Monday, March 31, 2008

Ramblings: A few of my favorite things

Slow weekend really, Saturday was jsut filled with hanging out with folks who come by the house and stuff and such. Played some Brawl, COD4, and attempted to watch Rocky Balboa.
Sunday, we did end up watching Rocky Balboa all the way through, and man, i still love that movie. It never gets old to me.
Theres 3 types of movies i like: Shootemup Action (Shooter, Shootemup, John Woo stuff), Genuinely funny movies (and not jsut dumb cheap ha-ha movies like 'Are we there yet?'), and Motivational Dramas (Radio, Beautiful Mind). If its anything else, ill pass. Ive tried em all and got bored at alot, and would rather not feel like im wasting time better spent doing something else i enjoy more.
So i watched I Am Legend with Will Smith last night with a bunch of friends. Again, i should mention there is 1 thing i cherish more than anything: The Experience. And First Impression and Lasting Impressions and Thought Process on First Runthrough are all an intregal part of that experience for me. Even if its a movie ive seen a billion times over, i still prefer the correct optimal experience for my viewing pleasure.
So when the movei was being piched to me, the guys tried their absolute damndest to get me interested in seeing what sounded like just another zombie flick to me, and i finally caved, but i demanded the 'experience' and in order for me to enjoy a movie liek this thoroughly, i need to watch it in the evening, with some friends for entertainment value (and if i have any pressing questions), , and some food (preferrably pizza and pop).
So the whole day goes by and everyone is all "lets watch the damn movie now" and im like "sorry dude, were watching it tonight, If anybody wants me to enjoy the damn thing liek they really want me to, i have to see it when im not going to sit there and pick it apart and make fun of it, when it could genuinely be an awesome movie" as, im no movie watcher. im interetd in Interactive Entertainment, and this 'mood' even stems into the type of games i play, and when theres a cutscene i want to make sure im going to thoroughly enjoy it.

its.. very complicated to say the least, and not alot of people understand it, but im insanely picky about my experience while trying to be entertained. Hell, the Rambo movie in theaters, i even prepared myself for those. Rocky in the same way. hell even with Bloodrayne the Movie from Uwe Boll, it was jsut the perfect setting for it, and i found myself enjoying what has critically been acclaimed as a complete bombshell of a movie. its all about the experience people, sometimes, content just doesn't matter nearly as much.

So after waiting for so long, and going through all that trouble of getting shit setup and ready to go, we finally pop it in. About 3/4 in the movie, im REALLY enjoying it, having a good time, getting really into it, and then ouor friend Rae came downstairs as shes just come back from her trip.
"Oh i saw this movie! ".

...ya. I was pissed. In a split second the ending was completely ruined for me. Everyone else looked insanely frustrated as well. When i asked "Why would you do that?" and her response was "Cause i can" and gleefully skipped away out of sight.
The room was stunned. But w continued watching anyways, and i continued to enjoy myself. Despite the fact that the ending was no shocker, anymore.
so then after the movie, we watche dthe alternate ending, and it felt liek complete and utter cheese.

The moral of the story is: Dont blatantly ruin anything for anyone. Its simply not fair and just plain cruel.
If the response is "Oh but its so obvious" NO. What maybe obvious to some, may not be obvious to others.
They're called twists for a reason people. You never know when they come, how they come about, and what itll bring. Thats the whole FUN of WATCHING a PRODUCTION.

Yeh im still angry, yeah shes apologizzed to me, and yeah i took it. But goddamnit, that could have beaten some of my top favorite movies, which i base solely on first impression and lasting value. First Impressions are crucial to the enjoyment experience, if that sucks, it may as well never be given the time of day.

My top 10 favorite movies (may be inaccurate):

10. The Rock
9. Shootemup
8. Clerks 2
7. The Rescuers
6. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
5. You know what, im throwing I Am Legend right here , ill be damned if im going to let the fact it was ruined for me sway my thoughts on it.
4. The Incredibles
3. A Beautiful Mind
2. Rocky Balboa
1. Rambo 4

Rambo 4, is by far one of the most satisfying productions ive ever seen. If its any indication, its the only movie in my life, ive gone to see twice in theaters. Both times completely willingly and my idea.


im not a movie buff, nowhere close, but i knows what i likes. And you wont find any star wars, star trek, harry potter, lord of the rings, or hell een the Matrix on my list. They are all good movies dont get me wrong, im not into them.
To any and al wanting to try and sway my opinion on that: forget it. It wont happen.


-k

Friday, March 28, 2008

Ramblings: Mario and Brawl

yeah no, this isn't jsut one big topic about brawl. Let me continue here :)

So last night i got the opportunity to play Pete again in Brawl, as hes finalyl back from his vacation. With my new found love for Game and Watch i decided to take him on, while he chose Link.
Holy. Crap.

I havent suffered a beating like that, since Jamis surprise with Zelda fireball spammage (hes since quit doing that now, but you get the point). game and Watch just cant seem to get in close enough. Whatever move hes got, Links got a few counters.
Take for instance, his umbrella as he falls, can eject water, which rejects projectiles (i hear, havent pulled it off or anything) and deals damage to anyone who touches it. link can twist-fly whatever with hsi sword for his upB, and that kicks the umbrellas ass.
G&W's DownB is an oil bucket that soaks in projectile attacks, in order to unlesh 3 fold once its full. Its one of G&Ws ultimate "Gotchas", well according to Brawl, Links Bow and Arrow, Whirlwind, Boomerang, or even bomb, do NOT count as projectiles. Ive tried to catch each one of them. So that move is completely useless.
Link also has his Pogo downward sword hit, this is one move that makes zero sense to me how it works, but according to Brawl, that attack, knocks you skyward and star-KOs as long as you have 80% at least damage.
Dont even get me started on Links amazing recovery, both be and Tyler have hit link with a charge smash when hes at 150%, and he STILL survives!
Plus hes got insane speed & range, and somehow manages to hit for 3 times as much damage as the attack should allow. He hit me once with a standard sword attack, im already at 21% from 0%.

I could go on, but the point im getting at here is, the denizens of Hyrule, are all severely overpowered for their own good.
Someone on the balance team sure favoured these characters. The only one that feels balanced in Ganon, and, thank god. If he even had the ability to beat Fox in a standard attack, i think id cry and quit the game entirely.

Oh dont get me wrong though, i can still kick peters ass, he leaves himself open in the air quite a bit, but he makes insane usage of the dodge roll (as in, its his only mode of transportation on the ground), something ive been noticing not alot of people do in Brawl so far. And it makes sense, because he can barely be hit.

So far i think Links weakness is Snake, haha, believe it or not. Snakes standard A attacks, kick the crap out of Link, and by kick the crap, i literally mean: Kick him out. I took Link out with a diving roll at 70% or so, it was hilarious. plus Snakes standard air attacks make Link cry like hes the fresh'un in Prison. just gotta watch out for the Pogo, and everything is fine.

If you werent sick of hearing about brawl enough, you may have noticed my previous two posts, im not sure im gonig to continue those, at least, not here anyways.

So the interwebs cut out fairly early last night after the host went to sleep, so we were forced to improvise our entertainment. So me and Cody felt liek nostalgic gaming, and the SuperNES looked like a good target. ...And didn't feel like burning through Zelda, so we popped in Lethal Enforcers and, wow, got bored of that quickly. That game is missing some serious Blast Processing, because i remember the genesis version being far superior in every sense. After that, and finding out that my copy of Aladdin for some good old school sidescrolling platforming action was out fo the question (black screen o' nothing), we popped in Mario All Stars, and played the crap out of Mario 3. Man, ok, first Mario 1 speed run competition with jami, Mario World speed run with jami the other night, and now Mario 3 with Cody. Also i gave Mario Galaxy a shot the other day, its jsut been Mario mario mario mario mario. lol. so that was good fun.

