I enjoy the "I love Mondays" segments they do each week here at GB. I really do. But that opening bit needs at least 10 seconds trimmed off of it. I'm as big a fan of Ryan Davis as the next Whiskey Media subscriber. But I can't figure out why that opening bit takes a full 25 seconds. Unless....
This isn't really Giant Bomb related per se, but it is Whiskey Media related. I've talked a time or two about The Amazing Test: Bricked on Tested.com. I am a bit of an AFOL anyway and it's fun watching their little competition. It also let me to make this:
Hope you enjoy it. :)
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Following the Twitter accounts of Norm, Will and Gary, I've noticed a little trend. It's also apparent in the Tested Podcast that Gary has a Lego "problem". I think he's somehow addicted to Danish plastic bricks. See what you think:
I know they did a jokey "intervention", but it may be time for the real thing. :P
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UPDATE: This is pretty darn late and hardly relevant since the Whiskey Media thing has been crushed under the weight of the buyouts and all that, but I've gotten to know Matt Elfring (Comic Vine's InferiorEgo) in recent weeks and realized he was a tragic omission from this. So to correct that error on my part, here is Matt Scruffy: InferiorJanitor
Finally got around to adding Norm (Normz McKenzie, The original Lego worm) and Tony "G-man" (Elzar... or I guess Gee-Zar). Here is what will most likely be the final version. I took out all the nameplates. They were a little distracting and since we're nearly at 20 characters, it'd be almost impossible to keep them in and have this retain any kind of artistic flow. I also took out the cheap "Will Smith" gag on Will's T-shirt and changed it to the Death Star. Regular Tested viewers will probably get it, if not then I suggest you Google "The Amazing Test: Bricked" and get in on the fun. Today's episode had some especially good banter between the guys. (i.e. they mentioned my Futurama thread and made me a happy nerd) (woo).
If any Whiskey person was left out, it's not intentional. I've been a regular visitor to the site less than a year and if you aren't a Quick Look regular, I may be unaware of your unique contribution to the sites. Please hit me up either on Twitter or a PM here and we can talk about it.
Hope you like it!
If you'd like to use this image as a wallpaper, this should fit nicely with any widescreen monitor:
If you don't have a widescreen monitor... it's 2012. Upgrade damn it!
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Original post from here on out:
I'm not even going to try and explain how the inspiration for thiis one came about. But I still wanted to show it off to people who might appreciate it. So here is my Futurama/Giant Bomb mashup drawing. I hope you enjoy it. :)
Other characters that did not make the cut:
Alex Navarro/Morbo the News Monster as "Navorbo"
Matt Rorie/Scruffy the Janitor as "Rorry, the Janitor"
Patrick was going to be Hermes instead of Nibbler originally. But once I got the idea of Nibbler with Patrick's hair in my head I had to draw it. :P
Any of the girl characters as... Seriously, are there just no girls at Whiskey Media or am I not hitting the right site? I usually stick to Screened, GB, and occasionally Comic Vine. Help me out here community!
Also, before some smartypants shows up to tell me I misspelled Gerstmann's name on the jar, I'm aware of it. It's an intentional gag. Not a very funny one in retrospect, but intentional nonetheless.
If people like this one, I may make another with some of the left out characters. Not sure what kind of time I'll have in the next few weeks as I just recieved a new assignment, but who knows. I'm open to suggestions if you have clever mashup ideas. Feel free to leave a post.
Other places to see things I've done:
Someone asked if I had a version of this that could be used as a Wallpaper. At the time, I did not. But rearranging the layers and stretching out the background weren't much trouble, so I made a Wallpaper version. Anyone who wishes to do so, feel free to download it and use it. I also added "Navorbo" and a user suggestion; Sara Leela based on Comic Vine's Sara Lima. Hope you like it. :)
Uploaded here, but also kept on my Deviant Art page. LINK
:::Some suggestions from fellow Whiskey fans and a couple by Alex Navarro (Navorbo himself) and here is the latest version:::
Deviant Art link if you'd rather view it there: LINK
:::Update:::
Added these new versions of the wallpaper in 2 formats. These contain all the current characters (for now). Hope you enjoy them. :)
Like most of us, I had a pretty busy gaming year in 2011. Mostly at the end of it, but many games were great all throughout. Here are the ones I wanted to recognize for excellence, infamy, and even downright holding back the industry. Let's get started.
