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buzz_clik

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Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs!

Watching old videos gave me an idea for an odd shirt design. I don't know what it is about me that wants to make GB shirts that have nothing to do with gaming at all. Lobsters, anyone?
 
I'm pretty sure Turbo_Toaster's background image had also seeped into my consciousness while making it. That lass does some cracking work, fer sure.

 

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This is where the consoles live!

Just thought it was about time I actually got my blog on again; I've been busy with this, that and the other (including the design for that new hoodie) and have really missed spewing a slab of inconsequential text onto the internet. I've been re-watching one of my favourite so-awful-it-is-awesome films, Future Cops, and I'm going to write up an in-depth look at its particular brand(s) of lawyer-baiting entertainment.

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In the interim, however, here are some pictures of where I sit until stupidly early hours of the morning. I moved into my new house a few months ago, and I've still not tidied up all the cords that snake through and around this monument to our favourite pastime. But it's not in such bad shape that I'm ashamed to show you what's going on in this part of my lounge room. I'm a sucker for playing old games on the consoles that they came out on, and as such have had to purchase and jerry-rig a few extra cords to make things look better on my screen.
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LUCHADEMON

So, during the development of Turbo_Toaster's wonderfully heartwarming rendition of Luchadeer, I jokingly said that there should be a cheesy, baditude-filled counterpart. Y'know, like if Todd McFarlane got a hold of our stuffed antihero and Todd McFarlaned the shit out of him. After a few hours, I've cobbled something together. I don't think it's final, as I maybe want to add more spooky effects to it, but it'll do for now. When all is said and done, though, I am still quite jealous of Turbo_Toaster's apparent ease of line and beautifully flowing, artistic style. It's great stuff!

Anyway, it's time to behold... the LUCHADEMON!
 


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The Best Laid Plans...

I'm not entirely certain, but I'm pretty sure his gun go off.
I'm not entirely certain, but I'm pretty sure his gun go off.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand has finally made its way into my 360. I don't know if it's because I started playing it at midnight, or if it had been talked up too much, but it seems to simply be 'yeah, okay' instead of 'great despite the dubious pedigree'. I'll have another crack tonight to see if my opinion changes, as I kind of expect it will; once fatigue and hype aren't so much a factor I reckon my enjoyment of this game will ramp up (if you'll pardon the allusion).

As I indicated, it has taken a while for me to play this game. I had planned to do so 5 months ago and had set the wheels into motion soon after it appeared in stores. Y'see, it was my mate Adam's birthday in March. I'd bought him a copy of the game in question, knowing full well Adam's a busy guy who runs his own design business. He's a workaholic and doesn't find much time to turn his 360 on, save for our fortnightly Thursday night games bash. So I'd fully expected him to sling it my way instead of watching it collect dust. I was quite eager to jump into the ludicrous hip-hop-stop-n-pop antics of Master Cent, and the podcasts I'd been listening to at the time only made me want to check it out more.

So, I got hold of Adam's copy on the weekend, although not from Adam himself. No, I saw it sitting at another mate's place, and found out he'd borrowed it off Adam not long after I'd handed it over as a birthday present. Yep, turns out I was right. Adam liked the game, but had too much on his plate and enthusiastically handed it to a friend to enjoy... that friend just turned out not to be me. Ah, well. It was a sound enough theory, I guess.

Ever bought a game as a present for someone with a view to borrowing it later down the track?
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Big Bangs & Squelching Stutters


Big Bang Mini's Challenge mode is another great facet to this little gem of a title.
Big Bang Mini's Challenge mode is another great facet to this little gem of a title.
I've just finished the main Arcade mode in Big Bang Mini for the DS. What a great little game it was! If I had to chop it up and unceremoniously stuff the bits into a heap of pigeonholes, I'd say it was a cutesy stylus-driven shooter with overtones of Rez and the occasional bullet hell lurking behind its smiling exterior. It's very addictive, easy to get into and constantly throwing interesting play mechanics at you.

The art style(s) of this game left me grinning from the slick inventiveness on display. With the exception of the last, each 'zone' is based around a country, and each country has a distinct flavour to the graphics. What really impressed me about this, however, is that even though the style of each zone is different, there's a sense of cohesion and common identity running throughout.

Now I've finished Arcade mode (and it should be noted it didn't take all that long) I've unlocked Mission mode. This contains a bunch of levels to attempt, where a certain requirement must be met to complete each level properly. I've only completed 6 of them, and they've ranged from finishing a level within a set time to having a finite number of shots available. I can foresee myself being hooked on this sweet game for a little while longer yet...

The other thing I've just got my hands on is Korg DS-10. Only played around with it for a little while, but it's really easy to use and heaps of fun. Manipulating and tweaking the sounds is a doddle, and the rewiring is handled as you'd see in a more expansive piece of music software. A great little toy that will no doubt be the bane of my girlfriend's life for the near future.

