Blog of the Green Mage

This Blog is kind of an extension to my Youtube Page, and they pretty much go hand-in-hand. Here I post about what video game playthroughs I am currently doing and which ones I'm thinking about doing in the future, my thoughts on games I've played and gaming news, and maybe just what's been up with me lately.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Massively Overdue Update Video Uploaded to Youtube

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage


     So, yeah... finally got my massive update video up after, what... about a month and a half hiatus?  Sorry for the long and unforeseen delay; I really did expect to get back to making videos when I came back from my vacation over in LA (where I will note that I was only one of maybe three people in the entire state who was wearing a jacket), but this term of college kind of crept up on me and then bashed me over the head with piles and piles of homework, assignments, projects, and presentations.  I've barely had any time to myself this college term to do any of my hobbies: gaming, writing, video making, etc.  Thankfully, though, the terms slowly coming to a close, which means the work is subsiding slightly (still have several projects and presentations to work on, though), so at least I have a little more breathing room to get back to my loving hobbies.  Oh, how I've missed them.  Anyway, like I said back when I completed my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough, I sat down and finally made this update video which, as I expected, was quite large and long, with me talking for nearly 15 minutes straight about what I plan on doing next and some changes I plan on trying to make.  Thankfully, Youtube increased the video length limit on all videos to 15 minutes now, which is a godsend (but would have been a preferable change at the BEGINNING of my MH3 playthrough... sheesh...), otherwise this video would of had to have been split into two separate videos, or I would have had to cut out large chunks of information to make the limit.  You can view the video above at your leisure, but this will also be a written explanation of what I go over in the video, as well as maybe go further into detail on some updates I may have otherwise skimmed over lightly.  Like the video, I expect this to be massively long, so hunker down, grab a cool drink, and let's get started.

     Best place to probably start with my updates is changes or videos concerning Monster Hunter 3.  I finished up my playthrough of the offline "campaign" not to long ago, back at the end of July, and since then, people have been asking me a lot of the same questions over and over again, many of which I have been keeping quiet on or avoiding for the time being because I wasn't all too sure myself what I was going to do about them.  Well, I've decided on quite a few things by now, so these common questions will finally be answered now.

     First Question:  Will you be doing the post-Ceadeus Quests (the quests that pop up after you complete the main portion of the offline campaign, aka beat the Ceadeus)?

     Answer: Yes, I will be doing some, if maybe not most, of the post-Ceadeus quests whenever I feel I have the time.  I don't, however, plan on doing all of them, just the ones I feel would make for interesting videos and commentaries worth the time for making them into videos.  I don't know when I will be uploading these; chances are good that these will be uploaded occasionally and in small bursts.  Don't expect them to be the very next batch of videos I upload.

     Second Question:  Now that you've done a playthrough of the offline mode, will you be doing a video playthrough of Monster Hunter's Online Mode as well?  Please say yes!

     Answer:  No.  Nice try, but I don't have that kind of time or patience to dedicate my channel to a MH3 online playthrough for god knows how long.  It took me three entire months just to finish the offline mode of MH3, and the vast majority of that time was actually spent making those videos, as in, editing, rendering, uploading, and commenting them for Youtube.  Taking that into consideration, MH3's online mode is much more extensive, including a ton more quests, several other events to complete, a myriad of arena battles, etc., all of which would probably take me half a year, if not longer, to complete in a solid playthrough (especially with the quality of videos I try to make).  Not only that, but attempting to team up with random people online that I don't even know means that much of that playthrough would be left out of my hands; I would need to  rely on the other hunters to pull their own weight as well, and hope that we don't epicly fail a quest and have to redo it all over again, taking up even more of my time.  A playthrough like that would be best done with friends who I know and can depend on, not only to help me with the quests, but also behave appropriately and maybe add helpful commentary.  This alone, however, would also take considerable time, as there are sure to be scheduling issues between the four of us as we try and find times where we can all play together at the same time and get the footage we need to make the playthrough.  I never had an intention of doing a full-blown online playthrough for Monster Hunter 3, as I wanted to go for a "Newbie's Entrance into the Monster Hunter Franchise" feel for my playthrough, not only showing off the game to other people without ruining the bigger picture of the game, but also to interest other like players who may be new to the series themselves.  If you want to see the online, buy the game and experience it for yourself;  otherwise, there's plenty of other gamers and LPers out there who are willing to dedicate their time to doing a playthrough of the online mode.

     HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that I will NOT be putting up any more videos of online quests.  As many MH3 players know, there are still three more boss monsters that are online-specific, as in you can only face off against them in the online mode, and I do intend to eventually make videos of me doing these quests and fighting these monsters.  I have actually already taken on the Jhen Moran a while back, so I might be able to possibly upload the quest videos against him sometime soon;  the other two boss monsters will just have to wait until whenever I actually get around to battling them online.  Those may not be the only videos I will be uploading, though;  if there are any normal quests or maybe even Event quests (quests which change on a week-by-week basis) that I find interesting or something interesting happens in, then you may find that I will occasionally upload some of those videos onto my channel at random times.

The Post-Ceadeus quests and the online videos probably won't be what I'll be putting up next, though, since there's some things that take priority over Monster Hunter at the moment, but I'll get into that here in a bit.

     Third Question:  Hey, I'm a big fan of yours, and was wondering if you would like to play online with me in MH3?

     Answer: This has been a very, very common question people have been asking me ever since I began my MH3 playthrough.  People have left this in comments, sent me PMs, or left these kind of requests on my channel;  my answer, however, has always been the same: "Sorry, but I am not taking requests at the moment to play online in Monster Hunter 3 with my viewers/subscribers, as I want to focus on finishing up my offline playthrough of the game and getting those videos up on Youtube as quickly and efficiently as possible."  I did say, however, that when my playthrough was done and over with, I would begin playing online with my viewers and subscribers in a special/different way than they might be expecting, and now that I am indeed done with my playthrough, here is what I plan on doing.  I've received a lot of requests to play online with people, and while going online randomly and trying to play with anyone who comes at me might sound easy, I don't really get on MH3's online too much (I'm a gamer, and there's other games calling my name, too, ya know...), so what I'm going to do is I'm going to begin streaming myself playing video games live on the Internet on certain days.

     If you don't know what "Live Streaming" is, it is where you can watch me playing a game live on the Internet in real time, and you can not only chat with other people in a chat room, but you can also be able to chat with me (I can view the chatroom), asking me questions, making comments, and maybe even getting the chance to play online with me, not just in Monster Hunter 3, but in several other games, like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Mario Kart Wii, several PC games which I own, and maybe even some XBOX 360 games which I have (just got the system not too long ago, so multiplayer games on that at the moment are quite few).  Starting up my own gaming stream and streaming and talking with my subs has been in the works for quite a while, and was originally supposed to be my 500-subscriber special, but time issues and conflicts kind of pushed that back by quite a bit, seeing how I now have over 800 subscribers right now.  Still going to begin streaming sometime soon, though, and it will count for my 500-subscriber special, so don't worry; I still have a few other things planned to  maybedo for my 1000-subscriber special when we get there.  I'm currently working on toying around with different streaming settings/sites, so I don't know exactly when my first stream will be, but I think I have the basic gist of it by now, and will hopefully be streaming sometime soon.  My first (official) stream will probably mostly focus on playing MH3 online with people, as I have the most requests to play that with people at the moment;  if I decide to make this streaming a weekly or ever other week affair (college schedule rules all, at the moment...  -.-;), I will pretty much play whatever games I feel like playing, so there's a multitude of games you might drop in to watch or even play with me whenever I stream.

