The Bitterness of Guns and Religion

Dead Island's Zombie Bait edition is a tone deaf sexist nightmare.

2013-01-15T13:46:00.000-08:00

Just look at this shit.

I mean seriously. What kind of a creep is going to display a dismembered female torso on their bookshelf? Are there no women who might be big enough fans of Dead Island that they might want a special eidtion? If so, is this for them? With all the talk recently about sexism in the video game industry you`d think we`d start seeing less of this shit, but I guess not. This thing even has a trailer? I guess so.

Saints Row the Third's surprisingly gender neutral marketing.

2012-05-15T09:56:00.001-07:00

Yeah, their attractive ladies, but that don't mean they can't TCB.

So recently Jezebel posted an interesting article on the movie poster used for the Avengers movie. You know, this one:

and they linked to a deviant art image that someone created that posed the male characters "butt first" to illustrate the ridiculous pose of blackwidow (although looking at this poster now, it occurs to me that Hulk is also butt first, so maybe they were being symetrical...but when you consider this post, the odds are that such an assumption on my part would be incorrect):So, as these types of things sometimes do , this got me thinking of how this phenomenon manifests itself in video game marketing. Turns out that while there is a lot of sexualized imagery, the "butt first" pose does not seem to crop up as much. Except of course for Street Fighter's Cammy, a notorious"butt poser": In fact there are several cases where the female characters are portrayed in poses that are similar to their male counter parts.
One particularly surprising example of gender equality is Saints Row the Third. Saint's Row is interesting to me from an anthropological standpoint. They have never shied away from the sort of pandering marketing that video games are famous for. For Saints Row 2, the marketing department hired pornstar Tera Patrick as a "producer".
As someone who has aspired to become a producer myself, I found this honorarium to add a bit of insult to injury. The relationship between Saints Row and sex worker spokesmodels continued with Saints Row the Third, when they hired Niki Benz and Justine Joli to introduce the initiation station:

Additionally, at E3 2011, the marketing team for Saints Row the Third gave everyone free parking across from the convention center and offered bikini car washes branded by the in game auto shop "Rim Jobs":

Inside the convention, girls walked around with shirts saying "I Love Rim Jobs" and handing out "Strap it On" bumper stickers:

So when I played Saints Row the Third I was surprised to find that the issue of sexuality and gender equality was handled admirably. Volition gives you the option to play as a male or female character and despite that fact that your running around with "hos" and talking about installing stripper poles, it doesn't really seem like the female avatar is out of place as a leader. The voice over for the female avatar is strong, funny, and flirty but not any more so than her male counterpart. This equality is also apparent in the marketing material for saints row the third.

And this sort of gender equality isn't new to the series. Here's some promo art for the first Saints Row:

Let's take a look at this image for a minute. First off, the most striking thing is the fact that the Saints embrace diversity. You don't see the sort of white washed character design that you get in most gangs. Especially when you consider that the leader and 2nd in command of the saints are a black man and an asian man. The only (presumably) white individual in this image is off to the side not front and center. The woman in this image is wearing less clothes than here male companions, but her stance is still as confrontational as her counterparts. While slightly feminized her body position is not overtly sexualized.

.
The official image of the rival gang the Vice Kings is more problematic. The only woman in this gang is wearing an extremely sexualized outfit with huge heels, thigh highs, mini skirt and is posing with a ridiculous open mouth duck face. It's not hard to imagine the Saint pictured above being able to fight in her sporty spice pants, but this girl would be hard pressed to hold her own without quickly losing her balance.

One of the central characters, Shaundi (pictured above) first showed up in Saints Row 2. In that game she was a bit more of a stoner than she is in the third game where she seems to have grown up a bit, or maybe the school of hard knocks has toughened her up. In Saints row she was portrayed as sexy, bikini top, low rise jeans, etc, but even in the official wallpaper she's showed with the typically male gesture of crossed arms, facing the viewer, making eye contact and basically being as tough as the male saints she rolls with:

In Saint's Row the Third, Shaundi's character is fairly complex, she's dealing with loss and anger and pain in a way that is surprisingly heart felt for such a wacky action game. In Saints Row the Thrid's marketing, Shaundi is often portrayed in action shots alongside her male companions and in most cases the poses, while fanciful are not the sort of hyper sexualized "pin up" pose seen on most movie posters. Her are some examples of Shandi (sadly minus her dread locks) front and center:

Now, Shaundi is obviously wearing an outfit that conforms to a certain awareness of the male gaze. But given the outrageous nature of her fellow saints her get up not as out of place as something like this:

or this:
But shandi isn't the only female character in saints row that is allowed to be as bad ass as their male counter parts. Here are some other examples:

The way that Viola is holding the machine gun in that first image is leering a bit towards the phallic object pin up, but in the second images she and her sister are seen blasting away white the demure Phillipe stands in the background occupying the typically feminine role of bemused onlooker. The last image is pretty great as well, the female in this scene is snarling and there doesn't seem to be anything overtly sexy about her, despite the fetishized cheerleader outfit. But the person showing the most skin in this image is the oiled up luchador so it's kind of a toss up.
I suspect it's this egalitarian portrayal of hte heroines of Saints Row the Third that inspired cosplayers like deviant artist youronlydoll to choose Shaundi for her latest project. As you peruse a few shots of her in character ask yourself if any other video games let women have as much fun as Saints Row the Third.

Update: Yeah, so the next DLC was just announced, I'll post the trailer here without comment, but ahem.

Lolipop Chainsaw pre-order outfits.

2012-03-08T08:44:00.003-08:00

Source: 「LOLLIPOP CHAINSAW」国内発売は6月14日 [4Gamer]

Thoughts on making the Classic Gaming Expo the show it deserves to be.

2012-02-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

I wrote this about after coming home from CGE 2010. It was a pretty disheartening experience for me. I had really been looking forward to this for YEARS. I thought i was going to find a bunch of like minded buddies into retro games. But instead it was a bunch of fairly grumpy insular jerks who went out of their way to make the whole experience feel unwelcoming. Like imagine the worst comic book convention snobs you can think of and fill a room with them.

Luckily I met up with a couple great guys from the Retro Gaming Round Up community and they really saved the trip for me.

