The Sacknight Part 1 Upgrade

Little Big Planet 2 has been an important part of the gaming week since its release. I managed to get the Story mode trophies - Acing all levels, Acing 10 levels in a row, all items, etc. So now that I do have all of the items, I can begin with working on levels. The first is a LBP2 upgrade of the Sacknight Part 1: Meeting the King level I published on LBP1. The differences in creator components are so huge, that "rebuilding" the level is soooooo easy. I did have to figure out a few tricks, as not everything is a simple logic, but in all honesty, most of it is!

These are 2 examples of Little Big Planet 1 Logic. In the example on the left, you use tag switches to form a "gate." When the first gate has been reached (such as finding the 1st key of a 2 key door) a piece of dissolve material that is holding the tag switch evaporates. The tag falls either away from or onto the tag sensor, and thus the gate is finished. The other gate would trigger a different dissolve material, and wont activate/deactive the Tag Sensor unless BOTH are gone. Its not that complicated, but it was definitely an out-of-the-box way to do it. In the example on the right I had lots and lots of floating levers. What do they do you ask? Well, imagine an elevator attached to a pump. In order to make the elevator go up, you have to repeatedly pump in, in this case, by jumping. Each jump hit a Player Sensor, that moved the Lever up, which moves the Piston up (LOL). At the bottom of the shaft was another Player sensor. When you hit that, all the levers are pushed down(by ice on a piston of course!) and thus move all the elevators into their starting position. Once again, when you look at it this way, it's not that complex. It's jsut a little silly to have to come up with something like that.

In LBP2, the logic so much cleaner and simple to figure out. Instead of thinking of a way to exploit the properties of something to get what you want, now you think of what tools are in the game that have the ability to do what I want. In this case, the example on the left, the floating old craftman, has a microchip on him. This microchip is outfitted with 2 Tag Sensors and the new "And" Gate. What this means is, the AND gate will never activate unless both of those Tag Sensors are active. And really that's all there is to it! The example on the right has the most amazing fix to our elevator problem. The Direction Switch is a new logic gate that takes 2 inputs and attaches them to the same output, and they are always the inverse of each other. You could never do that before. In LBP1, the only option was to move a Lever or hit a switch using a Piston. With the new Direction Switch, I have the elevator's Player Sensor on positive and the floor Player Sensor on negative. The whole thing is attached to the elevator's piston. That means that whenever the player is at the bottom, all the elevators move down. And the elevator will never move up unless the player is in it!

Text strings and cutscenes are simple too.

This is an example of the old way to stream text. Well, one of the ways. What you do here is you move a Tag Sensor on a Piston with lots of tags on it. The floating block you see next to it is the old-fashioned one-shot switch - where you attached a Tag to dissolve material, then the Tag Sensor to something solid right next to it. You invert the Sensor so it's always off, even with the Tag next to it. Then, when you do something, the dissolve evaporates, the Tag vanishes, and the Sensor remains on forever, locking whatever it is doing. So the One-shot activates the Piston. The Piston scrolls past Tags at whatever speed you set it to. Each time it hits a tag, a new chat bubble will appear and the old one will(usually) disappear. Even some of Media Molecule's story levels use this method.

LBP2 allows us to put things on a Sequencer. It isn't limited to just text and camera movement either, but it is the best way to make movies and manage text now. The Sequencer is set up on a bar with stripes. Each stripe is a timeframe you specify, so you "enlarge" the text, or camera to fill up seconds on the timeline. If you overlap the cameras(which I didn't know you could do!) You can make fancy transitions. "Enlarge" Magic Mouths under the text and it will look like subtitles in your movie, and not like speech bubbles.

Lastly, I get to upgrade the character models.

I am BAD at creature creation, and I need a lot of work on it. "Guinevere" is the drawn out character made of tin foil in this picture. She is supposed to be an important part of Sacknight 2 and you meet her here.

In LBP2 you can make sackbots, with all the cool clothing you want. And if there is something I can do, it is making Sackpeople. So this is the NEW Guinevere you can expect to see when the level is complete.

Final TCG exclusives for STOR

Before I begin on the last 3 World Premiere cards for Storm of Ragnarok, I do have to clarify something. According to the most recent article on Konami's Strategy Site, Vanadis of the Nordic Ascendant is officially a 1200 attack monster. Now, it does evade bottomless(which is seeing less and less play every day), so that is a plus. However, in a deck like Chaos Stars that I posted about a while ago, having Vanadis at 1700 made her an attacker too. Either way, you would want to drop her after a cold wave or trunade, so her attack being lower isn't all that helpful.

Chaos Hunter - Dark - Level 7 - Effect - Fiend - 2500/1600
When your opponent Special Summons a monster, you can discard 1 card from your hand to Special Summon this card from your hand. Your opponent can not remove cards from play.
How I love the new fiend monsters. The only problem is that they have been level 7 and higher, which means they require 2 tributes. However, Chaos Hunter gets around that. It's special summoning does 2 things actually. A) It puts a high level monster on the field easily. B) It punishes your opponent for special summoning monsters. In a fiend deck that runs triple faders, gorz, and Caius, your opponent will never be safe, even during their turn. Any play they try to make will easily be countered just by having the many copies of each card in your hand. The effect of preventing removal won't harm every deck, but it is a nice bonus over cards like Cyber Dinosaur. The discard cost does suck a lot, but people talk about combining it with Fabled decks to get the card back.

Karakuri Muso mdl 818 "Haipa" - Earth - Level 4 - Effect - Machine - 2100/1100
This card must attack if able. When this face-up Attack Position card is selected as an attack target, change it to Defense Position. If this card attacks, change it to Defense Position at the end of the Battle Phase.
I really hope that limiter removal is banned in the next format. I'm sure the OCG never made this because limiter removal is still around, but the fact that Karakuris are a good theme that can splash sooooo many different cards, Limiter has got to go(remember how they banned the PERFECT BALANCED* Rescue Cat just in time for DREV's beast support?) This card isn't really game-breaking though. Most decks don't run Karakuri Klock, so it has strayed away from a theme based on punishes your opponent with attack changes, to synchro summoning and abusing attack changes. Muso is perfect for people who want to run the "Tier 2" version of the deck, but for those who want to run the "Tier 1.5" version, it won't see any play.