     Fourth Question:  Now that you are done with your Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough, what do you plan on doing next?  What is your next playthrough going to be on?

     Answer: Right now, my top and main priority is to go back and finish up my Red Steel 2 Playthrough, which I began nearly a month before Monster Hunter 3 came out.  Some people might remember that I ran into a lot of trouble trying to get those videos up onto Youtube;  apparently, Ubisoft took issue with me trying to upload those videos, and Youtube's copyright system automatically blocked a large majority of my videos worldwide so no one could view them.  If you want to view the video where I talk about it, you can view it by clicking here, but to make a long story short, I instead began uploading my RS2 Playthrough videos over on Viddler as a kind of workaround so that people were able to watch them.  I made some decent progress in that playthrough, with an estimation of about 60% of the game completed.  As they were kind of out of the way for my viewers, though, and Monster Hunter 3 came out long before I could even finish the game, let alone get the rest of the videos up, I decided to put the RS2 playthrough on hold until a later time where I could get back to working on it, and turned my attention to doing a playthrough of MH3.  Now I plan on finally returning back to RS2 and not only finish up what I started, but do an entire reboot of that playthrough.

     What exactly does that mean?  Well, as some of you may have noticed, while I was working through MH3, I began to test out and teach myself some new editing techniques, such as speeding up and slowing down the video, adding transitions, adding different sound effects and music types, adding my own form of annotations, and most importantly, improving my video quality drastically.  I plan on going back to all of my RS2 videos, both public and private, and re-editing the heck out of them; there's a lot more I can add to them now than I could when I first began the playthrough, especially in the form of comments, as Viddler's comment system isn't as intuitive as Youtube's, meaning I originally lost a lot of my charm in those videos.

     Speaking of Viddler, I also plan on expanding my videos outside of Youtube, so (hopefully) beginning with my Red Steel 2 Playthrough, you will also be able to view my videos on Blip.tv, as well as maybe Viddler and DailyMotion for future playthroughs.  I'm not too sure about those last two just yet, though, as the quality of my videos means that they are quite huge in size, and Viddler's and DailyMotion's file size limits are questionably too small for most of my videos at the moment.  But I definitely will be trying to get videos up onto Blip.tv consistently alongside my usual Youtube channel, meaning that some of the Blip.tv audience can view my videos as well.  Plus, I like Blip's video embeds better than Youtube's for some reason, so you'll see me using those more often from now on.

     I don't expect it to take me as long as usual to complete my Red Steel 2 Playthrough, seeing how nearly 60% of the game has already been beaten and made into videos already.  From there, once I'm done with my RS2 Playthrough, this is where my updates begin to become a bit more vague and unclear, as I'm not sure what order things will happen in.  I already have two more playthroughs planned out for me to do once I am finished with RS2, although it is possible that one of them may not happen.  It is a playthrough of a really old PC game, one of the first ones I ever played and probably one not many of you have heard about.  Right now, it's giving me a lot of difficulties, as it does not seem to want to cooperate with my current operating systems.  I have been working on it diligently, though, and am awfully close to getting it to run properly, so there is still a chance that I may be able to do a playthrough of that game, but there's also still that chance that I won't be able to.  =(  As for the other game, it came out about six months ago, maybe a little longer, so there shouldn't be any problems with me doing a playthrough on that game.  And yes, I am keeping the game titles under wraps for the time being, because I can.  =P

     Aside from those two future playthroughs, I also have some "Game Specials" I plan on doing.  These are technically just some of the extra videos I said I would do after completing my first two playthroughs (Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories), but never actually got around to doing.  For Operation Flashpoint, I said that I would make some extra videos for the game's singleplayer standalone skirmish missions that came with the game as well as in updates from Codemasters after the game's release.  For Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, I said that I would make a video or two showing off some of the things I missed during my blind runthrough of the game, as well as some of the differences and changes between my first and second playthrough of the game, since it changes depending on how the game perceives your playing style or based on some of the decisions you make throughout the game.  I am not sure when exactly I will be uploading these videos; the most logical thing to do would be to upload a Game Special, Playthrough, Game Special, and Playthrough, or vice versa.  I could, however, also upload one of these Game Specials onto Youtube while I'm off doing my RS2 Playthrough on Viddler and Blip.tv, since I won't have much to put up on Youtube at the moment any way.  As always, I'm just going to go with the flow and take things as they come, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

     While I'm undergoing the process of making all of these changes and making transitions from one playthrough/project to the next, you will see me occasionally upload some random gameplay videos on different games, especially when I have nothing else to upload.  This should lessen any more "video droughts," like the one I just came out of, in the future, as gameplay videos do not require as much time and effort to edit and make.  These videos will simply be kind of like entertaining filler, just to hold you guys over while I set up and prepare for whatever it is I plan on doing next.  Some examples of videos I might upload include Super mario Galaxy 2, Red Dead Redemption, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Mafia II, other newly released games I get, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  Lots and lots of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

     So, that's pretty much all of the updates I wanted to inform you guys about.  I will continue to update and post to my blog to keeps you guys side-by-side with me as I make these changes and progress on with my playthroughs.  As a side note, I also plan on making some changes to this blog when I get the chance to fiddle around with different settings and tweaks, so you can expect to see some interesting add-ons/changes to the blog in the future.  It's pretty basic as it stands, and it gets the job done, but a little home-improvement never hurt anybody, right?  If you read all of this, congrats; I commend you for your speed-reading and/or endurance.  Like I expected, this turned out to be pretty long...

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Friday, September 10, 2010

The Legend of Zelda Versus Marathon

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

The Legend of Zelda Versus Marathon has begun!  The Marathon will be running for 60+ hours, maybe longer depending on how many donations they receive towards the charity for Child's Play.  Although I doubt I'll be able to stay awake and watch all 60 hours (not that I'm going to be trying very hard to...), I will be updating this post occasionally with some minor updates about how the Versus Marathon is going, as well as how both teams are faring.  And now, for your viewing pleasure, I have also embedded both streams into this post so that you can view either one, or even, both whenever you please.

