11/30/2008 - I'm a YouTube Junkie

Here's a recommendation/request from a fellow YouTube addict who has put the whole obsession into song. Having it be in a country/blues motif may seem like an odd choice, but it works. Actually, my YouTube addiction has somewhat subsided as gaming has taken over my life once again, but I still cruise the Popular Videos section for videos for me to blog about. But I do take suggestions, too! So e-mail or message me through YouTube or this blog.

11/29/2008 - SSF2THDR ROUND 1 Trailer

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix finally arrived on Tuesday and it was worth the wait! I'll give my review of the game in a later blog post, but I wanted to highlight the trailer Capcom released just prior to the game's release. As we all know, Capcom enlisted the artists at Udon to redraw the sprites and backgrounds of the game in the style of their popular anime-inspired comic book series. That art is on full display in this trailer, and as a fan of the anime movie, I can say that it is gorgeous. But we knew that would be the case with this HD version of SF2. Besides showing off the gameplay in a well-choreographed tournament style presentation, Capcom did something very special in this trailer that would prompt me to write this blog entry about it.

Yes, that would be the music in the trailer. The use of "You're the Best Around" by Joe Esposito is truly inspired. Before I knew of it's actual history from the Karate Kid movie, I heard it in a ScrewAttack Top 10 video that played it as a tribute to their fans who submitted their favorite video gaming music. Whoever made that video is probably a fan of cheesy 80's music and this song in particular is really cheesy, but really good! It wasn't until I found my King of Kong DVD that I learned that they had included the song in the classic gaming documentary as well. In fact, this is where ScrewAttack probably got the idea to feature the song, as it was included in the King of Kong soundtrack. So would this cheesy 80's song be some kind of anthem for classic videogames?

The answer would be cemented in this trailer for SSF2THDR. When I first heard it in the trailer, I said "No Way", and then I laughed with glee. I'm not sure if Capcom themselves knew of the links to videogaming this song has recently had, or if they just wanted to feature a retro song from a movie about martial arts, but everything just works in context. So much so that I had to download the MP3 to this song and am seriously considering renting the Karate Kid movie even though it looks so bad. I just have to say that Capcom "is the best arooouuuund!"

11/27/2008 - SMule: Ocarina for iPhone

One of the annoying things about owning an iPod Touch instead of an iPhone is that I can't use any of the applications that require a microphone for input. For example, the latest version of the Google application uses voice recognition to decipher what you are searching for but just speaking your query. Also, I would love to try out those apps that recognize any song you're feeding into the microphone. But this app might just trump them all.

The ocarina may not be the most popular wind instrument in the world, but it has gained fame amongst gamers for being the title instrument in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the game, Link uses the Ocarina to cast spells that range from teleportation to changing the weather to time travel. As the game exploded in popularity, so did the ocarina. I remember them selling ocarinas within the pages of Nintendo Power.

It took some real ingenuity to design an application for the iPhone that mimics the functionality of the ocarina. This can only be done because the microphone can pick up sounds such as blowing, and because the screen is multitouch. Of course if you are going to demonstrate an ocarina application, you must play a Legend of Zelda song:

11/26/2008 - Resident Evil 4 - Playing As Link

What happens when you combine two of the most successful games on the GameCube (Resident Evil 4 and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)? You have Link wielding a gun:

11/24/2008 - Gears of War 2 Executions Montage

After Mortal Kombat, I didn't think that video games could get more violent. Boy was I wrong. With high-definition graphics in all the new games, blood splatter would of course get a lot more realistic than the now cartoony gore found in the 2-D Mortal Kombat games. Perhaps no game is a better example of this than Gears of War and its sequel on the XBox 360. When you have a chainsaw attached to your gun, you know you're in for some alien blood letting -- and lots of it! There are videos of Mortal Kombat fatalities, so there has to be a video of a montage of executions from Gears of War 2:



Watch in high quality for the full effect!

11/22/2008 - Mario vs. Air Man

Having a working Super Mario Bros./Mega Man 2 mashup is impressive enough, but there are a couple of things that makes this one so impressive. First, the play mechanics did not change from Super Mario Bros. The programmers could have easily just put a Mario sprite in place of Mega Man and people wouldn't think the less of them. But Mario is all about stomping, and unless you have the Fire Flower, that's the only way to kill the enemies; thus making this game particularly difficult compared to a Mega Man game where you have an arm cannon. But what tickles my fancy about this video is that it has an 8-bit rendition of the song from one of my previous Mega Man favorite videos (http://youtubeaddict.blogspot.com/2007/07/7152007.html), the one where Air Man is supposedly impossible to beat. I hope the programmers continue to make more levels, or maybe even other mashups.

