StreetPass 2: Giant Bomb Staff Edition

I haven't had a lot of luck with StreetPass encounters. Shortly after the aforementioned post, I met two other Miis in the form of Gamessa and Clif, making for a total of three people I've come across since the launch of the 3DS in March. My experience with this feature has been disappointing, especially since receiving duplicate puzzle pieces in Puzzle Swap is common when purchased with Play Coins, as opposed to being guaranteed a new piece when encountering a fellow player. Having never been to a convention where it's common for people to pack their 3DS, I was excited to see what would happen when I visited the Whiskey Media office on June 24th. Arriving back at my hotel later that night, I had completely forgotten that my 3DS was still on and in my pocket. I excitedly took it out and booted up StreetPass Mii Plaza to be greeted with this:

As you can see from the second pic, I totally had the inside scoop on Matt Kessler's first review.

I then loaded up Puzzle Swap to reap my rewards.

Patrick helped me finally complete my Mario and Bowser puzzle.

Encountering Matt Kessler's Mii in Puzzle Swap.

Getting a new piece for the Metroid: Other M panel in Puzzle Swap.

Though I've technically finished Find Mii, I still have a few more hats to collect. Here's what the guys look like when pissed off at ghosts.

I also had the StreetPass functionality for Super Street Fighter IV turned on, and was surprised when I saw that Jeff was one of my opponents since I didn't encounter his Mii.

And those are probably the last StreetPass encounters I'm going to have for a very long time.

Oh, and if there was still any doubt as to the identity of the man in the following photo (from this thread), I think Ryan's Mii is enough evidence to lay this mystery to rest:

Vito's Game Giveaway: Six Months and Counting

*This post is about a contest I host on Giant Bomb. It was written specifically for the members there.

The first Vito's Game Giveaway was posted on January 16th in the Off-Topic forum. Since its inception (bwaaaaaah):

28 games have been given away.
20 of those games were donations from 11 different people.
12 out of 28 games were physical copies and had to be shipped. Let's say it cost $7 average for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc. 12x7 = $84 spent. This does not include the cost of shipping that the two donors who sent physical games had to pay.
3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games, about $124 has been spent thus far.
30 people have won something.
1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
Vito's Game Giveaway has never missed a week!

I've had a few people ask me why I started doing this. Sometimes the question is phrased in an almost mistrustful manner, as if it isn't possible for a person to just give away games without some insidious motive. It's perfectly understandable, really, with the Internet the way it is, though I still find it amusing whenever I see my threads mentioned elsewhere as spam.

The origin of Vito's Game Giveaway isn't very interesting. If you want to get really deep into it, it all started when I was younger and had to sell games to afford new ones. I've never been a collector, and I very rarely ever want to replay a game once I beat it. The ones I do, I keep. But the habit of selling games I no longer want to play stayed with me as I got older, even though it wasn't necessary anymore. So I was sitting at my desk, looking at a stack of 360/PS3 games I had organized into a pile of "things I probably won't play again", thinking to myself, "Welp, let's see how much I can get for these on eBay."

Now, eBay has been very good to me. It was even a major source of income at one point, making thousands of monies selling my old stuff and even selling stuff for other people, taking a cut. It was also, surprisingly, not a bad way to make money as a model photographer. But I was looking at these games, figuring out about how much I would make, and it suddenly hit me: Why not give them away to the community of Giant Bomb? Giant Bomb is awesome, and I wouldn't be getting a whole bunch of money anyway. I love Giant Bomb, and I wanted to do something to give back to the community, so to speak.

So I took some time to think about how I would do it, how much money I would be spending doing this and if that was something I'm OK with, etc. I also thought about if I should make people do something to enter that would directly benefit me, but quickly decided against it. I wanted this to be a contest for the community of the greatest video game site in the world, and I wanted it to be as easy, fair and non-sleazy as possible. Easy in that all a person has to do is answer a random question I've come up with (I mean, you guys have to do something), fair in that the winner would be randomly selected, and non-sleazy in that it would never be a requirement to do anything that would directly benefit me to enter.

I typed up a Notepad document outlining how I wanted to do it, found a random selecting tool, and eventually started the first Vito's Game Giveaway. JohnAsscream was the first winner, winning Alan Wake. I thought it was funny that he was the first to win, since he is one of the few people from the site I know. The contest would have only been rigged if I had chosen again to get a person I didn't know, however.

