Life:1 Gaming: 0

Gaming and Life, facing off here in the first game of the season... life snaps the ball, Gaming's defense looks strong but whats this? a Hail Mary pass! so early in the ballgame too... and its caught! he's going for it! He's at the 40, the 30, the 20, the 10 TOUCHDOWN LIFE!!! Well Bill we weren't expecting life to score this early in the game, it is definitely upsetting to the fans as this was NOT an expect outcome so early in the season.

Sigh thats right friends, in the epic battle of life getting in the way of gaming, blogging, video production and other fun funneries, Life has put a big "1" up on the scoreboard.  Over the last few weeks my wife and I have been engaged in the process of selling one car and buying a different car which is never anything but a headache lol I've been working late a lot and on weekends along with us babysitting, going to family events and so on and so forth.  As a result almost all my blogging time has been eaten up, including having not spent much time on Mega Man 2... So please don't I'm like half way through the X series and just neglecting to blog :)

Another hurtle is finding decent video editing software.  I had a choice between Windows Movie Maker and AVS4YOU video editor which is basically like the part in Vegas Vacation when Clark goes up to the buffet and is confronted with two trays of gelatinous goo, one yellow and one blue and he says "Thats not Chicken" and the dude goes "you're right, this isn't chicken, THIS is chicken *switches signs between the blue and yellow* Want Some?" And then Eddie has "some of the yella" well anyway with these two editors I felt like Clark having to choose between blue slop and yellow slop lol either way it leaves you unsettled and not happy.  I'm rather the perfectionist in my video making.  I am picking it back up after about a 8 year hiatus of making anything what-so-ever.  As you can see my videos grew in quality at and exponential rate lol and I plan on them getting better and better.  I AM happy to announce that I have acquired the program that is the Rib-Eye Steak dinner to the gelatinous blue goo of Windows Movie Maker.  I have to give props to our reader Spittoon as he was instrumental in hooking me up with this software.  I have already used it to redo the intro at a higher quality and plan to start working on the next video tomorrow :)

I need to come clean with you guys about one last thing.  This is both a victory for gaming and a secret gaming guilty pleasure of mine that I have had for years but told few about.  If you think i've been celibate from video games altogether the last few weeks you are sorely mistaken.  I didn't have much time to sit down at the computer or console and play much but I whipped out the trusty old portable!  And I don't mean my DS or PSP, I've been playing my old friend, the Gameboy Advance SP.  Its been a life saver the last few weeks when I have been away from the house waiting, listening, searching etc. So now for the guilty pleasure part...  For the last few weeks, on my gameboy i've been playing... Pokemon!  I know I know I'm sorry! what am I TWELVE!?!?!?!?  I just love the game lol when you filter out the cartoons, card games and limitless merchandising over the years what it comes down to is actually a very fun solid game.  I'm almost to the end, its the "Leaf Green" version which is just the original game updated for the GBA funny thing is I've never beaten it but im super close, I know its not a Mega Man game and I dont know WHAT possessed me to pop it in and play again but... here I am lol

Well guys its good to be back posting again, I'm REALLY excited to get my next video made and posted.  I'm enjoying working with my new editing software a ton and I can't wait to share the results! In the mean time lets have a little fun, since I've spilled my guts about MY guilty gaming pleasure its the readers turn,  comment on this post and share your guilty gaming pleasure with us whether it be "Hello Kitty Island Adventure" on your little sister's computer or Dancing the night away on a DDR machine at your local arcade with the other sweaty nerds wearing tight black jeans and white tennis shoes.  Let us know how you got into it and what about the game keeps you coming back for more, and why you consider it a "guilty pleasure"

In The Year 20XX...

