Nick Rempe

No joke. I have never been so excited for a game in a long time,...

Tue, 11 May 2010 22:52:44 -0500

No joke. I have never been so excited for a game in a long time, especially from the trailer. This is something I need to discuss and get off my chest because I think that Media Molecule will be wanting to make their claim as the best developer for Sony. It’s time for them to really flex what they want to be as a studio and I think LBP2 is going to push them to that level.

Really impressive, I will eagerly wait for any other information they are willing to share.

Please hire me to do something there, I will move to the UK and everything.

Through the glass, 20 stories high...

Tue, 11 May 2010 22:22:07 -0500

I hit a busy patch at work and took it pretty hard. Since last week was my “off” week for working out/obeying diets/being generally good to myself, things have taken a lot of push to get started again.

I am getting started with the content push again so hopefully we will keep things pretty full around here.

I am exhausted right now but I know that I will get some time to write down what I have been frustrated with. But we are all running out of time, I feel it in my bones.

Here is a peek into the planning of my next project. This is...

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:14:51 -0500

Here is a peek into the planning of my next project.

This is going to be a daily art series for the month of May, here is the beginning phase of me doing some light planning. They are all going to be video game related so that I can get some fresh capital from them and get started on the real project.

Depending on what they are going to look like, I need to do one a day. Hopefully I will get pictured uploaded of everything that I make. I want it to be a learning experience so that I do another one later in the year. Either way, it will be awesome.

I'm all out of Nickland Funbucks

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:43:38 -0500

(Joe Fernandez gave me that phrase, all credit goes to him)

Seriously, I am finding myself on a mountain of stuff that I have semi-played/barely-played/completely-played in my closet. This is good for a couple reasons.

1. It’s good to have a collection.

2. Impress chicks that are into videogames, whom are few and far between. Plus, I am married to someone that doesn’t give a shit.

3. Go back to the past and really check out what I used to be into. I know that I am going to put Fallout 3 back into the Xbox360 and hash through some of that content. Even with the full 1000 achievement points.

4. Trading.

Here is the rub. I really want to play Monster Hunter Tri, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Super Street Fighter IV (TODAY ASSHOLES, GO GET THAT SHIT), 3D Dot Game Heroes and Mega Man 10. I really, really, really want to play these games. So, I need to start dealing, messing around with how to obtain these without Nicole cutting my head clean off.

Here comes the crafty business of being crafty to get the crafty games I craft. Basically, this is an introduction to my spiel about how we are saturated with stuff to play and we don’t know what to do. Other than to go broke.

“Master. We are in a tight spot!” This is the final...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:47:00 -0500

“Master. We are in a tight spot!”

This is the final week of Boot Camp. I didn’t loose any weight, which I can blame on eating a load of food to make up for all my lost energy. Much like a bear, this is how I combat being low on energy and happiness. It also shows me that I can still eat like a champ. A bear champ.

I have a lot I need to cram into this week so I hope that I come out ahead. The first thing, of course, was updating this site with a picture of Iwazaru.

Also, I got the SDTV set up downstairs with a Gamecube in which I am using to play through Killer 7. It’s incredible that this game ever got made here in the most United of States.

If you haven’t been listening to The Protomen, you are a...

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:47:00 -0500

If you haven’t been listening to The Protomen, you are a bad person.

I have made an egregious error for not seeking them out at an earlier age (like two years ago) because it is blowing my pants clean off.

The Protomen bring a richer history of the Mega Man series and make it feel much more realistic. It’s incredibly moving and their second album is a topical medicine that needs to be applied to the heart daily.

We are the dead.

Yep, I am kicking this thing off

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:35:10 -0500

The most depressing and emotionally draining winter of all is finally gone forever. To clarify, the amount of stress, lonliness and disappointment these past few months has been tremendous. I can’t really go into specifics, but this winter was one of the hardest that I can remember in my life.

