So finally, there is some new information and more importantly, gameplay videos on the newest Contra game, thanks to 1up.com. All I can say is it looks very nice, but I'm still a bit edgy on it, considering Treasure (whom helped with previous Contra games and made Gunstar Heroes, one of the most popular side scrolling shooters out there) isn't working on it. From what I can tell, the level designs seem to get some ideas from both Contra and Super C, with some tweaks added such as Contra III's weapon system and enemies. It all looks nice and going from the gameplay videos the animation is incredibly smooth. Some of the bosses look like they'd belong more in one of the newer type of Castlevania games rather than a Contra game, though, but they look awesome regardless.

Sound wise, some of the sounds seem to be rips from the original contra (such as the Pea Shooter firing) and the only music track so far is actually a remix of Contra's Level 3 (Waterfall Level) music. I'm actually hoping that they generally do that with the music rather than creating new songs for the game, to be honest. Unfortunately there wasn't much sound or music at all in any of the videos so I can't be the judge of that.

Chances look good that there might be a character select in this game, though that might only come down to difference in looks rather than gameplay, it's still a nice touch. It might also open up an opportunity to add unlockable characters (such as the Hard Corps cast or if they're feeling rather joke-y, one of the player sprites from the original Contra, Unedited). They do it all the time with the newer Castlevania games, so I don't see why not here.

Anyway, in conclusion, I have my hopes set up for this one, and hopefully it won't end up being too short to be worth it. Though I'll have to wait on more news before I can make a final decision.

So what have I been up to lately? Here's the lowdown.

-I said I joined the C&C3 tournament in my last blog. I did, but I didn't get too far before getting demolished by a GDI player. I won 2 matches (the first being a no-show victory, the second being me as GDI vs. Scrin). All I can say is it was a cool tournament, and the 1.05 patch being released in the middle of it sure made things interesting. Here's to more interesting tournaments for me to try to join.

-On the other hand, I have recently (finally) completed Phoenix Wright 2 : Justice for All. While it wasn't as good as the first one, the overall result is a satisfying experience, just not as satisfying as it could have been. Though a bonus for Phoenix Wright fans is that 3 is being ported to North America soon enough, AND 4 might be released soon enough too.

-Looking at some game previews, Things are starting to look good. Ace Combat 6 looks extremely nice, World in Conflict is looking to shape up to be a very nice RTS game with it's own gimmick, and I'm glad to see Call of Duty is returning to it's native platform in the PC after CoD 3 not getting a PC release. It's quite interesting how they jumped to a new time era and keep it in the same series as the other 3, but I guess you can onlhy have so many WWII themed games before you run out of battles to replicate. Of course there are many other nice looking games coming out, but those 3 in particular have caught my interest.

Not much else going on, but I'll probably post later on if something does.

Well either way I'm back as of this. FOr kicks, I joined the C&C3 Tiberium Troopers tournament, since C&C3 is what I've been playing as of now. Hopefully I'll get far enough that I'll be pleased with my price to re-subscribe, but I can't be too sure.

From the looks of it, there have been slight updates to Gamespot. Namely the avatar system. Before you could only upload 32x32 images, but now this has been upped to 80x80. Quite a nice change, I'd say. Sizewise it's basically comparing an AIM Icon to an MSN Display pic, which is quite the difference. Looks like there is a new "Default" avatar to take advantage of this. I must say, it is a nice change.

Other than that, I'll be leaving to Texast from 3/7 - 3/12, and itll be fun. Probably won't be on this at all in that time gap, so yeah.

Otherwise, I finally beat Ace Combat 5's Campaign mode yesterday, and even though the Final Boss was a bit to easy (thing can't even attack), I must say, the story was great and it the ending suited the game. That, and the mission before the final one was very fun, with a large scale battle between 2 sides going on. Overall the graphics and music for the game are very good. I may write a review on it soon, but I can't guarentee it.

Nothing much else is going as per usual, though.

Not much new going on since the end of Snake Wars. I haven't been playing portable ops all that much lately, but occasionally I will play online.Games I've been playing lately are Ace Combat 5 (PS2) and Phoenix Wright 2 (DS). Both are generally fun games, especially Ace Combat 5.

Phoenix Wright 2 is okay, but not as good as the first. It just doesn't keep you as addicted, and quite a few of the good characters from the last one are now replaced (namely the new Von Karma woman, taking annoyances to a whole new level). The remixed music in the game isn't quite as good either. And last and definitely the most unfortunate, there is no bonus DS exclusive case, utilizing the DS's functionality more. Like I said, it's an alright game, but if you had to choose between this and the first, the first would be the clear winner.

