Good art versus Photoshop. Why People are stupid.

Ok, so I am a fan of cosplayer Jessica Nigri. I find her costumes clever, especially the ones where she translates male characters into a female version, like this one. She recently did a Magneto photoshoot and all over her page people keep saying "Oh it's just Photoshop!" because there are floating chairs. Some of which even say "No chair shadows!" Bullshit. I'll show you.

Before I start breaking this down, I want it to be clear that I have a BFA, I work with Photoshop regularly, and while I am not a master, it doesn't take much to identify a shopped image. So here we go. The image:

So let me start with the "no shadows" thing, because people are obviously blind. Two of the three chairs' shadows were in fact caught in the image, see below.

So there ya go, shadows!!!!! OMG! And as for how the items were suspended, sure it could be done with Photoshop, but most professional photographers like to be a little more clever than that. There's this thing that was invented forever ago, and it's used by film, tv, and stage performers (as well as photographers) everywhere. It's called: lightweight high tensile string. It's lightweight and thin enough that it all but disappears on camera, and if it is even slightly noticeable, it can then be removed in about 1/2 a second in Photoshop. 

At least that's my theory, I mean hey, I'm a photographer, I see a room with those awesome support bars in the sunroof, and I think "Hey! I can create the illusion of chairs floating with string!" But, maybe that's just me, me and the guy/gal who took this pic. 

So please, enjoy the fucking photo, admire the talent of both the model and the photographer, and stop assuming everything is Photoshop.

The image used in this post belongs to Larry Alan Photography and Jessica Nigri.

/rant 

Edit: In hindsight, I felt that if I am going to sit here and rant on about Photoshopping, claiming to use it; I ought to back it up. Here's an example of my work. I restored a Polaroid taken when I was 19, which was a very long time ago. 

That is a Polaroid of myself with The Road Warrior Hawk, taken in the early 2000's. It's old, and time is taking its toll. So I scanned it into my then super awesome Macbook Pro. I ran it through Photoshop to restore it to it's original state. Here was the end result. 

Photoshop: It's not just for memes. 

Drucifer Reviews: Wolfenstein: The New Order

I wrapped up Wolfenstein a few days ago for the first time, and there will be replays. Not just for collectibles, but for hidden game modes and general enjoyability. This is definitely the revival this franchise needed, and a perfect way to introduce REAL FPS to the younger generation. Well, it’s all “real” FPS technically, but all FPS got its roots from Wolfenstein. And now, Bethesda and MachineGames has revived the franchise in what is easily one of the top games currently in 2014. More importantly, they have made sure that children of today are aware of who B.J. Blazkowicz is.

Bethesda and MachineGames have altered history with this title, by retelling the story of WWII as if the Nazis had won and became the dominant global superpower. This game tells its own separate story from the rest of the Wolfenstein franchise, and that’s okay because it works. It gives fans of the series something they want, while reviving interest in the series with a younger audience. Unlike many FPS games, where the story is second to the action and essentially irrelevant, Wolfenstein: The New Order has both great Nazi killing action and a heartwarming story showcasing the humanity of those who are still fighting to save the world of Nazis.

The Story:

The game starts in 1946, during a fictitiously extended WWII. As BJ Blazkowicz, you are trying to make a final push with remaining Allied soldiers to thwart the Nazis, entering General Wilhelm “Totenkapf” Strasse’s lair. After some brutal Nazi killing action, followed by a very powerful and emotional encounter with Deathshead himself, BJ and his friend attempt to escape, and in the process BJ suffers a head injury and falls unconcious. Left in a vegetative state in an asylum in Poland, we watch time fly by through the eyes of our protagonist. When he finally reawakens, we learn it is 1960. Not only are Nazis still present, they rule the world with an iron fist. Doing what he does best, BJ sets out to find out where the remaining resistance fighters are being kept, in order to fight back and overthrow the fascist Reich and restore freedom, peace, and order. America!

In true Wolfenstein fashion, these Nazis aren’t your great grandpa’s Nazis. They have frightening technology: Mechs, laser cannons, big ass guns, armored Super Soldaten, and machines powered by living human brains! But I only have one question for this series (which may have been answered in an article I overlooked inside the game): Where is Hitler?

