Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Supernatural

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AmberGround exists in eternal twilight, lit only by its artificial sun and its inhabitants scattered cities. In this darkness roam countless mechanical insects, named Gaichuu, keeping the population imprisoned and isolated within the safe confines of the cities. There are a few brave souls that will venture into these wastelands; chief among them, the Letter Bees. A Letter Bee is a mixture of adventurer, cartographer and postman. their duty is to deliver letters between cities in AmberGround, as well as map out new routes in attempts to reconnect cities.

Gauche Suede is our first introduction to a Letter Bee in this series. His first “letter” to be delivered is actually a young boy named Lag Seeing. Lag is quite hesitant to be shipped off to his aunt’s home in the far off city of Cambel Litus. His mother was taken from him and sent into Akatsuki, the capital city of AmberGround, which is off limits to anyone not invited to enter. Gauche’s sidekick, called a Dingo in this world, is named Roda. Roda is some doglike creature and serves and a decoy and early warning system for Gauche versus the Gaichuu.

Gauche explains his weapon of choice against the Gaichuu, a Shindanjuu or “heart gun.” This gun amplifies the users will into a powerful bullet that will destroy the mechanical beasts. While holding the gun Lag accidently activates it, due to his special gemstone eye (hidden under his hair 99% of the time) and nearly dies from the effort. This in turn draws more Gaichuu to them, leaving Gauche and Roda to battle for hours on end. At one point soon after, Lag steals Gauche’s Shindanjuu and strikes off to find his lost mother, nearly getting Gauche killed in the process of saving him from a rather crafty Gaichuu.

Lag drags the nearly dead Gauche through the gates of Cambel Litus and after getting to know him as a friend, decides that he too will become a Letter Bee. He does this in hopes of gaining access to Akatsuki and finding his mother again. At this point the series fast-forwards 5 years to Lag at 12 years old, ready to start his journey.

This series has a bit of a slow start, but due to seeing a few clips ahead in the series, I can say that there is a LOT of great stuff coming! They took two episodes to complete the back-story and I feel they did it more than sufficient justice. This would have easily earned an A if they would have gotten to the point faster. The concept is solid and there are enough mysteries to keep me coming back.

Overall Hook Rating: B

Watch episode one via Crunchyroll after the break!

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In this episode, Bill reports live from the Twilight New Moon Premier Party.  He was very excited to get press passes to it and let us know live on the air. Oh, and we also talked about:

• All the new video games and movies that came out this week
• Modern Warfare 2 is not the second coming of Jesus
• 8bit Left 4 Dead
• Best Buy sucks
• 18 button mouse
• Game of the Year thoughts

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Don’t forget to help donate to the children on December 4th with the “Piece of Heart” gaming marathon going on over at our friends GamerLimit.com.

Dear Geekster2012,

I have no idea what the big deal is. I haven’t bought the game because I’m not a fan of the super hardcore FPS type games. I’m more of a spray and pray kinda guy, hence why I love Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2. Now let me find out what the whole hubbubaloo is actually about.

Well damn. That is kinda crazy.  So, you’re asking what the big deal is about? Well, on one side you got people complaining that the video game is making people feel and act like a terrorist in the video game. Because of this, people might go on terrorist rampages because they might feel like its as easy as a video game. (more…)

If you need tech, relationship advice or just want to ask a random question, ask it here.  We want to help you fellow geeks. So, ask away!

Andrew, James, and I have been through a couple of Web Design/Development jobs in our careers. Here is some hilarious and sometimes irritating phrases or requests from clients that we have personally heard. If you’re a web designer or developer, you’ll immediately connect with this list because we’ve all been through it. The list is formatted with phrases one of us heard, then our comments on it. If you have any more to add to the list below, post it in the comments.

From James:

- That should only take you ## time right?
Yes. Because you know exactly how much time it takes to develop or design something because you have done it yourself. Don’t tell the designer/developer how long it’ll take. We’ll tell you.

- That should be easy to do/add.
Have you ever heard that saying “easier said than done?” Well this applies here. Let the designer/developer to you if it’s easy or hard and trust us on our word.  Because designing isn’t as easy as WordArt and developing isn’t as easy as drag-and-drop.

- It needs to be fully animated but under 25kb.
If you don’t understand the concept of filesize, don’t expect a designer/developer to stuff a bunch of animations and videos into your flash intro.

For more from me and Andrew, go past the break. (more…)

Genres: Comedy, Romance, Supernatural

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Junpei Kousaka hates cats. He is allergic to them, they annoy him… even the fat cat his family owns, Nyamsus, constantly picks on him. It goes without saying that as a comedy, it’s all downhill from there. On his way home from school he innocently kicks a can into the trash. However, fate decides that he will miss this attempt and instead behead the statue of a neko-jizo, a cat guardian deity. This act brings upon his the curse of the neko-jizo; if he does not assist 100 cats with their tasks on earth, he will become a cat himself. This is when he begins to hear the voices of every cat around him.

Knowing that his allergies would probably kill him at that point, he goes about seeking alternate ways to break his fate. He first consults with the monk at the cat shrine, Keizou Kirishima, about the history of this deity. Midway through the long wandering stories dating back to the Edo Period, Junpei begins to argue with the monk’s cat, Tama. Tama explains the curse to Junpei further and he begins to hallucinate that he is becoming a cat (after badmouthing the cat deity). He wakes in his bed again, only hazily remembering what happened after the hallucination that day.

Junpei ’s first task is the stop a bully from picking on stray cats in his neighborhood. As it turns out, this bully is his friend (and secret crush from school), Kaede Mizuno. He tries to explain to her that, unlike the dogs her parents own, cats cannot be handled roughly. Nyamsus and Tama begin to harass Junpei and he ends up yelling at them to just “knock it off already.” Kaede assumes he is talking to her and runs off apologizing.