The Legend of Zelda Marathon Versus Website
Versus Marathon FAQ
List of Game Achievements



Watch live video from triplespeedrunners on Justin.tv


Updates (All times are in US MTN Time, a.k.a, my time)

September 10
3:00 PM - The Versus Marathon has just officially started, and now both teams, OCT and TSR, have begun playing through the Zelda games.  There is no set order in which the games must be played, so either team can choose whichever order they feel like tackling the Zelda games.  Surprisingly, both teams have chosen to start off with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  Guess the game is just that popular;  I sure agree.  =)

5:31 PM - TSR has just finished A Link to the Past.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~730
OCT ~420

6:00 PM - TSR is planning/setting up to play Link's Crossbow Training next to get the "Untold Legends" achievement (Completed any Legend of Zelda game not on the main list) for an added 200 points.  OCT is still on A Link to the Past, but is slowly catching up in points.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~730 ~960;  Correction, they just re-updated their score.
OCT ~615

6:42 PM - TSR has just finished Link's Crossbow Training, and has returned back to A Link to the Past to finish up some more achievements.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~1160
OCT ~705

7:00 PM - TSR has now moved on to their next Zelda game, Zelda II.  OCT has also just finished up A Link to the Past around the same time, and is now preparing to move onto the original Zelda on the NES.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~1160
OCT ~860

8:00 PM - Team Gamree is now having leftover chicken for dinner... because that definitely needed an update...  Also, $50 has been donated so far.  Oh, right, the score.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~1160; TSR has decided not to update their score until after they complete Zelda II.  -.-;
OCT ~1090

9:40 PM - TSR just finished Zelda II, followed by OCT who finished The Legend of Zelda shortly after.  TSR is getting ready to do The Minish Cap next, while OCT plans on playing through Majora's Mask. Current score is roughly:
TSR ~2160
OCT ~1915

10:45 PM - I just had a nice, little, late snack of cereal, and it was quite yummy.  And then I proceeded to accidentally smash the ever loving crud out of my left hand.  Don't ask me how I did it; it just happened.  Now my hand is beginning to swell up rather nicely.  Ouchy.

As for the Marathon, both teams are still playing through their respective games, TSR on Minish and OCT on Majora.  The current donation amount is $71.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~2275
OCT ~1940

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go get a pack of ice now...

September 11
12:00 AM - Well, time for me to hit the sack.  Hand really hurts now, so some rest will probably do it some good (especially without all of this typing).  Donations right now are still at $71, which means that the marathon will be extended by an extra 4 hours as of right now.  Next mark to add on another hour is $75.  Also, Team OCT has said that if donation reach $360, one of their members will take a sledgehammer to his first (and currently broken) XBOX 360 on stream.  Let's hope they meet that goal...  >=D

Current score is roughly:
TSR ~2320
OCT ~1940

7:35 AM - Wakey-Wakey, Eggs and Zeldy.  My hand doesn't hurt anymore and isn't as swollen, but it's really sore and now I have a decent-sized bump on the back of my hand.  Seems like I woke up just in time to witness TSR finish Link's Awakening, and by the sounds of it, they're happy it's finally over.  They are now moving on to Twilight Princess.  Also sometime during the night, OCT moved onwards from Majora's Mask to Minish Cap.  Donations seem to now be at $81.  I will wait to update the current score, as TSR might change theirs now that they have completed Link's Awakening, and it seems like the score on either stream is different from the others, so I'll watch and wait a bit to figure out what's been going on since my absence.  By the looks of it, though, TSR is still in the lead.  Current score is:
TSR: 3420
OCT: 2220

Where the heck that massive score lead came from, I have no clue.  I'll ask around to see what I can get.

8:13 AM - Okay, so, here's where things stand.  When I went to sleep, OCT played Majora's Mask for a majority of the 8 hours I was gone.  At one point, though, the game froze up on them and they were forced to restart it, and due to Majora's odd game saving style, they lost about an hour's worth of work.  Out of the game's 4 main temples, they completed 3 of them, and then decided to break from Majora's Mask for the time being and start playing through The Minish Cap.  TSR had been playing through The Minish Cap, but eventually decided to switched over to Link's Awakening about three hours ago.  After completing that game, TSR has now switched gears to playing through Twilight Princess. No change in score or donations, just thought I would make a quick summary of what I missed.  But the best question I've asked so far is:  Why the heck am I awake so dang early?  O.O

12:30 PM - Past noontime, which means I'm finally fully awake by now, which also means I guess I should get around to doing some homework.  ;-;  TSR made it up to completing the second dungeon in Twilight Princess before switching back to Minish Cap to finish it up, so once again, both teams are now playing the same game.  Strangely enough, both teams have struggled with the game during this marathon, getting lost or confused as to what they're supposed to do next.  TSR is further into the game than OCT due to how much they played the game earlier on in the tournament.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~3525
OCT ~2385

1:00 PM - Team TSR has just finished up Minish Cap, and is going back through parts of it to get more achievements before moving on back to Twilight Princess.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~3565
OCT ~2405

3:00 PM - The Legend of Zelda Versus Marathon has been going on for 24 hours as of right now.  OCT is still working their way through Minish Cap, and surprisingly, TSR is also still playing Minish Cap, most likely still going for added achievements.  They oddly beat the game's final boss and went through the credits a second time a few minutes ago, and are still going about going back to find some more items to collect for achievements.  OCT is thinking of playing Four Swords Adventures after Minish Cap, while TSR still talks of returning back to Twilight Princess to continue to play through that game.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~3905
OCT ~2515

5:10 PM - OCT just finished Minish Cap and is now moving on to playing Four Sword Adventures.  They will be playing the game with four players, so this should be very fun and interesting to watch.  Not sure if they've updated their score to include all of the achievements gained from Minish Cap just yet, but as of right now, the current score appears to be roughly:
TSR ~3965
OCT ~2655

6:34 PM - OCT has changed lanes from Four Swords due to one of their members having to leave for the day, and they have returned to playing Majora's Mask in hopes of finishing it.  TSR is still playing on through Twilight Princess.  The current score is roughly:
TSR ~4000
OCT ~2800

8:43 PM - OCT has unfortunately run into even more tech difficulties regarding Majora's Mask, which has crashed on them yet again, this time wasting nearly 2 hours of gameplay.  They have decided to forgo Majora's Mask and its crashiness in favor of its younger sibling, Ocarina of Time, making for the game's first apearance in this Versus Marathon.  TSR is still Twilight-ing on their side... the LoZ game, not the movie.  >=P  Not much updating has occurred score-wise, so the current score is roughly:
TSR ~4045
OCT ~2820

11:43 PM - About ready to turn in for the night again, which is still quite early compared to when I normally go to sleep.  I still have some homework I need to work on tomorrow, and I also want to try and get in some time on finishing up my long-awaited and well overdue update video.  Both teams are still working through their respective games: OCT on OoT and TSR on TP.  Donations are now at $111.00, meaning that the overall marathon time has been extended by an extra 5 hours.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~4090
OCT ~2905

September 12
9:50 AM - Ah, how I like me some Zelda in the morning.  You know what I don't like in the morning, though?  Some homework as well...  =(  TSR has appeared to have finally finished Twilight Princess, and switched over to playing the original Legend of Zelda.  They completed the game in a little over 2 hours with 100% and no deaths, netting them massive points (about 1,100, if I calculate correctly), and they have now moved on to playing through Majora's Mask next.  OCT is still making their way through Ocarina of Time at a decent pace, having just reached the final dungeon in the game.  Donations still seem to have stopped at $111, although it appears that both teams have now updated their scores since last night.  Current scores are roughly:
TSR ~5590
OCT ~3285

11:40 AM - OCT has just completed Ocarina of Time, and is now preparing to begin playing through Zelda II.  Unless some more money is donated to extend te marathon by another hour, it is now running on less than 24 hours before it finishes tomorrow.  Current score is roughly: still the same.  =P

4:00 PM - The Versus Marathon has now been running for a little over 48 hours.  A few more people have donated since noon, and now the charity for Child's Play stands at $155, meaning that the marathon has been extended by a seventh hour and will now be ending at around 10 AM EST tomorrow.  Scores have also been updated, so the current score is roughly:
TSR ~5470
OCT ~4055

On a side note, TSR is failing miserably at trying to take out Majora's Water Temple Boss, Gyorg, with only five hearts.  It is hilarious.  >=D  EDIT: 4:27 PM They finally took him out after several tries and with only about 5 minutes left before the moon smashed into Termina.

