Waffle Squadron Omega

Saw this on Kotaku tonight and thought it looked interesting.  A (supposedly fun) Malaysian MMO is now coming to the US with an closed beta starting in a few weeks.  It may be awesome and cool, or it may be nice to look at but boring as hell…but hey, a free game is free, right?

They’re giving away free beta keys at mmorpg.com, so get it while the gettin’s good!  You gotta sign up for a few free accounts and jump through a hoop or two, but I’m sure it’s nothing you smart folks can’t figure out.  See you on the webs!

I’ve read this on a few sites, but I’ll start with some nested quotes from EvilAvatar:

From EG:

Quote:

Id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead has defended Doom III’s reputation, pointing out that the four-year-old first-person shooter is “the most successful game in id’s history.” Asked by Kikizo whether there were any ‘weaknesses in Doom III that need to be corrected’ for upcoming multiformat racing/shooting hybrid Rage, Hollenshead rejected the premise completely. “I think there are three people on the internet that keep making these posts that Doom 3 was ‘bad’, and they get no credibility from any other people… there’s some mass-misperception out there,” he said. “I get this occasionally - why don’t I think Doom III was successful? We sold over three million units! It’s the most successful game in id’s history.”

Read the full article.
How can 3 people create ‘Mass Misperception’? Sorry Todd… but I think Doom 3 was Doom 2 with new textures and real time shadows.

As I’ve said, I’ve read similar views on a few different sites in the past day or so.  Can anyone tell me where this is coming from all of a sudden?  All the people I talked to who played DOOM 3 when it was new agreed that it was a pretty frightening experience, though maybe it eventually becomes a little repetitive.  I remember reading all these articles about how revolutionary the graphics were and how they were actually attached to a good game.  Now all of a sudden everyone remembers it as being a festering piece of pewp?  I remember thinking it was the scariest game I’ve played in the dark at 2AM since Silent Hill.

DOOM 2 but with better graphics?  DOOM 3 had an actual story with actual characters.  DOOM 2 was just run-shoot-shoot-shoot-run-shoot-grab key-shoot-shoot-…oh, and by the way you’re now in Hell!!  Fun, but not really a completely immersive experience.  They felt like completely differnet games to me.  Is it just that I’m the only one with rose-colored hindsight glasses?

So, after reading Wednesday’s awesome Penny Arcade and seeing that they used the Creature Creator to make a pretty convincing Deep Crow, I decided to finally go and grab the free demo. First off, it runs great at max resolution on my 1.7GHz laptop, which is a huge check in the plus column right out of the gate! My laptop is getting almost elderly by today’s standards so it’s nice to have a new game work so well.

It’s really easy to slap a passable monster together right away, and the Help feature clearly instructs you on how to make more detailed creations. Even for a free trial version of a demo of a full game, there are a whole lot of options at your disposal. There’s not really that many body parts to choose from in the free version, but you can customize the placement, shape, size and orientation of each one. The ability to sculpt, bend and stretch the main body mass also ups the variety potential. I’m sure you’ve seen (on Kotaku or wherever) the vast cornucopia of clever and risqué final products people are pumping out with this program.

Once you’ve sculpted, potato-headed and painted your creature, you can Test Drive him. In the Test Drive mode, you have a lot of animation options, most of which are pretty fun. Funny dances, emotions, etc. What’s really cool about the Test Drive mode is that you can easily snap screenshots, make animated GIF avatars or even capture AVI video! Not only that, but when you’re done capturing the video, a prompt automatically asks you if you want to upload it to YouTube! The video quality is so-so even at the highest setting, but it’s pretty darn good for such a user friendly integrated feature. It’s YouTube-quality video, so it serves its purpose admirably. Also, it’s free.

The full version of the Creature Creator is $10, and at this point that’s Pretty Hot And Tempting. If this is just a small taste of what we’ll get in the full version of Spore, I just might be buying my first PC game since Half-Life 2. In the meantime, please enjoy my latest creation…the delicious and refreshing, yet sadly extinct Purplesaurus Rex:

So, my Wii has been winking its long blue eye at me for a day or two now. Thankfully, I was lazy and didn’t turn it on before reading my daily gaming news. While reading Kotaku over breakfast (as usual) I came across this article. Long story short, that Twilight Princess Exploit Jack told you about a little while ago has been nixed by the big N.

