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Gaming

Gaming, Video
Coach Cobra’s crash course in cheating
07.18.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Last year, when I was staying with Jeff and Dawn in Vancouver, Jeff and I would regularly play Nazi Zombies on his PS3. We never had much luck, rarely ever getting past the second round of dogs. Back then we had no strategy. Now I play with Holly almost once a day. Her and I can get to round 25 or so without any major problems, and just the other night set a new record of 33 rounds survived! One of the things that helps us survive so long is that we exploit a glitch which gets you a third gun.

I have been playing with Jeff in the mornings a lot lately, now that I have my headset back and a working PS3. Jeff and I regularly die before round 5. Once or twice we made it as high as round 18, and I convinced Jeff to attempt getting a third gun. He failed and his gun (along with his interest in playing) was lost.

Today Holly and I made a video of me getting a third gun, and I posted it to Youtube. I sent a link to Jeff, and hopefully he sees it. If any of you Cobra Comrades are tired of killing meat sacks with only 2 guns, just watch the above video tutorial.

*Special thanks to Holly for her excellent cinematography (it only took two takes!).
Animals, Gaming, Life, Photos
From Niagara Falls to Vice Beach
05.16.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Yesterday was a busy day. Holly and I killed some zombies, then I sorted through some tools I got from the storage locker a few weeks back. The tools came from my Nan’s house, and I hadn’t looked in the box until yesterday. I found a bunch of neat stuff my brother could use, and also a bunch useful things for me that I didn’t realize I owned.

I was looking for auger bits for the boring machine Mary brought me and I found a bunch, unfortunately they all had square tangs and won’t fit. I could cut the tangs off and use them, but then they’re going to be pretty short, as well as no longer fit in my hand auger (which is what the bits are intended for). I also found a set of four corner clamps, tons of pliers and cutters, and a collection of rasps.

I realize now, I need a large tool box (as well as a large workshop).

In the afternoon, my brother came by and we took Roan and his friend Josh hiking at the gorge. We hunted for salamanders and climbed up lots of rocks. On one rock Roan and I found some pretty flowers. He picked this one for his mom, then tossed it on the ground 30 seconds later when he decided he didn’t want to carry it.

On top of salamanders, we found some neat centipedes and a fairly good sized millipede.

Watching my brother and Roan pick this thing up made me think of my old pet millipede that died on me the first time I went out to BC. Her name was Angelina, and I always loved having her crawl on me. I think if I could find one, I’d get another.

The centipede we saw was different than any I’d ever seen. It might not even be a centipede for all I know, but it was definitely a ‘pede of some sort, and it looked more like a centipede than a millipede.

It’s hard to tell, but this guy is about two inches long.

We cut our hike short so we could head home for pizza before our trip to the casino water-park. Holly promised Gage that for his birthday he could have a bunch of friends sleep over, and we’d all go to the water park. All but one of his friends bailed, so Roan brought Josh and the six of us went.

When we got there the water park was pretty empty. The boys ran off to go line up for water slides, and Holly and I made our way to the outdoor pool since it was completely empty. We thought we could get away with swimming out there alone until it was time to go, but a short while later some kids and their basketball ruined those plans.

We came back in and soaked in the hot tub for a bit, then lounged on some patio chairs while the boys pissed Roan off in the wave pool.

When it was time to leave we wandered around the parking garage for 30 minutes, because the labeling of the levels in the garage are weird, and therefore we got confused/lost. We finally made it out, then headed home for Dairy Queen.

I took this picture from the rooftop pool deck, and I felt like I was in Vice City. I was in a rooftop pool, with palm trees, and there was a helicopter flying by. I miss Lance Vance.
Cobra Classics, Gaming, Photos
Ess Oh Ee Oh Em Gee!
05.04.10 | Permalink | Comment?

This photo reminded me of when my passion for video games was reignited by the Grand Theft Auto series, and games like Midnight Club and NFS. I had put the PSX on the shelf after killing the THPS series by over-playing it when Dallas and I lived together in Denistoun.

