Wii would like to Fit... (Azura's Work Out)

It's not possible, is it? Azura, one of the world's most renounded gamers and head of his own soft pitch little league baseball team... WORKING OUT?!

... shut up you jerks. You're the same Negative Nancy's who were surprised that I would get a girlfriend (I still love ya Lil, Shkaboink babe!) or play Pokemon: TCG with people I've never met before (even though I quit that a few months ago).

Well, I suppose I should get this done properly before it turns into a self-defence session.

Wii Fit is Nintendo's latest hit craze that no one will be able to find this holiday season. The main premise is to promote self-awareness in fitness and promote taking better care of your body. Scientific studies say that a lack of fitness in modern society leads to increases in health risks as you get older. Not that this bothers most people who live "In the Now", but for anybody who was planning on living long past your 30's, it's time to start saying "What can I do to prevent these risks?".

The solution lies in video games... as it always should, in my opinion!

The first thing you'll wind up doing when you plug 'er in is do a simple test to determine where you currently sit as far as weight, balance and body control, as well as determining your BMI (Body Mass Index) and Wii Fit Age (similar to Brain Age). It's recommended you do these tests once a day, as it helps you keep track of how well you're doing. The game will also give you a nice little measuring on where you currently rank based on your BMI, ranging from underweight, average, overweight and obese. As much fun as I enjoy being heckled about my weight (sarcasm) it came as no surprise that I was "overweight" in the game. However, I'm expecting that a lot of people were like that when they first turned it on, so I feel no shame... in fact, I feel a little more "average" than all of the people who were probably "average" when they did the test in the first place. But... does that work? Or even make sense?

... I don't really understand the system anymore, but let's move on...

The next thing you'll wind up doing is setting a goal for yourself. It's easier for you to continue working towards playing Wii Fit if you give yourself a goal to work towards that you can use to keep coming back. I wound up aiming for "-3 lbs" in 2 weeks time, so hopefully I can pull that off. After this is all said and done, you're finally going to go and do what you came to do... fitness excersize!

Wii Fit consists of four main categories of excersizes to play, ranging from Yoga (posture) training, Strength training, Aerobics training and Balance Games. Each category is set up to help you in different fields of excersize, so pick whichever one makes you more comfortable. The game isn't able to be a personal trainer, so it helps if you have an idea of what your planning on doing. I currently didn't have any set goals in mind, so I tried a little bit of everything.

Oh, almost forgot... you also get to choose a trainer to help calm you into your excersizes. There's a male trainer and female trainer, each of which has a very calming and relaxing voice, able to make you feel comfortable with the training. For the first 30 minutes of playing, I had the male trainer help me. The remaining time was spent with the female trainer. They both seemed to be exactly identical, so just go based on whatever you're more comfortable around... I mean, it's not like you want a fit woman to watch you hit the ground after two push-ups, right?

... yes... I fell... jerks...

Yoga training focuses on increasing your posture. These excersizes are calming and allow you to work on maintaining your balance and stretching areas of your body that you may not regularly be working out with. You start off with a fair number of different ways to bend your body, but it's all fairly simple stuff. The only one I had trouble with was the tree excersize (I didn't fall over you jackasses, I merely had trouble getting my foot to stay in position while maintaining that pose).

Strength training should be relatively self-explanatory... but I like explaining the obvious, so here goes. You'll be working out to build up endurance and muscle strength. This is a good set of excersizes to help lose weight, so I'll probably be working here the most. The only excersize I've done in the Strength category I can't stand is the Push ups and Side Stands excersize. My hands are not comfortable on the board and my wrists tend to grow weak quickly. The first time I did this excersize, I collapsed after 4 reps, making the game give me a horrific nickname, "Couch Potato". A little depressing, but not enough to stop me from coming back later and succeeding where I once failed.

... take that, game. Points for Azura!

Aerobics are excersizes that work on multiple fields of fitness training and merges them together. Modes such as Step Aerobics, Jogging and Hula Hoop keep this mode interesting. It's more fun than the other two modes, but it doesn't provide as big a work out as either of the others. I still enjoy it and use it as a chance to relax between heavy workouts.

Then we finally reach the Balance Games. The fun section that keeps you amused and brings you back over and over again. I like this section, as it's the "Let's have some fun" part of the game, instead of the more serious "Let's get fit!" parts up above.

Overall, Wii Fit has definately gotten me hooked with it's demonic grasp and promises of fitness. Hopefully I won't get sidetracked and lose all my progess in one fell swoop... but then again, you never really know anymore...

Hooray for the Old Man (An Update For Once...)

As Mr. Monius would so kindly put it, "It's Azura! R-A-V-E-N! Azura!"

Well then, let's get this pain train on the move, shall we?

September is amung us, and with it come a few signs of pantamonium and chaos. First of them all is the new game releases coming out over the remaining months of the year. These releases are going to continue to become more and more constant until the end of the year, making for an interesting dilemma...

Who do I buy, and who do I ignore?

It's reached a pretty bad point when there's this much to buy, but I have to make sure to make my priorities before I go around spending every cent that I earn on video games (not that I'm not about to go a few days without food if it means getting to shake my maraca's a bit, mind you). I've come up with a list of incoming releases that show my "Must Own Titles" of the '08 holiday season.

SEPT:
Wii - Samba de Amigo
Wii - Wario Land: Shake it!
DS - My Japanese Coach
DS - Kirby Super Star Ultra
DS - Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

OCT:
PS3 - Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM
Wii - Wii Music

NOV:
Wii - Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Wii - Animal Crossing: City Folk
DS - Chrono Trigger
360 - Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
360 - Naruto: The Broken Bond
360 - Sonic Unleashed

October would seem to be my main "Save Up The Moneyz" time for November, but even then I'm not too safe due to other expenses...

But there might be some of you out there who know me pretty well who are thinking "Isn't there something you're forgetting Azura?" "Isn't there another game coming out you forgot about?"

