My Xbox 360 has, once again, gone to game console heaven. I’m really starting to think I should just get this all over with and get a PS3. The Xbox 360 has better games presently, but I’m sure they’d be even more fun if I could actually play them instead of staring blankly at the box and cursing Microsoft under my breath. I guess for now I’ll have to survive on Crysis and Wii or PS2 games…actually, that doesn’t sound half bad. Maybe this time Microsoft will take their time and send me a new 360 that’ll actually work for more than half a year. I love my Xbox 360–but seriously, Microsoft; learn to build a less failure-prone game console.

Popularity: 17% [?]

If you don’t know what Crysis is you have probably been living under a rock for the past year; it is the biggest shooter in years. The graphics are like nothing else–but the physics are where it really shines; you can cut trees in half with bullets and leaves actually move around when they are shot at! Coming from the same studio that made Far Cry, it is to be expected that the lighting looks a little on the overly colorful, slightly fake side. It’s not really a problem, it still looks fantastic, but if you want that extra little bit of realism keep reading! I’m going to walk you through the Sandbox Editor that comes with the demo.

Let’s start with the lighting; lower graphics settings get rather cartoony looking. The above screenshot is apparently evening–doesn’t exactly look it, does it? How about now?

First, you’ve got the demo installed. Now go go to this folder on your computer C:/Program Files/Electronic Arts/Crytek/Crysis SP Demo/Sandbox2 Installer/ and then run the installer file located there. After the installation has completed go to C:/Program Files/Electronic Arts/Crytek/Crysis SP Demo/ and then, depending on whether you are running a 64 bit operating system or not, select the Bin32 or Bin 64 folder (If you don’t know how many bits your operating system is, it’s probably 32.) and run the Editor.exe file. You might also want to make a shortcut to it by right clicking on it, selecting copy and then, on the desktop, right clicking and selecting Paste Shortcut.

Now that the program is open select File, select Open and then go into the island folder and select island.cry. After it has gone through all the various loading procedures click the terrain menu at the top and select Time Of Day. A window will pop up with a menu on the side–select Import From File and use this file (Thanks to Seith from SeithCG.com). Poof! The lighting is now automagically much better looking!

If you like, you can play around with the graph things in the miiddle of that window to make your own tweaks. As you can probably see though; there is quite a bit you can do to the light and you could mess it up pretty bad if you don’t know what you are doing. Good thing you can just open the file again if you mess up the settings!

Now the lighting looks fantastic…what now? How about we play with the water a bit? Don’t you think the water in Crysis is a little too eerily transparent green looking? I’m not sure whether to think those boats out there are dumping toxic sludge or that the ocean has a really great water filter. Here’s what it used to look like;

A little to green, I think. How about now?

It’s quite easy changing the basic ocean appearance. In the Rollup Bar on the right of the screen click the second tab with the green icon on it, then click environment and a bunch of settings will be displayed below. Under ocean, try changing the FogColor value to something a little more blue, I used 31,75,105. Now try and change the FogColorMultiplier and FogDensity a bit. Water is usually much more murky, so I moved the Density up to 0.3, but that makes the color quite a bit darker, which is where the FogColorMultiplier comes in. I moved it up to 0.25 and voila! Nice, pretty and real looking water!

Now that you’ve made Crysis look even better in the Editor you need go to File and Save it and then select File and Export To Engine, or the game itself will stay the same as it was before!

PS: While you are messing about with the spiffy Sandbox Editor, you might want to check out the Tornado. They make everything very, very dangerous…and yes; that is the ground at the top left of the screen.

Behold! 57 Hummers exploding in fiery mayhem!

Popularity: 44% [?]

I made that word up just now because nothing describes Moetan better. This is a very perverted, very Japanese show. If you are new to anime this probably isn’t the place to start. This show is basically one big long loli fan service. It’s hard to take it seriously though, because it so intensely loli fan service oriented that it’s practically self-parody. It’s certainly a good series for over-the-top comedy.

Moetan is of somewhat interesting origin however; Moetan is actually considered an ‘educational’ series. Originally a manga, Moetan is actually an English language study aid created by Sansai Books. Moetan’s name actually is an abbreviation of “‘Methodology Of English, The Academic Necessity’, however; it is fairly obvious this was a play on the words moe and tan, both being used to represent cuteness in a girl. The show has frequent scenes where the main character, known as Ink, tutors a classmate known as Nao-kun whom she secretly has a huge crush on. She conceals her true identity, Nijihara Ink, as a magical girl who refers to herself as Pastel Ink. They basically look exactly the same with different hair color, but somehow nobody seems to notice.

Nobody, that is, except her classmate and rival in both love and magical girlness; Sumi Kuroi. Everyone’s obliviousness plays a part in the humor of the show as Ink and Kuroi quite often use their powers where anyone could see them, but they somehow think nothing of it.

Ink gained her magical powers from a magician she refers to as Ah-kun who was left in her world in the form of a duck after being banished from the magical kingdom he came from. He gets a nosebleed every time Ink transforms to her magical girl form–for those that don’t know; nosebleeds are a Japanese pop culture representation of strong sexual attraction. Ink is naked during her transformation sequence, so Ah-kun gets to see various things that are illegal in many countries, if you catch my meaning.