It wasn’t until I played a portion of GTA: Vice City at Ryan’s house one weekend that I decided I had to have a PS2, and from there I fell right back into gaming all the time. I got the ps2, hacked it, then went nuts downloading everything I could find. That carried on for 6 years.

I also like looking at how I used to live. This was a shitty little apartment on Dorothy St. in Welland. We paid $500 a month to live there, bills included. Our couch was missing it’s legs, so it sat on the floor (which was actually quite comfy). Everything I owned was covered in layers upon layers of stickers, and labels made using the car wash label maker. I had an entire room dedicated to reptiles, where I kept 3 snakes, and four lizards. I had a drunk neighbour I would occasionally get physical with when he refused to turn his Psychedelic Sunday down, and a family of welfare collecting whales next door who would buy smokes by the box (no, I don’t mean carton) and bath their baby in a recycling bin on the front porch.

I also like this picture because those are my favourite pair of pants I’ve ever worn. I remember when I bought them. It was the first time I went to BC with Dave, when he moved out to Abbotsford (I was probably 18 or so). We went shopping at some store in Whistler and I bought those and a pair of Soloman shoes. I’m pretty sure I still have the pants, but they’re too big for me now (yup I was fatter then) and have several worn spots. I do however still have 2 pairs of shoes I bought the following year, which are in almost perfect condition. Both are Osiris D3’s. I might have to bust them out now.
Angry Art, Fuck Sony, Gaming, Sketchup
More cobra colophon candidates
03.25.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Here is my latest rendering of a possible new blog logo. I changed the angle of his cone, and moved the text based on Mary Beth’s suggestion. I like this one quite a bit, but I wish I had a more powerful machine to render this stuff. I guarantee it would look so much better if I could let it render fully, but I need my machine for other things, and can’t do much while anything is rendering.

I’m hoping that once we get a new PS3, I can setup the old one with Linux (with the help of Jon and I’m sure lots of Google), and use it either alone or networked with my machine to render things a lot faster. I’m not so sure it will work, but if it does I imagine it will greatly reduce rendering times. The PS3 is a graphical powerhouse I’ve been told.

I messed around with this image in GIMP for a few minutes while sizing it up for this post, and I made a couple variations I kind of like. It’s interesting to me how I can spend hours rendering something and it looks cool, but then I can click a few sliders in GIMP or Photoshop, and bwammo! it’s instantly even cooler.

And then there’s this one, which I really like, but it’s a weird contradiction. I spent all those hours rendering, and then you can’t even see the details. However, it still looks awesome in my opinion. I want to try making a logo that looks very 8-bit, and very Cobra Triangle-esque

Sort of like this, but better. This is just be tweaking the contrast in GIMP, but it’s given me some ideas for how to make it cooler using Sketchup. It’ll have to wait for now though, as I have lots of work to do on the book.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
PP by me
03.20.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other day Roan asked me if I could make his favourite guns from Nazi Zombies, in Sketchup. I said I could try my best, and started on his first favourite – the PPSH. He wants me to model them, so that we could combine the two and see how “pro” that would be.

After about 5 minutes of watching me go, he got tired of it and went to watch Gage play video games. I put it on hold, and picked it up again yesterday. I finished it off, and decided to render it in Indigo.

It turned out pretty good, aside from the textures. I’m not really happy with the way the wood grain turned out, and the metal looks too perfect, but whatever. It looks pretty awesome still, and it will work just fine for what Roan wanted.

The next one I have to model is the MG 42. It’s very similar looking as far as the barrel goes, but it’s got a weird muzzle, and a much more detailed body. It also has a bi-pod which should be pretty fun to make.

Here’s what a PPSH really looks like, and here’s what the MG looks like. Tune in soon to see what a hybrid version of the two looks like!!
Angry Art, Food, Gaming, Life, Sketchup
Weekend of indulgence ends with robot/cobra retirement
03.15.10 | Permalink | Comment?

