IHAO on ... Twitch streaming and Super Mario Maker

I cannot in my life think of a game I have wanted more than Super Mario Maker.  There are games I have wanted a lot.  There are games I have paid a lot of money for.  Tabletop RPG games that I need for my collection.  Old school games for the systems I have that I love and refuse to get rid of.  Rare and hard to find board games.  But with all of those games, Super Mario Maker is the only game that has had me obsessing about owning it.  Marveling at the menu system in videos I am watching.  Yes, the menu system!  Have you seen it?  It is glorious.  Part youtube, part tumblr, part reddit, part Netflix.  It is absolutely perfect.  And it is a stupid menu.  With the best music!

I have found so many creators and youtubers and twitch-streamers that are putting out content just for me.  For idiots like me who are drooling over the ability to make your own levels, to play level others have made, homages to old games of the past, new crazy stupid levels like Panga's Pit.  Watch that video if you want to see the most dangerous and ridiculous level of Mario ever made.

I cannot wait to have this game.  Really, I can't.  I'm becoming increasingly annoying about it with my wife, which is really stupid of me, considering all the other things we have to buy and get ready for a big move to our first home in just over a month.  But I cannot help it.  Every single element of this game was made perfectly and specifically for me, and millions of other people are playing MY GAME before I get the chance.  I am scouring the internet to absorb as much as I can on youtube and twitch.  GameXplains, GhostRobo Jr, so many other guys that aren't good enough to mention by name, they all have me chomping at the "chain" as it were to own this game.

The joy I am getting from Super Mario Maker, just as a viewer and a dreamer, is out-shined by my love of Ptken.  Who is Ptken?  He is utter magic, and you need to watch him.  You need to sit in your living room with this man from across the globe and enjoy his tirades and laugh and wonderfully off-key and ridiculous greetings.  "HUH-llo!"  Honestly, of all the guys that I have watched since needing to cram my head full of this game I just do not have the money to own, Ptken is the absolute best.

I have watched him spend 40 lives on one lives on one level, and loved every second.  Yes, the level is crazy, but even better is Ptken's amazing commentary.  "I can do it-uh!" *dies* "...maybe."  I do not speak a lick of Mandarin, but I am promised that "[I] can speak English here."  And Ptken knows just enough curse words and phrases to make watching amazing.  As I watched, more and more people started to follow him, and he always answered with a wonderful "Sank you follow!" to every single one.  Watching him finally overcome that amazing level was glorious.  I didn't need to understand a lick of his language, and together we all enjoyed life and watched him succeed so he could finally stuff his face with food, as he was apparently starving himself until he beat that level.

Next is a level with a school theme, and a section has him listening to a made-in-game song.  He shushes everyone around, and we all listen to this awful song that a wandering goomba plays.  And once it finishes, there is a moment of silence, before a, "HUH?!?"  And then he dies.  And we have to do it again.  It is so amazingly enjoyable.  The level is utter insanity, and not because it is made by some Japanese fella and he is from Taiwan.  It is just insane, and all Ptken can say is what I say, "HUH?!"

A later level has everyone pissed and confused for Ptken that are watching as he is beset by troll-ish trap after troll-ish trap.  A helpful English speaker points that out to Ptken, who takes a moment and responds, in English, "I know ... but ... I finish it anyway."  And he finds a way to succeed through one stupid trap, only to be stuck with another one.  But he doesn't give up.  Just a string of "this is $#!+" and he continues.  And he does it.  And it is glorious.  I know it isn't anything any other streamer hasn't done, but something about Ptken makes it magical.  I feel his pain.  His genuine pain and genuine outrage.  But then he succeeds, with a resounding "Fah Que!"

The amazing commentary continues in later levels.  Throwing a shell into a chain chomp with a "hay-shotted!" had me cheering and laughing!  His "fah queues" and "sank you, Follows" and "lemme try" and "here we go" and "okay, dis wah E-Z" and singing and mroe "fah queues" ... He isn't an amazing player by any means ... ok I lied, he is.  That level I linked to above?  He's one of the like ... people who has beaten it.  Yeah.  He spends his time and beats his levels and enjoys the game.  He is an amazing streamer.  And man.  If I had to wager a guess.

Hours I am spending watching him play.  It is the absolutely best.  Great moments of joy.  Great pits of despair.  "Woo-hoo"-ing along with an Ashley skinned Mario in one level.  Squatting and dicking around to the music as he waits for stupid bloopers to go away.  Plenty of "Whuh duh HAIL?!"s and "Sank you, Follow!"s.  Everyone in the chat, cheering him on and spamming "EZ!" when he beats a level, no matter how long it takes.  We have to demoralize the level as a sacrifice to Ptken!  And to a game that I cry at night because I do not own.

Yet.

IHAO on ... The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

I have not been watching enough movies recently.  Part of that is because I'm acting in a play for the first time in a few years.  Part of it is because I'm also directing a play.  Part of it is because of watching animes like Fate/Zero and One Piece.  Part of it is depression and insomnia, the cocktail I'll never be rid of.  But MOSTLY it is because I've been playing The Binding of Isaac.

LOOK AT THIS AND TELL MY YOU DON'T WANT TO GIVE THIS A CHANCE, I DARE YOU!

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is an updated version of the original Binding of Isaac.  It is a Rogue-like birds-eye dungeon crawling adventure game.  Or ... let me try it like this.  It is like those SNES and Gameboy Legend of Zelda games, if it was just dungeons, and the dungeons were randomly created every time you played, with 100x the items, secrets, specials, and other stuff.  It has a bunch of hidden characters, a branching final dungeon system, and is just ... phenomenal.

