Review: Bayonetta

A sexy witch kicking angel ass while attempting to save the world! Sounds great, but does it pan out, and more importantly, did I enjoy the game?  Let's find out.

First of all, what is Bayonetta? Wikipedia defines it as "a hack and slash action game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 developed by Platinum Games in cooperation with publisher Sega. Set in a fictional city in Europe, the game centers on its title character, Bayonetta, who uses pistols and magical attacks to defeat enemies"

To me, although accurate, this description does not do the game justice.  This game is a stunningly orgasmic ride through 14 chapters of hack and slash heaven.  The controls are responsive and fast; rarely did I feel Bayonetta was not doing what I wanted her to.  Combine this with a great combo system, and I'm in heaven.    

I'll be the first to admit, the story in Bayonetta is lacking.  There's plot holes you could drive a bus through, and it really doesn't make much sense as a whole.  However, the thing about this game is that the gameplay is so FUN you don't even care about the story (and this coming from someone who loves RPGs).  In fact, that is a great way to sum up this game.. FUN.

Show me another game where you have pole dancing to 1950s awesome music.. this game ROCKS!

The combat is definitely the most satisfying part of this game.  Not only are the controls fantastic, but the way combat works is just wonderful.  By hitting bosses, and not getting hit yourself, you gain magic, when you have enough magic, you are able to perform a torture attack, dealing massive damage.  Also, once you have completed a boss you get a "climax" attack, where Bayonetta summons a monster to eat the boss while you mash buttons for ultimate rewards!

There is also a really nice upgrade system in Bayonetta.  As you kill enemies they drop "halos" (they look like Sonic's rings), which you can use to upgrade techniques, weapons, items, accesories or (what I did) COSTUMES!!!!

With difficulty settings from "very easy" to "infinite climax" this game can appeal to both the casual gamer and the hardcore.  I did my first playthrough on normal, and it was a good difficulty to learn the game.  When I casted the game I did it on hard, and though it posed a challenge, I didn't hit a super hard "wall" (other than the prologue.. damn that triple torture attack level).  I do plan on going back and doing a playthrough on infinite climax, Bayonetta is just that fun.

Now I can already hear people saying "but Chatia, I thought you didn't like scantily clad female protagonists.. I thought that was sexist".  Bayonetta is the epitimy of the strong female.  She wears skimpy clothes and acts sexy because SHE wants to, not to impress males.  There is no need for Bayonetta to be saved by the male lead here, and the one time she does need a rescue, it's a female that does it.  To me, this game is a great portrayal of females, simply because the power rests with Bayonetta, not the male characters around her.  Bayonetta kicks ass, chews bubble gum AND looks good doing it, a great female character.

Overall I truly enjoyed this game, it is pure fun wrapped in a fun package and coated with more fun! Wanna know how much fun? This much!

Bayonetta has become one of my favourite games, and I can't wait to get back into it and 100% it!  Bayonetta gets 5 scantily clad witches out of 5! GO PICK IT UP NAO!

Chatia Learns Starcraft 2: Day One

Hi guys!
So for those who don't know, this is a new project I'm taking on.  Basically I started playing Starcraft 2 about a month ago, and I love it!  It's the first RTS I've ever gotten into, so I'm a complete nub.  I instantly fell in love with the Protoss race for a myriad of reasons, and so I play them exclusively.  I've been learning, and I wanted a way to track my progress as I dive farther and farther and (hopefully) get better at this really fun game.  The idea is, I'll cast my games, then provide highlights of certain games, along with some points on what I did well or not so well.  This helps me, as I get to analyze what I need to improve on.  I hope this might also provide some entertainment for you guys, and maybe some help (especially if you're a complete noob like me!)  Now, on to the first day.

Monday Oct. 17, 2011
Rank: 15 Bronze League

Today I'm going to post 2 games, one win, one loss.

First the loss:
 Early rush loss

Okay, so basically this is an early rush, there are a couple things I could have done to survive this rush.  I've listed these options in the order of best case--> worst case solutions as I see them

1) Sentries.  Sentries have the ability to make force fields.  If I had a couple sentries out, I could have completely blocked off my ramp, allowing me time to build more units, and destroy his little army.

2) Better micro.  Stalkers outrun zealots, and zealots are melee units while stalkers are ranged.  If I could stutter step better I could have kept my stalkers out of the range of the zealots while pewpewing them down.

3) Better scouting.  If I had seen what he was doing, it's possible that I could have had better units waiting (this sort of flows into #1).

3) Engage with my probes.  This is something that I am TERRIBLE about.  I always have the tendency to try and save my probes and run them away.  Later in the game, when the units are tougher, this is the way to go, but in the beginning, against a couple zealots, the probes can actually be a huge help, and could have served as a way to block off the zealots from my stalkers, providing my stalkers time to pewpew the zealots down.  I would have lost a lot of probes, but I would have survived the attack.  Usually when people send units that early, they are pulling probes (not making as many probes as they could be), so it's quite possible that if I had survived the attack I could have been even or ahead economically.

Okay, now that we've gone over a loss, here's a win.

Win against terran part 1
Win against Terran part 2
(two parts cause twitch split the archive in the middle of the game)

To me, there were three key points in this game that led me to the win.

1) I outmacroed him.  I gathered more resources and created more units.  If you do this in most games, you will win!  It seems simple, but getting to a point where you have a decently macroed game is tough.  My macro wasn't actually that great this game (you will hear me constantly complaining about how many minerals I'm floating), but it was better than his.

2) Scouting.  I scout him early, and can see what he's up to.  Therefore, I stick with my favourite build against Terrans (heavy robo units).  If I had seen a starport with a tech lab for instance, I would have known banshees were coming, as it was I saw he was going marine/tank (a very common Terran build).  Immortals absolutely melt Terran tanks, combine that with upgrades and you can see his army basically disintegrates under mine.  (Again I could afford upgrades and those units due to better macroing).