I had only expected Vito's Game Giveaway to last about six weeks, seeing as that's all I wanted to give away at the time. I then thought of maybe having a monthly contest where I give away $20 worth of Microsoft Points or something, using sites that let you buy points cards from other parts of the world so it wouldn't only be limited to those in the U.S. I also thought of buying cheap, used games that I could use to give away. These concerns were soon alleviated, however, when I started getting PMs from people offering to donate. Other users sending donations was honestly never something that entered my mind, but I wouldn't be writing this post if they hadn't. The first mention I made of donations was on February 15th in Vito's Game Giveaway #5, exactly 30 days after it all started. I had received my first donation by the seventh contest: an unused copy of Mass Effect 2 from zoskia. By the eighth contest I had received my second donation, this time from nintendoeats, who had donated four games. Out of all the donations I've received (and not to diminish the effort or value of the others), nintendoeats's would have to be my favorite. Every time someone wins a contest, I send them a PM titled "You're Winner!" asking for their details. nintendoeats is the only person to acknowledge the reference (whether that's because people don't know it or just don't say anything) with the awesome package he sent me:

It's Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, by the way.

Since then, eight others have also generously donated games. Big thanks to mosdl, rentfn, Kyreo, Sjosz, mracoon, rebgav, Dalai, and ArbitraryWater for always following through and keeping this going as long as it has.

Another question I've been asked is why don't people just give away the games themselves, instead of giving them to me first. I can't speak for anyone that has donated, but it's probably because it's easier. They don't have to make a thread, come up with rules, select a winner, and then send the game out. They can just give it to me and still get the proper credit they deserve. Sending a game out doesn't really matter anymore, either, since Vito's Game Giveaway has dealt almost exclusively in digital donations for a while now. I give the donor the winner's Steam ID or whatever, and they get sent the game. It's an easy process that saves everyone shipping costs!

The Look and Changes

The banner that has been at the top of every thread was done by Turbo_Toaster, who you probably know best as the fantastic artist who does all the quest icons, or for her work on Season 3 of the Bombcast (and Season 4 pretty soon!). It was a piece I hired her to do a while before the game giveaway was even thought of, but I thought it was fitting. I had asked her to do a drawing of me surrounded by all the major gaming platforms, with all of us happy and such, and I love what she came back with. I now use it as my avatar everywhere I go and have even had people identify me because of it. I'll probably need to have the DS and PSP changed out for the 3DS and Vita some time in the future, though!

Now to talk about how the contests have changed. I've always been fascinated by the evolution of something, and I don't think I've ever done anything for this long a time that I can look back on and be like, "Yeah, I can see what I was thinking there."

So... yeah, this next part is mainly for myself. You can probably stop reading now.

With Vito's Game Giveaway #1, I didn't really have a set plan; I just knew I wanted an image at the top that would become synonymous with the contest and myself. I also didn't know what Vito's Game Giveaway was going to become, so it was pretty simple to set up. I made sure to throw in a disclaimer in there about these being my own, used games, and that I wouldn't be held responsible if anything happened to them during shipping. I also had placed "Art by Turbo_Toaster" under the banner.

In Vito's Game Giveaway #2, I made things a bit clearer by using bold, underlined headers so people could quickly see how to enter and when the deadline was. I also added a "Previous Winners" section at the bottom, and announced the winner at the top along with how many contestants there were, which is something I've continuously done.

Vito's Game Giveaway #3 was the first contest to have games for different platforms, so I divided them up with a small header.

I threw in a "Quick Notes" section in Vito's Game Giveaway #4, which would be where I first mentioned donations in Vito's Game Giveaway #5. Giveaway #4 was also the first time I wrote the contest as a blog and attached it to the forums, as opposed to just making them threads. I did this so it would be easier for followers to know when a new contest started.

Vito's Game Giveaway #6 was when I started attaching the blog posts to the General Discussion forum instead of the Off-Topic forum. General Discussion is a more appropriate place since the blogs are about games. I was also hoping it would get the contests more views.

I added a "Donations" section to Vito's Game Giveaway #7, since it was the first contest where I had a donation. I also mentioned at the bottom that people could follow my Twitter and Facebook page for updates on contests.

Vito's Game Giveaway #8 was the first time I had a non-game-related question for people to answer, having everyone tell me what their favorite Brad Pitt movie was. This was the contest where nintendoeats sent me the "You're Winner!" box, and I couldn't stop thinking about the end of Se7en.