One of the greatest, most rewarding experiences of Wolfenstein in the early days was battling, destroying, and defeating Mecha Hitler. But aside from the occassional “Heil Hitler”, there is no mention of him in this game. Why? I have two theories:

1) He’s still alive, but in the background where nobody is mentioning, focusing, or discussing him. He very well could have left all of this to General Deathshead.

2) He’s dead, and nobody bothered to revive him as Mecha Hitler, which is dumb and sad.

While I am sad to not be able to kill Hitler along with all his fascist soldiers, I can see why they might have removed Hitler from the story on this installment. This title was released internationally, including Germany and Austria where displaying Nazi imagery, or in any other way promoting Nazism is a crime. In order to make the game releaseable in those states, Bethesda and MachineGames were responsible for removing any and all Nazi imagery and references from the German and Austrian versions of the game. In its current state, the game wouldn’t be hard to edit, and it wasn’t. The Nazis, or Third Reich, simply became “The Regime” while all swastikas were replaced with the Wolfenstein logo. An easy fix, yeah? Ok, but what if they had introduced Mecha Hitler as an integral part of the game? Now they would be in a position where they would have to completely reinvent a large portion of the game.

The Mechanics:

Bethesda and MachineGames did an excellent job in maintaining staple features that have made Wolfenstein a great game over all these years and made them even better. Duel-wielding EVERYTHING? Check. Close range melee combat? Check. Killing Nazis en masse in brutally awesome ways? Check. But it gets better.

Leaning: You can lean from cover now, in similar fashion to other popular modern FPS titles. You can also sprint-slide, and shoot while doing so with your duel-wield everything.

Upgraded Weapons: All projectile based weapons (i.e. “guns”) in this Wolfenstein are upgradeable, and have a secondary projectile. Assault rifles with under-barrel rocket launchers, cutting torches that can fire laser projectiles, sniper rifles that can fire laser projectiles. Throwing knives, shotguns that fire shrapnel rounds that bounce and deflect (for getting Nazis in those hard-to-reach places). Max Health is even upgradeable, but still offers an “overcharged” state. Armor is upgradeable, too but I’m not sure what the upgrades too, they don’t increase capacity that’s for sure. While the healthbar climbs and climbs, armor is forever at 100.

Just like classic Wolfenstein, there are secret rooms that can be opened with hidden triggers, or small puzzles. I’m not sure if I’ve found them all in Wolfenstein: The New Order, but I have found a few. Some of the game’s collectibles are also hidden in these secret rooms, so that makes it even more important to try and find them. I have to say that my personal favorite of the collectibles is the Enigma Codes. There are four codes total, each comprising of two strains of 9 numbers, so 18 pieces per code. Completing an Enigma Code unlocks a hidden game mode. So far, I’ve unlocked two: ‘999’ mode and ‘Walk in the Park’ mode. Walk in the Park doesn’t sound all that hard, but 999 mode sounds fucking insane. The stipulations of 999 mode? 999% more action, 999 starting health, unlimited ammo, on Uber difficulty. Walk in the Park? No HUD aside from interactive prompts, reliance entirely on your senses, I AM DEATH INCARNATE! difficulty (meh).

Much like other modern games, this one isn’t without its bugs, but I have to say that I have had such minimal experiences with bugs, that I can’t even think of an example of one at the moment.

Nonstop action, coupled with an awesome story, make Wolfenstein: The New Order an awesome addition to the franchise and a phenomenal introduction of the grand-daddy of all FPS games to the next generation. I have to give it an overall rating of 9.5/10.

Dead Rising 3!!!!

So, I've wrapped up Dead Rising 3, save for the Prestige Hound achievement, which shouldn't require too much effort to polish off. So, with Wolfenstein still roughly two weeks out, I think I will be starting a Battlefield stream soon to kill some time. There are some single player achievements I'd like to knock out first, that way if I end up being one of the unfortunate who ends up with a deleted single player save, it won't be a tragic loss.

But enough of that, let's talk Dead Rising 3!

I will admit, I missed the first Dead Rising, but having played 2 and now 3, I have to say this series is hands down one of the best (if not the best) zombie franchises I have ever played. Capcom just keeps building it to be a bigger and better game with every installment. The environment of Dead Rising 3 is bigger than the environments of Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2 combined. Set in the fictional California city of Los Perdidos (The Lost), Dead Rising 3 takes place 10 years after the events of Dead Rising 2. We play the game as Nick Ramos, a mechanic with no real background. He's an orphan and handy with tools, that's about all we know initially, but things get crazy when the outbreak hits.