Ever since the end of Snake Wars, I've been messing around with Portable Ops a bit, but I'm beginning to get bored of it a bit. That and quite a few people hack online, which is no good. Also, it seems like there is little support for it from Kojima Productions/Konami, since there have been no new added stages/modes/anything since the start. Also, all the cool people I've met in the Snake Wars tourney seemed to have left PO as well, which isn't so cool, but oh well.

Ace Combat 5 is generally fun, and I was always a fan of flight sims like that (with a less realistic feel and all). So far I'm on about Mission 25ish in Campaign, and I've cleared 3 of the 4 routes of Arcade Mode. I have about half the planes unlocked, as well. I know unlocking everything is going to take me quite a while, so I'll be playing this for a bit more most likely.

Other than that, not much else that is interesting going on here.

I wasn't expecting to win this at all. I'm just glad I didn't get dead last or anything. Unfortunatly, I didn't get to record my statistics, and all I can say is the only place I did well on was Town (Had 1st place for the first half of the game and ended up with 2nd/61ish points).

Might as well post statistics and loadouts I had for the finals though.

(Stats go in order of skills in: Handguns, SMGs, Rifles, Shotguns, Snipers, Heavy Weapons, CQC, Grenades, Traps, Technical Unit, Medical Unit.)

Snake (Armor, AK 47, Scorpion, XM177E2): 180 Life, 500 Stamina, ABABAASAAAA
Snack (FOX Unit) (Amor, Scorpion x 2, XM177E2) 145 Life, 344 Stamina, CAACACBACBC
Rock (Russian Soldier) (Armor, M63, Scorpion, XM177E2) 112 Life, 251 Stamina, AAASCAAAACC
Jack (GRU Soldier) (Armor, AK 47, Scorpion, XM177E2) 156 Life, 252 Stamina, BBAABBCBBCC

All I can say is even though I lost, this tournament was very fun to play in, and I could only hope that, say, a team tournament were to start up or something.

Well, I just got through my semi final game an hour ago, so I think it's time to post my opinions. First off, I was paniced throughout the whole thing, but at least I got third.

1) SolidusPaul : 378
2) Jon_boy110 : 144
3) SolidSnack007 : 139

The games were as follows:

Game 1 (Town) : It was a fairly normal game, nothing terribly exiting happened over the course of it at all. Just the normal things. I placed 2nd with 59 points.

Game 2 (Soviet Patrol Station): And once again, I do terrible on this map. I tried going for the roof again, but that didn't last long. I'd either get killed on the way or I'd lose the roof fast. In the last 30 seconds of the game, I was a bit busy trying to kill Captain Slick, but he kept running away, causing me to wasted that bit of time. I got 4th in the game, with a measly 14 points.

Game 3 (Silo Entrance) This was a very close game. SolidusPaul had only beat me by 1 point. I myself got 3rd, with 42 points. Can't complain there.

Game 4 (Comm Base) Never a Good place to finish on. By then I thought I wasn't gonna make it, and I got desperate. In the first 5 minutes, I did hardly anything aside from provide points to others out of stress. I started to pick it up at the end. At the VERY end I nailed a FOX soldier with an RPG, but didn't have enough time to pull another gun out to finish the job, unfortunatly. I got 3rd with 23 points.

So here I am, in the finals, and I'll be on live TV and stuff. the current matchup is...:

lbl1131lbl
SolidusPaul
SolidSnack007
Fulammie
Jon_boy110
staarx

Now I don't have much hope in this one (Solidus has proved to be a good opponent, and from what I've seen Fulammie is wrecking anyone who goes near, but I can still hope to place in the top 3 I guess. It's not impossible, I know that!

Well, quarterfinals are done with, and I am glad to say I scored a solid 2nd place in them, so I'll be moving into the Semifinals. I came nowhere near solidus' score, so I'll have to work on that. Wonderfully enough, there is no one I know outside of Solidus in the semis, so once again, I will be unprepared.

The advancing players of the quarters are:
SolidusPaul : 536
SolidSnack007 : 176
Staarx : 113

The games from my view? Here they are.
Game 1 (Town) : I was getting warmed up here, when with solidus repeatedly killing me, I realized something. I needed to focus more on headshots. And that I did. I was doing far better than before after focusing mainly on headshots. I pulled 2nd place with 54 points.

