The latest on my YouTube channel for 2/7-2/14

Since I feel like blogging, here's another week in my YouTube...

We start with some arcade awesomeness of some dude "Role playing" House of Dead 4 like he is some thug with uzis. Pretty dope he's still able to do well in a game like that and he makes the rest of us feel lame because he's more gangsta. I feel so out G-ed watching this.

My music video for this past week belongs to "Rude Boy" by Rihanna. Its definitely a cool music video and its RiRi being RiRi. What else can you ask for? This is one of her better songs on her latest album as that and "Hard" are my standouts when I "reviewed" the album. Some people could relate this song to their Valentine's Days today...

Lastly, I gotta plug where I'll be at in less than 2 weeks which will be The Block's Dave & Busters in Orange for the "Level Up" Tournament aka Project Blocks. I will be playing both Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6 there, so we will see how well I can do. As long I don't go two & out in both games, then I'm a happy camper. Then again, I'm still trying to find time to get in the groove due to school and playing Blaster Master Overdrive for review (That better be done before I get Mega Man 10 on WiiWare). At the end of the day though, I'm still looking forward for more good times hanging out with the fighting game community especially some of NorCal's finest are coming to down to compete.

The latest on my YouTube channel for the week of 2/1 - 2/5/10

Here's a week roundup of what I been watching on YouTube and some thoughts about some of the videos.

I stayed up for the long awaited reveal of Sega's "Project Needlemouse" which turns out to be Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 for the downloadable services (XBLA, PSN, & WiiWare). Of course, the loyal Sonic fans were freaking out as the announcement went up on GameSpot as if this will be finally break the long curse the hedgehog has dealt with with crappy game after another. For once, Sega and Sonic Team are probably doing something right finally going back to Sonic's 2D roots (the only time Sonic has been good) taking advantage of the 2D HD retro revival on consoles (Mega Man still being 8-bit as an example) and took them long enough to realize how retro is still cool. Maybe Sega also finally realized the potential of downloadable game services and they could do so much more than just re-release the classics by actually making arcade-like HD experiences on consoles such as this, Outrun Online Arcade (still mad that it never came out on the US Playstation Store) and After Burner Climax (also finally coming to XBLA and PSN). Anyway, Sonic going back to 2D is the best thing for him and hopefully there is no more of unnecessary crap like his useless friends taking over, Werehogs, and so on. Then again, I'm still skeptical Sega and Sonic Team will mess this up knowing their recent track record with Sonic, but its a step in the right direction with Sonic 4 being episodic and downloadable. I'm also predicting once all the episodes are downloadable, Sega will bundle them in a disc for those that prefer their releases on a physical form than digitally soon. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is expected to come out later this year and I would buy it in a heartbeat to still support the notion that old-school is still cool in the new decade.

Next up is obviously some Street Fighter IV stuff as Sonic Hurricane released another amazing combo video featuring Abel. Take note of his "infinite" at the end of the video, which is just crazy stuff. Totally not realistic in a tournament situation, but his "infinite" seems useful if the execution is on point.

We now move on to the dancing portion of this post as ABDC season 5 is off and running (another one tonight and I'm not doing recaps) as I will showcase past crews still doing amazing things for the world to see. Above is the latest episode of So Real Cru TV as the ladies do their thing and below is one of the sickest dance routines I have seen in a while with ANBU Black Ops (Kaba Modern's Mike Song is behind this as well as some members from Kaba and Quest Crew) totally killed this themed piece from beginning to end. The song selection is awesome (Shots, Mortal Kombat Theme, and the Naruto Theme = what?) and various dance sequences from the popping, tutting, and breaking are just insane. Every time I watch this video, I am at a loss of words at times of all the awesomeness.

That's it for now... more later.

A UStream Experiment...

Today I got myself a new phone, aka the Droid and I have messing around with it throughout the day. Turns out the UStream app was also for Android phones than just iPhones as I thought, so I decided to turn it on and see what happens. For this first clip, I decided to stream some random Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 action, but different things are expected to come out of "The Life & Times of G Unit Ver1." I think the experiment sort of worked and we'll see what happens in the future.

The Legend of Zelda... A Retrospective on the NES one.

