Sup.

I've been pretty adamant to a lot of my friends who've become detractors of Family guy that it hasn't lost any of the quality since returning from cancellation. I'm in the middle of watching the Star Wars special and it's bad, really bad. I'm not really a Star Wars fan so I was expecting a lot of it to be meaningless to me, but every joke really is really falling flat.

I could go on at length, but I was just looking for something to bitch about because I was bored. So yeah, there you go.

Make better posts.

It's pretty awesome. I only got to play about an hour before going to sleep, but the first impression I get is that it follows the Half Life school of First Person Shooters. It's gorgeous, it's got a fully realized world, it's got enough additional gameplay elements to make it feel fresh and new, and it's incredibly engrossing. Maybe I'll churn out a better post on Bioshock once I've explored Rapture more, but chances are you've probably heard all you need to know from other outlets. So in the unlikely case that you were waiting on my opinion on Bioshock you can rest well knowing that it has my thumbs emphatically up.

I just picked Picross up the other day. It's an incredibly fun puzzle game that's worth every penny of the paltry twenty bucks it cost. I'm not posting to extoll the virtues of logic based puzzles though. I'm trying to find other users who have it and want to trade custom puzzles. Hit me with a friend code if you do. Right now my DS stopped working with my WI-FI so trades may not happen right away, but as soon as I figure out what's wrong I'll be ready for action.

Derrek and his dog went out into the apocalyptic zombie wasteland looking for other survivors. They killed many zombies along the way. Eventually they found a girl who promised to take them to a town with many other survivors. Derrek said "Okay, that sounds good," and then they went to the other survivors.

When they got to the town it was overrun with zombies. "Oh no," the girl said, "They must have followed you here. I hate you now."

"I know that's what happened," Derrek replied, "But now we're the only two alive. We have to work together."

"Okay," said the girl, "That sounds like a good idea."

I just stayed up all night playing the Submachine series. They're a fantastic set of adventure games worth losing sleep over. I give them my highest recommendation. Chances are you've played one of them and and either beat it and liked it or gave up partway through. You owe it to yourself to get lost in all four of them for a night.

Just don't use a walkthrough if you get stuck. They don't make a soap strong enough to wash that shame away.

I just got back from it so I figured I'd go on about it for a paragraph or two. Three if I'm feeing particularly frisky. As far as The Simpsons goes it ranks slightly weaker then the show at it's very best, but it's better than the show has been in nearly a decade. Its fast paced humor hits the mark much more frequently than it falls face down. A few gags feel drawn out and corny, but they don't drag the rest of the film down and you quickly forget about them as new, more hilarious situations arise. Allusions to former episodes are subtle enough that hardcore fans will really appreciate them and casual viewers and first timers (if they even exist) won't find them obnoxious.

Something about the film struck me after the credits rolled. The first half of the film features a brilliant blend of rapid fired satire peppered throughout an ireverent plotline that refuses to take itself seriously. It's nothing new to The Simpsons, but it's refreshing in a summer film setting where Scary Movie style parody that only mines pop culture for massive anti-lulz has become the norm. Unfortunately the film decides, as the end draws close, to adhere strictly (and without a trace of irony) to the general plot structure of the summer blockbuster. It doesn't hurt the film as the jokes maintain their strength and they never slow down over the breezy 87 minute runtime so you barely notice, but it does keep it from being as strong as it could.

If you've been a fan of The Simpsons at any point in its million year run this movie is more than worth your while. I can't honestly represent those who've yet to taste the sweet nectar of The Simpsons at its finest, but there is a lot to like about this film outside the familiarity of an American institution set on the silverscreen.

First thing you, as a fan of the Guitar Hero series, need to know before jumping aboard Rocks the 80s is that it's essentially an expansion pack that's over-priced by twenty bucks. For the same price as the Guitar-less GHII disk you get a playlist that's half as long and not as good as GHII, less venues, less characters, almost all the same menus, and a handful of new comments during the loading screen.