One of the problems that I have had is not having a creative outlet. I am having trouble trying to pin down exactly what I would like to do with my free time. I don’t think it is lack of passion or ideas, more of this overwhelming sense of failure or that the time I spend on it will just go to waste. Either way, I have been piling up material to discuss and things to research in which I will be sharing in one form or another.

Alright, now that I can sleep with the windows open and am comfortable with running on my own, I started taking in new ventures.

- Atari 2600 and the paddle controllers

- C++ programming (I tried with Xcode which is a horrible experience, now all Windows 7 and .NET)

- Graph paper sprite design

- Mandatory daily sketches

- Lots of indie games and learning that culture

- Slowing down on a lot of games that I want badly and checking out what came out last year that I missed

This is what I am doing currently. I think that I can make some announcements in the future will happen, but for right now, you are aware. I will post a daily update whether it is depressing or inspiring.

Nick, where are you?

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 23:52:00 -0500

I wrote a giant post and it is now lost in the cosmos. More to come, I guess.

Bulletin Bill has started. This year I am starting a new project...

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:11:27 -0600

Bulletin Bill has started.

This year I am starting a new project that I hope will be mildly successful. It is called Bulletin Bill, a community published and distributed video game magazine. I am still working out some of the details, but I can promise that content will be showing up very soon. I ran into one major problem this weekend and I hope that the details get ironed out before Monday, but it isn’t looking very good.

Right now, you can see the initial post and the landing page for Bulletin Bill at www.bulletinbill.com

I have been playing a bunch of games, but mostly for...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:59:49 -0600

I have been playing a bunch of games, but mostly for trophies/achievements.

Currently, I purchased PixelJunk Shooter (pictured above) and have been loving that. On the side, I have been playing Brutal Legend, Battlefield: 1943, and Batman: Arkham Asylum to clean up all the remaining trophies/achievements that I have. This is super tedious as it is boring to read about. I think that playing the multiplayer aspect of these games is making me more agitated and annoyed. Battlefield is still pretty decent, but it feels like I always get placed on the losing team and that this team only has me to lead them to victory. Brutal Legend is still awesome, but the multiplayer people playing it are completely serious about what they are doing, to the point that they are lynching me for picking a wrong army or geyser. It’s awful.

Anyway, I am off to work out and work a little. I hope that I get more time to sit and play some titles.

Nolan North, the voice of this console generation. Uncharted 2...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:08:07 -0600

Nolan North, the voice of this console generation.

Uncharted 2 took the Game of the Year award at this year’s Spike Video Game Awards. This is a good thing because I feel like I need more validity when it comes to how awesome Uncharted 2 is. I can only say so many things about the game when people start to tune me out. But what I am tired of saying is that it is a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Exclusivity is a hurdle that I wish we didn’t have to do jump. I never have thought that in the future after Nintendo, that we would have four huge consoles fighting over marketshare, as well as mobile/portable alternatives. With the popularity and saturation of the consoles, games are flooding shelves and the competition is almost impossible unless your marketing budget is as high as some movies.

To hear that some people haven’t had the pleasure of playing Braid, Miner Dig Deep, or Fat Princess is disheartening, but it is an effect of the marketplace.

I have it all, I wish my PC went a little faster, I wish I had some extra cash to spend on games, but I am glad that I don’t have decisions. Uncharted vs. Gears of War. Metal Gear Solid vs. Halo. Pixel Junk: Eden vs. Shadow Complex.

I wish Nolan North would even out the playing field with an “one console that plays everything” and call it NN64.

Busy

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:17:40 -0600

I had a rough week at work last week, then had a couple days to catch my breath, only to fling myself back into the fray at the tree farm. It really isn’t draining on me, I did get to play a good chunk of Mass Effect, but not as much as I would like.

Because of this, I am getting a longer Christmas break and putting all my chips in for that weekend being bangin’ awesome.

I will try and get some writing done, but I have no motivation to do so. If anything does get posted, treat it like gold. I am going to catch up on Yo Gabba Gabba appearances, the Jack Black one made me shit myself.

