Monday, January 18, 2016

Academy Awards 2016 -- Predictions and Hopefuls

With the Oscar nomination list just recently announced, I'd figure I'd bite (despite only seeing three of the movies on the list) and make a list both of the movies I want to see win as well as ones that I think are more likely to actually win -- separated as hopefuls and predictions respectively. Since most of these movies I'm just going on general praise and word of mouth I'm not gonna have any big discussion on any of them -- just lay down what I think and then maybe after the awards have a recap, similar to how its done with the E3 predictions. Anyway, here are the lists:

Hopefuls:

Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road
Actor in a Leading Role: Leonardo DiCaprio
Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett
Actor in a Supporting Role: N/A
Actress in a Supporting Role: Jennifer Jason Leigh
Animated Feature Film: Anomalisa
Cinematography: The Revenant
Costume Design: Mad Max: Fury Road
Directing: George Miller
Documentary Feature: The Look of Silence
Documentary Short: N/A
Film Editing: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul
Makeup and Hairstyling: Mad Max: Fury Road
Music -- Original Score: The Hateful Eight
Music -- Original Song: N/A
Production Design: N/A
Short Film (Animated): N/A
Short Film (Live Action): N/A
Sound Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Sound Mixing: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Visual Effects: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Writing (Adapted): The Martian
Writing (Original): Straight Outta Compton

Predictions:

Best Picture: The Martian
Actor in a Leading Role: Eddie Redmayne
Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett
Actor in a Supporting Role: Tom Hardy
Actress in a Supporting Role: Rooney Mara
Animated Feature Film: Inside Out
Cinematography: The Revenant
Costume Design: Carol
Directing: George Miller
Documentary Feature: The Look of Silence
Documentary Short: Last Day of Freedom
Film Editing: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul
Makeup and Hairstyling: The Revenant
Music -- Original Score: The Hateful Eight
Music -- Original Song: Writing's on the Wall
Production Design: The Martian
Short Film (Animated): Sanjay's Super Team
Short Film (Live Action): Stutterer
Sound Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Sound Mixing: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Visual Effects: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Writing (Adapted): The Martian
Writing (Original): Spotlight

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Sunday, January 3, 2016

Essential Free (Downloadable) Games

As it turns out the last time I posted something on this blog was 2 months ago, and 2 months is usually what I believe to be enough time to believe a project is dead. So in order to make sure you don't think this blog is dead, here's a lil post about some of my favorite free games. I'm also not including images and therefore work because like I say is lil post fuck you first thing


Chex Quest Collection

Okay so I can't really remember whether or not I torrented this or if I just got it off somewhere for free, but the Chex Quest games DID come packaged in cereal boxes and this was like 20+ fucking years ago so unless General Mills or whoever renewed their licensing for their shitty doom clone its probably both legally and morally okay to download this. That being said I now can't find any download links for it so you're unfortunately on your own if you want to find this gem.

Chex Quest really is just a Doom clone, but you get to play as a single piece of chex which is pretty sweet. Also there's a hardmode that's pretty dank too. Someone once recommended I play this when I was still streaming on Twitch, and I think I played it for three whole hours before I got bored (which is a pretty good set of time for me)

Desktop Dungeons

Download page: http://www.desktopdungeons.net/media/

Okay so there's a $15 version and browser version of this game as well but FUCK those cause this is about both free AND downloadable games.

This game (mostly the browser version) helped me survive my boring as all hell freshmen tech class. However, the downloadable version is much more expanded on the browser version and I damn near went a craze when I saw that shit. That being said its still a fairly simple roguelike so if you're not sure whether or not you like roguelikes I suggest trying this one out first and foremost. However, if you're ready for more advanced stuff...

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Download page: http://crawl.develz.org/download.htm

Now Dungeon Crawl is some true, HARDCORE shit dude. If you thought Desktop Dungeons was baby gay shit, this is some REAL, FINE, 100% PURE ROGUELIKE ACTION.  Out of all of the games on this list, this is by far the game I both played the most of AND enjoyed the most. If you know you like roguelikes, the amount of content that you're getting out of this game is INSANE. No wonder its considered one of the best and most essential by the roguelike community.

Dwarf Fortress

 Download page: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

So I once played this game with a guide and at that point I kind of understood what was going on but then I stopped playing it for awhile and every time I tried to pick it back up I once again had no idea what the fuck was going on. However, during that time I was understanding the game I remember having enjoyment with it, which is why I'm putting it on this list. Before you download Dwarf Fortress, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND having a guide close by, because otherwise you won't know what the FUCK is going on.

Elona

Download page: http://homepage3.nifty.com/rfish/index_e.html

Elona is both as fun and confusing as Dwarf Fortress is, however Elona does, to its benefit, have an in-game tutorial, which DF does not at least from my memory of last playing it. Elona is pretty much just a roguelike with DF-elements inside of it, which funnily enough happens to be where most of the confusing parts come from.

Powder Toy

Download page: http://powdertoy.co.uk/

Before Dan-Ball's Powder Game, there was nothing. After Dan-Ball's Powder Game, there was Powder Toy, which is literally just Powder Game on steroids. Its like playing Super Smash Bros 64 and then going straight to the Wii-U version. Seriously, the amount of content in this game is fucking crazy. There's probably like 200 different elements compared to Powder Game's like 5 -- also you can play other people's places, which means there's plenty of new cities and places to blow the fuck up.

Realistic Summer Sports

Download page: http://gamejolt.com/games/realistic-summer-sports-simulator/9769

There isn't much to say about Realistic Summer Sports beyond the fact that is a goofy, mouse-only game with fun physics. However, its also fun. Play it. Really.

BONUS: SpaceSniffer

Download page: http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/download.html

Okay so SpaceSniffer isn't a game, its a software -- but its a pretty useful piece of software which is why  I've decided to include it on this list. SpaceSniffer is a way of visualizing all of the dumb bloatware shit you have on your PC and makes it really easy just to get rid of it. My only problem would be in the loading times,. but speaking that its cataloging every single thing on your computer it probably makes a lot of sense.

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