Art 1

So I have started my design and art classes and have decided to go ahead and post my art on here. Hope you like it and comments are always welcome. Here are a couple early pics.

busy.busy.busy

Based upon school and work and other personal items in my life I have had a bit of trouble getting things going on here and the podcast has also taken a knock back in scheduling. I have decided to try and get at least some small updates every week.

So the g/f and I have been on a BBC kick this week. We made it through the first 2 seasons(series) of Misfits and also have started working on Being Human. All I can say about Misfits is wow. Take equal parts Heroes and BBC Skins and combine them together with the most hatable yet lovable characters and some genuinely surprising moments and throw in a little gore and a lot of sex and you have Misfits. I can't encourage you to watch this enough and while it does take a little bit to get into the full story it does start very quickly in all other aspects.

We only made it through the first episode of Being Human due to it being 4 a.m. but as soon as it ended I wished I could stop time and continue watching more. Very good show as far as we have seen and highly recommended but I can't say the same with the SyFy version.

As far as music goes lately I haven't heard too much that I would recommend out. I have been bouncing back to older music as of late and highly recommend those bands but not a whole lot of new music has grabbed my attention. So as far as old music goes check out Jack's Mannequin. The lead singer of piano rock back Something Corporate's solo project. Great spring and summer music and due to being stuck in the cold midwest it really helps to ignore the shitty weather.

I think I am going to end on that note and hopefully(I know I say it a lot) I can get more posts up and try to find a time to get the podcast going. We are trying to figure out a format due to our first attempt being solely video games. I think we are leaning more towards a nerdist-esque format based around all of our hobbies and not singling out just one. So thanks to all and see you next time.

So after some time...You Don't Know Jack Review

So it has been quite some time and I have decided to jump back in and write a review of what I have been playing lately...You Don't Know Jack. This game was fairly big back in the 90's on the PC and has been faithfully revived on the current-gen systems. I say faithfully because they have even brought back Tom Gottlieb as the voice of host Cookie Masterson.

For those unfamiliar with the game, there are 2 main trivia rounds and 1 Jack Attack round. The main 2 rounds play out as any trivia game would. You have your questions with 4 possible answers and the person who buzzes in the quickest with the right answer earns the most money. The 3rd round, or the Jack Attack round, features scrolling words that fit together from a clue given at the beginning of the round. You buzz in the quickest to earn the points. Also, in the You Don't Know Jack formula, any wrong answer gets you insulted by the host.

There have been adjustments to the gameplay however. There is the opportunity to "screw" another player. Each game all players are given a screw which allows for them to force any player to have to answer the current question within 5 seconds. If the person fails, their score is diminished and the rest of the players get to guess the answer. If the person being "screwed" gets the correct answer the person who "screwed" them gets their score diminished. This definitely ups the ante and the challenge. The biggest change in gameplay that I noticed is the wrong answer of the game. At the beginning of the match a fake sponsor is shown as a clue. Throughout the game you have to look for the wrong answer that fits the clue for bonus points. This switches up the gameplay in not only looking for the correct answer but also in trying to figure out the wrong answer that fits the clue for each game.

Unlike some trivia games the game does not recycle questions. The game starts with 74 unique games and so far has released 1 game pack containing 10 more games. I think for the $30 price tag that isn't too bad and at 400 MS points for the game pack you get a lot of content for about $35. There is online playability but I have not tried that out so far. I have played with 2 people and 4, and 4 people far outweighs the 2. The game gets very intense with each player having a screw and basically trying to best all the rest. If you don't mind some yelling and some immature humor then do yourself a favor and pick this game up. The price tag isn't bad and they picked a great game to bring back. I know we will have fun at my house playing for awhile.

