PixlBit

     Every Tuesday it's release day for retailers in N.A., so I look up what's new in various forms of media: games, music, comics, and books. Here's a rundown of what I'm interested in this week.

Games:

     Fable Anniversery. Bought it today. I beat the game on Xbox back in '04 but I'm not sure I played the Lost Chapters extra content. Apparently this remake is based on the original PC version which was a little better than the original Xbox one. Plus it adds a bunch of stuff from Fable II like the taunting Gargoyles. I got the preorder version which gives you a few in-game chochkees like new character skins and weapons. I can't wait to replay this, but it'll have to wait 'til I'm done with Borderlands 2 first.

     Halo: Spartan Assault out on XBLA. But now I don’t care, having waited too long and hearing a lot of mediocre reviews. I will wait for sale or just plain boredom to pick it up.

     Unepic on Wii-U and Steam/GOG.  Reminds me of Dark Castle for Mac. Check out the trailer.

                         

     Chibi Robo: Photo Finder on 3DS. ‘Cause I crazy for photography games.

     Dungeon Keeper on tablets. Wish I had one ‘cause it looks great. Here's the trailer.

Music:

     Behemoth’s new album The Satanist out this week and I'm buying it tomorrow. I'm not sure how I got into death metal band Behemoth but it was probably from a metal complilation album. I love their wall of sound. The density of their guitar sound makes me think of an orchestra of noise. It's really intense. Goes great with Demon's Souls playthroughs.

     King Crimson, the prog rock giants, has three live albums listed on allmusic.com this week. All from different eras. One's a 1969 concert, another from 1998 and another from 2003. I've been a huge Crimhead since college, so I'll pick these up sometime when I have the cash. For now they'll go on my wish list.

     Ozric Tentacles rerelease of Vitamin Enhanced from 1993. A modern day prog rock band that I've yet to really check out. I have one of their albums but prog always takes several listens to get into, or several albums. I want this. I have a prog heart.

Comics:

     DC Presents Harley Quinn #1 collecting a bunch of stories staring Harley Quinn. I love this Paul Dini created character and will read anything with her as the main character. I will devour this tomorrow when I pick it up.

     Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1 with Greg Pak of World War Hulk writing and artist Mirko Colak who’s art looks like the guy who did Orc Stain, James Stokoe. I remember playing the Turok games on N64. They were FPS games and a lot of fun. Rage Wars was a multiplayer shooter that featured my favorite weapon of all time The Cerebral Bore. The animation for that, and the level of humiliation you enemy suffered from it, made it THE weapon to have in that game. As for comics, there was a run of Turok from way back that was critically acclaimed. I've only read a few issues of it, but it's good. I have high hopes for this Greg Pak version since he did the excellent World War Hulk. I'm going to check it out in any case.

     Trillium #6 writen and drawn Jeff Lemire. Been following this since issue #1. It's really good about two people meeting each other across time and space. Usually each character gets it's own half of the comic, so when you finish one, you turn the comic around and read the other. It's ingenious and fun.

Books:

      No new books of much interest to me, but I did order Dark Souls: Design Works off Amazon. I should have it by Friday. Can’t wait.

Teaching Company Courses:

       Each month I look up what’s new and didn’t see anything this month except for a reminder about The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works by Robert Greenberg, which I’ve been looking for in the libraries for a while now. It’ll show up eventually. I’ve seen or heard every Prof. Greenberg lecture for the Teaching Company and he’s done a lot of them. He’s great. I can’t wait to get my hands on his newest one. I'm such a Greenberg fanboy. Is it possible to be a fanboy of a teacher? For me, yes.