And so Mega Man 1 comes to a close.  We have a new video and It by far the BEST one yet!  I had a ton fun playing this game game, and I will honestly say this is the first time I've beaten it completely without cheats... There is even an exploit that I refused to use for wily's castle.  This trick is actually something that was recommended to use on an FAQ that i checked out for strats but I refused to comply.  Even though I said that "anything within the game programming is admissible" the cheat I am talking about is a glitch and therefore an exploit.  And as the folks at Blizzard will tell you lol taking advantage of a know exploit is the same as cheating.  The "trick" was to pause the game and go to the menu directly after shooting the mud man in stage one of wily's castle and supposedly it would "reset" him breaking down and flying across the screen and you could simple shoot him again.  Rinse, repeat and ultimately win the fight.  It is said the same can be done with the Wily fight but I chose to beat it under my own power and i'm glad that I did :)

A big factor in MM1 that sets it apart from its later games in the series is the general crustiness of the game.  There are many elements in this game that just didn't seem as polished as what I'm used to later in the series.  For instance every time you move or jump on to a block in MM1 you slide ever so slightly almost as if you are on ice, there are moving platforms that are supposed to come back and forth to get you over a large gap but these can get stuck in a pattern out of your reach causing you to have to die and start over to get by.  Possibly the worst part, if you've ever seen it, is the box art... It was rated, if memory serves correctly, as the worst (or one of the worst) game box art's of any game when EGM came out with a list of the worst.  There were so many Games back then, in the late 80s that could be thrown together and no one would care as long as they had fun... you would except minor or even some major defects in a game you would just except it as THE game.  These days we have games with vast expansive worlds that allow you to play with millions of different people online across the earth which is amazing in itself just to think about yet now we have become so picky about our games that if our new epic sword is slightly mistextured we put in a ticket with a GM saying "Good one Blizz, can't you get ANYTHING right!?".  Well we can reminisce about the good old days with the following... I give you, the Mega Man 1 American box art:

Look at it... Bask in its cheesy glory!!!  


1) Mega Man has an arm cannon, NOT a handgun
2) Mega Man may at SOME point in the series have a weapon who makes his suit blue and yellow but certainly not in Mega Man 1 and it is absolutely not his basic suit
3) Mega Man is not an old Japanese guy...
4) Whats with the Palm trees?
5) I like to blue and red grids in the background... so high tech
6) Wily's castle looks like a tropical fun house


The only thing that can compare to the box front is the back... I will not include a picture since there is nothing to see really but this is the text from the back:

It's MEGA MAN versus the powerful leaders and fighting forces of Monsteropolis! That strange multi-layed land of robot-like Humanoids created by the wrongfully performed experiments with human beings by Dr. Wily

MEGA MAN - the chosen defender of the human race.  For he dares to single-handedly penetrate Monsteropolis' seven separate societies to stop the rapid expansion of strange misrepresentations of humans

MAGA MAN'S goal is monumental.  He must infiltrate seven separate heavily-guarded empires. By himself, he must break-down and destroy the followers of empire leaders: Cutman, Gutsman, Iceman, Bombman, Fireman, Elecman and Dr. Wily

The action involves MEGA MAN armed only with laser beam weapons. Encountering strangely-configured Humanoids.  They're atop, in and out of fortified prison-like structures strengthened with thick walls. Below icefields. Hidden amid gun turrets imbedded in concrete uprights, even in subterranean passages under icefields WOW!

Will you and Mega Man penetrate the seven societies of Dr. Wily and preserve the human race? You're in Control!

I kid you not... and if you notice and misspellings its because it was on the original game box, its so bad you guys...

Well without further adieu I give you my newest video.  I am particularly proud of this one, I have put the most work into it of any video and I have really taken it to a new level.  My only huge disappointment with it is the program I'm using is a trial version, I thought I had worked around the watermark but unfortunately it got the better of me :( the water mark isn't TOO obtrusive when it comes it but it just ruins the feel of the video.  Its a great program and I would love to buy it but don't have an extra 100 bucks lying around :) anyway, heres the vid.

Insert Awesome Title Here :)

Hey Guys! long time no post it feels like huh? Phew its been a week, found it hard to find the energy to pick up the ole game controller let alone make videos and post :) but here I am Friday night coming to you live from downtown. Progress is going great on Project Mega Man and I'm having a blast doing it, I am happy to report that I've beaten Mega Man 1!!! This was a big step for me, being one of the hardest games of the series in my opinion and also since... this was my first time beating the game without cheats :(  *embarrassed face* I KNOW I KNOW! But I was an impatient little kid and I was like "hey can't let this Game Genie go to waste!"  Besides back then we didn't call it cheating... it was "Game Enhancement"... The same way people didn't used to think smoking was bad for you... *ahem* Anyhoo so this was a milestone for me and it got me thinking of which Mega Man's I truly beat sans the game genie in my youth which is another awesome reason for doing this project, to have had the experience of  playing my favorite classics with no outside help.

