Nearly a year ago, my friend Sebastien nudged me in the direction of this pretty cool and addictive game called Elements. I’m surprised to say that Elements has kept me playing on and off since.

What kind of game is it? Well it’s a free, web-based, flash, card, video game. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

It can be described as a poor man’s Magic Online, and it generally doesn’t have the balance and professionalism that Magic Online does, but it’s  far from just a clone. There are several elements that makes Elements (bad pun intended) stand out from it’s big daddy.

(more…)

So Kotaku is having a weekly Photoshop contest. The most recent being about showing what video game characters would do for money if times were hard. I decided to join in on the fun.

I’ll try to participate every week if possible, and I’ll of course post my entries on towardsmecca. This should theoretically mean that I should be posting weekly. Let’s see how long that lasts

Below is my entry: Pepto-Kirby! Enjoy

(more…)

My good friend Brandon Morris and his group of talented and dedicated modders have just released an incredible Naruto mod for Half-Life.

That’s right, as hard to believe as that is, this work of art is a total-conversion of Half-Life, but it’s impossible to see any of Gordon Freeman’s world in it no matter how hard you look. Not to mention that this community mod is better looking than most commercial Naruto games out there! Check out their blog here!

(more…)

My good friend Hugo has done it again! I thought that it would be impossible for him to keep surprising me since I’m now used to his epic artistic awesomeness, but it seems I was wrong.

Not only is he a great 2D and aspiring 3D artist, but now he can make figurines!

Check out this incredible Eddie Riggs figure that he made then painted himself! Wanna see more? His Deviant Art page is full of win, see for yourselves!

(more…)

While many loyal Valve customers were angry at the launch announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, placing the release date “only” one year after the release of the original, I was thrilled at the prospect of new content in my favorite zombie-bashing shooter!

In fact, I  pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2, pre-loaded it, and played it the moment it was released. I sympathized with most of the points “the mob” was making, but the fact that I was excited about the upcoming product and was very willing to pay for it meant everything.

(more…)

I guess towardsmecca.com making it through it’s second year is barely an accomplishment since I’ve barely posted this year at all. 2009 has been a ridiculously busy year for me with my second child, Maryam, being born. Also, I worked on the high-profile iPhone game Modern Combat: Sandstorm and that was a HUGE time investment, but it paid off

(more…)

I’m not much of a facebook normally, I log on only when I get a notification of a message by e-mail, so obviously I was pretty neutral about the announcement that Facebook was making it’s way to the X-Box 360. Still, I had to give it a try, and I’m sure glad I did!

I was expecting a heavy, clunky, feature-to-feature adaptation of Facebook on the 360. Instead, whoever developped this app was smart enough to strip it off a lot of non-essential bells and whistles and in-so-doing sculpt a mostly enjoyable experience out of a normally mundane one.

(more…)

So, I saw Doug Pray’s “Art & Copy” the other night. Because it’s essentially an ad for advertising, it offered a novel perspective (wait for it): a movie about advertising that features conversations with people that actually work in advertising. No Klein-ist sweater and keffayeh wearing leftist intellectuals/activists, mostly just ad-(wo)men.

(more…)

Last Wednesday my daughter, Maryam, was born! Weighing in at 9 pounds 5 ounces, she outweighed my son Ali who was 7 pounds 14 ounces at birth. She is a big, healthy bundle of joy that has her father’s appetite, insuring she’ll only get bigger

Due to the current Swine Flu scare, the hospital made it difficult for people to visit us, but despite that we had visitors willing to endure the hospital’s strict rules and requirements. A big thank you goes out from my wife Nina and myself to everyone who visited, called, or wrote to us during this joyous occasion!

Now our family feels even more like a family!

Here’s the deal, my extremely talented good friend Nicolas Girard was returning to his native France for good. So what does he do with his remaining time here in Canada? Why he decides to build his friend (yours truly) the most awesome joystick ever! And so the NEStickle (not to be mistaken for the NES emulator NESticle) was born!

This thing is a new level of awesome, seriously. It has the best Sanwa buttons and joystick money can buy, is compatible with the X-Box 360, the Playstation 3, the Playstation 2, and any PC running Windows, Linux, or even a MAC OS! If I wanted, I could also get an adapter that would make it compatible with the original X-Box! Seriously, if that’s all it was it would still be amazing, but it’s built into and out of an actual, honest to God, Nintendo Entertainment System! Go ahead, lie and say you’re not jealous, I dare you!

(more…)