Starfire Cos Play Photos

"She will be a better Titan than I ever was..." I vaguely recall my first introduction to Starfire when I borrowed my uncle's comic book collection as a lad - Starfire was running round with Nightwing and the Teen Titans or something fighting some cult lead by an awesome villian called Brother Blood. That stuff is just awesome when you are 12 years old! But now I'm all growed up and I can see what the real fuss about Starfire is and why people like to put on their best red wig and purple bikini and do their best cos play impersonation...

Hi, I'm Starfire.

Big Hair Day Starfire

Yup

Girl Next Door Starfire Cosplayer

Is her nipple missing?

I'm not acutually sure if the above picture is actually cos play of Star Fire or some other costume - however given the purple nature of the outfit and the ample cleavage being shown off, I'm happy to let this one ride...

Shy Couple: Super Man hearts Starfire

Practicable Starfire?

Beyond ME3?

Some hotshot on Bioware's design team for Mass Effect 3

has been quoted as saying this of the ending of the the third game in the series:

"Well, it's exciting. That would be the word that comes to mind for me. It's exciting to be able to deliver an epic trilogy and wrap up the story in a way that's going to be really satisfying, and high impact, and intense. And answer a lot of questions for the fans and bring it to a really satisfying conclusion..."
But is this the end for the Mass Effect Universe once Sheppard finally saves the universe from the Reapers? Casey again says:

"Even though we will effectively finish the trilogy it's not like it's over in the sense of 'Hey, we're going to put the Mass Effect world on the shelf forever and never come back to it.' We've already been thinking about that."

Which basically says absolutely nothing new about ME3. So what else can I crib from the net that's slightly more interesting?

The executive producer, Casey Hudson on Mass Effect 3 over at BioWare said that the team has made many combat improvements for the new game:

"If you look at the way Mass Effect 2 was received by fans and critics - given the huge, sweeping changes we made - I think there's reason to believe that the formula we arrived at was right. Now, I think there are tweaks we can make to that."

Hudson pointed to improved cover mechanics, more aggressive AI enemies, and ladders providing access to multi-leveled areas as clear indicators that the combat will play better in ME3. He's especially proud of the AI tweaks that make each enemy act differently. "They have very specific roles on the battlefield, and those roles - like chess pieces - work together a lot better because they have unique tactics". So watch your flank. That said I doubt it's gonna be up to Halo: Reach standard.

Oh, so what could it be? Prothean Nascar Racing?

Lara Croft Tomb Raider Cos Play Photos

Lara Croft Cosplay Lara Croft Tomb Raider Cos Play Photos We can probably talk about female heroine character archetypes till the cows come home. Wonder Woman rocks. Power Girl is hot. We get that. But ever since Tomb Raider introduced this gun slinger into the mix, the contender for one of the top spots in hot heroines must surely go to Lara Croft. A popular gaming heroine through the 1990's things took off when the albino python wearing Angelina Jolie decided she could get a good payday out of playing a real life action Lara Croft in two terrible movies. None-the-less, this inspired a legion of cosplayers, desperate to capture that sex appeal that Jolie ooozed in the movies. Here's some photos of cosplay action featuring everyone's favourite Tomb Raider. Some hot, some not but all a decent homage...

Casual, waiting for action to happen Lara

Ready for Action Lara

Lara Croft swinging like a monkey in a tree

Wall Climbing Lara

Plastic is Fantastic Colsplay Lara

Sexy Swimsuit Lara Croft

Want more sex appeal from your cosplay? Check out Power Girl cosplay pictures

Cyborg Ninja Cosplay Metal Gear

Here's a sweet cosplay picture of well known cos player Omi Gibson kitted out as a Cyborg Ninja from the Metal Gear series. You can look but not touch ok?

Body Painted Super Heroines - Does it mean they are nude?

Wonderous!

Body Painting hot naked woman has been the range for the last decade at least. The idea is simple. You take a nude babe, paint her breasts so she's no longer considered to be naked and she can then parade around in her birthday suit all she likes...

