New TIGSource Compo!

"The two themes are adult games and educational games. Many of us have played both types of games growing up. So what do Leisure Suit Larry and Mavis Beacon have in common? What would happen if Custer got his revenge in the middle of the Oregon Trail? Maybe nothing. Maybe a LOT. The choice is yours."



This is looking like it will quickly become one of their most ridiculous competitions yet, it was only announced a week or so ago and there's already a few demos up on the forums. It runs till August 9th. The TIGSource compo entries never dissapoint, I'll definitely something I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Wii Sports Resort Island: Then & Now

I'm a tad late in actually posting this here (even though I commented on this when it was first posted), but there's some good conversation over on Phantomleap about the changes between the Wii Sports Resort Island from the first time it was shown, to now with the game finished and soon to be released.

I'm a little torn, I do like the new island overall the saturated colors and the mountain texture just don't work for me. The mountain just looks out of place, the semi realistic texture clashes with the striped grass. While on the old island the mountain was textured in a similar fashion as a 2d Zelda game.

I'm not too concerned about the mountain though, the colors bother me more. In the old picture, it could be partially meant to be an atmospheric effect since it's such a high altitude shot. But all the colors are more washed out and pastel like, not unlike the grass color used in Earthbound. While the water is that nice bright light blue, like you'd see in shallow areas of the Caribbean, y'know the sort of place where a resort could be located.

Another thing I didn't initially notice, but was pointed out by a commenter, is the smaller surrounding islands in the old pic. It's tough to say if they're still going to be there or not based on the picture used here. But it would be nice for some sports events to be located on other islands, or say if they were used as a part of the golf course.

There really isn't anything bad about the current island though. My feeling is that part of the reason for the changes made may have been to give it a more 'anywhere' feel. It does seem a little for grounded in reality location wise since the surrounding seem so generic, while the island itself is rather fantastical. Thinking about it in that manner the island could be anywhere, be it the south Pacific, near the Americas, or more towards Europe. It does seem like there's a little more universal appeal, but it just seems to lack some personality. However the lighting and color in each game does seem to have a bit of nice variety, which is really more important since I doubt you'll be seeing much of the island as a whole.

Fischerspooner: We Are Electric Vs Live

I stumbled into this video just recently, and was amazed at just how similar it is to Fischerspooners live show (I saw them about a week ago). Besides looking amazing in it's own right, the music video is like their whole live show compressed into 4 minutes. Luckily my girlfriend was able to get some very convenient pictures at the show to compare with the video.
Incidentally the photos from the concert are even in the same chronological order as the music video. It's really amazing how well the video captures the live show, or how the live show recreates the video. With the exception of the neon sculpture everything from the video made it into the live show. I'm curious to know which was put together first, I'm thinking it was the live show, then the video, but I doubt I'll ever now for certain.

Well I guess my little plan for regular updates has pretty much failed. Even with all the E3 blog-fodder I haven't made any posts recently.
Hopefully I'll be fixing that after work tonight. I really should take advantage of forward posting so ~ ca write a bunch over a weeend then do nothing for a couple weeks. Though I have started playing with Flock a bit, that may at least make things a little more cnvient for posting. Between Flock, posting from my phone, and twitter on my phone you'd think I'd keep thingsup to date better, but oh well. Hopefully by the end of the summer I can make this more of a habit instead of something I remeber to do once month.

Thrift store find #1

I went to a different Salvation Army store than I normally do today and I realized something. I need to start carrying a camera that isn't in my phone, and I need more disposable income to collect random stuff with.
I don't make it any sort of secret that I have a kink for beefy buttons and knobs, especially metal ones. Needless to say I'm a big fan of vintage electronics. There's something incredibly satisfying about interacting with the controls when they aren't made of cheap plastic painted chrome, or (gasp!) touch screens.

Back to the Salvation Army, they had a pretty big selection of tv's, a whole lot of your typical matte black/grey plastic clad CRTs, and this little fella. It's a shame I literally didn't have a spare $15 to buy this, which ultimately is probably a good thing. Although having it sitting around with a digital converter box hooked up to it would be pretty fun. It's cheap, we'll see what happens I guess.



At least I'll have to go back with my better camera, these cellphone shots really don't do it justice. It's in great condition, nice and shiny, makes me wonder just how the picture is. For the longest time I had pretty mixed feelings about 70's designs, but I think it's growing on me. I've been looking at a lot of older case racers from around that time. There's some ugly stuff for sure, but there's something nice about the simple blocky layout. It's nothing fancy at all, but the material choices are nice, and it's very unpretentious in it's appearance.



I had one other nice find while I was there, that'll be up later. I'm trying to make it a summer project to actually get in the habit of updating this thing regularly so hopefully this will be a start.

Getting old

Here's a new commercial for the Klonoa. it's pretty cool that they're remaking the game and it's looking pretty nice. A more powerful system definitely does the art style justice.
The thing is I spent the entire time thinking "Hey it's a womb chair, those filthy kids better not destroy it!"
I could just be getting older, or turnng more into a furniture nerd than a game nerd.