Coach?

One Hell Of A Drug

Apparently this doesn't translate well to video, and I probably should have edited the beginning down by a minute. Sorry that I had the decency to not go in for some possibly illegal closeups. Nonetheless, it was pretty awkward sitting there hearing all of that snorting going on for like five minutes before I even got my camera out.

Super Wolfenstein HD

Sometimes I wake up a 3:00AM, find out about games like these, then have to play through them.

Fuck sleep.

Dream Team 2003

Practically half the fun in the various XCOM games is naming your soldiers, bonus points if you can come up with a consistent theme for all of them. For this playthrough, I rounded up a bunch of bros I used to roll with on GameSpy Arcade like a decade ago. Time to let go? Nah. Khaos was the first soldier to have the psychic gift, and will probably go on to become the saviour of all mankind when I get around to finishing my playthrough.

#justsilverthings Smurfs

I expected tryhard smurf rage, but all I got was this generic video.

Coopersville?

From about age 13-16, I had a pretty nasty habit of tracing parts of my artwork. It's not really something I regret, as going through the motions of other artists' drawings was one of the steps that helped me improve my original work. No one ever called me out on it either. This was done to a considerable amount of artwork revolving around the Z-Comics while I was trying to figure out how to evolve the style of the series. This usually involved finding some decent Sonic fanart on VCL, and re-rigging it into some sort of super deformed Zoner art. You'll find some instances of it in the first comic issue I've already posted, and probably in the following issues if/when I get around to scanning them. Anyway, I drew this up as a throwback to that weird style while I toy with the idea of making a half-assed spinoff comic as an excuse to returning to some old habits.

Sanic?

I was flipping through my art folder and found something I guess I never finished. I think I was trying to channel some Jhonen Vasquez but was discouraged by how much inking I'd have to do for something that isn't that good. I'd place this sketch at maybe two years old.

Chibi Maker: Greengob Noobfang

Alien Isolation Is A Pretty Neat Looking Game

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

Neat water

Neat steam

Time to stop pussing out. Full 1080p baby, and neat pre-rendered cutscenes.

October: Play with Black Lipstick Month.

This is me, Persephone!

#justsilverthings

Why I'm never going to get out of silver.

Lifeless Planet Playthrough

Lifeless Planet is a game that had a really cool trailer that almost seemed to imply it had some open world planetary exploration elements in it. What we got was a more linear, level based puzzle/platforming/adventure with sometimes mildly frustrating player physics, though you can maybe blame that on me for not wanting to plug my gamepad in. Still, the levels themselves contain many huge areas to explore, and it is quite comfy to do so.

Vigil

Something I sketched up back in May. I wanted something with a lot of ink because I was drawing it to kill time during a twelve hour shift.

Mine Turtle

Technically I'm a Koopa Troopa

UNCROPPED ORIGINAL LINE ART BELOW

Quick & Painless Reviews: AVGN: The Movie

So it's been how long? Eight years...? Forever? But after what was starting to become Duke Nukem Forever levels of development, it has finally come out.

He's going to take you back to the past, though not necessarily to play shitty games that suck ass. What we get is a feature film which presents itself with a barrage of charming 80's b-flick cheese, and UHF style homages to popular films and games, plus more cameos than almost any one person can count in their first watch. Underneath it all we have a semi-serious political commentary about modern game marketing peddling shit, with an almost entire cast of super dynamic and forever memorable characters.

Strangely out of place is the second lead in the film, Jeremy Suarez, who is the only character who doesn't completely get the chance to 'fit' into the film's universe, almost as if his inclusion was an afterthought, or maybe written for another actor. Some of the passion behind the experience does also get lost as well after such a long, tiring wait, but I don't mean that in a way that belittles the immense amount of work that went into it while also producing dozens of episodes for various web series.

The big thing you're probably wondering is, "Does he finally do an actual review for ET in the movie?" The answer is yes, and the review is so surprising and unique from all of the others, that it's worth the wait of the film's production and duration to experience.

I'd give it more than 7 stages out of 10, but the stupid game won't let me go past that point.




