If you've looked to the right of the site you"ll notice E3 events anyone may attend, which I'll be updating up until the convnetion.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Game Hype: TTDILA @ E3 for Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and EA
If you've looked to the right of the site you"ll notice E3 events anyone may attend, which I'll be updating up until the convnetion.
Game Hype: Humble Indie Bumble 5
Game Hype: Injustice: Gods Among Us Is A Stupid Title
Injustice: Gods Among Us is DC's and Warner Bros' next attempt at a fighting game based on DC characters. The games just never going to catch the fun attitude of the Marvel Vs Capcom series. It will always fail in comparison just like DC's box office movies compared to Marvel. I hate the darker story, because it's from the same people who gave us Mortal Kombat. I care nothing for the backstory of the Justice League being turned evil or possesed or something I've read in a comic a million times over.However, I will say seeing Superman punch someone out of the Earth was cool.
The title, oh the title. It's just one of the worst I've ever heard for a game. No wants to say that out loud, why not just call it Justice League Fight To Save the World or something else.
I just hope it doesn't play like Mortal Kombat Vs DC, if it doesn't than I'm sure I'll have fun beating up Green Lantern(unannoucned) with Batman.
*Can't wait for the bullshit on DLC costumes and extra chaarcters that will all be ready when the game launches instead of just being unlocked on the disk by earning them. So maybe wait a year for the Ultimate edition of this game. Oh, and special code to play it online so it can't be resold.
Sharknife Series Review
Corey Lewis is a talented artist and writer and I'm sorry to see his thoughts drizzle out into a shark powered sentai (think power ranger) super hero. Calling his work creative would be an understatement, but calling it well done would be a lie. In his tale of busboy Caesar Ives transforming into the super hero Sharknife who battles monsters put into the massive The Guandong Factory restaurant he works at it, with talk of gods, super dimensional powers and video games is too much to take in. Far too much is happening and the characters just seem to bore me. For some great over the top action you won't find in any American comics and a art style that can blow away cities, you'll find the story being hum drum and detached.
There's a lot of back story and mythos filling up each page, not to mention action, but every character seems like the same person telling the same story. It's like a monologue. A monologue with some truly sick art. You should check out his other work, loved Seedless, or he might be an artist who needs a writer to get some really great work out there.
Sharknife Volume 1: Stage First
Sharknife Volume 2: Double Z
Dances With Film Festival May 31-June 7th
You can't go a day without a film festival in this town. The Dances With Film Festival is happening now through next week. My top choice is below.
Detention of the Dead
Midnight Screening with Q&A to follow.
Friday, June 1, 2012 11:45pm
Chinese 6 Theaters - 6801 Hollywood Boulevard,
Hollywood, CA (Hollywood & Highland)
Purchase in advance prior to May 31 = $10
Purchase May 31 and beyond = $13
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
626 Night Market Returns July 28
Wow, I'm sorry I couldn't attend the last night market in Pasadena, luckily it did so well another one is happening this July.
Saturday, July 28th, 2012 from 4PM to 11:30PM at the picturesque Centennial
Square in front of Pasadena City Hall. Admission is free to the public.
The event had mixed reviews, Yelp is not a fan, it was so large and did so well, no one imagined the turn out. I heard getting there was quite the fiasco, but it seems everyone's learned from the first event and I remind you these aren't that easy to setup as you think. I am always surprised by events like these starting out. The Korean BBQ Cook-Off started small, but grows every year and every year the contestants for the Choco-Pie eating contest get weirder.
I'll be sure to update you about the event as it gets closer.
Here's their full press release that seems to address everything form the first event. I really do enjoy their honesty about trying to make the event better, when you read about other events like the Silver Lake Festival just failing at everything.
626 Night Market Returns: Bigger Space, More Parking, Lots of
Food
Los Angeles, CA, May 30th, 2012 –Round two of
Southern California’s only Asian Night Market will be held in Pasadena on
Saturday, July 28th, 2012 from 4PM to 11:30PM at the picturesque Centennial
Square in front of Pasadena City Hall. Admission is free to the public.
The first 626 Night Market in April attracted
an enormously overwhelming crowd that far exceeded expectations and provided
several challenges that will be addressed in this second event. The organizers
have considered the public’s feedback and are improving all aspects of operations
and the overall experience. This time, the City Hall venue is four times larger
with an area of 250,000 square feet across six blocks. To accommodate
attendees, public and private parking lots usually closed on Saturdays will be
opened. There will be over 10,000 parking spaces available in the nearby
vicinity. Prepaid parking will also be available online through the event
website.