How phenomenal?  Here, let me explain it like this.  I bought the game a little before Christmas, on the day it came out.  I put 300 hours into it, then had a huge bug problem that erased every ounce of gameplay I had.  So I started over, and am now farther than I was in half the time.  The game has a bit of chance, but is mostly a skilled video game.  It is a solo experience, but it creates stories to share with friends that play the game.  It has insane secrets that make for huge accomplishments when you do find and unlock them.  And better than all that, it is fun.  You are a poor naked kid, shooting his tears at all the monstrosities in his basement as he climbs deeper and deeper into his Alice in Wonderland on an acid trip hell, fighting flesh bags, sentient poops, ghosts, skeletons, and carries around the remains of his beloved pets and stuff he found in his crazy mother's purse as she tries to kill him because God told her to!

The game does have a major problem, though.  And that is the bug I mentioned above.  The game was plagued by bugs and huge glitches for the first month it was out.  It's why I haven't talked about it until now.  Because those bugs and glitches were a HUGE problem.  But enough time has passed that they are all fixed, and I absolutely feel I can recommend the game now!

It has easily become one of my favorite games, and with a really good run only taking around 25 minutes, it is a great time waster and brain-rester, which is a thing a depressed, ADHD, insomnia like myself needs.  I swear, I play a little between each article or each chore, just to keep my brain working and focused.  I cannot recommend the game enough.  Go buy it on Steam right now, it is only $15 bucks, and considering I've put 454 hours into it, that means it is absolutely worth the price.

IHAO on ... Smash Brothers for the 3DS

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS!!!

I am not much of a gamer, but this has been a series that has been incredibly fun to play.  The schtick is to play as multiple characters from Nintendo games as you build up damage and knock them off the stage.  There are 51 characters, which is an impressive roster, and the gameplay is some of the best, like most Nintendo games: easy to learn and be good with, but complicated enough to truly learn how to master it.

I wasn't going to get the game, but I won a raffle that required me to do a lot of fun challenges to earn tickets, including the incredibly difficult "4-body" fight, where I am able to in 2 minutes of the demo beat a level 9 PC character with 4 kills before they get even one on me, which is one kill every 30 seconds.  That was fun, and challenging, and I was very proud to have gotten the demo and really earned the game.  As of writing this review I now have 46 hours of gameplay, which even though I am not much of a gamer, has me feeling pretty confidant in my review of the game.

Super Smash Brothers 3DS has a lot of game modes, though there are really three basic types of gameplay (beyond small mini-games): Smash, which is the standard game pitting you versus up to three other players, computer or actual players; the "Run," a gauntlet of Smash matches all building up to a culmination, either a run with just one "life" as you try to beat every character in All-Star mode, or a series of challenges leading to the ultimate bad guy, Master Core; and Smash Run, a platforming and exploration version of the game, filled with enemies and power-ups, and ends with some kind of ultimate challenge.  Even ignoring Smash-mode, this game's single player aspects has plenty of hours put into it.  Then you add the carrot-on-a-stick aspect of customization for Mii Fighters and variable movesets for the other 48 characters, and this game really is great.  And I haven't even TOUCHED on the multi-player gaming, which the 3DS makes incredibly easy to do.

One of my favorite things in the game is the Mii Fighters, really working to make characters that I feel should have been in the game, and actually adding them.  My two proudest are Cooking Mama, which I named Brawling Mama (which I'm STILL working to get the Chef Hat for to finish her character's costume):

... and Arthur from Ghouls and Ghosts, though he is helmet-less, because you know, he took some damage!

I've made a few others, like a Weedle (that has to be named Kakuna Jr. because you can't have "weed" in a name) and Luffy and Usopp from One Piece, but these two are my favorites.

Now, the game itself, while the gameplay is fantastic, has some really irritating aspects.  The biggest one is that with all the carrot-on-a-stick aspects of collecting trophies, optional movesets, and Mii Fighter costume pieces, it is the most frustrating thing in the world to keep winning the same ones over and over.  To keep getting the same pieces, essentially meaning that the carrot-on-the-stick aspect is a rotted carrot or no carrot at all, it makes me so upset at times to go throw an entire Smash Run or some other game-mode to win those things, and to just get the same stuff I already have, ARG, I just put the game down and walk away.  Also, the menu system is incredibly frustrating.  There are so many things hidden in so many menus, none of them sensibly put together.  You'd think all the game-modes would be in one place, but they are separated out between 5 different menu systems.  And learning information you need to continue to earn those harder to get carrots is incredibly difficult to get to.  Such as, for a certain challenge, you need to beat Smash Run in first place with all 51 characters.  But to find out who you haven't beaten it with yet, you have to back out of the game, back out of that game's menu, go into a miscellaneous menu, go into the vault, go to the Records, go to Fighter Records, switch the load out to Smash Run, then go down the list of achievements that they bar graph for you to "Victories."  If you look at the "Losses" section, that will be incorrect, because you can not have a victory and also not have a loss.  That is a LOT of hoops to jump through just to learn which character you need to play the game with again.

When it comes down to it, the actual playing of this game is just one of the best.  It doesn't have a story-mode or anything, but it has a bunch of ways to play the game, and all of them are basically fun!  And then playing with your friends is even better!  There are some baffling design choices, but there is rarely a game as fun to play as this one.  And since the 3DS version will be compatible with the Wii-U version, there is no reason to not get this game!