FULL DISCLOSURE: I was, at one time, in a romantic relationship with James Rolfe, who is both the creator of the film and the lead actor, so my opinion on the movie might be biased.

Fucking Random Pubbers

The Sacrifice is a campaign that has the potential to really fuck you over if you get hit by a Tank and a Horde at the same time, and you have some random pubber whining for a first aid kit. I wish the sound on this recording worked so you could hear the delicious blow-by-blow.



At 0:23, I ask if everyone's ready. He says nothing.

At 0:46, you can see his speech icon as he starts asking for a heal AFTER the Tank and Horde have shown up.

At 1:07, despite my best discretion, I pull out my first aid kit in preparation to heal him. It's not possible, so I throw the bile jar in an attempt to distract the infected. It's still not working and the tank's on its way.

 At 1:12, "greedy teammates suck"

Who wants to support a filthy ragequitting casual anyway?

All in all, it's all IndridCold's fault, because I think he startled the crows.

Dark Carnival

Left 4 Dead 2 is a racist game where Turtle Rock Studios thought they'd make the game more "realistic" in the sequel by making the AI for the black characters extra stupid. Thankfully IndridCold and I manage without many problems.

Doom 3: Lost Mission Playthrough

I woke up in a very Doom-y mood this morning, so I decided to finally give the Lost Mission expansion a go.

Clearing

A made-for-television student film created in 2005, starring IndridCold as "Syd".




Video with audio commentary below.

H-Doom (techdemo5)

Someone had to make this mod someday. Just the first few levels since there isn't a lot to show right now.

Sorry for using Blogspot's quality-tastic video player, but it's not like I'm going to upload this to one of my real accounts.

Quick & Painless Reviews: Victory Buffet (Sarnia, Ontario)

From the ashes of Panda Gardens, and Oyami, rises Victory Buffet, which once again brings us a mix of Asian and American cuisine. IndridCold and I went in expecting another disappointing rehash of the last two restaurants, and that's not quite what we got. The menu is eerily similar to Oyami. Some of the dishes are almost identical, which implies that they rehired some of the former kitchen staff. However, the quality of the cooking has improved substantially.

My overall impression is satisfaction, but with a side of caution. I wasn't present for the opening of Oyami, but when Panda Gardens initially opened, they also brought in professional staff to prepare for them, only for them to drop their standards after a month. If a $22 dinner seems good to you, I'd suggest that you try them sooner than later, just in case, and I hope Victory Buffet my best wishes in maintaining good business, and good quality.

Hellsingish.

This is just a painting that, has been though many transformations to finally get to it's final stage. I was kind of indecisive of where I was going with this but, I like what I ended up with.

Review: Hidden Talents' Les Miserables

Recently I stumbled into an old friend from High School, on one of my drinking adventures. Long story short, he had came back to Sarnia from Toronto for personal reasons about a year ago. In the past month, he was in this musical production of Les Miserables. For the reason why this part has any reverences to my review: Eleven years ago I had seen almost the exact same play. Same director: Carrie Beauchamp, same theatre: Imperial Theatre, and almost the same cast. The stage setup, the props they used, the script, and songs were all the same. Even my friend, Adam, was also in it eleven years ago with his minor role. This time around he had the role of Marius. The true difference this time around is that, eleven years ago Hidden Talents' cast of Les Miserables were no older than 19! So, there I was finding all this out and, feeling obligated to go see this, because of the obvious reasons.

For some of you who don't know what Les Miserable is about: The story starts off with an ex-convict, Jean Valjean, who was imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. This takes place wayyy back in the days of the french revolution. Breaking his parole, Valjean escapes to start a new life. In his efforts of redemption, Valjean agrees to care for a young girl named, Cosette, for her late mother, Fantine. As Father and daughter, Valjean and Cosette live a quiet life together. Well, almost, Valjean is being ruthlessly tracked by Inspector Javert over the years since Valjean escapes his parole. And the rest is an epic story that unfolds.

(And yes, this is a novel by Victor Hugo, also a movie that was recently made in the passed year or two. Let alone a musical production from Broadway.)

