Brooke's Bday

This is the first time I've ever remembered or done anything for this character's bday.

Picked up some very old lineart Zach did and fooled around with it. Enjoy.

What the hell is it with this week?

Is this celebrity death week?

On June 23, Ed McMahon died.

On June 25, both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died.

On June 28, Billy Mays died.

This is starting to creep me out, i wanted to post something when Michael Jackson died, but there really wasn't anything i could add to the thousands of sites already talking about it. I mostly felt like part of my childhood died with him.


Now Billy Mays dies, i was just fairly recently discovering youtube movies about the guy and how awesome he was.


This has been a fucked up depressing week. Personally, I will miss Billy Mays and Michael Jackson.

Tron 2.0 WTF

Tron 2.0 what the heck? It's been about 27 years since the first Tron came out (1982)! Granted, I liked the first one, but it never warranted a sequel. NEVER.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104001/

Game review: Ghostbusters the video game

Had to wait 2-3 days to write this lil review, mostly webhosting problems and me lookin up alternative.

So, Ghostbusters. a fairly recent game, highly awaited by Zach and actually not so much by me. I tried this game with no hype, no expectations, no idea what it even looked like or played like.

Prelude

So for starters, i have to admit i played an hacked version of this game, i only admit it because i experienced a huge dick move:

There was 2 cracks for this game, it was released by Reloaded, and they made a crack for it, but there was a Vitality crack too that claimed to be more accurate, and i tried it. HUGE MISTAKE!

If ur gonna download this game, or have downloaded it but used the vitality crack, know that crack sets the game in a weird ultra hard mode and makes the Stay Puft boss fight completely and utterly impossible, even with cheats.

It's an "anti-piracy" crack meant to just make u think the game... er, sucks hard? i dunno what the point of it was really, but yea, if u decide to try this by downloading it, use the Reloaded crack.

First impression

I have to ignore my real first impression since that one was tainted with the impossible mode from the bad crack. So i'll only base it on my experience after using the good version.

right of the bat, this game felt "complete", from the intro to the first few levels, u slowly feel like you're in the 3rd Ghostbusters movie. The gameplay isn't hard, easy to handle and Ray talks u trough it without breaking the 4th wall. The setting feels accurate to the movies and incredibly detailed it's almost eerie. The characters move, act and talk like the ones in the movies, it's just perfect.

A strange phenomenon happens right after u've been accepted as a cadet in the ghostbusters, and a huge plot is underway, and i couldn't wait!

Plot

I'm not gonna spoil anything, just comment on it.

This game has easily the most interesting plot in a videogame that I've seen for years and years. It mostly bases itself on the 1st movie's and expands on it, but doesn't ruin anything. in fact, picks up a lot of details that were left unfinsihed in the movies, and creates a really cool plot with it, worthy of the past movies at least.

I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the unofficial 3rd ghostbusters movie. And the reason it's a game is probably because it'd b too long as a movie.

They did something smart with this game: movie adaptation games almost always completely suck. instead of following the plot of one of the movies, they shaped this game as one and gave it it's own plot. BUT, they were careful to not make it something completely new and unrelated to the movies, thus keepin it interesting for the fans.


This is in fact is sequel to both movies, continues the story, it's just in game form is all.

Most movie/series adaptations makes one of these mistakes.

Gameplay

Ok, I will admit it's not as fluid or perfect as i would like, but it works somehow and should b like that, because if the character was anymore responsive, he would move in a very jerky way and ruin the immersion game.

Also, it's good that Egon gives u new hardware to use as u progress into the game, you're very slowly introduced to the weapons and their mechanics and get used to them easily. Also those weaps functions are really well thought up and cool, they're not all the same with minor tweaks.

Graphics

I am not one to b impressed with graphics, but the sheer amount of detail in this game, the feel of the movies so well emulated, it was just amazing.

It's an heavy ass game to run though, and i do mean heavy, don't b fooled by my screenshots, i have a good computer here (1Gb DDR3 graphic card), and it had ocassional slowdowns.

I normally hate realistic styles for FPS typed game, cause a realistic style is no style. Humans tend to looks so bland in these games, but man, they did an INCREDIBLE job with the main cast of this game, u can see every single skin detail on Bill Murray's face and think "Omg, he does have that lil mark on his cheek there".

Misc.

I'd like to note that the music keeps up with whatever the action is and helps the movie feel even further. A lot if not all of it feels taken directly from the movies, really well done.

I think most people will think the game is short, but not in the sense that it's small, but in the sense that u enjoy yourself and wish there was even more of it.

Enjoy a few extra screens i took:

Final thoughts on this, let's see...

