Cythusly’s weblog

So there really is no recent site news. I was extremely busy with my classes last semester, I had to bust ass and still drop one of them – the other I got a D in. Go me. Juggling classes and work is not something I’ve done in a few years and I’m rusty.

Anyway, there will be a real site update soon. I’m typing this on the train back from the San Diego Comic-Con (comiccon.org) listening to some awesome music, reveling in the beauty of the weekend. Saw some old friends, made some new ones. I’ll be doing one of my lame review/writeups that I do for each of the days I was there (Thurs/Fri/Sat) and hopefully posting some pics my friends took as I was an idiot and forgot my camera this year.

I’m deep in the trenches of site-redesign – I’m hoping to have a picture gallery, my blog, a new Wordpress theme I’m sort of designing right now (all a work in progress,) a pet project I’ve been talking about with a couple of friends that will include blogs for both of them and an aggregated blog for the three of us to publish to under the new URL we’re working on. So many ideas, only limited by my knowledge of coding and my utter inability to make good looking site designs (oh yeah, buying a tablet to be hopefully working on some artwork for the site as well.)

As you can tell – I have a huge list of things to do that will be making its way to a hard-copy paper & pen list soon and where I’m going to be slowly chipping away at front and back end things here. Check back and I might have a placeholder up with space for your email addresses so we can email you with updates about the site or just to notify you about when we launch!

-Tyler

I spent a little more time with the Resident Evil 5 demo last night and a bit today and I’m happy to say it was quite a bit better once you pick a control style (’Style D’ really sucked ass in my opinion, ‘A’ was closer to what I’d want to use, but still not perfect – but I can adapt.) I didn’t manage to get Sweet D to come play with me last night (and I still haven’t found my headset, but I’ve resigned myself to buying a Messenger Kit since it has a headset in it too and I absolutely loathe typing anything with the L-stick and button clicks) but I got my friend @mithrandir202, Chris, on the phone and we ghettoed up the voice connection that way.

Our attempts at Public Assembly were dismal at best, due in part by Chris’ lack of having played a RE game before, let alone the one that would probably help most RE4. He commented a few times on how he was less than pleased about the having to stop and aim – but as I told him, “it adds to the tension and keeps it from being Halo with t-virus infected las plagas victims” to which he responded “huh?” Kids.

Anyway, I’m going to try and get a few other friends to load up with me in the next few days and see if we can’t get both “Public Assembly” and “Shanty Town”, neither of which Chris and I were able to get through last night.

Finally today I beat the chainsaw ganado (not sure what to call it, but I think the term still applies) that ends the level and I have to say it’s much more difficult doing that with two characters whose asses you have to watch and make sure don’t die. As to be expected in the solo campaign ammo conservation is freaking time consuming, with the new inventory system, and frustrating, because your idiot partner decides she needs all the ammo – tell you what, chickie, how about I pick up the ammo and give you some if I think you need it, otherwise stay out of my way and try not to catch a chainsaw to your head.

-Tyler

I’m going to do a few of these because I feel the two levels offered in the demo of Resident Evil 5 need more attention than I’ve been able to give them – so far, first impressions are the game is fantastically beautiful, semi-fun to play, and honestly? A little too much like Resident Evil 0 for my liking. I’m playing on a 21″ Insignia 720p and it feels a little bit cramped, especially running down a hallway or alley being bumped into by your cohort, Sheva, as she’s trying to stand right next to you.

The way Chris Redfield (yes, Resident Evil’s Chris Redfield) runs and moves feels a little more clunky than Leon did in RE:4 and I can’t tell exactly why. The controls feel out of place on the 360’s controller and the sense of longing for the GameCube’s controller constantly bashes me over the head as I think “man… I remember maneuvering much easier in 4.” Another thought is that possibly they’ve slowed Chris down a bit because he is a bit bulkier than Leon was – in fact, he’s not just a bit bulkier, he’s HUMONGOUS. The guy has shoulders so large no wonder Sheva has a problem standing next to him, he’s too damn big. Not functional.

Hopefully the control complaints will be silenced later tonight when I’m hoping to hook up with my friend Sweet D on XBL for some co-op action if I can find my old headset.

More to come.

-Tyler

Resident Evil 5 website

RE5 link on XBL: download the demo!

