Bundle Stars’ Latest Deal Is The Conquest Of Your Free Time!

Posted on April 22, 2014 by geelw

Conquest Bundle Banner
Holy cats. AGAIN. A dozen Steam digital games in a bunch of genres for a mere five bucks with part of the proceeds going to charity? Crazy! My own backlog and need to clear out some hard drive space means I’m eyeballing a few games in my backlog and considering deleting them temporarily just to snap up this set of titles. Granted, I’m not a big RTS fan, so those historical sims may not be touched unless I have a LOT of free time and want to do some supplemental reading. On the other hand, most everything else here floats my boat to some extent and saving $110 is always a good thing. Hmmm… time for a coin flip (again!)…

Anyway, if your own eyeballs have grown to saucer size when you clicked on that link above you know what to do, right? Also check out the other bundles on the site PLUS those awesome store deals for up to 80% off a really nice bunch of games in a few genres. I may have a nice surprise for two lucky readers later this week, so stick around for an update…

Dragon Age: Inquisition Gameplay Trailer: October Will Be A Nice Month To Take Off, I’d Say…

Posted on April 22, 2014 by geelw

Well, now. BioWare and EA want you to know that you probably should take October off. Well, not ALL of October nor ALL of you reading this post, mind you. However, if you own a decent gaming PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 Xbox 360 or Xbox One and happen to also be a fan of epic-length role-playing games… yeah, start making plans, people. Dragon Age Inquisition rolls out in North America on October 7 and in Europe on October 10, meaning you have a week during the beginning of the month to get your things in order and prepare yourself for whatever script you’re going to run on your boss to get out of that job for as long as possible (while still collecting a paycheck, of course). Or you could just move whatever vacation time to October in order to spend that time (and a lot less money) buried in all that wonderful hard work on your system of choice.

Naturally, there will be standard and collector’s editions of this one and of course, the inescapable pre-order bonuses and DLC that add to the experience (and help beef up the games sales figures early on for some guaranteed big numbers). I still prefer walking into a game shop to buy physical product, so I wish there were a way to get that DLC, as I happen to have a crappy online connection and other than the Wii U (which has a screen on its GamePad), no home console is built to lug around to a wi-fi hotspot to get games, game content and updates, which is too bad. Of course, this game isn’t appearing on Nintendo’s beleaguered console at all, which is also too bad. Anyway, if this gameplay trailer is any indication, DA:I will be a pretty spectacular experience (to put it mildly!)…

Child of Light On Wii U: Same Game, Different Console (Get It And/Or Get Over It!)…

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

*Sigh* Ah, the internet… home to fools with busted soapboxes and lousy opinions, all in the name of… something. Anyway, YES, the Wii U version of Child of Light is going to look exactly the same as the other versions, yeesh. That UbiArt Framework and the lovely hand-drawn art in the game will run on any modern console as well as anything next-gen and any decent PC. But try telling that to the trolls out there and all you get is under-bridge bile drippings from people who haven’t touched Nintendo’s console and don’t intend to.

Frankly speaking, screw those dolts, I say. As a multi-system owner and longtime gamer, I’m still trying to decide which system to get this one for, but I’ll play and review it on the Wii U if I have to just to have another game for that system that needs to get MORE of them this year. Anyway, April 30th is the big day and hopefully, this version won’t get slapped with a last-minute delay or anything else that will get the skeptics babbling from their stinky toll-haunts under every local bridge. I don’t normally wast my space on people like this, but after overhearing some inane anti-Wii U drivel today, I had to put my foot down before I put it up someone’s read end.

That and the last living thing I actually kicked was a REALLY slow pigeon a bunch of years ago. Hey, I was in a hurry, it was in front of me trundling along like an over-sized inchworm with wings and it wasn’t a “kick” at all… it was more of a foot-lift and bird shift to my right as I zipped past.

IDW Wants Some Of You To Go Broke: Silver Surfer, Manhunter, Lawnmower Man Artist Editions On The Way…

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

Well, wow. According to the fine folks at Comic Book Resources, IDW’s pricey and VERY desirable Artist’s Edition series is getting at least three more amazing tomes this year in a limited print run form only a select few will be able to get their hands on. To the press release, Robin!:

At the Artist’s Edition panel, Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier showed off some of the amazing art included in the Marvel Cover’s Artist’s Edition and announced that John Buscema’s Silver Surfer (in cooperation with Marvel Comics), and two more projects with Walter Simonson, Walter Simonson’s Manhunter & Other Stories (in cooperation with DC Entertainment), and Walter Simonson’s Lawnmower Man Artist’s Edition portfolio, collecting the entire Stephen King-penned story into a deluxe portfolio, will soon join the IDW Artist’s Edition catalog!

I’ve seen a few of the previous Artist’s Editions in person thanks to a friend who can afford to shell out for them and all I’ll say is they’re the closest thing to owning the original art you can get (at a far more reasonable price, of course). Expect superior quality reproduction from the originals, warts and all (hey, comic art SUED to be all hand-drawn and lettered!) and something you’ll not want to loan out or have the kids use as snack table reading after that finger painting session, that’s for darn sure.

