Humble NEOGEO Bundle: Instant Arcade For Your PC? Yeah, That’s a Buy

Posted on December 10, 2015 by geelw

If you just got a nice and nostalgic heart flutter when you ogled that logo above, go pop an aspirin (drink a nice big glass of water with that!) and have a seat. Humble Bundle and SNK/Playmore are teaming up to bring you (at least) 21 NEOGEO arcade games for less than what you’d drop in an arcade during the 90’s on a gaming binge. Seriously. Ten bucks (and you should pay MORE, frankly) gets you those 21 DRM-free games pictured on the page, some excellent game soundtracks you can listen to as you bop down the street or drive around in your vehicle of choice, and the promise of MORE games dropping into your Steam account in a week. $167 worth of games for a tenner is pretty fantastic, but it gets better if you happen to use Firefox or Chrome as your browser. Why? Well, you can sample all but one of the games in the bundle for FREE, that’s why!

Once you’ve had your fill, whip out that wallet and get to the buying and supporting charity part. Humble appreciates the business and you need a ton of fun classics for that backlog you’re growing, right? Yeah, I thought so. If you’re REALLY feeling generous, you can pay $40 or more for all of those games (and games to come) and get an NEOGEO 25th Anniversary Limited Edition METAL SLUG SV-001 T-Shirt sent to you in the mail. Pick your poison and then pick some time out to play with your new games library. Whatever you do, pick quickly as this sale is only running for the next dozen days.

READS: Alternative Movie Posters II Is a Must for Film (and Art) Fanatics

Posted on December 9, 2015 by geelw

Hey. I have an important question to ask you all:

(Thanks, modelcitizen72 and MOVIECLIPS!)

If you do (and even if your name isn’t Joey), Alternative Movie Posters II: More Film Art from the Underground ($34.99) is going to make you smile until our face cracks. Well, okay – there’s only one actual gladiator movie in the book (which just so happens to be a poster variant from Ridley Scott’s 2000 film), but that quote jumped out and bit me as soon as I saw the poster and I had to use it as an opener. Anyway, author Matthew Chojnacki has put together a fantastic collection of 200 more film poster variants done by a wide assortment of artists in many different styles that will make any film fan want this on their gift list. Continue reading →

Earth Defense Force 4.1 Livestream: Bigger, Badder, Buggier (But That’s A Compliment)

Posted on December 7, 2015 by geelw

A little fun from Xseed Games as tomorrow is the BIG day PS4 owners in North America and EDF fans have been waiting for as Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair hits retail and digital (via PSN).

I’ll shut up now and let you watch the video before you bust down your own door in order to run to your favorite game emporium and snap up a copy of the game. And a PS4 because you should have one already. That recent price drop seems to be making Sony pretty happy as more folks make the move from PS3 to PS4 or just grab one for the first time for their entertainment purposes.

And if you’re a Vita owner, guess what? Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space is out tomorrow as well. Retail and digital, just like the above. Yeah, you need this game. Trust me – it’s a complete time eater and a solid action game in its own right. While different in tone (thus the campier titling), it’s a pretty hardcore game on the higher difficulty levels that should test the skills of the best gamers on the planet. Inferno Mode will school you in the many ways of getting chomped on by big bugs, stomped on by giant robots and otherwise probed by assorted spaceships and other enemies is all I’ll say.

READS: Cooking for Geeks Will Make You Hungry For Science

Posted on December 7, 2015 by geelw

Cooking For Geeks 2nd Edition

Yeah, I cook and you should as well. No matter haw daunted you are by the prospect of entering the kitchen to whip up something as simple as a boiled egg, the ability to prepare a meal is not only a necessary survival skill, it’s a series of victories as one overcomes fears and produces some very tasty results. Jeff Potter’s Cooking for Geeks ($24.99) is not only a fantastic read, it’s one of the best cookbooks I’ve ever read. A cornucopia of recipes, food and other science lessons, excellent interviews with far too many chefs and other food experts to list, the book is both a page-turning revelation and a go-to master class in all sorts of kitchen knowledge. Continue reading →

READS: More Scary As Hell Stuff From Dark Horse Comics

Posted on December 6, 2015 by geelw

‘Tis the season to still have some scary reads handy if one likes such stuff and thankfully, Dark Horse Comics has been delivering the goods all year long. I tend to wait until assorted trade paperbacks drop over buying single issues due to cost and space reasons, plus it ends up smarter reading stories in collected form (for me, at least).

One of the better horror comics I’ve read is Harrow County, a nice southern gothic tale from writer Cullen Bunn and artist Tyler Crook. In the first collection, Harrow County – Countless Haints ($14.99), the pair have concocted up a terrifying tale that from the very first page of the very first issue will have you hooked in and turning pages with wider eyes and a growing sense of dread. The amazing thing is as great and chilling as the first issue is, the rest of the stories in this first volume only get better. If you’re prone to nightmares, don’t read the whole book in one shot unless you like sleeping with both eyeballs wide open looking for vengeful witches in the corners.