Anyway, I wrote this and passed it around to various other people who were there including Wired's Chris Kohler. I was planning to publish it here, but I guess I never got around to it. I will do so now. I hope this doesn't come off as trolling but rather as thoughts I had on ways to improve an event that I really want to be thriving and successful.

So I'm back from CGE. And the feelings I had while I was sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my delayed / not delayed flight home were somewhat mixed. I had been looking forward to the show for months. I had saved and scrimped so I could go. None of my close friends were that interested so I ended up going alone. Perhaps being in Vegas alone contributed to some of the meloncholy I felt after the end of the show, and more likely I think it was that I had really built up CGE in my head before I ever even got anywhere near the Tropicana. So I was really brooding afterwards over why I was left feeling a little disapointed by the show. It's easy to be critical, but I've always been one for constructive criticism and my dark mood led me to really ask myself questions about what I would do if given an opportunity to put on a show like this.

Coincidentally, when I picked up my badge for CGE they also handed me a bag full of flyers, posters and handouts from the various vendors in attendance. I didn't really give these items a good look until I was sitting in the airport on my way home. One of the items in the bag was a beautiful full color poster commemorating CGE. On the back was a bitter sweet note from the shows founders detailing the difficulty they had bringing the show back. it's obvious that this is a labor of love, and I found that this document really helped solidify some of my thoughts about the areas in which CGE exceeded my expectations as well as where I thought they could stand to implement some improvements.

I will site sections of the founders statement as needed, but the basic gist was that while they were happy to be back after a two year hiatus they were worried that this might be their last show. The statement intimated that the expo's attendance was down both among show goers and vendors. It's obvious that there was a lot of frustration on the part of the show organizers that the current leaders of the video game industry seemed uninterested or unwilling to attend the show or provide corporate sponsorship.

It is obvious that something needs to change if we have any hope of seeing a CGE 2011. I have never been to the show before, so I'm not sure what the change is year on year, but it seemed that attendance was low. I have to say that I was a little disheartened to see so much empty space that could have been filled with vendors and expo attendees. As the founders state this is a niche hobby, but if there are people willing to shell out 41k for a classic game cartridge, there should be enough interest in the general community to support an expo of this type.

But before I begin to outline suggestions I have for where CGE could strive for improvement I'd like to detail the things that they are already doing right (in no particular order):

Location: Vegas is a great place for an expo like this. It's in an area where conference space is widely available and travel / lodging expnses are much more affordable than they would be if the expo was to be held in Seattle, New York, or Los Angeles.
Classic Gaming Luminaries: These guys have done a great job at bringing together an exciting and entertaining group of game designers, programmers, and artists who shared stories about the old days, chatted with attendees and signed autographs. It was a real treat to see these legendary individuals walking around the show floor laughing and chatting with their collegues an fans. This is CGE's biggest strength.
Chip Tunes: I think that the inclusion of the chip tunes music acts does great job of celebrating a relatively new phenomenon that embraces the old games in a creative and (for me at least) highly enjoyable way.
CGE Museum: I took about 450 pictures in here. Plain and Simple, there is stuff in here that I never thought I'd see in person. Things like Ralph Baer's Brown Box, the Color Vectrex prototype and an Atari Cosmos. I mean all three of those things were just incredible. This thing is a real showcase piece and like the "alumni" could and should be a bigger draw.
Retro Game Machines: When I wasn't in panels or in the museum I was having a blast on one of about 50 retro arcade machines. It was just such a blast. I think that this sort of "hands on" stuff is a real draw for people with kids and also for those of us who are more interested in experiencing and discussing retro game hardware, I think having these machines is just such a great move.

The show elements I have described above are really the soul of CGE. I wouldn't change them I would just find ways to enhance them and spread the word about them.

And that brings us to my suggestions for improving CGE.

First and foremost I think that there are two questions that need to be answered by the show organizers and they are as follows:

1) Is CGE a for profit "EXPO" like PAX / Comic Con or is the show more akin to the work the Tim Arnold does at the pinball hall of fame, by which I mean, a non for profit group of dedicated enthusiasts working to preserve the legacy of a very narrowly defined set of hardware platforms and their corresponding software libraries?

2) What is classic gaming specifically?

If the promoters are going to effectively sell this event they really need to clarify what exactly the expo is and who it is for.

It seems to me like the problems that the organizers have had might be stem from ambiguity about what it is they are trying to achieve and which masters they see CGE as trying to serve.

Anyone who has gone to Comic Con recently will tell you that it is different than it was a few years ago. The real old timers are constantly bemoaning the influx of pop culture in what was once a gathering of comic book enthusiasts. Either by design or by chance, comic con has morphed into a huge pop cultural phenomenon. There's novels, television, video games, films, booths filled with alt art and counter cultural fashion, action figures, and of course comic books. And while I can totally empathize with the enthusiasts when they complain about the crowding and vampire crazed teenagers, I'm sure that the promoters are ecstatic that the influx of these additional attendees are guaranteeing that comic con is only going to grow and give comic book fans a huge spectacle orbiting their hobby.

CGE needs to decide if it is going to cling tenaciously to the niche that they embraced in the past or if they will attempt to expand the show and it's attendance by widening the scope to include video game hardware, software, and personalities that are somewhat more tangentially related to the "core" subjects that CGE has embrassed in the past.

In their statement, the organizers discussed a number of issues that have made putting on a show like CGE such a difficult endeavor. It may be an over simplification, but I would say that these issues can be summarized as the following:

a lack of financial support from modern game companies
scarcity of vendors (in some cases this is due to apathy while in others it is that these vendors might be out of business all together)
lower attendance (and an unwillingness on the part of these attendees to stay at the hotel at which the expo is being hosted)
lack of interest on the part of major developers to attend the show and show product. Specifically, they stated that game companies spend thousands of dollars on tiny booths at E3 and can't even be bothered to contribute anything to this show.

It's pretty easy to write a big long screed on the internet. And I'm sure I'm well over the TLDR length, but this is an event I looked forward to for a couple years and was so excited for and the fact that I felt sort of "meh" about it isn't OK with me. I love retro games. And it just kind of sticks in my craw a little bit that these guys would have such a hard time making this show happen. It just doesn't seem right to me. So I really spent a long time thinking about what I would do if I were in their shoes.

