Damn compulsive urges. Despite not buying or playing anything particularly new lately (aside from Super Street Fighter IV), I'm still finding ways to spend money. What the hell have I been spending cash on? The latest choices:

A handful of really great games, but unfortunately not for as awesome prices as I got in my last haul.

Castlevania Bloodlines (Genesis): $19
Gunstar Heroes (Genesis): $29
Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis): $8
Metal Slug Anthology (PS2): $20
Contra: Shattered Soldier (PS2): $10

All games camewith box and instructions, expect for Rocket Knight which didn't have it's manual. Before anyone mentions it, yes I realize I could have just gotten Gunstar Heroes on PSN/Xbox Live Arcade for just $5; I wanted the original cart for it. Either way, it's still a fantastic game especially for anyone who likes run 'n gun shoot 'em ups.

Aside from the above, I also picked up Super Street Fighter IV last week.Unfortunately thanks to the above games, I haven't played it particularly much yet; thus I don't have any detailed thoughts on it yet. Also, I'm working on finishing a side project that you'll get to see shortly. Anyways, off I go for now. I should be writing some more detailed pieces here soon (well, as soon as I get off my ass).

--JT

The title reflects not only my current thoughts, but also the name of the event I just got back from. As for my thoughts, I've got too many games to play yet, and I don't even mean the newest current gen crop of games that have come out in the past 3 months. I still have little to no urge to play anything particularly new. Mainly, I'm back in a groove of playing stuff from older generations again, which ties into the next thing...

As for the event, Too Many Gameswas a local gaming convention/event held near my old hometown. No, it's not quite like PAX as I had described last time, nor is it as large of an event as PAX. TMG is more focused on the marketplace aspect of it as there were a number of tables set up with all sorts of local vendors selling all sorts of games old and new. The most common stuff to be seen are NES, SNES, Genesis, and PS2 games/consoles/accessories. However, a number of the vendors also carry other stuff likeAtari 2600, Dreamcast, Japanese imports, Saturn, Neo Geo, etc. I think I even saw a Virtual Boy at one table.

Being that the marketplace is a large aspect of the event, I certainly ended up spending quite a bit of money today for a nice haul.

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES) - game and dust jacket, $10
Mega Man 3 (NES) - game and dust jacket, $12
Rush 'N Attack (NES) - game and dust jacket, $0 (madea deal to throw it in with my purcase of the other two NES games)
Earthworm Jim (Genesis) - game, box, instructions, AND poster it was originally packaged with; $15
Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis) - game, box, and instructions; $5
F-Zero (SNES) - game, complete box, instructions, and dust cover; $5
Soul Blade (PS) - game, case, and instructions; $10

I was excited to come across a copy of F-Zero with everything in it still in very good condition... then I nearly @#$% myself seeing the price tag on it. It was pretty much an instant buy for me. Also, grabbing Sonic for $5 complete gave me a fuzzy feeling; now my collection of all the c-lassic 2D Genesis Sonics (read: when Sonic games were GREAT) is complete.

In addition to the marketplace, there was also a number of freeplay game setups for people to jump on and play, old and new games. Off the top of my head, I remember seeing the following:

-Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
-Axelay (SNES)
-The Rumble Fish (PS2)
-Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Arcade)
-A Neo Geo rotating between King of Fighters 2002, The Last Blade, SNK vs Capcom SVC Chaos, and Blazing Star
-Rock Band (Wii) with just one guitar and drums
-Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
-Tatsunoko vs Capcom (Wii)
-Marvel vs Capcom (Arcade in it's original cabinet)
-Street Fighter IV (360)

I'm sure there's a few others, but I don't remember them offhand. While I basically tried everything available, I spent mainly throwing down with people in Rumble Fish and Last Blade, and some shoot-em up goodness with Blazing Star and Radiant Silvergun. I pretty much kicked ass in Last Blade (fear my Moriya), but only faired decent in Rumble Fish.

That mostly sums of the gist of the event. There were SFIV and Smash Bros tournaments, but I didn't really bother with them. I still made out with some good picks, and got to play some fun c-lassic games with fellow gamers.Anyways, I need sleep. Until next time...