Scrap Breaker - Earth - Effect - Level 6 - Machine - 2100/700
Unconfirmed: If your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. When this card is Special Summoned this way, select 1 face-up "Scrap" monster you control and destroy it.
Ehhhh. I mean, if you have this and Chimera in your hand or graveyard with Goblin on the field, you have tons of synchro options. I'm not a big fan of scrap decks to be honest. Chimera, Scrap storm, and the synchros are amazing cards, but something about the theme just doesn't work for me. At the last locals I went to, I played against a Scrap deck using the latest Unicorn Synchro deck, and won(mostly because of time) against it. The deck has some awesome plays, but it doesn't do anything for the rest of that time. The pure deck is something like setting up and making power plays whenever possible. Whether you win the match with those plays is up to your opponent(as with any deck), but the pure scrap deck doesn't have much room for splashable cards, or much room for error. I'd say it is a lot like a mini Infernity deck. It won't OTK you, but it can make ridiculous plays every turn if you fail to stop it. That being said, Scrap Breaker fits this theme. More ridiculous plays that will force your opponent to side in D. Fissure to stop you. I'm sure Scrap users are giddy about the card though, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

*Disclaimer: I hold the right to want Rescue Cat unbanned. Flamvell Cat topped, but because of all the other broken cards that made it good, e.g. Heavy Storm. Now that we must rely on Cold Wave, Trunade, and Trap stun(Might as well use Catastrophe with all the Warnings around) Rescue Cat isn't any worse then the other bullcrap plays available to some of the top decks around. And its not like it's splashable. In order to run Rescue Cat, you need at least 3 cards in your deck you can devote to it, which automatically dismisses the definition of "splashability." The only top decks you'd ever see use Rescue Cat is Xsabers (until someone tops with a Beast-Aesir, aka UniSTORM, deck).

STOA - TCG Exclusives Part 2

Vanadis of the Nordic Ascent Dark - Effect Tuner - Fairy - Level 4 - 1200/400
You can substitute this card for any 1 "Nordic" Tuner Monster for a Synchro Summon. If this card is used as a Synchro Material Monster, all other Synchro Material Monsters must be "Nordic" monsters. Once per turn, you can send 1 "Nordic" monster from your Deck to the Graveyard to change this card's Level to the Level of the monster you sent to the Graveyard, until the End Phase.
Vanadis is....special. First off, it is secret rare, and will look awesome in all of its glory. Secondly, it is the star player in the recent "Chaos Stars" deck, a deck that has Vanadis and Valkyrie as part of a Chaos engine. Third, Vanadis COULD have been ridiculous, but Konami felt the need to slow her down by limiting her to synchro with only Nordic non-tuner monsters. I'm sure noone would splash Vanadis into any deck just to summon Odin, but in hybrid decks like UniSTORM, Vanadis would be the perfect card. But alas, it only synchros with the goats in that deck, meaning that I can only run 1 and that I have to hold it for a while(until I draw into cold wave.) So close Konami, soooooooooooo close.

The Nordic Lights - Field Spell
"Nordic" monsters on the field cannot be destroyed by battle. When this card on the field is destroyed, destroy all face-up "Nordic" monsters on the field.
In my honest opinion, this card is garbage. Spiritual Forest has been out for a long long time, and it doesn't make beasts or insects competitive. Never having your cards destroyed by battle is cool and all, but field spells are annoying and tend to kill consistency. Dragon Canyon(now known as Dragon's Ravine) makes Dragunities competitive, but because the card is borked. Nordic Lights isn't broken, its just a little annoying. It does indeed become a target for your opponent, and forces them to use cards to get rid of it, but isn't that the case for any card you'd replace it with? Maybe I should try it in a "pure" Nordic deck before knocking it.

Nordic Relic Megendjord - Normal Trap
Select 1 face-up "Aesir" or "Nordic" monster you control. Double its original ATK and DEF until the End Phase. That monster cannot attack your opponent directly this turn.
Nordics finally have a niche with the release of the TCG exclusives. Instead of a theme based on synchro summoning the strongest boss monsters out of the weakest level ~4 monsters, now you summon the strongest boss monsters using (potentially) strong level ~4's. You can think of it like Xsabers, monsters with crazy powerful effects, summoning boss monsters. Nordics are monsters with crazy powerful(depending on who you talk to) support, summoning crazier monsters. I'm still not a fan of this card, but keep in mind, I don't have interest in the pure build (for now!). Cards like this are meant to intimidate your opponent into not attacking(if you don't have Lights up). It can also be used to swing for game. An 8000 attack Odin is nothing to scoff at for sure, but cards like this(Shrink and rush recklessy included) have always been underpowered for whatever reason.

I'll leave the remaining 3 for next time.

Been SLACKIN!

The past week has been pretty nuts. Since this is a gaming blog, nuts means that I've been playing a lot and haven't posted about it at all. Shame on me for that. So we'll talk a bit about the 3 things that I have been playing this week. Fallout, Xenosaga, and Little Big Planet 3.

Fallout: New Vegas got really hard, really fast. I found myself in quite a bind when the next areas I wanted to go to was blocked by all sorts of baddies that I couldn't kill.

North of my little arrow were Giant Mutants on Black Mountain, which are part of a quest. Mutants aren't very deadly, but they take forever to kill and Nightshades(invisible melee mutants suck too). Then the path to Novac, the city that's highlighted, is full of Deathclaws - werewolfish eagle things. Luckily, with the help of BG, I was able to make it to Novac, after doing the "ED-E" quest. ED-E is a helpful little robot that you can fix with a Repair skill of 65 or a Sciene skill of 65 combined with 35 Repair. ED-E mows down mobs with his laser beam and isn't afraid of anything! (video coming soon)

We beat Xenosaga Episode 1 in 30 hours early in the week. Contrary to her initial convictions, Chelsea actually enjoyed the Xenosaga story and Characters up to this point. But then......comes Episode 2.
Episode 2 is widely viewed by fans as the worst installment in the trilogy. It's plagued by quite a few things:
1) Terrible new voice actors! Disclaimer: Video not created by me. Spoiler Level 4/10. Mostly talking about Momo's voice(first few seconds of the video). In my opinion, everyone's voice in the game is fine except for Momo and KOSMOS.
2) Downgraded character models!!!!! Mostly talking about Shion. I don't mind the change from Chibi models to realistic ones, just don't make them look so bad.
3) A very fast, fluid, and bland battle system. Though I actually like the system itself, Xenosaga 2 opted for faster attacks with less visuals, whereas Episode 1 had fancy visuals, but some of the longest battles you'll ever have. It isn't until Episode 3 do things balance out.

Little Big Planet 2 is at the top of the list right now though.

