Fiona - Tales of the Borderlands 8Bit

I have it on good authority that Tales of the Borderlands is a great game. I mean, it's made by Telltale, so why wouldn't it be? Those guys have built up a good reputation these last couple years.

Matt and I have been goofing around with Smash Bro's on the WiiU. Every game mode is confusing. What's even going on half the time?

Inkling - Splatoon 8Bit

I've been seeing the girl inkling popping up a lot recently and I had no idea the game was an actual thing till yesterday. It looks good though! If you've got friends, and a second WiiU.

I can tell you right now that WiiU lost the console war in New Zealand, I presume it's global. Last weekend Matt and I went to look for an extra WiiU controller. There was nothing to be found anywhere. The best we could do was find a couple budget bins with the WiiU games chucked in there. We found a couple peripherals shamefully tucked in behind some XB1 stuff. Eventually we went to JB-HIFI who was the only place stocking decent WiiU stuff and got Smash Bros price matched with Harvey Norman (who didn't even have it on their shelves, but had it listed online.)

Why did you buy a WiiU Matt? What were you even thinking? How did you even find it in the first place to be able to buy it?

Self Portrait - 8Bit

This will be going on my CV so people roughly know what to expect when I crawl into their office for interviews. The Goatee will of course be optional.

It's been ages since I've looked at my CV. I never really even used it when I originally got my job. I mean, I gave it to them, but they didn't bother with it. The fact I had done interactive design stuff at uni was enough for them.

I feel like I shouldn't like this song so much, but right at the 3 minute mark it drops and is so freaking awesome.

Maxine Caulfield - Life Is Strange 8Bit

I haven't played a whole lot of Life is Strange yet. I tried letting Becky play through it because I thought she'd appreciate the character (which I think she does, introverts hold a special place in our hearts) but the controls were too spastic for her so she got pissed and bailed on me.

After the third time someone asked me a question which I was supposed to get wrong so they could tell me the right answer so I could rewind and tell it back to them I got bored of the rewind mechanic. I assume they come up with clever ways of playing with rewinding time in later episodes but it got old super fast for me.

The gravity of decision making is lost when you can change your decision after you see the initial outcome of your actions. This is what made the first season of the Walking Dead game so good. Every decision you made was just adding to the horror, like I was on a rollercoaster ride that I had a button for that was labeled "don't fly off the rails" and all I was doing was pressing that button at every opportunity. It was nerve wracking and enrapturing. I'm just not getting that vibe on Life is Strange yet.

I have it on good information that the game gets quite good. I have a season pass, so I'm gonna have to do it at some point. Just every time I get a notification that I could rewind time if I wanted, I won't.

Serena - Pokemon X & Y 8Bit

Serena makes the last of them! I'm kind of gutted to be finishing the Pokemon girls, they were all super fun and varied to do.

As you'll see from my next post I was kind of at a loss of who I should do next. Anyway, to celebrate finishing all the pokemon girls to date (from Pokemon Crystal to X&Y) I've put them all together for your viewing pleasure.

Any votes on who I should do next? I'm probably going to do a Tales of Borderlands character.

Rosa - Pokemon Black & White 2 8Bit

One more character to go! Unless I want to do the Pokemon Card game protagonists and all the random detritus from the other games. Maybe I should do Misty? She's gotta be the most popular Pokemon girl, except she doesn't exactly do a whole lot in the games.
But then I've opened up a huge can of worms doing every single Gym leader. What do you think?

I watched Supergirl in a totally legitimate fashion last night. The pilot is super rushed trying to squeeze in all the different plot points they want to cover off on. It's kind of ridiculous. She's flying along to deal with a burning building when she gets shot with a krypton dart. She then wakes up in a secret base where the boss of the place promptly tells her that "we're already doing your job, we don't need you, we hate aliens, btw your sister works here. Lol!"

Then the super bad guy must have been set to super easy mode or something because he went and KS'd himself to get it all over with.

I'm sure the story will have a better more measured pace when it actually gets into it, and I've had a mean childhood crush on Supergirl that needs to be nurtured, so I'll watch more when it actually comes out.

What I feel is missing from these shows though is that they rush past the whole origins/beginnings thing. The best part of a superheroes story is when they're still learning. That's why they keep starting Spiderman from scratch. The first bit is always the best.

They need to let Supergirl be a total noob for a season, accidentally killing people she's trying to save, getting outwitted by the purse thief etc. Then when she finally comes across a true threat it'll be a "holy shit" big deal moment.

Then again I guess most audiences would switch off without having the instant high stakes every week thing.

7 Day Roguelike - DUCKSOUP DUNGEON

I like to think of it as a personal community service thing to sometimes point you guys to the 7DRL challenge. A lot of cool shit comes out of there and recently the 2015 competition just finished. Check 'em out. There might be something there for you.

One game that really struck me was this gorgeous original gameboy palette inspired piece DUCKSOUP DUNGEON. It's browser based so there's nothing stopping you from playing it at work right now.
It's so beautiful I'm having a hard time believing something this smooth and awesome could be birthed in a week. Talented people. You inspiring bastards you.

Check it out here.

Hilda - Pokemon Black & White

I'm gonna say that Hilda is the worst name any of the Pokemon Chicks are landed with. No offence to any Hilda's out there, Helga is worse. And no offence to any Helga's out there. Fat Face is worse.

I just went and saw Mad Max: Fury Road and hot damn it was amazing. I hadn't seen the original Mad Max movies so I wasn't aware of who the little girl was. but it was obvious she was someone he regretted not being able to save.

The movie had an amazing world with some great world building. I really can't get over how great it was. It had an old school vibe going for it. Like how night time was obviously filmed during the day and had the colours saturated out to blue. Kristof didn't appreciate it, but I felt like it was a shout out to a simpler time.

