Back with Amnesia

After a 3 year break I’m back! This blog will updated at least weekly, mostly consisting things that I have found on the internet that I find interesting (games, movies, music, etc), but I do plan on having some original content shortly (be it music, videos, or perhaps something I haven’t thought of yet?). For now, I hope you find something you like.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is pretty messed up, and I love it. 

So I finally mustered up the courage to play Amnesia: The Dark Descent. By mustering up the courage I mean inviting 6 of my friends over to play/watch with me so I would wouldn't be scared shitless alone and inflicting insomnia upon myself for at least a week. If you haven't heard much about it I seriously recommend watching this full screen and in the dark:



After my first experience I have to say that it definitely lived up to the hype. The games creates an atmosphere thick with tension that makes every corner seems like it could be your last. My favourite aspect of the game is your inability to attack, causing you move through every environment thinking about how best to retreat, hide or blockade yourself. You also know a survival horror game has done something right when you're in a calm bright area, paranoia sets in and all you can think is how you won't be able to hide from the DEMONS. It brings back memories of watching my friends play Resident Evil or Silent Hill with myself hiding behind a pillow in the back corner of the room.  Now that I have the basic mechanics down I think I can at least try and attempt at playing on my own...

Other games worth checking out:
Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers - Love the art style and mechanics, seem worthy of $10!
Monaco - Gameplay starts at 4:25, looks like so much fun for both single and multiplayer aspects.
Trailer for the next Amnesia: Machine for Pigs
(Not a game but) New remixes of Jim Guthrie's amazing score http://jimguthrie.bandcamp.com/releases

This weekend I plan on seeing the new pixar movie Brave. I have been following this movie for some time now and I’m excited to see it. Obvious comparisons to How to Train Your Dragon have been made, but lets hope this has an story that stands at least somewhat apart. Mark Andrews who is one of the two directors has worked storyboards on a few Genndy Tartakovsky projects like Samurai Jack and the (traditionally animated) Clone Wars, but it looks as though this is his first attempt at a full length feature film. Reviews so far seem to indicate that this is not going to be an amazing pixar experience but I’m sure it will be an entertaining affair.

Pixar also showed its trailer for Monsters University, which I am 100% completely underwhelmed with. Usually I love the humour in Pixar films but something has always rubbed me the wrong way about the Monster's series.

 Maybe its just me, but there is something that is just so disingenuous about this trailer, like the animators making it couldn't even make the characters look as though they really believe this 'prank' action was clever or funny. 

Team ICO's The Last Guardian

For any who is interested in the new team ICO game the last guardian. New screenshots look wonderful:)

King of Kong Rematch!

So I don't know if any of you know but a documentary called The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters came out in 2007. Its a story about a competition to hold the number one position at Donkey Kong. For those who don't know, this is a game where you play as jumpman (mario), while leaping and bounding over a barrel at a time, trying to free the princess from the brute they call Donkey Kong.

The movie is amazing and kinda...very sad when it comes to Billy (the present day champion holder). At the beginning of watching this I couldn't tell if this was a joke or not. BUT it isn't. Steve Wiebe is the man who tried ever so hard to claim the number one position. Eventually he did receive it, but was quickly taken away by Billy Mitchell again.

BUT at E3 he will have the chance to take it back and reclaim the title. If you haven't seen the movie, you really should. The competition will take place on June 2nd 2009, ill definitely be watching and rooting for Steve!

A picture of Billy Mitchell (how majestic he is)

Street Fighter lost in Translation

Well I don't know if any of you know (or care) but a street fighter movie The Legend of Chun-Li just came out. Reviews have been dismal and I was wondering why this always happen, especially with Street Fighter.

In terms of the video game series itself its been recognized as one of the best fighting series since 1987. Lately a new game came out and has been critically acclaimed by everyone... But unfortunately other media formats have not been that kind to this series...

A rather promiscuous scene in the horrible americanized Street Fighter anime.


God I miss the 90s


The infamous Street Fighter movie ending

Ný Batterí and Fljótavik

Sigur Rós - Ný Batterí from Czlowiek Kamera on Vimeo.

Sigur Rós - Fljótavik from Czlowiek Kamera on Vimeo.
Two of my favorite Sigur Ros songs. Absolutely beautiful and haunting. I really like these versions that I found and I suggest that you click it to its home page and watch it in HD and full screen it!

Maybe one day I can make something half as good.

Sony's new product!

Sample Songs

Just something i recorded awhile back, hopefully I can make it into a real song one day!

http://www.mediafire.com/?4zdynm5j5m2

Sigur Ros IS everywhere

Chris White recently asked me if it was Sigur Ros that he heard in another game trailer. So anyways I decided I needed to put them both up here for all to see just how awesome they are. The first one is from Science Fiction Horror game called dead space, which is supposed to be pretty scary and the song is Untitled 7 (or The Death Song) from the Album ( ). The last is the previous trailer I showed several of you called Prince of Persia and the song is Saeglopur from the album Takk.

And Guinea went to the Moon

A few videos that have made my week that much better. First we have two vidoes I recently watched on Youtube about misheard lyrics. I would suggest watching both at least for a bit. The last one is a fail video that is a perfect mix of being really sad and funny.

