What I’ve Been Up To
So my hiatus was much longer than I intended it to be, I blame you the reader… or whatever. Anywho I wasn’t just vegging while I wasn’t posting so heres a few quick looks into my life over the past three weeks or so.
Firstly, and most importantly, I graduated, my high school career is now behind me and I have the piece of paper to prove it. Commencement as you probably assumed was a long and painful process taking nearly 3 hours to graduate just over 500 students. It didn’t help that during the principals speech she kept making awkward analogies about us being like Aushwitz survivors while giving stern warnings about the digital footprint that we leave (which I didn’t understand how that was at all topical). As terrible as it may have been it was still a great feeling to have that one last hurrah as the class of 09′.
Outside of the world of academia I’ve seen a lot of movies recently, first came Star Trek, easily the best 7 bucks I’ve spent on a movie all year and I totally plan on seeing it again sometime before it’s out of theatres. I’m no Trekkie (if you ask I’d tell you my religion is jedi) but this very “A New Hope” inspired reboot tickled my sci fi fancy. I also went out and saw Terminator Salvation, which was everything I could hope for from a Terminator movie, lots of action and things that explode. I’m not one of those guys thats for whatever reason super into the whole plotline and weaving time travel intricacies of the the first couple Terminator films, I pretty much just view the story as a plot device to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to blow lots of things up. Lastly I went to see Night at the Museum 2 with the fam… ughh, that is all I can say.
The Team Fortress 2 Spy/Sniper update also came out this weekend and has gotten me back into that, although I’ve never really been that into TF2, I think the most hours I have logged on any class is 3 or so. But yeah I fully plan on playing more of that as it’s probably the most fun I’ve had with a shooter in a good while, the crazy scenearios that play out are just straight up silly and enjoyable.
That mostly wraps it up for me, so I’ll be back trying to atleast write something 3 times a week now, so see ya soon XOXO.
Back to your regularly scheduled Ginger Geek shortly
Picture unrelated
Weeeeeee, the last week of high school forever has commenced, but of course being a slacker I’ve left a few rather important deets unfinished (you know, to keep me on my toes… <_<) so I haven’t really had time to post much anything at all lately. Hopefully I’ll be back by the end of this week with my thoughts on the first 3 volumes of Scott Pilgrim (why was I so late to the party on this?!).
Until then… pas abuelo.
Edit : Oh yeah, I saw Star Trek, and while I’m not going to make a big writeup about it or whatever, AWESOOOOOME! (I made a “comic” based on this Wired article quote)
The Who Live at Isle of Wight
The Who is an oddity to me, I’m really not much a fan of their studio albums, but Live they simply couldn’t be beat. Not that you didn’t know this already (or at least I sure hope) but I recently watched their performance at Isle of Wight 1970 and it blew me away. If you dig the above clip (how dare you not) give the whole thing a look if you haven’t alread had the pleasure of seeing this top notch performance.
The Spoils of Free Comic Book Day
Heeding my own warning I woke up at 11 today, showered, picked up a few friends, and hit the comic shops. The first stop was Krypton Comics, a shop that used to be located a stones throw from my front door, it’s the biggest shop in Omaha, and the biggest crowd I’m sure. The line outside the shop to meet Lou Ferrigno was insanely long, the 501st was there too, a long with some local artists doing free drawings and comic authors/writers signings. We ended up just grabbing some of the free comics and ditching as the store was completely packed, and its not exactly the cleanest or easiest to navigate store in the first place.
XBLA Remake of Turtles in Time
The last time I played through Turtles in Time was a few years ago via an emulator, with three of my good friends crowded around the same keyboard, somehow managing to actually game despite the terrible ergonomic conditions. For whatever reason the TMNT beat em ups are generally held in fairly high regard, and Turtles in Time on SNES was easily the best, and last good TMNT game to date. Well looky there, an alpha build of a remake for XBLA of the totally rad classic is being shown off on the TMNT 25th anniversary. Details are lacking but there are a few screenshots you can peep at if you click the source.