--JT

After a long 5-6 hour drive to Boston, my friends and I arrived at Boston late Thursday night for the inaugural Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX East). What followed afterward was an incredible, fun, and silly experience.

For those of you who don't know, PAX is a festival and celebration of gaming. It's a gathering of fellow gamers of all types, whether it was console, PC, handheld, board, card, or role playing. The focus is on the sharing a passion with like-minded people rather than be a media blitz of the latest upcoming stuff like say E3 or TGS (though there was an expo area for new games and tech).

"It's a god damn nerd convention!"

Of course there is some structured events set up throughout the weekend. Various panels discussing all different aspects of gaming culture. The Penny Arcade guys, Gabe and Tycho as most know them, had a few Q&A sessions and a like making of a strip; all of which were god damn hilarious. They're just naturally goofy guys and it shows whether on stage or talking to them in person.

It's the hot dog fairy!

Tycho's attempt at drawing himself after a request from a fan

Expo Hall

As I mentioned, there was an expo hall where various companies are showing their latest and upcoming stuff. There was a nice mix of big name stuff available to play like Splinter Cell Conviction, Red Dead Redemption, and Starcraft II; but also a fair share of lesser known indie stuff to see too.

Nvidia booth with Starcraft II

Disney showing Split Second

Splinter Cell Conviction

One thing to note before moving on is that Sega had a booth with Yakuza 3, Resonance of Fate, and the 360 version of Bayonetta. While I personally have attested to the PS3 version of Bayo being playable, after actually getting my hands on the 360 version I'm honestly astonished by the performance differences between the two. It's seriously THAT noticable.

Moving on, I tended to check out the indie stuff more as I didn't feel like sitting in line for the big games that I can check out online easily. There's a lot of neat stuff to keep an eye out for. For example, The Dishwasher: Vampile Smiles by Ska Studios is a slick 2D action game coming to Xbox Live Arcade. It's fast, responsive action gameplay combined with a sweet sketch drawing/graphic novel s-tyle visuals was a blast to play. I found myself coming back to their booth again and again to play it.

Death to all who stand in my way

Also, I spent some time BS'ing with Tom Fulp of Newgrounds.com and The Behemoth. Aside from new content on Newgrounds, I inquired about Castle Crashers' status for PSN. To everyone interested, Castle Crashers for PSN should be available THIS YEAR. Tom and co. were trying to have it ready by Comic Con, but if not he said it will be this year.

I also found myself hanging out a lot at the Aksys Games booth throughout the whole weekend. For one, they had available to play Bit.Trip RUNNER, Deathsmiles, and BlazBlue Continuum Shift.

To my fellow BlazBlue fanatics, the latest word is the console version of Continuum Shift is currently about 75% complete, and they're shooting for a July release. While I did play all three games there, I obviously spent the most time on BBCS despite how worn the arcade sticks that were set up were.

Of Cosplay and games

As with any convention, there was plenty of cosplay abound of all sorts. I think the most common one I saw this weekend were Bayonettas.

However, I think this guy here was my favorite one there:

I wanted to do a Ragna cosplay myself, but just didn't have the time to put together the costume. Maybe next time...

Freeplay!

As I mentioned earlier, PAX is largely about getting together with gamers and enjoying what we love. To help facilitate the community toward this goal, there are large designated areas for freeplay. Places where you can sit down with others and shoot each other's brains out, roll for initiative, rock out, throw down, or whatever your poison may be. It's also a large library of games (donated by fellow gamers for temporary use) people can check out and play.

PC freeplay area; how much do you think this entire room of stuff is worth?

D&D on a Microsoft Surface table

Console freeplay area

Aside from these various rooms, there were beanbag chairs set up all over the place for people to chill, game, andBS with others. Also, a few Rock Band sets/stages were placed at a few spots for people to jump on and rock out with a crowd. There was even a 'c-lassic arcade' room filled with old school arcade games... all set to freeplay of course!

Ah, the memories...

One big surprise was that on Saturday, Capcom showed up in the console freeplay area with playable copies of Super Street Fighter IV and the newest Mad Catz SFIV Tournament Edition sticks!

