Portal 2 TV Spot

The official TV Spot for Portal 2.  I can't wait to play this. 

ZombieCraft: Day 1

Apparently this has been going around for awhile but some Machinima director has picked it up and is making a video every day for the next week about this very interesting game, ZombieCraft.  Basically it takes the zombie mode from the Call of Duty series and the blocky style of Minecraft and combines them together. 

The developers of this mod are a team called modzilla minecraft.

Dead Island Official Trailer

Dead Island is a survival zombie game set on an island somewhere in Papua New Guinea.  It is being developed by Polish video game developer Techland who is most known for their work on the Microsoft title Call of Juarez. 

The trailer looks amazing and does it in a unique way although it is being criticized for depicting the death of a young girl. 

Crysis 2 Leaked

Crysis 2 isn't going to be released for about another month and a half but yesterday the full version of Crysis 2 was released online which supposedly includes the full singleplayer as well as multiplayer.  I have no plan to test out whether this is true or not.  It's not currently known who leaked this online but EA released a statement a few hours after the leak was discovered. 

"Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22. Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series’ signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion. Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."

As an avid video game player, it sucks to hear this.  Crytek has made some great games and I can only hope this leak doesn't hurt the sales of Crysis 2.  If anything, I hope the attention they get from this causes more sales.  

Duty Calls

You may have heard of a newly released free to play game that has been going around called Duty Calls.  The title of this game is purely coincidence and has no relation to a popular game with a similar title, i.e. Call of Duty.  It's a silly shooter that makes of the Call of Duty series in any way it can.  If you haven't already watched the game play for it, you can download and play it for yourself at the official website.  It doesn't take long at all to beat and should be enjoyed for the humor. 

If you're like me and were too lazy to actually download and play it, you can watch the full game here:

Monday Night Combat Steam Promotion

Monday Night Combat has been on the Xbox Live Arcade since August 11, 2010 and today is the release date for it's PC debut through Steam.  The TF2 Team is giving anyone that purchases the game on Steam through 10 AM PST, February 1, 2011 cross game items as a promotional boost.  TF2 players will receive two unique hats and a scout miscellaneous accessories item.  MNC players will receive class items that reflect their TF2 counterparts.

Here's a summary of the new items:

• Bonk! Slash!: Spy mask and Scout headphones worn by Assassin
• Mental Illness: Sniper hat worn by Sniper
• Jet Guns Are Better: Pyro's gasmask worn by Tank
• Eye Lad: Demoman's cap and eyepatch worn by Assault
• Bavcon: Heavy's bandolier worn by Gunner
• Doctor Dispenser: Medic's backpack and Engineer's hardhat worn by Support
• The Athletic Supporter: Available for every TF2 class
• The Superfan: The Mascot's hat worn by the Scout
• The Essential Accessories:The Mascot's wristbands, socks and shoes worn by the Scout 

 One thing I love about MNC is the cheap price, $15 for a good game is hard to come by when you're normally expected to pay upwards of $50-$60 for a new game of the same quality.  If you're interested in playing, check out the MNC store page on the Steam website. 

L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire is a new game soon to be published by Rockstar Games.  You play as a detective that is trying to solve murders in 1940's Los Angeles.  One of the reasons I'm looking forward to this game is the detail of the characters.  A new MotionScan system was used which captures an actor's facial expressions in amazing detail with 32 cameras that surround the actor completely to get every angle.

Video Games | L.A. Noire | Developer Diary: The Technology Behind Performance

Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 | Nintendo Wii | PC Games

This looks awesome. 

Australian Christmas

Just recently Valve has released the Australian Christmas update for Team Fortress 2.  A lot of new hats were released with this update including new class sets for the medic, demoman, and heavy.  Medieval mode was also added in which all players have to use melee weapons except for the sniper's huntsman and the new medic crossbow.  Valve also added in a new feature which allows you to buy stamps to support community mapmakers, those that buy stamps are given a hat that becomes progressively better as you buy more of the stamps.

