WII U!!!

OK, quick updates: I am currently working on a couple of videos (one of which is uploading as we speak) and I realized I haven't updated my blog either.

My sister has recently taken up archery, and it's been decided that she needs a Link outfit to wear when using her bow. Basically, this, sans violin:

(Yes, that's Lindsey Stirling. She made THIS.)

In other game related news, I finally got to play some Wii U stuffs. And it has replaced the PlayStation 4 as "New Gaming Console I Want Most" (this is a real thing, I'm sure of it). My brother picked it up earlier in the week. He told me that he found one on sale with New Super Mario Bros. Wii U and New Super Luigi U, and how he nearly had to be pried out of the store with a crowbar. I immediately ordered him to return to the store and buy it at once, FOR GREAT JUSTICE. After much arm-twisting (read: NONE AT ALL), he did exactly that, and for less than the price of a PS4, he got the deluxe Wii U (32 GB memory) and 6 games (yes, he added a few on). He then declared that he and his girlfriend would bring it over that week,because GREAT JUSTICE.

And it was a blast. We played some Nintendo Land, which is a collection of fun minigames. One which involved using the tablet to control 2 characters at once. That was pretty interesting.

Following that with Mario Kart 8, we began a romp through the game's various tracks, old and new. Mario Kart never seems to get old. He managed to win most of the races. I came away with one victory, in Dry Dry Desert from the GameCube version, which is not only one of my best tracks, but one of his worst. We had a really good replay after one race, but alas, we neglected to set up the wifi and were unable to save it for posterity. Basically, he finished the race by ramping off another vehicle.

It was then on to the game with the overly long name,New Super Mario Bros. Wii U. Which could probably be called Super Mario Bros. 3 3. Or 4, I'm not sure which. Anyway, in an odd twist, I (the older brother) played younger brother Luigi while he played Mario. His girlfriend took the tablet to manipulate the level (YES, THIS IS AN AWESOME FEATURE). While there were times we seemed really in sync, alas, we did run into some trouble and hilarity ensued. If only there were more time in the day. Then we could punch more airships (apparently you can destroy airships by punching them a lot. Get the game, you'll see what I mean).

Magic Humor

Just thought for a change I'd talk about something that's not video games. One of my other hobbies is Magic: The Gathering, the original collectible card game. For those not in the know, you play a planeswalker, a wizard with untold magical power, able to traverse the planes of the multiverse at will. You accomplish this by throwing all of your money away on booster packs building a deck of spells, drawing from 5 colors of mana, as well as powerful artifacts and allies in the form of other planeswalkers.

The five colors are red, black, blue, green and white. Each represents different aspects of nature, the elements, humanity, etc. I won't get into the details here, as that would potentially fill up a separate blog post. I instead direct you here if you aren't familiar with the details. My favorite colors are red and black. My brother's favorites are red and blue, because ADHD. Anyway, we were discussing a scenario a while back, about what planeswalkers representing each two-color combination would do (familiarize yourself with the original Ravnica cycle, it helps).

The planeswalkers have, for various reasons (which would probably take too long to figure out) gathered at this small village on some backwater world. A Great Wurm is rampaging its way straight at the village. Here's the breakdown of how each of these folks handle it:

The Red/Green planeswalker has already gone charging after the Wurm the instant he heard about it, because planning shmanning.

The Red/White planeswalker has starting rallying the townsfolk into a militia, so they they can all charge forward without a plan as a team.

The Black/White planeswalker is hustling townsfolk for "protection money", lest something unfortunate happen to them and their families. He may decide to help or, more likely, he'll bail with the cash.

The White/Green planeswalker has set forth to try and make friends with the Wurm.

The Blue/Black planeswalker is currently working out how he can use the current situation to his advantage, perhaps to take over the village in the ensuing chaos.

The Blue/White planeswalker is trying to gather the remaining planeswalkers and townsfolk to try and draft a preliminary pre-defense strategy, then try to iron out the details for a finalized pre-defense strategy. Followed by taking a vote on how to organize a cohesive defense strategy when the Wurm arrives...

The Red/Black planeswalker starts destroying the town because THE VILLAGE IS DOOMED ANYWAY AND WHY SHOULD THE WURM HAVE ALL THE FUN?!?!