I recommend.

NOW GIVE ME THE CARROT!  BRAWLING MAMA NEEDS HER CHEF'S HAT!!!!

IHAO on ... Broforce

EXPLOSIONS!!!

 [sing to the tune of Beethoven's Ninth]

 Big explosions big explosions

 Die Hard made me sing this song!

Lots of things are all exploding

This one is from Wild Zero

ACTION MOVIES!!!!

Have you ever wanted to see all the greatest action heroes together in one film?  Terminator, Rambo, Robocop, Neo, Ridley, and so many more, all hanging out and killing bad guys!  Then look no further, because Broforce does it in spades!

The story is --- STORY?!  Who needs that?!  Let's be awesome and kill stuff!  Were are the guns?!!!

 SHOOTING SHOOTING ALL THE BAD GUYS

 ALSO GOOD GUYS

EVERYONE!

Ok, so for real, the game is pretty ingenious and actually nicely difficult with some very interesting mechanics.  You play as a big action hero, saving others and shooting bad guys, all the while planting American flags and making your way through unique areas!  But what makes it so good is that the game takes some of this a step further.  Whenever you save someone, you earn a 1Up and become the next of the Expendable heroes.  Not only that, each hero plays very differently, with different kinds of guns, specials, and the like.  Different ones work in different ways, and sometimes you have to ask yourself if you want to get the 1Up or do you want to keep the power suite you currently have for the fight?  Not only that, you have a limited number of times you can use or specials, but because whenever you switch to a new action hero in the Broforce you get all your specials for that character rejiggered, it rewards you for using those. Oh, and to avoid all copyright issues, everyone has a wonderful new Broforce themed name, like Rambro or Robrocop, etc. etc.

The game is just super fun.  And you keep unlocking characters to add to your suite.  I currently have ... 16 of the 23.  And they keep adding more and more to the game.  The game plays like Contra on steroids, and is just incredibly fun.  Plus, it is apparently multiplayer friendly, though I haven't given it a shot yet.  I find myself playing a mission or two then turning the game off and coming back every little while between writing breaks or something.  I've super enjoyed it, and you can preorder it now before it gets on Steam!  Check it out here.

It is cool doing a beta, and I've been super enjoying myself.  You should all check it out.

IHAO on ... the Mass Effect games and franchise

GUARDIANS OF THE FLIPPING GALAXY!  IN JUST A FEW MORE SLEEPS!  AHHHHH!!!  What can I do that hits the highs I need to keep my excitement going?  Let's do ...

Mass Effect is a massive franchise of novels, comics, and of course, 3 AAA titles that all do the impossible: tell one story throughout that is for the most part affected by the choices your character has to make throughout.  No other franchise can say the same.  Some franchises have as detailed a story, some have the same quality of games, but NONE are as massive, as well received, as well put together as the Mass Effect series.

I am on the cusp of finishing my first playthrough with the same character through three games, Geoffrey Shepard.  He is an Adept that slowly stopped using his guns, instead throwing around amazing biotic powers (for those who don't know the wording, think the Force, except more specific and completely free of religious connotation..  He saved every species he could as he never wanted to exterminate life, until it came down to saving a trusted comrade he had just 8 months earlier saved or saving the love of his life, a Quarian engineer Tali.  Geoffrey started as a man who trusted his race's government and slowly learned that all of the governments he had to deal with, every entity that wasn't him and his crew, were liars and backstabbers.

I know Geoffrey Shepard like the back of my hand.  He has had the same muttonchops for years, though he did stop dying his hair when he survived his crew's suicide mission.  I know his quirks, his personality, and the choices he makes.  Geoffrey is also distinctly NOT "me."  His choices started very much like all video game characters choices, in that they were controlled by the player, in this case, me.  But very quickly, he became his own entity.

Now, these games are not perfect.  The first game for some has a lot of tedium and a lot of unnecessary fluff.  For me personally, I loved all that fluff, and just wanted combat to be more fun.  The second game is darned near perfect, other than a terrible cover system that barely worked.  The third game ... ok, it isn't as good as the others mechanically because of a change in how the journal system works, a lot of graphics that have super late texture pop-ins, and a very broken power system that really punishes people for being too far ahead of the storyline which none of the other games did; but the story is so strong that it makes up for it.  And it adds a very fun multiplayer aspect that you can still play, for free, today, and it does not take time to get groups together at all.

This is the kind of game that I want my wife to play.  My kids to play.  The story is incredibly engaging, and it is about making moral choices that for the most part have actual consequences in the game.  There is a jerkoff you meet in the first game that shows up again in the second.  I was tired of him and yelled at him.  And he died.  Off screen.  I heard it on a news report.  And even more amazingly, my roommate who has played the game WAY more than I and completed many many more full-runs of the games, he has never seen or even heard of that option happening.

The game is a true roleplaying game.  It allows you to put attributes onto the character, completely arbitray if you like, and play them out.  You don't have to be yourself, you can be a Captain America soldier type, or a magic ninja who does everything just for himself, or just some run of the mill guy.  Supporting characters live or die based on your choices throughout all the games, and the ramifications of missing even just one in the first game has long reaching aspects.  Continuing a romance from one game to the next rewards you with wonderful acting and shocking memory of these characters.