This weekend I ate so much I’m pretty sure I eliminated any progress that may have been made during our trips to the Y last week. Friday night, Holly and I went out for Sushi, then I went and picked up Jon from the GO train. We came back here and played the God of War 3 demo, then some zombies, and finally some Bioshock2. Then Jon made me eat pizza.

The next morning Holly made us brownies, and muffins, and shared some of her raspberry macaroons with us. Most of the afternoon was spent playing Bioshock2 and some UFC Undisputed, then we decided to go for Indian buffet. I ate so many pakoras, and homemade cheese it was unreal. Then right after that, we drove all the way to St Catharines for Marble Slab. Later that night, Jon and I busted out the leftover muffins and brownies and did even more damage to our guts.

The next morning I woke up with a major tummy ache, dying to smoke some pot. We rolled up a huge blunt using some enormous cigars the Dude gave me, and I tried to harvest Adam from dead splicers while we smoked it. I nibbled all day at the leftovers from the previous days, and then when the boys came home we decided to go to the Mandarin. I ate a shit load of sushi rolls, some pizza, spring rolls, some rice, and lots of garlic broccoli! Then I topped it all off with a gigantic plate of dessert, which consisted of: cheesecake (covered in strawberry sauce), a waffle covered in bananas and strawberries, a sugar puff, and of course a fortune cookie.

Today I plan to eat nothing until after we go to the Y. Instead, I plan to hang out with the Roanster all day since he’s off for March break, maybe finish Bioshock2 (since it’s now two days late!!), and possibly model some more of James’ house – although I’m still waiting to hear back from him about what I’ve done so far.

Above is a rendering I did of one of my robots, using no light source other than what he emits. It looks pretty cool in my opinion, and it inspired me to try the same thing with some other robots.

I like the look of these. I think I will turn them into desktop / PS3 backgrounds. I also think I will stop modeling robots now. I love doing it, but there is no point. It’s all wasted time, and I gain nothing from it. I really enjoy having a creative outlet, but work is more important and I’m the only one who thinks any of these images are cool.

I might post one or two more robots here that I have already made – just haven’t posted, but that will be it for Robots, and the whole Angry Art portion of this blog.

It’s come to my attention recently that I waste too much time on things that don’t matter, and I agree. The Sketchup stuff, my bad habits, video games, and this blog all take away from time I could be working. I love all these things, but none of them help me get anywhere, so it’s time to start eliminating them. First the art – that’s going to be easy, then the blog. The two big ones I’ll deal with last.
Gaming, Roanisms, Video
Roan loves to pwn
02.21.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Friday night was spent hanging out with Roan and Holly, while Gage was at a sleepover birthday party. We killed lots of zombies, then ordered some pizza. While we ate we watched some Demetri Martin stand-up, but it was cut short once Roan finished speed-eating his pizza, so he could jump back into killing dudes.

He wanted to keep playing, so we told him to go online and find some random people to play with. I showed him how to get into a game, and then for the rest of the night I watched while he played with randoms, and a couple games with my friends.

We took a break to go get ice cream, and when we came back I took a few videos of his matches. Below is the best one. In it, he is trying to itch his cheek while playing, and accidentally pokes himself in the eye, prompting the headset (which is a little too big for his tiny head) to slide off his head, and cause more frustration. I tried not to laugh, but I didn’t do very well. Luckily, he was too into the game to notice.

I will post some more videos of his online adventures once I install Premiere on my desktop and do some editing. The videos are all really dark and the audio needs tweaking, plus there is a lot of stuff that’s not very interesting to watch.
Gaming, Roanisms
More mini-man-made meatsacks
02.16.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other night, Roan was watching me kill zombies with Jon and my brother, when I decided to run out for a smoke real quick. I handed the controller over to Roan, and he had a blast playing with them, and talking through the headset (which is about 7 times too big for his little head) while I was outside. I came back in and took over, then when we finished our match Roan wanted to play with Chris and Jon again. They both had to go, and Roan was bummed.

