And So It Begins

Right, I’m moving flat today so taken 10 minutes out of my mad packing to update the blog.

I wont be online for a minimum of 10 days now (although due to unforeseen retardery I might be off longer…gonna be a fun birthday…) and although I can update from my iPhone those updates will be short due to the touch screen keyboard and lack any images or links (due to lack of 3.0 damn it) so things will be a bit wordy.

Now you know your good ol’ Uncle Timmy (yes I have a nephew so I can call myself that and not be a paedophile), he wont leave you with nothing but a good bye so I quickly whipped together a few things to keep you busy:

After I posted the video for the series of NewsWipe the other day I watched it all though and fell in love with it, so I found another creation of Brooker, ScreenWipe, the original show NewsWipe spun off from. It’s just as funny if not more so if your not a fan of the news, the only draw back this time is due to the rules of YouTube the saint who posted the series had to edit one episode due to nudity, I’m not complaining about the lack of nudity (although…) but instead of the rude bits we are greeted with black screens which happens a lot though the one episode which covers Dawn Gets Naked and Gock Wong or whatever that fannies name is show about women wearing almost nothing and sometimes nothing. Anyway, I really strongly recommend you check this out, if you’ve enjoyed the grumpy sometimes pissy for the sake of it persona I used durin some rants and game reviews you will enjoy this show:

[DUE TO YOUTUBE FIDDLING I CAN NOT EMBEDD THIS SHOW :-( CHECK IT OUT HERE THOUGH]

Admittedly that’s all I can give you right now I really need to get back to packing, if I can I’ll update later but don’t hold your breath (because it’s childish).

See You All In 10 Days!

Newswipe

It’s Brass Eye but in a real world….<3

Something Interesting…

I’d like to make clear I am NOT one of these Green people. I do nothing to keep my energy use down even though I should and before you condemn me…well…sod off? I know I should…or should I? I bumped into this on YouTube, quite interesting and pretty much highlights the fact lowering our energy usage is practically useless and the only real option is to invest in new energy sources like nuclear…anyway, enjoy:

I must say I like how they’ve simplified the situation to a system we can all grasp but without dumbing down the issue and or making it big and scary. Good on them.

500 Poly Gallery

I love 3D Models, I don’t know why, I can’t make them to save my life, but I love other peoples creations, but not those uber high quality Pixar style ones, I like the low poly stuff, the kind you’d see on a PS1, when the low polys pushed creators to be creative. Anyway, the guys at Polycount are running a thread on their forum dedicated to 500 Max Poly Models. It’s a looooong thread and it’s still running and some of the creations on there rage from shockingly bad, to surprisingly amazing :-D

Anyway, if your into this kinda stuff too check it out HERE

Crash : Mind over Mutant

So, yesterday I picked up Crash : Mind Over Mutant. Now you may wonder why I picked this up, in truth I’m not too sure, I mean we all know what happened to the series once they started doing games like Crash Bash, and I’ve been burnt before by horrid ‘Flogging A Dead Horse’ Crash Bandicoot games but still I picked it up and bought it…with a “your way too old for this kinda shit” look from the guy in Game.

So, what did I think of it? Let’s break it down into simple chunks…

1. Graphics
Crash Bandicoot hasn’t been doing too good in looks since he left the PSone which was a shame as he truly pushed the little gray console by the time Warped came out. His last few outings have been at best visually dull and at worst very ugly, but all of that has changed in Mind Over Mutant. The whole Crash Universe has been given a new lick of paint and a visual make-over. It’s hard to explain but remember when Crash looked like this?

Well, now he looks like this:

Jesus Christ on a stick! Not only has the graphics been boosted but as you’ve no doubt noticed the world now looks more cartoony and Crash himself is almost a totally new character, it works amazingly to give the whole thing a fresh feel it desperately needed!