All of our prayers answered!

This article really brightened up my day, and I suggest you read it, if not then just enjoy the pictures and think of all the posibilities that this product can offer the world.

Tigon in real life

There are some real WINNERs out there

I was online today and I found some photos of some rip offs consoles. It really makes you wonder how some people can get away with putting out some of these items for sale without getting sued or something.

Soul Caliber 4 Characters

Here are some Soul Caliber 4 characters that have been custom made by people. These are chosen mostly because there really good, or there just hilarious. Hopefully you will recognize most of them!

Failed

Here is a collection of some of my favorite fail videos:
Animal Identification fail


Conspiracy Fail


Hotel Ad Fail


Journalism Fail

Radiohead in Toronto

I saw my second Radiohead show on Friday at the Molson Amphitheatre and it they were once again spot on in every way. With many new songs played and another awesome performance by Grizzly Bear this one was in every way as good as the last show, there was even a rainbow (actually there were 3!!...kinda) the only thing it was missing were fireworks in the background.

Here's their Set list.
15 Step
Reckoner
Optimistic
There There
Morning Bell
All I Need
Pyramid Song
Arpeggi
The Gloaming
A Wolf At The Door
Faust Arp
No Surprises
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Idioteque
Climbing Up The Walls
Nude
Bodysnatchers

Encore#1
Like Spinning Plates
Videotape
Airbag
Talk Show Host
Street Spirit

Encore#2
House of Cards
Planet Telex
Everything In Its Right Place
Other than the rainbow my highlight of this concert was pyramid song, it was so very good and hopefully I can find some audio recordings from the show.

Slapping Machine

Just something that I found confusing as much as I found it funny. All I want to know is why are they whispering so much?

Xbox 360 on the Big Screen!!....wait...what?

Cineplex is now offering the option for people to rent out theatres (in down time) for people who wish to play their xbox 360 on the big screen. From what the article said, it seems as thou it will cost $179 for 12 people to rent out a theatre. But my question is why would anyone want to do that?

First of all you can only play up to 4 people at a time, which leaves 8 people doing nothing but twidling their thumbs, being in awe of the huge screen until they get bored of watching for 10 minutes (and because they paid $15 I'm sure they want to play the game and not watch one). This wouldn't be so bad if you organized a tournament, but there aren't many games where only playing with 4 people would be very fun to do that. Super Smash Brothers would work but playing the Wii seems to be out of the question (maybe its because it doesn't support anything higher than 480p). Also projection screens or notorious for having extreme lag between you pushing a button on the controller and seeing any effect on the screen, pretty much destroying the purpose of a tournament in the first place.

Another thing is that it seems people can only play during certain times of the year, (not the summer) and times of the day. The article said "Theatres will generally have about 12 to 24 hours of available downtime a week, mostly in the morning". Mostly in the morning? People willing to do this generally would be teenagers, who don't get up that early to begin with (normally). Also it would have to be on the weekend, but the weekends are a busy time for the theatre so you might be rushed out, so scratch that one.

So what is their target market? People who want to play games badly enough on the big screen who have no jobs or school during the week (not in the summer), who want to get up early enough, have 12 other people to do this with, AND who want to pay $15 (with tax $17) to do this.... What the hell is this?!? Even if you got to play for 4 hours somehow I don't see this being too worth it.

I think I'll just stick to watching movies at the movie theatre for now....

18 Wheels of Thunder

I was reminded of this game last night when it was brought up in a conversation. I thought I would put the video review done by Gamespot and its probably one of my favorite reviews because there are no words, because all you need to see is about 10 seconds to get the point of how bad this game really is. The game was released in 2003, and to put that into perspective Halo, and Grand Theft Auto 3 came out in 2001. This game has nothing to offer other than the experience of playing something broken that leaves you crying either out of pain or laughter. Anyways if you want a game that is renowned for how bad it is and is considered by many websites as the worst game in history then enjoy!

Coraline pt. 2

So on IGN and Rottentomatoes (two site owned by the same people) there is a Coraline week and each day they post a new video documentary on their progress and what to expect from the movie.

Today's video is titled: Crafting the World of Coraline


And I must say that I'm becoming even more impressed than I was yesterday. I think that this is due to the fact that I'm liking the idea of a Neil Gaiman book or story becoming a movie that you can be proud of and want to see. Stardust was a movie that was a lot of fun and has been the first movie in a long time doing nothing else but just a good movie. Many people said it was hopping on the Pirates of the Caribbean band wagon, but once 20 minutes in you could clearly see that was not its intentions. It turned out to be a movie that If I were to see it as a child I would probably love it to death. But Coraline seems to have more stylized aspects to the movie (clearly) but I think that's the only way to make a novel written by Neil Gaiman otherwise something gets lost in translation. Also I guess its because some of my favorite movies are made by Focus Features and whenever I see their logo I get very excited.

Link: The Faces of Evil

Lately I have been watching some videos for the Zelda games that are so horrible. So I have decided to put them up here. To remind us all that Zelda has seen worse times.

Here is a link to another one. Unfortunately I couldn't embed this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3snn6ZDs5c