This last weekend a friend and I took a trip to the University of Maryland to see the Horrorfind Weekend Convention. Basically what it was, was a convention with a whole bunch of classic horror movie memorabilia and celebrities from classic horror movies.

The convention wasn’t really big or anything but it did have a group of celebrities that I had seen in movies, and I am a big horror movie fan so I thought it would be fun to go.

Among the celebrities in attendance were:

George Romero – Director of Night of the Living Dead and Creepshow
PJ Soles – Actress from Halloween, Carrie and The Devils Rejects
Cerina Vincent – Cabin Fever and Not Another Teen Movie
Tony Todd – Candyman and Final Destination

After my friend and I arrive we first visit the memorabilia room. This was full of movie props like a dead baby fetus used in a horror movie. There were also a lot of action figures and collectibles. The weird thing was that there was an abundance of indie horror porn for sale too, like cheesy porn movies masked with a horror theme, which I found quite hilarious.

After that we visited the theater where they were showing another indie horror movie produced by two guys who had won some sort of film festival award. We didn’t get to watch much since the celebrity rooms were gonna close at a certain time so we headed there to rub elbows with the stars haha.

The first person I went to see, who also had the longest line and a whole room to himself was George Romero. While we were waiting in line George got up and took a quick bathroom break, and while he was gone I said probably the lamest joke I have ever uttered “I guess he had to drop the zombies off at the pool”, but it made the whole line roar in laughter. Go figure. There was this one guy at the front of the line, who to me seemed like the last person in the world who would have a headshot of himself for promotional purposes, yet while he was talking to George he pulled one out with his resume printed on the back and gave it to him and promoted his website as well. It was pretty funny.



Anyways, I finally get up and get my autograph. George Romero is freaking tall. Ok I’m 6’2 and he was taller than me, to give you an idea. But he was very nice and really conversational. Seemed like a really good guy.




After than we went to the other main celebrity room to get the other autographs that I had come to get.

First was Cerina Vincent. In a word... HOT. My friend couldn’t even come close to her table in fear of being caught drooling or starring at her chest. She also seemed very cool and very grounded. I even learned that she used to be a Power Ranger during the seasons where they were in space or something.






The next stop was to see PJ Soles. PJ was probably the coolest of all the celebrities there. She has been doing horror for a long time, from Halloween to Carrie and even a small part in The Devils Rejects. She was so cool she even signed my DVD I brought three different places. After we left the celebrity rooms and they closed she even walked around with my friend and I and checked out the other rooms. Very cool experience.







My last stop on the way out was at the ticket counter where they were selling autographed pictures of celebrities from conventions the years past. The one I really wanted to get was the one of Felissa Rose Esposito.



For those of you who don’t know who that is, she was the one who played the young version of Angela in Sleepaway Camp.




For those of you who do know what I am talking about, the below image still gives you the jibblies.





Interesting fact for Sleepaway Camp fans, if you look at Felissa’a IMDB page you will see that she is currently working on a NEW Sleepaway Camp movie. Fuck Yeah!!

All in all I had a blast and got some cool collectibles/autographs to go with it.

There is another weekend coming up in Baltimore on Aug 10th.

Hello my name is Chris, and I am a cheater. You know they say it is supposed to be a relief once you admit something like that but I don’t feel any better.

Let me clarify the above confession. There are two different types of cheating.

1. Exploiting an unintended game mechanic or situation in order to give you an unfair advantage over the game or other players. Examples: Wall hacking in World of Warcraft Pvp, Controller Manipulation in Halo 3.

2. Using implemented cheat codes to make a game easier or enjoy it in a different way. Examples: GTA Vice City Tank code, the Konami Command.

Now like I said before I am a cheater but I am the latter type of cheater. I use cheat codes. Using cheat codes is a guilty pleasure of mine and many others I am sure. I do not engage in or condone the first type of cheating.

I do have one rule when it comes to using cheat codes though. I will not use cheat codes till after I have beaten a game completely without using them. I do this so I know I am able to beat the game on my own, and then I will go back and play it more and enjoy it with every gun or unlimited life, just for shits and giggles.

The game I think I have used cheat codes on the most was Grand Theft Auto Vice City. That game has so much potential as far as replay-ability goes and adding in cheat codes just makes it exponentially better. You could spawn in any vehicle you want, get all the guns in the game, replenish your health, shake the cops and even blow up all the cars in the city with just a few clicks on the controller.

