Unistorm! OUCH

I have finally completed the Unistorm deck in its entirety. I haven't been able to play Yugioh in a while, but I was lucky enough to get to locals on Monday. Did I top? No. In fact I did TERRIBLY. But not because of the deck, but because I played poorly. It has also come to my attention that I have yet to post an actual deck list. So let's take a look at the deck.

Monsters: 22
3 Tanngnjostr
3 Tanngrisnir
3 Guldfaxe
3 Mega-Hamster
2 Effect Veiler
2 Ryko
2 Dark Desertapir
1 Gorz
1 Airbellum
1 Sangan
1 Vanadis

Spells: 9
3 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Pot of Duality
1 Mind Control
1 Giant Trunade

Traps: 9
2 Solemn Warning
2 Gleipnir
2 Trap Stun
1 Torrential
1 Mirror Force
1 Bottomless

Now, I'm sure a lot of people are trying to make Nordic Decks, and most of them use the same skeleton. Three-Three/Two-Three for Gnjostr, Grisnir, and Guldfaxe, two effect veiler, 2 solemn warning, 2 trap stun, 3 Mega-hamster, and the rest is up to you. Of course, since this is "Uni"storm, we are still using the Dark Desertapir engine, as card choice is very slim for this deck. There is still some pieces of the build I am uncertain about, but this is the most powerful version I've come up with yet. Here's a breakdown of the card selection:

Three/Three/Three Nordic Beasts - A lot of people ran this at first, and a few people are going with 3/2/3. We all know that Tanngnjoster is the most powerful beast in the deck(in the game? I want Rescue Cat back!). Running 3 of him is definitely a requirement. Even after you draw into it, you will want to use the effect every chance you get. Searching out level seven synchros from your main deck is simply too good to ignore. You also have to run three Guldfaxe for that very reason. It is very, very easy to run out of Guldfaxe in your deck. Drawing it isn't the greatest topdeck in the world, but you will probably place it on the field at some point. Tanngrisnir on the other hand is a better draw in your opening hand. If your opponent doesn't have a monster, it is a great attacker that gets under BTH and contributes to your win condition if your opponent summons on their turn. Using 3 does seem a little excessive, but once again the monster choice isn't that great to begin with. The 3rd Grisnir makes the deck more defensive, but I suppose in emergencies it can be sided out for just about anything.

Double Veiler - Everyone and their mother is doing this and they should. Monster effects are more powerful than ever and it is often the main "out" to the Nordic Deck. Brionac, Scrap Dragon, Fulhelmknight, Caius, and many other cards exist that can turn a good field into a game loss. Veiler helps take card of this "problem" by stunning your opponent's out to your synchro or set monster. It is almost as helpful as Solemn Warning...almost.

Desertapir/Gold Sarc - As much as noone will back me on it, I still say that Desertapir and Gold Sarc are some of the best beast support in a long, long time. For those who don't know, Dark Desertapir is a level 2 Earth - Beast Monster with 1100 atk and 300 def. That is pretty crappy as far as stats go, but it shines when used with Gold Sarc. Sarc removes Desertapir from the deck and from play, activating the monster's effect to summon a beast from the grave. That may not sound like much, but in this deck that blows through bast monsters like they're nothing, "Sarking" them from the graveyard is never expected. Here's a good example: The opponent has Stardust Dragon and Solemn Warning that they just set after killing your hamster. Your have Gnjostr that you pulled from the deck with hamster, Gold Sarc in hand, and any non-tuner. You activate Gnjostr on your turn and they don't solemn because they will solemn the synchro instead. You synchro for Scrap Archfiend and they pay 2000 to stop you. Great, Sarc for Desertapir, special summon Guldfaxe back. Normal Summon and synchro into Wyvern. Hamster still on the field? Flip Gnjostr, summon guldfaxe, sync with hamster for Stardust. Now use Gold Sarc, get guldfaxe back and synchro for Wyvern. Losing and need to go on the defensive? Sark for Grisnir. Winning and cant synchro? Sark for Airbellum. First turn and you don't want to hold Gold Sarc? Then use it to get Dark Hole/Reborn. The combos are all there and work beautifully. In fact, the only thing that makes it bad is what to do with Desertapir afterward. Usually he becomes fodder for Brionac, but I also swing with it just like Tanngrisnir. In the past, I has 2 Crevice in the main deck, which uses the Desertapirs a 2nd time. Soul Release can do it too, and both cards punish a lot of the top decks right now. The main reason I don't still use it is because of the tight spell and trap lineup. I may test it again, possibly using 2 Tapir, 2 Sarc and 2 Crevice.

Airbellum - For those times that you can't synchro, but you need to exploit an opponent field, Airbellum fills that role. Of course the "tech monster slot" could be anything - Thunderking, Spirit Reaper, Caius, Maxx "C", etc. Not only do I not have Tkings or Maxx C, Airbellum seems to be a good replacement. Not only that, but he has synergy with Desertapir and Mega-Hamster in the most extreme cases.