What I'm saying is, I've loved playing the series.  And look forward to playing more and more.  And since I had the soapbox, I thought I would share.  Because some of you may look at it and go "oh look, a shooter game in space, whatevs."  But that isn't what the game is.  Take the difficulty all the way off if you like, because the fighting is just for game stuff to do, and can be completely bypassed.  The story and the characters are what is the essence of Mass Effect.  The only game that came anywhere close to this for me was Chrono Trigger, which is my nominal favorite game of all time.  So yes, give this a shot if you haven't.  The first game is a bit of a slog, but Mass Effect 2 will do everything you'd ever want in a game.  And Mass Effect 3, while not as technically well made, creates the perfect continuation and finale to a trilogy.

But, that's just my opinion.

IHAO on ... Magic the Gathering: Conspiracy (and other ramblings)

Oh, Magic.  I talked about you before.  Though last time it was more a recollection of good times with friends and the social aspects of the game instead of the actual enjoyments I receive from it.  The social aspects are very important for me, but the thing I really love about the game is the deck building.

Magic the Gathering has been around since 1993.  I played a little in 5th grade, though I didn't own any cards, deciding instead to go with what I thought was the superior game at the time, the Star Wars collectible card game.  Then I moved to Yu-Gi-Oh ... until my buddy Patrick and I learned that the rules were not the same as the first season of the cartoon.  He tried teaching me Magic again, but it wasn't until college when I got back into it.  I remember specifically the moment I was hooked ...

A friend in college, my first friend in college actually, had two unstoppable decks, Slivers and Counterspells.  He also eventually admitted to me he was an absolute cheat and would do so constantly to win.  During that time, I knew two things: one, I liked RED DAMAGE, it was awesome; and two, I love weird blue, especially bounce.  So I asked him how I should go about building a Red/Blue deck.  But you see, back in the day, that was all but impossible.  You see, a major aspect of the game is that each color has a unique identity, including which colors they work well with and which ones are natural enemies.  Blue and Red are ENEMIES.  And they made it very difficult to make blue/red work together.

But I was positive I was going to do it.  And I did.  I figured it out.  I solved it.  I made a ridiculous blue/red deck, got lucky, and a single Unsummon allowed me to swing for the kill.  I did it.  I built an impossible deck, beat a great (and cheating, though I didn't know it at the time) player playing his best deck, and I did it through a combination of ideas and skills all my own.

This image is owned by Hasbro.  Or Wizards of the Coast.  Or whoever I'm supposed to say, whatever, I don't own it, I'm just using it.  Don't get mad.

You see, every player plays Magic for different reasons.  And I promise, I'm building up to the actual review, I just know a lot of non-Magic players read this blog, and I'm TRYING to be entertaining and informative, you, guy who is complaining that I am assuming exists within my average 27 readers.  Mark Rosewater, the dude who IS Magic, defined the players as Timmy, Johnny, and Spike.  He wrote a great article on them, but here is the simple, down and dirty description:

• Spike plays the game to win, to prove something.  He's considered the tournament player, the guy who appreciates every well-costed, powerful card that helps him achieve his objective, and everything else is whatever.
• Timmy plays the game to experience something.  He's considered the power gamer, loving huge effects and feeling POWERFUL.  Enormous creatures, big effects, amazingly large armies, that is what Timmy loves.
• Johnny plays the game to express themselves.  He's considered the combo player.  He looks for cards that spark his interest, or ideas to craft a story or combo of some kind.  Winning the game is less important that pulling off the purpose of the deck, whether it is to feel like a goblin or to draw as many cards as possible.

If you cannot tell by the sheer amount of words written, I am a Johnny/Timmy.  I don't have a Spike bone in my body, though I do enjoy winning the game.  Everyone enjoys winning.  But for me, the most fun is to make decks that DO things.  Such as, I just bought two very simple decks, one based around Scrooge McDuck and using all the player's lives as "money" and focusing on GOLD!!!! ... and the second is a throwback to my favorite original play-style, direct damage red burn deck built around these two great cards that are more powerful the more times I use them.  They even have silly names, from Where the Red Burn Grows to gold. Gold! G.O.L.D.!!! ... you know, based on the Duck Tales pilot/arc and the amazing villain El Capitan!

Gold. Gold. GOLD. gold. Gold! G.O.L.D.!!!!!

Hee hee, I made that gif.  I could talk forever about the decks I love, and the decks I built, but I want to move on to why Conspiracy is so great.  Oh, yes, Conspiracy is awesome.  It is a style of Magic that fits my group's play style perfectly.  See, our general group consists of 4 regular players, including myself, and a group of outliers.  And the vast majority of them are Spikes, which is kind of hilarious for me.  But even more important, we play exclusively multiplayer standard Magic.  And Conspiracy is just perfect.

Conspiracy was designed to be drafted (you build the deck from a pool of unopened pack) including new powerful cards called conspiracies that can drastically alter the game and a bunch of powerful multiplayer effects based on rewards for attacking the "winning" player, voting as a group, or giving a big helpful effect to everyone.  You draft a deck, and then everyone plays a multiplayer game with those decks.  It is perfect.  So perfect we did it at our group's punching bag Spike/Johnny's bachelor party.  By the way, that's where I was for the past missing days of no blogs, doing groomsman activities and stuff.  But that is neither here nor there.

We were able to draft for 3 games with 5 players then 4 in the next two games out of one box and a handful of other booster packs we picked out.  In the first game, I got incredibly lucky by opening my first pack and getting the following card:

I own this card, but not this image.  It is an awesome card.

