ANIME EXPO 2013: Sleeping Cosplay? Batman & Spiderman duo? Mortal Come back?

Retrenders - Sleepy Thor - Batman Spiderman - Mortal Kombat - Johnny MorenoWhat’s going on here? Well, it’s early in the evening and some cosplayers are snoozing while others are trying to keep up with photographers. We lead in with cosplay model, Vampy Bit Me, who happens to be from the San Francisco Bay Area.Retrenders - Johnny Moreno - Ramen and a Half - Vampy Bit Me - Anime Expo 2013
In this segment the Ramen Crew really caught some random images, a cosplay snoozing, and of course the other 99 percent getting their photo’s taken every which way and loving it. Interestingly enough, we caught a Batman and Spiderman dynamic duo cosplaying on the ground floor. Ryan Turney tells us how he used dye sublimated lycra to create his outfit and Danny Lopez shows off his Batman cowl mask which is made by professional prop maker, Shawn Reeves. Then we get a flash back taste of Mortal Kombat!

We pretty much interviewed the obvious of course… other than eat breakfast then cosplay, eat lunch then cosplay and then catch dinner and hit the cosplay night life, but for those who come from afar or from next door to the Anime Expo convention center and perhaps maybe stayed up a wee bit too late the night before excitingly undecided in what cosplay will do …Well, we got one person to explain that!

Fan Film: The Last of Us

thelastofusApparently our Ramen host “the Eddie” is correct.  “The Last of Us” is not just a video game but a film too, well, a fan film made by fans.

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The Guild – The Official Companion

the guildThe year 2006 seems like ages ago, before social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and video streaming were popular, and the giant video site YouTube was only starting out, and Felicia Day had an idea of bringing her MMORPG experiences onto video as a TV series.  The World of Warcraft gamer created an internet sensation as the series spawned 6 seasons worth of episodes and over 250 million plus views.

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Viral Video Friday: Final Fantasy Dance Tribute

final fantasy dance moves

Dance choregraphers Mike Song and Tony Tran really like Final Fantasy and here’s there dance tribute.  Lock and pop!

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SciFi Currency Converter

currency converter

Ever wonder how Creds are from Dredd, Federation Credits from Star Trek, Galatic Credit from Star Wars, Bottle Caps from Fallout: New Vegas in terms of real-world currency like the Dollar ($), Pound (£) or Euro (€)?  Well, now you use this cool SciFi Currency Converter.

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Adventure Time Monopoly Board Game!

adventure time monopoly

Are you are fan of Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time and the board game Monopoly?   Now you can put the two together and play Adventure Time Monopoly Collector’s Edition by USAopoly, Cartoon Network and Hasbro.

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Street Fighter Stop-Motion Fun

sf stop motion

This Street Fighter-inspired stop-motion animation short “Maker vs Marker” is by Jonny Lawrence and music by Brian Sadler.

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Excel spreadsheet turned into a video game RPG: Arena.Xlsm

excel rpg 01

Image via Ars Technica

Accountant by day and game developer at night – Cary Walkin had the idea of making his boring Excel spreadsheet into an RPG – Arena.Xlsm.  The requirements are you will need a PC and Excel versions 2007, 2010 or 2013 to run this turn-base RPG game.  And you will need to enable Macros for the game to work.

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Viral Video Friday: [Touhou] Bad Apple! on Sega Megadrive

Here’s something hackable you can do with the SEGA Megadrive/Genesis, just watch this cool video playing:

 

SEGA: Castle of Illusion back this Summer 2013!

segacastleofillusion

Way back in the 1990s, SEGA released a neat little 2D platformer game with Disney character Mickey Mouse.   The Castle of Illusion side-scroller was a hit game for the Genesis/Mega Drive and found it’s way onto the Master System and Game Gear consoles too.  Two sequels would also come – Land of Illusion (1992) and World of Illusion (1993).

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Interview with Ghostbot Co-Founder and Animator Alan Lau

Sly Cooper Promo Art

As promised in last Friday’s Catching up with Animation Studio Ghostbot, we wanted to share with our readers an interview with one of the lead creative brains behind the studio – Ghostbot Co-Founder and Animator Alan Lau. A fan of Japanese Anime and an active gamer, he’s worked for several esteemed studios in the past such as Wild Brain, Laika, and Madhouse. His ability to seamlessly integrate captivating 2D animation to each and every project is what stands out when looking at all his works en masse.

For Ghostbot, their most recent project was working on every 2D cinematic for the new Sly Cooper video game out now on the PS3 titled Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. I’ve seen the game in action and it’s great to see them keep the charm of the original Sly games intact while pushing the quality of the game art to higher levels. Recently,we had the good fortune to sit down with Alan and find out what other video game projects the company has worked on, what his reaction was on getting the opportunity to work on such a beloved franchise, and the amount of pressure they put on themselves to get the character attributes just right.

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Catching up with Animation Studio Ghostbot

SLY_PromoArt01Since we reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, we bump into a number of devoted and talented local artists who are not afraid of working together to come up with very creative original content. One such group is Ghostbot, a small, but experienced, animation studio that has set up camp on the outskirts of San Francisco. Founded in 2004 by three young animators, they work tirelessly on a multitude of mediums, ranging from TV commercials to short films on the web to video games. With a deliberate and unique 2D style mixing pop sensibilities and cartoon art, they’ve produced and have worked on many projects that you may recognize, such as the Erin Esurance ad campaign and the painfully cute Happy Tree Friends animated series to name a few.

