Life, My Universe and The People I know

Long time, no typing. Ah well, no big deal.

Life has been moving steadily, up and down and in every direction I could probably never guess. I've done a lot of soul searching, and found myself in a very strange state. I feel like I'm 16 years old, in my basement again, after a terrible fight with my family, wondering who I am. I've learned in 6 years that who and what you are is a hard thing to deny. I love to write but I found that writing for myself to be what I was really all about. So I've stopped writing for other people and chose to be selfish. I've heard many times that one can't please every in the crowd and I continually forget that. I try to be more than what I am and fall over. I think that's mostly akin to the fact that I have a hero complex and must help everyone I find with something and never focus on myself until it builds up. It took me a whole month to finally understand that there are just somethings I can never be and will never be and I must respect that. Others will pass me and instead of trying to push myself to beat them, I must accept that instead of pushing myself to the brink like I do, I must let them pass and continue on my own beat.

I learned a great lesson because of these events in the last 6 months. I've learned that not everything is as it is, nothing gold can stay and of course that at the end of the day the only person you are judged by is yourself and that it's your own expectations that you should stick to and no one else.

Oh, and cartoons do teach life lessons if you actually look deeper than the skin.

Terry's Dream He Had Last Night While Sleeping Peacefully Under the Glow of the Internet

I fell asleep on my computer last night. I woke up with a residue in my mouth and coating my teeth that can only be created from a healthy combination of Taco Bell and Mountain Dew. I typically have intense dreams as it is, but now that I'm apart of this blog I can catalog how I feel and think without taking any responsibilities for my actions.

Terry's Dream He Had Last Night While Sleeping Peacefully Under the Glow of the Internet:

I'm working on a computer at a dorm room I have never seen before. Casually comfortable in my Spongebob boxer shorts and D.A.R.E. tank-top I have had since God knows when. Abruptly a strange person walks into my room and draws a gun to my head. I do not really care what is happening nor do i even turn to see what he looks like. The trigger is pulled and the first sound I hear in the vision is the click of the barrel right before it fires.

My vision becomes fuzzy. I grip the edge of the table in front of me as the bullet exits the other side of my head. I feel myself leaning against the wall and tell myself "Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.", slowly I lose control of my hand and slip off the table. Everything is happening so fast and so slowly at the same time that I forget where I am or what I am doing. All that mattered to me was staying alive.

I hope that when I do get shot in the head that it will look

like that guy from Scanners when his head explodes

I now find myself in the threshold of my dorm, and I do not even recall how I crawled across my room to get there. Some kid looks at me horrified in the hallway and dropped whatever it was they were holding in their left hand. I know what I must look like but at the time I was just trying to pull myself together. Everything was falling apart inside my head and it was too comfortable for it to be good. I feel like sleeping, my hands are numb, and my eyes are trying to force quit on me. Someone grabs ahold of my arm, I'm a little surprised by this because seconds to me are hours in reality. I assume my body is keeping itself alive through pure adrenaline. I feel like fucking Chet Chelios. Everything about me is moving so slow as I find myself laying on a gurney and being hoisted into the back of an ambulance I realize that I'm dying. "Why do they make these gurneys so comfortable?" I thought to myself, "Why the fuck would they make these things this comfortable?" I try to lift my arm and apply pressure to the side of my head and I am met with a restraint that is tied around my chest and arms. A supposed safety measure, something to comfort the patient I guess. I try not to fall asleep. Peaceful images are flashing at me forcing me to fall asleep. I'm so anesthetic ... I'ts probably because of the amphetamines that are being injected into me. Feeling futile in my efforts to stay alive, I'm trying so hard to fight this, I'm trying so hard to keep myself awake.

My eyes close and the images before me darken.

Like a reflex I open my eyes and lunge forward out of my sleep. A pain is surging through my spine, my eyes feel like they are going to explode. My hands tighten and I take the deepest breathe of my life. I hear an EKG machine beeping behind me and a defibrillator dying down infront of me alongside the glamorous chatter of the people above me. Those fuckers, why couldn't they just leave me alone. I think I have finally lost all sense in my body, but not before I lost all hope for humanity and their weakness for compassion. I try to move my hand but all I get are muscle simulations and reflexes. My parents appear above me, I can tell that they are crying but I cannot hear their voices when I see them mouth the letters and syllables that make up my name. My girlfriend is calm at my side. My sister and brother are no where to be found. I guess a year must have passed by since the incident, but to me it feels like it was only minutes ago.

Fully conscious and aware of my surroundings, my disabilities and handicaps are more and more apparent. No longer can I move my thumbs, nor can i make myself talk or control my mouth for that matter, and I cannot control my thumbs. My fingers are perfectly fine, and I feel its the only thing I have control of. I do not notice little things that happen in my life anymore. I do not know when I am being fed, I cannot remember any car rides home even though I can clearly remember the feeling that it had happen, more like a revelation than anything. Everything I try to do on my own is met with the attention of the people around me. If I move everything debates on if I'm hungry or if I need to use the bathroom. I wish I could tell them all to fuck off and leave me alone but nothing escapes my lips. All I carry with me is a blank look on my face and a growing pain inside me that is my own existence.

**I apologize for my atrocious grammar and sentence structure. I should have payed more attention in High School.**

I love yet hate you all,

*782*

EGM and Finals

I swear, finals these days must take steroids. It's not even the tests or such, just the projects and the time consuming, life sucking toll they have attached to them. I'm not surprised nor shocked that I made it through. I'm just shocked at the fact that I managed to do something I set out to do, rather than conform.

Oh and I'm now 22 year's old according to my birth certificate, driver's license and social security. Kind of sucks, I know that there's less of a point in celebrating birthdays but ultimately I can't quite say I'm willing to give up on celebrating them. Granted by 30 I'm sure no one will care but honestly? I can't justify not celebrating my friends birthdays in the same style as mine. Getting something you REALLY want and bang on one day out of the year you actually have something like that com true? Pretty sweet stuff if you ask me.

