Wow I just stumbled across these illustrations by Vikki Chu. I fell in love instantly. There are more of this series on her Blog, I hope she finishes the set including adult link ones!
She also has a site with her impressive illustration portfolio on it. Love her style and love anything to do with Zelda. Awesome- If you live in America be sure to check her out at Baltimore Comic Con although I think that finishes today, so I guess you will probably miss it. Cheers bye.
So as I have said, this week I have mostly been playing fighting games. So to round up this week I am going to discuss a slightly overlooked but non-the-less awesome fighting game: Fighters Destiny, on the N64.
I remember when Fighters Destiny came out, there was pretty much no good fighting games on the N64, anyone remember Clay fighter? Possibly the worst game ever made. Well Fighters Destiny shot out from the proverbial darkness and kicked the consol right up the arse.
As a game it’s pretty similar to SEGA’s Virtual Fighter but the point system kept it different. The point system always reminded me of a Judo fight and made it quite exciting [Read: frustrating].I liked the way different moves or ways of winning awarded points though, and it was infinitely satisfying to snatch a win from a friend with a sudden special move.
I remember it being one of the least balanced games ever, newbies had no chance in hell and it was possible to get good enough to consistently bitch on friends and the computer. I definitely am not that good anymore as got my ass handed to me yesterday. I’ll be back in the game by Monday.
I played it last night, the graphics are suffering a little bit with age but the game holds up strong still. I would love to see a new one come out, or even a similar game.
Oh and what on earth was going on with that fighting cow Ushi?
Well that sums up fighting game week. I still haven’t completed Fallout New Vegas so will playing both that and UFC this weekend around going out. What will you be playing this weekend?
I have decided to continue my theme of fighting games this week by discussing my favourite fighting game of all time the one, the only, Steet Fighter 2 Turbo on the Snes (MegaDrive would have worked but alas I no longer have mine).
After writing about playing UFC 2010 Undisputed this week I started to have those nostalgic pangs and decided it was time to play Street Fighter. I did what any techie would do and cracked out my iPhone to play a bit of SF3 but it just doesn’t cut the mustard. I needed some old school childhood memory fun.
So out comes the Snes. In goes the cartridge. Out comes the Cartridge. Blow. In. Shazaam. Up comes that beautiful menu, its awesome. Aside from looking a bit shit on my HD screen, it still does the job.
OK I decide I am going to be Ryu as my brother is no longer here to stop me! First fight: Dhalsim. I already know I am going to fuck this character up. I launch straight into a Hadoken. POW! Get a cheeky combo in. Spinning bird kick. SMACK! BIIIG HADOKEN! He is down for the count… Round 2, FIGHT: punch, punch, Shoryuken, throw, Hadoken, Hadoken. DONE.
Yeah so I may have missed a few fuck ups on my part. I got set on fire a few times. But hell, I love this game. The random car smashing stage, the speed, the combos, the thrill of finishing a fight without taking a hit, even the graphics are beautiful in their own way.
I am going to play some UFC tonight and kick a different sort of ass. But I think tomorrow might be time to crack out Mortal Kombat for a few bloody good thrashings.
I have always liked fighting games; recently it has moved into the realistic realm. I had a lot of time for Fight Night 3 and adored Fight Night round 4. I think I played at least 4 or 5 player created characters through the career mode, despite it having no real storyline. It started when I was growing up, playing Street fighter 2 (Turbo) with my brother. We played for hours, he would almost always beat me, but we would still play. I always favoured Blanka or Ryu, but he wouldn’t let me use Ryu if he was playing- I had to be Ken. I am sure many little brothers felt my pain. I moved onto playing various games like Mortal Kombat (2 mostly), Tekken- although I never got on with it, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibre and then as I said finally ended up playing fight night.
I realised last week that I hadn’t really played anything like it for a while, most of my recent games have been shooting: Fallout 3, New Vegas, Call of Duty, Bulletstorm, Dead Space. I felt I needed some old-skool-ass-kicking, so… Yesterday I splurged out a whole £8 at Tesco for UFC Undisputed 2010 on my Xbox.
I like UFC, its mental. The guys that fight are literally machines. Big hard power machines. I wouldn’t last 30 seconds. But I do like being able to make myself as a character and knocking two barrels of shit out of a computerised opponent.
So anyway, I created my character, started playing, and got shit shit kicked out of me. I can do the standing up game, that’s pretty simple button bashing stuff. I learnt about that from Street Fighter. Hell, I am a pro at button bashing. I keep getting big time messed up on the floor game. Ground and pound stuff. I understand that this is how UFC works, if a guy goes down, he doesn’t often get up- but this is offering a challenge. Anyway I am writing this on my way home from work and all I have wanted to do all day is work out this god damn ground work.
