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Hello. My name is Mark. You probably don't know me but that's cool. I don't really go out of my way to be a cyber celebrity. I'm a nice guy though. I've drawn artwork and written reviews here a few times and there was that one time I shook Wee-Man's hand. He's a pretty cool dude. Anyway...

So Giant Bomb has been a sort of home away from home. I'm one of those long time patrons, sometime contributors, who loves the GB crew and, gosh darn it, sees them as family. I've seen so many beautiful faces come and go. I've seen the Coke Challenge and the penitentiary body and the glory of Shaq. I cried pretty much the entirety of one awful July and fell out of my chair from a flailing power ranger running in circles.

So basically GB is important to me. Maybe too so. Don't judge me. I see you...

So anyhoo a few years back my life got flipped turned upside down when I was struck by a car. Turns out it's way more fun in Saints Row than in real life. I survived (Obvs, they don't allow ghosts to register an account here. Thanks, Obama) but my dominant arm has never been the same. I used to be a pretty active artist, too... But sadly things just went downhill and at a certain point drawing was just not in the cards anymore. I thought about other hobbies, other crafts. Video games were well and good but I find myself playing them less and watching them more in my growing years. I wanted something I could really have an emotional attachment to once more. Then the Gundam talk started on Giant Bomb.

Thanks to Austin and Vinny I was reawakened to a thing I once knew many, many years ago. Back in High School anime was a kind of weird new underground thing (at least in my circles). We were fortunate enough to have a comic book store in our little city that sold just as many manga and indie titles as they did DC and Marvel. That was where I discovered Newtype magazine and the world of Japanese anime and manga. And then I found Gundam Wing. And then I built a Tallgeese.

For whatever reason though Gundam never stuck with me. I imagine it was the scarcity back then. Getting anime on VHS usually cost about 15 bucks an episode and getting Gunpla kits involved ordering them through a catalog half the time.

I'm back in though and boy am I back strong. I've fallen into that vicious cycle of "See a kit I like, buy it. Build the kit and check out it's show and find another kit I like, buy it. Repeat." And even though I'm a man with limited time I've been finding the process of watching Gundam on the bus and building a little at a time every night to be just... Just so right. It's been doing wonders for my PTSD, keeping me eager and energetic about fandom for the first time in forever, and exposing myself to a whole new world of wonderful stories and eye-catching designs.

The best part about Gunpla, as espoused by Austin and 100% confirmed by me is that it's about as hard as you want it to be. I used to built military models and those could be, at times, impenetrable unless you had a full setup. Anyone can do Gunpla and have it come out looking great. With a little work you can make a kit look fantastic and if you want to get real nuts you can make them look outstandingly unique. For myself, I fit somewhere in the middle. I'm super colorblind and don't have a good setup for painting so I pretty much just snap them together, clean them up, and add details. It's something I love that I never knew I was missing and, truth be told, it's saved me from the depression of losing so much. So thank you. Thank you to all who helped guide me to this new fandom.

2016 will truly be the beginning of my Universal Century.

Except maybe without all the horrible murder and betrayal.

Maybe that wasn't an apt analogy... >.>

"Taking small arms fire!"
"JTF, you hearing this?"
It's like deja vu...

Tom Ca-Lan-Cy’s Division is here

Throw bullets at “looters” for gear

Growing numbers is fun

I want a new gun

Reduce cooldowns with soda, not beer

This one is about video games so... I'll post it here. Enjoy :)

Welcome back to Fallout 4. We're an unfrozen military guy in a goopy, droopy future. In our last episode we learned that some guys took our baby son and murdered our wife. We stumbled, confused, out of the shelter and emerged to the surface.

Before we move forward, though, I have a special present for you! An extra skeleton party bonus video!

Delightful.

Now with that out of the way, let the endless meandering begin!

I'm coming for you...

Welcome to my journey through Fallout 4. This is a project I started to share my experiences with Bethesda's latest and also help keep track of the adventure for my own sake. What follows are my thoughts and observations as I explore the wastelands of Boston so this is big time spoiler territory! Watch your toes!

First a brief recap of what we've seen so far...

In yesterday's thrilling episode we were enjoying a brisk north-eastern autumn when nuclear armageddon snuck right up on us! Thankfully we had just signed a deal with a persistent salesman that guaranteed us safe entry into a Vault-Tec shelter: Vault 111. Our handsome hero Ryker Holt and his wife scooped up their precious infant son and traveled down into the vault just as mushroom clouds bloomed on the horizon.

Amongst the panic and confusion of the vault dwellers entering the facility we were funneled into decontamination pods in order to safely enter the lower levels of the vault. It was all deception, however, as the pods turned out to be cryogenic devices to freeze the dwellers of Vault 111.

We've awakened now, some time in the future, and everyone is dead or gone. Invaders came, shot Ryker's wife dead, and took their son...

Tomorrow, with more questions than answers, we will step forward and begin the quest to find Shaun and avenge his mother.