First up, I want to acknowlege a game that had a lot to prove. It came in with a legacy as diverse as a YinYang symbol and lived up to it's name:
Next, I'd like to honor one crazy piece of software. A game that made me laugh, cry with shame, and generally made me as joyous as it made me uncomfortable:
From there, I need to show a little humility in my, and many others, choices. So here we go:
For this next one, I'd like to add a little personal background. I LOVE the Dead Rising games. But regardless of that, this one deserves a dubious mention:
And as long as we're pointing the finger at a certain "Activision of Japan" developer/publisher, let's get this one out of the way:
Now, before I start kissing any games ass, Here's a double up for collective awesomeness, and deep seeded loathing all in one:
I've never liked an MMO before. WoW, City of Heroes, all good games but not my cup of tea. So to my surprise, they finally made one I enjoy this year (barely):
Now, if I may, I want to acknowledge a game that literally came back from the brink and restored a near dead franchise to it's former glory:
And finally, my most loved, most played, and most adored game of 2011 by a mile. A game I have almost no criticisms for. None other than:
I'd also like to take a second to point out of couple of great games that didn't get much love in the bloated 2011 GotY scene from many of the other publications. First of all, Dead Island. Now I know the zombie thing has been beaten to death like a... well like a zombie in an island breakout. But Dead Islands unique melee system was more fun than it had any right to be. And shame on Techland for not even making it a bullet point on the box. If it weren't for GB's QuickLook, I would not even have known about it and would likely have skipped Dead Island altogether.
And lastly, I want to mention InFamous 2. The game isn't really deserving of any awards I can think up, or really any at all given how packed the PS3's exclusive catalog has been this year. But it was still fun and exciting and it had one of the better endings I've seen in games. At least the "Light Side" Cole ending. I couldn't make it very far into "Dark Side" Cole's story because the choices were so stupid. But I still loved it and it's my most enjoyable PS3 game this year. Maybe not the best, but the most fun I've had with the Dual Shock controller since ReZ packed in a trance vibrator.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making it.
Of course this may not really be the absolute best thing about Skyrim, but it is a biggie for me personally. I'm the type of gamer who absolutely hates spoilers. I like to watch some vids to get me excited for the design and art style and gameplay of a game, but I don't want to know too much. But in our modern gaming culture, you can feasably end up knowing more than you wanted to know without ever even looking for it.
That's the nice thing about Skyrim though. You could probably tell me the entire story outright, and it really wouldn't much matter. The joy of a game like Skyrim is in experiencing the world. Spending time there, exploring, learning about the lay of the land. Those are the things that make a game like this work so well. The story, and I am looking forward to it, but in this case it's pretty secondary.
Of course a spoiler doesn't have to come in the form of a story piece. Batman: Arkham City was very guilty of giving away too much in the media that was a prelude to release. Honestly, it would have been much much better if I didn't know just how many villains were in the game or which ones were there. If I'd never known (and as hypocritical as this makes me, Arkham City spoilers will follow; get out now if you're sensitive to them) about certain villains their impact would have been far greater had they not been readily advertised beforehand. Specifically, I think it'd have been so much nicer not to have known about Solomon Grundy. The way the game is set up, you hear a little bit about him if you listen to the thugs around town. But honestly, if the ads hadn't outright told us that the Penguin had a Solomon Grundy trap set for you, how awesome would it have been to be dropped down that big pit of the Iceberg Lounge and suddenly there he stands. Like an undead Hulk, waiting to chew on your sensitive areas. It would have been much more impactful than the video where the all but told you he was waiting.
I get how a studio can make this misstep. It's fun to go through con season with lots of goodies to build up the project you've spent over 2 years working on. You're proud of your work and your team and it's nice to pop that crowd with your big reveal. But ultimately, that is selfish on Rocksteady's part (or whoever, they are my example but they are hardly the only offender). It's selfish because when you're building a game you should know that the big pop is going to come to the player in his home. It's not like a film where you can run a test screening and get that elation that comes from a crowd reacting to your work like you may have hoped. But games are different. And getting big pre-release press may be important. But not at the expense of the experience. Which happens more often that I like.
Is it the developer's fault? The publisher's? Maybe it's our fault for wanting our constant need for hype and aksing places like GameTrailers or The Escapist to feed that need. But, it is nice when a game is all but spoiler proof. When "the knowing", doesn't really take away anything from "the doing" which comes after the game drops. And that, for a gamer like me, is the nicest, best thing about Skyrim.
You know, it's kinda funny actually. I'm a huge fan of all things undead. Zombie films, Zombie games, Zombie novels (Max Brooks FTW!). But Dead Island was a wholely unappealing mass of game that I had little to no interest in right up until the day it released. Or rather, right up until the Quick Look went up on GiantBomb.com that is.
Despite my interest in the core set of enemies, Dead Island looked like Dead Rising with all the fun bits sucked out of it. Techland should be ashamed of the way they've marketed this hidden gem of a game. The interviews, their gameplay videos, and that original misleading trailer that got us all so excited, none of them managed to interest me in the least. But a few minutes into GB's QL video and I couldn't make it to the local games retailer fast enough.
Just goes to show you how important the marketing phase can be, and how easily it can be botched if not handled properly. I've been enjoying this game a lot, and I almost dismissed it outright. Thankfully, GiantBomb was here to pick up the developers slack. This time anyway.
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