One Duality - I only own 1 Duality, and yes I never draw it. I use it because the deck will always have times when it doesn't special summon, and digging out trap cards is a very powerful effect. Wish I had more, but 3 may actually be excessive in this deck.

Mirror Force - A while ago, I didn't use Mirror Force in most of my decks. I'm a little undecided about how necessary it is in this deck. The problem isn't if Mirror Force is good or not, the problem is the decks that you play against that are unaffected by Mirror Force completely. I will continue to main deck it, but I REALLY need to used to the idea of side decking it against certain decks. Dragunities that spam Stardust dragon, X Sabers that spam Hyunlei, Plant Synchro that want you to spend your resources, all are times where a main decked Book of Moon or Compulsory may have proven more useful.

One Bottomless - I also felt that bottomless was very important to this deck and the format in general, but this is another card I may need to side. A lot of decks play monsters with less than 1500 attack, and by the time you get one you can bottomless, it is too late. Some people play D.prison instead, but unfortunately I have none. The cool idea now is that if you run 2 trap stun, you can run Royal Oppression. Flipping that against a lot of decks can totally shut them down and HOPEFULLY not you too. I wish I knew what to choose. At this point, Bottomless is the "tech trap" card.

One Vanadis - This card was up to 40 dollars at the time everyone wanted to run 3. Now it is down in the low 30's and more and more people want to use only 1 or 2. I used to run 2, but now I am down to 2. It isn't a bad card, don't get me wrong, but in THIS deck, you don't need 3. If you REALLY need a Vanadis, you would get it with Fetters, but 80% of the time, you will be adding Gnjostr to your hand. That makes Vanadis the kind of card that either sits in your deck waiting for you when you need to search it out, or the kind of card that sits in your hand as your backup plan(assuming that you special summon as much as possible before you resort to normal summons.)

Zero Mystical Space Typhoon - With as many field cards and continuous spells going around right now, both MST are still in my side deck. Why? Because I don't like the idea of 2 more "one for one"s in this deck. The ideal play is to clear it all with BRD, or ignore most of it with stardust. If your opponent has continuous cards that are making it so difficult to win, that is the time to side in both MST. So with 2 decks that do that, there is a 1/10 chance I may be playing that deck. Is that enough reason to use MST? Who knows?

So this is the deck I use and I feel that it is very good. The main reason I lost on Monday was because I played so poorly and I still don't side very well. I will be using it Saturday if I don't forget my deck at home again. The only thing missing from the deck is 1 Zeman the Dark Ape, to be used with Vanadis. Other than that I do enjoy it a lot and hope to pilot it at YCS Providence (if I'm not judging!).

The Platinum Road - MAG and Bayonetta

I know I haven't made a post in a while. But you can trust that I have been playing PLENTY of games in the last week. I was lucky enough to get Marvel VS Capcom 3 from Chelsea for our anniversary. I'm borrowing Killzone 3 from a pal at work. But, of course, the things that are taking up my time are Bayonetta and (as always)MAG.

Bayonetta
Having beaten the game on normal, getting the platinum trophy is supposed to be easy.
1) Beat game on normal.
2) Finish off Alfhiem portals.
3) Farm halos(money) from the chapter 7 boss until you can unlock the cheat codes for the best items.
4) Use the super items to beat the game on Hard and Extra hard difficulties.
Of course, I would want to beat the harder difficulties without putting cheat codes into the game. On Hard mode, not only do enemies attack more often, and at a faster rate, Harder enemies are put into more of the spawn points. By that, I mean the first chapter on Hard mode will have higher tier enemies where you would expect to find low tier ones. It is actually pretty fun, I'm just worried about what I will find in the later chapters. Even worse yet, harder difficulties.
But after completing all the difficulties, there are a few minor trophies that should be easy enough to get. Things like performing a number of counter attacks without getting hit, finding hidden book pages, etc.

Mag
I am still playing MAG, which is one of the best multiplayer shooter games on the market. My trophy status for the game is 70% now, which I'm pretty proud of. However, I am now working on a trophy that is EXTREMELY annoying, the Head Hunter.
1) Finish Head Hunter Trophy. That is 5 Silver Bullet Ribbons - killing 10 enemies with headshots in 1 match, the Longshot Ribbon - killing 3 enemies at 120m in 1 match, and the Sniper Master Medal - killing 1000 enemies with the sniper rifle over the course or your career.

As someone with 6000+ Assault Rifle Kills, this is pretty hard for me. As of me typing this(12PM), I am at 330 kills with the sniper rifle. I started at 270 this morning(9AM), meaning It is possible to get 100 kills a day, making the trophy very obtainable. This is done using a my typical medic/resistance/athletic build with a lot of points poured into the Sniper Skill Tree. Recoil and Reload speed are pretty important, but probably the most important skill is the Fire Rate.

Once those are done, you have 2 options for weapons, you can go for the one-bullet-one-kill approach which uses the most powerful sniper rifle available, coupled with the lowest Fire Rate. This is definitely a long rang weapon, and you will be massacred at mid to short range.

