G+ Image Dump

So I've been posting a lot on G+ but not as much as I should be on here, and that's a shame because this blog will probably outlive G+, and goes a lot further to condemning me with any future employers. So I decided to gather up all the odds and ends that have been floating around online and collected them all in one place.

This was my personal interpretation of what happened on Taken 2. Although I had to use a shot from The Grey. I'm glad I'd never have to ask Liam Neeson for his daughters hand in marriage. Screw that for fun and games. Give me

Just some random vector stuff.

The kid from Looper weirded me out from the get go. It's cause he acts like an adult, rather than acting like a child. I guess the only decent actors out there are adults, so that's what you'd tend to copy. That and I guess he was supposed to be kind of creepy.

Kefe is a great Samoan word I learnt while being abused on the streets. I love it. It's a long story, but do you guys ever have that friend that seems to get everyone into fights? Yeah I have one of those.

Playing with yummy typography.

A concept illustration for Becky's Quadrapus.

Uncharted 1,2 & 3

Unfortunately I can't grab screenshots for these games since I have no idea how to do that sort of thing on PS3, and I have no intention on learning how any time soon. I've heard that the PS4 will be built around this one missing feature.

Anyway. Uncharted. Wow. The first game came across pretty standard but picked up quite nicely. I guess that's what happens when you play a game 6 years after it was considered revolutionary. I have to say, I was rather surprised at how long they waited to spring the ghouly type guys on me. It came as rather a shock actually. Usually a game that decides to have anything like that blows its load early on. So I appreciate that this one waited till you were pretty sure all you'd be fighting would be regular dudes.
For the record, that boat scene pictured was a real bitch and I hated it.

Uncharted 2 feels like it really ramps up the Cinematics, and for most fans this seems to be the big favourite of the series so far. It definitely has the strongest ending out of the three.
I super loved the train fight scene. It was amazingly well done. It's surprising how they did the scenary wizzing by, at no point in time did it feel like they were looping anything, and you really felt like the train was getting somewhere as you fought your way along it.
The (by this game) obligatory ghouls also had a nice twist as well.
This is the game I remember putting down the most out of frustration. Usually some gay ass fight that I couldn't do.
That was the one problem with these games. The chases are AMAZING. The puzzles are decent, the climbing around is well done, but the gun fights are boring. I turned the difficulty right down so I could breeze through them. I figured turning the difficulty down wouldn't affect everything else I liked about the game. And besides, I'm a busy guy who has a life now. I have nothing to prove to anyone.
Putting a helmet on a guy shouldn't make him impervious either, that's just stink and unfair.
The second game also put a big emphasis on the love interest thing. Which I really dug. Elena is rad. It's fine, Becky thinks Drake looks like Nathan Fillion so we all know what that means.

Due to the consequent digging of the Elena, I was rather horrified she wasn't immediately showing up in the 3rd game. Instead I get lumped with this Australian bitch that appeared in the second game. No thanks. You can go get sacrificed or something. And another thing about Elena, they changed her eyes in this one. They used to go down a bit more at the edges, but they've sharpened them up now. Not entirely sure how I feel about that.
This game was awesome, and personally I enjoyed it more than all the others. Playing as young Drake was cool, and the bit with the plane... I might go and play that bit again. It was a great sequence.
And I'm glad that they didn't make an "obligatory difficult annoying boss fight" because "It's the end and that's what you need to do because everyone does it."
The funny thing about this game was the fact mum sat down a couple times to watch me play and was thoroughly engrossed by the experience. It's perhaps the first time since Jungle Hunt she's payed attention to a game before. She was interested in the story line and the visuals, not so much the firefights, which I agreed were pretty boring. By the end of it I actually heard her standing up for games as art, and as an interactive movie experience. "Like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book" she said.
I don't know if I'd encourage her to watch me play The Last Of Us though. Indiana Jones is one thing, Zombies is another.
All in all. This is an amazing series of games, despite my misgivings with parts of it... Also the multiplayer element is a poo.
But the series as a whole has made my PS3 purchase worthwhile.

The Dodgy Lady Incident

So I just spent the morning walking up and down Queen Street looking for Mag Nation so I could get a copy of idN. I'd been talking about it last night and figured I should pick up a copy to keep me and Cinto inspired. No dice, so I walked past a dude begging for money and went into McDonalds for a consolation prize. I didn't look at him but he still said "Have a nice day then."