It’s good to see that this is an actual remake and not a straight port like the original TMNT NES game to XBLA port, ever since the Mega Man remakes for I’ve been a sucker for 2.5d and the off screens show off some super sexy 2.5d, GREAT SUCCESS!
[Source]
Bionic Commando Multiplayer Impression
I don’t quite understand why Capcom decided to release a multiplayer demo for Bionic Commando, all I’d heard or seen of the game’s competitive aspects were a pair of short videos months ago on Gametrailers. That said it didn’t look like the worst multiplayer I’ve seen, so when I saw tuesday night that a the multiplayer demo was being released I was at least a little anxious to get my hands on it. Oddly the first thing that really struck me about the game was the super awesome menu screen, it’s something I never really think of but when confronted with the minimalist, yet entirely functional radial style menu in Bionic Commando I was actually wowed a bit. Of course it seems that Swedes know a thing or two about sexy menus, Riddick by Starbreeze also sported an awesome menu screen as well.
Moving onto the actual game, you’re simply dropped into a matchmaking game and given five minutes to zip about killing everyone you can. A bit surprisingly the game functions really well as a straight up deathmatch game, the depth doesn’t really come from the obtuse weapon selection or perfectly refined balance, but what it does do very well is movement. The grapple arm and your use of it more than anything determines whether you will live to fight or die quickly. The grapple arm is also what will put a lot of people off initially, it’s you’re only really quick way of getting around and it’s not something that clicked with me right away, but as I gained a bit more experience with it and was doing a full lap around the map, spotting a poor sap on the ground releasing my grapple and and doing a dive bomb directly on them it was supremely satisfying. Unfortunately the demo gives you one option on learning these mechanics, trial by fire, and their are a lot of mechanics, you could miss easily had no one told you. I didn’t realize I was able to use my grapple arm to pick up the weapons on the map from a distance until I accidentally did it a few matches in, or that you can grapple other players and zip straight to them and give them a swift kick off the map. It’s moments like those that set the game apart from an Unreal Tournament where much of your success hinges on your proficiency with the multitude of guns provided.
Unfortunately the map in the demo is a night map, so it’s really hard to get a good read on how the game actually looks. Also the art direction seems inconsistent with single player game based off of screenshots and videos I’ve watched. Where the single player game has a somewhat muted looking pallet, with lots of earthy tones and vibrant greens the multiplayer characters are like hopped up space ravers in bright glowing primary colored suits that allow them to be picked out across the huge maps. Of course the multiplayer also likely has a lot of the games graphical bells and whistles turned off in order to keep latency down, as all games do.
I’m not exactly sold on the game as a whole, but if nothing else this does seem like a pretty great straight up deathmatch game, something consoles lack, sticking to more team based shooter affairs, and if the single player is designed heavily around the grapple arm, easily the best thing the game has going for it (duh?) then I have a lot of hope for a great single player as well.
Shoe Review – Onitsuka Tigers Mexico 66
Here’s a post you probably won’t see anything similiar to here in a long time. A lot of that may have something to do my extremely infrequent shoe purchasing habit, which in turn may have something to do with my critical demanor towards the vast majority of shoes. As you can probably tell, the shoe on the left in the above image I’ve had for quite awhile, 3 years to be exact, it was basically the perfect shoe. Of course all good things must come to an end, and due to a tragic accident that took the life of my designated lawn mowing shoes, my original pair of Mexico 66′s had the burden of labor forced on their shoulders resulting in a a lovely green hue permanently caked to their bottoms. That alone was far from enough to separate me though, I continued to wear them for another good 2 years, and even now, though completely aesthetically unpleasing they function just as well as ever, I chalk it up to the fact that unlike most shoes they aren’t constructed with weirdo synth materials that tear under the slightest of pressures. But finally after years of wearing my high class hobo shoes I decided it was time to move on.