The new item class sets include The Expert's Ordnance for the Demoman, The Hibernating Bear for the Heavy, and The Medieval Medic.  When a player has all the items of a set equipped they are given a special set effect.  One thing I liked about this update is that the new sets don't require you to have a hat for the full set.  Many players did not like the requirement to have a hat for the full set effect because of how hard they were to get unless you either bought them from the store, crafted them from a lot of metal, or traded with other players. 

The Medieval Mode is not quite what you'd expect from a Christmas update but it's very entertaining.  Red team defends the castle while the Blu team attacks from a wooden palisade behind a hill a short distance away.  On either side of the castle is two capture points as well as one final point in the back of the castle that must be captured for the Blu team to win.  The Blu team must first capture both points on either side of the castle before the castle gate will open.  The only entrance into the castle is the gate which results in it being the location of most of the fighting along with the final capture point.  Players have to use melee weapons, there are a few exceptions most notable are the sniper's huntsman and the new medic weapon the Crusader's Crossbow.  One amusing feature of this mode is that all text entered by players in chat is converted to Ye Olde English which can make conversing with other players both interesting and frustrating.   

Here's a video which will give you a very good idea of what Medieval Mode is like.




Sorry for the huge gap in blog posts everyone.  

Conan

Conan had an amazing first episode.  I'm a sucker for his humor and I'm very happy to see him back on air.  The intro skit to the first episode was very clever and his first week back on air has been great. 



Hope his success with TBS continues.  Their team has been doing a great job of putting the episodes on the Team Coco website the next day.

Hello November!

Hopefully everyone had an excellent Halloween this year, here's to hoping the rest of the year goes well too.  A few things I'd like to discuss in this post is the Minecraft update, TF2 Scream Fortress update, the new Walking Dead TV miniseries, and Conan's new television show.

I figure we should get this out of the way first, the much hyped Minecraft Halloween update.  To me, this update was a huge let down.  It was really hyped by pretty much everyone and I can say after playing and seeing everything it added to the game that it was not that fun.  When I first tried to download the update all of the minecraft servers were down which was pretty annoying.  After waiting an hour I downloaded the update and started a new world.  The first thing I noticed was the biomes, it was pretty cool seeing variations in all of the dirt tiles as you explored the land but in a way it spoils the simplicity of Minecraft.  After setting up a base and digging around I finally found enough obsidian for the nether gate.  The nether looked nice but once again was underwhelming.  The two new mobs in hell are the ghast and zombie pigmen.  The sounds the ghasts make become very annoying very fast.  Overall opinion of the halloween update, could have been much better with less hype and more work by Notch.

Now on to the Team Fortress 2 Scream Fortress update.  I'm enjoying this update a lot.  The Mann Manor map is great, the boss is fun, and the new items and hats looks nice.  The Horseless Headless Horsemann(HHH) is completely new territory for TF2 and it was done right.  Except for a few pathing errors which were quickly patched, the HHH acts as the great equalizer among both sides.  He spawns on the actively contested control point and can run rather quickly to the closest chosen target and quickly kill them with one swipe of it's axe.  The only way to get the HHH off your trail is to either die, attack a player from the other team with a melee weapon, outrun it, or become invulnerable by a medics ubercharge.  When you melee the HHH and it dies you have a chance to get a haunted scrap metal and with it the Gored! achievement.  Each person is allowed only one haunted scrap metal and with it you can craft the HHH's axe or a random halloween hat.  One of my only complaints about the Scream Fortress update is the Haunted Halloween gifts that spawn every 5 minutes at a random location on the map.  Inside the box is a random class specific Halloween Mask and when you craft each of Halloween masks for every class together you get the Saxton Hale Mask and the Sachston Hale achievement.  I crafted the Saxton Mask earlier today and got the achievement but my main problem with it is that it encourages item farming and as soon as a gift spawns everyone in the server stops whatever they're doing to look for the gift.  As you can imagine, this interrupts gameplay with everyone playing as scouts to get to the present before anyone else does.  Because of this some people have begun farming these gifts to ensure that they get masks and last time I checked TF2 isn't a RPG where you need to grind to get ahead of other players.  Overall, amazing update.  Valve did a great job and I hope they learned from their mistakes with this event.  I wouldn't mind seeing more holiday related events as well. 