Hello. I am Feralchemy and I am notoriously bad at finishing games. In particular I'm quite lousy with Bethesda games. I always get caught up in the hype and excitement, always pick up the newest Skyblivion or what have you, then I start the game fifty times and stop playing it. This time... Ho ho... This time I'll finish it. With a new comfy chair and the ergonomic splendor of the Xbox One controller at my disposal... By god I'll actually play this one.

This journal was a concept suggested by some close friends when I polled them for a game I could actually try and focus on beating for a change. I, theoretically, really enjoy big explorable worlds but I inevitably lose my drive and worst of all I lose my sense of what the heck is actually going on. By compiling a blog with screenshots I can not only share the game with other people but I can also share my opinions while also keeping a record of what the hell I'm doing this whole time.

Hopefully it'll keep me honest in keeping up with my adventures in the irradiated Commonwealth and maybe, just maybe, it'll entertain y'all a little bit. If not, too bad. I have a terrible memory and this is probably the only way I'll finish this damn thing.

Oh, and of course this is chock-a-bloc full of spoilers because, well, I'm just gonna play the game and take screenshots I find interesting, funny, pretty, or relevant to the story.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

So it looks like the world is coming to an end. Good thing these nice Vault-Tec gentlemen built these handy self-sustaining communities underground. It's not exactly how I planned Shaun's future but I'm sure this all will be fine for us. What could possibly go wrong?

Gah! Help! I've recently gotten back on playing video games on the regular and I have a TON of games on my Xbox that I have to put hours into. My big problem is that I struggle with playing multiple things at once so I need help from the community to pick something that I should seek some end credits on. So from this list kindly offer me a suggestion for what you'd like me to play and blog about for a while!

• Assassin's Creed IV
• Banjo-Kazooie
• Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts
• Banjo-Tooie
• Chariot
• Child of Light
• Dirt 3
• Dragon Age: Inquisition
• Fallout 4
• Halo 4
• How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition
• Kameo
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
• Massive Chalice
• Perfect Dark
• Perfect Dark Zero
• Pneuma
• Rayman Legends
• Shovel Knight
• So Many Me
• Super Time Force
• The Walking Dead
• Valiant Hearts
• Volgarr the Viking

So what do you all think? I'd really like to play something and blog about it (both for entertainment and to help me keep track of things). Leave your suggestions in the thread below.

In an effort to actually do some regular writing for a change I'm starting a blog series dedicated to my love of games with toys. The "toys to life" genre has fascinated me since day one and with Skylanders entering its 5th year, Disney Infinity having just launched it's third, and Lego Dimensions well on it's way I thought it would be great to start publishing my thoughts for this unique new gaming genre that I'm so dang enthusiastic for.

(Note: I am an employee of The Walt Disney Company and my opinions do not necessarily represent those of my employer or it's affiliates)

I was not a huge fan of Disney Infinity. It felt clunky and disjointed and poorly optimized, particularly in comparison to it's primary competitor: Activision's Skylanders series. The promise of having cool toys of recognizable Disney characters with the unique hook of player-created game worlds was certainly attractive to me, but when the rubber hit the road most of the player made worlds felt less like created games and more like ramshackle MacGyvered attempts. They all seemed like moderately impressive hacks of a finished game. Even the top tier Toy Box creations just felt incredibly janky. Even the canned adventures, crafted by the game's developers themselves with cinematics and voiceovers, felt awkward to play due to lame game objectives and the game's generally sloppy feeling action. Jumping and combat always felt stilted and laggy.

Even though Skylanders had absolutely zero player created content it always just felt like a better game. The action was simpler of course, being a Gauntlet style overhead action affair, but it was smooth and felt good to play. With those factors leaning against one another Skylanders has continued to be my TTL game of choice for years now... But Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition is out today promising better combat, smoother framerates, and interesting new mechanics allowing for things like Mario Kart style racing.

Unfortunately I have been extremely busy today and only had about half an hour to play the new Infinity but already it feels way smoother in the action department. Granted I've only controlled the pack-in Star Wars: The Clone Wars stars Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, but they already feel like actual character action avatars. This is likely in no small part to the involvement of Ninja Theory in the combat design but it goes a long way to making this feel less like a cobbled together experience.

In terms of new mechanics I got far enough into the tutorial hub to unlock Sidekicks, which appear to be combat pets of a sort. They take the "costume" characters from previous Infinity games (the 'Little People' style weebles that kinda roamed your Toy Box before) and give them stats and equipment slots, allowing you to level them up, arm them, and feed them so they will travel by your side and assist you in combat. It's a fun little extra thing that feels a touch like they're taking the little activities from World of Warcraft, giving players more and more to do on the core disc.

I look forward to putting more time into it tomorrow. It's entirely possible that the character control will end up feeling just as awful in the long term and I have yet to plug in any of my previous generation Infinifigs to see if they have been at all improved. I also want to see some Toy Box creations to see how well that engine is looking these days. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one so far.