Prices and release dates TBA. I’ll also see if I can dig up pics from that Lawnmower Man book, as it’s one of Walt Simonson’s quirkiest-looking stories in terms of the artist cutting loose and having a blast with his pens and brushes.

Surprise! Tales of Heart R Vita-Bound This Winter!

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

Well, now. This is great news for Vita owners, fans of Namco Bandai’s long-running Tales series and anyone who just wants a great JRPG to take on the go. Having met Hideo Baba, Producer on the Tales series a few times over the years, I can safely report that he’s just as happy, proud and easygoing about his work as he is in that video above. It’s cool to see a guy who knows his fans and wants to get them the games he makes whenever possible (and it’s certainly not easy to do at all in terms of “just translate and ship it!” like some fans think). So anyway, yeah – a new Tales game and the first one exclusively for the Vita in North America coming this winter and that’s one more reason for my cold-hating butt to stay the heck indoors!

Random Art: Making Your Monday Better Since, Oh About 3:37pm…

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

FEH. So, I log onto PSN to download the games I bought this weekend (two bucks well spent) and WHAMMO! Yep, PSN is down for maintenance. In the middle of the afternoon. On a Monday. Bleah. I did get some good news in the mail in the form of my FruitChia bar shipment arriving, but as there’s a replacement mail carrier while my regular guy is on vacation, the package was shoved and squeezed into my mailbox instead of hand delivered to my hot little hands. I didn’t see her woman-handling my goods, but I happened to drop downstairs as she finished up and was closing the mailboxes so I know who to give a glare to the next time I have to perform surgery on something packed into my mailbox in order to get the darn thing out. Anyway, whee- more trees to ogle, this time more or less complete. Hey, someone has to have a good day on this otherwise goofball Monday, right?

POW! BANG! Monday Being Monday Means It’s A Monday…

Status

Well, at last I got some good news this morning. Tales of Hearts R is Vita bound this winter! More on that in an actual post later. Other than that, my scanner died (boo!), I’ve a UBS stick that got wiped of useful files (boo!) and I woke up with a slight headache and backache (old!). Eh, nothing to see here, move along. That, and I overslept a bit and now am catching up on stuff kind of in reverse order. Just another Monday with a slightly different flavor to it (somewhat moldy?). Anyway, let me stop griping and get out of here. I need to mail off a box of stuff and get motivated by that nice (but still not quite spring-like) weather outside.

Back in a bit…

Orphan Black S2 Episode 2 Trailer: Some Things Don’t Stay “Dead”…

Posted on April 20, 2014 by geelw

Ha (and here there be spoilers, so tread carefully!). As soon as saw her “die” last season, I knew Helena wasn’t really “dead” because of all the clones, her super-unhinged Russian assassin was the most intriguing character who needed even more screen time than she got last season. Sure, she’s disturbed, has more scars than any Frankenstein’s monster and tells bad jokes at the worst times, but she’s got personality to burn and made for a pretty relentless killing machine. Granted, she popped up pretty much half-dead at the end of Saturday’s show, but given that she seemed fully dead before that, this is a good sign. Wellll… perhaps not exactly a “good” sign for the other clones, but I think our lady-killer might be changing her ways a bit. Er, provided she can get out of that hospital without anything else happening to her.

As usual, we shall see…

Random Art: Snoozy Sunday “Update” Just Means More Trees…

Posted on April 20, 2014 by geelw

I decided to stay in today, nice weather aside. I had some more cleaning to do, so some of that was taken care of, but otherwise, it was a pretty lazy Sunday. Nothing thrilling to report this weekend other than I also caught up on a few shows I missed last weekend because I forgot all about them and it turns out my theory on most scripted shows not being much good after four or five seasons is holding up pretty well. Anyway, I did some artwork, too. Here’s one of two incomplete pieces from the last few days. I like the other one I did better, but like the one to the left, that’s also unfinished and my feelings may change. We’ll see, but for now, it gets the bigger picture below.

Okay, off to watch Game of Thrones and maybe one or two other things, then off to bed. Monday’s going to be busy…

Raiden IV: OverKill Coming To PSN April 26: Itchy Trigger Fingers Will Get You Nowhere…

Posted on April 19, 2014 by geelw

Why? Because you’ll stop to scratch them and *BOOM!*, your little spaceship gets blasted to powder and you’re screaming at the TV that the game “cheats” while jumping up and down on that expensive controller. Anyway, UFO Interactive is bringing this arcade gem to PSN in its complete form featuring the brand new OverKill Mode with new mission stages and a revamped scoring system along with all the previously released DLC items. If all that makes some kind of sense, you’re grinning uncontrollably right about now. If it doesn’t, well, hmmmm… I offer Video Gamespeak to English translation services at the low rate of a dollar a word.