ICO Free for Playstation Plus Members!

It looks like I bought my Playstation 3 at just the right time, because ICO is currently free on the Playstation Network if you are a Playstation Plus member. ICO is considered a masterpiece of the Playstation 2 and an HD version of it packaged with Shadows of the Colossus was released awhile back. I had ICO on my top games I want to play for PS3 list on this post here.

If you have the PSP of Playstation Vita, you can download Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for free, in spirit of the recent release of Grand Theft Auto V.

Other new deals for Playstation Plus members include Kane and Lynch: Dead Men for $5.99, Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days for $7.99, and Sleeping Dogs for $9.99, among others.

Blizzard Shutting Down Diablo III's Auction House

Blizzard has recently announced their intentions of closing down Diablo III's Auction House on March 18, 2014. The Auction House was a unique feature of the game, allowing players to sell the best loot of the game for real money. Blizzard says the decision to close down the Auction House is in preparation for the next Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls.

Along with Reaper of Souls will be a new looting system called Loot 2.0. This new system features a new game mode called Loot Run which guarantees special item drops at the end. Also, dropped items will be more relevant to your character's class. There will be less item drops, but when items do drop they will be better quality. Legendary items will drop more frequently and the drops will start at lower levels. Also, there will be the introduction of bind on account and bind on equip items.

Because of these new upgrades to the looting system, the Auction House will be pretty much irrelevant. The point of the Diablo series is to kill as many monsters as you can and pick up cool loot, the auction house defeats the purpose of gameplay since you can use your own money to purchase the best items in the game.

You can view the original blog post from Blizzard's official Diablo III blog here.

Grand Theft Auto V Review, Part 1

First Impressions

There's really nothing quite like standing in line before midnight to buy one of the year's most anticipated new games. I was going to skip out on Grand Theft Auto V until a GameStop manager texted me saying there weren't many people in line and there were free tacos. I decided what the hell not, I'll buy it.

I'm actually glad I did. As dorky as it sounds, I really like being part of the day one fuss of a brand new AAA game release. I had my reservations though, because I'm just really not a Grand Theft Auto fan. I like my random acts of violence games to be more tongue-in-cheek like the Saints Row franchise. Grand Theft Auto V delivers a hilarious parody of everyday life that I missed out on in Grand Theft Auto IV.  I honestly think I could drive around Los Santos for an hour just cracking up over radio ads.

The Story

You can play as three different low-life bad guys. The most interesting thing about this is that you can switch between the three characters at any time. Also, their stories interweave each other. They become friends and get involved in each other's lives. You can play almost any mission as any of the three guys, but some missions are specific to each character. Also, each character has a special power that can be activated by pushing in left and right sticks.

My Opinion So Far

Grand Theft Auto V has exceeded my expectations so far. I didn't really plan on buying this game seeing as how I'm not really a fan of this franchise. I don't consider my review of this game to be traditional or professional. This is just a blog post. So with that in mind, I would score this game
a solid 9. If you know me at all, I'm your typical Bioware/Bethesda fangirl, so giving this game a 9 is a really huge deal for me. I could easily see Grand Theft Auto V as being in my top five
games for the year.

Celestia Ponies Are A Bunch Of Assholes

I never knew the ponies of Canterlot were such assholes. This story is told from Princess Celestia's viewpoint and takes place in Canterlot Castle. Celestia is hosting a Royal High Tea for the students and teachers of the School For Gifted Unicorns. We all know ponies from Canterlot are a bunch of snobs, but just add this to the equation that we're at a PTA party for prep school unicorns. Think of this as Hogwarts, but everypony is from Slytherin. The parent ponies petition Celestia to force retirement on an aging teacher named Inkwell after all hell breaks loose in the dining hall. It's Princess Celestia's job to remind the parent ponies the impact Inkwell had on them when they were students. Honestly, I don't know what keeps Princess Celestia from going on a homicidal rampage in this story.

This is the eighth installment of the My Little Pony Micro-series. These are self-contained comics told through the viewpoint of a single pony. These stores include the Mane Six as well as the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Issues are planned for Spike and Princess Luna, as well.

Anyway, here are the details:
Published by IDW
Story by Georgia Ball
Art by Amy Mebberson

Steam Announces Family Sharing Plan

In a big F-you to Microsoft, Steam has recently announced the new feature added to it's digital gaming service - the family sharing plan. You can "share" games on the cloud to 10 designated friends. They can play the games whenever you want, as long as you aren't already playing them. The downside, of course, is that you will not be able to share DLC, which belongs to the original owner of the game.

However, the good outweighs the bad. Sharing your games with friends is a great way to try out games you are unsure about before you spend money on them. Also, it's a good way for indie games to get good exposure and to boost sales.

