Pokemon GO

Despite everything else going on in the United States (election, mass murders, etc.) and the World (lack of elections, mass murders, etc.), Pokemon Go has been one of the most prominent staples in news feeds, Facebook posts, and gossip. Whether you’re a player discussing your experience with other players or a critic, everyone wants to, or at least is talking about Pokemon as if it was 1998 again. The mobile game released on July 6th by Niantic and The Pokemon Company has led to Nintendo’s most significant stock growth in years and millions of dollars of in-app purchases.

Apr272015

The #8 Greatest Video Game of All Time

We continue our way down the top 25 video games of all time! Our choices are weighed quite heavily now as these games that have been in our hearts for many years must be decided upon. You have now seen the same game pop up for multiple people. I can’t wait until the end when we list them all out for everyone and see what stacks where. We could even weigh the games with the most and highest picks! And if you missed the others on our countdown, please check them out: #25, #24,#23, #22,#21,#20, #19, #18, #17, #16, #15, #14, #13, #12, #11, #10, and #9.

Kai – Rise of Nations – My favorite RTS (real-time strategy) game ever, Rise of Nations is a historical RTS spanning all of human history. You pick a civilization and start with a small settlement in the Ancient Age, build farms and buildings, conduct diplomacy and trade, raise armies and research technologies, and eventually end up in modern times with stealth bombers and nukes.

Rise of Nations combines a great theme with really solid mechanics, getting rid of a lot of the tedious elements of earlier historical RTS games. In addition to fun multiplayer, the Thrones & Patriots added some fun historical campaigns, allowing you to play as either side of the Cold War or Alexander the Great.

My best memory of Rise of Nations is my friend Jason and I stay up all night playing game after game (each one lasting 45 to 90 minutes). We put in dozens of hours in both multiplayer skirmishes (usually allied against the AI) and single player campaigns.

I haven’t played it in years, but I can’t imagine it’s any less fun now than it was then. There’s a new “Extended Edition” on Steam, so there’s no excuse not to pick it up and give it a try if you’re looking to spend an afternoon taking over the world.

Image source

Mar092015

#13 Greatest Video Game of All Time

Look at us, we’re on a roll! One week back to back already! Let’s see if we can keep this up. As a refresher, this is the video game brain trust’s list of the top 25 greatest video games of all time and we are now down to #13! These are the ones you’ve missed so far: #25, #24,#23, #22, #21, #20 #19, #18, #17, #16, #15, and #14. Let’s hit it.

Kai – Goldeneye 007 – The only game on this list that I never actually owned (no N64), Goldeneye is an amazing game that I played at every one of my friends’ houses. It’s a first-person shooter based on the Bond movie and is one of the best movie to game conversions ever made.

The single-player is really well done, with complex level design and objectives that scale with difficulty. As good as that was, the multiplayer was even better, with insane tension and battles. I’ve never played more splitscreen multiplayer of anything, even Mario Kart. My friends and I would always load up license to kill (one-shot kills) and proximity mines. It truly revolutionized multiplayer shooters going forward and is still a lot of fun.

Image source

Mar022015

#14 Greatest Video Game of All Time

Yet, again, there has been a big gap between this series! We apologize, as sometimes it takes a bit to get everyone’s entries in. If you are new to this countdown, it’s just a top 25 list of our most favorite video games! These are the ones you’ve missed so far: #25, #24,#23, #22, #21, #20 #19, #18, #17, #16, and #15. Let’s dive into #14!

Kai – X-COM – I’ve played three versions of X-COM: The original, X-COM UFO Defense, the third version X-COM Apocalypse, and the latest offering from Firaxis XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within. The original was revolutionary in scope, with everything from morale to technology research, and still holds up very well today.

X-Com is half real-time strategic base management and half turn-based top-down tactical squad management. The basic story is that aliens are real and are terrorizing human cities. You’re put in charge of defending earth from this alien threat.

During the base management phase, you train/recruit soldiers, build weapons/vehicles, dispatch people on missions, and research alien artifacts to get new technology. When a mission happens, it switches to the tactical mode, where you explore alien wrecks, kill/capture alien soldiers, and rescue civilians.

