Mr March

OMG, Engineers. I'm crying out to them in my nightmares. This whole game is dependent upon Engineers. Get them. LOTS of them. Anyway you can. Gag them and kidnap to work forced labor in your base if you have to, but the entire game revolves around them.

I'm playing the PC version. Naturally there are the usual "benefits" to playing any PC version (much higher resolutions, far shorter saving/loading times, smoother gameplay/frame rates, etc), but the actual game and gameplay is identical across all three platforms. No additional "stuff" exclusive to any particular port of which I'm aware.

There's a bunch of guides and charts out there. Just google search X-COM EU Tech Tree and you'll find stuff. Alternatively, there's tech trees and notes about research to be found at sources like the UFOPaedia. http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Hope that helps.

Hollywood's current business model is simply a natural progression of where it was headed since the late 1970s: the big ticket, mass market, lowest common denominator product. Hollywood is simply selling the broadest appeal product in film format. It works for them, so why stop? Honestly, why complain when the market for alternatives is so vibrant? In fact, it's never been better! As Hollywood has turned it's back on story, other industries, other countries and in fact whole mediums have stepped up to fill the void. There's a reason critics label the 2000s a "New Golden Age" of television. Writing talent has fled Hollywood for Television and the results are spectacular! The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Rome, Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones...there are in fact so many high quality, smartly written television shows I've not been able to maintain pace. And the budget for these shows are huge, some at more than $50-60 million per season. And film? As irony would have it, film is having a good year. A great year in fact. If you're not going to the theatre right now, you are missing one of THE BEST years for film in perhaps a decade. Almost every time I've left the theatre this year I feel like I've seen one of the best films in years. Chronicle, The Raid, The Avengers, Sleepless Night, Dredd, Looper, Seven Psychopaths...we're lucky to get 2-3 great films a year and here in 2012 we've already tripled that. And there's still Cloud Atlas, Skyfall, and others coming down the pipe. Don't put all your eggs in the basket of Cloud Atlas; simply go to see any of a dozen or more films this year that are well worth your time and money.

Glad to see X-COM EU bringing in new players. I just read on Giant Bomb that new DLC is coming in the near future. http://www.giantbomb...e-content/4428/ Talking strategy... Maybe others figured this out faster than I, but if I have one piece of advice for new players, it's PRIORITIZE a second Satellite Uplink IMMEDIATELY. I'm in my second month and now it looks like I'm going into my third month before I get a third satellite. Absolutely brutal. The build progression is so ridiculously convoluted just to get a third satellite you want to start the process without delay. I basically wasted a month because I had no idea how the build trees and resource dependencies functioned. As far as I know, you need Engineers to get Satellite Uplink. Workshop gives you more Engineers but you can also take ANY mission that gives you Engineers (or start on a continent that grant Engineers as a bonus). Most likely you'll want to get excavating and building a Workshop ASAP. Start doing that right away, when you first visit your base. Depending upon how you're building your base you may have to build a Power Generator before proceeding onward, but if you didn't build anything else except a Workshop I think there's enough power to go straight into a Satellite Uplink. Do so. It takes a painfully slow 14 days to build a damn Satellite Uplink, one of the longest build times for the early structures. I read a strategy where some fella started either in Africa or South America and with a little luck was able to get 5 satellites by the end of the first month!

Are you looking for an Avatarded rip-off? A script so bad it could only be written by a real estate tycoon from China? Special effects that looked great in 1996? Then I've got the movie for you http://www.slashfilm...lenko-gets-you/ This could make a legendary drinking game; every time you see a fish, you drink like one!

I finished the first month of the game and just like the original, I begin to realize all the things I've done wrong, LOL. Mostly I'm finally getting a handle on how the panic levels and base construction works. Gotta say just like the original game, the creators do a poor job explaining what direction you need to go and what needs to be prioritized when building a base. It's taking forever just to get another damn satellite and I have three countries at level 3 panic. I think the game is definitely salvagable, but next time I play through, I'm selling everything, excavating everything and getting more satellites before the first month is even out. Money and satellites seems to be how this game runs, so I'm going to maximize both next time.

At the risk of stating the obvious, because that scenario isn't compelling human drama and no one wants to see that movie, except perhaps as the punchline of a Penny Arcade strip

I can see the usefulness of run and gun for Snipers in close quarters, like ship interiors. I suppose the usefulness of that will become apparent in later levels. I have three snipers so far, so I guess I'll choose the alternate skill on the 3rd guy when he ranks. Funny thing is the squad sight skill is a little TOO useful. I just finished up my second UFO recovery mission where you capture an Outsider and my Sniper ended up taking 4 kills for himself. I have to leave some for my other guys

I've not had much of a chance to use the squad sight pick for the Sniper, but the usefullness of that skill is just so good I can't imagine choosing any other pick from now on

Saw the film this past Wednesday. Pretty damned good flick and that's saying something considering the high number of great films out this year.

The mechanics for the new X-COM are indeed somewhat different than the old, but they all serve the gameplay very well. This game knows what it's doing and does it well. Very much enjoying it.

Just a brief off topic piece of trivia since it came up, they are making a new adaptation of The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrmann is directing. Trailer is here: http://www.slashfilm.com/heres-a-slightly-revised-trailer-for-the-great-gatsby/ OT, the trick to enjoy Prometheus is not minding that it sucks

That is going to be truly epic. Wow.

