Kindred, The Eternal Hunters

One aspect of League of Legends that I love is the fact Riot Games is constantly striving to improve the game through patch balances and new additions to the game. They recently revealed the next champion that they are releasing, a character know as Kindred. Kindred is unique among the cast of League champions, as it is comprised of two individuals; Lamb, the stoic archer, and Wolf, the savage spirit.

Riot Games

The lore for Kindred is immensely interesting, as it is revealed that they used to be one being (Most liking the physical representation of Death in this mythos). Everyone ran from this being, as no one wanted to meet with Death. This caused Death to become lonely, so he split himself in the middle. This resulted in his personality being split as well. Lamb, the physical female personality, hunts the souls of those to die and gives them a peaceful rest if they go to death willingly. She has a long memory but lacks many emotions. Wolf, the spirit-formed male personality, tracks down the souls of those who try to escape death and give them an awfully painful death. He leaves memories for Lamb, focusing on the present and the hunt at hand. He is also more playful than Lamb, but brutal.

Official Splash Art

The other aspect of League that I love is the community involved in it. The artistic talent of people all over the world comes together and creates such amazing pieces of art. Kindred's release was less than a week ago, and the internet is already exploding with art about Lamb and Wolf (The furry community has been fairly kind too, and there isn't a crap-ton of porn about them. Yet.) 

Also by Inkiness

By Inkiness

vurdeM

Lighane

Mkuchima

Gumae

Pyroan

Rin

KiyaKoda

Skyen

Rin

There is already so much more art out there about Kindred since I went and collected these few images. Feel free to Google some art, and let me know if you find some really cool interpretations of Kindred. Or send me some art you've found about your favourite champion in League.

Toodles!

Yosnakorn Sothonwong

A form of art that I always find interesting is gender-bending, or gender-swapped, characters. It is the process of taking a well established character and switching their gender (usually from cis male or cis female to the other).

Something about those chains just works better with Female Thresh

Yosnakorn Sothonwong is an artist on Deviantart that makes some absolutely amazing work. The above gender-bent Thresh is an example of his work. Anyone who has played League with me (or just has been following my blog for a while) knows that Thresh is thematically and mechanically one of my favourite champs. 

The cavalry has arrived, indeed.

I do talk a lot about League on my blog, as it's probably my favourite game. But artists do more than just League art. This is a character known as Tracer from the game Overwatch. Tracer is a spunky Australian with the technology to rewind her place in time by several seconds. She is able to reload her weapons, undo damage done to herself, get out of ambushes, or surprise enemies with a position reversal into a flank. If you're familiar with League, she seems to play very much like one of the newer champions, Ekko. Anyway, Yosnakorn does an impressive job of capturing many aspects of Overwatch and it's characters with this single image. The smirk on Tracer's face hints at her playful attitude, the light lines from her weapons imply her impressive speed as a character. There's even a subtle "time shadow" behind her, as her ability to rewind is a core mechanic for her in the game. On of the other characters, Winston, is in the background ...appreciating... Tracer's athletic build. All in all, the artwork captures the spirit of the game and it's characters well. The colouring and shading is beautiful, and it never hurts to have more art out there of a sexy character.

Yosnakorn also likes to merge different fandoms in his art. This piece combines characters from League with the Avenger's franchise (He really likes to combine League with Marvel stuff). The champs that fit each character in the movies are portrayed well in the image. Gnar is hulking out, quiet literally, as his rage-fuelled transforming ability is incredibly similar to The Hulk. Xer'ath is using his magical lightning to power an Iron Man suit. Braum grabs yet another shield to add to his repertoire as Captain America. The hammer of Thor, with it's flexibility of fighting style and powerful emissions is a logical choice for Jayce. Miss Fortune fits the body type, attitude, and weapon style of Black Widow, with Varus and his amazing bow backing her up Hawkeye-style. Lucian's stoic attitude makes him a great choice for Nick Fury (Sorry Ekko, you're a little too punk rock for that one). Master Yi takes over the role of the fast running Quicksilver, with Morgana taking the role of his sister, Scarlet Witch. If that wasn't enough, Malzahar takes flight as Vision, and Azir commands his minions as Ultron. The fact that all of these characters work so well in the art and as crossover personalities is really impressive to me.