... Mega Man 9... *sigh*

I promised that I would be doing a video walkthrough for the game the day it came out (which I still plan to do). This means I'm still planning on purchasing the game. There exists a problem in this though, as the game is coming out on multiple different system's downloadable content features. The two big ones that I would have to choose from are Xbox Live and the Wii Shop Channel.

However, here lies the problem.

Xbox Live's version of the game is scheduled to come out roughly 5 days before the Wii Shop will be carrying it, so it turns into a battle of "What's more worth it?"

The Xbox will have it first, meaning earlier access to the game... but on the other hand, the Wii version will be able to use the Wii remote like the original NES controller, giving it that more retro-feel to it. Mega Man 9 is currently scheduled to be released this September, so I'll need to decide quickly on what I'm going to do. Odds are I'll do the stupid thing and just download it on both, so I can play it early, get the achievements AND use the NES-style control...

Azura's Birthday Battles: Conclusion and Closing Comments

Well that was a pretty entertaining experience to say the least... however, if I had the choice, I'd make sure to organize the events a little better beforehand.

Oh well, can't be helped now...

The Birthday Battles, a 5-day event for the viewers of my channel to come out and play with me in a series of games has comes to it's end. It was a lot of fun and I definately enjoyed myself, hopefully you guys did too. As promised, I was recording most of the matches and have already begun the recap videos.

The recap videos are going to consist of match highlights for each player (I don't want these to be incredibly long, so each day will be recapped in roughly 4 minutes of video at most). These seems like a pretty strong screening process for content, but concidering the steps that have to be gone through for making videos, it's not fair to ask me to spend the remainder of my free time infront of my computer. I'll be making these as I see fit and they should be finished by the end of the week (at the soonest).

I'd like to say once again, thank you to everybody who came out to play with me over these past few days! It was a lot of fun and I will be sure to let you all know if I'm ever doing something like this again.

Azura, signing out...

Azura's Obligatory Birthday Announcement #21

... okay, the title is obviously bullshit. I haven't been doing these for 21 years (maybe 3 tops) but just go with it, alright? It's a helpful potential hint incase you are bad at basic math.

The 18th approaches and I still have yet to come up with anything to do for this years "Coming of Age" celebration. However, assuming any of you still read these things see this, you are welcome to know that I will be having the entire week off for my birthday (August 17 - 23) if you want to hang out or do something. The 18th is going to be my family celebration day, so any other day on that list that anybody wishes to do anything, let me know that you're available and I'll proceed to make the necessary arrangements.

Current Plans:
August 17th: Movie with friends (Most likely to be Step Brothers), Gaming afterwards.
August 18th: Lunch and Dinner with Family (and a possible trip to Red-Deer)

... 2/7th's isn't really impressive, so I'd really appreciate if I could get some other stuff setup for my days off. Aside from eating cake and playing games, I don't really have a lot to do. I'm leaving it up to you guys to help me out here.

... what's that? A wishlist? It seems kind of pointless to throw one of these out because anything I want would be really expensive or easy to aquire on my own. However, I'll put one on here anyways, just for the fun of it all.

Wii / XboxLive Point Card(s)
PS3 - Metal Gear Solid 4
Xbox360 - SONIC the Hedgehog '06
Comedy CD's and/or DVD's
A new PC (yeah, just keep on wishing for that one buddy...)

I could probably think of more, but nothing else really comes to mind right now.

... sigh... getting older sucks more and more each year.

Azurecalibur 4

So yeah... what can I say about the new Soulcalibur game?

It's Soulcalibur, but it's pretty.  The graphics are a nice jump over to the next generation, but not "amazing" by any means for what the consoles are capable of that the game is available on.  It runs smoothly and responds greatly to controls, but it is basically "Soulcalibur with a makeover".

... but there's nothing wrong with that!

The Soulcalibur games are a great fighting game series in my opinion.  The fighting style is easy to pick up for anybody who's never even heard of it before.  I was only introduced to the series when one of my friends got me into the Gamecube version of Soulcalibur 2 and had me "bunny-hopping" with Link across the field.  Now we're all the way up to 4 and I really don't notice a huge difference in the game's combat system.  Characters that I mainly used way back when (Raphael, Kilik and Siegfreid) still feel pretty similar to their past versions, but it's not like it's a bad thing for them to feel the same.  It just makes it easier to pick the game up and keep playing, like an expansion to the past games... only prettier.

I don't have a lot of time to write up everything about this game (I should've left about 10 minutes ago) so I'll sum it up quickly.

If you love the series, BUY IT!  If you like it, but aren't sure, rent it or wait for the price to drop.  Either way, play it.

Azura Vs. Eco-Friendly Idiots

Okay, I get it.  The Earth is something that we should be trying to protect.  Littering is bad, no littering.  However, I've begun to notice something at my work that has me pretty annoyed.

Before I begin, I need to stress that the opinions expressed in this blog are those of mine, not those of the company that I work for.  Not all of the people I work with share the same views as me, so this is between you and me if you have a problem with what I'm about to say.  That said, let's talk crap.

Plastic bags.

... yes... plastic bags... perhaps I should explain it a little better.

To make the world so much more eco-friendly and prevent pollution, customers have burned the idea of "accepting plastic bags" as the absolute opposite of "saving the Earth".  I understand where they're coming from, but they're missing one key point.  The plastic bag... already exists.  You're not honoring the Earth by not using it, you're only making someone else take responisibility for it by not taking it yourself.  No matter who winds up taking the bag, odds are the end result would still be the same.

Now here's the part of the show where I'm done telling you that you're wrong... because you are!  Now I'm going to explain the CORRECT answer to this little dilemma.

If you take the bag, you can be responsible for it and do something more eco-friendly with it.  For example, leave it around your house as a spare baggie for things, like food and spare cables.  There's many uses for plastic bags, so it doesn't seem right to simply classify them as garbage the second someone offers you one.  This seems a lot better than simply allowing someone else to take it and throw it out.  I mean, you're whole reasoning for not taking the bag was that you didn't want it to just be thrown out, am I right?

