March Entry

The latter end of this entry is a big portion. No Miscellaneous section this month.

- Work -

I have my office the way I want it. It is awesome. The whole issue with the desks they bought for me got resolved easily. The owner asked me if I liked them and I told him the truth, I did not. So he drags our production manager in to my office and says, “Arnell is unhappy with how his office is. Do what it takes to make him happy.” A big IN YOUR FACE to upper management, ha.

I had already planned how I wanted my office. With 4 computers, I just wanted to simplify things and have it organized. Before, 3 computers were so close to each other because they shared the same monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers while 1 sat alone in the corner. Now, I have 2 on each side of the room and all I have to do is spin my chair around to work at the other set of computers. I’ll try to remember to take a few pictures of my office. You’ll get to see how neat and organized it is now.

Office is a plus. Everything else still pretty much sucks at work. I’m still waiting for the chance for us to turn things around and make the money we should be making.

- Birthday Shout Outs For March -

(in chronological order)

Jill

Belinda

Hung and Michael (don’t know who is technically older)

Vita

- Video Game Tournament -

As I mentioned in my last entry, my friend David was putting on a video game tournament on the 29^th. So I went by myself and actually had a good time. I knew NO ONE there except for David and his fiancée. There were originally supposed to be 30 participants. From what I heard, 22 had confirmed. In reality…about 12-13 were there. Thankfully not everyone was there. Not only did it increase my chances of advancing, but it would’ve taken a whole lot longer to finish everything.

Anyways, here’s how things went down. Originally, we were to play 40 games ranging from 8-bit to current console systems. We probably played 20 or less due to time constraints. The beginning was a preliminary round where everyone played different games (3 games played on 3 systems at the same time) for points. The points were to determine where we fell in the brackets in the playoffs. Some games were played solo, some were team efforts, some were against each other (1-on-1, 2-on-2, free for all), and some were to just trade off turns. Here is what I played in the preliminary round (in the best order I can remember it).

- Double Dragon (Xbox Live Arcade) Played co-op to have the best combined score.

- Contra III (Wii Virtual Console) – Played co-op to have the best combined score (had the fastest run out of the team ups there).

- Neo-Geo Battle Coliseum (PS3) – Best out of 3 fights (won with my Terry/Fuma and then Rock/Terry teams).

- Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Xbox Live Arcade) – Best out of 3 fights (won with my Cyrax/Scropion and Smoke/Scorpion teams. Crowd was amazed I had remembered and pulled off combos and moves).

- Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PS2) – Best out of 5 rounds (won 3 straight rounds with Ken).

- Punch-Out (Wii Virtual Console) – Beat or best score against Super Macho Man (scored 1770 only).

- Fight Night Round 3 (PS3) – Best out of 4 rounds (got TKO’d in 2 rounds as Muhammed Ali).

- Pride UFC (PS2) – Best of 3 (won the first, lost the next 2 using Ken Shamrock).

- Juiced 2 (Xbox 360) – Normal race and Twin Drift (forfeited because I was told the guy I was up against was really good at racing games. And I never played the game before so I bowed out to save time and grief).

- We took a break for dinner. After dinner, David had a quiz on video game music to help us earn more points. He played 11 different songs from video games and we had to write down what game they were from. I tied having the highest with 9.

- WWE Smackdown VS RAW 2008 (Xbox 360) – 2 teams of 2 in a tornado tag meaning all 4 in the ring at the same time (won thanks to my partner. He was Triple H and I was Edge).

- Urban Reign (PS2) – 4 player free for all, first to 3 wins (a fun contest where we all learned as we played to make it a crowd pleaser. I won the final round using Marshall Law to receive 1^st place points thanks to time expiring. Everyone and even I thought I lost with the last hit, but the time expired just before the hit occurred).

- Battle Tanks (Nintendo 64) – 4 player free for all (took 3^rd placed points for that).

- Top Spin 2 (Xbox 360) – 2 teams of 2 in a best of 3 (lost the first, won the second, lost the third).

- Tekken Tag Tournament (PS2) – 2 teams of 2 in a best of 5 matches (lost the 1^st when using Jin, lost the 2^nd when using Kazuya, won the next 2 while using Devil, lost the last one with Devil. My partner was better than me, but I won our 2 matches. We were also up against the 2 supposed best Tekken players in the house).

- NBA Hang Time (Nintendo 64) – 2 teams of 2 for the highest score after 4 quarters with the time sped up (won with my partner using the Indiana Pacers. I was Reggie Miller the whole time).

- Killer Instinct Gold (Nintendo 64) – Best of 3 matches (I won using Sabrewulf and Jago. Everyone loved it when I did a fatality with Sabrewulf).

- Wii Sports Baseball Homerun Contest (Nintendo Wii) – Take turns to get the most homeruns (got 3^rd place points for only 3 homeruns).

And that was it for the preliminary rounds. More games WERE to be played, but it was already close to 9 by the time we finished these out. 17 games and I had never played 9 of those ever before. I did do pretty well, better than I thought I would. So David announced the brackets for the playoffs.

I was actually in the top half, 5^th place. The way the playoffs worked was by elimination. Those in the higher half (which I was in) had more chances to stay alive in the tournament. Top 5 had to lose 5 times to be eliminated. Those under had 3 or less chances to stay in. So we were split into groups to see who could eliminate who through playing a series of games. Here were the games that I played in the playoffs.

- NBA Ballers (PS2) – 3 players on the half-court at the same time, first to 11 (I lost using Gary Payton. And there could only be one winner so I lost along with one other).

