Happy Valentine’s Day, all! While some of the geeky breed have evolved to overcome their fear of the opposite sex, some of the dice-rolling, mouse-clicking, phaser-toting guys out there still struggle. Well, BBSpot has posted a couple pages with lists of Top 11 Geek Pickup Lines. Some of my favorites include:
You </me>
By looking at you, I can tell you’re 36-25-36, which by the way are all perfect squares.
No matter how I sort things, you’ll always be first.
What’s a nice girl like you doing in a wretched hive of scum and villainy like this?
And of course…
Resistance is futile.
Alright, fellas…Have an amorous V-Day and go get ya some!
Lately, Josh Lesnick (creator of the webcomic, Girly) has been on a binge of pumping out all sorts of fan art. One of his most recent creations is the one you see above of his character, Winter, set to the theme of Pac-Man. This work reminds me of one of the gifts my girlfriend gave me for Christmas. That being a super-sweet Pac-Man hoodie (front and back) that you can find at Hot Topic and is totally awesome.
Recently, we got to see some high-resolution screen shots of the upcoming Street Fighter IV, along with profile images of the core cast of characters. But along with those tasty bits of eye candy, we became witness to the newly updated design for the game’s rookie character, Crimson Viper. As you can see above, the designers have seen fit to give C. Viper more detailed clothing, a Texan belt buckle, an a Polynesian man’s skull.
I do kinda like the updated style to her funky shades, but her head and face look far less feminine now. Supposedly, this is Capcom’s response to fans commenting that C. Viper looked way too much like an SNK character. Thus, these tweaks in design are to give her a more “Street Fighter” look. The in-game screen shots that are posted all around the web show her with the more slender head, which may get updated in the near future, though I’d believe that in the heat of action, no one’s likely to notice.
It’s still too soon to nit-pick about this game, though that’s never stopped anyone before. I came very close to saying that I preferred the original design more, but one look at the official Japanese site for SF4 and it appears that the above image may just be a lousy scan. The images shown in C. Viper’s character profile are much more pleasing to the eye and have won me over. I look forward to kicking a lot of ass with her later this year.
Yahoo! Games posted an article recently, mapping out each of the current presidential candidates by what their stand on video games are. Mitt Romey and Hilary Clinton appear to be most against the video game industry, giving threat to harsh censorship and regulation. Mrs. Clinton was also one of the spearheads fighting against the whole “Hot Coffee” issue surrounding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Meanwhile Barack Obama weighs in on the most likely to be less concerned with the matter. He believes that the gaming industry should police itself rather than by the government. If video games are enough of a part of your life that you include it into your politics, Obama is most likely your candidate.
In the past year or so, it’s been somewhat useful to me. For some people, it’s been the primary means of communication…though I don’t applaud MySpace for that, but rather jeer it. It’s also been a cool for looking people up from the past. Just to answer the question, “What ever happened to that Jason guy since high school?”
However, the pros hardly outweigh the cons. First of all, I have a MySpace page, but the only reason why I do is because in order to see anyone’s photos or whatever, you need an account. That’s bullshit. But what are you gonna do? You have friends that use MySpace for their personal website and if they want to show you photos of their kids, they have you by the balls.
Secondly, I still maintain that it’s a fad. In time, it too shall pass and I’ll have to sign up for some new “service” in order to keep in touch with my friends. Sure, it could be argued that LiveJournal was as well. But I doubt many people use LJ as their main homepage online. Sure, many sites out there are blog-based, but LJ is hardly seen as seriously as MySpace is. MySpace may be good for teenagers or garage bands that can’t afford or know how to build a professional site, but not a standard format for one’s homepage. At least, in my opinion. In fact, on my MySpace page, the one thing under my description is that MySpace is lame and to check out my real website.
While MySpace creates a resourceful start in social networking, it’s also been subject of deplorable abuse. With people using MySpace to post truckloads of personal information out in public, it’s been an invaluable tool for stalkers, pedophiles, and malicious employers in digging up dirt on the people they prey upon.
I have political reasons for not liking MySpace as well. MySpace prides itself as being a significant leader in online social networking. Well, who’s running the network? As mentioned before, MySpace is a bountiful collection of personal information. All of which can be used as marketing data. And by posting that data on their hosting service, MySpace reserves the rights to use that data for any means they see fit? Certainly not the News Corp organization, the company that not only owns MySpace, but also DirecTV, Wallstreet Journal, all things Fox, and is itself owned partially by the Saudi royal family. Yeah, I’m trust them to know who my friends are and my hobbies…
Seriously… MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and all of those online social networking sites can eat my ass. I’m gonna have to take the red pill on this one. I will not be farmed for data so that the corpoliticals can better sell their garbage to me.