If you're a guy, or girl who loves post apocalyptic sci-fi type deals then you're gonna shit your pants watching this movie. And to all the Mens Rights groups moaning about this being a feminist movie. Seriously, your as bad as they are, you make yourselves look like idiots.

Mind: Path to Thalamus

So I quickly dipped into Mind: Path to Thalamus just to see what was going on.

The game seems like an experiment in seeing how pretty a dev can make the Unreal Engine look. It's sort of a portfolio piece really. And then they decided to chuck some puzzle elements in there and call it a game.

Then they stood back, thought about it for a bit. and added in a voice over of a guy whose kind of gutted his daughter died.

It's sort of like playing Sudoku on the Mona Lisa while someone intermittently cries behind you.

All the screenshots have the graphics cranked all the way up.

Lyra - Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver 8Bit

Lyra kind of has a big mix up with Kris whom she shares her character with in Pokemon Adventures. I think she looks pretty rad with her little Mario hat.

It's raining here right now. Good excuse to not do mowing and instead clean up inside and chill out. I bought The Witcher 2 from Humble Bundle for 3 bucks the other day. The code didn't come through immediately so afterwards they sent me a 5 buck voucher as an apology which I thought was awfully nice of them. Used it to buy MIND: Path to Thalamus. Not because I had hear anything about it, but because it looks kind of cool and was 5 bucks.

Dawn - Pokemon Diamond/Pearl 8Bit

There's actually two versions of Dawn. In Platinum she wears winter gear. That's your fun fact I hope your happy. I'm also super proud of the look of this one.
I got nothing else to say so enjoy the music! Oh and also I do take requests on which pixel girls to do next. So knock yourself out.

Queen of the Reef - Destiny 8Bit

I was told Queen of the Reef was a decent enough character to do from Destiny. I'll never know if I was lied to.
There wasn't an awful lot to go on, which gave me immediate alarm bells as to this characters worth. Oh well, I mostly used this one piece of official artwork as reference.

A noticeable pallor has settled over the office. Not to be confused with a parlour, a place where Victorian girls say naughty things to each other. It turns out a member of editorial, a guy whose been there longer than anyone else in editorial, has been given the chop along with two other writers. This is an insane blow that cannot be stressed enough.

Currently editorial now stands at one designer for the guys side, and a single writer and designer for the womens side, this isn't including me, who could possibly be called upon to provide emergency backup to the designers.

Consequently everyone else has been promoted to a writer, including myself (who has been moonlighting for the last 9 months or so anyway) and the sales team. We'll also be provided text and content by "freelancers". I put that in quotation marks because I'm dubious to the existence of said "freelancers".

I'm writing all this publicly because I expect these changes will be reflected in the credits page of the next issue or so anyway.

The spirit has left this place, but if you're a writer who wants a freelance gig, knock yourself out. Seriously, click the link.

Mad Moxxi - Borderlands 8Bit

Mad Moxxi is one of those staple characters on the cosplay circuit at the moment. Googling images for her as reference for the pixel job brings up more cosplayers than ingame images, it's insane. I guess the burlesque/steampunk fanservice tornado is strong with this character. I did two coloured background versions just cause I felt like there was to much white on her to really see her clearly on a white background.

Well I just found out that the editorial department has been let go. Or at least 3 writers have. That's a mighty blow at a place whose main bread and butter relies on 4 writers to produce content for two print magazines.

Their positions have been liquidated, so they have four weeks to land on their feet. If you know of any writing positions going I know 3 writers that write more in a week than most other people write in a lifetime. Seriously, every month they do a weeks more work than a normal person.

You shall be missed comrades. Also, I wonder how long my position is gonna last?

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne - 8bit

It's been a busy weekend. Saturday we got given a hand by Matt & Lou to crawl into the depths of Parnell and grab a sofa set, even though Lou was feeling shit. Sitting there with a bag of pills, doing a million point turn in a tiny carpark in amongst some trendy apartments that look like letterboxes on the outside but are playboy sex dens on the inside.

Then today we grabbed two Queen sized beds from my brother. Becky doesn't like them because the nice white one looks like it's had coffee dropped on one particular spot a million times. To high up to be crotch related stains. Becky came with Dad and I to look at the second bed described as being "for drunk people" to make sure it was good enough to enter our dwelling. My brother bullrushed it out the door before she got a good look and I forcefully said "We're taking the bed." in a manner that I hoped conveyed "They're never dragging that piece of shit up the stairs and back in here ever again so we need to come to terms with it."

Did I mention we've bought a house? We're home owners now. I probably should have said that earlier.

Farcry 4 - Shangri-La

I accidentally went and got Farcry 4 on a whim the other day (Pixel art commissions have been good to me.)

I liked the first Farcry back in the day, and then loved Farcry 2 because it was such a massive departure from the first and was a unique game at the time. It captured something visceral and alive that was missing from linear games. Also the antagonist was great.

Farycry 3 brought the game up to modern standards and brought another awesome antagonist I didn't even finish that game but it was great fun. I got everything I needed out of it. Also I had the ending sort of spoiled for me so I felt no need to complete the dudes little journey into being a bad ass and getting his friends off the island.

Then Farcry 4 came out waaaay too soon. Like, Assassins Creed too soon. And no shit, it's pretty much FC3.5. Or three or four Steam mods. "Lots of Animals Pack" + "Nepal reskin mod".

So if you've played Farcry 3 then wait until you feel like playing it again and then get FC4. That's my recommendation. 

I really loved the aesthetics of this one section of the game so I had to upload the screenshots. My settings aren't fully cranked. I've got it set to "High". That's about two settings from Ultra or whatever.