In attempts to complete his second contractual obligation to a cat, Junpei is reintroduced to Kanako Sumiyoshi, a friend from his distant past. There was a time when they were younger that she had feelings for him. She took a situation she walked in on out of context and began a long running feud with him. The cat, however, requires Junpei to pass on its feelings to Kanako for it, as she took care of the cat for some time. A few tears are shed, but things end up MOSTLY patched between the two. This moment also begins the roll of this series toward a more harem-ish spin.

This series has some good potential and as long as the harem aspects to not get trashy, we should be in for a good show. As anyone with cats will know, they find a way to get as close as possible to those who want nothing to do with them. This does add a bit of slapstick comedy to the situation, and we have yet to see the series take a fully serious note.

Overall Hook Rating: B

Check out a clip from episode 1 after the jump…

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Yesterday’s recording is easily one of my favorites so far. We had the always awesome, Joe the Peacock as our guest.  Good times were had for our 1 hour and 30 minute special recording.  I let the show go on for 30 minutes longer because it was just too fun and why not.  It was our birthday and we do what we want! We also had fun with the live audience we had and played some trivia games.

Show topics:

• Dragon Age
• Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Band Hero, Drum Hero, DJ Hero, Hero Hero
• Marathon Runners and other random stuff

Download the MP3 | Subscribe to us on iTunes

I recently received some reader mail, from “phyzical”, that I thought would be nice to answer publicly. Phyzical writes:

hello I saw how you said you wanted to design websites ever since high school, I was just wondering how you came across working for pixelated geek? did you go to college I think its called over there. im Australian btw. its just im finishing my final exams at school and have decided I want to get a career in computing but I am going to do a computer science degree in uni, and was wondering if that would lead into the field you work in, my knowledge on computers is better than most but not to the degree of programming, I know it to a degree and know most parts of computers and what not.

phyzical

To read my answer, go past the break. (more…)

Genres: Action, Fantasy, Occult

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In a world much like our own, around the height of the 19th century, a rather peculiar event happens upon ones’ death. Every memory, every recorded moment of your life encodes to a stone “book”, representative of your soul. A facility was created to house these tomes: the Bantorra Library. There in, every possible “book” is cared for by the Armed Librarians. These librarians must guard the books from those that might abuse them, as well as from the creatures which inhabit the ancient halls below them.

The Armed Librarians enter the series in dramatic fashion, speeding toward a steam ship owned by the Shindeki Church. The church follows a rather brutal hierarchy with those known as the “True Men” on the top. Under them are the “Mock Men”, who serve unconditionally, and give up their lives for the True Men. The lowest rung are called the “Meats”, and have little to no free will left. They are brutally brainwashed and mistreated; frequently being turned into living bombs. It is these bombs that begin throwing themselves at the Librarian’s boat.

The librarians acting leader, Hamutz Meseta, sits on the shore monitoring the group’s progress on their mission to gather information on the church’s activities. She shows on of her psychic powers, that of extended senses, by mentally poking around the boat with invisible threads (the visual representation of her power is that they glow white to the viewers). One Librarian, not realizing the Meats are bombs, is killed trying to rescue a man from the water. The rest make their way on board, slaying the Mock Men left to defend the ship.

After finding a suitable number of clues about the church’s goals, the ship’s cache of gunpowder and bombs explodes and throws the Librarians and Meats into the ocean. One of the Librarians, named Volken McMarney, attempts to save the Meats, but notices they have no will of their own to live, allowing themselves to drown. The Librarians begin tracking down clues which leads one, Mattoalast Barori, into a direct confrontation with three Meats in a mining town. One detonates himself and kills Mattoalast, the other rebels against one of the True Men, Segal, and dies. The remaining Meat continues on his programmed mission, to kill Hamutz Meseta.

There is absolute volumes of information I have left out of this article (the function of the books and shards there of), you just have to watch the series to get the true impact of the events that transpire! Two deaths amongst the Librarians within the first two episodes give us a good feel for the serious nature of the series. There are many levels in the complex social environment that have yet to be unveiled… and I can’t wait to find out. The mix of generally old technology, psychic powers and cults plays out well in these first two episodes. The cool display of Hamutz’s power at the end of episode two leave this as one series to definitely watch.

Overall Hook Rating: A

Check out the stylish opening sequence after the break:
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Peter Cooper - Credits Ben Smith

After a bit of small talk, and an introduction as to what Operation Chastity is all about, we got down to learning more about the film. Past the break is a transcript of the interview or you can listen to it below. We learn from Peter how and when he started this film project to the latest news about it.  Oh and btw.  Yes, I sound like I just woke up in the beginning because, yes.  I did just wake up at 9am Sunday for this interview.

i7: How and when did you start this project?

PC: It was actually around June or July 2008. That was when I took out a medium sized loan to get some camera equipment. It was actually going to be a project based on the Doom comic. I’m not sure if you have ever seen that, but it’s absolutely hilarious. But then we ended up scrapping that project because it wasn’t going anywhere.

But for the past 3 years, I’ve been visiting Dragon Con to hang out with my buddies and over a quiet a few beers, I was sat there with lots and lots of napkins and started drawing out Halo Warthogs. I thought, how can I build one?

So, really this whole thing started as an excuse for a really, really cool car.

I came back from America still wanting this Warthog and contacted a few engineers to figure out how to get this made. Everyone at the special effects studio I was working at was wondering “why are you doing this?” and “what purpose is this going to serve?”

i7: Well it’s because you wanted you’re own warthog.

Transcript continues past the break with 2 exclusive photos straight from Peter. (more…)