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6 Best Video Game Controllers Of All Time That Changed Gaming Forever

First and foremost, don’t judge how my mind operates, alright? Seventy-four percent of you are probably going to be reading this like, “Who really got time to write about console controllers?” This ain’t for you, this for the 26%. What brought me to this is my recent purchase of a Wii U solely for the new Smash Bros video game. I was holding the Wii U controller thinking, “What is this? Back in my day the controller wasn’t a watered down I-pad. We had real controllers! …Stupid next gen consoles with your loud music and HD graphics!!”

This got me thinking about all the good controllers of yester-year and if I’m going to war, which I’d take with me. Everyone is going to have their personal favorite controllers dependent on their console of preference; I’ll try and touch on every– you know what? I’m not even going to try and be non-bias. I’m not sorry about it either.

This list is presented by Omar Holmon at Blacknerdproblems.

Nintendo Classic Controller

SONY DSC

I just have to pay homage to the godfather of controllers (No, I’m not going to give it to Atari. That one wasn’t comfortable. Sorry, [Not really]). I’m not sure if I should call this the standard handgun of console controllers or the musket of controllers. It was pretty easy to work, easily accessible for everyone, didn’t take any real skill to handle. The Super Nintendo controller felt like an upgrade. The two extra buttons (extended clip) and the additional L & R buttons up top (scope). It was a great addition to a classic.

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Review: ‘Avengers #39’ Chatty But Worth the Read

There are a number of good things that Jonathan Hickman accomplishes with this last “Avengers” book, but the Reed Richards version of the “Art of War” strategies as he transcribes them to Valeria is among the best portrayals of the character that Hickman has done. It’s an innovative way of doing the typical comic book voice-over, but giving it more purpose than an internal dialogue. It’s interesting to see the different ways that Reed and Victor Von Doom interpret Valeria’s message and so far I’m a fan of Reed’s version of “not losing.”

This book also does a great job of incorporating so many characters and motivations into it without feeling too busy. Steve’s frustration and resentment of the Illuminati is still tangible. We see for the first time how the War Machine Drone program works, basically with Rhodes stretching himself to unhealthy levels. The battle scenes are done extremely well too, having Captain Britain, T’Challa and The Hulk dismantling the drones at a break-neck pace.

Mike Deodato comes in for this book and the art is so on point. His action scenes really shine, especially the characterizations and the individual fight scenes, especially between Captain Marvel and The Hulk. He does a really great job with scale and action set pieces.

Source: William Evans at Blacknerdproblems.com

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BioWare Continues to Make Great Games With ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’

Dear BioWare: I was skeptical about all of the hype surrounding the characters in your new RPG, “Dragon Age: Inquisition.” But really, you outdid yourselves. You brought all the best parts of “Mass Effect” — the organizational meta-game; the choice system; the interesting, complicated NPCs — into a high fantasy genre that’s really been suffering. Thanks for that. While I’d like to be able to give my player character kinky hair (work on that for next time), the customization options are truly staggering. Thanks for that, too. Thanks for letting me turn off the gore and take off the helmets, because some things are just distracting. Thanks for giving me a Black female NPC who is so fabulous, people are writing articles about her fashion choices. Thanks for treating me, Black female gamer me, like part of your core audience. I’ll see you when the DLC comes out, debit card in one hand and controller in the other.

I’m about 35 hours into BioWare’s latest video game, “Dragon Age: Inquisition,” and I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve made it through three TPKs. I’ve outrun four very angry bears, lit five tower beacons, built like a hundred camps, traveled back and forth across a gigantic board, and I’ve almost decided who I’m going to romance (something about Blackwall’s beard calls to me, but the Iron Bull….mmmm). Sure, the game has some glitches – quite a few team members have half-disappeared into table tops, and there’s that audio bug that ruins occasional conversations – but overall, I’ll be damn happy to spend my winter being the Dalish Herald of Andraste and saving Ferelden from threats foreign, domestic and Fade-borne.

But I’m not here to tell you about how much I like the game, or to recommend that you buy it. You’ve read that article, it has been circulating around the Internet for months. If you wanted the game, you’d have already bought it, unless you’re waiting for it to hit the used shelf at GameStop. Folks gotta economize. I get that.

What I am here to talk about however, is the hype machine around BioWare, this game, and the “diversity of the characters.” I’ve been linked to a number of articles in the last two months about how diverse the NPCs are in “Dragon Age,” and how that’s a major breakthrough in a AAA title. Excellent.

Read more from L.E.H. Light at blacknerdproblems.com

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How the Internet Gave Rise to Independent Artists and Webcomics

In 1998, two underground Brooklyn emcees postponed their individual projects to collaborate on a full-length album, and the result was “Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star.” Around the same time, another artist transferred from Pennsylvania State University to a cell in prison where he wrote verses behind bars in what would become “Revolutionary, Volume 1.” I can remember the first verse I heard from Jean Grae, the first track I heard from Brother Ali, and the exact song that made me give Atmosphere a chance after five recommendations from Pandora prematurely thumbed down. They all began with skeptical resistance, followed by a raised eyebrow after the third or fourth bar, followed by “What’d you say their name is again?”

I can also remember the first webcomic I browsed online. It came in an email with a single link, with a subject heading that read “Read.” It sat in my inbox for three sunsets, which is an eternity for someone who keeps their inbox cleaner than hospital rooms. Leaving an email for three days says I care nothing of the message it brings, and that it only remains un-deleted in sheer respect to the sender. A good friend had sent it, so before the sun set on the fourth day, I begrudgingly clicked the link, raised an eyebrow at the third or fourth panel, and replied, “Where’d you say you found this again?”

