This is just too good to ignore.

-via Unreality

Art can be really great; personalized art can be even better. So begins the chronicle of one not so little piece of art that I believe will be one of the most fulfilling things I have dealt with in the past few years…

There is a neat little store in downtown Lincoln known as the Black Market. This is the go to place for all things “hipster”  -or so I’ve heard. Anyways, while there last week for a shoe sale they had, my buddy Elliot and I noticed a neat little piece of art that happened to be awesome as hell. This piece was drawn that by a local artist known only as Norm that apparently is impossible to find. “She comes to me when she wants to sell stuff,” mentioned Jessie, the dude at the store.

Anyways, this piece was only $40 and was quickly swiped up by Elliot. Mind you, this piece is really long, longer than widescreen even. There is also a lot going on in the whole work. The point of the piece, though, was to be colored by whoever bought it as they saw fit. This is quite the undertaking. I mean, take a look at this thing:

Click for full-size.

Click for full-size.

Click for full-size.

That thing is so long, we had to take three pictures to capture it all! Rather than just run in blind without a plan, we decided to kick up Photoshop and use it to plan the color scheme. After some time, this is what we came up with:

Click for full-size

We actually started coloring it today, but I didn’t take a picture yet. I plan to for next time. Anyways, I’ll continue this story with my next post.

Party A: (10:42 P.M.) – Any Shenanigans in store for the weekend?

Party B: (10:43 P.M.) – Tim won’t be here. Wanna do something Friday after 11pm?

A: (10:44 P.M.) – As my great grandfather once said: “Fo sho.”

B: (10:45 P.M.) – Hahaha, I love you! LOL

A: (10:45 P.M.) – Love you more OMGOLMAO

B: (10:47 P.M.) – Tim&joe: “what are you laughing so hard at?” hahaha

A: (10:48 P.M.) – Well you did your lol pretty loudly, so i was upping the ante

B: (10:48 P.M.) – OH I SEE

A: (10:49 P.M.) – GLAD TO SEE THE POINT GOT ACROSS XD

B: (10:50 P.M.) – O ARE YOU.

A: (10:51 P.M.) – WITTY RESPONSE COMPRISED ENTIRELY OF CAPITAL LETTERS

B: (10:53 P.M) – NON WITTY RESPONSE comprised of half capital letters

A: (10:55 P.M.) – Semi sarcastic response with a brief detailing about how i will blog about this scenario

B: (10:56 P.M.) – You have a Blog? Is it about witty text message conversationz?

A: (10:58 P.M.) – It can be… :3

B: (10:58 P.M.) – Teehee. I would read that!

A: (10:59 P.M.) – I will blog tonight!

Dan misses me! He’s my best friend and I love him! He misses me; this is wonderful!

:3

Donato Hole T.V. is now live!

So far, it’s just playing FLCL until the end of time. However, I plan to get a bunch of different anime, cartoons, and random shows that I would like to watch on here. I’m also taking requests, though. Drop me a line.

Castle Crashers is out now on Xbox Live Arcade for a price of 1200($15) Microsoft points. Is it worth the money?

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer:

Hells yes!

Castle Crashers is the second game from indie developer The Behemoth. Their first game, Alien Hominid, provided a good gun & play game and a crapton of fun in the form of the PDA games minigame. I spent hours playing AH and a lot more playing the PDA games, so I was pretty eager for Castle Crashers. A Side-Scrolling Beat ‘Em Up for four players with RPG elements and more unlockables than you can shake a sword at? Consider me sold.

I was not dissapointed.

Before the game even starts, we are presented with the unique art style, which is all completely drawn by Dan Paladin a.k.a. Synj. I have loved this style since the moment I first laid eyes upon it in the Alien Hominid flash games. In the retail version of Hominid, the borders on some of the drawings/sprites/characters/whatever were kind of jaggy. However, they are a lot smoother in Castle Crashers, which in turns means the game looks fantastic.

Next, we hear the sounds of what seems to be the most epic soundtrack ever. It’s not the most epic soundtrack ever, but it sure is great. All of the music was submitted by Newgrounds users and hand-picked by the developer themselves. Some of the songs are repeated on certain levels, but I’m not complaining considering how catchy and energetic most of the songs are. Every song in this game is enjoyable. That’s all you really need to know.

The games story is probably not even needed, but it’s here anyway. Honestly, I would be okay with just starting the game, sword in hand, and then randomly breaking into the horrendous slaughter of thouusands of enemies. This is not the case, though. The game starts with the players’ characters enjoying a dance in the castle of their residence. All of sudden, an evil wizard breaks in and steals a very large crystal, which seems to have great power. Amidst the chaos, four princesses of varying palettes are kidnapped by barbarians. So begins the quest. It’s a very a very simplistic story reminiscent of older days in video games.