Well below you will find two videos, the first being Bombman the final robot master I took on.  I went back to big green subtitles on this one which is really not ideal but it gets the job done. I have also uploaded these videos to You Tube instead of loading them directly on to Blogger which jumped the quality quite a bit.  Blogger would always smash the files so far down that the quality would greatly suffer but you tube allows much larger files to be uploaded.  The second video is of Wily's Castle which I feel is my best one yet, and... has no subtitles... thats right, I took the next big step and did a voice over! lol I am actually really happy with the way it turned out and hope everyone likes it.  If you are hearing impaired well... sucks to be you lol sorry but I can only do so much :) For the Wily video I used a new editing program I found online which was free and I was stupid to think there wouldn't be a catch... The editing software was great however after doing ALL the work on my project and publishing it to a file i find out "oh bee tee dubs... uuuuummm you can pay a hundred bucks to register this program or we're sticking a big ugly watermark on the beginning and end of your file" and since I didn't just have an extra Benjamin lying around and didn't want to re do the whole video again... i stuck with the water mark... its not THAT obtrusive and does go away for 95% of the video.  Like I said this is a work in progress and I will fall into a groove with the videos where I have a good thing going consistently... kind of interesting how thats a parallel of the mega man series... whoooooooooooa :)

Please click the video to open in YouTube for a more enjoyable watch!

 Bombman

Wily's Castle #1

I know I say "um" a lot... I'm working on it ok

Pop Up Video

This is a special video edition blog post where I do very little writing and let the videos speak for me... I put enough hours into these they better be good for something :) lol


I hadn't planned on doing videos for every boss but my Gutsman video was so well received by the readers one even asked me to do vids for every boss :) It also allowed me to practice my editing skills and get the right file size/quality ratio down and I think I nailed it... As you get down to the Fireman video you'll notice a big improvement in quality and captions etc.


Cutman

Elecman

Iceman

Fireman

Bring the Pain

Remember when games were hard?  Remember when they weren't necessarily meant to be beaten?  well I've had a big reminder of that in my first play session of Mega Man 1.  You know its not like this is my first time playing these games since I was 8 either lol it seems like once a year or so I get a hankering to play Megaman so I load um up on the emulator and play a bit... however when I do i usually skip the annoying stuff and cheat by using save state way more than I should.  You will be glad to know that regardless of how tempted I've been to do it I've been refraining from using Save State, if I use up all my lives then I start the level allllll over.  I'm being reminded of some interesting differences in Mega Man 1 as opposed to the rest of the series.  First of all the power ups look totally different, health pellets and weapon energy pellets look completely different compared to the later series standard which actually starts in Mega Man 2.  Also Mega Man 1 had a points system which is so weird to me... like enemies will drop little point pellets that give you like a few hundred points when you pick them up, and killing the robot masters will give you a certain amount of "clear points".  What do these points do you ask? nothing... aaaaaaabolutely nothing lol.  If you think back to most of the early Nintendo games, stuff that came out between like '85 and '88 a LOT of them still incorporated points into the game, Mario 1 for example has a points system, you get like 200 pts for stomping on a goomba.    I actually looked into what the purpose of this was at one time and it turns out its kind of an overlap if you will from the arcade days.  See it used to be that if you wanted the newest and best games you didn't camp outside Gamestop for 3 days waiting to pick up your copy, you would go and play them at your local arcade.  As is true today as it was back then hardcore gamers like to be recognized in the gaming community for the hours of hard work they put in,  what these days is an epiced out Death Knight strutting around Orgrimar with his new legendary Axe  used to be a set of initials on the leader board of an arcade box.  So when NES came out home consoles exploded even more than they had with Atari and before long people were spending their hard earned money on new cartridges instead of quarters for the arcade machine.  So at some point there was this meshing of arcade and console where a lot of console games would still also come out on an arcade box and in order to track who "the best" was they would attribute points to actions in the game.  I have a vision of a bunch of Japanese guys sitting around a board room table and one says "hey homes, why are we still putting points in games? seems kinda gay" and another says "no kidding G, lets trash that shizzle" or something like that only more... you know Asian and less gangsta...  So according to my research thats why...  Anyhoo I've downed Gutsman, Cutman, and Elecman so I'm working on Iceman's level now :)  Check out the vid below of the highlights from my Gutsman kill attempt :) Enjoy! 