Last night he had dinner at his father’s house, and when he came home he gave me a new drawing. This one is the best yet. It’s incredibly accurate, and even features Jon in his usual position – down, waiting to be revived.

*fishing fery – “Im runing out of vodka I mean amoe”

*X Pone – “Hi I am dempsy you are dead”

He did such a good job, and I’m amazed at how many details he managed to remember. He even got the power sign right!

After he showed it to me I decided I better call Jon and Chris and see if they had time to play a match with him. They did, and he had a blast. Best part was, first guy to go down was of course, Jon. See? that’s accuracy!
Gaming, Random, Video
Come on!
01.21.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other day, Holly and I went out to find a replacement controller for my 360, because Roan had picked a chunk off one of my analog sticks, and I now refuse to use it. We looked for a pink controller, but they were discontinued so long ago that no one has any left. I found a good used controller at Entertainment Overload in St Catharines for $35, along with a copy of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.

I have wanted to play this game ever since I heard that Will Arnette was going to be the voice of Matt Hazard. I would have rented (or possibly bought) this game the day it came out, but I was on the island with no xbox or money at the time. I did however bend on my “no game blogs” rule momentarily, and read a fraction of a review, as well as checked it’s review score (I believe it got a 7.0 or something). I decided not to read about it, or check anything else out, until I played it.

I still haven’t read anything about it, but I did play through the full game over the last two days (it’s a short one), and I have now formed my own opinion of the game – this game is shit. I’m not sure why so many things made it passed quality assurance, but I think it could have something to do with there being only 2 testers. TWO!

At first I enjoyed the game for the reasons I expected I would – GOB humor. Quickly the fun wore off, and it became more about playing the game just to see how poorly everything was done. I put a bunch of videos I took after the break (I figured I wouldn’t fill up the blog’s front page with game videos, since I think Holly is pretty much the only reader, and she’s not going to care about this one) of the various mistakes, glitches, and apparent lack of effort you will find in this game. It’s not all the things I found, but there are some here that show just how little effort must have gone into fine tuning this game. (more…)
Fuck Microsoft, Gaming, Love, Video
Love is: A fountain of red, spewing from matching exit wounds in the back of some zombie’s head
01.04.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

We got tons of snow the last two days (and it’s not stopping), and that means I managed to talk Holly into killing Nazi-zombies with me for a little bit. She’s never willing to play because she “hates the stupid toggles” (she means analog sticks), but she was just bored enough the other day to try. She did pretty good for someone who has never played a first-person-shooter before. She still refuses to use her pistol and get points, but she’s evolving. Soon we’ll be pwn’n nubs together on the onlines. We can now get to level 11 or 12 on the easiest map, but she has yet to survive the zombie-dogs on my favourite map. I’m sure with more practice though, she’ll be as good or better than I am, and we’ll be singing Pack-A-Punch jingles together, while we splatter zombie guts all over each other.

I tried to get Holly to play Co-op Campaign on World at War, but it’s not a good game for seeing the enemies. You basically have to look for muzzle flare, and shoot dudes you can barely see 75% of the time (even without split screen it’s pretty tough to see dudes). I figured she needed more experience with the basic FPS controls, so I suggested we try Gages new Halo 3 ODST game. The enemies in Halo games are either bright colours or 10′ tall, or a combination of the two. We threw it in last night for about 30 minutes before deciding it was worse than Halo 3, and incredibly boring and frustrating. We gave up on Halo and agreed to never play it again.

I’m glad Holly was willing to try killing zombies with me, and even more glad she loves it. I like that she gets the adrenaline rush I get when she plays (maybe even more than I do – I never scream, ever). Hopefully it helps her understand why I have a hard time tearing myself away from games, and end up awake until 4am most nights.