The games are difficult but addictive, enticing you to complete just one more mission with your squad of veteran troops. You care deeply about your veteran soldiers as you’ve played with them for multiple hours and it’s very painful to lose one (or a whole shipful). The theme is well-integrated and the gameplay is very tight, where every action you take is meaningful and possibly dangerous. If you’re looking to blow an afternoon tracking down aliens and defending earth, I highly recommend picking up something from the X-COM series.

Image source

May212014

#24 Greatest Video Game of All Time

It is time to bring you #24 of our “Top 25 Video Games of All Time“! I’ve been looking forward to this since last week! Make sure you check out our video game brain trust before reading further. If you missed last week’s #25 games, read here to update yourself. Ready, get set, go #24!

#24 Favorite/Best Video Game

Kai – Worms Armageddon – One of the few multiplayer PC games that could be played on a single computer. An amazing party game, full of humor and customization as well as tactical depth and variety. I spent countless hours at home and at friends’ houses trying to master the art of the ninja rope or the exploding sheep. A great game that perfectly captures the idea that games are about fun and shouldn’t take themselves too seriously.

Image source

Scott (Po) – Skies of Arcadia – I’m a sucker for sky pirates and RPGs. I fell in love at first sight.

Image source

Andrew – Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr. (N64) – Call, call, call me Junior. Pretty sure that reticle size never, ever made any difference at all here. Pretty sure that Scott Rolen + anyone else was an absolute trading machine and other teams would drop him pretty much right away for rinse and repeat. This is my most played sports game after Madden and I just felt like I could replay the season mode over and over again. The music, the pageantry, the dynamics were just so fun (only thing holding this game back was that overthrows didn’t happen – if they did, absolute surprise to me). Naturally Mark McGwire shouldn’t be used in game. …with all this said, I tried to play whatever 2K Baseball or whatever people play now a days and I had like 0 outs with 3 runs against me in the top of the 1st so…yeah…

Image source

Alana (Fit) – FIFA World Cup Series – What a perfect way to continue the list as the actual World Cup 2014 approaches. FIFA games are all great, but I specified World Cup so that I could play as those famous countries. For me, it’s a timeless game that I can return to over and over. Soundtracks from that game will forever populate my mind. I started playing around 2000, I believe, and Kai and I would play tons of it. I would love to go through the whole World Cup process–it didn’t matter how bad the graphics were. There’s something about that game that gives you that addiction. Even when I start to play real life soccer, I say, “Let’s play FIFA!” It’s a great game for multiplayer and solo, especially for those who love the game. FIFA will always have a special place in my heart and I will continue to play it time and time again. Definitely my most favorite sports video game series.

Image source

Chris (Hungry) – House of the Dead III (ARCADE) – There will be a few arcade games that will make my list. The reason I am choosing the arcade version rather than the console release one is the pump-action shotgun that you get to whip around like Arnold in that mall scene in Terminator II. House of the Dead III is by far my favorite arcade shooting game, although there are tons of top choices including: Revolution X, Time Crisis II, Virtua Cop, The Ocean Hunter, etc., mainly because of the memories it produced. It also was one of the few that I beat in the arcade over and over again, along with all the ones listed earlier. It was a money issue, typically, but I couldn’t hold my quarters back for this one. The continuing story throughout the series, the decent graphics, the presence of voice acting, and the ability to choose your stages made this game better than most of its competition. Plus, the fact that it was released for multiple consoles made it even more accessible for in-home gamers. It might have been released in 2002 but it is a game I will still throw quarters into over 16 years later. If I have an arcade in my home one day, this will be one of the first three machines in it.

Image source

And with that ends our #24 greatest video game of all time. Keep your eyes ready for next week’s #23! Looking forward to what everyone lists! Let us know what you think with comments below! And as always…stay hungry and fit!

Apr102014

Taking Over Comic Con 2013 (Denver, CO)

I want to avoid making this painfully long so if you want an in-depth review of the roughly five hours we spent at the event, read my biography in a few decades. I’m only saying this because I could talk about those five hours forever. I know we didn’t spend much time there but we made it count and it was completely worth it so let me tell you how we ended up at DCC and how it went.