I understand that there are times when you really don't need a bag for your stuff.  If it's a couple small things, odds are you don't really need one, so it seems kind of wasteful.  This I understand, but what about when you have your hands full with stuff.  You're juggling your wallet, your product AND your sanity around these things, but you're insistant on not taking a bag because it's bad for the environment?  Then you have the gall to brag about how you "saved the world" by not taking one of these bags?

I have a little secret for you guys.  I just threw a bag out while I was typing this.  Does that mean I'm destroying the world?  I'll admit it's not helping, but the truth is, you have no right to say you're saving the world if you're just not taking interested in having a responsiblility over the topic.  You want to save the Earth from pollution?  That's very noble, but you have to reflect on what you're saying and doing.  You didn't take the bag?  That's alright, the next guy in line wanted 3 of them.  If you're so hell-bent on saving the world, help carry his stuff out for him (and take multiple trips) just so he doesn't need to take a bag.  See how commited you truly are to the idea of ending pollution.

Now, this topic of conversation can be looked upon from multiple angles.  From one side, I'm making an argument about how you can say you want to stop pollution, but you're not really doing anything.  From another way, it sounds like I'm trying to force people to use more bags just so they don't wind up in the garbage from the next guy in line. Trust me, I'm not here trying to preach to you about what to do with your lives, stopping pollution is a noble cause, after all.  All I'm saying is, don't try to justify stupid actions by saying "oh, I'm trying to stop pollution".

There are several alternatives to plastic bags anyways.  Our store carries special bags made out of recycled materials (eco-friendly as well) which you can take anywhere instead of using plastic bags.  It's a good way to say "I need a bag, but I'm not going to pretend I'm saving the world by not taking one!"

To sum it up simple, pollution is bad, but stupidity and ignorance are far worse.  Take your plastic bags and reuse them for something rather than letting the next guy in line throw them all out when he's done with them.  Don't try to justify your actions unless you're willing to go above and beyond the line of duty to make sure that no one ever needs a bag again.  But most importantly...

If you're trying to stop pollution, don't come preaching to me about how you don't need a bag.

Azura's Gamertag

Yeah, it's not much to look at right now... but one day, it'll grow into something a little more glorious and beautiful... at least, as far as a "Gamertag" goes.

Let me set this straight right now.  I'm not accepting friend invites just yet (it'll be soon though, I just need a few online games to play with aside from Orange Box and TMNT 1989).  Once I get a few more games for my Xbox, I'll start accepting friend invites from people, so don't get upset if you don't get accepted (or randomly deleted if you were previously on my list).  Tip to the game companies, one-hundred is not a big number anymore.  Add another digit already and get with the freakin' program.

That is all.  Happy days!

Azura's Lucky Numbers of the Day... 49, 200 and 360

Well, a bunch of things have finally happened...  I'll try to keep them all simple, but I enjoy going into detail at some parts.

First things first, Channel Azura over on YouTube has finally reached 200 videos.  You can watch the video here, or you can watch the embeded version right.... HERE!

Yes, it's silly.  But that's why I like it.  You should've seen Jaymonius and Whitenekos' faces when they saw it the first time.  They were speechless... and Nekos just laughed the whole time.  All in all, I'm impressed.

I owe a lot of this video's existance to Tom (Squigi).  He spent a good 3 weeks working on it, but finally got it done this morning.  Thanks man, you made my day!  Sorry if I made you feel rushed a few times, but it's all good now!

Now for the weird part.  I'm always going off about how the Xbox360 is overpriced and there's nothing on it that I would be interested in buying, but something truly amazing happened yesterday...

... I am now the "proud" (sarcasm) owner of an Xbox360...

Well, what can I say in my defense?  It's only $300 now, so it was at a price worth paying for one.  I only have the Orange Box right now, and I've been plugging away a lot of time in there (almost done Portal, but always dying in TF2).  I don't really have any interest in playing Half Life 2, since I never had the chance to play the first one, but I might give it a shot if I'm ever bored.

I already bought 2 2800 point cards and have almost spent all of them on the Live Market.  I quickly grabbed the TMNT Arcade game and Worms, as well as the Penny Arcade Adventures "Precipice of Darkness".  I then saw something that drove me close to insanity when I saw it.  "Psychonauts" for Xbox was available on the shop, and I couldn't hold back for more than a few seconds until I saw the "Confirm Download" screen.

I loved Psychonauts on the PS2, but it was originally meant for the Xbox and PC platforms, so it suffered a little in the graphics department when brought over to PS2.  However, I've only plugged a short amount of time in it so far and I am currently craving more.  If I didn't work today, I'd be trying to beat it again by tonight.

If anybody can request some good Xbox360 games for me to buy, I'd really like to know what's on this console that's worth owning.  I'm not really interested in FPS (First Person Shooter) games so please don't say "GET HALO 3 YU N00B!!!" or "CALL OF DUTAY!".  Any assistance in getting a good start on the console would be helpful... I may even do some videos in the near future for it if I'm interested enough.

Azura: Powered Up!

I've been in a bit of a Mega Man mode lately...

So today I woke up at about... well, alright, it was PAST noon when I finally got out of bed.  I didn't have a lot running in my mind at the moment I woke up, so I went and reached for my DS.  Unfortunately, I had left my DS out of arms reach before going to sleep, so instead of grabbing that I found myself grasping my old PSP.

*click*

Upon opening the game-slot, I find that the last game I had played on there was Mega Man: Powered Up.  Since I've been playing a lot of Mega Man lately, I figured I'd give Powered Up another swing and blazed through Mega Man's story.  In truth, this is how Mega Man games should be made for the newer consoles.  Mega Man was not meant to be anything more than "An adorable little boy-robot in blue armor shooting at other adorable little robots in the hopes of protecting the world from a less-than-adorable evil scientist".  After beating Mega Man's story, I started touching a few of the other characters a little bit, but was quickly turned away around the time I started to play as Gutsman.

