Dragon’s Crown Cover Art, Artbook Revealed: Preselling A Not-So-Hard Sell…

Posted on May 10, 2013 by geelw

DC_Artworks_Glam

Lovely… and it can soon be all yours, at that. Dragon’s Crown finally gets some VERY pretty cover art for its retail versions as well as a really cool pre-order bonus in the form of a 64-page softcover art book that’s absolutely going to be snapped up by fans of George Kamitani’s work. I’d go as far as to predict the art book selling for more than the game does down thee road among those who miss out and want to pay through the pores on eBay or some other site, but that’s not Atlus’ concern what you do with that bonus item as they see not a red cent from secondhand sales of their cool goods. Anyway, check out the official site if you haven’t already for character profiles, more of Kamitani’s lush artwork and more.

Dragon’s Crown will hit retail and PSN on August 6, 2013. Be there or be square, I say…

SCIENCE! Prepare To Sweat The Small Stuff With These Close-Up Images…

Posted on May 10, 2013 by geelw

Yeah, I just had to do this to you just to screw with your Friday and make you marvel at the universe a tiny bit. “Click away at your peril!” Mr. Water Mite to the left says. What, you thought it was a Sandworm from DUNE or some fancy chastity belt/sex toy deal (eek!)? Well, it’s not (and VERY thankfully, in the latter example, eww). Hey, while you’re running around screaming or maybe standing on your chair screaming after you click that link, remember that it’s only a little science lesson you can pass onto those who think less of the little things they probably should check out every once in a while.

It’s also a nicely nasty collection of inspiring pictures for illustrators and wannabe game designers who need to come up with ideas for a creepy monster or three. That mosquito eye looks pretty tasty… or maybe not. Er, you may want to poke at these during the daytime, as I wouldn’t want to be you trying to sleep at night after viewing these shots…

GOG.com Wants YOU To Go Adventuring This Weekend (So, Get Lost Already!)…

Posted on May 10, 2013 by geelw

Say… do you like a good story? Are you a cheapskate who likes good stories and has a decent PC and doesn’t mind camping out with the digital equivalent of a good book? Well, here you go: gog.com is having another cool weekend sale and this time, it’s all about adventure games past and present. From the fantastic classic The Longest Journey and it’s great sequel Dreamfall, to the chilling slow burner Scratches: The Director’s Cut or the brilliant survival game Miasmata to flawless gems such as Resonance, Botanicula and Machinarium: Collector’s Edition, there’s something for anyone looking to curl up with a warm PC or laptop. Prices range from $3.99 to $5.99 for each game, or you can snap up all twelve for $53.88 (which is a bargain considering the dozens of hours of gameplay here).

No frantic button bashing or much skill (other than reading and using a mouse to point and click or keyboard to move a character around) is needed and there’s sure to be something that catches your fancy at a nice enough price. OK, you know what to do next, so I’ll let you get to it…

Random Music Battle Time: Blur vs. Liberace (Well, They Both Kind Of Win)…

Posted on May 10, 2013 by geelw

While waiting for a game to download the other day, I randomly Googled something and got something else entirely, and with a little brain work and rewriting here’s one result of that mistake: Song 2 by Blur, meet Song 2 as performed by Liberace. Yeah, it was a tough battle, folks… but believe it (or else), the results were a dead tie at the end of the voting. Well, actually, one half of my brain was bouncing up and down and the other was laughing, so that’s how that all worked out.

Liberace DVD Of course, Liberace gets the last laugh (and probably wins the bigger prize) because hell, he was a lot more talented (and funnier) throughout his long career than Blur will most likely ever be (or have been… hey, are they still even around?). That and you won’t lose your hearing from listening to too much of his music with the volume way up (well, depending on your age, you probably have some hearing loss if you’re a Liberace fan, ha ha).

Anyway, the fine folks at Shout Factory and Timeless Media Group have actually just released Libreace: The Ultimate Entertainer on DVD this week, so you can go see for yourself (c’mon, be brave! Expand those musical horizons! I won’t tell…) for a mere $13.98, which is a bargain considering what’s on the disc. Hey, get it as a Mother’s Day gift for someone old enough to appreciate that man’s work and you’ll get a few cheeks pinched afterward (make sure you’re sitting sown when you hand over that package)…

And hey, I’m betting Michael Douglas will make me fall of the couch laughing in a few with that HBO biopic coming up… we shall see, I suppose…

Humor: Another Trip To Bedrock’s Music Scene…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

Cow belly, pot of beans
Tie a rope around your jeans
Tell your ma not to wait
You ain’t getting home till late…

Hmmm… based on those first four lines from the Bedrock Twitch, you’ll either be apologizing to some blind date for insulting her size or you’re on the way to a nice shotgun wedding for what happened afterwards. Or both, knowing some of you out there who can’t keep a secret or stay out of trouble at the same time. Thankfully, for the rest of you who know what’s what with this kooky tune, it’s all about bouncing around the room and keeping the tune going with a funny wig on your head and two-string guitar (made of stone, at that!) so it’s all good. Yeah, you KNOW you’re up and doing that one-foot hop, too. I won’t tell… but your dog may bite you for waking it up if you bounce by too loudly… or because you have the cat on your head thanks to not having a wig handy. “Twitch, twitch!”

