Thursday, August 21, 2014

WORD OF THE DAY! 8/21/14! (OR IT SUCKS TO BE TEEMO THIS WEEK!)





gnarly [nar-lee]
adjective
1. Gnarled, disgusting, twisted, dangerous, etc.
2. Slang. Cool or excellent.

EX. This week we're gonna take a look at the latest gnarly champion released in League of Legends, Gnar the Missing Link.


Not much is known about this primitive creature from a more primal age, but some things can be gathered by cave paintings and the creatures own nonsensical jabbering.; millenia ago, Gnar was just a yordle boy when a great evil threatened his tribe, and he rose up to defeat it with his bone boomerang.  For some reason, perhaps by the creature or by his own people, the boy was frozen in true ice. Vacantly, he stared on the wastes of Valoran as time marched on before him, and yet, not even such magic could contain the beast within. After escaping the ice, the creature wandered Runeterra until he was taken in by some yordles. It did not take long for them to learn that the boy...

...had a monstrous temper.

But, he is pretty easy to forgive, being the cutest champion in League of Legends-- I mean his alt skin has the little creature, a mix between a fennec fox, a mogwai and Taz the Tasmanian Devil, wearing dinosaur footie pajamas!

So, how does the cutest champion in League of Legends (and yes, this is a scientific fact) stack up in the top lane? How does his transformations from mini-Gnar to Mega Gnar affect his laning phase? Will he dominated team fights in Season 5?

The most important gameplay element to keep in mind when playing this little manaless AD champ is his passive Rage Gene; whenever Gnar is in combat, his rage meter rises. When Gnar's rage meter hits 100%, he transforms into Mega Gnar! Unlike other champions who transform, Gnar has no control over when he changes forms, except by how long he stays in combat to transform. As Mega Gnar his abilities and stats change dramatically. After a short period, he turns back to his default form and cannot gain points in rage meter for a short period. To understand how to play Gnar, we need to look at each form:

For the rest of this break down, we will refer to his default form as mini Gnar.

Mini Gnar is a rather squishy ADC that specializes in poking down foes and getting last hits with his Q, Boomerang Throw. His Boomerang Throw is a skillshot with crazy range that hits all targets in its path, but requires Gnar to reposition to catch it or suffer from the abilities long cooldown. In order to survive in lane, mini Gnar only has two other abilities; his W, Hyper, rewards him for consecutively auto attacking enemies. If he gets off three auto attacks on an enemy target, in a short time period, he deals a small bit of extra magic damage and gets a movement speed boost. This gives him the ability to better dodge, flee, kite and chase his foes in lane and in team fights, but doesn't have the same innate clutch utility as his E, Hop. Hop allows Gnar to leap to a nearby location or target. If he Hops to a target enemy, he will follow the momentum of the hop, and will bounce to the other side of the target. Hop is crucial for escaping from dangerous situations, repositioning, and chasing down foes. Combining these abilities would make Gnar seem like he has a strong kit, but he has difficulty against most match-ups and requires his other form to succeed in getting kills.

Mega Gnar trades attack speed, mobility and range for the kit of a tankier bruiser that is a team-fighting terror that can turn many situations in your team's favor. His Q, Boulder Toss, is a ranged attack that hits the first enemy in the line of the skill shot and slows nearby enemies. The best part is that, if Mega Gnar picks up the boulder, it dramatically reduces the cooldown of the important gap-closing, kiting, and killing ability. His W, Wallop, is a skillshot that stuns all targets hit and cannot be interrupted by a stun! This move's really begins to show off Mega Gnar's teamfight potential, especially when you can initiate with his E, Crunch, where he hops to an area and deals damage/slows all enemies in the immediate area. But all of these abilities don't have the teamfight turning potential of Mega Gnar's devestating R, GNAR!, in which he slows and knocks all enemies nearby in a specific direction and, if they hit a wall or tower, they're stunned!

Ultimately, learning how to chain Gnar's abilities in either form, and in/out of either form, are the key to gnarly success!

MIXED BAG. PRESENTS LOOT CRATE AUG 2014: "HEROES" REVIEW!

MIXED BAG. PRESENTS
LOOT CRATE AUGUST 2014 "HEROES" REVIEW:
"A TALE OF TWO GROOTS?"


Our tale begins with my good friend Steven AKA Aceofspadescard getting back from RTX and sharing his spoils; after all, at conventions, you get a lot of swag. And no, I'm not talking about "swag" like "#yoloswag4life420". I'm talking about:

swag [swag]
noun
1. Handouts, freebies, or giveaways, such as those handed out at conventions

Amongst the swag, he got a Loot Crate (we'll get back to that in a moment) and gave me some goodies from it... including a Megatron figure (pictured above). Something about placing the small figure with all my other figures on my desk initiated an impulse I had resisted for a while... to buy and collect some figures to decorate my desk.

When Comic Con rolled around, Amazon had a bunch of neat stuff, especially toys, on sale and I found myself ordering a bunch of Funko figures. I ordered Gizmo (pictured above), Ajani (which is still somewhere lost in the ether), and a couple of figure from one of my new favorite movies....

Guardians of the Galaxy's Rocket Raccoon and Groot!!