The other option is the "battle rifle" with the fastest fire rate. Combined with the Fire Rate Skill, it can shoot as fast as a pistol. At short ranges, this is amazing, and when you aim high, you can clear rooms of people with headshots. Unfortunately, the weapon won't one-shot anyone when attacking the body, so if you want to be a "true sniper", you may have to go with the other gun. I personally switch between both. Battle rifle on maps where I have to go to objectives (Domination, Escalation), and Sniper Rifle for everything Else (Sabotage, Acquisition, Interdiction.)

2) After that is "the big ones." The gold trophy for collecting 58 medals and the silver trophy for obtaining 40 ribbons. So far, I have 35/58-66 medals and 35/40-48 ribbons. The remain ribbons are easy. There are things like killing 10 players from both sides of Escalation, repairing ONE bridge, destroying/repairing 2 sensor array, repairing 2 vehicles, and getting 10 kills with the vehicle turret. Medals on the other hand are a different story, and I need a lot of them. A lot of the medals are actually obtained through getting Ribbons, which makes things a little more annoying. Since I need THIRTEEN for the trophy, here's a list of the easiest/mandatory ones:
The Streaker - Killing streak of 15.
Sniper Specialist - Kill 1000 enemies with the sniper rifle.
Silver Field Engineer - Repair 10 bridges across your career.
Master Engineer - Repair 10000 units of damage.
Combat Mechanic - Repair 25 vehicles.
Skeet Practice - Kill 100 Paratroopers.
Sidearm Master Specialist - Killing 250 enemies with a sidearm.
Rocket Man - Killing 50 enemies with a bunker turret rocket.
Gold Command Medal - Winning 100 battles as squad leader.
Screaming Eagle - Parachuting into battle 500 times.
Roadside Assistance - Capture 10 Interdiction points.
Mortar Support - Repairing 25 Mortar Batteries.
Mortar Demolition - Destroying 50 Mortar Batteries.
That's 13, and none of them are terribly difficult, just time consuming.

I really want to go back and finish some trophy hunting on older games. Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge, and the infamous Sonic Unleashed are the main ones that poke at my brain. Dante's Inferno is actually supposed to be easy. Sonic...well, let's say that Sonic is about 70% skill and 30% luck. Mirror's Edge requires a fair amount of skill. I don't have any videos to show you guys, but the skill I'm talking about is for inputting commands into the Dual Shock 3. Some call that skill, some don't, but for me, it can get pretty hardcore. What sucks is that failing at Mirror's Edge is as bad as Sonic, you start the level from the beginning. Difference is that Mirror's Edge levels take 4-9 minutes, and each failure chips a little piece of your patience away.

Someday though!

Deck Tweaking Fudo vs Leblanc

Let it first be said that this "Sherry Leblanc" deck is a poor name, just like Debris Hime that is plant synchro with a Tytannial Splashed in.

Unfortunately, the names to give this new version of "Synchron Synchro" aren't very nice ones. It could probably stay as "Synchron Synchro" but it is borderling "Junk Plants." But after a lot of thinking today, I have come to realize that the plant portion of the deck is so good, and using triples and doubles of a lot of the Synchron deck monsters makes it 10 times worse. Here are some of the cards found in the 1st draft of Synchron Synchro that got shaved down in the new version Synchron Synchro Mark II (for speed!)

Debris Dragon Such a good card. It is even limited now! This card MAKES Plant Synchro. Wait a sec...plants make plant synchro. and Debris Hime is pretty much plant synchro. So by that logic alone, Debris was shaved down to 1. Drawing 2 is terrible. It encourages bad moves and can even clog the hand when you know you shouldn't nuke the field. Debris was good because you can wipe your opponent's field with Black Rose Dragon and get tokens to make Stardust or Scrap Dragon next turn. We don't really want to do that in Mark II. Instead, you want to nuke the field, then start rushing past your opponent in card draws by making formula synchrons and making Synchron Synchro Monsters.

Quickdraw Synchron Another great topdeck. Well most of the time. You see, the problem with Quickdraw is that he is too balanced for this deck. The cost of a discard to special summon it is great, but not great enough to run multiples. I shaved him down to 1 because you should never really "lose" your quickdraw. It may get Warning'd or worst yet, Chain Disappearance, but you should never lose it to Bottomless or D. prison. In fact, having your opponent waste the before listed cards should help you more than it hurts. The real issue is when you lost a card for your discard, lost your tuner, and eventually you'll draw ANOTHER one. And if you haven't refilled your hand by then, you will be in big trouble.

Tuningware Same thing with quickdraw. You really shouldn't lose your tuningwares. With 2 Quillbolt in the deck, there are plenty of options for Road Warrior. Then you have other level 1 targets for One for One. It took me a while to realize that the deck needs as many options as possible. There is a reason why Yusei is the king of the top deck, and that is because he(spams Angel Baton) has so many options.