A group of friends and I used to have this running contest going with GTA. We would take turns with the character, completely load him up with every weapon and as much ammo as we wanted and then unleash him on the city. The rule was you couldn’t use the code to loose the cops. The goal was in inflict as much destruction as possible and stay alive as long as you could with the cops and the FBI chasing you down. Some of the battles and getaways got pretty intense.



I have always wondered about cheat codes. How do people find out about them, how do people discover what precise combination of buttons will achieve a specific result. I am sure that some game developers leak out information, but some times they are discovered by gamers and it always shocks me how fast they can figure it out. And a lot of cheat codes are complex, you know they are not simple up up down down left right left right a b a b codes of ole’.



Speaking of the old codes of the past, I am sure everyone know the infamous Konami code.



This code has appeared in more Konami games than I care to list, but some of the more popular ones were:

The Gradius Series
Contra Series
Castlevania Series
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series
Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3

It has even appeared in non Konami games such as Half Life 2 and Ratchet and Clank.

References to the code have appeared in other contexts; the web comic Real Life has used the Konami code; Penny Arcade sells a t-shirt that features the code; while social news aggregation website Digg.com allowed users to type the full Konami code into the site to expand and display all comments on a page. In music, the song Anyone Else But You by The Moldy Peaches featured in the movie Juno contains a reference to the code. There is a band called "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start" who released an album named "Worst Band Name Ever" in 2007. Finally, the alternative metal band Deftones released a song named "U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start" on the 2006 album Saturday Night Wrist - however, this reference to the code transposes the A and B commands.

Along with inputted codes there are also unlock-able cheats, cheats that become activate-able once complete certain tasks in a game. An example of this is Golden Eye 007 for the N64. Allowing players to ‘unlock” cheats rather than inputting them gives a different challenge to the game. One of the best codes in 007 is unlocked once you beat the second level in a very very short amount of time. I remember attempting this so many times but the code was worth it. I love playing this game with big heads, paintball mode and all guns. Even though I have beaten the game, I still enjoy the fun in using the cheats.



A lot of people have very strong opinions when it comes to using cheat codes. Personally I think they add a lot of variety and entertainment to games as long as they are used correctly. If I was to go and buy GTA IV when it comes out and use cheat codes for the very beginning, and beat the game that way, I would feel like I cheated myself out of experiencing the game the way it was meant to be played. That is why I always beat a game first without any codes before I use them, that way I experience the game the way it was meant to be played, then I get to experience it the way I want it to be played. Its entertaining, and that is what gaming is all about.

What are your opinions on cheat codes?

Check out my new blog header. I made a web signature similar to it a long time ago and never used it for anything, so I thought I should change it up and use it here. What do you think?

Anyways…
I have a few quick things I want to talk about concerning Condemned 2, now that I have beaten the game.

Multiplayer:

I didn’t get a chance to talk about multiplayer in my First Impressions blog since I had yet to play it. Since then I have been hitting up the multiplayer scene and have enjoyed it for the most part. Rather than describe the different modes and what they offer, since most people who care would know that by now, I’ll just give my opinion on it. Condemned 2 multiplayer is a nice change up from your everyday FPS frag fest type of multiplayer. You don’t spend a lot of time jumping around and firing guns or lobbing grenades at your opponents. You actually spend your time in close hand to hand combat, attacking and blocking. Of the four multiplayer modes, Crime Scene and Bum Rush are my favorites. I like the idea of having to search for decapitated heads in ice chests while at the same time being hunted by influenced maniacs bent on my death. Playing the influenced is fun too.. laying the evidence in a dark corner and then hiding myself so the SCU won’t find me, then when they show up to find the box I pop out of the shadows and beat them down with an axe or sledgehammer. Communication and teamwork play a big role in winning C2 multiplayer.





the videos are from youtube, the voice is not me

A few things that I don’t like about the multiplayer are the hosting methods and melee range. Do most multiplayer games have the player themselves host the deathmatch games? Numerous times I was in the middle of a bum rush or crime scene game and the host would drop out or whatever and the whole game would end. It leaves the stability of the multiplayer on the shoulders of the person hosting the game. Not a good idea as far as I know.

The melee range seems a little off to me to. Often I will be running around trying to swing whatever weapon I may be holding at the bum next to me trying to kill him, only to miss for no reason other than apparently being 2 inches away is too far for an axe to go, oh ho but it wouldn’t be too far for the other guys fists to move and kill my ass…oh no. Maybe its lag or whatever, but it just seems off to me.