That meant I spent the rest of the draft just grabbing every single powerful card that came my way.  It was very powerful, and I won that game handily.  I still have that Worldknit, I will always remember it.  I like that.  I like that a card that has very little worth in the real world (there is a large second hand market for cards, which is how my little group can get all our ridiculous decks about flipping coins or exiling everything or oozes oozes all the time oozes) it has crazy sentimental value from that great game.

Second time around was less successful.  As was the third.  I drafted basically the same both times, WUB fliers with strong removal.  The third game in fact I felt terrible.  I was having the absolute worst time drafting, feeling like I was getting nothing.  And that third game ... it was the most fun one.  It ended in a crazy draw because of some shenanigans I was able to pull off (I was trying to make another guy win, but he got killed just before I made the rest of us players all die at the same time).  It was ... 

It is very hard to explain just how great it is to have an amazing amount of fun with a deck you felt was garbage.  The game is built to be the absolute best multiplayer game series possible, with so many big change-up cards and upsets and fun problems to deal with.  It is just perfect.  Even better, it is getting cheaper by the day, as the price of boxes slowly drop in price.  It is a thing I know for a fact we as a group will do again, and I would gladly bring other fringe magic players in on to play even more.  I would even suggest it as a place for players to start if they have never played, as it teaches all the fundamentals of the game, from deck building to making card value choices to how the colors mix and interact to all the amazing strategies.  Anyone who has played games like Dominion or Ascension, it is time to join up with Magic, which is just getting better and better and better.

So yeah, that was my experiences drafting Conspiracy, as well as a bunch of other thoughts.  I guess I should have said it was an opinion on rambling like a fool, and then eventually reviewing Conspiracy.  Whatever.

IHAO on ... The Pokemon X/Y Wonder Trade Run!!!

Ok, so this is a little bit of a cheat, because I created it.  Or at least, I should say, I have not seen another person's attempt and have created my own rules to make a new kind of challenge mode for the popular Pokemon franchise!

One of my favorite things to do in Pokemon nowadays is to do a Nuzlocke run.  I even have episodes on this site of a Nuzlocke run I did for awhile.  Basically, it is a way to take what is mostly a not too terribly challenging game and adding a new level of immersion and difficulty to it.  It has revitalized a game that has ultimately become boring for me since the third generation (which very luckily is going to be getting an update with this current engine run, neat, huh?).  And my challenge run does similarly, but in a different way that is just as interesting, and potentially way more challenging or a breeze.

Ok, so here we go, some background and then some rules, then I'll give you some info on my first run, still ongoing.

In the current pokemon series, Pokemon X/Y, you can Wonder Trade.  Wonder Trading is trading with random people random things without knowing what they are trading back.  It is a great way to give away pokemon you no longer plan on using, but has also become a source of good nature, breeding chaf being thrown out for others, and jokes.  My favorite joke being trading out Snorlaxs that all are named "Yo Mama" and they are holding a Burn Heal.

Sick burn, bro!

With that explained, here is the schtick of a Wonder Trade run.  RULES!

-2) BEAT THE GAME ONCE

These two "negative" rules are not strictly necessary.  You could start the game the very first time and do a Wonder Trade run, but I suggest playing at least for a little bit to get a feeling for both the story and the map, as well as to have cooler things to trade.

-1) COLLECT/SORT TRADEMONS

"Trademons" are my name for any and all pokemon that you are going to Wonder Trade.  A few basic conceits to keep in mind about Trademons.

 - Nickname everything.  Pokemon who are traded cannot get their names changed, so even if you just give your pokemon something lame, it will be much nicer for those who are Wonder Trading to get a cool named 'Mon instead of being stuck with an unnamed one you cannot give a nickname to.

 - Don't throw away trash.  The Wonder Trade pool is a tool for all players.  Don't just put a billion of the early lame normal types or a bunch of Luvdiscs or something in.

 - No Trademon should be higher than 25th level.  If they are, then people who receive them may not be able to use them because of level cap restrictions that make your pokemon not listen.  

1) START NEW GAME

New game time!  Time to start things up as normal.

2) COLLECT/SORT TRADEMONS

If you haven't done this yet, you have a chance to do as I said to above except for this run.  MAKE SURE that your give a cool nickname to your "starter," because he is about to find a new home.

3) BEAT FIRST GYM

Try to beat first gym as fast as you can.  Collect enough pokemon to have 6 by the time you beat this gym, and if they are going to be your Trademons, remember the conceits I set forth above.

4) WONDER TRADE TRADEMONS

You have the first gym badge!  FANTASTIC!  Time to get this game REALLY started.

Open up your Wonder Trade menu and make sure you have all of your Trademon ready.  You are going to Wonder Trade them all away!  Do not keep a single one, they all go away.  Also, try not to trade away garbage unless you have to.  No one wants to get a lame Bunnelby after seeing sooooo many of them.  Oh, and if you get a shiny, make someone's day and trade it away, too!  Or bank it and catch/use something else.  But I would give away the shiny, in hopes others would do similarly.  :)

If you want, you can wait until you have gotten your first generation starter as well.  It doesn't matter if you decide to keep it though because ... 

5) USE WHAT YOU GET

There you go!  You got a group of six random pokemon from around the world, traded away to you as their new home.  See why you want to be courteous with the ones that you trade away?  Why you want to nickname everything?  Yeah.  

Now you may get some really crappy stuff.  But you will probably also get awesome stuff.  And certainly things you never expected to use.  This is your new team, and it is yours to beat the game with!!

