Tiffany first sent me the link from Gizmodo so that’s where I’m going to link. Read the news here.

Basically, NASA discovered a new bacteria that is comprised, at it’s core level, of arsenic instead of phosphorus like every other living thing on Earth. This is pretty exciting news. But for me, this is not really a new way of thinking.

I’ve always said that with an infinite number of stars out there, each potentially housing a multitude of planets, its pretty naive to think that Earth houses the only life in the Universe. It is also naive (but very much part of the human condition) to think that if there ever was life out there, it would based off of the same building blocks that we are. Whenever I hear some news released by NASA claiming that they found water ice on the Moon or Mars or traces of it on a distant planet, I think “That’s cool… but it really doesn’t tell us anything”.

Why, in a universe where everything is infinite, do we have to limit our way of thinking to our own discovered system of support life or our own table of elements? Just a couple hundred light years away, there could be a highly sophisticated species of life that has the appearance of a cloudy gas trapped in a bubble and “breathes” multi-colored waves of a type that we’ve never seen before– no, not a new kind of light wave or a new type of radio wave but a wave that is something we have no idea about.

With all the brilliant minds at NASA did no one ever think that things could very easily exist outside of the realms of our own personal possibility? I understand that it’s all we know so it’s what we need to look for. Finding a planet that has water on it is a huge advancement in our history of mapping out the solar system and universe. What I’m saying is, do we really need to be that surprised that new life was found that isn’t composed from the same stuff as everything else?

One of the most exciting things about space exploration and study is that, when you really boil it down, we don’t know anything. We know NOTHING about what’s out there and that’s what makes discoveries like this one so exciting… so why act like we know everything whenever a new discovery is made?

SCIENCE!

*note* this blog is written purely out of love for space exploration and scientific speculation. I absolutely adore NASA and everything they’ve contributed to Humanity’s ever-expanding knowledge of the Universe

Come Monday and it was time to pick up the mystery package. What could it be?

It came in a pretty decent sized box.  Still no idea what it could be or no memory of expecting any package.

Upon removing the contents, I was greeted with an iconic item block from the Super Mario series.

Surprise! Inside was a really neat figurine of all the classic Mario characters. This will be a perfect ornament to sit atop the old television on my “Old Games Station”.

• Coraline
• Adventureland
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Watchmen
• Away We Go
• Black Dynamite
• Up
• Inglorious Basterds
• District 9
• Moon
• Zombieland
• Where The Wild Things Are
• World’s Greatest Dad
• Is Anybody There?
• Ponyo

And here’s a list of movies that I’ve heard were awesome that I haven’t had the chance to see yet (but still want to)

• (500) Days of Summer
• Paper Heart
• Gran Torino
• The Road
• This Is It
• The Informant
• I Love You Man
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Sky Chasers
(man, looks like I need to get caught up!)

And here’s a couple movies that I heard were good but didn’t have much interest in seeing when they were all the rage
• Star Trek
• Avatar
• Up In The Air
• The Hurt Locker

And remember, these are only ones that I can remember…I’m sure there are more that I’m forgetting. Pretty awesome to think about.

I’d like to do grouping in the pictures to talk about a few things specifically but there’s just too many pictures for me to deal with and I’m lazy. So here’s a whole bunch of pictures all right here in one place. You can use the right and left arrows underneath the set of images to bring up more.

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We decided that we were going to go to PAX a long time ago. I think our tickets (both plane and event) were purchased back in February and the hotel was booked as well. It was our usual Left 4 Dead crew: JP, Tiffany, D, and myself. We had a pretty good mix of panels and the show floor peppered into our trip but the latter being where we spent most of our time.