From gender-swapping chain wardens, to the most attractive Rengar I've ever seen. Yosnakorn's art is always a pleasure to peruse. Some of his art is NSFW, but the Deviant art filters hide his more revealing works from underaged eyes. This particular character is a favourite of his, with several pieces dedicated to the female Rengar. Yosnakorn also uses the Fem-gar, as it's also known, to cross over skins within League. Here is the Battle Bunny skin that Riven uses, but adapted for Fem-gar. It really makes me wish that one: Fem-gar was a character in League, and two: That this skin happened ASAP. There is also a Heart Seeker Fem-gar, complete with heart eye patch and accents.

This artist really likes to do gender-swaps, and makes some really sexy artwork (a little too sexy for some of my more conservative readers). Give his page a look and support. Maybe one day Riot will pay him for some new skin ideas...


Toodles!

Pokemon Omicron // Nuzlocke Challenge

As a true child of the 90's, I grew up in the great video game generation. Mario on a console, Kirby's battle through Dreamland. I also had the pleasure of playing through the original series of Pokemon games. Back in my day, there were only 150 Pokemon (151 and 152 got added later, and one at a time). Over the years I've played the large majority of subsequent generations of Pokemon games, the newest generations being an exception because of money and time.

Recently, a fan made emulator was shown to me, Pokemon Omicron and Zeta. It includes the first five generations of Pokemon, 649 in total, and has a completely new storyline. From what I've played so far, the story is way more upfront about being darker than in the other games (The ghost girl in X/Y not withstanding). I like the writing that the creator has put into the game, even making your rival that much more infuriating of a person. The game is still in beta, and isn't quite finished yet, but there is already over 80 hours of gameplay fully established.

They even warn you at the start that your rival is this annoying...

One of the cool features of this game is that you have the option of implementing Challenge modes into your gameplay. One such difficulty that I'm undertaking is called the Nuzlocke Challenge. It boils down to a few simply, but incredibly frustrating, modifications. One, if any of your Pokemon faint, they are considered dead and cannot be brought back by any means. Two, if you ever lose all of your Pokemon in a battle and black out, you are considered dead and the challenge mode ends. As if that wasn't difficult enough, there are personal challenges you can implement for yourself. I'm attempting to follow the additional difficulty of only being allowed to catch the first Pokemon you encounter in each area. This finitely limits the amount of Pokemon you can catch, especially since if you accidentally kill the first Pokemon you meet in the area, meaning you can't catch another one in the area.

From time to time, I shall be posting updates about how my challenge is going.

Somehow a Magby is one of the starters

Almost killed this poor bugger...

Hooray! A Flying type, good for that first gym battle against Fighting types!

So this was how my team began taking shape. Caught the first one in each area, slowly gaining levels after many trips back to the Pokemon Centre.

Stupid Starley and it's stupid crits....

And then this happened. Crits are the bane of the Nuzlocke experience. Carefully calculating how many more hits a Pokemon can take based on previous rounds, and then having a crit suddenly throw off the numbers. It's insanely annoying.

My box of shame...

Final Trainer card. It took me one day to fail.

And so one day after starting my Nuzlocke Challenge, my entire team gets knocked out and I die. I haven't even been able to form any attachments to my Pokemon because they died so quickly. Attempt 2, inbound...

Toodles!

War Dragons

There are a crap-ton of games out there now. Mobile gaming has exploded in the last few years with the introduction of larger phones and tablets (Gameboys will always have a special place in my heart). But like any gaming industry, mobile gaming is full of both fantastic and abysmal games.

I'm going to make this review short, because it's not a great game. War Dragons is a game for the iPad.

Graphics: 3.5 out of 5
Pretty cool looking dragons, the graphics take advantage of the iPad graphics processor between battles. During the flights the graphics take a pretty big dip down though.

