Ye Olde Rerun Department: Digital Press Edition

Posted on July 28, 2013 by geelw

OK, I’m still getting ready to reboot the engines here, so here’s a little old post from Digital Press to tide you fine folks over: Yeah, it’s long as hell (well, for the short attention span crowd) and no pictures means a bit of a wall to climb, but it’s a mere 11 paragraphs and not a bad read if I do say so myself. That and if you have a stack of disc-based games from a few console generations ago (or even some old PC games), it’s worth popping them into a CD player to see what you can unearth.

Elysium Clips: Blomkamp’s Blockbuster, Bit By Bit…

Posted on July 26, 2013 by geelw

I’m not the biggest fan of these clip job teases, but they sure didn’t spoil District 9 for me by the time I got around to seeing it. Neill Blomkamp and his effects team certainly have a way with mixing CG and practical effects that doesn’t look fake or too overblown at all and yeah, Matt Damon as a cobbled together cyborg is making for a pretty interesting character.

As long as the ending feels right (and doesn’t necessarily set up a sequel), I think this might do well and yes, we may see someone at Microsoft kicking themselves in the ass for not letting Mr. B. do that Halo movie. Of course, those folks are still in desperation mode, so I can see them throwing money his way to get on board that Xbox One’s content machine for a super exclusive.

As usual (repeat after me, class)… We shall see.

Snoopy Was A Part Time Sleuth? Who Knew?

Posted on July 25, 2013 by geelw

Well, well, well… and here I thought he was just a WWI Flying Ace, a failed author, a former owner of a multi-level underground doghouse fit for a billionaire (until it burned down!) and a few other cool things. My dad had this tote bag in storage with a bunch of other stuff and it’s a pretty cool find as I’ve never seen it until now. I did some quick research as I was typing this post and apparently there was indeed a TV special called “It’s A Mystery, Charlie Brown” – nice! I think it was also done as an illustrated book, but I’ll need to dive deeper into that research at some point.

(thanks, PeanutsOnline!)

Granted, as old as I am, I probably SHOULD know this already, but I haven’t seen EVERY single Peanuts special and hey, I don’t have catching up on the ones I missed high on my to-do list. Actually… as I’m sitting here thinking about it… I do vaguely recall seeing this one, but it’s been over thirty years since so my memory is supremely hazy about those days. Anyway, the mystery of yet another old item is solved. 30 boxes of stuff to go. Yikes. Anyone want to help out here?

Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut Steam Bound!

Posted on July 25, 2013 by geelw

While a small but vocal bunch of PlayStation 3 owners have been ranting away for Rising Star Games to contract Access Games to stop working on their upcoming Xbox One exclusive D4 to do some fixes for Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut, that’s not going to happen any time soon. On the other, stranger hand… the game was recently surprised-dropped onto Steam Greenlight for a potential PC release with even MORE content and wonder of wonders… it was approved in what seems to be record time. Wow. Now, I’ll be the first to say I’m shocked and thrilled at this news, but I’m not expecting the PC version to be “perfect” by any stretch of the imagination. Even higher resolutions and tweaked controls aside, the game will still look intentionally cheesy and probably have the same driving setup for the cars as the PS3 version did (which is much better than the original Xbox 360 game from a few years back). Anyway, this is indeed great news and soon, you horror game fans looking for something TRULY weird and memorable will all get a little FK in your own coffee when DP:TDC is finally let loose for PC. Once I get an actual release date, I’ll let you know…

Gravity “I’ve Got You” Trailer: Well, You Did Just Now…

Posted on July 25, 2013 by geelw

OK, I’ve been not paying much attention to the upcoming film Gravity thanks to me not being much of a Sandra Bullock fan (yeah, yeah, she’s America’s Sweetheart #181 and blah-blah) and doing a coin toss with Clooney’s films because they can be great or not so great depending on the director. Granted, this isn’t the first time on the sci-fi carousel for either actor, what with Sandra earning her cred in Demolition Man (dumb flick, but the opening sequence was and is still amazing) and George doing a solid job in that Solaris remake from a while back (it’s a decent flick, but the book is still the best way to go). Of course, everything is really riding on the shoulders of director Alfonso Cuarón (“Children of Men”), as I’m betting a handful of pennies that some going in to see this will be expecting something of equal depth and design on a few fronts. Well, this trailer sure piqued my interest, that’s for sure… et tu?

Things to Do When the Real World Stinks (One)…

Posted on July 24, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, Game Empire HD!)

OK, I actually didn’t do anything TOO productive today other than blow through 34 missions in Earth Defense Force 4 and take a bunch of notes for my review. Ive got a long way to go, as the game has got 94 missions total (eek), four character classes and five difficulty levels. I most likely won’t solo the entire game through ALL the difficulty levels before starting my review, as EDF games are made for seriously long play time. I’m probably going to complete Easy and Normal, but I’ve already played some missions on Hard and Hardest just to see how tough they are (they’re tough, but beatable), but haven’t gone near any Inferno maps yet because I need my sanity for the rest of the week. Which so far consists of a meeting to see a new game tomorrow, a screening I may or may not attend (it’s a bit last minute) and a bunch of stuff I need to write up from this week and last.