Acing all the levels took a while, and sooooooooo many deaths, but I'm glad its done with. Thank Windows Movie Maker for the terrible quality photo by the way. also the 480p gameplay video of it:

Now I'm trying to work on my level. I did publish one level in LBP1 called "Sacknight 1: Meeting the King". It had a very low amount of plays, most of them weren't even able to finish the level. The main goal of these Sacknight levels was supposed to be full of "challenging platforming." Most players who I got to play it couldn't finish the level for whatever reason. The other level I want to make will be based on a map on another game I used to play. "Ru'Aun Gardens" is a floating island that you can only get to from a huge "teleporter" deep in some ruins. Little Big Planet 1 actually hindered the making of this level, as all the things I wanted to make are difficult to do without all the new additions. The best part of Ru'Aun Gardens is that it is chop-full of bosses, and all of them could be replicated in LBP2! Just imagine it, the god Byakko and is high speed and Light-based attacks, translated into a fast moving boss with scattering plasma attacks. Monsters that are aggressive to sound, so you must avoid the floor entirely or else you'll be targeted. I even have an idea on how to make Suzaku, a fiery bird with some of the largest area of effect fire attacks around.

It's going to be great, and all my progress will be recorded or screenshot'd and added to the blog. I read up on tutorials all the time, and I even plan to post my own!

Round 2 - Releasers vs UniStorm MKII

Tanngrisnir is out for vengeance! After so much trial and error, The UniStorm deck(Unicorn Synchro MKIV) has been revamped into a more powerful, streamlined build. It still has a lot of the "fun" aspects that makes Unicorn Synchro what it is, but now with much more offense. But will it be enough to take down last week's winner - Djinn Releaser and her Relinquished deck? Let's find out!
Djinn Releaser(Relinquished) 8000 - Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts(Unistorm MKII) 8000

Since this is still qualified as round 2 of their match-up, Tanngrisnir will have the option of going first or not. Naturally, with such a set-heavy deck, Tanngri will want to go first.

Turn 1- Tanngri Most decks will start of setting cards on the opening turn, and Unistorm is no different. The opening play is the common 1 set monster and 2 set spells/traps. with that, Tanngri ends the turn/

Turn 2- Releaser Releaser draws her card. Her opening play will be Armageddon Knight, which sends a Plaguespreader Zombie from the deck to the grave. Armageddon Knight attacks into Tanngri's facedown card- a Super Nimble Mega Hamster! After dealing the 400dmg in attack difference to Releaser's life points, tanngri summons a Tanngjostr out of the deck with hamster's effect, face-down and in defense position. Releaser sets 1 s/t and ends the turn.
Releaser 7600 - Tanngri 8000
Turn 3- Tanngri Tanngri is ready for the offensive push already! One monster on the opposing field and 1 spell/trap? What could go wrong? After the draw, Tanngri switches the f/d Tanngjostr to attack mode, activating its effect to summon Guldfaxe in defense position right out of the deck. With no response from Releaser, Tanngri can synchro for 4+4, which is Stardust Dragon. Still nothing from Releaser? Well let's overextend and activate Gold Sarcophagus, allowing Tanngri to remove Dark Desertapir straight out of the deck. Classic Unicorn Synchro in action: Desertapir summons Guldfaxe right back to the field, without ever normal summoning. Battle Phase - Guldfaxe tramples Armageddon Knight for 200 damage. Then Tanngjostr attacks, Releaser activates Call of the Haunted that was face-down to summon Armageddon Knight back. Unfortunately, Tanngrisnir main decks Crevice Into the Different Dimension, which allows it to remove 2 darks from the graveyard - Plaguespreader Zombie and that Armageddon Knight. Tanngjostr's attack goes through for 1200, then Stardust chimes in 2500. Tanngri isn't done with its turn in Main Phase 2 though, there are too many plays to be had. Level 3 Tanngjostr and level 4 Guldfaxe sync up to become Voltic Bicorn. And with that, Tanngri ends the turn with 2 Synchro monsters, 1 s/t and leaving Releaser with nothing but a floating Call of the Haunted.
Releaser 3700 - Tanngri 8000
Turn 4- Releaser Releaser probably can't do too much on this turn. No plaguespreader to make Brionac with and a floating CotH that may interrupt Gorz. She decides to set a monster in f/d defense position and end the turn.

Turn 5- Tanngri Draw for turn. Tanngri summons a lone Chain Dog in attack mode, then immediately enters the Battle Phase. The first attack is Voltic Bicorn attacking the f/d, a Mystic Tomato. Tomato uses its battle destruction effect to replace itself with another Tomato from the deck. Chain Dog attacks over that for 200 points for damage. That Tomato also activates and puts an Armageddon Knight on the field, which in turn puts a Necro Gardna in the graveyard. Stardust attacks Armageddon Knight for 1100 damage. With that, the turn moves back to Releaser.
Releaser 2400 - Tanngri 8000
Turn 6- Releaser It seems that Releaser drew into Allure of Darkness. Allure loves being a topdeck in your time of need. Activating Allure Draws 2 and removes an in-hand Relinquished from the game. Releaser counts her grave, which is usually not a good sign. She then summons a Card Trooper in attack mode and mills 3 cards from the deck to use its effect. Dark Armed, Prep, and Ryko all go to the grave to give Trooper a boost to 1900 attack. Why? For Pot of Avarice of course. Releaser's entire grave, minus that Necro Gardna, returns to the deck, and then she gets to draw 2 MORE cards. "Oh hoho" Black Illusion Ritual. Tribute Card Trooper to summon Relinquished from the hand. Relinq's effect activates and equips itself with Stardust Dragon. Now a 2500 attack, Relinq swings over Chain Dog for 900 damage. Releaser sets 1 s/t and ends the turn.
Releaser 2400 - Tanngri 7100
Turn 7- Tanngri Tanngri isn't a dumb goat. With Necro Gardna in Releaser's grave, attacking over Relinquished will not kill it this turn. Tanngri has to prepare to lose its Bicorn. It sets a monster in f/d defense position, then a s/t on its backrow and ends the turn.

Turn 8- Releaser At this point in the game, Releaser has slowed Tanngri down to her speed. Now is the time to get control of the game back. Releaser immediately enters the Battle Phase after drawing and attacks the equally powered Bicorn. Tanngri activates Mirror Force, an obvious play, destroying Relinquished and Stardust with it. In Main Phase 2, Releaser summons Relinq back with Monster Reborn and equips it with Voltic Bicorn. Finally, she summons Manju in attack mode and adds the final Relinq to her hand. The turn ends with Manju and Relinq with a set s/t, versus 1 f/d monster and 1 f/d s/t.

