Friends and family will probably not be surprised that I love this show. I love a great discussion, especially when it with two ideas so far removed as the WWE and Old Saint Nick.
So for the last couple months I've been trying to tell everyone I know who is into video gaming to check out one particular game.
They Bleed Pixels.
It's hard to explain this game though. At the same times it's gruesome and cute, frustrating and fun, colorful and dark (both in story and art).
This game is the story of an unnamed girl who while at a Victorian home for troubled girls picks up a bleeding book that slowly changes her into a clawed and purple skinned monstrosity little girl.
She's then plunged into dreams where she has to battle creatures and survive traps and terrain of blades and spikes.
Every review says this game is like Super Meat Boy but with a fighting element, which is fair. However I never enjoyed Super Meat Boy the way I have They Bleed Pixels. I know I'm speaking blasphemy. Bear with me.
You got to admit she seems to be taking it well.
The art while simple is perfectly suited to this game nothing distracts from where your focus should be. ON SURVIVAL. The music is catchy and the backgrounds really do look like they are not of Earth, yet none of these elements distracts your focus.
The one-button combat takes a while to get used to, but really is all you need for any situation. Figuring out how is the fun part.
Be warned however because this game is quite the taskmaster. I can't recall how many times I thought well that's as far as I'm going to be able to make it, so I'd focus on achievements in the first couple stages and come back to my problems spot later. Low and behold suddenly I was better and could get to the next area. I could advance! Even if it was at a snail's pace.
Every time I thought I was stuck this pattern would happen. Currently I have beaten the game, and the bonus levels and have 111 of the 126 achievements.
One review said "They Bleed Pixels will make you feel like a magician with a gamepad." Factual statement, rarely have felt more accomplishment about a video game.
While the difficulty is fiendish, the save system keeps you from losing all your sanity. Being able to plop down a save point (after killing a couple enemies or collecting enough blood droplets) means that one only needs to get a little bit further to advance. This system reduces, (but doesn't eliminate) getting stuck and killed at the same area over and over again. Plus the game teaches you which areas make for better save points when you revisit a stage later.
I picked up this game for $3.39 after Christmas, it usually is $10. If you like crazy platformers don't wait pick this game up. You can wait for a sale but I've put 60 hours on this game since Christmas. I'm not sure if I'll get those last 15 achievements but we'll see...how long my patience holds out. If your not sure, then wait for the sale, or put it on your wishlist. This game is not for everyone but it something everyone should try at least once.
This room will haunt your dreams.
Also one piece of spoiler-y advice. DON'T show your significant other the last stage's cinematic. *SPOILER* My wife saw all the other little monster girls and has been bothering me that I need to save them. So if your reading this Spooky Squid Games, I need a DLC to save the other girls my wife demands it, and honestly I just want some more levels.
Forget the 1950's, try explaining Netflix to the 1980's.
Kspaz 2013: I have a Blockbuster inside of my computer that can show movies on my television (without a cord), and they never are out of stock. I pay $7 a month and I can watch as many movies as I want.
Kspaz 1989: *mouth agape*
You know what the biggest gripe I hear about Netflix? Lack of selection. What these people probably mean is one specific movie that they want to watch isn't on there right now. First world problems.
I can watch television from other countries for free. I wish I had had this technology when I had been studying foreign languages.
I can keep in touch with friends no matter how far away they move. Literally, if you had a friend on the International Space Station you can Skype or Facebook them. Short of the moon, nobody has gotten further away then that. Well, unless you're friends with the Mars Rovers.
I can buy really amazing video games for 1/5 to 1/10 of the price new games used to cost. Plus the developers build extra content that's either free or less then dollar. I can't remember the last time I bought a game for over $20.
Strange things are a foot. Not just at Circle K.
We have the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets. And yes we use them to look at cat pictures and argue with people.
Don't look now people, but the future is here. The fact that we aren't constantly amazed by the technology that surrounds us...well amazes me.
Okay, sorry for the impromptu, summer hiatus. But it ends now! We're back from the convention, Anacronus no longer will be the only one posting on this blog. Thank god one of us had the sense to do so.