I actually feel bad for downloading this game, it really is worth buying, it's a good one. Easily the best movie/series adaption type game I've ever experienced ever.

If you're wondering, i beat this game and restarted playing it right away that's how much i enjoyed it. If i had a legit version of it with achievements, I'd have a blast getting those right now. I just wanna do more in it.

I'll b keepin my eye out of secrets and easter eggs about this game in the coming weeks.

My verdict for this game, the extremely rare "Do want!"

Of all the crap...

Of all things, ever since i signed with this ISP I've had over 7-8 years, I've always been able to rely on the their filehosting service. It was a lil 30mb space accessible by ftp where u could host your own site or upload files on. no php or sql or anything, simple file storage.

Turns out after all these years, they suddenly decided to pull the plug on it (in fact they did it since the 15th which is why i haven't been able to upload anything since then). which is bad cause at least 95% of the blog's layout is hosted on it, along with a bunch of the stuff i posted.

Now i need to find a new free host to upload stuff into, anything as low as 10mb would b enough, but has to b something that isn't gonna disappear in like a year or 2 and allows me to show images from here hosted there.

Right now, i'm using Dropbox, which is a huge pain to use for mass image posting, hell, just 1 pic is annoying. but my Dropbox is for internship use so this is a temporary solution.

If the blog's layout's images go down, i'll get it on Dropbox (which will take a while), but I'm hoping to find a free host in the meantime. Suggestions for hosts would b very welcome.

Sparks and Dust

I normally do not play flash games as they tend to suck, but once in a while you randomly manage to get a pretty decent one. For me, that one is Sparks and Dust.

http://www.arcadebomb.com/play/sparks_and_dust.html


The game is a pretty simple layout. WASD for movement and Space Bar for jump.



The tutorial is in game so it'll be pretty easy to pick up and play. So get to it.

On a sidenote

Finally got the damn fedora!

It's Google calendar time

I so wouldn't be able to keep track of these myself.



So, Brooke, supposedly my "stereotypical hot" character with a huge rack.

Well, i know what I'll b doing this weekend.

Bang Bead Sprite Rip: Bloody Wolf

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Rom review: Bang Bead

I found a torrent this week with a truckload of Neo Geo roms and romhacks. I'm quite used to roms but the romhacks were something i never tried much, those were interesting to say the least.

However, i was surprised to find out that Battle Flip shot had a sequel called Bang Bead.

Alright, first things first, Battle Flip Shot was a "sports" game that played like pong. u had control of a character with a shield and u could move anywhere on your side of the field, the goal was to knock out all of your opponent's tokens.

You could slide to go faster and you could perform a power shot if u pressed A as u touched the ball. Very simple game.

However, the sequel went and gave this a twist. You no longer carry shields, so to bounce the ball u have to time it and press A as it's going to hit you, if u don't the ball will still b reflected but it'll knock u down for a moment. as u successfully reflect the ball a power ball increases and u can perform a power shot, but as far as i know, it's nothing special and somewhat useless.

Also, to win u have to take down all the tokens, like in the previous game, but in this one, it's not enough, taking down all the tokens deactivates the wall behind your opponent and u have to get the ball through it. Seems like a minor detail but u wouldn't believe how many matches i lost cause of it.

"Dancing is the most wonderful in the world", lol...

Anyway, i can't really tell if it's a better game than it's predecessor. But, apart from the gameplay changes, the addition of 2 new character (plus 2 hidden one that i have NO idea how to unlock) and the much better sprites and artwork makes it way more enjoyable.

The "light" character story and endings make it feel less meaningless and add a bit to the game without annoying the player with it.

Verdict: Sort of want... It's not super awesome, but it's nice.

BUUUSSSTAAH WOLF! Are you okay!?!

Awesome trailer

King of Fighters Online. Do want!

Mr. Bastard: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

...Well, at least within his own self-contained universe, but I'll mope about lack of interest in original prospects some other time.

"Mr. Bastard" is the name of a notorious mass-murderer, wanted to serve an innumerable number of consequtive life sentences, which some people argue still wouldn't be enough. As fate would have it, this uncatchable killing machine is finally brought to justice when he attempts to disrupt crime lord Don Moffet's annual gang fight. He was found unconcious at the top floor of an abandoned building clutching Moffet's charred corpse several feet from a gaping hole in the wall.

Once he came to, the felon was surprisingly complient with the officers bringing him in, though he did lash out when his complete criminal record was not recited at first, revealing that he'd somehow removed his own handcuffs and smuggled in weaponry. He eventually calmed down and resumed following orders, all the while grinning like a buffoon and chuckling to himself.