The 626 Night Market organizers are working
with the City of Pasadena to coordinate proper traffic flow throughout the
area. Incentives will be offered to attendees who utilize alternate
transportation methods including the nearby Metro Gold Line and buses.
Most importantly, the night market will
feature three times the amount of food vendors, with a total of 200 vendors
comprised of local businesses and entrepreneurs. There will be a pan-Asian
selection of popular foods with an emphasis on Asian street style eats.
Additionally, a wide variety of general merchandise vendors and games that are
suitable for all ages will be available.
With this lineup of vendors for the second
event, the 626 Night Market will create a unique cultural event for the
community, bolster local economies, and support small businesses.
Burger Week Beckons
Facebook notice:
The Oinkster is pleased to announce that our Second Annual Burger Week Celebration will take place this year from June 4th thru June 10th!
With the help of our Facebook family, we chose 7 different classic American Burgers to pay tribute to via recreation. Each day of the week will feature a new tribute!
We will be giving away a different pin each day with the purchase of that day’s featured bur...ger.
The “Burger Challenge” is on once again this year! Anyone who orders all 7 burgers over the course of the week will receive a limited edition Burger Week T-Shirt exclusively available to people who complete the challenge.
Monday will also see the release of Pig Candy 2, a limited edition full color and bound zine, featuring an incredible list of artists in various mediums doing “burger inspired” artwork. Some contributing artists include: Paul Frank, Travis Millard, Sage Vaughn, Erin Garcia, Hassan Rahim, Jon Vermilyea, Hot Knives, Tom Haubrick, Ken Garduno, just to name a few.
Here is how it will all go down:
Monday Red Castle Sliders
Tuesday 2 x 4 ( Piggy Style optional)
Wednesday Northeast Bacon Cheeseburger
Thursday Grill Em’ All Takeover
Friday Sourdough Josh
Saturday Pork Adobo Burger
Sunday The Big Max
With the help of our Facebook family, we chose 7 different classic American Burgers to pay tribute to via recreation. Each day of the week will feature a new tribute!
We will be giving away a different pin each day with the purchase of that day’s featured bur...ger.
The “Burger Challenge” is on once again this year! Anyone who orders all 7 burgers over the course of the week will receive a limited edition Burger Week T-Shirt exclusively available to people who complete the challenge.
Monday will also see the release of Pig Candy 2, a limited edition full color and bound zine, featuring an incredible list of artists in various mediums doing “burger inspired” artwork. Some contributing artists include: Paul Frank, Travis Millard, Sage Vaughn, Erin Garcia, Hassan Rahim, Jon Vermilyea, Hot Knives, Tom Haubrick, Ken Garduno, just to name a few.
Here is how it will all go down:
Monday Red Castle Sliders
Tuesday 2 x 4 ( Piggy Style optional)
Wednesday Northeast Bacon Cheeseburger
Thursday Grill Em’ All Takeover
Friday Sourdough Josh
Saturday Pork Adobo Burger
Sunday The Big Max
Weekly What To Do: Go Greek
Los Angeles Greek Film FestivalWouldn't say it's my taste, but if your into some Greek Cinema, why not try the Greek Film Festival May 31st- June 3rd.
Cine Gear Expo 2012
More of my taste, the all encompassing expo on all things to record on, if your looking for new video equipment on a professional level come here. June 1st-3rd at Paramount Studios.
Made in L.A. 2012
Art from LA, so nothing from other places, because frankly they aren't LA.
from official site:
"The first Los Angeles biennial, Made in L.A. 2012, organized by the Hammer Museum in collaboration with LAXART, will be presented at the Hammer, LAXART, and the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park. The exhibition will feature works by 60 artists from the L.A. region, with an emphasis on emerging and under-recognized artists, and will debut new installations, videos, films, sculptures, performances, and paintings produced for the biennial. This exhibition will offer a snapshot of the current trends and practices coming out of Los Angeles, one of the most active and energetic art communities worldwide. The biennial is organized by a team of curators from both institutions, including Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood, Hammer curator Ali Subotnick, LAXART director and chief curator Lauri Firstenberg, LAXART associate director and senior curator Cesar Garcia, and LAXART curator-at-large Malik Gaines. In conjunction with Made in L.A. 2012 curator Ali Subotnick is also organizing the Venice Beach Biennial on July 13–15, 2012."
Lana Del Rey @ El Rey
Wonder why she chose that venue?
