Whelp, see y’all in six months or so.

2:04 pm  •  26 March 2013  •  3 notes

It’s been a few days now since a friend of mine and many of yours passed, and everyone has their own way of grieving. You’re looking at mine.

Whenever something shitty happens, there’s a good chance that I’ll end up boarding up the doors and playing video games. This time I played Fez, a game that I’ve been waiting until I had a lot of time on my hands to play.

It’s about Gomez, a 2D being who’s living in a secretly 3D word. It’s not until he’s imbued with the power of perspective, by donning a magical fez, that he’s able to see his world as it really exists. That’s just plain neat.

This game is awesome, especially if you like puzzles and exploring.

The gibberish I scrawled on those pieces of paper was from deciphering the game’s language and number system, and that only accounts for a fraction of the madness that is Fez’s collection of secrets. I think Phil Fish, the designer of Fez, was trying to bring back the days of trading video game secrets on the playground with your buddies, which is pretty awesome, considering that most commercial games have gotten so much easier than they were when I was a kid.

I still have a handful of secrets to figure out, even with the help of all those notes, but I think I’ll soldier on until I’ve conquered this baby. I just really need a win right now.

8:00 pm  •  26 December 2012  •  18 notes

Goodbye, society.

3:29 pm  •  18 September 2012  •  7 notes

What have you ever done with your life, loser?

What’s that? “Family, friends, and financial security,” you say? Did those unlock any achievements? No? Then take your three F’s and shove ‘em up your Xbox.

10:15 pm  •  14 August 2012  •  4 notes

This damn game, The Binding of Isaac, is one of my current obsessions, and is usually what I’m playing when I supposed to be working.

How the Hell do I explain this game…

Okay, so, you play as Isaac, whose super religious mother is trying to murder him because, while watching Christian television programming, a voice appeared in her head, ordering her to do so. She of course assumes this voice is God; whether it is or not, or if the voice even exists, is up to you, the player, to think about.

You spend the vast majority of the game running away from her in a randomly generated Zelda-like dungeon underneath Isaac’s bedroom. There you’ll use your tears to fight off anything from perpetually bleeding vagina monsters to walking tumors who cough murderous flies at you.

You can use bombs, keys, coins, and a bit of luck to find and/or buy various power ups and items to help you survive, which is important because you only get the one life in this game. Unless you find the corpse of a cat that didn’t get to use its nine lives, naturally.

At the end of every level you’ll fight some grotesque and deadly boss, and afterwards, you may even get the chance to meet and make a deal with Satan, if you choose. You’ll also get to see Isaac’s recurring nightmares that deal with fears that never really go away, like the fear of getting into trouble, getting embarrassed, or being rejected.

Oh yeah, and Isaac does all this completely nude because his mother took his clothes and all his toys away to keep them from corrupting his soul.

If my description didn’t make your eyes vomit and you’re still reading this, you should check this game out on Steam for just a few bucks. I bought it for just under $2.00, but I think that sale’s over. Totally worth it.

I read that Nintendo was going to port this over to the DS, but they chickened out because of “questionable religious content.” I guess I can’t really blame them, but still, over 700,000 people have already downloaded it. Go, indie game development!

4:11 pm  •  25 July 2012  •  5 notes

I was gonna write a long, detailed post about life, love, death, all that shit, but then I got distracted by my new favorite game, Inappropriate Llama Disaster.

Smart phones have never been so dumb.

2:08 am  •  6 July 2012  •  13 notes

Too nerdy; don’t read

I’ve been going through a rough patch lately, so I did what any grown adult would do: stopped work on all of my projects, boarded up the front door, and started playing video games all night every night. This very mature decision led me to dominate Fallout: New Vegas, snagging all seventy-five achievements in the over two hundred hour process.

This here’s a picture of my character, Chance, the biggest gun-toting bad-ass in the post-apocalyptic Mojave, and God damn, that was a lot of hyphens. He enjoys gecko steaks, Sunset Sarsaparilla, and romantic Death Claw sniping missions.

Also pictured: his fully-modded anti-material rifle; ED-E, his flying plasma-blasting robot buddy; and Cass, the foulest mouth in The Wastes.

I’m going to miss those two…

7:23 pm  •  28 February 2012  •  7 notes

Today, I didn’t want to get out of bed when I woke up, even though it was 2:53 P.M. at the time.

Today is the deadline I gave myself for finishing the first draft of a writing project; I have to say goodbye to a dear, dear friend; and there is absolutely no wrestling on tonight.

Today is a boss battle.

“Fight On!” by Nobuo Uematsu

All music posts

Nobuo Uematsu’s iTunes page

For those of you who don’t know who this man is, Nobuo is basically the John Williams of the world of video game music, where he is royalty. He’s written the soundtracks to some of my all-time favorite RPGs. He’s one of my creative heroes.

4:06 pm  •  18 January 2011  •  3 notes

Want to know what myself, ianbrooks, pigtailsandcombatboots, and countless other gamers the world over have been geeking out over the past few months? Well, here it is, folks.

Fallout: New Vegas (Ooooo. Aaaaah.)

And this isn’t just an ordinary copy. This is the collector’s edition. This baby set me back $80. It comes with a hardback comic, seven poker chips, a Lucky 38 Roulette coin, a set of playing cards (!), a making of DVD, and, of course, the game itself. Not too shabby, eh? Seriously, that’s pretty damn good as far as collector’s editions go.

Anyway, this is usually the part where I’d stock up on canned goods and bottled water in preparation of locking myself away for a good, solid month or so while I play this game nonstop. I’m not gonna do that, though. I’m just now starting to get my writing mojo back, and I can’t risk passing up on the opportunity to get some serious work done. With that said, I’m still probably going to play the crap out of this game.

Time to get one last tea for the road and go explore a post-apocalyptic Nevada. Later, taters.

4:22 pm  •  19 October 2010  •  17 notes

1:26 PM is the new 8:00 AM.

I’ve been getting out of bed around 4:30 PM for the last two months, so this is actually a huge improvement for me. I always forget how bright the days are, though.

I’ve been in a huge creative funk and instead of getting super depressed, I decided to play a crap load of old-school video games and stalk you guys on Tumblr again. And I only wore pants, like, half of the time.

You know what I hate about sleeping so late? The guys at Star Bucks are always “Oh, I wish I could sleep in all day.” No you fucking don’t. It’s not as fun as it sounds, people. It’s pretty damn sad, actually. I was more productive in the womb. At least then I was, you know, growing and whatnot. Forming useful things like thumbs. Brimming with potential and all that good stuff.

With that said, I’m totally going to chug my tea and head back home to play more video games. The Scott Pilgrim vs. the World video game is coming out for the Xbox Live Arcade today and I’ve been super excited to play it for a bit. It’s a very old-scool styled, side-scrolling, beat-‘em-up extravaganza. Like Double Dragon or River City Ransom. Plus, the sound track is very much rad. Anamanaguchi wrote these songs for the sole purpose of tickling my geek bone, but I will allow you Tumbletopians to listen in too.

Here’s one of my favorites.

“Just Like In the Movies” by Anamanaguchi

Also, sending birthday love to Michele. I beat Zelda, and yes, it was pretty awesome. Harder than I remember, but awesome.

1:47 pm  •  25 August 2010  •  10 notes