Well with all the hype around finally releasing The Walking Dead Episode 3 (and trust me I am excited!) it seems as though Telltales page is down. I have been frequenting it for the last hour or so to see when it may be available on Steam. While replying to a post on their forums it went completely out on me. Well I will keep refreshing hoping for some good news 
No luck yet but hopefully it comes back up soon for us all.
Greetings, fellow Geekdomers!
So back in October of last year, I started doing a “Let’s Play” of Batman: Arkham City, after finishing up Arkham Asylum again. I got pretty far into it, and did a playthrough outside of the recorded stuff, and I love it. Then it kinda fell away as my console recorder died and other games came out. But because of the Dark Knight Rises, and Lego Batman 2, I decided to play Arkham City again. I was lucky enough to get it on the PC this time, and I’m about to start doing another “Let’s Play” for the New Game Plus.
But after I played through it, since I’m on Geekdom here, I thought I would review it. So here we go!!!
So as I like to do, first up are my comments on the story. Basically, they have setup a prison inside Gotham City, and all the bad guys you love from the years of Batman are there: Two-Face, the Penguin, Joker of course, etc. And we find out Joker is dying for some reason and it’s our job as the Cape Crusader to bring justice to this lawless land.
I really like the story, even if it’s not as original as Arkham Asylum. I still prefer that one’s story and location. But the story and how it’s executed in AC is really good. The characters are all true to their source material (astleast from what I know of it). The only issue I sort of have is that almost every location that’s iconic from Batman is in this walled off prison, from the Ace Chemicals where joker because his crazy self, to the theatre and alley where Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed. Only the Wayne Tower seems to be outside the wall. Just a little too easy to think all those locations where right next to each other in the massive city that is Gotham.
Next up is presentation, such as how good it looks, and how well everyone acts. Hands down this is the best looking Batman ANYTHING!!! I loved the animated series, I loved Batman in the Justice League, but this is how Batman should have always looked. Same goes for pretty much all the characters. The Joker, voiced by the great Mark Hamill is just impeccable. Two-Face, voiced by Troy Baker, sounds exactly like Two-Face should. The Penguin, Catwoman, Ra’s Al Ghul , all of them are phenomenal. The only 2 I have a problem with are Harley Quinn and Clayface. Quinn sounds perfect, I just wish her outfit was different. I don’t know if it’s because I want to see her in her old one piece outfit or what, but the new one didn’t do it for me. And with Clayface, his face seemed too beastly. In the animated series, and most other sources, his face is kinda bloated, exaggerated and somewhat more human, where in this his face is like a snarling monster with lots of gooey teeth. Just a nitpick, I guess.
Well, seems our time is up and we gotta pass judgment. This game is nearly perfect. The controls are smooth, the acting is all solid, the environments are beautiful, and the story is just fine. Again, it ain’t as original as Arkham Asylum was, but damned if it ain’t got more scale…and Moxie.
So like most people who visit out site I am a geek. But the last few years I have become more and more involved in the Geek Culture and I love how we have even have out own music from Nerdcore to Chiptune its becoming more and more apparent that we really stepped into our own. Some of these artist are amazing and others show tremendous amounts of potential. I am hesitant to rag on any artist in particular due to my music ability is that of the armpit fart (and even then I couldn’t beat Wacko Warner).
One artist I fell in love with is Superpowerless. His music has been nothing short of amazing and is constantly playing in my iTunes and on my iPhone. From his covers of Depeche Mode, Postal Service, to even Lady Gaga he has never stopped amazing me. And today when browsing my Facebook wall he I stopped short again. He had posted a brand new music video. One he collaborated with a newer artist name Pixelle.
Now we all love zombies, we all love gameboy, we all love video games and music, so lets combined them all into a jumbled bout of awesomeness! Now usually the vocals are male accompanied by the awesome 8-bit sound. This time we got something completely new and Pixelle pulled her weight for my very heigh expectations. I am excited to see such further collaborations between these two amazing artists. Click to watch the video below you won’t be disappointed. I know I wasn’t .