However, once locked in a cell, he exhibited signs of sociopathy which he referred to as "creative differences"...by murdering his cell-mates, one of which seemed to have his face gnawed off...It wasn'tlong before he was officially given the red carpet on death row. But something happened...

He just...wouldn't die. After surviving the chair, lethal injection, firing squad, and being blown up(all of which seemed to proove only that he is overprotective of his hat, which had a curious bullet hole through it), he proposed making a deal that the government reluctantly agreed to.

Mr. Bastard was to serve out his sentence as a Street Cop. All he requested alongside it were the release of his old partner Octavian Takopen(who'd serve his own sentence in the same way), a little place to stay, wheels, and most importantly, a secretary. No questions asked.

One of the best fake trailers to date

This is a fake trailer of a Green Lantern movie, and is extremely good compared to hundreds of other fan made trailers. I might even say, that this fake trailer is even better than some actual real movies!

Katherine: The naughty engy gal

Original line art obviously by Zach


I took it upon myself to spend 2-3 days tweaking the line art, changing some parts (mostly longer hair and new technique for eyes), new coloring/shading technique (which had so many steps i will NEVER b able to replicate).

For no good reason, i call her Katherine. This is my new ingame spray for TF2, well... this is a higher resolution version of it since the ones used ingame are actually tiny. I thought I'd post it on here for you people to see.

Enjoy.

So what now in TF2?

Ok so, the whole "Sniper vs Spy" update craze is over now, stuff is back to normal, sorta. I think most people can make an objective judgment on the update now:

The spy stuff, well...

• The Ambassador had a really bad side effect IMO, because now we have camping spies sniping people. People playing as snipers switched to another class to play the same damn way. except now you're getting sniped from all sides. myself, i like that weapon less and less.
• Cloak and dagger is ok if u plan to hang around the enemy base all day sappin the same engy over and over, but i find that for infiltration it drains way too fast and makes u stop too much, u can't cover much ground with it. it makes the gameplay much slower paced and almost relaxing.
• Dead ringer is almost useless since it was patched, the unclocking noise is just too freaking loud to b usable, i rarely find it useful but i can see uses for it, like tanking an ubber or protecting a sentry.

Snipah's crap, mmm...

• Jarate still feels dumb, it's ok to prevent spies from escaping as it renders all watches useless if the spy is hit, it can help against the flaregun if ur a camping sniper, but the reload time is too long to really help team members that often.
• Razorback is a must for camping snipahs i guess, but when i used it, never noticed it going down, so in the end it just delayed the spy a lil.
• Huntsman is actually fun and makes me like playing with the snipah, and in a recent update it became possible to reflect the arrows with the airblast, my new goal in life is to headshot a sniper with his own arrow!

everyone was able to get the new weaps because of the milestones being implemented back and lowered reqs for them, however, people are still crazy for the damn hats, and the damn trading system still isn't implemented (way to fail valve), in fact by now most people have had to delete duplicated items from their inventory at least once.

Personally, still no hat. However, in this topic u can find an utility to farm items. The utility isn't considered an exploit or cheat, what it does is log on TF2 in an idling server without running the actual game.

So far on this lil utility i got:

Long ass list is long.

Fucking hats need to start dropping!

Hey Blog

Have a sketch dump. I really don't know what else to say. I'm just not in the mood these days.

Kiwi color test 1

As some may remember, I had a lil contest for my character Kiwi's color scheme some time ago, and got a bunch of submissions for it.

But there wasn't any that felt truly right, Any like I said back then, I'm trying out color schemes borrowing ideas from the submissions i got.

I would love output on this, but since no one actually comments to the blog, i guess it's a waste of time.

Sum pixels for ya

Tried my hand at making tiles, and made this lil mockup of a would b daisy game.


Honestly, this is pretty weak. i kinda disappointed myself there. I just can't come up with a style i like.

Dandel's Bday

Zach doodled this for Dandel's bday (without me asking, imagine that) about a week ago. I wanted to make it special, so i did something that usually drives me crazy: i entirely colored it in openCanvas with watercolors.


It came out nice, but i applied a simple filter on it in Paint Shop Pro 7 for great justice. Enjoy.

60 euros later

I went shopping:

• 1 x 480W power supply
• 2 x Nerwork adapter cards

But yea, barely fixed it. Oekaki and Wiki up again.

Seems that the full damage list is:

• 1 x PCI slot (yea, just 1 specific slot)
• Onboard Network adapter
• 1 x Network adapter card
• 1 x 520W power supply

Business as usual now.

Stuff went poof

There was a thunder storm last night, a pretty damn sneaky one at that, that somehow bypassed my UPS (i swear those things are more and more useless) and damaged my computer.

right now, ugh... dunno the full extent of the damage yet. down for the count are the computer's power source and a network card. Stuff that seems to still work is the hardrives, the graphic card, the motherboard, DVD burner, RAM and processor.