Granted I do want to take a moment to talk about Electronic Gaming Monthly. The magazine has been relaunched. From a stand point of a gamer, the magazine hits on all relative subjects and managed to actually have the big stories for the month. From a journalistic stand point, this magazine is a Picasso on display in a children's museum. The quality of this magazine is far beyond any expectation I've ever held to something in print. It has quite literally thrown down a gauntlet for magazines that cover videogames in general. It does what it does, but it does it so well that you question what you were reading before you picked it up. Oddly enough, I get a sense of this being much like Playboy Magazine, without the boobs and such.

It's composed much like Playboy. It has interviews with game developers, black and quite photos included of the conversations in progress, much like Playboy. It has the reviews after the cover story and before the interviews. Again like Playboy. The only thing I notice is that this magazine really does show quality. I must have flipped through it and read it cover to cover several times by now and yet I keep going back and referencing the whole thing over and over.

I know, I got an story from when I was younger for just about anything. However, digging through my old stash of Magazines I did uncover a very old, (199-) EGM with Pikachu on the front. I basically flashed back to the exact moment. My Dad was in Florida, gearing up to send me back to my mom. He bought the magazine for me to read on the flight home. I remember digging into it and the first thing that caught me was Hsu and Chan and their plan to make a Radioactive Pokemon called Chernobylchu or something. Back then I was laughing so hard at the concept I didn't bother to look at the subtly of it. Now I read it and I laugh more at the written jokes rather than the visual ones.

EGM seemed to be a gaming staple and their absence I think was noticeable. I had notable respect for Dan "Shoe" Hsu for grilling Microsoft on their retarded backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360. I also loved the fact that EGM was extremely thick and made sure to have as much information on it as possible without becoming a phone book every month. I kick myself in the butt for NOT buying them or subscribing. Course, I look back now and know I wouldn't be helping anything and would probably have several issues of Maxim thanks to the publisher killing it off.

My friend Kyle, he told me the magazine died and I had a mild moment of pause. I realized that something must be wrong with that statement. EGM had been around about as long as I had. Christ, Nintendo Power was founded the year I was born for pity's sake. Starting in 1989, EGM basically just did its thing but like all magazines, I guess Street Fighter impacted it. The more I read into videogame history, the more and more I see connections to popular franchises like Street Fighter, Megaman, Mario, Final Fantasy. Magazines like EGM really hit their stride when they focus on making sure everything for a super popular game is correct. That doesn't happen as much now thanks to the internet and message boards like Shoryuken and Dustloop but it doesn't mean that magazines can't lean to a genre of videogames.

The Highscore itself is mostly a directionless but tightly knit group of people whom focus on their own favorite genre of games and continue to make notes and thoughts as such documented when they post. My Editor for Popzara tells me I need an editor really badly for this blog and I do agree that I'm not the prettiest thing to read or the most verbose or kind, I try at least to be entertaining and fair as possible to most of the stuff I talk about. I think the word I'm looking for is real. I try to be 'real' with everything I talk about because bullshitting and lying isn't going to do me or you any good, especially if someone is trying to actually read this stuff for an honest opinion.

For now though, I'll just continue this blog, updating when I can while trying to bring on friends and talent I think might be cool enough to contribute something to it. I'm not sacrificing anything here really, nor am I really screwing myself over by writing out my thoughts and opinions. So long as I don't readily whore myself out for money without reasons for doing so, I guess.

Fighting Game Journal

I've been thinking on this one a little bit, finally decided to go ahead with it. My general interest in things tends to wane when I either lose focus or nothing interesting comes from it. Rarely do I actually push myself to finish or do something for a long time. When I was in High School, I started writing every Wednesday and Sunday to update an incredibly terrible story. By standards, keeping it up for my entire Junior year of High school, not missing a day unless it was due to something serious, I consider the true triumph. Course that was fucking years ago now and deserves no credit on my wall anymore.

So, from here on until this very date one year from now, I will write a post about the fighting game scene in Kansas City as I both learn and grow with the scene itself as well as the people. I'll post my comments, thoughts and overall view of the scene, every week, on Tuesday. If all goes well, I will not miss anything, but it's not fair to make assumptions when things have only just begun. So let's get to it.

My initial impression of the fighting game scene of Kansas City is rather limited. I see a lot of things happening but nothing truly going in any direction. People are fighting each others, showing up to one another's houses to play fighting games for a sometimes exhaustive amounts. Still, I believe direction is the true thing this scene needs to become a sort of midwest mecca to the fighting game community. Being the center of the continental united states, we have interesting position. With the right marketing and advertising, we very well could become a high end market for fighting game enthusiasts. I think we only lack the financial backing of an investor and the proper marketing to the right people.

From what I see, we have the resources to through our own tournament, but we lack the general cohesion that major tournaments have. Sponsors, media and big names help sell a tournament and make a scene that much more serious. We also lack the population density of other major city's with competitions that're 'major' like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. This doesn't necessarily mean we're completely boned because we lack the true standing amount of people who can come. We have an international airport, we have a major convention center. We can do this type of thing, but unfortunately we just can't get the numbers to come out and do it.

Now, I'm sure there's multiple things that are in the way of a major tournament, aside the prior mentioned funding and such. The city would need to okay a major event like that to warrant use of public buildings but I look at a Comic Convention as a perfect example. With the charging of gate fees, most people can make back all the cost of renting it out quite easily. It's selling such an even that's the true pain of this type of business. Getting a city counsel man to listen to a bunch of guys wanting to through a convention is one thing, but a nationwide tournament might get a confused look. Still, with the proper work, you might get something out of it. With a large scale tournament, Kansas City might have something to be known for outside of Bar-B-Que and bad sports teams.

The people of this scene are kind a mix of the atypical and the truly enigmatic. While, I see and understand the motivations of some, others confuse me outright and others just plain weird me the fuck out. I'll only mention a few people by name but I'm not going to accusatory towards anyone. John (Spottswood A.K.A. JSpot) is a cool guy who made sure I was rather welcome when I went to Kansas City's Maxout Tourney in the end of April. Le (Nguyen A.K.A. Radian) seemed nice but I got the vibe that he was trying to feel me out because I was a journalist covering the thing and spectating to boot.