3) Denial of a 2nd base.  Because of my scouting, I was able to see when the Terran was going to take a second and destroy it.  This is important as it keeps me economically ahead of him.  Now, he could have very easily countered this by simply taking a different location as his 2nd base, but more often that not (especially in bronze league) people are obsessed with taking their natural as their 2nd base, and this guy paid for it.

That's all for this edition of Chatia Learns SC2, I hope you'll join me next time!  If you have any comments, please feel free to post them below!

 

Some updated information!

Hi guys!

I know it's been forever since I've made a blog post, and I apologize for that, most of you know how hectic things have been for me lately, I just haven't had time to update!

There have been some major changes happening, with the major one being that Solidbeef and I will now both be casting at my channel.  We figured it's a great way to get both of us more views, and frankly use the channel more!  As I've said before if you really hate one of us, and don't want to watch, we will put the name of who is casting in the title, so you know what you're getting before you come in :P.  Beef will be casting mostly during the day, where my casts will be evenings/weekends.  Also, I really want to try and up the frequency of my casts, I know I haven't been casting much (again busy!) but I want to pick it up.

I want to take this time to remind you all of the Binding of Isaac race that is taking place shortly.  So far I have 7 people signed up, this means that ideally this coming weekend there would be two prelim races, with the top two in each race proceeding on to the final on Oct.29.  I have to confirm this with the racers yet, so this isn't a for sure thing.  Also, MANvsGAME has offered his skills as a commentator again, so I'm sure the finals will be a blast! Fingers crossed developers show up!

I've also been floating some ideas for the blog, some of which I'm sure you guys may not like so much.  One is following my journey as a newbie SC2 player.  (I would make it a different section of the blog so those of you that have a complete aversion to the game wouldn't have to see it).  I think it would be really cool for me to be able to track my progress as I (hopefully) get better at the game.  This would mean more SC2 casts, but they wouldn't replace the normal casts, they would just be extra, ninja casts.  I know a lot of you don't like SC2 purely on principle, but I find it really exciting to watch and play, and I want to start incorporating it more (I've kinda been hiding it for fear of backlash).  This would also give me a place to comment on stuff I find cool and exciting about the game without interfering with this section of the blog. (Such as Huk, a Canadian Protoss being the first Non-Korean to win MLG since Koreans started competing).

So let me know what you think!

Cheers 

Chatia

What I REALLY Thought of Demon's Souls

Hi everyone!

Unfortunately, I haven't had time this week to put together a Follow Friday, but I still wanted to get an article out; since I seem to be getting asked all the time about what my opinion on Demon'sSouls was, I thought this would make a good topic for a post. Warning: this post contains a lot of MAN in it, simply because he's the reason I'm even aware this game exists.

So... What is Demon's Souls?  According to Wikipedia (the source of all truth on the internet *snicker*) Demon Soul's is "an action role-playing game video game developed primarily by From Software (with assistance from SCE Japan Studio) exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It was released in Japan on February 5, 2009 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment."  It has received much praise for it's dark fantasy style art, and challenging gameplay.  Hordes of gamers (including one close to my heart) salivate at the very mention of this game, drooling over the prospect of once again diving into the world of Bolitaria and bringing peace back to this troubled world.  So.. where's the controversy?

Do you think MAN's a little excited to be playing Demon's Souls again?

First, some history.  MANvsGAME LOVES Demon's Souls, if he could, he would have Demon's Souls' babies I'm sure.. which leads me to some very awkward imagery... ANYWAY, MAN plays Demon's Souls a lot, and it was through his channel that I was introduced to Demon's Souls.  I have to admit, I've never been impressed.  I found the environments dull, uninteresting and lifeless.  The gameplay seemed okay, very challenging of course, but just okay.  There really didn't seem to be much of a story either.  It wasn't until I started voicing these opinions in MAN's chat that I came to realize just how LOVED this game is.. I didn't get it. 

So begins the controversy; back and forth MAN and I go about the game.. and always MAN's comeback was "how can you talk badly about a game you've never played?"  Well, you all know how much I hate to lose an argument (especially to MAN), so what did I do? I bought the damn game!  Now some of you are thinking.. why would she buy a game she was sure she wouldn't like?  I bought the game for a couple reasons: 1) I trust MAN's taste, he knows his games, and in general I agree with him about most games (JRPGs excluded, but that's for another post, and 2) I wanted to give myself as MUCH incentive as possible to like the game, so I could say for sure that I wasn't hating it just to win the argument.. so what was the verdict?

All in all, I found the game to be a below average action RPG, or, as I've been saying in chat "Meh at best".  I understand that the game developers were making a world that is basically dead, where the souls have been stripped of it, however, I didn't really get an eerie feeling.. I just found it BORING.  Never in my life have I seen a game with all of three colours on the palette.. brown, grey and brown-grey.  The environments which COULD have given more diversity, are shrouded in darkness, so that you can only see a couple feet in front of you, thus totally deadening everything.  Also, I find the armour to be incredibly boring, it is possible to have realistic armour without it being completely dull and unimaginative.  

The game that I compare Demon's Souls to most is Oblivion, as they both have the sort of realistic-esque worlds.. lets take a look at a visual comparison of the two..

Gee.. hmm.. which one do I wanna play.. I mean.. Demon's Souls could have come out on the original Game Boy as far as colour palette choices!

