The Professional Gamer - July 4, 2016

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Hello readers!  I hope you have all had another good week.  I've continued reading Lord of the Rings, but have also discovered that a great show that I've been hoping to watch is finally available on Hulu,  Therefore, I spent most of my evenings watching Gravity Falls.  

For those not familiar with the show, Gravity Falls tells the story of twins Mable and Dipper spending a summer with their Great Uncle Stan in a small town in the deep woods of Oregon.  Dipper finds a large book with a number "3" on the cover, and then begins to have encounters with all sorts of strange creatures and other phenomena.  The show manages a great blend of Americana and spooky campfire stories.  The animation is fluid and the characters are fun to watch in motion.  Not to mention the jokes are really funny.  I've watched a bit more than half of the first season so far.  Somehow, I managed to avoid most of the spoilers that were roaming wild on the internet; quite a feat considering that a large portion of my online friends were regularly watching Gravity Falls.  In summary, if you have Hulu, you should give Gravity Falls a shot.  

That's all I've got for this week.  Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers!  Have a great week and game on!

The Professional Gamer - June 27, 2016

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Hello readers!  I hope you all have enjoyed our coverage of Denver Comic Con this year.  We all had a great time.  Everything was comics and nothing hurt.  I've started reading and reviewing the comics that I bought, so keep your eyes on this space for more articles.

On top of that, I'm getting into my semi-regular reading of Lord of the Rings.  I don't really have a lot to say about it.  For whatever reason, I derive so much comfort from reading Tolkien's masterwork.  No matter what is going on in my life, it is a grounding to my youth.  

That's all that I really have for this week.  I'm taking a bit of an easier time this week, and recovering from Comic Con.  But, I'm planning to be back next week with some more discussions.  Have a great week and game on!

Flash Review - Rock Mary Rock

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A short review for you all today.  Rock Mary Rock is a four part mini-series comic by Nicky Soh.  Soh had the first issue available for sale at Denver Comic Con, and will be selling the comic on his Etsy shop.  The comic centers on Mary, a young girl who find a magnificent vintage guitar in the basement of an old theater.  The catch?  The guitar is haunted by the ghost of 70's era rock star who died before he hit his prime.

Issue 1 introduces the main characters well.  Soh is very good with acting and expressing his character's emotions.  The character designs are very easy to read and I look forward to seeing how Soh makes them perform in the future issues.  The main characters including Mary, her grandmother, and Rock (the Ghost), all seem well thought out and fun.  The colors by Jeremy Lawson add to Soh's line work to form a cohesive style and feel.

Overall, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of this series and more of Soh's work in the future.

The Professional Gamer - June 20, 2016

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Hello readers!  I was having a bit of a busy week at work, which meant that I spent most of the after hours time with a somewhat guilty pleasure: Chopped.  Of the various cooking contest shows, its one of my favorites.  But, you didn't come here to read about cooking shows, so lets talk about some more geeky stuff.

E3 has come and gone, with a lot of discussion about the new Legend of Zelda title: Breath of the Wild.  The trailer is gorgeous and the play-through videos make it look like a whole lot of fun.  I'm setting aside some money to buy an NX and Breath of the Wild next year.  I'm really excited for a more open world Zelda game where there are more options about how to proceed through the game.  What are your thoughts on this new direction?

Speaking of The Legend of Zelda, I decided to spend about an hour today to finally finish Wind Waker.  For whatever reason, I never managed to finish it during its prime on the GameCube.  Thanks to the HD re-release, I have finally been able to finish it.  The final fight with Ganondorf is interesting and spoilers: unbelievably brutal.  I'm thinking about turning around and heading out again so that I can adventure in the blue tunic rather than the hero's outfit.  I really loved that crab shirt.

Also, I spent this weekend and Denver Comic Con, buying all of the indie comics.  Seriously, I bought a lot of comics.  I'm going to leave it at that, get some dinner, and enjoy some comics.  I hope you all have a great week, and game on!

E3 From the Floor - South Park: The Fractured But Whole

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South Park: The Stick of Truth was a surprisingly fun game. It took the flavor of all your favorite South Park shows and translated it into a video game. When I finished the game my first thought was that they totally need to make another game with their superhero personas. And now that game has a December release date!

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E3 From the Floor - Watch Dogs 2

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Watch Dogs was a highly anticipated game that let a lot of people down. Given that I am happy that Ubisoft has decided to move forward and create Watch Dogs 2. In it they have expanded who you can hack (everyone) and what you can hack (everything). In the demo they played for us they showed a group hack setting off all the phones in an area. He also showed that he can take control of any car either taking over steering or just serving then out of his way. It looked real useful and made the character powerful, or at least felt that way.

Once they showed off some free roaming the demo moved into a mission. Here the main character used a drone to scout the area in order to setup a plan of attack. This included hacking cameras to get an internal view and locate the objective. Once located our main character hacked a crane to get into the location and stealthily moved to the objective by taking out guards and locking doors to prevent reinforcements. Once close enough a tool called the jumper (a two wheeled remote car that can jump) to actually hack into a network and download incriminating data. Once in he started the download the guards became aware of his presence. Using a close combat tool similar to a rock in a string and hacking tools the main character fended of guards until the download completed and he escaped. All in all it looked fun. I hope that when it is released it stays fun.