Linearity:

I do not understand some people’s problem with linear games. I personally do not think that linearity is anything bad. Condemned 2 uses its linearity and gameplay to its advantage. Though C2 is linear, it does have its share of alternate paths that lead to dead ends. No big deal right? Well when you add in the fact that you can’t save whenever you want and the idea that enemies can pop out of anywhere at anytime.. it makes you think twice about heading down any hallway. It also uses its world action events to confuse the player as well. Sometimes you will get lost and end up backtracking trying to find the way out of whatever rundown building you happen to be in, only to realized that you have to climb thru an easily missed hole in the ceiling or something like that. Some people think that C2s use of these WAE are stupid and pointless. In my opinion they are very well used, since they confuse the player, which I would think is the idea of the designer since this is a survival horror game, and makes you scared to retrace your steps in fear of more enemies.

So what the game is linear, so is a maze, that doesn’t make it easy.




FPS Mode:

The greatest idea for survival horror games!! I played C2 thru the first time on hard, and had the brightness setting pretty low so the game was very unsettling and scary to me, I jumped numerous times after enemies would burst thru walls or pass thru a slimy membrane into my dimension. After finally beating down all of people in my way I am awarded the ability to go back thru the game, this time, packing heat. As long as you beat the final level with a gold rating, and get unlimited ammo. This is letting me go back thru all the levels that scared me and let me feeling like I barely made it thru with my skin intact, and just destroy all the bums that gave me such a problem the first time around. Think of it this way...

First Playthru – ‘Man this part is so fucking hard, I am outnumbered like 4 to 1 and have nothing but my fists to defend myself, I’ve died like 40 times on this one part’ (Actually happened to me)

FPS Mode Playthru – Oh I remember this part, those 4 guys are about to… yep here they come… BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM…. Done. Bitches.


Oh, and like the blog header says... Robots!!

Melee. Forensics. Hobos. A winning combination.



I initially played the original Condemned game after hearing it mentioned in a Zero Punctuation review. I had a blast beating crazies to death with random weapons of opportunity while desperately trying to preserve my own sanity.

Since I read about Condemned 2 coming out a while back, I have seen very little, if any, advertisements for it. The only way for me to find things about the game was to look it up directly myself. I saw no commercials, no ads on webpages, even the store I bought the game from yesterday had not a single piece of material showcasing Condemned 2’s release. Why? Is Sega and Monolith just counting on the old fans of the original to hype the game by word of mouth? I found the whole thing very odd.



Anyways on to the game.

You return to Condemned 2 in the role of ex SCU agent Ethan Thomas, wallowing in squalor after being suspended 11 months prior from his last derelict trip into hobo town assumedly due to your drinking or the fact that you left one too many bodies last time. Apparently your old ‘friend’ Vanhorn has gotten himself into a pickle and the SCU comes to you to help them figure out what is going on. I won’t go too much into plot as to spoil the story for anyone.



The original Condemned faced a lot of criticism for its bland first person combat and boring forensic gameplay and it seems, so far, that the developers took all of the complaints to heart and drastically improved in many areas.

Combat:

The combat in C2 is the same first person. melee dominated, bum fight that is was in the first game with a few new tricks up its sleeve. One thing I always disliked in the first Condemned was the blocking technique, you could lift your weapon for a second to defend an incoming attack, but if you did it to soon your arms would apparently get too heavy to hold up and you would lower your block. I understood the idea behind the mechanic, but it was unrealistic and became a nuisance to me. C2 fixes this problem by offering two options, Block and Parry. Like the original, if you lift your arms to defend yourself in time with an attack you will parry the attack and send the bum recoiling open for a counter attack. The addition of Block allows you to keep your hands up as long as you want but it wont recoil the attacker. I think that Stamina comes into play later in the game which will affect how long you can block though.

Another new addition is the use of combos in your melee combat. Using combos increases the amount of damage you do exponentially depending on the combo you do. There are also chain combos which you can use once you fill up your combo meter. When you unleash a chain combo, the game slows down and throws some quick time events at you that you have to follow in order to complete the devastating combo. Along with combos is the cool addition of environmental finishing moves. Unlike the original, where if you got a crazed bum to his knees you were presented with 4 choices on how to execute him, C2 offers a new twist. If you get a domicile challenged nut job to his knees you are able to put the fucker in a chokehold and once you do this then you are presented with a myriad of options on how to end the poor bastards life. Options include slamming the persons head thru a TV, throwing him over a guardrail over an overpass, or drowning his ass in a toilet.