Signing off, here's another bit of my gaming collection. It's the retail version of the Sega Mega Jet, which was used on Japan Airlines planes as in-flight entertainment. Basically a cut-down version of the Mega Drive (that's the Genesis to Stateside readers), it was hooked up to small screen so you could play games during your journey. If you wanted, you could even bring your own cartridges with you to play on the plane. Man, I would have loved to be playing Ranger X as I zoomed around the skies...

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GBRPG: You've got the sprite stuff.

 

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In my previous blog post, I had foreshadowed that making teensy little SNES versions of the Bomb boys was on the cards, for use in the GBRPG that may or may not come to fruition. I've since made good on this threat (the sprites, not the game), and now the rest of the party are present to keep Ripped Vinny company. It would certainly be nice if this whole thing came about at some point, but until then I'll carry on with my usual trick of making static stuff that's not really of any use to anybody. Deal? Deal.
 
While I was making these wee buggers, I had Quannum's Bombonyall running through my head the whole time. Note to self: contact the Quannum crew and see if we can't license an instrumental of this track for the forthcoming game.
 
 
Additional note to self: stop pretending that you're able to contact the Quannum crew in any way whatsoever, let alone get permission to use one of their tunes.
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Graphics + Music


Mini-Vinny
Mini-Vinny
In a recent thread I stupidly mentioned the need for a GBRPG. I say stupidly, because of course I've now put it in my head that I should dummy up some SNES-like graphics for this mythical title. I've quickly made a Vinny (complete with buff arms) and I'm quite happy with the result, so I'll probably make the rest of them. This in turn will no doubt lead to backgrounds being made, a storyline being written and complete screens being mocked up.
 
I swear, though, I need to do something about my lack of programming skillz.

In other news, I came across a little mix I made a while back and thought I'd post it here. Every now and then, I feel the need to make a mix a while I'm at work and I'll churn out one of these 10 minute jobs. I don't have the full software, so it stops recording at the 10 minute mark. However, I don't mind this, as it's fun to see what you can do in such a short amount of time. The other thing I always try to include in my mini-mixes is video game music, so I guess that makes this relevant to posting it on GB. This particular mix starts with a tune from Altered Beast on the MD / Genesis. It's certainly not perfect, as I'm using some pretty wobbly software to do these mixes live, so please excuse any rough patches.
 
10 Minute Mini-Mix #1 at SoundCloud
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Like blood from a stone...


Although it's never really as exciting as this shot may seem, Vampire Rain is not the Worst Game Evarzâ„¢
Although it's never really as exciting as this shot may seem, Vampire Rain is not the Worst Game Evarzâ„¢
So, I've just finished Vampire Rain. When I first started playing it, I'd reported that I thought it was freakin' terrible. That's because the opening 6 levels are dire, plodding stealth affairs that don't want you to think outside the box. Level 7 sees the introduction of weapons, and even then you're not really encouraged to use them throughout the game. No, the makers of Vampire Rain loved their stealth element so much that they made it the primary focus for a considerable slab of the game.

As previously stated, I'm planning on writing a review for this game. I know, it's been out for ages and everybody knows it's not the most amazing title ever to grace Microsoft's machine. Hardly the most timely review, but I just want to get one under my belt. Funny thing is, my review of Vampire Rain isn't going to be completely damning; there are moments where it can be a somewhat enjoyable experience. The problem is that these moments aren't as often as one would hope, and even then most are bonus missions that are peripheral to moving the story forward. Uh, if you were not to skip some of the cutscenes as I did, that is.

But that's not the point of this blog entry. Nope, I'm just typing to have a little whinge about Achievement points. Yes, I'm one of those people. Y'see, after all my toil with this not-as-wretched-as-people-want-it-to-be-but-still-pretty-wretched game, I emerged with a paltry 50G. Ugh. Then I had a think about the other titles that have been measly with coughing up the Gamerscore goodness. Apart from Perfect Dark Zero (a launch title, so I'll cut it some slack), these are the other titles that I think have grifted me:


The more astute among you may have noticed that these games, just like Vampire Rain, are el cheapo Japanese titles. I know, they're games that aren't considered to be top-shelf. As such, you probably think I get what I deserve for mucking around with such things (although I'll go three rounds of fisticuffs with anyone who thinks EDF 2017 isn't a fun game). But still, what conclusion are we supposed to draw from this? Japanese developers think you have to be punished for being a cheapskate?

No, I think the conclusion we should draw is that I can be a slut for the Achievements, and maybe that's where the problems start.

Anybody know any other titles that are tightfisted with the Achievements?
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Shirts I NEVER submitted.

Design is usually a very iterative process. In the leadup to any finalised piece of work, you can look at all the associated Illustrator files on my machine and see this process in action. Within the same document I'll usually have 5 (frequently more) of what looks like the same design; closer inspection reveals that small changes, tweaks, nips and tucks have been made. I usually like to keep these many tangents in the same document just so I can see the progression of the idea. Plus it's fun to go back to the first, unrefined attempt and chuckle at how crap it can sometimes look.

