TELETUBBY ZOMBIES: MOST DISTURBING L4D MOD

Did you watch the Teletubbies growing up? Or were you like me and you were already an adult when this show first aired? If an adult already, did you watch this show in horror, not understanding how anyone else could watch this and not get creeped out? What was up with all the bouncing anyway? Some things I just won’t understand.

If you were like me and did indeed get creeped out, do not play the video above. It could give you nightmares, or at the very least, bring back bad memories you thought you had once forgotten. You see, someone decided it would be a good idea to add Teletubby Zombies to the game Left 4 Dead. As if the bloody undead and screaming witches clawing at your face wasn’t enough, now you have to deal with colorfully bouncing demons from the depths of hell. Watch at your own risk. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

NEW APB TRAILER: START A WAR

Say what you will about Crackdown, that game was damn fun! I just wish Realtime Worlds developed the game deeper than they did. There was so much they could have done with DLC, but all they gave the fans were a few new vehicles and called it a day. With so much space in this city, why not give us a flying vehicle of some sort at least? I still don’t get that.

Anyway, All Points Bulletin may be the game I’ve been waiting for. Basically, it looks like Crackdown on steroids. Which is obviously a good thing. I like how they are taking ideas from other open world games and implementing them into APB. Like the deep character customization of Saints Row 2. I thought that was one of their best features, and Realtime Worlds is taking that idea and developing it further. Create your own characters, your own gang, your own war. All online, with hundreds of other players. Play as the criminals, or play the good guys trying to stop the criminals. Me likey!

Looks like it’s only for the PC for now though. If you’re interested, try signing up for their beta testing.

SHORT FILM: SUPER BAOZI vs SUSHI MAN

I have been on a road trip for the last week so my posts have been lacking. 3700 miles of driving is pretty brutal but if you get a chance to ever do something like this, I highly recommend it. Driving through 8 states in 8 days, some I have never seen before, nor do I care to see again. (Wyoming, I’m looking in your direction) In general though, seeing parts of the country never seen before was quite an experience. Now I’m hoping I can get back into the swing of things and we’ll start off with a funny short film I found on 3DM3.com. Hope you enjoy! Go check out the site as there are some other short films worth watching.

Short film: Swing
Short film: Dragon Fist

TOP 8 REASONS TO USE GLYDE.COM TO BUY & SELL USED GAMES

Referring back to an article on Glyde.com I wrote in March, I’d like to update you on my experience with this website and how it has been successful for me, and more importantly, how it can be successful for you. Since March, I have seen this site grow significantly from the alpha stage to beta stage. Glyde went from about a dozen Xbox 360 games when I first tested this site out, to over 170 Xbox 360 games currently listed for sale by other gamers. No doubt their used game inventory will expand even further for all consoles, including the PS3, Wii and even hand held games for the PSP and DS

I want to share with you my personal experience using Glyde, but first, here is a list of reasons to use Glyde.com to buy and sell used games. If this list doesn’t convince you to use Glyde, maybe my story below will. This list is in no particular order.

1. It’s not GameStop! No more accepting incredibly low trade-in credit and then seeing that same game for sale on the shelf for twice the amount they paid you for it.

2. You are selling your game directly to fellow gamers, much like yourself. No corporate markups here. Glyde charges a 10% fee from your sale and a small shipping cost for the mailer they send you to ship out to the buyer, which is totally worth it.

3. No need to use Craigslist or similar sites anymore to schedule a ‘meetup’ in order to sell your game to a random stranger at some random public parking lot. Why go through the hassle? Why bother taking and editing photos of your game for your ‘for sale’ ad? Glyde does it for you.

4. Get more value out of your used games. You can choose to sell your game at the market price Glyde recommends, or change the amount you want to charge for it. You are in control.

5. Find games at a lower cost than retail chain stores. Again, you’re buying and selling gamer to gamer. No “middle man” markup for corporate profits. There are many deals to be found.

6. Have your profits mailed to you by check, have your profits directly deposited into your bank account, or just use the credit to buy other games listed for sale, from other Glyde users.