Months and months ago, the great Stan Lee, inventor of Marvel Comics and most of its iconic characters, announced that he would make his return to Comic Con after a near twenty year hiatus this year in Denver. They published an article about it in the Boulder Weekly and I immediately told Fit. She had never attended a convention, especially one of this scale, so we decided it had to be done. Unfortunately, we had planned to attend a wedding in Santa Monica months in advance to that so we knew we wouldn’t be able to take off of work for Friday and Saturday… bummer. We settled for Sunday and I bought tickets in person at Guiry’s in Boulder at a discounted rate. I bought two one day passes for Sunday.

Months pass and we don’t put any thought into the event or what we should wear. Saturday night rolls around and costume-less, we decided to wear our aprons that we use in the house. Alana was a makeshift fit and cooking Wonder Woman while I was the same version of Captain America, with a Sonic the Hedgehog hat that has ears. It cost us no time and no money but we figured no one would even pay attention to us but oh were we wrong.

Excited!

Before leaving

We drive to Denver and pass a line that stretches for half a mile. Ten minutes after parking we end up at the back of that line and wait for the doors to open around 9:30 a.m. Almost everyone there is so nice and accepting of one another. The only people I don’t like are the bullies that make fun of other people. And we don’t tolerate bullying so there was none of that, but rather lots of positive reinforcement, high fives, and pictures. I will say that we got our money’s worth in people watching alone. The cosplays and costumes were top notch and I loved how passionate everyone was. We tried figuring out everyone’s costume and did a really good job. We even helped some clueless people by eavesdropping. Our first picture came when I ran into none other than the hero of Hyrule, Link. He was sporting his red fire tunic and the Master Sword. Link is super fit so I had to take a picture with him.

Link!

While the line was moving, the most unexpected thing happened. A photojournalist asked for our picture. We obliged and posed… little did we know, this would happen about 14 more times throughout the day. We never expected to be so popular but vendors, exhibitors, staff, photojournalists, bloggers, and attendees asked for our picture. One young woman who was with her friends even asked for a picture with us. Not just of us. We said yes and gave our regular pose every single time. I would love to see those 15 pictures especially the one with our fan because it was so random. Either people loved the idea that we were wearing aprons and it was creative or they thought we were fit and somewhat sexy.

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

Once we got inside we headed upstairs for the main hall. By doing this, we ended up missing a bunch of the panels and presentations we wanted to attend, such as the spotlight on Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. What can you do? We don’t regret our choice because we had our most fun upstairs. When we ended up looking for the panels, gaming rooms, main events, and what not we ended up just wasting energy and getting frustrated. The easiest way to do this is just explain what is in our pictures since they highlight the best parts of the day.

Celebs

Here is Fit posing with Han Solo trapped in carbonite. Damn you, Lando, for selling him out to Vader and Boba Fett. This was a part of the Far Away Creations area where a group of Star Wars fans provided models and replicas of the original trilogy. Lots of fun.

After trekking through some aisles of vendors and trying our hardest not to spend every penny, we decided that we could each have one big purchase. Fit decided quickly that she wanted a picture with Chewbacca. Thus we paid Peter Mayhew for a picture with our camera and he autographed a photo of Fit’s choice. She chose a scene where Chewy and Han are wielding their bowcaster and blaster pistol. Epic. He was huge. He was as tall as us while sitting down and his hands were enormous. She also ran into a Storm Trooper with an awesome voice box and a Jawa.

Alana with Peter Mayhew (who played Chewbacca) –she can’t contain her happiness here

NEVER LETTING THIS GO

“Move along, move along”

Now it was my turn to decide. William Shatner, George Takei, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton were all tempting individuals to meet and take a picture with but my decision was a no brainer. I wanted to meet and take a picture with Kelly Hu. I had a massive crush on her when I was a teenager. She starred in The Scorpion King, X-Men, and voiced Visas in KOTOR II. For some reason, she had no line while all of the others were absolutely packed all day long. Her picture proceeds went to Much Love, a charity for animals. She was super nice and was happy to talk to us about everything from shopping on Amazon to our pets and more. Here’s the picture.