Oh also, while waiting for my prescription to arrive, i picke dup a copy of the new Nintendo Power. All i gotta say is: Wow. This felt VERY familiar. now i never read nintnedo Power in my life, and now owning a Wii i felt it appropriate since it had a nice cover story on Mario Kart Wii, Okami Wii, and "Building Better brawls" article. But i was reading it last night, and it felt like very classic video game journalism, stuff liek what Gamepro and Tips n Tricks used to feel like. Liek they dont take anything very seriously at all, lots of just having fun with the publication, and i felt compelled to continue reading the magazine until 3:30AM. Official Playstation Magazine and Official Xbox Magazine or even Game Develop magazine barely does that, i read a few articles, put it down, feel a little iformed, and go about y day. Nintendo Power jsut pure enlightenment and entertainment, as well as somewhat informative, but you knwow hat, i liked that. though, theres ALOT of Blue Hedgehog bashing from the fan letters, which made me lol.

Also, its almost April, which means, im almost on my way to my hometown, Prince George. on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of April, ill be driving with my good friend Gary, to help him move into his new place up in the northern capitol of BC (thats literally what they called it, lol). So that'll be fun.


Thats all i got for now, until tomorrow!


-k

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Tactics: Brawl - Mr. Game and Watch

Preface:
Game and Watch is special. For what he lacks in frames, he makes up for in Power and Unpredictability. Its no secret, game and Watch is HARD to watch. Alot of his moves are sudden and come in first frame with little to no anticipation, while alot of his much deadlier moves have but a single keyframe of animation before blowing the opponent away, making him one of the scariest characters in the game to be against. you just never know what hell do next. Game and Watch is my main that im most effective with, and mostly for the above reasons.
Sure he looks funny and sounds funny with all the primitive LCD bells and whistles, and can very easily be written off as a joke character to those who haven't seen his true capabilities. But jsut as the saying goes: Don't judge a book by its cover.

LCD games have always scared me, now i know why.

Disclaimer:
Let me make this clear though: These are my strategies and opinions, and mine alone. Of course different playstyles exist and of course different opinions on moves are evident. nothing here is concrete, im just going by what works for me.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let get on with it:


Name: Mr. Game and Watch
First Appearance: Fire (i think)
Smash bros: Melee
Changes: Not much, has a couple new moves, most are pretty preserved though.
Affiliates: None
Rivals: Mario
Final Smash: Giant 'Oil Panic' Octopus
Level: Flat Zone (Melee), Flat Zone II (Brawl)
Watch out for: Adult Link



Strats Coming soon, this is merely filler

Tactics: Brawl - Wolf

Of all the characters in Smash bros Braw, Wolf, is by far my favorite. And while im not nearly as effective with him as i am with Game and Watch, im going to post all my strategies with Wolf right here, for anyone else looking and watching, to help make more use out of Wolf. Theres not alot of info about the guy ive found so far, so here we go.

Disclaimer:
Let me make this clear though: These are my strategies and opinions, and mine alone. Of course different playstyles exist and of course different opinions on moves are evident. nothing here is concrete, im just going by what works for me.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let get on with it:


Name: Wolf 'O Donnel
First Appearance: Starfox 64
Smash bros: First Timer
Affiliates: Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi
Rivals: Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi
Final Smash: Red Landmaster


Strats Coming soon, this is merely filler

Ramblings: The Birthday Shenanigans

So i offiically turned 22 as of March 26th at 11AM or something close to that.

The day started actually durign the previous day. After work, me, Jami, and Cody basiacly played a bunch of Wii stuff until the 'wii' (see what i did there? har har) hours of the night. I got 2 hours of a powernap, i woke up and with Jamis help, managed to start, beat, and master Super Mario World on the virtual console.

That took until about 12PM i reckon. Afterwards we got a bunch of people downstairs and played Brawl in Tourney mode until 5:30 or so.

Back at home with the family, we went to dinner at a fancy restraunt called "Zias". here i tried the Rack of Lamb Dijonnaise, as well as a few local variations of dark beer. The food, was absolutely stellar. The night ended with a slice of Hedgehog Cake, which in short, is like having a party, in your mouth, every bite. It. Was. AWESOME.

i crashed at 9PM because i didn't get much sleep the night previous, but its all good, the hours and hours leading up to the 9pm crash, more than made up for the remaining 2 hours i usually stay up till.

In terms of gifts, i got this sweet new Casio watch, its got a brushed metal finish and the numbers are shiny. cool!

Thats about it for my grand birthday adventure. I didn't post, because i was away from all things computers the whole day, so, yeah.

Anyways, stay tuned for my gut reaction and lasting impression of "Serj Tankian: Elect the Dead"

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Ramblings: Salt and Vinegar

Last night, was in short, pretty cool.

I happened to notice, that Ty, Pete, and pretty much everyone in the house is taking their break back to their own place, leaving the building pretty well empty. However, after slugging through Classic mode in Brawl as Wolf on hard, and finalyl visiting facebook again, i was promptly called by Cole to hang out and play some COD4. it was long after that that Cody came back too. So we all just played the crap out of COD4 and played some Gears of War on my PC. I loaded up that game purely just to show off the graphical capabilities of my computer, but they REALLY got into the damn game haha.

That was my night, but while i was browsing facebook i set up an event to gather a bunch of people up to play some Paintball on this coming Sunday. Its a REALLY late birthday thing for myself, as my D-Day is the 26th (tommorrow) and the 'party' is on the 30th.
Ive never hosted 'parties' or 'outings' or anything of the liek usually. When i did, i was a little kid organizing random things to happen, but then everyone would just play video games anyways (with or without my help, guess i just hang around Gamers alot, or i jsut sucked at hosting events lol) So this is a BYOC CFY CAYP (Bring your own Cash, Care for Yourself, Come as you Please) event, mostly so everyone is free to do what they will, wont feel confined to what i have to say, and fi they have to go, they can go with no questions asked.
I almost dont mind if it was really only me that showed up to the field. I know that wont happen, but what im saying is, this sunday is for me, and if my friends who ive invited show up, itll jsut make the day all the more fun and truly awesome, especially if someone brings some sort of recording mechanism (camera).
See you on the field guys! Should be a fun way to end the school break :)

I need to practice more on Brawl, just need to get good with Wolf. Hes frigging a pain to get used to once youve used Fox to any major extend, though Wolf does a few things that i thoroughly enjoy. Such as his Up+B, while not the "FireFox" as people have been calling it, its like "Air Wolf" or something lol. Its a TON quicker to pull off, and when it hits, carried the bastard along the trail, and Wolf lets out a side kick at the end to send them flying. Sure it may be shorter distance than the Fire themed Up b of Fox and Falco, but what it lacks for in distance, makes up for in attack power, which, Brute Force is what Wolf is all about. Though i tell you, Master Hand at the end of classic was a pain in the ass, simply because Wolf has no good air moves aside from the Air Wolf thing, and that mvoe is only good againt foes who will travel with wolf collecting damage as he picks them up. Master hand doesnt do that, rendering the move somewhat useless.
My entire 300 damage to the bastard consisted entirely of the 5hp per shot Blaster and jump kicks. .. Yeah. Took. Forever. Got a better strategy for Master Hand with Wolf? PLEASE for the love of all things holy, let me know! i know Wolf has a very shitty air game, but theres gotta be a couple things i can do.
Also if anybody knows how to Run and Gun with Wolf, let me know, ive been trying for ages, and i keep reading he can do it, but i can NEVER pull it off...
Also, Wolfs taunts are some of the best in the game.

Mr. game and Watch, what can i say, hes just a frigging powerhouse, but he requires you to be up close and personal. Even his Final Smash doesn't have any range. But hes still my second favorite Main.

then we have Fox, when i need speed and combo damage, this is the guy i choose.

Then we have Sonic, which i still need alot more practice with to even be called Less than Effective.


Thats it for me for today,


-k

Monday, March 24, 2008

Ramblings: Happy Post-Easter

I just came off reading Jami's blog entry this morning (holy crap kid, type much? LOL) and feeling a little down from typing so ill keep this short.