I'm unsure my onboard network adapter works, and i couldn't test the onboard sound either.

anyway, I'm on an old computer i had around, until i get the newer computer back up and running, both the wiki and the oekaki will b down (since almost no one visited it, no biggy).

pfff... what a thing to happen just before Dandel's bday.

Kojima

Metal Gear's Kojima is leading the new Castlevania game. While the trailer has some fucken awesome music and voice acting (Patrick Stewart? YES.), it looks like it is trying to be Shadow of Colossus. At least the main character is not some wimpy teen kid.

Kojima should just make this into an animated movie instead.

It's June 4th right now

At least, in Portugal, So I'll leave this here:


Something Zach doodled and i colored.

Banana Ice Cream?

Huh, so that's how they eat ice cream in Japan. Interesting.

The camera person must be an amateur because he's all over the place.

L4D2: A reaction investigation

doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out 1 thing: most people are OUTRAGED at the idea of this game coming out so incredibly early.

I keep in mind that this could end up being a marketing strategy and that the game might end up free, however... Amazon already has the 360 and PC version for sale for 60 and 50 dollars respectively. So the hopes of this being DLC are fading fast.

i checked various places for reactions:

• Official L4D forum - There's just general rage all over, people are really sad that the current survivors are going to b obsolete, a bunch hate how the new game looks, some like it but think it should b DLC, etc. Only people who aren't mad are rich assholes and spoiled kids. You'd have to b stupid to not b able to tell they're reselling the same shit all over with minor tweaks.
• Official L4D2 forum - That's right, the game already has it's own forum now. this has caused problems because the enraged people kept posting in the L4D forum posts related to L4D2, and the mods kept removing or moving them. but it's pretty much the same crap. I did notice that NO ONE was willing to pay full price for this game. Again rich idiots don't count.
• L4D mods - Ok this one is the one that i really felt sorry for. This community LOVES L4D, they spent months preparing and waiting to make campaigns and custom content for it, MONTHS people, I'm not talking days or weeks. Not only L4D's SDK came out incredibly late, 1 month ago or so, but now they announce the sequel of the game like 6 months after the original game came out? This is not how u treat fans, this is a HUGE slap on the face.

A new steam group L4D2 Boycott was born almost instantly, checked it yesterday and today, seems to b growing exponentially. I actually joined the group myself just now, i don't even know what steam groups are good for, but i do support that cause.

The more i read, the more I'm sickened by it all. while investigating, i came across "i hate mountains", It's a site for a L4D campaign, which to b honest, looks amazing, and to me way more interesting than the official ones. u can tell there was a lot of work done to it and it looks extremely promising.

Edit: oh good fucking lord, this is just enraging: Left 4 Dead 2 will last 'much longer' as a platform.

especially:

• "Put simply, Valve wasn't entirely satisfied with the original game. Left 4 Dead 1" - Neither are we you fucking dumb cunts!
  
  
• "A more refined game will also set the stage for a longer lifespan, with Faliszek having no qualms calling the EA-published Left 4 Dead 2 a platform, one that Valve sees "lasting for a much longer period of time" via updates and DLC." - You gotta b trolling me! that's what they said about the first game to begin with!!!
  

No... it can't be... can it?

I'm not the only one that thinks that, rite?

You best be trolling me Valve

Cause this ain't funny.


So it seems that Valve released a trailer for L4D2, and such trailer got a lot of people mad. Why? well it's simple:

Valve is known for listening to people and adding to games ever after they've been released for a long ass time. Best example is TF2, been released almost 2 years ago, and they're still adding maps, weapons, misc items and balances.

L4D is MUCH more recent, has barely any maps to begin with, feels terribly short and replay value is kinda "meh" to b honest. I paid 20 euros for TF2 and 25 for L4d, but if i had to put a price tag on them, TF2 would cost 40 and L4D would cost 10.

People are "slightly" enraged at Valve because this really shouldn't b a new game, but an addon or patch. If u look at the gameplay video, it's pretty much the same game, but WAY brighter and with melee weapons.

Seriously, a new game just for the ruined ambiance and melee weapons?

You best be trolling me valve, you seriously do. Cause after the huge "sniper vs spy" update fiasco in TF2, i don't think i'll b able to respect this company i held in such high esteem anymore.

Doesn't take too much to ruin one's reputation, This could be it.

Fucking DO NO WANT the same game all over again but in daytime Louisiana.

P.S: I think L4D2 might be actual trolling from Valve as a publicity for L4D and that this might actually be an Addon.