I don’t have a mic like Phil does, but I was able to get my desktop to stream at an acceptable rate. Head over to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shamoozal-radio-podcast-tv to log in and chat!
Its over. Thanks to everyone who came out and jammed along with me!
Sometime over the summer I bought a VGA adpater for the Dreamcast to use with my HDTV in order to get the best picture out of the machine. I set it up but the picture was only being displayed in a tiny box, and I wasn’t getting any sound out of it because I needed a seperate wire for audio. I was a little dissapointed and for some reason never spent any time really trying to get it to work.
Last night I decided to give it another shot, and I managed to get everything working perfectly. All I had to do was hit a button on the remote in order to zoom the picture in, and I realized I had an extra PC speaker wire that I was actually about to throw out. After rummaging through the garbage to find the wire that I thought I’d never need, I set it all up and Jet Set Radio was never looking better.
I played a few minutes of Jet Set, which I still find to be the superior game when compared to its Xbox remake, and had a blast. After that I decided to throw in Capcom VS SNK. If this isn’t just about the coolest fighting game ever made then I don’t know what is. There is just something so awesome about the mix between Capcom and SNK’s character roster, the way Capcom simplfied Street Fighter’s normal 6 buttons down to King of Fighters 4 buttons, seeing how each of the two companies artists handle the character artwork from both games, the ratio system is still cool, and god damn the music still kicks ass. There are also plenty of nice touches on the menu screens and over all presentation that really showed this was much more than a way for the two companies to make a quick buck, but an absolute love of what they were crafting. I know for many people Soul Calibur is what defined the Dreamcast, but for me personally, it’ll always be Capcom VS Snk (followed up by Jet Set of course).
I Am Legend – after a virus wipes out the population of New York City, turning them into mutant vampires, Will Smith finds himself as the only human left in hopes to find a cure. He roams the city by day, and hides at home at night, trying new things to help cure the disease.
Atonement – a 13 year old girl changes people’s lives when she falsely accuses her older sister’s man of a crime he did not commit because she is jealous of their love. The older sister is Keira Knightley and the man is James McAvoy. Once the girl becomes older, she regrets her choices.
Love In The Time Of Cholera – a young man (Javier Bardem) is rejected by the love of his life (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) so he devotes the rest of his life to desperate attempts to win the woman over while partaking in many meaningless affairs.
Well here it is, lucky #13. This one kind of speaks for itself, so I wont spend a ton of time trying to sell you on it. That would be insensitive.
Its been a pretty nonstop weekend as far as production on the new short is concerned. I think I worked like 20 hours on it in the past two days, and Phil’s been crank’n away on his end. Last night, Phil did a little impromptu UStream of his desktop while he worked. All I know is my eyes are about to fall out of my head, but I have a little left in me before slumber whisks me away for the evening. However, I wanted to drop an update as to where we’re at. I’m willing to say animation production is about 60% there, and the short is starting to take shape. I think its got some nice stuff in there, so it should be worth the wait. Thanks for your patience!
For whatever the reason, Faxanadu is one of those games that sort of stuck with me through time despite absolutely hating it. Back when it was released on the NES circa 1989, the game seemed to make somewhat of a splash among players and was quite popular. If I remember correctly, the game graced the cover of Nintendo Power magazine (considering it was published by NOA, it makes sense) and was even featured in the cartoon Captain N: The Game Master. I remember being rather pumped to play it myself, but was let down by how difficult it turned out to be. I wasn’t just let down by the game, I down right hated it.Fast forward to today. Friday afternoon I took a trip to a local Game store that specializes in classics. I was browsing the NES section when I came across Faxanadu. I looked at it for a moment and decided to buy it. Maybe I was to young when it came out, maybe I just didn’t quite grasp what in the world I was doing. After playing the game for a solid 45 minutes, I can say with certainty that this game has and always will suck.
The game is very similar to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, in that it’s a 2D side scrolling action RPG. You travel towns, get new weapons, learn magic spells, earn “golds” (as they say in the game) and do just about everything you’d expect to in an action RPG. You begin the game with absolutely nothing, not even a sword, just a worthless punch and an equally as worthless jump. In order to do anything, you need to talk to the king and who in turn gives you some golds. You use the golds to buy yourself a sword and key, which you need to pass the first monster, a big jump eye ball. Unlike Zelda II, your hero doesn’t control with the grace that Link does. As mentioned before, his jumps are worthless, and he can’t crouch down and attack, which sucks because most of the early bad guys can only be killed by crouching. Maybe you earn the ability to do that later? I have no idea, I just know I can’t attack half of the bad guys I’m coming across. Thanks to the shit controls, I can’t even attack the stupid jumping eye balls either.
