A WINNER IS CHOSEN - BALANCE HAS BEEN RESTORED TO THE FORCE

Well, this is it friends, time for the big Draw. 35 new subscribers to speak of over the past month or so and were pleased as porcupines to have a growing audience of the highest quality. A modest number, but well take it over a punch in the dick any old day. We know your time is precious so, once again, we thank you all for your time and interest in what we have to offer. 

And now the winner...

This is where the magic happens. I know your all wondering where and how this genius content gets made. But wait whats this?

Hrm...i couldn't resist an old timey draw out of a hat. Haven't washed it in years so the hair grease really helped lube up the tickets.

I scrambled them for a good minute just to be sure.

Oh great equalizer thy name is chance. You can be a fickle bitch sometimes. But not for this one. Not today. drum roll please.....i said DRUM ROLL PLEASE. 

The big winner is DEACONBLUELE!

Etherial Albino Weasel Ghost commends your luck. 

Deaconbluele you win! good for you. Your going to Star Wars: The Force Awakens  at Silvercity Riverport in Richmond next Thursday for the 10:45pm showing. The seats are assigned so you can walk right into the place like a boss! We will be contacting you by email to send you the tickets. Well, thats it i guess....now i feel a bit empty inside. We'll have to create another contest in the new year but in the mean time thanks for playing and we hope this movie doesn't suck. All i'm hoping for is for it to be better than the last 3 but worse than the original trilogy. 

SCREEN DUMPSTER

Wolfenstein: The New Order. I played the first 20 min of this a year ago and put it down. Mistake. The intro does this story no justice at all. Its  really well done and it looks and plays really well. If you happened to miss this one give it another shot. 

This very well could be the cleanest and most comprehensive dumpster you may ever lay your eyes on. As i deleted video after video of what seemed like pertinent gameplay at the time from the infinitesimal PS4 hard drive the other day i stumbled onto some real gems. I idly wondered what a digital dumpster could look like and who you might find rooting through old porn videos, embarrassing selfies or other boring not embarrassing things (which is what most internet trash probably is.) Suppose after you empty the recycling bin, little suspender wearing file clerk gremlins are sharing a laugh at our expense and creating their own personal little folders of our digital garbage with our name on it to blackmail us with later...I stare at the controller in my hands and reminisce.

Dear PS4 controller,

'Your curves fit perfectly in my sweaty hands baby. Your so responsive, sometimes i'll give you a little squeeze, which i guess is like a controller hug, just to let you know how much i care. We have a symbiotic relationship you and i,  which doesn't necessarily mean we're a benefit to one another. But we need each other don't we? Since the summer of 1995 i've watched you've grow, evolve and yet you've managed to keep your figure. But what happened to your 'start' button!? Who took that away from you? And 'select' that's gone too, i'm sure you personally had nothing to do with that. But whats this? Two more buttons added in some very awkward places that sit flush with the frame so i can't...ever feel for them. 'Options?' I didn't even know i had any, sure it leaves more to the imagination than 'Start' and whats this? 'Share' Why thank you i'd love to share more with you. Wait, no. I don't want to share that now....fuck, my figity digits have betrayed me. Your a bit more confusing than you use to be but that's not your fault is it? Now i accidentally have like, 200 screen shots that mostly stank. Now i sit here, rooting through the trash. The very clean garbage searching for the pay dirt.'

Here lies screenshots. 

MGS:V. This game disappointed me greatly. I think i deleted it from the hard drive after the credits rolled. But i ended up with some interesting shots. Meet the child version of 'Psycho Mantis.' I can only assume this is who he was suppose to be. It was never explained or even hinted at who this character was exactly. The only information i got out of the game was that the mantis character and the fire dude were apparitions that latch onto individuals with a great desire for revenge and seemed to like hanging out with Metal Gears as well. 