Harley Quinn covered in paint

Following the lead from Play Boy's Tiffany Fallon (above) titillating the world with a body painted Wonder Woman costume and the fact that it worked for these nude Mass Effect promotional girls it's no surprise cosplay fans at the Comic Conventions have taken the guise on board as well. Want proof? Check out these body painted girls below who are all dressed as their favourite super heroes....

Batwoman at some kind of sex party

Round and round goes Harley Quinn

Does this silver paint make my ass look phat?

Above is a celebrity Silver Surfer... Kim Kardashian does her best to show off her booty while painted in silver from neck to tow - meanwhile this guy does an epic Silver Surfer fail...

I'm going to have to assume that this green covered lady is indeed a painted Poison Ivy.

Meow..

Catwoman is a fan favourite cosplay costume choice, ever since Michelle Phiffer made sex kittens sexy again.
And finally below, here's a sweet body painted Super Girl. She really should have done her nails right?

Diablo to have a beta test

A big wig who's in charge of Diablo and Blizzard Michael Morhaime recently said "The game is looking great," "and we're currently aiming at a third quarter launch for external beta testing."

Kotaku suggests "A third quarter target would have beta testing for Diablo III

launching sometime between July and September of 2011."

Morhaime said "I want to be clear that we do not have an official release date or window yet," he said, explaining that Blizzard would not compromise quality to hit a release window.

So if you can hang on just a lil longer you'll get to beta Hell soon enough....

Destiny News Wrap Up

I believe it was my beautiful Grandmother that taught me that good things come to those who wait. Well hands up who is sick of waiting for Bungie to announce their new IP. But things are slowly leaking out of the bucket which are giving us some clues.

Last year their was news of Bungie Aerospace being trade marked. This came out and we had to ask out selves what a Grognok was.

Then a disgruntled Bungie contractor grunted that Bungie's MMO was named Destiny and the internet pretty much went ape shit over that and Bungie basically was forced to say NO COMMMENT. Then news came that Bungie had trade marked the word Crimson - possibly for some kind of software that could be downloaded to a hand held device.

So then Bungie did something with Penny Arcade and before you could say GNOP! Bungie staffer Jonty Barnes was spied wearing this T-shirt:

Jonty B with Destiny Logo on T-shirt

Now, is that the famous Sage behind Jonty but sans famous beard?
This opened a few eyes which lead to this piece of detective work happening and as it's totally copy and paste worthy: Hitmonchan writes at HBO:

Tracing the paper trails of Bungie employees, I discovered Podophobia Entertainment*, a company formed by Harold Ryan and Martin O'Donnell. And wouldn't you know it, a quick company trademark search revealed a listing for "Destiny."

Does that name sound familiar? It's the title an ex-Bungie contractor leaked to Kotaku after he was fired. He also said the game blends together first-person shooter, MMO and sci-fi elements.

The trademark describes the game as "[c]omputer game software downloadable from a global computer network."

NeoGAF member Willeth noticed strange symbols on a Bungie employee's shirt in a recent video from Penny Arcade. The small symbol on his left shoulder matches the logo in the listing.

According to Trademarkia, the trademark was filed July 20, 2009, and it was granted a second extension on March 7.

Podophobia Entertainment goes back to May 8, 2006, according to the Delaware Division of Corporations. It is now listed as inactive.

The company has a second trademark filed, "Be Brave," which was also granted a second extension on Feb. 24. The description for the trademark is nearly identical to the one for "Destiny.


But wait! Here's the logo which is possibly for the Seven Seraphs:

Destiny?

Like the guy who found two rainbows, what does this all mean? I don't know, I haven't taken enough drugs this weekend to even get close BUT some other dudes at Daily Joypad have more speculation / rumours to share:

"It's not the first time that Bungie trademarks have been uncovered that seem to point to this IP. Early last year, trademarks for 'Seven Seraphs', 'New Monarchy', 'Osiris' and 'Dead Orbit' were found but never substantiated. The Daily Joypad, however, now has evidence to suspect that these four names are in fact factions in a persistent online world.