I have been looking forward to The Walking Dead miniseries on AMC since I heard about it around 2 or 3 months ago.  In a few interviews with the producers and directors they said they planned on following the original comic book series closely which got me excited because of how great the comic book series is.  I expected a very loose translation from comic book to the TV screen but they did an amazing job.  There were a few minor differences but they definitely stuck to their promise and followed the original story as closely as possible.  You should definitely check this out if you're interested in zombies and good stories.  The premier of The Walking Dead was amazing, I'm really looking forward to the next episode.

Finally, Conan O' Brien is coming back on air next Monday November 8th on TBS, his talk show will be titled Conan. I've been looking forward to this day ever since NBC basically forced Conan out of his newly acquired Tonight Show hosting job not so long ago.  Check out his premier on TBS next Monday if you haven't watched him yet.  One thing to know when you're watching him perform is to not take him too seriously.

With that, feel free to respond with your Halloween experience and what you think about the above topics. 

Team Fortress 2 Halloween Event

Yes!  It's that time of years for spooky costumes, reruns of Halloween, and the ensuing wave of all sorts of new content in the video game and entertainment world.  The Second Annual Team Fortress Halloween Special is here!  Now, I first bought Team Fortress 2 for my Steam account around this time last year because there was an amazing sale for it I couldn't pass up.  The first Halloween event was great, so I've really been looking forward to this years event.

One of the new features for this event is the first boss monster in Team Fortress 2, the Horseless Headless Horsemann.  It sounds like a great idea, everyone works together to kill it or you can just watch as it goes around killing everyone else.  I don't know much about it yet, but it sounds exciting.

Currently the Steam servers have been under a lot of stress trying to handle all the Steam client updates for the new event and patches for their other games so I decided to post this as I wait for all the traffic to clear up.  On that note, see you guys later, time to see what it's like first hand!

Rapture in Minecraft

I just saw this on Youtube and was very impressed by it.  Some Penny Arcade members got together and created Rapture in Minecraft.  It's very fun to watch, it starts out the same way Bioshock does.  Your the sole survivor of an airplane crash in the middle of the ocean, as you swim to the surface there is wreckage around and you manage to swim to a mysterious structure to escape the water.  From there it goes on to include pretty much everything in Rapture. 



 Part 2




Now, I played through Bioshock a few years ago so I was surprised to actually recognize a few of the features.  I loved the little touches they added like making skins for every player, objects like the wrenches, adam machines, the soundtrack, and sound effects.  Columbia, the new setting for Bioshock 2, was also created in Minecraft but I don't think Bioshock 2 is even out yet so I'm not sure how that could be accurate.

As for my Minecraft project, I've been slacking a lot.  I've been playing too much SMP, in particular helping to finish another awesome project which involves a whole lot of mining. 

Conan is awesome!

What a badass.  I can't wait for his new show.  

Saharan Spy Ownage

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates.  I've been a bit busy lately with finding a job and especially playing Team Fortress 2.  The new Saharan Spy set of polycount items is amazing, I've been having a lot of fun with it recently.  I don't have the full set yet, just the pistol and knife... I really need to get the fez for the effect, it's very useful especially with the dead ringer.  To give you an idea of how great it is, check out this video.



I haven't done much with my Minecraft project recently, taking a sort of break from it.  Notch has posted some updates about the Halloween release and the anticipation is killing me.  One of the new block types was posted on his blog, if you haven't seen yet here it is.

Plus a new teaser for hell.

Where's Waldo?

The tunnel leading in to the sea lab has been finished, I still have a bit of dirt to remove around the glass and then I need to fill in the parted sea.  Once that's done I'll hollow out the sea lab and start furnishing it.  When the second sea tunnel is finished I should be done and ready to record.