I love Disgaea. It’s a game that I could literally play forever. It may have a finite story, but you can build an army of characters you can develop and every single item you can pick up contains a 100-level dungeon. Why do I need to buy any other game now? Then I remembered that they made Disgaea 2. To which I had to ask, “Why did they bother making a second game? We already have Disgaea!” It wasn’t until I saw all the new features that are in Disgaea 3 that my curiosity sparked to investigate the second game.
Here’s what’s bugging me, though… As I skim through the eBay listings, I keep finding used copies Disgaea 2 listed for anything between $30-80. This is retarded since you can still buy the game new from Amazon for $30 with free shipping. Hell, if you can find a used copy at GameStop, they currently price it at $20. So why do these idiots honestly think that they can score that kind of money for the game? It’s not like the case of Final Fantasy Tactics where the game has been out of print for almost a decade. Or even more crazy, the recent auction on a sealed Chrono Trigger. These people need to wait at least five years before hoping to draw in that kind of money for Disgaea 2.
According to their thought process, I should just buy up a bunch of copies on Amazon and just post them up on eBay for an instant 140% profit. Hmmm…though it’s tempting to take the gamble on sitting on some for five years. Heh, naaaah… I just wanna play the game.
GameTap continues it’s series of articles covering the last survivors of the arcade scene, this time focusing on San Jose’s Keystone II. Though the establishment isn’t so much an arcade in the classic sense, but rather a very private club. That being understandable since, it’s not you’re typical public venue, it’s in the owner’s house.
As more geeks come into money these days, we’ve been seeing many investing into bringing the arcade environments of their youth into their homes. Whether it be something as simple as building a custom MAME cabinet, to building your own private arcade room. This is rarely seen (at least done well) since one must not only have the passion and the funds to acquire the necessary hardware, but also enough craft to build and repair the cabinets themselves.
Another such room that’s been recently received spotlight is Peter Hirschberg’s Luna City Arcade, built in his home in Linden, VA. Unlike Keystone II (which focuses primarily on fighting games), Luna City Arcade hosts a collection of every classic title you’d expect from a 1980′s arcade. Hirschberg has gone to great lengths to not only maintain these vintage machines, but also to recreate the arcade-style atmosphere. The room is kept dark to help contrast with the machine’s video screens, but is illuminated with black lights and neon signs to bathe any who walks within it’s walls with token-popping nostalgia.
I’ve often fantasized about owning at least one arcade machine in my adulthood. At this moment, I’ve had a couple opportunities for some great deals, but so far I’ve passed on them. While I still plan to own one some day, it’s just not practical for me just yet. In the meantime, I do consider how I might configure my set up… Of course I’d prefer to obtain an original machine of my favorite games. Some (like the Capcom fighting games of the 1990′s) use JAMMA hardware, which allow you to swap out a cartridge inside a single cabinet. Though it might turn out to be more economical to convert an arcade cabinet into one that runs off of MAME.
In either case, which style of case do I choose? I suppose I’d be content with the classic boxy-looking cabinet that we’re all familiar with. Though the Japanese head-to-head “candy” style machines let you sit down and give you and your opponent plenty of elbow room. Multi-player games do tend to get crowded. In fact, someone recently designed a home-made version, using state-of-the-art audio/video equipment…which is super-sexy.
No, I don’t think I’d be satisfied with that arrangement. I prefer to stand side-by-side to my opponent so that we’re both viewing the game from the same screen. If for nothing else but to point to it after around and enthusiastically cry, “Did you see that?” So I think that I’d ideally set my sights on the sweet pedestal-style arcade cabinet. Only like the guys from the previous paragraph, I’d update it with the best possible A/V equipment. Including a 42″ LCD or plasma screen, stereo speakers with sub-woofer, and a couple drink-holders for a touch of class.
Scans of the latest Famitsu magazine containing in-game screen shots of Street Fighter IV show all eight original world warriors: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, E. Honda, Blanka, Zangief, Guile, and Dhalsim. No word yet on the four bosses, but we also get a look at the newest character, Crimson Viper, in action. If you ask me, the designs are both faithful to their original incarnations and beautiful in their own rite. My biggest hope is that a couple expanded characters make it into the mix, most especially Cammy.
This Friday, Capcom is set to unveil their next new character to join the roster. Not even a hint has been given as to whether it’s a classic character from the past, or one making his/her debut on the scene. In either event, you can count on a follow-up here! Until then, click on the image below to check out the page scans, provided by Ruliweb:
In the wake of the whole Fox News Vs Mass Effect fiasco, the media has come under fire for it’s coverage of video games. As mentioned in a recent article written by Next-Gen editor, Colin Campbell, media outlets have more and more often pushed the envelope beyond sensationalism to flat out lying.