I’m going to rattle off my list of the best things I saw while I was there and why they are awesome so here goes:

Donkey Kong Country Returns

I’m really excited and impressed with what Retro Studios has done with this IP. I’m a very nostalgic gamer and, self-admittedly, a big naysayer when it comes to companies revamping my beloved franchises. My worries were laid to rest, however and I can definitely say that this game is going to be a blast. Retro did a fantastic job at capturing the feel and fun of the original DKC series but throwing enough new stuff in there to make it feel both awesomely old school and new at the same time. The jumping mechanics work a little differently so it’ll take just a short while to get used to but overall it has a great feeling control. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong’s abilities are now quite varied instead of just the difference in strength and speed. This time around, Donkey has all the muscle and oompf that you’d expect and Diddy uses that to his advantage. There are new tag team moves such as Diddy riding on Donkey Kong’s back while blasting peanut pistols or grabbing onto DK and using his jetpack to give the heavier Kong a leg-up. I love Donkey Kong Country and I’m totally stoked to play this new entry into the series.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

I know everyone is excited for a new actual entry into Kirby’s adventures for a console system (no, I don’t count air-ride…at all). The DS games are all great and fans have been waiting for a great Kirby game to play on the big screen. I’ve seen plenty of gameplay videos of Epic Yarn and I knew the visuals were neat but seeing it while playing it really brings it alive. There were plenty of moments in the demo where I saw things that either made me laugh or smile simply because of it’s presentation or cleverness. It was made by the same team that made Wario Land: Shake It! so I know it’s going to be a blast. My only fear about this game is that it might be too easy but there are lots of hidden things in each stage to keep things challenging.

NBA Jam

Oh my god, I can’t say enough good things about this game. I don’t like or even remotely care about basketball but I’ve always loved the NBA Jam series. There’s something about ridiculous dunking that just gets me every time. This is another series I would normally be wary about a revamp or reboot (they’ve already tried…and it wasn’t pretty, but it looks like EA Vancouver has done their homework. Absolutely EVERYTHING about this game reminds me of why I loved the originals so much to begin with. It’s the only game on the show floor that I played more than once, if that says anything!

Little Big Planet 2

How could I say anything but great things about LBP2? It’s just like the first game, with even better control, more customization, a more robust editor, all the levels (user-made included) from the first game, and all the charm and style of the first. I played a level that was basically set up to be a race between 4 players. It was a tower climbing game where the objective was basically to get to the top first. It made use of a grappling hook, a teleporter, electrified walls, and a narrow tunnel where the walls were made up of spring-pads. Yeah, this game is going to be awesome.

Patapon 3

I’ll admit it, I never finished the first Patapon (but I wanted to really bad) so therefore, I never got to play the second one either but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to play the crap out of Patapon 3. The game is the same as it ever was in terms of gameplay but the presentation has been ramped up by a metric crap-load. The music, which is the core of the game, sound so much richer and has multiple levels of rhythms and melodies (as showcased here . One of the greatest things about Patapon 3 is that, despite their increasing fan base and production value, this entry is still priced at $20! whooo!

Duke Nukem Forever

Yeah, you read that correctly Duke Nukem Forever.
There were plenty of rumors that Gearbox was the new developer and also plenty of rumors that there would be some huge inducement at PAX but when a game like this is involved rumors are just that. So imagine our surprise when we first get onto the show floor and are greeted, right up front, by a HUGE Duke Nukem Forever booth that is closed off and already had a line forming. We knew we had to see what this was all about. Unfortunately, I went to the Nintendo booth first so by the time we all regrouped, the line way way too long to consider standing in so we made our plan for the next day: Get in line early enough for the show floor so that we’d be right up front when the doors opened and would have a better shot at being near the front of the line at the Duke Nukem Forever booth. Turns out everyone else had that idea too. Despite being in the first group of people let into the expo hall, by the time we reached the Gearbox booth, the Duke Nukem line already stretched way around the booth itself and was bleeding into the Rock Band 3 booth. We decided that we had to see if we could always bet on Duke like we’ve been told. 2.5 hours later and we made our way into the booth. We were greeted by Randy Pitchford to tell us a little bit of history about how DNF came to be in the state it’s in now. After a lot of excited talk from him plus a new trailer, he let us all into another room where we could play the demo. The main thing I can say about the demo is that this game is going to be quintessentially Duke. It’s classic with the one-liners by Jon St. John, the humor and even the action is all just as we remember it from Duke 3D. Should we be worried that this game is too old school to be fun? No. Not if you like Duke Nukem for what it is and appreciate the fact that this game has evolved into more than just the next Duke Nukem game, but an homage and a service to all of the fans who waited it out and dreamed of the day when Duke would, once again, be pissed at more alien bastards for shooting up his ride.

