Tag Archives: Spiderman

One month later…

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Yeah, it’s been about a month since my last post and the reason that it’s been forever since a post is because I had some major changes in my life.  Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.  I found my self looking for some new experiences on the job front and a few friends of mine that work downtown had the best opportunity for me.  As of the end of September I am now a Senior Functional Analyst working for, yet another, agency in lovely downtown DC. I am in charge of designing, building, and maintaining a lab environment for a number of different applications.  It’s a huge responsibility and a big advancement for my career.  It’s also an ass load of more work and because of it my free time has started to dwindle.  I am really hoping to continue posting, but it may not be once a week like I had been trying to do before.

So to catch you up on some of the various gadgets and games in the life of Steve, a number of games have hit my shelves in the last month. Shortly after DragonCon an eagerly anticipated game was released.  Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions!  I am a huge Spidey fan so this was a must for me.  I hope to write up a full review on it soon (even though I know it’s kind of late for it).  I also picked up Halo Reach.  Believe it or not, I have not yet finished the campaign!  I have been playing co-op with my friend Lee and haven’t wanted to spoil it.  Lastly, just today I downloaded Comic Jumper from the XBLA.

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For gadgets I have only one real big toy purchase but it’s something that has been a long time coming.  I picked up a Nikon D3000 DSLR camera.  Many many years ago I used to be rally into photography.  I was the primary photographer for my school newspaper and yearbook, and that was back before digital!  I have always loved photography and have been yearning to get a decent SLR.  The D3000 is purely an entry level DSLR camera and that works fine for me.  Since it’s been a good 20 years since I did any work with F-stops and aperture I am just fine with having the camera hold my hand a little.  I am very very pleased with it and have been having a blast taking pictures of damn near everything.  It even got me to update my gallery linked here on the site (over there in the right hand side of the screen).

So until next time….

Post Con Report

Well, I am back from DragonCon and getting back into the swing of things.  The Con was great but I didn’t do some of the more Blog type stuff that I had wanted to.  That’s not to say that I didn’t do more than enough to cover the whole con but I had planned on getting an interview about games with a few of the the folks there, and there just wasn’t time.  The biggest takeaway is of course that there were a bazillion people there!  Ok, not really, but there were certainly more people than I had ever seen before at a Con.  One thing that kind of bugged me a bit was the in-accessibility of some of the stars.  Now, don’t read that the wrong way, I am certainly not expecting some big name stars to be at our beck and call, but when I read that certain names are on the guest list, only to find out that they are only doing limited appearances, ala, 1 panel, maybe a private autograph session, it’s a little sad.  I had really wanted to meet Paul Dini, but when I went to the Artist’s area he was nowhere to be found.  Apparently the Info desk there was well versed in the answer to “Where’s Paul Dini?”  From what we learned, Paul was only doing a few panels and had no table.

Such was also the case with one of my Favorite Mythbusters!  Adam Savage was at the con but only did limited Autograph sessions (and with so many people there, the lines were impossible) and even my favorite part of any Savage sighting is the #adamincognito game he plays.  Adam is an avid costumer so DragonCon is a great place for him.  He will sometimes dress up in Costume and encourage people to find him.  Unfortunately, the con was 5 hotels large with between 30-50,000 people there.  With no location tweeted it was nigh on impossible to change encounter him.  For this one though I blame the lack of Signal that happens when you get that many people in a small area all with smart phones.

(Deep Breath) Ok, now that all my bitching and moaning is over.  What I did get to do at the con was great.  Sarah and I took about 6 costumes each and got to wear most all of them.  I got to meet a lot of the stars I planned on seeing, and of course the visiting with friends and drinking.  All in all, a great con.  Pictures can be found in my gallery.

Now, to get back into my rigorous gaming habit!  Reach comes out next week so I have only a few more days to finish up with Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions.  All I can say so far is that it’s apparent that there will never be a Spider-Man game where the camera isn’t completely hosed while wall crawling.

E3 Week and Kinect

So this is the start of E3 week and the big news so far is the new Kinect controller, or the Controller formerly known as Natal. We all knew it was coming and now it’s hear. The pictures so far look great. I am not too sure about the list of games though. According to USA Today the release list of games at launch will include:

Kinectimals lets you train and play with 20 different virtual cats, including a lion, cheetah and tiger.

Joyride, a racing game, lets players use their hands to hold an imaginary steering wheel — pull your hands toward you and push back out for an acceleration boost — and their bodies to execute jumps and tricks.

•Kinect Sports has six activities including boxing, bowling, beach volleyball, track and field, soccer and table tennis. To serve a volleyball, you mimic the real motion; in soccer, you can kick the ball or do a header.

Kinect Adventures includes a river-raft time trial and obstacle course, playable by up to four players. On the raft, playing as a duo, you and a partner must lean one way or another to steer. Jumping helps the raft reach special areas for extra points.

Dance Central, in development by MTV Games, incorporates immersive, full-body dancing without the need for a controller.

•Star Wars characters and iconic Disney favorites will be featured in separate new games being developed at Microsoft in conjunction with LucasArts and Disney.

In other E3 news, some new game trailers have been released for a few games I am really looking forward to seeing.

The Force Unleashed II:

Rock Band 3:

Spiderman Shattered Dimensions:

Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun week!