I have read that guns play a bigger part in C2, and there is also an option to play in an un-lockable “FPS Mode” from the start menu, so I guess I’ll have to see what happens with that. This is the first time I have played a game on Hard difficulty the first play thru, and at some points it takes me many attempts to pass a certain area, but it is always fun.

Forensics:

Vast improvements have been made to the forensics gameplay in C2. Instead of the hand-holding type of work you did in the original, C2 deepens the aspect of crime scene investigation and has it affect gameplay as well, or at least level score. In C2 when you come upon a crime scene that needs investigating you will be given a certain task to complete, Identifying a Body for example. You will then be given a certain number of clues you must locate in order to solve the given task. Depending on which clues you choose to use and how you interpret each clue will affect your forensic score for each crime scene which in turn affects your level score and rating.



One thing I don’t quite understand as of yet is the use of these sonic emitters. They don’t seem to have any basis in the game other than the protagonist telling you to destroy them because they are arbitrarily bad. Perhaps it is an artificial way to lengthen gameplay or add achievement points, I will have to wait and see.

Graphics and Gameplay:

Does it make one a sissy to be scared by a game? Well then call me Sissy Laroue because this game scares the crap outta me. The designers do this thing every once in a while where you will enter an area and see a bum or grease monster from Return of the Living Dead run past you or towards an area you can’t reach yet. This to me is genius, it puts me in the state of always going…. “Shit I know something is here… fuck… where is it… shit shit shit!!” There is a part early in the game where you are chasing Vanhorn down in order to figure out what the hell is going on, you end up in this room that is covered in this black tar, grease shit and you can’t see shit since the game is already dark to begin with. The graphics are definitely a step up from the first game, while some of the object models appear to be straight ports from the first game, I can’t help but feel dirty after only playing the game for a few minutes. The graphics are much grittier and dirtier, and the realism is much better in C2.



Quick time events seem to play a crucial role in C2. Aside from combat there are these times where you have an opportunity to respond verbally to a given situation. There is a time during the second mission where you get separated from the SCU swat guys you are teamed up with and one guy makes a comment over the radio that “He’ll be fine, he lives in this filth”, and if you respond in time, you make the comment “Fucking Dick.” These quick time events may or may not play a crucial role in the outcome of the situations, I don’t know yet since I have yet to miss a response. They do though affect your level score which in turn effects the upgrades you get after each level, whether it be brass knuckles or a flak vest.

The level design can get a little confusing at times and I have found myself backtracking on accident a few times already and this is mainly due to the darkness and shitty flashlight, just be thankful the enemies don’t respawn in areas like this.

So far this game is exactly what I had hoped it to be, a scary.. dirty bum brawl with some CSI thrown in for puzzle fans. It takes all things that were great in the first game and makes them better while also fixing the things that were hindering the original.


I have yet to try out multiplayer so I can’t comment on that as of yet.

It has been a while since I have had an opportunity, or a inspiration to do any digital art. I have been bored at work this week and decided to work a little on my lighting skills.

I know Halo 3 is old news but I played it with a friend over the weekend and came up with the idea for the art below while playing it.

Below is the Master Chief using a plasma grenade as an improvised light source. The chief render is from Planetrender.com and the background is from Bungie.net.

Done in Photoshop CS3.

This is my first real attempt at manual lighting.





A full view of the piece can be seen Here

These are the original images used.









Comments are appreciated.

I have seen so many other posts of people showing off how their gaming area is set up I thought I would share mine.



I recently bought a brand new couch, and it is super comfortable and great for lounging and gaming.

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This is my living room.



This is my setup. In the picture you see:

Halo 3 Xbox 360
DVDs
Nintendo DS Lite
PSP
Nintendo 64
Playstation 2
Assorted Controllers
Xbox 360 Games
N64 Games
DVD/VCR Player
TV



This is my current library of 360 games, minus one or two. I got my 360 way after everyone else, I got it when Halo 3 came out, hence the Halo 3 system. I am not a super huge Halo 3 fanboy, but I do like the way it looks.

Games:

Lost Odyssey
Lost: Via Domus
MOH Airborne
The Godfather (Borrowed and doesn’t play)
Guitar Hero 3
Bioshock
Mass Effect
Blitz: The League
Halo 3

Not sure of all the N64 games I have, but I know that for some reason I have two copies of both 007 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I also have Super Smash Brother, Madden, Conkers Bad Fur Day... and others.

My PS2 games are not shown, though I have like 80, they are at a friends house since I am trying to sell them.