In the Heart of Darkness

Three panels of the Soul variety...

2009-02-09T09:12:00.006-05:00

Hello my limited readers I'm back again! I decided I'd do a little something different this week and give you the low down on some of the numerous web-comics I read. First off in this countdown that is on equal importance with the countdown to doomsday is the comic strip titled Three Panel Soul.

This is one of their three panels of hilarity, and if you like it I ask you to check out their main site at threepanelsoul.com, the site updates typically on Mondays but it has been known to flit around a bit to Wednesdays. Now for a little information on Three Panel Soul. TPS is written by Matt Boyd and drawn by Ian McConville it started off as a webcomic known as Mac Hall. McConville started Mac Hall back when he was in college on a dare that he couldn't make a Penny Arcade style comic, at least that's what wikipedia says. The original strip was based on college life and gamers living it. The jokes flavored many things ranging from philosophical musings, to topical gaming humor, and even simple things as shirking classes. Mac Hall typically followed story arc style formats, with arcs ranging from just two strips to many with the natural random strip thrown in the mix. Boyd and McConville finished the strip on the grounds that making it was no longer fun. They however picked up the strip with TPS, which needless to say is still updating. Their new strip is much different from Mac Hall, the jokes are more mature and sometimes hard to follow if you don't watch the news or at least step outside of your house a little. As the title suggests every strip is three panels a formula they haven't deviated from yet, and almost every strip is in black and white with a few exceptions. There's still a lot of topical gaming humor and a lot of humor just based on life's odd moments. If you like this article or hell if you just want to laugh check out Three Panel Soul.

Now for my question this week:

What webcomics do you like? Which ones should I check out? Pitch them to me and I may put them on here.

And as always if you like what you read here, go ahead and follow me! Don't be shy I won't bite much and if I do, you'll enjoy it.

-Julian

Empty Souls and Pocket Holes

2009-01-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

I was looking at VG cats today, and I saw some news for the port of Dead Rising on the Wii. And might I just say... h-hold on a sec... BLAAAARG! Ugh, my god... there was so much soul in that vomit I mean I think its all gone, its evaporatting into the air along with those sour cream and onion Pringles I ate for lunch. Here's a link with the incriminating evidence from Kotaku: Frank can't do ANYTHING! I mean come on people I understand that you have to cut down on some things to make it compatible with the Wii, but there's like nothing there. Here's the other link from VG cats that shows how bad it looks : Horrible my eyes! I just Praised Capcom for Street Fighter IV and now this happens... WHY!? KAAAAAAHN!

Sorry about this, it wasn't going to be me y weekly post and its still isn't I just sort of decided to do it on a whim. Also here is the to the VG cats comic that gave me this disturbing info: Enjoy.

And in other News I have started to write a novel. It's going to be a fantasy novel of course and I've been meaning to write it for some time. I've been fooling around with it in my spare time. I'm not going to say anything about what it is about or what the plot is. But I may post excerpts from time to time so you can get a little sneak peak if you read my blog. And again if you read In the Heart of Darkness Please please please! Let me know, I'll even respond to your mail, check me out on Twitter some time and if you like it... Follow it.

-Julian

Apologies and Regrets

2009-01-26T13:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry about all the spelling errors in my last post. I did it kind of in a hurry, Won't happen again I swear.

Street Fighting, the American pastime.

2009-01-25T21:20:00.000-05:00

Well I finally got around to it, and man it is good to find out some things about Street Fighter IV that I can sink my teeth into. But first and foremost, here is a list of characters on the official site.

Ze List!

Now a brief history of my history with the Street Fighter franchise. I remember the first time I played Street Fighter II Championship Edition on the Sega Genesis, I had an ass of a time beating M. Bison as Ken, but I managed to learn by heart all of his moves. After I finally beat the Ruski looking mook I felt as if I had accomplished something and I was hooked. I tried to get to an arcade where I could play Street Fighter III but I never had the chance, but I did partake in the Alpha series, and I did watch the Saturday morning cartoon, also the movie that came out. Needless to say I'm a fan of almost everything Capcom has produced and Street Fighter IV will be no exception. And by judging it by the looks I'm thinking I won't be disappointed.

The textures of the characters is a good indication that the graphics for this long awaited game are definitely not going to disappoint. You can see every ripple in Ryu's muscles and if you see any screenshots of Chun Li, check out her thighs, they're sculpted like mutton. Now what I found out is that although the character and environment are going to be 3D we will not see any vast deviation from the original wondrous formula of two fighter in a 2D stage beating the crap out of one another without strafing about and dodging to the side. Also I think from watching bits of the game that the Combo Meter (or something like it at least) will be used and when full will pull of cutscene issuing massive attacks. Alot of the classic characters will return, Guile, Ryu, Ken, M. Bison, and of course everyone's fan favorite: Akuma. Also surprisingly Fei Long and Gouki. There are some new characters of... dubious... choice, there's a fat guy eating popcorn in one of the character pages I'll let you decide how to take that. Also Zangief is in it so if you're a fan of his like I've recently discovered many people are, he's in it too so go and get it. But don't leave just yet! Street Fighter IV doesn't come out until February 17, so don't expect to get the game unless you're going to a Seven Eleven, or something, but do pre-order it so that you won't miss out. Also, I haven't heard of anything yet but I'm pretty sure that there will be online multiplayer, so prepare to get Pwned by Julianvonrose as Ken. Shoryuken!

-Julian

Minor Musings: New question this week, Is anyone following me? If you see my blog and like it, please let me know on my Twitter or email me. If you really like it, go ahead and follow the blog, also tell your friends.