4 out of 5


Pros : Lots of unique games , Nostalgia factor
Cons : After playing through all the games you are kinda "Screwed"
Bottom Line : Fun for groups, and if they keep up with DLC this could be a good contender for a franchise revitalizer

HUGE NEWS

Well hello all...it's been awhile and much has changed since we last had a chat. This past evening I recorded a podcast with my good friend Aaron that will be placed both on his blog and this blog. The title is Nerd Media and it involves us discussing music, video games, movies, and other such fun items. Hopefully when it is edited and posted you all may enjoy it. Also I hope to have many blogs up soon as the work and school schedule I was on has calmed down quite a bit. I am hoping very much that the blog does well this time around and keeps going regardless of needing time or not. So to all the people who stuck it out and will be reading this, thank you, and to all the newcomers, welcome. Just as a reminder; if you want to add me on game systems here are my tags:

PS3 - zombiebait
Xbox360 - Zombiebait360

Hope to see you on...hopefully getting some Halo Reach in.

...

soon

So now I feel bad...

So I was going pretty good on the blog not to long ago and I let it drop off. To explain; up till now I have been working a part time job and going to school. Recently my financial situation changed and I have had to get another part time on top of that. Everything should be fine within the next couple months hopefully but this will kill a lot of my free time. The site won't be down or anything of that nature but I will be posting very infrequently and I do apologize for this. Please be patient and as soon as I can I will get some new items up. We are also still working on getting the podcast going but due to very different schedules we are finding it hard to do. Hopefully with fall and winter coming we will both be inside more and able to get more done online. Once again I am very sorry for not updating more frequently and for falling behind as much as I do. I do still have about 9 or 10 items I have been working on so look out for those within hopefully, the coming weeks. Thank you for any support you have given me and I won't let you down.

A couple topics I may start discussing

So I have noticed a steady increase of traffic on the site and I just want to say thank you guys so much for reading. I started this blog just thinking maybe some close friends will read it and here I am at almost 200 hits a month. It's no Google but I'm proud of it.

I believe I am going to spread out a bit for topics and see how that goes. I know everyone isn't into video games and comics but I can't drop that due to that being the field I want to be in however I can add some topics that might appeal to some of the other people.

I have been playing Disc Golf for about 5 years now and I think that I may be able to come up with some things about that such as course reviews or disc reviews.

I also switched my main computer to a Macbook Pro so I can mess around with Mac items and mention some of those.

I also started back in college and I debated talking about classes but am not sure if anyone cares to read about that.

If any of these topics sound like a nice addition let me know. Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook or just leave me a comment down in the box. Thanks again guys and gals.

Playstation Move

So earlier today when I started planning out this blog I knew I was going to receive comments referring to me as a hypocrite due to my hatred of motion controls. I will explain why I decided to purchase Move and what differences there are in Move that I didn't feel were in the Wii.

I already own the camera so it shouldn't be that expensive right? This is what I was thinking before I went out and picked up Move. I was very very wrong in this assumption. There are a lot of parts to Move. You have your Move remote($50), your navigation remote($30), the Playstation Eye($30), and if you want the full experience you need an additional Move remote...and that doesn't include any games unless you have one of the few games already out that support Move. I am not interested in playing Resident Evil 5 with Move and I don't care and will never care about S.O.C.O.M so instantly I knew I didn't need the navigation remote as of right now. The only game out that I really wanted was Sports Champions($40), Sony's answer to Wii Sports. I only wanted Sports Champions due to Disc Golf being on it. I am an avid Disc Golf player in real life so there was no way I was missing out on a claimed 1 to 1 experience. Upon getting everything set up, the cord for the eye being the worst part, I realized I was going to need to move some things around the room. Move doesn't work the same way as the Wii. The Wii follows the Wiimote similar to a laser pointer. Move follows the light on the top on the controller and the camera to map out where your body is. It will actually follow you if you move towards or away from the camera. I have been told Wii Motion Plus does something similar to this but more along the lines of how an Ipod knows which way you are holding it.