Aria the Scarlet Ammo (‘hidan no aria” [he-dan no are-ee-ah] in Japanese) is an action, romantic comedy harem. It’s a very funny and awesome 12 episode series, with one OVA.
Students at Tokyo Butei High, a universal educational facility, undertake special training in order to learn the path of a Butei. A Butei is a national qualification permitting its holders to arm themselves and capture criminals. They were established to counter the worsening crime conditions. The Butei Division consists of Assault, Snipe, Dragula, Inquesta, Repier, Amdo, Logistics, Connect, Informa, Medica, Ambulance, SSR, CVR, and Masters.
The Assault Division, also known as the “Department With No Tomorrow,” is the most dangerous department in Butei High School, with 3 out of 100 students, enrolled in the program, not surviving to graduation. Members of Assault perform mid- to close-range combat in various operations. They specialize in the usage of handguns, swords, and other various weapons.
The Snipe Division is for long range combat by using sniping weapons.
The Intelligence Division is in charge of making intelligence reports on criminal organizations. They are also involved in the construction and analysis of strategies.
The Dragula Division is in charge of interrogating captured criminals.
Inquesta is in charge of investigation in applying detective and reasoning skill to analyze information.
Repier is in charge of scientifically testing proofs and use scientific devices to search for clue in crime scenes.
Amdo is in charge of supplying, customizing, and maintenance of Butei equipment.
Logistics in is charge of piloting any kind of transportation means. This includes land, sea, or aerial transportation.
Connect is in charge of providing information as a backup using communication devices.
Inform is in charge of compiling and sorting information, using information processing equipments.
Medica is in charge of medical care.
Ambulance serve in Butei hospitals. They are in charge of educating future doctors.
SSR (Supernatural Searching Research), the Psychic Ability Investigation Research Team, is in charge of supernatural or psychological crime investigation.
CVR (Civetta Research), the Special Investigation Research Team, is a division only girls with exceptional beauty can enter. Under special condition, they use their physical charm to apprehend criminals.
The Masters division consists of the faculty members of Butei School.
The ranks for the school that go from the lowest level are Level E, Level D, Level C, Level B, Level A, Level S. The rank Level S is for Butei members who have near-superhuman strength and skill.
Kinji Toyama [Keen-jee Toh-yah-mah] is the protagonist of the series and a student at Butei High School. He is ranked level E, the lowest combat rank, due to missing the third term’s final exam. When Kinji is sexually aroused, his cognitive and physical abilities increase to around thirty times his normal, which allows him to perform feats of near-superhuman strength and skill. This state is what he calls “Hysteria Mode.” Hysteria Mode is a genetic trait that all members of the Toyama family possess and is stated to be an extremely highly evolved version of the natural male instinct to protect women. When in Hysteria Mode, Kinji’s major weakness is that he cannot directly harm women, although he is still able to fight and restrain them. Also, Hysteria Mode causes Kinji to develop a suave and seductive attitude towards women, which makes him very attractive to him. He is currently enrolled in the Inquesta department. He was once a prodigy, being ranked Level S, of the Assault department. Kinji uses a Beretta 92F, which was illegally modified to fire a three-round burst. He refers to it as the Beretta Kinji Model. He also wields a butterfly knife.
Aria H. Kanzaki [Kahn-zah-kee] is a female transfer student of Butei High. She is ranked Level S and is in the Assault division. She can wield two guns and two swords at the same time, earning her the title of “Quadra.” Her weapons of choice are two M1911 pistols and Kodachi. Her mother is Japanese and her father is English. Her grandmother is a member of the British Royal Family, in which Aria has the title of a “dame.”
Shirayuki Hotogi is a female student of Butei High and childhood friend of Kinji. She is enrolled in Butei’s SSR division as a rank Level A. She is the student council chairman and the president of various clubs. According to Kinji, she is the perfect Japanese beauty, except for when her jealousy comes out. She then, turns into a berserker who assaults any female that approaches Kinji. She uses a Japanese sword, named Irokane Ayame.
Riko Mine is a female student of Butei High. She’s enrolled in the Inquesta division with Kinji. Riko is often considered the biggest idiot in class. She has a talent for intelligence assessment and gossip, at Butei High. She enjoys customizing her uniform into the Lolita style. She wields two Walther P99s and two daggers.
