If you follow indie games at all, you've probably heard of Bastion. During its development, it took home numerous Best in Show prizes from E3 and other game conventions while building up an incredible amount of buzz in the games press. Part of what is intriguing about Bastion is its cool art design, which in the last couple months, peaked my interest more so than the gameplay or the much-ballyhooed narration.
The NPD Group is a market research firm that issues the most trusted sales numbers for video games. They just released their second quarter 2011 report, and the trends it reveals confirm much of what we here have been speculating here at Indie Games Ichiban (and what we've been hoping for): downloadable games have risen, while full-box retail games have fallen—that is in the US, at least.
I shot this X-Men: First Class Spoof with the new Technicolor CineStyle picture profile (it was a 5d, as well). I had done some initial testing when the profile first came out, but never shot a real project on it. This X-Men short is my first real world experience with the profile.
Dumb but honest. Like a golden retriever covered in ketchup
Tips Clobbering varmints counts towards some goals!
Witch hazel is a type of shrub with fragrant yellow flowers, and its bark and leaves are extracted and used for many medicinal uses.
How to protect your child from Whooping cough Pertussis — Famously known as whooping cough is a highly contagious bacterial disease caused by an organism called Bordetella pertussis.
Well another great way to burn up our taxpayer money. From Cold Warriors to targeting trafficking: US military shifts focus in Europe - World News.
Mitt Romney has been on a winning streak recently, with small breaks by Rick Santorum. Ron Paul is slowly coming in third, but it's hard to say he's making a dent in those who support the top two contenders. Newt Gingrich has gone down, down to the bottom. He's still fighting to make another break in the race.
"The suspect is based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He has been identified as a staff sergeant in the Stryker brigade who was taking part in a village stability operation in Afghanistan. He is a 38-year-old married father of two on his first deployment to Afghanistan after three previous deployments in Iraq.", reads an article from MSNBC.
Undercover Crow -Sage I sit in a dim black bench
The internet is a scary place, and if you're like me, you don't want anyone tracking you or learning your search habits. It's a blatant invasion of privacy for companies to do this, but at least we have methods of fighting back—one of which is Tor.
Hello wizards! Welcome to The Wizard's Spiral! This new blog is about Wizard101. Feel free to post about anything in the Forums, ranging from equipment to Helephants, from castles to Mooshu. If you have any questions or technical problems, go to the forums and open a new thread. Me or any other wizard will be there right away to help you. For those of you who are wondering what Wizard101 is, you have come to the right place. Wizard101 is an MMORPG game that is all about wizards and magic. Whe...
Good commentary can make anything interesting.
GTA4 1st Person View Mod This mod has been out for a while, but with some people gettings Grand Theft Auto 4 for the PC last week because of the Steam sale, there has been talk about what are the best mods to get. There is a thread on Neogaf that talks about playing the game in first person mode instead of the default 3rd person point of view.
Use the lead hand to block in praying mantis fighting techniques. Learn how to do praying mantis kung fu palm block counter punches in this free martial arts video from a black belt instructor. Execute Praying Mantis Kung Fu counter punches - Part 1 of 23.
Yesterday was simple paper airplane replica of an F16 Fighting Falcon. Today, something other worldly. Vincent Floderer has mad originality creating origami figures. This Frenchman is widely regarded as the master of a form called Crumpling. Sea urchins, coral, mushrooms. The realism is breath-taking.
So far, I've talked a lot about what's going on in the world around us, but it's time I come back to politics for a bit. That said, the name of this world is somewhat misleading, in the sense that I talk about everything, not just politics! But I digress again.
If you’re unfamiliar with League of Legends, you’re either not into PC gaming or you haven’t spent much time on the internet. Riot Games officially released League almost two years ago, and since then it’s become a huge hit. In fact, the Santa Monica based company recently announced that the DOTA inspired game has 15 million registered users, 4 million unique logins each month, and 500,000 people playing the game at any given moment.
Japanese game shows are legendary for being more extreme (and absurd) than their American counterparts. Chris Farley immortalized the concept in a classic SNL sketch, and MXC and Ninja Warrior have both achieved great success dubbed and subtitled on American television. A big part of their appeal is how demanding they are compared to U.S. game shows. Only a few people have actually won Ninja Warrior in its 23 seasons on the air, and MXC is a constant comedy of failure and pain.
One of the coolest things about Twitter is the fact that you can get direct access to some of your favorite celebrities, and have one-on-one conversations with them in less than 140 characters. With Google+, you can have the same advantage, but you don't need to feel constricted by the 140 character limit. Although Google+ has been weeding out fake accounts, they do not currently have a system for celebrities to verify whether their accounts are legitimate or not.