However! The good news is that if you used the hack to install The Homebrew Channel then you’re still in the clear. It seems that The Homebrew Channel allows you to use homebrew apps on your Wii without running the TP hack every time. Being a fan of the homebrew scene on my PSP (and my DreamCast back in the day) I’ve decided that the time is now!

At Jack’s request, I’ll document the process with words and pictures (no video, since I’m already home and comfy…unless our sparse readership really wants to see me in my Duff Beer boxers). So, if you’re interested in trying this yourself, don’t update your Wii!!! and click the link below…

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Incredible.  Perfectly executed.

Hey, I wanna post, too!! Don’t bogart the site, man! Oh wait, that’s my fault for not posting anything for months.

I just read about this on EvilAvatar, and it sounds like a capital idea to me! Marvel Comics has announced that they will be making a new comic series based on The Stand. The story will be taken from the “Complete & Uncut” version of King’s best book of all time. …ok, maybe it ties with IT. It’ll be written and drawn by people I don’t know who’ve written and drawn comics I’ve never read before. However, the good news is that after they put their grubby mitts all over it, Stephen King himself will check it for quality.

Now, I know that Stevie has okayed some steaming piles of crap before when it comes to adaptations of his work, but the Dark Tower comics have been pretty good so far. We’ll See!!

…It’s more likely than you think.  I just read this article on Joystiq, and after I stopped gasping in joy and disbelief long enough, I decided to post the news here to share it with the 5 people who know about this site.  Not only are some Devo songs coming to Rock Band, but they actually re-recorded “Through Being Cool” just for the game, replacing all the synth solos & leads with guitar!  Somebody slap me dead in the face so I know I’m not dreaming.  Good God, it’s from a video interview.  I’m off to watch that now.

the hype, that is. For GTA IV. It’s coming out in about a week and a half, and I’m starting to get that tingling, “Ohmanit’sgonnabesoawesome” sensation in my abdominal region. The various multiplayer modes sound like a lot of fun. CounterStrike-style last man standing shoot-offs, racing (with or without weapons), etc. And did you hear that Ricky Gervais is in it? He does a three minute act in a comedy club, and besides doing the voice for it he also did the mo-cap. Also, did you read about how the DLC on the 360 will be entire cities? They use an SAT kind of analogy: the planned DLC is to GTA4 as San Andreas/Vice City was to GTA3. And (the recent) GTA games have always been good times. The early reviews coming from Europe seem to indicate that the good times are still to be had. Possibly even better times than previously experienced.

We’ll see in early May if I end up with the same feeling GTA3/VC/SA always gave me a few weeks in. I’d inevitably play to a point where I’m stuck on a mission from every mission source. Unable to move the story forward because I can’t drive across town in 5 minutes without scratching up my car or whatever, I resort to the sandbox stuff. Trying to see how long I can last against an ever increasing onslaught of cops/SWAT teams/whathaveyou. Soon, I even get tired of tossing grenades into the line of cars at a red light and I never play it again. However, the various multiplayer modes may keep me entertained for longer, and I may even end up “Keeping It” from GameFly if the DLC turns out to be worth it. Time will tell.

I just saw this on Digg. Yikes.

http://www.popgive.com/2008/04/when-someone-is-nintendo-fan.html

Here’s a sample of the madness:

Here’s the new video I’ve been promising off and on. As I’ve noted previously, this is more of an animation test than anything else, though I do hope you find it funny/awesome. It’s technically Waffle Squadron Omega - Season 1 - Episode 0, but it doesn’t really have much to do with the overall story. I figured I’d throw some WSO references in there anyway, though. That way, years later when we actually have a few WSO episodes out there, people can look at it and say, “Hey! Space Jersey!” or whatever. Anyway, enjoy!

Click here to view a less crappy version than the YouTube window below.

Here’s the text of the newspaper article:
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