So the addition of plants should speed up the deck. Let's look at what went into the Mark II:
Lonefire Blossom Some say that Lonefire is the main reason why plant synchro is so good, and I do agree. Its effect is difficult to stop. In the graveyard it does move for you than a lot of the rest of the deck. Synchron Synchro Mark II does NOT run tytannial, there is no space for it. Instead, Lonefire is fuel for getting key cards out. Dandylion -> Spore -> Glow up. Then Lonefire stays in the grave to be used with Avarice, Debris Dragon, Spore and Limit Reverse.

Spore I know that Spore is in my picture of the deck, but that was honestly a placeholder for Glow-Up. I took a look at the deck and realized that I didn't have very many level 1 tuners. I was using Nitro Synchron because it was searchable and I could summon it with Kinka-byo. But hey, so can Spore. In fact, summoning spore out of the deck from lonefire is such an amazing play, it makes the deck instantly faster.

Limit Reverse Call of the Haunted is very important in this deck. Because of that, Limit Reverse was put in. In fact, I feel that Limit Reverse is a very underrated card. In decks like rely on small monsters to work properly, there is almost no reason not to run 1 Limit if you run Call of the Haunted. I remember posting a while ago about Monster Reborn, and how most people think it is broken because you can get 2500+ monsters from the grave with it. But people don't think that recursive cards like Reborn, Call, and Reverse are Combo enablers. In a deck like the Mark II, where you blow through your deck and fill the graveyard, Limit Reverse can easily become anything you want. Reverse Lonefire into whatever plant is left. Reverse Tuningware and synchro to draw more cards. Reverse Quickdraw and make anything. Reverse Dandylion and stall.

The deck is too good and I hate the fact that it runs so many "Meta" cards. Luckily, I think it has just enough fun cards to keep it from being mainstream. Oh, let's not forget the most important part. The Extra Deck:

Ally of Justice Catastor
Black Rose Dragon
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Drill Warrior x2 (Might shave this down)
Chevalier de Fleur
Formula Synchron x2
Junk Destroyer
Junk Warrior
Nitro Warrior
Road Warrior
Scrap Dragon
Shooting Star Dragon
Stardust Dragon

Koakis versus Synchron Synchro!

You guys haven't heard much about the Koaki deck. That is because I feel like the deck is leaps and bounds better with 3 Pot of Duality, and since I don't even own one, I don't want to play the deck. Unfortunate I know, but I am lucky enough to have so many other decks to choose from. For the sake of this post, and all Play duels, I want to show how the deck is "supposed" to run at optimum strength. The koaki deck on display, ran by Koa'ki Meiru Urknight, is my proposed build if I owned dualities. The opponent is Tuningware! Tuningware will be using the proposed Fudo Yusei/Synchron Synchro deck that I pictured in the last post. Of course, since it is the "proposed version", it has a couple of cards you did not see in the picture.

Koaiki Meiru Urknight(Koakis) 8000 - Tuningware(Fudo Yusei) 8000

Urknight wins the dice roll, so he will be going first.

Turn 1- Urknight Urnight gets one of the coolest cards to get in your opening hand. Pot of Duality! Playing the spell reveals a KM Urnight, KM Sandman, and Solemn Warning. He returns Sandman, and surprisingly Warning to the deck and keeps the KM Urnight. The turn ends with THREE set spells and traps and no monsters! That backrow must be pretty exciting.

Now, Tuningware's Fudo Yusei deck is known for blowing through multiple cards, replenishing them, then summoning multiple monsters to the field. The ideal hands can turn any duel topsie-turvie. So let's see how this folds out.

Turn 2- Tuningware Tuningware opens with Tuning! He adds a Junk Synchron to his hand and mills a Sangan off the top of the deck. Next he normal summons Card Trooper and activates its effect. Card Trooper mills 3 more cards to increase its attack to 1900. Trooper attacks directly for 1900 damage! Urknight hasn't even activated those set cards. Tuningware ends it there. Nothing but a Card Trooper face up on the field.
Urknight 6100 - Tuningware 8000

Turn 3- Urknight Surely Urknight will play cards this time. After drawing, Urknight summons the KM Urnight that came from Duality and uses the effect. He reveals an Iron Core in the hand to special summon a KM Guardian in attack mode. Then he flips one of the face down cards, revealing it to be a Core Overclock. That makes his 2 monsters, Urnight and Guardian, 2500 and 2400 attackers! Then he uses another set card, Compulsory Evactuation Device to put Card Trooper back into Tuningware's hand. No card draws for you. Battle Phase: Urknight swings directly with both monsters, 2400 and 2500. No Gorz, no battle fader, Tuningware is already below half his life in 1 turn. After the battle phase, Urknight sets another s/t card(2 set, Overclock active). At the end of the turn, he discards the iron core to keep Urnight alive, then reveals a boulder in the hand to keep Sandman alive.
Urknight 6100 - Tuningware 3100