Note, in the fighting game community, you can spectate as much as you want. However, respect is earned almost solely by your skills and personality. Make no mistake, this community is judgmental much like anything else. I look at my position as being a house guest rather than a part of the crew at the present. I know things they don't but before I dare tell them this, I would rather keep my trap shut and listen. Prior experience to being in an environment where things can go wrong at a moment's notice is invaluable. I try to not make the same mistake twice and like anything, work myself in among them slowly and cautiously rather than be bold and possible put myself at odds with someone and fuck my situation all to hell.

I've noticed that among the 'lower' tier of players, I'm welcomed very openly. I believe this is due solely because of the poor handling of Street Fighter 4. The story goes simply that people who started playing Street Fighter 4 and never played prior were not true fighting game people and thus shunned which shunted the two communities. The old guard realized that the new guard was just like them at one point and they reconciled though my impression is that this type of thing happens with every new game that comes out. I understand this type of environment and I know I have much to gain from both study and practice but first and foremost I need to make sure that when I'm around people know me and are as comfortable as can be when I'm around without giving off this jittery feeling.

In the line of fighting, I have realized I'm hitting a fork in the road. There's two options, both of which carry a price. The monetary price is menial but still there in the distance and the other price is that I sacrifice a better shot at living up to my possible potential in fighting games. I speak of whether to choose the controller or the fighting stick. Like this blog, I must maintain a working relationship with each choice if I want to get better, but I sacrifice my controller for a stick I gain execution and accuracy which is what I need.

Still, I'll end it with a simple note. The Tuesday hook-ups I tend to find myself playing more frequently and learning the game where as in on Friday I find myself having a lot more fun and enjoyment because I tend to get looser with my style and focus less on actually trying to impress. Honestly, I suck at Street Fighter right now, but I'm learning thanks to JSpot and a little pep talk from Chachi. Hopefully, by the end of summer my execution and skill will have improved, god knows I need to learn it as fast as I can because if I want this segment to continue I need to keep going. I will not stop, even in the face of complete failure.

51 Weeks to Go
Drew "Simsar" Misemer
:D

Show Notes for Podcast April 29th, 2010

NEWS:

Activision + Bungie for 10 years.

Sony is happy and excited to see what the team behind Halo can do when given the power of PS3.

Next Call of Duty titled “Black Ops”. Hinted towards being set in Veitnam.

TF2 119th update, commemorated by the launch of 12” statues being sold soon.

Steam on Mac on May 12th.

RELEASES OF INTEREST:

Super Street Fighter IV
Nier
Dead to Rights: Retribution
Just Cause 2 DLC (It turns the parachute into a jetpack)
Pixel Junk Monsters Deluxe (PSP version of the PSN title)

Daft Punk's Discovery

I have finally discovered the website that I have been helping Drew and Eric do podcasts for, even though I'm writing a post about it and still have never ventured off to see what the site looks like.

My name is Terry and that is all I care to say for now ...

Kansas City's Max Out Tourney (LATE)

I'm not going to suger coat it. This should have been done on Wednesday and it should have had pictures and all kinds of shit. I just screwed the pooch on a lot of stuff and I apologize. However, it's not going to kill me I guess. I'm not going to cry about it and I can only hope people are not going to complain. SO, here's the report, 1 week late, that should've been done on Wednesday.

By: Drew “Simsar” Misemer

Make no mistake, arcades are dying in America. There’s little to no space were the bulky single game cabinets of yester year live with people playing on them in constant streams, dropping quarters and dollar bills to try their shot at making it to a new level or finding out how good they are in comparison to the person next to them. No, the arcades might have disappeared but the community at large migrated into something much more formidable. The community rallied to make the arcade as mobile as them and to unite under new times in a better format than the simple ‘Winner stays’ that used to rule the sticky carpet floors of some mall.

In Kansas City, the place to be is the Max Out tournament held in a small but homely Coffee House/Bar called Toad’s Pub and Perk. Sounds ridiculous? Good, cause that’s not all, you will not meet a better group of guys. Special props to the first couple guys I ran into, John “JSpot” Spottswood and his friend Luigi 182 for making me feel accepted. As well as “Radian” Le who made sure I was having a good time despite my spectating. I have little to no true fighting experience so to be welcomed at a fighting game tourney like I was one of the boys is a rarity. The true kick off was at high noon with the teams matches in Street Fighter 4 beginning. A strong player emerged, one of JSpots friends going only by Kevin showed a strong Balrog. Dominating the ever loving hell out of the bracket, Kevin and John managed to win the whole thing as Balrog and El Fuerte.

You could see that it wasn’t the overpowered characters that won but whoever. I've seen teir lists, read hundreds of comments on this character or that combo, but I never saw a bunch of Sagats running the table. There wasn’t any complaining about being cheap or over powered, no tier list in sight it seemed. Just people gathering together to really see who among them really carried a set big enough to call themselves the top dog. During all this the BlazBlue rally which was only four challengers all together still managed to put on a show with an incredible Arakune by B1argh coming in at number one and Hakumen by one going as CactusGuy coming into second. You might think to win a game like BB is all button mashing but the way they play it, you realize this is weeks and weeks of memorization and practice for them and that its an insult to call them a masher.

I do have to admit I needed help with the lingo, like R. Kellyed and Pringles but after I got it, I couldn't stop. One thing for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom I won’t forget, Duck Sauce for Polimar. That’s right, DUCK SAUCE, I got it in the article. You want to know what that means? Go to Max Out, ask the dude who says Duck Sauce and if he’s not busy showing someone up, you can get an answer.

The real fireworks started when Street Fighter 4 singles matches officially got underway. People from Saint Louis drove the whole way here just to battle and hopefully improve the turn out for the battle itself. Kevin was a clear stand out for winner, working the ranks crushing people with Balrog left and right. Another one however was a Dahlsim player named Scamp with the way he could control space and time in his matches. Of course these two met and the Balrog lost out to the paced and patient Dahlsim. Not to be defeated so easily, Kevin managed to storm through the rest of the losers bracket to meet up with Scamp one final time in a finals match to remember. The Saint Louis guy on camera I noticed was too drunk to keep it steady, thus I actually recorded the entire thing, holding the camera as steady as I could for any and everyone to watch. Special thanks to scampjohnson for giving me the links to those videos.