I went home for the weekend, starting on Friday (which was a stat-holiday for my job, so day off for me!) so i packed up my Wii and left my house. i could feel Tyler and Codys disappointment as i packed up my Wii, haha. Don't worry guys, a Brawl session is right around the corner!

I went with gary to Penticton, he had a CD he wanted to pick up and i wanted to grab a second Gamecube controller. Going in for a $20 item, apparently leaving with some $85 of stuff, lol.
- Gamecube Controller (official, non-thirdparty)
- Gamecube Memory Card (madcatz, but works)
- Metal gear Solid: Twin Snakes
- Starfox: Assault

Ive been getting alot into the Starfox series as of late. Much in the same token i got into the Sly series, Ratchet and Clank, Sonic, and various other franchises.
I obsess over cartoon games it appears. And thus i shall continue to do so because i do appreciate the genre. Shooting, Platforming, Theivery, Open World, i don't necessarily care, these games tend to focus on having plain old fun than incredibly realistic graphics. And isn't that what gaming is all about?

I absolutely ADORE and praise the Metal Gear Solid franchise, because the gameplay is fun, the story is.. insanely engaging, and the characters are all likable whether you hate them or like them. Gear 1 on PSX was the very first title, that made me very proud to be a gamer. The second scene with sniper wolf dying, actually brought a tear to my eye for its beauty. I REALLY didn't think a game could DO that to a person! MGS2 introduced alot of things to the series in terms of gameplay that were sorely needed, such as aiming in first person mode for instance. The storyline behind it was again, simply stellar, though i was very angry about controlling Raiden for the majority of the time, i wanted Snake!
MGS3, i never actually played to any extent, though i did watch my friend Alex play it in its entirety so i know the storyline and how it all went down. The final cut-scene at the end of the game left me completely and utterly speechless, to the point where i just couldn't move, i was paralized, and all i could do was be basked in the beauty of the cutscene execution. The music queues, the voice over, the animation, and even the graphics, all worked in complete harmony to deliver one of gamings most satisfying endings in history.

in short: The MGS series, is what inspires me most. But i definitely enjoy my cartoon games.


When it comes to Brawl with me vs. anything Jami does, yes its true, his Zelda always manages to piss me off. let me explain
1. The kid has insane survival skills. Doesn't matter WHAT game he plays, he always manages to survive the longest.
2. Impeccable timing. Hes got the timing of shit LOCKED DOWN TIGHT. So thus, always manages to get me just as im exiting my block, no matter how much i switch up the timing. I dont know whether its just luck or he notices something most dont. But its not just blocking, its EVERYTHING.

Anyways, its because of these two qualities in his gaming habbits, that make him a nearly unstoppable force in Brawl. So when he practices and makes use of his Main's, hes basically god on the field, choosing who he was to off first. It never helps that for some reason he gets the Smash Ball on whatever hit he lands on it, while everyone else smacks it ariund for like 5 minutes. So i played someone who knew all of Zeldas moves, and i kicked his ass with Wolf. So, theres definitly something different about Jamis gameplay habbits that make her an unstoppable force.
I still think Zelda could do without at least 1 or 2 of her moves, such as th deflector, i really doubt she needed that, coupled with everything else she has. Shes liek the mix of everything awesome of every character, powerful CONTROLLABLE ranged EXPLOSION of DOOM, akin to Snakes Nikita. Reflector of peril, much like Starfox's reflectors, her teleport maneuvers makes SURE you nver have a goddamn CLUE where shes going to land, her Sheik/transform ability is much like Pokemon Trainers, in which they cant be touched during transformation, and both her standard up and side smash attacks are repeated hitters with a final strike at the end of it which can send you off the screen. And nto to mention, her final smash is an instant kill so long as they are in front of her from ANY distance! Her repitoir is, in short: "Unfair", in my eyes, and clearly unbalanced. Shes like the boss character that has everyones moves except stronger.
As for his other mains, Zero Suit and Peach, Peach jsut has one hell of an annoying final smash (no matter what, your asleap allowing her to pick each one off individually), and Zero Suits whip is just annoying. But aside from that, both characters feel pretty balanced in accordance to the game.

*ahem* anyways, before i start ranting, Jami its not that we think YOUR cheap with Zelda, we just think ZELDA herself is cheap enough to warrant the 'ban'. Everyone else is cool, lol.

Im ending it here as i cant feel myself typing any less intelligently than i am right now, so, later!


-k

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Ramblins: The Return of Vlogs and a new Feature!

I just wanted to let you know, that Vlogs will be making a return, and a return they shall.

Another quick announcement, is a new feature coming to the Kyle Blogosphere, but will let my Vlog later today do the talking.

Very very short blog post today, as something needs my attention right now, so until later


-k

EDIT: Enjoy this picture, it made me laugh hysterically.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Ramblings: 11 Second Club March Contest

So with the "Garbage Day" and "Chasing Amy" Machinima projects sitting on the shelf for a little while, Ive allowed myself to sign up for the 11 Second Club, and even though i only have a week and a half left, ill still try my best to participate in the March contest, which uses an audio exerpt from "Amadeus".

Im totally stoked, i only imported the "Andy" meshs and set up the first body poses, and a crappy 3pt lighting setup, and im having a total blast! I REALLY didn't want to sleep last night, er, this morning.
This competition is allowing me to use maya for animation in ways i never used it before. Ive never tried animating rigs, facial structures, animation graph, or any of that stuff in Maya. All i ever used was rotating and translating the physical bones themselves in my simple simple structures.

Though i wont lie, getting back into the swing of Maya, may have been easier for me than most would trying to adapt (i used Maya for like 3 years before switching to XSI at school), im still having issues with keyboard shortcuts. Also trying to remember simple tricks like getting shadows from light sources to show in the persp viewport in real time have been an effort in trying not to strangle the neighbors cat in frustration.

Im not exactly sure what i want to do with my other blog blog.blackjagstudios.com, it served me well as a blog for critique from fellow peers and teachers alike, but i don't use it anymore since im out of school, and following two blogs at once would kinda suck, which is why i'm creating a new Label for "11 Second Club" because ill be posting my WIPs here instead of there.

Ill leave it up for Legacy reading and showing, but you can see all of my stuff (and vlogs even) at my Vimeo account anyways :)

im done for today, to make your day complete, its wednesday, and you know what that means!






-k

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Ramblings: A Sober St Patricks Day

Hey all,

So another St. Patricks day has come and gone, and it was a very.. game filled one, haha. Its nice to know i single handedly now have the power to distract anyone and everyone from "normal" socializing to "Fun and exciting bantering and disrupting friendships". With the power of all of the systems in the house, plus multiplayer blockbuster hits like Smash bros Brawl and COD4, manages to turn just standing around and drinking with the occasional burst of laughter from the lewd comment shouted out at random, to having a real competitive and slowly degrading performance multiplayer bash.

Brawl was basically the center of all attention last night, but, it definitely got to a rocky start >_>, me and Jami, needed to unlock all of the characters, so we went from 50% to 90%, beating SSE on my machine, and going back to getting Jigglypuff, Wolf, and Toon link. So with all characters unlocked and 4 hours into the "party" it was time for some brawlin.

After that there wasn;t a ton of interest from much anybody else, they just watched me and jami beat SSE for 4 hours, so it was understandable. But once the distraction part of the party left (a few who shall remain nameless) people started joining in, including Cole, Cody, Ben, etc etc etc.
A little bit later, a fairly frustrated Cole asked me if he could use my 360 to shoot some people in the face, to relieve some stress. So we popped in COD4 and had some fun with supreme stealth classes and my Barret 50. cal sniper class.

This trend kept going until 2AM or so, when everyone disbanded and went to bed.

I didn't drink a thing, i was to busy gaming to think about it... haha. id make a terrible irishman.

So theres my unprofessional sounding blog entry of the day.