The six characters that remain have had 80s overhauls, which translates into them looking even uglier. The rest of the band must have been way ahead of their time, they haven't had any "upgrades" whatsoever. The venues have also been redone, but in many cases the changes are barely noticeable. A few of the venues are even missing (you'll cry shenanigans when you find out there's no Stonehenge). A few new menu screens have been added while others have been simply recolored and the rest lazily remain exactly as they were the first time around . The intro movie is the same aside from being recolored. The unlockable guitars are the same as the ones in GHII.

So with all there is to complain about why would anyone want GH Encore? Because despite being more of the same, it's more of something that was great to begin with. As anyone familiar with the game will tell you Guitar Hero is incredibly fun and insanely addictive. While we can all think of songs we'd rather have over average tunes like We Got the Beat and Shakin' all of the song are enjoyable to play (especially the new wave songs which are surprisingly fun), and the dated eighties song give way to some true classics near the end. After going through the set list you'll be ready to go back and perfect solos, increase scores, and try for a few hundred percents. There's less replayability than the previous entries in the series, but if you're a Score Hero junkie like I am you have plenty of reason to keep coming back.

If you have GHII you're better off going a step back to the first Guitar Hero. Despite less refined controls it's a much better deal that will run you around thirty bucks if you can find it used. If you have both games and you've mastered them in and out then GH Encore is a great game to hold you over until GHIII and Rock Band arrive. Just think about waiting a little bit for the price to drop.

Now that I've gotten the excitement of the new layout somewhat out of my system I think I'll try and use this blog in a Newgrounds-centric manner and talk about a flash game that was sadly overlooked by the community.

Dreams: Chapter One

It's not hard to overlook this game. The first impression the opening instructionals give you makes it seem like you're about to play something that's very poorly polished. Once you get past the confusing intro you'll find one of the most innovative turn-based RPG style games on the site.

In true RPG style you wander across environments via a 3/4 top down view. The character has smooth frame-by-frame animation and the backrounds are vivid and detailed. They're filled with nice touches such as running waterfalls and floating spheres that bob up and down. As you go on the environments get more surreal and gorgeous. Eventually you're going to run into an enemy encounter and that's where things get interesting.

At first glace it seems like the battles take place on a 2D field. You have two characters at your control, Zeke and Hunk. They start off on the left side of the screen and their foes are on the right. Zeke is able to run, platformer style, across the screen to attack the baddies face-to-face with his giant hammer. He also has some sort of inflatable bug that tags along with him. Holding the mouse button inflates it allowing you to speed towards far away enemies. A cool concept, but not quite revolutionary, right?

At any time during your turn (which is timed by an ever decreasing bar) you can press X to switch to Hunk, Zeke's brother. This swiches you to an awesome first-person view of the battlefield. Enemies maintain their position so if they were far away in 2D mode they'll look small and distant in first person. Zeke's weapon of choice is a gun which means you need to aim down the sights and shoot accurately to do damage with him. Aside from regular ammo Hunk also has a Bomb Shot which does no damage on its own. It lodges itself into an enemy and can only be detonated by swiching back to Zeke and attack the baddies with his hammer. A cool means for interplay between the two characters.

After your turn is up the enemies get to attack you. This is where the game implements a cool dodge feature. Like the Paper Mario RPGs every enemy attacks differently and pressing space allows you to dodge the attack and avoid taking damage.

As awesome as it is, the game seems like an example for a system that could be really great. As fun as it to play there is very little strategy. Enemies take the same amount of damage from both Zeke and Hunk and only one type has a weakness that requires strategizing. More types of baddies would be great and giving them different weaknesses that made switching between the characters would be awesome. More attacks for your characters would also help deepen the system, such as more types of ammo for Hunk and new hammers and attack combos for Zeke.

Despite being very bare bones it's one of the coolest games on Newgrounds. It's something you should really check out. Leave a good review and maybe LordDF will make a more expansive sequel.

: And because it is of note, the game features some very cool mood-setting music from the AP.