Teams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77C9T5JwU_I

winners semis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfmq__jqPxE&NR=1

winners finals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NH-hYj7bx8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_geN8J3kk4

grand finals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zibibY0E0CE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZoxpUwetvU

Scamp’s Dahlsim was just too patient and too good at controlling the battle that no amount of fireballs, spin kicks or jump ins was going to change it. It was still a spectacular final regardless because it was a study in pacing and how well some players manage the game. Dahlsim might be considered low-tier but unless there’s a way to actually get past the ‘gauntlet’ as one Saint Louis player going by Ed said, it’ll be a hard thing to justify when it works this well.

Hype matches were abound of course after the tournament with people taking bets and having a good time. Special thanks to Ed for being cool enough to talk with me and actually give a bit of his philosophy on the subject. I look forward to meeting up with the so called ‘S Team’ of Saint Louis again in the near future as well as attending the KC ‘Hook Ups’ at both JSpots house and Le’s house on Tuesdays and Friday’s respectively. Anyone mildly interested should probably jump on shoryuken.com and go looking for the KC thread for dates, times and people to chat with. I will hopefully be making these ‘hook ups’ and tournaments a regular thing for improving my game and I’ll be glad to see anyone else there sometime.

Trophy Hunter: Assassin's Creed II

[SPOILER WARNING]

Overview:
- Estimated trophy difficulty: 4/10
- Offline: 51
- Online: 0
- Approximate time to Platinum: 20 - 25 hours.
- Minimum playthroughs: 1
- Missable trophies: 0
- Glitched trophies: 0
- Do cheats disable trophies?: N/A
- Does difficulty affect trophies?: N/A
- Trophy breakdown for Platinum: B: 44/S: 15/G: 1/P: 1

Step 1: Complete the story.
This step is simple enough just play through the game all the way to the end. Chances are you will get most of the Miscellaneous trophies by the end but you don't need to get them before you complete the game as you can continue playing after you've beaten it. I suggest you do all of the tombs before you finish the game. Going through all of the tombs not only gets you trophies but you get Altair's armor which is the best armor in the game and will help you get through the game. There is one miscellaneous trophy that you MUST get before the end of the game to prevent you from having to do another playthrough and that is Fly Swatter. By the end of this step you should have all of the story related trophies, all the tomb related trophies and Fly Swatter.

Step 2: Combat trophies
You should have completed the story by now and chances are you have some if not most of the combat related trophies already. If you don't have them now is the perfect time to do so. You don't have any missions to worry about so you can just go around killing guards in the ways necessary to get the trophies. By the end of this step you should have the trophies Street Cleaner, Messer Sandman, Doctor, No-Hitter and Sweeper.

Step 3: Side missions and Money
After the story you should have a lot of money. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get yourself some trophies. You should by enough courtesans, paintings, upgrades to your stronghold, and pretty much anything you need. You should also do all of the side missions in this step as well. This is also a good time to get the view point trophies even though by this point you probably already have them. By the end of this step you should have the following trophies: Kleptomaniac, High Dive, I like the View, Lightning Strike, Red Light Addict, Man of the People, Victory lies in Preparation, Art Connoisseur, Assassin for Hire, Macho Man, Steal Home, Mailman, Handy Man and Podestà of Monteriggioni.

Step 4: Collectibles
These should be some of the last trophies you go for. The longest and, arguably, most frustrating trophies in the game are saved for this step. Don't worry though as it's not that bad when you use a map for the locations of the Feathers and Glyphs. You should also get all the statuettes in your Villa if you haven't already. At the end of this section you step have the trophies: Myth Maker, Vitruvian Man, Tip of the Iceberg, A Piece of the Puzzle, In Memory of Pertruccio and Show your Colors.

I hope this guide sets you in the right path to get a relatively easy platinum. If you want maps of the feather locations and glyph locations I recommend the maps at Games Radar as they are nicely laid out and easy to follow.

Happy Hunting

e_O

Trophy Hunter: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

[SPOILER WARNING]

Overview:
- Estimated trophy difficulty: 4.5/10
- Offline: 46
- Online: 2 Required
- Approximate time to Platinum: 15-20 hours.
- Minimum playthroughs: 2
- Missable trophies: 0
- Glitched trophies: 0
- Do cheats disable trophies?: No
- Does difficulty affect trophies?: Only the Charted! trophies
- Trophy breakdown for Platinum: B: 36/S: 8/G: 3/P: 1

Step One: Hard playthrough with Treasures

Just play through the game on hard and enjoy it. This is the playthrough to get all of your treasures. I suggest printing out a checklist of all of the treasure locations and just mark them off one by one as you get them. There are 101 treasures in the game (counting the Secret Relic) and many are easy to miss unless you have a list. I also suggest using Rooster Teeth's videos for treasure locations on YouTube as they detail out 20 treasures at a time (and they are quite entertaining too!).

The other thing you should think about while playing is the combat trophies and weapon trophies. Always try to use a gun that you have yet to get a trophy for. Most likely, you can forget about getting the "200 Kills: GAU - 19" during your two playthroughs, so I suggest you leave that one for Step Five. Also try to kill 75 enemies in a row without dying for the "Survivor" trophy on this playthrough. If you miss the Survivor trophy don't fret because you can pick it up also in Step Five. As you play try getting headshots as much as possible as it is the quickest way to kill enemies as well as it gets you closer to the 250 Headshots trophy.

[SPOILER]
The sequences that will give you the most trouble in this and the Crushing playthrough are most likely:
-The first helicopter fight
-The train sequence's helicopter section
-The Lt. Draza fight
-The bridge section at the monastery where you must take out the snipers and deal with a RPG
-*possibly* The Lazarevic fight
Just be persistent and you will eventually get past them.
[SPOILER]

Step Two: Combat Trophies

Now it's time to take a look at the combat trophies you didn't get in step one. Go through the chapter select and choose chapters that you feel comfortable getting the trophies in. Feel free to play on very easy for these trophies.