-k

Monday, March 17, 2008

Ramblings: Backburner...for now

Ok, ive had it about to here with the machinima project. its pretty abundantly clear that adding animations to an existing animation bank is just not somethign the devs want you to do. I guess they are afraid of all the simulated porn that could eminate from such an idea.
Ok im bitter what can i say.

So in order to do anything to an existing character in the unreal games, i have to use 3D Studio max, cause for some reason the damn thing just doesn't want to export bone structures in .3ds format, and i cannot for the life of me, find the OBJ exporter. plus on top of this, i havent even the slightest clue how to use Max, so learning new software for me at this point is a little out fo the question.

So screw it. Ill get back to this project at a later date, i will however still use Unreal 3 for this, but for now my patience has worn itself thin. I could have, in the time its taken me so far to setlling on the idea, the engine, the method, the software, and the research, to get to this point, made a full features animation portfolio to show that im not just sitting here picking at my eyeballs all day long.

Anyways, look forward to the 11-second club challenge as ill be soon participating in that.

As for FP, no worries, its still going, these are just side projects.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Ramblings: SCORE!!!

WOOT! Thats right Bitches, the Wii, is finally mine, and in my grasp.

I called EB around where i live on a whim and asked if they had any Wiis, turns out, they jsut unpacked 4 of them. So being as they werent able to hold any for me... i asked for an extended brake and jumped in my car and drove, THREE towns over, in a matter of minutes, through traffic jams and Ms. Daisy drivers, and finally reached my destination. Picked it up, droppe dit off at home, and booked it back to work. Now i just got to wait till i get home in order to do anything with it :)

So yeah, i now own all three of the consoles, as well as 1 of the handhelds (DS). Im almost too happy to care if anything goes wrong today :)

its a Smash bros brawl night tonight, im looking at you Pete and Ty! And im also looking at you Jami, we have to play online sometime ;)

-k

Ramblings: Quick First Impressions of Unreal Tourney 3

Ok so i finally installed Unreal Tourney 3 yesterday, both to give it a shot, and to try the toolset. Well then a friend came over and we ended up having a massive Army of Two session instead, followed up by watching Tenacious D: POD. So it wasn't until around 2Am that i finally got a chance to sit down with it. So naturally it wasn't long.

First thing i noticed, was this game runs silky silky smooth on the highest of settings on my system, which makes me super super happy. Im always a fan of bleeding-edge performance. it was around 2:30AM when i ripped open the documentation at UDN to see what extra tools i needed.

Well apparently i need nothing as i sat there for like an hour trying to find an SDK of some kind, now i dont remember much (being that late) but if i recall, im to compile my own SDK. But im jsut not entirely sure if thats what i NEED. All im looking to do is add animations to preexisting characters, so to my understanding i use the Matinee and FaceFX tools located in the UnrealED itself. The model/animation viewer and all tools have the rendering engine built in, which reminds me of Doom3, which is a definite step in the right direction.

I didn't get much further than this as i ended up passing out on my keyboard, causing my system to freak out and wake me up again; but 2 things i must ask:

1. How do i obtain this "UCC" utility or whatever for compiling UnrealScript? Is that in UED too?
2. How do i extract stuff from pre-existing packages? Essentially hwo can i possibly work with the assets already available?

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Ramblings: Sonic Unleashed

Quick post, it appears SEGA has patented a new sonic title entitled "Sonic Unleashed". Could this be the next platformer Sonic game? Could they possibly make it better than the 360 version? Will it be japan or USA studio doing it? Anyways, the good guys over at SEGANerds posted this and i thought id post it here too.

Keep your fingers crossed! I know mine are...

Ramblings: Totally Unreal Epic Journey

So im totally stoked to play with the Unreal 3 engine. Again if you havent been following my grand adventure into the world of machinima, let me recap:
years ago i saw a machinima entitled "A Few Good GMen" by Nailbiter, which was the Courtroom scene from the movie "A Few Good men" where Gman was Jack Nicholson and Barney was John Travolta. It was definitly a step in the right direction from what i wanted to see in a Machinima production. Most would take real gameplay footage from online games like Team Fortress 2 and Halo and just adlib dialogs over character movement. Some would write scripts and just do the same thing (like Rooster Teeth and their great Red vs Blue series). Some even take Machinima oriented game slike 'The Movies' and use that to make their shortfilm riddled with canned animation and reactions. Where i was inspired was the fact "A Few good GMen" was custom digital acting, within a game engine, compelte with lip synch. And THAT is totally up my alley.

On my journey ive traversed through trying to use Valves Source engine like nailbiter, but where i wanted to go where Nailbiter didn't, was custom actions. Nailbiter did a phenomenal job using canned actions blended together to look like they fit the part, i want to animate my own sequences entirely by hand. The simple idea of simply adding animations to a preexisting characters animation bank, was definitely more troublesome than it was worth, so i then turned to Id Softwares Doom3, reminiscing about the scarcely layed cutscenes inspired me to think that it was going to be more robust, and the md5 model/animation system would be alot easier to add sequences to a characters bank. This is of course true, once you figure out the Doom3 DEF system, which si pretty complex with all of the switches and ways of doing things.
I was about ready to animate my first part of the Garbage day lip synch, when i got landed with a fantastic computer purchase deal.
i was reluctant to find out Doom3's tools are largely incompatible with vista, though the game itself runs great. also Maya 6's License Server is also incompatible with Vista, rendering the main 2 tools useless. So i tried to installa dualboot of XP and that didn't go over so well as i forgot, HPs hardware is only compatible with ITS drivers, and ITS drivers are only vista compatible. so that was a 5 day downtime thanks to complications and legal matters.

So I've made a decision to switch engines again, this time, ill be working with longtime Id Software's rival: Epics Unreal3 Engine. Why this one? Because its the most modern engine i can easily get into. CryENGINE2 doesn't have enough public documentation, not enough community support. Id tech 5 isn't available yet, and the other engines are proprietary enough that the tools aren't going to be sufficient, plus i know Unreal3 is Vista compatible and as with most tools used to work with it, and has quite the community behind it. So in the end: It just makes the most sense.

So i think when i get down to it, ill write a "Gut Reactions" article on how i feel about it, as i traverse around with it. A "Gut Reactions" article is one i continuously post and add to throughout the extent of time im exposed to it. Leaving previous edits and timestamps unedited to keep the integrity of changing opinions.

Also, Alex is buying Army of Two today, so ill be playing some mean coop online with him.
Cant wait, itll be my first true online experience with the Playstation 3 outside of simply online demos and junk.
See ya online Alex ;)

-k
9ps. in case you haven't noticed, i update this blog regularly and constantly, so to help save confusion, everything within the day i write is encapsulated between bright orange day stamps to form groups of posts from the same day, so don't think that this post is just for today)

Ramblings: Back in business baby!

Celebrate good times COME ON! *insert more music*

Ok so i FINALLY have my computer up and going, i spent until 2 AM last night reinstalling everything and getting it back up to snuff, while i played Pokemon Diamond to pass the time. Turns out, all i needed to do, was reinstall vista. Easier said than done when you werent provided the Vista disc in the first place but meh. Its good to go again! I also bought Unreal Tourney 3 so i can mod it

As i was playing pokemon, i beat the first gym leader and i got my SHINX evolved into a LUXIO. Abra is taking absolutely FOREVER to evolve though >_>

my search for a Wii never ceases, i went to the secondary EB in town where a friend works and tried to convince him to let me know via phone call, if he gets word about the next shipment of Wiis coming in. I aint relying on it as its iffy in the first place, but ill take whateer angle of help i can get.
No ebay for me.