Currently the sealab looks pretty boring... I'm thinking of digging into the ground a few feet to make it look a bit more interesting.

I had a bit of a problem with currents forming above the tunnel and I'm not sure of how to get rid of them.  Using a bucket to manually fill every block of current is pretty annoying.  I'll do a bit of research and see if I can remedy it, if not I guess it's going to stay.

Minecraft Project Update

Hello everyone!  I made some more progress on the sea tunnels so I thought I'd share them with you.  Sorry for the image quality, I have to play Minecraft in windowed mode to make it playable.  

At first I wanted to place dirt blocks in a 3x3 manner to cover everything for this and just surround the dirt blocks in glass so I could clear away the dirt and build through the hollowed out space.  That idea failed so I went with the good 'ole cover everything in dirt and hollow out a shell. 

 I need some help with this.  I'm not sure of the best way to arrange the entrance to the sea tunnels.  Right now I have a goofy looking cobblestone entrance but it looks out of place.  Ideally I would like it to look natural, mysterious, and for it to flow well from the coastline to the ocean.  Any suggestions? 

This is the forward base, not much here except for two furnaces, a chest, and a crafting table.  What you may not know about this is that the wiring for the lever you see in the picture was a pain in the ass.  Who knew using redstone could be so complicated.  At first I wanted a neat little redstone torch display system.  If the redstone torch on the right was lit that meant your were continuing on the track, if the redstone torch on the left was on that meant you were stopping at the base.  Unfortunately it didn't work out but I think it's pretty nifty. 

Just below where I'm standing in that picture was my first failed attempt at an underwater tunnel.  It was embarrassing and served no real purpose haha.  

Feel free to ridicule the cow in the first picture, he shouldn't be swimming while I'm trying to take pictures, the jerk.

Minecraft Halloween Update

Oh god, I got so excited when I first saw this.  Unfortunately I have to wait a few more weeks for it to be released. 

I'm not sure how the portal world will work, I'm guessing it will be very helpful to use but once your inside it's going to be very dangerous.  Nice idea, balancing risk with reward.  With that I can't help but wonder what the new mobs will be?  Maybe little demonic creatures or huge beasts.

Scarier depths.  This should be fun.  Hopefully the farther down you go, the better the rewards become.  Guess that means we will be getting new ores or maybe some of the new mobs will drop good items to use at the surface?  Love the flint and steel to reignite torches, much more realistic and gives F&S a new use.  I hope lanterns are brighter than torches. 

Looks like Notch has also revealed the use for the fishing rod he implemented in the last update.  Who's ready to go fishin'?  Haha.

Scare players online?  No clue how that's going to work, maybe give admins special new features.  I hope we can use a knife on a pumpkin and go into a sort of carving screen where we can customize our jack o lantern, that would be boss.

A new watch tells you when it's safe to come out of the caves?  The hell.  I guess that means the new objective for this world is to go underground, set up a base, and survive in the dark... spooky.

Minecraft Project

Hey guys I've been working on completing a Minecraft project recently. Basically it's going to be an uselessly long minecart track but that's okay because I'm not making it to be efficient. Instead the main goal is to show a scenic journey through the map from my main base to the spawn point. I'm nearly finished, just working on the sealab (haha! old adultswim show)and trying to work out the best way of making a minecart track go through water, to the sealab, and back out through the water to the spawn where the whole track can hopefully loop in some manner.

When it's done I'll record it and upload it to show you all. For any of you that play Minecraft, what would you like to see in it? Cya around everyone.

Amnesia The Dark Descent

My friend showed me this hilarious video. This guy recorded himself playing Amnesia The Dark Descent and he completely breaks down. Hilarious to watch but you would hate to be in his position, haha.



I've already seen a different Let's Play that went through this whole game already and it's going to get much worse for him.

Did you laugh or just feel bad for the guy?

Team Fortress 2 Dance Fortress

HUGE REMINDER
TF2 is half-off until next Monday!  Available on the Mac and PC, buy it now for $10 at the Steam store.




Great TF2 animation I saw on Youtube. Enjoy.