Assassin's Creed Unity reinvisioned by Rob Zombie

That's right, Rob Zombie teamed up with illustrator Tony Moore (co-creator of The Walking Dead), and together they created their own bloody version of the Assassin's Creed: Unity trailer. I think I'm more excited about the game after watching this video, than was after watching the official cinematic trailer from Ubisoft.

What would get me even more excited about the release of this title would be if they announced that it would be getting a 'last gen.' release. So far Assassin's Creed Unity, and Evolve are the only two games that could persuade me to invest in a new console, but upgrading my PC still looks like a better, and cheaper option at this point.

Even more ††† remixes

††† were back to share a few more remixes on Monday afternoon. The Waxhole shared Eest Coast's remix of The epilogue, and Sh?m's reinterpretation of Bitches brew.

Yesterday, Antiquiet continued the sharing mood, with a version of Bitches brew by Sidewalks and Skeletons. This has replaced Computer Club and Dan Sena's version of The epilogue as my favourite ††† remix.

Check out parts one and two for all the previous remixes shared by †††.

Venomous vs poisonous

Source: Bird and Moon

Toxic animals appearing in this comic; northern copperhead, cane toad, tiger keelback, hooded pitohui, and the northern short-tailed shrew.

More remixes from †††

Shortly after Thursday's post, the third ††† remix was shared through Death and Taxes This time around the track Ninteen ninety four was given the remix treatment by Dream Koala. 

On Friday a drum 'n bass remix of The epilogue by Computer Club and Dan Sena was premièred by Brooklyn Vegan. This might be my favourite ††† remix so far.

Lastly, a surprise third remix of Telepathy was shared via the ††† website. This track was reworked buy Metome. I like this track the least of the five remixes shared this past week, and probably wont be giving it too many more listens.

Once again, the three remixes are available as free downloads, and together with the two previous Telepathy remixes, make for a nice little remix EP.

††† "Telepathy" remixes

Last week ††† teased us with a picture of their Soundcloud page showing a playlist that read ††† - Remixes. This was followed with another picture pointing to the possible future release of the stems for the track The years (previously featured on the Batman: Arkham City - The Album), and the caption, "I† is happening again..."

After a few days of silence, a remix of Telepathy by Blaqk Audio premièred at Pure Volume. This was followed today by a second remix of Telepathy, this time by Dwntwn being released via Spin.

Both tracks can be downloaded for free, either by clicking on the links above, or heading to ††† Soundcloud page. According to both sites, we can look forward to more remixes tonight, and tomorrow, to be released through Death and Taxes and Brooklyn Vegan. 

Possibly the best thing on the internet...

"Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred lines" is probably the best thing on the internet at the moment.

Word of the day...

My day has been filled with a lot of alien related news today. Firstly there was the announcement of the Alien: Isolation (Nostromo Edition), which will feature two additional scenarios featuring cast members from the original film. You can watch the DLC announcement trailer below for more details.

Secondly, an article from National Geographic entitled The hunt for life beyond Earth kept reoccurring on my Facebook news feed. I decided to give it a read, and about halfway through the article I came across today's 'Word of the day;' snottite.

According to Wikipedia a snottite is, "a biofilm of single-celled extremophilic bacteria which hang from the walls and ceilings of caves and are similar to small stalactites, but have the consistency of snot."

Now you know.

Calling all Chevelle fans...

Last year I got to see Chevelle perform live in Cape Town. I didn't write a review at the time, but I got goosebumps when they opened with Sleep apnea. I also bought a tour shirt after the show.

For those of you who weren't able to make the trip to one of the South African shows,or aren't even in South Africa, you too can buy one of the South African tour shirts. As an added bonus the shirts cost less than they did at the show, and the money raised from shirt sales will go to a worthy cause, Tech for Africa.

Here's a little bit about what Tech for Africa do, adapted from their Facebook page:

Tech for Africa is a non-profit project whose purpose is to provide modern technology, such as digital cameras and iPads, to special needs students and their teachers in rural areas of South Africa.

If you don't want to buy a Chevelle shirt for $ 15, you can still help out by giving a few of dollars to the cause, or by even donating unused (but still working) electronic devices.

Far Cry 4 gameplay video

While composing my list of release dates for 2014 I came across this Far Cry 4 video from E3 that I had previously missed. 

The game doesn't look all that different than its predecessor, but the addition of some new weapons, being able to shoot while driving, the potential to hi-jack moving vehicles from another vehicle, flying vehicles, and stampeding elephants makes this like a very worthwhile addition to the Far Cry line-up. I'm really hoping the PS3 version isn't too much different from the 'next-gen.' versions.