Game 2 (Soviet Patrol Base) From previous experience, I learned the roof was a vital strategic location, so I took it early. It helped me immensely here. I got a good amount of kills from the roof, wedging me into 2nd. Again. With 59 points. Not bad, but not good, either.

Game 3 (Silo Entrance) I was confident I would do well here from first game's experience, but I guess I was wrong. While I did die a minimal amount of times, I didn't score all that many kills. There was a fun CQC fight between me and solidus on the roof, and I ended up winning, getting a free headshot, which helped. I got 2nd with 27 points.

Game 4 (Comm Base) I was afraid of this place to begin with, judging by my last performance. I actually fought pretty well, but scores as a whole were fairly low for all of the game (Solidus only got 64 points here, compared to his 100+ in other games), I got 2nd here, with 24 points.

That's all for quarterfinals. I will add a new blog when my semifinals are done, which are in under an hour now.

    Another match (or two, should I win the first) comes today, and unfortunatly due to seeding, I am matched with no one I have played before in the Quarterfinals, so I have no clue as to what to expect. You can count on me being there, and using the same people I had used last game, albeit with slightly changed loadouts to suit the situation a bit more (I.E. Replacing the things I seldom used last match with things a bit more... usable.)

    Other than that, same rules, same maps, and I have practiced a bit online to get to know the maps a bit better (I never really played Soviet Patrol Base or Comm base all that much online, and neither did I play Silo Entrance much online but it seemed structurally identical to the Single Player version, so that Helped.) THe only other thing I need to stop are some bad habits (Crouching instead of rolling, Taking too long to equip, et cetera.)

The line up for my quarter final match is this:
1) MAILER_DAEMON
2) SolidusPaul
3) Mastrokoleiko
4) SolidSnack007
5) metalgear177
6) TonyMikado2k3

    My game will be at 4 PM Pacific (So 7 PM my time, which is Eastern), And if I win that, I will be playing at either 6 or 7 PM PT (9 or 10 PM EST), depending on the way I get seeded.

    Last but not least, I have been playing Phoenix Wright whilist not Practicing Portable Ops and I must say, it is a great text based game. Pick it up if you have the DS to try it out at least (though the first is pretty rare now). I just hope it didn't make me rusty at PO (I tend to get rusty at games pretty fast).

    As for how the tournament goes I'll post my match details like how I did with prelims, basing it from my view. Check back later on and I'll probably have it up by the time the match(s) are done.

Well, today's the day of the prelims. I'll be there, but I can only hope I'm ready right now. At least I only need to get 3rd place or higher to move on, but that may very well be easier said than done.

EDIT: I'm done with prelims, and thankfully I scored third. You can look up the stats at http://www.gamespot.com/tournaments/mgsjan07/results.php?skipmc=1 .
It was an excellent game, although there were some mess ups (Such as panther's battery dying, and ocdog's load out being completely stun based).

To be more specific game by game, here's a lowdown of how I saw it:

Round 1 (Silo Entrance) - I pretty much nailed this game with a nice 61 points, and a 40 point lead. I had an excellent killing spree with Snake going, until someone's EVA (PS2boy's i think) fell on top of me, stunning me, and I got killed by a headshot. After that I played fairly decently, scoring an early lead and my saving point.

Round 2 (Comm Base) - I don't know what happened here. I did terrible. I was getting shot in the head way too much, and in the last 30 seconds or so I got stuck in the trench, falling in and out of it multiple times. This game I got 4th, with only like 13 points.

Round 3 (Town) - This match I was playing much better than my second, but not as good as my first. I was in third until about 2 minutes left, where unfortunatly Panther's battery ran out, losing his entire score for the round, so I scored second because of this. Other than that, nothing very noteworthy occurred. I got 2nd with around 36 points.

Round 4 (Soviet Patrol Base) - This one I messed up on, probably from stress. Either way, it didn't help that Salesmunn was wrecking anyone that entered his view from atop the roof, giving him a huge lead. On the ground floor, I had to deal with all the others, so this wasn't gonna be good for me. I finally took the roof with a shield guy, smacking around the Null on the roof about 10 times before getting killed off. I tied for 3rd in this game with 13 points.

My soldier order was this:
Snake: Mk22, AK-47, XM117E, Body Armor
Snack (FOX Unit Soldier): XM117E, Uzi, Scorpion, Body Armor
Rock (Russian Soldier): M870, XM117E, Scorpion, Body Armor
Ralf (FOX Unit Soldier): XME117E, M1911AI, Sield, Body Armor


All in all, it was a great game and all of the players played excellently. I'm lucky that I've moved on, but I'm not sure if my luck'll last.