Best Games of 2010

Again I contributed to this piece on what was best multiplayer game of the year. I chose Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I can't love it enough.
Best Multiplayer: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Best in Music 2010 Unwinnable

Unwinnable had a best in music 2010 piece. In between a bunch of music I could care less about I chimed with something I get get into.


Since their debut at SXSW this year, Off! has brought some life and breath back to punk rock. Staying true to form, OFF! has released several limited-run 7-inch EPs throughout the year. The first EP contained 4 songs and had a run time of just over 4 minutes. There is nothing faux under the hood of this monster.

The EPs have been collected in a boxed set called, predictably, First Four EPs, with cover art by Raymond Pettibon, the man who provided the iconic artwork for numerous Black Flag albums. He is in good company considering OFF! features Keith Morris, formerly of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, on vocals. The rest of the band are veterans too: Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) on guitar, Mario Rubalcaba on the drums (Earthless, Hot Snakes, Rocket From the Crypt) and Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass. All in all OFF! is pretty awesome. (Charles Francis Moran VI)

Tron Off: A Great Day

Ian and I went to Richie Knucklez Arcade out in Flemington, NJ to witness some world record that were to be broken, and to meet certified World Champion Billy Mitchell. It was an awesome time.

Play Dead, drop dead fun!

I went and saw the live performance, Play Dead with my wife and wrote a review about it on Unwinnable. It was a great, show, and I can't recommend it enough.

Wallington, the land of adventure.

Saturday afternoon I went to Wallington to visit my friend Shawn Dillon and Vic. Shawn and Vic live together, but not in a living in a sin kind of way.

Poker Night at the Inventory: 5 dollars of fun

Well, at least I think it is fun to see Strong Bad, Max, Tycho, and The Heavy all sitting around playing cards. Dig my review on Unwinnable. News flash, I liked it.

Call of Duty: Undercover of the Night

By adding a sense of realism to the the story, Call of Duty: Black Ops is a strong release for the Call of Duty franchise. Check out my review on Unwinnable.

I remember Halloween

What did you do this Halloween season?

I went to a party at Hambone's house. That is always fun. I took a crappy picture of Shawn Orr in his awesome Costume of James Earl Cash from Rockstar Games Manhunt game.


Of course Shawn brought a real machete, and his attention to detail was pretty bad ass.


Tara and I dressed as the Bundy's, as in Al and Peg. It was easy and I have dressed up a lot over the years.


Saturday night we took off for Jersey City to the Harsimus Cemetery for some more Halloween fun. Turns out no one is getting buried at this cemetery anymore and the current residents there enjoy some Halloween entertainment.

The Lucinda crepe truck was brought in to make delicious crepes of which I know all to well from lunch time in the Exchange place area.


They served beer and other cocktails. I personally have never bought food and or drink in a cemetery before, it was quite the experience.


My friend Micki and his crew dressed as characters from the movie Blue Velvet. Here is Micki as Dean Stockwell's character Ben.


They also had some cover bands play.
Nothing says Halloween like R.E.M. and Neutral Milk Hotel cover bands, right?


I did get some footage of the Desendents cover band doing some pretty good covers of Hope, Sour Grapes, and Bikeage.

You would think that alone might have been enough fun and excitement for Halloween? Not really. The Tard train was boarded this time headed for Chiller Theater in Parsippany, NJ. No Halloween is complete without someone asking you, "Are you going to Chiller?"

Honestly the Chiller after party is where it is at, good times had by many. Look how much fun BTD, Ian, Matt, and Jumpkick are having.


Here is an awesome picture of me and John Wayne Gacey aka Pogo the Clown. This guy was spectacular, if I could I would hire him for my next birthday party.


Here is me and Pete Lang with Gorilla Darth Vader.


Of course there is always some good nightmare fuel at Chiller. I look surprised in this picture.


The best Vulcan Science officer, note the backwards ears.


Nothing says awesome like Lita Ford doing Kiss Me Deadly on a Saturday night.


All in all a great Halloween.

Magnificent 7 Lego: Great movie told through plastic

While clicking around looking up scenes from the Magnificent 7 on YouTube. I stumbled upon this, a recreation of the Magnificent 7 done in Lego.

"Most folk are Lego around here, the dead guy was Playmobil."