5:20 PM - OCT has just finished Zelda II and has now decided to move back on to Four Swords Adventures rather than Oracle of Seasons like they originally planned.  They don't have enough players at the moment to continue on with the multiplayer, so one of their members will be continuing on in the game solo.  TSR is still working through Majora's Mask.  Donations have reached $170 as of right now.  The current score is roughly:
TSR ~5780
OCT ~4205

7:30 PM - TSR has finished up playing Majora's Mask, and has now moved on over to playing Ocarina of Time.  OCT is still playing through four Swords Adventures. Donation have increased by $20 since I last updated, leaving the total at $190.  The current score is roughly:
TSR ~5800
OCT ~4350

11:40 PM - Another day is coming to a close, and it looks as though there's been some very noticeable changes in the past few hours.  Both teams are still continuing to play through their respective games, with TSR on Ocarina of Time and OCT playing through Four Swords Adventures, but both teams have jumped up a decent amount of points.  Most noticeable, however, is that the donations total has taken a large leap from $190 to $312.50, meaning that the stream will be extended by an extra 10 hours, unless it hits the next donation milestone of $340, in which another extra hour will be added.  Some people have been busy little beavers, haven't they?  O_o; The current score is roughly:
TSR ~6040
OCT ~4540

September 13
6:50 AM - Woke up early because I have college classes to attend today, so my marathon updates today are unfortunately going to be quite lacking.  Both teams have moved onto separate games since my last update.  TSR has finished Ocarina of Time and has decided to tackle Oracle of Seasons, while OCT completed Four Swords Adventures and has chosen Link's Awakening as their next game.  The donation total as hit $361.00 as of this posting, meaning two things.  First and foremost, 11 hours have been added on to the end of the marathon, meaning that as it stands now, the Versus Marathon will run until 2 PM EST if I am not mistaken.  An extra hour will be tagged on if donations reach a total of $390.  Secondly, as promised by OCT, now that donations have reached and surpassed the magic number of $360, they will taking a sledgehammer and smashing the ever-loving crud out of one of their member's first XBOX 360 live on stream.  I'll still continue to try and update things when I can today, but they will be few and far between until well into the afternoon, so if you really wish to see the XBOX 360 smashing, I'd suggest you keep and eye on OCT's stream, as they say that they will be smashing it this afternoon.  Current score is roughly:
TSR ~6465
OCT ~4745

10:00 AM - Have a kind of break between my first class and my next, so I actually can type out an update now.  Also just ran into one of my Youtube subscribers, MrGloutube, so yay, there are a few people who are actually watching part of the marathon thanks to me.  I can now die happy... once I turn in all of my college assignments due today.  Anyway, OCT finished up Link's Awakening and has now moved on to Oracle of Seasons, which TSR is also continuing on, so now both teams are once again playing through the exact same game for the third time this marathon, I believe.  Donations have increased a small amount to $362.50, and the current score is roughly:
TSR ~6785
OCT ~5468

10:50 AM - Have to be heading back to college now, and I don't think I can access the streams from there, so this will probably be my last "live" update I will be making before the Versus Marathon ends.  Donations are currently at $365.50, and the current score is roughly:
TSR ~6825
OCT ~5490

Post-Marathon Wrap-Up
     So as I'm typing this, the marathon is indeed finally over.  But before we get around to how things finished up, let's take a quick look back at what was missed between my last update and the Marathon's finale.  TSR continued to plunge into Oracle of Seasons and finally beat the final boss, completing the game and scoring further achievement points.  From there, they decided to simply begin The Wind Waker and get as far as they could into the game before time was finally called. Taking a page from TSR's book earlier on in the marathon, OCT decided to stop playing Oracle of Seasons and switch over to Link's Crossbow Training for an easy 200 achievement points.  After a quick run through the game in about an hour's time, they then returned back to Oracle of Seasons and played as far into the game as they could before time was called.
     A total of $390 was raised for the charity towards Child's Play, which in turn extended the marathon by an extra 12 hours.  This means that the marathon ran for 72 hours straight, or 3 entire days, from start to finish, with it finally ending at 5 PM EST on the 13th.  Both teams put up a great marathon and great runs through many of the Zelda games, but in the end, Triple Speed Runners came out on top, having gotten the lead since the very beginning and holding onto it for the marathon's entirety.  Aside from bragging rights, this also earns them the right to name the next game series/franchise to be played for the next Versus Marathon, which I will be updating their decision in this post once I find out.  To vent their fury, OCT proceeded to smash, thrash, and demolish one of their member's old XBOX 360 systems... or maybe that was just because donations surpassed $360, in which they promised they would do so.  =P

     Although both teams are going to recheck their achievements and re-tally their overall scores a rough estimate from the marathon's end has been established.  The final score:

TSR = 8520
OCT = 6070

     Thanks again to everyone who stopped by to watch, and even more to everyone who donated.  See you next marathon.

LAST-MINUTE UPDATE: The overall final donations for the marathon stands at $451, with a final donation of $61coming in after the Marathon's end from Team Ocean City Trinity themselves, with a penny for each point they earned throughout the marathon (obviously rounded up to the nearest dollar).  Team TripleSpeedRunners have announced their nominations for the next versus marathon, the choices being the franchises of Mario, Metroid, and Mega Man.  According to OCT's homepage, no official game series has been chosen yet, but OCT is leaning more towards Metroid for the next marathon.

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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Time for More Marathons

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     Hope you're ready for a pretty big post.  So one of the first posts I put up here on my personal blog was about a 48-hour Zelda Donation Marathon I happened to stumble across back in April, and I thought it would be quite interesting to blog about it and then go watch Zelda for all of that nostalgic goodness. Now I've just found out that there will be not one, but two major upcoming stream donation marathons of interest, both beginning tomorrow, September 10.
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     The first one is yet another Legend of Zelda marathon, or specifically, "Gamemarathons.com’s Legend of Zelda Versus Marathon."  Versus marathons are common to the GameMarathons site, and are held a few times each year between competing teams.  Game "achievements" (much in the same style as the ones used by XBOX 360/Microsoft games) are designated before the competition/marathon starts, and as teams meet the requirements needed for each achievement, they receive points. Whoever has the most points at the end of the overall marathon is proclaimed the winner, and besides bragging rights, they also receive the right to name the game/franchise to be used in the next Versus Marathon.  Don't know about you, but it sounds like quite a fun and competitive marathon to attend and watch.

