Fear Itself
July 30th, 2012

Posted by Matt

This week’s video is here, and it is frightfully funny.

LoadingReadyRun: Fear Itself
Unskippable: DarkStar One: Broken Alliance
Checkpoint: Square Enix Versus Rumors
Feed Dump: Mugshots

This is one of those somewhat uncommon (recently) videos that was shot and prepared a full week in advance of release. Graham, James, and Kathleen were all out of town this weekend, so last week we did double duty and shot Jonny Four and Fear Itself on subsequent days. This particular video was shot at a couple of locations around Uvic, (a board-room in the Clearihue building, and the parking garage under the University Centre specifically), as well as back at our office. Despite the location changes, this shoot was pretty straightforward, but we made sure to get footage for a Loading Time episode, so you can plan to watch that on Thursday.

One other update from behind the scenes was that we held a major DesertBus Planning meeting this weekend (via Google Hangouts). The hangout proved super useful, actually, as we connected planners in five cities, between two provinces (and a state!) and carried it all off without any significant hitches. It also sounds super impressive to think that our planning crew now spreads this wide. Desert Bus is going to be awesome this year, guys. Seriously.

Cheers til next week!

Jonny Four
July 24th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Hey Bros and Bro-ettes, Jonny is back on his game, and it sounds like he had quite the night, so check in with him down below.

LoadingReadyRun: Jonny Four
Unskippable: Max Payne 3, Part 2
Checkpoint: Gamer Marketing
Feed Dump: Dakota & Madison Work Stuff Out
Loading Time: Building Planes

Given that this week’s video is the fourth in a series, and was filmed on a Friday when I wasn’t around, I don’t actually have a lot to offer in the way of behind the scenes insights, other than to tell you that the pink… thing the Graham is wearing in this episode is the same pink…. thing that Bill wore as a part of his West Coast mother-Lovin’ G’s gang outfit from the first season of commodoreHUSTLE.

In other news, I understand that there will be no Loading Time this week, as the Friday video shoot interefered with our abilty to record one. That said, there will be one for the next video (which we shot on Saturday) and I know there’s a plan for another different sort of Loading Time in the coming weeks that you should find pretty interesting.

As a final note, I thought I’d also let you all know that we laid down some commentary tracks for a new DVD on Saturday. I won’t say what it is, or when it will be available, but we have something in the works for you, and we hope it’ll be ready soon.

Cheers!

Pocket Planes
July 16th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Attention passengers! Flight LRR-001 direct to Lulz is now boarding at gate 3. Please have your tickets ready, and ensure that all crates of live bees are secured at this time.

LoadingReadyRun: Pocket Planes
Unskippable: Max Payne 3, Part 1
Checkpoint: Games & Movies
Feed Dump: Cons, Moms, Bones & Waffles

So, as you are no doubt aware, at this point, the LRR crew has a bit of a… problem with Pocket Planes. Maybe “problem” is the wrong word. Pre-occupation? Obsession? ALL CONSUMING INABILITY TO SEPARATE OURSELVES FROM IT’S 8BIT ENTICEMENT? ALL GLORY TO THE POCKET PLANES. *ahem*

Anyhow, needless to say, when this script came in from our friend and forumite Alexander Roederer (AlexanderDitto) this video instantly went on our ‘to do’ list. What didn’t instantly go on our ‘to do’ list was the visuals. We had initially planned to film this video live action, but between a lack of suitable locations, and a whole bunch of necessary prop searching and prep time, we started to wonder whether we were even going to be able to get this one done. However, a combination of inspiration and apathy struck! (I mean, why do ourselves what we can nominate Graham to do in Post, amirite?) I certainly feel that the authentic game graphics really sell this video in a way that live action really couldn’t have. It turned out great, and we didn’t even have to write it, or shoot it! Laziness won the day! (Graham and Kathleen slaving away in the pixel mines notwithstanding)

Speaking of laziness, Alexander even provided me a write-up of his process to include in this blog post, so I can let him take over from here! Enjoy:

A few weeks ago Kathleen managed to infect me with Pocket Planes, and so for the last few weeks my dreams have consisted mostly of obsessively routing crates full of bugles and mice from Berlin to Moscow.

Some nights ago I was working late at the office (as grad students are wont to do) and I took a break to check my planes and ship some more event items off to San Diego (SKY CHAIRS UNITE) when inspiration struck: Pocket Planes sure is a weird, warped version of the airline industry! It sure would be funny, trying to book a ticket through Pocket Planes. And suddenly dialog and funny situations started popping up in my head, and I hastily typed them out as fast as they came out of my brain.

I polished up the script while watching Graham, Jer, and James do a Magic Live Draft (YOU SHOULD WATCH THEM THEY ARE FUN), and voila! This script was born! Thanks for using it, guys! <3

Thanks to you for your script, Alexander, and thanks everyone for watching!

One final note – should you decide you’d like to give Pocket Planes a try, the name of the LRR flight crew is “Sky Chairs”. You are welcome to join us by simply typing in the crew name on the game’s flight-crew screen!

Til next week!

Giving it
July 10th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Morgan’s back in this week’s LRR episode, which you should go watch right away if you haven’t already!

LoadingReadyRun: Giving It
Unskippable: Ninja Gaiden 3
Checkpoint: Assassin’s Editions
Feed Dump: Girls Dump
Loading Time: GP Vancouver
GPLP – Cursed Crusade: (PT9)

This particular video was filmed last Friday at James’ condo, which you may recognize from a few of our other sketches. It’s becoming ever more commonly used as a location, and we’re always happy to add a little variety to our regular rotation.

Graham Gave me a little blurb for this update, because I wasn’t around for the shoot on account of my day job. I’ve included his thoughts below:

This video was born out of an amusing conversation, inspired by an annoying quirk. It’s not common, but occasionally when someone makes a clear statement along the lines of, “I don’t like salami,” someone will respond, accusatorially, with, “Or DO you?!”

Imagine if you will, someone (I don’t recall who) saying, “I don’t give a shit,” and getting the response, “Or DO you?!”

This morphed into a conversation of how many shits one has to give in a day, and the conservation of shit-giving, and we realized there should be a video about someone who has made this their university thesis. I spun it out into this bizarre conversation, and here we are. Kathleen suggested Morgan should play Tristan, which was a smart choice. It’s nice to see him back in a video.

Bonus points for catching the two LRR inside references. One is more obvious than the other.

As a final note, I’d like to thank everyone who came out (to Xbox Live) and joined us for the Magic 2013 Game with Fame event. We had an absolute blast playing with you, and we hope you had a great time too!

‘Til next week!

Game With Fame – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
July 5th, 2012

Posted by Matt

Well, I know I said that it would be a “final reminder” when I made note of this in Monday’s blog post, but I lied.

Tomorrow, that’s July 6th, 2012, at 6PM Pacific time, the LoadingReadyRun crew is going to be sitting down on our respective couches, Xbox 360 controllers in hand, and firing up some Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013. We’re going to need some people to battle against, too, so we’d like it very much if you joined us!

Here’s what you need to do to take part:

Show up (on Xbox Live) a little before 6PM, and have DotP 2013 downloaded and ready to play on your console. Once the event has started, all you need to do is either send a friend request or a game invite to any of the gamertags noted below, and wait for us to accept. We’ll be getting as many games in as we can, so don’t fret if we can’t accept right away!

The gamertags you’ll want to remember are:

Graham LRR
Matt LRR
Jer LRR
ThisIsWhyImPaul
Normalcy
Hammerbag
SequoiaMaxima

We’re really looking forward to playing with you, so come on out and duel!

See you Friday!