We previously covered the comedy of hip-hop and classic gaming, and now the genre teaches a new lesson in creative art: some of the most incredible works are the secrets you are least likely to hear or read. In comics, those secrets come from the fire inside an artist that burns hot enough to draw in their living room or basement, without promise of compensation, because they have a story to tell. It means hosting a website and sharing a piece of you to the world for free because any scrutiny is less damaging than keeping that story to yourself. It comes from a garage at 2 a.m. It does not originate at DC or Marvel. With an increasing readership, new Eisner award categories, and the comic industry’s growing fan base, recognition for noteworthy webcomics are on the rise as popular sites like XKCD and The Oatmeal are being joined by long-form online stories.

If a webcomic creator survives the long hours of unrecognized dedication for long enough they might find a home with a larger publisher to lend them credibility, but it will never be the publishing company that gave them their talent of storytelling; they will only monetize it best.

Read more from Jordan Calhoun at blacknerdproblems.com

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Game of Thrones: Iron From Ice Review

With Telltale games redefining the adventure video game over the last few years, when they announced that Game of Thrones would be one of their 2014 releases (along with Tales from Borderlands), it seemed like a perfect match. While sword clashes, pushing boys from four story towers and really, really terrible weddings are often the flashy takeaways from George RR Martin’s epic tale, the political maneuvering, alliances and betrayal are what define it. With a game that focuses so much on choice, who remembers those choices and its consequences, then Game of Thrones fits snugly into that play style. In the opening episode of Telltale’s latest, they hit the mark on most things and miss the target on a few.

It’s hard to explain the plot too thoroughly without spoiling how it develops, but you begin the story as Gared Tuttle, squire of Lord Gregor Forrester. House Forrester is loyal to Rob Stark, The King in the North, before his unfortunate…circumstances. This causes chaos in Westeros, of course, but especially for the Northern Houses that have are now left scrambling for allegiances and protection. The story doesn’t just stay in the North, however, as we are treated to the capital of political entanglements, King’s Landing.

While the story jumps around between characters, they all center around the internal and external machinations of the Forrester family and trying not to get the Forrester House decimated any further. Familiar faces show up for Thrones fans throughout, all with the vested interest in who the Forresters align themselves with and the plan to use their much talked about ironwood as a resource. The story takes the best of the Thrones political maneuverings and puts you squarely in the middle of them. Rarely is there a “good” response or action as opposed to “one that you don’t think will kill you immediately, even if it does down the line.” Every decision is treacherous, and like the show, you will seldom know what domino effect a choice makes in the world until it comes back against you from a different angle. Even in this first episode, the alliances and motivations of the characters you deal with weave in and out of each other. At some point you have to trust someone, but there’s no clear choice who that should be.

There are three separate “acts” or “characters” that you will play through alternately throughout the first episode and that might be why it feels a little over-long.

Read More from William Evans at blacknerdproblems.com

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This Innovative and Ambitious Underground City Looks Like Something from a Sci-Fi Movie

Imagine a world where underground parks are the norm. That concept has become a real possibility thanks to James Ramsey. He’s the creator of the Lowline, a project that, if all goes well, will turn an abandoned trolley terminal on the Lower East Side into a living, breathing, underground park by 2018. Ramsey tells us how he hopes to create more green spaces in unlikely locations.

Source: Bloombergnews

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7 Movies That Surprisingly Started Out as Comics

It’s easy to tell a movie is based on a comic book when people are flying around and wearing spandex, but comics aren’t all about superheroes. The art form encompasses many different genres, and many movies have been adapted that don’t advertise their comic roots. A perfect example is the new movie 2 Guns, which looks like your typical action movie until you read the fine print. Here are comic book movies you might not have known were comic book movies.

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30 Days of Night

Released in 2007, starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and Danny Huston, this horror movie about an Alaskan town where vampires attack during a prolonged polar night started as an unproduced film script. It took a detour when it was adapted into a three-issue comic book miniseries in 2002. The comic was so successful that it led to the feature film.

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Will Horror Film ‘Matthew 18’ Prove to Be an Intriguing Watch?

Writer, director, and producer Roy Belfrey is at the helm of what’s being called “The Scariest African-American Film… Ever!” titled Matthew 18. Being a nitpicky pessimist for a moment, why can’t it just be the scariest horror film or thriller ever? What makes it the scariest African-American film ever? Aren’t perceptions of what’s scary and what isn’t subjective? You can’t make these blanket, click-bait statements without some thoughtful commentary with your potential audience. Especially considering I haven’t discovered an overflow of colloquiums on African-American horror films. But effectively enough, I suppose the line does capture attention. Here’s the breakdown:

Michelle Jamieson is too smart for faith. She has been raised in the tired traditions of her deeply religious family and is ready to expand her independent thought and stand in her logical, free will. When the opportunity arises for her to separate from her Washington, D.C., home and her Bible-thumping parents, she takes a scholarship for her sought-after medical program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Eager to base her beliefs in the proof of science and develop her life decisions on the tangible experience of medicine — where every effect has a root cause and miracles come in the form of prescription slips — she wisps across the country to find her path, her truth. But what she finds supersedes her natural existence – making her mortality vulnerable to the spiritual realm she so comfortably doubted. Michelle stays in a Minneapolis mansion, a family property dating back many generations. She begins to encounter strange and unexplainable occurrences. As she is forced to investigate, what she uncovers is a world of family secrets and unspeakable evils that God himself may not save her from. In whose name will she cry out now?

Judging from the synopsis and suspending my pessimism for a moment, I hope to see a film that’s intriguing as well as complicated. I hope to see Michelle have a layered arc and not some gimmicky, linear mortality tale. Please? Horror is too rich of an artistic space to see opportunities wasted. I’m not enthused by this trailer. But I am hoping to be proven wrong.

Source: graveyardshiftsisters.com