For everyone reading this that doesn’t know the Resident Evil 5 demo dropped on Live! today. I’ve only had a chance to check out one level and I don’t have time to do a writeup right now but I will get on that later today – unless I’m too busy playing the demo, which you should be playing or downloading RIGHT NOW. Go!

-Tyler

Had a chance to watch RE:Degeneration a few nights ago and it’s kind of been sitting in the back of my mind. The opening scene in the airport terminal was freaking amazing, and I immediately recognized one of the cops voices as the American voice of Onizuka from GTO (probably my favourite animé ever, watched in both Japanese with subs and dubbed English. I’m hardcore like that.)

The story is pretty much the standard for the Resident Evil franchise – something has gone horribly wrong, the T-Virus is let loose and someone we have played in previous games is there to fix it all.

Glenn, Miller and Kennedy

This time it’s Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy, seemingly right out of Resident Evil 4. The movie is like one long RE cutscene, which isn’t bad I just felt like I should have a controller in my hand for some of those awesome contextual button presses we all know so well from RE4. Paul Mercier and Salli Saffioti are back voicing Leon and Hunnigan (respectively) as well as Alyson Court as Claire Redfield, not having voiced the character since Code: Veronica in 2000.

All in all, the movie is fun and set in a universe I love (but am not all that familiar with, having only played about 3 of the titles) and should be given a shot – I wouldn’t say it’s a buy, unless you’re completely obsessed. But if you are completely obsessed you would have already bought it when it was released December 27th! Otherwise just pick it up at your local video store (if they’re cool enough to have a copy and the rest of your city/town/area is lame enough to leave it on the shelf for more than 5 minutes.)

-Tyler

I hope everyone has seen the featurette for the (possibly defunct?) movie based on Alan Moore’s Watchmen, but if you haven’t Superhero Hype has you covered! Check it out, then check out what’s going on with Warner Bros. and Fox fighting about who legally owns the rights to the movie… when I think about it, it kind of reminds me of that awful Fantastic Four movie Fox made on next to nothing to keep the rights to the Fantastic Four franchise, they haven’t made any such movie (read: no such movie has surfaced) to keep ahold of the Watchmen rights and I’m no lawyer so I can only add conjecture to the mix: Fox can’t continue to own the rights to the Watchmen and sit on it for close to 20 years. And if they can, fuck you Fox. I hate your politics and now it’s fucking with a movie I am actually kind of excited about (but still wary of very possibly sucking.)

Here’s to hoping something gets worked out in time for the March 6th release of the Watchmen.

Continuing my post about what web comics I read on a regular basis. I decided I’m going to do a couple at a time as I have time, probably about once a week until I run out of webcomics.

garfield minus garfield – Jim Davis/Dan Walsh (5 days a week)

What happens when you take Garfield out of the Garfield strips? You see a very manic depressive Jon Arbuckle. And it’s hilarious. The strips artwork are the classic Jim Davis Garfield strips with Garfield edited out (hence g-g.) Not much to say other than I get quite a few kicks out of reading this comic, every day it posts I range from a hearty chuckle to almost falling out of my chair laughing.

Ctrl + Alt + Del – Tim Buckley (3 days a week)

I’ve been reading CAD for a few years and I really love it, and it’s been a love-love relationship. I love the stories and humor Tim weaves. There’s a few different characters and plot threads, there’s the main story – that has Ethan, a gamer who is not too bright sometimes, his friend/roommate Lucas, also a gamer, the smarter of the pair, also Lilah, a girl gamer. There’s a larger cast than that, and they even have an animated series! The characters are lovable and genuine. Check it out.

-Tyler

I have most of the web comics I read on a regular basis posted under the ‘webcomics’ link on my side bar, but I felt they needed a little more attention and I realized I have been really neglecting my updates of this site (most of the stuff I write about doesn’t belong here so they go other places) so I figured I’d kill two birds. One stone. Or post. Whatever.

Now the cool thing about webcomics is that they’re comics… free on the web. I read quite a few on a regular basis and I’m going to break them down, on regularity of updates. I won’t be grading them or anything, as anything I read is already so freaking awesome it’d be off any pre-established ranking system thus meaning I would be forced to create a new one – and I’m lazy.