Sports Champions comes with 6 games: Bocce, Disc Golf, Archery, Gladiator, Beach Volleyball, and Table Tennis. Beach Volleyball is not at all fun in my opinion so I won't mention it at all. Archery does really work and it is kind of neat using 2 remotes to simulate pulling an arrow out of your quiver. Gladiator I have not had any issues with and I find it fun in small doses. Table tennis I had the most issues with due to limited room to play. You actually have to move everywhere in this one. Bocce and Disc Golf are by far my favorites on the game and I would buy full fledged versions of these games if they decided to make them. Bocce is very similar to a bigger game of marbles. The goal is to throw out a small ball and then get larger balls as close to the small one as possible. It is very fun with the motion controls. Disc Golf...aka...the only reason I wanted any of this, has met all of my expectations. The controls are almost spot on with real life and I only had issues with fore-hand throws. The courses on all the games are fairly limited so hopefully we will have some DLC courses.

Overall the game plays well for the most part. The characters are bland and unimaginative and a create your own would have worked well. I can't let this bring the game down because to be honest I don't like any of the 3 systems avatar systems. They are all kind of creepy and I promise all 3 systems sports games will feature art similar to their avatars. As far as a launch titles goes it is decent enough and shows off the hardware well.

As far as motion controls go I hate the Wii due to it not working correctly and a lot of people have told me motion plus fixes that but to me the Move tech and Wii tech are different. The Wii is a glorified pointer while Move uses the camera to map where you are. I can understand people hating Sony for "imitating" Nintendo but they didn't just copy the tech. They changed and improved on the idea of motion controls. Neither of them are perfect by any means but I see progress in Move. I got it because to me it's progress. It isn't a knockoff.

As far as other games go that are either compatible or came out I have tried a few. The girl and I tried out Eyepet and she seemed to enjoy it but I got bored after about 35 seconds. We also tried the building game Tumble and had some fun with the demo. Tumble may be worth the $10 price tag. Hustle Kings, from one of my first reviews on the blog, got a compatibility patch and can now be played with Move. It does work but I would much rather use the controller for it. High Velocity Bowling is another game that got a patch but as of right now it is a Playstation Plus exclusive.

Overall I am happy with my purchase. As of right now there isn't a whole lot out there for anyone but families and tech nerds but the tech works well and I do think that once they start supporting it it will do well. Sorcery is one game I can think of that seems to be doing what needs to be done with motion games.

So....

So I picked up Playstation Move and have been playing with that for a little bit now and I will have that review up sometime this week and I will see if I can try out any other games for it besides Sports Champion. Couldn't get the podcast up this week due to scheduling conflicts but hopefully soon. Thanks again.

Bring Me the Horizon

So I'm sitting here smoking a cigarette listening to Bring Me the Horizon on my Ipod and I feel at peace. I don't know how many other people get that feeling listening to incredibly violent metal but different strokes right?

Bring Me the Horizon are a British metalcore band. Metalcore standing for a combination of metal and hardcore music. This tends to have to do with the time signature and also with how they tune their instruments. One of my friends showed me the band and I have been amazed ever since. The band so far has 3 full length albums and 1 EP. I have mostly listened to their 2nd full length CD, Suicide Season. On a quick side-note there is a remix album of Suicide Season. The CD is absolutely brutal lyrically and instrumentally. Some stand out tracks for me on this album include; Chelsea Smile, Football Season is Over, and Sleep With One Eye Open.

The music is hard to explain so I guess I will try to combine other bands to do that. They have the synth of Underoath and the vocals come off somewhere between Glassjaw, The Acacia Strain, and newer Underoath. Even that doesn't do it much justice. They have call out vocals harkening back to older hardcore bands. They also mix in some electronic elements similar to Drop Dead, Gorgeous or The Devil Wears Prada. It is a very eclectic sound but completely unique.

 I haven't gone much into their older album and have been meaning to make time to do that along with getting ready for the new CD. If you are into metal at all you have to check out Bring Me the Horizon. The lyrics are some of the best metal lyrics I have heard lately and just the overall energy and emotion put into some of the songs is astounding. Check this out.