2. Game Play:
Graphics are not the only things to get a make-over, the game plays totally different from previous games. No longer is it all about collecting gems, using warp rooms, and smashing all the boxes, now it’s more mission based and in simple much more about getting from A to B which sounds dull but is done really well. The controls have been given a touch-up or two as well with Crash using swipes more than his spin attack which now lasts longer than previous games but will result in a dizzy Crash. The other major new mechanic (I say new but before people complain, I know it was in Crash of the Titans, but I feel Crash was still finding himself in that title, in this one the games finally started totally afresh and done it well) is Crash’s ability to control huge mutants with different powers to solve puzzles and get though the game a little easier. A level up system has been implemented into the game too with each mutant having 5 upgrades and Crash having 35. All these new little bits and bobs work together well to give Crash what he needed to move onto a new generation.

3. Audio
I struggle to comment on audio because as long as it dosen’t piss me off (which it didn’t) I never have any issues with it, so I’ll just say it did it’s job :-D

4. Story
The story, well I wont tell you what it is, but what I will say is it’s told in a weird way. Each cut-scene is a cartoon but each one done in a different style including 1960s horror, 1980s kung-foo, and even one where all the characters were played by sock puppets. It’s very weird but dose a good job of motivating you to push on to see the next one just to see what they do next.

5. All In All
This game has put a smile on my face, it has Crash in it, but in no way is it the old Crash Bandicoot we all remember, but that’s not a bad thing, the old Crash was…well…old! The gameplay was dull, where as this one is fun, the visuals were out dated where as this one is beautiful, even the plot actually has some plot to it unlike most Crash games. It’s humour is aimed at all ages and kids who’ve never played a Crash game before will love this as much as adults who still remember Crash Bandicoot on their PSone.

Sadly this may be the last good game from Crash as it was published by now long gone Sierra and I’m not sure who has their grubby little mits on the series now. But I’d recommend giving this game a go, it’s restored my faith in Platformer games as much as Mario 64 and Jak and Daxter did before it.

TRAILER:

Zelda Goodness <3

So, yesterday I FINALLY picked up an old NES to play my Gold Cart Legend of Zelda on it, ooooo it was retro sexiness and I loved it. Now I just need to fork out £20 to get Zelda II (and then debate weather or not to frame the carts and just use emulators to play the games because it’s always been my dream to own Golden Cart versions of the old Zeldas, just need LttP, OOT and MM now!

Good Luck

So, The Pirate Bay’s creators have been fined about £3,000,000 and face a year in jail for their running of a 100% legal website… kinda fucked if you ask me. This dose seem quite political and very messed up but TPB have said they will appeal against this judgment and even if they lose that will never pay the companies the money and I say good on them. Although this is a bit of a blow for the internet piracy world it’s nothing crippling, it’s no more than Napster or Kazaa’s past and if anything events like this have proven to only make the piracy world stronger as more and more people grow to dislike the faceless corporations playing the bad guy in this show of life. If they were smart they’d work with the pirates, find a way to co-exist, seem like the good guys, gain the respect of web dwellers and who knows maybe we’d actually buy their stuff without cursing the fact we get fucked over in the wallet for all their greed.

But anyway, I’m not gonna use this as a soap box to stand on and shout, best of luck to the guys from TPB in their appeal, I hope it works in their favour, the judgment was outstandingly harsh and unfair.

StarCraft II Battle Report

I mentioned before I’m trying to get back into my RTS, there’s a reason for this, StarCraft II. The first StarCraft was love at first sight for me and I loved the game so much I played it from start to finish on a make-shift PC with no sound card and a flickering screen just cause I wanted to finish it so bad. The game hasn’t survived the tests of time though with a set screen resolution which could run on a GBA and music which most people would hate today, but the story is still good and still open for the second game which I’m dying to play, but I don’t wanna be shit at. Because of this I’m back into my RTS but also I’ve begun to watch the Battle Reports. It’s quite interesting picking up tips from good gamers by watching them, the commentators do a good job of sticking to facts, information about the game, and general compliments on the players tactics instead of resorting to WWE style macho bullshit, so if your interested in the new StarCraft why not sit back and enjoy 20 minutes of in game footage (still no Protos though sadly)

FULL SCREEN IS A MUST!

Timbo_Stock
Check out my new Twitter just for my doodles.

