Are you ready to rock nerday??? INFO and Nerdapalooza have merged to bring us one amazing weekend of awesomeness. LogicOne and MC Frontalot are confirmed for the July show and tickets are on sale now for just $25 for the whole dang weekend! There will only be about 300 tickets available for purchase, and as it approaches the date, ticket prices will rise at a rate yet to be confirmed. So get em now. With a line up including godfather of nerdcore, MC Frontalot; chiptunes living legend, Pixelh8 from the United Kingdom; a laundry list of the best nerdcore artists in the scene today including YTcracker, ZeaLouS1, Dual Core, and Emergency Pizza Party; the celebrated Select Start; Killer Robots with their need-to-see live performance; and many many more, this is gearing up to be the largest collaborative nerd music show to date, and is only setting the stage for larger performances to come. Nonetheless, this historic show is one that no one should miss. Get the full scoop here.

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You are Ethan Thomas. Your character starts out drunk, tired and pissed off. And by the time you finish the game, you’ll probably feel exactly same way.

I’m really disappointed in this sequel. The first Condemned game was so awesome. It gave you plenty of “OMG I think I wet myself a little.” moments with a good mix of investigatory reporting, discovery and a nice story. Condemned 2: Bloodshot, however, sucked.

The story comes down to this: Serial Crimes Unit investigator Ethan Thomas needs an AA meeting and a hug. All the craziness he dealt with in the first Condemned game really wrecked his shit. He’s drinking. He’s hallucinating. He’s angry. But now the dudes in charge of the SCU want him back on the force to help track down a nutty serial killer because, despite his downfall, Ethan is still the most qualified person to pull the pieces together.

Sometimes, you’ll need to observe your surroundings and report your findings back to the SCU.

This game could’ve been sooo good. And it has its moments. Decent voice acting, a decent script, good music. Unfortunately… it fails on many levels. There were a lot of things that just didn’t make sense. For example, you can tazer people, but somehow, when you face an enemy in complete METAL body armor, it has no effect. HUH?! Additionally, you suck at moving. You can hit a button to sprint, but it only works going FORWARD. If you’re trying to run backwards away from an enemy, and hit the sprint button to move more quickly, you’ll end up running right into the face of your enemy and getting kilt. Then there are the boxes. Apparently Ethan Thomas does not have the ability to jump over them or crawl on top of them. You have to kick them out of the way – and sometimes that doesn’t even work. There was a time at the Black Lake Lodge when another SCU dude was getting attacked by some zombies. I couldn’t help him because he was on the other side of a box. “Yeah… I would come give you a hand buddy, but … ahhh… yeah… there’s this fragile box in my way, so ummm, you’ll have to go ahead and die.” WTF is that?!

The graphics are great – when you can see them. There’s definitely some creep factor in the doll factory where you have to battle or avoid a plethora of demonic, posessed baby dolls. And at one point, you have to wear a gas mask and it TOTALLY feels like you’re seeing the room through an actual gas mask. Good stuff. Now, I know that darkness and squinting to see can add to the reality/creepiness of the game, but this game was brutal – even after making all the video adjustments I could make. You’re equipped with a flashlight, but it totally blows. I say if you’re going to make a flashlight one of the main ways to see in the game, it should at least work (talk to Gordon Freeman about this one, Ethan). If you get lost and can’t see, you do have GPS doohickey. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do a lot of good. There’s no legend worth a crap and it’s hard to tell where there are doors, ladders or even other rooms. I found myself getting MORE lost when I used it rather than just winged it. The only helpful feature comes later in the game when you can set waypoints.

You can only carry one weapon at a time until you pick up a holster later in the game. One of the optional side missions is to destroy things called “Sonic Emittors.” These fire alarm looking things are scattered throughout the game and when you’re close to one, you can use a tool to track its location. You can’t get too close to them though, or you’ll lose health. So the best solution is to throw something at them. Now, you won’t want to throw a gun and lose it, so you’ll put it down, and pick up something else. Easy enough, until you want to find the gun again and can’t because your flashlight sucks.

I heard a lot about the improved fighting mechanics. True, you can beat the kerschmakety out of angry bums, posessed baby dolls and other crazy enemies, but the major moves all boil down to boring mini-games… ie. hit LT when it shows the icon on the screen, then RT, then LT and RT together. It gets pretty stale pretty quickly. And, ok, I understand that zombies should have more power than drunk humans, but they should NOT have the ability to throw beer bottles at me THROUGH A BRICK WALL and hit me so hard that I lose health (which they did in Chapter 3: Commuter Tracks).