June 3–5
Daily (9pm)
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Video Games Live Content
Get tickets here
the press release:
HOLLYWOOD, CA – MAY 29, 2012 - Heralded by the LA Times as “Ingenious and fantastic!” and proclaimed “Captivating and bombastic!” by the NY Times, Video Games Live has once again teamed up with E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition) and the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) to continue its 8 year tradition of pulling out all the stops for its annual Los Angeles show by announcing a cavalcade of special guests, first time ever music premieres, industry stars, new interactive technology, and incredible prizes. The performance will take place on Wednesday, June 6th at the Nokia Theatre positioned directly across the street from E3, the game industry’s most important annual event.
Aside from fan favorites such as Castlevania, Halo, Sonic and Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, audience members will be treated to new live premieres from such titles as the award winning The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim®, the 90’s cult classic Earthworm Jim, the Billboard and iTunes chart topping music from Journey, as well as Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo® III, and upcoming World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™. The original composers will be making appearances and performing on stage with over 110 musicians. Video Games Live will be celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Street Fighter with its hard rocking symphonic Street Fighter II medley including special guest appearances. To celebrate the recent induction into the Classic FM Hall of Fame (at #16 of all time!), Nobou Uematsu’s Aerith’s Theme will be presented in a new exclusive symphonic Video Games Live arrangement. The newly created Pokemon Symphonic Suite will be making its Los Angeles debut as well as some very special guest performers for the award winning song “Still Alive” from Portal. Original Toto founder/songwriter/pianist/vocalist David Paich and friends will be joining the symphony and choir to perform “Hold the Line” alongside the winner of the pre-show Guitar Hero competition.
A variety of YouTube superstars will also be performing including America’s Got Talent finalist and internet sensation Lindsey Stirling known for her amazing cinematic music videos viewed by tens of millions of people online which include her top featured Legend of Zelda medley. Video Games Live favorite Martin Leung (“the Video Game Pianist”) will once again grace the stage to debut his new piano arrangement of classic Rare Software favorites such as Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Laura “Flute Link” Intravia will be showcasing her vocal talent as well as performing her 25th Anniversary Zelda arrangement with the symphony along with her new Mario flute medley. Heavy Metal guitarist Viking Jesus will invade the stage and conquer the audience with the world premiere of his pedal to the metal rendition of Star Fox.
Incredible game industry legends from around the world will be appearing on stage and/or in the post-show Meet & Greet (free of charge to all ticket holders) including Takashi Iizuka (producer, director, designer and head of Sonic Team), the original Earthworm Jim team, Blizzard Entertainment Audio Director and composer Russell Brower, Grammy Award winning game composer Christopher Tin, Silent Hill game producer and composer Akira Yamaoka, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Monkey Island creators Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, legendary game designer Warren Spector (Wing Commander, Deus Ex, Disney Epic Mickey) and over 20 game industry superstars including Al Lowe from Leisure Suit Larry and King’s Quest fame performing the theme from Leisure Suit Larry on saxophone.
From the beginning Video Games Live has always been an interactive show and this year that interactivity is taken to a new level. Aside from randomly chosen audience members appearing on stage to play a game while the orchestra provides (and changes) the soundtrack on-the-fly, Video Games Live will now incorporate members of the audience to help chose the setlist during the show by texting and/or using their Smart Phones. A real-time meter will show which games are leading during the show and the most popular choice will be the one performed. Other interactive elements will include live Skype appearances and interviews with game industry legends and photographs of the audience taken during the performance and posted on the Video Games Live Facebook page for tagging. The first 50 people to tag themselves during the show will receive a free copy of “Ghost Recon: Future Soldier”.
Audience members for this performance will be a part of gaming history! Since its creation in 2002, the award winning Video Games Live continues to break attendance records around the world, and after 10 years in business and hundreds of shows, yet another prestigious award and record will be bestowed on stage with an induction and certificate ceremony from Guinness World Records for the most video game concerts ever performed. Twin Galaxy founder Walter Day will be presenting a special trading card to commemorate this record breaking show with all audience members receiving a free copy of the card. Pac-Man World Record Holder and crowned Video Game Player of the Century, Billy Mitchell (known for his role in the movie King of Kong) will also be present to unveil his limited edition Video Games Live hot sauce.
Incredible door prize give-a-ways from Samsung, AMD & Intel (including laptops, hard-drives, media devices, software and much more) will be awarded on stage during the show to lucky winners (any ticket holder will be able to enter). The ever popular pre-show costume contest will be in full effect as each costumed member will be brought on stage as the audience decides the winner by volume of applause.