     Two teams have been officially signed up to compete so far, and the Zelda Versus Marathon will be running for 60 hours, with team members on either team switching off playing the games at different intervals.  Based on donations, for each cumulative multiple of $5 received, the Marathon will be extended an extra hour, up to a possible of 36 hours tagged on to the original 60.  This means, for example, the first $5 donated adds on one hour, and the second hour is added on once another $10 has been donated, for a total of $15 towards the donation.  For the marathon to be extended by a third hour, another $15 needs to be donated for a total of $30 overall, and so on, so forth.  All donation earned will be sent to the charity Child’s Play. GameMarathon's description: "Their primary mission is to give toys and games to children in hospitals. They’re fairly well known in the gaming community because a lot of other game marathons also donate to them and they’re founded by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade."  The Versus Marathon begins tomorrow at 5 PM US Eastern Time.

     To visit the official Versus Marathon page, click here.  For more in-depth information and faqs about the Versus Marathon and how things will be set-up/work, click to go to the Versus Faqs page.


The Two Competing Teams: (click team name to visit their personal web site)




The Zelda Games to be Played: (chance not all will be played within time constraints, nor in this order)
Legend of Zelda (NES)
Zelda 2: Adventure of Link (NES)
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (GB)
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64)
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GC)
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GC)
Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (GBA)
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (WII)
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
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     The second marathon, also beginning tomorrow, is the Haloathon.  This is, in essence, your more basic marathon, dedicated to playing through the Halo Games/Franchise.  However, there is one specific twist to this marathon: it will be building up to the release of the next game in the Halo series, Halo: Reach.  The marathon will dedicated to playing through all of the other Halo games in the franchise up until Reach's release Tuesday, in which they will then proceed to play and complete the game on its release date (with luck).  The marathon will be lasting a whopping 100 hours, which is plenty of time between Friday and Reach's release on Tuesday.  Donations towards this marathon will also be sent towards the charity Child's Play.  The Haloathon starts tomorrow at 8pm (UK – GMT).

The Halo Games to be Played: (chance not all will be played within time constraints, nor in this order)
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo Wars
Halo 3: ODST
Halo: Reach
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     Personally, I will be popping in every so often to attend/watch/chat it up in the Zelda Versus Marathon for a majority of the time, simply because I like LoZ better than Halo, plus I want that nostalgic feeling of watching all of those old Zelda games I've played from way back when (and others I never had the chance to play myself, too).  A Versus Marathon sounds like it would be really interesting to watch, as well.  However, I actually did find that I enjoyed Halo 3 quite a bit more than I expected, and have been hearing some good things about Reach (plus sheer curiosity), so assuming I have nothing else to do then and I'm not physically/mentally exhausted by then, I may go over to the Haloathon to watch them play through Halo: Reach on its release day (midnight release may make this very hard to do, though...).  Hopefully a lot of you will come to watch and have some fun with at these marathons, and even more hopeful is that many of you will help donate some money to help Child's Play during either of these marathons.  We need to get toys and, more importantly, video games to those kids in hospitals, so jump on it, gamers (and non-gamers)!

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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Offline Playthrough Comes to a Close

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     Well, holy crud, it's been a long journey to this point.  At exactly three months long, this has been my longest playthrough of a game yet, and that's not even including when I first tried out the MH3 demo about a month before the game's release (and the ensuing carnage of me attempting to take on Toluca and his lovely Rathian slave).  I began the playthrough and game a complete newbie and worked my way up to... er, whatever the heck I am in the game today.  <.<;

     The final few videos of the the final battle against the Ceadeus to save Moga Village have been recorded, and the offline story mode campaign thingamajiger has been uploaded to Youtube successfully!  Below are the final videos of repelling the Ceadeus, as well as the very last video following the battle where I round off the playthrough during the credits (will edit in later).  Including the 2 "Out & About" videos as well as the ultra-special "Remember..." video, the MH3 playlist numbers exactly 150 videos!









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EDIT: July 27, 2010 @ ~5:30 pm


     Holy crud, this video took fricken' forever to upload!  It was originally set to be uploaded early Sunday morning, as that was the day my family and I were set to leave on our vacation, but I still needed some final audio tweaking and render processing to do before finally uploading the video, so I missed my own deadline.  Finally arrived at our destination later that day (future posts will be describing in detail about the vacation), and I found that the supposed "WiFi" our hotel had sucked big-time.  Constant drops from the Internet, barely a signal anywhere in the room, and slow connection times overall pretty much meant that using the Internet wasn't going to be any easy task.

     Finally (and miraculously) got the final video of the Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough up, though, and although audio was still kind of all over the place, it's good enough to get the message across.  Anyway, notes on things mentioned in this specific video.  I am on vacation at the moment, and due to the aforementioned shoddy internet connection and how it simply despises connecting to Youtube (successful 1 out of every 10 tries, if I'm lucky), I won't be visiting Youtube to check/moderate comments, PMs, or obviously to upload any videos.  Not going to worry too much about anything Youtube- or playthrough-related while I'm over here on vacation.  The connection here is strong and consistent enough where I can still come post and update on my blog, however, which I plan to do during my vacation days.  I will, however, be uploading one or two update videos sometime after I get back from vacation (will probably be working weekend I get back as well, so videos will have to wait after that, too).  These videos will explain what I plan (or might be planning) to do concerning MH3 online and post-offline quests, as well as my next playthrough(s), and several (special?) changes I am thinking about doing to how I am currently doing things.  I will also be writing out what I say in that video here as well, but only after it has been posted up to Youtube.  But for now, gonna stop thinking about Youtubing and just gonna go vacation.  See ya guys in a bit.

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Monday, July 19, 2010

Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Playthrough ??? - Remember...

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     I believe every journey - through a new game, in real life, in your imagination - every single one is, in a way, a story, and it is through those journeys that we learn, we understand, and we grow. The places we see, the people we meet, the things we do, the events that happen, they all come together to build you up or break you down, and in the end, you come out a different person, whether you know it or not. We are each shaped and formed from our own experiences, the paths we attempt to traverse, the journey that our lives take. We leave our mark in the world in the subtlest of ways, and we remember the people whose lives we've touched, or have been touched by. Without the journey, you will never reach your destination, but without a destination, you never know where the next journey will take you. Why am I being so dramatic? Partly because it is true, partly because I don't get the chance very often to stroke my ego, so what better way to do that than make an entire epic video about me? =P

 
a.k.a epic-video-of-teh-awesomeness-that-we-went-through-to get-here-and-now-I-get-to-overhype-shtuff.