The Good, The Bad, and the Fugly

So, today's been pretty uneventful so I thought I’d do a little G.B.F to keep this place flowing and keep me busy while my food cooks…need…food :-(

The Good : I’ve discovered the wonders of photographing my doodles with my iPhone, uploading them to twitter (weirdly it’s quicker to photo upload from my phone than from my laptop) then I can pull them from the net, run them though flash and wehay, my updates should more often have Timbo original artwork from now on :-D I’m working on setting up a Stock Twitter account, you guys will be more than welcome to subscribe to it if you wanna see my doodles but it’s more for me than anything.

The Bad : Clement Freud, an amazing and funny man who I know mostly for his work on Just a Minute but is famous for so much more passed away today. He lived a long life and a full one so good on him, but it’s a shame to see him go. R.I.P

The Fugly : Ninja Blade.
I tried this games demo out on the 360 the other day and couldn’t even make it to the end. Yes it was pretty. Sure it had big weapons and even bigger monsters. And awesome it has quick time events…wait…what? Yup another game that uses quick time events, but I’m not talking bits and bobs to allow you to pull of wicked awesome moves or something, this game uses them as a key gameplay feature, it was even on the back of the chuffing box! The gameplay in-between the horrid quick time badness is boring and dull and ergh…I hate this game with such a passion I couldn’t even dedicate an article to it…Don’t Buy It!

Some Rambles Of A Timbo

No the picture has nothing to do with the post it’s self, I just bumped into this (sadly can’t remember where now, if you know, link me so I can credit) on the net and fell in love with it after getting sick of seeing those stupid posters everywhere.

Anyway, didn’t really have an update for today but I thought after a bit of a style update it seemed wrong to say nothing beyond a few lines of text so instead I thought I’d update with some news on my everyday life. I know most of you don’t care but it saves me telling multiple friends and family the same thing…yes I’m lazy and anti-social.

So, what’s been up?

Well I’ve found a beautiful flat down the road from my current house I’m gonna be (with luck) moving into for the end of the month (can’t wait), it dose mean 10 days without internet so if anyone wants to do anything I’ll probably be up for anything for 10 long boring days (even if you wanna just hang out at my shiny new place and play Hero Quest!…someone play Hero Quest with me? Please?). It all sounds good and happy but this move is gonna financially cripple me for potentially months so I’m part hyped up, part dreading it.

In other news I’ve now been in my job for over 3 months making this the longest period of time I’ve spent in one job if you don’t include relationships…but those are more chores than jobs (I’m NOT bitter…<_< *ahem*). I’m hoping for a permanent contract before the years up (cause if I don’t get one I’m screwed) and then I can sink into 40 years of DWP work before I can retire…when put like that it’s kinda depressing…but it pays for the new flat! :-D

I’ve been making more effort to get back into my old RTS games recently starting with Age of Mythology but with intentions to work my way though all the C&C as well as the Warcraft III games. If anyone also owns a copy of one of these games why not bug me for some online play? I like to be social, I’m just not good at it (and worse at the games so it’s an easy win for you)

With my new flat, and my job, it feels like life is kinda…I dunno, coming together? I’ve spent a long time drifting between jobs and unemployment with nothing to give structure to my life so it’s kinda nice, it, and my diminishing health have made me realise I need to sort myself out, eat better, exercise more, and more importantly, say yes more. I know that sounds like I’m just listening to the Yes Man Audiobook again (seriously, best way to experience an amazing story) but I’m sick of spending my evenings indoors doing the same thing, sick of my social circle spanning about 5 people of which 2 I live with, and kinda realise I’m only young once, don’t waste it on nothing (at the same time I’m of the view you shouldn’t waste it getting so drunk you forget everything, that’s just retarded, so saying yes more is gonna have a limit for me :-P). So, why not try dragging me out sometime, I might be up for it where I wasn’t before :-D

What else is new…hmmmm…I may be using this 10 days with no internet to focus on some concepts and doodles for my next comic, but don’t get your hopes up, that’s if my time isn’t taken up between work and moving into my new place.

I guess that’s it really. Bit of a dull update I know sorry, but could be worse, I could have gone silent for weeks like last time!