The Blue/Red planeswalker suggest that we use our powers to  MOVE THE VILLAGE approximately 1.6 miles away to that plateau over there, then we construct a DECOY VILLAGE where the old village once was, so the Wurm destroys that instead, and we need to come up with a distraction to keep it busy in case we might need more time, and DID SOMEONE SAY WAFFLES? I LOVE WAFFLES!

The Blue/Green planeswalker is probably responsible for creating the Wurm in the first place.

And finally, the Black/Green planeswalker is planning to help in the defense, in hopes that the Wurm will be vanquished. That way, he can raise it once more and use it for his own ends.

There was also a scenario involving a banana shortage, but I forgot how that one shook out. I'll save that for another day.

Pokeupdates

So looks like I'll try to make some progress in HeartGold today.

I have yet to get to the first gym, but I need to level my Pokemon a little bit more first. Last time I took underpowered Pokemon to the first gym it literally came down to the last hit. Thank Goodness Snivy didn't fail that.

On the plus side, I will be getting an upgrade soon. As my Fathers' Day/Birthday gift, my wife ordered the red 2DS with Pokemon X (pre-installed so no cartridge from the sound of it). HeartGold and Pearl will probably be shelved for a bit as I will be distracted by shiny new toy with shiny new Pokemon game with shiny new graphics. Yes, Fennekin will be my choice as my starter Pokemon, though I have a friend who also has the game, so I can ship Froakie and Chespin to her, therefore I can have all three starters like I did with HeartGold (though without the bonus Charmander I acquired). I'll have to get a Charmander at some point though, just because of the sheer awesome that is Mega Charizard X. You do get an opportunity to acquire the Generation I starters, but I will be choosing Squirtle, because Blastoise. Then the next trick will be getting Turtwig in there (because Torterra).

While technically the first Pokemon I ever acquired was Charmander, the poor guy was quickly abandoned when I starter over with Squirtle when I discovered the first gym consisted of Rock/Ground types. You got lulled into a false sense of security on the way, as you take on a lot of Bug Pokemon on the way, and Charmander dominates them. But he's not much good against Brock's Geodude and Onix. Not helped by the Nintendo Power hints suggesting Pikachu (because Electric attacks work normally on Rock types, but they apparently used a different version where Onix and Geodude were strictly Rock types and not Rock/Ground types, which nullify Electric attacks).

I love Fire types, though, as I also love turtles, Blastoise is my favorite Pokemon followed by Torterra. But I eventually wanted to start with a Fire type. My experience in Red scared me off though, and when I got Silver, I selected Totodile. Then when I got Pearl, I ended up taking Turtwig, because turtle. I did select Cyndaquil in HeartGold finally, and now I am planning on Fennekin in X (who evolves eventually into Delphox, a dual type Fire/Psychic, not Fire/Fighting, which Pokemon seemed to fall in love with as the Fire type starters in Sapphire/Ruby, Diamond/Pearl AND Black/White all did this. Thanks for finally changing it up).

In a related story I can now populate my wishlist with 3DS games :)

What I'd Like To See In Pokemon

Hey all. In keeping with this blog's unintended Pokemon theme, I thought I'd go over a few things that I'd like to see in a future Pokemon game.

ALL REGIONS

I remember seeing this suggested on Twitter. Basically, we want a Pokemon game with everything from Kanto onward. Now, there may be some memory limitations to this (I don't know how much data a 3DS cartridge can hold) so perhaps this would make for a better Wii U release, though that in itself would create an uproar, as Pokemon games have always been handheld-first.

Bear in mind, every new generation adds more new Pokemon, and currently there are over 700. A new game would likely bring that over 800, and that means dedicating more cartridge memory to the Pokemon roster. After all, we like to be able to keep our old Pokemon too.

Anyhow, what that means is instead of just giving us a game with Kanto-Kalos, there would also have to be an entirely new region as well, complete with all-new Pokemon, so that Nintendo isn't just doing the money-grab thing of "please buy this game that only has every single Pokemon you've already captured before."