EXCEPTIONS:

All right, sure there should be some exceptions.  I believe two allowances should be made for what you can make exceptions for.

1) Trade/release away anything you get a duplicate of.  If you for some reason get two ... Slowpokes, you should definitely trade one away.  If you get an Abra and a Kadabra, get rid of one of them for similar reasons.  But do not trade away a Banette if you get a Gastly.  They are two different pokemon, so even though they are both ghosts, you just get to have two different ghosts!  COOL!!!

2) Trade/release away any Pokemon that you could have caught on the way here other than Starters.  Bunnelbys, Fletchlings, those are boring, and you could have had one of those if you hadn't Wonder Traded.  Just go ahead and give yourself some leeway.  BUT ... if you get a Pidgey, or a Patrat, those are not from Pokemon X/Y's opening areas, so they don't count.  Keep em!

And that's it!  That's the challenge!  You get six random pokemon you didn't pick, you didn't synergize, you didn't meticulously plan, and you try to beat the game!  It should possible, though it may be incredibly hard.  You aren't allowed to use any other pokemon this run AT ALL!  Good luck!

Bam!  You can do it!

And there you go!  Let me now show you what I'm running with in my very first run!

I collected a few things in a previous run to trade away specifically for this, but not everything was!  Here's what I traded and what I got:

GottaGoFast, Chespin --> Beldum

GottaGoBird, Fletchling --> Eevee

GottaGoSage, Pansage --> Zigzagoon

Vinegar, Croagunk --> Bunnelby

unnamed Dugtrio --> Taillow

Guerrero Jr., Hawlucha --> Bunnelby

So yeah, two Bunnelbys.  I released them both and traded away two more things ...

unnamed Meinfoo --> Tentacool

Jolene, Snubbull --> Chingling

That there we are!  It is a crazy team, and one that will be really fun to go through the game with.  I decided to turn the Eevee into a Sylveon to get a fairy-type, and BAM!  Got me team.  I look forward to beating the game and then doing this again.  And I hope I can convince a few of you to do it as well.  If you do, let me know!  We can share with anyone interested, and try to make this a new thing!!

/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\

June 3rd through June 9th

From June 3rd to the 8th, I want to have TORTURE-JESSEL-A-THON!  I am going to put myself through the worst films and most hated films that all you guys can think of.  I'm going to collect them all over the next week, and debut the schedule on Monday, the 2nd.  Then for a whole week, you will get to see me go through pain for all your pleasure, ending with a very special, very controversial IHAO that was supposed to be filmed years ago but I never had the guts to actually shoot, featuring a movie that makes me fuming at the mouth angry, and might be my most hated film.

So, send comments, shares, etc. Thanks again!

IHAO on ... the Lords of Waterdeep

It wasn't until I moved back to GA that I started playing "eurogames" or board games beyond the Wal-mart, Target, roll-and-move board games.  They have different aspects, and do many different things.  And since I that fateful day when I jumped in and played a board game about dwarves searching for loot inside a big ole volcano on that random Tuesday with two fellas who have become very close friends, I've been collecting a lot of them, and finding a lot more support for these more intricate games.  I joined a once a month, all Saturday gaming group that I WISH didn't do things on Saturdays so I could go again.  I found and started following Wil Wheaton's youtube show, Tabletop.  And on that show, I learned of the Lords of Waterdeep.  And bought it last Monday.  And played it for the first time myself last Wednesday.

It is fantastic.

Almost as fantastic as Wil Wheaton giving Felecia Day the most dancing The Fingers ever, censored by two owlbears.

The basic idea is that you are the secret lords of the fantasy city of Waterdeep.  You are the land owners, society shapers, economy makers, and quest givers in a fantasy world filled with fights, clerics, thieves, and wizards.  You send your agents about the town to buy real estate, coerce adventurers into your tavern, get quests that may or may not match your character's particular interests, and pass them out.  You also bribe others, plan prison breaks, and sample the wares through intrigue and underhanded dealings.

In a less "fluff" description, the game is a worker placement + resource allocation game.  In that, you have a limited number of options to do on the game board, and must prioritize what you want to do, as well as try to take advantage so that your opponents will not be able to stop you from doing what you need to.  From there, you also collect resources, the adventurers, and then send them on their quests so as to get victory points.

The game is beautiful in every way.  Beautiful art, immersive names, all the little bits are well shaped and different looking, even the storage for the box is beautiful and well designed.  It is also not a difficult game to grok.  Our group, none of which who had played it, but all generally game savvy, had it figured out without too much prodding by anyone, by the third round.  And the game actually ended up fairly close and fairly well scoring for the first time playing, with 3 people in the hundreds (that means that wrapped around the game board's point tracker once).  It was very fun, with a lot of variance already inherent in the game to allow for lots of new ways to play even within its own skin without its two expansions.  I cannot recommend the game enough.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... Spelunky

This game is great.  And the first game review I am gonna review.  So that's neato!  I actually have a lot of games I want to review, including a special experience that I'll get to some time that requires my roommate to help me out, since I have no clue what I'll be doing.  But let me start talking about Spelunky.

Spelunky is a platform/exploration game, with a huge amount of difficulty and lots of great carrot-on-a-stick to keep you coming back.  The schtick is that you play as Spelunky, or one of the other skins you can earn, buy, or find randomly throughout the game, and you are trying to make as much money as possible as you travel through the mines into the Lost Jungle, into the Ice Caves, into a hidden Temple, and even into Hell itself.  I have not been able to get to Hell.  In fact, I've only beaten the game once.  I mean, I've played probably close to 2000 iterations of the game, but yeah, only once have I beaten it.