I hope that this comes off as the constructive criticism that it is. It is in no way meant to diminish the hard work that these guys did putting on this show. I just think it could go from good to great and I'd like to share some of my ideas here in the hope that it seen by like minded individuals in and outside of the games industry who might also be moved to do something to help make next years show something truly incredible.

OK. OK. we get it, the Atari was awesome.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that CGE started off as an Atari show. And, let it be known that I love the atari. My first system was a 5200. I learned to swear watching my dad play space invaders. When I think of pac man I think of the 5200 version. Same thing for Pitfall. I was an Atari kid for a long time. And beyond that, having read Racing the Beam I would never suggest that someone like David Crane isn't a complete genius and we are all lucky to spend even ten minutes listening to him explain the dark art of programming for the 2600.

Having said that, I couldn't help but sit in on the numerous Atari and Intellivision panels and sort of wish that there was someone speaking about working on the coleco, vectrex, arcade, and early micro computers. I heard reports from several attendees that the speakers that were there are the same guys who have been to every CGE basically telling the same stories. Which I think may hurt attendance. You look at the speaker list and think...man is it worth it go fly out there when I could save that money and buy that Tempest cab I want.

The over abundance of Intellivision and Atari speakers might have stemmed from the fact that no one from those other companies was available or willing to come to CGE. If that is the case it's really too bad, but I have to imagine that most of those individuals are probably just as available as the people who did show up, it's just a matter of organizing the fan base of CGE to see if anyone can pull some strings and get some more of these other gaming gurus out there next year.

Where's all the Japanese stuff?

It's kind of funny, I listen to a lot of retro podcasts and I think man...these guys are all just a bunch of Nintendo fan boys. But the fact of the matter is that a "pre-crash" group of speakers isn't really telling the whole story of classic gaming. Now I'm not going to sit here and say that Nintendo is "as classic" as Atari or something, but I certainly think there is room for luminaries and hardware discussion of the Sega Master System, Turbo Grafx, NES along side the discussion of the early American consoles. I know of at least three of my colleges who worked at the American arm of these Japanese companies and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be interested in talking about the old days. I think the second largest complaint among show goers (right after "where is everyone?") was "Where is all the Japanese stuff?" I don't think this applied as much to the vendors who all seemed to have a nice mix of Japanese and american stuff. But in the panels and a little in the Museum it seemed like a lot of the Japanese hardware was more of a footnote.

Additionally, it has to be said that today's retro scene is populated by a lot more folks who think of games by Capcom, Konami, and Nintendo when they think of "Classic" games than there are who think of Pitfall or even Pac Man. I'm not saying that I think that either groups of games are more deserving of a place at the show, what I am saying is that the organizers (and attendees) could do to be a lot more "console agnostic". If you really want to pack the show, you need to get more alumni and vendors to attend who are associated more with Japanese game companies and systems. That isn't to say they have to be Japanese even, I know that I'd love to sit through a panel with the guys from Color Dreams or Tengen both of whom are known mostly for producing games on the NES.

"Classic Gaming" should be more clearly defined.

Personally, I've always looked as my interest in classic / retro gaming as being holistic. Meaning that the only limitation I place on considering a game classic or retro is that it is now longer commercially available. That means that I personally consider original XBox games to be retro gaming. This view isn't always the one generally accepted definition of classic or retro gaming and has led to some heated forum posts. I can understand the argument that a system like the XBox is advanced enough that the games on it are close enough to current generation games that they shouldn't be considered "classic".

I think that the danger is placing a "value judgement" on games that a user might be interested in. Retro gaming shouldn't be analogous to "classic cars" meaning that if someone considers Castlevania 64 one of the greatest retrogames of all time, I shouldn't be dismissing their view because I don't feel like that game isn't "meaningful" or "significant" enough to be considered "Classic".

Personally, I felt an air of superiority among certain panelists and attendees. An attitude that certain systems and games weren't worth of discussion because they were on a system that was not considered to be "classic". I really think that the definition of "classic games" should be defined as broadly as possible, that way if a CDi user group wants to come and set up their booth they won't have to worry about a lot of derision slung their way by the hardcore Atari collectors in attendance.

Where is Bionic Command Rearmed 2?

In their letter to attendees, the organizers of CGE, bemoaned the fact that they hadn't gotten any corporate sponsorship for CGE. I just find this extremely hard to believe. I wonder if the problem is that the organizers were simply searching for funding rather than partnerships. Contemporary game companies are running a for profit business. It isn't really in their interest to make contributions to an expo that will not help them sell their current batch of releases.

However, many companies are working on current games that have direct links to classic games. I know that many of these companies have display booths ready to go because I saw them at E3? Why not have them come and show of their games on the show floor. Charge them a fee in place of a contribution. Here is a list of the top of my head of companies who are currently promoting games that are directly related to classic gaming properties:

Konami - Hard Corps, Russian Attack, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Castlevania HD,
Namco - Pac Man party, Splatter House
WB - Mortal Kombat
Disney Interactive - Tron
Sony - Twisted Metal
Nintendo - (I shouldn't even need to list these, does Nintendo even have a series NOT based on a classic franchise?)
Microsoft - Game Room! (I saw a game room banner, but I think that was for the Intelevision guys)
Capcom - Bionic Commando Re-armed 2, Street Fighter 4
Sega - Sonic 4, Dreamcast remakes for XBLA

If you are reading this and thinking "yeah, but those games don't have a place at CGE". You are wrong. All those games are linked to classic games. These games will appeal to attendees precisely because they are keeping interest in the classic franchises alive.

These companies want to show them off. It shouldn't be a problem for them to send out a few demonstration booths for the show floor and hopefully allow a producer to talk on a panel about these storied franchises. Attendance will grow once word gets out that so many companies are supporting the show, you'll get folks coming out just to see these classic games and hopefully these folks will end up buying stuff from the vendor booths.

Is this an Expo or a Museum?

The alternative to the "connected marketing" described above is to reclassify the expo as a purely educational endeavor. A non-profit, academic examination of classic gaming.

I believe that doing so would give a lot more credence to the organizers complaints that they have been ignored by modern gaming companies. As it is now, I don't really see that modern game publishers and developers have much interest in making financial contributions to a for profit venture, but it might be easier to get proto-types and corporate sponsorship if these companies could write off contributions as tax exempt gifts to a group who is actively preserving the legacy of the video game industry.

I'm not sure if this is the right way to go, but it would expand the organizers options in terms of obtaining funding for the show.