Well then, how about I talk about the actual gameplay? Like I mentioned earlier, this is a Side-Scrolling Beat ‘Em Up with RPG elements. Hitting and defeating enemies earns experience which can be spent on either Strength, Defense, Magic, or Agility. It’s a very simple system but it makes for a really fun game. Coming up with what kind of “build” I’ll make for my next character has been on my mind a lot lately. The combat is very simple and the game can be played a variety of ways (brute force, slinging magic, ranged archery). Unfortunately for me, I ended up discovering that the experience system is based on the number of hits, so I eventually just did the same multi-hit combo for most of the game. However, I have also learned to play in a more “normal” style. Either style is pretty fun, though.

The game is pretty big. Sporting over 20 levels, ranging from the genric (a forest full of bad guys) to the ridiculous (escaping from said forest on a pooping deer). There’s also plenty of unlockables. Besides the 12 Achievements, there are different animal companions (which grant bonuses), a bunch of hidden playable characters, and a hell of a lot of weapons. Normally after a week or so, a game has most of its unlockables discovered. This is not the case for Castle Crashers. Along side the main game, is Arena mode, where various players can duke it out with their characters, and All You Quaff, a button smashing fest that will leave your fingers sore.

As for the multiplayer, this is where the game really shines. Alone the game is alright, but with friends the fun just skyrockets. Even with just one other person, the game becomes a lot more fun. All the game modes are playable over Xbox Live, but there are currently some issues with this which have scared me into not trying the online aspect until a patch arrives. However, I’m sure as soon as the problems are resolved, the multiplayer experince will be the best part of the game.

With throwbacks to other games (including a not-so-subtle reference to Double Dragon), fun gameplay,  fantastic looks, great sounds, and enjoyable humor, Castle Crashers is a real gem for the Live Arcade. My only gripe, as of now, is that the Playstation Network and WiiWare are missing out on this game. Hopefully, there’s is nothing preventing The Behemoth from porting this game over to the PS3 and Wii in the future.

Final Verdict:

Recommended Buy

I somehow found my way to Requiem. It’s another free MMO. It’s biggest “selling” point however is the fact that it is “The world’s first horror MMO!” Since it was free, I wasn’t too reluctant to jump in…

The first thing to do, of course, is to make a character.

Yum.

Since I wasn’t too worried about the name, he became “Donato.” Original, huh?

Here I am, looking cool in the actual game.

Damn, I want hair like that...

Anyway, the first thing that I see is some guys all up in each other.

Hmm...

After a moment to recuperate, I encounter Latona.

Those glasses are just... mmm...

Aw, yeah. She encouurages me to go visit with important people in town, thus giving me my first quests. I head towards the town, which is named the oh so mystical and fantastical, Kurt.

Guard is a common name in the world of Requiem. Here we see Guard McJohnson and Guard Hansen hard at work.

Cool Vantage Point #1

Cool Vantage Point #2

It’s no Stormwind, but I guess it’s not bad. Following what my quests suggest, I go meet the mayor of Kurt. He’s quite a jolly looking fellow.

*grumble*

He points me over to my next quest point, the tavern. However, unlike other MMOs *cough*WoW*cough* there is no point on the map or even a map of the city for me to follow. So for ten minutes I find myself wandering around Kurt. In my lost search, I meet up with this guy:

He's a fucking tiger! Holy shit!

I then made a promise to get myself a badass mount before I quit. Before I make it to the tavern, I come across my class trainer. Here is where I get my first “Go kill X monster Y times” quest.

I'm a Temperion, by the way...

He also tells me to find another class trainer guy. After two seconds of searching, I find him.

Seriously, the other guy is literally 10 feet away...

From this guy, I get access to my skills! Now I can do stuff other than attack!

LOOK AT THAT! I ATTACK TWICE! TWICE!!

After talking to those two, I’m up to level 3. Aw yeah, I’m feeling good. I’m looking too.

I'm all glowing and stuff. You can't deny that's awesome.

After some more wandering, I find the “tavern.”

It's just some kegs... what?

I get kind of annoyed that they try to pass this area off as a “tavern.” However, the game instantly redeems itself when I meet my quest NPC.

I just rolled a 20 on a pants check... uh... eww...

I finish up my quest and decide to venture outside to kill some monsters.

Outside the city is a no-man's land. Also, there's a pirate ship.

I found some monsters and quickly slay them.

U-G-L-Y, you ain't go no alibi. You are a grotesque looking creature.

I just slashed him... TWICE!!

I'm so bad that I knocked a box out of him.

The dying animations are kind of cool. Instead of just dissappearing immediately, the monsters spasm and squirm around for a bit. I return to town, turn in the quest. This leads to another quest that requires me to obtain 4 Relic Fragments. This turns out to be a lot easier than I expect.

Yup, that's five Fragments onscreen all real close to each other... >_>

This was the last quest that I did, before I logged off. I realized that I could of done it all, had I the prior knowledge, in about five minutes. Oh well, I got some cool equipment from all the questing at least. I look so cool now. I went from this:

Old and busted...

To this:

New hotness!

I’m just looking so badass…