Gameplay: 2 out of 5
The combat system is super grind-heavy and repetitive. The enemy defences quickly out damage your dragons if you don't use all of your cooldowns. You also are unable to dodge attacks or change your flight path. You fly at the speed the game wants you to, and in a straight line into the enemy tower assaults.

Overall: 1 out of 5
The game is very much a "pay-to-win" model, with structure upgrades, dragon creation, and damage recovery all being on fairly long timers without paying for the upgraded versions. It's kind of a fun game for the first few levels, but then the upgraded bases begin to destroy your dragons.


Sorry for the short post today, I didn't get around to writing a full review until fairly late. Tomorrow and Sunday should be more up to the regular par.

Toodles!

Red Square

In a world of video games that are getting progressively more detailed and more complicated, sometimes it's the simple things that make you feel the most accomplished. It's also nice to play a game every now and then that doesn't take 2 hours to finish the tutorial levels.

Enter today's game: Red Square

This is a picture. You can't play this. Sorry.

The premise is simple: You click and drag the red square, trying to avoid the blue blocks (that begin moving the moment you click the red square) and not touching the black border. The site challenges you to "survive" for 18 seconds.

The popup that tells you that you died and exactly how long you survived is a little annoying, but trying to get your best time is strangely addicting.

Give Red Square a shot, it doesn't take long (until you want to beat your best time...). If you make it to 18 seconds, leave a comment to flaunt your awesomeness!

Toodles!

League Community Art

League is obviously one of my favourite games. Part of what makes it so great is the majority of the community that follows the game (There's always toxic people, let's just ignore them). One of the amazing things about a game as huge as League is that people all over the world get inspired by it, and some do absolutely amazing things as a result. Since I don't have a specific post lined up for today, here's a small collection of the awesome things people do with their love for League.

I do apologize for all the artists who made such great work, I don't have the link to the sources or the artist names in question. I will be VERY CLEAR that I DID NOT MAKE ANY OF THIS. Don't abuse Creative Commons, people. Just enjoy the art, and don't steal for profit.

DJ Sona rocking the house

The Meeps are pretty awesome little buddies

Seriously people. Supports aren't the only ones who can buy these

Don't mess with these ladies. They'll destroy you with their balls.

Unnnng. Thresh is so good....

Dat yellow card lock tho

No art collection is complete without some gender-swapping

I'm glad Diana can't go full eclipse in game. Hard counter to Leona. 

SHOOT ALL THE THINGS

Gotta save that ADC when he does the dumb

How can you hate that face? LOOK AT THAT FACE 

Only a technomaturgist would see eye to eye...

Some awesome contest art Riot received. Everyone wants Teemo dead.

And of course, my buddy Nautilus getting ready to STOMP.

Got any awesome video game art? Shoot me a link in the comments!

Toodles!

Cage the Elephant

As far as games that I will remember throughout my life, Borderlands is definitely on the list. As someone who loves to play EVERY possible combination in games (Dragon Age was a nightmare for me...), I saw the opening credits to Borderlands many, many times. The title song for the game was Ain't No Rest For the Wicked, by Cage the Elephant. After listening to the song so many times, I was hooked on the band. Their lyrics are clever, and the use of slide guitar adds a unique sound to the group. For those who don't enjoy louder music, or are looking for entirely clean lyrics, maybe give this group a pass. But otherwise, definitely check them out (and actually pay for the music, musicians work hard).

A big thanks to my friend Vil for introducing me to the game, and letting me invade his room constantly to play it. I'll never hear this song without imagining a skag getting run over.

Toodles!

Renegades into the LCS // Female Gamers

This week was the conclusion of the LCS Challenger Series in North America. This is a long collection of matches that take the best teams in North America that currently aren't in the LCS, and matches them up against the lowest winning teams in the LCS from the previous split. Essentially, the Challenger teams are fighting for a chance to become part of the LCS, and the relegated LCS teams are fighting to get back into the LCS and have another season as professionals.

A relegated team from this last season, Team Coast, made it up to the final round and only had one team left to beat. Up against them was Team Renegades, a challenger team that now only had to defeat coast to become an LCS team. The finals are played in a Best of Five games, and it got taken all the way. Renegades won 3-2, and secured their spot in the NA LCS in the upcoming season. A big congratulations to them, and I look forward to watching them play once the regular season starts up again.