You might have noticed, but the recent NEVER shirt brief lit a bit of a bonfire under my arse. I know a few people decried the whole idea as something that wouldn't make a good 'gag' shirt (I disagree), but from a design point of view it was great. The word is punchy, it's bold and it has a certain symmetry to the letterforms, both in upper and lower cases.

So here I present some of the discarded doodles that fell by the wayside while I was trying to come up with NEVER shirt designs. I hope you find it an interesting insight into my personal design process. Going left to right, top to bottom...

1. This is the first thing I did. I even had a few more incremental versions of it before I had the 'eureka' moment of making the exclamation point a coin block. It also shows that your original reaction to a brief can sometimes (but not always) be your best idea.

2. Here's some further refinement that sees the implementation of the coin block. The only real difference to be seen here is the use of more than one colour. I really wasn't thinking when I did this, and then suddenly remembered that the brief asked for a minimum of colours to be used. A few clicks later and the yellow shirt was born!

3. Obviously by this stage, the exclamation point had lodged in my brain (that's probably what's causing this tic I've developed). There are other previous versions of this with the circular part of the punctuation intact, and one without the little bit of sheen on the bomb. See how I can't leave things alone?

4. This was a rough idea that I 'sketched' in Illustrator. I just wanted a fuck off big, chunky, in-yo-face 'NEVER'. This was ultimately taken to even bigger extremes with the second shirt I posted.

5. Another quick sketch. Ugly. Just bloody ugly. Ugly and quickly abandoned. Let's just move on, shall we?

6. I made this one up quite quickly, and it sat there for a while. As it did, other people had the same idea and posted their versions, making this design redundant. Ah, well. I didn't like the clunky way I'd worded my question anyway. The answers that followed it just didn't really seem to fit.

7. Here's an example of the symmetry I mentioned earlier. With this, I also tried to incorporate 'E3' which helped push the mirror-image idea, and the bomb was used to fill in the bit to make the 'r' more like the 'n'. I still kinda like this, but I certainly didn't think it was strong enough for a shirt. It's a little muddled and maybe looks like a (bad) skate brand of some description.

8. My first attempt at a more florid design. Ultimately, it didn't capture what I wanted in the idea, and so I ended up starting again and making my final entry.
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Virtual Inanity

Welcome to the exciting world of yesterdecade!
Welcome to the exciting world of yesterdecade!

Remember Virtual Reality? Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about that thing that threatened to revolutionise the digital entertainment industry and make our eyeballs become cubes, only to fade nearly as quickly as it popped up. Before its pixels fizzled from the limelight, however, Hollywood got its dirty paws on it and misrepresented it in that way that only Hollywood can. The Lawnmower Man is the obvious example, but I was up late the other night and was lucky enough to be reminded of another: 1994's Disclosure.

Michael Douglas stars in yet another role that sees him caught up in a dangerous affair with a mental female, despite him looking like a prune with a supernatural mullet. Demi Moore portrays said nutjob tweaker, and soon she's playing mind games with M-Dog, accusing him of all sorts of naughty behaviour. The sordid incident gets dragged through some badly staged hearings, which are dull and drawn out. This all takes place against the backdrop of the software company where they both work. And here's where the film starts to stupidly slip from being a psychosexual drama into a poorly realised technothriller.

To prove his innocence, Michael Douglas has to use his company's latest trinket, a virtual reality rig. In the computer world, he looks exactly the same as his real-life counterpart, only with a virtual reality headset on. Genius. As is Hollywood's way with the world of computers, this digital space has been sexed up to look like what people wanted the future to look like back then; the walls and floor that surround cyberDouglas are constantly (and needlessly) shifting and morphing in all their ray traced glory.

Crap story short, Disclosure is a mess. I'd only seen it once before, and when I saw it was going to be on again I described it to my girlfriend as best I could remember. She didn't believe me that it had virtual reality bits, as it sounded too ludicrous to be something the filmmakers would put in. I'd suggest she's right, but then if they didn't have these silly technological flights of fancy, the movie would be poorer for it. If nothing else, it's an interesting snapshot of the mid-90's idea of where we thought it was all going. Too bad you have to drill through the nigh-impenetrable tedium of the real-life scenes if you want to mine the rich vein of unintentional comedy platinum.

That's Jason Statham down the bottom there.
That's Jason Statham down the bottom there.

On the flipside, the other film I watched on the weekend was the ridiculously kinetic Crank. Yes, I know, I'm late to the party. Shot on DV, this cheap and grotty little film is hilarious and efficient with the excitement it generates. I'm a sucker for movies that contain Jason Statham (although I've avoided this one), and this delivers him in stubbled spades. Without revealing the plot this film sees Statham hit the ground running and turning up the badassery even more. Although it seems to start to run out of juice (and the ability to suspend disbelief) a bit towards the end, the sheer audacity of it all gets Crank across the line. Not brilliantly brilliant, but certainly balls-out entertaining. Plus it's got a few cameos by cherished oldschool games, so bonus points there.

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