Reki is a female student at Butei High. Her real name is unknown. She is in the Snipe division as a rank Level S. She is the Snipe division’s ace. Reki is always seen wearing headphones, listening to the sound of the wind. She can shoot anything without missing her target within a 2km radius. Her weapon is a Dragunov sniper rifle with an attachable bayonet.
There are many more characters to meet from this anime.
This anime is one of my favorites. It’s just plain awesome to watch. Neither of the main characters are weak. Definitely badass. It has great comedy and action, also a little ecchi moments, and has a wonderful storyline.
Now I know it has been a long time coming for me to update. I know I am a terrible person and I should be taken outside and beaten with reeds. But now while I am laying in a bloody mess on the pavement let me tell you all about Mountain Lion.
I will admit as a complete fanboy it didn’t take me long to decide to plunge right in and buy this upgrade. It was a bit foolish (seeing as I have done this twice now without thinking about the proper ramifications for said actions) but I really didn’t think about that until right after it was done updating.
With complete honestly I wasn’t expecting much maybe a little bit of graphic awesomeness, maybe a sweet intro movie (which *sigh* didn’t happen) but I got a few pretty cool features I honestly enjoy so I will talk about them.
The numero uno of awesomeness is the airplay. Now I know this could be showing my fanboyishness but I love my Apple TV I could write a fully article on how much I have used. And how little I watch regular TV since. But thats not the point. Sometimes I don’t want to have to watch things on my computer. I would much rather set Hulu or some other site to stream and plop my big butt down on the couch. And now I can. I will say the audio can be a bit low but honestly I see no real issues. Its a cool feature and I look forward to seeing other ways I can implement it.
Another fun one is the Twitter integration aspect. While at first I just thought it was going to be notifications of tweets until my buddy Slucko told me exactly how to send them from my desktop. Honestly another full win for me. I can be twice as obnoxious and I think that is a beautiful thing (please send all thank you mail to slucko@geekdomkingdom.com I am sure he will thank you for it). Either way its nice to not have to go though the app or website itself. Just an extra connivence that I will fully love.
I played with dictation and got very mixed results but it could be due to the way I speak but I will say Siri can understand me pretty damn well so I assume thats something that will be fixed in time. I look forward to when it does though due to being lazy and being able to speak out these columns would be alot of fun. At least I really think it would.
So I will be ending this column with these thoughts. Honestly you might want to wait to upgrade if you don’t find it completely needed. I am loving it so far and I find it to be much more stable then Lion was. I went in expecting it to be mostly a gloss over and losing 20 dollars. Instead I got a solid OS upgrade so far. I look forward to playing with it more and maybe just maybe being able to speak my future columns.
Mountain Lion: B+ so far.
In case you didn’t read my previous review about this movies sequel, I have not read a comic, thus I don’t know how the comic version of Ghost Rider is. Just sayin’.
This has got to be one of the best comic book movies I’ve ever seen. I know, crazy, right?! Before I had rewatched this movie, I just thought it was a good movie, now I’m seeing it as so much more.
First, let’s get the story out of the way. I personal didn’t understand the story about how this “deal” from long ago gave someone power. Why didn’t the Devil just collect it sooner? Why didn’t someone else try to collect it sooner? Don’t know, don’t care. It’s there as a means to an end, so the story is forgettable. Now, Johnny Blaze’s story, that’s a much more interesting, and thankfully, easy to understand, part of this movie. I won’t go into it too much, but he gives up his soul for his dad who is dying but dies anyway. Bummer. Ok, so it doesn’t sound so great, but hey, this came out in the 70’s, give it a break. So, why does this movie get such high praise if the story is full of “meh”? Because the story isn’t whats important in this movie, it’s about the dialogue between characters, the emotions, the humor (which I’m happy to report there is tons of!!!), and the power of those lines. Even if you got some unknown actors, this would have turned out just as good because the script is that good.