Now, you may be wondering why I'm mentioning and explaining all of this. Team Renegades represents something new to League of Legends eSports. The Support player on their team, Remilia (Current team picture on the right) is a female. This is the first time since League began that a team has made it to the professional circuit with a female member. I'M SO FREAKIN' PUMPED. I know how toxic the gaming community can be towards women who game, so I give her all the support in the world. I hope she just takes the encouragement from the positive members of the community and ignores the idiots that exist in any culture.

There was a team entirely made up of women that tried to get into the LCS, but they unfortunately fell to infighting and their in-game performance suffered too greatly. They now feed the terrible stereotype on Twitch that women just use their bodies to get followers instead of good gameplay. Those who follow the League scene know who I'm talking about, so I won't be mentioning any names.

Best of luck to Renegades, and kick some ass Remilia! Keep on rocking that Thresh!

Renegades website here

Toodles!

Inspirations from Sp4zie

It's Tuesday! Plantie and I are headed away from home for the summer today. There will be pictures of the ride and our new living quarters for the next couple of months.

Some of you may be wondering where the inspiration for Plantie came from. I do not take credit for the idea. I totally ripped it off from my favourite Youtube personality, Sp4zie (Pronounced spazie, like someone having a spaz attack). Sp4zie streams regularly on Twitch and creates videos from his gameplay to put onto Youtube. He mostly plays my favourite of games, League of Legends. Sp4zie's videos are hilarious to me. His skills as an editor and his personality as a comedian make for content that I have watched and rewatched countless times. I've adopted some of his more frequent sayings while I play League (I often shout "JUKE IT" with a terrible Swedish accent on a regular basis, "derp" has made it back into my vocabulary, as well as me making terrible noises while narrowly escaping with my life).

I posted earlier about the band Instalock, and how their content is easily appreciable to people who don't play League. Sp4zie's game content might not be appealing for those who don't play the game, but in addition to his stream footage, Sp4zie also does a ton of work with the development of new media content creators. That is to say, he speaks at conferences, radio shows, and other forms of media about what it is like to be a full time content creator in today's society. He is extremely charismatic, and has taught a lot of people how to become better content creators.

Sp4zie's channel is here, you can look through his videos at your leisure. However, there is one video of his that ALWAYS makes me laugh. A reminder that this is my personal opinion, so if you don't think the video is funny, well, too bad. I like it.

Toodles!

Lee Sin Poro

Poro is doing his own version of the LCS workout. Because reasons.

Teemo Poro

Poro has decided to become the evilest version of himself. How he pulls that off with a heart patch on his stomach shall remain a mystery. Why he does it, because reasons.

One Corner of the Internet

Now, to be fair, Youtube isn't exactly a dark corner of the internet. There are a lot of piano playing kittens, dogs that can't catch, and unfortunate souls being kicked in the groin. You can get to some pretty weird stuff if you stay in the "Related" tab rabbit hole for long enough. After a large amount of thinking about what the hell I was going to write about today, I decided that the answer was right in front of me. Literally. I've had Youtube open pretty much all day, listening to music.

One aspect of this blog is to show people what I think is cool (Poros), and this Youtube channel is something I love to follow. Instalock is a group of three young guys who decided that they wanted to make parodies of popular music, themed around the video game League of Legends. I personally love the game, and have no idea what popular is doing anymore. So when I came across this channel, I probably watched all of their videos in one day. They are musically quite talented and their wordplay is clever, nodding to both the original song and the game at the same time. I often find myself hearing a song on the radio that everyone else knows, but I sing the Instalock lyrics instead. While amusing for me, I probably confuse the crap out of people around me.

If you play League of Legends (Which you should), the videos are doubly impressive. You can often relate to the situations in the videos and there are lots of little things you would only appreciate if you were interested in the game. An example of this is the fact that they hide a Teemo in every video. That said, even those who don't play the game can appreciate the musical abilities of these guys.

