Cool Comic Characters - Grendel: Devil's Legacy

Been a while since I did a cool comic book character plug and I thought it was time to introduce you to Christine Spar a.ka. Grendel of the year 2022.

As you can see by the picture we are not talking about the gross troll from Beowulf mythology but are refering to an iteration Matt Wagner's Grendel. Christine Spar was the grand daughter of the original Grendel, Hunter Rose. Although, saying Hunter Rose was the original really isn't that accurate as Wagner's Grendel stories aren't so much about a character but more about a possession. There are numerous iterations of Grendel and some occur decades prior to the Hunter Rose but he is still is the first Grendel penned. However. my first encounter with Grendel was Devil's Legacy which featured the Christine Spar Grendel. This was way back in the early 90s and I remember trying to read a few other Grendel story lines but none appealed to me as much as Devil's Legacy. Grendel tales tend to get very complex which I didn't like that much back in my University days. I do think I could appreciate them now and intend to pick up a couple Graphic Novels my next trip to the Comic Store and test that theory. Anyway back to Christine Spar.

The story is basically triggered when Christine's son is kidnapped and killed by a Vampire. She dresses in her grandfather's mask and costume looking for revenge but the more she wears it the more malvoilent she becomes and the possession alerts Rose's old nemisi Argent. Grendel tales are very noir and don't tend to have happy endings and this was my first exposure to that style of comic book. I must of liked it because I still remember it over 15 years later.

Vista SideBar

I thought I'd spend a few moments talking about my favorite sidebar gadgets in Windows Vista. For those of you not yet using this OS, and I know there are people who refuse to for some reason, the sidebar is literally a bar on the side of your monitor which allows to to mount some tools and gadgets. Here are my top 5:

1. The Slide Show: this little unit shuffles through the pictures you have stored on your computer and gives you an extra large thumbnail. It doesn't sound like much but it's amazing how often I see a picture come through that I haven't looked at in quite sometime and stop for a minute to view it. The gadget allows you to choose how many or how few pics it will shuffle through, allowing you to go to full screen simply by clicking it. Nice!
2. The Battery Monitor: There are many variations on this but I like this one best. Shows you a percentage and a graphic representation of how much power is remaining on your laptop. Clicking on it also opens up the Power options for your laptop, allowing you to adjust settings and either increase battery time or power, depending on your needs. Handy!
3. Binary Clock: No geek platform is complete without and actual honest to God Binary clock and I like this one. While it is not a true Binary representation, it's closer akin to BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) it is easier to read than true binary (ask me about writing a program to do this on Assembler sometime!). By the way, this clock is showing the time as 10:37 and 22 seconds.  Nerdy!
4. System Tools: I use this constantly. It comes in a couple of sizes but I like the complete set, it includes a few things that I never need but it is nice t have the Task Manager, Restart, Shutdown, and Sleep buttons on your desktop at all times; the command prompt is handy too, but I find with the UAC enabled anytime I go into command prompt I need elevated credentials so I end up going into the Program List anyway, still it is nice for things like ipconfig.
5. The CPU Monitor: No computer user should have to go another day without being able to instantly see what their current CPU and RAM usage are. Vista comes with it's own, but I prefer this one, it's a nice graphical representation with multi core capabilities. They come in many styles and types, but this is my favorite. If you click on it you get the task manager too, so you can see why you're computer is working so hard or where your RAM is being eaten. Techy!
   
   

   These are just a quick list of my favorites, there are a lot more of them here, so go check it out and find the ones that suit your needs. If you're good at scripting you can even create and submit your own, most of these tools are written by aspiring nerds who want to show off what they can do.
   

OMG Yes: Marvel vs Capcom 2 is coming this summer

I loved this game in the 90s, I mean I LOVED this game in the 90s. I plugged countless quarters into it and I shed a tear when arcades died knowing my beloved Marvel vs Capcom game was gone.

It was the perfect game combining two of my geeky loves comics and video games. Yes, there was a version for the original XBox, Dreamcast, and PS2 but it just didn't feel the same.