We'll probably have a lot of posts about the con coming up, mostly reviews about awesome stuff we found, or awesome cosplayers we saw, etc.
Oh and for the most part we're getting rid of our post on a certain day schedule. We'll try not to overwhelm you with a bunch of posts on one day, but it was just to restricting for some of our members.
I often wonder how bad a situation would have to be for a country to start using the draft again. No, the country is not America, and I don't wonder due to political reasons anymore. Mostly I wonder what happens on the day Britain decides to call all of her celebrity knights into service to fight for Queen and country.
The Queen was this close to becoming an immortal and
didn't even know it.
Here is the complete list. But scary how many of the X-men are on the list. It would seem Britain is years ahead of us on Mutant Rights it would seem since Professor X, Magneto, and Nightcrawler have all been knighted.
On the list of Knights I don't want to ever have to fight we have 3 different incarnations of James Bond (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan) are on the list, as is Alfred from the latest incarnation of Batman and Hannibal Lecter.
In music Elton Jon, Bono, McJagger, and Paul McCartney have all been knighted meaning that this new army will have a theme song that will be high in the billboard charts.
Julie Andrew is on the list (Mary Poppins for those who don't know), Christopher Lee is there (Sauraman, Death, Count Dooku, the Jabberwalky). Peter Faulk is on there, (But since they have Death under the Queens' power Colombo will be back to help out.)
And while doing research for this I found out you don't even have to be a resident of the U.K. to be knighted.
Bill Gates, Norman Swartzkoph, Charlton Heston, Colin Powell, Alan Greenspan, Steven Spielberg Mohammed Ali, George Bush (41 not W), and Ronald Reagan have all been knighted.
And what's more is that every time I look at the list I'm seeing more celebrities that I know of. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to write a script that's going to make me richer then the Queen...if I can only figure out how to get all of these celebrity knights to sign on for it.
Boog is having computer issues, and asked me to cover for him. So while messing around I found a bizarre link, that upended my plans for tonight's post.
Evidently there is a fan made My Little Pony fighting game coming out for PC. No I'm serious. There's even a video.
See I'm not full of crap. My wife is pretty much obsessed with this show as are her friends. I think it's cute, but I'm not really a fan. I doubt she's going to be excited about this. Although maybe I'm wrong and she will want to take Applejack (her favorite) through Ponyville, and stomp every-ponies cutiemark*.
I've got to say the art looks good. The game looks like the animation and control will be at least as good as an old SNES fighting game. Honestly the style reminds me of Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters game (SNES version) with a graphical upgrade. If you want more information on this game there is an FAQ here.
Looking throught the FAQ it looks like the creators are fans of the show but I have to caution, as excited as fans of ponies, and video games maybe I'm not going to hold my breath for this to get released. I have a feeling someone is going to drop a Cease and Desist, and this game will disappear. So if you happen to see a link for this game later, you may want to grab it while you can.
So to end this post here's me as a pony, because my friends are weird.
I guess my eyesight got better as a pony, well take care, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Holy Crap! You probably already heard, because this is the internet, and if you don't post it immediately you're too late. (Stupid work getting in the way of my dream of being a big name blogger), but Valve had something to show you today.
Meet the Medic...he's brilliant, he's crazy, he's finally got his own short intro film. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Medic's film, but I certainly wasn't expecting this. We were planning to do a big write-up for this short. But really the film speaks for its self.
However one other piece of news coming from Valve almost trumps their latest release. Team Fortress 2 is now free. Not just for this week, but for...ever. Here's the FAQ, if the idea of a game being free is hard to comprehend. (No actually there's some good info in the FAQ, especially on how it's going to reward those who spent money the game in the past.)
Also there's a trailer.
By the way be sure to check out all the new weapons, accessories, and hats that came out during the last update...the Uber Update.
Oh and if you need someone to play TF2 with feel free to look me and my friends up, we're always looking for fun people to play with TF2, Spiral Knights (also free), or other games as well.
Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
without the boring parts.