I’ll try to update a few times with more meaty stuff before I move to keep you going while my nets down. Update Soon <3

So a quick update just to say; Wehay, like the new look at the top of the blog? Smexy huh?

Anyway, on with your lives…

Interweb TV

So, if your keeping up to date with my blog you probably saw my little rant last night about the ITV Player, I said in the blog that I was yet to try the 4oD streaming TV from Channel 4. So after I’d posted that blog I thought I’d give it a go, in truth I was kinda suppressed. I mean Channel 4 are known for their tackiness, it’s what they do but this site was well designed, easy to get around, loaded pretty quick, and wasn’t so full of adverts you wanted to kill a cute puppy. I wont lie there were some issues, I had problems with the buffering on some videos being a bit buggered but pausing the video for a few minutes at the start fixed that, also the image quality wasn’t perfect on some of the videos, but Channel 4 hasn’t long been running the Web version of their 4oD service, before it was a download system, so their kinda new to this so I can forgive them (this shows most in full screen graphical issues with videos). So, so far my online TV Line Up looks like this:

(keep in mind I am UK based so we don’t get awesome places like the South Park Studio yet)

1. iPlayer (BBC)
2. 4oD (Channel 4)
3. Family Guy Online (Family Guy)
4. American Dad HQ (American Dad)
5. All SP (South Park)

I’d like to say sites like Hulu but alas I’m still waiting for the British government to stop being pricks and get it sorted so we can watch these sites!

Super Size Me

Just found this hosted (as far as I can see, legally) on YouTube, it’s a little old now but if your like me, you never got around to watching it…enjoy:

ill TV

As anyone knows, the first thing to do when ill is break out the TV and watch mindless crap, it keeps us all going though the bleh times.

Alas I lack a TV Licence so I thought ‘fuck it, time for a bit of internet TV!’ (I’ve checked the laws on this, I’m allowed to watch things like the iPlayer without a licence as long as I don’t watch live stuff…I don’t get it…but yeah). So, after watching some BBC for a while I thought it was time for a new site, now I haven’t really tried 4oD yet and everything on Sky’s streaming site seems to be pay to view (no shock from the bastard that is Murdock) so seeing as no downloads or money was needed I gave ITV’s “ITV Player” a try. My opinion? Well…

The website is horridly designed with almost no kind of timeline system running to show what shows are coming soon or what shows have just played. The top promoted shows on the site seem to span their soaps and a few less than high quality programs. And in general their ‘white with black bits’ theme hit back at BBC iPlayer’s ‘black with white bits’ theme is ugly and feels badly designed (apparently no one told their designers about negative space in art class).

Now onto the shows. Now ITV has never been known for the best show reel, I mean they have been humping the corps of I’m A Celeb for years now but until you see them listed like they are on the site you don’t realise just how bad their selection is. I mean considering these guys run 5 channels (ITV 1 to 4 and the CITV Channel) there isn’t enough content I could find to fill one channel with a weeks worth of programs. There is also a total lack of a news show which annoys me as I quite like the ITV News (and have had to resort to watching it on my iPhone instead). The quality of the shows is also horrid with one show I just watched, Celebrity Juice, feeling like it was from a late night Channel 4 production ment to just fill time between the late night porno and the early morning kids shows, I’d have more fun looking at telly text screens.

Finally there is the issue of advertising. Now I know ITV makes its money from this, I know on TV you’d get TV adverts, and I can accept them being in the web versions too, but they can’t seem to find the buyers for the view time meaning I was shown the same Orange advert every break and a few times 2 times a break (and when your watching something that’s 2 hours long that’s 8 times you see the Advert with no means of skipping it). Also unlike the TV counterparts these adverts are badly chopped into the shows causing really inappropriate stopping points in plots or action. I know people may say ‘ah but that’s the price of viewing without a licence’ but as much as I could accept that for the BBC who make almost all their funding off the licence payer (and the rest off phone scams) ITV make their cash from their adverts not seeing a penny of the licence money. Also I wouldn’t complain about these adverts, or their badly cut in positions, or the repetition of them, if it wasn’t for the fact the video quality is vastly below a YouTube HQ standard (where I’m not bombarded with unskippable adverts), the web design is horrid and bad to navigate for me, let alone someone who’s not computer literate, and the production quality of the shows seems to have slipped since way back when.

