Is it just me or is Aneka extremely beautiful. If you have no idea you may want to check out comedy central's show Krod Mandoon. It's a decent show and I do actually enjoy watching it. It's like that old series Hercules meets over-the-top characters and comedy. But the thing that got me really hooked was India de Beaufort (a.k.a Aneka). I'm actually kinda sad that today I missed my opportunity to play Fable 2 with her in an Xbox Live community event, even though it may not have been the best choice of game, especially since its been so long since it came out and just about everyone has beaten the game.

Here's a link to their homepage:

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/krod_mandoon/index.jhtml

NSFW- There's no nudity seeing as its televised on tv but here was my favorite part of the series premiere :)

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=224174&title=dance-of-the-300-raccoons

If you're interested, there is an episode on tonight at 10/9c.

There have been many epic fails in the history of our time. For instance, the economy or one of those silly videos from those awesome guys at the failblog channel on youtube. However, I'm am distraught but humored to present Lego: Rock Band, the greatest fail man has ever and will ever know (hopefully). I can't even fathom who the genius's were who decided to pursue this gem of an idea. I can only imagine that there is one Bill in every design team. In this instance Bill in TT Games said "Hey, we should totally make a Lego rock band game". And unfortunately everyone must have agreed. I'm sad this had to happen, and I sorta deep down in my heart want it to be good.... but in a bigger way I long for it to be terrible. "But Shawn you're being to harsh!", well I guess you could say that, but a long time ago I drew a line. Lego India Jones; Cool, but I won't play it. Lego Batman; Once again, cool but I'm still not playing it. Lego Rock Band; Dude....really? Its a cute idea for family oriented gameplay but we need to draw the line somewhere! Or pretty soon we'll have Lego: Grand Theft Auto- Where kids can have fun beating up crude block depictions of prostitutes. Okay that's a little far... but all these Legos.. they're driving me insane. I miss the times when playing Legos meant you were building a wicked cool rocket ship or that huge replica of the Millennium Falcon that you know you've always wanted ( You can't deny it :)). That's just how I feel anyway, but what do you guys think. Are they going a little overboard with this Lego stuff or what?

All this controversy over the "bright" colors in Diablo III and the cell-shaded world of the upcoming Borderlands got me thinking; what is so important about the type of graphics they instill in games? It technically doesn't effect the gameplay. It doesn't effect the story. It doesn't even effect the controls you use to play. So then whats all the fuss about? It sounds like a simple argument, and it is. But many people often disagree on how to handle it. Should these characters look cartoony or should they be gritty and real-world like? Should the world be the combined color palette of black and three different shades of gray or should it be colorful and beautiful? In my opinion, I naturally go for the more realistic and gritty environments in general mainly for their "seriousness". When I say that I mean how they can make you attached to the world in a sense. It allows for a very surreal experience in which you feel the emotions of the characters and the world around them. Gritty realism tends to bring out the harsh sense of reality that draws you in to the story. On the other hand, for me anyways, cell-shaded graphics make me feel as though Im a casual observer of whats going on.They make me feel as if I were reading a comic-book instead of actually controlling the characters. There's a beauty that comes along with games with either of the graphic themes. Would Crysis be so successful if it was cell-shaded? The answer is simply no. Would Prince of Persia been better if it wasn't cell-shaded? Perhaps. I'm not going to get to into the Diablo controversy mainly because the color palettes of Diablo II and Diablo III are similar if not exactly alike, and if you don't believe me check this out:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib3n5WuYico

Anyways, back to the main point here. My final stance on the subject is that, yes, the type of graphics can be important or influential in a game. They can attract different audiences or sway your feelings towards characters in general. They can cause revolts in fans or help a game to become the latest benchmark for PC performance. But as far as Im concerned, I have yet to be impressed by a cell shaded game as greatly as I have been impressed with a realistic looking one.

Just a quick blog; I felt that Sherlock hasn't been getting any attention lately with the new Sherlock vs. Jack the Ripper game coming out 4th of next month. It looks awesome. This revamped version of its previous title includes both 3rd and 1st person views (in default copy) and it sounds like they really mastered it this time. The game has an overall eerie, dark, and creepy atmosphere, something I've been waiting for for a long time.

http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=480265&fpart=3

(The post your reading is by the hood, I guess he's one of the developers)

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/964/964858p1.html

(For info on Sherlock on the Xbox)

To be honest, I thought the first one was great... but lacked content. I loved the idea of an agile assassin that could sprint across a packed and crowded road of busy pedestrians, pushing them out of his way while he makes for the roof and "parkours" his way back to the safehouse. It was fun for me and it was something different. that's also one reason why I can't wait for the second. As you probably already heard there was information leaked about the game on the Ubisoft forums. This one will take place in the Renaissance in Venice and the main character's name will be Ezio, for more check out G4:

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/694641/Slew-of-Assassins-Creed-2-Details-Revealed.html

Theres also a "Rumor Control" report from Gamespot here:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/blogs/rumor-control/909119209/26843382/assassins-creed-2-details-leaked.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;1

In case you haven't checked him out,

http://www.phillyd.tv/

This guy is hilarious, I try to watch his videos that usually come out every weekday for about a couple months now, they're like mini news reports that give you the info about whats goin on in the world.. Unfortunately, his father has been really ill and he hasn't been making any lately. Check out his page and watch some old vids if you like, PhillyD FTW!

Youtube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/sxephil?blend=1&ob=4

There's three things I thought were always essential to an MMORPGS; 1) Classes 2) Some sort of Leveling System 3) Gaining Skills. Apparently, the Secret World wants to tell Shawn that he's wrong. Which may be a good or bad thing. At the risk of my self-esteem, I'm hoping it does prove me wrong, because if it does, this might be my new World of Warcraft. Basically from what I understand this game is set in some modern-day realm/world where people obtain super powers to fight off evil creatures that are appearing (Couldn't be bothered to reading all of it). You also have all your superpowers and what not from the beginning of the game allowing the game to be picked up easily by casual players. There are no classes and there are no levels. I mean from what I understand that sounds like that could get bland very quickly, unless of course the missions are top par. So unless they're gonna tell me I can wield a fiery guitar axe of doom and let me wear my "I love Coca-Cola" t-shirt, I'll keep my skeptical attitudes towards this game... although I'll watch it closely.

You can never beat the classics, so I took it upon myself to finally get one and play it. As an adventure enthusiast I recommend Grim Fandango to everyone that loves adventure games, so far its been pretty great and you can really see the creativity from Schafer here. I cant wait to get Monkey Island 3 :).

Anyone else excited about this? I mean not only is Tim Schafer on the project, the protagonist is based and voiced after Jack Black. At first, I'll admit I was a bit iffy on the idea, but from the hands-on preview gamespot showed it sounds pretty solid. I'm not a heavy metal kind of person, but this game seems to clearly capture the essence of rock. I am a bit worried about the gameplay though such as the driving sequences and also hope that the gameply won't be the repetitive "smash-em-up" with linear questlines. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I wish I could have been playing that demo.....

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

If you haven't checked it out already, you really should. Diablo 3 seems to be shaping up amazingly. It's one of the few games I can say that I think will score a perfect 10. The site displays the character classes you can choose from, maps, a beastiary and much more, and its also very well designed if I might add. With great media reinforcement like that I'm stoked for this to come out.