Video Games Live kicked off its 14-show, 12-city Canadian tour in Winnipeg, MB on Monday. At the show, I got a chance to speak to VGL creator and performer (and industry icon) Tommy Tallarico. Have a listen, and find out why Mr. Tallarico thinks Beethoven would be a video game composer if he were alive today.
The video includes: the orchestra, led by Bryan Deans, playing Metal Gear Solid; Jason Paige singing the Pokemon theme song (with Tommy Tallarico on guitar); Winnipeg’s own SuperFX playing Halo; and … a box?
(By the way, I can’t seem to sing the Pokemon theme song without switching to the Transformers movie theme. “I know it’s my destiny. Pokemon! Oh, you’re my best friend — FROM THE EVIL UNICROOOON!”)
SuperFX
Cosplay contest (Skull Kid won)
It’s-a them: Mario and Peach
Jason Paige and Tommy Tallarico rocking out to Pokemon
Pinball is way deeper than it looks. Did you know each machine comes with instructions? I learned this with a visit to Forth in Winnipeg to speak to David Morris and Kevin Peden of the Manitoba Pinball League. Listen in!
Some of you may know that Alberta, Canada has a Dinosaur Provincial Park: a UNESCO World Heritage site where tons and tons (heck, tonnes!) of fossils have been found. But did you know you can explore that park in Minecraft? It’s true!
Today’s episode is with Elwyn Galloway, a geophysicist who worked on the Minecraft versions of both Dinosaur Provincial Park and the area around Peace River, Alberta.
Fantastic episode today with guest Elizabeth LaPensée. She is a designer, artist, writer, and researcher, and some of her work will be part of the family arcade tomorrow at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, as part of the Symposium on the Future Imaginary, a multidisciplinary arts event centred around the theme: how do Indigenous people imagine themselves in the future. The event is being livestreamed here.
Winnipeg’s annual tabletop gaming convention, JimCon, was this past weekend. I did a bunch of investigative journalism — found out what’s REALLY going on (turns out they’re playing board games and having a great time). Take a listen!
(Guests: Michael Hofer, Jim Buchanan, Cliff Stornel)
It’s the official Extra Life stream day! Extra Life is, of course, a charity benefiting Children’s Miracle Network hospitals (as of this posting they’re up to $6.8-million!). Here in Winnipeg, Bold Commerce is putting on a big ol’ all-day event, and I checked it out earlier.
It was great! More players than I expected, and a very enthusiastic attitude. Plus, a guy shaved his beard (and another guy was apparently going to glue the trimmings to his face but I wasn’t around for that part).
Anyhoo, check out the stream here if it’s not too late.
Day one is in the books! I’m off to provide delightful commentary for Overwatch at AYBOnline’s BaseLAN event.
Take a listen to some of the cool stuff I saw on Friday: first, Jaime Smith from Range Plus One talks about Fatal Velocity — an awesome looking speed-shooter –, then Luke Thiessen talks The Frontier LARP! Enjoy.
Hello Super Gamers! To borrow a phrase from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, this episode is ‘time sensitive. It’s… sensitive… to time.’
BLAM! is an art show I went to on Friday, Oct 20 in Winnipeg, and it’s going on until Sunday, Oct 22 — so you still have time! Check it out, there was some great comic-book-and-nerd-culture-inspired work. I spoke with Robert Wilson, who was dressed as Dr. Emmett Brown, and had an art exhibit there (but just for Friday, sorry!).
But hold on, this episode features not one but TWO totally unrelated interviews. It starts with Dan Blair from Bit Space Development, talking about their new app WinnipegVR, which lets you take a virtual tour of some key spots in Winnipeg, like Investors Group Field.
Learn more about Bit Space Development and WinnipegVR here.
DJ King Cabernet rocking the BLAM! 4 at Forth opening. He played Electric Light Orchestra just as I looked at a Dr. Who painting, which is amazing for a reason Dr. Who fans will know.
This time I sit down with Joe Houston of Go Beyond Games in Dauphin, Manitoba. I lived in Dauphin for four years before heading back to my hometown of Winnipeg. I still make regular trips out there. This interview was done on one of those trips.
My Fortnite ramblings at the end of the show are already out of date. I’ve now made it to third place in solo!
Alternatively titled: Jetpack to the Centre of the Earth
With the new update and the game being on sale, I finally got No Man’s Sky. I’m hesitant to give it a yay or a nay yet, as I haven’t played enough, but so far I’m enjoying it — for the most part. It is, ultimately: go here, gather that. But the concept of exploring an unfathomably vast, mostly undiscovered universe remains very exciting to me. It’s also gorgeous.
What I love:
I’ve chosen the Atlas path and the story is actually really cool — time travel and a forgotten purpose.
The game does a remarkable job of making you feel small and (almost) alone.
Learning languages is proving to be my favourite thing to do.
What I dislike:
Your character, for some reason, doesn’t keep track of where he’s been. There’s no map on a planetary level, which means you may find something and then never find it again. A little into the game you learn how to make beacons, which allows you to mark places you’d like to return to, but I still find it silly that anyone would explore uncharted territories without keeping a map.
Scanning flying creatures is beyond frustrating. You need to scan creatures for — I don’t know — like three seconds for it to count. But it’s so precise that as the flying creatures move it cancels the scan, and you have to adjust and start again. I’ve almost given up on trying.
There’ve been a couple glitches. The most annoying was when a quest didn’t complete when it should have, and I had to spend a bunch of extra time looking for the resources again. The other glitch I’ve experienced was just a silly clipping error. Here it is:
Anyhoo, it was the first and only body of water I’ve discovered. Too bad I had to reset without saving.