Step Three: Online

There are only two online trophies required for the platinum in this game, and they are both fast to get. Play one round of competitive multiplayer and one round of Co-op multiplayer, you do not need to win the matches in order to receive the trophies.

Step Four: Crushing Playthrough

Now it's time to tackle Crushing. Don't worry about getting any other trophies in this playthrough, just focus on getting through the game. My biggest hint I can give you for your Crushing playthrough is to use cover and play smart. Think of Crushing as more of a puzzle game because you need to figure out the order that goons need to be killed as well as all of the spawn locations.

Also... headshots, headshots, headshots!

Step Five: Clean-up Weapon Trophies

When finishing crushing, you might still need one or more weapon trophies. 200 Kills with the GAU is easy to miss. Just buy any missing guns from the store along with infinite ammo and one shot kills. Then use chapter select to get the last weapon trophies. There is one location in chapter 19 that is perfect for getting all the kills you need as there is an infinitely spawning soldier. After the part of the level where you rescue a man being attacked by a soldier, go to the right and climb up the building across from the turret (there should be haystacks on the roof). Sit on the roof and kill all of the soldiers, kill the turret gunner, now watch to the right of the turret on the ground for a soldier running to replace the downed gunner. That soldier is on an infinite respawn as long as you stay on the roof with the haystacks. When you jump off the roof he will stop respawning.

Well hopefully this guide can set you on the path to platinum. Good luck and Happy Hunting.

e_O

New Section: Trophy Hunter

I have come up with a new segment that will go up weekly. The segment will be called "Trophy Hunter". Each week I will delve into a game from my collection and try to platinum it. I will then guide you through the quickest way to achieve the platinum. I will detail out how many playthroughs, how long it took, and how many trophies you will gain in the process. I might do miniature posts during the week for PSN titles that have no platinum and can be 100% in a playthrough or two. I will head each segment off with a large spoiler warning because I will be going fairly in depth into some strategies.

I have made a new PSN ID for this venture so I can start out fresh: Ie_OI (the "I" are capital "i"). Feel free to add me if you wish to track my trophies and get a sneak peak at the next weeks game.

My first segment will be on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

Happy Hunting


Get your Portable ID!

e_O

Super Street Fighter 4 and shoryuken.com

So, I was hoping to get the Dojo edition of street fighter 4 but I waited to long to get it and have since missed my chance. I'll altogether annoyed because I should have did it the minute it crossed my mind but I waited to get Dad's permission to use the credit card and his fucking waffling on the subject has since screwed me over, thus no Dojo edition. So I settle for what everyone else gets unless I magically run across this at a con or something on ebay becomes god damned affordable. I'm more pissed because I had it in the cart on the shop for over a week and it dissappeared. Shit stays in your cart on Amazon forEVER yet this dissappears. Kind of annoying, I thought I had it reserved.

Anyway, so if you haven't noticed, the Highscore has a sister site on wordpress.com now. Both blogs offer their own good and bads but hopefully I'll begin to find a way to make the network co-exist together seamlessly with some work and skill. I just hope we start getting some comments and love from the community, seeing as we're probably on the bottom of the barrel when it comes to internet hits. Some people probable hit these pages for porn or something obscure and get this wild blog about games and stuff.

I also mention SRK because their forum is retarded. If you sign up to make posts, you don't have permission to post and have to wait for an unknown amount of time at the moment before you get a chance. Better yet you can't read AYTHING because you don't have permission. I'm not joking, GUESTS have more permission than people who register. What kind of shit is that? Regardless, there's not a lot to talk about, except Splinter Cell: Conviction which will be out tomorrow. Knowing Erik he'll be taking the game down a peg maybe.

Small update, sorry for the lack there of.

:D

P.S. wordpress.com site doesn't let me do the colonD they actually hve emoticons... damn that's weak.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker...Now With More Ad Space!

Hideo Kojima announced this week at the Peace Walker completion ceremony that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will contain a large amount of in-game advertisements. With these advertisements comes some interesting new additions to the game:

• Assassin's Creed straw dive makes it into the game.
  
• Konami teams up with Sony, Walkmans can be used in-game
• Clothing brand Uniqlo will make 10 special Peace Walker shirts, available April 26, 1,500 yen
• Above shirts will include a code for an in-game matching shirt
• A Monster Hunter area in-game has actual Monster Hunter monsters in it!
• Many other Monster Hunter tie-ins: Felyne, Ration Grill Sets, co-op play of missions and more
• In-game magazines: Famitsu, Dengeki, Shounen
• Suntory tie-up: Mountain Dew cans in-game, 8 IRL cans released in Japan
• Above drinks will include a code for an in-game Mountain Dew shirt (above)
  
• Fritos and Doritos will appear in-game as a recovery item
• Axe brand deodorant will appear in-game as a recovery item

The one that stands out above all else to me is the Monster Hunter team up. Having Snake hunt down some of the beasts of Monster Hunter sounds ridiculous but also very cool.

e_O

Via: Kotaku

Next Pokémon Games Announced, Due this Fall

The fifth generation of Pokémon games have been announced. Going back to their older (read:simpler) naming conventions, the games are being titled Black and White. While many a person will be making Michael Jackson meets Pokémon fanfic now, I personally love the new names.

The games are being released on the DS and are due out in Japan in the Fall. We can only assume that the North American release will be a few months later.