Of course, I didn't get to actually play it myself as the waiting list grew long in short order. The famous SF/Marvel player Justin Wong was there too; he won the SFIV tournament that happened earlier that day.

So what made this the best weekend ever?

First, I tried my hand in a Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting tournament. Unfortunately, I got knocked out first round in a Blanka mirror match. It was certainly entertaining though as it was close; during the first round my opponent and I traded about 4 Blanka Balls in a row.

Aside from all of the awesomeness displayed above, I spent a large majority of the weekend playing BlazBlue. For awhile I spent a chunk of time at the Aksys booth playing BBCS, and eventually I met up with some other good players and exchanged a couple good matches. We'd all eventually met back up later in the freeplay area for taking turns at each other in BB Calamity Trigger. Of course, I was the cool one there who actually brought an arcade stick for everyone to use (I actually brought 2 with me, but one of them got it's wiring screwed up in transit). I think we spent at least 3 hours playing BBCT, and we kept taking numbers so we could check out the game again and again to keep playing.

What made this session even sweeter was who showed up to join in:

Yes, the Ragna cosplayer from earlier came by and joined in. His first character he picked to play as? JIN!It was all for good times. Funny fact: Bang in Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan mode can actually outrun Ragna's Carnage Scissors! Man, I wish I had that one on film as it was too funny to see. Even better about the whole thing was that despite there being only one stick available, everyone using a pad manned up and no one used easy specials.

To really cap off the weekend, I took part in the BlazBlue Continuum Shift tournament Aksys held at their booth on Sunday. There was I believe 25-30 entries, though about a third didn't actually show up. The beginning of the tourney was a bit rough for me as I somehow ended up having 3 matches before most people had their first, and my first two fights were back to back! Despite that, I still pulled out some big W's in some close games. A clutch Blood Kain activation against an Arakune who nearly locked me down with bugs and a third round Double Down against a Tager highlighted some good moments.

Next thing I know, I'm in the semi-finals and paired against a tight Litchi player. It was most certainly the closest game yet; every round we both had each other down to slivers of life with the other guy taking round 1 and me round 2. Ultimately, it came down to me dropping the final critical combo that would have won the match, and he capitalized on it and narrowly took the win. In the end, I wound up in 4th place and satisfied with how I did.

Meet your top 3 winners of the BBCS tourney

It was a great experience playing in this tourney; I even got some compliments from the winners on my Ragna. That semifinal match was so close no one really knew who was going to win. This has most certainly refreshed my spirit and love of fighting games. Also despite not making it 'in the money', I'm not leaving empty handed. I exchanged PSNs with the guys I was freeplaying with Saturday for more people to play with, and also Aksys Games is planning on hooking up everyone who played in the tourney with a little something too. We all win!

Swag!

Finally, there's no way I'd leave an event like this without picking up some sweet stuff. Though my wallet is now hurting a bit...

Four new posters to the collection. Three of which are Penny Arcade ones, and the fourth is for The Dishwasher: Vampire Smiles. The Dishwasher poster is actually signed by the artist and game designer of Ska Studios.

One new figure to my ongoing collection. This guy is Penny Arcade's Cardboard Tube Samurai. Despite the simplistic design of the character, this figure has a nice amount of detail to it. The pose is nice too with the CTS standing in ready position to take on whatever adversaries stand in his way.

Finally, I picked up a few new gaming shirts. The first one is PA's Slide Forever shirt, which is inspired by their comic about Portal they did. The second is just a PAX East 2010 shirt, which sold out by Saturday afternoon. Finally, the last one is a Chrono Trigger themed shirt, with the famous clock pendulum from CT's title screen.

Overall, PAX East is an amazing experience. Being in a environment where you're surrounded by people who love games as much as you do is incredible. I would highly recommend that everyone experience it at least once if possible. It is the most fun I've had in a very, very long time, and I will most certainly be returning again next year. Wil Wheaton in his keynote speech really hit a sweet note with his parting words: "To everyone here attending their first PAX... Welcome Home." PAX, whether it's in Seattle or in Boston, feels like a home away from home, and it's one I wish I was still at right now.