The cast line up they had this time around was amazing in the musical and on the karaoke stage at my local bar of Lizards. I already knew that Adam could sing for, I have seen him in S.C.I.T.'s production of Little Shop of Horrors as the lead of Seymore. Let alone other school musicals and some songs he sang in the band called Canteen back in high school. The lead role of Les Miserables, Valjean, was portrayed by Andrew Colboure. I have no prior information on him but my goodness, the man can sing! For what I did read on Andrew, this is his dream role and also that, he is artistic director for Dance Academy. With all that being said, he is also directing the upcoming musical of Catch me, If You Can in the month of October this year. I am certainly going to go see that. Other amazing voices of Les Miserables are a music teacher, Jen Brown Nead (Fantine), Newly HS graduate, Garbrielle Drapeau (Eponine) and Jayime Cowen (Young Cosette) just to name a few of my favourites of this musical. Other people that I know in this musical are Joe Bainbridge, a fellow drama classmate of mine and Linda Morin, Ryan of the LBC's girlfriend. *It's a small world after all!*

The other amazing part of the musical was the orchestra playing all the music and, the crew who ran the sets, lights, props, and whatever else so smoothly. I don't know anyone personally or any works prior to Les Miserables but hopefully, they'll all get together for another musical, if not Les Miserables years down the road.

As the seats were filling up in the audience, I was lucky enough to have both seats beside me empty. Even though when I picked my seat, Row E 29, both seats beside were already booked, in reason why I went alone. However, I was content that the seats were empty anyways. The red curtains open... and the opening scene was prisoners in the aisles of the audience, pulling on a rope to a huge ship on stage, singing the prolonge of, "Look down, look down, don't look them in the eyes.." while getting whipped by the prison guards. I started getting goosebumps as I was having an odd feeling of DejaVu watching this. The opening scene is also where I discovered Joe Bainbridge was in this musical, as I'm thinking to myself, "Is that Joe? My goodness... it's Joe!" Essentially, I got goosebumps every time my favourites started singing like, Andrew, Adam, Garbrielle.. and the whole musical was certainly a case of DejaVu in a good way. I personally think that the whole thing was better than it was eleven years ago.

After the musical was done, a huge crowd and I were chatting and waiting in the lobby for the cast to slowly appear. Joe and I were talking at one point, catching up and all the jazz. Until Adam and I caught each others glances as we were looking over the shoulders of the people we were chatting with. When we finally made it to each other, we hugged, and chatted a bit on how the musical was amazing and then I got him to sign my ticket. On my way home, the only thing I could listen to from my MP3 player to match Les MIserables was Nightwish. Of course, Les Miserables had an orchestra and Nightwish is metal but both equally epic in regards of vocals. I was also thinking that going to see this was worth penny I spend on my ticket.

Poaching Bigfoot

A couple of years ago, IndridCold and I began the early stages for a full length documentary about Bigfoot. The twist is that our intention wasn't merely to capture poor footage of it, but to actually hunt it, kill it, partially devour it, and drag its carcass back as proof of its existence. It was one of a few "anti-documentaries" that we had in the works where we already knew in the beginning that we wouldn't find anything. Unfortunately, work and budget restraints got in the way and the project never really took off.

Over the course of this summer, we still have a few deep woods camping trips planned, and during our last outing, I just sort of threw together this footage as something of a pilot for an episodic series about finding Bigfoot throughout different parts of Canada.

Fist Of The Dead Star Playthrough

Dead Island is an underrated first-person horror survival game which becomes completely trivialized once one of the heroes channels the power of Kenshiro. This mod was blogged about everywhere when it first came out, but I haven't seen any full playthroughs using it. I'm not sure how entertaining it is to watch after a while, but playing it felt satisfying most of the way through. I would have liked to have had Japanese dubs to make it feel more authentic, but the best I had was Russian. I've managed to configure my OBS settings so that it captures the full image without there being boarders. Now I just need to adjust the bitrate or something to create a clearer image, though I'm going to miss being able to record four hour videos that are under 2GB.

Wolfenstein: The Hard Goodbye

Various screenshots of my playthrough of Woldenstein: The New Order, which if I were to give a quick & painless reveiw for, it'd simply be 'buy it!' Pretty sure this blog contains spoilers.