Random Film of the Day*: 20 Million Miles to Earth

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

*For the next week or so plus, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away on May 7 at age 92 in London and yes, the film world owes him more than they can ever repay.

20000000_Miles While it has some great creature and scenic effects, some terrifically lousy acting and ridiculous dialog plus a few plot elements nearly sink 20,000,000 Miles to Earth like the doomed spacecraft that brings the Ymir into movie monster history.

That said, there are some iconic images in this 1957 sci-fi flick that linger in the memory, all masterfully animated by Harryhausen’s steady hands. His Ymir is at first “cute” and tiny, but as it increases in height and gets poked and pushed into an uncontrollable rage by a cast of idiots who misunderstand the poor creature until the army is called in to blow it off Rome’s Colosseum, you actually feel more sympathy for it by the time the film ends. Of course, if you just hate monsters in general, you’ll be cheering along with the fist-pumping crowd when the creature gets its due. But I’ll bet you a nickel that you’ll still think that Ymir was pretty damn cool…
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Gravity Trailer: Some Very Weighty Issues In This Sci-Fi Deep Thinker…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

As soon as I heard this was directed by Alfonso Cuarón (the beautifully gloomy future flick Children of Men), Gravity went onto my “Well, THIS should be interesting…” list of movies to catch at some point. Granted, it will probably be depressing as hell and have a few of its bid deal cast members not survive until the finale, but hey – that’s the way the ball bounces. Or floats away, as I don’t think anything bounces in space. And no one can hear you scream, by the way (yeah, yeah, wrong movie!). Anyway, keep an eyeball peeled for this one, folks. It’ll at least look spectacular…

Star Trek: Into Darkness “Vendetta” Trailer: 1 of 8 Is Better Than 7 of 9 (At Least Today)…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

Yikes. I decide to dive into some games this week and *BOOM!* all sorts of trailers and stuff get dumped on the Internet! Hell, Paramount alone posted something like seven or eight new trailers for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Trek sequel (yikes!), but I won’t go and post them all. At least not today. Here’s one for now and I’ll get the rest up tomorrow at some point when I’m up for air. Well, I am a few posts behind in my new schedule, so I could cheat and do eight more Trek posts… but that would be really cheesy, so I won’t. Besides, I’ve got better ways of keeping your attention… hmm… this eyelash batting stuff is HARD. It looks like I’m having a seizure when I look in the mirror…

Oh, alright – here’s another teaser for you since my eyeballs are tired from all that flapping…

Wolfenstein: The New Order – Meet The New Boss (Not The Same As The Old Boss)…

Posted on May 9, 2013 by geelw

WOLF_ID_type_white Well, now… B.J. Blazkowicz is coming back in a new Wolfenstein game from a team made up of some pretty talented industry vets originally from Starbreeze Studios? Count me in, especially if it’s got mechs to stomp around in or get the hell away from as they’re trying to stomp YOU.

Of course, the alternate past 1960 setup where the Germans win WWII and B.J. is back in action after too long made me laugh and think of Captain America frozen in an iceberg until he got accidentally defrosted (ah, comics science!), but I think this game will go for a less crazy plot twist and just make with the satisfying Nazi-blasting in solo and multiplayer modes. Er, well… I hope there’s a decent plot here.

Then again, I’m not too worried, as Bethesda’s had hits with Arkane Studios’ phenomenal Dishonored and it’s own Elder Scrolls games. It certainly looks like “new” developer Machine Games is on the case plus tax, as you can see from these two videos that introduces the team in a pretty funny manner. And hell, when your executive producer is named Jerk, you KNOW you’re going to get a memorable experience…

Anyway, they sure look like a bunch of fun folks, so I’ll do what I do best and leave them along until they have something playable to show off in the near future…

Resident Evil Revelations “Survive” Case File: Well, Duh!

Posted on May 8, 2013 by geelw

Can you imagine a Resident Evil game where you HAD to keep getting killed by all sorts of enemies? Good, neither can I. Of course, if you’re really bad at the game and constantly freaked out by the horrors stumbling and shuffling about on that boat from hell, well… you can always go get someone to play the game for you while you camp out on the couch and jump when something scary pops up and starts chasing your surrogate around. Then again, no one likes a back seat driver when they’re playing a game you’re to scared to play, right?