So let’s talk about the boss battles.

One word: LAME. In fact, they all suck so badly that I’m only going to bother talking about a couple that stuck out.

In the doll factory, you have to fight this crazy acrobatic nutjob girl and it seriously took me like 50 times to beat her. It’s a timing thing, but you can’t see for shit and it ended up feeling more like the Gears of War Raam fight where it’s more about chance and less about skill.

Stupid Boss Battle #1. Looking thru a gas mask ain’t easy.

In several places, you’ll have to battle Sonic Emitting Oros who you will learn to hate with every fiber in your being unless you learn to defeat them early on. About midway through the game, you’ll be given the power to emit a scream that will blow up weaker enemies and disable Oro’s abilities to emit their health-pounding screeches so you can punch them to death. You’ve got to time it just right to work. If you don’t, and you get caught standing face to face with a screaming Oro, your screen will go blurry and your movement will be even more restricted than usual. The worst part is not that these Oros have the ability to blur your vision, make you grunt, and drain your health. It’s that it takes SO LONG for them to kill you. If you get cornered, you’re going to be there for awhile, helpless and dying. Not cool.

One of the toughest Oro fights is right before the final battle on The Peninsula. TIP: when you are in the room where you need to destroy the two Oro devices and the Oros are guarding them and being jerks, get them to chase you up the stairs. Try to hit them with your scream when they’re standing at the base of the first section of stairs and you’re at the top of the same section facing them. This is the perfect distance. Then you can climb up the second section and get them to chase you up there where you can punch their lights out before disabling the devices.

The worst boss fight is the last one. That one only took me 2 tries to beat! One to learn it was going to be a mini game fight and one to do the mini game. Then it was done. HUH?! Where’s the final boss battle love? It felt like the developers got to the end of the game and just sort of petered out … kinda like me.

BOTTOM LINE: Check out the cool Condemned 2 site, but don’t bother with the game unless there’s nothing else to rent and you’re REALLY REALLY bored. If you haven’t played the first Condemned yet, you should avoid this one and pick up the original instead. If you decide to rent it and you get stuck, use the guide on MyCheats.com. Good stuff with lots of images.

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[image yoinked from engadget]

Ya know all the worries people have about consoles offering internet connection, a place to store your CC info and safety? Well, they aren’t unfounded. Yesterday, some PS3 users had their accounts hacked and compromised. PlayStation posted this announcement on their site yesterday:

We have found out that there has been a possibility of unauthorized access to personal information on the PLAYSTATION¬ÆStore through PCs, a content download service of the PLAYSTATION¬ÆNetwork. Although unlikely, it is possible that the passwords of a small percentage of PLAYSTATION Network users may have been changed through unauthorized access, making it possible to view users’ personal information and/or use the Wallet for the PLAYSTATION Store. PLAYSTATION Network accounts do not display entire credit card numbers, so any unauthorized access to your PLAYSTATION Network account is very unlikely to compromise your credit card number.

We have taken immediate measures to rectify this issue and system security is restored.

We have investigated the extent of unauthorized access and possible alteration of passwords that could have occurred before corrective measures were taken, and are directly contacting customers who may have been affected by this incident. In order to verify that your account is intact, we strongly suggest that PLAYSTATION Network users sign in to the service. If you can successfully sign in with your pre-set password, your account is not affected by this incident.

For additional information and immediate 24 hour online support, click here for the PlayStation Knowledge Center.

So, hopefully, everything has been fixed … but if you have an account with a credit card on file, it wouldn’t hurt to login and make sure you weren’t one of the users affected.

[Special thanks to Mitch who earned 5 Super Power-Ups for the article lead.]

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Multiple Marios

Last week, the streets of London overflowed with gamers attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people dressed up as computer characters. Success! These crazy folks will appear in the Guinness World Record Gamers Edition 2009.

[SOURCE: BBC News]

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I wanted to post an apology to everyone who has seen a whole lot of nothing posted on my site over the past two weeks. I promise I will make it up to you with a plethora of posts once again, starting right now. I’m back in action.