Turn 9- Tanngri Losing all of those synchros is not good. Tanngri starts by flip summoning that set monster, a Ryko, to destroy Relinquished. Since Voltic Bicorn was destroyed and sent to the grave, both players discard 7 from the top of the deck (Tanngri loses a total of 10 because of Ryko). Tanngri then summons Guldfaxe in attack mode. No response from Releaser allows Tanngri to special summon Chain Dog from the grave (2 beasts are face-up on the field.) Four + Four = Lightning Tricorn. Tricorn at 2800 attacks Manju, in which Releaser removes that Necro Gardna in the grave to save it. The turn ends there, nothing else Tanngri can do.

Turn 10- Releaser Releaser asks to know how many cards are left in Tanngri's deck. Tanngri has 17, Releaser has 16, so another Bicorn may be hazardous. But for now, the options are getting slim. She does Dark Hole to clear all the monsters on the field, and Tricorn replaces itself with Bicorn. She then sets a monster and ends the turn.

Turn 11- Tanngri This game could stall out for quite a while if Releaser keeps this pace up. What I can say about Tanngri's Hand is that this would be a great time to own a Mist Worm. Tanngri summons Elephun in attack mode. Now that it has 2 beasts on the field, it can summon the next Chain Dog from the graveyard. Tanngri tries to enter the Battle Phase, but Releaser finally uses that facedown card, Threatening Roar. Tanngri sets a s/t and ends the turn.

Turn 12- Releaser Do or Die time now. Releaser draws and passes the turn.

Turn 13- Tanngri No opposing spells or traps. No Necro Gardna in the grave. No chance for Gorz because Call of the Haunted is still Face-up. Time to end the duel. Tanngri summons a Mega Hamster in attack mode. Level 4 Mega Hamster and Level 2 Elephun become a Level 6 Brionac, Ice Barrier Dragon. Brionac sends the f/d monster Releaser had back to the hand to end the game.
Releaser 0000 - Tanngri 7100


Result Djinn Releaser 1 - Tanngrisnir 0

STOA - TCG Exclusives

It seems that all the TCG world premiere cards have been announced. There are 8, 1 being the Sneak Peak card, the others are in the booster set. So today we're looking at each card.

Vortex the Whirlwind - Wind - Synchro - Winged Beast - Level 5 - 2100/700
1 Tuner Monster + 1 Non-tuner Winged Beast
When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Winged Beast-Type monster from your Deck.
I'm a big fan of not spamming Catastor like it's the only level 5 synchro monster in the game. And don't get me wrong, Catastor is a great card, but what Catastor does is force plays out of your opponent. Things like Naturia Beast punish your opponent and Vortex does the same. Of course, if it had a "destroyed and sent to the grave" effect, it would be amazing, but alas, it is powered down slightly. But still, the examples given on Konami's Article Page are the exact type of plays you would make with Vortex that gives it more flexibility than Catastor.
-Shura + Vayu = Vortex and Vayu in the grave plus ANOTHER BW from the deck if your opponent wants to swing over it.
-Doesn't succumb to Stardust or Six Sams like Catastor would.

Maxx "C" - Earth - Effect - Insect - Level 2 - 500/200
You can activate this effect during either player's turn by sending this card from your hand to the Graveyard. This turn, each time your opponent Special Summon a monster(s), draw 1 card. You can only activate "Maxx "C"" once per turn.
This card EXUDES hate. It's so hateful, People should just scoop the moment it is played. It is important to say that Maxx C isn't the best side against every deck, and probably can't be main deck'd. But against things like Debris, XSabers, Treeborn, and even Scraps, Six Sams and Karakuri, it ensures that if your opponent wants to break the game, he will be rewarding YOU for it.

Shien's Daredevil - Earth - Effect - Warrior - Level 4 - 1600/1000
When this card is Normal Summoned, place 1 Bushido Counter on it (max. 1). This card gains 300 ATK while it has a Bushido Counter on it. Once per turn, you can remove 1 Bushido Counter from this card and select 1 face-up card on the field that you can place a Bushido Counter on, then place 1 Bushido Counter on it.
Besides Six Sams normal gameplay style of swarming the field, and getting rewarded for doing so, Konami decides to take a different approach than the "If you control a Six Sam, summon 3 more from the deck(s)." Daredevil starts at 1900, which is respectable considering that most people won't run Zanji or Irou. Daredevil does suffer from not being called a "Six Samurai", so that will probably limit his play in most decks. Otherwise, it would have been fun to see a Bushido Counter based deck.

Six Strike - Thunder Blast - Normal Trap
Remove 1 Bushido Counter from your side of the field to activate one of the following effects:
● Select 1 monster your opponent controls, and destroy it.
● Select 1 card your opponent controls, and return it to the hand.
More Bushido counter support. Looks like a lot of fun, especially since the deck won't run Irou anymore. Thunder Blast can basically be your new Irou is this ran in 3s, and it is also additional trap stuns when it is time to swing for game.

I believe I will stop here, as You only get so much space. STOA(Storm of Awesome) is looking better and better, and I can't wait for the new format.

I WANT RESCUE CAT UNBANNED

Passion!

Little Big Planet 2 is amazing.

For those who do not know, I am a big Sack enthusiast. I played the crap out of Little Big Planet 1, and now the sequel has been released and it does everything the 1st one did, better. I failed to get all the trophies in LBP1, but I will not falter on this one! In fact, Little Big Planet 2 will have its own tag, because I will obviously be posting about it very often.

So before I talk about completing the game, let me touch a bit more on how fun it is. The first game did suffer from 1 problem, in that you could only do so much with the platforming. Pits with spikes, rotating wheels of fire, turrets that shoot at you, and other things. But this time around, the story levels each have their own content(gimmicks to some), that the platforming surprises you every time. Not only that, but the game will break out of simple platforming and go into a top-down shooter or racer in the middle of the level. With the new creation options, the possibilities seem endless on what you can do for levels.

Besides playing "story levels", we are very excited about dressing up our Sacks(we meaning Chelsea and I). Customizing characters was a very important part of LBP1, and the sequel is no different. There is a plethora of new items and you even get to keep your old items to make all new looks! My white Valkyrie seems so bland compared to Chelsea's Caped Elk Burlesque Lady.