Talk about killer openings, folks…

Continue reading →

Land of A Thousand Gransys III: How’s Your German?

Posted on December 5, 2015 by geelw

(Thanks, GameStar!)

While I speak not a word of German, it’s not needed at all in this GameStar video preview of the upcoming PC version of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I’m loving the now silky smooth frame rate and upgraded textures quite a lot and am definitely looking forward to diving into the game all over again. While some PC-only gamers may consider this “dated” by current standards, DD:DA has a fantastic sense of atmosphere that brings a solid level of realism to its graphics.

Well, if your description of realism includes a bestiary of mythical beasts trying their level best to kill your user created character dead and many times at that. Look for this one early next year, particularly if you happen to love action-heavy RPG experiences that do a few things differently and quite well at that.

Land Of A Thousand Gransys II: Daily Dragon’s Dogma: DA Gallery? Sure, Why Not?

Posted on December 1, 2015 by geelw

While I’m waiting for a few important things to iron themselves out (tech and otherwise), I’ve been killing time going back to some older game saves just to see how certain titles have held up over time. Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is one of those games that keeps on giving since it’s 2012 release, much to the surprise of Capcom I’d bet. Anyway, as the game is finally hitting PC next year, I figured I’d poke through a bunch of screenshots I’d taken while playing the PlayStation 3 version and post one a day until the new version launches. So, here you go. It’ll be a mostly random set of screens taken with the game’s Photo feature with the occasional caption when I find something amusing to say.

Um… that’s it for now. Oh yeah, it’s DECEMBER already. Yikes. If my poor brain doesn’t blow up from having so much to do, I’m going to have quite a busy rest of the year. Back in a bit.

Holiday Greetings From Some Not So Angry Birds

Posted on November 30, 2015 by geelw

Even the grumpiest Grinchy McScrooge, Esq. would get a chuckle or hoot out of this short promotional video cooked up to promote The Angry Birds Movie, headed to theaters in May 2016. It’s also the proper thing to do with an audio recording of kids who don’t know all the words to “Deck The Halls” trying their best to make it to the end of the song and failing miserably merrily at it. Of course, watch some overly enthusiastic Xmas supporters whine about this video not being in the proper spirit of the season or whatever when they should be chuckling at this while wearing a hideous holiday sweater and sipping a BIG cup of cocoa laced with something adult beverage-like. That bottle of peppermint schnapps Uncle Hugo game you two years back should come in handy right about now, I’d say.

Sure, Computer! How About You Work Properly For The Next Week?

Posted on November 30, 2015 by geelw

(Thanks, Technomage116!)

Whee. I finally figured out what was wrong with the laptop, and it was nothing I did but a driver going rogue and mucking up my work life. Boo. Ah, technology… you stink for us less brainy types. Anyway, it’s now a matter of getting somewhere with a speedier connection to fix the issue (albeit temporarily). Blue Screen o’ Death, you can’t stop me! But I’m still buying a new laptop in a few days just because I need to upgrade and this old thing is on its last legs and flaunting that fact HARD. Okay, let me post this before the stupid thing locks up or crashes again. I just did a registry cleaning after uninstalling a bunch of not-needed stuff in order to free up a bit of extra space on the HDD and that seems to be helping a tiny bit. Oh, the backing up of data and reinstalling stuff on the soon to be new computer will be “fun” for sure. Does anyone remember ALL their passwords these days? I thought not.

Black Friday, Indeed: Time For A New PC

Posted on November 27, 2015 by geelw

(thanks, castleafb’s channel!)

Bleh. I was trying to hold off for a few weeks, but the laptop is officially dying and was in fact quite dead for most of the day today. A bunch of reboots, a complete system diagnostic that took about an hour and revealed nothing “wrong” with the old beast (except the double screen image and a couple of blank startup screens) and a few other issues later and yup, it’s time for a replacement. This post is here thanks to a load of extra restarts and “only” three crashes, but I’m hoping the dang screen doesn’t freeze before I’m done (yaaaah!)

Amusingly enough, I’ve been looking for a new laptop for a while, but not something with a big-name overprice tag loaded to the gills with bloatware and other junk. With my current budget, pricing needs to be about $600 or so with moderately decent specs. No chuggy i3 processor, integrated video or anything else that won’t work for me, a BR or DVD-RW is a must and at least a 1TB HDD and perhaps additional room for something else is what I’m looking for. I did get a nice set of lists from three friends, so those along with what research I’ve done over the last few months will help me pick something out within the next week or so. In the meantime, updates will be slow as the two desktops I have seem to not want to work at all and both need major updates if they do fire up.

Okay, let me cross my fingers and hit “Publish”. So far, the few minutes it took to type this have been the longest I’ve been online in the last two days. Ah well, life happens, right? If I were a rich man (hey, you know the rest), this wouldn’t even be an issue. But I’m not, so it is. Back in a bit (well, depending on what happens with this stupid laptop tomorrow)…