Vito's Game Giveaway #13 was where I introduced the big redesign by placing everything in tables. I also removed the "Art by Turbo_Toaster" caption from the banner, because we got into a huge fight. That was a lie. It was actually because I thought it made things look cleaner, and I figured that most people probably knew it was by her after 12 weeks. If newcomers wanted to know who it was by, I would happily tell them! This was also the lengthiest first post I ever made for VGG. I started toying around with using an image in the "How to Play" section, as well, using an image from Tangled. This was the first time where I mentioned a future Facebook-related contest.

Vito's Game Giveaway #14 continued the redesign of #13, albeit in shorter form. This was because I decided to make separate blog posts for the "Disclaimer" and "Donations" part of the contest and just link to them, saving a ton of space. It was also the last contest to use an image for the "How to Play" section. I mentioned in the notes section that when the "Past Winners" section reached 20 people, I would carry their names over to a separate blog post and start fresh with Vito's Game Giveaway #21.

Vito's Game Giveaway #15 was the first time I introduced the concept of a "Bonus" contest. I had three copies of Portal and decided to let people who just wanted Portal enter into their own little contest where they would have a much higher chance of winning. This was also when I had started moving and was staying at various hotels and using an annoying laptop to do all the work.

I was still moving during contests #16 and #17, so I put as little effort into them as possible. Vito's Game Giveaway #18 is when I started including the "How to Play" bit under the banner, all in the interest of saving space. I made the "Disclaimer" and "Donations" links a bit more prominent, as well.

Vito's Game Giveaway #21 was the first (and only) contest without a banner, due to me having a ton of trouble with the editor that night. I threw in a quick "How to Play" and the list of games people could win and left it at that.

Vito's Game Giveaway #22 was where I decided to just host all "Past Winners" in a separate blog post instead of including any at the bottom. I don't think it's something important enough to warrant being at the bottom of every contest, and most people probably don't care.

Vito's Game Giveaway #23 is probably the best-looking contest I've hosted thus far, and it's definitely a look I'm going to be keeping for a while. I mean, seriously, look how clean it is!

I hosted Vito's Game Giveaway #25 from a goddamn airplane. :@

Vito's Game Giveaway #20

I wanted to do something special for the 20th edition of the contest, so I decided to give away $20 in the form of Microsoft Points, PlayStation Network money, or Steam games. I also wanted to do something for myself while keeping in line with the "not making people do anything other than answer a question as a requirement" rule that I had set up from the beginning. I was a little concerned about how people would respond to it, but I made it so anyone who "Like"d my Facebook fan page (I know, I know...) would get an additional entry into the contest. The fan page is just a place where I link to blogs I write on Giant Bomb in an effort to get more views, so it all still ties into the site. I made it very clear that this way of getting an additional entry into the contest is only for VGG #20, and that it wasn't a requirement at all.

Regardless of what some may have thought about it, no complaints were voiced (at least that I saw), which I was happy about. It actually ended up being my most successful contest thus far, with 156 contestants total, and 54 of them participating in the Facebook drawing (it was actually a user's Facebook entry that won them the contest). My fan page went from around five fans to over 90 in just a few days. It was more successful than I expected it to be, and it's definitely something I will be doing again in the future.

The Future

There are some neat things happening with Vito's Game Giveaway later this year. While I'm not going into detail on most of it, I will say to be on the lookout for a special contest on July 20th.

I also wanted to mention that it was cool making it into the March 2011 and April 2011 editions of Ethan's Data Porn posts. I hope to one day make it into the "Most Viewed Blog" category without the allure of free video games, though I suppose that would require me to write consistently, first. Here's to hoping!

And seriously, you guys? With the way things are going, I fully expect Vito's Game Giveaway to run a whole year straight.

If you ask me, I think that's pretty fucking cool.

My Xbox 360 Avatar Showdown

As an owner and active user of the Kinect, I was excited when Microsoft announced and released Kinect Fun Labs during their E3 2011 press conference yesterday. I immediately wanted to try out Kinect Me, an application in which you scan yourself to build an Xbox Live avatar, and compare it to the avatar that I built myself using their premade face parts and clothing. I was too busy watching live streams of E3 yesterday to do it then, but today I threw on one of my several Whiskey Media shirts and compared the two.

Here's the avatar I had before (changed my clothes and hair to something closer to what I expected the scan would be. My hair is like that since I chose to watch Nintendo's conference instead of showering):

and here's the avatar made in Kinect Me:

While it captured my "I'm a Wizard" shirt and black jean shorts pretty well, it did a horrendous job with my face. For most of you who don't know what I look like, I most certainly don't look anything like a Mexican middle-schooler who opts not to shave his shitty preteen moustache just because he's the only kid that can grow one. Oh, and on the closeup, it looks like I have some sort of horrible skin disease. At least it wasn't as bad as this one report where a white guy with good complexion got turned into a black guy with terrible acne.