Update tomorrow

I will have a band review up tomorrow on Bring Me the Horizon...nifty little band from Britain. Also I should be getting the podcast started up this week with hopefully a trial run towards the end of the week and hopefully try and get some other blogs written up time willing. Thanks as always guys and hang in there while I get my schedule fixed up...almost on track.

Stephanie Holmes Hometown Comedy Show

I have a little side note before I get into this blog. At this show last night I ran into a lot of high school friends and such and 1 in particular I would like to thank. As I was leaving she told me she keeps up with the blog but she doesn't much get into games but she likes it and this made me feel so great about the blog and it makes me want to keep up a bit more. So you know who you are and thank you.

So I have been spamming that I went to this since last night so I figured I should elaborate on the experience. Background info - Stephanie and I went to high school together and I have known her for years. She was always the funny theater girl who had big ambitions. I hadn't seen her in years due to her moving to New York out of high school. I got an invite on Facebook a few weeks ago letting me know she would be back in our hometown to do a free comedy show. I had no idea what she had been up to for all this time and it was great to see she was doing what she wanted to after all these years.

She was described to me as such; classier than Sarah Silverman and she gets paid to write dick jokes. All right I thought...high school. In all honesty though I was very impressed. She has amazing timing on all her jokes and she has the ability to take the joke down to the point that everyone has become uncomfortable except 3 people in the room. This to me is the ability of a great comedian. To be able to go from a full room  of laughter down to a joke so extreme that the audience knows it's funny but is uncomfortable about laughing. George Carlin was able to do this and lately I have seen Daniel Tosh do this.

She was very versatile in her material making everyone in the room feel a part of the joke. Ranging from jokes about poop to funny stories of high school. A few political jokes sprinkled in for good measure and I have to say it would fit on any Comedy Central Presents. I came home after the show and went to Youtube to see if she had any videos and I was surprised to see a couple music videos and some live stand up. I am not going to just say support her because I went to school with her...I'm going to say support her because she deserves it. It is obvious she takes a lot of time to work on her material and she cares very much about her craft. If she comes near you support her. I will link her Youtube at the bottom of this page and if you have some extra time check her videos out. Forewarning they do contain adult material.

SHolmesComedy - Youtube

Monster Rancher DS Review

So I picked up Monster Rancher DS not too long ago in an attempt to relive some of my childhood gaming habits. The basic setup has not changed over the years and only a few things have actually been updated for the newer system. In the original for the Playstation you had to swap out different CDs to obtain monsters and it was a very unique idea and had me scrambling for every CD in the house. This time around they are playing to the strengths of the DS and allow you to either say a word or phrase or you can draw a picture onto a grid to obtain a monster. I really enjoy this and spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what monsters I could get.

You can store up to 30 monsters in a "cryo" chamber and for the first part of playing I did nothing but draw pictures and store the monsters I wanted. After creating your monster you can take it back to your ranch. The ranch is made up of a stable for your creature and a house. You can upgrade 1 of these every year. The larger the stable you have determines the size of monsters you can have. The larger the house you have determines how many items you can have. From there you can train your monster through different tasks that will raise it's stats. You also later on in the game can take your monster to a location and train it's stats up much more than usual. This will cost a good chunk of money but also will save you lots of time. These area's are set up like a board game and can raise stats, lower stats, generate a random wild monster, and raise and lower the amount of rolls you have. There are also areas that you can search with your monster but I never got into these so I don't have much to say on them.

Once you train up your monsters you can take it to battle. You can only battle in the level you are in starting at D and working your way up. I prefer to train my monster up a lot before I enter these so that I can have the monster make it's own moves and I can just watch the battle. I have yet to finish the game and I don't think I have ever finished a Monster Rancher game. I like to just do the everyday training and see what all monsters I can get. I like to look at these games as a less in depth Pokemon. You get your monster, raise it's stats, and battle in tournaments. There are no RPG elements beyond that. You don't have to walk around and there aren't any random battles. In this way I think it is more accessible.