So i got to help out in Cody's (film student roommate) film yesterday whilst i was waiting for Vista to install. Im called a "Blood Wrangler" or something, but essentually i was in charge of hiding and pushing the pump button for some sweet sweet blood effects in a suicide scene XD I get credits in his film, w00t! Maybe i can convince him to film a serial killer movie and ill play the killer ;) I did back in AI... speaking of which, i passed on a film idea to Cody, one that me and my little brother thought up. Id do it myself but im no film maker, and CG wouldn't be good for this idea, haha. Im not detailing it here until i hear back from Cody on whether or not hes going to do it. But its pretty good idea i must say :)

After all that, uhh, i played some Smash bros 64 by myself downstairs (as no one was around to play with_ and practiced with Fox. holy. Crap. There is like NO moves in that bloody game XD kick, upper attack, down attack, smash up, smash down, smash side, special and UpB. oh and grapple.
I was struggling for most of the time because.. its so different XD the interesting thing is, ive only ever really played the 64 version, and THEN Brawl, but now im so alient from the 64 version i can barely play it. though i will say one thing: the grappling in 64 is much more powerful.

Anyways thats all i have this time around, for now, enjoy this awesome GIF

-k

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Ramblings: Could something else go wrong please?

I think theres still a shred of hope still left in me. Please just kill it off for me, thatd be fantastic cause then i can legitly start looking like an emo walking through the streets, instead of my normal attire looking pissed off and sad all frigging day.

lets recap this: I get a severe case of brand loyalty. And when something doesn't change for nigh a year and over and things look great, the unexpected happens and shit hits the fan.

Lets start this shitstorm back a little while ago:

Pre 1. Greg Kasavin @ Gamespot.com = Quit
To pursue dreams over at EALA to work on C&C3, this didn't really hurt as much but when it was initially announced, my favorite review personality is quitting, my heart sank to the bottom, then months later, shit started happening:
1. Ryan Oulette @ Puresafety = Deceased
A good friend of mine on the night shift suffered from some blood flow problems one day and didn't show up to work, we got news later that day that he had passed away. I still miss seeing the guy come up the stairs and the many breaks we took together. RIP my friend.
2. Jeff Gerstmann @ Gamespot.com = Canned.
No one but Jeff and Cnet knows the real deal still, his departure left me dazed and confused for an entire day. Jeff was my favorite reviewer.
3. Jami @ Puresafety = Laid off
Good friend from work gets laid off, it was NOT a good day for productivity.
4. My night crew friends @ PureSafety
The place i work at, the entire storm of contractors (the whole night shift team) got laid off due to severe budget cuts. I had been working with
5. Alex Navaro @ gamespot.com = Quit
Apparently due to 'not feeling it anymore'
6. James @ PureSafety = Fired
Fragging buddy, and night team really good friend, gets sniped from work due to the lingering smidgeon left in the budget cut to fill. james got chosen to be let go unfortunately.
7. Ryan Davis @ Gamespot.com = Quit
openly admitted to it being attributed to Jeffs alleged firing
8. Lew Lashmit @ Black Jaguar Studios = MIA
mmHmm, Drama even over here, Lew dissapeared from the internet very suddenly one day a month or two back, and we have not heard back from him, at all. PMs from various websites still go unread. I hope nothings happened to him..
9. Peter Moore @ Microsoft = Quits
Peter Moore was just awesome, when this news hit i was completely speechless. Now that he works at EA Sports, i know what hes doing but still...
10. secondary lead programmer @ Puresafety = fired
11. Head honcho boss @ Puresafety = Fired
12. Support guy @ Puresafety = fired
13. Project lead @ Puresafety = fired
All 4 of these happened in such rapid succession it makes my head spin. I knew the programmer and head honcho boss guy, im not revealing their name for privacy reasons.
14. Phil harrison @ Sony = Quits
holy CRAP. When i heard this my jaw dropped. Though recently the knowledge hit hes working with Infogrames and Atari, so its no longer a big deal but jeesus, the day the news hit i could barely think straight.
15. Gary Gygax of Dungeons and Dragons fame = passed away
My. God. No other words really need to be said about this
16. Handsom Tom, Perfect Liz, Ryu the Screwa-Dog, and Cameraman Joe @ Screwattack.com = Quit
Due to business politics revolving around a website all about "fun and community", Handsom Tom left screwattack, for various reasons, and took Liz with him. Not sure about Cameraman Joe, but its still unfortunate that hes gone too
17. Newschool Micky @ Screwattack.com = Quit
Micky, just quit, like an hour or so ago apparently for reasons not related to Tom departure.


I have been loyally following Gamespot for well over 4 years, and when ALL of my favorite personalities have left, gamespots jsut there for definitive release dates for me. I havent listened to a HotSpot or watched an On The Spot since Ryan Davis left, though ive become a loyal follower of Jeff, Ryan, and Alexs respective blogs, as well as an original reader of Giant Bomb.com so those arent the biggest loss, but before all that happened, i was depressed.

Ive been listening and watching everything Screwattack has been doing for well over 1 year and 2 months now. Im not sure how i feel about Sidescrollers now that its just Craig, Jose, Ben, and Nick now. Without Joe, Liz, Tom, and Micky its just going to be really strange. Im sticking with them, but goddamn.


Lots of drama since November of 2007. Im sick of it. I can adapt to change no problem, but jeesus christ guys, Spring just feels goddamn depressing for all of my loyalty to these websites, and companies i belong too. Theres way more too, but i think I've listed enough.

Some of its silly to get all worked up over (Gamespot drama) but then if you think that, then you just don't understand.

ok, im done, just needed to get that off my chest.

-k

Ramblings: Lots of Stuff this time

Ok because this ones gonna be huge, heres a list of things im gonna talk about today:

1. Smash Brawl Day 2
2. Adventuring around town, hunting for a Wii

3. Computer status

4. its about time i get my car fixed
5. Pokemon

So without further adu:

1. Smash Brawl Day 2
Because my computer is still down for the count (see below) we spent the majority of the day wed usually spend recording the podcast, playing a giant session of Brawl. My opinion of the game hasn't changed much, aside from my 'main'ing lineup. so let me update that list
1. Wolf
2. Metaknight
3. Sonic
4. Fox


yeah so i favor the Star Fox game team, i think they are wicked characters, and Wolf is badass. Sue me :) Wolf skyrocketed to the top, based on style points and power alone. you cant rapidly shoot his lazer (as its a single shot that does 5%, but stuns them upon impact), but that stun can reveal many a world of hurt to those who get hit by it unexpectedly. Wolfs taunts are by far my favorite in the game, Howling at the sky for killing a dude, and a "Whats the matter? scared?" taunt for when they continuously chicken out and hide/run from you. His voice is just absolutely awesome and believe it or not, instantly sold me on hearing his "scared?" taunt, haha. His power is pretty badass too, almost anything he does could knock a dude out.

Metaknight still remains to be one of my favorites, hes all forms of badass and has a sweet sword and deadly moveset. Provide dyou dont mind getting REAL close and personal. Even his final smash is pretty short range, and only does 40% damage. You want to do his final smash when someone is at least at 60% cause then its an instant kill, the moment that sword connects and manages to do upwards of 100% by the end of it, its an instant kill. Nothing quite like Zelda and her instant kill arrow no matter what health you are, but it is effective, not easily predictable, and can be activated whereever and whenever.

Sonic, i still suck at him, but i adire his moveset to the third degree. I didn't actually think hed be that great of a character, and that hed be just fan service. I was dead wrong. his moves suit him perfectly to a tee, they are VERY quick and VERY offguard catching, but doesn't have alot of power behind him, but thats ok. Dealing alot of damage quickly is the name of his game. Plus, for the first time, Jason Griffith sounds REALLY good as Sonic in this one. The taunts are cool, and victory and beginning speeches are cool, and he radiates "cool". Damn. Leave it to nintendo to do SEGAs character right!

Fox is Fox McCloud, hes the fast version of Wolf, which is why hes still in my roster, of Wolf is going to be too slow, ill use Fox instead.

In short: Brawl is badass, and id love to own this game. ...Speaking of which...