Turn 4- Tuningware Tuningware is in a bad spot. Urknight WILL negate 1 effect monster this turn. Then theres 2 face down cards to deal with. The mill from Card Trooper got rid of Giant Trunade. What is there left to topdeck to get out of this situation? Tuningware draws a card and thinks hard. He discards a Quilbot Hedgehog to summon Quickdraw Synchron in defense mode. He then summons Junk Synchron in attack mode and activates its effect to summon Quillbolt. Urknight counters with KM Guardian. Tributing Guardian, Junk Synchron is negated and destroyed, quillbolt stays in the grave (for now). Tuningware uses quillbolt's effect to summon itself in defense mode. Then Doppelwarrior's effect in Tuningware's hand activates and summons itself in defense position. Urknight isn't too worried. Tuningware cannot escape its fate. Quickdraw and Quillbolt (5+7) become Nitro Warrior at 2800. Urknight activates Torrential Tribute, wiping the field. Tuningware doesn't look too happy. He ends the turn with no cards on the field and only 3100 attack points.

Turn 5- Urknight Draw for turn. "Game Over." During the draw phase, Urknight uses the Iron core effect to discard the Boulder in hand to add the core to the hand. With 2 cards in hand, 1 set and 1 Overclock, he summons another KM Urnight in attack mode. He reveals the only card in hand, the Iron core, to special summon his second KM Guardian to the field. The final nail in the coffin is to use the ignition effect of Core Overclock; you discard a core in your hand and all koaki monsters increase by another 1000 atk. This makes Urnight go up to 3500 and Guardian 3400. Of course Guardian would stop any Gorz or Fader in hand, and Urnight has a free shot for life points.

Good game.
Urknight 6100 - Tuningware 0000

That is probably the fastest play duel I'll ever post. Losing Card Trooper was a huge loss and that is why compulsory is so good in Koakis. Compulsory allows you to disrupt your opponent's "Tempo" and reduce them to KM's speed. Of course, none of this would have happened without Pot of Duality. Putting Urnight into your hand is a powerful play that puts the cogs of winning into motion. Solemn Warning is great, but Urnight winds games too.

This definitely deserves another round. Tuningware didn't even get to synchro! There is revenge to be had!

Dragon Age 2!? Oh Em Gee.

For those who don't know, I am not a fan of the Dragon Age series. In fact, I bought DA:Origins and quickly returned it the next day.

I'll let that sink in for a little bit.

Dragon Age was one of the few games I have bought without reading ANYTHING about it. My basis on the type of game it was and the quality was from the commercials and the hype of friends talking about it. So when I bought it, I expected Demon's Souls-like combat with awesome spells and abilities. Instead, I was given this:

Video Author: XISIL3NTIX

Now don't get me wrong, some people LOVE this kind of gameplay. In fact, I used to be a big fan of this style of combat on PC games. Which brings me to what I always say about Dragon Age, that it is a PC game, ported to consoles. What does that mean? Well, think about console games and PC games. On the console side you have a game like God of War, on the PC side you have a game like Baldur's Gate. That is not to say that all console games are beat-em ups and all PC games a dungeon crawling mini-games(incoming hate emails). Computer games are known for micro-management, and the combat fits that style. Meaning physics and reactions are kept to a minimal while paying attention to numbers are the fun of the game(aka micro-management.) Console games are all about physics. Since most of the time you are controlling 1 character, and games want you to feel like you're part of what is going on. With PC games, you are instead the "master" of your "game"(emails!) and instead of you being on the front line, you are just a presence that orchestrates how the battle unfolds. This is exactly how Dragon Age plays (in my opnion.)

Tomorrow, Dragon Age 2 will be released. They did fiddle with the combat in the game to encourages console players like myself to give it another try. But is it enough to make me want to get into it?

The character models have always looked great. Unfortunately, in the demo, you aren't allowed to make any changes to your character. But just going from the default character, it already looks better than Dragon Age: Origins(DA:O).

The combat has taken a turn for the better though. I find it funny because when I read the Playstation Blog Interview with Bioware all of their thoughts are my same thoughts when I tried the demo. The physics are still designed for micro-management, but the feel of the game is much more reactive and impressive. You put in a command and you can see the results. Shield Bashes aren't just little taps with your shield, the character does a full lunge and bashes heads with his(or her) shield. You do still have a menu you can select actions from, but the time you spend outside of the menu in combat is much more fluid(and satisfying).

So will I pick up the game? Probably not. But this time, it isn't because it is bad. There are many games out there I would love to have, but since I'm playing so many already, they are pushed to my wishlist. Dragon Age 2 has the privilege of being on my game wish list! Congratulations. The changes to the combat, and visually quality are leaps and bounds better than DA:O, it feels like a console game and not a terrible port. Kudos to EA and Bioware. It is only March and this year's game lineup is looking to be incredible.