That is all we know so far.

e_O

Via: http://www.pokemon.co.jp/bw/index.html

Window Shopping: April 5-11, 2010

WII

[No new releases]

WiiWare

Fishie Fishie
Learning with the PooYoos: Episode 2

Virtual Console

Ironclad (Neo Geo)

DLC

Guitar Hero 5 / Band Hero: Fall Out Boy tracks
Rock Band: Individual tracks

DS

[No new releases]

DSiWare

Game & Watch: Helmet
Game & Watch: Manhole
Game & Watch: Vermin
Mr. Driller: Drill Till You Drop

DLC

WarioWare D.I.Y.: Suck Goo! by Ron Carmel, Big Name Games
WarioWare D.I.Y.: Ikachan! by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, Big Name Games

PS3

[No new releases]

PSP

[No new releases]

Xbox 360

Borderlands Double Game Add-On Pack [The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned / Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot]

XBLA

[No new releases]

DLC

Deal of the Week: Geometry Wars 2 [Gold only]
Guitar Hero 5 / Band Hero: Fall Out Boy Track Pack
Just Cause 2: Chevalier Ice Breaker
Lips: Add-on songs
Mass Effect 2: Kasumi - Stolen Memory
Mega Man 10: Bass Mode
Mega Man 10: Special Stage 1
Rock Band: Individual tracks
XBLA Inventory Blowout Sale

Games on Demand

Fable II
Kung Fu Panda
System Updates
System Update – USB Memory Support

PC / Mac

Borderlands Double Game Add-On Pack [The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned / Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot]

DLC

Mass Effect 2: Kasumi - Stolen Memory

Apples 'n Oranges

Well, apparently critics are being paid to entertain people with gibberish and ignored for what they were originally being paid for which was to be annoying and judgmental on everything. The Apple iPad, which spawned more toilet humor jokes in a single hour on the internet launched and without even having to try, it has broken more sales records than should be legally possible. Amazon and Barnes and Noble tried their eReader and netbooks have inched out the lower tech people by giving them a notebook with downgraded specs and power at a low cost.

Having tested the iPad, I've found the familiar work of the iPod's page like system, coupled quietly with a broader sense of depth. Apple wants to make people get lost in this thing, however they're over complicating the whole thing rather quickly. Just allow it to update everything on facebook instantly and let camera whores take a million pictures and that iPad will be everyones new favorite toy to update everyone on their friends list with pictures of their muddy dog that just trashed their house. Jokes aside, I've noticed that even under graphical stress, the thing doesn't heat up like my iPod touch which BAKES the hand to which you hold it to play with.

I honestly have only found two seperate problems with this thing. One is the price, which echoes the heralded PS3's 599 US DOLLARS joke.
The other thing that is both a bad move and still going to work for no reason is the 3G support. Its not a switch you just drop in to something, its not a plug in like a socket. Apple releasing some iPads with 3G and releasing the others a little earlier with out them? Pretty stupid, but its still going to work because Apple seems to have achieved Pixar like fail proofing on all their products. History suggests people don't like being screwed out a feature they could have gotten from the get go and that's proven by Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel no one was going to play but played anyway. I remember that boycott well. It got a lot of attention and for good reason. Valve releasing a game one year after the first one? Something is up, considering Valve doesn't release a game until there's a reason to do so in its mind. Valve being a company that innovates over publishing, especially since it makes plenty of money just maintaining and having people digitally publish through Steam nowadays. Still, Apple is ignoring this and could very well fault themselves on something this stupid but they're going ahead with this 3G iPad in just a few short weeks.

Now for the orange part of the section, cause I'm tired of trying to discuss the iPad. Me and Erik were rolling around the town yesterday investigating other major releases, both videogames and other things. Movie wise, I'm still waiting on the Losers, but Kick Ass will arguably take a bigger box office draw thanks to a more liberal approach to killing everything. The Losers might hit cult status, much like another one of my favorite movies Speed Racer, which was critically panned for good reasons and bad alike. I loved the Losers as a comic book and I can only hope this movie gets a little recognition, considering it was stuck in development hell since 2003 when the comic was still releasing and Kick Ass was more recent by a wider margin. The guys on the website think the two comic book films will cancel eachother out, I honestly don't buy it. I know the Losers was obscure so only some people will know it was a comic book film and the rest will see this as a nice 2 hour action film with Zoe Saldana and that dude from Watchmen (Jeffery Dean Morgan). Kick Ass will get the same crowd but I'm more than sure a few people will be unavoidably deterred to the gratuitous amounts of violence involving young kids and giant men dressed in black. I think the conservative nature of the Losers might make it a more successful picture thanks simply to lessened need to be overly controversial. I'll see both just to enjoy myself.

Game wise, Erik and my other friend Kyle (The Final Boss) both made interesting and astute observations concerning the game releases. It's been nearly a month of drought, oddities for sure, considering the rigorous release schedule games have been on since January, starting with Bayonetta. Between Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii and Super Street Fighter that's another Capcom dominated month. However, I actually got jumped by Splinter Cell, releasing for the 360 as well, which I forgot about thanks to the fact that it took double the regular time to actually release cause Sam Fisher looked like a hobo and that pissed too many people off. Still, I look at the summer and once again get this feeling of being barren. Again, I'm reminded of the beautiful marketing on Grand Theft Auto 4 which released just a week or two before school got out which left people playing it nearly all summer thanks to a huge gap in between games.

Pretty bad ass strategy. Still, I just hope the drought of the games over the summer doesn't effect me too much, I got a lot riding on the success of Super Street Fighter 4.

:D

Possible Marvel vs Capcom 3 in Development

Everyone probably remembers when Super Street Fighter 4 was announced about a certain 'list' of characters that were going to be in it. Unconfirmed and quietly, the list dissappeared from most of the internet, yet the list itself (Which I read and saved) proved 100 percent accurate. The characters on said list did appear and now the same people have said that Marvel vs Capcom 3 will likely be announced in May. You gotta be joking Drew, you say in that tone of raised eyebrows and crossed arms. Look, while a one for one is not hard to base on random luck, why don't you read it from the people who said it?

http://teamspooky.com/content/?p=299

We might have a fighting game christmas if this releases this year. Between SSf4 and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift in July, I need to get to work on grabbing one of those joysticks...

The Podcast is live

http://thehighscore.mypodcast.com/2010/04/The_High_Score_Ep_1-300634.html

god help us all. I just hope we don't get attacked by angry soccer moms and crazed Xbox fan boys. I don't think I this blog can repel a force of that magnitude.