Vilifying the video game industry is hardly news itself, however often it’s reported on within gaming industry’s own media (whose credibility is under fire as well). Nor is it likely to vanish any time soon, so long as it grabs the attention of fearful, ignorant parents just long enough to flash some advertisements in front of them at the same time. I imagine that since video games have become so mainstream in the past 15-20 years and continue to gain momentum, it won’t take more than another generation or two before so few adults wouldn’t have grown up playing video games that (what I call) The Fear Machine’s teeth won’t have nearly as much bite on the issue.
What I’ve yet to see–and perhaps I might be wrong–is anyone on either side make the argument that we’ve got the whole thing backward. The issue often debated is whether or not video games inspire certain behavior in young people, causing them to engage in anything from violence to sexual deviance. Even those on the side of the gaming industry might make the compromise that while violent games affect a child’s mind, it’s in combination of other factors (music, television, family dysfunction, etc) that leads to that behavior. I think that we might have things the other way around.
What if we’re mistaking the effect for the cause? If you ask me, it’s not that violent video games lead kids to be violent… It’s violent children that are drawn to violent video games. It’s just like how I don’t necessarily believe that reading makes one smarter, but I do believe that smarter people tend to read more. The relationship between a child and video games (or any form of entertainment) doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
The child exists first… How that child develops (read: is raised) determines their tastes. People who are driven by angry impulses–whether they’re expressed outwardly or not–are more passionate about violent games. A more rounded person may still play violent games, but may also be more open to other genres. Or not be interested in games at all! No media “expert” can produce a shred of evidence that exposing any average child would magically convert them into a killer. All they do is point to a tragedy exclaim, “See! There’s your proof!” when there isn’t any. The people who explode into acts that always make the news? They were killers well before they could pick up a controller.
There’s something that’s been brewing in my brain for a couple years now and I think it’s time I finally put it into writing. One Animazment, I became enamored at one of the weapon booths with a spiked club. Not just for the sheer novelty of it being a brutally barbaric weapon that could easily fall into my possession for a mere $19.95, but because of the epiphany that struck me the moment my eyes lay upon it.
I would like to take the spiked club and market it as the ultimate rape deterrent.
Cuz here’s my thinking: Let’s say that you have this college-aged girl walking home to her dorm late at night. A rapist (or gang of rapists) lunge from the darkness with intent to force themselves upon her. Assuming she’s armed with it, she hits the guy in the face with her trusty pepper spray and escapes. But in this day and age, that’s about all you hear about it, if you do at all. Now, if the girl defended herself by unleashing a spiked club on the sick bastard, that shit will make the fucking papers!
It becomes not so much a method of protection, but to also set an example. If a dude sees in the news how some guy got bludgeoned into a bloody mess after trying to rape a girl, he might be less encouraged to do the same himself. A little can of pepper spray is hardly in any way as intimidating as what kind of pain and damage you can expect from a spiked club.
It also just seems more practical to me… With pepper spray, it’s really only effective on the eyes, so you’re forced to rely on your ability to aim for the offender’s face. All within fractions of a second of an already frantic experience. With a spiked club, you can swing that fucker anywhere and neutralize the threat. Shit, it’s usually best to aim low so you can take his legs out and finish him off while he’s on the ground! You nail a guy to the floor with pepper spray, but what you gonna do then? Spray him again? Even if the spiked club doesn’t get him all the way down, it buys you plenty of opportunity to take another swing at any region of the body, until he’s subdued enough to make an adequate get-away. Plus, with pepper spray, you have limited ammo… No telling when you’ll run out. The spiked club is always locked, loaded, and ready for action.
Yeah, I know, spiked clubs are naturally a lot larger than a can of pepper spray. Well, most women’s bags that I’ve seen have plenty of room to hold a good 12-18″ spiked club. And one of the things I’d like to help develop is perhaps a collapsible model for smaller handbags.
And speaking of development, I see loads of potential for adapting the spiked club for this function. Maybe for those who want to hold on to tradition, we can design a spiked club with a pepper spray built into the handle. That can give the girl options. I also got to thinking about those hand grips that women have on their key chains so they can turn their keys into a weapon… Well, why not have–even if it’s just for novelty–a spiked club with a key chain built onto the handle? Hell, make a Hello Kitty spiked club for that extra girly touch. Why the fuck not?
My point is that I think a spiked club is a far more effective means of protecting women than pepper spray. And if I have enough cash, I’d not only buy one for myself, but also for my girlfriend and my sister to carry around for their own safety.
