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ALBOTAS ESSENTIALS: HEX X JIM LEE COMIC CREATOR & COLLECTOR BACKPACKS >>

An absolute must-have for comic industry pros and die-hard collectors alike.

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Sony’s 2018 Summer Sale is Here

Sony's PlayStation summer sale has officially begun. Today, the PS Store details a massive pool of games on sale for the PS3/PS4/PS Vita. There are far too many great games on sale to pass on, and there are even more games to name. 

Ape Escape 2 (PS2) is on sale for PS4 at a price of $4, $3 for PS Plus (usually $10) users. The PS4 remaster of Final Fantasy X/X-2 is $15 and $12.50 for PS Plus (usually $25). If you've got a PS VR, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes ($9, $7.50 PS Plus, lists of $15) is absolutely worth the money. Kinetica (PS2) for PS4 is on sale for $4, $3 PS Plus users (usually $10), and is a cool pre-God of War glimpse of SCE Santa Monica Studio game, which plays similarly to Nintendo's F-Zero. The Evil Within ($12, $10 PS Plus, retail $20) and The Evil Within 2 ($30, $24 PS Plus, retail $60) are both on sale as well, for those looking for a slightly retro feel of survival horror games’ past. PS3 and PS Vita have some sick sales as well, including Jet Set Radio for $5, $4 for PS Plus (usually $10).

For an entire list of Sony's mid-year sale, check out the PlayStation blog. There's 750 games to scroll through. You'll find something.

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This is a much-needed thing.

Let’s all Kickstart this beautiful vertical Switch grip ⊟

This is something I need for my Namco Museum, Ikaruga, etc. sessions, a Switch grip that secures the Joy-Cons to the sides of a tate-mode console. It’s designed by Jeremy Parish of Retronauts/Game Boy Works/a million other things/most of my professional goals, along with Mike Choi (who designed the amazing IRL Tiny seen in our Twitter header) and Fangamer.

The Flip Grip not only allows you to use the Switch in handheld mode, it also has a slot in which you can insert a credit card to use as a kickstand. The device is on Kickstarter now. $12 gets you one! 

JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!

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Lego Office Alien Is A Man Of Love & Conviction

Xenomorphs: They're just like us!

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GIMME IT – THE STICKY MEMO BALL

Sexier than office supplies have any right to be.

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Media Journal: Yakuza Kiwami

We’ve been wanting to keep a journal of the media we consume lately. There are too many choices today – saturation is still climbing. It’d suck to not remember playing, watching, or reading a piece of media, so to help cope with us getting older, we’re recording thoughts on ALBOTAS concerning the visual mediums without necessarily writing a full-blown review. Let us know if you think this semi-regular media journal thing would be something you guys are interesting in reading more often! - Kevin

I’m A Yakuza Boy Now

After hearing about the series such a long time, I decided to purchase Yakuza Kiwami back in March to see what the fuss was about. My knowledge of the series was scarce. I knew Yakuza debuted on the PS2 over a decade ago, and at the time of its release, my 14-year-old brain couldn’t grasp its concept, nor was I interested. This was at a time in my life where Okami, Bully, Final Fantasy XII and my PSP (which some fuck sat on in high school and broke during gym class) took up a bulk of my time, and I had no idea what Japanese culture was like outside of anime. I’ve heard that Yakuza 0 is a solid jumping on point, and after viewing a few videos of its story arc and mini-game absurdities, I decided to grab Yakuza Kiwami for my PS4 to experience a remaster of the first game, rather than jump aboard 0 and risk any mechanical differences. I later found out the two games are hardly any different from each other. I should’ve been paying more attention. But I digress.

