Holden

This user hasn't shared any biographical information


Posts by Holden

A Candidate You Betcha Can Believe In?

Had to make a “propaganda poster” for a class. The upcoming election was the obvious subject matter. Anyways, I tried to mimic an artistic effect that was done for some Obama posters I’ve seen. Here’s the result:

palin

New “Game” – PollockPaint

pollock1

Ok, so it’s not really a game, but I made a paint program for a class this week. You can check it out here. Let me know what you think!

Rock Band 2: It’s A Lot Like Rock Band

Picked up Rock Band 2 last weekend with high expectations. The original Rock Band was my favorite rhythm game to date, and I couldn’t wait to see how they improved upon the original. It turns out that the biggest improvements are quite minimal on paper. The single player campaigns have been axed in favor of using Tour mode for everything and a few “challenges” that consist of playing various sets of songs with certain instruments. The online modes have been left mostly the same, but tour mode is now online as “Battle of the Bands,” so the old modes are somewhat irrelevant to me. Combining the songs I’ve downloaded with the songs imported from the original Rock Band, I have over two hundred songs available to play in Rock Band 2. Choosing a song to play is like looking at someone’s iTunes library. It’s better than the original in every facet of gameplay and presentation, but of course, the game’s own song selection is what really matters, and it somehow manages to best its predecessor. It’s got Bon Jovi, Journey, Modest Mouse, Blondie, Beck, and more. Many of the songs aren’t obvious, and that’s what makes it so great.

So basically, it’s still Rock Band. And I couldn’t recommend it more for rhythm game fans.

T-Shirt Designs: Woot Shirt Derby

During my first semester at Georgia Tech, I discovered Shirt.Woot and their awesome design derbies. Every week they come up with a theme and ask for submissions. The submissions get voted on by Woot users, and the top three shirts are made and sold at the end of the week. I entered the contest a number of times, placing in the top 20 more than once. Here are some of my favorite ones:

More >

Spore – Exactly as Advertised

Remember Will Wright’s awesome live demo of Spore way back at GDC 2006? Well, the final product shipped last week and all the promises have been kept – but at the same time, it isn’t quite what I expected. Often I feel more like I’m playing a comibnation of KidPix and KOTOR than The Sims Space Animal Edition. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I guess I’m trying to say that Spore’s audience won’t be quite as large as The Sims 3. I’ll certainly get plenty of playtime out of it though, especially with the new PC:

untitled-1

Reality Edges Out Review

Castle Crashers is a reasonably fun game, certainly worth the $15 asking point on Xbox Live Arcade. IGN gave the game a 9.0 / 10. But unfortunately they discredited their entire review with one sentence on the first page:

“Killing enemies earns you experience points, just as in real life. ”
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/903/903047p1.html

Facepalm – apply directly to the face.

About the Indiecisive Project

Expect an announcement by the end of next month. The game is coming along nicely – a bit ahead of schedule, actually, and if everything goes well, you should be able to play it on your Xbox 360 this year.

I Can Has Composition

Made this for a “music technology” class. This little clip was my first experience with music composition. Although techno and electronic music aren’t anywhere near my favorite genres, it was required for the assignment.

Download (3.61 MB)

Army of Two Much Criticism

Got Army of Two through Goozex this week. The game is actually quite a bit better than I expected. I don’t understand how mainstream sites like GameSpot gave it anything less than an 8/10. I mean, the plot is abysmal, the co-op AI partner is awful, but playing it through with an another person in the room makes all those problems insignificant and lets you enjoy an experience easily as satisfying as the co-op campaign in any other big-budget title of recent years. More >

The Honors Potty Chart

chart

I was cleaning up some old photos off my camera and I came across this. As a joke last year in the dorms, I collaborated with a few friends to pull a prank on everyone living on my floor. The story was that Georgia Tech Dining was trying to conserve water, and so therefore they would be testing a “water recycling system” (taking drainage from the toliets to use in the dining halls) in order to encourage students to flush when they use the restroom. It’s amazing how many people fell for this, putting up a sticker every time they flushed, especially considering it was an “honors dorm.” It’s probably even more embarrassing for Georgia Tech Dining. Anyways, my biggest contribution to the project was the “official flyer” seen at the bottom, complete with a toliet resting against the rotting tree.