One of my favorite parts of the show is the english tutoring scenes. The phrases that Ink try to teach to Nao-kun are almost always direct rants from the production staff about how difficult there jobs are. It makes for much amusement hearing characters in an anime talk about how poorly drawn things are and such things as that.

Also, this guy is awesome. He’s always running into a scene, making some pedophile remark and then running off before a police officer shows up seconds later asking if anyone has scene a ’suspicious man’. His entrances are, as you can see in the picture below, overly dramatic and hilarious.

It’s not exactly what you’d expect an ‘educational anime’ to be like, but who am I to argue? It’s hilarious; that’s all that matters to me. If you haven’t seen a wide variety of anime you will probably miss several of the references, but it’s still a very watchable show and is very entertaining. If you like over-the-top somewhat perverted humor than this is the show for you!

Here, have an OP;

 

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All sorts of cool Moetan stuff is available at Play-Asia.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

I’m sure you already know about Tim Burton’s classic gothic movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, but it’s Halloween today, so it’s pretty much required viewing. As such, I thought it might be something interesting to talk about. Tim Burton has made many other great gothic film like Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride, but I feel none of them were quite as fantastic as The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The movie emulates the Disney musical format in a way, but with a dark and gothic twist visually. I found it made the movie very artistically appealing and set it apart from other similarly themed films–aside from Corpse Bride that is, which was basically just a rehash of it’s animation style because the devoted fans just wouldn’t let it end with just one movie. The movie makes use of a sort of claymation appearance, which is a very uncommon animation style. Because of this it allowed a more ‘real’ look to it while remaining surreal in it’s content.

The story follows Jack Skellington, also knowns as Pumpkin Jack–he is looked up to by all the fellow residents of his zany home of Halloween Town. Every year the townsfolk make intricate and elaborate plans to make October 31st the scariest day of the year. Jack is depressed by living this same life every year, planning Halloween. He wishes for something different–he desires variety in his repetitive life. He begins to wonder if there is more to life than Halloween and begins to search for somethiing different.

While wandering in the woods, Jack and his ghostly pet dog, Zero find several trees with doors on them leading to to other holiday-themed worlds. Jack, in his curiousity, accidentally enters Christmas Town, a land of joy and holiday spirit. Jack, fascinated by this unique new world, quickly returns to Halloween Town, where he presents the townspeople with his slightly inaccurate impressions of Christmas. The townspeople, who also become interested in the holiday, agree to celebrate Christmas. Jack leads the attempted festivities as Santa Claus but Sally, Jack’s secret admirer, sees only disaster in his plans.With the unusual Christmas gifts and decorations they create , being more frightening and grotesque than pleasing, it is apparent that she assumes correctly. Jack ignores Sally’s concerns and asks her to create his Santa Claus outfit. Jack then assigns Lock, Shock and Barrel, a trio of mischevious, child-like monsters, to transport Santa to Halloween Town. They, after mistakenly capturing the Easter Bunny, successfully kidnap Santa Claus. Against Jack’s wishes and largely for their own amusement, the trio deliver Santa to the lair of Ogie Boogie, a sadistic, compulsive gambler who plots to play a game with Santa’s life.

Christmas soon arrives and, although Sally attempts to stop him, Jack embarks into the sky on a coffin-like sled pulled by skeletal reindeer, hoping to deliver presents to children around the world; although the townspeople are overjoyed, Sally wanders off alone; defeated. As Jack begins delivering gifts, children are horrified by their monstrous, animated presents, while their parents believe Jack to be a monster attempting to imitate Santa Claus. The military shoot him out of the sky, destroying his sleigh. Although Jack is initially depressed, he realizes he is still the ruler of Halloween Town and can bring joy to the world in his own way.

Sally attempts to free Santa, only to be captured by Oogie Boogie. Just as they are about to be killed by immersion in a foul stew, Jack arrives and challenges their captor. Oogie Boogie flees, placing his complex, sophisticated, deadly gaming machines in Jack’s path as obstacles. However, Oogie Boogie becomes tangled in one of his own machines and is split open, revealing himself to be merely an animated sackful of insects. Most of Oogie’s “bugs” fall into the stew and are boiled alive.

Santa Claus, freed, reprimands Jack, then sets off to correct Christmas by exchanging Jack’s frightening toys for more pleasant hings. This he does successfully. Jack and Sally return to Halloween Town, aided by a reformed Lock, Shock, and Barrel. There, they embrace atop a spiral-shaped, flexible extension of land, while Zero looks on from afar. Sally has been replaced in Dr. Finklestein’s service by another mannequin, leaving her free to live with Jack.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a very unusual movie and is definitely required viewing among your Halloween festivities! If you happen to have not yet seen this wonderful holiday classic I suggest you go check it out!

You can buy the Japanese version and some cool merch at Play-Asia.

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Popularity: 13% [?]

The site seems to functional once again, so posting will resume tomorrow morning! Glad to be back and I hope you look forward to a cool Halloween themed post tomorrow.

Popularity: 8% [?]