Ok, so we got the good script, but who are we gunna get to play this who isn’t going to fall and burn? (hehe, you see what I did there?) Nick Cage gives this character life and I personally enjoyed his performance. He is sad, a little emo, full of piss and vinegar, so basically normal Nick Cage. Eva Mendez is exquisite as the love interest, and she places it well. I haven’t seen her in much else, but I could see Eva easily being like her character all the time. Peter Fonda, who plays the Devil (or in the official canon: Mephistopheles) is the perfect person for this role. He’s old, has a great voice, and is just mysterious enough to keep you guessing! Also, Sam Elliot, who plays the old Caretaker and does the narration for parts, is also perfect and I’m so glad they didn’t go any other way.
So we finally come to my favorite part, the effects! This movie makes beautiful use of both visual and special effects. Something I think is wrong with a lot of newer movies is they try to be so over the top and make it look beyond epic. But you need to have control. You can be epic without going too far, and Ghost Rider has done just that. The Rider looks real enough without losing his semi-comic look. I especially love the flaming rain and fireballs, it was awesome! And there was also a scene with a good ol’ zoom-in-really-close-to-the-eyes shot that had me giggling with joy. All in all, they made good use of CGI and other special effects without making them too grandiose.
Well, it’s time we sum it up, partner. I’m gunna give this movie a 9/10 because it had did nearly everything right and will be with me long after I watch it several move times.
I have not posted in a while and it seems I am just thrilled to hear my keyboard click, it sounds awesome. So here we are again with me dropping a blog this time not in anger although that one probably would have been beast. This here blog of mine today is going to go over my new love and obsession, vagina….wait no its The Secret World, much easier to buy.
So hold on to your fucking hats, this game RULES! I mean I have loved before, I mean there has been so much in the last year to keep my eyes constantly melting out my head, but this this is different. This game blows my mind at so many levels and those of you who have nitpicks can stow it because the fact of the matter is I will not be swayed.
First off this game has you starting as a human, a fucking HUMAN, no other options, you ascend-sure , but overall it is refreshing to break away from the optional races and tribes and whatever. I like looking like a normal guy,but still having the ability to run around and fuck things up. The story is really what shines here, I mean to me, I will outright refuse to post spoilers because I want everyone to feel the love and shock of simple intros to the clans and things of that nature. I do also love the no levels, no classes aspect of this game it really breaks away from the norm, it makes for a lot less of the “you aren’t the right level” and so on. I will not break into a lot of detail, I will merely go over some key things I love here. Short of words, rare I know.
My biggest boner for this game comes in the form of the quest types. Three main types of questing, action, espionage, and puzzle. First two repeatable, the third understandably not so much. The real world research needed to decode messages and to figure out whats needed, breathes fresh air into this gaming genre. I feel many games could learn from this. The in game browser lets you know that you need to get on the web and start looking and the well educated or even the occult oriented will have long head start. My foot went numb as i was writing this, it feels funny. Anyways, oh I can feel my toes again. Ok so there is these quest types and they give variation breaks the monotony of doing the same old kill\collect seen in most games. Gives me a massive nerd-on.
The second most prominent thing about this game is the WORLD. It is massive, no mounts just running, to the ever present instant gratification crowd, you will be disappointed, and to this I say good, go find a game that rewards you for turning it on and leave these games to those of us who become wet at the sight of in game scenery.
Also a huge selling point the environments are FUCKING CREEPY. I mean I don’t usually get nervous when playing games even survival horror…ok thats a lie i piss my self whenever a boogey man jumps in the shadows, but I love it! I mean a world that can make question how badly I want to finish a quest because I am afraid I might scream, like the frat girl finding the body is exciting as hell, when was the last time an MMO gave you pause cause you were all like ~ fuck that there is something bad in that room and it might kick my ass~ none to my recollection.
The characters are all pretty entertaining and the intro to almost all quests with a storyline cut-scene is genius. Other MMO’s force you to read a quest and get into from sheer text and if any of you out there are like me, you learn to skip that shit real fast cause seeing shit is more engrossing than reading, well at least in a game world. Books I understand, games? Fuck you I came here not to read books, obviously.
