EDIT: updated in light of new information. In alpha-order, upcoming games that are on my interest radar. Games in bold are most likely shoe-in buys.
Wii:
A Boy and his Blob
Bit.Trip Core
Cave Story
Endless Ocean 2
Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers
Metroid: Other M
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Super Mario Galaxy 2
The Tower of Shadow
Super Meat Boy
Wii Sports Resort
NDS:
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Ninokuni
Prof. Layton and the Diabolical Box
Scribblenauts
Super Mario RPG 3: Bowser's Inside Story
PS3:
3D Dot Game Heroes
ModNation Racers
Gravity Crash
The Last Guardian
LEGO Harry Potter
PixelJunk: Shooter
PC:
Machinarium
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Diversions
Yesterday I figured out how to get my AT-AT to go in reverse, thus bringing it to completion. All that remains is to design a level for it to navigate.
The photo really doesn't do it justice; you have to see it in action. It walks forward of course, and now in reverse thanks to some strategic placements of rockets on the feet. It can go up and down slight inclines thanks to a gyroscope I built for it that helps even out its weight distribution when it's not on level. It can fire working blasters that look like lasers (for all intents and purposes they are light), but explode on impact. It can be started AND boarded from the ground with no special elevators or ladders. Just hop on one of the back feet and, with a little good timing a Jedi jump (while the leg kicks) will send you soaring high to land on top/inside. Once there you can stop and start motion via a switch, fire blasters and make it go in reverse. I'm planning to have it walk across hazards the player never could, including deadly gas, fire, electricity, sharp objects and (blastable) big objects.
In other news I just got back from seeing Ponyo. It was... standard Miyazaki fare, not one of his best I don't think, but not bad. It's like a cross between Spirited Away and Totoro, maybe wish a dash of Howl. I felt like too much time was spent establishing things, and there wasn't enough attention given to the journey. It's interesting that one of Miyazaki's heroines is finally a mother. And it doesn't diminish the strength of her character in the slightest. Overall, I'd rank it thusly, my favorite on top:
Howl's Moving Castle
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
My Neighbor Totoro
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Ponyo
Kiki's Delivery Service
Castle in the Sky
Porco Rosso
The photo really doesn't do it justice; you have to see it in action. It walks forward of course, and now in reverse thanks to some strategic placements of rockets on the feet. It can go up and down slight inclines thanks to a gyroscope I built for it that helps even out its weight distribution when it's not on level. It can fire working blasters that look like lasers (for all intents and purposes they are light), but explode on impact. It can be started AND boarded from the ground with no special elevators or ladders. Just hop on one of the back feet and, with a little good timing a Jedi jump (while the leg kicks) will send you soaring high to land on top/inside. Once there you can stop and start motion via a switch, fire blasters and make it go in reverse. I'm planning to have it walk across hazards the player never could, including deadly gas, fire, electricity, sharp objects and (blastable) big objects.
In other news I just got back from seeing Ponyo. It was... standard Miyazaki fare, not one of his best I don't think, but not bad. It's like a cross between Spirited Away and Totoro, maybe wish a dash of Howl. I felt like too much time was spent establishing things, and there wasn't enough attention given to the journey. It's interesting that one of Miyazaki's heroines is finally a mother. And it doesn't diminish the strength of her character in the slightest. Overall, I'd rank it thusly, my favorite on top:
Howl's Moving Castle
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
My Neighbor Totoro
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Ponyo
Kiki's Delivery Service
Castle in the Sky
Porco Rosso
Friday, August 07, 2009
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
ModNation Racers
This month's official PS magazine (usually filled with 'meh') had a very intriguing cover story on a game called ModNation Racers. It looks to be an equal mix of Mario Kart, LittleBig Planet and Cel Damage. As these are some of my favorite games, this is a very good thing. Like LBP, the game lets you create your own levels, in this case race tracks. It's cartoony, kart racing though (a la Mario Kart) with some wacky 'tude and weapons thrown in from Cel Damage. According to the article there's alot of physics-based interaction, which is also good.
And some more in-depth info from E3, parts 1 & 2:
Looks quite promising, I wish it was here already!
And some more in-depth info from E3, parts 1 & 2:
Looks quite promising, I wish it was here already!
Monday, August 03, 2009
Slowly but Surely...