Okay, enough about environments.. what about gameplay?  Quite frankly, the game is incredibly unbalanced.  As MAN laments constantly, the only way to be a melee character is to wear no/light armour and roll like a mofo.  He attempted to play the game as a heavy armour wielding knight, and it's just too hard.  Also, magic is INCREDIBLY powerful, and can take the game from very hard, to hard difficulty.  Overall the mechanics are alright, and once you get past the learning curve, the combat is satisfying.  I found the enemies to be quite repetitive, especially since you are going to be running through the same levels again and again and again.  

The story in Demon's Souls is very basic, you are a hero, you are there to save Boletaria.  That's about as in depth as the story gets in game, apparently there is a lot of literature to be found outside the game, but I want the story in the game, not to have to go read a book!

All in all, Demon's Souls is meh, I pop it in every now and then to give it a go, but I still don't get the intense love of it. The only thing that distinguishes it at all is the difficulty level.  It is a hard game.  For those of you that are thinking "well that's why she doesn't like it, its too hard for her", I LOVE Super Meatboy, difficulty doesn't scare me, the reason I don't like it is that this game gives me NO reason to keep playing it to overcome the difficulty. I'm really glad I didn't pay more than $20 for this game, and frankly, it's on the "to trade in" pile of my games.  I really believe a lot of people are jumping on the "it's cool to love difficult games so this game is the best ever cause it's hard" bandwagon, and I'm sorry, but to people who say it's better than Dragon Age or Mass Effect.. I say "you should be committed".  I admit, I don't get it guys, but everyone is entitled to their opinions...

I don't get why people like it either MAN.

Flame shields are to max, come at me!

BTW if you DO like Demon's Souls, I have two channels to recommend to you, of course the wonderful MANvsGAME, but also Benderofx.  Bender does challenge runs of Demon's Souls, such as "crossbow only" and whatnot.

(This post dedicated to Boomzies, GQ and Duffmana)

Some of my Favourite VGM cover singers: Kate Covington

Hello again all!

So today's post is a little different, I want to share with you one of my favourite artists out there.  Her name is Kate Covington.  Kate performs covers of various vgms (usually Final Fantasy's), writing and singing lyrics.  She performs all the instrumentation herself, and I just love her voice and style so much!  I will put links to my favourite songs done by her, but really, they are all good.  She also puts together the videos herself as well, she's just super talented, check her out!

This is my all time favourite cover of hers, enjoy! (It's from Xenogears)

Here's another on of my favourites (and my all time favourite video game song, from FFIX)

Kate Covington also is in charge of the "world's only online choir".  ( I put it in brackets because I haven't independantly verified this).  They don't tend to sing video game music, but their videos's are still video game based.  This is my favourite song from them, scarbourough fair.

So there you go, check out Kate Covington, she really is great I think!!

Follow Friday Featuring Jhnny Crwsh!

Hello everyone!

I know its been a couple weeks since I've done a follow Friday (blame the PS3), so I wanted to pick a great caster for my return! I'm actually very disappointed in myself for not profiling jhnnycrwsh before this! He is an amazing caster, and deserves WAY more followers than he has.  He plays both games you know and love (such as Mass Effect (Titty Shepard LOL), as well as some you may not be familiar with (Nimbus).  He's a genuinely great guy, and just super funny to watch.  I think its an absolute TRAVESTY that jhnny only has 400 followers, this wonderful guy should have WAY more than 9000! (c wut I did thar?)

Jhnny is a really funny guy, but probably what he is best known for is having chest hair.. which naturally grows into the shape of a Batman symbol.. and thus BATCHEST was born.

Jhnny is also known for having great reactions to stuff he does in game, which is one of the reasons he's super fun to watch.  Here he finally finishes a super trolly level in Super Meatboy, love dat reaction.

One more Jhnny highlight here of Jhnny's reaction to the end of Eversion, love it!

jhnnycrwsh is a great caster and a great person, so follow this wonderfully disenvoweled caster today for maximum fun!!!

Review: Alice Madness Returns

Welcome to a world of complete insanity.  Alice Madness Returns is a game which takes the well known story of Alice in Wonderland and turns it on its head.  In this sequel to American McGee's Alice, Alice is competely insane, and Wonderland is her mind.  Now Wonderland is being destroyed and Alice must recover her memories and piece together the mystery of the fire that killed her family.

First of all, this game was AMAZING.  I loved just about everything about it.  This game would have been my game of the year if Portal 2 (and most probably Skyrim) hadn't come out this year.  The atmosphere of Alice is what really sold me on the game. Every chapter has a different theme, from a colourful forest, to under the sea, to the Queen of Hearts Castle.  Complimenting these level themes are Alice's dresses.  Besides Alice's grey dress in England and the standard Alice in Wonderland blue dress, this game has Alice in bevy of beautiful dresses, which match the chapter's theme perfectly.

I also enjoyed the gameplay in Alice.  It is a 3D platformer, with plenty of puzzles to solve and enemies to kill along the way.  The level design is phenomenal and the immersion complete.  Although some people complained about invisible walls, I found that they were in logical places and it really didn't bother me at all.  I also found the combat incredibly satisfying.  For those that watched me do this playthrough, you know that "CHATIA SMASH" was one of my most common sayings.  Alice is given 4 weapons with which to deal death and destruction in Wonderland, the knife, a hobby horse, a teapot and a pepper grinder.  Each can be leveled up by collecting teeth (yes teeth).  The hobby horse was my personal favourite and was how I smashed things ^^.  The enemies in this game are also incredibly creepy and fit the worlds they inhabit perfectly!  Overall the design in this game was great!

Yup, stripping homicidal dolls naked and then killing them.. thats Alice!