Deck Hunt June
Check out more info on their facebook about the give-away.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Video Game Girls Returns June 15th
It looks like they don't care to get any E3 attendees, but they're bringing their classic video game girl cosplay wrestling and burlesque action back to LA. The show is a treat for any video game fanboy or fangirl as the show is just silly. It seems Ms. Cruz isn't really a video game player as she call herself a "Metroid" instead of clearly being Samus below. I could be wrong and she'll comes out as a actual metroid, that would be cool. Happy to hear Crimson Viper is getting some love, but I don't know how well she'll fair against female Sub-Zero (Frost from MK:Deadly Alliance).
Video Game Girls! L.A.'s Only All Girl Wrestling & Burlesque Show!
Fri, June 15, 2012
Doors: 9:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
Dragonfly
Hollywood, CA
Below you'll find one of the worst preview ads for an event ever.
E3 Comes Into Focus
Jonas Vorwerk Pixel Player
Below you"ll find a interview between by artist Jonas Vorwerk and I.
So Jonas, let me just say I became fascinated with Yoren Schriever's and your work Pixels when I saw them for a split second online. Then I saw the video of them. It's just a great colorful idea that mixes video games with reality. On another level I could see the Pixels being something consumers would want to buy. I also like you can shake them or turn them over and they"ll change color. The pixels are also waterproof and strong enough to support some weight.
So Jonas, let me just say I became fascinated with Yoren Schriever's and your work Pixels when I saw them for a split second online. Then I saw the video of them. It's just a great colorful idea that mixes video games with reality. On another level I could see the Pixels being something consumers would want to buy. I also like you can shake them or turn them over and they"ll change color. The pixels are also waterproof and strong enough to support some weight.
Jonathan: So where did you get the idea to make them?
*Reminder Jonas' home language is Dutch , so some answers might not be so coherent.
Jonas: As
an digital artist I'm always searching for digital things in an analog
world or the other way around. As for Pixels, we look and watch to
screens and Pixels everyday. Big slogans of the more the better appear
in like every gadget store. What if we could peel those pixels of those
screens and place them in the real world. What will happen?
What background knowledge and talents do you have to create them? Did you create them all your self or have to deal with a bunch of companies to make them?
I'm more the
conceptual person behind the project and Yoren is the Arduino wizard.
He knows how to prototype so this is what we did. He made a small
prototype, and we worked it out on a larger scale. After we had one
working we made 50 of them. Now one year later we developed our own software
and hardware.
Any plans for people being able to buy them?
This could be the next step, we are working on this.
Why do they change color?
Each
Pixel color can be changed by tilting it. See it as a hue circle in
Photoshop where the mouse is a virtual ball. Tilting the Pixel would
roll the ball to and different color range.
I think it's great they can become furniture like the chair in the video, what's some other designs people have come up with?
We
exhibited last year on the major Dutch media festivals and almost every time people come up with something new. Gradients, words, castles,
arrows, chairs you name it.
How much fun was it to let kids try them? I see in the pictures of your site you went to a primary (elementary) school with them.
If kids can work with it the interface is good. The kids love those pixels!
How have video games influenced your work?What are your favorite types of games? Are you a gamer? What's your favorite video game of all time? Your near some video game developers, do you hang out with them?
Never
thought of this so not particularly. But as a kid I played a lot of
games started at the first personal computers, the ones with like one
color (amber) screen. Ms dos a:|\ outrun, alley cat, Prince of Persia,
empire, dune .. still got a bunch of floppy's laying around. At the
time one of my favorite was Empire, the war game, pre-dune, pre
c&c.
Now your Lightbox Sequencer and Windorgel show you care for music? Why create these musical/audio visual creations?
Because I love electronic music, check my dj alias: www.soundcloud.com/beatnologic
I try to put this as much as I can in my work. The Lightbox Sequencers
are big drum sequencers where I invite the public to jam with each
other.
You've worked with many businesses, what was your favorite style of work you've done ?
I'm and artist, interactive designer and dj, I love it all!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Sketchbook Project 2012
Jim Rugg King Notebook Nerd
I knew of Jim's work through the indie comic Street Angel, a story about a young girl skateboarder that dealt with a lot of weird situations. Jim's work seems to delve into a lot of weird situations, but as he told me how he enjoys reading books it's sporadically like the ideas spread out throughout gallery. He was in town from Pittsburg and just started checking out LA. Interestingly enough, a lot of his work doesn't have much of a deeper meaning, more of a free flow of ideas. He didn't even see Total Recall, but knew of the three-boobed chick from it enough to create her for the show.
His taste are also sporadic. Even though he enjoys video games he isn't playing any right now as they might become too addictive. In terms of comics or manga, he's going to try Dragon Head and more of Bakuman. I can't wait to see what else he'll be doing in his own comics next.
Japan Premium
