I did a lot of quick work on almost all of the site’s pages before resurrecting it after the recent hack attack. Some coding got smooshed here and there and a bit of it was sloppy, even if you couldn’t see it on the page. The pages are still being improved and updated bit-by-bit and you might even notice that a section your browsing suddenly gets upgraded when you go to the next page. That’s just me shoveling new pages onto the server and freaking you out.

PLEASE let me know if you run into any broken pages, broken images, broken links, horribly slow pages (especially the pages with a crapload of sprites) or anything like that by replying to this post. It’ll help if you let me know which browser you’re using and its version number (usually seen in the “About Browsername” option on the Help tab).

I’ll be back in about a week with that Avengers-based update.

This site was the victim of a hacker attack a few days ago. Anyone who visited this site in the past month should have their system checked. I scrubbed out the sub-domain, re-uploaded everything from the clean site backup I have and did a few more security-related things before opening the site again. A few images are broken for now, but nearly everything seems to be working correctly. The site may go down temporarily a few times before I announce the return. I need to have the site open for take care of a few more things. Please let me know (leave a comment here) if you run into any issues while on the site.

I apologize for any inconveniences and problems this site has caused you and I thank you for coming back.

EDIT (April 19, 2012): Okay, it looks like the site access problems have been straightened out now.

The rest of this post is just edits about the speeds and the time they happen.
(more…)


Breakin’ News


PlayStation Store Update

You may know that Sonic CD hits this week, but there’s a big sale going on. Elevator Action Returns players can pick up a free new character:

PSN Games

Trine 2 ($14.99)
Sonic CD ($4.99)
note: there are demos for both games.

DLC

Elevator Action HD – Additional Character 3 – Original (free)
note: Yes, it’s a 3-D version of the original sprite. I’ll be downloading it after I finish this post.

UPDATES
(PS3)
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $14.99)
Final Fight/Double Impact (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
(note: Final Fight/DI and BCR2 have that DRM that requires an internet connection even in one player mode)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Wolf Of The Battlefield: Commando 3 (Sale) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Earthworm Jim HD (Sale) (now $2.99, original price $9.99)
Bomberman Ultra (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Trine (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode I (Sale) (now $6.99, original price $9.99)

(PSP)
Activision Hits Remixed (Sale) (now $7.49, original price $14.99)
Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Capcom Classics Collection Remixed Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Darkstalkers: Chaos Towers Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Power Stone Collection Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $5.99)
Ultimate Ghosts N Goblins Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)

PSP minis (also available from PS3 Storefront)

P.O.W. – Prisoners Of War ($2.99)
note: This is one of the better post-Double Dragon/pre-Final Fight beat-em-ups, IMHO.

(Updated Dec. 18th, 2011)

Do you enjoy fan art, game graphics, screenshots, game mods, sprite edits, tribute videos, game walkthroughs and anything of that nature? If so, time may be running out for you to do so. There are two bills currently being discussed in the US House Judiciary Committee that claim to be about fighting internet piracy, but many experts say that companies would gain the power to block US citizens from visiting sites they claim to be offenders of copyright law.

Who are these companies? You can find a list of them on the page called, “Who Wants To Break The Internet?” Viacom, one of the companies in the list, tried to sue YouTube for allowing videos from Viacom’s channels (like MTV) to be placed on the site, even though Viacom possibly uploaded some of those videos themselves. Yeah, Viacom lost. Universal, also on the list, had a celebrity endorsement-laced MegaUpload support video yanked off YouTube for featuring an unauthorized artist… who isn’t even in the video. A news show talked about that video, so Universal had the news show’s video yanked, too. Hell, these music companies have ordered the removal of videos posted by their own artists (and not just in the U.S.). For those who haven’t been irritated enough, here’s a story about how media companies somehow have the power to kill off public domain videos.

How would the U.S. government handle things? ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security) shut down five websites on the claim that they were counterfeits and bootleggers. As reported by TechDirt and the New York Times, one site was Dajaz.com, a site that provided downloads to songs purposefully leaked by the record companies for promotional purposes.

The abuse I’ve mentioned is what they can do without SOPA or Protect IP, so imagine what they’ll get away with if this bill passes. They already have the Chappellian “Shoot first, sprinkle crack on the corpse later” method down to a science when it comes to using the DMCA and site-specific kill switches. The fact that I’ll have to shut down this site if the bill passes isn’t the main reason I’m bothered by this. Many of us have turned to the internet because we don’t like what most media companies are pushing in our direction. Creative people and independent reporters are using it to avoid dealing with the same shady companies that have been spending money to push these bills and own the news channels which won’t tell you the same stories I’ve linked to here. Piracy may be hurting them, but their biggest problem is how the internet is giving us options. No, it’s not a c-o-n-spiracy as much as it’s the kind of typical corporate dick-move you’ll see happen when groups think a form of technology, like VCR’s, will threaten their money flow. They’re paying a lot of money to screw up the internet in the hopes that you’ll run into their open, greedy arms after they close off every other option you have now.

More about the topic:
Mozilla: Protect the Internet
BoingBoing: stories about SOPA
GameRanx – How SOPA Affects Gamers: SOPA Will Pass Unless You Help
Kotaku – The Stop Online Piracy Act and You: A Primer
Next Web Insider: 29 Tech Companies who back SOPA through a front group

Just in case you haven’t heard elsewhere, the man behind these graphics…

… and this incredible MUGEN stage for the classic Tower of Omens from ThunderCats

… finally has his own pixel art website with a very appropriate title.