--JT

Just got home from what may be one of the most awesome weekends I've had in a long while.I'd tell you the details, but I'm beat. Check back sometime tomorrow once I'm rested for a nice lengthy blog (with pics!).

Before getting to the main subject at hand, a little more elaboration behind The Last Blade arcade stick from last time. Unlike the BlazBlue stick I made previously, I went back to a iL Eurostick rather than the japanese Semitsu joystick. Mainly because I really prefer the feel of them more along with the stiffer spring. The only downside to this is that the case has to be a bit thicker because the main body of the joystick is deeper. While the BB stick was only 2.75 inches thick, this one sits at about 3.125 inches; that's as low of a height I can make it without doing some modifications to the joystick.

As for the art, I tried going with a more simplistic piece with just the single character (Moriya) and the game's logo set on an off-white/tan background. Also despite Moriya's primarily red motif, I used blue buttons in contrast; I was mainly trying to get him to stick out more. I think it came out alright.

So as I had mentioned last time, I had another arcade stick in the works. Well, it's finally done and ready for a public showing.

Once again, I stuck with a iL Eurostick along with Happ Competition buttons. The case is mostly identical to the previous two arcade sticks except I routed the edges on the left and right sides with a chamfer bit rather than a roundover bit. It gives it a slightly different aestetic. Unfortunately, I screwed up a bit during routing and chipped a corner (you can sort of see it in the pic if you look closely enough); thankfully since I'm using a darker color paint, it doesn't stick out too badly. Aside from that chip and a small scratch in the polycarbonate that occured while drilling a button hole, this stick is one of my best construction-wise.

Like the previous two sticks, I left the inside of the case a primer white and used a clear sheet of polycarbonate to close it up. There's also vinyl bumpers on the corners being used as non-skid pads when this thing is sitting on a table.Obviously, this stick hasn't been wired up yet; I haven't decided whether I'm going to hack open another controller or just pull one from an old stick.

Onto the art, this piece features SNK icon Terry Bogard as he appears in Garou: Mark of the Wolves. I actually was able to find some sprite rips of him from the game; so I used them to display his Buster Wolf super move across the bottom area. To help the sprites stick out to the eye more, I used a slim gradient stripe to great effect. One thing to mention is that I just bought a new printer a few days ago along with some photo paper. As you can see, the quality of the image came out really awesome for this stick. It's so slick that I'm actually considering going back and reprinting the art for the previous sticks.

Overall, this stick is probably one of my personal favorites that I've made thus far. Speaking of my arcade sticks, I thought I'd get a group shot of all of my works thus far:

The first two on the top I originally made back in 2008. Aside from the fact that I wanted some arcade sticks for playing fighting games, these two sticks were experiments for me in converting controllers for other uses. I would later use that knowledge during the construction of my arcade cabinet nearly a year later.

If I had to choose my favorites, I think I would have to go with the BlazBlue/Ragna stick and the Garou/Terry sticks. They represent some of my best work thus far (particularly the Garou). I've still got a lot of nostalgic feelings for my second stick (the one with the start button on the top face) as it's been my main stick for the past two years.

Anyways, I need sleep. I'll try catching up with blogs once I rise from my slumber. Only five days until PAX East! Until next time...

--JT

NOTE: This blog was originally much, MUCH longer than this.However, GS just happened to lose nearly all of my text when I hit the submit button... and I'm in no mood to retype what I had. Sorry.

So I really haven't been on GS much as of the past week. Still haven't caught up on blogs (sorry!), or reading the latest ridiculous daily posts in the forums.There's a couple reasons for that.

1) Most of last week was spent building yet another arcade stick. My latest creation:

2) Mega Man 10 came out. In general, it's good, but nowhere nearly as awesome as MM9.

3) I'm building (YET ANOTHER) arcade stick.

4) Also, I'm working on a little side project at the moment. Unfortunately for you, I'm not ready to unveil it yet.Maybe soon...

Anyways, I'm beat. Time to do some painting, and pass the @#$% out. Until next time...