This was actually my second try, and the lighting and setup seemed fine, but this is what I got. That's not the most disappointing part, though. Maybe I missed something during the press conference, but I thought I could actually use this as my avatar, when instead all I can do is record a short photoshoot and upload the video to KinectShare.com. I mean, I can certainly understand why they wouldn't let people use their scans as their public avatars, but I still hope it is something we can do in the near future.

There was one neat surprise, though: achievements. Yep! You can totally unlock eight achievements for a total of 50 Gamerscore. They're super easy, too. I thought that was kind of weird.

Now I'm going to go scan myself naked; I'll be sure to post up pics later.

Five Guys: Burgers and Mega Busters

There's this restaurant chain some of you may know of called Five Guys. If you've never heard of it, Five Guys is essentially a place where you can get some delicious hamburgers and fries. I've moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina recently and just visited their restaurant for the first time. Adorning their walls are various awards and snippets from magazines praising their food, and near the front door is a board where they've hung up various thank-you notes they've received for being so yummy. I noticed something odd upon my first glance, however. Here's what the board looks like:

A drawing of Mega Man at a Five Guys restaurant I went to in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

See something familiar? Here, let's have a closer look:

Apparently, Mega Man likes their double cheeseburgers.

StreetPass

I'm in the backseat of my brother's car, sandwiched between two cat carriers on our way to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the main thought going through my head at the moment is, "Will I have any StreetPass encounters?"

Since I've had my 3DS (March 28th, 2011), I've traveled from Oklahoma to Texas, Texas to Oklahoma, Oklahoma to Texas (again), Texas to Arkansas, Arkansas to Tennessee, and now, currently, Tennessee to North Carolina. So how many StreetPass encounters have I had? One. One measly encounter at some convenience store in Texas during the first trip mentioned above. Their name was "Bunny", to be exact. And wow, how exciting that encounter was when the little movie for our introductions played. Thanks to Bunny, I was able to obtain an extra puzzle piece for Puzzle Swap without having to spend my precious Play Coins. I was able to vanquish another ghost on my way to save the king in Find Mii.

The rarity in which I meet other 3DS users in sleep mode isn't for lack of trying, either. My 3DS is on and in my pocket everywhere I go. It's now on the same list as my wallet, keys, and phone under "Things to Take" whenever I leave the house. Hell, I even explored the confines of a three-story hospital when I took my brother to the emergency room (he's fine) in hopes to meet someone. Here are the messages I posted to Twitter during my little adventure:

A collection of Twitter posts from when I was trying to StreetPass in a hospital.

Pathetic? Maybe. But my effort will eventually be rewarded, and when it is, it will be glorious...

Man, I really just need to go to PAX or something.

Booty Sweat

It was May of 2010, and I was riding around with my mom and brother in South Carolina. I can't remember why, but I started thinking about fake products from movies that were turned into real things. I got into a discussion about Tropic Thunder with my brother, and decided to see if Booty Sweat, the energy drink promoted by Alpa Chino in the movie, was a real thing. I went to Amazon on my phone to discover that it indeed was, and made the decision to order a pack of 24 cans. I was disappointed to discover that Bust-A-Nut candy bars did not exist.

"Yeah, get him chuggin' on some of Alpa's ass-water. That'll bring him around—it's a cure-all..."

I never had an energy drink before, due to having a heart condition in the past and just thinking they're not a good thing to put into one's body, but I decided that I would make an exception with Booty Sweat. I mean, it's Booty Sweat; you're not going to get a lot of chances to drink something with such a ridiculous name. To my surprise it was actually pretty good, and even seemed to keep me awake all night for some nice, extra long video-game sessions. I set aside four cans to send to Giant Bomb, as long-time listeners of the Bombcast will know that energy drinks used to be as integral to their recordings as video games.

It's two months later, and the four cans of Booty Sweat are still in my fridge. My brother and I are packing up the car the day after getting back from Japan, as we are moving out of our house in Texas and going to Oklahoma. I find a small box and wrap each can in bubble wrap, but realize that I don't have Giant Bomb's new mailing address, as this was right around the same time they moved from Sausalito to San Francisco. I go to their FAQ page on my phone to find the address but it has yet to be updated. I then hold the box on my lap for our trip north, and eventually find the address I'm looking for after getting the laptop set up in our temporary lodging. I was happy to see that my package arrived safely via Ryan Davis' Twitter feed a little while later:

Ryan Davis holding up the Booty Sweat I sent to the Whiskey Media office.

