I've always loved The Sims 2. I get a kick out of playing god, and I like how much you could mess with everything using mods/custom content. I also loved reading other players' photostories. My favorites back in the day were Deception Pass and The Cult of Adam Genesis, which I still read sometimes, even if they aren't updated regularly anymore.

So while I was at that awkward stage of trying to find a new job, I found myself going back to playing this game again. I spent entire days downloading custom content and creating some mischief of my own. One of the fruits of my labor includes a playboy Sim who impregnated nearly every female in Veronaville and wound up with a whopping 29 children. Or was it 30? 31? I've lost count already.

This is the player. His name is Allan Greyjoy (if you know where I got his last name from, we can probably be friends). He may look kind of decent and sort-0f nerdy, but trust me, keep your wives, sisters, daughters, and female cousins away from him.

If you think that having a male Sim with 20+ children with at least 19 different females (two women gave him twins, and his true wife - yes, he's married now - gave him more children). It's better than the usual havoc I wreak upon Veronaville. At least THIS playboy Sim doesn't have a collection of  urns/tombstones for each of the Veronaville male sims hidden beneath his floorboards.

No, I'm not kidding. I made that Sim when I was a freshman or sophomore in college. Stress does funny things to your brain.

The other mischief I'm working on is recreating the cast of characters for an old story that the boyfriend and I came up with nearly five years ago. I intended to take screenshots and make a photostory out of the entire thing, but alas, I lost all my computer's files - including the package files for each of our carefully-crafted cast members.

These are the old cast members as they looked in 2006. The first two pretties were made through collaboration with my boyfriend, who was surprisingly good at creating beautiful sims. I tried my darndest to replicate them - I even trawled every The Sims 2 mod site I could find to re-download the custom skins, make-up, and eyes I used to make them.

And here are my new creations. I'm annoyed that I didn't manage to recreate Karyn and Amaya (who will probably be renamed thanks to the release of that local TV series) properly, but I guess I have to accept that they will never look the way they used to. Cheaney's been tweaked to look more like Amaya since they're supposed to be sisters, Dietrich now looks appropriately more Caucasian now (he's supposed to be German), and I'm shocked by how much Fox turned out looking like a pimpin' Latino hottie.

This little Sims 2 project is on hold for now, though. I need a couple of other expansions to maximize the mods I need to use for the story, and the local computer shops haven't been stocking them anymore.

Red Hood and the Outlaws seems to be spiraling down the road of amusing to WTF. At least that's what I thought when I read issues 5 and 6 of the series yesterday.

Lame xenophobic villain zaps Starfire and saps her of her power, only to have her up and blasting things again like nothing happened? Starfire on a deserted island with Jason, with the latter walking around with only a leaf to cover his crotch? Really, Lobdell, what the hell are you smoking? Rocafort's art seems to be deteriorating too...or maybe that's just my brain telling me the comic looks bad because the writing is becoming stupider.

Anyway, I do still like Jason's Red Hood costume in the comic, and I've been wanting to see a full, clear version of the red bat logo on his chest.

I couldn't find a good, clean, full shot of it anywhere, so I decided to replicate it as best I could in Photoshop because I was too lazy to reinstall Illustrator into my PC, and made myself a new wallpaper for my iPod.

It took me a while no thanks to the fact that the logo is always shown skewed or incomplete in the comic book frames, but I'm pretty happy with the result! It looks extra-amusing on my iPod since it's got shiny (it's shiny at the back) red casing from Capdase reminds me of Jason's helmet.

I've made some desktop wallpapers of the logo too, but without the texture/gradient effect I used for the iPod one. All the wallpapers I made are included in the gallery below.

This is the new Mass Effect 3 trailer:

Look, I'm excited for Mass Effect 3 and all, but honestly? Default Fem!Shep's make-up looks horrendous. It's like she actually took the funny "Emo Gothic Makeup Tutorial" video on YouTube seriously. That shade of lipstick is totally not you, girl. And don't even get me started on those eyebrows.

Is it wrong for me to wish that they had gone for a more natural look that makes default Fem!Shep seem more like a practical soldier than some hooker who has to wear dark make-up to attract attention in the back alleys of Omega? Really? Is it too much to ask?