Kyle is also in this.

The trophies are going to be something exciting though. Currently, I am at 29%, which is nothing at all. These are the main ones that I will have to get:
1) Ace every story level.
2)Play 75 Community Levels.
3)Play 25 Community versus Levels (ugh).
4)Have my own level played by 25 different people (gotta ask BG for help on this one).
5)Give 160 votes on community levels (so jump into at least 160 games?)

I'll have my work cut out for me, but I'm excited nonetheless!



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Sorry for the lack of updates by the way. If you watch the Sidebar to the right, you can see a new game that I have been playing. Well, its not new, but it is taking up a lot of time that could be spent on blogspot. After we finish Xenosaga Episode 1(I believe I have another 10 hours of content left before it is finished), I may be able to take a break from those and go back to Mag. But I also have Fallout New Vegas and Resident Evil 4 waiting for me. There's also Rock Band 3 that I need to play more of.

Too Many Games.

The BackLog + What I'm Playing + Fallout NV

There's a fair amount of games in my game library. Some of them are 100% complete. Some of them I am still playing, or trying to get the platinum trophies. Some of them are actually untouched! When most people talk about a video game "backlog" it covers the games that people own, but have yet to start (or make substantial progress). The same is true for me, but I like to extend my backlog to games I own that I need to go back and play(but I'm not because I'm playing 4 other games at the same time). When finally ran out of hard drive space on the PS3, Chelsea was giving me ideas for what games to delete. My response to 90% of them was that "I can't delete the game data because I need to play these!" Of course I haven't played the games in months, but you get the idea.

Skate 3: Pretty fun pick-up and play game. I first started playing the game strictly on expert until the last few weeks of playing it. On expert mode, the physics are more prevalent and you have to "nail" every trick if you expect to land them well. On easy mode, which I believe 80% of the player base plays on, guides you into every rail and ledge. All of your flip tricks and ollies are at maximum height and you almost never lose momentum. So in order to play competitively, you need to play on Easy or Normal, something I really don't want to do.

Armored Core 4: I was sooooooooo good at the PS2 Armored Cores. I still own #2 and Silent Line. But every time I buy AC4(this is the 3rd time I've bought it/4Answer?) I just can't seem to play it. Missions are still fun, and the visuals are amazing at times. But I'm complete garbage in the Arena. Perhaps it's not enough practice, or you can't expect skill to 100% overcome equipment. Until I get the hang of the game, it'll continue to sit in my disc binder.

In other news, one of the nice things I got for Christmas(once again, from Chelsea), was Fallout New Vegas. I did play through Fallout 3 and enjoyed it a lot, but Fallout NV has a different kind of flair to it. First off, I'll flat-out say that the opening to NV isn't half as good as the first few hours of 3. But don't get discouraged! The game does get increasingly better as you progress. And to ensure that the game got better, faster, I decided to make my initial play-through on Hardcore Mode! Hardcore is something that may be new to the series. I'm not too sure, but I definitely didn't touch such a mode on Fallout 3. This would be much easier to detail with a voice-overed video, but I haven't the Movie Studio program to make such an elaborate piece of work.

As you see, Dehydration, Hunger, and Sleep now play a role. I'd say that Dehydration ticks up 1 point, maybe every 10 seconds. Food and Sleep are so much not an issue that you don't need to keep track of it. Water, though, is VERY important, and the key is to drink whenever you can. Radiation poisoning be damned, keeping your H2O level below 200 is much more of a chore than taking a Rad-X once a week.

Pure Core Chimairu

Recently, a guy on one of the forums I frequent was able to top his local regionals with Koakis. Not just a rock stun variant though(he did use 12 rocks), but it was a pure Koaki deck. So congratulations to him, and today we'll talk a little about Moshpit's regional build.

DISCLAIMER : As I have said many many many times, Koakis are a very skillful deck. In my opinion, with 3 Pot of Dualities, it is a Tier 1.5 deck, meaning that in the right hands it can be most other decks(Tier 1 meaning that the cards are so good, it can beat most other decks even in the WRONG hands.). Upon posting this deck(with his permission), I want 1 fact to be known. Do NOT shoot down the deck if you try it and it does not work. If the deck does not work for you then you need to practice the overall strategy of the koaki build.

The build I top locals with is only slightly similar to this regional build. As seen in my Koaki build earlier in the format, the deck excels in a Trap-heavy set-up. The same is true in the regional deck, as it runs 11 trap cards, 13 spells and a whopping 17 monsters.
Monsters: 17
3 Koa'ki Meiru Urnight
2 Koa'ki Meiru Crusader
3 Koa'ki Meiru Sandman
3 Koa'ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa'ki meiru Wall
3 Koa'Ki Meiru Boulder
Spells: 13
3 Iron Core of Koa'ki Meiru
3 Pot of Duality
1 Monster Reborn
2 Core Compression
2 Book of Moon
2 Core Overclock
Traps: 11
2 Bottomless
2 Solemn Warning
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Call Of The Haunted
1 Royal Oppression
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit

Let's talk about his monster lineup because this is the main distinction between my version of koakis and other's. I used to run 12 rocks, but now I feel like that is so excessive when you're using Urnight to put 1 on the field. Knowing which rock to play is extremely skillful and I must admit that I've played the wrong one plenty of times. I also always figured that opponents play around The Rocks, rather than losing a card to get it off the field. That point has always made me think that overloading on all 3 Rocks is detrimental to the deck. However, since he did so well, they must be doing something right. I still feel like Wall is the weakest of the trio and(until I actually try it) I will probably never use 3 in a deck. So my only changes to the monster list would be:
-1 Guardian
-1 Wall
+1-2 Maximus or Rooklord
+0-1 Morphing Jar

The spell list is pretty spot on though. I'm still a big fan of Dark Hole, even though others aren't. A lot of people aren't even playing Torrential any more because you could hit cards like Sangan and Darksoul and "give your opponent pluses"(while they lose field presence??). I can't see myself playing a deck with no Torrential and/or Dark Hole in it, the chance to expend your opponent's hand is just too high for the cost of 1 card. Next, Overclock is another card that has fallen out of my radar, but it has earned a spot in the side deck! Overclock really is a good card, I just HATED topdecking it. Next to Tornado, it is one of the worst topdecks in the entire Koaki build. But, when you combine it with Duality and Compression, it is much easier to get it in turn 1. Even if you don't play it, digging it out of the deck is pretty beneficial. Even if your opponent MST's it, they hit something that's NOT Oppression or Warning. The card can win games even! Wow, maybe I should put it back in the main deck...