Note: Little Brother is available as a free ebook download. Warnings
This German video is amazing. A joyously analog interpretation and deconstruction of the digital gaming experience. Malte Jehmlich is as primitive and inspiring as the the Vanuatu natives who devoted themselves to cargo worship after World War II!
A Way Out of the Overload How do we simplify? There's a welter of information, advice, techniques, schools and every imaginable video tape available on the market to answer that question for you. In making a selection from this movable feast you'd want to take into account the background and credentials of the person offering you a way out of the overload. That's assuming you didn't just throw up your hands in exasperation and walk away from the task entirely.
You may notice the bonus bar in the upper righthand corner of your screen. This bonus is meant to give you coins on top of what you're already getting from the game. You DO NOT need to click on the stars and coins, etc that pop up unless you want to get this extra bonus. They will be added to your loot automatically once they fade.
This one smells like a fish story. It is not. Tuesday April 13, Dave and I got up to surf westward at 7 in the morning. First rate waves. Headache cold water....sun blocked by the cliffs. Fast, clean, beach break. 3-4 foot sets, mostly lefts. About 15 dolphins swam by. Blase blase. We always see dolphins. But then some bigass whale with barnacles breaches. We are speechless. It is about 20 feet from us. We follow it for about thirty seconds and pinch ourselves. Have-you-ever? No...
TOP MOVIES 2011 The Artist (2011)
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer scale or complexity of a build or group project on your favorite server. Too much stress from any creative endeavour can lead to mistakes, discouragement, or fighting among a community. What better way to relieve stress and entertain the troops than some old fashioned competition?
Stuck in a relationship that is going nowhere? Do you wake up and it's nine years later and nothing has changed? Do you also dream of sheep? You know, in the non erotic sense? Well welcome to Catherine, a puzzle game of non-commitment and text messaging.
Minecraft was first released just a few years ago, but when a paradigm-shifting piece of media comes along the rest of the world is quick to take inspiration from it. The absolutely terrible XBLA knock-off FortressCraft was the first, and last month a much more interesting game called Terraria came out on Steam for $9.99. It is clearly inspired by Minecraft, and there is a long checklist of identical features. It is, nonetheless, a very different product, and just might be called the first in...
Most of the indie and vintage games discussed in Indie Games Ichiban are pretty cheap to purchase. They rarely top twenty bucks, which is one of the major advantages independent games have against their sixty-buck, major league counterparts. But if you think $60 for a game and $300 for a PS3 or Xbox 360 seems like a lot, then you haven't played Steel Battalion or seen the TurboExpress. They go above and beyond what normal gamers are willing to spend for questionably entertaining products. Her...
What happens when a person who has never played a building sandbox game tries it for the first time? Reality happens. The harsh reality of human nature. You would think playing with friends in a creation game would be utopia, but in truth it's more like being stuck with people that would walk all over you if it provided a softer path.
Today concludes our Gamer's Guide to Video Game Software (see Part 1 & Part 2). In our final installment, we will shift away from engines toward video games that allow you to make your own games within them.
No game is perfect. Well maybe except for Super Mario Brothers 3. In the last two posts I've been praising Tera but it's not without its shortcomings.
In 2000, the U.S. Joint Command Forces, a sort of think tank within the military, began planning a war game named Millennium Challenge. The scenario of the game was as follows: a rogue military commander had broken away from his government somewhere in the Persian Gulf and was threatening to engulf the entire region in war. He had a considerable power base from strong religious and ethnic loyalties, and he was harboring and sponsoring four different terrorist organizations. He was virulently ...
Update: New Trailer (7/9/10) In July of 2008, Fawaz Al-Matrouk, director of "To Rest In Peace", brought me on to shoot his USC graduate thesis film. Two years, 3 cameras, and over 15,000 miles later, the film is in its last week of post, having completed our final color correction at Light Iron Digital in Culver City yesterday.
When it comes to the holidays, there's definitely no shortage of ways to geekify your experience. You can make your own nerdy ornaments with a Weeping Angel tree topper, or go with traditional decorations that are mathematically perfect.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server.
Problem: You're a PC gamer who absolutely loves The Elder Scrolls series and were eagerly anticipating the release of the newest game, Skyrim. But as much as you'd like to pick up the new game, money is tight. What do you do?
In 1988, John Langley created COPS for the fledgling FOX network. 23 years later, the show is still running. It is the Energizer bunny of prime time television. Since John has followed more police officers and witnessed more crime than any human being on earth (absolutely no question), I had to ask some advice for hypothetical unwanted encounters with the men in blue.