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Donkey Business Album Cover by Pinkoloss
Got an email yesterday from Peter Bull – the mashupartist behind Norwegian Recycling. In addition to offering some pretty sweet mashup videos on YouTube, he just released Donkey Business – a totally badass, totally FREE album that’s a tribute to the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. All of his tracks are based on a sample from the DK series, then mashed with samples from R&B/Rap artists like Will Smith, Ludacris, Eminem and Timbaland. The album samples from ten different DKC songs from one of the three games and, in addition to the mash, features production on drums, bass, effects etc. The result? Brilliant. I ripped this bad boy and uploaded it to my 360 so I could get my DKC jamz on while I tried to beat a couple of challenges in Pac-Man C.E. Something clicked and I finally beat two of the Challenge Modes that have heretofore kicked my arse. I think this album may have super magical video game powers. Find out for yourself. Go test it out as a soundtrack for that game you just can’t beat.*

DOWNLOAD DONKEY BUSINESS for FREE:
rar-file
torrent

TRACK LIST:
01 Wild Wild Jungle
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country – Theme
-Will Smith feat. Dru Hill & Kool Moe Dee – Wild Wild West

02 Quality Bananas
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 2 – School House Harmony
-Jurassic 5 – Quality Control

03 Without The Brothers Bear (<–My personal favorite)
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 3 – Crazy Calypso
-Eminem – Without Me

04 I Wish I Had Life Balloons
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 2 – Funky The Main Monkey
-Skee-Lo – I Wish

05 Animals Goes By
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country – Life In The Mines
-Talib Kweli – Get By

06 Raymond Wise
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 2 – Welcome To Crocodile Isle
-Usher feat. Lil Jon & Ludacris – Yeah

07 The Way Blast Barrels Are
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 2 – Stickerbrush Symphony
-Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E. – The Way I Are

08 Runaway Dixie
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country 2 – Forest Interlude
-Ludacris feat. Mary J. Blige – Runaway Love

09 When Diddy’s Gone
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country – Aquatic Ambiance
-Eminem – When I’m Gone

10 Billie Jean Kong
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country – Fear Factory
-Michael Jackson – Billie Jean

11 Irreplaceable Ending
Samples:
-Donkey Kong Country – The Credits Concerto
-BeyoncÈ РIrreplaceable
-Vengaboys – Kiss (When The Sun Don’t Shine)
-Blur – Country House
-Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter
-Tom McRae – How the West Was Won

*NOTE: Does not work with Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

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Ready for some old school video game musical goodness? Now you can listen to a teaser track from The Super Mario RPG compilation Heavy Troopa is Ready to Launch! There are six songs to check out:

CygnosiC – Barrel Volcano
Videogame Orchestra – Rose Town
Girlz Melon – Sad Song
The OneUps – Booster Tower
Matheus Manente – The Starlight’s Flower
Dan Park – Bring the Hammer Down (I am the King)

You can click here to listen to the teaser track now. Make sure you visit the Game Music 4 All site or MySpace page to stay informed about the release date.

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Sweet Corset by TheVintageDoctor (MORE PICS)

If you were to have asked me yesterday, “Would a fat Italian man with a thick mustache in overalls look good on a corset?” I would have said no. But of course, that would have been before I had seen this badass Mario corset. The one-of-a-kind piece was added to Etsy on March 9th and it only took 4 days before someone snatched it up. I wish that person had been me, but it wasn’t. The good news is that TheVintageDoctor has a bunch of other cool stuff up for sale like this Nightmare Before Christmas corset and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dress. (COWABUNGA DUDE!) The best part is, TheVintageArtist is not ripping off other artists to create her designs. Here’s a quote from her profile:

I ONLY use lawfully purchased, LICENSED t-shirts in my reconstructions. I obtain them direct from retail stores or wholesale suppliers. I do NOT screenprint/spongepaint/sharpie/bootleg or otherwise ripoff designs or logos. It is unlawful to do so. Period.

Neat.

[SOURCE: Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
[Thanks, P-Dizzle]

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Last month, I posted about the Windows 98 Jam. Now there’s also a Mac OSx version. Nerds are so awesome:

[youtube RAKXTvyYSfc]

[SOURCE: Geekologie]

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I’ve often thought to myself “Gee. Pac-Man sure is a great game, but who came up with his story? How was that idea born? I mean, pill popping yellow dudes running from ghosts and eating fruit? That’s some crazy shit.”

Well, thanks to Cracked.com and the sketch comedy group Those Aren’t Muskets, now I know. Take a look at the REAL motivation behind arcade classics like Frogger, Dig-Dug and Super Mario Brothers.

WATCH THE VIDEO ON CRACKED.COM

[Special thanks to Mike, who is supa fly, for the tip]

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