Paranormal Activity 2: A Bad Movie

Well not to give it away, but I certainly didn't love Paranormal Activity 2. However I made the best of but writing a review of it and gave it to fellow Unwinnable contributor Michael Sheridan to post on his movie website Tail Slate.

Mochimochi Land: The Killing Fields of cute

Warning some images are so cute your brain might explode into candy.

So a few days before I got married I went to the opening for the Mochimochi Land exhibit in NYC. Mochimochi Land is made entirely of yarn, no electronics or gadgetry, just the brightly colored soft cord that wraps itself around your heart. All created by a single pair of hands whom govern this land, Anna Hrachovec of Brooklyn.

Here we see the Mochimochi Land worm rolling though all things adorable.




Do you knit? If you don't, I think you should learn how and make these things for me. Here we have a family of cute yarn creatures having a picnic on top of the Mochimochi Land mountains.



These purple fellas live in a swamp and eat unicorns, because they taste like candy. Notice the little tuft of tail sticking out of the guy on the right.



I am not knitter or one who knits, but I know there is some serious skill involved in the creation of these creatures. They are impossibly small. One might think only the hands of children could make these, but no, anyone can make them. Anna Hrachovec has unleashed her cute virus onto the world though her first book, Knitting Mochimochi: 20 Super-Cute Strange Designs for Knitted Amigurumi. Available on the Mochimochi Land website and on Amazon.

Anna will show you patterns on how to create your own adorable army of yarn.



Be sure to check out her site: Mochimochi Land

Her book makes a great Christmas present! Get it here on Amazon.

I would like to thank Stu Horvath for suggesting we get some culture and taking me to this event. Incidentally, Stu has his mother working like a Vietnamese Nike employee churning these little monsters out.

Medal of Honor: A handful of of ordinary lives

This was a review I did for the new Medal of Honor. Read it on Unwinnable.

Get Lamp: a movie review.

I reviewed the DVD documentary Get Lamp: The Text Adventure Documentary for Unwinnable. It is all about the genre text based computer games.

Show me how you smile: Break the 4th wall with me.

Here is a piece I did about video games that break the 4th wall. Somehow I tie it in with my love of Magnum P.I.

I interviewed a gaming folk hero.

I enjoy Team Fortress 2, so I sought out to meet and interview Jon "WiNGSPANTT" Tran on his Golden Wrench Charity for ChildsPlayCharity.org. He was a nice guy that likes calamari.

Aliens is the most important movie ever made.

Without Aliens we wouldn't have Space Marines. I love space marines, more than I love cowboys.

I probably will never see that dead whale movie.

However I did play Shoot 1up. It is super fun.



Check out Mommy's Best Games!

Fun times at the Pinball Museum

This was a really fun time. We had fish and chips, really good lemonade, and lots of pinball. Silverball Pinball Museum in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

I found my first computer in the basement of the Alamo.

Yes, it was a made out of adobe and Jell-O.

Your girl got dicked by Ricky Powell.

I recently went to a gallery showing for Ricky Powell's silver anniversary for being a cartoon character/photographer. It was held at Gallery 58 in Jersey City, several blocks from where I work. I can do cultured things, life isn't just masturbation and video games.

I brought two friends, Brooke and Jumpkick, and we arrived when Ricky was in full swing doing part history lesson of the Lower East Side, and part stand up routine.



During a time when Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were at the front of the pop art and street culture, Ricky had snapped some quality pictures. He gave a little blurb in between each picture.



All in all it was fun and cool, however Ricky Powell likes pussy more than anything else, which is understandable.









Me and LL Cool J.



I always thought Debi Mazar was super hot


Daryl Mac, D.M.C. yo!

Mortal Kombat on Broadway

Mortal Kombat, during the Clinton administration, had a Broadway stage show.

Before Rock Band

There was a time when rock bands and video games joined themselves together where playing the game was not is much a karaoke experience. Follow the link to more Unwinnable content.

A subject close to my heart

This was my third contribution to Unwinnable and the first on the topic of Team Fortress 2. The Engineer update has finally come through.


Unwinnable now has a Steam group!

This is the story about a long and boring space adventure!

I finally got around to finishing the first Mass Effect and found it to be very slow. This was my second contribution to Unwinnable. Yes, a review of a game that came out in 2007. It will be probably not till it it gets cold out will I play the highly acclaimed sequel.