Geth Death. Playing through Mass Effect for the first time and...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:03:46 -0600

Geth Death.

Playing through Mass Effect for the first time and glad that I am not alone. There is a small, but popular LTTP thread on GAF that is following someone’s first play-through of Mass 1 (or so that is what the Bioware doctors call it). This game has its hooks in me pretty deep.

Space soap opera, this is the best way to describe it. But since the action is much more exciting than in Star Trek, you keep coming back to it. After turning it off, I will usually boot it up within the next day and try go get some time in. But it isn’t just an hour, it usually is two or three… which would explain why I am writing this post so late.

I am sure that I am a few hours away from blue alien sex. This is very exciting.

This is truly the age of dragons

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:34:16 -0600

Two weekends ago, I sat on a couch with Zach and Rod thumbling through the first few hours of the Dragon Age: Origins as an Elf/Warrior/Commoner campaign. It was - for lack of a more epic, dragonish descriptor - amazing.

The problem with Dragon Age: Origins is that it comes with a helping of “you just don’t get it”. Nicole was driven to sleep by the dialog and the amount of time that we were spending messing with the radial menu. I come from a land of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate where my entire teenage years was spent being weaved into the stories, menus and mechanics of these games. I have invested into titles that today seem dull and static to Nicole. Dragon Age: Origins is a refinement of these systems with a healthy amount of cutscenes, dialog, camera work, voice acting and visuals to keep your mind busy forever. Just watching through most of the beginning, you are constantly reminding yourself to go back and explore, or reroll a character to act a certain way. This game is only attractive to those kinds of people, but it doesn’t have enough “wow” factor to keep an casual onlooker interested. But that isn’t the point of the game, it is more of a love letter to people that have already spent the amount of time on Bioware’s previous titles.

I remember specifically spending a few hours dungeon crawling in Diablo 2 while under a blanket, with a heater underneath it and waiting until we could dig ourselves out of the snow in order to go to school. Television didn’t appeal to us a teenagers as much as a high fantasy video game did.

I have been spending a lot of time with Dragon Age: Journeys and have come to an idea that I don’t want to play games like this in the browser, it lessens it. I really do want to download it for free and put it into fullscreen so that I can take advantage of all the prehistory. I hope to get a copy for Christmas and to spend 4 relentless days pouring over menus, drops and dialog. I would like to give Journey’s the same attention, but it is built for me to treat it like a red-headed stepchild. I have been conditioned by Flash games to only spend five minutes playing them and then leave. But do I only have this repulsion because of the other bazillion things to play?

Best Buy will have Dragon Age: Origins for $35 on Black Friday, this has been added to my list of things to do on that specific Friday. The other part of the list - and there is only one other thing I have to do - is play more Borderlands.

CAN’T WAIT!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:49:54 -0600

CAN’T WAIT!

Sorry for all the Modern Warefare 2 hate. This video shows that...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:49:14 -0600

Sorry for all the Modern Warefare 2 hate. This video shows that hidden gems do exist in a serious game. If any of these things happened in the multi, I would have shit my pants.

What's old is new

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:43:54 -0600

New Super Mario Brothers Wii.

Who would of thought that we would be sitting here and accepting a game (a game with high praise that is) with “New” in the title? 5 years ago, I would of told you that it didn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. It shouldn’t exist. That was before New Super Mario Brothers on the DS. When I got that game on launch, I was thrilled to play a Mario platformer on DS especially that Mario 64 left such a poor taste in my mouth (Mario 64’s controls did not transfer to the DS, it’s all about that trigger Z button on the 64). But this was hard to swallow, “New” was in the title.

Sure I smoked it, I loved it, but there was a lot of weird things to do in it. The multiplayer is strange and not that much fun. It could be because I was playing with my brothers, but just doing a competitive game within a small level wasn’t really worth programming. Give me another world or level. Another hype factor in the game was the mega mushroom. You only used it maybe twice in the game and it only was effective for 15 seconds, it was bullshit.