Kelly Hu and I

After that I got caught by Umbrella Corp because I was infected by a zombie. Their vehicle was awesome.

Here I am spying on someone’s crafts hoping to get some ideas for a friend. Secret agent style.

This is a co-worker’s ex-boyfriend showing why he was the coolest guy in the room. He’s a self-taught lightsaber master but he had a hard time actually talking into the mic. The crowd loved it though so good for him.

Gandalf! Literally hunted him down the whole time and finally found him

Fit met Gandalf and he let us pass.

Buff chicas. She actually made that armor!

Fit’s favorite costume of the day was Commander Shepard from Mass Effect.

Hungry’s favorite costume of the day was a Hello Kitty samurai. He let me hold his war banner.

Hungry and Fit! Our pose

Here we are on stage finally getting a picture of us together after fifteen other people took them first.

Fit found a bantha to cuddle up next to. It looked like a baby.

Hungry found a sausage for lunch while Fit had a pear salad. We spent a bunch on bad food there but it was expected and we didn’t mind.

I know my brother (Kai) would’ve loved to play this (I’m Gonna Wreck It!)

Fix It Felix Jr. does exist! We didn’t get to play.

I could go on and on but I don’t want to bore you too much so we’ll leave it here and keep you updated the next time Hungry and Fit attend an event!

You may also like…

Dec142012

Midnight Showing Review: The Hobbit

If you know us, or if you’ve read this post, you know we are huge Tolkien/Middle Earth fans. So, obviously, we were at the midnight premiere of The Hobbit by the wonderful Peter Jackson & Co. Although we didn’t dress up (sigh), we were brimming with excitement. Finally! It’s out! So I was expecting to leave about 9:30/10PM to wait in line, my cousin said that there won’t be crazy lines. You never know, coming from Los Angeles and New York, we’ve both waited in hefty lines for big movies like this. So we left at 11 (took us ten minutes to get to the theatre).

We packed into the car and got there–no line. Yes! We didn’t have to wait in the cold. Plus, if we paid an extra $1 per ticket, we would get a free t-shirt. Uh, duh. So we got our shirts, our tickets, my smuggled popcorn and sat down for a 3D Dolby Atmos viewing.

Eventually, the movie started. Now with this insane amazing sound system, our ears kind of hurt. And it wasn’t just mine (I have sensitive ears, Chris calls me “wolf ears”), everyone’s was kind of ringing after. Especially battle scenes. The 3D was good, immersive, and not that silly “pop-out” kind of 3D that I hate. And for the picture…I believe it was a much faster frame rate. Now this was distracting. It looked like a filmed play, it was too realistic, and not theatrical enough. If you have an HD tv, sometime you can see this in certain shows. However, the action was pretty incredible and had a good flow. But…onto the story!

The story was pretty accurate to the book, though I haven’t read it in awhile. And he obviously split it up. I would give the Best Acting Awards to Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), and Richard Armitage (Thorin). And of course, to Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee, though small roles in this movie they played. One thing I wished is that they made Thorin look more like a Dwarf and less like a Man. I know people were nervous about Martin Freeman playing Bilbo, but let me tell you, he was spot on. Seriously. And of course there’s Andy Serkis as Gollum who really just brings the caliber up. The riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum was absolutely brilliant.

I started off unsure about it, how I felt, because it takes a little while to get rolling. There’s good humor with the dwarves and it’s fun to see Bilbo before he was an adventurer. By the end, after all the lore (which we love to see), fight scenes, troll scenes, and excellent dialog, I was happy. I want to see it again when it’s not 12 AM. Perhaps during Christmas week with the family.

Lastly…Howard Shore. What would the Lord of the Rings trilogy be without those held-close-to-heart themes that you know as soon as you hear them…the Shire…the Trio…Gollum’s music…It’s all Howard Shore. And he brings it back just as well this time. When we see the Shire, that familiar light-of-heart music comes on and you can’t help but smile. When Gollum comes creeping into the movie, so does his eerie music. And, with this new story (or old, if we’re talking timeline wise), he created a brilliant sound bit for the new adventure gang.