Learning can be fun!

This was my first article for Unwinnable. It is about a game where you can actually learn something. I hope to learn something by contributing content to this site. Exciting!

What did I learn from the Sony E3 Keynote?

Sony has buttons, and buttons mean precision.

Sorcery is a game that you can play with the new Sony Wii like controller.

Heroes on the Move could be the new Super Smash Brothers for all I know.

There is some serious Coca Cola marketing here.

Probably the only company that talked about themselves as a company rather than showing games made by other people. Well done PlayStation.

The funny guy, Kevin Butler, from the Sony commercials is the only guy that seems to understand that funny is what people want.

Moving gamers, sitting gamers, we all pledge to one king, his name is Gaming forever he may reign.



Oh yeah, Gabe Newell showed up, he told me to buy a PS3.

What did I learn from the Nintendo E3 Keynote?

Nintendo made a new Zelda game.

Nintendo made a Mario sports game.

Miyamoto used portal technology to arrive on stage.

Miyamoto won't shut up long enough to let Bill translate for him.

Watching grown men play Wii is embaressing.

Wifi and cellphones apparently give interference to the Wii.

They actually have a game coming out called Balance Boat.

Kid Icaraus returns, finally!

What did I learn from the Microsoft E3 Keynote?

They are coming out with a new console, one that won't Red Ring, and it is wifi enabled.

Hideo Kojima doesn't know English very well, however I sure as shit don't speak Japanese.

There are a bevy of casual games coming to the Xbox 360.

This guy is a ultra douche.

The People at Valve speak a secret code!!

The Team Fortress site has been updated:

Big things are happening RIGHT NOW at Valve. Things involving cultivated tree-fruit. BIG things. Things that rhyme with "grapple." Things that rhyme with "Speem Gortress zmavailable on the Babac."

Not today. But tomorrow. BIG THINGS. Stay tuned...

Like I have heard so many times in my life, "we'll see."

Making a Mortal Kombat movie with out the suck.

There is no shortage of violence in video games. Violence in games that doesn't translate to the movie is weak. If you can butcher someone in a video game, I expect the movie to have the same level of gratuitous violence.

Long ago there was a movie called Mortal Kombat. That movie sucked, and more a kin to The Last Dragon.

This movie which is apparently a pitch to studios for a budget looks like it could be incredible. Yes that is Michael Jai White, and Jerri Ryan.

Looking at 9 "must haves" according to industry lists 6 months ago!

Who doesn't love lists. The beginning of the year when you are told how your life will be incomplete with out these 50 or 100 games. Let's look briefly at 9 of these must haves 6 months in.

Actual great games of 2010 so far.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Shooter of the year.

Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar sandbox game. No brainer.

Super Street Fighter VI
Fixed some of the balance issues with some of the fighters and added some characters. None of this matters to me, I still suck at this game. I am sure these improvements could have all been done with updates and DLC, however you know how those SF fans are, they love their box art.

Some of the more quick burn fuse games of the mid 2010 gaming year.

Bioshock 2
Everyone says the same thing about Bioshock 2. "The first Bioshock was so good."

Splinter Cell: Conviction
Splinter Cell is the Dynasty Warriors of stealth gaming. There have been enough of these that Sam Fischer should be fighting robot vampires at this point.

God of War 3
Should this trilogy of games have been released and concluded on the PS2? Probably, by waiting so long risk losing the market for the game. All the people that really liked the first 2 God of War games already had a PS2.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
No one should ever be excited about a Lego game again, there for Harry Potter gets a nod. For the record Lego Harry Potter: Years 4-8 will have the exact same game play.

Not nearly as good as I hoped was going to be was Dark Void.

Kim Swift one of the lead designers on Portal left Valve to make Dark Void.

Like that girl on House MD that left so she could be in the new Star Trek movie for ten minutes. However those were an awesome ten minutes. Maybe they get paid at Valve on the same time schedule they put product out. I really wanted to like this game, however it didn't get me psyched enough. Repetitive is repetitive. Maybe that is why Portal was only 3 hours or so. Too short to get repetitive.

The hype for this game is killing me.

Lost Planet 2
Big monsters, shooting. Multiplayer. Shut it!