Traps are the real asset in this deck. Since each monster has 1 main purpose (unlike Xsabers, Lightsworn, etc that do multiple things during their lifetime) you need traps to pick up the slack of "Monster Hate". I've never been a fan of Dimensional Prison, and have and will always advocate Compulsory in place of it for Koakis. D.Prison can't stop Hyunlei, it's wasted against BRD, it can't hit facedown monsters and it can't be used during your turn. Compulsory can do all of those and still hit every monster that D.Prison can. The only difference is that Compulsory can't do much against level 4 attackers like Shura, and D.Prison shines in that aspect. I'm also a little sad not to see at least 1 Reckoned Power in the deck, especially over 7 tools. Don't get me wrong though, Seven Tools of the bandit is an awesome card and can stop annoying things like Royal Decree. I'd definently side it in, but I believe in a deck with Duality, I would rather run Reckoned. That's personal preference though. Solemn Judgement I used to run when the card was first released. It really is good and can stop any last ditch effort your opponent can throw at you. I wish I still owned mine.
-1 Bottomless
-2 D. Prison
-1 Seven Tools
+2-3 Compulsory
+1 Torrential
+1-2 Reckoned Power

Side Deck:
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
1 D.D. Crow
2 Prohibition
2 Smashing Ground
2 Nobleman of Crossout
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Skill Drain
1 Starlight Road
1 Mind Crush
According to Mosh, Fossil Dyna won him quite a few games against decks like Debris. And for good reason, its a Vanity Fiend without the tribute! Backed by the Monster hate that koakis have, its an awesome force to be reckoned with (especially when their strongest normal summon in the main deck has 1000ATK?). Skill Drain is another "hot tech" that can shut down many decks. Not sure how he runs it without compulsory (say, if an opponent drops Gyzarus for a 2400 attacker) but I guess thats what Overclock is for. D.D. Crow on the other hand I am not a fan of. Crevice? Sure. Chain Disappearance? Even Better. But I guess the luster of Crow comes from the fact that it is near-unpredictable. I still wish he could put Cyber Dragon and Chain Disappearance in the side deck though. Cyber Dragon to play against Machina(who uses those anymore?) and Chain against...well anything. The card is so good I'm not sure why it isn't in the side besides being limited to 15 cards lol. I'd also like to see KM Drago in the sidedeck too, as it can shut down infernities and lightsworn almost completely. But really, there isn't enough space. I wonder how is match-ups are against those decks...
-2 Smashing Ground
-0-1 D.D. Crow
+2-3 Chain Disappearance


All in all, the deck is fantastic and makes me wish even more that I had Pot of Duality. Yugioh packs are on sale again this week and I have free money to put towards it, I'm just so tired of buying DREV.....I'm sure I've spent enough on duelist Revolution that I could have bought 3 Pot of Dualities. I just don't understand why the game hates me so much lol. There has to be at least 1 Pack of Duelist Revolution in New England that has Pot of Duality in it!!

Demo Showcase

This was another thing I wanted to do. A lot of people want to pick up games but not without seeing a little gameplay about them. The PSN store has lots of demos available to test games out before you buy them. Unfortunately, not everyone has time to download and try every demo, or may not even have the space on their harddrive! So I will make Initial Gameplay videos for any. By initial, I mean that it will (usually) be my very first boot of the game file, so I will be playing it as any new player. I have 2 prepared for today. The first is a real initial play of the game "Faery", released on the PSN on Tuesday. The other is a game I have had for a couple of months called Dead Nation, which a few people have asked about.

Okay, Faery is....interesting. First off, it's important to say that it is 14.99 off the PSN. That's not all that hot of a price for the type of game it is. For the content? Yeah, I'd admit that it has 15 bucks worth of content in it, but it's definitely not for everyone. The dialogue was kinda entertaining. It seems to give you enough choices to make it seem like your choices are meaningful. Character customization is an RP'ers dream. Every couple of levels you get skill points that go towards customizing your little pixie into the perfect reflection of your inner Fairy. That's actually kind of fun too! But the combat, ohmygosh is it vintage. This is where the 15 dollars comes in - if the game had a different combat scheme, then it would be worth the 15 for sure. Unfortunately, the combat is pretty bland and takes away from the fun of everything ELSE in the game(Pixiing!!).

Dead Nation is a LOT of fun in its initial playthrough. If you love upping the difficulty for points and trophies, then it has okay replay value. Not great, but okay. The problem is that(as of right now) "Mission Select", as seen in the video, is your choosing of the actual stages in the campaign. This to me is not a "mission" select, but a chapter select; and I don't know about you guys, but with a game like Dead Nation, I don't want to play campaign 8 times. I did buy the game and played co-op locally, and it is great for that.

Good Games you think are bad 1: Sonic Unleashed

Now before I go too far in this, I should go ahead and say that I am a huge Sonic Fan. I'm excited about each game when they are released and I've played a very very good chunk of them all. We did grow up with both a Nintendo and a Genesis in the house, but only the Genesis had over 5 games (probably close to 30), and the Nintendo always collected dust. Mario games have always been popular, but they instill a bit of boredom to me, as mario levels only did so much back then. Of course, you could say the same thing about Sonic levels, but I always felt Sonic levels were more "flavorful".

But this does not mean all the games are good. And by "good" I always mean how enjoyable it is to play. "Good" doesn't have to have the best story in the world, or the greatest graphics, or the most intuitive controls, or the hottest new gimmick, voice acting, multiplayer, unlockables or anything else. When I say a game is good(to mean) I'm talking strictly in enjoyability. Yes, a game can be less enjoyable because of gameplay issues or difficulty, but only the most extreme cases lose enjoyability because the developers made the game poorly.

A good example of this is Sonic The Hedgehog 2006. If you look at videos of people SS-ranking levels, you would think that it is one of the best Sonic games around. But the game is borderline unplayable for a couple reasons.
1) The horrid amount of glitches because the game was poorly made. And I don't mean things like hanging upside down inside a loop-the-loop or falling to your death because you wanted to show a glitch which is actually a player just being bad at the game. Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 has things like infitie jumps that could get you to areas of the level Reserved for other characters and 0 Substance in most of the environment so you can fly and run through walls as if you are supposed to.
2) A lack of....what's a good word...I guess I can use "substance" again. There's not much friction in the game, Sonic weighs about 500 pounds and moves accordingly, Enemies rarely try to defend themselves. It is almost as if the entire game is caught in a cut-scene that you aren't supposed to be able to play in, because 90% of the physics in the game are completely off.