This installment in the series also is the first Dead Rising title to launch exclusively to Xbox One. With the power of the One behind it, this game engine is able to spawn more than three times the number of zombies it's predecessor was capable of spawning. More zombies means more slaughter, and also more danger. Zombies still become more aggressive and strong after dark, making getting caught in a crowd of zombies very dangerous. With the larger environment, vehicles have become a necessity and are much more easily accessible than they were in Dead Rising 2, as you don't need to purchase keys to use the vehicles, just hop in and go. This also has allowed Capcom to add a new weapon to the player's arsenal: combo vehicles.

That's right, now not only can you make a lightsaber from gems and a flashlight; you can also combine a steamroller and a chopper to make the RollerHawg: a motorcycle that can pancake zombies (as well as burn them with the flamethrowers mounted to the steam wheel). That's just one (the most badass one) of 10 unique combo vehicles the player has access too. The combo weapons are great in this game, both maintaining some of the classics and introducing some new (or improved) ones. Since Nick is so handy with tools, the player can now craft combo items without having to find a workbench, a Dead Rising first. The character also now has a skill tree to further enhance the character's stats, and even add certain perks like being able to substitute parts in combos with a part from the same category. So if you spend a perk point on the Firearms category, you could craft a Zombie Assault Rifle (Z.A.R.) from any two guns rather than having to find an assault rifle and a shotgun. Maxing out a skill stat offers an awesome perk that is available at level 50. For example, by maxing out your Mechanic skill you gain Indestructible Vehicles. The player never stops earning Attribute Points, so it is very possible (with time) to max out all available skills/perks with points to spare.

The clock has been extended, allowing the player 6 days to complete the story, rather than the traditional 72 hour clock. Due to the large number of in game challenges, collectibles, side missions, and the massive map this is a necessity for completionists. It also allows the player to save via the in game menu, rather than having to rely on bathrooms and safe houses. However, if you are more of a traditionalist, Dead Rising 3 offers Nightmare Mode where the player has the traditional 72 hour clock and can only save in outhouses and safe houses. The clock still shows 6 days, but the clock counts down twice as fast, thus reducing it to 3 days of traditional in game time. If your goal is to truly finish Nightmare mode (complete "The Facts" and "Overtime"), then you are going to have to focus only on the main story missions, ignoring side missions and collectibles. Combo Cards have been replaced by blueprints, and food combos require one attribute point in the Food Category.

One of the staples of Dead Rising has always been ridiculous zombie kill achievements/trophies. One of the greatest challenges of these achievements/trophies has always been that the player's zombie kills would reset every time they started a new story game. Well, Dead Rising 3 has kept the tradition of zombie kill achievements, extending it from the previous game's 72,000 kills to 100,004 kills. The difference being that this time around, the game keeps track of zombie kills throughout all playthroughs, and the achievements seem to maintain them even if your save doesn't. For example, there were a couple times where I turned my game off and forgot to save beforehand, so while my game shows one number, the achievements are tracking a different number and the difference is about 8,000 kills, the difference between what I've actually killed and what the game shows I've killed. This is really a nice thing, though, as if you choose to complete all challenges in the game, you're looking at a total of about 340,000 zombie kills.

And then there's this:

ServBot's back! You can run around Los Perdidos wearing this ridiculously awesome mask. And why not? It's awesome. You know you want to.

Another traditional aspect of Dead Rising that has continued into Dead Rising 3: Psychopaths. There are seven of them total in Dead Rising 3 and they are all themed after the seven deadly sins: lust, greed, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, and wrath. Some of them in certain ways did remind me of other psychopaths from previous games. The biggest example being the gluttony psychopath, who is much like the chef psychopath from DR2.

With the new technology available from the Xbox One, a new layer of interactivity has been added to Dead Rising 3. The player can distract zombies with their voice, by shouting at their Kinect camera. The player can also distract/confuse bosses/psychopaths by shouting a specific command (displayed in the upper right corner of the HUD), creating a temporary moment of opportunity to overpower the enemy. For those of you with fancy schmancy smartphones, there is Xbox One SmartGlass, a version of the Microsoft SmartGlass app tailored specifically to the next gen consoles. By accessing SmartGlass, the player can gain access to additional sidequests with special rewards only obtainable via the SmartGlass app. As I don't have a modern enough phone (it requires Android 4.0 or higher, or the latest iOS), I haven't personally experienced the additional features of SmartGlass.