7. No up-front fees to use Glyde. It’s free to sign up so if you have some games in your collection collecting dust, why not list them for sale and give gamers a chance to play a game you obviously aren’t going to play ever again?

8. Customer service, customer service, customer service. There are some really cool guys I have communicated with over at Glyde. Feel free to send them an email with any comments, complaints or suggestions on improving their site. They will listen to you! (Unlike the guy behind the GameStop counter who chooses to answer the phone over and over again instead of dealing with the line of customers in front of him.)

Now onto the actual numbers. You’re asking yourself, “is this worth it? I need to see actual examples from a Glyde user”, right? If the list above did not convince you, here are the games I have sold on Glyde and my overall profits from each sale. Every game I have listed on Glyde.com, I have sold. Some took a few months in the beginning, some took a few weeks, some have only taken a couple of days. Either way, I found that this site works for me. I don’t get that guilty feeling you get when trading in your games. You know that feeling I’m talking about. It’s like, only $5 credit for this game? Man! Well, alright.. it’s $5 off the new game I really want. I’ll save money whenever I can. And so you do it anyway. I say, no more my friends.

Left 4 Dead: Sold for $25.50. After the 10% fee of $2.55 and the $1.25 mailer, my profit was $21.70. I originally bought the game for $50 so I almost got half of my money back.

F.E.A.R. 2: Sold for $10.00. After the 10% fee of $1.00 and the $1.25 mailer, my profit was $7.75. Don’t know if this was a good deal or not, but the game wasn’t in demand like L4D was, so I took what I could get.

Fallout 3: Sold for $20.25. After the 10% fee of $2.02 and the $1.25 mailer, my profit was $16.98. I was done with the game and never wanted to play it again. I think someone got a good deal on this one and I was happy to sell it to them.

Mario Kart Wii: Sold for $35.00. After the 10% fee of $3.50 and the $1.75 mailer (bigger package due to inclusion of the Wii wheel= more cost for mailer), my profit was $29.75. Not a bad deal as I was able to take that money and put it towards Wii Sports Resort instead, which is getting more playtime than Mario Kart did.

Call of Duty 4: Sold for $23.75. After the 10% fee of $2.37 and the $1.25 mailer, my profit was $20.13. This was the last game I sold, and that was just this week. Why keep COD4 around when Modern Warfare 2 is right around the corner? Once a sequel comes out, I’m the type of gamer that does not go back to the game before. It’s time to move on.

Finally, the one game I have purchased on Glyde surprisingly made me money. Here is how:

I purchased Assassin’s Creed during a Glyde promotion for $17.56 including shipping costs. (Buyer pays shipping) At the time Glyde was offering a $10 credit when purchasing games, so in the end, I only paid $7.56 for Assassin’s Creed, and sure enough, a $10 credit was deposited into my Glyde account. Played the game, enjoyed it, and then decided to re-sell the same game on Glyde for more than I originally paid for it.

Re-sold Assassin’s Creed for $16.00 and after the 10% fee of $1.60 and the $1.25 mailer, my profit was $13.15. So in the end, due to Glyde’s promotion, I ended up getting paid more than $5 to play an awesome next gen game. And the cool thing about Glyde is, they do these kinds of promotions all the time. Take advantage while you can! Follow them on Facebook. Follow them on Twitter. Oh hell, while you’re at it, follow me on Twitter as well. Glyde.com is still a new site so they want your business, but they won’t be making money, if you’re not making money first. It’s a win-win situation if you ask me.

I encourage you to at least try Glyde out to see if it works for you. It has for me and I will continue to use it when selling my used games. The only negative I can see someone arguing is the amount of time it takes for a buyer to receive their game. (Glyde sends the seller the mailer which takes a couple of days, then the seller sends the game to the buyer, which takes a couple of more depending on when the seller drops it off) But you’re most likely getting a good deal so patience will go a long way. Besides that, Glyde is also a great place to find used DVD’s, CD’s and even books. What’s a book you ask? I don’t know, but you can buy and sell them too. Check the site out for yourself, it’s most definitely worthy of your time.