All of your favourite Alice in Wonderland characters are present, though perhaps not as you would have imagined them (especially if your only experience with this franchise is Disney).  The Mad Hatter, Caterpillar, and my personal favourite, the Cheshire Cat are all here, and wanting to help (or hurt) Alice.  Also present is the well known "eat me" and "drink me" premises, with Alice shrinking being a key mechanic of the game.  I would include the highlight of me stomping on enemies after eating something labelled "eat me" but unfortunately TTV won't let me get to any of my highlights right now.. so check out my videos for that (I'll link it as soon as I am able).  I really cannot express how much this game messes with your mind.  Especially later on, the lines between reality and Wonderland totally blur, creating a sense of truly being lost, insane and confused, just like Alice.  One level in particular, the insane asylum, really creeped me out and had me very freaked. 

Overall this is a fantastic game and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves platforming or just a creepy game.

I give Alice: Madness Returns 5 naked homicidal dolls out of 5.

Review: Metroid Prime 2 Echoes

It's well known that I'm a lover of the Metroid franchise.  Samus is one of my favourite video game characters, and is near and dear to my heart.  Does Metroid Prime 2 live up to my expectations of the Metroid franchise? Read on!

The game starts as Samus is respoding to a distress signal from an unknown planet.  Her ship is damaged in the landing, so she begins to search for the people that sent the distress signal while her ship auto repairs.. and thus the adventure begins.

The first thing I noticed about this game is the atmosphere.  You land in a creepy cavern, with vines hanging from the roof, its dark and kinda eerie.  Then undead soldiers start coming alive, and it just feels so right.  The great atmosphere continues throughout the game as you explore the Agon Wastes, the Bog, and the Tower (can't remember the real names, sorry).  Another twist that this game has is that there is a light world and a dark world to each area.  The light world acts just like areas in Prime did, but in the dark world, the atmosphere damages Samus, and so it is necessary to stay in light "bubbles" in order to stay alive.  I've heard some people say they don't like this mechanic, but personally I didn't mind it.  The bubbles were close enough together that it wasn't inconvenient to use them.  With one exception: the boost ball guardian.  This is a tough fight, and you have to do it with no light bubbles, which makes it even tougher.  I would argue that this is the toughest boss in the game by far!  Here's a Youtube link as my cast of this part has unfortunately been deleted ><.

Another difference in this game from normal Metroid games is the amount of usage the morph ball gets.  In most Metroid games the morph ball is just one more tool Samus uses to get through small areas, but in Prime 2, the morph ball is used for platforming and boss fights.  I thought this was really great, as I enjoy the morph ball a lot, so it was nice to finally get to use it (see the final boss fight, phase 2 for an example).  I enjoyed the ammo system in this game as well, the light and dark beams were a nice change from the normal Ice beam, wave beam etc.

I also enjoyed the boss fights in this game a lot more than Metroid Prime 1.  I found a lot of the bosses in Prime 1 to be very gimmicky.  However in Prime 2 the bosses require you to use all the tools available to you at the time, and often have very interesting mechanics (for instance Quadraxis which uses spider ball, sound visor and all your ammo)

Here's the vid of me defeating the final boss, it showcases some of the different mechanics in the game (note, I have a suit that stops me from taking damage in the dark world)

Overall I truly enjoyed this game, and would definitely rate it above Prime 1.  This was one of my favourite Metroids, I would rate it second only to Super Metroid.  Thanks a lot to Drakeonk for donating it, I had a blast!

Rating- 4 spider ball boosts out of 5

Follow Friday Featuring Guns Are Toys!

Hello again everyone, it's Friday so once more it's time for Follow Friday, this time featuring Guns Are Toys (Guns).

Guns has been an active member of my community for some time, and I've been really happy to have him in my chats.  Guns has a great sense of humour and has a lot of fun whether he's in a chat or playing the games himself.  One of the things I like about Guns' casts is that he plays games a lot of other people don't play.  Guns loves Magic, and has casted himself play Magic on multiple occasions.  Other games which he has played include Killing Floor, Oblivion and Magicka.  Lately Guns has been playing through Monster Hunter Tri (A game I am completely unfamiliar with).  He's been having a tough time getting some viewers in his room, and I really believe it's because people just don't know about him! I highly recommend him if you're looking for a caster that doesn't just play the games everyone else is.   His cast looks and sounds great, and there's no reason y'all shouldn't be watching him, especially if you're into the Magic.

Here's a highlight of Guns' playthrough of Oblivion, where he enjoys a random glitch ^^

So please give Guns_are_toys a follow, expand your gaming horizons people!

Follow Friday Featuring EddieRuckus!

Hello again everyone, it's time again for Follow Friday, today featuring EddieRuckus!!!  Now I know I said Follow Fridays would generally be for new people, but I'm making an exception today.  Eddie is less than 100 followers to 1000!  At 1000 followers he is doing a run of Dead Space 2 on the hardest mode possible, so lets get the word out and get him to 1000 followers!!

My husband Solidbeef first introduced me to Eddie's casts.  The first night I watched Eddie, he was playing Rock Band, and wow, was he good.  Eddie can play most songs on hard mode to a tee, while still managing to read chat during the song.  One of Eddie's weekly features is Rock Band request night, which is exactly as it sounds!  Eddie plays the songs requested from his viewers, who pick from the list of all songs he has (and he has a lot).  Rock Band request night is one of my favourite casts, it's usually a fun time all around, and really has the feel of hanging out with your friends while someone rocks out your favourite songs.  Besides Rock Band, Eddie tends to play newer games such as Dead Space and Mass Effect.  Though... he did do a stint with Hello Kitty Party Adventure.. but he probably doesn't want me mentioning that.  Here is a highlight from one of Eddie's casts where he shows his prowess at driving a boat!