How is that?  Well, there are basic rules for each stage and level, but the actual make up of those stages changes randomly every time you play.  Every single time.  It means that you can only learn the basics, but never just memorize the gameplay.  You have to take risks.  Is it worth it using your resources now to get potential new resources, or wait for an easier spot?  Should I steal from the shopkeep to get these cool items but earn his wrath for every other level, or do I just skip those good items?  Do I go to the secret levels I just unlocked that are harder, but could reap higher rewards?

It is truly unique, and really wonderful.  I find myself going back to it over and over again.  And that doesn't even account for the great graphics and music.

My personal favorite setup currently, just so you know, if jet pack (of course), freeze gun, sticky bombs, baseball gloves.  That's all I need.  Everything else is gravy.

Sam: "Dean, this gravy doesn't look like it is the right consistancy."

Dean: *chomp chomp*

- Soup, er, not really

AND THAT'S NOT ALL!  There is a "Deathmatch" mode, which is basically all the crazy hectic-ness of Smash Bros, except in smaller bits.  You can tailor it however you like, but our home tends to give everyone a single bomb, 10 life, and see who is left standing.  Play best to 10, fatal 4-way.  Literally, you become ghosts.

And being a ghost does not end the game.  You can interact with the world as a ghost, which makes both Deathmatchs and just general multi-player play super fun, even in death.

I cannot say enough good things.  Go get this game if you can.  It is on PC and X-Box, so everyone SHOULD be able to find a way to get it.  What, you still not sure?  Fine, why don't you play the original version FOR FREE!  That's right, they have put the original version of the game online for free download to play.  It is also fun, but the new version is an improvement.  So if you enjoy the original, you'll definitely enjoy the HD upgrade.  Get the original here.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... Pokemon Y - the Perfect Team

You been watching Twitch Plays Pokemon?  You should, it is amazing.  It makes me wanna play pokemon again.  So I picked up my 3DS and started going for reals on Pokemon Y.

Finding the right balance of fun, effectiveness, and coolness factor in a Pokemon team is both the best and worst thing about the game.  It’s why I generally prefer doing Nuzlocke runs, that force me to use a team as I find them.  Heck, you can see on here a series of episodes that I recorded doing a Nuzlocke run of Emerald.  I'll have to do that again at some point, those were fun to edit together as little short episodes.

But yeah, nuzlocke runs, or specific runs based on things I breed, like my future runs which will be all Bears, all Fighting Types, and all Eeveelutions.  Bears will be the best, btw.  But none of that matters on the FIRST run, which is about finding the coolest ‘mon around to use.

Thinking about types is always hard.  I didn’t play Gen V, so some great pokemon never got to be in my team.  And I disliked the actual gameplay of Gen IV, so I didn’t get to use some of those wonderful ‘mon either.  But I’ve spent my time, I’ve worked hard, and I got my team … kinda.

First rule of teams for me: naming convention for nicknames (88% of the time).  It has always been so much fun to find a great way to get everyone working together.  Some of my favorite Nuzlocke runs have been with everyone named after Greek Gods, or Condiments, or Pizza toppings, or just Colors!  This game, I went with Seasonings! 

Bam!  Patrat used Sweet Scent!

Of course, you get your starter.  I went with Chespin [name: Thyme], because he’s the coolest Grass starter there’s ever been.  Believe dat.  But that said … I may shelf him.  I’m not into Grass-types, and he just might end up feeling like dead weight if another good thing comes along.  I’m not sure it’ll happen, but it is possible.

Now we start filling out the team.  I have an Inkay [name: Soy Sauce], was a MUST have for me.  He is awesome sauce.  I wanted a Bunnelby [name: Cinammon] real bad, but she slowly is getting outclassed and is current just HM muscle, which makes me sad, but I’m not sure what’ll happen with her yet.  I was using a Scraggy [name: Garlic] because I love the little guy, but with both his types in two others on the team, I decided to save him for the all Fighting team.  That allowed for a Hawlucha who is AMAZING … but I always want to save him for the Fighting team.  Then I found a Golett [name: Tamuz] who is just the greatest little rolly-polly addition to the team, especially since I have learned that when he evolves he can learn Fly!  I’ve been using Amaura the fossil, but I wasn’t allowed to nickname him, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to last the run on the team, but for now he’s sticking around, and if I can get to the Name Rater, he’ll get a new name: “Icing.”

And I just recently got the rare member of the team I was searching for: Mawile [name: Rosemary].  She took me an hour and a half of grinding in the stupid Glitter Caves, but I got her!  Steel/Fairy makes me a happy happy camper, and is a huge upgrade from Flabebe who just didn’t do it for me.

Now I am searching for the Good Rod (it is just a little further in the playthrough) so I can get myself a Skrelp, nickname yet to be determined.  It means I still have one or two slots left to fill, but it’ll be pretty solid from there.  I’ll wait to see if I’m surprised by anything awesome as I play, but I’m happy with where I am, and the journey of getting this team together is great.

So far, so good.  We’ll see how the whole thing comes down as we continue on to beat the Elite 4!