Visit Glyde.com now and test it out

BRAZIL UPS ITS GAME: VAGALUME ANIMATION STUDIOS DEMO REEL IMPRESSES

3 Years after their first demo reel was released, Vagalume Animation Studios has released a new reel that clearly demonstrates they are masters of their art. I don’t know what it is about demo reels in general, but I love watching them. Well, at least the good ones like the one above. The bad ones? Not so much. But still, whether good or bad, you can learn from both. What to do in your reel, and what not to do. Vagalume, you’re doing it right.

Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to feature student demo reels on my site in order to help promote them and hopefully get them hired someday. Why do that when I am still trying to promote myself in order to get hired? Because I am a good guy and that’s just how I roll. If I can help a struggling game art student by posting their character, environment, animation of VFX reel on my site to help spread their work on the web, I’ll do that. Sounds like a plan to me, I need to get the ball rolling on that.

If you’re interested, please email me or send me a message on Twitter. This is for a blog post in the future, so I’ll start mentioning it now as I prepare this student demo reel article. I’ll post more updates about this as the time gets closer, maybe even a forum post on Polycount.

For now, it’s a 1 week road trip for me! See ya So Cal!

NEW RATCHET & CLANK GAMEPLAY: LOOKS LIKE A MUST BUY FOR PS3 OWNERS

I know, I know.. I still need to get a PS3 already. The price went down a $100, I said I would go out and buy one when it did, and I still plan on doing that. Please be patient with me. I takes me some time to go out and spend $400. It’s got to be a spontaneous moment though. Trust me, it’s hard to wait for the right timing to go and do this when I have games like Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time staring at me.. nudging me, poking me saying, “you’re missing out here bud, buy a PS3 already or else you won’t be able to play this!” I get it Ratchet, just shut your cake hole already, alright? Sheesh. I have to hear it from you and from that dude Nathan Drake from Uncharted 2. I know I am missing out on some PS3 goodness and you know what? It’s about time that I am. Sony stepped up their game, and I’m taking notice.

Until then, enjoy this new Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time gameplay footage along with me.

CHRISTIAN BALE RANT INSPIRED PROMO FOR NEW BORDERLANDS DEV DOC

This Wall-E look-a-like robot, Claptrap from Borderlands, takes us behind the scenes of Gearbox Software’s new game in a hilarious web series. I am really liking where developers are going with their promo’s recently. With Comic Jumper just a couple of days ago giving me a laugh and now this? This is what helps sell your game. For me, humor is golden. Make me laugh, and I will buy your game, assuming there will be more laughs to come. Make me cry? Well, that’s not something I anticipate doing anytime soon in a video game. For now, let’s stick with the laughing as a lot of us could use a bit more of that in our lives.

Thanks Gearbox Software. You have taken a route in your Borderlands promotion that I believe will be more successful than just showing off the action, the amount of weapons, and the generic commercials we see with typical games. I am starting to believe Borderlands will not be that typical game we have become so used to. Pre-order is in order? I think so.

WELCOME BACK SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

I still remember waking up that one Christmas morning when I was a young boy, and all I heard from the family room was the sweet sound of, SEEGGGAAA. And that was it. That was my entire Christmas in that one sound that soon led me to days and days of Sonic the Hedgehog memories. What an awesome game Sega made. Don’t you think?

It seems a lot of people thought so. But then Sega created a new Sonic in 3D and all went to hell. It actually seemed like a good deal at the time, now that I think about it. Everything is better in 3D right? Wrong. I tried to like the new Sonic, but it just wasn’t the same in 3D. Sega needed to bring back the old and mix in a bit of new but.. like so many fans have demanded, keep it true to the original 2D Sonic.

Well guess what?

Sega actually listened. Here it is, proof that the great Sonic we remember so much and loved is coming back. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this will be the Sonic of old we have been waiting for. Oh, and that they leave Tails out of it. Stupid Tails.