Eddie was also the brains behind the Chatiatank and Beefboomer pictures, which came about from our L4D sessions.  We play L4D versus on his cast quite a bit, and it's a really fun time, always enjoy killing Eddie in front of as many people as possible.  Here's one of the banners from his channel for our L4D casts (and don't worry he has a watermark to match.

Eddie loves him some L4D

Eddie is involved in the community and is really supportive to his friends; he was the brains behind Meat Aid, the event to get Meat_Jesus to 1000 followers. He can also be a troll of most epic proportions (see banner above), and (most importantly to me Kappa) Eddie is a mod in my channel and a great one at that!  So follow EddieRuckus, lets get him to 1000 Followers!!

Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (TTYD)

System: Gamecube (played on the Wii)
Score: 3/5

Mario (pronounced mar-ee-o to me Kappa) is one of the best known characters in all of video gameland, he has been a plumber, a ref, a tennis star, a soccer star, and many other things.  In this game, Mario once again dons that hat of paper super hero, out to save his princess and the world from a brand new threat!

Instead of taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom, the main hub in the game is a place called Rogueport.  The princess went off on a search for treasure, and (surprise surprise) has managed to get herself kidnapped! The twist here is that it's not Bowser that has done the kidnapping, it's the X-nauts, a brand new threat.  After receiving the treasure map, Mario is off to collect the 7 stars to save the princess and the world!!!

Rogueport is the main hub in TTYD, you'll get to know the inhabitants well

TTYD is an RPG in the style of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario (N64).  You will join forces with a variety of partners throughout the game, each having a special skill you will need to solve puzzles and defeat your enemies.  For example Flurrie (or boobs as we called her) can blow away certain portions of walls to reveal passages, or Mario can ride on baby Yoshi (Mourny) to cross large gaps.  Each partner also has a specialty in battle, some are able to hit airborne enemies, while other specialize in ground enemies. .

You can see why we called her boobs

One of the really neat parts of the game, is you not only control Mario, but Peach and Bowser become playable characters, with their own side stories.  You control Peach as she wanders around the enemy base, and teaches a perveted computer what true love is (what, he watches her shower!).  Bowser's levels were my favourite; desperate to stop Mario and kidnap Peach for himself, he follows Mario throughout the world.  The neat part is that Bowser's levels are like the original super mario levels, complete with flag and castle at the end, but with a definite Bowser touch.

Bowser levels are my favourite, Super Mario with a Bowser touch.

Overall I really enjoyed this game, it has a very light feeling to it, and it is fairly easy to complete.  I did not grind or do any sidequests at all, and was still able to defeat the final boss (not without some trouble, more on that later).  Some of the dialogue is incredibly repetitive, and I found myself, mashing A to get through it all.  The characters tend to tell you multiple times what to do, and it can get boring having to hear you have to go to Petalburg for the 4th time.  The combat system is incredibly innovative for an RPG.  On top of the standard interface you would expect for an RPG, you fight on a stage, with the audience and the stage itself having a major impact on the outcome of the battle.  Should Mario perform well, and complete "stylish" moves, the audience will cheer, filling up Mario's star power, allowing him to perform special actions.  The audience can be bad as well though, as they can throw items at you that do damage.  The stage proved to be the worst part of the game for me, especially at the final boss.  Here's a highlight of the final boss fight, where the stage freezes me three times in a row, causing me to lose the final boss fight!  Thanks Erl181 for the highlight.

Overall, this was a fun game, and I truly enjoyed that playthrough.  It was actually quite long, especially since I didn't do any of the sidequests, which would have added even more time to the game.  It's a fun game to play, but the lack of any voice work, and the repetitive dialogue did get to me.  Also, the runup to the last boss has two incredibly long (and frankly sort of uninteresting) cutscenes, with no skip cutscene button.  This means if you die on the last boss, you have a looooong wait to get back in the fight.  (I actually had ppl leaving because they just couldn't watch the cutscene again).

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door gets 3 busty ghosts out of 5

PS Toadette is now my favourite Mario character!

JTV a week in review: July 2-9

Oh hello again everyone! It's time for my week in review segment.  Since I didn't do a review last week, I'll make up for it here!

Chatia's Nostalgia Network

As always, it's my blog so news about me comes first of course!  I continued on my journey with Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, finishing off Twilight town and moving on to a deserted island.  After getting rid of Flavio (what a waste of space) and earning the trust of Cortez, I moved on to Poshville!  Before reaching the sixth star I had to solve a mystery on the train, and there was the return of Doopliss!  After defeating the Smorgs on the train, it was off to Fahr Outpost and.. TO THE MOON.  That's right, I'm in the final runup to the end boss, and will finish the game on Saturday, so tune in!

Mario has a rough landing out of being shot to the moon by a cannon!

TwitchTV Q&A

On Saturday, MANvsGAME had Jacob from TwitchTV on his cast to answer some questions from MANkind about TwitchTV.  Emmitt was to be there as well, but had to attend a meeting at the last minute.  All in all the night was enlightening, and Jacob did a good job quelling most fears about the switch to twitch (see wut I did thar?).  Jacob informed us about many things that were coming to twitch, such as new emoticons (thank god) and some sort of personal messaging system similar to Meebo (but better).  Personally I really wanted there to be more critical examination of the way TwitchTV is completely focused on E-sports, but I understand why MAN was reluctant to press any harder.  Horror (who appeared on the cast later) did help me feel better by fully admitting it was a conscience decision to only market E-sports (as opposed to other admins who say it was only because "it was easier").  That may seem like the same thing, but to me it was a very important distinction and I feel better for having heard Horror admit it.  After Jacob had answered all the questions he felt he could, he got off the skype call, and Horror then joined the cast.  Horror's segment was also very informative as we learned about why Horror's icon is a cat, and what exactly a "furry" is.  To watch the complete cast in it's entirety, go here.