This news almost slipped by me, but Mark of the Ninja is lready out now on Steam. Looks like it was released October 16, 2012. I've picked it up this morning on Steam, but didn't have the time to install/play it. I'm unsure if the graphics will be any better or even if there are any display options for the PC version. Regardless, I'm really happy to have this available via Steam for the PC.

So has anyone else had a chance to play the new X-COM yet? It's been a very busy week, but I've put about half a dozen hours into it. It's really fun. One thing that is much different from the original is the pace. This game moves along much faster than the old game. I does bother me a bit, but can't deny I'm haivng a ball. I really like the skills your soldiers can attain. These skills add a lot to the gameplay. The implementation of a lot of the X-COM gameplay functions feel really streamlined and improved, though again, I do miss having manual control over some of the old mechanics. Overall, I'm really getting into this game and I can definitely feel the urge to replay with different skills and more efficient research/building trees

I've seen the Honest Trailers series before but missed the Prometheus one. Great job mocking this film. I particularly enjoyed the dig at Lost

Glossy black metal would be done the same way as shown above. The only difference is "simulating" black rather than using the actual color. The VF-17 Nightmare art currently on my website is a very good example of how to color for black by using a very dark shade of another color (in that case, deep blue). Adding gloss would simply be a matter of adding a layer of highlights, just like the red highlights shown above. Depending on the darkness level of the "black" that you are going for, the highlights will be lighter or darker. So far, I've noted it's best to use blue colored highlights when doing light reflections for a black colored mecha.

Get a Galaxy SIII. It has a 1,280 x 720 resolution, perfect for browsing stuff like this. Plus it's a great phone

Glad you like it. I think it turned out rather well. As for the coloring, I'll avoid repeating the big post I wrote about it recently and instead post a visual tutorial to describe the process. Keep in mind this is NOT the only way to color, just the way I do it (which works well for the simple style of the anime). Here goes: Tutorial Picture 1 Here we have a simple progression showing the work from start to finish. The color works in layers, placing one layer of color on top of the other. In the example I've shown, the basic red layer would be on the bottom while all the subsequent "red" layers would be placed on top. So the basic red would be Layer 1, the red shadow would be Layer 2, the red highlights would be Layer 3, and so on. In the second step you can see some areas of the line art were not colored basic red, mostly due to laziness. Honestly, if a certain part of the artwork is always going to be in shadow, there's no need to have a layer of basic red underneath. Tutorial Picture 2 Here we have how to color. Simplest method is to select the line art layer, use the Wand tool to select areas, switch to a color layer (in this case basic red Layer 1) and then use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the selected areas with color. It's much faster than "coloring inside the lines" by hand. After the basic colors are down, then comes the hard part: shadows and highlights. Some areas of shadow can be filled completely, but more often than not one needs to build a custom lines for the end of a shadow or highlight. To do this, use the Polygonal Lasso Tool and zoom in closer to create curves. Once the selection is complete, select the next layer (in this case red Layer 2 designated for the shadow) and fill with the Paint Bucket tool. Instant shadow. The Highlights come next, which are all done with the lasso by hand because they require the most customized shape. Once the selection is done, fill again, this time on the red Layer 3 for highlights. Repeat until done. Tutorial Picture 3 Here we have a picture of the layers for our finished line art. On the right you can see how each layer is arranged and named for convenience. The top layer is ALWAYS the line art and always set to Multiply so you can see the color layers underneath. For each color group, we see the basic color layer on the bottom, the shadow layer on top, the highlight layer on top of that, etc. Very simple and easy to follow. The VF-1J Battroid line art I currently have built is 8,745 x 5,690 pixels and 31.8 MB in size saved in the Photoshop .PSD format. The multiple layers create large file sizes, but I've always had plenty of hard drive space devoted to my work so I've never cared. I run my computer at 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, so when you look at this VF-1J Battroid at 100% zoom, its about 7 times the size of my monitor. It pays to plan ahead

It could be a compositional choice. Birds are often used to help provide a sense scale whenever depicting something large. Recall the Argonath's in Lord of the Rings, the Colusseum in Gladiator, etc. Birds, birds and more birds

Recently my free time has been consumed playing X-COM Enemy Unknown, so i've not had much of a chance to do website work. However this morning I got a jolt of inspiration and decided to work on the Iron Man color variant for the VF-1J Valkyrie. There's a lot of experimentation in this picture, trying to find a lighting theme that feels right. This may not be the final version. Dare I say, we call this the MK I (or MK I.5 since my edit)? LOL

Yeah sure, post away. I got the FIghter mode of the VF-14 completed, but haven't yet started work on the GERWALK. Website work took priority. I finished the FBz-99G Battroid and seven hells does it look great. This next update is gonna be sweet. I gotta find time for F-15 Banshee's Iron Man VF-1J Valkyrie too. That will be a sweet piece of fan art with proper shading and highlights

Watch The Raid and Dredd. Either one is worth more than a hundred of these kind of sequels.

Damn, it came up so fast! Happy Birthday to Macross. Thanks to all for plenty of great memories. I'll work hard to get that update out soon and help celebrate.