Up Close and Personal

Once I got to level 51 on MAG, I decided to take a break from grinding on Raven to get a trophy that I needed. Up Close and Personal is not the most difficult trophy in the game, but for your average player, it is a little overwhelming. Basically, to get the trophy you have to get the Combat Melee Ribbon 5 times. To get that ribbon, you have to knife-kill 15 enemies in 1 match. Sound simple? "MAG maps have 32-125 people on them to knife. Sounds like a walk in the park if you ask me. You barely have to kill 10% of them once each!." On some maps, and in some rounds, yeah it is "easier". But it definitely requires some skill. You could go into Domination and see a line of 32 people you want to knife. But can you walk past their barrage of bullets? How about the 4 turrets firing at your squad? Mortar Strikes? Still sound simple?

Yeah, I need to work on my editting lol

I basically did mine on the Suppression Maps. You have 32 people to work with. Ten to Fifteen Minute rounds, so if you fail miserably, you will be ejected quickly. Suppression also has most of the worst MAG players, including snipers that always go to the same spot even though I will knife them each time. But best of all is there is less fear of disconnecting or freezing in Suppression. The chance is there, but it is less likely to happen. You run around with the Sensor Jammer, and as much movement speed as possible. Medical Kit is a must(as with any build) since chances are, no one will be aiding you if you get hit. Some people recommend heavier armor so that you can survive enemy knives, but I put the points instead into Raven's best Assault Rifle. The suppressor keeps enemies from hearing you and giving away your position. I tried my best NOT to shoot people, but you will wind up in situations where the enemy is too far to run and knife, and they are preparing to open fire.

Rinse and repeat a dozen times and I finally got the trophy. Sorry for no picture, I was too slow.

Now that that is over, I have gone back to leveling my character. The next ribbons to tackle are Combat Sidearm, Shotgun, Machine Gun, Sniper Rifle, and various other things. They are mostly like the Combat Melee Ribbon, "do this specific action X amount of times." None of them are very difficult, perhaps except the grenade ribbon. I do think I will at least get to level 60 before I try those. I did decide to "Vet" back to Valor after achieving the maximum level in Raven.

In other news, I actually bought a Sharp Shooter today for the cool price of $25.00(Never buy at full retail unless you get something in return!). It is... a challenge. I only tried the Killzone 2 demo on it, with the same settings as in my first playthrough. Needless to say, I got stomped. I did some quick changes to my turn speed and Deadzone, and still got the same results. My reticule moves too much to control with the sharpshooter. Or perhaps, not the reticule...maybe it is my Deadzone? I don't know. I almost feel like I play so close to the camera, that movements are exaggerated. So even "at rest" I am in danger of sending the camera in a frenzy because each twitch in my hand moves the controller. Moving the room around may be the answer.

I do want to get good at the Sharp Shooter. As of right now, I am probably "Mediocre" with the move controller in anything competitive. With the Sharp Shooter, I am "Might as well turn the gun around and shoot myself." Playing MAG with the sharp shooter is a scary thought though. I can hardly imagine using something like that while trying to mow down a room of people. The controller feels a lot more stable in high stress situations, but that would be skill wouldn't it?

Someday lol. Guess I better start practicing.

Demo - Move Heroes

It has taken me almost a full day and a half to finally make this post. First, my video editting software crashed, so I had to re-download that. Then youtube wouldn't upload my gameplay video. Left it on overnight and woke up today to it still uploading. But now I can finally talk about what I have been playing. But first, is a Demo Showcase! Today is Playstation Move Heroes.

Surprisingly, Move Heroes is only half of what I thought it was going to be. Going by the trailers I saw, I expected Move Heroes to be a beat-em up style game, just like the games its Cast came from. But instead of it being a straight-up action adventure game, Move Heroes is more of an...Action...Arcade...Party..Game? You do have points of action, smashing, exploding, and stuff like that, but the way the "game" is set up, it is not an adventure at all. Much like a party game, you go through a series of "stunts" with the characters. That may be destroying waves of enemies sure, but it also includes things like throwing a disc for high scores, finding hidden objects, etc.

The game is still a lot of fun. The story is something along the lines that a Villian brought the different Playstation Heroes to a planet, and is making them do things for his amusement. So the whole point of the game is to get massive scores in these different events. The events offered in the Demo are:

Survive a Deadly Deathbot Uprising - A melee smash-em-up survival.
Could you be so Bowled - A bowling-esque event(the Jak portion of the video.) You roll a ball and guide it to the targets. Theres speed boosters and obstacles along the way.
Whibble Trouble - Search and rescue with beat-em-up gameplay. You find little baby aliens while smashing enemies and have to deliver them.
Industrial Revolutions - Disc Tossing that is guided by the move controller. The objective is to hit targets, of course with Speed Boosters, Power ups, and High Score multipliers.
A Mine of Their Own - Search and rescue, this time, with Blasters (The Clank portion of the video.) For some reason, I found this one the most fun lol.

I'm sure when the retail version of the game comes out, there will be more events. The game looks like it could be a lot of fun, but if these are the only events, spanned across different levels, I could see it getting old very easily. I'm not worrying about it though, as Nihilistic has been working on this game for 2 years now. I'm sure there will be enough content to back it up.