Too Long, Didn't Read.

In summary, I think that CGE does many things right, but has a few areas it could improve on. In brief I think that the organizers need to better define what "classic" games mean to them. I think that balance of games, vendors, and platforms should be expanded to inlcude japanese games, developers and consoles as well as american consoles other than Atari and Intellivision. I can't imagine that I'm the only one who attended the show that would love to sit in on a panel of Odyssey 2 game designers or Turbo Grafx hardware engineers.

I think that in order to expand the scope of attendance, the show scope of the show itself must be expanded to include a greater range of classic hardware and software. I also think that it is vital to get the contemporary publishers involved and showing modern games that are either remakes or continuations of classic game series.

Either way, I look forward to seeing how next years CGE shapes up, see you there!

Latest whiteqube remixes and press photos.

2012-02-29T12:51:00.001-08:00

So Bractune and I have been very busy lately. We just recently put the finishing touches on a couple of remixes for the beat port remix contest. One for Steve Aoki's Ladi Dadi:

The next for Chuckie's What Happens in Vegas:

The chuckie remix is something that I'm really proud of. It's a perfect blend of Jason and I working together. I worked on coming up with several synth lines that approximated the notes in the song and submitted them to Jason as sort of a template. Then Jason picked out some great sounds and we both worked together on adding in little bits and pieces to flesh out the song. Think it came out good.

We also had a photo shoot with the Robert Vogel (aka Fading Signal). Some great shots came out of that including the one at the top of this post, and this one which he just finished tweaking in photoshop:

We will likely have some more developments soon.

Thunder Jaws (Arcade) Atari 1990

2012-02-29T12:29:00.001-08:00

I first heard about Thunder Jaws on the Retrogaming Roundup's "It Came From MAME" segment.

The show's host, So Cal Mike described the the game as being 'a sequel to "Rolling Thunder" with big boobed lizard girls'. Being a big fan of Rolling Thunder I decided that was worth checking out, so I booted it up in MAME last night.

Wow, this game, let me tell you. It does have big boobed lizard girl mutants:

But it doesn't stop there. The game is a jumbled mess of bodacious late 80s jargon, secret agent tropes like robotic sharks, and punk rocker thugs:

Playing the game it is easy to see why So Cal would compare the game to Rolling Thunder. First off all the game has Thunder in the title. So the assumption that this game is a sequel is warrented. Also the first side scrolling level is lifted almost whole cloth from Rolling Thunder. Just take a look at these side by side screen shots:

Thunder Jaws Level 1

Rolling Thunder First Level

I mean, just look at that. The character design and animation is fairly poor in Thunder Jaws compared to Rolling Thunder, but the similarities are hard to ignore. Rolling Thunder is a Namco game and Thunder Jaws is an Atari game. But they are so similar that I thought, maybe the license changed hands and this is a spiritual successor. Unfortunately there isn't much information online about Thunder Jaws, but since Namco continued to make rolling thunder sequels and ports it is likely that the Atari game is simply a derivative knock off.

I contacted an old colleague of mine who used to work at Domark. Domark, was basically the UK arm of Tengen or Atari or some such, it's a bit convluted, but the long and the short of it is that Domark produced several of the micro computer ports for Thunder Jaws. The Amiga port actually looks pretty sweet:

According to him this game was worked on by developer Rusty Dawes who worked on a slew of classic Atari arcade games including Cloak and Dagger, Paperboy, and I Robot. So I did some digging and although I don't see any explicit references anywhere on the net it appears to me that Thunder Jaws is running on the same hardware as the same as the hardware used in the rushed to market Batman tie in game also released by Atari. The similarity is remarked upon in this video review of Thunder Jaws:

But for a quick reference here is an animated gif of Batman levels:

You can note that the stage design, character size and UI are almost identical to Thunder Jaws.

But really, Rolling Thunder isn't just an iteration (or a derivation) of Batman. Both games share a lot in common with the aforementioned Rolling Thunder as well as Sly Spy (known as Secret Agent in Japan and Sly Spy: Secret Agent in Europe). In fact Sly Spy had it's own water level:

complete with scuba divers and sharks, and of course a huge robotic shark boss:

So yeah, looks like these sorts of game have lots of tropes. Another trope is the 2 level playing field allowing the player to jump from the lower level to the higher level at will. Even the idea of enemies coming out of doorways is shared between all these games. This sub genre of the side scrolling shooter has been labeled a "walk about" shooter, but could also be called a "bi level side scrolling shooter" and can be seen in evidence in several games including Konami's Sunset Riders:

As well as Sega's' Shinobi:

and to a lesser extent, Sega's Altered Beast:

Earlier games also had split level action used ladders to allow the hero to move from bottom to top. Good examples, include Capcom's Ghosts and Goblins :

And Konami's Rush N Attack:

So as you can see Thunder Jaws was basically the end result of several well worn arcade tropes blended together with a healthy dose of T & A and a dash of Californian surfer dude mentality that dominated the Atari arcade group in the late 80s. I'm going to try to track down some more specific information about this herky jerky fever dream of a game, but until then I will leave you with this great box art from the Atari ST conversion published by Domark:

Links for 2011-10-05 [del.icio.us]

2011-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

ENJN Closing Conference: Media Futures - Policy, Politics and Power

2nd Lieutenant Mira: a woman in sensible armor

2011-09-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

2nd Lieutenant Mira - 203 Cadian Gaurd

I recently discovered Women in Sensible Armor over on Tumbler and I'm not sure that this sort of nerd feminism is anything new, but it certainly puts a fine point on the realization that all of us have made after playing through our first few RPGs. And that realization is, why the hell would that chick be dressed like that to fight Orcs?

Now, this site certain gets it's share of traffic thanks to digital boobs and hot chicks in video games so I'd be a little hypocritical to say I haven't been guilty of the "digital male gaze" from time to time.

But still I was pretty gratified when I stumbled across this character in the recently released Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Full disclosure, I work at THQ, so I should probably point out that I am a huge warhammer nerd and would have played this game even if I didn't work for the publisher. But I am also going to give any sort of review. But what I will give is kudos to the character designers who chose not to give 2nd Lieutenant Mira a cleavage revealing slit in here breast plate and chose to let her wear pants into battle. She's even a pretty imposing figure when stood next to the emperors own champions, the Ultramarines:

Working at a video game publisher and playing through a lot of games co-op with my wife I find that I am often more than a little embarrassed by some of the crop up.