2. Adventuring around town, hunting for a Wii

So as Jami and Ty setup Jamis Wii downstairs at the house, me and Peter decided to get my computer fixed, (which is the next story 9see below), and order pizzas. So as we left pete ordered the pizzas as i booked it to futureshop to get my system looked after. After that i decided "Screw it, im buying a Wii", so with my $25 EBGames Custom Gift Card clutched in my left hand as i raced down the main highway to the local good EB, i set fourth on my quest to obtain the magic that was Smash Bros Brawl.
We walked into the EB and immediately grabbed a copy of Brawl and a Gamecube controller, and asked for a Wii. of course, they didn't have any left. Feeling SOL i still bought the game and controller anyways, even though i didn't have the console to play them on yet (i dont even own a Gamecube). So in a hurry (as the pizzas are waiting for us) i started runnign into every. single. store. that would carry one. Walmart, Zellers, other EBs, Futureshop, etc etc all along the way, no Wiis to be found. At my last destination (Futureshop), the dude actually told me "Yup, the entire Okanagana area is dry of Wiis" and im like "Well, crap, why couldn't someone jsut tell me that before?!"
So here i sit, Brawl in hand, and no console to play it on. Damn.
So going home dissapointed, we decided to finally pick up the pizzas, we go in and ask "K, pickup for Kyle" and the clerk was all "Wha?? There no pickup fo' kyle"...
Bewildered we start asking a bunch of questions like "What do you mean theres no pickup? we ordered like 40 minutes ago!"After a big hooplah Peter finally dug out his Cell Phone of wonders called a "CRZR" and asked "This is your phone number right?" and the clerk laughed "No, thats the one in westbank, about 40 minutes that way!". We all started laughing. How ridiculous.
So we ordered right there for delivery this time and went about our merry way to accomplish story #1

3. Computer status
So ya my computer is still... dead. As mentioned in my previous stories i made my way to Futureshop to get my computer looked at. Apparently, there is NO recovery discs made for this system.
So. Yeah. Its dead for now. I have to buy another copy of Vista, as the hardware is only compatible with Vista, transfer all my stuff using the XP installaltion to the other harddrive, and find a way to reinstall Vista. This time i think im going to go Vista Ultimate. Go big or go home, haha. Its gonna be tricky and will take an entire day to accomplish, knowing me.
So with that in mind, as i said before, my machinima animation project is going to now be on Unreal Tourney 3, instead of Doom3, based on this new Vista development. *sigh*

4. its about time i get my car fixed
A funny story happened the other day as i was taking my brother home from visiting with me. We parked at a SuperSav Gas Station to.. well get gas. A trivial task. now something i never really talked about was the condition of my car. So follow along, as its probably funnier this way.

I parked in front of the gas pump, rolled down my window (due to the heat), and its full serve, so a gas attendant came out, i closed my door, and finding out its full serve i decided to go in and grab some pop. So i go to turn around and ask my brother (who's in the passenger seat) if he wanted anything, and lo-and-behold, my window was not where i left it. May car was moving. And is on a downhill slope, with a concrete barrier at the end, and over the barrier, is a sharp decline down a rocky hill.
Panicking i obviously tried opening my door with the handle.

My door handle is broken due to a truck hitting my door when i was parked at a restraunt. I cant open my door this way.

So there i am, reaming at my door handle, running along with my car, looking liek a "Ghost Riding the Whip". My brother knows my car is a standard and theres an E-Brake in the middle console. So he pulls it.

My e-brake broke when i parked on a hill not to long ago.

So with no feedback, my brother continuously reams at the ebrake, so heres the picture:
Me, running alongside my car, ripping at my door handle. My brother, reaming at my ebrake continuously, and both of us: Panicking.

Eventually i stuck my arm in my window and ripped on the interior door handle, which does work, ripped open the door, and dived in quickly, and applied the brake, about 10 feet away from the concrete barrier. i kinda wished i pulled a Dukes of Hazard and dived through my window, but i was panicking and wasn't thinking about hollywood style at the time, haha. Fun story to tell at parties :)

5. Pokemon
I only played about 30 minutes of Pokemon diamonds this morning (about 5 minutes last night before crashing) and im almost at the first gym leader, but the bastard isn't in the frigging gym, that bastard. now i got to seek him out. Its about this time that i turned it off. Haha. Im having fun with the game though, which is whats important. So ill continue going.
Alot of people seem to have issues capturing Abra, even back in the Red/Blue days on the Gameboy. Luckily for me, my Chimchar had "Taunt" which basiaclly forced the foe to only use attack moves for 2-4 turns. Being Abra only has Teleport, haha. So i launched that immediately, and relieved to find the message "Enemy ABRA cannot use Teleport due to the taunt" or something like that, and so i hit him with an Ember attack and burnt him, he then did something unexpected "Abra used Struggle!" and wiggled around a bit and ended up injuring himself down to 1HP. I'm like "OH GAWD!" and tossed a Heal Ball and captured the little bastard before he either a. killed himself, b. taunt wears off.
So i got Abra on my first shot, haha. Which is lucky for me, because Alakazam was my favorite pokemon in Red/Blue. of course, ill have to settle with Kadabra for a long time until i find someone to trade with (which is what i assume is still the story with Kadabras case).

So that was my pokemon experience.

And that was my day yesterday, as fun and exciting as that was :)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Ramblings: Deciding Factor: Smash Bros Brawl!

So today, Jami comes over and we play our deciding factor of Smash Bros. If Peter and Tyler like what they see and agree to continue playing it, even alongside the n64 version, then ill invest in a Wii. The tourney begins not to long from now, 2 hours to be exact. I still got to make my run into Future Shop and get a recovery disk right after work.

Nevertheless: Jami, your going down this time bud ;) Mark my words. Well make sure to save the best replays :)

Ramblings: Hardware Issues

So my computer is STILL bricked.

I was unfortunate to find out that its my motherboard thats actually Vista exclusive. And by that i mean drivers. It wasn't clicking with me that my motherboard was apart of the original configuration of the HP Pavilion, due to the fact ive thrown in a bunch of aftermarket parts. Except the mobo. And the drivers from HP only work on Vista. So Vista it is. But, i need to get my Vista back, and thats what i hope to accomplish today. Ive managed to track down my computers HP model #, but i have to wait for the employee that has been helping me along since moment 1, so he can burn me a recovery disk. I think ill just take in the whole tower and just get it all over with. I just want me poor compute back...


So to pass the time i picked up the dusty Pokemon Diamond and gave it another shot. I Still hate the beginning pokemon but i went with Chimchar this time (i dont like Monkeys... everyone else does, not me..) but i hated the other ones more. So i quickly caught one of those bird ones that i keep forgetting the name to, and ive already trained it to be my main one so far. hah.
Its a cute game, and i havent even gotten to the first gym leader yet, which is about wher i got to last time, so im still unaware of how this game is going to go down. I was offput by the cuteness of each creature, so now that im giving it the old college try again, im going to see if the evolved species, will actually look cool. That will sell me alone.

PS. Dont blog using your PS3. its got this really short character limit in its typing app. And pressing Alt+Enter on the keyboard is what makes a line break... Fun times indeed.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Ramblings: the PS3 made me do it

Greetings from my PS3. I cant really do much (such as images i think using Bloggers editor) but i can still type text. The real testiment is going to be from publishing to FTP via the PS3 browser. oh ya, its gonna be interesting. Im actually afraid to press "Enter" at this point in case it accidently sends itself, then its a pain, so bare with me while i figured this thing out.

So my computer is still bricked beyond any of my repair. I need a Vista recovery disc, and i have zero access to one right now. You know what? Screw XP. Its WAAAAY more trouble than its worth at this point, plus the hardware drivers are Vista exclusive anyways so i cant even try hoping to run the bastard off of it. So Vista it is, which means no Doom3 Machinima. Now it means Unreal Tourny 3 Machinima, which actually has me even more excited than before, maybe its the fact ill be using software that i know is compatible with eachother, haha.

Out of boredom, i finally brought out Pokemon Diamond. Its fun! :)

Thers a PS3 char limit?

Ramblings: 3 is better than 2


I think its time for me to reevaluate the validity of the thought of purchasing all 3 systems. I already own an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3, but ive always muddled over the Wii.