So you start out in this new region, grab your starter Pokemon (a brand new Grass, Water or Fire type as usual) and then work your way through the game. I think you'd progress in reverse, i.e. after the new region is completed, you move on to Kalos, followed by Unova, Sinnoh, Hoenn, Johto, and finally Kanto. And each time you enter the next region, you encounter the local Professor Treename Pokemon expert who grants you one of their region's starter Pokemon. Personally, I'd probably grab the new region's Fire type (if I design it, it will be a proper Fire turtle, unlike Torkoal). In Kalos, I'll take Fennekin, Tepig in Unova, Turtwig in Sinnoh, Torchic in Hoenn, Totodile or Cyndaquil in Johto and Squirtle in Kanto. All of the Legendary Pokemon will be available as well. There would be some version exclusives, to the regular wild Pokemon and to the new region's Legendary Pokemon. All old Legendary Pokemon will be available (i.e. Palkia, Dialga and Giratina in Sinnoh, for example).

Eventually you'd work your way back to the new region for the ultimate Pokemon League and showdown with the Ultimate Champion. Who might very well be Red...

NEW TYPE

Ok, I haven't really thought this out, as I've thought more about an All Region Pokemon Game. But since the original 15 in Generation 1, 3 new types have been added (Steel and Dark in Generation 2 and Fairy in Generation 6). So I'd like to see some new type developed for the new region (and without a retcon, like they did with Fairy type. Now Clefairy has a type advantage over Dragons. What.) Fairy type is fairly strong defensively, as it's weaknesses are Poison and Steel, which are generally very weak offensively (Poison is pretty bad overall in my opinion), and is completely immune to Dragon type moves, which are often quite powerful (Spatial Rend. Yesss....). So something that knocks them down a peg would be nice (since Dark types were introduced to balance Psychic and Fairy types were introduced to balance Dragon, and Fairy appears to be fairly powerful on paper at least. I don't have X/Y yet...)

MORE MASTER BALLS

Let's be honest. There's a metric ton of Pokemon in this game. There's even a small army of Legendary Pokemon. Would it KILL you to give us a few extra Master Balls? Say one from each Professor? It would be nice to land more than one guaranteed Legendary.

EASIER BREEDING

I haven't done a whole lot of breeding. Why? Well as far as I'm aware, the only way to do so is to drop off 2 compatible Pokemon at the region's lone day care and hope there's an egg when you come back. Which you have to make room for. Make life easier for us and let us start an entire Pokemon farm if we wish. I understand having to walk around until the egg hatches, fine, we'll keep it that way. But more than 1 breeding couple at a time, ok?

So that's all I can think of for now. We'll hope Nintendo sees this and steals my ideas so they can make the ultimate Pokemon game without having to pay me royalties (I'd honestly be totally OK with this).

Humble Bundle

The Humble Bundle strikes (my wallet) again!

OK, so here's how it works. The folks at Humble Bundle work with developers and publishers to get games for you, then tell you you can pay what you want, and YOU decide how much goes to the devs, Humble Bundle itself, and charity.

The main Bundle is on a two-week cycle, and features several games at name-your-price, several more at beat-the average (typically $4-$6), and often adds several new games after the first week for the beat-the-average price (don't worry, they don't make you pay again. If you already beat the average, you can go ahead and download them). Sometimes games will be available for a somewhat higher payment tier.

The Weekly Bundle, as the name implies, is a one-week cycle, and features, again, name-your-price, beat-the-average, and sometimes higher priced tiers. What you see is what you get; no further games will be added.

Typically indie games are offered but sometimes a major publisher will get involved (THQ, EA and WB Games have all offered bundles recently). Most games are available on Steam but DRM-free versions are typically offered as well (EA games were available from their totally-not-Steam Origin service).

The recently-added Books Bundle is the same deal as the Weekly Bundle, but you get ebooks.

Another somewhat recent addition is the Humble Store. Games are available on Steam, usually for their regular retail price, but sometimes offered at discount (independent of Steam's discounts; a game may be on sale through Humble Store and not directly through Steam, and vice-versa). 10% of the sale goes toward charity.

This is a great way to get yourself some cheap games. My Steam library has exploded in the last year and a half from maybe 5 games to nearly 100. The first Bundle I purchased was the Humble EA Bundle (EA was kind enough to not take any money as well, so all of it went to either charity or Humble Bundle). Available for name-your price were (if I remember correctly): Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Crysis 2 Maximum Edition, Dead Space and Dead Space 3, Mirror's Edge and Medal Of Honor. For beat-the-average (less than $5 when I got it), Battlefield 3 and The Sims 3 with some Sims 3 DLC packs were offered. Later, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising and Populous were added for beat-the-average. It also coincided with the Battlefield 3 Premium upgrade going on sale for $15 on Origin, so I nabbed that. So for $20 I got Battlefield 3 Premium and a slew of other games that normally would have cost around $250 at the time.