Anyway, if you're like me and have missed this game dearly you'll be happy to know that both XBox Live and whatever the PS3 equilivant happens to be is going to offer the best 2D fight game ever. This new release will take advantage of a true multiplayer environment and if done right may just be awesome. I for one will finally cough up the 100 bucks for a wireless XBox 360 thingy and spend many beautiful summer days in my basement kicking Capcom ass!

Free Online WoW Guides

I created a Death Knight in WoW (World of Warcraft) a week ago and while doing a little research on the class I stumpled across this web site.

http://www.wow-pro.com/

On this site they have an assortment of Leveling, Class, Gold Earning, etc ... guides, all for free! I tried the Death Knight level 55 to 61 guide and was pretty impressed. So impressed I just used the a big portion of that quest circuit to level up my Shaman to 60 (Death Knights seem to level a little faster than Shamans). I just started the Outland leveling guide and would give it a thumbs up so far. Plus, I also scanned the Shaman Class guide to improve my ability to deal out damage. All in all a pretty valuable site with some good references and did I mention it was free!

Typically I'm not a huge fan of guides : an RPG game should involve exploration and discovery. However, sometimes you just want to get your toon beefed up so you can joint the rest of your guild on high level raids and in that case these leveling guides are an awesome resource.

Talent Tree Skillz

Well thank you Blizzard. I've appreciated the opportunity to refine my WoW character Talent Tree but I think I got it know. You can quit resetting the talent points anytime.

Deadliest Warrior

Hopefully I won't end up plagiarizing this blog, but I have to comment on this show. My first exposure to it was the linked blog, something that left me wondering when I would get a chance to check this show out myself, and the chance finally came up last night.

I have to say that my first impressions were less than overwhelming, it kept me watching but I didn't think I would bother looking for it again. The show is basically Mythbusters with a focus on the human body. If you read the other blog then you already know the basics, two warriors from different times and cultures meet on the battlefield, who will win? The one I saw last night was Spartans vs Ninjas so I'll speak from that perspective.

They take a couple of experts in the respective fields of their chosen warriors and have them demonstrate the major weapons and tactics of these people, for the show I saw they had an ex Green Beret and a history expert and a Ninjitsu master and a martial arts expert, each demonstrating the weapons and explaining the tactics. The weapons are demonstrated on ballistics gel dummies and sometimes pig carcasses; the test subjects are rigged with sensors for measuring stress and then examined by a medical expert to judge damage delivered. The data collected is fed into an Excel spreadsheet and from there put into a program that is designed to measure combat, they were very mysterious on this part so there is little speculation I can offer on it.

Throughout this they had the respective experts arguing about who would win and this kind of bugged me; let them state an opinion and be on with it, I don't care about muscle flexing and rhetoric. You could see the obvious ploys on trying to lead you one direction to the next in who would win, again this bugged me, I make my own decision based on the facts, so just present them and let me think. As I said, I wasn't thrilled at this point, although I could at least get some interest out of watching the history lesson on Sparta. At the end they did a simulation of the battle, and this is where I decided I loved the show.

It was great; you just didn't know who was going to win, mainly because if it was done like they claimed it should have been a true re-enactment. From the first time I saw the show I figured the Spartan would win, but when they started going at it the Ninja held his own and I started wondering, it would only take one poison dart to end it all. It turned out that the Ninja could piss the Spartan off and hurt him a bit, but in the end he couldn't stand up to the power and brute force. The Spartan wacked him around a bit with his shield and then impaled him on his sword. Like I said, it was more exciting than watching a real fight; really helps you understand why the Roman Circus was so powerful, it's compelling to watch it play out.

Tomorrow night, Tuesday April 28th at 11:00pm central time baby, we find out who'll win a Knight or a Pirate.

My money's on the Knight.