Take for example a character from the recently released Wii title Conduit 2. She basically fills the same role in the script for Conduit 2 that 2nd Lt. Mira does in Space Marine, she's a tough military woman that the main character meets up with early on in the story. She wears battle armor...but of course it's been designed to ensure maximum "cleave":

Hell, even Red Faction Armageddon had a Kara, a "tough military woman the main character meets in Act 2" role in the script that 2nd Lt. Mira has. Let's just take a look at her next to the main character for a second:

Sensing a pattern here? As I'm writing this I'm starting to realize that there are two overlapping tropes here. One is the "cleavage armor" and the other is the "tough military woman the main character meets in Act 2".

Follow up post? Most likely, but for now, let's all make the sign of the aquilla in honor of 2nd Lt. Mira and her sensible armor:

whiteqube Galaxy Theater, May 19, 2011

2011-05-20T22:47:00.001-07:00

Whiteqube stuff is finally online!

2011-05-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

Jason and I had our first full scale run through over the weekend and it was really great. The stage show is turning out even better than we could have imagined.

Only a few more tweeks and we'll be ready for our fist gig real gig, opening for Combirchrist on May 19th! Hopefully everyone can make it out to the show. But just to be sure here are a few of the latest tracks to get you hyped.

not on your side by whiteqube

get down by whiteqube

metalliqube by whiteqube

bingbong by whiteqube

Pics from the Namm show

2011-02-17T16:11:00.001-08:00

Playing the sweetest note of my life on a Keytar

I went to the Winter NAMM show a few weeks back and snapped some pics with my blackberry. Thought I'd share. First up I got a little hands on time with the Ion Audio iCade. This thing is basically a little "arcade cab" that you slip your iPad into. Currently they have a licensing deal with Atari so they only had Asteroids playing, but the controls felt like genuine HAPP. It wasn't clear if you'd be able to load up your own Roms or if the software was closed. The guy at the booth was more of an audio guy so he didn't really know. All in all it seemed like a great purchase if you have an iPad:

Seems like the "things you plug into your iPad" is going to be a big niche industry for the music industry. Since the next thing I drooled over was the Korg MS20 Legacy Midi Controller. This thing is so sweet. It's all knobs and patch chords. I've used it to interface with Korg's MS20 soft synth on a computer, but at the show they had the MS20 software running on an iPad. IT was a totally portable set up and it sounded great:

Next up we have an official Tron themed iphone / ipad doc. Not much to say here, it is an ipad doc shaped like a Tron Data disc. As UK Mike would say, it does what it says on the tin:

Here is my buddy and band mate DJ Bractune playing a Moog Theremin. If you're not familiar with this device you should really Read up on it, it's totally crackers:

Down stairs in the basement was a wonderland of "home baked" synths and music gizmos. There were all sorts of Chinese outfits selling all manner of boards and chips and such. I'm not much of "chip bender" but some of the things these guys came up with was pretty impressive:

Next up we had a booth of guys who were showing of a vintage Fairlight CMI 2 synthesizer. This thing was a real treat. These babies were used by all sorts of musicians in the 80s but what I found most intriguing was the sweet "Light Pen" interface. This thing was pre-midi and pre-mouse controller. Totally ahead of it's time. The line was too long for me to get to try it, but I snapped a few pics over people's heads:

And I'll end up for something a little more "Rock and Roll" since I know not everyone on this forum is a big synth geek like myself. The classic UK outfit Orange Amplificationwas on hand with a wall of some of the finest amplifiers a man could wish for:

And all being drivin by a head unit with quite possible the greatest name ever bestowed on a piece of hardware the "Terror Bass":

It was a great show, didn't get to snap a picture of it but the Electron guys were there with their SIDstation, a device that I WILL own one day, mark my words.

Fallout New Vegas Mods - Better Body

2011-01-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

My post from a couple years ago on Fallout 3 Mods is still extremely popular. With the release of Fallout New Vegas I thought I'd dig around and see what new mods I could find.

Looks like the "Better Body" mod is now on Version 3. Here is a gallery posted at the New Vegas Nexus by users and the mod's authors:

Weekend Confirmed finally hits. Can it live up to the hype?

2010-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me start off by saying the Jeff Cannata was one of my college housemates. We did plays together, we went on road trips together, we even moved to LA together those many years ago. So I am obviously, a little biased when I say that I have nothing but respect and love for the guy. He is one of the most intelligent, insightful, enthusiastic people I know.

When he started doing the Totally Rad Show it just felt like such a perfect fit for him. And the show's hordes of fans were well deserved.

The show is a little heavy on the Movie subject matter for my tastes, which is why I was so excited to hear that Jeff was planning on starting a game-centric podcast with former 1Up editor Garnett Lee, now of Shack News.

When Garentt was on the 4 Guys 1Up show, I always the passionate counter point to the l33t cynicism that seemed to underpin most of the opinions of the other editors on that show. I really couldn't wait to what Jeff and Garnett would bring to the table. Now the show has been out for a few episodes. It's still finding it's voice, but I feel that I've heard enough that an informed critique is at least possible.

So what do I think of weekend confirmed? Well, let me tell you.

Let's start with the hosts. Jeff, is bringing it home about how I'd have expected. If I had to describe Jeff's editorial voice, it'd be by saying that he is "insightful" or maybe "analytical". Have a discussion on almost any topic with Jeff and he will always strive to look at it from a different perspective. He constantly strives to achieve a unique understanding of whatever it is he is talking about. The standard arguments "take" on things is rarely enough for Jeff. He constantly attempts to find a deeper, truer meaning. And I'd say that most of his contributions to Weekend Confirmed are along these lines. From his impassioned arguments for the iPad to his surprising arguments against Microsoft game room. In either case I have to say he made me think about the subject in a different light than I had at first blush.

Garnett's role is surprisingly different. This feels like much more his "god damned show" than 4 guys 1Up ever did. Even though he was ostensibly the host of the 1Up show, it always felt like Garnett's grip on the proceedings was somewhat tenuous. With personalities like Shane and John Davison, throwing their weight around it often felt like a show without a true "guiding personality". On Weekend Confirmed Garnett comes of as much more comfortable, and seems to be "running the show" a lot more directly than on 1Up where it was more like herding cats. Interestingly, in the dialog Garnett comes off a lot more of the grizzled cynical game industry type, which is an interesting switch from his "role" at 1Up.

