Population GO

Top 5: Cross-Dressers & Gender
-Benders Written by Letitia Wells
Review: Epic
Written by Steve Attanasie
Spotlight: Xbox One: Conflict &
Excitement Written by Ed Mah
Review: Game Dev Tycoon
Written by Ed Mah
Spotlight: Anime Sols
 Written by Cole Millions

Top 5: Games That Turn Friends Into Enemies

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Nothing is better than grabbing a bunch of friends and playing some video games all night long. All of you guys are having the time of your lives… until your so-called friends start to look more like enemies. What started out as laughing and joking has now turned into screaming and threats. Your face turns as red as the Red Shell that just hit you and your friend’s face turns as blue as the Blue Shell he just threw as you strangle him for jeopardizing your victory. Soon the games become battles and a war has just begun.

I was having trouble of thinking of a Top 5 to do, when it hit me — literally; my friend hit me as I utterly destroyed him in a round of Blazblue. Since this wasn’t the first time something like this happened, I knew that video games, while fun, destroy friendships. So I felt I should share the most rage-inducing games that I have experienced. 

Read what games may result in you punching your friends!

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“League of Legends” Is The Most Popular Game In The World

According to statistics provided in a nice, handy giraffe-sized chart, Riot Games’ free-to-play game, League of Legends, is the most popular game in the world. BY A MILE.

Some of the statistics boasted include a 32 million “active monthly user count,” 12 million “active users per day,” and over a billion hours played per month.

Riot Games may be fudging a few numbers here, but still, it seems clear that League of Legends is here to stay.

You can find the mammoth chart after the break.

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Closing Your Day: Making Of A Champion

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Recap of Pop GO posts published on Jan. 21, 2012.

Opening

News

Reviews

Segments

Whatyer Making Boy? - Exiled Morgana Sculpture

This is one of three figures I’ve been commissioned by a Riot employee; the other 2 characters will be kept secret until I start working on them.

The only instruction I had was to make her look how she does in their splash art. The figure itself was scratch built using polymer clay and hand-painted with acrylic paint. Her base was made with paper mache clay and the name plate is polymer clay. The accents and details on her dress were mainly modeled from her in-game sprite since that was my only source to see 360 degrees of reference material. You can see it’s a little different from her splash art.

Thanks to T0mT4yl0r on YouTube, I was able to get a pretty decent turn around reference.

As I mentioned in the video, I haven’t done a lot of free sculpted human type faces so that was the trickiest part for me. I felt a little overwhelmed when I started doing her wings, but once I got a system down to sculpt each feather it wasn’t too bad at all, just a little tedious (heh).

That’s one down, two more to go. After the Baron and Teemo Diorama I’ve been getting some requests, but my day job is about to start to full-time soon. That means I won’t be able to pump out these figures as quickly as I have been lately. Come summer break I will have more free time to sculpt figures freely.

Thanks for taking a look. I took still shots that you can see in my Flickr.

Whatyer Making Boy? - King Rammus & Plumber Teemo

After dropping off my Baron and Teemo sculpture at Riot Games (US) a while back, I shortly received a few emails for more LoL commissions from Riot employees. The first person I responded to named some of her favorite champions, and out of that list the two that popped up first were Rammus and Teemo.

Rammus had a Bowser inspired skin that was available to the League Of Legends beta testers, and Teemo has a skill where he would plant explosive mushrooms (which in this piece, his mushroom has a 1Up inspired color scheme). Then I thought, why not make a Mario Bros. inspired skin for Teemo?

I suggested this team and theme to her and she approved quite elatedly, and shortly after I got home, I started working on it.

It took me almost three weeks to complete — maybe up to 4-5 hrs each night. If this can be also used as a measurement of time spent on this piece, I watched all the episodes of Wonder Years and all the episodes of Parks and Recreation available on Netflix (lol).

Rammus’ shell was probably the tedious part I had to work on with all the little details and spikes I had sculpted. I had to work on it separately from his body, then attach them together. Everything was made using polymer clay and hand-brushed with acrylic paints. The figure stands at about 4 ½ inches tall from the bottom of the base to the tip of his tallest spike.

Next on the commission list are 3 individual champions requested from one Riot employee. Stick around to see who they are. ^_^

Still photos of this sculpture can be found here.

“Hi 5” with Hollymonster of Riot Games!

Recently, I had the chance to meet a few people at Riot Games, and a couple of them had given me the opportunity for this “Hi 5”.

Meet Hollymonster! She is a Game/Account Lead at Riot Games and a sweet bubbly girl. Her duties are, but not limited to:

  • Lead the technical team of Player Support Specialists while providing guidance and taking an active role in their career development
  • Collaborate with Training and Communication specialists to identify weaknesses and ensure that your team has the resources it needs
  • Ensure optimal coverage across queue resources
  • Generate in-depth reports, including trends and forecasts
  • Build the team by helping with hiring and onboarding of staff

Continue after the break to see what she has to share with us. ^_^

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Geek Spotlight: What a Riot (Games)

The other day (Dec. 20, 2011), Kandi and I took a little trip to visit Riot Games to drop off a fan art piece I made of Baron and Teemo. It so happened that the winning bidder works at Riot, and I was given the opportunity to personally deliver the piece myself. In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed with the final bid, but when I learned who it was from, that frown turned upside down.

Bear (the auction winner) knew its worth and actually handed me a little more when we met up, but in actuality, a lot more was given from this opportunity.

Continue Reading →

League of Legends - LaLaLa DemaCia Episode 01

This is a hilarious Chinese 3D video inspired by League of Legends. From what I gather, this will be a mini-series based on LoL culture.

Mash-Up Monday Presents: League of Legends Dance References

Fans of League of Legends know that for each champion there is a dance command should one ever find themselves bored during a match. A majority of these dances are amusing, but where oh where does Riot Games find their inspiration for said dances?

You can find your answers here as YouTube user NeiLalwaysLeeT throws together a playlist of videos of various champions and their dance references. Iconic dances such as the ones from Napolean Dynamite, Haruhi Suzumiya, Thriller and the one featured in this video, Jump On It, can all be found in the game.  

Full playlist can be found here.

[YouTube]

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Pop GO is celebrating ‘Reader Appreciation Week’ from Dec. 5-9. We honor and interact with our readers all week long, with another GO Chat scheduled at 5 pm PT (Dec. 5). Find out how you can join in on the experience!

League of Legends Season One Championship

League of Legends has started their Season One championship. The top 8 teams from around the world are gathered in Jönköping, Sweden to compete for a share of the $100,000 prize pool. This is also a big deal because these teams are battling for the honor of being the first League of Legends champions.

This game has been taking a nice chunk of my computer time lately. If you’re into Player vs Player Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (PVP MMORPGs) then I would definitely recommend that you try it out. Like most MMORPGs, it’s FREE! If you’re already playing feel free to come at me on my LOL alias, ‘somakun’. I warn you though, I can be hard to swallow at times. Feed me! (Haha.)

I’m trying to get some of the Pop GO members to start a team with me. So far… no luck haha ^_^. Check out live coverage at:
http://season-one-championship.na.leagueoflegends.com/

Hope to see you online summoner!