Alright, I guess I should explain a few things here for anyone who's ever played Mega Man 1 before, but not Mega Man: Powered Up.

Powered Up was Capcom's attempt at recreating the classic series of Mega Man games on the Playstation Portable.  In it, you were able to either play the classic Mega Man 1 with new graphics that made all the characters look like chibi-versions of themselves (more adorable with giant heads, like plush dolls) or you could play the new version which included two new robot masters, Timeman and Oilman.  In the newer version, if you were able to defeat a robot master without resorting to using special weapons to fight them, you would unlock the ability to use them in an alternate version of the story where, rather than having Mega Man save the day, whomever you wanted could be the hero.  This would also mean that Mega would have been kidnapped, so he would be replacing the robot that you chose.

It's a cool idea in theory, but there's a few robots that are pretty lacking when it comes to combat ability...

For starters, we have Gutsman.  Gutsman would seem to be the complete package for a warrior, but you have to remember that your default attack is the Super Arm... you remember the Super Arm, right?  The ability to pick-up and throw the giant blocks.  That... is Gutsman in a nutshell.  You're able to create a block and throw it out of nowhere, but the range that you throw it at makes it a very difficult attack to connect with, especially if your opponent is either small or not weak to it.

So what happens when you try to use Gutsman to save the world?  I couldn't tell you, I have yet to finish it because I'm too stubborn to play anything below normal mode to see.  Maybe one day I'll be able to tell you, but for now, it's a total mystery.

Another character who has a hard time playing the role of the hero is one of the newcomers, Oilman.  His default attack is... he shoots a blob of oil at the ground.  It sounds lame, but it gets better.  If you walk on it, you can ride on a surfboard made of oil which makes you zip along pretty quickly, as well as doing damage to anything you come in contact with.  So if he has an attack like this, what's the problem?  The problem is that if you're in a confined space or surrounded by a huge group of enemies, it's not easy to get a ball of oil to hit the ground.  At the same time, you can't turn around when you're riding the Oil Slider, so you have to be careful not to go riding off into the sunset... down below...

The final member of the difficult players is Bombman.  Your only attack is to throw bombs, which isn't an easy feat if your aim is bad.  Not only that, there's a limit of how many bombs can be on screen at any one time (I don't remember what that number is, but if it's similar to Mega Man's bomb limit, you can only use one bomb at a time).  He'll take some practice, but he's still a bit more practical than the others.

All the other characters have some kind of projectile attack that makes their days go by a little easier.  Each one will take a little adjusting to, but if you take the time to work at it, they're all playable... just... some more than others.

My favorite aspect of the game is when the characters will enter conversation with each other before battle.  Since the original game had Mega Man as the hero, you can see what everyone would have said to Mega Man before they entered battle.  However, there are a huge number of people to play as, ranging across the six default bosses (Fireman, Bombman, Gutsman, Cutman, Elecman and Iceman), the two newcomers (Timeman and Oilman) as well as a couple unexpected allies (Roll and Protoman also come to your aid).  This means that there are a lot of different lines of conversation, so there's a lot to explore.  The best conversations usually take place when one of the characters is weak to the other's ability.  Case-in-point, Fireman and Iceman make a great combination.

"There's something up ahead"
"FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And if the two game-modes aren't enough for you, there's still a bunch of other things you can do besides kick robot butt.

Challenge mode allows you to rattle your brain and fingers in 100 different challenges, 10 for each of the characters (excluding Roll and Protoman) and 10 which are kind of like boss battle gauntlets or extreme challenges with limited powers.  Completing these challenges will unlock Protoman, but some are just absolutely insulting, so don't expect it to just be a quick in-and-out mission mode.

On the other side of the board is the "Create-a-Stage" feature, which should come as self explanatory.  You can either make your own stages and play through them, or you can send and download stages off of the internet to share with other people all over the world.  It's a cool feature that can keep you coming back over and over again.

Speaking of stage creations, Jaymonius saw me playing Mega Man: Powered Up earlier today and sent me a stage he made which he likes to think of as "The Kusottare World of Mega Man".  This got me thinking of an interesting idea for something I could do for the channel, but only if I could somehow learn how to record video off of my PSP.  I probably gave my idea away just by mentioning all of this, but if anybody out there is reading this and they want to see something interesting, comment me with suggestions (don't even bother messaging me with anything involving "RemoteJoy", "IR Shell" or modding of any kind.

I think I'll be playing around with this for a while, it's got me interested for the time being.  If anybody has any maps that they'd like me to try out, gimme a hollar and I'll see what I can do.

Azure Days are Not All Good, Says I

My day was horrible, I'm not going to write anything down about it because I don't have any interest in writing anything involving it.  TOO MUCH ANGER!

Video game time, let's see if I can vent some anger...

... damnit, I haven't played anything all day, except for a half-hour of Megaman Starforce 2 sidequest clearing...

UGH!!!!!!!!

Okay, then let's try something else.  Upcoming projects and news... hmmmm...

First up, The Stampede was fun, but we were luckier than expected.  One of the friends in our group brought a camera, so we have a few pictures of the trip.  We should be expecting to see those sometime around Monday, so I'll try to get those up on here when I get a hold of them.

I already mentioned it to a few people, but for fun I was planning something special for Mega Man 9's launch date.  The day it releases, I'll be creating a video walkthrough for the entire game, without any previous knowledge or practice in it.  From first start-up to final shut-down, you'll get to see me in action, which should be pretty fun!  Since Jaymonius is also a big Mega Man fan (dude spent about $70 on Mega Man 2 and 3 seperately when he already owns the Anniversary Collection, talk about commitment) I'll see if we can come up with a collaborative effort of some sort, just to make things interesting.  If you haven't seen the trailer for it yet, I advise that you do, it'll make most Mega Man fans scream in antisipation.  I know I almost broke into tears when I heard the song.  Retro is in, and it never looked better, Blue Boy!