2D Will Never Die

You’ll find some beautiful pixel art, tutorials, tips, links and some excellent articles about 2-D gaming. Those who are as inspired by Kiwi’s work as I am (hint: A LOT) should bookmark the new site and follow the site’s account on Tumblr to see pixel art from Kiwi along with many cool pixel art reposts. Those of us who know Kiwi have been hoping that he’d make a site like this for a long, long time and we knew he wouldn’t disappoint. He did a great job and I can’t wait to see what else he has planned for this site after an amazing start like this.

I did something to the main index page. It seems obvious at first but be sure to look carefully. Some of you young’uns might not get the second part.

My internet connection has been faulty since last week and it’s too unpredictable to upload the next update. It randomly blinks out and causes me to be disconnected for seconds, minutes or even hours. The Graphic Generators upgrade is something that will completely screw things up if my connection decides to stop working in the middle of uploading it. The new features aren’t that major but I need to be sure they’ll all get on site or they won’t work until I’m back online. I apologize for the delay and I’ll keep working on things to make the update even bigger to make up for lost time.

I’m still building up enough content to have a decent update. Beside that preview I posted in the weblog last week, I have some other things done for the generator including minor adjustments to the engine itself. I also have two new GroupShot themes nearly done. Here’s the one I’m 100% done with:

Super Powers by Kenner

This was something I wanted to do for the big Superhero update last year but I decided to go with the Mego package since it could work for both Marvel and DC. The other is ready to go now but I want to add some more optional graphics before I show you. I’ll have this and more ready in the next update.


Breakin’ News


LittleBigPlanet 2 is out now and word on the street is that it’s amazing. It’ll be a while before I can get it but I will get it. Here’s something that a lot of people are missing: the Spacesuit costume is back. It’s only available in special instances so get it now. Go to the PSN store and it’s add-ons section but go to the LittleBigPlanet2 add-ons instead of the regular LBP section. The completely free Spacesuit is in there and works with both LBP 1 and 2.

Wizzy has been on an unstoppable rampage of fine, fine CPS2-style music and this one is just filled with magic:


That cool-looking X sprite is by Camo. Great job on that, too! Check out Wizzy’s YouTube page and subscribe if you like what you hear.

GFX Generators – I figured that a superhero-related update for the generator needed one new style that both Marvel and DC could use and there was only one obvious choice.


Okay, it’s only obvious to other toy geezers like me. Most of you are too young to remember Mego’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes toyline (see the Mego Museum site for details) but you may have seen the various tribute lines by Toy Biz, Kenner, Hasbro. Mattel is currently making DC figures with blister cards that mirror the old Mego packages that the new GroupShot screenstyle pays respect to. This lead to two new features for the generator engine. One simple addition is that the minilogos can now appear behind the sprite in some styles. The most important change is that screenstyles now have their own options on the second menu page under the sprite and palette options. The Mego style lets you choose a card color and whether you want the DC or Marvel head portraits on the side. This also let me combine a few older screenstyles that were just palette swaps like Apocalypse Now from X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter or the two versions of SFA’s China stage. The Slammasters Ring now has a few different Ring and Vs. options from both games that you can mix and match parts like this:

Expect to see many more backgrounds take crazy advantage of this in future updates.

New characters: the Atom, Blue Beetle, Captain Cold, Deathstroke, Green Arrow, Robin, Power Girl, Supergirl, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing
Character updates: Batman, the Belmonts, Catwoman, Hulk, Iron Man, Joker, Rick Taylor (Splatterhouse), Spider-Man, Superman

GroupShot New screenstyles: Mego – World’s Greatest Super-Heroes
Vs.Maker Updated screenstyes: Slammasters rings (options with multiple ring backgrounds and Vs. graphic)

Custom Sprites
DC: Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Deathstroke, Robin (Tim Drake), Supergirl, Superman
Marvel: the Human Torch (in both flame on and off modes), Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, Iron Man (two poses in the fan-favorite 4th armor) and the Thing
Konami: Simon Belmont – CV2 outfit
Namco: Rick Taylor – a slight variation to the Splatterhouse 3 sprite.

Minilogo – the Atom (1960s and ‘All-New’), Batman (1970), Captain Cold, Captain Marvel, Deathstroke, Green Arrow (’70s), Riddler (’70s) and Robin (’70s blocky), Supergirl (modern curved) logos added to the DC section. The Falcon, Hulk (’70s-80s angle logo), Human Torch, Invisible Woman added to the Marvel section. New color variants of Aquaman, Shazam and Superman logos added. These were added to the GFX Generator character files as well.

I planned to have more than this but I was worn out from Black Friday comic convention and lack of sleep. I hope this makes up for the lack of comic-related content in the 10th Anniversary update.

edit: Deathstroke was accidentally left out of both the Sprite Gallery and Graphic Generator uploads. I’d like to think Ryan Choi’s vengeful ghost made that happen. That’s been fixed so Slade can now cause kill off interesting characters on this site now. Hooray.

No site updates until the October 29th. I’ll try to have something horror and monster-themed ready but I can’t make any promises.

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