It was also mentioned in the "Giant Bomb Mailbag: Classy Business Edition" video that was posted on August 9th, 2010. You can catch the Booty Sweat at the 2:40 mark.

Head on over to Amazon and type in "Booty Sweat" to try it out for yourself, though currently there are only individual cans available for $12.99 each. I would wait and see if you can get them cheaper later on.

Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals

This is the Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (Issue #5) that was never released. The header is by aurahack.

You may have heard me talk about the Takarazuka Revue and their amazing Phoenix Wright musicals on episode #3 of The Luchacast, but I wanted to delve more into on just what these magnificent shows really are.

Founded by the president of Hankyu Railways in 1913, the Takarazuka Revue is an all-female theater troupe based out of Japan. Often performing musical adaptations of Western works, the Takarazuka Revue has performed shows based on movies like Casablanca and JFK, novels such as The Great Gatsby and Zorro, various plays by Shakespeare, manga, and even video games.

The Cosmos troupe—the newer, more experimental of the five troupes that make up the Revue and the one that did the Phoenix Wright musicals—were performing their rendition of Trafalgar, and I was fortunate enough to attend a showing in July. Though I barely understood any of it, I was enthralled throughout the entire two-hour showing. With a live orchestra located in the lower front, revolving stages, seamless background and scene transitions, crazy lighting effects, beautiful and detailed clothing designs, along with great acting and singing performances, it was quite a show indeed. Now, apply everything I just said to the Phoenix Wright universe and you have something of ridiculously awesome proportions.

The first musical, "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected", focuses on Phoenix Wright as he tries to prove the innocence of his former lover, Leona Clyde, who has been accused of murdering a senator. Of course, Miles Edgeworth is there to get in his way, and the results are awesome song and dance sequences featuring some of your favorite characters from the franchise. In fact, the big opening sequence features Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Larry Butz, Lotta Hart, Detective Gumshoe, Maya Fey, and Ema Skye all dancing in tandem. My favorite sequence, however, would have to be the Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth dance-off that seamlessly turns into them facing against each other in the court room. The combination of the music, lighting, and general mood due to their history makes it truly special.

Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright face off.

Premiering just six months later due to the popularity of the first Phoenix Wright, Phoenix Wright 2 focuses on a young woman whose mother is a suspect in a crime she didn't commit. Well, that's all the official description will give you, anyway; the story actually goes much deeper, but I won't spoil anything for potential viewers. It does do a good job of capturing the twists and turns the games are so known for, however, and even introduces Franziska von Karma herself—carrying her signature whip, of course! The best part of the show comes at the end, when the main characters dress in extra fancy versions of their outfits and do a song/dance number that lasts for a good ten minutes.

It's really all the little touches that help make these musicals so great, though. Working alongside Capcom, the musicals feature a close attention to detail that doesn't go unnoticed and is much appreciated. Using actual songs (particularly from the court room), art assets and sound effects from the game just oozes fanservice, and it totally works. They even go so far as to mimic character mannerisms you're familiar with, such as the way Miles shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, or the way that Franziska waves her finger back and forth at Phoenix whenever he has screwed up. They also do a great job with the character design, making changes when needed; for example, Ranju Tomu (Phoenix Wright) was originally going to have the same hairstyle as the character does in the game, but they changed it due to it actually looking pretty terrible. Some purists may complain about this, but the changes they make are for the better. It's just like when a movie changes a superhero's costume from the comics—some things just don't translate properly to real life.

I could write an entire Luchazine about these wonderful works of art, but I'll stop here. Words and screens can only express so much, so I highly recommend that you look up these musicals on your own; there are plenty of fansubs just waiting to be watched.

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All images are screencaps I took from the DVDs I got at the Takarazuka Revue gift shop. (The 'u' is silent in Takarazuka, by the way.)

Here are a bunch of images that weren't included in the article!:

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected

Phoenix Wright 2

Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II

This is the Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. I'm only including a small image of the design (done by JohnRabbit) this time, as the text included isn't final. You can read the full article below! You can read Part I in the fourth issue of The Luchazine.

Waking up at 5 AM, I was too excited to go back to sleep. Yesterday's experience at GiGO arcade left me wanting more, so I made a list of all the greatest arcades in the Akihabara area, including Club Sega and Taito HEY.