Microsoft seems to be the originator of the idea. When the XBox One was announced last May, the only decent feature of the console was the family sharing plan. Because of wide public dissent of the majority of XBox One features, however, the good and the bad features were nixed from the console. Perhaps this sparked Valve's interest so the plan could be implemented on Steam.

The sharing plan is currently in closed beta, but will be available to all Steam members soon.

New Cosplay Ideas

Recently, I've decided to get back into cosplay. I've truly only cosplayed one time and I was a Silent Hill Nurse for a Halloween party. The pictures I took of myself were horrendous, but in person the cosplay wasn't so bad. If you're fortunate enough to be my Facebook friend, you can see them in what I believe is a Halloween 2009 album.

I've been watching Heroes of Cosplay on SyFy a lot lately, and it's making me want to cosplay more, and to not cosplay lazily. I have quite a few ideas swimming around in my head and I'm not sure where to start, so I'll give you a list of some characters I'm very deadset on cosplaying.

1. New 52 Poison Ivy
I'm not against showing skin in cosplay, but this Poison Ivy is...more respectable? I'd be happy cosplaying new Poison Ivy, old scantily clad Poison Ivy. I just like how this makes her look more like a super villain instead of a stripper.

2. Leixia from Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur is truly the only game where I have ever bragged about my skills and Leixia is who I kick everybody's ass with.

3. Purple Heart from Hyperdimension Neptunia
Hyperdimension Neptunia is a very interesting JRPG I played on PS3 a couple years ago where the girls represent different game consoles. I came up with the idea to cosplay her because I wanted something Japanese/Anime to do if I were to go to a more anime focused convention.

 

4. Kotobukiya Bishoujo Mystique
I love Kotobukiya Bishoujo figures, but this is one of my favorites. I have every statue, including this one, on my Amazon wishlist. I think what draws me to doing Mystique is I can paint myself blue and make a lot of Tobias from Arrested Development jokes.

Back in this post here, I talked about how badly I wanted to go to conventions and hadn't been to one yet. My boyfriend and I are both interested in cosplay and we've had some debate over whether or not we should compete or just cosplay for fun and pictures. I used to think we should compete locally only, but now I agree with my boyfriend that we should just do it for fun and pictures. I also said that I didn't want to reveal who I was going to cosplay as, but I've changed my mind about that too. All of these four ideas have been done before. I just need to get some experience making costumes before start anything too creative. I'm ok at using a sewing machine, but I think I could do a really good job with hair and makeup. I'm super excited to get started on some cosplay and I'll be showing my progress here on the blog. Let me know in the comments of any good East Coast cons to go to!

How I Got Into Comic Books

When I was starting to read as a child, my family used to buy me Archie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics (the first ones!). Yes, I'm that old. Other than that, I lived a fairly comic-less life until around 2009. What sparked my interest was watching a trailer for The Watchmen. I thought it looked amazing and I was very intrigued. It's funny because I wasn't really that impressed with the movie itself. However, I'm one of those people who have to read the book before the movie comes out. I think I read The Watchmen all in one sitting because I was so hooked, and basically my story goes from there.

After finishing The Watchmen, I wanted to try more comics. For some reason, I was really turned off by the idea of reading traditional superhero Marvel/DC comics. I was mostly just intimidated because at the time there were over 600 issues of just Batman alone. How was I going to find time to read all that? So, I picked comics based off of things I was familiar with, such as comics based on movies I had already seen and comics I had heard friends talk about. My next choices in comic books were 300, V For Vendetta, Sin City, and The Crow. Around that time, the Scott Pilgrim movie was announced so I read that too.

Since I was in school to be a nurse at that time, I broke down and decided to read Arkham Asylum, since I thought it was relevant to my studies, with it being a mental hospital and all. After that, I became hooked on Batman and Arkham Asylum remains one of my favorite comic books of all time (ironically, I am now a psychiatric nurse). I started reading absolutely everything I could on Batman from Year One to The Killing Floor. I also started picking out certain storylines that interested me from the main issues.

Anyway, I thought the only superhero I would follow was Batman, but I ended up being wrong about that. I saw all the Marvel movies coming out like X-men:First Class, The Amazing Spiderman and The Avengers and decided to delve into the Marvel Universe. By this point, I was trying to keep up with Batman while reading old Amazing Spiderman and Uncanny X-men.I started watching Comic Book Men on AMC and then my love for comics exploded even more.

Now, I do read mostly Marvel Now titles, as well as keeping up with New 52 Batman. I also love Saga. I do know a lot about other comics outside of the Marvel/DC universe. That's just what I happen to be reading right now.

I'm definitely open to suggestion about different comics to read, especially ones that aren't so "mainstream" as the ones I read right now. Let me know what you read or if you have any suggestions of what I should read next in the comments below.