Fluffy Asian Spotted with Street View

On my way back to work I get stopped outside the diary just up the road. Next to it there is a surreptitious Escort Service which I've only seen muslim looking dudes going into. I always look when I go past in the hope I'll see a real life hooker. Alas they always look normal or downright ratty, nothing like Sin City at all.
Anyway, this Maori lady comes running across the road at me and goes "Excuse me Excuse me! Can I use your phone! I'm stuck in town and I need to text someone."
I oblige and hand her my phone, staying as close as possible and vowing in my mind that the kiddy sized cup of juice in my hand is the first thing I'm going to drop when I start chasing her down the street for my phone back.
As she's texting a guy in a dull red car across the road revs and screeches off. Angry tire sounds galore. She looks up angrily at the leaving car and tuts. "My friend ganked him, he's really mad."
She goes on to say that her friend had "ganked" them last night like a bitch. Apparently her friend had (She quickly cranes her neck past me down the road) "Snowballs" and stuff to trade but it all went tits up. "I don't want to hang around to much longer in case he gets back. he's getting angrier and angrier."
"Oh." I reply. "Does that txt your sending let your partner know where you're gonna meet?"
"Hmm, where should we meet?"
"... I really don't know."
As we wait for her partner to call back we sit on some steps and I try and pry from her whether Ganking means stealing or ditching. I was 80% sure it was stealing.
She asked where I worked and I said I worked at a magazine. She gasps and tells me not to print anything she said. I said not to worry, I'm a designer, I don't do any of that writing stuff. I mean, where could I possibly put my words for just anyone to see, right?
Her partner texts back "I dnt hav bus money"
Well crap. I'm not gonna hang around her much longer while she tries to remember all her friends numbers and texts them one by one.
"how much do you need for your bus?" I ask.
"5 dollars or something."
"Oh yup, probably 5.60." I whip out a ten that's in my pocket and give it to her.
"Oh wow thanks so much, wait could you text my partner back and tell him ok?"
she dictates to me a message to send and then gives me a hug and leaves.
"Where's your work?"
"uh, it's just down the road."
"Oh ok, well I have your number now, thanks so much!"
Shit. I've just gotten involved in someone's drug network.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

After a recommendation from work, and previous experience with Shadow Of Chernobyl I decided to get the next game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Call of Pripyat. A prequel to the original game which really pushed free roaming FPS games. The engine is a bit clunky, and reminds me of how Morrowind would feel if it was remade right now without any watering down for the consoles. Pripyat is very much a PC game.

Shadow of Chernobyl took a slightly more linear approach to its level design, while Pripyat instantly throws you into the wandering.

It was vaguely terrifying starting in the swamp land, considering I had previous experience with what this world had to throw at me.

My first mission I took was with these dudes that wanted to raid an old rusted ship lying in the marsh. Unfortunatly I wasn't familiar with the inventory system, so when I went to loot the body of the first person we downed I accidentally put all my inventory onto him, thinking his inventory was mine. 

This wouldn't be so bad if the guy pictured above didn't have the same idea and raid the body as well. So an NPC took all my stuff. What a dick. So I reloaded. There was no way I was going to start the game off with no food or ammo.

 My first encounter with the local wildlife went pretty good I think, bumbling around in the dark and I just happened across them.

The game isn't afraid to throw punches at you. It really doesn't care. I got directed to this NPC who could help me on my Downed Chopper Investigation (My main quest and point for being in the Zone, the radiated center area of Chernobyl). Everyone I talked to said he was crazy, but I was still surprised when he shot at me when I opened the door to has rust house. I almost blew him away, and it was only some weird restraint that stopped me from doing that. I'm not sure if I can kill NPC's. But it definitely feels like a possibility.

When Notch isn't making Minecraft he's a barman.

Shhhhhh

This dude here does weapon mods and stuff. Apparently the more vodka you feed him (Vodka also doubles as an anti radiation potion which makes you tipsy) the better he gets. Unfortunatly more than 3 bottles just sends him to sleep. So I was screwed there.

The game doesn't hold your hand with the quests either, and sometimes the quest items can be rather obscure. Keys don't float in mid air and glow with an arrow pointing at them in other games. It's just hiffed on the ground. I spent a decent little while collecting all the bits and pieces I needed from an abandoned army convoy on this bridge. I make it sound annoying and obtuse, but it's actually quite fun.

Every now and again there are "Emissions" which turn the outside world into an apocalypse. During these things you need to rush to find cover of a building or cave and weather the storm. The building pictured above is one I had to rush to. Just prior to running to it I was in a bandit camp that had pushed me over the line when they tried bullying me for more money for a hostage than I was willing to pay. So I wiped them all out (The hostage just gapped it out of there and didn't even help me out). Then the emission started to rumble in. Unfortunatly I had a short amount of time to get to the shelter and I had just saved. So there was no going back. I had to try a couple times but when I got into the shelter it was crawling with Skeletal rat things and old dead Stalkers wandering around.

 Zombies in this game still use their weapons. Their just shambly dumb versions of regular people I guess rather than "zombies" which are out to eat you.
I fought my way in, hiding in a cellar, listing to all the mutants wandering around in there with me. That was the moment I decided to do this post. It's an awesome game.

Also it has all these wide areas and bits of architecture to muck around inside. The game can go for a decent stretch of time with no shooting so you can have a breather and just poke around. I wonder how many bits I'll never actually see inside these buildings because I'm to chicken to go into any dark rooms in there.

I picked the game up for like 2 dollars on a Steam Special. Put it on your wishlist and wait for it to roll back round. It's worth it, even at full price.
Apparently "Clear Sky" (the third installment) sucks out loud. I'll have to get back to you on that one.