The third host Brian Leahy is the host with whom I am least familiar. I admit that I wasn't much of a shack news reader before this podcast, so I think that this is the first time I've ever come across much of Leahy's work, so my opinion on him is based solely on what I've heard in Weekend Confirmed. Brian basically occupies the same role that Ryan Scott had on the old GFW Radio show. And that is of the extremely jaded PC Gaming elitist. I'll be curious to listen to more of Weekend Confirmed to see if Brian is more open minded than he initially appears to be.

But what about the show itself? What do I think about that? Well let's start off with what I like. First off, I love the personalities on the show, I am very interested to hear these guys talk about games, industry news, and trade shows. The inside baseball kind of stuff, I just think they're all intelligent, informed, and insightful, so the discussions are a great listen. My only hope is that they really chew into this even harder. I miss the old Next Gen podcast with Gary Whitta and John Davison. That show was an NPR level of discourse about the game industry. Ever since that show's demise there hasn't been a replacement and I think /hope that Weekend Confirmed can pick up the mantle of in depth discourse about the video game industry.

Also, I like the segmented nature of the show, I think that the classic "4 Guys 1 Up" style of show, meaning the "what ya been playin, news, new relesaes, emails" format is kind of dated. Everyone is doing this now. I would say that it has been perfected by the Bombcast guys. Anyone else doin a podcast needs a new take. And I think the Game Informer show style of themed segments is a great direction to go in. I really hope that Weekend confirmed take it even further and not get to tied into a rigidly defined structure. I'd love to hear these guys talk about specific big releases, news stories, and trade shows in great detail. So that rather than having it be something where the "next segment" is always "4 minute warning" it would be more like "The next segment we're going to talk about Ubisoft's DRM problems".

It's a little too early too make any final judgement as I feel like the guys are still figuring it out. For example, I'm not too sure about the newly introduced "Drunk With Power" segment as I feel it removes Garnett a little too much from the discussion (although it does help to cement Garnett as the 'host'' as opposed to 'one of the hosts'). But it's obvious that they are experimenting and that is a good thing.

I guess for me I'd hope that this show ends up being a cross between the Next Gen and Game Informer Podcasts. The hosts are great, and I think it has a lot of potential. If you haven't checked it out yet you can download the episodes here. If nothing else these guys definitely get me thinking about games that I haven't thought about in years. This week it was SSX 3, which I will have to dig out of the closet. I never did finish the WHOLE mountain.

I'd love to hear these guys do a retro podcast as well. "Childhood Confirmed"? "Nostalgia Confirmed"?

Just an idea.

Fallout New Vegas Trailer

2010-03-03T14:17:00.000-08:00

So I know that this is a little bit late. And I know I haven't blogged in ages, but I was a little busy getting married so sue me.

Anyway, among a lot of other crazy things that happened while I took two weeks in hawaii was the release of a Trailer for Fallout New Vegas. It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I loved Fallout 3. I probably played aroudn 100 hours of it and still haven't finished all the DLC stuff. Anyway, the trailer stays pretty close to the usual Fallout Trailer script, but it still has me geeking out none the less. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to blogging a little more now that things have quieted down for me and I'm enjoying Married life:

how BGNR would have voted for Spike's VGAs

2009-12-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

Pictured above: three HUGE gamers

So the VGAs were held over the weekend. My buddy Jeff tweeted the following about 5 minutes into the show:

"Jack Black wins best voice? Travis-sham-ockery. And I turn off the #VGAs :("

And that about sums it up. Destructoid posted an article appropriately titled "VGAs: Tribute to Gaming or Exercise in Self Loathing", which expands on the sentiment Jeff and many others were tweeting.

Some of the presenters seemed to be pretty convincing, I was buying Jake Gyllenhal, but Zachary Quinto was almost sneering at us fat bastards in the audience. Then you had ladies like Olivia Wilde and Trisha Helfer, who seemed to be genuine, but still had the wiff of insincerity about them. Maybe they just read a teleprompter better than the kids from Jersey Shore.

I'd really love it if Video Games had an "Oscars" a legitimate serious award show that those of us who are enthusiastic about video games could get behind, but I'm afraid that the VGAs is not that show. I mean, they started off the show with Jack Black destroying his trophy, I mean what does that say about the legiticmacy of your award if you have the trophy get destroyed as a bit? You think someone would do that with an oscar? Maybe Sean Penn would, but he'd just be trying to make a point about how little he cared about something that everyone else would be totally excited for. Also, the script was extremely suspect, stuff like "Viceral, heart stopping, and amazing are all words used to describe the world premiere trailer for True Crime". Really? By who? If it's a world premiere who has seen it to say these things? Activisions marketing department perhaps? Also, the 'exclusives premieres" were not that earth shattering (excluding UFC 2010...I mean THAT was amazing). Even games I was truly hyped for like Halo Reach seemed a bit "meh".

Having said that it was pretty sweet to see THQ beat out Wii Sports, Tiger Woods, FIFA, and Fight Night 4 to win Best Solo Sports award.

Here's a list of the winners:

Winners at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards:

• Game of the Year: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Studio of the Year: Rocksteady Studios
• Best Independent Game: Flower
• Best Xbox 360 Game: Left 4 Dead 2
• Best PS3 Game: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Best Wii Game: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
• Best PC Game: Dragon Age: Origins
• Best Handheld Game: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
• Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter IV
• Best Action Adventure Game: Assassin's Creed II
• Best RPG: Dragon Age: Origins
• Best Multiplayer Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Best Individual Sports Game: UFC 2009 Undisputed
• Best Team Sports Game: NHL 10
• Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 3
• Best Music Game: The Beatles: Rock Band
• Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero
• Best Original Score: Halo 3: ODST
• Best Graphics: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Best Game Based On A Movie/TV Show: South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!
• Best Performance By A Human Female: Megan Fox (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen)
• Best Performance By A Human Male: Hugh Jackman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
• Best Cast: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Best Voice: Jack Black (Brütal Legend)
• Best Downloadable Game: Shadow Complex
• Best DLC: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
• Most Anticipated Game of 2010: God of War III

And now here's my list. I should point out that I obviously haven't played every game out there. I don't own a PS3, so all I know of those games are what I've played in the break room at the office. And there are a lot of games I loved, but for which there isn't a great category. Games like Ghostbusters, Trine, Red Faction, Battlefield 1943, and Resident Evil 5 all got a little over looked even by myself. And it's no secret to anyone who knows me that I'm a notorious Halo fan boy, so sorry Modern Warfare 2, you ain't gettin any more love from me, not that you need it. Anyway here's my take on the list of categories Spike was judging:

• Game of the Year: Borderlands
Any game encourages me to skip the gym so I can come home and play has something going for it.