Another shot from MGS. Atmosphere is so important with adventure type games, its half the reason im still playing them. Im all 'Fuck this game, but look at how good it looks.' Look at how far we've come in only maybe 15 or so years. We use to use fog as a smokescreen for limited graphics processing. Now we put it there just cuz it looks cool. But fuck this game, read more about that here

The dynamic weather in fallout 4 adds so much life to the game. I don't know what else to call this but a Radiation storm or a green out. It just rolled in and scared the dookie outta me. There was lightning and shit everywhere, i went inside the shed for a while. Some bitch was living there so i slept in her bed for 2 hours to ride out the storm; left her an old fan and a fire extinguisher as thanks then left. 10/10

Believe this was a PS3 port? Ever notice how many Churches are in videogames? Whats up? Typically they are safe havens to load up on supplies, usually abandoned and always a beautiful interlude. 

More bloodborne. How could i not. This game is so delicious looking. Can't quite recall if this was before or after the fight with the enormous Spider Rom or Rhom. Fuck that spider...fuck this game ( adult swear tantrum and a drink later) now how about that spider.

This is probably my favorite game moment in my recent memory. Towards the end, after you have rescued Elle and are making your way into Salt Lake City you climb some stairs and end up here. There were hint of this earlier in town at all the bus stop stations; advertising for the Zoo. It was such a beautiful and magical moment and im saying this with no sarcasm at all. Your character walks up to it slowwly and coxed Elle to do the same. It was a real honest moment that squeezed out a few tears that i'm not ashamed to say. 

The moment was so profound for me that when the characters leaned on the ledge and took in the view and so did i. Until the Giraffes left. I dunno what came over me, i just sat there reflecting i guess. Natures amazing and resilient and there are some beautiful things in this world worth protecting.  

Batman: Again. The atmosphere in this one is astonishing. I'm sure ill hear about this later but i didn't really care for the payoff at the end. In fact i didn't really think we needed another Batman game. I still don't but man this game looks rad! Scarecrow is a badass; so imagine my suprise when the little scarecrow trip-outs from the first game weren't in this one!? Anyways; the rain....the constant rain. The night...the everlasting night and the glow of the city were entertainment enough. Good for you Rocksteady. 

Joker stole the show again...and the game is called Arkham Knight! This was my favorite Joker story and he wasn't even alive in this one. Everywhere you turned he would be there hanging out commentating the story, adding in his own two cents on the matters at hand. I was impressed to see how the Devs used this device so effectively to build tension.

So much of bloodborne is so incredibly intense that i find myself, in the quieter moments of respite, taking selfies with the moon.

It must infuriate developers watching kids run through their game not paying any mind to the details of their meticulously constructed worlds. I love to stop and smell the napalm if you will. Looks here like the bombs fell in October just before Halloween. I've found old trickr treat pumpkin buckets lying around the wasteland too. These details is the reason why 12 million people bought the game in its first 24 hours. Yes...12 million.

This was either the worst wedding ever or the best wedding ever. Maybe she was really hungry and dug into the meat or or maybe eaten her husband after the ceremony like a praying mantis. I killed her moments after this was taken, in bloodborne i leaned to always kill everything and double tap when they're down just to make sure. Brides be damned.

Oh Man! Working on a growler there little nerdy teddy bear? What's that the Washington post?! I like to think that i do my best thinking when im taking a dookie. Sometimes ill stay in there reading and completely loose track of time. When my legs go numb its time to get on with my life. Also  there was nothing of note in the toilet bowl,

K, it use to look way more like the gun from Blade Runner but then i modded the urine out of it and it became an unrecognizable abomination. Works great though.

Good old Poppa. Trusty, reliable. He takes care of me. This bad boy is my go to weapon in Fallout 4. We've been through so much together. I'm just so glad that the Fallout 3 weapons breakdown mechanic is gone. I dunno if i could have handled the management of it all or the loss of a beloved companion. 

I had to.

Lastly here is a video i posted the other day, the 'Bloodborne' DLC: The Old Hunters. Its challenging as fuck, even for 'From Software' standards. I attempted this boss maybe 12 times before i called for aid. Even then i think i fought him 6 more times with help before we beat him. Its a New Game+ so your character carries over but the enemies do as well. Of course they do, thanks assholes. You can hear me at the beginning panicking in the form of blatant profanity. Then, strangely, my beckoning bell rang another player in during the Boss Battle. Which i don't even think is possible. I freak out again about 3/4 through; mashing triangle to heal. It was a bitch and i don't even feel like i cheated. He was that hard. 

