrones S4: A Week Away, So Here Comes The Onslaught…

Yeah, I’m too busy here to keep up with posting all those ads and teasers and such, but you don’t have to hunt far or wide to get hit upside the head with a Game of Thrones promo on TV, the internet or a few other places. It’s WAR, I tells ya, but I’m immune to the promo bombardment because I watch what I like, not what some network tells me to like. Thankfully, GoT has been pretty killer from that beginning and looks as if it’s not going to let up one bit. One more week, people… just one more week…

Demon Gaze Trailer #2: Come For The Dungeon Crawling. Stay Because You Can’t Get Out.

Ha and ha. Sure, Demon Gaze has a mapping system in play, but you and I all know that there’s that ONE person who’ll buy this who even with maps galore has the WORST sense of direction to the point that they can’t find their own socks to take off without a handy guide (LOOK DOWN. SEE FEET… and so forth and so on). Me, I love this old school influenced stuff (Wizardry, Ultima Underworld and Dungeon Master FTW!), so I’m all over this like a cheap suit. Wait, that old saying never made sense to me, but I’m using it NOW? Eh, it’s a crappy, rainy, nasty day out today and I’m in a kind of lazy mood (despite having a lot to do and doing some of it all at once), so you get what pops out of the brain oven, fully cooked or not. Anyway, happy times for Vita owners are coming soon and I can’t wait to play this one.

Random Art: Rainy Saturday, Misty Scribblings…

Slightly Haunted II 

Yeah, the hits just keep on coming… sort of. Okay, I got really lazy with this piece, as the first sketch I did was more detailed and this piece is pretty simple compared to that. I still have that first sketch and may dive back into it at some point to pit in all those details, but we’ll see. I’m just surprised I have the time to draw these days. Okay, time to shut up and get back to work, as my backlog is glaring at me and shaking a fist or three…

Alien Isolation Gets October 7, 2014 Release Date

AI_GEN PACK FRONTWow, I need to pay more attention (Part XVIX), as I didn’t know that Alien Isolation was being made for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Well, now… that changes things up considerably as I can live with the game on the PS3 as long as it’s got a solid frame rate and has the same content as the new-gen versions. Sure, I like fancy graphics and all, but my PS3 still gets a load of usage and I’m not about to knock Sega or The Creative Assembly for thinking smart and realizing from the outset that casting a wider net on this game means MORE people will play it if it gets great scores and they still don’t have a new system in their homes. Granted, as a system SELLER, it’ll work quite well indeed for those looking for a reason to snap up that nice new console or upgrade their gaming rig. On the other hand, those who can’t buy into the newer systems yet will appreciate not being let out of what could be the best Alien game to date. As usual, we shall see… but as I’ve said previously, I trust the CA to do this one up right (and then some)…

Conception II Hands-On (PS Vita): Raisin’ Space Babies, Beatin’ Beasts With Rabies…

Conception II VitaAtlus’ upcoming JRPG,Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars, is sure to get the dirtier gamer minds over-activated into the puerile zone what with it’s show and tell “Classmating” sequences, too-jiggly females, an aged priest with some intentionally pervy dialog and plenty of direct and indirect references to sexytime antics mixed in with a cosmic religion theme. But hey, it IS an M-Rated game and some of the people who are going to be playing this probably shouldn’t be. But you know how that goes, right?

Here’s a game where you play as a young man called “God’s Gift”, and yes, that means not only in terms of the terrific monster bashing powers at his disposal, but in terms of his ability for Conception with the game’s nubile young females. Did I mention that this is basically a futuristic high school setting and this is more or less a dating sim with random dungeons packed with plenty of monsters to wail on? Yeah, par for the course for the genre, I know, I know. Yet, for all the lovely visuals and solid combat there’s a decidedly cute yet creepy vibe here that may make a few players cringe as they groove on the lovely visuals and catchy tunes.

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TCM Wants To Feed You With Classic Horror & Sci-Fi This Weekend…

Ha! Someone at Turner Classic Movies has a wicked sense of humor, that’s for sure. Granted, I’d still LOVE the job of hosting that Underground feature one of these days (I have a ton of ideas on how to make it sing and soar), but unil then, I’ll deal with the channel doling out its library in its current form. Anyway, FRIDAY night and into early Saturday morning (East Coast time), it’s Soylent Green followed by Night of the Living Dead (a film I really, REALLY need to do a RFotW on, even though it’s been reviewed about a million times or more already). Yeah, I’ve seen both of these many times already, but both are movies that have a way of luring me back in for just one more peek almost any time I find them playing. I bet you’re the same way too, right?

Yeah, I thought so…