Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Shelly Can't Build Snowmen

As you are no doubt aware, if you've ever played an Animal Crossing game in the Wintertime before - when it's snowy in your town, you can build snowmen. In the original Animal Crossing, you could only build standard snowmen, who would then send you snowmen furniture in the mail if you had built them with the correct proportions.

In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, you can now build a whole family of snowmen, all of whom will give you different rewards - a big snowman who is the dad, two medium sized snowmen that are a boy and their mother and a little snowman, who is called a Snowtyke. 

This is what a completed family looks like:

One day, while playing Animal Crossing, Shelly had a little accident when building a snwoman. She was going for a medium-sized one - but accidentally rolled the body onto the head - which made the game think the small body was meant to belong to a Snowtyke. Then this happened:

If I ever need cheering up, I just look at these screenshots of Shelly's ridiculously top-heavy snowman. I thought it was hilarious at the time, and still do. :)

Minecraft Creations: Frostbite Sprite Statues

It's been a while, but it's time for some more Minecraft Creations. Shelly and I made this collection of sprite statues a few months back - Shelly having a great spatial awareness used screenshots from one of her favourite Atari 2600 games: Frostbite and squared paper to plan out these three statues.

Frostbite is a sort of platformer game in which you play as a little Eskimo dude called Bailey. Your task is to jump across ice floes in order to reach the other side of an icy river, where your igloo is. With each successful jump, more bricks are added to your igloo until it is complete and you can finish the level. As well as having to avoid falling into the water, you also need to avoid flying birds (we assume seagulls) and a hungry polar bear who prowls around outside your igloo.

We suspect that nobody else has ever made these before! We built these statues authentically in the icy area of our world, using wool and snow blocks.

This is a screenshot from the game:
(Just as a warning, if you're going to search for this yourself, don't forget to include "ATARI" in your search. Bloody hell...)

And this is a screenshot of our Minecraft sprite statues.

We also made a video:

Petty Niggles: Borderlands 2's Shitty Snow Effects

I loved the original Borderlands - and it had been a while since I treated myself to a new game, so I invested in a copy of Borderlands 2. Yes, I know I'm almost 2 years late, but listen to me for a minute. 

When Borderlands 2 came out in the UK, during launch week and for the first few months, it was around £30-£39.99 in shops and online. I waited and for virtually the same price, I bought the Deluxe Vault Hunter's Edition (because I love collectors editions and all the random goodies they come packaged with) and the season pass, which contains all 4 DLC campaigns. The game was £26 and the season pass was £19.99. So for just over the original retail price - I've gotten the game, all of the bonus goodies (including the amazing Marcus bobblehead) and all 4 DLC packs. And all I had to do was wait 2 years. :P

Seriously - when most games come out, their collector's editions range from £80 to like £150 - wait a few years and you can get them from £10-£50 (depending on the game, of course - Duke Nukem Forever's limited edition is only £12 now, while Fallout: New Vegas is still around £60) I'm considering buying some of the limited editions when I get some money - just for the lovely boxes, art books and bonus crap - even if I already have the standard game (i.e. Duke Nukem Forever, Alan Wake, Fable III etc.)

Anyway - after waiting like 4 hours for the game and all of the DLC packs to bloody install, I've been playing it non-stop. I love it, it's awesome. So far, I wouldn't say it's AS immersive as the original, but I can sense change in the air. Or should I say, the snow.

Yes, the snow. It's getting on my nerves. Not because of the atmosphere, or the sound effects or anything like that. But because of THIS:

Why is the fucking snow hitting the screen?! Does REAL snow hit you in the EYES? No, it fucking doesn't! Even if you wear glasses, like I do - snow doesn't plaster itself all up in your eyeballs. And snow that falls as slowly and gently as the snow in Borderlands 2 certainly doesn't! You'd need to be standing in a serious blizzard with a motorbike helmet on! And how many of the four starting character actually wear something over their face/eyes? ONE. It's Zero. Who I am NOT playing as! I'm playing as the Siren character, Maya (because I played as Lilith in Borderlands 1 and loved the Siren's ability). She doesn't wear ANYTHING on her head!

You would think by now, with video games becoming more realistic and whatnot - they'd iron out this sort of shit. But no. Even sometimes in games like Fallout 3/New Vegas when the screen gets covered in blood, I think it's a bit too much - but you seriously need to be getting hit in the face, get a crippling blow to the head or be popping out of your mam's fanny before the screen really gets blurry and bloodied up. 

Unless your character wears glasses or a helmet - rain/snow/blood/etc should NOT be hitting the goddamn screen!