Acts of Gord

Hope you like them.

Cairo Suite

I really enjoy the halo 2 soundtrack, it has a really ethereal feel to it.  

Halo (Mjolnir Mix)

I didn't really post this for any particular reason other than I really like the Halo series of games and think the soundtrack is great.  Also, I'm looking forward to the movie that's being worked on, though we can't expect to see that for a while.  Anyway, enjoy.

Tabletsketch

On DevArt

I picked up an A4 Intuos 3 recently and wanted to try it out. While fiddling with it I noticed I could create an effect in Photoshop that resembled a pencil sketch. I wanted to see how it looked when used to make an actual drawing. However I was struggling to come up with an entirely original image to work with.

I had an image link that I had been meaning to use as a pose reference for a drawing but for various reasons I never got around to it. I stumbled upon it again when I was rummaging around my computer looking for stuff to use for the tablet experiment and I decided that it would be as good a photo to use as any. As the idea was to try out shading techniques with the tablet rather than create an entirely new picture I decided to shade over the original image in Photoshop.

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the results. I feel like the shading is not anything like as subtle in its application as it could have been if done with a real pencil. Maybe the pressure sensitivity needs tweaking to get a more accurate pencil kind of feel but I think that on the whole I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

the stock image I used was found on the gallery here. link

Nothing too exciting, just some more music I felt like sharing.  Hope you like it.

Dead Or Alive 4: Highly boingy barely legal girls kicking seven shades of that other stuff out of each other make their comeback. I'm not big on fighting games but this seems fair enough as far as fun goes. I think some game designers have issues with women though. And the demo is REALLY HARD! Maybe I'm just no good at fighting games, but I just couldn't get anywhere with this demo.

Apparently the full version of this game features a Halo crossover. That seems wrong somehow, but amusingly so.

Dead Rising: Run around a mall full o'zombies, kill them in creative ways. What more could you want? Oh, and take comedy snapshots of their dismembered corpses when you're done. The skateboard and electric guitar are truely giggleworthy, and the hunting knife will leave a satisfyingly huge pile of corpses behind you. In the demo the only goal is apparently to survive till 7pm, but I assume the full game has other goals. Would think about buying this, definately.

Prey: Play a whiney Indian fella who gets abducted by aliens and has to save the Earth from the invading horde. Pretty standard FPS fare with a few twists like gravity defying walls, organic weapons and whatnot. I particularally liked the ironic duke box that decides to play Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult during the abduction scene. I dunno though. It was pretty fun but I just find first person shooters on consoles to be wrong on general principle. I want to use my mouse dammit! Come on guys, the 360 has USB ports, incorperating a mouse driver into your games can't be that hard! Maybe I'll get the PC version.

Saints Row: Blatent GTA ripoff, but a pretty good one. Georgous graphics and more realistic character animation. Has a few nice touches that Rockstar would do well to take a look at, like the radar recommends routes to your target. Nothing you've never seen before gameplay wise though. And the weapon selection scheme completely ruins the otherwise decent controls (To select a weapon, hold down the red button and a circle of icons appears on yoru hud. Move the right thumbstick to highlight the weapon you want to switch to. Now do this in the middle of a pitched gun fight when you run out of ammo, while trying to avoid getting shot at the same time. You need 3 thumbs to pull this off with any kind of success)

Geometry Wars (XBL Arcade): Oh my GOD is this thing addictive! It'2 a 2D vector game very much in the mould of old vector games, in fact it strongly reminds me of a cross between Asteroids and Galga (which I know isn't vector based but still). You play a little vector spaceship in a boxed off playing area. The left stick controls your direction of flight, your right stick controls the direction of fire. Various simple vector rendered shapes spawn at random and try to kill you by running into your ship. Some move simple preprogrammed courses, some will chase you, some will try to avoid the stream of fire from your ship, etc. This is a very simple game that will almost certainly get you pining for the golden age of the arcade, back before the days of the Great Videogame Crash. It's fast paced, has fantastic music and the simple graphics don't hurt it in the slightest. It made me imagine that this is what arcade games of the early 80s might have looked like if game designers had access to Crays.

I just have t oshare music I like, I can't help it!  They played the Bassomatic track on the radio this morning.  It's years old but still a really good tune.  Then WinAmp threw the REM track up too while I was looking for the Bassomatic track to share.  Anyway, I hope you like them!