Anacronus, Alchemilla, and Kspaz walk into a nerd store*. No, it's not the start of a joke, it's the opening line for my article on our local Free RPG Day. Ours is at the Fantasy Shop in St. Charles. We went up there to get free swag and see demos on different Role Playing Games (RPG's). I got a one shot for Pathfinder (my favorite system.) as well as a dice tumbler, and a one shot for The Walking Dead game, (because I had an idea for a zombie game a while back and was interested in the mechanics.)
Then we signed on to play in a demo of Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds and I have a strange history. I was told of the RPG and how it was centered around story, and characters rather then rules. Dnd has a list of rules long enough to intimidate anyone coming into the game (which makes it hard for people to get into role playing at first.) So I bought it, the only book you need to run the game is $10. A plus since games usually cost anywhere from $50 to $200 to start.
Small in size and price,
Large in fun.
However after buying it we tried a few times to get a game going, but always had issues. Having someone who knew the game, and had a well thought out story helped a lot. This game was awesome, the combat is easy to pick up. And gives either side in the battle a chance to win. Luck plays a lot more of a role in Savage Worlds. Never in combat did I think "Okay we can take these guys", but neither did I feel like we had no chance to win. And this is coming from a group were one party member died.
The story was that of a team during the Revolutionary War, who was charged with finding a certain man who has ties to the British Loyalists (tories to those who know the era). Later we find out he is involved in the occult and, well I don't want to say all hell broke loose, but crazy things did happen. Very fun game, and it showed me finally how a session of this game should be handled.
So you may want to seek out Savage Worlds, I know Anacronus is a big fan of the system, and really I've always been waiting for a real game of it to judge how great it could be. This is an excellent system for people new to role playing, and for a group that may want to try different games every couple of weeks, but don't want to pay a lot for the different books.
I'll not say too much more so Anacronus can do a full review of the system someday.
*Nerd Store being my title for any store which deals in primarily in Board Games, RPGs (think Dungeons and Dragons not Final Fantasy), comics, ect.
So I was told by our server owner, to go ahead and announce that our server is open and ready.
Our server is 75.102.38.137:27015, feel free to drop by. Tonight at 7 we'll be having a Monday Memorial Night Mauling so if you want to play with a couple of us that's a good time.
So come on by let us know you came from Geek Streak, and get a free shout out! And maybe a can of paint. Whoo!
I'll post some content with this as well, but I wanted to let people know we're going to have another TF2 Tribe play today. 7pm Central, we've changed our group page on Steam so now you can sign up without being invited. Very important, but you still need to have Steam. (If you don't you can get it at the link, how were you planning on playing with us anyway?)
But the real big news is we have a Tribe Server. No it's not ready yet, we'll have a big announcement when it's ready. We'll have like a grand opening party or something. But we have one, it will be awesome, and you can get involved in it's creation (i.e. picking which maps and mods we put in) if you get involved.
If you join you too can be super cool, but not so super cool you won't get tickets from cops.
And since you guys have been so super cool here's one more link. Signs like these make me sad I ran most of my marathons in foreign countries.
Members of Tr!be Gaming
getting ready to defend
the point
Valve's Gabe Newell recently gave an interview where he said that Valve wants to change the way gamers pay for their games. Wait, put down the pitchforks, they want to make it so that if you are a player other people like to play with, or you being on a server causes others to show up you'd pay less to buy other valve games. The flip side of this is talk of griefers and trolls having to pay full price and being charge extra for voice chat, so they don't run off other players.
I've asked some people what they think about this and the main reaction is people are for this, but they're worried about how they would gauge the trolls and griefers. Would this be a community based thing or vote on the servers you're on. Since this is just hypothetical I don't think there's too much to get worried about here, but it does make for some interesting talk about the future of gaming.
Nope, no griefers here.
One other thing that came out was talk of games moving from having a sequel every couple of years to having games updated every couple of months (much like Team Fortress 2 is updated now), supposedly Left for Dead 2 is quickly adapting a similar model, and Portal 2 may join the plan also.
Still want my Guard Dog for TF2.