Left 4 Dead Survival Pack

Well today was the big day, we got some new content for Left 4 Dead, consisting of expanded versus modes, all 4 campaigns are now playable in the versus mode, and a Survival Mode, consisting of a finale like level that never ends, you defend yourself until your dead. Right now I have to say I have mixed feelings about it.

Now I could care less about the versus mode, that's not my style of gameplay, to me gaming is about pitting myself against the computer, but I had hopes for the Survival portion, never ending swarms of zombies that come in closer and faster with more and more special infected until you're finally overwhelmed. Now I have to say, that's how it turns out, the problem is that the swarms come in too fast and the levels are absolutely polluted with special infected, on top of the overwhelming number of Tanks. I can't fault them for their style of gameplay and the way they executed this plan, I know a lot of planning and work was put into this, but it looks like this may be a bit more than I bargained for, I don't think it will appeal to the casual gamer.

I firmly believe there are some teams out there that couldn't imagine a better way to play the game but it's not how me and mine generally play, I mean at one point we had two tanks and a swarm of infected on the screen at the same time, on top of a Smoker and a couple of Hunters, that's a bit much. The levels play basically the same as regular gameplay, except since you're in a fortify scenario you have lots of goodies to help out, pipebombs, Molotovs, gas cans, and propane tanks, along with lots of health, pills, and weapons to help hold out, although they don't do much good when you barely have time to reload let alone apply a health pack or ammo up. Since this is a free download I would recommend anyone interested in the game to get it, however it might be more than you bargained for.

Speaking of free, that brings me to my last point.

How many times have I said Steve Jobs can suck my ass? I don't know either but enough that Bill Gates should appreciate my work. So imagine my surprise when I went to put the new content on my Xbox 360 and I am told that this is only available to Xbox Live Gold Members! What the Hell? I go to my PC and Steam didn't even ask if I wanted it they just pushed it out, thanks guys, I appreciate you doing me a solid. You know when something is supposed to be free it should be free, not qualify it with "It's free if you pay for our service!"; Kiss my ass Microsoft (I'd tell you to suck my ass, but that's still reserved for Steve Jobs). I don't want to be a part of your online community, I just want to be able to play my games and get access to patches and updates, I don't even care about my Silver Membership except you need at least that to access the Microsoft downloads.

Just so we are clear on this, Steam is giving you the Survival Pack for absolutely free with no strings attached, simply because you own the game, and Microsoft is only making it available to Gold Members. They say check back in a few days so see if the status has changes but that's BULLSHIT man, it's supposed to be FREE.

To wrap this up, if you can get the content for free get it and try it, you may like the challenging gameplay, but I personally wouldn't recommend paying anything for it, not even the price of an Xbox live membership; I'd still rather see some DLC with a couple of new maps.

I tell ya Bill, you keep this up and you're gonna have a reservation beside Stevie at the "Suck Rob's Ass" Festival!

Grand Torino

I'm a huge Clint Eastwood fan, I even watched "Every Which Way You Can" more than once.

Nobody and I mean nobody plays a tough sob like Clint Eastwood and combine that with his proven and solid directing ability I was pretty excited about this movie.

Although a good movie it was no Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, or Unforgiven. I only had two problems with the movie. One, it was pretty obvious that Bee Vang and Ahney Her had no real past acting experience. Ahney might have some potential but I might just think that because I have a soft spot for the asian ladies. Two, the story itself didn't blow me away. It kinda reminded me of "The Karate Kid" with out any karate and a bitter old tough vet as Mr Miyagi. I don't draw this comparison as a negative because The Karate Kid was a good movie (for the 80s) and I can't think of one elementary school friend who never spent hours trying to perfect the Crane Kick. However, I regress and back to the point. Like "The Karate Kid", "Grand Torino" features an older man taking an interest in a directionless kid and then helps them become a stronger/better person definitely not an original concept.

I did like Clint's Walt character. Walt embodies the values and attitudes of my own fathers generation. In the movie you shake your head at that racist comments and out of date attitudes but you also admire to simple values, values that my dad tried to instill in me but I've let slip. It might sound stupid but I walked out of that movie thinking I need to make some changes and realign some priorities. In fact, I think every yuppie metro-sexual male needs to see this movie and let Walt's example man them up.