We now know why Horror's avatar is a cat, mystery solved!

Meat Aid

 In other news, Meat_Jesus hit 1000 followers this week, with help from Dan.  Meat-Aid was originally planned to help Meat hit 1000 followers, but hitting this goal early wasn't going to stop EddieRuckus from doing Meat-Aid.  Eddie and Jhnnycrwsh hit the Rock Band 3 hard with some awesome playing.  Tons of people showed up to celebrate Meat's tasty triumph!  Congrats again to Meat Jesus on reaching 1000 followers, you deserve every one of them and more!

Follow Friday Featuring Drakeonk!!

Hello again everyone!

Well it's Friday and that means it's Follow Friday time!  Sorry I've been slow with the blog posts, this has been a really busy week for me at work.  Now, for today's Follow Friday, I am featuring Drakeonk!  Drake is perhaps better known for being a huge supporter of both MANvsGAME's cast and mine, sending us most generous donations (my first gift to the PO Box was from him!).  Drake has also made appearances in some of our many L4D versus casts, and he's always fun to have on the team.

Drake is a new caster, with July 4th being his first official cast.  The first game he cast was Super Metroid, which he completed in one sitting (which of course endeared him to me even more!)  Here's a highlight of his Mother Brain kill, and escape from the planet.

Drake has a great setup, and plays some really fun games such as Donkey Kong Country, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey, and Kirby games!  He has smooth video and audio, and has no objection to having people on skype calls with him (ppl he knows of course). Drake casts every morning at 10 am EST, and is debating doing some night casts during the weekends.  That amount of casting should let you catch Drake whenever it's  most convenient for you. Drake has been a huge supporter of our community, so lets give him some support back ppl!! Follow Drakeonk and give his cast a try!

Follow Friday Featuring Kornon!!

Hello again everyone!  It's time again for Follow Friday, where I feature a caster I think you should be following.  In case you're wondering why I'm not profiling one of the people I regularly pimp (such as Meat_Jesus or Eddieruckus, who you should TOTALLY follow), I'm trying to expand people's viewing range, though I will get to those guys on here, don't worry.  Todays Follow Friday is going to someone who has been part of my community for some time, Kornon.

Kornon only started streaming a week ago, so this is your chance to get in on the bottom floor of a caster who I'm sure will get much bigger.  I found him because I woke up early and there wasn't really anything on.. so I started browsing the channels, lo and behold, I see Kornon way back at like page 5!  I didn't even know he casted! I hopped in his stream and he was playing Megaman 2.  His setup was really good, he's got a webcam and a camera, and the stream is super smooth.  He is really friendly and chats with the people in his room quite a bit (at the expense of his extra men).  So far he has played Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Ghouls and Ghosts and Megaman 2 on his stream.  He's been sticking to the retro games of late, but he says he's up for just about anything!  As he's a new streamer he doesn't have many highlights, but here's one of his boss kills!

I had a blast in Kornon's room, and I highly recommend you check him out!  He streams in the mornings, and says he normally stops when GQ starts, so he's a great GQ preshow!  Please check out Kornon and support an up and coming caster who I'm sure will grow super fast!

MAN- A True Canadian Hero

MANdate: June 29, 2011.  These are the voyages of the MANship Enterprise, his mission? To boldly go where no MAN has gone before!

So as per usual, Wednesday was Mensday on MANvsGAME, and that means that the great Ezekiel_iii (Zeke) joins MAN in the MANcave for some 2 player gaming.  Now MENsdays are always really great, I love it when Zeke is over, he adds so much to the show and personally, I think MAN is funnier when he's got Zeke to play off of.  This MENsday was special though.. This Mensday was the single best MENsday (and one of the best casts) I have had the pleasure of watching.  All highlights were done by the archivist himself, Duffmana. I highly recommend watching the entire cast, my stomach and face were sore from laughing so hard at the end of it, but I've included highlights for those that don't want to view the whole 4 hour cast.

The Sandy Times of MAN

Not only was MAN TERRIBLE at golf, but Zeke showed his winning prowess on quite a few occasions, here's one of them!

A Tale of Three Shots

So, after this wonderful game of golf, (which for the record, MAN lost terribly), the boys decided to move on to a game which favoured MAN quite a bit more, Super Tecmo Bowl.  Now, Zeke had not played this game much as a lad, while MAN had, and this led to a bit of frustration on Zeke's part, let's watch a little bit. ^^

Zeke Rage Part 1

AHHHH you can SMELL the Zeke rage!  At this point I was in tears from laughing as the two continued to play and rage.  Zeke lost these games quite badly, so the two moved onto a game which neither had every played before (and MAN doesn't even know the rules to) Blades of Steel! (hockey).  

Now, hockey being a Canadian game, and of course, the chat and MAN having to dig at all us Canucks, there were some high stakes to these hockey games!  MAN started out playing with the Montreal Canadiens, while Zeke played the first game as the LA Kings.  Sadly, even though we cheered out hearts out, MAN brought great dishonour by losing to the American team.  I think Zeke felt badly for us, and asked me to pick a Canadian team for him to play, I chose the Vancouver Canucks, while MAN chose a different American team.  Alas.. it was not to be, for Zeke now dropped the ball, and handed the Americans yet another win.  Blades of Steel was not without its glorious moments however, as it let us see yet more Zeke rage.

Zeke Rage Part 2

Now all the Canadians in the audience were threatening to riot, and we had our battle plan in place to burn Billings to the ground! But then, a light in the darkness, MAN once again answered our call, and took up the Toronto Maple Leafs to try and win back our honour!

Game 3!

And that ladies and gentlemen, is why MAN is TRUE CANADIAN HERO!