Based on what I have played so far and the amount of enjoyment and nostalgia I can honestly say the games hasn't needed to change much to still be fun. I'm giving this one a...

9 out of 10

so i have a question...

So I just received my new computer for school and boy...I have no idea what I'm doing. It is a Macbook Pro and I have never really used a Mac before with the exception of long long ago. If anyone has any advice or any program recommendations please let me know. It could very well save me a lot of time. Thanks in advance.

hello again

So this is my first week back in college so things have been a little hectic to say the least. I do have 5 blogs that I am working on so I have the next couple weeks lined up to post. They won't all be comic ones like the past few but I do have a couple of those as well. I am attempting to stagger what I talk about and not have too many of the same things all in a row. I have 2 DS game reviews coming up, a PS3 DLG review coming up, and 2 comic reviews coming up. I also, towards the end of this week, will be switching the majority of my online work over to a new laptop so hopefully everything goes over well and I will have that figured out fairly quickly.

Once again thanks for reading to those of you who do and for all those in school, good luck. Thanks.

MARVEL ZOMBIES DEAD DAYS AND 2 - Comic Review

I love zombies. They are one my favorite creatures in any media. Give me zombie movies, games, TV shows, comics, anything. As long there are zombies in it I'm usually game. Marvel Zombies has been around for a bit now and I have browsed through a couple but just never had the extra cash laying around to get any. I recently scrapped some change together and checked out Dead Days and 2.

Dead Days comes right after the original Marvel Zombies but is a prequel and 2 comes after Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness which comes after Dead Days. The first thing I should point out is the these are not your kids comics. They are gory, violent, and at often times so hilariously cynical it makes me want to cry.

Basic premise is fairly straightforward: Alien virus infects super humans thus turning them into zombies however they are left with full brain function. In Dead Days they had eaten everyone in the universe and were trying to find a way to a new universe for more food. I don't really want to ruin anymore of the story by going into it so I'll leave it at that. It may be easier to start with the first Marvel Zombies to at least catch up in the story. I had read most of those before owning these.

As far as I am concerned though these are some of the best comics I have read in a very long time...and I have read almost all the Scott Pilgrim books. Pick it up check it out...bottom line...

10 out of 10

NEW RANT

So I was sitting at my computer reading the current news on Joystiq when it occurred to me that I am really sick of the way the industry is going. I was at first excited some years ago when the Wii was coming out. I thought that the motion controls would better emulate the arcade systems I had grown up with. Little did I know that all they would do was make it harder to play shovel-ware titles because the controls never work. I was so excited about the prospects of the Wii and at that time I hated Sony. I didn't want anything to do with Sony. I bought my Xbox 360 and was waiting to be able to find a Wii. Since that time I sold my Wii, and I sold my Xbox 360, and the only current gen home console I still own is the PS3. My g/f owns a Wii but she had that before I met her...so I won't hold it against her.

I already ranted about motion controls but this seems as good a way as any to break into the real rant. I had to start this way to emphasize I no longer have a 360 or Wii so most of the time I have to wait to try certain games. This is exactly what happened recently at a friend's house. I recently sat down and watched Limbo...or as I like to call it, A Violent Boy without His Blob, and realized that I really can't stand most indie games anymore. When indie games started popping up on the PS3 and the other systems I was so excited, due to wanting to make games all my life, but recently they have been all style and no substance. Don't give me a game and say well...what do you think it's about? That is just plain lazy. Come up with a cohesive story and explain that to me. SPOILER ALERT...or not. I don't want to sit there and think that this stupid kid was attacked by a giant spider in a forest that's chief export is bear traps and he has somehow died and the other little shadow people want him to relive this over and over.

