Be the first to play Gears of War 2

I just saw this on IGN.com, thought I'd spread the word:

"Microsoft and Spike TV are looking for one Gear Head to be the first Regular Joe to play Gears of War 2. How do you get your name in the running? It's easy, really. All you need to do by Friday, September 19, 2008 at 5:00 PM Pacific Time is fill out this questionnaire and send it with a picture of yourself as well as a 150 word essay that speaks to why you should be among first to play Gears of War 2 to SpikeCasting@Spike.com.

Of course there are a few other catches that could stop you from making it to Sera. First, you must be 21 years old. Second, you have to be in the Los Angeles area for a three-day period either at the end of September or beginning of October. Other than that, everything else is pretty much run of the mill." -Nate Ahearn, IGN.com

Sounds pretty sweet. Good luck anyone who enters.

Spore for All

Spore finally came out. Probably the most anticipated PC game in recent times. There was so much hype built up during its development, I don't think it was even possible to live up to it. But nonetheless it didn't disappoint. I mean, who could turn down a game that pretty much makes you god for a couple hours a day.

Hmm... with that said, its not all happy-go-lucky. The game seems to be having a bit of a piracy problem, well actually, a lot of a piracy problem. According to Big Champagne, a peer-to-peer research firm, Spore has been illegally downloaded over 150,000 times in the first week alone. Okay, so it’s not uncommon for a game of this caliber to be massively pirated, but to reach six digit figures in such a short time frame is pretty much unheard of. And the piracy seems to be more than just a means for freeloaders to smooch off of. It's building up somewhat of a movement.

EA's infamous DRM copy protection (which has annoying constraints, like forcing you to have the disk in the drive while playing) has been under heavy criticism for some time. So I guess now the gamers have decided to fight back, sticking it to the man. So far they have a great start, we'll just have to wait and see where it goes from here. Me personally, I'm hoping it becomes the most pirated game of all time, just for the heck of it.

Marcus Fenix (Vector Speed Drawing)

This is the second in a series of vector drawings I'm gonna put out. First one was of Niko Bellic (GTA IV), you can check that out here. This time I decided to do Marcus Fenix from Gears of War 2. The games coming out November 7th, so I figured it was a good time to put the video up.

The illustration was done in Adobe Illustrator CS3. I used a program called Snag It to record the screen while I did it, then put it together in Adobe Premier CS3. I was having a bit of a debacle deciding what music to put in. I eventually decided to go with 'Jesse Cook - All that Remains'. I think it came out pretty cool.

Last time everyone was asking me to make the Niko Drawing into a t-shirt. Unfortunately, due to copyright, I can't do that. However, this time I decided to make it into a wallpaper, for your downloading pleasure. I just formatted it into the two resolutions listed below, I'm pretty sure thats what most people are using.


Download 1280x1024 | 1024x728

The Invasion

So its 1978, the most advanced piece of technology in your house is the toaster your mother bought from Wal Mart. The video game industry is unheard of and few dared to dream such an industry could even exist. But lucky for us, one of those few happened to be Tomohiro Nishikado, the man behind the Space Invaders!

The Space Invaders hit the scene in June 1978 and changed the fate of modern gaming as we knew it. Quickly becoming one of the most successful arcade shooting games, generating approximately $500 million in revenue. It has since become a permanent fixture in pop culture and the epitome of retro video gaming.

Its been 30 years since the original game came out. Since then, gazillions (yes gazillions!) of remakes have hit the market. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Space Invaders we're releasing a classic Space Invaders dedication t-shirt, featuring the aliens in all their pixelated glory.