All around, this is hands down the best installment of the Dead Rising series to date, and I highly recommend it. On a ten scale I rate this game a solid 9.5.

Dead Rising 3 Live Let's Play! :D

Watch live video from Drucifer82 on www.twitch.tv

Batman: Arkham Origins. A game that ruined an awesome franchise.

So, as the title suggests, this review isn't going to be nice. I don't usually like to reveal so much right away, but if you've seen me discussing this game anywhere else you pretty much already know how I feel. I really wanted to enjoy this game, and initially I did. But then WB Montreal showed their true colors and did it in for me. Arkham Origins is the only game in the Arkham franchise to be developed by any studio other than Rocksteady, and certainly goes to prove why WB needs to leave this series to a studio of Rocksteady's caliber. Or at the very least, they need to be more discriminate on who they bring in to develop an "in house" studio to work on one of their most profitable franchises.

Arkham Origins is set in the early days of the Dark Knight. At this point in the story, Batman has only been in action for about two years and is encountering some of his more infamous adversaries for the first time, the Joker being one of them. Hamill officially retired from the role after Arkham City, so for this installment the part of the Joker is given to Troy Baker (who voiced Two Face in City). Although, to Baker's credit I honestly thought it was Hamill the first time I heard him speak, and laugh. Baker actually got the Hamill laugh down! I was impressed. Some of the mechanics from the previous game carried over, as Rocksteady gave WB Montreal their source code to build on, so those familiar combat mechanics, glide mechanics, and other certain things carry over well.

The story itself isn't too exciting, and is actually very flat. Although, being that it is Batman, it can be argued that story is kind of a secondary feature. After all, most of us only really want to be Batman so we can punch bad guys in the face. So as long as that is maintained, it's is easy to forgive other oversights. A brief synopsis of the story is essentially as such (spoiler!):

"Grr I'm Batman, where's Penguin?"
"Grr, I'm Deathstroke. I hate you, Batman and I want to collect the bounty on your head!"
"Grr, I'm Bane and I want to kill the Batman!"
"Grr, I think Black Mask isn't really dead, but who did this?"
"Woohoo! Joker! (grr)"
"Grr, I'm Bane and I want to kill the Batman!"
"Grr, Who the fuck is the Joker?"
"Grr, Master Bruce! You're an asshole!"
"Grr, I'm a rich asshole that writes your paychecks, old man!"
"Grr, I'm Bane and I want to kill the Batman!"
"Grr, I'm Bane and I can't remember where the Batman went!"
"Grr, I'm Black Mask, die Batman!"
"Grr, I'm Batman and you're finished, Joker!"

That's the whole game in 13 lines.

Some of the gadgets used are different from the previous games, but essentially serve the same function. For example, in Arkham City after fighting Freeze, we gained a freeze bomb that could be used to temporarily paralyze enemies. In Origins, it is subbed with a glue grenade that does essentially the same thing. After the Deathstroke fight, we gain his claw gun, which essentially replaces the zipline but adds extra functionality in that it can be also used to wrangle enemies, or attach them to explosives to stun them. Combat mechanics are essentially the same and haven't changed at all. There is a slight continuity issue in the gadgetry in that we still have access to the Grapnel Boost Accelerator. But wait a minute, wasn't that device in its prototype stage in Arkham City? Why yes, it was. So how is it that in a game that takes place before this device was prototyped, we have access to this device immediately? That's just a small snippet of WB Montreal's oversights/carelessness.

Rocksteady published Arkham City in 2011, and immediately began working on Arkham Knight. They already knew, from the time they published Arkham Asylum, that they were doing a trilogy and that they wanted the third installment on the next gen. This means they were going to need a minimum of three years to develop the third title. In light of this, someone along the line at WB got worried that we wouldn't want to wait three years for a quality title, or that their pockets weren't filled with enough of our cash to wait. So they got this brilliant idea to create an in house studio to develop an intermittent title to hold us over until Rocksteady drops their masterpiece. Thus, WB Montreal was born. Rocksteady is a UK based developer, and was too busy being badass to worry about babysitting a Canadian development team. So they handed over their source code, said "best of luck" and went back to being the badasses they are.