The Devils Panties – Jennie Breeden (6 days a week, Sunday nude drawing class pictures)

I’ve been reading this comic almost as long as I’ve been reading webcomics and I love it. Jennie’s art style is pleasing, she’s very talented but where the comic really shines is the writing – she takes stuff that has happened to her, or around her in her real life and just translated it to a 3-5 panel comic that always proves to be utterly hilarious. She’s a cool person, her webcomic deserves a little more attention, she’s got an actual book she puts out (something up with publishing lately, I think) that also warrants some attention. In addition to all that, if she wasn’t overworked enough, Jennie stopped doing her blog but started a vlog on youtube that is great – she’s so cute when she geeks out!

PvP – Scott Kurtz (5 days a week)

Kurtz is a funny man and it’s been great seeing his art progress. Every time his comic updates it’s like a little Christmas for me, they’re always funny and the art is great with crisp, clean lines and no colors (that doesn’t bother me at all, infact, I actually prefer it as just inked lines.) I recently mentioned Scott along with Mike & Jerry aka. Gabe & Tycho respectively, a few months back in a post about D&D and apparently they’re going to be recording a new session with Wil Wheaton – yes, THAT Wil Wheaton. I can’t say enough about PvP; it’s a great comic, I love how easily followed the continuity is and watching Kurtz’s art style evolve over the years.

I’ll post more later, this is all I had time for before class only 3 more days left!

-Tyler

Music I listened to while writing this post: ▼

I was just surfing around for new movies and came across one that interested me as a lover of music and music history: Cadillac Records. Check out the trailer.

I guess it was released on the 5th of this month and I’m actually really surprised I missed any news on this one (thanks to school probably, that or a crippling WoW addiction at the moment). Chronicling Chess Records it stars Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf, and Beyoncé Knowles (meh) as Etta James.

Holy fucking shit! This really looks great. I’m really not a fan of Beyoncé Knowles at all, but I’m willing to be optimistic with this one.

Chess Records began as a small store in Chicago called Aristocrat Records. Leonard Chess and his brother Phil bought out the company and renamed it Chess Records. Leonard and Phil would bring in artists they would find and have them sit in with their session musicians, many of them accomplished artists in their own right. Many of the above artists had recorded with Chess, blues musicians and even The Rolling Stones, from England, before they were the “bad boys” the bad version of The Beatles.

An amazing number of well known artists recorded with Chess in the 50’s and 60’s, among my favourites are Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, & Etta James. It was the home for the Chicago Blues, an electrified version of the Delta Blues.

I will be seeing this as soon as finals are over next week. I’m a gigantic music nerd, and Chess was around at the beginning of R&B music, back before it was overproduced tripe, back when it meant something to rise up from nothing and become something. Back when the music was… amazing.

-Tyler

Alright, I was just reading over an article at superherohype.com; they’ve been really doing a lot of coverage on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and I can say I’m completely underwhelmed. When I first heard Ryan Reynolds was going to be one of my favourite characters in the film: Deadpool, I was skeptical. Now there’s pictures of Gambit makes him look like a fucking tranny in his shiny purple shirt and “beard” that would be shamed by a 14 year-old.

And now – and NOW, I hop on imdb and check that, oh, Dominic Monaghan is going to play Beak. Seriously!? Beak was a fucking lame character to begin with, now they’re going to lame him up even more in an attempt to make him visually interesting and fun on screen? Who is writing these fucking movies!? I had to fucking check wikipedia because it’s been so goddamned long since I’ve even read the New X-Men series and he was so utterly lame and forgettable (until the kind of Hawkman-esque appearance of him after the AoA-like story arc, the beginning of which I just had to quit reading… yes, it was that bad) that I really had to make sure I was thinking of the right character.

Anyway, I know Wolverine is a cash cow property because of whatever-fucking-reasons (”he’s a badass, and tall, and has cool facial hair and can’t die!” ugh…) so much so they’ve already make 3 fucking movies about him and now they’re making a 4th that is apparently going to be based on his origin (which from what I’ve seen is nothing like Origin, thank fucking Christ, but still if you have source material, especially relatively CURRENT source material: USE IT) I wonder if they’re going to establish bone claws? Or had they already done that in one of his other movies? X-Men? I can’t remember and don’t have the angry energy to check.

Bottom line with the Wolverine movies is this: I’ll definitely be seeing it, because there’s not been much out that’s been good and this is no exception. I’m pretty sure I won’t be surprised by OMG SO FUCKING AWESOME to discount my hatred for a character I liked as a kid reading the comics and watching the Animated Series. I reserve the right to be angry because that’s who I am.

-Tyler