Thursday, July 31, 2008

ABDC Season 2 Episode 7 Recap



Tonight's ABDC is the Missy Elliott episode with Missy herself performing with the four remaining crews and also judging alongside Shane, Lil Mama, and JC.



So Real Cru were up first doing "One Minute Man" and it was another solid performance from them. The intro was the sickest part of the routine while everything else felt right. Another judge fight was at hand with Shane and JC on So Real's difficulty of the performance, but you can make a case for both of them.



SuperCrew got off the bottom 2 this week (Yay!!!) and they did "We Run This." It was another memorable performance with more b-boy mastery and a tower intro. It was definitely better than So Real's performance.



Boogie Bots and Fanny Pak were in the bottom 2 (America got it right!!!) as BB went first doing "Work It." After reading about last minute changes for a whole new routine, it is clear that this is not a good performance. It almost felt like they pulled the white flag out as the judges clearly noticed the sloppiness especially this late in the competition. Don't get me wrong, they're a great crew when the switch is on, but not on a consistent basis.



Fanny Pak, on the other hand, KILLED IT. It is in caps because it was their best performance of the show and perhaps the best one of the season so far. The whole vibe of "Get Your Freak On" was there from the weird looking eyes, the unorthodox movements of various sytles, and it was awesome. The performance was too awesome that the judges gave a standing ovation, which is amazing. Even though So Real and SuperCrew had great performances, Fanny Pak just killed theirs and expect them to be #1 next week getting them a free pass to the finale.

With Boogie Bots' elimination, it is anyone's ball game on who can win this season's ABDC. My rankings are... (The last time for the season)

  1. Fanny Pak
  2. SuperCrew
  3. So Real Cru

Even though I had SuperCrew and So Real as my top 2 for the finale from the start of this whole thing, Fanny Pak's performance pretty much made my finale for next week (even though SC and Supreme Soul last week was pretty epic). The cool thing this season is that you can make a case for any of these 3 to win compared to last season where it was the Jabbawockeez show (and Kaba Modern). Next week is the 80s theme and Fanny Pak better kill it again next week (They can seriously win this thing).

Shout out to the Yuri and Taeko Show coming soon (Yuri from Kaba and Taeko from Fysh N Chicks were at the show again this week watching and they became best buds since season 1 ended).

Time to Break the Faces and Play Some Football...



Today, two demos of EA games are out on both XBL Marketplace and PSN. First up is Madden NFL 09 and it shows off the new Madden Test functionality of testing your skill with Offense and Defense to set up your adaptive difficulty for the game. It is a neat idea (All-Pro on Offense, Rookie on Defense - didn't know WTH I was doing). Other than that, the demo is short with reliving the last minute and a half of this year's Super Bowl involving the Giants and the Patriots. It does look better and has a new Gears-like roadie run cam when a receiver or running back is running to daylight, which is cool. For 1.1 GB, it is not much since the full game is out in less than 2 weeks (Note - I will not review Madden 09).

The demo I was most interested in was Facebreaker, a new toon boxing game. The controls are simple, but maybe too simple as I am having a hard time timing dodges and parries. Add along a licensed soundtrack that doesn't fit into a game like this and great toon-shaded graphics (Like Team Fortress 2 and the upcoming Battlefield Heroes). I'll probably give it another chance, but it can be fun just mashing faction to break someone's face (There's XBL Vision Cam and Playstation Eye support for custom characters in this demo and the final game). Good thing Facebreaker is 40 bucks too.

Off topic: ABDC Recap tonight and Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 Review tomorrow.

Having Pho with ABDC....



ABDC is tonight as well as the first day of X Games 14, but as a warmup for the Missy episode, here's SuperCrew and So Real Cru eating at a Pho place (Vietnamese food), which is actually good (Maybe I will have that tonight??).