TWITCH ALERT: OLD GAMES STREAMING SUNDAYS

The coming Sundays of late winter, do come and join me for a few hours on Twitch, as I slog through a disorienting, frustrating, and often hilarious GAUNTLET of renowned old PC games. There may be cat meows. Maybe my friend Superhands will be there?

stream will be available HERE!

This Sunday at 130pm I'll be streaming Thief Gold. Thief, thief... I assume I will be stealing stuff at single-digit resolution? It'll be funny. Come and watch.

NYCC RECAP

A gods eye view of 'the block' section of NYCCC

Comic Cons are no joke. They are usually arduous in a way. If done properly your whole body should ache. Your heels should be throbbing in your shoes or goofy sized Anime boots, your lower back should be screaming for any horizontal action it can find. This last weekends New York Comic Con was no exception with upwards of 170,000 attendees it was a nerd army the likes of which the east coast has never seen before and Evade Gismo was right there in the shit! Even our wallets were hurting.

This was a new year for us. Usually myself and my wife are in the artist alley waaaay the fuck away on the other side of the con. With all the cosplayers;  Deadpools and Sith lords in the way it mid-as well have been on the other side of the city. If Spider-man was actually there no one would ever know. So usually we don't get much of a chance to go exploring. But this year we were on the front lines. "The Block' is the designer toys and small indie company wing of the con and it was busy as all hell this year. Thankfully we were a D-20's throw from the bathrooms and hotdogs. I barely had time to run off and 'work' for the blog. But i did manage to wait in line and play a few demos to share with you. 

Getting there was not easy or quick and the distractions along the way were numerous and went as follows

"30 seconds no more Dick"

Dick fucking Tracy was there...finally. I've seen hundreds of thousands of costumers but never Dick Tracy. I let him know how impressed i was and got a fist bump out of it. Now where are those videogames?

Fool Marty!!

Morty? I mean Marty? I mean M.J Fox? Is that you. I seriously had to look really close at this guy. From a distance he looked exactly like McFly. As i approached for a closer inspection i noticed that he was actually posing still. So NOT Michael J Parkinsons....i mean Fox. Doc didn't look so terrible either. See they were promoting the 30th anniversary of the film and the date that was entered into the Delorean all those years ago. October 21 2015. In celebration the promoters were giving away those future Pepsi bottles from the second movie. I wanted one, and i don't even like Pepsi. Of course, i couldn't have one. Despite my immaculate Marty impression i was not dressed in a life preserver or resembled Marty in the slightest. To get a Pepsi you had to dress like Marty McFly and wait in line for hours. 

Still no games in sight so i kept moving. But whats this?

James Jeans Ninja Turtles 

And some more awesome shit that i don't need . These Ninja Turtles from the 'Good Smile Company' were so badass that i almost bought them all right then and there...but i didn't cuz it would have cost me $520 turtle bucks. They were non articulated figures but so awesome anyways. There was motion and style all over the place here. The poses had attitude and the colour of the skin was an awesome teal blue/green. One of our favorite artists did this image that the toys were designed from. Still no games though.

But so close. I was about to walk by this but im glad i didn't. Audible had a booth demonstrating there new interactive comics software. If you havent read 'Locke & Key' do it. Its a great series and was written by Stephen Kings son under the pseudonym Joe Hill. The line was short and i got to check out the first chapter of the story. The Oculus dev kit 2 was the vehicle for the story. The headsets were being stressed to the max so the screen tearing was pretty bad and the frame rate was shit- almost unwatchable. But the demo was so engrossing and cool that i stuck it out and really enjoyed the experience despite the shortcomings. Below is a video that was captured from my experience. Naturally i look like a jackass doing it. Deffinately a memorable experience. When i get my headset i cant wait to experience stories with the VR medium. 

Inevitably i stumbled into a few game demos on my way back to the booth. I got to play 'Dark Souls 3' and 'Mirrors Edge: Catalyst' both were underwhelming and had me questioning the whole sequel thing.