(I suggest watching in Full screen BTW) 

My Gutsman kill attempt, sorry the video is pretty foul quality, I'm still playing with it to get it just right, If I record at maximum quality I get major lag which isn't fun at all so It may be a few video updates in before I get in the groove of the right ratio of video quality to play interruption from lag, I've added captions to the video and sped up the boring parts and slowed down the dramatic parts lol anyway check it out

Project Megaman... Lets get a few things straight

As is typically of my personality I do not sit on an idea for long. So when the idea of bringing back the concept of a gaming project where I pick a certain game series and play though all of them an blog about it, Megaman seemed like the perfect series.  I also feel this will be a really good way to kick off my blog, I was going to post a bit about Dragon Age since it was what I have been playing, however its gotten to the point of burn out on it now where I'm basically done and ready to move on to something new.  I got all juiced up about Megaman again from playing a little flash game called Super Mario Crossover.  If you haven't heard of it I suggest you google it after reading this post, it takes the original Super Mario Brothers game but allows you to choose a host of other NES heroes to play through as, such as Link, Samus, and of course Megaman.  I beat the entire thing with Mega Man lol it was a blast and I have to thank my brother Matt for introducing it to me.  So, lets put the introduction to this post to rest and get down to business shall we?


How it began:


My love of the Mega Man series started long ago I was 6 or 7 years old and had not owned a Nintendo to terribly long.  One of my best childhood friends Steve brought his Mega Man 4 cartridge along when he came to my house one day.  I had never heard of Mega Man, played it, touched it, smelled it etc. lol I was a complete Mega Man virgin if you will.  I remember watching him play first and I just could not wait to get my hands on the controller, it was like nothing I had ever played before.  Few and far between in those days were games where you could shoot your enemies and you had an actually "energy bar" that you could replenish by picking up power ups etc.  I know that sounds like an odd concept now since that is extremely common in games but then, it was very cool and new.  Beyond that being able to slide and charge your shot were so rad, and when I found out you could pick up energy tanks to save for later... omg lol I was SO enamored.  Even after ALL that there was still the amazing realization that once you beat a boss... you got his power! Since that day I was hooked, I begged him to let me borrow it and I think he did I can't quite recall but regardless I soon had a copy of my own and I absolutely loved it.  It soon dawned on me "hey, Mega Man... Four... there are at least three more of these out there!!!" lol its simple math baby.  So over time I collected 2 and 3, again totally obsessed and never owned the original Megaman until later and life but as a kid had rented it several times (haha renting games... remember those good old days?).  I feared the worst that no more Mega Man games would be made, but as tradition went when I was a kid my Grandma would come and pick up each of us kids on our respective birthdays and take us out for dinner and take use to get anything we wanted which for both of us was almost always a new video game lol.  So it was my brothers birthday and he comes back home with my Grandma with a toyz r us bag and a shiny new game, Mega Man 5.... I lost it lol i was SO stoked i went through the freakin roof hahaha I remember running and jumping on the bed "theres a Mega Man 5!!!!" lol ahhhh good times.


Terminology:


Ok, so now we come to the terminology section.  This is actually pretty important because I am going to be explaining some things in future blogs and when I use certain terms you need to know what I mean because they are pretty specific.  Remember when my friend Steve brought Megaman 4 over, well that day he had his own terms for different items available in the game and these just stuck with my from day one... so here it goes:


First I will say that I will either type  "Mega Man" or Megaman" I'm really not sure which is correct but being as this is my blog I reserve the right to be inconsistent :) I have even been know to type "Megan Man" but this is simply a typo and not to be confused with some weird female version... lol

MEGA HEAD




This... is NOT a 1 up as the mega man booklet would have you believe.  This is a "Mega Head".  So when I say "I picked up the Mega head in the bright man stage this is what i mean lol