I guess it should have been expected from a company who think the best way to entertain people on the weekend is to OD them on Ant and Dec, all I can say is unless they have a show you REALLY wanna watch on there, stick with the iPlayer, or give 4oD a try, but ITV Player really isn’t worth the hassle.

To Catch A Predator

I think almost everyone knows about the show To Catch A Predator by now, it’s never made it across the seas to the UK but between YouTube and shows like South Park spoofing it, it’s a well known show. Admittedly it' has an element of scare spin to it making it feel like the whole internet is made up of paedophiles or something, but if you can over look the media spin there is nothing quite as beautiful as watching a Pedo get owned, and by Chris Hansen of all people.

There are a LOT of videos on the net so picking one to put on here to show off the program wasn’t easy but in the end I settled for this one for two reasons. 1. It is beyond me that someone could be this stupid and 2. This is the first time in one of these videos I’ve seen Chris seem actually quite pissed off…which is kinda awesome.

Anyway, enjoy:

Part 1

Part 2

Oh My God, I’m Not Dead!

Hello! So yes, I’m not actually dead, I feel pretty damn close to it but that’s just cause I’m ill *aaaaw*

Where have I been? Well I’ve been here all along but I’ve been house hunting, still trying to get used to my job, had a lot of lazing about to do, and I hit one of those points where every time I loaded up Live Writer to update this place I’d find something more important to do, even if that thing was watching reruns of Lost or getting told off by Virgin for being a little pirate…that sucked…

So, I wont lie, this probably isn’t a sign of good things to come, within the month I’m meant to be moving out which means a minimum of 10 days without internet…scary. Also my motivation still isn’t there, I’m just so horridly bored tonight with no one online and no motivation to game I thought I’d show my face on here.

Just to explain the post below this one, I originally thought that was the video for the Microsoft GDC 2009 Keynotes but apparently Gamespot thought it would be handy to put up keynotes that are a year sodding old. That’s like putting up year old news reports, everything mentioned in it has already happened! I continued to dig and found out no one seems to have the streams for the GDC Keynotes this year. Why? I don’t know, but I’m pissed off about it, that’s over 3 hours of neediness I don’t get this year!

So, what else can I rant about? I dunno, not really got much to talk about, with my new house costing so much I haven’t had the cash to get new games to moan about, I also seem to be lacking anything interesting to bitch about or sing the praises of. I guess I can knock together one or two things to keep you busy thought…

1. Dungeon Party
I’ve taken a step back from MMORPGs recently due to the fact they tend to suck ass and for some reason I can never accept they’ll stop sucking ass, but I did just stumble upon this little potential gem. Dungeon Party feels like if they took Dungeon Runners (the one MMORPG I haven’t grown to hate) and dipped it in Team Fortress 2. They don’t take themselves seriously, the game isn’t all about grinding or quests. This is all about raiding dungeons for treasure, but at the same time stopping another team doing the same. It seems like an interesting game but alas right now it’s in what seems to be a closed beta so I can’t give it the poke I wanna. But check out it’s site (if only for the humorous trailers) and bookmark it for the future!

2. FUCK YOU PeTA!

3. Unskippable
It’s been a while since I found a web show to obsess over but just like the last two (Zero Punctuation and Unforgotten Realms) Unskippable is one of the diamonds in the rough on the site The Escapist. Good show but it doesn't make up for the shit that is de-rez. Still, watch it though! It’s bloody hilarious (but if you wanna get one or two of the in-jokes, watch from the first episode to the newest one).

4. IEEEEEE! IT LOOKS SO FREAKING SMEXY!
*ahem* Gameplay footage from Bioshock 2 <3

5. Charlie The Unicorn 3
STARFISH REALLY LOVES YOU!!!…*ahem*

So yeah, some stuff to keep you going till I can pull my head of out my ass and get back to updating this place a bit more often :-)

Till then, Ta Ta! <3