Super Street Fighter 4

It is no secret that I originally didn't care about fighting games for the longest time. I know why now, it was cause I was afraid of losing, getting my ass kicked and ultimately be humiliated. I'd been humiliated a lot in my younger childhood, being manipulated, backstabbed and laughed at too many times by most of my peers. It took a multitude of things to get me to pick a controller and actually throw down.

duom.deviantart.com

Yeah, my last post on deviantart is about Street Fighter 4. It was one of the biggest steps, the other was my friend pulling me into a fighter with Street Fighter 3. It's funny, after I got comfortable, I began to throw down a lot harder and actually get good. In SF4, I rolled with Sakura, who was a nice cross of Ken and Ryu with out being too flowchartish and annoying. Please refer to this picture when I talk about flowcharts.

Regardless, when Super Street Fighter 4 was announced, I couldn't care less. Nothing really jumped out at me, my friend Kyle had already made a guess that they would release something like this. We both shrugged and went back to Street Fighter 3 and played our typical mains of Makoto and Dudley. It is no small coincidence nor irony that we get these two characters in this iteration. I remember the phone call vividly, Kyle being out of breath, he was in shock clearly. He informed me of the announcement of the Street Fither 3 characters being announced in Super Street Fighter 4. My interest exploded that very instant. Makoto's involvement has made me interested but the multitude of other characters have been cropping in interest. It's a feat to actually get me to jones for a game, like REALLY jones for it.

With team battles, the SF3 characters, the lowered price, I really can't say no. Kyle and Me are already back into fighting games like we're addicted, especially with Street Fighter 3 again. I'm plotting to get an arcade stick so I don't get blisters anymore. I know that I try to keep myself from getting hyped up for games, but I guess once in a while, giving into it is not so bad.

PSN: simsarOO

I'll be on PS3 version, friends and rivals welcome to anyone looking to help me improve my skills as well as yours.

:D

P.S. I've been having format issues, so forgive the posts being jumbled, blogger has a way of just eating a bowl of retard flakes before working properly.

Con-nections

Yeah, so I was at the Kansas City PlanetCon all weekend and have a backlog of crap to catch up on. It bothers me that I've been out of conventions for so long, but at the same time did a sort of forced exile do to a need for increasing my maturity as well as my portfolio. This actually brought back that original instinct I developed when I was hustling the convention circuit so long ago that memories of it are now tinged with a layer of nostalgia and happiness despite the gross amount of bullshit and blunders I've had occur when I was in them.

Either way, I'm not going to blog about the con as much as the people I met there. Damont Jordan, Talent Caldwell, Rick Burchett and the slew of others who sent me e-mails and friend requests. AND YES, I did join god damn facebook. I already have gone to the hypocrite side of life and it annoys the bloody fuck out of me seeing my name on this damn website. I keep telling myself I'm doing this to stay in contact with everyone I used to know. You'll see a large amount of unknowns. Anyone LISTED in comics means I've met them at least once and they may/may not remember me.

Regardless, I'm making a post to also welcome podcast Bro and all round good dude, Erik "Ozzy" Osmera to The Highscore. It should be noted that he is a contributer and will hopefully keep this blog a little better oiled than when I was just doing it alone. I just hope we both don't neglect this and screw ourselves over. Yes I am looking for contributers, YES I am looking for reviewists! NO I can not pay anyone, I can't even pay for myself right now. So please, be kind, we are but humble gamers with very little money but big creative dreams involving world domination and COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION!

Taken from DeviantArt's http://spikewible.deviantart.com/
^Total stranger, awesome comic.

Either or, I'll admit, is tempting but first we have to get there and then we have to beat the guy in charge and THEN we can do whatever we need to. However, I think I paraphrased a bit of it.

:D
(ph34r this emoticon)

More Work/Less Time = More Fun

I'm known for making only a handful of sense when I need to, so don't crack your brain or bust your butt trying to make sense of that title. It's why I'm here. I've been entertaining a few ideas about what I really enjoy and what I love to do and counterbalanced them with my lazy and unproductive personality. Honestly, it's kind of hard to balance not wanting to get up until eleven in the morning with wanting to make so much stuff for people to have and enjoy for themselves.

For me, I've always enjoyed entertaining people, be it a small crowd of friends or an entire room of strangers, I never get tired so long as I can get a laugh and a smile from people. This leads to a lot of strange looks from people as I am extremely eccentric when it comes to my habits. I'm a constant attention whore if the mood strikes me but you'll find I'm so fiercely loyal and nice to a fault that its usually the eccentric side that saves my bacon from getting served up most of the time. People write this off as pure ego, which i do have, but having gone well over 17 years without said ego and finally growing one of my very own, I'm not about to part with it.

This ego and this perseverance have arguably shoved me forward despite my laziness and procrastination roadblocking me on several different occasions. More so, I've pushed others forward and showed them what they're really capable of thanks to this stupidity and egotism I have about myself. I guess when I boil it all down and look at the bear bones, my true skills lie in finding people and inspiring them to be what they dreamed of. I rarely play muse to myself as I think most of my ideas are sub par, my catalyst is the duoship of a friend that really sends me forward into creativity's bosom. Its in that bosom that ideas just free flow out of me, bad or good, they're creative.

This effect can also be achieved by simple challenges which force me to use what I have in my arsenal at said time to overcome and defeat the challenge. Granted this is usually solved in simplistic ways like throwing money at it or ignoring it till it goes away. On rare occasions however, I've found myself improvising and making things up that are based on lies so extreme that its nigh impossible to buy into the very notion of belief. Yet people believe me and then I am forced to make the lie the reality and make the truth the lie. Irony and me are good friends if you ever meet me in real life.

Still, work more/less time means I'm taking on more work so I will have less time. Work can be fun though, especially when its something you love. The podcast is going strong and like I said I' lazy and have yet to actually get off my ass and do what needs to be done. Second off, I'm working on doing a Webcomic soon enough. My podcast co-host is getting equally shafted by said newspaper I will not mention. he's also entertaining the idea of loading up comics. I'm still working out a schedule, script, plot, characters but I have one setting I'm certain of.The story will be set at an apartment and it will not be as gay as friends and I will promise to keep it real as much as humanly possible while including the most absurdist humor I possibly can.