     Although made in about three days, a lot of time went into this, and I mean A LOT. Obviously, I would normally put a ton more time and effort into its creation until it got the Gamree Stamp of Approval, but I just found out recently that I'm under a time limit here if I want to do the things I need and want to do within the next week. As such, there are still several minor bumps and hiccups in the video, mostly in the audio section (couldn't cut out all of the background music), but for a first attempt, I think it's not too bad if I say so myself. Of course, it would have come out a lot better and smoother if I were working with the actual raw footage I used for my past videos, but since I delete those files as I finish each set of videos, all I had to work with was the already rendered video files. Unfortunately, a ton of footage got dropped due to Youtube's 'effin 11 minute limit (Toluca was going to get a section all to himself), so I hit some of the main parts while keeping the video trudging forward with that Gamree flair. Maybe I will return back to this video in the future and make it everything I imagined it would be, and upload it to a site that doesn't have such time restrictions... but definitely not any time soon. But I digress; I just have incredibly high standards when it comes to some things. Anyway, this was my journey through the game. Hopefully it makes you reflect on your own journey through the game for those of you who played it, and I hope you have had as many great memories and experiences (and utter pwnages) as I did. For everyone else, I just hope you had fun in watching me with my own experiences so far in the game.

     Anyway, enough with the thick, gooey, cheesy stuff (Mmm... cheese...). We have a Ceadeus to pwn!!1! (hopefully)

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

The Brawl in the Family Online Store Opens

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

 
     Yeah, so a little late with this post... or maybe a lot, but still gonna put it up here for people to know.  One of my favorite online comic strips, called Brawl in the Family, just recently opened up a store for their site.  What is Brawl in the Family?  If the comic's title (or my interest concerning the word Brawl") hasn't slightly given it away by now, Brawl in the Family is mainly focused on making humorous comic strips based on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo characters, and by some slight extension, some non-Nintendo characters (although they have affiliation in some way, i.e. Solid Snake from Metal Gear).  I find many of their comic strips to be hilarious and nostalgic, while also being thought-provoking at times (just like a good comic strip).  As I mentioned, they just recently opened up a new online store to sell merchandise promoting their comics, which can be found here.

     It's nothing too big or fancy as of right now, but I'm sure it will definitely grow with time as they begin making more merchandise and money off said items.  But for now, it is interesting to see what they have.  A couple shirts with some cool and funny references to a few of their comics, a nice little (green) Zelda-esque mug for your own "World's Best Hero," and...

     MIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Er, I mean- *cough* Ahem, I... guess it's kinda cute... if you like those kinds of plushies.  It's a very fuzzy, er, funny take on my favorite Brawl character, and those dark little eyes just seem to be crying out for a great big hu- I mean, they're staring straight into the depths of my soul.  More research may need to be done on this little guy in order to cuddle- I mean, classify whether or not he's worth your money, so I shall brave my wallet by ordering said creature and examining him closely, specifically to see if he makes for a great replacement for a teddy bear while falling asleep... not that I have a teddy bear...  <.<;

     Er, yes, speaking of which, BitF's grand opening of their store isn't without its grandeur.  For a limited time only (and since I'm posting this much later than I originally expected, that's incredibly limited now), the items in their store have been discounted a few bucks from their original prices.  They have claimed this opening discount will last until their next comic update, which if I'm not wrong, means that the sale will last until this Tuesday, so if you see anything you like, now might be a good time to dish out the dough for it.

     In the mean time, I might as well post up a few of my favorite BitF comics while I'm at it, so below are just a couple out of the many hilarious comics that I have enjoyed from them (and hope you will enjoy them, too).  Click on the comic to view it on its original page at BitF and get some more insight from the creators themselves.


     All comic material is copyright and owned by BitF, Brawl in the Family.

 

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Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     Just got back from work tonight, and wanted to quickly wish everyone a happy Fourth of July since this will practically be the only time today I will get the chance type this out.  Hopefully your day will go better than mine, and make sure you don't go overboard with teh fireworks and accidentally/illegally blow something up (but if you do, at least make sure you blow it up in style [that's a joke, don't blow anything up  <.<;]).  Also something else I wanted to post about, but am too tired at the moment to type it all up and link it, so maybe I will edit this post tomorrow night when I get the chance (yeah right...).

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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Busy Weekend, MH3 Videos Delayed

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     As if the post below wasn't hint enough, I am indeed going to be incredibly busy this weekend.  I did find someone's shift to add onto my own on Sunday, so now I am working a double shift tomorrow, lasting from 9 am - midnight for a total of 15 hours in one day.  Yay, lots of money for me next paycheck (just need to keep telling myself that and I may just survive this weekend).  Worked late last night, and am working late again tonight (will be getting off after midnight tonight) just to get up early again tomorrow morning for my day-long shift, so the next 24 - 48 hours will be really, really exhausting for me.  With that said, I again don't know when the next set of MH3 videos will be uploaded next, but if I had to guesstimate, I would say probably around Thursday, with luck.  Sorry for the unforeseen delay, but don't blame me, blame Twilight. =P

EDIT:  Interestingly, neither Word nor Firefox say that "guesstimate" is a misspelled word, and looking around further, I found that "guesstimate" is actually in some dictionaries.  When the heck did that become an actual word for usage in language?  That's almost as mind-blowing as when "ain't" was added to the dictionary as an actual conjunction.

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Death By Twilight

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     So quick back-story: I live in an apartment in the city so I can attend the college up here, but my job of working at a movie theater is in a town about an hour's drive away, where my immediate family also lives.  Due to my often weird college class schedule and the fact past attempts of trying to get a decent job in the city have produced no results, I can only work at my theater job every other weekend, which is currently fine by me because that gives me every other weekend off, and I also get to see my family once every two weeks.

     So with that little info out of the way, I mentioned in my last post that it was shortly after I picked up my new glasses frames that I ran by the theater to check on my work schedule for this weekend,  in which I was expecting to find exactly what shifts I would be working.  Turns out they didn't schedule me to work this weekend... at all... whatsoever... not a minute...

...What?

     This bothered me slightly at first, as this was one of the weekends I was supposed to work, and  now that it has been nearly over two weeks since I last worked a shift, my little cache of extra money I throw around on buying games is beginning to slowly hit that point where it is drying up (I just can't seem to stop hunting down and buying older games).  However, I sort of shrugged it off since I had to drive all the way down here for two appointments, a renaissance festival, and a movie, anyway.  It did, however, seem extremely odd that they would botch up my schedule like that when it's been like this for nearly a year now.  But then my brother mentioned something, and now it is as clear as day to me as to exactly why they did not schedule me to work this weekend, and it can be summed up in one, single, demonic little word.

     Twilight.

     D@mn it, you insufferable, annoying, ill-conceived, embarrassing by-product of sudden mass popularity.