Star Trek Marathon

Starting on April 26 Space will be running all the Star Trek Movies, one each night for ten consecutive nights, essentially serving as a lead up to the new Star Trek movie, one that I am very much looking forward to seeing.

So, the question is, which nights are worth watching, well that's what I'm going to tell you right now, so lets begin, with Robs quick and dirty Star Trek Movie Recommendations:

1. Star Trek The Motion Picture: an excellent story with some decent effects, considering it's a product of the 70's. The problem with this movie is it's a bit long, I don't have a problem watching it for the full three hours, but I can understand why many people wouldn't. I Recommend this one
   
2. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan: arguably the best movie of the series. Chekov gets a space bug in his brain, the entire crew of the USS Reliant gets butchered, Kirstie Alley as a Vulcan, and Kirk outsmarts a genetically engineered genius. Synopsis, good plot and great space battles. Highly recommended!
   
3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: If you've got something better to do this night I'd recommend doing that instead. They couldn't even get Kirstie Alley back as Saavik so why include her character? The battles are decent and the story is ok, but it just never got off the ground as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't bother watching it.
   
4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: This is decent, Spock learns how to swear, Scotty can't use a computer, and where else at the height of the cold war do you find a Russian walking the streets of San Francisco asking "Where are the nuclear wessels?". Recommended.
   
5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: I liked this one too, even though the plot was weak. I mean come on, using a space ship to go visit god? Still I like how they made this one, and for the first time you see evidence of a toilet in Star Trek. I don't care what anyone says, I like William Shatner, as an actor, a writer and a director. Recommended.
   
6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Good God, you must have something better to do than watch this piece of crap. I actually had trouble sitting through the whole thing. Seriously, they should have stopped these at five like the planned, the chemistry is gone between the characters, and an Enterprise without Sulu at the helm? What up with that? Take a nap instead.
   
7. Star Trek: Generations: Only if you liked The Next Generation. I didn't mind this movie but then I'm a cross functional trek fan, I can see the beauty in all things Trek. If you found TNG boring an monotonous you won't be inclined to this one, it was essentially a 2 hour episode. Cautiously recommended.
   
8. Star Trek: First Contact: If you're only going to watch one of them make it this one. Again, arguably the best of the series, on par with Khan. Time travel and the Borg, great combo. I never liked Jonathon Frakes as an actor but he proves he can be a good director, really delivered with this one, a first rate scifi action movie. Highly recommended!
   
9. Star Trek Insurrection: I'd tell you to go take another nap during this one, but, if you have trouble sleeping, you should watch this one. Again a decent plot but the story never picks you up, plus, putting Riker in command of the Enterprise for a space battle? No way man, he couldn't phaser his way out of a paper bag; after seeing First Contact it's hard to believe he directed this one too. See what else is on that night.
   
10. Star Trek Nemesis: Again a good plot and some decent action but it just gets so boring in places. In my opinion the biggest flaw of this movie happens in the first ten minutes, at the wedding of Riker and Troi; why would Wesley Crusher be at the banquet, he disappeared into the next level of human evolution during the last season of TNG alongside the Traveler, he wouldn't come back to sip champagne at a wedding. Ruined the rest of the movie, rat bastards. Watch it you want to see Data die, and by the way the song Riker references about Data at the end of the movie is "Pop Goes the Weasel" (dumbass). Watch it only for the sake of completion. Not recommended.
    

     
     

     
     

Ultimate WoW Tank

Typically most of my World of Warcraft play is focused on leveling my Draenei Shaman so I can actually join my guild on raids. I have become quite fond of my blue Shaman but I kind of wish I had made my main toon a Draenei Paladin.

I have a Blood Elf Paladin alt that is a load of fun to play except I don't really like playing horde. I prefer alliance, mainly because most people who play alliance are older players like myself. Still that Paladin can do and take some damage and the only time I die is a result of being sloppy due to overconfidence.