Speaking of Retro, Capcom has come up with a pretty interesting idea by creating Mega Man 9 in 8-bit.  Most people were expecting something else, but this gives me some interesting thoughts.  What if other game companies were to try this idea out for game series that were at their best back in the early 90's.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 with a special Genesis feel... *drool*
Super Mario Bros. 4... or World 2... *extra drool*
Castlevania... I don't know what the number would be, I wasn't a huge Castlevania fan as a kid... 5, I think. *minor drool, but added to the additional drool for a bonus point*
Contra 4 (or 5 if you don't want to count the DS game... or how about Super-C 2?)

There were a lot of games that back in the days of old were just amazing.  The games were made in a simpler time, before graphics became a law of sorts, but gameplay was not expected to blow your mind around every corner with thousands of power-ups and equippable items.  If more companies were to go and follow Capcom's lead on this idea, we could be playing New Super Mario Bros. 2 on the WiiWare with additional downloadable content that you can play on your DS.

Speaking of downloadable content, I had an interesting idea where they took the GameBoy Pokémon games (Red, Blue, Gold and Silver) and put them on the VC, remade for WiiWare.  This would create the possibility for you to transfer your Pokémon over to your DS via DS to Wii wireless connection, making it a little easier for DS owners to get some of the older Poké's (seriously, playing through the Gamecube games to unlock Chicorita, Totodile and Cyndaquil, then transferring them over to your GBA games, then transferring them over to your DS and recapturing them?  Seems to be a pretty huge step in the sake of completing that damn PokéDex...).  Yeah, yeah, you can use My Pokémon Ranch to trade a few times with the NPC, but it doesn't have the same feel as... you know... CATCHING THEM ALL!!!!

But that's just my opinion.  WiiWare (as well as PSNetwork and XboxLive) has many possiblities for awesome things, both in the past and the future.  It's up to us as the players of these games to help give them the chance tomake the absolute best of what they show us.

*expecting heavily of E3*

Starforce 2? More like "I Won-Force 2"!!

Happy days, I've completed MegaMan Starforce 2: Zerker X Saurian... well, just the Saurian side of the table is done.

... okay, okay, you got me.  I'm not DONE yet.  I've finished the story though, which was my main goal this week.  I really wanted to see what the game's story was like, so I told all the side quests to go run off for a little while while I intrigued myself in some "Emo Kid Saving The World" time.  All in all, I was impressed to the point where I may actually go and replay it through the Zerker file, but first things first.  Those sidequests have to pay, and I WANT MY SUPER BATTLE CARD DECK!!!!

From what I've done in sidequests so far, the most interesting ones were the ones involving your four in-game Brothers, Luna, Bud, Zack and Sonia.  I say interesting because these were easily the only ones worth doing immediately as they offered you the most important rewards for completion, that being additional Link Points (Completing one of their quests raised their Link Point value to 100 points, for a final score of 400 points!).  This is how you would raise your Link Points to their absolute maximum without having any friends to play with, but if you do, START COLLECTING!!!!

I'll be taking friend code requests if anyone's interested in being friends with a Saurian.  I won't write my FC on here, as it's important to be formal when accepting a BrotherBand from someone else.  You'll be hearing my secret, afterall... so send me a message to azureblade49@hotmail.com with the subject "________ Wants to Form a BrotherBand!" and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.  Because there are limitations to the number of brothers you can have, I'll only be accepting the first three or four brother requests that I get, so I'm expecting to see a lot of Ninja's out there... oh well, that was to be expected.

In other news, the Stampede was fun.  We were only there for a few hours yesterday, but we did everything we wanted to (I got a little sick and missed out on the last big ride, so I'm being razzed by Jaymonius about being a baby)  but I got to eat my Mini-Doughnuts and as such I am at peace.  We also hit up the Nintendo Booth and got to play Brawl and Guitar Hero for a little while (We dominated Brawl) but didn't stick around for the Mario Kart Wii tournaments they were holding.  I don't really like when people complain about how Nintendo won't bring Gamecube controllers to these kinds of things, because there's nothing wrong with the Wii Remote when playing Brawl.  I'm living evidence that the Wii Remote style works, and I'm able to fight you to prove it.

Now I just need to finish Trauma Center 2 and I'm all done my new purchases for the next little while.  Hopefully July won't be too hectic as far as gaming goes, I want to save up some money for August.

Final Stampede Note, Date Confirmed, Also, MORE MEGAMAN!!!!

Yeah, my lack of subtlety in my title-making abilties always made me an easy person to read.

So, after discussing with all of my friends about what times we were going to be available, we have come to the conclusion that we were all going to be going to the Calgary Stampede onThursday July 10th this year.  I only have two more shifts to work (one of them is today, so I need to finish this note quickly so I can get down there) and then I get 3 days off, which I plan on spending gaming, eating mini-doughnuts and recovering from indigestion (no man was ever meant to eat 100 of those things, but I will try....)

So if any of you out there were planning on coming to the Calgary Stampede this thursday and you want to spot everyone's favorite punching bag(s), Jaymonius, Whitenekos, Homi~G and myself will all be out and about, so keep your eyes peeled for us.  I don't recall ever showing anybody what we look like, so... just keep an eye out for the guy with the giant yellow foam cowboy hat.  That will be me, and I'll probably be the loudest person at the Stampede (second to Jaymonius, that guy has some serious lung-power).

On the lighter side of news, I have continued to progress in Megaman Starforce 2.  I am finally at the part where I can perform "Tribe On", where Megaman fuses with the tribe that your game corresponds to.  I chose Saurion, so Megaman becomes a red, fire-elemental dinosaur version of himself and is much more powerful thanks to a few things.  Thanks to the auto-brother system that Starforce 2 has, you can also perform "DblTribe" which grants you the power of a second tribe on top of your first tribe... hense the two titles for the gamer, "Zerker X Saurion" and "Zerker X Ninja".  However, it can also go higher than that...