Swarm

This is a new game by Hothead game studios and it looks like way too much fun. They didn’t have it playable but a rep from Hothead was there giving a walkthrough demo every hour of the current build. Think of it like a combination of Lemmings and Overlord but with it’s own distinct flavor. This game really rides on it’s humor and, from what I saw, it does a really good job. It’s pretty amusing just how hopeless those little swarmites are.

Ok, now to switch gears, I want to talk about a couple of things that didn’t impress me much. Of the things I tried, I can only think of 2 off the top of my head so here they are:

Infamous 2

I enjoyed the first one (despite my constant whining that the game carried on for way too long AND the really dumb ending) so I was pretty excited to play the next one in the series. Unfortunately, this one felt pretty different from the first one unless I’m just remembering differently. This time, Cole is equipped with a blunt weapon that produces an electric current for shocking and beating his enemies all at once. Gone is regular hand-to-hand combat unless it just wasn’t included in the demo. This weapon feels really awkward to me and the animations they used make it looks like Cole is swinging it wildly without a clue as to what he’s actually doing. In the combat, every strike has slow-down effect right before the point of impact to try and make each hit feel more visceral. I don’t enjoy the effect at all and I find it to actually be pretty disruptive to the gameplay. This even happens when you shoot a foe with a generic lightning blast. In addition to the combat issues I had with the demo, some of the presentation elements are a little wonky. At one point in her run through it, Tiffany said she saw parts of Cole’s body being stretched out as other parts moved. The engine looked really choppy and it hung /froze fairly often. I noticed on every single screen while I was waiting that the demo froze for a significant amount of time during a cutscene. Perhaps this is just one of the engines that don’t hold up too well to the gaming industry standards or perhaps they’re revamping it and they’re still working out the kinks. Either way, the game isn’t due until 2011 so hopefully Sucker Punch will be able to address some of these issues before it’s launch.

Kinect

I already had very low hopes for this device but since the line for it was (laughably) short, I figured I’d give it a fair chance. The software that I demoed was the cleverly titled “Deca Sports Freedom”. I’m wondering if maybe the software wasn’t the best showcase of the device but it was absolutely atrocious. D and I played fencing together and even navigating through the menu controller-free was a giant hassle. We were standing a good 3-4 feet apart and it kept confusing his left hand with my right, our cursors kept flickering in and out, and the movement lag made it quite the task to select any options. I also really hate having to hover over a button for 5 seconds to select it. It’s cumbersome and annoying.
When we finally got into the game itself, things didn’t get much better. I kept trying to do a sideways slice to D’s torso but by avatar would only keep attacking vertically which was pretty good indication that the Kinect wasn’t recognizing my instructions.
I’m not about to blame it on all the commotion that was happening on the show floor either as they had a nice, walled off section for the demo to prevent any background activity from confusing the device. The whole experience was eye-rolling and a total joke. The idea is cool but the technology just isn’t there yet, I think. I also think that Maybe the programmers for Deca Sports freedom aren’t the best out there so maybe I’ll be proven wrong with a better piece of software.

All in all, PAX was tremendous fun. It’s great to be surrounded by like-minded people, all enjoying the things that they do the most. You get to meet and talk with a few industry professionals too as it’s usually the developers manning the booths. Seattle is awesome, and PAX is awesome. I’m going to do everything I can to go again next year!

Previously, on Alan Wake…

I was able to finally play this game over the weekend, despite having since it came out in May.   I have been looking forward to this game ever since I first heard about it way back during E3 of 2005.  Back then, the game was slightly different and it was also supposed to be a PC game as well (which was later canned for reasons I totally don’t agree with).  Eventually, it was restricted solely to the Xbox 360 and took quite a long time to complete.