E


As this may be a fairly universal term for this I have always just simply referred to these as "E's" it make more sense to me that spelling out or saying "Energy Tank" I mean its a blue can with a big E on it... come on

TREATIE


I have heard and read him be called both "Flip Top" and the somehow even less creative "Eddie".  In my opinion both these names are completely bogus and lame... He gives you treats... so he is Treatie... (I may call him Treaty... but again, my blog and I reserve the right to be inconsistent)

EDGE IT OUT
If you've ever played Mega Man for any amount of time you've probably needed to do this.  Edging it out is when you need to get the the very extent of where the game will allow you to still be standing on an edge without falling in order to make a difficult jump.  used in a sentence "Dude I keep trying to make this jump but I keep falling in the pit and dying!... Dude you have to edge it out to make that jump"  I have included a picture of me have to edge it out in the Bright Man stage... a level notorious for having to EDGE IT OUT.

The Ground Rules:


Ok, So I wanted to finally discuss the ground rules of the project and what I will be doing in full with this project.


1)  I will be playing through all the Mega Man games in the original series which includes

• Mega Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 on NES
• Mega Man 7 on SNES
• Mega Man 8 on Playstation 1
• Mega Man 9 and 10 on Wiiware/Playstation Network

AND all the original Mega Man X games which include

• Mega Man X 1, 2, and 3 on SNES
• Mega Man X 4, 5, and 6 on Playstation 1
• Mega Man X 7 and 8 on Playstation 2

2) Systems:  Since these games are spread across an array of systems here is how I intend to play them.  The majority will be played on an emulator on my computer, this is mostly for simplicity sake, I could hook up all my old systems and dig out the games but playing on my computer makes it more simple, central location for most of the games, also I will be using the emulator save state function to save my game in between playing sessions mostly because i dont want to mess around with writing down passwords lol.  The games I will not be able to play on emulators are Mega Man 9 and 10 since I have one on my Wii and the other on my PS3 (I'll explain if someone REALLY wants me to lol) and Mega Man 7 and 8 I will play on PS2 since emulating a PS2 is possible but seems more trouble than its worth. 

3) Cheating:  I absolutely will not be using any kind of cheats while playing these games, this includes emulator functionality.  What I mean by this is when I use the save state function on my emulator it will only be so I can set down the controller and live my life and come back to the game later lol.  I will not be doing any of this save state before a boss, die, load state, die, load state, die, load state lol.  also I will not be using the emulator's slow down/speed up functionality so when I'm doing certain timing sensitive challenges I can't just slow down the game and make it easy.  It will be as if I'm playing these games on their original systems I will just have the benefit of more stability and a save function.  I wanted to also say that I plan to use they boss patterns to use one boss' weapon against another who is weak against it, this is absolutely not cheating as it is an intended function of the game.  There are some purists out there that will say "meh meh meh you should have to you the basic mega buster on ever guy or else you aren't really doing it" yeah well thats just dumb lol if it was programmed into the software then its fair game.

4) Equipment:  While playing on my emulator I will be using my Gravis Gamepad lol stupid thing has been kicking around for years :P but hey it works.  I had a USB nintento and super nintendo controller but they both quit on me... quality craftsmanship these days.  So anyway I will be using a controller to play these games, not suffering through on a keyboard lol.

Well that about does it folks, welcome to project Mega Man :) not if you'll excuse me, I am going to go visit the year 20XX :)

Settling In

*Sniffs Air* Awwwwww I just love that new blog smell, don't you?  That reminds of a great /yell comment in WoW that I never had the chance to make.  It was in my first year and Hyjal, my main server was down a LOT... lol so they were opening new servers like mad...  Needless to say the wife and I started alts on another server so we could still get our video crack :) we made toon's on a server that just opened that night and when I logged in everyone was /yell-ing a bunch of, well, crap.... but it wasn't until the next day I realized I should have said "awww I love that new server smell" I would have gotten at least like ROFLs... oh well I had been able to name my Tauren Warrior "Cartman" lol with no weird spelling since I was so quick onto the server and I did see one guy yell "ah man! I should have been Cartman!" so that made me feel cool.

ok so there it was! 2 posts in and you've already seen me ramble! hahaha but its GREAT! this is what blogging is all about baby!  If you will look around the blog a bit you will notice some new features,  up top we have a new and improved site banner! made of course by my lovely wife Butters as well as a new custom background showcasing some of my favorite video game weapons, I love that the koopa shell made the cut lol.  If you guys have any good suggestions of noteworthy video game weapons that could be added to the collage please post and let me know!!!