If you create a BrotherBand with someone who owns the other version of the game and is not a Zerker tribe, you can go "Triple Tribe" which is truly devastating in battle.  All of your battle chips become twice as powerful and you gain all the powers of all three tribes.  Powerful and evil stuff...

If there's one thing about the Starforce series that I don't really like, it's the love triangle between Geo, Luna and Sonia.  In past games in the Megaman series it was fairly obvious who the main love interest for each character was, but this time it's gotten too out of hand.  In my opinion, it SHOULD be Sonia and Geo, because she is the closest thing to the series' Roll because she can also Wave Change (she also kinda looks like a Roll of the series would look... kinda...).  However, they're always shoving Luna down Geo's throat like it's bad medicine, as if she's supposed to win his heart in the end.  Normally in games you can tell who's supposed to wind up falling for who within minutes of meeting that person, but this is the first time I honestly can't tell who's going to win...

If you've played the Starforce games, you'd understand...

I also recently purchased Trauma Center 2 for the DS and so far I am very impressed with it.  I'm currently in chapter 5 and after a very depressing part of the story where Derek Styles (D.S. for short, *snicker*) goes emo, everything's starting to head back to normal.  It's hard, but not testing my mental limits yet.  I've heard from a friend that the final mission in TC2 is going to be unfair and a pain in the butt, hardest to date as far as Trauma Center games goes... not very optimistic news, but I've always enjoyed a challenge.

Wave Change, Azura, On the Air!

Megaman Starforce 2 is awesome.

The latest version of the Megaman series, Megaman Starforce puts you in the role of Geo Stelar, a young boy who, after a bizarre series of events, winds up harboring an alien-being named Omega in his body.  Throughout the game, Omega and Geo are able to merge together to create Megaman, a hero of justice that exists in the digital waves , where electronic beings exist and run in everyday life.  Megaman must use his powers to protect the world from evil beings bent on destroying the Earth.

Basically the Megaman: Battle Network games with a new twist.

If you've played the first one, you already know what to expect this time around, only from what I've played so far I think that the second installment is much better than the first.  If you have yet to... it's not easy to explain all of the differences quickly, so just imagine taking the battle system from the Battle Network games, but flipping it over on it's side.  Rather than commanding half of the panels that appear, you're limited to just the three panels on the far side of the battle screen.  You can still use your MegaBuster and Battle Chips to do battle, as well as a few other little advanced tricks to make combat easier... but I won't be going into detail as it's more fun to try it yourself than to listen to me talk about it.

The main element of the Starforce games is called the "BrotherBand System".  If you are friends with other people that own the game, you can link your games together either locally or over WiFi to create a BrotherBand, which has a few effects in the game.  These effects include increasing Megaman's maximum HP or teaching him abilities that he would normally have to equip before using, like Undershirt (Survive a lethal blow with 1 HP remaining) or Float (can walk on broken panels).  It makes Megaman a lot stronger, so it's always benefitial to get as many brothers as you can to help you out.  I guess the general message is something along the lines of "Strength in numbers".  However, if you're looking to enjoy a good challenge, you'll probably be more comfortable waiting until you're done the main game before linking up with your buddies.

And what would a Megaman game be without different versions?  The first game in the Starforce series had three different versions, Pesasus, Leo and Dragon.  This time around, there are only two different versions, one is called "Zerker X Saurian" which I have, and then there's "Zerker X Ninja" which almost every single person I know has...

I know, I'm a non-conformist...

From what I've played of the game so far, I'm going todrop a chunk of spoiler here just so you can understand the titling a little better, just to help you make a decision on which game you want.  There were once three ancient civilizations that eventually dissapeared off the face of the earth due to extinction (a lack of communication caused huge wars between cultures, they all died out due to fighting one another).  These three civilizations were the Zerkers, berserker warriors who were known for their combat skills, the Ninjas, shinobi trained to feel no emotion and to carry out missions without fail, and the Saurions, dinosaurs who once ruled the Earth.  All three of these ancient cultures no longer exist, but one day an artifact from the culture that your game belongs to is being displayed at a museum, which is targetted to be stolen as it posesses enough EM (Electro-Magnetic) Wave power to be a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.

I'll leave the rest of the story alone, as I don't want to ruin anything for you guys.

As I mentioned before, I like the second one better than the first from what I've played so far.  If you liked the first game, I recommend picking it up, it's well worth it to any Battle Network or Starforce fans out there.  I'll keep you guys posted on how I'm doing, but right now I need to get some sleep.  I work in less than 7 hours... *yawn* ... I really need to get my sleep schedule fixed...

Sister Blog

Also, I forgot to mention that I also have a blog set up for the entire cast of the B.S. Battles over at B.S. Battlers News Block.  All three of the main B.S. Battlers will be using this blog as a way of keeping everyone posted on what we're up to, but unlike this blog here we'll mainly be using Channel Azura News for internet-related means.  Check it out if you're interested in either Jaymonius or my YouTube Channels.

Easily Sidetracked...

... I'm never going to get anything done.

Back in the old days, a game could be beaten in one sitting, roughly an hour or two at best as long as you knew what you were doing.  It didn't usually take a long time because the stories in games were simple.  You're good, he's bad, stop him by any means necessary!

Nowadays, video games are a lot like movies.  Your character has a personality and a goal, but is being confronted by many different problems at once which revolve around your everyday life, an evil being bent on global domination and/or an ancient weapon being revived.  With all the plot-twists and cut-scenes it is very easy for a game in this day and age to EASILY last longer than 20 hours of your free time, longer if there's side-quests, ultimate weapons to locate, powerful combos to learn and the level-grind to it's absolute max.  Needless to say, games like Persona 3 and Rogue Galaxy, which easily boast 100+ hours of gameplay are way beyond my chances of ever being completed.