So i went with Jami to purchase Smash Bros brawl at around 1PM, got back to his place with the ginormous TV at 2PM, and basiaclly stayed glued to the seat until 2 AM. Im not joking, we stood up once to go grab a drink about 2 hours in.

I have never been a smash brothers person, not on the n64 and not Melee. Not that they were bad games, jsut never really got into it. So imagine my surprise as i was totally blown away by everything this game had to offer. We managed to beat Coop Subspace Emissionry in a single sitting (about 8 and a half hours worth of play right there) and threw in a couple rounds to sandwich the whole experience. Let me take you through one of my favorite (and not so favorite) battles.

Metaknight vs. Sonic @ Green Hill Zone, 5 Score, unlimited Time
It was an insaely fierce battle. I was playing as metaknight, and we had just finished beating subspace and were completely warmed up and kicking eachothers asses. its a 5 man limit and using tons of tricks and tactings, flying around, spin dashing and slashing all around its down to our final lives, im at 116% and Jamis at 141% or somewhere around that, and a Smash Ball shows up. Ive NEVER won a match against Jami before so i was feeling really good about how i was doing already, but when i managed to soak in the smash ball i was feeling on top of the world. I know Metaknights final smash ive used it a couple times, so were standing near the left edge of Green Hill and Jami jumps up from the ramp from the right side of me. I initiate my final smash just in the knick of time and i catch him, thus, metaknight sends sonic flying into oblivion, its about this point where i start yelling "YES! MWAHAHAA!" outloud and what happened next, could have only happened with Jami. See, i died.
Whoa wait what? Yeah. I died. i lost. make no mistake my final smash took jami out, but what happened was pure unmitigated bullshit. Jami, as he was on the other side of the map (im on the left) had picked up a flower power, jumped and tossed it, and then ran towards me. Apparently as i did my final smash and knocked Jami into the hemisphere, the flower fluttered down and HIT ME as hes flying into the background. Due to the impact and my health condition, THE FLOWER KNOCKED ME OFF THE STAGE QUICKER THAN JAMI COULD FLY INTO THE BACKGROUND! And thus: He won.


It truly was one of those matches where you wish you had both a VCR or some recording device, capturing the magic, and you also wish you had a camera setup to catch the facial expressions that overcome both parties faces. Because both were priceless and deserving of replays. Im sitting stunned with one hell of a weird looking unbelievable "WTF?!" face, and Jami is quite literally, on the ground curled up, laughing.

past that point i started sucking, like, terribly at the game, and i believe it was purely due to the rage set fourth by this match, and i plan on challenging Jami again with a clear head, because, wow.

Anyways, so a review may go up later today sometime, possibly. but heres a preview: its awesome. And totally makes me want to buy a Wii. I hope theres a box bundle coming real real soon, as this would surly ti me over till MGS4.

ps. Army of two is still awesome.

psx. Btw Jami:
;) Ill get you on Tuesday, just you wait.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Ramblings: MGS4 Preorder Goodies = mine

Oo'Rah!

Ok so Preorder goodies are common right? pfft, yeah to Americans and most large cities around Canada, (*cough*Vancouver). For the past like 5 preorders ive participated, ive been cheated out of the goodies purely because they weren't shipped to my geographical location. So when i got word that MGS4 was getting HUGE amount of just drool inducing tastey goodies, i decided this time to catch EB Games, and make sure im getting them.

Thank god, cause they are. MGO here i come! That bonus DVD is going to make my day too. Now if only it came with figurines of the characters... damn. (im so damn stoked its rediculous)

Ramblings: Short'un today

Quick short post today as im going to be very busy throuoghout the day.

So we (as in, me and Jami) finally got around to shooting our first footage of our first Crash Without Recovery video featurette. I wont release any details on it yet because now we need to record the next bulk of it, but in short: its gonna be awesome. Keep watching that site for it in the coming week or so.

Havent gotten around to installing Windows XP on my secondary drive yet, ill get to it though, tonight. Thats my goal.

 

Thats all i have for today truth be told, not light on news, jsut light on time today. Have a good one guys! heres a funny comig someone sent me via email at work the other day, i thought id share:


(click for enlargement)

-k

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Gut Reactions Review: I got yo back homie!

(please note: im not a professional reviewer. Gut Reactions Reviews are based on first impressions of the first few hours of play and does not reflect the game on its entirety, full review may appear later)

So after work i ran directly into FutureShop and picke dme up a copy of Army of Two for the PS3. Why not 360? I think my 360 is on the verge of bricking, and i need an online game for my PS3. So why not?
plus 360 apparently has no local coop, and the PS3 does. = Win.

The game delivers on pretty much all fronts that i expected. The gameplay is alot more frantic and fun than i expected even from the videos. The graphics are absolutely top notch the whole way through, a couple blemishes but meh, i can forgive the occasional muddy lowrez texture. Especially when the framerate stays at 60fps and never drops.


The comradarie in the game is jus toutstanding, just about anything and everything youd want to be able to do with your partner (in the middle of battle, you gutter mind you) is available. From praising and smacking upside the head, to high level boosts, and even Coop Snipe
.

The unfortunate part is, the in-engine cutscene's do not reflect the rendered cutscene production values. Characters come off as stiff and lifeless, and the characters with no masks have no facial expressions (to my memory anyways), and the voice acting from anyone other than the two main characters, is quite cheesy or needlessly too macho for the persons own good. But you dont play COOP based games for the cut scenes, they are merely there to drive the sequences together, speaking of which:

one other thing that lowers my score on it, is the flow of the game. Going from scene to scene is just downright confusing as all hell. Somethings just happen and you dont know why, and you instantly zapped to somewhere else entirely, lets take the first training level sequence for instance:
you press triangle to vault over a fence arm, and your to push in the left stick to duck and walk under a fence. becuase im on a 480i TV i can barely ready anything text wise in the game so i was guessing my controls the whole way. i didn't duck but i did hold L2 to precise aim, and this apparently led me to complete the sequence as now i am zapped to the next segment, standing on a platform i should have reached on my own.

Some things are jsut dwonright confusing, the training level had me stuck, i tried for a good hour to get past the area where your supposed to sneak around the armoured guy and take him out from behin. He was no problem, getting past that fence was another issue all its own. it wasn't until i redid the whole thign and got stuck again, did i realize i was supposed to do some of the onscreen instructions in order to continue doing anything.
Excuuuuuuse me. Cut me some slack.

but once you get in the game, and get to customizing your weapons and armour, and the ability to pick your personality (i chose Salem, as he closely resembles me as much as this game could haha), the game REALLY begins to shine.

please though, do play this with a buddy. While the Ai controlled partner is sufficient, and actually adapts to your play style (if you constantly rush hell just eventually start staying behind on his own, vice versa, and many more), they do dumb mistakes that make you REALLY wish you had a partner sitting beside you or across the globe watching your back.

i really need to buy a second controller, when is that damn Dualshock3 coming out.


Army of Two, while not perfect, lived up to my expectations, not as the best thing to gaming, but a fun coop game to pass the time until MGS4 :)

Graphics: 8.9 (looks really good)
Animation: 7.0 (some stiff and lifeless characters)
Gameplay: 9.0 (COOP moves = Win)
Story: 7.0 (passable to drive the game)
Acting: 6.0 (voice work is mostly laughable, but Salem and the other dude rock as characters and totally save the game)
Fun Factor: 9.0 (the game is a total blast to play)
--------------------
Overall: 7.9
Its a great game to play with buddy, on your own its pretty borish truth be told. Loners and misanthropes, watch out, as this title may not be for you.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Ramblings: Army of Two = Mine

,,,,,,,

Ive been verbally stoked for this game since.. well for a long time.

im going to be picking up right after work today. I need to have me some online coop action, whod like to join? The box art i showcase here should give a very clear indication of which console im picking it up for.