An early choice in the game that splits the timeline in two

grafix

Quake 3 Arena rocket launcher key chain

No Mercy

Left 4 Dead is a game where 50% of the things you shoot at are non-aggressive green flu victims, so it isn't very hard, even when IndridCold and I have a couple of chucklefucks dragging behind us.

Doom 3 BFG Edition Playthrough

I try to do something nice, and it turns out shitty. While trying to learn how to make OBS work perfectly, some of the video got cropped on some of the parts. Otherwise, here's a playlist of me slaying some demon ass.

Quick & Painless Reviews: Kenny vs. Spenny vs. Canada 2014

Pretty much the best part of the show

Venue: St. Clair College Capitol Theatre, Chatam, Ontario

$61.00 to see them on stage for eighty minutes if you don't include the intermission, half of which was them showing off bonus footage that's already available on the DVDs. Their banter was the usual rehashed schtick you'd experience in their various interviews and episode commentaries. Things were a little more interesting when there was crowd interaction with fan humiliations and heckling, but it was soon made clear that talking during their show was not allowed when people were threatened to be kicked out (not jokingly). I paid $20 for a pre-signed 8x10 because the venue didn't mention there were VIP passes that I had to buy to actually meet the duo, not that I'd expect it to be required. Penn & Teller stayed to take photos with everyone at Caesar's Windsor in 2012 (it was $50 for similar seats as well), that only being one example of many shows I've been to. At least I got to meet and talk with Bobby Patton while he was working at the merch booth before the show. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that I was literally jewed by a couple of Jews... I don't know. I don't want to write about it any more at this point; I'm a little crushed by the disappointment.

Never meet your heroes / 10

 Thanks Bobby

R U READY

Organic Organ.

Here I am, taking off the hiatus hat. It's been quite some time, I know. However here is one of my latest drawings. It was originally suppose to be an outline for a painting I was going to do but clearly that never happened. So, one night after coming home from the bar... I was feeling restless and started adding more details and shading it in. I'm not gonna lie, it's not my best and it could be a lot better but, it certainly something to look at.

Quick & Painless Reviews: Payday 2

STEAM FREE WEEKEND EDITION!

I heard this game was off to a rocky start upon release, and that the developers put it out unfinished, which turned me away from buying it despite loving the first game. Fortunately, I was able to try over the weekend for free. THANKS GABE.

 Uguu~~ I actually put on this mask as a subtle homage to The Birthday Massacre which no one noticed

 I imagine whatever was left out of the initial release was patched to hell and back, as it's now similar to how I remember the last game being. When you haven't played in like a year and a half like me, or not at all, it can be a bit of a confusing start. Some things aren't fully explained, even in the tutorial, leaving you to learn the hard way through trail-and-error alongside other Free Weekend shitters and angry tryhard veterans.

The music volume by default is cranked way too high, so even though the game tries to walk you through your missions, you'll probably not hear what you're suppose to do. Payday 2 seems to hate microphone users, as the max microphone volume is still way too low, so while you fumble around failing the heist, you won't be getting much audible feedback from your team apart than the fact that they sound like they're getting really pissed off.  It's just a good idea to turn your music and sfx volumes down to about half if you want to hear anyone, especially since the music isn't as good this time around anyway besides one track (I don't know what it's called).

How The Fuck Can I Be White? I Don't Even Exist!

So, for a while now there have been some theories that the Eminem we know today is actually a clone that has replaced the real Slim Shady. I have come to you today to confirm said theories. You see, years ago he was transported to the alien planet that the Z-Comics take place on to take part in a virtual reality simulation so that THE Z0NE could earn their Shooter Gym badges. The Hip-Hop Illuminati of course covered it up afterwards to prevent media uproar by creating a (apparently obvious) clone to replace him, and infusing his lyrics with cryptic messages revealing his true whereabouts. 

 

You can see it all happen in my Z-Comic #1 post. I promise Issue #2 will be up soon...?