• Studio of the Year: 5th Cell
• Best Independent Game: Torchlight
• Best Xbox 360 Game: Halo 3 ODST
• Best PS3 Game: KillZone 2
• Best Wii Game: House of the Dead Overkill
• Best PC Game: Torchlight
• Best Handheld Game: Scribblenauts
• Best Shooter: Halo 3 ODST
• Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter 4
• Best Action Adventure Game: Batman Arkahm Assylum
• Best RPG: Borderlands
• Best Multiplayer Game: Borderlands
• Best Individual Sports Game: UFC 2009 Undisputed
• Best Team Sports Game: Warhammer Blood Bowl
• Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 3
• Best Music Game: The Beatles: Rock Band
• Best Soundtrack: House of the Dead Overkill
• Best Original Score: Battlefield 1943
• Best Graphics: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Best Game Based On A Movie/TV Show: The Biggest Loser
• Best Performance By A Human Female: Arleen Sorkin - Harley Quinn Batman - Arkham Asylum
• Best Performance By A Human Male: Bill Murray - Peter Venkman - Ghostbusters
• Best Cast: Ghostbusters
• Best Voice: mark Hammil - The Joker - Batman Arkham Asylum
• Best Downloadable Game: Shadow Complex
• Best DLC: Mothership Zeta (Fallout 3)
• Most Anticipated Game of 2010: Darksiders (I know it's a THQ game, but that has to tell you something if I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a game I've seen around the office for months).

German Street artists use Doom to Ad Bust a bunch of Billboards.

2009-12-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Animal New York posted some great pics of some recent billboard "take overs" that incorporate graphics from Doom. Pretty great stuff, check it out:

Got a few "Thanks" links from various sites, might as well return the favor:

Destructoid
Joystiq
Kotaku

Photographer Enrico Ricciardi creates Ultima-inspired Calendar - Mystik 2010

2009-11-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

Armchair Arcade just posted some links to a new calendar created by Italian photographer Enrico Ricciardi. I can't read Italian, but according to Armchair Arcade the calendar is inspired by the Ulitma of Games.

Here are some link so you can check out the Calendar as well as some "Behind the Scenes" stuff . But I know some of you are to lazy to click, so I'll post some images below. Enjoy, Lord British commands you!

Calendar Images

Behind the Scenes

Halloween Contest Winners

2009-10-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today at work was the company's annual Halloween contest. This years winners are:

Scariest Costume

Funniest Costume

Most Original(Creative) Costume

LEAST LIKELY TO BE TAKEN HOME TO MEET MOTHER COSTUME

Best Couple/Group Costume

Best Overall Costume

HONORABLE MENTION

HONORABLE MENTION

HONORABLE MENTION

HONORABLE MENTION

I didn't win, but I got a lot of compliments on my costume:

The rest of the costumes can be viewed here.

Adrianne Curry might read BGNR.

2009-10-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows my thoughts on Slave Leia. Looks like Adrianne Curry might be a big BGNR reader because after she appeared as Slave Leia at the Big Apple Comic Con she showed up the next day with my Number 2 "alternative to Slave Leia costume" the classic Silk Spectre. Hollywood Tuna has pics of both the Slave Leia and Silk Spectre. I'm just going to post the Silk Spectre as I don't want to encourage any more celebrity Slave Leias.

Links for 2009-10-19 [del.icio.us]

2009-10-20T00:00:00-07:00

Adrianne Currey might read BGNR.

Links for 2009-10-15 [del.icio.us]

2009-10-16T00:00:00-07:00

Is Ivana Milicevic the only thing that could get me to play an RTS on my Xbox 360?

Links for 2009-10-14 [del.icio.us]

2009-10-15T00:00:00-07:00

Top 10 alternatives to "Slave Leia".

2009-10-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

Now, maybe someone who has gone as "Hunter S. Thompson" for the last ten years has no room to judge, but Halloween is coming up and you know what that means.

Fucking Slave Leia costumes. I don't know why, but I am so sick and tired of slave leia costumes. I'd rather see a parade of Jugglos tromping down santa monica than one more slave Leia.

The polar opposite of the slave leia is the Silent Hill Zombie nurse. These will never get old and are always the best choice for any alterna-chix who are stumped what to whear on the Halloween Party Rounds:

But what if you were a Silent Hill nurse the last three years? Why not dust off the old Slave Leia you might be thinking. First things first. Stop. Quit winding up your hair buns. I have an alternative. Here are my top ten alternatives to Slave Leia.

10. The Witch

Alright, plain and simple. This one is a fucking classic. You can not go wrong with a sexy witch. And I'm talking a "Wizard of Oz" style pointy hat witch, not a sassy pre-teen witch like in Harry Potter. There are some "sexy" harry potter hogwarts costumes out there. But those give me the serious "ut oh feeling" so don't go there.

9. The Geisha

This one is not just for the AZN CHIX. You walk into a party, you will turn heads.

8. The Nun

Another classic. Let's say your really dedicated to the goth scene like a few people on my friends list who will remain nameless (but you know who you are). This will allow you to wear a costume, but not feel to "normal" when you head out to the Malediction Halloween victorian ball.

7. The Gladiatrix

Personally I think if you covered yourself with blood spatter and walked around with a big sword this costume might move up a few spaces.

6. Bat Girl

I really debated on this one. I mean the obvious choice is Harley Quinn, but most of the costumes I could find (see the link) were all aimed at tweens for some reason. Not sure why, are there any 12 year old girls out there clamouring to be HQ? The other alternative was Cat Woman. But that's borderline Slave Leia lame, especially when half the costumes are based on that horrible cat woman movie from a few years back.