The game is developed by Remedy Entertainment who is mostly (a.k.a. “only”) popular for the Max Payne series.  They also developed a Carmageddon style game before Max Payne but not too many people have actually heard of it.  If you ask me, if my company was only know for one game series, I’d be glad to know that the series was as solid as Max Payne.

Part of what made those games so amazing was the contribution of Sam Lake, a Swedish writer and employee at Remedy who lent his writing talent to both games.  Coincidentally, most of what makes Alan Wake such an incredible experience is that it was also written by Lake.  The game is split up into 6 chapters that play very much like either chapters in a novel or episodes in a Twilight Zone styled TV series (with a little less cheese).

From the very beginning, The story pulls you in and keeps you there with an intense sequence that instantly lets you know how the game will be played and how the element of light will be used throughout the game.

I can’t really say much about particular events that happen without spoiling anything.  I’m also not claiming to be any kind of game reviewer– But I can say that this game will keep you guessing and guessing until the very end.  It’s filled with awesome plot-twists, moments of extreme suspense, and just an overall engaging story.  You won’t want to put it down until you’ve finished it.

That brings me to my next point regarding the length of the game.  I just have to get this out there.  A lot of game sites and publications have noted that this game is pretty short… but the spin they put on it was that it was a bad thing.  First of all, let me say that the game is exactly as long as it needs to be, it never felt like it was dragging on in any way or cut short in any way.  Secondly, this game is not short.  My definition of a short game would be something like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where you can blast through the campaign in about 4 hours or any other game in similar length where it wouldn’t be at all far-fetched for even a more casual gamer to beat it in one (or one and a half) sittings.  Alan Wake probably took me about 10-12 hours to beat.  I’m not exactly sure because there is no gameplay counter or anything.  But each of the 6 chapters can easily take 2 hours each, or more to beat.  Some are shorter than others, but even the short ones are quite lengthy.

I enjoyed Alan Wake 100% through and I’m very excited to play both of the planned DLC episodes (The Signal is already out and The Writer is planned for release).  This game is easily on my “play multiple times” list.

If you have a 360 and are any kind of fan of thrillers, action games, or just a fantastic story, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.>

Here’s some pictures of the trip.  I only included like 60 or so but keep in mind that we took over 1,200! (a couple hundred at the Bronx Zoo alone.  That will get it’s own blog update).

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We did so many things while we were there it’s hard to even remember everything exactly.  As soon as we got there, we hopped a bus down to a subway station in an attempt to get to grand central so we could walk to our hotel and dump our luggage.  Unfortunately, we took an express train in the wrong direction and it took us a while to figure out how to get back.  (fear not, by the 3rd day, we were subway pros!).

When we got to the hotel, we were shown up to our room by, quite possibly, the coolest old man on the planet.  I wish so badly that I would have asked him if I could take his picture but I didn’t.  After that we headed straight to Central Park to spend the day there.  We planned to get all of the outdoor stuff done in the first few days because it was supposed to rain a lot while we were there (it didn’t).  So we then spent hours walking all over Central park trying to navigate it from this poorly xeroxed map that we donated $1 to a homeless man to obtain.  Once we finally found the Grand Lawn, we plopped down and I fell asleep while Tiffany read her newest book.

That night, we went to The Empire State Building to catch the view of the city at night and it was pretty incredible.  It’s hard to imagine that a building that tall is as old as it is.

The next day, we spent most of the day at The Bronx Zoo.  This is a crazy huge zoo.  I’ll talk more about that in another update.  For dinner that night, we went to an incredible Churrascaria and proceeded to stuff ourself with as much meat as we could (and couldn’t) possibly handle in one sitting.  Then we went to Times Square and just sat around and enjoyed the lights and bustle.