Heads Up! Free Comic Book Day May 2nd
Just thought I’d throw out a heads up that the first Saturday of May approacheth, and in tow comes annual Free Comic Book Day. If you’ve got a comic shop I’d check it out, Krypton Comics here in Omaha does it up pretty big every year with everything in store being marked down pretty well, and this year looks to have the best guest signing yet, Lou Ferrigno. So don your surgical mask and brave the noxious clouds of swine flu to hit up our local comic shop and don’t miss the festivities.
The Hazards of Love – The Decemberists
Yes it’s true, The Hazards of Love did come out almost a month ago, and I tried to write about it almost a month ago even, after a few listen throughs I sat down to and tried to put my thoughts into full fledged sentences, but nothing really came out that was sensible. That really shouldn’t have surprised me though, Colin Meloy has never seemed to worry too much about accessibility and this is especially true for their newest outing, The Hazards of Love, a full on rock opera. The Decemberists are really the only band I would say an album like this was a logical conclusion for, a strong focus on narrative has always been present in every Decemberists album, especially The Tain EP, of which Hazards shares many similarities. The plot hinges around Margaret and William, when Margaret discovers a fawn trapped in a bush she goes to free it, only for the fawn to end up actually being a shapeshifter, William. The relationship grows over the first 7 tracks. The love culminates during “Isn’t it a Lovely Night”, a track that oddly above all reminded me of “Love” sung by Maid Marian in the animated Disney version of Robin Hood (Love, It seems like only yesterday, You were just a child at play).
Of course as Margaret departs from her dearest William, the Forrest Queen, accompanied by thundering power chords (yes, power chords in a Decemberists album) to confront our protaganist. Shara Worden really belts it out in the albums standout track, “The Wanting Comes in Waves” exuding a very Cruella de Ville brooding evil that meshes with the metal shredding, giving the odd influence purpose where it would seemed slightly out of place in The Tain.
Over the remaining tracks Margaret is taken captive and William rescues her, leading to the final stand out track, a haunting lullaby as Margaret and William share there last breaths on a sinking ship that puts a very neat emotional bow tie on what was already a dramatic masterpiece.
Of course the album would be worthless if it wasn’t listening to in a musical sense, and if you already liked The Decemberists you won’t be disappointed. The folksy instrumentation is top notch and the sonic motifs apparent throughout are varied and interesting, even fresh compared to The Crane Wife which often sounded very samey (not that I mind, more of the best is never bad). Of course initially I was almost disappointed with it in this manner, there was no really standout single track, no catchy hooks, but once I finally came to accept that it wasn’t intended that way, and forced myself to listen to the album as a single track, it became apparent that this is a true epic that stands right up with Picaresque as The Decemberists greatest works yet.
Left 4 Dead Survival Mode Impressions
If anything my single complaint with Left 4 Dead was that I felt I was making a big commitment going into a campaign. I felt obligated to finish that whole campaign in a single sitting, and sometimes I really didn’t have the time for that, but my desire to slay hordes of zombies kept me playing later into the night than ever intended. Enter Survival Mode, remove all the tedium of a long journey to safety, you’ve got no hope right from the start.
The premise is pretty simple, you’re going to die, go out in a blaze of glory. The game gives you a bunch of weapons and lots of things that explode, you then hit a trigger and everything the game can possibly throw at you it does, in large number and quickly. Combine this with the fact that the maps for survival provide you nowhere to hide. Pretty much every wall you could put your back to will bust down and flood with zombies and in no way are you protected from special infected. That being said, the mode does not fool around, the average match will last something around 3 minutes, even less on the new “Last Stand” survival specific map that seems to be tweaked for extra difficulty. Basically all those crazy L4D stories look to be 1up’d by this mode, and while this is more an hors d’oeuvres rather than a full meal, if that’s what you’re looking for Survival is a great way to hop in kill undead and hop right back out without worrying wether or not you’ll be letting anyone down. It’s out right now for the low low price of free on both PC and 360, and for a price like that it’s atleast worth a look.