     The next movie in the Twilight saga, Eclipse, is set to come out this week (tomorrow, actually), and my work decided to slyly not schedule me this weekend so that I am forced to work Twilight's weekend release. You sneaky, sneaky little b@st@rds, signing me to my death like that.  So what's the big deal about this?  Well, if you didn't work at a popular movie theater in town when the last two movies hit, you probably wouldn't exactly know, although you could probably make a good guess how hectic it was.  But it's not exactly the movie itself that has me worried (although yeah, I do hold gripes against Twilight in general).  It's the fans.  All of the rabid fans who come to watch Twilight on opening weekend are what kill me.  A nonstop flow of  goths, wanna-be vampires, Team Edward vs. Team Jacob fans, etc. for the entire effin' shift will break you down faster than a sledgehammer to an egg (not actually tested).  Not that I have anything directly against goth-like people, but when every single customer you serve is wearing a black shirt/purse/backpack/ripped-pants/sign (it has happened) bearing the Twilight logo and usually the faces of Edward and Bella staring directly into your soul, for 8 hours straight per shift (14-15 hours if I'm stupid enough to take on a double-shift, but that will be my own d@mn fault), hopefully you can see where I'm coming at for this.  And they usually come in groups; loud, obnoxious groups of 4+ people.  Probably also doesn't help that I share a name with a character in the Twilight series, which each and every customer seems to love pointing out.  Another little "minor" nitpick that bugs the heck out of me is when the fans bring the book of Eclipse along with them when they're waiting in line to watch the movie (actually can be said with nearly any movie based on a popular novel, but a majority of the Twilight fans are sure to bring the book along with them).  Some of them actually read the book while waiting to be let into the theater, which still is somewhat nagging as I'm pretty sure they've already read the book about 50 times.  The vast majority, however, simply bring the book along as a way of saying, "Hey, look!  I have the book with me!  Imma bigger fan than you are!"

     I also just found out last night that I've been scheduled to work Friday through Monday this coming weekend.  All.  Four.  Days.  And to make matters worse, it's effin' Fourth of July weekend, meaning we're going to be vastly busier than usual.  The new Twilight movie's weekend release... on Fourth of July weekend... SOMEONE, SAVE ME!!1!  All on a weekend I wasn't even supposed to work (although in hindsight, I probably should have expected this).  And not that I don't have enough hatred going against Twilight as it is, but Twilight is also knocking out Toy Story 3 from our IMAX after today.  I was planning on heading back up to my apartment this morning to finish up homework and make time for a full-on MH3 editing session all-day tomorrow, but now I'm forced to stay down here until later today or even possibly tomorrow if I wish to see Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D (for free, of course) before its dismissal.  Heck, Toy Story wasn't even in IMAX for the customary two weeks before getting kicked out the door.  Despite my hatred for Twilight from a movie-worker's perspective, at least its crowd is not nearly as morale-destroying as the Hanna Montana crowd (the horror stories I could tell you...).  It is, however, still significantly worse than even the Sex in the City scene (even more horror stories...).  Those are probably the three worst kinds of crowds we've received at the theater in recent memory (been working there for three years now), but those other two will be stories for another time.

     So assuming I get back up to the city later tonight or early tomorrow, I'm just going to have to drive back down here Thursday evening to prepare for the onslaught of Twilighters I'm going to be facing off against with my fellow concessionists this coming weekend.  While I could bring the MH3 video files with me on my external HD to work on with my laptop, I'd probably be too tired after the shifts anyway to work all that mumbo-jumbo effectively, plus knowing me, I'll probably be fishing for double-shifts despite my better judgment, since this weekend could possibly bring in a lot of dough for those who are looking for a lot of time and shifts (E3 presents a lot of good reasons to own more money later this year...).  With this in mind, it is quite possible the next set of Monster Hunter videos will be delayed until sometime next week, but this all depends how the next few days end up going.  Don't get your hopes up, because I sure as heck aren't getting mine.  =(

UPDATE:  Got back from seeing Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D.  Awesome movie.  I would highly suggest it to everyone.  Definitely a great sequel to a great sequel to a great movie.  Also, the line for the midnight showing of Twilight wrapped around the side of the building.  Of the 17 screens our theater has, 8 of them are going to be dedicated to showing Twilight, and I have no doubt that most, if not all of them, will be sold out later tonight.  =P

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Interesting Weekend...

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

     Okay, pretty much just making this post because I did a ton of things this weekend I feel like blogging about, and besides the atrociously long rant I'm about to post here soon, were probably the highlights of my weekend.

     So my "weekend" started early when I left my apartment Thursday evening for the hour-long drive to a neighboring city where I work and where my immediate family lives.  I had an eye appointment Friday afternoon, so I thought it best to get down there the day before to make sure I didn't miss it; plus, it was a weekend I was supposed to work anyway.  So I went to my eye appointment, got that done and over with, and then took my new prescription to another Eye Glass store to buy some new frames, since they had a sale going on for buy one, get one free on frames for $80-$100, a good deal in my book.  So now I have two new pairs of glasses to wear (thank goodness, too, since my last pair were bent and in terrible condition).  While one looks like a slightly better model than my original, the other pair has blue frames on it.  D@mn, I look good in blue!  =D  Anyway, it was shortly after that I found out I wasn't working at all for the weekend, for reasons which will be explicitly explained in my next blog post.  -.-;  After getting my new glasses, I went to BestBuy and finally got myself a new phone set for my apartment, which I probably should have done sooner rather than later because the ancient piece-of-crud phone currently in my apartment has been slowly dying out over the past few months (note to readers: loud, constant random static will hurt your ears).  I'm curious about setting it up and trying it out to see how it works, and am happy of the idea that I will no longer be tethered down to the receiver any more (stupid wired phones...).

     Don't remember anything else I did Friday, but Saturday was definitely a busy day.  My family and I went to the annual Colorado Renaissance Festival that is held each Summer.  This was about our sixth or seventh year going, I believe, and it was still a blast.  As the Festival is quite... eh, festive... I do dress up each time we go (only one in my family, too, I'll note... party poopers... <.<) as a wizard (go figure) in blue (go figure?), and each year, I have been slowly adding on to and improving my outfit.  After this year, I think I pretty much have gotten everything I need for my wizard's outfit to look the way I had originally intended it to when I had thought it up those years ago, so I consider it pretty much complete now, which means I don't have to spend so much money next year we go to the festival.  Things I bought this year included a blue flask, blue gloves, and a blue medieval-esque shirt for me to wear beneath my blue wizard's cloak.  Yeah, did I mention "blue"?  Anyway, the day was pretty fun, except for about midday when a storm kinda swept in and began to rain on us.  I wasn't sure if rain would ruin my wizard's cloak or not (forgot what material we made it out of), but I wasn't about to risk it, so I had to hoof it back out of the festival and to our car to prevent the cloak from getting wet.  Holy heck, that parking lot was larger than I remember!  Note to self for future reference: do not try and run a mile mostly uphill with a 7 to 10 pound sword clinging to your hip.  That little run from across half of the festival grounds and then through the dirt-winding path to the area of the parking lot where we parked not only took the breath out of me, but also ended up killing my left leg where my sword was attached to my belt (did I mention the sword's hilt and sheath are also blue?).  Probably should have taken off that sword when I got back to the car, but I stubbornly decided to keep it on for the rest of the day, a decision that ended up with my leg being incredibly sore for two days after the festival.  I also mighta, kinda, sorta, quite possibly have gotten a tiny, itty-bitty lost in the parking lot trying to find where we parked... for half-an-hour... yeah... *gets death glare from mother*  O_O;  But beyond that, the day went pretty well and was a ton of fun as always.  I was considering recording some of the Festival with my camera so I could upload it to Youtube for people to see how it was, but I decided to hold off and save that for next year.  Guess we'll see... <.<