Ever since I was young, I had always enjoyed the challenge of being told I wasn't able to do something.  It made me feel as if I was beating the entire world for telling me that I wasn't able enough for the task at hand.  So when a game such as these enters my lap, I start to feel saddened...

I have yet to finish either of these two titles, and it's not as if I hadn't been trying.  Persona 3 I have had to restart on a couple of occations due to being so worked up on watching the side-story relationships that I forgot to train my characters to acceptable levels.  Before long, I was locked into the boss battle at least 10 levels shy of where I should have been, being mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the evil... thingies... Rogue Galaxy is a little harder to explain, but long story short is that I just don't have the free time...

Now I sit here, typing on my blog about things that I have yet to have done, but am always giving myself new things to do.  Between my YouTube channel's Season 2 lineup and the games I'm always playing in my spare time, nothing is ever going to get done unless I just commit to one.  I haven't touched Grandia III in a few days due to playing Cousinoer5's ROM hack, but now I have a sudden urge to play some Disgaia.  Whitenekos owns it, so I'll probably just borrow it off of him for a little bit, but I already know I won't finish it.  I get paid tomorrow, so I was going to be picking up the new Megaman Starforce 2 game on DS as well as a few other titles, so it's more of a "I kinda wanna try this out" phase right now...

Hopefully I'll get SOMETHING done in the near future, I hate the feeling of unaccomplishment... it's so... empty... and weak...

Time to Prep for Number 200...

Yeah, I've noticed that too... I'm only a small number of videos away from hitting the big 2-0-0.  Needless to say, this is an accomplishment beyond anything else I'd ever thought.

When I initially started making videos on YouTube, I was never concerned with where I was going and what was coming next.  I just made videos as I felt like making them.  It was a fun passtime and I treated it as such.  Not a lot has changed since then, except now I'm trying to maintain a little more control... too bad it's not working out too well.

It's no secret to the world that I get bored easily.  When I say I easily get bored, I mean EASILY get bored.  Ever since making the playlist for Season 2, I've already started making videos for AT LEAST three different things that were not intended to be in there.  The Final Fantasy IV walkthrough, for example, is one of them.  However, I don't let my boredom get the better of me when I truly commit to something, which is hard for me to do when there's so many things happening at once around me.

If I could, I wish I could go back to when I was 16 years old.  I had just gotten my first summer job working at the Great Canadian Dollar Store for minimum wage, but it was simple work and the schedule was perfect for my lifestyle, so I was happy with it.  Back then I didn't make a lot of money, my paychecks were miserably small compared to today's standards (I don't think anything smaller than $300 truly qualifies as a paycheck).  Because I didn't have to worry about things like rent or bills or anything like that, that was my money.  It was all mine, to do with as I pleased... and I earned every cent of it.  Of course you can all guess, that translates into $300 worth of games, minus what I would use for food.

Heh... I was a stupid kid.  But most of us were when I think about it.  Some days I wonder what it would be like if I could meet up with the me of 10 years ago and just play games together.  I could show off some new stuff to him he hadn't learned yet, he could show off to me a bunch of things I have now fogotten and we would just have a blast.  He'd probably beat me in a bunch of older games too, I have no idea how I used to make some of my older records...

Sorry, I kind of went off topic for a little bit...

To anyone who was asking, yes, I do have plans for a special video number 200.  It's going to be awesome from what I can personally tell, but I'm going to be keeping it under wraps from everybody, including Jaymonius and Whiteneko.  It looks like it's going to turn out to be amazing, so keep your hopes up high for something never before seen on my channel...

Calgary Stampede Update (Available Days)

Just to let you guys know, I found out what my work schedule will be, so I know what days I'll be available to go to the stampede.  I'm going to be off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week, so I'll be at the stampede for at least one of those three days, possibly two if I have enough money to survive a second trip of *drool* mini-doughnuts...

Ugh, it's too late in the night to be thinking about food.  I need some sleep guys, I'll keep you posted on any new details that arrise.

My Youtube Videos

This is the last one for today, I promise.

I wanted to show off some of the stuff I do on my YouTube videos, so here's an example.  Basically it's just me playing video games while recording my voice and adding it in as audio commentary.  It's simple, but it's entertaining in a way.

NOTE: Some of my YouTube videos tend to involve heavy adult language, so be warned that there might be swearing or other inappropriate comments.  Just as a warning...

An Azure Stampede Indeed

Well, it's currently 2:00 in the morning as I type this, so I don't think a lot is going to come to mind aside from a few random ramblings that I've been having lately.  I guess I'll just fill this spot in with how my life is going so far...

I work as a sales associate at a local toy store here in Calgary.  I'm currently working part time, but I'll be bumping my hours up for the summer so I'll actually have some spending money in time for August, my birthday.  Truth be told I should've increased my work hours already so I'd have money to fully enjoy the Calgary Stampede this year, but I didn't think that far ahead and now will probably only have about $100 tops to spend there.  That's admittion, about 50 tickets worth of rides and a crapton of mini-doughnuts (the greatest invention of mankind in food form).

I'd like to stop and talk about mini-doughnuts for a moment.  I LOVE THESE THINGS!!!!  It's not a trip to the Stampede without these, nor is it truly a trip to any outdoor festival without them.  A tip for anybody going to an outdoor festival, BUY MINI-DOUGHNUTS!!!!!!  It seems silly at first, but once you've tried them you'll understand why I love them so much.  If I ever get married, if my wife could make mini-doughnuts she would be my hero and I would love her no matter what she did to me (if she was a gamer that would be my dream girl right there).

Back to the Stampede, it seems like every year that I go to this I tend to do the same things that I always do.  I usually rush straight to the Nintendo booth that they have set up just so I can see what they'll be playing all day.  I ask if they'll be doing any tournaments for games and if they do, I stick around for a while.  If any of you guys are coming to the Stampede and want to find me, check out the Nintendo Booth or the mini-doughnut stands and scream out "AZURA!!!!".  If you do, I promise I'll respond, but try not to bug anybody else while asking for me.  Look for the guy in the giant yellow cowboy hat.