So yeah, Bat Girl. A classy alternative. Especially if you can get one of your tattooed hipster chix friends to go as Robin.

5. Ghostbuster

Paula Veinkman, Edna Spangler, Rachel Stanz, Wendy Zedmore? You and three of your friends walk in wearing these and it's pretty much "game over" for any other poseurs trying to walk away with the costume contest trophy at the bowling alley come halloween.

4. Jessica Rabbit

The main aspect of this costume that makes it a winner is that it involves red heads. The more red heads at a halloween party is always better in my opinion.

3. Silk Spectre (Modern)

What can I saw, If you've got the moxie to walk around in this thing all night then I'd say this is the last Halloween costume you ever need to buy. I mean look at this thing. Fucking Silk Spectre, giving the Mai Shiranui Cos Players something to wear on the 2nd day of Comic Con.

2. Silk Spectre (Classic)

Oh yes. This is secretly my number one. But officially it's number 2, for political reasons. Damn, this is maybe the greatest costume of all time. Maybe even better than the Zombie Nurses.

1. New Hope Princess Leia

But of course, the die hard Star Wars chix are going to have a hard time putting aside a costume that gets them so much attention from the neck bearded counterparts. So here is an alternative. The Sexy "new hope" leia costume. It's classy and will still allow for plenty of photo ops with all the darth vaders, han solos, and Jar Jar cos players partying down at Universal City walk.

Bonus Halloween Story

When I was a kid, my mom made me the sweetest Han Solo costume. It had a bad as vest and a holster and the whole bit. It was amazing. I was so excited for weeks to wear it. Unfortunatly, for me my 2nd Grade Teacher went as Princess Leia. Not Slave Leia, but the hoth snow leia. The one that kisses Han. so the whole day everyone was teasing me and telling me to kiss her. God it was horrible. Maybe that's why I hate slave leia so much.

Anyway, most of these costumes should all be available here, so do us all a favor and leave the gold bikini at Jabba's this year.

Update

Fucking internets. I should have seen this coming. The google ads in my feed all point to this:

I'm part of the problem. Sigh.

Tomb Raider mods character mods.

2009-10-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

Following up on my post about Fallout 3 mods, I've got a bunch of Tomb Raider Underworld mods that I figured I'd post up here.

Most of these are from this sort of exhaustive repository of Tomb Raider mods.

The funny thing is that what led me down this twisted path was a search I ran for "Silent Hill 3" after listening to the most recent Retronauts podcast and their disucssions of the Silent Hill Wii game that's about to come out.

Anyway, that search lead to me stumbling over this image:

And then I was curious to see what else people had come up with. Probably the two other coolest mods are Bloodrayne:

and Leeloo:

But there were a whole lot more there. Here's an overview of some other interesting TR mods:

CG Artist of the Day - One Shots

2009-10-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm going to post up a few CG Renders that I've found where the users in question don't have a huge body of work on display in their portfolios. I'm going to link to their blogs or sites so that you'll be able to see anything new that they post at a later date. For now enjoy these "one shots":

Aaron Hunwick

Jon-Troy Nickel

Somogyi Donát

Michor Lu

Josh Ruthnick

Sarwar Zahir Khan

Márk Mészáros

Rodolphe Le Page

Carl Fredsberg

Ben LUCAS

Russell Barton

Tor Frick

CG Artist of the Day - Ding Wang

2009-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

today's CG Artist of the day is a Chinese freelancer named Ding Wang. According to Ding's Bio Ding is currently living in Montreal.

He's got some amazing pieces up on his CG Society page, but by far the most stunning (for a video game nerd anyway) is his render of Poison from Final Fight. This thing is just tops:

But Ding has a lot of other great character and vehicle pieces up on his page as well. Here's some more of his stuff:

CG Artist of the Day - Antony Ward

2009-10-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today's artist, Anthony Ward is a freelance artist from Leeds England.

His professional bio lists a number of game projects and even a couple of "how to" books. He maintains a blog and has an extensive portfolio of both 2D and 3D projects.

There really is way to much good stuff to post it all so I encourage you to check out his site. Here's a taste of what's on offer:

further down the rabbit hole with Fallout 3 mods...

2009-10-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Don't know what it is, but I'm really intrigued by all the Fallout 3 mods. Probably because I spent so much time with that game...on Xbox 360. I really wish XBox would support user mods. That'd be sweet. Anyway, here's some more sweet mods for Fallout 3:

Fallout 3 Armor Mods

2009-10-07T15:16:00.000-07:00

OK. So I started playing Mass Effect yesterday. I know. A little late to the party. I actually bought Mass Effect right when it came out , but got caught up playing a bunch of other stuff(mostly bioshock and Halo 3 if memory serves) and never opened it (just like Fable 2 actually).

As usual, I make my avatar a hot red head and named her Bekka just as I had done in Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout 3, and Sacred 2.

Anyway, one thing I wish that these games had was some kind of HTML based avatar viewer, so you could upload your avatar and post it on your blog or what not and it would update as your avatar got new armor or whatever. I haven't looked, but I 'm sure there is stuff like this for World of Warcaraft characters. Hell you can even get statues and action figures of your WoW characters.

So anyway, I was poking around for some kind of Fallout 3 avatar view and I came across a great (if somewhat tangentially related post over on Gosip Gamers. They have a post up which details 5 Awesome Fallout 3 avatar armor mods, and I have to agree, they are pretty Awesome.

First up ,you've got the Persona Mod:

Which seems to be related to the "Temptress of the Wasteland Mod", the weakest one of the bunch I'd say:

Now that we have the T and A out of the way to "GET THE CLICKS" let's move onto the good stuff. First up there's this incredible Warhammer 40k Space Marine chapter mod:

Not to be outdone by the Zero Suit Metroid mod:

And finally one of the "true" Fallout fans. The "Advanced Power Armor" from the original fallout games:

And here's one that I found while I was skimming around for more. Looks like a riff on the Persona mod. But this chick is way more bad ass then those two hussies up top:

File Planet has a nice repository of these mods if you are playing Fallout 3 on the PC and want to spice things up.

Links for 2009-07-14 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-15T00:00:00-07:00

Oh just come on now.
From Break.com

Links for 2009-05-20 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-21T00:00:00-07:00

RYU'S FORM SITE

Links for 2009-05-15 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

Windows 7 Release Candidate