My worries of spending more time trying to find these places than actually playing the games in them were instantly alleviated. Turning the first corner after exiting Akihabara Station, I saw this in the distance:

Much like GiGO before it, Club Sega is a six-level arcade that continues the apparent pattern of having the first floor dedicated solely to claw games. Passing by some Hatsune Miku gear and Mickey Mouse pillows, I headed downstairs to B1, only to stand stunned at what I saw next.

"This is what I've been looking for this whole time." I thought to myself. In front of me were twenty-five Virtua Fighter 5 R machines and twenty Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion machines. The best part of all was that this place was packed—if someone wasn't in the middle of a furious battle, they were standing around watching matches. Trying my hand at Virtua Fighter 5 R and failing miserably (a series I am most familiar with via capsule toys in Shenmue), I purchased a Tekken-Net ID card and headed to the back corner of the room. My brother had been fighting this one guy for a while, and I decided to see how I would fare against him. As I sat down, I slid the overflowing ash tray to my side—apparently, people smoke a lot more when playing fighting games—and inserted my card. His Steve and my Hwoarang fought for quite some time, and regardless of how close I came, I just couldn't beat him. I guess that's the problem when you rarely play fighting games and then go to a Japanese arcade.

Coming to the conclusion that I would probably never win and not wanting to waste anymore of my precious 100 yen coins, I headed up to the 2nd floor. If B1 was the fighting floor, than this was the racing floor. Eight Initial D: Arcade Stage 5, four R-Tuned: Ultimate Street Racing, and eight Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Plus machines took up the majority of the floor space. However, it seemed like most of the people there were far more interested in playing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, even if it meant having to stand in a roped-off line for a while. Not in the mood for racing or waiting in line for twenty minutes, I played another rhythm-based game where you hit giant buttons called pop'n music. A 1998 game by Konami that was updated earlier this year with new songs, you select your difficulty by choosing whether to play with five or nine buttons (insanity!). Most of the music was unfamiliar to me, though I did do pretty well when it came to the themes of Gradius and Kill Bill. Another rhythm-based game on this floor was Taiko no Tatsujin 13, which you may be familiar with as "that drum game" from Lost in Translation (though that was an earlier version). I watched a few gaijin play it for future reference (foreshadowing!) and scaled the stairs up to the third floor.

I cannot possibly overstate how popular she is here.

Another room packed with people and fighting games, there was a lot of variety to choose from here. You had your choice of playing: Sengoku Basara X, The King of Fighters 2002, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Arcana Heart 3, Melty Blood, Guilty Gear XX Λ Core, The King of Fighters XIII, and Street Fighter IV. It was, to say, complete madness. Getting my ass kicked once again (my Terry Bogard just wasn't strong enough), I went up to the fourth floor to experience even more craziness.

"Actually, Charles, I think you just suck."

With the exception of the wildly out-of-place Power Smash 3 machines (tennis!), this floor was nothing but seemingly complicated-ass mech games, mostly from the Gundam franchise. Satisfied at being able to grasp Gundam far better than Cyber Troopers, I progressed up the final set of stairs to the fifth floor of Club Sega, only to lay eyes upon one of the greatest arcade setups I have ever seen. Imagine eight players, all with their own arcade cabinets, controlling and managing their football players via collectible trading cards and then seeing the results of their actions on a 100-inch plus screen in front of them which is showcasing the match as if it were a live football broadcast. World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs 2008-2009 must be what Football Manager fans have wet dreams about. I know I would if I were into these types of games.

World Club was so awesome, in fact, that I nearly missed the Shining Force Cross machines. However, due to the awesomeness of the game (it being one of my favorite things I played in all of Tokyo), this author has decided to do a separate feature on it in issue #6.

Leaving the complex in a wave of euphoria, I went in search of Taito HEY wondering if my experience at Club Sega could hope to be matched.

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Obviously, there won't an issue #6 of The Luchazine, but I will continue this series in blog format.

The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown

This is The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown piece I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. Nicolas Perez is monkyofdoom, and I'm Charles Alan Ratliff (duh!). The design is by UberExplodey.

Click here to view the Sports Champions review mentioned on the third page.

Click the images for a better view!

Below are the images I took of TV Superstars as I was playing it. I purposefully chose not to shave before doing this. The first image is the one actually used in the article.

Sports Champions: Review

This is the Sports Champions review I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. The design is by JohnRabbit. Click the images for a better view.