Having spent a significant amount of time playing the two characters I am coming to the conclusion that a Draenei Paladin would be a force to contend with and could very well be the ultimate raid tank. For those of you who don't play WoW a tank is they player that goes out and draws all the enemies shielding the rest of the team so they can focus on dealing out damage instead of surviving. Paladins are known for being able to absorb punishment like a sponge and have healing abilities to build up health as it is taken down. In fact the few times my Paladin dies is simply because he ran out of mana and couldn't heal myself. Now the Draenei race have descent strength, stamina, and intellect stats right out of the gate, combine that with some natural Shadow Resistance, and an additional mana free healing ability the 'Gift of Naaru' the Drainei Paladin would be very very hard to take down.

Thank You Microsoft

Keeping pretty busy these days so I don't have a lot of time for a post, but I wanted to make sure I got something up here.

Over the last few months I have been working on a project with a friend and one of the first obstacles we faced was how to share files back and forth; it's easy enough when we're together but when you go home it's a different story.  Sure you can email stuff back and forth, but believe it or not some people actually step away from computers from time to time, making them inaccessable by email.  Well it was Microsoft to the rescue with Skydrive.

Check it out, it's actually pretty cool.  They give you 25 GB of online storage for pretty much any files you want to put up there, and the only requirement is an MSN membership.  Long story short if you have MSN messenger or a hotmail address you already have everything you need to utilize this feature; and this one, unlike the Google version, doesn't care what files you put up there, if you can put it on a computer you can upload it and share it. 

OK it's not perfect, the upload takes forever, but it does eventually get up there.  Reference, a 10 MB file takes up to five minutes to upload, but thats really the only downside.

Thanks Bill Gates, there are a lot of people who may not like you but at least you're not Steve Jobs.

Billy Bob Thorton = Dumbass

You know I always figured this man was a bit of an ass but I didn't think he was this much of a dumbass.

http://tinyurl.com/cynhz2

Billy I've thought all of your movies sucked (well Sling Blade didn't suck but it's the only one), your music sucks, and it looks like your personality sucks. Jeeze your on a role.

Wolfenstein

 
 

I thought today I would talk a little about an old game that I feel has been underappreciated and generally not given the credit that it deserves in video game history, Wolfenstein. Dating all the way back to the early 80's this is the game that actually allowed Doom to become the iconic symbol of gaming that we know today, that's right, this was the original FPS.

Over the years there have been many versions of Wolfenstein , properly pronounced "Volfenshtien", you gotta love the German accent, and I can't think of any other franchise that over its lifetime has given us the chance to shoot both the undead AND Hitler. Although I had dabbled with the earlier versions, mainly Wolfenstein 3-D, I wasn't a major fan; it was ok, but nothing earth shattering, and this was coming from a WWII history buff and a gamer. So when Return to Castle Wolfenstien was released for the Xbox in 2003 I didn't run right out to get a copy, I instead waited a few months before giving it a try ( for me that's an amazing amount of restraint, it really shows how little I cared about this game). I honestly didn't know what to expect with this one, I figured the best I would see would be a reprint of the original, but I was surprised to find a really solid fully updated FPS. The game started off low key, taking you through a Nazi occupied town in North Africa, leading you to some unearthed tombs where not only did you find more Nazis, but several different types of undead; at the end of this you get shipped off to the infamous castle itself where the game really got started. I won't go into a full review but I will say that it was an enjoyable game, well worth a play, lots of weapons, a good mix of enemies, some good scenery for the game, and a decent story to it. The good news is that we're getting another release in a couple of months.

Currently slated for a release in June of 2009 I'm looking forward to this one. Simply titled Wolfenstein the game appears to be delivering the same style of gameplay, a WWII FPS shooter that should deliver some interesting scenarios. New and innovative? Not really. Lots of guns and reasons to shoot people? Definitely, and what more do you want? I'll let this trailer speak for itself; if after watching that you don't want to play this game then I don't know what to say to you, as a matter of fact that may make me lose all faith in the human race.