I’ll let you guys know how I get on. In the mean time, what is your favourite fighting game of all time?
Beyond Aperture is a short film made by Eisenfeuer. The story was written before Portal 2 and is made to fill the gap after the players’ character (Chell) passes out.
The short has everything you would want from a film about portal including cake, though where Chell’s advanced knee replacements are I don’t know.
As with the games there is a slightly sinister feel to the whole video, especially in the words of GladOs “I will kill you”. I couldn’t help but feel bad when she realised she made her cake with salt either (rookie mistake).
The video has left me wanting two things: a portal gun and some cake. I lieu of the technology needed to construct a portal gun I am off to a bakery to buy some cake.
I think Dave and I are planning on doing a podcast soon so I’ve held back on posting much but considering that, theres been some quite interesting stuff announced recently, especially with Comic-Con going ahead over the weekend.
Firstly and foremostly, at Comic-Con this weekend, Steven Spielberg announced that a Jurassic Park 4 would be going ahead within the next few years. Now considering my first proper post was about how much I love Jurassic Park, I’m exceptionally excited about this. No other details were announced and no writer was confirmed but as soon as more news comes out - i’ll write opinions!
Most the trailers that have come out this week are thrillers - my favourite kind of movie. Firstly we have Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, starring Gina Carano and has Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and Channing Tatum. The trailer looks very ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ but still pretty badass. Fully utilising Carano’s MMA skills.
Secondly comes a Wall Street thriller, Margin Call. Like I said, I do like a good thriller but this is based on the 2008 financial crash, set over a 24 hour period as the proverbial shit hits the fan. Like Haywire, this has a big big cast - check it out!
One of the final films i’ll be talking about this week, and repping the UK is the Kill List. This looks like a great horror/thriller about a hitman. It’s not territory we haven’t seen before but the trailer really does look good. It’s very intense and the music is great. Can’t wait to see it!
Finally is the newest trailer for Dexter Season 6. It’s the complete opposite to the last trailer I posted and shows Dexter is his best/harshest light. Check it out!
Oh and to finish up and apologise for not giving a great post this week, check out these two videos, a NEW trailer to the Dark Knight Rises and possibly the greatest way to watch Inception.
Just a quick note tonight. I have just stumbled across a Zelda mod for Minecraft. After getting massively excited, downloading all of the needed bits and bobs I found out it can only be played on Windons, I use a mac. FAIL. If anyone knows of a way to get it working please let me know!
I am gutted, but am now going to make the most of having my N64 out and play Zelda Majora’s Mask.
When life gives you the Triforce, make Triforce grenades.
I was reading Dorkly the other day as usual, when I came across a video titled “Link to the Past with a Portal Gun”. Needless to say, I geeked out. Firstly because I love Zelda games, and I mean love, and secondly, because I really did enjoy playing portal (Portal 2 will be played soon).
Although I wouldn’t want Link to have a Portal gun I thought the video was jokes. The water temple in Ocarina of Time wouldn’t be nearly as difficult and neither would saving Epona in Majoras Mask.
I will probably start playing Ocarina of Time again this week as it is my favorite game of all time. I won’t talk to much about it now because of this.
For now 5 things I would do with a Portal gun:
1. Link my wall to work so I don’t have to do a 4 hour commute each day.
2. Link my wall to a McDonalds on nights out, so I can get breakfast.
3. Work out a way to rob a bank using the Portal gun.
4. Make shit go up and down for fun. All sorts of shit. Just cos I can.
5. Put it on two opposite walls so I could run forever through it, thus saving on gym membership.
Link’s Ideas were probably better at saving the world. Mine, well mine are better than using it to wee on people.
Hello folks! Thought I’d post up some news from this week and also some trailers and what not. Just like last week, this isn’t any breaking news, it’s all just regurgitated from other wonderful film news sites and blogs and is just my humble opinion on them. The aim is to fuel discussion and analyse the latest happenings - please do send in your thoughts and opinions!
Firstly, The Dark Knight Rises. Holy smokes. Last week we had the teaser poster, which was sick, then it was announced that the teaser trailer would be playing with selected screenings of Harry Potter and from what I gather, it was only shown in the States. A bootleg went up on Wednesday or Thursday, and I avoided that bad boy and then on Monday, the official HD trailer went up as well as two fan made posters, showing the three movies - The Dark Knight Legend, as one (below, which I know Dave posted a few days ago).
The trailer doesn’t give up much except that Gordon is in the hospital talking to either Bruce Wayne or Batman…either. It shows Bane too, and that’s obviously awesome. I’m a huge fan of Nolan and loved both Begins and Knight, so can’t wait for this final instalment. It’s going to be phenomenal.