Sonic Unleashed, however, doesn't fall prey to these issues. Instead, Unleashed has 3 main things that(imo) gave it such terrible reviews.
1) Stigma against Sonic Games since Sonic Adventure 1.
2) Internet.
3) Xbox.

Now to be serious.
Sonic Unleashed, however, doesn't fall prey to these issues. Instead, Unleashed has 3 main things that(imo) gave it such terrible reviews.
1) A terrible, terrible frame rate that should have been priority to upgrade in such as fast-paced game. On sunlight levels, Sonic can blow through several hundred meters of level space in mere seconds, and dropping the frame rate would instantly kill unskilled players. On moonlight levels, Sonic the Werehog has to navigate through levels with much caution. Dropping the frame rate on such low-speed, low-key levels destroy the fun in a beat-em-up platformer.
2) Unleashed has a decent story that gets exponentially worse towards the end. If you've ever watched the show or read the manga, you would know what to expect in dialogue between Sonic characters. Sega doesn't forget this, but I think a lot of players did. So for the most part, if a game wants a story, it needs to be a little more serious and up-to-date. Most Mario games gave up on story, and the recent ones that do have a story, sell less.
3) Unleashed can be a little unreasonable at times. Especially trying to platinum it, which is one of the most difficult platinums I have every attempted, and still don't have.

And why is that? Well, the game is HARD to platinum. It is about 85% skill and 15% luck, and that luck is based on the frame rate the game gives you. Racing through these levels are a lot of fun, but the game is very unforgiving.

This is an example of S-rank gameplay that I did this morning. As you can see, the game goes very very very fast, and its easy to let yourself get lost in the speed and kill yourself. Obviously, I've played this level many times before, but even my first run throughs of most levels in Sonic games are good ones.

Quickee Post, Deck Failures

So I decided to take a look at the rest of the STOR Nordic monsters. The idea was that I could abuse Vanadis and Valkyrie and make an awesome Chaos variant of the deck. But upon looking at the Dark and Light Nordic monsters (Ascents and Alfars), they all revolve around 1 basic premise that isn't as good as it used to be, and thats hand EXPLOSION!!

And what I mean by that is blowing your entire hand to put something ridiculous on the field. In the past, this would be great, as hand resources were pretty slim on both sides of mat. Nowadays, hand resources are so important that "AA" Nordics are self-defeating. Most of them have effects that let you summon additional Nordics at the cost of your hand, all for the purpose of summoning a god(Aesir). The Chaos deck was good in theory, in that Valkyrie sends cards instantly to the RFG zone for RftDD, Dimensional Alch, and others. Vanadis sends darks and lights to the grave to fuel Chaos Sorcerer. The hand part is what makes the deck "garbo". Sure you can summon an Odin on turn 1, but at the cost of your entire hand? Then what do you do turn 2? I'm sure it can be a fun deck, but it desperately needs a way to refill your hand besides Dimensional Alchemist.

This is a rough idea of the deck:
Monsters: 2x
x3 Battle Fader
x3 Dimensional Alchemist
x2 Chaos Sorcerer
x1 Dark Armed Dragon
x2 Garm of the Nordic Beasts
x1 Gorz
x1 Guldfaxe of the Nordic Beasts
x2 Ryko
x3 Mega Hamster
x2 Tanngnjostr
x2 Tanngrisnir
x2 Valkyrie of the Nordic Ascendant
x3 Vanadis of the Nordic Ascendant
Spells: 7
x1 Allure
x1 Cold Wave
x1 Dark Hole
x1 Trunade
x1 Mind Control
x1 Monster Reborn
x1 Avarice
Traps: 6
x1 Compulsory
x1 Mirror Force
x1 RftDD
x2 Solemn Warning
x1 Torrential

Releasers vs Unistorm!(Uni MKIV)

This is a match up between 2 very fun decks: Relinquished and the upcoming Unicorn Synchro MKIV(aka Uni post-STOR aka UNISTORM). Relinquished has the ability to lock out certain aspects of the game from the opponent, whereas Unistorm uses small monsters to create larger ones. Both decks have a small reliance on their opponent, so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Djinn Releaser(Relinquished) 8000 - Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts(Unistorm) 8000

Coin flip, Djinn Releaser wins the coin toss and chooses to go first.
Turn 1- Releaser Djinn Releaser opens with the usual 5 cards and draws the 6th. She chooses to just set 1 monster in def position and end the turn.

Turn 2- Tanngri Tanngrisnir has a deck that plays defensively just like Releaser's. So its opening move is very similar, to set one monster. But then Tanngri also sets a face-down s/t card and ends the turn.

Turn 3- Releaser Releaser draws her card. She then summons a mystic tomato in attack mode and attacks Tanngri's f/d monster. Tanngri reveals and sends Key Mouse to the graveyard, and uses its effect to add Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts to its hand. Releaser ends the turn after that.

Turn 4- Tanngri Tanngri draws and looks a little dissatisfied. It sets another card and ends the turn again, with 5 cards in hand.

Turn 5- Releaser After drawing a card, I think Releaser is ready to go for the offensive push. She begins by flipping her set sangan, no response from Tanngri. She then Summons Plaguespreader Zombie in attack mode, again, no response. A synchro for 5 lets Releaser summon Magical Android to the field using Plague and Sangan, then sangan's effect lets her add Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands to the hand. Battle Phase. Android attacks the facedown card and Tanngri flips Mirror Force, wiping Releaser's 2-monster field. Releaser ends with 6 cards in hand.

Turn 6- Tanngri Draw for turn. Tanngri flips its face-down, the Tanngrisnir that was searched. He then plays another Tanngrisnir in attack mode. Finally, it uses Gold Sarcophagus to search out Dark Desertapir from the deck, which activates the Tapir's effect to summon Key Mouse from the grave. Battle Phase. Tanngri attacks with all 3 monsters to inflict 1700 damage. Then, in Main Phase 2, it synchro summons the level 7 Voltic Bicorn using all 3 monsters. Tanngri ends the turn with just Bicorn on the field and 4 cards in hand.
Releaser 6400 - Tanngri 8000
Turn 7- Releaser Luckily enough, a 1 monster field is nothing to Djinn Releaser and a 7 card hand. She opens with Manju, which lets her add Black Illusion Ritual to her hand. Then she uses Preparation of Rites which adds Relinquished to the hand. to put relinquished on the field, she sends a Djinn Disserere(trap immunity) to the grave and summons Relinq in attack mode. We all know Relinq's effect. It sucks up Bicorn and becomes a 2500 atk monster.Releaser swings hard into an open field for 3900.
Releaser 6400 - Tanngri 4100
Turn 8- Tanngri Tanngris paid the price for playing so passively. Now it must stop the 2 monsters (Relinq and Manju) on the field. It starts by summoning the giant rat it just drew. At 1400, Giant Rat can crash into Manju and destroy both, then summon a Dark Desertapir in attack mode. During MP2, Tanngri uses a Creature Swap, which swaps control of the Relinq and the Tapir. Now Tanngri ends the turn with a 2500 Relinquished on the field.