Quickee Post, Pictures!

I had a pretty limited time to post on the blog today. So seeing as how I haven't shown ANYTHING to the readers, I figured a picture post would be a real treat. Without further ado, here they are. Pictures are all clickable.

Cat doesn't care much for Yugimon. Unless its to roll around on. He KNOWS he shouldn't be there, but who could pass up free rub downs?

If I remember correctly, I posted that I wanted to do the STOR sneak peak. But I never said if I had gotten anything from it. Well, in terms of cards, that would be a big negatory. In terms of loot, I DID get something. No more do I have to play on raw table. Now I am part of the limelight!

I started playing again back in June. I started with the Warrior's Strike structure deck and a few absolute powerfoce booster packs. No trade binders though. But now I have a trade binder and the elusive playset binder.

Inside are many goodies. Trade binder on the top, Playsets on the bottom.


Including my new obsession. Spoiler Alert: The Trade Binder cover was a hint.

Next up are the 3 decks I currently have made. The main one is, of course, Unistorm, that I have talked about a lot. The build has gone through so many changes, but this is what it is looking like right now

I talked briefly about my Fudo Yusei deck that is in the works. It is shaping up to look more like "Synchron Madness" or "Synchron Synchro" or "Junk deck" or whatever you like to call it. I am missing a Glow Up Bulb(courtesy of friend Kavy) and a Doppelwarrior(courtesy of my wallet). I also want to try Penguin Soldiers, as they are very tempting to use. Ah, memories of triple maneater bug, double penguind soldier decks.

Lasty, is my new format Koaki Deck. This is a pretty botched, pretty bad version of the deck, seeing as how key cards like Solemn Warnings are in my other decks. It is also missing the obvious 3 Dualities that I will probably never get. I buy and buy DREV and have nothing to show for it!

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the pictures. Sorry for the ones that came out blurry. I may try to take pictures more often, especially to show what decks I'm running or the cards I obtained from locals. Also regionals is this week end, but of course I work. Next regional is in April, but of course that is Chelsea's birthday.

Oh well.

Not enough time in the day

Yesterday I talked a little about how pressed for time I am.The way my week has fanned out is as thus:
Sunday - Spent time at the mall until around 6pm. Gaming until 11pm.
Monday - Work until 5pm. Yu-gi-oh right after. Got home to sleep at around 11pm(ugh).
Tuesday - Work until 5pm. Shopping after that, so I got home at around 6-630. Had to cook dinner once I got home(ugh lol). Blog updates and web browsing after that. Finally, popped in a game at around 830-9pm. Bed time at 11.
Today - Got out of bed at 9am. Web Browse -> Shower -> Eat ->Laundry. It's half past noon as I'm typing this, so you can say that I'm doing Blog Updates at 12pm. So that means I have about 2 hours after that to play something until work at 4.

What sucks is that I just bought another game, Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 for the low low price of 19.99 New (New is used very loosely, as buying a game from Gamestop means that it is only new because it wasn't traded it. It has been opened, and probably played by the associates, but hey, lowest price I could find.). This adds a new treat to my already full plate of backlogged games. Right now it is split into 2 categories:
Uncompleted:Bayonetta, Xenosaga 2, Fallout: NV, Kung Fu Rider, Rock Band 3 and now DW Gundam 2
Completed: MAG, Little Big Planet 2, Sonic Unleashed
These are just the games I am MOST likely to put in an play. There are plenty of other games I "need" to be playing right now, but the above ones are at the forefront.

So how in the world do I finish all that? I still want Killzone 3 and the Sharp Shooter. Infamous 2 comes out in April (ARGH), Yugioh World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus comes out in May(DOUBLE ARGH), and then Resistance 3 at the end of the year? Not to mention the money for things like Anime Boston that we may go to, or trekking home for the Fourth of July. Money and time is of the essence. I need a solution.

I suppose, as far as the blog is concerned, setting up an exact schedule for it would make posting easy. Like today, if I wanted to show some gameplay videos of DW Gundam 2, I could have recorded it while playing last night. Then, you spend the hour uploading it to youtube overnight. In the morning, I'll have a finished product I can add to the blog. So basically, the idea would be either to record EVERYTHING, or think up exactly what I want to post about each day. Even with the Yugioh blog, which is up to 69 posts now, I type as I go. The most brainstorming and planning you'll find is me thinking about my post on the way home from work. With the Game Blog, you also have news and media that pops up every day. Unless you make multiple posts per day, there's no way to "plan" every single post you make Unless you don't mind having posts in-line to production; meaning that you have 1, 2 or even 3 posts you may have already made and just awaiting publication, but you push them to the next day because a new trailer just dropped for a hot game.