I will say this if there is one company I trust to turn the industry on its ear, it's Valve. They do so many things right in their games. I maybe biased, but I was never a PC gamer, and I really was out of video games entirely aside from party games with my friends (i.e. Rock Band, Mario Kart, etcetera). It was Team Fortress 2 that really sold me on PC gaming, brought me back into first person shooters. But it's the Steam application that has really made it easier to buy games, and get a community going around these games.
So here's to you Valve thanks for all the hours of fun at such a low price. (Over 300 hours on TF2, grand total spent $10. $20 if you count getting my wifes copy of Team Fortress.)
NASA has set the last space shuttle launch for the 28th of June. Its beginning to look like NASA will not be taking me up* on my offer to go with them. They still haven't written or called back. And I heard on the news the reason their only taking a crew of 4 is so their will be more room to bring parts for the International Space Station. So no I probably won't be going up on the space shuttle. Too bad. Your loss NASA.
According to Harold Camping the rapture is supposed to be today at 5 pm Central Time. NPR asks who will walk your dog after you're raptured. That's a good question, I can remember being young and being told that animals don't go to heaven. This is how you give your kids a crisis at the age of 5. This will be updated after 5 for whatever happens today. I've got money on nothing, or entire population of North Korea disappears (except for Kim Jong-Il), because I the odds were too good to pass up on the bet, and I do love an underdog.
Macho Man Randy Savage died: A couple of interesting articles pointed out that as Randy Poffo he had been a player in the Cardinals' Minor League organization.
You can also remember him in his epic battle with Hulk Hogan vs Kim Jong-Il.
First things first, a family member to some of our "Geeks who write" has died. I hope everything goes well for our geeks on their trip to the funeral. And I hope their families are okay otherwise and get through this troubling time with as much ease as is possible. As such there will probably be a couple of missed posts this next week. We'll try and have some things for you though.
Second thing Ace Ebb, became our newest Geek who Reads. Welcome to you, hope you like our little slice of the internet.
Third thing, damn that's a long title. A long time ago one of our local video stores closed, no this wasn't the Blockbuster that recently closed. And I picked up a copy of Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden. I never got around to watching it.
I watched it today, because well it wasn't going to get anymore relevant, and I couldn't come up with anything useful to do with this disk. Well I know where to get a prop if I ever need to make it look like a blew up a DVD, I considered doing that for the Last Airbender review, but the library would have charged me 20 something dollars for it.
2nd in 2006, not as proud of this one.
My first award in 2003. My favorite thing to put on my resume.
What can I say, at least he ended up in Pakistan at the end, "way to go Morgan you were right there". I say that but then I remember I have been in the same country as many famous and infamous people several times, so at least I have that going for me. That and being Time's Person of the Year...twice.
I was worried this movie would turn into one big joke, but actually after watching it. I'm pretty pleased with it. Osama is what ties the movie together, but really it's more about why terrorism takes place, and how Al-Qaeda can recruit so many so easily.* If you feel cheated by this, well sorry, but I assume the title and subject matter were chosen because they would get butts into the theater.
So many of the people interviewed well spoken, and hate Al-Qaeda. But are distrustful of the United States' Governments way of handling things. I'd say that's fair, we have a tendency to prop up dictators, and the money we donate doesn't make it into the right hands, so it's not surprising that so many are angry with us. When I was in Camp Bondsteel in '02-'03 many of the ethnic Albanians (Albania being a mostly Muslim country) I talked to were happy to have us around and we're about as far removed from the terrorists you saw on the news as you can imagine. They drank, their wives weren't covered from head to toe, one in particular told me about all the great Albania pop stars and how big there breasts were. When I was out in the field the kids in the villages were more interested in our technology then our weapons considering at one time I got surrounded by a pack of 30 people watching me use a device to map the area.
Here is a photo of me after a rough day in the army. My friends love this photo.
Sorry, I got off topic. So really the title of the movie maybe outdated, but the subject matter isn't. So if your interested in the subject you might actually want to find this movie even if it is trying to cover a complex subject in a short time, or read the book I've listed below. Thanks for reading my weird meandering thoughts. See you soon.