MIRRORS EDGE: CATALYST

I didn't play the original when it first came out in 2008. I was told and told to play it by friends but was never really inticed to try it or just never found the time. Well i did get around to playing it on Steam last year and had a really good time. The story wasn't for me so i didn't really care much for the characters but the visual style was beautiful. When i got my Oculus Rift DK1 in the mail a few summers ago i setup Mirrors Edge and realized way too late that this game and vr = barftown. After a big jump Faith will dive roll out of it and keep the momentum forward. During the dive roll the entire world spins out of control and i could feel the sweat beading and my salivary glands squeezing. Barftown.

So i was willing to endure the one and one half hour lineup to try the sequel Mirrors Edge: Catalyst. It was a fifteen minute demo, which was nice, and we got a small demonstration by ipad while in line which setup the demo and story so far. This was a surprise as most companies are not willing or even consider preparing a user for a quick gaming experience. The demo wasn't my favorite thing. All i wanted to do was fuckup a few security guards but i didn't manage to get that far. During the tutorial my game locked up 5 min into the demo and i was more or less exited from the experience. It looked amazing! Keeping the same aesthetics as the original game. One thing i noticed was that the movements were sluggish. Faith is a bit out of shape here and i found myself leg twitching as i held the run button for her to just hurry up and get to the next wall run. Of course its just a demo and no one should ever judge an incomplete title. I wont buy it on release day but i will be playing this come next year. The schedule release is February 2016.

On my way to the Bandai/Namco booth i found the myth himself. He seemed not very interested in moving all that much. Way to slip into the roll. 

DARK SOULS 3

The simulated nightmare of Dark Souls 3 was calling my name from the end of a very long lineup. Usually the conversation in the lines i wait in it quite lively. I was waiting in line with a friend and fan of the series; talking about the game and how i love and hate it. Usually this is when you might get a few thoughts from the fans in lone ahead and behind you. Often all at once. But here. Nothing. Nobody said shit and when it was my turn to play i tried my very best. 

The guy ahead of me had done this before. The girl at the booth commented: "oh, you again huh?" Why would you play the same demo twice? and wait in line hours to do it? Fans of this game are literally fanatical. I watched him play before my turn; he chose the knight class and bombed through the entire thing just so he could have a run at the boss. Which, spoiler alert, was a giant skeletony ethereal monster with a flaming sword and semi predictable albeit terrifying attack pattern. He died. Just like i did about 11 times.

Me, i just trotted along trying to remember how to block and counter. I played 'Bloodborne' in the summer and i loved it so. It's greatness caused me to forget Dark Souls entirely. So needless to say i sucked bad at this demo. But i did notice how beautiful it looked. So pretty; shiny armor, amazing views and an impossible labyrinth of undead monks. It must have been very painful and boring to watch me play. I parried a few attacks and had a lot of trouble with the camera angle. If you weren't positioned behind the character then he wouldn't hit the way you wanted him to. Most likely a user error. One thing i did notice was that it was strikingly similar to the last game and the one before that. Its the same shit. Its hard, really pretty and frustrating as hell. If your willing to work your ass off just so you can stab a boss in the ass 20 times to win then this game is for you. I really appreciate this series but i don't think i need to do this again, and so soon after there last game. I would love to see a few new mechanics that would reinvent the game though. 

In short i saw what i expected to see. Sequels that retained 80% of what made them popular from the start. I can't fault a publisher for maintaining consistency but i'm no longer content with the expected. 

Thanks New York for another eventful year. I hurt all over, got a nerd flu and fell asleep for 12 hours when i got home. 

EVADE GISMO DOES NEW YORK !!

New York City Comic Con starts tomorrow, and Evade Gismo's gonna be right here in the thick of it with Camilla d'Errico!

Bright & Teal at Booth 215 in the Block !

Keep eyes peeled here and on Instagram as we chronicle, firsthand, the world-renowned nerd fiesta that is NYCC. There's gonna be an Adventure Time panel, Masashi Kishimoto's gonna be there, and there's even a few gaming panels over the weekend, too - see ya'll there!