On your right we have a little grooveshark widget that I am calling the "8-Bit Boombox"  While you read posts, comment and peruse the blog please enjoy listening to some classic video game favorites :)  If you scroll to the bottom of the screen you will see a flash Tetris game embedded in the blog!!! How many game blogs do you know that have an actual video game built in!? This is like a Gamers Lounge... dang i should have named the blog that... naw that sounds like an online casino lol.  At the bottom right is the newly added gallery where I can add screen shots, reader submitted pics etc.  Thank you to Spittoon for sending me some rad cartoons he found online of game characters solving real world problems lol, give them a look!

I titled this post settling in because thats kind of how it feels right now lol I feel like I just moved in to a new office building and I made my mission statement and now I'm just getting to know everyone.  My goal, ultimately with this blog is just to post about my daily gaming life.  My thoughts on what I'm currently playing, talking about new games on the horizon and also one of my favorite features, gaming projects :) I did this once with Final Fantasy where I had an entire blog dedicated to playing through Final Fantasy 1 - 10.  It had its own set of pit falls and once the games were over so was the blog lol.  So what I would like to do is set up a project and then focus on that as my daily blog until its finished.  One thing that has been on my mind lately is playing through all the Mega Man's again, and also playing the more recently released Mega Man 9 and 10 on Playstation Network which I have both just still have never sat down and played through.

Well folks that about wraps up this post, tomorrows post I will dive right in to whats currently on my gaming gambit which is Dragon Age :) Amazing game but TBH I'm close to being done with it lol so maybe that will be a good time to move on to Mega Man!

It Starts With One

For as far back as i can remember, I cannot recall a time in my life when I was not enamored with digital entertainment.  I have vague memories of sitting with my dad and watching him play our old Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 computer and just being amazed at the pixels and sound being controlled on the screen by our own hands.  I have a vague recollection of being at a friends house who had a Nintendo and holding my first game controller, I was too young to have any idea what I was doing or even care but I loved it.  When I finally got my very own NES it was impossible to keep me away from it, any chance I got to pop in the Mario Bros./Duckhunt/Track Meet cartridge (you know the one I'm talking about *wink* ) and play I would take it.  Birthdays and Christmas' every year I presented my family with a list of different long forgotten toys and belongings that I wanted but topping every list in big bold letter were the games I wanted, and had I got nothing else for those holidays but the games I would be happy.  As life carried on into the High School teenage years and for many people the whole "video game thing" because a happy memory of childhood and were content to simply "grow out of it" my fire was fueled even more.  The days of awkward adolescences were soothed by claiming my right as the champion of the digital world as I escaped into the land of the Final Fantasy series,  my aggression and teenage angst being relieved by blasting demons back to hell playing Quake, and my growing mind being teased and strengthen by nerve wracking platformers like Super Mario 64.  Upon entering the adult world of work, toil and sweat my passion for gaming instead of fizzling out grew and matured much like a college student who once choked down cheap malt liquor moving up to the taste of fine scotch whiskey, my taste for games became more refined and I discovered the MMORPG.  What started innocently playing Diablo 2 online with friends grew into a 6 year love affair with World of Warcraft which I shared with many friends a long the way including my wife.  Some of those friends play WoW to this day, others like myself have taken a much needed hiatus.  Since pulling away from the World of Warcraft I've started to discover what I've missed in gaming over the years,  when the tunnel vision of WoW clears up you see how much good stuff is out there that may have slipped through the cracks.  As I start this newest chapter in my gaming life I have decided to share it with the world or at least anyone who cares to stumble onto my blog.  To call me a seasoned gamer would be an understand, to say that I have played it all would be an even bigger untruth.  So if you would be so kind to indulge me, I invite all-comers to follow me through my digital adventures on those days when gaming is truly greater than life.