Q3-4 2014 gaming releases

There are quite a few games to be released during the second half of this year, that I'm really looking forward to playing. There are so many in fact that I've forgotten which is coming out when, so I decided to put together this list of release dates for the titles I'm most interested in.

1. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition (19 August 2014)
2. Alien: Isolation (07 October 2014)
3. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (07 October 2014)
4. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (14/ 17 October 2014)
5. Evolve (21 October 2014) (Delayed till February 2015)
6. The Evil Within (21 October 2014)
7. Far Cry 4 (18 November 2014)

My wallet is probably going to take quite a knock in October, although I may pre-order either Alien: Isolation, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, or Evolve a month or two earlier, depending on whether or not there are collector's editions announced. At present Alien: Isolation is the only one of those three titles that does not have some sort of DLC attached to pre-ordering the title.

It will also be interesting to see how the sales of Alien: Isolation/ Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Evolve/ The Evil Within will differ from one another as they are being released on the same dates. Given the number of accolades Evolve received at E3 last month, I don't think sales of The Evil Within will be particularly record breaking, despite the two being games in vastly different genres. Evolve's multiplayer aspect will probably be a much bigger draw card than any of single player campaigns of the other games on this list.

At the moment I'm leaning towards getting Alien: Isolation over Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Evolve over The Evil Within. This could however change depending how each of these handles on 'old-gen.' consoles, with the exception of Evolve which isn't getting an 'old gen.' release. 

My prediction for how I'll spend the rest of my gaming year is thus;

Today - 19 Aug.: Deadpool, Diablo III, and Rage

20 Aug. - 07 Oct.: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition and Rage

08 Oct. - 17 Oct.: Alien: Isolation

18 Oct. - 21 Oct.: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

22 Oct. - 18 Nov.: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Evolve

19 Nov. - 31 Dec.: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Evolve, and Far Cry 4

Who am I kidding, there is no way I am going to be able to get this much gaming time before the end of the year. With the exception of Deadpool, any one of these games could keep me busy for the rest of the year after its release. At this stage I'd be content with having just enough time to finish the storyline of Diablo III, and possibly the Reaper of Souls expansion too, before the October releases start pouring in. Fitting a weekend in before the end of the month to do nothing but play Deadpool and eat chimichangas, would be nice too.

--Updated 09 August 2014--

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition

Eleven months ago, the Reaper of Souls expansion pack for PC versions of Diablo III was announced. This was closely followed by the console release of Diablo III a month later. I pre-ordered a copy with the intention of playing it at a later time. That time arrived, and I managed to reach complete most of the first act with my chosen character.

Then life and other games got in the way, and Diablo III sat neglected in my gaming box for a while. Recently I begun playing Diablo III as my primary game again (I often swap between two or more titles, when I get stuck, or have simply had enough of a particular genre), and now I am quite excited about the news regarding the Reaper of Souls console release in the form of the Ultimate Evil Edition.

OK, so the news hit nearly two months ago now, but I've been a little preoccupied with arranging a wedding and stuff. Last month the PlayStation exclusive items were announced, and once again they're centred around tie-ins with PS exclusive titles. This time round the games are The Last of Us, and Shadow of the Colossus, neither of which I've played. There is also an additional piece of armour available as a pre-order incentive, the Infernal Pauldrons, which should look pretty neat when paired with the Infernal Helm pre-order incentive from the console base game.

While I'm mentioning the base game, it will be included in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition. That means if you have yet to get a copy of Diablo III for your console, all you'll need to buy in order to join in on the console experience is the Ultimate Evil Edition. Not a bad deal at all considering PS3/ Xbox 360 version is retailing at only R 419. The same retailer is selling the PC version of the Reaper of Souls expansion for R 379, and that excludes the base game, which is required to play, and will set you back another R 451.

For those who already own console versions of Diablo III, and only want to add the Reaper of Souls expansion, digital downloads will be available through the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live closer to the release date. I'm thinking that for only R 419, I may as well buy a physical copy of the Ultimate Evil Edition, as I like to have physical discs over digital downloads. Call me old-fashioned, or whatever, but if I ever decide to delete games from my PS3 harddrive, I want to know that I will still be able to play them again in the future, without having to waste time downloading them again.

That said, I'll wait and see what the price difference between the physical and digital versions of Reaper of Souls are before committing to either. At the moment though, I'm still leaning towards buying a physical copy.