Turn 9- Releaser Releaser checks her graveyard after drawing, usually not a good sign. She starts by top-decking a card from her hand to summon PGZ from the grave in defense position. Three darks (Sangan, Disserere and Tomato) allow Releaser to special summon Dark Armed Dragon in attack mode. But that's not it! She summons Armageddon Knight in attack mode which not only dumps a Djinn Releaser into the grave, it also shuffles that top-decked card into the deck. PGZ(2) + Desertapir(2) + Arma Knight(4) becomes level 8 Stardust Dragon. It already sounds like this match is over, Releaser removes the Armageddon Knight from the graveyard to destroy Tanngri's 1 Relinquished. Voltic Bicorn's effect does activate since it was destroyed by game mechanics, but unfortunately since Tanngrisnir doesn't run and Graveyard effect monsters, it won't save it.
Releaser 6400 - Tanngri 0000


Result Djinn Releaser 1 - Tanngrisnir 0

Storm of AWESOME

I know I haven't posted in a while. With work, I actually haven't played any yugioh for about 2 months. Now that the holiday season is over, I'll be able to play once again. But in all honesty, is there a reason to play right now?
StarPSYCH Blast is a mediocre set with only 2 cards I actually want.
Hidden Arsenal 3 is even worse. Barkion is cool, and so are dragunities for those who want to run that. But as far as I am concerned, the set is still useless (perhaps until Jurrac Aeolo is released). As much as I like Naturias, they are a very difficult deck to play. Cliff was thought to make them amazing, but little do people know that Cliff misses its timing when it's used for tributes or synchros.
Turbo Pack 4 has 1 nice card, and thats the "chase card" Tragoedia. All the other cards in the pack are collectibles, and are easy to get otherwise. Except, of course, for Dunames Dark Witch. But the JP decks that use here are nothing in the TCG, so people will gladly get rid of them.

But there is still one reason to play, and that is to get store credit towards Storm of Ragnarok (STOR) !

STOR will be released in February (That's so close now!) and is jam packed with fun cards. The ones I am interested though are the Nordic Beasts that I mentioned a couple of months ago. They work so well with Unicorn synchro (and beast decks as a whole) that it would almost seem silly not to run them. Until Konami gives us Rescue Cat back, Nordics may be the bridge we needed to make Beasts more competitive.

Combolicious:
Vanadis: Mill Nordic Beasts, then Gold Sarc to special summon them for an instant level 6. Mill Nordics for Pot of Avarice.
Mega-Hamster: Special Summon Tanngnostr during your opponent's battle phase, then flip summon it during your main phase for a free Synchro-7. Summon Tanngrisnir for the 2 tokens, then you can SS chain dog from your grave for free. 1 Hamster on the field, 1 Vanadis in hand and Desertapir's effect leads to Thor!
Creature Swap: Tanngrisnir becomes yet another Creature Swap target for 2 tokens.
Gulfaxi: Special summon Gulfaxi. Normal Summon Lock cat. Special summon key mouse. Synchro into Bicorn and then upgrade it to Tricorn.

Blogging Step 2-2: Better videos

Like I said in the last post, I broke down and returned all my items for the Hauppauge HD PVR.

It's actually a pretty nice piece of hardware. The way it works is that you plug your PS3 into it with the component video cables. Then you plug the PVR into your TV with its component cables and into the computer with the USB cable provided. Using the program provided you can capture the gameplay you are making, while playing it in 720p or 1080i on your television. The results are outstanding and I am perfectly satisfied with it.

This is an example(albeit a bad one lol) of more MAG gameplay on youtube with the PVR. You can view it in 720pHD. My computer does cause the video to lag a little in the initial playback, but a quick alt-tab fixes it, and viewing it on my girlfriend's computer shows no issues at all.





I really need to find a program that can edit(for free) the MPEG4 files that the PVR makes. I can make videos more often and prune them for everyone to enjoy if I had a good program. I had a KungFu Rider video I wanted to upload, until I realized that it had a bad picture of me at the end of it lol(the game takes random pictures of you).

So yeah, expect more once I find that program. Then I'll probably have voice-overs to give some detail on what's happening in the video. The blog will have a few recurring things.
Trophy help (Not full walkthroughs, but I'll definently showcase a couple that I am working on.)
Reviews
Requests. Anyone can email me at boogiepopphantom05@hotmail.com for requesting a bit of footage from the games listed on the Library.
Dedicated Game Videos. Things like MAG, Sonic, and other games that I play often will have random videos uploaded here and there.

Blogging Step 2: Posting videos

I actually started both this blog and the Yugioh blog at the same time. Yugioh is easy to make posts about, but Video Games are a little different. You see, I didn't want to just post pictures of games, or someone ELSE's videos about them. I wanted to show my readers my own gaming. So I bought the Pinnacle Dazzle 100 PVR to record everything and then upload it to youtube(until I can find a batter site, if one exists.) This is an example of Dazzle in action:

As you can see, the video quality is decent as best, and there is a little artifacting at the bottom of the video. The real problem though was playing it on my 32" LCD. Sonic was manageable, but when I got into better games the difficulty skyrocketed. Dazzle takes composite videos, so the best it can record at is 420i. Playing a game in 420i on a 32" TV is complete garbage though. I actually took back the unit and all the cables I bought in order to upgrade to HD recording hardware.


Playing MAG in SD is terrrrrrrible. Somehow I got MVP in that match with such terrible scores, and we still lost lol. I just can't stand it, there's no way I could supply videos for this blog if I was playing in Standard Definition. That's why I bit the bullet and bought the Hauppage HD PVR, which is supposed to be one of the top ranked recording devices for the PS# (as ranked by the Internet). I havent gotten to try it yet, but when I do it will be right here in a blog post.