Some random day last weekend, I had some Wii Points left over and even though I rather save for upcoming Virtual Console or WiiWare games like Mega Man 10, I decided to buy a classic I should of bought a long time ago, which is the first Legend of Zelda game on the NES. I'll be honest, I've never beaten it till tonight and running through that game for the first time felt as satisfying as the 3D Zelda games I beaten (Ocarina of Time and Twlight Princess). Now of course, any 2D Zelda game past or present has been a little more harder than the 3D ones due to precision and how much damage you would take from enemies, but going through the first game, I have seen all the foundations it established for the rest of the franchise to be what it is today. I also tried to play this game with limited help from the interwebs for videos as I wanted to feel like the 80s playing it, but I couldn't resist when I was stuck or something isn't right like not being prepared equipment wise for a certain dungeon. With the first game, I have experienced the frustrations like players would feel back in the day from getting lost in the overworld wandering what to do next, dying too much (50 times for me till I killed Ganon at the end), and lots of backtracking.

I went into this game knowing what I seen from previous speed runs and go from there. The first Zelda did something games today rarely do, which you are thrown into this world and beat the game. The sense of exploration was there finding secrets, being surprised of how much damage you take in a single hit (pending if you don't have the blue ring or even the red ring at the end of the game), and so on. Early on, you can not as reckless as you can be with limited health and even with as many heart containers because the difficult enemies will take out if you go in the various dungeons guns blazing. This is especially the case later on against rooms filled with Darknuts or Wizrobes, as you feel like you actually approach them with a gameplan in mind and timing your attacks. Even with lots of heart containers, you still like you're not safe from everything, you're some badass with all these weapons mowing everyone away compared to the 3D games. Maybe that's the classic philosophy behind old school and new school where later Zelda games, you rarely feel like you are in trouble unlike Zelda 1. It is some trial and error effect that works, well for me, in a classic game like this.

I also did approached Zelda 1 in a completionist mindset trying to do everything the game offers, such as get every weapon, have the max health, explore every dungeon room (this was the case with the final dungeon), and so on. From what I seen, the formula didn't really establish itself until A Link To The Past (which I also have on my Wii via the Virtual Console but haven't finished that one yet) as the items you get within a certain dungeon, you don't use them to defeat that boss (Ganon being the exception with Silver Arrow). Most of the bosses can be taken out with just the sword and bombs for certain ones. I never realized how valuable the bombs in this game compared to modern Zelda games opening more doors in dungeons, taking out multiple enemies at once, and opening hidden areas in the overworld. These days with Zelda games, the usage of bombs have been limited to doing the same thing, but it is not as powerful than it should be. Your sword is still your bread and butter (with long distance powers at full health) in every situation and I often used the boomerang a lot too in this game compared to the bow/arrows since it required Rupees to use.

For the start of a legendary franchise that influenced all of gaming, being Game Informer's best game of all-time, and a phenomenon in the late 80s when the NES was the hotness, The Legend of Zelda definitely established the foundations and standards for games then and even today. Now that I finally experienced this landmark game from beginning to end, I have realized how this game was amazing at the time. The sense of adventure was definitely something ahead of its time then and pushed players to explore the world taking chances on what they see. We'll see if I decide to play the harder second quest or even finish A Link to the Past, but playing through Zelda 1 was definitely one of those times I feel like killing time to do something. This ain't a review of Zelda, but for something I have missed for quite a while, it is a good thing I got around to doing it. (The videos up in this post is not me playing, but a speed run by one of the best Zelda players around in the Speed Demos Archive community).

Music Roundup for January 2010...

With January coming to a close, I might as well try to remember how the month went by for me in terms of music.

I'll start off with my favorite song right now, which is "Hey Daddy" (Daddy's Home) by Usher as the video went up this morning on MTV. Even though most of his new album, Raymond vs. Raymond, has been apparently leaked, it is about time Usher put up an official music video for one of his songs. This is your typical Usher right here doing his thing and that's fine by me because I'm still eagerly waiting for the official album to come out since his last one was somewhat of a disappointment.

I have also been in a Sade mood lately with her new album out in a couple weeks. She has been on the comeback trail with "Soldier of Love" and its an awesome song. It is just nice and relaxing to hear some true soul music every now and then. I'm just hoping the album will deliver.

Lastly, I'll probably get hate for this for putting it up, but this month has been the rise of Ke$ha for her hit song "Tik Tok." I gotta admit, this is another of those one hit wonders every radio station plays and gets the club rolling. Yeah, people are sick of hearing of this nonsense, but hey we have to deal with it. This was definitely a song going crazy when I was at Vegas earlier this month in the clubs. I guess everybody will be trying to wake up feeling like P. Diddy now.