     Sunday dawned, and the only real notable thing I can remember about it was that my brother and I went to go see Kung Fu Kid.  Not a bad movie, but wasn't quite as good as I thought it would be, either.  I was able to watch the original Karate Kid a couple days before since my brother wanted to see it before viewing the remake, and thus rented it.  Of the two, I would have to say I enjoyed the original a bit more than the remake, although that was kind of a tough call.  I just felt like the original had a bit more impact and was overall better designed than the remake.  It was also a lot more easier to riff on and make fun of, although it wasn't too hard for someone like me to do so on either movie.  >=D  If you're expecting a fast-paced or at least decently paced movie, Kung Fu Kid is probably not what you're looking for; both versions are quite slower-paced compared to other movies now-a-days.  What's that?  It's "Karate" Kid, and not "Kung Fu" Kid?  You wouldn't know that by simply watching the remake.; I think the word "karate" is only mentioned once or twice in the film's entirety.  <.<  Besides the movie, my family went out to dinner later that night to celebrate my brother's birthday early, since chances were likely that I would not be down here to celebrate it on his actual birthday.  Yay, college.

     Had another appointment Monday (yesterday), this time with the dentist. They... didn't say much about my teeth this time, which I guess is an improvement over my last appointment sixth months ago.  o_o;  I had been brushing them much more often this time around, but I'm pretty sure they're still a rotting mess due to the mass amounts of unhealthy food I eat.  Beyond the appointment, though, I think I just spent the rest of the day doing homework, so nothing really interesting.  Overall, I thought it was a pretty nice weekend.  Unfortunately, I highly doubt the coming weekend will go as smoothly... or smoothly at all...  -.-;

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Milestone: Youtube Subscribers Hits 500 Mark

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage


     So, my Youtube channel has finally hit 500 subscribers, which I consider to be a major milestone in my Youtube Channel's/My Video Playthrough-ing life.  That's also a ton more subscribers than I thought I would ever get.  XD  I would like to thank everyone who has shown an interest in my videos, as well as everyone who has given their own time to actually watch them.  Although I don't worry or care about number of subscribers like many other people on Youtube, it still gives me motivation to continue making videos, knowing that people actually enjoy watching them.

Hopefully sometime in the near future, I can try to do something special for this milestone: kind of a "500 Subscriber Special," if you will.  I already have a couple ideas in mind, one that stands out particularly in my head, yet may be hard for me to setup and pull off.  Hopefully I can get around to testing it out and getting it up and working, but if not, I still have a couple other, smaller ideas that would work out well, too.  Life-permitting, I will definitely try my hardest to do something for the occasion, and while chances are definitely good that I will do something, it probably won't happen until after I finish up with my MH3 Playthrough.

     So thanks again to all of you awesome subscribers/viewers for giving me that extra bit of reason to continue making my videos and playthroughs, and I hope I continue to make awesome videos for you guys to watch.  =D

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Silent Hill 8 Debut Trailer

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

Hey... look... it's that one game...



...Hmm....
No.  Don't even ask.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

E3 Impressions & Blog Changes/Add-On

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

So, E3 will be coming to a close pretty soon, yet as always, the news, games, and info released by it will remain around for several weeks and many months to come.  I will, indeed, write up a post about my impressions of things revealed by E3 and my thoughts of what I have seen, read, and heard.  It could be a short post hitting only the main points, or it could be an incredibly lengthy piece a kin to a novel, I don't know.  Just depends on how I feel when writing it and how much time I have to work on it (d@mn, you, college!).  In any case, as I am mostly a WiiPC player (note, not fanboy, noobs), those two platforms will probably be my main focus, although I will also hit up on some things Microsoft, Sony, and Third-Party related if it catches my attention (which I can already tell you, there are some great things of note from them, too).  I don't know when I will put my impressions, as I am still reading up on a lot of things, but by the looks of things, E3 2010 was a pretty nice showing this year.  =D

Also, I doubt anyone will notice, but some minor changes are being made to the blog as I get back into toying around with changes and settings.  Plus, there is a new section added to the side-bar, as well as a mysterious page.  Hmm... I wonder what I'm planning to do with that page...

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Friday, May 7, 2010

Red Steel 2 Playthrough On Hold

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

So, obviously the idea of uploading at least 1 to 3 Red Steel videos a day while simultaneously doing my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough kinda fell through.  The process of recording, editing, rendering, uploading, and commenting my Monster Hunter 3 vids turned out to be much more time-consuming than I originally thought it would be, and most of my free time has gone towards simply trying to get those MH3 vids up at a decent pace.  While I do have a lot of the Red Steel vids already uploaded to Viddler, I have them set to private as I haven't had time to watch through each one and leave my comments on them like I always do.

So for now, I will be putting the Red Steel 2 Playthrough on hold until I am (mostly) done with my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough.  Once the MH3 playthrough is complete, I will continue on and finish with my Red Steel 2 playthrough before moving on to another game and another playthrough. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Playthrough

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

Well, finally got my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough underway. kind had some hitches uploading the vids to youtube, but they'll be up within a couple hours or so. They will all (hopefully) be viewable on youtube. However, to prevent any cluttering of mass posts on this blog concerning both updates on my Red Steel 2 Playthrough and my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough, I will only be updating posts for my Red Steel 2 Playthrough here on the blog, at least for now. My Red Steel 2 Playthrough is lesser known, having been forced to upload it to Viddler, so to keep people up to date on it I will be focusing the update posts on those videos for now. You can view my first Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough video below, as well as view the playlist in my Video Playthrough List page. I have been extremely excited for this game, and I can't wait to start hunting monsters! Hope you guys enjoy!

Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) Youtube Playthrough List

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Red Steel 2 Playthrough Videos - Parts 14, 15, & 16

Posted by Gamree the Green Mage

Parts 14 - 16 of my Red Steel 2 Playthrough have been uploaded to Viddler, so go check them out whenever you get the chance. I will be attempting to upload 1 to 3 videos a day, even during my Monster Hunter 3 Playthrough, so keep checking back for updates.

Red Steel 2 Playthrough Part 14 - Path to the Tower


Description: "We can see it, standing there, mighty and powerful above our heads. So close, and yet, the path to it will be very long and arduous... mostly because of my failures along the way..."
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Red Steel 2 Playthrough Part 15 - The Man in Blue


Description: He doesn't really play a big part in this video, but I did find it interesting how much he stood out. "I think I'll wear blue today..."
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Red Steel 2 Playthrough Part 16 - Tamiko Fails


Description: "Tamiko's holed up in a building... surrounded by Jackals... again... It's like Ubisoft is awefully close to making fun of a certain princess...

Also, her logic is border-line unreasonable. Glad to have you around, Tamiko. What would we do without you...? On the flip-side, I get one of the more useful Hidden Strikes. Yus!"

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