The fireworks aren't all that exciting this year, and I'm bored, so uh, new blog.

What i've been watching:

Bold = Movies I really liked. Red = Must see.

Arrested Development - Why do all my favorite shows always get cancelled?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Swingers
Revenge of the Nerds
Hackers
Chasing Amy
Duck You Sucker
Phantoms - Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms yo!
Pulp Fiction
The Crow
Midnight Run
Bronson
Art School Confidential
The Gauntlet
The Lost Boys
Poltergiest
Exit Through the Gift Shop
HellBoy
This is Spinal Tap
Hot Tub Time Machine
The Science of Sleep
They Live
Tremors
Tales from the Hood
Weekend at Bernies II
Demolition Man
Contact
Highlander
Wet Hot American Summer
Batman The Movie
The Fly
Surf Nazis Must Die - lol.
Bad Boys


Currently watching Dollhouse.

Almost related, she plays a part in Arrested Development.

What I've been playing:

The Witcher 2 - I can't get enough of this game. I've just started my 3rd playthrough, and I'm probably going to experiment with different choices. This time i'm going to play on the Hard difficulty, and go a bit deeper into the level and alchemy system. I'm thinking of mainly taking the swordsman skill tree. Then going into the Alchemy tree to get 2 Impreg, which gives me 35% boost to my mutagens. I'll basically be unstoppable force of violence if I use a ton of Greater Critical Mutagens. I can't remember the last time nerded out on an RPG this much. I think it might have been the FFXII. I spent many hours programing my party members with the Gambit system.

Portal 2 - Surprise! It's more Portal, and it's great. Better than the first in almost every way. Also, it has one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a game. Sends chills down my spine everytime. Well now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's ME! I still haven'thad the chance to play the Coop campaign though, I need to find a coop buddy. By the way, the soundtrack is free for download on the Portal 2 website, go check it out!

Crysis 2 - Directx 11 really makes a difference here, the game is stunning, especially with the new particle effects and reflections. Also, they've released the Sandbox 3 now, i'm trying to look into how I can modify the N2. My plans are:

-Enable sprinting in all directions, and enable sprinting while reloading.
-Holding the shift while reloading increases reload speed.
-Increase sprint speed by 100% to 200%.
-Decrease the hold duration for power melee and power throw.
-Decrease power melee and power throw energy consumption by 80%.
-Make Air Stomp and Air Friction default powers.
-I'll make everything else up as I go.

This is my first time using a game editor like this, so I'm just working with the basics, building a replica of my town from Animal Crossing. It's been relatively easy so far, but I don't know how difficult it'll be to change the conditions of the suit. I'm sure someone will mod the old suit mechanics in anyways.

All box art should be 100% painting. No ingame or CGI renders, that looks bad 90% of the time.

E3 2011

Uhh, so what did E3 bring us this year? More Halo. More Gears. More Uncharted. More Battlefield 3 Singleplayer footage that nobody gives a **** about outside of how good it looks. Prey 2 looked kind of cool, reminded me a lot of Star Wars Bounty Hunter, but less ****ty. We also got a quick peek at Bioshock Infinite, a game i've been excited about for awhile now. They're showing the full demo on the 7th of July, so i'll give more impressions then. Far Cry 3 also looks cool, more about that below. The new Tomb Raider was shown, but the demo took place in the very beginning of the game and was chock-full of quick time events and Lara moaning. Alright, so, E3 2011 wasn't all that exciting. Umm, only 347 days till E3 2012!!!!!

Far Cry 3

I never played Far Cry 2 for one simple reason: It looks like ****. Call me a graphics whore, but FC2 has some of the blandest most unappealing looking visuals I've ever seen. Everything looks like it is made out of plastic. The grass. The guns. The trees. The dirt. The Water. Your arms. And it's not high quality plastic either, it's cheap "Kids Meal Toy" teir. I hate it.

Thankfully Far Cry 3 fixes that, so I'm looking forward to it. The whole Far Cry theme has always been very appealing to me, and I think the narrative director of Far Cry 3 put it best "The core to this fantasy is that I don't have any resources, I'm on my own, it's the 'man alone' fantasy, right? I need to survive through my own wit, talent, skills - my actions will determine if I live or die. That feeling is core to why this context is so fun," That is exactly what I'm looking for and I hope they achieve this feeling. If not there is always the new Tomb Raider. To throw around some buzz words: dynamic, emergent gameplay. I've always loved the plan out your approach gameplay, and then having to adjust, or improvise, if things don't go according to plan.

I've lost count of how many times Ubisoft has let me down though. C'mon Ubisoft, pull it off this time? Please. Oh, by the way, give us a bows. After picking up Team Fortress 2 and messing around with the Huntsman Bow, I have a bow and arrow fetish. Tomb Raider is going to have one, so you should too.

Metro Last Light

I never played the first Metro game, Metro 2033. From what I understand it's a post-apoc shooter set in Russia, like STALKER, but it is more like Half Life 2 in design? I dunno. Maybe if it goes on sale during the Steam Summer Sale I'll buy it. Anyways, Last Light looks really nice, graphically. I love this shot:

and this one:

Bastion

Bastion is an interesting title. It's an isometric action RPG being developed by Supergaint Games. The cool thing about it is it's narrator. The way you play effects what the narrator will...narrate. He literally narrators what you are doing. Hopefully that doesn't become downright obnoxious after 10 minutes.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

I feel like i've been waiting forever for this game. It's finally coming out this summer exclusively for XBLA. Microsoft seems to scoop up all indie games I'm looking forward to. :

Team Fortress 2!

This is free now. I need people to play this with, who's down?

That's it.

Alex