There's so much more I can cover for this month's music roundup, but I'll leave it for now. Since I update my top 10 songs I have been blasting on a daily basis, just check out that for more of your music needs.

Japanese Randomness with Roided Up Dudes... The Muscle March Review

Every now and then, there will be some random game that comes from the wonderful land of Japan and then it eventually comes out in America for some odd reason. No matter how random it is especially knowing how absurd it is, anyone will get a kick out of it whether for the good or the bad. This is the case with Muscle March, a WiiWare title that came out at Japan sometime last year and somehow got a stateside release thanks to the fine folks of Namco Bandai. In case you're wandering what in the world Muscle March is, it is surprisingly self-explanatory. Except the Japanese twist is that you are playing as roided up men in their underwear marching along to take down a thief that stole some random thing. It is as absurd as it may seem to be and probably better explained in a video rather than text, but Muscle March is meant to be played as an off the wall experience. For five dollars or 500 Wii Points, you get your money's worth out of it for something truly bizarre that will make your mind blow up of some sort.

As a game, Muscle March does not offer much as it is meant to be played as a pick up and play type of a deal. There's the standard single player modes of three stages offering three levels each and then there's the multiplayer that is an endless run with up to four players. Once you start, you can clearly tell that this game is meant to be played with a Wiimote and Nunchuk as the controls are simple to understand. It is almost like you are playing a game of "hole in the wall" while marching trying to match the leader's muscular poses (hence the title of the game) by tilting the Wiimote and Hunchuk in various ways. While the game lets you just tilt the Wiimote or Nunchuk up or down to correspond with the poses, you almost feel tempted to just flex like the actual poses the leader gives out, which makes it also bizarre. The character lineup is a collection of roided up men in their underwear from various countries with one exception being a polar bear, which is also crazy. Once you are following along to the leader's poses, you have a stamina meter of five hearts in which every mistake costs you a heart and losing them all in a stage allows the option to continue from that same level you lost. At least, a normal level will start out slow and steady, but once the other members mess up by slipping into banana peels, then it goes fast and frantic testing your reaction skills. These reaction skills will make or break your success in Muscle March and at times, the controls will feel unresponsive making it frustrating especially at the end of the third level where the Mech Muscle tries to trick you into following a certain pose. Once close enough, you have to shake the Wiimote/Nunchuk repeatedly to tackle the leader down and beat the level. After beating the last level of a stage, whether in the city, village, or a space station, you get ranked on your performance, which does not do much other than bragging rights. Gameplay wise, that is Muscle March in a nutshell as it is a simple concept, but can get pretty old pretty fast in long stretches and also frustrating at times when the controls just fail when needed.

Graphically, Muscle March looks as it is intended to be and nothing else. The three stages are diverse enough as environments for the marching to take place while the core gameplay remains intact. The character roster consists of your average everyday roided up stereotype from the country they live even though a polar bear that marches along and flexing seems too crazy for a normal person to grasp. Basically, the graphics are what you expect out of Japan and that is fine for a game like this. As for the sound, the same thing can be said for a game coming from Japan. The music consists of your generic J-pop, but the song goes along to the marching and once you're left alone with the leader, the song speeds up into something else. For the presentation alone, Muscle March does indeed look like you are playing something from Japan.

With all the absurdity and randomness, is Muscle March still worth your time and money? I would still say yes as it is always nice to see random Japanese games make way to the United States with no problem at all even though the content and premise alone may offend some. It is a decent pick up and play game for a few minutes at the right price and also something weird to show to friends about the wonderful world of Japan. Sure as a game, Muscle March could of have been better if more stages are in and the controls feel more responsive eliminating the frustration, but it is better as an experience seeing a twist of hole in the wall with buff stereotypical men. Even though WiiWare has been mostly full of shovelware, Muscle March is one of those games that makes the service unique compared to Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. I can even imagine this game with Project Natal support on the Xbox 360 with full body motion of the flexing poses, but I can see why this game is meant to be on the Wii than the other two. It is as Japanese as it gets and if you're in for a cheap fix of random hilarity, then Muscle March is worth checking out.

Score = 7/10

Pros:

• Great price for the content offered - Wouldn't buy if more expensive
• Fun as a pick up and play game for a few minutes if you want to play something quick
• As random and bizarre as it is intended to be especially it coming from Japan
• A great experience if you're into the Japanese lifestyle as it is not frequent a game like this would come out outside of Japan.