I've mostly grabbed Weekly Bundles for $1 (for that much I put it all to charity), though there was an RPG Maker Bundle last week that I paid the full $12 tier (at their default split) to grab RPG Maker VX Ace (which was actually available at the name-your-price tier) and all the DLC that was offered (some of which was exclusive to this Bundle). Total retail value: $370. So you may see me release a classic 2D RPG in the future (or a 2D beat-em-up as one of the Bundles was for Multimedia Fusion 2). I even grabbed Awesomenauts from the Humble Store when it was on sale for $3.

As of this writing, the current Humble Bundle (which ends in less than a day; new Bundle every other Tuesday) is "PC and Android 10" offering Symphony, Draw A Stickman: EPIC, Galcon Legends and Galcon Fusion at name-your-price, with Skulls Of The Shogun, Metal Slug 3, Breach & Clear, Fieldrunners and Fieldrunners 2, Frozen Synapse and ittle Dew (that's not a typo) added at the beat-the-average (currently $4.90; grand total retail: $164).

The current Weekly Bundle (every Thursday) is the German Edition (so I assume that means all available games were made by German developers, or they can only be played in German, or they can only be played if you are German, or can only be played in Germany, or...). The name-your-price tier contains Beatbuddy: Tale Of The Guardians, Spirits, The Great Jitters: Pudding Panic, Tiny & Big in Grandpa's Leftovers, Galaxy On Fire 2 Full HD, Crazy Machines 2, and The Guild II Collection. If you beat the average (currently $3.88) you also get Risen, The Book Of Unwritten Tales Digital Deluxe Edition, and ArcaniA. Lastly, if you pay at least $9, you also get Giana Sisters: Twisted Bundle and The Night Of The Rabbit: Premium Edition. Total retail: $176.

So in short, the Humble Bundle is fantastic, as you get games cheap AND help out charity at the same time!

EDIT: The RPG Maker Bundle is currently available in the Humble Store for $24.99... that's $370 of software for $25!

Arkham City

Hey look, I do play something other than Pokemon!

I played last night when I should have been sleeping (because the baby was asleep). Heck, I'm supposed to be sleeping now, so this will be quick.

I had started some time ago and just jumped back in last night. I finished tracking down Joker in the steel mill (pummeling many of his mooks along the way), and Bats got infected with Joker's tainted blood for his troubles. Turns out Mister Freeze had a potential cure, so off I went to find him.

Of course, to find him I had to find the coldest point in the prison complex (in the middle of winter). I actually got on track with little trouble and discovered he had holed up in the old GCPD building. By the time I got there, Penguin had already sent his men to capture him. He locked the place down, so I pounded on his men and hacked the security system to escape.

Penguin was holed up in the museum, but he set up a jamming system so that my uplink to the Batcave's computers were blocked. Meaning I had to punch more redshirts outside the museum and then punch the jamming terminals. One of which was underground.

My gameplay unlocked the Remote Control Batarang and the Cryptographic Sequencer, which I assume Batman had the whole time and just completely forgot about.

The session ended after I got to Penguin's gladiator pit in the museum, where I pummeled a small army of redshirts and an Elite Mook (some dude mutated on this stuff called Titan). The baby woke up after that.

I will say, thank goodness they finally figured out how to do Batman games right with the Arkham series (also Kevin Conroy!).

New updates

So nothing new to report on Pokemon for a change as I haven't had time to play.

We have, however, welcomed our daughter to the world, a healthy 7 lb 11 oz baby. Looking forward to bringing her home!

I am looking into the possibility of (finally) creating games with software I've purchased through the Humble Bundle. A side scrolling beat 'em up is currently floating around my brain (although that is being held up for other reasons) and I want to do an RPG as well. Probably stuff that will end up free to play, as it will likely draw on a lot of copyrighted content so no making money on that lol (plus I have to look into licensing on the software that I use but pretty sure I could make stuff for profit if I wish)

While I haven't had a chance to record any video yet I think I at least have an idea of what game I will play next. Also REALLY hoping that I can acquire a 2DS with Pokemon Y in the future (it has to be Y as the little guy likes Yveltal, so no red 2DS for me), as I plan on passing my original DS to my youngest son.

Still looking for donations to Extra Life, my donation page is here.

And check out my YouTube channel and gamerclips.