The result? Sheer sadness.

Arkham Origins launched in 2013, so I mean really what's another year? But I digress. This game, despite its Bat-ness, is riddled with bugs, glitches, freezes, and multiplayer. Multiplayer. Multiplayer.....

One of the things I've always respected Rocksteady for is they are one studio that doesn't believe every game has to have some kind of multiplayer shoe horned into it. None of their Arkham games (including upcoming Knight) have multiplayer. But why? Everything is multiplayer these days! Multiplayer is the word! No, it's not. Bird is the word. Rocksteady and I have a similar stance on this in that I think multiplayer is a modern standard that really shouldn't be a standard, and they don't want to take time and resources away from building an awesome single player experience simply to build a multiplayer platform that isn't even necessary in a game about a hero who prefers to fly solo. WB Montreal's stance? Put muliplayer in it! But I think that's as far as their thought process went into it. Seriously. You have to load a second disc for the multiplayer, and once you get into multiplayer finding a lobby is a nightmare. Matchmaking? Forget it. It was waaay too easy to be a level 1-15 player being stuck in lobbies with people who are level 60 or higher. And of course, they wipe the floor with you. This then leaves you frustrated, and you never play again. Now the already desolate lobbies are even more desolate.

That's as far as I care to go with the multiplayer discussion. So back to the campaign and its slew of troubles. I was fortunate enough to have minimal bugs/glitches in my experience. Many folks were not so fortunate. People reported issues of not being able to finish the campaign because their game was stuck at one certain checkpoint where every time they loaded the game, they would fall infinitely through the map, unable to play or progress. I think I fell out of the map once, and much like the other problems I had, luckily rebooting the game was enough to fix it. Again, I was luckier than most. There were also situations where the claw gun picked up from Deathstroke wouldn't latch to surfaces it was supposed to in order to lay down a zipline, including immediately after defeating Deathstroke. That is of course problematic because you need the zipline to escape after defeating Deathstroke! Again, I was luckily able to fix it with a simple reboot, most were not so lucky.

It was also evident that the game was having trouble loading data (i.e. it was overloaded) because sometimes environments would take time to load in, or combat sequences wouldn't be able to finish because enemies were unable to engage you for some reason, and your punches never connect. Predator situations got the worst of it. If you've seen my YouTube playlists you know I'm a HUGE fan of Predator mode. I can't tell you how many times, both in the campaign and challenge mode Predator scenarios I found myself unable to complete the challenges properly because an enemy would somehow get stuck in a wall and I couldn't take them down, or complete a medal. Those of us who bought this game essentially paid full price for half a game and WB Montreal wasn't in a hurry to fix it. Sure there were patches, if that's what you could call them.

And as far as unlocks go, the trophies and concept art that were typically unlocked in these games never unlocked appropriately either. My game finally got a 100% status after one of the patches, but my game stats page said I had 48/47 character trophies and 119/120 concept art pieces.

This game launched in October 2013, the first expansion content Initiation was released in December; if I recall correctly. By that time, there were already 3 patches published, and the game's problems still persisted with seemingly little result. By this time, people are very frustrated and very livid. I and many others purchased the season pass for this game well before this content was released because we are extreme Batman fans. With two successful titles preceding, why not? Initiation was a great idea that was set up for failure, much like the rest of this game. It was a challenge mode add on that came with 5 maps and was a mini-story mode that brought us back to pre-Batman Bruce as he seeks training from the masters in Japan. It was a great experience, until I didn't get my achievements. Every gamer has experienced glitch achievements before, and it sucks (especially for achievement/trophy hunters). The process is usually as such: have a meltdown, post meltdown on a popular gaming forum, Google the problem and realize there is a solution (or there isn't unless the developer inserts a fix), go back to forum to correct yourself to find yourself flamed by 237427y54753463 people ("y" is a number now) in the 5 minutes since you started the thread, fix it (or wait for the fix), boom achievement/trophy.

WB Montreal robbed us of that healthy healing process.