TWISTED PIXEL: THE COMIC JUMPER TRAILER MAKES MY DAY, POSSIBLY MY ENTIRE WEEK

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is the type of game I can get into. When you have developers making a game they have always wanted to make, you know you’re in for a treat. This hilarious trailer full of the sense of humor I truly enjoy is just that game for developers, Twisted Pixel. Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley has been revealed and I ask, “where have you been all my life?”

In the trailer, we don’t really get any impression on what the gameplay will be like. But if the name itself is any clue, it will be a lot like a game I played on SEGA, way back in the day. (Which was a Wednesday) I was so frustrated because I couldn’t remember the name of this game where I jumped from one page in the comic to another. I wanted to write about it six months ago but the name just didn’t come to me. Now that this Comic Jumper trailer came out, I found out the name of this awesome game which may give us some insight on how the Comic Jumper gameplay will be. Any of you ever play Comix Zone? Check out the video below and we may have a better idea on how this game will play out. Obviously updated with better graphics and most definitely not a 2D side scroller but we’ll see. All I know is, I am so stoked to play this game!

What say you?

TRAIN2GAME: REALIZE YOUR GAME DESIGN DREAM

(Currently, Train2Game is for U.K. based residents only. The courses might be offered in other countries when it becomes more popular.)

So many schools, so little time and money to actually attend them. Am I right? Wouldn’t it be nice to learn more about game design from the comfort of your own home? Some schools offer this ‘at home’ advantage, but I am primarily speaking about the game design schools in the states. So what if you’re in the U.K.? What do you do? Where do you go? Well, Train2Game has the answer. A quick look at the video above gives you a lot of the information you need to know and I can only hope that they, or companies similar to Train2Game, will offer programs like this in the future for those of us in the U.S.

Train2Game offers courses in Game Design as well as Game Development. So what does a Game Designer do exactly? Train2Game has an excellent explanation:

“The game designer is the person responsible for creating the background story, the game mechanics and the whole look and feel of the game, as well as all the game levels design, characters and setting the game difficulty.

The game designer’s main role is not only to write all there is to know about the game but also to describe the game to other members of the production team so that the finished product is as similar as it can be to the designer’s original vision.

Therefore the game designer’s main skills are those of communication.”

Train2Game believes that most game schools which offer a game design education, aren’t quite preparing students enough to enter the workforce after graduating. I happen to agree with this assessment. Schools are doing a good job of introducing game development software and teaching the core basics, but lack in the ability to fundamentally prepare young minds with the reality of a game studio. With the actual workflow of creating a game. And this is where Train2Game wants to shine. They want you to know how to make a game, in a game studio type environment, before you actually get hired at a game studio. Makes sense, doesn’t it? And for the most part, there are some schools that try to accomplish this. Again, I am only speaking about my knowledge of schools in the states.
Here are Train2Game’s core objectives:

• To teach you current game design processes using bespoke industry relevant software applications
• To provide a solid grounding in the world of games design such that you are ready to move into industry and become a Games Designer
• To assist you in the production of your project portfolio and game design projects
• To help immerse you in the games industry network through understanding industry terminology and through Train2Games extensive Industry relationships
• To help enrich your knowledge with technical and theoretical lectures from Key industry professionals
• To Introduce you to the work flow of the games development process
• To help prepare you for working as a “team” member in large scale game production company
• To prepare you for in-depth fun and committed study
• Career opportunities

With all the great things I learned during my game education in Canada, I don’t believe some of us game grads were fully prepared to enter the work environment. I admit that there is still so much work to be done, by you and by your own determination alone, to finally get your foot in the door of this incredibly competitive industry. We need more programs like Train2Game, where they basically put you in a game studio type of environment, and go through the process of making an actual game. That’s the best way to learn! I, personally, don’t learn anything by watching or listening to an instructor talking about how to make a game, or game content. I need to do! I need to work with a team of artists and designers and actually go through the process. Which is something I did not get to experience and Train2Game may be an answer for those of you looking to gain that hands on experience.

Learn more on the Train2Game website (UK Residents only) and request more information to get started on realizing your dream.