*If you're looking for a intelligent and well written book on this subject I suggest Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern. Fair warning this is about all religious extremists, including abortion clinic bombers, so if you can't look at what our own countrymen do as well this book is probably not for you.
Suddenly I was reminded of some other weird appearances of people in movies, and shows. Since we have the Avatar connection started lets start there. Did you know that Roxy Richter (the 4th evil ex) in Scott Pilgrim was played by Katara's voice actress. Here take a listen.
I think when Katara is angry in Avatar the similarity of the voice comes out, maybe this is because Roxy is always so angry in her brief appearances in the film.
Still it's quite a change in character and it surprised me when I made the connection.
But stranger still is while my wife and I were rewatching Firefly we came across a scene with a young Simon and River. My wife was noticed who was playing young Simon first, but I had to look it up.
So here is Zac Efron in Firefly.
I don't think I knew who he was when I first saw Firefly but this kid was in everything a little while later, and I can't think of anything he was in recently. *Looks on Wikipedia* okay, so he's going to be involved in a live action remake of both Jonny Quest, and Full Metal Panic.
I would not have guessed either of those. After we were done watching Firefly I got to looking to see what the cast had done in other movies, and found out Nathan Fillion had been in Saving Private Ryan as the wrong Private Ryan.
I could remember the scene but I couldn't remember Nathan Fillion being in the scene. Probably once again a victim of I didn't know who he was when I first saw this. Well here it is in grainy youtube glory.
So there you have it evidently some distant ancestor of Capt. Reynolds was involved in the invasion of Europe in World War II.
Also the other Captain in this video (Not Tom Hanks) is played by Ted Danson (you know Sam from Cheers).
So there you are these are all the recent surprises I've had when watching movies and TV shows. You just never know who's going to pop up when your going back and re-watching movies.
First let me handle some business I forgot to do last week. I want to give a shout out to our new Geek Who Reads: Josh Francis. Totally slipped my mind last week when I was rushing to post twice. Thanks for reading Josh, hope you like it.
Now, let me let you in on a not so secretive secret. I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. Ever since I got a VHS tape in the mail from my uncle marked MST3K: the movie (with no other explination) I have loved this show.
But Mike, Joel, and the bots weren't the first ones to make fun of bad movies. They just probably got the most famous for it. One movie that (at least in my opinion) is the predecessor to the Satellite of Love* is the weird cult movie What's up Tiger Lily?
This movie was originally two serial spy movie in Japan called Internation Secret Police. A studio in America bought the films and then realized the films were too confusing for American audiences. There seems to be some discrepencies in the history of the film between Wikipedia, and IMDB. So I'll just stick with the facts. The film was re cut and re dubbed by Woody Allen (bare with me, I know a lot of people are turned off just by mention of his name but this films is worth the watch) and friends, and released in America in 1966 as the "What's Up Tiger Lily?"
The plot involves Phil Moscowitz Japanese spy, lovable rogue, and ladies man. He gets involved in a plot to steal back the recipe for the best egg salad sandwich in the world. An evil gang leader, Shepard Wong has stole it, and as prophecy tells us "He who controls the recipe controls the world."
If you can find this film on DVD it actually contains two separate audio tracks. Both containing some great jokes. I would argue neither track is superior.
I can't find a whole lot of great videos on youtube to give you an example and the trailer isn't really that great either. So hopefully this single scene will suffice.
Fair warning, this is a movie made in the mid 60's so their is quite a bit of sexism, but usually it's played up for laughs. Also since it's an older film it may seem to drag plot wise. There's a running gag of the band the Loving Spoonful being spliced into the film. That's right a folk band in a Japanese spy thriller. These are funny the first couple of times for being non-sequitur scenes, but quickly grow old, unless you like seeing how they're going to sneak them into the film.
One of my favorite scenes involves Phil in a fight with a would be assassin, when he finally subdues the assassin and ask him who he works for the assassin replies "Noone, I freelance." He then gives the cyrpic warning of "Beware of the man with, with...with...." and promptly dies.
I think any fan of bad movies, or MST3K owes it to themselves to track down this bizarre movie if only for one viewing.
I love pool, no not swimming pools. They're cool too. I mean billiards. Anacronus told me about a pool game for X-box live.