If only I didn't work. Of course, then I would have no games, or internet, so that means no blog. I guess not sleeping would work. Stay up after work(or play) and work on my games and blog until around 2am. Not that running on 4 hours of sleep is healthy. If there were a couple of extra hours in the day...say 30, we'd be good to go. Seven to eight hours of sleep, time in the day for important work, then some extra bonus hours just for me!

If only.

E3? That's just icing on the cake!

Thanks to my buddies on BG, it was brought to my attention that KmartGamer is having an E3 contest. Most of you guys know that in the last year, Kmart has stepped its game up as a Retail Video Game Store. Being a retail shopper means that you look around for the best deals on every game and accessory you buy. Unfortunately, some places would rather give you deals on giving THEM games, while you pay full price and they charge double for the games you gave them..and in the end you gain little-to-no value back for each dollar. We all know about buying games online and how cheap that can be, but driving to stores, talking to people about games, and eventually buying them face-to-face is a "deeper experience" (and it supports the developers a lot more than winning it on an auction). So here we have Kmart, and its drive to get itself into the fray of Game Retailing. They've sold games for a long time of course, but in the last year, Kmart(as well as other retail giants) have realized the untapped potential in the gaming market. They, along with Sears, use a Shop Your Way rewards system that gives you points for your purchase, just like thousands of other stores. What makes it awesome is that they will have sales on games and accessories, even games released that week that do anything from giving you bonus points, gift cards, direct price cuts and more. And with those points, you can directly cut chunks of the price off your next purchase. It's the chain of buying for less than MSRP and getting rewarded for it that I love and have been doing for years.

This makes Kmart one of the top retail places to buy games. But they aren't stopping there. They have a KmartGamer blog as part of their Community section. It only has 170~ posts in it (hey, I have 12!) but they are really trying to push its success. That brings us back to the contest. They are planning to send 3 people to E3 this year, hotel and entry covered. But what is the criteria for being chosen? Well, they want Socialites! People who blog, tweet, spam forums, update on facebook, and all the other silly social bugs floating around to be the ones sent to E3. And guess what?

I DO THAT!

That's right, you're reading a BLOG. ABOUT GAMES. And I post on forums for games too, BG being the top one, but then there is Gamefaqs, and even Kotaku and IGN lets you leave comments. I may even start a Twitter for games in the future. "Hold on for a sec. :::Just:::bought:::Dynasty:::Warriors:::Gundam2.:::My:::Epyon:::Eats:::Everything.:::
Toss a "#" sign in front of it and call it a Tweet.

Back to the contest, KmartGamer is going to E3 and will be making articles about it just like any gaming news site. Which means that as well as a blog, KGr plans to be a news source too. While they are at E3, their contest winners will play all of the best new games and are instructed to tell every moment of it. ":::NGP:::is:::Amazing!:::", "Vincent updated his status to Playing Dark Souls", things of that nature. Which is exactly what I want to do!

This brings me to the heart and soul of this thread. I want KGr to pick me for this contest! To go to E3? That is only the half of it.

Other than the obvious reasons -- fame and fortune -- there are a couple of real reasons you would want to blog for us at E3:

• Visibility for your own blog. We're going to re-post your content on the KmartGamer blog, as well as in our social media channels. (For instance, Twitter or the Kmart Facebook page.)
• We'll get you access. We're going to work with our vendors (e.g. game publishers) to get our bloggers behind-the-scenes info you may not get anywhere else.
• You can write about whatever you'd like. We're not going to limit what you write about, as long as it's informative, constructive and well-written, and has the KmartGamer blog audience in mind. (Example: We're not looking for posts that say "This game rules!" but rather "This game will provide x, y and z and therefore should be a good experience for anyone who like that.")

I was talking about this to my co-workers yesterday. How amazing would it be to blog for a website that gets thousands, if not tens of thousands of hits a week? E3 is just icing on the cake, the real-thrill-Holyfield is the aftermath - being able to blog for KmartGamer. Heck, that REAL kicker would be to get hired by KGr if they are impressed enough by my "Reporting" at E3. I have a girlfriend so I won't be distracted by the "floor girls."


I'll bring my own food, no pizza or nachos while you're "on the clock."

This is business....and pleasure...but pleasure about business! So this is the first reason why KGr should pick me. I want to do this as if I were getting paid to do it!

The second reason why they should is my "gaming style." As all of you know, I have a Yu-gi-oh blog that is about 9 months old now, and is going fairly successfully. My Gaming Blog was actually created around the same time, but as you can see from my opening post, has met with many difficulties. Recording hardware, Work, Youtube Upload speeds, and many other things are the reason why this blog is only just now churning out posts. What do I do in my downtime though? Well, I work retail in...you guessed it...Video Games! A lot of the KGr bloggers may have started off as Kmart Employees in their Video Game Department, and like me, strove to do more than answer their associates' questions about games OTHER than Call of Duty. In fact, I made this blog so that I can share the kind of chats I have at work - about games they have or will never have played. It is starting off slow, but only because of the challenges I met in the beginning. K3r would be an amazing outlet to speak to more and more gamers, paid or for free!