I'm not saying that she has no right to have any make-up on - I mean, Samara has make up on, Jack does too, and so does my own Fem!Shep. But really, I can't help but feel that that uber dark eyeshadow/eyeliner and dark lipstick is out of character for Shepard. It works on Jack because she's just that type of rebel character, but Shepard? I know that you can go Paragon/Renegade as her (I've played as both), but nowhere do I see any hints of her being the type of woman to go into battle with that much make-up on.

Maybe Jack suddenly decided to do Shepard's make-up for her, I don't know. I just think that it looks terrible.

I was expecting to spazz all over the place in this SoulCalibur V review and rave about how awesome everything was, but now I find myself thinking:

That was it? Seriously?

I've been stoked about this game for the longest time now, and now I find myself terribly disappointed. Soul Calibur has always been my favorite fighting game thanks to its storyline and character backgrounds, as well as the awesome line up of fighting styles and the opportunity to customize your own character. Soul Calibur IV was my favorite in the series because aside from getting to enjoy the Soul series' usual strengths like great visuals and exciting gameplay mechanics  (the 8-way run, critical finish, guard impact, and so on), I actually liked playing through each character's story mode individually, unlocking the cutscenes/artwork in my gallery, ascending/descending the Tower of Souls cursing all the way and getting to see my custom characters inserted into the opening sequence.

Yes, as a mostly-solo gamer with no one to play with and with no balls to play against random people online, those single character features were the things that made me absolutely adore the Soul series.

I played through SoulCalibur V's entire Story mode in one sitting, thinking there would be more to it afterward - but I was horribly wrong. You only get to play a couple of characters and just one main plot line instead of getting to choose who to play as and watch their individual stories play out like in the previous games. I know it's kind of stupid of me to expect a fighting game to be heavy on its story aspects, but that's always been one of the things about the Soul series that appealed to me the most, and I was sorely disappointed that they decided to tone it down.

 Screenshot courtesy of DualShockers

Majority of the cutscenes in Story mode used sketchy artwork (by Takuji Kawano, I presume) to illustrate the events, and although I am a big fan of Kawano's artwork in the Soul series, that proved to be a bit of a letdown for me. I felt like I was watching the behind-the-scenes content of a DVD where the directors present storyboards that did not make it into the game...only these things did make it into the game.

I also found the lack of humor to be somewhat disappointing. Everyone seems to be so serious all the time - even the minor attempt at inserting comic relief in the form of Xiba, Leixian, and Maxi wasn't enough to breathe some laughter into the whole thing. And sure, Dampierre is one crazy-funny piece of work, but I don't think even his clumsy antics will be enough to salvage this game's humor. Yes, yes, the fact that Soul Edge and Nightmare are back and wreaking havoc on the world is serious business, but that never stopped Cassandra from being a funny little sister, or Yun-Seong from getting pwned by Seong Mi-na in a comical fashion in the previous games.

Screenshot courtesy of IGN.com

I'm 100% disappointed with the game; after all, I get to see two of my favorite characters come back (Siegfried and Hilde), it's got one heck of an interesting guest character (buon giorno, Ezio), and the new characters are actually fun to use. The customization options in Creation mode are great, too - I've actually made five Custom characters in a row just because I was having too much fun tweaking everything. Taking all of that aside, though, I'm rather disappointed with the game and sort of regret splurging on it on a whim.

TL;DR version of this review: If you have lots of people to play fighting games with and like going online to test your skills against other online players and don't really give a damn about single player and story modes, then SoulCalibur V is a good game for you. If you liked the Soul series because of all the neat things you could do in offline/single player/story mode, then it probably isn't worth buying.

I've managed to track most of the stuff I've been up to in 2010-2011 using Daytum, and it looks like I got to watch, read, and play a lot of stuff, new and old, the past year. Although I wish I could've read more books and watched more TV series, I'd say that this was a pretty good year for my fandoms all around!

And so, for my last post for the year 2011, I present you with my obligatory best (and worst) list for 2011:

TV and Anime Series

I only got to watch episodes from a few series this year, with Game of Thrones, Sengoku Basara, and Once Upon a Time being the only ones I really stuck with and watched multiple episodes of. I liked all three of them, but Game of Thrones is undoubtedly my #1 favorite.