Yakuza Kiwami, without a doubt, has struck something in my bones concerning video games I don’t believe I’ve felt in my adulthood. It’s an open-world game that feels completely closed off from the nuisance of open-world freedom. The last open-world game I played was Watch Dogs 2, which was massive and offered a plethora of daunting, tedious tasks; collect this, climb to this spot and hack this, throw your graffiti up on this, take a photo of this. What Kiwami offers, for me anyway, is a chance to immerse myself into the fictional city of Kamurocho, rather than exist in its sandbox and dilly-dally around for large amounts of time. Kamurocho is smaller, but denser. Where a Grand Theft Auto-esque clone offers a massive amount of space and freedom, Yakuza offers a tighter, more concise familiarity of a packed city. I can walk around and recognize landmarks on the map, remember what streets I need to traverse to get to my desired location. I can walk into a restaurant, grab some new food and gain experience points (just like in real life). I can walk down an unfamiliar alleyway and trigger a substory that offers the stoic main character, Kazuma Kiryu, the opportunity to show me, the player, who he truly is. As Kiryu interacts with some of the city’s bizarre, needy, or sometimes neurotic characters, I can further understand his character outside of the main story arc. Furthermore, I don’t have the option of hitting the city’s pedestrians with my fists, which helps reinforce the fact that I’m playing as a humble, noble character. Kazuma Kiryu is a tough-guy who is generous, honest, caring. Playing with him is a joy, and watching him interact with the city and its inhabitants is a wonderful experience. Yakuza Kiwami’s way of painting a whole picture isn’t just about making the player progress through its dramatic crime drama storyline as fast as possible. It’s about combining every random character’s sorrow, joys and troubles into a ball and cornering its main character into empathizing with the world around him. Thus is life. Combat is mildly janky, yet fluid. A one-on-one fight with a crime boss involves the quick-dodging Rush-mode, or the balanced Brawler-mode, paying close attention to an opponent’s movements to counter-attack or avoid any punches or flying kicks thrown in Kiryu’s way. An all-out brawl, however, involves the heavy Beast-style of attack, throwing stronger, slow punches at hordes of enemies, and picking up whatever weapons are in range to make it an official street fighter. I gotta say, picking up an entire motorcycle with one hand and slamming it into someone’s laid out body is one of the most satisfying, yet odd attractions about Yakuza’s combat. The wide array of everyday weapons recalls the Dead Rising series for me. I don’t know. I guess I’m a Yakuza boy now. I’m obsessed with Yakuza’s characters, city and combat. Fighting is repetitive, yet with multiple fighting modes, it’s a variety. There aren’t any cars to travel from one place to another (there are taxis, though) but walking around the city and taking in all of its neon-lit multi-storied buildings are a joy. And with the game’s intense focus on mini-games and activities – everything from visiting an arcade and playing crane machines or the real-life arcade/card game Mushiking: The King of Beetles, to bowling, darts, and going on dates with women at hostess clubs – it’s hard to say Yakuza Kiwami isn’t worth its price tag. I threw 35 hours into this game and I intend on throwing more in before the end of the month. Then it’s onto Yakuza 0. And then probably the rest of the series.

Do want to learn more about Yakuza? Check these links: Why You Should Play Yakuza: A solid video essay on the world of Yakuza by Super Eyepatch Wolf Yakuza Games, Ranked by Polygon/JC Fletcher JC Fletcher (of Tiny Cartridge) writes on Yakuza 6 An example of the weird arcade game in Kiwami, Mesuking An example of Yakuza Kiwami’s karaoke The History of Yakuza, by GameSpot

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Also, Someone Made the Game Boy Camera Better

While we're on the topic of Game Boy photography, New York visual boy Ekeler seems to have found a way to improve the Game Boy Camera by giving it a Canon EF lens mount. According to him, "This gives the GBC a crop factor of about 10.81. With my 70-200 f4 mounted on a 1.4x extender, this gives me a max equivalent focal distance of about 200x1.4x10.81=3,026.8mm."

The top photo is his Canon EF lens mount, while the bottom batch of photos were taken with said camera. More info can be found over at his website.

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gameboycamerman Is Still At It

A few years ago, Jean-Jacques Calbayrac launched an Instagram under the name of gameboycameraman with one purpose in mind: capture awesome photos using the 1998 Game Boy Camera. Two years later, he's still going at it, and his IG account is gorgeous proof of his advancement in Game Boy photography.

For those unfamiliar, the Game Boy Camera was launched in 1998 as an add-on peripheral to the original Game Boy console. The camera featured a128×128 pixel CMOS sensor, and stored black and white images to the Game Boy system in 4-color palettes. It was meant to be used alongside the Game Boy Printer, which used thermal paper to print the images saved from your Game Boy. Also, in 1998, it looked awful.

“There are only [four] shades of colors: black, dark grey, light grey, and white, and there is nothing else,” Calbayrac told Digital Trends two years ago. “It’s shit, but in the meantime it’s so simple that it forces you to find a way to take beautiful pictures.”