I eventually made my way into what I guess is the games first dungeon. I was told that I needed to kill a dwarf who guarded some item I needed to break down a wall. I slowly climb up the tower and I come to the “dwarf.” Last time I checked, a dwarf didn’t look like a gargoyle. So the dwarf is flying around the room and shooting fire balls from his mouth. I knew he was gonna kick my ass so I stayed in one spot and he kind of worked his way over to me where I was able to get in a cheap shot here and there. I got a little bored and figured I’d jump down and try to attack the dwarf, but I got drilled by one of his fireballs and it took off about half my health. I went back up to the ledge and killed him. Of course the game, being the bitch it is, forces you to exit the tower the way you came. I finally made it out of the tower and I didn’t have much health left. I considered going back into town and getting a password, or just pressing on and seeing what happens. I decided to press on, hoping there might be another town not far away. I end up dying, and when I restarted I was all the way back where I picked up my last password. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off and turned the game off.
Okay, so maybe we lied a little bit about getting out a cartoon and podcast once a month. As you all know, my wife and I bought a house at the end of last year and the last two months were spent preparing, moving and figuring garbage out. Anyway, just wanted to leave you guys with a quick note as to where everything with your favorite site, the Shamoozal, stands.
Shamoozal Radio Podcast #13 will be available soon. It could be as soon as tonight, or as late as tomorrow. Right now Joe is putting the final touches on it and as soon as he wraps up, we’ll be good. As for the next GFGames, Frank and I are basically devoting the weekend to knocking most (if not all) of it out. I wanted to set up a live feed and do a few scenes tomorrow, but I don’t have the resources (a stable internet connection) to do so. Maybe Frank will set something up on his end instead. If I were you, I’d just frequent the site a handful of times tomorrow and maybe you’ll catch something.
Thanks for understanding, and it’s time for Shamoozal to start rollin’ again.
A quarantined country!
A talking elephant finding a new world!
An underground martial arts club!
What could the wonderful world of Hollywood bring us this week? Lets find out.
That chick’s neck just met her doom….sday. Wocka Wocka!
Doomsday – a deadly virus destroys the population of Great Britain. 30 years later a team of specialists, led by Rhona Mitra, is dispatched to one of the quarantined areas of freaks in an effort to develop a cure. Madness Ensues!
Horton looks like he might be hearing some kind of Who.
No Country For Old Men – this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner. A cowboy (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a shitload of money at the scene of a horrific shootout. He takes it for himself and becomes a wanted man. Javier Bardem plays the deranged psycho that has been hired to get the money back. Directed by The Coen Brothers.
Bee Movie – From the mind of Jerry Seinfeld comes the story of Barry, a bee who is a little different than the rest. He doesn’t want to be stuck at the same job his entire life so he ventures out and breaks the #1 Bee Law, Don’t Talk to Humans. He becomes friends with Renee Zellwegger and finds out the humans are stealing honey.
Dan In Real Life – Steve Carell is a single father who is having a little trouble with life. It gets even rougher after he falls for his younger brother’s girlfriend. Then he must spend vacation with his brother (Dane Cook) and the woman he loves (Juliette Binoche) while keeping his feelings a secret.
How can I not write a Nerdlog post about Smash Brothers Brawl? We’ve only been talking about the game on the smorg for years, it’s been brought up in several podcasts, and it was one of my most anticipated games. I’ve spent about 10 hours with Brawl since scoring it early Friday afternoon (thanks Lou) and I figured I’d share a few notes about it thus far.
If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
This is Smash Brothers folks. It’s the same mechanics we’ve seen since the original back on the N64, but that’s what makes the game what it is. Just like how it’s always fun to jump into a round of Street Fighter and throw fireballs with Ryu, it’s just as satisfying being able to jump into Smash Brothers and know that a quick flick up on the stick followed up by holding down the A button will cause my rivals to fly into the sky. Smash Brothers is still the greatest fighting game ever created, and a few classic Brawls will remind people why.
There is so much shit in this game.
Seriously, if this isn’t the most rewarding game there ever was, than I don’t know what is. Each time you play the game you’re guaranteed to find new trophies, stickers, music, characters, stages, classic game demos and so on and so forth. When you’re not finding all these goodies in the main game, you can spend your hard earned loot on a fun shooting mini-game where you can earn even more treats to add to your virtual collection. On top of this, there is even a huge wall of achievements littered with tiny hints as to what you need to do in order to capture the prize. It’s mind blowing, and players who get wrapped up will spend hours just looking through everything.