1. The Lost Years of Merlin by T.A. Barron

Movies

I got to watch a mix of horrid and great movies this year, so it's hard to pick out favorites and most-hateds, but I think I'd have to go with The King's Speech, Tangled, and Shutter Island as my top favorites out of all the movies I've seen this year.

Runners-Up

1. Batman: Under the Red Hood
2. Batman Begins
3. The Help
4. Ponyo

Worst

Hi. I'm El, and I'm a Jason Todd-aholic.

Over the span of a few weeks, Jason Todd has wriggled his way into my currently overcrowded fangirl heart. Isa has always loved this guy, but I never really understood until I started reading Red Hood and the Outlaws a few weeks back.

Hello, gorgeous. I've always had a thing for guys with black hair and blue eyes. And dual pistols.

Having been a bit out of loop with the DC Universe, the only thing that I knew about Jason was that he was killed by the Joker and that he was brought back to life by Superboy and a punch of reality-altering proportions (at least that's how I remember it - blame Isa if I was misinformed). I was having mixed feelings about Jason and Red Hood and the Outlaws in general after reading the first issue for a variety of reasons some of them including Roy Harper's annoying attitude and the people who kept whining about Starfire's gratuitous boobage which actually didn't bother me as much as I expected it would, but I did, however, think that Jason Todd was interesting enough to look into further. So I went ahead and bought the second issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws.

Why do I like snarky, angry, arrogant guys in comics and fiction? I don't know. It might be a weird sort of fetish. But this first panel really managed to grab my attention, and the rest of the issue really started to make me really, really interested in Jason. The whole back-from-the-dead thing never really appealed to me, but once I allowed my head to wrap itself around it, it really didn't matter. Jason seemed very much like a character I'd like, and I wanted to read more.

Or watch more. Can you guess what I did next in my pursuit of Jason?

Yep, I went there.

I didn't have high hopes for Batman: Under the Red Hood, especially since Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill weren't there to lend their voices to Batman and Joker, but it turned out to be one of the better DC movies not counting Nolan's Batman films that I've seen thus far. I felt that it provided a better, more believable explanation for Jason's return from the grave, and it gave me just enough insight into his actions and his personality (this particular scene nailed me) to decide that he's probably going to be one of my favorite comic book characters...ever.

So by the time I read Red Hood and the Outlaws #3 and saw this:

I pretty much melted into a glob of goo. MY FEELINGS, JASON. MY FEELINGS. I mean, we've got sick baby Jason and Bruce Wayne being all daddy-mode all in one go. MY HEART CANNOT TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS. Maybe I should be glad Jason gave up that memory so it won't come back and kick my emotional ass around in future issues.

To top off my month of Jason Todd/Red Hood stalking love, I finally got around to reading Red Hood: The Lost Days, and I loved watching my new baby Jason progressing from zombie to badass. The only thing that weirded me out about the Lost Days was that part where he slept with Talia. That "hurting Batman" argument was kind of flimsy, and Talia's...I don't know. I've never really liked her much, and she just seems so pathetic in this particular moment.

Yes, Talia. Let's sleep with Batman's resurrected ward who is I-don't-know-how-many-years younger
than you.That'll show Batman, yesiree.

That aside, I can only assume that my new-found love for Jason Todd will keep growing the more I read about him. I've always been a sucker for characters who have tragic pasts and stand in that gray area between hero and villain to play the antihero. I regret never really getting to know Jason before the New 52 came out, so I'm currently catching up on a few more Batman titles involving him. My love for the Batman series has always started and ended with Nightwing's fine ass Batman's sexy voice Bruce Wayne, but at least now I've got more to look forward to in the Bat-verse thanks to Jason!

There. Are. No. Words.

Yes, Ezio Auditore from the Assassin's Creed franchise is coming to SoulCalibur V as a playable character. CAN IT GET ANY MORE EPIC THAN THAT?

THIS JUST IN: I sent Isa an SMS about this since she's the bigger AssCreed fan between the two of us, and she said:

"No words except YES FUCK YES".