A prominent Bungie employee showed four different "simple and geometric" symbols to our source that would match each of these trademarks, each in a different colour, one of which was a match for the larger symbol on Barnes' chest in the Penny Arcade video and would seem to bear a close resemblance to a 'Seven Seraphs' logo. Our source, who wishes to remain anonymous and does not work for Bungie himself, says that it was intimated to him that the logos were representative of "factions of some sort", that would match each of the four names above, with each group having their own "base to reside upon." It's also alleged by our source that these 'bases' would be distinct communities to allow each faction to discuss tactics privately."

Really? A Bungie employee revealed details to a 'source'? I'm putting this in the MAYBE pile but the speculation sounds pretty good, right? Team tactics? FUCK ME - I just wanna shoot some bad guys - if this is the new War Craft and I have to make play dates with internet buddies, I'm gonna be slightly grumpy. I'm a Lone Wolf these days - I don't talk to people as I got sick of the freaking kids who's voices haven't broken talking about how fat your momma was and how she was so fat when she jumped through the first Halo she got stuck.

NE ways, there's still more things to think about Destiny wise:

Here's some website names that Neogaf think should give us something to think about:

MansDestiny.com
PlayDestiny.com
DestinyUniverse.com
DestinyGame.com
DestinytheGame.com


The WHO IS looks ups don't really provide anything useful...

*Extra for Experts: Podophobia is the fear of feet.

Captain America Cosplay Pictures

The adaptation of the Captain America comic to the silver screen is possibly going to be one of the most epic translations from one media to another since Superman in the late 70s. I mean this in the sense the Captain America by his very name embodies the 'American Identity' as much as Superman

ever did - so film director Joe Johnston has a lot of pressure on him but he's had hit movies before so fingers crossed eh?
Anyways, I ramble to much. Here's some cosplay pictures of fans of the Captain dressing up as their hero. I think the one of the young kid is bloody cute!

Red Skull looks pretty calm, yes?

Captain Cute of America

God Bless the USA - Cheer Leaders for Captain America who may have made an appearance

Captain America and his girlfriend , Jean Gray.

Captain America can save the nation and be sexy at the same time

Here's a Captain America made of cardboard doing his bit for the planet. Don't confuse him with Captain Planet.

To finish off, here's a picture of two Captain Americas - these chaps were at the Wellington Sevens Rugby Tournament - it's basically a massive weekend where everyone dresses up in their favorite costumes. My favourite is of course these Optimus Prime costume outfits.

Halo Film Score

This has been sitting in my drafts for ages waiting for me to turn in into to a story. Can't remind where I borrowed it from. Enjoy.


Bungie composer Marty O'Donnell has created some of the most memorable video game scores around for the Halo franchise. After five different Halo games, however, Bungie has moved on and that means O'Donnell will most likely never score Halo again... unless filmmakers ask him to. The idea of a Halo movie has been in the works for some time now, but legal issues and other problems have prevented Master Chief from hitting the silver screen so far. Microsoft remains interested, so fans shouldn't give up hope. But if it does happen, who will create the music? O'Donnell sure wouldn't mind the opportunity.Speaking with IndustryGamers recently, O'Donnell commented, "I would love to score the Halomovie. No doubt about it. I think that would be great."

