A Very Gaming Christmas Day 2 December 23, 2010

Christmas is just days away, one of the biggest gaming holidays of the year.  It’s the day a lot of us remember when we’d get the newest consoles, games, and others.  But Christmas has become more than that.  Christmas is also about those great Holiday Specials we remember watching on TV.  But while most people’s holiday tradition is to watch something along the lines of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”, while I enjoy that, there are some other more modern Christmas Specials that have become a personal tradition for me.

There is probably no more famous a Christmas story than A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  The premise is simply universal.  A wealthy businessman who doesn’t believe in spending money, paying his workers a livable wage, paying taxes, or contributing to charity, obviously doesn’t think too much of the Christmas season.  Seriously?  Has this changed?  His underpaid worker who he treats badly has a family he needs to raise as best as he can, as well as a son who has a life threatening condition.  On Christmas Eve, he is visited in the night by several ghosts who show him his past, the present, and what his future will become.  At the end of it, he realizes he has the power to become a better person and make the lives of the people around him better.  The joy he gets from doing this is greater than all his money could give him.

This book has been retold dozens of times throughout the years.  There have been many film versions of the book, including a version starring Patrick Stewart, or one of the more famous starring George C. Scott and David Warner .  There have even been updated versions of the book as a movie, starring Bill Murray.  Heck, one of my favorites as a child was “Mickey’s Christmas Carol”, which casted all the characters with iconic Disney characters.  It was the last time many of the original voice actors would provide their voices.

Ten Christmases ago, Penny-Arcade made their own retelling of A Christmas Carol, with their own characters in the roles, and while the original character was a businessman, this character was a game developer.  This was my first exposure to Penny-Arcade, and I think it would probably be another two years before I started reading their site regularly.  The original comic was written in seven pages.  A new one was released each day leading up to Christmas, with a special two page ending which was released on Christmas Day.

So enjoy, Penny-Arcade’s Christmas Carol.

With each day, leading up to Christmas Eve, I hope you all enjoy another yearly gaming related Christmas tradition!  Happy Holidays.

A Very Gaming Christmas December 22, 2010

Christmas is just days away, one of the biggest gaming holidays of the year.  It’s the day a lot of us remember when we’d get the newest consoles, games, and others.  But Christmas has become more than that.  Christmas is also about those great Holiday Specials we remember watching on TV.  But while most people’s holiday tradition is to watch something along the lines of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”, while I enjoy that, there are some other more modern Christmas Specials that have become a personal tradition for me.

Surprisingly, a lot of what became canonical to the modern-day Santa Claus (who also goes by names in other countries as Father Christmas (translation) or simply St. Nicholas) were not biblical stories but stories that came from Christmas movies made within the last sixty years.  The actual appearance which cemented his legacy as a holiday figure, and which all Christmas Specials have been based upon, was the poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” which is more well-known by the first line of the poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.  Once that was published, the canon was pretty much established.  His appearance, the names of the reindeer, how he operated, everything.  Since then many Christmas Specials and movies have expanded upon that canon, adding things like his history and how he got married, the possibility of him having successors, an entirely new reindeer, things like that.

So with that all said, please enjoy my favorite Christmas Special tradition, from PBC-Productions.  It’s Christmas Eve, and Santa has been kidnapped and trapped inside a terrible video game by a malevolent force.  Only Videoland’s one and true defender can save him, but unfortunately he has no knowledge of the terrible game Santa’s trapped in.  Fortunatly, a second hero, without powers, but with full knowledge and experience of terrible games has also been trapped inside the same game.  To survive and save Christmas, these two unlikely heroes must work together to rescue Santa Claus and free themselves from the game.

With each day, leading up to Christmas Eve, I hope you all enjoy another yearly gaming related Christmas tradition!  Happy Holidays.

Movie of the Week: Game Boys September 11, 2010

Director Brad Jones, known on the internet as The Cinema Snob, has released his fourth film online, which I have waited a whole year to see, and since I have been practically watching it on a loop for the past twelve hours, I thought I’d share it with all of you online.  I’m hoping the movie really takes off among the gaming circles, it’s a great film, which is not suprising given it wasn’t made by Hollywood.

Game Boys is a hilarious feature-length comedy about a bunch of twenty somethings who are obsessed with the past, and continue to play the games of their youth.  They need 8-bits, and not much else.

Here’s the official blurb about the movie:

“Scott and Ray are two old school video game geeks who spend the majority of their days playing Nintendo and reminiscing about the 80’s. But when Scott is dumped by his girlfriend, the two devise a plan to take Scott’s mind off of the drama. With the help of their friend Steve, the boys seek out the rare Atari porno game “Custer’s Revenge” in an attempt to hold a contest to see who can get past 5000 points, all while Scott desperately tries to woo the attention of Sally, the beautiful game store employee.”

Here’s the official trailer.

You can watch the full movie, completely free of charge, on Brad Jones’s website, here.

I’m not using “When it’s Done” Anymore June 20, 2010

Usually I’ll follow up specific game news information with a snippet at the end about the specific platforms the game in question will be released, the traditional statement coined by id Software (famous for missing their release dates constantly) became “When it’s done”.  It’s not supposed to have a negative connection for anyone, it’s just listed because the developers honestly don’t have a timetable for release set up yet.

Well, Duke Nukem Forever basically destroyed “When it’s Done” for everyone.  Now, “When it’s done” has basically became “It’s not coming.”

But that asks the question, what does one say for a game that has not announced a release timetable if not “When it’s done”?  “Coming Someday”?  That sounds even worse.  Anyways for right now, those spaces are going to be left blank if no release date is clued with the news announcement.  Not what I’d prefer to do, but I have no better option.