Er, that’s about it… I guess. Oh, right – I’ll add a few Random Film reviews in a bit. I haven’t watched anything in a few days, so I’m thinking I need a decent old comedy or really bad “B” movie to get back on track. My brain is still packed with mud a little from reality and I made the silly mistake of watching the news this evening (blech… too much crap going on in that real world and too many crazies at the wheel all driving off different cliffs). I’d go bake a pie or something, but I haven’t done that in oh, maybe a dozen years or so, I have no ingredients and I’d probably end up eating the whole thing once it cooled. Who doesn’t like pie?

Random Art: The Return of Frankenstein’s Monster? Sort Of… Maybe?

Posted on July 23, 2013 by geelw

I forget if I’ve posted this piece here before, but what the hell – I need to up my post count a bit, as it’s way down this month thanks to all the stuff going on around here. Anyway, this one’s a MS Paint experiment (yeah, done entirely with a mouse) from 2011 when I was really bored yet inspired to fiddle around with that stupid program just to see if I could get it to do stuff in as simple a way as possible but look somewhat hand-drawn. I have a Wolfman pic that’s been sitting around unfinished for a while, but I may start it over, as it wasn’t coming along well at all (the layout is OK, it’s just in need of some scaling of the figures and I haven’t had the time to get back to it since. Eh, perhaps I’ll just redraw the whole thing… we’ll see.

Ten One Design’s Pogo Art Contest: Draw Something Cool, Win Cooler Stuff.

Posted on July 23, 2013 by geelw

Hey there- got an iPad? Do a bit of art with that thing? Feel like showing off your skills for fun and prizes? OK, here you go: Ten One Design is running its third annual Pogo Art Contest for digital artists armed with iPads and any model Pogo stylus to draw that potential masterpiece with. Entries are due by August 31, 2013, but before you get all doodly with yourself, here are the categories they’re accepting art under:

Current Events

· Satirical or thoughtful explorations of world events, politicians, daily news and journalistic expressions

Wildly Creative

· Thinking outside the box, pioneering digital artwork that has never been seen before, using an application not intended for drawing purposes, application mashing with multiple programs in a unique way or even collaborating with multiple artists

The Way You See It

· Realistic, impressionist and representational artwork of a person, place or thing

Obviously Abstract

· Nonrepresentational interpretations of reality, exploring forms, space, depth and colors

Now, I probably won’t enter (hey, I’d be a ringer here as I’m reviewing a Pogo stylus for the site and I use a different capacitive screen device that Pogo I got works on just fine), but I won’t stop YOU at all. So get creative and go show off your digital art skills. You just may walk away with some nice gear…

Earthbound Finally Re-Released… But Nintendo Devalues It Once Again…

Posted on July 23, 2013 by geelw

While I’m happy as hell that Earthbound has FINALLY been deemed worthy of a re-release, I’m not at all pleased that Nintendo has given it the cheapest treatment possible, tossing it onto the eShop as a digital-only download and missing the cool strategy guide and scratch & sniff cards packed in with the original boxed Super Nintendo version. Actually, the major beef I have is how Nintendo passed up the opportunity to do this up right as a combination physical/digital product that would have made them MORE money at the end of the day had the company merely polled its rather large user base with the following idea for a premium-priced retail Earthbound collection:

A fully localized Mother (the first game in the series) updated for the Wii U Gamepad
Earthbound (Mother 2)
A fully localized Game Boy Advance version of Mother 3 also updated for the Wii U Gamepad
voucher codes for eShop versions of all three titles for the 3DS
An art gallery, soundtrack download and perhaps unlockable images and movies from the cancelled Nintendo 64 version Mother 3
Perhaps even an interview or three with staff members from the development team about the making of the games for good measure.

Hell, I’d pay fifty bucks for that and I’d bet YOU would too. I could also see Nintendo making all of the games available as separate digital download titles for the 3DS and/or Wii U at about $10 each and raking in a profit on those with no problem. By treating the SNES game as a disposable commodity instead of giving it the respect it’s earned over time from folks who’ve either held on to the original cart, paid rent money for a vintage or used copy or (yuck) even illegally downloaded a ROM (and yes, that includes you folks playing those fan translations of the first and third game who don’t own and never intend to own the original carts because you’re too lazy to learn Japanese).

Granted, it’s hard to say if this set of games on a disc as noted above would even drive stagnant Wii U sales at all, but I’d bet if Nintendo announced my stupid idea as a project and asked the fans if they’d buy in, they’d see a great deal more interest in that new console they’re having a very hard time getting more of you out there to buy.

Just a thought… tough love, Nintendo. Tough love…

Morose Monday Made Markedly More Meaningful…

Posted on July 22, 2013 by geelw

Well, let’s see now: coming home from a funeral: gloomy! Coming home TO a nice surprise in the mail (thank you, Play-Asia!) and a double surprise (I’d forgotten to cancel a big Namco Bandai press event for tomorrow morning, which is actually a great thing as it gets me out of the house and not sitting around moping) plus tax (another event on Wednesday and I think one more this week) mean life goes onwards, bumps in the road aside. OK, off to squash some bugs – I may post one more thing before midnight if I haven’t collapsed from being a wee bit too tired. It’s been a really long day…