Portal: Terminal Velocity

This is a well shot and fairly funny short video about if the Portal Gun actually worked in real life. Lots of seamless cuts and really well-done editing tricks bring the Aperture Labs Portal Gun to life. Kudos to Jason Craft for making an excellent video.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/43800150″>POrtal: Terminal Velocity</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user3107288″>Jason Craft</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

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Classy Nerdy Art

This week, I wasn’t able to find any really good Classy Nerdy Art. However, I have 2 ones that are pretty good, so here they are! Not the classiest this week, but still interesting different takes on the video game worlds.

Mario Kart: Feudal Japan

Pokemon: Professor Oak, The Later Years

E3 2012: New PORTAL 2 DLC utilizes Playstation Move

This looks to add yet another layer of complexity to the Portal 2 experience, as well as FINALLY  give me a reason to use my Playstation Move. As I was not one of the lucky ones to get my hands on a Replica Portal Gun, this will have to make up for it. But boy, will it give me a good reason to pop Portal 2 back into my system, and give me a reason to dust off my Playstation Move. Here’s hoping the ball on top of the Move controller glows blue and orange!

E3 2012: WATCH DOGS

Watch Dogs has to be the best thing to come out of E3 so far. This game looks amazing, and takes the GTA gameplay to a whole new level. INCREDIBLE! Ubisoft has done a great job with Watch Dogs, and I can’t wait to get my hands on this game.

Canvas Wraps at Google Offers: A Cheap Way to Get Classy Nerdy Art

Google Offers: Galley-Wrapped Canvas Prints

The link above will take you to Google Offers, a page similar to Groupon/LivingSocial where people give away deals in exchange for promotion. One of the more popular services I see is gallery-wrapped canvas prints, or Canvas Wraps. You can take any picture you want, have it printed on canvas, and hang it on your wall for all to see. It is very classy right now, and it is a good way to get your video game nerdiness on without having to buy a $1,200 Earthbound Poster from eBay.

The best way to stay classy (and not offend the girlfriend) is to pick a game you really like, and find a piece of concept art for it that you enjoy. Concept art is stylized, and always looks better than just taking a screenshot from the game. The concept art not only is designed to give art direction, but also feel for the game, so it works on two levels. Otherwise, any of the previous Nerdy Art I have posted will work excellent (I suggest the Super Mario Brother 2 Art).

Once you have found what you like, make sure it is of HIGH RESOLUTION. Nothing is less classy than something that is grainy/blurry, and not on purpose. Go to Google Images, and on the left hand side, make sure you limit your search to “Large” size to avoid getting thumbnails and other unusable images. Then, make sure you crop the photo to remove any logos/watermarks, as those will take away from your art piece.

When you go to submit, remember, the print is stretched around the outside of the canvas, so make sure nothing you care about is close to the edges. Then, for the cheap price of $30-40, you can have your own classy piece of customized art that won’t make your Media Lounge look like a dorm room. I am ordering my print tonight, and will post pictures as soon as I get it. If you have any classy pieces of video game art, send me a link, and if I like it, I’ll share it!

Video Game Sound Effects Portrayed In Media

Does anyone else notice how bad television and movies are when it comes to trying to show people playing video games? I thought as time went on and video games became more accepted, then it would get better, like this:

Sadly, though, I am mainly stuck watching people play with Xbox 360 controllers with the sound effects that sound like they came from the Atari era. One of the worst offeners can be found in this commercial for the NHL:

Lazer sound effects? In hockey? Really? What self-respecting sound effects person thinks that is ok? Will we ever move past this?

Classy Nerdy Art

This week, our nerdy classy art comes from a combination of the classic video game Joust, made by Williams Electronics in 1982, and what appears to be an art textbook. The exact style of art eludes me, as I am not SUPER cultured (best guess it is expressionism, worst guess it is video game extrapolation realism). However, in my opinion, it is classy, and in that perfect “second-glace notice” way that I really enjoy. The video game wolrd once again finds itself a classy piece of art.

Straight from the video game textbook

FS Blog: Google Places is Now Goole+ Local

I just wrote an article for my work talking about the new Google+ Local. Go see it!

http://www.firstscribe.com/wp-blog/2012/05/google-places-becomes-google-plus-local/

Retro-Futurism: My Favorite Style

This s far and away one of my favorite styles. It is featured heavily in some of my favorite things (Futurama, Portal 2), and is just different enough to sneak away from steam-punk, accepted enough to have a lot of stuff dedicated to it, and obscure enough that I don’t feel like I am latching onto a trend. This may also be part of the illusion I have created for myself, but hey, I’m happy.

When Are We Going To Start Driving This Bad Boy To Work?

This closely follows the Vintage Style trend, which I must admit I take part in. I own throwback baseball and hockey tees constantly. The old-meets new and new-from-old combinations are able to maintain that “what-if” feeling that is almost gone today because we live in the most amazing time. Everything I thought we would have when I was young, we have now. We have screens in our pockets that have every answer and give us directions to wherever we want to go, and pretty soon we will have lame glasses that do it for us. But the old future had hovercars that looked like The Jetsons; nothing was shaped aerodynamically or within the confines of science. We just though of something, and that was the future. It was that unbound, uneducated guessing that made the era, and gave it some really adventurous styles.

Who doesn’t want to own one of these things?

I would like to stress that I am happy with how the future turned out, and that in no way do I think that we should be flying cars like that around. But I really enjoy that we have been able to keep the old style going with even more new ideas that look like old ideas of what people thought new ideas were going to maybe look like.

Borderlands 2: You would have to be insane to buy this…

Who In The World Is Buying This?

They recently announced the Borderlands 2 Insane Edition, and they really got the name right. Who in the world wants this much stuff, or was pleased enough with the ending of the first game to want to drop whatever ridiculous amount of money they decide to charge for this? There is no way this comes in under $200, and if they find a way to get it into any stores (as with the already comically large Bioshock 2: Special Edition packaging and the Batman: Arkham Asylum – Limited Edition giant batarang packaging), it will be a miracle. This is going to go down as one of the biggest and most expensive video game packages that hasn’t been bundled with a console.