11/20/2008 - Spittin' Narcissism

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is finally coming out next week and I couldn't be more excited. No, seriously, I have been looking forward to this for over a year now and it was my primary reason for getting a Playstation 3. To celebrate, we have a music video staring Street Fighter's most conceited fighter, Vega (or Balrog in Japan). The sprite animation in this video is simply amazing, and the music isn't half bad either. This should herald a new genre of music: Street Fighter Rap!

11/17/2008 - Take On Me: Literal Video Version

I think I've made my point before about MTV never showing any music videos so I won't belabor the point again (although they did recently cancel Total Request Live, just to add insult to injury). I'm not sure there is a point to having music videos anyway, except to showcase how telegenic the singer is (which SHOULDN'T matter in terms of musical quality). It's not like the lyrics of the song matches exactly with what is shown in the video. For example, here is the video for the popular 80's song "Take on Me". It sounds the same as the original, but the lyrics have been changed so that it actually tells what is happening in the video. Like I said, it is an exercise in silliness:

11/16/2008 - Stan Lee Cameos (updated)

Two more Marvel movies in the summer, two more Stan Lee cameos! I'm talking about the ones in Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, of course. Stan's cameos are getting better every time and I hope he continues to do them for the sequels and for the upcoming Captain America, Thor, and Avengers movies!

11/13/2008 - Apple Macbook Sucks

When Apple announced the new aluminum MacBooks, I thought for sure I would get them. My previous laptop was the titanium 13" PowerBook and it would seem that the new Macbook is its spiritual successor. I was looking forward to the new LED screens, new trackpad, and faster graphics. Then came the sticker shock. $1300 for a laptop? I know there's the traditional "Apple tax" that pays for the luxury of using a stable and elegant operating system, but I'm not sure that argument holds water, especially in today's economy.

Then there's the new Display Port. The new display adapters that you can only get from Apple would cost $30 instead of $20 or less than the display adapters for the Mini-DVI ports of the previous generation MacBook. Also, there is no Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters yet. So to connect the aluminum MacBook to my TVs, I would need to buy two different adapters that total $60 instead of a single Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter for $20. $40 may not seem like much when compared to the cost of the computer, but that can be 8 lunches.

Then there was the last straw. No FireWire. FireWire is an interface that Apple pioneered and promoted, but when USB 2.0 became the standard for PCs, Apple all but gave up hope on FireWire. I should have realized when they switched the interface for iPods from FireWire to USB that they would eventually do the same with their computers. But I was a chump, and I bought a FireWire drive as my backup drive. To me, FireWire is the better technology in that it carries enough power to the device so that I don't need to plug in an extra AC adapter for the portable hard drive. Also, the Migration Assistant works so much faster between two computers with a FireWire cable.

So after evaluating all of this, I went ahead and bought the last generation MacBook. I saved over $300, migrated from my old PowerBook in under 2 hours, and am hooked into both my HDTVs. Although I have some regrets (this MacBook's trackpad kinda blows), I'm happy that I took the time to consider everything before the purchase. I could have easily ended up like this guy:

11/11/2008 - The Incredible Hulk: Alternate Opening (With Captain America)

Being the Incredible Hulk fan that I am, it's no surprise that I got the Blu-Ray on the release day, and I was not disappointed. Over 40 minutes of deleted scenes? That's like a whole new movie right there. There were rumors of the many cuts Marvel made to the movie to make it more fast-paced, and that these cut scenes were largely the creative contribution made by star Edward Norton. All I can say is I can see why Norton was reportedly displeased with the editing decisions made because most of these cut scenes were gold. I especially liked the stuff with Doc Samson... those scenes could have come from Peter David himself (my favorite Incredible Hulk comic writer).

If you had paid attention to all the trailers, you see that there was supposed to be a scene in the arctic. However, in the theatrical release, no such scene was shown. Everybody who read the novelization of the movie can attest that this was supposed to be the opening of the movie, where Bruce Banner goes to the desolate arctic to kill himself, only to be stopped by the Hulk. Now, I can understand why studio execs would be nervous by a scene where the main character tries to commit suicide, and looking at the movie as a whole, I find it would have been difficult to fit it in. As it stands, the theatrical opening works better.

However, with all the production that went into it, such a scene would not be lost forever and they included it on the DVD and Blu-Ray. What else is fascinating about this alternate opening is that there was a rumor of a cameo of Captain America, another Marvel superhero who would be the leader of the Avengers. For those who don't know the story about Captain America, you just need to know that he was a soldier in World War II who was given superhuman ability with a "Super Soldier" serum and was thought to have perished at the end of the war. In reality, he was frozen in the icy waters but still alive in a state of suspended animation.