I take my inspiration from the strips of Penny-Arcade, Megatokyo and PvP Online. All three are still running ater ten years, each maintaining their own little worlds and work endlessly to co-exist with large amount of new contentand artists trying to break everyone of them. Granted with so many people more obsessed with Facebook and Farmkill (This mispelling is intention), I figure this comic has about a good a chance as any. It will be hand drawn, I'm not too sure about color. I'd love to do so, but its not my decision.

Either way, I'm plotting the story as I speak, its based loosely off me and my friends real lives yet crossed over with some of our more inane banters. Hopefully I can make this be something more than yet another failed attempt at grabbing attention.

:D

Drew

P.S.

Popzara (politely) asked I make mention of a major contest they are holding on their website. Its not PAX as that has started today and my Editor is hopefully not fixing to hang himself today. Its a contest concerning a load of anime from this website called AnimEigo.com. check out link for some heads up.

What's up people in internet land.

The website I work for, Popzara.com, has asked me (politely) to give a heads up to any and hopefully everyone of a nice promotion they are doing with Playswitch.com



Yup, PaxEast is just two weeks away and tickets are sold out already and have been for a couple months. People who are desperate oughta get in on this noise and take a chance at winning the tickets.

For those lucky enough to have snagged said impossible tickets, you should look at their other promotion which might land you 3 free games (New Releases included). All you gotta do is wear a sticker and be at the convention.

Pretty kick ass right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for my full review of Final Fantasy 13, coming (hopefully) tomorrow.

Hope you win!

Drew "Duo" Misemer

Final Fantasy 13 (The third 5 Hours)

I'm getting a kick of putting these things into hours. It really gives me a modular assessment of time. Regardless, I'll get right on topic for those reading.

When we last left off, Snow and Hope had fallen off an edge. Snow wakes up and carries Hope through the area in true do or die fashion while Lightning and Fang both make their way through the city. Fang is still apologetic to Lightning but isn't worried much for Snow. Meanwhile, Snow finally collapses after hauling Hope up a ladder. Hope wakes up and realizes what Snow has been doing and again tries half heartedly to be angry at him. The conversation turns as Hope continually attack him for his running away from his guilt and Snow admits it. He says he'll do everything he can to make it right before ever apologizing to Hope for this whole matter. Hope realizes that Snow isn't as stupid as he thought and forgives him. A monster descends and attacks Hope and Snow but Snow gets knocked cold due to previous injuries from the fall compounded by getting hit with a giant limb.

Hope battles it out until Lightning and Fang arrive after seeing the commotion. They defeat the hulking beast and arrive at Hope's home. He's still worried about what his dad will say. When his father sees them, they have a scene of reunion before Hope drops the bomb. The fathr is busted up by the matter but ultimately gets stalwart with his son, proud that he's making choices for himself. His resolve is only strengthened by Snow telling him what his wife told Snow to get Hope back home. The whole scene is cut short thanks to the idiot running the military of Palumpolum showing up. Snow steps out and tries to convince the soldiers that l'Cie are people too and that they're not trying to do anything to destory Cocoon. Some of the soldiers buy it but the leader scoffs and tells them to get ready to open fire.

Gas grenades get thrown from behind and in the confusion the leader is shot to death. Snow, still weak can't fight and Lightning and company take stride with Hope taking a jab saying he'll throw a few shots for Snow. The airship the troops came from take aim at the party and the ensuing battle the party tears it apart piece by piece. The cavalry arrives and gets everyone aboard. Lightning orders Hope to tie up his dad and say they forced him to help them to keep him from getting caught up in the matter Hope and his father say good-bye one more time and the party runs.

Meanwhile, in the city of Nautilius, Sazh and Vanille arrive by boat. A major parade is about to start and Sazh takes her to it. Since it's been said prior, Vanille is from Pulse and is mildly shocked by how people are truly scared of the world below them. She sees a bit of her focus again, though again nothing is truly explained in it, just images. Sazh starts to realize something is getting her down but can't put his finger on it. They go to see the Chocobos. Just like Hope and his dad, things are not left to settle as the army shows up and attacks once again. It's hard to believe at first but the game throws a hard curveball and drops me. The military is using Sazh's son to hunt his father and the rest as Dajh is able to find Pulse energy. Sazh wigs out and hugs his son but Dajh turns to Crystal just like Serah. In pure grief, Sazh is ready to kill anyone. The woman who hasn't been named but is more stuck up than a shirt washed in pure starch spills everything. She shows Sazh a video of Vanille and Fang talking about attacking the fal'Cie in Bodhum where Sazh and Dajh were on vacation. Sazh realizes this is all Vanille's fault. Vanille runs off, trying to escape this matter once again. She sees a throne randomly and on it is Sazh but he's a spirit. he points his gun and shoots ethereal bullets at Vanille telling her she should die.

On the floor, Vanille looks up and sees Sazh, the real one looking at her. He pulls out his gun but he can't bring himself to shoot her. Wild with grief and unable to do anything to get rid of his rage, his Eidolon surfaces. He takes everything he has and attacks, with Vanille helping him to spite herself somewhat. After he defeats it, he collapses from the weight of the situation. He takes out a pistol and puts it to the side of his head. The screen goes black and you hear a gun shot. Vanille is taken away along with Sazh in a coffin or something with the woman making a remark.

This remark can be seen here, but this is actually a funnier video of it. :D LINK

The rest of the party sees a video on the news of a live execution of the l'Cie, a.k.a. Sazh and Vanille. Lightning remarks that it's a trap and the two of them are the bit. Fang chimes in saying that she lost Vanille once, and isn't about to lose her again. Snow puts on his smile and says he could care less, he just wants to stick it to the Sanctum but they might need a plan. The newscaster remarks that the figurehed of the Sanctum will also be in attendance which solidifies Lightning's need to throw herself at this suicide mission.

I'll cut off there for now. Yes I know, that seems rather short but trust me, there's a lot to chew on that I'm cutting and summarizing. The real twist was Sazh's dilemma and ultimate crushing defeat. Vanille really has proven how deep she is despite her bubbly personality which I originally thought would grate on me. The game continues to deliver and I'm more than certain that the next ew chapters things are going to drop off but it looks like I'm about five to ten hours away from beating the game outright. They say I've nearly reached half way but I'm willing to bet I'm lot further than that.