Crossfire

There was a fun little game soldiers liked to play in Southeastern Europe during the 90's. On this night, the subjects would be five NATO captives and one from the KLA resistance. All six sat handcuffed across from each other in a circular dirt pit, perhaps about six feet deep, ten feet in diameter. Soon enough, one of the guards came down into the pit on a small step ladder. He began to draw a six-pointed star onto the ground with a can of spray paint, then he handed out six unloaded revolvers to each of the prisoners, then he climbed out of the pit and threw everyone a single bullet. As he did this, he explained the rules, "Gentlemen, the pit you are now sitting in is soon to become your grave." he opened with in the best amount of broken English he could muster, "Well, not for all you. If all goes to plan, there should be one of you left to deliver a message for us. The rules are very simple:

Quick & Painless Reviews: Ryse: Son of Rome

Six hours and ten minutes.

That is how long it took this game to install to a state where I was able to access the single player campaign. There is a point where one glaring problem negates the quality of the overall product. I don't care about the game's flashy visuals and repetitive combat anymore; the game is broken due to install time alone.

But who gets the shit review for it? The game itself, or the Xbox One? This seems to be an issue with most Xbox One games after all. However, I don't feel it's necessary to install 47GB of uncompressed data into your console's hard drive. I don't think console owners should need to clean up their hard drive after installing nine or ten games, then having to subject themselves to hours of installation again when they want to replay those games. The developer of these games shouldn't consider this okay, and so, even though the Xbox One is a garbage console in its current state, Ryse is still a broken game for playing along with it.

I know what some people are thinking: "It didn't take me that long." From the anecdotes I've seen on various message boards, the lowest install time for Ryse was 57 minutes. The highest I've seen someone give a number to was around nine hours.

9 hours isn't okay.
6 hours and 10 minutes isn't okay.
57 minutes still isn't okay.

1/10 isn't okay.





EDIT: 5 hours and 5 minutes to complete single player. 

Z-Comic #1: Nintendo, I Choose You!

Christian Weston Chandler has burnt down his house, hopefully destroying all of his original artwork, making today the perfect opportunity to share my own magnum opus with the world and trump his comparatively shitty comic. 

In mid-1999, a half decade before Sonichu, a twelve-year-old version of Yours Truly began his work on what is known as the Z-Comics. The plot centers around three friends who collectively refer to themselves as THE Z0NE, who all aspire to work in the video game industry, but must first earn eight video game gym badges à la Pokémon. This plot doesn't stick for very long in the series, and the story's focus constantly changes to whatever I thought would be cool during the drawing of that particular issue.

I always liked making comics growing up, having previously created a few based on Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Mario, and Secret of Mana. Inspiration for this series came from my friend Dustin, who created the main characters: Coopersville, Yarcofin, and Yodéréko (later revised to Yodariquo in later issues). Dustin himself had already made a couple of comic strips featuring THE Z0NE before this series was even a twinkle in my eye.

The first half of 1999 was kind of rough for me. North America's education system was riding the Columbine hype train, and quirky children like myself were now under suspicion of becoming the next school spree killers. My bitch seventh grade teacher, Ms. Jones, after humiliating me in front of the class, and threatening to call the cops on me on several occasions, had my ass thrown into counseling, which in my young mind made me think I was about one more step or two away from spending grade eight in a mental institution. In an attempt at damage control, I destroyed a lot of my art that could have been considered overly violent; I began spending most of my time locked in my room, and I made a habit of barely ever speaking to my family. This has probably made me look even crazier over the years, but I just wanted to fly under the radar.

By June 1999, I had to blow off some steam, so I got to work on an edgy comic that had cute characters that liked to swear and kill things. I kept the first two comics hidden under some old furniture in my basement so that my parents wouldn't likely find what I was drawing. It didn't take me more than one page to get tired of drawing Coopersville's complex initial design, and then I began adapting Dustin's characters to my comic instead. 

This comic didn't take me too long, maybe a month tops. The Z-Comics originally were definitely more about quantity over quality, as I finished the first two issues before August was over. Issues 3-9 progressively took more time and effort, needing between 6-10 months per comic usually. Issue #10 took something like three years to get done, then finally we have issue #11, which I have procrastinated through for like eight years now.

Anyway, I could write about this for hours, but I should save some of that for later issues. Behold the horror that is the early Z-Comics. I promise they get better later?