Mortal Human

I’m quite the excited Rockstar fanboy. The greatest open world game thus far and of all time will be completed on the PS3 and PC soon. Episodes From Liberty City will hit these two other platforms on March 30th.

This of course comes as no surprise to me and many others who speculate our brains out in our over-enthusiasm for this, the greatest open world game thus far and of all time. lol.

I have very high hopes that there will be some kind of modding support added later on down the road – similar to the old Max Payne stuff but less tools… It’s such a waste when they could rule the modding and artist training world.

Rockstar put it all out on a Newswire post a little while ago, see for yourself: Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City Coming to PlayStation 3 and PC

Michael Pachter has been hired on for a new segment at GameTrailers.com called “Pach Attack”. The first episodes lists the best and worst of 2009 and I’m excited about this series to say the least!

I just watched the first episode which I have embedded for your enjoyment below and while it is a little rough around the edges (loosen up, Mike!) I am an instant fan. I will be watching for anything new you guys put out for Pach Attack!

I will probably syndicate the videos Michael makes right here on my site. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say when his show takes off – as you can see by the logo, it probably isn’t going to be about the same things the show kicks itself off with. Good times ahead for mature gamers.

GTA San Andreas is the best game for modding, hands down. The reasons are many, but first I will talk a little bit about other game engines. Maybe you are coming over from Unreal Tournament or Source games – this is a whole different world from those!

Let’s take Unreal III for the first example; When you mod that, unless you do some really extensive stuff, the only thing you’re going to be able to do is create arena maps and have death matches in them. The beauty of game modding to me is what the game offers to would-be indies or industry hopeful. Read the rest of this entry »

Rather generally, heh, I’m going to talk about the world’s most popular drug. Caffeine. I just don’t get it. It is a drug, a stimulant. You can drink too much caffeine and die. Some say too much of anything isn’t good, but wait, this is a drug, right? Yes, it is. So it doesn’t matter if I can die if I drink too much water – that’s not classified as a drug.

In fact, I’m sure all of the people who may read my blog post here are familiar with Coke, or the classic name, Coca-Cola. Kids these days think Coke Classic was a product that was always named Coke and got the Classic when the kiddie flavors came out.

You may or may not be aware that caffeine replaced Cocaine in Coca-Cola. Hey, no offense to you Coca-Cola, this isn’t that kind of post. I’m a Pepsi user myself, but I drink your product from time to time. But still, I know you want to get the Coca to go away.

Let’s forget about oil and free energy for a moment. Let us forget cigarettes and the stranglehold over the herbs of the world – all in the name of preserving market space for pharmaceuticals. Let’s just look at caffeine. Just one little peek. And ask why are you selling drugs to our kids? Why are you pushing those in the grocery and arresting our loved ones for others?

Caffeine replaced Cocaine when you made that illegal. Anyone will tell you from back in the day: “Don’t ever do that stuff these days, it’s not clean like it was yada” so I’m not advocating the abuse of cocaine whatsoever. The point is that the replacement goes into the bottles of some babies who might not have the wisest most experienced teenage mother in the world. lol.

McDonald’s from day one – possessively. And what do they serve there? You never heard Fries-and-a-Coke? I need mah Fries and a Coke. Want that Happy Meal with a Coke? This isn’t about Coke, though, if it was I’d also be talking about coffee and on the subject of soda I would be a prick to call out Coke and not hit Jolt first.

Caffeine is legal, beverage makers operate within the boundaries of the laws I’m allowed to talk about and vote on. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about that. Because there it is – right there – Pepsi and Coke – Blue and Red – the caffeine dealers in the marketing hustle. An expensive reformatting of the almighty pep.

“The Man’s” replacement for cocaine? WTF? Opinions? Have I been too vague, should I write more? Where should I go next when I talk about this stuff? This is where it’s on you when I’m generally speaking, speaking generally.

The game engine all-in-one solution that is 3Impact is now 100% free.

If I could code, I’d download it right away. For now, I am taking a look through all I can find online and will begin weighing it alongside the options I have been weighing as a platform most suitable to learn and try to stick with.

My friends and I have been trying all the new technologies lately, and UDK may be free, but it really, really sucks unless you learn every nook and cranny of it. BSP LOLWTF? Maybe I’ll like UDK more when the old in it is done away with.

While I can’t yet speak for 3Impact’s qualities, I can say it’s going to be stacked against Unity when I test it, which is the most impressive engine I’ve tried thus far (aside from a certain engine a friend is making that will blow the minds of GTA modders everywhere).

If the art-to-render pipeline of 3Impact is anywhere near as decent as Unity’s FBX support, I will take a closer look under its hood as a real contender for my attention based on the good things I have read about this engine over the past few months.

Anyway, just letting you know the game engine is now free, so if you’re a coder, try it out and let me know if it is a contender in the new “free game engines” trend. Here is an overview of the 3Impact features.

These guys are fun to watch. The Tornado Twins have been putting together videos weekly to teach Unity 3D. I had planned to share these tutorials here on my own blog when they had reached 10 video tutorials total, but it would have been awkward as the tenth video ended up about a turret in the project and the eleventh was to be a continuation of that.

Their material is original to my eyes and is really nice to watch. If you are like me and need written, video, and hands on training to really feel like you intimately grasp the material you are learning, then new video tutorials in open communities are as important as white papers.

Since the basic Unity Indie has been done away with and become the free version, Unity 3D video tutorials have been popping up all over. Some have been unique, but most have been complete copies one after another. Will Goldstone’s Book is an example which has been YouTube’d a plenty, but in this case, the book far outweighs the videos and I recommend it.

The Tornado Twins’ material is worth sharing here because they are bite sized, full of unique information, and a lot of philosophy is shared about game development in general, as the two dudes who are the Tornado Twins have been making games for some time. This is their YouTube channel if you want to subscribe for their future content or see their Unity 3D video tutorials there instead.