The Game Boy Camera only holds 30 shots, so when Calbayrac shoots, he swaps to another one of his four Game Boy Cameras on the go. He also uses a special emulator that sends his Game Boy Camera images to his computer.

Jean-Jacques Calbayrac has since perfected the use of his Game Boy Camera. He manually colorizes photos and shoots in London.

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Taiko Drum Master Is Landing on the Switch

One of the coolest arcade games of all time is coming to the Nintendo Switch this July. Unsurprisingly, Bandai Namco is releasing Taiko Drum Master: Nintendo Switch Version! in Japan, and in Japanese. But, when the game hits Southeast Asia on August 9, developers will be adding an English day one patch for those who are right in guessing the game will never get a U.S. port.

Older console ports of Taiko Drum Master included a drum peripheral that added onto the cost of the game. But the Switch already offers two perfect drum sticks: its L/R Joy-Cons.

If you’re a Switch owner who is looking for a fun, addictive rhythm game with a ton of cutesy, but ridiculous animations and tasks to play, this might be your messiah. 

Plus there’s a cool ramen noodle slurping mini-game.

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The Story of Atsuko Nishida, the Creator of Pikachu

The origin of Pikachu is pretty much as adorable as the Pokémon itself.

There are also plenty of intriguing secrets to the creation of Pikachu that have remained hidden for years. Did you know, for example, that Pikachu was meant to be a squirrel, and that its early design was meant to resemble daifuku, a popular Japanese sweet?

Or, did you know that Pikachu once had a third evolutionary form, named Gorochu, which had fangs and horns?

A year and a half ago, in our first video, we looked at Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori. Our research process was a little less strict back then, so we may have mistakenly stated that Ken designed all the Pokémon in the original Red and Green games himself.

This wasn’t the case, as a recent interview with Atsuko Nishida has revealed. Atsuko was Ken’s go-to designer when he needed cute, cuddly Pokémon, and so it was her responsibility to come up with the design that ultimately became Pikachu.

A week ago, this video would have been a lot more timely. When we wrote this, the interview with Atsuko hadn’t yet been translated into English, so Kotor had to wade through it with Google Translate and some help from a translation Reddit group to figure out what was going on.

Now, plenty more places have reported on this story, so we may have missed the boat. Oh well, it’s still a great story, and we’re eager for any chance we can find to highlight some of the big contributions that women have made to gaming over the years.

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Noelle Stevenson x INPRNT!

The super awesome work of artist Noelle Stevenson is all available as fine art prints in her INPRNT Shop!

This is a sponsored post by INPRNT (Check them out on Tumblr!) but I still choose & write about the artists ;)

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Is it weird to want this printed and framed?

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CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME

Donald Trump actually has the purest soul and is merely playing a part. He knows that a vile 90′s movie villain is needed shed light on the hatred and intolerance festering within our nation. He secretly IS draining the swamp by exposing the corruption that has infiltrated our democracy.

Think about it. When was the last time you've seen a U.S. President so consistently scolded and reprimanded by the media for their overall just-plain-terribleness? He is the perfect example of what NOT to do as a human, and people are learning from his example. People are joining together in unity against ignorance and bigotry.

The Donald Trump presidency is a piece of performance art that Andy Kaufman could only dream of, but art is open to interpretation. There is always bound to be an audience who views art in a way that it's creator didn't intend, let alone anticipate, and those people are rising to the surface like a stain, ready to be wiped away by the hands of good ol' swift American justice. By intentionally playing the bad guy, Donald Trump is holding up a magnifying glass to the inner workings of this government for voters who maybe weren't paying the closest attention to wtf has really been going on around here for the past few years.

He sacrificed his chance at being remembered by history as a hero. He did this for us so that we could save ourselves.

Donald Trump turned heel for the good of the country.

(art: “The Class Clown” by Nick Jarvis)

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Like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and cool art?

Then this gallery is just for you!

http://albotas.com/2018/03/pans-labyrinth-fanart/

BUY: Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth: Inside the Creation of a Modern Fairy Tale (Hardcover) WAS: $50.00 NOW: $27.50.

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Game boy Love by Juan Pablo Freecss

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“Nintendo Switch “Breath of the Wild” Edition by Luciano Bustamante on Behance