Just because you make a game that is shadowy and to the naked eye looks like it should be super arty and super intellectual does not mean it is. I used to like art games and had a great time with Everyday Shooter and I even tried out echochrome but to me games like this are just lazy. I know it can be hard to write a story but don't just make a game function. Put some time and love into it for fuck's sake.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - video game review

So I just sunk about 3 hours into playing all the way through the new Scott Pilgrim game and I can only say that it was time well spent. The game plays much like an old school beat-em-up such as Streets of Rage. There is however a level system and based on your level you acquire certain moves you use to fight. Along with that you earn money and with the money you go into shops to buy items to raise your other skills such as strength, defense, and speed.

The games art is done by Paul Robertson, known for his work with the Drawn to Life games and his film Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006. His art tends to be on the chibi side with all his characters looking like little pixelated people. The music is all done in midi format so it sounds like a retro game. The music in the game was composed by Anamanaguchi which is a chiptune punk band. Everything about the games art and music style lends it back to retro games and it fits perfectly with the comic.

The game has 4 playable characters and you can play up to 4 player similar to a Castle Crashers type play. The game is filled to the brim with charm from the comic and I have never seen a licensed game live up to my expectations. It isn't too say my expectations are low, most licensed games just aren't very good. It just goes to show what a good art style, music choice, and source material can do for a game. As I said earlier the game is a beat-em-up. You go through each level based on an evil ex, fighting henchman and collecting cash to power up. At the end of each level you face off against an ex. These fights are great and the animations on them are stunning. I replayed most of them just to see them again.

There are online leaderboards for scores but nothing too major and I don't believe there is any online co-op to speak of. Minor complaint on an otherwise amazing game. At only $9.99 you owe it to yourself and your friends to get this game.

9.5 out of 10

Runaways - Comic Review

I have gotten a few new graphic novels recently to try and find some new good stories to follow and luckily on my last try I found a few. The one I'm about to talk about is written by none other than Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was more than happy to try this comic out as I have been a huge fan of his throughout the years on various projects.

To sum up the premise: The group of mutants are all children of super villains. They escape their parents and attempt to set up a super group of heroes. There is also a bit of time traveling involved to mix things up. I picked up the book "Dead End Kids". I have absolutely no idea where this fits in the story at all and at times I felt a bit out of place. However the stand alone story was fantastic mixing in time travel with a fair bit of action, a couple love stories including one that doesn't end very well, and some great art. This book is a must read. After reading this one I very much want to pick up the rest of the series and see where it goes.

I am always worried when I pick up new comics because I never know how far out of my comfort zone I'm going to get. Am I going to know any of the characters? Are they going to make up a tone of tech stuff I'll know nothing about? Things like that go through my head when I pick up new comics and I was very surprised to see a couple guys I recognized. Almost right off the bat you get Kingpin and the Punisher and that for me was just great.

I can't stress this enough. Runaways...great comic. Check it out.

8.7 out of 10

Shit My Dad Says

So as far as I am aware everyone who spends any time on the internet is at least partially aware of the Twitter of Justin Halpern...also called Shit My Dad Says. The basic premise is that a 28 year old is dumped by his girlfriend and he moves back in with his parents, of which his retired father is 73, and in my opinion one of the great philosophers of our day.

From the Twitter page Justin expanded out and actually put out a memoir style book of the same title, Shit My Dad Says. I picked the book up a few days ago and in just a couple hours had flown through it. I could not put the book down. The intro explains the whole premise of the book, the Twitter page, and from there we have stories from Justin's youth that he and his family had sat down to reminisce about.

The book is broken up into a series of 3 to 5 page stories with 4 to 5 pages of quotes from his dad in between. This form fits the book perfectly as I had read a bit of the Twitter and having the little backgrounds behind some of the quotes really lets you learn how he grew up and a lot about the father/son bond. I read this book in 1 sitting. At 159 pages the book isn't too long but I feel it is honestly the perfect size for someone who is busy but still would like to read a great book full of funny stories and once going through it actually feel that deep down there was a lot of love put into this book in both the writing and also in the father/son bond that you learn about.

Seriously if you haven't heard about this, get it. If you have it, read it. Bottom line...it's amazing and it deserves to be read by everyone...

10 out of 10