Pure fangirlism at its finest, yo.

Conlan Press has announced that Peter S. Beagle and ITV have finally settled the legal problems they had with the animated The Last Unicorn. Aside from Beagle finally getting the money he deserves for the animated film's sales, he and Conlan Press will apparently be able to do lots of awesome things related to The Last Unicorn  merchandising. One of the first things they did is to put ten official The Last Unicorn art prints up for sale, and some of them look absolutely gorgeous.

Here's a mini-gallery with a few of those prints:

The first four images are concept art for the film made by Hidemi Kubo, which look absolutely stunning. I'm especially fond of those watercolor images of Amalthea!

The last two images are all-new art by Brianne Drouhard. Can't say I'm fond of them since they seem unpolished compared to Kubo's work and look like plain fanart to me, but they are kind of adorable.

The prints are being sold at 15% off their original prices up to October 31, 2011. There are only 1000 copies of each print being sold, and the prices are tiered (early buyers get better prices). While I'm sorely tempted to buy a print or two, I'm afraid that the prices are a bit too steep for a cheapskate like me.

To those of you who are interested, though, visit the Conlan Press Website to take a look a the prices and place an order!

When I was a kid, my dad would whistle the first part of this tune to either signal that he was home from work, or just to let me know where he was when we were trying to find each other in large spaces. I don’t remember when he stopped doing that - but it was a loooooooong time ago.

I was hanging around with him at a large bookstore earlier, but at some point we split up and I couldn’t find him…then I heard someone whistling that melody behind me. When I turned around to find my dad smiling at me from a few feet away, I just wanted to run over and give him a huge, HUGE hug…

…only I didn’t because, you know, we were in the middle of a bookstore. He’d probably react like: “WHAT THE HECK’S GOTTEN INTO YOU, YOU CRAZY WOMAN” because I’m too old for that sort of behavior. Sigh. The pains of being an adult.

It's been a while since I've played an MMORPG - the last one I played was WoW, and I've lost count of how long it's been since I stopped renewing my subscription. I just found everything to be too tedious, and it was hard to keep up with people since I didn't have the time (nor the stable internet connection) required to join my guild on raids.

I started to miss playing games with friends, though, so when a couple of them (plus the boyfriend) told me about a fun little MMO called Dragon Nest, I figured I'd give it a go.

My main character, Lynaea the Archer, in Prairie Town

So far I'm really liking this game. I like how light-hearted the atmosphere and character designs are, and the action-packed gameplay make it far more enjoyable than most of the typical MMORPGs I've played. The game's got a nifty built-in video recording system too...unfortunately, I can't use since the recording keystroke is assigned to Scroll Lock, which my new keyboard doesn't have (and you can't edit the keymapping for recording either, dammit).

 The boyfriend managed to take a few nice videos though - here's one of his cleric battling a boss in one of the dungeons:

There's a lot of movement and action involved in Dragon Nest's gameplay - you really have to run around and actively hover your cursor over your target to aim at it (as opposed to the usual click-to-target systems I've seen in typical MMOs), and you get to roll away from and dodge opponent's attacks. It took a little getting used to, but it's that difficult.

While the game's definitely more fun when you're playing it with friends, it's also relatively easy to solo dungeons and complete quests by yourself. There are five difficulty levels to choose from for each dungeon, with varying amounts of rewards and EXP.

Another good thing about the game is that everything outside of the towns are instanced, which means I don't get ganked, trolled, pestered, or generally annoyed by people who aren't part of my party when I'm off doing my quests. It also helps mitigate the lag I often experience in overcrowded MMORPGs, and that's definitely a plus.

I also like how they included this in their dance emotes:

In case you don't get the reference, this dance step was lifted from this music video by the K-Pop girl group, Brown Eyed Girls. I'm not a big fan of K-Pop, but you have to admit that dance step is pretty cute. :3

My only complaints about the game are minor; like the poorly-translated text, bad voice overs, and the annoying Filipino players who give the rest of us a bad reputation. And the @!#%!#@$^%!@$% Archer specialization test that I think everybody hates. Ignoring all of those little annoyances, I think Dragon Nest is awesome, and I'll be playing it for a long while.