The lore of this world is rich and oh yeah STEEPED IN REALITY. That right, a lot of this content is based on shit that really happened or for the most part is real world mythology, or just ripped from the pages of Lovecraft and who the fuck would complain? Overall its the story and the environments that keep me coming back, I love that there are things that kick me out of houses but when I’m dead and running back to my body I can see them, that shit is super creepy and a haunted amusement park, fuck yes! It’s like a live “Welcome to Monsterland” you know if R.L Stine was into men robbing children of their souls and shit. I think he might be. I mean I read all those books as a kid and afterwards I felt…different. Not the point. I’ll get to the point.
The point is, if you are looking for something that is different and you wanna try something new this game may be exactly what you are looking for. If it isn’t, then fuck off and go play MW like all the rest of the sheep. Tool. God that game sucks…
I would like to address something that has been tweaking the nipple of many online parishioners of this fine game causing them to bitch and whine like MW players. Yes I hate that game and the ilk it bears. Jesus infinity ward get your shit together, you have had how many years? I digress. Many people shy away from this game because of monthly fees and they don’t feel that is fair, especially with and in game online store. I will break this down for you simply. It is a necessary evil. I don’t like to pay money I don’t have either, but if it keeps this game coming out with more story and more locations and more content of this engrossing quality, why the fuck wouldn’t I pay it?
I know the online community is going to hold up their pre-orders for GW2 and say ohoh look at what arena net can do. Yeah no shit. I believe heavily that GW2 will give me many nerd oriented hard-ons no doubt and it is super fucking sweet of them to not have monthly fees. I am on my way to buy knee pads right now to show them my appreciation, however they do not have the same size staff, or tried and proven writers at the helm that will ever make the lore of a game this encompassing. I guarantee it. Don’t mistake this for hate, far from it. I will indeed buy and pay GW2 as I did for GW1 and all following xpacs for it, they had my faith many years ago before Blizzard stole my soul.
I still say, if you want quality you pay for it, granted the game has issues, it is in it’s infancy after all and the pvp is fucking awful- oh by the way if you like pvp this game will not bring you to climax, just saying. If my only option is to fork out 14.99 a month to keep something this different on the market than I gladly pay, cause as it stands no other game so far has combined all these things together so richly. This experience is most certainly one of a kind and if Funcom can keep bringing people in and keep peoples interest(cough-more ARG’s that shit was tight-cough) then we will have a rich world and we can see the six year dream come to life.
All in all I say I love this game, not as much as I love your mom, you know who you are ;0
Stay tuned for me dropping more in the coming weeks this blog has been absent for too long and I forget how much I like to be vulgar on the interwebz.
CP out.
So as some of you may know, I’ve read 0 comics. I recently bought the new Justice League comic, but have yet to crack it up. But I do know of Marvel and DC characters from games, TV shows and reading the wikis. With that in mind, I’m still making assumptions about these characters. You’ve been warned.
So this movie is the sequel to 2007′s Ghost Rider with Nic Cage and Eva Mendez. Personally, I liked that movie (I’ll be reviewing it this coming week). That movie was all about him learning to live with that new power. This movie, is something completely different. Here, Nic Cage is trying to control the crazy beast inside him and going pretty insane in the process. He doesn’t like it, wants to get rid of it and is pretty miserable. As far as the story goes, I don’t really care for it. I liked the first one and how he was dealing with it. Now he’s basically an emo kid, but on steroids. So the story gets a “meh” in my book.
When you get past the crappy story and look at the effects, it’s very nice and detailed. The weathering of the Rider’s skull, how his leather jacket looks so worn, how much more realist everything looks, its all very well done. Other than the Ghost Rider himself, I didn’t notice too many other special effects. There are plenty of visual effects, and they don’t feel really out of place, it all kinda makes sense. The effects, both special and visual get a “Smurf yea!!!” in my book.
Now on to acting. Like I said, Nic Cage is a big emo baby. He does show he’s still human in this after awhile of getting to know the kid, but early on it kinda feels forced. Plus, he’s as crazy as ever in this, which is where he seems to shine. You feel like he’s trying to control his inner demon. The mother of the child, Violante Placido, does a good job of being a concerned mother, but thats about all. Idris Elba, who plays a drunk, black, Frenchman named Moreau, who some of you may remember from Thor as Heimdall, plays his character well and doesn’t seem to deviate from that description. The others didn’t feel as outstanding to me. Acting, in general, gets a “w00t” in my book.