The number one problem billiard games have in my opinion is that no controller ever replicates the feel of a cue. The wii got closest and it wasn't even really that good. This game, still doesn't but it does a lot of other things very well.
Let me get my nits out of the way. First off is the name, Balls. Seriously, I can't think this will help sell your game accept for someone who looks it up based on it's weird name. Next, your players don't actually play, your X-box avatar stands there and watches a cue float through the air, and play for you. Also your in a juice bar, I can't take the place seriously if it doesn't serve alcohol, like I said these are nits.
Dogs playing poker in the blurry background. Awesome.
On to things this game does well. The decor is beautiful, if only too bright to be a pool hall. (Right it's a juice bar, I forgot.) The dogs playing poker on the wall is one of the very nice touches. Strangely enough why they don't have the dogs playing pool I'll never know.
The background blurs out so your not distracted. The music is nice and tranquil.
Floating cue makes the shots,
maybe you use you mind to shoot
When you make a shot the meter actually displays where the ball will end up based on the power you are using. I hope this can be turned off in the full version of the game.
Also it's an indie game so it's only 80 points, but this also means the trial period for the game is super short. I didn't get to finish my first game.
It also has a variety of games you can play. Now if I can only find a controller which actually feels like a cue, I'll be all set.
So good luck and don't get hustled or if you do. Call Uncle Phil.
WARNING: Songs in this article has NSFW LANGUAGE and subject matter. Do not play Warren Zevon around kids, he will totally blow their minds, and they will learn phrases that will get them in trouble with their parents.
With that out of the way. Today I tell you about one of the albums I love. Warren Zevon's A Quiet Normal Life. If you don't think you know Warren Zevon, you totally do.
Wow! Look at that video remember when music videos could mostly be about the band playing...neither do I, I was born in the 80's.
Mr. Zevon was a songwriter whose songs got famous when other people did covers of them. Widly respected by other artists, but unknown to a huge chunk of the population aside from Werewolves of London*. This next video is hopefully going to rectify that for you. Probably my favorite Zevon song. I'll admit it, I originally picked up on this song, because I was obsessed with the Dark Tower novels, and their hero (another gunman named Roland).
This album is full of mostly dark songs that will get stuck in your head. I could rant about how awesome this album is from beginning to end, but you can find out for yourself. Amazon sells the entire album for 5 dollars via mp3 downloads. Go now, and get this album. Unless you can't handle songs, about a headless bounty hunter, and werewolves that mutilate little old ladies**. After all these are not werewolves of teenage fiction.
*Some may feel the need to mention Kid Rock. Don't. He will be forgotten soon, as Ronnie Van Zant, and Warren Zevon will rise from the grave, and fix the problem that has besmirched their musics' great names. Or they may just hire Roland to do the deed (once he's done in Libya).
**Fair warning, the song Excitable Boy is about a psychopathic rapists. He's not idolized in the song he's just the subject matter, but if that's a sore spot feel free to delete this song after downloading.
So I still have nothing for you, because my friends took me out for a belated birthday, so here's a video of Ginger's dog (yes, the racist one) finding a new favorite toy.
So after a long road trip this week my wife and I are back. The picture on the right is why it's important not to leave Gummy bears in the car once you get to you destination. (Sorry Carl. They were good.)
Be all that you can be. Be credit to team in our Army
If your a person who hates first person shooters or doesn't think they aren't good enough come to us. If you've had a bad experience with other players, teams or servers, come to us. We're Tribe Gamers and we're raising an Army in Team Fortress 2.
We'll soon be getting a dedicated server for TF2. And we've started a group on steam. Look for Tribe Gamers or anyone with the tag [tr!be].
You can find me online as [tr!be]Kspaz13 so you can drop me a line if needed, or you can leave a message here.
We'll be letting every body know more as things materialize.
But in the meantime Give me your sleep deprived, your bored, your nerdy masses yearning to play free, and I will play, and practice with you till we have an elite fighting force.
It may not be as poetic as the New Colossus engraved in Lady Liberty, but I think you get my point. See you soon.