Image courtesy of GameInformerBut he also remains skeptical about his chances to land the job. "I would be surprised," he continued. "I feel like, knowing Hollywood just a little bit, they would most likely say, 'We have to have a tried and true Hollywood composer' and 'These themes are appropriate for games but not appropriate for movies.' Or something like that. That's sort of what I'm expecting. I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't hint at some theme that I wrote at some point in the movie. But I would certainly answer the phone if somebody called - Spielberg or whoever it might be."It's ironic that Hollywood would favor a "proven" composer, since scoring for video games in many ways presents a greater challenge than movies or television."I came from the linear media and I took some scores out of Chicago and did tons of commercials and had a whole other career. I think artistically and aesthetically scoring for games is harder," O'Donnell added. "It's technically harder. In my opinion, you have to have all the same chops that you have for linear media and then you have this other added technical and artistic vision to make it adaptive and interactive and all the rest. So I think it's actually harder, more complex, more interesting. I love music for games and I love what people have done with music for games and it just keeps getting better and better all the time."And - I might be wrong about this - but I think in the general public, in the populous, the respect for music for games has risen to a really nice, high level. I think Hollywood is sort of an insular place and their friends hire their friends and people that they're comfortable with. If they're spending $200 million dollars on some giant blockbuster film, you're going to get a big name person usually. The exception to that rule I think is when Brad Bird hired Michael Giacchino to do The Incredibles. Michael had done a lot of TV work and some game work. Brad, I think, is one of those spectacularly cool, creative 'unHollywood' guys."Continuing the comparison of scoring a potential Halo movie to The Incredibles

scenario, O'Donnell noted, "I've actually spoken to Michael and Brad about this and Brad said people were suspicious of, 'Why are you hiring this no name guy from the game industry to do music for The Incredibles?' He said, 'Because I love his music and he can do this.' And then Michael won the Academy Award for music last year. That's just a thrill for guys like me to see. You would hope the respect would somehow translate around into the rest, but the film composing community is really tiny. It's not very big, so I don't know who is willing to take risks on an unknown."

Duke Nukem Forever Pre-orders from Game Stop still accepted

I borrowed this from Game Informer. They won't mind.Retailer GameStop tells old Duke Nukem Forever pre-order holdouts: "Your money is still good here!" Anyone who's been holding the pre-order torch for Duke Nukem Forever

back in the day is in luck - your pre-orders are still valid after all these years.Of course, we hope you saved your receipt, as GameStop clerks aren't just going to take your word on it.In a statement posted by IGN, the company said: "With a long-anticipated release like Duke Nukem Forever, we encourage customers who pre-ordered more than a year ago to verify their reservation with their local store prior to launch. Provided the customer has a receipt, we will honor even those pre-orders taken long ago." Old school pre-orders will even get Duke's Big Package, the pre-order bonus that features Big Head mode, in-game t-shirts, and other extras.
Start digging through your desk. That receipt has to be in there somewhere.

Speaking of hunting out receipts. Did you ever see this one from Game Stop? - it's from 2001!!

Slash000 is indeed a patient man! Slash00, where ever you, I hope you get your game. Bless.

Didn't Pre order 10 years ago? Order DNF at Amazon now

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Cosplayers need cash too!

Cosplayers need cash too

Even the best of cosplayers need cash some times - as demonstrated by "Kimihiro Watanuki", Jessica Ung as "Megurine Luka" and Jenny Wu as "Hatsune Miku" as they make preparations before they make their way to the New Zealand Anime Convention.
This photograph was taken by Gerard O'Brien for the Otago Daily Times.

Transformer Cosplay from Botcon 2011

Shockwave, Buumblebee, Arcee, Shockwave

No surprise that Botcon 2011 had plenty of Transformer robots on display and in particular these cosplay pictures caught my eye. Nice camera work Doug.

Scout Bumblebee cosplay

This model of Bumblebee in what I'm calling scout mode is pretty awesome. I wonder how heavy this and all the other Transformer costumes are? Fans must also go to some real expense to put these outfits together too!

Jazz and what I think might be Prowl on the loose at Botcon.

Above the the sexy versions of some classic robots. Arcee, you might know as the cousin of the famous Bellatron. I note the lady in yellow's costume is very similar to this Bumblebee outfit - I hope they don't turn up to the same convention - that could be disastrous!

P.S. Cant.hardly.wait for Dark of the Moon to come out - you gonna see it?