Hugo Cabret and The Thing.
Go back a few days and trailers for both Hugo (shortened from Hugo Cabret) and The Thing were released online.
Let’s talk about Hugo first. Firstly, the film is a kids story and is quite dark. That’s all good. We see it all the time and it’s always done reasonably well. There is a sinister undertone to The Goonies and even in more recent films like A Series of Unfortunate Events, but this has been directed by Martin Scorsese. I’m a huge Scorsese fan and treat many of his films as major influences on my creative life. This trailer does not look like ‘a Martin Scorsese picture’. Understandably, they can’t go Scorsese on a load of children in movie theatres so I put this down to the marketing strategy but I’m really hoping for something a lot more dark and sinister than what is put on the trailer. Although the film looks good and entertaining, it does not look or feel like a Scorsese film. Saving it, though is some slapstick and not-Borat-type comedy from Sacha Baron Cohen. I’m glad for this. I don’t like Borat.
The prequel/sequel to The Thing and named, rather imaginatively as, The Thing, had it’s first trailer posted this week. Considering the originals cult status, I was really hoping for something special but I was disappointed. Unfortunately, the film looks and feels like one of the atrocious remakes we’ve already seen over the last few years, like Nightmare on Elm Street and Prom Night. Tame and ridiculous. It feels like s rip off of the original and uses some of the score too. Pants.
The Amazing Spider-Man
A trailer for Columbia Pictures’ Amazing Spider Man has come online. Check it out below but it looks good! A little different to the Raimi films but it gives me a positive vibe. I really liked the old ones and feel that its too soon for a reboot but this does look like a really good origins story, despite the weird POV ending - I don’t have much time for that!
Hopefully we’ll have more news on that soon!
The Hobbit Production Video pt 3
So last week we had the second video - this week we’ve been treated to another! I’m not gonna say too much but this is the best out of the lot so far - just watch it!
News this week;
Tarantinos ‘D’jango Unchained’ has acquired Kevin Costner to play a lead. I’m really looking forward to this because I like Costner. He’s awesome and despite by distaste for Tarantino (I’m sorry, I seem to dislike a lot this week!), I’m glad he’s got a part in this. He deserves a good solid part in a Western, he plays them really well and it’ll be good to see him in a darker role, not the hero. By the sounds of it, his character will be playing a very sadistic antagonist - should be up against Jamie Foxx’s D’Jango!
Also comes a poster for the new Ashton Kutcher led reboot (ish) of Two and a Half Men. I hope it’s good. He was good in That 70’S Show - let’s hope he can pull it out the bag for this.
There is also a new promo trailer online for Season 6 of Dexter. I’ve been a big fan of Dexter from the beginning and I’m really glad it’s still going and has really gone from strength to strength each season although Season 5 was slightly weaker. The idea was great but I don’t think it was delivered in the way it should’ve been, especially after the finale of Season 4. This, however, shows off a new, great, back-to-the-roots Dexter, played with the song ‘Hallelujah’, but in it’s original, great form by Leonard Cohen. Check it out!
A trailer for The Avengers has leaked online but I’ve avoided watching because I’d rather wait for an official HD trailer - hopefully it’ll be out within the next week!
I have decided to do a regular feature about my favourite games to play with friends and at parties; you know the social ones that are just timeless and fucking great.
The first one is Mario Kart 64. I have some time of work this week to graduate so decided to invite a friend round to have a few beers and play some games. She isn’t a big gamer, but Mario Kart is different. Anyone can play Mario Kart, my mum can play it and probably even win from time-to-time. That is the intrinsic joy to Mario Kart, in fact all Mario games but I’ll go into that another time.
It reminds me of when I was much younger, lets say 10 years ago. I went to a friend’s house for a party. We were young so it wasn’t a drinking party; it was a Mario Kart party. We drew characters at the start of the night (I was Yoshi) and played a massive tournament. It went on all night and the competition was intense. One of the main things for a good multiplayer game is it needs to be interesting to watch when you aren’t playing, Mario does this well. 12 kids were focused on the screen for hours and hours. I can barely remember another game, which has brought me so much fun.
The best thing about this game is that it never gets boring. Over ten years of playing it and I can still have a great night playing it. The only games that come close for me are the Zelda series.
I bloody love Mario Kart, playing it with friends really is the epitome of awesome. It brings out competition in everyone, old and young. You compete, you hate, you cry, you laugh. AWESOME.
The only thing that let it down was the quality of an N64 put up on a 37” HD TV is absolutely awful. Oh and I have to say (on pain of death) Catherine, you were the best Mario Karter ever, so good in fact that you must have been letting me win.