Other than the Nintendo booth, I usually just ride the same rides every year, have a snowcone and a bunch of mini-doughnuts and... usually watch my friends go on the bigger rides.  I don't really enjoy spending a lot of money on rides that end quickly, so I look for the rides that offer entertainment in their simplest form.  Rides like the Round-up Centre or the Gravitron are my cup of tea, but when I'm flying upside down through the sky for 2 minutes after waiting in line for an hour, I usually walk away dissapointed.  The simple rides have shorter lines and offer more entertainment in my opinion, one ride in particular that I ride at least once every year is the "Polar Express", a ride where you sit in a chair that's spinning backwards quickly.  Truly a fun experience that I never forget to do, but it's kind of childish when I think about it...

It's gonna be a blast this year, I'm sure.  I just wish I had worked a little bit more so I'd have more spending money for it.  I just know I'll have spent all of my spending money within a few hours, thanks to rediculous pricing at these kinds of events.  Oh well.  I'll see if I can't get an extra shift in sometime this week to get a little extra.

If any of my local friends are reading this and want to arrange for a time to go, I'll post my days off when I learn of them on here and we can make a plan of some sort.  Hopefully we can get a good group of us going.

July 1st: VGLog Update

To be fair, it's technically July 2nd already, but I wanted to start this at the beginning of July and forgot that yesterday was the first.  That being said, I'll be cheating this time around, so let's just pretend that right now it's still July 1st.  HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

Games I'm currently Playing:
PS2 - Grandia III
NDS - Megaman Starforce: Pegasus

The Grandia series of RPG games has always held a special place in my heart.  They're all brilliantly made and hard to hate as long as you know what you're getting when you go into it.  Ever since the first game on the PS1 (Sega Saturn really, but I didn't play it until I rented it on PS1) I've loved the series for as long as I can remember and continue to look forward to future games in the series.  Out of all four of the games I've had the liberty to play, the third one has always stood out in a weird way from the rest.  Most of the other games have cutscenes that use the voice cast to their maximum potential, but this time around the cutscenes are... actually FMV's (Full Motion Video) which is an interesting change, but much different from other games in the series.

The battle system is barely changed, which is good because it's a system that has worked well over the years.  I won't go too deep into details because it's fun to learn as well as use, but basically it's a turn-based RPG where, rather than having your entire team stand in a straight line and fight a row of enemies who are also conveniently standing in a straight line, you all are spread out in an open field and fight while the game runs everyone around.  If certain allies or enemies are in proper range of each other, certain attacks or spells could affect more than one person.  The bar at the top of the screen has icons for each person involved in the battle, once an icon reaches the COM space, you can issue a command to that person and, depending on the command, it will either be performed immediately or you'll have to wait a few moments until the icon travels from COM to ACT.  If you don't want to be hit by a powerful attack, you need to use a critical blow on a target who's icon is inbetween the COM and ACT spaces to break their concentration and remove their turn.  It's a cool battle system and one of my favorites for RPG games to date.

So far I'm only about 6.5 hours into the game, I've been going at it pretty slowly and I have currently aquired my first ship from Sky Captain Shmidt (I think I spelled it wrong).  I'll be plugging away at this one until I finish it again, so expect to be hearing about this one for a while.

Other than Grandia, today I've also been having some fun with Megaman Starforce for the Nintendo DS.  One of my friends on MSN recently told me he bought both of the Starforce games, which made me want to go back to the first one again.  I don't actually own Starforce 2 just yet, but I'll probably be getting it when I get paid later this week.  Hopefully I either finish it before then or else I might not finish it before I put it back on my shelf.

That's pretty much all that I had done today, other than a few friendly matches of Brawl with my roommates and an online buddy.  Ciao~

Where Would We Be Without An Intro?

You know what's truly amazing?  I've never truly commited to one of these kinds of things... sites like MySpace and Facebook usually last a month or so for me, then I just start ignoring them due to lack of interest or motivation to update them.  Truth be told, I don't really care who's poking me, asking me to do their quizzes or the like... so hopefully this one doesn't turn out like the rest of them.

I guess I'll just start this with a proper intro.  My name is Rodney, but you all probably know me a little better as "Azura" or "Azureblade49" depending on where you came from.  If I had to choose one word that I could use to sum up my life, "gamer" is the only one I would ever be able to come up with.  When I'm not working, eating or sleeping, odds are I'm either gaming or making videos on my YouTube account that revolve around gaming.

I guess the question on everyone's mind would be, "Why would someone who's gone through a MySpace and a Facebook account possibly be attempting to do with a blog?"  Well, as I said before I'm not too keen on the idea of writing my life story on the internet for the rest of the world to read, but at the same time I'm not really happy with not writing something down somewhere.  It turns into lost time, which makes me feel a little depressed when I think about it.  So here we are...

Basically what I'm planning on doing is simple.  This blog will hold two main purposes.  Number One will be to keep people posted on events revolving around my life that are too wasteful to make into a video.  I previously thought about just making Vlogs on my YouTube account, but that wasn't too fun to make a video for... that, and without a webcam it was basically me talking to a black screen for 10 minutes about nothing in an unscripted conversation, which could be summed up as "ummm... uhhh... errr... ahhhh... uhh..."  I've been told that people who want to be a better writer tend to make blogs so that they can get better practice in writing.  It sounds like it'd make sense, so I'll try it out.

The other purpose of this blog is in the title.  "Video Game Log" is exactly what it sounds like.  I don't plan on making a video of every single game I ever play, so rather than keep the whole world in the dark, I'll just write down what I play and where I currently sit in the story, as well as my opinions on the game(s) as I'm playing.  There are probably going to be a lot of spoilers in this blog for games, so be cautious if you see a title for a game that you're trying to play but don't want to have spoiled for you.

I wanted to make a brief blog and log update tonight as well before I go to bed, so expect to see two more updates on here within the next hour or so.