--JT

So I've been itching to do some recording for a little while, but just haven't gotten off my ass to do so. It's been a few months since the last videos. The only thing I've been playing a modest amount has been Ninja Gaiden Sigma, so I figure why not do some new footage of that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8eFIvsRykg

This first one, for those of you who have seen my other videos, may look familiar. It's from NGS's mission mode, Path of the Master Ninja Phase 2, which I made one of my first videos. Since I actually have a capture device now, I figured I could redo this one; but I changed things up a bit. The previous video was done on 'Hard' difficulty; this time I set it to 'Master Ninja'. Also, I changed up the weapon I used from the True Dragon Sword to the Dark Dragon Blade.

The Dark Dragon Blade is such a great weapon. It's really too bad it doesn't really see much use during the main game. It's counterattack swings are brutally powerful, and gives you plenty ofbreathing room afterwards.I think my final karma score here came up just a few thousand short of my personal best. This was probably due to killing multiple enemies with counters rather than Ultimate Techniques, so I miss out on some bonus points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUBJZmJDqhw

This second video is of one of the speed master missions that's available as DLC for NG Sigma. The speed master DLC is a pack of 5 missions where the object is to kill as many enemies as you can within a set time limit. The one shown here is set at the Hayabusa Village. There's no difficulty settings for these DLC missions, so it is what it is.

Unfortunately due to the nature of speed killing, this video may be slightly boring as a majority of the time I'm using the Dabilahro's ultimate technique ad nauseam. I can't help how it kills so efficiently and with a short animation. I do hit a new personal best though, which crushed my old record by at least 30 kills.

Well, enjoy these for now.Until next time...

--JT

Every once and awhile a game comes along that just flies under the radar of most gamers. Whether that's due to being in the shadow of bigger name releases of the time, little advertising, awkward developement history, etc., there are a number of these games that are hidden gems of fun to be had. I believe The Red Star on the PS2 is one such game. It features gameplay that harkens back to arcade adrenaline-fueled action at a budget price that's just downright fun.

The Red Star creates a mixture of varioustypes of gameplay. On one hand, it plays like a side scrolling beat 'em up walking along and striking enemies with series of melee attacks; think along the lines of Final Fight or Streets of Rage. Along with that, The Red Star intertwines it with elements of shoot 'em ups like Contra and Metal Slug. Tieing the two together is a simple control scheme that allows quick transitions between shooting and melee. However in order to prevent players from relying solely on shooting, guns have a heat gauge regulating it; the longer you fire continuously, the closer it gets to overheating and renders the gun unable to fire until it cools back down. On top of the offensive options, all characters have access to a shield for defending themselves, though it can only take a certain amount of damage in quick succession before breaking.

From the onset of the game, there are two characters available for play. Both utilize guns and melee attacks, but actually play fairly differently. Makita is the quicker of the two, relying on long strings of combos to provide damage and maneuvering around with dashes and dodges. Kyuzo is slower in moving speed, but excels in power strikes and slightly stronger guns. While both characters can use melee and ranged attacks, each one has his/her own unique melee combinations. It's great how different a feel each character has, making multiple playthroughs feel different depending on which character you're using. There's even an unlockable third character who also plays differently than Makita or Kyuzo.

With this focused mixture of brawling and shooting, The Red Star provides a challenging experience that makes the player think. While enemies at first are basic grunts that can be taken out with either shooting or melee, it's not long before the game mixes it up with enemies who are armed with shields that nullify gunfire. Even once you get used to dealing with shielded guys, the game will mix it up with varying enemy grouping such as mixing together ranged fighters with shielded enemies that provide a wall of protection from your own gunfire.

Even with the variety provided with the melee/gun gameplay mix, The Red Star throws another wrench into the mix when you reach one of the many bosses of the game. During boss fights, the game will shift to a top-down perspective and starts playing like shoot 'em ups like Gradius, Ikaruga, 1942, etc. and all of their bullet dodging glory. While most bosses just amount to varying designs of stationary turrets, their bullet spewing patterns are diverse enough to provide a challenge, especially during the last third of the game when it's begins approaching "bullet hell shooter" levels of screen coverage.