Finally, what's the only thing missing from this magical franchise is a movie. Well you know what, we're getting one of those too, Return to Castle Wolfenstien. And the best news of all? It doesn't say one word about Ewe Boll getting the rights to this one, thank god. I generally leave the movie stuff to Darcy, and he actually did talk about this, but I have to say I actually get a little physically sick when I think about In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. God help me I used to like Ray Liotta, then again, if there is a God we'll be saved from more of that. Please let there be a God, any God at all!

More isn't Better DC Comics

The other day I was in the local comic book store and noticed there was a new Flash Comic out. I always liked the Wally West Flash so grabbed it thinking he got a new series. Well nooo this is about Barry Allen who returned to life or escaped the "Speed Force" in DCs last Crisis series, Final Crisis. So now we 4 flashes running around and I personally have no clue what the hell is going on.

Flash #1: Jeff Garrik who use to be in an alternate earth but is now on ours (this happened in one of the other Crisis series but I don't remember how)

Flash #2: Barry Allen, the Silver Age flash and probably the most well known flash. This guy apparently died in Crisis of Infinite Earths but was really just trapped in the Speed Force thing but just escaped so guess what he's back.

Flash #3: Wally West, use to be Kid Flash but become the Flash after Barry Allen died.

Flash #4: Bart Allen, who is apparently related to Barry Allen but from the future or something stupid like that.

The whole rational behind Crisis on Infinite Earths was to clean up the complexity in the DC universe and restore some manageable sense on continuity. This was a necessary and good thing as concept of all these parallel earths with slightly different versions of the same heroes was dumb. However, compared to what they have now it was clean and logical. Crisis on Infinite Earths sold very well so they had to have more Crisis crossovers and more Crisis Crossovers till you have a completely messed up earth with 4 flashes and I don't even know how many Supermen. DC has officially lost me as a reader, Batman RIP disenchanted me and now the results of Final Crisis have just pissed me off.

Of course I still haven't forgiven them for making my favorite hero at the time, Hawk (Hank Hall) the Monarch.

More Left 4 Dead Stuff

So, keeping in line with Darcy's last post, I thought I'd share a couple of things about this great game (I hate Boomers too).

First, I love this video about Francis, sums up his contribution to the game perfectly. All the characters in the game have great personalities, but Francis is worth a special mention; he's miserable and complains about everything, plus, his back and forth with Bill is usually worth a good laugh. When I play I generally go as Bill, never fails to amaze me how, no matter what happens, Bill never drops his cigarette, and I've seen him get hit with a car (not "by a car", "with a car").

 

Only other thing I'm going to add here today is a little tidbit I recently picked up during my online searches. We are going to be getting some new content for the game released on April 21, this is taken directly from www.left4dead411.com:

The free Survival Pack adds the new Survival game mode, where players are given time to dig in before fending off unceasing zombie hordes in an attempt to survive as long as possible. Survival Mode is played on 12 new maps--11 being sections of existing levels and 1 created especially for Survival Mode, Lighthouse.

The Survival Pack also brings Versus mode to the final two co-op campaigns, Dead Air and Death Toll. This release coincides with the release of Left 4 Dead: Critics Choice Edition, which contains the original game plus the Survival Pack. 

As stated in the first line, this is going to be free for everyone who already owns the game, I hate having to pay for DLC. I'm really looking forward to the survival mode, but I am a little disappointed that we're not getting any new scenarios, especially considering this video depicting a level matching the mall in Dawn of the Dead. How cool would that be?

Boomer!!!!!

I played some Left 4 Dead with my buddy Rob this weekend. He already reviewed it so I'm not going there but someone explain to me how this monstrosity keeps sneaking up on me.