If anyone would like to trade around or just be Poke-Pals, btw, here’s me Friend Code: 4613-7755-2772

IHAO ... on Magic the Gathering

I played a lot of disparate time periods and blocks, going in and out whenever the winds changed too much or something interesting was on the way.  I played the most in college, from Onslaught to Llorwyn/Shadowmoor.  I really loved playing Onslaught block, I even remember my first two rares from my first two boosters then ... well, I remember Butcher Orgg and the other one I sold to buy 4 more boosters that day but I cannot remember what it was other than a black rare enchantment.  Whatever.

From there, I remember doing Mirrodin and Darksteel drafts and tourneys (I made a Shunt Draft deck that when I drafted 3 of them and an Arc Slogger ... was just completely awful because of the sheer lack of things for me to shunt, but I do love that card still, as well as Arc Slogger who is amazing).  Then came Kamigawa ....

Man, I loved Kamigawa (except for Soulshift, but that was relegated to Green/White/Black decks which were awful, so that's fine).  Awesome rats, awesome goblins, awesome samurais ... what a cool set.  I had all sorts of great decks and probably bought 3 boxes of it in college.  I loved this set ... then Betrayers came out and just ruined the power-levels with the Jitte and the ninjas ... and then Champions came out and was awesome though it tried to do a mechanic about having 7+ cards in hand without ever giving a lot of ways to keep your hand that stocked beyond just slow play, so the Jitte still destroyed.  But still, I loved Kamigawa to begin with.

Then Unhinged happened.  And that was ridiculous.

Then it was Ravnica.  And that's when I got into the most.  I had block, tourney legal decks that I won stuff with.  We drafted a bunch, I scoured eBay for cheap boxes, it was pretty great.  The gimmicks were fresh and interesting, the guilds were all neat, the mechanics made everyone happy.  Awesome stuff.

I heard a lot of bad things about Coldsnap, but I loved it!  I wanted more and more, but my friends that played at the time all avoided it, which means I ended up avoiding it more than I wanted.  I still super want just a box of Coldsnap, I like it so much.

Then came Time Spiral.  The the color shifting that made me super upset because of how much I loved Magic theory.  But that aside, it was a super cool set.  I was currently getting into the history of Magic, the meta-themes, the old plots, and seeing all those show up again, all the references to the past, all the magic theory and stuff was so cool!  And then planar chaos ... and the colorshifting.  Ugh.  Made me super unhappy.  I didn't buy a single bit of Planar Chaos.  But Future Sight was phenomenal!  It did everything I loved from the first part, but in the future!!!!

Then Llorwyn/Shadowmoor.  We played the crap out of those sets.  4 or 5 boxes, a bunch of tourneys and drafts, it was a huge amount.  I really loved this set ... and I super hated it at the same time, which is why I stopped playing there.  It became easy-mode.  The power of cards were getting ridiculously over the top, and tribe decks were so easy to make that there wasn't competition and skill in deck-building any longer.  It was just "I'm playing elves" and then spending more money than the guy playing Elementals.  Or spending more money on Kithkin and that beating the guy who spent less on Merfolks.  I was not immune to this, as I spent way too much money on a Treefolk deck.  And it won.  A lot.  It was so strong it was basically indestructible.  Oh wait, it was, because of Timber Protector.

Not only that, it introduced the most powerful and worst version of that exact complaint (about the game becoming about money instead of skill and cards being too powerful) with Planeswalkers.  They are awful.  Dreadful.  Terrible.  I hate them with every fiber of my being.  And I know most people don't, and that's fine.  And I know it is hypocritical to like a few (Koth and Karn, plus I like the old characters getting cards, not continuing to make more new planeswalkers ... where is my Squee planeswalker?!).  But it just killed the game for me.  The game was no longer something where I could spend time putting together a deck where everything cost only 1 CMC and it still had a fighting chance, because everyone else would just spend 300 or 400 more than me and have eight planeswalkers and a billion Day of Judgments and other ridiculous things.  The skill was gone.

So I stopped playing.

Years passed, I moved away from all my college friends, got a divorce, moved back to Newnan, and Innistrahd came out.  I love Ravenloft, I love gothic horror, and I was making friends who were interested in playing again.  So I jumped in.  And I kind of liked it.  I played a lot of drafts, and it was fun for awhile.  Transform is a pretty fun mechanic.  Blue/Black zombies was a novel approach.  Some of the cards are truly inspired.  And I like the actual story of what is happening with the Planeswalkers, which is nice and all.  But something was missing for me.  So I stopped.  And then I lost my job and needed money and sold everything.

Then I met my now very tight friends.  And they reminded me of the joy of Magic.  The fun of finding combos and doing ridiculous things like building a deck around having an incredibly low CMC or shuffling all the time or playing every card so that the game has to restart.  The fun of magic is making a deck or a combination and just playing it.  It isn't about spending money on the cards, or using the most Try-Hard I-Gotta-Win-Or-I-Don't-Have-Fun decks.  It is about building a deck entirely around the concept of never being attacked, EVER ... or winning because you gave all your opponents a billion life ... or just playing a farmer working really hard to get his rot-farm off the ground.

Now, I say all this because I was supposed to be picking my favorite set/block.  And I'm pretty sure I could answer this emotionally from my memories (Kamigawa) or from what I just liked to buy the most (Odyssey) I think the honest to god answer is that I don't care about any of the blocks.  I like building casual fun decks and spending time laughing and getting upset and destroying each other and making none of Josh's decks work because we focus on him, and getting really upset because I get focused on when I pull out my best deck even though I know I need to be focused on because it is my best deck.

But that's just my opinion.