So to sum up, “meh”, “Smurf yea!”, “w00t”. I enjoyed it, but I won’t be watching it all the time and thinking about it before I go to bed.
This week’s 1001 Blog Club selection is one most of you have probably never heard of, and I included myself in that category until I found the 1001 Book. Nevertheless, this is an extremely memorable film, if not for all the most comfortable reasons, that deals with the life philosophy of a pair of down-on-their-luck stage actors as they go about a vacation to Uncle Monty’s house. Of course, being a black comedy, the vacation is anything but, and that phrase so aptly describes this movie that it bears repeating: this is a black, black comedy, and a very British one at that. The rest of the 1001 bloggers seem to be in relative agreement as far as this one is concerned, but still, check out the site and see what everyone else said.
What a piece of work is a man!
Withnail & I is a British film directed by Bruce Robinson about two young barely-in-work actors living in squalor and despondence who decide to take a holiday to a relative’s house in order to “recuperate”, to use their own words. It’s classified as a black comedy, although it is much more black than comedic.
I have rarely seen a more depressing looking film. This is a great example of production value being used in the negative spectrum; each location has its share of decrepitude about it, and each scene threatens to envelop you in bleakness and squalor. This is truly an unforgiving film in material and subject. It works, though; the film keeps your attention and doesn’t let you drown in it. The two main players each have their quirks and personality traits that make them characters indeed, and the actors playing them (Paul McGann and especially Richard Grant) bring them to a head wonderfully, and the consummate Richard Griffiths is delightful as the flamboyant Uncle Monty.
I don’t know if I can recommend this to a general audience, but certain connoisseurs will definitely get a lot out of this one. It has a certain charm to it that’s hard to ignore, even when it’s flouting its exposition in your face with reckless abandon. If you want a soggy film with very dark British sensibilities, this will happily be your cup of tea.
Arbitrary Rating: 7/10
Once again, I was chosen to select this week’s 1001 Blog Club entry, and as per the requirements of choosing a film within certain timespans, I decided upon Sunrise, a visual marvel of a film that was one of the first two films to win Best Picture at the very first Academy Awards. Technically, the first Best Picture winner was another silent film called Wings, but in the first Academy Awards, the category was actually broken up into two parts: Most Outstanding Production, and Most Artistic Quality of Production. Wings won the former, which was retroactively decided to be the first Best Picture winner when the next ceremony consolidated it into one award, but Sunrise won the much more impressive sounding latter, and it is Sunrise which is often revered as one of the masterpieces of the late silent era, when sound was just coming into the picture right when the silent cinema creators were coming into the height of their artistic accomplishments. This is definitely one to check out if you can tolerate silent pictures; F.W. Murnau was one of the most expressive visual artists of the time, and this is arguably his greatest work.
Life is much the same; sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.
Winner of the first Academy Award for Best Unique and Artistic Production, one half of what would later be simply known as Best Picture, Sunrise is a true classic of the cinema. Even today, above its counterpart winner Wings, Sunrise is revered and hailed as one of the greatest silent films ever made.
The film dares to achieve so much more than any other film of its time does; back projection, double exposures, cross-faded scenery, and sound effects, all coupled with the film’s breakthrough structure, made this a film that was truly ahead of its time. The production value is certainly above par, and helps to create a vivid world that sucks you inside it. The cinematography is even more astounding, and is the real star of the picture. Each scene looks like a still photograph, beautiful each in their own way. Janet Gaynor is a darling of the screen, and will win you over with each passing scene that rolls by. All of this combines to create a film so poignant and filled with emotion that the best thing is to let yourself be taken over by it.
In the silent era, there are few films that can match the power and effect of Sunrise. Give this a chance and I’m sure you’ll find something extra special here. As cheesy as it sounds, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be moved by it.
Arbitrary Rating: 9/10