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Classic Monopoly Tokens on the Retiring Block

savetoken

Today, toy company Hasbro is generating some PR buzz for the classic board game Monopoly by retiring one of its classic tokens.  The public will get the chance to vote on which classic token to be saved – either the car, thimble, boot, Scottie dog, battleship, hat, iron or wheelbarrow.

retiredtoken

You have until February 5, 2013 on Monopoly’s Facebook page to decide.  My vote is for the “Iron”.  Vote!!!

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Vintage Games

This is for vintage game snobs!  If you don’t like the cheap feel of budget board games from the corner drugstore, might I suggest these retro vintage style games?

vintagescrabble

This Vintage Giant Deluxe Scrabble uses special wood and is also a Lazy-Susan, so the board can spin around to any player and raised grids to keep the tiles from moving.  Weighing in at 17 pounds and 50% larger than regular Scrabble board games, this pricey board game will endure the rough and tumble Scrabble playing madness!

MSRP:  $220.00USD

Buy it @ Restoration Hardware (RH) – Vintage Giant Deluxe Scrabble.

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Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

halo4art

Being a big Xbox gamer and Halo “fanboy,” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this new art book from Titan Books titled Awakening: The Art of Halo 4. Like many Halo fans, I was a little weary of 343 Industries taking over the Halo franchise from Bungie.  Though as the promotions started, then watching the exciting web series Halo 4:  Forward Unto Dawn, and seeing the game being released to great reviews, my fears were alleviated.

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Halloween Board Game Fright: Zombies!!!

If you are rained in and it’s too cold to go Trick or Treating tonight, then how about a Resident Evil-style undead shoot-out board game?  This board game came out a couple of years ago by Twilight Creations – Zombies!!!

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Viral Video Friday: Marching Band Video Game Tribute

The state of Ohio is known for its Buckeye football program, but during this half-time show, the Ohio State Marching Band steals the show with this video game tribute.

The Playlist:

1. Space Invaders

2. Pokémon

3. Tetris

4. Super Mario

5. Halo

6. The Legend of Zelda

7. Super Mario

8. Pac-Man

Q4 2012 – The Video Game Hit List

No images needed, no special links, no trailers, just a hit list of video games you should buy and play because this is how you will become a hard-core gamer!

Out Now!!! – Borderlands 2

October 2 – Resident Evil 6

October 9 – Dishonored

October 9 – XCOM

October 30 – Assassin’s Creed 3

November 6 – Halo 4

November 13 – Black Ops 2

November 20 – Hit Man Absolution
PS – Special thanks for Gmixalot for this video game busting guide.

Indie Game: FTL (Faster Than Light)

If you like indie games and dig ARPGs (Action Role Playing Games), take a look at this new game that’s just launched – FTL (Faster Than Light) by Matthew Davis and Justin Ma.  This spaceship sim was funded through Kickstarter.

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Is That a Plane in Your Pocket?

Pocket Planes Title Screen

Pocket Planes Title Screen

Nimblebit, the team that brought you Tiny Tower, is back with a new game called Pocket Planes. Instead of managing a tower, you’re in charge of managing an airline.

If I had to classify this game, I would place it in the time management style of games. It starts you off with a plane and a couple of airports and your job is to move passengers and cargo from one airport to another while maximizing profit. As you make money, you expand your airline with more planes and airports.

Fortaleza Airport

Fortaleza Airport

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NES Minimalist Art Prints

Society6 has a great idea here with these NES minimalist art prints. Who would have thought that decades ago, games would soon be considered as art. Which gave me a great idea, someone should come out with a way to capture my greatest moments in Modern Warfare multiplayer so I could proudly show off my greatest achievements in poster, print, or certificate form.

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Expensive Board Game – Checkers

Four grand to play checkers! Really?

I always wondered how I could play checkers with more style. Good thing I found this – a Gucci leather checkers set! What a great idea. Now I can feel complete and concentrate more on checkers strategy. By the way, I suck in checkers but at least I will look good playing it.

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French Video Game Collector Nets €1 Million Euros

Image via eBay

Andre is a video game collector from France and he was able to sell his video game collection for about $1.23 million USD on eBay.  This huge collection consists of over 7,000 games and 22 game consoles.  Not only did it take him 15 years to finish this collection but he challenged himself to find and buy factory sealed video games.  Now that’s hardcore.

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Play Monopoly on the Streets of Chicago

How cool would it be to play the classic board game “Monopoly” on the streets of Chi-town?  Way cool.

Image via Colossal

The street artist(s) behind this “Monopoly” art project chose to remain hidden, but they are simply known as the artist(s) – Bored.  For more pictures of this “Monopoly” street art and article, go to:  Colossal, Art & Design – Monopoly Street Art.

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Viral Video Friday: Super Mario 3D Art

supermario3dartTime-lapse video of artist Chris Carlson drawing Mario in 3D with chalk.