An update from the last WP post: I've decided that rather than beat my head against a wall trying to re-invent the wheel, I'm going to use some plug-ins and themes for WP designed specifically for webcomics. There's just too much in the way of archive searching and navigation for me to try to make something when the tools already exist. It doesn't make sense for me to spend time on it. So, technically I have a working site up, but I have yet to tweak the theme to reflect the design I developed. So the splash page is still masking it until it's ready. I'm also wrestling with style questions; while I have the ability to go in many different directions, I have yet to settle on a particular style. There are several bits and bobs that I like, but it's not quite a unique, compelling style at this point. It needs to be stronger, and I think the best way to to that is to just draw more. Like, I'm going to try and draw something every day, rather than leave my talent bottled up, using it when I need it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Shadow of the Past
In following a comment from a friend on facebook regarding Peter Jackson's Comic-Con address re: The Hobbit movies (2 planned), I cracked open my copies of The Silmarillion, The Fellowship of the Ring and even The Return of the King to find, to my great pleasure, a fair wealth of information surrounding the events of The Hobbit. Before having seriously looked into it, I was a bit surprised at the notion to split Hobbit up and add in "enriched history," for while I'd read Hobbit and the main story of LotR, that's not quite all there is. For one thing there's Silmarillion which is a daunting history in itself, and I've not yet made it through halfway, let alone to the last chapter.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is: because I'd only read the main "story" of Hobbit and Rings, I'd neglected certain history, namely the following, all of which factor strongly into possible material for these upcoming films. Contained within the following places are the history of Sauron, the Ring, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum and Hobbits, leading up to The Hobbit and slightly bridging the gap between it and Fellowship. These are (that I've found so far): The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, The Fellowship of the Ring, Prologue and The Shadow of the Past, and Appendix A and B at the end of The Return of the King.
From these can be pieced together: the Nazgul's activities after the Ring was lost, Sauron's ties to Mirkwood, leading to the fleeing of early hobbits, an investigation there by Gandalf and Sauron's expulsion by members of the White Council (which occurred during the same year Bilbo found the Ring!), the history of hobbits in the Shire area (including Smeagol's role in concealing the Ring), histories of dwarves and some of Aragorn's past, and, after the events of Hobbit, what Gandalf and Aragorn were up to (tracking down Gollum) leading up to the events in Fellowship. Perhaps what's most interesting is how the sources shed light on Gandalf's mysterious activities. It turns out that what he's doing when he disappears is tracking down Sauron and info on the Ring, which makes it quite relevant to the main story. I wonder how much Tolkien had worked out when he penned Hobbit...
All in all it's fairly exciting stuff for me to 'discover' having thought I knew all the 'important stuff' relating to the story. I had never read the in-depth histories though, which now have given me a pleasant surprise and hope for the content of these next two films. I wonder what they'll be titled... The Hobbit: Part I and The Hobbit: Part II? Or something more interesting like The Shadow of the Past and There and Back Again?
Anyway, the long and the short of it is: because I'd only read the main "story" of Hobbit and Rings, I'd neglected certain history, namely the following, all of which factor strongly into possible material for these upcoming films. Contained within the following places are the history of Sauron, the Ring, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum and Hobbits, leading up to The Hobbit and slightly bridging the gap between it and Fellowship. These are (that I've found so far): The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, The Fellowship of the Ring, Prologue and The Shadow of the Past, and Appendix A and B at the end of The Return of the King.
From these can be pieced together: the Nazgul's activities after the Ring was lost, Sauron's ties to Mirkwood, leading to the fleeing of early hobbits, an investigation there by Gandalf and Sauron's expulsion by members of the White Council (which occurred during the same year Bilbo found the Ring!), the history of hobbits in the Shire area (including Smeagol's role in concealing the Ring), histories of dwarves and some of Aragorn's past, and, after the events of Hobbit, what Gandalf and Aragorn were up to (tracking down Gollum) leading up to the events in Fellowship. Perhaps what's most interesting is how the sources shed light on Gandalf's mysterious activities. It turns out that what he's doing when he disappears is tracking down Sauron and info on the Ring, which makes it quite relevant to the main story. I wonder how much Tolkien had worked out when he penned Hobbit...
All in all it's fairly exciting stuff for me to 'discover' having thought I knew all the 'important stuff' relating to the story. I had never read the in-depth histories though, which now have given me a pleasant surprise and hope for the content of these next two films. I wonder what they'll be titled... The Hobbit: Part I and The Hobbit: Part II? Or something more interesting like The Shadow of the Past and There and Back Again?
Friday, July 24, 2009
WordPressure
GUH, So. I have WordPress installed on my host. But I also have a site design I made that I like; I don't want to just use some Theme (functional layout) someone else has created. So that means I've got to basically come up with my own theme. I was originally thinking it would be fairly easy to just plug in some chunks of code to display stuff, but it's not quite as simple as that. While there's plenty of documentation on WP's site, it's fairly intimidating if you don't know anything about PHP. Now, I used to know some PHP, but I haven't worked with it for about six years. Finally, after some time spent looking at the code, stepping away, coming back to it fresh and reading up on it I'm beginning to remember how it works. It doesn't help that WP keeps re-branding PHP with their own WP terms: 'Templates' and 'WP Tags' are really just files and functions. Plus, to make themes dynamic and robust nothing is centralized (files are being included all over the place) making it somewhat challenging to sit down and just EXAMINE how a theme is operating. Slowly I'm working through it though. I'm remembering things about PHP syntax like how a period joins things. Just gotta keep slogging through it, eventually it will make sense to me again, and hopefully I'll be able to bend it to my will.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