Cons:

• Controls can fail at times when needed making some parts frustrating
• Lack of modes (only two significant ones)
• May be too absurd and bizarre for some

LA Riots II Megapost!!!

Yesterday, I was at the heart of Los Angeles for Gootecks's LA Riots II tournament, which took place in thestream.tv studios. At first, I was like where is this place even with directions. Turns out, it is in fact a small studio in a small building, but enough for everything to go down. I happen to part of a small audience getting hype along with thestream.tv staff and the players, which was pretty cool realizing how they make their shows such as Coin-Op TV and GTFO.tv happen. If you saw the stream at around 2 pm yesterday, Gootecks and John Rog (the host master of West Coast Warzone and now its sequel on April 2-4) provided commentary to the matches as well as "the people's champ" Mike Ross with other insights and Cami making sure the stream works smoothly. As for Street Fighter IV, this tournament was an invitational of eight of the best players in SoCal with Combofiend (winner of the 1st LA Riots), Keno, Kai, and the pad warrior Shizza making return appearances along with Alex Valle, Ken I, Yeb, and the 15 year old phenom Jayce the Ace locking their appearance from the Hooters Bar Fights tournament.

The brackets were set up nicely with great matches all around as Combofiend and Jayce the Ace faced off first. In case you forgot who Jayce the Ace is (pictured above), he made a big splash at the Hooters Bar Fights tournament making top 8 playing as C. Viper. If he didn't impress you then, he would of impressed you now taking more of SoCal's finest to the limit, but he went 2 & out losing to Combofiend and Ken I. It was a great showing by him regardless and he has what it takes to be an elite player at such a young age. Also highlighted in this tournament was the Chun-Li pad warrior Shizza stepping up finishing 2nd by taking out Combofiend to losers and beating Ken I twice (picture below of Shizza rocking an orange shirt along with Ken I's trademark orange sweatshirt as if it was on purpose). It goes to show pad warriors can be successful in Street Fighter IV and there are plenty of others out there that are pretty good. Ken I made a better showing as well than the first time by actually sticking to his main Rufus the whole way (exception being that he used Honda for one game against Shizza as if he is trying to prove Mike Ross that Honda is legit since Mike's main is Honda and he always gives him a bad rap even though he still wins with him).

The other player that went 2 & out in this tournament was Yeb, the Gen master from San Diego, as he lost to Keno and then Kai, who had another strong performance as well. Kai's El Fuerte was on point against Yeb and Combofiend, who he got revenge after losing to him last time in the match of the tournament (clip of that above). As the guy who is known for "hating Street Fighter IV," Kai's Fuerte is definitely a beast as the internet probably exploded with when he wake-up ultra-ed to peace out Combofiend. At the end of the day, it was Alex Valle taking another win defeating Shizza. Of course it was no easy ride for Alex, the SoCal Street Fighter legend, for victory beating Kai, Keno, and Shizza twice.

Seeing LA Riots II in person rather than online was a way better experience being a part of the small audience. Now I realized the hard work it takes to put together such events like these especially in a legit studio (congrats again to Gootecks, Cami, and thestream.tv staff for a great job!). It seemed very professional how things turned out in the end compared to other streams I have seen. Upcoming events were hyped up as well from the mysterious "Project Blocks" that will change your life next month, MarkMan showing off the new Super Street Fighter IV TE sticks (which I finally touched one in person and it looks better), and West Coast Warzone 2 hosted by John Rog in the Long Beach Mariott on April 2-4 (just after my birthday!). As always, it is great to hang out with the community as it just good times and laughs throughout. Most of the players were on double duty that day competing in LA Riots II and the House of Cicada 3v3 tournament last night (or this morning lol) at Moreno Valley with Mike Ross, Keno, and Combofiend winning that one with the team name "Always Bet on Black." (GS to them) Anyway, it was a fun afternoon at Los Angeles, which I'm rarely around that area these days, and I can't wait for more Street Fighter IV events in the upcoming months. It has been a great start for the year for that game and with Super in a matter of months, the hype can go only up from here.

Photos by Get Your Tournament's Kelly Bracha (Shout outs to the GYT staff that was there too providing additional coverage: Glenn, Kelly, and AJ "PotatoHead")

Get Your Tournament's recap here.

Link to the rest of the pics is here.

Coin-Op TV's recap here.

Download the whole event here.