MAN- A True Canadian Hero

Review: The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom

I know I normally review games which I've played on stream, but I've played this game over the last couple of days and I'm finding it to be a lot of fun, I think you should try it out. Big thank you to Dravenos who gifted me this game the other day! Also the highlight in this review are from his cast of this game (his first cast, check him out and support a new caster).

The game is set way back, possibly in the early 1900's (forgive me, I don't know my history well) and you are a guy who really likes pies. He likes pies so much in fact, that it's all he thinks about, which causes him to constantly pilfer them. His sticky fingers are not without consequence however, as the pie heists cause general chaos in his town, such as the burning down of the bakery, and stopping of the town clock. This is a puzzle action game where the whole point is to collect the pies in every level by using clones of PB Winterbottom. Every level has a limit to the number of clones allowed, thus creating the challenge to the game. As you progress, you are actually going backwards in time, fixing the havoc that PB Winterbottom wrought with his pie thieving fingers.

PB will do anything for dem pies!

The graphic style of the game is the first thing that sticks out. The whole game is in black and white, with the exception of the pies that PB is chasing and the clones. You would think that this would make the game visually boring (especially for someone like me who generally likes vibrant colours in a game), but the effect is done so well that it definitely enhances the game experience. When you are recording actions for the clone to perform, old timey film roll effects appear, giving the appearance that you really are being recorded. Tips appear at the bottom of the screen, and once these run out, quirky notes replace them, such as “this space for rent” etc. I truly do enjoy the visual style of this game, and highly recommend checking it out simply for its visual style.

The graphical style is the first thing that sticks out

The audio in this game is also really well done. There isn't much in the way of variety of music, but the music that is there fits in perfectly with the game, though I wouldn't listen to it outside of the game.

The challenge in The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom is at quite a nice level. You will probably fly through the first world as it functions as more of a tutorial than a real stage. When you reach the second world the difficulty jumps quite significantly, but not to insurmountable levels. So far I've played about halfway through the third stage, and I'm finding the difficulty curve has leveled off somewhat. There are also bonus stages associated with each world you complete which have both time and “recording” challenges. These are linked to the steam network and have leaderboards (which do not seem to suffer the same failings as the SMB leaderboards), giving hours of extra play once the main story is done.

All in all, The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom is a quirky, lighthearted game, which is worth every penny on steam. You will get your money's worth on this one for sure. I give it 3 deliciously pilfered pies out of 5.

JTV a Week in Review!

Hello again everyone, it's time for my first JTV week in review! Here I will try to list all the important events/fun stuff that happened on my cast and JTV from the past week, just in case you missed some of it!

Chatia's Nostalgia Network 

It was an exciting week for me! I participated in Psychotic Gaming's (PG) marathon in support of autism research, and made a ton of progress in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (TTYD). The marathon was the first time I have done a cast outside of my channel, and it was definitely a different experience. After a myriad of technical issues (including the chat being split), I finished my 6 hour shift to an audience of around 300 people. I started with Ratchet and Clank, but unfortunately the disc froze, so I moved onto Sonic 1 and 2, and then finished with Onimusha 3. I had a great time, and as of me writing this, PG had raised over $3,400 for Autism Speaks.

Lots of progress was also made in TTYD. I completed Glitzville, with the highlight of the night being RAWWWKing the HAWWK. Highlight Also, Oclac was kind enough to make a gif of my level up dance! Enjoy!

Level UP!

Psychotic Gaming's Marathon

PG's marathon to raise money for Autism Speaks was a huge success! They raised over $3400 and created many memorable moments. Teh_Ferret made a promise that if the viewers donated $2000 he would eat a habenero pepper on stream. Well, they hit that total during on of GQ's shifts, and hilarity ensued! Watch Here! Another milestone was hit when the viewer count reached 2000 people during one of GQ's shifts. Now GQ had made a longstanding promise that if he ever reached 2000 viewers in a single cast, he would have a swear cast; in other words, GQ would actually swear repeatedly, on cast! What follows is one of the most awkward moments in JTV history Watch here! 

Teh_Ferret reached 2k followers this week, grats Ferret!! He hasn't decided what he's doing to celebrate it, but I'm sure it will be a blast.

Also in GQ news, while he was playing VVVVVV, Souleye, the creator of the music for VVVVVV stopped in to watch.  Not only did he stop in, but he gave away 5 copies to the game while he was there.  It's really nice to see developers coming to the streams where their games are being played and interacting!  So far we've had Team Meat and now Souleye come to streams.

GQ is known for his faces, VVVVVV gave us some great ones!

Twitch TV and The MAN!

There were some major updates to TwitchTV this week as well. Viewer lists and chat options similar to JTV were added, along with new emoticons (which are hideous imo). There are still a lot of bugs to be worked out with TwitchTV, but hey, it's in Beta, I'll reserve my final judgement (and a blog post) for when it officially launches. And of course, the BIG news of the week, MANvsGAME will be returning to JTV on Monday,at his regular time. Personally I am really glad, he's my favourite caster, and I missed him dearly, plus.. I was really starting to get the shakes from withdrawal.

He's BAAAAAAAAAACCK!

Have news, important events or funny stuff that you think I should have in my week in review?  Email me!

Follow Friday Featuring King Foom!

Follow Friday! This week !King Foom 

         Hi everyone, I'm stealing an idea from twitter and making every Friday a follow Friday, however instead of twitter follows, I'm doing JTV follows! Every Friday I'll profile a caster I like, and think you should follow! (I'm going to keep it to not super well known casters).  No, I'm not crazy, I realize that today is not Friday, however I am going to be out of town with no access to internet, so I'm releasing this now. 
        