Now we are on the cusp of the biggest release of the year in my opinion. Sure, everyone had their renaissance on Tuesday with Modern Warfare 2 but this game is much more than a shooter with a killer online attached. This is the game that you will purchase, sit with friends that have all played a platformer before, and hand hold each other through the levels of the Mushroom Kingdom. This will relight the nostalgic kindle in your heart and keep burning for as long as you have people around to play with you.

It will outsell Modern Warfare 2, it will be much more fun that Modern Warfare 2, and people are doing themselves a disservice thinking otherwise. I mean, how revolutionary was shooting civilians anyway?

I will answer that with another question.

How revolutionary is the penguin suit?

I have been chipping away at Batman: Arkham Asylum. It...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:24:24 -0600

I have been chipping away at Batman: Arkham Asylum. It doesn’t help that there are about 20 other games I want to be playing, but Batman is extremely compelling.

Batman is a detective. Using this mechanic it slows the pace of the game down a little and allows you to really soak in everything about Arkham Asylum. Making this a smaller more manageable space, than let’s say a GTA4, really gets you familiar with the entire layout of the complex. I am fairly confident that I can cruise from one area of the game to the other with extreme ease and speed, much like Batman. The detective mode also lends itself to familiar gameplay in Metroid Prime. Scanning things, finding ways to get out of situations, exits, gargoyles and finding Riddler clues is really fun. These supply more longevity to the game, especially for completionists. It’s extremely awesome.

Voice work. The original cast from the animated series signed on to do the voices and the nostalgic value keeps me listening for more. Joker, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Harley and Riddler already have a vocal attachment to me, and when the interview tapes play, it is like having these nuggets from the television show at your disposal. Also, Joker is constantly on the PA making fun of you or lecturing his cronies.

Weapons and upgrades. You gain a lot of weapons to help you in Arkham and all of them are fun to use. Using your XP to purchase other weapons, or fun Batman-like toys is also interesting. I played with the remote controlled Baterang for like 40 minutes. Also, whenever Batman uses the explosive gel he draws a bat on the wall/floor. It’s obvious that this guy has issues, but really, I can’t believe they are taking it this far. Batman dreams, lives, breathes bats all the time. I can get into this.

I haven’t messed with the challenge rooms or passed the game yet. I am still taking this game as a slow burn, but please be patient with me. It is a perfect shit storm out there right now, AND NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII COMES OUT ON SUNDAY.

Shit.

Criminals

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:57:00 -0600

me: liz have you ever had friends get into an accident and then fight their case in court?

Elizabeth: not that i know of...

me: k

Elizabeth: are you guys trying to decide if you should fight it or not?

me: yes

she is pissed because i am calling her a criminal

since my family has no criminal background, i told her to call her mom up

or her brothers

that didn't go over well

Elizabeth: hahaha....awww i'm sure it didn't

me: kewl, i am going to keep researching

Elizabeth: yeah....because did you say that if she fights it then it won't hurt her insurance?

me: yeah

i am pretty sure it goes up

and she is the only reason why it is so high in the first place

Elizabeth: awwww

poor nicole.

October is over, now back to normal

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:01:15 -0600

October was full. Full of weddings, outings, parties, birthdays, schedule conflicts and thanks to Nicole’s crazy weekend, car wrecks. I am more prepared for November and feel like I have a one up on the entire month. When I get busy, I play a lot of catch up and tend to stay up for inhuman amounts of time trying to wedge everything in. On top of work, I had exercise, and three fantastic games to play through before the wreckage of November hit.

Here we go. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Incredible. Brutal Legend - Incredible. Batman: Arkham Asylum - Incredible.

I really hope that I can spend more time in Brutal Legend’s multiplayer mode. Riddler’s puzzles need to be solved. Nathan Drake needs to score some money in multiplayer and find all the treasures. There is so much in these games that it is baffling why they would all release in the Fall.

Chris’ birthday on Thursday, Sunday with family, and Thanksgiving with Nicole’s family. Better stock up on beer and whiskey now.