Initiation didn't even have any trophies listed on the PSN Trophy list, it's achievements were in the Xbox Live Achievement list before the content launched. But after meeting the requirements, no achievements were triggered. After much raging, Googling, and more raging, WB Montreal released a statement that they were aware of the issue because the content was published without the flags/milestones for the achievements/trophies and that they would simply insert them with the next (third) patch. They continued by stating that people who had already met the requirements for the achievements could trigger them post patch by simply replaying one challenge map in each of the challenge modes. It of course didn't work, or the flags weren't actually added to the patch. This caused more raging internet wide, followed by WB Montreal releasing a statement that they would not be releasing any new patches at the time, they were no longer going to focus on non game breaking issues, when (and if) they did release a patch it would only be to fix game breaking (read "progression blocking") issues. The reason they were ceasing fixes? They were focusing their time and resources to release the Mr. Freeze DLC on time.

They were more concerned with publishing add-on content for you to spend more money on than they were fixing their half-assed game that was a total slap in the face to an awesome franchise that Rocksteady had built with two titles using nothing but the blood, sweat, and tears of their developers. I can't tell you if anything ever developed beyond that, because that's when I had enough and walked away. WB Montreal has apparently taken their cues on customer service and quality control from EA, because I now will never financially support either of them again. I refuse to buy another title that is endorsed by either company. They won't miss me, and the feeling is mutual.

They could take a cue from Gearbox if you ask me. They get a lot of flack about some pretty minor (and sometimes major) stuff from their customer base. Sometimes they even lose their cool on Twitter or similar sites, but they always do what they can to maintain a quality product (at least when it comes to Borderlands titles. Some of their other titles haven't been so fortunate). The solution isn't always pleasing to the customers, but at least they have the integrity to fix it. On the flipside of that, they are also fond of trolling us. Turnabout is fair play.

That having been said, the best I could give this game on a ten scale is a 6, that even seems too high.

I'm so relieved for Arkham Knight. I really need Rocksteady to bring me back to this franchise.

Welcome To My New Gaming Blog!

Hello universe!

I have been gone for a long time, and in fact am just now really truly able to take advantage of the resources at YouTube, collaboration with VISO and BroadbandTVCorp, and the awesome technology of Xbox One and Twitch. Alongside that I am opening this blog, and will try to create additional forums outside of the YouTube comments section; likely via Google+. I am very excited to finally get back into doing what I love: creating video game content, discussing video games, reviewing video games, and also I want to create an open environment where you, the viewership can also interact with myself and each other.

Here is what I have planned currently as far as content:

Dead Rising 3 - I am currently doing a playthrough of Dead Rising 3 which is being live streamed via Twitch and exported to YouTube. You can find the Dead Rising playlist on my channel.

Wolfenstein: The New Order - I pre-ordered this and will be doing coverage at launch. I'm still waiting on confirmation as to whether my local GameStop will be hosting a midnight launch or if I will have to wait for the morning of launch. I will update as further information becomes available.

DOOM 4 Beta - As a bonus to pre-ordering Wolfenstein, I will be in the closed beta for DOOM 4. There is no information yet as to when the beta will begin, and I am not yet sure if there will be any special terms such as an NDA. This will of course affect my ability to provide content on the beta.

Batman Arkham Knight - I cannot express how excited and relieved I am for this game. It will be a breath of fresh air to get back into Rocksteady's Gotham, powered by the Xbox One. I was so disappointed with Arkham Origins, and will discuss that in a review I intend to post on this blog.

Evolve - Another title with no official launch date. I suspect they will be announcing an official date at E3, I hope they will also reveal what this "bonus monster" users will be receiving for pre-ordering Evolve. I am super excited for this after reading the article in Game Informer. I also plan to discuss this title on the blog as well.

I am no longer covering Xbox360 content as I traded the console in after getting my Xbox One. I will discuss some titles here, but the majority of my focus at this point is Xbox One. I may possibly add Battlefield 4 to this list, but I haven't decided. This is actually my first Battlefield, and I've never played Call of Duty. So we'll see if I get into it.

I also need to finish overhauling this blog, my YouTube Channel, and get the hang of the creative tools at my disposal thanks to my partners at VISO and BBTVCorp.

I'll be adding links to the sidebar here for my Twitch stream, YouTube channel, and my Google+ page.

Game on!

zI Drucifer Iz