       The first follow Friday goes to King Foom (or Foom as I'll call him).  I find Foom to be a really great caster, and a great person to boot! He has very rapidly become one of my favorite casters on JTV.  Foom has me in stitches on most of his casts, he truly is a funny guy.  He generally plays newer games such as Alice: Madness Returns, LA Noire etc.  He also sometimes runs MK9 lobbies, however he hasn't lately due to the online being unstable.  He is a very laid back caster, and doesn't take things (including himself) too seriously.  He is very open about the fact that he is more about chatting and having a great time than excelling at video games.  That is one of the great things about Foom, he really concentrates on interacting with his chat and making sure everyone is greeted and feels welcome.

       
      Right now he's having a WWE contest.  Viewers from his stream pick a wrestler, and then he plays WWE, but lets the AI control the fights.  The tag team winners receiving $20 each in Steam, Xbox live or PS3 money!  It only took a couple hours for all 60 fighters to be chosen, so I'm sure he'll do it again! Here is a link to the forum post regarding the contest.  Foom is also very community minded; at the end of his casts he shows highlights of other casters to try and get them exposure.  If you are interested, Here is a link to the forum post where you can suggest casters and post highlights for him to check out. 

        
     Every other Wednesday (I believe) Foom does a WTF Wednesday, where he plays either super weird or super bad games.  WTF Wednesdays is one of my favourite features, as even (or especially) when Foom plays terrible games, he makes it a great time!  The WTF Wednesday I caught he played ragdoll volleyball (a free flash game), and it was a hoot!  Foom also has Flashback Fridays (I believe every other Friday as well, but not sure), where he plays retro games. Here is a link to suggest WTF Wednesday and Flashback Friday titles.  This Friday Foom is playing Willow for the NES, should be a great time! 

       Now for what you've all been waiting for, highlights!!

Let's take a joyride

Foom "stays alive"

Foom gets trolled by his poster

Foom has a brilliant idea

Foom needs to poop!

That's all for this Friday, please check out King Foom, you'll have a blast '-' !

A funny video

I was tweeted this video and found it hilarious, enjoy everyone!
Mario meets his Agent
Also, this
Link doesn't need a sword!

Super Meatboy Review

Alrighty guys.. I know I finished this game eons ago, but I've finally gotten around to writing the review for this awesome game!  Although I didn't end up 100% it on stream, I still completed the game, and was able to 100% the first four worlds, both light and dark, which I thought was quite an accomplishment!  Now, on to the review.

Super Meatboy is a very challenging platformer that requires Meatboy (you) to navigate through various mindbending and harzardous levels to rescue the love of his life, Bandage Girl, who has been kidnapped by the nefarious Dr. Fetus.  This is an Indie game and is available on Steam, and Xbox360.  I played the Steam version.  The games are the same in each version, except the unlockable characters are different and the player added content is handled differently.  Also the Steam version has extra achievements not available on the Xbox version.

Meatboy, Bandage Girl and Dr. Fetus

                                       

I'm going to come right out and say it, I LOVED this game.  Everything in this game has been done very well, from the overall game design, to the environments, even the soundtrack is phenomenal!  Each world has its own theme such as the Forest, the Hospital, or even Hell!  The levels within each world stay true to the overall feel of the world, and the environments are just phenomenal.  Each world also has its own set of hazards, with the Forest featuring sawblades prominently, while Hell features lava and fire on multiple occasions.

Little Horn wants to smash Meatboy to pieces in Hell!

                                 

One of the draws of Super Meatboy is its extreme difficulty.  The levels can be incredibly punishing, however you never feel frustrated.  To me this is the mark of a truly great game; when you can die 100's of times on the same level and want to just keep playing!  There are two versions of each world: light and dark.  The light world is the standard levels, and although still challenging, are beatable by most gamers.  The dark world levels are harder versions of the light world levels, and are where the truly skilled/tenacious gamers will be separated from the rest.  The different difficulty levels is one of the charms of Super Meatboy however, as it allows the gamer to choose how far into the game they want to progress.  If a person only feels they can beat light world, they can do that and still feel they've accomplished something, where the more skilled gamer will attempt both light and dark worlds, and perhaps the achievements as well.

I loved this game so much that I arranged for a Meatboy race to take place on JTV (with tons of organizational help from Lady Annette).  It was hosted by the Retro rockstars, and MAN vs GAME, Retro Inferno and I were commentating.  Liteyear, Nailorecords, Brooks2000 and Jhnnycrwsh were the racers.  Well, someone in the audience sent a tweet to Team Meat, and all three of them showed up!  First Edmund, then Tommy joined us in skype, then Danny came into chat and gave away free copies of the soundtrack.  Needless to say, all three of us on skype (but especially MAN) were totally blown away that these guys would come to our race and onto skype with us.  They answered questions from us and the chat, and made it a night to remember.  In the end, Brooks2000 just squeezed a win out over Liteyear in front of the entire game developer team.  Here's the cast, in its entirety (Thanks Duff). Super Meatboy Invitational

With that, a final score for this glorious game could not be higher, I give thee Super Meatboy, 5 deliciously squishy meatboys out of 5!

My viewers are Punies!!

I thought this was quite a neat coincidence, Mario has his 101 punies and I have my 101 viewers, neither of us would be where we are without the support! Thanks to Mournless for the screenshot, it was quite hectic to try and get everything out of the way while I still had 101 viewers Haha!

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone!

I'm starting up this blog as a way to get my thoughts, ideas, and crazy opinions out there, for people who care! I originally planned to do this on the website, but it was way too much work to upkeep, and frankly too expensive! I will put my game reviews up here as I do them (Yes I've been lazy about it lately), as well as just articles about general goings on at JTV and my cast! So please follow the blog if you're interested, feel free to comment and whatever! Talk to you guys later.