Alex, i know want to team up with me. :) Cole... well have to see as im hearing rumors the 360 verison doesn't support local coop (requires two Gold Tier Live accounts). Might be different for the PS3 though. Well have to see.

Combat. Comradarie. Cash. oo'rah.

Ramblings: uggghhh

oh GAWD.

k so the Podcast did in fact get recorded yesterday, and i bravishly went through with it even regarding my current condition: Throat Hurt. Im not sure what to call it, i dont feel sick but my voice is scratchy and hurts when i talk. At the beginning of the podcast my voice was fine, though deeper, and i kinda liked it. By the end of the 2 hour recording session, i felt like i wanted to punch myself out. All day i had gone without talknig as my job doesn't really require the use of your internal voice box, so i was unprepared for the consequences.

I wake up this morning and i ust felt like dying. Still not sick, jsut really horribly soar throat. I think i irritated it with something though im having trouble figuring out what. So ive been washing it down with smoother liquids, such as Chocolate Milk, Milk, Water, and Cherry KoolAid, eating only when i have to.

Dont ever let it be known that im a wuss, as long as i dont have anything serious/contagious, i still carry out my daily activities regardless of what they consist of.

 

On another note, now i know i need to get XP dualboot. D3Radiant absolutely hates Vista and anything that has to do with Vista. So if im to continue my machinima project, it has to be on Windows XP.

 

Alright, im out, until next time (ps. thanks for the 200+ views yesterday :) )

-k

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Ramblings: lol, counter

So i added a counter, haha. It looks so tacky old school and html newb its rediculously awesome, so its staying there :) onto more pressing matters:

I wasnt aware the video shown below was brand freaking new. Truth be told, i thought it was old news, its jsut i saw it and reacted. People have been telling me updates regarding the situation, and im glad the US army has recognized it as cruel and a terrible representation of the United States Army.

And how.

Ramblings: GG US ARMY!


OH MY GOD!

this has GOT to be the sickest fucking thing ive seen in a long time. I CANNOT beleive these guys did this!!

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/43462/9fb16ab3/us_soldaat_gooit_puppy.html
(warning: It'll make you hate everything about humanity, this isn't even natural selection here)
(http://www.livenews.com.au/MultimediaPopUp.aspx?id=46827&cat=10 use this link if above freaks out or is removed)

Im not PETA or anything, but i seriously hope Karma bites these guys in the ass, fucking, HARD.

ARGGG!!!!!

This is on the lighter side:
http://bitboost.com/pawsense/


Now, excuse me while i go vent out loud.

*hangs head in shame*

Monday, March 3, 2008

Ramblings: Greetings from Vista


So i finally got my power supply, around the time i was in the middle of installing Linux. And wow.

Ok, lets get one thing squared away first: I actually enjoyed my Vista experience back when i tried it on dated hardware. Ran like ass, took forever to do anything, but i still ended up enjoying it.

Now with 8x the CPU, and 3x the GPU (AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 1.9GHz vs. Intel Q6600 Quadcore 2.4GHz) (ATi Radeon x700 256 AGP8x vs. Nvidia e-GeForce 8800GT 512)

I stiall havent installed anything or transfered my only SATA drive from my old computer yet. But ill get to those eventually.

WOOO im well on my way to better stuff now :D


-k out

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Adventure: Install Other OS

March 3rd 4:04 PM:
Ok so its been a full day. I had to work on Sunday and i requested to use the leverage for today as a day off.

I finally got Linux installed on the PS3. Had some interestingly confusing moments but its finally successful.

And i hate it.


Ok hate is a strong strong word. Linux is pretty awesome but i definitly should have heeded the warning. Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.1 on a 480i television set = Bleck. Its like running Vista in 640x480 with a flickering screen, and the inability to change it.

So heres the outcome:

Adventure: "Install Other OS" an adventure in installing Yellow Dog Linux on the Playstation 3
Status: OK, Completed
Report: Huge success
First Impression: FUCK Finally! Looks pretty neat
Lasting Impression: it hurts my eyes, i need an HDTV before i do this again
Notes: if only PS3 allowed me to partiton more than jsut 10GB to Linux without partitioning 70 to it, itd be alot better. PS3 runs Linux surprisingly slow and even the installer says the PS3 has very little memory and must write to disk as it goes, lol. But yeah, do this at LEAST on a 720p television or monitor.




March 2nd 8:04 AM:
oooooh yeah who saw this coming? lol. The moment the cap came off the first beer, i was immediately drawn away from Linux Installations lol.
However while i may not have updated i did in fact give it a try while i was slightly inebriated. Seems even with that full reformat, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.1 Installation refuses to find the designated partition as anything usable.
I wish there were more than 3 options:

"Format Utility:

Format ALL Spae to PS3
Partition 10GB to Other OS
Designate 10GB to PS3"

why cant i enter in how much i want to partition on an 80GB drive? i ask for 20GB for Linux, just that. COME ON.

Anyways regardless its not allowing me to install the bastard, oh but ill find a way. Im not about to give up and bring all my save files back just because this wont work., for, whatever reason im unaware of.


I will make it work.


but for now, i have to go to work, so dont expect any updates for the next 8 hours :(


-k


March 1st 6:37 PM:
only 2 hours and 57 minutes to go. I think the reason it takes so long is its completely erasing the HDD and reinstalling its OS at the same time. Which as we all know, probably takes a minute or two.

In the meantime, I've been getting ready for the party that'll be happening that OFFICIALLY starts in 20 minutes but people have already started showing up. Expect subsequence updates to contain a little bit of alcohol abuse.

I also decided to keep the new machine SerialATA with the harddrives, than another mix of IDEE/SATA. So im bringing all the crap i want moved over to the new system on the 300GB SATA drive and bringing that one over. Its taking a bit longer than expected. But i got time lol.



March 1st 4:30 PM:
HOLY BALLS?! A full format and partitioning 10GB to Other OS is going to take FIVE WHOLE HOURS!!! DAMN.

ugh.. well i guess now is as good a time as any to get freshend up for this party thats about to happen in 3 hours.

As per this new "Adventure" label, ill continue to periodically update this entry with progressive information :) Dont expect much for the next 5 hours though haha.


March 1st 4:18 PM:
Because my PSU is going to take till monday i thought id endulge in another obligation whilst i have some time left over for it. Im going to install Yellow Dog 5.0.1 Linux on my PS3. ive downloaded the ISO, i have the PS3 Wiki instructions open, and right now im just formatting the PS3 HDD, whcih was a severe kick in the balls for me. I lost ALL my data. Well, sorta. Thankfully i had a 2GB MP3 player to store my save games and some vids on. Not much else besides demos and install data from other games. Oh well.

Ramblings: DAMNIT

Purolator doesn't ship on the weekends. Therefore my new system will be active on Monday rather than Tonight. BALLS.

Ramblings: The Waiting Game




Ive come to a logical conclusion: Im fucking impatient.

I bought my new video card yesterday, EVGA e-Geforce 8800GT 512MB, and i ordered that PSU yesterday. According to NCIX, they actually shipped it yesterday too which means it can arrive on my doorstep at any moment.

So to help pass the time i snapped a couple photos




This is the main tower. Its encased in an HP Pavilion, which isn't bad. But i do want to replace with a server tower at one point.
Im loving the bottom panel with the front loaded Audio jacks, 2 USB ports, and the firewire :) as well as above with the 4 memory card slots, and back down below the "HP Pocket Drive" slot. Hmmmmm.
Theres also an "expansion bay" for another DVD drive, but im just gonna go ahead and call it the "Blu-Ray Drive" :)

These are the innards the "ewwwww" Skeleton and bones and blood and guts and.. *ahem*

Its hard to see but that video card is absoloutely massive. Was not expecting that. Bottom right is the q6600 quad, bottom left is the HDD removable bay, and uhh.. yeah not much else to note about this one lol.



The behemoth of a video card. Im used to cards being half this size... and AGP.

i kinda like it :)



Yeah, HOOOOOGE