Also, one of them just got engaged. To a gamer girl. Lucky bugger.

Let me know what you think of Instalock in the comments below! Or leave a suggestion of another random piece of Youtube you think others should heck out.

Toodles!

Yasuo Poro

Today, Poro shows off his musical side, though he prefers the flute over percussion. Because reasons.

Wintereenmas

Alright, Dark Souls out of the way.

This past week has been a holiday called Wintereenmas, created by Tim Buckley in his web-comic Ctr-Alt-Del. If you are reading my blog for any reason, you should also be reading this web-comic. It is hilarious. The short version is that Wintereenmas is a holiday dedicated to gamers, and is a week dedicated to playing video games. Normally, people participating in the holiday choose a difficult goal and aim to achieve it by the end of the week (the web-comic characters attempt to beat Hard mode in Demon's Souls one year). This year, because of a shifted exam schedule, I was unable to fully participate in the holiday. A fair amount of D&D did get played during this week, as well as planning for my own campaign. I will be uploading videos of all future gaming sessions of my campaign, so anyone actually reading my blog should find those entertaining, at the least.

Matters Other than Tea

I have only really been talking about tea up to this point, so I'm going to post about something equally awesome; Video games.


The current game being played in my house is Dark Souls (DaS)


Dark Souls Official Website


For those who didn't click the link, the site's URL is "prepare to die" dot com. That couldn't be truer for this game. The game begins, and you literally have nothing. Okay, you have a broken sword hilt as a weapon, but that's it. Not to give any details away from the game, but you die quickly. And often. Like, all the time.


Anyway, defeating enemies in this game rewards you with "souls". These souls are the monetary system for the game. Unfortunately, giving you money for every enemy would apparently be to easy for DaS. Souls function as what you use to buy items from the handful of shopkeepers hidden throughout the game, your expenses for repairing and upgrading your equipment, and, most importantly, the cost to increase your stats and level. Every single point you put into a stat costs a certain amount of souls, and this costs quickly becomes very large for just a single point. The other difficult part of the game is that when you die (which can happen at pretty much anytime), you lose all the souls you had, plus all "humanities" you've acquired, which are another form of rare but important item you find. Once dead, you have one chance to find your body and recover the souls and humanities you lost. If you die before reaching your body, those souls are lost. You had 20,000 souls because you were working towards getting a new level, but died against the enemy there? And he killed you again? Sorry, sucks to be you, start at zero souls.


The game also takes place in two states of being. You are either Undead (Which is the game's version of being alive) or Hollow (Dead, in spirit form). You probably spend a large amount of time being Hollow, but if you do spend a humanity to become "alive" again, you get another perk for not being Hollow. You can summon other players to help you in your game, both NPC and PC, and they can make your life monumentally easier. Also, your resistance to damage goes up. Being alive is great! Right? That would make the game too easy. So DaS throws another thing at you. As long as you're alive and in an area that you haven't beat the boss in, other PLAYERS can invade your game as evil spirits. Like someone who has varied strategies, good equipment, and a boiling anger that develops from playing the game. Their sole purpose for invading your game? Killing you and stealing your souls. These evil phantoms are immune to all game enemies and environment hazards, and can wait to attack you until you are already fighting a giant rat/black knight/room full of archers/etc. If you kill the invading phantom, they get sent back into their own game. No drawbacks. The only downside to invading people's games is that a certain item lets you report invaders to an in-game group of hunters to eventually attack the invader.


Between the ridiculous cost for levels, the massive drawbacks of dying, the constant threat of an area turning into a PvP manhunt, and the massive power that your enemies wield, Dark Souls is not a game for casual players, starting players, or anyone who doesn't ever want to throw their controller at their TV. But Dark Souls goes back to an older time in video games. The game doesn't hand you shiny new items and levels for simply playing. You earn everything in this game, and when you get enough souls for a level, or repel an invading phantom, or beat that boss who can kill you with one glancing hit, you feel awesome. Not many games now can give that feeling of accomplishment. All this said, Dark Souls is actually easier than it's predecessor, Demon's Souls. I won't get into that game, mouthful of a title that it is.