The Rocket Raccoon figure is a cute little bobble head and Groot, who was the best selling toy on Amazon when I preordered him at his original price, is a fantastic vinyl figure that has already shot up in value due to high demand. In fact, while originally priced around $10, many retailers are charging triple or more for this fantastic collectible with the Bart Simpson-esque head!

And then, somehow, my fascination with figures, desire to add a little variety/fun to the mix, and the a lot of recommendations led me to finally seriously consider (and eventually come around to trying) LOOT CRATE!!


Loot Crate is a subscription based service where members pay a fee (based on their subscription plan) to receive a themed mystery box every month in the mail (last month's theme, pictured above, was "Villains") filled with nerdy products from companies like Nintendo, DC, Marvel, Capcom and much more. The contents of the box usually contain things like exclusive figures, a t-shirt, a magnet, pin/s, posters, comics, books, toys, and pretty much everything you can think of from "dragon-flavored" Jerky in April's "Dragon" Loot Crate to Deadpool socks (pictured above).

This is the perfect surprise for self-professed nerds that love cool stuff and weird stuff alike.

If you're lucky, you might even be the lucky member to get the monthly Mega Crate which always has a value of $750 or more! To give you an idea, this month's Mega Crate included a 3D scanner gun and a 3D printer!

And so, for as low as $11.67 + $6 SH, you can become a Looter too! Plus, if you use any of the various codes you can find online, you can get discounts.

After seeing how awesome July's "Villain" Crate turned out and seeing the clues (above) for August's "Hero" crate, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a trial run (members can cancel at any time). I managed a 10% discount and went with the three month subscription plan so that I could get a good gauge of whether or not this is a service I would like to invest into further.

So, without much more ado except for my own verbosity, let's see what we got in this month's crate.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

WTF WED! CARRY LIMITS, WONDER CORES, AND SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!


Let's start off the day with something that all of my League of Legends bros will appreciate (special shoutout to my duo queue partner, cShots); a nifty animation about the ludicrosity of carrying six items and a trinket around Summoner's Rift.

As someone who tanks a lot, it is funny to imagine a champ carrying multiple pieces of armor-- like a trolling Wukong wearing six Warmogs?

This is a trope common in any game that let's you stack multiple of the same sorts of items. But hey, the game's core appeals are gameplay and stategy, not realism.


I was walking along the beach with my dog when I saw a strange green light fly across the night sky and collide with the earth with an ear shattering crash. My dog barking, I ran toward the crash site, towards a green glowing light over the next hill and found the wreckage of what appeared to be a strange alien craft. As I approached, the green light was flickering and growing dim...

In the wreckage, a purple alien with green and black armor was pinned under some piece of strange alien metal. Clearly, he had been through more than a crash as his body was covered in these strange glowing wounds. I tried to ask him if he was alright, as if he could speak English, moving to move the metal scrap from his body, without thinking, as my dog watched with anxious whines. The alien reached up and placed a hand on my arm, as I failed to lift the metal, and it looked me in the eyes....

"Do you even lift, bro?"

And ever since that alien died, I have sworn that I will start training my core.... just not today.


Is this what you wanted America?

A CGI to Live Action Spongebob Squarepants movie in 3D, a plot involving super hero jokes, and Antonio Banderas as a cheesy pirate?

Meh.

But still America...

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

WORD OF THE DAY! 8/19/14!


shmup [shmuhp]
noun
1. Slang. A term for a "shoot 'em up" video game, such as Galaga or Gradius, that typically involve the player moving a ship or other object on a vertically or horizontally scrolling plane.

EX. This week, coming in hotter than a fresh dog turd on the sidewalk, is a new Jontron covering a wide gamut of weird and whacky Japanese shmup titles. What is your favorite shmup?

Monday, August 18, 2014

MUSIC MONDAY! SUPER MARIO SHADOW OF THE DOOMBOTS WORLD!!


I have always wanted to play Shadow of the Colossus.

I didn't own a PS2. I own a PS3, so I suppose I could rectify my mistake and pick up a copy of Shadow of the Collosus and Ico... but to give you guys a short list of the games in my backlog:

Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid: Rising Revengeance,Wolfenstein, Pikmin 3, and a bunch of Steam games.

And the games in progress (?):

Metal Gear Solid 3 (working on it), Windwaker (working on it), Dishonored (not sure if I'll go back to it), Ocarina of Time 3D (haven't played it in over a year).

So, buying "new" games seems a little silly until I put a dent in these games.


A lot of people have claimed that ADHD stole the idea of adding lyrics to video game songs, but let's remember that the idea of adding lyrics to popular songs isn't 100% brentalfoss's invention (though he definitely is the definitive artist to add lyrics to video game music).

The important question here is whether or not the video is funny and I would say I definitely got a kick out of the somewhat well-worn but well-executed punchline.


Last but not least, I would've covered this before but, due to bodily weakness, I haven't gotten the chance to talk about the latest featured mode in League of Legends. Doom Bots took the simplicity of the bots in League of Legends Co-Op VS. AI mode and turned them into horrifically overpower versions of themselves with ever-changing extra powers-- like Ezreals that shoot out their ults in all directions while inherently getting Evelynn's ability to turn invisible until he is on top of you!

It was a fun challenge that forced players to use special strategies to overcome the unfair scenario-- usually distracting the dumb bots while one player backdoored for the win, usually with teleport.

Hopefully, we'll see more fun variant modes like these in the future!