A Veritable Ocean of Videographic Imagery

2009-01-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well this is not my Street Fight IV post I promised this week. I'm at my college at the moment and I want to have time to really get into the topic and give you a proper vision of my take on the entire Street Fighter series. This is a trailer I picked up from Youtube, it shows the entire cast of fighters I think so that should satiate your desires for now.

I watched this with no sound so if your ears are raped don't blame me. Also I think they're missing a few now that I look at it. Expect more later.

Yes we Can!!!

2009-01-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

Can we fix it? Yes we can! In short I think that sums up the subject matter of Barack Obama's speech. Even though its a quote from Bob the Builder I think the sentiment is one we all share right now. The country is broken and we need an upbeat builder guy with talking tools to fix this place up, and I believe mister Barack Hussein Obama can do it. I found it it hilarious when they wheeled Dick Cheney in, not because he was injured no, but because of how much he looked like old man Potter from It's a Wonderful Life just about as evil too. I heard that Fox News said that Obama still wasn't president because he messed up the oath, I think they need to read the constitution heh heh. I'm optimistic about our future I hope everyone else out there is too. Well thats my take on it, expect another post this week, my topic this time will be Street Fighter IV, stay tuned.

Twitterpated

2009-01-14T09:42:00.000-05:00

I have a Twitter account now which links to my blog, but i figured I'd post a link here.

Twitter

Yahoo must really like their Wiis

2009-01-12T06:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how many of you get any sort of relevant gaming news from this site but if you do prepare to be shocked... or not so much. Now and then I like to pop on Yahoo and see what the people they hire to look into games have to think about them and as always I am not amazed. But what has surprised me recently is their constant and most likely intentional constant support of the Wii.
Normally I don't mind an information site to favor one particular system over the other but the extent of which they are doing really stuck with me. They had the blatant audacity to post this editorial. Ok, I know its just opinion but to suggest that a whole gaming franchise is going to the tank because of economic stress? That's like saying I'm going to cut off my arm because its starting to hurt. But that's not reason enough to support my cause. This load also took me by surprise, Wii sports best-selling game ever? It comes with the bloody system, it's not even out as a standalone title for that reason. In order to count every game selling you count the sales of the Wii itself and every nursing home in America seems to have one of those. They compared Wii sports to Super Marion Bros. when the bros. came out as a bundle for the NES there was significantly less interest in video games than there is today. It was pretty limited to socially inadequate nerds and pot smoking dudes with nothing better to do. Keep in mind I fit in one or both of those groups. Now I own a Wii and I like it, but as a gaming platform I would much rather go play my 360, why? Well because I can play it online and I can play Soul Calibur IV and Fallout 3. Well that's just my opinion, of course you can go on over there and read some of the articles if you want and decide for yourself, on a side note I didn't need to know this shit Yahoo. Fable II as much as PETA wants to think it is not an animal friendly game, people kick the shit out of your dog if you're evil and you kill defenseless animals, not to mention the most enjoyable sport of chicken kicking. I think they just perused the list of game features for ones they liked, the only vegetable that makes you skinny is celery, ANYTHING else you eat will add to fatness except Tofu. And meat makes you stronger so if you only eat vegetarian you're a skinny little tall person. Also the people in game will still fuck you if you're fat and evil you just have to be nice that's all, and being nice to people isn't something that PETA is used to.

Alright enough of the rave, today I'm starting this blog officially and as such I'm going to let anyone who reads this, know whats going on in my gaming world. This week I'm probably going to levelling my main in World of Warcraft, Radra lvl 77 Draenei Warrior - Aggramar so if you're in the server give me a buzz. Also probably gonna be mixing in a little Fallout 3, Last Remnant (if I don't die of waiting on loading screens), and a little, probably very little Sonic Unleashed. This is my last week off for classes so I have to milk it for all I can. I still haven't beaten Fallout three yet and I've come to a kind of rut. I'm low on ammo on pretty much everything but I'm really low on my favorite gun: The Minigun. So this leads to my next feature which will be with an article every week the Question of the Week. So this is it:

Where is a good place I can raid/kill people in to get easy and or cheap 5mm rounds for my Minigun?

If you know the answer and can help me out send me a message on Blogger here or email me at julianvonrose@gmail.com
Well that's all that on my mind for now, stay frosty folks the reds are coming back I can feel it[/sarcasm]

-Julian

Premier Posting a fun time for all...

2009-01-07T11:44:00.000-05:00

Wow, I never thought I'd be here... a blog. I have joined the thousands of internet nerds who have managed to turn a method of recording insipid bits and pieces of history into a wide-spread phenomena that has slipped its way into the vernacular. Well regardless of that I'm here to introduce myself and my blog, and no it's not an emo blog about how much my life sucks and how I should just kill myself. However if you write a blog like that take your own advice and save us the trouble of dealing with you. Anyhoo on to my introduction, in the Heart of Darkness just came to me from a place that many of you may or may not know, my imagination. I pulled the first random phrase from my head and put it as my title, because honestly I'm probably not going to blog about anything doing with hearts... or darkness... well maybe a little darkness a dash if you will. I hope to post here nothing more than my random musings onto the internet, and to as always get my opinion out there. I hope that I'll attract both people that don't share my opinion and those that do, because what fun is the internet if you have noone to argue with? The common things that I will be posting about are in the vein of many things you probably already read about, but given that they are pretty much the only things I know about I'm going to write about them too. Well anyway that's enough of an introduction, my name is Julian von Rose and welcome to my blog.

-Julian