- Super Smash Bros Brawl (Nintendo Wii) – 3 players in a free for all (we played one match and I lost using Sonic. We actually were given tokens at the door to use if we ever wanted to have rematches. I lost with the same guy from NBA Ballers so I asked if we could use a token and we were able to. We decided to double team who had been winning. I used Pikachu and won).

- Rock Band (Xbox 360) – 2 players play 1 song on the same difficulty to see who was better on the guitar (I lost playing some song I can’t remember).

While I was playing Rock Band, I was told that it didn’t matter if I won or lost because I was advancing to the next round.

The brackets may not make sense. A couple other people had to leave (I think it was past 10 at this time) and one guy was replaced by someone who was not to have advanced. This semi-final round had us team up (not by where we are bracketed in the picture). I had second choice of picking a partner between Big Mike and MikeG (yeah, there were 3 Mikes at the tournament and they all made it to the semis). I flipped a token and MikeG was my partner. In this round we were to play 3 different games. The worst team will be eliminated. The games played were…

- Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64) – 2 teams playing for 1^st place and each team had to play each other (we lost our first race as Peach/Toad and we won our second race as Bowser/Toad. I think all teams won one race).

- Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360) – Each team played one at a time to take out 25 terrorists before losing both team members (THANK YOU MikeG. He actually was showing me and MikeO how to play before teams were made since we had never played the game. I sucked, but all I did was listen to MikeG and did everything he told me to do. I took out maybe 5-8 terrorists. We both died at the same time at the end and took out a total of 24 terrorists. We were the highest scoring team).

- Ghost Squad (Nintendo Wii) – Each team played one at a time to the end of the first level for the best combined score (Ghost Squad is a light gun game so it’s nothing too difficult. It was really fun and can be a good party game. We were getting tons of head shots and I was shooting a lot of windows/dishes/etc to get extra points. We had the second highest score).

MikeG and I advanced to the finals with JR and MikeO. David let us decide what the last game would be. He listed about 5+ games and I only had played 3 or less of them. We each picked 2 games and the majority would be the game we play. I chose Mario Kart 64 and Super Smash Bros Brawl. Brawl was chosen by all 4 of us so that was the final game.

- Super Smash Bros Brawl (Nintendo Wii) – 4 player free for all for the first person to get 3 first place victories.

Good competition. It was down to JR and I at 2 victories each with MikeO at 1 and MikeG at 0. And it actually came down to JR and I in the final match with him as Mr. Game & Watch and myself as Pikachu. Down to our last lives and…I get knocked out. JR takes first place. The rest of us play for second place and I win the next match. MikeO takes third and MikeG takes 4^th.

Everyone that participated had received a small gift bag. Mine had candy and a couple of pens. Along with that, 3^rd place won a gift card, a 3^rd Best shirt, and a bronze medal. I had the gift bag, “The Hitman” on dvd, my 2^nd Best shirt, and a silver medal. JR got the gift bag, a 1^st Best shirt, and the trophy.

Everything ended around 12:30. We stuck around and talked about the tournament. David’s fiancée was teasing me about how earlier I said I was going to lose and not win at all, ha. It was true. I didn’t go in thinking I was going to win let alone be so close to winning the whole thing. We all started to wrap up and left around 1. David lives 5 minutes away so I was back home and eating a late dinner soon after.

Pardon the hair. That’s after 10 hours of video games…ugh…I think I’ll take games a little easy now for the time being…or till Mario Kart Wii is out.

Thank you for reading. And just so you know, this blog will only be for personal entries. Video game reviews will now be on my sister site at Rated C-BAM! Please check it out and bookmark it and continue to visit that and this site.

Again, thank you and take care.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Review)

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS)
Rated "T" for "Teen"

Welcome to the world of Ace Attorney’s and the adventures you must endure. You are Apollo Justice, a new young attorney. As Apollo, you must take on cases and find your clients “Not Guilty.” Nothing out of the norm for any attorney, but you are wrapped into the world left by another Ace Attorney.

You won’t be alone. A professional magician, Trucy, joins you and helps you along in your trials. Not only does she provide insight, but she herself is wrapped in the world of that an Ace Attorney traveled.

For those new to being an Ace Attorney, there is a simple equation to how things work. Investigate, go to court, and repeat if needed to get your client off the hook. While the bulk of the story will unravel in the courtroom (new and shiny), but you have to find evidence and talk to those involved in the case outside during your investigations.

Most of the game has remained intact from previous Ace Attorney games. Some new features include FMVs that are used mostly in the beginning of each chapter, but are also sprinkled around in the cases.

Along with FMVs is the inclusion of the 3D aspect. You will be able to look over evidence you find in 3D. That does add a dimension to the game as you may have to look at evidence a little harder to make sense of things. Other senses, other than visual, will be used. And you will also have the opportunity to try your hands with some forensic work thanks to a blast from the past.

Apollo also comes equipped with his own handy powers. His power to Perceive people exposes moments when a witness tenses up on the stand. Perceiving these actions will help bring the truth out of anyone.

As always with this series, story is the main attraction. Sure there are a few new features that help rejuvenate the game, but the story is what you are here for. This one will not disappoint. No, you don’t have to have played the previous Ace Attorney games to know what’s going on, but it does add to the emotion of the game. Pay attention closely because the twists and turns and the twisting of turns that come along as you progress through the game will drop your jaw (especially during the latter half of the game). Never before has the story had such a grip on your attention. If you loved how things wrapped up in the previous titles, I will guarantee that you won’t be disappointed as you finish off Apollo’s trials.

Capcom’s new cast of characters delivers. Fans will flock and enjoy their time spent in court and the package of the game as a whole could pull in new fans and maybe entice them to check out previous Ace Attorney games. It would help them become familiar with who some of the familiar faces are that appear in front of Apollo and Trucy. Especially this guy.

5 out of 5