The next day, we caught the ferry over to Liberty and Ellis Island.  Tiffany and I were both surprised at how much time we ended up staying in the Ellis Island Museum.  We didn’t know much about the whole process of immigration back then but it was very interesting and informative.  That night, for dinner, we went down to the Bleecker street and ate at the coolest Italian restaurant, run by the two coolest Italians on the planet.  You can barely even call this place a restaurant, given that there are exactly 6 cramped seats in the whole storefront.  The guys were hilarious and talked to us a bunch while we waited for our food to get made.  They tod us that since all the chairs were taken up, we could eat on the steps of the church next door, which we did.  Before we left, one of the guys told us to wait cause he had to get us some “stuff” to drink  (He kind of looked around when he said that).  He ran behind the counter and handed us some plastic cups with a yellowish liquid that turned out to be champagne.  We were the wrong people to give it to because neither of us drank it but the gesture was awesome.

The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History and spent most of the day there — The majority of our time there was upstairs in the dinosaur/prehistoric exhibit and then all the way downstairs for the planetarium and space exhibit.  That is the coolest science museum ever.  That night, we did my favorite thing while we were there and got to see The Lion King on Broadway.  I could talk for hours about this play but I can also easily condense it down into one word: Mind-blowing.  It’s amazing how they were able to translate scenes from an animated movie to the stage so seamlessly.  Never have I seen so much creativity, passion, and production in one place.

The next day, we spent a good bit of time at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was pretty awesome to see some of the incredibly famous works of art that I spent so much time studying in college.  After that we headed down to Rockerfeller Plaza and just kind of took everything in before visiting Nintendo World!  That day was the only day it rained while we were there, despite the weather reports, and it lasted all but 30 mins tops.  That night, we ate a pretty cool Thai place and then jumped over to Times Square to catch a showing of Iron Man 2.  At the movie theater, I lost hope in humanity (again) because they had around 10 screens showing Sex and the City 2 and every single one of them was sold out.  I just don’t get it…

Our last day in The Big Apple was spent  in Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, and then all the way uptown for a lunch at Tom’s Diner.  For the awesome people out there, this is the diner who’s exterior was used as the favorite coffee shop, Monk’s, in the best show to ever be on TV, Seinfeld.

It was exhausting but way too much fun.  Definitely the best trip I’ve ever been on.  I can truly see Milton Glaser’s inspiration for his immensely famous logo “I Love NY”

Here’s a quick rundown of a chat Mr. Anderson-Coovert and I had last night:

JP: Steam says you’re playing Adobe After Effects
Me: That’s right!
JP: I don’t get it, how does it know?
Me: I figured I’d add it as a third-party “game” because I’m always “playing” it so much. And, of course, I’m winning.
JP: Haha! Badass, dude. This is why we’re friends!

Well, my birthday is officially over and I’ve got to say, it was full of twists and turns of surprises and well planned out gifts by Tiffany. Never has anyone gone to so much trouble for me and I still can’t believe that she went through it all. But she was bustling all day, just as much as (or even more than) I was!

I also can’t believe that it’s still not finished yet. there’s one more surprise for me today that involves some more people so I’m excited about that.

What I really can’t believe is what Tiffany gave me for my final present. I’m going to tell you but you’re never going to believe it…

we’re going to NEW YORK CITY!!

Today, March 23rd, 2010, Tiffany turned twenty-one! whoooo!

I normally don’t reserve my blog for personal messages but here’s one for a special occasion:

Tiffany, since the day we met, you’ve been such a strong influence on the direction that my life has been going. I’m so lucky to have you with me every day. I love how you’re always looking out for me and trying your best to make sure everything is the best it can be for me. You’ve been spoiling the crap out of me and making me feel like I’m the most important person in the world since almost day one. I can’t imagine going on at the rate I’m going without your motivation and support.

Thank you so much. I Love you, Tiffany!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Just watch:

Once you appear on the mysterious Donkey Kong/Rambi hybrid, you’re limited to just moving around with the D-Pad for if you press any of the face buttons, everything returns to normal.

My question is, how did somebody figure this out? Surely it was an accident. And, even more importantly, if it was an accident, how did they know exactly what to do to recreate it? Now, I’ve been known to have a little too much fun finding glitches in video games (more so in earlier years than today) but some people just have too much time on their hands!