Really he makes loud disgusting noises, one can hear for at least 5 minutes before he appears out of no where so you know he's coming, and he's at least 400 pounds so should be easy to spot. Yet the stupid zombie boss known as a Boomer consistently barfs or explodes all over my toon, usually Francis, blinding me and making me the primary target for the zombie horde. I hate you Boomer!

LCARS Interface Screen Saver

If you know what the title of this blog means then you're probably already getting excited, although, to be fair, if you already know what it means you've probably already got it; for the rest of you, here's what LCARS is. Having said that lets get to the meat of today's topic, a really cool screen saver.

Sometime early last year I downloaded a copy of a program from a torrent site simply because the title intrigued me, Star Trek Screensaver. I thought it was going to be some sort of a slideshow featuring pictures from the series or at best some star ship designs; I figured I'd check it out, maybe get a new background for my desktop. Anyway about five minutes later the download finished, I ran the exe and was presented with a GUI straight out of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The screensaver doesn't run for long, maybe five minutes before looping back to the start, but while it runs it shows you detailed information about star charts, some Enterprise E schematics, and a bit of technical data. One feature I really like is the fact that if you run dual monitors you get a different display on each monitor, not just the same thing mirrored, but two different sections of the program run. On top of that it actually has a really good chart of the galaxy giving you the locations of all the different powers in the galaxy, the Borg, the Romulans, the Klingons, etc. One more thing, it comes complete with Star Trek sound effects, makes it sound like you're sitting on the bridge of a Sovereign class starship, that's right, I know my Star Trek, almost as well as my Star Wars.

I use this on all of my computers, after a year I still haven't gotten bored with it. As I said in the beginning I got it from a torrent site, but after a little research I found that it's a freely available program for use by anyone. It works on both Vista and XP PC's and even comes with a Mac version for all you people who like having Steve Jobs tell you how to live your life. Oh, one last thing, you can get the program here.

Leisure Suit Larry

Ah, so many wasted hours on these games, trying to figure out the right sequence of events to get that poorly pixilated loser laid, but to be fair if I hadn't wasted my time on this I would have found something at least as dumb to waste it on (and, judging from past experience, probably even dumber). So you're asking yourself, what brought up this bout of video game nostalgia? The fact that the franchise is still alive and kicking.

The newest member of the Leisure Suit family was released yesterday. In case you haven't been following such things the franchise was first introduced in 1987 and carried through into the mid nineties, after which things kind of dropped off. Then in 2004 the first console version of the game was released, Magna Cum Laude; five years later we have Box Office Bust and from what I can tell the franchise has gone completely bust.

I haven't had a chance to play Box Office Bust yet but the reviews I'm seeing aren't positive, and to be honest this is what I was expecting. It was stated from the early stages of development that they were going to take a deviation from Magna Cum Laude, citing poor customer response. Well I don't know what those customers were thinking because I loved the game.

Which brings us to the real point today. Being that the Magna Cum Laude was cross-platformed I figured I'd try it on the Xbox but actually ended up playing it on the PC; I could claim it's because I wanted to maintain the PC legacy for this game, but it's actually because I managed to get a no-censor crack and therefore got all the nudity opened up. Ah, animated boobies, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I can't say I was enthralled with the game from the start but it did have a compelling story line, seeing more boobies, so I stuck with it. The game is actually classed as an adventure style but it really boils down to minigames, some of them make you money, some of them give you confidence, and some of the actually work to getting you laid. You play the original Larry's nephew, Larry, who is trying to get onto a dating gameshow, and in order to do so he must seduce a series of girls, each more difficult than the last, and produce trophy's to validate Larry's ability to play the show. Essentially simple and the games aren't backbreakingly difficult, but that's what I liked about it, it appealed to the casual gamer in me. I could get in and play a few minigames and then walk away, rarely getting frustrated over not being able to get past a certain point. Plus it kept me coming back because I wanted to see the next girl, for instance Bilzarbra: 

I'll try and provide a full review of Box Office Bust but in the meantime I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking to kill a few hours, although it's more rewarding if you don't have to worry about the censorship.