There's even a bit of customization thrown in to spice things up a bit. At the end of each level, you're graded on how little damage you took and given a set amount of points to spend on upgrades. The choices available for upgrading vary from increasing the strength of gun/melee attacks, improving defense, reducing the heat generated by guns, and more. It allows the player to customize their character to how they are playing them. Unfortunately, the upgrades shop is only accessable after the completion of a level. So if you ever get stuck on a level and want to try using a different upgrade, you'll have to start over.

The Red Star isn't a very long game; like the games it inspires it's gameplay from, it can be completed in a couple hours. Just because it can be finished in a few hours doesn't mean most people will. While it starts off simple enough, the game will challenge you, and probably kill you a number of times. Adding to the challenge is how you're expected to finish each level without dying, and the only times during the level you can replenish health is a health pack after a boss or if you spend points on the life drain upgrade. If you die, you have to start at the beginning of the level again. Thankfully, most levels aren't too lengthy, spanning up to 10 minutes at most, so the replaying of levels isn't too painful. Even when you do finish the game, there's unlockable arenas (reminicent of Smash TV) to blast through not to mention replaying the main game with all of your purchased upgrades carrying over.

While The Red Star is based off of a comic of the same name, the game itself doesn't take too much from it's source material other than the general setting and the main characters. There's not much of a plot here outside of a bad guy named Troika who's in control of the United Republics of the Red Star, and you're off to end his tyranny. All that was just from the instruction manual. There's very little in-game telling you what's going on. If you're looking for a game with a decent plot, it's most certainly not here.

For fans of beat 'em ups and shoot 'em ups, The Red Star is definitely recommended. It provides an entertaining mixture of both genres. Not to mention it carries a MSRP of just $20, though it can be found for less now (I got it for $10 new).

--JT

What's this I find on my doorstep? What ever could it be?

I most certainly am not expecting anything. Despite endless rounds of drinks, I'm sure I haven't ordered anything in particular lately. Most curious... Maybe it's a bomb?Let's just rip open this sucker and see what we've got...

It's some sort of T-shirt. It could still be a bomb; just one that's disguised as a T-shirt... Should I attempt to unfold it despite a potentially explosive outcome? Oh @#$% it...

Still alive... check. Still in one piece... check. One neat looking shirt... check.

Folks, what you're looking at here is the results of hard earned gaming. The wonderful crew of Penny Arcade ran a contest last month. The contest? Complete Bayonetta on hard difficulty, take a pic of the ending credits, and email it in with your PSN ID/Xbox Gamertag (for verification of actually completing it) and some shipping info. The first 500 valid entries win this Bayonetta themed T-shirt. The image on the front is of a pair of Bayonetta's iconic handguns. As far as I know, these shirts were only made for this contest; thus there's only 500 of them in the country. As for the rest of the shirt, the back just has the Bayonetta logo:

and the left sleeve has a little image of the Bayonetta wooden doll as seen in the game during between-chapter transitions:

Nice. All of these hours of gaming actually sort of paid off in a way.

In other news, while I'm on the subject of Penny Arcade: Is anyone going to the Penny Arcade Expo (aka PAX) in Boston next month? I know I am.

Games-wise, I spent a good chunk of time at the end of Janurary replaying Mega Man 9 again and again; mainly working on lowering my all clear time.Best time I've made so far was 32 minutes 58 seconds, which as of this posting places me on the PS3 leaderboards at:

It's getting me amped for the release of Mega Man 10 in a few weeks (Wii 3/1, PSN 3/11, Live Arcade 3/31). Mmmm blue bomber goodness.

Other than that, I really haven't had much urge to play any of the latest releases. So I've been playing mostly older stuff mainly on Wii and PS2. In no particular order:

- Muramasa The Demon Blade- collected all 108 blades and gotten all 6 endings
- Jak & Daxter - replayed entire game with 100% items collected
- Dead to Rights - completed
- The Red Star - currently playing; review to come if I'm compeled to

Anyways, back to playing.Until next time...

--JT

P.S. random thought: just how many people actually read the words on my wall? Debating about how much effort to bother inputting into the more thoughtful pieces...

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

--JT