The Incredible Hulk already had the cameo of Iron Man's Tony Stark in the movie, a reference to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Super Soldier serum that created Captain America. In this alternate opening, though, you'll actually see the frozen body of Captain America himself... if you look carefully. It's a "blink and you miss it" moment, but it really brings everything together in preparation for that Avengers movie.

11/9/2008 - Bacon Salt recent press montage

I just realized that one of the great things about having a blog is that I can promote products that I really like and sort of advertise these products to an audience that may not be aware of them. Such is the case with Bacon Salt. I heard about Bacon Salt through an "As Seen on TV" news segment even though it doesn't have its own infomercial.

Bacon Salt is exactly what it sounds like: it's a seasoning that tastes like bacon. Bacon is probably universally liked by everyone, including myself. The concept of Bacon Salt is that it makes things taste like bacon... brilliant, no? Well, it was so appealing to me that I made it a mission to try to find it in stores. In Tucson, Arizona it's not an easy thing to find these niche items, but I was able to find it after a few tries. So I gave it a try and I really, really like it! I've been putting it on everything to hamburgers (why pay more for bacon?), corn, popcorn, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It doesn't taste EXACTLY like bacon, but it's really close and it's pretty darned good.

Even though I think this product will take off and eventually be found in every store's spice isle, I'm not taking anything to chance and will do my part to promote it on this blog. Here's a montage of press segments about Bacon Salt:

11/8/2008 - Gameshow Fail

One of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures on TV is probably MXC or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, the American translation of the Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle. It's one of those "extreme" gameshows where contestants traverse ridiculous obstacle courses and usually fail by falling in muddy water. It's popularity on the Spike TV cable channel was probably not lost on the ABC network, so they created the show Wipeout. The shows are very similar, down to the choice of contestants who weren't picked for their ability for critical thinking. This is probably best illustrated by the following clip:

11/6/2008 - Fastest text message

Anyone who has an old style cell phone without a full keyboard knows how much of a pain it is to type out a message. Granted, the iPhone's virtual keyboard isn't a peach either, but if you can get used to it, you'll be light years ahead of having to press the 7 key four times to get the letter "S". And yet, the expert old-fashioned texter in this next video could probably beat me even if I used an iPhone:

11/5/2008 - Spider-Man Web of Shadows-Launch Trailer

Have you ever watched an awesome movie trailer, only to be disappointed with the actual movie? I'm sure we all have. Apparently, the same phenomenon applies to videogame trailers as well. Check out this trailer for Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, for example:



It is really one of the best videogame trailers I have ever seen, and would definitely be my pick for Trailer of the Year. The Beethoven music really fits and gives it a whole new level of epicness. The premise of a Venom symbiote infected city seems really interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that as a future storyline in the comic book.

From all the reviews, however, it sounds like the game is on the mediocre side. Which is really a disappointment to me because I was looking forward to at least renting it.

11/2/2008 - Slide Fail

This next video really boggles my mind. I know what it looks like, and I think I know what the maker of the slide was thinking. What I don't know is why the park officials would approve it on their land. What I also don't know is why the kids seem to be having so much fun in it. It's like they're living their pre-embryonic stage or something:

11/1/2008 - Mega Man 9 Time Attack (2 Videos)

One of my favorite features of Mega Man 9 is the Time Attack mode. I wish they could build this feature into every Mega Man game re-released for the Virtual Console or on a compilation disc. Mega Man games are famous for inspiring speed-runs of the game: completing the game in the shortest amount of time possible. While some people are content on just finishing a game, speed-runners are in a class of their own and are in constant competition against themselves. For example, not too long ago, Andrew Gardikis submitted a 5-minute time for completing the original Super Mario Bros. If you watch the video of the run, it looks impossible to go any faster, and yet I'm sure speed-runners are trying everyday to beat that time.

But what is brilliant about the Time Attack mode in Mega Man 9 is that is officially posts your completion time to Capcom's servers so that you can compare your time against others in the Leaderboard. You no longer have to tape yourself playing and submitting that to the Speed Demos Archive site, and unless there are glitches (I haven't heard of any), it's considered legit. It's pretty intense not just to compete against others, but yourself as you try to improve your own time. I am quite proud to be on the front page of Leaderboard for Dr. Wily Stage 1, but I'm constantly trying to improve my time.

What's also great about the Time Attack Mode is that it encourages others to become speed-runners and you can see a lot of speed-runs posted on YouTube. These videos show the techniques you can use to improve your own time and are awesome displays of skill from the most hardcore of gamers. For example, the last and hardest stage of the game (if you have no E-Tanks) is so difficult that there are only a few pages of the Leaderboard. The gamer in these videos taped himself so that he could watch his own performance to see what he could do better and to compare against past speed-runs. It's really cool to see two speed-runs side by side and even though the differences are small, they make a big difference when every second counts. Beware hardcore gamer language, however: